InuYasha Fan Fiction / Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Miko ❯ Her Lonesome Self ( Chapter 1 )

MIKO

By L.O. a.k.a. azn_otaku

Crossover: InuYasha and Trigun

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A/N: Well, I know that some of you have enjoyed the prologue, no matter how short it may be. I hope that I do not mess up anyone's ideas of Trigun or InuYasha! This is just my views on the characters and this is my idea of coolio story. I suggest you all sit back and enjoy this new chapter.

On to reader responses:

Smile7499: Glad you are intrigued! You should probably watch the rest of Trigun before reading this. It's set after the series ends after all....I hope this doesn't ruin the series for you!

Coral Skipper: This idea is crappy? ....Well I suppose it's your opinion. I'm glad you like the way I'm writing it though. I hope I make it somewhat realistic to both storylines of Trigun and InuYasha.

Dan: Glad you're intrigued. A lot of people seem to be saying that! And I know that the prologue doesn't give much to work off of, just go along with it and see if you enjoy the ride!

Mistress of Anime: My fanfiction has rhythm! My ultimate goal....or something along those lines. I'm very flattered that you like this so far. Yu yu hakusho....hmm.....I've only seen a few episodes of that. It's interesting but I've never had the time to sit down and watch the full series! Keep reading MIKO for me, please!

I think that's it. Thank you for all who have reviewed! I feel so loved...

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"....." Dialogue

[.....] Thoughts

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Chapter One: Her Lonesome Self

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The Earth had spent a century and a half to heal itself, at it has shown. Buds were forming, trees gaining the vitality they had lacked from living amongst the polluted air for so long. Somewhere, a bird chirped it's good morning song, welcoming the sun that was peeping out over the horizon. This blue marble was finally getting the life it had wanted, the chance to grow without the limits of human beings.

Cut to the Sunset Shrine.

The light spills over a gigantic, old tree. Why this wizened being had not been destroyed when the humans had controlled the land, could be explained by the destruction around it. It seems to be that this old, old shrine had not been touched for ages. Even since before the humans had left this planet. Charred bits of wood lay on the ground, the steps smashed to bits. Glass from the windows shattered towards the inside of the house, and the little hut holding a deep well had been split in two. There had been an attack here, and it appears that no one has come to clean this place up.

But the Go-Shinboku tree still stands tall. It is the only living thing in the premises, the only thing unscathed by whatever demolished this sacred shrine. A deep green moss snakes its way across the twisted bark, as if shielding the tree from harm. The moss glows a steady white, and the only reason it has remained unharmed from curious creatures was the fact that no one had yet been able to get into the area without some odd accident occurring. This place is protected by a powerful being, keeping everything the exact same as it had been.....when a family had been burned to death and a young teenager had been taken away to a life of captivity.

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"So...you're leaving?" Vash stood up from his seat in the old rocking chair. The floorboards of the aged porch creaked from the release of weight. Green eyes stared hard at his twin brother, searching for answers.

Knives smiled half-heartedly, a pack slung over his shoulder. He was wearing a worn pair of trousers donated by one of the people of the town and a white shirt. His light blond locks were slightly ruffled in the wind as his icy blue eyes stared right back at Vash the Stampede.

"It's been at least two months. I shouldn't be imposing on you and your little posse." Knives tilted his head towards the house, where the Insurance girls no doubt still slept peacefully. It was early morning and the two were not exactly morning people.

"You're not imposing."

The past few weeks had been...odd to say the least. Knives came to about three days after his duel with Vash. He was alone in the world, his gang of Gung-Ho guns all killed. Legato Bluesummers had died by Vash's own unwilling hand. It took at least a week before Knives would acknowledge Milly or Meryl, who had been the ones to cook and bandage him. Meryl was a little miffed at the man to say the least, what him being a murderer and all. But it seemed.....that Knives was a different man that what he had been before. He did not speak much, only talking when he needed something. Days passed before he was willing to carry on a conversation, with either the Insurance girls or Vash.

"I need to find my way again. You know....like you have."

