Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Grief ❯ Shattering Facade ( Chapter 3 )

Three

Shattering Facade

 

(Flashback; Normal)

Her eyes opened as a searing pain tore through her torso. A rattling cry filled the air as her lifeblood slowly spilled out of a deep wound in her chest—staining her sheets with the metallic fluid.

Sho looked up at Kojiatsu; a bloody Estaron in his hand.

“F…father…w-why…?” she asked between spasms of pain.

His eyes, which were almost always unreadable, held a raw hunger—shining behind his growing smile. The scene gave Sho a sick feeling as she coughed up blood, struggling to stand up.

“You…bastard…” she said as venomously as she could muster as her life slowly bled out.

A large hand struck her across the face, knocking the young she-demon back into the far wall with an ear-piercing shriek. Huddled against the wall, Sho let out another cry of pain—pressing her hands on her bleeding heart in attempt to stem the blood flow. But the crimson wave just rolled over her trembling hands with ease.

Kojiatsu was in front her in an instant, reaching his huge hand out to grasp at her shirt collar, and pull her up so that the two were eye-level.

“Did you really believe that I actually loved you as my daughter?” his hot breath suffocated Sho. “You are worthless! I was going to wait longer, so you could become stronger, but…” he paused, and looked at Sho with amusement flickering dangerously in his crimson eyes, “Why not now?”

Sho felt moisture building in her mouth as she glared angrily at the man, and, without any hesitation, she spat a wad of bloody spit into his smirking eyes.

With a roar of outrage, Kojiatsu let go of her shirt, causing Sho to land on the ground with a shuddering THUMP. Growling in fury, Kojiatsu reached down again, and this time pulled the girl up by her blood-matted, russet-brown hair. She winced, but did not cry out. That's what he wanted.

And, without another word, Estaron was up, and plunged deep into her chest cavity once more. Heedless of the deadly hunger lurking in his scarlet eyes, Sho cried out in a voice that seemed to rock the very foundations of the Earth beneath them. The entire orbs of her wide eyes changed to a bright red as her scream continued on.

Kojiatsu's smile was stolen a second later as his right hand, his sword hand, and the one holding the mysterious Estaron—still buried deep in Sho's heart—was scorched with a burning pain. He reflexively pulled it back, and snarled angrily when he realized that it was forever crippled.

But at the moment, that was the least of his worries.

Shaking away the stinging pain, Kojiatsu concentrated on Sho's slowly departing soul. His eyes full of madness, the poison apparition used all of his demonic energy, and bit-by-bit, Sho's soul began to merge into his own, black spirit. But even in death, his daughter was more powerful. With a blinding flash of angry red light, Kojiatsu was knocked back, and the remainder of Sho's soul floated off…condemned to wander as a ghost…

* * *

“To you, I'm all I have become,

I'm all I haven't won.

Let me have my soul, so hollow,

Let me in…

You take,

The breath you didn't make,

What's left you did forsake,

Let me have my soul so hollow…”

~Hollow, Submersed

* * *

The pain that Sho had felt earlier had been intensified a hundredfold as she clutched at her heart. The little girl looked at her strangely as the poison demon hunched over on the ground.

“You…o-ok?” the girl asked in a trembling voice.

Sho!! What the hell is going on?! Shodi asked frantically, searching Sho's thoughts. But all she found was a jumble of torn memories, and a dark, crimson color filling the space between their minds.

Unable to hold in the pain any longer, Sho threw back her head, and let forth a howl filled with agony and hidden darkness. Her eyes were consumed with the same red that was consuming her mind, when suddenly…all was quiet.

The boys in the bushes feared for the worst, and began to make their move towards the young girl.

But they were much too late.

Before anyone could register what had happened, the two demons—still present from the surprise of their victor's strange reaction—were gasping for air as Sho's hands clutched tightly about their throats.

SHO! Shodi screamed, trying to get through to her friend. PUT THEM DOWN NOW! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!

Sho had heard every word, but her only answer was an amused smirk painted on her lips. Her claws tore through the first demon's throat, as he fell to the ground, choking on his own blood. The second was more fortunate than his partner, for this time Sho's nails went completely through the tender flesh and muscles in his neck—the apparition receiving an almost similar fate to their previous partner whose head had rolled off beneath some tree.

Everyone present was surprised then, especially Shodi, as Sho let back her head, and released a loud, deriding laughter. The boys revealed themselves, but the bloodthirsty Sho did not notice them as she turned an evil, scarlet-glowing eye towards the terror-stricken young girl.

No… Shodi gasped in horror as a blood-hungry presence filled Sho's mind. Sho turned fully towards the girl as she raised one of her bloody hands to her eyes.

GET AHOLD OF YOURSLEF!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Sho opened her mouth to say something, but the only sound that came through the cracked lips was a bestial snarl.

Something warm slid down Sho's cheek, but she seemed not to notice as she charged towards the terrified child.

As if in slow motion, the Reikai-Tantei tried to reach the girl before the crazed she-demon, but their reach ran short. Her scarlet-stained claws were just inches from the child…burning tears stained the ground…

* * *

Jin looked beneath him at the shifting grasses and deserts expanding before him. He continued to remind himself over and over again that this was his decision—his heart would not stop throbbing until he saw her again. A resigned sigh escaped his lips as he thought about her black-hearted father.

