The earth was cold that night, she remembered,
and the air was crisp and fresh.
She smelled clean and new, after a bath,
had washed away demon flesh.
You see, just earlier, a battle had spewed,
Upon her warm flesh and blood,
of the demon they murdered that day, and it sprayed,
All over her killing robes.
The exterminator took a place, on a mat,
inside Kaede's tent.
She lay there breathing, until a sleep,
Took her without relent.
She had dreamed of her brother, Kohaku,
the only boy she loved.
And dreamed of the times, in her village,
When they trained to be good enough.
Her eyes opened later, the hut was dark,
and beside her a fire was dying.
But what woke her was not the dream, as you'd think,
It was the sound of a woman crying.
She stiffened her body, but reached out an arm,
to grab her faithful weapon.
But she stopped when she saw, in pare fire glow,
The woman whose eyes were wettened.
The woman looked at the killer, and was very quick to explain,
As Sango assumed a defensive stance.
"I'm sorry if I awoke you." She said. "But you
Are the only one who understands."
The tajiya eased, but still, she was weary.
"Why are you here, Kikyo?"
The woman across from her wiped a wet eye.
She looked tentative. "I don't know."
She sat on the ground, a good distance away,
Distrustful of such strange behavior.
But the clay woman, that sat near the fire,
Stayed as if someone had made her.
"What do you want?" The fighter commanded,
Her eyes still adjusting, were strained.
"I just had a feeling, is all" she replied to the woman,
"But I'm not quite sure how to explain."
"What do you mean?" she asked the earth woman.
A curiousity rang in her voice.
"It's just, I've been feeling, as if my sole purpose
has lost its place and point.
"I'm not sure," she continued, "Why I'm still here,
I don't really know what I want.
As I sat here, I stroked your hair. And I thought,
'If I could feel it, would it be soft?'
"You see I don't know when I'm being touched.
All I feel ... is anger.
I don't have control, as I thought. Naraku holds the strings
and we're just his players."
The demon killer sat quietly; she absorbed, with compassion,
the dead woman's tale and felt sad.
Her eyebrows arched upward and her eyes grew hot,
And she inched closer to the mat.
"And that's why I came to you, Sango, because
You've died ... but survived.
I know you remember far better than I,
The shard in your back that kept you alive."
The woman, now racked with emotion,
Broke apart in the tent.
She sobbed for her fallen brother, and
Recalled the horrific event.
She'd been buried alive, mistaken for dead,
and she dug her way out of her grave.
She yearned for the blood of family's murderer;
And only this way could she be saved.
She was given a shard by Naraku, and told to kill a boy.
His name was the man's only message.
She painfully taveled, held only together, by the hate
And the hope of revenge.
She sobbed in front of the dead woman's eyes,
The memories in her mind chilling.
She continued on, weeping, "I understand what its like
To live for the sake of killing."
"But," she continued, her voice growing darker.
"You, I don't understand."
The woman looked surprised, this she hadn't expected.
"What?" she sternly demanded.
"You know what its like to feel betrayal ... pain,
Anger... and hurt and yet,
You try to inflict upon innocent people,
The feelings you've come to resent.
"Why, Kikyo? Why can't you let Inu Yasha live?
Hasn't he suffered enough?"
And a tear rolled down the dead woman's eye.
"It isn't the hate ... It's love."
The tajiya looked in shock, she didnt comprehend.
The clay woman's eyes got wetter.
"Its because killing him is the only way ...
That we can be together.
"I love him more than anything, but I hate him,
Yes it's true. I fear,
The hate, it isn't really hate, but I feel it
As long as I'm here.
"So I want him to come with me to death,
And we will love each other there."
A silent understanding had come between the two.
On Sango's arm bristled each hair.
She understood now, why the woman had committed,
Such horrible trecherous deeds.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice full of sorrow, "So sorry,
That you've suffered such grief."
Her body was full of emotion, and she knew
Only that she wanted one thing.
And what it was, was a happy ending;
An end to the dead woman's pain.
"I've lost so much; My father, my brother..." She moved closer
To Kikyo and pressed a hand to her cheek.
"I think that I can finally understand ...
Why you chose to come to me."
The woman's face flickered with the ghost of a smile,
but it died quicker than a flare of flame.
Such things are so rare, and that image in Sango,
To this day still remains.
"You don't have to kill him, you know?" she said.
The dead woman looked attentive.
"For him and you to love again...
"All you need to do is live."
The earthen body glared at her, with a confusion
unlike any other she'd seen.
She quickly corrected the misinterpretation,
"I should explain what I mean."
"You see, Kagome and you are one in the same,
Together you make the same girl.
And if your soul to her returned, then
you and him could love once more."
The clay woman looked apalled, and angry,
"How could you say that?" she hissed.
Sango edged back and looked quite mistaken.
"Then the whole point would be missed!
"He can not love her, and he wont,
Love her like he loved me!
He can not kiss her, and he won't
Kiss her like he kissed me!
"She's only a copy ..." the woman muttered,
And she listened to Sango protest.
"She may be a reincarnation, however
She's human, nonetheless."
And Kikyo looked down at the ground,
Her features alit by the fading torch.
"Do you think ... if I went back ...
Do you think it would work?"
Sango smiled gently, and hoped that that
Would suffice for an answer.
"I think that he would love you more,
More than you can remember."
The woman gazed off into the distance,
Her mind in a different place
And for the first time, such a peaceful expression,
Crossed the woman's face.
She looked over to Sango and said so sincerely
"Thank you more than you could know."
She reached her hand up to her neck, and gave the slightest tug.
And her face died away with the fire glow.
The embers were snuffed out, so suddenly,
By something like the wind.
Sango searched for the womans pale face,
But she never found it again.
She searched through the darkness for the woman's cold body.
But when she reached for her face, she found only air.
Her hand fell down to a pile of ashes and on them,
A single shikon shard lay there.
There have been in her life, many times to remember,
But the clearest of them seems to be,
That one cold night, in the midst of November,
That she set the dead woman free.
Author's Notes
Possibly my favorite IY poem I've ever written.
I hope you like it as much as I do!
Reviews are always appreciated.