Amida- Amida Buddha, Buddha of Paradise
Tabi- split toed socks
Onna- woman
Kami Monogatari
No more will you wander the green fields of this earth
Your journey has ended in darkness.
The bonds cut, the spirit broken
A great light has gone out.
-from 'Lament for Gandalf'
Lord of the Rings Soundtrack
Chapter 4- Where The Fearing Dwells
Kagome tried not to laugh at Inuyasha, but
his idea of searching this way seemed to be more akin to childish petulance
rather than a determined hunt. At the moment, the hanyou was kicking a
large rock in irritation, their most recent quest bringing little results.
It wasn't that she blamed him. Wandering around pointlessly was frustrating,
and kicking rocks was the least of the things Inuyasha could be doing to
vent that frustration. Of course, stubbing his foot and hopping around,
trying to hide it the whole time, was pretty darn funny; if Kagome did
say so herself.
The sun had risen high now, heralding a brilliant
day of brightness. And yet, far to the west there were faintly grey clouds,
barely tinged with the future of rain. But now the wind was clear of rain
scent, briskly rushing along the stream's surface and making the water
flow rapidly in its course. Her shoes landed heavily against the wooden
planks of a bridge, sounding hollowly until she stepped off, resting a
hand on the smooth bannister and looking for the familiar glow of a shard.
Though perhaps, she wondered, if it would be better seen at night, when
sunlight did not wash away the glow.
Sango had collapsed. It bothered her. The
taiji-ya was usually so strong. Of course, this was a different kind of
attack, she supposed. She seemed well enough physically; a scratch to the
forehead, but no bruises, no burns, no welts. No evidence of attack, or
than her slip against the rocks, and that did correlate to what had happened
to her last night. But why such exhaustion? That did not match her experience
at all. What was different? Kagome bit her lip as she turned around, trailing
after Inuyasha, who was heading towards one of the damaged areas along
the streambed. Without more free hands to help move the rubble, Kagan and
Yanagi were left with patches of broken wall and torn shoji, black shingles
laying atop the wood and paper. They were lucky not to have had any fires.
"If this happened after the shard got here,
then it could even be underneath," he was saying, picking up one of the
larger chunks of rooftop and swinging it around to toss aside.
Kagome warned him before he managed to throw
it, "Inuyasha, if you're going to start cleaning it up, don't make a bigger
mess of it."
"I'm not a slob," he snapped, but set the
wood and shingles aside without throwing. "See anything?"
She shook her head, moving to kneel down and
push aside a battered door. "What could have caused this?"
Inuyasha considered that a moment, looking
at the size and angle of the destruction that had torn in through here.
The edges of the room had been torn open by something fairly sharp, since
the wood was sliced cleanly, not snapped and ragged, though paper, freed
of its constraints, flapped idly in the breeze. But that could mean any
number of things. "Something big. What I'd really like to know is what
drove it off." He bent his head a bit lower, sniffing for a scent. It smelled
only of rain, washed away in recent weather.
Standing, Kagome lost her balance on the uneven
mess, wobbling and flinging her arms out to stay upright. Pebbles, loosened,
rolled into the water with a series of tiny splashes, and she felt a hand
grab her arm tightly. "Don't you go try to get drowned too," Inuyasha warned
her with a frown. Kagome batted his hand away, scolding lightly.
"I can swim just fine, Inuyasha. And besides,
I don't think I'd drown in that shallow of water." Stepping carefully over
a wooden post, she stumbled again, straightening herself out before he
could make another comment. "Graceful. Graceful...." she tried to laugh,
but he simply sniffed and turned back to the destruction. She glanced at
her hands, seeing dirt embedded into her palms, and then checked her legs,
ribboned with bits of damp earth, which had clung to the wooden frames,
carried there by the rain. "Mou..." she hated being dirty, particularly
her hands. It made them feel gritty and slimy, so she bent at the stream's
edge, pushing her sleeves back carefully. Noises sounded behind her as
Inuyasha continued to shift rubble aside, and she dipped her hands into
the cool water.
