THE HIGH
She tells them what she can. Which… isn't a lot.
She tells them that one day she'd fallen asleep, and when she'd opened her eyes, and there was Naraku, a damnable smile stretching his face and informing her of her place as his new daughter.
She doesn't tell them why she'd been asleep in the first place. Only Kagome would understand her words, and she isn't ready to open herself up that much.
She tells them how Naraku had manipulated her, gotten her to do his bidding.
She doesn't tell them that when she'd opened her eyes and found herself in the body of a youkai she'd been ecstatic rather than disgusted. Doesn't tell them how much she'd enjoyed ripping the yourouzoku to shreds.
She tells them what they already know. How Naraku held her heart, used it to control her, keep her in check.
She doesn't tell them about the chains, the dungeon, that slimy, hulking, writhing mass―
Kagura tells them―more like tells Kagome―how she'd woken up in a hospital the day she thought she'd died, and has been living a human life ever since.
She doesn't tell her about the day at the train station, the night in the forest, every excruciating night terror and phantom wound she's felt since. About the things she's done just to get back here, now, in a different skin.
She doesn't tell them about her family.
But she does tell Kagome about hers.
The girl starts to cry, listening to the few words Kagura can say about her grandfather and her brother. Inuyasha is quick to come to her side, and Kagura thinks it's almost cute, the subtle comfort he offers. She wants to ask, but the blatant embrace, the girl leaning into his shoulder and Inuyasha taking her hand… Kagura assumes that things have gone well for them.
By the time she's finished, the slayer and the monk have made themselves as comfortable as they can with the dead-youkai-turned-human-woman sitting in their home, and an old miko she doesn't recognize has joined them.
"I've never heard of such a thing, a human soul being stolen and turned into a youkai…" the old woman says. "A possession is one thing, but…"
"It is quite odd, especially if, as you say, you come from Kagome-sama's world…" the monk finishes for her. Kagura wants to say that before Naraku and the jewel and all of the bullshit that followed, there were probably quite a few things that had never happened before. Instead, she says:
"I told you my part, now tell me yours."
They struggle, there is a pregnant pause as if the air has been sucked from the room, none of them wanting to be the first to speak. The silence lets her know that they understand her meaning well enough, but it's still several long suffering seconds―Kagome opens her mouth, Kohaku swallows, the slayer worries her lip―before the monk interjects for them.
He tells her, in stunted language, dancing around the topic so clumsily she wants to snap at him until he finally settles for: "After your passing―"
He tells her vaguely, about Moryoumaru, the baby, Magatsuhi, Naraku's many machinations. Her interest piques at certain points, certain names, but the tale is slow going, because once he starts the others join in, anecdotes and clarifications at points they think his story is lacking, it turns into a debate at certain moments, seeing who remembers what. He tells her about Kikyou's death, about her light, left in the jewel shard that eventually spared Kohaku's life.
At her side, Kohaku clenches his fists, and she wonders how heavily that weight has sat on his shoulders. Two more deaths, lives given up for his.
They tell her about…
Kanna.
The monk spares her the more gruesome details, she can tell by the way he pauses and everyone else averts their eyes, but it is Kagome who finishes the story of the girl's passing. Kagura keeps her eyes on her hands, fisted in her lap, remembering the ghostly girl who'd betrayed her more than once. She'd never thought to ask, never cared enough, never wanted to know if they shared the same fate, and as the miko tells her tale she supposes that in the end, they did.
Nothing more than discarded toys.
She feels too hot, something pinching in her sternum, but the little band continues their tale and Kagura can do nothing but listen as they move on, the glass girl nothing more than a blip in their collective memory, forgotten in the face of the demon that had plagued them.
She knows enough to fill in the gaps, to imagine the grotesque monster that Naraku became towards the end, remembers enough to know what the inside of his body would have looked like, smelled like, felt like. She does not need him to tell her, to explain, and thankfully, the monk's tale trails off, unsure of the exact end…
"It was all Magatsuhi, the dark side of the jewel, it wanted a new war to fight," Kagome chimes in, her voice soft as she stares at the coals in the firepit. "It almost got one, too, but…" she shares a tender look with Inuyasha. Kagura wants to puke. "In the end, the only right wish was to wish it gone."
And while Kagura never cared much for the lore of the jewel, the squabbles over it, she feels as if she's known that to be true for a long time. Naraku had wanted for nothing more than suffering, but to know that it all had been the influence of some evil incarnate? Well, it's almost enough to make her feel sorry. But realizing that all of his schemes and plots had been nothing more than a spirit pulling his strings is almost a sweet sort of vindication.
