InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Blue Anshan ❯ Unexpected 4 - The Split ( Chapter 22 )

The Blue Anshan

By Alesyira

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho are not mine. I made a few OCs to fill in my gaps.

Summary: Time passes, things change. Stories to tell. Stories to hear.

Chapter Rating: T

Arc 3 - Unexpected 4 - The Split

sparklies

1527

We arrived at an endless shore on a drizzly, dreary cold day. I shuddered in the damp chill, wishing for a warm fire and dry clothes. The ocean extended out to the horizon, the huge grey expanse of water broken only by occasional streaks of foamy white.

"When there were more of us living here, the house was bigger." Youko frowned, looking around at the quiet shoreline. The foundation of a large home sat tucked amongst low-hanging trees, but it looked as though much of it had been dismantled and only a single room remained.

"Don't you want to go with me to see him?"

I turned to glance at Youko, who briefly looked chagrined before he slipped back into cool indifference. "He'll just whine at me for my life choices, and it's counterproductive. If you aren't going to go get your questioning over with, I'll leave without you."

Awkward. I couldn't quite imagine not wanting to at least say hello to the adults that had kept me safe during my formative years, even if they weren't my parents. I wondered what his life choices had been that they would be so frowned upon.

I left Youko on the beach and walked up to the quiet home. I sighed. Another day, another stranger, another series of questions asked at random until something made sense.

The inside of the hut was shrouded in darkness, but the lone occupant smiled up at me from his task of weaving new lengths of rope. "Good day, young one." He had similar coloring as Youko, but that's where the similarities ended. This one kept his hair short and neat, and the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me in welcome. His ears flicked first in my direction, then pointedly to his right, where I'd seen Youko slinking off to go perch on a long chunk of driftwood.

"Hello." I felt very uncomfortable just standing there. I didn't know how to ask for the things I wanted to know. 'Maybe I should have brought a gift.' I remembered the sweet cakes I'd taken from the mystic's abandoned home. (Yeah, I took the whole tray of them. No regrets.) I withdrew one of the carefully wrapped treats and he accepted it with a smile.

Youko's adoptive father was remarkably chill, just a single youkai living alone in a sturdy hut along the shore. With his mate long dead, his sole purpose in life was to help those in need: fishermen that washed up on shore, villages that suffered from unexpected storms, lost souls seeking redemption. He had focused what remained of his life on services to Inari.

"My…" I paused, shuffling my feet, then eased to the floor to sit in front of him as he returned to his rope weaving. "I've been told my mother may have lived here for some time?"

He frowned, looping and tucking fibers into place. "Your mother?"

My heart fell. "Er… Hananoki?"

He made a small sound of recognition. "I'm sorry, young one, I see many faces with each season, and it's difficult to recognize who one is asking about by merely showing up on my doorstep." He smiled, probably at my youthful ignorance. "Hananoki lived with us for…" he paused, considering. "Well, it was a long time. She was pretty heartbroken over that boy."

Wait, what?

"Made a lot of fancy trinkets to distract herself while she stayed here, too. You might want to take some with you." He set his work aside, then stood and stepped across the dim room to rummage in an ancient wooden chest.

"What boy?" I asked, feeling scandalized. (I'm not sure why I kept clinging to the idea that Mother and Father had been the only ones for each other, even if it had been some kind of family-arranged mating.)

"Oh, she'd had a friend on her island. Parents didn't approve. We said we'd take her in until she could get over him. Never really happened."

He found what he'd been searching for and quietly closed the chest, returning to his spot with a small package in his hand. He shook his head sadly as he sat down. "She cried for months, poor thing. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought she'd already initiated a life connection with that boy before she came to us. Terrible thing to get over."

"Why don't you think she did that?"

"Fishermen brought word back that everyone on the island had died. Her kind doesn't do well when a life connection is severed." He held out the small parcel of folded linen for me to take. I gingerly unwrapped its contents, marveling at the sparkling trinkets nestled within. It was a variety of delicate metallic plants, twisted into hoops and curls that could be worn. Some looked just like the bracelet my mother had made for me so long ago, the one I'd given up to help hide Kagome's curse.

