Heheh, and we come to the conclusion of part two. Just about eveybody's in this chapter, including Kouga. And a fun new detachment of Naraku's, one that never gets a name because a nameless evil is more scary... or not, maybe I was just lazy and couldn't think of a name, who knows?
Next week we start another part of this story, one where even more weird stuff happens, and new characters pop up all over the place. Aki gets really pissed off, but is too tired to really do anything. Really, she should take better care of herself! As Sesshoumaru can't help but get angry over her disregard for her health. It's a good thing he's got a healthy ego though, because it takes a bit of a beating. but that doesn't come until later.
Rumiko TAkahashi's characters are threatening to strike again. For some reason they don't like that they can't even findpeace in their sleep.
Gravity Works
Aki's tired mind slogged through the dream slowly. Her eyes opened by small increments at a time in attempts to adjust to the light that surround her. It was so bright! Suddenly her eyes widened with surprise, this was certainly a strange dream. The dream was white.
From the wide spread sky to the powder covering the ground, everything was white, and she hated it. But strangely the ground covering of snow is what puzzled and freaked her out most.
Aki never dreamed of snow. Actually she never dreamed of different kinds of weather, but snow would've been the last that she would dream. She hated snow. It was cold and wet and worst of all, white. But this snow was warm and dry and really weird. It was still a terrible whiteness and should not have been in her dream.
Worse than the whiteness was the empty horizon. Everywhere she looked there was nothing. No one was to be found.
After the deaths of Aki's family members she had developed a terrible fear of being alone. Her ten-month quarantine had only agitated it until she was virtually crippled by it.
When she was awake she could push it aside, Fred's constant company and the basic knowledge that when she was alone all she had to do was stand still a few minutes and he would suddenly appear had helped her keep her fears to herself. But in a dream…
In her previous nightmares the fear wasn't so pronounced because she was relieving the events that had birthed it. There were other things to pay attention to instead of the intense feeling of being the only living person in them. But this, emptiness…
Aki shook herself. This was her dream Damnit! She would find someone or something that wasn't deplorably white and empty.
She began to walk, spiraling out from where she started, in search of something that wasn't snow and sky.
As will eventually happen in a dream the dreamer is working to change, she managed to find what she was looking for. There! She smiled with relief and glee as she spotted a shimmering image across the dreamscape. She forced herself to believe that it truly was there, that it was real. If she believed something in her dream, then it would be because this was her mind.
Aki trekked towards the image, willing herself closer, willing something to be there. She fought herself to believe it, fought to keep her fear from breaking the image.
Finally she stood close enough to see it clearly. It was like a transparent bubble on the sea of snow. Inside it held a darkness that she knew meant pain for her, but the bubble also held Fred. Stabbing her hand through the barrier before she could disbelieve it she grasped Fred's arm and pulled him through to her side.
"Aki!" he gasped out in awe and worry. "I was scared when I couldn't get through."
Aki merely nodded at him, the rest of her fear finally dissolving. She wasn't alone. Fred was here; Fred would always be here.
"When Tama threw up that barrier and neither of us could get through I didn't know what to do." She'd missed some of what he said, but that was all right. It was a dream and she wasn't alone. She smiled softly, that was all that mattered to her.
Fred suddenly realized something. Aki had grabbed a hold of him without passing through his arm because he was a ghost. He dazedly came to understand that this was a dream and since ghosts don't dream, this was Aki's dream. He pushed that thought aside. It didn't really matter whose dream it was, all that mattered was that she could touch him, which meant that he could touch her back. Fred grabbed up his best friend and hugged her tightly the way he wished he could since the day he'd died. "Dear god, Aki, it's been too long since I could do this!" he exclaimed holding her still tighter in his arms.
It was during his almost desperate hug that he got his first glimpse of the dream beyond where he'd where she'd pulled him. It was white, a vast white space apparently devoid of anything else. No wonder she'd pulled him into her dream.
