InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ On a River of Light ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter 9

On a River of Light

 

 

A whisper of unease was making itself known in the wind outside the village. A few men standing outside to take in the air and smoke their pipes away from the chiding of their wives looked up at the night sky, seeing nothing, but a curdling touch of fear settled over their skin.

They watched for a few moments more; then, as the fear became terror, they ran as one for the house of the headman, and threw aside his door.

“Youkai are coming, in great number! The night is full of the rumor of them, and the wind brings an evil touch!”

The headman shuddered, remembering the fear and the noise, the smell of demons as they were purified, and went to the small altar in the corner of his main room. The miko's flower lay on it, small and pale but unwilted, and he picked it up in one hand and held the stem gently between two fingers.

“The miko said a pure child. Who has a pure child?”

The men ran out into the night, calling for all the children to be woken, and brought quickly to the center of the village. Worried mothers obeyed their husbands, and the calls that rang through the night. One by one, the children filed out of their homes and ran to the headman.

He turned first to the youngest daughter of one of the women recently widowed. Her husband now dead, life was difficult for her. It would be good for the villagers to bestow honor upon her, as they would if her daughter helped to save them all.

The girl could not have been more than four years old. Her hair was tied up in little tufts that sprouted like black silk, and she reached for the flower that the headman held out to her with tiny, pudgy hands. The headman crouched, and looked seriously into the eyes of the little girl, trying to hold her attention. She tightened her hold on the small, pale blossom, and listened with wide eyes.

“Girl, you must help us all now, do you understand?”

She nodded.

“The lady Miko who came before and helped us will come again, but only if you call her. You must call her for us, girl. Think very, very hard about her, and then you must hold the flower tightly and say her name - Leiko.”

The girls face screwed up in concentration, her eyes squeezed tight and her mouth moving silently with a childish prayer. When she opened her eyes, she stared down into the middle of the flower as though she expected the woman to leap up from it, and said the word with a clear, sweet tone.

“Leiko!”

Almost instantly, a shimmering gust of wind greeted them, howling through the village and ruffling the roofs. The streamers hanging from the shrine fluttered and heaved, and when the turbulence died the miko had returned to them, as quiet and sudden as before. This time, only the younger pair wore traditional garments, though as finely made as before.

Dressed as an Empress, trailing long sleeves and a longer train behind her, Leiko stepped forward from between her followers, and looked down at the headman with piercing eyes.

“You have summoned me here just in time. The youkai are approaching swiftly. All of you must return into your homes, and stay there. The spirits of these demons will possess anyone not of strong will.”

The villagers scattered like rice thrown into the wind. With a calculating expression, Leiko turned and stared back into the wind that had brought her, diminishing now, but behind it was a high-pitched whistle, almost too high to be heard. Bright miko focus came into her eyes, and she held up her fingers in a warding gesture, as though she could hold off the demons with her bare hands.

It was not a swarm of youkai that touched the village as she stood, waiting. A shadow of darkness as broad and deep as the night ran down from the sky like ink, painting the landscape. The youngest of the three miko pressed her palms together in a fervent prayer, gripping a sacred rosary between her fingers. The darkness continued to fall, sweeping over them and through the slats of doors and roofs, under cracks and behind corners.

When it touched Leiko, there was a low and rumbling boom. A ring of light burst outward from her extended fingers and was followed by another, and then another, like ripples in a pond. Her eyes became bright with concentrated power, but her hands did not shake and her sleeves were unruffled.

The rings of light penetrated into the heart of the darkness, and there was a sound that was not a sound but a feeling, a rush like oxygen after deep water. The darkness dissipated, rolling up into the sky like a drawn curtain, and Leiko swayed silently, closing her eyes and gathering in the power.

“Miyuki. Amaya.”

The girls stood, and came to stand by her side. Beside her, they seemed dim.

“We must go, quickly. Something…something calls me in the West.”

 

The mirror touches on the secrets I seek…

 

Abrupt, Leiko turned to the gratified headman, the first to slink from his cottage and bow.

“Again, we are indebted to you, Lady. But now I fear we in more danger than before. Will the demons return?”

Pressing a finger against the careful curve of her lips, Leiko looked off into the distance, and then back at the headman, still bent at the waist.

“It true that danger may return, but the flower has lost its virtue. Instead, look to the girl who called me. Her soul and heart are pure, untainted. If the demons return, I have given her the power to destroy them.”

