InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Single Wish ❯ Scroll Five ( Chapter 5 )

A Single Wish

 

By: OtakuSailorV

 

*~* Scroll Five - Well House *~*

 

“What do you have to say to that, hm?”

 

Kagome stiffened; did he know? What should she tell him? Surely not that she had gone through the well. . .oh, what could it hurt? The darkness plagued her again, gnawing at her until she seemed almost depressed. Her mind drifted to a scene from what seemed long ago, a happy `family' sitting on a sunny hill, taking a break from their daily task of chasing Naraku. She brushed it away, making a face as she looked at him pointedly and blurted the truth out before she changed her mind.

 

“The well.”

 

Naraku looked back at her almost as if he were shocked. Almost, mind you. He was just rather taken aback by her tone and look on her face. He had suspected her to resist further, to lie outright and provoke him to force the truth out of her. But from the looks of it, she wasn't lying at all. “The well?” He echoed, puzzled by her meaning.

 

“The well.” She repeated, then added: “The well house has been built around it since, but it's still there. The old wooden well from Inuyasha's Forest.”

 

The name of the boy she had formerly loved fell from her lips with an odd kind of chill. She shivered as a pale face came to mind, the golden eyes watching her protectively and yet sadly. She tucked his image away safely and snuggly.

 

Ah, that old thing. He had felt a kind of magic from it at one time, when he had passed, but he had not thought much of it and had forgotten it until now. It was rumored that it had once been built from the wood of the Goshinboku, wasn't it? That would explain it's magical properties if it was.

 

So, that was it was it? The girl was from the future and had used the old well to cross time and space. It was the common factor on both planes, thus the ability for her to cross so easily. Others might have had a less easy ride if there had been no common factor in the transport.

 

So. . .five hundred years was it. . .That was a lot of time for things to progress, he would have to immediately learn of what had happened when he had lain dormant and adjust to this time. There was no Shikon any longer, but he felt something coming on the horizon and he planned to meet it full-force.

 

He smirked at the miko-child that sat across from him, looking composed; though there seemed some troubled look in her eyes. What was it? What was it that she seemed worried about now? He had gotten the truth out of her, at least, and that had not proved much of a hard task.

 

Frowning, he watched her, as she seemed lost in her own world, scowling at something as her eyes bored into the wooden table.

 

Kagome frowned to herself as she thought over it again and again. In the silence following her proclamation the words had suddenly cropped up in her mind again: “Every wish hasa Yin and Yang.”

 

It kept troubling her, poking out from the back of her mind and leering at her, teasing and taunting her with it's cryptic message. A Yin and a Yang? A dark and a light? What was this then? His reappearance; what would it be, the Yin or the Yang; the dark or the light? She couldn't for the life of her tell, an uneasy sense of foreboding was hanging over her, making her shiver as if a cold breeze had just blown by. She felt his crimson gaze on her, but said nothing, didn't even look up at him. She was too lost in her thoughts to care what he thought, not that she ever had.

 

Her eyes suddenly widened as she realized that she would be going back to school the next day. What was she going to do with him while she was at school? She couldn't push him into the well, it no longer worked, and she knew it would be a hard task bossing him around like she had Inuyasha. She hung her head sullenly. What was she going to do?

 

“Eh, Kagome, is that you in there?” Her grandpa's wheezing voice followed the sound of his shuffling feet against the wooden floors. His voice was still tinged with loss and sadness; she could kill Naraku for blowing that gaping hole in the tree!

 

Kagome drew in her breath sharply and looked at Naraku in a wild rush of panic. He smirked at her in amusement, waiting to see what she would do in this kind of predicament.

 

A thought struck her as she got to her feet and hurried out of the room, closing the sliding doors behind her to hide Naraku's presence in the room. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea, maybe her grandpa had some kind of trinket she could use to keep Naraku in check, kind of like Inuyasha's necklace.

 

“Hai, Jii-chan?” She called, catching him before he came into the room.

 

Her grandpa gave her an acknowledging glance. “Ah, there you are Kagome. I was wondering, could you help me in the shrine if you're not too busy with your homework?”

 

Kagome nodded willingly. “Sure, grandpa. I already finished my homework anyway.” It was a half-truth, she had nearly completed all her homework, but she could finish the remaining few questions in math before she went to bed.

 

* * *

 

Naraku waited in the dimly lit room until he heard their footsteps disappear. How amusing, her family ran the shrine and she was the `shrine maiden', just like her other self, Kikyou. He chuckled to himself darkly before collecting the books and newspaper he had brought with him and making his way back to Kagome's room.

 

* * *

 

It was just like her Jii-chan to make her sweep the shrine on a rainy day. She had tried to make idle conversation with him, starting by asking him if he had felt any dark aura's lately. Ok, so maybe it wasn't just idle chit-chat but it might seem plenty normal to him.

 

“Dark aura's?” He asked, mulling over this question as he glanced soberly out the window into the downpour. “. . .No, I haven't.”

 

Kagome sighed inwardly, of course he didn't.

 

The old man went on to tell of how in his youth he had been a `great slayer of demons' and Kagome was sure he was talking about the dust bunnies in the corners rather than actual demons. Her grandpa didn't have the build of a Taijiya, not like Sango and Kohaku. . .Kagome shook her head to clear the thought of them from her mind. No, she wouldn't cry now.

 

“My poor Goshinboku. You know, your father used to love that tree more than I when he was still alive?” His wistful statement caught her attention, and Kagome once again ground her teeth at Naraku, though she knew it was really her fault for sealing him away in the first place.

