Carol Of The Bells
By AriznGlori
A/N: Merry X-mas! Here is the second part of Carol Of The Bells, my newest story. Enjoy it while it lasts! This'll be a shorter fic.
Disclaimer: I own not a single thing. Wah!
Chapter 2: Tosho Ni Kakatta
"He…apologized…" Kagome said again. "But he gave up…He isn't taking me back…" Well, then, he must not want you back…Give up and let it be… keep your jewel shards… Naraku will never find them…If you go back, there is a higher likeliness that you will die…and get all you love killed…Do you really want to risk it?
"No…" So stay. Let him go. He let you go, after all. Try and remember: love and loss are weaved together as one, for you only feel loss if something you love is taken or leaves… So let him go…This isn't a loss, but a challenge to make you better! You can get on without them all…Just let go of it…Let the past be the past…those you know in Sengoku-jidai have already lived their lives and died out. Miroku and Sango are already dead…
"No…" They are. You are a stranger in a past that might not even be relevant to the present. For all you know, this might be what you were supposed to do. Fate doesn't deal out what isn't needed…your part in this tale is over…Let them live it out…Let them die…
"How can I do that? How can I leave all that I know and love, all the past of the world, behind like that? It seems so hard…" But it is the right thing to do…Sighing in mental frustration, Kagome threw herself onto the couch, sinking into the warm softness, filling her nostrils with the fragrance of…mint chocolate chip?
"Ah! No!" Kagome had knocked over her half-melted vat, and the ice cream spilt onto the couch, and soaked in. "Damn my miserable luck! Damn, damn, damn!" Kagome burst into tears of frustration; this was the last straw.
--Hark, how the bells, sweet silver bells,
All seem to say, "Throw cares away!"--
Inuyasha landed in the past, back in the time Kagome called "Sengoku-jidai." He snorted in anger at what just happened, glaring with utmost hatred at the iron sky, as if it was the cause of this mess. Damning his horrible love-life, he leapt, in one bound of terrifying fury, to the Goshimboku tree, landing lightly in the branches, where he reclined, trying to think. But he couldn't; no matter what position he put himself in, it was always uncomfortable. He finally burst his fury in one loud "SHIT" before punching his fist through a thin branch, sending it flying into the air, landing over a hundred feet away.
"Why the hell can't I think about this?!" he growled. "I can't focus, I can't clear my head! Hell, I can't even sit comfortably! Why the hell is it always me who gets this kind of shit? Why, Kami-sama, do you enjoy torturing me so?!" he screamed at the sky, no one listening except the snow flakes.
In his anger, he felt a deep hollowness in his chest, and he suddenly realized that Kami had turned away, not choosing to answer, and the hollowness seemed to be pulling his ribs in on themselves, and his chest felt a great burning pain. He clutched the muscle above the area of plaguing nothingness, and felt like Miroku's hellhole entered his heart. It was as if his fury was eating him from the inside out.
He glared hatefully upon himself, looking inwards towards his gray soul, not white like a human's nor black like a demon's; just a gray, neutral stirring inside of him that felt nothing, that wasn't helping him, and he knew then that he and his soul were very separate, and that he was a doomed animal, cursed as anything could be, and the rage that ate at him was staining his soul all the darker, and he could see Hell's seven levels rising before him, and a horrid book keeper at the red-hot iron gates, and he knew that the quill in that thing's hand was about to list his name. He knew he was smiling dementedly when he saw himself waiting in a long line, extending onwards, forever. A horridly ironic bliss…
Stopping himself, he managed to get his wits under control, and he felt now how hard his heart was racing, and with a gentle will he slowed it down to normal; he felt that he could think again.
"Inuyasha, breathe," he said to himself. ""It's okay, just don't lose control. Don't let yourself go…" He clutched the hilt of Tetsusaiga just in case, and he knew now that he had just risked going into his full-demon form, just by his blind rage. But his human half was strong enough to get him back under control…
"What happened? Why am I here? She said a few insignificant words and ran. And I couldn't bring myself to drag her back…Why?" Inuyasha sat there, thinking intensely, until he realized he was numb, covered with snow. It was very dark out, even for his eyes. He couldn't even begin to recall any thoughts he had, for, in that whole time, nothing came to him; nothing at all.
He really needed help.
-- Christmas is here, bringing good cheer,
To young and old, meek and the bold--
"Kaede!" The hanyou said with relief, landing next to the lantern-bearing old woman in the middle of a village street. "I'm so glad I found-" And his face was met by a great iron pot that Kagome had given to the old woman for Christmas, and Inuyasha fell to the ground in a pained daze. Kaede grabbed him by the throat.
