Disclaimer: Inuyasha is property of Takahashi Rumiko. Priestess and it's plot is penned by shefalls. If you want to use it – ask.
A/N
Welcome to Priestess.
Brief details: mostly told through Kagome's POV, it is entirely Kagome centric, with the occasional glimpse of others. This is a thorough AU, which means most if not all canon plots and characters are going to be subject to changes.
If this type of work grates on you, you've been forewarned.
Comments are always welcome.
Priestess
1 – Reiki
Kagome couldn't sleep.
Rationally speaking, she had a lot of reasons for this.
First, she was in a strange but familiar world. 500 years away from everything known, Kagome could find familiarity only in the Shinto prayers and rituals she'd avoided with passion back home. Now they were a sort of bittersweet solace.
In this Edo of the past everything else was foreign. Even the language was different. Kagome could barely keep-up with it, sometimes, unless spoken to slowly. Carefully. Like a fool.
The people were littler than in Kagome's time, shorter, thinner, sicklier, weaker, dumber.
'No, not dumb. Simple. Uneducated. Unburdened.'
Kagome drew her knees closer to her chest and tried to press herself into the familiar torii gate of what would eventually become her family's Higurashi Shrine. The Sunset Shrine of modern Tokyo.
The hill of the shrine overlooked the little village, the darkness of night being gradually chased away by soft sunrise. Not a single person was awake yet, not even the strange Inuyasha who never seemed to rest was nowhere in sight.
And that reminded Kagome of logical reason number two she isn't be able to sleep.
Inuyasha.
His kind.
Their demented desire to kill her – because she had the Shikon in her body, because she shattered the Shikon, because she was human, because she had reiki, because she looked like someone long dead.
The elderly Kaede had raised up a barrier around the village for the first time in fifty years, for Kagome's sake. From the moment her foot stepped on this rich soil, unpolluted and not corrupted by future industry, they came at her with a savage determination Kagome couldn't face.
Them being youkai. Creatures of myth and legend, suddenly become very real beings of flesh, blood and deadly claws, all pointed at Kagome to tear her apart.
To devour her.
They seemed to come like and endless stream of nightmarish horrors: some mangled, some deformed, others deceptively beautiful until they've shown their true colours. Kagome couldn't face them. Couldn't defend herself with the bow and arrows given to her, nor with any other weapon available.
'Pitchforks and spears,' she thought bitterly. 'How would I know to use them? Other than Kaede-obaasan not one other woman can. So how should I?'
And the villagers looked so stunned when she said this out loud.
So disappointed.
So… confused.
"Is she not Kikyo-sama?" one elderly woman demanded of Kaede-obaasan. "Can't Kikyo-sama protect us again?"
'Kikyo, Kikyo,' Kagome frowned and glared at the horizon. 'I'm not Kikyo, whoever the hell she is. I'm Ka-go-me. Kagome. And I can't protect anyone.'
Which brings us to reason number three Kagome couldn't sleep – Kikyo.
For someone who grew up repeatedly validated and assured by a loving mother, and adoring younger brother and a dedicated grandfather, to suddenly be reduced to a copy of an unfamiliar woman long departed… it unsettled Kagome to her bones.
Mostly because she could feel Kikyo.
Kikyo was everywhere here, in this village.
Kagome sensed her in the rice paddies, in the field of freshly turned soil and neatly groomed herb gardens. She could almost hear long robes swishing elegantly through the woods surrounding the village, through the little market, up the shrine steps. Swishing in an entirely different way than Kaede-obaasan's robes did. Kagome thought she could even smell that dead woman – crisp jasmine, a tang of medicinal herbs and sandalwood – in the prayer hall, in Kaede's hut, by the Goshinboku.
Kikyo was everywhere, fifty years after her death.
And instead of being repulsed, horrified, completely loosing it – Kagome sought her out and hid in places where she could strongly feel this strange presence.
This presence that brought comfort. That promised safety.
That whispered in Kagome's ear: "I am me, you are you, and I will keep you safe, child."
This was Kagome's third night in this Sengoku Jidai and by now she knew none of the above reasons were what caused her insomnia.
Kagome couldn't sleep because she felt comfortable.
Because despite the unfamiliarity, despite the hostile demons, despite the memory of a greater woman hovering over her head, Kagome had never in her life felt more at peace. Anywhere.
The clean air, carrying scents of farmland, wildflowers and rain entering her lungs with each breath felt like healing.
The endless blue sky of daytime and fluffy white clouds cleared the mind and settled the heart.
The warm rays of sun warmed the body, safe with the knowledge there was no hole in the ozone, no risk of high radiation. Not here, not now.
And the night sky – oh the night sky.
Kagome had never seen so many stars before.
Her first night here she'd been too scared to leave Kaede-obaasan's hut, but her second night she spent staring at the sky with wonder and attempting to count the stars. Again and again she counted, and when she couldn't anymore she settled with trying to locate the constellations she'd read about in books.
Kagome couldn't sleep because she'd fallen in love, and her love was keeping her awake and aware.
