Redemption

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

REDEMPTION

Summary: Specters of the past bring forth questions for the future. Can she save his soul, or will he wander forever in darkness?

WORDS

kami - gods
wakkusu - wax

WARNING! DARK IMAGERY AND ADULT TOPICS, ANGST, RUN ON SENTENCES AND BAD WORDS, SPOILERS (MOVIE II, EPISODE 122+)

A/N - Holy Fart! The reviews for chapter 11 just made my mouth fall open. Thank you!!! A lot of people wondered if the story had ended with the last chapter, and I hope adding this one answers that question. XD Sorry I didn’t update sooner, but it took me longer to edit this one than I first thought. Reality kept intruding, snarl. Anyway, here ’tis and hope you like. (Fate)

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Did revenge take the pain?" She had asked him once, in a sudden question that had startled him out of thinking about nothing much in particular. Her tone was light, as were the fingers that briefly touched his hand, which were wrapped around her waist, holding her steady in front of him upon the saddle.

He had thought about it for a long moment before answering, "No."

She had nodded, and said no more, but the question and his answer stayed with him, and he had realized that it was true. Revenge on the people who slaughtered his village had been satisfying, to be totally honest, but it hadn't done much to ease the pain of loss that could still stab him when he thought too much about it.

Which made him think of Renkotsu, and how killing the traitor had not really assuaged the sudden death of his best friend, Jakotsu, and it made him think of how alone he now was in the world. Alone and friendless.

Except for her.

And now she was gone.

“Damn.” He said, a fist pounding the thin pillow beneath his cheek, the memory as fresh as yesterday, though many days, many months actually, had passed in a timeless march since last he’d seen her. Since last he’d touched her cheek and kissed her for the first and last and only time.

*Damn.*

1212121212121212

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Inuyasha stared down at her, arms crossed belligerently over his chest. Sango sighed, and picked up the worn rag she had dropped as she had stared off, lost in her thoughts and forgetting where she was and what she was doing.

“Nothing,” she automatically replied, resuming her stilled motions across the broad surface of her Hiraikotsu, which gleamed with the waxing polish she had rubbed into it.

“Hmph.” Inuyasha glared, but could get no other answer. She always replied the same, no matter how many times he might riddle her.

Sango bent studiously to her task, and eventually the hanyou stalked off, irritated with her reticence. The sadness that haunted the dark depths of her eyes never truly disappeared, and she would often sit in silence, her thoughts her own and unrevealed to anyone.

All of them worried deeply about her, and expressed it with anxious inquiries. Sango felt bad about it, she knew how concerned they were for her, but the pain was a part of her now, a dull ache in her heart that would never lift. They could never understand it, and she would not even try and explain.

There was a slight rustle of cloth behind her, and Sango turned her head to see the monk settling himself just beyond her. He gave her a faint, lop-sided smile, though his blue eyes were troubled.

“Sango?” He asked tentatively.

“Don’t, houshi-sama. Please.” Sango turned away from him.

The monk sighed. “As you wish.”

They sat in silence, the soft sweep of the rag smoothing across the boomerang’s surface the only sound between them. A bird chirped in the trees, and the grass whispered to itself as a playful wind shivered the long blades of the field before moving on, busy with its own concerns.

“Kagome will be returning in a few more days. Her ‘finals’ should be over by then.” Miroku broke the silence with the inane.

Sango nodded. She had never questioned, as the others did, why her friend had always felt the need to return home, to take up life as if it had never been interrupted by shards or sacrifice. She envied Kagome that she could return home, that she had a home to return to.

Sango’s hand paused in its circling motions. *Home…*

She felt a sudden desire to be there, in her home village, where the spirits of her forefathers lay in slumbering oblivion beneath the ruins of her past. It had been a long time since she had last taken flowers to the graves, or burned incense in honor of their memory. She had always drawn strength from the rocky soil of that valley, as if the roots of her soul took nourishment from the very earth therein.

