Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
A/N: Miroku character butchering, yay. Or not. Written while I was in one of my moods. Rewritten many, many times because I wasn't sure what was going on and I still don't know. I don't like the order of phrases at the end. If anyone wants to rearrange those in a better way, feel free. Umm. Happy Holidays. -- May
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Misstep
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A cycle.
Life. Death. Passion. Fear. Obsession.
The words, they circle and chase, colliding with one another and breaking apart.
Life. Death. Passion. Fear. Obsession.
Life strives to outrun Death, which looms over Life's head and engulfs it in darkness.
Passion is sought, and crushed close to one's heart, before the Fear of the outcome of Passion becomes Obsession, and all three are lost.
Perhaps Fear is remaining.
Everything that exists is filled with suffering.
The rule is personified in her.
I long to understand, to be able to take all that pain and absorb it into as deep a void as Kazaana.
Suffering is caused by desires.
Am I suffering? I desire much, so much.
One, to become her pain so that she will no longer bear it.
Two, to have her in every way I wish, with her consent, and her wholeness.
Countless other things. Countless since the day I travelled alone.
And as she holds the dead shell of Kohaku, I realize, disgusted with myself, that my desire may be attainable yet.
--
You can get rid of suffering by stifling all desire
I am wrong.
With him, part of her is dead.
Then I can never have her fully.
Greed. I am so blind with but a taste of desire.
I rush to hold her, perhaps break her, in hopes I can put her together again the way she should be.
The way we should be.
But something stops me. Something always stops me.
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She allows me to hold her at night, now that we have returned to her village.
I chose the house in the centre of the village, with barely a roof above and walls around us. From the ground where we slept Sango could see the row of graves.
She always faced away from me at night, watching them, as if a ghost would rise from the ground and her village would be alive again.
I wondered if she slept. She held my hands, she held my body close to hers, but did she sleep?
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The Noble Eightfold Path leads to the end of suffering.
With all my knowledge of that path, of those rules, I can not end my suffering. I force it upon myself. Maybe I do enjoy the pain.
If I cannot end my own, how can I even begin to end hers?
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I can see her standing there.
At first she is standing, then she is on her knees, and then she is falling.
And I can see in her eyes; she is trying to find -- anywhere.
I keep talking, I keep praying. I must stay calm. I must calm the boy's soul.
She is holding two white flowers in her hand, and her palms are coated with dirt. Flowers in her hands, but does she know why?
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What can I tell her? What advice will help? What -- if anything -- will help?
"It is not your time to die."
My only offered advice. Sango, please don't try and deceive me.
She is still in my arms, and limp. Her chest barely moves with her breaths. Without saying anything, I feel her small, cold hands clamp around my wrists. I move my mouth closer to her ear. "We're together now."
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Why doesn't she cry?
Her wounds are still bleeding freely, and I try and work fast to cover them again so that she does not get sick.
Even as I am swirling the cloths in a fresh basin, watching the water bleed red, I know that the pain in her body is immense. I glance at her.
She is not moving. Her eyes focus on me, sparkling with something. I don't know what it is.
She never cries.
--
Another baseless attack rattled the outer fortifications of the village.
I didn't want to disturb Sango, so I gently touched her cheek and whispered that I'd be back. I placed wards on the outer walls again.
As the large remains of the house I had chosen for us came into view, I worried she had awoken alone. I began to run.
That's when I saw her. Drowning.
She was drowning in her own visions.
Pull her away. I have to pull her away from the past.
As I lift her, we fall backwards, but the softened morning dirt cushions the impact on my back.
"It's not your fault." I say it over and over, a mantra. I hold her to me and will some of my strength into her. "It's not your fault."
There were no wards, no amulets I could produce that would keep away the demons, the black cats that stalked us in the night, peeking over the graves.
She shivered that night. She begged me to smooth the depressions we had made in the cemetery outside our ruined home. I held her. I asked her to sleep.
I made sure she faced me that night.
I made sure we did not lay to the North.
--
I want to write about her.
I want to have memories, and I want to share the memories with whoever I can, whoever we cross paths with.
She is remarkable. Her body, bleeding and broken, is beautiful. Though she whispers in her dreams, that after Naraku there is nothing, she is wrong.
I spent many a night on the stories.
I persuaded her to tell me anything, even things that were completely unrelated to the taijiya story, such as water fights in the sun, a stern lecturing on keeping one's robes clean, family honour.
She'd tell them in portions, jumping from one to the next, and I hurriedly tried to capture the glaze in her eyes as she spoke, the way her body relaxed and calmed. Then while she slept, I rearranged her stories and laced them with her emotions, the best way that I could.
Then one night, we would cross the line into the stories that fell close to the event that brought forth the downfall. We were crossing that line for her, and us.
We would unearth the past for her, and bury it; bury it one last time.
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Please cry for me.
I see her standing there, looking for anything -- anywhere.
I see her pain, I see her wounds, I see her blood.
She never cries.
It is frustrating. I am a selfish human being, who by all means should be suffering right now. Instead she is, while I am off in a world of desire.
We both have desires.
We are both suffering.
I am free. I can live. I am fated to be with a girl who is plagued by death.
If I could meet Fate one day, I'd like to force it down Kazaana.
I make my own destiny.
--
Our story is not finished yet.
Selfishly, I reach for her. I let the robes pool about our waists and I kiss her. Softly, gently, and then harshly. I need this.
Her hands tense and tighten, touching skin. The moon is so high tonight. It exaggerates our shadows and makes our outlines pale.
She looks up at me, asking something. I don't know what. I don't know what to say to her.
I love you.
If she cried then, I would not know what to make of it. She met me halfway. The tears formed, but never fell.
Then we tumbled onto the cold floor of our haven, and I rubbed her arms because she shivered.
Forget the meditations, Right Concentration, Noble Truths, Eightfold Paths . . . If I forget why there should be, I'll never feel that dissatisfaction of unfulfilled desires.
She is finally whole.
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Life.
It is what I have struggled for, and that wish is fulfilled. Now I struggle for her to be alive.
Death.
Is what is at our backs at every turn. Mercenary youkai, the remains of a village, the blanket of murder. Ghosts that will forever watch us.
Passion.
She harbours this for me, I the same. I want her, I want her to be whole. I want to be what she has lost since we met.
Fear.
I fear for her, I fear losing her and she fears the same. We can do nothing but show one another strength, our vain attempts at empowerment. I want to be her foundation, and she is my anchor. She will keep me tied to the realities of tragedy.
Obsession.
She says it over and over. Love me. She is zealous and demanding, and I want nothing more than to bind her to me for eternity. Love me. I want to make her whole again.
Love me.
I do.
Disintegration.
I will not stand here and watch.
I know that pain inside the truth. It is familiar.
It is ours.