InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ Monogatami ( Chapter 18 )

Chapter 18

Monogatami

 

Shippou felt no need to watch until Kouga awoke. Without wanting to, he was trusting the wolf, trusting Murasaki, and it disturbed him that the scent of her was a reminder of peaceful times beyond his memory. He wanted to know who she was, where she came from, why she had come to them. The short story she had given him of how Kouga had found her, and the filling-in that Miroku had done, did not satisfy.

When he woke, if he woke, could he trust Kouga? He remembered the wolf that had been, the friend that had aided him, but mostly he remembered desire, Kouga's quest for Kagome's heart. He had never had a chance, and they had all known it but him. Now, what was it he remembered, and how much had he really been given of his former life? If a soul could exist without the full memory of itself, and still be moved to action, many things might be unsettled.

Still, he knew that the one most unsettled would be Kagome. As it was, he could only watch, and wait.

As the hours passed, Sango and Miroku said their good nights, and passed into their beds. Kuromi, their youngest daughter, brought him a rolled futon and a spare blanket, and her smile was comforting.

“Don't worry, Shippou, I'm sure he'll wake in the morning, and be more himself.”

He couldn't control it; a low, hollow laugh spilled out of his throat.

“I hope you're right, Kuromi. Go to bed now, and don't worry about me.”

The door slid shut, and he sighed. Almost at once, it slid open again, and he heard softer footsteps approach him without words. When they were behind him, he turned and looked up, and his eyebrows must have showed his surprise.

“Yes, it is I. You do not trust me, Shippou. You think I have harmed your brother? When dawn breaks, he will wake, and for a time there will be silence within him. I cannot give more than that.”

It was Murasaki, and the teeth in her smile glittered like small perfect shells.

“Would you like to come with me, and hear the story which I promised you? Then perhaps you will be more trusting, and your face will not be so sour.”

He stood with a smooth motion, and led the way out of the quiet room and out to the path that led back to the village, and out into the trees.

“This way, Shippou.”

Her fingers wrapped around his and tugged gently, pulling him towards the forest.

“I feel alive like the night! This has never been my time before; the dark is a frightening thing.”

“Frightening?”

It was Shippou's turn to smile.

“You are youkai and you are wolf, and you find the dark frightening? Haven't you ever run as fast as you could across a wide, grassy field, and felt the night breathe down on you? Haven't you ever stood on the top of a tall mountain when the sky was clear, and felt moonlight on your skin like water?”

He was beginning to succumb to the high that she induced him, the drunkenness of scent and thought. Her eyes glowed at him, liquid, for one shining moment out of the dark. Murasaki turned away, and spoke with her back to him.

“No, I have not done any of those things. Will you show me?”

He was surprised again.

“Show you?”

A spontaneous urge filled him, and he grabbed her hand with startling speed.

“Then come with me!”

She followed him like a rush of wind, and they passed along the edge of the trees, not quite venturing into the wood. The ground vanished underneath their feet, and became a dark blur of softness supporting them. Abruptly, the house where Kaede had once lived and which Teza now occupied loomed in front of him, and then darted to one side. With long strides, they ran up the side of the tall hill behind the house, and stopped at the summit.

Laughing, panting, Murasaki stopped to stretch her arms as wide as they would go and breathe deeply, feeling more intensely than she ever had. Like flickers, the memory of her previous life fled by her, and then the surge of brightness that had brought her here. Shippou let go of her, and stepped to the edge of the hill's flat top.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready?”

There was precipitant fear in her voice, hesitation, but he could tell that she shared the unsteady trust that had thrust itself on him. Again, he teased her, taunted her.

“Come with me!”

With swift footsteps, he ran to the very edge and threw himself into the night. Her instant scream was cut short as his laughter wound back to her, and then she heard him calling, as if from far away.

“Don't act like you're human, and you would fall, Murasaki. Father can leap twice as far as that!”

Her thoughts flashed on the word - father - and then centered again. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and ran at the edge, and jumped.

