InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Truth ( Chapter 46 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

 

Chapter Forty-Six: Truth

 

 

“How much has he told me?” Kagome spoke softly and then furtively spied over her shoulder at the relaxed rocking of a silver-crowned head. Beyond that reassuring sight, the only conscious stirring that caught her eye was that of Mon-Ki. Leaving his bed of meticulously gathered silk, the yawning primate curled up on the deep pile of the tai youkai's plush pelt. In a drowsy haze, his nimble fingers absently sought the soft, ivory tufts and he sorted through them, searching for anything edible as he groomed. Certain now that the demon undeniably slept, the school girl returned her attention to the hunched man at her side. “He hasn't told me anything, really. Well, at least nothing of any importance.”

 

“Hmm,” the monk thought aloud in a murmur before his dark sight looked up to find her troubled expression. “Then what do you remember?”

 

“Not much, to be honest. I remember standing on the beach holding his clothes and his weapons. And then he left to ride the turtle as it swam out to sea. I couldn't see him for all of it, but he said he was going to come back for me. That he was going to return when he received the gift from Oto-Hime.”

 

“And then?”

 

“Emptiness,” she answered surely, furrowing her brow at the intangible feeling that sunk in her chest. Under its nearly unbearable throbbing, her delicate hand felt for the worn fibers of her tunic, soothingly rubbing away the dull pain that swelled around her heart. Accompanying the ache, a thick lump grew in her throat as her sight blurred with uninvited tears. But, she continued, swallowing down her curious fear and wiping away her inexplicable sorrow. “I only remember a cold and dark emptiness. Almost as if I was falling forever in a deep well with no end. It's hard to explain. I don't even understand it.”

 

“I see.”

 

“There was something else that shared the emptiness. It was a quiet noise that I've also heard in my dreams, but even there it was faint. In the darkness, I heard the rush of waves crashing. When I think about it, it feels as if they were haunting me. Not in a frightening way, because even now I feel strangely comforted by the memory of their sounds. They were like a lullaby that ices your blood as it rocks you to sleep.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“My next memories are from when I awoke on the island and I found him covered in blood,” she added, closing her sepia eyes to reluctantly think on the beach. There her vision loitered on the grisly, red-stained sand and the lifeless youkai lord surrounded by it. “I-I thought he was dead. The slashes were so deep. It was almost like he had tried to claw out his own heart. Never again. Never again, do I want to see something like that.

 

After a while, he woke up and his youki healed the wounds. Since then, he hasn't told me a thing about what happened. No matter how I ask, he deflects or answers me with silence. To make it worse, every time he falls asleep, when he wakes up, he's still injured and speaks to me even less than before. I'm afraid that when he wakes up this time, he won't ever say another word to me.” Her eyes fluttered open and she stared imploringly at the old man. “I don't know what to do and I don't know why any of this is happening.”

 

“Take heart, Momotaro-sama,” he replied knowingly. “In a way, your most difficult trial ended on that beach and his has only begun.”

 

“Then you know what went on. You know what he did and what was done to him.”

 

“Yes and no.”

 

“How can it be yes and no?” she demanded in her confusion at the cryptic reply. “You mentioned Oto-Hime and the castle beneath the waves. Please, tell me what happened to Sesshoumaru-sama.”

 

“I cannot.”

 

“What? Why?!”

 

“It is not my place to say.”

 

“How can you do this to me? You lure me by asking me what I know and then act as if you're going to enlighten me about what I don't!” Kagome raged tearfully, her voice cracking beneath the burden of her overwhelming frustration and stripped emotions. “You're one of the monks who found the scrolls. You can travel between the fairytales like us. You know what's going on, so why can't you just tell me?”

 

“I am not omnipotent within this realm, my lord,” he answered soothingly, touching her wrist gently to calm her. “In this prison, I can only travel where there are roads. And there are none in the story of Urashima Taro. So, I did not witness what your companion did beneath the ocean depths. Nonetheless, if I did see it, I would refuse to speak it for it is not my tale to divulge, even at the mercy of my deepest compassion.”

 

“Then why tell me anything? Why ask the questions? Why make it worse, if you're not going to help make it better?”

 

“It's simple. Even though, his story may not be mine to tell, I do have one that you may wish to hear. And perhaps in its profession, you will find the answers you seek, Momotaro-sama.”

 

“What story?”

 

“My own.”

 

The squeaking of the rolling cart and gentle sniffles replaced words as the school girl paused for the silence of her thoughts. Her reddened sight lingered on the crooked monk who waited unwearyingly for her reply. So many years had passed for him within the confines of the scroll that patience had become his favorite diversion to pass the time.

