Chapter Twenty-Three
Night was quick to veil the sky by the time they had finally neared the temple, making it appear darker than usual. Guided by the dim, yet still burning torches positioned at both sides of the old structure's entrance as their steady light beamed in the far distance, the group quietly stepped through the remaining path which would lead them to their destination. However, before they even managed to cross through the crumbling gates of the old temple, both the daiyoukai and the priestess' attention was caught by something else, an unpredictable feature scattered all around the province, emanating a large amount of youki to the entire area.
"These Rakan statues..." Kikyo breathed, her eyes scanning the surface of the woods surrounding the temple through the heavy darkness, sensing them placed in strategic positions all around the structure, as if to deliberately attract youkai of any kind to the location.
Walking beside her, Sesshomaru's gaze was aimed forward on his target.
But her words did not escape his keen judgement.
"A human Buddhist artifact representing enlightenment, huh." He continued with a low voice, his obvious hint managing to successfully resonate with the priestess.
"That is correct." She steadily confirmed, bringing her gaze back up to his profile, slightly surprised by him knowing of such themes, "So, for an object like that to prove as the source of this strong youki... means that someone had performed a powerful spell of some kind, in order to use them for a certain purpose."
They stepped further ahead, soon passing through the gates of the temple as nothing but empty grounds greeted them back, not a soul present in the area, and not a sound breaking through the stillness. However, the quiet scene before them was easily indicating of a fierce battle that occurred not too long ago, the old temple itself punctured with arbitrary holes that were forged only recently, with various, still fresh bodies of dead youkai scattered all across the ground before them.
Striding to the middle of the vast space, Sesshomaru lifted his chin, taking a deep, silent breath as he examined the many scents still lurking in the air, hidden well among the walls of the temple, soon reaching a certain conclusion that was already obvious to the priestess walking beside him.
"The crystal of youki is not reacting at all." Jaken said, stepping forward to stand beside his master, "Was Kagura making it all up?"
"Inuyasha and his group were here before us." Kikyo informed the imp-demon through an impassive expression, "Along with a few of Naraku's offspring."
Hearing that, Jaken's green brows formed a displeased frown to the concept of the half-breed managing to reach the place before they did, and he only released an annoyed grunt while crossing his arms.
Sesshomaru, however, proceeded with his steps, following after one particular scent which managed to grab his attention, and with no further explanations, he slowly began stepping towards the back of the temple, after its static source.
Kikyo noticed his silent and unnamed discovery, soon resuming her steps in his direction as well, prompting both Rin and Jaken to obediently follow behind her.
But a secret decision of her own was slowly forming in her mind regarding the entire situation as she let her gaze rest on his long rivers of silver, one which she had resolved to wait a bit longer before voicing out before her companion. And eventually, they all halted before a large hole in the ground, the aura still well-absorbed into the moist soil around it indicating of someone who was buried at the scene and then later dug out, for one reason or another.
Cowering behind the priestess, Rin clutched her small fists into the fabric of Kikyo's hakama trousers, alarmed by the heavy number of dead youkai sprawled all around them at such close proximity.
And once Kikyo noticed her frightened state, she simply lowered herself down on one knee, meeting with the child's large brown eyes.
"The threat seems to have passed us already to its next location." The priestess reassured her, softening her own expression, "These are nothing but remains."
Rin nodded with understanding, but the still avid concern in her features made Kikyo release a heavy, silent breath.
Now finally set on her next course of actions, she rose back to her feet with a smooth motion, turning her head to meet with Sesshomaru's stern gaze, who apparently had been watching her for quite some time now. She eased her shoulders while lifting her head before him, shortly stepping to where he stood and stopping at a respectful distance from his being.
Kikyo paused for a moment before sharing her thoughts with him, her timely silence as if attempting to clear the air between them and ready the daiyoukai for her upcoming idea.
Then, she only presented him with a look of determination.
"We should split up." She said, her unexpected words causing him to narrow his golden eyes down at her direction, "There is no point in blindly chasing after the heart's location when Naraku knows of our whereabouts at all times."
Maintaining his silence for a while, Sesshomaru's sharp gaze never broke from her calm one.
"So, what exactly are you suggesting, miko?" He asked, impatience clear in his tone, "That you should wander around alone when you are currently still the main target of the vermin?"
Kikyo simply nodded once to his words.
And her sudden aloofness to the situation sparked unquestionable annoyance within him.
Before Sesshomaru managed to further voice his disagreement to her bizarre idea, however, the priestess sent one hand to tuck a strand of long hair behind her ear, soon breaking away from his intense gaze to lower her mahogany eyes down to her sleeve, slender fingers reaching inside and pulling out another couple of her small paper figures as she held those in her open palm before him. Silent, His fierce gold soon left her to examine the gesture, then, flickered once again up to her being.
