Refert Retuli
: 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, coarse language, suggestive dialogue, and a Linkin Park song. Please don't kill me. They're not that bad if you get over the angst of it all. Kikyou haters will not be tolerated. Sorry, kiddies. Standard disclaimers apply. By the way, if you look closely at the story summary, I tacked the two main pairings at the end. Marketing ploy. I suck. …Hi, reviewers! [Waves]
chapter 1 :: reminiscent dreamer
Crawling in my skinThese wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real
There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming
Confusing
This lack of self-control I fear is never-ending
Controlling
I can't seem
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
Crawling – Linkin Park
---
A younger Sango fell to the ground, arms crumbling and unresponsive. Though she could not twist her head around completely (that would entail breaking more than a few bones), she knew the makings of a bruise when she felt it; the metamorphosis was not meant to be watched by the eye, but she could envision purplish splotches appearing on her shoulders, prepared to swallow the length of her backside. Her black hair clung wetly to the sides of her face like vines, having long slipped free of its slack ribbon. She spat blood and remnants of her lunch onto the dirt.
"Get up, Sango," the voice of her father commanded from above, firm and pitiless. "We will…try again." Second chances—always with the second chances. If he was trying to be comforting, he was failing miserably.
She wanted to cry—to unleash her agony in a torrent of tears. She wished the ground would open up and swallow her… "I…" She swallowed stale bile instead. "No…I can't. C-can't."
"Can," he said, his voice and the whimpers in her throat the only sounds drowning the quiet. "Can, and will. Now, get up! You need to learn this, and from this! If you keep making the same mistake over and over…" He trailed off, and his voice became softer, but not reassuring. "…We are only human, Sango. A weakness is something we cannot afford, especially as a taijiya. Weakness is death. Your mother was an example of what weakness is."
She needed energy. She needed to be tough to withstand the pain… "Don't talk about kaa-chan like that," she whispered to the darkness that shielded her sight. "Kaa-chan was the best there was…"
"The fact that she died just proves that the best must get better!"
Sango splayed her palm against the ground, feebly hoisting herself up, eyes closed in an attempt to focus. "The best must get better," she whispered to herself.
"Fool," a cold voice said mockingly.
She did little to mask her terror, whirling about, paling when the visage of her father had vanished, as had the colorless scenery to which Sango had paid little heed. In his place was a young woman Sango instantly recognized as Midoriko, the priestess whose power outmatched that of a legion of demons, and instead of shadows, the background became Sango's burning home village… Midoriko's plated samurai armor reflected the strange sort of firelight in their bronze palette. Her face, rumored to hold an elegant beauty surpassing that of any goddess, was shredded and torn, revealing pink netted tissue crisscrossing green translucent veins through which blood danced. Eyes: an infinitely chilly shade of black, truly globes of dotted white due to the lack of eyelids to shield them. The façade of Midoriko was a fully clothed mass of walking, skinless flesh… A gaping hole was in the center of her bosom, revealing the pokey ends of ribs that ordinarily would have protected a human heart.
Midoriko pulled back her lipless mouth in a mirthless grin, baring plaque-encrusted teeth. Maggots began to manifest in the transparent chasm, writhing squeamishly on the solid surface of her ribs. "History repeats itself."
"I don't understand!" Sango screamed at the priestess, silvery rivulets of tears trickling from the corners of her eyes.
Midoriko took a step towards her. Crimson footprints marked her path, blood spurting out of her feet. "Someone is going to die," she said in a strangely gentle voice, almost motherly. Sango screamed again, scrambling away from Midoriko's outstretched hand, the chipped and bloody fingernails imbedded in a bed of spindly bone and flesh. A hand, a throng of rubbery muscle cushioning decaying bones, pressed against Sango's windpipe, meant to crush her neck as if it were as flimsy and featherweight…
Fractured voices summoned Sango from the brink of literally dead sleep. The words flowed into one ear and out the other, and she struggled to make sense of them, though her mind was flooded with shattered thoughts; the loud tones and vulgarities indicated an argument of sorts was taking place above her. She paused for a moment, realizing only then that her teeth were clamping down onto her lower lip; she calmed almost imperceptibly, knotted muscles loosening. Deep breaths, she told herself. But she couldn't fight the encroaching sensation that something horrible had—
"…ing…idiot…lecherous…suicide!?"
"…didn't mean…know that…should've been…for her…"
"Damn RIGHT you should've…can't trust…anymore…stupid fuck…"
"The Shikon no Tama!" she cried, jolting upwards. A wave of numbness washed over her left forearm, but she ignored it; a startled hanyou and a frightened monk leapt backwards, reflexively assuming defensive stances. Miroku was the first to recover, relief flickering in his dark blue eyes. Just as spontaneously, Sango tasted something in the back of her throat; she leaned forward, expelling the contents of her stomach onto the bed sheets.
