Masquerade

Author’s Note: I’m so sick of Kikyou being the bad, completely OOC bitch in fanfiction. In very few is she ever depicted realistically. And, besides-

IT’S BEEN OVERDONE. GET SOME ORIGINALITY YOU MONOTONOUS DRONES.

Interlude – The Devil In the Wishing Well



Long ago, Kikyou had fancied herself in love with a hanyou.

But that was a preposterous idea that made her body – is she had one – revolt in strong emotions – if she had those – resembling disgust and hopelessness. Then, she thinks of a time when she could still have conversations. Conversations she never had bounce around in her empty mind, and she wishes she had a brain to mull things over with. Her eyes are glassy and don’t roll back in her head when she closes them, but she still likes to pretend they’re – she’s - real. Colors and shapes aren’t as sharp or prominent as they once were, did you know that? No, of course you didn’t. Nobody really knows anything about the poor, tragic priestess anymore. Her body is hollow, and when she walks she can here the echo of her limbs as they hit the ground, and when she talks her voice floats magically from her throat. I took my organs for granted, she thinks.

Tucked away in the branches of yet another tree Kikyou listens to the whisper of a soul-stealer as it floats past, then slowly descends.

Her reincarnation was near.

It had been easy to get to the island, in case you were wondering.

She feels the aura of the taiyoukai draw up besides little Kagome’s, and remains hidden, her shinidamachu floating low to the ground.

The presence of the taiyoukai was… off. It was almost light.

Odd, Kikyou pondered. He was always the pensive type. She waits until they no longer tug at her powers – feels them move farther along – and begins to follow them. That heavy, void feeling had been weighing on her for so long-

“Kikyou.”

The priestess’ imaginary spine stiffened minutely. The very presence that had haunted all, that had hung over the graves of the dead and the corrupt of the north was behind her. It was spiritual, yes, and it was tainted, indeed, but it was so barren. Fear hummed in her chest, and her hand reached for her bow. The true threat of the north is behind me. I will not fail.

“Kanna.”

Sesshoumaru shouldn’t have expected Kagome to be any less annoying just because they’d slept together. It was physically impossible.

“So, because your kind is from Spain, is the ancient inu-youkai language really just Spanish?” She asked, toying with a few stray locks of his hair, envy marring her brow even as her lips curled deliciously.

“What makes you think inu-youkai have an ‘ancient language’?”

Kagome blinked and looked up at him. “... Well, I figured that since your kind was so much older than humans, you’d have your own way of communicating and such…”

Sesshoumaru’s nose twitched and he looked away from her, “That idea is almost as ridiculous as that ‘mating mark’ you thought up.”

The priestess glared and held her silence.

“Did you not consider the possibility that humans gained much of their culture from demons?”

Kagome blinked and tugged on the tress of his hair in her possession. That was likely. “But… your native tongue would be Spanish…”

Sesshoumaru glanced at her and half-shrugged. “Yes, though I was born in Japan. It would be my ancestral language at most.”

“Okay, but do you understand Spanish?” A scheming thought streaked through Kagome’s head and she bounded ahead of him, the lock of hair falling away from her fingers lazily.

“Perhaps…” He offered, looking forward.

Kagome rolled her eyes and jumped, trying to make him look at her. “You either do or you don’t.”

Sesshoumaru laid a heavy hand on her shoulder to make her stop hopping and kept it there, his eyes narrowing at some far-off point. “Miko, something is approaching.” Something powerful, something wicked, something-

“You wanna play ‘I spy’?” Kagome asked suddenly.

“What?”

“I’ll go first! I spy with my little eye… something white… and flying… oh, crap.”

Sesshoumaru snorted and placed a hand on Tokijin, stepping up next to Kagome. “Is it that?” He ventured, his head tilting toward the approaching energy.

The approaching energy was indeed just that. Almost miasmic in its make-up the pure white mass roiled and churned in itself, similar to a giant cloud but moving far too fast to pass for one. It wasn’t the appearance that scared her, rather the pure, unattainable demonic force that almost poured from it, and how over all the land it flew, nothing was left in its wake. A long strip of upturned soil stretched behind the floating presence, and Kagome watched in wonder as things beneath it were sucked up in a fashion similar to Miroku’s old Kazaana.

Kagome chuckled mirthlessly and clutched Sesshoumaru’s arm, her hand reaching back to feel the single arrow she had in her quiver. “How’d you guess?”

Kagome: Kanna? Kanna?!

Sesshoumaru: … You’re going to kill someone, aren’t you?

The next chapter is angsty. I love angst. Even if I can’t write it.