Her reflection peered back at her, uneven
and shifting in the clear liquid, the sky above her distant and blue. Hands
still under the surface, she turned them over, watching the specks of dirt
get carried off by the flow, moving away under the rubble. She turned her
head, hair falling to the side as she traced the path of the creek back
across the wide courtyard. The rivulets all merged in the center, where
a wide pond was carved, forming a single, larger stream that presumably
ran out into the river beyond the mansion. The water traced through the
entire complex, giving it a floating quality in the reflection. Kagome
felt herself slowly go white with a thought, and she pulled her hands out
of the water, wiping them dry on her light blue skirt. The water. What
if the shard was in the water? Her fists tightened, nails pressing into
her palms as she thought about it. That may explain the oddly enveloping
aura of the missing shard. But kami-sama, if it was in the water somewhere,
that'd make it so difficult to find....
"Kuso!"
At the familiar sound of Inuyasha's pottymouth,
quickly accompanied by a crash, Kagome turned to see Inuyasha end up sending
a section of the damage collapsing in on itself as he leapt away.
"Graceful, Inuyasha," she told him as she
stood, shaking out the last drops of water from her fingertips.
"Feh!" he snarled, getting ready to kick the
nearest wooden beam. But he stopped, looking at her instead. "Anything?"
"No..." she began, reluctant to share her
thought. They didn't know for sure yet...it could be anywhere, and there
was really no point in getting Inuyasha angrier than he was now. "No,"
she continued more firmly. "It's the same as everywhere else."
"Heh. Then let's move on. No point just standing
around."
They turned, Kagome somewhat reluctantly,
but then heard a light voice call out, "Kagome! Inuyasha!"
Lifting their heads, they saw Yanagi, a large
but nearly empty bushel of clothes on her hip, standing in the shade of
the verandah, a hand raised in greeting. The older woman shielded her eyes
from the sunlight that dappled her soft face, eyes squinting slightly as
she focused on the two. "Ara, Kagome, what happened to you?"
"Eh?" Kagome glanced at herself again. Sitting
on the damp rubble had not only placed traceries of dirt on her legs, but
on her skirt a bit as well. Her socks, already muddy from the day before,
were even worse, sagging around her ankles. "Ah, well," she tugged at the
fallen stockings, "just a little dirt. Um, we're still looking for the
shards, Yanagi-san."
"Hai," the older woman agreed, tilting her
head to the side in thought. "Ah, well, those clothes of yours," she looked
down, then glanced up, obviously not wishing insult. "Perhaps something...more?"
"More?" Kagome blinked, then realized what
Yanagi was hinting at. Inuyasha was simply standing there, frowning, looking
between the two females and trying to figure out the subtext of the conversation.
Kagome though, was continuing, "Do you have something?"
"I think so. Reiko left in a hurry, and she
was fairly close."
"What the hell are you two blabbering about?"
Inuyasha finally asked, irritated into exasperation. "Fairly close to what?"
Kagome began to walk forward, smiling and
joining Yanagi on the porch. "Keep looking, Inuyasha. I'll be back soon.
Yanagi's just going to get me a change of clothes. These are getting kinda
dirty."
"We'll, ah," Yanagi said, skeptically looking
at the rather short skirt Kagome was in, "put it in with the rest of the
laundry, ne?" She hefted the bushel meaningfully, the clothes rustling
at their displacement.
"Hai, arigatou," Kagome thanked her.
"Oy! You're just going to-"
"I'll be back in five minutes. Ten, tops,
Inuyasha. Calm down a bit, and we'll start again."
"You can't just go-"
"Osu-"
Hastily, Inuyasha quickly snapped, "Fine!
Go get some damn clothes! Just don't sit me again, will you? Feh!" With
that, he turned and stormed off, irritated at the interruption.
"Temperamental, isn't he?" Yanagi commented,
eyes a bit wide as she drew deeper into the shadows of the porch.
Kagome sighed, following her down a hallway.
"He's very centered on his search. You get used to it, after awhile." Her
eyes softened a bit before Inuyasha disappeared out of sight.
"I see," Yanagi murmured gently, watching
Kagome's face before turning into a section of the mansion Kagome was unfamiliar
with. Most of their wanderings were outside, or between the rooms. Here
was a newer section of the mansion, the walls brighter, and with a few
screens open to allow in air. "Reiko was a friend of mine," Yanagi began
quietly as she slid a door open, allowing Kagome to step inside first.
