Three Days Later
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an Inuyasha fanfiction
by
mkh2
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Disclaimer: "Inuyasha: Sengoku o-Togi Zoushi" blah blah blah belongs to Rumiko Takahashi blah blahddy blah and not to me blah blah mkh2. Ya know, writing legal mumbo jumbo is not always as hard as it looks, but in the end it all looks like the same ol' blah.
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Just to let you know there are some spoilers for the manga volume 1/the first four episodes. Whiny people be warned. (Seriously, most people should have seen at least that much by now!)
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Three days. It's been three days. Three long, trying days since the enchanted hanyou was revived. Three long terrible nights holding vigil over a small time-confused girl, first mistaken for a demon and now assured that she was a reincarnation. Three days since the Shikon no Tama has resurfaced in the village from the wound in the side of the same said girl.
Kaede paused in her meditation, blowing leaves off her face and wishing she could reach back to tighten the knot of the long ribbon that kept her even longer hair back in a ponytail. For fifty years, ever since her sister died, she had been the village miko, working hard and tirelessly – well, almost – to protect and guide the people of this village, in the good times and bad, in famine and plenty, in war and peace, for many funerals and many births. She now wished to rub the back of her hand over her eyes, trying to moisten her dry eyes. She may be a miko but she was still a woman who has seen the harshness of life and had soon found she was destined to live it alone.
Or so Kaede thought.
Kaede supposed that the biggest shock to her system was how the hanyou was released. A slip of a girl, no more than fifteen years of age, bearing a striking resemblance to her belated sister and yet was nothing like her dear elder sister, had managed to free the accursed hanyou that hung from the most sacred of trees on the land.
She had supposed that the hanyou would hang from the tree forever, had supposed that the Shikon no Tama would forever be lost to the world same as her long lost sister, had supposed, even, that she would be alone till she died.
Assumptions are funny things.
This small girl brought to mind her sister, perhaps the sort of sister she would have had if her sister hadn't been destined to be a miko. In the first day she found, in her own way, the sister she had lost. In the first night the long-since sealed hanyou was revived – and restrained with a rosary whose powers were wielded by the young untrained miko that was found. And in the first night the Shikon no Tama was revealed to have been reborn into the world just as dangerous and as beautiful as it had been all those fifty years ago. And in that first day she found she now had companions she could not shake free of… and didn't particularly want to try to either.
So, it seemed all the problems with the Shikon no Tama had not ended those fifty years ago but instead had just started. In the second day a corpse-dancing demon stole away with the Shikon no Tama, and the time-crossed miko, for the first time in her life acting the role given to her at birth, saved the life of a child and, picking up a bow for only the second time of her life, being twice that day, thus wielded the bow and arrow and struck down the crow – and thus the journey started.
The girl left for a few hours on the third day after bathing in the cold waters; Kaede had felt the shift in time, if only faintly, when the girl had reached the bone-gobbler's well, after all, she had been rather preoccupied with finding a way to stop the bewitchment of the villagers without harming them. The hanyou had arrived on the scene and, inadvertently, protected her, then spelled her away and into the woods and half-buried her where she was now to keep her concealed and safe while he searched out the girl to stop the youkai that had caused much trouble amongst the peaceful villagers and had bewitched them to violence and thus had given her a most grievous, or at least painful, injury.
It just didn't make sense! If the hanyou was truly as evil as he was supposed to be, he shouldn't have even bothered to protect her, to rescue her from the enchanted villagers. Even if he had rescued her initially, upon gleaning from her the needed information he should have left her in the open, defenseless and vulnerable instead of taking the time to ensure her safety. Upon hearing that the villagers had been so bespelled, most demons still wouldn't have paused and stayed their hand, instead delighting in the prey that so easily had fallen into their lap. He acted rude and crass and was seen to be rather vulgar at times and perhaps somewhat perverted for trying to spy out the location of the Shikon no kakera while the girl-miko bathed and yet he had a unmistakably gentle side as he carefully placed her into the grave and hurriedly but carefully had covered her with dirt and leaves, effectively camouflaging her. Perhaps indeed his human blood and heart held some sway over him.
He was a hanyou and like his supposedly more powerful youkai counterparts was not supposed to be gentle or look down on humans with kindness. But he did. It didn't make sense but he did. And it wasn't fair. Everything she knew to be true and right seemed to fall apart in this world. Her sister was gone and now found. Time was not to be trifled with and yet this miko-child had been given the authority to pass back through it. The Shikon no Tama was eradicated in this world and was now to be found world over. The hanyou on the tree was supposed to be maliciously evil and in a forever sleep and now walked amongst the villagers peacefully if not the most welcomed of people.
And now footsteps were falling closer and closer, and now the sounds of bickering voices drew ever nearer, and now, through the leaves that had yet again blown on her face, she saw the hanyou and the girl-child look down at her and felt the gentle lightening of the earth on her as they worked to free her from the temporary grave that the hanyou had hastily craven. This was all good and well as her nose itched dreadfully. And now gentle rough hands picked her up and carried her the way she had once longed to be carried on the back of the big-brother she had longed for back to her village, the soft whispered arguments falling on deaf ears as Kaede relaxed from her thoughts.
She couldn't find it in herself to hate Inuyasha nor to be angered with the thoughtless actions of Kagome who had shattered the jewel. She was, indeed, somewhat frustrated that now, so late in her life, they had to deal with the Shikon no Tama and the evil it drew again. She wondered, again, if Inuyasha had truly been the one to murder her sister and she wondered if, perhaps, she would see those two souls united as she had once prayed for it in the bodies of Inuyasha and Kagome. And it all happened three days after the girl found the hanyou who hung so innocently on the blesséd tree.
~Owari~
Part two of two finished.
Hanyou – half demon, half-human; it seems that Inuyasha is one of the "prettier" sort
Youkai – demon, though not necessarily in the Christian sense – the ones most similar to the Christian term would include all spirit possessions and the occasional vengeful spirit, such as the spirit of the bear youkai that Sango and other Taijiya had killed in one episode and was not properly put to rest
Shikon no Tama – in the American-English version translated as the Jewel of Four Souls
Shikon no kakera – literally shards of the Four Souls, usually translated in American-English as shards of the Jewel, jewel shards or shards of the Jewel of Four Souls
Miko – a Shinto priestess, usually; also, any young virgin girl who helps to care for a shrine
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Recap from previous posting: [This is to be posted in two parts. I had this one on the back burner for a while because it didn't sound quite right. This piece takes places, obviously, three days after Kikyo was originally killed and Inuyasha sealed. The next part will take place much later. It should be up tomorrow, but no promises. I hate making promises.]
I had tried to post this Thursday the 22nd but it seems there was some strange glitch in the document and it refused to do a copy and paste, so I had to retype the dumb thing all over again.
For readers who had recently stumbled on one-shot "Needed to Go" in "Inuyasha: Thoughts": try looking at my profile! Obviously I ended up posting the happy version – most people like fairytale endings (though, I'm sure if they read more of those fairy tales in the original version, they'd probably not like them so much) so naturally I ended up posting it! Just in case though I think I might put a small note on the bottom of "Needed to Go". Ja.