"My mate, your mother's cousin, couldn't bear to see her drown in her sorrow, especially once we knew she was the last remaining of her kin. We begged Inari for guidance, and your father answered the call. Kasei was guided here by an apparition of the kami herself." He paused in his work and turned a beatific smile skywards, reminiscing at old memories. He opened his eyes and turned his glowing golden gaze upon me. "You remind me of her. So many questions in your eyes, and the shadows of old pain you cannot let go, but hope for the future is buried in there. Remember that hope, remember there is a tomorrow." He touched a warm, calloused hand to my forehead, sweeping my hair to the side.

Kami, I missed my father.

He sighed, pat me on the head twice, then turned his attention back to his work. "It took her a few years to relinquish her past and let that sweet man bring some sunshine back into her life." He chuckled and winked, "I guess that's when you came into the picture."

I brushed my fingertips along a metallic loop of my mother's trinkets. If I focused very carefully, I could feel traces of her life magic and a tingle of something else, warm and familiar, still clinging to the tiny leaves. "She made these before she met my father?" I asked, looking closer.

He nodded, a soft smile on his face. "She spent much of her first months here sitting on the shore, staring out over the water. She wouldn't set foot in it to play like the others. Sometimes she hid herself away in the forest to make her little creations, then left them in alcoves around the house."

I bit my lip, considering this. Maybe all the weirdness in my magic that I couldn't associate with my father had actually been from my mother's side.

He sighed in regret. "I'll never understand why her family sent her away to stay with us. Parents always think they have the best intentions, but children must make their own paths in life." He raised his voice a little to be sure it carried outside the small home, "Even when we do not agree with them."

Hearing that, it was so tempting to pry into Youko's upbringing with this old youkai and his dead mate. Maybe another time, when my nosy questions couldn't be overheard by the male likely pouting just outside.

"Do you know where her island was?" I prompted.

He nodded, and a horribly lovely combination of dismay and relief rippled through me. So many answers today, so many new hints and ideas and concrete information. I felt like an absolute idiot. One day I might be the 'knows everything' person someone would go to with questions, but I could have saved so much time by…

Ugh. UGH.

One short trip with my mysterious cousin.

A few interesting detours.

And then, in less time than it took to have a cup of tea, I'd already gotten more information about my mother and father than I had in decades of poking around.

I had to stop beating myself up about this.

I had learned so much else that could be considered highly valuable information just by stumbling through life in general. And even the strangest adventures could yield useful results. Sesshoumaru would undoubtedly be interested to see the book and a few other odd items I'd taken from Tek's abandoned abode.

My uncle-by-mating told me where I could find the island.

I promised to return. I had hundreds of questions brewing that would probably result in some hilarious answers from Youko's adoptive father. The guy looked like he could use a visitor every once in a while that didn't need him for something.

When we left early that afternoon, Youko didn't bother to say goodbye, he just led me south along the shore to the nearest fishing village. I had briefly considered if I should risk flexing my returning abilities, but Youko had promised to return me in one piece to Sesshoumaru, and so he accompanied me on a boring boat across the water to the island.

He looked very interested as I withdrew one of my mother's bracelets I'd kept for myself. I was hesitant to hand it over for his examination, but he swore to Inari he'd return it. That kind of promise wasn't broken lightly. I let him marvel at the tiny details and its strange traces of magic as the sea salt air sprayed us over the side of the small vessel. I avoided thinking about how deep that water was, how many youkai dwelled in its depths waiting for their next big meal, and how much effort it would take to rinse saltwater out of my tails.

Youko and I made a quick but thorough sweep of the island. The island had an active volcano, and several places showed signs of ancient volcanic activity that had likely destroyed more than a few communities. We passed by a slow-moving flow of magma creeping into the ocean along one shore. A large portion of the forest along the southern edge looked younger than the forests elsewhere on the island, as though all life there had been destroyed by fire long ago.

Neither of us could detect any presence of youkai. Sad, they were truly all gone.

A small group of humans had settled unobtrusively near the ocean, far away from the ruins that they likely believed to be cursed. Youko humored my wish to stay and observe an evening of storytelling, but I was disappointed to see that their faces were all wrong. None of them had been in the image I'd seen on the mirror.

