InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sango's Bones ❯ Chapter 1

Sango's Bones

by nhn

 

Author's Note: Not for children, or even most adults.

 

Despair if he fail in his quest.
Terrors unutterable and
unimaginable if he succeed.
-H.P. Lovecraft

 

-1-
kami

(god)

 

After rinsing her hair and wiping the water from her eyes, she saw him watching her. He stood at the shoreline, staring intently, and she noticed with surprise the part of him that was most unlike hers - the appendage that hung below his gut and until then seemed to do nothing but get in his way when he sat down sometimes, and seemed so silly to her that she wondered why he had such a thing, whether he had been made in a rush, and after finding not enough room to place all his guts, their creator had absently tacked on the last bits right there. But that part was different now; it stuck out straight as a tree branch, and she wondered how he had done such a thing, and for what reason.

 

Seeing her return his gaze, and taking it as an invitation, he stepped into the water and waded out to her.

 

“How lucky I am, to meet such a beautiful maiden,” he said, and though she found such an utterance odd, for they had only been apart for a matter of hours, and surely he hadn't forgotten her in such a short time, she felt obliged to return his greeting in the same way.

 

“How happy I am, to be met by such a handsome young man.”

 

He looked her over.

 

“Though we are much the same in our ways and appearances, there is a place where you and I differ.” He said this nonchalantly, but the way in which he spoke of the obvious distinction between them, as if he had just noticed, made it clear to her that he had wanted to ask her about this for a long time.

 

Of course, they were different in many ways, for her hair was long while his was short, he was taller and broader than she, his chest was tight and muscular while hers protruded and hung heavily from her trunk, and his arms and hands, feet and legs, were thick and hairy while hers were thin and toned and mostly bare.

 

But there was one place where they were most different, and she had no trouble recognizing what he referred to.

 

She placed a hand on her abdomen, just below her navel.

 

“In me is the source of my femininity, and the source of all femininity.”

 

In response, he placed a hand at the same spot on his own body.

 

“In me is the source of my masculinity, and of all masculinity.”

 

He lowered his hand, looked at himself, then looked at her.

 

“I would like to unite my male-source with your female-source.”

 

She nodded at this, for it indeed seemed a good idea. What could possibly happen with the combined power of his manhood and her womanhood? She couldn't imagine, but now the thought was planted in her head, and she wanted desperately to know.

 

“How?” she asked.

 

His anticipation seemed to falter at this; perhaps he had hoped she already knew.

 

“I do not know,” he admitted, “for while my maleness is outside, your femaleness is inside.” He pressed a hand gently to her stomach, as if testing to see if his fingers might simply sink through the skin and allow him to touch her femaleness, so that he might draw it out into the air and combine it with his maleness, thus solving the mystery they now both sought an answer for.

 

But the flesh, though soft and smooth and warm, did not yield, and though he enjoyed the feel of her skin, and let his hand remain there, his face betrayed his frustration.

 

She was saddened by his expression, for she desired above all things to make him happy, and with sudden realization she smiled, took his hand, and guided it between her legs.

 

He had seen this place before, as they knew no privacy, and even if they were explained the concept they would not understand. But his brief glances at her body, which up to this point had always been unintentional and held nothing in them but quickly waning interest, surely did not give him the knowledge she held, and the surprise in his voice was evident.

 

“There is . . . an entrance?”

 

She nodded, finding the sensation of his touch, here, inside her, indescribably strange.

 

“And this goes to the source of your womanhood?”

 

“Yes, she said. “But there is a barrier which protects it, and must be pierced.”

 

He removed his hand, rubbing slicked fingers together before his face, marveling at her scent, and his breath caught as she encircled his manhood with one hand, testing its hardness.

 

“With this,” she said. “With this we can be united.”

 

“I see.”

 

And with that he picked her up, lay her on the soft grass beside the pool, and married her - not with sake or incense, not with the ring and the binding hemp-rope, not with blessing of god or family, but the old way, the first way, with cries of pain and ecstasy, sanctified by sweat and virginal blood and the promise of a life shared together, and she called him “Izanagi,” and he called her “Izanami,” and after she took his seed they rested, and her belly grew, and from her body came the islands and seas, the rivers and mountains, the trees and the herbs, the sun and moon and stars, and she was Woman, creator of all life, and he was Man, protector of all life, and all that is this world came to be.

 

-2-
aneue

(sister)

 

The clouds traced lazy paths across the sky, and the short grass moved in empathy, tickling our feet, our arms, our necks. Her hair was splayed out on the grass, and my head was beside hers. The firecat rested on her chest, sleeping, and she petted the animal softly, and I saw its tails twitch beneath her caress. Atop my chest were small pieces of grass that I tore in two, and tore in two, and tore in two again, until my fingers and thumbs were stained green and the grass pieces were so small no one could ever make them smaller.

 

“Where did you hear that story, Aneue?”

 

I asked the question idly, but I'm sure my voice betrayed my interest. I was eleven years old that day, so long ago, and approaching puberty made it easy for my mind to turn pure things impure.

 

“It is a very old story,” said my sister. “Older than the world. I've heard bits and pieces from people since I was a little girl.”

 

“Where did Izanagi and Izanami come from?”

 

“They came from Heaven. They were the seventh generation of gods, and the first to decide to explore the place beneath where they were born, the Earth.”

 

“But who bore them?”

 

“I'm not sure. Some say they were born of the sixth generation of gods. Some say they were born of the first generation. But I think they were born of Earth, the mother-force, and of Heaven, the father-force.”

 

“Earth is feminine?”

 

“I would think so. Living things are given the essence of Heaven, the soul, and these things are born from the Earth. It is much the same way as a man gives his essence to a woman, and her womb grows the child.”

