InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mika- the Inu Ookami Hanyou ❯ Inuyasha's Dream ( Chapter 22 )

Inuyasha's Dream

 

Mika struggled to remain upright as the form of Kikyo moved from her field of vision. “This is not good. Not good at all,” Mika thought as she felt the shaft of the arrow in her hand, probing the wound for the arrow head. Quickly realizing that she was going to need assistance, Mika used the remainder of her strength and stretched out her senses to find the essence of her uncle. Faintly, she felt his presence; unfortunately her senses were becoming weaker as the arrows effects continued to purify her body.

 

Gritting her teeth, she moved in his general direction, following a faint path as she jogged slowly toward his retreating essence. As she neared where her senses told her he was, her vision became blurry, causing her to stumble over an exposed tree root. She landed flat on her face, driving her injured shoulder into the ground. A horrific scream of pain roared from her lips into the surrounding forest, reverberating off the trees and flowing into the calm night sky.

 

“Damn it! This really hurts,” her thoughts screamed in her mind as she gingerly lifted her shoulder from the ground. Mika rolled to her uninjured side as she moved her hand to her shoulder, feeling for the arrow. Letting out a sigh of relief, Mika realized that the impact with the ground had shoved the remainder of the arrow through her shoulder to the back side. Mika reached around, realizing too late that by removing the arrow, she had released a torrent of blood. As the blood flowed down her arm, black spots began to appear before her eyes.

 

“Not now! Not this way! I don't have time for this… I've got to… got to… find…Inu…Yasha!” she spoke out loud, losing to blood lose, shock and consciousness. Her head slowly moved to the soft forest floor as her eyes lost focus as a red blur appeared before her and then everything went black.

 

“Mika…Mika!” Inuyasha cried out as he took in the sight of his unconscious niece. As a result of her blood curdling scream, Inuyasha raced to her from a great distance to be by her side. “What happened to you?” he asked the unconscious girl as he took in her human appearance as well as her bloody shoulder. As he bent down to examine the wound, he saw the bloody broken arrow in her hand. “How did this get here?” he thought as he brushed a few strands of black hair from his face.

 

Quickly, Inuyasha picked up the young woman and carried her to a near by stream. He carefully removed her shoulder armor, and took her knife to carefully slice the stitching of the shoulder seam of her top to expose the wound. Seeing the extent of the wound and that it was kept mostly clean by her armor and top, Inuyasha took Mika's knife to his white undershirt, cutting some of the hem into bandages. He worked the unwieldy blade cursing at the New Moon as he cut the strips. Carefully, Inuyasha washed her shoulder, making sure to remove the dried blood and dirt from the area, before applying the make shift bandages to her shoulder. Once he had completed his gruesome task, he took the remaining strips and pulled her injured arm across her chest, tying it into place to prevent any movement of the shoulder while it healed.

 

“There… That should take care of your shoulder. Now I just wish that there was a way to wake you up and find out what happened. I know that you're not really here, Mika, and that this is a dream, but damn it why is it that I always get stuck fixing you up?!” he said to the supine figure before him. As if by magic, Mika began to groan as she slowly regained consciousness.

 

Remembering where she was at, her eyes flew open as she tried to move her body in an upward direction, only to be thrown back to the ground by the pain in her shoulder and the strong hand of Inuyasha. “Who…who are you?” Mika asked between gasps of air as she tried to breath through the waves of pain from her shoulder. Her eyes remained unfocused as she regained consciousness and the figure before her was foreign with long black hair and hard brown eyes. The facial features of the man before her were as blurry as the white shirt he wore, just one extremely blurry figure.

 

“Have I changed that much that you can't recognize me?” Inuyasha scoffed at the girl.

 

Mika, at hearing her uncle's voice knit her eyebrows together in a look of confusion for the blurry image didn't look anything like Inuyasha. She clearly recalled his silver hair and amber eyes, the man before her was an imposter and despite her human body and injured shoulder and back, she was determined to kill the imposter. As she slowly moved onto her uninjured side, keeping her injured shoulder as still as humanly possible, Mika addressed the imposter, “You are NOT my uncle! You may sound like him but you are most defiantly NOT him! You're an imposter sent by Naraku to fool and deceive me. For this you must die!!!” She screamed the last sentence, as her eyes slowly regained focus, taking in more detail of the man before her.

 

Inuyasha, confused at his niece's reaction also regained his footing, to defend himself and protect her from further injury. “Listen to me Mika! If I was an imposter as you believe, than why the Hell would I have fixed up your shoulder?” he said, trying to rationalize with the confused hanyou before him.