*I could use some more wakkusu for Hiraikotsu; I’m running low. I should also check the storehouse, and make certain the locks still hold. I wonder if any of the herb garden has survived the weeds. Lady Kaede mentioned that she could use more fever-root and willow bark…*

Kagome would be gone for a few more days, and they weren’t doing much besides sitting around waiting for the young miko to return. Without Kagome to sense out the scattered shards of the Shikon no Tama, there wasn’t much that they could do.

Which was part of the problem. Sango wasn’t keeping herself busy enough to distract the pain away by concentrating on the here and now, and the many little things that she could use to keep the wraiths of why from wrapping themselves around her troubled thoughts.

The group would hardly miss her. Shard-hunting had been strangely quiet lately, with few rumors to follow. The youkai had been quiescent, and everyone had been glad to take a much-needed break from following longer and longer treks across the land in the hopes of finding another fragment of the shattered Jewel. Miroku had been eying a particularly pretty girl in the village, who wasn’t so averse to his charms, and Shippo was happiest when spread out across the floor of Kaede’s hut, crayons to hand. Inuyasha would be too busy stomping around growling about when Kagome would get her ass back here for him to even realize Sango was gone as well…

She needed to go home. There were herbs to gather before the first frost set in, and she should make certain that nothing had disturbed the graves of her ancestors or taken roost in the abandoned houses. She could stock up on her own supplies, replace some of the equipment that had become lost or damaged.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the heavy wounds in her heart might heal in that quiet place, and she could quit acting like a lovesick fool, worrying her friends and feeling as if all the world had abandoned her.

Decision made, Sango smiled. A real smile, and not the faint whisper of one she often assumed for the benefit of her anxious comrades.

Miroku cocked a questioning brow at her, sensing the sudden change her mood.

“I think I am going to take a few days and go back to my village. While Kagome’s gone, we can’t really search for any of the Jewel shards, and…” Sango began, laying Hiraikotsu aside.

Strong fingers, the palm wrapped in prayer-beads, briefly touched her hand in a gesture of quiet understanding. “You don’t need to explain. I understand.”

She looked into those quiet blue eyes, and felt the warmth of his friendship, and her gratitude for it, that she had it in her life. It helped, somewhat.

“We’ve all worried about you, Sango,” Miroku continued. “I don’t know what that mercenary did to you---”

Her smile died. Sango turned her head aside, to stare out at the long, waving grass of the empty field. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t ever want to talk about it. She had been a fool, a stupid and utter fool.

*How could I have ever thought he might love me? He’s strong, and I am so weak, and…*

She let the mental reproach die, for it would turn into a long litany of her many faults and shortcomings, and she didn’t want to think about it. She spent too much of her time thinking about it.

*Kami help me…*

After a long, awkward pause, Miroku offered, “I could go with you.”

Sango bit her lip, staring out at the verdant field, so beautiful in dancing sunlight. She tried to articulate her thoughts. “No, thank you, houshi-sama. I think…I think I need to be alone.”

And maybe, finally come to terms with being alone.

1212121212121212

No matter how far he wandered, her memory still followed.

He had thought that if he kept busy enough, thoughts of her would not intrude. So he did what he had always done before he took her---though he put a lot more actual work into gathering them than he ever truly had. Digging out rumors and following the trail of this or that shard, he was able to collect quite a few of them. He would have used them before, to add to the ones he already had in his body or blade, but now he just kept them in a little silk bag that insulated him against their influence, for the ones he collected came from some grasping youkai or greedy little man, and thus were tainted.

He didn’t want to have to deal with that shit again. Once was enough, thank you.

Those in possession of a shard didn’t often give it up without making a big fuss about it. Didn’t matter, though. He took care of them easily enough, and the world was left a little bit better off without some sneaky thief or marauding demon to pester it. And if he occasionally took out some other monster along the way, or helped out some stinking peasant or simple farmer who happened to be in trouble of some kind, than he just scowled as they gave him their irritatingly gushing eternal gratitude, and blamed it on her influence.

