Dying to Live

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

As she thought back to what had become of Kanna, Kagura sat up in bed. The light of the fire that Anurak always lit before he went out flickered over her features, casting irregular shadows over her body and the cave walls. In her hands she held a small, clay cup of tea that her caretaker had left beside her pillow hours earlier while she still slept.

The tea had already grown cold by the time she woke an hour earlier in an icy sweat. Still she pushed herself up, picked up the cup and held it, just for the sake of having something to hold. She couldn't fight the flashback...

By the time she had followed Kanna's scent to edge of the cliff in the forest, a strange mist had closed in on everything, hanging hungrily above the ground and clinging to the roots of the trees like a giant, vaporous parasite. Dead leaves had collected in this odd place, covering the rest of the ground like a lifeless brown carpet. The sun had begun its afternoon sink, so that the surrounding area seemed to melt into one flat, fuzzy shade of misty grey, making it hard even for the Wind Sorceress to see more than a few feet ahead.

The fragrance in her nose told her that Kanna must have lingered a bit longer in this place, meaning that she might still be nearby. She still didn't know what exactly had drawn her to find Kanna after she got over the shock of the connection to Naraku being severed; it had hit so suddenly that it had knocked her to the ground. No doubt the last few days had been strange… and things were only getting weirder. She took a few more steps and called out her fellow incarnation's name.

"KANNA! KAAAN-NAAA!" she shouted a few more times before something light in color brought her eyes to the ground.

Something white beneath her bare foot—a single, pure white flower. As she backed away a step, she saw a little disappointingly that her stepping on it had apparently caused one of the pedals to fall off and come away from its center. The other pedals were also crumpled. It was obviously Kanna's. Kagura huffed, I suppose I could find her another somewhere… Now that they seemed to be free of Naraku, she supposed they could do anything they wanted… But where was Kanna?

"Kanna?" she asked a little more quietly, having scooped into her hand and lifted up what was left of the wounded blossom. That was when she noticed it: the reek of something else besides Kanna. Naraku's stench was also there, surprisingly strong for his not actually being there, since she knew she would've been able to sense his demonic energy if he had been… She smelt blood and carrion too…

Instinctively she moved toward the edge of the cliff and looked over. Grey fog blocked even Kagura's keen vision from seeing how far down the ravine reached. Kanna's scent mingled with the other unfamiliar stench now burned Kagura's nostrils. The source had to be so close. She glanced at the ground near her feet again for clues, and then she found it: were those drops of blood beneath the leaves? Kneeling with Kanna's flower still in one hand, she slowly reached out to brush away the leaves with the other hand…

The attack came out of nowhere—rabid snarls exploded into the air, and in a flash of matted brown fur, the thing was upon her. Its mouth and razor sharp teeth wrapped around her outstretched left arm, mauling her painfully.

Using all of her strength, Kagura had attempted to throw the creature off, but it remained firmly attached to her. She became aware of her own hot blood running down over her left hand.

Panicking, she first tried to shake and kick away the snarling mess devouring her arm. She saw the ghoulish whites of its eyes flashing, uninterrupted cloudy voids, unseeing but tearing into her. It was too big to be a wolf, and its body had a weirdly bent appearance as it thrashed against her, worsening the agony coursing through her. Weirdest of all were the protrusions that jutted out along its spine and cranial area, as if it had gotten stuck in some ungodly transformation…

Gasping and unable to take the sickening feeling of probably having her arm taken off any minute, Kagura drove her free hand into her obi belt and flicked out her crimson and white fan. Gritting her teeth she performed her Wind Gust attack several times, finding that the beast's jaws dug only deeper into her flesh. What is this thing? she wanted to scream, starting to believe that it couldn't possibly be alive given the unyielding resolve with which it took her repeated attacks.

Practically going mad at that point from the excruciating pain, she decided to try one last move before the last of her endurance crumbled away. "D-dance of the Dragon," she'd ground out, barely above a whisper and swung every last ounce of her strength into the final stroke she cut through the air with her fan. Tears collected in her eyes, and the world rippled in her vision as she watched the wind collect into twin cyclones on either side of her.

The move was positively reckless at such close range, but she no longer cared whether she harmed herself with her own attack. Struggling to keep the muscles from her arm to her fingers straight and steady, she slowly drew the tip of her fan across her front, pulling the rushing winds toward the monster and her own left arm. Debris and dead leaves cut through the air like shrapnel as she put every ounce of her being into the gusts.

