Stardust, an inuyasha fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

In happiness and shower stars, dust gets in your eyes.

- STARDUST -

When it is gone then sadness comes, a cover for a lie.

Their first son was named Ichiro. It made sense. The first son. Theirs. Hers and Miroku's.

Labour was an incredible pain; it seemed like he would never emerge, like the world scared him, like he wanted to stay in the warm comforts of Sango's womb, and never have to open his eyes.

Sango often thought of him as a gift from the gods anyway. He was a gift, and she was thankful, glowing, happy. Filled with optimism for the future.

She had another chance.

When the other children ran around the village chasing chickens, Ichiro didn't. He stood in the shallow parts of the stream and enjoyed the feeling of the fish swimming between his fingers. A somewhat lanky boy with chestnut hair and a neutral expression, one that made it seem as though he was always in thought. His father taught him his manners, and he got along well with the other boys. He blended in.

Sango was pregnant again the summer when Ichiro turned four. The second child was a girl, named Keiko.

Their young daughter seemed to take after her father. She was outgoing and charming, and spent many of her toddler years running around the village asking the men how they plowed the fields. She stood out.

When he was eight, Sango wanted him to choose a weapon. She made a number, figuring she would give the unneeded ones to other families. She laid them out on the table outside their little home in a town whose name still escaped her, and called Ichiro over.

"I'm going to start training you," she said kindly -- excitedly -- motioning to the weapons. "You're going to be a strong fighter."

Ichiro looked over the table and averted his gaze. He bit his lip, and looked up at his mother's shining, hopeful face. Hesitant, he reached out and ran his fingers over the wooden shaft of a long weapon.

"You like the spear?" Sango asked brightly. Picking it up for him, she thought for a moment. "You may want to start out with something a little less heavy, but we can move onto the spear when you gain a little more strength in your arms."

For a moment Ichiro thought of that massive bone leaning against the wall of their house.

"Here," his mother's voice interrupted his thoughts, and she rested something in his hands. "It shouldn't be that hard to learn, you should be fine."

His mother. She looked so proud.

He looked at the object in his hands.

Wooden handle. Scythe blade.

Kusarigama.

"He's really doing well," Miroku observed, holding her as she leaned against him. Their son glanced nervously at them, and after an encouraging smile from Sango, a determined look sprouted on his face and he let fly his weapon. Three of the four clay cups perched on stakes shattered in succession.

Sango clapped her hands, leaving Miroku's half-embrace. "Very good Ichiro!" she applauded, ruffling his brown hair the way she always did. Always.

"But I missed one," the little boy said in dismay.

"You keep practicing," she said encouragingly. "That's the only way to get better."

"I understand," he responded, bowing in respect. Somehow, he felt that three out of four was not good enough. He had to get better. He must.

"Ooh! Ani-ue!" the little girl with a shock of dark hair skipped towards her brother. Excitedly, she held out her hands as an indication she wanted to play with the weapon he held.

His brown eyes immediately looked to the sharp edge of the blade. "I'm sorry Keiko," he said, holding the kusarigama out of her reach. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"But Ani-ue!" she whined, trying to jump up and grab the metal chain dangling in the air. "I promise I'll be careful!"

"No," he said again, trying to sound a little more firm. "You're my sister and I don't want you to get hurt."

"Fine," Keiko said grudgingly, sitting down on a patch of grass and twisting some of her dark hair around her small fingers. "How come Haha-ue won't teach me how to fight too?"

Ichiro plopped down heavily beside her and tucked the weapon in his sash. "You're still young," he explained patiently, patting her on the head. "Haha-ue will start teaching you in some time."

"But I want to fight now!" his sister insisted, crossing her arms and blowing her bangs out of her face. "I want to use that big weapon that mother uses!"

"You don't have the arms for it," he scoffed teasingly, to which she stuck out her tongue.

"Does mother look like she's got big huge arms? No! So there! I win," she declared, twirling around and trying to clap her hands over a bug flying in her face.

Ichiro stared at her for a moment. "Keiko, I don't like fighting that much."

