InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Under a Crimson Sky ❯ Entrance ( Chapter 14 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

/N: Hope you all are still with me! I had some fun with this chapter…Enter my new character and let the Kikyou-Bashing commence! XD

Entrance

Sunlight poured through the trees like liquid gold, illuminating the lone figure below. A miko sat meditatively at the base of the shrine, deeply immersed in thought. Everything about this young woman was as pure as the aura she projected. Her lustrous silver hair was held in a single thick braid which draped down her left shoulder. From afar, her milky white skin shone like that of a noble's. It took a keen eye to recognize the tiny scales which covered her entire body. She wore traditional shrine maiden attire with the exception that her hakama was white instead of the customary red. Piercing blue eyes, the only color which adorned her body, stared straight ahead into the wood as her trance deepened.

She was a hanyou. Born from the Ryu clan in northern Hokkaido, she was the last of her kind. Her mother, once a priestess just as she, fell in love with a dragon youkai. He was nobility, the leader of the Ryu clan which reigned over the northern tip. Talk of their love spread through the clan and erupted chaos amongst its members. On a night when the world was dark, during the new moon, a traitorous guard schemed his way into the noble dragon's bedroom. Silently, the guard slit the youkai's throat in one deep cut as his lover slept beside him. Half awake, she wriggled as something warm and wet cover her left side and woke with a start to the gurgling of her lover. Choking on his own blood, which covered the entire futon now, he managed to warn her of the intruder hiding in a corner of the darkened room. Before she could turn, she was struck in the temple, just slight of being fatal.

She awoke the following dawn to a high pitched scream from the maid who had gingerly entered the room. In a matter of seconds guards surrounded the miko and their dead lord unable to register the site. One stepped up and picked up a bloodied dagger which had been lightly gripped in the young woman's half opened hand, pointing to her as the culprit. Being human, she was deemed unworthy of having the right to claim her innocence before the elders. Before she could register what was happening, they confined her to a heavily guarded room in a secluded wing of the castle; she remained there until she bore her dead lover's child.

Tragically she died during childbirth, breathing the name of her infant under her breath as she passed on. One of the maids took pity on the woman and in a desperate attempt, hid the baby girl in a basket and escaped to a nearby shrine. The owner of the shrine was a kind man who had never known the touch of a child yet yearned to father one of his own his whole life. Now old and unable to sire his own offspring he thanked the gods for the blessing which lay swathed in rags before him.

He did not care that she was a damned creature, a hanyou. He loved her with all his being, raised her as if she was his own flesh and blood. She lived the life of a miko and was trained to take over the shrine when her surrogate father died. Her name became legendary, as there had never been a hanyou miko before her. On her eighteenth birthday fate suddenly collided with her, destroying her once peaceful existence. Her father passed on and with his death she became the protector of the village. It didn't take long for talk of her beauty and power to spread amongst the village folk and she quickly gained their respect and adoration. Her spiritual power and skill with the sword warded off countless enemies and became renowned throughout the land. All the constant praise and gifts thrown about her became a hindrance and she soon sectioned herself off from the world, preferring to live in silence. All this changed one fateful day when a sorrowful being crawled into her life.

Struck with a sudden rush of empathy for this young boy and his plight she began to nurse him back to health. While he was mending she was quick to realize that he was not only sick in the body but in the mind as well. From his actions, she deduced that he was being controlled by another entity against his will. Her theory was soon proven after a thorough physical examination. She found a tainted shard of the shikon jewel embedded under his left shoulder blade, assuming that this was the link to the entity which controlled his mind. Summoning her strength and spiritual power, she managed to retract the shard and purify it only to realize too late that the shard sustained his life. Almost immediately, blood gushed out of him as old scars on his chest and back opened. His screams were muffled with blood as a wound reopened in his lung. He thrashed as his life was ebbing from him, too stubborn to let go.

After a momentary lapse of shock, the miko regained her frame of mind and set to work in saving the young boy's life. She began by adding pressure to his pulsing wounds, attempting to block the flow of blood. She soon realized that most of the damage was internal and that probably one or both of his lungs and a major artery in his chest were punctured. With bated breathe she concentrated her spiritual power in her hands and placed her them one on top of the other on his chest. Several hours later and nearing collapse; she broke contact and set to work in grinding herbs with a mortar and pistol. She made a poultice for his forehead, added water to the finely ground herbs, and slathered the sticky green paste onto his more offending wounds. She fell to the floor in exhaustion after the last bandage was tightened and slept through most of the following day.

His groans of protest woke her up that night. Dazed, she stumbled as she got up off the cold floor to see to him. The boy moaned and thrashed about in pain as a fever raked through his small body. Reaching for her mortar she hurriedly gathered fresh herbs and started to work in grinding them to make a fresh poultice and salve for his wounds. Beads of sweat dripped down her pale face and down her neck, mixing with the blood of the young boy which had splattered on her earlier. She brushed stray hairs which had escaped from her braid from her face as she finished re-wrapping the huge bandage around his chest. Sighing, she slowly got up and stepped outside the shrine taking in the stray rays of moonlight which snaked through the tree branches. Fireflies danced about her, illuminating the night sky with shades of green and yellow. Gracefully, she knelt by a nearby river and cupped the crystal clear water in her small white hands. Deep blue eyes gazed into the reflection it projected and sharpened at the image. Distastefully she splashed the water in her face, wishing that her features were plainer.

