InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ To Return to Love ❯ Scroll Four: The Second Reunion ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Scroll Four: The Second Reunion

Inuyasha lifted Hana onto his back, instructing her to hold on so that he could have his hands free. His right hand rested on Tetsuseiga’s hilt and he cautiously made his way through the lush, green-scape of the garden they’d found themselves in.

Hana dutifully clung to his shoulders, wrapping her legs as far around his waist as they would go, but she kept her head up, looking around in curiosity. It was like they were in a jungle with all the ferns and odd looking flowers that were surrounding them, but weren’t there supposed to be wild animals in jungles? She didn’t see any, but that may have been because her father was there and they were all afraid of him.

The muffled sound of footsteps and the sharp crack of a twig had him twirling around towards one of the side paths and drawing his sword. Their assailant stopped short and squeaked in either shock of surprise before breathing his name in a questioning manner.

White puppy ears swivelled towards her, quivering slightly in anticipation that it might actually be the person he thought he saw in front of them. “Kagome?”

Hana wasn’t as skeptical. She let herself fall off his back, landing with an umph before running towards the woman with arms wide open. “Mommy!”

Kagome scooped the girl up in a tight hug, kissing her cheeks and hair. “Where have you been? We’ve been searching all over for you, young lady. I aught to ground you till the next century.”

“She fell down the well.”

Until that moment, she had been so preoccupied with the safe return of her daughter that she had forgotten there was anyone else there. After all, when she’d first seen him standing there she’d thought he was a figment of her imagination, a trick played on her by whoever had stranded her in the garden jungle.

“Inu...ya...sha?” Her lip trembled and she shifted the child to her hip so that she could hold the girl with one hand and wrap her free arm around his waist while his arms came around them both. “Inuyasha!” She sobbed into his haori as he kissed her temple and then her lips, using the sleeve of his haori to wipe her tears away. “How...”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “Not right now. Lets get outta here first and see if we can’t find whoever brought us here before they find us.” His brows furrowed further in a frown when he looked around them only to see that the garden had somehow shifted without his seeing it move. Access to any and all side paths were gone and the way he’d come from was blocked. They had no choice but to continue down the path he’d initially been on. “Take Hana and stick close to me.”

She set Hana down and then knelt, offering the chid her back so she could piggy back her and then grabbed a handful of his sleeve. They followed the path through the overgrowth and around a lake-sized koi pond until they came to an opening in the brick wall that surrounded the garden. When they were on the other side, he looked back, disturbed to see that the ‘jungle’ they’d emerged from had shrunk to a quarter of its original size.

He reached back and took Kagome’s hand in his left, holding on to her but keeping her slightly behind him just in case. It seemed they were in someone’s backyard, but as they had only moments before discovered, appearances could be deceiving.

In front of them, a shoji door slid open and who they could only guess was the owner of the property, stood in the opening dressed in a dark blue kimono painted to look like a koi pond, complete with reeds, water lilies and lily pads. The large, golden fish shimmered in the sunlight. Her hair was done in an elaborate style with hoops and curls and twists, decorated with ribbon and combs. It took Kagome a moment to realize who she was gawking at as she had only seen her form in stone and wearing miko battle armor. When she did recognize the woman, however, she bowed as well as she could with a child on her back.

“Midoriko-sama.” Inuyasha was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind, but the woman nodded, her somber expression not changing as she descended the two steps onto a stone walk way and stood directly in front of them.

“The debates caused quit a delay, I see,” the priestess commented, lifting Hana’s chin with her finger, ignoring the childish growl that rumbled from the girl’s throat. “Well, it couldn’t be helped.” When Hana made to bite at her finger, the older woman gave her a pointed, scolding look.

“What debates?” Kagome asked as politely as she could, lightly pinching Hana’s leg in warning.

Manners, however, were the furthest thing from Inuyasha's mind. “Where the hell are we and why the..why are we here?” Just in time he managed to curb his tongue, a habit he’d grown out of after the well sealed. Kagome would have had his hide if he’d spoken so roughly in front of their daughter.

Midoriko heaved a heavy sigh and turned, waving for them to follow her. “You are in the Divine Realms - The City of the Gods to be exact. You were brought here because your...choices have caused an unprecedented problem for the kamis. A problem which must be worked out as soon as possible. It has already been postponed for far too long.”

She led them through a corridor into a large meeting room, the same room she’d given Kikyou and Izayoi their orders in some time back. “But how? I mean, we were told that since you created the Shikon no Tama that your soul was trapped within it.”

Before she could answer a side door slid open and two other women walked in. The first, obviously older than the second, was dressed in a light pink kimono decorated by rose and silver colored flowers and wore her hair loose, cascading around her shoulders and down her back. The second donned a warm brown kimono with a woodland scene imprinted on it. There was even a doe and her fawn grazing in a grassy area pictured. Her hair was held back in a brown ribbon with only a few strands slightly over her shoulder before also being tied back.

This time it was Inuyasha who was speechless. He stared at the two women with wide, unbelieving eyes. “Ki...Kikyou? Ofukuro?”

Kagome gasped, recognizing the younger of the two after a second as both women came forward and embraced Inuyasha.

“Yes, Inuyasha, I’m here,” the older woman cooed, practically swallowing him with the long sleeves of her kimono as she held him tightly.

“As am I,” Kikyou added, hugging him as the other woman moved towards Kagome, both ignoring the impatient looks Midoriko was giving them.

