Some of these parts I wrote while I was half asleep. Right now it's 10:30 and my eyes are burning. So forgive me for the crappy writing.
Don't skip anything in this chapter. Especially, don't skip through to the end! You'll be really confused.
Well, enjoy the chapter.
-
Chapter VII: Heartfire
Suzume said goodbye to Miko and Inuyasha at the entrance to the Great Hall, or rather, the exit.
She was shaking her right wrist, slightly uncomfortable with the new rosary she had received. To her, it probably felt like a new set of clothes: Not quite fitting, but desirable.
"After all," she mentioned with a playful smile directed towards Inuyasha, "I ought to have a different dormitory now…" She had a content look on her face, and color on her cheeks. "Maybe, with a little luck, it'll be a little bigger."
"Congratulations again, Suzume," said Miko, smiling enthusiastically. "You're going to do well, I know it."
"Thanks, Miko. Please don't talk like we'll never see each other again, I'm still in your combat class, both of you," Suzume answered gratefully.
"Lucky us," said Inuyasha with a swift roll of the eyes. Suzume really seemed to like rubbing her promotion in both of their faces. But he was the only one who was bothered by it. Miko was placid and docile by nature.
"Hey, that joke's old," said Suzume, giving him a scornful look.
"Feh," answered Inuyasha.
The other newly-promoted mages began calling Suzume's name. She turned in reply. They were waiting at a pillar down the walkway, waving impatiently.
"I guess I'd better go," she said, smiling again. "You lovebirds take care of each other."
And she ran off feverishly to catch up to her friends, leaving Inuyasha scowling loudly and Miko looking fretfully embarrassed.
"Wasn't that fun?" asked Miko abruptly before they began walking back towards the dormitories of the acolytes, in the opposite direction of the way Suzume had headed. The youngest greens were racing through the swarms of students, obviously busy in a game of tag, weaving in and out through the crowd. Inuyasha had just calmed down.
"Sunreturn?" said Inuyasha absentmindedly.
"Of course, Sunreturn. What did you think I meant, telling Suzume off?" asked Miko, smiling. "She was right, you know. It really was old. I heard you say it over dinner."
"You were listening to us?" asked Inuyasha incredulously.
"Oh, right. I didn't know you had a problem with eavesdropping," answered Miko, shrugging her shoulders quickly.
"Oh, I don't," he said, looking away decisively. "But just think about all those pretty words you missed out on…"
Miko blinked. It seemed that she had no idea what he was talking about. And so she asked him.
"Just what are you talking about?" she asked curiously.
"That cur…What's-his-name."
"Cur? Who's a cur?" Miko asked. Then suddenly she understood. "Ookami? Ookami's a cur?"
"Oh, so you get it now," said Inuyasha impatiently.
"Hey, if anything, you're a cur," she said, slightly irked, and with a puzzled look on her face.
"Right…You just say that because I insulted your little friend…" Inuyasha said, beginning to stalk off.
Miko easily caught up to his speed and tugged on his sleeve like an intrigued little girl. "Hey…Why do you call him a cur?"
"Because…" Inuyasha growled, "He is."
"Oh, just drop it," Miko said suddenly, maturing suddenly in years and taking on an exasperated tone of a teacher. He stared at her confusedly, and then began walking away again.
It was Inuyasha's turn to be annoyed when he heard Miko's footsteps, hurried to catch up to him. "You never answered me. Did you like Sunreturn?"
"I guess."
"You guess?" she repeated, eyes widening. "Well, Seishou's magic exhibition did seem to make you a little glum…"
"Fool! I'm my sullen old self!"
"It's sad that you bring up a good point…" said Miko, nodding.
Inuyasha "feh"ed again.
"Don't give your brother the satisfaction of bothering you. And why do you always have to 'feh'?"
"It's not bothering me!" he said a little louder. "And why does my 'feh'ing bother you?"
"Frankly, because it's annoying," said Miko, walking ahead of him. "Believe what you want about your brother. But don't you know that you're better than him?"
"After all of what he did? He's I-don't-know-how-many years my senior, of course he can have a little bit of ground on me," Inuyasha admitted grudgingly.
