What the Darkness Brings

PART I: The Consequence of Recovery
Chapter 18: A Solo Journey

Humans don’t like to be reminded of their mortality. Life is too short and death too swift in coming. It’s an aspect of life which none have the answer to, a step in one’s existence they can’t control. A frightening mystery no man could solve, nor could he avoid, death was treated, in most civilizations, as something to be feared.

No one liked to know that they were going to die.

No one liked to know they could die early.

It was a cold feeling that shuddered through her body, taking her breath from her, chattering her teeth together. It felt like death.

Kagome shuddered as the skeletal bird she rode carried her to the massive corpse of Inu-Yasha’s late and great father. She hadn’t felt like this before, when she had first come here with Inu-Yasha. What was different? So many things had happened since the last time. She’d had her soul removed and a piece was still missing. She’d been at deaths door too many times to count. She’d been exposed to so many different people who were supposed to be dead. She could think of a hundred possibilities for the dreadful feeling coursing through her.

Sighing, the young priestess gazed down at the skeleton of the Inu no Taisho. Well, it was a bit smaller than she remembered, but maybe that was because she had a tendency to make this place one hundred times bigger in her mind. This place used to give her nightmares. She didn’t know why, honestly. Perhaps it was because it was the first other worldly, terrifying place she’d been in.

Or maybe she was just becoming a lunatic.

She slipped off the bird when it landed on the former Inu no Taisho’s shoulder armor, careful to land on her good leg. After thanking the skeletal creature, she looked at her surrounds. Well, this looked like the correct shoulder, if she was right, Sesshou-Maru’s arm had fallen with him when Inu-Yasha cut it off. Kagome frowned. So… if the arm fell with him… why didn’t he bring it back with him himself? It shouldn’t have been hard to do that right?

Shaking her head, Kagome crept over to the cliff the armor made, looking down to the ground that hand to be several hundred feet below her. It was going to be near impossible for her to get to the bottom with her bum leg. It would have been impossible for her to do it even if she was in perfect health! She’d get tired twenty feet down and more than likely fall off the side.

“Oh, look, it’s Mission Impossible 4.” She rubbed her head, glancing about for anything to help her down. “A vine maybe. Stairs? Escalator?”

But of course they wouldn’t have any of those conveniences in the Spirit World. No, why would they? It would just make her life easier that’s all.

Wait a minute… she should have just taken that bird down!

Whirling around, she frantically searched for the skeletal beast which had brought her here. Taking it down to the ground would be so much easier than climbing down; and much safer too! They were basically harmless (as far as she could tell) and they seemed willing to be helpful. But of course – and she groaned at her inability to think of it earlier – the bird was long gone, flying about with its friends far, far away from her and calling distance. Which meant that she had to climb down and risk injury.

Taking in a deep breath to resolve herself, Kagome slipped her cane into her hakamas like a sword. If the cane could recognize Sesshou-Maru’s arm (or aura signature, whatever), then she didn’t even want to chance dropping the thing. Slowly moving to the slanting portion of the body armor, she held onto a spike for balance, stepping gingerly down to the next plate.

It was a painstaking process, especially since the spikes were so far in between (damn this youkai for being so big!) and the slope of the armor was steadily increasing. But she was here, and she was as close to the arm as any had been before. She was not going to fail. She wasn’t going to force Inu-Yasha to give up his only means to keeping his sanity. Well, she was sure there were other ways, but this seemed to be the easiest around right now.

Tiptoeing to the end of the shoulder armor, grasping a smallest – though as tall as her – spike, Kagome chanced a glance over the edge. Immediately she pulled back and gulped, looking to the sky and the flying skeletons. That was a long way down. She’d come so far as it was, probably a good twenty feet down already! It was going to be impossible to not look down as she was climbing down. And oh, how unprepared she was! Maybe she should have brought some rope. Any thing! And why didn’t Sesshou-Maru suggest she bring anything to climb down with?! She understood Inu-Yasha, he wasn’t the biggest thinker, but Sesshou-Maru! He knew she could jump down like he!

“We would see you again.”

Kagome shrieked in surprise, whirling about to face the speaker, nearly losing her tenuous balance. She almost yelled again when she came face to face with a decomposed figure. It was, or had been at one time, human, though its flesh was completely rotted off and there was bone poking through at some parts. She couldn’t tell if it was male or female. Where in the seven hells did that come from? What did it want?

Dimly, she felt a slight energy stir around her wrist.

“U-um.”

“You were here before.”

“Y-yes.”

The creatures head tilted to the side, and Kagome could hear the tendons snapping with the strain. She tamped down the need to vomit. “But you are here now.”

She blinked, “Yes. I’m here.”

“You betray our kind.”

Surprised, she glanced around for other zombie-like creatures. “Our? There’s more? Who’s ‘our’?”

“We priestesses.”

Kagome gasped, and a hand rose to cover her mouth. This was a priestess? But there was no holy energy radiating from her! What was she doing in a youkai’s grave site? And why did this being think she was betraying her kind?

“Um, I don’t… I don’t think I understand you.”

