InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ An Arrow Not Burning ❯ Hanyo's Soul ( Chapter 9 )

The fall seemed to change into an inward drawing. Then he was resting on a surface invisible in the pinkish mist. He tried to sit up, and cried out as agony sliced through his belly. Dark red floated before his eyes, and he realized he couldn't remember who he was. He could remember the dream of being youkai, and the other of being a human warrior. But who was he? Where was he? What was he?

"Shhh." A female voice spoke gently out of the mist. A hand touched his head, and the edge of a shallow cup touched his lips. "Drink. This will help."

He drank. The liquid was warm and salty, but it cleared his head, and dissipated the pain in his belly, reducing it to an ache. Opening his eyes as the cup disappeared, he looked down at his hands braced against the unseen ground. They were clawed, and the wrists here hidden beneath voluminous red sleeves. Fire-rat sleeves.

"Who are you?" asked the voice, now coming from behind him.

"Inuyasha," he said, remembering. "In the jewel..."

"Not quite," murmured the woman. "At this moment, it could as truly be said that the jewel is inside you. Now, who are you?"

He frowned. "I told you. Inuyasha."

"But who is Inuyasha?"

He felt his ears lowering. "A hanyo," he muttered bitterly.

"Who is Inuyasha?"

The old anger rose. "A hanyo!" he shouted, digging his claws into the palms of his hands. "A stupid, ugly, worthless, abomination of a hanyo that should have never been born!" The pain in his belly pulsed as he shouted the epithets that had been dinned into his ears so often that part of him had come to believe those descriptions. "A dirty half-breed to be killed on sight..."

The hand on his head stopped the bitter litany. "If the hanyo is worthless, then how is it that he nearly purified the Shikon No Tama?"

Inuyasha started. "Nani?"

The mist before him shimmered, then cleared to reveal an image of his hand, with the slightly too-long claws releasing the glowing, pinkish-red jewel. As the long fingers started to close around the sphere, a glittering tear fell. It landed on the jewel, and appeared to be absorbed by it. The jewel paled in color, brightening. "Your miko regained her heart, conquering her bitterness and hatred, before she died," said the voice. "That removed much of the stain she caused, when she thought you had betrayed her. The selflessness of your wish removed nearly all of the rest."

"Then why didn't my wish work?" demanded Inuyasha. "The first time, the jewel tried to turn me into a youkai. Then the second time, when I wished for all of Naraku's victims to live, why did I get pulled into this -- dream world, or whatever it is? Why was the demon able to try to make me change my mind? Make me live those dreams? And who are you, anyway?"

"This was the soul that in its last life belonged to Modoriko." The voice came from in front of him, and Inuyasha looked up as a human woman took shape before him. He blinked in surprise, when he saw the strange armor over her clothing, and even stranger, the long sword belted at her side. That detail alone convinced him that the demon wasn't trying to use his own dreams against him again, for never had he imagined a human woman with a sword and armor.

Her dark eyes were mildly amused, as if she read his thoughts. "Like your miko," she continued, "Modoriko possessed great spiritual powers...and enemies among the youkai. Like your foe, many of them merged with a foolish human who lusted after the miko's body. The demon was strong...far stronger than your Naraku. For seven days and seven nights they fought. When, at last, her body failed her, Modoriko made the only choice she saw, to prevent the demon from surviving. She pulled the demon's soul into her own, binding them together, and then thrust them from her heart. Modoriko and the demon died, but the souls remained in the world, crystallized into the Shikon No Tama.

Inuyasha winced at the thought of being bound to one's enemy. "How ... long...?" he asked softly.

The figure shrugged. "There is no time in the jewel. Only the eternal battle, of good versus evil, of light versus dark. And so it will continue, until the day the jewel is utterly purified." Inuyasha looked away, appalled at the thought of such endless entrapment. "It is not the same for a soul, as for an incarnate being, young hanyo," she said, again divining his thought.

He looked up. "But you do want the battle ended."

She looked suddenly weary, with ancient eyes. "The Shikon No Tama has caused much pain in the world, and little good. The world would be better if the souls were purified, and the jewel were dissolved."

He looked down, shoulders slumped, feeling as if a bit of her weariness had descended on him. "My wish to become human was supposed to purify the jewel," he said in a low voice. "With Kikyo's help, to guard against my youkai blood. But Naraku intervened ... and my wish on the jewel wasn't good enough. Because I'm hanyo..."

