May 4, 2002

(Author's Note: Yajuumaru, Bishouen and all around original good looking young man, is a trademark of Leloi and is brought into this story with her permission. I couldn't let Yashira's equal stay clear of this story... it just isn't done. ^__^)

Sister, Sister

By Yashira

Chapter 9

Fearful shrieks and howls, echoing like madden black birds suddenly caught in an invisible net, emancipated from three young girls with panic stricken features. They raced down a proud stone archway which incased a stairway with precious cries of, "Mikada! Mikada!" The girls wore simple kimonos of white, had their black hair tied back into delicate buns, and they carried what look like rosary beads tucked into their sashes.

In panic-stricken shoves they filed down into the stone-built room, known to them as the "inner sanctum," with a desperate attempt to reach the white haired woman standing before an ornate dish lit with fire.

The room was equally ornate and beautiful in itself as reliefs of carved mythical creatures were imprinted along each and every wall. The marble floor was etched with a star like pattern that was partially obscured by the strips of gold carpet which raced from the open archway in three different directions, North, East, West. Benches of oak, laced with flowers and scented with lavender, laid on either side of the room as torches, lit and set into scones, illuminated the remainder of the room where the dais and the woman known as Mikada stood upon.

Without greeting them, not even lifting her face to acknowledge they were there, the white haired woman sprinkled a bit of dry herbs into the flames of the golden dish. If she had not moved she may have been mistaken for being part of the room. Her clothing was simple and yet costly. The red fabric of her skirt was of the rarest of silks as was the pureness of her white blouse. Like a statue carved with exquisite detail, she stood frozen until she finally broke the silence in a voice that was both authorial and condemning. "What is it?" The crushed smell of sage mingling with that of cinnamon rose thickly in the air.

"Outside… there's... strangers… not human…" Their exertions clearly showed on pale faces with cheeks aglow with a crimson backwash. The girls were huffing and puffing, trying to get their breath back. "One is… a youkai…"

The woman did not seem to stir a moment as aged fingers rested a moment over the fire.

"Mikada..?" The eldest of the three girls was rubbing the tears softly from her cheeks as fear had made her cry -fear of the youkai or of Mikada- it wasn't quite sure at the moment. "They're coming this way."

"Let him come…" And there was fierceness to the voice as she turned her face to the children, "I will meet him here…"

"How-how did you know it's a him?" The eldest asked, but immediately started to whimper as the woman fixed stern pale grey eyes on her.

"I even know his name… are you still sure you wish to know why?"

The girl did not even dare lift her head let alone return an answer.

***

Quick fleeting footsteps, almost like a sudden rustling through summer leaves, echoed through the forest as he raced ahead. Branches flew back, leaves parted as he danced through the foliage and down the sunlit path, but ever onward he pressed. "This is a beautiful day for running," he called out to the birds that whistled over head, his voice resonant and vibrant, as he could not help, but throw back head back with clear laughter flowing from his lips.

It was such a perfect day. The bright yellow sunlight surrounded him with warmth and devotion making his whole body feel safe and completely at peace. He felt comfortable here… comfortable and protected. He continued his race with the birds through the forest, his bare feet making swift easy passages over branch, grass, and dirt, with neither a care in the world. Everything was right with the world! Everything was…!?!

His breath caught suddenly as if he had been struck with a hammer, and his green eyes narrowed sharply on the view ahead. There were others here? Others of his kind? For the first time in his 200-year existence, there were others!

He slid his fingers deftly over the rough bark as green emerald like eyes watched the two of them in amazement. ~Others of my kind…a man and a woman…~ His bushy tail shifted nervously as he swallowed uneasily. He wanted so very much to run up to them and greet them, but there was a flutter of panic that grew to a heart wrenching fear when he realized he didn't know a thing about them. What if he did something that would… gasp... make them hate him? There was no way he was about to make the first people he had ever met into instant enemies so he did what any smart person would do, he hid.

Yajuumaru, lord of all that was the Whispering woods, with his wolfish-bushy tail hanging between his legs, cowered from behind the trees. He would watch and learn; wait and spy.

***

"What the fuck?!" Inuyasha spat out dirt and grass from where he had fallen promptly on his face. He knew he was sprawled over the dark green grass beneath him, but there was also something lumpy and not quite dirt like. "Kaede's got a lot to answer for… damn it…"

"Nice greeting to this area, hanyou, now get the fuck off me!" Yashira, as her pale face squished into the fresh grass underneath Inuyasha, pressed hard fingers into his exposed arm. There was a slight smell of burning skin before an echoing curse followed. Roughly Inuyasha was on his feet, whirling around with his hand on Tetsusaiga.

"You stupid bitch, what the fuck was that for?"

