InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ His Little Girl ❯ Waking up lost ( Chapter 26 )

AN: This one may be a hard chapter to read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mamma, will he be ok?”

 

“He's up to a full eight ounces now Souta. It's the best we can hope for right now. When Shippou wakes up we'll know more. We'll know what happened when he wakes up.”

 

“I guess…”

 

 

 

“Okaasan?” Shippou looked up at Kagome. Somehow he knew it was a dream but everything felt so very real he couldn't be sure that it wasn't a dream.

 

“Who are you?” Kagome asked with none of the usual comforting warmth that her voice normally held.

 

“Y-your son…Shippou.”

 

“Why would I - a miko - have a youkai a kitsune no less for a son? I have no son.” Kagome turned away from Shippou, showing him her back in a clear signal in youkai meaning he was outcast.

 

Tears formed in Shippou's eyes and he burst into silent sobs, try as he might though, he couldn't move away. He couldn't leave.

 

“Mamma, mamma please. Mamma please, don't leave me!” he reached out a paw but Kagome was moving away from him and he felt himself being rapidly sucked back into a black inky darkness. “Mamma! MAMMA!”

 

 

 

“MAMMMAAAAA!” Shippou screamed, crying frightened tears as he woke up violently from his nightmare.

 

The young kitsune youkai soon found himself wrapped tightly in warm comforting arms, the scent of his grandmother surrounding him and comforting him beyond words. He clung to the woman crying hard, his sobs shaking his body, as he desperately held onto the woman as though his life and sanity depended on it. Mamma Higurashi sat on her bed holding tightly onto her grandson as she rocked him back and forth as she did her best to comfort him.

 

She didn't know what had happened to the kit, but she knew now for certain that whatever it was had separated the kit and his mother. She held onto Shippou for a good while as he sobbed for a solid hour in her arms. When his tears finally dried the young kit was exhausted emotionally, but at least he had woken.

 

“Gmma,” Shippou whimpered as he rubbed his eyes with his fists.

 

“I'm here sweetheart,” she whispered to him as she kissed his brow.

 

Shippou began crying again, though his tears were silent and unbearably sad. Mamma pulled him close and hugged the child to her breast as she held him.

 

“Oh Shippou,” her heart ached for the young kit. “What happened?”

 

His words were quiet and mournful and frightened as he spoke, often stumbling over his words due to his tears choking his throat.

 

“Mamma doesn't want me anymore.”

 

“Oh honey I'm sure that not true. Kagome loves you very much.”

 

“It is true. Mamma's forgotten all about me. She doesn't say my name, or look at me anymore. Before I left she hadn't even looked at me for a week, and the day I left, I spent the whole day in a tree tending to my birdie and her babies and no body came looking for me. Nobody wants me anymore. What did I do wrong? I tried to be a good son but…what did I do wrong that she doesn't want me anymore? Not even Rin remembered me. We used to sleep together, then after Mamma and Sesshoumaru-sama became mates, Rin slept with them. She didn't play with me anymore. And at meal time nobody called me for meals, when I went in to eat there wasn't a place for me and I didn't get any food.”

 

“Shippou, what had you been eating then, before you came here?” she asked worriedly. It was one thing for the kit to feel neglected, but it was a whole other to discover it wasn't so much a feeling as it was a reality.

 

Shippou ducked his head, feeling ashamed. “Sometimes what the cooks would throw out…or leaves when I sat in the tree. I ate some grass when I ran to the well, but it made me sick. I was so hungry, but I don't feel hungry anymore.”

 

“You may not like the idea, but you don't feel hungry anymore because you were in a heavy sleep when we found you and I've been bottle feeding you for the past week.”

 

“Like milk?”

 

“Mmhmm and formula.”

 

He looked up at her with wide eyes and hugged her as tightly as he could. She'd been taking care of him, she'd been feeding him. He pulled back as a thought occurred to him from a deep insecurity that had built up during his time of neglect. What if she didn't really want him? What if she only cared for him because she thought she had too? Would she turn him away too?

 

A quiet horror grew in his mind and a coldness settled in his soul as his fear grew. He couldn't bear it if she turned him away too. The young pup grew still in her arms and began trying to free himself of her hold. His breathing became harsh as his fear turned into heartbreaking panic and he struggled out of the woman's warm embrace.

 

His head was down as he backed away from her on the bed and began looking for a way out.

 

“Shippou?” Mamma Higurashi called to the kit. What just happened? Why was he so afraid?

 

Shippou didn't answer he only continued to search for a way out. As she grew near to him, he bolted for the door, his muscles weakened from not being used and over exertion before that, were not responding as quickly as they normally would and the panic he was feeling escalated into full blow terror. He had to get out, the room was too small, the air too hot, everything seemed to be closing in on him. He couldn't breathe, he had to get out!

 

Shippou jumped up and held onto the doorknob, frantically scratching his hind legs on the door for purchase as he turned the knob and opened the door, escaping into the house. He could hear her coming after him as he bounded through the house, she was calling out to him her voice frightened with concern for him. He couldn't stop; he couldn't go through that again. He couldn't be forgotten again. It hurt too much the first time; it might kill him to go through that again.

