The day came and Kaede was her normal, cheerful self again. Kikyou dashed out to the cave and continued her work. The days went by faster than ever with her routine. From the village, to the cave, to the fields, and back again. Winter of this year had the village covered in a thick blanket of snow, which left many villagers out with illnesses from the cold.
Kikyou walked through the village with her woven hat and poncho of straw, going house to house with herbs to help the sick. As she made her way through the village, a strange sound could be heard from behind her. Something, or someone, was jumping consecutively in an attempt to follow her. She lifted her hat slightly to tip some of the snow from the top. Listening to the sounds around her, she noticed that the stalker had stopped moving as well.
With that, she entered the hut that she and her sister shared and grabbed her things for the trip to see Onigumo. Onigumo had been showing signs of improvement over the past few months. He was able to speak more and he has grown comfortable to Kikyou's presence.
"Onigumo. 'Tis I, Kikyou," she stated as she entered the cave, "I have brought wood, berries, and more herbs for your burns."
A series of groans from deep in the cave told Kikyou that he had heard her and she could enter freely. Taking a deep breath and tilting her hat to free it from the snow, she carefully entered the cave with all of her belongings. Onigumo lay close to the far wall, roughly six feet so that the chill from the stone would not make him ill. Kikyou worked on the fire, beating two flint stones together, the sparks catching the bits of straw that she had placed in and over the wood. Onigumo's lidless eyes watched her every move. From the flint to the grinding stone, he took in her movements with careful accuracy.
Kikyou could feel him looking at her and she glanced up from the bowl of herbs she was grinding.
"Are you well, Onigumo?" She asked with a smile.
He moaned through his teeth and she quickly went back to work. Within a few minutes, she was finished with the grinding stone and was changing Onigumo's bandages. He moaned in pain as she stripped the bandages from his sore flesh and then applied clean ones that were covered in herbal medicine.
"Now then," Kikyou wiped her brow and put more wood on the fire, "are you able to eat?" Onigumo nodded his head slightly and Kikyou grabbed a small pouch and vile. "These are some berries that I picked earlier. Here you are." Kikyou fed him carefully, watching his jaw slowly move in the process of chewing up each berry. She waited until he had finished the pouch off before offering the water, which he happily accepted. "I must return to the village now. I shall return before nightfall to check up on you and the fire."
She rose to her feet and made her way to the exit when his moaning caught her attention. She turned to him with confusion and looked at him.
"K…iky…ou…thank…you…" He muttered clumsily.
Kikyou smiled and bowed, then walked away, tying the woven poncho around her and placing her hat onto her head. She rushed to the village as fast as she could, the snowfall had worsened and she had no water with her. She became blinded by the falling snow and soon found herself lost in the forest without any sign of the village or help. She could try to go back to the cave, but she would still have no water.
The temperature had dropped dramatically; Kikyou fought her way through the blizzard but she could not find the village. Feeling had left her legs and hands and strength was being sapped from her body with each weary step. Night was falling, she thought, it was dark enough to be. She promised Onigumo she would return, but how could she in this storm.
Her legs gave out when she hit a small dip in the forest floor. She fell to her knees with a hard and slushy thud. Her hands caught the ground as well as a nearby tree but she found no strength to pull herself up. Her eyes were heavy and the cold unbearable. She had to stay awake. Just then, her right hand slid down the trunk of the tree and dove into the snow. Her body was now too heavy to hold up. Kikyou strained but, just as she raised one hand up, the other hand gave in.
Lying in the snow, as still as the dead, Kikyou tried to look around her. She opened her mouth to speak but no sounds came out. She thought of Kaede and her promise. How foolish of her to have left the cave, she thought. She lifted her right hand slightly from the snowy ground and moved her head to look ahead.
"Inu…Inuya…sha…" She whispered. Her hand fell limp and her eyes slowly closed, as her surroundings grew dim. The cold was gone.
Hopping through the treetops, trying to avoid the cold, Inuyasha dashed through looking for a fight. His flaming red gi shown easily through the blizzard and the claw marks on the trees aided him in directions. He bounded his way along when a branch gave way beneath him, dropping him into a deep snowdrift.
"Phth!! That sucked!" Inuyasha complained as he jumped out from the snowdrift's hold. "Who the hell's been messing with my trees?" He sniffed the frostbitten air for a moment, his ears twitching every-now-and-then. "That smell…" He hopped into a tree and sniffed again. Several snowflakes found their way into his nose but he huffed them out quickly and continued to smell. Just then, he caught whiff of something. He sniffed again, the smell was faint but he was certain it was bellflower. "Kikyou!"
He dove from his perch and into the snow. He dashed between trees and over hills of snow then kicked off a tree to the right for a sharp left until he landed almost on top of Kikyou. He sniffed the air again.
"She's close…I can smell her." He spun around to a small mound of snow and his eyes widened in shock. "Kikyou!"
He dove next to the mound and began to shovel snow to the sides. It was then that he came to something white beneath the snow. He tried to shovel it but nothing happened. He sniffed and his ears twitched.
"Kikyou!"
He dug her from her snow prison as fast as his cold hands would allow. She was slightly blue tinted from the cold and her breathing was shallow. The storm was dying now and he picked her up and began towards the village. His feet were beginning to go numb as he neared the village and a voice came into his head.