She turned to him and grinned. "I know," she said matter-of-factly. "You like to catch fish and sit in the fields and let caterpillars crawl on your fingers. Don't know why you would though. Caterpillars are so fuzzy and squishy."

He stared at her even more intently. "That's a strange thing to notice."

"Father told me I was -- observant," she said, nodding her head vigorously after getting through the 'hard' word. "He says that was how he learned about Mother, because she never wanted to speak to him about how she felt in here," she tapped her chest. "It was always here, with Haha-ue." She tapped her forehead. "You're like Mother. You're not open, and I think that you just want mother to be --"

Keiko," Ichiro interrupted, then he forced a laugh. "Come on," he said, standing up. "I'll show you how I can break those pots over there."

He watched as his sister's heart-shaped face lit up and she skipped towards the stakes in her little green kimono. He frowned. For a moment, he wondered why he feared what she would say lest he let her continue.

"You look just like a real warrior," Keiko breathed as she tapped her knuckles against the shoulder guards Sango had spent many a time adjusting. Her hands were a little dry now, since she had spent the day learning how to harvest with the other women. "Wow!"

"Very manly," Miroku agreed, smiling with approval. "He looks great," he said, squeezing Sango's hand.

Keiko looked over to where her mother stood, inspecting her needlework and adjusting the various pieces of the taijiya ensemble.

Now, she had taken a step back, closer to Miroku, and a strange look had overcome her.

Wordlessly, she began to reach out and touch her son's face, and in a different world, his hair darkened in shades, and freckles scattered along his cheekbones.

An incoherent syllable escaped her throat, and Miroku had taken hold of her arm and jerked her backwards into familiar arms.

"He's really growing up, though he is still so young," Miroku said carefully as Sango meandered around their little home, taking out the dinner bowls.

Sango made a tiny noise of agreement, loud clatters echoing off the wood surface of the table as she slammed the bowls down.

"That's our son, Miroku," she said in a firm voice, her back to him. "He's our son. No one else."

"Sango," Miroku said softly, standing up and embracing her from behind. "Be proud of him, how much he's grown, thanks to you."

"But I am," she said, partly in a soft argument with her own self. I am proud of him. That is what she thought. That is how she felt.

Keiko was playing with a piece of scrap cloth in the sunset, pretending to whip it at imaginary demons. With a spin on her heel and a diagonal slash of cloth, she promptly twirled and straightened. "Another youkai vanquished, at the hands of the great demon slayer Keiko," she announced in a confident voice.

Ichiro, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her, applauded. "Great show," he said amusedly.

She gave him a haughty, childish look. "Don't be jealous."

"Oh, but I am," he said with another soft laugh. "You're going to surpass me one day."

"I will!" she insisted, as though he had highly insulted her.

"You will," he assured her. "If that is what you want, then you will."

Silence crept between them and flourished, and Keiko didn't want to kill any more demons.

"Is it supper time now, Ani-ue?" she asked quietly; seeing the way her brother sat created a solemn mood around them. "What are you doing?"

The young boy turned his gaze on her. "Thinking."

"About what? Dinner?"

Looking at her sun showered face, Ichiro had to smile. "Yes, dinner."

He found her at the brook at the time of the day when both the moon and sun could be seen in the sky.

"Haha-ue."

Sango's shoulders stiffened, then relaxed. Still has that instinct. She turned around from where she was wringing clothing by the riverside and smiled.

"Yes, Ichiro?" She noted his thin smile. "What's wrong?" she asked with growing concern.

Ichiro sat down on the bank and fiddled with the chain on his weapon, wringing it around his fingers.

"Do demons really breathe out fire and poison?"

It came out before she could stop herself. "Sometimes."

There was the soft sound of earth shifting as the scythe blade was embedded into the earth and pulled out.

Water seeped out of the fabrics as her hands fisted around them. "Are you -- are you scared?" she forced out, suppressing the memories, the words.

Kohaku was -- her son was silent.

"Don't worry."

Ichiro noted his mother's shuddering voice. "Haha-ue?"

"The most we'll ever see from now on are giant snakes, or spiders," she said firmly, almost angrily. "Less now -- the worst is over."

