InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Miroku and Sango ( Chapter 10 )

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

 

Chapter Eleven: Miroku and Sango

 

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

-Leonard Cohen

 

***

 

It was said that the man dressed as a monk and the woman dressed as a demon slayer were found dead in the wilderness that hugged the edge of the village, not long after the terrible mountain explosion that had set off an earthquake. Though anyone could tell that the strangers had been young and strong in life, venerable elders and emphatic farmers swore on all their fortunes that they had been found dead, irrefutably dead, that they had only been carried to the village for burial to prevent the attraction of curses or carrion creatures.

 

The villagers intended to place the bodies on a bed of bamboo covered with lilies, as was their custom. But the only known lilies grew in a meadow on the other side of a gray swamp, and the endless rain made all roads to them impassable. As an alternative, they used the billowing, blue bellflowers that grew on the cliffs on the south side of their settlement. They gathered so many bellflowers that they covered not only the bamboo planks, but also the entire floor of the thatched hut that housed the unknown corpses.

 

The strangers returned to life without warning as soon as they touched the bed of blooms. The woman sighed and rolled towards the man and the man extended his hand to cover that of the woman. Though they became still as death again immediately, this was enough to cause some of the women in attendance to faint and some of the curious children to run screaming from the hut, with downy petals stuck in their sandals and trailing a feathery, blue dust behind them.

 

The commotion of panic brought everyone running, and they arrived at the hut door to find a suffocating atmosphere of bellflowers and exasperation. No one knew what to do. The strangers were alive, but lying on a bed for the departed. Should they be moved?

 

Dissension arose over this idea. An old man with a knotted walking stick rapped it on the cold stones of the hearth until everyone fell silent.

 

“What if this bed's what woke `em?” he demanded.

 

“Bellflowers aren't used for that!” shouted some of the more impudent young people.

 

“But you don't know, do ya?” he crackled a toothless grin. “When you put `em there, they stirred like they was living, so what do you do?”

 

Fearful silence.

 

“You leave `em there course!” the old man shouted with impatience. Then he waved his stick in the air above his head. “Gods above! People got no sense!”

 

Because there was nothing else to do, they decided to indeed leave them there. Many among them were afraid that further interference would bring terrible luck upon them. Therefore, they stood helpless around the unfortunate strangers and stared in bewilderment, each mentally shuffling though his or her own experiences.

 

They saw the terrible wounds, scratched their heads, and exclaimed, “How can they be alive? It's impossible!”

 

They saw the black marks of an evil poison that covered them like lash wounds, and pointed to serpent streams of the contamination in their blood, and they said, “Surely, if they live, it's a miracle!”

 

The stirring of the dead was not the last wonder. After a few days, a rosy color return to their cheeks, and the two took on a peaceful look. By this time, word had spread that two individuals of mysterious background had fallen under the protection of the most virtuous of deities, and then were entrusted to the sole care of this remote village.

 

After seven days, the villagers realized that the flower petals did not wilt, but were as soft and fresh as the day they bloomed. They also seemed to multiply on their own and little blue petals turned up everywhere—in bowls of rice, sake cups, cattle feed, even trunks of clothes that had not been opened since before the strangers came.

 

The scholars and skeptics who came to view the miracles laughed at the ignorance and superstitions of the villagers. They said that finding two half-dead individuals in the wilderness was unusual but not unheard of, and that flower petals did not meet the prerequisites for miracles. After a while, they stopped coming altogether. Everyone stopped coming, because the rains transformed even the best of roads into channels of mud. Parents piled stones under their children to make certain that they did not drown in their sleep. People were already abandoning villages in the most unfortunate locations, and the chief of this little spot on the map knew it would not be long before he would have to order his people to forsake their homes.

 

A month had passed since they had found the strangers and the rains had begun. Some in the village now declared in the open that the strangers had brought a curse with them, and that they should have been left where they had been found. The headman stood outside the hut that housed the nameless miracles. He stared into the doorway for a long time. It was not in his nature to turn anyone out, least of all the helpless. There could be no doubt that these two people had suffered a great calamity. However, their calamity grew less as his own impending one grew greater, and he began to consider his options.

