I Was Invincible - Chapter 8

"If I smile and don't believe, soon I know I'll wake from this dream." -Hello, by Evanescense

Sengoku Jidai, 8 Years Later

Rin awoke slowly. Senses returned to her at an even more dredging pace, and sound came to her as if listening down a long tunnel. She thought she heard voices, but she wasn't entirely sure if the muffled noises were emitting words or merely pitches.

Almost reluctantly, her eyes opened last. Bright light stung them into a visual world, one blurry and red in the corners. Her fogged brain worked strenuously to process images, but her sight was a slow operation that gradually gave her the realization of her surroundings.

She was in a room, albeit a small one. It looked like the inside of a hut, perhaps one that had burned down. Burned?

A torrent of unbidden memories flooded her recollection, and she gasped. "Chiyo! Kiku! ...Jaken." Her eyelids closed, and then in an even more pained whisper she added, "Sesshoumaru-sama...!"

He had eaten Chiyo. It was not the time nor the place to dwell on such recent events, but it was impossible to forget the large droplets of bloody drool that had hit the ground almost obscenely as he chewed on the unfortunate girl.

No, it couldn't be. Sesshoumaru-sama would never eat humans, not with her there. She had called for him, and he had come. But.. those girls hadn't meant her any harm. She didn't think they did, even though Kiku's strange facial transformation still confounded her. Sesshoumaru-sama had also thrown Rin far and wide as if she were merely a parasite latched onto his leg. Had he been coming to rescue her, why would he do such a thing before devouring an innocent village girl?

'No,' her mind admonished her vehemently, 'do not think this way. Sesshoumaru-sama would never hurt me. He was trying to save me!'

Even though the events made no sense, the loyal girl refused to acknowledge the fact that her guardian would ignore her to destroy lives. Even in her earliest memories of him, he always came for her. She was too tied to him and their years together to believe anything else. He ordered, she obeyed without a thought to the command. Wherever he directed, she would follow. She had no other need or will in her time with him to do otherwise.

He was everything to her.

...But now he was gone, and she had seen him eat an innocent girl. Unperceived though it was, the first seed of doubt rooted itself in her now adult mind.

Now her focus shifted about the room, taking in the objects. It was a spartan dwelling, with a dirt floor. Mud, reeds and animal dung composed the walls about her, and she lay on a mat with another thrown haphazardly over her body for warmth. The only other furniture in the room was a rough-hewn wooden trunk nearby her proximity. Various pots and weaving materials were neatly positioned against the crude walls, giving the room a tidy but poor appearance. The voices she heard - and yes, they were most definitely voices - emanated from the other side of a thin shoji screen. It appeared the hut might have two rooms, which was rare for a dwelling of its composition. It seemed odd to Rin, who had grown up in a shiro without want of anything. She never judged those who had less than she, for she still recalled a dim time before Sesshoumaru had come along. In this past she had been an orphan without a home or friend, and it was the driving need to find someone that would accept her that brought her to the injured youkai's side. She had been beaten by the villagers from whom she had taken food, and therefore was driven into the forest. She continually stole from them not because she believed it wrong (what child at such a young age believes that surviving is wrong when hunger is all that drives them and no one has taught them any different?). What she didn't understand was why they beat her. Why couldn't they share? They had plenty.

When she first came across the injured demon, she believed him to be in the same situation as she. Alone, and beaten continuously for taking food just to live. This common thread that she had believed to exist was what drove her to help him. When he refused her first offering of food so abruptly, that childish theory crumpled to dust and she soon came to know the real truth of the matter. Nevertheless, she stayed by his side and followed him - probably because he tolerated her presence then. True, he had snarled at her with those flashing red eyes of his inner demon, but she was used to agression taken against her. Surprise and wariness were with her then, but defeat was not.

Now it felt close. So close.

"Is she awake?" came a clear sentence. The shoji screen had been quietly slid aside while she was lost within the shades of her memories.

"I do not know." The reply was deeper, male, but cracked on the edges. A silence prevaded, and then from beyond both vocalities she heard a young child cry out.

"Mother, mother!"

One of the individuals retreated, something Rin gleaned from the sudden rustle of cloth and the echo of footsteps. A man was suddenly at her side, staring down into her eyes with a quick scrutiny. Her wide eyes were abruptly consumed by the image of a young man, most likely a few years her senior. His narrowed brow creased the intersection above the bridge of his nose, but relaxed when he saw she was awake. Something about him was oddly familliar, and most uncomfortably so. It was if she had met him before.

She swung upward to sit upward, quickly filled with the panic of her situation now that the dream-like quality of her shock had worn off. She nearly bumped foreheads with the young man hovering above her, and he took a step back to avoid a certain collision. "Where am I!" Rin cried, "Who are you? Where is Sesshoumaru-sama and Jaken!"