“You aid the dogs sons.” The creature took a step forward, and the energy Kagome felt around her wrist suddenly burst around her. Shiori’s barrier. She was going to kiss that girl when she got back. The dead priestess paused. “And you have aid from a bat abomination.”

“My friends.”

“You betray our kind.” The grating voice was insistent, accusing.

“No, I-“

“-have no excuse.” The dead miko stepped began advancing again, a hand raising and reaching out. Reflexively, Kagome took a step back.

“Hey, listen. I-I didn’t do anything to you. A-and really, what I do is my prerogative, right?”

But the creature still approached, her hand still outstretched and grasping. Unable to do anything thing else, Kagome moved back, away from the threatening miko. This dead being could possibly still be able to purify Shiori’s barrier, and Kagome really didn’t want to chance that.

But she stepped back too far, and too late did Kagome realize that she had run out of armor behind her.

Only a gasp escaped from her as she began to plummet to the ground below, the decaying priestess looking over the side, watching her fall.

It felt like she fell forever, time seemed to slow, even as the ground rushed towards her. ‘Is this why I felt the cold feeling when I came here again?’ She thought, barely registering the bits of vine and tendon hitting her as she fell. ‘I’m going to die here, right next to the Inu no Taisho. Is that why that priestess was here?’

It was kind of poetic, now that she thought about it. Ironic too. An unorthodox priestess dying in the grave of the father who sired the two demons (granted one was only half demon) who she cared for and respected, was a highly ironic situation in her mind.

And suddenly it stopped. Her arm caught on something, jerking her to a stop so suddenly that she felt something snap beneath her flesh.

White hot pain shot through her arm, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. It was a break, it had to be a break. She’d been free falling, such a sudden stop wasn’t going to be pretty.

Whimpering in pain, Kagome blinked past the tears gathering in her eyes. Really, she’d had worse pain than this, and at least she wasn’t still plummeting down to her doom. Nor was she being accosted by some decomposed, deranged miko. And hey, upon looking down, she was at least half way to the bottom. That was something, at least.

But she needed to find good footing before she got her arm loose from… what was she caught on? Oh, she hoped it wasn’t tendons or anything like that. Groaning and wiping away tears that gathered in her eyes, Kagome looked up, expecting the worst.

And screamed.

---IA---

He didn’t know if he regretted sending her.

Sesshou-Maru watched idly as Inu-Yasha giggled and conversed with the camp fire, his thoughts not with the drugged human but the young invalid miko who he had healed and doctored. His mind turned over the hundreds of possibilities of what could happen to her in his fathers’ grave. There were so many things, mainly a fall, that could do her in. Hell, with her luck, one of those mild-mannered birds would attack her. She did seem to attract trouble wherever she went. Not to mention she had been clumsy before Naraku got to her, now it was nearly impossible for her to walk the length of a hut without her tripping over her own feet.

Running his claws through his hair, the Inu youkai cast his attention to his young ward and the little kitsune cuddled together, amusing themselves by coloring on some parchment with bits of coal. She hadn’t been in there long, not long enough to retrieve his arm and return. No that would take more time, especially in her condition. But if he was honest with himself, and he would deny it to any who inquired, he was beginning to worry over her welfare.

There should be nothing in the Spirit World to harm her. Those who had died before, who passed to the other worlds truly had no purchase upon those who still lived. If the girl did come upon something then there should be no problems with them… There shouldn’t be at least. No, she was a priestess, she had more power over the dead than they did over her. She should be able to purify any who sought her out.

But such a defenseless, crippled girl in that place… the possibilities were too many for him to count.

Growling low in his throat, Sesshou-Maru still could help the feeling that he shouldn’t have sent her.

---IA---

Oh she was going to kill him. She was going to purify that damn demon to hell. Indebted to him or not, she was going to put an arrow right through him.

How could Sesshou-Maru not tell her that his arm would move on its own? So much so, in fact, that her arm didn’t catch on a vine like she had suspected, but it was Sesshou-Maru’s hand tightly wrapped around her bicep. Sesshou-Maru wasn’t here! Why was his arm moving?!

Sure he was demonic, sure he was really powerful. But what in the hells was this!?!?

Whimpering in disgust and pain, Kagome got her footing on a sturdy vine and, grasping another thick vine to hold herself up, eased some of the pressure from around her arm. The pain in there lessened slightly but seemed to spread all down the limb. Groaning, she curled her fingers around Sesshou-Maru’s hand, gently trying to pry his grip from her arm. Instead of coming loose the hand only tightened, and she had to stop herself from screaming again as she felt and heard something snapping.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she waited as the demonic hands grip on her lessened, tasting blood as she more time passed. Blinking away tears, she pressed her forehead against the bone in front of her, curling her arm around it to keep herself upright. Breathing deeply to clear her mind of the agony, she tried desperately to think of a way to get loose from the taiyoukai’s dismembered hand. It was obvious force wasn’t going to work, if it didn’t want to come off, it wasn’t going to come off. She wasn’t strong enough to remove it herself and she couldn’t purify it off. She would only damage it and make this whole trip completely useless. If she did that, then Sesshou-Maru would kill her no doubt, and then retrieve Tetsuseiga from Inu-Yasha. That was completely unacceptable, not when it was in her power to get this damn destructive arm to its owner.

