InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Remember ❯ Remember ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Remember
Pairing or Character: Souta, Kohaku
Spoiler Warnings: Pretty much up through everything that happens to Kohaku in the anime.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Author's Note: This was written for Lavender Valentine in the livejournal community iy_flashfic.

 

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Jii-chan dove onto the floor after Buyo as he growled contentedly and stalked off with Souta's birthday present: some dried up piece of some kind of obscure mythological beast that Jii-chan insisted was very valuable and historically significant.

“Souta!” Jii-chan cried from the floor as Kagome hid a giggle behind her hand, “That good-luck charm has been in our family for generations!”

“That's enough, Jii-chan,” Mrs. Higurashi said with a smile, gently pulling her father-in-law up from the floor as he continued to mumble about priceless heirlooms and ungrateful grandchildren, “It's time for cake!” Souta grinned as Kagome hopped up to retrieve the cake from the kitchen counter and placed it in front of him.

“Happy eleventh birthday, Souta!” Kagome, Mama, and Jii-chan shouted, throwing their arms in the air as Souta blew out his candles with one giant breath.

That night, Souta settled into bed with a seemingly permanent smile on his face and belly full of cake. With a contented sigh, he closed his eyes, bathed in the memories of a wonderful day.

---

Suddenly, his mind went blank, and he felt his arm being raised against his will. He glared at the offending limb to find that he was gripping a small scythe so tightly that his knuckles were white. While still trying to figure out why he was holding a scythe and why his arm was raised, he suddenly threw it and gasped as he heard the sound of it hitting flesh and bone.

`Chichi-ue!' he screamed, but the words were caught in his throat and to his horror a menacing giggle erupted from his lips instead. A voice invaded his mind and urged him to pull his weapon from the man's limp body and to throw it at the other people standing nearby that he hadn't noticed until that moment. He felt as though thousands of tiny spiders were crawling all over his body, biting at his skin and urging him to kill. He threw and threw and threw, trying to screw his eyes shut but they would not close, he'd lost all control over his body. The voice laughed.

He watched himself throw the scythe one last time into the back of a pretty girl with long black hair, and then collapsed as she fought the pain that must have been overwhelming her and grabbed him, releasing the hold that the voice had on his body, but his mind still would not obey him. She was screaming at him, angry tears flowing freely from her soft brown eyes, but he couldn't hear her, all there was was that voice, laughing in his head. From deep within him one word resurfaced,

“Aneue,” he whispered, as he realized that he too was sobbing, thick tears blurring his vision as he tried to back away from the girl he'd just probably mortally wounded, and then there was a blinding pain in his back and everything was dark, but the laughter continued and he screamed and screamed and screamed…

“Souta!?” Kagome yelled, shaking him frantically for what seemed like the fiftieth time, tears leaking from her eyes as her brother writhed on the bed, covered in a cold sweat, screaming bloody murder. Finally, his eyes snapped open with a gasp, and he lay perfectly still, eyes darting around the room wildly as if he couldn't quite place where he was.

“Souta?” Kagome asked tentatively, “Are you okay? It was just a dream, you're okay…right?” Souta's darting eyes finally landed on her face and her worried, tired eyes, and he let out a breath he hadn't even been aware he'd been holding. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Wasn't it?

“I'm okay, Aneue, it was just a dream,” Souta smiled painfully, trying to block the strange laughter from his dream out of his head and patting Kagome's hand which still clung tightly to the sleeve of his shirt. Kagome's shoulders dropped as the tension melted away, but a puzzled expression crept over her features as she looked into his face, sure she'd heard him incorrectly.

“What did you just call me?” she asked, loosening her grip on Souta's shirt and pulling her hand away from his.

“What?” he asked, trying to sit up only to have a sharp burst of pain shoot up his spine, “Nee-chan?” Kagome's brow furrowed as Souta tried to sit up again, the pain in his back receding a bit with every effort.

“Are you sure you're okay, Souta?” She asked, watching him struggle to sit up.

“I told you, Nee-chan, I'm fine, you should go back to sleep,” he said, once again noting the tired circles under Kagome's eyes, the price she paid for her lack of sleep and constant arduous travel in the Feudal Era, “You're going back tomorrow, aren't you?” Kagome nodded sleepily, patting Souta on the shoulder and mumbling a “sweet dreams” before drifting out of his room with one last worried glance over her shoulder.

