InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon an Inuyoukai ❯ Visions in Violet ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Empatheia 
In which Izayoi has a vision and decides to return the favour to Inutaisho for saving her life.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Hentai / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.19.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 286 | Status: Work In Progress
In which Izayoi has a vision and decides to return the favour to Inutaisho for saving her life.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Hentai / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.19.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 286 | Status: Work In Progress
Chapter overview: Izayoi learns something, and makes the choice that marks the top of the slippery slope. The truth about the amulet! I know some of you were curious. I'll be posting review thank you's on my livejournal (empath (underscore) eia) from now on, since I've heard FFNet doesn't like it if you thank people at the bottom of chapters. Chapter Four coming extremely soon since it's already written. Cha. Until next time, my non-existent devoted readers. If you do exist, thank you!
-Empath Eia
PS- anyone wanting to beta for me, hands up!
Editing completed January 20th.
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C hapter III: Visions in Violet
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Several months later
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Izayoi sat seiza on her floor and meditated. Around her was an intricate design in white sand, with a few strategically placed tallow candles, and a great flat amethyst crystal lay before her. Her hands skated lightly over its strangely warm surface, then settled on the edges. It had been a while since she'd used the ability, but today her intuition had been tweaking her mercilessly and now she had finally given in. The scrying circle began to glow softly, each grain of sand like a minute star. The amethyst heated rapidly. She gazed deeply into its facets and with practised ease, promptly lost herself.
For a while she merely wandered in the violet depths, oddly comforted by the familiar ghostly planes and mists of her scrying trance. She had discovered her gift at the age of seven, when she had accidentally fallen into trance staring at a waterfall and seen an impending bandit raid. In memory, she saw her girl-form run weeping with terror for her mother's skirts, who having also had the gift, understood the origin of her daughter's terror and took immediate action. She had saved her village. But their intolerance for the mystical made them ostracize her, and so she had lived for a lonely year without friends in the face of the villager's scorn.
Then, her father had gotten his appointment to the position of human relations with Ryuunomei, and she had found some modicum of happiness with her demon playmates. As she had grown, her gift had grown with her, and she began to use it to help him, scrying out his enemies' moves and possible threats. Thanks to her, he remained secure on his throne.
But then, he had... no. She was not going there, not now. Right now she was looking for someone or someplace that might have use for her. Somewhere she could stay for a while, until that went up in smoke too. Such was life for her.
Misty figures moved sluggishly through the purple mist, indistinct and grey. She felt the tension from the last few day's events melt away as the mist curled around her, supporting her ethereal body. She swayed, and danced through the fog, looking for nothing in particular. There had been an eerie calm for the last few months, and now she was just looking for anything interesting to break the tedium. The last village had, predictably, ousted her as soon as they caught wind of her gift, and here she was wandering again. It got tiresome, she thought. The closed world of the crystal was really the only place that remained constant for her. She could rest here, when the real world became too much. Like now.
Her spirit feet lightly skipped across the indistinct ground, her arms sweeping gracefully through the air. She loved to dance, and gravity seemed a little less intrusive here. Her hair floated behind her whirling form like a soft flag of coal dust. Up and down, writhing into impossible shapes, she spun through the mist like a wraith, perfectly free. Until she collided, with sickening force, with a form that hadn't been there moments ago. She swore artfully.
"What in...?" She spun to look at the brand new vision, the solidity of which was breathtaking and very unusual. Only the strongest visions had any sort of corporeality here, usually the consistency of still water. The most powerful and usually most frightening of the visions felt like running into perhaps a snowbank, solid but easily shaped and crumbled into something soft and pliant.
Whatever this was... it had felt like hitting a glacier, solid and implacable. Had she hit it with her real body... she would have had several broken bones, at least. As it was, it took several minutes to pull her spirit together again enough to see. Once she could, she squinted and tried to examine whatever it was that she had hit. And stared in perplexity. There was nothing there. She reached out carefully and swept her hand through the space. Nothing. Whatever it had been, it was gone.
"Impossible..." she breathed. Once an event became likely to happen, it remained in the scryworld until it either became unlikely or came to pass. Either option made the event representation in the mists gradually dissipate. Bigger events took longer to dissolve. Something this unprecedentedly strong should have taken weeks, perhaps even a month to vanish. Not two seconds. It was impossible. So impossible she couldn't wrap her head around it. In all her fourteen years of experience with the scryworld, she had never encountered such a phenomenon.
