XVI: Return to the Tsukisawa
Author: Nefertili
Fandom: Inuyasha
Rating: PG13
Pairing(s): Sesshoumaru/Kikyou
Genre(s): Romance, Angst, AU, Action
Warning(s): More battle scenes, some violence, fluff... What more can I say?
Disclaimer: None of the characters, except perhaps some, are mine. They are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.
Summary: Two years after IMotC, Sess is challenged to surpass an enemy in recovering a mysterious relic left behind by his mother. But can he protect Kikyou, who now carries his child, at the same time?
A/N: My schedule is chasing me even faster than Karatake's minions are chasing Kiky! -.- I have set a deadline for my story, so if I don't resort to updating everyday, I might either merge several chapters in one or there will be a one-week interval per chapter. So sorry, but in my country, school is already close to starting and I can hardly write anything once I get back to the dorm. T.T
...o0o...
"Kikyou-sama!" Isamu called out helplessly while squinting his eyes, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of the former priestess where she fell in the murky nothingness below. But there was nothing to see. Wherever he looked, his coal-black eyes met the same sight of formless sheets of grey mist.
After giving a tearful Rin several words of assurance that they will find Kikyou, Isamu turned hastily to Mizutori.
"Get down, Mizutori, get down!" he said, pointing on the seemingly infinite murk below.
"I am going down!" Mizutori retorted in the same worried and impatient tone, the desperation in their situation causing the heron-like demoness to abandon all sense of formality. "Didn't you think I saw Kikyou-sama falling down below?"
Even if Mizutori claimed they were descending, their surroundings still remained as bleak and featureless as before. There was practically no sense of direction, as though an enchantment prevailed every inch of the place. They can find no traces of the landmarks of the Borderlands, let alone the young woman who had disappeared in the inescapable fog.
"What is this place, Isamu-sama?" Rin asked, tears flowing freely from her chocolate brown eyes as she hugged the bundle of Yanagi closer to her. "I am scared."
"There, there my child," Isamu said soothingly, shifting slightly to wipe the tears from the little girl's eyes. "We will find Kikyou-sama and we will get out of this place in no time."
Rin nodded, biting her lips in worry. She called out Kikyou's name, looking down below whilst making sure that she still remained aloft in Mizutori's back. Isamu, holding a still unconscious Umegae in his embrace, was doing the same. Mizutori would have joined them in their futile attempts in calling Kikyou and hoping she will answer, but speaking would further tire her out.
She had been flying for most of the past hours, and she would have to land sooner or later even if Isamu hadn't ordered her to do so. All that she could do was to scan the almost bottomless fog beneath with her sharp eyes, to find out how far they were from the ground...as well as to find Kikyou.
Descending down the layers of mist was gradual, for Mizutori wasn't to take any chances of hurting herself or any of her charges by plummeting to the unpredictable ground at full speed. Besides, neither of them was sure how far they were flying above the land, and to Rin it felt as though they were in the uncharted regions of the skies farther even than the stars.
Thus, they were more than relieved when Isamu caught sight of the branches of a barren tree appearing out of the mist. Finally, they were back on firm ground...which as though to mock them, wasn't firm at all.
"Quicksand!" came Mizutori's frantic scream. She had not even landed for a few seconds when the soil beneath her feet began to suck them in...suck them into a slow death.
Isamu's quick reflexes once more came into play. One of his hands reached out to grab a branch of the nearby tree, but the branch snapped between his fingers, the remains disintegrating into damp dust on his palms. Undaunted, he stretched and grabbed another. This time, the bough held.
Hooking his naginata securely among the branches, he held on to the long handle of his weapon whilst guiding Rin with Yanagi in her arms to climb up the dead tree. Then, as swiftly as he can, the Lord of the Shikayoukai carried his unconscious wife in his arms and leaped to one of the stronger branches, gently laying Umegae against the trunk. She stirred then, her emerald eyes fluttering open.
"Wh-what happened?" she muttered, but there was no mistake about the sudden joy that appeared in her eyes to see her own husband looking at her lovingly.
