InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal Rain ❯ Crimson Roses ( Chapter 2 )

Crimson Roses

 

Once upon a time there was a beautiful and powerful miko.  Her destiny had been predetermined, she had always known the path she would travel, she had always known she would become a miko.  So she worked hard and diligently, she was determined to be the best.  She was taught to believe that she was lucky, a rare chosen one who was gifted with the chance to help others, to become a benevolent being who would be remembered forever for her generosity and goodness.  This was what she was taught and this was what she believed.  She accepted this gift wholeheartedly and happily embraced her fate.

But there were times when her fate wasn't a gift, but rather a curse, one she couldn't escape and one she couldn't fight.

 

It was times like this, when the sky was such a cheery shade of blue and the sun sparkled, basking the land below in pool of warm golden light.  Times like this when the other village children were running around aimlessly with no purpose and laughing in glee.  She would watch from afar these immature children who were too enraptured in their own fantasy world to see the reality around them.  She knew what was real, she saw what they didn't, pain, sorrow, greed, hate.  She had already discovered the ugly truths of society; she had already discovered that which would destroy the ideal world these carefree children had built in their heads.

 

She would watch these children, always as an outsider, always as the silent and solemn girl easily ignored and she would watch them in envy.  They were so blissfully ignorant and for those moments she watched them play she would wonder what it was like to be innocent and free.

 

Because she never had been.

 

So she would always turn away, she could only stand to watch the children for brief moments because the longer she stayed the more she realized the cruelness of her fate.

Alone, that was the way she was meant to be, alone, always.

 

So she grew up, lovely, kind, powerful, detached.  When it came time for her to leave her village she simply packed the few items necessary for her travels and walked away, without turning back.  She didn't agonize over long goodbyes, she didn't cry, she didn't shed one tear for the life she was leaving behind.

 

Sadness was a luxury she couldn't afford.

 

Thus the young woman began her life as a miko, traveling from village to village stopping only to help those in need and then moving on once again.  With every town she wanted to stay, every village was a picturesque temptation she often found hard to resist.  She would see children playing as she had in her youth, a young man and woman holding hands, an elderly couple looking on in contentment on their families.  It was this she craved, this wholeness.

 

But she couldn't have it, so she created a set of rules she faithfully followed to prevent her from becoming attached to any one person or town.

 

Never stay in one place for too long.  Perform your duty and leave.

 

The longer she stayed the more persistent the temptation became, eventually she would have to leave, and prolonging the inevitable only lead to further heartache, a pain she could do without.

 

Observe, never participate

.

It was one thing to stand amidst the edges of the town and observe the carefree villagers

from afar and quite another to join in on the everyday routine of the people.  To become familiar with the people and the inner workings of the town would only give her a false sense of happiness and belonging that would sooner or later be crushed.  No, she would rather be alone than to have even the barest resemblance of her dream snatched away.

 

Never give your name, always simply be Miko.

 

A name was personal, it gave her an identity, a recognizable face, a personality.  It made her human to the people she treated, it made her like them.  But she was not like them, and she would never be.

 

Never fall in love.

 

This was the most important rule of all because if she fell in love then she would have a reason to stay, a reason to give in to the temptation, a reason to abandon the course of her fate, a reason to abandon it all.

 

So she lived her life silently traveling from village and silently wishing for something more.  But soon all this would change, soon she would begin to believe that her dreams could come true, soon she would learn that hope was truly a beautiful thing.

 

She would learn all this because one day she broke her most important rule and fell in love.

 

Fell in love with one who was her sworn enemy.

 

She had not been a fool; she had always known that she had been merely a means to an end, his end.  She guarded that which he most desperately sought.  Cursed to be a hanyou, a demon tainted with the blood of a human he longed for only one thing, the power of a full youkai, and only she could give that to him.

 

It hadn't been love at first sight, there was no such thing.  When she looked into his eyes for the first time there was no spark, no electricity, no instant recognition.  She had reacted to his presence with the same cold indifference she did everything else, added with a bit of caution, due to his demonic nature.

 

She had vigilantly watched him everyday, not because she longed for his touch or dreamed of him at night, but because she was preparing herself for an attack.  Eventually he would go after the jewel, eventually he would make his move, and she would be ready.