She knew her real body would be shaking and sweat-drenched, and looked forward to a bath as soon as she was done. Severely shaken, she began preparations to exit the world of visions.
I don't think I'm going to find anything else today, she reasoned. Surely two such events would not happen in the same session, it would be like being struck by lightning twice in the same storm.
Visions were contrary things.
A colorful form caught the corner of her eye, and she halted her preparations incredulously. Another one? Color was a good sign; it meant the vision was important. Mundane things were greyish purple like everything else there. She drifted towards it, rounding an intrusive fog bank to come face to face with the vision. For a moment, she watched, mouth agape in astonished. She gasped. Then groaned. Just when she'd thought she'd finally escaped...
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"My lord?" Inutaisho waved casually for the retainer to come in. It was a toad demon, bug-eyed and scrapingly deferential. "Milord, there is someone at the gates demanding to see you. We were unsure of what to do..."
He groaned and sat back. "Who was it? If it was a foreign diplomat, why didn't you just give them quarters and set up an appointment?"
The toad clacked his beak nervously. "Well, sire... she's not exactly a foreign diplomat... or much of anything. She refuses to say why she's here, but she's got a low-level dragon demon with her and it's holding off the guards. She seemed strangely upset. What do you want us to do, milord?"
A distant memory was tickling him, and his nose was twitching absently. Mountain meadows wafted through the air, replete with a cascading waterfall and a setting sun. Whatever new solution the maids were using to clean the castle was quite delightful... He sat bolt upright from his slouched position. Meadows.... Without a word he brushed out of the room leaving a very flustered toad demon scurrying in his wake.
"Milord! Wait for me!"
He crashed through the courtyard doors dramatically, drawing himself up to his full intimidating height. Sure enough, there she stood, arrow trained on his guards, hair flying like a sable pennant in the wind. The dragon demon, two headed and both heads snarling, stood beside her in battle stance. Reckless idiot! he thought incredulously. Walking into a demon stronghold with only a dragon demon to guard her! "Woman," he said coolly. "What do you want?" He thought he struck a very distinguished, imposing figure, standing there in the doorway with his hair severely tied back. He felt obscurely proud.
Which she instantly ruined when she burst into helpless tears.
"Damn you!" she shrieked, angrily wiping the tears off her cheeks. "My name is Izayoi and since I came here to save you perhaps you could show a little respect!" The demons present in the courtyard gasped at her affront, and drew their swords.
"How dare you speak to the master like that! You will be punished!" they cried, and leapt for her. Panic bloomed in his chest as the gory future played out in his head in an instant, and he bolted across the courtyard to stand between her and guards, arms spread. Not a moment too soon- the charging warriors skidding to a halt bare breaths away.
"Do not lay a hand on her!" he bellowed, heart pounding at the near miss. "She is a valued vassal of the Lord of the East. He would take her death much amiss, and as he is currently far more prepared for a war than we are, such a move would be most ill-advised. She must be treated as a valued emissary. Show her to the guest quarters. If anything happens to her, I shall be most displeased." He turned to her to find her standing wide eyed and looking very small. "We will speak later. Do try not to provoke my staff, I want you alive until you answer my questions." She gasped indignantly and made as if to retort, but he silenced her with a warning glare.
Taken aback at the ferocity of his glare, she closed her mouth and allowed the guards to lead her off almost meekly.
He heaved a sigh of relief. It had been so close... the shadow of obliterating war loomed large in his mind. Ryuunomei was just waiting for a good excuse to start a war with him... and he had almost gotten one with her almost-death. The West was woefully ill-prepared for such a war at the time- Ryuunomei would flatten them like insects. They would live under his subjugation for decades before gaining the strength to throw him off again. So close! He swept back inside, trailing the persistent toad.
It occurred to him that the toad's discretion had played a large part in saving his country from premature war, and he turned. "What is your name?"
The toad squeaked, and fiddled with its nails. "Jaken, Milord. What would you like me to do?"
Inutaisho smiled. "You did the right thing in coming for me, Jaken. Well done. I am promoting you. You are now my personal adviser. You will move your quarters to somewhere I can easily reach you at. Understood?"
