The characters of Inuyasha (manga and anime) belong to Takahashi-san
The Journey Home – Chapter Fifty Three
Inuyasha didn't know why he had run away from them, he just had to, and now he was here. At least he was alone now, where no one could see the tears drowning his eyes, causing them to overflow down his face. Long ago, he would have been ashamed to cry, he would not dare to give anyone such a pleasure to see him breakdown in some kind of mad fit of sadness. Today he was proven wrong. It was only a small mercy that he had not cried in front of them.
Alone…
Somehow, some small part of his mind had told him that he would eventually meet with them again. Ironically, it was the same way they had banished him, fighting him as if he were the enemy. He supposed he was now just that, the enemy, the one who had the Shikon no Tama. Of course they would be searching for the shards as well, just as they done before when he was part of their group. If they had been following the stories that he spread around, it was in all probability that one day they would be fighting against him. Their meeting was inevitable.
It's been a long time since I've seen them…
He saw their faces, a little older, yet still the same people he remembered. The kitsune had grown too; he was as tall as Kohaku. They were all sitting around the campfire, happy, laughing, just like they had always done, long ago, just the same. It was only when Kagome's voice had woke him up, he realised he was not dreaming anymore. They were still there, but Inuyasha felt that he was in the wrong place. He did not belong here, they wouldn't have allowed him. It was obvious that they still hated him.
He was their enemy.
And that stung him.
Inuyasha did not notice the small handkerchief being dabbed over his eyes. Nor did he notice his arms enfolding around a woman's small frame while bringing her closer towards him. Head bent over her shoulder, he nuzzled the skin on her neck to breathe in her soft perfume. Clawed hands clenched and unclenched against the woman's blouse in attempts to hold her as closely, yet as gently as possible. Kagome's scent surrounded him, soft, fragrant, and soothing. It touched somewhere deep inside of him, calling him, calming him. Soon he calmed down somewhat, with only a few tears managing to escape from his eyes.
The miko smiled. "Feeling better?"
"What are you doing here?" He said, his voice becoming shaky.
"What do you mean by that? I came here looking for you."
"But you shouldn't be here. You should be over there, with your friends. Not with me. They want you over there. They have always liked you. Everybody likes you. Kind, considerate, loving, beautiful, and all those fucking niceties they spout out at you. Everybody likes you!" He stared fiercely at the miko, his eyes suddenly aflame with intensity. However he turned away from her, and sighed, his voice becoming small once more. "I'm just a nuisance to you, like before. Just…just leave me alone…"
"No."
The miko's stern voice made Inuyasha stop and look at her in a mixture of confusion, and amazement. He then felt her hand wrapping around his, and then pulling him towards her in a hug.
"No." She repeated, this time gently, while she used her fingers to comb through his hair. "You know I won't leave you."
With her kind words, her scent, her soft caresses, it was simply too much for him to handle, and he began to feel that sensation of hot tears brimming in his eyes once more. He tried to stop them, he really did. Nevertheless they continued to trickle down his face as his body continued to shake uncontrollably in her warm embrace. He didn't want to cry; he didn't want to show Kagome how scared he was when he saw their faces staring back at him. After all those years of not seeing them, using every possible means of avoiding them, only to see them again…
He never would have imagined a day like this. He thought that he only had to collect the shards of the jewel for Midoriko, and after that was accomplished, no one would ever hear of him ever again. That was until Kagome came. It was only a matter of time before he had to see them too. But he never realised how it had hurt so much being in their presence, hearing them talk, their reactions towards him. It hurt too much to be angry at them, too much. He didn't know what to do. They were his friends…perhaps even...
Yes, he had thought that. His friends, companions who fought by his side, who were there for him and he for them.
How foolish he was to believe in such a thing. He should have known that such a notion could not exist for someone like him – a hanyou. Yet his human heart told him to believe. It still did, even now, as his tears fell down.
He believed in them…
And this was the result?