There was nothing romantic about their relationship, no lyrical poems, and no angst ridden stares.  They were enemies; it was that simple, and that complex.

 

Because one day he had rescued a child, a small helpless child who had fallen into the river and nearly drowned.  The hanyou had merely reached in and pulled the little boy out of the water as if it were nothing unusual, as if he pulled human children out of rivers everyday.  He had set the boy on the ground and walked off, probably in search of the miko that guarded his treasure, the miko that was watching him.

 

That was when everything changed, that was when her impeccable control and unflappable reason began to crumble.  It wasn't a drastic change, it was slight, barely noticeable, but it was a crack, a crack that grew with each passing day.

 

She stopped seeing him a hanyou, she stopped seeing him as her enemy and she began seeing him as a tortured soul, much like she was.

 

Alone, never belonging and always alone.  The day she began comparing herself to the hanyou was the day she crossed a line and broke the rule she would never be able to un-break.

 

She had always thought her innocence had died long ago, but she had been wrong.  Because as the days and weeks progressed she naively began to believe in her long forgotten dreams, she naively began to believe in him.

 

She was hesitant at first; she didn't declare her love for him in a wild fit of passion or a raging of tragic tears.  Life wasn't a fairytale, it was real and things didn't work that way.

She harbored her feelings, relentlessly guarded them and refused to let them out, vehemently refused to allow them the room to grow.  But she could only fight for so long and eventually her strength ran out.

 

He saved her.  Much as he had the little boy, he had saved her carelessly and without thought.  It was such a trivial thing he did, but it was one whose consequences were far reaching.

 

She had stepped off the boat, stumbled, and nearly fell into the ice water below.  She had closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable impact of the water, but it would never come.  Two strong arms had stopped her descent; they caught her and pulled her away from the danger of the water.  When she finally opened her eyes and met the familiar red cloth of the one she had studied for so long she fervently wished that she had fallen instead.

 

Because this was so much more dangerous.

 

His body was too close, too warm, too real.  She could feel his heartbeat beneath the palm of her hand; she could feel its rapid and unsteady beat, a rhythm which matched her own.  She raised her head until her eyes clashed with the golden gaze of the one who held her, eyes that burned with the light of confusion and longing.

 

That was the beginning of the end.  That was the moment her hard won control finally lost the war and threw up the white flag of surrender.  In that one moment her whole life changed because he continued to hold her.

 

And she continued to let him.

 

And thus they formed a tenuous bond, a timid love that required patience and nurturing and one that would disappear at the first sign of complication.

 

He had convinced her that he now wanted the jewel to become a full human for her, and she had convinced herself that he really did love her; she had believed that her once wishful dreams were finally within reach.

 

But she had been wrong, no, she had been betrayed.  Betrayed by her fantasies, betrayed by love, betrayed by him.

 

And that was how it ended.  There was no happily ever after, no majestic ride into the sunset.  There was just the agony and the pain and the blood.

 

Reality was cruel, reality was unrelenting, reality was impossible to escape, for both of them.

 

A beautiful miko and powerful demon, sworn enemies fated to fall in love and bridge the gap between two worlds.  But it seemed not even fate could compete with the fatal flaws of humans and demons alike because one died and the other was left to remember.

But the force of fate is hard to ignore.  The tragic couple had to find a way to fall in love and live.  This was their destiny.

 

And it had yet to be fulfilled.

 

It was pouring, raining furiously, masking her surroundings in a silvery veil.  It was very familiar, this place she was in.  Her heart seemed to recognize it, but her mind, her mind was unable to hold onto the elusive fragment of a memory that was struggling to shine through.  But it couldn't.  So she could only watch on and wonder. 

 

Wonder what she was seeing and what it meant.

 

A girl, so fragile and small and someone else.  A magnificent creature who radiated power held her.  A tragic couple, it was a heartbreaking scene and she couldn't help but feel sad for these two.  She didn't understand what was going on; she couldn't hear the words which they spoke.  But she could see.

 

See her lips moving so softly, and she could see the way he trembled.

 

One pale hand reached out and touched a face shrouded in shadows, a face she couldn't see.

 

And then the tragic scene disappeared, erased from her vision in a blinding flash.

 

And then all she could was red, a flaming, violent hue that burned.

