A.N.: Hello everyone, surprise! It's me, after a year. Lots of things happened in between when I've written the last chapter and this one. But to make a long story short, I realized the significance of this story: it sparked my interest in creative writing, and a few other things, so I've decided to come back and finish it.
Those of you who reviewed and waited, hopefully you haven't forgotten. And thanks for everything.
I do reply to my reviews.
Chapter 24: Rhythm
The last note of her song still lingers as a ghost.
"Kagome."
That is the first time he speaks her name.
Hands are still reaching up to her beautiful stage in Fuchsia Sun. The Fuchsia Sun. Where only the richest demons entertain themselves
Mouto, your conspiracy is perfect…almost. Sesshoumaru's demonic aura sets him into the air. Except for the fact you forgot I was the most feared assassin in this world.
With the type of fire igniting in his eyes, he glares at the audience of the brothel with utmost disgust, "touch her and you'll wish you are never born."
"Sesshoumaru," her legs refuse to move. Wood splinters are still falling, piercing the trunk of the cherry blossom tree on the center of the stage as little arrows. Dust in the cool night air along with the sleeves of the shocked demons are still falling –
They are the customers of Fuchsia sun –the most exquisite brothel in Kyoto: city of demons.
She can hear her heart beats, the piercing screams of the other girls are only movements of their crimson lips – opening and closing.
She wants to run towards him, but her legs refuses to move, the sapphire rose hangs heavy and cold.
She trembles as a flash of white and silver approach her then surround her.
Then, fuchsia blur, black, gold and violet blur of the crowd, followed by nothing.
She is in the night air. She is airborne.
That is when she realizes he is carrying her in his arms. One of his arms below her knee and the other claw squeezing her left shoulder until it is almost painful. I was…worried about…you. She signs in relief. I thought you died, because she saw the body. The body with silver mane and a blue moon crescent being carried away by general Mouto's soldiers. Mouto is Naraku's right hand man.
"You don't need to care about me," he speaks in the air as the hissing wind, "I will not be killed that easily. It is a pathetic trick of a simple illusion spell."
She gasps, he just read her mind…
Her left shoulder is painful from where he is holding. Though she is almost happy to have that pain. After all, it is nothing in comparison to the horror within the brothel. Especially if they force her to…Bidding price…she shudders at the thought.
Moonlight pales his immutable face. The moon itself, two full disks dotted upon his golden eyes. Gently, neither as a father carrying an infant nor tender as lovers, he holds her as an object. An important object not to let go of or be lost.
Of course, he saved be because he needs me. She thought gazing at his windborne silver mane and his forceful yet silent movements. He needs me. He needs me to bait Naraku. The dark Lord is after something I have. Perhaps the sapphire rose, or…it has something to do with the Death Maiden.
Perhaps it is the Death Realm. She remembers the place between dark and light, where beyond the perfectly cropped border is the world of the dead. There is no colour, only shades of gray. And she remembers venturing deep into the vacuum world, with golden spirits of the dead. A single spec of blue amongst the gold is her spirit, glowing with the color of life.
She remembers the altar where a thing was chained to. A thing so rusted that its shadowy form decays. It is almost nothing but a hiss and a prying claw that manages to pull out her darkest memories of when Sesshoumaru's claws sink into her neck drawing blood, along with it, her life. This was the way her past life ended.
She shudders gazing down and suddenly realizing how high she is above the ground.
Then a strange question creeps into her mind. He has been alone so long, that his heart turned to ice. Of course, an alarm strikes her, his curse, the one that Naraku bestowed.
Whomever he loves will die.
I wonder if his heart can beat?
Drowsyness falls over her as she tilts her head until she is pressing against his firm chest.
Lub-Dub, Lub-dub…a faint yet deep heart beat. Rhythmic.
So rhythmic that it never slows down or speeds. It's probably more accurate than any clocks in the world.
