12/17/05--Authoress's notes: Believe it or not, I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. I just like playing with the Shichinintai.
Wayward Ransom, Chapter 2.
Sanzu...so that's where I am...can't...touch the shore...
The older man waved a finger at their prisoner, and spoke to the armed, younger man. "You, when we dock, undo the cuffs. I'll give you the keys when we get there. I'll undo the strands."
The younger man nodded silently.
The three of them floated steadily toward the other side. As the cobwebs cleared from Bankotsu's head, and the raft got closer to its destination, he opened his eyes again, and over his bound arm, could see the shoreline they were approaching was, indeed, gorgeous. An overwhelming sense of peace welled from within...a feeling he hadn't experienced for a long, long time. He saw more clearly the stunning white buildings, the exotic flowers, and finely crafted tiny bridges that provided walkways across perfectly clear, lily-lined waterways.
He remembered the myths about the Sanzu he heard here and there as a child and as a young man. The dead, assuming conditions were right, supposedly lived a life of peace and luxury in a place like this. Wounds were healed, questions were answered, family reunited.
Huh. Good to finally know the old storytellers weren't bullshitting me, he thought. Sometimes he wanted to believe such a place existed, but most often, pushed it out of his head due to simply not being able to comprehend it all. Why should the afterlife be any different than living? Why should it "be" at all? No matter. Something better existed for people and that's all that mattered. Well deserved...after all the hell and trouble some go through, he thought, eyes narrowing.
The edge of the water was a busy place. Strangers appeared out of nowhere on the shore...the young, the old, men, women, children. There must have been hundreds of people. All these were people who have, in the few moments before they appeared, passed away and were going to stay in this place so their soul could rest. Nothing could bring them back...not a jewel shard, not a spell, not even demonic power. To touch the shore was to never go back.
Among the many, many people he saw on the shore in the distance, two figures intrigued him.
A gentle-looking, tall, attractive man in a simple grey kimono, one arm fading to white, the other arm fading to black. A slightly shorter woman in a lovely pink kimono, decorated with a delicate pattern of cherry blossoms.
No, wait...a man ...in a lovely pink kimono, decorated with cherry blossoms.
They were here already.
His brothers in life and in death, Jakotsu and Suikotsu, were here...talking to one another, seemingly peacefully, on the shore. Jakotsu had his body and face turned toward the acidic water from which the white shore emerged. Turned, in fact, right towards the raft that Bankotsu was imprisoned, and inched closer to the shore with every polestroke the old man made. His hand seemingly uselessly shielding his wide eyes, his face in a broad, infectious smile as he scanned the shore left and right.
"How WONDERFUL of you to be waiting here for me, brother! When does the party start?"
"Not technically until all of us are here."
"Oooo, gosh. I won't even THINK of beginning to celebrate until Big Brother shows up!"
"He eventually will. We were all destined to come here." Suikotsu scanned the shoreline, waiting for the same thing to appear as his comrade. He looked puzzled for an instant. "Quite a different view considering how uncomfortable it was crossing the Sanzu in the first place. Strangely I can't see anything from this end...no rafts, no ships, nothing."
"Oh, pfffft." Jakotsu waved a hand at the other man. "You know I love you to pieces ...but you always make everything so much harder than it should be." Jakotsu simply showed up on the shore without passing over the hellish waterway...possibly the only one out of all of them to do so without an escorted raft.
"The time for that is over. Now that I'm here, I won't need someone to bullwhip me into behaving." Suikotsu looked down at his now clawless hands. He found comfort knowing that that part of himself that was thirsty for childrens' blood...vanished...when he touched the sands they were now conversing. If he knew he would be so healed, he would have never put up such a fight on the way over here. "I can finally walk on my own now. I have a sense of balance I never had before. He was the only one I ever had to keep me in check. The 'doctor' couldn't bring himself to fight for anything he believed in. Then there was the rage...the rage would overcome me when I desperately needed to not fight. Battle was one thing...but after the battle was over, so was he, and beat it into my head over and over when it was time to get a grip on myself and stop. One of the many things I learned from him, in retrospect. None of us were ever asked to walk aside of him; he knew he could do it all himself. We all even changed our names to match his; not the other way around. But I think each of us were lost, had nowhere else to go. And each of us needed a sensei to bring us to ourselves. Our brother was that man."
Suikotsu and Jakotsu looked at each other contemplatively. Suikotsu spoke again. "Balance. Peace. It's all possible now. It never was before."
Jakotsu smiled. Peace was possible here. He turned back excitedly towards the end of the shore. "So when IS he going to get here?"
"In time he will. Everyone will.. And we won't be separated or in danger of our lives here. We can truly live at peace for once. We can give ourselves new names. We can write ourselves new histories, now that we know the reasons behind the old ones."
"I'll wait for him here, just like you waited for me." Jakotsu spoke with a smile, and one eye closed. "Don't you even think of startinganything without us."
With that, the taller man departed, walking towards the glistening white buildings.
Jakotsu was left on the shore by himself, smiling even more broadly than before. "I hope that whatever you're doing, and where ever you are, Big Brother, you're having a total blast doing it."
Bankotsu could now clearly see Jakotsu standing on the shore, and Suikotsu walking away. He longingly drank in the sight of his comrades. He drew in enough air through his teeth to be able to barely whisper. "Jakotsu...Sui...kotsu..."