Thursday, August 12, 2004

I am Who I am
This fanfiction was written by my best friend Brenna. Her account is Sniperwolf and I am sure you will agree this is a job well done. Okay here goes:

Yay! My second story is out and published! For those Kikyo-fans, this is for you. And for you avid neurotic ‘Die, Kikyo, DIE’ type people, I just ask you not to mutilate your computers while reading this, because computers are cool.

Note to self: Dear Phsycodragon,

I’m sorry to say, that all characters in the manga/anime Inuyasha do not belong to you. Ta ta, and have a lovely day pitying yourself in misery at this realization.

Sincerely,

Phsycodragon

I Am who I Am

The figure clad in a miko’s red-and-white garment stared blankly out at the horizon, watching with a critical eye as the sun rose above the mountains. She stood that way for a long time, wishing the sunlight shining on her stoic face would warm the essence of her soul.

It had been fifty years since she had last watched a sunrise, and even then, it felt like yesterday. Nothing had changed. Her heart still beat, her hair still lashed in the wind, and the peaks of Japan still glowed with an eerie, almost faerie-like, light. Kikyo observed all this with no emotion showing upon her beautiful face. She’d learned long ago that only the weak showed their feelings because it left them bare and vulnerable to any prying eyes. Her death had just proved her theory.

She stood there, merely looking, for a long, long time.

Ironic how that works, she thought wryly, how life the first time has no space for enjoying things, and how the second time round it does. Of course, only she would know that, because she was the only miko in existence who had risen from the grave. Yes, things were the same. And yet they were different.

Kikyo could remember when the world had been on her side, when all youkai feared her and humans respected her. She recalled a certain white-haired, lonely hanyou whom had spirited away her heart, laying it uncovered to the world. When she had been in the process of purifying the Sacred Jewel of Souls, and had expected a long life ahead of her...

Fate had a twisted sense of humor. Now, with a clay body encasing half of her soul, only held together by the spirits of other’s, she was fifty years passed her lifespan, and she had not aged a day. Youkai hardly noticed her, humans were terrified, and her forlorn

Inuyasha no longer wished to become her husband as a human. And Naraku, the brigade Onigumo, the betrayer who stole the form of Inuyasha, was after complete demonic form.

She allowed a smirk to make its way to her lips. Naraku who thought he had her in the palm of his hand. Naraku who knew nothing of her ability to take him and the Shikon Jewel to the grave. Naraku who still lusted after her, and so, unconsciously, had decided that he would not kill her. Oh, he’d tried. Dozens of times, infact. Once, he even got close to removing all of her physical power. But Inuyasha, oblivious Inuyasha, refused to believe she had helped Naraku and had boldly halted that course of action.

He still loved her as much as he did fifty years ago, when she, Kikyo , had been limited to the solitary life of a master miko.

He loved her, yes, and perhaps she still loved him. But he would never know her. At least not while that infuriating wench, her own reincarnation, was alive. Once upon a time Inuyasha would have forgotten anyone and everyone for her. But Kikyo knew that always, once upon a time never completely existed.

A child shrieked with glee, and Kikyo turned to face the wakening villagers. They thought she was a traveling healer, a [living] miko. They assumed she awoke with the dawn. The truth was, she didn’t need any, or hardly any, sleep at all.

“And that is where we begin our similarities,” She spoke to the wind, glancing to the trees where she had sensed the presence of one of Naraku’s minions. A wind witch. Kikyo liked not, and didn’t care, about her, nor her master. Let her hide out in the trees, thinking the second most powerful miko, other than Midoriko, had no clue to her whereabouts. Let her assume wrongly. It would only cost her her life.

“M’ Lady!” someone shouted. Kikyo knew without looking that little Sukira was running toward her, excitedly waving about her empty berry basket. Sukira’s 3-year-old sister would soon toddle up to them, as well as Tiko, Elletha, Pikka, and Sui. They would ask for stories and for her to play with them.

Only the weak showed emotion. But only the strong had a weakness. Kikyo unwittingly softened her thoughts to little Sukira. She reminded her so much of Kaede at that age, clinging to her pant leg with utmost pleasure, admiring and trusting fully in her.

“May we go eat the berries?” Sukira asked, tilting her head in an urgent manner. Kikyo bent and picked her up.

“Wait until the other’s come,” she said softly. The child squealed and giggled in ecstasy, jumping up and down. Kikyo knew she would not feel so comfortable if she knew that all the dead souls of young girls were the energy in which Kikyo could move with. She would find out soon. Monks would come, see her for what she was, and force her to move homes again. Sadness swept through her. The children would shriek, but not in happiness. They would scream and cry and fear would be rolling off of them in waves, and not one of them would remember her kindness, or wonder why, if she was an evil youkai, they were still alive.

Kikyo longed for when she could finally pass on in peace. But her heart hungered for Naraku’s blood, and for Inuyasha’s love. She could not leave either in the living world when it was time to go.

“Lady Kikyo!” numerous cries filled the air, as one by one, the village children arrived, each with their own berry basket. The Berry field wasn’t far, and Kikyo half listened to their tireless chatter. They moved through the outskirts of the village with no incident, until a quarter of a mile from the field, when Kikyo sensed a youkai approaching. Little Sui was a ways up the road, and the demon attacked before Kikyo could call up a protection field.

Sui’s blood littered the dirt road in a flash, her severed head disemboweled from her body. It all happened in slow motion for Kikyo. The attack, the scream, the blood... and the soul, being captured by the soul stealer, headed straight for her. The youkai exploded at the same instant that the soul hit her full force in the chest and replenished her strength, though she needed no replenishing. There was a silence, as if time itself had stood still. And then the yells began.

And, as she’d said dozens of time before, her last words to them were, “I’m sorry.” Two simple words that held fifty years worth of pain and misery, though she’d only been among the living for a short while. That was the last those children would ever see of the Lady Kikyo.

“Who am I?” Kikyo asked for countless times, observing yet another sunrise in yet another village.

She was a pain giver.

A healer.

A wandering spirit.

A miko.

A clay body.

A half soul.

And a killer out of necessity.

But who was she that no one would accept her? She was beginning to understand how Inuyasha felt, always shunned and hated and feared. Who am I?

She was everything that anyone could be. And she was nothing everyone was.

And in the silence of the morning, she received her answer on the wind.

I am Kikyo.

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