The man frowned for a moment at something, and dark clouds filled his equally dark eyes. He approached her, hands out in supplication. "Calm down, do not exert yourself." He touched her shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to get her to lay back again, and she flinched away violently.

"The fire! Who are you? What do you want? I need to find Sesshoumaru-sama!" She tipped herself to kneel in order to clamber to her feet, but the effort itself felt like it took more than her battered body would allow. She must have hit her head in the fall on something, for a sudden wave of vertigo claimed her senses and she stumbled before rising as her knees gave out. She ended up in a graceless heap with her hands on her head.

The man was suddenly there. "I told you to take it easy. There, now.." He touched her again, this time on the back of her head. She tried to pull away, but her dizzyness refused to free her. She also realized that the support he gave her grounded her, and soon the room gradually stopped spinning. "Better?"

She swallowed thickly. "Yes. Can.. can you tell me where I am and who you are?" Now that she had been humbled by her own limitations, she felt somewhat more collected.

"Of course. My name is Kohaku. You are in the home of my sister, my nephew and I."

Kohaku.

It came back to her in a rush of sensation and images, and she nearly doubled over again. "You... I know you."

He smiled slightly, a familiar smile that had not yet surpassed time. Those all too familiar eyes stared into hers and she was almost lost. "I was wondering if you would remember." He knelt by her side now, and she found just enough strength to push herself away to put distance between them. His hand fell away helplessly, and he remained where he was.

"You were there... and I... Sesshoumaru-sama did not..."

"Yes." His features grew stony again at the second mention of the name.

"Where is he? I must return to him!" Panic began to fill her voice again, but instead of relieving her of it, he merely increased it.

"I do not know. My sister used to reside in the place we found you. You were knocked out cold."

"You were in the fire too?"

"Fire?" He appeared genuinely confused. "There has not been a fire there since..."

She cut him off. "There was a fire.. everyone was on fire! Did you not see the bodies? The huts, burned to the ground!"

"I..." he began, but was interrupted once more by one of the earlier voices.

"Brother?"

Kohaku's head whipped around to regard the female in the doorway, and Rin's eyes followed - and then widened to the size of dinner plates.

She remembered this woman, too. It had been so long ago, almost another life, but she remembered her. She was a member of the group that Sesshoumaru-sama's brother (half, as he liked to point out) led. Sesshoumaru-sama never talked about 'that mutt' much, save what she heard when they fought one another. Why they did so had confused her for quite some time. After all, if he was all the family that her guardian had, shouldn't they be close? Family was hard to come by, or so Rin learned. It was precious and had to be kept close, for you never knew when you just might be alone again.. like she was now. The pit of her stomach dropped and she felt like crying again.

"So she is awake." Sango, for that was her name, approached more closely. At her heels was a young boy, just a few years younger than Rin had been when she came upon Sesshoumaru all those seasons ago. He clung to her plain kimono with one small, pudgy hand that was wrapped with a beige bandage. He still hadn't lost the baby fat in his cheeks, and his opposite hand was busily employed with his mouth as he sucked his thumb.

Rin raised her focus to Sango's face for the first time now that she was closer, and was shocked to what she found there.

There was a definite sadness, a permanent quality that now assaulted the woman's visage. The demon exterminator had to be rapidly approaching thirty years of age, but she appeared to be a woman of forty or so. Deep penumbras lurked beneath each eyelid, and the crow's feet deepened their hue. Creases in the corner of each eye were like slight scars on either side of her face, but the real scars were embedded on the left side of her face and in her soul. Rin stared at this side of her face for a moment, and then did an eye slide when she realized Sango had caught her staring. Before she caught herself, she had a second look, but more quickly.

Sango sighed.

It was clear the woman was tired, and from her stooped posture one could say she was even somewhat broken. There was only one thing that could do that to a person - she had lost something important to her and it had cost her dearly. Kami, she was still paying for it now.

"She was asking where we found her." It was Kohaku now, quietly cutting through the awkward stillness as if slicing a slab of butter with a knife.

"Did you tell her it was Kaede's old village?"

"No. Do you think she knows who that is?"

"Doubtful."

"She mentioned a fire..."

Sango's wary expression dropped to something bordering anguish.

"Well..."

She didn't make it much further. Rin, tired of being ignored, squeezed her input between the two. "Why are you talking like I am not here?" She glared to a degree, swallowing her fear and holding her tears at bay - for now.

Sango slid her eyes to the teenager, and shook her head slowly. "I apologize, I did not mean to leave you out. How are you feeling?" A mask had covered the woman's previous expression, and now left her appearing calm.

Rin rubbed the back of her head, forgetting the former topic for now. She did not remember someone named Kaede, and could care less at that point that they had known someone from that place. They had all died, anyways. Everyone but her. Did Sesshoumaru-sama...? No. Never. Impossible.

"My head hurts a little," Rin managed to croak.

"You should rest, yet. You will not get far in your state and we shall explain all we know to you later."

