InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Our Memorials ( Chapter 5 )

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

 

 

Chapter 6: Our Memorials

 

 

"Shall we never, never get rid of this Past? It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body!" -Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

***

 

Kagura was returning to her master's den after leaving the Hyouden. Her misery crushed her, and her sudden burst of anger toward the toad demon had left her feeling numb and heavy. She flew most of the journey over the great river that cut through the Minami Mountains, but after about an hour, she convinced herself that the weight of her gall was determined to pull her down. She followed the trails from the coastal plains to the central mountains on foot. She planned to tell her master that she had waited for Sesshoumaru's return, buying herself a day or two of relative peace. The demonness would sleep that night under the distant and uncaring stars.

 

For a long, long time, Kagura's only comfort had been her own clever viciousness. Even though she was always acting at behest of Naraku, her deeds of cruelty to others—killing, wounding, foiling—had made her feel a little powerful, even if the power was borrowed. But this comfort had faded, like a delicious food that one has had day after day. And the days stretched out forever, measured in pointless encounters with idiots who did not know their own enemy, in schemes that fell apart, and in their brutal reprisals.

 

Her next comfort came from hope in her so-called enemies, but that hope soon faded as well, until nothing was left of it but bitter dregs she clung to out of poverty. It became clear to her that Inuyasha and his companions, and even Kikyou, would never be able to defeat Naraku. Kouga? Laughable. Before her own pride had all but eroded away, she was able to recognize it in all of them as their fatal flaw. Even Sesshoumaru, who may have been the only one capable of defeating the monster, would likely never do so. He would not trouble himself with such an enemy, a lowly half demon, until it was too late. Much, much too late. Clever viciousness now made useless, pride now long forgotten; Kagura's cruelty had dwindled to mere spite and scorn, born of hopelessness and bitterness.

 

Through all of this, there had been some few moments of happiness, mostly in the company of the hapless youth, Kohaku. Not that they had ever laughed together, pointed out shapes in clouds, picked flowers, played games, or done any of the things that people did when they enjoyed each other's company. They rarely even spoke. But the boy had his own soul, his own heart, in spite of Naraku, and she was the only one who seemed able to see this. It made her feel anchored to life.

 

But now Kohaku was gone. And Sesshoumaru was as distant as the stars. And Inuyasha and Kouga were useless. And the fruit of her mind, plots and schemes, was picked clean. She placed a hand on the trunk of tree as she walked passed, and the hand was sticky with sap when she drew it back.

 

Kohaku is gone.

 

“He's better off,” she mumbled to herself through hot tears that she did not notice. Kagura's soul was drowning in envy. She envied that Kohaku had escaped his slavery. She envied Rin for living in the comfort, freedom, and safety of the Hyouden. She greatly envied Kagome, who was followed, protected, even indulged—just because so many people loved her.

 

Kagura did not really understand what love was. But she knew it was something that Naraku loathed, that Sesshoumaru disdained, that Kagome cherished, that Kikyou regretted, and that she herself would never have. It must be a powerful thing indeed.

 

Kagura lay down in the middle of an open field, with trees and mountains as far away as possible. She gave herself up to another storm of weeping, and did not care who might have seen her.

 

How can such a world exist? Were there no gods? Were there no saints or angels or spirits, charged with justice? How could such a life as hers not be forbidden, not be at the very least eradicated from the earth?

 

At the bottom of her well of bitterness, Kagura envied Kanna. At least Kanna felt nothing. At least Kanna did not fear a reckoning. Even if Kanna could know the fear of tortures, she could never do anything to deserve them.

 

Maybe I should.

 

Kagura began to realize the logic of emulating Kanna. If she were to live without hope anyway, at least she would be alive, and maybe even free of pain and fear. The notion took on an irresistible power of conviction.

 

That is what I ought to do. I should be just like Kanna.

 

You were made for this.

 

A bright movement caught her eye. The velvet sky above her was alight with feverish activity. Kagura experienced a secret joy as she imagined that she was the one who noticed a shower of glittering tears that seemed to be weeping just for her.

 

---

 

In backtracking to the ravine where they had encountered Naraku, Inuyasha and his companions traveled as fast as possible, but it was not fast enough for Inuyasha. They reached the spot within two hours of their departure from Edo. Inuyasha came to an abrupt stop where the scars left in the earth by his sword were still smoking. He hardly allowed Kagome enough time to climb off his back before he sped away, searching for even the faintest hint of Naraku's trail. He did not heed the shouts of his companions.

 

They were such a bother.

 

Miroku with his lechery.