Aki's experiences with her curse had left her terrified of sterile white spaces and filled with a profound loneliness that bordered on terror. He suspected that if she was capable of finding and establishing a new circle of friends she'd quickly be able to usurp the very foundations of these fears, but she couldn't and that left her terribly vulnerable but too stubborn to allow fear to rule her.
But all that had no bearing on what was happening in the here and now, Aki had drawn him into her dream to combat her fears and she very likely hadn't really heard anything he had said right afterwards. That was all right, he supposed. He'd promised to be there for her and so he would.
Aki drew slightly away from him to gaze blankly into his face. She was probably surprised by his actions. He'd never been the touchy feely type when he was alive, but this was different from then and he dragged her back into a tight hug.
Somewhere else in Japan where the people don't sleep in the middle of the day, Inuyasha and company were doggedly searching for more Shikon no Kakera. At least they were until a sudden undeniable wave of exhaustion swept over the group.
"Inuyasha," Kagome began, fighting to keep from falling asleep on her feet. "Let's take a break."
"Feh," groaned Inuyasha, likewise trying to keep from passing out. "You weak humans! If you keep this u we'll never find the shards!" Far be it from him to own up to his own fatigue.
"You're right," Sango said, making Inuyasha suspicious. The girls never agreed so easily, there had to be something more to it. "However, the process would be even more greatly slowed if we all took ill or died from exhaustion."
"Feh!" He knew it! Everyone settled for a rest as Inuyasha looked on in frustration. It didn't escape his notice that everyone truly did look fatigued, even Miroku who was too tired to grope Sango. This was odd; they hadn't done anything recently to cause everyone to be so tired. Inuyasha nearly split his head with a sudden yawn as these thoughts quietly spiraled into slumber with him.
"Damn," Inuyasha growled with annoyance.
"Inuyasha,' Kagome called from somewhere to his left.
"Over here," he replied gruffly and swore again. It was so damned dark in here.
A slap rang out in the dark. "Sounds like Miroku and Sango are here too," Kagome murmured as she drew up along side of him. "I wonder why they're all in my dream?"
"Your dream?" Inuyasha snorted. "This is my dream you're all butting in on!"
"Nonsense! I was here first!" Shippou declared fiercely.
"No way, this is my dream." Miroku replied dreamily, his smirk clearly translated into his tone.
"Silence, This is none of our dreams," a deep controlled voice stated.
Inuyasha's eye twitched, "Sesshoumaru what are you doing here!" he demanded.
"I could ask the same of you, Dog Terd!" yet another voice hollered.
"Be quiet!" a cold feminine voice hushed the others.
A body moved in the dark and suddenly light flashed over them.
"How pretty!" Shippou breathed after his eyes adjusted. The image beyond the edge of their collective darkness was quite breathtaking in it's beauty.
Sesshoumaru moved towards the distant light, partially blocking it from the others as he walked. The others decided to follow him for lack of anything better to do. They needed to get this strange dream figured out and most would feel better about doing this where there was light to see by.
Gradually they found that the previously small window of light wasn't. By the time they stood directly in front of this lighted image the bottom of it rested near their feet and the top loomed far over their heads.
"Geez, It's like a cheap snow globe souvenir!" Kagome muttered. They were finally close enough to discern more than just the light, and what they saw was snow. But it was too large and the snow fell to realistic for it to be a snow globe for real.
Distantly one could make out two figures amidst all the white. "Sesshoumaru-sama," Rin began quietly. "What are they doing?"
"They look like they're hugging," Kagome ventured to answer the question. "In some countries Hugging is more common than here. They must be friends, or family or something." It was the "or something" that had Sesshoumaru's eyes seeing red.
Inuyasha reached out a hand to test the surface of the image that moved. It might be like the tell-a-viz-on thing in Kagome's time. Instead of just stopping him from entering the image, the surface zapped him, to ward him off.
"A barrier," Kikyou's calm, dry voice stated.