"Bastard! Ye stole my chicken!" the old woman roared. "How dare ye break into my home and take my din-"
"It was for Kikyo!" the hanyou protested against the verbal onslaught. "Jeez, that was all I needed to give her and she'd leave forever!"
"A black pot such as this gives food a certain spiritual imbalance, just enough to give the meat a gray hue, grayer than it should be. This impure meat, when blended with certain herbs and arranged in such a way deep within the Earth, creates a direct portal to Hell that can be opened briefly. She was going to take your ass to Hell and let ye fry with her." The woman gave one of those you really are dumb! You don't pay any attention looks.
"I got the point when Kagome said-"
"Not another Kagome problem! Ye honestly have no life if all ye talk about is her! Ye must really love-" Her mouth was suppressed by a clawed hand. "Shhh!"
"Mwuphab bwilphas-" the old woman mumbled as Inuyasha dragged Kaede into a tiny alley between two huts. Sango walked by, singing along with a song on a pair of head-phones, also from Kagome. She didn't seem to hear a thing.
"She had me feelin' like she's ready to blow! She said baby let's go! And I moved and I said Yeah! Uh-huh! It's Sango! It's yer birtday! It's yer birtday! Uh-huh! She get down up, Come and get me! Yeah!" She did a little groove, snapping her fingers and shaking her hips; Miroku's head popped out of a nearby hut. A feminine voice inside queried "Miroku-kun? Are we done?"
"Ugh," Inuyasha grunted, rolling his eyes as the monk pursued the girl down the street. "Nimrods, the lot of them," he cursed. He turned his attention back the old woman.
"Help me, Kaede! Please…"
-- Christmas is here, bringing good cheer,
To young old, meek and the bold!--
"He's a bastard," Kagome muttered, beginning the process of hardening her heart. "He's cruel, uncouth, far from suave, horrible table manners, can't treat girls right, is pig-headed, mean, and over all, I HATE INUYASHA!" She felt liberated, and the whiteness of the soul within her pulsated, and she shone with an outer radiance of victory over an inner battle.
I don't have to go back," she said, satisfied and peaceful for the first time in months. "They all can get along without me. Inuyasha's gotten better with Tetsusaiga, and it'll transform if he defends Miroku and Sango. So, in all reality, I should have left long ago. I really don't need to deal with this. I'm totally alright. Totally."
With a great smile on her face, Kagome set off for her bed, every memory of Inuyasha fading before her eyes. As she slipped under her warm covers that night, she felt a strange draining sensation, and she had trouble remembering how to spell "Sango."
-- Ding dong ding dong! That is their song!
Ring, joyful ring! All caroling!--
"Inuyasha! Ye are the biggest idiot I have ever seen! You did that? No wonder Kagome went home crying! Don't ye know how she feels about ye?" Kaede ranted, pacing back and forth in her hut, illuminated by the light of a small fire.
"W-well…n-not up until just…just recently…" Inuyasha said in a daze. "I thought she was always too busy going out with…Hobo…"
"Well," Kaede sighed, sitting down on the matted floor, "That is an understandable mistake…"
"But I don't get it!" Inuyasha simmered, crossing his arms angrily and scowling. "This will drive me nuts before the end… I just know it…"
"Well, even ye cannot deny that ye heard her confession…" Kaede sympathized, getting up and walking over to the confused hanyou. She then slapped him across the face, hard.
"Yeow! What the hell was that for?!"
"For being the most thick-headed creature in existence, that's what!" Kaede scolded. "If ye want to fix the situation, ye need to go and talk to Kagome about it…And be gentle; she is strong, but frail."
"I already tried that," the hanyou murmured angrily. "She sat me and yelled at me, and I left."
"Somehow I get the feeling that ye are trying to make it seem as though she persecuted ye and ye are the victim…" the old woman said dryly.
Inuyasha huffed. "Well, I yelled at her to listen and she sat me and then I returned the present she gave me and now I'm here talking to you, and-"
"ENOUGH! GET YE BIG FAT WHINING ASS OUT OF MY HUT OR I'LL HAVE MIROKU EXORCISE YE!" Kaede bellowed, most un-old-woman-like. Inuyasha fled from that hut, and shot through the icy bitterness of the gray sky, disappearing into the forest.
--One seems to hear words of good cheer,
From everywhere, filling the air!--
"Kagome, I'm very worried now," Mrs. Higurashi murmured as she walked silently into her daughter's room. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and sighed, running a motherly hand over her sleeping daughter's cheek and up over her forehead. It was burning hot.
"Kagome?" she queried, gently shaking her daughter awake. "Kagome, are you okay?"
