InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Half-Breed ❯ Chapter II ( Chapter 4 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: rockthedragon7 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.27.2005 | Updated On: 03.31.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 218 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.27.2005 | Updated On: 03.31.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 218 | Status: Completed
Half-Breed: Chapter II
As a river of sunlight poured through the window, flooding over my face, I stirred and tiredly blinked open my heavy eyes to find myself lying on my stomach, tucked under the soft comforters of Mother’s futon, greeted by the refreshing scent of green peppermint and the sound of singing birds. I didn’t remember falling asleep. It must have been at early light, as soon as dawn broke, for slumber never came to me while I remained in a human form. I torpidly sat back on my heels, squinting against the light, and sluggishly rubbed my eyes. Letting my hands fall into my lap, I hesitantly noticed that my claws had been restored to their blade-like sharpness and the small injury on my hand had vanished, which, in all aspects, meant that I had returned to normal. In my mind, I was cheered by the fact that the moonless night had passed, and would not stalk me until the next new moon, but there was still the feeling of misgiving deep in the back of my thoughts, knowing that one way or another, the next moonless night would come. Drowsily, I crawled from the futon and tiredly made my way to the doorway.
I stood staring at the open entry for a long while, hoping that Mother had not forgotten to take the demon ward down. She had once, and I will never forget it. Three or four years ago, I had leapt right into the thing, and received scalds from my ears to my toes for my carelessness. No, I had no desire whatsoever to re-experience the resulting agonizing magical burns, muscle paralysis, or the inability to breathe for what feel like infinity. Hell, no! I grabbed my mother’s hair brush from her desk, giving it a toss through the doorway, and it landed with a clatter on the tatami outside. I has seen no trace of the blue light, which meant that the demon ward was gone, right? I wasn’t convinced. I had to be absolutely, positively, completely sure. I snatched Mother’s floral comb, and threw it through the open fusuma. Nothing. And so I cautiously reached my hand out, flinching when my fingers passed the place where the ward would have been if there had been one, and I waved my arm around. Dropping my hand back to my side, I finally decided that it was safe, and I strolled from the bedroom.
“Good morning, Inuyasha,” Mother’s soft voice floated to me. I glanced up to see her serenely resting in a chair near the sitting room window, book and tea in hand, the rays of sunlight glimmering in her sable hair, playing upon her fair skin.
I grinned and ran to her as she set her cup on the table next to the seat, and I jumped into her lap, greeted with a warm embrace. “Morning, Mother!”
She laughed. “You slept well?” I nodded against her arms, and leaned my head on her shoulder, gazing through the window at the gathering clouds ominously darkening the mountains on the horizon. Somewhere inside, it felt as though they were trying to tell me something, a forewarning, yet I pushed the suspicion to the farthest corners of my mind to make room for more important matters… like breakfast…
With a full stomach, my mother, who insisted that I finish my hiragana before I went outside to let off the replenished, endless energy that was burning inside of me, jostled me to my desk against my will. Tapping the wooden end of the brush, I rested my head on the desktop, staring blankly at the empty washi. I look up, and turned around in my chair. “Mother?”
“Yes, Inuyasha,” her voice answered from the bedroom.
“I wanna go outside,” I remarked bluntly.
After a moment’s silence, she appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised, a half-smile upon her lips. “Have you finished your writing?”
I shifted awkwardly, and reluctantly answered, “No.” At a roll of her eyes, I frowned. “Hiragana is stupid anyway! How come I have to do it?”
My mother massaged her forehead in frustration. “Inuyasha, do we have to go through this again?” She glanced up at me. “An education is an important thing. And due to your rash behavior, school is completely out of the question, so you have to do your work at home.”
Ouch. My rash behavior. I thought nothing of the incident other than my honor had been challenged, and I defended it without hesitation. “I know,” I replied quietly, turning my back to her. I didn’t see what use hiragana would be to me in my future. I had no doubts that protecting my existence would be all that mattered to me, and learning to write would do me no good.