Vash had made him see the light. Or something along those lines. He could actually see the struggle of the human will to survive, how they had loved the plants and most had taken care of them well. The humans were not the enemies of his brethren, they were all equal in that sense. The plants were not superior because of their long lifespan or knowledge of the soul. The two creatures were exactly the same in their want to live.

"You have found your way...." Vash frowned, "I don't want you to go off on your own. I need to take care of you."

Knives laughed, his head thrown back and towards the sky. This laugh was not the insane, bitter kind that had come out of his mouth before. It was simple, unique in its own way but all the same, pleasant.

"Are you still clinging onto Rem's words? Besides, I still need to learn....to love both the butterfly and the spider as you have. You know that as well as I do."

He had been making progress. His tolerance for the Insurance girls grew so much that he could even be seen smiling with the large innocent Milly Thompson or teasing the temperamental Meryl Stryfe. But this was a small town that already knew of his reputation, and the people feared him too much to let him get close to them. He needed a new setting, a place to start off on his own.

"You'll find me again, right?"

Knives shifted his weight and turned, looking back at the boyish face of his twin. He grinned and waved his hand, "Of course! Someone needs to make sure you don't get into any more trouble than you already have. That Meryl has enough on her hands without having to worry about you. Tell them I said goodbye okay?"

"I'm not that bad! Why do you always have to side with her!?"

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"Kagome! Run! KAGOME!!!"

[A boy.]

She acknowledged the fact that this was another one of her dreams. Her eyes saw a quaint little building of wood, the doorway open to reveal a well made of the same type of bark. To the side grew an enormous tree.

[Is this an oasis?]

She had not seen so much greenery in her entire life. Grass grew in abundance along the ground, the tree that she had first glanced at was covered in branches and lush velvet leaves. Flowers bloomed off to the side, something that was as rare as water in Gunsmoke. The house to the side had glass, an expensive luxury. There were no large winds of dust blowing about or a hot sun. The only thing wrong with this picture perfect scene were the large stakes in the ground, in front of the house. Three figures were tied to them, fear in their eyes.

The grandfather had on an odd garment. Large pants that were a bright red, and a shirt that folded into his waist. On his feet were a type of sandal, and a few scraps of paper lay on the ground under his body. Black streaks were painted across these white slips, a language that she could not understand. The characters were vaguely familiar, perhaps she had seen them before? A woman screamed. She was tied on the stake next to the grandfather. Her hair was pulled back with a clasp, stylish in its own way. She appeared to be a motherly type. But her deep eyes cried out in terror as straw was piled at her feet by a demon of some sort.

She tried to shush her young boy who was yelling himself hoarse.

"KAGOME!!!! KAGOME!!!"

Why did he call her that? Was that her name? The boy stared right at her as he cried out a warning. He was many years younger than her, and yet he seemed so protective. It was as if he knew her....

Why did she not know him?

And why did he call her "Ka-go-me"?

She could not recognize this young boy. She could not recognize the mother or the grandfather. She knew that they somehow knew her and were trying to get her to run away from the danger that was no doubt coming, but she could not make herself move. She was forgetting something that she did not know she knew. Her eyes wandered to the demons that were rubbing two wooden sticks over the large pile of straw that buried the feet of all three prisoners.

It made her sad, to know that she did not know these three.

The boy kept screaming, even as the fire began to consume his small body. He yelled with all his might at her, his eyes hard. His mother only sobbed, her head hung as she stared down at the flames licking her arms.

[I'm sorry, I do not recognize you. Why are you crying?]

In her hands, she held a small jewel. It was a pale pink, the round half of it smooth and perfect. But the other side was cut in two, as if this was only half of the orb. The edges were jagged, looking like this piece of jewel that she held was put together by many small shards.

"Run....Kagome..."

[Run where?]

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He watched as her chest rose and fell, her body suspended in its column of liquid. The greenish glass glowed with the enchantment he had placed upon the prison, a spell to ensure that her miko powers would not overcome him and destroy what little he had obtained.

[Damn these pathetic humans.]

