Miroku sat quietly on the steps of Mushin's temple, feeling the barrier around this place pulse slowly in tune to his weary heart.
I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up.
Stretching his arms before him feebly, he studied the contours of the large circular grave just outside the edge of the barrier.
I have greater respect for you, Father. I had hated you for leaving Mother as you did, but had I known how difficult it was to watch the woman you loved die, I would have not harbored such resentment for you. Ah, but I was young then. So very young.
What folly it is that Naraku's curse does not claim us until long after we have loved, seen the object of that affection sicken and die, and suffered for enough years that death becomes not a enemy that pursues us, but a friend we wait upon.
The Kazaana frightens me so little now. Certainly it would be terrible for me to leave my burden, my love, my Sango, in the hands of Hatchi, Shippou, and Koharu, but I cannot help my desire to do that very thing.
It would have been easier if she had died. To spend so many months waiting for her to recover simply draws me closer and closer to her. With every day I spend with her, another chain fastens itself around my neck, drawing me downward to the grim mouths of madness. My life-force is so intermingled with her now, my every waking moment so consumed in taking care of her, every fiber of my soul tied tight to her, that if she died now I would die with her.
What's worse, I long for that. I want her to die. I want her to die so that I won't be needed, so that I can take my own life and be free of this goddamned world where such terrible things happen to such wonderful women.
Set me free, Sango. Choose this world or the other, but set me free.
"Miroku-sama?"
"I wish to be alone," he barked.
A startled gasp followed. Miroku opened his eyes, seeing the dim silhouette of the girl before him. His senses were lamentably poor these days; she had managed to come across the porch, down the steps, and stand nearly before him all without his notice.
Still she stood there, the girl that would follow him to the ends of the earth, and so far had done so, more or less. The girl with the hair tied back with a kerchief and bow, the turquoise yukata and cream-colored skirt that looked so much the second time she had seen him, the first girl to truly and honestly agree – nay, demand – to bear his children.
Unfortunately for the young Koharu, at that time his heart was no longer his to give.
Still, she was determined then, and she was determined now. She stood before him, perhaps scared a little of his temper. Fearful of him, like Sango never was.
"What is it, Koharu? I thought I told you to watch Sango."
"Shippou volunteered. He wanted me to talk to you."
"About what?"
Slowly, waiting for an objection, she crept toward him, kneeling beside him, leaning toward him a little but still nearly an arm's length away from contact.
Miroku had a feeling this would not be a simple conversation.
"Why must you bear this pain alone, Houshi-sama?"
"It was my fault that she was hurt. I will make her well again."
"It's too much, Miroku-sama. You can't keep yourself like this. You're so alone, it hurts me to even look at you."
She turned to him, grasping his hand – the hand that held his other curse, the Kazaana – and pressed it firmly to her breast.
"I'm not asking for marriage. You needn't speak to me again, if you wish it. I'm seventeen now, as old as Sango was when you first met her. You've seen so much pain and so little pleasure these past few years. Let me make you feel good, for one night. Or many nights. Every night. No one else will know. Even if they did, they would understand."
He pulled his hand away.
"No one will know because no one lives who would care," he growled. "Kirara wants for nothing but to see her mistress cared for. Shippou wishes only to train, to spend his hours in the dojo learning to fight, and would be disappointed in me, at worst. Hatchi would never question me."
He sighed.
"But Inuyasha would have never let me get away with such an infidelity. Nor would Kagome."
"I think, Miroku-sama, after so many months, they would have understood."
"I don't care."
She leaned in close to him, pressing hands to his cheeks, a prelude to pulling him toward her for a kiss.
"Miroku-sama," she whispered soothingly.
"You are too good a woman to prostitute yourself to a man who cannot love you," he hissed.
There was a fire in her voice he had never before witnessed.
"You are too good a man to be nurse-maid to a woman who cannot love you."
He pushed her away, his face twisted in anger, tainted with doubt. The woman who lay in that room did not touch his cheeks. She did not whisper his name.