The toad was speechless with gratitude, large glistening tears pouring down his slimy green cheeks. "Yes my lord! Thank you my lord!" He bobbed ingratiatingly and flattened himself against the wall to let Inutaisho pass. In his mind, he thought it was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.
He was mostly right.
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Izayoi paced restlessly across the length of her beautifully appointed guest room, not seeing any of it. She'd traveled like the wind, riding Ah-Un nearly to exhaustion to get here in time, and now he was keeping her waiting an insultingly long time. Logically, she knew the event she'd seen wouldn't take place until tomorrow. But she couldn't kill the great rush she'd been in for the last three days. Impatience doesn't just vanish when one's been in a hurry for that long.
So she paced. She had taken the time to change, and the long sky-blue kimono swept the floor in rhythm with her footsteps. She fiddled with the purple obi, worrying it with her fingers. What the hell was taking him so long? She considered redoing her hair. Did the formal updo look too stuffy? After a lengthy internal weighing, she decided it did and yanked the pins out. Just as Inutaisho walked in.
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Her hair cascaded down in slow motion, in loops and whorls of midnight black, sweeping throught the air like raven's wings until it settled to her knees. She ran her fingers slowly, sensuously through it, sorting out the tangles, oblivious of Inutaisho's presence. A small sound of pleasure escaped her at the massage-like tugs on her scalp. It was strangely mesmerizing, and he stared without blinking. Then he realized what he was doing- enjoying watching a human woman. Shaking himself, he wondered where his old aloofness had gone.
He tried not to look, cursing himself for not sending a messenger. Wryly he thought of his young son Sesshoumaru- perhaps all his old detachment and contempt for humans had somehow passed down to his cold, emotionless son. Did the boy ever cry? Or smile? It was almost eerie the way the boy took all emotionally provocative situations and treated them with about as much interest as he did road dust. He could use some of that back, now. Why was the sight of her letting her hair down so damned provocative? Never mind! Do not think about it. Let it go...
"Ahem," he said conversationally, and took secret gratification from seeing her jump slightly and squeak. She whirled and pinned him with a glare that could have wilted flowers.
"It's about bloody time," she snarled. Taken aback, he settled his hand on his sword. It had been a long, long time since anybody had spoken rudely to him, and he couldn't quite remember a way to deal with it that didn't involve dismemberment.
"Ah..." For one horrific moment, he had no idea what to say. Then inspiration struck and he drew himself up. "You are a guest in my home. I will ask you to restrain your temper when you speak to me." Hah! That was perfect, cool and diplomatic. He smiled to himself. See what she said to that!
"I'm sorry," she instantly repented. And once again, he was thrown completely off balance. He had expected more resistance. She regarded him wearily, eyes bloodshot. "I came as fast as I could. I... I had a vision." Immediately he was all attention. He had lived for far too long to discount the visions of seers. He had pegged her as one the moment he met her, and it seemed he had been right, as always.
"We must go somewhere safer," he ordered. "Follow me." Silently he took off out the door, leaving her to hoist her skirts and run after him. He was painfully aware of her labouring behind him, floundering in a sea of Chinese silk. If she, a human that had no real reason to like him, had come all this way at such great speed to tell him of her vision, it could not be good news. Instinctively, he wove through the wide, golden white halls of his home. The wooden floors were gleaming with fresh polish, and the shoji were clean and free of tatters.
He really had exceptional housekeepers, he thought.
Decoration was sparse- alcoves in the odd stone wall held precious, understated objects or flower arrangements. There were very few paintings, mostly of his ancestors. It was pleasingly spare and open. The only downside was that one hallway tended to look much like the next, so unless one knew exactly where they were in relation to the rest of the compound, it was very easy to get lost.
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that Izayoi did indeed look bewildered, but she followed without a word, seemingly trusting that he was not finding an obscure corner to do her in. He wasn't sure he deserved such trust- humans fell like wheat to his claws, when he saw fit. He'd killed on a mere whim before, on rare occasion. His deathcount easily numbered in the thousands. Including women. And children. He felt little guilt- he was a demon, and killing was one of his primary talents and impulses. Killing was simply what he did. So trusting him, who she barely knew, with her life was an unwise decision by all accounts.