Wind spooled around her and whipped at her robe. The scent of pure air filled her nostrils, and her skin tingled with coolness and a touch like feathers. For a moment, she was suspended in clarity. The drop down through the air switched her heart and her stomach, as for one terrifying moment she plummeted towards the earth. The next moment, instinct took over. Astonished muscles and a flex of the knees took the impact like nothing.

Her breath escaped in a bubble of laughter. Murasaki smiled across at Shippou, who saw the clouds leave her face for the first time.

“So…Murasaki…you were going to tell me a story.”

He lay back in the grass, and turned his eyes on the stars, waiting. Murasaki sat beside him, and when she finally began to speak her voice was low and smooth.

 

“At the edge of light and time, between heaven and earth, there is a city. It is the Celestial City, without people, without houses or shops, but a city all the same. At its center, a great palace rises in hazy plumes of incandescent glass, and all is pearls, and gold, and shining. There is no night there, and no day, but the city is lit by time, and change. The sky glitters green, blue, and violet, like the sky of no world you have ever imagined.”

 

In place of constellations and the moon-eyed night, Shippou saw that city of sparkling glass, frosted and waving in unusual air like colored smoke. Her voice was lulling.

 

“In the palace are one hundred halls, all beautiful, each with its own name. The Hall of Sounds holds the ringing of a thousand bells, the chant of many voices in many tongues. The Hall of Silences is full of a quiet so thick that the air is like water.”

“No humans live there, but the palace is home to the Radiant Empress, Akasuki, who is mistress of that city. It sits on the long plains of Time, and no Time moves around it. In the courtyard, one faces both heaven and earth. Akasuki sits upon a dais, and contemplates her mirrors.”

 

Shippou shuddered. In memories both old and recent, mirrors were pain, and distortion, and panic. She seemed not to notice; her voice did not change.

 

“Each mirror moves according to its own will, and hers. Some seek, some bind; they are bits of Akasuki's power, the Goddess made manifest. On her dais, she watches with bright eyes, and dispenses judgment on man and demonkind.”

 

She fell silent, her face dark with memory, and Shippou sat up on his elbows to look at her.

“A Goddess concerned with demons? The kami do not meddle in our affairs.”

No smile touched her lips.

“Akasuki is kami, and she does more than meddle. She has her reasons.”

Shippou did smile, and his eyes searched for even a hint of amusement in her expression, but it was not there to be found. The thought suddenly came to him that she was not telling him a fairy tale.

“Murasaki…”

“I will tell you of Akasuki-kami, and the days in which she became of the Celestial City, and no longer of the Heavenly Kingdom.”

Shippou's eyebrows lifted, and then lowered. Perhaps she only had a flair for the dramatic, a feel for the right words and the best expression.

 

“All tales have their own place, and their own time. The place of this tale you have been told. The Celestial City lies on the border between worlds, dividing heaven from earth, and few can breach that border safely.”

“In the days when heaven was still glorious and shifting with the lights of birth and creation, Akasuki-kami came down and walked upon the ground with earthly feet. She sought the secrets of life, the fresh fountain of creation.”

 

Murasaki held up a warning finger, and Shippou turned on one side, watching the lights gather and flash in her eyes.

 

“But the land was not like the heavenly fields. It was ruled by demons, powerful youkai who roamed forest and meadow, plain and desert, sea and sky. They fought for dominance and power, with only instinct, and not yet hearts.”

“Akasuki felt no fear of demons, secure in the power of kami, the protection of heaven. She wandered in the forest of the west, and encountered a demon, said to be more powerful than any other. They fought a flickering battle, that lasted through the cycles of the night, until the black moon became once more a black moon.”
”Akasuki lost a great part of her power, which was torn away by the demon. She was kami, and neither fang nor claw could destroy her, and when the demon departed she returned to the heavenly gates. But the gates stayed shut, even when she exerted all of her strength. The demon had stolen too much of her power.”

 

Murasaki paused, and stared at her own hands. Shippou could see the battle painted on his eyelids, the goddess pale with fury, glowing with a white light; the demon, vague, but with power beyond power, and strength beyond strength. Again, that low roll of voice struck at him.

