Holy crud, can you say 'majorly late update'?
So sorry. I blame a full-time work AND school schedule.
Please forgive me (bow).
Anyhoo, this chapter isn't very long, but I hope it will suffice. Our girl in the chapter may be Lee, but we don't know for certain yet if it is. She may have the looks of our beloved heroine, but let's not get our hope up just yet.
Also, Rin nearly gets sucked into the Underworld by Sesshomaru himself, but don't panic, he doesn't do it on purpose. I promise. At least, I hope he didn't….heh heh…
Okay…
Anyway:
Read and enjoy. (And yes, reviews are welcomed.)
(DISCLAIMER: The characters/storyline of Inuyasha are not mine! I only own Lee, Raye, and their story lines; including any new characters that just happen to pop from my head and into the story.)
:D
-KB
Tears Left Uncried
(Part 2)
Chapter 34-
"We're lost." Rin sighs.
"No we're not!" Jaken yells at her, pulling Aun forward down the road by the reins. "Lord Sesshomaru had to take off after the demon so we have to follow behind him. He would not leave us behind. We just have to keep following him." He huffs, slowing his pace until his feet start dragging the ground.
Rin sighs again. "Then we should start following him in that direction, Master Jaken." She points to the sky to the east. "He said 'I know this scent' and took off in that direction. So shouldn't we go in that direction?"
Jaken stops, glances from her to the east and then back to her. "I know that you stupid girl!" He flails his arms and starts pulling Aun in the other direction. The dragon beast rolls its eyes but willingly follows along with a huff.
Suddenly the wind picks up and Rin's hair flips around wildly. "Wow!" She pulls it back into place and flips it behind her ears. "Master Jaken, what was that?"
"How should I know?"
Rin laughs and rubs her hair down again as the wind picks up once more; this time it was fiercer. "Ah!"
When it settles down again, she looks up at the sky and gasps. Out of the starry darkness above, something drops out of nowhere and lands down in the middle of the field; crouching low to the ground. Rin grabs a handful of Aun's mane in shock but doesn't pull her eyes away from the hooded figure in the grassy plain.
The figure stands up and lifts flat, glowing red eyes towards them. Rin feels a jolt of recognition and a slow smiles creeps up onto her face.
"Jaken! She's back!"
"What?" He turns to face her, but she leaps off Aun's back and races off towards the figure. "Rin, wait! Who is that person? Stop, Rin!"
"It's you! Where have you been?" Rin laughs excitedly.
The figure turns to fully face her and raises her arm out to her side as if to embrace her and Rin races forward faster.
"It IS you!" Rin leaps up…
And is knocked away with such force that she's slammed into the grassy ground.
"Rin!"
Rin sits up off the dirt and rubs her cheek gently. Jaken appears at her side a moment later. Tears burn at the edge of her eyes, threatening to stain her face with fear and sadness, but she wipes them away and stares up at the dark figure before her with shock. The figure stares back down at her blankly, her eyes flat and emotionless, and darkness tainting her features. She looked like death itself.
"How dare you do that to Rin!" Jaken hobbles over to stand in front of Rin and raises his staff. "Feel the power of my staff!" As if on command, one of the heads on the staff opens its mouth and spits out an inferno of flame that spirals and engulfs the figure.
"Hahahaha!" Jaken laughs victoriously.
The flames burn red hot and incinerate everything in its path…everything except…
"Master Jaken!"
The imp stops jumping for joy and nearly falls over dead.
There, still in her place, is the figure that looks so much like their former ally. Rin watches as the figure raises her hand up again, aiming straight at Jaken's head and a red light begins to build in power at the center of her palm.
"NOOOO!" Rin cries.
The figure pauses, glancing at the small child. Rin climbs unsteadily to her feet, tears streaming down her face freely now, and she takes an unsure step forward.
"No. No." She repeats over and over again. "Lee."
The figure blinks once.
"Lee?" Rin takes another step towards the individual.
The figure reacts instantly, swinging her palm around and aiming it at the dark haired child instead this time.
"Lee, no!"
A flash of lightning strikes the ground right in front of Rin and when the flash goes away, there stands Sesshomaru; protectively in front of his small ward. The figure lowers her hand slowly, her face remaining the blank, emotionless, stare it was the second she appeared in the meadow. His presence doesn't appear to worry her a bit.
"Lord Sesshomaru, please help her!" Rin grasps his kimono tightly, squeezing her eyes shut against the reality before her. "She's not HER. Please, Lord Sesshomaru."
The great dog demon pulls his gaze from the small child at his side and shifts it to the dark figure before him. Her skin is flat and dusky, making her appearance look sick, her eyes, red like blood, are flat and dull with no pupil whatsoever, her hair is pulled into a high pony-tail as normal but the purple tie that she had forever tied it back with since he gave it to her is no longer there. Replacing it is a silk black ribbon, flapping behind her head in the wind she stirs around her.
His eyes lock onto that black ribbon; substituting his gift that he had given her. Agitation burns into his blood, but it's not only the sight of the ribbon-it's the smell illuminating from her.
Naraku.
