InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 23 ( Chapter 23 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 23:

 

 

“Mayumi, wake up!” A rough arm shook me and I blinked groggily. Daichi was gone and a stranger stood over my bed. My eyes popped wide open. A stranger with no scent!

 

“Where's Daichi?” I demanded, shrugging off my covers and getting to my feet, heedless of my relative state of undress. I swayed, suddenly dizzy.

 

The stranger grinned. “Follow me,” he instructed. Then he disappeared. I followed him in-between, anxious to find out what he'd done to Daichi. But I recognized the path he took and immediately turned back. He wasn't going to trick me that easily. He'd been trying to lead me home, to my time.

 

He popped back just after I did, this time looking like the smug youkai Trace, whom I'd known him to be all along.

 

“What did you do to my husband?” I grabbed Trace by the front of his shirt, surprised when my hands actually connected.

 

“Relax. He's out hunting with his father,” Trace said, not even attempting to dislodge my grip. Suddenly very conscious that I stood before him in nothing but my sleeping shift, I let go and turned away, shrugging into my everyday kimono. Let him kill me while my back was turned, I thought angrily. At least I'd be dressed!

 

Trace laughed out loud at my thought. “If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be long dead,” he said. “Your husband tried to wake you, to tell you he was going, but you didn't stir,” he continued, relishing the telling. “Care to guess why?”

 

“You?” Trace must have sapped me of my energy as I slept.

 

He nodded, quite happy with himself. “I had to get him to leave without you. Would you rather I had stolen his energy?”

 

No. Trace had done that once before, in a show of his power. He wanted me to know he could drain the energy from any one of us without our knowledge or consent, even unto the point of death. “No,” I muttered, eying him defiantly. “What do you want?”

 

“Follow me,” he said simply, again.

 

I dug in my heels. “Not there,” I told him, and he laughed.

 

“Not there,” he agreed. “But it was worth a try.” He winked out, and I followed him, determined not to follow him forward to my original time or backward to Grandfather's time. He could stay in this time if he wanted to talk to me so badly.

 

To my surprise, he led us to my summer place, or rather, outside of the cave that was near it. I didn't realize he knew about my secret place, but obviously he did.

 

“Open it,” he demanded, waving his had across the entrance which was blocked by my mother's barrier.

 

“I can't,” I told him truthfully. It was set to my family, and my family only. Only Mama had the power to change it.

 

He read that from my thoughts, and scowled. I guess he didn't like being thwarted. Tough. Nice to know there were some things he had no power over.

 

“Don't count on it,” he warned me, stomping back through the woods to my summer house. I sighed, and followed him the mundane way, catching myself a bit of breakfast on the way. I was still tired from what he had done to me. I didn't offer him any.

 

He rounded on me when I caught up to him. “What are you hiding in that cave?” he asked angrily.

 

“Nothing,” I replied, but it was clear from the expression on his face that he didn't believe me. At that moment, I realized something important. He couldn't read everything in my mind. I decided to test my theory. I thought of my shampoos, and the camera I kept hidden there, and the occasional treats from my time which my mother thoughtfully stocked for me. Trace's lips twisted in contempt that I would be dependent on such things. I wasn't really. They were just nice to have. I let him read that, too.

 

He barked out a short laugh. “If you miss your world so much why don't you go back?” he asked derisively.

 

“Why don't you?” I countered, and I let him `see' a certain jewel in the forefront of my mind, quickly hidden, as if I were trying to keep it a secret from him.

 

It was a ruse. There was no jewel, not any longer, but Trace expected a big secret in that cave, so I gave one to him. Sorry, Mama. I wasn't sure what he already knew or didn't know, but maybe it was not as much as we all thought. Maybe he could only read surface thoughts and not much else.

 

I had to be careful now, and not give away the game I was playing. Trace's eyes lit up as he stumbled across my stray thought of the legendary jewel.

 

“So that's it,” he said. “I knew none of you had that kind of power on your own. Fenn was a fool for showing you how to move through time.”

 

My eyes must have widened in surprise, because he hesitated, as if he were looking at something in my head. I'd begun to think, `But Fenn didn't—` when I clamped down on my own thoughts.

 

“Fenn didn't what?” he asked me suspiciously.

 

I didn't know how much Trace really knew about my parents' history. He must know about Tetsusaiga by now, that Papa relied on his sword to traverse time. So I let him read that much.

 

“You think I don't know all about Inuyasha's famed Tetsusaiga?” he sneered. “Who do you think followed him through the well and made sure he could never get back?”

 

Trace made it sound like he had lured Papa into the well, instead of the other way around. I didn't let on that I knew, however, and thought questions at Trace instead. It worked, stoking his ego so that he answered my unspoken questions instead of delving further into my thoughts. Papa was going to go ballistic when I told him that Trace was the same youkai he fought back then.