 

“Some of the kami pitied Akasuki, and wished to open the gates, and let her in. Akasuki swore that if once she could enter heaven, she would not leave it. But Amaterasu, who sits on the Heavenly Throne, said these words, mocking, from above the heavenly gates: `You, Akasuki, do not deserve to return into our Kingdom. From this day forward, you will be called Leiko, which is Arrogance. For one who seeks out the secrets of creation, one who ventures into battle alone, that is a fitting name.'”

“And Akasuki wailed, and tore her robes, and her tears flowed in twin streams, for in this way she was banished from the heavenly kingdom, and sent to wait for her own power on the border of worlds. And so, against demons, Akasuki-kami holds a terrible grudge, and seeks their destruction even against the boundaries of reason.”

 

Murasaki became quiet, and let her eyes close. Her last words lay in the stillness, and Shippou watched the stars, thinking on her strange tale. Finally he stood, and held out a hand for her.

“Come, Murasaki. It is late. We should go back.”

She seemed distracted now, but her eyes were warm and she took his hand.

“Yes, we should go back. Your brother will be waking.”

As they walked back the way they had run, the darkness lifted the last of itself from her face, and shifted away.

“You must promise me another story, Murasaki.”

“When we have seen to your brother, Shippou.”

Her tone was mildly scolding. Quiet now, he led her, but his gaze strayed often from the path at his feet to her luminous eyes.

 

 

 

Sango was restless. The pregnancy did not make sleeping easier. The others had not kept her awake as much, or been as active, as persistent. The child in her womb now might be a swarm of children, for all its wakefulness. Within her, the baby grew impatient, desiring the outside world. Sometimes, when she felt empty, drained, she worried that Miroku was right.

 

But I am a fighting woman…

 

It was too late for worries, too late for the herbal `remedy' that Teza had so meekly suggested. There was nothing for it now but to sit, and wait. Still, tonight, more than the baby was keeping her awake. Shippou's sudden appearance troubled her a thousand times more than Kouga's. Kouga had brought something new, a chance at life again, a moment out in the world. Shippou brought reasons, and memories, and fragments of sentences that couldn't possibly be.

“Kouga…returned. Miroku?”

“Humm….phh.”

Miroku rolled over away from her shaking, and clutched the blanket for dear life. He was already awake, and she knew it, and he knew she knew it…but he still clung to his last remnant of dreaming.

“Miroku!”

The last remnant disappeared. Slowly, he sat up and ran fingers through his hair, and then down over his face. For a moment, he was grotesque as he sighed and his eyelids showed red rims around sleep-shot whites, but then he let go and looked up at his wife with another sigh.
”What is it, Sango? Please don't tell me you want preserved ginger slices, or cooked fish that's gone cold, or…”

“No! Shut up, Miroku. I am worried about Kagome. Shippou said Kouga had run away, and that Kystra was missing…and then there is that girl.”

For a moment, he stared at her blankly.
”Girl…”

She smacked him with her pillow.

“The wolf, idiot houshi! Murasaki!”

“Oh…right. Well, she seems nice enough.”

Sango raised the pillow, readying herself for another swing, but Miroku reached up and tugged it from her hands, eyeing her through the fall of his untied hair.

“Don't be quick to assume on my simplicity, Sango.”

She huffed.
”I didn't even believe you were really awake. `She seems nice enough'…really, Miroku!”

He shrugged.

“What can I say? You know as much as I do about her, with the advantage of being female. Shippou says she is the reasons for Kouga's sleep, the quiet that keeps him still. And you know the way that he says Kouga has changed. Maybe the girl is good for him.”

Sango was brooding.

“She is a wolf, and it is wolf memories that Kouga is regaining. I don't think it wise to leave her near him.”

Miroku's eyes raised up to the screen that separated their room from the rest of the house, and laughed softly. His voice fell to a murmur.

“I think Shippou will agree with you, for different reasons.”

Soft footsteps passed by them, the light tread of youkai feet much gentler than human, and then the slight sound of a door sliding open, and then shut. Sango looked at Miroku with wide eyes, and her hand covered her giggle.