"About your size, I'd say." She set the bushel down and went to a smooth
wooden trunk in the room's corner. The tatami were worn, pressed in by
many feet over time. People had lived in this room, and dust was now settling
into the corners. The room was shuttered and fairly empty, save for a small
dresser, a silk screen as a divider in the room, and the trunk Yanagi knelt
beside. "Reiko's son...fell very ill." She said quietly, pushing aside
clothing in the trunk. "She had to leave quickly. I believe she left most
of her things here."
"I don't want to impose-"
"Bah," Yanagi waved Kagome off, drawing out
a kimono of deep blue. "She wouldn't mind. Actually, she'd be more likely
to foist it on you, seeing that skirt. Very proper, Reiko."
"Eh..." Kagome managed nervously, hanging
her head and tugging at the hem of her skirt. "It's a normal outfit where
I'm from...."
Yanagi chuckled a bit, handing the dress over
to Kagome, and pointing at the silk screen. "Toss your clothes over the
top, I'll add them to the washing pile." Kagome obeyed, and as she disappeared
behind the screen, Yanagi picked up where Kagome had stopped talking. "I
see," she smiled, then turned back to the trunk and began to straighten
it out again, folding cloth. "So I figured. You don't act as though it
is strange, nor do your companions. Where are you from, ne?"
"Tokyo?" Kagome replied, chucking her blouse
and muddy socks over the screen's top. It was a question, not a statement.
Kaede-baa-chan had not known of the place. Of course, the more Kagome thought
about it, Tokyo shouldn't be called 'Tokyo' yet. Should still be Edo. But
it was confusing anyway. How large was Edo in the sengoku jidai? She sighed
and waited for Yanagi's answer.
"Strange," Yanagi mused, shutting the trunk
and standing, knees crackling a bit with age. "Is that far?"
"Very," Kagome told her as she folded her
kimono closed, left over right as was proper. She took the sash for her
waist, tying it together and emerging from behind the screens. Yanagi had
a good eye, and the deep blue fitted Kagome well, falling straight and
smooth over her hips and back. It was only slightly large, the sleeves
of the yukata baggier than necessary, evidence of Reiko's slightly greater
weight. The sapphire shades grew into sky blue around her neck, touched
lightly with the faint embroidery of tiny white flowers. "The obi's so
narrow," Kagome murmured softly, running a hand over the tying sash, now
in a loose bow.
"Nani?" Yanagi asked, not quite hearing Kagome's
last words.
"Nothing, nothing," Kagome smiled, trying
to distract the older woman. "Arigatou, Yanagi-san."
"It's all right. You'll need tabi and sandals
to wear that. I'll see what I can find." Yanagi hesitated thoughtfully,
then her lips curved into a faint smile. "Ah, sit down. Here," she gestured
at the tiny dresser, moving to open a drawer, then another. "Ah! Here.
Reiko was always so stylish, I knew she'd have plenty. One had to be left."
Yanagi held up a narrow blue ribbon, gesturing again for Kagome to sit
as she rummaged a bit more, this time drawing out a wide toothed comb.
Kagome knelt, settling herself, not really
sure what Yanagi was planning. After a moment, the older woman knelt behind
Kagome, pulling her hair back, combing it lightly. "Here. You don't mind?"
She looked at Yanagi through the mirror, giving
her a puzzled look. "No. Inuyasha might come looking though, to see why
we're taking so long."
"Humph. Sounds like Kagan when he's grumpy.
'Onna, what's taking so long? Onna, where's my dinner? Onna, where do you
think you're going?' Old fart."
The last comment made Kagome stifle a giggle.
The 'Where you you think you're going?' definitely did sound familiar.
"Hai," she said as Yanagi pulled on her hair, bringing it up on top of
her head.
"Rather close to the Inuyasha one, ne?" Yanagi
asked, so casually that Kagome stopped smiling and looked at her reflection
in the mirror. The woman had her eyes focused entirely on her hair, deliberately
not looking Kagome in the eye.
Cautiously, Kagome asked, "Why?"
Yanagi shrugged and began to bring Kagome's
hair into a coil. "He is hanyou, is he not?"
