A/N: Thank you to innocentanimefan to their review on Chapter 17! :)
RxExR!
Timeless
Chapter 18 - The Vanishing Heart
"Yukari? Yukari!" Kohaku shook Yukari gently as she lay on a patch of grass in the village.
"Hm?" Her voice was nearly gone and she wasn't even opening her eyes anymore.
"Stay with me. Do you understand? Please stay with me." Kohaku begged as he extracted the arrow from her chest. "What should I do?" He murmured to himself as he held a ripped piece of his shirt to her wound to stop the blood from gushing forth.
It was a hopeless situation. She was dying and Kohaku knew it. God, even she knew it. After all, she had told Sesshomaru to 'go', knowing full well that it meant that whatever bond they had once had was breaking.
In that moment Sesshomaru had understood that too, he had known in his bones that she was leaving this plane of existence.
And Kohaku swore that he had seen some part of the demon lord break in the process.
"Kohaku?" Yukari's voice was barely above a whisper, her voice as frail as she looked.
"Yes?" He was breathless, praying internally that she would remain alive, that she would pull through.
But she had said that her heart was pierced.
"Tell me a story." She begged, needing to hear something other than her laboured breathing and her life leaving her. She sounded so afraid, like a small child terrified of the dark.
"Well, you know that me and Sango used to live in this village, right? Well, there was this one time..." And he began with the happy tales of his childhood. Tales that were of demon slaying and family dinners, of finding Kirara and begging their parents to let her stay.
Tears were gathering in the corners of his eyes as he felt her growing weaker and weaker in his arms.
He prayed that she would survive.
She had to.
~.~.~.~.~
"I wonder why your brother was so angry." Miroku mused as they continued to walk down the long corridor leading god-knows-where. Well, more like rushing down the corridor. Inuyasha was absolutely furious at the moment, understandably so, and was itching to cut or beat up something, preferably Naraku. Or his brother. But considering the mood that his brother appeared to be in, Inuyasha knew that it wouldn't be advisable to do anything with Sesshomaru right now.
He wondered what had gotten underneath his brother's skin.
"I don't know." He muttered in response, realising that Miroku's question hadn't been entirely rhetorical.
"Well, whoever it was that crossed him, I sure am glad that I'm not them." Sango said, shivering slightly as she remembered the murderous look in Sesshomaru's eyes as he had cut down that man and then stalked off. Not too long ago it could have been her that was cut down by him on a whim.
She would always regret what she had done to Rin and had been willing to do. She would never forgive herself for being so careless with the little girl's life and she knew that, despite Sesshomaru ignoring it for now, he had not forgotten.
And he had most certainly not forgiven her for it. It would take a long time for that to happen but she was willing to try because she that what she had done had been wrong, even if it took eternity to get him to see how sorry she was.
Sango sighed. Before, that had merely been a saying, but now it looked as if they actually might have eternity for it to do that. Which was a completely different problem should they make it out of here alive.
Being alive for eternity, it was not the cheeriest of all thoughts.
~.~.~.~.~
Midoriko was running, her breathing heavy as she tore down the corridor after what she knew to be Kikyo and Naraku. She refused to let her thoughts dwell on the encounter that she had just had, she refused to acknowledge how much that woman's words were affecting her.
"Your hate will destroy you." The woman's words echoed in her mind. How ironic, her sister had said that too, right before her death.
"It has consumed you and your sister's ancestor will be the cause of your death one day." Her sister hadn't had any children, so that wasn't possible.
"You will not fall at the hands of a demon, but at the hands of one who sympathises with them." Too many people sympathised with demons in this era, it seemed. It was a ridiculous notion, that she would ever lose and fall again.
"As the pale moon rises and covers the sea, the heart of a queen, encased in ice, will shatter and break." That line sent a shiver down her back, it had frightened her to the very core of her being. This wasn't the first time that she had heard these words.
Her brown eyes were losing their light quickly as Midoriko knelt next to her sister, attempting to save her with every spell that she knew.
"Your hatred of them caused this." Her sister coughed and blood trickled down the side of her mouth.
"No." Midoriko shook her head. "They came, like they always do. They are mindless and brutal creatures who kill just for the fun of it." Her voice was venomous, even as she was attempting to be gentle with her sister.
"No." Her sister's denial made her head snap up in surprise. Her sister had never disagreed with her. "It's your hatred and killing of them that led them here to seek revenge. You're to blame for my death and the death of the other villagers. If you weren't so bent on revenge for Aki then this would have never happened." Her sister's eyes were angry, even as the life was fading out of them.
"It's going to be the cause of your death one day Midoriko. You hate them too much, it has consumed you completely." Her sister's eyes were sad now.
"No." Midoriko disagreed. "No demon will ever take my life."