There was a long silence until my mother spoke. “If I let you go outside, will you finish your work this afternoon?” I glanced over my shoulder and nodded. Mother smiled softly and shook her head. “Go on then.” I grinned and hopped down from my chair, rushing to the shoji. The morning breeze blew through my hair as I sprang away from the veranda, leaving my mother to stand in the doorway and watch with a proud grin on her face. Landing lightly on the railing of the bridge with practiced ease, I walked along it for a few steps before taking to the air once more.
Hours seemed to pass like minutes, and I looked up from teasing a koi in the fishpond to the darkening sky overhead. A cold drop of rain landed between my eyes and I brushed it away, pestered by its sudden presence. All around me, droplets of cloudburst were beginning to fall to the ground, rippling on the surface of the pond. It was then, in that moment, that I realized that the surrounding area was strangely devoid of sound, even to my hypersensitive ears. No birds. No wind. Not even the fish made a whisper. With mixed confusion and anxiety, I pivoted my ears and turned my head searching for traces of some sound, but I could hear nothing but the ever-growing melody of the falling rain. My demon instincts were howling to me. [Something’s wrong! Run! Something’s wrong! Flee!] Then, far in the distance, toward the mountains, a rising thunder was swelling. I glanced over my shoulder, the rumble climbing as it neared, and the wariness of a malevolent force approaching crawled into my stomach. [Run!] It instantly struck me that my mother was still inside the house. [Flee!] I leapt to my feet and dashed up the stairs, tossing the shoji open. “Mother?” I quietly wandered through our home, faraway lightning flashing through the windows occasionally to illuminate the dark house for only a brief second, sending wraithlike shadows with stretching fingers across the floor. There was only the tiny chiming of Mother’s music box there amongst the tomblike silence, an eerily beautiful sound among the fearful quiet. I found my mother in my bedroom staring vacantly out of the window over our backyard. “Mother?”
Lightning blazed. “You hear it,” she said almost silently, terror apparent in her trembling voice. I watched as her hands clutched at the sill of the window, her knuckles gone white, and I look up to her face, which was lined with distraught fear. In the stillness of a minute, the distant roar steadily grew, the thundershower battered the dirt, and the fear strengthened. Mother whispered, “Run.” I lowered my eyebrows at her as she continued her gaze watchfully outside. […No.] There was a tremendous crash as the trees at the farthest edge of the northern forest were devastated all in one instant. My mother turned to me, her eyes wild with fright. “Run, Inuyasha! Run!” I did not disobey her words. I wheeled around and raced for the front shoji, stumbling in my haste, throwing it open and speeding from the veranda like the devil was at my heels. My heart was pounding in my ears as I halted at the edge of the southern forest for a moment to see the last barrier of trees collapse to the dirt, and with a deafening roar, hundreds upon hundreds of demons stormed for the house, flying at more than five times my own speed. Demons, demons of all sorts united by a similar cause, barraged our home like the pouring rain pummeled the land. And I knew… those had not been clouds gathering on the horizon. No, it was the angry demon aura.
Raging flames licked at our home like tongues from hell, demons ravaged our beautiful gardens, smashed the fountain, shattered the windows, slaughtered the maids, and destroyed our once perfect house as if the fury of one thousand lifetimes drove them. I staggered into the shelter of the woods, my face stained with tears, and collapsed to my knees behind the safety of a fallen tree, gaping at the frightful scene playing out before my very own unbelieving eyes.
A forlorn silence fell upon the land as if a blanket had been laid over the world as the last of the demons disappeared, thoroughly pleased with the disaster they had caused. The only noise was that of the pounding downpour.
