InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Simple and Clean ❯ Soul Searching ( Chapter 30 )

Gulp. I know, I am an evil author of doom, and looking back, I hardly ever update. It's mostly because this is the end of the 1s quarter of school (gotta keep my grades up AND I have like a million end-of-quarter projects ;_; ), Halloween, and the fact that I'm hosting a Japanese woman who I write to (I'm tactically avoiding using the words `pen pal'). I'm too overbooked… BUT at least update (I know, you're saying…pft, update? When?) and don't just give up on a story. That's the most dissatisfying thing. If you're reading a really talented and insightful story, you get to the last chapter, realizing that it's only half done and the last time the person updated was like 2002. See, I totally understand breaks because of writer's block and the like, but to abandon a story, an especially good one, and never write it again… that's just cruel. I hope you didn't think I was being presumptuous about that…eh, don't hate me, just read on and hopefully review…

 

Recap:

“…Take care of Kagome for me,” Kouga was all but gone now, “If I hear about you mistreating her, I'll…” Inuyasha never heard the rest of the sentence because Kouga's voice had become inaudible. He was gone. The light began to dim, and he ran for it, trying to find a way to pull Kouga back, before it flared brightly again. He shielded his eyes against the intense glare. A throaty laugh filled his ears, “I could think of something ironic to say here like, `Don't walk towards the light, Inuyasha', but I won't. And don't expect any sappy speeches, Disney isn't paying me that much,” Midoriko's mocking outline appeared against the light, “I'll leave you with this: follow the path that is set for you, other's destinies hang in the balance of your choices.”

Falling to his knees on the icy ground, Inuyasha dug his nails into the snow, glaring at the image of the smiling man now burned into his head. The snow seemed to silence even his screaming thoughts.

 

Chapter 30

Sleeping Souls

Thank you to

Brandtishot, KittenCutie,

AkeryouSesshoumarusMate, alicia/kagome, and HyPeRAzNgUrL121, thanks for the positive responses and/or adds!

-I-

It was amazing the amount of time Rin had stayed asleep. But then again, you could hardly call the state she was in sleep. It almost seemed, despite the rhythmic breathing, that the pale form laid out on the futon was already dead; a lifeless doll, beautiful in passing. Naraku stroked her hair placidly, deep in thought. He mulled over the eerie ideas in his mind that had been brewing there since the incident with the girl's souls.

She was clearly not from Sengoku Jidai, but he didn't need anything besides a glance at the people she was traveling with to know that. It was painfully obvious in the worst of ways. If the reason she had somehow acquired two souls had something to do with her being from a different time, then he himself also must have two souls. Would obtaining a third soul from another time traveler help him to prolong his stay in the past indefinitely? Why had she aged if she had had two souls to begin with?

A daunting thought crossed his mind. What if the soul that he had taken from her had enabled her to live in the past? If his second soul was also taken away, would he become the almost lifeless body that the girl was now? If so, two things were evident: the second soul's aging effect must have been how long she could have lived in the past, which meant that now that she had completely lost her second soul, she lived on in the future, but not in the past. Though she existed in both the future and the past, she only truly lived in the future, causing her body to revert to a comatose state. This finding also made it deadly clear to Naraku that without a second soul, he would not be able to function in the past, leaving him no way to get back to the future once more. His collection of souls helped to stop the flow of time for what he knew now was his secondary soul, but how long could he hold out before the inevitable?

He smiled slightly, muttering to himself, “Sleeping Beauty must have had a time machine… If only a kiss would help me as well.” A woman's face burned in the back of his mind, her prominent features leaving no room for mistake. “If only a kiss, Kikyo…”

-II-

Kikyo sneezed suddenly, losing her balance and stumbling sideways. Steadying herself, she felt a cold wind its way up her spine. Something felt wrong. In fact, the wrongness had been growing all day as they had kept a steady pace towards the castle in the miasma. It had been growing closer and closer, the wrongness turning her stomach into butterflies. At lease Kagome was okay, but then, it wasn't so satisfying because another member of their party had been lost.

Inuyasha hadn't said a word all day. It was as though he was in shock, though to be in shock about the loss of someone that didn't seem so close to him to begin with seemed a little strange. Kikyo knew Inuyasha really wasn't as irritated by Kouga as he let on, and it was hard to see him so down for he was usually so peacefully oblivious. It weighed heavily on her, her pessimistic nature normally balanced out by other's almost ignorant optimism.

