InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Kikyou and Kohaku ( Chapter 11 )

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

 

Chapter 12: Kikyou and Kohaku

 

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!" -Charles Dickens

 

***

 

The rain was falling on her face. Kikyou awoke to see that it was night and the heavy veil of a moonless and starless dark hung about her. After a few foggy moments she realized she could hear the rain on the river, and all at once she remembered where she was.

 

Death had come, but not for her. She tried to recall the words that had been said, but found the memory blocked by an ache that covered her head and wrung her stomach.

 

You are not the one.

 

Who is the one? Whom did Death seek? For whom could she be mistaken?

 

The answer came at once, and then seemed so obvious. It had to be Kagome.

 

So she is dead then.

 

Kikyou wondered what that meant for her, for Inuyasha, and for Naraku, but her thoughts descended into darker places. She wondered if she cared, or if she cared whether or not she cared. In her customary and calculating fashion she began to plan her next move, even as she lay in the mud, exposed to the rain.

 

When she tried to stand, her temples screamed in protest. A powder keg exploded behind her eyes and she gasped and collapsed again. The black outline of the trees danced and swayed in her vision, her stomach clenched, and she felt certain she would—

 

But that was impossible.

 

She realized with a fright that the soul-collectors were gone. They had not returned after Death had depleted her. That had to have been hours ago, and yet she was still animate. Was that why she felt so ill?

 

With horror, immobilized by fear and confusion, Kikyou now understood fully that her head was aching, that her stomach felt sick, that her body was weak and cold—cold that came not from a heartless, boneless body, but cold that stung from the outside, cold that stung muscles and organs. There was a thud of beating blood in her ears.

 

How can this be? What has happened? Has time gone backwards? She exerted her will to take slow and deep breaths, trying in this way to control herself. But when she moved again the world went black.

 

Kikyou found herself standing in a white room. The light was too bright and exacerbated her headache. She raised her hand to cover her eyes but the light eased back until it became long white tubes, set here and there on the ceiling in sets of twos and threes. They hummed and flickered chaotically like summer fireflies. Someone said something from behind her and she turned to see a man in strange clothes, whom she did not recognize.

 

“Miss, are you in line?” he asked again.

 

Kikyou had the feeling that she was in danger of looking like an idiot. She mumbled an apology and started to turn away to leave but he laid a light hand on her arm.

 

“It's okay, you want to buy that, right?” he nodded at something she realized she was carrying. “Just move ahead.”

 

“Oh,” was all she could say. The item she carried was alien to her. The clunky and garish box looked like it may contain food, but she could not be sure. She did not recognize all of the writing.

 

This must be a merchant establishment of some kind. I'm waiting to pay.

 

She became worried again when she remembered that she did not have any money. She thought of searching her pockets, but her own clothing was so bizarre she did not even know where to start. When she got to the end of the line, where a young man with a slight build and a short ponytail operated a loud and angry sounding device, she started to mumble a confused apology again.

 

“Do not worry,” someone said. “It is no trouble.”

 

Kikyou looked up to see a woman smiling at her. She looked familiar, but Kikyou could not place her. Something exchanged hands, the woman asked Kikyou an unintelligible question about “heat”, and her item was taken from her. Then she was pulled away, through doors that were hard but transparent. Kikyou lingered before crossing the threshold. She cocked her head. Someone was singing, but she could not locate the performer nor understand the words.

 

“All you need is love,” the woman said quietly.

 

Kikyou blushed. “What?”

 

“That is what those words mean. It is in another language.”

 

Kikyou shifted the box in her hands (it was almost too hot to handle), trying to cover her confusion. She snorted.

 

“What an absurd thing to say.”

“Yes, I am sure you are right,” the woman answered.

 

A few minutes later she found herself placed on a wooden seat, overlooking a small, green field, and holding a steaming box on her lap.

 

“Go ahead,” said the woman sitting beside her. “It's good, I promise.”

 

Kikyou fumbled with the chopsticks and ate the food in slow, dazed movements. Meanwhile, children laughed and ran on the grass with a dog, squealing with delight every time the large animal tripped one of them. A stick landed nearby and the woman rose and picked it up. For a moment, she stood holding it like a sword, and Kikyou understood.

