Extraneous by Wunderberry

Chapter 1

Hello. I just wanted to pop in and say don't forget to review, those make it much more worth my while to update!

~'~

The sparks float upwards, to the crescent moon hanging in the dark sky. They sparkle and flicker, before disappearing into the darkness. Some don’t fly upwards, some fly off to the side, hit the dirt ground and evaporate. They don’t last though, don’t take root and start a blazing fire to burn the village to ashes. They just glimmer and perish.

She wished her love could glimmer and perish. She wished she could be like the sparks and fly away into the night sky before vanishing into oblivion. She wished she could be the fire, licking at the blackened remains of the hanyo who once would be clad in clothing that would’ve protected him from the red-orange flames. She wished she wasn’t here, not because she didn’t want to be in the village clearing, but because of what it meant, what is signaled. She didn’t want to be here, because she shouldn’t have had to be here.

Standing in front of the pyre, she oversaw the burning, though she was here for other reasons as well. It wasn’t just because she was the village miko, because she wore the red hakama, the white haori, and the red string draped over her neck like a pearl necklace. It was because she was the deceased man’s wife.

She was a miko. How was that possible? How could she be the wife of a man? A hanyo? Didn’t it say that a miko’s powers disappeared if she slept with a man?

Superstitions aside, yes, she was married to a man, a hanyo, she had slept with him, and no, she had not lost her powers. Did that matter though? Did it matter that every evening, in her hut, when she stirred the nightly stew, it was for a man as well? Did it matter that the bed she slept in was made for two every morning? Did it matter that late at night she would whisper in his ear expletives that no other miko knew? Perhaps, perhaps not, but not anymore as the fire burned, licking his flesh into nothingness.

Did anything matter, she wonders, arms hanging at her sides as she watches the flame reaching to the skies. Did the fact she wasn’t from this time matter? Did it matter that she was from a time of Windows 2000 and PlayStation 2s? Did it matter that she was the daughter of Higurashi Seijirou, a car salesman at a local dealership before his untimely death, daughter of Higurashi Aimi, a house wife with a degree from Harvard, granddaughter of Higurashi Ishirou, priest of the Sunset Shrine and brother of a famous scientist, and sister of the middle school student Higurashi Souta? Did it matter that she had been the one who made the fateful wish, destroyed the Shikon no Tama? Did it matter that she was the reincarnation of the miko Kikyou?

No, it didn’t.

At least it didn’t seem like it. If he was standing beside her, he because she could not bear to say his name, he would tell her that that was what made her her, and therefore it was important. He would tell her not to forget who she was because of where she was, and he would laugh, the melodious sound floating through the air.

But he wasn’t there, and he wasn’t saying those things to her. He wasn’t laughing, he was burning, and her heart was burning with him.

She fell to her knees, eyes wide and blank as she stared at the wooden base of the pyre, hands digging into the dirt. She heard a gasp, it wasn’t hers, she had no air with which to gasp with, and felt a hand gently resting on her shoulder. She didn’t glance up, but she knew who’s small, calloused hand was resting on her shoulder. Sango. Sango, the yokai slayer, the mother, the wife of a monk.

This was such a strange village, with one couple that was a monk and a yokai slayer and formerly a couple that was a miko and a hanyo.

“Kagome, are you okay?” The words barely register in her ears, and her name is even harder to hear.

Kagome. Please don’t call her Kagome. Let Kagome die with her husband.

“I can walk you back to your hut, Kagome.”

Kagome. Hut. Please let Kagome die. Please let the hut burn with the body, let the ashes not even be remembered.

“Kagome can you hear me?”

No, she heard the woman, heard her loud and clear, not that she wanted to hear the woman.

“Kagome, answer me damn it!”

Kagome’s eyes snapped to the woman, neck jerking, hurting. She looked into Sango’s brown eyes, her dull grey ones just that, dull. The woman’s face is marred with concern, care, and sadness, cheeks red, eyes puff, skin blotchy as if she had been crying.

“What?” she asks in a small, timid voice. Don’t be scared, her husband would’ve told her, it’s okay to be sad, and it’ll be okay. But she pushed that thought to the back of the mind, because he wasn’t here and he wasn’t talking to her.

“Kagome, I think you need to go back home.” Sango tugged at Kagome’s sleeve, and pulled the miko to her sandal-clad feet. She put Kagome’s arm around her should, biting her lip as she felt the dead weight of Kagome.

“But the bones…” Kagome’s grey eyes flicked back to the pyre and the flames. “The fire. We’re not done here,” Kagome whispers, pulling her arm back to her side, taking a step back, gaze locked on the pyre of flames.

“It can wait,” Sango says. Her voice is strong, authoritative. Just like the woman who uses the voice, imposing, resilient.