Or did she trust him because he hadn't taken the opportunity to kill her last time? Also foolish. Last time he'd been tired, and competely satiated from killing the village militia. Today was completely different. He was feeling rather on edge, and a nice slaughter would be rather soothing at the moment. The inner politics of the House of the West were driving him utterly starkers. Keeping balance between his underlings was exhausting and massively frustrating, especially since it was bad form to kill them. Being able to just decapitate any underling whose plottings got in the way would be so very gratifying. But he couldn't. So he gritted his teeth and bore it out, one day at a time.
And now... here was this superlatively frustrating woman, bringing yet more bad news. Did it never end?
"Here," he said, and opened a door for her. This was a mostly unoccupied wing of the compound- they were unlikely to be disturbed. "Now. Tell me of this vision you had." She took a deep breath.
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How to begin? she wondered. It seemed silly, now. Had she even really needed to come? "Well... it's like this." She paused, and he gazed at her expectantly.
"Yes?" he prompted when it seemed she'd lost her train of thought.
"Ah... it seems that the power medians running through the land are in disruption- someone has blocked one off, and so they are breaking their banks all around it. If the blockage is not cleared, the natural magics will go out of control and flood out over the land. Such a saturated environment is not a place in which most creature can live. All but the strongest in the area will die when their bodies' mana channels are suddenly bombarded with more magic than they can handle and rupture. It is a painful, unlovely death." He watied patiently for more, but it seemed none was immediately forthcoming.
"...And?" She blinked, her reverie broken.
"And... well... I can fix the blockage. Thing is..." she gulped and stopped. He glared ferociously.
"How does this pertain to me?" He was losing patience. From what he'd heard so far, this had nothing to do with him or his own, so why was she here?"
She inhaled deeply. "The blockage is in the Southern Kingdom... but the way the mana is building up and flowing, it'll... it'll be your kingdom that's obliterated, not the South. Power medians don't flow by the law of gravity... they flow to where the least mana is. Right now, that's here. Because..." she cut herself off, audibly swallowing her words. He narrowed his eyes.
"Now is not the time to be reticent. Tell me what you know." She sucked in a breath. By all the kami, this was difficult! I really didn't think this out, did I, she mused ruefully. Now what? She was torn- if she held her tongue, he would probably kill her, and they would all die. If she told him... Suddenly there were strong hands on her shoulders, sharp claws digging into her back. His eyes were glinting dangerously.
"Now, woman," he snarled softly. Her throat closed, and her eyelids fell. Shit.
"There is a mana drought in your lands right now because... because Ryuunomei has been sucking it out faster than it can fill the lack. He and the Lord of the South are working together on this, according to my vision." There. She'd done it... betrayed her liege lord. It wasn't as hard as she'd though it would be, somehow. He had, after all, used her and left her die. He had let her grow up unmolested simply to keep relations good with her father, not out of any consideration for her. She owed him nothing.
For a long moment, he was silent, digesting this. Then: "How?" Her head snapped up. She'd really, really hoped he wouldn't ask that question. Her face scrunched up in a truly extraordinary grimace. Shitshitshit! The claws dug a little deeper and she winced.
"Ouch! Let go!"
"How?" Kami of light, he sounded furious, and utterly lethal.
"If I tell you, will you promise not to kill me?" His amber eyes were bleeding red, the precursor to his demonic transformation to his true form- an enormous white dog. He can't do that inside! He'll crush the whole compound! It didn't seem he was really caring much about that at the moment, though.
"No," he breathed. "But I will definitely kill you if you do not tell me."
"The amulet!" she blurted as his claws hit bone, tears seeping from her eyes. "The amulet is a mystical portal! It sucks mana from around it and stores it. Ryuunomei.... sent me into the heart of your territory with the amulet for that purpose. That was my vision! I didn't know what it was for until a few days ago." Sobbing with pain and fear, she shut her eyes and tucked her chin into her shoulder. "I'm sorry!"
Suddenly the claws were pulling out and she cried out rawly at the renewed pain. Blood ran down her arms to drip off her fingers. Utterly certain that she was going to die, she hiccupped and sank to her knees. It hadn't seemed such a terrible thing when the village men were slaughtered and she had thought the women were next- that was impersonal and somehow less offensive. Now... she wondered if he would make her suffer first.
