{The Path to the Heart}
{chapter eight – hell and healing}
~~~
/Wake up./
/But it's so cold, Naosu./
/They need you. They need us./
/Why is it so cold?/
/WAKE UP!/
/Naosu? Tell me why it's so cold!/
/Shiroi: WAKE UP!!!/
And with a jolt, she did. Gasping for breath, Shiroi risked a glance at her right, where Kangae's sleep was disturbed. Puzzled, she glanced at the thick blankets covering the futon. Kangae rolled over again and drifted back to sleep. "What was that?" she whispered. A sharp knock snapped her out of her confusion. It was still cold. So cold.
She stood and wrapped a blanket around her cotton Western-style nightdress, then stuck her feet into her slippers, shuffling off towards the door, where the knocking had begun again. She slid the door open, and gasped as a man tumbled on top of her. He had long black hair, tied up in a high ponytail, and pale skin. His clothes were torn, and Shiroi noticed with shock the awful gash across his face. It was oozing purple and black. She knelt, some hair falling out of her long black plait. Shiroi scooped him into her arms, and carried him to another room, and set him on the table. A gust of wind swept through the open door, and a Magic appeared, white haired and childlike.
/Will he be okay?/ the Magic asked, tired. /Do you need Inuyasha and Kagome?/
/Yes, that would be helpful,/ Shiroi said, not looking up from examining the poor man's face. /What is his name?/
/Nankahen, the Strange Prophet./
/If he doesn't get help, he'll be the Dead Prophet. Please hurry.../ the Magic nodded, and was gone.
"Naosu," Shiroi said aloud. The wispy figure of her gray Magic appeared, hovering over the operation table. "I need some help. Can you tell what this curse is?"
/Hateful. I can't see past all this blinding hate./
"What colour?"
/Red as fire. With purple. And black as dark as fear itself./
"Thank you. I need two strands of Kangae's hair, please." Naosu nodded, then floated off. Shiroi sighed and buried her face in her hands. Then, carefully, she reached over and wiped the purple/black gunk off of Nankahen's face. It clung to her hand, trying to sink into her pores. Shiroi, not amused and angry, bared her fangs at it and then began whispering softly.
"You will obey me," she ordered, layering her voice thick with white magic. "You will remove yourself from my hand and drop quietly into this jar and stay there unless I touch you again. And if you do not, I will drop goldwater onto you." Hissing, the strange substance slithered into the clear jar she had selected. Shiroi drew in a breath, then sighed in relief. She screwed the jar's top on, then stuck a label onto it. She turned around and dipped her brush into a leftover plate of ink. Quickly, on the label, she wrote Curse/Nankahen.
When she went back to examining Nankahen, the wound was only oozing red and black – and the black was simply from the amount of blood. Good. Carefully, Shiroi placed her fingers on Nankahen's temples, then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slipped into the Prophet's mind.
With a cry, she stumbled backwards as Naosu drifted through the wall, clutching a pair of long, thick hairs. "What was that?!" she sobbed, frantic. "There was nothing!!! It was black in his mind! Naosu, what does that mean!?!?!?"
/That the curse is working. That he is slipping into a coma. His mind will soon become a jumble of half-remembered moments in time./
Shiroi no longer felt like a powerful Healer/Dancer. Hands shaking, she raked loose strands of hair away from her face. She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. It was awful, even being in his mind for a moment. It was like wandering in the darkness, unable to see or feel anything by terror and pain. Slowly, her eyes slid open and she reached over and took the hairs from Naosu. Carefully, she pulled one from Nankahen's head and braided them together with swift efficiency. When she finished, she tied the ends together so she had a large, thin ring of braided hair. She placed it like a crown on Nankahen's head, then touched the index and middle fingers of her left hand to the point where it lay on his forehead. "Please protect him," she begged of the magic surrounding his troubled mind softly. "Lead him out of the darkness."
A gentle whisper of reassurance swept across the room. Shiroi bowed her head in thanks. Naosu slithered to Nankahen's sleeping form. /I'd say we need some goldwater on him,/ she suggested.
"No. I think we need some liquid silver. Could you also get some crushed amethyst?"
/Amethyst is purple, Shiroi./
"Oh! You're right, it is. Opal, then. And bring some of the star sapphires."
/Blessed or otherwise?/
"Oh, blessed if we have any." I hope this works...
~~~
Bored, Sesshoumaru sat playing with Rin's hair as she hummed happily, writing her name and his on a huge piece of paper over and over. He slipped clawed fingers through her hair, wondering why just curling up with a human child put him at ease. He sighed, ruffling the coarse black mane with his breath. Rin took no notice, but moved from writing ri-n, ri-n, ri-n to doodling little flowers and various plants. It was funny, he decided as he reached for a brush and began unmatting her hair. No matter how many times a day he had Jaken brush her hair, it stayed messy and just flew all over the place. He glanced down at her paper.
Instead of plain doodles and childlike script, there was a rough, if very realistic sketch of a man lying on a table. Something oozed from his face, and he had a braided crown on his head, with a star-shaped jewel on his forehead over the crown. A tall woman with fangs and pointed ears was rubbing some sort of shiny medication onto his face.