Kagome glances back at Sango, and then glances to the flames again. No, she thought, her jaw clenching. This was not over, it cannot wait. She has to do this, she is the miko, she can’t let this affect her. No other wife does, they stand at the side, silent and proud, and when it is over, they walk to the smoldering ashes and stick their fingers in to grab the bones, burning themselves in the process. That’s who she has to be, at least pretend to be. She has to be those women, Ai, Kimiko, Kyoko, Mariko, Meiko, Bunko, Akari. Those women, they were strong, she had to be like them.

“Kagome, the ashes will be too hot and it will be too dark!”

She would much rather burn her fingers fumbling around in the dark than return to the home she once shared with him, return to sleeping on the sheets that he slept on too. No. She’d wants to go up in flames like her husband, but since she can’t, she’ll let herself scab and scar because at least then she’s feeling and she’s touching her husband.

When Sango realizes, standing beside her best friend, hand hanging in the air, centimeters from her friend, hesitating from patting her in a reassuring manner, that Kagome isn’t going to listen to her, and isn’t going to back away. She sighs, and lets her hand fall because it’s futile. For a moment, she continues to watch the miko who is watching the fire, but turns her head away because she can no longer bear to watch the sadness.

Sango returns to the side of her husband, feet shuffling through the dirt, casting glances over her shoulder at the woman. She’s concerned, she knows her friend is hurting. But Sango tried to offer help, and found a wall of unmovable, impenetrable stone. She knows what her friend is feeling is grief, but also understand that it’s to an unhealthy degree.

“How is she?” asks Miroku as Sango stops moving, still peering over her shoulder at the woman outlined in fire.

“Bad.”

~’~

“I don’t know if you recall me, but I was the monk that helped defeat Naraku and traveled with your…” the words hitched in Miroku’s throat. Gulping down the lump, he continued. “…brother, his wife the miko Kagome, and a yokai slayer named Sango who I have married. My name is Miroku.”

Across the wooden table sits the epitome of perfection. Finely thinned black eyebrows, shaved to perfection chin, golden eyes narrowed and slanted like a cat, tapered fingers, kept fingernails sharp like claws, hair groomed and left hanging to his knees colored white, and sculpted cheekbones that finished off the aristocratic look. His face was impassive, unreadable as he observed the monk, lips drawn into a thin line of not distaste, or anger, or bitterness, just a thin line.

“I recall,” he states plainly, his voice carrying a mellow baritone that pleased the ears. “State why you are here.”

The monk gulps again, glancing down at his hands, the dirt beneath his fingernails. His hands are pressed against his knees, covered by the black and purple cloths of his monk uniform. His shoulders hunched, he can no longer meet the eyes of the daiyōkai who is perfection. He simply can’t, not when he here is for what he is, and the daiyōkai is requesting that he say it.

He has a right to know, does he not thought? It is his brother after all, they shared blood, even if the brotherly bond was lacking at best and downright shameful at worst. And anyway, he is not here just to tell him of such depressing news, it’s for another as well. Whether he is right in assuming that Sesshōmaru would uphold to the same senses of propriety and duty that humankind dictates, is unknown, but if it is true even slightly, than he it will help greatly.

“I regret to tell you that InuYasha has passed away.”

The daiyōkai remains blank for moments that seem to drag on into eternity, but then he minutely nods his head and closes his golden eyes. When he reopens them, they are not sharp like they were before, not observing him with doubt and semi-concealed distaste. They’re dull with a heavy melancholy, for the word sadness doesn’t really fit the scene.

“That is terrible news,” he finally says, his voice unreadable, conveying no emotion, but his face does speak a little. “If I may ask,” he continues, “how did my brother pass? Was he given a proper funeral?” He pauses for a moment, glancing at the tatami mats, muttering something about human tradition. “Has his remains been burned and his wife picked out his bones to worship at a temple? That it is how it’s done, right?”

“It has been all taken care of, his body was burned, the bones and ashes compiled, and buried.” Sesshōmaru nods, as Miroku looks down again, images and thoughts of the process blurring together into a reel of grief within his mind. “Your brother passed in battle, honorably I suppose. He fell at the hands of a snake yokai who injected him with strong toxins. We did everything within our power to save him, but no matter what we tried, it failed. The snake yokai was killed though, by your brother, before the toxins took too strong a hold on him.”

“Was it just a snake yokai or a daiyōkai, because I have been having… issues with the snake yokai tribe myself.”

Miroku gulped, balling and unballing his hand. This conversation makes the bile rise in his throat, not from Sesshōmaru who seems surprisingly upset, but because he shouldn’t have to be having it. He shouldn’t have to be telling the brother of his best friend that he’s dead. He shouldn’t have to be detailing the funeral, or how he died. He shouldn’t have to be answering whether or not the person that killed him might have had a vendetta against InuYasha’s brother that he decided to take out on InuYasha. But he is, and he has too, and so he does.

