Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Naruto. The only thing I own is the plot.
Beta: Michelle T.
Chapter 8: Maiden and Chimera
"Cast me gently into morning,
For the night has been unkind.
Take me to a place so holy,
That I can wash this from my mind
The memory of choosing not to fight."
- Answer, Sarah McLachlan -
The clearing in the heart grove was quiet but for the sound of pained breathing coming from the boy child among them. Gaara, standing in the sunlit path, heedless of the warning in Oren's voice and in the ready poise of the Kunoichi before him, pinned a hateful gaze on the strange woman standing by his sister. The Miko that everyone had been talking about.
"You," he hissed through the veil of numbing pain in his skull. If he wanted, he needed only lift his finger to crush her to a pulp where she stood, but at the same time, he was inexplicably drawn, inexplicably pulled to this place, to her, as helpless as a gnat in the wind.
"Witch!" He hissed again, clutching his head in his hands. In the total silence, his voice carried like a trumpet's call.
"Gaara!" Temari yelled, her voice awash with fear and panic. "You shouldn't be here."
"Gaara-sama, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You are not meant to be here," said Oren, voice quiet but unyielding, the line of her shoulders pulled taut like a string. She had positioned herself in between her charge and the trembling jinchuuriki before them. Another kunoichi at her back had disappeared into the tree line.
"Gaara, please!" Temari tried again to diffuse the situation, eyes darting between Oren and her little brother. Oren had her orders, she knew, and regardless of who stood before her, whether it was an enemy ninja or the son of the Kazekage, she would cut him down without preamble. And if it meant protecting her charge, she would happily give her life. All of the kunoichi here would. Temari couldn't say she was all that close to Gaara, but he was her brother all the same, and out of all the members in their broken household, he at least would occasionally humor her requests.
But her pleas fell on deaf ears as the boy snapped at her, his eyes tinged with red. "Shut up, Temari!"
The moment the slur sprung free from his mouth, there was the impression of something snapping in the minute shifting of Oren's expression. Oh no, Temari thought mournfully in her head as she helplessly watched the formation of movements in the tiny adjustments of Oren's poise and in the stillness of the trees around them. She would aim not to stop an angry child, but to kill, for her life and the lives of all those in the clearing were on the line.
That was, until a hand wound itself around Oren's arm and a soft but firm voice called out. "Oren, no."
It was with shock that Temari stared at the Miko Kagome and her hand that clutched Oren's arm. Kagome, on the other hand, was not looking at either her protector nor Temari but the boy whose presence had started this entire ruckus.
"Your name is Gaara? Are you lost?" She asked, voice calm and even in the face of the Terror of Suna that it sounded shockingly jarring to Temari's ears. She reached out then, as if to beckon the boy towards her, but was stopped by her protector.
"Kagome-sama, you must not go near him. He's dangerous."
The Miko glanced at Oren, and there Temari saw, the flicker of something old and unfathomable in her eyes. For a split second she was no longer the easygoing flower girl a mere couple years older than Temari. For a split second, she was the Miko, the woman of inexplicable power and origin that had singlehandedly turned Suna on its head. But it passed, and as the Miko's eyes returned to her brother, her feature gained a haunting look that told of past loss.
"He's a child, Oren," she said softly, as if it explained her actions. She reached out to him again, her hand outstretched and a gentle look on her face, as if she expected her gesture to be returned in kind. "I will not.. turn away… any child that needs… help."
"Come," she beckoned.
There was a heartbeat of hesitation on all sides as both Oren and the kunoichi looked on in disbelief. And Gaara… Temari wasn't sure what she saw then in her little brother's face. Perhaps doubt, perhaps anger, but there was one thing she was sure of. He did move, towards the Miko's outstretched hand. Whether it was to take her hand or to crush it to with his sand, Temari would never know because in the next second, several things happened at once.
With a ripping sound that rent the silence, the gold collar her father put on the Miko tore from her neck and launched itself violently at Gaara, transforming mid flight into the sharp, wicked shape of a spear.