Her wind had picked up so much power that larger rocks and sticks now sliced through the air, and she noticed them carving out bloody nicks through her clothes and all over the twisted creature hanging off of her. I am the Wind—you cannot hold me, she thought, her rage soaring within her for one last boost of energy. "Die," she finally commanded, and the cyclones dipped toward her left arm. Like enormous, pointed corkscrews, the cyclones drilled into the creature's body, and for a moment Kagura had thought she felt its grip on her arm loosen, when suddenly something changed and the beast's body lurched… and began to swell. Wh-what's happening? What is this feeling? her mind reeled. As if an invisible tap had opened, all of her demonic energy started flowing out of her at alarming rate. In a separate corner of her mind, independent of her fear, she then realized: she'd been tricked.

Horrified, the Wind Sorceress watched an unearthly black light build behind the animal's eyes and rise out of its being. Rapidly, the dark aura swirled up into her cyclones, which she no longer had the power to stop; they had become a bridge between her and her attacker.

Kagura choked on her anger. Why did this have to happen? Was I never meant to be free?

With no hope left, her fear consumed her fully. With her eyes clamped shut and full of bitter tears, Kagura felt the flow of the winds reverse and enter her body.A red hot pain like poison drenched her insides in an instant. Unable to stand, she melted to the ground in a writhing heap, so overcome that she couldn't even tell if the beast was still holding her left arm. The pain was everywhere now, an inferno consuming her from inside. First it scorched through her veins and organs, then up and down her arms and legs. Lying twisted in the dirt, wind and dust still whipping all around her, she remembered feeling surprised to see Kanna's white flower blow into her outstretched right palm. Crushed and stained with blood, it caught between her fingers, and she found she couldn't move even one muscle to grasp on to it. What a waste, she had thought before the blackness finally devoured her mind.

What a waste.

Warm hands grabbed at her hands and arms. The concerned voice echoed through her mind in the darkness, pulling her back: "Hwad di, Kagura! Oi! Oi! Pen a-rai pai? Dou shita no?" it called.

Let me go—please let me go! I just want to die—

"Kagura! You dream again—you alright! You alright now!" Anurak told her, his voice slightly raised but firm, as he looked into her wide eyes with his rusty, concerned gaze.

Her eyelids fluttered, and her vision focused on him. She felt and looked down at his hands, as warm as the sun, grasping her upper arms hotly. Now frozen in place, instantly calmed by his touch, she realized that she had been fighting him, trying to push his hands away.

It had been… just a dream. She gasped in shocked relief and let her body sag weakly into his hands.

Unable to do anything else in the wake of the vividness of the real-life nightmare, she allowed the foreign hanyou to gather her into his arms. Despite the fact that he held her many times already, especially when she was too weak to even sit up on her own to be fed, cleansed, or to have her wounds treated, she couldn't help feeling uncomfortable and totally out of place in anyone's arms. Still, she allowed herself to lie against him for a while with her eyes shut, listening as he whispered comforting words to her in a combination of Japanese and his native tongue and let his life force flow into her. Soon after she first awoke in the cave with him, she learned that this was how he kept her alive: by touching his hands to her body daily, allowing him to share the energy he absorbed from the sun with her.

"There, there, tee rak. Daijoubu, daijoubu," he soothed in his husky voice, patting her back and rocking her as gently as if she was a child.

When she finally felt relaxed and even slightly dazed, like what she imagined it would be like to lie out all day in the golden summer sun, he released her. This was how she felt every day after she'd had her fill of his life-force, so even though she wanted to hate this dependence she now had on him, she couldn't deny how satisfying it felt to feed off of him after waiting through the long night—or she should say day, for they both slept during the day, Kagura in the cave, and Anurak at the top of a tall tree where he could absorb the sunlight; therefore, she now always awoke feeling her soul begin to crave energy and start to falter when it didn't get it soon enough.

Once he was sure she was steady and sitting up on her own, Anurak scooted away and knelt beside the fire from where he looked cautiously over at her. According to their daily custom, Kagura collected her thoughts and composed herself after he had fully withdrawn from her, carefully not looking in his direction right away. She could not and did not want to get used to the physical closeness they had to maintain now… because of her new "limitation", as Anurak now sometimes called it to her irritation, happily using it as one his new Japanese vocabulary words.

New imprisonment is what it really is, she thought grinding her teeth, her usual feelings of despair catching up with her again.

