InuYasha Fan Fiction / Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ Endless Sleep ❯ Dream ( Chapter 3 )

[ 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).
-x-

Endless Sleep

3. Dream

-x-

The demon exterminator stood in front of me, waiting for my response.

Her pretty face was set in a serious expression.  I knew why Sango was here.  I was impressed that she had found her way to me so easily.  But then I noticed the thread around her wrist and knew she had teamed up with her clever husband in order to locate me.

I am so rarely impressed, so I decided to hear her out.

“He’s my son and you had no right to take him,” she growled out, still afraid of me, but trying not to let it show.  

I could see the scars from Despair’s hooked ring all over this young woman.  My younger sister can be cruel, though she does not mean to be, and I could see that Sango has known more suffering than most humans could survive.  Even now, I could see Despair looming over Sango, her hook ready to tear into Sango’s heart if she did not receive her son.  I was sympathetic, but I had to attend to my own duties.

“While I am sorry for your loss, taijiya, I am obligated to take a child fathered by your husband, the monk Miroku.”

Sango hissed, “Our son was not anyone’s to give, nor was he yours to take!  Where is he?  I demand to know!”

While she didn’t approach me, Sango set her stance in preparation for a fight. My mouth quirked upwards at her show of defiance.  Amused by the human, I answered.

“Your son is here, in Dreaming.”

“Let me see him,” she replied.  Her eyes shined brightly with hope.

“I think it would be best if you did not.  Seeing him would only make the heartache worse when you had to leave him here.”

The corners of her mouth pulled down with disappointment.  “Please,” she whispered.  “I would give you anything you wanted.”

“What do you think that you could offer me that I could not create in Dreaming?”

Sango’s eyes took on a panicked, searching look as she considered her options.  It was clear that most of what she held dear, people and relationships, she could never give up.

Finally, she seemed to come upon a solution and she unslung the giant boomerang weapon from her back.  She knelt in front of me and placed it at my feet.

“This is Hiraikotsu,” she told me.  “It is the most powerful weapon of my taijiya village.  It is infused with the souls of many courageous demons and can dispel even the most evil miasma a creature can create.”

While I trusted the truth of her claims, I could not stop my smile.  “Foolish human,” I said, “I have no fear of Earthly poisons and no need of demon-fighting weapons.  Even this Hiraikotsu that you offer to me in Dreaming is nothing more than your own thought of the object.”

“Please, sire!” she pleaded, tears gathering in her eyes.  “I’ll give you anything you want!  Just name it!  Please!”

“Enough,” I said sternly.  “This matter is at a close.  I am sorry that the person to whom I am indebted is an enemy to such a person as you, but there is nothing to be done.  It is settled.”  I turned to leave, to return to my palace.

“It is not settled,” was her reply, spoken so low it was almost a whisper.  The murderous tone of her voice made me pause and turn my attention to her once again.

Sango had slowly risen to her feet.  Her shoulders were slumped and her head bowed, but the whiteness of her clenched fists and the rigidness of her stance expressed her true demeanor.  Her bangs hid her eyes from me, but her aura was alight with fire.

The creature in front of me was so exquisite with the pure, undiluted emotions of love, sadness, and, above all, anger, that I had to force myself from openly admiring her.

“You wish to harm me, little one?” I asked, intentionally goading her in order to see more of her beautiful rage.

“I’ll take my son back by force if I have to.”

Though I knew it was wrong to play with her in such a way to get her hopes up, I was in sore need of diversion.  This warrior mother would, no doubt, be greatly entertaining.

“You wish to do battle?  Then, by all means,” I said and waved an arm toward my garden.

At once, the three statues of the garden that were carved into the most fearsome beasts sprang to life and charged.  Sango scowled at me, then turned to face her attackers.

The first to reach her was a form from the nightmare of a Nordic eight-year-old boy who had only just been told of the legend of the ferocious wolf-creature who lived in his nearby wood.  He had imagined large eyes, uncountable, long, sharp teeth, and the claws of a raptor.  This wolf-creature was made for tearing off flesh and crunching bones to pulp.

Sango did not even blink in the face of this beast.  She swung her Hiraikotsu with her full strength, completing both a defensive and offensive move at the same time.  She struck the wolf off of its trajectory and dealt it a powerful blow to the torso.

Taking the time she had as the wolf regained its bearings, she pulled the short sword from her belt and charged at the wolf with both weapons swinging.  The wolf was ready, though, and reared up on its hind legs to swipe at the Hiraikotsu with its sharp talons while biting at the wrist that held her sword.  Claws and teeth moved so fast they were difficult to see.

Yet Sango seemed prepared and was able to push the wolf off of its balance and regain her tempo.  She moved in to strike but was distracted by a twitch of her wrist.  She brought the Hiraikotsu up just in time to deflect the blows from above by the other two creatures I summoned.

