You MUST stop by my site and read the NC-17 chapter before this one. If you have not done so, do so now! It's posted and ready for you guys to read so just come back here when you're done and let me know what you think! Or sign the guestbook, that would be kewl. too!
Also, anybody know why, when I save this to html file, that it doesn't type up with any spaces in between different scene paragraphs, like when it goes from Miroku to Kagome in the night? Let me know, please? It's pissing me off!
Once Upon a Dream:
Miroku gazed out silently, over the hill and toward the setting sun far away. The breeze was soft and the land silent. It would be a good night, he reasoned and he bowed his head, his hand trailing over to grasp his staff.
"Hoshi-sama?" came the quiet voice beside him then and he looked over in surprise, lifting his head toward Sango as the demon exterminator smiled down at him and then plopped down beside him.
"Sango? I thought you were inside with Shippo and Inuyasha."
"I was," she nodded and she dragged in her knees to her chest, making herself comfortable and then looking out toward the setting sun. "My, that is beautiful, isn't it?"
"As beautiful as that young maiden down that creek over there-" he motioned rather innocently.
Sango felt the sweatdrop trail down the side of her head. "Ne, hoshi-sama, can we focus for a moment?" she asked with a quivering eyebrow.
Miroku dropped his hand back into his lap, bowing his head once more. "I said it only because I feel what you're going to say," he replied and he slouched a bit, leaning back into the trunk of a tree. He dragged his staff against his body and leaned it across his chest, plopping it so that it also rested against the tree trunk.
"What was I going to say?" Sango asked him quietly although she seemed to understand that he did indeed know.
"You were going to say that you feel something is wrong with Kagome-sama. As if something has been weighing heavily on her. And I am going to agree. I am also going to agree that it is more than the pressure of carrying the Shikon no kakera. It is almost as if she bears another heavy burden alongside it." He lifted his head and squinted at the copper sun. "I have felt it as well."
"What do you think it is?" Sango asked him curiously, leaning toward him a bit.
Miroku's eyes shifted toward her a bit as she came closer and his eyes dropped to her bent knees clothed in her loose robe. "I don't know what it is," he answered. "And I do wish she would talk about whatever is it. It can not be a good thing for a priestess to worry over something other than her main responsibility. She can not lose sight of what she is here to do."
"And what is she here to do?" Sango asked him, cocking her head.
The monk looked at her quickly. "Reuniting the shikon no tama, of course."
Sango nodded. "You sound like Inuyasha, hoshi-sama. It isn't like you." And she faced forward once more, clasping her knees to her chest once more. "We aren't here to remind her every day of what her duty is. She knows what her duty is. We are here to help her carry it out. And we're here doing that because it is our choice to do so."
Miroku stared at her, silent for a moment. And then a small smile crossed his face and nodded. "Yes, we are," he murmured. And he lifted his head to the darkening sky, his hair ruffled by a gentle breeze. "Perhaps I have been sensing something that isn't there. But then, if that were true, we wouldn't be having this talk now, would we?" he mused almost to himself.
Sango shook her head, a bit confused as well. "It feels as if there's something wrong…with the land. As if something dark crawls across it, and I mean besides the demons. And I feel as if something terribly wrong is going to come. But I don't understand it."
"Nor do I," Miroku said. "But, my dreams aren't helping it."
"Your dreams?" Sango asked with a frown and she looked at him once more.
The monk's face darkened a bit, thoughtfully. "It's hard to grasp them once I wake up, which is strange of itself because I can always remember my dreams. They are messages of what's to come, I'm supposed to remember them when I wake up. But they have been eluding me the last few nights and I can't fathom why…"
"Do you remember anything about them at all?" Sango asked him curiously, her eyes wide.
"Hardly at all. I have visions of Kagome-sama…" and he looked at Sango quickly. "But not in that way! You have my heart, Sango, always!"
Sango's expression threatened to wither.
"But…" and the monk became serious once more. "I see shadows around her, the demons. And I have seen Kikyo many times as well, but I don't understand. Perhaps I'm not supposed to understand, seeing as how I can hardly remember anything concerning those dreams."