Anurak cleared his throat. "I can feel your soul- very hungry today after yesterday's cloudy…weather … Weak feeling maybe makes you have strange dreams again…" he trailed off, a look of uncertainty on his face showing that he was worried she wouldn't understand his expression. Anurak had gone to great lengths to interact with her over the past months; Kagura had been surprised that his Japanese had progressed so quickly. She wondered who exactly he practiced with besides her.

I'd be fine if you'd just stop helping me, she thought bitterly, as she often did whenever they were forced to discuss the details of her special needs; however, he wasn't wrong… she had probably awoken in the first place because her body was trying to give her a sign that something was wrong.

In the first days after she first awoke, Anurak had managed to explain that he was half nang takhian, as that type of demon was called in his land. His father had been a tree spirit and his mother a human. Like a plant, his body got the nutrients it needed from exposure to natural light, making the days when it rained or was unusually overcast somewhat difficult for him and now Kagura, too. Under normal circumstances, she got the feeling the hanyou would be mostly alright for at least a day or two without going out in the sun; however, like yesterday, even though he'd been unable to go out and rest in his treetop, he still felt compelled to share some of his depleted energy with her. She had tried to push him away and stop him from helping her but to no avail, and she couldn't help feeling that she should maybe act a little less ungrateful about it now.

Thus, as they sat by the fire, instead of snapping at him as she often did, she bit her tongue and smoothed her hands over the tea stain that had spread over her top blanket. The clay cup had apparently spilled from her hands in the midst of the flashback. Thankfully, since Anurak had covered her with many blankets to fight the cave's chill, the liquid hadn't been able to seep through. She still couldn't begin to understand why he had bothered with her in the first place.

"Mmm… so how was your rest?" she asked, trying not to sound too bored even though she never really felt like talking to him.

A small smile lit up Anurak's face at her question. It was incredible how gently encouraging he could be whenever she did anything he seemed to think was good. "It was very well!" he replied, sounding genuinely happy, as he reached behind his back and pulled out a long object wrapped in dark cloth. "It was very well, indeed!" he repeated, looking excited as he set the covered item in his lap.

Oh hells, what is that? Kagura thought, already tired of trying to seem pleasant. She had apparently forgotten that she had learned that it was better not to encourage the already effervescent hanyou.

Simpleton, she thought, derisively taking in his old, ratty clothes again. She found that Anurak was fit enough, but even for being just a hanyou, he just wasn't especially physically imposing. I bet he couldn't even lay a hand on that fool, Inuyasha—and, well, never mind Sesshomaru… she even mused fleetingly, before recalling how strangely far off any reality containing the Inu brothers felt from her now...

Around his lean, muscular middle, Anurak wore loose fitting pants made of partially tread-bare and faded red, blue, black, white, green, and gold thread woven into a large geometric pattern. They came in just above the knee and were held up by a tattered, thick black silk sash at the waist. On top, he wore only a sun-beaten black vest of coarse cotton that he covered with a heavy cloak of burlap when he went outside in the winter chill. Despite his attire's foreign appearance, she still easily imagined him swinging a rake like a mortal peasant in a field. He did look almost completely human aside from the blistering orangish-red of his eyes and slightly pointed canines and fingernails.

"Kagura," Anurak addressed her. She returned her attention to him and saw he held up the covered object long ways in his lap, as if to present it to her.

Oh no—

"For you: a gift!" he announced with a huge smile, as he pulled a string and the fabric fell off. With three thin strings; three long pegs at the head; a long dark wooden neck and body; and a cover made of pale-colored, stretched hide, it was obviously an instrument.

Kagura never felt more stunned in her life. "Well, what do you want me to do with it?" she asked after a moment.

"The street merchant said its name is shamisen," Anurak explained, merrily unaware of her lack of enthusiasm, as he examined his purchase again. He picked up and showed her the accompanying triangular pick made of dappled, polished bone. "I come here, I see young ladies play it in the street and sake shops. Always in the cave, I see you unhappy… maybe… you want to play?" Anurak finished with another of his very sincere, encouraging looks, as he held out the instrument to her.

Kagura frowned and looked away. "I don't know what you take me for," she replied, her voice sharp with reproach.

Anurak's face fell. "Uh, er, I'm sorry—you don't like it?" he asked, laying the shamisen down.

"No, I don't like it," Kagura spat impatiently. "I suppose you want me to entertain you or something?"