His smell is all over her, masking the scent he has come to know so well. No. Not all of it. Her scent is still there, a slight sliver of a floral fragrance twisting and spiraling among that poison that covers it, threatening to snuff it out in an instant.
He takes a step forward.
Responding as fast as lightning itself, she flies back with ease, putting nearly half a football field between them.
A dark laughter echoes through the field and Rin gasps at his side in horror. Behind the figure, the air shudders and turns dark, shifting and disfiguring until it's like a black spiraling vortex.
"Beautiful, isn't it, Sesshomaru?"
Sesshomaru forces his eyes off of the woman in front of the dark vortex and glares into the void. "It?" He spits the word.
Out of the maelstrom slither a face and an upper body. Bare of any clothes, Naraku grins evilly. "The new possession and control over her that I have. The domination over her aura and power is what I had desired for so long that it had formed a craving inside me so deep I had nearly gone insane. But now, it's mine. All of it." Naraku comes even farther out of the void, revealing more of his distorted form, and his hands thread into her hair and trace down her right arm.
To his disgust, Sesshomaru watches her body tremble and shiver, her eyes lowering and dulling even more. His claws extend at his right side. Again, he had started looking for a suitable replacement limb for his other missing arm, but he'd come up empty in his search.
Rin is shaking so bad at his side now, that it's become distracting.
"Rin, go to Jaken." He orders quietly.
The child doesn't move. He looks down.
The small youth is gripping his kimono with both hands, her eyes wide with horror and rimmed with tears and dark taints of red, her skin has paled white as if she had seen a ghost, and her whole body shudders.
'What must be going through her mind…' He ponders for only a second before turning back towards the scene in front of him.
Yet again, Naraku's gloomy laughter fills the air. "All of her, Sesshomaru. Her aura, her power, her life…and her body."
Sesshomaru tears his sword free from his sheath and Naraku's shield appears around the both of them.
"Attack if you will, Sesshomaru, but can you attack her?"
"I attack to kill you only, Naraku." He answers as he brings the blade down by his side.
"But can you kill me with her so close? Can you even kill me with that sword?" He chuckles in amusement.
Sesshomaru glances down at Tensiega which hums in his hand, pulsing. 'What do you try to tell me, Tensiega?' He mentally asks the sword. It pulses louder in response.
"I hear that your sword can only bring people back to life. I wonder if it will help me become stronger."
Sesshomaru narrows his eyes, tightening his grip on the sword.
"Which do you care about more?" Naraku asks suddenly. His fingers run up her arm, sketching an unknown pattern up her neck, all the while glancing at Sesshomaru's sword. "Shall we make a trade? I let your little ward live…if you hand over your sword."
Sesshomaru's eyes widen a little as Rin gasps and vanishes from his side in a puff of black smoke. She reappears in the air, held up by her neck by a tangle of black smoky webs that entangle her body. She gasps and cries out over and over.
"No! Lord Sesshomaru!"
Naraku laughs harder.
Rin squirms and whimpers terribly in the dark energy's grasp, but all it does it tighten in response and threatens to rip open her throat. Sesshomaru grips his sword harder and then swings it sharply with smooth grace.
Behind them, the air splits open, revealing a gap in space that begins to suck things in like a vaccum. Naraku seems surprised by this for a long moment, but then he just smiles and chuckles.
"Learned a new trick have you, Sesshomaru? Good, that's just more power I will possess when your sword becomes mine."
The dark figure he clings to somehow pulls out a terrifying looking weapon out of nowhere and stabs it into the ground, stopping herself from being sucked into the void. Rin and the spider webs encircling her don't. They start to fly towards it!
"Ah! Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken exclaims.
Gritting his teeth, he holds the opening into the Underworld open as long as he can. The webs rip off of Rin's form, disappearing into the gap, and she lands onto the soft grass. He closes it soon after; Jaken falls over in relief.
Rin climbs up out of the grass and races to hide behind Aun, who snuffs with annoyance, but knows more than well the threat they face.
Naraku grins, but doesn't pursue her. "That will be all I think. I await the next time we shall meet, Sesshomaru. And do not forget to bring my sword." His evil laughter fades away as he does into the swirling vortex he had slithered out from and his dark figure follows after him.
"NO, LEE!" Rin calls, but she's already gone.
"Such power." Naraku states, smiling off into the distant hills out of the window.
"Which power sir?" Gensoumaru asks, keeping his eyes on the floor.
"Both of them. Light itself and the very essence, the very being, of an element." He explains. "With both of them, this world will be mine easily."
"I thought you only required the Sacred Jewel, Naraku."
"The Jewel is what will make me unstoppable and immortal. Those two are my reward and insurance."
Gensoumaru pauses for a second, risking a glance up at Naraku through his silver bangs. "And I?"
Naraku laughs. "Keep me satisfied and you too will be granted the immortality I offer."
He drops his head. "As you wish."
Not farther down the hall, inside the room where Naraku visits regularly, the two girls sit…waiting. Their ears search desperately. Their eyes shift anxiously. Their hearts pound expectantly. Their bodies stiffen impatiently.