 

“Just to gain my trust and then stab me in the back, like Naraku would have you do!” she replied, gaining a little more focus and noticing for the first time the face before her. As she moved her good hand toward her Buck knife's sheath her thoughts focused on the man's face before her, “He looks so much like Inuyasha, even his temper and mannerisms, and yet I just can't get past the features, the black hair… the brown eyes! Am I going mad or is this really my Uncle?” Her thoughts raced as her hand rested on the surprisingly empty sheath. “What the Hell?? Where did my knife go?” she thought, as the brief look of surprise crossed her pained blue eyes.

 

Taking the look as a queue, Inuyasha produced the knife for Mika to see as he held it in front of him by its blade, hilt pointed toward her. “I believe that this is what you're looking for. Since I lose my demon abilities this night, I had to borrow your blade to mend your shoulder. Now do you believe that I'm who I say I am?” Inuyasha asked as he offered the knife to its owner.

 

Mika thought a moment before responding, thinking of a question only the true Inuyasha would know, “What is a Mack Truck?”

 

Taken aback by the bizarre question, Inuyasha huffed before responding. “It's a large vehicle that, according to Kagome, moves large amounts of goods. Now why the stupid question?” he sneered at the woman, wishing that she would take her stupid knife already.

 

Mika relaxed her guard, which she just then realized that she had up, as she moved to take her precious blade. “I knew that only the real Inuyasha would know something about modern items,” she said as she took the hilt of her knife and carefully placed it back in its sheath at her back. Mika looked into her uncle's eyes, seeing the concern in his face and something else. “What am I seeing here? Love… Remorse… Caring… I'm not sure, but I don't think that he knows himself,” she thought as she looked into the chocolate brown eyes, drinking in his soul as if it was life itself.

 

Inuyasha, seeing the physical pain in her eyes, slowly enveloped the young hanyou into his arms, careful of her shoulder to try and relive her of the pain. “I'm sorry that you were hurt. I should have been here to prevent this from happening,” he commented in a mere whisper into her hair.

 

“This was not your fault, Inuyasha. Don't blame yourself for something that you knew nothing about and had no control over. I just underestimated my opponent and she got the better of me is all.” She pulled back slightly to look deeply into his eyes, as she continued, “Don't go blaming yourself for this. You didn't even know that I was here until I screamed. Now let's be off to the others so that I can get this wretched night over with before anymore wounds befall this body of mine.” She smiled briefly as she tried to pull herself from Inuyasha's embrace.

 

Refusing to let her go, he forced her eyes back to his as he softly demanded, “She… your opponent was a woman? Who was she, Mika? Was it… Kikyo?”

 

Mika looked away, to the broken arrow at her feet. “What if it was? What will you do? Will you go after her and avenge my injury or would it be to see if I gave her a hell of a fight?”

 

Bile rose into Inuyasha's throat as he thought of his niece being hurt by the hands of his first love. “That explains a lot, such as your human appearance. Apparently she didn't want to kill you, only purify your demon side for a bit,” he murmured, taking in the stiffness of Mika as he left the rest of her questions unanswered. His mind raced as he thought about the pain that she went through, not only the physical pain of the arrow through her shoulder, but the purification of her demonic aura. He greatly recalled the pain on Mt. Hakurei as its spiritual powers purified him before his final battle with Bankotsu and Jakotsu.

 

Mika replied just as softly to her uncle, unable to reassure him, “I don't think she knew what I was when she fired her arrow at me. She was pretty pissed when she let the arrow fly. I guess that I can thank my father for being such a strong demon that the purifying arrow didn't actually kill me.” She pulled a little harder from her uncle's grasp, nearly falling over as his grip slackened on her upper arms. Once she regained her composure, Mika quickly looked around the area, taking note of the stream and that it looked vaguely familiar. She followed it for a bit, noticing the crunch of gravel as Inuyasha followed her, still deep in thought.

 

Once she followed the creek to the tunnel of trees, Mika let out a sigh of relief. “At least my sense of direction is still in affect, or else this night would be over and I wouldn't have accomplished a thing,” she thought as she entered the tunnel, grateful for its welcoming darkness, knowing that it would lead her `home' to safety and security.

 

“What is this place?” she heard Inuyasha ask from behind her.

 

Mika continued walking as she replied, “This is the path to my dream, where the others are waiting for us. Now can we please hurry, I'm on a limited amount of time and can't afford anymore interruptions.” Mika picked up her pace a bit, only to nearly trip over an unseen tree root. Despite his human appearance, Inuyasha moved quickly to her side before she fell, injuring her shoulder yet again and grabbed her around the waist.

 

“Here, let me help you before you get hurt again,” he said, picking her up bridal style, careful to put her good shoulder to his chest. “Just tell me where to go and we'll get there faster than if we walk.”