 

He was not a very tall man, not thin nor heavy, not handsome nor loathsome in appearance. There was indeed nothing remarkable about his plain, round face and unadorned clothes. He kept himself carelessly, allowing the locks of his hair to hang to his shoulders and wearing his short haori in a loose, open fashion. He walked as though he bore a great weight with ease, giving the impression of a placid beast of burden. His position came not from fine possessions or a princely appearance, but from his skill and experience in battle, as evidenced by the ugly white and red scars that marked him here and there on the arms and legs and heaven knows where else. As he stood outside the hut with his arms crossed and his plain face set in a grim expression, he began to consider that generals did not always make the best caretakers.

 

The priestess would be troublesome. Even if he accepted the fact that the death of her charges was necessary for everyone else to live, he knew she would never agree to it. He even began to work out the conversation in his head, imagining her indignant, self-righteous responses to his impeccable logic. He even added the part where his wife and the other men in the village laughed at him and scorned his weakness. They already teased him every time he brought a cup of sake to his lips. They would say right to his face “are you sure you should drink that? Shouldn't you ask your priestess first?”

 

And then there were other things, things that floated in the air between the two of them like demonic lightening bolts that at any time could kill one or both of them if they strayed, things that tortured the poor man's soul and withered his heart.

 

 

In the hut, the condition of the strangers had not changed. The priestess and her assistant, a plump little girl of no more than twelve whom everyone called Suzi, carried out their duties with dedication, despite the growing atmosphere of anxiety and fear. The headmaster always believed he was the only one who suffered, but in reality, Suzi and the priestess were well aware of the wind of popular sentiment.

 

The priestess herself would be called young in Kagome's time, but not so much in her own, even though she was by far the shortest woman in the village, being often mistaken for a child from even a small distance. She kept her own clothes and hair in a rigorous, severe way, and her eyes were like tiny, black gems that seemed to never be still.

 

With or without popular sentiment, there could be no doubt that disaster was looming. Suzi was not so young that she was unaware of it. Food was scarce. Nothing could be kept dry in storage, and livestock had all but disappeared, presumed to have drowned or run away. A month had passed and though the terrible rains sometimes lessened for brief periods, they had not ceased. As the priestess stood silently rehearsing her responses to what she knew the headman would say, Suzi tended the strangers and cleansed their wounds, wondering how they could ever be moved, and wishing that the repetitive movement of her hand, from the bowls to the bandages to the blankets, would never end.

 

“On the dry and dusty road.”

 

Suzi froze. Her rhythmic way of forgetting the calamity was shattered.

 

“What did you say?” the priestess turned to address her assistant.

 

But Suzi could not bring herself to move, staring with fright at the unconscious strangers.

 

“Momiji-sama!” she cried at last, pointing a trembling finger at the unknown woman.

 

“Are you saying that this woman spoke?” the priestess demanded, incredulous.

 

“The nights we spent apart alone.” The man raised his left hand and it fell across his face.

 

This time there could be no doubt. Suzi believed she was witnessing the resurrection of the dead.

 

“Suzi-chan,” the priestess whispered. “Go. Fetch the headman. Quickly now.”

 

Since the headman had been waiting outside, trying to gather some courage and dignity, he was standing in the hut in less than a minute. Suzi backed away from him, but the headman did not acknowledge her presence.

 

“Before you say anything, Momiji-san, I was on my way to tell you that the village will have be moved. We cannot stay here and wait to drown.”

 

“Yes, this is wisdom, Sonchou-sama. I will prepare to move the patients.”

 

Kyotou's face tightened.

 

“I do not believe that—” he started, but was cut off.

 

“I need to get back home.” A low mumble came from the bed.

 

The headman stared at the “patients” in disbelief.

 

“Do you not see?” Momiji seized his surprise as an advantage. “The gods have charged us with a serious duty, and we are performing it well.”

 

Kyotou had remained at the foot of the makeshift bed, staring at the strangers in wonder, but at Momiji's last words he remembered where he was and he threw his hands up in disgust and frustration.

 

“Does it not occur to you, Momiji-san, that the duty we are performing very well is evil? If it was a good task, should not their improvement be ours also? But look! The sky still weeps Momiji-san, the people are still hungry!”

 

After a few minutes of frustrated silence, the headman sighed and shook his head.

 

“We must move into the mountains, and I cannot spare men to carry these strangers. You must leave them.”