 

“I would be honored,” she whispered finally, her voice rough from the briny liquid that trickled in the back of her throat. He smiled contentedly, quietly and guiltily relishing the rare opportunity to speak of his difficult and endless journey.

 

“Fraught with anguish and longing, my tale has been an arduous one to live, my lord,” he began wistfully, quelling his own sorrow that bubbled into his already gravelly voice. “Many, many years ago, I was once a young, but revered monk who served our great empire in the dawn of its time. As one of several select charges, it was my duty to care for our nation's most prized literature and it was one that I tirelessly took pride in. Mending crumbling paper and tending to fading ink was a daily and welcomed ritual. That is until one morning when a dawn arrived that would forever bind me to the lines of prose that I had dedicated my life to preserve.

 

Quiet as if in whisper, a dulcet voice sung my name in the silence while I dusted the shelves within one of the grander pagodas of the royal library. Enraptured by its melodious lure, I searched through the room for the beauty that beckoned as only a true goddess could bear a song of such elegance.

 

However, no woman awaited my efforts and my desperate pursuit ended in a seldom touched corner of the large room. There I was greeted by the powdery decay of forgotten relics, all seemingly beyond repair. Disappointed and saddened by what I found, I turned away until the smoothness of unspoiled skin caught my learned eye. Parting away the disintegrating vestiges of history lost to time, I picked up a pair of scrolls that were unmarred by any touch of rot.

 

Tickling my fingers, I could feel the flow of divine magic rippling beneath the fine grain of parchment. With this splendid power, I believed that who had ensnared me to its presence could be none other than the great sun goddess herself, Amaterasu. Excited by my discovery, I sought out a fellow monk. Handing him one of the scrolls so that he could examine its godly magnificence, my curiosity over its extraordinary nature claimed my attention next. I did not realize my words of incantation until it was too late and as I ignorantly uttered the final verse of poem, our fates were sealed.”

 

“I understand that all too well,” Kagome replied soberly, thinking on her rather similar misfortune in reading aloud what shouldn't necessarily be read.

 

“As you perhaps do,” the old man remarked with a hoarse, but mirthful chuckle. “And you likely will be able to recall what occurred next. We share like fates within this realm, you and I. We both awoke in the room dedicated to the sun goddess as our allies arose in the room belonging to Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon. And like you and your comrade, my friend and I unlocked the steps leading to the next story of that eight-tiered pagoda which stands alone amid a churning, black sea. Together, we traveled through the fairytales, wrestling with woodland animals and protecting princesses from the cruel intentions of wicked bandits. And perhaps like you both, we did not understand the intent behind its creation. Not until we met Shiro-sama.

 

“Shiro-sama,” she murmured, considering the great tai youkai who fathered Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's family, the appropriately named, Clan of Shiro.

 

“The story of The Old Man Who Made Withered Trees Bloom is not an uncommon tale. Nevertheless, the truth behind its telling was even a mystery to us educated men until the proud dog was felled by the jealous neighbor and the silver-haired demon of its origin appeared in the flesh before us.”

 

“There isn't a better description for him than that,” she softly giggled with a growing blush, remembering the older lord's tendency for nudity.

 

“Indeed,” he sighed halfheartedly, catching her reference easily. “With him, we learned who crafted the scroll and for what purpose it was meant for. To heartlessly imprison for an eternity, the evil god of storms, Susanou trapped those who angered him from his brief time exiled to the earthly plane. After vowing to destroy this unnatural artifact of ill-intent once our freedom was gained, Shiro-sama pleaded with us to instead deliver it to the hands of his clan. We agreed for we were not certain of what fate would befall those unjustly detained within its magic. If we had not sworn an oath of unbreakable honor to the noble youkai lord, the scroll would have surely been burned for the next fairytale and the terrible evil it held.

 

“The Dragon King.”

 

“Never had I experienced such horrible and unfathomable wickedness as I did when I met what remained of the slain Yamata-no-Orochi. A frightening creature and yet to find him brought to his knees for love, even if it was love for an illusion. I could not help, but to pity him even at the risk of my faith for the righteous gods he had once terrorized.

 

However, despite my sympathy for his recurring plight, my weak hands which have never held a weapon were never more cruelly murderous. I failed the king in the battle against The Centipede and before my eyes I witnessed the enormous monster ravage all that he held dear. The dragon fought valiantly against it after my defeat, but no harm befell the protected fiend at his desperate efforts. In the waking dawn, he stood in the rubble of his broken palace. A blood-soaked scrap of kimono in hand, I could hear him quietly plead for the deadening respite of sleep. When the fairytale began anew the following day, I did not fail him again.”

 

“He wouldn't want you to do that.”

 

“What, my lord?”