"Hmm? What? Oh, good morning, mother; I'm feeling fine. Honest," Kagome said with a smile as she saw her mother's concerned face.
"No, you are not!" Mrs. Higurashi said bitingly. "you're sick! Stay right here. It's time for some chicken ramen and Pepto-Bismol."
"What?!" Kagome sat in bed, horrified. "But that always makes me vomit! Are you trying to kill me?!"
"No, of course not. You have a fever, and it's probably because of that jumbo-ice cream binge you went on last night. Plus, you didn't even finish your movies. Something is really bothering you."
"Well, Inuyasha was bothering me, but I don't quite care anymore. In fact, I can't even recall why I was so mad! Wow! I feel liberated!"
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"No; you don't."
"But I do!"
"Kagome…" her mother warned.
"Alright, alright… I'm not fine. You are so nosy…"
"A mother's duty…" Mrs. Higurashi said with a smile, getting up and walking away. "Get some sleep. Rest. It's too cold out for you to go to school."
"I knew it would be canceled!"
"Well, that's all fine and dandy. Get some rest, or I'll ground you."
"Evilness…"
--Oh, how they pound, raising the sound,
O'er hill and dale, telling their tale!--
Inuyasha stared at the dark depths of the well, and he sniffed the breeze gusting up through it. It smelt even colder than in Sengoku-jidai.
"What are you doing?" he asked, gazing at the pit. "What on earth are you doing?" Sighing, he turned around, and leapt to the Goshimboku tree, where he sat in the branches shielded from the ice and wind, and proceeded to think again.
"Okay… well, if Kagome doesn't…doesn't… Ah hell! I still can't think! What am I, cursed?"
"Yup!" Shippo said, popping out of a group of leaves, giving Inuyasha such a fright that he fell out of the tree.
"Boy Inuyasha, you sure are out of it!"
"What would a runty kitsune know about this?"
"Well, if Kagome doesn't want to listen, make her see."
"Huh? See what?"
"That you're sorry, of course!" Shippo declared. "I don't know, maybe get her some chocolates or something! Preferably, a chocolate-covered candy cane!"
"Okay, now what is all this And where can I find it?"
"Umm…I haven't gotten that far, actually. I thought I'd get kicked out of the tree before I got to this point."
"Well now, there's a good idea!" Inuyasha then booted the fox tyke out of the tree, and leapt as fast as he could towards the well.
--Gaily they ring, while people sing,
Songs of good cheer, Christmas is here!--
Landing inside the hut of the well, five hundred years into the future, Inuyasha peered through the sliding door, glancing around the grounds of the temple. No one was outside. Stepping out into the snow-bound city, he leap away from the grounds, and into a busy street, congested with people, and giant metal objects hurtling around like dangerous demons.
The people around him were staring at him, and he realized that in bright red, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Lights flashed behind invisible walls, people pushed past him, and the metal demons cried in harsh voices, and people got in and out them, and the smoke filled his lungs, and the snow was suffocating, and the noise, and the air, and the lights, and the people--
"HOLY SHIT! WHERE THE HELL AM I?!"
-- Merry merry merry merry Christmas,
Merry merry merry merry Christmas!--
Kagome was bored. B-O-R-E-D bored. She was so bored that she got into a pleasant conversation with Souta. Man, was she desperate for un-bored. Gathering a thick, fuzzy blanket over her shoulders and slipping into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers she often denied owning, Kagome hobbled down to the living room, and peered outside at the thick blanket of snow. She sighed happily, until she realized that she was stuck home with Souta…until the snow was cleared…and she would have to be…be…be… NICE!
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
-- On now they send, on without end,
Their joyful tone, to every home!--
Sango sat with Miroku in Kaede's hut, looking at each other with matching unsurprised faces. "He did it again," they said in unison.
"Kaede," Sango said, looking over at the old woman, "what did he do now?"
"He was bringing Kikyo dinner and Kagome saw."
"IDIOT! It was with the black pot Kagome brought, wasn't it?"
"No. He left the pot, but took the chicken stewing in it."
"Oh. That's part of the 'Hell-spell,' right?" Miroku questioned.
"Aye… sometimes that boy is so stupid…"
"Don't we all know…"
End of Chapter 2
A/N: Sorry for the very late update! This took a little longer than I thought it would. Please note that the sudden appearance of humor was…needed…The stuff I got into in the first chapter started to give me nightmares…Oh well. I'm liking the slight turn in plot this one is taking…Maybe it'll be a shorter, bittersweet story. Oh well. Like it or no? Tell me! On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the direction this one is going in? I really don't know if I like this one or not… ; Tell me, okay?
