InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Inevitable ❯ Visitation ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer: I'm too tired to think up something interesting here. I do not own Inuyasha, etc. etc.

 

Author's Note: To all those people with squeamish stomachs and/or minds, this chapter contains slightly gory scenes.

 

And also, I can't forget to thank my wonderful beta, Wendy, and her keen eyes.

 

 

Inevitable

 

Chapter 16

Visitation

 

 

If I look back now, I cannot quite picture his face the way it was before the sickness ate it away - no matter how I try. I see it only fleetingly in the corner of my eyes, a flash of something I once knew, and have not quite forgotten.

 

Though he was technically much older, he would appear to be only about five or six years of age.

 

I had been in the Sengoku Jidai four days already, and only then on that fourth day had I finally been able to do what I had intended from the first.

 

When I met Kaede-obasan at the doorway she looked startled, her old and dim eye widening and taking in my…state. I hadn't really taken note of it before, but under her shocked gaze I remember that I was wearing nothing but a robe. The wind seemed to take that opportune moment to send a draft up my legs.

 

I shivered. “Good morning, Kaede-obasan.”

 

“Kagome,” she said simply, the brief surprise I'd caused her to suffer gone, her old feathers back in their unruffled place. Her voice sounded like a wind that whistled through forgotten places.

 

“I…is he…?” I did not have to produce a grammatically correct sentence for the old woman to know why I was there.

 

She appeared to be considering whether to answer me or not, which confused and frustrated me greatly. I'd had enough of people's strange looks, and I'd wanted to see Shippou-chan and saw no reason to be kept standing outside, freezing my toes off with nothing but what might have been considered sixteenth century lingerie on.

 

Kaede-obasan made a jerky nod in the direction of the doorway, before she began ambling past me, limping and leaning heavily on her staff.

 

“Kaede-obasan…?” I whispered, just as she walked past me. She went on a few more steps before stopping and turning to face me. I sighed, heavily, and drew the robe about myself even tighter. For a moment, I almost thought she would say something, but she only stared at me for a long time, long enough for me to curl my toes in the damp grass - had it rained? - and wish for her to hurry up her response.

 

It was not much of a reply. In fact, I wouldn't even call it that. She just…looked at me, watched me with what looked like regret. And then she turned around and walked away, moving slowly and appearing frail despite her bulk. The wind was not strong, but I found myself almost fearing she would be blown away.

 

I stood by the hut watching her, until my feet screamed at me in their metaphorical way and I looked away quickly, dashing into the hut.

 

Kaede-obasan's was not much in the way of housing, but over the years we'd managed to make an addition of one room, intended mainly for the purpose of putting her patients somewhere dry and clean.

 

There was only one patient in that room now.

 

Fearfully, I opened the shoji, the image of Kaede-obasan's regretful and closed face hovering in the back of my mind, and I temporarily wondered if her strange expression had been because of - I cut off that thought as quickly as I had thought it up. I pulled open the screen door, and stepped to the centre of the doorway.

 

He was lying at the far side of the room, a window to my left and right filling the room with a dim light. The sky was overcast. It must have rained.

 

I stood there, my breath hitching, waiting, and when I saw his head weakly turn towards me, I nearly gasped with relief.

 

Smiling, I stepped into the room and shut the door behind me. I walked over to him slowly, my feet leaving faint footprints behind. When I reached him, I looked down at him and tried to give him my brightest smile, succeeding in getting his own little smile in return. I lowered myself to a crouch, and eased my legs from under me. I had only begun to realize how very cold my feet were. I scrunched my toes up and brought my feet beneath me in a cross-legged position, the cold, damp soles of my feet sending goose bumps along the soft flesh of my thighs.

 

“Kago…me…” he breathed, a barely audible exhalation. You could hear death walk closer with his every breath. He was already in the room, and frightened, I glanced out of the corner of my eye, feeling his shadow looming somewhere near.

 

The sensation of a cold hand touching my own startled me to the point that I actually yelped, but whipping my head back to him, I realized that it had been his own.

 

“Oh…I'm sorry, Shippou-chan,” I apologized. I tried to laugh. “You gave me a little fright.”

 

He smiled, slightly, his pale lips pulling back to show his little canines. His tongue looked strange and limp in his mouth, his chest rising and falling with the small, raspy gasps he took. I smiled again, knowing that I looked like I was going to cry, and brought my hand to rest upon his cheek, his skin cold and slightly damp to the touch, his cheekbone prominent against my palm.

 

The only thing about him that seemed to hold any colour was his hair, still a bright and flaming orange, in contrast to his near-white skin, despite his ever increasing lack of it. Hesitantly, I pulled back the blanket, folding it over softly so that I could examine his middle.

 

Save for the loincloth he wore, he was naked. The only other thing next to clothing was the white bandage that covered most of his torso, his ribs so visible that if you merely glanced at him, you would at first think they were not even covered in flesh.

 

That he was still alive was astounding; any human or normal creature would have died in less than an hour after being impaled in such a way. When it had happened I had thought that he would die. I'd run up to his bloody body, screaming and sobbing and trying to stop the blood with my shirt, trying to hold him down at the same time as he writhed and wailed, making the most horrible noises that had me waking in my sleep for the next month.