 

“He wouldn't want you to pity him.”

 

“I suppose he is too proud for condolences. He has found in imprisonment what he had lost at the cowardly hand of Susanou. I would doubt that the god had intended for the serpent to find peace in eternal torment, but I would not disbelieve that his intentions were reached with Oto-Hime in the Tale of Urashima Taro.

 

Until now, all I have told is not a mystery to your ears, while what remains is very much so. Are you prepared to hear what lies beyond your knowing?”

 

The unremarkable song of the rumbling wagon permeated the air again in their renewed silence. Closing her eyes, Kagome considered what lay next in the old monk's story. In it was the key to her past and her heart raced at the thought of its telling. After swallowing down a few deep breaths to subdue the muscle's hurried beating, she returned her sight to the elderly man and nodded.

 

“Very well,” he answered solemnly, “My companion and I arrived next on the deserted shore of an island surrounded by a vast ocean. As you surely remember from your own journeying, we soon discovered a stranded turtle in need of rescue upon its sands. Once it was righted, only he was permitted to voyage astride the animal to the palace deep beneath the sea. I remained on the beach to await his return, an arrival I would not live to see.”

 

“You died? But, the barrier of the scroll--”

 

“The magic of the scroll protects the faithfulness of the stories it tells,” he interrupted swiftly. “Only Issunboshi could defeat the bandit and save the princess, just as only the elderly man could carve the mortar in honor of the slain Shiro. Injuries fall beneath its power to prevent, but old age is beyond its touch.”

 

“But, you said you were a young man when you found the scrolls.”

“I was, but without a doubt you should know what happened to those residing above the surface of the ocean in that particular fairytale. What three days away had meant to the mortal Urashima Taro when he returned from the magnificence of the Dragon King of the Sea's home and the company of his betrothed, Oto-Hime.”

 

“Three hundred years,” the school girl murmured the answer, scarcely breathing the words as her face paled of color. “You were on the beach for three hundred years?”

 

“My body was and only likely dust on the breeze when my companion was finally released from Oto-Hime's allure. With no decision to make, The Box of Time was unnecessary with my passing hundreds of years earlier. I imagine he was only gifted with the Water Seal that would unlock the steps to the tale we traverse now.”

 

“I don't understand. You're dead, but still in the scroll?”

 

“It is a prison, Momotaro-sama. Those who cannot finish their roles are doomed to remain within its magic. Despite my unkind fate, I am pleased that my fellow monk was able to escape a similar destiny.”

 

“How could he when your role should have been as Momotaro?”

 

“Without my presence, my tasks fell to him. The magic then compensated for missing characters with the illusions it had been using for hundreds of years prior to our arrival.”

 

“If we share the same roles, you and I,” she began hesitantly, her voice choking at the heavy question that splintered her tongue. It was the one that inevitably needed an answer, no matter how much she feared it would reveal. She needed light in the darkness of her dreams and hope in the emptiness of her memories. “Was I left behind on that beach like you? For years and years?”

 

“How long you waited is a mystery, my lord. However, unlike me, you live when I perished to time. Oto-Hime is not an easy mistress to persuade for no one experiences loneliness as deeply as she does. You were fortunate that Do-Gu escaped her charm in time to entertain the choice that only The Box of Time affords.”

 

“The choice? What choice did he make?”

 

“Hmm,” the monk smirked at her somber expression, “He chose you. Whatever years of inexorable solitude that you endured, he absolved you of them. He cleansed your spirit by gifting you his unspent time and accepting onto himself your aged years.”

 

“I-I don't know if I can… I mean, why would he--?”

 

“His reasons are his own,” he replied wisely. “I cannot speak for that which I do not know. Nonetheless, I do know that your most recent predecessor's companion did it for love. He nearly died sacrificing his years to spare her of the passed lifetime of pain before death greeted her in those final moments of life.”

 

“Is he going to die?” the school girl asked worriedly, spying back at the slumbering tai youkai, tempted to feel for his breaths at the severity of the old man's words.

 

“No, this Do-Gu is no longer wounded by the hand of time, Momotaro-sama. What weights his steps and chains his body is beyond the power of the scroll.”

 

“I don't understand. If he's not injured from his sacrifice, then why is he hurt?”

 

“He is from the Clan of Shiro and that is all that must be spoken for no others understand as intimately what it truly means to give a gift.”

 

“Wait, I need more than another cryptic explanation.”

 

“Hmm,” the old man murmured, perking up in his seat as he ignored her demand. The heat of the summer day seemed to lessen with his distraction as a cool breeze blew over the waving, amber blades of the broad fields. “Can you hear it, my lord?”

 

“What?”

 

“The ocean.”