Chapter 5: And the mysterious monk reappears.
"A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods
in order to gain from them the right to dream."
- William Faulkner (1897 - 1962)
"You are under a curse boy."
They stared dumbfounded at the monk whose robes were shabbier than their own clothes as he patiently repeated himself.
"You carry something that is not of this world..." The seemingly-crazed monk stretched his reedy, spindly hand out to Tenseiga with an equally-crazed look in his ancient eyes.
Sesshoumaru unsheathed Tenseiga in one smooth, liquified-like action and pointed the dulled sword across Kagome at the monk's neck.
But the aged monk did not flinch nor inch away; instead, he let out a toothy, blackened smile at the once Youkai Prince and removed his hole-filled straw hat while his bald head glistened under the bright, hot sun.
"You are mistaken boy, although the aura around this sword... is not of this world too."
Kagome gulped as shivers ran down her arms like the much-coveted raindrops, "Houshi-sama..."
Sesshoumaru angled the blunt sword at the ragged, popped-out artery and asked in such a calm way that it unnerved her, "What is not of this world?"
The woozy eyebrows of the monk creased as he stared hard at the faded-bluish hilt, "The tassels..."
Her eyes immediately swivelled down to the white and black tassels that were attached to the hilt and suddenly, the voices were back. The unknown whispers that she had once heard as she stood before her shrine well, came back like a gush of angry waters into her flooded ears and all she could hear were their haunting moaning, lamenting sobbing, bleating pleading, shrieking screaming-
Her world spun on an unnamed axis, darkness set in, and the Light disappeared.
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"Why?"
She looked around; thin mist surrounded her and when she looked down, she realized that she wasn't sitting on solid ground.
She was hovering in the middle of nowhere, with her legs tucked in like an unborn foetus and her arms wrapping around herself. It was cold, very cold, and very dead, desolate and bare.
"Why?"
The ghostly, sorrowful voice came again, and Kagome wanted to weep at the melancholy of it. So hushed, so gentle, so quiet.
"Where are you?" Kagome asked, even though she had no idea who the person was.
And then, as if she had spoken the secret password, a figure materialized right before her very eyes. It was the back view of a small child with shoulder-length hair, huddled in the same fetal-position as her and it, was rocking to and fro mindlessly like a wooden toy horse.
"Why?"
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"Kagome?"
The mist were gone, the freezing-coldness had disappeared along with the child and its questions.
"Se... shoumaru?"
His face broke out in tiny smiles of relief, and he brushed her heavy fringe away, "You fainted."
"Oh," she closed her eyes as his hand rested in the crook of her neck, "Where is the monk?"
He frowned a little at her question as he helped her to sit up, "Gone."
"That monk... he is different," her mind was still in a whirl-wind state but yet she could not shake off the monk's presence that seemed to linger somewhere behind in her dream. Somewhere.
Sesshoumaru haughtily blinked and looked away, "He is mad."
"But he said that you were under a curse, and something about the tassels..." Her eyes moved down to the hilt; under the filtered sunlight through the tree crowns, the tassels glinted and shimmered eerily.
He picked up the sword, unsheathed it and began to examine the metal, "There's nothing wrong; that monk is spouting rubbish."
Kagome nodded her head wearily; she felt as if she had just been ran over by a truck and the blandness in her mind dissipated as the searing warmth of the sun hit on her skin.
"Maybe you are right..." she stretched her hand towards the pretty tassels and when the contact was made, goose-bumps broke out all over her skin like hissing hives and she inwardly shuddered.
"These are made of...?"
He gave the sword a last swing and slid it back into its carved sheath, "Mine and Rin's hair."
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That very night, she had the same dream again and she could feel the monk's presence sidling around the corners of the emptied space. When she woke up from fright, the first thing she saw was Sesshoumaru's naked back. Kagome wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his perspiring back while she dozed back to sleep.
No more dreams would plague her for the rest of that night.
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Kagome wondered what they were going to do, now that they had made their way over the hill and were now standing in a valley hushed by evergreen trees on both sides with a bubbling clear river. Sesshoumaru had walked on, without talk nor rests and even though she was exhausted and her feet were aching, she did not complain.
She used to complain a lot; she would not be like that now. At least not with him.
"Look! A temple!" She happily pointed to the dingy, dark structure that was jutting out from the side of the steep hills like an ugly rock.
He raised his head to the direction of the seemingly dilapidated and abandoned temple, "No, we cannot afford to rest."
She skipped over small, slippery-looking stones and caught up with him, "Why? Where are we exactly going? You still won't tell me?"
At that moment, memories of Rin asking him the exact same questions returned to him like a yellow flash flood, and he felt so engulfed and overwhelmed that a lump rose in his throat. She was once a contented child, then a curious adolescent, then a covetous grown up woman who never ceased in asking him where they were heading and what they were going to do. She was once Kagome's height, had her big, sunshine-filled eyes and long black hair that felt as luxurious as hers.
Sesshoumaru looked back and fixed her with a cold steely look, "I'm going to retrieve my youkai self, stop asking!"
And she was paralyzed at his words; warmth seem to drain off from her body and she felt mildly stumped, "You... want to become a youkai?"
"I am borne of a youkai; I will not remain as a human," his caustic words dripped cold, stinging sarcasm at a dumbfounded her.
She stared dazedly at his backview as he headed towards his untold destination without waiting for her.
To think that all the efforts she had went through, are you leaving me behind, not wanting to be entrenched in her old, stricken past and start all over together with him, even though you didn't say a single word, he still yearned to return to his youkai self, I still want to be with you, and that desire sat like a crowned, pompous, selfish king above her-
But what can I expect from him?
Kagome let out a glacial smile, collected her unloved tears with her fingertips and smiled a little more.
