Omoide no Mori
Forest of Memories
chapter thirteen:
*Oh the Humanity!*
"Kuso...the sun has set now..."
Inuyasha cursed to himself as he bounded up the last few feet to the cliff top where the Great Camphor stood. He brushed off his sleeves as he arrived at the top.
He'd forgotten what a hike it was up the side of the mountain...
He had never been fond of it...
The ledge wound up and around the entire mountain, like the spiraled horn of a unicorn, making it quite easy to follow the trail to the top...but also quite time-consuming. It was also very easy to lose one's party along the way, for once one complete circle around the mountain had been made, it was impossible to view the portion of the spiraling ledge than ran beneath or above, causing anyone who might be so unfortunate as to get separated to walk blindly, just hoping their companions hadn't taken a bad step anywhere.
Feh! Wouldn't it have just been easier to cut steps?
He paused a moment near the camphor, a trifle breathless at the sight of the ancient tree.
The Great Camphor lived up to its name, for, if anything, the tree was great.
It stood atop the high cliff top, silent and steadfast like some sort of eternal soldier, guarding the mountain with its presence, as old and wise as the very ledge upon which it stood. It had endured its vigil atop the mountain for as long as anyone could remember, its thousands of branches reaching for the sky as though they might be able to reach the zenith of the heavens if they tried hard enough.
He cast his eyes to the horizon as the last hints of scarlet faded from the darkening sky, leaving the cosmos the deep endless color of India ink.
It wouldn't be long, now...
Crap...
His ears twitched.
"Youkoso...Inuyasha."
He whirled at the sound of a falsely sweet voice, and spied the onineko seated in one of the lower boughs of the tree, her obsidian hair fluttering about her face and shoulders as a cold wind snatched a thousand leaves from where they clung to the branches and swirled them through the air.
"You're right on time," she added, and Inuyasha sneered.
"It's good to know I didn't keep you waiting," he said with narrowed eyes.
He watched her leap lightly down from the branch, landing on her feet and bending her knees to absorb the impact. She tapped her ever-present fan against her hip, and eyed him severely.
"Temee wa...dare...?" he asked slowly. "Just who are you? What is it you want?" He paused, and ran his tongue over the backs of his teeth as he continued haltingly, "And exactly how do you know me?"
She hesitated for just a moment, seeming a trifle startled at the question, and then she smiled.
But there was no warmth in the expression.
"You really don't recognize me," she said, "ya to? You have absolutely no earthly idea who I am..."
He blinked.
"Huh?"
She chortled, and took a few slow, deliberate steps toward him.
"My, my, Inuyasha," she said, "how you've grown up. You've changed so much..."
She flashed him a malicious grin.
"Yokatta," she added viciously. "If you were still that sweet little boy I used to know, then I would surely have a hard time killing you."
His blood ran cold.
"Wh-What the hell are you talking about?" he cried. "Who in all the hells are you??"
She jumped forward, faster than Inuyasha could see, and grabbed the rosary around the hanyou's neck, yanking him close to her face.
"Uchi wa dare...?" she repeated his query, winding the beads around her fingers. "My name is not one for you to know, Hanyou...until you can recall it on your own."
She roughly shoved him backward, and he caught himself quickly on the Tetsusaiga, pulling it from the waist of his hakama to dig the scabbard into the ground.
"'Twould appear," she added after a moment, "that half-demons do, indeed, have but half-brains..."
"Temee," he growled, and clenched his hands around Tetsusaiga's hilt.
The onineko lifted her eyebrows.
"What are you gonna do with that, Boi?" she asked, advancing on him again. "You and I both know that a human cannot properly wield Tetsusaiga..."
Inuyasha paled.
So...she did know...
But...but...!
"But how?" he shouted, swinging his left arm through the air in frustration, his right hand still clutching Tetsusaiga. "How the hell do you know about--?"
"I already told you," she said smoothly, "I know all about you. You're losing your demon powers as we speak...aren't you...?"