 

“I didn't know the sword would absorb the power of time travel,” he admitted, fixing me with a glare as if it was all my fault. “Inuyasha thought he'd killed me, and instead I left him there, trapped in between time, until somehow his sword freed him. That was my first attempt to stop the meddling your family caused with your time travel. You and your brothers can see the paths, yet you are all hanyou. How else would you be able to do that if not because of Fenn?”

 

It wasn't Fenn who had taught Kazuki how to walk through time. It was his creatures, the lesser youkai who formed from the excess energy Fenn cast off.

 

Trace slammed his fist down hard on the ground, sending up a shower of dirt and pebbles. “Impossible!” he shouted. “Fenn doesn't care about his cast-offs!”

 

I shrugged. “I don't understand, then,” I said.

 

“You all think Fenn is some benign youkai, but he is one of the oldest, most powerful youkai on this earth. He created me and countless others in his voracious feeding frenzies, but he never cared about us. Most of his cast-offs never formed enough of a consciousness to survive on their own, and eventually died off.

 

“But you didn't,” I guessed, seeing where this was going.

 

“No, I survived. I'm nearly as strong as Fenn now. I cannot die.”

 

I shook my head. I knew better. Everything died. Even youkai could die.

 

“Not me,” Trace insisted. “I am pure youkai. I have no substance and therefore I cannot be killed. I can just re-form this body of flesh that your kind seem to love so well.”

 

My kind? Was he talking about humans or youkai?

 

“Both,” he answered, although I had not spoken aloud. “You youkai have become corrupted by your need for form and substance. Youkai who treat with humans are no longer pure.”

 

I felt a twinge of guilt at Trace's words. Hadn't I thought those very things once or twice? I tended to associate myself with my youkai heritage and downplay my human side.

 

“Your family is even worse,” he continued, dragging my attention back to his words. “You have become human and corrupted your youkai nature even more. Worst of all, you spread your contagion wherever you go, across time and across the entire world.”

 

I frowned, forgetting in my anger to shield my thoughts. I might disparage my human heritage but I'd be damned if I let anyone else do it! “Just what is your problem?” I yelled at him.

 

Trace smiled bitterly. “You are my problem,” he said. “You, who are weak and corrupted, have more power than should be possible. Fenn was a heartless creator, but that's how youkai should be. Those of us who formed from Fenn expected no mercy from him. He alone had the power to reabsorb our energy forms, and he did so whenever one of us got too close. He didn't even notice us when he sucked the life back out of us. When I began to have conscious thought, I distanced myself from my creator, but I modeled myself after him. I was ruthless, and fed on life of all kinds, youkai and human included. I don't know how long I existed like this. The world was my playground and nothing was barred from me. When I felt I was strong enough, I tested myself against my creator. I lost. Fenn drained my power almost to the point of non-existence, and I took refuge in substance, leaving the bones of the beast I imitated as petrified stone in the middle of the swamp that became my grave.”

 

I couldn't help it—my mind immediately went to Midoriko's stone-like remains in the cave near the slayer village. Trace's eyes narrowed, and I knew he had caught my thought, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he continued his story.

 

“There was enough of me left to regenerate from the dark energy of the swamp. I was hurt, but I felt triumphant. Even my creator no longer had the power to kill me! From then on, I watched my creator, the one who calls himself Fenn and pretends to be mortal and caring. He's not mortal, and he never cared for anything but himself.”

 

That wasn't true. I kept my thoughts carefully hidden, but I knew that Fenn cared about his little youkai, whom I'd grown up with. Had Fenn changed over time from the creature Trace made him out to be, or had we changed him just by being ourselves?

 

“When Inuyasha first came to our land, he wakened hungers in many of us that had not been felt in ages,” Trace continued. “Hungers for form and hungers for mortality. Don't be fooled into believing that all youkai are immortal. Only our spirits are truly immortal. By placing the chains of physical being on pure spirit, you condemn them to a slow death.”

 

That surely wasn't true! Papa learned to assume spirit form. Hopefully one day I would be able to do it, too. We could choose. We could have the best of both worlds, and enjoy the blessings of a physical body and still live near enough to forever that it wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't imagine not touching, not loving, not tasting all that the physical world had to offer. Without that, what was the point?

 

Trace was still talking. He was so caught up in his own utterances that he hadn't been paying much attention to my lapses of thought. I needed to keep focused and stop letting my thoughts go off on tangents of their own.

 

“So I followed Inuyasha to see what all the fuss was about. He took a human woman to his bed, and Fenn thought that was just wonderful.”

 

Trace actually sounded bitter! Was he jealous of the attention his creator had paid to my father? Was that what this was all about? I schooled my face and thought about other things.

