A/N: Back for more. Thanks.
Chapter Two
Miroku knew there was something about her. Something very conspicuous about her, other than her fatuity, struck him every time she was near. He could not call it acquaintance; he certainly did not recognize her physically. He had, however, an inkling that he had met the young woman before. Now he was convinced.
"Who are you?" Miroku asked apprehensively as he leaned over the lip of the tub, scrutinizing the girl on the floor for reasons other than her nudity.
She looked up quickly. If she were trying to hide her discomfort with her answer, she did a poor job. "I'm Rin, Mr. Miroku."
"I'm aware of that," he said, his curiosity keeping him from snapping at her. "What I want to know is—" He stopped abruptly.
A moment of silence lapsed. "Mr. Miroku?" Rin asked. She appeared rather frightened.
"You're that girl, aren't you?" Miroku asked, leaning further out of the tub. "The little girl that always trailed behind Inuyasha's brother."
Rin sat back suddenly. "I am. I mean, I did. A long time ago."
It then occurred to Miroku that not only was her face was familiar. She exuded that striking aura, one Miroku felt he would always recall. She felt almost demonic, as if she were still wearing the residual presence of the Lord Sesshomaru.
"I suppose that explains it," Miroku said, rubbing his chin.
"Explains what?"
"Why I knew I had been near you before. That is not an aura I would quickly forget."
Rin nodded almost solemnly. "Nor would I."
At first, Miroku thought that comment just another vapid Rin-ism, and he did not understand why she had sobered so quickly. He then realized that she was speaking of the original source of the aura. But why would the mention of the Demon Lord sadden her?
"I think we should discuss this further," Miroku suggested.
Rin perked quickly, making her breasts bob distractingly. "All right."
Miroku swallowed and looked away. "But perhaps you sho—we should find a more appropriate place to talk."
Rin furrowed her brow, clearly uncertain what was wrong with talking in the bathhouse. Could he not hear her over the rain? She looked around before remembering that she was naked. "Ooh," she said, nodding in understanding. "All right. Well, don't take too long." With that, she stood and hurried out of the soaking room. Miroku surreptitiously watched her dress.
Once Rin was gone, Miroku turned back and settled into the tub. He brought his knees up, rested his elbows on them, and began absently rubbing his right palm. It was the last habit involving the Wind Tunnel – or what was left of it – that he allowed himself.
So this was Rin? This was the little girl that seemed to defy all logic – or at least the small fraction of logic Miroku had allotted to the mysterious Demon Lord. Why would an elitist, human-hater take in a small child? There were many possible reasons, all of which either conflicted with the nature of Rin, the Demon Lord, or both. It seemed, however, that it was Miroku's time to find out the truth behind the paradox.
With a resigned sigh, Miroku allowed himself to sink beneath the water before emerging, removing himself from the tub, and dressing quickly.
He stepped into his sandals and slid open the door. He paused under the awning when he saw the girl standing a distance away on the raised walk, clasping her hands before her and looked terribly concerned. Behind her, the lamps were lit across the garden, illuminating the destruction on the other side of the temple. When he crossed the path and stepped up onto the walk, he gave Rin a quizzical expression.
"I didn't know if you were going to come," she said before darting ahead of him.
Did she think he would sit in the tub all night, he wondered? That would have made her more irritated than concerned, though. Miroku watched her back as she scurried away. Or was she just that desperate, that afraid? After all, she had been searching for him for a very long time.
Then again, Miroku thought, this was Rin. She, as a girl, as a human, as a person, made no sense at all. He would probably inflict bodily harm on himself while trying to understand her.
Kado was meditating in the lecture hall, and Rin insisted that they leave him be. They tiptoed across the tatami as quickly as they could while Kado tried desperately to ignore them. As they left, Miroku snatched up one of the lamps by the door and left Kado in semi-darkness.
Once in the main hall, Rin and Miroku sat themselves down by the large Buddha, and Miroku set the lamp between them. Rin made a fuss of settling her oversized kimono in a wrinkled pool around her legs, but Miroku thought she was simply trying to delay. He finally cleared his throat, making Rin jolt and then sit very still.
"Where were we?" she asked, smiling disarmingly.
"You were explaining everything."
"Oh… right. Well, um… where should I start? There is an awful lot to explain."
Miroku was getting irritated with the way she was fiddling with her hands. The girl could face down a raging, slathering demon gamely yet could not answer a few questions without twitching? It made Miroku want to twitch back.
"Perhaps at the beginning."
"All right. I started looking for you in the early spring. I tried all the large temples, but—"
"No," Miroku interrupted. "The beginning."
"Oh," Rin said. "You mean that beginning." She cleared her throat. "I suppose you're wondering, like everyone else wonders, why I started following Lord Sesshomaru in the first place." Miroku nodded. "It's actually quite simple, really. I died. Lord Sesshomaru found me, revived me, and kept me."
"He kept you?" Miroku asked, raising a brow.
"Well," Rin scratched gently at her temple. "I think it was more like I kept him, and he didn't seem to mind."
Miroku did not even bother replying to that. Despite his disbelief, Miroku was grateful to see that Rin was gradually brightening. He found her cheer rather grating, but her sorrow was downright disconcerting.
Rin laughed at the skeptical look on his face. "Truly, that's what happened. I had found him in the woods about a week earlier. He was laying against a tree as serenely as ever, looking like…" Rin paused. She then turned to the Buddha and pointed at his blank, focused face. "Looking like him." She brought her hand back to her lap. "Like he could be anywhere because it was all his in the first place."
Miroku could imagine that look. It was the same way Sesshomaru looked in all Miroku's memories of him.
"He was—" Rin stopped abruptly.
"What?" Miroku asked.
"I doubt… I don't think Lord Sesshomaru would appreciate me speaking of it. But I'll tell you. Just don't tell Lord Sesshomaru that I told you." Rin spoke the last behind her hand, as though Buddha might overhear and tattle.
Miroku snorted. "All right."
"When I found him, he was wounded."
Miroku refrained from drawling out, "What a shame."
"He had lost his arm. I didn't find out until later that he had lost it in battle with his younger brother, Inuyasha. I decided then that I didn't like Lord Sesshomaru's brother very much."
"And yet you still search for him?"
"Well, I have no choice," Rin replied tartly. "But I'll explain all that. Don't interrupt me."
Miroku snorted again. "My apologies. How rude of me."
"Thank you. Anyway, Lord Sesshomaru was very frightening when I found him. He growled at me when I got close the first few times, but then I started bringing him food and water. He let me get close then. He even started speaking to me."
"What did he say?" Miroku asked, suddenly intrigued by the thought of someone as petrifying as Sesshomaru trying to make conversation with a small, human child. It was rather amusing.
"He asked why I was helping him."
"Really?"
"Yes, but he told me right after that he didn't really care."
"And what was your answer?"
"Oh," Rin said. "Well, I wasn't really talking much at the time. My parents and brother had just died, and I wasn't doing very well." Her voice began to drop, but she abruptly brightened. "But Lord Sesshomaru fixed all that!"
"He revived your family?"