"It got you up didn't it?" Already she was on her knees and starting to rise to her feet.

"Oh I'll show you, what I got up!" With Tetsusaiga ringing free of its sheath, he raised the old blade high into the air as he prepared to lash out the Kaze no Kizu.

"Osuwari!!"

"DAMN IT!"

***

Waiting… took an awful long time. If he did not have the patience of the very ancient woods around him, he would have tore out his black braided hair in frustration. No, instead he diligently watched the group argue as the white hair man or was it a boy, since he was clearly too young to be old, argued with one a woman. If it wasn't for that hair which seemed bleached like bone and the dog ears, Yajuumaru would have felt even more conscious of his own physical features. His wolf tail and ears shaped almost like that of an elf would have stood out even more.

In surprise he watched the boy pull out a sword to attack the woman, the face of whom Yajuumaru could not see. He may have grown up within a land of peace, but he knew the difference from playing nice and being mean… his mother had made sure he had learn that lesson at a very young age before she had rooted. "Now see-" He tried to say, but his voice was drowned out by a newcomer who said a simple word which sent the boy crashing to the forest floor.

"Sit?" he pondered with confusion. "That would never work on me... must be something to do with that white hair."

He shifted through the trees, blending his body into the bark as he moved in closer.

***

"Okay. Well, now that we're here… what are we suppose to do?" Kagome was glancing around the forest with curious eyes. She could hear the flutter of bird and squirrel as they scuttled along the branches, but she could not see them. "I did a little bit of exploring, but I don't know what the Averios looks like and this place is huge." She sounded a bit dejected.

"Did anyone think to ask Kaede about what it looked like?" Inuyasha's voice had a trace of suspicion and yet mixed with it was the condemning air of one suddenly thrusted into a situation that was both against his better and uniformed knowledge.

Kagome's brown eyes gave Inuyasha a thorough look over. "Well, did you think of it?" The hanyou had the good sense to be looking elsewhere when Kagome turned the question back on him.

"I've seen it once so I think I could find it," Yashira replied with a smirk as she gestured the description to them with her slender fingers. "Just look for a very small herb that has 3 leaves…"

"You're not thinking of poison ivy, are you?" Kagome wore a classic look of bewildered surprise. "If you are I got news for you. It is not as extinct as you think it should be."

Negatively shaking her head, Yashira delicately smoothed out her black rumpled skirt and white blouse. "This plant has 3 leaves and it's a distinct shade of blue. It sprouts white flowers every 2nd year and it tends to grow in or near the roots of huge aged trees."

"Ah, okay… well I didn't see anything blue then." Kagome replied dejectedly as she turned her gaze up into the branches ahead, "I hope Miroku is still okay… What if the herb doesn't grow here."

"Let's not think like that, nee Kagome?" Yashira's blue eyes fell on the girl with a grim expression. "There was a saying by a certain teacher I had when I was growing up. She said, Do what you must do without regrets… So let us just do what we can."

Kagome let out a soft sign, her worrisome thoughts still on Miroku, "I guess… I'm just worried." She paused unexpectedly and blinked in surprise at Yashira, "Hey, why are you looking at me like that?"

Yashira looked a bit startled as if she'd been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar, "Ah, nothing sorry. You just looked like someone I knew, for a moment. Shall we go?" She hadn't really expected to give Kagome a thoroughly look over and had been trying to keep herself from doing that ever since she'd first been in their company, but the girl looked so much like-

"You know, for a plant that is extinct, how the hell did you see one up close?" Inuyasha's voice was purely suspicious as it distracted the young miko from her thoughts.

With a shake of her head, Yashira glanced at Inuyasha with a look of irritation. "Like I would explain anything to you…. Now shall we go look."

"That's not an answer, bitch. Look you may be able to get Kaede and the others convinced to trust you, but you can't convince me…"

Black hair swirled around her shoulders as she spun around to face him with blue eyes paling and lifted outstretched fingers she called out boldly, "HEAVEN ASCENSION-"

Golden amber eyes narrowed furiously as he jerked Tetsusaiga free, "You bitch, if you think I'm going to-!"

"Yashira, please don't!" Kagome cried out and yet her words fell on deaf ears because Yashira simply did not heed her.

"BLAST!"

Blue-white fire struck out from her hand, coiling and springing forward like a snake to smack hard into the tree just to the left of Inuyasha.

"FEH, your aim is getting worse and worse," Inuyasha mocked as he brought Tetsusaiga in for a returning blow. He would not let her lift her fingers against him for a second time.

