Guess who.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kill Bill, Inuyasha, or anything related to either of them.
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Lei non Deve Parlare, Sento
Chapter 10-Girls With Satisfied Minds
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"Can I ask you something?" she sighed and leaned across the doorframe, suddenly looking exhausted or depressed or both at once.
"You knew this day would come," he said quietly.
She shook her head gently and averted her eyes to the ground. "It's not about that. Well, not really."
He was silent as a response that gave her permission to ask her question. Again her chest rose and fell slowly as she shifted position so that her back was to the frame and her head was turned upwards towards the sky. "Why did you let me go, and not her?"
He had already prepared an answer for the question he knew she might someday ask him. "The circumstances were different."
"I thought you'd say something like that." Apparently she had also prepared for the situation. Her head turned towards him, and with a smile on her lips she said, "Did you love her?"
"That's enough Sango."
Sango laughed lightly, "Well Sesshomaru, I'm pretty fucking glad I never got a boyfriend like you. Nice way to show you care."
"Sango," he warned dangerously, "I refuse to go into this with you."
"Hey, don't I have a right to know?" she suddenly became strict and alert. "After all, if I'm going to get killed for something that was mostly your fault, I'd sure as hell like to know why you did it in the first place."
"I did not say you would be killed." He took a step closer to her, "I came here to warn you, this is a favor."
"A favor?" she snorted, "This is a favor? I'll tell you what would be a fucking favor," Sango advanced towards him, as he had advanced toward her, "Tell me why you made me do it. It's the least you can do for me."
His golden eyes narrowed, and anyone else but a close acquaintance would have been intimidated by it. "And that in the end is what it comes down to Sango. You did it. It was within your power to disregard my request, but you did it."
She swallowed and seemed to waver for a moment while he continued. "You destroyed your share of innocent lives that day, and it was by your own will. Don't pretend that I forced you into anything."
Sango's eyes grew wide while her body started to shake gently, "I still want to know though," her voice was meek, having lost all of its former confidence. "Did you like that girl?"
There was an awkward pause. "Be ready."
She nodded while tears streaked down her face, "I will be, thank you."
Sesshomaru was prepared to leave then when she interrupted him once more with another strange comment. "I think about what I did every night." She took a moment to breathe, "Every night. I wonder what made me kill those people, and then I wonder what made me kill the people before that, and before that."
"If it's any consolation, the majority of people you killed were criminals."
Sango shrugged, "Yeah, they were fuckers. They really were." She started to smile again, "But I remember that kid, you know the one? The one we did right before we...we got her?"
"Yes."
"And and, his mom, and the dad..."
"Grandfather," he corrected shortly.
"Yeah, and then at that hospital; those were good people Sesshomaru."
He was silent. There was no use protesting, she wasn't lying in the least. And he didn't have the strength or evidence to prove that because they were human, they deserved to die. That just wasn't true.
"And I killed them. We all did." Sango shuffled her feet, and some of her long dark hair fell off of her shoulder and formed a screen in front of her face. "It was because of her, I know. She really got to you." There was a noise inside the house, which alerted Sango to the fact that someone was awake, and might discover her. She started to speak more quickly. "I won't press that part about her, I swear. I'll always want to know, but what I need you to tell me is really, why did you let me go?"
He thought about it for a while, trying to compose the best answer that wouldn't make him lie to himself even more so than he had in the past few years. "Try and be satisfied when I assure you Sango, the circumstances were different."
She leaned back, and then another noise, this time of footsteps, made her stand rigid and turn towards the door. "Okay," was the last thing she said to him before she gave him a brief and serious nod and then disappeared into her house.
Sesshomaru stood by the door for a second longer, listening to Sango begin speaking to what sounded like a child. A little girl. He knew she had a daughter.
While he stood there he considered the question he had asked himself thousands of times, and had just now been proposed by Sango twice. Once when she had asked him if he'd loved Kagome, and again when she'd asked him why he'd let her go.