“Mother!” I called out. I leapt over the gap of the broken bridge, splashing through a puddle of water as I landed in our despoiled garden. Turning in a circle, I gazed at the snapped plants and crushed flowers, their once vivid petals now covered with black mud. Even the fishpond was empty, half-filled with sludge. “Mother! Where are you!?” A tormented sob reached my ears over the sound of the hammering rain, and I spun to face a dark silhouette lying against the gray of the sunless sky. “Mother!” I hurried to her side and slid to my knees near her head. “Mother?” Slowly, she gazed into my eyes, pain etched in her face. For the first time, I noticed the puddle of crimson blood forming beneath her, the torn and soiled kimono, and how deathly pale her fair skin had become. My voice was a mere whimper as fear clutched my heart. “Please get up.”
“I don’t know if I can, Inuyasha,” she barely breathed.
“Yes, you can. Get up,” I demanded. Weakly, she moved an arm to lift herself, but reached only a sitting position before she toppled back into the mud, her bedraggled hair tumbling over her scalded, bloody shoulders. She fell silent, and I crawled close to her, my palms clasping handfuls of the moist soil. “Mother?”
Her eyes were dim with suffering, and she looked up at me. “Inuyasha… I must leave you for a time… I need you to promise me that you will not let this world defeat you… be strong, Inuyasha… follow the path that your heart chooses… let it guide you… promise me.”
A stray tear tumbled down my cheek, streaking my dirt-covered face, and I nodded. “I promise.” I sniffled, my eyes glossy with burning tears, my throat tight, and my face contorted into a frown of sorrow as I helplessly fought back the desire to cry. I drew in a shuddering breath. “But I want you to stay with me.”
With all the gentle touch of the wind, she raised a hand and stroked my cheek, wiping my tears away, brushing my drenched bangs from my forehead. “I’ll always be with you, Inuyasha.” Her hand slipped from my face and motionlessly rested on the ground.
My breath caught in my throat. “Mother?” I whimpered. “Mother?” I grasped fistfuls of her muddy kimono and lightly shook her, tears falling from my eyes, my ears straining for the beat of her heart, the murmur of her breath, but there was nothing - nothing but the broken feeling that flooded my chest, the sound of heavy silence screaming in my head. Nothing but the sound of my own cries. And in the lingering quiet, I was alone… so alone.
Converting /tmp/phpoPlkdc to /dev/stdout
As a river of sunlight poured through the window, flooding over my face, I stirred and tiredly blinked open my heavy eyes to find myself lying on my stomach, tucked under the soft comforters of Mother’s futon, greeted by the refreshing scent of green peppermint and the sound of singing birds. I didn’t remember falling asleep. It must have been at early light, as soon as dawn broke, for slumber never came to me while I remained in a human form. I torpidly sat back on my heels, squinting against the light, and sluggishly rubbed my eyes. Letting my hands fall into my lap, I hesitantly noticed that my claws had been restored to their blade-like sharpness and the small injury on my hand had vanished, which, in all aspects, meant that I had returned to normal. In my mind, I was cheered by the fact that the moonless night had passed, and would not stalk me until the next new moon, but there was still the feeling of misgiving deep in the back of my thoughts, knowing that one way or another, the next moonless night would come. Drowsily, I crawled from the futon and tiredly made my way to the doorway.
I stood staring at the open entry for a long while, hoping that Mother had not forgotten to take the demon ward down. She had once, and I will never forget it. Three or four years ago, I had leapt right into the thing, and received scalds from my ears to my toes for my carelessness. No, I had no desire whatsoever to re-experience the resulting agonizing magical burns, muscle paralysis, or the inability to breathe for what feel like infinity. Hell, no! I grabbed my mother’s hair brush from her desk, giving it a toss through the doorway, and it landed with a clatter on the tatami outside. I has seen no trace of the blue light, which meant that the demon ward was gone, right? I wasn’t convinced. I had to be absolutely, positively, completely sure. I snatched Mother’s floral comb, and threw it through the open fusuma. Nothing. And so I cautiously reached my hand out, flinching when my fingers passed the place where the ward would have been if there had been one, and I waved my arm around. Dropping my hand back to my side, I finally decided that it was safe, and I strolled from the bedroom.
