InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 27 ( Chapter 27 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 27:

 

 

“Mama, quick!” I said urgently as I popped into view. “We don't have much time. Can you take down your barrier?”

 

Quickly I explained my plan to Mama, and she nodded thoughtfully. “That might work,” she agreed, and closed her eyes briefly. “There. It's done.”

 

I felt the tingle as the barrier dissipated, and was glad it was keyed to me, or it would have hurt. Now, if only Trace would cooperate and Papa wouldn't get here too fast. “Shield your thoughts,” I reminded my mother. “Think of how upset you are about Megumi.” That wasn't hard for either of us, because we truly were upset over Megumi. Hopefully, Trace would read that and not delve deeper and discover our planned deception.

 

I was counting on Trace's greed and his anger at being driven off once again by my father to bring him here, to the place where he thought we kept the jewel that would give him ultimate power.

 

“Hurry, hurry—let's get outside,” I urged, but it was too late already. Trace was here. Papa was going to kill me for putting Mama in danger!

 

“Where is it?” Trace ground out, casting fierce glares all around the cave. Over against one wall rested my supply of shampoos, soaps and conditioners, while on the opposite wall hung a paper photo of my modern world family, taken when we kids were little. I had been careful not to use glass or even a frame for future generations to find, unlikely as that would be, given Mama's barrier. But none of us knew how long Mama, a human after all, would live, and it was better to be safe than sorry. It was Mama's idea to keep everything in the cave biodegradable. Even my shampoos were stored in bamboo containers.

 

Trace curled his lips as his eyes rested on the picture. “Where is it?” he rasped again.

 

I stepped in front of Mama, hoping to take his attention away from her. She wasn't part of my plan. I had meant to have her safely away before Trace showed up. Now I had to improvise.

 

Trace noticed my slight movement and his eyes narrowed. “You're the human miko who set the barrier,” he said to my mother, ignoring me. “Why did you remove it?”

 

Mama gulped, and stepped out from behind me to face Trace directly. “That's what you wanted, isn't it?” she asked him. “You wanted the jewel.” Her voice was steady.

 

“Mama,” I murmured, wondering where she was going with this.

 

She stared up at Trace, no fear at all in her expression. “It's over there.”

 

In the corner lay her holo, where she had dropped it when I tried to rush her out of the cave. It glowed softly in the dim light, a tiny spot of brightness against the stone floor. She must not have turned it completely off. Trace made no movement to pick it up, and my heart sank. Trace lived on both sides of time. He probably recognized it for what it was—a gadget from the future.

 

“And you're just giving it to me?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

 

Mama shook her head. “That was your condition, wasn't it? If we give you the jewel, you would leave our family alone? Well, here it is. Take it.”

 

I couldn't believe it. Trace was going for it! Keeping his suspicious gaze locked on my mother's face, he edged closer and closer towards the faint glow of the holo. Now was our chance to escape, so Mama could re-set the barrier with Trace caught on the inside. I reached for Mama's hand, but she slipped away from me and stepped forward again, giving me an apologetic glance as she did so.

 

“Trace!” Mama called sharply to get his attention. Trace stopped in his tracks. “Why do you want it?” she asked.

 

What was Mama doing? We could have gotten away!

 

“Why do you want it?” he countered, sneering slightly. “You want to make yourselves as powerful as true youkai? You think you can replace us with your inferior mixed breeds? You're using the jewel to become something you could never be otherwise. And I'm going to stop you, one way or another.”

 

I took exception to Trace's rant. Who did he think he was calling an `inferior mixed breed?' I felt myself bristle with righteous indignation. Mama placed her hand on my arm, and I realized I had half-drawn my sword. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.

 

“Trace, do you even know what the jewel is?” she asked sadly.

 

“I know all about Midoriko and her battle with the youkai,” Fenn answered loftily. “How she took the power of the youkai she fought and formed it into the jewel within her own body.”

 

Mama shook her head. “It formed from the mixture of human and youkai, of the very best and the very worst of both.”

 

“Mama?” I wasn't sure I understood. Did Mama just say that the jewel was a mix, just like I was? Just like Papa was? Did she agree with Trace?

 

She continued, however. “That's where its power came from—the mix. If you hate it so much, why do you want the jewel?”

 

“I don't want it!” Trace snarled. “I just don't want you to have it! Why should you have all the power?”

 

“What are you afraid of, Trace?” my mother asked gently. “Is it really not having enough power?”

 

“Enough!” he shouted. He turned back towards the fake `jewel' and scooped it up in one swift motion. He frowned. “What's this?” he asked, turning the tiny holo device over in his hands. He activated it somehow, and a three-D image of Megumi as a child danced in front of him. He dropped the holo as if it burned him.

 

“What are you trying to do? Where is the real jewel?” Trace stalked towards my mother.

 

Mama smiled. “There is no jewel,” she replied.

 

I growled and crouched low in front of Mama, ready to protect her if Trace tried anything at all. Just then a commotion at the front of the cave turned Trace's attention away from my mother. He grinned in anticipation. “Ah, Inuyasha is here,” he said. “We'll see how quickly he will give up the jewel in exchange for your lives—unless, your lives aren't worth as much as the jewel's power to him.”

 

Trace disappeared and reappeared between my mother and me, one hand resting on each of our necks. I felt the drain on my power immediately, and Mama sank to her knees. He had gotten to her before she had a chance to defend herself with her miko powers. How had this all gone so wrong?

