InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson Chimera ❯ Optophobia ( Chapter 2 )

Crimson Chimera

 

Chapter 2: Optophobia

 

`I am afraid to open my eyes.'

 

It was inky black velvet he stared into, smothering him from every direction. It was as if he could feel the satin darkness wrap around his limbs, ensnaring him into a forced sleep needed to keep his rattled brains functioning and his weak heart beating. Warmth oddly encompassed him, jolting his insides with fluttery bubbles that popped whenever he moved, causing him more discomfort and less sleep. From the dreary depths of his dreams he forced himself awake in a frenzied hurry, fuzz still rolling around in his head and causing it to throb sharply.

 

It was HER face that began to form in the darkness, memories slaughtering him with fresh cuts on his groggy conscience, making him struggle for reality all the more. That damned face, all filled with nicks and bruises, brutalized by demons of unknown number, simply smiling at him as if everything was all right, as if the tears that were trailing down her smudged and bleeding cheeks weren't there!

 

He could even remember how the rain fell down, where the drops crashed in such a way that they framed her face, mocking her beauty by marring her features with the runoff of the grime that covered the once pale skin. He could remember her hands—her rough calloused hands, now carved up and scraped with crimson—caressing the side of his face lightly as she smiled so very tenderly, so very sadly that he could feel his heart shatter into a million pieces.

 

“Souta…” Her voice. Always so calm, so light, so perky, an eternal ray of sunshine and optimism, now tainted with tears that threatened to spill from his own eyes.

 

“I don't know if I can make it…but I have to do this…I have to protect you all…”

“But—! You can't lea—“

 

The bruised and possibly broken finger halted his words as they pressed lightly on his lips, causing his brows to furrow.

 

“Listen carefully…If I can't make it back…hold onto this for me…” She said quickly, urgency now etched in her voice as she pressed a small vial into the boy's hand.

 

“And if you see crimson, run.” She turned away then, tears gushing stronger as her voice hitched for a second. It was one more whispered string of words that cascaded from her lips, face twisting in a mangled version of what she once was as rot seemed to sprout from her skin, cuts festering disgustingly.

 

The cruel smile sprang up from the distorted face, haunting laughter echoing clearly throughout the world that began to turn black, thick smell of decay and bleach making the boy gag. It was her eyes—no, not her eyes, ITS eyes, that glowed with a dark sort of malice the boy was all too familiar with, causing him to writhe in agony as his mouth widened to scream.

 

“NO!”

 

Hands of an odd coldness stopped his violent jolt upwards as he attempted to free himself of the imaginary binds of the crimson eyes, causing his own to snap open in absolute terror. He could feel the sweat pour down his face, drenching his skin with the salty precipitation as the sound of rain muddled in his ears. A twang of pain traveled up his spine as he hissed slightly, ribs feeling tender and back aching.

 

“Calm down…Rest now, there is no harm.”

 

The voice was soothing, peaceful, and very old. Souta was suddenly frozen to the spot, unable to move or do anything else but listen to the voice as he was pushed back to the bed softly by a pale and wrinkled hand. He tried to speak yet found his voice frozen as well, stuck in his throat like a mouse in a glue trap.

 

His eyes scanned the ceiling as he attempted to speak, coughing slightly as his lungs burned from what seemed like incense smoke. He craned his neck to the side, squinting through the gloom and the darkness of what he believed to be a hut. He tried to speak, but his voice seemed stuck in his throat, almost sappy in nature as the obscured figure began to defog.

 

“Who..?” He began to ask, before a fit of coughing interrupted his question and made him ache all over. The old woman rested her fingers against his chest, others bringing up a bowl of some sort of sweet and tangy paste that seemed to revive him a bit. He glanced up at the old woman's face, noting the strained expression and the various folds that cast one eye into shadow. The other, curiously, was covered by a black patch.

 

Odd…combined with the priestess wear that donned her rather round and husky body, it almost looked comical. He would have laughed if he didn't feel as though he had been smashed in the chest by a truck and run over a few times for good measure.

 

“Where…where am I?”

 

“…You're him, aren't you? The one of the few she had left behind.” She murmured in a contemplative manner, chocolate eye misty and warm. The priestess seemed to stare off into space for a moment, furrowing eyebrows increasing the lines that irrupted from her forehead.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“…You have no idea, do you child…?” Her voice had converted into something that was a mix of regret and even a bit of remorse. It shook a bit in its age, accent somewhat archaic to him; this jittered his nerves even more.