Kagome's mood began to sour, hoping Yanagi
wasn't going to make rude comments. That she had not expected from the
older woman, though perhaps she should not have assumed. And so she began
to quiet herself, lowering her eyes and paying attention to her hands,
folded in her lap. "Hai."
"Mm," Yanagi murmured, bringing Kagome's hair
into a single loop, then tying it with the blue ribbon, fastening it upon
itself with a little bow, which she tucked into the underside of her hair.
"He's saved me several times," Kagome argued,
feeling defensive on Inuyasha's behalf. "He may be a rude, potty mouthed,
self centered-" Kagome broke off, realizing that Yanagi was laughing lightly,
moving to look her in the face.
"It's all right. Gomen nasai," she continued
to chuckle, brown eyes warm as she shook her head, smoothing the folds
of her green
apron. "Such a spirited defense of one who is rude, potty
mouthed and self centered!" Kagome blinked for a moment, folding her arms
and looking down with embarrassment. When she looked up again, Yanagi's
face had drawn to seriousness. "I do not know of this journey you are on,
Kagome-chan. I do not know of how this hanyou has 'saved you,' or so you
say. But I hear with the ears of an old woman, and so I worry like an old
woman. Youkai are dangerous, and so I pass on that fear to the hanyou one.
He spared my husband when he could have killed him." Yanagi's deep eyes
were soft, but intent. Her slight aging did not stop her from being beautiful.
"I only wonder at things I do not know. People fear what they do not understand.
Forgive an old gossip for poking where she does not belong."
"Hai," Kagome gave Yanagi a small smile, then
turned to the mirror, touching her hair lightly. She looked so different,
with her hair up in such a way. Almost as though this were her era, not
the one on the other side of the well. Her hair, her clothes. A kimono.
Always, always wearing clothing from home. Almost as though it linked her
to where she came from. Putting on something else made her feel
like
someone else. Someone from the sengoku jidai. She shivered, disguising
it by standing up. "Arigatou, Yanagi-san. It's okay. Trying to figure out
something you're afraid of is better than just running away, or hating
it thoughtlessly."
"Mm," Yanagi agreed, placing a hand on the
dresser for leverage as she pulled herself up. Though arthritis was just
settling in, the motion was graceful, willowy. "Well, you'd better be getting
back to your friend. If he is as bad as Kagan, he's probably on his way
here by-"
"Oy! Kagome!"
"...now," Yanagi finished, sighing and laughing
with exasperation as the door was flung open, revealing an annoyed looking
Inuyasha. An annoyed looking Inuyasha whose eyes flew very wide when Kagome
turned around, modeling clothes that were not the school uniform he was
accustomed to. It only took him a second to get his mouth closed again,
and fold his arms as though irritated at her tardiness.
"You said five minutes. How're we supposed
to find anything with you fiddling with your hair and shit all day long?"
"Mou, Inuyasha," Kagome began, her hands turning
into fists at her sides. "I was just about to-"
"Ah, Inuyasha, doesn't Kagome-chan look pretty
in blue?"
Inuyasha blanched. "Uh...."
Yanagi, old gossip or not, knew exactly how
to tease a male. She used her age to full advantage in this case. After
all, old people were supposed to babble about how pretty the younger generation
was, weren't they? She clasped her hands together as though pleased. "Gomen,
gomen, I shouldn't have kept her so long. Forgive an old lady's slowness.
Go, find the shard things you say are causing trouble to my home." She
shuffled over to her bushel in exaggerated age, hefting the laundry with
a sigh.
"Feh, a slow old lady who can't haul clothes
around. Give me that thing," he said, grateful to get out of answering
the question and grabbing it from Yanagi's grasp. "Where's your laundry?
I'll never get any help if you two are moving that slow. Where is it?"
"Ah, arigatou, Inuyasha," Yanagi thanked him
politely. "Down the hall. I'll show you."
"Wait, Inuyasha...." Kagome called, and he
hesitated. Then she dumped her uniform on top of the pile. "Eh, gomen....almost
forgot it."
He rolled his eyes. "Feh."
The world was beginning to dim, as the sun
began to melt into the west, touching the land with dark red rays, setting
the mansion aglow. Searching consumed the day, wandering and looking, eyes
on the ground, peering through grasses, rubble or dust to see a small glowing
fragment. It was beginning to feel hopeless, such a small glowing thing
tucked away in such a big place. Somewhere.
