InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Kiyou Nitsuite Amedare: Ten, Tentou, ken Touhou ❯ Juusan Bundan ( Chapter 13 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A/n:

Monykkka: Awww, ty. I hope you had wonderful holidays. Forgive me for the long wait.

TriNeyce: This is truly a story I decided to write for my own entertainment. It doesn't have a very large following, say like Silence the Fairytale. Funny, I feel that story pales in comparison to this one. As many of my others. This has got to be my favorite story, right alongside Sleep Paralysis. I just love pouring so much into Kagome/Kikyou. It's so wonderful. Thank you for finding this. *cries* And when I did some research recently, I found out that Geisha did not engage in any sexual activities at all. I thought they were high class courtesans, and did not give themselves out like prositutes, but even that was wrong. They are strictly, strictly entertainers. Memoirs of a Geisha was wrong. Bah, humbug.

Juusan Bundan

Sweet words were always a way to get ears to open, and money to flow like the river. Obaa-san had called upon the gaijin who had purchased me, who paid for me to stay in the Okiya. She had a sly tongue like a serpent, whispering sweet things of riches by me, causing the stars to sparkle in his eyes.

The arrangement was easy.

He would pay for my schooling. The Okiya would provide everything while I was to be a Maiko, and up until the selling of my mizuage. I was to attend to the Geisha of the Okiya with much more attentiveness, along with Sango-chan. They said I must listen to the Geisha, but that my first loyalty was to the Okiya which housed me.

If my mizuage was to sell for more than what the gaijin was to pay, the profits would be split evenly among Obaa-san and he. If not, he would sell me into prostitution like originally planned and reap profit there.

If things were favorable for Obaa-san, the profits after would be split unevenly in ratio of 70-30 because 'Obaa-san must pay for the expensive kimono that would be on my back, and the makeup that adorned my precious face'.

Nevermind the fact the Okiya already owned everything I was to have, but of course, the gaijin did not know that.

It was a ruse, and either way Obaa-san would not loose out.

She could only win.

"Stand up straight, half-breed! It is unseemly for a young lady to slouch. You must be delicate, not like the country filth you were raised as!" Obaa-san snapped at me, striking me in the tailbone to make me straighten.

Even thought I already had nice posture, of that I was sure.

I observed every little thing I did for the very reason of getting struck.

"You are never to be late to school. You must learn to dance, to be graceful and elegant. When you have learned to do so, you shall become a Maiko. Until then, do your best, and work hard."

I listened to her, for the first time, with pleasure.

I wished to be fluid, and light. I prayed that I might be like a breeze, move like water.

My days were of strange routine... breakfast, change into my yukata, school, dance, return to the okiya, chores, dinner, chores, Geisha, chores, dance, Geisha, bed.

Day in and day out, a constant cycle of dance and chores and spoiled Geisha... all except for Kaede, who never once said an unkind word to either Sango-chan or I.

Sango-chan... we worked together to perform, following each other's footsteps, building strength for one another. If one faltered, the other corrected, and it was in the this way we became a perfect balance and achieved much more than Obaa-san could have ever dreamed we may.

Those days seemed to pass endlessly, like a dream almost. Every night I reminded myself, this was for my Okaa-san. For Inuyasha.

To prove my worth.

To prove I was not weak.

But upon finding out about my true heritage, my heart had closed in on itself a bit further, defining myself as Kikyou all the more.

It was not what I wanted to be, but it was not the hateful creature I was afraid before I may have become.

The seasons fell away, quietly, like a hazy dream I could not pull myself from. Often, I found myself reminded of my Otou-san, while I danced... he, dancing in his own way, and I could almost recall the way the sun glinted off the steel of his katana.

'A katana holds the soul of the man who wields it, Kagome. In this way, he must treat it with honor and respect, for if he sullies the blade he sullies himself.'

And what was to be my katana? The fans in my hand? The shakuhachi I had become fond of?

I had heard it one day while passing along the streets...

And there sat a Geisha, in the midst of a summer morning, the smell of white plum blossom fragrant in the air.

She was adorn in colorful kimono, her lips delicately painted red and her eyes accentuated with charcol. Her hair was done upward, and she had beautiful combs and hair ornaments to hold it in place.

She was beautiful... her elbows out gracefully as she held the shakuhachi and let out a sorrowful tune that sang to my soul. I remember closing my eyes, drawing it inside myself, making that song solely my own. I imprinted those notes onto me like they were my own thoughts.

"Kikyou-chan, let's go!"

Sango pulled me from that place, reminding me we were going to be late for school.

But that day... that day I had decided what I wanted to do.

In this way, two full years passed...

It was as if it were a smooth stream in comparison to the tumultuous ocean that had once been my life. It seemed time had frozen, and I with it, remaining unchanged throughout the seasons.

And even when my body changed, my mind did not.

And it was the summer of the twelfth year that finally did I change.

Finally did I have some time to myself, a rare gift in those days.

I had been out in the courtyard, finished with my midday chores, practicing my dance once more to the music of my mind, replaying the bamboo flute of that day there.

My soul lifted from my fingertips, moving along with me, expressing things I could not aloud.

And I was happy.

I was happy I could speak in this way when before I could not, and still could not.

And I was appreciative I had learned to dance.

Obaa-san napped in her room above, another one of her ailments draining her of her strength, and all of those in the okiya counted the days until the passing.

We were sure it would be soon, and I for one felt grateful.

She had been a ghost that had haunted me, day in and day out, and though it may have been cruel to feel grateful for such... it was truly a relief.

The Geisha of the house were out, attending summer parties, and Sango-chan had gone with on errands that day. The only one left in the house was Nigou-san...

And she sat on the edge of the house, concentrating on some task that I had no awareness of.

So far was I into my own world to care.

Though, I happened to notice the way she would glance at me, watching me as if in fascination...

Over the course of the seasons, she and I had come to be closer in an unspoken way. She mentored me in the shadows, through riddles that were impossible to define.

I knew, in my heart, she wished for me to succeed at all things.

She wished for me to reach past my sadness, and past the sky... to know there was no horizon for me.

She had told me this one day, before I had gone to my room after I had tended to the last Geisha of the house... it was breaking on dawn, and I had only time enough to get an hour's sleep.

But I knew, it was better than nothing.

And though she watched, and understood what my heart was speaking through my motions, she did not say anything. And I did not feel shy in her prescence.

For she had come to be the only one to understand my language.

And I intended it to be only that way.

And that summer day... was when I felt my heart truly beat for the first time since I had lost my mother.

And it was, truly, the most sorrowful thing I had experienced in my life up to that moment in time.

For it was then, I was no longer separate from Kikyou.

And for some reason, I felt as if she were smiling at me, mocking me for my misery.

But I refused... I refused to think I was unworthy.

For I had been accepted by a kind man who had given me a kotodama rosary, the first gift I had ever truly received.

Glossary:

Shakuhachi: Bamboo flute