"I shall leave these two with you." She said, and right as she finished her sentence, the paper cuttings in her hand engulfed with bright spiritual energy, hovering above her hand for a single moment before shooting upwards in a trail of holy aura through the air above their heads and eventually positioning themselves on the ground next to where they stood, the light compressed and building up until it formed the familiar sight of two small human children, dressed in traditional colorful clothing and wearing their usual blank expressions.
"The two girls!" Rin gasped with surprise, stepping closer to their purifying beings.
Jaken, however, only scattered to hide behind the mokomoko of his master.
Awaiting further explanation out of her, Sesshomaru's gaze found the woman once again, observing as she soon lifted her mahogany eyes to meet with his gold.
"My Shikigami will carry a large amount of my spiritual energy, tricking Naraku and his underlings to falsely read into my location." She explained, watching him closely, "In the meantime, I shall conceal my existence to try and catch him off guard while secretly venturing through the mountain, alone."
The daiyoukai lifted his chin before her, his expression not hinting any of his emotions regarding her plan. However, the simple notion of the priestess wandering by herself after everything that had already happened caused his insides to turn.
"You shall not stray away from this group, miko." Was all Sesshomaru eventually replied, his words harsh and his piercing golden orbs amplifying his cold and definite final answer.
Holding her ground before him, however, Kikyo only straightened with poise.
And once her mahogany eyes studied the way his sharp eyebrows formed a hint of frustration between them, the priestess realized that Sesshomaru was most likely sharing much less than he was truly thinking at that moment, the following understanding quietly crossing her mind the more she observed his uneasy features.
"You can trust me, Sesshomaru. I shall be fine." She promised him through a voice much softer than she had originally intended. And the moment the words left her mouth was as if the theory struck her as fact, making it significantly harder to maintain his eye-contact all of a sudden.
Sesshomaru said nothing as he simply watched her, golden eyes scanning her relaxed features and the determination embedded in her eyes for another moment which seemed to stretch without either of them noticing, eventually breaking from her piercing gaze as he silently turned on his heel, focusing his attention on the path that would lead them out of the castle and back to the base of the mountain, instead.
"Do as you see fit." He eventually dismissed, his profile held high and his expression still an unreadable mask, yet his gaze immediately found her again through the corner of his eye, "However, you shall return at once in the case of a failure, do not needlessly push your luck."
Kikyo nodded once with understanding, then, she set her mahogany eyes on Jaken, who was quietly watching the intense exchange between them, making him flinch.
"Do you suppose you could hand me a piece of the crystal, Jaken?" She asked, extending a fair arm towards his being, her palm open and awaiting his cooperation.
Begrudgingly, Jaken did as he was told, snapping the crystal into two different pieces and handing Kikyo with one of them, soon stepping away from the unnecessary contact.
With that, her gaze lastly settled on Rin, who distanced herself from the two beings made of spiritual energy to now approach closer to the priestess, a worried expression displayed up at the woman.
"Kikyo-sama... will you be alright?"
Kikyo lowered herself on one knee before the child once again, tilting her head to the side as her free hand sent to affectionately touch Rin's arm, her lips curling up into a soft smile.
"I am only departing for a short amount of time, Rin." She steadily informed, mahogany eyes warm and genuine, "Something tells me that Naraku and his offspring are currently preoccupied with other things, therefore, I may not even find anything at all."
Rin's shoulders eased, but the worry was still clear on her face and in the way her large eyes watched the priestess before her.
"Come back soon, okay?" She said.
And her words at that moment sparked both content and guilt altogether, yet Kikyo resolved to keep those feelings preserved and bottled deep within her chest, and she only released a silent breath, rising to her feet and turning on her heel, soon calling upon her loyal serpent helpers. They all watched as several Shinidamachu shortly reached their area, gliding smoothly through the air and wrapping around the priestess' frame, carrying her away from the location and into the darkness of the night, her spiritual aura erased in its entirely and camouflaged well beyond the lush forest.
And the cold breeze reached their location, rustling the tops of the trees as those filled their area with a steady and even hum.
Jaken was the first to voice out his frustration and break through the quiet as he sighed heavily, a skeptic, green eyebrow rising to the sight of the two silent human children. He trotted over in their direction, examining their forms through narrowed yellow eyes for a long moment.
Then, he lifted his Nintojo to lightly poke one of them with the end of his wooden cane, the surface of their being dissolving with the sudden momentarily disturbance as if they were compiled by a steady flow of water, only made by holy spiritual energy. Once Jaken called back on his weapon, the waves of holy aura soon settled back in their natural form, perfectly regaining the sight of the makeshift being.
"Heh, so you are not real after all, huh." The imp-demon breathed with relief, his judging gaze still focused on them.
