InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Ames Qui Dorment ❯ Chapter One – Je pars la maison de ma grand-mère ( Chapter 1 )

Authors Notes: Don’t ask me why I’m writing this. I don’t know. It’s one of those ideas that just refuse to go away. Bleh. I think I’m going to do something really evil. Those of you who know, will recognize the… evilness. ::grins:: For those of you who will understand what I’m doing, YES I realize I’m probably making some grievous time and age mistakes in order to do this. It’s fanfiction. I’m allowed. And wow, this has to be the longest chapter I’ve written in a good long while. Enjoy it while it lasts, long chapter fans.

Thankies: Fuuzaki-chan. Tensei-chan. Pleiades-sama, for being a great beta reader. Moon Faery-chan. Blah, blah, blah.

Disclaimers: Inuyasha, most unfortunately, does not belong to me. He and all characters related to him belong to Takahashi Rumiko. Inuken, however, DOES belong to me. HAH!

  Âmes Qui Dorment Chapter One – Je pars la maison de ma grand-mère  

The light dwindled steadily as he made his way home. Yawning, Inuken reflected on how long practice had lasted and decided that next time he would go home before night began, no matter what the coach said. Baseball was important, but not that important. Not so important that he could miss helping Obaa-san with dinner. She counted on him so much, especially in the past couple of years, since the arthritis set in.

Two streets from home, Inuken reached back and pulled the elastic band from his hair and let it down to its full just-past shoulder length. The school couldn’t make him cut it, but they could make him wear it back in a ponytail. He much preferred it down. He felt more than free then. He felt wild, as though no power could subdue him and no force contain him. Inuken grinned, swung his bag over his shoulder, and ran the rest of the way home.

The kitchen light burned through the window, and his grandmother’s familiar silhouette moved against the soft orange background. A moment’s pause to take in her loved presence, then Inuken stepped into the yard, up the walk, and through the front door.

"Obaa-san! I’m home!"

She came around the corner, grey hair cropped as short as ever, wrinkled face smiling her tired smile. He could remember, from the first of his memories, when her hair had only a few silver streaks, few and far between. He could not, however, remember a time when she did not look sad and tired, even while smiling.

"Inuken, I was about to begin worrying. Those practices keep getting later every year." She took his hand in her two crinkled ones and patted him gently. "I’m going to have to talk to that coach of yours."

"No need, Obaa-san," Inuken leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead, "The season is over for the year after the next game."

"And you’ll be graduating, so you won’t be playing next year." That familiar gleam settled into her black eyes, and Inuken sighed inwardly. "Have you decided what you’re going to do after high school? You’ve already said you don’t want to go to University. Will you play baseball professionally?"

The thought had crossed his mind. He certainly liked baseball. He just wasn’t sure he liked it all THAT much, and when he told her so he didn’t need to hear her sigh to see it in her eyes. He looked to the floor and fidgeted. Why did she have to be so worried about his future? He wasn’t. Something in his bones told him that his future was waiting for him, somewhere, if only he could find it; it wasn’t something he could explain to her and have her understand. Even if her old stories were fantastic.

"Don’t worry, I’ll decide on something soon. Now, what’s for dinner and how can I help?" He spent twenty minutes helping her finish the food, and another hour sitting with her, eating and talking and just enjoying her company. For, like any old woman, she had many wonderful stories to tell. Inuken still enjoyed listening to them even if she did make them all up just to make him feel better and he had long ago stopped believing in them. He even had a favorite or two. "Tell me again about the evil miko."

"Oh, she wasn’t really evil, not from what your mother told me." Obaa-san’s eyes took on that far away look that came when she thought or spoke about her daughter. Inuken wondered, not for the first time, what his mother had done so horribly in her abandonment to make Obaa-san cover the truth with these stories. "Kikyou-sama was merely betrayed and misguided. And sad, very sad. She thought she could replace her sadness with revenge or stolen love, but in the end she finally realized revenge could never sate the emptiness, and love could not be stolen."

"Why did my father finally decide on my mother?"

Obaa-san gave him a tired glance, as she always did when he spoke of "father" and "mother".

