InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Phoenix ❯ Move Along (Part II) ( Chapter 10 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
A/N: AND SHE LIVES! That's right, people, Adrasteia Wen still exists on this world, and she has FINALLY updated. And she's updated the format by adding quotes to the beginning of each chapter as she damn-well pleases.
All right, enough of the third person. I would like to that everyone who reviewed me over my unplanned hiatus. Especially, WutItDo and Azera-who took the time to e-mail me about updating, and feathergriffin, who puts up with me enough to be my friend.
Disclaimer: I own this really cool paperclip that looks like a guitar, and this kick-ass new poster I got that boggles my mind, but InuYasha and Yu Yu Hakusho? You're kidding, right?
//The Phoenix\\
§Move Along (Part 2)§
“And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along”
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along”
--The All-American Rejects, `Move Along'
Kagome turned to look at the mirror from her place by the door, and she nearly winced. She looked horrible, pallid beyond life. There were circles under her eyes, and blood was seeping from the bandages on her chest, but that wasn't why she looked into the mirror. Her markings were hidden, and that was all she was worried about.
Walking hurt terribly, like trudging through knives so sharp they could cut space, but she endured it. Sesshoumaru had been gone for too long, and she was being tortured by the anger he felt, the rage that Yusuke and Kuwabara felt. She opened the door with Kirara acting as a guard. Kagome was using the Tessaiga—the lightest sword she had—as a support since Kirara couldn't transform without risking setting the room on fire. There was no way she'd be moving on her own without it.
Her legs themselves felt as though she were plodding through knee-high tar as she crossed the hallway to get to the staircase. Looking down, she, with a vision blurred and slurred slantways by an agony even deeper than the body, was still able to make out the quick movements of Sesshoumaru and the slightly slower ones of Yusuke and Kuwabara, marveling only for a moment that they could fight so efficiently without breaking anything in the house. She unconsciously thanked them for that.
Carefully, she tried to make it down one step when a wave of refreshed fury made her so sick with pain that she nearly fell. Could no one really sense her? Not even Sesshoumaru? Her balance, precarious as it was, held firm only until another wave of emotion swept up under her feet and tripped her down the stairs. When she landed at the bottom she couldn't even muster a scream, but her mouth was open wide trying.
She had tumbled right into everyone's view. Kagome was surprised that shock was so nonabrasive; when she had a moment she would realize that shock such as that is more like the emotion one feels when all the other emotions have been knocked out. Of course, the other emotions have to wake up sooner or later, and Kagome hadn't exactly been lucky lately.
Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Sesshoumaru all went to help her at the same time, but as their former conflict hadn't been resolved by any means, since they are all incredibly stubborn, their fight began again, just with more piss and vinegar. Kagome couldn't even get enough air to groan. Kagome dimly felt Kirara jumping around the feet of the fighters in an attempt to stop the battle but was easily ignored. Even when she transformed—house fire be damned—they maneuvered around her. Instead Kirara tried to move Kagome way from them by gently using her teeth and, as carefully as she could, dragging the miko by the skin of her neck without piercing anything. It wouldn't have made a difference since Kagome could hardly even feel her physical body anymore with all the anger dropping on her like a fixated wrecking ball.
At last, she found strength to catch the wrecking ball. “Relax!” Kagome screamed, and her power flew from her in a flash of light. The anger was gone, and she was so grateful she nearly passed out.
Across the room laid three inanimate bodies. Kirara stopped moving. Mukuro stepped forward, looking at them all critically before turning to Kagome, vaguely impressed. “They're asleep,” she said before prodding Sesshoumaru with the toe of her boot. “Very asleep.”
Genkai stood as well before kicking Yusuke very hard in the shin. He grunted but was still sleeping. “I wish I could get him to listen to me that well.”
Kagome looked at them, her face the closest to flummoxed it could manage. “I only wanted…their anger it…I just…I couldn't…no more fighting, that's all,” she finally settled on. “Sorry…”
“It's okay, Kags. We get it,” Shizuru said, picking up the young miko and looked for a comfortable place to put her. Yukina stood and moved to the armrest on the other side of Hiei. Kagome was soon settled next to the fire apparition.