"Your hanyo nature was not your problem."

Surprised, Inuyasha looked up. "What do you mean?"

Her eyes were distant, measuring him. He felt the strength of her gaze, and had to force himself not to lower his ears or shrink back.

"The purity of a soul does not depend upon the blood of the being that contains it," she said. "Those who fought on Modoriko's side were not all human, and those who opposed her were not all youkai. The neko, whose form I borrowed when I entered your dream, was one such."

He blinked. "Why did you do that?"

"To test your heart. To provide a true choice."

"Choice?"

"Yes. The knife was a trap. Had you used it against the bear youkai, as intended, it would have bound you to the demon. You would have seen no reason not to use it against the bear, once you were desperate enough."

"If I had used it against the neko?"

"The evil would have stained your soul irredeemably." Her eyes were cold. "You recognized her true nature."

He winced and nodded. "But I did use the blade."

"That was the trap. Use the blade against your enemy or yourself, and your willing use would allow the demon's poison to enter you. Refuse the order of one you remembered swearing fealty to, and your lack of honor would itself bind you to his bidding."

He looked down, pressing his hand against his painful belly. "Then there's nothing I can do?"

"You are not doomed. Not yet. Take my hand."

He looked up to see Modoriko's spirit standing above him, offering her hand. He accepted her assistance in climbing to his feet, biting back a gasp of pain. He blinked when he realized that she stood as tall as he. Her black eyes were at a level with his, and so penetrating that he felt she must be able to see every thought and emotion in his head. He wanted to look away, and his ears wanted lower themselves like a cowed puppy's. He forced himself to meet her gaze. "What do I do?"

Her eyes might have warmed, for just a moment. "Because you used the blade only to preserve your honor, the demon has but a partial hold over you. You can reject that hold."

"How?"

"You must look within your soul, young hanyo." The miko's voice seemed more distant, and her eyes, if anything, seemed to sadden. "You have love. You have learned, if only recently, that friendship is not outside your reach." Inuyasha blinked at that, then thought of Korana. What was it she had offered, if not a child's friendship? And Kikyo, at first...he hadn't loved her, not when they had first started talking...was that friendship? "As for wisdom..."

He managed a bit of his usual bluster. "Keh. If I had wisdom, I wouldn't have let Kikyo pin me to a tree so many times."

To his surprise, the spirit chuckled. "No, that was not wisdom. However, to know one is not wise; to have the humility to accept that one may and will be wrong about many things -- that is the start of wisdom."

His ears twitched. He had no illusions that he was intelligent -- he'd been called stupid too many times to think otherwise. "I'm not wise," he stated, a bit defensively. As for humble--!

Her voice held a ghost of her chuckle. "You are but young, my hanyo. There is wisdom in your soul, once you learn to seek it. That is not your weakness, where the demon is concerned." She gave him a long look.

"Your weakness is your fear."

Inuyasha started, his ears flicking fully upright, then flattening in sheer indignation. "I am not afraid!"

"You are afraid. You are afraid of living your life as a hanyo."

Inuyasha flinched. "I'm not..."

"You are." Her voice was quiet; not condemning, but with no prevarication. "The life of a hanyo can be a terrible one, and is too often short, and filled with loneliness and fear. But rather than seeking to rise above your fate, to live your life to its fullest despite the trials, you have sought to evade your fate, to change what you are. For most of your life, you have sought to become youkai. When your miko suggested the alternative, you agreed to become human."

Inuyasha shared at her, stunned. He had never thought of his desires in terms of courage. He was brave...he knew he was brave...how many youkai had he refused to run away from? "I'm not a coward!" he snarled, bristling.

"I did not call you that. Your desire to be youkai or human...that is not, of itself, your weakness. All ensouled beings have their dark side: their hates, their selfish wants, their desire to do what is easy instead of what is right. That you have never fought this desire to be only half of what you are: that you sought an easy path to acceptance, by becoming less than what you are -- that is your weakness. That is why your wish...without your miko's help...could not purify the jewel. The demonic half of the jewel sensed your heart's deepest, uncontested desire, reached for it, touched it, and kept the purification incomplete."

He stared at her, frozen between dismay and indignation. His desire to be youkai was the reason his wish had not come true? He had failed, not because he was a hanyo, but because he didn't want to be a hanyo? Because he was afraid to be a hanyo?