 

Suzi knew that Momiji, for all her gall, recognized authority when she heard it. She was silent again, for a moment.

 

“I see our ways must be parted.”

 

The headman looked up in surprise, and Suzi held her breath.

 

“You cannot mean—” he started.

 

Momiji bowed low. “Kyotou-kun, thank you for all that you've done for me. I do not deserve it. Nevertheless, you must follow your path as headman and I must follow my duty as well. Perhaps our paths will cross again. I hope so.”

 

Shocked by the sudden display of intimacy, the young girl drew as close to the opposite wall as possible. Momiji and Kyotou did not notice her. Kyotou seemed frozen with a fear that Suzi did not understand. Finally, he spoke again.

 

“Momiji-kun,” he said. “I will not leave you here to die.”

 

“I will not die,” she answered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.

 

“Leave us!” the headman barked with such sudden sharpness that Suzi fled from the hut without looking back.

 

 

The headman emerged alone five, maybe ten minutes later, and went immediately to the nearest home. He said nothing to Suzi as he passed, but he stood for a moment on the threshold and looked back, and she heard him mutter in a bitter tone.

 

“It's always got to be sacrificed.”

 

Suzi watched him entered the other hut before she returned to her mistress.

 

“Suzi-chan,” Momiji-sama looked tired and wan. “Come here.”

 

They stood together at the foot of the makeshift bed with their feet in an inch or more or mud, caked with blue flower petals. The bed, raised on bricks that wobbled on the loose earth, waved like the deck of a boat.

 

“You must go, Suzi-chan, you must go with the headman.”

 

Suzi gasped. “My lady, you cannot mean it! You will be here all alone!”

 

Momiji kissed her forehead. “Be well, my child, remember what I've taught you. You must go with the headman and serve him.”

 

Suzi's face broke into a sob. “You cannot mean it,” she repeated. “It cannot be so!”

 

“Here.” Momiji handed the child a small leather satchel. “This is all that I can spare. You know how to use them.”

 

“I…I…I am…I am too small!” Suzi blubbered through her grimy tears.

 

“Suzume-sama!” Momiji took hold of the girl's chin. Suzi bit back her sobs when she heard her name declared with such fervent formality.

 

“You must not fail me!”

 

Suzume clutched the satchel until her knuckles turned white. “Will I ever see you again?”

 

“I don't know child, but let's hope so. Go, go now. They mean to leave today!”

 

Suzume turned away and forced her little feet to run. She went to her own tiny place in the world, the hut she had shared with the priestess for as long as she could remember. She pulled together what few rags of clothing that were not ruined by all the wet and she stuffed them into a crumbling pack that she strapped to her back. There was no food to save or anything else of value to collect. Suzume looked around, blinking back stinging tears.

 

“Suzume-san!” It was the urgent voice of the headman. It had always been rare for him to notice her, let alone address her. Suzume turned her back to the past and abandoned the tiny hovel.

 

Outside there was an atmosphere of orderly panic. She received curt instructions to aid in the herding of the children. Despite her tender age, she understood by the tone of the headman and by the looks of the other adults that she was unquestionably the new priestess, there was no way to deny it.

 

Nor any way to escape it.

 

They were gone in less than an hour. Men in the front led the way, finding the surest paths and carrying what supplies they still possessed. Men in the back watched for dangers and aided women and children when they slipped in the mud. No one reached out a hand to Suzume to steady her. No one helped her push aside the briars that seemed to want to flee as much as the people did.

 

You just have to look after yourself now.

 

Into the mountains and into the growing dark, Suzume and her new fellowship fled the drowning world.

 

 

 

Momiji had not moved. She remained standing at the foot of the raised bed.

 

I must pray, she thought, I must pray so fervently that I cannot be denied.

 

She lowered her head, saw the blackened water oozing out of her shoes, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

 

Nothing came. She could think of nothing, nothing to add to the endless scroll of pleading that had already rolled from her heart in the past month.

 

You're so sure, so sure you can save every hair on my head!

 

The prayers did not come, but Momiji opened her eyes to see the water rising, slow at first, then with speed too fast to see, in a moment too close to now. She was in a black ocean, the walls of the hut surrendered at last, there was nowhere to run.

