Pure of Heart
Here we go, chapter one of my new story! This is a Sess/Kag fic. It is meant to be cute, but serious issues and M content will be touched upon later. For now, it is just T for violence and possessive feelings, it may go up.
Please read and review.
Standard disclaimer here – I do not own anything but this plot. I can’t be bothered to put it at the beginning of every chapter, so, here it is.
Chapter 1 – Weak little girl
It was final and absolute. 10 year old Kagome Higurashi was hopelessly lost. This was the third time it had happened to her this month, but it was worse than those other times. It was the evening and starting to get dark, and she was cold and hungry and a little tired now. She had no idea where she was or what direction to go in.
She tried to keep her head in matters of such emergency and hopelessly failed. The other times someone had found her and brought her home, it was very late by that time, but she found her way back. Now, here she was, lost yet again, and as much as she tried to excuse herself, she had no one but herself to blame.
It was not, however, the young child who was blamed whenever she could not be found. No, it was her older siblings who got the stick, her big sister Kikyou and big brother Souta. She just hated being led around and looked over like some helpless puppy with a hurt paw. She knew she was tiny even for her age and had been ill so much sometimes she could not even stand by herself, but her family wasn’t helping.
They should not be hiding her from the world, but the opposite. Kagome felt almost as if she had been failed by her possessive family. They should be helping her train up to get stronger and more muscled like her friends and siblings. They should be teaching her archery like Kikyou, or swordsmanship like Souta. But no, they kept her hidden away and wrapped in cotton wool, afraid their little princess will break a nail.
Hence, all she could do was study as much as she could. She taught herself how to read after learning the basics from her parents. She stole books from her siblings’ and parents’ rooms and even from other peoples’ houses, friends of the family, or simply acquaintances, it did not matter to her. But she almost made sure to sneak them back to where they came from, she liked to learn, but she was not a thief.
She taught herself hand to hand combat, although she was hopeless at it, and not strong enough to throw even one decent punch. She begged the elder of the village, Keade, to whom she had formed a great friendship to teach her all she knew about history, what little science and maths she knew. Keade was not a noblewoman so was not educated well; many did not care about her knowledge either, deeming it unnecessary, so she took great joy in teaching the neglected little girl all she wanted to know.
By the time Kagome was 10, she was always around the old miko’s house, learning about and helping her with the work she had to so. She was mixing herbs for medicines and salves for injuries and how to treat different illnesses. She ran errands for the old woman such as picking plants from the nearby woods and collecting water and vowed to become her apprentice in five years time when she was old enough to train properly.
Even though she was weak, she wanted to prove she could be worth something to the village and become a healer. It was while she was with the old woman that she made the most exciting and frightening discovery of her life, she had holy powers. Kagome Higurashi at ten years old was a miko with strength at her young age that rivalled Keade’s own.
Kagome, scared of her overprotective family, begged the old woman not to tell them or anyone else from the village, frightened of what it might mean happen to her. She complied but then started a whole new training session for the young girl. She learnt all she could from Keade about miko powers, what they were used for and how to control them. Having such power at such a young age, meant that by the time she was fully grown she might even be strong enough as the legendary Midoriko.
Honouring her dreams of becoming a healer, Keade taught her how to lend power to another to replenish strength, how to draw power from another, and from animals, even plants. She was taught how to heal minor injuries and illnesses. She also learnt how to replenish blood and knit together organs which had been severed. She had done this to little animals her cat Buyo brought to her always only half dead, it always worked.
She had never tried on a human before, and probably would not until she was 15 and able to become Keade’s apprentice. The old woman did not know her young charge was learning behind her back and would have been proud, but Kagome had always been scared of being restricted as her parents always did to her.
It was while she was walking through the forest with hr medical kit to gather some herbs for a recipe she had made herself to treat injuries that it happened. She knew the plants needed were deep in the forest but figured that if she walked in a straight line and marked trees with a small knife she had brought with her, everything would have been fine. How naive she had been, she had taken too many turns so the marks on the trees meant nothing, and she could barely see them seeming as it was so dark anyway.
Kagome did not curse as a rule, but now she was swearing at herself repeatedly for being so stupid. She knew she should have insisted Sango and or Miroku went with her. They were her two best friends, and never asked questions, and never relayed traitorous information back to her overbearing family. Even taking Eirie, Yuuka or Hojo would have been better than going on this mission all by herself.