She closed her eyes, the expected silence abundant. "Are you scared?" she whispered.

"Scared? Of what?" He began to question whether this was the right time for such a conversation.

"Of demons, fighting, anything."

"I," Ichiro paused, baffled. "I suppose."

"What are you scared of?" she asked him, her posture now unbendingly straight.

"Shaming you," he responded in a quiet voice, his head lowering.

Sango dropped the moist clothing and twisted her body to look at him. "You're not -- you're not afraid of me, are you?"

Ichiro raised his eyes to hers, which had a strange desperation in them, lining her pupils.

"No. Not of you."

She did not look any more relieved. "Ichiro." She said something else too, in a low whisper he barely caught.

Something pierced his side. Again, and again. His whole body now. All over. Like arrows.

"Hey, ani-ue. Are you awake?"

Groggily, Ichiro opened his eyes, a vague outline of a young girl visible in the dark.

"Now I am," he said in a sarcastic whisper. "Why aren't you asleep? It's still dark."

"I don't know," his sister told him, looking confused herself. "I was just thinking about you and mother and father."

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness somewhat; he squinted at her.

"Mother was upset with me when I wandered away from the field to talk to the smith's son."

Ichiro sat up and crossed his legs at this. "You were slacking."

"He wanted to show me something! I went back to work after . . . Father didn't think it was that big of a deal."

"Mother has -- weight on her shoulders, you could say."

"Carrying something heavy?"

"No, not like that," he said with a small chuckle. His sister stood above him, peering downwards at his seated form.

"A weight," he continued. "You know what it's like to carry something heavy, right?"

Keiko had crouched down to hear his softly spoken words. "I guess," she said. He could make out her nose scrunching in the darkness, something she often did when thinking hard.

"Well, there is that kind of weight like carrying something, and the other kind of weight, that no one can see, but that we feel."

Her response was a stare that was rapidly turning blank.

"Mother's weight?"

He met her inquisitive expression with one of his own. "Why would it be mother's weight . . . I should feel all weighty. I slacked."

There was a quiet shifting of his blankets as she fell back to sit on her bottom, looking at her feet in the darkness. "I don't know," she said slowly, tracing the hem of her nightclothes. She looked up. "I just know that, when I get older, I hope mother has as many hopes for me as she does for you." She punctuated her statement with an upturn of her lips.

'No, Keiko, it's not like that at all. Our parents love us both, mother loves us both. I'm the firstborn, she wants me to fight . . . to protect the family, the village -- and you.'

But all those words were in his head as his sister laid down to sleep without any further gestures.

"So it's true then, what the people from the next village said?" came his mother's anxious voice, drifting through the window.

His father answered her. "Yes, heading this way. It shouldn't be much trouble. Apparently one of the children found the nest of eggs -- and the youkai . . ."

There was the sound of a sigh that had lost the remainder of its breath halfway through. "Then when it heads this way, we'll make quick work of it. I can have Ichiro help out, teach him some more . . . said it's a . . . long as he remembers -- "

Ichiro's attention to the conversation had begun to waver as soon as his mother had mentioned his name. He moved in a wooden fashion away from where he had been leaning beside the window.

So there was to be an extermination soon. He had seen a handful, all of which he stood at the sidelines, watching his mother. Later, he would help her with the remains. Just minor youkai. No bigger than him or her. This time, from what he had overheard, he would be taking a more active role. It unnerved him.

He understood that the way she had grown up, it was a natural instinct in her to be protective of her loved ones; to keep them as close as possible. He guessed that because of that, he had to do what was expected of him. As her first born, he, for sure, qualified in that sense. Why did it have to be fighting? Why did he have to be a warrior, when inside he felt so docile and silent that for sure, he would be mediocre and incapable at best?

He wanted to experience, to grow, and on his own terms. By fighting? No. Maybe -- maybe by seeing the world, experiencing things around him and just -- just being.

Doubt -- what mother had always considered a weakness. He was feeling it now, more than ever, gnawing at him. She just wanted him to be a fighter, to be strong -- a protector. But how could he if she would hold him back in any real danger? That had to be the only way to learn true warrior instincts.