Sango wondered dully, head bowed over the blankets, glazed eyes leering into the lumpy, splattered vomit. Did I dream? The taste was vile.
Inu Yasha blinked, looked at what had just been extricated from her innards, and smirked, a half-smile that didn't quite reach his haplessly piercing eyes. "Congratulations, Sango. I think you just invented a new color."
"Sango," Miroku chirped, rushing to her bedside with a smile. "You don't know how glad I am to see you awake." He wrapped his arms around her relatively thin frame in a desperate embrace. "I thought I'd—"
"Get your filthy hands off her," Inu Yasha snapped, suddenly livid. "It's all your fault, dumbass! I should beat the hell out of you right now! You've got no right to act like everything's fuckin' DANDY!" The hanyou pulled back a red sleeve to bare a skinny but muscular fist, clenched and ready to let loose.
Sango remained impassive as the monk's grip tightened faintly. "I'm well aware of the fact that I am to blame," Miroku said stiffly, words concealing a hidden sadness and profound disappointment that almost broke Sango's heart. Keyword: almost. She decided to be inexpressive. "I must ask you, Inu Yasha, to have a little tact, though difficult that task may be for one such as yourself. My participation was indirect, but I assure you unintentional."
"You could've prevented this, and you damn well know it!" Inu Yasha ground back, voice rising.
"I know it," Miroku said evenly, "and I'm sorry."
Inu Yasha had no retort to submission—Sango mulled over the fact that he was fairly predictable.
"And what's the screaming about!? The Shikon no Tama's long gone! It's broken, and I'm still a fucking hanyou!" he barked on a different note—in reference to her outburst upon awakening.
Sango's warm brown eyes shifted to bore into Inu Yasha's, and though she was usually unreadable, she felt reluctant to prove him wrong. Mistrust—his dream was to become a full-blooded youkai. A skull-jarring ache consumed her head as she recalled one of Kikyou's many memorable (nonetheless bitter) statements—specifically, one proclaiming that the jewel should not fall into the wrong hands. She pressed her palm to her forehead. What was I dreaming about…?
"Are you alright, Sango?" Miroku inquired, pulling back to look at her. He frowned. "Did you have a nightmare?"
Sango contemplated her response for a moment before nodding. She did not try to smile.
"Is there anything you'd like to say? Any reason as to why you…?"
"Feh. Pretty fuckin' obvious, ain't it?" Inu Yasha scoffed quietly, turning to the side to crisscross his arms. Miroku's eyebrows tilted downward in a mild expression of anger; he turned to glower a challenge at Inu Yasha—one that the hanyou readily accepted. "It's 'cause you weren't good enough for 'er, monk," he said. "Hell, she might as well have a relationship with a fucking wall. It'd be more loyal."
Miroku grimaced, as if Inu Yasha had physically hit him. Sango suddenly had the urge to stride up to Inu Yasha and give him a good, hard kiss on the mouth, but her previous apprehension kicked in and she found herself pushing off the thick wool blankets and walking away from the enraged duo.
"You shouldn't be walking, Sango-san," the old, weary voice of Kaede called from a separate corridor. "You are still weak."
"She barfed on yer sheets, Kaede," Inu Yasha said with a snicker.
"Sorry," Sango added quickly, flashing the hanyou a murderous look. "I don't…I had a…" Nightmare? One look at Inu Yasha's smug expression said that it would not be in her best interests to say she had a bad dream. Idiot, she thought. But, that was Inu Yasha for you—either you liked him or you didn't, and taking into consideration her nature, her own opinion of him changed every couple of minutes.
A wrinkled, calloused hand waved dismissively from the doorframe. "Don't worry about it. You need your rest. You lost quite a bit of blood."
The taijiya paused. Why don't I feel grateful? "Thank you for taking care of me," she said slowly, in awe of the low, wheezy pitch she had assumed in her comatose state. "But I have other matters to deal with…" She pressed one hand against the doorframe, knees buckling slightly. Accursed weak body.
"What the hell!? Sango, sit your ass down! I'm not letting you outta my sight just so you can hack your arm off!" Inu Yasha exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at her.
"Your faith in me is…boundless, isn't it," Sango retorted dryly.
Miroku's eyes softened, and in two long strides he closed half of the distance between him and her. "As much as I would like to believe that you have no intention of…marring your flawless body further"—she blushed—"I am obligated to ensure as such. What, might I ask, are these pressing matters, and why can they not wait until you are healed?"
