Courage
Chapter Two: To Live
Welcome back to "Courage", or Yuuki in Japanese! I hope I get a few more reviews this time around (tears), but we all know that we write simply for the pleasure of writing, right?
…
Right?
Yeah, so we all rejoice when we see that we've finally broken sixty reviews on a twelve-chapter fic…except for those of you geniuses who're disappointed when you get less than thirty reviews per chapter…f—ing talented people.
No, I am absolutely not bitter! (shreds printout of Favorite Authors and flushes scraps down toilet) No, not bitter at f—ing all!
Anyway, enough with the personal tragedies…let's liven things up and watch my attempt at writing Sango's segment of the Courage fic!
Disclaimer: Well…I own tapes of a few of my favorite episodes…and of the whole first movie and part of the second movie (I RAN OUT OF F—ING SPACE ON THE F—ING TAPE! WHY, CRUEL WORLD, WHY!). I own two adorable little plastic models of Kagome and Inuyasha (THANKS KATHYHEAD!), two keychains, some manga and some pictures. But Inuyasha, as well as his friends, is not my property. Ack, more personal tragedy!
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Sango grimaced and leaned on her broken Hiraikotsu as Inuyasha and Shippo bounded away. Miroku must have noticed her pain, for he grasped her elbow and steadied her as well as he could. She chuckled and gently pulled away from him. "Miroku, just because my leg was impaled doesn't mean I've lost the ability to remain upright."
As soon as she said it, the demon slayer found herself toppling toward him, unable to restore her balance with her bad leg.
"No, it comes and it goes, doesn't it?" the monk laughed, catching her.
"It's like hunting a bird," she agreed, feeling her cheeks redden slightly at the heat radiating off of his robes. "Just when I think I've captured it, it flies away."
His chest vibrated as he chuckled, sending an agreeable sort of shiver through her, as if her organs were trembling. "Well, then, I say we both sit and rest before we go catch that bird again. How about it?"
Sango hadn't had time to answer before his knees bent and he lowered the two of them to the ground. "What if I think I'm ready to have another shot at the bird?" she asked stubbornly, adjusting her grip on the Hiraikotsu.
"You're only human, Sango. You aren't fragile, but you aren't invincible either," he pointed out matter-of-factly.
For some reason, she flinched at those words. "Only human? Are humans really so weak then?"
But she didn't want to hear Miroku answer, and pushed herself upright and staggered over to the mewing Kirara. "Kirara, how are you doing?"
The demon cat opened her red eyes and licked Sango's outstretched hand, purring tiredly.
"I'm glad to hear it." The demon slayer knelt beside her lifelong partner and gently scooped her up. "Here, that's a good girl. Oh, sorry, did that hurt?" She moved her hand away from the sting welt and rubbed Kirara's ears. "Yes, very good girl," she murmured. "So strong, fighting the poison all that time. We'll get you some antidote the minute one of us is able to find the right herbs, okay?"
Sango could have sworn that Kirara half-rolled her fiery orbs before snuggling further into the crook of her master's arm. She grinned down at the cat, then looked up, studying the remnants of Naraku's golems. "We are all," she whispered, "so helpless. So dependent. Shippo could not have won that battle on his own, and Inuyasha needed help to defeat the last golems. Kagome's strength is always so limited. I couldn't even dispatch one golem on my own. Miroku is almost useless without his Wind Tunnel, and when he does use it, he ends up making himself useless again."
She closed her eyes and sighed. 'I'm being unfair. They were all so brave. Despite their weaknesses, they kept going, fighting, risking themselves to help each other. But I…' A small breeze blew her bangs into her face, which she brusquely shook away. 'I'm not that strong.'
"Sango?" Behind her, Miroku pushed himself to his feet. The rings on his monks' staff jingled as he staggered his way toward her, his body still fighting the Saimyosho's poison. "Sango, are you all right?"
"How can you be so strong?" Some odd feeling was stirring inside her, a strange desperation for something she couldn't name. "You, too, are only human, yet you're still so…" She couldn't find the words. She swung around to face him, to try to communicate her question through her eyes. It wasn't, she realized, a question about him. It was a question about herself.
'Kohaku,' she abruptly thought. Her little brother. He had been possessed by Naraku, had killed her father and other demon slayers from their village. He had almost killed her, then had been killed himself. She still remembered that cold, empty gaze of his as his chain sickle tore through the air and sliced away the strap that had held her filter mask in place. He had only missed her throat by lucky chance. She could see those eyes as clearly as the monk standing before her. And now, under Naraku's control once more, now as an undead servant, Kohaku continued to be possessed and thus to threaten her and her friends.
"My brother is just Naraku's puppet. He's as weak as the rest of us. We are all…just so helpless! I don't understand it!"
"Sango, you aren't helpless, you know that," Miroku soothed, unconsciously clacking the ring that kept the purple gauntlet on his right hand in place against his staff. "You're the strongest woman I have ever met."
"And I'm only human! We're so weak, so fragile!" Defiantly, she stamped her wounded leg against the ground and grunted when a lance of pain shot all the way up into her hip. "What's the point, Miroku?"
But he seemed at a loss for words. He stared at her, his eyes narrowed pensively, his expression bewildered and taken aback. Finally, he softly urged, "Sango, you have to be careful with that leg…"
"But what's the point?" Even more defiantly, she slammed her heel into the dirt and ground the grass below her heel into the earth. The pain this time left her gasping, and a warm sensation around the wound told her that it had started bleeding again. "We're so helpless anyway, so what's the point?"
