CONTENT WARNING, PLEASE READ: Descriptions of body horror and child death. Please skip through the marked part of the chapter if you think either of these things will trigger you. I don't think anything is super explicit, but this is coming from someone who reads the works of Junji Ito, so I'm putting a warning here just in case.
[Updated: July 2nd, 2023 - Added on to part of the author's note at the end]
Chapter 13: Kikyo, Captured by Naraku / 1945
Inuyasha and Kagome had hardly said a word after Naraku disappeared into the clouds with Kikyo, and Miroku thought it best to get away from the strange mountain that had lured them there in the first place. They had gotten far enough away that the grass and trees had become green again, and made camp next to a clear stream.
The next morning, Daitan sat next to Miroku on a boulder, facing Sango and holding Shippo in her lap. They all made occasional glances at Inuyasha and Kagome, who sat closer to the stream.
"Those two have been acting strange, haven't they?" commented Sango, looking over at Inuyasha and Kagome one more time.
"It's definitely got to do with Kikyo, their dynamic gets messy when she's mentioned or involved." said Daitan as she played with Shippo's auburn hair. His head was starting to nod a little. Miroku hummed, fidgeting with one of the rings on his staff.
"Daitan, when we were in the cave, you had a very strange reaction to Kikyo's presence… was it her spiritual power?" he asked. Sango's eyebrows drew together.
"I didn't hear anything about this… what happened?"
Daitan thought back to the nauseating feeling that Kikyo's aura had given her, and how utterly revolting her very presence was to her. She didn't feel much dislike or contempt toward Kikyo, other than hearing about her attempts to kill Inuyasha; in fact, Daitan felt some semblance of pity for her. The priestess had died tragically, believing that Inuyasha had betrayed her, and had been brought back to life with her memory of him forever tainted by pain and hatred. Kagome had filled her in on the details, since Daitan had missed that particular adventure, and Daitan could understand that Kikyo's situation was, indeed, tragic. However, when Daitan had first set eyes on her, she had such a visceral reaction to Kikyo's presence that she nearly vomited after making physical contact with her.
"I'm not sure… All I know is that it definitely doesn't have anything to do with her spiritual power. Something about her just felt so wrong…" she said. Miroku hummed, and was about to say something before Kagome raised her voice at Inuyasha over by the stream.
"Inuyasha, we need to get going! It hasn't been too long since Naraku took Kikyo, they can't have gone far!" Inuyasha just huffed, his back still turned.
"I'll save her on my own-" he started, but Miroku firmly planted his foot on the back of Inuyasha's head, looking extremely irritated.
"Quit being so stubborn, you've forgotten who it was that kidnapped Kikyo – I want my own revenge. I wouldn't even have this hole in my right hand if it weren't for Naraku."
"He's an enemy to all of us, remember?" scolded Sango, and Daitan nodded, letting Shippo down from her lap when he started to wriggle.
"He literally tried to eat me. You think I'll let him get away with that?" she said, standing up and placing her hands on her hips. Shippo piped up from the boulder next to Daitan.
"Yeah, you're not special, Inuyasha!"
Kagome knelt down to a sulking Inuyasha's level, speaking in a soft, understanding tone, but Daitan became distracted as a quiet hum reached her ears. When she turned her head, she spotted multiple eel-like creatures slithering through the air, carrying small orbs of light in small, spidery legs. Miroku quickly noticed them too, and pointed up in the air.
"Inuyasha, up there!"
"Kikyo's soul gatherers!" Inuyasha leapt to his feet, suddenly brimming with energy. "She's gotta be close! You guys coming?" Kagome nodded, and Daitan grinned.
"Do you even need to ask?"
—-
Inuyasha, Daitan, and Miroku ran together and the rest of the group rode on Kirara's back, pursuing the soul gatherers high in the air. The humming grew slightly louder as they approached, and more began to congregate above them, getting closer and closer together. Daitan's eyes narrowed in suspicion. They aren't behaving at all like they should, creatures with such long tails like that… She thought. The soul gatherers were far too close together, and yet their tails never tangled or brushed against each other, despite the way they undulated through the air.