Sango swallowed faintly, staring at him. "Do you see a future darkness, hoshi-sama?" she asked him quietly, almost afraid to hear the answer.
He hesitated before speaking, his eyes trained on hers, his face form if a bit pale. "I see nothing but darkness," he answered her in a ghostly breath and they stared at each other for a long moment then, the sun setting blindly to their eyes.
Kagome rose slowly from the floor, alert. It was sometime after midnight and Inuyasha had been the last to fall asleep. Miroku and Sango were splayed out next to each other, Kirara beside her master, a large sleeping giant and a pillow to Shippo. Kaede had gone to sleep long before and had retired to another room seeing as how their group was large enough to fill up this one. Kagome allowed her eyes to trail over Inuyasha's form intently, looking for any sign of movement, any deception in his sleep. But he did not stir and she quickly wound around in front of him, coming close to Miroku. Carefully, she glanced down and paused as the monk motioned in his sleep, his hand clutching his staff almost fearfully. She watched him for a moment, studying his movements, and he perspired, his limbs making jerky movements.
A nightmare, I guess…
But she wasn't about to wake him. She wanted to take a walk and now would be the best time, when no one would even realize she was gone.
I see your darkness. You will destroy us all.
Miroku twisted his head a bit, not understanding. Kagome, bathed in shadows and in her hand, cupped by her fingers lay the Shikon no Tama, gleaming brilliantly. She was nude but enveloped by those strange shadows and far away in the back, also in the darkness, Kikyo wept where she kneeled, her tears trailing through her fingers. Miroku shook his head, lips parting in confusion.
"I have a desire, Miroku-sama," Kagome whispered to him and she opened her fingers a bit more for him to see the Shikon no Tama. "It talks to me, sometimes, and it tells me that I can have whatever I wish…"
"Kagome-sama!" he cried to her, lifting a hand. "That jewel can give you nothing! It can only-" and from his hand his Kazaana sprang to life, suddenly inhaling more than it ever had before. He flinched, lifting his other hand to grasp his wrist and it was so powerful. How had it ever become this powerful?
"That is your darkness, Miroku-sama," Kagome said to him, the shikon no tama casting eerie lights in the black shadows. "And this is mine. But it is my light as well…"
Miroku grimaced as his hand was ripped from his grasp and he flailed with it for a moment, reaching to grasp it once more.
"It will consume you, Miroku-sama," Kagome said to him, her voice ghostly. "It will consume us all, your darkness, but you above all. My own darkness will consume me. Sango's darkness will consume her before it moves on to us-"
Behind her Kikyo was thrown into shadow and in her place was Sango, lying in a bloody heap but her head nestled in her brother's lap, Kohaku. Kohaku of the blank eyes, his weapon stained with the blood of his family. Miroku nearly choked, his hand forgotten for a moment as it sucked up the darkness surrounding him but doing nothing to rid the strange world he stood in of it.
"There is darkness everywhere, Miroku-sama…" Kagome said to him. "I can hear Kikyo crying, can you hear her?"
And even though Sango remained where she was, he heard the faint remnants of Kikyo's weeping, floating all around them in that dark landscape.
"And Inuyasha…" Kagome said quietly, sadly. "I do it for him, for all of us but for him above all. But he won't want it. He will never want it…"
Miroku stared as before Kagome appeared the figure of Inuyasha in full demon form, his eyes blood red, his fangs dripping foam and saliva. Purple streaks crossed his cheeks and his wrists as he lifted his clawed hands and there was the vision of Sesshoumaru, there in his brother. That was what Inuyasha would be as demon and he was a fearful sight.
"I have a desire…" Kagome said again to him and her hands closed over the Shikon no Tama. And the world lost all light, that fearful darkness enveloping them all and his Kazaana was suddenly that darkness. He cried out in terror as he felt the Kazaana consume his hand, riding up his arm to consume him whole.
"I have a desire…"
It took a while, I know, but I'm slowly getting myself back into the groove. I needed to pick this up above all. I have posted the chapter before this one on my website, it's called the Dark Branch and it's NC-17, as I said before. You must have read that before reading this so please do so!
Let me know how it was!
-Cassie