“Good morning, Inuyasha,” Mother’s soft voice floated to me. I glanced up to see her serenely resting in a chair near the sitting room window, book and tea in hand, the rays of sunlight glimmering in her sable hair, playing upon her fair skin.
I grinned and ran to her as she set her cup on the table next to the seat, and I jumped into her lap, greeted with a warm embrace. “Morning, Mother!”
She laughed. “You slept well?” I nodded against her arms, and leaned my head on her shoulder, gazing through the window at the gathering clouds ominously darkening the mountains on the horizon. Somewhere inside, it felt as though they were trying to tell me something, a forewarning, yet I pushed the suspicion to the farthest corners of my mind to make room for more important matters… like breakfast…
With a full stomach, my mother, who insisted that I finish my hiragana before I went outside to let off the replenished, endless energy that was burning inside of me, jostled me to my desk against my will. Tapping the wooden end of the brush, I rested my head on the desktop, staring blankly at the empty washi. I look up, and turned around in my chair. “Mother?”
“Yes, Inuyasha,” her voice answered from the bedroom.
“I wanna go outside,” I remarked bluntly.
After a moment’s silence, she appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised, a half-smile upon her lips. “Have you finished your writing?”
I shifted awkwardly, and reluctantly answered, “No.” At a roll of her eyes, I frowned. “Hiragana is stupid anyway! How come I have to do it?”
My mother massaged her forehead in frustration. “Inuyasha, do we have to go through this again?” She glanced up at me. “An education is an important thing. And due to your rash behavior, school is completely out of the question, so you have to do your work at home.”
Ouch. My rash behavior. I thought nothing of the incident other than my honor had been challenged, and I defended it without hesitation. “I know,” I replied quietly, turning my back to her. I didn’t see what use hiragana would be to me in my future. I had no doubts that protecting my existence would be all that mattered to me, and learning to write would do me no good.
There was a long silence until my mother spoke. “If I let you go outside, will you finish your work this afternoon?” I glanced over my shoulder and nodded. Mother smiled softly and shook her head. “Go on then.” I grinned and hopped down from my chair, rushing to the shoji. The morning breeze blew through my hair as I sprang away from the veranda, leaving my mother to stand in the doorway and watch with a proud grin on her face. Landing lightly on the railing of the bridge with practiced ease, I walked along it for a few steps before taking to the air once more.
Hours seemed to pass like minutes, and I looked up from teasing a koi in the fishpond to the darkening sky overhead. A cold drop of rain landed between my eyes and I brushed it away, pestered by its sudden presence. All around me, droplets of cloudburst were beginning to fall to the ground, rippling on the surface of the pond. It was then, in that moment, that I realized that the surrounding area was strangely devoid of sound, even to my hypersensitive ears. No birds. No wind. Not even the fish made a whisper. With mixed confusion and anxiety, I pivoted my ears and turned my head searching for traces of some sound, but I could hear nothing but the ever-growing melody of the falling rain. My demon instincts were howling to me. [Something’s wrong! Run! Something’s wrong! Flee!] Then, far in the distance, toward the mountains, a rising thunder was swelling. I glanced over my shoulder, the rumble climbing as it neared, and the wariness of a malevolent force approaching crawled into my stomach. [Run!] It instantly struck me that my mother was still inside the house. [Flee!] I leapt to my feet and dashed up the stairs, tossing the shoji open. “Mother?” I quietly wandered through our home, faraway lightning flashing through the windows occasionally to illuminate the dark house for only a brief second, sending wraithlike shadows with stretching fingers across the floor. There was only the tiny chiming of Mother’s music box there amongst the tomblike silence, an eerily beautiful sound among the fearful quiet. I found my mother in my bedroom staring vacantly out of the window over our backyard. “Mother?”
