Let me know if anything is confusing, hope not, but improvements can always be made! Thanks for reading and your interest! -Impress-The-Empress
Responsibilities Thrust Upon Her: Right and Wrong
Living with her father, as a child up until the year of his passing, taught Kagome various lessons, some small while others significant. At this moment, as Kagome rolled to the left and crashed into an age-old tree with lifeless brown leaves, clumsily dodging the hard right handed hook of her rat youkai opponent, Kagome truly thanked her father for teaching her how to read auras. She watched as the rodent youkai's aura danced closely around him, angry and black as the color of his wild hair. Before her eyes, the rat youkai's aura curled in on itself, centering the majority of the youkai's power in his shoulders as he hunched over and widened his legs, preparing to tackle Kagome with all his strength. His face scrunched and his eyes burned with anger as he did so, physically mimicking the fierceness of his aura. Kagome did not have to look to feel the hatred in his beady eyed stare. She could taste his animosity on the very air she breathed.
There was an explosion of hot air as the rat youkai was hit on his back by a blast of fire launched by a rebel fire youkai and though the rat youkai shouted harsh obscenities, he didn't shift his stance nor did he take his eyes off Kagome.
"Don't worry about me," Kagome yelled to her comrade, the fire youkai. The fire youkai quickly nodded then ran away only to blend in with the numerous warriors fighting either for or against the Southern ruler.
Kagome was left alone to deal with the rat youkai who then clenched his hands tightly until his small claws cut into his grey skin and drops of blood dripped down his bony fingers.
In that moment, Kagome did not see her life nor did she see the images of her loved ones flash before her eyes as she had once thought would happen when life took a dangerous turn as it did now.
No, when Kagome's gaze met the rat youkai's frightening stare she did not reminisce, but she wondered. She wondered, in this brief moment of standstill, what caused the rat to embrace such hatred? What lead him to fight for the Southern ruler? There was always a cause behind the effect and a reason behind the action. Were his motivations for fighting justified or were they unjustified, ignorant and illogical? Kagome and her rebels, human and youkai, had lost much to the Southern ruler. Land claimed generations ago and land which was a means to riches with its iron and jewels, food and shelter, was taken from them and distributed to select others by the Southern ruler. The rebels' children were forcefully taken to serve as warriors in the Southern army. Southern people were purposely being scattered and pushed into poverty. For these reasons, Kagome felt she and her rebels were justified to fight. If this rat knew her side, why would he fight for the Southern ruler and with such passion?
Kagome didn't know. Miko or not, she wasn't all-knowing. She could not explain why others chose certain paths; she simply knew why she chose hers.
Kagome quickly stood from her seat on the dry, barren floor of the battlefield. Then she stretched her arm and widened her palm in the direction of the rat youkai and the numerous members of the Southern army at his back. Seconds later when the rat youkai rushed toward her, his body a blur but his aura clear as day, Kagome purified the rat and six others behind him until all that was left of her foes was ash. As another opponent took the rat youkai's place and others filed in right behind him, Kagome concluded that it did not matter that she was unaware of the reasons behind the actions or the causes initiating the effects, because this war was not a clash of right and wrong and she was not a judge. This war was a conflict of life and death. She and her rebels would live.