Chapter 10: Day 43
Sango woke to the sound of rain striking the roof in harsh staccato. It was still dark. She was lying on a futon, still fully clothed, one of Kagome's blankets draped over her. No one was in the room.
She sat up, the blanket sliding from her shoulders, and watched as lightning flashed through the shoji screen, the trees outside dark, cruel shapes on the white silk. She counted three heart beats, then a rumbling moan of thunder swept across the land, followed by a curtain of silence.
In the stillness, her throat closed up, some feral thing clawing its way up. She needed to go.
She didn't bother to shuck her dress or tie up her hair, just strapped her guards on her arms through the material, then hiked up her skirt to do the same for her thighs. The moment she'd slid her boots on and stood to do a series of quick stretches, the tightness in her chest eased. Hiraikotsu wasn't in the room and neither was Kirara. It was fine. She didn't want to bring either. She just needed to breathe.
The rasp of her blade against its metal sheath filled the silence, making her fingers tremble and her pulse pound, but when she moved to the shoji screen and opened it, she made no sound. She slipped over the threshold of the doorway to the porch, looking around. There was no one, just shadows stalking down hallways with what felt like endlessly closed doors. She turned away and jumped down to the ground, her boots squelching only a little.
The rain caught her like an old memory. It's embrace was cold. She paused, looking up briefly, and the droplets pelted painfully on her upturned face, making her squint. A few seconds, and her long hair was already starting to plaster to her back.
If she was waiting for something, to feel something, it wasn't coming.
She looked down at her hands, clenching them, then strode purposefully around the building without looking back.
Sango walked in the rain, numb, absorbing the silence and the smells around her.
She had never been to this part of the world before. The farthest south she'd ever travelled was when she was twelve. She remembered her and Kohaku spying the coast from several hundred leagues away and staring with open astonishment at the blue ocean that swept like an endless field to the horizon. They'd huddled together, sleepy eyed and oblivious to the other taijya cleaning up the camp site. She had held his hand til dawn.
She was farther south now then she had been then. It was warmer than what she was used, even as the rain felt like shards of ice and she had to dart under the trees to avoid it. The trees too were different, thinner and more branched then their thickly barked cousins from more snowy regions. The smell in the air was more loamy than woodsy, with just a hint of salt.
She picked her way through the underbrush between flashes of lightning, forming something of a loose circle around the village, hoping that pacing the perimeter would put word and substance to the white noise in her head. But all she could think about was the harsh rub of her boots on the bare skin of her knees, the drag of her hair on her scalp, and how she could barely feel anything in her cold, wrinkling fingers.
It was almost a relief, then, when she accidentally stumbled into a youkai rat den.
She nearly lost her foot when a head snapped out of nearby hole and tried to bite off her ankle. Instinct kicked in. Before her brain had registered the threat, her body dodged back in a one-handed flip, and she landed lightly on her feet, arms in a fighting stance. In the time she had jumped back, several dark shadows had scurried out of the hole, beady eyes gleaming a dull yellow.
More creatures kept pouring out of the hole. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
Her kisode and skirts were heavy with rain water but it would work. A quick jerk of the fabric at her waist loosened the skirt and let her widen her stance. Her hand fluttered down to her waist, to the hilt of her short sword. The rat youkai who had tried to bite her, coming nearly to her hip when on its haunches, cocked its head at her. It's large, yellow hand-length teeth seemed to grin at her.
"Taijya," it hissed, flexing its claws.
Twenty minutes later, their numbers had dwindled down to only two.
Rats were sneaky and clever, but they were cowards. Fortunately for her, the pack was young. They were not used to humans, and most of the smaller ones had shrunk away at the sight of her. There were ten or so medium sized rats and they had all tensed, snarling at her, but only the leader had worked up the courage to charge.
After she'd neatly gutted him down the belly, the other rats went into to a frenzy of panic and confusion and she'd mowed through them.
A few escaped into the forest, but not many. A few had scurried back down the hidey-hole and later, when she returned to the inn to retrieve her pack, she'd have to remember to come back here and throw a poison bomb down there to finish them off. Better to spoil the nest then let it become occupied again.
One or two had been trampled by their own brethren, mewling pitifully until she put them out of their misery. The remaining had tried to fight, but she'd been trained with swords since she was an overeager five year old.
She whirled a kick into the back of the smallest, hearing the crunch of its body against a tree. The second gave a shriek and tried to jump for her throat, but she caught it mid air with an arm, slamming it to the ground and swiftly pinning it down with her foot.
