Forewarning: mentions of a gruesome scene ahead. Also, this chapter is dedicated to Trinabear for her positively lovely review! It gave me a fantastic surge of inspiration, and I was actually on the fence about whether or not to include the OG cast but your review swayed me in a final direction. Thanks!
Chapter 11
When Megumi woke, it was with the comforting scent of pine and forests after rain wrapped softly around her, as if there physically, caressing her skin.
Of course, she realized a second later that the pleasing aroma actually was wrapped around her. In the form of Sesshomaru's kimono. Megumi laid in her futon as she let the weight of everything that had happened to her settle over her. Megumi could find no tears; she had cried herself raw yesterday, which was a feat in and of itself for her. She hadn't cried like that since that day when Toga and Kimi failed to find her before the two year deadline. Megumi let her fingers travel over the fabric, stroking the fine silk and stirring more of Sesshomaru's natural musk. She squeezed it closer to her, trying to separate the parts that were unmistakably unique to the inu and those parts that bore resemblance to his father's.
More than a century and a half ago.
Those had been his exact words, hadn't it? Megumi wouldn't have been able to see him one last time if that truly was when he passed. She wouldn't even have been able to be there for the burial, another thing that had her chest squeezing in a way that made her wince. She couldn't believe that Toga had been gone for that long already; worse, that it had taken her this long to finally hear the truth. Though Megumi found some smaller part of herself trying to comfort her, trying to tell her that it certainly hadn't been her fault.
No one gets chained up for decades on their own volition, anyways. Despite her grief's best attempts to wrangle her thoughts towards Toga, Toga, Toga, Megumi found herself listening more to the part that had lapsed back into reminiscing over those memories. She figured anything, even that betrayal, would be fine to think about as long as Megumi could catch a breath from obsessing over her sort-of father's passing.
Nakano.
Shimuzi's first mate, her twin sister, and the instigator of the mutiny.
Nakano, the girl that Shimuzi used to give grief to over her obsession with what their Captain vehemently called "bad boys." Bad boys, like the man that had been Shimuzi's plaything when they finally had it with the Captain, a boy - no, a demon man; his predatory nature was something Megumi doubted a boy could ever possess - that had sat in front of her and leered as each deliberate scrape of his knife elicited whimpers from Megumi even as blood cascaded down her back and in that valley between her breasts.
"Your power belongs to us, Twin Dragon of Timidity," he purred, eyes flashing as they fought against his sharp blood lust. Shark youkai. So many of them on the ship; so many crowding around the image of their bleeding little crew mate, laughing, screaming profanities at her and the 'stupid fucking pussy of a Captain that was too weak to manipulate Megumi's powers.' The traitors had snapped their teeth with pleasure as Nakano's lover continued to carve kanji into her, slavering at the jaws when the raw scent of coppery blood tinged with the salty tang of the few unsolicited tears that escaped her and the putrid smells of the place they had bound her too, the place they relieved themselves in.
The message was clear: to us, you are no better than shit.
You're here to give us your power. Nothing more.
The door banged open, and in strode the once First Mate; the new Captain. "I paid a visit to sister dearest," she cooed, and her words were cheered on by the sharp clacking of pointed teeth. "And you'll never believe what I found." Megumi hadn't noticed immediately through her haze of pain, but Nakano had entered the room dragging someone else behind her. Megumi paled and fear stabbed through her.
"Hansuke," Megumi choked out. "What have you done?" The sweet youkai looked at her, his expression clear that he was sorry, but there was no trace of regret in his eyes. In that moment, just looking at him was enough to make her hate him. "I told you to do nothing," Megumi snapped at him, though she immediately wished she hadn't been so harsh when he dropped his eyes from her. He looked hurt.
