InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Higurashi and Yuka ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: Lalieth

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

Chapter 8: Higurashi and Yuka

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
doubting,

Dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.” -Edgar Allen Poe

***

Many years later, even Ayumi would wonder what might have happened if they had stepped in and put a stop to it—if they had found a way to force Yuka to forget Kagome.

Then the day came when a line was crossed and they lost that chance forever.

Yuka sat at the kitchen table that morning working on a blueberry muffin and orange juice and reading the newspaper. That is, she was trying to read it. But the words inverted and rotated on the page like miniature pinwheels. The edges of the paper kept trying to flutter away out of her hands. When at last she put the ridiculous thing down in disgust, she saw at least some of the problem.

She was outside. A light breeze stirred the plain tablecloth that still lay before her, only now spread upon the grass. The muffin and juice had disappeared.

Yuka looked around at the surrounding forest. She glanced up and gasped. The sky was huge! Not only was she outside, but there could be no doubt that she was no longer in the city.

“Weird.”

Thinking that there was no use staying in one place, she stood up and looked for a sign of a place to go. A twinkling light caught her eye, and she saw that nearby lay a shallow and narrow stream.

The distance between herself and the river banks evaporated. She did not remember walking but some time must have passed, because the sky had turned from an azure blue to a dark and sooty red. In the air there was the smell of something burning. Yuka looked down to find an inanimate lump at her feet, lying in the mud by the river.

She jerked her head back up to the scarlet sky. She did not want to look. She could not look.

A terrible pressure gathered above her, and weighed down her shoulders. She was being crushed to the earth by the invisible hand of a giant. Unable to resist any longer, Yuka kneeled over the form and looked down.

But it was gone; there was nothing there at all. A wave of relief washed over her, and she looked up at the sky again, with unshed tears stinging her eyes.

“You must be tired,” someone said from behind her. “Running through the dreaming world will do that.”

Yuka turned in surprise.

“Higurashi-san!” she exclaimed.

“No,” the woman shook her head. “But you don't know what I look like.”

“Oh, I thought—”

The woman let out a low cry and hunched over, placing a hand over her shoulder. Yuka could see blood coming out from behind the fingers.

“Oh no!” she cried out. “Higurashi-san, are you hurt?”

Yuka tried to reach her, but the woman raised her other hand to ward her off.

“I told you, I'm not her!”

The hand in front of Yuka's face changed color. It glowed pink as if lit from behind. Without knowing why, Yuka was afraid and she stumbled back, trying to get away.

“Wait!” the woman shouted. “I need you to—”

Yuka awoke with a violent jerk. She was sitting in a chair, bent over the dining room table, and Ayumi was gently shaking her shoulder.

“My goodness, aren't you jumpy!” Ayumi exclaimed. “If you're that tired, why didn't you just sleep in? It is Saturday.”

Yuka looked around in a daze, then her bleary eyes focused on Ayumi. “It's…Saturday?”

“Yeah, where ya been?” Ayumi went into the kitchen to pour some coffee. “Good thing too, or you'd be late for work, again.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Ayumi added. “I need you to—

But Yuka cut her off by leaping to her feet. Ayumi stared at her in amazement.

“I…I have to go.” Yuka mumbled and then dashed in the direction of the front door.

“Yuka!” Ayumi called after her, trying to put her coffee down without spilling it. “Wait! You're still in your nightgown!”

Yuka turned without losing a stride and bolted in the other direction, disappearing into her room. She emerged less than two minutes later, pulling down the hem of her shirt and wriggling her feet into her shoes. Ayumi, who was never caught off guard for long, had the presence of mind to have Yuka's keys and purse ready.

“I'm going to the shrine,” Yuka told her as she took the items. “Get Eri, get dressed, and then catch up.”

Ayumi tried to process that. “But…wait a sec…Yuka!”

Yuka was already gone.

Grumbling to herself, Ayumi went into Eri's room and shook her awake.

