InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Leiko ❯ Dream of Demise ( Chapter 26 )

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dream of Demise

 

Leiko moved through the forest. She had finally stopped moving so fast. Her whole body wanted to fall to the ground and stop feeling. Darkness had snuck up on her. Leiko swipped at a low-hanging branch. Why did they have to stop and sleep? Her sister need her more at this moment.

As she came into a clearing, the dog hanyou stopped. Her heart was heavy, but her guilt was so much heavier. It was all her fault that Akira was ill and there was only one way to fix it. The light from the moon high over head lite up a hot spring to the far left of the clearing. Leiko stripped off her clothes and jumped in. The warm water covered her body.

Leiko moved through the steaming liquid and let it clean all filth away. It had been nearly two months since she'd turned into a hanyou and fallen into the well. Two months of bloody fights and so much killing. The Shikon no Tama floated up in front of her face and she clutched it tightly. She would be strong. Leiko shot out of the water and moved back to the shore of the spring.

She climbed out of the soothing water, falling onto the sweet grass. As she lay there, naked, Leiko swallowed back her tears. Akira was being strong. Leiko needed to be strong as well and she needed to be stronger for the her little sister. She rose to her hands and knees, gulping down lungfuls of air. It was time to stop being so childish and be the stong person she had forced herself to be so many times before.

After pulling on her clothes, the hanyou returned to camp. The others were sleeping. Yamainu had taken off his jacket and laid it beside him so she could have something to cover with when she returned. Leiko smiled at the sleeping youkai. She quietly moved through the sleeping bodies and lay down beside Yamainu. As she cover herself with his jacket, Yamainu wrapped an arm around her.

"Sleep well, my youkai." she whispered and nuzzled his neck.

Yamainu kissed her forehead and they fell asleep.

 

***

 

Leiko knelt in the middle of the floor in Akira's room. Toys lay skattered all over the floor and the curtains were torn. The light was off, but the setting sun revealed the wreckage that had once been her little sister's room. Tears burned Leiko's eyes as she knelt there.

She had been too late to save her little sister. Kagome stood in the doorway watching Leiko. She had known that her oldest daughter would take the death of her sister very hard.

The scene shifted and Leiko saw her sister's pale face and the lid of a small black coffin closing. She ran towards it but no matter how much she tried to reach it, the coffin never got any closer to her. They lowered it into the open wound in the earth and it vanished.

"She's alive!" Leiko screamed. "Do you hear me?! My little sister's alive!"

 

***

 

"Leiko, wake up!" Yamainu shouted, shaking her.

The dog hanyou woke with a start and stared up into the worried brown eyes of the wolf youkai. Leiko was shaking and tears were running down her checks. Yamainu pulled her close to him. The others had heard her screaming in her sleep but had decided not to move. As Yamianu calmed her, they all began to understand Leiko's plight a little better.

As Leiko forced herself to sleep, a frightening thought crossed her troubled mind. What if she failed to find the fourth Soul in time? What would she do without her little sister?