"She . . . she would love me, if she awoke."
"But what if she doesn't, Miroku-sama? Surely you can't go on and assume the feelings you have for her are mutual? You love her so dearly, you have invested so many days caring for her every need, and when she awakes she will know none of it. To you, she is the woman you intend to marry, the woman who is closer to you than any wife of a normal man. But to her, Miroku-sama, you are still the sukebe houshi that she knew before she was struck down. You can't possibly expect her to love you as you love her."
"Koharu . . ."
She stood, leaning forward, kissing him lightly on the lips.
"You may call me 'Sango' if you like."
His breath caught, and with trembling hands he gripped her shoulders.
She did not flinch as his hands trailed down her body, fingers tracing over the contours of her neck and chest and stomach, gripping her hips, pulling her closer, and resting firmly on her bottom.
One gentle hand gripped the collar of his robe, the other was firm behind his head as she drew him into a kiss, frantic and forceful and hungry.
Hands clutched at clothes – he could not tell whose hands or whose clothes.
"Not here . . ."
He could feel warm, supple flesh,
". . . they won't know . . ."
muscles that trembled beneath his touch,
". . . on the steps . . ."
a chest that rose and fell quickly in anticipation of his advances,
" . . . let them watch . . ."
legs that parted and wrapped tightly around him
" . . . forgive me, Sango . . ."
and mouth that nuzzled him and called out not "Houshi-sama," but his name, and called it again and again.
" . . . Miroku-sama – Aah!"
Miroku winced, leaning heavily on his staff. The beast had taken a good shot at his thigh, which was numb now and made his entire right leg quite useless. Both legs now were sticky with blood, his robes mostly shredded from the waist down. He brought a hand to his abdomen, but hesitated. He was unaware what damage had been done there, and wasn't quite prepared to find his guts hanging down to his knees.
The rat-youkai that had done this retreated into the woods.
Miroku had tried so hard to protect this place. The barrier constructed by Mushin upon his death as a final gift to Miroku kept the place secure. The weak rat-youkai horde could not penetrate the holy shell that stretched around the grounds of the temple, and for that Miroku was thankful to the old man.
But unlike the other roving bands of creatures, these youkai were not easily dissuaded. They encircled the barrier day and night.
They were wise. They knew the food and water stores in the temple could not last them much more than a few weeks. After ten days, it was clear they were determined to blockade Miroku, Sango, and the others until they starved.
They must have had a very serious grudge against the taiji-ya. Perhaps she had decimated their clan at one time. There was no way to tell.
And so Miroku entered the fray, quickly dispatching most of them with the Kazaana. When they began to encircle him, he sealed his hand and used his shakujou as best he could, dispatching youkai with a decisive but frugal use of o-fuda.
It was the last rat-youkai that had struck him, coming quickly behind to others, striking him at the abdomen and leg in a quick slash of a claw and racing off before Miroku could counter. The rat-youkai escaped to the woods, waiting for Miroku to collapse from his injury.
Miroku supposed it only needed a minute to wait. His head began to swim.
"Miroku-sama!"
Koharu's voice from the stairs, just inside the barrier.
"Stay inside!" he replied venomously.
"Miroku-sama, let it go! Come back inside, quickly, before it returns!"
With horror he listened as her voice became closer. Koharu brought her shoulders beneath his arm, making him rest much of his weight on her tiny frame.
"I won't be able to carry you if you collapse out here," she begged. "The temple is safe; heal there and you may fight again."
He flicked his wrist, dropping the last of his o-fuda from his sleeve into his trembling fingers.
"Quickly, on my mark," he whispered.
Her hands squeezed his arm.
"Now!"
The two raced toward the barrier, but as he turned his head Miroku felt both legs become watery.
Even with his dulled senses, he felt the rat-youkai come, but he could not move quickly enough.
The blow he felt was not directed at him. The bones that were crushed were not his, nor were the torn flesh and the blood that doused his back and the side of his neck.