Souta drifted back to sleep and dreamed of nothing.

---

The next morning Souta drifted back into consciousness, stirred awake by the dull throbbing in his spine that allowed the vivid images of his dream to crawl back into his head. He'd never had such a vivid dream before, the images left in his mind felt almost like memories forgotten and suddenly remembered rather than a dream.

Souta finally pulled himself out of bed, stretching his muscles to ease out the pain that had settled in the middle of his back, and dressed slowly. He'd planned on meeting some friends in a nearby park for a soccer game, but his heart wasn't in it and he decided to spend the day helping Jii-chan around the shrine.

Jii-chan was delighted for the help, and shoved a broom into Souta's hands, pointing him at the front steps and giving him a hearty pat on the shoulder before sauntering away, whistling. Souta winced as the pain shot up his spine again, triggering a flashback to the dream.

He was on his knees and a man dressed in white fur stood before him, laughing and whispering empty promises of relief from the pain and the grief and the horror. The man's eyes were cold and dark he was laughing, he was always laughing.

Souta was suddenly aware that he'd dropped to his knees, leaning all his weight on the broom. He was panting and clutching his head with his free hand. His back pain was back with a vengeance, although it now seemed to have concentrated in one spot along his spine. Souta took a deep breath and heaved himself back up to standing, not wanting to worry his grandfather.

`That one was different from before. What's wrong with me?' he thought sadly, shaking his head, frantically trying to displace the strange visions he'd been having, without luck.

After several more days of strange visions involving the laughing man in white fur and flying on a large white feather, he finally decided that he was going crazy. Afraid to have an episode in front of his mother, who was already so concerned about Kagome that he didn't want to worry her any further, Souta abandoned the house and began to spend long hours out on the grounds of the shrine, chasing Buyo and picking wildflowers to present to his mother, and to Kagome when she came back.

Weeks went by, and the visions got steadily more complicated and confusing, causing Souta to doubt his own sanity even more.

The pretty girl with long black hair held her sword to his throat, crying and crying and begging for their deaths, and his face was blank and he couldn't show the girl that he knew her, that the word wouldn't leave his mind, “Aneue.”

Inu-nii-chan was there with the pretty girl, he told her to stop, promised her that they'd find a way to save him, that their deaths wouldn't solve anything.

He begged for death time and time again, but that girl kept looking for him, she still had hope, there was still hope.

The visions didn't seem to haunt him while he was at school. Away from the shrine he could be Souta, and he played soccer and laughed and spent time with his friends, but the moment he stepped back onto the grounds of the shrine his back would start stinging, and the visions would invade his tired mind. Some of them were incomplete and blurry, plaguing his mind and making him lose grip even on the warped reality of the visions.

He was with that pretty girl again, and she embraced him, saying they belonged together, but although that word still shone through, he couldn't put it together, he couldn't remember who she was. Her touch embarrassed him.

The laughing man chased them and he hid amongst the roots of a tree. Kagome was there. Kagome? She protected him with her arrows, but soon they were gone, and the laughing man was in his head again, sending back the spiders, making his limbs twitch, the pain in his back becoming unbearable. His hand rose again, and he tried to scream to warn her but instead he heard himself asking her if she had any arrows left. When she confirmed that they were gone, he felt his mouth twist into a grotesque smile as the voice in his head urgently insisted that he kill her. He felt himself move forward, and screamed out with every fiber of his being to resist, to protect, to save her. He felt his arm release the scythe, but the aim was off and it barely grazed her. He let out an inward sigh, but he had already retrieved the scythe and began stalking after her again.

Souta gulped for air, the vision ending abruptly and without conclusion.

`Kagome…' he thought, racing up the steps of the shrine and heading straight for the well house, tossing his book bag aside carelessly, `could these visions be…the future? Inu-nii-chan was there…and Kagome too…what if…' Souta tripped, and almost fell down the stairs of the well house. Unsure of what to do, he yelled down into the depths of the empty well, but there was no answer. Frenetically, he threw himself over the edge of the well, praying that his sudden visions would allow him a connection with the past. He landed at the bottom of the well with a muffled thud that sent pain shooting up though his wrists and knees. Frustrated, he pounded his fists into the unyielding dirt below him.

“Why?” he screamed, a lump forming in his throat “Why is this happening to me? What does it mean?” Souta sat at the bottom of the well for several minutes, lacking the strength of will to pull himself out.