’Cause that damn sense of honor of hers, that insidious sense of right and wrong that he had found so fucking stifling, so damn inconvenient and just downright annoying was now stuck with him, and gods, did it suck.

It was all her fault he now had that damn annoying voice rattling around inside his head, making him feel bad about something or other and just nattering on and on at him about the most trivial shit. He hadn’t ever needed a conscience before, why the hell it plagued him now just baffled him, and was one more thing he could lay at her door.

Though having a dead priestess pop into his head and just show him how real heaven and hell actually were hadn’t precisely helped out the situation. That damn Midoriko even had him stopping to pray now, when he felt the need for it, and if that wasn’t downright sick, than he didn’t know what was.

Though, come to think of it, wasn’t Midoriko some damn ancestor of hers or other? So he could trace all that sudden religious nonsense he was feeling right back to her as well.

Damn it.

And what was worse, what was truly worse, was that he couldn’t really call himself a mercenary any more. Well, he did accept payment when it was offered, and wasn’t averse to taking a meal and bed when that was all they had, but when it wasn’t, why, then that damn conscience he had suddenly been saddled with would start stabbing him right there in the gut and make him take the job---which usually meant slaughtering some pesky demon or other---anyway. Which meant he got nothing for his pains except having to wash the blood or gunk out of his clothes and sitting down to re-sharpen Banryuu’s battered blade with a whet stone---which took forever, damn it.

It was just all so fucking annoying.

Or that was what he told himself, trying to cover this sudden new side of him that kept insisting on coming out more and more to plague him with stupid do-goody nonsense he would have positively shunned before.

Not that it hadn’t always been there; his brother Seiryoku had thumped it in his thick head often enough when he was still a snot-nosed brat that they were taiji, that it was their duty to protect the hopeless---er, helpless---but gods above and below and in between, if he saw one more stinking peasant with some whiney plea for aid---

“HELP! HELP ME!”

A black brow twitched.

Damn kami. They knew just when to mock a man…

1212121212121212

A lonely wind moaned through the deserted village. Shattered timbers creaked uneasily, and something came loose and fell with an agitated clatter. Sango shivered---this wasn’t exactly the homecoming she had envisioned.

Clouds banked the sky from one horizon to the other. Low, swollen clouds that promised heavy rain. They lent an air of gloomy despondency that weighed heavily on Sango’s spirits, casting the tattered remains of her childhood’s haven into dull colors and mordant shadows.

A heavy head nudged the back of her thigh, and Sango looked down at her friend. Scratching behind Kirara’s right ear---one of the neko’s favorite spots---the gloomy silence was broken by the youkai’s rumbling purr of utter contentment. Kirara leaned heavily into the caress, purring like a small avalanche, and it made Sango smile.

Which was probably why the neko did it. Kirara could be crafty at times, though those big red eyes and lazily flagging twin tails could deceive one into thinking that nothing so cute and innocent could do anything so underhanded.

And that was when she was in her big form. Gods help the unwary if she were in her kittenish persona. That adorable little mew hid a world of mischief and mayhem behind it.

“Well, looks like there’ll be rain tonight. I better go find us a house that at least has most of the roof left, or we’ll sleep wet.” Sango gave the neko a final pat before straightening up and scanning the buildings left standing with a jaundiced eye.

Focusing on the practical and keeping her mind busy with the mundane were some of the reasons why she had even come here. She managed to stave off her lowering emotions by finding shelter in the healer’s old cot---her father’s having been demolished by Kagura so long ago, when Naraku had feigned his death to ferret Princess Kaguya out of hiding. Memories haunted her every place she looked, and they were no longer the innocent ones of a relatively carefree childhood. Even the memories untouched by death were still shadowed by the reality that the people who had once made this a busy, bustling community full of life and living were no longer there to still make it so.

