InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Therapist ❯ The Silver 'Angel' ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I don't own “Inuyasha”.

 

I didn't quite have the time to update this and other stories `cos of some work that crept up recently and a rather bab flu that I caught last week. However, I've decided to put this up as a sort of filler before I launch into the next part of this story.

 

 

Word Translations:

 

Youkai - demon

Taiyoukai - great demon

Hanyou - half-demon
Ningen - human

Kami - deity

Kaze no Kizu - “Wind Scar” Inuyasha's most frequently used special attack with the Tetsuaiga.

Kitsune - a type of fox spirit, the same species as Shippou in the anime.

Miko - priestess

 

 

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They decided that Inuyasha had to be the one to break the bad news to the Higurashi family since he was now the only person alive who could travel to Kagome's time. Carrying an urn that contained the miko's ashes, the hanyou jumped into the well and disappeared. They had tried to deliver the body to the family intact, but somehow it wasn't able to travel through the well along with Inuyasha. Besides, Miroku felt it was a better idea to present Kagome's remains in the form of ashes because their fight with Kochiyo the Giant Snake Demoness had left her corpse with a face that was horribly disfigured by the youkai's acidic venom.

 

The purple venom clouds had caught them totally by surprise. Everyone, including Inuyasha and Kagome succumbed to the vapours. However, this was not before Inuyasha managed to release a “Kaze no Kizu” which he later surmised must have caused the demoness' death. At least, that was what he remembered before he blacked out. However, victory came at a high price. When they all woke up, they found that the caustic venom had given all of them bad burns, including the tough hanyou, but it killed Kagome. They found her disfigured corpse lying on the ground, wearing whatever was left of her school uniform.

 

“I thought her miko powers would protect her,” sobbed Sango, as the fire from Kagome's funeral pyre lit the sky above Kaede's village.

 

Miroku put a comforting hand on her shoulder as he watched the blue-grey smoke fill the sky. For once, he didn't let his famous wandering hand slide down to her shapely butt. He was just as surprised as Sango that their friend didn't survive their encounter with the snake demon. Something just didn't make sense. However, he wisely kept his thoughts to himself since there was no evidence to support any other conclusion.

 

The entire group decided to take a break from hunting the remnants of the sacred jewel. They needed some time to recover from their injuries and mourn the death of their friend. The little kitsune was inconsolable and cried for days.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The Lord of the Western Lands silently observed the youkai blacksmith who crafted his armour put the final links of chain on manacles that encircled the slender wrists and ankles of the sleeping girl. The chain was then linked to bolted hoops of metal imbedded in the floor of the circular platform on which she slept. The platform itself consisted of grey stone that was etched with arcane symbols in concentric circles. It floated magically over a huge, bottomless chasm that was located in a large, vaulted chamber somewhere deep beneath the demon lord's castle.

 

“My lord, your plan worked perfectly,” remarked Usotsukiro as he awaited further instructions from his master. “The hanyou and his companions think she is dead.”

 

“Continue to watch their movements and report what you see,” the taiyoukai replied without looking at his carroty-haired kitsune spy.

 

“It shall be done, my lord,” Usotsukiro bowed and disappeared with a flick of his bushy tail into the shadows of the doorway leading to the chamber.

 

Although he did not show it, Sesshoumaru smiled internally. When the hanyou appeared with his companions, the taiyoukai believed they would somehow ruin his well-laid plans. However, at the last moment, he found a way to turn this complication to his advantage. He had not only managed to destroy Lady Kochiyo, but also found his precious Rin, AND, as an added bonus, now had the dangerous miko trapped in a prison where he could take his time to discover the source of her power. Furthermore, since no one saw him kill the snake demoness, the agents of lord Azumamaro would naturally assume the hanyou and his companions did it.

 

The miko was still unconscious and would remain so for quite while. Although she was not physically hurt by the snake demoness' venomous miasma, it would nevertheless take her a month or so to recover from the battle.

 

Satisfied by what he had seen, Sesshoumaru made his way out of the subterranean vaulted chamber and moved up to a higher level of his grand palace. He headed towards Rin's apartments. The rooms surrounded a flower-filled courtyard he had specially constructed for her. When he found her after killing Lady Kochiyo, she was naked, shaking like a leaf and covered in some kind of herbal paste that masked her normal scent. She ran towards him as soon as he made his appearance in the storehouse where she was hiding behind some barrels. Picking her up, he covered her with his long fur pelt and allowed her to burry her grubby, tearing face in the spotless white of his kimono. As he moved out of the storehouse and was about to fly off into the night, his foot hit the soft side of an unconscious woman who was as bare as his Rin.