A strangled sob flew from her throat. With an effort, she steeled herself and faced the reality of her deep, unbearable terror. It was like a flock of black ravens chewing at her insides. So I'm afraid. Anyone would be. Is this how I want to go out? No. No! She would not beg. If that was her fate....
So be it. I am samurai.
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A/N- well, now you know.
Read and review!!! See the little button? It's there for pushing. Who doesn't love pushing buttons? C'mon....
-Empath Eia
PS- anyone wanting to beta for me, hands up!
Editing completed January 20th.
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C hapter III: Visions in Violet
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Several months later
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Izayoi sat seiza on her floor and meditated. Around her was an intricate design in white sand, with a few strategically placed tallow candles, and a great flat amethyst crystal lay before her. Her hands skated lightly over its strangely warm surface, then settled on the edges. It had been a while since she'd used the ability, but today her intuition had been tweaking her mercilessly and now she had finally given in. The scrying circle began to glow softly, each grain of sand like a minute star. The amethyst heated rapidly. She gazed deeply into its facets and with practised ease, promptly lost herself.
For a while she merely wandered in the violet depths, oddly comforted by the familiar ghostly planes and mists of her scrying trance. She had discovered her gift at the age of seven, when she had accidentally fallen into trance staring at a waterfall and seen an impending bandit raid. In memory, she saw her girl-form run weeping with terror for her mother's skirts, who having also had the gift, understood the origin of her daughter's terror and took immediate action. She had saved her village. But their intolerance for the mystical made them ostracize her, and so she had lived for a lonely year without friends in the face of the villager's scorn.
Then, her father had gotten his appointment to the position of human relations with Ryuunomei, and she had found some modicum of happiness with her demon playmates. As she had grown, her gift had grown with her, and she began to use it to help him, scrying out his enemies' moves and possible threats. Thanks to her, he remained secure on his throne.
But then, he had... no. She was not going there, not now. Right now she was looking for someone or someplace that might have use for her. Somewhere she could stay for a while, until that went up in smoke too. Such was life for her.
Misty figures moved sluggishly through the purple mist, indistinct and grey. She felt the tension from the last few day's events melt away as the mist curled around her, supporting her ethereal body. She swayed, and danced through the fog, looking for nothing in particular. There had been an eerie calm for the last few months, and now she was just looking for anything interesting to break the tedium. The last village had, predictably, ousted her as soon as they caught wind of her gift, and here she was wandering again. It got tiresome, she thought. The closed world of the crystal was really the only place that remained constant for her. She could rest here, when the real world became too much. Like now.
Her spirit feet lightly skipped across the indistinct ground, her arms sweeping gracefully through the air. She loved to dance, and gravity seemed a little less intrusive here. Her hair floated behind her whirling form like a soft flag of coal dust. Up and down, writhing into impossible shapes, she spun through the mist like a wraith, perfectly free. Until she collided, with sickening force, with a form that hadn't been there moments ago. She swore artfully.
"What in...?" She spun to look at the brand new vision, the solidity of which was breathtaking and very unusual. Only the strongest visions had any sort of corporeality here, usually the consistency of still water. The most powerful and usually most frightening of the visions felt like running into perhaps a snowbank, solid but easily shaped and crumbled into something soft and pliant.
Whatever this was... it had felt like hitting a glacier, solid and implacable. Had she hit it with her real body... she would have had several broken bones, at least. As it was, it took several minutes to pull her spirit together again enough to see. Once she could, she squinted and tried to examine whatever it was that she had hit. And stared in perplexity. There was nothing there. She reached out carefully and swept her hand through the space. Nothing. Whatever it had been, it was gone.
"Impossible..." she breathed. Once an event became likely to happen, it remained in the scryworld until it either became unlikely or came to pass. Either option made the event representation in the mists gradually dissipate. Bigger events took longer to dissolve. Something this unprecedentedly strong should have taken weeks, perhaps even a month to vanish. Not two seconds. It was impossible. So impossible she couldn't wrap her head around it. In all her fourteen years of experience with the scryworld, she had never encountered such a phenomenon.
She knew her real body would be shaking and sweat-drenched, and looked forward to a bath as soon as she was done. Severely shaken, she began preparations to exit the world of visions.
