A Father's Embrace

Chapter Twenty-eight

Reluctance

The night was cool, refreshing. The sounds of crickets chirped all around her. Lightning bugs danced in the sky. The soft glow of the full moon filtered down through the thick boughs of Inuyasha's forest. Kagome breathed in the fresh air with a deep, happy sigh. Nights like these were hard to come by in the modern era, especially when one lived in a heavily populated city. It was the perfect night to enjoy a stroll through the forest.

Out of nowhere, Kagome felt the tingle of a familiar presence up ahead, though it felt very weak, almost in pain. She pushed herself through a curtain of vines hanging in long tendrils from branches overhead. She gasped at the sight revealed to her. Sitting in a slumped position up against the base of a tree, sat a man who had obviously been injured terribly. His long, ebony locks obscured his face from view, but Kagome recognized him.

"Are you okay?" she called out as she rushed towards him.

Slowly, his head rose, burgundy eyes meeting her. "No... Wait..." he rasped, but his warning was too late.

Kagome crashed into an invisible wall, nearly falling backwards onto her bottom when the strange barrier repelled her. "What's this?" she inquired curiously, bringing her hand to the energy shield as if doubting it was really there.

"It's a barrier..." the man answered hoarsely. He struggled a weak smile onto his face. "Miko, have you... have you really come... for me?"

She hesitated. She could feel the uncertainty in her gut, but answered him anyway. "Well... I... That is... You're hurt.. and... you need help. If I could get past this barrier, maybe I could..."

"...help me?" he finished for her. She nodded. "Unfortunately, I am weak. I can not take down the barrier on my own. You must do that for me."

"But how? How do I do that?"

"The only way to destroy the barrier, is to destroy the one who erected it."

"Who?" she pleaded, anxious for the answer, pressing her palms against the unseen shield.

The man inside seemed to concentrate slightly. Kagome watched intently, worried that he was causing himself more pain. Suddenly, a streak of four glowing claws lashed out at her from the barrier. Taken completely by surprise and shocked out of her wits, Kagome fell backwards away from the barrier. She clutched at her thumping heart, her breath heavy in her chest. And she realized, that she was completely unscathed.

She looked back up towards the man, but what she saw startled her. On the surface of the barrier was an image. A silently snarling and wild beast glared and lashed at her. His red clothing was ragged and torn. Silver hair was dirty and disheveled. Spittle and foam dribbled from his mouth. And his blood-red eyes filled with hatred and malice sent shivers down her spine.

As quickly as the image had manifested upon the barrier, it faded away. The man's look of concentration disappeared as well, replaced with one of exhaustion. Cautiously this time, Kagome returned to the barrier, crawling on her hands and knees.

"Was that him? Is he the one who's got you imprisoned in there?"

Too weak to voice his answer, the man nodded to confirm Kagome's inquiry.

"And he's the one I must... destroy... to free you?"

Again he nodded, but this time, managed to speak. "You must... be careful... miko. He is... far stronger... than I thought. I have kept... a small amount of... control... over him... until now. He is... breaking free... from my control. Soon... I will not be able... to stop him... from hurting you. You must go now... before he returns... and finds you here."

"But you're still hurt! And, if I stayed and waited for him to return, then I could defeat him faster and help you escape!"

"No. You can not stay," his words were a little harsher than he intended, causing Kagome to wince. Realizing this, he softened his tone. "Please... do not worry about me. You can not stay... to fight him... at this time. You are... too weak yet. So please. Go now... before it is too late."

Kagome stared at him, a longing look in her eyes to help him. Wracked with the desire to assist him, but feeling completely helpless to do so, she blinked away the tears that threatened to form in her eyes. Without saying another word, she rose to her feet and turned away. She sent one last sorrowful look to the captive man before running off the way she had come, disappearing behind the curtain of vines and into the darkness of the night.

Once Kagome had left the dream world, the barrier immediately dissolved and the man rose to his feet, completely healthy and unharmed. A malicious smile crept across his face as he stared in the direction she had departed. And then, Naraku spoke.

"Soon, my little miko. Soon, I shall be free. And with my freedom, I shall also have the Shikon no Tama. And you will be the one to give me both."

Next to the dim fire, Maiki sat on a rock, using a long stick to stir at the coals within the fire pit. Orange embers floated up into the sky, fading overhead as they cooled in the night air. A few crickets chirped in grasses far away. Occasionally the call of an owl echoed through the night. She sighed. She was quite tired from the day's harsh travel, which she reluctantly admitted to herself that it was her own fault for pushing so hard, but she was too stubborn and embarrassed to admit so out loud. But however exhausted she was, she found that sleep alluded her.

A soft rustling from the tent to her right caught her attention. She didn't bother looking in the direction of the disturbance, but did turn an ear towards the tent. Only when she heard the sound of the tent's zipper did she dare glance over. Crawling from within the tiny confines of the tent was Sango, dressed only in a plain, white kimono meant for sleeping.

The exterminator was taken by surprise at Maiki's presence beside the fire. "Oh! Maiki-chan! I didn't realize you were awake!"

"Yeah, well. I couldn't sleep."