 

Before she felt the crash, she choked on a stupendous amount of the brackish water that was in her throat. She tried to cough it out, but instead of the torrent of water she expected, only a small, white lob of spit landed between her feet. She looked around and saw that it was still raining, but there was no flood, nothing but black mud. The walls of the hut remained standing.

 

Shaken by the vision, Momiji lowered herself with slow care to the foot of the bed. She sat between the feet of the strangers, holding her face in her hands.

 

“It's coming,” she whispered to herself.

 

What can I do?

 

She ran outside. Holding out her arms and turning her face up to the ceaseless rain, she cried.

 

“What? What do you want me to do? What is it? Why the devil won't you just tell me?”

 

---

 

There was a soft voice singing, difficult to hear above the sound of rain. Miroku found that he could not open his eyes. Despite his greatest efforts, an intolerable desire to sleep lay upon him. He lifted his hand to seek the warm body sitting next to his bed. A fluttering hand caught his fingers—soft and small.

 

“Sango, is that you?”

 

Yes, it had to be.

 

“Oh,” a voice answered, thick with tears. “Oh, my sweet boy.”

 

No, that was wrong.

 

“Wait, what?” he mumbled.

 

A hand fluttered across his face, and for some reason he wanted to scream.

 

Miroku's eyes flew open. When he saw her sitting beside him, a woman with a plain face and a generous figure, he broke the chains of dreaming and sat bolt upright, scurrying back away from her.

 

“What?” he demanded.

 

She reached for him with a small porcelain hand, her eyes catching the light of fire like glittering bronze. Smiling, her lips parted. He believed she was trying to express a great joy.

 

He smacked her hand away in panic.

 

“Lies! This is a trick!”

 

The woman lowered her head and swayed like a beaten animal. Miroku watched her, frozen. He could not help but feel the urge to comfort her, despite the certainty that she was a fiendish apparition.

 

It sure looked like his mother, though.

 

He closed his eyes and began to whisper a prayer, repeating to himself.

 

“Demon of deceit, demon of trickery,

reveal yourself to me, reveal yourself to me.”

 

While his eyes remained closed, she had lain down. He felt the weight next to him. Unable to resist, Miroku turned his head and opened his eyes.

 

A wave of relief washed through him. It was Sango, lying next to him with a face as white as alabaster. The demon slayer's right arm, which before could lift the ponderous Hiraikotsu above her head and hurl it without effort, was now wrapped and bound in a sling. But at least she was there.

 

“I can't believe it!”

 

Miroku turned to see a young woman standing at the foot of their bed. It was than that he noticed that they were lying in an unknown hut, and that it was raining.

 

The young woman bowed her head and murmured, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

 

The woman was so small that he thought at first she was a child, but it did not take him long to notice the curve of her elbows and the sweep of her shoulders, not to mention her careworn eyes, which all spoke of a greater maturity. Her priestess garb differed from Kaede's in small details. Her robes were white, except for a red smock caught by a pink sash. But long dampness and neglect had turned everything she wore a pitiful brown. She wore a necklace of green and white beads with a round amulet made of two bronze moons clasped together. When she lifted her head to look at him again he felt a shock of recognition.

 

“Momiji-san?” he exclaimed in surprise. Miroku was shocked to hear his own voice come out in a hoarse croak that could scarce be heard over the rain. He understood then that he was now awake where before he had been dreaming, and he looked down, panicked.

 

Much to his relief, Sango, white and ghost-like, was still there.

 

During Miroku's confusion, Momiji had her own.

 

“You know me?” She was shocked.

 

“You've grown, but then it's been a while. How have you been?”

 

His nonchalant tone was disorienting, but Momiji tried not to be bitter.

 

“Things could be better,” she said. “But, how do you know me?”

 

Miroku tried to rise, but his legs wobbled and he lowered his head into his hands and groaned. His head pounded and every move twisted his stomach.

 

“Buddha help me,” he groaned. “How long have I been unconscious?”

 

“About a month,” she answered. “And how do you know me?”

 

“A month?” Miroku cried. Forgetting his pain, he turned and shook Sango's shoulders.

 

“Sango! Sango! You must awake! Sango!”

 

“Be careful of that arm,” Momiji yelled at him. “And how the hell do you know me?”

