: Hana no Ouji
Genre: General
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kagome and Kikyou have been summoned once more—from home and from hell, two years after the destruction of the Shikon no Tama, to assist in combating a force that threatens to destroy the heir to Midoriko's legacy: Sango.
Warnings: Alternate pairings (Inu Yasha/Sango; Kagome/Miroku), suicidal themes, "naughty words," angst, and more than probably a healthy dose of violence. No, Sango is not dead.
prologue :: flesh birth
I'll tell all about how you cheated
I'd like for the whole world to hear
I'd like to get even with you
'Cause you're leaving
But sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year…
Sad Songs and Waltzes – Cake
---
The sole survivor of a murdered clan.
She mulled over this fact.
Dead brother. Dead father. Dead friends.
Sango felt lonelier now, cursing her morbid thoughts and clutching closer the sleeves of her checkered pink blouse so as to sooth the chilled bumps that briefly flickered onto her arms. And she berated herself for even momentarily experiencing some form of happiness in the past two years—she just…had no right. No right to be here, living, because of a visual error she had corrected a second too late—because she refused to lay down and die, instead opting for vengeance over swift reunion with her family.
And now she had Miroku—houshi-sama, who claimed she held the key to his heart. And yet even with him, the taijiya Sango felt a sense of detachment, unfulfilled and tugging at her heartstrings as she watched him (presumably with other women), soft eyes morbid. The key to his heart. Bullshit. She smiled lifelessly. What use was ownership a heart's key if the very same object was passed on so offhandedly?
Life… What did Kagome-chan used to say? …Sucked. Horribly.
Two years.
She still recalled the ashen glimmer of the Shikon no Tama as Kagome shot a sacred arrow directly in the jewel's side. Her holy powers had vastly increased in strength—the miko Kikyou had willingly sacrificed the fraction of her soul she still possessed. The Shikon no Tama had been destroyed. No wishes were granted in its name, no lives were saved… With a degree of pain and nostalgia, Sango recalled Kikyou's final words as her soul, a wisp of mist beginning to seep out of her chest.
There is no such thing as an unselfish wish.
Her memories were clear and vivid, as if laid before her in an illustrated tale. For a moment, she wondered how Kagome was doing: how life five hundred years from then was; how often her thoughts dwelled on a time long passed.
The taijiya felt her will dwindling; she sat at a table and dipped the thin paintbrush into the ink once more, swirling it about a few times before pressing the brush to the tapered end of the parchment before her, signing her name with a flourish. She then scanned the letter, waiting for the ink to dry out.
To whom this may concern:
If you are reading this, chances are I'm dead.
I have nothing.
Take care of Kirara. Don't pull her tails.
-Sango
The taijiya stood, and in one fluid motion, dropped her blouse and the long green skirt, revealing her formfitting battle suit, sans many of the pink plates that adorned her joints when she decimated homicidal youkai. Her discarded outfit rasped against the wooden planks of the floor paneling; she picked up the parchment and rolled it into a tight scroll, securing it with a white ribbon. That should do it, she thought with a self-satisfied smile. Short and blunt. No excuses. No long lamentation on how much this or that meant to her.
Her thoughts were clandestine—desolate—isolated—and forever undisclosed. Always had been. Her passion was in extermination—her sole refuge after her village and its people were razed. She was often so caught up in fights, so stereotyped as the "last taijiya" that no one noticed…how often she cried. (Or that she cried at all.)
Out of the small brace on Sango's right arm, a small blade shot out, its presence imperceptible against the skintight armor.
She spared the paper one last glance before beginning to cleave into the skin of her left wrist. The pain meant little, really. Nothing compared to what she faced on a bi-daily basis. The sharp metal edge slid beneath the black material, and beneath her skin, flaying away at it as one peels the bitter surface of a tangerine. A dark red liquid seeped out of the tear in the sleeve, but having little space to maneuver, the blood instead blotted and soaked a portion of her forearm. Warm. Inviting, even.
She cut deeper, brow knitting as she paid the dull sting little heed. And then, suddenly, the knife encountered an obstacle.
At first, she thought it was bone. Carefully—surgically—she maneuvered the blade beneath the hard item, but it merely shifted, gliding a little along the cool, blood-engulfed metal. Did I dislocate something?
She waved her arm slightly, starting from the elbow. A sharp pain jolted her senses as the wound tore slightly at the closures, and she flinched, but nothing seemed broken. She shook her arm again with renewed vigor.
It took a while. But something—something glistening and round, like a pearl only more pristine—gradually slid out of the cut. She recognized it at once, usually even face contorting with terror.
It was no pearl.
It was a jewel.
Its surface glinted, so innocent and seemingly fragile. The taijiya let out an ear-piercing scream; blood loss began to nibble at her consciousness, and as soon as her lungs ran out of air to sustain her horror, Sango sank to the floor. The world—her surroundings—faded to black, and the Shikon no Tama itself seemed to bid her an eerily cheerful farewell.