Lightning blazed. “You hear it,” she said almost silently, terror apparent in her trembling voice. I watched as her hands clutched at the sill of the window, her knuckles gone white, and I look up to her face, which was lined with distraught fear. In the stillness of a minute, the distant roar steadily grew, the thundershower battered the dirt, and the fear strengthened. Mother whispered, “Run.” I lowered my eyebrows at her as she continued her gaze watchfully outside. […No.] There was a tremendous crash as the trees at the farthest edge of the northern forest were devastated all in one instant. My mother turned to me, her eyes wild with fright. “Run, Inuyasha! Run!” I did not disobey her words. I wheeled around and raced for the front shoji, stumbling in my haste, throwing it open and speeding from the veranda like the devil was at my heels. My heart was pounding in my ears as I halted at the edge of the southern forest for a moment to see the last barrier of trees collapse to the dirt, and with a deafening roar, hundreds upon hundreds of demons stormed for the house, flying at more than five times my own speed. Demons, demons of all sorts united by a similar cause, barraged our home like the pouring rain pummeled the land. And I knew… those had not been clouds gathering on the horizon. No, it was the angry demon aura.
Raging flames licked at our home like tongues from hell, demons ravaged our beautiful gardens, smashed the fountain, shattered the windows, slaughtered the maids, and destroyed our once perfect house as if the fury of one thousand lifetimes drove them. I staggered into the shelter of the woods, my face stained with tears, and collapsed to my knees behind the safety of a fallen tree, gaping at the frightful scene playing out before my very own unbelieving eyes.
A forlorn silence fell upon the land as if a blanket had been laid over the world as the last of the demons disappeared, thoroughly pleased with the disaster they had caused. The only noise was that of the pounding downpour.
“Mother!” I called out. I leapt over the gap of the broken bridge, splashing through a puddle of water as I landed in our despoiled garden. Turning in a circle, I gazed at the snapped plants and crushed flowers, their once vivid petals now covered with black mud. Even the fishpond was empty, half-filled with sludge. “Mother! Where are you!?” A tormented sob reached my ears over the sound of the hammering rain, and I spun to face a dark silhouette lying against the gray of the sunless sky. “Mother!” I hurried to her side and slid to my knees near her head. “Mother?” Slowly, she gazed into my eyes, pain etched in her face. For the first time, I noticed the puddle of crimson blood forming beneath her, the torn and soiled kimono, and how deathly pale her fair skin had become. My voice was a mere whimper as fear clutched my heart. “Please get up.”
“I don’t know if I can, Inuyasha,” she barely breathed.
“Yes, you can. Get up,” I demanded. Weakly, she moved an arm to lift herself, but reached only a sitting position before she toppled back into the mud, her bedraggled hair tumbling over her scalded, bloody shoulders. She fell silent, and I crawled close to her, my palms clasping handfuls of the moist soil. “Mother?”
Her eyes were dim with suffering, and she looked up at me. “Inuyasha… I must leave you for a time… I need you to promise me that you will not let this world defeat you… be strong, Inuyasha… follow the path that your heart chooses… let it guide you… promise me.”
A stray tear tumbled down my cheek, streaking my dirt-covered face, and I nodded. “I promise.” I sniffled, my eyes glossy with burning tears, my throat tight, and my face contorted into a frown of sorrow as I helplessly fought back the desire to cry. I drew in a shuddering breath. “But I want you to stay with me.”
With all the gentle touch of the wind, she raised a hand and stroked my cheek, wiping my tears away, brushing my drenched bangs from my forehead. “I’ll always be with you, Inuyasha.” Her hand slipped from my face and motionlessly rested on the ground.
My breath caught in my throat. “Mother?” I whimpered. “Mother?” I grasped fistfuls of her muddy kimono and lightly shook her, tears falling from my eyes, my ears straining for the beat of her heart, the murmur of her breath, but there was nothing - nothing but the broken feeling that flooded my chest, the sound of heavy silence screaming in my head. Nothing but the sound of my own cries. And in the lingering quiet, I was alone… so alone.
Converting /tmp/phpoPlkdc to /dev/stdout