Fragments of Time

Chapter 2

The Other Me

            Kagome lay
on her back with her eyes closed. Her hands were folded and motionless against
her chest as she focused on the world around her. The sound of the gentle
moving water from the river sung to her like a mother singing a lullaby. The
air was warm and soft as it ran over her body.

            Karen was
beside Kagome patiently moving her along with soothing words, “Let your body
feel the wind as if it could float on the breeze, and then you will be able to
reach out to the world around you with your power. Don’t fight; your power will
know where it needs to go.”

            “Karen, are
you sure that I’m strong enough to do this?” Kagome asked in a dreamy voice.

            “Yes, my
dear, it is merely your doubt that is holding you back from being the class=SpellE>miko that you were born to be,” Karen assured her.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “The land will tell you what you need to
know. It will call out to you when it needs to be healed.”

            Kagome,
despite her doubt, did as Karen asked; pushing her power out as far as it would
go. She tried to look for a message of pain from anywhere she could find it; what
she found was Kikyou.

            class=SpellE>Kikyou was kneeling in the garden as a wave of energy
washed over her, causing her to stand and search the trees that lay several
yards before her.

            Kagome’s
eyes snapped open, “Kikyou…!”

            “This
surprises you? You are one in the same,” Karen reasoned.

            Kagome sat
up, staring in to Karen’s eyes with disbelief. “I am not Kikyou.”

            “No, my
dear, you are not, but her soul is a part of yours. Did you not have your soul
taken from you in order to give Kikyou’s clay body a
soul?”

            “Is there
anything that you don’t know about?”

            “Not
really. I make it a point to know many things,” Karen smiled. “What did you
feel when your power touched Kikyou?”

            “Anger,
sadness…I don’t know if I can put it all into words.”

            “She
carries the bit of your soul that has unfinished business with class=SpellE>Inuyasha. When you think about their past together,
wouldn’t you feel sorrow as well?”

            “I guess
that I would. I can’t forgive Naraku for what he has
done to Inuyasha. I guess that I keep forgetting that
Kikyou was betrayed too,” Kagome turned away from
Karen and looked towards the river. “I got the love and she got the anger, is
that how it turned out?”

            “In simple
terms…perhaps. However, I believe that she also loves Inuyasha.”

            “I think
that I knew that once. I mean that Kikyou loved class=SpellE>Inuyasha, but I feel different now. It’s because I’m taking
on so much of Inuyasha’s anger isn’t it?”

            “You are
surrounded with a great deal of anger because of the youki
that your carry,” Karen answered, taking Kagome’s hand. style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “This is the reason I am teaching you to reach
out and heal the land. When you can feel the land, and are attuned to it, you will
be able to transfer your energy to it. You cannot start out with the living,
because humans are too complex; you must work on healing simpler things first.”

            “Why do you
have so much confidence in me? You act like a mother to me.”

            It was so
difficult for Karen to hold back her emotion in that moment. She would have
given anything to tell Kagome the truth. It was growing more and more difficult
every day. Fighting back the desire to bring her granddaughter closer to class=GramE>herself, Karen answered, “I care for Inuyasha,
therefore, I care for you.”

**********

            With herbs
in hand, Kikyou accompanied the children to a small
hut, which the village head had offered her to use for her stay. As she walked
questions about the energy that had touched her played on her mind. style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>‘Why would she be reaching out to me? Is she
trying to take back my soul?’ She wandered as the children danced around
her.

            “class=SpellE>Kikyou-sama, will these herbs help lots of people?” a
little girl in a red kimono asked, while tugging at Kikyou’s
sleeve.

            “Yes, Aki,
they will help many of the villagers. That’s why is so important for us to tend
the garden every day,” she answered as she smiled down at the girl.

            Reaching
the hut, she asked the children to place the herbs in several piles, and bid
them farewell. Her mind was quickly coming to the conclusion that she would go
to investigate Kagome’s new ability to reach out to her. But first she would
start the drying process for the herbs. ‘With
luck,’ she thought, ‘I’ll be back
before they are ready to be ground.’