Her sister chuckled. "Oh, but the irony is that it's probably not a demon that will ultimately take your life but one who sympathises and cares for them."
"Who would ever be stupid enough to sympathise with those monsters?" Midoriko spat.
Her sister's eyes were tragically sad.
"As the pale moon rises and covers the sea, the heart of a queen, encased in ice, will shatter and break." Her sister recited slowly, none of Midoriko's spells taking effect. The wounds were too deep, she couldn't heal them in time.
"What?" Midoriko was confused but her sister's eyes were distant.
"Three steps forth and three steps back, her heart's desire will be fulfilled." Her sister finished before looking back at Midoriko. "Remember those words sister. You will die at the hands of one who sympathises with them and there is no future where this doesn't happen. Just remember that you brought this upon yourself."
"Hana-" Midoriko tried in a last ditch effort to reach her sister but Hana, with the little energy that she had left recoiled from her touch.
"Goodbye Midoriko." Hana's eyes closed and her life finally left her. Her breathing stopped and Midoriko held her sister's body in shock as it began to grow colder and colder.
And then the crying began.
Her sister's words had never left her, had haunted her, even now. But that woman, how could she still be alive? She should have died a good five hundred years ago. And how had she known Hana's words? Why had she repeated them?
But she had killed her, so it didn't matter anymore. She had stopped her from getting in her way again.
She remembered how the little girl had saved her life.
She ignored the pangs of guilt and continued to run as if her life depended on it.
~.~.~.~.~
"Stop!" Kikyo and Naraku turned around, afraid that someone had already caught up to them. It couldn't be Inuyasha and his group - that spell glueing them to the floor should just about have begun to wear off.
"Midoriko." Naraku said, a small sneer on his face as he shielded Kikyo with his body. She knew what to do, there wasn't any question about it. They didn't have much time anyway before Inuyasha and the others caught up as well.
And so she discreetly began to prepare for what she and Naraku had been planning for over a month now.
"What are you doing?" Midoriko asked, her bow and arrow raised as she slowly edged her way around the room, her back always to the wall.
"We want a life for ourselves." Naraku decided to be as honest as he could without giving too much away. He knew that Midoriko would be able to read through any lie anyway.
Midoriko scoffed. "You are a demon, you will never deserve a normal life." Her voice was bitter.
"Maybe I will never deserve it but I desire to have one anyway." Naraku continued. "I have spent most of my life in pain. Even after being resurrected after finally moving on into the afterlife, I still returned to this form. I have no desire for the past to repeat itself."
He stood strong, unblinking as she glared at him and lifted her bow up even further. What confused her was that he was not even attempting to take on a stance to defend himself.
"Please Midoriko, just let us go." Kikyo's voice came out from behind Naraku and Midoriko narrowed her eyes at her.
"You want to leave with him?" Her face clearly showed her disgust.
"I love him." Kikyo made her declaration just as Inuyasha and his team arrived in the cave with a crash.
"Wasn't Sesshomaru in front of us?" Miroku asked as silence stretched out through the cave.
"He was." Inuyasha nodded.
"I wonder where he went?" Sango asked, looking around the cave, taking in the tense situation.
"Kikyo. Naraku." Kagome looked at both of them directly, having heard the 'I love him' from Kikyo quite clearly.
"Not really important right now." Shippo decided to point out, looking at the glaring Midoriko from beween Kagome's legs.
"You love him?" Midoriko wasn't the only one looking at Kikyo in disbelief.
"And I love her." Naraku added.
Inuyasha and Kagome sounded like they were choking on something.
"We're tired of this life, we want to leave." Kikyo said again, hoping against hope that her words might strike a chord in Midoriko.
They didn't.
"You are demons, reincarnations of your former selves." Midoriko's expression never changed. "You are evil."
"Why do you hate demons so much?" Inuyasha finally asked, daring to voice what had been circling around in everybody's minds.
"What's it to you, hanyou?" Midoriko's voice wasn't any kinder.
"She lost her betrothed to a demon attack." Sesshomaru's hard voice echoed throughout the cave and Midoriko spun around to face him. Jaken came rushing into the cavern behind him.
"How do you know that?" Kagome wondered how Sesshomaru could have found out about this in the short time that their groups had been apart.
"Lady Yukari had a vision." Jaken stated solemnly and Inuyasha noticed the tight grip that Sesshomaru had on Bakusaiga. What had happened?
Shippo noticed that Yukari had been upgraded to 'Lady' Yukari in Jaken's vocabulary.
"Again, what's it to you?" Midoriko hissed, wondering what was taking Hisashi so long. He should have been here long ago.
"Nothing. Merely stating a fact." Sesshomaru's voice was cold as he drew Bakusaiga. Blood was dripping off the end of it. The others scooted backwards by reflex. One did not want to get into contact with Sesshomaru's Bakusaiga. Ever.