Sango suddenly leapt up from Kirara's back, brandishing Hiraikotsu, and sliced through one of the gatherers. As Daitan had suspected, the "soul gatherers" weren't at all what they seemed. The one that Sango had cut through vanished, replaced by one of Naraku's saimyosho. Everyone reached for their weapons, but it soon proved to be too late as the disguised saimyosho disappeared in a cloud of bright white fog. Daitan heard Sango's shout from behind her.
"Look out, it's a trap!"
The mist became thicker and thicker, and Daitan tried to reach for Miroku, who had been running alongside her, but she couldn't even see her own hands in front of her. Even the sound of her footsteps seemed to be swallowed up by the fog.
"Guys? Kagome? Miroku?" Daitan slowed her pace to a walk, trying to locate any of her friends' scents. Nothing. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Hey! Is anyone there?!"
The only sound was of her breathing and muffled footsteps, and as Daitan kept walking, the fog began to clear. Relief started to bloom in her chest, and she jogged forward, waving away tendrils of mist. However, when her vision finally cleared and she could see in front of her, Daitan's stomach plummeted.
A desolate landscape stretched out in front of her, one that she thought she would never have to see again. An entire city, reduced to rubble, with few buildings left unscathed from the absolute devastation that had visited there. The twisted black remains of what trees remained reached for an ashen sky, and the air was completely, utterly silent.
Daitan's breath grew ragged as she turned, trying to see where she had come from. Nothing but the same. She closed her eyes, tried to slow her breathing, to do anything, but when she opened her eyes, she found herself staring out the eyeholes of a gas mask, breathing in stale air from a small tank strapped to her back. Her hair tickled her neck, cropped short for ease of decontamination.
The muffled sound of her own breathing grew quicker and quicker, and Daitan reached up to unbuckle her mask with trembling hands, but her now gloved fingers couldn't find the latch. She fell to her knees, clenching her hands tightly. The Geiger counter on her belt began to let out quiet pops.
"This isn't real… It's impossible…" whimpered Daitan. She looked up again, searching for someone, anyone. Only the faint whisper of the wind answered her, and she hugged herself, attempting halfheartedly to pry the armor from her body. Daitan let out a sob, tears pricking her eyes.
The sound of wailing suddenly reached Daitan's ears, and her head whipped around to see a young wolf youkai, a child, kneeling on the ground with large tears rolling down his dirty face. Despite herself, Daitan approached him, trying to hide the trembles in her hands. The boy cowered from the sight of her mask and armor at first, but she held out her hands in an attempt to look as non threatening as she could. The Geiger counter's pops turned from quiet pops into a steady crackle.
"Hey…" she said, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. "Hey, are you okay? Are you… Are you injured?" The boy just sobbed harder. Daitan knelt down and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Can you-" before she could finish, the boy latched onto her armor, sobbing into her chest.
"M-My ma… Sh-She kept me sa-safe, but she sta-started looking scary, and she told me to run away, but our house fell and I hit my head!"
Wait… I know this…
Daitan swallowed hard, curling more around the boy and looking around warily. She set her right hand down on top of the boy's head, and put the other on her katana.
"What… What do you mean she started to look scary?" Daitan asked, her heart sinking. She already knew the answer.
"She started c-coughing, and then… then-" the small boy couldn't keep going, and his wails grew louder. Every single one of Daitan's senses were on edge, and her pulse leapt into her throat when the Geiger counter's crackles suddenly transformed into a harsh squeal. The debris under her feet began to quake, and she grabbed the small wolf youkai securely around the middle. Daitan leapt away from the shaking remains of what must have been the boy's home just before it was thrown into the sky by a massive beast.
