Paradigm Shift
Chapter Twenty: Merge
… … …
The second day at Atsuta Shrine went much better than the first as Kagome and Miroku approached their training with a new outlook on everything. The world was now more beautiful and lighter than they had ever experienced before.
Miroku couldn't wipe the ecstatic grin from his face as he sparred with Heiji. The youkai's bruising grip on his left ankle didn't deter him one bit from the practice. He bent the knee of the immobile leg, bent at the waist, and created his own momentum. His right foot flared with blue fire and landed hard on the bear's right shoulder. Miroku continued downward, falling into a crouch right there on his trainer's shoulder, bringing his elbow around to slam into the back of Heiji's head; throwing him off balance.
Miroku followed Heiji down as he stumbled forward. He pushed himself off, using Heiji's back as a springboard when the other man's knee hit the ground. He landed in a smooth crouch a few feet behind his opponent on his left foot, using the inertia from his jump to extend his right foot out and spin his body around to face Heiji with that right leg sweeping the ground, still engulfed in his reiki.
Heiji's pleased laughter filled the air and Miroku's smile widened in response. The burly youkai planted one enormous hand on the ground in front of himself and swung his body upward, seeing Miroku's form from his upside-down position for a moment as he bent his elbow and threw himself into the air, twisting and hurtling through the empty space toward Miroku's crouched form.
Lithe sinew flexed as the bear plunged down at him, barely missing Miroku as he lunged backward a few steps. His arms ignited with his reiki from shoulders to fingertips as he brought his right elbow up and under, landing a solid blow to the soft underside of Heiji's chin; his left hand planting itself, hard, into Heiji's chest as Miroku propelled his shoulder and side into his trainer.
Heiji had to stumble back from the force of Miroku's attacks, but recovered quickly, striking out with his left leg and stepping onto Miroku's thigh, bringing his other leg across Miroku's midsection and forcing him to land hard on his back, knocking his breath from him.
"Better." Heiji said as Miroku let his reiki fade back into his skin and they smiled at each other.
Heiji stood and clasped Miroku's forearm, pulling him to his feet.
"It's been years since I've fought like that." Miroku said as they walked toward a small well nearby and dipped their hands into a hanging bucket to drink.
"Why?" Heiji asked.
"I suppose that I became dependant in battle on the one thing that I despise most of all."
Heiji eyed the fisted hand, gloved and wrapped in beads.
"You'll be dependant no more." Heiji said. "Your previous training is coming back to you easily."
"It is. I must admit that I'm pleased with the results of Tatsuo's reiki training as well."
Heiji laughed as they walked away from the small well and made their way over to where Tatsuo was showing Kagome different stances. He clapped Miroku's shoulder, sending him off balance for a moment.
"So you admit that your temple reiki channeling is useless, finally?
"I didn't say that. It has its own uses. I've come to see the advantages of being able to use it in this new way, though."
"Yes. Lord Sesshomaru taught us well."
Miroku turned widened eyes to Heiji.
"Lord Sesshomaru trained you and Tatsuo?"
"Lord Sesshomaru guided all of us here at Atsuta. We bear his mark with pride and we will gladly go to battle with him if we are ever summoned to do so.
"Why here, then? Why at a Shinto shrine?"
"You think humans are the only ones with claim to the Kami?" Honey brown eyes cut to Miroku's, amused. "Youkai have no miko or monks. So we guard the border of Lord Sesshomaru's land, gladly. Each of us were once no more than a part of a faceless army in the west. He chose us and brought us here. When he first gathered us together, he told us that we may do as we wished with Atsuta and it's lands. We all decided to keep it as it was, happy for the kami at our side while we guard the border. He trained us to control our jaki and trained us to combine it with the physical combat that we already knew."
"Miroku! Heiji! Look!" Came Kagome's excited voice.
They had closed in on Kagome and Tatsuo, relaxing down onto the grass as the two women went through their motions.
Tatsuo walked over to stand by them as they looked on. Kagome stood tall, her hands above her head, looking as if she were about to dive into the sky. Her left leg was extended, toes pointed to the ground at an angle. She lifted herself onto the ball of her right foot and turned slowly, bringing her hands down in an arc to each side and trailing from her foot and hands were rivulets of her reiki.