That was ridiculous! He wasn't afraid...of anything! He wasn't, wasn't...

The pale mist suddenly shuddered with a reverberating 'boom,' and flashed dull red. "Give us the hanyo!" howled a multi-timbered voice. "The hanyo is ours! We will absorb his soul!"

The pain in his belly exploded into fire. Inuyasha crumpled to his hands and knees with a choked cry as the fire flashed into every part of his body. He felt his body start to transform, as it had when he first picked up the jewel. "No!" he cried. "I will not transform! I am hanyo!"

The laughter boomed around him. "You cannot resist us, pitiable hanyo. Come to us. Give in to your dark nature. Be one with us, rejoice in the dark, in the power."

"Never!" But the fire in his body was bringing him to his feet. He tried to resist, snarling, but his feet insisted on moving. Through a red mist, he saw the merge demon take form, laughing. It was reaching for him with a clawed hand. "Won't -- go," he growled. But his body would not obey him, and a whimper stuck in his throat, wanting to crawl out.

Pink-tinged lightning split the air between him and the demon. The demon howled in pain and vanished. Inuyasha staggered backwards and sat down, the pull suddenly vanished, his face wet. Blinking the stinging liquid out of his eyes, he looked up to find Modoriko standing between him and where the demon had been, her sword drawn, glimmering with power. She met his gaze.

"You have little time, young hanyo," she told him. "When the demon recovers, he will seek to draw you to him again. And your tear will not protect you a third time."

"Tear?"

"Your tear that nearly purified the jewel. I used it when I brought you here, but its power is limited."

Inuyasha didn't understand how a simple tear could have done what the spirit claimed, but wasn't going to ask. "What do I do?"

"You must reject the poison that ties you to the demon. You must push the poison in your dream-body out."

"Dream body?"

"This is your dream world, Inuyasha. The power of the jewel affects it, but you can still shape it. Will the poison you feel to shrink, to exit your body. Reject your desire to change. Face the fear of being hanyo, and conquer it. Embrace what you are."

"Embrace...?" he queried, ears lowered. "What's good about being a hanyo?"

"Is there no good in Inuyasha?" she countered. "Did you not declare that you would rather live and die as hanyo, than to be youkai, if it meant breaking your word to your mother? Did you not have the courage to die, rather than slay an innocent neko? Did you not offer your life, if it would let others live?"

His ears rose as his reactive bitterness eased. "Every ensouled being has the potential for good or evil, young one," she continued. "Those words thrown at you all your life are not you." A faint smile crossed her lips. "Surely the man a miko falls in love with, is not entirely worthless?"

He blushed, but at the same time felt the pang of grief, felt his eyes sting. Kikyo. Pushing himself forward into a cross-legged position, he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He would defeat this poison, and that demon. If only for the sake of the love Kikyo had given him. He would not give in!

The demon's poison had receded to his torso, but it flickered at him, waiting its chance to spring outward. It laughed at him. Inuyasha snarled, and willed it to shrink. I am Inuyasha, he told it silently, and you are no part of me! I am hanyo, and you will not change me!

It resisted his pressure, and laughed at him. Are you sure you want to be hanyo? Are you sure you want to suffer a hanyo's fate? It threw images at him, images of death. Youkai captured him, bound him, then tore him to pieces with their claws, slowly. A miko's arrow slammed into his shoulder, sending him to the ground writhing in pain, unable to escape as humans gathered with their swords and spears and axes, and chopped him apart, ignoring his screams. Inuyasha snarled, and tore the images to shreds with a contemptuous slash of claws.

You think I'm afraid of dying, baka? he jeered. Try something else! I am hanyo, I am Inuyasha, and I do not fear pain or dying!

Oh, but you do fear this, do you not, little hanyo?

He was suddenly in the middle of a crowd, of humans and youkai. He was chained hand and foot to a post, kneeling, forced to look up at those surrounding him. They looked down at him with disgust and hatred on their faces. He snarled at them in defiance, denying the fear of what they would do to him. One of the demons smirked at him, cracking the knuckles of his clawed hand. Inuyasha glared at him, ears flattened against his skull, prepared to take whatever pain the demon inflicted on him.

But a human spoke up. "Why bother with it? It's only a hanyo. Let's go."