"Who sent you?" she demanded, ignoring its squeals of pain. "How do you know who I am?"
At her demand, the creature's two front feet stopped scratching at her ankle. It looked up at her, sickly yellow eyes, and she felt a chill at the sudden awareness in them.
It opened it's mouth. She flinched an arm up to block her face, but the miasmic spit she was expecting didn't come. Instead, it screeched. The sound split through her head, making her eyes spill over with tears, and she lurched. She struggled not to drop to her knees and cover her ears.
That wasn't a scream. That was a call.
With a yell of her own, she forced her sword arm into a swing. Her blade bit into the soft flesh of the rat youkai's neck.
The screech cut off, leaving abrupt silence.
She stumbled back quickly, panting, staring at the youkai's steaming corpse. Her sleeves were soaked in black youkai blood. Dark rivulets streaked down her bare arms, the acidity of it stinging slightly.
Breathing hard, she peered around to make sure nothing was left and sheathed her sword. She stumbled to a nearby tree and pressed her back to it. The rain was still beating down on her, so she held out her arms, hoping the rain would wash most of the blood away from her skin. She closed her eyes, seeing a faint red haze that pulsed with her still rapidly beating heart.
She needed to leave the clearing and take stock. This was the second time a youkai had known what she was and she hadn't been wearing her taijya uniform. She should retreat back to the inn, perhaps discuss a strategy with her companions…Her face twisted sharply.
She stood there, panting, and opened her eyes, seeing only the mess of tree branches forming dark mazes above her.
She turned to examining herself, noting the angry scratches on her legs, a shallow but messy one on her bare right arm, but otherwise unharmed. At the thought she felt an odd rush of anger. It had been too easy. It hadn't hurt enough. They hadn't fought hard enough—
She cut off the thought, clenching her fists and pushing them into her eyes. She hissed a little at the sting of rain water on her exposed arm scratch and yet at least it was something—gods, she was going crazy.
What was she doing?
"What are you doing?"
Sango's whole body seized. Then, as reality reasserted itself, she started to tremble. She was not ready for this. But that didn't matter. She beat the feeling back, breathing deeply through her nose, then slowly lowered her hands from her face.
It was Inuyasha—of course it was. He was reclining against a tree several yards from her, arms crossed, and he didn't even look like the rain or the mud had touched him. She became suddenly aware of the dirt caked on her face, the gritty feel and weight of her clothes, the blood still dark splatters on her skin.
"Nothing." Her voice came out hoarse, cracking.
His eyes traced her figure, then turned his attention to the rat corpses. When he looked back at her, a single eyebrow was raised.
"Nothing," he echoed, unimpressed.
But when he had turned his head, a flash of lighting had illuminated his profile and she'd had a chance to look at the place she had hit him a few hours ago. To her great shock, there was nothing—no wound, no scar, no anything. When he opened his mouth to say something, she found herself saying, "It's healed, then."
He paused, confused. She felt a sharp stab of guilt. Why hadn't he been angry?
"I'm sorry," she blurted out.
Recognition flickered in his eyes. He raised a hand to his chin. After a moment, he shrugged. "Didn't really hurt."
Her fingers reached up to her own face, touching the scar he had given her two weeks ago. When it had stopped bleeding, she'd stopped bandaging it, but it was still red and a little raw looking. She saw him tense when he noticed. "Still," she muttered. "You didn't deserve it."
His expression was wary now, eyes flicking to her scar. She felt a flash of regret—she hadn't brought it up to imply anything. She dropped her hand.
They stared at each other.
"What happened?" he said, finally. She knew he wasn't talking about the rat youkai. She clenched her jaw, trying to fight down feeling like a cornered animal. They were back to square one, back to yesterday. Their conversations always circled round and round, never changing. They would always end the same way.
This was no good. She didn't know how to talk to him in a way that wasn't angry, hurtful, spiteful. She was tired of sticking her foot in her mouth. Maybe the best thing was to do was not say anything at all.
She turned her back on him, intending to walk back to the inn.
"Where are you going?" he said sharply.
"I don't want to argue with you," she retorted. She felt more than heard him follow her, the strikes of his heels on the ground reverberating into her soles. He pulled up beside her, face full of annoyance.
"Is that what you do," he asked, "just run away when things get uncomfortable?"