Youkai that looked humanoid usually had a beast form, which one could transform into at will, and is a manifestation of the youkai's most natural and primal energies. What emerged from the rubble, however, was anything but natural.
****Skip through this part if the content warnings may trigger you****
It took the form of a grotesque and swollen halfway point between wolf and humanoid, the paws mangled and stuck between claws and fingers and toes, legs bent and broken at strange angles. A woman's face melted into the side of the foaming maw of a wolf, the humanoid jaw trapped in a wide open scream, and large patches of its matted pelt had fallen out. What wasn't covered with fur showed shining, blistering burn marks and dark bloated bruises. The monster's two pairs of eyes, one of a woman, one of a wolf, rolled in its skull, jaws leaking a black, tarry substance, and its entire body jerked like a puppet on strings.
The boy in Daitan's arms almost screamed, but she clapped a hand over his mouth as she leapt behind a large pile of rubble. Once they were out of sight, she spoke quickly and quietly to him, and tried to ignore the retching and squealing of the monster nearby.
"Listen to me – you'll have to be brave, okay? I need you to stay here, and stay quiet until I take care of this, and then I can get you help, okay?"
The boy's eyes were still wide, but he nodded. Daitan took her hand off of his mouth.
"Just stay here, and keep quiet – I'll be right back."
Daitan's hand gripped her sword tightly, willing the trembling away.
She stepped out from behind the pile of rubble, facing the monster. Its head immediately jerked around, one of its four eyes landing on her. It let out a combination of a gurgling roar and a scream, globs of black tar spraying from the jaws of the wolf. When it charged, its legs only allowed it to drag its bloated body along the ground, screeching and writhing as it did.
Daitan summoned her whip and darted to the right, avoiding its charge. Her whip latched onto one of its forelegs and she pulled herself forward, slashing the tendons of all of its legs in one practiced stroke of her blade. Thick black blood sprayed into the air, and the wolf monster screamed in agony, body twitching and unable to move.
It was a simple enough finish. One she had done hundreds of times before, with enough experience to make it as quick and clean as possible. Just one stroke to the spine at the base of the neck, severing the spinal cord. As Daitan's sword sliced through, the eyes of the woman in the side of the wolf's head looked almost grateful.
As the wolf monster's body slumped to the ground, dead, Daitan let out a breath and returned to where she had left the young boy. The first thing she noticed were his eyes. They had gone completely blank in shock, and he didn't look at Daitan when she knelt down next to him again.
"It's gone now – let's go somewhere safe, okay?" she prompted. The boy didn't respond, but Daitan lifted him into her arms and began to jog in the direction of the base camp. She hadn't made it ten steps before she heard and felt a wet cough wrack the young wolf youkai's body.
All of Daitan's blood seemed to turn to ice in that one moment. No… no, I thought… She stopped in her tracks, still holding the boy in her arms. Daitan realized… the Geiger counter hadn't stopped when the wolf monster's youki had dissipated, and it was back to making quiet pops. Quiet, but not silent, as Daitan had hoped. The child felt so small, so fragile… When he started coughing again and didn't stop for several seconds, Daitan set him down with shaking arms. The boy looked up at her when she put him down, his eyes still mostly blank with shock, but fatigue began to take over.
"Miss, I… I don't feel good…" he coughed again, and black flecks landed on the ground by her feet. Daitan's throat threatened to close up. There was no one around. No one else… no one else to do it.
"It-" Daitan's voice broke. She swallowed and tried again. "It's going to be okay." She did her best to sound convincing, to sound like tears weren't spilling down her cheeks under her mask. "I need you to stay here for a second and close your eyes, okay?"
The little wolf youkai nodded and closed his eyes. He trusted her. She had saved him from the scary monster, after all.
Daitan silently made her way to stand behind him. He looked even smaller like this, little clawed hands crossed in his lap where he sat on the ground.
"It's going to be alright." She reassured.
Was it for him or her?
"You'll be in a safe place soon."