"It was not finally. He knew his love belonged to your okaa-san long before he ever gave it to her. He merely knew that he must make it clear to Kikyou-sama first, and he could not do that so long as she remained in danger from herself and Naraku." A small smile graced her old face. "Your otou-san was always a far better man than he thought himself to be. Once he knew that what had happened with Kikyou-sama had been a horrible misunderstanding, set in motion by the most evil of youkai, he set out to protect her. He felt responsible for her. Perhaps he still felt the remains of the love he once felt, but in the end he knew that though her body walked, it was only mud and bones, while your okaa-san was flesh and blood. Kikyou-sama was his past, Kagome his future."

Obaa-san rarely spoke her daughter’s name. When she did, her eyes always threatened tears and Inuken always felt a surge of anger towards his mother. Obaa-san insisted on referring to them as "okaa-san" and "otou-san" which seemed very familiar. Too familiar for two people Inuken couldn’t remember. So he used English, and called them "mother" and "father". It helped to set them apart from himself in his mind. They would never be more than two distant and undeserving figures to him.

Inuken sighed and took the two plates into his hands and rose, planting another kiss on his grandmother’s forehead.

"I always love your stories, Obaa-san. They make everything seem magical, even when they aren’t."

She made the same non-committal sound she always did. He knew she was disappointed that he didn’t believe her anymore. But geez, he thought as he placed the plates on the counter and ran water into the sink, couldn’t she understand that he was seventeen? Almost eighteen? Only really weird or wacky people actually believed things like that. Magic wells and youkai and jewels that raised power. Did his grandmother really believe that his father was a powerful hanyou? Granted, Inuken’s eyes were an odd golden color, but things like that happened. Half-demon men marrying human women did not.

"Inuken," she said as she walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "why don’t you take a walk? This isn’t much to clean; I can handle it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I know how much you love walking in the moonlight."

"Alright. But I won’t take long."

"Take as long as you like. I’m not going anywhere." She smiled at him. He smiled back.

Outside, the sun had long given way to the moon, relinquishing power for the night. The softer light cast a spell over his familiar home, making well-known places dark and foreboding. Shadows changed as the light breeze was carried through tree branches. Colors all drained into shades of black and blue, even Inuken’s own clothing and skin. Enemies could be lurking behind every building, around any tree. Anyone else would be frightened; Inuken loved the dark and unknown. While out at night he could almost imagine that his grandmother’s stories were true; that his father really was a powerful inu-hanyou, that his mother really was a legendary miko, and as their son he was possessed of powers rightfully his. Almost he could imagine he smelled the far-off scent of someone cooking, that his ears- of a slightly different shape than most people’s- could really pick up sounds from a mile or more away. Inuken could almost fall into the fantasy of being more than what he knew he was: a regular human, possessing no powers or special abilities.

The enhanced hearing he didn’t have picked up a strange sound. Inuken turned, not sure he really had heard anything. The sound came from the old well-building, long ago boarded up and abandoned to time. Something, his ears told him, scratched at the inside of the door. Something that shouldn’t and couldn’t be in there, because that door had not been opened since . . . well, since he’d arrived, if his grandmother could be believed. Nothing could survive in a locked building for almost fourteen years.

He heard a dish shatter. He forgot the scratching.

"Obaa-san!"

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

Aya brought flowers and set them beside the hospital bed. Inuken looked up from where he sat to the small and shy girl. She rarely spoke in class, but she was the first to come and wish his grandmother well when she’d heard. Inuken knew that Aya liked him. Not only did she blush slightly when he looked at or spoke to her, her feeling was like an aura around her, or a smell. He could smell it on her, that she was attracted to him. She was pretty enough, no doubts about that. He could like her back. But how could he get to know her if she never spoke above a whisper?

And how could he think about that now?!?

"Arigatou, Aya-san."

Aya only nodded, arranging the flowers on the vase. The two were silent for several minutes, the boy in the chair looking at his unconscious grandmother and the girl standing by the table playing with the flowers. The silence dragged on, and Inuken wondered why Aya didn’t just leave.

"I . . . I got them from my onii-san."

Inuken blinked and looked up at her again. She finally lowered her hands from the flowers and looked at him. Her face flushed furiously, but her eyes were steady.

"The flowers. My onii-san partially owns and helps run a flower shop. He lets me pick the best when I want them."

"That’s . . . nice." What’s the point?

"Ran-oniisan is protective of me, but mostly lets me do whatever I want. He worries. I was in a coma once. For a very long time." Her eyes finally wavered and fell to the floor, but she kept speaking, "T-The point is that most comas don’t last as long as mine did, and when I woke up I was fine. S-So your obaa-san will probably be fine."

