Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Her Spirit ❯ Coming Together ( Chapter 13 )

Souta looked up sheepishly to his mother, followed closely by the now recovered grandfather he had passed on his way to his sister. She had her eyes narrowed as she regarded the man his sister had greeted, and Souta paused to look at the man as his mother would- or as he thought she would anyway. He was a tall man who was obviously high up in the business world, judging by the cut and shape of his outfit and the gleam of his leather briefcase and shoes. Impossibly long silver hair that grew below the shoulders, on the edge of style but somehow adding so much character to this one man, like one of the gods stepping out of the prints on the scrolls.

Souta shook his head at the suddenly double image, turning to his sister in surprise as she brushed her hand along the back of his arm and smirked. His eyes widened and his brows lowered, she had done that on purpose. Her smirk widened. Souta could barely fight the grin that came from her playing with him; showing him what she saw and what it really was; twisting his reality and making him want to smile all the more, because that was what she taught.

Nothing was set in place…everything changes…and boy did his image of this `businessman' change!

His snicker was abruptly cut off when his mother sent him a sharp look of exasperation and ire, and he stiffened and turned his gaze off to the Goshinboku. “What exactly is going on here?” `How come mothers get that really intimidating imperial voice in the first place?'

Kagome looked happily at their elders, smiling at the spluttering grandfather as he stared at the demon and his granddaughter with no little exasperation. He was muttering something about hanyou and now full demons…

Souta smirked unabashedly this time.

“Mother, this is Sesshoumaru.” The demon gave her a sharp amused look, one eyebrow raised and Kagome smiled mischievously in response. She turned to the forest grounds and tapped her foot once as she contemplated something before she turned to face them all equally. Her smile told them she was going to say nothing more and Souta wondered at the faint crease that lined her brow- was it amusement or worry? He had never seen that particular expression before.

“Where did you meet this man, Kagome?” His sister shifted and looked at their mother with a blinking expression of gullible innocence; their mother wasn't amused. “Kagome.” It was said with warning and a look to him. Souta cringed inwardly as he realized what exactly had set his mother off- himself.

He had grown up with only his sister for company- and his sister had been the one to encourage him to try new things and meet people and follow his dreams… But regardless of his dreams, he had been alone and slightly antisocial. He could recall many a day his mother had taken him somewhere and he had proved to be sullen and wary of any and all strangers they met. He was just like that.

And yet he had not behaved so awkwardly with this tall imposing man who was too near his sister for his comfort.

So he sighed and settled to watch his mother piece together a puzzle that really didn't have a complete picture to work from. There were too many oddities happening now that Kagome was back, he knew his family wasn't stupid. They would realize that something bigger than what they could see was going on.

The man stepped forward to address her with a little bow of his head, silver hair escaping from the fine ponytail at the nape of his neck. “I know your daughter very well Higurashi-san, she is famous amongst my people.”

Souta blanched, pieces whirring together in his own head.

“Your people?”

“Sa, Yukio is one of mine, lady bright.” The old endearment shook him out of his stupor, just as he turned his head to spot Yukio himself coming out of their shrine home with a cautious but still open look. So he really did know this man.

“Sesshoumaru-sama, you have come to greet already?”

“The message we sent the miko alerted Reikai too early, Enma is getting paranoid.”

“Pardon?”

Sesshoumaru regarded their grandfather with an amused nonchalance that oddly enough didn't send him ranting about respecting your elders and herbs and ofudas… “Your girl child,” a scoff from Kagome and a quirky smile overcame Yukio's face, “has aided many where I hail from, and we are returning her debt and fulfilling our promise to her.”

The woman blanched, “That dead body was your doing?!”

Yukio winced and stepped up to place a hand upon her shoulder. “It had to be that body luv, it holds a specific meaning.”

Souta blanched again. All too well remembering the slightly rancid smell of the young body as it decayed and then turned to ash at his sister's touch. He grimaced and then shook his head as it brought something far more pertinent to the forefront of his mind. “Wait! You're the Heiwa no Miko?!!!”

His sister gave him a bright, wide eyed look before she burst out into giggles, hiding them behind her hands as Yukio snorted. “She's a very good one at that.”

Sesshoumaru scoffed lightly in reply and crossed his arms over his chest. “She's the only Heiwa no miko- there is no comparison.”