How was he supposed to react when he saw them?
Should he have felt anger?
…Sadness?
…Despair?
What was the point of feeling emotion when it all felt the same to him?
Nothing…
He felt nothing…
So the best he could do was to run, like he had when they told him to leave and never return. Only then when he was far away from them, he allowed the tears to flow down – in utter frustration. Where was his anger, his sadness, his despair? The bitter winds that blew from that day – the day when he stopped trying to run to the well – answered him in sorrow:
The day you lost everything…even Kagome.
Now all he felt was numbness.
He never even realised he was crying until Kagome held him in her arms. She had simply held him, without saying anymore words. He didn't need any; Inuyasha just knew that she was there for him, in body and in her gentle soul. By this simple gesture, he felt that she knew what he was saying, and what he was trying to say. And that was what comforted him, Kagome, his Kagome, was here with him.
Finally the tears stopped, and the hanyou lifted his head to allow the cold air to sweep across his tear-stained face. He opened his eyes and found Kagome smiling warmly at him.
Inuyasha looked away.
"I'm sorry, Kagome."
"What for?"
He touched Kagome's now damp top. "I made your favourite shirt-thing all wet."
"Inuyasha," she replied, finding the comment would have been too adorable if it were not for the fact that her hanyou was in a despondent mood." I can't believe you said that, after you cried so much. Besides, how did you know this one was my favourite?"
"I don't know…I just thought it was." He sniffed and Kagome gave him her handkerchief so that he could wipe his nose. "It must be embarrassing for you to see me like this."
"It's not embarrassing. You said yourself that it's all right to cry, remember?" Kagome then kissed him tenderly, once on his forehead, and then twice, both lingering, on his cheek. "Sometimes it's good to cry, isn't it?
Inuyasha simply nodded, though the miko was not exactly sure if he was actually listening or not, but she allowed herself to simply hold him in her arms to provide what little comfort she could offer for him. And they both fell into silence, not knowing what else to say to each other, only choosing to let the wild grasses blow noisily underneath them without the disturbances of their voices.
The miko walked determinedly through the long grass, back towards the campsite, without Inuyasha.
"Are you sure you will be all right?"
After a long silence, he replied. "Yes."
Kagome frowned. She had been reluctant to leave the hanyou by himself, and was still undecided about whether to go back for him or not. She never had seen him like that before; it almost brought her to the verge of tears, even now. His expression, his eyes, the way his voice shook slightly, clearly told her what he was feeling. Who wouldn't have been? Kagome mused as her footsteps slowed to a halt. They had chased him away, by the use of their weapons and cruel words, according to what Kohaku and Kaede had alluded to. Perhaps somewhere in his mind, seeing them again triggered those bad memories, and as a consequence, his base instincts had told him to run in fear that they may attack him once again.
This was what Naraku had planned all along. To play out their innermost fears, so those ties which bounded them together were severed by his spidery hands. His manipulation had changed everyone. When Sango, Miroku and Shippou realised that it was indeed the hanyou they had been chasing, their reactions were a shaky mix between self uncertainties, shock, and almost, regret. She didn't know what they were thinking now. Also, Inuyasha used to be to her, a very passionate person, in fighting, and more often than not arguing. The Inuyasha now, was very different. It was this difference that scared her.
Mistrust, hatred, these were the things the dark hanyou liked to do. 'A real joker', as Inuyasha once described him. He was probably laughing from hell right now.
Naraku…
Even now his manipulation had dug wounds so deep, Kagome was unsure if they would ever heal. All she could do was to try.
Muffled sounds from the campsite echoed clearly into her ears now as she paused just out of sight from her friends. Miroku and Sango were both attending to Shippou and Kohaku's wounds that were inflicted upon each other previously. Kouga was busily pacing up and down while drinking from a bamboo water container every now and then. The ookami stopped suddenly, and looked directly to where Kagome was hiding. A broad smile lit his whole face, and his eyes shimmered with ever-changing shades of blue, making the miko feel it would have been better to stay with the hanyou after all.