I don't think I'm going to find anything else today, she reasoned. Surely two such events would not happen in the same session, it would be like being struck by lightning twice in the same storm.
Visions were contrary things.
A colorful form caught the corner of her eye, and she halted her preparations incredulously. Another one? Color was a good sign; it meant the vision was important. Mundane things were greyish purple like everything else there. She drifted towards it, rounding an intrusive fog bank to come face to face with the vision. For a moment, she watched, mouth agape in astonished. She gasped. Then groaned. Just when she'd thought she'd finally escaped...
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"My lord?" Inutaisho waved casually for the retainer to come in. It was a toad demon, bug-eyed and scrapingly deferential. "Milord, there is someone at the gates demanding to see you. We were unsure of what to do..."
He groaned and sat back. "Who was it? If it was a foreign diplomat, why didn't you just give them quarters and set up an appointment?"
The toad clacked his beak nervously. "Well, sire... she's not exactly a foreign diplomat... or much of anything. She refuses to say why she's here, but she's got a low-level dragon demon with her and it's holding off the guards. She seemed strangely upset. What do you want us to do, milord?"
A distant memory was tickling him, and his nose was twitching absently. Mountain meadows wafted through the air, replete with a cascading waterfall and a setting sun. Whatever new solution the maids were using to clean the castle was quite delightful... He sat bolt upright from his slouched position. Meadows.... Without a word he brushed out of the room leaving a very flustered toad demon scurrying in his wake.
"Milord! Wait for me!"
He crashed through the courtyard doors dramatically, drawing himself up to his full intimidating height. Sure enough, there she stood, arrow trained on his guards, hair flying like a sable pennant in the wind. The dragon demon, two headed and both heads snarling, stood beside her in battle stance. Reckless idiot! he thought incredulously. Walking into a demon stronghold with only a dragon demon to guard her! "Woman," he said coolly. "What do you want?" He thought he struck a very distinguished, imposing figure, standing there in the doorway with his hair severely tied back. He felt obscurely proud.
Which she instantly ruined when she burst into helpless tears.
"Damn you!" she shrieked, angrily wiping the tears off her cheeks. "My name is Izayoi and since I came here to save you perhaps you could show a little respect!" The demons present in the courtyard gasped at her affront, and drew their swords.
"How dare you speak to the master like that! You will be punished!" they cried, and leapt for her. Panic bloomed in his chest as the gory future played out in his head in an instant, and he bolted across the courtyard to stand between her and guards, arms spread. Not a moment too soon- the charging warriors skidding to a halt bare breaths away.
"Do not lay a hand on her!" he bellowed, heart pounding at the near miss. "She is a valued vassal of the Lord of the East. He would take her death much amiss, and as he is currently far more prepared for a war than we are, such a move would be most ill-advised. She must be treated as a valued emissary. Show her to the guest quarters. If anything happens to her, I shall be most displeased." He turned to her to find her standing wide eyed and looking very small. "We will speak later. Do try not to provoke my staff, I want you alive until you answer my questions." She gasped indignantly and made as if to retort, but he silenced her with a warning glare.
Taken aback at the ferocity of his glare, she closed her mouth and allowed the guards to lead her off almost meekly.
He heaved a sigh of relief. It had been so close... the shadow of obliterating war loomed large in his mind. Ryuunomei was just waiting for a good excuse to start a war with him... and he had almost gotten one with her almost-death. The West was woefully ill-prepared for such a war at the time- Ryuunomei would flatten them like insects. They would live under his subjugation for decades before gaining the strength to throw him off again. So close! He swept back inside, trailing the persistent toad.
It occurred to him that the toad's discretion had played a large part in saving his country from premature war, and he turned. "What is your name?"
The toad squeaked, and fiddled with its nails. "Jaken, Milord. What would you like me to do?"
Inutaisho smiled. "You did the right thing in coming for me, Jaken. Well done. I am promoting you. You are now my personal adviser. You will move your quarters to somewhere I can easily reach you at. Understood?"
The toad was speechless with gratitude, large glistening tears pouring down his slimy green cheeks. "Yes my lord! Thank you my lord!" He bobbed ingratiatingly and flattened himself against the wall to let Inutaisho pass. In his mind, he thought it was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.
He was mostly right.
