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Strangled Time
Chapter 58
She wanted it to be over quickly.
Unfortunately the blood made that impossible.
Do you know how much blood is in an animal big enough to cover a hillside? A lot. There's a lot. With the poison not letting it congeal and the lack of stitches sealing the wounds, blood quickly flooded the clearing to a shallow lake. It was black and smooth, like the reflective surface of a scrying mirror. When she stared into it for too long, Kagome swore that she could see ghosts staring back from its depths.
Kagome had grabbed Saburo before he could trudge through the wide pool, warning him of the danger. She'd already seen firsthand the effects of the poison sullying that blood. It was fine on their clothes and on their boots, but she knew the damage it was capable of reeking if it somehow entered their bloodstream. There were cuts on her arms. Scrapes to the human man's face and skinned knuckles. They couldn't afford to be rash.
Short of finding a hazmat suit, they needed to come up with a reasonable way across that new hurdle.
In their grief, Saburo's off the cuff solution seemed to be the easiest.
They just needed to wait for the lake to freeze.
It didn't need to freeze solid, just enough to thicken up and make it resistant to splatter. Then they would likely be fine wearing the disposable latex gloves from Kagome's first aid kit—those gloves that never got used as often as they probably should have been.
However, the process for that wasn't a quick one.
At least two hours ticked by in a horribly uncomfortable silence as they watched crystals struggle to form in the low temperatures. When they eventually did, though, they exploded almost all at once. The fuzzy spikes of ice grew in branches from the shallows inwards, latticework fractals that didn't care how sick it was for them to be twining elegant swirls and geometric sprays across bone disintegrating lifeblood. Yet as disturbing as it was to witness, it was also hauntingly gorgeous.
Water that had separated from the blood cells and poison was the first to freeze, creating a top overlay of intricate white lacework atop a stark backdrop of endless nightmares.
Nightmares that Kagome would be unlikely to forget anytime soon.
The smell of iron and putridity around them was as dense as gelatin.
Once the outermost edges of the spill had become the consistency of a vampiric slushy, the priestess bent to make sure that touching it wasn't going to burn the surface of their skin. Only, she wasn't expecting to be able to sense Toga's residual aura in the blood when she made contact. It wasn't Toga, though. It felt wrong and twisted. Like gas in a swamp, it bubbled up in the goo that lay beneath the ice; thick, dark, screaming.
It stung.
Gasping out, Kagome pulled back. The tip of her middle finger was dipped with ink. An oozy, warped feeling fell over her as a liquid miasma dripped down her wrist. She shook out her hand, fell back on her butt, and shoved away Saburo when he tried to help. Instinctively, her powers flared to the surface to fight off the taint.
The sludge was no match for the blue glow of her purity.
Saburo's eyes widened with astonishment at the sight of her cleaned finger and the sparkle of fine dust that now surrounded it.
"It's… gone." He stated the obvious.
The priestess panted, staring at the tip of her finger. Pristine. Unharmed. Then she looked back down at the lake of blood. Tears of hot anger sent needles through her temple.
It wasn't Toga, but the essence of his demonic energy and pain that lingered in the toxins. Like how strong emotions and worldly desires could turn into poltergeists long after the spirit has passed on, this was something new and dangerous.
It wasn't Toga.
Tugging on the full expanse of her aura, Kagome gave in and enveloped herself in it. Her glow lit the entire clearing, huge and clarifying. Without hesitation she splayed her hands before her and slammed them to the ground. Saburo couldn't stop her. Atmospheric ozone filled the air and her nose as the purifying touch of her palms race outwards across the partially frozen pool, lifting dark with light and sanctifying the land with positively charged ions.
When the energy reached the fringe of the dog demon's silver coat, she pulled the plug and lifted away.
Holding her breath against the heaves that threatened her, Kagome looked up and across the radically changed landscape of the clearing. Togashimaru's body was still there, lying huge and dead. Except now, instead of it being surrounded by the black of poison, death, and decay, he was drifting in a cloud of illuminated starlight and rising blue fireflies.
Beneath the glowing purification was a rink of Swarovski clear crystalline ice.
Painfully, the priestess got to her feet.
Saburo gazed around them in utter reverence.
"Miss Kagome… that was amazin'." Awe coated each of his words with a thick shellac. "I didn't know you could do anythin' quite like that."