I smiled inwardly, more fully understanding how this husband-and-wife partnership endured.  Even though technically awake, Miroku was able watch out for his wife’s vulnerabilities in battle and warn her of the silent attack from above.  It was clearer how this seemingly mismatched couple had grown to love and trust one another despite their vast differences.  They looked out for one another.

Miroku had seen the twin threat.  One beast was in the form of a giant bat with a razor-sharp beak and silent, leathery wings.  He was the product of another nightmare from an older Chinese man who had taken refuge in a dank cave some centuries ago.  

The other creature was a truly terrifying insect that had once existed on a planet in a now-extinct galaxy.  This specimen had poison-coated barbs thrust out from her black, hairy body.  She had six wings of a putrid green hue, eighteen glowing red eyes, and a large stinger with which she could either poison or impale her prey.

Every creature Sango fought promised its own version of excruciating death and they were all attacking her simultaneously.  Though she was a warrior and though I could see the poetry in her movements, my beasts were strong and it was all that Sango could do to maintain her defenses, even with the extra support of Miroku.

While it was vastly entertaining to watch the fight knowing that Sango had a secret weapon of a loving husband who was doing all he could to help her in her quest, the battle was coming to a quick end.  One of the creatures would soon deal a killing blow and the warrior-wife-slayer-mother would awaken back in her home.

But it seemed, once again, that I had underestimated the team of Sango and Miroku because suddenly, Sango went from furiously trying to defend herself and slay the beasts that surrounded her to calmly just deflecting their blows.  Her eyes were closed and she seemed deep in thought, probably communicating through the thread to her husband.

I was evermore intrigued.  This Sango captivated me.

A resounding beat went through all of Dreaming when Sango, resolved, opened her eyes.

“I have power here, too,” she said.

With that statement, she turned and caught the advancing wolf-creature by the scruff of his neck.  She held in her hand not a fearsome nightmare, but a puppy with large eyes, lolling tongue, and wagging tail.  With her defeat of him, he once again returned to the base of his statue, only now he maintained his puppy shape.

As the two attackers from above saw her new strategy, they retreated to the upper atmosphere of Dreaming to reconsider their next moves.  Sango, discontent to wait for them, jumped as high as she could to reach them.

She jumped high and hung in space, willing herself to stay aloft as those in Dreaming sometimes can.  With that, she flew toward the beaked bat.  He balked at her approach, noticing that she had willed herself to grow bigger.  By the time she reached him, all she needed to do was waft the air with her hand and the bat-creature was sent spinning toward the ground.  He hit with finality and returned to his form as a statue in my garden.

Finally, she turned, still a giant, toward the insect-being.  She inhaled deeply and blew out through a closed fist.  Fire shot through the air and engulfed the otherworldly insect.  She was the third of my creatures to again realize her statue form.

Sango wiped the sweat from her brow and looked at me with triumph.  She then hurled her Hiraikotsu at me with confidence.

“Enough.”

This was my world and I could do with it as I pleased.  With a thought, Sango and I faced one another and surrounded by nothing but white.  The whirling Hiraikotsu had vanished into my ether.  Because I willed it, we were alone.  It seemed we needed to talk.

“Impressive display.  But I am sad to tell you that it will not win your son back to you.  As I have said, I made an agreement.  A child of Miroku’s is forfeit to me.”

To her credit, Sango seemed unsurprised by my statement.  “What would become of my son if he were to stay here?”

“He would become a part of Dreaming,” I answered.  “He would become an inspiration for people’s dreams and stories.  He will live on in dreams for as long as there are beings in our universe who have them.  It is not a bad existence.”

“He is a child.  What could he inspire?”

“You would be surprised what people can come up with.  I often am, myself.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer someone older?  Someone like me, who already has a story?”

I was momentarily rendered speechless.  The young mother had a point.  She had the potential to be the heart and soul of future dreams and stories.

“You would give yourself up to Dreaming in place of your son?”

The string at her wrist jerked violently and she was almost pulled off of her feet.  She looked at it with a mixture of annoyance, love, and sadness.  She tugged at it and it snapped without much difficulty.  Sango had severed her link with Miroku.  

“Without hesitation, I would give myself up so that my son could live.”

Her proposal deserved my consideration.  I gave it thought.

I conjured the lake from the garden, but only that, to join us in the whiteness of our conversation.  Then I summoned a tree on the farther side.  Beneath it was Lucien, the keeper of Dreaming, and with him was Sango’s son.

Sango drew in a deep breath and looked at me with hope and relief in her eyes.  “Will you really take me so that he could survive?” she asked, voice cracking with emotion.

“No.  You have lived your story.  You have already had your happy ending.  You are married.  You have had children.  You will live to have more.  As beautiful, and as inspiring a warrior as you have been, true dreaming inspiration must have more unfulfilled potential.  You are no longer a maiden and you have already fought your most ferocious battles.  All that is left to tell of your life, while extraordinary to you, is not quite the stuff of legend.”