Inuyasha balked, and cast his eyes to the horizon.
Damn...she was right...
Not a single hint of the daystar remained in the charcoal heavens.
The hanyou glanced down at his hands, and was dismayed to see that his claws had already dulled to flat, human fingernails, and felt his fangs retract within his jaw, creeping back up into the soft flesh of his gums until he had no more bite than any man. His canine sense of smell had long failed him, and a peculiar feeling rippled through his scalp as his doglike ears seemed to fold into his hair, which shimmered violently back and forth between silver and black, as though it couldn't make up its mind. The locks writhed, floundering a brilliant silver-gray before it seemed to fade to the pitch color of onyx. Then the darkness around him seemed to grow darker still as the slitted pupils of his eyes rounded and dilated to let in as much of the pale blue starlight as possible.
That was the scariest part...aside from the fact that he no longer had any means of self-defense, he was blind and deaf as well. He could no longer hear the onineko's unnerving heartbeat, no longer see every line of her face. He could no longer hear her draw each breath into her lungs or see her chest rise and fall as she did so, it was far too dark for human senses to observe such things.
As if it wasn't enough that his claws and fangs were gone, his senses were dulled beyond belief. He didn't understand how humans could live this way!
Irked, Inuyasha lifted his eyes, which were now a deep purple-blue, to the onineko, who seemed a trifle shocked.
"Nani?" he snapped at her. "What's that look for, Pussycat? I thought you said you knew all about this..."
She gave a start, then hurriedly folded her arms across her chest with a defiant toss of her head.
"Feh!" she snorted. "I knew. I knew it happened, I'd just..."--she hesitated--"...never witnessed it before..."
She frowned at him, and the now human hanyou thought he saw, if for only a moment, a flicker of pity.
Inuyasha scowled.
He hated to be pitied...
...especially by someone who was trying to kill him.
He clenched his fists.
"So," he growled, "where's my shard?"
The neko youkai seemed a little startled by his demand. Her eyes widened slightly, and then, after a brief pause that felt, to Inuyasha, as though it had lasted an eternity, she threw her head back in wild laughter.
"The shard?" she cackled wickedly. "And what exactly would you do if I was to tell you its whereabouts, Hanyou?" Her fangs glinted as a grin split her face. "Would you fight me for it?"
"Damn right I would," he snarled. "I might be a mere human now,"--he smiled darkly--"but I'm more than a match for you, Temee..."
She stopped laughing.
"Oh?" she asked, her voice severe. "And what exactly do you base that on?"
He felt his blood boil at the flat and unimpressed tone in her voice, and he reached for the Tetsusaiga again.
"You didn't call me here to crack jokes and insult me, Neko," he accused, gritting his teeth. "Fight me, or give me the shard, I don't care either way..."--he tensed his shoulders--"just stop standing around wasting my time."
She narrowed her blue eyes coldly at him, and slowly began to advance.
"You asked me before, Hanyou, what it was I wanted from you," she said, as though in case he had forgotten.
Her mouth was a thin, tight line across her face.
"I'll tell you," she offered. "I want an answer, Inuyasha...to a question that has burned within my heart ever since that day...that day all those years ago..."
She stopped just in front of him, and snapped her arms out, her palms flat, shoving his chest hard with the heels of both hands and sending him stumbling backward. He hit the trunk of the camphor tree hard, harder than even he had expected, and lost his grip on the Tetsusaiga as he felt the air momentarily stolen from his lungs as his back made a sickening thunk! sound against the ancient sturdy timber. He had to concentrate to stop the instinctive flinch as the onineko lunged toward him and threw both arms forward, slapping her palms into the tree bark on either side of his face.
"Why??" she demanded harshly, drawing her face so close to his that he could see her eyes contort in pain as she continued, "Why did you do it?"
Do...what...? he wanted to ask, when she answered for him.
"Why did you kill my father??"
The hanyou blinked rapidly.