 

Just as he was about to step over this non-entity and take off into the night, Rin begged him to take this strange woman along with them. Because the sight of an exposed Ningen body encrusted with dried blood offended the demon lord's sensibilities, he grabbed a large ragged sheet and wrapped her up in it before returning to his abode.

 

Sesshoumaru guessed that the naked woman was also a prisoner of Lady Kochiyo and that Rin had somehow gotten to know her. However, it was only when Jaken reported that the little girl started having nightmares where she tossed and whimpered in her sleep that he bothered to question the child about her time in the hands of the enemy. When he first brought her back home, he had a few female courtiers check Rin for wounds and evidence of other violations. He was truly relieved to find out that there were none except for rope burns on her wrists and ankles.

 

However, he now feared that the enemy had somehow touched the child's soul with darkness. Putting aside his normal reserve and impassive demeanour he decided that he would do whatever it took to find out from her what she had experienced in that nightmarish place.

 

He found Rin sitting listlessly beside a pond, holding a flower. A small frown crossed her otherwise smooth face.

 

“Rin.”

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama!” the little girl was genuinely happy to see him.

 

The taiyoukai wondered how he was going to broach the topic. He sat down beside her and tried to pull her onto his lap like he sometimes did during their long trips out into the wilderness, but she shrunk away from him, as though his fingers were made of fire. Not wanting to cause her further discomfort, Sesshoumaru retracted his arm and kept a small distance from the child. He was dying to ask her why she reacted in that manner, but restrained himself and waited to see if she would offer the information on her own.

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama?”

 

“Yes, Rin,” he wished she would hurry up!

 

“Er… uh…” her face turned white with fear. “Do you have a finger growing out from between your legs?”

 

Sesshoumaru stared at the little girl, “Why do you ask?”

 

“It is fun for you if someone starts sucking it?”

 

If it was possible for a demon lord to faint, the great Sesshoumaru wished right at that moment to fall to the ground in an unconscious stupor.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

An Hour Later…

 

The demon lord was furious! By using a little of his magic on Rin while they were talking, he was able to see what the child saw in the few days where she was held captive by Lady Kochiyo's murderous butcher. Although Rin's traumatic past and death had made desensitized her to most of the violence that was prevalent in their current age and time, these scenes of carnage were nothing compared to the horrors found under the roof of Lady Kochiyo's mansion. Scenes where screaming humans were chopped up like cattle and served up at dinner were deeply imprinted in the little girl's mind and ended up as the nightmares she faced every night.

 

However, he was even more horrified to learn of what the girl witnessed in the slaughterhouse between the grey demon and the woman that she had begged him to save. Although he didn't recognize her at first, he later recalled that they had met at the slave market.

 

If only he knew that she would be the one who was going to take away Rin's innocence, he would have torn her limb from limb when they first met!

 

It didn't really matter to him that the strange Ningen female had tried to save his Rin and even leapt into the face of a demon to protect the little girl. He was enraged by what his ward had to go through, and since both the grey demon and Lady Kochiyo were dead, he needed someone upon which to exercise his demonic vengeance.

 

His calm porcelain visage lost its serenity as he got up quickly after talking to the little girl and headed in the direction of the room where the woman was recovering. His eyes - large, calm pools of gold - were now narrowed into amber slits. Stomping angrily through the polished wooden hallways of his castle, he swiftly approached the chamber where the woman slept. Pushing aside the sliding doors with a quick sweep of his arm, he entered the small, plain room where the woman slept.

 

The servant who was in the room looking after the woman screamed and cowered in a corner when the demon lord drew Tokijin from his belt. As he hovered over his sleeping victim, the woman's eyes opened for the first time in two days and stared straight into his golden. Grasping the hilt of his sword firmly in his hand, the taiyoukai bought it down vertically between her eyes. At the last moment just before the blade hit its mark, it halted abruptly over the woman's face. A few seconds passed before a look of amazement and shock replaced the fury that marred the demon lord's calm beauty.

 

She was smiling at him.

 

Although a lowly Ningen, and thus incapable (at least to noble youkai) of courage or valour in the face of death and danger, she had not flinched when Tokijin's sharp point came rushing towards her. Instead, an ecstatic smile that lighted up her face with a kind of divine radiance met the edge of that evil blade.