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Izayoi paced restlessly across the length of her beautifully appointed guest room, not seeing any of it. She'd traveled like the wind, riding Ah-Un nearly to exhaustion to get here in time, and now he was keeping her waiting an insultingly long time. Logically, she knew the event she'd seen wouldn't take place until tomorrow. But she couldn't kill the great rush she'd been in for the last three days. Impatience doesn't just vanish when one's been in a hurry for that long.
So she paced. She had taken the time to change, and the long sky-blue kimono swept the floor in rhythm with her footsteps. She fiddled with the purple obi, worrying it with her fingers. What the hell was taking him so long? She considered redoing her hair. Did the formal updo look too stuffy? After a lengthy internal weighing, she decided it did and yanked the pins out. Just as Inutaisho walked in.
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Her hair cascaded down in slow motion, in loops and whorls of midnight black, sweeping throught the air like raven's wings until it settled to her knees. She ran her fingers slowly, sensuously through it, sorting out the tangles, oblivious of Inutaisho's presence. A small sound of pleasure escaped her at the massage-like tugs on her scalp. It was strangely mesmerizing, and he stared without blinking. Then he realized what he was doing- enjoying watching a human woman. Shaking himself, he wondered where his old aloofness had gone.
He tried not to look, cursing himself for not sending a messenger. Wryly he thought of his young son Sesshoumaru- perhaps all his old detachment and contempt for humans had somehow passed down to his cold, emotionless son. Did the boy ever cry? Or smile? It was almost eerie the way the boy took all emotionally provocative situations and treated them with about as much interest as he did road dust. He could use some of that back, now. Why was the sight of her letting her hair down so damned provocative? Never mind! Do not think about it. Let it go...
"Ahem," he said conversationally, and took secret gratification from seeing her jump slightly and squeak. She whirled and pinned him with a glare that could have wilted flowers.
"It's about bloody time," she snarled. Taken aback, he settled his hand on his sword. It had been a long, long time since anybody had spoken rudely to him, and he couldn't quite remember a way to deal with it that didn't involve dismemberment.
"Ah..." For one horrific moment, he had no idea what to say. Then inspiration struck and he drew himself up. "You are a guest in my home. I will ask you to restrain your temper when you speak to me." Hah! That was perfect, cool and diplomatic. He smiled to himself. See what she said to that!
"I'm sorry," she instantly repented. And once again, he was thrown completely off balance. He had expected more resistance. She regarded him wearily, eyes bloodshot. "I came as fast as I could. I... I had a vision." Immediately he was all attention. He had lived for far too long to discount the visions of seers. He had pegged her as one the moment he met her, and it seemed he had been right, as always.
"We must go somewhere safer," he ordered. "Follow me." Silently he took off out the door, leaving her to hoist her skirts and run after him. He was painfully aware of her labouring behind him, floundering in a sea of Chinese silk. If she, a human that had no real reason to like him, had come all this way at such great speed to tell him of her vision, it could not be good news. Instinctively, he wove through the wide, golden white halls of his home. The wooden floors were gleaming with fresh polish, and the shoji were clean and free of tatters.
He really had exceptional housekeepers, he thought.
Decoration was sparse- alcoves in the odd stone wall held precious, understated objects or flower arrangements. There were very few paintings, mostly of his ancestors. It was pleasingly spare and open. The only downside was that one hallway tended to look much like the next, so unless one knew exactly where they were in relation to the rest of the compound, it was very easy to get lost.
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that Izayoi did indeed look bewildered, but she followed without a word, seemingly trusting that he was not finding an obscure corner to do her in. He wasn't sure he deserved such trust- humans fell like wheat to his claws, when he saw fit. He'd killed on a mere whim before, on rare occasion. His deathcount easily numbered in the thousands. Including women. And children. He felt little guilt- he was a demon, and killing was one of his primary talents and impulses. Killing was simply what he did. So trusting him, who she barely knew, with her life was an unwise decision by all accounts.
Or did she trust him because he hadn't taken the opportunity to kill her last time? Also foolish. Last time he'd been tired, and competely satiated from killing the village militia. Today was completely different. He was feeling rather on edge, and a nice slaughter would be rather soothing at the moment. The inner politics of the House of the West were driving him utterly starkers. Keeping balance between his underlings was exhausting and massively frustrating, especially since it was bad form to kill them. Being able to just decapitate any underling whose plottings got in the way would be so very gratifying. But he couldn't. So he gritted his teeth and bore it out, one day at a time.