 

“You're Midoriko, aren't you?”

 

The woman threw the stick away, and the dog tore after it, kicking up sod with his paws.

 

“Yes,” she answered dusting off her hands. She sat down again.

 

“Where am I?” Kikyou asked her. “How did I get here? Is this your doing?”

 

“You have been full of questions lately, have you not?” Midoriko said. She looked pointedly at the food. “You had better get used to that. It will not go away.”

 

“What? What do you mean?” Kikyou looked down at the box. It was empty now.

 

Midoriko sighed. “Why must you persist in making this more difficult than it needs to be? If you go on like this, you will starve in the wilderness, and then what? We have not gone through all this trouble to bring you back to have it end like that.”

 

“I don't understand.” Kikyou was telling the truth, she was genuinely confused. But she also felt an overpowering urge to cry.

 

“Do you not?”

 

Kikyou only stared at her. Midoriko looked sad, and she moved closer to her. Kikyou was startled when the woman put her arms around her and squeezed her shoulders. Kikyou smelled Midoriko's hair, felt her warmth, and heard her heart pounding. Her own heart squeezed in her chest and fluttered. It hurt.

 

It hurt.

 

And that was all there was to it. She realized, with some regret, that she was not going mad. She felt warm blood and creaking organs, churning in bile and water, she felt tired, and hungry and the urgings of her bladder.

 

“It's not possible!” she declared in spite of the evidence. She tried to push away, but Midoriko would not release her.

 

“It's not possible! It's a trick, a dream!”

 

“It's not possible!” she repeated. She tried to push away again, then fell against the woman's soft chest and sobbed like a brokenhearted child. She cried so hard she half expected that something inside would break, and yet she felt that she could not cry hard enough.

 

When she could control her voice again, Kikyou forced out the question that had been somewhere in her mind since she awoke on the riverbank.

 

“Does this mean that she is dead?”

 

Midoriko smoothed her hair and wiped away tears from her chin.

 

“Come visit me,” she said.

 

“What? Visit you?”

 

“Yes,” the ancient priestess answered. “I may be sleeping to pass the time. Knock loud.”

 

Kikyou still did not understand, but before she could say anything else, she felt a sharp pain bite her ankle. The children had thrown the stick again and this time it had come too close.

 

“Oh!” she cried. She bent to examine the injury, but then she noticed she was wearing her priestess attire again. She looked around.

 

Even though it was night, as dark as dark could ever get, she could tell she was no longer in the Meadow of the Other World. She was also no longer beside the river, but was standing in the dark, under the spreading branches of a large oak tree. It was still raining. Cradled in the enormous roots of the tree, the boy lay sleeping nearby.

 

So it was just a dream.

 

Kikyou moved to his side, intending to sleep beside him, but her right foot or leg bothered her when she walked. Kikyou looked down and froze. Her ankle was scraped and bleeding.

 

She sat down to examine the wound, but it was impossible in the moonless night. Just then, the rain lessened to a small degree, and a faint gray sheen made it through the clouds. Kikyou turned to move her bow out of the way so she could lay down unhindered.

 

Kagome was lying on the ground on the other side of her. Kikyou's sometime ally, sometime enemy was on her back, with her hands folded across her heart, as though waiting to be burned. Her face was so dim and gray that it was not easy to see, except for her eyes that were bright and staring out like baleful, blue flames. Kikyou understood in an instant that death had driven the young girl insane.

 

So that's the answer: she is dead and I am not. Time going backwards and forwards and getting everything mixed up.

 

“Give me that!” Kagome hissed. “It's mine!”

 

She snatched the bow away, and hollow fingers of ice brushed Kikyou's hand. Kagome laid the bow across her chest and closed her eyes. Her face became still and white, like an entombed warrior-king.

 

The silence grew up all around them, but then was shattered unexpectedly when Kagome, eyes still closed and without moving a single hair, began to chant in a hoarse whisper.

 

Dead be hope and heart and bone,

and dead be we who stood alone.

Look for me in the west by the sea,

in the fields of eternal snow,

By the sea, by the sea.

 

Kikyou wondered to herself if this would happen every night.

 

She thought nonsensically, do I need to get another bow then?

 

What now?