"But he doesn't," Miko insisted. "Your heartfire is-"
She was about to say something further about Inuyasha's "heartfire" when there was a shout of one of the students running around the entrance, then a large murmur from the rest.
The two of them turned to see what the commotion was about.
It was a peculiar spectacle: On the cobblestone ground a few yards behind them, Sesshoumaru was just getting up on his feet, obviously having been sprawled across it just a second sooner.
It was odd. Inuyasha could never remember standing up in the presence of his sitting older brother. Usually, being more highly elevated referred to a more elevated ranking.
Sesshoumaru moved towards one of the young boys who had been running around.
Evidently this one had been crouching over on his wobbly knees so he could trip one of his friends running around. But, he had, unfortunately for him, gotten in the way of Inuyasha's brother and his edgemaster peers. Sesshoumaru, much to his own and the green's loss of face, had fallen and tumbled over the obstruction.
"You poor whelp," said Sesshoumaru in a low, hostile tone, advancing closer to the boy. He might have grabbed him by the scuff of the boy's haori if Tatsugami hadn't interrupted with a scoff.
"A green?" Tatsugami's voice was high and baleful. She had taken out her oversized fan and was currently waving it gently over her mouth amusedly. "Seishou of the Western Lands, approaching a green?"
A few of the mages had a chuckle, here and there. But the wiser students kept quiet.
If he continued, Sesshoumaru would be doing exactly what everybody was thinking and what only Tatsugami had voiced- picking a dishonorably and pathetically unmatched fight.
Incredibly, though, Tatsugami had just probably saved Sesshoumaru from further humiliation.
The man dusted off his shoulders. To Inuyasha, it seemed as if he was sweeping off invisible flakes of nothingness; his new white habit remained as white as ever. If the sun were to suddenly come out, he could imagine it reflecting off the clothing and blinding a few students.
"I don't want boys and noise and foolishness. I'm sick of it," Sesshoumaru said finally, regaining a portion of his dignity.
A small portion.
The young boy who had tripped him got up, bowed with his head touched to the ground, and, mortified, ran off to the dormitories with the rest of his friends.
Sesshoumaru's half-recovery incited a few jokes from his fellow edgemasters as they began to walk away. Inuyasha even heard Tatsugami reply with a small smile, "You must be getting middle aged" but he spoke louder and with more clarity than the rest, so his brother could hear him.
"What is it that you want, then?"
He could sense Miko's eyes darting up to his face uncertainly, worriedly, trying desperately to catch his gaze. Inuyasha was unfaltering.
The silence within the whole group was total, grim, and prolonged by what Inuyasha could now recognize as the mournful howl of the wind.
"What do I want? I want the company of my equals. Come," he beckoned to the edgemasters. "Let us leave the acolytes to their foolish toys." In response, Tatsugami snapped her fan shut with a mark of finality and, once again, the group began to walk away, explicably silent.
Inuyasha shouted to their backs, louder, and not quite sure what he was doing, or what he was going to do. "What do you have that greens don't?"
At this, Sesshoumaru fully turned around to acknowledge his sibling. The crimson slashes at the edge of his aquiline cheeks bended as he made a twisted, unnerving smile. His sharp, yellow eyes seemed to cloud.
"The answer to that is obvious."
"Oh, really? Tell me, then. I'd like to know," retorted Inuyasha.
Even whispering, it was quiet enough everyone else to hear his brother's single-worded answer:
"Power."
Inuyasha made a scoff, and was quite surprised to hear that it sounded as much as condescending as Tatsugami's had.
"I'll match your power," said Inuyasha quietly.
"Oh?" said Sesshoumaru, his menacing smile growing wider by the second to a point where Inuyasha feared it would split his face at the jaw.
Miko started tugging on his sleeve earnestly. He didn't shake her off, fearing that he would come off as harsh, but ignored her.
"Act for act," Inuyasha replied finally.
As quickly as his brother's smile had appeared, it disappeared. The tint of his ochre eyes once again became into a deathly sort of focus.
"That means, Shijou…That you dare to challenge me?" he asked, voice low and husky.
"I challenge you," Inuyasha confirmed in a solid, unwavering voice. Miraculously, Miko stopped tugging on the sleeve of his haori, but did the next worse thing.