Kikyo gave Naraku's sleeve a small tug and he knew what that meant. It was time for them to go.
"Goodbye everyone and the best of luck to you all." Naraku smiled a genuine smile, one that looked so foreign on his face.
"No." Midoriko rushed forward, she had to stop them otherwise her plans would crumble to ashes. She needed them to complete her dream.
"Inuyasha, Kagome." Both looked up at Kikyo in surprise as she called out their names. "I am truly sorry for the pain I caused you both. Good luck." And both she and Naraku turned around and walked through the wall.
They walked through the wall.
Miroku blinked.
Yup, they were still walking through the wall.
What the hell was going on?
And they were gone.
Midoriko fell onto the floor in front of the wall, banging her hand at the unmoving rock.
"You bastards, you-" And she began to swear, or what they assumed to be swearing, in a language so ancient that none of them understood it any more.
Sesshomaru did though. He prevented himself from stumbling as a brief flash of pain in his chest took his breath away.
Yukari.
She was dying, he could feel it in his very soul. In that brief moment when their eyes had met when she had told him to 'go', she had sent him the vision she had seen via some sort of telepathy. She had never been one to share her visions whenever they occurred so he knew how serious the situation was when she did.
She didn't believe that she would make it.
He clenched his teeth.
"The arrow is poisonous, I won't make it." He could still hear her goodbye in his head. Ever since he had lost Rin, he knew what it felt like when someone close to you left this world for the next. But, as with Rin, he wasn't willing to let her just decide that she wasn't going to make it. It wasn't her choice to make.
"What poison do you put on your arrows?" Bakusaiga was right next to Midoriko's throat. She froze as she realised that in her anger she had let her guard and concentration drop.
"What's it to you?" She seemed to be saying that an awful lot lately.
"What poison?" Sesshomaru's already quite worn patience was breaking. He did not have time for this woman's antics. Yukari intended to be the only one to die today, she had told him so during the brief moment when she had sent him that vision, knowing that he would need its information in the future.
She was intending to use her temporal powers to send herself to another time period, thereby eliminating the chance that Sesshomaru would die as well due to their bond.
Neither of them knew whether it would work but she was willing to take that risk, to take the chance of not letting her body heal, of not spending her final moments with those that she cared for, for his sake.
"I won't tell you." Midoriko's eyes were hard but her confidence wavered as Sesshomaru brought Bakusaiga impossibly closer to her neck. The look in his eyes frightened her. They were cold and uncaring at the first glance, but underneath, due to years of practice, she could see his panic, his worry for the one that she had poisoned.
He wanted to save her.
That simple realisation took her breath away. She was seeing first hand how a demon cared for another and it frightened her. It spoke against everything that she believed in, that demons were cruel and brutal and uncaring.
"Your hatred of them will kill you." Two voices echoed in her head and Midoriko swallowed quietly.
This was bad. She was going to die because there was not a chance in hell that she was going to give a demon what he wanted.
At least her sister's and that woman's predictions had been wrong. She would die at the hands of a demon, just as she had always thought she would. She closed her eyes, ready to accept the death that she knew would come.
Suddenly a bright glow filled the cavern, blinding everyone inside of it. The pink hue was pulsing, just like a living organism.
Kagome felt something warm around her neck and realised that it was the Shikon no Tama jewel from her own time, the one that she had brought back to the Feudal Era. It was the thing that was emitting the light and pulsing like crazy.
"What the-" She felt the jewel beginning to burn her neck and she quickly removed the chain holding it, never looking down as she feared that the bright light would blind her permanently.
The light dimmed and everyone looked at the chain that Kagome was holding out in front of her, as if it was something infected.
Sesshomaru's eyebrows shot up as he realised what it was and Jaken gasped. Midoriko on the other hand merely looked confused. When Miroku reflected on the whole scene later, he decided that her reaction made sense as she had never actually seen the Shikon no Tama that had once been her heart as she was technically already 'dead' once she had ejected it from her body.
The jewel flew straight from Kagome's hands, slipping through her fingers as she attempted to hold onto the chain that had bound it around her neck. It burned her fingers and she yelped as it finally slipped away from her.
It slammed right into Midoriko, fusing with her body as she let loose a shout of pain. Bakusaiga scraped her neck and she flinched backwards, right into the wall that Naraku and Kikyo had vanished into.
It was like a big black hole, Kagome thought as they all watched in some sort of fascinated horror as Midoriko fell backwards through it, being swallowed by the darkness.
Sesshomaru moved forward in an attempt to stop her from escaping but she was gone. Again there was nothing but a hard wall.
Incomprehension had been the last thing on her face before she had vanished and it coloured all of their faces now.
Sesshomaru swore quietly, so quietly that no one but Jaken heard him.
Midoriko was gone.