 

For a brief second, a discomforting, alien emotion entered Sesshoumaru's heart. However, as soon as he felt it, his face hardened into an impassive mask, revealing nothing of his inner confusion. He quickly sheathed his sword and strode out of the room.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“…there our lord was, his sword hanging a hair's breadth from her face, and she merely smiled,” the awestruck youkai servant exclaimed.

 

“I heard from Usotsukiro that she fought Lady Kochiyo in single combat with a mere kitchen knife!” Another servant quipped.

 

“Maybe she's an exterminator…”

 

“I've seen my fair share of exterminators and none of them ever went up against a giant demon alone, much less with a kitchen knife!”

 

“They say over in Furuzawa, she single-handedly killed one of Lady Kochiyo's minions.”

 

“Is she a miko?”

 

“Nah, I don't sense any purifying power from her.”

 

“Is she even human?”

 

“Maybe she's a kami in disguise…”

 

“That's the craziest thing I've ever heard!”

 

A group of youkai servants huddled in what they thought was a quiet alcove along one of the castle's polished hallways gossiping, unaware that a pair of golden eyes was watching them from the shadow of a stairway that lay diagonally across from where they stood.

 

“… but I mean, WHAT IF she really was kami?”

 

“She's just some lowly Ningen. I can smell it off her instantly.”

 

“Well, she isn't a peasant, if that's what you're wondering.”

 

“Yeah, and how do you know that?”

 

“Well, she has smooth hands for one, and she can read…”

 

A huge “What!” echoed through the silent hallways as every member of the gossiping group exclaimed loudly at this new tidbit of information.

 

“How did you find out?”

 

“I was bringing her the evening meal, when she called out to me and said that I had dropped my grocery list,” a serving girl gestured as she described the scene where the list she had earlier slipped into her waistband fell out. “I didn't know it had fallen until she held it out to me… I didn't really want speak with her you know,... Ningens are always screaming and babbling whenever you try to talk to them…. So I ignored her, but she said: `This is your grocery list, right?' and then started to read out some of the items…”

 

“Just a fluke, I'm sure… She can guess what it is by looking at you.”

 

“It's not a fluke!”

 

“And I suppose she can count and do sums like our head steward!”

 

“Well actually…”

 

“NO! Don't say you….”

 

They suddenly froze when they spotted their lord's foot descend from a nearby stairway. As the tall, silvery-haired demon came into view, they bowed low, shifting their feet uncomfortably. Coolly surveying them beneath his narrowed eyes for a few seconds, Sesshoumaru turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Sachiko wasn't too sure when she actually woke up. She was lucky that the wounds didn't become infected. The first few days seemed hazy and indistinct as she continuously slipped in and out of dreams. It was as though she was dead and in a heavenly paradise where she saw her long-deceased parents. At one point, she thought even saw the lovely silver angel with long hair and pools of gold for eyes floating towards her on a silky cloud. He was leaning over her, mirroring her image in his gaze. As a bright beam of silver radiance streaked downwards from somewhere above his head, she looked into his perfect countenance and smiled.

 

It was the most wonderful dream she had before she really woke up and found her self in a heavenly-looking palace full of demons. Although most of the demons looking after her had strong human characteristics, their physical oddities gave away their youkai nature. Moreover, there was a strange air of darkness that surrounded each demon, regardless of their rank or status.

 

When she was conscious and able to move around, she was mostly left alone by the servants, who either maintained an air of disdain and aloofness or carefully avoided talking to her at length. However, she could tell from the side glances that they give her when they thought she wasn't looking, that some of them were curious about her, but something, perhaps tradition or prejudice stopped them from saying anything significant.

 

However, the demon servants weren't the only ones who did a lot of watching. On the second day after she regained consciousness, the little girl she had saved also made an appearance. She usually stood behind one of the screen doors that opened to Sachiko's room, hiding in the shadows, watching her quietly. When Sachiko reached out to the little girl, she backed away quickly, her small face filled with fear and apprehension.

 

“Hello there,” she called out to the child one morning, when she saw the girl peeking out from behind a screen door. “What's your name?”

 

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the little girl ran off. At first Sachiko was surprised, but when she thought over her actions during the time they were together in the slaughterhouse, she realised that she might have come across as a sort of freakish monster. As Sachiko watched the little girl run across the flowering gardens from her polished, wooden balcony, she wondered how she could gain the trust of the only human she knew in this world full of demons. On a practical level, she needed to know more about the place she was in now, and the little girl seemed like a good source of information, since none of the youkai seemed to want to talk to her.