The priestess didn't share his wonder.
Instead of feeling relief, she stepped forward into the light.
"I could have done that earlier… but I didn't even think." Kagome said under her breath. Her voice cracked. Then, with a shriek, she kicked through the cold, delicate surface of the ice and splashed the clear water below. "I could have done that earlier!"
It was a childish tantrum, but she threw it. There in the middle of that gigantic puddle, Kagome shouted and broke window upon window of frozen ice sheets. She kicked water through dust clouds of pretty, purified ash, making a ruckus and screaming to the forest until her breaths came out in short, gasping puffs of white air.
When she spun back and slumped, Saburo was right there to catch her.
"Why didn't I do that earlier?" She whimpered, the words nearly lost in his chest.
The blacksmith didn't have any answers to give her; he didn't pretend to be like Togashimaru and know just what to say. So he stayed silent, holding Kagome tight in his arms and giving her as much time as she needed to come down before they began their morbid task.
…
The frigid water from the brook felt like pin needles running across his numb hands, but Saburo endured it as he rinsed the blood from his dagger. When all of the ink stains were gone and his thin rubber gloves squeaked against the metal, he dried the blade against his pants and tucked it back away in the fold of his sash.
Kagome was a few paces away from him, curled and unmoving. She didn't seem to care that she was sitting in the snow. The black waves of her locks splayed across white. Her shoulder sank deep into a folded pile of freshly trimmed blankets. One of her hands still gripped a soiled sword while the other clung miserably to long fur.
She shouldn't have had to do that with him.
But she did it anyway, because she was dutiful and strong.
And he was not.
Grunting when his knees cracked, Saburo rose to his feet and stepped over to the small priestess. He was gentle when he pried the wakizashi from her fingers and, unseeing, she let him take it.
The cream wrap around the hilt was stained and would need to be replaced, but everything else seemed to hold up sturdy. Just like Kagome, it had a solid structural foundation. A few scrapes and smudges weren't going to permanently put it out of commission, it just needed some tender care and a little bit of maintenance.
Without saying a word, the blacksmith walked back to the stream bed and began to wash her sword as well, and then the longer tachi that lay beside it.
…
When the sun began to set and the sky turned orange, Kagome and Saburo found themselves back in that field with the giant form of the demon. In comparison to Togashimaru's true size, the fur that they took had only just been a patch, and since it came from his other side, the spot was out of sight and wishfully out of mind.
All they were faced with now was a resting dog, curled tight and pristinely silver.
Freed from the agony of loss and the physical pains of the mortal world.
Saburo stood still beside the young priestess in those moments as the day grew darker. When the blanket of night finally fell, neither one of them said a word. They watched with rapt attention as somewhere, hidden by the mountains and by the trees, the moon rose up.
There was a shift in the wind.
Static electricity began to gather in sparks, sending shivers of anticipation throughout the mountainside. Pops like snap crackers went off each time one of those hot white-purple flares crossed paths with a clump of falling snow.
Toga's body began to glow, lit by those sparks. The purple grew, forming a circle on the ground around him—a ring of magnesium fire.
The white ice beneath him turned once again to a scrying mirror of obsidian black.
Not blood.
Something different.
In that blackness Kagome and Saburo could see both everything and nothing. There was an eternity of empty eons of space and hundreds of millions of vibrant, colorful lights.
And wind.
The wind picked up around them. Turbulent, luring.
Saburo braced his hand on Kagome's shoulder as the land at their feet shook. They didn't dare blink. Slowly, the mighty General's massive form sank into the dark light of that otherworldly portal. Once it was completely consumed, the earth stitched itself back up and everything settled, leaving only little lights, like glowing purple starlight in his wake.
They were the only reminder that he'd even been there at all.
After a few breaths had passed in that new world without Togashimaru's presence, Kagome stepped forward and away from Saburo's touch. She came close to those lights, but stopped just outside their reach.
"Miss Kagome…" The human man called out to her gently. "You alright?"
She shook her head, her hair finally breaking free from its lopsided and disheveled ponytail.
The golden pin fell to the ground at her feet.
She picked it up.
"I'm fine." She eventually replied.
Saburo caught the lie by the big toe. "No yer not." He took a step forward and folded his arms into his sleeves. "Ya know, you can talk ta me. I know that yer hurtin', really. I just want—"
"I'm fine." Kagome snapped, her fists clenched around the fanned hair piece.
