Absence
Chapter Nine
She was running towards him—at him. Hair flying loose, yukata flapping in the wind created as she pelted through the thigh-high grasses of the clearing. She was waving her arms, shouting at the top of her lungs, making a ridiculous scene.
Drawing the attention of every predator within a hundred meters so that every glowing, reddened, man-hating eye was focused on the little girl dashing, not away from danger, but…straight into it?
The first thought was knee-jerk reaction: Why isn't she with Sesshoumaru? What the hell is she doing? Part of him couldn't care. The other part surged with protective instinct. Get her out of here. The idiot. She wasn't being chased; the youkai were in front of her, between him and her, not behind from the forest she'd burst out of.
The meidou was forgotten, looming behind Inuyasha as he turned, leapt to cleave the first wave of youkai in half. Rin, wearing what looked like a new yukata of white and jade green, halted where she was, crouching down in the grass so she was mostly hidden from view. Inuyasha kept an eye on her as he slashed and hacked with no great grace or coordination of muscle. Tessaiga's newfound weight was forgotten as he battled his way to Rin's side.
"Stay behind me." He barked it out, mildly surprised by how guttural his own voice sounded. Not in anger, but as if the words had to scrape out of his throat by force. He felt Rin move up closer behind him, her hands coming to hold on to the material of his shirt. It was a little disconcerting—he hadn't meant that close behind him—but he just noted not to swing back too far. Last thing he wanted was to bash her in the head by accident.
It would be easiest, cleanest, to use the black-bladed Tessaiga as he'd originally intended for himself. But as the youkai pressed in around him, hunger in their eyes and in gaping wide mouths, it seemed too clean, too neat somehow, to send them directly to hell. There was no visceral pleasure that way.
With too-long claws gripping the hilt, feral crimson eyes narrowed in satisfaction, Inuyasha lifted Tessaiga. "Don't look," he ordered the girl behind him. He might need the carnage and wreckage left by the strongest, if not most inherently dangerous, of his techniques, but the little girl, at least, could be spared.
Bakuryuuha!
The cry might have been silent, echoing only in his mind; it might have been the rough bellow that broke through the early morning air around them. But Inuyasha watched with scarlet satisfaction as the bits and pieces that had once been those who dared oppose him exploded, fell to earth, nothing but fleshy lumps of skin and muscle and bone.
There was silence, and Inuyasha finally turned, staring hard at the little girl on unsteady feet before him. She regarded him through solemn eyes, mouth set in a firm line as she looked him over. He couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't break the silence between them. He still gripped Tessaiga in his right hand, but that was a distant sensation, as if the hand that held it were someone else's and not his own. Even the light seemed too bright, harsh, painful in his eyes.
She spoke first. "Inuyasha-sama looks almost as bad as Sesshoumaru-sama, the first time Rin saw him." But her smile was guileless, sweet, as she reached to take his bloodied left hand in hers. "Come on, Inuyasha-sama. Let's get you cleaned up."
Inuyasha couldn't move. How could he move when he couldn't feel his feet? His legs. Everything was numb, on fire, bathed in ice. "What the hell were you doing, Rin? The only things you needed saving from were the youkai you were running towards. You wanted to die?"
Rin kept her one hand in his, reaching with the other to take Tessaigai, breaking its transformation, and sliding it back into the sheath at his hip. Then she tugged lightly on his hand, and, to his own surprise, Inuyasha found himself being led along towards the distant sounds of running water.
Her answer was astounding in it simplicity.
"No, Inuyasha-sama. I didn't want you to."
She took him to the river, seated him on the grassy, sloping bank by the water's edge. Using pieces of cloth from the sleeves of his own tattered kosode shirt, making a poultice of leaves and herbs she found growing nearby, Rin gently washed and tended his wounds. For his part, Inuyasha sat, legs straight in front of him, his kosode lowered around his waist as she dabbed at his bare torso. The tender sting of the water, the soothing coolness of the salve she'd made, registered briefly in his mind, but Inuyasha couldn't think, couldn't take it in.
She talked while she worked, the chatter light and bubbly, somehow, as her small hands carefully patted dry the gashes and cuts that crisscrossed his body.
"Jaken-sama is visiting relatives—I wonder if they're toady like he is, but Jaken-sama isn't as nasty as Inuyasha-sama might think—so Rin went looking for food on her own. Rin is good at finding all sorts of food to eat. Usually Jaken-sama watches Rin while she looks for food, but this time Rin went too far and got a little lost. Then she saw Inuyasha-sama and forgot about being lost." She switched topics seamlessly, the non sequitur nearly flawless to Inuyasha's muddled mind. "Inuyasha-sama's eyes are red, almost like the last time."
The last time. Inside Naraku, stumbling, lost, he'd staggered his way through Naraku's insides until he'd come across Rin. Grateful, scared, clinging to him as her only shred of hope. Inuyasha-sama! And he'd tried to kill her, his claws slicing towards her almost against his own will. No. He knew this girl, he knew her. He didn't want her dead.
But he'd pursued her, and she'd fled, scrambling over strange lumps and fleshy protrusions, until she'd come face-to-face with Magatsuhi. Don't move. He'd attacked Magatsuhi, knowing his claws couldn't cut that being from another world. But he'd sacrificed himself for Rin. He could withstand it. It was all he could do for her.
She was just a human. Just a little girl. He had to do what he could to protect her.
"But this time, they're not a demon angry red."
Inuyasha looked down dully as Rin rinsed his claws of the dried blood and gore caked there. Demon claws, long and curved. "Oh?"
