Chapter 8: Eternity
The two dressed. Sesshoumaru drove home, leaving Rin to her own devices. Whether he was insecure, angered, or curious, he didn't express it as he left. Rin watched him go, slowly walking up flights of stairs, trudging down an empty dimly lit hall, and stepped into a dark well-cleaned locker room. She flicked on the lights, moving towards her locker. With lagged movements, she pulled out a key and opened the storage compartment. Then she reached in, taking hold of a plain white shirt, a skirt, tights, and arm warmers. Metal against metal resounded as she tiredly slammed the locker closed, again trudging forth and making her way to the showers. All the while, misery began to wear down on Rin. Something inside her was stirring. There was a throbbing in her mind, a dull pulse as her mind wandered, attracted to something she could neither see nor hear, but felt was there.
As the spray of the water doused her in soaking heat, she ran her hands through her hair, trying to replicate the feel of Sesshoumaru's fingers stroking, gently massaging. Instead, something else arose. Her mind flashed. Little hands, claws were carefully combing the dark strands, playing and marveling. A smile lit her face as she imagined herself smiling. But slowly, she turned. Then, she found herself staring into innocent irises.
She gasped. Her eyes shot open. She fell back and slipped. Landing on tile, soaked in the spray of water, she shifted back. The eyes, the eyes continued to flash in her mind, haunting her. And suddenly, they were gone. She was looking up to see a shower head and water pouring down. White walls, green and white tiles, shampoo bottles, sponges, soap bars and soap dishes, face wash, she calmed down her beating heart. Falling back against the barrier, she closed her eyes and saw the pair of irises, a small child's eyes stare back at her. What had shocked her though was their color. The irises were brown, yet predominantly gold as if something was trying to take over. Most of all, they were not only gold, they were filled with intensity, the same as Sesshoumaru's.
Opening her eyes, she shook her head. "I can't think about this anymore," she uttered, standing and to resume bathing herself. Yet all the while, the gold and brown eyes wouldn't stop staring.
When Rin left the shower, she quickly dressed and left to clean her studio. She entered and closed the door with an exasperated sigh as she took a look around the first compartment. Still, she set forth, setting sculptures in place, righting the paintings on the walls, picking up brushes and paints and sculpting tools, she pushed stools aside and organized all of her supplies. In the third compartment, she gathered the cushion covers, the blanket, and rug, carrying them out into the hall for the janitors to take for cleaning. As she pulled out some new cushion covers, another rug and blanket, she paused to pick up the pieces of the stool Sesshoumaru had shattered the night before. She didn't discard the pieces. Instead, deciding she could find use for them some other time, she placed them in a bin for later material. Then she returned to her previous task of righting her studio.
However, in the midst of her cleaning, she stopped when she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. Out of the corner of her eye, she had thought the image to have changed, shifted right then and there. She stepped back and stared into the mirror. Nothing, it was still her.
"I must've been imagining it," she muttered. She shook her head, sighing as she moved away only to stop hearing a voice whisper, "When will he accept me?" Rin turned one way, turned another, and then another. No one was there, but she heard the child. She heard the break in their voice, the sadness of their tone. Suddenly, she was hearing her own voice reply, "Forget him, my love…just forget him." But her lips hadn't moved. She wasn't the one to say it.
"Why does he hate me," the voice cried. The child was crying, sobbing as they searched for an answer. They wanted to know. They had to know because it was unfair. Hated, they questioned, there was no reason to be hated was there? Rin clutched her hands to her heart. She wanted to reach out and embrace the little girl she heard crying. Something, anything, she wanted to tell her, "No, no, he doesn't hate you," but inside, she knew it was a lie. The child was despised by whomever the man was and she couldn't comfort the little girl. She couldn't hold her and stop her tears. So when she heard the voice like her own answer, she knew there was no other answer. "Because you're the child he had wanted…but decided he would never have."
The gold and brown eyes flashed in her mind, staring at her, pleading with her. Burning into her, reaching into her heart and pulling at the chest, the memories that warned her not to be opened, but she and the self in the memories knew this was the right one. This was the one her memories were to awaken to. It was the little girl, to her gold and brown eyes, that the chest had been ripped apart and the memories liberated. Feeling the pull, the twist, and anticipating the oncoming onslaught, she fell to her knees and closed her eyes. Focusing on those gold and brown orbs, feeling the chill and intensity that surged through her, she knew there was an emotion there. There was an expression in the eyes that she couldn't find, but she would find it. She would see it!
"I'm sorry," she heard her voice cry, "I'm so sorry."
"No," the little girl screamed, "Don't leave me! Please don't leave me!"
"I won't," her voice soothed, "I will never leave you. Dead or alive, I belong to you." She broke down in tears. The sadness and misery consumed her, enveloping her in the torrent of shaken, soon to awaken images.
"I am yours," she heard herself cry, "I am all yours, no one else's. You are my heart," the voice stressed, "and my life and I will do what I must to be beside you." She embraced herself, scared of the intensity and determination of her coming conviction. A promise in her mind that couldn't be discerned, the words too broken and faded to know, but it repeated, resounding with her sadness and strong enough to shake the heavens from their place and the earth from its seat, "Whatever I must to give you eternity!"