Saburo stopped in his tracks.
"I…" She looked away. She must have been so tired. "Just let me be fine, Saburo."
He didn't reply as she turned around and brushed past him.
Without looking back, the young priestess walked to the trees that lined that large open field and disappeared into their shadows, never to return to that spot.
…
The broken wooden door creaked as Kagome pushed it to the side and stepped into the barren, abandoned shack. Lowering the green shawl she'd worn as a hood to hide her face in the streets, she signed.
In the middle of that tiny hovel, nearly buried by kicked up dirt, was the little wooden handle of a wand, red and broken. Each of its bells had been torn from it—where they'd gone, she didn't actually know.
Beside the vandalized suzu toy, sticking straight up in the ground for her to find, was an old, tarnished hair pin.
Picking it up, Kagome felt the familiar impression of the faded herons beneath the pad of her thumb. She clutched it to her chest.
She wouldn't again see the puppy dog eared, half demon son of Togashimaru.
At least, not in that time period.
…
Back at the hill overlooking the cliff, Saburo was nowhere to be found. He wasn't at the camp either—not that Kagome was looking for him.
She crossed the embankment to the grave marker that rested there at the top. All the blood that had been on the ground around it was gone, hidden beneath a good five centimeters of snow. All that remained were the stains of fingerprints on the stone itself. Kagome traced those large trails, in and around the chiseled indents of Izayoi's name.
"I'm sorry I couldn't have gotten there sooner." She said out loud before reaching into her pocket and retrieving the newer of the two hair pins to return it back where they'd found it.
As soon as she fished it out, Kagome saw that the metal was glowing a faint pink. Caught off guard, she dropped it. It made a perfect, hairpin shaped hole in the snow.
The priestess took a step back, glanced up at the tombstone, and then cautiously pulled the second ornament from her clothes.
Together in the open, the glowing of both pins intensified.
A chill ran down Kagome's spine.
"This was the best of all outcomes. However, it is I who should best be apologizing."
That voice.
It was so familiar.
It sounded almost exactly like that tiny voice of reason that'd been interjecting into her thoughts those past few days.
The priestess spun.
There, standing before her in a trailing collection of robes, was the translucent pink figure of a human woman. She was barely half a hand taller than Kagome. Her hair was impossibly long and cut with straight bangs. There were patterns on her kimonos, but in the shifting glow of her ethereal form, they were hard to make out.
Kagome almost recognized the woman, from a time not too long ago when Sesshoumaru so crassly used a duplicate to lure Inuyasha into his clutches.
"... You're Lady Izayoi."
The figure lowered her head in a modest greeting. "Hello, Kagome."
Dumbly, Kagome dropped the second pin.
"It was a fault of my own doing that sent you to this time. But fear not. Once the circuit has been completed, your well will allow you to pass through it once more." The ghost of the princess said.
"A circuit?" The young time traveler asked. "What do you mean? How could you have sent me here?"
In response, the deceased older woman held out her hand. Kagome gave it a hesitant look and then, with a small nod of assurance from Inuyasha's mother, she reached out and met the tips of the glowing pink fingers with her own.
The vision struck her as vividly as if it were her own memory.
Izayoi, running away from the burning manor of her childhood home with a crying newborn swathed in red but otherwise helpless in her arms. The power of Tenseiga's resurrection had healed all of her wounds, but the phantom pains of her labor remained, crippling her flight. Behind her, within the flames, a battle raged between the demon she loved and friend she'd known for more years than she could remember.
Within the forest, Izayoi found safety in the form of an older friend.
A tree, large and sacred, with roots that stretched up from the ground as if wishing to dance.
That tree had once been the only place where she could find solitude. It had once been the only being to know her truest self, beyond the facade of the chaste and witless princess. It was there that she'd met the brilliant yet queer mind of Togashimaru, and it was there that she learned so much more about herself and the world around them through his beautiful eyes.
Izayoi hid among the roots of the Goshinboku with her new infant child clung close to her chest. Inuyasha, her mind replayed the sound of Toga's voice. The name of her son, of their son, was Inuyasha.
She would cherish that name, always and with pride.
Under the soothing caress of the tree's energy, Inuyasha began to settle. The sounds of the fire crackled low in the distance. In the quiet, the battle seemed over.
