Illusions
...OOO...
It was not right. It was wrong of her to do that to him, she scolded herself frantically. She had no right...
When did I become so weak?
The sudden question flooded her with immeasurable fear. No, it was unacceptable. She should have known better, should have learned her lesson by now.
How could she have been so foolish as to not sense herself slipping? she demanded angrily.
Pathetic humans...
He was right- she was weak.
Aiko's soft knocking on the door broke her from her thoughts. Sliding it open, she faced the old woman who stared at her in deep concern.
"I'm sorry," Kikyo apologized quickly. "I-" but the woman held up her hand.
"No need to explain," she said kindly. "But I wanted to know if you would like to go through with the ritual tonight..."
"Where is Sesshomaru?" she asked softly, afraid of the answer.
Aiko pointed, "I saw him stalk off through those trees."
Stepping past her, Kikyo stared off in the direction she had indicated.
"I'll... I'll be back," she said uncertainly.
...ooo...
Sesshomaru stood at the edge of the bluff just past the valley. He had thought about leaving again, but something held him back so instead he just scowled at the ground.
Who did that woman think she was? He seethed. Getting him to open up about his family, sharing her thoughts, smiling at him with that damn smile of hers! And then running away and making a complete fool out of him.
You made a fool of yourself, another voice sneered contemptuously. Smiling at her? Why had he done that?
Ugh, he was a fool. A complete idiot. Of course she had run away- he smiled at her! What had he expected her to do? Throw herself into his arms? She was still in love with that half-breed brother of his, for heaven's sake!
And what the hell did it matter who she was in love with? another voice cried in frustrated obstinacy. It wasn't as if he wanted her love...
The contemptuous voice scorned him, You fool. You call her weak and yet here you are flustered because she was upset with your smile.
A low, dangerous growl rose in his throat as his hand gripped Tokijen's hilt tightly.
Dammit! And when did all these voices suddenly come into being anyway?
He should have killed her, he thought, and spared himself this frivolous insanity.
"Sesshomaru."
The sound of her voice behind him nearly knocked him over, but he quickly caught himself as his expression iced over, and he did not answer.
But she wasn't waiting for him to.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice strong and steady but undoubtedly remorseful. "It was wrong of me to do what I did... Though you don't know it, more than once already you've saved me from Naraku, and I suppose I never realized until now how much I've used you to guard against him. But it was not right of me to put such an unwanted burden upon your shoulders- no matter how unwittingly- and for that I am deeply sorry. I do not ask for your forgiveness- hate me all you like if that will somehow atone for my wrong- but I wanted to apologize. I am sorry," she repeated. "You were right. I am weak."
He listened to her apology, knew that she was sincere, and somehow it was enough to mollify the warring turmoil inside of him and quiet the unrelenting voices. But it had caught him off guard, as well, and for several minutes he was unable to speak.
When she saw he did not answer, she turned to leave, but he stopped her.
"Tell me," he demanded slowly, dangerously, not turning to see her just as she did not turn to see him. "Do you doubt my strength?"
"No," she answered softly but firmly as she walked away. "I doubt my own." And with that she disappeared through the screen of trees to make her way back to the shrine.
...ooo...
"Are you sure you'd like to do this now?" Aiko interrogated in concern.
"Yes," Kikyo answered with all certainty. "It must be done and there is no use in my delaying the inevitable." But inside she sighed as she laid herself down in the stone altar.
If only she did not have to face it be herself.
No, she rebuked herself. Stop thinking that way. This is my trial, my duty, my fate, and I will face it on my own.
And as if replying to her thoughts the elder woman conceded, "If you insist." She handed Kikyo an opened blossom, and she accepted it and held it to her chest where her heart- if she had a heart- would be, lifting her hand a little as the other woman wrapped it in a rosary. Then she stamped it with an incantation scroll and placed another on Kikyo's forehead. Along the edge of the altar, Aiko poured a thin line of sand, boxing her in, and lit a stick of incense on each corner.
"Ok," she instructed. "Close your eyes and empty your thoughts..."
Kikyo did so and soon she was drifting away to the sound of the old woman's chanting, drifting away into a peaceful sort of oblivion.
...ooo...
When the darkness cleared, Kikyo found herself standing in what looked to be a very long corridor with many offshooting halls and lined on either side with countless doors- some closed and others opened.
Is this my mind? She wondered, and was bewildered at being able to think within herself while being in herself. She took a few cautious steps forward, her feet making no sound on the wooden floorboards.
Tentatively she opened the door closest to her and stepped inside.
But instead of a room, she was standing on a road bordered on each side by modest but comfortable looking houses.
And she saw herself- her younger self at about eleven years old- dressed in the same red hakama and white haori. Beside her was a man, a priest- her old master, she realized- talking with one of the villagers just outside one of the houses. Her younger self wasn't paying attention to them, however. Rather she was staring intently on a small group of children playing nearby. One- another girl only a little younger- was chasing the others, but she tripped and fell, scraping her knees and bursting out crying. Suddenly, a woman rushed out from another house and ran to comfort the girl, drawing her into a hug. The girl sniffled but calmed down, allowing her mother to carry her back into the house to mend her cuts.
Kikyo watched herself, that expression on her younger face so familiar... She recognized it right away- longing.
Then her master said something to her and wordlessly she followed him away.
A memory... Kikyo thought as she stepped back into the corridor. One she had almost forgotten...