"No." Rin put her hands on her hips. "I already told you what he did. But, as I was saying, he told me that he didn't really care what I said, but I came back anyway. Would you like to know why?" She did not wait for Miroku to answer. "Once, a very long time ago, I found a kitten under the stairs of the headman's house. She was just a little, tiny thing. She was very scared, so she would not let me close to her. I started bringing her little bit of fish from my plate whenever I could, and before long, she started coming out. I named her Kibou, and she came to live with my family. She was a sweet little cat. But I knew, if I could get Kibou to like me with food and water, I could get Lord Sesshomaru to like me, too."
Miroku thought Rin was very fortunate. Few would consider using kitten-tactics with a demon, and even fewer would live to talk about it. It made him wonder, though, what made Sesshomaru act so strangely. It certainly would have made more sense for him to kill her when he had recovered.
"And what happened to little Kibou?" Miroku asked.
Rin looked at the flickering lamp between then, her hands fisted in her kimono. "She disappeared after I died."
"Ah," Miroku said, nodding. Of her entire story, the cat running away seemed like the only part that was not entirely impossible. Yes, he could understand the cat.
"You see this?" Rin asked, pointing to a pink, puckered scar on her throat. Miroku had noticed it before, but thought nothing of it. It was not a gruesome scar, certainly not one that could have resulted from a too terribly grievous wound. "This is where my throat was ripped out."
Or, Miroku thought, it would be the residual effect of having one's throat ripped out. Nothing too grievous.
"Oh… my."
"Mmm-hmm. I was attacked by wolves. I don't remember much after that."
"No, I suppose death can do that."
"Yes. All I can recall is waking up and being all achy, like my body did not want to move. I guess it was all set to go, but Lord Sesshomaru felt otherwise."
"Indeed."
"Anyway, he revived me, and we left together with Master Jakken. That was Lord Sesshomaru's retainer. The little frog man."
"Yes, I recall Master Jakken," Miroku replied. "He was a quite a loyal little servant, wasn't he?"
Rin rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yes, Jakken was dedicated." She put a crooked finger to her lower lip. "I wonder what happened to him. I guess I'll find out when I find Lord Sesshomaru."
"How did you and he get separated?"
Miroku almost jumped back in surprise when Rin flashed a huge grin at him. "It's the silliest story!"
"Oh?' Miroku asked hesitantly.
"Mmm-hmm. Lord Sesshomaru left me with a family in a village in the south. He was going to come back for me, but he must have been very busy."
"He left you?" Why, Miroku wondered, would the first Sesshomaru-like action the demon lord had done in this story come as a surprise to him? Of course Sesshomaru had abandoned the girl! Rin was lucky Sesshomaru had just left her and not bothered to remove her entrails first.
Rin nodded. "He was preparing for a battle and did not want me to be harmed, so he made me stay where I would be safe."
Miroku thought it more accurate to say that Sesshomaru did not want the girl underfoot. "How considerate of him," Miroku replied. Only after Rin scowled did Miroku remember that, in this particular audience, sarcastic stabs as Sesshomaru's character were frowned upon. "How long ago was this?"
Rin put her finger to her mouth and began counting on her free hand. She had four fingers raised when she replied, "About two years ago."
"You've been waiting two years?"
Miroku watched as Rin shifted abruptly from her sweet, charmingly dense self to something defensive, coiling on its haunches. "I knew he would be very upset when he returned for me if I wasn't there; he had told me to stay, and leaving would be going against his wishes. So I waited. I wouldn't want to aggravate him."
A demon of Sesshomaru's caliber could find anyone if he wanted, no matter the distance in miles or years. Miroku knew that, and he had an inkling that Rin knew that as well. It would have mattered little how far she traveled from that village; had Sesshomaru wanted to return and collect her, he would have. The hard, still look on Rin's face let Miroku know that Rin was already aware of this and that she had remained there for an entirely different reason that she had no intention of sharing with him.
"I left because I began to fear that something had happened to him," Rin continued. "Lord Sesshomaru may have gotten hurt, and it is my responsibility to find out if he has and where he is recovering."
Sesshomaru would not require two years to recover. The options seemed clear to Miroku: either Sesshomaru had survived and opted to abandon Rin or the demon lord was dead. He imagined this was clear to Rin as well.
"Your responsibility?" Miroku asked.
"Yes," Rin replied firmly. "As his vassal."
"Now you are left with the onus of searching out Inuyasha so he can help you find Sesshomaru?" Rin nodded. "And what if Sesshomaru has died?"
"He has not. I would know."
Just as she would know her monk the moment she saw him, Miroku thought. The girl stank of her fear, of her denial. For one reason or another, Sesshomaru was quite done with her. Miroku thought she was pathetic but had neither the courage nor the compassion to tell her.
"What makes you think Inuyasha will agree to take you? Or that he even knows where his brother is?"
"I will convince him," Rin said, putting her fist down on the tatami between them. "And he'll be able to find Lord Sesshomaru even if only because he's a half-demon. I don't intend on giving up until I find my lord, Mr. Miroku. I think that much is clear by now."
Yes, it was transparent. Miroku closed his eyes and nodded. "I will be unable to aid you, Miss Rin, on your journey. I have many responsibilities here at the temple that I cannot simply shirk off on Kado."
Rin blinked. "What?"
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Rin." It was the most humane thing he would do. Perhaps, without him, she would give up her miserable journey and return to her village. It would only end poorly if Miroku went.
When Miroku looked up, Rin's face was just as still as it had been before, only now her eyes were widened slightly. She stared at him for a long, unnerving moment before blinking and looking down.
"All right," she replied resignedly. "I understand, Mr. Miroku. I'll be leaving then." With that, she pushed herself up from the floor and turned toward the door where blustery night was leaking in.
"Wait," Miroku said, jumping to his feet and immediately regretting moving so quickly. "You needn't leave tonight!"
"I've gotten all I need from your temple, sir. I feel wrong taking more," Rin replied tightly, turning and watching him from the door. "If you will not accompany me, then I will find Inuyasha alone."
Miroku knew an ultimatum when we saw one. Though he would not be manipulated as such, he was not particularly fond of sending the girl off into the cold, rainy night all by herself.
He could however, manipulate back. "Perhaps you should eat before you leave. It's a long walk to the next village."
Rin paused, her back to the monk.
"And didn't you want to see that staff you used again? I recall you asking about those weapons as well. Certainly you'll stay to see those."
Her resolve was flickering as violently as the flame in the lamp.
"And Kado would be so disappointed if you left without saying goodbye."
Miroku watched her fists clench at her sides.
"It's a horrible night for traveling, too. But… if your heart is set on leaving, I suppose I can't stop you. Have a safe and speedy journey, Miss Rin. I hope you find—"
Rin spun around. "It is a horrible night!" Rin exclaimed. "All that wind and rain. You're absolutely right. I guess I can stay until it's clear… just to say goodbye to Kado… and see those weapons." Rin gritted her teeth. "And eat something."
Miroku thought he heard her mutter something profane under her breath, but he decided not to pry.
-
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-
"Why do you keep such a heavy lock on the door?" Rin asked, palming the large, rusty padlock that held the doors of the garden shed closed futilely. Miroku came around to the front of the shed, holding a waxed paper umbrella over them both.
"I had intended on keeping others out." Had someone given Miroku that answer, he would have informed this someone that that was quite apparent; however, he hoped Rin would not notice.
She nodded, still eyeing the lock. "Perhaps you should have put your treasure in a thicker-walled shed. I broke in quite easily." She dropped the lock, which thumped dully against the wooden door. Dipping out from under the umbrella, Rin made her way around to the damaged wall.