It collided with Gaara's barrier in a spray of sand and motion, eliciting shocked, furious cries from the boy and a single alarmed shout from Oren.
"Mei!" At the call, a kunoichi jumped forward, scooped up a surprised Miko in one swift motion and bolted away and out of the clearing in the precious few seconds the jinchuuriki boy's attention was lifted from her charge.
The Miko's basket was on the ground, having been jarred from the impact. Plump, ripe apples came tumbling from its hold in a red halo all over the ground.
Gaara gave a frustrated yell as the Miko was carried away before his eyes and by his forward poise, would have given chase if not for the gold collar—now switching through a myriad of shapes—in his way.
It had fallen down onto the ground and along with Oren, stood obstructing the path taken by the fleeing kunoichi. It settled finally into the form of a three legged creature, an eye springing from where its torso would be and stared at the fuming boy with obvious intent. Of course, thought Temari. Any gold in this village was an extension of her father's will. The collar was more than just a statement. It was surveillance and protection and now against his wayward son, a warning.
The gold creature had not drawn blood, but all present knew it was fully capable of doing so. After all, it was the Kazekage's gold that subdued the beast every time the vessel lost control. It was him and him alone that Gaara still feared above all else.
There was a tense moment where Temari sat shivering in the corner of the groove as the son glared at the creature of his father's will with undisguised fear and hatred. Then with a snarl, Gaara turned and fled from the grove.
Ever since the incident on her fifteenth birthday, Kagome had come to except that there was something not quite natural about her eyes, about the way she saw the world. The incident here, of course, being the whole falling down the well and back in time, being bitten by a centipede lady, meeting that dog eared boy, finding out she had been harboring a magical jewel of all things in her body, and then finding out that she was capable of seeing the light of that jewel on levels no one else had even been able to before—not even the woman who she was supposed to be the reincarnation of.
Yes, something not quite normal about her eyes.
In the beginning, it was only the light of the Shikon that drew her. Then, gradually as they traveled Feudal Japan, other things attracted her gaze. The light of a pure soul, the shadow of an evil spirit, the truth hidden behind illusions woven by malevolent beings. Kaede told her once that it was the mark of a powerful Miko to be able to perceive the true soul of things, and that was what Kagome was seeing, the same as Kikyo, the same as Midoriko, as the myth said.
The soul. For all things upon this earth and within it had a soul, had a spirit, had a will, had desires, and that was what she saw, felt, heard.
It's not your fleshly eyes that see them, it is your soul that perceives the world, said Kaede once, when they were still in the early phases of their journey, when she and the friends she had were still unfamiliar with the treachery and sorrows of the road and were yet ignorant of the nature of their true enemy.
That was all very grand, thought Kagome in reply then, but really that hardly mattered in the practical sense did it? She had always been a grounded girl who valued the little things in life. Even in the midst of their journey, in between battling terrible demons, rescuing beautiful princesses, and chasing a legendary jewel, she would not stop thinking about her life in the mundane future, her school, her studies, getting into college, getting a job, getting married maybe. Dreams of some vague soul land or fairy tales were all well and good of course, but life—real life no matter how… boring… was also important—was perhaps even more important, for it was the basis from which she drew her strength.
To Kaede, this might be the mark of a powerful Miko, but Kagome cared only that her eyes were useful and helped in keeping her friends safe. That was the one thing that mattered to her.
Eventually though, as her power grew and as they found the seal placed upon her since birth, she couldn't help but give way to vague wondering.
Then the seal on her power was broken. Then she had taken the Shikon back into her body and willingly fused with it, let it and her heart become one, let her soul become enshrouded with the spirits of the jewel. Then the world had become slightly different, more vibrant somehow, more joyful but also more sorrowful. Before long, she started to realize she was sensing, seeing the emotions and memories that lingered in the earth. Here, a soldier died and as life fled from him, he thought of his wife, of his children. His memories soaked the earth, his love, his regret. There, a couple shared their first kiss under the trees. The wood remembered the sweetness of their love. The leaves remembered their dream of a life shared, children, then old age and then perhaps death, hand in hand. The soil where a battle took place was pitch black with fear and hatred and regret, threaded over with the red gold veins of desire, hope, valor. The gallows of a village where they hung thieves and robbers and rapists and murderers seeped with oily death and dark fantasies of those newly departed, but amidst the putrid ooze were little stars that shone. Once, when she had been brave enough to touch one of the stars, the memories within had burst forth into her mind. The last thought of a hanged mind as the noose choked life from him.