 

And all she could hear was a whisper.

 

Next time.

 

Kagome sat up, panting, she chased away the last remnants of the dream as her eyes adjusted to the blackness of her room.  Always the same dream, every night she dreamed the same heartbreaking scene.

 

She was shaking, after effects of such an emotional dream.  Eventually it would dim, eventually the vision would fade away and she would be left with only the whisper, left only with those faint words.

 

Next time.

 

There was something familiar about that, something heartbreaking and unbearably painful. The words always made her want to cry and she didn't know why. Instinctively she knew it had something to do with her past, a past which was shrouded in mystery.  She couldn't remember anything beyond two years ago, when she had woken up to find herself in her room, surrounded by the very worried faces of her family.

She had tried to get answers; she had tried to ask what had happened, and why she couldn't remember.  But she was always told the same thing.  She had been sick, very sick, and had nearly died.  The illness must have affected her memory.

 

She knew they were lying, she knew her family was hiding something.  But she let it go, she moved on with her life because she sensed whatever lay in her past was very painful and perhaps something she didn't want to remember.

 

 

 

He should have realized what was happening, he should have known something had changed, something drastic.

 

How he had missed the cataclysmic shift he would never know.  But what he did know was that the world had trembled and stopped.

 

Now it had resumed its routine movement, spinning once more as if its motion had never been interrupted.  But it had and in that brief lapse something had changed.

 

And then he knew.

 

She was back.

 

 

 

Today was supposed to be exciting, today she was supposed to be carefree, happy.  Kagome smiled bitterly at that thought.  She was beginning to wonder if she had ever really been happy.

 

Maybe she had been, once upon a time in a land far, far away.

 

Kagome numbly walked away from the noisy throng of people celebrating.  Today she had graduated from high school.  But she didn't feel like celebrating, she couldn't. The end of one life and the beginning of another.  That was what she was supposed to be looking forward to, she was supposed to be eagerly anticipating her transition from childhood to adulthood.  But she couldn't, she couldn't move forward.

 

Because something was missing.

 

And it was killing her, slowly, every day.

 

She couldn't do this anymore, this walking alone in the dark, fumbling to find her way out, searching desperately for an elusive light that always seemed to be out of reach.

 

She walked hurriedly, not knowing where she was going, not caring, as her thoughts plagued her.

 

Next time.

 

The words continued to haunt her, they floated through her mind constantly, echoed in her heart as if they were trying to make her remember…something.

 

Kagome suddenly stopped when she realized she had unconsciously walked back to her home, to the shrine.

 

Her eyes immediately fell on the old well house.  Closed and sealed shut, no one had set foot in the building for as long as she could remember.

 

The well house was sorely neglected, a giant spot of gray in their otherwise colorful shrine.  It was strange, that the building would have been allowed to deteriorate so badly, strange that her mother had done nothing to fix it, and even stranger that she never mentioned its need of care.

 

Then Kagome recalled the whispers, the hushed conversations held in secret.  They had been talking about her, the worry evident in their voices, and the fear, she vividly recalled the fear.  They had been afraid of something.

 

With purposeful steps, Kagome walked to the well house because somewhere deep inside of her, the part of her soul which did remember her past knew that this well housed the answers she was seeking.

 

This was what her family feared.  A dilapidated old well and the truth it masked.  She grasped the wooden planks which covered the door and pulled, the rotting wood falling away easily.  Throwing aside the useless wood, she forcefully threw open the doors and stepped into the darkness.

 

It was time to face her past, time to unearth the mystery her family had so valiantly tried to keep from her.  She was terrified as she stepped into the dark confines of the old well house, terrified of what she would find.

 

But she had to do this.  For the past two years she had been merely going through the motions, waking up each morning with a whisper in her head, and going to sleep each night praying for a peace she knew she would never find.  She was stuck, tiredly living her life, passively accepting the monotonous routine it had become simply because her family didn't want her to remember her past, and because she was too afraid to.

 

It was time to move on.  She had lived in this place, this shrine, her home, for so long.  She knew these faces, the faces of her family.  They were all so different, yet they were all the same, they all looked at her with the same worried look, they were always smiling at her, as if they were afraid she would break at any moment.  And they all held memories of a past she had forgotten, a past she needed.  She knew her family was just trying to protect her, she knew they loved her, but it was time she faced the truth.