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Kagome chewed her nails in the spacious hotel room. Her eyes were trained on nothing, but were focused intensely. She hadn't been so confused or irritated in a long time.
Having just discovered from a newspaper that she had been in a coma for just over five years, she was shocked to discover, not that she had lost so much time, but that she didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for herself.
It had been a while since she'd been completely consumed by rage. So consumed, in fact, that there was no room for anything else. She wasn't compassionate about anything, she wasn't gentle or timid. In fact, she didn't feel violently angry most of the time, as she'd also expected.
Kagome had pictured herself as maybe throwing things across rooms eventually. In time she figured grief and regret would get to her, and she'd go insane. Somehow at the very least she'd expected to feel some sort of sadness for the five years she'd gotten knocked off.
But what Kagome could safely conclude was that somehow she'd gracefully realized that it was bad that so many awful things had happened to her, but what it really came down to, for her, was that there was no one left to care. Kagome had no one, no family, no friends, no little daughter. She was totally alone, and she'd understood immediately that now she could either drown herself in self-pity, or get something accomplished before she went out for good.
This point had slowly begun to dawn on her, and as she wrenched herself from her doubt and insecurity, ideas formed in her head. More specifically, a single idea, that she knew would officially satisfy her in every way she could ever desire. That idea, that most wonderful solution, was revenge.
Kagome had known at the start, from when she'd first woken up and felt the absence of her baby, that Sesshomaru would pay for everything. All the lives he and his group had claimed would get him. She would make sure of it.
Her teeth left her fingers, and she stood up confidently. Kagome was a little more at ease now, though still wavering a bit with grief. Now she had a goal, and that was a nice, secure thing. She would kill everyone, the three women, the man, and most importantly, Sesshomaru.
Money would not be an issue. She'd been pleasantly informed after accessing her bank account as Meyumi Tran after five years that everything Laura and Amelia had ever had had been turned over to her at their death as part of their amended wills; and there was even some from Lilly, who otherwise had given everything to her daughter. What it all meant though was that Kagome had the means to make her fantasies of pay-back a reality, and nothing would stop her from seeing them through.
And though she herself had absolutely no idea who any of the people who had arrived at the hospital were, aside from Sesshomaru (who she knew would never allow himself to be recorded in any fashion), or where they were, she knew how she would find out. Through a library computer she had learned that there had been one other survivor aside from herself of the massacre at the hospital. She would talk to that survivor, and discover the names of the killers. After taking care of them, the plan was that they, in turn, would point her towards Sesshomaru.
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She looked down at the piece of paper in her hand and sighed deeply. The white walls around her seemed ready to collapse on top of her at any moment. It was a very ominous building, and instilled a sense of claustrophobia in her heart that she hadn't felt for a long time. Kagome couldn't understand how someone might believe that putting a mentally unstable person in such a place would in any way improve his or her condition.
Shaking it off with a shudder of repulsion, she started to walk down the great hall before her. It was cold, and Kagome hugged her arms for warmth, feeling very out of place in the empty corridor. Her visitor's name tag beamed out at everything from her chest, suggesting that she was actually in the mood to say, "HELLO MY NAME IS: Serena." Serena was a fake of course; it was too risky to hand out her real name left and right just yet. Suddenly, she stopped and turned towards a door.
It was white and imposing, like just about everything else around, but it did have a small window, and that was its only good attribute. After pausing a little while longer in uncertainty, Kagome composed herself and knocked. A female doctor, stout and round with middle age, answered the door and invited her in warmly.
She stood then in a depressing, dim room filled with faded, padded furniture. Everything was arranged carefully, in just such a fashion. Kagome moved forward in curiosity while her eyes roved over the rest of the room. Then the doctor's voice alerted her to her task again and she followed the woman. Though there was no one in what appeared to be a sitting room, one could hear voices through the walls.
They stopped together at another door, and the doctor opened it cautiously, stepping in first and immediately cooing to someone that Kagome couldn't quite see. She began to feel very uncomfortable, suddenly aware that she had no idea how she was going to break the subject of her visit to someone who was allegedly suffering greatly from just the memory of it.
The woman reappeared again in front of Kagome and ushered her inside. "This is your visitor Tanya," she said sweetly, "Her name is Serena, she's your cousin, remember?"
Kagome moved into Tanya's room shyly, afraid of what she might see. She expected someone bent over in fright, trembling or muttering to herself. She was paranoid. It would make her feel impossibly guilty if she had to terrorize a poor young woman with something she just wanted to forget.
Instead, however, Kagome looked at Tanya and saw a twenty something adult who looked about as dignified as anybody you'd see on the street. She was reading quietly, and though hunched, she was not speaking to herself in foreign tongues or fondling random inanimate objects. Tanya looked up as Kagome entered the room, and the mystery of her presence in the dismal hospital was revealed.
As Kagome looked at Tanya, and Tanya looked back, Kagome saw that there was a great weight on the girl's shoulders. They were similar in the fact that they both had to walk around with something heavy that they couldn't shake. Well, Tanya wouldn't be able to shake it any time soon, but Kagome was a go-getter, she would take care of it.
The doctor stood awkwardly beside them while they regarded each other with intense stares. Then, realizing that she was obviously a third wheel in a relationship that was deeper than what she could comprehend, she tapped Kagome on the shoulder and whispered some to dos and don'ts in her ear. Among them was a strong warning against mentioning Tanya's experiences at a certain hospital several years back.
She nodded in response and the doctor left them alone to conduct their visit. Kagome moved forward confidently and pressed her hands into her pockets, smiling. "Hi," she said.
Tanya returned her smile slightly, her gaze never wavering, "Hi. So you're my 'cousin'?"
Kagome smirked, "It was a risk I was willing to take."
"What? That I would find out you weren't actually my cousin?" She shrugged. "My parents don't visit, I don't see heads or fucking tails of my sisters. Hell if I'd pass up the chance to see someone from the outside world."
Kagome laughed gently and felt her respect for Tanya grow; she reminded her keenly of Laura. "Why do they keep you in here Tanya? If you don't mind my asking. You seem pretty normal for a place like this."
Tanya snorted, "I don't even know who you are and you're already asking me questions?"
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," she waved it off with a gesture of her hand, "I'll tell you. Suffice to say that an unfortunate disaster occured and I...I had a breakdown." She paused and sighed deeply. "Before I knew it they had me in here, kicking and screaming in a real straight jacket. I calmed down, but you know, it's not an easy thing to forget, and when I remember...you know."
Kagome was silent. The smile had long since faded from her face, and her mouth was a straight line. It conveyed such seriousness that Tanya unconsciously flinched away from her. The curtains of the window stirred in the breeze as Kagome thought over how to explain her position to Tanya.
Suddenly, she spoke. "Tanya," the noise startled the patient, who had lost her cool in a second. "I know this is a lot to ask, but I need you to tell me what it was that made you breakdown."
Tanya shivered in surprise. "What?"
Kagome bit her lip and looked down to the floor in hard concentration and frustration. Part of her was eager to withdraw any sort of information she could, from any source, even a frightened girl. The other side of her, however, was straining. No matter how hard Kagome became, she could never disregard the innocence of another person.
"Please," she begged suddenly, "Tanya..." Kagome strode to her bed, and hovered above her with the look of a hurt dog, "Please tell me all that you remember about that day in the hospital."
Her eyes became wide and scared, "How do you know about that?" she snapped. "They must have told you! I told them not to tell anyone!"
"Please!" Kagome cried again, interrupting the heated emotions that were rising in the patient. She went still immediately, and her attention was restored to her visitor's face. "Please tell me Tanya!"
There was a moment of silence, and then, "Who are you?"
Kagome had known she would eventually ask her that, and very carefully, she started to explain. "Do you remember if there were any other survivors in that accident that day?"