 

“So if Izanagi and Izanami were born of Heaven and Earth, does that mean they were brother and sister?”

 

“Yes. They were husband and wife, and man and woman, and also brother and sister.”

 

“I understand.”

 

My tone indicated I did not understand.

 

“Do you have a question for me, Kohaku?”

 

Too fast. She was too clever, too many steps ahead. I could not speak.

 

“You know you can ask me anything, Kohaku. I know you're older, and you're probably thinking about things you haven't really thought about before. Please don't think I'd ever be offended if you asked me questions, even ones you think are embarrassing.”

 

“I know,” I said. “I just. . . I just don't know how to ask it. Not yet.”

 

She smiled. She smiled at me. It does amazing things to me when she smiles.

 

“Then ask me then. When you're ready.”

 

I nodded.

 

-3-

shitsumon

(question)

 

I never had opportunity to ask the question. The series of questions. The questions and conversation and whatever they may lead to. I was cowardly. I was frightened. I would sicken her, and be rejected.

 

Perhaps it was merely a phase.

 

Perhaps if I had grown older, and grown to love other women, I would have been able to separate familial love from romantic love.

 

But Naraku took me at a vulnerable time in my life.

 

Though I suppose that is not unusual: when are we more vulnerable except when we are dead?

 

But here, let me explain to you the source of my frustration.

 

Most farming villages have healthy attitudes toward sex. Daughters love and serve their fathers. Mothers love and serve their sons. Sex is important; it shows favor and dominance. If a person requires sexual release, to force that person to hide and masturbate was cruelty.

 

But the taijiya were different; we came from the priestess Midoriko and followed her way of purity and virginity, to some extent. Women had power, power meant sex, and the control of sex, and that meant I was provided none.

 

Perhaps if Mother had not died she would have realized the depth of my need and satisfied me. But mother did die, and though it was Aneue's role to care for me, her dedication toward taijiya training left little time for her familial responsibilities. Father encouraged this, so I cannot blame Aneue entirely. Still, when she was twelve years old, and I watched her in the training grounds throwing Hiraikotusu over and over again, she showed such cruelty to her melancholy six-year-old brother, to acknowledge me with a smile and wave, but not come to me, not hold me lovingly, not unclasp her uniform and offer the comforting nipple of a rapidly developing breast.

 

I think she loved me, but it was an awkward and nonphysical love, leaving me wanting and dissatisfied. I came to believe this was her way of driving me to be a taijiya - that she kept her body as a reward that I could claim on the day I surpassed her skills.

 

When I began training at eight, my instructors knew I was not of the proper mettle for such work. This was perfectly honorable: only one in four taijiya were selected for demon combat training, and of those who begin training at eight only a fraction graduate at fifteen. Eighty percent of taijiya learn only simple extermination skills. These people support the combat taijiya with such valuable skills as armor and weapons forging, the preparation and selling of youkai-derived materials, the negotiation of exterminations, the management of food and supplies, and various other roles. These are still proud taijiya; exterminations could not happen without them.

 

There was no shame in the fact that I was better suited as an administrative bookkeeper, and my instructors encouraged me toward this role. But such work would not satisfy Aneue. With Father's influence I was able to struggle through combat training, on the belief that my effort made up for my skill. This rule did not hold for other children.

 

To put it plainly: my slot in combat training was wholly undeserved. I was disliked by team members who outclassed me, and non-combat taijiya who were more worthy of my position. My desire for Aneue became all the more sharper - she quickly became only person near my age who did not hate me.

 

I still do not know if my becoming a pariah to satisfy her desire for an elite taijiya brother ever registered with Aneue. Her obsession with Hiraikotsu mimicked my obsession with her body. But my plan to capture her attentions showed initial success: when I received my kusarigama she congratulated me with a kiss. When we trained together - only her and myself, for the others were too advanced to get benefit from training with me, and not advanced enough to get benefit from training with her - I struggled and exhausted myself hours before she was finished, and I went home dejected. But on the day I was able to pace myself and she was the one to call the end of the session, she rewarded me. She invited me to bathe with her.

 

Of course, she washed in a place away from my view, and she kept a towel around her when she entered and left the steaming pool, and she did not invite me to sit near her, but this intimacy was enough to satisfy me for months. In dreams, she discovered the erection she gave me, and sought to relieve it.

 

If my life had taken a different course, I probably would have grown older, and found love outside the taijiya village, and all this would be nothing more than a deeply embarrassing, deeply secret childhood fantasy.

 

But thoughts of Aneue kept my sanity when I was on my knees before Naraku, accepting whatever appendage, whatever emission, whatever humiliation amused him to give me that day. I was eleven years old, and when Naraku demanded I display my erection, or produce my seed, I could do so only by imagining Aneue's perfect breasts, or her immaculate sex. Even when I forgot her face, I remembered her body.

 

I could not forsake my feelings. Not ever.

 

 

-4-

shinde

(death)

 

She died during the battle with Naraku. She pushed me aside and one of Naraku's razor-sharp legs ran across her stomach and separated her top half from her bottom half. She was nineteen years old. I was thirteen.

 

-5-

hajimeru

(begin)

 

At first, I thought I was able to recover. To be sane. I released Aneue. I did not fight the monk's decision to bury her at his temple, rather than in the village with her people. With me. It was selfish, to steal her away in this manner. But I released her. I had caused her so much suffering, and the monk had given her peace. The monk could take her body. I did not need it.

 

Not yet.

 

Rebuilding my village kept me busy, and kept my mind sharp, but it also kept me alone, alone except the mass graves, and the storerooms and armories cluttered with unpurified youkai, bones and sinew, rotting hides, coagulated flasks of blood and bile, and all reeking of jaki. I lacked the skill to purify the items, nor the will to attempt it. My time with Naraku gave me incredible immunity to such things, but I could not suffer another human to come here and help, for they would be driven mad within a matter of days.