 

They would never allow her to change; they would never allow her to remember.  And she needed to, had to.  And it hurt, facing this painfully obvious reality, hurt more than she had imagined.

 

Hurt because she never believed that her home would become a place where she didn't belong.

 

And she didn't belong here; she belonged in a different place.

 

A different world.

 

 

There was a road and a man.  He stood there, silent, unmoving, and beautiful.  He stood turned, ready to walk away, ready to continue down the long road.  But he didn't move, just looked at her expectantly, as if he were waiting…waiting for her?

 

The vision shifted, the road no longer the same dirt path it was once was.  Now it was red, a deep crimson which called to her, tempted her.

 

Her hand reached out of its own accord, answering the silent call of that seething red mass.

 

Blood, it was blood.  Now she was afraid, terrified, yet her hand reached for it anyways.  She closed her eyes, expecting the sickening feel of blood.

 

But her eyes flew open in surprise instead when her fingers brushed against something cool and incredibly soft.

 

Rose petals.  The road was blanketed in the most brilliant red rose petals she had ever seen.  Her eyes followed the endless path of scarlet petals until she reached the stoic figure which still stood at the end.  Waiting.

 

Except this time, this time he smiled.

 

 

 

Five hundred years was a long time to wait, a long time to remember.

 

It was hard, unbearably painful to carry the burden of her death for so long.  But he did.

He could have forgotten, he could have let the memory of her slip away, fade with the centuries until she became but a distant fragment of a long buried past.

 

But instead he had forced himself to remember, every year.  He hadn't forgotten, because she had made a promise

 

And he remembered because he had never met another quite like her.

 

No one had told him he was going to find her, no one told him that one night he would meet a girl who would change him forever.  It was unexpected, what she had done to his heart.

 

It had been unexpected and unbelievable.  Who would have guessed that the almighty Lord of the Western Lands would ever have fallen for a human girl?

 

Before she had walked into his life that night, before he had been seduced by her tears, he had been alone, cold, and always alone.  The way he had wanted to live his life, the only way he thought he could.

 

Relationships were dangerous, personal attachments made you weak, made you vulnerable.

 

In all his life he had never found something he couldn't resist, he could walk away from anyone he ever knew.

 

Until her.

 

He couldn't resist her, and he could never walk away from her.

 

He hadn't that day, and he couldn't, wouldn't now.

 

Not now.

 

Next time…I'll fall in love with you.  Her whispered words came crashing back into his head with a painful clarity.

 

No.  He couldn't walk away from her now.  Because now she had a choice to make.

 

 

She was wrong.  There two roads, two roads, and two men.  Both waiting.

 

The other road was bathed in white, pure and untainted white, it was blinding, and beautiful.  The figure stood, shifting back and forth, he was restless, impatient.  Was he waiting for her too?

 

The two men were different, eerily the same, yet completely different. The blood red road led to the man dressed in white, and the brilliant white road led to the man dressed in red.

 

What did it mean?

 

White, the color or purity, of innocence.  Red, the color of passion, love, hate, and blood.  Was she supposed to pick a road?  Travel its length and walk into the arms of the one who waited at the end?

 

Who was she supposed to choose?

 

 

 

She remembered this, how could she ever have forgotten?  It was vivid, brilliant, and wildly beautiful.  The air was crisp, pure, and unbelievably sweet.

 

500 years in the past nature was an untamed force that was magnificently breathtaking.  She had loved it here; she remembered that, she remembered the lush colors, the picturesque scenes, the unbridled beauty of land that had yet to be marred by the hand of mankind.

 

She had missed this.  Taking in a deep breath as if savoring the landscape around her, Kagome smiled, yes, she had missed it.  She started walking, no destination in mind, she merely walked not knowing where she would end up or what she would find.

 

Suddenly she was no longer afraid.  Indeed she had to physically restrain herself from skipping down the well worn path she had begun to follow.  She felt relaxed, carefree, happy.

 

Every stray flower she happened to see possessed an extraordinary beauty, every tree awe inspiring in its magnitude.  She was seeing life through the proverbial rose colored glasses.  Had she really once been so innocently naïve?  Had the world really been so beautiful and perfect once upon a time?