With a distressed mew, Kirara nuzzled Sango's arm. Miroku lurched forward then caught himself, pressing a hand to his temple as if he felt dizzy. "Sango," he panted, "please, calm down. You've reopened that wound. Please, just sit down."
But the peculiar urgency had passed. Suddenly, she felt foolish, and limped forward to grab her friend's shoulders. "Miroku, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. Here, come on, you need to sit." Although her leg was throbbing again, she managed to guide him to the ground and drop down beside him. "Here, are you feeling all right?" She placed Kirara in her lap and, for lack of any other material, pulled out the red strip of cloth that held her ponytail in place and wiped his suddenly shining forehead. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm acting strange, aren't I?"
"No, Sango, you're right," Miroku mumbled, catching her hand and gripping it tight. "Forgive me…it's just the poison…it feels like I'm on one of merry-go-rounds Kagome described to us. I can't…it's this blasted venom…" With that, he slumped to the side, his cheekbone colliding painfully with her shoulder.
"Miroku?" Sango moved Kirara to the ground, meeting only mild opposition from the feline, and shifted as quickly as she was able until she could cradle Miroku's head in her lap. His staff clattered noisily to the ground beside its owner. "Miroku, are you all right?"
His words were soft and labored but still reassuring as he breathed, "Don't worry, Sango. Those wasps pack quite a bit of poison in those tiny disgusting bodies of theirs, don't they? I just need rest. Don't worry…I'll be fine."
After forcing out those few sentences, he sighed and relaxed.
"Miroku?" For a moment, Sango's heart froze, but his shallow but steady breaths assured her that he was merely asleep. "Do you understand now, Miroku?" She picked up the cloth she had dropped when the monk had collapsed and mopped his face again. "We are all weak. No matter how strong we are, we're still human. Still only human. So really, is there a point?"
When she asked that question this time, she no longer felt frenzied, simply resigned and exhausted. "Do we have a reason to live at all, Kirara?" she questioned.
The demon cat, though still affronted, mewed reassuringly. But Sango found little comfort in her partner and looked back down at Miroku's pale face. "How can anyone stand to live when they know how utterly weak and dependent they are? Don't they feel useless? Don't they feel like nothing but a burden?"
Suddenly, she became vividly aware of the sword sheathed at her side. It, like her, was weak unless taken in hand by another. But it could do such terrible things when wielded. Without thinking, she drew it and held it up before her, contemplating.
'This is a good sword. Sharp, strong blade. Well-crafted hilt, solid cross guard. Light enough to be controlled easily, but heavy enough to cause damage. This sword is useful. I forged it myself, after dozens and dozens of sticks of metal, good only for scrap metal. They were useless, and they were gotten rid of. Should all useless things be gotten rid of?
'Should I be?'
The demon slayer ran a finger lightly against the edge of the blade and winced as small beads of blood welled up out of the fine cut on her fingertip. She held it to her mouth and, for some odd reason, glanced back down on Miroku.
His sleeping but tense face struck a strange chord inside her. "Are you really considering killing yourself?" it seemed to ask.
"No…no, why the hell am I thinking that?"
She had suffered and still suffered daily knowing that her own little brother didn't remember even who he himself was. She still grieved for her father and the rest of the demon-slaying villagers who had been killed by Kohaku or massacred by demons under Naraku's command. She felt every day that Naraku's emotional control over her dragged all of her friends down. But she still fought. She fought back, knowing that she was only human.
'It doesn't matter how weak we are…because together, we're the strongest we can be. It doesn't matter how useless we are because we always fight. There may not be a point, but is there a point in looking for one? We have each other, we have our lives, and we have our futures. What is there beyond those?'
She smiled down at Miroku and re-sheathed her sword. 'Hope. There's always hope that we'll find people to love and to be loved by enough to feel that they are your "point", your hope. They are what you fight for, the reason why you smile, cry…and live.'
Her hand pushed the monk's bangs out of his closed eyes as Sango chuckled and thought, 'You would say exactly that, wouldn't you?' She kissed her finger and touched it to his lips.
'Thank you for being my hope.'
(end)
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Wow, that was an even shorter chapter. But once again, it's hard to prattle on about a certain type of courage for eleven pages.
Anyway, I hope I did well in showing Sango's brand of courage: the courage to live. I would be shocked if she hadn't had suicidal thoughts at least once (tells you how badly I'm obsessed with Inuyasha now…I'm starting to think of them as real people). But she still survives her many personal tragedies with energy aplenty for pummeling Miroku. If I could finish all of my homework with that kind of energy left over, I'd be Superwoman or something. That'd be so cool!
And I apologize for the fact that this chapter is so devoid of humor. I didn't have much of a plan for this chapter. All I knew was that I wanted Sango to contemplate human weakness and to consider killing herself. I originally had set this as one of those classic "depressed about Kohaku" to "pissed at Miroku's antics" situations, but…I dunno, it didn't seem quite right. So this chapter just kind of dribbled out of my head, but I think I did decently.
Well, let's see if my opinion was on track. Review and let me know what you thought!
P.S. I promise at least a little humor next chapter. How can there not be, when our favorite clown of a monk is the main focus?