And now... here was this superlatively frustrating woman, bringing yet more bad news. Did it never end?
"Here," he said, and opened a door for her. This was a mostly unoccupied wing of the compound- they were unlikely to be disturbed. "Now. Tell me of this vision you had." She took a deep breath.
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How to begin? she wondered. It seemed silly, now. Had she even really needed to come? "Well... it's like this." She paused, and he gazed at her expectantly.
"Yes?" he prompted when it seemed she'd lost her train of thought.
"Ah... it seems that the power medians running through the land are in disruption- someone has blocked one off, and so they are breaking their banks all around it. If the blockage is not cleared, the natural magics will go out of control and flood out over the land. Such a saturated environment is not a place in which most creature can live. All but the strongest in the area will die when their bodies' mana channels are suddenly bombarded with more magic than they can handle and rupture. It is a painful, unlovely death." He watied patiently for more, but it seemed none was immediately forthcoming.
"...And?" She blinked, her reverie broken.
"And... well... I can fix the blockage. Thing is..." she gulped and stopped. He glared ferociously.
"How does this pertain to me?" He was losing patience. From what he'd heard so far, this had nothing to do with him or his own, so why was she here?"
She inhaled deeply. "The blockage is in the Southern Kingdom... but the way the mana is building up and flowing, it'll... it'll be your kingdom that's obliterated, not the South. Power medians don't flow by the law of gravity... they flow to where the least mana is. Right now, that's here. Because..." she cut herself off, audibly swallowing her words. He narrowed his eyes.
"Now is not the time to be reticent. Tell me what you know." She sucked in a breath. By all the kami, this was difficult! I really didn't think this out, did I, she mused ruefully. Now what? She was torn- if she held her tongue, he would probably kill her, and they would all die. If she told him... Suddenly there were strong hands on her shoulders, sharp claws digging into her back. His eyes were glinting dangerously.
"Now, woman," he snarled softly. Her throat closed, and her eyelids fell. Shit.
"There is a mana drought in your lands right now because... because Ryuunomei has been sucking it out faster than it can fill the lack. He and the Lord of the South are working together on this, according to my vision." There. She'd done it... betrayed her liege lord. It wasn't as hard as she'd though it would be, somehow. He had, after all, used her and left her die. He had let her grow up unmolested simply to keep relations good with her father, not out of any consideration for her. She owed him nothing.
For a long moment, he was silent, digesting this. Then: "How?" Her head snapped up. She'd really, really hoped he wouldn't ask that question. Her face scrunched up in a truly extraordinary grimace. Shitshitshit! The claws dug a little deeper and she winced.
"Ouch! Let go!"
"How?" Kami of light, he sounded furious, and utterly lethal.
"If I tell you, will you promise not to kill me?" His amber eyes were bleeding red, the precursor to his demonic transformation to his true form- an enormous white dog. He can't do that inside! He'll crush the whole compound! It didn't seem he was really caring much about that at the moment, though.
"No," he breathed. "But I will definitely kill you if you do not tell me."
"The amulet!" she blurted as his claws hit bone, tears seeping from her eyes. "The amulet is a mystical portal! It sucks mana from around it and stores it. Ryuunomei.... sent me into the heart of your territory with the amulet for that purpose. That was my vision! I didn't know what it was for until a few days ago." Sobbing with pain and fear, she shut her eyes and tucked her chin into her shoulder. "I'm sorry!"
Suddenly the claws were pulling out and she cried out rawly at the renewed pain. Blood ran down her arms to drip off her fingers. Utterly certain that she was going to die, she hiccupped and sank to her knees. It hadn't seemed such a terrible thing when the village men were slaughtered and she had thought the women were next- that was impersonal and somehow less offensive. Now... she wondered if he would make her suffer first.
A strangled sob flew from her throat. With an effort, she steeled herself and faced the reality of her deep, unbearable terror. It was like a flock of black ravens chewing at her insides. So I'm afraid. Anyone would be. Is this how I want to go out? No. No! She would not beg. If that was her fate....
So be it. I am samurai.
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A/N- well, now you know.
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