I decided to return every generation or so in order to look for the face of the elder I'd seen illuminated by firelight.

barrier

1650

"Geez, Shippo-sama, this story is pretty crazy." The scribe's quill flew over the paper, making notes in margins and scratching out extra words. "You seriously kept going back looking for people you saw in some weirdo's supposed premonition?"

His response was automatic, like every other time someone forgot, "Just Shippo. And yeah, I'm still looking for those faces. The things that guy knew…" he trailed off with a shrug. "Doesn't do any harm to go check out the island every so often, anyways."

'We are going to have to edit out a bunch of this stuff, or Sesshoumaru-sama will have my neck!' The scribe glanced down the line of characters, marking a spot that he'd need to explain later. "Anything else you think we should add to this section?"

Shippo hummed and tapped his lip. "Maybe a short entry on that one time in China where an entire brothel of ladies accosted me over my tails…?"

The scribe frowned. "Did you learn something valuable for others to benefit?"

Shippo snickered. "Well, I did do some pretty amazing things with my magic that evening," he sighed. "But I don't think it'll be very helpful for anyone studying practical applications."

"That is very true." The quill scratched along the paper's surface as he made some notes. "Perhaps you can tell me more about that one off the record," the scribe suggested.

Shippo laughed. "It's a pretty wild story. Are you almost done?"

"Almost. I have a missive I need to attend to from Sesshoumaru-sama, but after that we can find Berke and hear that dirty story of yours."

"Where's the old dog at, anyways?"

"He has been at a gathering in Reikai for the last few days. I think they're trying to find a resolution about the war."

The Reikai, realm of the dead and the demigods that watched over the living. Shippo shuddered, thinking of all the corpses and such that must wander that weird place, glad he hadn't been called to attend such an event.

"Kami, it's about time. Traveling between places has become a bit of a nightmare. Can't complain too much, though. My illusions have become something of a hot commodity thanks to travelers wanting to be able to get around incognito and not have to deal with all the battles between here and there." He laughed for a moment, then sighed and glanced through a window.

After Kagome had gone home, Shippo had a lot of time to twiddle his thumbs awaiting her return. He made some use of all the free time with trips that seemed like a good idea (not always the case), met new people (some not-so-nice), explored new places (occasionally pretty dangerous), discovered things about himself (oftentimes inexplicable) and grew as a person (kitsune).

He enjoyed traveling between the two mixed-population communities, staying for long periods of time in either location, trading stories and encouraging members of each to travel with him and experience another culture. Angara had visited Sesshoumaru's keep in the early 1600s, just before the war had started. Her expertise in revealing hidden aspects of someone's energies made her an invaluable guest wherever she went. Usually she just helped with some of the youngster's magics to help them learn, but occasionally Sesshoumaru sent a hanyou to her to help determine weak points in their unstable energies to suss out better control or consultation for an appropriate sealing item.

"Hey, you ready to go?"

Shippo jumped, surprised at himself for not paying better attention. "Yeah, yeah. I'm ready."

The two of them doused the lanterns and closed up the writing room where he'd spent the last few weeks reciting his more memorable adventures to one of Sesshoumaru's most trusted scribes. He'd felt a little terrible about it, but he'd forgotten the scribe's name almost as soon as they'd been introduced, and he couldn't bring himself to ask him for it again after so much time spent together.

He turned to look at Shippo as they sealed the door for the night. "You know," he said, gently, "I think you might have had a bit of an obsession with Kagome-sama."

Shippo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, maybe." He eyed the shorter male and smirked. "You'd probably have a bit of an obsession too, if you'd met her."

"Not likely," he sniffed. "Girls aren't really my thing."

Shippo chuckled, thinking of all the girls and guys he'd played with. He didn't see a problem with mixing things up on occasion, but not everyone enjoyed the game like he did. He sighed. 'Maybe Berke knows his name,' he thought, glancing in the scribe's direction.

The two of them strolled to the dining hall, making a quick detour to fetch Berke from his herb preparation tasks. A few drinks and one raunchy story later, Shippo was disappointed to discover that not even Berke remembered the scribe's name. 'I guess that's a sign someone isn't going to be in the story very long, when you can't find anyone that remembers their name,' he lamented, his eyes roving over the sooty eyelashes framing grey eyes and his wild mop of ash-blonde hair. 'That's a shame.'