Making her way down the hall, she randomly opened doors, peeking inside each one. They were all memories of her childhood- if she could call it that. It had been lonely, she decided, but back then she never realized just how much... not until Inuyasha had opened up her heart...
But I guess it's only natural- you can't miss something you never had... or was that really true? Even as a child she had always longed for something but she had just never been able to name it. Even now she wasn't really sure.
Quickly she pushed the thought from her mind. It was dangerous to want, because wanting led to selfishness and she knew that would led her to ruin- it had once before. When you start to question your circumstance and desire for things you were never meant to have, that's when you turn against yourself, turn against fate. That's when you faltered. And she... she could not afford to falter.
Turning down another hall, she opened the first door she came to, but there was nothing inside. Well, that wasn't wholly true- she could sense that something was meant to be there, but she couldn't make it out, so she shut it again. All the other doors along that hall opened to the same scene, and she wondered what it meant, but quickly forgot that train of thought as she entered into another passage.
She didn't like this one- it was dark and foreboding. She thought of turning around and going back, but she stopped herself, remembering why she was here in the first place. If Naraku was anywhere in her mind, this is where he would be. So she proceeded.
Whereas everywhere else she had treaded her footsteps had made no sound, here they echoed dead and deafening. It didn't take her long to realize what this part of her mind housed- her fears, the dark part of herself that existed within all living things.
From somewhere in the shadows she heard a soft rustle...
"Come out, Naraku," she commanded. But he merely laughed, the echoes disguising where it came from. Angrily she flung open one of the doors, not quite realizing what she was doing. At first she shied away, but then curiosity got the better of her and she edged closer to the open frame.
What did she fear? She really had not thought about it before... But inside it was only darkness- like a black hole that sucked in all light. Frowning, she stepped back and opened another, but this one was the same. Door after door after door, they were all the same... except the last one.
At first it too had seemed nothing more than an unlit room, but then a tinge of red showed in the black and the scene unfolded. Black tinged with red- the night sky lit aglow by the burning village. The whole village was crumbling, eaten away by the angry fire. She heard frightened agonized screams but saw no one... And there was blood, so much blood... Holding up her hand, she realized it was covered with the crimson liquid. Her blood.
"Hello, Kikyo." The smug voice behind her caused her to whirl around, her eyes widening when she beheld him.
"Inu...yasha?" she asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.
"Who else?" it asked, lightly tapping his sword on his red shoulder.
But she frowned. No, this couldn't be.
"How dare you?" she demanded, her eyes slitting dangerously. "How dare you imitate him? Take off that face before I destroy you."
"You think you're so strong," the image mocked, a slow sadistic smile spreading on his lips, revealing the fangs, as he lifted the sword from his shoulder. "You think you have everything figured out, don't you? Well, I'm here to tell you, you don't know anything. You're nothing more than a pathetic zombie who refuses to stay dead and buried- clinging to a life you never even had."
"You're only an illusion- what would you know about life?"
"Get off it," it spat. "You thought you had me- how pitiful. You really believe I could even love someone like you?" And without another moment of hesitation, without the slightest reluctance, he brought his sword down on her, opening up her body, staining the white haori in her blood, and she collapsed to her knees, but it was his words that stung her more than the sword.
"No," she murmured to herself. "It's not him. It's not..."
Why? Why was it always like this? This isn't real, it's not! So why... why did it hurt so much?
In the hallway, the darkness in the other rooms pulsated and throbbed.
"You just don't get it, do you?" the fake Inuyasha continued, towering over her, lifting his sword over her. "Over and over again, I hurt you." And he swung it down, again. And again. And again. "I kill you, over and over again, I kill you, but you refuse to understand. And so I have to keep killing you and killing you and killing you, because you won't understand unless I do it. Don't you see? It's your fault!"
She was on the ground now, looking up at a red sky. Everything was red... Inuyasha's face sneered down at her- red, an angry red.
"I never loved you and I never will. No one does- not me, not your sister, and certainly not those people you so desperately try to protect- hell, they'd sacrifice you to meet their own needs before ever lifting a finger to help you meet yours. You're a worthless pile of mud- you always were. Now go back to hell." The sword pierced her through, pinning her to the ground.
Why? She screamed to herself. Why did this always happen? I thought you loved me!
Immediately all of the emotions she had felt that night more than fifty years ago came flooding back to her- the dumbfounded confusion, the anger, the hurt, the pain, the hatred...
WHY?
The darkness broke, triggered by that one question. It crashed through the walls, engulfing the hall and surging down throughout the others, boring into all the doors and drowning out all other pieces of her mind.
Why, why, why... the single word pounded itself into her head, repeating itself like a mantra.
Finally the darkness reached her. It swallowed the screams, swallowed the burning village, the red-stained sky, Inuyasha... Everything was absorbed into its abyss...
And she was alone, her mind numb and fuzzy.
For a while she simply laid there staring off into the nothingness that surrounded her.
It's so empty... she thought vacantly. Where did everything go?
...ooo...
He approached her slowly but confidently, stepping out from the shadows.
At last, he thought as he neared her broken body. At last, at last, at last...
Kneeling down beside her, he cradled her into his arms, and she stirred lethargically at his touch, her blurry eyes focusing on his face.
"Hm?" she asked blankly, childishly. "Who are you? And why does it hurt so much?" Something in him pulsed and something inside her answered.
"Shh..." he murmured, bringing her closer. "It's alright. Everything will be all right- I have you now..."
...OOO...