 

Sango with her family drama.

 

Kagome with her…other life.

 

Such a pain in the ass.

 

If they would all just stop dragging him down for two minutes, maybe he could accomplish something. He would dispatch with the problem once and for all. Inuyasha never gave much thought to what would happen after that.

 

His friends receded into the background, and Inuyasha's mind was enveloped in the dark green shadows of mountain summer. The bottom of the ravine was a shallow and slow moving river, no more than a creek. Inuyasha ran straight through the middle, lashed by the frustration of his friends and his own impatience, ignoring the growing weight of mud on his hakama. If only he could get the slightest trace of him, the tiniest hint of his passing would suffice. Before he had gone even fifteen miles, however, the ravine tapered to an end, and Inuyasha found himself in the mountain paths. Looking around, he judged he was about eighty miles northwest of Edo, as the two-tailed cat flies.

 

He stopped. There was no use in aimless wandering. He closed his eyes.

 

Think, just stop and think. Concentrate.

 

Trouble was, concentrating was never one of Inuyasha's strong points.

 

He stood still in the quiet, trying to clear his head of the buzzing of the past, the clinking of Miroku's staff, the sighs of Sango's suffering, and the scent of Kagome's hair.

 

For no particular reason, he thought of his mother. He was trying to remember how long it had been since he had visited her, when a strange breeze touched his cheek. It was remarkably cool for summer. He turned his head and realized the air was coming from a cave.

 

Inuyasha shrugged. It couldn't hurt to sniff it out. If nothing else, the humans would need a place to bed for the night. Besides, it was always possible that the enemy had used it, perhaps to regain his strength. Naraku's affinity for such places was no secret. Something lingering from the past, no doubt.

 

“Not that I'm one to talk,” he grumbled aloud to himself.

 

After running for so long without stopping, the sudden, cool stillness of the cave pounded in his ears along with his blood. He let his eyes adjust to the dim light and he walked along with caution, feeling the walls of the cavern with one hand.

 

When his eyes had adjusted enough to make out the inner structure, Inuyasha gasped. He even rubbed his eyes once or twice to make sure the dim light was not tricking them. Then he lowered to his knees.

 

He saw before him the outline of twisted monsters with gaping jaws; and among that grotesque entanglement was the form of a young woman. All of this was frozen in a crystalline case, like purple ice. How could he have forgotten? It was the cave of Midoriko.

 

Inuyasha gaped at the morbid monument, then he sighed and his arms dropped to his sides. “I really am going in circles,” he muttered.

 

There was a sound outside of his head. The sound did not come to his ears. Instead, he felt the vibration of its power in his chest, and he heard the words in his heart.

 

“Indeed you are, my poor child. You are as one who is hopelessly lost.”

 

Inuyasha did not jump at the noise. He was not surprised because he did not have the time to be. At that moment, he felt a strange sensation in his head, as if the edges of his mind were fraying. Numbness overtook his senses, he stood still and mute, and he fell back into a dream.

 

“I don't understand!' It was his voice, and yet it was not. `Why won't you tell me?”

 

“Please, Inuyasha.' He could never mistake that voice. `It's because I don't want to lose you. I don't want you to seek revenge and lose your life.”

 

“But that's exactly what you should want!”

 

“`Why?” Her voice had been shaking. “What good what that do us now?”

 

Then he had done something strange. He laughed. He had forgotten how seldom he laughed anymore.

 

“Come on, mom,” he had tried to assure her. “Why would I go looking for revenge? I don't even remember the guy.”

 

His words hurt her. He knew that they would, though he would pretend not see it. But they also moved her to talk. And that was all that he had wanted—a story before bedtime.

 

“Very well, dearest,” he saw her in his mind's eye, motioning to him to come and sit closer.

 

Inuyasha suddenly remembered that his mother's hair smelled of wild Rhododendrons.

 

She sighed and tried to sound lighthearted. “If you're that eager for a story, I suppose I cannot deny you.”

 

She had told him everything she knew about the dragons, which as it turned out later was not much. She knew that Ichiro had been fighting against them for a very long time. They had committed various deeds of atrocity and brutality against him and his kin, though she never discovered the specific nature of these events.

 

“I remember once,” she had said to him, her eyes growing dark and distant. “He told me that he was very tired. I remember thinking that he must have trusted me a great deal to say that. He said he felt as though he was moving in circles, as if he had been caught in some game with his enemy that he could not escape.”

 

Inuyasha's knuckles crunched against the impassive walls of the inner mountain. “Son of a bitch!” he screamed. His lungs burning with his rage, Inuyasha pounded on the stone with impotent fury.