“Eri, Eri,” she shook her sleeping friend. “Wake up. Yuka's gone.”

“Huh?” Eri squinted at her. “What are you talking about? I don't even care. Go away. It's too early.” She pulled the blankets over her head and squirmed down deeper into them.

Ayumi sighed. “Eri. Eri!” She jabbed her friend in the ribs. When, without meaning to, Ayumi poked her a little too hard in the kidneys, Eri sat bolt upright.

“Damnit!” she exclaimed. “What's the big deal?”

“We have to go. Yuka's probably halfway to the shrine by now.”

Eri was ready to retort with a complex statement about Yuka's state of mind, Ayumi's choice of hairstyle, and Kagome's ancestors and probable descendents, but was cut off by a pair of jeans landing on her head.

“No time,” Ayumi told her. “Get dressed. Hurry!”

Months and months later, as she tended the wounds of the valiant and comforted the dying, Eri would not be able to remember how she had found herself on the steps of the Higurashi shrine that day.

Yuka, for her part, would never forget the moment her foot touched the first landing of that stretching stairway. At that moment—when across the tunnel of time the mountains shook beneath Sesshoumaru and Kikyou lost consciousness on the banks of the river as Kagome screamed her name in the distance—at that moment it began to rain.

And Yuka had already decided what to do.

By the time Eri and Ayumi arrived, Yuka was seated in the Higurashi kitchen, cradling a cup of untouched tea in her hands and weeping.

Ayumi stood in the doorway, stupefied, but Eri pushed past her and moved to Yuka's side in surprised alarm. Yuka, however, cut her off with an extended bout of hysterical blubbering.

“I know! I'm so pathetic! I'm so s-s-sorry!” she managed to say between gulps of air, and pressing her face into a handkerchief. “But Kagome said, if I ever got into trouble…”

Eri looked around the room in confusion. Higurashi appeared as lost and as taken aback as Ayumi and herself. She was holding her own tea, untouched, and staring at Yuka as though she had reason to believe the girls could not be there because she was dreaming.

“I lost my job.” Yuka continued to sob.

This statement was enough to shock Eri and Ayumi out of their trances. With a deliberate lie, a minor manipulation, Yuka had just torn their lives to pieces—even if she did not yet realize it.

“I…I can't afford my rent and…” at this point, Yuka's voice became an almost squeaky wail. “My parents live in another country! And I don't want to call them in shame! Kagome told me, if I ever got into trouble, that I could come here!”

In the hollow silence, Eri listened to her drumming heart.

Higurashi did not move. It felt like an eternity passed before she realized what was happening. Oh good heavens, she intends to live here!

For any number of reasons, Higurashi was not that familiar with these three girls. She only knew that they were Kagome's childhood friends. She was not at all inclined to let a complete stranger move in to the shrine.

“I can pull my weight!” Yuka went on, her shoulders still shaking. “I can cook, and clean, and tend to the shrine.”

But, if Kagome really said that, what can I do?

Kagome would say something like that.

To cover her confusion, Higurashi turned to her practicality. She rose, and took Yuka's tea from her hands, lest the girl, in her emotional state, drop it on the floor—breaking another one.

Childhood friends—they may be all that's really left of her.

A breeze of icy horror invaded Higurashi's heart, but she shook it off. If this girl was holding on to a promise from Kagome—sound familiar? —how could she take it from her? And if she couldn't have the real Kagome…

The silence continued and Ayumi could not understand how she had come to this point. She reviewed the morning's events, but only concluded that she was not dreaming. Eri, for her part, assessed the situation in so far as it affected her and resolved that she could no longer bear the outrageous oddness of it all.

“Very well, then.” Higurashi said, and Ayumi started at the broken silence.

“If you will wait here, I will go make some room for you upstairs, in Kagome's room.”

“Oh, so we will share a room then?” Yuka asked with a naked hope.