"Help, help!" Mizutori screeched. By now she was up to her chest in mud, and she was making a great sound as she flapped her wings above the quicksand in an effort to get herself out.
Isamu and Umegae at once turned to come to the bird demon's help.
"Don't make any major movements or you'll sink even faster!" Isamu said, grabbing hold of Mizutori's left wing. "You'll never get out of that mud yourself. We'll pull you out!"
Umegae, though weak, determinedly reached out and held Mizutori's other wing whilst getting a good grip on the tree itself. At Isamu's orders, they proceeded to get her out of the quicksand in well-coordinated pulls. They managed to get Mizutori out until her knees, but suddenly Umegae loosened her grip and Mizutori was up to her neck in mud.
Thankfully, this time they had extra help. Rin had taken it to herself to tie Yanagi's bundle like a sling around her neck and she courageously got hold of Mizutori on the neck, but not in a choking grip, take note. It was the only part of the bird demon that she could reach at that time, but Mizutori appears not to mind if they pulled her by tail if it means that she will be taken out of the deadly bogs.
After whispering a hurried apology, Umegae once again held on to Mizutori's wing and they resumed the pulling.
Finally, after not a few moments of coordinating pulling and instructions from Isamu, Mizutori was able to perch on one of the branches and shake the worst of the mud out of her feathers. Isamu, Rin and Umegae collapsed against the tree trunk, breathing heavily from their exertions.
"You have no idea how grateful I am to you for saving my life," Mizutori said, bowing her crested head in their direction.
"Don't think much about it," Isamu said, still panting. "We still have to find Kikyou-sama... I gave my vow to Sesshoumaru-sama that she will be safe... I really hope she didn't land on a place like this..."
...o0o...
Kikyou was barely conscious of the feel of her long raven hair whipping against her face or the cloth of her robes flapping on her skin as she fell headfirst on the mist. But when the happenings finally came to her senses, she frantically summoned up her miko powers to break her fall...in the nick of time too, for she was only a few meters from the soggy soil. But even then, she could hardly grasp her powers at all, and the ground about her let out a loud splat as she fell with much harder force than she would have liked.
For a long time, Kikyou lay sprawled on her back in the limbo world, her mahogany eyes blankly staring up at the changeless sky. She was exhausted; she was dizzy. She was disoriented... How long was it since they fled the Fortress of the Shikayoukai? Time was nonexistent; she had no idea where she was or what time of the day it was.
Was she still alive? Her body felt so cold, and covered in needles that caused a tingling sensation of pain to surge rhythmically through her muscles. Yes, she was alive. She still felt physical pain; she still had a body. But if she still had control over that body, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything any longer...
She blinked once. She blinked another time. All that she was conscious of, aside from the dull pain spreading all over her body, was the fear...and a longing. She was aware of those...things. Things, evil things... They pursued her from the edge of a black nightmare, and she was running from them. She didn't know why; she didn't care. She just had to run.
A dreadful sound made its way to Kikyou's ears. She might have only imagined it, but she was too frightened to even make a second choice. It was the sound of rapidly flapping wings. Flapping wings! Yes, that was part of the nightmare! Of being borne aloft those wings, to be carried in the high winds that tore at her body and spirit, shaking her soul to its very core...she had to run. She felt that she had to run...
Kikyou had not the strength to run. Her body was numb, but fear was like an electric shock that forced her to move. Like a wretched child, she began to crawl. Her fingers grabbed frantically at whatever they touched. A clump of dead grass...a lump of muddy soil, it doesn't matter what! She wanted to get away! She had to escape...she had to escape...
She wanted to scream, but she felt as though she no longer had a voice. Fright had taken away her ability to speak, and all that she could do was let out a couple of bleats that was soon drowned by her tears. The sound of thrashing wings had stopped, but Kikyou continued to flee, driven on by the inarticulate emotions from within her.
Kikyou stopped crawling after what seemed like an eternity, panting from her exertions. Her hair was a mess; mud dripped from her face; her clothes were soiled as though she had buried herself under the ground. Her cheek rested against the mud as her shaking hand shot out and fell on the wet soil in front of her.