 

What had Naraku done to the tree? She followed him to look out in the rain at the tree, leaving the broom to stand against the wall.

 

“My father?” She questioned as she walked over. She remembered very little of him from her childhood.

 

As she caught sight of the tree again, she felt as if she might cry at it's horrendous state. The once beautiful tree, that had watched her adventures with her friends, and had seen her grown up; that had been there for so long and had protected them; the tree that had allowed her to place a horrible demonic aura inside of it. It was ugly now, like any other tree, it's majesty sullied by her hand. Her poor God Tree, why had she put such a monster in it?

 

“Yes, your father really loved that tree- Ah, Kagome, dear, why are you crying?” Her Jii-chan thought she was crying for her lost father, but it was tearing her apart to see the tree in such a state.

 

Her connection to that world, the one thing that had kept her believing long before Naraku had reappeared now had a gaping hole in it's trunk and it was all her fault. She tried to move out into the rain, for some reason she had the sudden urge to run to it and hug it, no matter how silly that action was. Guilt was flooding her and pouring out her eyes in the shape of crystal tears that soaked her cheeks.

 

Finally, when she had composed herself, she wiped away the tears from her face and gave her grandpa an apologetic smile. “Gomen, Jii-chan, I just feel so horrible, the tree. . .” Kagome gestured uselessly at the ravaged bark and gaping hollow center painted black.

 

“The Goshinboku? It seems you hold your father's love for it.” He gave her an easy-going smile before sighing sadly and looking as if he might cry again himself. “It is a shame, but that trees strong, it's not dead yet. I can't seem to figure out what did it though, maybe a very powerful demon that despises Holy trees.” He mused to himself and immediately went to get some sort of charm to repel said demon.

 

Kagome suddenly remembered what she had wanted, maybe her grandpa's charms wouldn't work by themselves, but she might be able to use some of her latent miko powers to make them work correctly. “Oh, uhm, Jii-chan, I was wondering. . .”

 

* * *

 

Kagome sighed as she left the shrine with only a few charms and the powdered innards of some mythical creature that she had never heard of. He hadn't been much help at all in finding a spell to place on Naraku.

 

As she remembered the dark monarch, Kagome quietly crept about, looking everywhere for him, but he didn't seem to be in any of the rooms, not even in her father's study. That she was glad of, she might really have blown her stack at finding him in her father's private room, no matter how long the man had been dead.

 

Her mother was in the kitchen with Souta, cleaning off the counter and helping Souta bake cookies that he was going to take to school the next day. She greeted them absently before making her way to her room. Well at least he hadn't gone and showed himself to her family. But that still didn't say where he was. . .

 

Confused, worried and a touch angry with him, she stomped up the steps to her room.

 

Peeking in cautiously before entering, she looked around but found that he was not there either. Suddenly it struck her that she could try sensing his dark aura. She nearly hit herself over the head for not thinking about that before. What was she thinking? Idiot!

 

Calming, she reached out with the sixth sense that she knew to be her miko powers and drew them back sharply when she wrapped immediately around the dark tendrils of his power. She shivered, she hated touching his aura, it was disgusting and cold, hard and cruel, totally different from her own.

 

Blinking, she opened her eyes with a start. He was in her room! But where?

 

Raising an eyebrow she turned her attention to her closet door, which was slightly ajar. She could see the dark aura creeping out like chilling mist, slithering across the floor and wrapping itself around everything. It backed away from her, her miko powers were strong enough to ward off its evil presence but still she shivered at the cold that she could not repel.

 

No. . .he wouldn't be. . .would he. . . ?

 

Kagome reached out a slender hand and slowly pulled back the sliding door to the closet, peering in curiously.

 

Red glinted from the darkest corner, a book was propped up in his lap, and he scowled at her. Kagome was speechless; unable to comprehend why he would sit in her closet and read in the dark. How was he even able to read without a light? Given he was half-demon, but this was ridiculous!

 

“What-?” Kagome was finally able to choke out, trying to not laugh at him again. He was really very odd.

 

Naraku just glared at her, frowning. After a moment he went back to reading the book, ignoring her presence. Kagome rolled her eyes in return. What was he doing? Surely he didn't think that he could stay here, did he? Well, he was sorely mistaken if he presumed that she was just going to forget everything he had ever done in the past and let him read peacefully in her closet. She wasn't sure how she was going to enforce that though, despite her anger and hatred of him, she knew that she was no match for him if a fight should erupt. Not only that, but she didn't want to endanger her family, and definitely wasn't about to alert them to his presence. She went around and around in her head about what she could possibly do, but got nowhere. The only thing that she could think of would be to get another one of those youkai restrainers that Inuyasha had had. But it wasn't likely that that would work on the dark hanyou, or even that there were any real ones in existence any longer. . .

 

Well, for the time being it looked as if she were helpless at least. And whatever his motives for not making any move against her yet, she wasn't exactly going to complain.

 

Sighing to herself, she decided that maybe it was best to finish up her math homework first and get that problem out of the way before facing off with Naraku again. Leaving the door open, she walked over to her bed to finish up the rest of her math homework. She glanced at the door several times, uneasy and not at all focusing on the homework she had wanted to finish before going to sleep. But how could she even think of sleeping or going to school when Naraku was sitting in her closet and reading her History textbook? This was just too weird. . .

 

She sighed again; just great, her arch nemesis was living in her closet and still she felt an odd sense of foreboding weighing on her. What else could possibly go wrong?

 

Murphy's Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

 

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