Inuken smiled. Aya was very sweet, after all. Nice, sweet girls tended to be shy. Not including that girl Usagi. He heard tales that she was very loyal to her friends and very sweet, but she was not shy at all. Usagi tended to show up at the strangest places, and Inuken had some suspicion about her, but that was better left to another time.

"I’m going to go home for a little while and rest," he told Aya, "I can’t do much for her here if I’m tired. Besides, Souta-ojisan will be here soon. Would you like to walk with me?"

He hadn’t known it possible to turn an even deeper shade of red than she already was, but apparently it was possible. She nodded, and he hoped his small invitation wouldn’t make her clam up even tighter than normal.

She was quiet for the first few minutes of the walk, but after he mentioned swords, a fascination for him because of his name, she opened up. Apparently her onii-san was also something of a swordsman, thought she wouldn’t tell Inuken where he used a sword. She knew a great deal about swords, and spoke openly on the subject. They’d found something in common after all, and Inuken noticed she became even more attractive when she became animated. When they arrived at the Higurashi shrine, Inuken invited her inside the grounds to continue their walk and talk. He knew Obaa-san would be overjoyed.

Aya explained to him the weapons her onii-san’s friends were interested in; she didn’t know as much about them, but enough to carry on a conversation. Inuken, like Aya herself, found the other weapons interesting but really only wanted to learn swordplay. Maybe that’s what he would do . . . maybe he would become a swordsman. For what purpose, he didn’t know, but it sounded interesting enough.

"What’s that?" Aya pointed to the old well-building.

"Oh, there’s a well in there. The building’s been shut up for ages, since before I came to live with Obaa-san. She tells all kinds of weird stories about it."

"Like what?"

"Oh, she says it’s some kind of portal to the past. She used to tell me those stories when I was little and I believed every one of them. But now that I’m older, I don’t. I think it disappoints her that I’ve grown up."

Aya walked up to the board door and touched the old wood.

"Did she ever use it?"

"No, she said she never did, but her daughter, my mother, used to make a habit of it." He shrugged. He didn’t feel like sharing his grandmother’s stories about his parents. "Come on, we can get something to eat and drink in the house before you go home."

He didn’t like the way Aya paused, looking at the old building as though she expected something to come out. Finally she backed away and followed him, but she glanced backwards at least once.

Inside he warmed up some of the leftovers from the day before, before his grandmother collapsed. The doctors still didn’t know exactly what had happened, but they knew it had something to do with her brain because she was in a coma and it didn’t have anything to do with her hitting her head. Inuken worried about her as he set a plate in front of Aya. She’d quieted considerably since coming inside.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up at him. She didn’t blush.

"Oh, yes, I’m fine. It’s just . . ." Now her face flushed. "You realize there are going to be all sorts of rumors now."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, a girl going alone into the home of a boy that everyone knows is alone in the house until his grandmother gets better." Aya’s face came close to the shade of her hair. Inuken felt his own face growing a bit warm.

"Oh."

"I should probably go home before it gets dark." In fact, the light was already beginning to wane. Soon it would be dark, and if she stayed, the rumors would only be twice as bad. However, Inuken found himself not wanting her to leave. He liked her, now that he’d been able to get her to talk, and wanted to keep talking.

"No, you don’t have to. I mean, are your parents going to be upset?"

Aya looked to the floor. Inuken remembered she hadn’t said a word about her parents, only her onii-san.

"They . . . they’re dead."

"It’s okay. Mine are dead too, or might as well be." He shrugged when she tossed him a curious look. "They left me here when I was four and I haven’t seen them since. They never write to me or call, not even on my birthday. All I know about them comes from my obaa-san’s stories, and she’s made up some elaborate fantasy involving that stupid well, I think because her daughter’s abandoning her hurt so much she doesn’t want to remember the truth."

"What kind of stories?"

Inuken sighed and looked to the ceiling, trying to remember everything.

"Oh, my mother used to time travel all the time, and she met my father five hundred years in the past. They met and fell in love during the Sengoku Jidai, searching for pieces of some mystical jewel. There was plenty of evil and plenty of adventure. They even had a kitsune-youkai for a friend. The only part she ever left out was explaining why they left me here. She never would tell me that."

