InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 10: Anomaly ❯ Headway ( Chapter 24 )

"I . . . am not good at this,” Madison remarked, tilting her head slightly to the side, closing one eye as she stared down the shaft of the arrow, pulling back on the fletching to nock it back.  The entire bow and arrow shook slightly with the force that she was exerting to try to control it.

“Watch your feet,” he said.  “Find a stance that feels comfortable for you and mark it in your mind because you don’t want to change it later.  It can throw off your aim.”

“Okay,” she said, glancing down at her feet in comparison to the painted grid laid out on the ground.

“Good . . . Now, hold the bow out straight . . . Right . . . and twist your arm up so that your elbow is down.  If you don’t, you can easily hurt yourself when the bowstring snaps back.”  She did as he instructed, and he nodded slowly.  “Don’t let your arm go slack when you shoot or you’ll feel it later on.”

“Does this make you my sensei?” she teased, twisting her forearm a few times to get used to the positioning.

“Hardly.  I’m not good enough for that,” he muttered.  “Anyway, when you position the arrow, make sure that you’re paying attention to how you’re hooking the string and how you’re holding onto the nock.”

“The nock?”

He leaned against the stand, fiddling with his twitching ear.  “The plastic part with the slit where you rest it on the string.  That one has been marked, probably to help beginners in understanding where to hook it, but you can’t always rely upon that.  For now, though, it’s all right.”

“Oh, okay,” she said.  “Consistency is important in archery, I take it?”

He nodded.  “Now, pull the string back while keeping your bow arm straight.  Find a comfortable place to rest the string—against your chin or even against the corner of your mouth—whichever feels better for you.”

She grimaced as she pulled the string back, feeling her limbs trembling at the unfamiliar position.  “This is a little tricky . . .”

Mikio slowly shook his head, stepping up behind her to help her steady the weapon, his hands closing over hers.  “No one’s good at it when they first try,” he told her.  “But . . . Well, it helps me to relax, gives me time to think, to clear my head . . .”

She didn’t turn her head, but she did shift her eyes to the side to look at him.  He was staring straight ahead with an unnatural intensity that made her breath catch between her lips and lungs.

She’d thought that he’d lost his mind early this morning when he’d rather casually told her that he was going to take her to the archery range.  At the time, she’d been trying to decide if she was ready to put in an appearance at the salon.  She hadn’t been there since she’d learned of Jazz’s death four days ago.  She was starting to get a better grasp of things, to come to some sort of understanding, even if peace was no where near her just yet.

Oh, but he had been serious, and he’d brought her here, telling her that sometimes it was good to focus one’s mind on something else . . .

‘And that something just might be the warmth of his arms, don’t you think?’

Ignoring her youkai’s words despite the hint of a blush that crept into her cheeks, she tried her best to focus on the arrow instead.

“Steady . . .” he murmured, his breath, stirring her hair.  “Always remember to get yourself into position first, concentrate on your muscle movements before you try to aim.  It’s more important to maintain control of your muscles than it is to pinpoint your target, especially when you’re first learning . . . Line the shaft up, make sure the arrowhead’s straight . . . Depending on how far away your target is, and once you get used to your bow, you’ll know better, where to aim.  Aim up, dead center . . . and release.”

She did as he instructed, and her arrow did manage to hit the target low and off to the right, but still within the widest range.

“Not bad,” he told her, smiling just a little as he let go of her hands and stepped back.  “You want to try again?”

She reached down for another arrow and took her time, slipping the nock into place.  Her hands were still visibly shaking as she drew back the bowstring, but she managed to take aim, and this time, it landed a little closer to the center, though not by much.