The darkness swirls around them, tracing their figures and caressing them every so often, compelling them to shiver excitedly.
"As long as I have power over them, they will bow to my every wish, demand, and desire." Naraku continues. "No one will defeat me."
The one dark figure, the one who sits closest to the single mirror in the corner, leans against the wall and runs the tip of her finger over it, drawing unseen patterns, and following the reflection that copies her. Every now and then, the reflection will blur and she'll sit up to look directly into the mirror at the reflection. It will float deeper in, getting farther and farther away, reaching out to her.
She wonders fleetingly why the reflection would do such an odd thing. Why it would reach out to her as if it was calling to her. She could almost hear it…but what exactly she's hearing she can't be sure.
Time passes differently here than it does outside. Her master won't let her outside very often; he says it's dangerous for her now. He tells her she needs to be bonded to him completely before he can let her out. He had used a word, a word that, once his lips spoke it, she forgot it. She wanted to hear the word again. For some reason, even though she couldn't remember it once he spoke it, the word caused her body to sing.
She sighs and leans back against the wall, returning to her invisible drawings; drawings that she can never identify. They make her wonder though. Where did she learn to draw?
A sound as light as air quickens her heart rate and her eyes widen with a gasp that escapes her. She knows that sound. The sound is what she listens for continuously without rest.
He comes.
Her master.
The other girl in the corner reacts to the noise the same way she does. She doesn't know much about the girl, only that she was here with the master longer than she was. They both feed off his words and touch now.
A hot, blaze flashes through her over and over, sending shivers across her skin. She crawls across the floor a few feet before climbing to her feet quickly. He hasn't been here in what seems like forever, but she knows he was here this morning.
Each time the master comes, he brings with him such darkness, but leaves much too quickly. The darkness stays with them afterwards though, but it's not enough.
Sometimes, master brings his new follower Byakuya with him and he just sits in the corner. She finds it most bothersome.
All master does is bite them. Over and over. Only once each time he visits.
Those bites do more to them than when he touched them and blessed them with his power. But now, even his touch invokes whispers of his voice, his power, and it makes her tremble coldly.
His touch erases all her doubts and fears, leaving her only with a longing for that power to absorb her more.
The door to their room opens slowly and he materializes out of his darkness. He sets his eyes on her first and her body quivers under his gaze. Then his gaze moves from her to the other girl, leaving her empty and craving, and he motions for her to come to him. The other girl stumbles forward quickly and he takes her into his arms, the sleeve of his kimono flapping over them both and they disappear.
The door closes.
The room is colder. It has always been cold, but it's colder when he leaves. The darkness threads over her, small wisps of it slithering over her, trailing frozen trails over her skin.
She drops, dead, beside her mirror again and returns to her drawings. Her time is filled with this past time, nothing more unless master is here.
The door opens again.
She doesn't move though. His footsteps aren't like masters, but she knows them all the same.
He enters the room, closing the door carefully behind him. He waits for only a moment and then he heads in her direction. She can hear him kneel down beside her, but still she doesn't move. She waits for master.
"What has he done to you?"
His words baffle her. What do they mean? She stops her drawing and glances at him with blank eyes. His icy blue eyes bore into hers worriedly. The emotion is lost on her; she knows not what it is. Master usually doesn't let him enter their room.
"Can you even hear me anymore?" He lifts his hand and trails his fingers down her cheek. She snaps her hand up and grasps his hand tightly, ready to break it if necessary. Only master is allowed to touch them. That is his law.
His face falls even more, his hand vanishing in a cold, snowy wind and then reappearing. "I will free you." He leans towards her and her sharp glare falls to a blank stare again.
Free? What is that?
He tilts her face up a little and his lips touch hers, his breath washing over her face like a rush of warmth like she's ever felt. Or has she? The feeling is so familiar.
Her blank, dull eyes close slowly, confused.
He pulls away for only a split second. "Please don't forget me." He whispers harshly, trailing his lips across her cheek and down her neck. "Please don't forget him." He kisses her once more, full on the lips, gently.
"H...h-him…?" Her voice, one she hasn't heard in so long, is raspy and faint.
He pulls away, a glimmer of light in his eyes. "Yes." His smile is sad, longing, and lonely.
She doesn't understand. His emotions are confusing her, shadowing over her heart, whispering faint secrets of visions past, ones she can't pull out of the darkness beyond.
What is this?
He leaves then, leaving her alone.
Leaving her alone…with the darkness once more.
So this chapter doesn't have any smut scenes in it (thank God!), but I did have to put some creepy obsession in there. Naraku has brain washed both of our girls and has made it where neither of them can live without him.
What is this word he says that they can't remember?
What the strange reflection in that mirror?
And more importantly: where is Inuyasha?
I usually try to have him in every chapter…hmm.
Actually at this point, he and the gang are at that kitsune school where all them little fox-demons are playing tricks on them and Shippo gets pulled into it as well.
Anyhoo, I do apologize again for the long wait and hope I haven't lost any readers in the recent months.
Yes, I'm still taking contribution from people if they'd like to put some of their own ideas into the story, so if you got one then please let me know.
Please read and review! (Please, they are welcomed!)