She stepped slightly ahead of Inuyasha, so that she was partially in between him and his kin, who had advanced slowly. "Duels in secrecy are forbidden!" she said, looking at Inuyasha pleadingly.
He looked past her, straight into the eye of his half-brother, who only began to smile again. "I think you'd better remind your half-breed friend again of the law that protects his worthless life, ningen," Sesshoumaru said, nodding at Miko.
Miko whispered something so that nobody seemed to hear, but Inuyasha caught the irregularity of her indignant tone.
Then Sesshoumaru spoke directly to Inuyasha. "And you better remind your wench to stay out of business that isn't her own."
In his anger, Inuyasha could have sworn that his claws became sharper.
"He looks sulky," Sesshoumaru went on to say. "I wonder, did he really think that I'd accept a challenge from him?"
There was a loud murmur of agreement to these words from Sesshoumaru's group of edgemasters.
"He doesn't even know of weapon-sorcery, I'm willing to bet," he continued, smiling widely, thinking the battle was won.
Inuyasha had hardly been aware of it, but throughout this entire scene, his right hand had been creeping towards the hilt of his sword, and so slowly that no one, not even himself, noticed.
"What do you know of what I know?" questioned Inuyasha, infuriated. His hand was shaking in rage, and for the first time, Sesshoumaru saw it.
"Ho," he mentioned loudly to his friends. "He's going to brandish that hunk of metal at me."
Somehow, hearing Tetsusaiga referred to as a "hunk of metal" made Inuyasha clearly, for the first time, see complete red. The rage that had been festering for years and years of rivalry called to his hand.
And unsheathed his blade.
For the first time at his whole stay at Goshinboku, Tetsusaiga transformed. Of course, Inuyasha had done it before for the short time he had it at Hosusori, and had seen its master craftsman, Totosai, wield it in this way.
He had been confused and upset when he found it would not transform within the walls of the Seminary. Later, he found it out from Sensei-sama…Such a great "hunk of metal" posed an unfair factor to Inuyasha's future opponents in spars. It could be quite a useful weapon, even in Inuyasha's then-untrained hands. He had informed him that there was a quite powerful weapon lock to prevent it from transforming.
And, somehow, Inuyasha had just miraculously broken the spell.
It seemed so strange-that the action had been elicited by anger and his pure will to do it…But somehow, Inuyasha had known that he would break the enchantment.
He could call it a half-demon's born intuition, but he had the feeling it was something far stronger and valuable.
Either way, he held Tetsusaiga straight out in front of him. Inuyasha could feel the power that seemed to well at his fingertips like heat. He concentrated and watched as the energy created itself as a red haze around Inuyasha's blade.
Inuyasha felt at the extent of his power…
He couldn't explain it. It was like he was pouring all of his soul into Tetsusaiga, without even meaning to.
"Illusion," said Sesshoumaru breathlessly.
Inuyasha heard derisive shouts of "fool" amongst the ranks of the edgemasters. Though they had really been siding with his half-brother for most of this argument, they operated with their own minds. They were talented, sharp, and wise… They knew a desperate attempt to avert humiliation when they saw one.
"That wasn't illusion," Miko said, hoping her words would calm both rivals down. "That was true change." She turned abruptly to Inuyasha. "Shijou…listen-"
"Do I have to say it again, ningen?"
Sesshoumaru meant the reminder to Miko to keep to her own business.
"Well, go on, little brother," he said, using the endearing term in a voice full of hatred and anger to mock Inuyasha. "I quite like this trap you build for yourself. The more you try to prove yourself my equal, the more you show yourself for what you are."
Inuyasha put a hand on Miko's shoulder to put gently push her aside. She reached up with her own to stifle the movement, in quiet protest.
For once in this entire incident, her eyes caught his. They were dark umber pools that simply pleaded, No, no, don't listen to him.
And, at the same time, Inuyasha wanted to tell her that he had no choice, that he had gone to far to look back, to even consider it…
"Which is?" he demanded.
Sesshoumaru spat: "A hanyou bastard."
This snide remark brought Inuyasha to an even higher level of rage.
"Do you know what's keeping me from attacking you, Seishou?"
