InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ To Fulfill a Duty ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

To Fulfill a Duty

Chapter Four

By: DeadBHunter

"talking" `thinking'

Chapter Four

Amber eyes watched as the two humans in front of him began to glow. The elderly miko was touching a simple bracelet that was worn by a young girl that seemed to be only 17. He watched as the two mikos began to float about 4 inches above the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Junsui looked around. She knew she was in Kagome's head, but did not know how everything was so unadulterated. She knew that this girl was a miko, but even they had some darkness in their hearts. Everybody did, or so she had thought.

As she looked around, she noticed some things that she had never seen before, like futon that was lifted above the ground on wooden stilts. She saw strange scrolls that opened up like folded paper.

Junsui walked out of the room and saw Kagome sitting under a large tree that seemed to be hundreds of years old.

"Kagome-sama?"

Kagome looked up in confusion and saw an old miko. "Who are you? Where am I? Where is Inuyasha?" She started sobbing, drawing up her knees and burying her head there. `I want to go home.'

Junsui looked on in pity. "Kagome-sama. I am Junsui. I have come here to heal you. A silver-haired demon told me that you had been hurt and it is my job to heal you. But I cannot do this. I must train your miko powers that will heal you."

`A silver-haired demon? Could it be Inuyasha?' Kagome chided herself on the inside telling herself that Inuyasha didn't care. Even if he had, he had never shown it, and she was beginning to accept that. She was willing to be second best as long as she could be with her first love.

"Thank you, Junsui-sama, for helping me. It means a lot to me that you would try to help me," replied Kagome. Her mother had taught her manners and she always remembered to put them to good use.

"No thanks is necessary, Kagome-sama. I am a miko and it is my duty to help those in need. Now that we are through with that, we shall start working on your miko powers right away. The youkai who brought you here did not seem very happy when I said that it might take you 6 months to heal."

"Six months! That long?!"

"I am sorry. But it cannot be helped. The time may change depending how fast you master your miko powers. Some take longer, and others take less time. It all depends on the miko.

"Oh," was Kagome's ever intelligent reply, blushing slightly at her mistake.

"It is of no importance, Kagome-sama. We must improve your miko powers soon before the youkai who brought you here becomes impatient."

"He always was the impatient type," Kagome thought out loud with a grin on her face. Junsui chuckled as she looked at the happy expression on Kagome's face.

`Oh, young love. So much happiness, as long as she does not get hurt in the end. She is too pure to deserve any pain from love,' thought Junsui.

"Shall we get started, Kagome-sama?" Junsui held out her hand to Kagome and the scenery changed from outside of the Goshinboku in the modern time, to a clearing in the forest with a small stream nearby. Kagome looked around in awe. The trees were tall with thick trunks that made everything else looked small. Kagome could practically smell the water in the river a couple of feet away. Turning around, she noticed that the clearing was almost the size of a fairly large room, with both the length and width being about 20 feet. She wondered where she was, and if this place really existed.

Unknown to Kagome, Junsui had taken the two into a clearing about 1 mile away from her home and Sesshomaru in the real world. She had remembered everything that had happened to her in this forest. She had birthed the second eldest son of the previous Lord of the Western Lands. About 2 miles away from here, when she was still young, she had started growing an herb that was rare in the Western Lands. She had hoped that one day, her plant would help someone in need.

"Where are we?" asked Kagome. She wasn't looking at the aged miko, but at the surrounding forest. No matter how much she looked, she could never get enough. The birds that occasionally perched on a nearby branch and watched the strangers in their forest were enough source of distraction for her.

Junsui eyes shown with amusement seeing how the younger miko was so entranced with the wildlife around her. `She acts as if she has never seen a forest before.'

"We are in the forest that is not too far away from where I live, Kagome-sama."

"Thank you, Junsui-sama. But please, don't call me Kagome-sama. I had forgotten to tell you the last time you called me that, seeing as we had just arrived into the forest. Kagome is just fine." Kagome had no idea why Junsui was addressing her as sama. She was of no noble birth and had done nothing to earn the lady's respect.

Junsui chuckled remembering her childish reaction toward the wooded area. "Very well. I will do as you please, Kagome-sa…Kagome. Please do not call me Junsui-sama either. I am just a simple miko."

Kagome grinned at the other miko and nodded showing that she accepted her request.

"So what are we going to start with, Junsui-bachan?" asked Kagome.

"I assume that you have little training, so we are first going to work on your control of your power. With control, you can do practically anything with your power if you are strong enough. Without control, your strength can take over your body."

"Um, okay."

"The first thing you must do is to look inside of yourself. When you look inside, the silver is your core being, and the light purple color is your power. Each person has a different color for their power when they look inside. It is the same color as their miko power. The more light purple you see, the more power and strength you have, Kagome. For now, I am going to teach you how to control your power. When you look inside yourself, I want you to try to control it with your mind. Emotions help you concentrate and boost your power."

"Okay," said Kagome and she got to work. `Uh…first I look for my power. Check. Then, I try to control it with my mind. How do I do that?' Kagome looked at her inner self and noticed that the silver and purple were combined together. She wondered why they were merged together so she decided to ask Junsui.

"Junsui, why are the silver and purple mixed together. Shouldn't my essence and power be separate?"

"Child, in trained mikos, their power and self essence are clearly separated. They do not share their emotions so it is separate from their power. They have had the practice to control their power without feelings. You on the other hand, child, have not had training. When you feel strong emotions, your miko power helps. Basically, your emotions control your powers. Have you noticed that when your friends or someone else is in danger, that your miko powers help you?"