"I suppose poor Hansuke just couldn't sit by as we tortured his sweetheart, the weak little boy. Isn't that right, Hansuke?" Nakano emphasized her question with a sharp shake of her hand, tossing Hansuke around like he was a mere doll. She didn't let go of his throat though, instead choosing to pick the youngest pirate up and bring his face close to hers. Megumi saw the darkness swirling in Nakano's eyes, churning and striking like she imagined a wild group of sharps might when they entered a frenzy. "The pathetic little youkai didn't think he could rescue his hime, so he thought he should try and release the one person that could?" Nakano sneered, her pointed teeth gleaming. "What have you to say for yourself, you fucking pisant?" Megumi opened her mouth to plead for the boy, to beg Nakano not to punish him, but the new Captain's lover was quick to shove a bundle of cloth so securely in her mouth that Megumi gagged.
Hansuke fought to look at Megumi, sending the tiniest of apologetic smiles her way. Megumi felt ice settling inside of her when she realized that he wasn't going to beg Nakano for forgiveness; wasn't going to pledge allegiance to her; wasn't going to write off his foolishness as something caused by his devastating lack of experience as a pirate.
It was just supposed to be a crush. He wasn't supposed to get himself killed over it.
"I'm sorry," he rasped out against the hand wrapped around his throat. The room went quiet; not even insults rose out of the crowd that had originally come to see Nakano's lover torture Megumi. Hansuke gulped, like he was fighting for breath. Then he turned his head away from the Captain fully to set the whole of his gaze on Megumi. "I'm sorry I failed you and the Captain - the real one. I hope you'll forgive me."
His words had only barely rung out in the space when Nakago lashed out, her mouth flying towards the closest thing to it. Her many pointed teeth lashed onto Hansuke's ear, and with a furious guttural sound she flung the rest of him towards the center of where the traitorous crew amassed themselves. The tang of new, fresh blood in the air was enough to break their collective self-control - Megumi was off limits because she was needed alive and relatively healthy; Hansuke was not. Their Captain had made that very clear.
He didn't even get time to scream.
"This is what happens when you defy me," Nakago said around the mass still seized in her teeth. She sneered and spit it at Megumi, and the ear that had once been a part of Hansuke, gentle, sweet Hansuke, slapped Megumi on the side of her face before falling to the floor. She could feel the burn in the back of her throat as bile threatened to rise up and flood the parts of her mouth that weren't already stuffed with cloth.
The Captain's lover pierced the ear with the blade he had only recently been using on Megumi, and brought his prize to his lips. He chewed, adding little squelches for emphasis, as both he and Nakago watched the rest of the body vanish slowly into the gullets of maniac youkai.
And all Megumi could focus on was how pale the burn in her throat felt to that of the pure rage that coursed through her.
The memory left her, and Megumi found herself once more in the confines of her futon with Sesshomaru's clothes draped securely around her. With a start, she realized her hand had placed itself where Hansuke's ear had hit her while she was busy reliving the memory. Her fingers did not find smooth skin; instead, they found the remaining traces of the cuts that Kyo's rock had left her with. Gina's care had helped drastically, and Megumi figured passively that the cuts should fade away perhaps in the next few days.
She took her hand away quickly when she began to trick herself into smelling that room again, and Megumi quickly buried her nose into the folds of Sesshomaru's kimono. She took greedy gulps of the scent, refocusing herself and calming down her mind. This wasn't going to work, she decided. She couldn't let herself just revisit any memory she wished in order to think about things that weren't Toga. She would do instead, she told herself as she rose and made her way to the back door, the thing that she did best - meditate. Megumi patrolled the garden with all the purpose of someone on a mission, investigating the greenery and feeling carefully with her feet until she figured she had found a decently secluded place to commence her meditation. She sat, rearranging her limbs in the position she had learned from Shimizu. Yesterday, she had meditated to gauge her power levels.
Today, she would meditate to process her emotions and gradually coax herself into being at peace with the loss of Toga.
Megumi let the sounds of her measured, slow breaths fill the space around her, mixing with the sounds of gentle leaves brushing against each other. She let the pressure of holding her breath before releasing it replace the sensation of how heavy her heart felt as it sat in her chest. She let the outer world come into focus around her, intimately aware of how her body interacted and connected with it.