"I'd almost rather we were taking the shikon
no kakera from a youkai of some kind," Miroku sighed, pausing for a moment
to let Shippou catch up a few steps. "At least we'd know where it was.
This is getting ridiculous."
"Tell me about it," the kitsune muttered darkly,
then yawned as he stretched, walking forward through shafts of red sunlight.
The grass gave way to a footpath, smooth from usage, the edges decorated
with lacy white flowers, shaded by tall maple trees, broad leaves casting
shadows on the ground, rustling in the faint breeze. It was a garden they
wandered in, well tended and with flowerbeds lining the walkway. Finishing
his stretch, Shippou looked around, craning his neck back to get a better
look at the tall trees above him. A leave loosened and drifted from its
branch, fluttering away on the wind. "Sugoi...kirei!"
"Yeah, well it better be," a gruff voice called,
causing Shippou to jump. Miroku moved forward, leaning around a tall hedge
of well trimmed shrubbery. Kagan was on his knees before a bed of lavender
chrysanthemums, a pail of weeds beside him. "Been weeding the damn place
all afternoon."
Miroku looked around, taking in the garden.
It was well kept, flowers closing for the night, blooms tightening, though
their fragrance remained sweetly on the air. "So peaceful here," he commented
quietly. It was peaceful, but something about the place made the skin on
the back of his neck prickle. Not in coldness, but as though a current
of energy pulsed there, faintly, warm like a star.
Kagan squatted back on his knees, wiping his
forehead with the back of his hand, knocking a wide straw hat back from
his head. Tied, it hung backwards off his neck until he removed it and
plopped it next to the bucket of weeds. Sweat had created streams through
the greaves of his face, smudges of soil around light brown eyes. "Yeah,
plenty peaceful, houshi-sama."
"We've been searching for signs of the shikon
no kakera all day," he told the older man, walking forward to explore the
garden a bit more. A reflective pool lay to the side, a willow draping
long fronds into the water, where pale pink lotuses floated on green pads.
He saw his reflection mirrored back at him, shifting on the water's surface.
"You haven't come across anything odd here, have you?"
"No. Same's always."
Miroku lifted an eyebrow, returning to face
Kagan. "You're here often then?"
"Humph. All the damn time," came the response
as Kagan picked up a light hand shovel, shoving it into the ground and
easing another weed out from between blossoms. "Yanagi's always nagging
me to keep this place up."
"Why's that?" Miroku asked as he began to
look around for any glowing spots of light, swishing the end of his staff
through a ring of lilies, not to break them, but to see around them.
Kagan, for his part, suddenly became very
interested in the chrysanthemums, digging away as though the weeds were
extremely important. "Yeah, well," he grumbled, wincing as he leaned forward
a bit more. "I asked her to marry me over there," he jerked his chin at
the willow by the water. "So she's all sentimental about it."
The houshi gave the man's back a small, wry
smile, looking around again. The smile faded as he realized Shippou had
disappeared. "Shippou?"
A pause. Then, from the other side of some
shrubbery, "Oy! Miroku! Come and take a look at this!"
Shippou was a few steps back from a tall cedar
tree, branches forming a towering cage of leaves above three, black stone
markers. The little kitsune was leaning forward and peering at the center
one of these, slightly taller than the ones that winged its left and right.
"Weird. What are they?"
Bending down slightly and looking at the pillars,
Miroku shrugged. "Gravestones."
Shippou went a little pale, edging back a
step. "G...gravestones? I...in a garden?"
Nodding, Miroku knelt down before them, setting
his staff beside him, ringing slightly. Though shaded, the sunset light
was absorbed by the smooth stones, dark, gleaming shapes. Tiny chrysanthemums
had sporadically broken their way though the surface of the soil around
the black stone's base. "Don't worry, Shippou. The bodies would have been
buried quite a way from here. By the age of these," he guessed thoughtfully,
reaching out and running a hand over the edge of the one on the right,
"I'd say these people have been in the land of the Amida for quite some
time."
"You'd be correct, houshi-sama," Kagan interrupted
as he came to see what the other two were up to. His usually grumpy looking
face shifted as he thought. "Yanagi knows more about it than me. But those
should be the markers of the original family from here. Couple hundred
years. Heian era."
