The Ties that Bind Us

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Whispers on the Wind: An Interlude

by: Naraku's Dark Soul

Kagome sighed as she swept the steps of her family’s shrine.

It had been a week since she’d given up her virginity. A week since she had seen him. Time stretched on through endless days filled with boring classes she could hardly pay attention to. Hadn’t she used to enjoy them? She couldn’t remember. The only thing that seemed to matter was finding that oneness she’d had for a brief moment with him. He made her feel whole again, reignited her long burnt out sense of adventure, and freed her from the weight of her guilt. Everything else was boring routine, a path carved by rote memory. It seemed the past was taking over her life again, only this time it was the present. It was as if she was under some kind of spell, and she wondered if this was really the case. She wouldn’t put it past Naraku to do something like that, but she was thinking of the Naraku she knew in the past. This new Naraku was confusing to her. She felt that though she knew him, she didn’t really know him. Maybe she never had.

She stopped sweeping, choosing instead to gaze at the filmy layer of clouds obscuring her view of the sun. The weather was dreary; it looked like it might rain. A sudden gust of wind tore at the long, purple skirt she was wearing and she put a hand down to hold the fabric in place. Her gaze dropped from the sky to the grey stairs at her feet. Squinting, she studied the old stones. She had always thought they were white, but it seemed her mind had deceived her. Perhaps nothing was really white in the world, purity itself a mere illusion. Shaking her head to clear her mind of such morose thoughts, she began sweeping again.

Some minutes later, when she was finally done, she climbed the grey steps and made her way toward the storage shed behind the main shrine. The wooden door was slightly ajar, the wind making it rattle a bit as it gusted again. Kagome frowned, unsure if she had closed it all the way or not. A strange feeling of foreboding stole over her, but she ignored it, reaching for the handle. As her fingers stretched toward the edge of the door, a scuffling noise sounded from within the building. She drew back quickly, the wind rattling the door again as she did so.

She stepped back, and the wind seemed to caress her, whispering her name. Shivering, she decided it was best to get it over with quickly. She swiftly reached over and threw the door open, the faint sunlight filling the small room as the door slid out of sight. Her eyes flitted from the old lawnmower her grandpa had bought to the shiny, new hedge clippers handing at the back of the shed. Nothing appeared to be out of place.

Kagome rolled her eyes at her own foolishness, stepping inside to put the broom in its proper spot. She leaned it against the wall as was customary, but paused when something on the floor caught her attention. There, among the slightly bent up tongs of the rake, was a single, white feather. Kagome quickly dropped the broom against the wall and leaned to pick it up. The feather was much longer than any ordinary bird’s should have been, at least a foot in length and wide enough to match. It was light too, almost insubstantial in its weight, the soft downy fibers seeming almost ethereal as they shifted in the slight breeze coming in from outside the shed. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was doing in the small building, and resolved to ask her grandpa once she got inside. She turned on her heel to leave, the feather fluttering gently in the breeze as she held it.

Once outside, she slid the door shut, making sure it was closed this time, and headed back to the house. The threatening sky notwithstanding, she probably wouldn’t stay for dinner anyway. It was getting quite late and she had to be up early for classes the next morning. The last train left in an hour, and she knew if she stayed for supper, she probably wouldn’t make it.

She was almost to the back door when the feather started to grow warm in her fingers. She held it up near her face and it grew hotter, taking on a reddish hue. Startled, she dropped it, and not a moment too soon as it immediately burst into flames, burnt to nothing but ash in mere moments. Horrified at this development, Kagome quickly skirted the dwindling remnants of the feather and hurried inside, nearly smashing her fingers in the door in her haste. She huffed a quick breath and leaned close to the glass to see if she could spot anything unusual outside. She diverted her wide-eyed gaze to the spot where the feather had been, but the stone there was clean, not even a sooty trace of the feather.

With her heart hammering in her chest, Kagome turned away and calmly walked toward the stairs. It wouldn’t do to get too upset about it. She had seen weirder things in her travels in the Sengoku Jidai; a self-combusting feather should be nothing to her.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur; she could hardly remember how she got home. Yet here she stood just inside her apartment, holding the door ajar and fumbling around in her purse for her suddenly ringing cell phone. As her fumbling fingers brushed it, it fell out of the small brown bag and clattered to the floor, Namie Amuro’s “Come” filling the space as the song grew louder.

“Alright, alright!” Kagome exclaimed as she let the door go to reach down for her phone. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Behind her, the door slammed shut, leaving her in almost total darkness save for the shining screen of her happily chirping cell phone. She gave a triumphant cry as her hand closed around the grey device, flipping it open and bringing it to her ear.

“Hello?” she said, but received no response. The line was dead. Slightly disgruntled, she pulled the phone from her ear and snapped it shut before turning and flicking on the kitchen light. Whoever it was could always call back.

Although far from rich, Kagome’s family had managed to land her a nice apartment. Three rooms in total, it consisted of a bedroom, small bathroom, and a half kitchen dining room. She had no idea how she’d gotten so lucky, most students living off campus ended up with just a bed and bath, or even just a bedroom with a shared bathroom. She had supposed it might be her Grandfather’s connections---many wealthy patrons stopped by the shrine and were friends with its owner---but she didn’t know for sure.