 

“…Of the battle that transpired between your sister and Hell?”

 

Her eyes flickered down to his fisted hand, squinting so he could focus in on his tightly closed fingers.

 

“I couldn't open it…” The priestess noted, shooting a curious glance at him as he slowly opened his hand. He whimpered in pain as he did so, small bits of glass revealed to be stuck in his skin and causing the wounds to reopen. Dried brown splotches covered his palm, decorating the clear shards a dull and crusty earth tone. Yet surrounded by the healing scabs of the wound and the left over pieces of the bottle that was so easily crushed was a small, black scar, in the shape of a…

 

“…a shard. A tainted shard.”

 

The expression of horror on the old priestess's face made Souta's blood run cold. It seemed as though the very shadows were slowly eating away at her flesh, painting what glowed orange in the light of the fire a bleak, sickly gray. She sat fully on her heels now, rough hands covering her terror filled face. The young man's gaze continued to switch between the strange mark in the middle of his palm and the old priestess, trying to understand exactly what had happened to him.

 

The shard, was it…inside of him…?

 

Her wrinkled hand grasped his wrist with such force that he nearly screamed, pain shooting down his arm in what felt like electric bursts of lightning. The priestess's leathery and old face was thrown back into an even darker shadow, bright eye roaming the wound as her fingers traced the small, star-like scar. She grimaced, and Souta's stomach flipped, weakness creeping through his body right from his heart.

 

“I can do nothing about this…” She murmured, causing the pit in his stomach to grow even heavier. “I am nowhere near powerful enough to extract a shard from your body…at least in a way that wouldn't kill you, child.”

 

“I…What...?”

 

“Child, you cannot stay here.” The old woman grasped onto his shoulders, forcing him to glare into her hardened eye. Her grip was strong enough to make him wince, stomach now doing flip flops and annoyingly reminding him that this wasn't some nightmare he was bound to wake up from any second now.

 

But this nightmarish scene was reality, emphasized by the panicked scramblings of the old woman as she scuttled about the darkened hut like an old withering crab, grabbing all sorts of bottles and dried food that lay scattered about the darkness, muttering sentences that Souta only caught pieces of.

 

“To the west, I think, you'll find her…you'll need food, and shelter...like your sister you should know how to survive…”

 

“S-Survive…? You're kicking me out of here?!”

 

“I cannot let you stay, boy! You're in danger here, don't you understand? No…you couldn't possibly...” She stopped short, brows furrowing and causing the wrinkles over her face to concave even more. “No…you couldn't possibly understand all that happened here.”

 

“Ma'am…I don't even know where `here' is…”

 

Or he didn't want to believe it.

 

The crone glared at him, eye frantic and filled with apprehension.

 

“…You sister called this place Sengoku Jidai, child…and she left that shard in your time to keep anymore tyrants from ripping this world apart!” She spoke in a quick, somewhat raspy voice, stuffing carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables into a small sack she had picked up from somewhere near the fire.

 

“That shard was pure when she left it with you; why it's tainted now I do not know, but it has worked its way inside of you…it's poisoning you.”

 

His face remained blank.

 

“…Wha…?”

 

“The shard, boy! It needs to be removed, as soon as possible and taken back to your world!”

 

A knife was thrust into the bag, along with a few provisions such as needles and yellowing rolls of bandages. More food was placed into the pack, along with what seemed like various charms that were of an older fashion than what his grandfather had showed him and taught him out years ago. His mind was free from the grogginess of his rather rough descent to wherever `here' was, but it was just as quickly clouded with confusion, headache pounding erratically in his ears.

 

“M-My world…?”

 

“Yes, your world. The future world, is it not? The world where you and she hailed from, how many times shall I say this, boy? No…no, you must not linger here any longer.” The pack was stuffed into his hands, night suddenly becoming quite dark as he was shoved out into it, priestess following him hot on his trails. Orders were whispered to him in a stern voice and only half-listened, the bewildered teenager only able to comprehend a few of the instructions he was given, names sounding unfamiliar and roads unknown.