Again, Sango felt that tinge of reluctance, as if the gravity of the situation had yet to fully click. She abhorred the very idea—the troubled times of the Jewel of the Four Souls had supposedly ended. She felt the familiar weight of a burdensome task nestling itself on her shoulders, and she was hoping she had been seeing things, but… Sango swallowed. "I have to make sure of something," she said at last. And with that, she stepped out, suddenly becoming very aware of the fact she wore only a loose, leisurely kimono, with bandages suffocating the slit in her wrist; the taijiya folded her arms insecurely, dimly wondering who had undressed her, before setting off. She wasn't at all surprised when Inu Yasha and Miroku exited the house in hot pursuit.
"Is it a pressing matter?" Miroku asked, though he knew the answer.
"Yes," she clipped shortly, walking towards her home on the edge of the village. Thoughtfully, she added, "Very pressing."
Miroku nodded. Sango was Sango. She had remarkable intuition and instincts to rival the deceased Kikyou's. Inu Yasha appeared to deduce this as well, and dismissed his dubiousness. He was still frowning, though.
The village bustled, its people delightfully unaware of the fact that their protector was drowsily edging through town. With strength foreign to most conventional women, Sango shoved a select few people aside after politely asking them to move aside—a request to which they did not comply; she had little patience today, less so than usual. She was hoping against hope that she was merely hallucinating last night, that the jewel's recurrence was merely a figment of an overactive imagination…
Finally, she approached a door with a vertical sign bearing her name and the title "taijiya," quirking a brow in muted disapproval when she found the entryway wide open. It simply invited intruders with open arms. Intolerable. She stumbled to her room, eyes surveying the scenery of a picturesque home used only for sleeping and little else.
The desk. The note was gone—Sango presumed Miroku or Inu Yasha had taken it upon realization that she had tried to kill herself.
And there, lying innocently hidden between the clothes she had shed in order to commit one final, desperate act, was the jewel, immaculate and immortal.
"No," she whispered despairingly. The bane of many existences…the Shikon no Tama, created in finality and destroyed in the same hopes. "It's not…" Sango trailed off, trying to string together words or excuses for its presence; she sank to her knees, outstretched fingers curling around the iridescent orb, the burnished glow of her eyes accented by wetness. "This can't be real. It…" Destroyed! By Kagome-chan! I saw it… "Can't be real; isn't real," she repeated to herself, clutching the jewel to her breast and gently rocking back and forth.
Why from me?
Why me?
Sango reflected on her dream—that which she could barely recall; memory was a fickle thing. A shame, too; she was so close to remembering, and with each attempt to mentally illustrate it, it slipped through her fingers once again, leaving her confused and clueless. Sango hated being clueless. She was murmuring the same words over and over…but she just couldn't help it. It just couldn't be real.
Inu Yasha watched, at first with his natural contempt and disdain derived from years of shunning and being shunned in turn. The girl's cracked, he observed. Then concern for his comrade-in-arms overcompensated for his arrogance, and he maneuvered in front of the taijiya as she recited a hypnotic mantra. What's she doing, casting some kind of spell? Inu Yasha mused quizzically. He proceeded to make an effort to comprehend her quick words, white ears twitching and netting her voice.
"What isn't real?" he asked quietly, falling into a crouch in front of the usually impenetrable exterminator. Sango's eyes refocused, but she looked away, expression shadowed by pitch-black bangs. "Huh? Hey, don't ignore me!" Inu Yasha half-yelled, arm lunging forward towards her clenched fist. Mechanically, Sango slumped backwards in a dodge, but the hanyou was always a step quicker, grabbing Sango's injured wrist and squeezing it lightly. "What's in your hand?" he demanded. "What's this 'pressing matter,' huh?"
"Smart, Inu Yasha," Miroku said flatly. "Threatening the poor girl. You're giving her every incentive not to tell you." He, too, hunkered downward, trying to get the post-traumatic Sango to look him in the eye. "Sango…" he pleaded. "Please. As much as Inu Yasha loathes admitting it, we're your friends. We're worried. Tell us what's wrong."
A pause. Inu Yasha did not let go of her wrist, vice-like grip unforgiving and resolute. "You're hurting me," Sango told him heatedly.
"Feh." The hanyou released his hold. He then inclined his head, attempting to see between her clasped fingers. "Is it valuable?"
Sango hesitated, and then raised her closed hand, bringing it close to Inu Yasha's face before opening her fist, exposing the Shikon no Tama in its undying glory. Her face was contorted with wrath, and she screamed in his sensitive dog-ears: "Does this look valuable to you, Inu Yasha!?"