"Kagome, you're back already." He stalked towards her, broad arms outstretched, his face still smiling. "I see inukkoro isn't with you. You could almost think the mutt was scared of us, coward."
Kagome simply stared at Kouga for what seemed like a very long time, in eerie silence. But then, she opened her mouth, and said in a low, pleasantly angry voice:
"SIT DOWN!!"
Kouga sat down immediately.
"I will pretend that I didn't hear that remark." The miko said to a stunned ookami, while still smiling pleasantly, "You are obviously still under the effects of the poison. And so, I will forgive you." She then turned to face her friends with her eyes cast down, her voice now, hardly a whisper.
"I hope you're happy."
The quiet remark caused them to look at her, and the atmosphere around them seemed to fall silent, making Kagome's voice louder than usual.
"You and everyone else told me you chased him away. I never thought it would be like that, I never thought it would be that bad. I wanted to be ignorant. I had always hoped it would be just one of those problems that got solved on its own." Her hands started to shake as did her voice. "I don't know what made you attack him the way you did, or why, and I don't really care. But because of your little stunt, you forced him out there, alone, to search and kill Naraku off by himself, to track down the jewel shards by himself. Wandering around the countryside, not caring whether he lived or died the next day. Being constantly hunted down by youkai or humans who wanted the jewel, and constantly having to fight back. He truly had no one to depend on.
"We were his friends. He may not show it or say it, but he trusted us. Is this what he gets for trusting you guys? Didn't you trust him as well? Or was it because he is a hanyou and not worth your time?"
"It's not that…" Sango quietly replied.
"Then tell me what it is." Kagome interrupted with restrained fierceness. "Because he's sitting there thinking just that. He thinks you hate him. He's scared of you. He really thought that you were going to attack him again, that's why he ran away. Inuyasha even told me to leave because he thought you would say something bad about it. Do you realise that he spent all those years hiding from you? Do you know why all this talk about a person with the Shikon no Tama was never actually seen in person. He knew that you would eventually follow those rumours. That's why he took extra care to keep himself hidden, from you and everybody else. He's doing what he hates the most: running. Running away from the people he cared about.
"Is this what you wanted? Are you happy now?" Tears began to fill up in her eyes, but Kagome refused to let them go. "You hurt him, and if I were a lesser person, I would say that I hope he never for—"
"Kagome…"
Kagome jumped when she heard Inuyasha's soft voice stop her from finishing with what she wanted to say. She had been so busy talking with their companions; she had not noticed that the hanyou was only a few metres away from her. Though whether how much or how little he had heard of their conversation remained a mystery, even until this day.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
The rest of their conversation did not go louder than a whisper, leaving the others to ponder what they were actually saying. A few times the miko would point towards them, her face changing from anger to concern, her hands grabbing on to his shoulders as if she was pleading to him. And Inuyasha only nodded his head a few times, yet it looked as though he was trying to avoid her gaze.
Miroku looked at Sango and saw in her eyes what he was feeling: guilt and regret. While Shippou just looked at them, his face unreadable, yet Miroku knew that the kitsune was trying to listen to what they were saying.
The houshi always knew that a day like this would come: The consequence of his actions.
Those days of the past after they had finally driven the hanyou out, also held days of uncertainty, where he could not stop his thoughts from going back to that day. He always remembered that malicious face, laughing, mocking. Miroku only needed that memory to bring out his anger. There were other days however, when he thought the opposite. He would often go for long walks by himself, thinking about him, his friend, and how much things had changed because of him.
He made a glance towards the miko again as she continued to talk with Inuyasha. Miroku had already known that Kagome was with the hanyou ever since he 'kidnapped' her and, it was more than likely that she had met with him first before they found her at Kaede's village. Everything made sense. Internally, Miroku laughed at himself, thinking how life had become for him, for Sango and for Shippou.