 

She turned to the boy, and reached out her hand to stir him, but then changed her mind. When she turned back again Kagome was gone. The bow lay on the ground, looking somehow ridiculous with its own sleeping place.

 

When did I stop dreaming?

 

When did I start dreaming?

 

Her ankle still throbbed.

 

It was impossible to sleep. Kikyou sat with her back to the tree and waited for the dawn. The power of the rain picked up again, and the tree no longer offered any protection against the deluge. Her mud-caked clothes clung to her back and her fingertips were like dried fruit.

 

The ability of the boy to sleep through anything remained unrivaled.

 

The light was only just beginning to seep into her vision again, when Kikyou passed the last sentry of her bitterness. In the long watch of that night, she surrendered to the evidence of her new existence. She thought she understood what Midoriko was trying to tell her. Whatever had happened to her must have happened for a reason, and there was no use in wondering why. Perhaps it was not for her to know.

 

It was this last bastion that she overthrew just before the dawn. When she finally got up and went some distance away to relieve her aching bladder, she defeated the gall that stood between her and acceptance. She returned to the boy and gently shook him awake, just as the hazy light turn into undeniable day. Kikyou resolved to keep moving, to discover what had become of Kagome, and what, if any, purpose lay behind this new phase of her life.

 

They were pointed in the right direction already. Kikyou had planned to return the lost boy to the village of demon slayers, and Midoriko's cave lay within a stone's throw of that village.

 

As they walked through the land, both Kikyou and her charge recognized fields and forests, seeing for the first time the mural of their past. Kikyou came to believe that they were moving backwards in time, and as she walked she contemplated her fate. Was this new development a blessing, or a trap? If she went to Midoriko's cave again, would someone give her the jewel, fully restored as though nothing had happened? Perhaps it would go even further. Perhaps it was her turn to be entombed in that cavern.

 

So be it. She set herself on the familiar path with grim determination.

 

It would turn out to be a longer journey than either of them anticipated. The rain held steady, obscuring everything with stubborn grey and washing away the roads. The first villages they passed were merely sad, dirty places. Kikyou traded whatever services were useful in exchange for two musty beds and a couple of meager meals.

 

Each night they drifted through a troubled sleep, amid the constant hum of the rain, and the wheezing of the asthmatic pigs as they struggled to avoid drowning in their mud. Each night Kikyou relinquished her weapon to Kagome's phantom, and each morning found it lying beside her, where the nightmare had disappeared without so much as a word.

 

But as their journey progressed, the villages on the roadside began to transform from sad, dreary places to desperate, pathetic haunts. One after another, headmen along the way pleaded with her to do whatever she could to assuage the curse they were convinced haunted and hunted them. Even after employing all her skills to assure them, Kikyou took food and shelter with a sad guilt. There was nothing she could do about the weather.

 

As the pleas for assistance grew more frantic, Kikyou noticed that her companion grew more nervous. He would stand closer to her, his eyes scanning their surroundings and his hand often straying to his weapon. She had never seen him use it and she had trouble believing such a boy could be dangerous, but something in his eyes warned her that she was wrong.

 

It had been at least a few weeks since their journey began—it was difficult to keep track of the passing time as all the grey days and nights blended together. The two travelers dragged their exhausted bodies over one last washed out road to another wasted village, just as the sickly sun was setting behind the mist.

 

This one was larger than most, and Kikyou believed, based on her memory, that it was the last village they would pass before coming to the home of the demon slayers. Many of the houses they passed upon entering the village were abandoned. The two of them had almost given up on the entire settlement when they noticed the light of small fires flickering in the distance. The southern end of the village rested on gentle slopes that overlooked their neighbors to the north. When Kikyou and her companion arrived, they found a bustle of activity, people carrying items in all directions, children playing and crying, and women running after them with shrill admonishments. Kikyou realized that most of the village's population had retreated to this area to escape the soggy ground below.

 

In the chaos, the two strangers were not noticed, until a tall and thin man pointed his finger and give a sudden shout above the noise of the crowd.

 

“Look! A miko!”

 

The people nearby stopped in their tracks. A small crowd began to form around the two travelers. Kikyou was not concerned, but her companion scanned the whispering throng for danger and he edged closer to her.

 

A burly man with long, gray hair pushed his way through until he was face to face with Kikyou.