Koharu went flying, her back split open from shoulder to hip from the creature's first blow. The second strike, in midair, tore into her side and spun her around. She landed hard on her back, the kerchief over her head flying loose and spilling dark hair over the grass, her arms flying outward with fists loosely closed and elbows slightly bent, as if she were in mid-run.
The youkai landed heavily atop her legs. Instantly, one claw landed on her neck and raked downward, stripping her chest of both yukata and flesh.
Miroku threw his o-fuda, watching it fly through the air at its target with mind-numbing slowness. With dreamlike detachment he witnessed Koharu's murder.
It means to eat her child. Our child. To purify its body and pass through the barrier.
The youkai's teeth descended.
The o-fuda struck its back.
The rat disappeared in blue flame.
"Koharu . . ."
Miroku crawled to her. She looked upward, eyes clear and yet distant. She did not move.
"Miroku . . . sama . . ." she whispered. "I wish . . . I could touch your face."
Her hand trembled. He took it in his own and pressed it to his cheek.
"Hatchi will be here in a moment. You'll be alright, Koharu."
"If you say so, Miroku-sama."
He hesitated, the words catching in his throat, and though his words would be the ultimate lie, the ultimate betrayal to Sango, he could not look upon the dying girl and stay silent.
"I love you, Koharu."
The lie hung in the air like some rotten thing.
She smiled.
"Even though Miroku-sama does not mean it, he makes me very happy with those words."
She spoke no more. When Hatchi came to them a minute later – apologizing furiously, crying, and begging forgiveness for hiding in the temple as the fight wore on, even though he did so at his master's request – Koharu was already dead.
On the third day of the eleventh month of the second year of Sango's illness, the taiji-ya squeezed Miroku's hand.
Miroku, kneeling above her, was startled out of his chants. For a moment, he was afraid he had imagined the slightest of pressure in his palm.
He stared at her for several minutes, barely breathing.
Then.
Suddenly.
Her eyes opened.
Beneath half-lids, her pupils darted back and forth, taking in the contents of the bedchamber she had never seen before.
She squeezed his hand again, apparently realizing only then that she was not alone. Her eyes locked with his in a quizzical expression.
"Sango," he breathed, the word heavy and pregnant, bringing tears along with it. As one who completes an excruciating contest and finds himself a winner, his strength evaporated. Restraint was gone. He could not muster the will to hide his face as he cried over her.
He brought her hand to his face, kissed it furiously, pressing fingers against his lips, whispering thanks to the gods.
Her mouth opened, but only a slight parting of the lips. She furrowed her brows in frustration.
"You are in Mushin's temple," Miroku said. "You are safe here. Do you remember what happened?"
Slowly, and with obvious deliberateness, Sango closed her eyes tightly and opened them again.
"Can you speak, Sango?"
With equal deliberateness, Sango blinked twice.
"But you can understand me?"
One blink.
Miroku nodded. "That is enough for now, Sango. You have been ill for a long time, and it may be several days before you are able to speak or move much. Your mind is awake now, and I promise you that the rest of your body will awake with it soon enough. All I ask is that you be patient, that you not panic, and that you allow me to care for you until you can care for yourself. Would you allow me that much?"
One blink.
"Do you need anything now?"
One blink.
"Food? Drink? Does anything hurt?"
No to all of these. But she squeezed his hand again.
"You want me to stay here?"
She gave him the closest she could give to an emphatic "yes."
He smiled.
"I would like that as well. Would you like me to tell you some stories while we wait for the morning?"
Yes.
Miroku bit his lip. So many terrible things had happened since she had been struck down. Surely he couldn't tell her of Kagome or Inuyasha. But he couldn't lie to her either.
"I . . ." he paused. "I have never told you about my mother. I've never told anyone, because it's a sad story. But it's a love story as well, and I suppose most love stories end up sad in the end. Would you like to hear it anyway?"
She squeezed his hand again, and the corners of her mouth tilted upward in the slightest indication of a smile. He nodded and immediately began to speak.