Would anyone forgive him now?
Kohaku clenched and unclenched his fists, and then stood up angrily. "I'm going," then he was gone.
"I…think, I should follow him," Sango said quietly, looking at the hanyou for a brief moment before disappearing into the woods to follow her brother.
Inuyasha sighed as he saw them leave, thinking how uneasy he made people feel when he was around. Perhaps it was better if he left now…
Kagome nudged him, and smiled, telling him that everything would be all right.
He wished he was able to think the same way.
"You have outdone yourself yet again, Kohaku-kun." The hanyou commented, with a vague tone of approval underneath the monotony of his voice. He poked at the roasted meat of the recently killed boar. It sizzled with a pleasing aroma, making everyone's stomachs, including Kouga's, rumble in obvious hunger.
Kohaku reddened in embarrassment. "S-sorry…I just had to… It's not too much, is it?"
"No, it will be enough for everyone."
However, Kouga had other things on his mind. "Are you sure that meat hasn't been tampered with?"
"Maybe," the hanyou replied, ripping off a hunk of meat and offering it to him. "Do you want to test it, to see if it is?"
Inuyasha smiled.
The ookami growled, swiping at the outstretched hand in fury. There was something really irritating about the way the hanyou was speaking to him. It wasn't loud, or rude, or even bad-tempered. It was quite the opposite. He was courteous, and displayed the aura of someone of high-bringing, which Kouga knew that it rubbed him the wrong way. He never did like conversing with overly polite people.
Now that he had taken a good look at him, Kouga concluded that he hated Inuyasha more than he ever did before, and it was not just because of his odd behaviour. That same smile he saw all those seasons ago, was back and was as mocking as ever. His amber eyes were the same as well, dark and haunting, almost as if the Inuyasha who was brash and stupid, was replaced by someone who made his ookami instincts hopelessly trying to flee from his presence. Kouga was the type to always trust his instincts, and they were telling him that he should be wary of the hanyou, especially when said hanyou was around Kagome.
When his mind was more properly focused and rational – Inuyasha would pay for attempting to poison him – the last thing he saw was the hanyou running away from them, with Kagome not too far behind. It wasn't long before he realised that they were taking too long to come back. He never cared if the hanyou actually was trying to run away from them, if it was true, then it would be a blessing to all of them. But he had not liked the fact that because he ran, he made the miko run after him and, the obvious result was that they had spent time alone. That thought irked him, and he knew why.
"Kagome, I want to speak with you." Kouga said, standing up. "Alone."
Hesitantly, she stood up, but her eyes were still on the hanyou, even as she slowly walked away from him. She couldn't help it, she was worried about him.
"He'll be fine, I'm sure the mutt would survive being alone with them for a few moments. They won't kill him."
Kouga never noticed how ironic his statement had sounded.
"Just what do you want anyway, Kouga-kun?" Kagome asked, a little irritated by how cold the ookami's personality could be. Either that or he was still miffed about his shards being taken from him. "Look, if it's about your shards, they're not yours anymore, and I can't, and I won't convince him otherwise."
"I know that, Kagome. I do have my pride. I'm not going to humiliate myself by asking some hanyou if I could have my shards back, even if he did get them unfairly, that bastard."
"You did notice he was human that night? Would you call it fair if he hadn't use that stuff to make you unconscious? Did you want to fight him when he was human, with nothing to hold against you?"
"That wasn't all," he argued, "didn't you see? He had those powers only a spiritual person would have. Everyone saw it. Don't you find that a bit strange? Normally a youkai wouldn't be able to survive with that kind of power inside. The spiritual powers would destroy the youkai in an instant. That's why youkai are separate beings from miko and houshi; their powers would either nullify each other, or destroy each other. I bet even as a hanyou, he's having a hard time keeping it at bay without having it kill him. What's going on, Kagome? It's obvious that you have discussed this with him?"
