InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Fallen Part Two: For Whom the Bell Tolls ❯ We Are ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10: We Are

`He's dead. He left us. Why did he leave us?' was the singular train of thought that had been running through the girl's minds a week after his death. Right after Sesshoumaru's ashes had been spread on the winds, a storm that they hadn't even noticed brewing let loose on the countryside. Kagome had had to physically drag Rin, kicking and screaming back to the palace, having to go as far as restraining the hysterical child from running back out into the hellish storm. It lasted for two days, and with the break in the storm came the visions that haunted Kagome in her dreams.

//See the devil on the doorstep now (my oh my)
Telling everybody oh just how to live their lives//

Having not had a proper meal or sleep in several days due to their grief, both young phoenixes looked like death incarnate. Their faces were pallid, their eyes dull, and they were beginning to look thin. Kagome fought endlessly with Rin, trying to get anything passed her lips, but nothing save water ever stayed down. Try as she might, Kagome was also having the same problem. If they stayed there much longer, they would surely die from starvation or from some random demon looking for a meal.

As the days went by her dreams had strengthened, become more vivid, more real. Each night she would see him, she would be reminded of her promise to him and she would remember that she not only promised him, but she also promised her mother that she would take care of her sister. Her resolve grew and strengthened to get them out of there. They had to leave. That set in her mind she curled up on the seventh night after Sesshoumaru's death and resolved that they would leave on the morn of the eighth day.

//Time is ticking and we can't go back (my oh my)//

~X~

Most nights when she dreamed of him, they spent a great deal talking, sharing past experiences, remembering times now lost to them. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to tell her something important, something that needed to be said, but it seemed like he couldn't, like something was holding him back. Other times, they would fight. They would engage in a heated battle of wills and strength that ignited a fire in her blood and a passion in her breast that left her wanting to beg for more when it was over. On the seventh night, they sat under a weeping willow near a lake in the sweet planes of dreams. There they reminisced of a time when Kagome had had to fight to get the brothers to talk civilly, to get them to work out their differences.

~X~

//What about the world today
What about the place that we call home//

"Sit down and stay down!" Kagome shouted followed by curses and death threats. But despite their protests and struggles the rosaries wrapped around their necks like snakes held them fast. Both glared and growled viciously at the modern miko. "Now, now, boys," she began in a deceptively sweet tone. "You will both stay right here until you've worked out your differences, is that understood?"

"But I'm hungry!" Inuyasha whined, forgoing the threats for a sympathy release.

"Deal with it," Kagome growled in an uncharacteristically harsh tone before turning her back on them and stalking off. The brothers watched her retreating form, hypnotized by the sway of her hips and the swing of her hair, until she disappeared completely from sight. At that moment the brothers shot identical glares at each other and growled, "this is your fault," before looking away from each other.

~X~

"He never told me that!" Kagome giggled.

"That's because he never truly admitted defeat," Sesshoumaru said with a faint grin, his fangs peaking out from under his upper lip.

"I never did find out what exactly cause that rift between you two," Kagome sighed.

"That, my dear, is a story for another time," Sesshoumaru replied.

"You're not leaving me, are you?" Kagome asked, beginning to feel a slight tug of panic.

"It's time for you to wake up," he whispered softly. "Take care of Rin for me."

Kagome sighed as his image began to ripple in that odd way that characterized the crossing of lines from the dream world and reality.

"I wish you had been more like this when you were alive," Kagome sighed just as his image began to fade along with the dreamscape around them. She missed the slightly pained look upon his face as she continued. "Maybe if you had, I could have lo-…" here she paused and shook her head slightly before sighing softly to herself, "who am I kidding?" Then she woke up.

~X~

//We've never been so many
And we've never been so alone//

"Rin, Rin," Kagome called as she tried to wake up the young girl that morning.

"What?" the child despondently moaned as she awoke.

"Come on, baby, we're leaving."

"No!" Rin cried vehemently, wrapping herself around the pillow that was in her grasp.

"Rin," Kagome began gently, "it's not good for us to linger here."

"I won't leave!" the child cried, flames dancing in her eyes with her ire.

"We'll die if we stay here, Rin!" Kagome cried passionately. "Do you think he would want us to die because of him?"

"No," the child said, a pout forming on her cute face.

"Then we need to leave," Kagome said, stressing the fact. In response, Rin sniffled and looked up at her sister with large, sad, brown eyes.

"Where will we go?" she innocently asked.

"I know!" Kagome exclaimed after a rather lengthy silence. "We'll go to my home! You can meet my adopted family!" she cheered, forgetting a few very important facts.

~X~

//You keep watching from your picket fence
You keep talking but it makes no sense//

As they slowly climbed out of the old well, Kagome tensed, sensing something was off. Eerie red and orange lights danced on the walls seeping in through the cracks in the boards of the building that surrounded the dried well.

"Rin," Kagome said softly, making sure her voice was only loud enough for someone with demonic hearing to be able to hear her. Without a word of protest, the child obeyed, the seriousness of the situation conveyed to her by the rare solemn tone that her sister took. Not only was the tone her sister used enough to scare the child, but also her demeanor. The older phoenix's eyes shifted back and forth as she dropped into an instinctive fighting stance. Danger was somewhere close by.

//You say we're not responsible
But we are, we are//

Slowly, Kagome crept forward, as she listened for any sounds out of the ordinary. Oddly, she could hear nothing. Hesitantly, she looked back at the well, her eyes hardened as she came to a decision. She turned back to the door, a pink barrier forming around the well.

Silently, she slid the door open and crept into the shadows outside the well house where she was hit by a cacophony of noises. All around her, an entity similar in appearance to a flame danced and ate away at anything its acidic body touched. The main house of she shrine looked like it was about to collapse. Intently she watched and listened until she noticed a bit of movement to her left that was most definitely not acid.

She rushed to it to find her little brother crouched over the dieing form of her adoptive mother. At the firebird's approach, the woman lolled her head to the side to look her daughter in the eye.

"I told you never to come back here," she croaked. "I knew this would… happen."

"What are you talking about, mom?"

"You need to go back, before they get you," she breathed. "And, please, please take Souta with you," she begged with her last breath.

//You wash your hands and come out clean
Fail to recognize the enemies within//

"Mom!" both cried, tears streaming down their cheeks. Their moment of grief, however, was short lived as a more urgent matter came at hand. Both were startled out of their misery when a high-pitched screech was heard behind them. Both turned in time to see a blurred white figure move in the path of whatever it was that was after their blood.

Silver hair swayed with the remaining inertia, and Kagome gawked in pure, unadulterated shock. Slowly he turned to face them, piercing golden eyes boring into blue before he whispered one word that sent out of her shock and into motion. "Go." And then they were gone, back down the well.

//You say we're not responsible
But we are, we are, we are, we are//

~X~

Hope you liked chapter 10. kinda short, not really sure if the song fits, but it was the best I could come up with. You should know the drill by now, so do your thing! ^_^