 

Miroku turned to her. For a moment, he had been confused again, thinking she had meant his arm, that he should be careful not to unleash his curse.

 

No, she doesn't know about that.

 

He was too exhausted to even consider a lengthy explanation.

 

“Tsubaki,” was all he said.

 

“Huh?” Momiji gave him a blank stare. He watched the wheels turn in her head and listened for the click.

 

“Wait, what?” she exclaimed at last. “Why, you're, you're that pervert monk!”

 

Miroku sighed. She would remember that part.

 

Momiji stood transfixed with her finger pointed at him, and then she moved it to Sango.

 

“The demon-slayer,” she said. “Of course!”

 

“I'm really rather surprised that you didn't recognize us.”

 

Momiji shook her head. “The first time I saw you, you were so injured you were hardly recognizable as human beings. After that, I had other things on my mind.”

 

“Where are the others?” he asked her.

 

“Others? You two are the only ones we found.”

 

Miroku gaped at her. “Are you sure? You did not even find the two-tailed cat?”

 

Momiji remembered the nekomata that could fly through the air and be large enough to carry you on her back, but otherwise was an adorable yellow kitten with bright pink eyes. It made her think of the small fox demon, equally cute, and of her sister, much more missed.

 

“No,” she answered. “No one.”

 

Miroku had regained his voice and the ability to sit upright. He placed his feet on the ground and they sank in sludge.

 

“What the…”

 

“It's been raining,” Momiji explained.

 

“Raining,” Miroku shook his head as if he still did not understand.

 

“Since before you came here. Since the explosion.”

 

“The explosion,” Miroku muttered. He shut his eyes tight against the image of the ball of black and pink light. He saw Kagura running towards it. A force knocked the air out of him. He was flying…he thought Kirara caught him, with her teeth, but then…

 

He shook his head.

 

“It's been raining for a month?” he asked, incredulous.

 

“Maybe more,” Momiji answered. “And let's not waste our time thinking how that's not fair.”

 

Miroku thought that was an odd thing to say, but he did not answer.

 

Momiji came to his side and held out her hand. “Can you stand?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“Please, you must try.” She did not wait for an answer. She pulled him up.

 

The world went black and Miroku fell to the bed again.

 

“I need to eat,” he croaked.

 

Momiji went to a wooden box that sat on a table nearby. She removed something from it gingerly and carried it to him cupped in her hands like a holy treasure. She opened her hands to reveal a ball of rice, only a little bit bigger than a plum.

 

“There are few left,” she said. “We have to be careful.”

 

Miroku swallowed it in one gulp. He shuddered as it globbed down his esophagus like grit, and he tried not to wonder if those suspicious specks had been mold.

 

She was still standing in front of him. Sensing that she expected something, he tried not to look at her.

 

“I don't think I can do this,” he said. His entire body was shaking.

 

“You have to. We have to leave.”

 

Miroku looked over his shoulder. Sango had not stirred.

 

“What about her? I cannot leave her.”

 

“You will have to carry her.”

 

Miroku's shaking became more violent.

 

“I can't. It's impossible.”

 

“I know it's hard. But you have to. We will die if we do not leave here.”

 

“Is there no one to help us?”

 

“Everyone is gone,” she answered.

 

“What about an animal? An ox, a cow even?”

 

“All gone.”

 

There was a rumble in the distance, and at first Miroku thought it was thunder, but he felt a tiny tremor in the ground.

 

Momiji tensed. “That was a landslide,” she said. “It is too late to try to go into the hills. We'll never make it that way.”

 

“Then where do we go?”

 

“The rocky coast is all I can think of.”

 

“How far is that?” he asked her.

 

Momiji thought about it. “About thirty li.”

 

“That's impossible Momiji-san,” Miroku mourned. “You must go. Just leave us here.”

 

Momiji ignored that and offered him another clump of rice, this time with a piece of heavily salted meat. He could not tell the animal.

 

“You know what they say,” she tried to sound cheerful. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

 

Miroku looked at her tiny hand, grimy and calloused. He looked at her filthy robes and matted auburn hair. He tried to see Kagome standing there, because Momiji's determination reminded him of her, because the world was so implausible with it's gloom and pain that he wanted to believe he was still dreaming.

 

Can she really be gone?