"Indeed, my barrier," came a strange female voice with the raspy-ness of age. "Though I wonder how he got in there."
"Tama," Sesshoumaru growled, still peeved at the chatelaine.
"Hush," Tama turned to watch the two figures framed by the light. Her actions drew all eyes back to the dream playing out before them.
The two figures were no longer quite so close to each other. In fact, they were quite far apart and throwing things at each other. The redheaded figure of the person closest to them had his back to them and the fair-haired female was too far away to see her expression. Even from this great a distance they could recognize her, though.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, Rin wants to play too,' the little girl tugged at Sesshoumaru's sleeve. He looked down at her quietly, nearly missing when a giant snowball nailed the redhead, sending him to fall back through the barrier. He quickly got to his feet, untangling himself for Miroku, Sango and Kirara who had kindly broken his fall.
The redhead attempted to walk back through the barrier and found that he couldn't. He pounded his fist against it, making it crackle.
"Stop that!" Tama yelled in annoyance.
The redhead ignored her and kept pounding to no avail. He pressed both hands against the barrier and desperately searched for a way through by touch.
Aki had let one more snowball loose before realizing that there weren't anymore coming her way. The perfectly pack snowball sailed easily through the barrier and hit the male plastered up against it. The ball exploded on his shoulder and snow flew everywhere.
"Huh! That was cold!" the redhead sputtered. Kagome narrowed her eyes at him; his voice was awfully familiar.
"Baka!" Inuyasha spat. "Of course it's cold, it's snow!"
The redhead glared at him, "It wasn't in there. It was warm and dry!"
"No way!" Kagome finally placed his voice. "You can't be him!" Everybody stared at her in startle-ment.
"What are you babbling about, wench?" Inuyasha growled.
"You're Fred!" Kagome stated incredulously. It was quite surprising to find the normally very gray ghost had red hair. None of them had recognized him. Everyone was so surprised by Kagome's revelation that they all turned to study Fred, leaving nobody to really pay attention to Aki.
No one saw how the snow suddenly stopped falling. No one noticed when the sun came out. No one witnessed the fear that flit across Aki's features when she realized that Fred had left their game. She clenched her hands and strode determinedly forward.
When Fred turned back to the barrier he found his friend just on the other side of it. "Come on, pull me through again," Fred muttered softly. Aki reached her hand out certain it would pass to the other side.
Her eyes widened in surprise when she crashed into the barrier instead of slipping through. She couldn't pass it. She couldn't reach him. Her eyes swept across the barrier and realized that the other side was filled with people she knew.
"Why can't she get through?" Fred's own eyes were wide with shock. "She pulled me through before."
"Nonsense!" Tama huffed insulted. She'd never allow her barrier to be so flimsy.
They all looked up as movement from the other side drew their attention. "What is she going to do?" Miroku asked feeling sick with dread. He just knew he wasn't going to like this.
Aki had gotten herself a running start and now shot forward to slam into the barrier. She sat stunned for a moment as the stars rang through her skull. Then she got back up to give it another go. She hit it again but not even the sound of impact made it through the barrier. She was determined to break through; she would never be locked in anything like a rat in a cage again! When she ran at the barrier again, something broke leaving blood smeared on the surface of the barrier.
"Aki, please stop!' Fred whimpered as she hit the barrier again and slid down it.
"Tama," Sesshoumaru growled the name. He refused to watch Aki hurt herself.
"I already took it down," Tama said with alarm. "I don't know what's keeping her in now." Sesshoumaru looked at her with disbelief.
"What?" Inuyasha hollered. Seeing girls beat themselves against walls was not his favorite pastime. Seeing them cry while they did so, he liked even less.
Fred set to beating on the barrier again. It didn't even crackle like it did before. Aki picked herself up again. "No! Aki don't do it again!" he practically begged. Then he set to beating on the barrier even more forcefully than he had before. Very shortly Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Miroku, and even Kouga joined him.