And they turned on their heels, all of them, and left. Inuyasha stared after them, surprised. The air darkened, and the world expanded in his senses. An empty world. He was at the center of an empty universe. Is that what you want, little hanyo? Whispered the poison's voice. To be hanyo is to be alone. No one cares for you. No one cares about you. You will live and die alone. Alone. All alone...

Inuyasha whimpered, shaking as the fear seized him, as the unbearable sense of loneliness threatened to overwhelm him. So alone! His mother had died, and her people had exiled him, still a child, driving him away with words of contempt and disdain. He had tried to find someone who liked him, who would care for him, who would help him, and there had been no one. No one! In grief and despair, he had turned to anger, lashing out, telling himself that he needed no one. But anger could not take away the dark nights with no one to share his space. It could not take away the terror of the nights of the new moon, when he was so terribly vulnerable in his human form. It could not cover that gaping void in his heart, the part of him that not only wanted, but needed a friend.

You have no friends, whispered the voice. A hanyo will never have friends. But you can change that. A youkai needs no friends. Join us, become one with us. We will give you power. Such power. Beautiful, dark power.

"No!" Inuyasha forced his eyes open, and found that he had curled up on his side into a tight, ball. Shaking, his teeth clenched tightly against sobs from the pain of the howling void of loneliness clawing in his heart, he forced himself back into his seated position. "I will not join you!" He snarled, fighting the image at the center of his being. "I am Inuyasha, I am hanyo, I will not turn youkai or human, no matter how alone I am!"

But the fear slammed over him again, and he was once again in the desolate, dark, entirely lonely universe, curled up in a little ball, whimpering in fear and loneliness. The universe shook with laughter. You are a fool. Why suffer in aloneness, when you don't need to? Come to us. We will erase your fear. We will fill you with other things. Power. Hate. Let us consume your fear. Let us be part of you. No loneliness, ever again. You will be one with us.

Inuyasha forced himself to uncurl. "I -- will -- not," he forced out between clenched teeth. He stood up, shaking and soaked in fear-sweat. "I -- will -- not!" He forced himself to open his eyes, and stare out at the endless, empty plain beneath the dull, dark, empty sky. "I -- can -- take -- being -- alone!" He stared at the dark plain, shaking under the waves of fear and loneliness. "I would rather be alone, forever, than be part of you!" The darkness faded a little. "I don't want your power! I don't want your hate! You have nothing I want!" He stared at the darkness, and turned into the wind of his fear. "I would rather be myself, and alone, than to accept any part of your evil!"

The buffeting fear faded. Inuyasha breathed it in, and found his terror gone. It left room for a thought.

He laughed. A laugh caught against tears and terrible heartache, yet still a laugh. "And this isn't the truth! I'm not alone!" He lashed out with his claws. The empty universe shredded, tore itself to pieces and disappeared. "I'm not alone!" Inuyasha stared at the demon on the other side of Modoriko's barrier, and laughed again, even as tears swam down his cheeks.

"I have my mother! I have my father!" he told the snarling demon. "Mother cared for me, comforted me, loved me! And father -- he was taiyoukai, he was the Inu No Taisho, and he died saving a ningen and a hanyo! A hanyo! Me!"

"But they're dead, you fool!" roared the demon.

"What of it?" he retorted. "As long as I remember them, as long as I remember their love, I'm not alone! And if one woman can look beyond the hanyo to see his heart, then so can others! If one child can hug a hanyo and want to pet his ears, then so can others!"

He ripped his fingers down and through his chest and belly, white, eldritch claws catching the poison and pulling it out. He trembled a moment, then steadied, willing body and clothing to wholeness. Holding up the twitching, purple-black mass, he stared defiantly at the demon. "You want me, do you?" he challenged. "Then, take this!"

He squeezed, white-tipped claws sinking into the mass. The demon screamed as the mass writhed, then started to change, paling in color from nearly black to nearly white. The twitching tendrils receded into the mass, which shrank into a sphere. "Here! Have your little gift back!"

Inuyasha threw the transformed sphere. It passed through the barrier, shedding the last of its color as it did so. It hit the demon in its open mouth. The demon choked, then screamed, rearing and clawing at its throat.

"Now we finish it. With your permission?"

"Hai." Inuyasha didn't know or care what he agreed to. He discovered that a moment later, as the white mist shrank into him. The soul stuff was a flood of power beyond his wildest imagining, and his will and mind might have crumpled beneath it, save for the hands that seemed to hover around his head, supporting him. Take the sword, directed Modoriko's voice. You know how to use it. He found himself holding her long, slender sword in both hands. It glimmered with light, and then began to blaze as some of the power of the soul poured down his hands into the blade. Now strike, and purify.