I really miss you ma. Wish I could go home and eat your rice pies again. I'm sorry, ma. I'm a bad son. If I coulda redo my life, I wouldn't make you cry so much.
Beauty and ugliness intertwined in the flesh of the world, both terrible in their frightening intensity. It had been overwhelming before she learned to shut it away.
Her first few months in this new world, as she grieved for those who died, her vision was all but forgotten. Then, it had come back, slowly, tentatively, as she drew on more and more of herself to help the people of Sunagakure, until one day, she could feel that same vibrancy in the world again, albeit slightly more subdued now that she had learned to rein it in.
If she had to compare, there weren't a lot of differences between her home in Tokyo, the chaotic Feudal era of Japan, and this new land where the Sand village dwelt. There was that same intermingled beauty and ugliness, shadow and light. The people here were mostly as closed off or open as the ones in the other world, depending on whether they could keep their private emotions to themselves. Though they were capable of feats she had only seen performed by great youkai, their souls were human through and through.
If there was one thing this world lacked, it was the twisting light of demon souls, twisting… but not always evil. Otherworldly spirits had a distinct feel about them, a vibration that broadcasted their arrival long before they came close. A few times she had felt them flitting about the villages and once even saw one up close—funnily enough, it was a desert eagle that could talk better than she did… and even knew how to flirt with bewildered human girls.
A ninja beast, Rasa-san had said. His, in fact, contracted via a sacred covenant held in the bloodline for generations.
But not youkai—at least, not the ones she had seen in her journey through the war torn Japan of ancient times. For a long time, Kagome labored under the impression that this world had no demons, the likes of which infested the Sengoku Jidai. A happy thing considering what she now harbored in her flesh. That was, until that boy stepped foot into the forest of fruit trees she had grown on the cliff hanging over the village, and his conjoined souls all but screamed for her attention.
At first, she hadn't even known it was a child. She had thought it a genuine demon, had frozen stiff while waiting for the teenager girl who was to be her tutor in the local etiquette. But… the soul of whatever that entity was felt strange, its vibration jerky, multi-layered. Its voices squabbled for attention over each other, one in hatred, one in pain and loneliness, one in sorrow. She had never seen anything like that before, not even in the Sengoku Jidai. She had thought it perhaps a half youkai, or a being created from the composite of many souls the way Naraku was. But it lacked that twisted nature, that hunger that signified the abyss where souls gave up themselves to birth a greater being of pure malevolence. Her curiosity peaked, she had reached out and tugged at it, prompting the surprised jerk that followed.
It—they yowled, whether in pain or fury she wasn't quite sure, but it had followed the direction of her voice and came seeking out whoever it was that had proverbially poked it in the head. When the boy stepped foot into the heart of the grove but an hour afterwards, stumbling in through the path Temari had taken before him, Kagome felt herself go cold, as if someone had dipped her to the top of her head into a vat of freezing water.
The boy was a chimera.
The soul of a near demon, an animal spirit driven to madness by hatred, was grafted onto the soul and body of a child. The stitching was clumsy, crude, their forced union painful and degenerative for both and if someone ever attempted to unravel the stitching, it would most likely mean instant death for the child. The near-demon, a tanuki, now that it beheld her in this close distance, knew it was in danger and it shrieked in fear and confusion. The boy, reacting to the tanuki's fear and the clearly unwelcoming tone of her companions, spitted and hissed and called her a witch, but Kagome's attention was riveted to the last part of his conjoined form, the third voice who murmured soothingly to the boy child and whose presence enshrouded him protectively.