"No, no, I-" Anurak started feebly, looking confused at her outburst.

"I don't know who you thought I was when you 'saved' me, but if I was some silly, mortal, delicate, little, instrument-playing flower, I hardly think you would've found me even half alive in the situation I was in," she announced, her tone positively acidic.

If Anurak had known she'd react in such an unexpected way, he thought, he never would have brought the instrument to her. Her anger clearly unpinned, he listened, as she turned toward him again. With her face flushed, she added threateningly, "Remember this: I never asked for this, and you don't know me—you don't know a damned thing about me, hanyou."

Anurak couldn't help but notice how she pronounced the last word like it was some kind of dirty curse. He sighed and shrugged the feeling off, choosing to ignore the insulting way she had spoken to him. "Sou dana…" he sighed calmly. "It is correct. We are unfamiliar. But, another thing: I want to talk," he told her, setting her with an even and honest look, despite her oppositely surprised expression.

Kagura listened, as he expressed himself choppily but clearly enough: "Your arm is better. Before we met, I was on a journey to see this land. In two weeks, I want to continue my travel. I want to invite you with me. Wouldn't it be good? Please consider, onegaishimasu," he concluded and got up and walked away from the fire.

Kagura glanced at the shamisen where Anurak had laid it on the black cloth beside the spot where he had sat. 'Invite' me? she thought, gloomily. "Like I have a choice," she ground out to no one in particular.

:

A few days later, Kagura got up by herself for the first time in months and cleansed herself fully. After that, she put on Anurak's spare padded long underwear that he had used mainly used only in the thick of the winter and the dull, dark grey and brown hakama set he had helpfully left by her bedside while she slept at some point earlier in the week. She felt strange at the way the stiff, coarse material hung heavily on her thin frame. The wide, manly cut would have been too big for her at any time, but as she absently looped the fingers and thumb of her right hand like a bracelet around her left wrist, she suddenly felt numb at how easy it was. How much of her body had waned away while she wasted away in dark caves over the past few months…and how could she ever hope to recover? She quickly pushed down those horrible fears before they threatened to eat up all her resolve once again and remembered that she had something she decided that she had to do: she had managed to survive this long, and she realized that through all the nightmarish memories that haunted her night and day over the past weeks, there was one last nagging thing she had to complete with her semi-freedom.

:

Sundown had just cut a glimmering strip through the treetops when Anurak came into sight of the misty falls that hid the entrance of their cavernous hiding spot behind a frothy sheet of water. The falls had conveniently provided them with fresh drinking water and had cleansed the surrounding air of its inhabitants' scent over the time they had spent there.

Then the hanyou stopped as he watched, to his surprise, his dainty ward carefully— if a little stiffly— picking her way over the stones leading down from behind the falls. He suddenly realized how her tiny feet must have sloshed around the too-huge men's boots and saw how the shirt and trousers made her look like a child playing dress up. Unfortunately, he also recognized a little soberly that the baggy clothes and even the dim daylight also made her look even more fragile and emaciated than usual, but he felt certain that hidden in that shadow of a woman, there was beautiful girl still waiting to be set free.

Anurak was glad that he managed to suppress a chuckle at his initial sight of her, though. Almost a head shorter than him when she finally stood directly in front of him, she looked up at him with those now incredible, heathery grey eyes. He couldn't hold back a slightly bemused sniffle as he noticed her nose crinkle in brief irritation: she apparently found him much taller than she'd originally expected and had to take half step back before she spoke.

"Do you have to look so excited?" Kagura sniped, fixing him with the most serious expression. Seriously cute, Anurak thought as he looked over her head for a moment and briskly licked his lips trying to straighten out his face, so she wouldn't think he was laughing at her.

When she was satisfied that she had his attention, she announced slowly and clearly: "I've decided I'll go with you on your trip. But on one condition." She looked at him slightly askance to see if he understood, and he nodded gently for her to go on. "I was going somewhere right before I was attacked. I want you take me there," she said finally.

Without hesitation, Anurak immediately agreed. Before she even spoke, he knew he'd say yes to almost anything she said.

:::

Notes: Hey all! Just posting up a quick chapter before I'm on the run again for the next few days. Just a fast thanks this time to my lovely, loyal reviewers and readers: you guys are the best! Welcome to everybody who's new! Whenever you find something you've enjoyed in the story, remember to drop me a review~ Your comments are greatly appreciated! (^o^ ) Peace for now, Origamikungfu.