 

I lived there two years before I succumbed.

 

This is what I tell myself. But if a madman is certain he is sane, surely a person convinced he is mad is not mad at all, by the same token. If this is the case, I am still in control of my facilities, even now, and I know right from wrong, and I choose wrong regardless. My needs are too great to outweigh any harm I might do.

 

Some hours past midnight, I left my father's bed, and went to my father's writing table, and prepared my father's ink, and there I wrote an outline of what I wanted and what I needed, what I knew and what I didn't know.

 

I began The Work.

 

-6-
benkyou
(study)

 

I began in stages.

 

I needed knowledge, forbidden and forgotten. I had learned much from Naraku without ever intending to do so; one cannot be a part of Naraku and not know his cruel experiments. But there were wide gaps in my education. I knew what I wanted was possible, because it had to be possible, and I went from there.

 

The witch Urasue, who made Kikyou, was the best place to start. I found her cave, her books, but the passage of eight years since her death had spoiled her materials. The clay was dried out, and the life-giving plants had long since died. I collected her books and the seeds of her soul-capturing plants and carried them back to the village.

 

The dark miko Tsubaki once knew spells and potions that I may need. Eternal youth, eternal life, eternal love, eternal submission. Aneue should die only once; I could not bring her back unless I could make her immortal.

 

I saved Naraku for last; I had foolish hope Urasue's clay forms were still viable and Naraku's magic would not be necessary. I suppose in my heart I knew this was not the case. I might go so far to say I would be disappointed if I wasn't able to use Naraku's skills, to redirect his torture of me into a creative and beautiful work. Naraku could give me more beauty than Urasue ever could. Only Naraku could provide me true flesh.

 

In forgotten reaches where Naraku had lived, in places where he changed and recreated his body, Naraku expelled demons and flesh, bile and vomit, urine and excrement, and in these foul pools where he had rested there still existed books. Books with bony spines, pages of thin flesh, filled with information no longer needed, and expelled from his body. Naraku recreated himself utterly; even his memories could be thrown away.

 

I knew, at some point, Naraku threw away the knowledge of how he made Musou. How to create living human flesh from demon flesh. After a year-long search, I knew how to do this too.

 

I was always an excellent student, far more studious than my sister or father. I could have been a doctor.

 

Now, I shall be something far better.

 

From Naraku, I will create a thing of living human flesh.

 

From Urasue, I will imbue the living thing with a soul.

 

From Tsubaki, I will blind her to the distractions that have stopped her from loving me as she should.

 

My sister and my love, my creation and my daughter.

 

Sango shall live, and be mine always.

 

 

 

-7-
hanashi
(discuss)

 

It was the fourth anniversary of Aneue's death, and I came to the temple as I did every time before. The monk had the flowers arranged and had offered incense before I arrived. He is a selfish bastard but I forgive him.

 

We drank, as we do every year. He did not look well. Women, he told me, no longer satisfied him. Aneue's ghost lingers, he says. Lingers with him, he means. I hate it when he says things like that. If Aneue should still be in this world as a spirit, surely she would much rather haunt me than the monk. But no matter. “Emptiness is form; form emptiness,” as the saying goes. The monk could have her Emptiness. I shall have her Form.

 

I pressed Miroku again for permission to disturb Sango's burial plot, and to take her bones with me to be with her people. As before, he agreed that it was a proper thing to do, but that it was too soon to disinter her. Next year, perhaps?

 

Soon, I said.

 

The monk asked me for a story about Aneue.

 

I told him a story.

 

-8-
negai

(dream)

 

I froze, seeing her as one sees a predator. She stepped to me, her face a mix of annoyance and concern. I had been caught, I had surrendered to my baser instincts, and my sister had found me, hidden in the woods outside the village, and she would humiliate me.

 

“Are you ashamed, Kohaku?”

 

Ashamed, yes. I could easily have died.

 

“You are,” she sighed. “You are, and it's my fault. I've been neglecting my role.”

 

She would punish me, I'm sure.

 

“The things Mother should have taught you . . . the things father and I should have taught you...” She shrugged. “Kohaku, you're old enough to desire women, old enough to be aroused, uncomfortably so, and want release. But you will hurt yourself if you do this. Someone else must ease that discomfort for you. Mother did so, when you were very young, and I should have taken her place.”

 

So saying, she took me in her hands. I think I did not take even a single full breath between when she touched me and when I came into her palm.

 

“Please don't be embarrassed, Kohaku. Even girls do this.”

 

Now, I knew well enough that girls did not do this particular act.

 

“How do you do that, without seed to release?”

 

She took her skirt in her hands and pulled it all the way to her waist, and then placed one foot atop the tree stump that I was sitting against. I was not so unobservant to be completely unaware of this anatomical aspect of women, as I had bathed with Aneue and other girls. But unlike boys, nothing protruded from them, and nothing was casually visible to me except a small patch of hair and a vertical crease of skin, with no indication of any opening.

 

To the left side of my face, inches above eye-level, her thighs and belly joined and I saw for the first time the complicated arrangement of flesh that fascinates boys and confounds men.

 

“Here,” she pointed. “Here is where a man penetrates, and also where the flow comes, and children, if I were pregnant.”

 

“From there?”

 

“It gets very, very wide before childbirth.”

 

“Ah,” I said. This was difficult to believe, but I knew she would not lie.

 

“As I said, here is where a man penetrates, and I could pretend my fingers are a lover's manhood, just as you could pretend your fist is a lover's womanhood.”

 

“Even for that,” I observed, “it seems too small.”