"I haven't really talked to him about it. He did mention some things, but, I think he's hiding the rest." Kagome racked her brain for anything else that had occurred during the past few days and months, and then she remembered, "Well…there was this dream."
"Yes?"
"It was strange. Midoriko was in it. Somehow she was using Inuyasha to talk to me. She said something about wanting to put the jewel back together. But this dream…it felt too real…"
Kouga rolled his eyes, "Not this Midoriko woman again. That bitch should just stay dead for all I care. She should leave the jewel to someone who is more capable, someone who is alive. It's not right for the dead, even dead spirits, to mess with the living. Anyway, I think it's best if you stayed away from him."
"What, Inuyasha? Why?"
"He's dangerous."
"You have a sick sense of humour."
"I'm serious; if what you say about this dead miko possessing that bastard is true, then it's not safe for you to be around him. Who knows what he or she is capable of? I hate to admit it, but he's not the same anymore, he's more weird than usual."
They heard Inuyasha sneeze.
"I am not leaving him." Kagome told him seriously.
Kouga frowned at her stubbornness. Yet he realised that trying to convince the miko that the hanyou was a threat to her safety, was only making her more stubborn. More than he could handle. And so, his face relaxed, a fraction, Kouga sighed.
"Alright, fine. But I am only looking out for you; I don't want you getting hurt because of him."
Fragments of their conversation floated towards his canine ears as Inuyasha stared at the portion of meat without actually eating it. He had no room for appetite, not tonight. Inuyasha could not help it if he had heard little bits of what the ookami and Kagome were saying. Even though Kouga had tried to keep his voice down, he heard the sentence ring clear:
He was a threat to Kagome.
Do not let the ookami's words frighten you, Inuyasha.
"I am not afraid, of anybody." Inuyasha replied darkly.
"Inuyasha?" a voice called to him.
"Houshi-sama, what's going on?" Sango asked.
"I'm not sure." Miroku tried to call his name again when Inuyasha did not respond the first time.
His worries started when Kagome had went with Kouga to have a private talk. While during this time the hanyou had sat there, hardly moving, as if he seemed internally conflicted about something, yet not even attempting to do anything about it. A long time ago, the hanyou would have marched up to the ookami straight away to try and move Kagome away from him, creating havoc for everyone and everything around them. But now, Inuyasha just sat there. Sat there, only looking at Kagome once, and then turning his head towards the fire, staring at it with a vacant expression. It was when he began to speak in a voice, the same one that chilled his blood, Miroku realised that something was very wrong. He said his name the third time, this time grabbing on to his shoulders.
The hanyou glared at him, his eyes fading into a darker shade of amber until there was no colour left, only black. His mouth moved, yet the voice that came out of him was not his own. It spoke quietly in a deep and cold tone, causing the voice to echo loudly in his ears.
"Go away, and leave me alone."
In his shock, Miroku did just that, slowly retracting his hand away from him. There was little else he could do except to stare at the person in front of him. Likewise, Inuyasha stared back at him, his eyes remaining as black and as empty, without any signs of relenting. Miroku felt his brow begin to perspire from under the intensity of his stare, and from the hanyou's mouth upturning into one of the most vicious smirks he had ever encountered. The youki surrounding Inuyasha flared violently around the group, which was then followed by spiritual light. Both powers lashed out at each other, as if they were trying to gain dominance over each other.
Miroku did not dare move in case 'this person' before him decided to make the final move. However to his relief, Inuyasha stepped back, slowly. His eyes were still focused on him and the others, but now the colour had returned to them, and the strange aura around him had vanished. He stepped back further, and the houshi found his chance to speak out to him.
He never replied, only walked away from them again until he was near the edges of the forest. And with one big leap, he disappeared amongst their branches, hidden from view.
"Kami," Sango said, after she found she was able to speak again without having her voice break. "Did you see his eyes?"
"Yes. He's a changed man."
The slayer couldn't help but to agree with him. He had changed.
He had changed, because of them.
