Kagome, Kagome
Kagome, Kagome, bird in the cage, when will you come out?
In the light of the evenings,
when the crane and the turtle fell,
who is behind you now?
The riddle had been sung in her dreams for a couple nights now, but Kagome couldn't grasp the meaning behind this, it was a game she had played often as a child, as most children her age had in Japan. Why would memories of her child hood friends singing this song pop up in dreams?
It never really bothered her too much, after all a dream is a dream. Sighing, she turned over on her side, snuggling into the warmth of her lover—Youko Kurama. She had come back to the past to be with InuYasha—but after three years away she had found he'd moved on. And with a girl that neither resembled Kikyo or herself.
She remained friends with him, as he remained over protective—often having tried to fight off Youko Kurama when they had first met. Now, two years after the first meeting, they had finally lain together—and he had marked her. Looking at her left breast, her eyes softened at the small glowing blue seed that had imbedded itself into her skin, though not painfully—Youko would never hurt her.
Kagome, Kagome, bird in the cage, when will you come out?
In the light of the evenings,
when the crane and the turtle fell,
who is behind you now?
If Kagome hadn't been so adaptable, she would have probably been annoyed with the song that had now been popping up in her dreams for two months. However, she just went on with life, smiling and giggling, even though she suspected she may be pregnant. After all, she hadn't had her monthly this month, yet. Maybe she wouldn't at all.
She wondered how Youko would take the news. He'd probably already figured it out, knowing him.
Kagome, Kagome, bird in the cage, when will you come out?
In the light of the evenings,
when the crane and the turtle fell,
who is behind you now?
Now the song was getting irritating—it had been going on for six whole months now, and was making her particularly crabby. Today, during a rant, which Youko had grown use to, she told him how annoying the song was.
Asking to hear the lyrics again, Youko's pupils seemed to narrow and his fur bristle.
She would ask whats wrong—he'd distract her with sexual acts—something her body was rather demanding for lately—and he'd never answer the question.
Kagome, Kagome, bird in the cage, when will you come out?
In the light of the evenings,
when the crane and the turtle fell,
who is behind you now?
Month seven of the song—and her dream ended just as it did. Right when she woke, she saw Youko leap over her, and a flash of light along with a yell.
"KAZE NO KIZU!"
Kagome blinked and gaped in shock and horror as Youko fell to the ground bleeding profusely. Her eyes slowly looked up—there stood InuYasha, snarling. "You are mine to protect." He had snapped. Youko's whip suddenly tore Tetsusaiga away and wrapped around the inu hanyou's neck.
Kagome cried as she watched the man she loved kill her first love—she would cry more as the man she loved, weakened by his wounds, was hunted down and murdered...
The song sang no more, and Kagome went back to the future. There, waiting, was Kurama stained in the reds of blood, and the greens of nature. Kagome was taken aback, at first, not believing that she was able to see her lost love once more—and at 8 months pregnant.
When she gave birth, in her own time with her mother as a midwife, and a doctor on speed dial just in case, Youko Kurama physically showed himself to his now wife—and watched in his true form as his child was brought into the world.
The first black kitsune had been born.
A/N
Wikipedia!
A better description of the roles the children represent in the game is that the person inside the center of the circle is "Kagome", the bird inside the "cage", which the other people make with linked hands surrounding her. The first question in the rhyme, "when is she released from her cage?", is answered by the second question in the rhyme: she escapes when she answers correctly "who is behind the falling of the turtle and the crane"- in other words, who is about to stab her in the back.
In reality, the people making the cage are the oni, and the person in the center is the caged bird, Kagome.
In Japan, the crane symbolizes vigilance, prudence, innocence, and a thousand years of happiness, and the turtle, a good omen, symbolizes 10,000 years of life.
When the rhyme asks "who is behind the fall of the turtle and the crane", or "a turtle and a crane slipped and fell, who is directly behind you", it has a sinister meaning, as in, "who is the backstabber" or "the one who brings ill".
The rhyme can be given an even more sinister meaning when you imagine that "in the evening of the dawn" translates to "in the end of light", "the end of first light", or to "one who backstabs you early in the morning (in your sleep)". The latter makes even more sense because Kagome, in the cage, is blind-folded.