None of them desired to see her any bloodier than she already was. "I thought this was a dream," Sango thought aloud. "How can she hurt herself in a dream?"
Fred grunted, "It's her dream. Any wounds she incurs here won't appear physically in reality, but they are real and she can die here, in a dream."
"What about us?" Kagome asked.
"What about you?" Fred demanded, "This isn't your dream, it's hers. She would never allow any real or permanent damage to happen to you while you're here."
The boys paused, breathing heavily from effort. "Look!" Shippou shouted. Every one turned to see the green bleed out of the irises of Aki's eyes to stain the whites. Her pupils flashed amber under the light of the dreamscape sun.
The snow began to fly, kicked up by the sudden youki that ballooned around her powerfully. With a roar that they couldn't hear she threw her youki at the barrier. Her body impacted against the invisible wall just after the blast and the barrier shattered like glass, tearing at her clothing and cutting her skin.
Aki's momentum carried her slightly past the crowd before she slid to the ground breathing heavily from effort and pain. She whirled around quickly as she sensed something back in the snow.
Standing in the path of disturbed snow stood a figure with a scowling painted face. "So you broke through it, did you?" his gravelly voice barked out. "Seems I've underestimated you."
"Who are you!" Aki demanded, her voice low and strained. The demon in her made her voice deeper and more husky. The sound effected Sesshoumaru in strange and interesting ways.
"My name is unimportant," he grated, "Yours is the one I'm after." Her eyes narrowed at him, blatantly ignoring all the people around her.
Aki laughed darkly, Naraku thought he could find her name through this painted-monkey of a detachment? "Ah, Naraku," she chuckled, a low sinister sound at the base of her throat. "He thinks my name would be so easy to find that he could merely attack me in dreaming with nothing but a detachment!" She laughed again, a sound bordering on madness. "The fool!"
"Indeed, little princess," he growled in return, "and yet this nothing detachment has already learned your greatest fears."
"Have you really? And you think to use this against me?" she mused laughingly.
"No, you can not be controlled by your fear." The painted lines on his face creased with his smile. If he were not so leashed to Naraku, the things he would do to this female. He leered wickedly, packing heat in his glance.
Aki glared at the painted face with disgust. This was her dream Damnit! She would decide what happened. This detachment had attempted to take control away from her. Well she would take it back! "I think, Mr. Make-up man," she growled with humor, "that it's a little too crowded in here." And with that everyone else vanished from the dream.
"Where the hell are we!" Inuyasha demanded.
"You're in your family's house," Tama answered dryly. "Surely you can still recognize your father's home."
Everyone had awakened suddenly to find themselves in a rather large room sprawled across the floor. Amazingly enough, despite the size of the futon, only Shippou and Rin had managed to land there next to Aki's unconscious body.
"Kagome!" Shippou cried worriedly. "There's something wrong with Aki!"
Kagome raced Kikyou and Tama over to the bed, though Sesshoumaru beat them all to it. "Her fever has returned," He informed them blandly. "And her breathing appears to be restricted by something."
"Hey, Sesshoumaru, you bastard! What's she doing wearing your shirt!" Inuyasha noted a peculiar expression dart across his half siblings face at his words.
"Maybe he's claimed her as his woman!" Kouga suggested. "In which case you'd best keep your paws off of her as well as my Kagome!"
The door of the room snapped open and the devil incarnate stood before them. Or rather, Hanako did, but she was much like keeping company with devils. "No way! Aki's mine!" she bellowed, staking her claim firmly.
Kouga was unfamiliar with the rabbit youkai's behavior. Her strange declaration left him unable to do more than stare at her energetic insanity.
Miroku and Inuyasha just groaned. Hopefully something would distract the demon rabbit before she could launch into her theories as to the why's and how's of her version of the purest love of girls with girls. She could be quite graphic and just a bit disgusting.
