InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Simple and Clean ❯ Into the Miasma ( Chapter 31 )

Eh… sorry last chapter was short. I was having one of those uninspired and busy months that always seem to be leaving you in the dust. Please forgive my utter irresponsibility. Us authors are such reader abusers; I'm surprised you all don't have to go to therapy for all the things we put you through…I'm starting to wrap up Simple and Clean (sobs in corner) so this may or may not be one of the last episodes (wails can be heard)… I'm definitely going to miss writing this story, and I want to thank all of my readers, regardless of if you reviewed or not (though I like to get to know how different people see my story, so reviewers are extremely helpful). Thank you all! (bawls)

Warning: parts of this chapter contain heavy swearing. I apologize in advance…

 

Recap:

“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.

 

Chapter 31

Into the Miasma

 

Thank you to

Brandtishot, Akeryou, and kittencutie14 who reviewed,

and to

Kagome 32 Shrine, cherrymoonblossoms2008, Mimiachu, and Misanthropic Tendencies for the adds

(I'm not sure If I had thanked you all yet… sorry if I've left anyone out! it's becoming hard to keep track of adds!)

-I-

Naraku was waiting for them, Kanna beside him, a faithful white lap dog. He was not smiling, nor was he frowning. In fact, he was completely expressionless. Kanna looked up at him and stated as if he hadn't already known it, “They're here, at the gate.” Naraku blinked slowly, breathing in deeply and completely unconsciously preparing himself for something. “Yes, Kanna.” He rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment before leaving her on the steps to walk towards the travelers. To someone who could not understand Naraku's relationship with his servants, this gesture might have seemed reassuring, almost fatherly. But to Kanna it was simply a warning: Stay here, don't get in my way.

As the party came closer, Naraku saw their forms appear, then solidify in the ever-present miasma. His eyes narrowed as he counted. There were only four. Had they not started out with eight, including the girl he held now? Where were the other three? He felt a tendril of doubt unfurl in his stomach. Things were not going as planned, someone else that he did not know had gotten involved. There was undoubtedly a third party. A third party with the ability to bend fate, and that could only mean trouble for Naraku.

As the faces of the five people became clear to one another, everyone's heart skipped a beat. Well, almost everyone. Two people's skipped two beats. Kikyo stiffened, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Standing before her was the same man who she had treated in the hospital not a year before. Hadn't he been on an apprenticeship in a law office in Osaka right after he was discharged? Hadn't he been telling the truth, or had it all been a façade to mask what he truly was? How could she have been so blind?

It was hard for Kikyo to accept that the person standing before her was anyone at all. If the only truth is that the universe is infinite, then there could be no dimension traveling because dimensions did not exist. There could not be truth, so any statements were lies. And how could someone tell a lie if they never existed to begin with. Kikyo felt her mind curl up weakly, naked and exposed and confused. She felt the weight of the past few days begin to fall on top of her like pieces of the sky. How could this be possible, and how could it happen to her?

Kagome felt Kikyo collapse to the ground beside her before she saw it. She had her eyes riveted on the man standing before them, as if they were frozen there. Icy, piercing purple eyes stared back, emotionlessly. And yet she felt a surge of fear jolt through her like a shockwave. She did not know the extent of why Kikyo had crumpled like she did, but Kagome knew that if it had anything to do with that man, it must have been his eyes. A stab of hatred warmed her frozen soul from somewhere deep within her.

The rest of him was strange and alien, but not like the world they were in now. For some reason, he didn't seem to fit here. His hair was long and dark, tendrils of it hanging around his face like roots of a tree grabbing for soil. His skin was much too light, so much so that it was almost translucent. His angular face made him even stranger looking. It wasn't just his appearance that scared and repelled Kagome. There was an aura about him that screamed to her that something was horribly wrong, that the pieces of this puzzle had been forced and twisted together. And then she felt a wave surging with power barely miss her ear.

The man seemed surprised for a moment, before moving at lightning speed to avoid the blow of Sesshomaru's upraised sword. A small cut opened on his cheek, sending a droplet of blood curving down his cheek. Kanna wasn't so lucky. Her eyes showed no emotion whatsoever as the wave slashed through her body. There was silence for a moment, then the sound of glass breaking, and a soft thud of a body on wood. A pool of blood held the remains of the girl, the white of her hair and dress soiled with red, mirror in shattered pieces beside her. Kagome screamed and collapsed to her knees next to Kikyo.

As tears began to stream down her face, Kagome whispered, “What have we done… what have we done…” her whispering growing louder until she was sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn't understand quite why she was crying, but she knew that it wasn't just because there was a dead child lying in front of her. No, she realized exactly what Kikyo must have been feeling. The reality hit her, and a ton of bricks would be an understatement of the situation at hand.

