Summary: IYxYYH With Naraku gone and only a few more Jewel shards left, Kagome finds herself wondering who will raise Shippo in her absence…
Disclaimer: I don't own IY. I don't own YYH.
CY: Kags is a bit ooc in this b/c I was trying to make her a bit more mature-ish... Not sure how well it came out.
A Rose and a Rumor
I. Lies and Lives
"Kaede," I said. I was seated across from the old woman, drinking tea. "I've told you my story; do you have any idea what's wrong with me?"
"No, child, I do not," the old woman said.
I sighed. Of course she didn't…
"But my sister once had a similar problem," Kaede added.
I perked up. "Really?" Kikyo had…
"Indeed," Kaede said. "She wasn't always so mature as in the last days of her life. When she was first given the Jewel, my sister was but a child." Kaede paused to take a sip of her tea before continuing. "She was trained already, but her mind… she wasn't at all prepared."
"What happened?" I asked as Kaede took another sip of tea, even though I already knew the answer.
"For a time, she lost her powers entirely. My sister was, naturally, devastated. She later confessed that she was so worried about protecting the Jewel that she could think of nothing else. 'What if I fail? What if I'm not strong enough?'" Kaede took another sip of tea.
"When did she…get her powers back?" I had to know.
"Well, eventually she realized that her nerves were the source of the problem…"
"…and it was all better?" I finished.
"Not at all, child."
I couldn't hide the disappointment from my face.
"However," I perked up again, "my sister went on a journey to 'find herself.'"
"And?" I pushed as Kaede sipped more tea.
"After two years, she returned stronger and wiser than before."
My face fell. "I really don't have two years to go on a journey of self-discovery."
"No, ye do not," Kaede said. "However, the problem ye faces is of a different origin than my sister's."
"What do you mean?" I was curious.
"My sister lacked the self-confidence and maturity to do her duty." Kaede sipped her tea. That particular action was beginning to grow annoying. "Ye, though… Not only have ye defeated the vile Naraku, ye have nearly completed the Jewel. Tis strange that ye would only have a problem now."
"What are you saying, Kaede?"
"Perhaps ye are worried for the future," Kaede suggested.
"What will happen when we complete the Jewel?" I asked, voicing my concern aloud.
"Indeed. What will happen?" Kaede sipped again. "Ye fear for the worst."
"Of course I do! What if I just vanish the moment the Jewel is completed?" I didn't mean to yell at the older woman, but I couldn't hold it in. "I'm not ready to leave!"
Kaede took my outburst with another sip of tea. There was silence as she stood and shuffled off to pour herself some more and then returned, very carefully sitting back down in front of me.
"Child, though I hate to say it, we lived here before ye came to this world and will continue to live here after you leave."
"I know, but..." My eyes were beginning to itch with unshed tears.
"What is it that ties ye to this world?" Kaede was being harsh, but it was just what I needed and we both knew it. "All of us knew from the beginning that ye would have to return home, and though it is sad, we accepted that we would one day say farewell. Ye are worried about something else. What is it ye are trying to protect?"
'What am I…'
"A week ago, I woke up and realized that it was very nearly over, all of it. I was glad, but at the same time, I was terribly sad. I'd be leaving all my closest friends behind after giving up so much to be here withthem..."
"Stop dodging the problem, child."
I sighed. "I'm worried about Shippo."
"Shippo can take care of himself."
"He shouldn't have to!" I exclaimed. Feeling guilty for yelling at the old womanagain, I continued. "He's just a kit."
"Shippo is a full demon," Kaede said. "It's likely he is older than ye."
"I know, I know." I was suddenly exhausted. "I've gone through this before in my head. I go through it all the time."
"Inuyasha could watch him," Kaede suggested with a sip of tea.
"Shippo. And Inuyasha. Alone. Together. For at least five-hundred years. Think about it."
"Perhaps his brother?" Kaede suggested.