Kagome walked to the fridge and opened the shiny, chrome door, peering inside. Nothing but a half-eaten bento and a few condiments were visible. She sighed as her stomach rumbled. It was instant ramen for her. She hated eating the stuff. It reminded her too strongly of the past for her own comfort.

Usually, her fingers shook as she tore open the container, but not tonight. Kagome’s hand was steady as she opened the left of her two cabinets and extracted her dinner. She shut the Formica door softly and dropped the container onto the grey counter. She paused to retrieve a pot from the other side of the cabinet and went to the sink to fill it with water. Once it was full, Kagome came back and, hardly blinking, set it to boil on one of the burners, carefully turning the handle away from the open space of her kitchen. She’d had a nasty accident with boiling water in the recent past and was still being cautious because of it. Kagome put the top on the pot to help the water to boil, and moved past the fridge, sliding the door there open so she could get into her bedroom.

The windowless room was small, but not cramped. Straight across from her was her double size bed, the mauve cover slightly rumpled from where she’d hurriedly tucked it in the morning previous. She’d stayed at the shrine last night in her old room, the pale yellow wallpaper there a striking contrast to the sickening lilac color adorning her walls here. If she’d been allowed to, she would have painted over it already. As it was, she was stuck with it as well as the shabby end table to the right of her bed. The light wood was peeling in strips down the side and there was a curious green stain on one of the top corners. Always slightly repulsed by this, she only used the thing as a place for her alarm clock and the occasional glass of water to sit. Well, there was one other thing, but she didn’t like to think about it too much. The single item taking up room in the chipped drawer was Inuyasha’s necklace. She still remembered reaching for him in the heat of battle, but finding only the necklace of subjugation, which had snapped---beads flying everywhere--in her grasp. She refused to think about what had happened next, choosing instead to cross the equally vile maroon carpet to her closet on the opposite side of the bed from the end table. She slid the doors open and began unbuttoning her grey shirt. When the last button was undone, she shivered, the chill air of the room getting to her--she’d have to remember to keep the thermostat at a higher temperature--and hurriedly put it on a coat hanger. Her grey bra was next, slipping off her now ample bosom and to the floor where she left it. She would deal with that later.

She found her pajama shirt tucked safely under her pillow and put it on before unbuttoning and unzipping her skirt and tossing it in the dirty laundry pile on the floor of her closet. The shirt might be good for another day, but the skirt definitely had to go. She fished under her pillow again and came out with the bottom of her outfit, slipping the medium green pants on over her dark blue, satin panties before pulling her hair out of the top of her outfit.

Feeling a little fresher, she headed back into the kitchen, lifting the lid on the pot when she got there. The water was just starting to boil. Satisfied that she had a minute, Kagome walked back into her bedroom and around the right side of her bed. She paused briefly, examining a new crack in the whitewashed door and hoping she wouldn’t have to pay for it when she left. Sighing, she slid the door open and stepped inside. The blue tiles adorning the small room were always a relief to her after the various and sometimes clashing shades of purple in the bedroom. She turned to the bathtub on the left, intent on letting the tub fill with water before she ate. She wanted to have a nice soak after dinner and wouldn’t be long enough eating that the water would get cold. The brass knob squeaked loudly as she turned it and the hot water roared to life, pouring into the drain at the bottom of the faux porcelain tub until she plugged it with a rubber stopper.

The water was, as usual, slow in filling the tub up. As she waited, Kagome made sure she had a towel and washcloth handy for her soak later. It had been a while since she had done laundry, but the green cloths were still nice and fresh. She set them on the cracked sink, near the tub. The mirror above the sink was a bit dirty, and Kagome made a mental note of it. She would have to clean it soon. Since coming back for good from the Sengoku Jidai, she harbored a distaste for dirty things. Those long days and nights having to make do with hardly any clean clothes, not to mention the distinct smell of the people of that era, had left their mark on her.

Sighing, she walked back through her bedroom and into the kitchen to check the water. It was hard to tell with the water pouring into the tub, but she thought she had heard the telltale sound of bubbles rising in the kitchen. Sure enough, the water was boiling, bubbles rising at a steady rate from the stainless steel. Kagome ripped open the brightly colored package of instant ramen and, setting the seasoning aside, dropped the noodles into the water.

One unsatisfying meal and an hour long soak later and Kagome was ready for bed. She had early classes the next day and needed to be awake for them. Going to bed early usually wasn’t a problem for her, but as she settled under her mauve covers, Kagome found her mind drifting back to the incident with the feather. It really had been unnatural, and it got her to wondering if there were demons in the modern era. Aside from the occasional long-slumbering one, she had not met any. It had always been a point of curiosity for her, but one never fully explored. It wasn’t as if she could just go out looking for them. With her companions and powers gone, she was just another human and would likely be killed. No one to save her now. An image of Naraku flashed across her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling lonely and slightly ashamed, but eclipsing all of that, hungry for more.

So, this is where the story starts to take a turn. I have a huge plotline mapped out for this. Plenty of sex, romance, angst, adventure, and spiritual themes are all included. Hopefully you will stick with me?