So his heart does beat…he noticed she is asleep and didn't protest that she is lying so close to him.
Lub-Dub, Lub-dub…Lub…Black
She can't breathe, her entire body is tight, as if crushed, yet somehow she didn't mind.
Through the small crack of her crystal violet eyes, she realizes he is holding her to him, tight. Wind manipulates the trembling aspen leaves below sending them tin waves. He holds her tight, thinking she is still sleeping. Or perhaps, he is afraid to drop her since they are up so high.
She goes on pretending.
She had to beat off men trying to pursue her with sticks at one point of her life.
Yet she is kind, she wanders the city streets with a basket full of food and supplies visiting the weak and the poor, her gleaming red hair trailing behind. Her eyes sparkling turquoise, the same shade as the river traversing through the four Lands.
Orange, the colour of sunrise, is not the heavy orange of sunset distilled through the day but the fresh. A lone figure stands vividly against the back drop of the prairies with her staff.
Her red hair tied in a high ponytail she practices. Pierce, attack, attack, block, strike for the kill...Her blue-green staff cutting through the air, whooshing, and sends waves of grass to ripple.
Her names is Setsuya, the General under Lord of Northern Lands – Sango's father. The only surviving general after Northern lands has fallen under the attack by Naraku's army.
She is fast, devastating beautiful and deadly at same time.
With powerful strides she steps into the river that submerges just the hem of her white yukata. Cold water wakes her to the core. Grey and silver shadows of fish race by.
She draws her turquoise staff. It has been a while since she practiced the magic from her homeland – Tsunami.
A few whirlpools being to form at the point where her staff points at the water. Let's start with something small, she decides. A pocket of water rises, while sloshing In the air. Then it shrinks in waves as she utters the appropriate words.
A head forms, legs, then a tail, until a transparent mouse appears into view. It runs around her in graceful circles in an upward spiral.
With her peripheral vision, a rabbit made of water accelerates towards the mouse.
"Not bad, Miroku." She says to the figure behind her, the golden rings of the monk's staff clang together.
He chuckles, "thanks, you are pretty good yourself." Tsunami is the land overlooking the sea. Mages are trained in the ancient temples of both of their homeland.
One of the most powerful spells in the Art of Tsunami is to manipulate water. Not many Mages can sculpt creatures out of water, let alone let them move. Concentration is needed to move every little part of the creatures together, instead of turning it into raindrops.
With a sideways smile, more water joins the mouse in the air. Water rising like comets. Setsuya mutters under her breathe. The mouse enlarges, grows wings and a beak.
A falcon chases Miroku's rabbit. Its watery eyes glistening. It is crafted to every detail down to even a feather…
Splash. Instead of the rabbit turning into a even larger creature, it shrinks, elongates and grows feathers towards the back.
"An arrow!" Setsuya suddenly turns as she raises her staff for her falcon to ascend. But she is not fast enough…
Splash! The arrow pierces the water falcon in the air and the feathers suddenly turn into droplets raining down into the river.
Miroku smiles.
It has been a while since he practiced the magic of his homeland. It also is a while since he sees anyone from Tsunami.
Not wanting to lose, Setsuya returns that smile an whirlpools of water begin to rise at her feet, converging, engulfing each other and becoming a tornado.
The water tornado swallows the arrow until they become one.
Then…vortex of water rises from behind the monk, spins and flattens.
A giant fan.
He moves his staff up and down as the fan repels her tornado. Streaks of the whirlpool of water splashes back into the river.
The tornado is only a quarter of its original size. Suddenly it flattens and turns to a kite. Riding the wind Miroku created, it flies higher and higher.
"Impressive," he comments, "Totousai taught you well."
"How…"she gasps in bewilderment, how could he've known who my teacher is from just having a simple match.
"He only teaches the smart ones," His fan disappears. He smirks, a compliment to her and to himself.
"Miroku," She pauses. " Don't think I'll be flattered by your little trick," a transparent water serpent soar through the air.