"What? Your inability to lift that hunk of metal? I thought so," said Sesshoumaru quickly, malice glittering in his widening golden eyes.
"Now, what're you going to do prove you're better than I am?" asked Inuyasha impatiently, sheathing Tetsusaiga to show that he wasn't so weak that he couldn't lift his sword.
Instantly he felt energy sweeping back into him, and he nearly swayed with the feeling.
Miko seemed to sense this and put a fragile hand on his arm for support.
"I don't have to do anything, scum," Sesshoumaru answered, the patronizing note coming back into his voice. "Yet-I will. I will give you a chance opportunity. Envy eats at you like a worm in an apple, does it not? Let me let out the worm…"
"It's been out, Seishou," Inuyasha said seriously. "For years and years."
"So glum!" remarked Sesshoumaru, smiling all the wider. "Come, let us sort our business. What will you do with the chance I give you? An illusion, fireball, and a pitiful soul charge?" he asked.
"Well, half-brother…" started Inuyasha, thinking as quickly as he could, afraid that his words would fail him. "What exactly would you like me to do?"
Sesshoumaru took a long, hard look at him, then made an expression that looked as if he was suppressing a contemptuous laugh. He was surprised just with the fact that Inuyasha was daring to challenge him.
"Summon up a spirit from the dead, for all I care!"
There was another eerie moment of inexplicable silence, and at once everyone knew that Inuyasha, having challenged an assumed superior, was taking all things seriously.
Inuyasha thought for a moment about all the things he had learned from Sensei-sama.
None of them involved harnessing a soul back from the afterlife.
But…that doesn't mean he hadn't learned it.
After all, he had been curious.
Curiosity killed the cat, right?
Or rather, the dog.
It so happened that while his teacher was unusually absentminded one day, Sensei excused himself quietly from one of Inuyasha's private sessions.
Maybe he would never have agreed to Sesshoumaru's challenge if he hadn't seen it- the sacred book of Edgemaster Spell Binding. The luster of the book's leather cover caught his eye that day, compelling him to open it and study the contents inside.
And he had, despite his rationalizations.
Surprisingly, the spell book had no enchantments over it whatsoever. What vexed him the most was that Sensei would keep it out in the presence of a student.
Inuyasha had flipped to a random page, and by chance- or maybe it was fate- it landed on a chapter concerning methods of restoring the dead to life.
Aware of how wrong it was, though the danger was exactly what called to him, he read awkwardly through the pages. Page after page after page there were elaborate purification ceremonies for priests and priestesses, strange practices of soaking bones and flesh. He searched until he found something frighteningly simple…
A person could be brought back to life by rupturing his resting place with a spirit sword.
Inuyasha stopped thinking about those disconcerting moments of reading, aware of how long he had kept the silence.
He paused to look at Miko again. It looked she had given up trying to dissuade him.
Summon up a spirit from the dead, for all I care!
Then he nodded firmly at his brother. "I will."
Sesshoumaru went into another one of his cold rages.
"You will not. You cannot. You brag and brag-"
"I will do it!" Inuyasha shouted back.
It seemed for a moment that Sesshoumaru would sway at the fury with which the words were flung at him. He looked stunned, if only for a moment.
"Very well. And while you try, remember that it is you who asked for this chance."
"Just try?" asked Inuyasha, mimicking his brother's disdainful tone. "I said I would do it."
"Be careful about what you say," Sesshoumaru pointed out. "It is your mouth, and your mouth only that has gotten you thus far."
"If I could help it, it would take me farther. But I guess I'll have to settle on bringing someone back to the afterlife."
Sesshoumaru gave him an icy glare. "Very well. I will take care of breaching the walls of the school."
"That's impossible." Tatsugami's eyebrows were raised. "Even for an edgemaster."
"Well...If an acolyte can bring back a person from the afterlife…The least of my abilities should include finding a way to do it," Sesshoumaru answered. He turned back to his brother.
"What do you say, Shijou? Shall we rendezvous in two hours?"