She turned away, and took only a step before she vanished into mist. A glint of reflected light almost stunned the headman with its brightness, and then he turned to the house that held the little girl, soft with youth. The few who had heard the miko's words were both afraid, and awed. Only the most sacred of places and tasks was gifted with a miko, and this young girl had been given the power, not born with it.

The headman turned to the gathering of villagers that had built behind him, and raised his hands to quite the murmur.

“The Holy Lady Leiko has gifted the daughter of Tazura, widow of Yugiri, with the sacred power of the miko!”

The villagers crowded around the girl, whose eyes held a violet glow and a new knowledge of power. She was so young, barely more than a baby with pudgy fingers, but her face was harder now, fuller. Her widowed mother stood behind her, and rested hands on her shoulders. As though she had been stung, the girl recoiled, brushing her fingers lightly along the rough cotton of her homespun kimono.

“You must not do that, mother.”

The woman took a step backward, deferring to the new presence in her daughter. Instead of pride, fear and sadness filled her. She was widowed, and now it seemed she would be childless. The four year old was gone, and in her place was something otherworldly, moving with an unaccustomed grace between the villagers who bowed and murmured thanks when she passed between them.

Tazura felt a premonition of unease, watching the walking girl and the others, so subservient. It was as though the tiny girl was Leiko herself. Tazura had not known that miko strength could be gifted - was the purifying power not a blessing of the Kami?

 

Eldest had been swifter than swift, ready with her pair of scrolls before Kagome had returned with her son, and their pair of bags stood also, neatly packed and trussed by the door. She was swift also with a smile, and stepped forward quickly to press her cheek against Kagome's and the scrolls into her hands.

“You must leave this place - it is too dangerous for your son, and you have seen what you must see. Perhaps we will meet again sooner than you expect.”

Kouga already had both their bags, and his nod to Eldest was quick but grateful. As they were walking out the door, her words touched his back, a slick shiver down his spine.

“Be careful that you do not succumb to the Fang, young Wolf. Truly, steel will help you.”

She nodded in the direction of the sword bound at his waist, and tetsusaiga's energy swelled, pulsing through his blood.

“When the dreams are too much for you, and the visions pull, the sword will aid you as it once aided another - but it can only do so much. You must watch carefully your own will.”

Eldest watched them go from the doorway, half concealed behind the door, one bright eye following Kouga's back as he fell into step beside his mother and they ran down out of the trees together. When they were out of sight, she went to the Glynynn, and sat by the vision-water, not looking. The edge of her own reflection caught her eye, the flesh not aged but tired, weary after exposing so many secrets, so many trembling touches of the ancient days that were her memory.

Kagome was the one, alright - there was not a doubt left remaining behind the blue dragon eyes. A single tear, smooth and cold, slid from one eye and down the crease of her nose.

 

Kagome ran with Kouga in front of her, and this time it was she who pushed to keep up, startled by the flash of his legs as he sped past her first pace. They had taken time on their travel north, time to feel the brush of wind or take in the scent of rustling grasses and burgeoning trees.

While she slept through the quiet darknesses of the nights that passed them by, Kouga sat up with red and burning eyes, staring up into the stars, straining against the call of the past that was not his own. Long curves of hill were rough blankets in the dark, bunched up and held tightly between first and second moon.

Occasionally his mother would turn and sigh in her sleep; when this happened, his eyes were drawn to follow her movements without will, tracing for a moment the line of an arm, the curve of a cheek traced by starlight, the point of toes revealed from the edge of the soft fur that covered her.

Morning would come, and he would bolt upright, pacing around the camp with wild glances and abrupt, pained responses to Kagome's questions. Silence deepened between them. He was filled with guilt and panic threatened to creep from his blood into his skin if he was not careful. Kagome knew the subject of his introversion, and thought it best not to tempt the awakening of that shared spirit.

Four of these days, and three of these nights brought them to familiar ground, and Kagome began to breathe with more ease. Half of her discomfort was close to ending now, the half that was bound to Sesshomaru and stalked through her veins on needles, demanding the `why' that had taken her away from him for so long. The youkai desires that slept so complacently in the bonds of her miko strength were waking up, and the scent and power that marked all this land as his also marked her.