"In his travels to defeat Naraku, my father came to a village in a deep green valley, where he paid close attention to a village girl that would respond to his advances with a deft and decisive slap across the face . . ."
Sango sat on the stone wall of the onsen, leaning back onto Miroku's chest. Her hands were in her lap. Her eyes studied the pile of smooth stones to her right.
"These are healing stones. They will help your coordination."
His right hand took hers by the wrist and placed it atop a stone. Her fingers slowly encircled it.
"Feel the stone, the smoothness. Feel the power in them. These stones were forged from the depths of the earth, blessed by the gods and cast from Fuji-san."
His hand encircled hers, making her hold the stone in one hand. Together they lifted it shoulder-high, brought it to their left side, and placed it on the ground.
"After the stones were birthed from the womb of the mountain, they were kissed and caressed by the sea until they became smooth and round as you see them."
Another stone was picked up and placed beside the first.
"The stones are small, but if you put enough stones upon each other they become a mountain. You will build your strength up this way: in small tasks. You may grow frustrated, and you may hate me for the pain I will put you through to make you well again. But I will not abandon you, and though I know that my Sango would never give up on any journey, no matter how difficult, I want her to know that even if she tried, I would not allow it."
He lifted his hand from hers. She gripped the stone in her hand and picked it up, but it slid from her fingers and clattered back to the pile.
"Again, Sango."
She got it further, this time dropping the stone in her lap. She brushed it away with a loose fist, allowing it to land on her left side. Miroku immediately picked it up and placed it back on the right.
"Do it correctly, Sango."
She tried again, getting closer this time. On a third attempt, she managed to place the stone squarely on the first one. Already her body shook with frustration, and though he could not see her face, Miroku knew it to be streaked with tears. His hand searched out hers again.
"I will help you with the next few."
His hand gripped hers.
"This hand will cast Hiraikotsu again soon."
Sango, wearing a loose, thin white yukata, was borne across the field between the temple and Mushin's pool. Miroku held her tightly, one arm beneath her knees and one supporting her back.
"The waterfall is my personal space for meditation. No one but myself has stepped beneath the falls." His voice deepened. "It is a very private place to me. A powerful place. I have no doubt that it will lend you spiritual strength in ways I cannot."
He brought her beneath the falls, sitting on the stone, sitting her on his lap and placing an arm around her back to steady her. She was strong enough now to move a little, and she shifted her weight slightly to find a comfortable position, leaning her side against his chest, resting her chin atop Miroku's right shoulder. The water streamed through her unbound hair and plastered her kimono to her body. Though the material Miroku could see the hue of her skin, the scar on her back. His fingers traced gentle circles along her spine, and for several minutes he spoke his chants over her.
With alarm he watched her push away, but he realized it was only so that she could look him in the eyes.
She took his left hand from her knee and – with fingers splayed – pressed it between her breasts. Her heart beat fast and hard.
He searched her face, could tell by the way she furrowed her brows and looked downward that she was trying very hard to search for words, the first words she had spoken in two years. Finally, with a slight nod, she made her decision and locked eyes with him.
"O . . . mae . . . no," she whispered. He could barely hear her over the din of the falls, but he could read her lips well enough. Yours.
"Sango . . ."
"Omae no Sango!" she growled, fiercely. Her hands released his, shot to his shoulders, and pulled herself into an embrace.
"Houshi-sama!"
He returned the embrace, holding her firmly but gently, relishing the sensation of a warm body against his. Her wet hair plastered against him, her breath was hot on his neck.
He took her hand and pressed it to his own chest.
"This heart is yours as well, Sango."
Author's Note: I'd like to think the next chapter addresses a lot of the out-of-characterness, but the fact remains that this is more of a experiment borne of boredom than a finished piece like my other fanfics, so I'll agree this one is a bit rough in terms of description. I really thought I could make that particular conversation between Inuyasha and Miroku work, but it's still something awful. Too much emotion, not enough discipline on my part. Better luck next chapter, maybe?
Anyway, thanks to everyone for the reviews. Reviews make me happy. :o)