InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ In Deep Woods ❯ Chapter 3

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

In Deep Woods, Chapter 3:


Trace hurtled along the path Fenn had left open, an instant only, but he had been thinking in terms of time for too long during his captivity.  He felt annoyance when he realized he was as yet unable to deviate from Fenn’s allotted path.  Still, he was free.

He stumbled to his feet on a concrete sidewalk, surrounded by crowds of people who glanced at him curiously or not at all.  He had no idea where, or when, he might be.  At the moment, Trace didn’t care.  He still wore the half-rotted clothes Kagome had provided him with in his cave, when his others had finally disintegrated.  He had refused to accept better ones, would have continued to refuse, until these, too, rotted off his very limbs.  Long ago, he had stopped wasting energy on things like clothing.  Fenn would have to do the same, he thought maliciously, if Fenn ever wanted to leave that place.

Trace grabbed a metal pole at the intersection of four waves of people, and cars.  He remembered what cars were.  This was a city, a large one.  Teeming with life.  Letting go of his temporary anchor, Trace let himself be swept with one wave across the street.  He opened up his senses and drank in their essences.  All around him, people fell.  He smiled, and continued walking.

Brakes screeched, and soon sirens blared in the already noisy day.  Trace toned it down.  No one had to die just yet.  Perhaps Fenn had set him this path deliberately, so that he could recharge on the abundance of life to be found here.  But if Fenn thought that would be enough to satisfy him, then he was sorely mistaken.  Now that Trace defined himself through time, he had a half-millenium and more to make up for.

He breezed the streets, keeping to the most crowded sections, and let himself steal scant bits of energy as a shoulder, a hip, a hand brushed another human being.  He absorbed so much energy that it wasn’t much effort at all to transform his clothing to match these oblivious humans.  One moment he wore rags, reminiscent of ancient Japan.  The next saw him in blue jeans, with a grey collared shirt and a dark jacket against the slight wind that had suddenly come up.  He turned up his collar, as he saw several other young men do, and plunged onwards.

This was futile.  There was life here, yes, and plenty of it.  But Trace had no desire to be in the place where Fenn had dictated.  The whole world was before him, and time was just a dream he had indulged in during his captivity.  It meant nothing to creatures such as he.  Gathering his strength, Trace prepared to leave.  And could not.

Angry, Trace almost followed the path that led back to Fenn, back to that cave that had been his prison for too long.   No.  Even if he must live like a human, Trace would not return to that place.  Let Fenn rot until he figured out a way to escape.  Trace had taken most of Fenn’s energy.  Fenn was trapped as he had once been.  It was a game right now to Fenn.  Take the poor trapped youkai’s face and form, and pretend to be the prisoner.  Trace had no idea what Fenn’s true game might be.  Nor did he care.  He was free, for the moment, and he intended to take full advantage of it.  Let Kagome deal with Fenn.  Soon enough, the elusive youkai who was his creator if not his father would grow weary of his game and would show his true face—if he retained the strength to do so.  Trace smiled grimly.  Fenn might find that when he wearied of the game, it would be too late, and he would not have the strength to return to his own favored form.  It had happened to Trace.  It could happen to Fenn, too.

Trace gritted his teeth.  He still could not shed his own favored form, that of the dark-haired youkai whom Megumi had fallen in love with centuries ago.  Surely he had enough energy now to be anything, or anyone, he desired, as Fenn had done in the cave.  He faded.  He could do that much.  Become unseen.  But when he drew form about himself again, it was still the same one, the youth who had plagued Inuyasha and fallen in love with his granddaughter.

Megumi.  Trace felt her phantom touch, as he had felt her real touch a thousand times in the cave and steeled himself against feeling anything, remembering anything.  He had played a dangerous game back then, seducing the child to destroy the mother, and it had backfired horribly on him.  He was a creature made of stolen energy, and should have had no feelings beyond avarice and satisfaction.  Yet he had fallen, somehow, in love with this little wolf girl who reminded him too much of Midoriko, even more so than her mother.  He had fallen in love with the enemy, and she had loved him.  Of course it backfired.  As soon as he had something to lose, he had lost, and unfortunately, so had the girl.  She never deserved her fate.  She had never known what he really was, and how his entire existence was pledged to wipe out her family.

And for what?  Because they had been content straddling two worlds, and he had never been?  Trace had had a lot of time to think over the centuries.  Kagome talked at him, and he had pretended to ignore her, but he listened.  She was a wise woman, even if she was married to that insufferable youkai.  If things had been different, it could have been him to build a life with another, consciously in the world and not hidden from it.  But he had spent his entire lifetime being alone, until Megumi.  He had become bitter, and in his bitterness, more human than he would ever have thought possible.  It bound him, even now.

Furiously, he tried again to leave the crowded city, not caring if the unobservant crowds noticed him disappearing.  Again, the only path open to him was back to the cave where Fenn waited, smug and superior, to see him fail.  He refused.

Wait.  There was another path.  Trace saw it now, on the periphery of his senses.  He could go home, to the place where he had been spawned, the place where Fenn had ignored and forgotten him, and once, nearly killed him; the place where Inuyasha, eons later, had presumed to settle and call his own.  Thought and action became one.  Trace went in between, and found himself in a swamp in the middle of a dense forest, with little energy to steal, but peace from the noisy city, and peace from his own muddled thoughts.  He sank into the marshy water, abandoning form, which was all he could do.  His excess energy swirled around him, but he let it go, a little envious as swirls of his energy took form of their own, grotesque things, all teeth and eyes and tail, made for one purpose only:  to absorb more energy.  He let himself spread out over the water and, voiceless, he sighed.  Home.