Her sword made no sound as she drew it from its sheath.
"Everything will be okay."
The blade flashed through the air–
****Content warning end****
—-
Daitan suddenly gasped awake to see Miroku, roughly shaking her shoulder. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks, and her throat felt raw. Upon her awakening, Miroku sagged with relief.
"Oh thank goodness… You weren't responding for so long, I thought…" he trailed off when Daitan sobbed, covering her face. "What happened?" She only shook her head. After a moment, Miroku spoke again.
"Do you need time? Or do you want to come with me to find the others?"
Daitan sat for a few moments, her tears taking some time to stop. Then, she got to her feet, her expression blank but for pure exhaustion.
"Let's go."
As Miroku and Daitan tracked down and woke up Sango, Shippo, and Kirara, she could feel Miroku shooting her concerned looks. She kept her eyes forward, following her nose to the next one of her friends who had been taken by the mist, and easily freeing them from the cursed vines entangled around them.
The two headed in the direction of Inuyasha and Kagome's scents, with Miroku holding Shippo and Kirara, Daitan easily carrying Sango's unconscious form. The trees soon opened up into a large clearing, where Inuyasha and Kagome could be seen, both already awake and speaking to one another. Miroku and Daitan were only able to catch the end of the conversation.
"...I feel like I'm telling on her!" sobbed Kagome. At the moment, Daitan didn't have the energy to wonder what they had been saying before she showed up.
—-
The hunt for Naraku had come to almost a complete halt after the events of the previous day. They had all been trapped in an illusion cast by Naraku that forced everyone to live through their fears, their insecurities, their worst memories… In the end, only Inuyasha and Kagome had been able to break out on their own. Not to mention the fact that Kikyo, who had broken free from Naraku's spell herself, had stolen Kagome's jewel shards and tried to kill her. Needless to say, the entire group was utterly exhausted, and had unanimously decided to start heading back to the village of Edo to get some rest before they started searching for jewel shards again.
Only another day's travel away from Edo, Kagome groaned from her spot next to the campfire Sango had made when night fell.
"Of all the luck… I need to go back home for a math test the day after tomorrow, but my sacred jewel shards were stolen…" she sighed.
"Maybe you could borrow Miroku's?" suggested Daitan, but Miroku quickly made to pretend like he wasn't listening.
"You can borrow mine, Kagome." said Sango, shooting an unimpressed look at Miroku. Kagome's face brightened up.
"Thanks Sango! Daitan, are you planning on going home too?" she asked. Daitan nodded.
"Yeah, after yesterday… I need to visit home for a bit," Daitan handed her untouched fish to Shippo, who gobbled it down eagerly. "And I think Dad will appreciate it. He doesn't really show it, but I know he wishes I'd come home more often."
—-
They arrived in Edo in the afternoon of the following day, and after greeting Kaede and having lunch with everyone, Daitan and Kagome jumped down the well to get back to 1996.
Kagome stretched and sighed as Daitan climbed out after her.
"Do you want to stay for dinner tonight?" asked Kagome as Daitan straightened up and briefly smoothed down her ponytail.
"No, I should get home as soon as I can. Thanks for the offer, though."
Daitan waved goodbye to Kagome and cast her human disguise before she made her way down to the train station. The closer she got to home, the harder it was to keep the emotions she had kept suppressed off her face, and the sniffles and tears that escaped while she was on the train got her some funny looks.
When she had finally reached home, Daitan just barely remembered to take off her shoes before entering and curling up into a ball on the sofa, pressing her face hard into a throw pillow and finally, finally letting loose. She tried to keep as quiet as she could, but the sound of footsteps told her that no matter her efforts, if she even so much as sniffled in the house, it would inevitably summon her father.
He said nothing, as usual, but he sat with Daitan as her tears soaked the pillow.