"Well, you were picked up and thrown against it," Miroku pointed out, but Rin was not listening.
With the hem of her kimono around her knees, Rin stepped gingerly through the jagged portal and out of the rain. Miroku came after and followed her inside.
"This is quite a collection, Mr. Miroku," Rin said admiringly. She reached out and brushed her fingers over the wrapped hilt of a sheathed sword.
Miroku, standing by the entrance shaking out the umbrella, looked over his shoulder and replied, "It's almost two years of work."
Rin glanced at him, searching for permission to handle the sword. Miroku was reluctant to let her touch anything less benign than the umbrella in his hands, but he must have made some gesture or expression that Rin took to mean go right ahead. With an appreciative giggle, Rin hoisted the sword, sheath and all, off the shelf and into her arms. For a moment, she cradled it rather protectively before attempting to pull the sword from its scabbard. At first, she worked very carefully, fingering the adorned hilt lovingly, but when the rust and age of the blade seemed to be less than cooperative, Rin opted to put aside her awe in place of determination. With a string of grunts and sighs, Rin got the sword halfway out.
"Could you help me a little, Mr. Miroku?" Rin asked, her face rosy from the effort.
Miroku, who was all but plastering himself against the opposite wall, smiled disarmingly. "You can do it!" he cheered with a small punch of his right fist. "I have faith."
Rin batted her eyelashes. "Why thank you, Mr. Miroku." She went back to wrestling with the sword.
With one last, loud grunt, Rin jerked the sword free and swung it in a wide arch to keep her balance. Once she had found her feet, Rin delicately set the sheath aside.
"This sword has a very nice feel to it," she said, taking it in her right hand and spinning it in a full circle. "It feels… dragonic."
Miroku, while vacillating between fearing for his life and appreciating a wet woman with a nice sword, was rather impressed by her observation. "It is, actually," he replied. "It was made from the sacrum of very powerful dragon from the south."
"Do you know who?" Rin asked, giving the sword a slash to the right.
"I'm sorry?" Miroku asked.
Rin set the tip of the sword in the dirt floor and turned to Miroku. "Do you know the dragon's name or his rank?"
Miroku did not realize that dragons had names and ranks. "Uh… no?"
With a chagrined snort, Rin looked back at the blade. "I bet it was an ambassador. They always get slain," she said. "It's because no human is foolish enough to attack a dragon when he's with his kin, but the minute he's separated," she gave the sword a hard stab forward. "It's sad really. Dragon ambassadors are quite clever. They play a wonderful game of kemari."
Rin glanced at Miroku, saw the expression she was expecting – bewilderment, of course – and looked back at the sword.
"I suppose you didn't know that, did you? That dragons played kemari?"
Miroku did not know anything about dragons other than they were big and inevitably wanted to eat him. He always felt that was all one really needed to know about them. "No, I did not," he replied. The image of a dragon, a looming, wriggly, short limbed dragon attempting to bounce a ball on its knees – did dragons even have knees? – was rather humorous to Miroku. "How did they play?" he asked when his curiosity grew too great.
"Very well!' Rin said. She sheathed the sword and began to hop around the small space in the shed, tossing up her knees as though bouncing an unseen ball in the air. "So graceful and quick. Just like this."
"I know how the game is played, Miss Rin. I'm asking—"
"Oh, of course!" Rin said, coming to as stop before Miroku. "They would take on their unnatural form to play. They looked almost human." She began to laugh. "You didn't think they played in their true form, did you?"
Miroku frowned. "Forgive me my ignorance of dragon tradition," he said sarcastically.
"It's all right," Rin replied, giving him a dismissive wave. Something to Miroku's right caught her eye, and she dashed by him. "Oh, this is a find," she said, reaching to the shadowy back of a low shelf. Miroku felt himself leaning around to see what she had found despite himself.
Coughing from the disturbed dust, Rin pulled a long, slender hilt toward herself. She took a step closer and dropped to her knees before the shelf and gradually dragged another sword into her grasp, this one nearly her height in length.
"The ceremonial odachi," Rin said, awestruck. "Where on earth did you find this?" Very delicately, Rin balanced the sword across her lap and stroked it as though it were alive.
"That is one of the few items here that I purchased."
Rin looked up, aghast. "You bought this?"
"I did."
"But why would you buy such a thing?" she asked, her brow wrinkling.
Miroku thought the real reason – to impress a woman – was a rather poor excuse in wake of Rin's reaction. "For my collection, of course."
Slowly, she turned back to the sword. "That is absolutely shameful, Mr. Miroku."
"Excuse me?"
"I said," Rin turned stern eyes on him, "That is absolutely shameful. This is a very old, very well made sword, Mr. Miroku. You bought it from a merchant who obviously did not understand its value. If he truly knew, he never would have sold it. He would have built it a shrine."
"I'm afraid I fail to see its value, as well."
"This is a Hitokage piece," Rin said, pointing to the name engraved on the scabbard. "It's very rare and very old. Your merchant friend probably stole it out of a shrine. Shameful." Rin looked down. "He probably thought nothing of it since it is a demon piece."
"He probably did not recognize the signature on it," Miroku said, an edge of defense in his voice. He had rather liked that particular merchant; he had hardily seemed like the type to disrespect a blade simply because it was demonic and not human.
"Why, Mr. Miroku, do you have a shed full of demonic weapons, rusting in the dark? Why did you have a big lock on it? It's like you're hording them. Are you expecting an attack? Is there an army you must outfit?" As Rin spoke, she closed her fists around the sword.
"I assure you, Miss Rin, I have a reason for storing these weapons," Miroku replied rather tautly.
"Is it a good reason or just a reason?"
Before, he thought it was a weak reason at best. Now, Miroku thought it was a piss-poor one. "It is a valid reason."
Rin made a noise in her throat, gently slid the sword back onto the shelf, and rose to her feet. She dusked off her shins and stood up straight. "Well, I suppose I must trust you."
Miroku almost drawled out something sarcastic, but he contained himself. "Is there anything else you'd like to see?"
She, in true Rin fashion, seemed to forget that she had been upset about something, turned back to the shelf, and began rubbing her chin. "There are so many things, here, Mr. Miroku. I could spend years just sifting through. It would be nicer, however, if there was some kind of organization."
"There is organization," Miroku replied quickly.
"Oh?"
"Yes… the swords are over there… in that one place." He pointed to the corner were many swords were leaning in their scabbards against the wall.
Rin laughed through her nose and turned away from him. "What happened to that staff? Did it get put back in here?"
Now that Rin was unarmed, Miroku felt more comfortable approaching her. Pulling his water-weighted sleeves back from his hands, Miroku came to stand at Rin's left. "I brought it back here before we began working on the debris," he said, his gaze searching through the adumbral stockpile. "Here we are!" Miroku declared as he reached out and closed his hand around the waiting staff where it had been left, leaning against the wall.
Rin hummed excitedly. Miroku passed the staff to her, and she held it to her sternum. "I'm actually trained with one of these."
"Are you?"
"Mmm-hmm. Traveling with Lord Sesshomaru could be rather dangerous at times; he wanted me to be able to protect myself." With that, she hurried out of the shed and into the muddy cloister. Miroku followed her only as far as the impromptu entrance, where he stood, watching her rather curiously.