Aki's eyes snapped open. She'd broken the dream, but she couldn't breath. Air, she needed Air.
Aki got up, brushing off Kagome, Kikyou and the kids like they weren't there. Her eyes were open and normal looking, but they showed no recognition of what was before her. Even when Hanako began to chant directions with a happy glee only the obsessed can contain she blatantly ignored the other occupants of the room. The window, she needed to get to the window.
She tripped on the end of Miroku's staff just as she neared her goal, and instead of stopping at the window, she plunged head first through it and over the edge of the cliff.
"Aki!" there was a mad rush for the window, all too late.
She was falling, but she was finally able to breath. Her eyes quickly assessed her situation. The ground was eagerly rising up to meet her. She couldn't figure out how she could have fallen. She wasn't that close to the window. Someone had pushed her.
Suddenly she glimpsed the answer. Naraku's newest detachment was waiting at the bottom of the cliff, ready to catch her up. Aki judged that if she opened her wings now she'd be able to clear him without touching. Touching that bastard seemed like a rather bad idea at the moment.
She managed to clear him with a snap of her wings, but didn't manage to clear the trees beyond him. Aki clipped one wing and her wrist. Pain exploded up her arm to coalesce with the pain from her wing in her shoulder.
It was so intense she almost didn't feel her body jar as it hit the ground and tumbled down hill before coming to a bloody stop when she hit her head on a rock. Unconsciousness snaked up to claim her before thought had a chance to assert itself.
And that's how Sesshoumaru found her. The taiyoukai had leapt out the window after her almost as soon as she cleared it. He'd seen the detachment waiting to steal her away and it enraged him to think he'd nearly lost his mate because of him. He had then been forced to watch as Aki fell to the ground, dread knotting in his stomach.
He was so afraid when he found her unconscious. She lay there like death. Sesshoumaru bent to shake her. He needed her conscious. She blinked up at him; her eyes empty of all things except the reflection of what was outside of them.
Sesshoumaru scooped her up and planted a burning kiss of relief on her precious lips. It was difficult to end the kiss. His body didn't want to let go. His youkai remembered the sound of her voice in the dream and wanted pursue the feelings it had tugged in him. But he forced himself to end the kiss. He needed to get Aki to safer ground, preferably back inside the protected grounds of his estate.
Sesshoumaru checked her over as he carried her back up the cliff. Aki was in bad shape. It was worse that she hadn't managed to fully recover from her previous injuries.
Sesshoumaru sighed grumpily. The longer she took to heal, the longer he had to wait before Tama would let him have her again. Unless there was some way to help her heal faster. He paused.
There was one way to do it. If Tama caught him, she would give him hell for it. But Tama was no longer his nanny. And Tama wasn't his mate. The inu youkai's golden eyes harden with decision. It was settled.
Sesshoumaru entered his home and disappeared inside the first room that didn't open onto the cliff. It was dusty with minor neglect, but it would serve his purpose. And the dust suggested this room wouldn't be checked right away giving him time to do what he planned.
He rolled out the disused futon and set down his precious burden, careful to straighten the feathers on her wings so that they rested comfortably. Then he crawled carefully over her to hover above her reclining body.
Aki blinked emerald eyes at him questioningly. Sesshoumaru allowed a small comforting smile to curve his firm mouth. "This may hurt at first," he began in a deep voice, "but it will help you heal." He warned her. He lowered his face until his hot breath misted against the side of her throat.
He hated that necessity forced him to mark her. He hated that a detachment of Naraku had shoved him into advancing the level of their mating contract. Truthfully he didn't mind ascending to the second level-mating contract, he just hated having his actions dictated by others. Especially when they threw a shadow over such important decisions. But it couldn't be helped.
Sesshoumaru drew in one last deep breath, inhaling the vanilla and lavender of her soap and something deeper nearly hidden beneath the perfume and his own scent, sank his teeth into the soft flesh just above her collarbone.