 

She continued walking, and continued smiling, she couldn't seem to suppress the joy she was feeling.  Perhaps her past wasn't as painful as she once believed.

 

Her eyes caught something, she squinted as she focused on what had caught her attention.  It was just a tree, a normal tree like all the others she had already seen.  Except it was different.  It was instinctive, this feeling of familiarity, this feeling of attachment.

Her eyes widened in curiosity as her gaze fixed on a swatch of red fabric she could see flapping in the wind.  It looked so out of place against the harsh brown of the bark.  Slowly she approached the tree, not sure what she would find, but slowly that piece of red grew larger and larger with every step she took.

 

Her heart was beating furiously, every nerve ending in her body was alive.  It seemed her heart recognized what she approached, yet Kagome still had no idea, perhaps if she had possessed an inkling of what she was about to discover she would have turned, and run away.  But she didn't, so she forged on, heedless of the tumultuous emotions that were surging through her body.

 

And then she was standing there, and it was not merely red fabric that she found, but a man.  Her eyes quickly took in the familiar clothing, the shocking length of silver hair, the rugged features, and the arrow which pinned him to the tree.

 

She reached out, suddenly needing to touch this man, suddenly needing to affirm the fact that he was indeed there, pinned to a tree, as he once had been so long ago.  Her fingers softly brushed across the skin of his cheek, tracing the curve of it as if committing its shape to memory.

 

Her eyes traveled up his face, and she stumbled backwards when she met the violent golden eyes of the man she was touching.  She brought a hand to her furiously beating heart as if to still its frenzied pace.

 

She knew that angry look which heated his eyes, she knew that stubborn tilt of his chin, she knew that arrogant defiance.

 

She trembled.  How could she have forgotten?

 

"Inu Yasha" she breathed on a whisper, her voice trembling with an emotion she had long ago forgotten.

 

 

 

 

She looked the same.  Exactly the same.  Raven hair, wide blue eyes, full rosy lips, it was good to know some things never changed.  It comforted him to know that there were some things that even the unforgiving passing of time could not change.

 

He wanted to rush into that old well house and grab her, hold her to him, revel in the feel

of her beating heart.  He wanted desperately to assure himself that she was there, standing, living, not dead.

 

But he couldn't.  She was stuck between two worlds, stuck between the past and the present.  She had to face her memories, face her past and choose.

 

She could have the past, she could have the present, but she could not have both.  And it was her decision only, not his.  So he had to be patient, he had to wait.

 

Had to, because he could not make her choose him, he could not make her love him.  He could only hope.

 

He had waited five centuries, he could afford to wait a little longer.  He'd had time to deal with the ghosts of his past, he'd had time to confront his demons, and he'd had time to fight them and win.  She hadn't, her battle was just beginning.

 

Sesshoumaru let out an audible sigh as he watched her walk dazedly within the well house.  Regret was a bitter feeling, it was the salt on an open wound that made it burn endlessly.  He hadn't been able to tell her how he felt, he hadn't been able to tell her that he had fallen for her.  Even when he held her in his arms as she died he hadn't been able to utter those simple words that could have saved her.  And that made him weak.

But not now, because now he found strength in his weakness, found strength because he knew he would not make the same mistake again.

 

For so long he had burdened himself with all the blame, for so long he had been trapped in the misery of his past mistakes.  But he had finally made peace with his past and himself, because she hadn't trusted enough either.  She had made the same mistake.

 

A softly spoken name suddenly floated to him on the wind, snapping him back into reality, reminding him why he was here.  The name had been whispered in desperate disbelief, barely discernable.  But he heard it nonetheless and he clenched his jaw in barely leashed fury, his hands balled into fists at his side as he stood firmly.  This was not his battle.

 

He had been forced to remember, and she had died.  Watching as she trembled with recognition and almost certain heartache, he smiled grimly at his helpless fate.

 

Only she held the power to keep history from repeating itself, as it was so apt to do.  So he did the only thing he could, he walked up to the edge of the well house, not daring to go inside, knowing he wouldn't be allowed to cross over into the past.

 

"Say you love him" he whispered softly, hoping, praying that his words reached her "say you love him…and my life is over."

 

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I stand here at your door, sick of all the lies. Let me come inside.

 

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