 

While holding her skirt up with the pressure of her forearms against her thighs, she placed her fingertips on either side of the gap in flesh between her legs, and carefully coaxed them apart. Have you ever seen a single flower come into bloom? I can describe it no other way. Layers of flesh protected more fragile flesh beneath, and only then could I see the entrance. I could see inside her! I was looking into the most secret, perfect, beautiful place that Aneue kept inside her!

 

“It's very flexible, and when I am aroused, all this becomes wet, which makes it easier to push things in.”

 

She touched a ridge a few fingerswidth above the entrance.

 

“Here, too, is very sensitive, and massaging this spot is very pleasurable when I am stressed.”

 

She touched this place, rubbing a finger over the spot, and I would like to say that I noted her breathing and from that knew she gave herself pleasure, but my ability to observe sound was poor at that moment, for every fiber of my being was dedicated to visual study.

 

She removed her hands, and like a lotus in evening, her entrance was closed to my eyes. But not to my mind's eye, as there I had sculpted Aneue's vulva in stone.

 

There existed a moment where she continued to hold her skirt up, and I continued to stare at the beautiful thing she showed me. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to be inside it. But these things I could not ask. I ventured a careful question.

 

“When you want to do that, could I see, Aneue?”

 

She lowered her skirt and sat beside me. Looking at her face for the first time in some minutes, I saw she was smiling.

 

“Of course, Kohaku. If you are a good boy.”

 

 

-9-
tetsuda
(assistance)

 

It was a lie. A fantasy. A dream I had often. It did not matter. It frustrated the monk, leaving him aroused but jealous as well. It was not far-fetched; in many villages I would have bedded her as soon as I could maintain an erection. As I said before, our village was founded by a priestess, and such acts were not done. But the monk did not know that. Only a very sick person would make up a story like that.

 

“Were you intimate with her as well?” I asked.

 

He hesitated for a moment.

 

“We had intended to do so, before the final battle with Naraku. But there was no time. It was foolish to think we would know. On the night before the battle, we had no idea we would see Naraku and defeat him the next day. We had no idea that Sango would not survive. For much of my life I've lived without regret. The things I never told her, the things I never showed her, the things I never made her feel . . . those regrets are heavy.”

 

“I feel very badly for you, Miroku,” I said. This was not insincere.

 

I stretched my back. My erection was obvious.

 

“Forgive me,” I said. “It has been many years, but my body remembers her so well. Please excuse me.”

 

“Of course,” he said.

 

We both pretended that nothing was unusual when I removed my bathrobe and began to masturbate. I was slow and deliberate. To have Miroku watch made the progress more difficult, but that is only to say it drew out the enjoyment. I came hard, spilling my seed on the dirt floor.

 

It was not seduction, of course. Men do not seduce other men. It was only an illustration of my usefulness to him.

 

He brought me a drink as I lay naked on my back.

 

“Self-pleasure is contraindicated for a Buddhist monk, is it?”

 

“It is considered harmful, yes.”

 

“But pleasure with men is accepted?”

 

“My teachers have been more interested in women.”

 

“But you're familiar with the concept of being with men.”

 

“I am not attracted to you, Kohaku.”

 

“Pleasure need not mean relationships, or needs or desires external to that moment of pleasure. It is as simple as knowing another is uncomfortable, and seeking to relieve that discomfort. Aneue understood that, as do I.”

 

“I disagree. I don't think she understood very well.”

 

“That is more your doing than hers, I think. You were sexually aggressive, so of course she would be driven to deny you. I think if you had never groped her, she would have slept with you very early into your relationship.”

 

“If I knew I would fall in love with her I think I would have done things a different way. I'm sorry.”

 

“Don't apologize. I only mean to say that Aneue and I are alike, and that if you treated Aneue as you've treated me, with kindness and kinship, she would be the one naked and volunteering to comfort you, instead of me offering to take her place.”

 

“That is out of the question, Kohaku.”

 

“I can do it to you as she's done it to me, Miroku. I can mimic her exactly. Lie back, close your eyes, and think of her. I will give you her love. You will swear it was her mouth.”

 

His breathing changed. I did not smile, but I looked at him intently.

 

“We were nearly brothers, Miroku. Let us be brothers tonight.”

 

He licked his lips nervously. Unexpected temptations were difficult to resist. The thought of me as Aneue's proxy blindsided him.

 

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about her breasts.”

 

I moved closer to him.

 

“Her breasts are about the size of my hands, with very small nipples,” I said. “They are very sensitive and she can be brought to orgasm simply by sucking on one or the other.”

 

He lay down and closed his eyes.

 

“And between her legs?”

 

I parted his bathrobe and took him in my hands as I spoke.

 

“The area between her legs has hair that grows straight and thin. Her clitoris is small but becomes so firm to the touch to be easily located. She is very tight, and no man has penetrated her, except for a single finger of my hand. This one.”

 

I held up the third finger on my right hand to his half-lidded eyes. In my left hand his penis stiffened.

 

“Her texture is a bit like a lily flower. Her taste I cannot properly describe in words.”

 

Miroku arched his back. I slipped my right hand beneath his buttocks and with my left hand guided his manhood into my mouth.

 

I took Aneue's burden, and proved to myself that I could be defiled in her place, while at the same time I bribed Miroku for her remains. Though, compared to Naraku, this act was ludicrously mild; swallowing a fly would disgust me nearly as much. But still, as far as self-punishment goes, when one is intending to commit a great deal of misdeeds it is good to preempt Heaven's wrath by first sucking the cock of a holy man.

 

He had the foul taste and large volume of one who has sexually abstained for a very long time. He rested only a minute before he gathered his clothes and stumbled to the corner of the temple, his half-erect cock bouncing and flinging specks of semen and saliva to all directions. After finding a sleeping spot as far from me as possible, he collapsed in exhaustion and drunkenness and shame.