Eventually, hunger drove him from the swamp.  He caught up his own excess energy, mindless youkai all too ready to do his bidding.  His bidding at the moment was to feed himself.  He absorbed the creatures back into himself almost absently.  While he bided in the swamp, his creatures had been busy absorbing small life on their own from the surrounding forest, and he savored the extra energy, looking forward to finding more where that came from.  His years in captivity had made him frugal with the energy he had, and even Fenn’s generous gift, and the excess he had acquired in the city,  weren’t enough to change his habits.  So he still wore the jeans and the shirt, and the jacket, conjured with little expenditure when he regained form as he rose from the swamp.  His brows drew together in a frown.  Why had Fenn given him so much energy, and set him loose on the world?  Was this a test?

Trace had no intention of taking part in any of Fenn’s games.  He was free, and he intended to stay that way.  It was too soon to even think about revenge, but the thought hovered just on the edge of his mind.  He had a score to settle, or two, or three, with Inuyasha and his brood.  Later.  When he had recovered his abilities.  For now, Trace walked through the lightening woods, relishing the way leaves curled and dried at his slightest touch.  Around him, youkai sprang into being, his own.  He let them be.  He could sense other youkai in the area, too.  Some belonged to Fenn.  They had that signature.  Some were still no more than his own, mindless youkai, feeding machines, but some were more than that, with arms and legs and substance in the real world.  Fenn, he thought,  What have you been doing?  Our kind were never meant to walk the earth like this.  Yet he had.  Against all odds, Trace had survived to walk the earth in human form.  Why shouldn’t these little youkai have the same chance?  He let them be, striding onwards.

Inuyasha’s minions had infiltrated these woods in the centuries Trace had been imprisoned.  He remembered before that day, when he still had some power over time, he had fought Inuyasha both in this land and in ancient Japan.  Inuyasha had not known what to make of him, and he might have won if Fenn had not intervened.  Fenn taught Inuyasha’s children how to walk through time and space.  Fenn told Inuyasha what Trace was, who Trace was, giving him the edge he’d needed to defeat Trace.  If not for Fenn, Trace might have won.  Youkai and human would be separated forever.  And he still would have lost Megumi.

Deflated, Trace glanced around the suddenly lively woods.  He sensed kitsune, and other creatures who had once been part and parcel of the land, and who now walked it in material form all thanks to Inuyasha and his descendants.  Trace would have lost Megumi no matter what happened.  He had resigned himself to that years ago, when he pretended that Megumi meant nothing to him all those times she came to minister to him in the cave.  In a way, it was better that Megumi was far away in Japan.  Trace had already decided he would not go back.  Fenn could sink or swim on his own.

What would he do, now that he was free?  His ability to travel in between was severely limited.  He noted that several of Fenn’s cast-off creations could still do it.  He watched them flit in and out of existence.  But he would not lower himself to follow their lead.  He would figure it out on his own, in time.  Time.  Trace laughed hollowly.  He was as trapped within time as any mortal.

As a mortal, he wandered the woods, avoiding youkai, taking his energy from the plants and animals he passed.  He had a destination in mind.  All his thoughts through the years of his captivity had been of Inuyasha and his half-human, half-youkai family.  He envied them, he dreamed of them, he hated them.  He didn’t know what to expect when he came to Inuyasha’s house on the mountaintop.  There was a barrier around it which prevented him from approaching further than the edge of the lawn.  He let himself fade into invisibility, the only trick left to him still, and settled himself to watch.  It would be interesting to see who came and who went these days.  If he was bent on revenge, it would be worth his while to get to know his enemy.  If he was bent on revenge.

Trace slept.  Youkai didn’t sleep, but perhaps Trace wasn’t fully youkai anymore.  The more human he seemed, the more human he had become, until now, he couldn’t fully escape it.  He rubbed his eyes, no longer insubstantial, and knew without looking that he had reverted to his favored form, his only form, it seemed.  There was activity up at the house.  Trace straightened, watching.  One person, only one, danced tantalizingly in front of the large windows, which were open to the evening breezes and blasting sound, music.  It was a woman, he could see that much.  Youkai, certainly.  Or hanyou.  The lights illuminated her from within.  She looked like nothing in nature, yet everything natural, with wisps of brightly colored cloth whirling around her, doing nothing to hide her slim legs, which were bare.  Her hair, unbound, swirled around as she threw her head back and forth, dancing to the music.  Was that music?  It was mostly drums, and screeching.  If she was youkai, he didn’t understand how her ears could take it.

The music ended abruptly and the woman halted, breathless, facing outward.  Trace started, and involuntarily moved forward.  “Megumi.”  The words spilled from his mouth without his being aware.  He moved without thinking, and the barrier threw up sparks and threw Trace backwards, into the dark.

He didn’t see the woman in the window stiffen in sudden recognition.  He didn’t see her disappear.  But when she popped into existence right next to him, cradling his head in her lap, he gazed up at her in wonder.  “Megumi?  How is it you are here?”

Megumi laughed, with tears streaming down her face.  “Am I dreaming?” she asked him.  “Is it really you, Trace?  How can you be here?”

They both realized at the exact same time.  “Fenn,” they said together.  Fenn’s reasons were his own, and tomorrow, Trace would worry about what it all meant.  He had learned his lessons about time too well, however.  He was not going to waste this moment, as it might be the only one they both had together.

He reached up and pulled Megumi tightly to him.  “Megumi,” he murmured into her hair.  Then he kissed her.
Converting /tmp/phpEMbKPd to /dev/stdout