 

He saw the terrifying vision again, and it left him certain that Kagome's death had been carved into the mountainside. The hollow places in Miroku, places that had kept him on the road for all of his life and that had kept him encased in a self he could not love, filled and flooded with an impossible indignation.

 

He did not bother with hope, he assumed the worst because, after all, that was just so typical. Of course this would happen. It would be too much to ask for him to die an unjust death alone in the wilderness. Everything had to be taken from him first. Despite all that he had tried to do, the life he had tried to live, he would not be permitted any comfort whatsoever.

 

The universe was out to get him. Period. And the callous injustice of it all filled him with a palatable and unbearable anger. It occurred to him that he was becoming Inuyasha, and the thought only angered him more. He pictured Inuyasha standing before him, and himself with a wrathful finger in his best friend's face.

 

Your pride did this. You're to blame! It's not my fault. Not mine. You're responsible for everything!

 

The rage was building in his arms like an earthquake, but he held it tight.

 

Shut up, he told himself. Now you really do sound just like him.

 

“Oh my lord,” he lamented out loud. “Can a person fuck himself up so much?”

 

Momiji stared at him.

 

He continued, “that I cannot carry my beloved to the sea?”

 

Momiji's heart skipped a beat.

 

“I have tried praying, monk,” she said after some time. “No gods or saints have come.”

 

Miroku was silent as he tried to gather his breath and hold back the torrent of recrimination.

 

“I guess…” he suggested, “let's not waste our time thinking how that's not fair?”

 

She nodded. Miroku clenched his teeth and raised himself to standing with a colossal effort.

 

Momiji grabbed his arms. “Come,” she said. “Let's just try to get out of the house for starters.”

 

Miroku went to the other side to lift Sango. As soon as he touched her, he realized she was even more wasted than he was; she felt hollow and scrawny, like a bird.

 

At least that made it easier to lift her. After some extensive grunting and sweating, he found himself standing in the middle of the hut with Sango cradled in his arms.

 

I wonder, where is Hiraikotsu?

 

But that was the least of their problems. Led by Momiji, Miroku plodded on, praying for strength with every step. Momiji led him out of the hut and into what was left of the street. The rain had smudged the roads, courtyards, and pastures all together, so they walked in a straight line heading due east.

 

“If we keep going this way,” she said. “We'll have to hit the sea. The rocks and caves there may give us some shelter.”

 

Miroku looked around at the decimated village. Some huts had collapsed altogether, when the earth could no longer stay together under their weight.

 

“What happened to everyone?” he panted and groaned with exertion.

 

“They left days ago, maybe weeks, it's hard to tell how much time passes with this rain. Don't waste your energy talking.”

 

It was slow going. They sustained themselves on resentment and on the precious store of rice that Momiji carried and they rested under trees great enough to keep most of the rain off them. Miroku required rest often, two or three times an hour. Momiji feared that they would starve before they were half way to the coast.

 

However, after the first few days Miroku's strength began to return in slow doses, and he could walk longer without resting.

 

To his great worry, Sango only got lighter.

 

After what seemed like eons, they came to the sea. It spread before them like a gray blanket. They went down gentle slopes that led to the tan beaches.

 

“What now?” he asked.

 

Momiji looked around. “There,” she pointed to large, flattened rocks that brooded over the sand. “That one. It's far enough from the waves to be safe in high tide.”

 

They went to the side of the rock facing away from the ocean. The relentless tools of wind and sand had chiseled away a slender waist for the outcrop. It was not high enough to sit under without crouching, but they could lie under it and sleep. Momiji watched as Miroku lowered Sango to the ground with tenderness, and placed her as far out of the rain as he could without aggravating the injury of her right arm. They slept for almost an entire day.

 

The next morning, at Momiji's suggestion, they gathered all the flattened stones that they could find and they piled them into the careful construction of a wall, which extended in a curve from their shelter, like a crooked smile.

 

When they had finished, the weak daylight had faded and it was so dark that they would not have known the sea except for the pounding of the waves. But they could now sit under the cover, a moldy fur that Momiji had stretched from the wall to the sheltering rock, and thus find relief from the rain. Momiji took out some flint and gave it to Miroku.

 

“I doubt we can use it,” she said.

 

He gathered what sticks he could from the beach and tried to use them as tender. Little sparks would fly off and disappear into the damp air before even hitting the wood.