"I didn't think you would," another serpent rises, as ferocious as hers.
The two serpents wrap together in the air, trying to strangle the other.
Each of them have droplets of sweat pasted on their forehead from the intense concentration
"Yea well, take this," the white sleeve of her yukata flies in the air from her power radiating. Little by little her serpent dresses in scales.
Then she realizes his is growing scaly too. They both know where this is going.
Two dragons break from their deadly embrace and diverges.
The water level of the river is half of what it used to be.
Then after dodging Setsuya's attack, Miroku's dragon finds an opening…
Biting on the other's neck, Miroku's dragon strikes, perfect, precise and deadly.
The form of Setsuya's dragon shudders and becomes more blurry, a ripple run down its body and some water droplets.
"Miroku!" a figure clad in blue armour calls out.
Her slim figure contrast with the prairie and mountain backdrop. Her sword named twilight strapped to her back . He turns around.
"Let's call it a tie," Miroku smiles at the red haired general.
Splash! His dragon disappears into the water as he turns in Sango's direction.
"But you…won," Splash! Setsuya's water dragon returns to the river. "Sango", she whispers her name. A flood of her childhood memories sting painfully at the back of her mind.
Sango was the princess of the Northern lands and Setsuya, hired and trained to be her bodyguard.
Until the day Sango was drive out of her father's land because of a prophecy that she'll end of her life, the two of them grew up together.
Years after Sango's exile, Setsuya was made the general. But before that, she remembers having matches in archery and sparring with the warrior princess.
Sango used to beat her in everything.
Standing in silence with her feet in the water. Setsuya finally whispers the spell to turn her blue-green spell into a flute, one third the length of the original staff. She already forgets whether she was given this as a staff or a flute, it doesn't really matter. She tucks it into the waist of her damp white yukata.
"How much is this one, to spend a night with." A demon with greedy golden eyes holler from a fruit stand. Two tufts of hair protrudes from the tip of each of his pointed and dirty ear.
The market places of this demon settlement is as frightening as demon city Kyoto.
There are ornament stands selling human skulls for paper weight.
Kagome follows the demon lord closely. Just as she reacts with the indignant look, an axe flies past by and lands into the wooden frame of the fruit stand, on its path, shaving off one of the tuft of hair from the demon's ear.
He gasps with horror. Shesshoumaru's bangs fall, along with his white sleeve.
"This one is not for sale," suddenly, one of his arms pulls Kagome towards him. He covers her with his falling sleeves. He protects everything below the bridge of her noes so only her eyes are showing.
"Thank you," Kagome whispers.
No reply.
Somehow she feels safe with him. Even if I am just his bait for Naraku, it's alright. She decides. At least no one, human or demon, dares to touch her, or even look at her in the way the customers at Fuchsia Sun regarded her, stripping her naked with their eyes.
Somehow she feels giddy.
"You need to get ride of the brothel cloth," suddenly he speaks, still hiding her from the purposeful eyes scanning the street. A cat meows in the distance.
With his other hand he pushes open an ancient wooden door with gargoyles guarding each side.
From his waist he pulls out a dark velvet sac bulging with the shape of golden coins.
Kagome has never seen this many coins gathering together.
A demoness with curved horns of a ram oh her head greets him. Her eyes scanning the gold and gasps.
On the walls and ceiling, kimonos, yukatas, and fabric of every conceivable pattern and color display themselves.
"Find her clothes," the demon Lord commands, finally dropping his arm that shielded her face. His warmth lingers for a moment.
"Y-yes sir."
Chapter 25: The Possessed
To defeat death? Life.
Sesshoumaru defeated Naraku a long time ago.
No. Only Naraku's body.
And during that battle, the Dark Lord pierced a thorn through Inuyasha's body.
But now, one body, two minds...
Naraku seized Inuyasha's body.
Can he break free?
Thanks for reading everyone!
-GoTN