Sango could not take her eyes from her son across the pond.  He, too, had noticed his mother, and under Lucien’s guidance, had begun his long toddle over, from the tree and around the pond to his mother.

“Then why are we talking?”  Sango asked.  Her voice was flat and dead, resigned.  She now lived only to hug her son once more.

“Because watching you made me realize that another child of yours, a daughter with your skill set, your passion, your emotion, your lethality,  your husband’s intelligence and maybe a touch of his perversion, would inspire stories for millennia to come.”

“Wait.  What are you asking me?” said Sango, finally turning to look at me.

“I agreed to take a child of Miroku’s.  Though it was assumed that I would take this particular child immediately, those specific words were not used in the request.”

“You can’t have the any of the twins, either!” Sango announced.

“I would agree to that.  Neither one of them will inherit the breadth of your skills, but both will grow into lovely maidens in their own turn.  What I am proposing is that a future daughter of yours, if one is born, who has your beauty and skills, will one day come to live here in Dreaming, where she will live on in people’s imaginations forever.”

“I can’t,” Sango said, but her voice was weak and her attention was turned back to her son, who was now halfway around the pond.  She had begun to smile at him for his benefit.  In return, he was cooing and tripping over himself to get to his mother as fast as he could run.  “I could never give up a child.”

I considered this and admired the woman before me.

“No you couldn’t.  But, if a child of yours, a young maiden was to fall in battle, would you consent that she be able to join me here in Dreaming?”

Sango regarded me again.  “I... don’t think I can agree to this.  I can’t make this decision on behalf of a life that has not yet been born.”

“The decision has been made.  I promised a boon to a man who was able to help me with my youngest sister.  That man has asked for a child of Miroku’s.  It will happen.  If not this son that is seeking your embrace right now, then I’m proposing that you make an offering that will buy you time.  With that time you will have your family, love and train them, and if a daughter is born that reflects the warrior in you and the intellect of Miroku, she will come to Dreaming if she dies while still a maiden.”

“An offering?”

“Throw Hiraikotsu into the sea.  Once it reaches the bottom, it will be my possession and available here in Dreaming once your daughter arrives.  It will again be a weapon for a warrior woman.”

“I think that would still be her decision whether or not to join you here,” Sango responded.

“True.  But what would your decision have been?  To simply die and face what my older sister has for you?  Or to live on, in your own way, in the dreams and stories of those who have the imagination to recreate you and new stories for you to act out?  Truly, without this kind of inspiration here, even your own story will never be told in future generations because no one would believe, outside of their dreams, that one such as you could exist.”

“If I agree to this?”

“Give me the cherry pit Mushin stole.  I know it’s under your shoulder armor.”

Sango withdrew it and held it out to me.  I brought it to the ruby that hung as a jewel around my neck.  The ruby was the concentration of my powers, and I imbued the cherry pit with our promise.  I handed it back to Sango.  It was, once again, a dark, ripe cherry.

“If you agree to this, eat this cherry, pit and all.  Both you and your son will wake up in the morning without harm.  Then, many years from now, if a daughter of yours falls in battle, she will have the opportunity to join us here in Dreaming.”

Sango nodded and dropped to her knees.  She clasped her hands around the cherry and drew on all of her strength and wisdom to help her make her decision.  She knew instinctively that she had only until the time until her son reached her to remain in Dreaming.

She opened her eyes.

She looked at me.  Then looked at her son.  He was off-balance, but still making his way as fast as he could to her arms.  She looked at me again and I could see that she still was conflicted as to her decision.

But then, she looked once again at her son.  She allowed herself to laugh at him in his determination to embrace his mother even as she cried out for a future child.  She put the cherry to her lips, chewed carefully, and swallowed.

As the mother enfolded her son in her arms, they disappeared back into the waking world.

“That seemed hardly fair, sir,” Lucien said, now standing at my side.  He pushed his glasses farther up on his thin nose and huffed.

“No,” I agreed.  “But it will give her time.  And she will not lose a child to an unknown sleeping malady.  She would lose one in battle, which she is more prepared for.”

“But still, you cannot ensure that a daughter will be born with her skills and passion who will die as a maiden.  You cannot be sure you will repay your promise to that gentleman.”

“I have been alive for as long as beings have dreamed.  I know a little about the patterns of history.  The patterns of people’s lives.  I did not make this decision lightly.  I fully expect that a daughter of Sango will join us here in Dreaming.  She will inspire stories of women who fight for their causes for generations and then some.”

“Well, sir,” sighed Lucien, “it’s your decision and as your humble servant, I trust in your intuition on this matter.”

“Thank you Lucien.  See to it we are prepared for her arrival.  If she is anything like her mother, we will be very fortunate to have her around.”

“Yes, sir,” was Lucien’s answer.

TO BE CONTINUED...
Converting /tmp/phpyhTAid to /dev/stdout