"What??"
She slapped him hard across the face, and he grunted as the sting of her hand rushed across his skin like a brush fire.
"Don't play stupid, Hanyou," she shouted furiously, her voice tainted with hatred and agony. "Don't toy with me, just answer the goddamn question! Why??"
He ducked quickly to avoid her tirade, diving to one side to get away from her. He grabbed for Tetsusaiga, and jumped to his feet.
"Look, You," he shouted, "I dunno who you are or who you're working for, but you have been grossly misinformed." He scowled at her. "I haven't killed anybody..."
"Don't lie to me!" came her furious roar, and she lunged at him in rage, gripping the bladed fan like a sword.
He let out a cry and dodged quickly, but she was faster, and had predicted his move. The blade grazed his neck as his movements were a fraction of a second slower than hers, and he dove backward, raising his hand to his neck. He gasped softly at the warm blood that trickled between his fingers, staining the collar of his gi.
The onineko eyed him a moment, her eyes ablaze in an emotion well beyond fury.
"Uso ya," she hissed.
"Uso dewanee!" he shouted back, ducking quickly with a grunt and rolling to his left as she lashed out at him again. "It's no lie, you dumb cat! I don't know who you are, what makes you think I knew your father?"
She stopped, and stood up straight, her back arched slightly backward as she regarded Inuyasha coldly, then swatted her hair from her brow.
"Why would it matter whether you knew him or not?" she challenged icily. "He was human, that would be reason enough for you to take his life."
Inuyasha's jaw sagged.
"Ni...Ningen?" he echoed with mild incredulity, then shook his head. "Iya, chigau, he couldn't have been...I smelled no human in you."
"You should have tried a little harder."
"But--"
"Urusai!" she screamed, snapping the fan open menacingly, then quickly closing it again. "It doesn't matter what worthless excuses you may try to fool me with! My father died by your hands, Hanyou, six years ago! Now I will kill you in return!"
Inuyasha balked.
What the--??
How had this happened?
Who had told her such things?
And, more importantly, why had they told her?
He couldn't have killed her father--not six years ago! Up until but a few months ago, he had been sealed to the Goshinboku by Kikyou's exorcising arrow! He hadn't even been awakened yet during the time period in question!
Everything seemed to be happening so fast that the hanyou didn't even really have a moment to give it any thought. He didn't have the time to ponder who had lied to her or how he could make her see that...all he could do, for now, was evade her.
He'd regroup and come up with Plan B later.
He paused.
If he lived that long...he muttered rather bitterly to himself, feeling the blood on his neck run warm and thick down his chest, leaving crimson stains on his cream colored gi.
Dammit...this was not good...
The onineko closed the fan, then let out a howl and dove at him, her blade aimed at the cut she had already made on his neck.
"It'll be fast, Inuyasha," she cried as she lunged toward him, "I'll sever your head, nice and quick!"
Inuyasha's violet eyes flashed as he made no move to dodge her attack
Crakk!
"Nani--?"
"Listen to me!" he grunted, holding the scabbard of his otherwise useless Tetsusaiga in both hands, parallel to the onineko's weapon, holding it back just inches away from his face.
He blocked me with nothing but the saya? she thought in a frenzy. Masaka--!
"Listen," he said again, and grit his teeth as he struggled to hold her at bay, "I dunno who you heard that nonsense from, and I don't know why that's what you were told, but it's a lie!"
He shoved her backward roughly, and she stumbled off-balance for half a second before regaining her bearings. He regarded her somberly.
"Even if I had been able to at the time, why would I bother to slay your father, Neko?" he asked. "I hold no grudge against you or your family, I've never seen you before in my life."
"What would you need a grudge for, Inuyasha?" she demanded, opening the fan again. "My father was a human, wasn't that reason enough?"
Inuyasha almost winced at the pure rage in her voice.
This cat demon honestly believed her father had been killed by his claws alone.
But who would have told her such a thing?