That night he lay awake, almost hoping for another vision that would ease his mind, at least let him know that Kagome was alright on the other side of the well. Eventually, the stress and anxiety of the day caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep. He dreamed of Kagome's death a thousand different ways and always at his hand. He knew they weren't the same as the visions, because his back didn't throb and there was no maniacal laughter, but he still woke up in the early hours of the morning bathed in a cold sweat, and was unable to fall back to sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning Souta dragged himself out of bed if only because staring at the ceiling had finally gotten overwhelmingly boring. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, wondering idly who would miss him if he just ran away, when he heard a shout from downstairs.

“Souta, Mama, Jii-chan! I'm home!” Kagome shouted gleefully, causing Souta to tear from his bed and throw on the first pair of jeans he found lying on the floor. He raced down the stairs to find his mother serving Kagome breakfast.

“Nee-chan!” he smiled, tension melting from his shoulders as he saw that she was perfectly alright. `Maybe it was the future after all,' he thought, sitting down at the table across from his sister, `maybe I can still warn her.'

“Are you okay, Souta?” Kagome asked, mouth full, “You've never been this excited to see me home before.”

“Oh, it's nothing, Aneue,” he said, “I just had a bad dream last night and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“A nightmare?” Kagome asked, pausing with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, “Like the last one? What happened?” Souta briefly described his dream, and Kagome stared at him with wide eyes.

“Kohaku…” she whispered, “Souta? Did I ever tell you about Kohaku? I must have. I must have told you that story, because your dream…”

“Did it really happen? Aneue…Nee-chan…are you hurt? I tried to…but I-”

“Yeah, it happened, but that was almost two years ago. Souta, are you sure you're alright?” Souta nodded numbly, and faked a smile as Kagome went off on a tangent about this Kohaku. The story was so familiar that it sent a chill down his spine. Souta let Kagome ramble on, eyes sparking with excitement as she described Sango's courage and Kirara's loyalty, and how excited they were the Kohaku seemed to be slowly regaining his memories.

`Memories?' Souta thought, tuning Kagome out as her tangent drifted towards other things, `Could these be memories? Kohaku's memories?'

“Nee-chan?” Souta interrupted, “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Kagome's eyes flashed painfully, but she smiled.

“Yes. I'm Kikyo's reincarnation after all, aren't I?” Souta excused himself as his back began to throb again and everything began to fall into place.

`I am Kohaku,' he thought as a vision of flying far above the ground on a giant feather hit him and he could finally name the woman he rode with. Kagura. And the voice that laughed in his mind, that was Naraku, the very enemy Kagome had been fighting all this time. And that woman, the pretty woman with the long black hair…Sango. Aneue.

---

Time went by, and slowly but surely the story Kagome had laid out for Souta came to him through Kohaku's memories. Souta lay outside under Goshinboku for long hours as he met Rin and Sesshoumaru, he aided the Shichinintai, he killed and killed and killed, and then he remembered.

Childhood and a two-tailed cat and flowers and learning to fight and Aneue and family and home and happiness.

These visions were familiar and warm, like recurring dreams he had only forgotten, as if Souta had grown up beside him, gathering flowers for their sisters and performing their balancing act, Kohaku with his scythe and Souta with his soccer ball. The Kohaku in his mind remembered and struggled with the past and the present, aching to tell Sango what he knew but afraid of what Naraku might do. And Souta was with him every step of the way.

---

One day, Kagome tumbled back through the well, and instead of greeting them with her usual fervor she was quiet and distant, settling on the bench near Goshinboku rather than running into the house. From his seat beneath the tree, Souta felt a tingling at the base of his spine and the weight of the sorrow she'd brought back with her on his shoulders.

“He died, didn't he,” Souta said, reading the pain and confusion on Kagome's face, “Kohaku-kun. He died, right?” Kagome kept her eyes on her own hands, but nodded morosely. Souta sighed and rose to sit himself beside his sister.

“Aneue must be so sad. She really loved him, didn't she, Nee-chan?” Kagome turned her face to his and was surprised to see the pain and knowing in his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat as she studied Souta's face, freckled from the long hours in the sun. Freckled like the face of another boy she'd just watched die in his sister's arms. Souta smiled as she gasped.

“You'll tell her, won't you Nee-chan?” he said, cocking his head to one side, “Tell Aneue that I'm okay? That it's okay?” Kagome nodded dumbly, silent tears streaking down her cheeks.