She wished for anyone to comfort her now she was cold, wet and miserable, even though she had found the plants she was looking for. She wished for anything, Buyo her cat, or Kirara, Sango’s pet, who was more like a bodyguard really.
Sango was a training demon slayer; she was five years older than her and therefore old enough to become an apprentice – just. She was learning under her father, and although she had just started training a couple of months ago, she was by far one of the best demon slayers of the land. Because of this, Kirara, the fire cat of her village chose her as her mistress.
She and Kagome had met via Kohaku, a young boy who was a year younger than Kagome. He had gotten lost like she had and had met halfway between her village and his. He as the boy and the bigger and stronger of the two had taken her back to his village. He had found the way out of duty because he had a young girl to protect. Apparently, Kohaku had always had a crush on her, that’s what Souta and Hojo sad whenever they saw him anyway. Kagome did not know whether this was true, and neither did she care, Kohaku was a great friend and she was not going to spoil that relationship.
Ahh... Hojo, a boy of thirteen, big for his age, a friend of Souta’s and a babysitter for her. Even though he was but three years older than her – almost four, he looked after her like a big brother, a role Souta was often forbidden by her parents to fill, fearing his enthusiasm and limitless energy may cause her to overexert herself.
The truth was, Souta longed to teach her what she wanted, and Kagome wanted to learn, but she got ill so easily with her weak chest due to birthing complications, her mother and father just forbade it.
Hojo was always nice to her, giving her flowers and comforting her whenever she needed it. A few days ago in fact he had asked her if she would allow him to court her once they were old enough, scared Kohaku had beaten him to it – he had not. Kagome had not given him answer, telling him to ask her again when she was 14 and the right age to get married.
Erie and Yuuka had told her to just go for the boy who liked her, but they were kids like her, aged 9 and 10. They did not know about courting and marriage just yet, and that s what Hojo was after, he liked her in a serious way and she was not ready to embrace such feelings for another herself. She needed to be given time.
The thing that had really spurred Hojo on was the fear that Miroku may have been the one to beat him to it. This was understandable, in all honesty, the first thing Miroku, a 15 year old monk training under his father in the neighbouring village Sango came from said to her when they were introduced was ‘will you do me the honour of bearing my children?’ A swift blow to the head from her weapon had silenced such requests and she had learnt that he did not mean it; it was something he said to everyone.
She had handled the situation well for an 8 year old, which is what she was at the time and had kicked him where it hurt, leaving him wheezing for an hour. The two became swift friends after that, and Hojo who had been nearby at the time almost passed out. Kagome had a feeling Miroku and Sango would end up together as spouses, but was pretty sure neither of them knew that yet. Miroku, for a boy who was barely an adult was a known lecher, but lately he had been feeling up Sango a lot more than other women.
Kagome kicked a stone that flew into a tree and then cursed the stubbed toe. The only comfort she had at the moment now, lost in the middle of the woods was her toy dog, Inushasta. Why did this sort of thing always happen to her? She was cursing her bad situation; she had been for 10 years now actually. She thought her life sucked, and it was a pretty accurate assumption for the adventure loving girl. She would have cursed her pessimistic outlook on her life later though, if she thought her life sucked now, it was nothing compared to what was about to come.
It was then that she saw it, the thing that would change her life forever, for better in some sense, and for worse for a whole great deal of others. It was a form; the shadowy form of a human not so far in front of her. She almost cried in relief, finally she had found someone who could take her back to the village; there must be search party out for her by now.
She ran towards the form as fast as her tiny tired limbs could carry her and came to a halt a few steps from him, noticing the male figure was lying down. She also noted that he most definitely appeared to be dead. He was covered in blood for head to foot, his once expensive clothing torn and stained red. His eyes were closed and his skin all pale and cold, he was stock still and silent, it was the most frightening thing the young girl had ever seen.
She was overcome with the sensation to scream in terror, waving her hands in the air at seeing such a traumatic gruesome sight at such a young age. She wanted to throw up and empty her bowels, but she had not eaten anything since lunch 8 hours ago. She wanted to burst into tears and do all of the above at the same time.
However, such a surprise sent the girl into a state of severe shock and all she could do was stare at what was before her wide eyed and wide mouthed. The delayed reaction of shock effectively prevented any from being acted out; when the girl shook herself from her stupor she struggled to think strategically.
