InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Interludes ❯ We Meet ( Chapter 1 )

 

Interludes

By: Fano

 

Chapter 1 - WE MEET

(Vol. 1, Scroll 1: Accursed Youth)

 

Kagome

 

My heart was pumping with fear. Falling through the well was bad enough, but my skin still crawled with the memory of that terrible bug monster. Ew! I was running away from it's corpse as much as I was running with anticipation to the O-Shinboku God Tree, the one recognizable bit of this forest where my home should be.

 

His red haori flashed through the bushes, flickering like funny flower petals in and out of sight. I burst into the clearing and couldn't control my gasp as the red petals coalesced into the boy's limp form pinned to the trunk of the tree, his body slowly being subsumed into the very flesh of the tree, his white hair and red garment glowing in the beams of sunlight that spilled through the leaves above. I stared and looked around, aware that the birds and bugs that had raised a cacophony chorus when I burst out of the well screaming to get away from the monster, were now quiet.

 

What should I do? Prickles of fear rose again in my breast as the strangeness of the place and the thickness of the forest pressed in on me in silence. I had to concentrate on taking a full breath. I looked again at the boy. Could he help me? Would he hurt me? I stepped closer.

 

I gasped again. He had an arrow in his chest! The tree root had grown around the wound, but there was no mistaking the shaft's shallow tail - the tip too deep to have spared his life. Fear rose in me again, bringing with it an empty sadness for this poor boy, maybe a few years older than me, too young to meet such a violent end.

 

As I looked upon him more closely, I realized that something was not right. No one could live with an arrow buried in their heart, and the tree roots must have taken years to ensnare him. But the skin of his face looked fresh and his eyes gently closed as if he had just nodded off for a nap. I squinted to push away tricks of the afternoon light. His face was perfectly sculpted. His features those of a porcelain doll. His expression peaceful. And his snow white hair had little kitty - no, puppy - ears sprouting out of it. He was beautiful. The sadness welled up in me again. He had to be dead.

 

As I put my foot on the tree root to climb towards him, a sleepy little voice in my head murmured, the next step cannot be taken back. At that moment, it was if the sun blinked and I went into a dream. Like a witness outside myself, untouched by fear and unable to control the flow of time around me, I watched my other foot move to meet the hand I placed on the tree to steady myself. I rose shakily on the thin root that wrapped itself around his left ankle, straightening to within inches of his face. While I noticed he was not breathing, my eyes flicked up to those curious ears. Their fine white hair looked so soft, I had to touch them. Guiltily, vaguely wondering if I was desecrating the dead, I raised my hands until my fingers found the soft fur and delicate silky skin. They were cool, but not dead.

 

You have completed the circle, whispered the voice - in my heart this time, and stronger - and I felt a slow ache growing in my right side moments before an arrow whisked by my arm and thudded into the tree, a hair's breath from my hand on his ear. Was I going to die here too? Pinned to this poor boy and my O-Shinboku tree for all eternity?

 

 

InuYasha

 

Darkness shifts against itself.

A change, after no change

For so long.

 

No light, but a sense of light.

No scent, but an echo

familiar.

 

No vision of who I am

Just a question, am I?

Yes, I am.

 

Breath inhaled and not expelled.

Remnants of memory.

Sadness all.

 

 

Kikyo

 

Last breath - gone.

Exhaled for all eternity.

How dare it find me in another?

 

I am dead.

Burned and buried with my sorrow.

Yet stirring now are shadows of life.

 

I hate it.

I will not move or breath again.

For in life resides only hatred.

 

Betrayal.

I have been betrayed. Never more.

He is near. Let me be dead again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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