She let herself feel sorrow for all that she had lost: her human parents and the home she had shared with them, Hansuke and her ignorance of the cruelties of the world, Toga and the way he used to pick her up from her armpits and spin her around in the air. These were things she would never again have, and she let herself truly come to terms with that loss.
She let herself feel gratitude for the memories of each that she had cherished: her parents as they taught her to grace the courts, Hansuke's very awkwardly adorable kiss he had given her when he was beyond inebriated (and his profuse apologies once sober), and Toga as he first transformed for her and allowed her to take a nap on his great paw. These were things she would never have again, yes, but they were things that she would always remember with fondness for having at one time.
Megumi kept at her meditation for a while longer, simply to let herself feel as much as she wished in those private moments before letting it flow away like the breeze she couldn't see.
She let herself go, and then she let herself be at peace.
Sesshomaru had been concerned, at first, when he went to check on his guest and found her seated facing one of the garden walls, so close she was almost touching it. He had lingered and deduced that she was engaged in some sort of ritual; something that involved measured breathing and motionless form. Whatever it was, the longer she allowed herself to remain in that unusual form of hers the more he noticed a sense of calm washing over her.
He noticed she was still wearing his kimono, and that it had lost some of its perfection due to being sleeped in. But it draped about her in a way that made it look like it was a part of her, and for a minute Sesshomaru thought that perhaps she would be alright.
Then, of course, she had broken her statuary state and collided with the wall. He had to bite back the urge to groan as she yelped slightly and stumbled back, seemingly astonished that she had quite literally walked into a wall. But what did she expect? She had placed herself in front of it.
"It looks like someone isn't fully accustomed to being blind," a feminine voice observed from behind him, and Sesshomaru pretended he had not heard her. Unfazed by his blatant ignorance of her, Kimi sauntered over to stand next to her son, both daiyoukai watching as their guest started to scold the wall and that stupid, uncivil cretin that greeted people with seals and assassins. "I chatted with Rin last night, the lovely girl." Sesshomaru knew his mother was back to normal, and was clearly baiting him. He continued to ignore her. "She told me all that she knew about our newest guest, though it was rather disappointing how little she knew."
Kimi glanced at him before returning her attention to the woman now wandering around and touching plants in Sesshomaru's clothes, Kimi's very demeanor a perfect portrayal of nonchalance. Her eyes, though, were deceptively bright.
"I wonder how you managed to get her to come here of her own volition, hm."
Sesshomaru squinted at her. "People do not defy the Lord of the West's personal requests."
At that, Kimi snorted. "You and I are well aware that Meg is not ordinary people." Sesshomaru watched her for any changes a second longer before turning around to leave. Clearly, he was dismissed of his charge if Kimi was going to look over Megumi now. "What have you promised her?"
Sesshomaru paused to consider answering his mother. Realistically, Megumi would probably end up telling Kimi their agreement if he did not, so why did she insist on asking him? The Western Lord fought the urge to huff in mild aggravation. Females were ridiculous. "She would not take traditional reward," he told Kimi without turning around. "I have promised to remove the seal from her if she can heal Rin."
"Oh? So her blinding was unnatural," Kimi pondered aloud, and Sesshomaru could practically sense the wheels in her head suddenly bursting to life and spinning around. "What else did you promise her?"
This time, he did turn around. "What makes you think there is more?" His mother swatted her hand in his direction dismissively.
"Please, I know both you and Meg. The fact she didn't sense the wall means she's not using her powers to find her way around, thus signifying she either cannot use them or that she chooses not to." Kimi grinned almost imperceptibly. "She woke Rin, thus meaning she has access to her gifts. She would not reserve her powers though if there was more to either her seal than blindness, or there was more to your agreement that she intends to honor."
Sesshomaru disliked when his mother got like this. He wished that she would go to Megumi with her questions; why must she pester him? He was the ruler of one of the cardinal lands - he did not have time to gossip with relatives. "It is both," he told her instead, opting to quickly disclose information and use his compliance as an excuse to leave. "Her seal debilitates her natural ability to recover power. And I have asked her not to expend more of it unless it is for Rin." Kimi's eyebrow rose fractionally as he continued. "In return, I have promised her my protection."
