InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crescent Moon On The Brow Of The Sky ❯ Village Miko ( Chapter 12 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Sorry for the long wait- lots of stuff happened, such as computer malfunctions and school- but I hope you enjoy this chapter very much.

Grateful for all of you and with all the best wishes and love,

Kermit

Village Miko

His eyes were aflame, and he was burned in the wild. The barrier around him shimmered, hot under the moon, dissolving beneath the glare of his epic eyes. His prison fell, and he leapt from it, his eyes glowing the red of the setting sky.

His roar rang in the wood, a deep toll of bells unheard by anyone. And in the depths of chaos, there came a memory.

When Sesshoumaru was young, his childish face telling vivid tales of a beauty yet to come, his father told him to be fierce, to be a Taiyoukai.

And in the silver facade of a Taiyoukai, there is no room for love. There is no room for the gentle emotion, no room for care or sympathy.

All must be cold, as flat as a plain of snow.

That is how it must be.

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The shell opened her bruised eyes, taking in the thirsty sight of a silver monster, who stood on the edge of her place like an end.

A step into the field, hair blown upon the wind, across red eyes. The ravenous red eyes gleamed like a memory, beckoned to her, burying her inside herself.

She was afraid, desperate to escape his eyes. Those eyes, which told tales of hopelessness, loneliness, rage. Reflecting her in blood.

“What are you?” she asked the creature, burying her sleepy face in her hands. Pain bloomed over her chest, choking her, making her wish to die. There, upon his forehead, bloomed the crescent moon on the brow of the sky.

“You have forgotten,” came the cool voice, as soft as water, as soft as earth. It was deadly, that voice; full of emptiness, full of pain, full of hunger. As though the creature suddenly understood, it turned away from her, facing the night of the woods.

Everything blended, tears sprinkled upon her face; and the monster approached her, eyes as cold as the blood all around, blood she did not understand.

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An old woman passed like a shadow through the trees, taking deep wheezing breaths of air. She attempted to straighten, her back creaking under the heavy bundle she carried.

“Ah! My old bones. What I wouldn't give to drop this burden upon the path!”

After some deliberation, she gave into the complaints of her joints and decided to rest. She dug into her pack with troubled fingers, found some provisions, and broke her fast for the day.

Around her, all was peaceful, threaded with mist and ringing in silence. She blew a white wisp of hair out of her weathered face with a sound that told of air traveling through a husk.

Suddenly, something blew upon her mind, a finger of something distant, and she was on her feet, shouldering her aged bow with ready wariness.

The aged miko could now sense, its aura strong upon the wind, her life-long quarry.

A youkai.

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He stepped into the windy clearing, inevitable as dawn.

There.

Lying as though strewn, as though eaten by the wolves from which she had once ran.

He bent to her side, cradling her empty form softly, gently, lovingly.

“Have the wolves caught you, Rin?” He asked, a voice collected, a voice without blame or fear; a sweet irony.

She was so limp in his caress, her chest an empty cavern, hollow of the heart which she once gave away so freely. He buried his face in her cool cheek, his breath ghosting over her cold skin.

Dead. How could that be?

The youkai's eyes drifted, and caught upon the girl.

Her. Kagome. The one who always smelled so sweetly, the one whom he had saved. Her life belonged to him.

He was soon above her, that crippled girl whose eyes blazed with empty fear, fear that he both hated and loved. She tried in vain to move away, to escape his sight, but her wounds kept her imprisoned to the earth.

She was trapped, broken; he could kill her, crush her throat beneath his foot.

Kagome was his.

His mouth opened softly, rows and rows of feral teeth, ready to rip and tear at her until she was nothing to him.

Her eyes. So blank, unfocused, afraid, eyes that he knew; eyes that blatantly did not know him. She curled into herself, waiting for the blow to occur, waiting for the death that he could deliver.

She would have to wait forever.

There came, borne out of the dark shadows, the white-hot blaze of purification that stole the careful air from his lungs. He leapt away, eyes still fixed upon the form that he would conquer.

He choked upon it, the destruction from which he had barely escaped. He stole away, eyes upon the woman, holding the mangled corpse of the child that he loved.

His eyes blazed, indomitable and strange; and as he crept away with quick and wondrous stealth, he vowed his bloody revenge.

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The shell opened her eyes onto a world she did not know, feeling the sharp numbness of her limbs. She lay upon the hard floor, arms lain stiff at her sides, palms open to the ceiling. A thin blanket covered her, the tip just brushing her lax chin. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick, and it was painful to take a shuddering breath.

Tight bandages were wrapped over her chest and belly, and it was because of this she moved gingerly; she could not remember the source of the wounds.

Where...am I?

In her mind there came the silver flash, that creature, that beast which had approached, eyes glowing like the setting sun, fangs viscous in its mouth. And then, that flare of bright brilliance, of purity, that chased it deep into the dark-fleshed shadows of the wood.

“I see you are awake,” came the soft, cracked voice, tinged bloody with concern. Her eyes moved frantically about the room, searching for the owner.

They came to rest upon an old woman, bent over her cooking with gracious care, and she felt her heart grow soft with trust. Through a throat dry and unused, she managed to ask: “where am I?”

“You, my child, are in the Village of the Yoake Mori; I found you wounded in the wood,” the old woman's eyes seemed to glare underneath her shaded brow, off into the distance of remembering. “A damned youkai of silver colour wounded you; killed your child.”