-
And suddenly, in what seemed like no time at all, Inuyasha was venturing out into the grassy cliffsides of coastal Okinawa. Miko had to run to keep up with the quick tempo of Inuyasha's pace, though it really seemed to him that he was walking as slow as he could…
Sesshoumaru had gone through with the breaching of the building spells. Very well, actually; he had literally created a hole in the wall and created a cloaking illusion to hover in its place, so that when you entered the hole, it seemed that you were falling into a stone wall.
The walk was long, and a short procession of students, mage and edgemaster alike, followed after Inuyasha, who was leading the way to where Miko described the High Priestess's tomb was.
Speaking of Miko, she now seemed to comply with his word. Perhaps as a ningen she truly understood his need to prove himself. Even if she did, though, Inuyasha could never imagine her doing something as foolish as what he did.
"You're…you're sure about this…" said Miko slowly and suddenly, "Right?"
"Of course. What are you, an idiot? Do you really think I could back down now?" asked Inuyasha.
"I wish you would," she whispered softly, clenching her fingers around her bow.
Maybe her words were meant only for her own ears. Maybe she forgot that Inuyasha's half-demon ears caught every single sound.
"Look, I know this was stupid, Miko," said Inuyasha finally.
"Oh, so you just begin to realize it now? Now?" she said, not looking at him.
"No," he answered. "But why do you act like…like I've done something wrong?"
"Wrong? You have done something wrong! You don't call this wrong?" Miko's voice rose dangerously.
"Wrong, yes. But wrong to you?" he replied, taking a hold of her hand and forcing her to look at him directly.
She still avoided him by darting her eyes to the side.
"Damn it, look at me," he said quietly, lowering his voice. The others had quite about caught up by now, so while the two continued walking he softened.
His words made her look up, and for the first time, Inuyasha caught the sad expression on Miko's face.
"I'm sorry," he said grudgingly, eager to get Miko to stop wallowing.
"You don't sound terribly apologetic," she answered coldly.
"It's always that way with women, isn't it?" asked Inuyasha, continuing to talk in a mocking manner. "It's not what you said, it's the way you said it…"
"Shut up," Miko said. Inuyasha was willing to bet that it was the first time he had ever heard those two words from her. And coming from her, they seemed callous, unfitting.
Well, he wasn't getting anywhere. He went for a change of topic.
"What were you going to say..." Inuyasha started, hoping he had picked a subject that wouldn't irritate Miko, "about my heartfire?"
"Oh…That," she answered slowly. "I was just going to say that yours is stronger than brother's."
"Hey…What is 'heartfire,' anyways?" asked Inuyasha, suddenly curious.
"That's right; I never explained it to you, did I? It's sort of hard to, anyways. The simplest way I can put heartfire," said Miko, "is that it makes up a person's soul."
Inuyasha waited for her to continue, because he of course knew nothing of what she was talking about.
"It's basically the force that emanates from somebody's spirit," Miko said, struggling to depict it. "In any case, yours is stronger than Seishou's."
"Meaning...That I have more, or that it's stronger?"
Miko looked at him for a moment, studying him hard. "Maybe both."
Suddenly a balmy breeze from the north swept down on the cliffside. And the clouds seemed to shift in the sky, allowing the full moon to shine down on Okinawa.
Miko's raven hair flowed with a lustrous definition in the soft, baleful wink of the moonlight.
She looked perfectly ethereal.
"So, this 'heartfire…' is a word only you use?" asked Inuyasha, continuing to walk.
"No. But the only other person I've heard strike close to the idea is Sensei. He called it 'lifeblood.'"
"What exactly does it do?"
"It doesn't 'do' anything. And nobody knows what it is because they can't see it."
"But you know what it is because…"
"Yes. I can see it," she said with a slow nod. "I can see it in everything around me, all the students have it. In the wiser ones, it is stronger."
Inuyasha suddenly made a strange sound, and looked like he was trying not to smile.
"You're telling me I'm wise?" he asked, looking away and scoffing. "There's a first."
Miko allowed herself to smile and shrug. "Maybe. Maybe the wisdom's just untouched…"
"Feh, wench."
Miko laughed harder, hunching her shoulders and shivering slightly. She continued to walk until she reached the cliffside. She peered over the edge cautiously.
Inuyasha worriedly put a hand on her waist to keep her from losing her balance, at which she gave a little flinch of hesitation and surprise. Her body seemed to tremble at his touch.