 

Miroku was not about to give up, not sitting under the little shelter that he and Momiji had created from almost nothing, despite the rain, despite the hunger that was paining their finger tips. Momiji dozed off to the metallic ting-ting. She opened her eyes when it stopped and saw that he was blowing on a glowing ember that he covered with his hands. It took some time to grow and it never became much of a fire, dancing and swaying with a faint, green light. Nonetheless, Momiji and Miroku basked in the glow of its warmth and its triumph.

 

Apart from this bout of activity, Miroku spent most of his time sitting cross-legged beneath the shelter, dozing when he was not gazing at the sea. It was impossible to keep track of the passage of time because every hour was as gray as the hour before and after it.

 

On one of those hours, however, Miroku awoke to a demonic presence nudging against his skull. He looked around. Momiji was not in the shelter. He crawled to one of the openings and peered out towards the ocean.

 

Momiji was standing no more than four or five paces away. She stood with her diminutive feet firm in the sand, her fists clenched at her sides. She was facing down what looked like a bear demon. The monster towered over her, but Momiji's expression did not change. She whispered to Miroku.

 

“Stay back.”

 

Then she pressed her palms flat together in front of her chest, with a piece of paper squeezed between her fingers.

 

“Demon!” she cried. “Be gone!”

 

Miroku was bowled over by the wave of spiritual energy she sent flying at the demon.

 

Wow, he thought, she sure has gotten stronger.

 

The bear roared at her, but the priestess did not flinch.

 

“I have no wish to waste my energy killing you, but I will, if need be,” she declared. “So leave now and live!”

 

Miroku saw the demon hesitate; he saw Momiji's ginger hair become a lion's mane in the wind and heard her courage roar like the sound of the sun. The image of a priestess staring down a calamity that was hungry for her blood pained Miroku, but he had the strength to not look away.

 

Let's not waste our time thinking how that's not fair.

 

The bear demon had tracked the scent of humans, looking for an easy meal when the rain had made it hard to find anything. However, he had not expected this much fight and, with a sea of fish nearby, it was not worth it. He shambled away.

 

The presence of a demon had tripped some switch in Sango's spinal cord and, as Miroku lowered his head in relief, he heard her voice.

 

“What's going on?”

 

She had lifted herself on her left arm and was looking around in apprehension with large, blinking eyes, trying to understand why a rock was an inch or two over her head.

 

Miroku stopped breathing.

 

“Thank goodness!” Momiji exclaimed. She knelt down beside Sango and checked her forehead, her pulse, and studied her eyes. Sango stared at her, uncomprehending.

 

“What's going on?” she repeated, her voice growing shrill.

 

“Sango, it's okay.” Miroku crawled to her side. He wondered if the weeks in the sand and salt had made his smell unpleasant. Then he wondered why such an idiotic thought had occurred to him at all.

 

Momiji stood up. “I will try to get some fish,” and she left.

 

“Miroku,” Sango's voice was small and shaky. She pressed a trembling hand to her white forehead. “I feel terrible. What happened? Who is that? Where are the others? Where is Kirara?”

 

Miroku cupped her face in his hands. “Sango, listen to me. Everybody's gone. We're all that's left.”

 

In the end, he could think of no better way to say it than to let it fall on her head and hope that he could hold her up.

 

“Gone?” she gasped. “What do you mean, gone? How long have I been asleep?”

 

“About two months, give or take a week or two.”

 

“What!”

 

She tried to get to her feet. The reaction was automatic and Miroku had been expecting it. He held her down.

 

“No, no,” he tried to sooth her. “You need to take it easy.”

 

Sango could not argue because the mere act of sitting up had sent a black wave of nausea and faintness through her body. There was only one other reasonable thing to do. She started to cry.

 

Miroku had been expecting that too. He held her and rocked her in his arms, like a child.

 

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered. “But we're going to get through this, I promise.”

 

Sango did not hear him. She was too busy telling herself that she had failed to save her father, failed to protect her brother, and had led the innocent Kirara to a pointless death.

 

Over the next few weeks, the three companions of necessity sustained themselves on seaweed and fish, which they could roast on rare occasions over their pathetic green fire but most of the time had to eat raw. Sango's strength returned to her slowly, and she took to pacing the beach and gazing at the gray ocean, when the rain was not too heavy.