"Do you really think Sessoumaru would let me get close enough to ask him without lopping my head off? And what reason would he have to help me?"
"What about Miroku?"
"Bad influence. Very, very bad influence."
"And Sango?"
"A demon slayerraising a demon? Kikyo has returned to the grave, Kagura is too treacherous, Kana too stoic, Kouga too irresponsible, and Naraku isboth too evil and too dead."
Kaede took a sip of tea. "What of me?"
In response, I gave Kaede a significant look. We both knew that she wouldn't last much longer. She was only mortal and already ancient for her Era.
Kaede sighed. "Have ye spoken to Shippo?"
"He tells me he can take care of himself."
"Ye should heed his words."
"I try, but… I can't let go," I said, feeling like an extremely overprotective mother. "I would feel better knowing that someone was there for him."
Kaede took a sip of tea. Finally, she said, "Then the solution to your problem is clear: ye must find Shippo a suitable guardian."
"You really think Inuyasha will allow us to take the time for it? He'll never go for it." If Kaede said so, it would all work out, but…
"No, he will not."
"Then what do you expect me to do?"
"I will tell Inuyasha that ye have returned home for a few weeks to recover from the stress which has rendered ye null. Ye, in turn, will take Kirara, choose a direction, and begin your search." She took a sip of tea calmly, as though she, a kind, elderly woman, hadn't just told me to lieto my boyfriend and run off like a criminal.
"Why not tell the truth?"
"Ye said it yourself: 'He'll never go for it,'" Kaede said nonchalantly.
"But… by myself?"
"Ye will have Kirara. If ye took Sango or Miroku or even Shippo with you, he would grow suspicious," she said. "After all, they cannot follow ye home."
"And taking Kirara wouldn't be suspicious?" I asked.
"Ye will need Kirara for both transport and protection." Kaede said. "It cannot be helped."
"How will you cover her absence?"
"I will tell Inuyasha that she got into some catnip, and it made her ill. I will claim to be caring for Kirara while she recovers."
I was impressed. Kaede was thorough.
"What if Sango grows suspicious?"
"Then I tell her the truth. Inuyasha is the only one who cannot know it." Kaede was growing more hurried. I could tell she was beginning to lose patience with me. "Now, stop asking me questions about every possibility. I am skilled at disguising truth. Now go quickly."
"Fine. I'll go tell him that I'm going home for…"
"No, ye will not. I will. Ye are a terrible liar."
Kaede was calling me a terrible liar? I might not be the best liar, but… just because something is true doesn't make it hurt any less…
"Fine." I stood. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck, child. Be gone before Inuyasha returns from his training."
I grabbed my bow and a quiver of arrows as I left. Outside, I found Kirara and whispered my plans into her ear.
Soon I was riding through the clouds on the fire cat's back, wondering where my quest would take me. Hopefully, when I returned to Kaede I would have found Shippo a real parent and recovered my powers, because if I came back without either I'd end where I started.
As we flew across the countryside, I talked to Kirara absently. "Do you think we'll find someone? I hope so. We don't even have a rumor to start from…"
It had been three days, and my patience was beginning to wear thin. I was growing tired of needing Kirara's protection from demons I should have been able to handle myself. The demons were only attracted to me in the first place because I had (foolishly) brought the nearly completed Jewel with me. It was an oversight that I couldn't correct without failing my mission, so the two of us had to be on guard constantly for fear that we would be attacked in our sleep.
It also didn't help that I was wearing traditional priestess garb.
After several years of running around in the Feudal Era in a miniskirt, I'd finally realized that it might be easier to wear pants, and pants had eventually morphed into "traditional priestess garb." I looked more like Kikyo than ever, but at least I didn't get singled out as foreign anymore.
Another oversight on my part: going out to ask a demon for help while wearing apparel that was traditionally worn by a group of people that tended to kill demons. Not only that, but I couldn't back up my clothes' statement with powers. I'd leap that hurdle when I came to it.