"Yes. It's that one," she said, pointing to one of the caves.
"You're sure?" Inuyasha asked.
"Pretty sure. I can't jump down there," Miko said, backing away from the edge a little bit.
Inuyasha's face betrayed a little bit of irritation. "I'll take you down," he said.
"No thanks, I'm scared of-"
But before she could relay her tendencies of acrophobia to Inuyasha fully, he had hoisted her up with his right arm and leapt off the cliff's edge.
Miko gave a quiet yelp; the volume caught in her throat from the shock of the influx of wind in her face. Suddenly she could hear every wave of the ocean crashing down on the shore two hundred feet below them.
Two hundred feet!
She squeezed her eyes shut, but to no need; they had already landed. Inuyasha took his arm off from around her, setting her gently on the ground.
"I'm never doing that again!" she said, rubbing the goosebumps feverishly that had suddenly formed on her arms.
"Too bad. There's still the return trip," Inuyasha said, nodding his head towards the cliff edge, which was now looming ominously twenty feet above them.
Miko seemed to make a small "eep" of despair. Meanwhile, Inuyasha had turned and began walking into the cave catacomb.
"I should have thought of bringing a lantern or two," she mentioned, looking around the cave, seemingly frightened.
"Ningens," muttered Inuyasha, venturing further in. His vision was much better than Miko's, as he had some inu-youkai blood in him.
She looked up sharply at the sound of footsteps behind them. Her sigh of relief was long and quiet; it was only the other students following into the cave.
A certain silhouette could be made out approaching Inuyasha and Miko the closest. It was the thin, shadowy outline of Suzume, and she was raising a lantern.
Her hair was down, which framed her face in a way Miko had never considered before. By the light of the small hand lamp, she could see that Suzume had come in a hurry; she was wearing a yukata normally used strictly for sleep, and a pair of sandals, instead of the usual elegant set of boots.
"Miko. Shijou's inside, ne?" she asked.
The former nodded in reply.
"Thanks for the light, Suzume!" said Inuyasha from within. "Bring it a little closer, will you?"
Suzume didn't hesitate, and walked further inside.
-
Maybe it was just Miko, but she hated the rank, eerie smell that steadily wafted in and out of the tomb. She hated the feeling, and the goosebumps reemerged on her skin.
This wasn't right.
Kami-sama, why had she even helped him find the tomb? If something happened…And she was sure that something would…
She would be responsible…
She prayed that the fairy tale wasn't true, but in every aspect of it, she began to believe.
The truth dawned on her like a beast hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
What if Shijou really did succeed in bringing back a spirit from the dead?
What would the summoned have to say about it?
Perhaps nothing at all…
But, perhaps, there could be dissidence in the poor spirit?
Laid to rest, and woken up from a sleep that was never to be ended…?
Priestess Kikyou would be vengeful. She would bring back whatever things she had seen in hell and bring them straight to the person who revived her.
She couldn't let that happen to him! If it did…
But she couldn't stop him either.
He would…He would hate her forever.
What kind of a friend am I? I would prefer him not to scorn me, but instead…
To what?
Die?
She wouldn't think of it.
But now that the discussion had started in her mind, the voices wouldn't keep quiet.
You're not a friend.
You're a coward.
She stood there, trying unsuccessfully to push her thoughts away, to some abyss of nonexistence somewhere in her mind.
And soon more students began to gather to watch Shijou bring back a spirit from the dead.
-
"Who should I call?" asked Inuyasha, facing Sesshoumaru, who had just entered. His brother looked to the side, looking bored.
"Whomever you like. None will listen to you."
"…Don't be scared. I'll call a woman's spirit, brother. This woman. Her bones lie in this tomb, don't they?"
There was a strange sort of unadulterated courage and resonance in his voice now. With the sheath of Tetsusaiga, Inuyasha pointed towards the supposed resting place of a woman about to be brought back to life, then walked towards it, close enough to touch…
"The High Priestess Kikyou? Perhaps there never was a woman, but if there was, she died a thousand years ago."
"Years shouldn't matter to the dead," said Inuyasha with a snarl.
Sesshoumaru was quiet, glaring hatefully at his younger brother, who, for once, and with words…Had managed to subdue him.