 

He was to go to the west and find a mud house…find the mentors…find the miko…find the…the…

 

An animalistic howl ripped through the air, jolting Souta out of his confusion and thrusting him even deeper into bone-numbing fear. He nearly dropped the satchel in his hand when the old priestess's palms shoved him forward with tremendous force, a final command of “RUN! HE'S HERE!” echoing in his ears as he took off. Blindingly he ran towards the towering trees that surrounded the small hut and the clearing, his eyes wide and his brain now shut off from reality. If he had paid attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed the ruined remains of what could have once been a town, but only focused on the forest, the woods, the west!

 

The crunching of the leaves mercilessly saved him from having to hear the old priestess's last screams and the bow string strum that cast its last arrow. Darkness saved him from the horror that was the forest of his salvation, obscuring what lay ahead of him, and most importantly the monster that awaited in back, flashes of gold piercing the blackness that penetrated him. He continued, legs pumping and working like they never did before, body pulsing with the rhythm of the woods as he fought the branches and scraps of sharp vegetation that ripped at his flesh, causing a series of cuts to line his legs and arms.

 

Finally out of breath, he unwisely stopped for but a moment, shoulders dropping to slump forward as his hands landed on his knees, and his lungs screamed for air. His head was positively swimming, bloated on adrenaline and incapable of clear thought. He did not notice the crackle of the vegetation behind him, too busy in an attempt to acquire the oxygen so quickly dispelled in his flight through the trees.

 

Pain slashed against his cheek as he gasped, wind from the arrow flicking his black hair forward as blood dripped from the shallow gasp the arrowhead caused against his cheek. He zipped around quickly as a dark, almost squealing chuckle reached his ears, eyes growing wide at the inhuman sight of the pig-like beasts—with red orbs that dully burned, and tusks that curled around their gray hairy lips—that had encircled him from all sides, bows drawn tight and arrows ready. Their stench should have alerted Souta sooner, now overpowering as the young man paled and backed up, slamming into a tree. The head beast, a monstrous boar with a head covered in wry black hairs, send him a horrid grin as he set his arrow to soar directly at Souta's heart, pump and ridged fingers pulling at the bowstring and letting it f—

 

In the span of a heartbeat the trunks of the surrounded trees were splattered with scarlet, blood dripping down the grooves of the bark and the sides of Souta's face as he too was splashed with the thick red substance. He stood numbly, brown eyes perfectly round and witnesses the decapitation and butchery of the hogs as metal flashed in the moonlight. His lids plunged him into blackness just as the entrails began to spill from the wounds of the dying monsters, fingers gripping his moist face and refusing to let go, even as footsteps echoed through the woods. His breathing drowned out all but those footsteps, only a few paces away in the moonlit void he refused to see.

 

Ten paces…six paces…three…two…one…

 

“Are you alright…?”

 

The voice was not what he expected, on the contrary it was rather gentle, deep and young. Still, he did not open his eyes which were glued shut in terror. A meek `I-I think so…' worked it way through his trembling lips, which shook even faster when he felt rough, long fingered hands gently pry his own from his face.

 

“…Why won't you open your eyes? Are they hurt?” The voice asked, tainted with concern.

 

“I'm afraid to…”

 

“Why…? I'm no monster…really, I'm not.”

 

The voice seemed a little apologetic now, hurt in a way that made Souta feel a twang of pity, though he knew not who his savior was. His lids slid open apprehensively.

 

He was met with orbs of a deep, kindly coffee brown.

 

“Who…?” He stuttered, pale skin burning a little at the close proximity of the young, soft stranger. He caught a glimpse of what seemed to be black and jade green armor in the light moonlight that broke through the canopy, and tousled hair a few shades darker than the kindly orbs that looked him over, loose from the rather long ponytail at the base of his neck.

 

The young man, who must have been but a few years older than Souta himself, smiled a comforting little grin, and reached out to shake the other's hand firmly (to which Souta found himself feeling as though his legs were jelly, but that could have been due to the overwhelming event of almost being skewered with an arrow.)

 

“I am Kohaku.”

 

Chapter: End

 

Next Chapter: Kohaku

 

~*~

 

Meheh…an update in…what, a few months? Sorry for the majorly long wait everybody, I've hadn't had the drive to continue this in a while. That, and I was working out some rather large kinks in the storyline, and I've had other projects that have consumed my time. I meant to work on this a lot during the summer, but…ah well. ;___; A big thanks and FORGIVE ME to the patient readers of this story! Your comments really encourage, keep them coming! They'll help me deliver a more satisfying story!

 

Much love,

 

Chemical Lie (~Dymphna-sama)