Her heart heavy, Sango ignored the past that whispered such sorrow as she gathered wood from the remains of Akio’s hut, or relatively clean linens from Masago’s ruined home. Masago had often been teased for how clean she kept her little cot, and for the seven grown children she had raised whose ears had always been red, she scrubbed them so hard. Masago’s fine chest, the pride of her heart and a dower gift from her parents years and years before Naraku’s descent, had withstood the wind and weather relatively intact. Sango thought of how often that old woman would polish the surface of her fancifully carved chest, and tell stories of brighter years when she was young. Masago had often watched them, her and Kohaku, when their father was too busy, and now she lay alongside her grown children and her grandchildren, who had never been given the chance to grow, in the near forty graves that lined one end of the decimated village.

There were far too many of them, too many memories of people much like Masago and Akio, who was happiest when tending his gardens; or Hisoka, with his deadly throwing knives, who had taught her all he knew; or pretty, indecisive Chizo with her two suiters she could never settle between. They had been simple, happy people going about their simple, happy lives. They had not deserved such a dark fate, such a bleak end.

But who ever deserved such a fate? Was the simple farmer with his flooded fields of rice or the old wife with her dyed weaves and young children any less than the people of her clan, who had watched their sons and fathers, brothers and husbands head out to battle, uncertain of who might never return? At least her people had had a chance at escaping the ravages of war and famine, had also known ways to keep the mindless, raging demons at bay. They had chosen the path of honor, and knew their duty, had understood the risks and accepted them with eyes well opened to the danger.

It made her weary and sad to think of it, to think of them, and so she pushed it aside to concentrate on making a small nest for herself and Kirara. The rain that had threatened finally came with a splattering of drops just as she finished hauling Masago’s stout chest across the muddied paths. Kirara helpfully kindled the rotting boards she had gathered in the firepit of Naoru’s small hut. The bamboo curtain had long rotted from the door, but Sango was able to rig a moth-eaten blanket across the embrasure. She could do nothing for the splintered window, and she would have to repair the multiple chinks in the roof that had rain dripping down at odd spots on the wooden floor, but that would have to wait. She might not even have time enough to bother fixing them---she would only be here for a few more days, after all.

She busied herself cleaning up what she could of the small hut. Naoru had never been much of a pack-rat, and so she had little to sort through and toss. None of the medicinal herbs the healer had hung drying or packed away had survived the ravages of three years’ abandonment, but she was pleased to see that some of the old healer’s implements could be saved with a little judicious cleaning. Carefully folding them away into a neat package, Sango thought she might take them back to Lady Kaede.

Though maybe she should put them away in the storehouse, which had remained relatively unscathed. There might come a day when some new healer came to the village to ply his trade, and would welcome valuable additions to his own supplies…

What was she thinking? Who would ever want to come to a village so cursed by ill fate? She was fooling herself if she ever thought that such a remote possibility even existed. She was the last and only of her clan, and she had neither the people, nor the resources, it would take to restore what was. She lacked the charisma, the drive, the strength, to make such a rash dream even feasible.

Oh, but to have her clan live again…was that not worthy a dream? No matter the impossibility, the improbability, wasn’t it a wish as valid as any other? What if she could have that dream, and make efficacy from destruction?

And for a moment, she toyed with the notion of using the Shikon no Tama---once it was made whole, of course---to make that wish come true. Her heart burned, as she turned the idea over in her mind, her honeyed eyes dream-filled as she thought of what she could do to make that vision reality, and how the Jewel might help her. It was said that the Jewel made wishes come true…

It was also true that the tainted Jewel would twist those dreams into something unrecognizable and unwanted. For if she used the Jewel for such a selfish reason, no matter how she masked it in altruistic excuses that it was not for her, but for her clan, who might once again take up their arms to defend those less able, than she would be no better than the youkai or ningen who would use it for their own personal gain. It was only the truly selfless that could ever use the Jewel and purify it, and as far as Sango knew, there had never, ever, been one who could do so.