But that was far form the truth.
At her back, where the bark of the tree dug into her shoulders, Izayoi felt a strange power surge up. Suddenly she was beside him, beneath him, all around him. She could feel Togashimaru falling into the wooden chasm of the bone eater's well.
She could feel him dying.
Sensing her disturbance, the baby in her arms began to cry.
Izayoi startled, then acted.
She lay the babe to the ground at her knees before reaching forward to grab one of the tree's thick roots. A faint pink light glowed at the tips of her fingers as she pressed hard into the wood, praying, willing Togashimaru to survive. Somehow. If only somehow she could reach him, to see him one last time.
If only for a minute longer, she needed him to live.
He needed the chance to hold their child, but once.
Izayoi felt the power pull from her hands and from her soul and then just as suddenly as it began, everything fell still. When she pulled away, lost and distraught, the princess could no longer sense the calming threads of the sacred tree.
Or, for that matter, anything at all.
Not the forest, not Togashimaru, not even her own power.
She'd given everything up for a single plea.
When Kagome came out of the vision, Izayoi's hand had pulled away to cover her delicate frown with the hem of her sleeve as she looked away.
"You were a priestess?" The younger woman guessed.
Izayoi closed her eyes. "No. In fact, I had not any preternatural gifts in my youth. Not before having met Toga." Then she explained. "The longer one without spends among those of power, the more likely they are to develop the sense of their own. The spark within me was as new as it was small, and I exhausted the entirety of it when I embedded my power with permanence to the core of the tree. The well, having been made out of the Goshinboku's branches, was spiritually still connected to its mother, and I unknowingly disrupted time itself to fulfill the selfish wish of a despairing lover.
"I was much younger then, and acted without considering the consequences. Too many times now I have seen this story play out and run afoul, only to revert back to the moment of my death. It was that moment that remained the only true certainty, and as such could never have been altered by your hand, no matter the purity of your intentions, Kagome."
With that, Kagome finally understood what the woman was saying.
"You've been living in a time loop. In the pin."
The specter looked as though she were floating when she stepped forward and bent to lift the old hair piece from the ground. Her hand did so without disturbing the snow. Handing it back to Kagome, she said, "Yes, and within the tree to which I have bound myself. With its bark as my own flesh, I have overseen many destinies. My existence is one in a realm beyond time, and yet it would loop back at the moment that pin is first placed within your possession, forbidding me to move past the time which brought you here."
Kagome took back the pin. Just those few details of the time loop were enough to give her a headache. "This entire time, you've been the sacred tree?"
"This time, and all others in circular parallel, yes."
"So, when Inuyasha was sealed to the tree with that arrow...?"
Izayoi's mouth turned up in a smile. It was so radiant that Kagome lost her breath.
She could see now, how Togashimaru could have been so beguiled by this enigmatic woman.
"In that time I was able to hold him safe within my arms as his mother, for but a moment longer." The ghost of the princess recalled, caressing the memory with her voice like a song. Then she bent forward into a curtsy of a respectful bow. "I cannot express to you my truest gratitude, Kagome, for freeing my child from that sleep. And for loving them with such warmth—both my gentle boy and my darling Togashimaru." When she rose, her expression was soft. "Upon your return to the West, plant my pin at the base of the tree and the circuit will finally come to its end, see things back to their rightful places."
Kagome could only nod.
Placing a glowing finger beneath the teenager's chin, the translucent woman tilted Kagome's head up, forcing the girl to straighten her crumbling posture.
"Do not you ever dare to doubt any of the choices you made here, Kagome." She said with kindness and with confidence. Then, seeing the tears beginning to well in the priestess' ocean blue eyes, Izayoi strained to smile once more. "Oh, my sweet child. All will be alright."
With one step forward, the ghost of Inuyasha's mother embraced her. The wrap of her many glowing kimonos should have been heavy around Kagome's shoulders, but they weren't. The sensation on her skin felt more like the wing of a bird or a spring wind, brushing warmth through the branches of a cherry tree.
Kagome missed the woman's touch before she even began to fade.
"I am so very sorry, Kagome, for putting so much upon you. But all will be alright."
Those words were the last that the older woman said before she disappeared into a ray of pink glitter, leaving Kagome and the two golden hair pins alone once more before the cold stone grave marker of the princess Izayoi.
Chapter End