 

“Shippou!” Mamma Higurashi yelled as she ran after him, even as weak as his muscles were he was still damn fast. “No Shippou stop!” she yelled as she saw him go toward the open window.

 

Tokyo was too big; it was too easy for Souta to get lost in this city, let alone someone who's never spent much time at all in it. Before she or Souta could reach him to shut the window, he was out of it and into the shrine grounds, running as fast as he could. His fright and panic drove him on, drove him to push himself faster.

 

He saw the shrine steps close ahead in front of him and couldn't slow in time to go down them without falling and tumbling down the steps, his grandmother's frantic cries fallowing his rapid and painful descent. He landed at the bottom of the high staircase with a grunt and a whimper. He could hear his grandmother coming after him, could hear her begging him not to move, that it was alright, that he was safe. But he wasn't. His mother had forgotten him, she would soon as well. He couldn't go through that again, he just couldn't.

 

Climbing to stand on all fours shakily, he bounded off awkwardly, his left leg hurting badly. He whimpered with every pounce he made and his strength was waning quickly. He couldn't stop he couldn't - he was suddenly swept up into strong arms and held close to a heaving chest as he felt tears fall into his hair and fur.

 

“Oh Shippou,” Mamma Higurashi panted as she held him close. He was still scared she could feel it, she just couldn't understand why.

 

She cooed softly to him as she held him and heard him whimper painfully as she brushed his hurt leg. She crooned sadly and carried him back up the nearly two hundred step shrine stairs. She felt him struggle in her arms again trying to get free, and held him tighter, trying her best to calm the frightened child. She didn't know what to do, for the first time in her nearly nineteen years as a parent; she didn't know how to comfort a child.

 

Then a sight she never thought she'd be as grateful in her life to see as she was at that very moment befell her. There in front of her was her daughter, running swiftly toward her, tears streaming from her eyes.

 

“Mamma!” Kagome cried panicked. “Shippou's gone, Shippou's…here?” she said as she came to a stop in front of her mother.

 

For some reason the sound of Kagome's voice only served to add fuel to his fright and he struggled that much harder to break free, while trying not to hurt his grandmother with his claws. He gave a sharp whimper as she twisted the broken bone of his leg and broke into tears. He had to get away. He couldn't, he couldn't take this. He couldn't be turned away again.

 

Strong arms removed him from his grandmother's embrace and he found himself wrapped up in the red sleeves of Inuyasha's fire-rat haori.

 

“Hush pup,” Inuyasha said softly as he held Shippou in his arms, the kit's fear and panic drowning out his own usual smell. He renewed his struggle as his tears fell more rapidly, he was so very scared. He had to get away he had to - Shippou fell unconscious as Inuyasha pinched a nerve in the back of his neck, sending him to sleep. “What the hell had the pup so frightened?” the hanyou asked mamma Higurashi.

 

“I don't know,” she said sadly. “He was fine one moment, and then the next he was like this. He's been asleep for a week, who knows how long before that. Souta found him in the well; he was passed out and so filthy. I've been giving him a bottle for the past week. He woke up screaming just after his lunch this afternoon. He said he was forgotten by you all.” Her eyes questioned all who was there, Inuyasha, Kagome, and finally Sesshoumaru.

 

“Kashu-sama,” Sesshoumaru greeted and stepped forward to embrace the woman he had grown close to.

 

“We were put under a spell mamma,” Kagome said sadly as they all walked back inside the house. “All of our memories of Shippou were erased. When we got our memories back and discovered he was gone, oh mamma I've never been so scared.”

 

Kashu hugged her daughter close and kissed her brow as they all settled into the living room. She moved away and into the bathroom, retrieving the first aid kit.

 

“Here,” she said handing the white box with the red cross on it to Inuyasha. “He hurt his leg when he fell down the shrine steps. I've never seen a child so panicked before not as he was. It scared me and I didn't know what to do.”

 

The older woman stood and walked into the kitchen and prepared a new bottle for the kit. Coming back into the living room she handed the bottle to Inuyasha and he gave her a look clearly stating he had no intention of drinking from it.

 

“It's not for you Inuyasha, it's for Shippou. This is how I've been feeding him, and yes I know that he's finally woken up, but he's asleep again, and hurt, and he needs to replace the energy he lost when he ran. So just feed him.”

 

Inuyasha took the bottle with a nod of thanks and brought the nipple to the pup's mouth. The rubber nipple slipped easily passed his lips and the sleeping kit fed hungrily. Instinctively, Inuyasha moved his arm to a slightly more upright position so that the kit wasn't lying flat as he fed. Sesshoumaru sat next to his brother and carefully maneuvered the kit's broken leg until it was set properly and then wrapped it securely with cloth and gauze bandages and a splint made from short chopsticks and few flat pieces of Souta's old building blocks. When they returned to the Feudal Era Kaede could wrap it better and treat the injury, but for now they would remain here, until they were certain that the kit was calmed and no longer quite so panicked. However long that may be.