He looked over at the demon. It stared back at him, snarled, and charged. Inuyasha smirked, waited, then sprang into the air. The demon tried to follow, but he expertly evaded its moves. He had had plenty of practice, after all. But this time, instead of claws, he had a sword.

He lifted the sword above his head, and then brought it down on the demon's back, just behind the foremost set of limbs. The demon screamed, crashing onto its belly, limbs and multiple heads jerking spasmodically as the white sword sank deep. "No, please!" the voices screamed. "Don't do this! We'll give you anything, everything!"

"Keh. Baka, all of you." Inuyasha tightened his grip on the sword, ignoring the flailing claws and tentacles near him...most of which were much bigger than him. They were no danger, after all. This was his dream world, and the demon could no longer hurt him. "Now!"

Power flooded out of him, down the sword, and into the spirit demon. It shrieked as it was filled with light, bleaching its scales, horns, and claws to translucency. It popped, disintegrating, leaving behind a black sphere. The sword's edge pressed against it, keening, pulsing with power. Beat by beat, the sphere paled towards white. It burst apart into the many souls it once had been. Wailing, they tried to escape, but Inuyasha swung the sword around them, entrapping them in a sphere of fire. They paled to pure white, then dissipated, popping out of existence. Only one remained, stubbornly clinging to a reddish hue.

"Foolish man," said Modoriko's voice through his mouth, with a sigh. "Even if I had not been miko, you would never have had me -- you understood nothing of women." The soul seemed to glower. "Go. And next life...try not to be so foolish." Under the direction of a will not his own, the sword moved in a complicated gesture. The human soul squealed and popped out of existence.

Slowly, Inuyasha lowered the tip of the sword to the surface. There was nothing left in this dream space, nothing but himself, and Modoriko's soul within him, lighting the space around him. Looking down, he saw that his hands appeared to be translucent, the bones and tendons shining through his skin. His sleeves were also translucent, almost entirely bleached of color. He began to feel hollow, as if he had thinned to a shell of glass, against which the soul's enormous power was beating. He staggered.

Let go of the sword. Obeying the voice in his mind, Inuyasha forced his fingers to open. The sword began to fall, then flashed into a sphere of expanding light. Inuyasha started to fling up an arm to protect his eyes, then found himself abruptly frozen as the power exploded out of him. For an immeasurable moment, he was at the center of a heatless, flameless fire, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to feel anything but the power flaring outward from him in all directions.

And then it was gone. He crumpled to the surface, empty and helpless, feeling as if he were skin wrapped around...nothing. For a long moment, that was all he was. Nothing. Empty.

And then his skin began to burn, from the inside. The burning spread inward, prickles and sparks, filling his body, filling it with pain. It hurt. He tried to imagine himself immersed in a cool stream of water, but the dreamscape refused to change. His belly and his left arm began to sear with pain worse than the burning. He wanted to scream, but his body could manage no more than faint whimpers.

A hand, burning hot, touched his cheek. "I feared this," he heard Modoriko say. Managing to open his eyes a fraction, he saw her now-ghostly form kneeling by him. "Your soul is mostly human. I hoped it would be enough, on this plane, to protect your youkai blood, when I merged our souls and power. I was wrong...but there was no choice, if the jewel were be destroyed."

"The jewel -- it's -- gone?" he managed to whisper.

She smiled. "Yes, my brave, young hanyo. You did well."

He sighed and closed his eyes, letting the pain take over. "Am I ... dying?" he wondered.

"Oh, I doubt that," came her voice, with a faint chuckle. "You are a very stubborn boy."

"Keh. Not a boy."

"Young man." He felt fingers comb through his bangs. "Go to sleep, young hanyo."

"Sleep." That was what he wanted; whether for a while or forever didn't matter. "Modoriko?"

"Hai?"

"Thanks."

A finger traced something on his forehead. "You are welcome, Inuyasha. And I thank you." The finger continued it movement a second longer. "May all the gods bless you, my young hanyo. May you always remember; you are indeed worthy of love. Sayonara."

Her presence faded, or perhaps it was only his awareness disappearing.

He welcomed the nothingness that cloaked him.