“Miroku, tomorrow let us suggest that Shippou take this Murasaki, and go out to find Kagome, and Sesshomaru. He may leave Kouga with us in any mind, and we will be able to handle him.”

The memory of many days came to her, evoking half of a smile and half of a sigh.

“After all, Kouga was…direct. Did Shippou tell you finally what it was that he was talking to his brother about when he fell?”

Miroku shook his head.

“No. He would not say. He said it is not important…so of course we must find out, because it is.”

She smiled, and stretched, and lay back. The child within her was restful now, and she was tired. Miroku lay back beside her, and stroked the curve of her belly.

“I know I cannot keep you here, so we will journey together again, Sango. But you must be careful - very careful. Fight gently.”

She smiled, and patted his hand.

“We are neither of us as young as we once were, but the prospect of adventure quiets this wakeful baby of ours. I think I am carrying your son, Miroku.”

He had wanted and gotten daughters, lots of daughters. Now, it would be good to have a boy, a son to carry the name and history of this family forward.

“Tomorrow, we will send Shippou. And then we can find out what has been going on, while we were in this corner of the wilderness.”

But they knew that was no longer true. A thousand strangers had come to the edges of their village, some from nearby villages and some from across the sea. Chinese men with their invisible wives were numerous; they looked with wide eyes at the sea of sleeves that greeted them when noblemen were nearby, and averted their gazes from the open faces of the village women.

Even one old man had come, who long ago had fallen in love with Kaede and worked beside her with many years, to pour sake at her gravesite and leave rice and sweetly scented incense on the little altar. It was a sweet but surprising story, and Miroku's last thoughts lingered on that old man, who had spoken to him warningly after all the rituals and prayers were completed.

 

I am not the only one who has heard the stories of what happened here twenty years ago. Others are coming, and they are not all human. Things live in the West that do not live here, or which take upon themselves other shapes and powers when they arrive among us…

 

It gave him uncomfortable dreams, but he slept deeply. Long waiting, listening years were over, drawn down even to these very moments.

 

 

 

Do the dead dream?

 

It was ridiculous to even think it, implying that she was dead, when she knew well that the dead did not have thoughts. The timelessness of ages had infected her, infiltrating even the silky cells of her bones, tightening her smile. There was not a lack of herself, there was too much of herself. Fragments of her spinning in all directions, tearing apart the things they touched, making shreds of moments, memories, faces, names…everything. Except the sense of identity, in keeping with the knowledge that she was becoming a new being, a new union of now, and then.

 

The one who speaks to me…he is not dead.

 

That was truth. When the silence overcame her, and blue flooded her eyes and throat and tongue, he seemed always to be there, waiting. He salved her aching openness with words, with longing, with promises, and then faded away. Perhaps it was all a dream.

 

Perhaps I am the dream, and he is only real.

 

She felt infinite. Immortal. Empowered. Her own self, in so many futures, so many pasts, enlarged by the ripple-effect of looking through time, made delicate by the glass that made up the mirror.

 

Delicately. Yes. He is the dream, and I am only real.

 

For now, until he came to her, it was a good compromise. He insisted on simplicity; she had not given him a name. But that, too, belonged to her .

 

Kystra. If he could know that, he might be real. But he is the dream, and I am Kystra.

 

She smiled, and then turned. Behind her, there was a sensation like tugging fingers on her skin. There was nothing there; there was only the feeling, becoming stronger with every second, moving into her flesh, into the rise of her breath and the rhythm of her heartbeat.

It was powerful, whatever it was. It felt like her father, but she knew that was impossible. Sadness enveloped her, and then disappeared. Suddenly, she felt more herself.

 

Where do I go now?

 

In front of her, the wild points of the north mountains beckoned, glistening whitely. No one ventured there; no one would seek her there. It was a good place to be alone. It was a good place to become.

She began to run, an easy pace, and then looked suddenly down, surprised. She was so small, her limbs short, her hands childish.

 

How old am I? Is this before the end?

 

She shook her head. No point in thinking. No points. No thoughts.

 

Do the dead dream?