Why lookie, it's another chapter! I know the scene at the end of last chapter with Miroku and Sango didn't quite go with the flow of the story, but by installing that part I have cleared all my debts with Pret. So Pret, if you're reading this, we are now completely even! Nyahaha!
Well, I'll not waste your time with further pointless rambling. On the story!
Oh yeah, I don't own Inuyasha or any other related characters.
The Persistence of Memory
Chapter Three: The Lady or the Tiger
Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!
– Eliza Cook
Kikyo absently stroked the head of the crooning Shinidamachu, gazing over the autumn forest without really seeing it. Winter was slowly stealing away the warm life of the world; the earth would soon freeze and the air would chill as Lady Frost wrapped her frigid fingers around Nature's heart. But, unlike Kikyo, the earth of the world would thaw and warm, come spring; the earth would live again.
With one last affectionate caress, the miko sent her soul-catcher on its way. The serpentine demon swirled about her for a moment like a silver ribbon before take its leave, disappearing into the lightening sky. Kikyo watched it go, then spent some time watching the last of the golden day unfold. She wondered who else watched that sunrise. Inuyasha had never voiced or even hinted at much appreciation for the beauty of the dawn's birth, but she knew he had always been drawn to it all the same.
Inuyasha... It was almost physically painful the way that name stirred so many conflicting emotions in her soul. She loved him, she could not deny that to herself, but there was a darkness deep within in her that had never truly been expelled. She knew its name; its name was Hate, and it thirsted for revenge, crying out ceaselessly for blood. His blood.
Just over fifty years ago, when that thrice-damned Naraku had taken the guise of her beloved... That was when the Hate had been born. When that false Inuyasha had fatally wounded her in both body and spirit, something deep within her stirred, and vowed to repay her lifeblood with his own. Then, when she had dragged herself back to the village, bloodied and broken, she had been forced to perform the ultimate act of betrayal.
What other choice was there? the miko thought to herself. Truly, there had been no other way. But even that fact did nothing to dispel her grief. There were so very few things she could feel in this imitation body, this imitation life, but one of them was grief. She didn't just feel grief, she was Grief, as much as she was Hate, as much as she was Love.
She could not have let him take the Sacred Jewel, whether 'Inuyasha' had killed her or not; when she fired that arrow into her beloved's heart, revenge had not been the motive behind her actions. For the sake of the villager's lives, for the sake of the thousands of lives that Inuyasha surely would have slaughtered in his uncontrollable youkai form, she had to do it. But more than that, she did it for him. She had seen the tides of bloodshed that had resulted from the wars over the Jewel, had seen the souls of the Jewel's 'masters' turn twisted and evil. In using the Scared Jewel, even in possessing it, Kikyo knew that Inuyasha would have surely died. The thing that would have resulted from the Jewel's use would not have been Inuyasha; it would have been a foul, evil perversion of the white-haired hanyou, the hanyou she loved.
But even in knowing this, knowing of the bloodshed and the evil that would arise from Inuyasha using the Jewel, she could not bring herself to kill him. She had stayed her shot until the moment he passed Goshinboku, the tree that transcended time. She had so often warned her little sister Kaede to be careful in shooting at Goshinboku, for a youkai pinned there by a miko's arrow would not die. Instead, they would be sealed in a timeless sleep, protected by the timeless God Tree, and could be released later by one with the sacred gifts of a miko.
Even in her moment of despair, Kikyo had somehow held a flicker of hope that Inuyasha would be released one day, perhaps by Kaede, when the Jewel had been purified and destroyed. If not Kaede, then some other miko; ten years later, fifty years later, a century later... Time would not matter to Inuyasha in his death-sleep.
Yet even though she knew that Inuyasha would not die, when she had fired that sealing arrow, the last remaining pieces of her heart had shattered. She had thought her heart had broken when the false Inuyasha had split both her flesh and soul, but when she fired that arrow... When she had fired that arrow, what had been fragments turned to dust.