 

Mika's look of shock was short lived as Inuyasha took off at a run toward the end of the tunnel. From her vantage point in his arms she could feel the lean muscles beneath the fabric of his haori and she could tell that despite his demon blood that he was a pretty fit individual. “To bad I'm related to him or else I'd ask him out on a date. Wait… What am I saying?!!! Kagome would kill me!!! Man, I wish that just once, I could find some one like this in my own time,” she thought as she enjoyed the ride.

 

Once Inuyasha had exited the tunnel, Mika directed him toward the fire a good quarter mile from their present location. In spite of her directions, Inuyasha had seen the fire and knew the others were there, although he was still a bit perplexed as to why and how Mika was able to do this. “She's in `I-da-hoe' right? That place that she called `the States?' Then why is she here, in my dreams as if she were in feudal Japan?” he thought moving quickly to the fire and its occupants.

 

After they arrived at the campsite, Kagome and Sango immediately grabbed Mika to examine her wound, surprised yet again that she was in another battle and had gotten injured. “What were you thinking, taking on Kikyo?” Kagome shrieked after Mika gave the `cut and dried' version of the fight, failing to mention her subtle threat to the clay pot.

 

“I didn't realize who she was at the time, but now I'll be more careful of who tangles with me. Now if you two will please leave me be so that I can finish this mission,” Mika whined as she slowly moved off her sleeping bag and headed out toward the tree lined tunnel yet again.

 

Inuyasha accidentally placed a hand on her injured shoulder to stop her from leaving. As the stab of pain coursed from her shoulder to her brain, Mika quickly twisted her body to the left and back as she leveled her right elbow toward his chest. Unable to move out of her vicinity in a quick fashion because of the pure shock at the attack, Inuyasha took the full force of her blow to his chest, dropping him like a sack of Idaho russets to the rock covered ground.

 

“Don't ever touch my shoulder again!” she screamed at his supine body as he rolled to get back to his feet. “At least not until its healed,” she continued softly, almost as if she regretted hitting him, yet again.

 

As he moved back to his feet, Inuyasha glared daggers at the injured hanyou. “Where the hell do you think you're going? I just brought you back here because you said we had to come back here to the others. Now you want to run off again. Injured on top of that!!! What the Hell are you thinking?” he yelled, trying hard to rein in his temper.

 

Mika spun as she addressed the angered man before her. “For your information, Inuyasha, I've been in four battles this evening and have been injured in some way, shape and form from all four. I have two more people to get before this night is over and I have less than…” she paused to look at her still ticking watch. “I have less than four hours before my time is up. Now I suggest that you take your backside back to the fire, wait with the others for my return.” Mika turned back toward the tunnel as her words slowly sunk into his dense skull.

 

Moving back toward his niece, he called out, “If you leave now, I'm going with you. You can barely defend yourself in this condition.”

 

Calling from over her shoulder she replied, “And you can protect me with your great sword?”

 

As he stuttered for an answer, knowing that she was right, Mika replied, “That's what I thought. Now, if you will please excuse me, I have some demons to catch.” She moved closer to the tunnel as Inuyasha stared defiantly toward the young woman.

 

“Man, she really knows how to needle me, just like that bastard, Sesshomaru. Is it freaking hereditary?” he thought as he slowly moved toward her retreating form, determined to follow her into the unknown.

 

“Inu…Yasha!” Kagome called to the retreating hanyou. “You follow her and I'll `sit' you into oblivion.” However at the word `sit' he face planted roughly into the lake shore, leaving a good six inch prone body imprint in the sand and rocks. “Sorry about that,” she called out from the fire, silently giggling to herself at the position of Inuyasha as he cursed the beads around his neck.

 

Mika approached the tunnel again, sighing as she thought about her next task. “Okay, Opa… Can you explain how do I get to my demon companions?” as she called out into the night.

 

As his ghostly apparition appeared at her shoulder he replied, “Demonic dreams are the hardest to enter. Beware their defenses, although harmless the may seem, they are as formidable as the demons that you seek.”

 

Mika looked at the kind old man, as she replied in a mere whimper, “Opa, have you not seen the beatings that I have taken tonight? I'm down to one arm, my back is like Swiss steak, and I know that I'm going to feel this in the morning. Is there anyway else to do this without anymore fighting?”

 

Inu no Toshio turned his loving amber eyes to his granddaughter, seeing for the first time the bandages on her shoulder due to the missing shoulder armor and noticed the return of the bandages wrapped around her stomach and covering her back. “I wish that there was another way, but take solus in that these demons are very powerful in their own right and that others will not interfere, as they did in the previous dreams.”

 

Mika flashed her grandfather a smile as she entered the tunnel once again, stretching her senses toward the essence of her wolf demon uncle. Once she was able to catch it, Mika quickly rushed toward the black void, hoping against hope that her grandfather was right and that other demons would not interfere. She didn't know how much more her body could take.