"Wow." Aya’s eyes were wide. "That all sounds very . . . interesting."

"You haven’t even heard the best part." Now that Inuken was telling the story, he wanted very much for her to believe it as strange and unthinkable as he did; for some reason it was very important that she tell him the stories were unbelievable. "According to Obaa-san, not only did my father live five hundred years ago, he was a hanyou."

"A-A hanyou? You mean, a half-youkai?"

"That’s exactly what I mean. Obaa-san told me that my father was half inu-youkai and half-human."

Aya sat very quietly, watching him with her violet eyes. Her study of him made Inuken uncomfortable, but at least she seemed to have forgotten about leaving. Why did keeping the girl he wanted to know better involve bringing up the well and things he didn’t want to know better? Inuken watched her thinking until he didn’t think he could stand it anymore.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What are you thinking?"

"I’m thinking . . . well, I think there’s only one thing to do." She placed her hands flat on the table and rose from her chair, a sudden determined gleam entering her eyes.

"What’s that?"

"There’s only one way to find out if your obaa-san’s stories are true. Open the well."

Inuken felt a shock. Open the well? The thought startled him, and sent him back to a dark place, where creatures lurked in shadow and reached out when one least expected them. In his mind he heard a terrible shrieking, and the heavy breathing of someone close to him running very hard.

"Inuken-san?" Aya’s voice reached out to him over the darkness and pulled him back to the present. She gazed on him, worry in her eyes.

"It’s okay, I’m okay." He wasn’t okay, not really, but he wouldn’t tell her that. What he’d heard and seen had the sharpness of memory, but nothing like that had ever happened to him. If it had, it would have to have been before he came to live with Obaa-san, but he never remembered anything before that time. He’d always come up against a stark, lonely blank wall in his mind whenever he tried to remember his mother, his father, or anything before Obaa-san. Aya mentioned opening the well, however, and suddenly he saw and heard things he couldn’t explain.

"Inuken-san, I should—"

"No." He stood, making his decision. "No, we’ll do it. We’ll open the well. If that’s the only way to find out the truth, then it has to be done." He looked at her. "I can do it by myself, if you really want to—"

"No, no I’ll help. I want to help."

"Then come with me."

They went out the back door to the storage building. Obaa-san had a story even for that, about a possessed mask that ate people in search of a body. Like all the other monsters of her stories, her daughter had defeated this one as well, with the help of the hanyou from the past. Well, Obaa-san, I guess I’m about to find out whether everything you’ve ever told me has been truth or lie.

Inuken found two crowbars inside with all of the armor and ‘ancient’ ancestral shrine antiques. He asked Aya again if she was sure, thinking her body too small to be of any real use, but she nodded and clutched the crowbar tightly, determined to be of some help. He nodded and they left the storage, locking the building behind them. Across the property they went, to the well-building that sat alone and silent. It was dark now; his story and Aya’s pondering had taken up those last few precious minutes of daylight. No matter what happened, they would have rumors to deal with.

The two set about prying boards from the door, and Inuken was surprised at how strong Aya was despite her smallness. She pulled her fair share, sweating and straining, but with little more difficulty than he himself had. They had one board left to go and were discussing who would have the honor of pulling it when Inuken heard the scratching again. He lifted a hand to stop Aya from speaking, and they both listened carefully.

It sounded almost like a dog scratching at a door to be let out, but there came no whining or barking to reinforce that idea. Aya looked at him, and he shrugged. Whatever was making the noise, he didn’t know. Aya crept close to the door and put an ear to the wood. Inuken followed, more quietly than he ever imagined he could move, and touched the door himself.

There was a flash. Inuken and Aya jumped. The thing made deep growl and hissed, definite proof that something indeed was inside. But it didn’t scratch again at the door.

"Okay," Inuken said, "let’s get this last board off."

"Are you sure?" Aya stood as he did, and both looked to the door. Only one board stood between them and the thing. "Just because it isn’t scratching doesn’t mean it’s not there anymore."

"I’m sure. I have to know." And he did. Since deciding on this course of action Inuken had known that he had to do this. He had to open the well. He had to see if it was all truth or lies. He had to know.

Aya nodded. She stepped back, leaving him open to pull the last board. Inuken moved forward, placed his crowbar in position and yanked. The board slid easily from the door, nails sliding from wood as though wood were butter. It fell to the ground with a clatter. The door was free to be opened as it had not been in fourteen years. Inuken took a deep breath, reached forward, and slid the door to the side.