"Hold it! You got the priestess, now trade her for the jewel." The voice said. "You know they won't accept you for what you are…just forget about her and get the jewel. So what if she dies!"
Another voice came into his head; he froze in the clearing, stunned by confusion of these two feelings.
"Don't forget about her! You forget about her then you are no better than the demon scum you've killed with your claws. So what if you're half demon. You saved her so they have to listen. If they don't, take care of her yourself."
Inuyasha stood in the falling snow, his head spinning with confusion. He looked to the forest behind him, then to the village, and to Kikyou's lifeless form that he held in his arms. His ears pressed back and he looked to the village, determination and defiance in his expression. He may have been treated poorly as a child, but he was not going to let a few villagers push him around this time.
With his mind made up and his destination before him, he dashed over the small fence and up the stone steps to the village. Without hesitation, he went to the first house he came by and knocked on the door with such fury that it shook on its hinges. A slim man with a small goatee and thin mustache came to the door. He looked as if he had just woken up.
The man did not say any words to Inuyasha. He looked down to Kikyou then back to Inuyasha's face, then his eyes trailed to Inuyasha's ears that were twitching slightly in the breeze.
"Well, old man? Gonna let us in and treat her or not?" Inuyasha snapped, breaking the silence.
"Oh! Yes, of course! Come in, come in!" The man ushered Inuyasha in the house and instructed him to place Kikyou on the mat in the front room.
Inuyasha did as he was instructed and watched as the man dashed through the house to boil water, fetch rags, more blankets, make sure the children were in bed asleep, and get the wife up. Inuyasha held in a laugh then looked to Kikyou's sleeping form. With one clawed hand, he nervously brushed her soaked bangs to the side.
The man began quick work on Kikyou and Inuyasha stood up and walked out of the house. The man tried to stop him but it was too late. Inuyasha had sped off into the forest again. Minutes turned into hours and the snowy night turned into a clear day. Kikyou opened her eyes shortly after breakfast and the family was excited.
"Where am I?" She asked kindly.
"The village, Lady Kikyou. Some stranger saved you." The man said with a yawn.
"A stranger? What did this stranger look like, if I may?"
The man sat for a moment in thought, trying to remember every detail he could. It was not until his ear itched that he remembered.
"The boy had ears on top of his head. His hair was a silvery color and he wore a gi of burning red." He nodded. "I suspect a demon, if not part."
"I see." Kikyou bowed her head then stood up, wobbling slightly, and using the wall for a brace, she exited the house with a final bow of thanks.
Winter was still there. Slightly weakened from her run in with the blizzard, Kikyou began her routines once more. Her time with Onigumo was filled with apologies for not returning as she had said and time with the villagers were nothing more than questions about her accident, the man that saved her, and if she were all right. The day was far more stressful than she needed it to be.
With a sigh, she entered the hut and laid herself down and gazed at the ceiling. Her eyes slowly closed and she began to drift to a faraway place. In this place, there was no Shikon no Tama, no fears, no war, and the land was rich with life. Then, there was Inuyasha. Kikyou stood in the mystic meadow of this imaginary world and stared at Inuyasha's form. She wanted to speak to him, to ask him why he saved her, to be near him.
She ran to him and fell into his arms; tears of joy streaking down her face. Inuyasha lifted her chin and gazed down at her with a gentle smile. His golden eyes sparkled in the twinkling light of the passing fireflies. He brushed her hair to the side and placed a hand to Kikyou's cheek.
"I want to be with you, Kikyou." He said softly as he leaned closer to her face and gently pressed his lips to hers.
"SISTER KIKYOU!!" Kaede's voice rang out causing Kikyou to lose sight of her magnificent world and to be flung, headlong, into reality.
"Kaede! What is the matter!?" Kikyou sat up to see Kaede clinging to her for dear life. "Kaede! Kaede, what is the matter?" She pried Kaede's hands from around her waist and looked her in the eyes. "What is the matter?"
"Si-si-si-sister Kikyou!! Out-out-outside!! He's-he's dead!!" Kaede cried, heaving for breath.
"Calm yourself, who is dead?" Kikyou let Kaede cling to her again and rubbed Kaede's back in an attempt to calm her down enough to be understood.
Unfortunately, Kaede had passed out from shock and Kikyou was forced to move from the hut in order to figure out what had scared Kaede so badly. She walked through the streets and reached the entrance where a small group of villagers had gathered. She heaved a sigh and forced her weary body to walk up to the circle as casual as she could. The circle broke quickly upon seeing her and Kikyou was left to sort out the mess. What she saw shot through her like one of her own arrows.
"S-Shin?" She knelt near the bloody remains to see that the child was indeed Shin and that someone, or something, had slit his throat.
She brushed her hand through his hair then closed his eyes. Her fist clenched tightly and sorrow burning within her chest. She rose to her feet, one villager came over and removed the child's body from the street and a group of four came and began to wash the blood from the street.
"Who would…do such a thing…as to steal the life away from a small child?" Kikyou whispered as she slowly made her way back to the hut.
Kaede lay in Kikyou's bed, still sound asleep from when she passed out. Kikyou sat next to her sister and stroked her head gently. Her thoughts of Inuyasha were gone and her emotions were running high. She gazed down at her sleeping sister and remembered how she had cried after learning about their parents that night. She wished she had not told her.
"I want you to have a happy childhood, Kaede." She whispered. "The one thing I never had."