**********

            Once again
Karen found herself explaining the importance of this task at hand to a very
tired Kagome. “Please understand the need of these lessons, my dear. You must
learn to channel the youki from yourself to something
else after you change it to positive energy. Your human body was not meant to
carry such a thing as this. Inuyasha can only deal
with the weight of his youkai blood because of class=SpellE>Tessaiga. Such power can drive a human to madness,” she
paused and taking a rock in her hand continued on, “You should be able to
purify the youki that you receive from class=SpellE>Inuyasha, and then place that positive energy into this
rock. Upon doing this you will have healed the rock and made it stranger; all
things near it would flourish because of that purified power.”

Karen returned the rock to its resting
place and waited for Kagome to reply. The smile on her face was encouraging. Despite
all doubt, Kagome was trying her hardest insure that Karen’s faith wasn’t in
vain. However, Kagome knew how long it had taken her perfect using her
purification arrows. Seeing the shards and purifying them might have come
easily, but being a true miko wasn’t as easy of a
task.

‘Can
I really do this,’ Kagome wondered. ‘I
don’t want to let Karen down, but what if I can’t?’ Kagome took a deep
breath and tried to relax, but it was not use; how could she relax after
reaching out to Kikyou? ‘What if Kikyou comes looking for me now?
Will she try to take Inuyasha way again?’ She
tried to shake the thought of to know avail.

Karen could feel the confusion
growing in Kagome, and her heart was aching for the young women. This wasn’t
what she wanted for her granddaughter. She wanted so badly to make all this
pain go way. Kagome wasn’t like Sesshoumaru or class=SpellE>Yumeko, she was a tender child. It wasn’t natural for
Kagome to be filed with such anger and confusion. More than anything, Karen
wanted to be the parent to Kagome that she wasn’t allowed to be to her other
children-Kagome would accept her love. Instead, Karen had to hold it all in as
her granddaughter fought her fears alone.

And still there were other reasons
for Karen to tell Kagome the truth, it would prove to Kagome that she is more
powerful than she realizes. Knowing that she is part Yasha
could be enough to help her trust in her own power. As Karen reasoned it, “A
human can only think and act as a human does, but a youkai
knows that they are more than what the world can see; when youkai
blood is in your veins, you have a reason to thinkstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>  and act beyond what is human.” Karen believed
that just having the knowledge that Kagome was not completely human would help
her to look past her preconceived limits, and help her to tap into the power
that was waiting to be called from inside her.

However, things were at a stand
still, and Karen could see that Kagome was hitting some self-imposed limit.
With the afternoon quickly approaching, Karen decided that Kagome has had
enough for the day.

“Kagome, you may stop now. Perhaps
we are pushing to hard. Rest now and we will try again later,” Karen said as
she reached for Kagome’s arm and touched it gently.

“I’m sorry, Karen, I really am
trying.” Kagome sat up and started brushing her self off.

“I know that you are. I do
appreciate your efforts, and you are doing very well…”

“But I’m still not doing as well as
I should be doing, am I?”

            “You are
holding yourself back. I believe that we should work at controlling the anger which
you have inherited from Inuyasha’s class=SpellE>youki.”

            “To be
honest, I don’t think that is the problem. I’m actually worried about class=SpellE>Kikyou. What if she comes back and tries to come between me
and Inuyasha?”

            “I
understand your fear of her, but you must trust in yourself; and your
relationship with Inuyasha. I do not believer that class=SpellE>Kikyou will separate you that easily.” Karen paused to and
looked towards the river. “I do think that your emotional ties to class=SpellE>Inuyasha are amplifying your fear. I can show you how to
control the flow of emotion it you wish it.”

            Kagome
thought for a moment; to feel her own emotions without the weight of class=SpellE>Inuyasha’s would be wonderful. The idea of feeling for just
herself would be such a relief.

            “Ok, I want
to do it. Show me how to control the emotional bond that we share.”