InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Darkness Falling ❯ Chapter 1

Kikyou stumbled and almost fell, bleeding severely from a wound in her side. She gasped in pain, crawling farther. Still, it was a lot less far to her sister than before. Her bow had fallen from her hand long ago. It was yew, so it should last, at least long enough to tell Kaede everything, anyway.

 

She gasped, crawling farther, and then finally collapsed. “Kaede…sister…Please hurry…” She infused her plea with a bit of her last magic, which she was hoarding it for one last feat she hoped would fix what she had ruined.

 

Kaede came running, a sixth sense having prompted her to search. The younger sister heard Kikyou's whispers, and sprinted the last two hundred feet to her prone form. “What is it, Kik--NO! Kikyou, what happened?!” Kaede fell to her sister's side. There was so much blood.

 

“Do not interrupt me. I have little strength.” She paused as Kaede nodded, breathing heavily with intermittent coughing fits. “Listen carefully. InuYasha hurt me. Badly. I wouldn't give him the jewel, so he tried to take it. I have pinned him to the Goshinboku. I couldn't bear to kill him. He will last. But I will not. Burn my body and the jewel, but birth my daughter. She must live. Though she will be premature, my magic should hold her still when time would not. Protect her with your life, Kaede. She is the last of the line. Keep her safe. I love you both. I shall try to protect you from the other side. And …” She coughed up blood. “Tell him,” she coughed again,” if he wakes…” She lay back so that Kaede had to lean close to hear. “Aishiteru…” And then Kikyou was gone.

 

If there was any sadder funeral, speak now or forever hold your peace. Kaede lay her sister on the pyre with the grief of one who has lost everything dear to her, one by one. Kikyou's ashes were scattered to the four winds, weighed down with tears - perhaps the reason her soul was so easy to catch later on. The younger sister had birthed her niece, amazed that she didn't try to squall. Just a slight rising of her chest was the only evidence she was even alive at all.

This went on for thirty-three years (a sacred number), the small child's chest the only moving part of the girl. But finally, on that anniversary of her birth, Kaede tickled her feet, as she did every week, and was amazed to hear an in-drawn breath, the magickal coma finally having worn off. The elderly woman blinked repeatedly, only just remembering to pat the baby's bottom to force her airways open.

 

“Village, come quickly!” Kaede yelled out the door above the child's squalling.

 

All the villagers dropped their things, not believing their ears. The child had awoken! They all redoubled their pace, appearing at Kaede's door soon after the summons.

 

“Kikoru is alive!” The shouts of the villagers penetrated even InuYasha's sleep, for the next seventeen years he could only be seen with a smile.

 

Because the child was only six months in the womb - demon though she was - the girl never could quite keep up height with the other children. She was always short. But to make up for lack in height, she was always strong, lithe, and silent. Whenever the children played games, such as hide and seek, if she was “it”, she would find them all, considering her handy-dandy dog ears perched atop her thick skull. But if she hid, she couldn't be found.

 

She kept her black hair in a long plait down her back, out of her way during her many escapades. Grey amber-speckled eyes kept track of everything around her, even when she was off in her own world. Her oversized black-furred haori was donated by a shadow wolf clan she befriended when she was four, and allowed her some camouflaging abilities in the forest around the village.

 

When the girl was six, she started coming into her powers. Her demon senses arose, granting her various powers from both her unknown father and beloved, though unremembered, mother. She felt the presence of demons in the forest, the closest and most benign of them the one who did not move. She sought his aura every day, finding an odd comfort around him. She pretended he was her father as she ran around the Goshinboku and hid in the large roots. She loved those games best.

 

Since she was old enough to understand, she had learned of her mother. And since then she had listened to the story of her birth. But she was never told who her father was. Thus intrigued, she vowed (upon learning exactly what a “vow” was) that she would one day find him and reunite their family, though she never realized how close they had been, she and her father, for as long as he had been there with her.

 

Every four weeks, the girl went through a change. Because she was a hanyou, every new moon she changed into her human form, the only noticeable difference being her lack of ears and superhuman strength and speed. She could always be found outside during those nights, if anyone could find her at all, that is.

 

Then again, no-one ever thought to look under the roots of the giant tree aptly named Goshinboku,. Her seventh birthday fell on a full moon, so it was on this night she was in her usual spot under the shelter of InuYasha's less-than-watchful gaze. She thought of her mother, and of her father, and soon she had glowing hands. The roots seemed to have a life of their own, and yet were somehow under her control.

 

“Wow…” she whispered, the first word she had uttered all afternoon. She giggled, moving the roots like huge marionettes, and the rocks flew up and danced a little jig. The water rose up from an underground spring and gathered in a depression at her feet, and the wind made ripples on the water. Flames darted under the surface of the tiny pool, and a picture of her mother appeared on the mirror-like surface.

 

“Mother? Is that you, Mother?” the seven-year-old questioned the face in the pool.

 

“Kikoru? What have you done, daughter?” The woman looked sternly at the girl. The plans of the gods could very well be destroyed because of a meddling child's magic.

 

“I miss you, Mommy! Can't you come back?”

 

“I wish I would, Kikoru! But it would upset the balance. Kaede should have started your training by now. Why are you meddling?” Her mother was teary-eyed. Being able to see your child for the first time tended to do that to a woman.

 

“I suppose it will start tomorrow…” Kikoru looked too interested in her mother to pay attention to much else.

 

“Why hasn't she started yet?”

 

“I couldn't do anything, Mama! This is the first time anything's worked!”

 

“Sweet gods. You are my daughter! And how much like your father you look!”

 

Kikoru's doglike ears flattened against her head. “Who is Father, Mama?”

 

“You'll find out soon enough, child,” Kikyou said absently, attention suddenly elsewhere. “I must go. I love you, Kikoru! More than anything I want to be there to watch you grow up!”

 

“Can't you still watch me, Mama?”

 

“I can, but it's not the same, child. But you keep yourself now, do you hear?”

 

“I hear you Mama! Aishiteru!”

 

Kikyou looked away again, shooting furtive glances behind and to the left of the viewing portal. “I must go. I have been away too long. But do not worry, daughter. I always watch. Aishiteru, dearling.”

 

A single tear fell from the child's eye, splashing in the pool. “Sayonara, Mama…”

 

“Always say goodnight, Kikoru. Never goodbye.” Her mother's voice drifted across the portal just before it closed.

 

“Aishiteru, Mother. I'll keep, I promise…” She rose despondently, winked at her guardian InuYasha, and headed to the village. That night started a birthday tradition, but she would only speak to Kikyou until she was thirteen.