 

“What is your name?” the man demanded.

 

Kikyou did not care for his tone, but decided now was not the time to make an issue of it.

 

“I am called Kikyou.”

 

The man furrowed his brow. “That's not possible,” he said. “The priestess Kikyou is long dead.”

 

Kikyou stood silent.

 

The man shrugged. “Doesn't matter. I will take what I can get. We need your services.”

 

Kikyou bowed.

 

“I can care for children, prepare meals, tend to the sick and injured, repel demons and black magic and provide spiritual assistance, as needed.”

 

Kikyou straightened and looked the man in the eyes. She decided it was best to get some things out in the open right away.

 

“I have no control over the weather.”

 

The man's eyes darkened. “Weather? No. But curses, that would be different.”

 

“Yes, it would be. I would detect the presence of a curse.”

 

“I see.” He turned away and made a curt gesture. “Take them!”

 

A number of men came rumbling across the mud to surround them. The boy drew his weapon.

 

“No,” Kikyou grabbed his arm. “Do not.”

 

With reluctance, he lowered his hand. His weapon was taken.

 

“This way!” the leader told them and turned away, heading back to the huts.

 

One of the men took Kikyou's arm and made it clear she was to follow. They did not pay much attention to the boy once he had been disarmed, but he followed anyway.

 

Because of the crowd, Kikyou could not see much of their surroundings, but they walked for only a few minutes before she found herself in a room with the boy. Unlike the thatch houses of the village, this room was made of stone and the windows were not wide enough to put even an arm through. The leader appeared again at the doorway.

 

“Please forgive us. Times like these, there's no place for pleasantries. This is for your own safety. I wouldn't want anyone to disturb you.”

 

“What do you want of me?” Kikyou demanded, her face white and eyes flashing.

 

“Stay here until you can detect the curse that's afflicting us. Then break it. That simple.”

 

“But, my lord,” she protested. “I cannot. I must be gone tomorrow.”

 

“That,” the man said, “is not going to happen.”

 

Then they were all gone. In a matter of ten minutes, Kikyou had gone from itinerant traveler to indentured prisoner.

 

Kikyou sat down on the dirt floor to consider her situation. The most maddening thing about it was that she had walked right into it. A part of her was busy muttering how humans were such an unworthy, ungrateful lot that she should not have troubled herself.

 

But this was the old part, the part that was getting smaller each day, the part that still remembered what it was like to be something other than strictly human, and the part that did not know hunger, exhaustion, or pain.

 

That was over now. She told herself that at least they would have food.

 

Probably.

 

The boy was busy examining the room.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Looking for weaknesses,” he answered. “To get out of here.”

 

“I'm sorry I dragged you into this.”

 

“Don't be silly,” was all he said, and he continued to crawl about the floor against the far wall.

 

At last, he stood up. “I don't see any way out, not now anyway,” he announced. “Maybe we could dig our way out, depending on the severity of their watch.”

 

“Getting out is easy,” Kikyou told him. “I just have to say I detected the curse.”

 

The boy looked at her, surprised.

 

“It's getting away alive once they have realized that I'm lying, that's the problem.”

 

He considered that for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I think I can help you with that.”

 

“We must not kill any of them.”

 

“I can disable them without killing them.”

 

Kikyou shuddered.

 

“Are you certain you do not remember who you are?” she asked.

 

He looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

 

“Never mind. I need to think for a moment.”

 

A thorough account of her circumstance was overdue. Kikyou was nothing if not methodical.

 

Item number one: the rain. This item had to be number one because it was impossible to ignore. It was the first thing everyone, including Kikyou, thought of when they awoke to the grey morning and the last thing they thought of when they fell asleep under the starless sky.

 

Item number two: her second reformation. The soul collectors had departed because she no longer had any use for them. The dreams were not random plays in her subconscious theater; they were messages. Midoriko, in some form, was conscious and active in the world. Had she been responsible for her rebirth? Did she have that kind of power?

 

Item number three: the boy.

 

Item number four: Kagome.

 

Kikyou shook her head.

 

Give me that! It's mine!

 

Kikyou cringed and pushed the thought away. It pretended to go.

 

“Get some sleep,” she said to the boy. “I will decide what to do in the morning.”