Glancing around, the little priestess spotted a vine on the massive corpse about the width of her arm. Perhaps she could fool the living limb. After all, it didn’t have eyes. Pulling the vine from its place, Kagome tried to ease the plant under Sesshou-Maru’s palm. The grip tightened fractionally, but she ignored it, trying to force his hold from her. She groaned when it tightened further, though not as badly as before. Defeated, she tossed the vine away, running through every curse word that she knew to describe one vain and overbearing inu taiyoukai.

Childishly, she scratched her nails over the back of the demon hand, hitting her head against the bone structure in front of her. This was hopeless. She was going to die here, held in place by a cranky, disembodied arm that used to belong to one sadistic demon lord. And it wasn’t going to let go either, not with how stubborn Sesshou-Maru himself was. No, she would only gain her freedom if she purified the arm, or the damn thing torn her own off. Or, judging by the slight burning around her arm in retaliation to her scratches, it would melt off her arm using that damn poison.

She blinked, her body freezing with the thought. Poison. The hand was using Sesshou-Maru’s poisons on her arm. Sesshou-Maru had used that same poison to coat that cane.

Reaching down to her waist, Kagome pulled her cane from her hakamas and eyed it. Sesshou-Maru had said something about recognizing the energy signature. But… without an actual mind to comprehend what it was feeling, would his arm recognize it? Pursing her lips, she gently rubbed the back of the hand with the cane. Immediately the grip slackened. Thanking every god she knew actually existed, and several that she had no clue were real or not, she slipped the cane under his palm, rejoicing when it transferred its grip from her broken arm to the walking stick.

Now, she looked up, to find her way back to the top.

A loud screeching to her right had her heart jumping to her throat. Fearing it was the horrifying miko coming to finish the job, she brandished her arm bearing cane to the source of the noise. But, upon looking, she found it was the skeletal bird which had brought her in, calmly perched sideways, staring at her.

Kagome grimaced, angry tears gathering in her eyes, “Where in the seven levels of hell were you when I needed you!? What, so you only help when we have to come in then go, but not the in between?!”

Its head tilting to the side, the beasts only answer was another, still very annoying screech. Shaking her head and growling impressively, Kagome situated herself on its back, grunting painfully as it took off in a rush. away from the massive frame of the Inu no Taisho and towards the still open portal in between the worlds.

Vertigo struck her as she was sent through the gateway, and she closed her eyes against the feeling. Oh if she never did this again it would be entirely too soon.

But her eyes snapped open again when she fell to the unforgiving ground. She groaned and sat up, holding her arm pitifully.

“Kagome!”

The entire group, noticeably minus one humanized hanyou and a perverted monk, was before her in seconds and dimly she felt the familiar hands of her attendant checking her over. Angrily, she sought out the form of one dead inu taiyoukai. He wasn’t that difficult to find.

Growling, Kagome threw the cane at him, arm and all. Her anger rose considerably when he caught it easily. “Here! Have it back! That damn thing moves!”

“Hn.” Very easily he pulled his removed ligament from her cane, “It should. It IS demonic.”

She saw red, but, due to Nezumi’s unfortunate way of finding her broken arm, was unable to retort. Biting off anymore of the scream, she merely glared at the taiyoukai as he handed off her cane to Sango and removed his armor and haori. Almost in a disgusted fascination, she watched as he brought his arm up to the stump under his shoulder. Instantly tendons, muscle, and tissue fused flawlessly together.

And their deal was completely. Sesshou-Maru was no longer without his arm.

Kagome watched as the taiyoukai flexed his arms and stretched his fingers, wondering what he would do now. Gold eyes met her own.

“Nezumi, go find something to splint her arm with. This Sesshou-Maru will deal with it from here.”

Surprised, she watched as he approached and kneeled next to her and examined her broken limb. “Am I to assume this Sesshou-Maru’s hand did this?”

She could only nod.

He seemed to sigh, “I have good news for you, priestess.”

She frowned, “What?”

He nodded over in Sango’s direction, and, cautious of taking her eyes off of him, Kagome slowly looked over, and met a pair of tired, but smiling eyes of one perverted, traveling monk.

Miroku was awake.

---IA---

A.N. For those who actually read WtDB, I want to apologize. I stopped writing without warning and that it absolutely horrible of me. However after being stabbed in the back by my supposed best friend, I hadn’t even been able to sleep right. Granted it wasn’t all that, but it was a major factor. Luckily, I’m feeling much, much better and am hoping you will accept this chapter as an apology. I really am sorry, and will try to make up for it.

And of course, unedited…sigh… I’ll get my ass up and do that some day…

Merry Christmas and have a Wonderful New Year. I hope you receive warm wishes and much love over this holiday.

Please Regard Me Kindly,
I Agree