The conversation became a steady murmur between his mother and the strange businessman, with a few comments thrown in by Yukio that only seemed to emphasis the fact that this strange and sudden reality was…well reality. Souta watched from under the safe ensconce of his sister's arms, and he listened as the four debated and talked with a quiet irritation that meant they all believed in something and were having trouble getting their points across.

Strangers in my shrine?...Heiwa no miko?...What's this about a demon realm?...my Kagome?...barriers…warriors…demons…turmoil of the land?... ancestors…

But the debate dwindled slightly, Souta recognizing the gradual sloping of his mother's shoulders as she threw up her hands in defeat, and noticing the irritated snort his grandfather gave when he had to concede a point.

There was something special going on- and they all knew it

Yukio guided their mother into the house with a smile, grinning back at them as he called for grandfather to follow him because he had something to do with an old legend in the house…

Souta was gently pushed to the other side of the grounds, a silent request for him to leave, and he did so hesitantly. It was enough for him to catch the beginnings of a question. “What brought you…” and then nothing.

.x.

Sesshoumaru regarded the miko after his question, for it seemed to have taken hold of her very soul and was drawing it out of her eyes- they were glowing.

“At first my mind made up some silly but grand story; of time travel and magic and love and tragedy and crazy medical excuses from an equally crazy jiichan; a very accepting mother, gullible friends and everything else to go with it. The perfect fairytale- except mine had no little brother. Souta called to me; there was no way any fabricated story could get his personality and unique energy right enough that my mind would accept it. We were just too close.” She smiled faintly, her eyes half lidded with the fond memory and Sesshoumaru had to wonder how the dual reality of her four year projection had changed her for this realm. Surely her family recognized these differences- other than the ones her mother so obviously pointed out. “That's why I came back.” Sesshoumaru heard it, and he heard what she was saying even as she didn't say it; It's why I came back despite the fact that I am different than what I was, despite the danger of being repudiated and thrown away because I was strange once gain, I came back because my brother was here…

Sesshoumaru smiled, nodding briefly as he turned to walk away and whistled. There was something about this miko that always … Sesshoumaru walked down the forest pathways, paying attention to the scent of the forest, particularly to the scent of disturbed forest- broken pine needles, crushed leaves and the revealed moist and clingy scent of soil. Kagome had taken a walk away from the group with her kit, enjoying a reprieve from watching herself and her manners around a group who expected her to be their miko- at a time where she couldn't be their friend.

He found the pair he was searching out, laughing and smiling and giggling- the innocent light to her giving him pause enough to watch her brilliantly lit eyes as she played a game with her son. Then she paused briefly, her head slowly tilting up to face the sky, and then snapping to one direction- the well.

A soft smile lit her features, and she picked up her rapidly tiring fox son and cradled him to her heart as the smile blossomed and the hearty chuckle she let out sang as she spun on her bare feet in the dewing grasses.

Sesshoumaru shook his head as he stepped out of the foliage, breaking his cover, and she turned that smile to him. “You are lost in thought.”

She had the brief mischievous smirk cross her features, her eyes shifting to the slitted trickery of her son before she sobered. “I am there still. My brother is talking to me.” Sesshoumaru had thought she was dreaming whilst awake, and said nothing of it; only taking note of the wistful and fond way she spoke of her younger brother, and wishing he could say the same of his. She had turned those wise eyes to him, stunning him once again into inaction, his blood seeming to freeze in the profoundness of that knowledge in one so young- nature's little miracle. “You and yours have been misguided; those around you have put undue pressure on you and caused you such turmoil.”

She shifted her son and reached out her free hand, caressing his striped cheek as her smile became that loving and natural look she wore when she knew exactly what she was speaking of. “You are far too wise for one so young, my lady.”

She laughed, that little bubbling chuckle, as she drew her hand away and winked cheekily up at him. “I love being unique!” And she had laughed and sprinted like the doe back to camp, her legs carrying her silently and her bare feet merely caressing the forest moss and stones on her way. It was her way of telling him that it would all be alright, and he found he could live with it if she believed it so.

And so Sesshoumaru smiled and nodded and left. And so Sesshoumaru smiled and nodded and left.

.x.

