A Father's Embrace
Chapter Twenty-Six
Confusion
The loud shrill of a crowing rooster snapped Maiki out of a sound sleep. She shot up into a sitting position on her futon, the blanket falling to pool onto her lap. She blinked in confusion a few times before rubbing the crust from her eyes. Feeling the slight puff of her eyelids, she realized that she must've cried herself to sleep. 'But I was sitting next to the futon when I did that... Someone must've put me in bed last night.' She noticed that she was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. 'Gods, I hope my eyes don't look as puffy as they feel. The last thing I want is for someone to know I was crying last night.'
Maiki stretched her arms over her head, working out the kinks in her back. How long had she slept in an upright position before someone came by and found her? How did she manage not waking up while she was being moved? Perhaps she had been overtired from all the stress heaped upon her. A soft moan from her mother's lips drew her attention, her ears instantly snapping towards the direction of the muffled sound. Maiki's eyes followed after her ears a second later.
The shibunyo crawled off her futon, and kneeled next to her mother's bed, leaning over the sleeping woman, listening carefully. Kagome vocalized a few more noises, but they were far too muffled and incoherent to decipher into words. Maiki pulled away from Kagome to sit flat on her bottom. Placing her left elbow on her knee, and resting her chin on the palm of said hand, she watched over her mother as she slept. 'What are you dreaming about this time, mama?'
"You're worthless. Stupid. And ugly."
"Annoying. Weak. Pathetic."
Kagome sat in the middle of a cold, vast whiteness, as she covered her ears, and shook her head, tears spilling from her eyes. "No! Stop it! Just stop it!" she sobbed to the two men standing over her.
"Look at her cry like the helpless little bitch that she is," sneered the human with dark hair.
"Absolutely disgusting. The scent of her tears make me want to vomit," snarled the silver-haired hanyo.
"Hey, Inuyasha, we should just kill her now and feed her corpse to carrion crows."
"Good idea, Hojo. Then we'd never have to look at her hideous face ever again."
Kagome could sense them closing in on her, but dared not to open her eyes, to see her impending fate unfold. To her right, she could hear the slick sound of metal sliding against wood as Inuyasha pulled Tetsusaiga from its sheath. A moment later, the distinct sound of a gun being cocked came from her left. She tensed as she waited for her death.
"Miko," the calm, seductive voice called to her from a distance. "Open your eyes miko."
Reluctantly, Kagome followed his instructions. When she did so, she winced when her eyes fell upon the blade of Tetsusaiga inches from her face. Less than a moment later she realized, to both her relief and dread, that the hanyo had somehow been frozen in mid-swing. Looking to her left, she took in the sight of Nanashi's hate-filled face. His pistol was aimed directly at her head, and in the air halfway between herself and the barrel of the weapon, a single bullet was suspended in the air.
"Miko," the voice was much closer now, right behind her. Kagome turned around towards the voice, and came face to face with maroon eyes. "You must fight them, miko. I can only keep you safe from them for so long before my powers will wane."
"But I... I can't... I... I'm not strong like you are."
"Yes you are. Don't let them fool you into thinking you are weak. That's what they want you to think, so that they can destroy you. Don't let them break you down. Don't let them take advantage of you. You must fight them, miko. Kill them so we can be together. If you don't, they will destroy us both."
"But how? How do I fight them?"
"Be strong, miko. Allow your power to reawaken. I have faith in you."
He gently held her chin in his left hand, holding her face towards his. As he leaned in towards her slowly, teasingly, she watched him with her eyes wide open in awe. When he was less than a centimeter from her face, her eyelids fell shut and a solitaire droplet of moisture fell from the corner of each eye. She barely felt it when his cold, soft lips lightly brushed over hers. It felt wrong. Something about it felt wrong. The contact lasted less than a moment before he withdrew from her completely.
"Remember, miko. Be strong, or they will tear you apart. Especially the hanyo. He will show no mercy, nor will he hesitate if given the opportunity to kill you. Remember that..."
Kagome slowly opened her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the sunlight that poured in from the open window to her right. A shadowed figure abruptly moved into the path of the sunlight, shielding Kagome from the bright rays. She looked up to discern who the person was, and was immediately terrified by the sight.
Though the individual's face was shadowed from the light coming from behind, Kagome easily recognized the red clothing, silver hair and pointed ears. And resting in a set of clawed hands, was the Tetsusaiga, though as of yet, it had not been transformed into its more powerful state. The miko panicked. She scurried away from the tall, slender form standing over her, tumbling off the left side of the futon.
Maiki turned her head down to her right at the sudden movement on her mother's futon, movement which had drawn her attention away from the blade in her hands. She blinked in confusion at her mother's strange actions. Why did she seem so panicked? So... frightened? The answer came as a barely audible whimper as Kagome ducked her head and shielded herself with her arms.
