InuYasha Fan Fiction / Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ Endless Sleep ❯ Sango ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Disclaimer: The characters of Inuyasha and The Sandman belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Neil Gaiman, respectively. I'm not profiting from writing this.
Author's Note: This is an Inuyasha crossover with Neil Gaiman's Sandman series (mostly crossed with the story from the book The Dream Hunters).
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Endless Sleep

2. Sango

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I found myself at my old training field in my home village.  As was my old routine, I began stretching exercises with some vague awareness that there was something else I should be doing.

As I hoisted Hiraikotsu and prepared to launch it at my target, I noticed a thin, purple string tied around my left wrist.

I stared at it a moment, confused.

Then, it all came rushing back to me.

I was dreaming.

I had a mission.

Before I fell asleep, my first sleep in two days and one night to ensure a sound slumber, Miroku had pulled a single long string from his kesa.  He held it tight in his fist while murmuring a sacred mantra.  When he finished, a brief flash of violet light shined between his closed fingers.

Tying one end of the string around my left wrist and the other around his right index finger, he said, “You know how easy it is to get distracted when you dream, even when you want to keep dreaming about something specific.  With this connection, I’ll be able to follow you in your dream, steer you to the center, where Mushin claimed the castle was, and be there for you as you bring our son back.”

I had kissed him then, and hoped that it conveyed optimism and promise instead of the sad longing I felt.  I double-checked the cherry pit in my hand.

I leaned back and shut my eyes and Miroku settled in for deep meditation.

I fell asleep.

I was dreaming.

In my hand, I still gripped the cherry pit.  I moved it to the more secure niche beneath my left shoulder guard where I often kept my smaller tools and treasures.

I waited for Miroku to help me with the next step on this journey.  I was glad to be in my slaying gear and to have Hiraikotsu with me.

I wondered what Miroku’s guidance would be like.  I expected it would be a tugging sensation on the string around my wrist or a voice in my head, telling me where to go.

I was almost half-right.

As I scanned the dreamscape around me, I saw that the horizon, where sky met earth, was blurry, like ink marred by water. It was the edge of my own dreamscape that I had never noticed before.  I then felt a tingle at my left wrist along with a sudden revelation, like a new thought arising in my head, that I should turn directly right.

Instead of the blurred edges of colorful landscape, a clear path was visible.

This was the way.

After a few steps, I was no longer on my old training ground.  I wasn’t sure where I was; it was unlike any place I had ever been.  The ground beneath my feet was baked and hard.  Yellow, stringy grass grew only in sporadic tufts.  The sky was a smoke gray without clouds or birds.  It would have been a totally desolate place but for the towers of crystal, three to eight feet tall, that rose up from the ground in random clusters.

Because of the light passing through the crystals, the tough ground was patterned in rainbows. The effect, though gorgeous, was dizzying.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” I asked aloud, knowing Miroku could hear me.

I was so enthralled by this crystal wasteland that I almost didn’t hear the strange popping noise a few feet away from me, coming from a crack in the ground.  It sounded a little like trapped, boiling water escaping in vapor from underneath a teapot set on scalding hot surface.

I backed away just as a fiery plume shot out from the crack in the earth.

I was knocked off of my feet, too surprised to do anything but gape.  The fire was gone as quickly as it had come, but I knew there would probably be more throughout this land.  Like so many things, this place was beautiful and dangerous.

“Get me out of here, Miroku,” I said.

I regained my feet and began running through the wasteland, keeping an ear out for popping sounds and dodging the flames as they followed my footsteps.  A thought, I knew it was Miroku, surmised the ground was pressure-sensitive and that fire would dog me until I left this nightmare.

I ran and dodged.  I almost despaired that this dreamscape seemed miles and miles long and I had not the time to waste here.

Then, with the tingle at my wrist and the thought that I should alter my course slightly toward the clear part of the horizon, I had completely traversed the crystal wasteland.  The perspectives and confusing distances of dreaming, it seemed, could also work in my favor.  Near and far were almost the same thing in this place.

Now, instead of desert that breathed fire, I found myself in a wooded area, following a trail on a steep incline.  I followed the trail, readying my senses for any form of attack that might come from the dense thickets of grass or from the trees above me.

After a few steps, I noticed the form of a man on the trail ahead of me.  He was fat and clothed in dark green.  He was the first being I’d met in this dream and I regarded him with suspicion, gripping Hiraikotsu’s handle in case he made a move to attack.

“Hoom.  Good evening young lady,” he said with cheer and a deep bow.  He had a likeable aspect to him and I steeled myself from the desire to relax my guard as I came closer to him.  There were no thoughts from Miroku as to who this might be.

“Hello,” I said.  “Who are you?”

“Dear child,” he chastised, “I am not a who.  You should not assume such things here.”  It dawned on me that this man, or whatever he was, knew about the land of dreaming.  He did not seem angry or hostile, so I chanced that he would share some information with me.