Who, if not Naraku?
He racked his brain.
He was quite certain by this time that it was, indeed, not Naraku that had sent the cat girl to slay him...for if Naraku had known of his transformation on the First Night, the villain would have slain him long ago.
Sesshoumaru would have taken the same opportunity, he was sure of it...
So...who...?
He met her frigid gaze.
"You hated humans, Inuyasha," she said accusingly, and he felt his breath leave him for an instant as she went on, "from the day your mother died, you hated human beings."
He bared his teeth.
"You leave my mother out of this, Temee," he warned, and she shot him an acidic smile.
"But 'tis true, isn't it, Boi?" she challenged, pleased by how irritated he was by the subject. "Ever since the day of your dear sweet haha-ue's death, you despised them. The very thought of a human made you ill...because they shunned you, because they feared you. You never needed a reason to bloody your claws with the worthless black blood of a man!"
She held the fan up to her face.
"'Tis true, isn't it??"
He opened his mouth to protest, but she beat him to the punch.
"Fuujin!" she wailed, and Inuyasha barely had time to whirl away from the blades of wind as they rained down upon him.
He yelped in pain as the needles sliced across his face in two places, and he gasped loudly as one of them actually managed to penetrate the cloak he wore.
But how--?
"The Hinezumi may be able to defend easily against a katana, Inuyasha," the onineko said smoothly, as though having read his thoughts, "demo...their fur is not so effective against the magic of the elements..."--she grinned--"ya to?"
She grinned coldly.
"Besides, Inuyasha," she added, "I know something you don't... That haori of yours is just as much a halfling as you are... You see...it loses its power along with you." She laughed rather bitterly. "It cannot protect you when the moon hides from view, any more than that rusty old sword can."
The hanyou wiped the thin streaks of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand, hissing softly. Miroku hadn't lied, the Fuujin left a painful mark.
Ignoring the sting of the cuts on his face, he bared his teeth at the cat girl.
"Say all you want, Cat, but the truth will end up being harder for you to swallow than these lies were, I guarantee it."
He scowled.
"Do you really believe all that crap, Onineko?" he asked, and she eyed him, perplexed. "If you speak truth, and I hate humans so much," he went on, his knuckles whitening around the Tetsusaiga's tattered handle, "then why would I have protected that human girl from your attack in the Torinishi this afternoon?"
She balked.
He threw his shoulders back in anger.
"If I hate humans so, and if they feared me and shunned me like you say, then why would the taijiya have come to my aid?" he demanded furiously. "And why would a human monk have put himself in danger to help me if he thought all I would do was kill him in return?"
Inuyasha's angry voice echoed off the trees as silence fell over the cliff top. The reverberation of his livid words was swept away by the cold hands of the night wind, carried off into infinity along with a myriad of fallen leaves as the hanyou stood with his hands clenched over his sword, his shoulders heaving in indignation.
A shiver ran down his spine as his dark eyes met the shocked gaze of the onineko.
Inuyasha smiled coolly.
She had an expression on her face as though she had been backhanded.
"That's right," he growled. "Not as smart as we thought we were...are we now, Neko?"
She inhaled sharply, and then her azure eyes narrowed.
"Uso," she stated coldly, simply, "I care not for your words nor your alibis, Hanyou. Flap your mouth all you want, 'twill not save you."
Snap, snap!
"You will die here, tonight...beneath the boughs of this sacred tree..." She cracked her knuckles. "And you will meet your fate, at the hands of a youkai...just as my father did...as a filthy, unworthy human being!"
Inuyasha chuckled.
"Oh...is that so?" He straightened his back. "We'll see about that. I won't be killed by someone like you... Besides, you don't sound like you're in this so much for your father as you are for yourself..."
She blinked.
"If your father was merely a 'filthy, unworthy human being'," Inuyasha challenged, "then why are you so adamant to avenge him?"
The onineko started to respond, but Inuyasha interrupted her.