 

“I will leave with her bones in the morning,” I said.

 

The cool night air carried wet, frustrated sobbing to the place where Sango was buried, but my shovel quickly drowned them out.

 

 

-10-

umedasu

(give birth)

 

Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice.

 

The cauldron was used for boiling youkai pelts, and it was suitably large for my needs, so I spent several days scrubbing its rough surface clean. I required several potions to mimic the various vesicles and organs of Naraku and the fluids within them. In this cauldron I would prepare the demon fluid in which Aneue would be made. For several days I prepared this solution, which became a sort of liquid artificial hanyou, dumb and blind and unintelligent, but a living thing in its own right.

 

I prepared a wooden box approximately the dimensions of a coffin, though in its purpose it was as unlike a coffin as it could be. The edges were sealed with wax and the sides were reinforced with coils of rope around the perimeter. This I placed on a stand so that the top of the box was about waist height. When the demon fluid was ready, I transferred it to this box in buckets. The demon fluid was a pale translucent yellow, and now taken from the heated cauldron it cooled and thickened. This was the vessel. This was the womb where Aneue would grow.

 

One by one I cleaned her bones and arranged them on the table. At this stage, most men would already have failed. Not even the greatest doctors knew how many bones were in the human body, or how they were arranged. I personally did not know for certain, and here I made my first sacrifices. The bones of the hands and feet required anatomical study; to arrange them properly I needed fresh bodies, to dissect and use as a model for Aneue. This was easily done.

 

I'd severed more than enough limbs to know exactly how to arrange the bones of the arms and shoulders and legs. Her skull was whole, with all teeth still in place. Her ribcage, and pelvis were likewise undamaged. The vertebrae I could arrange only because, when I pulled each piece from the ground, I began from the skull and worked toward the pelvis, wrapping each bit in cloth and marking with a number. Several were thoroughly broken, but that was not a problem, as repairs would be made in a later stage.

 

Once satisfied that all her bones were accounted for - I counted a total of one hundred and sixty two - I coated each one with fluid elixir and placed them into the vessel. The elixir began the reaction; they would command the vessel to use Aneue's bones as a framework, and any material added later would lose its connection to its previous life and become part of Aneue. The fluid in the vessel was thick, so that each bone I placed would maintain its position in space. Once finished, the fluid would slowly move the bones to the correct position in relation to each other, so long as I had put them in the proper position to begin with. Soon, the bones would gain bright shades of white and yellow and red as they became alive, and the vessel would bind them together with sinew. But first, the vessel must feed.

 

The material would attempt to revive and bind any flesh that I provided, so long as it was able, but now it was too busy with the bones, and any other items I added would be digested and become the vessel's sustenance.

 

I inserted the remnants of my anatomical study and watched them dissolve.

 

In the second month, the vessel was ready to accept the organs. This was the easy part, as any girl of Aneue's age would be a proper donor. They did not need to be particularly pretty; having cut open many bellies I've found the contents that spill forth are all very much the same. It took only a few hours to find a suitable pair of girls traveling; I struck them with two vials of incapacitating vapor and took one over either shoulder. When I returned to the workshop I stripped them and checked their skin for signs of disease. Finding none, I split open the ribs of one and took the heart and lungs and liver. By the time I had these placed the remaining contents of her torso had spoiled. The second woman provided Aneue her abdominal organs.

 

What was left of the bodies were still viable enough to provide food to the vessel, so once it was clear the organs were accepted - the heart still beat, uselessly pumping demon fluid; membranes were beginning to grow over the new contents of her torso - I fed the vessel about one limb a day for three days. After that the bodies were too rotten and needed to be buried. I lamented the waste.

 

In the third month, muscles and blood vessels and nerves were all to be added. This would be a very slow process, as the material must be dissolved and re-grown throughout the bones and organs already in the vessel. The brain and spinal column grew in response to the insertion of whole eyes. The vessel became greedy here; it ate what it liked first and used the remaining material to form her body. For three entire months I needed to feed the vessel twice a day, and each feeding need be a quarter of an adult human. I had to travel very far - I did not want missing persons to be noticed in any vicinity of my workshop, or in any pattern that might draw suspicion in this direction - and when this stage was done I had used twenty-five additional people. Such a wasteful process. Some days after the abdominal muscles formed, they began to follow the hitherto ignored commands from elsewhere in the body, and she began to breathe slow, shallow breaths. The demon fluid had become nearly thin as water at this point, and filled her lungs as if it were amniotic fluid.

 

In the sixth month, skin and fat must be placed. At this point, I must be particular. What made up Aneue so far was very good material, all from healthy women, and many of her muscles from healthy men as well. The vessel had adjusted most of this to fit her body, and if the lungs and heart and muscles I provided were not as strong as they should be, they would be imbued with demon essence to match her previous athletic abilities. I might worry about these things later - I would always be worried - but from this point on I would not see them again. I liked knowing the texture of her lungs, her intestines, and her uterus. But from now on this would only be memory. I would see her skin every day. Even the slightest imperfection would be obvious to me, and be a constant reminder that I had nearly made her perfect, but failed at the very last. It would drive me to madness.

 

This was the stage at which I could have enlisted the monk's help. I nearly did so, but I thought better. I could not share this Work with him - not its labor, and certainly not its result. I went to brothels, I studied their prostitutes and their dancing girls. This quickly posed too expensive and time consuming, and from then on I spied on women's bathhouses. There I marked, one by one, the girls with the finest complexion, and when I had decided on three of them for certain I took them from their beds all in one night.