A/N: This chapter was a lot shorter than the others, but it was definitely the most emotionally taxing to write. However, I have been anticipating writing it for quite some time, since it gave me an opportunity to really describe one of the events that happened in Daitan's past and why she gets the way she does about kids. Don't worry, I don't intend on letting any angst go on for too long (it's one of my pet peeves about some fics). Things have to be bright for the angst nuggets to hit the hardest :)
RECAP for those who needed to skip part of the chapter: Daitan slays a corrupted and mutated wolf youkai that emerges from the rubble of the boy's collapsed house. She then goes to retrieve the boy and starts taking him to a safe house, only to discover that he is also showing symptoms of corruption, and it is heavily implied that she had to kill him in the end. There is no treatment or cure for youkai afflicted by radiation poisoning, and if left alone, he too would mutate and become violent, endangering the remaining youkai community in the area.
****PLEASE READ: I would like to clarify that I do not in any way mean for it to come across that Japan is innocent at all when it comes to its role in WW2, and they committed numerous atrocities during the war. In this story, youkai are an almost completely isolated society from humanity, and have hidden themselves from humans for a couple of centuries at that point, thus, they did not take part in the war themselves because... why would they care about what humans did to themselves? That is, until the radiation the atomic bombs released significantly affected their population, became contagious, spread like wildfire, and they were forced to take action against the monsters their people turned into to prevent the devastation of their own kind.
While creating the concept for this story, it felt impossible to have people that live extremely long lives such as Sesshomaru and Daitan exist in modern times without at least mentioning this part of history. The concept only grew from there, I started to think about what radiation would do to supernatural creatures such as youkai, and then what would be done to get rid of the monsters created from it, eventually leading into Daitan's trauma regarding that time in her life and some of the worldbuilding I'll be expanding on later in the story.
If anyone's interested in how radiation poisoning works for youkai, here's the meat of it, straight from my notes and containing the results of a combination of research and fantasy. Please note that this may also contain some unsavory descriptions of the symptoms of radiation poisoning for both humans and youkai.
For humans, the effects of ionizing radiation includes burns, hair loss, organ failure, vulnerability to sepsis, and increased susceptibility to cancer, among other effects.
Youkai vibrate at a higher frequency than humans, and radiation has a bit less of an effect on them in that it does not kill them as easily or immediately. However, this only means that those who were not killed in the immediate blast became ill, their youki overwhelmed and corrupted by the initial highest dose of radiation, and they eventually mutated into grotesque forms, some humanoid, others more beastly, due to youkai's rapid regenerative abilities allowing for more frequent and drastic mistakes to be made in cell regeneration. Black tar-like substances leak out of the mouth, nose, and other orifices as the youkai's corrupted youki becomes ionized, and continues to destroy it from the inside. The leakage is a result of the youkai's organs slowly liquidizing, causing bloating of the tissues in early stages, then steadily decreasing until it is left an emaciated husk. Unfortunately, due to the nature of youkai, this does not always stop the body from moving, and they are rendered something like a zombie until destroyed by an outside force. There is no treatment or cure for youkai afflicted by radiation poisoning, and it is highly contagious through bodily fluids.
Radiation levels declined rapidly after the initial blast, and after a few weeks, it was at safe levels once more. However, the damage had been done to the corrupted youkai, and they remained a threat. Many of the great houses of youkai (that includes the House of Moon, which Sesshomaru is the head of) felt it was their duty to aid in taking care of this new and devastating threat. Those who exterminated the corrupted youkai wore gas masks and armor to avoid contamination through the eyes, mouth, nose, or any cuts in the skin, as the corruption could no longer be spread through the air, but still through bodily fluids. They also had to cut their hair short, for ease of decontamination after every shift. Corrupted youkai still contained hazardous levels of radiation due to it disrupting and overtaking their youki, and every exterminator had a Geiger counter on them when searching for corrupted youkai, as their sense of smell was restricted because of the gas masks. Anything used or worn after a shift exterminating corrupted youkai was subject to thorough decontamination.