XXXIII

Compos Mentis

She wanders alone.

Who am I?

Dressed in the garments of a miko, bearing a face that is shared now with another woman of whom she knows nothing, Kikyou wanders away from the place where she returned to life and into the deeper parts of the forest. The Goshinboku is at the center of a wide circle which she makes through the wood; youkai avoid her, and animals ignore her, and through sun and rain and darkness she walks at the same slow, dreamlike pace. She knows the name the witch addressed her by, it had come hard and cold into her consciousness; it had awoken nothing.

Where did I come from?

Sometimes her path brings her past the place where she woke to life, but that doesn't tell her where she came from and she knows it. As the days pass, the clay begins to vanish beneath the undergrowth; the green and glowing liquid that had surrounded her in the vessel had leaked away after only a few hours. Soon, nothing will be left to mark the place.

Why am I here?

She had no answer for that at all; not even a hint of one. Just the words that the witch had spoken before she was consumed in Kikyou's power; just three words, words that seemed familiar though she she could not reason out why. Her mind was blank; empty. A wall existed high and tall inside her, over which could neither peer nor climb. It held back reality – her own reality, the who that she wanted to know. What would break such a wall? She did not know. She knew only shikon no tama, and a feeling, which kept her moving in a radius tethered to the great tree and its sleeper.

Who am I?

She keeps coming back to that one, all important question, but no answer is forthcoming; nothing breaches the wall of silence within herself. What she needs is someone else. Another person – someone who knows the answer...someone who could tell it to her, because the silence of the trees cannot. This presents a problem for her, because day or night she has not encountered another speaking being since she destroyed the witch.

"Perhaps I should not have done that..."

The words startle her, coming from her own lips; the sound of her own voice is as the sound of a stranger. She sighs, and looks up; the great tree is close, and she walks forward until it is in front of her; until she can reach out and touch the gnarled, ancient bark. To her surprise, she feels a spark. Something of herself; power. Like the power that is inside her even now...the power that had destroyed the witch. She walks around the base of the great tree, beyond the writhing border of its roots, and when she comes to the other side she stops, and stares.

"Sleeper...do I know you, sleeper?"

A boy, her age perhaps; his hair is white and moves in the faint breeze; there are dog ears on his head, soft looking, real; his robe is red and that too shifts as the air moves, but he is still – too still even for a sleeper. His face...his face makes something soft inside her; her face makes her feel a terrible sadness that she doesn't understand.

"The ears...of an Inu -"

The word gives her pause.

"Inu...Inu...Inu?"

A momentary flash – this boy in motion, incredible motion – she is looking down at him, looking at the back of his head; something rough is in in her hands. Red – robe?

"Inuyasha."

The name slips out of her lips. The wind rustles the leaves again, sets motes of dust blowing up in the wind. She looks at the boy, and she knows it is his name; she picks her way forward over the roots, and climbs up a little ways onto them, reaching out – she wants to touch that robe, she wants to know if it is what she was feeling, if that was a memory -

You are Inuyasha, but who am I?

She stumbles forward and falls against the boy; against her cheek, the rough-softness of that robe is exactly as she...remembered it. In a blink she remembers this, too – remembers falling once, remembers the warmth of his hands steadying her.

"Boy, wake up. Inuyasha – Inuyasha, wake up!"

She steps back a little, and reaches out to shake him, but she stops before she does, her eye on the arrow that holds him against the tree.

The arrow.

Another blink. She feels the bow in her hands; she feels the knowledge that she is going to die soon, that if she must die she must take this one with her; she feels her heart breaking even as that thought finishes itself within her.

The arrow from...my bow.

She reaches out her hand grasps it. Her heart thuds painfully within her; does she have a heart? Does it matter? She feels it all the same; feels it even as she feels the response of her own power, coming to life, waking from a sleep as deep as the boy's, turning the shaft of the arrow to white light. She yanks it free, and it erupts into sparkling dust, sparks away from her into the air and vanishes. She had braced herself to pull it free, and because there is suddenly nothing she falls backward, tumbles to the roots and looks up.

The boy blinks, and slips down the side of the tree, comes to rest on the balls of his feet. She smiles with relief to see it, and then speaks even as his mouth is opening, even as awareness is coming back into his brain.

"Inuyasha. You are Inuyasha. Please tell me, if you know me – please tell me, who am I?"

He scowls down at her, and she stares back at him with eyes so empty that even though he does not want to, he must believe that what she's saying is the truth.

"You don't remember – but you remember me?"

She nods.

"That is true, Inuyasha."

"Yeah, I know who you are. I know who you are – you're Kikyou. The one they call the shikon miko. The one I thought actually loved me – before you shot me, and pinned me to this tree!"

"So Kikyou...is my name. The witch said it was, but I did not feel anything like believing her. You – I remember – I remember hearing my name in the sound of your voice. You...knew me."

"Knew you? Did you lose your memory or just go insane, woman? I know you now."

"Yes, and you knew me before."

"Before -"

She looks at him solemnly.

"Before I died."

Inuyasha stares at her in shock. What kind of world has he woken into? How much time is it that has passed? What is going on – that is what he wants to know – and he knows one place nearby that will be able to tell him.

"Before you – right. All right look, you're coming with me; there's a village near here that'll have the answers I want, and they'll take care of you, too. I don't – you aren't - you aren't my responsibility, all right? I've got – I've got other things to do than look after you."

She stares at him, her face for a moment dark and emotionless; Kikyou as he remembers her, instead of the bland, strange expression that she has been wearing since he woke.

"I am more than capable of taking care of myself, Inuyasha. I have been doing so for several days."

He looks at her, barefoot, her hair bedraggled from the rain, her clothes stained and a smudge of dirt across one cheek. He shakes his head; why is it that even knowing what it was that she did to him, he can't hate her? Because she doesn't remember?

He reaches out to rub the dirt off her cheek, and is surprised when she stands still and lets him.

"Just...just come on, Kikyou. The village isn't far; we'll walk."

A/N: And there we are! Things begin to happen! Things! Lots of things! Next, we'll see what's been going on with Kouga and co. during the days Kikyou was wandering – I'll give you a hint, it was bloody! That chapter should be up in...a few hours, because technically speaking this is yesterday's chapter, just like yesterday's was technically the day before's. Editing my manuscript has got me a little distracted; please forgive, but I will do my best to stay caught up even as I attempt to publish myself in the real world! This chapter's title, "Compos Mentis" means "of sound mind"; until later, my dears!

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