Miroku nodded, turning back to the narrow
pillars of dark stone. He had chosen the smallest of the three for good
reason. Of them, this one still bore carvings on it, retaining the name
of the person it was built for. Centuries of rain and erosion had worn
the symbols away. He ran a finger along the groove of the carving, bits
of dirt falling to the ground at the disruption. Trying to make out the
characters, he heard Shippou say, "But there's three. Didn't Yanagi say
something about a wife, and a guy who worked in Kyoto? That's only two."
The older man shrugged, pulling gardener's
gloves off his hands and beating them against his hakama, puffs of dust
rising from the cloth. "I think they had a kid. A girl...Yanagi'd know
more about it. Ask her. Don't know what happened to the kid though. Probably
died of sickness or something. There was a lot of plague back then."
"Ukifune," Miroku said, and the word caused
Shippou to jump.
"Ukifune? You're sure?" he asked, suddenly
losing fear of the gravemarkers, and peering in closer to Miroku's stone.
"That's what it says? Her name? You're sure?"
"Hai. It's faded from time, but yes. Why?"
Shippou grunted, folding his arms. "Nobody
ever listens to me, I swear. I told you already, that girl said her name
was Ukifune!"
"What girl?" Kagan demanded from behind them,
focusing on the two huddled at the gravestone. "There's nobody here but
us and you and your friends. What girl?"
"Shippou claims he saw yurei, Kagan-san. A
girl ghost, who apparently calls herself Ukifune. The similarity likely
is unsettling."
Their host was frowning, lips drawn thinly
as he thought. "So some angry yurei is causing the accidents? I have a
hard time believing that. Why would some ghost suddenly get angry now,
if she's been dead for a couple hundred years?" Kagan hesitated, but cut
in before either Miroku or Shippou could interrupt. "Oh, I get it, your
shikon thing again. Seems to be pretty damn troublesome for a little bit
of jewelry."
"The Shikon no Tama is no ordinary piece of
jewelry," Miroku told him, a slight edge of sharpness underlying his even
tone. "And we don't know if this Ukifune girl is behind anything at all
yet. She did not harm Shippou."
Kagan shrugged and turned around, picking
up his bucket of weeds and other gardening supplies. "I doubt it. Nothing's
ever happened to me or Yanagi when we take care of this place. Maybe that's
why we've never been attacked, eh? We take care of the memorial site of
the yurei," he snorted derisively. "I'm heading back in. Yanagi's probably
got my supper ready, unless she's running late. If you want to eat, I suggest
you take a break from your wandering around my home."
"We'll follow soon, Kagan-san," Miroku told
him, standing up as the older man turned and left, vanishing into the beams
of red light and foliage. Alone, Miroku looked down at Shippou. "You're
sure she said Ukifune?"
The kitsune nodded, hopping up onto Miroku's
shoulder for a perch. "Un. He doesn't like us very much."
Miroku shrugged and began to walk, heading
back towards the mansion's interior and the kitchens, where dinner supposedly
awaited. "He doesn't like people he doesn't know in his home. But I believe
he may have a point."
"What's that?"
"If it is your Ukifune friend," he reasoned,
"and Kagan-san and Yanagi-san tend to her memorial, perhaps that is why
they have not been harmed."
"I really don't think she'd hurt anybody,"
Shippou mumbled, partially to himself. But sitting on Miroku's shoulder,
the houshi heard him.
"Why's that?"
Shippou fiddled with his tail for a second,
thinking of the pale girl's wide lavender eyes, and how sad they seemed
when he ran away. "She didn't seem angry. Just lonely. And that's not a
reason to go trying to hurt people."
"Loneliness sometimes festers, Shippou. In
the case of this girl, let us hope that is not the case."
And so they reached the mansion, and followed
the scent of cooking rice.
*****************************************
Hm, well, as for Ukifune's 'grave' it's just
a marker set there. People weren't always buried where their gravestones
were, but the stone would sometimes be set as a memorial for the deceased.
So, I put Ukifune's and her family's in a pretty garden.
I know, not much going on in this chapter,
but it's setting up stuff for next time. ^.~
Ja ne!
-Queen