The energy began to spin with her, encasing her in a bubble of swirling pink; her face bright and her eyes brighter; lit with that now familiar amethyst shine. The bubble lifted her and hovered barely above the ground as she ended with her arms by her sides and her palms turned forward, feeding her reiki into the barrier in a trickle.
"It won't stop anything but energies, though. But it's pretty cool, huh!?"
Miroku went to Kagome and walked around her and the bubble of reiki, looking over them both, impressed and utterly fascinated. He felt the energy tug at him, call him to Kagome's side.
"She didn't have a problem calling her reiki today, so I showed her a few of the ways I use my jaki in battle and told her to try coming up with some of her own. This is what she came up with." Tatsuo pointed at Kagome with a lopsided grin.
"Ah! I wouldn't do that, Soto-zen!" She yelled as Miroku's hand reached toward the swirls of pink reiki with his hand wrapped in blue flames.
All four of them were taken aback as Miroku's hand passed through the bubble easily. He didn't seem to have heard Tatsuo at all. He was entranced.
"When I touched it, it threw me onto my ass way over there!" Tatsuo yelled, pointing a good distance off to the left, to a flattened patch of flowers in the garden.
Heiji put his hand on Tatsuo's shoulder, halting her as she began to move toward them. The two youkai stared in amazement as Kagome's eyes widened and she started to tremble when Miroku's foot found purchase on the inside of the barrier He stood in front of her and hovered above the ground with her.
Kagome and Miroku didn't have any attention left for their surroundings, staring into each other. Their reiki started to crawl over their whole bodies as they stepped close to each other. As Miroku mirrored Kagome's position, their hands joined.
Their reiki began to mix, shooting from their joined hands up and around in spurts and jets of purple energy.
Tatsuo and Heiji moved away from Kagome and Miroku as they watched the blue leap from him, onto Kagome, and start mingling and mixing around her. It expanded, wrapping now around them both, across the rest of their bodies, and they leaned toward each other.
The whole bubble had turned a glaringly bright purple now. It looked less like a bubble and more like a globe of iridescent water. Their clothing and hair whipped around them both inside the orb.
As their lips met, the ball of energy pulsed once. Twice. Their arms came around, wrapping them together, and they started to float higher and higher.
"What's happening" Heiji roared in a panicked voice as Miroku and Kagome continued to rise together into the sky.
"I have no idea! I've never seen anything like this!"
The other occupants of the shrine filtered out of the buildings and across the grounds to stand under the floating couple, wanting to witness whatever was happening.
The ball of energy began to compress into a spinning disc around them, widening and brightening before it shot outward around the with a crack like a whip that was loud enough to make all of the youkai below drop to their knees holding their ears.
Then there was an echoing sound of rushing wind, like a tornado, and the light rushed back to its origin, dragging streaks of pink and white and black along behind it.
Kagome and Miroku began a slow descent to the ground as the reiki settled back into them, with the streaks of pink, black, and white raced around them in the same curves that the, now gone, bubble had occupied.
Their feet touched the ground and as Miroku stepped away from Kagome there was a sizzling and the black streaks turned pink. When the hissing subsided, the orbs of white light slammed into Kagome and her mouth opened in a silent scream as it happened.
She collapsed into the dirt and grass and flowers with dozens of Shikon shards falling around her prone form as she fell unconscious.
… … …
A few miles east of Atsuta Shrine, an unearthly scream tore through the area. When villagers nearest to the source went to investigate, they found only a set of miko garb covered in wet clay, a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
… … …
Tatsuo ran to Kagome, lifted her and then ran again, heading to the little cottage at the edge of the shrine's grounds.
… … …
In a five mile radius around Atsuta Shrine, over a dozen low level youkai could be found dead or injured, having had Shikon shards ripped from their bodies.
… … …
Heiji approached the still figure of Miroku cautiously. He was standing in the same place, still staring at the empty spot where Kagome had fallen.
… … …
Nozomi burst through the door of her home as Tatsuo ran up to her with her arms full of unconscious miko.
… … …
Black boots slid over crimson-stained mud, his eyes bleeding red as he took in the sight of his loyal fallen.