 

 

Sesshomaru could feel her coming closer, swelling in his chest with too much ecstasy. Any moment it would explode out of him, and then his heart would bathe the walls in blood and glory. It did not, of course, and when he could see her, Kouga trailing just a little, he leapt down from the wall to stand in front of the open gates, staring for her eyes.

Kagome saw him as he leapt and he filled her vision, silver fluttering in the wind so stark against the hard-inked sky. His hair was brilliant, his eyes shone like golden chips of stars, his tunic fell in graceful folds around him, and then he was before her, holding out a hand.

“Welcome home, my Kagome.”

Remembering that figure against the night gave her chills of love. She ignored his hand, claws glinting, and dropped her bag from her shoulders to throw herself against his chest, arms locking tight around his ribs. Slowly, still not so comfortable with the eyes he knew must be watching, he held her gently. Vexed, she stared up him and let him see desire in her eyes. Her mouth was his then, covered and taken, until even they needed breath and the stars had come out to shimmer in the obsidian veil that raised over them.

Kagome let out a breathless laugh, beckoning for Kouga to follow as she let Sesshomaru wrap an arm around her waist and guide her in, both of them pretending that she did not know the way.

Kouga walked a few paces behind them, feeling in his skull the pounding thrum of a headache of soulful jealousy. He had gagged on that kiss, felt it like a burning arrow in an acid wound, but his face was set like the stone walls he passed under, empty of the turmoil that razed him.

*I will not give in to this! She is my mother, my mother! Mother…*

He wanted to cry out to her, beg for forgiveness and some way to clean his mind - but he knew there was nothing she could do, or she would have done it. He gritted his teeth and walked a little faster, ignoring the new wind that pushed against him, rolling in the atmosphere from an unfocused direction. Pain returned at the end of the moment, rambunctious in his brain.

He clenched his fists and let the cooling of his blood come from the pain of his claws and the spilling of that heat. Eight bloody gouges screamed on the tissue of his palms, sliding across the fear of memory with the ageless sigh of suffering. Watching his parents continue towards the great doors, he stopped and turned away, unnoticed, leaving them to the romance they desired.

He lost himself in the bare bushes with their budded flowers, feeling the prickling tiny-bladed thrusts of new grass as a taste of salvation, something crisp and tight before his eyes and under his feet.

Thorns reminded him of days as a real pup, when trees rose beyond the level of his sight, disappearing in the waves of the ocean over his head. That sky, the fragrant blue of summer days in the sun, had felt no touch of torture, and the dreams had been goodness and all sweet then, not rushing and running like pus from an anciently suppurating wound. There had been another childhood for him to play, more dangerous games, a mother with darker eyes and a father with a laughing voice that rumbled with a gravel base into the abyss' portion of the world.

Sometimes there were darker things - he remembered one day when a nightmare had taught him how a rumbling voice in battle armor could leave and come back as bloody folds, stripped of armor and life. That was a dream of pain, but not like now.

Musical silence clamed him, the night trickle of slower melting droplets, aided only by reflection, the stolen glory of the moon. The air around him was clear and simple, endlessly empty of any disturbance. He lifted a smooth pebble from the pile that lay in a shiny puddle under slushy water in a fountain, letting the cold tingle up his claws. The grey stone he held picked up the streaks of light that fell tenderly around where he stood, teaching beauty. Every leaf-bud and water covered stone shone with its own halo, every passing cloud lined the night with silver instead of obscuring it.

He felt as though he had found an enchanted place of peace, where the disturbing tides of the outside world would not dare to breach an unnamed incantation of serenity. In Eldest's woods he had felt this peace, lulled by the speech of old trees and running earth. He understood in the fleshed out moments of time that followed what was happening, why it came to him and others did not feel it - not even Eldest.

“I will be…new.”

He understood finally why his human sister had fallen so deeply in love with the low green things of the world, bright in their life.

Above him, a hundred stone balconies of stone glittered and glistened like wet diamonds, and at his feet were the red reminders of the day, drops splashed from his hand like jewels, soft satin lips of harm-holding crimson. A broken cry rent the air, flipping his heart to the promise of danger, a flint tipped adrenaline rush. Paper thin scars tore wide under the moon.

Those were not cries of pain but passion, and half of his heart was clenching shut, a rise of dark demands. The sudden wanting that rushed in his blood against all reason took the leading edge of his thoughts, forcing the crying son into the background, shutting, locking. A dangerous rush and a terrible leap gave him purchase on the railing of the balcony beside the cries, and his clinging eyes saw what he did not want to see. The last key was turned in the last lock, and all the doors inside him were flung wide.