"I wasn't aiming at you, you self-absorbed idiot. There's a youkai in that tree… or was… a moment ago." Blue eyes fixed on the wood in front of her that was scorched and emancipated a burnt and crispy smell. "It's not there now, but by the mark on the wood it had been…"

Kagome blinked in surprised as she fixed her gaze on the wood. There were traces of… something, but whatever it was, was now gone. "What was it?"

"You can't fool-" And yet Inuyasha let the words die on his lips as he turned and took a few steps into the woods. His footsteps had started slow, but they intensified until he was running. "There's something here…" He returned a moment later with a look of surprise on his face. "There was something in the air, I could smell it… something like a wolf and yet isn't. The scent dies though, it just disappears as if it wood ate it. There was definitely something though."

Kagome looked suddenly worried as she crept closer to Inuyasha. "Maybe that's why those villagers never came back… because of a youkai here?"

Inuyasha growled and glared at the woods around him as if by his ferocity that would keep any ill seekers away. "Well, whatever it was, I know its smell and Yashira can sense when it's near by. Together we'll just smash it to pieces." He paused and glanced at their startled expressions. "WHAT?"

Weaving a hand through her black hair, she turned a dismissive shrug in his direction. "Provided that I would help a hanyou…"

"Hey, don't think it's because I like you or anything," Inuyasha huffed indignantly, "I just won't let anything hurt Kagome… and I'm sure you would think that too." ~Afterall she's a miko like you and you don't harm your kind…~

"Perhaps." Her reply was guarded and cautious as if she did not wish to give an inch to anything he would say. "Come lets go… your friend won't heal on his own… unless you call death a 'healing.'"

There was a low deep growl from his throat, followed by a venous yellow-eyed stare which was suddenly interrupted by Kagome. "Inuyasha, just… let it go. I think she'll help... just don't push her." Kagome reached out for his sleeve and he looked a bit aback by her words.

Those had been Kaede's very words to Yashira. Don't push him. Was he, and Yashira, so similarly alike that they got the same warning? No, may it never be. He took a few steps forward with Kagome held protectively at his side.

"Maybe if we split up…"

He let out a snort at Yashira's words. "That's the last thing we need with whatever is out there, but if you want to go off on your own, then go ahead."

"Now, now, don't be like that. I'm sure we can do this right." Kagome replied with a hopeful expression. "Come on. It is for Miroku, let's not argue and find the plant."

"Yeah, and if we could? Where's the exit?" Inuyasha was quick to remind them of the downside of their situation. "Didn't think of that did you? Feh."

Yashira rolled her eyes at him as she started down the forest path. Birds and squirrels still whistled at their approach, but they seem hidden and well out of reach. "Kaede didn't know, but I'm sure we can find it. We're both mikos, we could sense it…"

He grumbled sourly, "I hope so… getting stuck here with Kagome is one thing, but being stuck here with you too… is entirely another."

She gave him a wry smile, "Then we at least agree on something, hanyou. Let's us go."

***

He stood in the branches about a great distance away from them. God! He had NEVER expected that girl to sense him! One moment he had been passing through the trees, moving swiftly to get a closer look at them and then the next moment she had turned to stare at him. He had never expected that feeling he got when she had faced him either because it was almost as if they had connected on some deep subconscious level.

Her black hair slid down a pale oval face, with sharp blue eyes so prominent that he felt they could see within and beyond him. In fact those blue eyes had been so sharp that he had lost himself in their gaze. Only quick instinct had saved him, when she had thrown that blue-white fire at him, sending him spinning wildly from the tree. After that he'd disappeared into the trees around him before the white hair boy could think to track. But that girl... had sensed him.

He'd have to keep an eye out for that one. There was something about her, aside from her uncanny ability to sense when he came near, that intrigued him. And, he told himself solidly, It had nothing to do with her being pretty either.

***

"Nothing... nothing's here," Yashira called back as she kicked at a mound of dirt near the fifth tree they'd "searched."

"Are you sure it's only these kind of trees that let the Averios grow beneath it?" Kagome was searching with her fingers, weaving them through the dirt and grass as Yashira growled and cursed.

"Yes," Yashira replied as a hint of frustration leaked into her voice. "Only aged trees similar to the Goshinboku can support that herb… there may be hundreds of them that seem that old, but I've only found 5 similar trees so far. It is a poor progress that has us spending most of the day with little or nothing to show of it."

Inuyasha grumble uneasily as he watched them out of the corner of his eyes. "Did you notice that it's only now turning into night? Wasn't it night when we left…"

Kagome's brown eyes blinked with surprised as he mentioned that. "You know, I was so worried about Miroku… I didn't think about it. I just thought it was a quirk of the "world" we're in."

