This was originally an entry in week three of IYfic(underscore)challenge on LJ. The theme was "smile." It won nothing, but I still like it. :)
Title: Someday
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, foreshadowing
Pairings: None
Word Count: 199, according to MS Word.
Summary: While possessed, Kagura can possess nothing.
＊.X.＊
Naraku smiles at her quandary, heart in his hand, and tells her what to do.
When she kills, she repeats his smile, her life reflected in his hand. She even laughs, but it is Naraku's laugh, echoing still in the space where her heart should be.
She washes, scrubbing more at Naraku's memory than blood. She promises herself that someday she'll be free of that. Someday she'll be her own person, with her own smile.
She imagines it. Finding herself free on the wind, finding the rhythm of her pulse, the simple things. Finding a smile that is her own. A smile associated with that abstract concept called "happiness," which she understands only through its destruction.
Naraku's mouth widens at the sight of blood, as if all the happiness she had destroyed that day had flowed into him.
Someday, someday, is all she can tell herself. Someday she will bathe in his blood, and the victorious wind will wash it away. Someday she will know beauty without being told, and perhaps it will not be the carnage that Naraku tells her is beautiful. Someday she will know what her own smile feels like.
But that day is not today.