Disclaimer: This piece is based on 'Inuyasha', owned by Rumiko Takahashi. No copyright infringement intended or implied.
Chapter 03: Unreachable
Having no better idea what to do, with the miko banished from her home, the youkai flew himself and the miko back to the cave they had sheltered in before. Landing, he released her, only to have to catch her as her knees failed to hold her. Carrying her, he set her down next to the fire pit he had created the night before, before stirring up the embers of the fire he'd left behind, adding the last of the wood. Finishing, he studied the face of his human companion.
Tears slid down her colorless cheeks, though she was not making any of the noises he associated with human grief. Her eyes were staring and unfocused. The youkai took a sharp sniff, frowning, intending to analyze her scent. The next moment, he barely keeping from wincing as his sinuses throbbed with pain. Swearing silently--and vowing that he would never underestimate humans again--he narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on her aura. He could feel--faintly--the barrier about the jewel she wore. But, he could barely sense her aura. It felt pale, cold, flat; almost, as if she were not entirely there.
He frowned. He felt as if he should be doing something; it seemed to him as if she needed something, that this silence was wrong. But, what did he know about humans? Beyond the fact that they lived short lives, that they killed each other a lot, that they died for--lots of reasons. That most of their kind feared and hated youkai. That a few--such as this woman--could kill youkai with their own power.
But, he had no direct experience with their kind. As far as he knew, humans had nothing he needed--he could feed himself quite well from the wild, and his clothes, unlike the things humans made, needed no tending or frequent replacement. What did he know about their ways? Killing them was simple, as he had learned, when some fool attacked a second time, unable to take the hint that being ignored or tossed several times their own length should have given them. But, how did one help a human? He was youkai. He didn't--couldn't--know.
And yet, something deep inside him compelled him to try. He had promised to protect her. But, he acknowledged to himself, he had only thought in terms of protecting But that, had been against the external foes that he knew would come for the jewel. He hadn't been able to protect her from the words and deeds of her own kind: indeed, his presence might have made it worse. He didn't even know, if doing something now would be help or harm.
But, he could not just sit here.
/==/==/==/==/
Iwao watched the youkai fly off with the miko, feeling a bit stunned. He'd been disgusted and furious by the miko's action in bringing a youkai with her back to the village. But, he hadn't really expected the woman to chose the youkai over her own people, in the end. She should have argued, should have cried, begging them to listen to her, to understand her reasons. They should have been able to knock her arguments down. She should have been too weak, to have stood up to the idea that she would lose all of her protections, if she didn't give up her foolish infatuation with the youkai.
"That--little, whore of a bitch!"
That was the young headman. Iwao sighed silently. To himself, he had to admit, Hajime-san hadn't helped. Not that he hadn't helped matters, himself, but at least, he hadn't completely insulted her.
"What are we going to do?"
Iwao glanced up at the taijiya towering over him. "We'll have to go after her, Takeo." His gaze slid back to the hill over which the youkai had flown. "At least Tatsuo's healed up--that youkai's going to be hard to track."
Takeo grunted. Tatsuo was one of the rare taijiya born with spiritual power. An itinerant monk had over-wintered with the village when the boy was twelve, giving him the basic knowledge and training to handle his gifts. His ability to sense youkai auras had saved them more than once on the trip to the village.
"So you're planning on going after the whore, right?"
Iwao met the angry headman's gaze with his best phlegmatic expression. "The Shikon no Tama is ultimately our responsibility, Hajime-dono. When we have tracked down and killed the youkai, we will determine if Kikyo-san can still purify the jewel. If she does, we will bring her and the jewel back with us. If not..." He shrugged. "We will have to seek out another."
"I want that bitch back here!" snarled Hajime.
Iwao wondered why the young man seemed to loath the miko. "My people cannot afford to be burdened with a sullied woman. If you wish to send your own men that is your concern; but ours are only with the Shikon no Tama." He turned away, ignoring the young man's spluttering. "Takeo, gather the men--we'll have to leave Isamu, Hideo, and Tsuyoshi, but the others should be ready. Gather enough supplies for a week--our best chance of catching them will be if we don't have to stop and hunt. Tell Tatsuo that he's riding Kirara--he needs to save his energy for tracking."
"And to figuring out how to get through that barrier."
Iwao nodded, mentally kicking himself for forgetting that interesting little bit.
Though it did have a positive aspect--it meant the miko hadn't lost her powers.
Yet.
/==/==/==/==/
She had not responded to his quiet calls. Nor had she reacted when he tucked his cloak around her chilled body. Part of him wanted to simply sit back and wait--surely the human would come out of this--condition sooner rather than later. After all, she was only human. Short-lived, with frequent physical needs that had to be met.
But, a stronger part cried out that he needed to get her to respond. If nothing else, he couldn't tell whether the jewel was being affected. Its aura was obscured by the barrier she had placed around it earlier, but what if that failed?
And a bit of him was simply--scared. For no reason he knew.
He gingerly touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, noticing that her skin was easily as cold as it had been the night before. Nothing happened. He shifted his hand down to her shoulder, grasping it as delicately as he could. "Miko-sama," he said, a bit louder than his first efforts. Still nothing. "Mi--Kikyo-sama." He tried shaking a little bit harder.
She still might have been little more than a silently-weeping corpse. The youkai leaned back on his heels, trying to come up with a different idea. He didn't want to keep shaking her. He didn't know just how fragile humans were. But knowing that he could bring down a decent-sized tree with just one blow, he was worried that he could easily injure her.
Trying to think of something else to do, he let his thoughts drift over his interactions with her. Despite the supposed antipathy between youkai and priestess, she hadn't really shown any discomfort being around him, once he had controlled his youki. He had gotten into the habit of keeping that "I'm dangerous, be afraid, stay away" edge in his youki over the year--it had solved the problem of nuisance attacks. She had clearly sensed that edge and been frightened, despite her evident courage. But, she had relaxed quickly enough once he'd dampened that edge.
Since she wasn't responding to physical touch, then … The youkai grimaced. He wasn't sure he wanted to do this, but the clamoring alarm in him that insisted he couldn't just simply wait wouldn't shut up. Shifting his weight forward, he studied the white, unresponsive face a moment longer. Then, with an unvoiced sigh, he pulsed his youkai.