Souta craned his neck out uncomfortably, trying to be inconspicuous as he intently extended his own senses to hear his sister respond to that tall man. The man smiled and bowed, which his sister returned, before he moved with a shift of his stiff suit and limber legs and left. Just like that. Souta gaped openly after the man, face turning slowly and jerkily to face his sister even as he kept his eyes trained on the cutting figure of the silver haired businessman.

She laughed as she came up beside him. “Sesshoumaru is like that, a lordly type you know,” she smiled as she shared some faint amusement with herself, “he finished what needs to be done and accomplishes nothing more or less.”

So Souta shrugged it off and grinned sheepishly, quickly letting the rather demonic mischievous look overtake that as he tackled his surprised sister to the ground and initiated an all out tickle war.

.x.

Sesshoumaru looked up from his paperwork, silver hair sliding to the sides of his face before he pushed it behind his ears. He settled his elbows upon his desk, taking the time to neatly stack his work before putting it off to the side, and settled his chin amongst his woven fingers. He distractedly blew out a breath upwards, feeling the fluttering of his bangs against his forehead. “How go the relations with the Shadow demons?” Perfect timing- as usual.

His brother flung open the shoji door.

“Sesshoumaru,” he growled out, a fang being displayed with his snarling upper lip. “You should know that it has been settled for while now, you should really check on the damn flea bitten wolf!” Sesshoumaru need not hide the smirk behind his hands, for he knew his brother could easily spot the amusement in his eyes, now that they had actually become something one could call brothers. His eyes saddened with a distant light as he thought briefly of the strong sibling bond between the Higurashi. Inuyasha must have noticed it, for he calmed down visibly and spoke in a much calmer note. “I want to know how she is doing.”

Sesshoumaru shifted, pushing back his chair with the flat of his feet before he stood- the fluid movement displaying none of his turmoil or desire for mischief. He would have to settle for showing neither. “You know how she is.”

Inuyasha growled slightly and Sesshoumaru could only sympathize with this expression. It was a sound of frustration about the past and a miko- one who had expressed dreams like they were possible and one who had been a conflict in herself; always cared of another's reactions to her rather unorthodox life and worrying over what would happen if this didn't work out- funny how she could reassure everyone but herself.

Sesshoumaru looked to the miko, taking in the way that once again she was alone- with her little sleeping fox kit in her lap. She was kicking her feet since they didn't touch the ground from the size of the log she had seated herself upon, and Sesshoumaru held in his smile at the cute scene it made- Sesshoumaru did not use the word cute.

She turned her face to him as he approached, and he wondered exactly how her senses had developed so oddly. No one else could sense him like she. Her eyes smiled and she patted the log beside her as a welcoming invitation- one which he took.

She had come out here after talking to their wandering monk, talking to the monk only after she had been ridiculed by some of the company they had been in when they encountered the odd barrier.

“You are developing oddly miko.” There was a brief flash in her eyes, for the title she loathed or the sentence he proclaimed he knew not which. But by the way she was gathering herself into her story telling position he knew she would somehow explain.

Her mouth opened as her eyes closed, some sort of bargain going on in her mind as she decided what she would tell and what he would need to learn. “Where I come from we all go to school as littles, learning as uniformly as we can and we have the stereotypes to go with it.” She gave him a telling look and he found he could understand that- she wanted him to think of the racism against his brother. “We are branded there and that is where we shape our destinies- at least the ones normal society provides for us.” An odd wistful and somewhat amused smile came over her face.

“Before I came here I missed out a lot on school- `odd spells' keeping me from my natural awareness of the world and making it nay impossible to actually teach me when it occurred.” She scuffed her pointed toe as it barely reached the ground, shuffling leaves with the stretched appendage. And she smiled again. “I wasn't normal you see. People took to calling me `the odd Higurashi girl'. And my family was branded as `that Higurashi family'; we were viewed as some sort of freaks as you can infer, and I had grown up being looked at like that.”

Sesshoumaru tilted his head more to watch the miko's face as she looked down; and he found the happy expression startling in its simple truth. “Those odd spells were my powers coming through to me- and though I wasn't aware in their physical world I was so much more alive somewhere else!” She practically lit the night air with her smile, and no one else was around to see it. Sesshoumaru had never seen anyone else approach her after the sun set and the moon was high and he found that they were missing out on the real essence of the miko of peace.