Even he had been nothing more than a puppet, dancing to the tune of something far more powerful than he.
And in a way, his heart had damned him, too.
She doesn't say any of this, but she wonders if the rest of them are thinking the same. The room goes quiet, this isn't a tear stained, cathartic reunion―not for them. She knows her appearance is more warning than welcome. She doesn't blame them, but the silence sits heavy on her shoulders as she fixes her eyes on the coals in the firepit.
Their discomfort is palpable, the way they fiddle with their sleeves, how they shift their eyes. She's almost glad when someone new pushes aside the screen, but when she looks up she has to swallow down a gasp.
"Rin?"
The girl stops, a baby strapped to her back and two toddlers crowding her legs. Rin looks at her, searches her face, blinks once, twice, then:
"Kagura?!"
That the girl recognizes her at all is a shock, and Kagura is almost touched.
From the corner of her eye she sees Kohaku flinch, and she's a little insulted, he can't be that dumb, but the old miko is the one who starts explaining Kagura's presence as the girl just smiles. Kagura watches her, and she starts to feel a certain type of dread―or is it more like hope―it slithers over her skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
She swallows a little louder than she'd meant to.
"Rin, if you're here, then…"
The girl blinks, and catches her meaning before Kagura has found a way to voice the words.
"Oh! I've been living in the village for a few years. Sesshoumaru-sama still visits from time to time, if you're looking to see him I'm sure he'd be glad to see you!"
Her face heats even before several sets of eyes turn to her. Curious. Kagura desperately wishes she could still fly, because she knows that any stumbling explanations will be misconstrued, and she doesn't want to tell them the truth of it. That she's already said so much is like a bruise on her tongue.
Whether Kagome sees her discomfort or is too oblivious to notice, Kagura isn't sure, but the girl changes the subject:
"So, Kagura," she sounds nervous, "I know it might be too soon to ask but… what do you plan to do?"
What did she plan to…? She hadn't really thought that far past her manic attempt at jumping down that damn well. If the thing doesn't work, then she's stuck here just the same as the girl, and Kagura supposed that Kagome is right to ask. Before, the girl had offered her a place among them, in the fight against Naraku; but now there is no fight, no reason to hold them together, and if she's trapped then she has nowhere to go―
Which means Kagome is either expecting her to ask for a place to stay, or is about to offer it outright.
Neither option sits well with Kagura.
She rolls her tongue around her teeth, knowing that she has no other options and with the question bouncing around her head, dinging around her skull like a bell… what had she planned to do here other than simply return?
"I―" The only thing she's wanted the last four years, the thing that's driven her over the literal edge, that dances just outside her line of sight. She isn't afraid to tell them, as dangerous as it is. "I want it back."
There's a pregnant pause, a few raised eyebrows, but it's finally the slayer who asks her to explain what she means.
"I was a youkai, I had powers… I was powerful, and I―" she licks her lips. "I want it back."
The silence weighs heavy. She knows that these are the last people she should be disclosing her aspirations for power to, but they'd tried to help her once, and as much as they shouldn't trust her, she thinks that their soft little hearts might―
"Don't be fuckin' stupid." Inuyasha snaps, and―ah, there is the old bastard she once knew. "Nothing good ever came of someone tryna' be a youkai."
She can't help the sharp laugh that leaves her. "That's rich comin' from you of all people."
"Maybe 'cause I'm the one that knows somethin'―"
"Inuyasha is right, Kagura." The monk, interrupting with that sobering voice of his. "Every instance of a human trying to gain that type of power… it never ends well."
Kagura bristles. "I've done it before―"
"Yeah, and look how that turned out."
"Inuyasha!"
Kagome swats at her husband, to his complaint, but it's the old miko who addresses her next:
"If you were Naraku's minion you should know how it will end," she says, not even looking up from her tea, "he's the only human we've known to succeed in such an endeavor."
Kagura bites her tongue. She knows as well as the rest of them―maybe better―what that means, what he was. But…
"I guess I'll just have to be better than him then."
…
As the sun sets the hut becomes suffocating, too stuffy, not enough room to breathe. She knows that with her little declaration they have even less reason to trust her than before, but being human grants her some luxuries, if only because they know they can easily stop her.
Still, she's uncomfortable, with the smoke, the coals popping in the hearth, their questions. Rin helps the slayer with dinner: cooking the rice, boiling the water for soup, serving anyone who'd like some more tea. Kagura finds it odd, that the feral little youkai's pet she'd once been is now playing house with humans.
Probably for the best, given her circumstances.