"I see," Kimi decided finally, casting one last look at Megumi before starting to walk away. "I see."
That settled it for Sesshomaru; females were ridiculous.
But he would not allow himself to linger in this place; he had a message to send.
The bird arrived towards the end of the day, flapping its wings purposefully and circling overhead until its special eyes detected its target. It dipped from the sky, wind ruffling its feathers and making its charge shift in the tube fastened to the bird's leg. When the black bird made a perfect landing on the perch fastened for this purpose, it shook out its feathers and proceeded to prene itself while waiting for someone to notice its arrival. It did not take long; soon the squeals of a young girl filled the space between the few huts that had been put up in recent years. There was the one housing the old woman, the one with the two humans and their ever-increasing amount of offspring, and finally the one with the miko and the hanyou. It was one of the human couple's offspring that noticed the bird first, squealing in delight and running towards the perch as fast as her chubby legs could take her. The bird shifted on its feet, hopping along the perch to the place that put the greatest amount of distance between it and the oncoming child. Luckily for the bird, the human was pathetically short and posed no real threat since her grubby hands only made it to about halfway up the pole.
"Leave the bird alone, sweetheart," came a calm, melodic voice. A woman with a soft set to her eyes approached the perch, scooping up the child and kissing its fatty cheeks affectionately before reaching out and trying to unfasten the tube with one hand. The other one was placed securely under the child's bottom, supporting her even as she rested against her mother's hip. "I wonder who's bothered to talk to us," she pondered aloud as she fumbled to withdraw the message and keep her child's outstretched arms from reaching the messenger bird. The woman took one look at the seal on the parchment and strode off with the message in hand, heading towards one of the newer huts. When she neared the sounds of a faint squabble started to reach her ears, and the woman sighed softly before calling out. "Kagome-chan? Inuyasha? I've got something for you."
The bickering came to an abrupt halt, and a moment later a rather sheepish-sounding feminine voice called out, asking for the woman to please come in. She entered the hut a moment later, using the hand holding the message to support herself as she slid off her footwear and set the already squirmy child down. As she did, the miko approached her. The hanyou remained seated, sporting a rather characteristic sour look. He humphed and turned his head away from the sight of his mate. "What is it, Sango?"
Sango held out the parchment. "A messenger bird just arrived," she explained, watching Kagome as she reached out to take the offering. However, she was still paying attention to the pouting inu in the corner. "It has Lord Sesshomaru's seal on it, so I figured it was for Inuyasha."
"Keh!" The man in question exclaimed, this time shifting so that he was fully facing away from them. His ears twitched to attention though, betraying his curiosity. "What does he want, anyways?"
Kagome seemed curious as well by the way she was quick to unfold the parchment and flip it around to read. As she read aloud what was written, Sango's daughter dashed over to the hanyou and proceeded to try and grab his fluffy ears. For whatever reason, this one seemed obsessed with all things furry and fluffy, from normal birds to demons. Sango sighed lightly despite the smile that warmed up on her face. Parenting was exhausting.
"Inuyasha," Kagome started, eyes scanning the clear kanji, "I have reason to seek your cooperation in a more personal matter of mine. I seek the sealing knowledge your village possesses in the form of Kaede, and for your compliance in delivering it to me. I cannot be prevailed upon to obtain it in person at this moment. That is all."
Kagome finished reading, puzzling over the very curious message. Meanwhile, Inuyasha had apparently grown annoyed with the child's pestering and had sulked over to where the other women were, giving Sango a look that clearly pleaded with her to take care of the unruly midget.
"I wonder why he's seeking knowledge about sealing," Sango mused as she scooped up her child once more.
"Hopefully to subjugate himself," Inuyasha grumbled, though his words carried no trace of the malice it once held in those years before their shared defeat of Naraku.
Kagome hummed thoughtfully as she overlooked the message again. "Sesshomaru has no need for subjugation beads, Inuyasha."