 

The tools the taijiya use for skinning demons work just as well for humans, but the extraction and rebuilding of the external sexual characteristics required more exacting work. I utilized instruction from Miroku on those, actually: lessons on Buddhist sand sculpture allowed me to shape breasts which were large and round and firm; lessons on flower arrangement allowed me to construct a vulva that was both functional and beautiful. Her pleasure, and my pleasure, would be extraordinary, and I anticipated many days spent marveling at the place I made for her between her legs.

 

I'm not sure if I should call what I had done human taxidermy or human sculpture, but whatever it was, it was now done, and to my knowledge a total of thirty people sacrificed themselves to make up the flesh of the first woman to be born of a man. The vessel hungered; Aneue's nearly complete body constantly provoked its appetite, and after consuming the remnants of the skinned women in a single day, I knew only demon flesh would satisfy it. I was not an evil man; the fact I could stop killing women gave me some relief.

 

By the eighth month, the vessel had finished binding the skin to her musculature, and the places where the skin patches were joined had mostly sealed. Her hair and nails had grown rapidly. Though I could not see this with my eyes, I knew that the demon fluid which had been feeding her tissues was being slowly excreted from her body. She twitched, and her eyes moved beneath her lids. She was alive. She was dreaming.

 

After all that, the spells of Urasue and Tsubaki were mere child's play. When the body was fully ready, I called forth Sango's soul, to bind it to her body, and to me.

 

There are no words for my feelings of that moment, so I will be clinical. She bolted upright. She choked on the demon fluid in her lungs. I smashed the vessel open, spilling the demon fluid across the floor. I grabbed her around the belly and lifted her up, and holding her by the waist I bent her down to allow the fluid to drain from her lungs and out her mouth.

 

She gagged, and then breathed normally.

 

She said “Kohaku,” and then slept. Her wet body pressed against me.

 

She was alive.

 

She was mine.

 

-11-

tamashii

(soul)

 

As she lay sleeping on my bed, on our bed, washed of the demon fluid, naked beneath the blankets, I returned to my father's desk, and here I write my thoughts.

 

I am living the dream of the doll-maker, and perhaps of all men.

 

I have a living being, a nineteen-year-old girl in all meaningful respects, and she is bound to my will.

 

She is my sister, and I love her, but she is also a product of my hands and thus mine.

 

This is admittedly difficult to rectify.

 

Let me first be honest: as soon as it was clear I had succeeded and her life was certain, my desire to test her vagina was nearly insatiable. I created it after all; it is no crime to check my own work.

 

But I resisted. She did not know, and could never know, that I created her body. In her mind, the act I just described would be rape. Or would it be rape even if she knew?

 

I thought on this. Yes, it would still be rape. I created her body, but when I merged it with her soul, and gave her life, it was an unconditional donation. As a conscious person she deserves total control of her own body, as that right is innate to a thinking being.

 

So I will need to wait until she awoke. I will take only what I am given.

 

Already I've cleaned up the workshop, and except for this journal I've destroyed most of the evidence of my work. I've also made pains to dress up the home to make it appear that she had been comatose since the incident of Hitomi Castle, nearly seven years ago. Her age doesn't quite match up - twenty-four years have passed since her birth, but her body is the same body she had when she was nineteen. This should not be too obvious a difference, and even if she noticed she would surely attribute it to being comatose. Meanwhile, I was eleven years old in her last memory of me and now I am eighteen. This would solidify my claim of the time that has passed. The cover story should hold, especially considering how muddled her mind will be for the next few months.

 

But let me explain more clearly Aneue's soul.

 

Urasue was ultimately undone by her own impatience. Had Kikyou's soul been present in the ethereal realm, Kikyou would have been bound to the clay body and probably would have served Urasue. But Kagome's soul interfered, and so the animation process failed. If Urasue had smashed the clay body and begun again things may have worked, but she used the same soulless living body to capture Kagome's soul. This broke her own rule - that is, you must give the body both life and soul in the same instant or the results are unpredictable.

 

Kikyou taught me this way: a spirit is made of four souls, and these souls are aramitama, the aggressive soul, nigimitama, the gentle soul, sachimitama, the joyful soul, and kushimitama, the rational soul. All aspects should be in balance; too much or too little of one soul will drive a spirit to harm. So far as reincarnation, I am to understand that there are elements of a soul which are everlasting and elements which are lost when the soul transitions. Kikyou and Kagome had the same soul, but they were still very different people, because Kikyou's memories, and thus much of her spirit, were not received by Kagome. If a person was born in a very different time, and led a very different life, she might barely be recognizable to people who had known her. Kikyou and Kagome are like that.

 

In Buddhist thought existence is split into five elements, and these are Body, Feeling, Thought, Will, and Consciousness. They are all illusions. Miroku told me that the soul and the ego are false manifestations because we cannot see all living things are in fact the same being. I told him I did not understand, and he asserted that no one else does either.

 

But these false manifestations are close enough to describe my actions. Body was the living form I gave to Aneue. Feeling is the fact she is able to see and hear and touch and taste and smell. Thought is the fact that she can interpret and remember these perceptions, and come up with ideas and opinions. Will is her cognitive awareness, her realization that she is a living being. Consciousness is that life force which animates her body and mind, which was recalled from Heaven by Urasue's spell, where it had been waiting to be born into a suitable child.

 

Tsubaki's spells mostly influence Feeling and Thought; in the first case a spell would confuse a person's perceptions, in the second case a spell would drive a person to do an act she did not mean to do.

 

In the case of Aneue, Naraku's spell created Body. Urasue's spell recalled her Consciousness from Heaven, and by binding Consciousness to Body, created Feeling. Tsubaki's spell partially recreated her Thought and Will. Her memories of Miroku and the others I did not replace, partly because I did not know her experiences very well, but mostly because they were too painful. Her Thought I will leave unclear for a while, as it is important she first accept the reality I present her. If her mind is too sharp, she will put together the pieces all wrong, and risk madness.