They were the ones who ruined the planet that he had once resided on. All of his assets that had taken him so long to build up...gone. He had had to start from scratch on this barren planet, to gain power all over again. All he had was the girl that he was watching at the very moment.

[Kagome.]

She did not know her name. Nor who she had once been. She was his pet, from the moment she had stepped out of her cryogenic tube from the crashed ship. Her memory gone, her only possessions being the bow and arrows he had brought with him.

Naraku grinned.

How long had it been since he had taken Kagome for his own servant? She was his unwilling puppet for a century on Earth. That was when she still knew who he was and how she had gotten taken away from all her loved ones. When she had been put to sleep on one of the Project Seeds ships, her memory had been taken away by the long slumber. She had nothing to tie her down now, her only thoughts were of obeying her master.

[One day...she will kill everyone on this planet for me.]

He was not strong enough right now. There were too many youkai in this town that could fight him if he attacked outright. When the people of the crashed ships began to gather, the youkai, and a few regular mortals moved off to a new town that they built with their own hands. This town was hidden from the rest of this damn planet, to guarantee the safety of the youkai and hanyou. They did not want to fight against all of the rest of the world.

[Pitiful fools.]

What happened to the old world? Where demons hated mankind and vice versa? The world full of blood and hate, not this age-old tiredness and greed. A world where the men were true men, who were not afraid to fight and not hide behind lawyers or whatever.

[One day....]

Right now, he could only kill off those he truly despised. Even then, it was by the hands of Kagome, his assassin. She had the skills of a ninja, the strength of ten youkai, and the spirit power greater than any past miko. She was the perfect warrior, trained by him ever since he had taken her away from her family and friends. Beaten by him until she could no longer do anything except obey.

"Wake up. I know that you can understand me, if only vaguely." With his hands clasped behind his back, he stared up at the hazy eyes of his pet.

She could not do much while in her tank. The cylinder was filled with a liquid spelled by him, forcing her into a state of half consciousness. All she was capable of was just to float, breathe, and dream. An oxygen mask was attached to her mouth, the strap encircling her head, trapping parts of her hair beneath its white band. The rubber tube attached to the clear mask snaked down to the side of her prison, fastened to the side where a large oxygen tank stood nearby. The rubber hose wriggled whenever the girl moved, causing short ripples in the liquid. Her body was bare, it was ridiculous to give her clothing when she lived in a tank of wetness.

Her eyes slowly opened.

"I have a task for you."

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"He left? What? Why?" Meryl couldn't say that she was sad. Nor could she say that she was happy to hear that Knives had gone. She understood his reasons, they were logical if anything. But...she just could read the man very well. One moment he seemed to despise her very existence, the next he would be laughing and teasing her just like Vash did at times. It was very frustrating.

"You know how he's been feeling lately...he wanted to go learn something on his own."

Meryl nodded, turning back to her pan where she began frying an omelet. Omelets were easy, break eggs and add whatever suited your fancy. She wasn't bad at making omelets, they were her specialty since she had been very young. While she cooked, it was easy to just think about Knives and how he had changed.

And he had changed.

His eyes were kinder. That was what she had first noticed. She had walked in on him staring out the window, and he just looked at her. Not in a bad way, not in a good way. Just a quiet stare. It unnerved her to see him look so....peaceful. It was as if he had changed overnight, or if he had somehow replaced the old Knives with the new Knives and she had never noticed.

Or was it, replaced the new Knives with the old Knives? He had been a good kid to begin with...

This was really beginning to hurt her head. She needed to hit something, she needed to vent her frustrations out on something...anything...

"Ow!"

Vash glared at the short woman who was currently holding her frying pan, a mess of egg yolk splattered all over the wooden floor and beginning to run through the cracks. He rubbed his head as a large bump began to form.

Meryl grinned and cracked two more eggs.

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I am a killer. My past, present, and future is nothing but.

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"Her name is Sakura. She looks a lot like a certain woman I know. You know what you need to do."