Mikio nodded, his gaze, lighting with silent approval, as he stepped up beside her, readying his own bow with a fluidity that bespoke his acquired skill, aiming at the target next to hers, as he pulled an arrow from the quiver by the short stand, taking his time as he nocked it back and readied his stance.  Standing with his legs parted, body twisted at the waist as he carefully took aim, something about the absolute sense of calm that wrapped around him was somehow comforting to her.  He let the arrow fly, his bangs caught up by the fabricated rip of breeze, and he made it look entirely effortless, even as his arrow impaled the target, dead center.  He wasn’t done, though, and the next three arrows that he fired off in quick succession, landed around the first one, so closely that they looked like they were placed that way instead of being fired, at all.

“How long did it take you to get that good?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him to emphasize her question.

He blinked, flushed slightly in the light of her praise, and he shrugged offhandedly.  “Uh, I guess I practiced quite a bit,” he admitted, idly scratching his chin.  “It’s harder, though, when you just rent someone else’s gear.”  Lifting his hand holding onto the bow, he let it drop to his side once more, spinning it in his hand so that the bow string was on the inner side of his arm once more.  “If you had your own, then you’d get used to it, get to know it, I guess . . .” He made a face, looked a little sheepish, like he believed that what he’d said had sounded kind of fanciful.  “There’s also a difference between the kind of arrows you use.  Plastic ones like these tend to be a little more flimsy and lighter than the wooden ones I have back home, which isn’t necessarily bad, but if it’s windy or really hot outside, it can become an issue.”

She nodded, leaning the bow against the stand in front of her and crossing her arms over her chest as she watched him, fiddling with another arrow.  “And your mother . . . She’s the one who taught you how to shoot, didn’t she?”

Lowering the bow that he’d been ready to fire, he pulled the arrow away and dropped it back into the quiver.  “Yeah,” he admitted, a strange flicker of . . . something . . . flashing over his features, but it was gone too quickly for Madison to make sense of it.  “She . . . She thought that it’d be something good for me, I guess . . .”

“You don’t agree?” she asked quietly.

He gave a curt shrug.  “No, I . . . I like doing it.  It’s just . . .” Trailing off with a frustrated sort of grimace, he shook his head.  “It’s . . . It’s nothing . . .”

Madison frowned as she leaned down to snag another arrow.  It was most certainly not, ‘nothing’, but he also didn’t seem as though he really wanted to talk about whatever it really was.  She stifled a sigh as she checked the position of her feet, as she positioned the nock, testing her fingers to find the most comfortable position where the arrow met the string.

‘If you asked him, you might get him to talk,’ her youkai-voice ventured.

‘Everyone has things they would rather not discuss,’ she reasoned.  ‘Besides . . .’

‘Hmm,’ the voice intoned.  ‘You’re right.  He has been really kind to you, hasn’t he?  Ever since . . .’

Drawing back the string to her jaw, allowing it to feel more natural, even as she rotated her forearm into position, Madison bit her lip.  He had been.  Of course, he had been.  She would have been, too, if she were faced with the emotional wreck that she’d presented, and she still wasn’t entirely okay.  A part of her wondered if she ever would be.  Maybe, she supposed, as time went on . . . if she could find a sense of closure . . .

But she knew better than anyone that maybes didn’t amount to much; not in this world.

Miki o stood back, hands in his pockets, leaving Madison alone with her thoughts as she knelt beside the still-barren gravesite.  She reached down, lifted a handful of crumbling, dried earth, let it slip through her fingers, and he could hear her soft sigh.

He’d brought her here, half-hoping that it would lend her a sense of closure, yet knowing that it wasn’t really going to.

‘What did you expect?  It’s too soon, you know.  It may help her eventually, and it’s good that she knows where Jazz is now, but it’s too raw, too fresh, and I imagine it will be for quite a while to come.’

Mikio nodded vaguely and kept his silent vigil, content to wait as long as Madison needed him to.  In truth, he wasn’t sure if anything he was doing for her was actually helping.  He wanted to think so, and yet, for everything he thought of, there were a million reasons why it wouldn’t be a good idea since the last thing he wanted was to inadvertently belittle her sadness in any way.  The reality of it was that the things that he might well do if he were her had to be vastly different.