 

The boy had a special talent for falling asleep on command, and in minutes she knew by his rhythmic breathing that he was slumbering.

 

Kikyou herself drifted in and out of sleep. This time she did not see Kagome's flesh sepulcher. She roused herself several times in the night with the strange desire to see it, to find it, but it was never there. The long night was restless. With less than an hour before dawn, she heard the words.

 

“Dead be hope and heart and bone.”

 

“By the sea, by the sea.”

 

She was shocked when she realized it was the boy, murmuring in his sleep, chanting and sweating and locked in a fitful dream.

 

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

 

Kikyou froze. She did not doubt that those words were meant for her.

 

“You're alive, aren't you?”

 

Kikyou suppressed the urge to scream. She wanted to shake him, to stop him from saying any more of these merciless things, and yet she could not do so. She suspected he was in a hypnotic state that linked her to the dreaming world where all the answers still lay buried. His words were sparks to her mind's tinder. He whispered, and she listened with greed.

 

“Come back, come back, come back…to me!”

 

The last word became a thin and ghostly wail, pitiful and yet threatening. Kikyou could take no more.

 

“Who are you?” she cried, choking on tears and her heart beating down her ribs as if to get out.

 

The boy opened his eyes, but saw nothing. He did not move. His cheeks were wet.

 

“Kohaku,” he said. “I am Kohaku, and I died on the shores of Toutoumi.”

 

Kikyou beheld a vision, unbidden, of a boy wandering, lost and witless, beside the water.

 

“I am Kikyou,” she answered, stammering and sobbing. She crawled to the corner of the room and put her face in her knees.

 

“I am Kikyou and I died in the days of my youth.”

 

She must have fallen asleep, because the room was much lighter when she opened her swollen eyes. She looked around.

 

Kohaku, if that was his true name, sat with his head in his hands. Kikyou went to him and gently pulled his hands away.

 

“Is Kohaku your true name?” she asked him.

 

He looked up at her. All traces of her distress the night before had vanished, and she was again a stern woman, tall and fearless she seemed to him.

 

“Yes,” he answered.

 

“Do you remember your former life?”

 

“Yes. Do you remember yours?”

 

“For the most part, yes.”

 

He looked up at her, his red eyes desperate and bright.

 

“Aren't you angry?” he demanded.

 

Kikyou was taken aback. She had not expected that question.

 

“Well, yes, of course.”

 

He pulled his hands out of her grasp and looked down again.

 

“It isn't fair,” he muttered.

 

Kikyou responded without thinking. “Let's not waste our—

 

“Don't say it!” he shouted and stopped his ears. “I don't want to hear it!”

 

Kikyou looked at him in wonder for a while. Then she knelt beside him.

 

“There are strange things at work here, Kohaku-san,” she said. “I do not know what is purposed for you and me, or what has brought us together, but I know that I do not wish to be alone. Do not forsake me, Kohaku-san!”

 

Kohaku shuddered and, as Kikyou watched him, his face became very still, and then set in a grim expression. A fire in his eyes was smothered, and they went dark again.

 

He is strong, she thought, stronger than I realized. I am glad he is not my enemy.

 

“So,” he said at last, in an almost casual tone. “How do we get out of here?”

 

Less than an hour later they were standing on the edge of a cliff. Kikyou had convinced the village headman that she needed to be near a body of water to effectively combat the curse. In this way, she thought it might be possible to escape their captors if they could chance a swim. But the headman, suspecting treachery, had brought them to a high cliff that overlooked a wide but shallow river.

 

Knowing there was no way for the two to escape alive, the leader allowed them to stand alone on the very edge.

 

“What now?” Kohaku whispered.

 

“I don't know.” Kikyou confessed.

 

The way back was too heavily guarded. They could only go that way if they went as prisoners. She was beginning to consider taking this course when Kohaku let out a small gasp. Kikyou looked at him sharply, fearing that he was losing his footing.

 

On his face was an expression of joy, such as she had not seen in all the time they had traveled together.

 

“Kohaku-san? What is it?”

 

He did not answer. Instead, he put his fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle. The men behind him stirred at this sudden movement, but he heeded them not.

 

“Kohaku-san,” Kikyou said nervously. “What are you doing?”