The girl did not take her eyes off of the picture in her master's hands. One of his demon servants dressed her up in her normal attire when out on a mission, an odd sort of garment much like that grandfather always wore in her dreams. A white top and billowy red pants. Instead of the sandals that the old man had worn, however, she donned on a pair of black silk slippers. This was her only set of clothes, brought to her whenever she was taken from her tank. In her hands was a worn bow, polished wood with a soft quiver of arrows. Her fingers ran along the side of the bow out of habit as she studied the female in the picture taken by her master. Strapped to her wrist was a small blade hidden by the large sleeves of the white top. This was a new weapon that she had just gotten recently, after almost failing to assassinate a man who was able to run long distances. The blade allowed her to run up and fight one on one with her opponent instead of having to aim with her bow.

She knew that this girl in the picture looked a lot like her. There were slight differences of course, but the likeliness was uncanny. Her hair was long and as black a raven's feathers. She did not know what a raven was, yet she knew how black their feathers were. She knew they had feathers.

She did not know why she knew things that did not exist. This has been happening ever since she remembered waking up from a deep sleep and she found herself on this planet of hell. Images of buildings as tall as the sky with many luxuries built in, windows, metal, water fountains that gushed out the lifesaving liquid on command. It was amazing that she knew so many things that could not possibly true.

"Do you have her face memorized yet?" Her master's voice was cold, a deep whisper that used to frighten her. His long black hair swept back in waves as he stared at her with those shaded eyes. A smile tugged on his thin lips when she nodded her head and hoisted her quiver on her back. The leather strap which held her blade felt worn on her pale, flawless skin.

Her body never changed.

It did not matter that she would sometimes arrive back at the base with her body scratched up or bruised. She rarely acquired serious injuries being as she was so skilled but nonetheless, when gashes appeared, one would expect scars. But her body was as pure as the day she had woken from her sleeping chamber. It was as if she was some sort of monster, her body healing the wounds in the space of a day. There was a blinding power within her very soul, something very different from every day mortals or even youkai. At least the youkai took several days to heal large wounds.

"I expect you to be back by sundown. Do not disappoint me, Girl."

Her soulful grey eyes wandered towards the door where she soon made towards, her body tensing with the anticipation of the bloodlust.

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Naraku grinned, his eyes bright in the dim lights of his base. His pet was going to destroy that Kikyou look-a-like that bothered him so much. Women like that should not be able to live, they should know that he despised the very thought of her. The only girl who could look like that was his slave, his pet.

"Sir...um...Sir?" A neko hanyou stood a little ways off, his hands clutching onto his clipboard tightly.

Naraku smiled and turned around, "Yes?"

"Sir, there's-there's a_human_coming towards Youkai...." The neko did not know what to do with himself, he was so jittery. His shaky voice proved that he was new to the facility, brought here by some employee friend.

Although Naraku technically did not belong to the town of Youkai, he still watched the doings of the population just in case there were people or demons he would consider killing. His base was underground, unknown to any of the citizens up above. They only witnessed his killings once or twice a year. Until he regained his power and strength, he would not be able to show his face and recreate the feudal ages once again. He yearned for the blackness of the demons' heart, for the lust of killing and mortal blood. Even though the new neko before him was shaking, Naraku knew that he would not have been hired had he not shared the same vision. His entire base was a unit of force that waited the time when the old ages would be brought back to life. This was their wish, their dream for a time when power was power and fights were full blow-out wars. The mortal men were ruthless, the youkai even more so. Slaughters and massacres were the main highlight of the day.

"Show me." Naraku frowned. Outsiders should not know of Youkai. Neither he nor anyone belonging to the small town wished for this. Those from the outside would torture or kill out of fear of the youkai and hanyou in the settlement. They could also have the incredible luck to find his base. Those of Youkai had been living here for so long, no one would believe it if they knew that all this time, he had been here watching them. But an outsider....

"My Lord, it appears to be three humans coming from Northwest. But, one of the mortals does not have the aura of a human. It feels...smarter somehow." The neko overcame his nervousness to sweep his hand over the space between the two demons to reveal a small window used for looking outside.