“Ah, well,” Higurashi hesitated. “It is the only space I have for you. Kagome is away for a while, visiting distant relatives.”

Then she laughed to conceal her anxiety. “Yes, I'm sorry I never did give her that message a few weeks ago. But she wasn't here for very long, and things were quite hectic around here.”

“Oh, no, no,” Yuka smiled. “It's no problem.”

After Higurashi left the room and climbed the stairs, Eri turned on Yuka.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” she demanded in a whisper. “How could you lose your job? Without even telling us?”

Yuka answered her in a calm and even tone. “It doesn't really matter now, does it?”

Eri's eyes narrowed and she peered closer at her friend. “You seemed to have regained your composure pretty fast.”

“I didn't really lose it, you should have known that.”

Ayumi gasped. “Yuka!”

Eri threw her hands in the air. “I just can't believe what I'm hearing. You've really gone too far this time, Yuka. I don't know where this obsession of yours is coming from, and I've tried to be patient with you. But now it's hurting the rest of us. Aside from manipulating Kagome's poor mother, what are Ayumi and I supposed to do now? You've left us in a lurch for rent, you know.”

“It's a nice apartment.” Yuka did not appear concerned. Her expression was stiff with resolve. “You should have no problem finding a third roommate.”

The room was quiet; Ayumi and Eri stared at their friend.

“Yuka,” Ayumi said in a low voice, “we don't want someone else.”

Yuka's jaw tightened. “I know. I'm sorry, I really am. But this is for the best, I swear.”

“How?” Eri hissed in frustration. “How is this best for anyone? Just tell me that?

“You'll have to trust me.”

They were quiet again. Eri suspected that Yuka was trying to put her in a situation where she could not refuse, as she had done before with the Sleuth project. But she eluded the trap and put things in their place.

“Actually, Yuka, I don't have to do anything.” Eri's expression was stern. “If you're going down the path of insanity, we don't have to go with you. All we have to do is say—

At that moment, Higurashi reentered the kitchen.

“So, girls,” Kagome's mother tried to sound cheerful. “Would all three of you like to stay for lunch? Or brunch, I suppose it is.”

Eri's eyes had not left Yuka's. “Goodbye.” She then turned and left the room.

Ayumi bowed to Higurashi. “I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “We…we have to go…so sorry.”

Ayumi turned to leave, but stopped short. “Yuka, you'll have to come and get your things later today, or maybe tomorrow.”

Yuka could only nod. She watched her two former roommates leave, carrying an old life with them, and she steeled herself for a solitary journey into the unknown.

The truth was that Yuka had no idea that she was leaving the everyday and was entering a world of mortal danger, where time was collapsing and dreams paced the kitchen and the courtyard like long lost ancestors. Even Higurashi had not fully realized at that time the new situation, that the shrine was becoming a retreat for solitude itself.

Despite the hallucinations, which even Souta could see, and despite the sighing of ghosts that they did not even recognize, the Higurashi family refused to admit that anything was wrong. They continued to see every day as every day that had passed before it. Yuka however, as an outsider, did not take long to realize that she had entered a madhouse.

Her first clue came only two days after moving in to the shrine. She had spent both nights awake in a feverish state, watching the minute movements of silverfish along the edges where the walls met the ceiling. On that morning, she had dragged herself down to the kitchen to flood her veins with dark coffee.

Higurashi stood over the sink, staring into a tea cup. Before she noticed Yuka, Higurashi turned and, without warning, flung the cup into the far wall. Yuka jumped to the side by instinct as a spray of porcelain fragments and wet tea dregs covered the counter and door frame. Yuka turned to stare at the woman in amazement.

Higurashi stared back without seeing her, and then pushed through the screen door. She walked across the courtyard and stood in the rain staring up at the great tree in the middle of the shrine.

Yuka knew that the cup was not meant for her, but she did not and could not have known that Higurashi had looked down into her empty tea cup and had found the soggy black shape of a howling dog.

