Title: Fragile Minds

Part of: Inuyasha no konto

Theme: Broken

Word Count: 1126

Disclaimer: Any characters within these shorts are the creative property of Rumiko Takahashi. They are being used for non-profit recreation.

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Fragile Minds

Higurashi Souta has a lot of time to think about the past. It was, he concluded, not his fault if things were that easily broken.

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Higurashi Souta has a lot of time to think about the past.

It was, he concluded, not my fault at all. If the objects he encountered had not been so fragile they never would have broken so easily. And, of course, if such objects had remained in tact he never would had found himself in such a situation to begin with. Therefore, it could not possibly be his fault.

But that did not matter now. Things were broken and he had found himself embarking out on a quest that would eventually consume him entirely. If only I had never followed Buuyo into the well house…

It had started that day. He remembered it well – it had been his fifteenth birthday. The cat had turned up missing that morning and his younger brother had been too nervous to follow the animal into the old fixture. He carelessly went inside himself. He barely had time to reach for Buuyo before a centipede youkai appeared and dragged him into the well.

His own body was the first to betray him. A simple tear of his flesh and the fabled Shikon no Tama had burst from his torso. The fact that the jewel was in his possession was the first sign that his destiny had caused his appearance in the past. If only I had never been born with the Sacred Jewel inside of me…

The jewel was the next object to succumb to his clumsiness. In an attempt to retrieve the jewel, foolishly lost to a bird youkai, he had shot the bird's own foot at the demon. The arrow, no doubt, had met its target, the foot being drawn to the allure of the jewel. But the shot succeeded not only in destroying the crow but also in shattering the jewel. In that one instance he had just resigned himself to a dual life. The past became more than history to him as he, along with an inu hanyou, a kitsune, a monk & a taijiya, journeyed to recover the shattered shards of the jewel. Their journey led them on a second quest – to hunt down and defeat the demon Naraku. His appearance caused more bloodshed and heartache than any of their small group could imagine, yet they all came face to face with such grief – all in the name of the Shikon no Tama. If only I had never shattered the jewel…

Many other objects were put to the test but, in one way or the other, failed to withstand. The kotodama rosary snapped after a particularly violent Osuwari command; Inuyasha's great sword, Tessaiga, snapped, cracked and broke more times than he could count though it was always able to be repaired if the group undertook certain dangerous tasks. With the sudden, and random, appearances of Kikyou, a heart broke continuously. A wandering hand, belonging to a lecherous monk, caused a giant boomerang to crack just as often as Tessaiga did. But as long as the spell between the two times held fast, Souta was content. He had two lives – and he couldn't be happier.

But happiness is a fragile thing. It, too, is easily broken.

It was the final object to break that resulted in his being trapped in the past, in the Sengoku Jidai. After a singularly fierce battle between the Inu-tachi and Naraku, the evil man-demon hybrid took revenge by shattering the well. Souta has been stuck five hundred years in the past ever since. He can only wonder how his family had reacted when the well caved in on their property. But at least he still had Inuyasha.

A knock on the open doorframe interrupted his thoughts. "Good evening, Higurashi," smiled a woman as she entered the room, a miniature plastic cup in her hand. Vaguely he remembered her. She reminds me of Mama, he thought sadly. His mother had gone forever from his reach the day the well splintered under Naraku's attack.

The woman, clean and pristine in her white uniform, swirled the cup mixing the pinkish mixture it contained. "Time for your medicine."

Souta opened his mouth to reply but, when he did, it was not his voice that left his throat but a deep, gruff one. "Oi, wench. Can't you see that we're busy here?" As he spoke he manipulated the white pillow – complete with a crude rendering of amber eyes and fluffy dog ears drawn in the center – that was propped next to him in the bed.

His nurse was used to such behavior from the young patient. Her smile remained in place.

Souta's eyes sprung open and he clamped his mouth shut. Then, adopting a falsetto that sent chills up the nurse's spine, he opened his mouth and shrieked, "Osuwari!" The pillow dropped to the ground. Souta giggled.

The nurse's smile wavered. It seemed as if he was only growing worse. He had already been in the hospital for two years with no sign that he'd be returning to his mother's home any time in the future. It had nearly killed the poor woman to admit her only son into the institution, especially so soon after her other child, a teenage girl, disappeared from home. It was his sister's disappearance, the nurse understood, that had led the young man to adopt such delusions. Right before Mrs. Higurashi brought her son to the hospital the young man had tried to jump into the broken remains of an old well in search of, as he said repeatedly before his medication was regulated, "Nee-chan and Inu-no-oniichan".

The nurse approached him slowly, careful not to disturb the young man. She handed him the plastic cup that contained his nightly dose. "Here you are, Higurashi—"

"My name is Kagome. Ka. Go. Me," he said sullenly continuing in the falsetto as he reached off of his bed to pick up the pillow. "And this is Inuyasha. Inuyasha, say 'hi'."

He bounced the pillow once before turning it around so that the nurse could not see the drawn-on face. "Keh."

"Hello, Kagome. Hello, Inuyasha. It's nice to see you both. I have a present for you now… your medicine," she said, soothingly, waiting for him to take the cup. When he hesitated she continued. "If you two are going to defeat Naraku, you need to be strong."

Immediately he reached for the cup. He swallowed its contents in one gulp before handing the plastic cup back to the nurse.

Once the liquid had been swallowed the medicine began to take hold. Drowsiness overcame the young man. He leaned back in his bed and calmly closed his eyes. As he drifted off to a dreamless sleep his thoughts turned again to the past.

Higurashi Souta has a lot of time to think about the past.