I Was Invincible: Chapter 4
Sengoku Jidai, near the Bone Eater's Well...
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Kagome screamed. Well, at least she attempted to. She hit the ground hard on her stomach, and the wind was nearly stolen from her lungs. When a calloused palm clapped itself over her mouth and stifled any forthcoming outburst, she went numb.
"Shhh..! They'll hear you!"
The young girl remained unnaturally still, frozen in place by the body atop hers and the unfamiliar voice that came from it. It was a woman's, yet the inflection was low and deep. She didn't know where to place the voice, but it seemed the woman knew her.
"Come with me. The others have already started to ford the river."
'W-What?' Her mind stuttered, completely beguiled.
Before Kagome could respond with a muffled protest, the hand over her mouth was removed and the weight lifted from her back. Once free to move, she began to rise. This action was eliminated when she was slapped across the back by her unusual captor, who hissed at her. "Don't! Stay below the line of the grass!"
Gasping as she was rapped firmly across the line of her spine, Kagome finally jerked her head back over her shoulder to take in the woman. She was hunched down below the long blades of meadow grass, glaring sternly at the miko.
"Who are you?" The panic and scream had by now dissipated into the back of Kagome's throat. The face of the other female was familiar - she had seen her briefly before.
"We don't have time to talk! I'm from the village, just as you are!" The woman grated out her words, switched an uneasy look back over her shoulder much as Kagome had done seconds ago, and then returned her dark eyes back to the startled schoolgirl.
Oh. That's why she recognized the face.
It was one she had passed many a time in Kaede's village, one of the nameless girls that often skirted past Kagome's line of sight. She was a working girl, the no-nonsense type with straight black hair and solemn features that bore a slight resemblance to... dare she say it... Kikyo. There were important differences between the two, however. Kikyo had been elegant in life, much as she was in her undeath. The grit smudged across this woman's face told of a life of toil and hardship, much as the rough texture of her hands did. There was more emotion coming from this one, too. She was an anxious thing, too... pushy and almost paranoid with an odd fear showing in her kohl-brown eyes. Two thick, dark brows knitted together beneath the soggy, oily mass of bangs draping across her forehead.
It was the first time that Kagome noticed that she was perspiring heavily. Her breath came in shallow gasps, as if she had just run a marathon. "Go... go!" She shoved at Kagome's side. "They.. they're coming..."
"Who?" Kagome whispered, still frozen in that particular moment, the moment she felt horror seep into her heart.
She hadn't noticed it before, but the woman's kimono had been battered with dark stains that she couldn't... wouldn't contemplate. This was only true of the lower half, which was still shoved up and rode across the upper half of her hips. In fact, it seemed glued there.
Kagome spared no more time. She scurried through the myriad leaves of grass on all fours, and her terror only grew as she saw the village woman make a slick, shiny path in her wake as she followed Kagome. It was a dark trail, one that kept the trampled and yellowed grass down and sticking together in clumps.
Blood.
The villager was bleeding from the inside out through the junction of her thighs.
Rape.
Kagome was just adrenaline now. She couldn't think. She couldn't think. She was nothing more than an animal, a deer, running from the quiver of the hunter's bow. Her limbs took over, and shock made her intuitive mind sit at a distance and watch with morbid fascination. The woman behind her was beginning to lag severely, and her heaving pants grew worse. Kagome couldn't stop. The fear was born inside her heart like a mad thing, and it refused to let go even as her mind shrieked at her to go back. Instincts and intellect were now separated by a large canyon, one without a bridge to link it. One had to win.
It took a sheer amount of willpower to do what she did. The blunt ends of her hands dug into the soil, and she stopped. Quivering like a rabid animal, her head turned so that her eyes could disclose the location of the village woman behind her. There.
The woman was on her stomach, coughing with a weak, rattled exhale of breath that came randomly. Kagome crept closer, and closer yet, but then the sound of hoof beats snapped her eyes up and over to an incline in the meadow. The rapt sounds of horses reverberated from just behind that hill, the one in the direction of the village.
The nameless woman snapped her eyes up to Kagome's, who had by then fastened a shocked look to her in return.
The rape victim mouthed the word, 'Go.' She coughed again, this time spraying the earth in front of her with a mixture of mucus and blood.
Kagome hesitated; she couldn't leave this helpless woman to die here, alone in the grass. She would stay and protect her...
'With what,' her mind chastised, oddly calm despite the circumstances, 'your bare hands? Look, baka. You left in such a rush you left your bow and arrows at home.'
A cold feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The bass voices of men on horseback neared, and a black banner crested the hill and into sight, bobbing up and down like a buoy on the ocean.