"I see," Sango replied as she strolled towards the fire, pausing to grab a bottle of water along the way. She sat down a few feet from the teenager. "So what's on your mind?"

"Hn?" Maiki jerked from her thoughts at Sango's question. Was it that obvious that something was bothering her?

"You look troubled. I know we've only known each other for a week now, but you can confide in me. I promise I won't bite," she said with a heartfelt smile.

The shibunyo sighed. "It's mama. She's having a nightmare."

"Oh?" Sango blinked. "Well, have you tried waking her?"

"It won't do any good. I've tried waking her before, but she doesn't respond to me. She won't wake up unless she does so on her own."

The slayer's brow furrowed. "You mean... she's had nightmares before?" Maiki nodded, but said nothing. "How often does she have them? For how long has this been happening?"

"Every night... since we started traveling. So, tonight would be the fifth night this has happened," she answered as she looked up past the pine trees and into the starry sky.

"It never happened before then?"

Maiki's gaze dropped back down to the fire. "Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think so. I'm pretty certain it started here, in this era."

"Why do you think that?"

"Well... I think it's stress. There's something bothering her... something about this era. I think something really bad happened to her before she left Sengoku Jidai all those years ago. But she says she can't remember what that was. Even though she seems reluctant to talk about it, I think she's telling the truth. I really believe that she can't remember. I think her memories have been suppressed."

Sango gasped. "Like Kohaku..." she muttered. Maiki looked towards the older woman with a blank expression. The name was unfamiliar to the teenager, so she shrugged off the interruption.

"Anyway, I'm beginning to think that maybe mama shouldn't have come back here to this era. At least, she shouldn't have come with us to get the mamori-ishi."

"Oh, but Maiki-chan, you know she's doing this because she wants to. She's doing this for you."

"I know. And that's what's killing me inside."

"What? What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that mama is putting herself through all this because of me, and I can't do anything to make it better." Maiki's spirits seemed to fall drastically as she admitted her turmoil.

There was a long pause before Sango voiced the suggestion that had been rolling around in her head. "In the morning, would you like to head back? Since you think Kagome-chan is having such a hard time..."

Maiki sighed, shaking her head as her eyes fell to her lap. "No. Mama wouldn't let us. She's stubborn like that, and doesn't like people to make a big deal of her. She'd flat out refuse to turn back now."

Sango smiled, but it wasn't full of the merriment she had intended. It was more of a troubled smile. "Yes. I know all too well how stubborn your mother can be when it comes to people making a fuss for her sake."

The wan smile on the teenager's face matched that of the exterminator's. "I think we should just keep going and try--"

Maiki trailed off, her attention diverted suddenly. Sango noticed the girl's ears snap backwards towards the direction of a sound inaudible to the slayer's human ears. Slowly, Maiki turned her head to the left, shifting her body as she did so, and stared out into the darkened fields behind her. Her golden eyes, reflecting in the moonlight, scanned the area.

"What is it?" Sango whispered quietly, so that the shibunyo wouldn't miss any sounds she was picking up.

The younger woman turned back towards the elder. "I'm not sure. It sounded like something was out there. I don't see anything, and I'm not hearing anything anymore either. I think I was just imagining it."

Setting her water bottle down, Sango rose from her seat and headed over to the tree next to her tent. She grabbed Hiraikotsu from its spot resting against said tree. Slinging the weapon against her back and scanning the area beyond the fire's glow, she lectured, "Don't doubt yourself, Maiki-chan. Sounds are not created on their own. If you heard a noise, then something or someone had to have created it."

Maiki stood to face the slayer. "But that's the thing. I'm nut sure if I even heard anything to begin with."

"No. You definitely heard something..." Sango replied, her voice suddenly hushed. "There's something watching us right now. I'm not sure where exactly it is, but I know it's there."

"How can you tell?"

"I can sense it, and it's definitely yokai."

The shibunyo drew in a short breath, suddenly uneasy knowing that a yokai lingered in the very close vicinity. She grabbed the closest thing to her at that moment; a thick stick from the pile of firewood, and returned to face the night with worried eyes.

From the darkness, just beyond the women's visibility, the trespasser 's yellow eyes watched patiently. As soon as the slayer and shibunyo dropped their guard, the yokai would strike.

A/N I hate to do this, but I've decided to eliminate the review responses. You'll notice I've deleted them all on previous chapters. It was brought to my attention that fanfiction may have a policy against review responses at the end of chapters. Thank you Inuyasha's Dark Angel for the head's up. Because of this, I was going to simply shorted the responses. Unfortunately,a reviewer threatened to alert fanfiction for simply having responses. As I don't want this story or my account deleted, I have taken actionand destroyed something that I and all my other reviewers enjoyed and appreciated. I'm very sorry I had to do this. In order to respond to reviewers, I will look into obtaining my own message board or something.

To Avokatti, though you wished not to have a response, I cannot help but defend myself, and you left no other way for me to tell you other than at the end of a chapter. I have "fixed" most things you found "annoying" at the expense of everyone else's enjoyment. Nowhere in the TOS does it say an author cannot review at the end of chapters. The latest update I read said that an author cannot post chapters that are solely review responses. However, I found I had no choice but to take precautions after you threatened to report me.