Though maybe Kagome, with her generous heart and her miko’s powers, might be the one person in this world who could use the Jewel for something other than her own selfish desires...

Shaking her head, Sango thought that she might as well wish for the moon, or for Bankotsu to love her--and with that thought, her smile faded.

*Why? Why did he just leave and say nothing?*

That question had haunted her constantly, but she wasn’t an idiot. There was nothing he could have said. It wasn’t like he was in love with her or anything. They might have become somewhat friends over those few weeks they spent together, but he had never given her a hint of anything more.

She was an idiot if she thought there ever could have been. This was Bankotsu, for kami sake. He cared about nothing and no one, and that would never change.

Who was she kidding? He had changed. Something had messed with him. Something must have, else he would have taken Inuyasha’s snarled challenge right then and there. Though maybe it was because he had become somewhat friends with her, and that weird code of honor of his that he refused to admit to even having had refused to let him fight an enemy who was her friend---well, maybe at least in front of her. Or maybe it was because Inuyasha had just saved them from all those demons. Or maybe it was just because he didn’t care anymore, that he was just glad to have an excuse to be rid of her.

Down that mental road lay dark despair, and so Sango shook herself out of it. She needed to distract herself, needed to go and do something that would take her mind off of even thinking about him. She needed to set about preparing dinner, even if it was a bit early yet. But she needed to do something, damn it, and at least she had thought to bring along some dried fish for Kirara; it was too dismal a day for the neko to even want to think about hunting up her own supper. She might see if those spices Kaede gave her wouldn’t make a good stew. She had plenty of rice…

Cooking dinner took up some of her time, cleaning up after herself took more. But then she found herself at loose ends, and the day, though drenched and gloomy, was far from spent. She had too much time on her hands, and dark thoughts hovered too close. Sitting and staring out the broken window into the rain wasn’t helping any.

Sango abruptly stood up. A little rain wouldn’t hurt her, and if she had to take the time to hang out her clothing to dry, than at least it was something else she could do to fill in the empty moments and keep herself busy. Besides, she hadn’t paid respect yet to the graves that lined the far edge of the small village, and she might stop by the storehouse to see if the locks still held…

Grabbing up her blue shawl as a cover, Sango wound it round herself into an impromptu hood. She had carelessly left her straw hat back at Kaede’s, and had forgotten to bring anything else. She might go and see how the herb gardens fared, see if any of the plants had survived the weeds. There was an abundance of flowers near there, and she could pick some to lay on the graves of the departed…

Kirara took one look at the steady downpour, wrinkled her nose with distaste, and went back to sleep, curled beside the sputtering warmth of the fire.

The rain splashed, chilling her feet as Sango gingerly stepped around the largest puddles. Making her way through the shattered remains of her past, she deliberately let her eyes slide over the ruined houses and what they represented. It was with guilty relief that she finally spied the overgrown gardens.

The village gardens aligned one wall of the encircling palisade of staked timber. Here, the wall was relatively intact, and Sango could pretend for a time that all was as it had been. Careless of how muddy she made her green skirt, the taijiya wandered among the overgrown rows, surprised at how much had actually survived. Noting an abundance of the medicinal herbs Lady Kaede desired, she thought she might spend a good amount of time tomorrow morning in harvesting them. Spying the white clusters of flowering plants on the far edge of the garden, she quickly gathered as many as she could.

It was with a lighter heart that she slogged her way back through the ruined village toward the line of graves Inuyasha and Miroku had dug so long ago. She had always drawn comfort from praying over the graves of her people, knowing that they, at least, now rested in peace. She would linger over the site of her father and brother, and seek solace in that simple act of love and meditation…

The rain dripped across the raised mounds, uncaring and incessant. Sango ignored the muddy splash that numbed her legs and chilled her toes as she stopped by each of the thirty-eight graves to lay a sprig of white flowers with a soft prayer for peace. One day she would see them all again, when it was her time to rejoin them in the afterlife, and that thought had always brought comfort to her.