 

“Inuyasha!” he called, as my father appeared with Tetsusaiga drawn and transformed in front of him. “I can drain them before you can touch me,” he mocked. “If you want to save them, give me the jewel.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” my father asked, swinging the sword despite Trace's threat. He didn't use kaze no kizu or any of his other attacks because of our close proximity. Instead, he just used Tetsusaiga as an ordinary sword and stabbed Trace with it. Papa must have done it without thinking, because Trace had no idea Papa was going to actually attack until he was already hit. Tetsusaiga throbbed as it bit into Trace's skin, and Trace's mouth opened into a wide O of horror as he desperately, but unsuccessfully, tried to pull the sword away from his body. In that moment, I remembered that Tetsusaiga's true nature was a stealer of energy also! Trace crumpled to the ground, as Tetsusaiga pulsed and pulsed. “There is no jewel.”

 

“Inuyasha, stop, you're killing him!” Mama said weakly, struggling to her feet.

 

He glanced down at her, relief and amusement warring in his eyes. “That's the idea,” he agreed.

 

“No, there's a better way!” Mama insisted, tugging on Papa's sword arm. “Mayumi's way.”

 

My way? I looked at my mother in surprise. Did she mean trapping Trace inside the cave? I only intended that as a stop-gap measure until we could figure out how to kill the youkai. Since Dad had figured out how to do that already, I didn't really see the necessity of it now.

 

Trace lay on the floor of the cave, eyes glazed, and I thought about what he had once told me when Fenn had tried to kill him years ago in the swamp. “He's going to pretend he's dead!” I said. “So you'll leave this body alone. But he won't be dead. He'll be able to regenerate by absorbing life essences until he can function again. He said he can't be killed.”

 

“Oh, I don't think so,” Mama said, still a little shaky from Trace's power drain. “He may think he can't be killed, but he hasn't realized how much of his self he has invested in this particular form. He has more to lose than he knows.”

 

Papa's eyes shone. “So I can go ahead and wipe out this body?” he asked a little too eagerly. He didn't like the idea of leaving any piece of Trace behind to regenerate any more than I did.

 

“Inuyasha, if you destroy his body now, who's to say that a spark of the youkai that is Trace's essence won't survive? Mayumi is right about this. Leave his body. Let me seal him into this cave where he will not be able to absorb any more energy. He won't be dead, but he will be weakened so that he will no longer be a threat to anybody.”

 

`Mama, you're a genius!' I thought. As much as I didn't like the idea of any part of Trace being left alive, I had to agree with Mama that knowing he was safely immobilized was better than wondering if we had got all of him! I had to admit, I liked the idea of an eternally weak and suffering Trace. He deserved to suffer after all he had done to our family. Mama's next words knocked the wind right out of me.

 

“Perhaps, some day, Trace will be ready to re-join the world. He deserves that chance.”

 

“Mama!” Papa and I both stared at Mama incredulously. Where did she get her optimism from? I shuddered.

 

In the end, Mama got her way, and she sealed the cave so that Trace could never leave. His sycophant youkai were trapped outside, and for the first few days, most of them burnt themselves out by throwing themselves against what was, to all but our family's eyes, a stone wall. Papa took care of the rest with a well-placed kaze no kizu. It wouldn't do to have stray youkai hanging around the area where we'd trapped Trace. It might generate a few unwanted questions.

 

Koji brought Megumi back a few days later. Fenn had done a good job. She had no memory of Trace, and only vague memories of a male youkai with whom she was temporarily enamored. Koji had deposited her, still in a light trance, deep in the forest where Daichi and his wolves continued to search for her. She woke to her father's anxious voice, I'm told, and could not remember how she had gotten there.

 

The wolf youkai village celebrated Megumi's return with a great feast, although Megumi herself couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. “I'm not a child,” she protested, when we all told her how worried we were that she was lost. She remembered going off to meet a male friend, but for the life of her she couldn't remember his name or what he looked like. The wolf youkai all guessed that she had been attacked by some youkai who had messed with her mind—how right they were—and although we all checked her out very thoroughly, we couldn't find any lasting damage. None of us, including Megumi, had any good opinion of the missing youkai boyfriend, who had let her travel alone. The consensus was that she was better off without him. Wasn't that the truth?

 

I couldn't help myself. I found myself drawn to the cave where we'd trapped Trace. He didn't recover for a very long time; in fact, his body appeared dead as it lay on the cave floor, lit by the glow of Mama's little holo device. I wondered how long the battery would last, but apparently they didn't use batteries like I remembered them. The thing kept glowing.

 

I could see past the deception of Mama's barrier into the cave, but if a stranger had passed by, it would have appeared that I was staring at a big rock. About a year after we had left Trace there, I peered in to see Trace propped against a wall, holding the holo in his hand and slowly, methodically, pressing it as the images appeared one after the other. Me, my brothers, my children, their children. He must have been flipping through the stored images for quite some time. His face held no expression and he didn't appear to notice me as I watched.

 

Something about his viewing my family pictures so intimately bothered me. I turned away and didn't go back for several years. It wasn't as if I could march right in there and take the holo away from him.

 

Megumi completely recovered from her disastrous affair with Trace. She went back to being my baby daughter, no matter her real age. She still roved the heights with the boys, but she shied away from romantic relationships. I hope Trace hadn't scarred her permanently. I still seethed to think that he had made her fall in love with him. Of all the cruel deceptions. . . .