 

“Miroku,” she asked him one day. “Why are we here?”

 

“It hasn't stopped raining since that day,” he said, as if that answered everything.

 

Sango did the calculations in her head and her eyes widened.

 

“So…” she looked over her shoulder at Momiji, who sat under the shelter gazing into a pile of charred sticks that they could not get to burn that morning. “Her village?”

 

“Gone,” he answered. “Everything seems to be washed away. I think it's raining like this everywhere.”

 

“Do you think,” Sango struggled with the notion. “Do you think the rain is our fault?”

 

Miroku was startled. “I…I don't know. I admit, it has occurred to me. But, how can that be? And, if so, what can we do?”

 

Sango did not have an answer.

 

A few days later, they were all under the cover together. Night had gathered around them in the sneaking way it always did. They were passing around bits of food when Momiji made some passing remark to Sango about Miroku, referring to him as the slayer's husband.

 

“We're not married,” Sango corrected her.

 

“Oh!” Momiji was startled, and she flushed. “I'm sorry. I just assumed.”

 

There was an awkward silence, until Momiji remembered that she had no reason to restrain herself.

 

“So, why aren't you?”

 

Sango looked up, surprised, and for the first time in more than three months, Miroku heard her laugh.

 

“Gees, I don't know, we just never did.”

 

“I guess we kept saying: `One day, when we defeat Naraku'”, Miroku explained.

 

“That's sad,” Momiji said. “To put your life on hold because of such a loathsome creature.”

 

Miroku sat looking out at the rain, without realizing that it had dwindled to a drizzle, when inspiration struck.

 

“Let's do it now.”

 

Sango choked on her fish. “What?” she gasped. “Are you crazy?”

 

“Probably.”

 

Momiji twined a lock of hair around her fingers and studied him.

 

“Are you really serious?” she asked him.

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Well,” Momiji said, “one priestess and the witness of sand and rain clouds does not a wedding ceremony make.”

 

Miroku waved that aside. “It's good enough for me,” he said. “I think the gods can overlook any irregularities. They owe us.”

 

Momiji snorted. “That's the truth.”

 

Sango meanwhile was near apoplexy, but Momiji presented the situation to her without complications, as Miroku had learned she was apt to do.

 

“Sango-chan,” she said, “do not worry. You can always get out of it later by saying it wasn't legal.”

 

“That is…I would never do that!”

 

“Oh good,” the priestess said. “Then you want to.”

 

And that was that.

 

Momiji held out her tiny hand. “The rain isn't too heavy. And look, you can even see some moonlight through those clouds.”

 

So that was how Miroku and Sango found themselves standing on a windy and rainy beach, where it was so dark that they strained their eyes to watch their priestess remove her necklace.

 

“I guess this is holy enough,” Momiji said.

 

She wrapped the beads around their hands.

 

“Now, pray to your ancestors for your good fortune.”

 

Sango tried to remember them all, tried to remember every hair on her father's head. Miroku, on the other hand, made only a small show of it. He did not in truth believe that they could hear him from where they had gone.

 

The texture of the wet sand reached through Sango's shoes and traveled to her chest, even as her legs went numb. The smell of the world went into Miroku's lungs, and it smelled brand new.

 

My heavens. Why did I wait so long?

 

For the first time since the plateau…

 

No, since long before that…

 

…it felt so good to know they were not dead.

 

“We have no one else here to speak. Have you anything to say to each other?”

 

Sango listened to her heart thumping through the soles of her feet, took a ragged breath, and said: “Only that, by moving forward, we triumph.”

 

Miroku could only squeeze her hand in response. When Momiji felt it, she had to steady herself and bite her lip to keep from crying.

 

“So be it,” her voice was solemn against the pounding of the waves.

 

They stood in the sacred silence for a measureless time before they noticed the moon shining on the crests of the ocean.

 

“Look!” Sango turned her exalted face upward and she pointed to the sky.

 

Miroku and Momiji both looked up. The air was clear and a great, undeniable sweep had torn the clouds away. The multitude of stars danced in a celebration of the washed earth now revealed to the heavens.

 

***

[End of Chapter 11]

[Next chapter: Kikyou and Kohaku]