The vision was the memory of a dream, linking cold thoughts with the heat of living flesh outside of time, more desirable than the memory of so-soft pink white skin.

 

Kagome was dancing under Sesshomaru's ands and his claws, the focus of her gasps in tongue-played bondage, and her ravager still had the same wicked eyes. She could never forget the feel of him within and everywhere, but the contours of her body did not hold such a memory. In total sensation, she opened for him like the first time all over, gasping every way. The hungry flower of her need wrenched cries from them both, the panting, consuming desire that still surprised with its urgency.

The strong, pale writhing of her naked body burned itself across Kouga's eyes, turning her into an angel of flame. He released his hold on the balcony, and fell to the ground. The smash of his back against the cold hand of the dirt welcomed the deep black of unconsciousness with an arresting touch.

His dreams were full of heat and temptation. Endless white-skinned, silver haired beauties sprawled before him - sometimes they had darkened hair and lighter eyes, but he knew them for the caged forms of the other. Contractions of his mind blew around the center where his self lay entombed, drastically altered by the agonizing betrayal of his heart. Nothing in past life or present had given him any place in himself to react from, any way to unmake the horror that had come before his eyes, cloaked in beauty. He could make any movement from this place, in this time, and still be tossed over and over into a wasteland of the forbidden, left with a spiral staircase into hell.

Kagome did not notice the black fall of her son, too caught into the tight-roaring sensorium that had been layered over her skin, a heavy net of sensual delicacy. New nerves were born and flamed in the same places as the old, electrifying the harmony of her heartbeat, a transgression of pure lust.

He knew too well what to do, where to touch, how to graze his teeth or nip when her heart was about to burst; he knew when he could lap all the love from her body and shiver the eternity in her thoughts. The hot pull of her body and the black light in her eyes gave everything a reason, dark with blood desire.

In his mouth her blood was fire and then ice, the heat and chill of the hard wildness that ran chaotic in her veins. Forbidden purity was thick and rippling, the tide of light within him rising and bursting, reaching and reaching until he found her there, ready for him to sink back into, melting him into and endless wave, a tsunami over her shore.

Sleeping warm and untroubled, they were restored by their communion of love, and not until the morning's brush of dawn was fear lit in a mother's heart.

No one could find her son, within or without the castle, and even Sesshomaru could only find the memory of Kouga's scent in the air, ruffled by breezes and the awakening of early spring rain. The air was thick and musty, and Kagome turned to face the risen sun, tension in her shoulders.

“He can run when he wants to, then. I knew it was so.”

The edges of sobs knifed through her voice, and Sesshomaru held her before their window, shining like tempered steel in the light.

“You should not be so upset. He is lost for this harmless time, running on his own. There is no call of danger, but you are sparkling with a promise of tears. What is the thing you are not telling me, have not told me?”

He knew by the frightened eyes that met him he was right in this knowledge of hidden things, but fear was not sense to him.

“Kagome…”

Fear became something he had never seen in her face before, did not recognize and could not analyze. Pity, grief, such a lost expression and a terrible weariness, mixed up as though she had spent a hundred sleepless nights.

“Can't you see, Sesshomaru? I am so afraid…he falls in love with me when his memories rise, this wolf in our pup, and so he falls also to madness. Eldest…warned me, told me, gave me scrolls in a tongue I can barely read, and spoke of how I could not save him by my power. She said…I do not believe. I do not understand.”

Her words faded into silence, and she looked up in time to see the silent growl that contorted his features, the forced relaxation of muscles that jealousy had tightened. She pressed closer to him, wrapped his arms around her when he did not and pressed against his heartbeat, reaching for the strength that was bound inside him. The sound was calming, even now that it was unsteady.

“No matter what memory is forced into him, he will always be my son. I had a choice to be with Kouga before - have you forgotten that battle? Do you think I would want him now, locked as a greedy spirit in flesh of my own flesh?”

Willing now, his arms tightened around her, forced a gasp of air from her lungs.

“I know. I have no anger towards him, but someone somewhere has made it so that I cannot trust my own son with his mother, with my mate.”

“And -“

“And I want vengeance. Who did Eldest say?”

She shook her head, that lost expression returning to her face.

“That something from my past that is the future is haunting me, a living ghost.”

 

 

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