 

His hands throbbing and his knuckles probably fractured, he slumped on the cool floor and closed his eyes.

 

“You are not doomed to his fate, not yet.”

 

“Shut up!” he yelled, his anger rekindled. “What the hell would a dead priestess know about it?”

 

“Who on earth are you talking to?”

 

For a second or two, Inuyasha tried to process that question, until he realized the voice was coming from his knee.

 

“Myouga? Where'd you come from?”

 

“I've been here.”

 

Inuyasha started to ask something about the little flea's whereabouts, but he closed his mouth again. “Did you just say something?” he asked instead. “Something about my fate, or my father's?”

 

“Uhh…no,” Myouga answered slowly, peering at him. “Did you say something?”

 

Inuyasha, annoyed, rolled his eyes as he squeezed the poor, miniature demon between his fingers.

 

“Just why are you hiding out in this hole, anyway?” he demanded.

 

Myouga wriggled free with some effort. “I am not hiding out!” he protested.

 

“Really?” Inuyasha did not sound convinced. He looked around at the dark cavern. “Seems like a good place for it.”

 

Myouga snorted and patted the dust off his clothing. “I've been waiting for you,” he said. “I was fairly certain you'd come through this way sooner or later, since Naraku himself did scarcely two days ago.”

 

“You've seen Naraku?” Inuyasha picked up the tiny demon again. “Where? When?”

 

“I just said two days ago!” Myouga shook his head. “That's really the trouble with you, my lord, you just don't listen.”

 

“Myouga…” Inuyasha ground his teeth.

 

“Okay, okay.” Myouga cleared his through and seating himself upright, taking on the air of a revered storyteller. “It all started just two days ago. I was not here, but in a village nearby, when quite suddenly the people became silent and some pointed to the sky. Then there were shouts, and many began to run in a sudden panic. In retrospect, I do not believe that Naraku was attacking the village, or anyone at all. But he was making no attempt to conceal or contain himself, and his form was monstrous to behold. Sickening fumes for a time filled the air, and the stars and the moon were blotted out. I myself did not see it—

 

Inuyasha grunted. “No surprise. Probably hiding under a skirt.”

 

“Anyway,” Myouga coughed. “I did not actually see the monster. But there is no mistaking that smell, though few times have I been exposed to it. I am still certain that it was your enemy. I surmised that you were probably chasing him, or you would be. So I have waited near this area to intercept you.”

 

Inuyasha was quiet for a moment, his blood once again pounding in his ears, trying not to think about his own predictability. He had already forgotten his vision only moments before.

 

“But, I must admit, I don't really understand.” Inuyasha's retainer narrowed his eyes at him. “Why did you not follow him straight away, when he was so clearly visible?”

 

“We went back to Edo,” Inuyasha answered.

 

“Ah,” Myouga let it drop.

 

Inuyasha lifted his head. “Myouga, do you remember which way he went?”

 

“Yes, he went mostly west, slightly north.”

 

 

 

Inuyasha returned to his companions and led them to the cave so that they could take shelter for the night in reasonable comfort.

 

Miroku battled with tinder and flint until flames leapt up, putting on a show of dancing shadows on the cavern walls and washing the gloomy shrine in blood.

 

“You didn't say it was this cave,” Sango examined the encasement of the Jewel-creator.

 

“What?” Inuyasha turned around. “Oh, right. I forgot.”

 

“How could you forget something like that?”

 

Inuyasha did not answer. He propped himself against the walls of the cavern, near the entrance, and closed his eyes. Before he drifted away, he heard a small voice ask him: Are you ready?

 

When Miroku had realized where they were, he suppressed a secret rancor. How can he be so casual about it? Couldn't he have found somewhere else?

 

He told himself that Inuyasha was different because of his longevity, that it would take a long time for the half-demon to recognize the patterns that trapped them. Miroku thought this because he had lost the ability to see into other hearts. He turned to Shippou, as he did more and more often, because youth made him remember hope.

 

The little fox demon was playing a game with Kirara, where he created little top toys out of thin air, and made them dance around the cat demon's feet. The diminutive demon chased them with delight, trying to capture them all at once until she turned around and around in a blur. Shippou was expecting it because she always did the same thing, but that did not stop him from collapsing into laughter every time he saw it.

 

“How do you do that?” Miroku asked him. He was trying to stall sleep.

 

“Eh?” Shippou looked up, startled. “Oh. Well, you know, I don't really know. I never thought about it. When I want them to appear, they just do.”