"There ye are."
Kagome had heard Kaede-obaasan emerge from the temple long before the elderly woman noticed her. Instead of flinching at the interruption, like a frightened little beast, Kagome just turned her head and offered a genuine smile to the one person who'd shown her true kindness here.
"Kaede-obaasan. Good morning."
"Ye didn't sleep." Kaede-obaasan said immediately and then sat down heavily beside Kagome on the shrine steps. "Again."
Kagome shrugged.
"Sleep is when our soul rests, child." Kaede-obaasan said gravely, "when it escapes us, it means our soul is in turmoil. What ails you?"
"Love." Kagome answered honestly.
"Love?" Kaede-obaasan blinked, "is it Inuyasha?"
"What?" Kagome flinched now. "No! I don't even know him! And he tried to kill me."
'Twice,' she added in her head, a little affronted at the audacity of that – that – dog.
If the first time could be attributed to sheer confusion and trauma on his part, the second time was completely unprovoked. Kagome promised herself she'd sit him unconscious when he showed up again, just because she could.
The utter jerk.
"Then, is it someone from your home?" Kaede-obaasan's voice drew Kagome back from her bubbling anger.
"No." Kagome sighed, closed her eyes and took in the deepest breath she could. She savoured it for a long moment before exhaling, like an addict. She didn't care if she was. "It's this place. This everything. The air is so clean, so sweet, so fresh. In my home it isn't, did I ever tell you? It's putrid, and heavy, and really rather gross. It's this sky! It's so endless, so pretty. I've never seen a blue so pure, I've never seen so many stars, Kaede-obaasan. And this earth – it's so rich. So moist, so fertile! There's no concrete, no dirt, no pollution! There's so much life, Kaede-obaasan. So much."
For whatever reason Kagome felt like crying, suddenly.
She never wanted to not breathe this sort of air.
Never wanted to not feel the warmth of this sun
To not see these beautiful sky.
"I – I don't want to leave." She hiccuped and turned wide, uniquely blue eyes onto Kaede-obaasan. "Am I insane, Kaede-obaasan?"
"No." the old woman chuckled and patted Kagome's shoulder with a gnarled, heavy hand. "Ye're a priestess, child. This, more than anything, proves it."
"I don't understand."
"Ye don't?"
"No."
Kaede-obaasan hummed thoughtfully and they remained quiet for a long while. At some point a little hummingbird flew over and fearlessly perched on Kagome's shoulder. Kagome watched it in amazement, bewildered the little thing could be so brave.
"It senses your reiki." Kaede-obaasan said eventually. "It knows you are safe."
"My reiki?" Kagome tilted her head a little, and the hummingbird bristled as its perch moved. "You've told me I had it, but I don't understand. What's reiki, Kaede-obaasan?"
"Reiki is our spiritual awareness, our strength." Kaede-obaasan spoke seriously, in a no-nonsense kind of tone, and it made Kagome listen just as seriously. She'd never listened to her grandfather like this when he went on his spiritual rants before. But something about Kaede-obaasan made her pay attention. "We don't know what heralds it, but we are taught that it reflects our souls most accurately. The stronger and purer the soul, the mightier the reiki, that is what every priestess is taught. Reiki is a living thing, child. You can't ignore it and you can't erase it. Once it wakes in you, wanted or not, you are its vessel and will. That is what a Priestess is."
Kagome listened, felt the new warmth that bubbled in her chest from the moment she'd freed Inuyasha, and decided that to belong to something like this was entirely welcome.
"I like it." Kagome confessed softly. "It feels so warm, so good."
"It does, doesn't it?" Kaede-obaasan smiled. "But it isn't harmless. Reiki is a weapon, Kagome."
Reiki is a weapon.
Kagome remembered Mistress Centipede corroding into nothing under the touch of her hand.
She relived the power coursing through the arrow before she let it fly, before it shattered the shikon jewel. It went unwillingly into the arrow, it didn't like the weapon, but hen Kagome pointed her own hands against the youkai that attacked her? Then her reiki had no qualms about attacking. It was quite happy to destroy.
To kill.
"Is it dangerous?" Kagome whispered.
"If left unchecked, yes."
"Can it harm my family?"
"Under extreme circumstances."
"Will it draw… others?"
Kaede-obaasan didn't need to answer with words, a nod was enough for Kagome to understand.
Kagome closed her hands into fists and clenched her teeth.
"Ye said that in yer home there are no demons." Kaede-obaasan said reassuringly, "ye needn't worry. Go through the well and remain safe, child."
"Mistress Centipede found me at home." Kagome said quietly. "I can't risk my family. I don't know how to protect them. Besides, I shattered the jewel. It's my duty to fix it."
Her reiki, that warm spot under her ribcage, seemed to pulsate in agreement.
Kaede-obaasan watched Kagome curiously, as if she'd already guessed what Kagome would do, but couldn't quite believe it.
"Kaede-obaasan," Kagome turned to the elderly woman with newly discovered determination, "take me as an apprentice!"