She twitched, even as she kept walking. "I am not running. I just don't know what to say."
"No?" he said. "Seemed like you had plenty to say earlier. So talk." When she said nothing, he sighed sharply. "You are so fucking confusing. You were the one that kept going on about being a team player, but now that its your turn to give something, clearly you are a hypocrite—"
That cut. She whirled on him. "You don't know what you're talking about."
His face turned serious. "Then tell me."
No. Frustration made her hands shake. "You won't understand."
"Oh yeah?" he challenged. "Only because you won't let me try."
There was a beat of silence, where Sango couldn't hide the look of shock of her face. Inuyasha just glared at her defensively. But he was honest. For once, he was being god damn honest, she could see it.
There was blood on his face. But it was his eyes, filled with something like regret and compassion and that other thing she would not name that made her throat close up.
She started to tremble. No, just no. She was not going to do this. She was not going to start caring about how he felt. She didn't have the capacity to feel anything for anyone anymore. She'd been down this road with Kagewaki before.
"Why now?" she said finally, and Inuyasha must have heard the edge to it, because his ears flattened slightly.
"What?"
"Why now?" she demanded. Her voice was raising in volume. "Why all of the sudden are you trying to care now? You've never cared before."
He frowned at her. "That's—"
"Don't lie," she hissed. She clenched her hands into fists. "This has only ever been a mutually beneficial relationship. Don't pretend that just because we had a…a moment the other day means that anything has changed."
He reared back as if she'd slapped him, shock registering on his expression. And then he tensed and finally, the anger she had been waiting for was suddenly there, a roaring seething beast under his skin.
"You unfeeling bitch," he said and she flinched, stung. But then she thought, yes, this was familiar territory.
"That's right," she lashed out, poking a finger into his chest, ignoring the flash of warning in his eyes, "Don't forget it again. You don't care and I don't want you to care. The only thing I want is Naraku's head on a pike and I will use all of you to get it—"
Faster than she could see, he grabbed her offending hand, squeezing til her bones creaked painfully and she was baring her teeth at him. He bared his teeth back. "I have had it up to here with you're lying bull shit," he practically snarled, and she felt her chest squeeze in dismay, no, that wasn't the right response. "You are fucking unbelievable—"
But Sango had had enough of this conversation.
She tried to jerk her hand out of his grasp, but he was as always, unmovable. Her pulse ratcheted up in her throat. God, he always made her feel out of control.
"Let go," she bit out, and she reached up and grabbed a thick handful of hair, yanking. He snarled, his other hand grabbing her arm, fingers digging into the scratch on her arm hard enough to make her yowl, and then she was jerking back and he was crowding into her and her back hit a low hanging branch.
"Would you stop with this again—" he was saying, teeth gritted, but she was no longer listening.
She kicked out at his knee, just like last time. He cursed and fell, dragging her under him, and they hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She immediately bucked underneath him, nearly unseating him, but he recovered his balance swiftly. He straddled her waist, his free hand immediately gripping her hand in his hair, and then he was twisting her wrist slowly but painfully inwards until her bones couldn't take it. She finally let go of his hair with a gasp, reeling back to alleviate the twist, and then both her hands hit the ground on either side of her harshly.
It was like an awful parody of that time before, her on the ground, him on top of her, but there was nothing sexual about it this time. They were doing this same song and dance, over and over again, and she wanted to scream.
"Let go," she panted.
"Then stop always fighting me," he snapped back, equally out of breath.
They were at an impasse.
The rain poured down on the two of them as they stared at each other. His expression cooled slowly until he was just looking at her, expression unreadable, so always god damn unreadable. She watched as his hair became matted with water and rivulets of water sleuthed down his face and chin to pour onto her chest. It was cold. Her hands were numb. He was a warm brand on her wrists, on her stomach and hips, on either side of her legs. He was her only connection to any feeling other than the dull thud of her pulse.
She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to laugh. Fate was a cruel thing. It had been easier when she had thought of him as a monster. She still wanted to believe it, desperately wanted to go back. But how could she, anymore?
There was no going back. There never had been. She could only keep stumbling down the path laid before, making the same mistakes over and over again.
He must have sensed her despair because the grip on her wrists lessened a fraction. "I am going to move off you now," he said slowly. "Okay?"