"Actually it was going to be dawn when we left the village," Yashira replied absently as she strode forward and down another path that appeared within the woods. "We've been here since early dawn…"

Kagome tried to stifle a betraying yawn as her eyes filled with concern. "I wonder how Miroku is doing? Anything could have happened in the time we've been gone."

"Damn, at this rate he'll be dead." Inuyasha slammed his fist into a nearby tree, cursing the frustrating slowness of the situation.

"Maybe." Yashira murmured softly as she recalled the monk who had taken in the hell bees to save them all. Her fingers slid over her necklace around her neck as she remembered the pain and darkness that had flowed from him to her. "But he's a strong man…" ~He has to be if he's still alive~

"If night falls, only Inuyasha will be good enough to go looking," Kagome added softly, her gaze solemn and fixed on Inuyasha as she spoke, "He has good eyes, even in the dark."

"But he doesn't know what he's looking for…" Yashira began as she glanced at the darkening landscape with a sense of hesitation and uneasiness. She was a bit hungry and she knew the others were also since no one had brought anything to eat. She also was fatigued with the lack of sleep the night before, and yet she didn't want to stop... to stop would be to condemn that black haired monk to death. She wasn't prepared to do that. "We can't leave that important task to him…"

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here… I can find what ever I need be… if you two are going to sit down and rest when it gets dark, I can still go look." Inuyasha had his arms crossed, and his stance firm, "What good are you if you can't see in the dark?"

Yashira arched her eyes at him, "Oh?"

"Fuck yes… Remember he's my friend too." He paused in the woods and sniffed the air. "Hmm smells like a hot spring… you and Kagome can even go clean up while I go looking. "

***

"I don't see how we have time to waste here," Yashira huffed as she removed her clothing and followed Kagome's example of moving deep within the warm waters of the hot spring.

"Ah this feels nice. " Kagome replied as she rested her tired back against the sulfuric rocks. Not only did these rocks smell, but they also seemed to give off a yellowish shade of light that lit the whole area with a soft glow. "It's been a while."

The place seemed almost natural in the way it seemingly blended with the enclave of woods surrounding them protectively, but there was something wrong with the layout… it was more artificial than natural occurring. How was that possible?

Hot sulfuric bubbles boiled beneath the surface of the water's edge as Kagome trailed her fingers through them. "Inuyasha can search in the darkness more than what we could do Yashira. And he's concerned about us… since we're human. He knows we need to rest."

"Human? Ah yeah. Well I could see that being true of you, but me… no… I don't need to rest." She added the last quickly as if she had realized how her words might untimely be construed. Yashira moved slowly in, her black hair sliding over well-shaped breasts and neatly flat stomach. "At least it's hot…"

Kagome blinked, surprised at seeing what looked like a pair of old scars, like claw marks, sliding along Yashira's abdomen. How had she got scars like that? By Youkai? "Well. He doesn't like to show it… especially to people who… don't treat him fairly," she hesitated over those words as she glanced away to the side, "But he has a good heart."

"A good heart eh? I wonder if it isn't because you seem soft on him." There was a sort of bitterness to her words as if her thoughts seemed to linger on something else… or another memory.

"Ah well, that is…" Kagome blinked abruptly and then cocked her head quickly to the side. Was someone watching them? "If that's you Inuyasha…OSUWARI!"

There was no telltale echoing thud in reply. Yashira was already turning, her eyes narrowing, "HEAVEN ASCENSION BLAST!!!" Blue-white fire flew out into the woods ahead, sending branches falling and crumbling to the ground. "He's gone…"

"He?" There was startled tint to Kagome's voice. She hadn't been able to figure out gender and didn't know why Yashira had.

"Yeah, but, he's gone… for now."

"KAGOME!" Inuyasha came crashing through the woods, appearing somewhere on the opposite left of where they had been focusing their attention.

"OSWUARI!"

Yashira slid into the water as Inuyasha fell face first into the hot spring's edge, "He'll be back though… I know it."

***

Yajuumaru stopped within the trees, his breath ragged and hanging in his throat as if he'd just run for ages. So that's what she looked like up close. God, he felt wild shivers rush through his body as if he held a raging fever. She… she… What his mother had once warned him off… this woman was the one! His one!

What was wrong with his body? It wanted… something… something indescribable and yet… yet he could not name it! But it all had to do with her… that much he was aware of. If there was anything that he had ever wanted in his life, he was sure it was HER. He wanted her.

***

"Kaede… he's getting worse. I've never seen him go so long without recovering. Oh gods, when will Kagome-chan and Inuyasha come back?" Sango wrung her hands over the wet towel she had pressed over Miroku's boiling forehead. Nearly half a day had passed since the others had left, but already it felt like more than a year.

Kaede could only shrug, "God willing they find the exit soon and the all come back safe. God willing."