"I'm just here for that Shikon shard..." he cut in before she could speak, "and I don't plan on leaving without it...or dying, for that matter."
He extended one hand and curled his fingers, gesturing for her to attack him.
"Here kitty, kitty," he taunted, "bring me that pretty little shard..."--his eyes flashed--"else I'll just have to take it from you." He grinned. "Koi!!"
The onineko smiled.
"I thought you'd never ask..."
She rushed forward with such speed that Inuyasha barely had the chance to duck out of the way of her claws as they plunged deep into the bark of the Great Camphor, sending splinters flying.
Jeez! She was so damn fast!!
He leapt aside, then spun on his heels to stand behind her, swinging the sheathed Tetsusaiga at the backs of her knees, hoping to slow her down.
She jumped over his attack with ease that made him feel totally inept, and the hanyou let out a cry as the scabbard slammed into the trunk of the camphor and sent shockwaves of pain through the metal of the sword and up his arms, rippling through his body and jarring his brain.
"Osoi na..." the onineko taunted. "You're too slow, Hanbun..."
He grit his teeth.
"Ha...Hanbun??" he echoed incredulously. He narrowed one eye as he jumped back. "Feh, you've got one hell of an attitude problem." He snapped his arm out, and the scabbard flew from the blade of Tetsusaiga, aimed to impale the cat girl's abdomen.
"Speak for yourself," she shot back, catching the sheath easily in her claws. She pitched it to the ground. "Yowai...you're even weaker than I was expecting..." She tossed her head. "You're a thousand times too slow and a hundred years too early to win, Hanbun...perhaps I should have encouraged you to bring your pathetic human friends along... I'll bet you're a lot faster when that pretty little girl's life is on the line--"
"Urusee!" Inuyasha roared, diving at her with the blade of the untransformed Tetsusaiga. "I'll make you listen to me, you damned cat!"
"Temper, temper," she tsked, easily dodging the blows. "Don't be so violent, 'tis extremely unbecoming."
"Right," he snorted, "this coming from someone who tried to skewer me with lightning for no apparent reason..."
He grunted as he swung Tetsusaiga again. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, if his stamina would hold up, he could keep her talking and not really fighting long enough for the sun to come up.
His eyes moved to the inky sky for but an instant.
"You dare to look away?"
Inuyasha yelped as her fan sliced across his shoulder, along the tear in the fabric of his coat where the Fuujin had grazed him. He dove backward, and landed on one knee, leaning on Tetsusaiga as he caught his breath momentarily. He squinted one eye at the cat girl as she walked toward him again.
"There is one thing that troubles me, Onineko," he said suddenly, rising as she neared him again.
She paused in her step.
"Only one?" she asked snidely, and he ignored the remark. "Yes, what's that?" she queried, and he took a step back, tensing into a defensive stance, Tetsusaiga poised over his shoulder.
"Why...Why didn't you kill me before?"
Her eyes widened, but she leapt easily out of the way of the sword strike.
"Huh?" she asked fidgeting with the fan as he prepared to swing at her again.
"Earlier today," Inuyasha said, "you could easily have let the taijiya's Hiraikotsu break every bone in my body. That would have made it so simple to kill me off then..."
He swung again, and she leapt back.
He grinned, and crouched quickly to retrieve Tetsusaiga's scabbard from where it rested on the ground, and she realized, cursing under her breath, that he had merely wanted her to move aside all along. She'd foolishly allowed herself to be pushed aside to let him get close enough to retrieve the fallen saya...
Ah, but not that it would help him much. She really was not too concerned about it.
He rose, and looked at her severely.
"You could easily have finished me off then," he admitted rather shamefully.
His eyebrows lifted.
"But you didn't," he said in a neutral tone. "You pulled me out of the way. You shielded me from being hit by Hiraikotsu." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Naze...?"
The onineko balked.