 

Then her eyes followed his. She placed a hand above her eyes, trying to peer through the endless and irritating veil of rain.

 

“What is that?”

 

Kohaku laughed—a sound she had never heard.

 

“A fortune,” he exclaimed. “Unlooked for!”

 

He grabbed her hand and pulled, hard. Before Kikyou understood what was happening, they had left the safety of the cliff. She heard the dismayed cries of the villagers and she expected a long fall through the air, but she found herself instead flung upon something that was firm and yet yielding. The boy was pulling on her.

 

“Up, Kikyou-sama,” he said, laughing. “Up!”

 

Kikyou discovered she was sitting astride an animal with golden fur. There was a great distance between her hanging feet and the ground, but the cliff, with their former captors, was receding away. She realized that she was clinging to Kohaku with all her strength.

 

“What is this meaning of this?” she demanded.

 

“Kikyou-sama,” he said. “Meet Kirara!”

 

Kohaku leaned forward, and stroked the head of their rescuer. Kikyou saw that they were straddling an impressive cat demon, one that could bear them and fly through the air with ease.

 

“Kirara!” he cried, almost in tears. “How did you find me? Beyond all hope! I can't believe it!”

 

Kikyou looked around, and then tugged on his sleeves.

 

“Kohaku-san,” she said. “We are going the wrong way. We need to go to the cave!”

 

“Do you hear that, Kirara?” Kohaku said. “Let's go home!”

 

Kirara made a low, rumbling sound, between a purr and a roar, and they reared about and headed west.

 

Kikyou reassessed her situation. It was indeed a fortune unlooked for. Not only had the two-tailed cat saved them from a precarious situation, but they would be able to cover in hours a distance that would take them days on foot, perhaps more in the rain.

 

She concluded that they had done quite well.

 

Nonetheless, she avoided looking down. Kikyou was a firm believer that human feet belonged planted on the earth. Even boats made her a trifle giddy. She clung to the boy, who was pressing his face into the cat's fur, and utterly indifferent to everything around him. He seemed to be in a sort of communion with the animal.

 

Demon, she corrected herself.

 

At one point, she risked a peek at the land flying by under her feet. A wave of nausea and lightheadedness overtook her and she shut her eyes tight. She had managed to see some of the land, but there was nothing to report. It was grey and brown, and large expanses of the flatter land had been transformed into mud lakes and swamps.

 

Since the boy—Kohaku—seemed to know where he was going, she decided she did not have to bother opening her eyes again. The image of the scurrying earth, however, was difficult to remove from behind her eyes. It etched into the back of her eyelids, and reappeared even when she tried to replace it with something else. Even Kagome, lying still in a haunted death, could not supplant it, and she was beginning to lose her fight against panic—a little winged thing that fluttered and clawed on the edge of her mind.

 

The movement and the rush of air slowed and ceased and Kikyou knew without looking that they were on the good green earth again.

 

Or rather, the soggy, brown earth.

 

When she opened her eyes, Kikyou saw that they were not at the cave, but in a ruined and decrepit village. She slid off the demon—Kilala—with such stiffness that one would think she had never even ridden a horse.

 

“This…I think this is the exterminators' village,” Kikyou said doubtfully, looking around at the crumbling houses.

 

Kohaku had walked a few feet away, to a patch of grass and wildflowers against the perimeter wall. The broken houses stood in a ring around them. They were empty and dark, with rain falling through the large holes in the thatch and blowing in a mist through the doors and windows. The place had the sad look of being once well lived in but now long forgotten. Here and there one could see the parts of sickles, axes, and even plows, sticking up like rusted bones above the grass. Little yellow flowers grew out of the wooden handles and the gears of unidentifiable implements.

 

“Yes,” Kohaku said. “This was the exterminators' village. But that was a long time ago.”

 

He knelt in the soaked grass and bowed his head. It was then that Kikyou realized that the patch of grass and wildflowers was in truth a row of earthen mounds.

 

These are graves, she thought.

 

She left him alone. She selected the house that appeared the most stable and walked across the center courtyard to investigate. She took a rake from a peg on the outside of the house and chased away a scrawny, miserable-looking raccoon. The inside of the house had some promise. It had three small rooms built in a single row. The center room had a larger irori in the center, with cupboards built against the walls. The little doors were swinging open and some were missing, and any food was long gone. But once a family had prepared and shared their meals here.