“Are you sure they'll be okay?” Yukina asked, looked concernedly at Kuwabara.
Shizuru and Hiei snorted. “Who cares?”
“They'll be fine, just sleeping,” Genkai assured before looking at Kagome, examining the bloodstains on the otherwise clean bandages. “You, though, look like you should have never woken up at all, girl.” Noticing the wince the miko gave when everyone's attention turned to her more closely, Genkai decided to be merciful. After all, the girl did technically save her life. “Where's that tea, anyhow?”
Mukuro sighed. “Jaken should have finished with the tea by now, unless…” The ruler looked curiously at Kagome, a silent question in her eyes.
Kagome turned away a bit but, even so, had a small smile on her face. “Jaken's always angry when he's around humans…”
A spark of amusement entered Mukuro's eye. “Let's hope he's very asleep, too, then.”
§
It was a good hour later before Sesshoumaru woke up. Immediately upon realizing that he was still on the ground he stood and observed the room. Everyone was staring at him but he only looked at Kagome, who was struggling with her second cup of tea. “You are still down here.” Kagome could tell it wasn't a question.
“Why leave and miss all this fun?” she asked. “I'm sorry about knocking you out like that. I lost control with all the anger floating around. If it makes you feel better, Jaken is knocked out, too.”
Sesshoumaru walked up to her, and Kagome knew she had been forgiven when he helped guide the tea to her lips so she could drink it. She sighed internally.
“Your bandages need changing. They should be taken care of as soon as possible,” Sesshoumaru said while observing the bloodstains on her bandages, which had grown since he last saw them. “Now would be preferable.”
Kagome nodded and allowed herself to be picked up by Sesshoumaru.
“Please wait, Sesshoumaru-sama,” Botan called out. “Why can't I or Yukina heal her with pneumatherapy? It would be so much quicker.”
Kagome gestured to Sesshoumaru to stop (which he hadn't done because no mere ferry girl would order this Sesshoumaru-sama). “It's because I did this on purpose, Botan. I sent out attacks randomly because Kikyo was hiding and her mirror would protect her by reflecting the attack back at me, and you can't heal self-inflicted wounds.” Sesshoumaru wordlessly continued up the stairs, a small Kirara following at his heels.
When safely in her room, Sesshoumaru began the process of redressing her injuries. Carefully cutting away the bandages, he cleansed the wounds again and grabbed a jar of a liquid that had the same consistency of honey and a soft, clean brush from a drawer in the bedside table. Like an artist about to create a masterpiece, he dipped the brush into the salve in the jar and carefully painted over the wounds. Kagome fell into an exhausted sleep under his gentle ministrations.
§
It had been weird sitting next to Kagome, admittedly, but that was nothing compared to watching Sesshoumaru, whose reputation for being a complete and ruthless bastard was proven many times in many ways, being some semblance of kind to a human. Hiei started to wonder whether or not he was still dead and he got lost en route to the real hell at this demented version of it. He knew it wasn't: nothing that resembled Yukina would ever be found in hell unless it was there to hurt him.
Kurama seemed to be stuck on the same page he was. “I never thought I'd see the day when Sesshoumaru-sama showed anything other than contempt to a human,” the fox said.
“I know what you mean,” agreed Botan. “I mean, I know reapers who've carried off the thousands he's murdered when they got in his way before the making of the barriers. And everyone knows how many times he's tried killing his brother just for being a hanyou.”
Mukuro, who took up Kagome's place beside Hiei, rolled her eye. “Half-brother, and this was over five hundred years ago, or do I need to remind you that he was not the one to kill InuYasha and stopped trying to before the whelp's death. If you do not think intelligent beings are capable of change then you are the least intelligent of them all.”
“But why? Why would he change his mind like that?” Botan pressed before realizing who she was talking to and bowed her head low, then even lower when the spoken-of devil walked back into the room.
“The pursuit of my little half-brother was trivial, and this Sesshoumaru-sama does not waste his time.” Sesshoumaru answered, sitting next to Mukuro on the arm of the loveseat with astounding regality. “Kagome is special; she is the first human to not die when I tried to kill her.”