The wounded girl tried to sit up, bound by the wounds that scraped across her skin, a gasp bursting forth from her mouth- “child?”

Something swam across her face, memory perhaps; tainted with confusion, fear, pain. “I do not have a child.”

The old woman saw that the girl eyes burned with fever, with madness. She chased a suspicion and grasped it firmly. “What is your name, girl?”

She closed her eyes, searching desperately in the cliff of her mind, which was as white and as empty as wind. Scattered, broken, disjointed images- petals upon that peaceful, distant plane. “My name... my name is...”

She found herself crying, feeling wicked and useless, and the old woman's arms closed around her as she imagined a mother's would.

“I am the miko of this village,” the old woman said softly, though with a voice full of pride, “I have lived and served the people of this village for many of my endless years.

“I do not know what it is like to have and lose a child; I have never carried one myself. My words have no use, I know, yet I am very sorry,” She straightened, the girl' tears soaking into the rough fabric of her obi, and began: “I am Fukiko, miko of the Village of Yoake Mori- and I will care for you like a daughter. In you, I have sensed a strong miko power, though untrained. Would you like it, when you heal, to learn with me?”

The girl's eyes became glassy, distant, as she nodded her reply; she lay back onto the pallet, and turned her face to the dreary light of the doorway. Fukiko turned back to her cooking after a time, and was soon engrossed in the work. She almost did not hear the girl's soft words, bleeding over the sound of the rain...

“Onna,” she said, “you may call me Onna.”

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Rin deserved better than to be buried in the dark, deep mud; or swallowed in the eddying, swirly waters, or in the broken, abandoned wooden shrine in which he decided to leave her.

He dropped the flower onto the soft mound of wet earth that covered his child, and buried his despair deep into the cold shift of his soul.

His bland mask slid into place, a porcelain countenance with hooded eyes, as he chased the scent of Rin's bloody heart and that of the dreaded hanyou's child.

It seemed as though the rain parted for him, clinging only briefly to the liquid fall of his hair, shimmering upon his smooth face, cool in his red eyes.

The ache, the madness of hunger, of fury- a demon's lust for death.

It never ended- not even when he had found him, had torn out his heart to match the one he had stolen; not even when the blood splashed beauty over his cheeks, trickling down them like the tears he could never shed.

Naraku's child was now dead, retribution for his own.

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“Onna,” called Fukiko softly, a laugh in her voice, “there is a child here who was injured herself, and she says she will not let anyone dress her wound but you.”

Onna carefully parted the soft hanging at the door and stepped out into the soft light of the early morning, bending carefully down to the child's eye-level so as to not damage the miko clothes she wore.

The child was pouting, her face tearful but her gaze trusting. There was something softly, achingly familiar in the way the child's gentle eyes gazed into her own. “See, Onna-san? I fell.”

The child held out her small index finger, where a cut bloomed red upon its fleshy tip. Onna smiled knowingly.

“I know the cure for this,” she said, giving the girl's finger a kiss. The girl smiled and thanked her shyly, running off to once again play in the field that graced the front of Fukiko's home. In the weeks that she had passed in this peaceful place, she had gained strength and knowledge, and had grown to care very much for the people of the village, who came to see her as though she was a curious, welcome sight.

“How are your wounds, Onna-san?” asked Fukiko, intent upon making arrows and drying herbs. Onna joined her in her task, help which the old woman accepted gratefully.

“They are healing very well, Fukiko-sama.”

“That is good! Soon you will be hale enough to begin your training with me. With such knowledge, perhaps then could you catch the demon who has wronged you.”

Onna went silent, and the weight of the old woman's words pressed upon her like the heat of the sun through every task she carried out that day.

When the sun set, sending blazes of light across the sky, Fukiko said, a whisper across the threshold, that she had some duties to attend to in the village proper that Onna herself was yet forbidden to help with. She did not complain, for she was weary and the woman snored. She laid to rest just as the full moon graced the tips of the trees, sending rays of dappled moonlight that pooled about her, shadows and liquid light from an opening high in the wall.

There was silence, quiet and soft and deep, nearly choking.

It was then, in that silent moment, that the beautiful, terrible demon breathed the stale air of Fukiko's home, and traced claws upon the hanging of her door.

The demon, stalking its prey.

Fear slipped into her belly, curling and cool and cloying, a mortal trait that froze her heart with its cruelty. She dared not move, dreading that if she did the demon would descend upon her and tear out her throat. She attempted to calm herself into the semblance of sleep; she slowed her breathing, and in turn her heart and body relaxed, falling into the rhythm of slumber.

A step upon the floor, echoing like a beat of a heart. She nearly opened her eyes, to once again see the face that she could not quite remember.

Silence, silence.

She dared not to open her eyes.

He sat gracefully beside where her pallet lay, where her body was breathing in his scent: of blood, of burden, of the wild wood.

His presence pushed into her, nearly pushed her out of herself. she opened her eyes, as narrowly as she could. The pool of moonlight ignited him, made him glow so cunningly, nearly stealing the breath from her.

He bent closer to her, and she closed her eyes, keeping her features loose though they wished to tighten. Hatred of him boiled in her, sheilding something soft that she remembered in her heart.

The silky length of his hair fell over her throat as he traced her jaw with his deadly claws, touching her inky hair to his lips.

He scratched a line upon the skin of her palm. She nearly shivered as she felt the deep whisper, hot against her ear:

“Foolish miko, foolish onna.”

With those words as a parting he left her, passing as soft as the night through the hanging that covered the door, and she wept.