"I know you..."

"Yes, I know. I know you too." Sango smiled slightly, but the effect did not reach her eyes - those world weary eyes.

"Where are the rest of your friends?"

Sango turned then, presenting her back to the girl. "Like I said, you should rest." She walked away then, her hand on the back of the little boy's head as she led him away from the room. He glanced back at her once, and for a brief second in time she recalled another of Sango's group in his features - but that had been long ago and she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

The demon exterminator's outright refusal to answer her last quest notwithstanding, Rin turned her attention to Kohaku. "Did I say something...?"

Kohaku just shook his head, cleared his throat, and forced a smile for her benefit. "We will talk later. My older sister is right, you should get some more rest."

"But.. I cannot rest without knowing where Sesshoumaru-sama is!"

The young man seemed to be struggling with himself not to scowl. "Please, just rest for now. We will find him later, I promise." He stood, and then gave her an encouraging smile before turning for the shoji screen.

As he left, Rin closed her eyes and fell back against the mat. She was frightened again, frightened of the unknown without one tall, silent and intimidating youkai at her side. She wanted to be with him more than ever, but realized now that she would have to wait - wait until she was with him again and the entire ordeal was over.

She fell asleep with a frown on her face as she once more saw a giant white dog eating Chiyo in her mind's eye.

Tokyo, Present
The bell on the door of a small antiquities shop jangled one last time as the shopkeeper locked up for the night. The woman fought with the old key for a moment, and then stared without emotion into the darkened storefront. Behind her, a streetlight cast an eerie light upon its surroundings and illuminated her shadowy reflection in the glass of the shop. She could see her dark hair, white blouse and navy suit pants in the window, but all else was lacking detail. The metal bars placed between herself and the glass cast vertical stripes across her faded figure, making it appear as if she was imprisoned. The items in the shop beyond were a plethora of various artifacts from a bygone age. They cluttered the display window and shelves, dusty with disuse and random in placement.

The shopkeeper's business was in a run-down part of town, although crime was not nearly as bad as in other sections of Tokyo. There was the occasional robbery, petty pocket theivery and vandalism, but homicides were down to one or two a year in that area. During business hours, it was not unusual to hear a car alarm or the wail of sirens as the police or other emergency vehicle sped by. The woman would have liked to relocate her shop, but for now it was all she could affoard. Getting the antiques to stock her store was never a problem; getting the kind of customers into that section of downtown who were interested in buying such things was.

With a small sigh, the woman adjusted the heavy purse on her shoulder and approached the old Hyundai parked a block up the street. It was a battered thing, about a decade old, but it was her first car and it still ran effeciently. Better yet, only one would-be car jacker had attempted to unlock it that past April when she had forgotten her purse in the passenger-side seat. She was on a mission that day to grab some papers she had accidently left behind at the shop, and only stepped inside a second before returning to see him using the unwound wire of a clotheshanger through the small crack in the window of the passenger-side door. The moment she had flourished her stun gun was the moment he had dropped the wire, turned around with fearful eyes, and raced up the street. She stood there for a march of minutes, staring at the wire now laying on the dirty concrete and wondering what the world had come to. He had been no more than fifteen, that boy.

Fifteen.

She shook her head; no point in remembering that stuff. It was useless, really. She had already been through all the who's, what's, why's and how's - and still couldn't come to a suitable answer. Quietly, she got into the car and turned on the headlights before slowly pulling away from the curb. God, it had gotten dark fast. She often lost track of time, moreso lately. Business was never doing well, but it was certainly taking a turn for the worst lately. She had bills to pay, a family to take care of and she often found herself cutting too many corners to make ends meet. She pondered digging her old bike out of the accumulated junk at home and using that to get to work instead of the car, but then dropped the thought entirely a second or two later. For one, work was too far away for biking, and two... well, it wouldn't be seemly for her to bike to work on a young girl's bike, anyways. Did the tires even have air anymore? It had been years...

'No. Don't think of that. Of them. Of him.'

The drive home was uneventful, and as she pulled up to a dark residential area and one house in particular, a light came on in the upper window. The light then spilled below onto the ground floor and an older woman's silhouette was outlined in the bright glow of flourescent lights.

"Hi, mom." The shopkeeper approached an open doorway and the elder female that stood within it. She had streaks of gray in her short, black hair. Laughlines pulled back to reveal a welcoming smile as she ushered her daughter inside.

"Where were you? I had dinner made hours ago. Did you work late again?"

"Yeah. I had some calculations to do for the lease."

The woman's mother could tell from the tone of voice that her daughter used that all was not well. Her head dipped a little, but she maintained her sunny smile.

"Maybe tomorrow will be better. Come inside, Kagome."

They did.

A/N: Haha, bet you didn't see that coming... or maybe you did.. whatever. Anyways, fun chapter. R&R, as always! Hope you liked it. :)