But strangely, not now. At first, she laid each sprig and awaited that calm acceptance to wash over her. But her eyes grew troubled as the sadness went unabated, and she drew no quiet strength from the simple act as she always had. Perhaps it was the gloomy skies around her, or the soft, persistent whisper of rain that continually distracted her, but she felt no peace.

Restless and oddly irritated, she finally came to the end, where her father and brother had been buried together. Her friends had come with her on that last, sad journey, when she had brought her brother’s body to its final resting place. She had returned only once since then, and she had actually been comforted to know that poor Kohaku, at least, had finally found some peace to his all-too-short, brutal existence.

But now she could only stare down at that muddy, dirt-strewn mound and clutch the flowers she had brought in white hands. The soft blue silk she had raised as a hood was little protection against the constant, dripping rain, and slithered wetly against her pale cheeks. Drops slithered down the back of her kimono, and made her shiver as she stared down at that lonely grave.

*He doesn’t love me. He could never love me. I was too weak to even save him. Oh, Kohaku. I am so sorry!*

Her thoughts were muddled together. Intermixed with her feelings of inadequacy concerning the death of her brother was also the pain of a broken heart. What a fool she was, to have fallen so easily, and for one who could never want to return it. This hurt so much more than ever her young ideals of love for Miroku had, but then that love had been more of girlish romance and young dreams. Why and how she had allowed herself to fall so hard for the mercenary, she could not say. She felt helpless and confused, and the weakness it revealed to her made her cringe.

*How stupid I was to think he could ever love me. Oh gods, it hurts. It hurts so much. Father…oh, Father, you would be so ashamed of me. You always told me to be strong, to live strong, to be happy, and I can’t. I’m too weak. I have never had your strength, and oh, how I miss you.*

A tear trickled down her cheek, joining the drops of water already there. Falling to her knees in the mud, the crushed flowers she had carried fell from her numbed fingers in a spill of white despair.

Her spirit broke, and the salty tears ran faster as she bent her head. The darkness that ever hovered at the back of her mind pooled over her, and Sango could only weep in the dirt for all that she had lost and could never regain. Her world was ashes, and the dull ache in her heart only added to the burden of empty loneliness. Nothing would ever alter how truly alone she was, and she should accept her fate.

And perhaps, eventually, she would. But for right now, she could only cry silently against a cruel world that mocked her with one who could never love her. He valued strength above all else, and she was too weak to even turn away from miserable self-pity and take comfort from the fact that she had friends and work to fill her life, which was more than many. She should be counting her blessings, not wallowing in self-pity and remorse. She knew it, and knew that chiding herself only led to more feelings of self-loathing, a vicious cycle that was all too easy to get caught up in.

So she let herself cry, hoping that her heart would heal. And if it didn’t, well, then she would find the strength somewhere to go on. No one would ever know just how truly weak she was, how easily she had finally given in to tears, and how empty those promises were even as she mouthed them to the uncaring silence that mocked her with taunting indifference…

1212121212121212

The child sought him. Wraith of darkness, the emptiness in her black eyes was unearthly, but the soft scuff of her sandals on the floorboards was all too real. He heard her, and not knowing who it was who had come for him, he had pulled the silken sheath from his halberd and held it ready.

“Who goes there? What do you want?” He demanded, his blue eyes narrowed as his hands gripped tighter on the long hilt of his sword.

The shoji screen was pushed back by the small white hand of a child. She stepped through, as if invited, and stood staring up at him with those blank eyes, that strange, inexpressive face in the body of a ghost.

Her voice was soft, melodious, too old for one of her few years. “I have come seeking you, Bankotsu.”

He scowled down at her, irritated. “What is it?”

“This.” She said, and extended her hand, turning it over so that the broken bauble cupped in her palm gleamed dully in the flickering torchlight.