He waited patiently till she nodded. She felt him shift his weight, his knees sliding backwards through the mud, and then he was carefully pulling her up into a sitting position, his hands still around her wrists. She let him, pulling herself up the rest of the way, and watched as he scooted far enough that she'd have to lunge to get at his face. Then, slowly, he let her go, his palms held up and open in an unthreatening way as he sat back on his heels. Slowly, her arms dropped into her lap.
They stared at each other in silence. Eventually, the cold won out and her legs curled up to her body and she wrapped her arms around them. Her muscles felt stiff and aching, her skin hot and painful where she had been scratched from her earlier fight. She realized, suddenly, that she was exhausted. Too little sleep, to much emotion, too much happening at once. She wanted the ground to swallow her up, take her someplace warm and dry where there was no voices, no complicated men, no dreams.
She must have started to doze off because there was a noise and she jolted her head up to find Inuyasha in the process of disrobing from his haori. He froze, looking at her, but when she only blinked blearily at him, he shucked his remaining arm out of his haori, giving the jacket a sharp shake that cast a dazzling arc of water in the air. Almost immediately, under the slow drizzle, his white undershirt began to plaster to his skin.
With only a little hesitation, Inuyasha held his jacket out to her. She looked at it, then looked at him. He sighed sharply, then leaned forward, one knee coming down to squelch in in the mud as his arms loosely caged her and the coat draped over her head and back.
It was warm, almost shockingly so. Instinctually she reached up, drawing it tighter to herself. It smelled like him—woodsy, the way the smell of winter trees with thick bark was cloying during the spring. She breathed in deeply. She saw from her peripherals that his arms fell to his sides, but he didn't move away. After a moment of staring blankly at his chest, she tilted her head up to look at him.
He was staring down at her. His eyes weren't really yellow, but a dark amber with veins of gold at the edges and brown near the slitted iris—were studying her own, flicking minutely between them. His mouth was drawn into a frown, but it was soft in a way she'd never seen—or maybe never cared to see.
Afterwards, she would blame her tiredness, or their fight, or the dreams. She would blame how it had felt when he'd called her an unfeeling bitch, because despite everything, she really wasn't, even if she desperately wanted to be. She found herself reaching a hand up, watching as he flinched and then steeled himself for a slap. But she only pressed a brief open palm to the collar of his wet transparent shirt, then skirted up his throat, her thumb skimming a vein and making him swallow convulsively.
Her fingers found his chin, where she had cut him with the plate, in the exact place—she flinched—that she had hit Kagewaki too. This close up, she could see now that the wound wasn't in fact fully healed. A white webbed thread spread from his lower jaw, clawing up his cheek. She pressed a thumb to it, feeling the rough edge of healed skin. By tomorrow, it would be gone.
"I really am sorry," she whispered.
She jumped at a mirrored touch on her own cheek, her eyes flashing down to find that he too had reached up, the back of his knuckles tracing the mark he had given her.
It wasn't a demanding or a sensual touch, like she half expected, and yet somehow it made her heart clench. When was the last time that someone had touched her without demand or pity? When her father would pat her head affectionately? When she could get Kohaku, rolling his eyes with embarrassment, to hold her hand?
"Me too," he said gruffly, not looking her in the eyes, and something in Sango broke a little.
Without thinking she leaned into the touch, eyes closing tightly. He froze, but she ignored him. Her hand moved from his face to his arm, clutching at his wrist. Please, she thought, not even knowing what exactly she was asking. Maybe for time to stop. Just give her a moment. This moment.
When she did nothing, she felt his hand relax perceptibly against her. There was a pause, then his palm turned over and he was cupping her jaw they way she had his, a thumb tracing delicately over the split of the scar on her cheekbone. A pleasant warmth shivered through her. She breathed out slowly into his wrist, not realizing she had been holding her breath, and felt more than heard him swallow.
Her wound she knew was an ugly blotchy red, though it was high up enough on her face that her hair usually covered it completely. Not so now, with her wet hair sticking to her neck. And unlike his, it would most definitely scar.
Unbidden, a memory of a dream. Let it. Something of you to keep.
She jerked, eyes snapping open. Her eyes met his. After a moment, she let go of his wrist, and then slowly, she felt him let go of her cheek, his hand dropping into his lap. His touch was still there though, a lingering warmth where his skin had met hers.
She couldn't look away. The way he was looking at her pinned her to the ground. Like somehow she was an open book and he was reading every page. She swallowed, fingers curling in her lap.
Finally, he looked away, staring at something over her shoulder. He leaned back on his haunches, then stood in a graceful, effortless motion. Even muddied and wet, he somehow looked untouched. Untouchable.