"He hates you," her voice cried.
"Why," the little girl pleaded, "Why?"
"Forget him," she couldn't control her tears, angered by the insanity and the irony, in anguish at the truth slapping them all in the face, "Forget him. He will never accept you. He will never love you."
It slowed and she fell over, curling into herself, but her strength had disappeared. Nothing was left. The anger, the pain, the sadness, being betrayed, and all the treacheries of the world bearing down on her were gone, she couldn't feel them anymore and so, they had left her hollow. Yet in this barren space, she could feel one last flame of a small candle, flickering, but holding strong against the darkness that threatened its existence. This little flame that held her hope, her love, her happiness, it was so small and still so bright, reaching her from the depths of the gaping hole in her heart.
"You promise," the little girl asked happily.
"I promise," she heard her voice reply.
"Are you dying," the little girl asked, a little saddened.
"Yes, my love, I am dying," but there was no sadness, only calm. She was at ease and took every last breath steady and assured. "I am dying," she repeated, stronger with all of her love, "but when you need me, I am here. I will protect you, watch over you. I am always with you," she smiled, pausing, searching for the warmth of the little girl to hold and calm, "In life, in death, in this time and the next and the one thereafter, I will always come to you. All you have to do is call my name…"
The little girl laughed, a sad ring as they both felt her life ebb away, waning in their grasp and shortening on time. Even when they knew they had eternity, the single moment from life to death and death to life was enough to break their hearts. Still, they held on and smiled, not wanting that moment, that final step to their forever.
"You belong to me," the little girl stated softly, a hidden request for confirmation, for reassurance and security.
"Yes," her voice answered.
"What about that man," the little girl asked. Curious, she was curious and questioned the ties of love and lust, claim and care. She wanted to know.
"When he rejected you," her voice answered gently, "he rejected me. I do not belong to him anymore and I never will again." Her heart tightened as her mind echoed the words, "I never will again." That's right, she thought, never again. I don't belong to him, she screamed inside.
"Are you sure," the little girl asked, "What if he did accept me? What if he regretted it and realized his mistake or-?"
"No," her voice snapped. Anger in her flared, burning, smoldering, wanting to kill, yet at the thought of a man she couldn't discern, hatred and love burned too closely together, anger and hope interlaced in a deadly dance on the a fine line between what was and what wasn't. Her heart reached for the man, as well as pushed him away, protecting him from the grasp of her treacherous hands and mind, ready to kill and take back what had been so willingly given before.
"No matter what happens, no matter how he changes," her voice affirmed, "He made his mistake and there's no going back." She clutched her head, starting to cry over the misfortune, mourning over the cruel twists of fate that would be useless to regret. "I made my choice. Whatever he could possibly do will do nothing. He can't undo what has been done." She cried harder. Her body racked with sobs, overtaken with despair at how the notion of "too late" reverberated through her being.
It was too late for anything. There was no second chance. Even if they wanted it, none of them could ever have it. They were pushed back into a corner, especially her, not the man or little girl. In their eyes, it could be one-sided. They could take and give and still be on one side, but for her, it wasn't possible. It couldn't be true. She didn't want to lose either of them. She was caught on a line between them, in which stepping off on either side will destroy the one she didn't choose. What had been done created that line so thin, yet it seemed the most ideal, even though she knew no matter what, it wasn't. "The only way," she heard her voice mutter, "for me to be with him is if he didn't just kill you," her voice began shaking, "It's if he erased you."
The little girl didn't understand. "Why?" She began to cry. "Why would he have to...erase me?"
She wanted to hold the girl and tell her it's all wrong, she'll be alright. But it would all be a lie. Everything would shatter and fall apart and the demise she must avoid, she must never let another soul know would come for her. In the end, she was faced with only the truth. It was all she could say. Eternity wouldn't let her say any less or any more. "Because I belong to you," she answered, her voice breaking, "I am tied to you now and for all eternity," she searched once again for the little girl's warmth, the source of her existence and any existence from then on, "We have eternity," she whispered, "And because of our eternity, I cannot return to him. I cannot belong to him…if I belong to you. With this bond, I can only belong to one."
As if death was saying you have said enough, her life faded. The world blurred. She didn't know who's eyes she was seeing through. Was it hers? Was it the past? Shapes and colors disappeared, melted away, swept into the winds of life and death, crossing the line and the single barrier, it was her last step, the last step in confirming their bond. It was eternity.
Now, they had eternity. And as the single moment of darkness separated them, she was taken into the arms of death, enveloped by the howls of the hellhounds, surrounded by the imps who gather to destroy and create, renew and mold, confirm and finalize the pact. As the world faded, only one existed. Infinite souls, lives, times, and worlds all confined and together in one existence, soon that existence will become another. It will reform and be reborn as something different and new, a change through all time and space. She will disappear forever. She does not exist anymore, yet this has become her existence.
"Death, we are and do not. A minion of, a master of, repent and repay, conquer and control, not three, but four, this is our pact. In death, of death, am death, live. We made our deal. This is our promise. This is our eternity…"