The ghostly specter of a woman hung about him, eyes sad and quiet until she felt Kagome's gaze on her.
As Oren ordered the boy child to leave, their eyes met and no words needed be spoken.
The woman… no, the mother lingered on for love of her son. Not all of her, a specter, a shade, her will to see to the safety of her child. Three separate entities combined in one chimeric form. The child, whose name was Gaara if she heard Oren right, was a pitiful sight. But the nature of his existence twisted something and brought forth the darkest part of Kagome's heart.
Guilt, self loathing, despair, terror, envy.
He was her mirror image and to suddenly see his face and the face of his conjoined soul, so unstable that it was spilling from its fleshly vessel and becoming visible to her eyes, was to be rudely awakened from the sweet dreams of the Sandman's land. Just like her, this boy was born with a purpose determined for him by someone else and by this purpose, he shall be bound for life. His soul and flesh sewn and molded in the womb by hands not mother nature's... just like her.
She could hear the drumming sound of her heart beating in her ribcage, could feel her hands balling into fists as the memories of the wails of the dead and dying and the shadowed land littered with her footprints surged. Her eyes stung with the memories of tears shed in regret and despair.
As Oren commanded the boy to leave, she stood back and meant to keep herself from the drama unfolding, to turn a blind eye from the suffering child being driven away from her grove. Then the ghostly woman looked at her and mouthed for she had no voice.
Please… please help… please help… my son... please….
The specter had the exotic features of the local, sun bleached hair and purple eyes on a fine bone face. Kagome recognized her, blinding in her smiles, from the glittering memories of Rasa, a beloved wife and dearly missed mother. She held her son in her arms as she pinned Kagome with pleading eyes. The look of mothers desperately protecting their children, on the other hand, was universal. Abruptly, Kagome thought of her own mother, Mama Higurashi. Soft spoken housekeeper that she was, she had a sturdiness and tenacity that showed in no part of her softly domestic appearance. She could, without batting an eyelash, receive the news that her daughter would be gallivanting the war torn Japan of 500 years pass in the company of a half demon, a demon child, a demon exterminator and a perverted monk, and at the end of the day, when said daughter returned to her for the warmth of home and hearth, could embrace her without fear and asked what she would like for dinner.
They had parted without proper goodbyes and now that she saw her reflection in another woman, another mother, Kagome was suddenly keenly aware of how much she missed her own.
Before she knew it, her hand had already found its way around Oren's arm, stopping the woman from lashing out against that poor child. She was shaking so badly but the billowing cut of her clothes hid it well. Her heart fluttered, floated, swooped in her hollow inside as the ghostly matron glowed triumphantly in renewed hope.
"Oren… no."
In hindsight, it probably was better that her guardians spirited her away before the chimeric child did something the both of them would later on regret. Despite appearances, she knew he couldn't do a thing to harm her, not with that near demon spirit stitched to him like that. The reverse however was entirely possible considering the agitated state Kagome was in, and wouldn't that be a terrible thing to happen? Especially since she would be able to see, the instant that it happened, the reaction of a newly bereaved mother.
Mei took her back to the temple. As she passed the gate, she whistled a sharp note that summoned even more sand warriors and warrioresses from the shadow of the village to stand guard at the gate.
Three hours later, she was glad to see Oren and the others back and without visible harm on their bodies.
"Oren," called out Kagome in her shaky common tongue. She had never done anything like this before, nor asked for anything not already given to her by the Sand people. "I need… to see Rasa-san."
He didn't come until much later, earlier than the usual time yes, but not until the sun had gone down, until it was but a strip of light through the great windows in the temple walls. He was cold and hard and closed off again, like the first time she met him. And he seemed to be remembering the same as his eyes quested about her face in search of something.
"Oren said you wanted to see me," he said finally, taking slow steps until he was in front of her. In his hand was the shifting gold that had torn itself from her neck earlier. He was absentmindedly pulling, twisting, shaping it into a dainty collar form composed of stars and moons and the swirling vines of the night wind.