She had learnt about what to do is a situation like this, now was not the time to lose her head. First look around for danger, or she would end up in a similar predicament and she did not want to end up dead. The man looked like he had been slashed repeatedly and looked strong too, so it must have been a really formidable foe to land him in a pitiful position such as this. If the attacker was still around, she did not stand a chance.
After glancing around the area for possible sadists she came to the correct assumption that she was indeed alone. Right next on the agenda was to check whether or not he was really dead, so first things first, try to get a response out of him. “Hello?” She called hesitantly to his still and silent form – no response. “Excuse me, sir, can you answer me?” With each word she took a cautious baby step towards him, no response.
Once close enough she got down on her knees and with a shaky breath, put her head to his chest to try and detect a heartbeat and breathing. She was elated to find that it was faint, but both were most definitely there. He was not a corpse; he was just unconscious, and very, very badly beaten up, but alive.
With no one to care for him he would probably die though, it really left her with no choice; she was going to nurse this strange man back to health. The 10 year old slipped her medicine satchel off her shoulder and set to work cleaning him up. There was a river nearby where she collected a small bowl of water, and tore off a bit of her kimono to use as a cloth.
Gently she washed away the blood on his face, and then unstrapped his strange spiked armour and took off his haori so she could bathe his chest where the majority of his injuries were. She then mixed together her personal salve out of the rare herbs she had found and applied as much as she could make to the injured stranger. It was enough to treat five village men, but this guy was huge, and his injuries severe, so she coated them with a heavy layer. It would seal the cuts faster, although the blood flow had already stopped and prevent infection.
Kagome did not have many bandages with her, certainly not enough to cover all of the injuries he had. Almost reluctantly, she tore off more lengths of her ripped kimono; making sure to leave herself decently covered, and tied them around the gashes. Thankfully she was wearing many layers due to the cold weather. She then went to the river she had seen nearby and washed his clothing in the cold water.
Now he was all cleaned up she could see him clearly, and by gosh, he was beautiful. His pale skin was flawless and clear, bar strange markings. He had two purple stripes adorning each cheek along with lilac colouring on his eyelids. He also had a blue crescent moon on his forehead which struck her as strange, but it strangely suited him.
What was most alluring and strange about his character was his waist length hair, seeming as he was two metres high at least, that was a long way. It was silver and shone in the moonlight; Kagome fought the urge to run her fingers through it.
She turned her attention to his silk white clothes. She would guess by the material and the appearance that he was a nobleman of sorts. This put her on edge, she did not want to get caught up in all that, she would leave once she was sure he would be fine and be back in her village before he woke up.
It was then the child saw his fluffy boa over one shoulder. It was beautiful, silver like his hair and looked soft and comfortable to the touch. Before she was even aware of her actions, she had taken it up in her hands and wrapped it around her shoulders to chase off the cold. She was chillier now more than ever she had ripped her kimono off for bandages.
She had done as much as any ningen could do for him but it was not enough. He had lost too much blood and his heartbeat was slowing even further, breathing practically nonexistent. There was only one thing left for him she could do. She was tired and cold and hungry and not used to using so much energy when so drained, but if she did not do this he would die and her previous efforts would have gone to waste.
Steeling herself, Kagome reminded herself she was a miko, and she could do this. She had never treated someone other than small woodland animals before, but there was always a first time. She placed her hands over the dressed wounds and sent forth her energy into the foreign body. She focused on replenishing the lost blood, seeming as that is what his main problem was, and forced it to circulate with the remaining substance.
She knew some of his organs were damaged, but she could not heal them for fear of making a mistake. He had cracked ribs though and a broken leg, they were not easy to heal either but she willed the ribs at least to knot themselves back together to prevent further damage to the vital organs within the ribcage.
Filled with adrenaline of healing her patient, Kagome wanted to carry on, but was fit to pass out from over exertion and could not continue. She simply gave him the last of her energy, not doing anything with it, just giving it to him to increase his survival rate.
It was very late by the time she had finished tending to his injuries enough to be satisfied with herself. She was proud of herself for what she had done and pleased it worked, she had saved a life that day, not something everyone could boast about.
She had outdone everyone she knew at 10 years old. She was not some weak little girl, she was a healing miko. With a small smile, willing her patient to live, she collapsed into his fluffy pelt and bandaged chest. Absolutely exhausted she passed out on top of him rather than fell asleep, hoping against hope for all predators to stay away.
She was not a weak little girl. Soon everyone would know that.