AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's a bit odd that I wrote this when I was in a really good mood, considering it's a bit depressing. It's much different than my other styles of writing, just to warn you. And there is lots of symbolism, so if you get bored enough, just go through and look for it.
DISCLAIMER: Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha, not me.
BITTER
I.
She needs to get out.
Her callused hands scuff at the dirt as she claws her way through. It is suffocating, and hot, and her lungs burn and her throat itches. She wants to escape this refuge that is no rest.
She manages to get out, and the air is fresh against her face, but it stings the cut that lay across it, clotted with blood and dirt. There is someone there, watching her, with kind eyes. He holds her and takes her inside. She doesn't want to go, but she does. Her wounds are treated, and she is given a place to rest, but somehow, she hurts more. She wishes she were still bleeding, so that she can have a release from the pain.
He apologizes to her, the man with a kind face. He tells her he is sorry such cruelty occurred—and to someone so young too, how tragic—and he tells her if he can help, he will. She almost tells him to shut up, but she's too tired, so she merely glares at him. It doesn't matter how sorry he is about such cruelty occurring—it happened, and he cannot change that.
Vaguely, she questions how this happened, then decides it doesn't matter.
Nothing matters, not anymore.
II.
Her village is gone.
She listens to what the kind young lord says—Kagewaki, he says his name is, there is no need for formalities—as he speaks to another. The taijiya are dead.
Her mind recalls the night earlier, the night in which she lost what she'd thought was everything. No, that was foolish. Everything hadn't been taken until her home had been.
She wonders who will bury them all.
Suddenly, she is angry. It does matter now, and it hurts. She hears the name of their murderer, and she hates him. She hates him more than she has ever hated anyone in her life, more even than herself for letting this all happen. Her mind is hazy, and she can barely comprehend anything any longer—not noise or time or sound—but she does grasp onto one thing:
She will kill Inuyasha.
III.
She had been wrong all along.
She wants to feel guilty, but can't. She has spent such a long time hurting, and feeling emotions that can only break. She has been bitter, angry, miserable, and so many things she doesn't even understand. She is tired, now, tired from feeling all of these things she wish she couldn't feel. She only wants to die now, or to sleep for a long time. Maybe when she wakes up, it will all be better, only a dream. Kohaku will be alive, and he will smile and laugh as he had done not long ago. He will laugh at her for her silly nightmare, and tell them they'll always be together, and she'll chide herself for her ridiculous imaginings.
And then she thinks about a dark sky, and the horrors that such a sky witnessed without surrendering a tear, and she knows she will never wake up from this dream.
Somehow, the thought only makes her feel numb.
She knows she should be frightened by that, but she can only feel relief.
IV.
Time has stopped.
Perhaps it has not stopped, or even slowed pace, but it feels like such to her. She has nothing to do to pass the time, and so it stretches, long and smothering in its harshness. She sleeps only when her body requires it, for when she sleeps, she remembers his tears and his blood and his fear, and they are all things she doesn't want to think about. But when she is awake, her mind lingers on such things anyway, remembering how his small body went limp when the arrows struck him, wondering what his last memories were. If he took any comfort in her body resting against his.
And then she thinks about her father, and asks herself if it is wrong that she feels more remorse over her brother's death than his. Maybe, she considers, maybe. But her father is dead, and he doesn't know what it is she's thinking, and so, she decides, it doesn't matter.
V.
She awakens from a nightmare, the fourth one yet. Luckily, none of the others have stirred: not the odd girl with her eccentric clothes and medicine, nor the little kitsune that is always smiling, or the grumpy hanyou and the monk, or even Kirara. She is tired of seeing blood that runs more bitterly than it feels, and hearing screams of a boy who didn't deserve to die, and so she does not sleep. Instead, she stays awake and stares at the ceiling, distracting herself by counting her blinks.
The hanyou wakes up first—Inuyasha. She knows his name, but doesn't think she is worthy to call him it. Nor does she deserve to call the others by their names, not when she is probably going to die anyway. Not when she wants to die.
She says as much to him. "I'm dying, you know."
"You'll live," he responds. "Your wounds are healing."
"Yes," she says, "but I'm not."
VI.
It has been eight days since she lost her family, seven days since she found out about the destruction of her home, and six days since she learned the truth. She is feeling better now, at least physically. She is sure that if she tried, she could walk, but the oddly-clad girl will not let her. She says it's dangerous, that her wounds aren't fully healed and she could get hurt.
That only makes her want to walk more, but she keeps such thoughts to herself. She keeps everything to herself now; when she speaks, she says little, and often she says nothing at all. There is nothing to say when pity will be your only answer. Different in form, but all the same to her.
Even the hanyou shows her pity. He yells at her, he tells her she's useless, that she's a dumb bitch and should be healed by now, but in his eyes, she sees it there. He feels sorry for her.
You don't even know! she almost shouts, but doesn't. She knows it will change nothing; they will still look at her with that same pity, that same soft expression and the same lowered eyes.
You could never know.
VII.
Her emotions are coming back.
Slowly, yes, but she can feel things now other than exhaustion or rage. The anger still consumes her, of course—it is a fire nothing can quench—but she feels other things, too. Little things. She smiled today at something the monk said. Not much, but it was there.
It is the first time she has smiled since he died, and somehow she feels as if she is betraying him.
The thought hurts, and she asks for them to leave her. Everyone except for Kirara leaves, and she clings to her as she realizes how truly and utterly alone she is. It is amazing how long it can take for one to grasp such things, as well as how suddenly. It is only now that she understands. She has been living in a void, where nothing and no one matters, but gradually, she has been stepping from it, timidly, shyly, but still making her way to a place where everyone is real and she is vulnerable to pain, and memories, and tears, and all things that are easier without.
Her head falls to the mat in which she lays upon, and she curls herself up, shivering, her teeth chattering, though she is not cold. She can no longer stop the flow of tears, and silently she cries, bitter tears that are scalding on her icy cheeks. One slips into her mouth, and it tastes salty. It is only when she is swallowing that she realizes that the salty flavor has gone away, and now it tastes like nothing.
VIII.
It has been a month now since her family died.
She still counts down the days, and she still has nightmares, and she even cries sometimes, from a pain so deep that it feels cut from her very heart, but she is no longer bitter. She smiles now, and laughs, and there are times when she can forget what happened and not feel guilty over it.
There are people she cares about now, people who care about her. They used to only have faces, but now they have names and personalities and things she loves about each of them. She loves Inuyasha for his strength, Kagome for her kind nature, Shippou for his wit, and Miroku for… for she doesn't know what. For understanding, even when he shouldn't, even when she tells herself she doesn't want him to. Because he doesn't presume or question or guess what happened that night, why it is the ground on which she sleeps is always damp with her tears in the morning. He doesn't ask her, even wordlessly, why she refuses to speak of her brother, or what the scar on her back is from.
He is silent, and that is what she needs most.
IX.
The grass brushes at her ankles, and the wind gently teases her hair as it tries to pull the dark locks from her ribbon. The sunlight is comforting, and she drinks it in, relishing this world of light. Things are no longer so painfully dark. She can see now, and it is beautiful.
"Thank you, Houshi-sama," she murmurs.
The monk sits next to her, and for once he is not silent. "For what?" he asks.
She isn't sure, but she knows he deserves an answer. "For being there," she says simply. It is the best answer she can give, and the truest.
He nods, accepting her thanks, and she lifts her head back up to the sun, the warm rays tickling her skin, bringing her further into this radiance of life. "You're welcome, Sango."