 

What had happened was this: Naraku wiped out the taijiya clan. We two were the only survivors, and your injuries rendered you unconscious. For seven years I've cared for you, and taught myself taijiya skills, and when you are able we will begin a new taijiya school.

 

What happened to Naraku? He was pursued by many demon hunters; one group of them had the right combination of luck and skill to defeat him. No, I did not know them personally. Perhaps we could meet them someday? We certainly owe them gratitude, if we should ever find them.

 

Are you hungry? Thirsty? Take this rice steeped in tea, it is good for your stomach. Today is bath-day; will you let me wash you? If I stare at your body too intently, forgive me, I am only looking for bedsores.

 

-12-

ai

(love)

 

If she had really been comatose for seven years she would not regain full command of her body for a very long time. But she had been born into an adult body, the same body she died in, and the connection between her soul and body was so strong that she was able to walk and speak normally when she awoke the very next morning.

 

She was quiet; that was expected. I made breakfast.

 

“Seven years,” she said. “How could you care for me for so long?”

 

“You are my sister,” I said. “I am sorry that only I am here to greet you when you awoke.”

 

“Have you been alone this entire time?”

 

“I was with you, Aneue. I was never alone.”

 

“Kohaku . . .”

 

I embraced her.

 

“You grew up so much, Kohaku. You were a little boy when I last saw you. Please tell me you have a wife waiting for you. If you've been enslaved to me this entire time . . .”

 

I shook my head.

 

She had seen the village, rebuilt but empty. She had seen Father's grave, well-maintained but bearing years of weathering. She knew I suffered. She could not deny that suffering as she did before.

 

“Kohaku,” she said. “Who else lives to carry the taijiya bloodline?”

 

“No one but ourselves.”

 

She moved to get to her feet; I helped her up. She crossed her arms, grasped her sides with her hands, as if some chill wind had struck her. She walked to the window which faced the graves.

 

“It was not Father's way, but if he had only asked, I would have taken Mother's role after she died. I would have married him. And if Father had died, and you had taken his place, I would do the same for you if you asked. I did not think that would ever happen, because I always though I would be the one to inherit the village.”

 

She sighed.

 

“But that has happened. You've been leader of the youkai taijiya for seven years, and it does not matter that all but one of your villagers were buried. I saw the incense, Kohaku. You've been praying for Father, but also for every single villager here.”

 

That was true.

 

“You are all I have, Kohaku. I do not want a husband who will take me away from you. I do not want you to marry a woman who will take you away from me. I want you to stay here with me, and I will give you everything you need to make that happen.”

 

Finally, I could see how things would have been if Inuyasha and his friends had not taken Aneue from me.

 

“I haven't had much conversation for many years. Please speak plainly.”

 

“Because of these very dire circumstances, I am asking you to marry me, Kohaku.”

 

“Is that not forbidden, Aneue?”

 

“It is discouraged, but the taijiya are close-knit, and families have intermarried before.”

 

This statement - a thing I did not know myself - cut through the exhilaration of my success, and my childhood frustrations erupted.

 

“If it is not forbidden, why have you denied me your love ever since we were children?”

 

“Kohaku?”

 

I could not stop myself.

 

“You were so beautiful to me, Aneue. Your face, your spirit, and your body. I watched you grow into a woman, and become strong, but your attentions were always toward your training and never toward me. You say I am all you have now, but my entire life you were all I had. The other children hated me, Aneue.”

 

“Kohaku, I didn't realize. We spent time together, and I enjoyed having you near. I thought you felt the same way.”

 

“I wanted you so badly, Aneue. I tried so hard to be good enough for your attentions. I thought you would give me your love if I made you proud of me. And now I wish only that you told me, when we were young, that what I desired was impossible. If you told me that, I would never have trained to fight. I would have become an apprentice.”

 

She pressed a hand to her face, as if to press back tears, and she breathed in a sharp breath, and ran her fingers through her bangs, and she was composed again.

 

“Mother taught me that boys are like that, and without any further instruction I didn't know what to do about your attentions. I thought I could ignore them. I could have discouraged you, but I didn't. And sometimes I thought I could help, just a little. I don't know if you spied on me when I bathed, but if I had known I would not have stopped you. If that's what you needed to relieve your sexual needs, to see me naked, I think I would have tolerated it for a time.”

 

“What I desired, and what I was too afraid to ask, was your advice. If you had only instructed me in sexual matters, if you had only pulled up your skirt and pointed out the parts of your body I so desperately wanted to know about - that memory would have satisfied me, Aneue.”

 

“I suppose that now, such a display would not be enough for you, Kohaku.” She shook her head. “Because you have cared for me, and bathed me, you know my body too well to be excited by simply looking at me naked.”

 

“I made myself be detached,” I said, “so I would not be tempted to take advantage. But you are still beautiful, and you will excite me if you permit me to be excited.”

 

“I permit you, Kohaku. I want you excited. Tell me what I can do to excite you.”

 

“Aneue, there is one thing I have not seen, and that I would very much like to see.”

 

“Anything.”

 

I thought of an incident many years ago, where Naraku had offered my life in exchange for Inuyasha's sword. She nearly completed the exchange, but she broke the deal at the very last minute. I remained a slave to Naraku for over six hundred days. Forgive me if, in this moment, I wished Aneue to experience something similar to my own shame.

 

“I have not seen you have pleasure, Aneue.”

 

She hesitated.

 

“Can you feel pleasure from your own hand?” I asked.

 

“I . . .” She looked to the floor. “Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, I have hidden that from you.”

 

“Please undress and show me.”