Aki gasped in surprise before her eyes lost what little focus they had previously contained. He showed her how to heal her various wound then supplied her with the energy to do so. Her body greedily accepted his strength and ran with it. By the time Tama and the other found them, the deed was done.
"Sesshoumaru!" Tama yelled in anger. The others crowded behind her silently stunned. "What have you done now!"
Sesshoumaru rubbed his cheek against Aki's jaw before turning tired eyes to the crowd assembled at the door. He didn't say anything, Aki's injuries had left him feeling terribly drained and tired.
"Damn! I was right!" Kouga exclaimed in shock, referring to his earlier comments.
"Sesshoumaru," Tama's raised voice was filled with firm command and he flinched with the memory of what it used to mean. "Get off her, right now!"
Sesshoumaru sighed tiredly and moved to comply. He pushed straight up off of Aki's warm body and gasped as his limbs shook with fatigue. He was nearly as drained as Aki was.
The female under him creased her brow in confusion. She'd been so warm a moment ago. Why was someone trying to steal her blanket? Aki reached up her arms to wrap around her "blanket" sleepily. When the "blanket" refused to obey the law of gravity, she bit her lip and pulled.
Sesshoumaru cried out in insuppressible surprise and collapsed back down onto Aki. Then he smiled ruefully at his former nanny before settling his head on Aki's shoulder. If she wanted him there, who was he to argue?
This was the exact moment that Hanako entered the room. Oh she did not like seeing Sesshoumaru lying on top of her Aki, not at all! "Hey you! Get your paws off my Aki!" she growled. It was a less than terrifying threat coming from a rabbit youkai no bigger than a human eleven year old.
Sesshoumaru just looked at her tiredly. He was too drained to move again. Besides Aki would just drag him back down again anyway, not that he minded.
Hanako, of course, misinterpreted the look as a challenge and launched herself at him, making to strike the insolent (in her opinion) inu youkai. The outraged bunny youkai failed to realize that in striking out at her target she very likely would strike Aki in her rage.
Sesshoumaru's heart clenched in fear as he watched the enraged demon attack. He was too drained to block Hanako's attack and Tama wouldn't intercept the threat in time. Any other day of his rather long life, this would not have caused him fear. Not today, when Aki was also likely to be injured by the blow. Especially not after he'd just put her back together.
Inuyasha and Kouga bolted towards the fight playing out before them. The dog boy readied for a strike almost as an after thought. It didn't matter to him if Sesshoumaru came to harm, but he rather liked Aki and had already claimed her as family. He was definitely not about to let something happen to her.
There was no reason for Kouga to jump in. Maybe he just felt like jumping into the fray. Maybe he didn't want to be left out of a possible fight. Maybe he just didn't like Hanako. Who knows?
Anyways, they were in mid-intercept when Hanako bounced off of some invisible thing and fell back into everyone trying to stop her. The room became incredibly quiet.
"Tama, please tell me that's one of yours," InuYasha murmured, eyes wide as he rubbed his cheek where Hanako's claws had scored it.
"Afraid not," Tama grumped, worriedly probing the bruise forming on her back where she fell.
"If it's not yours…" he mumbled with trepidation.
"It's not his either, look!" Miroku observed pointing in the direction of the invisible barrier. In unison everyone turned to see a very stunned Sesshoumaru looking down at the green-eyed amber-pupiled creature glaring at Hanako.
"Aki did it?" Kagome gasped. "I thought she was unconscious and exhausted."
As if to reinforce Kagome's observation, the shield visibly winked out of existence, as the aforementioned female seemed to collapse in on herself, closing her slowly changing eyes. The room was quiet for on long stunned moment, just enough time for a very tired and drained taiyoukai to join his mate in Exhausted delirium.
Slowly everyone retrieved their jaws from the floor and filtered out of the room until only Kagome and Inuyasha were left to stare at the pair of sleepers. Silently they came to the same decision to "help" the sleeping couple.