 

I'd been too distracted by Shippou-chan to pay attention to anything else; I was too focused on trying to stop the blood - oh god, the blood - and keep him conscious that I didn't even notice the screams of the others, of the countless others that had died there on the field below. Oh yes, it hadn't been just us that had gained victory in the end - we weren't the victorious four, let me tell you.

 

The people that had fought with us were no warriors; no great samurai like Hiroshi-san fought to bring about Naraku's demise. An army of peasant warriors, sent by some daimyo that had been given the orders by some higher up man who, no doubt, had no time to deal with such a disturbance. I'm sure none of the great daimyo of the time ever gave Naraku more than a second glance. He was just a troublemaker that had only been made into a horror by superstitious peasants. So they dispatched a small and inexperienced army - if you could even call it that - of men who were scared shitless but had too much honour to disgrace their nameless families by deserting.

 

I, by the orders of none other than you know who, had been stationed far enough away from the battle so that I would be in no immediate danger, but close enough so that I would not be left feeling completely useless.

 

To be honest, I was secretly glad, despite my vocal protests, to be left where I was, with the few peasant archers on the hill.

 

Never in my life had I been as scared as I had been that day. That it would begin and end somehow was inevitable, but the morning of the preordained battle I'd been ready to piss myself. When it began for real, I found myself feeling strangely calm - detached. It was simply an act of concentration and repetition: nock, pull back, release.

 

But then, of course, Shippou-chan had gotten in the way. Sometimes, I still find myself wondering if I am secretly glad that he sacrificed himself or not. I still cannot bear to bring myself to a conclusion.

 

But there I'd been, suddenly oblivious to all the fighting that went on below, desperately trying to keep my friend alive, gripping him and holding him against my chest with only my bra and pants on. I'd had my shirt wrapped around his middle, pressing down on the wound with both hands, beyond crying at that point, and trying to ignore the feel of his blood all over me.

 

He himself had barely been conscious, blubbering nonsensical things and coughing blood all over himself and me. When he eventually passed out I mistook his loss of consciousness for death, and began screaming and crying so loudly that I have to look back and be shocked that I didn't draw enough attention to myself to have been killed.

 

I'd scrambled out from under him, careless and abruptly crazed. I'd ripped my shirt free, not noticing the flesh that had come away with it, and tried to mop up the area around the wound with the already soaked garment. The bleeding, by that time, had slowed, which heightened my hysteria even more. It had taken me minutes to bring myself to a level of, not exactly calm, but at least of relative sense. Examining the wound, I was eased slightly to realize that it was not as large as its initial impression had been. Its circumference was slightly smaller than the size of my fist, but from it came one of the most acrid smells that caused me to vomit. I wondered later why I had not taken notice of it before.

 

On closer examination I saw that the surrounding flesh was burnt, red and raw. I touched it, and snatched my hand away in horror, immediately wiping it on the ground and crying again, the burnt piece of flesh smearing on the grass. It reminded me of those gory Vietnam War films. But by then I had at least managed to calm down and realize that Shippou-chan was indeed still alive, if only barely. There had been nothing for me to do, and even with the battle still raging on below us, I dared not move him for fear of making his condition worse.

 

I was able to garner the help of one of the archers, and he gave me his shirt which I used to - very tentatively - mop up the area around the wound.

 

It was around this time that it happened.

 

The man - whose name I do not know, or ever knew for that matter - was about to lift Shippou-chan up in order for me to try and bandage the wound (I'd sent him off to get my little first-aid kit) when I abruptly yelled at him to stop.

 

He did, obviously, and then his mouth fell open as he saw the reason for my outburst.

 

I have never ceased to be amazed by the resilience my dear friend showed that day. I cannot deny that his youkai blood was the reason, but I still think back and feel that there was something on his part, his will to live, that extended his life as long as it was.

 

It took twenty minutes at least, but both that middle-aged peasant and I watched Shippou's wound heal itself, the skin miraculously growing back and sealing the wound closed. However, it did nothing for the burns, and when he awoke days later, Shippou-chan had coughed up more blood. It would be a week more before he would even stand again.

 

For a time, we had almost believed he'd make it. He'd shown signs of recovery; he could stand on his feet - if only for a few seconds before help was needed - and he'd been able to eat, even if he could only digest liquids - though he would always throw up much of it later. I had deluded myself into thinking he would get better.

 

He had been starving, slowly, due to the fact that he could still digest a very little, but less than a month after the battle he began to cough up blood again, and he could no longer keep himself on his feet - even with something to hold onto. He became bedridden and began to lose hair. We all knew that Naraku's poison was eating him away from the inside, very slowly from the way he continued to hold on, and all of us were powerless to stop it.

 

As I sat by him, I watched him simply lie there - that a feat in itself. His eyes were closed and his breathing relatively steady. I tried to focus on re-bandaging the wound as I had started to earlier. When I had finished, I'd taken the cloth and bowl of water that was always set at the head of the futon, and dipped the cloth in the water, gently wiping it along his parched lips.

 

I did that for a long time, and sometimes his eyes would flicker open and look at me, and I'd smile.

 

It was during one of these short moments that the shoji behind me was flung open.

 

I can only remember thinking how tired I was of all the interruptions I'd had to suffer that day.