"Right, then," answered Inuyasha. "Kikyou it is."
As he pulled out Tetsusaiga, he could feel the others moving behind him. He faced the grave of the late priestess, and light reflected from the lantern off his sword, careening into the left cave wall.
Sensei's lessons were beginning to come back to him now.
"Concentrate. Hands steady. Don't move, Shijou…Your focus is critical in battle…"
(he'd never say anything to me about bringing back the dead, though I hope it applies)
"Your power emanates from one place and one place only: Your heart."
(not my head?)
"Your heart is the center of your being, your existence."
iI guess my mind's capabilities never were too impressive. something Suzume would say)
Sensei pressed a firm hand to Inuyasha's left chest, feeling the heart beat beneath the skin and haori. "Your aura lies within your heart, of the nature of your human and youkai power."
(i guess)
"Feel your power. Only then can you use it…"
(is this what heartfire is?)
"Do you feel it?"
(no only your hand)
But somehow, he felt as if Sensei was really with him right now, teaching Inuyasha to channel his power into his sword.
And now he understood what heartfire was.
That tingling feeling again…
Heat rushed in a wave from his arms to his hands to the sword. Now it was suddenly saturated with dense energy, which glowed red at the handle.
Only, it didn't stop there. More energy rushed from him to the sword, though never fully leaving him, just hanging in a delicate balance.
He thought he had been at the extent of his power when Tetsusaiga first transformed.
It was nothing…Nothing, compared to now.
Inuyasha raised the blade high over his head, and again he could feel the students stepping backwards.
He paid no attention.
(focus, that's what i need, isn't it…?)
An eerie feeling came over him.
His hate and rage were gone.
No envy.
He was left alone with only the certainty of knowing he would succeed.
And this…newfound power, which on his prompt, sped so easily to his hands and sword.
Inuyasha was the servant of his own destiny.
And his master was waiting…
It seemed like an eternity, standing there and contemplating the situation.
(what do they call it? eien, right?)
Then, finally, with a solid, swift vertical stroke, he sliced through the gravesoil of the priestess Kikyou's tomb.
There was a large shapeless mass of darkness that seeped out of the opening made on the grave, and seemed to gather into a dense accumulation of…
What? Evil?
Inuyasha felt the power leave him slowly. He couldn't lift his sword.
He couldn't move.
Suddenly the ominous dark cloud of nothingness was sundered by a tall, pale spindle of the brightest burst of light Inuyasha had ever seen, or would see.
Ever.
A figure began to emerge in the light, the contours of its body beginning to form, engulfed in the unearthly radiance.
It was a woman with a pale face, features a mix of gentle sadness and deep sorrow. She was wearing a white hakama top, and scarlet red pants.
Kagome?
No. As the person approached him, it was evident that this…woman…was not Kagome.
So this was Kikyou…
Her face was the essence of holiness, purity, and the godspoken. Yet, it was clearly jaded from all the evil she had faced in her time…
Suddenly the poignant expression turned into a visage of fear and horror.
Behind her, the darkness began to amass again. It was a gaping, wide hole.
Inuyasha tried to look away. But he couldn't. He was fixated on that spot…
The endless sea of shadows seemed to surround him now. Inuyasha felt that he had torn the fabric of the world open.
Inuyasha tried to make out the shape of the next person who emerged from that eternal darkness.
But before he could clearly see what the next creature he had summoned was, it had flown out at his face, knocking him over.
The next thing he knew, the only thing he knew next was…
Pain.
Excruciating pain. Pain he could never have begun to imagine.
Until he felt it.
All the others saw was a horrible shape of a shadow attacking Inuyasha, who was rolling over the floor in pain, screaming screams that never emerged from his mouth.
Suddenly, Inuyasha fell still.
-
She, her voices, her conscience…They had been right.
She was a coward.
She was stupid.
A white, wavering figure of a young woman found her way outside, seeming to float.
That…Was Kikyou?
She's beautiful, thought Miko quietly, as she watched the spirit fly over the sides of the cliff.
About Shijou…She should have realized.
Well, she did, but…
Too late.
The students who had "front row" seats to Shijou's summoning began to scream, horrible shrieks of fear.