The hanyou glared at his mate, yanking at his necklace and waving it in her face. "And I do?" Kagome smiled lightly and shrugged, her hands raising up in a sort of who knows? gesture. The hanyou scowled at her, snatching the message from her raised hand and stomping over to where Kagome's ink brush laid. He seized it, resting on his haunches as he flipped the message over and hastily scribbled a response. "Get . . . it . . . yourself!" Inuyasha grumbled out each word as he wrote it, finishing sharply and proceeding to exit the hut, likely to shove the message back into its tube and send it off.
Kagome sighed as she listened to Inuyasha's mutterings grow farther and farther away. "At least his penmanship has improved."
Sango smiled at her friend. "Perhaps you should not have taught him; he tends to write exactly how he feels." Sango recalled the sounds of his earlier squabble she had encountered when she came to drop off the message. "I don't imagine Lord Sesshomaru would be pleased to receive that response."
Kagome snickered, then sighed. "Still; he said this was personal. I can't help but wonder what he meant."
The two women mulled in their thoughts for a moment, before Sango's daughter started to protest to being held with a growing frequency in her squirming. Sango decided she should probably return this one to her father; while she may enjoy hunting down furry or feathery things, she loved her papa best of all. "In any case," Sango said as she slipped into her footwear again, "if Sesshomaru takes Inuyasha's response seriously, then I suppose we'll find out what he meant sooner or later."
Megumi did not see Rin in the days following her reunion with Kimi. In fact, for the first two days the only one that she interacted with was Hina, and the servant had made it painfully clear to Megumi the first day that she wanted nothing to do with whatever had Megumi currently secluded to her rooms and the garden. She wondered if the servant was even less susceptible to caring about people's feelings than Sesshomaru was - after all, the inu daiyoukai had given her his clothes and had told her to think nothing of fulfilling her part of their agreement until she was ready to start up again. Hina, on the other hand, had taken one look at Sesshomaru's slightly wrinkled kimono and had taken it from Megumi's figure, scolding her for walking around looking so unruly. Megumi had found the kimono the next day displayed on a kimono stand in her room, but it had evidently been washed and was tragically void of any traces of the scent she had grown comfortable around.
Still, Megumi's days were fairly pleasant in concept. Her meals were always more than fulfilling and there was always an abundance of food prepared for her; clearly someone wanted to make sure she was eating plenty. Megumi was content to comply; after all, she recognized her current situation as one with two intentions, the first being to allow her time to come back to herself after learning about Toga's untimely passing, and the second being to allow her time to replenish more of her power reserves. So Megumi decided not to keep herself idle, in a silent thanks to the surprisingly considerate male that had arranged this for her. When she was not eating, bathing, dressing or meditating Megumi was practicing her kata in the garden, or trying to figure out more ways to work around the restrictions associated with the seal given to her.
On the third day, Megumi became aware of the presences that occasionally encroached upon the edges of the garden she frequented, always disappearing eventually without interacting with her. She became distinctly annoyed with them, and often called out to those people to inquire as to what they wanted. It was the day that marked a week since meeting Toga's son, and she had spent it wondering about those things she was afraid to ask. She wanted to know if Toga had had a second son, just like she remembered mentioning on that day she saw him last. She dreaded the answer, but somewhere inside of her felt that she already knew what it would be. After all, Sesshomaru had Tenseiga, didn't he? Didn't that mean that the rest of it had come true?
Her thoughts that day had been so concerning that she had left her room and asked the very first demon she encountered to help her find someone; anyone she knew would do. The flustered youkai had complied and had brought her to Chiharu, because apparently as far as the other residents of the shiro knew Megumi was only there as a temporary healer. She had learned much in that day as she spent time preparing tinctures and herbal remedies for future patients with the chief healer, the first being the answer to her earlier question: the Inu no Taisho had, in fact, had a second son - a hanyou named Inuyasha - with a human hime named Izayoi. The naming of her shiro had startled Megumi, because it was the very same where she had been born over eight hundred years ago. Then, her shiro had been young and hardly well known, and so primarily she felt surprised that it had remained for so long, but then she had been faced with irrational panic that she was in some way related to the mother of Toga's second child. She rationalized that her parents had come down with an unforeseen sickness and perished in Megumi's youth - well before her powers awoke within her - and so there could be no way. Chiharu relaxed her further when she told Megumi that the original ruling family had been defeated and replaced by a warring general some three hundred centuries ago.