 

“He took that woman back to Japan, and I followed them there. It was in Japan that I found out Inuyasha did not even belong in the present time, and I listened when he explained to the other youkai about the time portal hidden in the old well. I, of course, did not need such a device to move through time, but I was curious as to why this hanyou who associated with full youkai had such a power, while they did not.

 

“When Inuyasha jumped through the well, I was with him though he never knew it.” Trace looked at me, wanting to explain himself. “I needed to follow him the first time to see where he was going.”

 

I understood, having that same power myself. You couldn't go to a place you had never been.

 

“There was another reason I followed Inuyasha that night. His human woman had conceived a child, a child who never should have been born. She and Inuyasha were beings from two different times, two different worlds. I resolved to put an end to this abomination.”

 

I gasped. He was talking about Kazuki as if he were some thing. How dare he judge my parents? I realized Trace had not known my parents' story, and how their love was meant to be, that Mama was the reincarnation of Papa's lost love, how we were wanted, all of us. In my anger, I let my thoughts get carried away.

 

Trace laughed harshly. “Oh, I know,” he assured me. “Kagome and Kikyou, Dai and Daichi, Mayumi and M—“

 

My shocked intake of breath stopped him. “It wasn't until after I followed Inuyasha into the past that I realized how pervasive the problem had become. Humans and youkai were already intermingling. I had to stop Inuyasha from ever returning to the present. Then I could take care of the woman and the brat at my leisure. Without Inuyasha's interference, Fenn would soon lose interest in the woman and things would go back to the way they were.”

 

“So you stole the babies,” I interrupted him. “Daichi and Hiroshi.”

 

“Ah, so you do know the story,” Trace said.

 

“You evil thing!” I ground out through clenched teeth. “How could you?”

 

“As it turned out, I didn't, did I?” Trace replied. “And look what happened. You bred mongrels with the wolf, and one of your get joined with the human who was also `saved' that day, muddying the waters even more.”

 

I was so angry I couldn't see straight. “Why do you even care? How does our being impure, as you put it, even affect you?”

 

“Because you have power!” Trace said. Then his eyes narrowed again as he remembered something I had hoped he wouldn't. “Midoriko,” he said suddenly. “Her bones are in the cave by the slayer village?”

 

He popped out. Damn! I popped out right behind him and reappeared in time to watch him bounce off the powerful barrier that blocked the cave's entrance from any with less than pure intentions in their hearts. Take that, Trace! I thought with grim satisfaction.

 

Trace grabbed my arm. “Who put up the barrier?” he demanded. “Why can't I pass?”

 

“Midoriko did. She was a powerful miko.”

 

“She wasn't that powerful,” Trace argued, and I knew right then that he had gone back in time before specifically to find Midoriko.

 

“Why? Did you try to kill her too?” I asked sarcastically.

 

“Yes, but apparently not hard enough,” Trace murmured. “She's your ancestor, and the legend of the jewel originated with her. I haven't been successful in eradicating your family from the Sengoku Jidai, so I attempted to go back to the source and eliminate Midoriko and take the jewel for myself. She's a canny fighter, that human. She knew me for what I was before I could get close to her. Not like you,” he shot at me. “She doesn't have the jewel yet, so it's no use killing her yet. I can be patient. I'll wait, and in the meantime, I can still hunt you.” Trace's eyes actually twinkled. I think he thought he was being funny.

 

Aha! I thought. So he did know about the jewel of four souls, but not how it was formed! In the past, Midoriko was still alive and not yet entombed in her cave. Yes, Midoriko was my ancestor, through Kohaku. Mama came by her miko powers through both lines.

 

Trace had been listening as my thoughts tumbled all over themselves. “So that's how the jewel was formed,” he said, and he grinned. “So if I go back and lend my not inconsiderable power to the youkai who attacked Midoriko, she will not prevail, but will perish like the weak human she is, the jewel will never form, and your family will cease to exist.”

 

I was careful to hide my true thoughts and instead only let Trace see how frustrated and angry he made me. I was frustrated, and I was angrier than I'd ever been in my life. Trace was a jerk! I let that come through loud and clear. But underneath, I exulted. Trace thought we still had the jewel, that it resided in my little cave, and that it was the ultimate source of my family's power. He had no idea of what the jewel really was, nor that it was gone forever on the wish of a miko as powerful as the one whose lifesblood had formed it all those years ago. He didn't believe that we could hurt him, but he was wrong.

 

Trace gathered his creatures close around him and practically dared me to follow as he winked out. I didn't follow. I knew where he was going and I had no doubt he would fail. For a creature with the ability to transcend time, he hadn't seemed to have gotten it into his head that time was incredibly hard to screw up. And he hadn't taken into account that Midoriko wasn't my only ancestor from that time period.

 

For the first time in a long time, I felt things were finally looking up.