Kagome helped Hana slide from her back before the woman in pink took her hands. “Kagome, it’s so wonderful to be able to meet you.,” she said, her voice soft and musical and laced with emotion. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve given my son.” She leaned in and kissed her forehead before kneeling in front of Hana.

Kagome tried to say something, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice, even as Kikyou stood before her, smiling sweetly. Though her thoughts did still work and she found it odd and nice that she didn’t feel the familiar pang of jealousy she’d always felt before when the miko was around.

Hana had no such problems. “Who are you?” She demanded her hands going to her hips. All this strange stuff was starting to wear on her.

Izayoi laughed. “I am your Obaa-san.”

The six year old shook her head and crossed her arms. “Nuh-uh, Grandma Keiko's got shorter hair and Grandma Ikoku's younger,” she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

Again the woman laughed. “I am Izayoi, your father’s mother, and that makes me your obaa-san.” She held out her hand to the girl. “And you and I are going to go play while your parents talk to Kikyou and Midoriko-sama. How’s that sound?”

Hana took a deep breath and eyed the woman suspiciously. “Are you the princess?”

“I was a princess, a long time ago.” It seemed to be a sufficient enough answer for the girl and she grasped the woman’s hand in her smaller one, following her to another part of the room where she could be distracted from the talk the grownups were about to have.

Once that was taken care of, Midoriko motioned for them all to have a seat on the pillows lining the dias. “You were asking how I could be here if I was supposed to be trapped within the jewel. It’s simple, really. You see, the spirit is two parts - the soul and the essence. The soul is reincarnated with each death. The essence is what makes you individual from the person who carried your soul before.

“In death, the soul is reincarnated and the essence comes here, to the Divine Realms,” Midoriko continued. “Except for the most wicked, such as Naraku. Beings such as he are sent directly to hell and are not allowed to reincarnate.”

“You’ve been here before,” Kikyou told them, nodding when they both gave her odd looks. “Once when you came to claim your father’s sword and again to retrieve the Shikon shard. The tombs are located in a different section of the realms.”

Kagome was still trying to take it all in, but Inuyasha just nodded. “So, why are we here now? What problems are you talking about?”

Midoriko sighed and rubbed her temple, as if she were trying to relieve a migraine. And she might have been. Inuyasha was in the room, after all, even if he was acting behaved for the time being. She knew this was not going to go over well. “The kamis have a divine plan mapped out for each life a soul leads. And it is nice when things go exactly according to that plan, but sometimes there are deviations. The living are given free will, after all. The kamis could force us to be obedient to them and follow their laws, but it means so much more when a person freely chooses to do so.

“I veered from that path when I used my power to create the Shikon no Tama and sealed my soul within the jewel with the youkai I’d fought. Kikyou strayed from her path when she allowed Naraku to trick her into believing you’d betrayed her.

“But with her deviation from the divine path, you were punished, Inuyasha. It took them nearly five hundred years, but the kamis finally devised a solution. They would use the well that had stood on the shrine property for all of that time to take Kagome, Kikyou’s reincarnation, to a place where she could release you. In the original plan, Kagome would have broken the seal and returned to her era where the Shikon no Tama would have been safe.”

Catching on to the pattern, Kagome finally spoke. “But I didn’t do what I was supposed to. I didn’t figure out I could travel the well again and ended up busting the jewel. So I had to be allowed to stay to gather the shards.”

Midoriko was nodding. “And then return to your world, though, by that time it was decided you would purify the jewel and destroy it for good.”

“I’m so sorry, Midoriko-sama, I don’t know how.” Kagome fingered the pearlesque stone at her neck, looking at the pillows beneath them.

The older priestess patted her arm. “Don’t worry on that right now. There’s a bigger problem than whether or not the jewel still exists.” She took a deep breath. “It was decreed a long time ago that your soul and Inuyasha’s were meant to be together, but in the same time. You weren’t supposed to be around long enough to fall in love with each other until you could be reincarnated in the same era. It was a problem that hadn’t been anticipated, unfortunately, and there must be a solution decided upon immediately.

"If things had gone as they should, the well would have been sealed prior to your having a married and certainly before you had a child and never opened again. However, the guardians in charge of that particular event decided to procrastinate and by the time the kamis realized it had not been done, Hana had been born which caused yet another problem to be taken care of. Until some decision could be come to, it was ordered that we seal the well with each of you on your respective sides.”

Kagome was shakng her head, her brows furrowed in concern and thought. It didn't seem fair that she should find the love of her life and have the gods say that she couldn't be with him. "What if Hana and I go to Sengoku Jidai with Inuyasha and you seal the well? We'll stay with him in that era and never go back to mine again. Can we do that?"

Kikyou shook her head, her expression melancholy. "I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Besides, since you don't know how you're supposed to purify the Shikon no Tama, it would be dangerous for you to keep it on that side of the well, even with Inuyasha and the others protecting you. And the jewel's safety is really the main cause for concern with the gods. It always has been."

"There will be a hearing, starting tomorrow morning, to decide what will be done. I'll be here to take you to the meeting house. Kikyou and Izayoi will watch Hanna while we're before the panel," Midoriko informed them and then stood, bowing slightly. "For now, you will stay here, in the guardian's dormitory, until something can be decided. Izayoi can explain more, if you have any questions."

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Note: Have I mentioned The Monkey King by Kathryn Wesley - it may have been retitled The Lost Empire for the NBC mini-series. That's one source of my inspiration in the use of the trial and judging deities as well as for the look and feel of the Divine Realms. Another source of inspiration comes from The Immortals Quartet: The Realm of the Gods by Tamora Pierce. I recommend them both.

Do people actually read these notes?