“You tried to kill her?” was the general consensus from pretty much everyone in the room, with varying states of abhorrence. However, from Hiei, Kurama, and Genkai came, “She didn't die?”
Sesshoumaru glared. “I will not repeat myself.”
A groan came from the lump on the floor known as Yusuke. “You're a real bastard, you know that, Sesshoumaru?”
Keiko immediately jumped out of her seat. “Yusuke, are you alright?” She helped to pull him into a more vertical position.
Yusuke nodded, stubbornly pushing himself away from her help and took her seat. “I'm fine, Keiko. Anything big happen while I—”
“You jerk! What were you thinking getting into a fight with a demon lord?! How stupid could you be?!”
§
“Very, it seems.”
Kagome sighed at Midoriko's answer. “I couldn't think of anything else to do, Midoriko-sama. Not then, anyway.” Kagome winced as Midoriko ran the cloth over her wounds again. The grass beneath her back was cool and the water from the spring was rejuvenating and healing the damage done to her soul, making the presence of all the people in her house and their emotions easier to deal with. “It was impossible to tell where she was hiding, and I needed to get rid of the youkai anyway. I wasn't really concerned with how reckless I was being.”
Midoriko looked up from her work, shooting Kagome a jocular gaze. “Which was very.”
Kagome playfully rolled her eyes. “Thanks for reiterating that one. I don't think I got it the first time.”
Midoriko submerged the cloth in the water once more, rung it out, and administered it to Kagome once more. “Yes, it seems we must work on correcting that little problem. The only ones who would like to see you nearly die twice in less than the span of one day are your enemies.”
Kagome smiled softly, turning her head to face the flowing water. “I can't say I regret my actions, though. Kikyo's at peace, everyone else is alive, I get to see Sesshoumaru and Mukuro again, Kirara's back, and I've still got the shrine. Life is pretty good right now.”
§
“Life SUCKS!”
Jorge flinched as Koenma punctuated his fury with a sound punch to his desk, followed by the sweeping of all the paperwork to the floor. The other ogres quickly dove for all the forms, collecting them and trying haphazardly to sort them into some coherent order.
“How the hell could this have happened?!” Koenma continued, with all justice. Not only did all communication go down between Reikai and Ningenkai, but the same power that was now obstructing all passage between the two worlds—causing a huge backup in the processing of dead souls, dammit—was allowing easier access from the third, Makai. It had been brought to his attention that two S-class demons traversed into the Human World, but it was unclear just who those two were. The only boon was that it seemed other demons of lower levels were too fearful to follow. According to the clock he used just for this specific purpose, it was almost six in the morning in Ningenkai; it would be well after noon before they managed to fix all this damage and restore order, at this rate.
“Dammit!”
§
Kagome awoke a few hours later, the sun shining quintessentially through the window. The clock said it was about quarter to seven, which was when she usually seemed to wake up no matter how tired she had been when she fell asleep, even if it had been only fifteen minutes ago. She smiled wryly; it would figure InuYasha's travel schedule would be so deeply ingrained into her system after nearly three years of keeping to it. She sighed as she slowly sat up, careful not to agitate her wounds any more than absolutely necessary.
“You're actually going to try moving again?” a sardonic voice said from the other side of the room. Kagome turned her head just enough to look Hiei in the eyes, before defiantly reclining against the backboard of the bed as he was to the wall.
“I'm feeling much better after being able to sleep and heal,” Kagome answered noncommittally. She looked down as Kirara invited herself onto the miko's lap. “The house is calm.”
“Hn.”
“I take it everyone is asleep?”
“The humans are.”
Kagome nodded. “Yesterday was a hard day, so I'm sure they must still be pretty wiped out. And how are Hatanaka-san and Yukina-san?”
“Hn.”
The miko chuckled slightly. “I'm glad they're okay. That was the first time I used Kiseki-Jihi. I mean, it's one thing to be told that it saves lives, but to do it, to see it like that is pretty amazing.” Kagome stroked Kirara's fur tenderly, missing the gaze of hindered curiosity Hiei was bestowing upon her.
§
“You know, I could probably walk on my own,” Kagome said almost petulantly, a small pout forming on her lips.