It was the mothering part in her that protected him from a cut longer than a twig. The part of her that wanted to be the mother she hadn't had. He could see the reasoning in that, for he was rational. And so he never said a word. Obedience was, in some ways, a virtue. Because his mother was proud of him.

But what was he? What were his dreams?

He held his head. It smeared the stardust in his eyes.

"Ani-ue, I want to go to the brook!" Keiko sang as she danced around her brother.

"Keiko," their mother said in a chiding tone. "Don't jump around like that, lunch has only just finished."

The young girl stopped her jumping, instead opting to tug impatiently on her brother's sleeve. 'Please?' she mouthed, stretching her lips to exaggerated proportions.

Ichiro looked permissively towards his parent, trying to get her to give in just this one (of many) times. She turned her head -- the first half of the 'no'. The little girl looked pleadingly at the parent that never failed to be overwhelmed by her charm. "Please Chichi-ue?"

Miroku faltered. "Alright Keiko. Go on."

"Miroku!" Sango complained, turning around to glare at him, leaning relaxed against the side of their home.

"Okay, how about this. Keiko and Ichiro, go on, but don't run around too much."

Their young daughter squealed happily and began to tug at her older brother's arm before their mother could object. Fortunately, she only sighed loudly.

"Ichiro," she then called out, stopping him, his back towards her. "Don't be gone too long. There's something I need you to help me with later."

Ichiro stiffened, and he turned around, his gaze unable to meet his mother's. "I will." He bowed quickly, then moved to follow his sister.

It was not the peaceful afternoon he imagined. Sure, all the elements were there, the cloudless sky, the soft breeze moving the long grass beside the water, his feet dangling lazily in the brook. His sister had promptly gotten stomach pains and had sat beside him wailing while he patted her back. After they had gone, she tied up her kimono and waded in the shallow parts of the water. With her airy giggles in the background, he thought.

In a short time he'd have to go back home. What awaited him there, he was unsure of. Was there no line between doing what was expected of you and doing what you desired? He had a duty as the first-born son. He had a duty to his parents. He questioned it. Did that make him any less of a son?

His mother -- he loved her. He thought she was a beautiful woman in so many ways, as did his father. His father told him many things about her, when he was a young boy with an everlasting curiousity about those sorts of things. One thing he always noticed was the distant look in his eyes his father had when he spoke of her. Maybe it was something that happened with age.

He had told Ichiro of the brother Sango had lost. Though he loved his mother, he had never asked about this brother for fear of upsetting her. After everlasting curiousity came short-lived quiet. All that he knew was that he had died before Ichiro and Keiko had been born.

A few droplets of water hit his face and he looked towards Keiko, bent with her hands in the water, smiling mischievously.

He tried to reason with her. "If we have a water fight now, you'll get all wet, you might get sick, and then we won't be able to come back here again."

She just smirked and splashed him again. "Thinking about dinner, aren't you?"

About to reply, he instead paused, looking around and placing both of his hands flat on the ground. Keiko straightened, looking nervous.

"Ani-ue?"

"Shh."

Keiko looked down at the swirling water around her legs, and noticed a shadow looming around her. Her eyes jerked back up to her brother, white-pale and staring at something behind her.

"Ke - Keiko!" he stammered, not taking his eyes off whatever was behind her. "Move here, quickly."

The little girl stepped forward tentatively.

"Move. Move Keiko! Come here!" he urged her, sounding more and more panicked.

Unable to control herself and more, she began to run in the water, splashing loudly. The tense air above them was sharply cut through by a large, rigid claw.

Ichiro heard a splash and the soft sound of bubbles and swirling water.

This is . . . a youkai.

It was a disgusting thing, really. The most of all the little ones he'd seen. Large and crudely formed. It resembled a scorpion but wasn't quite, black and plated, with a sticky-looking film coating it. The smell of rotting bodies and decaying wood and he could not move.

