(Part of Cast List: Book 16)
Inuyasha
Who Seeks the Shikon no Tama
He had a picture of her in
his mind. She was round-cheeked and rosy, her hair like silk, her eyes snapping
fire. She wore her school uniform, long legs under a short, short skirt, and
every part of her was alive, crackling with energy.
Nothing like the girl on the
bed, the gaunt, fragile girl with the flat, solemn eyes, the dull, unkempt hair,
the pale-gray skin that made her look as though she were made of porcelain,
formed out of clay STOP. Stop. Don’t think of that. DON’T THINK OF THAT, THAT
IS NOT KAGOME, YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT TO KAGOME, NOT TO KAGOME, TOO, DON’T THINK
OF THAT.
"How are you feeling?"
he asked, setting down the backpack with its books. She smiled at him, the wan,
serious smile that was hers now.
Her smile had been wonderful,
incandescent, lighting up her face and his heart at the same time.
In the week since he’d found
her, he’d never seen that brilliant smile. And somewhere in his heart, an insidious
voice suggested he hadn’t seen it since that night beneath the tree STOP, the
night he’d doomed them both STOP, STOP, STOP. She was not doomed. It was mono.
This was the twentieth century. People got mono, lots of them, and they got
better.
"Not too bad," she was saying.
She held up her arm, the one with the tube snaking upward to the plastic bag
of clear fluid that dangled over her head. "I'm getting pretty tired of this
thing."
"Well, you know, the way to
get rid of 'that thing' is to eat," he said.
She sighed. "I know. Really,
I'm trying. It's hard, after so long." She leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
"I'm a mess, aren't I?"
"You're not a mess," he said.
"You're beautiful." But she wasn’t beautiful, she was sad and tired and frightening.
He had slept the night before,
the whole night, knowing that she was here with the nurses and tubes and monitors.
To his shame, he couldn’t have managed another night watching her; two nights
ago he had given up and fastened his belt to a branch, afraid he would doze
and fall from the tree. Destiny must have been pleased: as a reward, when he
eventually slept, his sleep was untroubled and dreamless.
To reassure her, as she lay
there in her hospital bed, he took her hand in both of his (the hand that, the
next afternoon, would recall to her bones and gravesoil, causing him to cry
out). He remembered those years when he had been hungry, catching little birds
and crushing them to death in his claws—her hand felt like that, all tiny bones.
When visiting hours were over
he went, not home, but to the Aunties' house. Auntie Barbra was out, bowling
with her league of English-speaking expats. Auntie Terra was in the kitchen,
preparing a little snack for Barbra's homecoming; as usual, the "snack" involved
frying lots of potatoes. When Koinu arrived at her door she ushered him into
the kitchen and sat him down at the table with a paring knife. "Well, then,"
she said, "let's talk."
The boy scowled for a moment,
the spiral of the potato peel bouncing over his hand. Once deft with his claws,
he was now equally deft with a knife. At last he said, "Suppose you'd loved
somebody for your whole life, and you lost them and then found them again, but
they were completely different. What would you do?"
Terra looked up from the cabbage
she was chopping. "I gather this is not a hypothetical question?" Seeing the
boy's brow furrow, she restated the question: "We're talking about a real-life
situation."
The boy paused in his peeling.
"Kagome," he said. "It's just…she's not like I remember her."
"Well," said Terra, "it's
been a few years, hasn't it? Think how you've changed in all these years."
"Not for her, Auntie," he
replied. "When I saw her, it was only about a year ago for her." Seeing Terra's
face, he gave an exasperated sigh. "I have explained and explained this,"
he said. "There is a time slip. For me, it was years and years, but the Kagome
I knew was this one, only last year." Terra was the only one who believed him,
but even she had a hard time following the story.
"Then I would think it's your
memory that's the problem," Terra said gently. "For you it's been, as you said,
years and years. We tend to remember the good things, and forget the bad. People
seem like they were kinder, or more beautiful."
"No," Koinu said, folding
his arms. "If you saw her, Auntie…. She was always smiling. A big
smile."
"Hmph," said Terra. "Can't
say I'm so sure about people who are always smiling. Too many things
in life aren't worth smiling at."
"I didn't mean literally,"
he grumbled. "But…she was happy, you know?" And then he paused, because
of course after a point she hadn't been terribly happy, had she? After — she'd
become quiet and determined, hadn't she. She'd begun taking the quest more seriously.
At the time, he'd told himself that was a good thing, a sign she was growing
up a bit. (Like Kikyou? No. Not like Kikyou! That wasn't what he'd meant!)
Now he was starting to admit it was something sadder, a sign that life had worn
her down a bit. "I thought," he said slowly, "it would be like it was at first.
Now that there are no troubles and no danger. I thought we'd relax and just
have fun and … I don't know. She's very grim, Auntie. And angry.
And I think she has a lot more power now, even though she doesn't need it."
"Hmph," said Terra. "Who are
you to say whether or not she needs it? What is she angry about?"
Koinu considered. "I think
she liked me when I was the other way, but then I was stupid and got killed.
So now she has to have me this way, even if she doesn't like it.
"How did you used to be?"
asked Terra.
"I was very brave and stupid,"
Koinu said. "I was very rude a lot of times. Most of the times." He stabbed
at a potato. "I'm still very brave, I think," he said. "There isn't much way
to prove it in Tokyo. Now also I love only her," he added. "Shouldn't that make
her happy?"
"Since when have you ever
loved anyone but Kagome?" asked Terra.
Koinu set down the potato
and knife. Then he took a deep breath and, for the first time—but not the last—spoke
of Lord Inuyasha as though he were another person. "Inuyasha, the brother of
Sesshoumaru," he said, "was first in love with a girl name of Kikyou, a girl
of his time who guard the Shikon no Tama."
"Ah," said Terra. "What happened?"
"Through a terrible mistake,
an enemy made a trap and she and Inuyasha believed they betrayed each other.
So she shot him with an arrow, and then she died."
"How did she die? Did he kill
her?"
The boy's face was earnest.
"No, Auntie, I promise! It was the evil Naraku!"
"Ah," said Terra, "Naraku."
Koinu's face fell. "You don't
believe me."
"Of course I believe," said
Terra. "It's just all very strange. Go on."
"Many years later, it is Kagome
who comes to free him, and then they became friends and traveled together to
kill Naraku. But by an accident, his other — Kikyou — he gave her life again."
Terra sat down next to him,
leaning on her hands. "Oh, dear."
"Oh, dear, yes!" Koinu agreed.
"And then how does he choose?"
"He follows his heart," said
Terra.
"He doesn't know where his
heart is going until too late," the boy whispered.
"Oh, Koinu," said Terra, taking
him in her arms.
"I hurt Kagome," Koinu said,
"and so she almost died. And now we are both cursed, and she will never have
her true love back. Only me."
"And what," said Terra, "if
you were her true love all along?"
"I will try to be her true
love now," he said. "I wish I could go back to the other side," he added, "so
that she could see I'm still brave. But the door to there is closed now. So,"
he said, shaking off Terra's embrace, "I will do my best here. But I wish she
would smile as she used to do." He turned back to the potatoes, wielding the
knife as though it were an extension of his long fingers.
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