“I believe so. The yokai originally took a human form when we first met him, and as the fight progressed he turned into giant snake. He had a white diamond shape on his forehead, if that helps.” He can barely believe the words rolling off his tongue.

“The white diamond is a sign of the royal family amongst snake yokai. Likely InuYasha was an unneeded casualty in a war that was not his own.” Miroku notices Sesshōmaru jaw clench. “They will pay for that. The do not kill a member of my family and get away with it. It goes against the laws of yokai kind, so they must the pay price.”

Miroku nods, surprised by the grief that Sesshōmaru is displaying. He is here for another reason though, and the need to move onto that.

“InuYasha’s wife, Kagome, is still alive, left a widow. In human culture, it would be expected of you to take her in and I personally have come to ask you to do so because I, and my wife, believe that it is unhealthy for Kagome’s mental state that she is left in the village. She has been very withdrawn and quiet and careless.” Miroku thinks back to just before he left the village, when Kagome had claimed that she was coming with him and in the first three steps they’d taken, he bare feet had left a trail of blood from a gash across the bottom of her foot. Her hands could barely hold her bag as she had begged him to take her with him, trembling from the pain of pressure on her burns. “She is ignoring injuries and purposely putting herself in harm’s way.”

He looks up to Sesshōmaru with wide eyes, hopeful that the description of the miko’s state would help influence his decision. But Sesshōmaru has calmed his grief and anger, a wears his mask of aristocratic stoicism again. He just hopes that it has worked, and awaits in the agonizingly drawn out period for Sesshōmaru’s answer.

“That is also custom in my culture,” he finally responds. “It is sad to hear though that I must do so. I always pictured Kagome as stronger than that, above letting herself go like that in her grief. It is pathetic, but many women I suppose are that way. Love sickness, the act of allowing themselves to waste away, become thin and bones because of love. Pathetic. And Kagome allowing herself to be injured, even injuring herself in her desolation is no better.”

“It’s not like that!” Miroku harshly bites out, shattering the quiet, gloomy air to the room. He pulls himself back though, as the sharp, biting glare of Sesshōmaru cuts into him. “I’m sorry, I just mean that what Kagome is going through is nothing out of the ordinary for someone who has lost someone that they love, and men go through things like this too. Humans, at least, when someone they love dearly dies, often would rather be dead. Your brother often mourned Kagome and was very reckless at first when she disappeared those three years. He was the same way. It heals though as they go on.”

He is certain that it isn’t just humans that go through this, or those with human blood, but he does not add that too his spoken thoughts. Sesshōmaru doesn’t feel emotion, he doesn’t understand the concepts of loves or how it feels. He is only grieving, upset, because his enemy has seemingly gotten the better of him. He doesn’t get that people, human and demon, are strongly affected by love.

“Hm,” he sounds. “Whatever the case is, I shall be by in three days’ time to bring Kagome here. I thank you for coming here and informing, but I now have things to attend to so I bid you farewell. A servant will be in to see you out.”

Miroku bids Sesshōmaru a farewell in a formal bow, and watches the silver haired aristocrat leave. He knows as he watches that he has done the best for Kagome, even if he has his misgivings regarding the man himself. Kagome needs to be away from the place where InuYasha is strongest, and to do that, she must get away.

Still, he cannot help but return to the village with a cold chill and a heavy tread.

~’~

Kagome holds out her hands in front of the pot, letting the heat from the crackling fire drift and warm her cold hands. She is making radish stew. It is harder than it looks, she thinks with a sigh, pulling back her hands and picking up the lid tentatively. It clatters back against the metal pot and she shakes her hand, hissing at the pain of touching the hot metal. It is much harder than it looks to make radish stew.

Then she hears a laughter. She looks up to the source of the sound, one finger popped into her mouth as she laths her tongue around the burning flesh, to see the white-haired hanyo. She sneers at him from around her finger, as go back to nursing her pained appendages. She pours cool water she’d pulled from the well the other day into a wooden bowl, and sticks her hand in the water. With an ah, a smile of contentment spreads against her face as shivers race up her arm. It is cool, but it is relief.

“You know, if you need help, you can just ask me,” he says, approaching the pot. She glances at him with a sharp glare, watching as he pulls off the top and picks up the wooden spoon to stir the creamy liquid. She sneers at him again, rolling her eyes and looking off to the side to hide the red tinge to her cheeks.

Keh, show off.

“You know, if you just weren’t so stubborn,” he says, humored by her antics. She looks back at him, reminding him of the fact she is glaring at him. He frowns. “Look, did I hurt your feelings? I didn’t mean to.” He smiles at her brightly, and she cannot help but smile back.

He pulls her into a hug, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other holding the back of her head as she presses it into his red-clad chest.

Those were the days.