Rin lifted her head to meet his gaze. Hers was searching, concerned, but breathtaking in its childish innocence. "They're sad red." Inuyasha might have been surprised, had he had the energy to drum up even that much emotion. Rin went on, "Rin had red eyes when her family was killed. Rin cried lots and lots, and it made her eyes red."
How could one human, one little girl, be so perceptive? How could she know? Her fingers were so soft as she patted his hands dry, moved to the river to rinse out the bloodied cloths that she handled with no shudder of disgust, no single flicker of derision or horror. She was just a little girl, just a human girl, but there was something…more, almost, about her.
Rin came back, damp cloth in her palms, and she lightly pressed the soothing coolness against a bruise on his shoulder. Her smile was almost unbearably sweet as she looked up into his face. "Rin had red eyes for a long time, and Rin's not a demon, is she?"
Words were long in coming, and Inuyasha had to give his spinning head a shake. It wasn't Rin who was unsteady on her feet, he finally realized. It was him. He was unsteady in his head.
The words, when they finally did come, were slow in his own ears, voiced by a lost soul, a broken heart.
"No." You're not a demon. "You're not." Far from it.
If she was just a human girl, why did he think she was an angel?
His injuries seen to, Rin settled herself on the grass beside Inuyasha. She leaned back on her hands, her legs sticking straight out—somehow comically. She kicked her feet lightly against the grassy slope, watching the shifting light patterns on the stream below. Inuyasha watched her, not sure what to do, what to say. She'd tended him, the way you'd tend a wild animal—an injured sparrow rather than a vicious hawk. He had no idea what she wanted from him.
She'd said she was lost, but she seemed content to sit by him and watch the water. She hadn't asked him to escort her back to where Sesshoumaru was—so she wasn't stupid. She'd said she'd been looking for food, but she hadn't asked him to help her forage for something to eat.
Her intents and objectives were a mystery. Exhausted, sick at heart, Inuyasha could do nothing but sit beside her in empty silence.
Rin finally spoke, as if there hadn't been silence stretching thin and taut between them until it could have shattered into a million infinitesimal particles. "What's wrong with Inuyasha-sama? Little youkai like the ones Rin saw shouldn't have been a problem for him if he were feeling okay. Inuyasha-sama is very hurt, too. Rin did the best she could, but Rin's not very good at healing wounds."
Here she pouted, but it was short-lived as she continued blithely, "When Kagome-sama seens these injuries, she's going to be very upset. Where is Kagome-sama, anyway? Is she nearby? Does she have any yummy snacks, like before, when Rin and Kohaku stayed with Inuyasha-sama and Kagome-sama? Rin dropped her food when she saw Inuyasha-sama in trouble, so maybe if Kagome-sama has yummy snacks, she would share some with Rin…"
It hurt a little more every time she said the name Kagome. Inuyasha's claws bit into his palms as he curled his hands into fists, fighting back the screaming. Someone was screaming, endlessly, screaming into the hollow, echoing blackness in his mind.
He couldn't take it! Inuyasha surged to his feet, stared down at the little girl who watched him, shocked, her mouth open, mid-word. "She's gone! All right? That's where Kagome is! She's gone! Forever! She's never coming back, she's never gonna share snacks with you again. She's never going to be upset because of me again! What the hell do you want with me?"
He was raging now, stalking up and down the bank of the river, hands clenching and unclenching with the helpless, black fury that bubbled inside him like a poison. He whirled on the little girl, still watching him wordlessly. "What the hell are you doing with me? See these?" He flexed his claws at her, a silent threat. "And these?" He bared his fangs, a soundless snarl. "Aren't you scared? Why aren't you scared? I could kill you, Rin! I almost did before."
Chest heaving, eyes blazing, Inuyasha glowered down at Rin. She sat still, weight braced against her hands, as she gazed up at him appraisingly. Her brown eyes were calm as she regarded him for a long moment, and when she finally answered his demands, she spoke as if they were carrying on a rational conversation—not like he'd been raging, barely comprehensible.
"Sesshoumaru-sama could kill Rin whenever he pleases, and Rin isn't afraid of him. Rin isn't afraid of Inuyasha-sama either. Because Inuyasha-sama and Sesshoumaru-sama are the same."
Fury passed to leave utter shock in its place. "Excuse me?"
Rin giggled, more like a village child playing with a friend than a girl confronted by an angry demon. "On the outside, both Inuyasha-sama and Sesshoumaru-sama are tough and hard, each in his own way. Sesshoumaru-sama so cold and far away; Inuyasha-sama like fire, bright and burning hot. But on the inside, both are compassionate and sweet."
Here she rose to her feet, the grace of a child in every movement, to approach Inuyasha where he stood, below her, on the gently slope of the riverbank. Ignoring the low, pulsing growl in his throat, Rin reached up a hand to trace the purple stripe on Inuyasha's face, her fingers light. "Inuyasha-sama didn't kill Rin then. He won't kill me now."
Inuyasha turned away. All he'd wanted, all his life, was to be stronger. He'd wanted only to be strong enough to not hurt anymore. He'd thought that strength would be found in becoming a full youkai, but he'd come to understand it wasn't physical strength that mattered most.
It was heart.
He hadn't killed Rin inside Naraku's body, his inner demon raging, tainted by the corrupted Shikon no Tama, because of his heart. His human heart.
He couldn't kill her now, because the one part of him he'd been trying so hard to forget was the strongest part he had.
But if his heart had broken…how could the rest of him survive?