They aren't sure how to speak to her, the conversation is stunted, sometimes reminiscing about the past―if they can think of anything to reminisce about―or the mundane comings and goings of the village, a youkai Inuyasha and the monk had slain a few weeks prior, Kohaku's training, how the harvest is going, coos and ahhs whenever the children demand the adult's attention… There are questions she wants to ask, heavy in her mouth, but she holds her tongue, nods along with their stories, amazed at how well they've adapted to such boring roles.
When the children start to fall asleep Rin is the one who helps put them to bed, but it is their parents who cough and shuffle and Kagura isn't stupid enough to miss their cues.
She finishes her cup as politely as she can, not sure how to say thank you, but judging by the nervous look in the slayer's eyes she shouldn't even try. She's not interested in getting into whatever is lurking there, so instead she gets to her feet and says a brief good night that's met with the miko and the hanyou clambering out after her into the night.
Kagura knows what they're about to do, but she'd rather sleep out in the woods than―
"Do you want to go for a walk?"
The question is almost enough to make her flinch, but Kagura reluctantly agrees.
The temperature has dropped, not cold enough to be unbearable, but just the touch of a chill that makes her glad for her jacket. Without the sturdy walls and a warm hearth the slightest breeze makes her flinch, and she hates that she has to hide, wrapped up in her own arms, from the wind.
Kagome walks beside her, leading them and looks as if she might try to link arms, but thinks better of it when she sees Kagura's face. Inuyasha follows along behind them, silent as a shadow through the dark as the miko leads her to the edge of the village, her steps sure despite the darkness, as if she's walked this path a thousand times.
Neither of them speak, Kagome's lip chewing is nearly audible above the rattle of branches overhead. At some point the miko tries to strike up a chat, about the weather, current events in the era they come from, but soon realizes that the two of them are woefully uninformed, for much the same reason.
The conversation is stunted, but Kagura kills it dead once she realizes where they're going.
Whether her husband knew her intention or Kagome has just been leading them both through the dark, Kagura doesn't know, but she's not surprised when the girl steps up to the well's edge and places both hands on the wood, leaning over into the abyss.
"You said they looked well?"
Kagura nods. "Your brother was still in his school uniform and the old man tried selling me a cheap copy of the shikon jewel."
Kagome chuckles, a wet sound, and within seconds Inuyasha is at her side. Kagura looks away, arms crossed over her chest, her ears swiveling at the barest whispers―
"...if you want to, you―"
"...it's not that, I just…"
"Kagome…"
Kagura's eyes almost roll to the back of her head. She certainly hasn't missed this, and she almost turns away to leave, to go looking for whatever hovel she'll be spending the night in, but the girl's voice stops her.
"Kagura?"
She stops, looks back at the fuzzy apparition of Kagome, the moon and stars doing next to nothing to illuminate her glistening eyes.
"If you're gonna' do it, just do it," Kagura snaps, wondering why the hell the girl brought her out here if it was just to cry at them. "I ain't gonna' be the one to check if it still works."
Kagome makes a sound like a laugh, something between a snort and a cough, but she nods and gives Inuyasha another look as she steps onto the edge and he steps right up with her. It's almost sweet enough to make Kagura's teeth rot as she watches Kagome weigh her options. But then, as if there's a weight coming off her shoulders, she takes her husband's hand, they jump―
And disappear into the darkness.
Kagura stares at the empty hole in the ground, swallows the breath she'd been holding. She guesses that it works, but there is still that tiny wiggling fear that this time will be the last, that the couple is now trapped in the future. Not a curse, for them, but Kagura's done too much to get here just to turn her back on it now. To leave it up to chance…
Her mother's face flashes behind her eyes, an image of her packing up whatever is left of dinner, and with a sigh she hoists a leg up over the edge and follows.
A kaleidoscope of colors nearly blinds her, but within the next blink she's standing at the bottom of the well again, only this time with a roof over her head and dust clogging her nose, the square of light cast by a street lamp just kissing the well's lip. She's only glad that this side has a ladder.
The sliding door gapes wide when she reaches the top, alone, the shrine quiet save for what sounds like sobbing. When Kagura dusts herself off and climbs the steps to find the source it doesn't take her long to spot the family reunion playing out in the yard. Kagome, wrapped up in the arms of what must be her mother, brother and grandfather between them, gripping her husband's sleeve as if to pull him in, too.
Inuyasha looks up at her when she gets close, the rest of the family distracted by their joy, crying happy tears and too buried in each other's embrace to notice.
Kagura watches, uncomfortable, indifferent, and starts to plan.
…
Finally got around to updating this, not really happy with this chapter but at least i know where this story is supposed to go