Yuka tried to shrug off this first incident, but when she overheard Higurashi talking to herself in an agitated tone (she was in truth conversing with the Hero); when she was unable to get Grandfather Higurashi or Souta to see that anything was the matter; she suspected that the woman was insane, that the shrine was sinking irrevocably into the quicksand of senselessness, and that she had been driven all along by divine intervention to save them.

Before a week had passed with her living there, Yuka had begun to take over the daily systems of the shrine. It began with chores and errands. At first, she was only deciding what loads of laundry were washed first and what was stocked in the pantries. But as Higurashi sank deeper into her dreaming world, and blindness and old age relegated Grandfather to a corner, Yuka completed her circle of control.

She remedied the growing chaos that centered around the kitchen by imposing regular meals at set times when they all ate together. She arranged Souta's activities with such ease and efficiency that through preoccupation he became even more removed from the affairs of the house. Once she had gained access to the house accounts, Yuka hired workers to clear out months of neglect that they carried away in sacks of leaves and cobwebs, and she opened all doors of the shrine buildings to the four winds.

Except of course for the building that contained the well. It was so dilapidated that Yuka took it for a long unused tool shed and, fearing that someone would wonder in and injure themselves, she fastened the doors with a heavy padlock and forgot about it.

The mad restoration went on despite the rain that had not ceased for more than a few hours since her arrival. Because of the weather, attendance at the rejuvenated shrine was still low but, by imposing a modest fee for admittance, Yuka managed to restore the accounts to positive.

During all this time, she had not forgotten for a moment her original design. She snuck about the house, turning over papers and rattling jars, trying to find a clue concerning Kagome's whereabouts. Kagome's room offered the least help of all because it looked as though the girl should walk in it at any moment. The only strange thing Yuka found was a tiny glass jar with a cork stopper on Kagome's desk, but it was empty.

Souta lived out his life as normal, and was almost never home. Grandfather, renewed by the restoration of the shrine, was content to sit at a counter in the first building, selling fake ancient relics and making the visitors listen to long and uncomfortable stories. Higurashi kept up her vigil with the dead.

None of them would admit that anything had changed until after Higurashi discovered the divinations.

Higurashi had never been insensible, as Yuka thought. Yuka had not seen the unmistakable sign in the tea cup, she knew nothing about the ghosts of dog demons, and she could not have understood Higurashi's anxiety over Kagome, much more real than her own. While Yuka had taken over the daily business of the shrine, Higurashi had let it happen because she had become far too involved in something much more important.

A fairy tale, she'd said.

One morning, Higurashi broke a prolonged period of silence.

“I need to go to the library. I'll be back later.”

Yuka was too startled to say anything, and Higurashi her breakfast untouched.

The closest library was a substantial one, on a corner where a residential area transitioned into a business district. Higurashi took the train to the nearest stop. Gripping a pink umbrella, she stepped out of the underground city and dashed across the crosswalk as soon as the neon light was green. She pushed open the flat, glass doors.

The air inside the building was different. At first, Higurashi could not place the feeling, but then she realized why it had a startling clarity.

There are no ghosts here.

Here, the past was kept safe in bound boards and glued paper. This library had an extensive section on the Feudal Era, though it was not as large as the section on the Edo Period. The notion that Kagome or her companions must exist somewhere in these manuscripts had entered Higurashi's head and it became a passionate idea she could not release. As Yuka sat at the table in the Higurashi kitchen and opened a ledger of the family's budget, Higurashi sat at one of the gleaming desks at the public library and poured over a manuscript describing the creation of the Shikon jewel.

But it did not tell her anything that she did not already know.

Street lights flickered on in a string along the street and the library made ready to close its doors; still Higurashi walked backed and forth from the shelves to the tables, carrying pile after pile of history books. At first, she focused on books that concerned feudal lords because they seemed the most generous. Then she moved on to collections of myths and legends, thinking that Inuyasha or someone like him had to be found in this way.