Sesshomaru sheathed his sword and noted with something close to indifference, “Maybe I acted too rashly…” Inuyasha glared at him, “Damn straight you did you bastard,” Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow, “What the hell were you trying to pull. You knew that little girl was behind him.” Sesshomaru fingered his sword and sighed. “Quite frankly Inuyasha, your complete idiocy is beginning to get on my nerves. It was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that he was using her as an indirect shield. He thought that we had too much guilt to kill her. He underestimated us.”

The crunch of gravel sounded in the stale air surrounding the two brothers. “True, I wasn't expecting you to realize what I had in mind so fast, but no matter, it is no loss to me.” At the sound of the man's cold voice, Kagome hurled herself towards him, blinded by her own tears. “You bastard!” landing in Inuyasha's arms as he intercepted her, she pounded on his chest, keeping her eyes away from the man's, “You inhuman piece of shit!”

The man seemed unfazed by Kagome's outburst, turning away from her and the two men to make his way to Kikyo. She was sitting on the ground, knees bent, and legs halfway under her, staring at her own hands as if they were melting away. There was a visible shiver that went through her body as the man touched her, and Kagome made an attempt to break free of Inuyasha, his strong arms holding her back. Inuyasha's ears perked to the almost noiseless clank of a sword being braced against its sheath.

“Kikyo,” Another shudder went through the woman as he spoke her name. “Surprised that I would be here? You look… oh, how should I put this- a little overwhelmed.” A slap resounded through the silence, and then Kikyo's hand fell from his cheek. “You lied to me, Naraku,” Kikyo said as the rest of her companions stared at her in stunned silence, “What can I believe anymore? I trusted you. I trusted you against everything else, and this is what you do to me? How could you?” Her voice grew bitterly cold with her last question. She did not want an answer, she wanted a reason to explain her growing hate. Inuyasha and Kagome just wanted a reason to explain what the hell was going on and Sesshomaru was starting to wish for once that he was back in the real world. Jaken was nothing compared to this.

In the silence that followed, the whisper Kikyo emitted seemed more like a yell, “I loved you.”

-II-

Kagura watched from behind the shoji screen as the trapped souls not yet converted into solid spheres flowed freely from the shattered mirror. She felt their confusion and sorrow as they searched for the body that had already rotted away. She wondered if she would be that way if she ever gained her freedom. Lost and confused, without a reason to stay, but no way to leave, searching for an answer that was always beyond her grasp. Naraku held her heart in his hands, yet he could not even sense how much it pained her. How much she wanted to be free, but knew that if she was it really wouldn't be freedom at all.

She watched Naraku as he bent over the woman on the ground, and for a moment, she wished she could be loved like he loved that woman. The woman he had obsessed about every day, and whispered her name in sleep when he thought no one could hear. Kagura hated Naraku, but she longed for his love just the same. Or it might not have been that at all, she might have just longed to be loved.

Her eyes found their way to Kanna's remains, the curling burn mark of a spider hardly visible on her back beneath her wounds. The scar and brand of their servitude, of the life they had left behind and the life that could never lie ahead of them. They once used to be sisters in a village close to the base of the mountain. One day the village was raided and pillaged, as was a frequent occurrence on the borders of enemy territory. All of the villagers were slaughtered, her sister Kanna and herself left with fatal wounds that festered as the demons closed in to devour them all. But from the demons came a man with flowing dark hair and deep eyes that seemed to freeze her soul. He gave them their lives in the form of stolen souls and they were sworn into servitude. Their wounds healed as the scar formed on their backs. As time passed, it seemed only to darken, as if reminding them of the lives that were taken to keep their own.

-III-

A confession was made; a life was taken, a heart broken, a love found and another twisted. Whatever had led these ragged and harried lives together seemed more like a mistake than anything else, and each knew there was no way to erase the fate that had brought them there. The riddles that bound them like chains to a manacle seemed to burn their flesh as it slowly ate away at their weakened souls. A hero amidst each of them might had been hiding, but it was those who chose the hardest road who would find that the title `hero' means nothing in the game of life unless you can control how you choose to live it.

A simple answer to the simple question of the warriors of good and the devils of evil must seem easy enough, but who is to judge and by what comparison can we say one is better than another by the choices they make? Kagura knew that she could not be good, for she felt no sadness at all for the dead girl who used to be her sister. But there was a certain longing to be better than she was, and in that, a sense of good that no one could deny. So where did that place the in-betweens? That place, the grey region between white and black. The miasma that is entered by everyone, of whom no one is spared.

 

-End of Chapter Notes-

Yes, I know most of you are all “Ewww… Kagura loves Naraku…ewww”. It is quite strange… but it just happened that way. Anyways, it's more like she's just in need of being loved. Right, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please review if you can, I'd love to hear from you!