Her hand clutched at something. She stopped. Gradually, she opened her hand to see whatever she had retrieved from the barren ground.
It was a dead lizard, its eyes bulging out of bloody sockets and its putrid tongue fell out of its mouth as she clutched at it. Poor Kikyou was so frightened by the sight that she threw the dead thing as far as she can and she began to crawl once again. This time, she hardly seemed to crawl at all. She appeared to be pulling her body forward using the meager strength of her hands, as though her legs had refused to function.
Finally, she lay still on the ground, the last traces of her strength leaving her body. Her tears served little to wash away the filth on her face. She beat hopelessly and weakly at the soil with her fists, all dignity forgotten. The image of a young man's willowy form flashed across her eyes. It must only be a mirage conjured by her energy-starved mind, but she weakly reached out to him with the silver hair and amber eyes.
"Sesshoumaru..." she whispered, her voice coming out like a squeak.
Her mate's form faded into a blur, and she saw no more. She did not stir even as several serpentine bodies wrapped their bodies around her and bore her away.
...o0o...
In the dark stretch of forest of the Western Lands, Sesshoumaru frowned slightly. He stopped in his tracks before he could help himself, causing Jaken to wonder.
"Anything wrong, Sesshoumaru-sama?"
The Lord of the Western Lands stood as though in a trance for a while, but he soon shook his head with an answer, "Nothing, Jaken."
He had just received a disturbing mental image of his wife, lying in a deserted misty land, weak and utterly alone. He almost reached out to her as she cried out to him, but in the blink of an eye he was back in the forest once again. The images looked awfully real, as though he could indeed feel a cold mist rubbing against his face, as though he can smell the decaying odor of the soil, as though...
Sesshoumaru shook his musings away. He had been experiencing a good number of visions the past hours, and not few of them were about Kikyou. They might have only been spawned by his yearning of her, and it wouldn't do good to be swayed by them.
...o0o...
"I am sure I heard something from here," Umegae said stubbornly, ignoring her companion's requests that she slow down. "I am sure I-"
"We know you indeed heard a sound of bleating, koi," Isamu replied, trying to quell his wife's worry, though in truth, he was very worried himself. "But if you worsen that wound of yours or get swallowed in a bog, we would not progress in finding Kikyou-sama either."
Umegae bit her lip but allowed her husband to come first, prodding the ground carefully with his naginata to test its toughness. Since their encounter with the quicksand earlier, they regarded the land with much suspicion, and though none of them said it openly, their chances of finding Kikyou and getting themselves out of the misty cage were slim. But they had to try.
Mizutori, with Rin and Yanagi on her back, followed close behind. They had taken some time figuring out if they should leave their younger companions behind up the tree, but realizing that they might not be able to find their way back to them either, Isamu had decided to take them along. Mizutori had kindly consented to carry the little girls to spare them from the inconvenience of stepping on the marshy soil, but Umegae wouldn't give in to them when she and Isamu told her to ride with Rin and Yanagi.
"I can walk," she said repeatedly, and at her insistence her mate acquiesced. He had taken a good look at the stab wound she had received from (to his dismay and anger) her lady-in-waiting, Asagao. It was not the wound that nearly killed her, but the poison on the knife used. Judging from the look of the gash, Isamu recalled what his soldiers told him of the unknown substance the enemy minions used to poison the land and anything that dared to come their way.
None of the herbs in their knowledge was known to cure the poisoning, and many shikayoukai in the outskirts of the Borderlands had succumbed to the sickness and died. Although there were several survivors reported, their chances had been very slim and they remained weak for a good many days. The poison was of the sort that loses its deadliness in a day or two, but it was so potent that the victim was very likely to be dead before the effects disappear.
Umegae happened to be one of the lucky exceptions, escaping death when she was most likely to die. Isamu was very relieved to see that the wound on his wife's shoulder was beginning to heal, and that the angry red lines which were previously radiating from the gash had disappeared. She would bear the scar for her entire life, but the important thing was that she's on the road to recovery.