"Please... Please don't kill me..."
The shibunyo's eyes widened in shock, looking back down towards the sword she had been scrutinizing only moments before. As her mother's words sunk in, the Fang fell from the girl's suddenly limp hands, and it crashed onto the floor with a dull clang and a rattle. Maiki was speechless. Her own mother... had become utterly afraid of her now. Had she truly become such a monster? A killer? Despair and grief overcame the teenager once more and she sank to her knees. What would she do? What could she do? ...Now that not even her own mother felt safe around her...
"Mama," she choked as a tear escaped from the corner of one amber eye. "I'm sorry mama. Please. Please don't be afraid of me..."
The soft pleading reached Kagome's ears, and the older woman cautiously looked up, her eyes resting on the crumpled form of her daughter, clad in a red sweatshirt and denim shorts and not the red haori she thought she had seen only moments ago. "M- Maiki?"
Her daughter turned pain-filled eyes towards her. The golden orbs, so lost, so hurt, so full of rejection... They brought on a sense of deja vu. But where had she seen eyes like that before? She tried to remember, but all she saw was a flash of an image, of blood red eyes burning hatefully into her soul. She shuddered and pushed the image away.
"Mama? You're not... You don't... think I would really hurt you... do you?"
Kagome blinked. Her mind felt so cluttered, so confused. "Maiki? It's you? You're not... I thought..." She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. When she opened them again, looking straight at her daughter, she continued. "I'm sorry... For a moment, you looked like someone else to me..."
Maiki's spirits lifted, but barely a fraction. At least it wasn't she that her mother was afraid of. But the implications of her mother's admission created other worries.
"...you looked like someone else to me..."
"...the form you are in now. Your true form. You are an inu-shibunyo, and you have inherited the dominant features of your inu-hanyo father."
So that was it. That was why her mother looked so terrified. It was because Maiki looked just like her father. And it was the image of her father that had scared the hell out of her mother. More of Kagome's words came back to her.
"...I know shouldn't have stayed away for so long. I just… I didn't feel safe here anymore..."
"Please... Please don't kill me..."
Maiki felt as if she were going to vomit. What the hell had happened between her mother and father all those years ago? What had he done to induce such terror into her mother's very soul? What kind of monster had he been? To make matters worse, she was his daughter. And she was a monster just like him.
Was that why her mother had used the Shikon shard on her as a newborn? To mask the features that haunted the young mother? That must have been the reason. Maiki looked exactly like him, reminding her mother every waking moment about the unknown pain and misery the beast had inflicted upon her all those years ago.
She couldn't help but wonder... why hadn't her mother aborted her when she discovered she was pregnant? Or at least given her up for adoption after she was born? Why did her mother allow herself to be haunted by the memories of an unwanted past? Did a mother's love really run that deeply? Would a mother really silently endure so much pain for the benefit of her child?
The teenager's golden eyes fell downward, to land upon the Tetsusaiga laying on the ground by her knees. She glared at the last known trace of her father's legacy. The blade... it truly was a curse. The curse of a monster, handed down to his monster of a child. Slowly, she took hold of the hilt, staring at the rusted metal. And she made a silent vow. Whatever her father had done to her mother, if he were still alive somewhere, and if she were to run into him someday, the shibunyo would bring justice to the bastard. For his sake, he had better already be dead.
But for now, she would concentrate on finding that mamori-ishi, so that she could rid herself of the horrible features of her bastard father, if only to lessen the emotional pain that still plagued her troubled mother.
It was still very early in the morning. Lucky for him, his absence would not be noticed for at least another hour when the changing of the guards took place. By then, he would be long gone out of Takeshi's lands. How fortunate for him that the daimyo was too preoccupied with slaying that renegade yokai the previous morning. It had allowed Nibori enough time to break through his bonds and manage an escape. Now he found himself running through the forests, heading towards the closest boundaries to the west. Once he arrived in the bordering lands, he would be free from facing his punishment.
'That damn bitch of a yokai! If only she hadn't pretended to care for that brat, I'd still be the headman of my village! I would have killed her and then everyone would have been bowing at my feet for my ability to slay yokai pests with such ease. Because of her, I've been accused of attempting to kill that bastard Takeshi's son! I will make her pay for what she's done to me! I'll gain new supporters in the next territory, and with them, I shall hunt down that beast and butcher her like the dog she is!'
Caught up in his thoughts of revenge, Nibori failed to notice his stalker. He had witnessed Nibori's escape from Takeshi's estate. Had he not caught a familiar scent on the escapee, he would not have bothered more than a glance at the fleeing convict. Unfortunately for Nibori, when he had backhanded a certain miko no more than two days prior and split her lip, a trace amount of her blood had soaked into the cuff of his kimono sleeve. It was just enough blood for a yokai, or in this case, a hanyo, to detect. Silently, the stalker leapt from treetop to treetop, undetected by the ex-headman.