Three days after running off on a whim, I was regretting my decision more than ever and wishing that I'd planned everything a bit better instead of running off into the sunset. Too late now.
At least I'd picked up some juicy rumors, among other things. On the second morning, I'd overheard two women talking:
"I think I'm in love, Nona," one woman was saying. She sounded like the local lord's daughter, who I'd met briefly the previous evening.
"Really? Oh, Sakura! Is it Kaoru?" Nona said. I didn't know her. "It is, isn't it? Oh, he's so handsome!"
"No, it's not him," the other girl sighed. "I am in love with a demon."
This caught my attention immediately.
"A demon?" Nona was skeptical.
"The one who robbed father last week."
"Was he handsome?"
"He was absolutely beautiful, Nona," Sakura swooned. "He even winked at me!"
"He winked?" Nona sounded incredulous.
"And he left a rose, just for me." She held it in front of the astonished Nona.
I looked straight at the rose. If I'd had my powers, I would have said that something about it didn't seem quite right. Nothing natural was that perfect--or at least, not in the Feudal Era.
"Can you surprise them?" I whispered in Kirara's ear. She hummed in agreement and, while I hid behind a hut, snuck right up behind the girls and loosed a ferocious snarl. Both girls screamed and fled. I couldn't blame them, either. If I hadn't known that Kirara meant no harm I would have been running right with them.
Fortunately Sakura dropped her rose in her panic, and I took the opportunity to claim it. Kirara joined me moments later. We left before the girls warned the other villagers of the demon cat...
As we flew through the clouds that afternoon, I considered what I'd heard. A demon flirting with human girls and robbing lords blind? He sounded like a fox to me. I twirled his rose in my fingers. Something about it…
I chose to ignore the strange feeling it was giving me—after all, it was only a rose, and I didn't have my powers—and instead turned to asking around nearby villages about demon thieves…
I hadn't discovered anything further, though. All I had was a rose and a rumor.
The more I thought about it, though, the more certain I became that this stranger was the answer to my problems. He had to be a fox like Shippo. It took about two hours, but I managed to convince myself beyond all doubt that this rumor was another step on whatever path fate had set me...
"What do you think, Kirara?" I asked the miniaturized cat as we entered another village. We'd been flying from village to village all day, dropping down in the bushes and asking about rumors of thieves and flying on again and again and again.
The cat mewled in response. Obviously, she didn't think that we'd find anythinghere, either. After three days with only her company, I'd come to understand her better than ever before. I wished that I'd started speaking to her earlier, instead of always assuming that she was roughly equivalent to Buyo. She was extremely intelligent, though not always the best conversation.
"But it's worth a try, right?"
"Mrow," Kirara agreed.
The moment I set foot in the village, I regretted it. People immediately recognized me as a priestess, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing… until the foreman of the village came running up to me. Shit. There was trouble.
"Lady Priestess, we humble folk beg your aid," he cried, bowing low.
'Shit shit shit,'I was thinking, but I put on a concerned face and asked, "What is amiss?"
"My daughter was poisoned, and our own village priestess can do nothing to help her," he said. "Please, you must try your hand at saving her."
'Don't say it, Kagome. Let it go. Tell him you're rushed or something, anything, just don't say…' "Take me to her." 'Dammit!'
"Oh, thank you Lady Priestess!"
"My pleasure," I grumbled as he led me away, Kirara trotting behind me.
I soon saw that his fear wasn't unfounded. I could tell that it took all of his willpower to stand against the wall, out of the way. His daughter was indeed very sick: she was so pale that she was nearly green, and her eyes stared straight up at the ceiling blankly. There was a cold sweat on her brow, and it looked as though she were dying.
'It looks like she's dying? She is dying.'
The other priestess was younger than me, and panic colored her round face. She was new to this, maybe even more so than I. This just kept on getting worse.
"What's your name?" I asked the girl, trying to calm her down.
"H-Hana," she answered.