What had risen from those ashes of a bloodied love? Kikyo knew. It was there that the Hate took form, had risen as a corrupted phoenix of nightmare. For fifty years had her sleeping soul steeped in that Hate. She knew she could never be free from it now; too much time had passed since the day it took hold of her.
There was a piece of her, though, that stirred warmly when she thought of Inuyasha. It was but a mere candle's flame against the icy glacier of Hate, but it was something all the same. Her shred of Hope had been fulfilled: the hanyou had been released, set free by that strange young miko in a world not her own. But would have death been a better alternative? Would it have been better for Inuyasha and her to meet again in the next world, and share the love there that they could not share on the mortal plane? That miko, that Kagome, her own reincarnation...she was changing Inuyasha. It seemed to be for the better, so should she not be happy? Should she not feel some sort of contentment (assuming she could feel such things with her sham body of dirt and bones) in knowing that the one she loved was accepting his own compassion, his own kindness?
Kikyo smiled a sad, grim smile. Weren't things like this supposed to become clearer after death?
xXxXxXx
Inuyasha's ears pointed forward as he crept silently closer to the disturbance in the underbrush. The hanyou's golden eyes flashed with a predatory gleam as his teeth chattered quietly in anticipation of the pounce. He knew Kagome didn't approve whenever he came back with blood around his mouth and toothmarks around the neck of whatever he had caught, but right now he didn't care. She didn't understand what it was like to be on the prowl, every sense sharpened to deadly perfection, every nerve alive with the white-hot flame of primal instinct. Nobody did. What human could?
The hanyou paused a few feet from the rustling bushes when he caught the scent of something certainly not a rabbit. How had he not sensed it before? As if on cue, the 'rabbit' glided out from the cover of the tangled underbrush, undulating lazily in the air and cooing softly in its otherworldly 'voice'. The Shinidamachu swirled in pointless circles around him before it drifted away into the trees, moving through the air like the ghost of a sidewinder moving over the dunes of the other world.
Inuyasha watched it go, an unreadable expression on his face. A fiery debate raged within him for a moment, though to the torn hanyou it seemed like the inner feud went on for years.
"Wait!" he called after the retreating silver light, jumping up onto the bough of the closest tree and racing after it, leaping deftly from one treetop to another, his eyes fixed on the pale serpentine shape ahead of him.
xXxXxXx
She knew he was coming. Still, she did not turn around as the red-robed figure landed crouched in the clearing behind her.
"Kikyo..."
The whisper was almost so soft that she could not hear it. Not a flicker of emotion passed over her porcelain face as she felt him step towards her, stopping just an arm's length from her. "Kikyo," he whispered to her back. She could hear every clashing emotion in his pleading whisper, could hear the hope, the sorrow, the regret, the anger.
Slowly, the miko turned to face him, searching for something in his golden eyes. She lifted a pale, dead hand and touched his face lightly with cold fingertips.
"Inuyasha."
Well then, so that was Chapter Three. Brownie points for anyone who can guess why I used that title!
And by Kikyo's insistence, or at least at the insistence of my little Kikyo figurine (yes, I talk to my action figures), I'll be answering/responding to any reviews I get in this space.
Sifauna Auria Yes! Another human being that doesn't see Kikyo as just an undead obstacle! –hugs you– And it wasn't Kikyo in the bushes but you were close. Hm, I'm getting predictable again, I've have to work on that. Well, actually I dunno when I wasn't rather predictable so maybe I'll hold off on that. And I don't really know where I learned to write like that; just reading a lot I guess. Reading too much Stockton and Hawthorne will do that to you.
Hikari: Tenth, thanks for asking. But I still don't hold a candle to some of the people in my Creative Writing class. And I'll watch my sentence structure, thanks!
Joy! Two people! That's two more than I expected! –does a pathetic little dance–
Well, my muse is currently out of town, but when she gets back I'll update.