Supported by her husband's caring hand, Umegae stepped carefully across the boggy soil, pulling the hems of her robes out of the way. Not that she cared if her fine garments were ruined; there were more important matters at the moment, and she didn't care much for finery anyway. It was only a formality for the Royal family to dress more grandly than the commoner shikayoukai.
Isamu let out an excited exclamation. They all gathered around to look at what he had discovered.
The blade of his naginata pointed to a bow.
It was muddy and barely visible through all the grime, but it was a bow nonetheless. Could it be Kikyou's bow?
"That's Kikyou-sama's!" Rin exclaimed. Assured by her words, Isamu and Umegae fished the bow out of the mud and cleaned it the best they can. A further search revealed Kikyou's quiver, though they had a hard time picking out her arrows, which had spilled out in the squishy ground. Mizutori's long beak and was more than perfect for the job, and in a few minutes they gathered up several intact arrows littered around the small patch of land. Many of them were broken by the fall, but Isamu and Umegae kept them for Kikyou nonetheless.
Now that they had gathered up some telltale signs of Kikyou, they began to search for the former miko herself. The youkai all agreed that the heavy mist and the smell of rotten plants that hung around every corner made it difficult for them to trace Kikyou's scent. Not that it was already a challenge for them even if the weather was fine; neither Mizutori nor the shikayoukai had a sharp sense of smell as the inuyoukai. Isamu had no doubt that if Sesshoumaru was with them, he would have easily traced his wife's scent in no time.
Finally, they reached a spot on the ground with a hollow imprint on it. Series of other imprints led from the first one, in an irregular fashion dug deeply into the soil. Isamu judged that the marks were fresh, and that whoever made it probably left by crawling away, in a hurried way at that.
Umegae gasped; Kikyou must have survived her fall. They didn't know how, but the trail she left gave them an impression of an animal in pain struggling to escape its predator. Could Karatake's minions have found her here? They quickened their pace, at the same time making sure they still were on firm ground.
The prints stopped abruptly, baffling each one of them. Isamu and Umegae spent a long time trying to locate where Kikyou could have gone next, to no avail. The former priestess had vanished without a trace!
Defeated for the time being, Isamu sat on the muddy ground, hardly caring about the state of his garments. Umegae followed suit beside him, and Mizutori did the same in the fashion of herons before them. Umegae asked Rin to give her Yanagi, and the little girl obeyed without a word. Their moods were as gloomy as their surroundings.
"Do you think our enemies found her?" Umegae said worriedly, hugging her baby close to her. Isamu wrapped his arms around his wife and child. Rin was weeping quietly from Mizutori's back, so Isamu called to her and included her in his embrace.
"I hope not," he replied. "Honestly, I don't really think the minions found her. I haven't seen a trace of them anywhere."
"Those minions of Karatake's," Mizutori spat bitterly. "They could inflict so much damage far beyond what we think they can."
"What do you mean, Mizutori?" Umegae asked, wrapping Kikyou's robe more securely around Yanagi.
"I heard Sesshoumaru-sama mention our enemy by the name of Karatake," Isamu said. "But otherwise, he would tell me nothing of him."
Mizutori sighed. Visibility was very limited in their misty gray environment; they cannot see beyond the tight circle they made in the gloomy land.
"Those minions you have seen are probably the lowest...the weakest of Karatake's minions," Mizutori explained. "They are only made up of shadows. They cannot talk to other creatures aside from other beings of shadow like themselves and of course, their master Karatake. But they can understand words whenever they hear it spoken or see it written; thus they can make good spies.
However, as far as usefulness goes, in their true form as shadows they are practically of no use aside from spying the enemy lines. As beings of shadow, they cannot hold or grasp any object, and for that matter, they cannot wield weapons. They could not hurt any living creature directly. Nor could they channel fire or anything of the elements. Practically useless in the battlefield, indeed."
"So they possess corpses to be able to act like a living creature, then?" Isamu said.