"Why don't you tell me what's the matter with her, Hana," I said soothingly.
She gave me a pleading look. Poor thing. Had Kikyo looked like this when she first got the Jewel? At least I could cope with these situations.
"So you aren't sure. What have you tried?"
"I don't know…" Hana stammered. "I've been trained my whole life, but I ca-can't seem to remember anything I've learned, and..."
"Why don't you go take a walk?" I suggested. "Calm down a bit?"
"O-okay," Hana said. "If she died because I couldn't… couldn't…"
"Don't worry about it," I comforted her. "She won't die."
Once Hana was gone, I looked over the girl. No infected wounds, at least. I put my hand against her forehead. Clammy, cold… she felt like a zombie. She was barely breathing.
"What's the matter with you?" I whispered. If I could have used my powers, I would have checked her over with them tenderly and discovered…
…the delicate red rose under her pillow.
I removed it. Despite all the abuse it must have been getting in its soft prison, it was as pristine as my other rose, which I now pulled out to compare. The two were from the same source, that much I could tell.
"Have you been robbed recently?" I asked the foreman.
"What? Robbed?" He asked. "What does that have to do with my daughter?"
"Please, just answer me," I said.
"I had a beautiful ruby that my wife left me," he said. "About two weeks ago, it was stolen. How does this relate to my daughter?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully as I examined the rose. "But this rose…"
I shook my head and put both roses away. For whatever reason, I found myself drawn to the girl's left hand, and I studied it intently until I saw what I'd been looking for: an innocuous scratch on her index finger.
'Did the rose do this?' I wondered.
I stood. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know what's wrong with her."
"But you knew the rose!" he protested. "You can fix her!"
"No, I can't," I answered. "For all I know, the rose could be completely unrelated to her illness."
"But…"
"I got my rose from another young woman who wasn't sick," I said, cursing my inability to say no. "I'll go back to her village and see if she has taken ill as well. If so, then I'll at least know the cause."
"And you can fix her then?"
"No, I can't," I explained. "But maybe Hana can."
"What if she can't?" he asked me.
"I don't know." I shook my head and left.
There was another time, before I'd come to the Feudal Era, when I would have done whatever I could to help the girl, but I'd since learned that no matter how much I want to, I can't save everyone.
Kirara and I flew back to the village from the second morning, where Sakura and Nona lived. Sakura, though, was fine, though still afraid to leave home just in case demon cats attacked.
"What do you think, Kirara?" I asked the cat as we left the village for the second time.
Kirara suggested that perhaps I'd taken the rose away before it could do any harm.
"True, true. So you think that had I left the rose with her she'd be sick?"
Kirara voiced her agreement.
"So why aren't I sick?"
Kirara pointed out that I'd always been immune to the oddest things.
"Like when Sessoumaru tried to poison me the first time we met and it didn't work?"
Kirara gave the feline equivalent of a shrug.
"I want to find that thief, Kirara. I have some questions for him."
Kirara suggested that I only wanted to find him because I'd heard he was attractive.
"Kirara! I've got Inuyasha."
She was laughing at me, I realized, and I turned bright red.
The two of us headed back to Hana and the sick girl from that afternoon. It was dead silent in the night, but that was only to be expected. I returned to the foreman's hut to check on his daughter (and hopefully get something warm to eat, and a bed to sleep in). Instead, though, when I walked through his door the foreman and a group of villagers surrounded me silently.
"My daughter is dead," the foreman said, "and that woman and her demon consort are to blame."
I tried to think of something, anything, to say, but only one thing came to mind. "Shit."
As it turned out, there wasn't a proper prison in which to lock me up, so I ended up in someone's cellar instead, the door closed with a heavy lock and a metal bar across the outside. I'd heard my captors talking about burning me at the stake.
At least they hadn't taken anything but my bow, and I wasn't alone. I had Kirara.
"Mrow?" Kirara asked, voicing what we both were thinking.