Up ahead, Nibori came across what he had been searching for; the small stream which marked the border between Takeshi's lands and the lands of the neighboring daimyo. Pausing at the bank, he grinned to himself, so full of pride that he had managed to slip out of his captors' grasps.
If only he knew of his upcoming fate.
Nibori plunged into the cool waters, the current gently wrapping around his knees. After a few seconds of trudging through the stream, he climbed the bank on the other side. The ex-headman pressed his right palm against a nearby tree, putting his weight into it while he leaned forward to catch his breath. His back faced the stream, and Takeshi's lands. It didn't matter if they found him now. He was safely within the bordering lands. To send armed forces into a neighboring territory without the area daimyo's consent was equivalent to declaring war on said daimyo. And Takeshi, being a peaceful man, wouldn't dare to breech the boundaries of his neighbors uninvited.
He chuckled at his thoughts. 'Those inept fools. They'll all regret crossing me. All I'll have to do is meet with the daimyo of these lands, feed him a little story about Takeshi's wishes to conquer this territory, and an army of warriors shall be mine! I'll run Takeshi's estate into the ground and I'll personally butcher that yokai wench and that whore she calls her mother!'
The sound of something falling into the water behind him drew him from his thoughts. He panicked for a moment, thinking that perhaps Takeshi's men had followed him, and were daring to cross the stream to capture him. He spun around fast, but saw nothing and no one. He gritted his teeth at his own foolish paranoia. Deciding that he had stalled long enough, he turned back towards the forest to head deeper into the new territory.
As he strolled beneath the trees, he thought he heard a rustling over head. Suddenly, he felt as though he were no longer alone. He quickened his pace. From a casual walk, to a leisurely jog, to a full-panicked run, he sprinted through the forest, nearly tripping on rocks and branches. He could hear it louder now. The rustling of branches up above him grew steadily louder and closer. Whatever it was, it had no problem with keeping up with the fleeing convict.
Nibori dared to look over his shoulder, up into the canopy, but couldn't make out his pursuer. His foot suddenly caught on an exposed root and he found himself falling face first onto the hard dirt ground. Having the wind knocked out of him, he coughed and gasped for air. Though wracked with pain, he managed to climb to his hands and knees. Over the sounds of his own rasping of breath, he heard a deep growl from several paces in front of him. Slowly, he looked up, and he felt his bones grow cold with terror.
Crouched low, on his hands and feet, was a beast with long, silver hair, and pointed ears atop its head. His glowing red eyes bore hatefully into Nibori's soul. And on each cheek, a jagged purple stripe had been painted.
The headman scrambled backwards, trying to distance himself from the creature. "It's you!" he choked. His eyes were wide with fear. "You're the one who attacked my village! Those yokai stripes! I know those markings! You're the one! There's no mistake about it!"
"Silence!" his pursuer barked as he curled his lip at the former headman. "What did you do to her?"
Nibori blinked owlishly. "To who? Who do you mean?"
He growled impatiently. "To Kagome. What did you do to her?"
'Kagome?' "Oh! You mean the miko-whore?" the convict managed to sneer despite his fear. "I put that bitch in her pla--"
Nibori cut himself off suddenly, realizing too late that he was signing his own death warrant. 'Why didn't I realize this before? The miko's brat... looks just like this beast! No wonder my men had mistaken her for the true culprit. This creature must be the girl's father! Meaning... the miko-whore is this yokai's mate!'
Inuyasha rose to his feet. His eyes never left Nibori's form. "You hurt her. Didn't you?"
The ex-headman's eyes widened again with renewed fear. His voice was frozen in the back of his throat. In response to his silence, Inuyasha took a step forward, and another. Instead of terrorizing an answer from the cowardly man, the hanyo's threatening advance only caused his prey to scramble backwards.
Nibori panicked even further if it were possible. 'How? How could he possibly know that I hit that wench?'
As if to answer his unvoiced question, Inuyasha replied, "I can smell her blood on you. How dare you touch her! You insolent swine!"
Nibori watched in horror as the beast casually closed the gap between the two. He was utterly terrified. He couldn't move. All he could do was watch as Inuyasha came to a stop to stand over him. The hanyo's lips were curled in a seditious sneer. He drew his right hand up in front of his chest, showcasing his claws and cracking his knuckles, ready to strike. A murderous glint shone in his crimson eyes.
And the last thing Nibori saw was a set of five razor-sharp claws glowing in a gold aura of yoki as they viciously slashed down upon him.
End Part II.