Life's Pilgrimage by Silly-Leaf

Running

My first Fanfic on Dokuga.

This will be a slow going story, with  quite a few side moments and deviations from the main story line.

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

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Running

Scorching. Painful. Fueled by fear. Faster and faster. Heavy lungs, leaden legs, hands numb and shaky, fingers unable to grasp branches that stabbed and ripped. Hands and arms like weights thumped against trees ungracefully supporting a body fueled by raw emotion. Stumbling onwards she could not stop, could not think. She ran faster than she  should, her legs resisting the strain, every muscle being pulled under the pressure. The pain did not exist, somewhere in her mind fear had overridden pain, and the instinct to flee, to run and to keep moving had kept everything else in her mind blank.

Sweat coated her brows, and her lips were glued open with a salty absence of moisture that heavy breathing had stripped from her mouth.  Somewhere behind her was the predator and she was the prey.

It had been like this all to often lately. She was always running, running towards friends, running to draw off the enemy, running into danger, running from danger. Her life was movement, her life depended on running. She had to keep moving, the clearing could not be much further. Tears sprang to her eyes as she cleared the tangled branches of the forest into the open area around the well.

Safety was the village something whispered, safety was the well it entreated. Another part yelled, screamed, and demanded she run no more. That lives more valuable than her own would fall if she ran for safety. This was why a sweat drenched Kagome Higurashi halted in the clearing. Her eyes saw nothing but a blur, her head starved of oxygen and the ability to comprehend what her eyes saw. She choked down air, thirsty for it, starved of its plenty for far too long to be satisfied with small gulps of its invisible mass.

Without her bow and quiver she could only stare, as trees shook in the path of the predator. Its horns curved around and around, twice piercing its own flesh, before the serrated points stretched forward. It leaned forward, its hind legs slightly longer than the front, so that the beast bounded forward in great shaking leaps rather than running. Dark gelatinous bile ran from flared nostrils, the dark mucus stuck to gray and mottled fur, congealing and building a layered beard of matted goo on its chin and neck. Though it shared features similar to a mountain goat, this beast was not content with sparse mountain foliage.  Six yellowed eyes, three in a row on each side of its extended face were trained on the motionless miko.

“Inu..ya..sha...” her lips trembled. She  looked the demon in its eyes her anxiety  on the cusp of peaking, her heart about to shatter in fear. This was when the world went red. She screamed her first thought being it had to be blood, that she was blind, that she’d been attacked.

“Stop yer screaming wench” came a course reply. Sensation drained back into Kagome’s body, the inner clenching and burn in her chest receding. She became aware of the feel of fire rat, and that she was upside down, and draped over a hanyou’s shoulder unceremoniously. Before she could protest she was flopped unceremoniously onto her backside and the soft warmth of the fire rat robe had disappeared.

She watched somewhat detachedly as Sango’s Hiraikotsu  sliced into a fleshy thigh and returned with a red ribbon of blood following it. She watched as the  beast reared back and set its eyes on her friend only to hear the name of its  demise. The Windscar  ripping the air from the other side. It sliced into the youkai, and it  seemed to explode, guts and gore raining down upon the area surrounding the well.

Inuyasha  lifted Tetsusaiga to his shoulder,  Miroku retrieved spent sutra, Sango  cleaned Hiraikotsu, and Kagome turned around and left.

She walked away, and back into the forest and almost mindlessly she sought out the Goshinboku. Her shaky hand laid on its cool bark feeling the comforting tingle. She let the tears fall then, as the Goshinboku stripped the last of her carefully constructed barriers. She fell to her knees and rested her back against the tree.

As her mind came back she knew what she had to do. It had become ever more clearer since the completion of the shikon jewel.  Youkai would follow her as long as she held it. There was no wish she could make on it, not yet, as all of them seemed rather selfish. Yet like today she had been forced to run, and run, she was dependent upon others. It wasn’t that she was completely useless - she had skill with a bow- but in melee range she was helpless, without her bow she had no way to channel her powers. She didn’t even know just how strong her powers were as most of the time she could only tap into the outside layers of her spiritual powers.

“Kagome?” She smiled at the monk’s soft tone, obviously Inuyasha was too upset to search for her, and Miroku had come in his stead. His staff jingled softly in the quietness surrounding  Goshinboku.  The sound of fabric shifting over fabric accompanied him as he sat beside her looking forward patiently. Miroku waited for his friend to be the first to speak.

“I think its time I left” was her whispered response. He watched her toy with the hem of her modern shirt. The silence grew but it was  not so much awkward as it was patient. Miroku knew there was more the young miko had to say, and he would allow her the time she needed.

“T-There’s a pilgrimage y-you told me about. Its for training in spiritual combat right...I think I want to do it.”

“Are you sure? It is not an easy journey, and is only legend”

“I-I know but if there’s any chance...”

“You cannot take us Kagome, you know the conditions of the great pilgrimage. Are you sure this is what you want? None of us think you weak”

“What good is power, if you can’t use it? I...I NEED this, I selfishly need to do something, anything for myself. “ She said and turned sharp eyes to Miroku, hope dancing in them.

“If it is what you wish then I cannot stop you. Who do you suppose the fates will place you with?” He mused and stood up offering a hand to his solemn friend.

“I don’t know, but if they try to kill me I’ll take it as a sign we’ll become good friends” She  shared a laugh with the monk and wiped the trails of tears from her face. With that the two set off for the village to discuss the particulars of  Kagome’s upcoming pilgrimage across Japan.

Goshinboku’s branches swayed in a wind. The great tree letting loose a few of its leaves to flutter in the breeze, and deliver its message across Japan.