Once in the middle of the clearing, Rin began to bounce of the balls of her feet as she struggled to haul her dripping sleeves back. When she felt she was ready, Rin spread her feet and closed her eyes. She drew in a long, deep breath and visibly settled herself down into her center of balance. With her eyes still closed, she gave the staff one spin then two spins at her side, creating a blurry, brown circle against which her serene, tanned profile stood strong.
Miroku watched her as she began her sequence, seemingly unhindered by the rain. She took one long, slow step forward followed by a blindingly fast, sharp sweep behind her with the staff. With a slow, graceful pivot on her right foot, she snapped the staff back upright to her side by way of a blurry swipe over her head. She sliced the staff down once before her, twice before her, and snapped it out to the right. All the while, she moved with her eyes closed.
Miroku was impressed. She was quite swift and accurate with the staff. He, being familiar with this particular form of combat, was surprised to see that, for all Rin's clumsy mannerisms and awkward conversational skills, she could probably defeat him in battle. The right hand inside his sleeve, now solid and innocuous, gave a clench at the thought of being so helpless.
There were moments, Miroku had found, when he paused and remembered that, despite her seeming attempts to be otherwise, Rin was a very attractive woman. Now, with her heart-shaped face flushed and damp, her mouth opened as she breathed, and her dark lashes lowered, Miroku was reminded quite pointedly what a lovely specimen she was. Even the gray tent of a kimono she wore only worked to her benefit, making her appear petite where the fabric drooped and delightfully curvy where the fabric clung.
She was an odd sort of combination of things, Miroku thought, a mismatched jumble of creatures trying to coincide in the same skin. She was beautiful like a demon was deadly, all grace and stealth and threat creeping silently through the sopping underbrush. But she was also so painfully young and artlessly human.
Rin swung a blow so forcefully at an unseen enemy to her left that she released a solid ya to relieve the pressure in her lungs. Drops of water spiraled around her, flung from the fanned ends of her hair as she spun, and she came to a sudden stop, glaring fiercely into the distance, her staff locked under her right arm and in her right fist.
In a flash, Rin's scowl disappeared. In its place rose a grin that she directed at Miroku. "Would you like to see my favorite sequence, Mr. Miroku?" she called over the rain.
Miroku had to smile back. "Certainly," he replied with his hand cupped around his mouth.
She hesitated, looking like she was trying to interpret Miroku's reply through the rain. After a moment, Rin nodded and swiped her dripping bangs back, plastering them to her head. She adjusted her sleeves once more before snapping her staff into a locked position under her right arm. Her face immediately shifted into a cold, focused glower. The combination of such a frightfully serious face and the large blunt weapon under her arm made Miroku reconsider his request.
After striding her way over to the far corner of the cloister, still cluttered with half-consumed timbers now sinking into the mud, Rin did a quick about face.
Rin stood rigid for a moment, then another moment, then another. Only when he felt his chest constrict did Miroku realize he was holding his breath. He would have laughed at himself had he started breathing again.
The vast stillness Rin waited to fill seemed to solidify before her until Miroku thought she might be fading out. Or perhaps it was the oxygen deprivation. Suddenly, Rin jolted forward. She took two springy, loping steps before planting her foot just right to send her sliding forward, wheeling her arms back. The staff went flying. She let out a yelp before falling with an explosive splat to the mud.
Miroku did not get a chance to inhale before laughing. The combination of simultaneously gasping and guffawing almost felled him, too.
She took a moment to recover. "I'm okay!" Rin called in Miroku's direction, holding the veil of her sopping bangs out of her face like a stringy, black curtain. "Are you laughing?" she demanded.
"No," Miroku coughed, trying to recover from the odd dance number his lungs had done.
"That one didn't count, all right?" Rin said. Miroku managed a nod. Rin began patting the mud down around her for the staff, and when that search turned up nothing she rose to her feet and looked around. Arms akimbo, Rin turned a slow circle until she spotted a bronze end cap by a rather downtrodden-looking azalea. Gingerly, Rin approached the staff, gathered it up, and returned to the corner where the whole fiasco began.
With all this wild movement, Rin's sleeves had slipped back down over her hands so that she had to grip the wood through the fabric. Rin let out a grunt as she thrust her staff into the soft ground to free her hands.
Miroku watched as Rin fished a long, white strip of fabric from the front of her kimono. Holding one end in her mouth, Rin twisted the strip about her shoulders in a way that pinned her sodden sleeves to her body, revealing her slender arms, as thin and naked as whittled maple branches. Satisfied with her new arrangement, Rin plucked her staff from the ground and took a ready stance.
What Rin's sleeves had to do with her feet, Miroku did not know. He had little time for conjecture, however.
Like a distant, terrible signal, a clap of thunder rent the droning percussion of the rain, and Rin sprung forward. This time, she made it to five long strides – each punctuated with a cursory grazing of the ball of one slender, brown foot over the mud – before she swung the staff over her head with a two handed grip and slammed one bronze end into the earth. Using the staff to push off, Rin sent herself flying into the air. She kept her grip on the staff, curling her body around the long shaft as she turned one, two, three summersaults in the air. She landed with a furious splash in a crouched position like a coiled demon, slicing the staff through the air so quickly it appeared to Miroku as a huge, mahogany fan at her side. She slammed her weapon in the ground, cleaving an invisible enemy. Rin kept her head bowed but glared up through her lashes at her intangible and now-bisected foe.
Miroku almost began to applaud before Rin sprang back up.
She was on her feet in an instant, spinning the staff over her head before slicing downward in three different directions. She then gripped the shaft with one hand and, using an incredible nimble wrist, spun the staff in huge figure eights that folded around her body. All the while, she kept her dormant hand close to her chest.
Then, Rin did something that simultaneously awed and puzzled Miroku. In the middle of her last, sweeping spin of the staff, Rin slammed the shaft into her other palm, closing both hands around her weapon. She then seemed to throw herself to the ground; however, as she dove, she kicked her feet into the air and was suddenly upside-down where she had once been standing. Using her momentum, Rin released one hand from the staff and pivoted on her open palm, flat in the mud. All the while, she snapped her legs open into a fully horizontal split, resulting in what looked to Miroku to be a petrifying pinwheel of pain. Between Rin's dizzying speed and his own amazement, Miroku did not have time to be disappointed that her wet kimono wrapped itself modestly around Rin's lethal lower half.
As soon as she had begun, Rin was done.
Abruptly right side up, Rin wasted little time waiting for the world to right itself. She took two more loping steps into a one-handed cartwheel, holding the staff close to her trunk as her feet reached first for the clouds then back for the ground. She turned another single-handed cartwheel, then a third – by this point, Miroku had noticed that Rin was drawing dangerously near – before throwing herself into a fourth spin, this time gripping her staff with both hands and allowing herself to sail over the ground without the aid of her hands.
Rin landed twice an arm's reach from Miroku with her back to him before she spun around and dropped into another crouch, carving the air a foot from Miroku's nose with a sharp, bronze-tipped slice of her staff. And, by this point, Miroku had resolved that it was, indeed, her staff.
For a moment, all was motionless save the rain. Compensating, Miroku thought, for the reality-defying frenzy of movement seconds ago.
Drip, drip, drip echoed in his ears. Rain ran down Miroku's gently quaking umbrella.