Kagome thought about this. She remembered when she had tried to save Sesshoumaru for Rin that she had run very fast. She had also noticed that she had glowed a faint purple color. While she was running, she had dismissed it as a trick of her imagination. She considered what Junsui had said and discovered that she was right. When she had been feeling strong emotions, her powers had surfaced trying to aide her.

"Junsui, is it bad for my powers to be linked to my emotions?"

"Child, you will soon learn that there is no right and wrong answer. Nothing is always yes or no. In this case, it is good to have some connection between the two, but not as much as you have now. Like I said earlier, your emotions help you control and boost your power. If your emotions have complete control over your power, then you will not be able to call on them when you need them. Those how have no control have to be feeling a strong emotion in order to use their powers. We will try to get your powers to respond to both your emotions and will."

"So my powers are controlled by my emotions because I don't have control, so they are all mixed together. So the only way I can fix this is to have control, right?" asked Kagome. All this information was just confusing her more.

"Yes, child. To start, we will have you heal this flower," said Junsui as she pulled a simple flower with a broken stem out of her clothes. "Normally, when healing, you will have to see what you are doing, like the bones and muscles. You will have to coax the muscles and bones to heal and knit together. This usually requires a lot of time to master, but for simple things, like this flower, all you need to do is to visualize in your head the flower healing. As you begin to master your powers more and more, the purple will gradually recede from the silver, showing that you have control over your powers."

Kagome was impressed at everything the miko had told her. `I wonder if Kikyo's emotions have control over her power. Do most mikos have complete control?' Seeing as Junsui was about to speak again, she stored the questions in the back of her mind to ask the old miko later.

"I am teaching this to you now because your healing powers will be the ones to help you recover from getting hit by the youki. Your miko powers can also do more than just heal yourself. In time, you will be able to heal those that are far away from you, not just yourself and those that you are touching. Your other abilities and senses will also be increased, but which ones and by how much I do not know. Everybody is different as well as the power that they hold. Now that that is said, heal the flower."

Junsui handed Kagome the flower and watched as she closed her eyes and her eyebrows scrunched together in concentration.

`She said I had to visualize the flower healing. To visualize the stem straightening and for the wilted petals to grow back.'

Junsui saw beads of sweat drip down from Kagome's forehead, but the flower was not repaired.

"Kagome, in order for the flower to mend, you must want this to happen. You must not do this just because I told you to do it. You must yearn for the flowers to be restored to health. You can do it, child."

`Come on, Kagome! You can do it. You are not weak. You know it. You just have to prove it to Inuyasha!' thought Kagome. Unknown to her, the dying flower began to bloom once again. The color was restored and the drooping leaves and limp petals began to lift themselves up again. The most noticeable part was the bent stem that started to straighten and gradually grow longer and longer.

Kagome opened her eyes and grinned at the sight that greeted her. The once simple, white flower had grown larger. The white petals had turned a light purple shade and a fading glow still surrounded it.

Junsui was impressed. `Many strong mikos could not have done this on their first day of training. This girl is something special indeed.'

"Before I forget Kagome, to link to your mind, I had to use a bracelet that your silver-haired demon had brought me. He said it had magical attributes and that your father had given this to you before he died." Junsui handed Kagome the silver chain from her pocket and noticed that its aura had grown.

"Thank you, Junsui, for all your time and help you spent on me. Arigato."

"Your welcome, Kagome. But I must go now for there is a demon waiting in the real world for news of your health. I fear he may become impatient. But you have done well and keep on practicing."

"I will," said Kagome to the fading figure of Junsui.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sesshoumaru had been waiting for hours. He had been resting against the wall of the hut, watching the two mikos in Kagome's mind. Many thought that the tai youkai had a limitless amount of patience. Right now, his patience was just about gone. He had been waiting until dawn for Junsui to wake up. He heard Junsui's pulse speed up signifying that she was close to awakening. He stood up and stretched his sore back. Eight hours of sleeping sitting up could do that to someone.

As Junsui awakened, she heard her lord ask her when the miko was going to be well again.

"My lord, she has done better than most mikos have done in a week. She has the power and natural instinct to heal. She shall probably be healed in less than the six months that I have told you, Lord Sesshoumaru. She has enough power to completely heal herself if she can control them. She truly is remarkable."

Sesshoumaru nodded his head in acknowledgement and acceptance. He was secretly satisfied with the way things had been going. He was expected to be home two months sooner than planned, ridding himself of the presence of the two ningens that had somehow found themselves under his care.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Thank god that bastard brother of mine has finally left. I can smell him throughout the hut!" Inuyasha stomped off through the door, probably to the Goshinboku to ponder his half-brother and Kagome's predicament.

The three stared at the retreating form of their friend. They were all sad about Kagome being hurt and taken away, but the hanyou seemed to be taking it the worst. He was moodier than usual and became angered easier.

"I am going to bed, houshi-sama, Shippo."

"Would you like me to j…"

Sango stood, holding Hiraikotsu as if she had just hit something, or in this someone.

"Good night, Shippo"

"G'night."

`I wish Kagome was here,' Shippo thought, not for the last time.

A/N: Sorry about the long time between updates. I'm kind of slow about that. Hehe…anyways I have to thank my reviewers, they always want to make me write more! And thanks to RyuuAngel for betaing my work. Thanks to all of you! Remember…A story worth reading is a story worth reviewing…lol. That was written by me so I didn't copy anyone's work!

~Jennifer