 

Her face burned red as she unbelted her kosode and let it fall to the ground, and she glanced around for a proper spot. At the edge of the fire pit she could sit, and with one foot on the dirt and the other foot on the platform she spread herself as wide as she could be.

 

She touched herself, and paused.

 

“Kohaku, I am sorry, but can I ask one thing of you?”

 

“What is it?”

 

“Could you undress, and let me see you? I am too embarrassed otherwise.”

 

I thought of many nights imaging her body, but unable to form a picture good enough to satisfy, and masturbating relentlessly and fruitlessly. I would have liked her to submit to the same humiliation.

 

But this I could not ask; it was too cruel. I disrobed, and sat at the other edge of the fire pit, and without taking her eyes off me, Aneue masturbated for me.

 

It was the most loving act imaginable.

 

She came loudly, and though I was very hard, with each orgasmic cry I became harder still. As ecstatic as I was when she came to life, and spoke my name, only now, at this moment, did I have irrefutable proof of my success - that Aneue was so happy when she rubbed the clitoris I made her, and when she inserted fingers into the vagina I made her, and that these acts, in proper sequence, allowed her to climax so beautifully.

 

When her breathing settled, she approached me. Her thighs were unbearably wet, and the exquisite scent of her sex permeated the room.

 

“That makes me very happy, Kohaku.”

 

She kneeled before me, kissed my cock and took it in her hands.

 

“Do not warn me. Release your seed as soon as you are ready. I am happy to take it.”

 

She took me into her mouth.

 

I wept for joy.

 

-13-

houshi

(priest)

 

Just before dawn, Miroku awoke and made preparations.

 

Today was a day of ceremony and prayer.

 

Today was the fifth anniversary of the death of Naraku.

 

Today was the fifth anniversary of the day Sango left him for Kohaku.

 

She was gone.

 

It happened so quickly.

 

Kohaku was there, and Sango pushed him aside, out of the way of the razor-sharp claw that struck her midsection, and continued onward, and caused her upper body to go in one direction, and her lower body to go in another direction.

 

Neither Inuyasha nor Kagome saw. They would not have been able to deal the killing blow to Naraku if they had seen what Miroku saw.

 

What Kohaku saw.

 

How long was she conscious?

 

What did she feel?

 

Her face was frozen in the look of fear she had when she slammed into her brother with her elbow; Miroku hoped and believed that death was instant, and her soul left her body before it disintegrated.

 

Miroku was not as horrified as he perhaps should have been. He had seen demons disembowel men and women before. He had seen men tie up other men and chop off their heads. Seeing Sango's insides did not particularly shock him: they looked exactly as he thought they would.

 

He gathered her up, wrapped her tightly in his kesa. With bloody fingers he closed her eyes and mouth and turned her lips to a sort of soft smile. This was for Kagome. Sango was gone; this corpse before him had nothing to do with the woman. He had no inclination to kiss or embrace or cradle it.

 

He then returned to battle.

 

One death was enough.

 

The fact that they succeeded, and that he survived the battle, was a source of incredible frustration.

 

It was also the source of stronger conviction to the dharma.

 

And also to sake.

 

But not so much women. He tried. But his fear of Sango's retribution was ingrained now; she made it impossible to feel at ease.

 

He had buried his heart with her.

 

The year before, her bones had been moved back to the taijiya village.

 

But not for burial.

 

Miroku knew there was some darkness still in Kohaku, and the incidents of that evening made it too easy to ignore his behavior. Shortly after Sango's remains were taken there were many kidnappings and murders in the region, and still Miroku did nothing.

 

Only now, after the killing spree had ended, did Miroku seek to confront Kohaku. Whatever Kohaku had done, it was ended. He needed to know if it was successful.

 

He came to the village in early afternoon.

 

The smell struck him before he even reached the gate, and from that signal he should have known to turn around and never come back.

 

Some effort had been made to rebuild the homes, though most still were in disrepair. Death and corruption permeated the air. Miroku gripped the rings of his shakujou to silence them and crept quietly, for fear that all the buried inhabitants of the village had unearthed themselves and wandered about the sagging wooden homes as they decomposed.

 

The stench intensified as he approached the headman's home.

 

“Kohaku?” he called. He could hear only a buzzing sound in response.

 

He entered the hut.

 

Beside the fire, lying on a futon, was a putrefying pile of flesh. The corpse - or amalgam of corpses - was clearly months-dead, and its tissues had liquefied to green-black fluid that oozed and coated most of the flooring in the hut. Footprints and handprints of this same decomposing material marked much of the floor, the walls, and the furniture. The corpse twitched slightly and a thin stream of maggots spilled from between its legs.

 

Miroku turned; three steps got him outside the doorway, and there he dropped his staff, grabbed his knees, and painted the dry-cracked mud street, and the purple apron of his robe, with his half-digested lunch. As he heaved and spat, he heard footsteps, and looking up with weeping eyes he saw Kohaku approach.

 

“I thought I heard you call. I'm glad to see you Miroku. I've just finished her. Her memory is bad; I'm afraid she won't remember you. But you are welcome to meet her.”

 

Kohaku placed a hand on Miroku's shoulder.

 

“Please be careful not to upset her, though,” Kohaku said, bringing his mouth to Miroku's ear. “She's pregnant.”

 

 

“Things are hunting me now - the things

that devour and dissolve - but I know

how to elude them.”

- H.P. Lovecraft

 

END

 

Author's Note: In case it isn't obvious, I got this idea after reading Abraxas/Ren's “Against Life”; the similarities are somewhat apparent. I'd like to say it's similarly inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, but I think I draw more from August Derleth and Robert E. Howard. Thanks to Aiffe for being practically the only person who might want to read it.

 

Revised 7 May 2008.