"I do."
"Why?" The collar floated from his hand, stretched, embraced the column of her neck, its ends connecting into a seamless circle at her nape.
"That boy, your son, Gaara…" If she hadn't been watching every line on his face, she wouldn't have seen the flinch that flashed by in the blink of an eye. "I need to… I need to see him. Please let me see him."
End Chapter 8
1. I took pity on all the people wailing about the unfairness of the cliffhanger of last chapter. Don't expect future chapters to be out so quick. I'm still contracted to write articles for my magazine and a book for my celebrity client.
2. So, Gaara and Kagome meet finally, but not really. They didn't get to interact much did they? Well, they will see each other again soon enough because…
3. Next chapter: The Jinchuuriki of Sunagakure goes demon in the middle of a market square, prompting a certain Miko to attempt a jailbreak to come help him out. Yondaime Kazekage arrives on the scene to see Shukaku being suppressed by the last person he expects to be there. And the council have questions regarding the specifics of the Miko's power.
4. So we see a little explanation on the basis of Kagome's power in this chapter. Thoughts?
5. On the topic of Kagome's characterization. I've received several concerned feedbacks that the Kagome of FTGG feels like the generic damsel in distress with a hint of hidden strength, and that compared to the complexity of characters like Rasa the 4th Kazekage and the world building itself, she appears rather bland.
Well, these feedbacks are spot on, I think. However, in my defense, how Kagome appears so far is by conscious design. The Kagome we've seen in the previous chapters (from chapter 5 to 7) are mostly seen from the perspective of people who don't actually know her that well, partly from not being able to effectively communicate with her on deep levels and partly because they haven't known her for that long.
In this chapter, we get to see a little more of her thoughts, her emotions, and hints of what happened that led to her being in this world in the first place. We also get to see that she does not actually help Suna purely from the goodness of her heart. There's a little fantasy living in there, a little passive hubris, also a desire to put the past behind her. It's all very subtle of course.
I remember in the first chapter I said I wanted to write a story about a character who is strong without being a fighter, who forces change without the use of violence, and who, by surrendering, actually wins the war. Well, I'm still very much on track with that, and that character to me is Kagome.
The tricky part to writing such characters however, is that too often does kindness get taken for foolishness, and compassion for naivety. The lines are understandably blurred, even in our real world. An act of kindness can be easily interpreted as stupidity, mercy as weakness.
The nature of writing such characters is that always, the reader's perception plays a huge part in the characterization itself. As I wrote Kagome (a hard character to get right since her nuances are even more subtle and too easily mistaken for Purity Sue type. But she ain't pure let me tell you that. She is human, with all the faults that entails), I intentionally shape her in such a way that her character is also (to a degree) open to interpretation.
In the same way that I invited you all to interpret Rasa the 4th Kazekage in your personal perspective, I now also invite you to do the same to Kagome, to scrutinize her every move and every thought and attempt to see past the veneer of the goody two-shoes girl that the Sand people see (or not, considering characters like Oren and Rasa do not fully buy her faultless and thoughtlessly kind personality).
6. Two hints for you regarding the characterization of Kagome. One, the opening poem of this chapter is taken from the song Answer by Sarah McLachlan. There's a reason I used those lyrics specifically. Two, I use a lot of vocal-free music as a compass to write Kagome. Out of those, there are two songs that I often listen to while writing Kagome in order to remember the duality of her character. They are:
Song of Saya 2 from the game Saya no Uta (track 6, I think). Alternatively you can also check out Song of Saya 1 (track 5) but thematically Song of Saya 2 is the superior one.
Jellyfish Song from the game Dramatical Murder (the game version, not the anime one. If you hear strings at the beginning, it's the wrong version. The game version begins with an ethereal wail).
A climax near the end of From the Garden of Gods is written to 'Silent Sorrow', also from Saya no Uta.
Enjoy your weekend! Let me know your thoughts and predictions regarding Kagome, her character, and what her relationship with Gaara will be like. We are now officially into the next phase of the story.
- Sythe