She didn't stop to hesitate this time.
From where she was waiting at the cave entrance, she bolted forward into the crowd, prepared to push and shove and kick to get to Shijou if she needed to.
Only, she didn't need to.
A black shadow shot out from where it had attacked Inuyasha, seeking the exit.
She couldn't let it go.
She wouldn't.
Faster than she fully realized, she had one of her white-fletched arrows notched high onto her bow.
Her heart was beating quicker than usual, but her hands were amazingly steady, almost stinging with the rushing energy.
She didn't stop to check her aim.
When she used her heartfire, she never missed.
Never.
She let the arrow fly at the shadow, whirling around quickly to get to Shijou. She didn't even stand to watch her arrow pierce its center as it fled down the cliffside.
People were now stepping away for her to run through.
Her hands stopped tingling.
The tears began falling.
"Shijou…" she cried. "Shijou, forgive me…"
She stumbled to where he lay, his haori in tatters and his pants in as nearly bad shape. His hair covered his whole face, and his body was full of scars. Scars, deep flails and cuts and stabs, still bleeding because of the monster that had inflicted them.
"Shijou…" she said, gasping for breath and turning over his hair so she could see his face.
It, too, was covered in scars. His face was red, flowing thick with blood. She stroked his forehead slowly, trying to find his eyes underneath the mass of blood and his pale hair.
Kami-sama, let him be alive!..
After all, his heartfire was still there, even if somewhat diminished…
She spread her hands across his bloody chest, where scraps of his beige undershirt fell.
Hesitantly, slowly, like groping in the dark, she found where his heart should be.
With no heartbeat.
Her cries became softer.
Her shoulders slumped, and the quiver of arrows fell onto his chest, a few spilling out.
She gathered them quickly, a few more dry sobs racking her body.
His heartfire was beginning to fly away, ascending…
Good. Then he would live in heaven.
And she would not. She sent her friend to his death.
With these thoughts in her mind, she beckoned the heartfire down to his body, slowly, unsure if it would work.
Somewhere in her mind she felt a single pulse, like the beating of a set of taiko drums.
She put her hand on his chest again.
Another single beat.
Hope was renewed within her, and she set her quiver of arrows down.
To her it seemed that just her hand there seemed to give Shijou's heart encouragement.
The drums came again. Two heartbeats, this time.
And the heartfire was working within him again, pulling at the organs that made it work, and lighting up his mind. Slowly. But surely.
-
Somebody, meanwhile, had called the school instructors. Sensei and the rest of the Masters rushed into the cave catacomb as quickly as possible, in bedclothes and nightgowns.
After receiving eyewitness accounts of the whole summoning, the teachers reassured the students and instructed them to go back to their dormitories.
Then they attended to the fallen.
They found a grave, fit and made for a young woman, completely sundered and opened wide to the world, with nothing in it. The lanterns that some few students had thought to bring had long gone out.
The evil was tangible in the air.
Regrettably, Miko had failed to subdue, or finally rid the world of the monster Shijou had released.
There were no traces of the Priestess Kikyou's aura. She, too, had probably fled.
They found that Miko had taken off her white hakama overshirt to fold up and let Shijou use as a comfortable pillow. She was kneeling, shivering in the cold, her face covered with her hands, weeping over him.
The tears fell through her fingertips and onto his chest, pooling there. Tears of relief. Tears of horror. Tears of sorrow.
Goosebumps were raised on her arms again, for now she was only wearing a white, short-sleeved under-kimono that she usually wore to sleep.
A teacher mentioned that she was probably cursing the icy, cold wind that had befallen on the night.
But she was doing no such thing.
This was the only thought that was rushing through her mind:
Kami-sama…Thank you.
-
Hmm. As bad as you thought?
6000 words. Gah. Tis overkill to write these things, when I have so much homework awaitin'!
Ahhh. The power of the pen! I killed Inuyasha and brought him back to life…I have such an evil smile on my face right now.
As always, reviews! I even appreciate criticism.
If you have a question, I won't answer it unless you let me know! Ergo, REVIEW!
No, this isn't the end of Heartfire. Don't ask me stupid things like that.
Alohaturtle.