Chiharu told Megumi all that she knew about Sesshomaru's half-brother while they worked together. She learned - or rather, confirmed - that he carried a sword of his father's creation called Tessaiga, and that the brothers had eventually joined forces to defeat a foe named Naraku that had wreaked havoc on the four cardinal lands. Since then, they seemed to be on decent terms with each other. Megumi remembered the name Naraku from when she had returned to Japan; there were many places still reeling from the impact of his campaign for power, and Megumi had put aside her personal quest in order to go from village to village fixing damages, healing what people deemed unhealable and trying to restore order to the country of her birth. Megumi could still remember her feelings of disapproval regarding the group rumored to have defeated Naraku (looking back, how had she overlooked the very obvious description of an inu hanyou with a great sword?). Many of the mikos and monks of those impacted regions had perished in protecting their villages from the swarms of demons that had apparently burned their way across the lands, and so when she had heard that the miko that had enough power to defeat this grisly foe had decided to settle down, as if all was well, Megumi's opinion of this woman of rumor had lowered significantly. Had she not seen what their grapple for something called the Jewel of Four Souls did to the world? Did she not feel for all those innocent people who could benefit from the healing properties of her holy power?
Megumi had devoted years to raising new healers for each village, training them with her knowledge of herbs (from trading goods as a pirate) to combat with a range of styles and weapons (also from her time as a pirate) so that these villages would be able to stand a chance while they worked their way up to their functionality before Naraku. Megumi was not human by any means but she pitied them; without their holy powers, they hardly stood a fighting chance against roaming demons. Just because one famous hanyou had been felled did not mean all the powerful youkai prowling the country were suddenly vanquished as well. Megumi made preparing these villages to stand a fighting chance her new personal mission, and for a time she forgot completely about the alarming dream she had had about Toga and her desires to return to the demonic shiro of the west.
The fourth day of her prescribed break had her encountering Sesshomaru by chance. He hadn't stayed in her company long by any means, but he had given her pleasant updates about the world outside of her bubble. Gina was apparently one of the healers studying under Chiharu, and she would be returning likely in the next few days with the merchants whose wares she had purchased completely. Megumi remembered how slow progress had been with that heavy cart when she had traveled alongside that group of four men, and she figured that the latest estimated date of arrival was probably the most likely. In truth, she looked forward to seeing the group again. She wouldn't be able to wipe their memories with Sesshomaru's command not to use her power excessively, but most of her found that she didn't really mind it. Daisuke hadn't seemed like the type inclined to blab about past acquaintances to all he met, and she knew even if one of the others was he was more than capable of keeping them in line.
The other tidbit Sesshomaru told her had her a bit more surprised; he told her that after a visit with his shiro's most knowledgeable demon on the subject of seals had reaped useless results, he had contacted the elderly miko of Inuyasha's village to see if she may be able to reveal something of more use. He had told her, with a trace of annoyance in his voice, that his whelp of a relative had refused to cooperate, and that should she wish to pursue that potential source of information he would have to make an appearance in person. Personally, Megumi found she wasn't too inclined to meet the crew Sesshomaru had teamed up with to defeat a common foe several years ago. At least Sesshomaru had a warranted reason to return to his normal life - he was the freaking Lord of the West, and had an entire land to see to; he couldn't be bothered to devote time to villages outside of his territory when he had the ones within it to look over. The rest of the group though, Megumi wondered about. There had been little talk about what the humans, the hanyou and the kitsune pup had done after their victory other than build themselves huts in some village in the east. There had also been no damage to that village, despite the final confrontation being just outside of it, which was another thing that had made Megumi roll her eyes when she had first learned about it - she had been setting a broken bone at the time when she overheard - and again, she had wondered if this idolized heroine had considered the things that they had left in their wake.