"Indeed," Mizutori replied. "Such irony, to use a dead body to act alive... But that's their way, yes. They cannot take a living body, thank goodness. Or we would have to deal with a greater menace. But note this: if one destroys or considerably damages the host corpse of the shadow while it still resides in it, one gets to destroy the minion as well. Here's yet another weakness of theirs: they get so attached to the body if they're in it for more than five minutes. So they don't leave it even if death is unavoidable. Pretty stupid, if you ask of me."
"They may be stupid," Umegae said gravely. "But never underestimate the power of unintelligent beings in large groups."
"How true that is," Isamu added. "Sesshoumaru-sama and I had a difficult time subduing them because they were so many. An ant may look helpless alone, but they can certainly bring down a man if the entire colony swarmed." Then, he thought of something. "Which just made me think...why aren't Karatake's minions making use of poison as openly as they used to? Aside from the attack on Umegae, there hasn't been a case of such poisoning in a long while..."
"Why do I have a feeling that they're reserving it for the final blow?" Umegae said, adding her thoughts to the discussion.
"Maybe," Mizutori answered. "The things of shadow could not produce poison of their own, and thus they have to rely on another to provide it for them..."
"And who can that provider be?"
"Karatake himself, probably," she replied. Though in truth, she thought this was impossible as Karatake is still sealed. "Or better still, his descendants from the line of dragons. But they can't keep on giving their poison away, or they'll end up being weakened themselves. They probably won't use it until they really need it, as Umegae said."
The last statement made them all feel uncomfortable.
"We really have to find Kikyou-sama," Isamu said. "Afterwards, I have to go and tell this to Sesshoumaru-sama. I don't know how we can fight them once they unleash their poison..."
Rin, who had been silent and thoughtful all this time, suddenly made a remark.
"Rin wonders what time of the day it is now," she said thoughtfully, looking up at the blank sky. The mist was so thick that they cannot make out the position of the sun.
"I don't know, Rin-chan," Umegae answered with a sigh. "It could be noontime; it could even be near dusk. I just hope we find Kikyou soon so we can get out of here."
"Yanagi-chan seems so quiet..."
Umegae also began to notice the quietness of their only child, who only a day earlier was giving them a problem because of her unceasing cries. In the diffused light, she examined her daughter visually. She didn't notice anything peculiar, and she sincerely hoped that Yanagi wasn't hurt in any way that would give her lasting damage.
"Rin didn't tell you earlier, Umegae-sama," Rin continued, "but Yanagi-chan stopped breathing for some time when Umegae-sama was unconscious beside the river."
This last piece of news shocked Umegae and Isamu. They pressed Rin for details. How long was the lapse of breath? Was Yanagi's throat clogged? How did she manage to breathe again?
"Rin doesn't really know, Umegae-sama, Isamu-sama," Rin said, rather alarmed by their eyes on her. "We were being surrounded by a white light at that time...that's when Yanagi-chan stopped breathing. When the light disappeared, Yanagi-chan was back to normal."
Isamu and Umegae remained skeptical.
"Just that?" Umegae said, cradling her precious daughter closer and kissing her on the forehead. "The light came, Yanagi passed away for some time; the light went, Yanagi came to life..."
"We had a different view from above," Mizutori said suddenly. "You didn't appear to be surrounded by light. There was a woman with you, a demoness with a naginata."
Umegae was more confused than ever. Why ever did she lose consciousness at the wrong time?
"None of us carried a naginata that time," she said.
"Rin said that too," Rin added.
"Did you recognize the woman, Mizutori?" Isamu asked the bird demon.
"Yes," Mizutori replied, a mysterious look appearing in her sapphire eyes. "She is Kikumo. Shikayoukai no Hana: the Flower of the Deer Clan."
"Kikumo-oneesama!" Umegae exclaimed, her emerald eyes becoming as round as the moon in full. "But...it can't be!"
Isamu was no less perplexed. Now, he understood why those emerald eyes looked rather familiar, but did that have any connection to the mysterious happening with his daughter?