He turned his attention to the window and took another sip from his mug, savoring the sweet burn as it coated his tongue. A fireball arced across the sky in the distance, far beyond their protective barrier. He'd teamed up with one of Miroku's—was it the sixth generation, now?—descendants to set up a barrier large enough to protect the inhabitants of their two communities, anchored to a miko-blessed stone column placed in each community's center. Someone had to visit it on occasion to recharge the magic powering the protections.

They'd had a mere one hundred years of relative peace before the bullshit stupid disagreements between the youkai and human communities boiled over into large-scale skirmishes and then all-out war. He couldn't understand why they couldn't live together in harmony, but not everyone treasured the balance that led to peace.

It was all about amassing power, ownership of the land, control over food sources, the usual stuff. Improvements in the humans' capacity to cause harm to others from a distance had put them on better ground to contest rights that youkai had previously been able to claim with little resistance.

In the past, someone like Sesshoumaru could have walked up to a village and said, 'Do as I say or die,' and they would have begrudgingly listened. Now they'd just pull out their weapons and shoot anyone not fast enough to dodge. And the weapons would keep getting better and better, too.

Shippo sighed. A few of them knew what was coming. Not 100% of the future, but they had poked around in Kagome's history books enough to know the humans would be the big dogs in the next hundred years, and they needed to find a way to either coexist peacefully—or hide— otherwise the humans would probably figure out some way to exterminate every last one of them.

Somehow, someway, their peaceful cohabitations weren't in those history books.

So many had died already, youkai and human alike. Thinking about all the death that had already occurred made him antsy. He bid the others goodnight and made his way to the barrier's anchor.

Rain fell in heavy sheets that night, soaking the streets and those few careless individuals that didn't mind so much about getting wet. Shippo really hated being wet, but he'd learned long ago why it bothered him so much (thanks, fire element!) and how to deal with it afterwards (lots of time spent drying off directly in front of a warm hearth). He ignored the rain as he approached the empty courtyard.

The gentle glow of the anchor illuminated the stone paving with slowly undulating waves of rainbow light. He pressed his palm to the freestanding column, reading the energies within to judge how much of a boost it might need before easing a trickle of ki into the structure. The barrier hummed in harmony with his spirit and he sighed in peace.

He took a deep breath and placed his other hand on the column before touching his forehead to the warm surface, dwelling on lost friends and murky futures. His intimate connection to the energies of the barrier might have been the only reason he could detect the first shivering pulse against their protective shell. He blinked in confusion at the subtle sensation, then felt another a moment later. Immediately concerned, he shut his eyes and sunk his focus into the magics guarding their homes. A massive presence swelled just outside their barrier, something that defied explanation yet simultaneously felt familiar and so wrong. He shuddered and slid to his knees in the quiet courtyard, pushing more of his energy into their protections.

A flash of blinding light ripped across the sky, shining bright even through his closed eyes as he held tight to the barrier's structure.

When the glow faded and the pressure eased, he opened his eyes and looked around at their community. Some stared up at the sky in confusion, others looked between their friends and family to make sure everyone was still alright, a few children cried for their parents to console them.

Everything seemed fine. He exhaled in shaky relief. 'What the hell had that been?'

The next few days progressed as usual, although they didn't have any visitors at their gates requesting entrance. That was a little strange, but not completely out of the ordinary.

Sesshoumaru returned from the gathering on the third day after the light with interesting news. "The realms have been divided," he announced as he toed off his boots. Any of those standing within earshot paused and stared at him in confusion. "Gather the community leaders. Word must spread of our unique situation and the tasks now set before us."

The Reikai had become overwhelmed with the rapidly escalating wars and —with no sign of an end in sight and the Reikai still some decades away from being able to process so many incoming souls— a miko representative at the gathering had the bright idea to completely separate the warring sides.

The world of living had been divided into two completely separate realms with a unique type of world-spanning barrier, allowing the two dimensions to coexist right on top of each other without ever interacting.