… … …
Crashes resounded through the cottage as the contents of Nozomi's kitchen table were swept onto the floor.
… … …
Heiji touched Miroku's shoulder, but quickly withdrew his arm as Miroku's eyes snapped to his face for half of a second before Miroku bolted, following in Tatsuo's wake and leaving the scattered jewel shards behind him.
The door of the cottage burst open once more, admitting Miroku. He shoved his way between the two youkai women, trying to get to Kagome.
… … …
A massive white dog howled in pain and anger, crushing his attackers underfoot.
… … …
"Stop! You have to let me get to her!"
Miroku was quite a sight, his eyes still tinged the same bright lavender that Kagome's had shone when their reiki had mixed. He was absolutely clawing at Nozomi and Tatsuo and doing a fairly good impression of an inuyoukai growl.
"Let him go to her" Heiji said in his deep, calm voice. "We don't know what's happening, but they might."
Miroku didn't spare the three of them any attention as he went to Kagome and leaned over her, clasping his hands around her face and covering her mouth with his own.
Kagome's back arched dramatically away from the table as the purple reiki rose from their skin like rain going the wrong way. The most astounding sight filled the room as their auras flared, both of them a richer, deeper shade of that same purple, giving the whole process the appearance of water dripping upward on a glass pane.
began to spiral around them once more. The three youkai moved as far away from them as they could, backing into the far wall and just bearing witness.
The reiki spun faster and faster around Kagome and Miroku. Then it began to pull apart, separating into flames of blue and vapors of pink mist as it slowed and found its way back into each of them.
Miroku fell to his knees by the low table, his head pillowed on Kagome's chest and his hands gripping the edge of the wooden surface. He took long deep breaths before he said anything.
"I don't know how. Or why." His voice was muffled as he spoke directly into Kagome's skin, but they could hear him easily enough. "She somehow mixed us together." His next breath shuddered through him, overwhelmed and exhausted as he was now. "Not just our reiki, which should be impossible in the first place. Our auras." One of his hands reached up to Kagome's hair, smoothing it away from her face as he turned his head to look at her, pressing his cheek against the rise and fall of her breast. "When she fainted… we stayed together." Kagome began to stir. "I don't think we completely untangled, either. There's a piece of her still with me. I can feel it." He cupped Kagome's cheek with his hand as her eyes opened. "There's a piece of me in her now too."
The experience shook him, left him both exhilarated and strangely empty now that it was over. He had felt Kagome's very life coursing through his being. He'd seen and felt and lived parts of her life and for a little while, he had felt separated from parts of his own.
"Miroku?"
Kagome's touch on his hand was soft and her eyes were confused as she came to.
"Kagome. Are you alright?"
She reached up and pulled Miroku into a gentle kiss.
"Maybe you two shouldn't do that…" Tatsuo said, causing Kagome and Miroku to break apart and look at her. "No offense… but last time you kissed some pretty strange things happened."
Nozomi and Heiji nodded slowly in agreement.
Miroku laughed, but Kagome's eyes were fixed on the doorway of the cottage, beside Heiji's foot. She pointed.
"Heiji? Are those…?" Her hand wrapped around Miroku's wrist as she sat up. He followed her line of sight to a pile of scattered jewel shards that were there, twitching and trying to get past Heiji's foot. As soon as the bear looked down and lifted his boot, the shards flipped end over end or rolled toward the table where Kagome sat. "Miroku?"
"Shards…" He muttered.
"Why are they… moving?"
Miroku's brows drew together and he bent, picking one up and letting it rest in the middle of his palm. As soon as he straightened and turned to Kagome, the thing flew from his hand and stuck to Kagome's cheek.
She tried to pull it off, confused, but there was a prick, like the sting of a mosquito, and a spark of pink lit up on her cheek. Then the shard was gone.
"What the hell!?" Kagome shrieked.
Miroku rubbed a finger over the place where the shard had soaked into her skin.
"You're absorbing them?"
"Apparently! How is that even possible!?"
Kagome leaned over the side of the table to look at the jumping, wiggling slivers as Miroku crouched down.
"Does this look like all of them? He asked.