She slowly stood, staring down at the turned earth for a long minute.  Then, she stepped around, careful not to tread upon the grave itself, before hunkering down again, this time, fiddling with the bouquet of flowers she’d placed into a vase that was already there.  It had actually taken two full days for her fingers to completely heal, and now, no one would have ever guessed that she’d made such a mess of them before.  Even then, as the October breeze lifted the strands of her hair, the warm gold, the sunny girl he’d come to know, and yet, she still carried such sadness in her aura.  That’s what he hated the most . . .

Rubbing her arms through the thin material of the oversized, off-white sweater, she stood up again, sparing one last, long, lingering look at the grave.  “It just has one of those horrible little plaques,” she said, making her way back to Mikio once more.  “One of those terrible, cheap little metal ones with the moveable letters that look like they came out of some sort of discount store . . . I have no idea if her . . . mother . . . bought a real one or not, but even if she did . . .”

He nodded, understanding what she didn’t say: the name that appeared upon it wasn’t going to be right.

She pulled the sweater over herself more closely, letting the cuffs of the sleeves fall over her hands, up to her fingertips.  “Jazz couldn’t wait to go to court, to get her name legally changed, but she couldn’t do it until after she had the surgery which would have been done after the first of the year . . .”  She sighed as they ambled through the rows of resting bodies.  “I . . . I’m okay.  I’m just . . . really, really angry.  I wish I could just make her mother understand, what she’s done, not just now, but for years . . . But she . . .” Madison trailed off with a grimace.  “She wouldn’t care, anyway.”

Mikio nodded.  “You could come back in a month or so?  See if she’s got a proper headstone.”

Madison didn’t look particularly happy with that suggestion.  “If I knew, I could go ahead and order one for her,” she said.  “I hate the idea of that cheap plaque marking her grave even one more day.”

Neither said anything as they trudged down the wide driveway that circled through the cemetery.  Lifting his gaze to the skies that were varying between cloudy and clear, he let out a deep breath.  There were no answers, written up there, just as there weren’t any, written down below.

“I’m surprised that she even buried her here,” Madison finally said as they stepped onto the street.  “Or maybe, I’m not . . . It feels vindictive, doesn’t it?  ‘Let’s just dump the family shame here, but only after we go against every single thing she ever wanted.’  Her own mother . . .”

Mikio stepped over to the curb, raising a hand to hail a cab.  “I know,” he said, letting his arm drop as a cab approached and slowed.  “There isn’t anything you can do about it, unfortunately.”

She heaved a sigh to let him know just what she thought of that, but she slipped past him into the back seat of the cab when he held the door for her.  “It’s just not fair,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead in a weary kind of way.

Mikio settled back and nodded, half-wishing that he hadn’t so bluntly stated what she already understood.  “No, it isn’t.”

Madi son blinked into the darkness, relieved only by the slight blue illumination from the digital clock on the nightstand.

She couldn’t make out Mikio’s features, but she knew he had his eyes closed.  It was late, it was quiet.  It was almost painful.

Why was it that the nights were the hardest times to shut off her brain?  Why were all of those questions that she’d already mulled over, ad nauseum, all day long even more vivid, starker in the dead of the night?

And the jumble of memories was harsh, bitter—even the ones that were otherwise good—somehow took on a nightmarish quality—and even if she tried to tell herself that she really needed to let go of it all, she couldn’t, could she?  Because . . . Because she cared about Jazz . . .

The warmth of Mikio’s arms, wrapped around her, soothed her, comforted her, but only so much, and only because she couldn’t shut down her brain, couldn’t keep herself from feeling as though she were losing her mind.

She sighed softly.