 

This room was not usable. Almost the entire roof was gone and a small stream of water ran through the remains of the hearth, carrying with it snails and lizards that did not even try anymore to hold on to land. But the room on the far right was more or less intact, though the dirt floor was sodden and foamy. Searching houses nearby, Kikyou found some straw mats that did not disintegrate when touched and some blankets that were not too moldy. She piled as many of these as possible onto a few planks of wood, some stones, and a few sticks from a storage house. Nothing she did could change the fact that everything was wet, or at least damp, but this makeshift mat would be an improvement to sleeping in the mud. She was just about to go to Kohaku to ask him to help her find food when a mysterious sound rose above the rain. It was a voice.

 

She went out. It must have been late afternoon, but the light had changed little since that morning. Kohaku was sitting in the same spot, but his voice was raised in a song she had never heard before.

 

Your life has gone

to the home fire I cannot return

The memories

they bound my eyes, they stop my ears

Where is my father?

Where are my kin?

They have passed—gone away

like tears in the rain

like shadows in the night

never to return

The sun has gone down in the west

Out of hope, out of sight

Sun and laughter

love and flower

all fade, all fade

 

Kikyou waited in silence for him to say something, anything. After the song had echoed several times in the temple of her head, she spoke first.

 

“Whatever happened, you must not blame yourself.”

 

He turned on her with flashing eyes. “How can you say that?” he demanded. “When you don't even know what happened?”

 

“It does not matter,” she answered, unaffected. “You were just a child. There are things…”

 

She fell silent for a moment. The darkness had gathered around them now with obstinate firmness. Whether the sun had gone down or had been snuffed out forever by the pitiless rain, she was not sure.

 

“There are things…when I was older than you are even now…for which I would not bear blame.”

 

They stood in the silent dark. At last, Kikyou put a hand on his shoulder.

“Come,” she said. “Help me find something to eat.”

 

They found nothing in the village. Kikyou wished she had not let the raccoon escape.

 

“I'll be back,” the boy said abruptly, and he dashed away into the surrounding forest.

 

Kikyou started, but her exclamation died on her lips—he was already gone. She waited for him to return for almost an hour, before she resolved to search for him.

 

Just then, however, he reemerged, carrying four bloody hares by their ears. Once skinned, they were pitifully scrawny creatures, but the meat was devoured gratefully. Kohaku gave two of them to Kirara. In the hut, with full stomachs and relatively dry heads, the two slept better than they could ever remember.

 

The next morning, Kikyou was disappointed to see the rain. She had awoken with a feeling that something monumental had changed, but the world still looked the same to her. They departed early for the cave, with Kirara following close behind.

 

It took only half an hour to get there, and that was only because they had to climb a hill where the mud was treacherous. Kohaku refused to ride on Kirara if it was not necessary, and he struggled manfully up the slope, pulling Kikyou behind.

 

At the top, the mouth of the cave was waiting for them. Kikyou stood staring at it, thinking how deceptively normal it appeared. It was just a gaping, black hole in the rock.

 

As they approached it, however, she detected a barrier. It was unusual, quite beyond her knowledge. They stood at the entrance.

 

“There's always been a power here,” Kohaku said. “They say it keeps out the wicked and greedy.”

 

“Yes,” Kikyou replied. “But this is different. This will not let us pass.”

 

Kohaku waited. Kikyou thought.

 

There was a stone lying near the entrance that Kikyou noted was perfectly round. Feeling rather absurd, she picked it up and clanged it on the outside lip of the cave's opening.

 

Knock loud, I'm home.

 

The barrier disappeared. Kikyou dropped the rock and walked into the cave without hesitation.

 

“How did you know to do that?” Kohaku asked, catching up to her.

 

“I dreamed about it.” She answered. Neither thought this strange.

 

The air was cool and damp, and like any cave it was indifferent to the world outside. They had only taken a few steps, however, when an unexpected scent hit their noses with a sudden strength of force. It was heavy, and sickeningly sweet. The air lit with it like lightening. They saw before them a carpet of bellflowers, as blue as the summer sky.

