Please
By: Koneko Hanyou (Lyssa Niznak)She cried. Cried with her heart, her soul and her eyes. As the salty tears flowed freely down her face, streaking her beautiful countenance with their trails, she cried to the heavens and prayed for her soul.
'Please. Please, let it all just end. Just let it stop. Just please, make the pain go away. Let it subside. Please, just let it die with my heart. Please, please, just let it all go away.'
She just stood there, in the pouring rain, allowing heaven's tears to mix with her own. It seemed that she was not the only one who mourned their death, for the angels continued to shed their tears onto the earth.
Take away the sensation inside
Bittersweet migraine in my head
It's like a throbbing toothache of the mind
I can't take this feeling anymore
She wandered the area in which she now stood. Trees, trees, and more trees faced her in every direction. The village, she assumed, was west from her current position. 'Maybe, they hadn't died,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe, they're all back at the village, just waiting.' "Waiting."
She ran, sprinted, for what seemed like hours until she could barely draw breath. Many times, she had considered resting, but her mind had ruled out the idea as quickly as it had come. Finally, there it was, looming ever closer, her destination. She ran through the community until she reached it. Kaede's hut, her home-away-from-home. The sight that greeted her as she entered the tiny building caused her to turn away and spill her last meal onto the ground outside.
There, strung up in the middle of the hut on so many wires, blood flowered across her miko's robes in so many places they appeared to have been dyed blood-red. Across the room lay an arm and close to her left foot rested an ear with a small fragment of the head with hair still attached. Then they came again. The tears returned with a renewed sorrow as she mourned the death.
Drain the pressure from the swelling,
The sensation's overwhelming,
Give me a kiss goodnight and everything'll be all right.'Why? Why me? I was kind. I was good. Why does this have to happen to me? Everyone, gone. Everything I loved, gone. Oh, please. Make this pain stop. Please, make the throbbing pains in my chest go away.' And before she realized it, her legs had begun to run again. She ran away, from the horrendous scene, which surrounded her and threatened to suffocate her. It wasn't until she stopped that she realized why she was running, and where her legs had taken her.
She could no longer stay here. The pain was overwhelming. She could no longer remain here, in this era so many centuries into the past. For the longer she stayed, the tighter her chest became, the number her mind became. She had run through the mud, and torn through the saturated foliage and brush until she had ended up here. Here was her escape. The Rabbit Hole. The Portal, her escape across time: The Bone Eater's Well. She tore through the tree line and threw herself into its inky depths. How many times? How many times had she made this same trip, with him following closely at her heels, pleading with her not to leave him? How many times had she found herself laughing inwardly at his astonishing loyalty and dog-like tagalong habits? But his days of tormenting her had ended. They were no more.
Tell me that I won't feel a thing
So give me novacaine
As the swirls of unknown magic surrounded her and transported her 500 years into the future, she found herself not caring about her own well being anymore. After all, they were dead, so there was no point in living anymore, was there? Not after all that had transpired back there… in the Sengoku Jidai. Landing abruptly across time, she hauled her body out of the hole that was the well and stole across the compound and up into her room. No one appeared to be home. 'Good,' she thought. 'I can be alone in my misery.'
She flopped onto her bed like a fish out of water and lay there. As she lay there, she hoped, prayed that the lightning flashing angrily outside her window would come through the roof and strike her dead. She just wished her chest would cease its endless throbbing. How she missed him. She lay there for only heaven knows how long, just remembering, mourning.
Out of body and out of mind
Kiss the demons out of my dreams
I get the funny feeling that's all right
Kami says it's better than air,
I'll tell you why
She remembered the kiss he had given her the night before the world ended. It had been full of the love he had been unable to express to her in words. It had been long, passionate, and it had been hers. In that one moment, she had seen into his heart his half-human, half demon heart and saw not a youkai or a human but a hanyou, her hanyou. The hanyou she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
He had told her, that after the battle, they would become one. She would become his and he hers. Officially. Forever. How happy she had been, when he had told her. The look of ecstasy on his face when she said "yes" would forever be imprinted in her memory.
Drain the pressure from the swelling,
The sensations overwhelming,
Finally, she moved, for the first time in many hours. She glanced around her room and found that this was not the place to escape her memories and pain. For plastered around the room was the many photos she had taken during her time in the Sengoku Jidai: One of the houshi feeling up his favorite taiji-ya's backside. Another contained an image of the houshi with a handprint where the taiji-ya had smacked him across the face. Yet another was of the kitsune unwisely attempting to pilfer some of Inuyasha's ramen.
She couldn't stay here. She had to leave. She didn't know where she'd go, but she knew anywhere was better than here, the place that screamed of the memories she had made. She dashed out of her room, down the stairs, and out of her front door. Any where was better than there.
Give me a kiss goodnight and everything will be all right,
Tell me that I won't feel a thing,
So give me novacaine
She ran across the compound and out the Torii gates, down into the heart of Tokyo. Her heart was pounding inside her clenched chest. Why did she have to feel so much pain? She came to the corner of her school. And decided she couldn't stop here either. How many times had he come to her during school, embarrassed her and said it was all in the name of her safety? How many false illnesses had her jii-san come up with to allow her to go through the well? No, the school was definitely not a place she wanted to stop at.
Oh Novacaine
Drain the pressure from the swelling,
The sensations overwhelming
She couldn't keep going. As much as her heart told her not to stop, she had to stop, had to find her breath and restore it to her burning lungs. The pain in her lungs was overwhelming and burned like Hell fire within her. Again she prayed to the heavens, pleaded with them. 'Just let me die. Please. Just let it all end. Oh please…'
Give me a kiss goodnight and everything will be all right,
Tell me, Kami, I won't feel a thing,
She was running again. To where, she did not know. All she knew was the majority of Tokyo was not safe for her. After all, she had walked many of its streets with him, just talking, or fighting. As she came to the corner of his favorite convenience store, the store she had always taken him to get his beloved ramen, she kept going, ignoring the flashing traffic signal. As she ran, she was also oblivious of the semi-trailer truck as it barreled toward her, incapable of detecting her presence. It struck her body with a force that seemed unreal. She flew across the pavement; her broken form limp and lifeless.
She drew one last breath, smiling, knowing that her prayers had been answered. Her pain had finally ended. She was going where she belonged. She was going home. As she stepped away from her body, people swarming around it, futilely attempting to revive her, he came for her. His face was no longer bloody and bruised. His clothing was no longer stained with the blood from the heated battle. He was just as she remembered. He beckoned her to follow him. She did not hesitate. For she knew: they were all there. Where ever he wanted her to go, where ever 'there' was, they were all there, waiting.
When she reached him, he pulled her soul into the tightest embrace she had ever felt. She prayed, 'Please, don't let this end. Let me stay like this forever, in his arms.' Now her pain was gone, receding to the depths of nothingness. Her last prayer, last plea, would be answered. For she was now with him forever. Forever was here, and she was with him. And with him, there was no pain.
So give me Novacaine.