Standing Back Up by Forsaken Tenshi
Standing Back Up
Inuyasha characters do not belong to me but to Takahashi Rumiko.
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Drabble/Drawble Night: January 7, 2012
Theme: Automobiles
Word Count: 100 words each
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Prompt 1: Edge
She stood on the edge of the roof of the Midtown Tower in downtown Tokyo. The cars below looked like ants with minute white and red lights, and people looked like specks of dust that cluttered the streets. Fifty-four stories above the streets of the sprawling metropolitan, the evening air was cold and biting.
She did not care.
After the final battle with Naraku, she and Inuyasha had returned to the shrine and her worried family. He had faded away before she had a chance to say goodbye.
The well had sealed, leaving Higurashi Kagome stranded in her own time.
Prompt 2: Escape
She had thrown herself into her schoolwork, her friends, anything to escape the reality that this world, the one she was born into, was now permanently her reality. She had done her best to hide her growing despair and depression, but she knew that her family saw it behind her façade of cheeriness and smiles. They all knew she ached with a near physical longing to go back to the other side of the well.
No more sliding between worlds. No more friends from a different era. No more sizzle of reiki and youki against her senses.
No more magic.
Prompt 3: Soul
The rooftop was her escape, her sanctuary. Working as a maid in The Ritz-Carlton Tokyo that occupied the uppermost floors of the skyscraper, Kagome had access to the top of the building. When she had obtained the job, she had come up here after her first day was over, sending out a pulse of her reiki in an attempt to find youkai. Nothing.
She had grown numb to her existence, passing her days mechanically, the rooftop her only solace. It was after her work hours now, and not a soul knew she was up here. She wanted it that way.
Prompt 4: Fusion
The fusion of coldness, darkness, and solitariness was what Kagome sought this night. It hurt to live, knowing there was no more magic in her life. She watched the people going about their lives far below her and wished she could be like them. The wind whistled around her, dampening the noise of the streets below. Slowly she inched a toe off the edge of the rooftop.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Kagome jerked back and spun as she searched for the deep, male voice that had quietly chided her. The empty rooftop met her searching gaze.
Prompt 5: Eclipse
The voice stirred a feeling of wild panic that temporarily eclipsed her depression. “Who’s there?” she called out, her voice quavering and faint as the wind sucked it away. Her eyes roved across the familiar straight lines of metal that composed the rooftop. Deep shadows cast by various electrical units etched shapes on the metallic tile flooring.
No one answered.
Kagome shook her head violently. “I’m crazy,” she muttered harshly, “I’m crazy, and the world’s a better place with one less insane person.”
Facing the nighttime skyline, Kagome stepped forwards. She stiffened her shoulders and took a fortifying breath.
“Coward.”
Prompt 6: Accent
Kagome froze, staring down at the park across the street, bristling from the insult. “A coward…?” she hissed, hands curling tightly into fists. She spun on her heel, black hair accentuating delicate facial features, and screamed, “I AM NOT A COWARD!”
She abruptly curled in on herself, clutching her arms to her stomach. Tears squeezed past her clenched eyelids. “Of course I’m a coward. I’m running from my past,” she whispered. The wind howled desolately alongside her, as if sympathizing with her plight.
“I’m insane,” she murmured and without hesitation or another thought she ran and leapt off the rooftop.
Prompt 7: Cube
The windows of the Midtown Tower flew past her, and she dizzily registered them as individual cubes of space, elongated from the speed of her passing. The freefalling sensation turned her stomach, and for several heartbeats she wished she had not jumped as she thought of the stricken faces of her family. Too late now, she thought detachedly, I’m for all intents and purposes dead already.
She continued falling for a moment and eternity, closing her eyes as she neared the ground.
“Stupid little miko!”
She was wrenched out of the air as two strong arms wrapped themselves around her.
Prompt 8: Element
Kagome was completely out of her element: dangling midair by some stranger’s arms was not her cup of tea. So, she did what any other sensible human being would do. She screamed.
And was promptly silenced by a large hand clapping firmly over her mouth and jaw.
“Quiet!”
The voice rumbled against her back, which was pressed against a firm, most definitely male chest. The pair of them rose, and Kagome offhandedly noticed how people below craned their heads around in search of the source of her cry.
As she regained her senses, she gasped at the feel of youki.
Prompt 9: Sonata
The presence of youki slid through her being and gently brushed against her reiki, as harmonious and pleasant as the chords of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 Pathetique, 2nd Movement. Long strands of fine silver hair fluttered in her vision, and hope instantaneously grew and died in her heart. Inuyasha? No. That’s not his voice, although it is strangely familiar…
She and her savior landed gently on the rooftop of the Midtown Tower, and he—for no female could possibly have such a sinfully rich, deep voice like that—released her. He asked harshly, angrily, “What would jumping have accomplished, miko?”
Prompt 10: Encore
“Sesshoumaru-sama…” she whispered, taking in the inuyoukai dressed in charcoal business pants, polished leather shoes, white button up, and a solid wine red silk tie. His sleeves were rolled up and his tied was loosened.
His expression was thunderous. “Well?”
“I thought I was alone… the only person here who remembered, who lived through those days of magic…”
“No more encores?” he snipped.
Sesshoumaru was here. Alive. In her time. He was not Inuyasha, but he was someone who had experienced it with her. She shook her head and a timid smile curled her lips.
“I’m glad I was wrong.”