“You could be having breakfast in your room,” Sesshoumaru reminded her. It worked—she said nothing more on the issue.
Shiori had easily fallen into step in the kitchen after calling her husband and letting him know that there was nothing to worry about, that something happened with Shuuichi (her Shuuichi, not her coincidentally named step-son) and she forgot to leave him a message in her haste. With her husband reassured of their safety and the promise to be home within the day, the doting mother began preparing a breakfast with ingredients she convinced Yusuke, Kuwabara, Keiko and her own son to retrieve—actually, Keiko insisted on going in fear of what the boys would bring back. After familiarizing herself with the kitchen, she bustled around preparing a simple breakfast of omelets served with pickled radishes, miso, and rice. Yukina was preparing the tea and helping where she could. It was hard for Shiori to believe that the girl was a demon with such an innocent demeanor.
“Good morning,” Kagome said enthusiastically from her perch in Sesshoumaru's arm. Her color was still pallid, but no where near as horrible as it was last night. Those who occupied the kitchen, who, besides Shiori and Yukina, were Genkai and Atsuko, greeted her in return. “Is there anything you need? Are you finding everything okay?”
“We're fine in here, Kagome-san,” Shiori answered, turning enough to smile at the young woman. She was unsure of just how to address the young woman who saved her life, but Mukuro said the miko would probably just correct her if she added a higher honorific. Only those who were very persistent called her “Kagome-sama.”
“How are you feeling?” the miko asked, directing her question to Shiori and Yukina.
Yukina poured Kagome a cup of tea after Sesshoumaru had moved a cushion to the wall and seated her on it so she wouldn't have to support her upper body. “We're fine, but you're the one who's injured.”
Kagome accepted the cup gratefully. “Don't worry about me. I was an unnaturally quick healer before, but with my soul complete again I should be good as new in a week, maybe less if I actually concentrate.”
“That's amazing,” Shiori said, pausing in her cooking to stare at the young woman. “To be able to heal so fast…” Kagome looked at her carefully, sapphire eyes holding her under their power.
“And how are you handling this, Hatanaka-san? It must be quite a shock to learn about everything under such unpleasant circumstances,” Kagome asked, her odd eyes looking older than Genkai.
“It's a lot to understand, but I'm taking it all in stride,” Shiori answered. “Then again, I haven't seen many youkai.”
“Hopefully, you won't have to,” Kagome said. Her free hand was scratching the neko youkai behind the ear. “They aren't all as cute as Kirara, or as beautiful as Sesshoumaru is when he's humanoid.” She paused briefly to flash a smile at the stoic demon lord. “I've seen a youkai that was essentially a giant hairball with a mouth. But looks don't really matter in the end. I have a friend, Jinenji, who's a horse hanyou, and if anybody in Ningenkai saw him they'd probably run away in disgust, but he is the sweetest, shyest man I've ever met…where as beautiful Sesshoumaru has a three meter pole shoved up his butt.” The Taiyoukai glared at the miko dangerously. The miko quickly amended. “I'm sorry. Beautiful Sesshoumaru-sama has a three meter pole shoved up his butt. Better?”
“You're incorrigible, miko,” the demon lord stated. Kagome laughed slightly.
“I prefer `stubborn.'”
§
“Why is it I always get the dirty jobs?” Jaken complained as he rode Ah-Uh to the battle ground. The destruction of the kuromiko had been so thorough that he could still feel the purity in the air as if it were the scent on the wind after a heavy rainstorm. He scowled slightly as it reminded him of who sent him here.
Stupid miko.
Just before she managed to convince his Sesshoumaru-sama to let her eat breakfast with the others, which took a while considering they were both very obstinate, she asked him to come to this forsaken place and gather all the hiruiseki before someone finds them. It was a valid concern, considering how valuable the stones were in Ningenkai, but he still didn't see why he had to do it. He sighed when they landed, and got the pouch before jumping off and beginning his work.
§
Everyone, with the exception of an amused Mukuro and stoic Sesshoumaru, stared at Kagome in shock, while she just fidgeted underneath their gazes. The news reporter moved on to the next story as though she didn't just cause this. Damn newswoman. Damn news.