[So he's one of_those_youkai.] This young male must be one who could see far out into the distance, no matter what the obstacle. It did not matter whether there were walls or fifty tons of steel in his path, he could see through anything.

Naraku stared at the image before him. He would need to get rid of these three. They must not stay for long or pretty soon they would find the entrance towards his domain, if he was too careless.

Ruby red pupils narrowed, watching a man in a red coat, and two woman walk closer towards Youkai.

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Kikyou emerged from the large Go-Shinboku tree, her image being faint. This was only her spirit, her force that protected this area. No one had been able to get near the vicinity for centuries, and she intended to keep it that way.

Kagome was alive, she knew it.

Until the young woman that had been reincarnation could come home, Kikyou vowed to protect her domain and keep her loved ones safe. It was the least she could do after her actions towards the young woman. Her sense of honor would not let her die when she had such a large task to uphold.

Small dog ears popped up from a small clearing in the vines the tree had collected through the years. Part of a thin staff poked out elsewhere, revealing a small circular top with several rings dangling from the headpiece.

[Her loved ones....]

The spirit image looked around, taking a walk as a break from her steady guardian task. It had not been easy to watch over the property while the mortals were still living on Earth. She did not know where they had gone to, only that they were not here anymore. Her eyes that spread out over the grounds could see everyone in the world readying for a large trip through on of those image boxes they had in Kagome's time. A man, news reporter, spoke of a Project: Seeds that would transport mortals to a better future. She had not watched anymore, her interest in the comings and goings of these pitiful humans had dwindled over the years.

The house was still charred, Kikyou had come to know all the foreign objects of this shrine and home as if it were her own. During her centuries watching the humans in Kagome's present, she had seen things she had never thought would exist. Television, telephones, hot water showers, ovens...the list could go on and on. Much time had passed when Kagome had been kidnapped by the demon Naraku. Recalling the events that had changed her existence from a revengeful spirit to a loyal friend placed a small smile on the shadowy face.

She had been attending to the wounds of another mortal man. There had been a scrimmage with several minor youkai in the village she had been boarding with and most of the menfolk were injured somewhat. A presence came to her, something soft and innocent such that she had rarely seen outside of small children.

She knew it had been that reincarnation of hers, the one that managed to soften up the man she had once loved. Her bitterness was never aimed directly at the girl, it was just that the girl was in the way of her path towards bringing InuYasha to hell's depths. The girl was a mere annoyance, she could not care less if InuYasha and the miko were in love. After all, the living dead such as her did not care for past loves. They woke up with their memories intact, but no strong feelings towards those recollections. It was as if she had watched her life through a television screen, now that she knew was a television screen was. She knew that in order to bring revenge upon her once love, she needed to get rid of the girl.

But this light had proved her wrong. It was faint, as if barely alive. She could not sense the presence of the young hanyou that had captured her heart in the past. Nor could she sense the souls of the monk and the taiji-ya. There was something wrong with this picture that irked her somehow.

So she had gone to look.

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A/N: What did you like? Hate? Felt needed improvement? Loved?

Thought so.

I don't think these chapters will be as long as the ones in "Sunshine: Part One" because this won't be as long of a series and I'm not going for "novel-ish" material here. It's more like a really great story. Does this give you any clue as to what has been happening? And Kikyou is good in this story! There are so many fics out there that rap on Kikyou, I decided, "Hey, I should make Kikyou good in my story!" So that's how it came about. I like her character here. I don't mind reading stories with a bad Kikyou but sometimes people portray her as evil to a point of unbelievableness. Kikyou is just a revengeful chick, guys. She was set up for a trap and once she had died, it was easier for her to wake up with a thirst for revenge than to forgive I guess. Ciao!

Read "Sunshine: Part One!" You'll enjoy it...I think.

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JAPANESE DICTIONARY

Miko - priestess

Youkai - demon

Hanyou - half demon

Neko - cat

Taiji-ya - Demon slayer (I think. Someone help me out here.)

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