Only the few communities that had found a way to live in peaceful cohabitation had been exempted from the Split. A powerful barrier now divided most mortals from the youkai and other magical creatures.

The communities of balance would need to venture out into the separated realms, and quickly, to find those in need of their help. Sesshoumaru explained that only those that had the foresight to erect mixed-magic protections such as their community barrier were spared, and many families of mixed heritage had likely been caught in the efforts to stop the war. They wouldn't be able to find them all, but they would try.

Shippo exited their community at the southern entrance and laughed to find himself standing under a strangely colored red sky. He could sense the youki saturating everything, as though all the magic in the world had been fully unleashed on this strange new environment. The roads still looked the same, though, so he raced toward the first villages he could find in search of those needing sanctuary.

The northern entrance to their community led to the mortal realm, where others left in just as much of a hurry to find those that had lost their loved ones to the Split.

'Madness, but a good kind of madness. Maybe the war could end now,' Shippo crossed his fingers, but hoping for the best generally didn't work.

He had very little time to fetch hanyou children and their youkai parents before the fighting picked up again, only this time between the youkai forces vying for control of their new lands. The community was careful to not draw unwanted attentions as they extracted others in need.

That first battle for control between the youkai lasted ten terrible years, during which many more lives were lost and the lands gained new boundaries and leaders. The massive battles for dominance left the countryside torn asunder and reshaped the terrain into a violent, harsh landscape, perfect for the ageless creatures that thrived on the hunt.

The realm of demons eventually became known as the Makai; the mortal realm as the Ningenkai.

After the realms divided, the archaic professions of the taijiya and miko evolved to meet the needs of the people. The taijiya refined their methods of battle to become highly specialized in missions requiring stealth, espionage, or assassinations. They became legendary to a degree - impossible to find and even harder to hire.

The miko became less of a defense against the evils in the world and more of a comfort to the soul, providing spiritual guidance to the lost. Through generations of non-practice, the ability to purify the taint of evil thinned and eventually -in most cases- went out like the dying flame of an old candle.

Every boundary -no matter the strength or size- has weaknesses to protect. In areas where the separation between the demon and human realms grew thin, creatures could slip through to the other side. Those that ruled over the Reikai assigned powerful beings to guard those weaknesses in the barriers, employing both human and demon alike to prevent any violent encounters between the two races.

The Communities-In-Between remained hidden sanctuaries for those who treasured the Balance.

legend

1780

Every twenty or thirty years, he slipped away into the Ningenkai to seek out the island of his mother's youth. Sometimes he would slink through the blackened ruins, running fingertips over long-neglected carvings and imagining what the communities there had looked like before the calamity that claimed all the inhabitants' lives. Usually, though, he stalked the human settlements, looking for a handful of faces he'd once seen in the surface of a prophetic mirror so long ago.

This time, he would not be disappointed.

As the sun dipped below the peak of the great mountain, a young man —his skin bronzed from a life spent outside in the sun— stepped from his hut. He held aloft a lit torch as he approached the village center, where throngs of children sat huddled around an aging man perched on a weathered stool. All focus was on that single blaze drifting slowly toward the crowd. The children made a short sound of awe as the torch ignited a careful arrangement of kindling, sending a plume of colored smoke and dancing sparks into the darkening sky.

A small girl shifted impatiently on her small mat of woven grass. "Grandfather, which story are you going to tell us tonight?"

"Patience, young one," the old man smiled. He folded his hands in his lap and tilted his head back to gaze peacefully up at the night sky. When he finally turned his attention on the hushed children, he discovered half of his young audience was now staring intently at the sky. "When our island was still very young, there lived two children: one of the forest, and the other of fire..."

Just outside the ring of the firelight, a slim figure perched carefully near the top of an ancient tree. The only motion was the slight twitch in the tip of a bushy red tail that draped below the thick branch, but the villagers were completely unaware of the presence. Thin fingers tapped once against a knee in slight impatience as the listener waited for the elderly human to continue speaking.