"Silence, useless youkai." One of the children calmly answered back, causing Jaken to jump with sheer terror as they swiftly turned to face his existence with an unnervingly calm expression, "You shall not address us at all, for we will not answer to the likes of you."
Amazed, Rin quickly stepped closer to her alarmed companion, her eyes going wide at the sudden occurrence.
But a certain need proved more important than the fact of those two being capable of actual conversation, influencing the child into stepping past Jaken as she focused her attention on both of their beings.
"Um." She uttered, clenching one hand to her chest, "Could you please tell us if something bad happens to Kikyo-sama?"
One the children immediately turned in her direction, black, cold eyes colliding with Rin's dark brown ones.
"We will." They confirmed with a lack of intonation, nodding once and causing Rin to smile with both happiness and relief.
"Jaken-sama, why are you still hiding?" Rin called towards the poorly-concealed imp-demon as he positioned himself behind a large rock, peering with a judging gaze to the center of their current new camp area, stationed a bit higher on the mountain's side. With Kikyo now gone on her private exploration and no further information in their possession regarding Naraku's heart and its whereabouts, Sesshomaru had decided to settle down for the night, at least until the woman returned.
"Silence, Rin!" Jaken screeched back, his yellow eyes never departing from the two beings of light, who were idly floating next to the child, their hands tucked into their sleeves and their expression as always, unreadable to an unnerving degree, "I do not trust anything which is entirely formed by a power that can slay me at any given moment!"
"Had we wished to slay you, silly youkai, you would have already been dead." One of the children nonchalantly answered, barely even waiting for him to finish his words.
"See, Jaken-sama? You have nothing to be afraid of!" Rin encouraged with a smile, her attention switched between the two beings of light and back to him, "Aren't you cold over there, too? The fire is really nice and warm."
He narrowed his yellow eyes at her direction, stubbornly refusing to move even one inch closer to the two human-looking girls which stood so firmly at Rin's side.
And noticing his immovable position, the child glanced back to Kikyo's creations, her stare extending over their unreadable features as a confused hand soon lifted up to her chin.
"Um... do you have names?" She expressed her innocent curiosity, tilting her head to the side with interest.
One of the girls turned her gaze towards her with a smooth motion, black eyes meeting with dark brown.
"I am called Kocho, and she is called Asuka." The girl replied simply in an informative voice, causing Rin to smile with excitement at the positive response.
"It's nice to meet you both, my name is Rin!" The child answered back with pure happiness, "Hiding behind the rock over there is Jaken-sama."
She gestured towards her frightened companion, awaiting him to voice out a word of greeting, as well.
But the imp-demon only exhaled with pure exhaustion, turning in his place and placing his back to the rock behind him, gliding down against the harsh surface until his lower half met with the grassy ground beneath it.
"Jaken-sama is a bit scared of you." He heard Rin unecessarily explain behind him, his mouth forming a thin line at the uncomfortable situation and his green brows displaying an irritated frown. Clenching his wooden staff to his own chest with his silent displeasure, Jaken then glanced up at his master, his tired yellow eyes setting on Sesshomaru as he stood still on the edge of the rocky cliff, his full attention placed somewhere far into the distance and his thoughts unknown.
However, being his vassal for so long and now knowing what he did, Jaken could tell Sesshomaru was immensely uneasy.
'That undead miko...' The imp-demon's shoulders slumped as he fixed his tired gaze on Sesshomaru's regal back, his long silver hair and draped sash swaying in the wind, and his posture still impeccably straight, 'To think that she managed to leave such an impression on Sesshomaru-sama to have him act in this unthinkable manner...'
And another heavy sigh escaped him at the confirmation to his previous worries;
His master had undeniably fallen to the charms of a human, undead woman, and a powerful priestess of all things.
Granted, Sesshomaru was never the predictable type, proven by his cryptic way of operating and his sudden will to protect the harmless Rin, against his previous endless claims of loathing humans in general. But to actually fall for a human woman, a fearsome priestess, no less, and to go through all of this secret trouble to selflessly grant her with whatever she lost... was an information that was hard to believe, even for him.
"You shall not spout such pointless drivel before me ever again, Jaken."
His master's firm threat soon surfaced in his mind, making him flinch and swallow harshly.
However, the more Jaken replayed the latest occurrences in his head, the way his master constantly allowed her to express herself so freely before him, not to mention respect her advice and knowledge, as well as the way even Totosai himself had taken notice of Sesshomaru's obvious fixation with the woman, was the more his master's behavior seemed to lack the necessary logic in order to properly tie his actions and his words coherently together.
Why would he deny his feelings for the miko like he did before, if he was truly so involved with her, already?
A moment of silence passed, and soon a sudden realization hit the imp-demon like a precise punch to the head, rattling his thoughts and making him shake his head from the unthinkable notion.