If only I was normal, I wouldn't have to deal with all the constant praise and gifts. Why does the whole village feel they must pay tribute to my services? I am a miko, defending the weak from youkai is my job. I just want a simple life, is that too much to ask for? I…am beginning to feel lonely living this way…but these measures are necessary…if I don't seclude myself, I'll be swimming in the village folks' admirations again.

Her keen eyes darted along the riverside searching for the familiar fragrant roots which she used in washing. Hersmall pink lips curved in an upwards smile as she spotted the specific roots. She set to work in crushing them against a flat rock with a small knife she kept hidden in her shirt, using the flat of the blade to aid her. When enough suds were created she silently took off her blood sodden clothes, scrapped the suds off the rock, and kneaded them into her shirt. She shivered in the cold, her scales prickling at the drop of temperature as a cloud temporarily blocked out the moonlight. Finished, she gathered her wet clothes, rang them out and continued her way back to the shrine. After changing into a simple blue yukata, she walked behind the shrine and along the edge of the wood there stood a clothesline.

Simple in design, it was constructed from three long, smooth, and cylindrically shaped logs. Two thicker logs, ends shaved into stakes, were pierced securely in the earth. The exposed ends were Y- shaped, making a suitable cradle for the singular long log which ran the length of the clothesline. Still shivering from the cold, she removed the long singular log and ran it through the sleeves of her shirt and one leg of her pant. As she placed the pole back in its holder, her sensitive pointed ears perked at the sound of the boy waking inside the shrine.

Her cobalt blue eyes widened as she stepped into the shrine's doorway, shocked to see the young boy half sitting up and curiously glancing around the room. She didn't expect him to be coherent enough to sit up and talk for at least a few days and here he was, his soft voice slowly introducing himself as was customary and polite in those times.

“Arigatou…onee-san…my name is Kohaku, what may I ask is yours?” his dark chestnut eyes winced in effort and flashed as his head fell to his hard square shaped pillow.

Reassuring herself that he was alright just overstressed from overexerting himself, she relaxed and fell asleep on the floor beside him, too tired to set up a make shift bed.

“Shiroi-samaaaaaa! Look! Look what I foun…” his bright and cheery voice hushed immediately as he came across his master meditating at the base of the shrine.

Her concentration broken, she opened her eyes to glare at her pupil.

“Kohaku, how many times must I tell you to not call out for me so when I am meditating?” every word lowering the young boy's head farther and farther.

While looking at the ground in front of her, he began moving his bare foot in circles in the grass while remorsefully explaining his case.

“I..um…see remember that thing you were looking for…”

Faster than his human eye could notice, she leapt off the shrine's wooden base, firmly held her soft hand over his mouth, and fervently hissed, “She's here!” into the air. During her meditation she envisioned a miko with long raven black locks stringing her bow and aiming for Kohaku. Now, her spiritual aura and that of a youkai saturated the still afternoon air stealing the cool wind from it. Her hand left Kohaku's mouth and firmly grasped the hilt of her sword as a slick oily feminine voice permeated the air.

“Shiroi, looks like you haven't changed?”

“Kik…you?” She shook her head and whispered. “Impossible, you perished fifty years ago!”

“True, I did die, but you of all people know that nothing on this earth or beyond can hinder me when I will it. In this case, hatred towards this hanyou standing behind me brought me back.” Inu-Yasha stepped up and glared at the miko hanyou below from the tree branch they were standing on.

Kikyou chuckled and slowly strung her bow; pink light suffusing the arrow's tip, menacingly aimed at the miko who now held her sword in both hands, taking stance.

“Kohaku, quick get behind me!” whispered Shiroi harshly.

“There's no reason for you to protect him, he's of no use to me anymore.”

Using her ability to see the shards, Kikyou peered at the hanyou miko and smiled. Sensing her intent, Inu-Yasha unleashed his tetsaiga, readying himself for an attack.

“The shard hiding in folds of your shirt…now that's what I'm here for. Why don't you save us the trouble and throw it to us?” Kikyou licked her lips in earnest as Shiroi reached into the inner folds of her shirt.

“Oh this?” She dangled the sage green pouch with the shard aloofly in the air. “I should have known you'd be after this. A simple matter of the weak thirsting for power, that's the reason why you've come to disturb me, ne?.”

“You bitch! Weak! You DARE refer to me as weak!? She fired an arrow, its spiritual aura nicking Shiroi across her cheekbone.

Shiroi touched her face, smirking as she saw her red fingertips.

“You have become weak indeed, what happened to the miko I knew fifty years ago?” Kikyou's eyes twitched in annoyance. “No, this isn't the woman I knew standing before me…the woman standing before now is nothing more than a common whore.” Kohaku winced at his master's comment expecting an onslaught of arrows to follow.

Kikyou chuckled and strung her bow again relishing the site of blood dripping down the face of the miko who was once her ally.

“I'll show you what this whore can do…”

A/N: “shiroi” means “white” in Japanese. A suitable namesake for my new character, don't you think?

Ja ne,

everybody-loves-ramen