Kagome turned to the gawking onlookers, wondering exactly how she was going to explain this one away. “I can explain…”
Yusuke raised a dubious brow, no doubt prepared to ask the one question that would throw any of her safe, logical explanations out the window and close the curtains, too, just for the hell of it. “All the lights, Kagome?”
“I really didn't want to get those pictures taken.”
“Then why not just the camera?”
“…They could have gotten another!”
Thankfully, Kagome was spared from any more embarrassing questions with the advent of Jaken and his noisy procession through the door. “Here,” he said shortly, dropping the pouch in her waiting hands before departing for the kitchen.
“Thank you, Jaken,” she said to his retreating back. He scoffed but bowed to her, then again more deeply to Sesshoumaru, before leaving the room full of humans.
“What's that, Kagome?” Yukina asked curiously from her side of Hiei.
Kagome smiled at the Koorime. “I had Jaken get these before any humans stumbled upon them.” She opened the pouch with care and pulled out one of the hiruiseki. “I didn't want to put your safety in jeopardy if someone managed to put two and two together.” She put the stone back in the pouch before handing it over to Yukina.
“Thank you very much, Kagome,” the Ice Maiden said, touched that someone she practically just met was so considerate to her safety. “I don't know how to repay you.”
Kagome seemed to hesitate, her eyes flickering to Shiori briefly, and then said, “Actually, I do have…a request of you. I'll understand if you say no.”
Hiei frowned. “What is it?” he asked.
The miko looked at Hiei briefly before bypassing him to look Yukina in the eyes. “I want to try something, but I need two hiruiseki to do it.” Kagome watched sadly as the Koorime's hands clenched around the bag, but winced at the intense anger coming from her brother. “Please calm down, Hiei. My soul hasn't fully healed yet.”
“What do you want with my sister's tears, onna?”
“I want to protect her and Hatanaka-san,” Kagome said through clenched teeth. “You have no reason to be angry; relax or I might have to make you.”
The memory of last night's incident and the fact that the miko probably could make him “relax” gave him the strength to calm himself. That and the wicked glare Sesshoumaru was gifting him with.
Yukina looked curious now. “How are my stones going to help you protect us?”
Kagome leaned into the loveseat, her eyes closed, recovering from the anger of the man beside her. “I'm not sure how to explain it. I'm not even sure if it will work, but I want to try. If nothing happens, I promise to give them back. If I'm successful…well, you get one back anyway. Whatever happens, I'm not keeping them.” She opened her eyes and smiled ruefully, almost pitifully, at Yukina. The impact made the Ice Maiden gasp a little. “Trust me, Yukina; I know how it feels when one deals with greed and pretty jewels. I have no intentions of putting you through that.”
Yukina looked deeply into Kagome's eyes, and Kagome allowed her to see a glimmer of the despair that she hid deep within her. She wordlessly handed the stones over to Kagome. The miko carefully pulled out two strands of her raven hair before she closed her eyes once more. “Thank you…very much.”
Kagome straightened her back the best she could, ignoring the tightness in her chest. She folded her hands in a prayer position and focused on her energy. The ocean of power she saw within her mind was almost fully repaired, the part of her soul that had been with Kikyo slowly but surely flowing into and becoming indistinguishable from the rest. She guided some of her energy through her body and into her hands.
The stones grew almost too warm in her glowing palms, and she could feel their shapes shifting into something different as she infused them with her will, her protection. When she felt sure it was done, she returned any excess power back into the waters in her mind.
She opened her eyes to a bunch of curious onlookers…and Sesshoumaru, who, in addition to almost every other emotion, may never have been curious in his entire life. “I think it worked,” she said, opening her hands.
Kagome was right, they had changed shapes. Instead of perfect little spheres there was a rose and a snowflake. A thin chain of silver held the charms up as a necklace. She wondered at the shapes, as she had no intention to change the way the stones looked. The snow flake was obviously for Yukina, but the rose? She cast a side glance at Kurama, pondering if he was the reason since he worked with the flower as a form of weaponry.