“Is this the way to the castle of the King of All Night’s Dreaming?”

A good-natured smile spread under his thick moustache.  “Hoom.  It could very well be,” he answered.  “King Dream often changes its location based on his moods.  I have stopped keeping track.”

I frowned and the fat man gave me a concerned look.  “My dear child, I think you would do well not to seek the king of this realm.  He prefers his solitude and his work.  Though he is good to us here, he is easy to take offense and powerful enough to make his enemies suffer for several lifetimes.  Instead, stay here.”  He motioned to a path that forked off of the one I had been following.  “Just beyond this wood there is a beautiful, green, rolling meadow with a laughing river, sweet flowers, and warm sunshine.  Stay there tonight and awake tomorrow feeling better than you can imagine.”

“I can’t,” I said.

The man frowned and nodded.  “I understand.  But please know that you are welcome back any time you would like.”

I bowed and thanked him.  I continued climbing the steep path.

The man’s voice came from behind me, “Child, though it is vast and dangerous, the land of dreaming is a place that exists within you and within all those who sleep.”  I turned and saw that the man had disappeared.  Then I heard his voice again, coming from all around me, “You have power here, too.”

I whirled around, searching for the man.  He seemed friendly and his advice was comforting, but I was not sure that I could trust him to steer me correctly.

A small tug at my wrist set me back on the path up the incline.  The thought from Miroku was that the man in green was probably telling the truth, but he would be no ally in the fight for our son.

As the trees cleared, I found that I was at the top of a mountain standing at one edge of a natural stone bridge that spanned a dark and fertile valley far, far below.  The bridge was sturdy, but it was hard to see where it led.  There was another mountain at the other end of the valley, so I assumed the bridge would lead me there, even though it was miles away.  In any case, I had no choice; this was the only clear path for me.

“This is the way to him,” I said at the same time as the thought arose in my head.

I walked the bridge, marveling at the beauty of the valley below.  But after a few dozen steps, I notice that the bridge was getting steadily narrower.  What had begun as a walkway on which three people could comfortably walk side-by-side had thinned such that a couple walking two-abreast would feel uneasy.

“This is getting dangerous, it seems,” I said.

After another minute of walking, the bridge was only as wide as my two spread hands.  It didn’t feel fragile beneath my feet, but I hesitated.  The way forward only looked narrower.

Though I could feel Miroku cautioning me not to turn back, even going so far as pull the string forward along the bridge, I turned around.

“I don’t like this,” I said.  “We’ll find another way.”

I walked back the way I had come.  But a few steps later, the bridge was even narrower than before and I had to place my feet one in front of the other to walk.  It seemed that no matter which direction I went, I would be going forward until I was walking a bridge as thin as the edge of a sword.

I huffed.  “I can’t keep going like this,” I told Miroku.

There was no response from him.

“Any suggestions?”

Nothing.

I peered downward toward the valley that seemed miles below.  I remembered the fat man in green.  I had a thought of my own.

“This is my dream and I have power here, too.”

With that, I jumped off the bridge, falling.

Falling.

I could feel Miroku’s sudden panic at my decision and I did my best to ignore it.

Instead, as the rushing winds grew louder around me, I tightly shut my eyes and I focused on this new weightless feeling.

I concentrated.

Water.

Cold water.

I’m in cold water.

I’m not falling, I’m swimming.

I’m swimming in the heart of dreaming and when I break the surface, I will meet the King of All Night’s Dreaming.

I’ve often found I could direct my dreams.  With Miroku’s help with that direction, I could find a shortcut to dreaming’s center.

The sound of wind faded, but my weightless feeling did not.

I was cold.

I opened my eyes and found I was submerged in brackish water of a swamp or pond.

I began to kick and swim, finding the pinpoint of light that would lead me out.

I surfaced with a gasp and made my way to the water’s edge.  I saw that I was in a pond in a beautiful garden.

I pulled myself to my feet and surveyed the surroundings.  Circular paths led around gorgeous trees and animal statues of every color.  Flowers looked full and delicate and the air was full of their light aroma.

“Few are as able to find me as quickly as you just did,” said someone behind me.  The voice was unusual.  It was as though every word was covered in ink that disguised it as human language.

I turned toward the voice, ready for anything.  I would beg, if he wanted.  Or fight.  My mouth opened to explain myself, but the words stuck in my throat at the sight of him.

He almost looked human.  He was in the form of a tall, thin man, regally dressed in a deep black kimono laced with exquisite flame-colored embroidery.  His shock of long black hair was wild and elegant at the same time.  He looked exactly as I had always imagined a great king should look.

But he wasn’t human.  His skin was paler than bleached bone.  His eyes were night.  They were endless and black and contained bright stars that shined from within.  He emanated great power; more than I knew I could withstand.

My knees went weak with fear.  The string at my wrist tingled and with Miroku’s strength, I found my voice.

“I’ve come for my son.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

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