"GO!" the woman cried out, this time with a high tenor that made the oncoming band pause and brooked no argument from Kagome. It was a second or two later that the hooves of horses shook the earth again, this time with a rapid pace that told the mysterious invaders had spurred the animals into an all out gallop.
Kagome felt fresh tears at the corners of her eyes. They threatened to fall, but she wiped the skin near her tear ducts with the back of one grimy hand that had been clawing through dirt earlier. With a deeply sorrowful and regretted look to the woman, she nodded once and took off again.
She didn't look back... she couldn't look back. Part of the reason was attributed to the fact that she now had dirt in her eyes, and she winced and flinched as she parted the meadow grass with a hasty determination. It in turn batted against her face as if it was happily slapping her for her foolishness.
The schoolgirl only stood once she reached the edge of the woods. There hadn't been any notice of her flight, nor was there a care for it. The soldiers had what they wanted back in the meadow.
As they once again took their turns with the woman, Kagome felt a deep shudder rack her body just before rivulets of liquid spilled freely down her cheeks.
The river. She had said to go to the river.
Kagome ran on, forgetting the sting of briars as they traced red welts against her exposed legs. She made sure to forget just how many times she tripped and fell, and exactly how many times she wished in vain for Inuyasha to appear.
...But she could never, ever forget the dying, piercing cries of that woman back in the field. They rang in her ears over and over like an insidious chant, even after Kagome was long out of earshot.
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Sengoku Jidai, the river near Kaede's village...
The dark woods was a rushed memory, the small tears in her skin the only standing proof that it had actually happened. As the sound rushing water mingled with those tormented screams still assailing her head, Kagome snapped out of her entranced stupor. She saw shapes moving up ahead, through the trees. A muddled movement of various colors, like a Chinese festival dragon parting the rapids.
When she finally was able to comprehend that this was the remaining group of villagers that had somehow escaped the dysfunctional realm (the word 'realm' was the only way she could describe it. It hadn't been real... it couldn't possibly be...) she had just arrived from, she hit her knees on the soft bank. Her mouth dropped open, and her hands flew out before her and fell heavily onto the sandy soil with her fingers splayed. She knew better than to scream, but it was all she really wanted to do. She wanted to scream and scream and scream, until her own voice drowned out the unfortunate woman's and she came back to the present. Back to Kagome.
Instead, she settled for heaving. She heaved and threw up into the water, over and over again. The current carried away the tan broth that her stomach outpoured, and after a few minutes she was dry heaving violently.
"Kagome!?" A surprised and weary voice across the river called.
Kagome looked up onto the opposite bank on which the very last train of villagers was stumbling. Not everyone had made the deep rapids, but she failed to notice that yet.
Sango. Sango was across the river. She couldn't see Miroku, Shippo or even Inuyasha anywhere, but that was definitely Sango.
"Sango.." the girl wheezed, before a third, new scream snapped her out of the brief flare of relief she felt.
There were two women and a toddler attempting to join the rest of their companions on the bank, and they stood halfway between Kagome and Sango's side. They were in the deepest part of the water, and floundering to stay above and in place as the rapids stirred and swelled about them. It appeared to be an elderly woman and a much younger one holding a child in one arm. The other hand was underwater, gripping the old woman's.
As Kagome and the others looked on in extreme disbelief, the older woman gave a gurgled choke that was somewhere between a yelp and disgruntled rasp. Within less than a second, for surely it was only that, the old woman disappeared beneath the water as the current separated her from her daughter's hand. The younger woman struggled to hold on to the infant that she held with one arm, while reaching for her lost mother at the same time. The young villager's chin dipped below the water as she frantically sought out any firm contact with the old woman's hand, but it was to no avail.
Suddenly, in much less time, the baby was swept away as well. This one didn't even get the chance to make a last, desperate lament before it was gone.
The young woman now was now alone in the middle of the river, and a low moan came from her person. She was ready to give up; ready to let the spirits of the river take her as well. Unfortunately, two young men had by then forded the gap between her and themselves by that time, and they forcefully grabbed onto her and dragged her back to shallower ground.
The woman looked like she was sleepwalking, but without the effort. She was without a will to live as they hefted her ashore and deposited her on the stony embankment. Curling up into a fetal position, she shook and quivered but made no noise.
No bodies resurfaced downstream.
Kagome dropped her head and clenched her eyes shut.
"Kagome!" Sango shouted. "Get up! We have to get you across... the village..."
"Stay there, Kagome-sama! We're coming for you!" It was Miroku, but listening to them yell at her was like listening down a long tube at a faint infusion of voices. She just couldn't feel, and the sight of the tawny earth and roiling water ahead of her was getting blurry around the edges.
How...
What...
Why...
Black.
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A/N: So there's Chapter 4. Ok, people.. this thing is now officially rated R. Just letting you know!