Ahh!!! It's been almost two months since I've updated?! *melts into a little puddle* if you're still reading this, I think you so much for your patience! I doubt I have any readers left, though, from my severe negligence of this poor story….so if you're still reading, I love you ^_^
I realized I had to finish it when we went to an anime convention and I went to an Inuyasha panel…I'm like "noooooooo, my storyyyyy!" so I got my butt rolling. It's been so busy with school and everything…blasted school!
I just got a review of the last chapter recently and it reminded me to update! (I had the chap finished, but I forgot to upload it -.-;;;) So…enjoy!
The next morning felt familiar. When she opened her eyes and saw the sunlight streaming in, Sango felt a tug. As if some memory of her past was pulling her towards it, trying to force her to remember.
Letting herself go, Sango sank deeper into the memory. Outside, the voices of many children. The smells of breakfast cooking and crackling one room away. Someone calling her name…
"Sango chan!"
Reality broke through the memory, and she shook it away as the last remnant of sleep.
The girl with the strange clothing entered the room then.
"Are you up yet, Sango?"
"H…Hai." Sango sat up and looked about her warily. The monk was nowhere in sight, but the boy with those ridiculous ears hovered in the doorway.
What a strange group of people.
But then, am I any different? She asked herself. Now added to the fun is someone who has no idea who she is and where she comes from.
"Come on, then. It's time for breakfast."
Rubbing her eyes one last time, she followed the girl off towards the next room.
The topic of conversation during breakfast, though they tried dancing around the subject, focused solely on Sango. All the attention was making her a little bit timid, and she blushed every time another question was directed at her.
"Sango? Do you remember me?" A small boy who looked like a cross between a human and a fox leapt up on the table, staring at her expectantly.
She really shouldn't have been surprised by that time, but she still let out a little shriek of alarm when he materialized out of practically nowhere.
"Of course not, dummy. She lost her memory," Piped up the boy with the ears.
"Well I didn't know," whined the little fox.
"Excuse me," Sango said, interrupting the budding fight, "But what are your names? I only know his name," she nodded at Miroku, who was staring out into space with a faraway expression on his face.
"I'm Shippou!" Chirped the fox. Sango wanted to think of a polite way to ask what he was but couldn't.
"I'm Kagome," said the girl wearing the strange clothes. She nudged the boy with the ears.
"Introduce yourself!" She hissed.
Inuyasha just snorted.
"I'll use the 'o' word," she said threateningly.
Sango merely tilted her head and watched this display of animosity. The boy made a wild variety of ugly faces at the girl and the girl screamed at him.
"OSUWARI!" She shrieked, and to Sango's surprise, he smashed to the ground, demolishing the floor underneath.
She simply stared for a moment, and then, as the boy lifted his head off the ground with a murderous look, she couldn't help herself-she burst out laughing.
"I'm-I'm sorry," she managed between giggles, seeing the evil glare turn on her, "It's just that the look on your face-it was so funny…"
When her laughter dwindled, she was aware of something strange-everyone had fallen silent and was staring at her as if she'd done something…wrong.
"N…nani?" Sango asked quickly, eyes flying from one face to the next. On Miroku's face, there was a small smile.
"That's the first time I've heard you laugh in ages," he said softly, quiet enough so the others wouldn't hear.
"What do you…?"
"Never mind. It's nothing," he said shortly.
Kagome forced her eyes away from Sango's face and towards Inuyasha as she became aware of Sango's embarrassment.
The rest of breakfast continued without further event-the boy with the ears sat up, the girl finished eating, and Miroku stared out into space.
When the meal was over, the group dissipated. Kagome glanced at her worriedly, and then back at Miroku. "You can go," she said with a wave of her hand.
Miroku shook his head. "You go, I'll stay."
Kagome looked like she might refuse, but when she saw the expression on Miroku's face, she relented, and walked out of the room. "Tell me if you need anything, Sango."
So she was left facing Miroku, once again unsure of what to do or say. "Are you guys taking turns babysitting me?" She asked dryly.
At this he only smiled. "Come on, we have a lot of work to do." And before she knew what was happening, he had seized her hand and pulled her out of the room.
At the touch of his hand, she felt an odd tug again, something trying to pull off the sheet from her memory. It was as if there was a curtain there, but she could only see vague outlines-a hand there, an arm here.
It was all so familiar, so frustratingly so that she had to
stop. The warm feel of his hand, the strange sensation of the rosary beads
slipping through their fingers, his strong with a masculine thickness, and hers
thin, too thin, and most of all, the sensual tingling rushing up her arm.
"What's wrong?" Miroku asked, seeming far away. He thought that the touch of their hands had offended her-after all, to her, he barely knew her, and he'd felt her hand twitch involuntarily when they first touched.
She looked at him, and he was a part of her far away, unreachable memory, something from the past.
"It's…I just suddenly felt like you've done that before, when you really haven't…"
For a long while he just looked at her, and even though it was only a few short seconds it seemed so much longer.
His gaze made her uncomfortable, and she shifted under the scrutiny of those blue-grey eyes.
"Umm…Was it…from before?"
A slight nod.
When she opened her mouth to respond, she was interrupted by a tiny cream colored animal rushing before them, and, upon seeing her, scurrying up to her and fluttering excitedly around her ankles.
Sango bent down and held her finger out, and the animal-it appeared to be a cat-sniffed it tentatively.
It looked at her uncertainly and its face almost looked confused.
"It really is Sango," Miroku assured it, and, convinced, the little cat jumped onto her lap and closed its eyes.
