Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha but Tari, Marianne, and the rest of the OC's in the miko temple are mine.
IMPORTANT Author's note: This is now nearly a month after the last chapter in story time, not real time. Over the time lapse things haven't changed much, mostly just Kagome in a coma and everyone getting healed. I won't explain it in detail but when something needs to be explained I'll toss it in, so be patient, you'll be all caught up after this chapter.
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When Good Mikos Go Bad
Chapter 8 Realizations
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"Good morning sister, how are you?" Tari greeted the raven-haired miko.
The young women smiled kindly, Tari had come to know that she was constantly helping others with kind words and warm smiles, "I'm good, thanks Tari…" and had a rather strange way of speaking. She trailed off unsure if she should share the suspicions she harbored within her empty mind. Her friend, as observant as always, noticed the hesitation in the young women's brown eyes.
"I know that look, what's wrong?" Tari narrowed her eyes at her friend kindly as she moved to start the morning chores.
The more powerful of the two miko sighed, she was such an open book, never able to hide anything from people, or maybe it was a miko thing, but the others weren't as easy to read as she was. "I had another dream last night." She informed her friend reluctantly, getting up from her sleeping mat to help Tari with all the bed rolls.
Tari had stopped for a fraction of a second before collecting herself enough to ask, "Do you think it could have been another memory? What was it about, do you remember?" Ever since the girl had slipped into a coma for little over two weeks, she hadn't been able to remember anything not even her name or falling from a cliff.
"Not really, but I'm sure that it was something, it was just really familiar you know…like I've been there before." The miko tried to explain that strange sense of déjà vu that permeated her reoccurring dream. She frowned slightly in frustration when she was unable to recall anything more substantial about the dream.
Her fellow miko noticed the furrowed brow, "Don't worry, it will come back to you, just give it time." Tari smiled assuring her, looking up from gathering laundry. "Maybe you should talk to Lady Marianne again; she might be able to help clear up the details."
"Yeah maybe…" she averted her eyes, for some reason the black-haired miko wasn't too keen on opening up to Marianne, even though technically Marianne had not only saved her life, but taken her in, and even offered to take her as an apprentice, to train her to use her miko powers. Marianne had been nothing but nice to her but she still extremely wary of the head sister, she just couldn't explain why.
'Its been over a month, the moon's waning again as it was then.' The hanyou sighed inwardly as thoughts of life without Kagome flooded his mind.
Though Shippou had stopped bursting into sobs at the thought of her, Inuyasha could still hear the soft sniffles too quiet for human ears, as the kit called out for her in his sleep. Miroku was back to his old self, flirting shamelessly with any women in the area, for some reason unknown to the hanyou the monk had restrained from his usual habit of groping Sango at every chance he got. Sango seemed to be handling the absence of her segregate sister quite well. After all, Kagome wasn't the first sibling Naraku had taken from her, the pain only increased her desire for Naraku's death, and Kohaku's freedom; Kagome's too if she was being controlled in the same way.
The search for the jewel shards and the villain who possessed the majority of them had gone nowhere. They had no new leads, no rumors to check up on and without Kagome's ability to sense the shards; their quest had become little more than mindless wandering.
To the others Kagome was dead, someone to be mourned and avenged, but Inuyasha refused to accept that forcing himself to see her as someone to find, save and yell at for making him lug around her stupid backpack, which he did dutifully everyday, no one touched the thing but him. 'That wench ain't dead, she'd come back just to sit me if I let all her stupid "supplies" get lost, she'd kick my ass if I get diggin' through it.' He absent mindedly fingered the prayer beads around his neck almost expecting them to pull him to the ground as they had so many times before, almost wishing it would. 'Snap out of it you baka' his inner youkai scolded, 'you had you chance, either go find 'er or suck it up, but no way are you goin' soft on me.' Inuyasha almost smiled at the inner voice his youkai sounded more like him than he did lately.
No he wouldn't just greive and move on, Kagome would kill him if he gave up on her so easily. No she was out there, waiting, and damnit he was gonna find her.
Sango and Miroku sat near the fire, something about their travels of late was troubling the slayer, but voicing her concerns to monk would be difficult especially when it concerned her. With Inuyasha and Shippou's hearing holding a private conversation was near impossible and she wasn't keen on the fore mentioned eavesdroppers' outbursts at the mention of her name.
She sighed and the monk beside her looked up unspoken questions in his violet eyes. Shaking her head slightly, Sango flicked a pointed glance at the tree, both monk and slayer knew hid the inu hanyou. Miroku nodded in understanding, they had become masters of silent conversation recently, he immediately knew her thoughts concerned her.
Kagome's name had become a taboo for those wishing to avoid death at the hanyou's hands and hysterical tears from the kitsune. He had his suspicions about what was worrying Sango, he too thought it odd that Naraku had not acted yet. If indeed he controlled Kagome then why wait so long to use her to make them all yield? It would certainly bring down Inuyasha, none of them especially the hanyou, had the heart to attack Kagome.
Naraku held all the cards, yet he didn't play them, this was very unlike their foe. 'The only logical explanation,' the monk mentally concluded, 'is that he believes her to be alive, but he was no doubt the one that had ordered the attack at the cliff.' It made prefect sense Narku feared Kagome, that's why he had always made her a main target. 'But Kagome-sama was untrained, as powerful as she was she had no way to tap into that power.' Miroku reasoned he glanced at Sango; she too appeared deep in thought.
He knew the slayer well enough to read the thoughts play across her eyes she had drawn the same conclusion. They locked eyes a single shared thought flowing between the two, 'Naraku believes Kagome is still a threat to him.'
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Author's note: Okay so now you're all caught up with the time jump thing's will start speeding up the next chapter, but it won't be up for a while due to the end of the quarter and my 3rd quarter curse of brain block. It'll be up in a next or so once exams are over and all my damn projects turned in. I'll post a schedule o my profile when I get a better idea of exactly when. Chapter 9 Memory of a Dream.