So Megumi had told Sesshomaru she would consider it, and by the way he had responded she figured he had picked up on her less-than-excited tone. He had brushed over it though, inquiring briefly to her state of affairs: how much she'd been eating, if the food suited her tastes, if she needed anything . . . and then he had made himself scarce with some excuse he called "paperwork."
The fifth and final day of her break, Megumi had finally worked up the courage to visit with Kimi. The two women had taken their conversation to the corner of Kimi's private garden that they had frequented when Megumi was a child. It had been hard at first, to ask Kimi about what Toga had been like in all those years she had been on the seas. Kimi had told her many things: the hunt he took Sesshomaru on when he finally became a man (in youkai terms); the search he had waged for Megumi and some unnamed second person and his refusal to explain anything to Kimi; his disappearance in the middle of the night one day and his return with news of affections for a human hime. It had been heartbreaking to hear how Kimi and Toga grew apart after Megumi's disappearance, because he could not confide in Kimi and because whatever he had seen on his journey had apparently convinced him that Megumi was dead. Megumi must have looked pretty intense then, because Kimi had been quick to embrace her and promise her that their relationship problems were not Megumi's fault, and they never would be.
And when Kimi had finished, Megumi finally confided her mother figure about what had happened to her in those years apart. She told Kimi everything about how she grew to love Shimuzi just as dearly as she did her own parents and the inu daiyoukai mates. She told her all that Shimuzi insisted on teaching her, all that she had seen, and of the mutiny waged by Shimuzi's younger twin sister. Megumi's throat tightened slightly when she spoke of sweet Hansuke, but it lightened when she got to the part in her story where Shimuzi was able to free herself and return to set the crew straight and rescue Megumi. The younger woman had paused in her story when she remembered that battle. It had been something to see; two powerful shark daiyoukai, two Captains of the same ship, two twin sisters. Nakano and all her followers had died that day by the hands of a Shimuzi fueled with fury over the betrayal and their execution of her beloved crew members, the ones that had remained loyal. A new crew had been formed in the months following the true Captain's return, and Megumi had been the only one of the pirates to survive the transition. It weighed heavy on both of them, they knew, but Megumi performed well as the new First Mate and tried desperately to put the incident behind her even as the words given to her in her torture scarred over on her skin.
She finished her story to Kimi by telling her of the dream she had had that eventually convinced her to part with Shimuzi and return to Japan, to find those she had left in the country. It gutted her to unload so much since shutting down after the mutiny, but Megumi had been surprised to notice that when she finished she had felt . . . lighter.
It was rather cathartic, and though she had been meditating to allow herself to be at peace, she thought that the world was more steady under her now than it had been when she had simmered in silence alone.
She knew, then, that she would be okay. It would not be instantly, of that she was certain, but it would not remain an impossible thing to regain. Reflecting over all that had happened to her proved to Megumi that above all one thing was certain: this remained a precious place to her even without her father figure, and it would continue to stay that way. She still had Kimi, and she supposed despite her lack of a memory about him, she still had Sesshomaru. She would be okay. And that was enough.
Author's Note:
Sesshomaru to Kimi: "People do not defy the Lord of the West's personal requests." Also Inuyasha, scribbling furiously: "lmao WATCH me"
So, another chapter! It's been so long since a chapter covered more than like one day, gosh. I didn't want to focus too heavily on Megumi's grief cus let's be honest that stuff makes me sad. It's not something that goes away completely either though so I was careful to kind of strike an okayish balance between the two.
So Inuyasha makes his first appearance! I could practically hear him when I wrote that scene, lol. And again a big thanks to Trinabear for the first-ever review! You've no idea what your words have spurred me to plot for the story, mwah hah hah . . . anyways so I figured Megumi not exactly having a completely positive opinion of the gang would be kind of an interesting way to develop a dynamic between her and Rumiko's cast. I hope you guys think so too.
Please continue to read and give me feedback! Bye for now!