"No, it doesn't."
"Why would you be calling the shards of the Shikon no Tama, Kagome?" Nozomi had come closer, bending at the waist to peer at the shards over Miroku's shoulder. "I've heard that they corrupt any who possess them."
"Not Kagome." Miroku mumbled, poking at them with a finger. "Her touch has always purified them."
"Yeah. It came from inside of me so…
"Kagome!" Miroku swept up a handful of the shards, standing quickly and dropping them onto her body. "They came from inside of you."
"Ouch, Miroku! Those things hurt when they do that! Ooooh! Oh! That makes sense. Sort of." She still glared at him while she rubbed the tingling sensation out of her thigh. "Why wouldn't they have ever done that before, though?"
"You told us when you arrived that your reiki had been fully unlocked recently. Perhaps that is why?" Nozomi suggested.
"What were the other things?"
The three of them looked at Heiji. "There were orbs. White orbs. They went into your body."
Now that sounded familiar. After Kikyo had been resurrected, Sango had described the whole scene to her, telling her that part of her soul had been stolen.
"Kikyo…."
"That would mean that you have all of your soul again, Kagome."
"Kikyo's dead." Kagome said. She leaned over the edge of the table and let her hand hang off, watching the shards stand on their ends in an attempt to rejoin with her body.
"Kikyo has been dead for a very long time, Kagome. Your soul was never hers to take. When she died, her soul was reclaimed by the Buddha."
"Kami…" Four voices interrupted him. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Her soul was reclaimed… Kikyo's soul was torn to tattered scraps when she died. She was ripped apart by hate and revenge. What was left of Kikyo's soul only became the first threads in a tapestry. It is everything in between those threads that make Kagome who she is, make her soul so beautiful. Kikyo stole Kagome's soul. It was not hers to take. It hasn't been her soul for a very long time. That's how reincarnation works. You are remade, made better than the previous soul. Changed. Not copied."
Kagome's face was the picture of happiness as Miroku's words settled over her.
"I love you, you know." She whispered to him, bending down a little more and wincing as the rest of the shards sparked and glowed and joined her again. Then she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the table. She stood and put her hands on his broad chest.
"I love you too, you know." He told her, wrapping her up in his arms. They both laughed quietly.
Heiji coughed into his fist from the corner where the far wall and the doorway met.
"So that means you" He pointed to Kagome. "Called a missing piece of your soul back to you."
Kagome and Miroku nodded.
"And you called the Shikon shards to you, as well." He gestured to the floor. "Because they were part of you, too, in the first place."
Two more nods.
"You also called his" He pointed at Miroku. "Reiki and soul into you." Kagome turned a questioning gaze to Miroku as he nodded to Heiji. "…Because…?"
Miroku smiled down at the woman in his arms and tucked her hair behind her ear as he answered softly.
"Because that's where I belong, too."
Heiji let out a snort of laughter and Nozomi smiled. Tatsuo grimaced.
"So much for thinking that you were learning control, miko!" She shouted accusingly at Kagome. "Too good to be true, of course!" She glared daggers into Miroku.
"You're going to blame me again. Aren't you?" He sighed and closed his eyes.
Tatsuo scowled.
"If you're all done with your chatter, Shoo!" The firey inuyoukai waved her arms at Miroku and Kagome. "Go! Sleep! Tomorrow, you," She stuck a finger into Kagome's shoulder. "Back to basics again! And you!" She glared at Miroku and threw her hands in the air with a huff, marching out of the cottage.
... ... ...
AndreaRei: It's really hard to find MK fics! There aren't a lot out there, and just like all fanfics, 75% of the ones that you can find are... uh.. average? I really don't want to insult any authors! I mean, I know that Paradigm Shift isn't 100% believable... but some of the stories I've read. Whew. They're hard to get through. Especially when from paragraph one of chapter one the characters are just so... flat.
CHASING METHUSELAH! - Now this one is amazing. I went on an MK binge after stumbling over this fic. I must have read (or tried to read... couldn't get past ch1 of some) dozens of fics. This one just stood out. It's bliss. AND COMPLETE! There are a ton one one-shots by Forthright for MK that are divine, as well.
~Ele