 

“It's very remarkable, Shippou, to have such ability without trying. Have you ever wondered what you could accomplish if you pushed yourself?

 

Shippou took offense. “I push myself! All the time!”

 

“No, no,” Miroku waved his hand. “I didn't mean that. I meant…well, when I was young, I had some natural ability as a monk, but the power grew as I grew and as I practiced. I guess I'm just saying I don't know much about fox demons. You're the only one I've ever met.”

 

“That you know of.”

 

Miroku smiled. “Right. That I know of. But Shippou, what are other fox demons like? Full grown ones, I mean.”

 

“Well, to tell you the truth, I really only knew my parents. My dad,” Shippou's eyes shone. “Now he was great.”

 

He stood up and spread out his arms. Miroku realized with a sting that he had never asked Shippou about his parents.

 

“My dad was still young, for a demon, and still getting stronger. But he already had a lot of powers. He could transform much better than I can. He could create copies of himself that could walk and talk, you'd never know you were talking to an illusion.”

 

“Amazing. That does sound formidable.”

 

“Are you kidding? He could even throw this, I don't know, it was like a net. He would throw over someone and they couldn't move, even powerful demons.”

 

“So…it was like a spider web?”

 

“No, more solid and uh, slimy.”

 

“Like slime?” Miroku offered.

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Sounds unpleasant.”

 

A silent lull followed, and Shippou created more spinning tops for Kirara.

 

“I know it is difficult, being an orphan,” Miroku told him. “My father died when I was small.”

 

There had been no need for him to say it, because Shippou already knew it. The kitsune had made it his business to know every possible detail concerning his companions. He followed that creed to the letter and never forgot anything, even if they were too wrapped up in their own nostalgias to notice.

 

“Actually,” Miroku added, his eyes glazed with sleep. “I just wish it'd been easier, rather than any longer.”

 

Shippou looked up at him, startled. “What do you mean?”

 

“Hmm? Oh, never mind, it's nothing.” Miroku yawned. “Time for sleep.”

 

Miroku stood up and shuffled across the cave. Shippou had the sudden impression that the monk had grown much older in the last few minutes. His thoughts were interrupted when Miroku picked him up, along with Kirara.

 

“Time for all good little fur balls to be in bed,” he said.

 

He deposited Shippou next to Kagome, who had already rolled herself into a tight cocoon. Kirara he laid next to her mistress's blanket, which still lay empty. Miroku spread his own blanket on the ground and lowered himself and his creaking bones in their iron casing into it. He lay staring into the fire until drowsiness overtook him. A distant voice murmured in his ears “Worry not my son”, but he did not even hear it.

 

 

Sango still stood before the frozen past that was looking down upon her. She cursed herself for not remembering that this cave was so close to home, for not realizing that she was so close to home. It was another memory that had slipped through her fingers.

 

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Miroku had placed his blanket closer to hers than usual. She remembered when she would have taken him for a pervert before giving him a good kick in the ribs. But now it only inspired a deep sadness within her, because she realized that he had not tried to grope her or anyone else in a long time. She told herself to be grateful, not because she wanted to be, but in order to banish the notion that it was a symptom of time wearing him down. She laid down with her back to him without a word. Before she fell asleep, she heard a whisper.

 

“Worry not my daughter.” She interpreted it as a phantom of memory and drifted into the dreaming world without giving it any thought.

 

Kagome burrowed deeper into her blankets, sure that sleep would never come in the shadow of the legendary priestess. It was like sleeping with the mummified remains of a grandmother in your room. Memories from her previous visit to this cave also disturbed her. They seemed like so long ago, and yet not so much. In her weariness, she thought to herself what do I know? Maybe I was here yesterday. Maybe we come through here everyday.

 

Kagome dwelled on the day's events, on the last time she saw her mortal enemy, the last time she saw her mother, the last time she saw Kikyou, on her failure as a daughter, student and as a human being in general, on feeling trapped in stupid behavior that she could not change, and on the head-numbing miracle of time travel. Somewhere in that assortment of blame and hope, a whisper was fading, drowned out by her chattering mind.

 

Where once was one, there now is two.

 

The fire dwindled long after they were all in slumber. They walked in dreams in the last refuge they had, unaware of the spectacular show outside of dazzling diamonds raining in the night sky.

 

The next morning, the group struck camp and set out as early as possible, after cramming down their throats a meager meal of bread and salty pork. Though none spoke of it, they were all eager to distance themselves from the memorial to all their sorrows.

 

***

 

[End of Chapter 6]

[Next chapter: Our Wake-Up Bomb]