And she continued stroking the hair away from her sons face and her smile softened. “I have been odd all my life Sesshoumaru-sama.” The honorific drew his attention to her once again. “And you want to know something?” She turned her face to him again, the smile much softer and somehow more telling than any that had ever crossed the expressive woman's face. “I like being who I am.”

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow, looking at the miko askance and showing her what he thought of that proclamation. There were always the villagers that looked at her oddly, she wasn't exactly cut out for this style of living, she worried too much for her comrades health, she even worried for their lives outside of war and the quest…there was no way any one else would tell him they enjoyed that life. It was a life where she was judged and measured against the stereotype miko in every village and against every demon. “Surely you aren't happy with it all the time- people don't like to stand out; it makes it harder to survive.”

And that was true- the need to fit in was so you wouldn't be singled out for abuse. One would do anything to survive- even give up their dreams and personality. He should know. And here the miko was telling him that she liked standing out, that there was nothing wrong with being unique in every single little nuance of her being.

She sighed and shook her head in amused acknowledgment, and then she looked back at him with a wink. “It's the rest of the world that needs to realize it.”

And when she cuddled up her pup and walked slowly back to camp so she wouldn't jostle the kit awake, he found he had heard something entirely different in that conversation.

`I was not accepted as I was, I was considered the odd one out and I was teased and tormented for who I was and what I could do and what happened to me…I fear that they do not understand me but that is okay…I understand them.

`But on some level it is not okay, because I scare them, I see that in every move they make. As much as I dream of peace and acceptance it will be a hard road to follow.'

And Sesshoumaru found he had a new respect for that miko, for her words weren't the petty wrapping of hypocrisy and deceit. She truly believed that she would accomplish her dreams, and it wasn't the easy way out for her. Fighting wasn't the hard way; he could see that when she spoke she believed that working to live together and hammer out their differences is the hardest path, the one she chose.

He respected that, because in some way he had always thought she could not stomach fighting, that she was searching for the easy way out…but she wasn't. She would overcome battle if it was needed, but she knew that it was in our nature to fight and incite torment in each other- that was the easy path, the coward's path. She would forever walk her own path, and even thought she met resistance she would persevere and push on; leaving her mark in those she left behind.

She would persevere.

Now if only she could come to terms with those she had to leave behind- those who did not understand and merely scoffed at her dreams and aspirations. And Sesshoumaru found that the petty arguments and scoffers over her simple statement about the barrier mattered not at the moment, because Kagome would overcome. This was her battle field.

Sesshoumaru sighed and braced his head on his hands as he watched his brother. The little miko was always worrying about how other people viewed her even as some part of her didn't care- her dreams fueled her ways and none could stomp on the wings those dreams gave her. But there was the reminder that wings could become frail and break, arrows could reach her, and blood and death would greet whoever met its path.

“Yeah I know how she is that's why I want to know if she's okay!”

Sesshoumaru sighed as he regarded his brother more seriously; he knew what the strange light in his brother's eyes was, because he could look in the mirror and see it in his own eyes as well. That was the look of a brother worried over his sister, looking for some form of encouragement, some form of confirmation that she was or would be all right.

So he nodded and gave in; “You do remember the barrier talks? She will be fine.” And he got up and stacked his papers to one side and left the room- it was far more educational for his brother to come to his own conclusions.

.x.

Inuyasha was left in the study by himself, eyes blank but eyebrows up as he looked at the his brother's back as he walked away. He was, after all, used to his brother pulling that stunt on him.

Now; “Barrier…a barrier? Oh… right. Keh, stupid little chit always did bounce back from everything.” The smile that touched his face was one of fond memories, the usual fiery amber of his eyes softening to something kin to his brother's gold as he shook his head in affectionate exasperation and turned quietly to leave the room.

There was a quiet that surrounded everything and everyone he encountered, but Inuyasha didn't mind the unusual quiet despite his loud personality. There was something in this quiet, it was anticipation, and he was anticipating with weighted silence just as much as everyone else, it would begin, and they would finally get to see their miko after so many centuries…and she would be strong and smiling.

Yep, he didn't mind at all.

 

.x.X.x.

And so it comes together, pieces falling into place anyone? Lol, I am soooo enjoying this!