"Yanagi probably had a problem with her respiration that time," Isamu said, trying to offer a simple yet acceptable explanation. "It's common with babies her age-"
"Human children, anata," Umegae countered. "Yanagi is a full-blooded youkai, and such events are rare among us."
"But it's still possible..."
"Well, that event has passed. Let us not be bothered by it," Umegae finally said, ending the matter for the moment. "At least Yanagi is still alive, and so are we. Now, we have to go and find Kikyou. I don't like this place." She spared her surroundings a worried glance.
"Hardly anyone ventures here," Isamu said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we were the first persons to get out of this place alive."
Mizutori heard these words and she smiled secretively to herself, but otherwise she commented not on his statements.
...o0o...
A delicate fragrance roused Kikyou, clearing her troubled thoughts and enveloping her being with the gentle touch of a mother's hands. She opened her eyes, and she was comforted by what she saw. Floating above her, gliding effortlessly in the mist, were shinidamachuu. And they were not just ordinary soul-catching demons; they were the warlike ones...they who lay in the command of Hanazuki.
The thought of her mother-in-law brought back to Kikyou all the memories of the past days, and she sat up. She raised an eyebrow to find out that she could sit up. Her body still felt a bit sore, but some of her strength had certainly returned.
A kick from within, and Kikyou found herself hugging her belly. She could almost swear that she can feel smaller hands hugging her back, and tears of joy made their way up to her eyes. She was alive; her baby was alive...and with it, her hope. Kikyou stood up and for the first time, she took in her surroundings. Did she really reach this place on her own, or did someone aid her? She couldn't remember.
Her surroundings were dark; it must be twilight. The only light came from the glow of the shinidamachuu's bodies and the blur of stars and crescent moon above. Kikyou's eyes widened as she looked up. The mist was still there, but it was undoubtedly thinner out here. And it certainly wasn't the terrible kind of mist. It was friendly, caressing...it accepted her, and she accepted it.
The soul-gatherers began to hover around her, gently nudging her forward with their slender bodies. They want her to go somewhere? Kikyou looked at their violet eyes, searching for the answer.
A shard of the moon
O'er mist coming and going...
Slowly, she began to understand. A shinidamachuu wound its tail loosely about her wrist and urged her to walk on. She followed it, buoyed by assurances from the other soul-catchers.
A jewel of doom
O'er water still, unmoving...
"In the uncharted regions of the borders of the Western Lands, close to the realm where the Deer youkai live..."
That's what Mizutori said.
"I didn't entrust you to Isamu's people to look for the Jewel...don't go searching for the Mitsuseki, Kikyou."
"I am so sorry, my Sesshoumaru," Kikyou muttered to herself, hearing his words repeating themselves in her mind.
O'er depths endless, a-waiting.
The Marsh of the Moon, hiding place to the Mitsuseki, would open only to the blood of Lady Suien. Kikyou was a human, but she carried Sesshoumaru's child inside her.
A strain of Suien's Moon Elemental blood flows within her veins as well, and the Tsukisawa was waiting for her.
...o0o...
Yay, things are getting better now! I have four more target chapters, plus one epilogue. Could be less, but that's the maximum. See you very soon in next chapter!
WingedChunsa: I really intended it to be that way. ;P Kiky will see the true potential of that hair stick in the later chapters. Aaaw, I'm sure everyone's got talent, it's just a matter of cultivating them. :)
nekomata: Thank you!
Gossamer Wind: Kikumo did not exactly possess Yanagi, but it's /close/ to possession. /wink/
The East Wind Melts the Ice: Thanks! And no, Umegae did not die, did she? ;P I don't want to kill her!
Azn kawaii kikyo the devil: The essence of tragedy, indeed... ;)
Aya.Chaos: FIVE MONTHS! O.O No way; that is way, way premature, but AU can practically go anywhere. Don't worry, I am not using 10 months. Poor Kiky will die. I will stick to the normal 9 months.
Lady Fabmel: Yeah, I love cliffhangers, hehe.
Cold Kikyo: You got it, yeah! You're the first person (through review) to have gotten the Kikumo-Yanagi connection. Keep it up!