 

Kikyou was too mesmerized for a moment to move, then she drew a sharp breath.

 

“Kohaku-san!” she shouted. “This can't be! It's a trap!”

 

There was no answer. She turned about in all directions, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the floor of flowers reached for the horizon in every direction.

 

Kikyou gripped her bow, painfully aware of how the scent was carried through her living, breathing nose. She scanned the horizon. Only one thing looked different, something that rose above the petals, but it was too far away to discern. She took slow but deliberate steps in that direction, all the while dragging the clanging notion that she had led them to disaster.

 

It was a bier. Someone was laying on it.

 

Waiting to be burned.

 

It'll be me, she thought.

 

No, it'll be Inuyasha.

 

No wait, of course it will be Kagome.

 

So then it will be me.

 

She approached with dread.

 

It was the boy.

 

Kohaku, she reminded herself, even as she spun on her heels, tears stinging her eyes, placing her back to him.

 

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Stop this!”

 

“Dead be hope and heart and bone.”

 

Kikyou held her breath. She turned around again. This time, it was Kagome after all.

 

“Dead be hope and heart and bone,” the girl repeated, looking at Kikyou, sending a thrill of fear through her because her eyes did not really see anything.

 

“No,” Kikyou whispered. “It is not true. You're testing me. Or someone else is.”

 

“Dead be…”

 

“NO!”

 

“All night,” Kikyou whispered. “All I hear…all I hear is your heart.”

 

“How come?” Now the girl looked at her with clear and warm eyes.

 

“I do not know. Perhaps…because somewhere, you live.”

 

Kagome sat up. She pulled the veil of flowers away from her chest and shook the blue petals from her hair. She looked at Kikyou again, but now her eyes were uncertain.

 

“Kikyou?” she looked alarmed. “Kikyou, what is it? Are you hurt?”

 

Kikyou did not answer, but she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Where am I?” Kagome looked around, dazed. “How did I get here?”

 

Kikyou stared at her. “Kagome? Is that really you?”

 

“Well, of course it is! What's going on?”

 

Kikyou took hold of the girl's arms.

 

“Where are you Kagome?” she demanded. “Are you sleeping somewhere? Safe? Hurry and tell me before this ends.”

 

“What are you talking about? I don't understand!” Kagome looked around her and tried to pull away from Kikyou.

 

“Inuyasha!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

 

“Kagome, no one is here.” Kikyou tried to calm the girl down. “This isn't real. You're asleep somewhere. You must tell me where that is!”

 

“I don't know!” Kagome shouted, finally. “The last thing I remember is…”

 

Fire. Ash. Dust. Burning, burning, burning.

 

Kikyou saw Naraku before her eyes. He was leering at her. Her body was burning, especially her right arm. She reached for something. People were somewhere behind her, screaming Kagome's name. But she was screaming for…

 

Kikyou shook herself free of the vision.

 

“Why did you do that, foolish girl!” she demanded.

 

But Kagome did not answer. She was weeping.

 

“Death came for me?” she asked in a quivering voice.

 

“Yes,” Kikyou answered. “But you were lucky; she came to me by mistake.”

 

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” Kagome continued to weep.

 

“Stop that!” Kikyou snapped.

 

“Kagome, wake up. I'm ordering you to wake up.”

 

Kikyou looked around for the new arrival, but could see no one. A deep, glacial voice rang above their heads.

 

“No more delay. You must wake up and you must do it now.”

“Who is that?” she asked Kagome.

 

“I don't know, but he sounds familiar. It's not Inuyasha…or Miroku…”

 

Kagome's voice trailed off. Kikyou looked at her sharply. The girl appeared to be fading.

 

“No, wait! Wait just a moment more!”

 

But Kagome had stopped seeing or hearing her. She fell back slowly, away from the bier, but had vanished before she could land on the flowers.

 

***

 

Outside, Kirara waited. Nightfall had come without a star, but long after the last traces of sunset had faded the rain had stopped. It ceased all at once, cut off in one stroke, and the clouds were torn asunder. Kirara lifted her head and watched as they scuttled away, as if the stars and moon had finally obtained final victory in a long battle.

 

[End of Chapter 12]

[Next chapter: Sesshoumaru, Jaken, and Rin]