She honestly wasn't quite sure why she'd reacted in that way, but she wasn't about to tell him as much. She wouldn't have been perceived as much of a threat if he knew she had been rather unwilling to watch him die that way...
She was contemplating what sort of excuse to use for her defensive behavior when a gravelly voice answered his question for her.
"If she had killed you before," came the bodiless voice, "then we would have been out of a job."
Both Inuyasha and the cat demon looked a mite startled by this sudden turn of events.
"Neko-sama was kind enough to allow us to join in on the fun," came a second voice, and Inuyasha scowled as a half-dozen small wiry creatures dropped down from the branches of the camphor tree, landing all around him in a horseshoe shaped formation.
They were compact, well-muscled, like tiny gymnasts, their skin a dark charcoal brown, as though they had been left out in the sun too long. Large yellow eyes stood out like luminescent marbles against the deep bronze flesh of their faces, and fangs of the same olive color poked out of their mouths as uniform grins spread across their collective countenance. Thin leathery flaps of skin were stretched between their arms and torsos, like the wings of a sugar glider, their bodies clad in nothing but loincloths.
Inuyasha sneered.
"You had to bring the koumori cavalry, Onineko?" he spat, glaring at her. "Not confident enough to slay me alone?"
She narrowed her China-blue eyes menacingly.
"I just didn't think 'twas fair to hog all the fun," she said coldly. "I figured 'twas only right to share the entertainment..."
Inuyasha cracked the knuckles of his right hand.
"Sou da na?"
A wicked cackle escaped his lips as he tensed in challenge. His eyes moved from the cat demon to the six koumori, and he grinned malignantly.
"Well, then...let the games begin..."
* * *
Hora, abunai yo,
Boku ni ima fureta nara kireru kara.
Kimi wa mada
Boku yori mo tsuyoku nai...
Hey, watch out,
Touch me and you'll get cut.
You're not yet
Stronger than me.
~Artist Unknown
* * *
Author Notes:
Hey gang, I know you're still wondering about poor Miroku-sama, but not to worry. I haven't forgotten about him. ^_^ Stick around! We're just getting to the fun part! ^_~ Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and emailed me...especially Joel, who wasn't afraid to make a valid argument. ^_^ Keep the emails coming, they light up my day, and please look forward to chapter 14!
*Glossary of Terms*
I am assuming we all know the Inuyasha basics, like youkai, hanyou, Shikon no Tama, etcetera, so those will not be translated here. Also, I'm only gonna put translations once, so as the story goes on, the glossary will dwindle. I'm hoping your memories will serve you, because otherwise the glossary will be absolutely enormous! Some chapters probably won't even need one, so I hope you guys can keep track of words already translated. Let me know if it gets too tough.
kuso: A relatively strong swear, and one of Inuyasha's favorites...it is usually translated as "shit!"
youkoso: Welcome
yokatta: This is actually the preterite conjugation of a verb I can't seem to think of at the moment...::scratches head:: Crap, I read it somehwere, and now I can't recall. Oh well. It means like "Thank Goodness", more or less... ::scowls:: I wish I could remember what verb that was...
uso: Lie. When the onineko says "Uso ya," that is Kansai-ben meaning "You're lying" or "That's a lie".
"Uso dewanee !": In Tokyo Japanese, it would be written "dewanai". His response is that he isn't lying, or it's not a lie.
ningen: Human
saya: The sheath of a sword
haha-ue: A very formal term for mother.
katana: I think I already sort of went over this in my rant about Sango's weapon, but a katana is any Japanese-style sword with a blade-length of 24" or more.
"Koi!": "Come!" or "Come on!"
osoi: slow
Hanbun: A nickname the onineko calls Inuyasha... It means, literally, "half", and is meant to be a derogotory jab at his breeding.
yowai: weak
"Sou da na?": Can't recall if I've translated this one...so here it is again if I already have... It's sort of like "Oh, is that so?" and similar in connotation to "aa, sou?"
And that will do it for this chapter. I'd love to hear from you!
~~hikari