A/N: Another chapter turned out for the wonderful readers and reviewers.
Regretful Actions
Sango stared at where her father had stood, the empty area a testament to his absence. All trace of the ghostly visitors was gone, and not even a depression in the ground told her where they had stood. With their removal the night was again quiet and still as the dark creatures resumed their soft calls.
Kilala cautiously walked up to her master, her form again small as the danger passed, and she quietly meowed in worry.
"I'm...I'm all right, Kilala" Sango tried to comfort as she suddenly felt herself sway. "I just...I just need some rest" she explained as she turned and heading toward the gate.
As she reached the entrance Sango clutched at the wooden posts which made up the defenses to the village. Her breathing was beginning to grow ragged and she could feel her heart suddenly beat rapidly.
The confrontation with the spirits of the past had taken its toll.
Her body was experiencing the full wave of shock as the numbness she had felt during the meeting was withering away, and leaving her with a sense of exhaustion. She shook off the drowsiness in her mind and stood straight as her youkai companion resumed her adult form and offered her back.
Sango willingly took the kind offer.
The two companions soon reached her childhood home and Sango slid off Kilala's back and onto the ground. She had regained some composure and was able to walk through the doors, but with her weakness she neglected removing her shoes and instead wandered through the house toward her old bedroom.
The sight was now more comfort than sorrow as she slowly fell to the floor upon her knees and stared straight ahead as she tried to comprehend the night's events.
Kilala and she had seen the spirits of her ancestors, and the warning they had brought was dire in its urgency. They had proclaimed her their last hope for rest, and had insinuated that her sacrifice for the village was necessary for her to undertake.
"Kilala, I don't understand" Sango spoke to her friend as she looked to the small neko who now sat at her side. "What if my father's soul is truly trapped in this life?"
"Meow" Kilala forlornly replied as she blinked at the confused tajiki.
"You're right" she softly answered as she shook her head in disgust. "I need to find the truth before I leave the village."
"Meow" the neko encouraged as she eagerly stood to her feet.
"Father would have left records of our family's past hunts" she mused as she habitually took hold of her worn and dusty pillow and seated herself upon the remains. "There may be answers in those papers."
With her plans finalized she again resumed her efforts to sleep, but to no avail. The scene of the ghosts standing around her kept replaying in her mind and she could not shake the sense of utter hopelessness which had emanated from their spirits. They held nothing but despair for their continued existence, and it was she whom they had reached out to in their last hour.
The night was sleepless as the sun finally rose on the empty houses.
Sango, her body weary but her mind alert, went to the room where her father had kept his papers. She walked to the cabinet in which he had stored his professional works and kneeled down to find the lock he had used still held fast. With a sigh she nimbly broke the rusted but sturdy mechanism and opened the tall doors.
Her father had been a well-organized leader, and she found his place of work to be no different than his normal habits. Quickly she found the records she sought, stacked away at the back of the lowest shelf and hidden behind some boxes filled with payments.
She wondered why he held such important items in such an inconvenient area.
Sango carefully removed the fragile parchment and set the scroll upon the low table in the room. She unrolled the item and broached over the contents, searching through the different handwritings of the various generations for the oldest reference which had been recorded. However, she found a startling surprise as she reached the end of the paper.
"A section is missing..." she softly whispered to herself as she again looked at the torn edge of the record.
"Meow" Kilala agreed. She sniffed the scroll for a moment and then turned her nose up into the air. "Meow" she repeated as she began to walk around the room.
"Can you find it, Kilala?" Sango asked as she followed the small neko along the boards.
Soon Kilala stopped, her nose hovering over the ground, in an inconspicuous corner of the room. She began to paw at the wooden planks, and soon her claws caught on a loose area.
"What is it?" her master questioned as she stooped and took hold of the small piece of uplifted board.
To her surprise the wood gave way and revealed a hidden box which lay against the foundation of the house. The square box appeared to be older than the building, as the boards were aged far beyond the rest of the home.
Sango peered into the darkened area, and cautiously she reached her hand into the space and searched for any objects. To her pleasure her fingers grasped several items and she pulled out a piece of torn paper. She noted the space had not kept the document very well, and so she carefully spread the fragile document out upon the floor.
The paper was a record of some kind and as she broached over the contents, the name of Arashi appeared several times.
"This must be it" she spoke aloud as she took hold of the historical document she had retrieved from the cabinet and compared the torn edges of the pieces.
They did not align.
