InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Because you asked me to ❯ Inner demons ( Chapter 9 )

 

 

Do you hear what that woman's saying? Rin is ill, very ill.

 

`I know I'm blind not deaf,' the woman answered her own thoughts silently.

 

Might as well be for all the good you do. Listen to them, the child is ill. High fever can't stay awake. You just had to wait didn't you? And Kari, she got hurt no thanks to you. Damnit can't you do anything right? It's no wonder no one else took you in. You wonder why they all called you worthless, well there's the answer. It won't be too long until he's calling you worthless too. Don't you dare argue when he throws you out, promise or not you put his daughter in danger. But don't worry, soon enough he'll no longer have to worry about you.

 

No one had noticed the blind woman awaken; no one had heard the soft breaths that had been labored as she tried desperately to stave off her tears. She was surprised when no one noticed her get to her feet and walk along the wall until she found her way to the bamboo flap and make her way outside the house. She didn't know that it was night, or that they were near a forest populated with wolves, both youkai and animal, all she knew was that she had to get away. She had to leave before she heard his words asking her to.

 

Sesshoumaru had been the first person to ever believe in her and she had failed him. Not only that but she had brought harm to her first female friend and the child, Sesshoumaru's daughter, was now so very ill. If she'd gotten Rin to him sooner…if she'd stopped Jaken from hurting Kari…there were so many ifs that they seemed impossible to sort out, impossible to quiet.

 

She felt the rough hard bark of uprooted tree roots beneath her feet and followed them until she reached the tree they came from. Walking her hands down the trunk of the tree, she lowered herself to the ground and sat down. Pulling her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and stared out into a night she couldn't see. The woman rocked silently back and forth as her eyes filled with tears that stung like acid and ran down her cheeks in hot rivulets.

 

Biting her bottom lip between her teeth harshly, her body shook with heart wrenching soul shattering sobs that she gave no voice to. She gasped as she choked on her tears and felt strangled by emotions almost too strong for her to comprehend. How had this happened? How had she messed everything up so badly? Her teeth chattered together softly as she tried to control tears that would not be reigned in.

 

Squeezing her eyes shut tightly she covered them with her hand, the other arm still wrapped tightly about her knees and rested her forehead on her knees as she cried. She could never remember crying so hard or hurting so very much before. She felt like she was falling, like everything was just crumbling around her. She began to laugh softly, harshly through her tears as she registered the sound of soft thunder - just what she needed, it was fitting that the rain should fall now.

 

Her mind barely registered the feeling of something warm and soft winding around her as the sound of the soft thunder seemed so very close to her. Wait, she thought as her head lifted away from her knees. When had the ground become so soft or so warm?

 

“Shhh,” she heard someone whisper to her as the same someone began petting her hair in long gentle strokes.

 

“Who - who's th-there?” she asked as she choked on sobs that wouldn't stop.

 

“Shhh,” was the only answer that came to her as she felt the person gently press her face against their - decidedly male - chest.

 

That same person dropped a soft kiss to her hair and rocked her gently as she cried. The hand that was petting her hair ever so gently never stopped, the repetition of the movement lending her a calm she wasn't sure she would ever feel on her own. The feel of a soft silken fluff of fur brushed against her closed eyes, drying the still falling tears and brushing over her damp face in a gentle soothing motion and she grasped onto it with her hand, holding it to her as she tucked her hand beneath her chin. Ducking her head, she covered her eyes with the fur and soaked the silken fluff with her tears that simply would not be quieted, would not be stopped no matter what she tried.

 

 

 

 

 

“Where is the woman?” Sesshoumaru asked as he looked up from where his attention had been unceasingly and undividingly focused on Rin.

 

“I don't know,” Kenji said as he frowned and looked over the front room of the healer's house they were in.

 

“She went outside,” the healer's apprentice said as she looked up from the tea she was brewing for Kari's pain. “I thought she needed to relieve herself.”

 

Sesshoumaru nodded once in her direction and stood, leaving the warm home silently and moving out into the night. He hadn't made it two steps away from the house before the sharp salty scent of tears assaulted his nose and he turned, following it until he reached the tree that the blind woman was sitting under. She was sobbing, violently, almost silently. The only sound he could hear was her chocked breaths and soft whimpers that caught in her throat.

 

He growled softly, angered at whatever had caused her upset and feeling helpless to quiet her fears when he didn't know what they were. She didn't move, didn't start, didn't even seem to register the feeling or movement when he lifted her balled up body into his arm and took her seat upon the ground, settling her in his lap and winding his tail around her. He purred softly to her, knowing that in the past it had served to calm her and hoping that it would work its magic upon her now.

 

She started softly when he petted her hair and he shushed her gently when she asked who was there. He held her there in his arm, cradled upon his lap as he rocked her gently back and forth. He wished once again that he could see into her mind, read the thoughts that troubled and tormented her so. Bending his head down, he kissed her hair gently and wiped her tears away with a gentle soft stroke of his tail.

 

He smiled softly, sadly when he felt her grasp the end of his tail and hold it tightly in her hand. Her grip didn't hurt him, and he was too concerned about her for her touch to arouse him as it had done the first time she had grasped his tail in such a manner. He watched as she tucked his tail, gripped in her fist, under her chin for a moment before bowing her head down and covering her eyes with his tail as she sobbed and soaked his thick fur with her unstoppable tears.

 

He held her there for long moments until she had finally cried herself into a fitful sleep, her tears still falling slowly from her closed eyes. He hugged her body close to him with his arm and tail as he stood and made his way back into the healer's house. The inuyoukai's apprentice, a young nekoyoukai gasped and her eyes teared when she saw the sleeping woman, her eyes and face red from her tears.

 

The neko girl moved over to the blind woman's side and a lone tear fell from her eye as she touched the sleeping woman's damp face.

 

“This poor woman,” she said sadly and looked up from her to Sesshoumaru whose tail was still wrapped around the woman as he sat next to her. “Everything anyone has ever said to her, all of the voices of those who have called her worthless have stayed with her in her mind. They torment her spirit and break her heart every day…That gentle soft voice inside of us all, the one that helps us and guides us and call us on our mistakes…hers does not guide, does not help her. The voice inside of her only condemns her for who and what she is. The voice we all hold inside of us is built by our own self worth and by the worth that our parents and friends give us. She has had no one until she met you. Everyone she ever met took away from her self worth; they condemned her, laughed at her, and shunned her. They poisoned her against herself. She may be strong, but when she is weak, she is so very very broken.”

 

The young nekoyoukai looked upon Sesshoumaru, her eyes sad and mournful. “Only you can help her now. Only you can quiet that voice. You must be the one to help her, to give her a reason to believe in herself, for you Sesshoumaru-sama have been the only one to ever believe in her. You must destroy the damning voice inside of her and replace it with the voice that tells her she is worthy. Teach her to love herself, faults and all. Do not give her her sight back until she can accept herself without it. She needs to see the worth she holds without her sight, before she can ever truly appreciate having it.”