"Sesshomaru taught you that?" Miroku asked, aware of every fluid curl of air passing through him.
Rin, who had allowed her eyes to drop to her pales knuckles sinking into the mud, looked up at Miroku. "Some," she replied, her shortness of breath catching up to the rest of her. "A funny little monkey demon from Kyushu taught me the upside-down spinny trick."
She was flushed and looked hot to the touch. Miroku watched her shoulders heaving gently, her clavicles growing deep and then shallow as her chest expanded and collapsed. Beads of sweat and rain water trickled down her exposed sternum in crooked rivulets.
Miroku thought he could feel runoff sloshing between his ears, and all he could think of was that ridiculous kimono on the floor, staining the tatami by his futon.
"Mr. Miroku?" Rin asked, her smile dropping. He was staring so intently at her, as though there was a great deal more churning beneath his still exterior. She stood quickly, leaving her staff in the mud, and stepped under Miroku's umbrella. "I'm sorry if I frightened you," she said.
Miroku felt himself recoil a little. This, he told himself, he had not considered, this other reason Sesshomaru had abandoned the girl. His heart thudded against the back of his ribs.
"Miroku," Rin continued, sounding concerned. She reached her fingers toward his face. "Are you—"
Miroku silenced her by grabbing her wrist before she could touch him. He felt her thin bones under his hand, her pulse tapping against his palm, saw her rosy fingertips and fragile looking fingers. This woman, he thought, was dangerous for someone like Sesshomaru to have around. She must have been a mind-numbing distraction. Even for a demon lord.
However, she was Sesshomaru's distraction. And, consequently, not Miroku's. "That was remarkable, Miss Rin," Miroku said, releasing her damp, sanguine hand. "A little surprised. That's all."
"Oh." Rin blinked. "Thank you, then." She smiled until her eyes disappeared. "I forgot how much space that sequence requires. I usually take six steps to start, not five. Would have taken your face off."
Rin seemed to think that was rather amusing. "You're certainly not as harmless as you look," Miroku replied, wishing for more reasons than one that Rin was not sharing his umbrella, wishing she would pull her neckline closed, wishing she did not look quite so much like another dark haired, adroit woman who fought like a fish swims, like he breathes.
"Don't leave that out here," Miroku said, pointing to the staff Rin had abandoned in the mud.
-
-
-
The night the rain stopped, Rin had been at the temple for three days. The low-hanging, lead-bellied clouds had opened in earnest that afternoon, dropping their tai-fun season loads on the little temple. Miroku and the others worked through the halfhearted drizzle in the morning and the after-lunch barrage, clearing away the last of the salvageable beams and crunchy, sooty mud. Despite the chilly air, Miroku and Kado shed all but their first layer of kimono, letting the rest of their clothing inflict its augmented weight on the floorboards of the porch. The rain washed their sweat away as it left their pores; Rin wondered if the men noticed how all the water licked from cracked lips tasted like tears.
Almost half an hour after Rin tossed her last shovelful of cinder, Miroku stowed away the last reusable plank, and Kado hauled away the last beam for burning, the rain stopped. The clouds rolled away from the nighttime firmament above, revealing the diamond-specked, distant black silk of the opaque cover draped over the birdcage of the world.
When Rin noticed the rain had stopped, she picked up her dried potato wedge and took it with her as she left dinner to investigate.
"Miss Rin?" Miroku called as she wandered out the door without warning.
Kado and Miroku exchanged a glance before climbing to their feet and following her outside. Together, they found Rin standing with all ten naked toes dangling off the edge of the porch, one hand holding a support beam for the roof and the other pinching her forgotten sweet potato. She stared so intently at the night sky that Kado began to wonder if there was something more to see there. He stepped up to Rin's right and began scrutinizing the sky as well.
Miroku came to Rin's left and looked up. "What are we looking at?" he asked.
"The rain's stopped," Rin observed. She looked over to Miroku who turned away from the sky to return her gaze. "I must leave tomorrow."
Miroku knew better than to argue. In fact, he didn't really want to argue, but that could not hide the part of him that was disappointed.
-
-
-
Winter nights at the temple were eerie. Miroku lay in his futon, staring at the ceiling, listening to the chilly, shifty silence outside. Not a cicada sang, not a cricket chirped, not a raindrop fell. The wind swept through the building, making the walls moan for a long, wavering moment, like a doleful creature was sighing a dirge as it lurked through the halls. Miroku would have appreciated even a mosquito's buzz just to hew the heavy background.
He listened to his own breath, his heartbeat, which sped up as soon as he gave it attention. He listened to his toes rustling the fabric of his quilt. He listened to his hair growing and his home settling. He listened to the padding of light, bare feet outside his room. He listened to Rin being almost silent as she hovered at his door, her hair swishing and lungs working. Then she was gone, like a curious and cautious little animal. Like a mouse.
Miroku propped himself up on his elbow a moment later and looked behind him to the shoji screens that partitioned the room from the hall outside. The soft padding beyond returned, accompanied by a bobbing lantern that hovered like an inquisitive star.
"Mr. Miroku," Rin whispered, her mouth close to the crack between two screens. "Something's coming."
She lingered for only a moment before scampering away, the jiggling, butter-yellow circle on the shoji following behind her.
Once the light was gone and the room was silent, Miroku sat up and listened to the silence so intently, he felt as though he was observing a second presence in the room. The room felt darker now with his eyes briefly exposed to the lamplight, and the dark felt even thicker, as though the air around him was congealing, the layers of quiet coalescing into one big, silent pudding. Miroku sensed nothing other than the malapropos aura of Rin, flitting around the far left corner of his spectral vision.
In the distant forest, there was a crash.
In an instant, Miroku was awake and dressing. The edge of his senses exploded with a cluster of pinpricks, an encroaching crowd of low-energy creatures. Men. Fifteen or twenty of them – protective, angry, and frightened.
While Miroku's attention was directed at tying knots and draping, the shoji screen entrance clattered open. Miroku looked up to see Rin, filling his doorway with her slight frame, somnambulist's dishabille, and an aura flickering like a torch.
"Stay here," Miroku commanded firmly.
Rin laughed, making the lantern bob. "Get dressed. They'll be upon us soon." She set the lantern down just inside Miroku's door and darted out of the light.
"Miss Rin!" Miroku called as he tied the last knot of his robes. "Miss Rin!" But she was gone. With a brusque sigh, Miroku gathered the lantern and his staff from where it lay next to his futon and followed the extrasensory tickling of the approaching mob. They were on the foot road at the base of the hill and advancing on the face of the temple.
Rin was waiting for him when Miroku arrived at the entrance. She clutched a lamp of her own in her left hand and gestured Miroku closer with her right.
As soon as Miroku appeared in the temple entrance, the men began to shout for him. Only four or five of the approaching men carried lanterns, and they held them high for the others, making them look, from a distance, as though massive fireflies were traveling with the crowd.
"Monk Miroku," the man in the lead called as Miroku leapt down the stairs and jogged down the path, meeting the men halfway.
Mosuke, the headman of a village to the east, lead the group. He was a large man, taller than Miroku and better fed, and on this night he wore full armor and a decorative pelt around his waist.
"You look like you're preparing for battle," Miroku remarked as he allowed Mosuke to catch his breath.