Her eyebrows went down in deep thought, "Yes. There was another girl."
"Well..." Kagome's voice began to shake, "What were the details surrounding that girl? Do you know them?"
Tanya nodded hesitantly, "Yeah I do. She went into a coma, they...they thought she was dead for a while. And then they found out that she was still alive; but in a coma," she repeated.
"Yes," Kagome urged her on, "And what else?"
"No one knew who she was, there weren't any records. They tried to find out, they identified some other bodies, they asked around..." Gradually she became more comfortable speaking, and her eyes adapted a distant quality while she continued to tell Kagome about the mystery she had kept up with for years. "Some people had seen her, but no matter what they couldn't find out who she was. It was like someone was setting up dead ends for them."
She sighed and looked up at Kagome, "About a month ago, at the hospital they had flown her to after about the first year, she woke up."
"She woke up?" Kagome asked her in a whisper.
Tanya swallowed, "Yeah she did. After five years, but...No one saw her. For all they know she could have been kidnaped, there weren't any fingerprints or, or anything... There was an unconscious nurse by her bed when they got to her room, he was really banged up." She shook her head slowly, "It was like he was burned, that isn't possible though. She wouldn't have even been able to move her legs after waking up, they said so." Her fingers gathered in the fabric of her pants, "The nurse's car went missing too, she took it. They haven't found her either; she just disappeared."
Kagome let the tears fall at the conclusion of Tanya's story while Tanya herself looked up coyly and saw her crying. "What's wrong?" she asked.
Kagome laughed again, with false cheerfulness. "Yeah, I'm pretty tough to catch..."
Silence. Long silence.
"Oh my God."
The girl's hands flew up to her mouth as she sidled away from her visitor. Kagome brushed her tears away, and looked up to face the terrified, thrilled Tanya, who was by then half curled among her pillows. "I suppose I've got some explaining to do, huh?"
The patient gasped and then burst into giggles. She shook her head around and then laughed outright, happily. It lasted for a few seconds before she settled back down and was able to get a little closer to Kagome again, who was still standing in front of her. "It's really you isn't it? The girl? You woke up?"
"That's me."
Tanya giggled again, "No fucking way... You, you were there in the hospital that day? That was you?"
Kagome nodded.
"But," she suddenly sounded desperate, "If you were there, please tell me–"
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me what happened!" Tanya exclaimed. "Please explain it to me, I need to know! You don't understand, it's been eating me up!" She flew into a long rush of words, "They said that you were the one they did it for, whoever did it, they were after you! They said so! The police, the detectives; there weren't any real clues, but they could tell! Please tell me why, I need to know..."
Kagome sat down slowly beside Tanya on the bed. "If I tell you anything, you need to swear you won't tell a soul."
She nodded solemnly, "I swear."
"And first, you have to tell me your side of the story."
Tanya hesitated, "I couldn't do that."
"Then my lips are sealed."
She pounded the pillows, "Why?!"
Kagome gave her a stern look and levelly handled the side of the patient that had gotten her hospitalized in the first place. The confused, scared, cornered, furious side. "Why do you think I came here in the first place? Just to tell you about what happened to me? Because I can assure you that I'm looking forward to reliving the experience just as much as you are."
Tanya went silent and swallowed, understanding that she had been pinned down by Kagome's logic. And although she knew she could have challenged her visitor with the fact that she had already said enough to make herself suffer, she decided that there was something about Kagome that said the world owed her big time.
And so with much reluctance, she began her story.
"I had just started there, I was an intern, you know...a nobody." Her voice was so faint and delicate that Kagome had to strain to hear it. "About a month into my work there, I...I can't do it," she suddenly said, "I'm so sorry," drops of translucent liquid shivered in her eyes, "I just can't."
Kagome leaned forward and draped her arm across her shoulders soothingly, "Please..." she whispered quietly in the girl's ear.