"No, I'm not going to just lay down and die," I responded, "but it's been a long night and I'm tired."
Kirara bit me, saying in her own way that I could rest when I was safe.
I groaned. "Fine. But when I find this thief fellow, I'm gonna kill him for causing me all this trouble. I've only ever pulled all-nighters for tests."
Kirara wondered if finding him was in my best interests.
"How so?"
Kirara implied that he might be a seriously dangerous demon.
"He's a fox."
Kirara wasn't so sure. I ignored her and began running my hands along the dark walls.
"Kirara, you're a fire cat, right?" I asked. "You think you could provide some light?"
She obliged, and soon the entire room was lit in the merry orange-reds of fire. I searched for anything that might be an exit, but found nothing. I searched again. There had to be something! I couldn't get locked in a cellar with no escape. That only happened to other people.
Desperate, I ran my hands along the walls. Finding nothing, I began moving old, rotting crates around. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I heard the creaking of the cellar door opening. Were they coming for me early? I was in so much trouble…
It was Hana, her round face lit by candlelight. I was relieved. "Are you alright?"
"What are you doing here?" I asked her. Was she here to help?
"You're no demon." Hana said softly. "Aya would have died whether or not you came, and we all know it. I would have been down here, though, instead of you."
"So?"
"I'm here to release you two," Hana mumbled, digging her foot into the dirt floor.
"What about you?"
'Don't discourage her, Kagome!' I scolded myself.
"I'm running away anyways," Hana answered. "I've been nothing but miserable since becoming the priestess for this village."
"True that it's not for everyone," I said reluctantly.
"Come quickly," Hana said. "They haven't noticed that I'm gone yet, but they will soon."
"What about my bow?"
"I've already got it. Hurry!"
So Kirara and I followed Hana into the night silently.
The three of us had been walking for about an hour when I asked, "How do you catch a thief?"
"What?" Hana looked confused.
"How do you catch a thief?"
"Well," she mused, "I suppose you offer him a prize he can't resist and wait for him to come to you."
I thought about this for a few minutes as silence descended on us again. I was about to speak again when Hana said, "You know why I wanted to become a priestess?"
It was a rhetorical question; she didn't expect an answer, so I didn't offer one.
"Before my mother was born, my grandmother was attacked by a demon," she began. "A traveling priestess saved her life. She killed the beast with a single arrow."
"That's impressive," I said. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew who this priestess was.
"Yes. The most amazing thing of all was that the priestess herself didn't know that she had the power in her," Hana said. "She told my grandmother that she'd never had such strength before."
'So Kikyo met this girl's grandmother years ago… She came here on her journey.'
"I always imagined that I would wake up one morning and be powerful, just like Lady Kikyo," Hana continued. "That's why I became a priestess. I thought that rewards would come without effort."
"And?" I prompted her.
"They don't. It wasn't until later that I learned that Lady Kikyo had worked hard for her entire life to obtain the power to destroy a demon with a single arrow," Hana said. "It's just that in that moment, all of her hard work came to fruition."
"Nothing in life is free," I mumbled, but I don't think she heard me.
"You look just like I imagine Lady Kikyo would," Hana said. "You have long black hair and a slender face and the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen, but they're oh-so-sad… I think that's why I'm telling you all this."
I just smiled at her, and we lapsed back into silence. 'Even people who didn't know personally Kikyo comment on how similar we are.'
We were approaching a crossroads, and I asked Hana which way she was going.
"I'm going to the right," she answered me.
"Do you think you would be fine alone?" I said.
"Of course," she said. "I was going to make this journey by myself before meeting you."
"Could you do me a favor?" I said.
"What kind of favor?"
"I want you to spread a rumor for me," I explained. "Tell everyone you see that you met a traveling priestess at this crossroads who carried the Jewel of Four Souls."
"What? Why?" She looked confused.
"I am going to catch a thief with a prize he can't resist."
And the two of us parted ways.
Minor Edits Made: 12/1/07