"It's so cute," she said, stroking it, "What is it?"
He knelt down next to her and gave Kirara a little pat on the head.
"She's a cat youkai. She can change forms when she's in battle, and she flies. Your pet, Kirara."
Sango looked at Kirara with another hint of incredulous. Here was this animal that was still hers, still knew it was she, yet it was only another piece of her old life. It was incredible to her that her old life had been so complex, how many holes she would have left in her absence.
"Oi, Sango. We must go and continue our walk."
"Walk?"
"Down memory lane," he said, grinning at the stupid cliché he'd picked up from Kagome.
"Alright," she replied uncertainly, and the two of them continued down the temple hallway.
"Where are Kagome and Inu…Inu…"
"Inuyasha," he said, then added, "I don't know. It doesn't really matter, does it?"
She shrugged, desperate for an escape from this singular company. Although he was acting more positive than yesterday, he was still a pervert, and there was something about him that was mysterious, something that both intrigued and frightened her. So, for some reason, she felt herself following him.
"Here we are, in the main hallway. Does this look familiar to you?" He was holding what looked like a giant weapon of some sort. Sango shook her head helplessly; this was all completely new to her.
Miroku sighed, but he didn't look like he was anywhere near giving up. Sango felt slightly guilty.
"I'm sorry," she said, but he only shook his head.
"Don't apologize. It's not your fault, nowhere near your fault." She felt a slight temptation to ask whose fault it was, but his averted eyes told her to do otherwise.
"Let's continue on, then." The rest of the afternoon commenced in the same fashion. He would present to her some new object, ask her if she remembered it, she would shake her head, they would move on.
Sango, after having spent the entire day with Miroku, found him to be strangely aggravating. She barraged him with a fusillade of questions, but he refused to answer any of them.
As if……he was hiding something.
She resolved to ask Kagome about it later.
They had dinner that night outside under the stars. It was slightly chilly, but Kagome had insisted upon it.
Inuyasha slinked about, finally climbing the tree and leaving the rest of them sitting on a blanket.
Sango ate silently, observing her companions-she didn't trust any of them enough to call them friends, even Miroku- so she could learn as much as possible about them.
Kagome was shivering softly, but she tried to cover it up by sliding into a shadow. Suddenly, from above, Inuyasha dropped his haori on her head.
"Wear this," he said bluntly, muttering something under his breath about "damn humans who can't keep their own body heat."
Sango decided they must be in love-had to be, or else they wouldn't act like this, even Inuyasha with his false gruffness.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Miroku staring at her.
"Cold?"
She shook her head, and he turned back to his meal. It had never occurred to her that he might have been in love with her, too. It didn't occur to her now.
Late night. Sango had been asleep for hours, but awoke suddenly nearly suffocating on a feeling of ill-being.
A nightmare, she'd been having a nightmare, but the pieces remained like her so-called memory; fragments of a nothingness.
The voices she heard ringing in her ears than were not of her dreams, but of real life people.
They were not in this room; she looked over at the sleeping pallets next to her and found them empty.
Still half-asleep, Sango shuffled out of the room and down the hallway, following the voices.
"-still think I would be better to handle this." Kagome's voice, then a pause.
"I do not care. I do not care what you think."
Kagome's voice again, sounding aggravated, "Just stop the foolishness, Miroku. Give it up."
"No," he said softly, "I won't. This is all my fault that any of this happened in the first place."
"You don't have to do penance," Kagome protested, "You don't have to force yourself to hurt all the time."
"But I want to do it. I want to help her. Being around her just makes me happy."
"But it also makes you hurt."
Miroku remained silent as her lucid remark hit it spot.
"I know you don't like it that Inuyasha feels responsible for Kikyou," he said slowly, knowing the harshness of the comment, "But don't prevent me from seeing Sango, or
I shall have to override your wishes."
"Shut up," she said tersely, her voice no longer patient and wise, but more ragged. Sango thought she also heard the hint of tears.
Who was Kikyou? Sango sensed something about these people, something that showed some terrible secret. Secrets that she wasn't sure she wanted unveiled. She had been amongst this group before, meaning that she, too, had a horrible secret?
"I don't want her to remember, though. Don' t you think it would be better for her?"
"No!" Miroku's voice cut, startling Kagome.
"It's true that she wanted to forget. She wanted to forget so badly at times that she cried at night when she thought no one was listening. She acts tough, but I know underneath, she was hurting. But she has forgotten completely about her brother, who she loved. And us......she and I……I would not mind if she forgot about me, but I am in this too deep now to back out. I must care for her in the short time before I die. It might even be better this way for both of us."
"Miroku sama…" Kagome, overwhelmed, let her tears spill over.
Miroku did nothing, just stared at her with a sad expression on his face.
"This just isn't fair that any of this had to happen," she said, voice choking on sobs. "If only we could all stop hurting all the time."
Sango, though monstrously fascinated by this raw angst in front of her, felt it was time to return to her bed.
When she lay down, she could still hear the muffled whisperings of weeping in the other room. But sleep evaded her the rest of the night, even after Miroku and Kagome silently returned to their beds almost an hour later.
What horrible secret did they all keep from her? It filled her with anger to think that they were consciously hiding something of her past that she had the right to know. And what about Miroku?
He was going to die soon?
She longed for the morning to come.
Um…yep.
I dunno when the next chapter will be…I've written quite a bit more after after this, but it's for the very ending..gotta fill in the gaps ^_^ But count on a few more chapters, two or three more. Okay. Um. Review if you love it!
x~Aurora chan