'What am I thinking?! That cannot possibly be true, there is nothing that can ever escape Sesshomaru-sama's great knowledge or awareness!' He vehemently denied it, sweat beginning to form in an accelerated rate at the sheer ludicrously of the concept.
However, the more he weighted the possibility, the more every bit of the puzzle fell into its rightful, logical place;
All signs pointed towards the fact that the proud inu daiyoukai... was completely unaware of his own unexpected, yet strong feelings for the human miko.
The tranquil sounds of the forest settled all around her as Kikyo calmly stepped higher and higher on her way to the top of the mountain, testing its remaining, untouched grounds after the previous ones proved no longer relevant to her interests. Considering Naraku had previously potentially stored his heart at the base of the mountain where the old temple was located, she found that it would not be illogical of him to now place it somewhere higher instead, and preferably far enough from the location of everyone else, especially the places where he believed Sesshomaru and her were currently occupying.
Kikyo breathed the cool freshness in the air deeply, raising her gaze to the late, night sky which were barely visible through the dense tops of the trees, observing as they already displayed the earliest signs of dawn in them, the once undisturbed darkness now battling against the first hints of light as the rising sun kissed the tops of the mountains in the far distance.
And at that moment, the priestess found her thoughts trailing back instead of forward, betraying her current need to focus her mind on her one and only target, making it hard to keep herself from wondering about a certain inu daiyoukai and the frustrated look reflected in his golden eyes;
Sesshomaru was undeniably worried for her sake.
Exhaling silently, Kikyo lowered her gaze back to set it on the far distance ahead, the sounds of her steady steps piercing through the quiet as they echoed between the trees and traveled far into the far depths of the lush greenery, dissipating somewhere unknown.
That was the first time she had ever witnessed him allowing such a strong, honest emotion to cross his features, and one that was aimed at her, of all people... a look of fear, almost.
She continued on her lonely exploration, the quiet reign of the woods around her as if coaxing her mind to plunge deeper into the endless river of dangerous musings, one which she had already known too well, by now.
The only one who had given her a similar look before, was Inuyasha.
A look that she had received every single time she attempted to persuade him into letting her handle the current threat to her village alone, back when she was still alive, all those years ago... a look that desperately wished for her to not go and avoid the unnecessary danger that could potentially harm her, even when that specific danger was no more than the lowest of youkai, nothing more than mere traget practice for someone like her.
Unlike Inuyasha, however, Sesshomaru eventually comprehended her independent point of view, allowing her to follow after her current calling and do as she pleased, instead of stubbornly tagging after her while keeping her safe from a close distance, or even worse; preventing her from parting, entirely.
There was an undeniable sense of respect which the priestess couldn't help but appreciate regarding his silent understanding, the sudden realization causing her lips to curve up into a hint of a smile as her expression eased;
This certain balance which their unexpected bond proved to carry was indeed, rather impressive.
With the early rays of sunlight breaching through the dark blue of the sky above, Kikyo suddenly noticed that the silence ruling all around her was now replaced by the noises of nature as the wildlife slowly rose from its slumber, the sounds of chirping birds and various animals filling the air and easily overcoming the soft grazing of her straw sandals against the grassy ground below them.
And she only breathed in deep once again, basking in the soothing calmness of the scenery before her.
There was a time before when she had deemed Sesshomaru's behavior to be cold and belittling, distant and unnecessarily arrogant, yet now and after everything they had all been through, Kikyo found that every piece of the inu daiyoukai's character made perfect sense to her, prompting the final understanding achieved by her lengthy thinking process to soon rise far above the rest of her notions;
Sesshomaru was starkly different than Inuyasha... and this fact was perhaps not such a bad thing at all.
Suddenly, a certain sensation reached her keen senses, trampling her previous musings as her gaze immediately sharpened, causing the priestess to stop in her tracks and stiffen with alert. Calming herself, she focused her attention on the source of the evil aura, one which although faint, was still undeniably present in the temple which supposedly held Naraku's heart, before.
Evaluating the source of the reading and the severity of its threat, Kikyo eventually settled on the certain direction which would lead her towards the mysterious being, tightening her hold on her longbow, clasped in her left hand.
'This odd evil energy...' She noted, narrowing her eyes as she resumed her steps in her new destination, 'I've never sensed anything quite like it, yet.'
A/N:
I certainly did not forget about Kocho and Asuka ;)
I'd also like to think of them as a certain extension to Kikyo's being, as if they were something akin to a child version of her mentality, which means I see them as being very rude and impatient towards anything non-human, save for anyone who Kikyo would specifically order them to listen and respond to, if you understand where I'm going, hehe.
Thank you for your continuous support for this story! It truly motivates me to keep going, and I'm always curious to know your thoughts regarding this chapter, as well.