She handed the snowflake over to Yukina, and then tossed the rose over to Shiori. “They should protect you from being attacked by forming a barrier around you with my energy. I kind of treated them like ofuda, but since I doubt you'd appreciate having a piece of paper stuck anywhere on your person I figured this would do nicely.”
Yukina looked at hers curiously from its place around her neck. “But why my hiruiseki?”
Kagome smiled at her. “When I shoot my arrows I almost unconsciously put my power into them, which is okay since it's the nature of my power to purify. But when I set about infusing objects with a specific intent, like warding off evil spirits or whatever, it's a bit more complicated than that. Therefore, it's more difficult to take an ordinary object, like a piece of paper, for instance, and make it do what I want. You have to prep it and create its purpose, which is why the piece of paper needs to be written on in order to become an ofuda. I shouldn't strain my powers any more than I have to in my condition, and that's where your stones came in. They're already infused with your energy.” Somewhere in her explanation she confused half of her listeners, and since Yukina was one of them she felt the need to make it a little simpler. “Look at it this way: it's easier to change someone's mind than make a new mind all together.”
§
“You're so stubborn!”
Kagome stared out the window in the living room, almost afraid to go upstairs and face the vast emptiness she knew would be there.
Sesshoumaru and Mukuro had left around noon, so as not to deal with Reikai forces that were beginning to recover. As things were slowly beginning to return to normal after Kikyo's venture into Ningenkai, the more restless the Reikai Tantei seemed to become. Kurama calmly explained to her that it was mostly because they unanimously decided that they didn't want Kagome's powers to be brought to Koenma's attention, in case he decided it would be in Ningenkai's (and therefore his) “best interest” to have her join the team and pretty much lose all traces of freedom she had left. She was touched by their sincerity, and thanked them for their consideration. Shiori made her promise to come over to their house for dinner as soon as she was better before leaving to be with her family. The Kuwabara siblings were very determined to stay with her at the shrine until she was fully healed so she reminded them that they had a life they should probably get back to, but Shizuru's words still kept ringing in her head, even after they had left with promises of visiting the next day and reassurances that she could call them at any time should she need anything.
But Shizuru was right; she was very stubborn indeed, and even as the house's oppressive barrenness threatened to drive her insane, she refused to go anywhere near the phone.
Kagome took a deep breath and turned off the television, having not paid any attention to it in the slightest. She silently made her way up the stairs, pausing at the family photos hung lovingly on the walls. Her wounds had healed enough that she could move carefully without risking too much damage, so her progress was slow but steady with Tessaiga as a cane. Her intent was to go straight to her room where Kirara was probably still asleep on her pillows, to not detour even to the bathroom, but her plans stopped when her feet froze at her mother's room. She stared at the doorknob for a long time before finally deciding to open the door.
It still smelled like her. Tears started to brim in Kagome's eyes as she slowly stepped into the room, the scent of her mother rolling through her nose and heading straight to her heart. With resignation she climbed into the bed, laying Tessaiga where her father had slept once upon a long time ago. Now nobody was there to sleep in this bed but her.
Nobody was there…no one at all.
Nobody was there to see the first of a long train of tears soak into the pillow that held the scent of her mother's shampoo.
§§§§§
Point of interest: Tessaiga is spelt correctly according to the proper Japanese. Turns out the translators messed up a character and it was publicized incorrectly as “Tetsusaiga” instead of “Tessaiga.” I would like to thank Wikipedia for clearing up my annoyance at the spelling conflictions between the fan-subbed episodes I've watched and the English-dubbed version.
A/N: Aww, poor Kagome! Anyway, thanks again for putting up with me all this time. Sorry for the short chapter, but it felt like the best place to end it—I guess I'm not as sorry for it as I should be then. Oops.
I'll do my best to update the next chapter after the mid-terms. I've got a lot of things on my plate, evil testing aside. I'm writing a one-act play for my creative writing class (two girls and one guy stuck in a men's bathroom—that just screams humor to me); working on this story (I'm so happy to start working on the interesting part); working on my InuYasha/Fruits Basket crossover; and finally, my latest project—a crossover of InuYasha and Bleach! Hoorah—I'm suicidal! Thankfully, it's just an outline right now (a personal first for me, I never outline—I really should).
As always, review!