Alarmed, Sesshoumaru tilted his head sharply, looking at Rin's face. Her eyes were half-closed and glazed over. Her hand was moving of its own will, apparently, adding detail to the drawing. Slowly, she leaned her head back so that he could see her eyes. In place of her bright chocolate-brown eyes, dull black orbs stared back at them. Dull, unseeing, darkness threatened to overcome his mind.
With firm resolution and no small amount of fear, Sesshoumaru pulled his gaze away from this strange version of Rin. He screwed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, Rin had tossed her sketch away and had returned to her lines of ri-n, ri-n, ri-n. Sesshoumaru nearly gasped. Such emotion, however, was not fit for the son of a taiyoukai to display, so he went back to brushing Rin's hair. As if nothing had happened.
Visions were strange things, Rin thought to herself as Sesshoumaru began brushing her hair again. She did not like the sensation of being thrown into somebody else's body. Especially if the person wasn't human. That was scary. This time was the most frightening. She had been in a Magic's body, watching that man (Nankahen) be tended to. The crown and star sapphire that were there for his protection had not been doing much, she knew. She had been able to enter his mind, and she what she saw was...horrible for her young mind. She saw darkness. A total absence of anything.
She had known that such information was important, so she had tried to draw it. It had worked a little too well, she decided. Some of the energy had carried over to her, so that she had lost her sight for a heart-stopping moment. Somehow, Rin knew that Sesshoumaru-sama was shaken by her strange behavior – after all, not even Yume-neechan had known about her ability to have odd visions like that.
Some villagers had beaten her up for being odd once. It wasn't her fault she could see and hear things nobody else could. She had once thought it was a gift from the gods, but those villagers had forcibly changed her mind on the topic. Being violently beaten tended to do that.
~~~
Mary dragged a tall post to the middle of the circle she'd drawn with her bare hands, the dirt slipping beneath her now-messy fingernails. She sighed softly. Preparing for the High Summoning was both a joyful and sorrowful event. She knew that something awful was to happen, but the details were shrouded in a mist that her old mind could not sort through.
"Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul," she muttered. "Thy will be done. I'm just not sure I can let myself be crucified in the way You and Your Father have planned for me. I'm not strong in faith like you, Lord, and I will not stop crying when my last hour comes. Though it has been said that You Yourself screamed for an answer in Your final moment on the cross."
Mary crossed herself once, saying the familiar words: "In the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." She bowed her head, then continued with her monologue prayer.
"In Your name, great things have been done. But I am scared, Lord, and I don't want to condemn these people to die. I know that I have not been a faithful Catholic to you these past years...I have not received Holy Communion for so long I can hardly remember the taste of the wafer on my tongue, and the remembered sensation of Your blood seems distant and unreal. Just grant me this one thing, Lord, and I can die in peace, even if You send me down to the place where You are most hated." Silent tears ran down her cheeks as she prayed fervently.
"Holy Mother of God, send this prayer up to Your Son! She cannot die, Mother!" Slowly, reverently, Mary pulled a set of jade rosary beads from her yukata, soiled with dirt. She touched the first bead. "Hail Mary, full of grace..."
As she went through all five decades of the rosary, Mary felt herself calming. Everything would be fine. God would take care of her wishes, even if she did not deserve His mercy, and her holy Mother would pray for her; for her soul. Praying had always put her mind at peace, just repeating the holy words over and over again pounded them into your brain until you ceased to be aware of what you were really saying or doing; your fingers began to trace the beads correctly without you thinking as your lips pushed the beautiful, rhythmic words out one by one as your mind slowly ascended from this world to another one, the one in between Heaven and Earth, not limbo but a place where you could pray, really pray knowing that God was listening intently to your every thought.
The repetitions helped, and before she knew it, Mary had gone through the rosary ten times. Fifty decades. Dear Lord.
Laughing out loud, Mary folded the necklace up and thrust it into a little pouch, which she buried under her obi. She stood and ran like a child, pulling her hair loose so that the golden strands flowed behind her like a river of joy. You can't always be sad, that much You have taught me, Lord.
Running free, Mary suddenly realized that her spontaneous happiness was a wonderful gift from the holy Mother of God. She sent up a quick, silent prayer of thanks.
You can't have everything in life, but every once in a while it feels like you do.
~~~
I know, I know. I have no business giving you a chapter this short after nearly a year of no writing at all.
But...eh...I'm a guilt-filled poor Catholic overloaded highschool girl, so take pity on my poor soul ^^. Katra was a bad girl. Katra lied to the altar server coordinator last Saturday about whether or not she could serve the 5:00 pm Mass.
Thus, Katra must do penance tonight and therefore has no time for writing a decently long chapter tonight. ;-;
Another note: it's great to be writing again! XD Thanks to everybody who kept up with me and urged me to continue writing. I don't think I could have started this again without knowing all my old FF.Net pals would continue to read.
So, this is dedicated to whoever the hell's reading this at the moment! *schnoogles* Thanks. I luv ya and look for a chapter of Letters from Children soon! I prooooooomise!!!! ^^;;;
-Katra Winner
P.S. If anybody reads Harry Potter, I'm also working on a Remus/Sirius fic (so if that pairing bugs you, don't read my story :P) called Road to Nowhere. It's hosted at schnoogle.com, go to the Author Links page and look up Katra Winner. PLEASE gimme feedback on anything!!!!