InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A stroke of time ❯ The unhappy ningen ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter two: The unhappy ningen

 

He felt something warm being placed over his shoulders and he raised his head to see Sango crouching next to him; she had just covered him with a quilt. Inuyasha rubbed his eyes and painfully felt his blood returning to the arm where he had been resting his head. Such things never happened to him as a hanyou.

 

“Why don't you go back, Inuyasha? It's getting cold. I made some rice and Kaede-baachan says I didn't burn it this time,” she joked, well, half-joked, but no smile came from him.

 

“I'm not hungry.” His flat tone only made her remember her own grief.

 

“You know… surely something came up, maybe that test she had to do was delayed or maybe her mother is sick. I'm sure she'll be back in no time,” she tried to comfort him but he only shrugged his shoulders, however she had to keep trying.

 

“Please, Inuyasha, come inside, you're going to get sick and Kagome is going to be very mad at me for not taking care of you.”

 

She received a muffled response that sounded vaguely like “I don neef anyone to take cafe of me.”

 

Sango sat on the edge of the well and looked toward west; the dying sun was painting the sky in pink and golden tones. She breathed heavily. “I miss her too, and I think about her and how things were before, and I think about Kohaku, and my Houshi-Sama and the things that won't be anymore… I am sad too, Inuyasha, but I know he wouldn't appreciate if I wasted his sacrifice by throwing my life away.”

 

Inuyasha looked at her and he thought he could see her eyes mist. It was easy to forget there were other people suffering out there when one was immersed in one's own misery.

 

“I… I don't mean to waste Miroku's gift, Sango.”

 

They stayed in silence for some time, Sango looking the fading sunset, Inuyasha losing his eyes into the black pit in front of him.

 

“Eh… do you miss him?” he asked hesitantly after a while. He usually tried to avoid any kind of sentimental contact with people, but this time he really wanted to know, he wanted… he needed someone who felt related to his pain, to that feeling of loss.

 

“Too much,” was her simple answer.

 

Memories flooded her head, those same memories that kept up waking her up at nights, screaming and sobbing for him to stop, to close his hand, to not abandon her like her father, like her clan, like Kohaku.

 

She would never forget how he had directed his last, hopeless smile to her as he whispered that he loved her.

 

Inuyasha also remembered that day as if it had been yesterday, how they had gotten the final shard and how Naraku had managed to steal it from them, completing the Shikon no Tama at last. He remembered as well how, in a desperate attempt to impede that monster from merging with it, Miroku had opened his Kazaana to get the Tama away from Naraku, and he didn't care about Naraku's resistance to let go of it, or all the insects he was absorbing, or Sango's frantic cries. He Kept the Kazaana open until it was no longer a choice.

 

In a moment, after a bright, blinding explosion of light, all that was left of Miroku was a deep hole in the ground, but Inuyasha didn't stop to lament the loss, he couldn't. During the distraction the Kazaana caused, Kagome had managed to get hold of the Shikon no Tama, but soon, Naraku realized what was happening and went after the frightened Miko.

 

Sango was in something close to a shock, kneeling in front of the smoking hole that used to be Miroku, Kirara was hurt and unable to help and nor Inuyasha neither Tessaiga(1) were strong enough to take Naraku down. He knew they were going to lose, he knew Naraku would get the Tama and kill them all, kill Kagome, unless…

 

“You tried to get through the well again.” The statement brought him out of his reverie. He turned to see his companion, who was pointing at his mud stained knees.

 

“What if I did?” he said in a low, grimly voice as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

 

Sango could perfectly picture him at the well's bottom, sighing in defeat and disappointment when, once again, he didn't disappear in a halo of unnatural blue.

 

“I didn't mean to question your actions, I just thought that you had given up. You stopped trying almost for a month.”

 

He was about to tell her to mind her own business, but thought better of it. It wouldn't hurt to tell her. “I— I only thought it was worth it to try again, maybe it would work this time. I had nothing to lose.”

 

“I suppose, so… did you use Tessaiga as a shovel or something?” Sango noticed the katana resting at the side of the well. It was covered on dirt.

 

“What? Oh, I thought the old thing might be useful for something. I should throw it away, or sell it as old iron, for all that it's worth.”

 

“You should keep it, it was a present from you father after all.”