The children gave him their full attention as he spoke, but a few occasionally glanced at the stars to see what had been so interesting to the Elder. "The boy was the only son of the fire clan, who thrived in the lava that bubbled up and gave birth to new land." The elder's hands drifted together and upwards as he spoke, animating his words with flowing motion. "They were the people of the mountain and slept within the great rivers of fire, emerging only for short spans of time during their long lives. They could call upon the liquid rock to form and reshape our island as they saw fit, and it is believed that it was through their wise influence that our island first came to be."

"The girl was the daughter of the forest people, who nurtured the flowers and trees from shore to shore." His fingers twirled and the youngest children gasped in surprise as a flowering vine seemingly appeared out of thin air. "The people of the forest were beautiful, full of life and love and the desire to grow, not only as a people, but also by creating and guiding the plant life around them.

"The two children were ignorant of an uneasy relationship between their families. The first time they met upon a grassy slope, they played and laughed until it came time to return home for the eve. The little boy kept his new friend a secret from his aging parents, but the little girl twirled and danced with her mother that night and spoke endlessly about the handsome boy she'd met." A few of the older girls sitting in a small group giggled amongst themselves for a brief moment.

"It was rare that the children chanced upon each other, for the son of the fire clan slept for long lengths of time within the burning peak of our mountain. Months turned into years, and the children grew. On a morning warmer than most, the young man woke from his long rest and sought out his secret friend from the forest. In hushed whispers, both confessed their growing affections for one another and agreed to meet again in two days' time."

He lifted his hand so that the fiery glow illuminated a thin braid of the flowering vine and red ribbon held carefully between his fingertips. "But, their fate is mysteriously tragic: The day the two young lovers had chosen to meet, both of the great families vanished without a trace." He held the braid over the flickering fire, allowing the tip to smolder.

"In remembrance of the love they held for one another and respect of the ancestors that helped shape our island, this story is told once each generation as a symbol of their intended unity is engulfed in the flames. May their souls rest in peace." The braided length burned quickly then, as though it had waited for the short prayer to be spoken aloud.

The bright flare of light reflected in the silent creature's bright green eyes, drawing the sharp gaze of the Elder to his concealed position. A single leaf falling to the dirt below was the only sign of the being's departure as the Elder quietly concluded the evening's story with a reminder of the next morning's duties. He carefully stood with his weathered walking cane to watch over the flickering firelight as each child carefully sought out his or her home in the darkness.

When the last of the others had gone, Shippo dropped to the ground next to the aging human.

"I'm surprised to see one of your kind here," the human said, showing several missing teeth as he smiled broadly. "The magic has been missing from our lives for too long."

Shippo nodded in agreement. "A very long time ago, I was shown a vision of you telling stories on this night. I'm pleased to find it was not a lie."

The old human chuckled. "Those old stories? They're nothing but tidbits of fancy that will give the children things to think about and keep them out of mischief."

Shippo crouched by the fire and absently brushed his fingers through the dying flames. "There's always a kernel of truth in every old tale. Do you know which parts those might be?"

He hummed in thought and sat down on his stool next to the strange visitor.

"The forest clan lived deep within the woods on the southern stretch of our island. I made the trip once in my youth, and it is a very difficult journey, but one such as yourself should be able to find what remains of their dwellings with ease."

Shippo glanced up from the flames and smiled briefly. "I've been there, many times."

The old man nodded and pursed his wrinkled mouth in thought as he stared up at the starry sky. "Perhaps it is fate that you arrived on this night to hear the story. He has not emerged from sleep for quite some time now, and although it is hard to know when the time is drawing near, sometimes the earth will whisper its secrets to those who listen, and one might hear murmurs of his rousing..."

Shippo turned to look at the elder more closely. "Who?"

"The kami that lives within our mountain. It has long been whispered that he is the lost son of the fire clan."

Shippo tilted his head in slight confusion. "But you said that-"

The Elder interrupted him with a dismissive wave of his thin bamboo cane. "Yes, yes my boy, but you keep ignoring the truth that I was telling a story to children. Use your brains!" Before Shippo even had a chance to flinch, the cane flipped and rapped him smartly on the head. He was left standing there, blinking in slight surprise at the back of the old human as he hobbled away.

"Dodgy old codger," Shippo muttered as he slid backwards into the darkness of night. This new tidbit of information might prove useful…