Tanya's shoulders shook softly for a while before she had gathered enough strength to go on. And still when she spoke there were great pauses in her words every now and then. "I, it was okay, it was just a normal day...you know? You remember it?"
She nodded, as though she had been in a condition to remember the day in vivid detail.
"And we were at the desk...m-my friend and I were at the desk. I was just talking...t-to her, and, and..." She took several long, deep breathes before continuing; her entire frame seemed to shake and convulse with each inhale and exhale. "I left. I, I was done talking to h-her, and I turned around and started walking towards m-my wing of the hospital... And then, just as I turned a...a corner, I heard s-someone talking to my friend..."
She paused again and rubbed her swelling eyes before eventually succumbing to the horror of her memories. Tanya shuddered once, twice, and then let her face drop into her hands. Kagome stepped in to remind her of her task. "What happened?"
"The people my f-friend were t-talking to...they had an accent, and I thought, 's-sounds interesting, I'll g...go look... So I did, I just sort of turned a little b-bit, and I just barely s-saw them from around the corner, I didn't even have a g-g-good view yet, and..." It was sad and pitiful, the way she had to talk. She could hardly escape the pressure of the tears in her eyes long enough to put two words together without tripping over letters and syllables.
"...Yes?"
"They shot her...They shot her! My friend, they shot her!" Tanya burst into fresh tears and flung herself into her covers, away from Kagome. Again her frame was quaking, and seemed in such a chaotic state that if Kagome were to touch her she might explode. Yet even so, she reached out carefully and touched her shoulder, feeling that she was close to achieving the information she needed.
"Please Tanya..." she asked, rubbing the girl's back soothingly, "What happened after that?"
Her voice was muffled and quiet through the layers of fabric she had buried her face in, but Kagome could still hear her. She bowed her face beside the patient's and listened with every fiber of her being for anything that she had to say.
"They started to talk..." she said, her voice seemingly a bit more level after she had cried some more of her pain out, "They couldn't see me, I was just out of their view...but I could see them..."
"What did they look like?" Kagome suddenly said, interrupting her, "What did they say? Did you hear their names?"
Tanya nodded slowly, shoulders still heaving slightly from her efforts. "They were talking...about you. They were talking about you, I know it."
"What did they say?"
"They said, 'she should be easy to find,' and..." Her face turned away from her again, "They said that they would have to 'prevent themselves from being seen.' They said it like it was nothing, they knew what they would do..."
"What did they do?"
"They killed everyone, everyone in the entire hospital, but me. I hid from them, I don't know how I survived, but I did."
Kagome looked forward intensely, hardly able to bear even the thought of the blood and destruction Tanya must have seen. It had been a massacre, pure and simple, all for her. All because of her. If she had never put her petty interests forth in the first place...none of them would've had to die...If she'd just stayed with Sesshomaru...
Her heart hardened against the thought. Kagome realized with determination and fresh strength, as well as fresh anger, that she'd had every right to leave him then. She'd had every right to kill him long ago, and she hadn't. She was blameless. But regardless, now she had an entire hospital of people to seek revenge for along with the rest.
"What names did they mention Tanya?" she asked insistently, "What did they look like?"
Tanya curled her fingers around her sheets. "There was one woman...She had long, long dark hair. It was b-black. She looked...sad, but I know she wasn't."
"What was her name?"
"I heard her called...one of them, it was a man, he talked to each of them...He called her Kikyo. He was thanking them..."
"Did the man," Kagome began quietly, "Have long pale hair, and gold eyes?"
Tanya nodded again, "Yes."
It was then Kagome's turn to focus her rage, and her fingers formed fists around Tanya's bedding as well. Her fury flared inside of her like a flame at the mere thought of Sesshomaru. "What about the rest of them?"
"There was one oth-other man. He had long black hair like the other woman, but it was shorter... He had r-red eyes. Red."
"What was his name?"
"Na...Naraku."