She scanned line after line, but nothing brushed against her memory. When there were only two minutes left before the library closed for the night, she grabbed three random books and checked them out.

It was late when Higurashi left the station nearest the shrine. She walked the three blocks at a brisk pace, thinking how much of her life had been dominated by her husband's heritage. She took small notice of anything around her until she looked up by chance and caught the eyes of an old woman who was huddling behind the first torii of the shrine.

“Oh, my pardons,” Higurashi bowed. “Are you visiting the shrine?”

Now that she was closer, the woman seemed even older, bent and shrunken almost to a doll size.

“No,” the woman answered. “I can't come in.”

Higurashi thought that the woman might have been homeless; she juggled her books, umbrella and purse, trying to locate some change.

“She isn't coming back.”

Higurashi froze. “What?” she gasped.

The old woman's large, empty eyes filled with sudden sympathy. “You must be strong.”

She looked at Higurashi's hand, clutching a handful of yen. “Money can't replace it, no memory can erase it. We're never gonna find another one to compare.”

“What?” Higurashi said again, stunned with incredulity and unable to think of anything else to say.

The woman turned and hobbled away. Higurashi could only watch her leave.

Higurashi climbed the long steps leading to her home, clutching her books, and telling herself that the old woman had been crazy.

That's all, she was just crazy.

That night, she poured over the library books until her eyes were strained and her head heavy. Yuka came into the kitchen and offered to make tea.

“I don't need any,” Higurashi answered. “Thank you child.”

Yuka thought that the woman seemed more rational than she had in weeks, and she seized the opportunity.

“Higurashi-san,” she said. “Where is Kagome?”

Higurashi did not miss a beat, but said without hesitation, “She is away.”

“Yes, but where,” Yuka pushed. “She hasn't called, or written, no one here has called her.”

Higurashi was silent. She turned a page.

“Higurashi-san, why—

Higurashi, frustrated by the books and the nuisance of the panting of a dog that Yuka did not see, cut her off with uncharacteristic heat.

“You need to stop asking so many questions. Go to bed!”

Yuka did not persist, but that answer planted an enigma in her heart that she could never resolve. From that time forward she regarded Higurashi as an obstacle. She left the kitchen in silence.

In truth, Higurashi had taken small notice of her. She returned to her book. As soon as Yuka turned the knob to Kagome's cavernous bedroom, Higurashi's eyes landed on the line:

“The Hero and The Hound shall appear before you, and you will find my words in the oracles.”

Higurashi shivered. The hero and the hound?

Could it be a coincidence?

She turned over the book to reread the cover. It was no more than a collection of accounts from a forgotten estate in Japan's distant past. Up until that point, the book had consisted of a tiresome repetition of “today twin calves were born” and “yesterday we slaughtered three pigs for the New Year's feast, which is tomorrow” and “you will find here the positive accounts and here the negative ones, so you see the estate has done passably well this year” and so on and so on.

Higurashi flipped back and forth between the cover and the bizarre line she had just read. At last she decided that the best thing to do was to continue reading and investigate whether or not a pattern emerged.

She trudged on through the ledgers, line by tedious line.

At one o'clock in the morning, Higurashi put the book down in disgust and rubbed her strained eyes.

“There's an easier way.”

The Hero was sitting in the chair next to her. Higurashi was not surprised.

“How long have you been there?”

“I don't think I can answer that.”

She gave him an exasperated look.

“Time does not work the same way where I am,” he said.

“I see. You were you saying…?”

“Don't try to read all of this garbage line by line. There's too much for you to ever get through.”

“I don't know,” she mused, pick up the book and turning it over in her hands again. “I could probably finish this tonight.”

“There are many more waiting for you.”

Higurashi started to feel alarmed.

“How many?”

He ignored the question. “There are words, keywords, that are meant for you to see. Scan for those words without bothering to read the rest.”