 

Inuyasha stared at the weapon for some moments, and narrowing his eyes, he stood up and took it in his hands, he then unsheathed the katana and gathering all his strength, threw it as far as he could, growling in frustration. He did the same with the saya(2).

 

“I don't want it any more! It just reminds me of what I lost! I don't want to see it again and I hope it rusts `till disappear!”

 

“Inuyasha…” But the black haired youth needed to express his frustrations.

 

“A month, Sango, she should have returned a month ago! She promised! Why did she lie? Why isn't she here yet? I just— I feel so— I hate her! And that fucking well that won't let me go through!”

 

“Please Inuyasha-kun! Calm down! We don't know what happened to her! Maybe her mother is sick! Or what if she didn't pass her test and she is too sad? Maybe she had and accident and broke her leg and she can't climb down the well! Have you thought of that? Kagome said she would be back and she always keeps her promises!”

 

He studied his feet for a moment as Sango's words sank into his mind. He tried to calm a little and better decided to curse his uncomfortable zori(3); it was still hard to get used to footwear; as a human he couldn't afford the luxury of going around barefoot all the time, his skin resented it deeply.

 

He just wished he hadn't let three whole months pass before trying to cross the well again since Kagome's departure, but he had been so angry at her. Maybe if he had tried earlier…

 

“And the well? Any answer for that enigma?” Inuyasha said all the sudden. He just couldn't let any one have the last word.

 

“The well just doesn't like you any more,” Sango answered as she casually examined her nails, which had been able to grow a little more, now that she didn't have to wield Hiraikotsu so often.

 

“Is that so?”

 

“That's so.”

 

No warnings, Inuyasha gripped Sango's head with one arm and rubbed his knuckles against her hair.

 

“Take it back!”

 

“No!”

 

“Take it back!” he pretended to sound angry.

 

“No!”

 

“Come on, wench!”

 

“Okay ,okay, the well likes you but only because you are messing my hair up!”

 

“That's enough for me.” And the humiliated taijiya was released, her head a messy tangle of hair.

 

“I'll get my revenge, Inuyasha,” she said as she tried to comb her hair with her fingers.

 

“Keh!”

 

Night had finally fallen and indeed, it was pretty cold. Inuyasha reached for the quilt Sango had brought him and put it around her shoulder. He really didn't need it, his firerat suit protected him well enough, and he had noticed her arm had remained somewhat sensitive to the cold after her last injury.

 

“Thanks,” she murmured.

 

“Why did you call me Inuyasha-kun, Sango?” he asked, his eyebrow lifted.

 

“Oh... I don't know. Does that bother you? If it does then I won't do it again.”

 

Since Naraku's defeat, she had felt her affection for the former hanyou increase, maybe because since Miroku died and Kagome left, she held onto anything, anyone who could be an anchor to what she once knew, to what her life used to represent. Or simply, it was that individuals who shared such brutal, life scarring experiences together couldn't be less than inseparable friends. Perhaps it was the motive that leaded them to not part ways, when the time came. Or maybe they just didn't want to be alone.

 

“Keh! It's not important, now, let's see if you manage to poison Shippo and I with that rice of yours.”

 

“Alright, go ahead, I will catch you both in a minute.”

 

He looked at her suspiciously. “What are you going to do?”

 

“Stuff, come on, go ahead.”

 

“What kind of stuff?” Inuyasha cocked his head stubbornly but Sango needed him gone, so she decided to use a trick she had learned from Kagome.

 

“Women stuff, Inuyasha, want me to tell the details?”

 

“Oy, Sango! I didn't want to hear that!” And he disappeared out of sight while complaining about some women's lack of discretion.

 

Sango waited until his voice couldn't be heard any more and she headed to the place where she had seen Tessaiga and its saya fall, finding them right away.

 

There was no way she could let the katana that had saved their lives so many times rust until disappear, it would be dishonorable, so she sheathed it again and hiding it under her kosode(4), she trailed after Inuyasha.

 

Surely one day he would be grateful she kept it for him.

 

Before leaving, Sango looked back at the bone eater's well and wished for Kagome's prompt return. Inuyasha seemed lost without her.

 

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(1) Tessaiga: Inuyasha's sword was called Tetsusaiga, but according to wikipedia, it was a kanji confusion mistake. The correct name is Tessaiga.

(2) Saya: A katana's sheath.

(3) Zori: Sandals.

(4)Kosode: That's the correct name of the kimono Sango wears. It literally means “small sleeves”

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