"We are," Mosuke gasped. "The demon you fought two days ago has returned. He's in the village right now!"
Two things struck Miroku immediately: the corpse he, Kado, and Rin had dragged into the forest seemed awfully dead the day before; and why were all the village's strongest men at his door if the village was under attack?
"Mr. Mosuke and you," Miroku pointed at a man standing behind the headman, "Stay with me. The rest of you, return to the village quickly! If you value your wives, you'll run!"
Above, at the temple entrance, the noise had roused Kado, who now stood trembling to Rin's right. Rin squinted into the darkness and strained her ears to hear what the men were discussing below.
"What's going on now?" Kado asked. His voice quaked.
Rin held up her right hand, silencing Kado. More than anything, Rin tried to gauge the air coming off Miroku. She wished she could see his face. She could, however see the headman's drawn, sweating expression. She watched Miroku gesture violently in the direction the men had come, and then all but Miroku and two men remained on the path. That was indicative enough for Rin.
"Not many restful nights for the holy, are there?" Rin asked rhetorically before she turned and tore down the hall toward the traveler's quarters, leaving Kado on the brink of answering that, no, actually, most nights were quite peaceful.
The polished floor slid out from under her as Rin tried to take a sharp left turn into her room, and she fell with a thud, slapping her entire left side against the boards. Wasting no time, Rin scrambled back to her feet and threw open the screen to her chamber. For a moment, he eyes raked frantically over the dim room before landing on her objective. Leaning against the exterior wall, as though it were waiting for her, was the demonic staff, a gift from Miroku.
With a triumphant ha, Rin darted into the room and snatched up her staff before slamming open a second shoji screen, one that opened to the eastern forest outside the temple. Just as she emerged, Miroku and the others came crashing around the corner of the temple, headed for an unseen path through the dense forest. The sputtering, yellow light of a lantern cast down on them from the dowel the second villager grasped. Rin bounded off the porch and landed with a squelch in the slippery grass directly in front of the approaching trio.
Miroku hesitated only a moment before charging into the forest, Rin at his side.
"I told you to stay inside!" Miroku snapped, sparing as little breath as possible. He swung his staff in deliberate arcs before him, clearing the brush.
"You can take the time to make me," Rin replied, "Or you can let me take care of myself." She shouted to be heard over the deafening racket of three men scrambling through the woods. Rin hardily made a sound. This was not lost on Miroku.
"Where are you taking us?" Mosuke shouted from the rear.
"To your village," Miroku called back. "This will get us there before the others."
If the headman doubted Miroku, he did not say so. Rin and the others fell into silence as they trudged through the underbrush, their running having been hampered. Miroku continued to slash through the undergrowth with his staff, but he could not help but notice that Rin was pulling ahead as she ducked under the tangled vines and branches, dragging her belly across the moss and leaves.
"Merciful Buddha," the headman groaned. "What is that smell?"
Rin bounced up from the ground and sniffed the air. "It's the carcass," she informed Miroku, who had already put a sleeve to his nose.
"Thank you," he drawled nasally.
Off to their right, a clearing opened. The sandy dirt pit only stretched about ten paces in diameter. In the middle of the pit, a large mound of dirt rose, the top of which had been removed haphazardly.
Rin moved away from the group to investigate the disturbed grave. As she came to stand over the mound, she winced and drew her face back, waving a hand before her nose.
"Is it still there?" Miroku asked.
"Yes," Rin replied, her voice tight. She heard a fly buzz by her ear. "Something's dug her up, though." Rin crouched and examined the dirt around the grave. In the dim lamplight, Rin could see the half-decayed jaw of the demon. The white bone peeked through the black and pink sludge of her rancid meat. Her skin squirmed with the motion of maggots below. "Looks like a wolf did this," she called to Miroku as she straightened.
"What is this?" the headman asked, exchanging puzzled expressions with the other villager who had accompanied them.
"We must keep moving," Miroku insisted, gesturing for the villagers to follow him. "The night your village was attacked, the demon followed me here," he explained. "I was able to slay it, and we buried the body here."
"Then what is attacking my village?" Mosuke asked.
"What is attacking your village?" Rin asked as she joined back up with the group. "Does it look like the first demon?"
The headman gave Miroku an expression half disapproving and half questioning. Miroku cleared his throat and repeated Rin's question.
"I assumed it was the same demon," the headman answered. "He looks like a man, though. He walks upright on his hind legs and gestures with his hands like a man. He even spoke to me."
"What did he say?' Miroku asked, his voice taut as he struggled to hold back a thorny branch.
"He demanded I return Iyomi."
"Who is Iyomi?" Miroku asked.
"How should—"
Rin stopped abruptly and held up a hand to silence the headman. Mosuke opened his mouth to demand why this slip of a girl was suddenly giving orders, but Miroku raised one hand as well to indicate silence.
Something was moving through the brush. Quietly at first, a rhythmic rustling like something breathing hard into the brush. As Rin and the others waited, the sound got louder, and as fast as it had arrived, the rustling turned into a crashing.
"What the hell?" Mosuke asked.
Something crashed a yard from them, making the trees tremble.
"Get out of the way!" Rin cried. She seized Miroku's sleeve and shoved him with all her might to the ground. Both the headman and the other villager dove out of the path of a huge demon, larger than first, as it exploded from a wall of trees. The lantern sailed through the air and hit the ground. With a sizzle, the light blinked out.
Rin, unfortunately, did not move as quickly as the others, and the demon, a towering cat with eyes so angry they glowed in his skull, swatted Rin aside. The motion was so quick, the beast hardly paused in his gallop. Miroku watched from the ground as Rin was lifted into the air and thrown backwards, her staff flying from her hand. She slammed into a tree, making the dead leaves overhead shudder, and flopped to the ground limply.
"Rin!" Miroku shouted and jumped to his feet.
Rin let out a dry cough and slumped to the side as the leaves she had shaken from the tree settled around her as peacefully as a sigh.
Miroku dropped to one knee at her side and touched her arm.
"Rin," he repeated.
"I fine," Rin gasped. She accepted Miroku's aid and let him pull her to her feet. "I'm all right. He knocked the wind from me." She allowed herself a moment to hang from Miroku's grasp before bracing her legs beneath her. When Miroku did not immediately release her, Rin gently swatted his hand. "Oh, don't fuss."
Once Rin was righted, Miroku noticed how unearthly silent the forest had become. He looked up and saw the headman and the other villager lingering at the edge of the clearing, watching the demon as it prowled a lap around the upset grave.
With a flash of light and a curl of smoke, the demon collapsed and rose up in the shape of a man, standing erect. He remained standing for only a moment before dropping to his knees beside the grave. Miroku watched as he threaded his fingers through the shifting dirt atop the mound; he raised his hands and allowed the soil to sift through his fingers. The demon dipped one hand into the disinterred grave, stroked lovingly the corpse that peeked through.
Miroku heard Rin gasp quietly to his left. She put a hand over her mouth and breathed, "Her mate." Rin's free hand closed around Miroku's wrist.
In the naked starlight, the demon's shock of hair was white, pearlescent and stained with blood. His bare back rose and fell as it jerked with silent sobs. A long, thin strand of a moan leaked from him. It twined through the trees and seemed to hang in the air like a vine.