 

Looking at the blossoming garden, she had an idea. Since there was no youkai attendant in the room looking over her, she hobbled slowly out of her room and down into the garden. She had noted the direction in which the little girl ran, and walked slowly towards it, picking flowers as she went along and made a small chain of pastel blossoms. Following a fairly level path made of fine grit, she soon caught sight of a chain of rooms linked together by wooden walkways to other parts of this vast palace. As a light breeze blew in her direction, she heard the voice of a little girl talking to someone, but there was also another sound, a strange eerie noise that seemed to come from a natural rock formation nearby.

 

Although she wanted to hurry over to the little girl, her curiosity was intensely piqued by the strange noise. She hobbled over to the rock formation and looked around to see where the sound could be coming from. Walking around the huge, many layered formation; she saw that it originated from somewhere deep under the soil and took on a strange, craggy shape. Following the sound, she tracked it to a large crack in the rock that was just large enough for a small woman like her to slip through. Inside, she saw a natural path leading downwards. Although there wasn't much light shining through from the outside, the way downwards didn't really seem dark.

 

Drawn by the sound as though it were a spell, she dropped the flower chain, slipped through the crack and went downwards. Before she knew what she was doing, she was nearly two stories downwards in the dark earth. When the fear of the close darkness finally got to her, she noticed a small opening ahead and a dim light that shone through. The eerie sound seemed to emanate from this small opening. Moving carefully so that she would not be heard, Sachiko peeked through the opening.

 

Beyond, she saw a narrow stone ledge that led to a sharp drop down into a pit that seemed to have no bottom. The cavern that opened up before her was cylindrical in shape and the roof arched upwards like a dome. Hearing voices coming from somewhere in the direction of the pit, Sachiko flattened her body on the dry, stony floor and peeked over the ledge.

 

The voice of the speaker struck her even before she laid eyes on him. It had a smooth, deep baritone timbre that reminded her of rich velvet. Peeking over the edge, she had to clap her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from uttering a cry of astonishment. Peering diagonally downwards, she caught sight of her silvery angel. A tall, impossibly handsome being dressed in snow-white silk with a prominent fluffy fur stole slung over one shoulder. He was even more majestic than she remembered. With ethereal grace, he leapt from a stone balcony that protruded from the smooth cavern wall and landed on the strange stone platform where a young, ebony-haired girl was chained hand and foot.

 

From her elevated perch, Sachiko could see that although the girl tried her best to put on a bold front she was clearly afraid of the `angel' that stood before her.

 

“I did not think you would awake so soon,” the `angel' observed.

 

“Why have you kidnapped me, Sesshoumaru?” the girl said, trying hard not to have her voice break into a whimper.

 

“You are not in the position to ask any questions, ningen,” he coolly replied. “You will speak only when spoken to and answer truthfully to whatever you are asked.”

 

The girl's mouth twitched a little in anger, she looked as though she was about to open her mouth in protest, but stopped herself in time when she saw that the one called Sesshoumaru was glaring at her.

 

“Inuyasha will be coming for me,” she sullenly said.

 

A slight twitch at the corner of his mouth was the only indication of a likely smirk. However, it never came for the white-clad `angel's' face remained impassive.

 

“I think not.”

 

“What do you mean by that!” the girl blurted out the words, shocked by her captor's coolness and the sure tone of his answer.

 

“You are dead to him and your friends.”

 

The girl was doubly shocked, she was now screaming her reply, “What! Why? Damn you, Sesshoumaru, tell me what you have done!”

 

In the blink of an eye, the slender, fair being was beside the girl, he picked her up by her throat with clawed hands. As he spoke, his fangs became visible, his voice, one smooth and velvety, was now laced with bone-chilling growls.

 

“How DARE you demand an answer from me!” he growled harshly, shaking the girl as though she were nothing more than a rag doll. “This is MY DOMAIN and you WILL learn to acknowledge my power or you WILL DIE!”

 

He dropped her unceremoniously on the hard platform before he turned to leap off the suspended stone circle. Looking back, his voice was again cool and velvety.

 

“Not a drop of water will pass your lips unless you decide to cooperate,” he said before leaping back on to the balcony.

 

Sachiko's face turned to ash as she slid away cautiously from the ledge. It was apparent that her silver `angel' was a demon, and a rather ruthless one at that. Fear curled up in her belly as hope died away. She quietly sunk away, and headed back to the garden.