Kagome, though hit hard by the loss of Kouga, somehow had acquired a new strength and resolve that fueled Kikyo's suspicion that the jewel inside of her body was reacting somehow to the castle in the miasma. Neither she, nor Sesshomaru had mentioned the jewel to Kagome or Inuyasha. It wasn't that they didn't want them to know, but, for Kikyo anyway, there was a strange feeling to let them find out on their own time. She suspected Midoriko's interference, and let the matter be. Sesshomaru must have felt the same way, for there was no word from him on the matter either.

Kikyo sighed, pulling a stray hair back into her loose ponytail, only for it to fall stubbornly back into place. It was hard to think logically anymore. The cold bit and numbed everyone's senses, and Kikyo had begun to loose what little hope she had that any of the things that happened is this alien world could be explained as the heat drained steadily out from under her feeble clothing. Kikyo longed to lie down and sleep forever, to forget everything and just float away, but the dark did not come. Instead the castle did.

It lay before them, larger than life, a menacing demon towering over them. The light should have been brighter and clearer up here, but as soon as they neared the outskirts of the castle, it dimmed, as if a sudden cloud had blotted it out. A barrier around the castle was visible now, an arching circle of dark light, shimmering menacingly. As they walked on, warily now, it started to dim, and another light began to shine.

Kagome gasped, and Kikyo looked back towards her to see her emitting the same light that she had spotted coming from her earlier; the light of the Shikon no Tama. Inuyasha started towards her, but stopped as the light flared out, “What the hell?!” He shielded his eyes, almost pushed back by the force of the jewel. Kikyo squinted through the light, discerning the faint shape that was Kagome. Sesshomaru's head was bent to one side, a curtain of hair hiding his expression.

Kagome's feet left the ground, and her hair began to float around her, blocking chunks of the light so it shone through like a halo around her head. She looked like an angel ascending towards the sky, her clothes and hair billowing in the celestial wind. And then everything stopped. Kagome fell slightly, landing with her hip, legs bent underneath her. She looked surreally down at her palm, the slightly glowing jewel emitting small pink sparks, almost like a warm, friendly fire. No one knew quite what had happened until Sesshomaru noticed the barrier. Or, I should say, noticed that there was no barrier.

“The light has disappeared,” He stated apathetically, a hand resting on his fur boa. Inuyasha scoffed from behind him, “Kagome just started floating and crap and all you have to say is that she stopped glowing?” Sesshomaru looked at his half-brother coldly. “I was referring to the barrier, Inuyasha.” Inuyasha's ears went back slightly, showing his discomfort.

Choosing not to make a comment back at his brother, or maybe unable to find a good one, he focused his attention back at Kagome. “Are you alright?” He asked worriedly. She smiled warmly, taking a deep breath, “I think so,” She answered, as if testing to see if her voice really worked. Inuyasha held out a hand to help her up, and she took it without complaint. Their eyes met warmly for a second before Kikyo interrupted.

“Kagome's body, and the jewel, must have purified the barrier,” Her brow furrowed. “But if Kagome managed to set off that much energy just to purify the barrier, I hate to think what waits for us inside the castle. I don't exactly think that this person is good after all.” The travelers glanced warily at the castle, the strange miasma-like fog making their view slightly hazy. Kagome shivered, “I have a bad feeling about this,” She said, realizing as the words came out that she had pretty much quoted every horror movie in existence. She hated horror movies.

Kikyo's eyes locked on the castle entrance as the started to walk towards it. “You have no idea…” She muttered as they followed her through the gateway and into what might be the end of everything.

-Author Talk-

Do you hear the creepy music begin to play? Duhn duhn duhn duhn…. Tune in next time I get around to updating for chapter 31: Into the Miasma. And for your reading pleasure….

-Ultra Special Blah Blah of Doom-

 

Confused about the secondary soul concept? Here's a brief explanation:

Those who travel from one dimension (time, space, world, ect…) theoretically acquire a secondary soul. This soul is sort of like a travel visa, it lets the person stay in another dimension for a certain period of time (for example, Rin's time was about 7 or 8 years because of how much she aged). If the `visa' runs out, the person's body, as a defense mechanism against death in one or both dimensions, reverts into an unconscious state similar to a coma.

Sometimes, if the original soul doesn't make a clean detachment from the first dimension (i.e. Inuyasha), the body is split (but most of the time not literally, ewww…). This causes the traveler to have a body in both dimensions at once. Usually one, or even both, are in a state of coma. It really gets messy when both fractions of the whole are awake… but that's a completely different concept that I'm not going to cover, at least not now anyways.

Until next time, thanks for reading and reviewing!