It was a harrowing yet oddly sedated walk down the memory lane; the way he looked at her with his accusing eyes, his set, grim jaw, the tone of his words-
Yes, he was like Inuyasha. The desire to become a full-fledged youkai was the same, so was their love for her, and her love for both of them.
And like fallen autumn leaves crowding her feet, memories of the past love between him and her swirled around and away with the light morning breeze that ruffled her untied, heavy hair.
Sesshoumaru turned around when he heard the rustling of dried leaves, and saw her staring down at nowhere, looking lost and sad and pained and suddenly, the now not-so-incomprehensible thoughts returned to his mind again. Reminding him that some things were meant to be while others were simply not, some things were meant to live on while others should not, and some things were meant to be treasured while others should be let go-
He ran back to her, because his heart ached and because he did not want to see her like that again, he pulled her to his chest and wordlessly apologized. But he felt a little afraid too; at how attached he had grown to her, how dependent she was on him and how much they really needed each other.
She heard his apology, crystal clear and reverberating in his chest and in her head. It made pretty chiming sounds which brought her back to reality,; that she was with Sesshoumaru, the one whom she made love to under the stars and exchanged secrets one for one with. The one whom she would date more than once and bear him a dozen kids if he ever asked.
"Let's trek up to the temple," he said.
She fisted his kimono and smiled, "Hn."
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"Ano..." Kagome stepped across the wooden hurdle into the temple's entrance and stole furtive glances around the area.
It looked to be in shambles. He was right when he said that it was a ruin.
"Konbanwa!"
Both miko and prince were taken aback at the sudden greeting and when they saw the same old monk walking out from behind the empty altar, astonishment and bewilderment were an understatement.
"You two again!" He smiled, albeit a little treacherously at both of them.
Sesshoumaru grabbed her hand and was about to leave when the monk asked, "Here to ask me how to break the curse?"
Kagome stopped his pull and asked back, "Can it be done?"
"The day is ending soon, come in and we can talk later, shall we?"
She did not decline the invitation, for it represented a door to his wish. He followed, because he trusted her intuition.
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"Ano..." She wanted to offer her prayers, but there was no statue of gods around at all. Dust and spiderwebs framed the empty altar that she was looking at, and Sesshoumaru scoffed at the state of it.
The monk laughed and looked into her eyes, "There is no such need to display them! The god is in your heart, isn't it?"
Her lips parted at his pointing bony finger; could the old monk sense the kehai of Shikon no Tama!
Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes and asked with an unflustered face, "What do you mean?"
The monk let out another crinkled laugh before he took his seat on the floor, "If the gods do not reside in our hearts, then where would they be?"
"Yes, you are so right!" Kagome let out a breath of relief while Sesshoumaru blinked and said nothing.
"May I know how should we address you?" The miko sat on her knees and politely bowed.
The monk stroked his chin lazily, "Me? I have forgotten my name, and that is not important at all..."
"How is that even possible?" Sesshoumaru retorted mockingly, since he had lived for a thousand years and he doubted that he would be able to forget his name even for another thousand more.
"Well I don't have a good memory..." he let out that unnerving smile again, because I go by so many names.
Kagome cleared her throat at the building ominous tension and asked, "Houshi-sama, may I know how can we break this curse?"
The monk stroked his stubbly chin again while he fixed an examining eye at said victim, who was glaring daggers back at him.
"Have you ever thought that your curse might be brought upon because of your character?" He tauntingly asked.
Sesshoumaru really wished that he could take off the old cheat's head with one swipe of his youki-string; he did not have a good feeling about the monk even though he couldn't really put a finger on anything remotely suspicious.
Still, killing was not something that required a reason. Not for him at least.
"You can start off by being more polite, for example..."
Before the monk could finish his sentence, he was dragged up to his feet by his torn robes and was staring into a growling Sesshoumaru who was baring his very blunt human teeth.
Kagome gasped out loud while her face was fixed with a mortified expression, "No Sesshoumaru!"
The monk let out a choking cough and smiled, "My! You act like an untrained dog!"
And he was answered with a hard kick in his stomach, to which he landed a few feet away while Kagome dashed forward and flung her body onto his back, "No Sesshoumaru! Please!"
"Say that one more time and you won't live to see tomorrow!" Sesshoumaru threw out his threat, mentally spat at him and stormed out of the temple without Kagome.
"I'm so sorry Houshi-sama!" Kagome repeatedly apologized and bowed while trying to calm her flustered self down; she didn't expect that he would be so easily angered in his human-self.
The monk let out a pained smile with a slight frown, "Beggars apparently can be choosers now..."
"I'm sorry! Are you hurt!" Kagome dared not move forward, partly because of the monk's never-ending smiles.
"His curse is not easy to break, you'll have to help him find out why..." He wiped off the blood from the corner of his cracked mouth and guilefully continued, "And you should do something about your dreams too."
Her eyes rounded, "My... my dreams..?"
The monk smilingly nodded his head again, "The clue to the curse is in your dreams, since you have something that belongs to him you know."
Her jaws slacked open as she watched the monk slowly got up, hobbled his way back to the altar and disappeared behind it.
"Leave, perhaps we might meet again. Who knows?"
Heyo people! Chapter 5 as New Year's gift. :D
Thank you to all my reviewers, I love, love, love you guys! Heh! Someone has asked me whether this would be a short fic and sad to say, it will be. This was something random that popped into my head and I would still like to drag myself back to writing Ten Thousand Cranes once this is over so...
Yeah. :)
I won't say anything abt the ending, but I would love it if you pple could email/review me with yr guesses abt their last secrets, or anything abt this fic since I've tried to put small, little clues here and there... it would be nice if someone could make a correct guess. Im just weird like that.
Super thanks goes out to Parsnip, who adores this fic as much as I adore her. :grins: