Memory's Moon: I Will Always Return To You
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She never did make it to school, because she'd left her bag and all her stuff at home and it hurt to admit that she had to go back home, so she skipped her lectures and just walked, aimlessly.
Being here like this, alone and unnoticed, was actually sort of comforting. In a city of millions, nobody cared if you were ordinary- there were a lot of ordinary people. Nobody cared if you were just a little different- there were lots of people more wildly different than you. Nobody cared that you didn't have a direction, nobody cared if you just wanted to walk and see the sights, so to speak.
So she walked and walked and let her feet guide her where they wished. And, sure enough- as if a magnet had drawn her back here- she found herself standing outside the candy store where the green-eyed shopkeeper worked. It felt strangely familiar to be standing outside this place… there was a subtle sort of feel about it-
"…oi, woman-" A callused male hand waved in front of her face, and she jerked back in embarrassment at spacing out in the middle of the walkway. But the young man who had startled her only gave a short barking laugh of amusement, his blue eyes watching her amiably. "You gonna go in or stare at the chocolates from here?"
Kagome stared at him, face burning scarlet with mortification. "Ahh… I'm sorry!" she babbled, turned tail, and fled.
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"Damn," Kouga murmured softly, thumping his forehead against the display window lightly. Seeing his woman after more than five centuries of waiting… was strange, strange that he hadn't felt the leaping of his spirit that she had inspired in his youth. He still remembered the nearly unbearable yearning that had drawn him to her time and time again, as fresh as if she had breathed that wild desire into his lungs only a moment ago, but…
…but the times had turned… and he had… changed…
And then… and then…
And then it ended…?
"Kouga-kun?" Shippou was calling through the muffling glass, emerald eyes dark with a terribly calm understanding, and the ookami turned his head a minute fraction to acknowledge the speaking of his name.
She had changed. He had changed. They had all changed.
Then it ended.
"Damn, no wonder the inuyarou didn't want to talk," he muttered, straightening and brushing an absent hand through his slightly flattened bangs.
Ended.
"Kagome…"
Goodbye…
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She was lost.
Completely, hopelessly, totally lost. Embarrassed out of her mind.
She felt pathetic.
Kagome thumped her forehead against a convenient lamp-post, rested against the cool smooth pole, and thumped again for good measure. And again, because she really felt silly and stupid. She was working her way up to a sizable red mark between her brows, when a somewhat grimy hand interposed itself between the lamp-post and her head, clasping firmly to the skin with the faint traction of half-formed calluses.
"Pretty girls shouldn't deface themselves," the stranger said mildly, pushing her forehead back gently. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?" She blinked and scrambled back with a yelp, away from the lamp post, away from the stranger with short, wavy black hair and strangely ancient, depthless, black eyes.
She seemed to be meeting a lot of strangers nowadays…
"Um… Thanks…" She wasn't quite sure what she was thanking him for, but it was a reasonably appropriate thing to say while she wondered who exactly this person was. Certainly he looked ordinary enough, a typical delinquent-esque young man in a grayish t-shirt that had probably started life white, in fraying jeans, equally frayed denim jacket ripped short a few inches above the hem of his dingy t-shirt, and worn, well-used sneakers. If not for the obvious lack of a backpack over his shoulder she would have pegged him for a homeless juvie, but there was… something… in his knowing gaze that told her he wasn't homeless.
He cocked his head at her, raising an eyebrow as she completed her inspection. "Do I remind you of someone?" he said lightly, and grinned, flashing perfect, oddly even white teeth.
Kagome felt herself flush red enough to conceal the redness on her forehead. "No!"
"Oh. But I know you…"
I know you-
But he was a stranger. She seemed to be meeting a lot of familiar strangers lately… wait.
He knew her? "You do?" she said, perplexed, and frowned thoughtfully at the scruffy-looking young man. Nothing stirred in her memory, nothing at all. "Where from?"
The stranger smiled at her airily, bouncing on the soles of his scruffed footwear. "Hmm… Maybe not. Maybe you just remind me really strongly of someone that I knew once. While we're at it, do you want me to introduce myself?"
She stared at him, torn between laughing, crying, and running away screaming. He was a stranger! Did she really want him to be a stalker or a pervert too? "…um…?" she said uncertainly, compromising by taking a slow step backwards.
"My name is Rakuen. I'm a ronin…" He spun around gracefully, arms spread. "I wander around. You?"
Rakuen. Something about that name… "My name is Kagome…"
"Kagome." His grin wavered slightly, and she blinked as the tiny flinch passed, leaving her wondering if he suffered from a tic at the corner of his mouth, or had the name conjured some painful memories of someone else with the same name? "That's a lovely name. A lovely name for a pretty girl. Fitting. Maybe I'll see you around, Kagome-san… sometime." He spun again, skipping lightly in place on the pavement, his feet tapping the ground as if impatient to be away. "Tokyo's a pretty small place, after all."
"Uh… yeah…"
With one last dazzling white grin, he grabbed her hands in an energetic parody of a handshake, let go, and trotted briskly down the street, occasionally dancing from side to side in brief, joyous bursts. Kagome watched him go, struck suddenly by a sense that this Rakuen, whoever he was, seemed… right. He acted like he was pumped on Ecstasy, but there was just something about him that said, louder than words, that he was… honest. Sincere. More at peace with the world than most adults were.
Rakuen…
'Paradise'…
Soft paper crackled in her hands as she opened them to find the crumpled ten-thousand-yen note that he had pressed between her palms, and she was distantly startled to find herself crying without knowing why.
----
He watched her life in fast-forward from Kanna's mirror, chin propped on the heel of his palm in unconsciously feigned boredom, as he had done so many times before.
The argument with her mother, her flight from her home, her wanderings in the city… Even in the darkness with no one but Kanna to see, he smirked a little. If nothing else, the girl-child was… entertaining.
Trust the miko to dash out unprepared and still have nothing untoward befall her. A small part of it was thanks to Oborezuki's lingering protections upon her person; most of it, however, was her own power, combined with the amplifying effect of the Shikon no Tama within her. Even incomplete, it was still a powerful artifact- and, in any case, the jewel itself now recognized the need to protect its chosen bearer. Kagome was probably the luckiest human alive, accident-wise.
Shinta, the lord mused with wry reminiscence, Shinta would have been proud.
The images flowing through Kanna's mirror slowed briefly.
Her stop in front of Shippou's candy shop, the look in her eyes distant, teetering on the edge of realization. Kouga's 'timely' interruption. The ookami always did have the worst sense of timing. Or best… depending on whose side you were on. Sesshoumaru, who was always on his own side in any case, was firmly of the opinion that Kouga's lousy sense of timing was a very good thing indeed. The farther away the miko was from realizing what Oborezuki had taken from her, the better.
Ah… so the ookami had sense, after all… letting the miko go without trying to declare his undying love or some such unseemly nonsense. At least Kouga had used his brains for once… or something. Sesshoumaru disliked the thought that his vassals might be something less than intelligent. Far more elegant to say, they were intelligent. It was simply rare for them to actually show it… sometimes he felt like the only adult in a sea of puppies… and heavy, so heavy, with the duty that Higurashi had entrusted to him in the shape of a powerful, fragile, unattainable young girl-child-warrior.
Her very struggles made him feel weak, for he could do nothing while Oborezuki and the Shikon no Tama warred for control of her destiny.
And if Sesshoumaru hated anything- even more than having to admit that his half-brother was not, in fact, a blathering idiot, despite the hanyou's appalling lack of self-control- it was this sensation of weakness, of not being able to further his wishes in any direct fashion.
Of not being able to protect her-
A vein under his jaw throbbed as his teeth ground together.
"Kanna," he said suddenly.
The images froze.
"I tire of this. You are dismissed."
She bowed slightly, her mirror held even and steady between two pale hands. "As you wish… Sesshoumaru-sama." The room was dark, her pale coloring and garments making her seem ghostlike in its twilight gloom, and her depthless black eyes held nothing that any eye could see, not even the smallest flicker to betray emotion. "There is more that you should see. You will view it tomorrow." It was not a suggestion, but a statement; Kanna's few words were invariably thus. As her lord… well… over the centuries he had learned that Kanna only served not because she feared, but because she chose to.
Even Naraku had not dared to threaten this creature he had birthed as openly as he had threatened Kagura, because Kanna was the dark no-thing, and the no-thingness was always distantly hungry, and pain was nothing to it. Only when the dying wind had filled the abyss had the no-thing become some-thing, a creature that did as it wished, thought as it wished, and bowed to no one, for the darkness made flesh bows to no master but itself.
The Lord of the Western Lands could disagree with what she wished all he wanted.
What Kanna wanted, Kanna usually got.
This time was no exception. "Leave, Kanna," he said resignedly, and closed his glowing eyes to emphasize his command. It didn't help his inner turmoil- the girl-child's pale sweating face and moonshine glow still haunted his thoughts like a premonition of evil things- but it did give him something to do while Kanna padded out in her sensible black flats. She would be back tomorrow, but for now she would respect his request for privacy.
He wanted to be alone.
He really really wanted to be alone.
It was night time, his time, and hazy unease over the miko's state clouded his inner solitude; dark clouds, heavy with the promise of rain ahead.
Damn you, miko.
With a growl of frustration rumbling in his throat, he pushed himself to his feet, the loose folds of his outer robes flapping with the force of his roughly executed motion, and almost stormed out to the open balcony.
The wind closed around him in a soft dark breath of twilight and pale sakura petals, and he was gone, speeding towards the miko's shrine on swift, silent feet, his departure unnoticed by all but a slender pale figure standing in the shadows of a darkened room, in another part of the house. Delicately boned fingers pressed lightly on the window glass as Kanna gazed after the disappearing flash of white that was her chosen lord and surrogate father, and she smiled softly. "Be happy," she murmured, though who exactly she was saying it to was unclear- Kagome, Sesshoumaru, herself… or maybe a wise-eyed young man with wavy short dark hair in street-worn clothes, reflected unerringly in her mirror.
"-my name is…"
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My name is Rakuen…
I'm a ronin…
I wander around…
-why?
Because everywhere…
…feels…
…like home-
-maybe I know you, what's your name?
-funny… I thought it would be…
Ki…kyou…
No…
Ka-go-me…
I know you.
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A/N: Things are finally speeding up, and we should be getting to some real SK interactions soon…. Although that might take a while. Because I'm approaching my first-year finals… so be patient, o my reviewers. (bows) Thank you. Now please click the review button… and feed the poor author.
By the way, there was some confusion about the timelines in the fic, up to Chapter 7 (A Dream of Swords). I emailed Redbutterfly1216 a brief explanation of the problems… which, for the sake of anyone else who was confused but didn't say so on the review page (c'mon pple, review!) I'll just post the explanation up here, word for word.
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1) Kagome is stuck in the present time and has been ever since the beginning of Chapter 2(Dreams And Illusions).
2) Sengoku-jidai!Sesshoumaru traveled forward in time at the end of Chapter 5 (His And Hers), had a chat with Higurashi-mama during Chapter 6 (Somewhere To Belong) but when he went back through the well at the end of Chapter 6, the well closed and he couldn't travel through it again (henceforth I will refer to him as Old!Sesshoumaru).
3) Fast foward to Chapter 7 (A Dream Of Swords), Old!Sesshoumaru has been living through the centuries until he reaches Kagome's present-day-Tokyo. While Old!Sesshoumaru's narrative is going on, it zooms in on how he's been watching the Shrine.
4) The passage in italics is sort of a 'pause' during the story detailing his part in Kagome's sudden memory loss (which turns out to be Old!Sesshoumaru's doing, not post-traumatic-stress-disorder). This was originally written as part of the original story, not an interlude, but considering that I had to make sure I returned to where I stopped with Kagome (after her nightmare, in the corridor) the 'interlude' was shoved in. 5) After the italics passage is over, Old!Sesshoumaru's POV continues and he sits around until the night of Kagome's nightmare (the lazy sod no, just kidding!). The story gets back to normal here, with Kagome and Sesshoumaru's POV running (sort of) parallel, with no significant time discrepancy.
That's about it, without giving away too much of the story.
Hope that helped, and continue reviewing!
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