Kagome concentrated to remember, but it wasn't even necessary. The names that Tanya gave her would stay with her forever.
"And the others?"
"There were two other w-women. One had black hair, like the others. It was sh-short, and tied back and she h-had and eyepatch. She was the one who shot m-my friend. She shot her, like it didn't even matter... Like it didn't even matter. Her name was K-Kagura."
"Kagura..." Kagome echoed. She felt that she somehow knew Kagura more than the others; that they had met at another time, away from the rest but with no less malice intended.
"Her eye, the only one...It was pink. Bright pink. Ma-Magenta, it scared me so much..."
She buried her face in the pillow again and breathed into it deeply to steady herself. When she had calmed down she resumed speaking.
"And then the l-last one... She, her name was Sango. Her hair was brown, l-long, but, but not very long...She looked like, sh-she didn't even w-want to be there. But I know better, I know she killed people too. ...I h-hate her."
Tanya started to weep again while Kagome stared out at nothing; her eyes were focused on empty air as she listened to the girl cry tears of grief and fear beside her.
"I hate all of them!"
Sadness for the girl welled up quickly in her heart, and Kagome had to look away. But she was also very grateful; Tanya had not only given her the information she'd needed, she'd also made her stronger. Because Kagome then had an entire hospital of people to seek revenge for along with all the rest.
"Thank you, Tanya," she said quietly, and carefully lifted herself from the bed and turned towards the door. She was just easing off of the mattress when she felt a hand around her arm, keeping her from leaving.
Tanya gazed up at her, face tear-streaked, but hopeful. "You haven't told me why..."
Kagome returned her stare silently for a moment, letting the reality of what had just happened sink in for the both of them.
"I can't give you all of the details."
"Th-That's all right," Tanya insisted.
Kagome took a deep breath, "Sesshomaru, the one with the white hair, killed the love of my life. He then proceeded to turn my life into a living hell while holding the lives of my family members above my head. After that he got me pregnant, and then when I tried to run, he followed me. After promising to let me go, he emerged at the hospital as I was about to give birth to my baby with his group and killed all of my friends, as well as my child. He then explained to me that he had murdered my family also, and after that he put a bullet in my head with the intention of killing me. I have woken up now, five years later."
For a moment Tanya was speechless. She stared at Kagome in open-mouthed, horrified fascination, almost unable to believe that such a heroin of tragedy was sitting beside her. Even more farfetched: that she had managed to keep herself together after such disaster.
"What are you going to do?" She finally asked in a faint whisper.
Kagome smiled in devilish pleasure, "I am going to kill every last one of them. I'm going to kill Sango, I'm going to kill Naraku, I'm going to kill Kikyo, I'm going to kill Kagura, and finally, when all of that is done....I am going to kill Sesshomaru."
Tanya found that she had lost her voice then, she was so in awe of Kagome, what she had been through and the emotion with which she explained her plans. Seeing the opportunity to leave quietly was evident, she placed her hand on the girl's head, looked down at her serenely, and said, "Thank you Tanya. Thank you very much. Thanks to you I'll be able to get revenge for all the people I've lost, and for all the people who died in that hospital. I'm promising you now that everything will be okay."
Tanya nodded dumbly, still at a loss for words, and so Kagome walked towards the door and left the room silently, looking every bit a wonderful, tragic warrior. She made her way out of the mental hospital with renewed strength, because after seeing the faith, admiration, and pity in Tanya's eyes she knew that there was nothing in the world left to stop her from achieving her goal. If she could believe in that idea, it was one thing, but if another person also believed in it, then it would truly happen.
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Ahhh, we finally start to get somewhere! Hurray for bloody violence in later chapters! And by the way, I'm sleepy because alas, school is not over yet. In fact it's still in the mood to foul things up because EXAMS ARE ON THE HORIZON. Ha. Ha. Ha...VERY FUNNY–NOT. WHOEVER THOUGHT OF EXAMS PAYS DEARLY FOR HIS OR HER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