“What words? And how can I be sure I won't miss them?”

“If I must I will give you a list of the words. And you won't miss them. You won't be able to.”

He then dictated to her what he called the “keys to oracles”. By that time, Higurashi had forgotten that she had been looking for tales from the past, not predictions of the future. She was too astounded by this new revelation to ask him what he had meant by “that are meant for you to see.” When she looked at the chair again, he was gone.

The keywords did indeed make it easier, but in the three books that she had brought home, she found only three other mysterious sentences.

“Seek that which was hidden, for it was hidden in these mysteries to be kept secure for this day. You alone can hear my voice, lost amongst all others.”

That seemed more clear now. Whoever left these messages, left them for her.

“Guard well the Bearer, for there shall be no other.”

Higurashi could not make anything of that one.

“There will be shelter where you thought was only perfect destruction.”

Higurashi sighed. What was the point of keys that only unlocked gibberish?

At five o'clock in the morning, she put the books in a pile in the center of the kitchen table. Higurashi remembered how she had come to this point.

Okay, maybe I'm the one who's crazy.

After all, she was the one seeing things; she was the one talking to ghosts; she was the one rummaging through musty manuscripts looking for oracles. She experienced a deep nostalgia for her old reliable sensibility, and she resolved to take the ridiculous books back the next day and to forget all about the ghosts of dogs.

But when she reached to turn off the light before leaving the room, she was thrown into another crisis. She saw the calendar.

Tomorrow was Souta's birthday. It was bad enough that she had forgotten, but worse than that was the fact that Souta's birthday was three months after his sister's.

Higurashi wept in consternation. Three months had passed since her daughter had been home and, because of the feverish dreams and the interminable sound of rain, she had not realized it.

“Dear heavens!” she cried. “What has happened?”

She ran to her father-in-law's bedroom.

“Jiisan! Jiisan!” She shook the old man's shoulders.

He opened his bleary eyes and, when he recognized her, gave her a toothless smile.

“Miichan! Have you come with breakfast?”

“Jiisan, something is wrong!”

The old man lifted himself with a great effort. “Eh?” He mumbled. “What's that? Is it the store?”

“No, no, no,” Higurashi was impatient. “Kagome, it's Kagome. She's been gone for so long. Something must be wrong!”

Her father-in-law peered at her.

“What are you talking about, Mikomi-chan? I saw Kagome just two days ago.” With a grumpy huff, he rolled himself back into his blankets.

For a moment of confused elation, Higurashi thought that her madness had imagined it all, but her hopes fell at her feet when she realized with cold clarity that during her communion with dreams the old man had descended into a haze of senility. From outside she heard the last haunting cries of the night owls and she thought of Souta.

Oh no! How long has it been since I talked to that child?

Her panic proliferated throughout the house when she found Souta's bed empty, and she ran into Kagome's room like a mad woman. Once again, she was almost led to believe she had imagined it all when she saw a little head of black hair on the pillow. She threw back the sheets in one jerk.

“Yuka!”

Yuka opened her eyes wide and stared at her, then sat bolt upright.

“What?” she gasped. “What is it?”

“Where is Souta?”

The look Yuka gave her wrapped Higurashi in shame and doubt.

“He's at Satoru's house, of course.”

Higurashi returned to the kitchen, exhausted by the night and by the panic.

“What has happened?” she asked the empty room again. “What have I done?”

Outside the window, the sun was finally shining down on the gardenias again, but Higurashi did not notice it. The horror of her forsaken father-in-law, of her lost daughter, and of her forgotten and solitary son, swallowed Higurashi in a universe of grief, and she wept at the kitchen table until Yuka came to prepare breakfast.

Yuka paid no attention to the suffering woman. She went through the motions of her chores with a formal stiffness and abandoned Higurashi to her fate.

***

[End of Chapter 8]

[Next chapter: Inuyasha]