Something in his head desperately tried to register that his sister was pierced through and under the water, struggling and splashing. That same thing tried to mobilize his arms, his legs, his voice. Keiko . . . Keiko. My sister --

Cold drops of water arched in the air and fell onto his skin. He wavered. What could he do? What could he do? All this training -- and he was useless. Mother would -- she'd --

"Hey!" he shouted hoarsely, running through the brook and underneath the stare of the numerous black eyes swirling in the demon's head. Swiftly, he kicked the glazed underbelly, and continued to run under it, finally rolling to the side, trying to avoid its spindly legs.

His heart melted into nothingness -- such silly things as whether you live or die are unimportant now. He couldn't bear it -- the thought of his mother's disappointed face swam in his blurred vision, in the shiny octagons of lens flare.

And he was running into that claw, kicking it and hitting it with every limb he could. He bent down and tried to pull it up -- how long had she been underwater -- soon it retracted, but more out of annoyance then anything. Grateful for this moment of time, he hauled his sister's body, now the source of a horribly red cloud in the water, to the surface.

He remembered holding his sister close to him, her skin paling, the water and sweat streaming over his soft features, the youkai above them, in anticipation to strike --

Closing his eyes, he waited. His sister would not die before him. He would not allow it.

Why was it always running?

She could never just run free. It always had to be run to. To something, away from something -- and all these years, she'd been running.

The muscles in her legs tightened, but still she willed them on; Hiraikotsu shifted around on her back. Distantly, she could hear her poor husband shouting for her, but for what, she couldn't bother to stop and listen. They would probably have to work on that in their marriage. Her little bouts of ignoring him and acting on pure emotion. No, no -- instinct. That's what it was.

Though rusty, her skills as a taijiya were still there. And they felt the ground shudder.

The dreaded scene came in view.

Pure instinct.

Claw raised, bone flew.

Both were cutting through the air. One connected and withdrew, and the other sliced through shell and flesh.

Pure emotion.

Sango didn't bother to catch her weapon as it flew back. In fact, she let it fade into the background completely as it collided with the tough earth. Running to her children, she waded into the brook, a steaming carcass watching them.

When she kneeled in the water beside the ragged, wet, bloody pile of siblings, she was afraid to touch them. Who was it that was injured? Who was it that was dead?

"Keiko? Ichiro?" she whispered desperately, not wanting to let herself wail like she did so many years ago. A little louder now.

"Keiko?"

She could see it now, the freely streaming blood on the back of the male, shielding his sister. It dripped smoothly over the fabric of his garments, joining the stream of water and becoming nothing.

The bloody shoulder twitched, and moved. A little, feminine hand, wrinkled from submersion, reached up and held the back of the one atop her.

"Ani-ue?" came a tiny little muffled question.

Another twitch. He rolled over, and with an unceremonious squelch, fell onto his back beside his sister.

By now Miroku had arrived. Reliable, he was. She could feel his muffled presence, pulling their dear baby daughter out of the brook.

Just her and their son now. The only two still sitting with the running water and not moving with it. Not moving on. His blood did.

"I'm sorry, mother," was his soft hiccough.

I'm sorry Ane-ue. I was scared.

"I didn't bring my weapon. I didn't think of it. That was foolish of me."

Ane-ue.

"W-Why not?" Sango inquired, innocently. She didn't want to feel guilt anymore.

"I didn't want to have to use it. I didn't want to kill anything. Anything innocent." His confession.

She bent over his soaking, tired body, held him and took in a face so different from that of her brother. A face with no freckles. Full of regret and shame, not fear.

"Is Keiko okay?" he murmured as Sango pulled him out of the water.

"Yes." She answered him quietly, not in the reassuring way she tried to.

He relaxed on the half-grass, half-dirt bed below him. "Good."

Sango brushed a fringe of his hair away from his forehead. They could share that.

"I knew -- I knew that I couldn't let my sister die," he breathed, struggling still. "It would have been something that haunted me forever."

His mother's hand fisted in the wet hem of her clothing, wringing a short stream of water from the cloth.

Her son closed his eyes and let warmth take the cold of the water away. Her son, quiet, waited.

And the stardust left his eyes.