Rin squeezed Miroku hard before flying from his side. She seemed to dip in and out of the trees like a firefly in flight, her white sleeping kimono catching the moonlight in flashes as she passed from patches of shadow to pools of light. Miroku trailed after her.
Her bare feet hardily made a sound as she approached the clearing and stepped gingerly out of the trees. "You," Rin began, her voice shaking. The demon started but did not turn to look at her. "You can take the body, if you wish. I will help."
"What good is her corpse?" the demon rasped, scraping his voice up from the bottom of his lungs. He petted the fresh soil futilely.
"You can give her a proper burial. Take her back to her family."
"For what?" the demon barked, snapping his head around to glare at Rin with eyes like smoldering embers. "So they can see her charred fur? Her crushed skull?" He rose to his full height, dwarfing Rin as she boldly came to stand at his side.
Rin clasped her hands to her chest. "I…" she began before looking down at the forest floor, ashamed. "I'm sorry."
The demon scoffed loudly. "You're sorry? You give me your pity?" He started to turn away, but stopped. He pivoted quickly and snatched up Rin by the arm. He jerked her forward and stared down her eyes. All three of the onlookers, Miroku and the villagers, tensed.
Rin did not avert her eyes when the demon drew two long sniffs off her.
"Bring her back," the demon snarled.
"I can't," Rin breathed.
He smelled her again and gave her a solid shake. "Bring her back!" he barked, his face inches from hers.
"I can't!" Rin shouted, her face angry now. "Even if I could, I wouldn't. She's gone, and I wouldn't take that from her."
The demon released Rin with a shove, sending her stumbling backwards. "Human," he growled disdainfully.
Miroku watched the light reflecting off Rin's eyes as they widened, the only sign of her pained expression.
The demon began to pace, his body tense and troubled. "I did not come here for this."
"Why, then?" Rin asked, her voice tempered once more. "Why did you attack the village?"
The demon was silent as he prowled around the grave, circling one way then the other. He finally came to a stop between Miroku and the grave, his back hunched as his eyes gazed down at his partially unearthed mate. "Because," the demon hissed before spinning around and leveling his burning gaze on the headman, "That human is wearing my daughter!" He pointed a claw at the russet pelt the headman wore over his armor.
Before Rin and the villagers could react, the demon let out an air-renting roar and lunged at the headman, claws and fangs glinting. Miroku, however, countered the attack reflexively. The moonlight flashed as Miroku leapt in front of the headman and raised his staff. For a moment, the rings on the staff tinkled innocently, then they were silent, imbedded in the demon's solar plexus.
Rin furrowed her brow and looked away as the pale white light shown with horrific clarity off the end of Miroku's staff, protruding from the demon's back. The staff jerked in Miroku's grip from the motion of the demon's hulk sliding haltingly down the haft. The little rings tinkled in time.
Miroku changed his hold on the staff, allowing the corpse to slide to the ground. In the moonlight, the blood looked like tar, dripping between his snowy-white fingers.
Once the body was settled, Rin strode forward, crouched down, and rolled the demon over so that he lay on his back. His breaths came in ragged, wet pants as blood bubbled up on his ivory lips. Gently, Rin lifted his head and inched herself under him, letting his blood trickle down onto her thighs. For a moment, he glared at her with trembling eyes. Then, his face relaxed, the hard line of his mouth easing, softening. Rin smoothed his white hair away from his clammy forehead. She met his eyes and smiled until she realized that the expression of forgiveness he cast at her was involuntary; he was dead. The demon's pale eyes stared back at her, and she closed them gently.
The sound of her own breath roared in Rin's ears, like she was pushing gravel up and down a trough.
The headman let out an explosive sigh. "Well," he said. "I'm certainly glad that is over."
Neither Rin nor Miroku acknowledged the headman.
"I suppose this," Mosuke stroked the pelt, "is Iyomi."
Miroku turned away from the spectacle in the clearing. "Return to your village, headman," he said and laid a hand on Mosuke's shoulder. "We will take care of things here."
Rin looked up at the headman. "Could you, Mr. Mosuke," she began, her voice suddenly and startling despite it's gentle timbre. "Could you leave the skin here?"
The headman looked from Rin to the monk, hoping the definitive voice on things holy would relieve him of the obligation.
"Or perhaps," Rin continued, her voice even and chilly, "I could bury the skin of your daughter here instead." She lifted her face just enough to look up at the headman. "To be fair." Out of her peripheral vision, Rin saw Miroku's eye widen.
With a succinct, affronted sigh, the headman loosed the skin from his belt and tossed into the dirt by Rin's calf. He then turned to Miroku and said, "I am in your debt," before bowing and leaving in the direction of the temple, the other villager at his heels.
The rustling of the departing men grew quieter and quieter until Rin, Miroku, and the corpses were alone with the trees. The hush hung around them like a mist, thick and palpable. Miroku hovered over Rin and the body of the demon, letting the almost preternatural silence bide its time, giving himself a moment to assess.
"Rin," Miroku began.
"I saved your life," Rin said, sharp and even, like she was saying something else, like she was reminding him of a bet that he lost. And now he owed her something.
Miroku forfeited his admonition in trade; she already knew what he would say. "He thought you could revive his mate?" Miroku said instead.
"I smell like death," Rin said, stroking the demon's hair. "He thought I was a wedge, a doorstop between this world and the next." She looked up at Miroku. "I'm not."
"I know."
"Sometimes I wish I were, though. Perhaps," Rin hesitated, "perhaps what he had to give was great enough to make it worth it."
"Worth it?" Miroku asked.
Rin smiled and looked up at him. "Death is a jealous lover, you know. She doesn't share. But," Rin breathed a laugh, "she's not above a good deal."
"And what does death barter for?"
Rin shrugged. "For this poor beast? Nothing. Not now at least. Maybe," she traced the demon's jaw line with rosy, steady fingers, "maybe his existence would have been enough. His demonhood." Rin sighed and inched out from under the demon, cradling his head before she could set it down. "They'll all be gone soon, you know," Rin continued as she walked past Miroku. He watched her slip into a shadow and ferret about the underbrush. She emerged a moment later, holding her staff.
"I don't know if I believe that," Miroku said as Rin returned, her face calm and thoughtful, her lips slightly parted as if she were breathing a thin, unending sigh.
"It's true. There are so many men. They clog a demon's senses until he becomes disoriented. He becomes careless. An easy kill." She hovered over the body, watching him intently.
"He was distraught," Miroku said as though it might comfort Rin. "Bereaved. He wasn't thinking,"
Rin swung her gaze around and leveled Miroku in her mahogany stare. "Men are so loud. And they smell so unnatural. A demon could get lost in a crowd if they did not kill him first." She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow. She was imagining, Miroku realized, what a demon might feel. "Men are a blur of things. They shout and sweat and need so much more than any other animal. And you can't even defend yourself without them all swarming. You're a monster, then, and they're justified in killing you."
She was going somewhere far away, and Miroku placed a hand on the small of Rin's back, coaxing her to return. "You're one of them, too, Miss Rin. Human." Her eyes slid open.
"Soon there will just be the earth, the men, and people like me," she replied. Her voice hardened suddenly. "And we'll remember what it was like before humans conquered everything." Rin pulled away from Miroku's touch and turned to the forest.
"Where are you going?" Miroku asked before Rin slipped back into the woods.