"Dawn is a few hours away," he said, sounding annoyed, but that was how he normally sounded when he talked to her. He held out a hand to her. "You should sleep."
She looked at him, then looked at his hand, then reached out and grasped it. He hauled her quickly to her feet, letting her go the moment she had her own balance, and she felt an odd disappoint when the brief warmth of his hand quickly faded in the cold. When he only stood there, staring her down again with uncharacteristic patience, she simply turned and began to head back the way they had come.
Sango clutched the haori tightly to herself, but it still didn't protect her from the searing gaze that she knew was trained on her back the entire trip back. The rain started to abate and yet the silence that replaced it was somehow worse. She wasn't sure if he was trying to dissect her piece by piece or flay her open or just examine her until she shriveled under his gaze. The feeling didn't abate until they were in the inn yard and she turned her attention to tiredly hauling herself up onto the porch.
Her body, of course, decided this was the perfect moment to protest. Her arms felt like wet noodles struggling against her body weight and she felt acute embarrassment at him watching her struggle so pathetically.
Suddenly, there was a wall of heat at her back. His hands on her body, longs fingers spanning the curve of her hip bones. She stiffened, a sharp bolt of something down her spine, but then she was being hoisted up and sat down on her knees on the porch floor. She jerked around to find him standing behind her. To her surprise, he was out right glaring at her in challenge.
A horrifying flush started to creep up her neck. Even after everything, apparently, she could still find it in her to be mortified. But she hung on valiantly to her dignity. It would be unbelievably petty to tell him she could do it herself when she clearly couldn't, but somehow she couldn't fit the words "thank you" out of her mouth.
He grunted, looking up at the sky, then looking her up and down, reminding her distinctly that she was waterlogged and probably looked and smelled like a dead rat. Many dead rats. "I don't want to stand here til dawn," he said crossly. "Go to bed."
She gave him a withering look before getting to her feet and walked to her room. She barely repressed the urge to slam the shoji screen behind her. She waited in the darkness, clutching his jacket to her, until she heard him give an annoyed sigh and finally walk away.
Later, after she had bathed herself as best she could with the water bowl in the corner and she had laid his haori, neatly folded, outside the door, she lay curled under the blanket staring blankly into the darkness. Her fingers touched her cheek, thinking about that moment in the rain. Tracing the scar that was his, that he had given her.
Let it. Something of you to keep.
Despite everything, she still dreamed.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked from the curve of his arm. His dark hair tickled her fingertips.
He turned, crooked a half smile at her. His hand ghosted along her skin, and she shivered.
Day 44
Dawn was cold and grey and still raining
Sango heard Kagome packing from where she sat on the walkway outside the girl's room. The girl and Shippou softly whispered to each other, the kitsune occasionally giggling. Sango rested her head against the wooden pillar she'd been sitting next to, trying just to listen. The rain made a hollow thump-thump on the clay roof.
Eventually, there was the snick of the shoji screen opening from behind her. Kagome appeared in a crouch at her peripherals, absently smoothing the pleats in her skirt as she peered at the view Sango had been staring at for some hours.
"Sango?" she asked. "Will you be coming with us?"
Sango looked at her, then back at the trees and lifted a hand in a wave. The girl hesitated, then stood and laid a brief hand on her shoulder. Somehow, it wasn't as overbearing as Sango thought it might be.
"We're heading a little more south," she said, "Feel free to join us anytime, okay?" She waited til Sango nodded, then smiled and left her alone.
Sango listened as Kagome directed Shippou to carry something and then began dragging her bag towards the front of the inn. Around the corner, the noise— and the kitsune's cautious 'Is she okay?'—faded beneath the thumping of the rain.
Sango thought about getting up and looking for Miroku, ask him more details about where they were headed, maybe apologize. She wondered, briefly, if either he or Inuyasha would show up. To ask her again what happened. They didn't.
She stayed on the porch for another hour or so, ignoring the quick steps of the servants and their whispers. She kept her eyes on the tree line and her hand on Kirara, who lay curled in a small warm ball at her hip.
Day 45
If she'd thought she'd already experienced the worst of it, she was gravely mistaken.
She dreamed of Kagewaki all over again, every excruciating new detail. Felt every tug and burn of emotion as if she didn't know how it would really end.
She woke—hot, yearning, empty, wrathful, her arm sleeve soaked with tears.