Sango scowled in vexation as she looked at the two papers, each written in a different handwriting. Then she recalled the other objects she had felt in the hidden space and she eagerly reached in and retrieved all she could find. She spread them out before her and wondered at the puzzle.
The pieces of the parchment had obviously been torn asunder by an unknown hand and hidden away in the compartment, but to what purpose?
Silently Sango began to place the fragments together in the correct order, a significant task with the many tattered papers she had found. Time had also taken its toll heavier on the hidden items and she found herself reading parts of the text to find if sentences aligned.
Slowly, as the day waned, a story began to appear, one already familiar to her.
The cursed blood oath of her village.
She read over the contents carefully as the tale told by her repeated itself in the aged papers set out on the floor. The retelling was more clear and terrifying in its truthfulness as her hands began to tremble. Each detail was exactly the same, save for the last bit of information written in an aged hand, different from the rest of the document. She could only assume the recorder had not deigned to finish the tale until much later in life, as they had penned the words at the far side in small characters.
The last details were new, and she read aloud what had been written.
"Our lord has died on this day. With his passing I am the last who witnessed the events recorded here. We have seen no return of the youkai who had demanded our ladyship and few care to read or listen to the tale. Perhaps soon the history will be but a forgotten legend, but the blood runs too thick through the lord's house. His heir, the young lord, was born after the swearing. I pray there will be no lasting consequences."
As Sango read the finale to the tale, night again fell upon the silent village.
She was startled from her reading as the last rays of the sun fell below the window and she was encased in darkness. She looked up to find the candle she had brought with her for light, and her eyes were startled by a soft glow coming from the doorway.
Slowly she turned her eyes upward and her breath caught as her father stood in the entrance, his back to her. His form was stiff as he slowly glanced over his shoulder for a brief moment, and then walked out and took a sharp turn to the left.
"Wait Father!" Sango cried out as she scattered the documents in her hurry to rise and capture her father's spirit.
Kilala followed in her small but quick form as Sango raced to the doorway and was able to see the glowing specter disappear around the corner of the building and toward the wooden defense. The young woman raced after her silent father as she watched him walk through the abandoned gate she had gone through the prior night, and for a moment she hesitated before she stepped through the way and found herself in the same spot.
However, no ghosts showed themselves.
The spirits of before made no appearance this time as the empty area lay silent, and even the woodland creatures had quieted. All was still as she looked about for her father, searching desperately for any sign of his presence.
Her eyes, though, fell upon an area of the ground which had recently been disturbed.
Cautiously Sango stepped forward, her ears attentive to any sound as she knelt down upon the moved earth. She noted that someone had dug a hole not more than a few inches into the soil, and with her hands she carefully began to dig herself. A short distance down her fingers hit a hard object, and she brushed aside the dirt to reveal her discovery.
A grinning skull looked back at her.
Kilala suddenly growled in warning as she took a menacing step toward the ghoulish find, but Sango seemed entranced by it's faceless expression and a strange insignia upon its forehead. The shape was like a fang, and the mark appeared to be only hovering above the surface of the bone.
She slowly reached out her right hand and for a moment her fingers hovered over the skull in hesitation as Kilala suddenly whimpered in reproach.
"I have to" she softly explained, though she didn't understand why she said those words.
Sango drew her hand closer to the image and softly let her hand touch the mark.
The burning began immediately.
The tajiki clutched at her hand as she felt the image edged as with a hot knife into her skin. She tilted her palm upward and watched the slow, agonizing process as the mark, carefully detailed, was etched into her hand. Her flesh blistered and flamed with pain greater than any wound she had ever before taken, and
Kilala could only watch her master clutch at her hand as her face twisted in agony. However, she growled when the mark came into her sight and she menacingly took a step forward with her hackles raised. Her instincts told her something was deathly wrong with the image upon her master's hand, and she was prepared for any sign of danger.
Then the pain slowly began to fade, and soon Sango relaxed as the burning sensation simmered to a dull throbbing. She looked at the mark, red from the inflamed skin, but she could tell the color would turn to white once the swelling had subsided. She flexed her fingers and found they had not been effected by the engraving.
However, Sango felt a strange intrusion with the presence of the burnt image. The presence was powerful, almost overbearing, as though a strong spirit had taken hold upon her soul.
Sango turned to the neko at her side, who softly meowed as though wondering if she were fine.
"What have we done, Kilala?" Sango quietly asked as they both looked at the image emblazoned on her hand.
Was it a mark of honor, or a scar of shame?