“Jin! You aren't serious?! She is the daughter of a monster!! Your first allegiance is to your clan, not some woman...!”

He shook Touya's damning words from his mind, and stared determinedly forward. The Wind Master's heart was set, and it would not rest until he at least asked her…

His thoughts were cut short as the small dwelling where Kojiatsu and his daughter lived—hidden among scattered boulders and sharp tongues of rock jutting out at random places in the miniature mountain peak. He landed silently at the entrance, and looked around the opening of the wide cave. It went deep into the mountainside, at least three kilometers.

Taking a deep inhale of breath, Jin set his pace determinedly inside the cavern. He was stopped at a fork in the path, looking down each dark passage, and finally setting his direction to the left…only to run SMACKinto the wall.

Clever…he thought to himself as he rubbed a growing bump on his head. Jin shook away the minor pain and walked steadfast down the right passage.

After just a few moments of walking, a small gust of warm air wafted past him, the scent it carried tickling his nose sensually, then bringing instead dread into his mind. He was sprinting now, forgetting about everything except the all-too-familiar smell that the “breeze” had brought to him. Once again the corridor broke off into a fork, but this time Jin knew which way to go. The air emanated from the left hallway behind a thick, brown curtain.

The material seemed to blow open as Jin contacted his wind powers even in the deep recesses of the cave. He threw himself inside, and froze in horror.

His handsome blue eyes seemed to burn the image of the macabre sight deep into his darkest memories. He felt despair take hold of him as his knees went week, and he slumped to the floor—his hands trembling at his sides.

“S…Sh…o…” he croaked in disbelief.

Jin felt the need to retch as he scanned over the deep wound in her chest…her crimson eyes—now glassy and sightless—still wide in her last moments of life; her mouth still slightly open in a perpetual scream…

“Sho…” he whispered, tears threatening to spill from this morbid sight.

Jin reached his hands forward, and pulled her head into his lap—respectively closing her eyes gently with his hand.

He couldn't hold back anymore as he hugged the cold corpse to his body, and felt his tears pour out of his eyes like waterfalls. He continued to say her name, over and over again as if in hope that she would wake up.

A hate-filled misery crept into him and wrapped itself around his heart as he hugged his dead love to him all the closer.

* * *

“Hello angel, come away,

Come again some other day;

The devil has my head today,

I can't hear a word you say.

I promised I would find a little solace

And some peace of mind;

Whatever, just as long as I don't feel so…

Desperate…So weak and powerless…”

~Weak and Powerless, A Perfect Circle

* * *

Time seemed to stop as tears mixed with blood in the grass. Sho's eyes had lost their red glow, and instead, were wide as she looked at the child's corpse impaled on her extended claws. A sickness filled her mind as Shodi held their young soul companion close—the child's sobs sounding in all three of their minds.

The Reikai-Tantei seemed paralyzed witnessing the child's murder. Yusuke was the first out of the daze as he snarled in outrage, and charged at Sho—blinded by wrath.

But he was held back by a firm hand on his elbow. He stared—his eyes seeming to burn through everything they focused on—down at a grimfaced Hiei. The Jaganshi shot his ruby orbs towards Kurama, and Yusuke calmed enough to look at their fox-gone-human companion.

The redheaded kitsune was pale. But it was not the child that he was staring at.

“S-Sho...?” he whispered hoarsely.

Tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks, Sho looked towards the boy, and felt another twinge in her heart. She clutched at the shirt covering it, trembling visibly as the small girl's corpse slid to the ground. Sho herself sunk to her knees as painful sobs racked her body. She lifted the same-clawed hand that had murdered the innocent child, and brought them in line with her own, aching heart.

“Sho! No!!” Kurama and Shodi cried out in unison—the redhead leaping towards her as Shodi forced her spirit into Sho's left arm. The limb stopped as Shodi struggled to fight her much more powerful partner. But she received some help as Kurama reached the girl from his past-life—the memories forcing their way into his mind—and knocked the trembling hand away, hugging the girl close to him.

“Sho…” he whispered softly as she struggled against him.

The remaining three of the detective team stared at the two in puzzlement—which was quickly changed to ultimate shock as Kurama suddenly took on a startling outer change. His red tresses flashed into silky silver—two matching, velvety-soft ears perched on the head of beautiful hair. And though no one could see it through his tightly shut eyes, the orbs bled out their emerald hue, and sparked into a deep gold.

Sho stopped struggling then when the change came on suddenly, and found herself trembling nonstop.

“Y…Youko-sensei?” she asked in a quiet, unbelieving voice.

Kurama pulled back a bit—his slender hands still clutching at her arms; almost as if, if he let go, she would disappear—and nodded his head slightly. His lips formed words, but Sho heard none of them as her eyes closed, and she fell back into the inviting blackness that seemed to so often take hold of her.

* * *

A purple glow appeared in front of Genkai's temple—bringing out the old psychic herself to come and examine it. The light went compact, and began to shape itself into a body until finally, a bright flash of white light filled the temple, and an unconscious Wind Master fell to ground.

Genkai gaped in surprise, but quickly shook it away as she called to Yukina, having the young ice maiden help her carry the badly wounded Shinobi inside the temple. His body shuddered and twitched as nightmares ate away at his quickly diminishing spirit.