Something small, black, and thin leaped from the darkness towards him, hissing a trail of acrid smoke as it flew through the air. Aya screamed. Inuken took a step back but as he did he instinctively swung the crowbar. Metal connected with the creature, but instead of feeling a solid impact, Inuken again saw the flash of light. The thing exploded and dust sprinkled down over the two surprised and frightened teenagers. They stood staring at each other as white ash continued to rain and the impact of what had happened hit and passed. Then fear gave way to something else, and Inuken grinned.

"That . . . was so . . . COOL!"

Aya gave him a wavering smile that said she could have lived without that experience, thank you very much. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, then opened them again.

"Well, shall we go in?"

"Hell yeah!" Excitement flooded through his head, his limbs, and his gut. Every part of Inuken screamed for more of what had just occurred: battle. A small one, yes, hardly worth noting, but a battle all the same. He grabbed Aya’s small hand in his and pulled her with him as he charged into the small building. His eyes took only a moment to adjust to the darkness inside, for it was only slightly darker that outside. In the center of the room stood the well.

The thrill of the moment seemed to heighten his senses. Inuken could smell his grandmother in here, as well as Souta-ojisan. There were other smells, many too old and vague to be sorted, but two stood out. He didn’t recognize them, but stored them in his memory all the same. He walked to the well and saw on it and the well-cover many ofuda. The older ones gave off a smell that tickled Inuken’s memory, but he could not place. The newer ones, and new meant only not as old as the others, smelled of Souta-ojisan.

"Inuken-san, can you open it?"

He looked and saw Aya right beside him. Then he realized he was still holding her hand and dropped it quickly.

"There shouldn’t be any problem." He reached out to the well, prepared to open it and rip through the flimsy paper wards. Just before touching the handle, however, he felt a sharp shock and pulled back. Aya asked him what was wrong, but he only shook his head. The shock served not only to make him back away, but also to cut through the excitement he’d been feeling. Now he was afraid again, afraid of what all this could mean. But the fear wasn’t enough to stop him. He reached out again and this time was able to put his hand on the well-cover without any adverse effects. He felt Aya’s hands on his sleeve. He took a breath, then another, paused, and opened the well.

Nothing happened. No light, no wind, no giant youkai like the sort that supposedly took his mother that first time. He released his breath and beside him Aya released his sleeve.

"Well, that was rather anti-climactic." Aya put her hands on the well rim and leaned over the side. "I don’t see anything down there either. Wait, there’s a ladder. Why would anyone put a ladder in a well?"

Inuken didn’t reply, but he knew. He’d heard the stories so many times he could remember nearly every little detail, including this one.

"Inuken-san, are you coming?"

He blinked and looked down to see Aya halfway down the ladder. She had stopped to call to him, and her violet eyes were staring up at him impatiently. Well, with her already down there, he didn’t really have much of a choice, now did he? Inuken sighed and lifted himself over the side, then climbed down the ladder. Two steps from the bottom he stopped and watched Aya stomp her feet in the dirt.

"Well," she said, looking up at him, "nothing’s happening."

"I know. I think . . . I think it has to be me."

Aya paused to think. A shaft of moonlight must have entered through the open door and bounced down to the bottom of the well, because suddenly her pale skin washed alive with glowing light. Inuken reached down from his perch on the ladder.

"Aya-san, take my hand. I don’t want you to be left here alone if something does happen."

She nodded and took his hand. He stepped down from the ladder and set foot on the packed dirt beneath. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. Inuken sighed and watched Aya’s face fall in disappointment. Apparently she’d been expecting something, at least on some level. He couldn’t say he had not expected . . . a light. A shift. Something.

"Come on," he said, tugging at her hand, "Let’s get back up so I can send you home and spare some of your reputation at least."

"Okay." Aya sighed. Inuken turned and placed a hand on the ladder. Then, "Inuken-san! Wait!"

Liquid light began to fill the bottom of the well as though a leak had sprung. As blue, white and pink began to flow over his shoes and up the length of his legs, Inuken had the brief and insane notion that he might drown in the light and should hold his breath. He felt Aya’s small hand squeeze his as the light surrounded them both and the bottom of the well vanished.

End Chapter One.