Just what was she doing?  Being here . . . Why did being with Mikio feel so right when she’d have to be a blind fool, not to sense his reticence?  She’d sensed it when he had stepped back, given her that polite little smile, told her good luck and that he’d, ‘see her,’ around when she’d left the penthouse to go back home—and then, he’d brushed her off every time she tried to see him, too . . . So, why was she here again?

‘You know why you’re here . . . Mikio came and found you, didn’t he?  When you needed him more than you’ve ever needed anyone else before.’

She grimaced.  ‘Yes, of course . . . because I . . . needed him . . .’

Somehow, that seemed all the more pathetic, didn’t it?

‘You’re the last person anyone would call pathetic, and you know it.  Everyone has a time in their lives when they need someone.  You can’t always be strong and steady.  All you can do is hope that there are people there to catch you whenever you falter . . . People who love you, and Mikio . . .’

‘—Doesn’t,’ she added sternly.  Her youkai sighed, but didn’t gainsay her, either.

But . . . But did she really have a right to lean on him like this?  That was the real question, wasn’t it?  Were her feelings little more than wishful thinking?  Was it simply something that she’d latched onto, even as a child, even if it wasn’t in the same way?  Had her childish fascination somehow become misconstrued, even to herself, as the years had gone by?  She flinched.  Had the idea of Mikio usurped the real man in her mind over time?

And, for the first time in her life, she couldn’t go on instinct, couldn’t simply allow her reactions to dictate her life.  Had she ever really questioned herself before?  Had she ever needed to?

It was such unnatural territory for her, going against everything she’d ever really known.  People like Valerie had always and forever allowed her mind to dictate her life, and she had a feeling that Mikio was much the same way.  Madison, however?  She’d always been far more inclined to simply let things be, to let things ride, to react accordingly, in whatever way that her heart guided her . . .

Letting out a soft sigh, she closed her eyes, hoping in vain for sleep that was nowhere near her.

“Not tired?”

Eyes flashing open at the gentle question that still managed to startle her, Madison shifted slightly while Mikio turned his face, and, while it was lost in dusky shadows, she could see the slight shining of his eyes.  “Did I wake you up?  I didn’t mean to . . .”

“No,” he replied simply, almost pragmatically.  “I thought if I kept my eyes closed long enough . . . but I guess that never works, huh?”

“My . . . My mind just keeps going,” she admitted.  “The same thoughts, over and over again . . .”

His sigh was soft, almost more of a commiserating kind of noise, and he let go of her, only to reach up, to very gently, very lightly, run his fingers through her hair.  “About Jazz,” he concluded, sounding as though it made perfect sense.

“Yes, about Jazz . . . and no . . .”

“Well, would it make you feel better to talk about it?  Whatever’s on your mind?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said.  “Can . . .?  Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

She grimaced, but in the dark, he didn’t see it, and maybe she could at least be grateful for that.  “How . . .? Or maybe why did you come looking for me?”

He didn’t seem surprised by her question.  Maybe he’d already realized that she’d ask eventually.  She didn’t know, but it took him a minute before he answered as he continued to stroke her hair.  “I . . . I guess you could say that I . . . It felt like you were in trouble,” he finally said.  “Like, I knew it was you, and there was this . . . this scary sense of urgency . . . and I . . . I was afraid . . .”

“You were?”

He nodded, let out a deep breath.  “Yeah, I was . . . But I didn’t know why . . .”

“You . . .”

Suddenly, he uttered a little half-growl—almost a fierce sounding noise, and yet, not at all.  “I’m glad I did,” he went on quietly, but no less forcefully.  “I’ve . . . I’ve never been so worried in my life . . .”

“A-About me?”

“Of course, about you,” he said, as though it should have been a foregone conclusion.  “You’re . . . You’re my friend, and I . . .”

She sighed, snuggling closer to him, and this time, she closed her eyes.  “You’re my friend, too,” she said.  “Thank you . . . for finding me.”

“Y-Yeah,” he replied, and she didn’t see him, frowning into the darkness.  “Yeah . . .”