"To get a shovel," she replied without looking back.
Miroku closed his eyes and willed a blossoming headache and his exhaustion away. He then headed into the forest after Rin. It hurt, he thought, to watch this girl do all the things he could not.
-
-
-
Kado slumped with a sigh, sliding down a tree trunk until he felt himself cradled in the roots, folded close and succoring. He bent his legs in and rested his shovel across his knees.
"I apologize," Miroku groaned as he sank to the earth next to Kado. He grunted as he splayed his weary legs out before him. "This was not your burden."
"It was nothing, Master Miroku. I was glad I could relieve Miss Rin."
"Yes," Miroku said noncommittally. He had sent Rin back to the temple when Kado stumbled into the clearing nearly an hour earlier. She had been growing clumsier by the minute as her fatigue set in. "It's difficult to remember sometimes that she's still just a girl."
"Just a girl," Kado repeated to no one.
After hearing it from someone else, the notion felt even stranger.
"You're the one, aren't you, Master Miroku?" Kado asked.
Miroku looked at his protégé. Kado's chin was turned up, his eyes searching the jagged-edged patch of early morning sky above them. "You're the one Miss Rin has been looking for, aren't you?"
"Yes," Miroku answered plainly.
"Then," Kado hesitated, "the curse…"
"Is gone."
"Oh. Good."
Miroku wished there were an easy way to say that the curse was not there now without implying that it had once. He had not expected he would have to tell Kado about the wind tunnel ever, and he certainly never imagined telling him like that: an embittered, little confession after his secret was shamefully slipped.
"You'll be leaving then?" Kado asked, idling spinning the shaft of his shovel on his knees.
"Actually, no," Miroku answered. He suddenly felt guilty. Kado had been expecting him to say yes. "I told Miss Rin that I have responsibilities here that I cannot abandon."
Miroku heard Kado let about a long sigh. "Well, I'm relieved, Master Miroku. With the increase of demon attacks lately, I've been worrying that you would leave all the exorcisms to me!"
Miroku chuckled. "I have faith in you, Kado."
"I doubt, sir, that I could do it with quite the, uh, style that you do."
That made Miroku laugh from his stomach. "They have been going poorly lately, haven't they?" Miroku gestured to the three graves before them: two large mounds and only small one, all in a neat row.
"Yes, sour luck. I should pray harder," Kado said jovially. His voice then dropped to a more serious tone, "To be honest, sir…" he looked down at his hands, now hanging in his lap. "I'm relieved for more than my sake. Miss Rin seems… that is… it feels like there is a great hole in her, like something was taken away. I was rather afraid that you might fall in."
"Have you so little faith in me, Kado?" Miroku asked though he had not been offended.
Kado suddenly realized what he had been insinuating and spun around to face Miroku. He threw himself face down into the dirt. "I sincerely apologize, Master Miroku. I didn't mean to imply—"
"I understand, Kado," Miroku said placatingly.
Kado looked up for a moment before putting his face to the ground once more. "Miss Rin is so likable, Master. I was afraid she might consume you with this quest of hers. I sense that… that is, I fear that what she might be looking for, the balm for this hole," Kado peered up at Miroku, "it might be something you can't help her find."
"I can help her find what she wants," Miroku replied, "but that is not what she needs." He turned to Kado, who was still paying his obeisance. "You're very intuitive, Kado."
Kado laughed and rolled onto his haunches. "I'm honored that you'd say that, sir, but I'm not." He rose slowly to his feet and collected his shovel. "I was thinking, of this… this curse, Rin spoke of." Kado turned toward the woods, "I thought it sounded rather like what afflicts Miss Rin, in a different sort of way."
Miroku had to consciously stifle a wince. "Perhaps."
"Would like me to wait for you, sir?"
"No, no, that's fine. Get some sleep."
"Thank you. Good night, Master Miroku."
"Good night."
Kado trudged off into the forest, crashing along until the distance and the forest between muffled his presence away. Miroku leaned his head back and sighed, watching his breath curl into a thin cloud. Soon, he thought, it would be too cold to linger outdoors at night. Autumn was fading; Miroku remembered nights when he watched the stars through the naked trees. He remembered counting them over and over to keep himself awake when they would take shifts.
Miroku felt a twinge in his right hand, and he flexed it with a grimace. He was resigned that it would never leave him, that curse. Not entirely. It still ached fiercely in the cold.
He looked at his palm, his scar grey from the cold. Slowly, he curled his fingers into a fist and closed his eyes. He could still remember what it felt like, carrying his own death with him everywhere he went.
When his fingers uncurled, Miroku began to wonder. He brought his palm to his face and sniffed curiously. Had he smelled like death? Did he still? Was death the sort of thing you could wash out of your clothing eventually? Or would he have that always? Like he was always just a little bit lethal. Not lethal enough to kill. Not anymore.
Miroku could smell nothing but soil and his own sweat. Besides, the demon had not asked him to revive its dead mate. Perhaps that meant the death had faded from Miroku. It had been years.
Yet, by that reasoning, Rin should not smell of death either. She had been reanimated a decade ago.
It must be that hole, he thought, the one Kado feared Miroku might fall into. Her own curse. The one Miroku was leaving her to resolve on her own.
I can help her find what she wants, he heard in his mind. But that is not what she needs. What she needs, Miroku considered. What was it that Rin wanted from Sesshomaru? She wanted to see him again, she had implied. Yet, somehow, Miroku imagined it could not be easier to hunt the demon lord than accept the truth: either he was dead or he was done with her. Both of those options resulted in Rin's permanent parting from Sesshomaru. Did she think she could change his mind? Make him take her back? She believed the demon lord was not dead, that much Miroku was sure of. And, for as vacant as she seemed to be sometimes, Miroku also believed that Rin knew how likely it was that Sesshomaru might take her back, tuck her into the little Rin-shaped dent any normal man would have in his side.
So what was she looking for?
Just to see him again, an underused corner of Miroku's mind offered. Just to put a more flattering bookend on the tome of their companionship. Miroku snorted. This would mean that Rin put incredibly more faith in the demon lord than Miroku did. That, or she was truly in love.
That notion brought Miroku's train of thought to a complete stop. Love. That made sense, which consequently made everything else make no sense while also making that fact entirely excusable. Since when, really, did love allow room for logic?
At the mercy of love, Miroku had done things that he would never do again, yet still things he was grateful to have done once. The garden shed, filled to capacity with weapons, rose in Miroku's mind, and he had to stop to remind himself that other people might still enjoy satisfactions he did not. Who was he to deny Rin that? Even if her satisfaction was closure?
Miroku let out a raspy groan as his right hand throbbed. With a grimace, he looked at his marred palm. He thought of all the chapters of his life that had been sucked into that hole, lost down a well from which he could not draw. Sealing that hole had been like closing a back cover. Healing brought finality to so many things. In the deep lines of his skin, he read a long, sad story with a beginning, middle, and end. And for that, he was at once resentful and appreciative.
"Who am I," he asked of the three graves before him, "to know what is right?"
Miroku climbed to his feet, groaning from his sore muscles. He gave the dead family one last moment of his attention and headed into the woods. He would sleep heavily tonight, he knew. Then, in the morning, he would tell Rin that he would, indeed, be accompanying her. With any luck, they'd be able to heal this curse of hers faster than he healed his.