INVISIBLE SHADOWS
Inu-Yasha manga fanfiction
by Gary Kleppe
The characters of Inu-Yasha are the creation of and rightful
property of Rumiko Takahashi. They are used here without permission.
This story may be freely redistributed, but it should not be altered
substantially or used for profit in any way.
SPOILER WARNING: For those who haven't read past volume 6 or so (or who
have only seen the anime) there will be some important spoilers in this
story. If you've read what Viz comics has published so far, you're safe.
Please note that while this story depicts an ending of sorts for the
Inu-Yasha series, this ending is my of own creation and not a spoiler;
as of this writing, IY is still being created, and I don't know how it
will really end any more than you do. :)
You can find all of my fanfics at http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html
PART ONE
"Here's a question for you," she said. "Where do the shadows go when you
switch on the light?"
"Hmm."
I paused for a moment trying to think of the best way to respond to her.
I didn't really feel like wasting my time with silly riddles, but a
madwoman had to be humored. If she was going to open up to me and tell
me what I needed to know, I had to play her games. Otherwise, at best
she wouldn't tell me anything. At worst, well... I knew what she'd done
that had gotten her locked up in this place.
"Well... they disappear, I suppose. They're gone. They don't go
anywhere."
A sly smile crept across her face as her answer sounded through the
telephone receiver in my ear. "Ah, yes. I used to think so too." I could
see her lips mouth the words, but not hear her directly through the
thick glass wall that separated us; the effect was odd, like a
poorly-edited movie.
"No?" I raised an eyebrow, trying to seem genuinely curious.
She shook her head. "The shadows are still there. It's just that you
can't see them."
"I... see," I said, feeling more and more frustrated by the second. So
close, but yet so far. I could practically see the book in my mind. The
Kagome Higurashi story. My ticket to fame and fortune. Her arrest had
been the lead story on the television news for three straight months.
People were demanding that she to be put to death -- something that
would've been unthinkable in Japan not ten years ago. Everyone wanted to
know what could have driven such an innocent-looking young woman,
someone who could have been anyone's next door neighbor, to murder five
people -- chosen at random, as far as anyone knew -- and in such a
grotesque fashion. Everyone wanted to know why, and I was going to be
the one to tell them.
But only if I could get her to talk to me.
"Look," I began, "you're probably wondering why I've come to talk to
you. I'm a writer. A reporter. I want to hear your story, so I can tell
it to the world."
"My story?"
Her eyes gazed at me, narrowing slightly as comprehension slowly dawned
in them. The hospital obviously had her on some sort of heavy drugs. I
hoped she could stay coherent long enough to tell me what I needed to
know.
"Oh yes, I'll tell you," she said. "I'll tell you my story. And you will
tell the world?" Her tone rose skeptically at the last statement.
It was the response I'd hoped for. So why did I feel as if she were a
spider and I had just blundered into her web?
"I'll tell you my story," she repeated. "The story of a rather typical
teenage girl, who was concerned with the usual things that are usually
on a teenage girl's mind -- clothes, music, boys. Certainly not with
magic or demons, which she saw as mere superstitions."
"At first?" I prompted. Finally, she was opening up to me.
"At first, yes. But then this girl fell into a magical well, and found
herself in another time. Japan's feudal era. A time of shadows. A time
when demons roamed the land freely. And this girl didn't want to believe
in demons, but she felt their slimy touch, felt their claws dig into her
flesh, and knew that they were real."
My hand zipped across the page of my notebook, taking down everything
she was saying. Magic wells? Time travel? This girl was more delusional
than I had thought.
"For several months, she adventured in the past. She met Inu-Yasha, a
half-man, half demon who became a companion of sorts. She met Kikyo, a
powerful priestess who was said to be herself in an earlier incarnation,
killed and then brought back to a sort of life via ogre magic. And she
encountered the Shikon Jewel, an artifact of great power which became
scattered across the countryside, and she had to track down all of its
fragments and eventually reassemble it.
"Then one day...."
***
A storm coalesced over Musashi country.
The clouds darkened, their black, smoky tendrils swirling and churning
violently. Low rumbles echoed through the air. In the center of the
storm, a pair of eyes could be seen, their fluorescent red gaze piercing
through the blackness.
The villagers below left their fields and huddled inside their houses,
praying that they would be sturdy enough, some certain that this would
be the end.
In the middle of it all, a lone woman hovered, clad in plain-looking
robes. Kikyo the priestess. The storm clouds thickened and descended
ever lower, like a hand reaching down to clamp over the nose and mouth
of the village to suffocate it, and Kikyo smiled.
Nearby, in a decaying old hut, a pair of figures watched, while a third
lay motionless on the floor. A thin bubble of yellow energy surrounded
the hut, crackling and sparking as if charged with lightning.
Inu-Yasha pointed beyond the protective bubble, to the gathering storm.
"What is that thing your sister has conjured, old woman?"
"I don't know. A demon? Or perhaps some sort of primal force." Kaede's
eyes slowly scanned the outside scene, then gazed dubiously back at
Inu-Yasha. "If you're thinking of dashing out to fight it, don't. You
wouldn't last ten seconds. Kagome's power is the only thing keeping us
alive."
"What do you suggest we do, then, crone? Remain huddled here like
frightened children?"
"Kikyo is the key," Kaede muttered, more to herself than to him. "Only
being bound to her life force allows that... thing to exist on this
plane."
Inu-Yasha glared back at her in defiance. "If you're suggesting that she
be killed, I'll not allow it, no matter what the consequences."
"The point is moot," Kaede said with a sigh. "With a new body and the
full power of the Jewel of Four Souls, my sister is far beyond either of
our abilities to defeat."
Inu-Yasha bristled at the slight to his prowess, but offered no
argument. Thunder boomed in the sky. "Then I'll go and talk with her.
Perhaps... perhaps killing me will be enough to satisfy her."
Kaede shook her head ruefully. "If that were her goal, she'd have long
since done so. The power of the Jewel, tainted by Naraku's corruption,
has taken her beyond any reason." She regarded the unconscious girl at
her feet. "Our only hope is Kagome. She still possesses the soul that
once was Kikyo's. As long as she does, we still have a chance. Yet even
so, we'll not be able to hold out indefinitely."
"So you are saying that we are helpless?"
"I am saying," she replied with the serene acceptance that only the aged
seemed able to achieve, "that only something beyond the two of us can be
victorious here."
Thunder exploded from above. With a giant whoosh of wind, black rain
began to pound against the barrier.
Slipping free from the bonds of consciousness, Kagome's spirit expanded
like air into a vacuum, touching everything and yet invisible.
The rain gushed down unstoppably. Hot and sticky like molten tar, it
burned with its touch. An unlucky few who hadn't made it to shelter
could only watch in horror for a few stunned seconds as their flesh
dissolved, washing away like dirt. Mercifully quick deaths, at least.
The rain's poisons would seep gradually into the soil and water,
accumulating in the vegetation like rust on metal, passed from plant to
animal to human. For such persons, the end would be slow and agonizingly
painful.
Above it all hovered Kikyo, observing, fully aware of all that was
happening below but caring not the slightest. To her, all that mattered
was that Inu-Yasha would suffer. Even knowing that it was not he, but
Naraku, who had struck her the killing blow that day did nothing to
dampen the fires of her anger. If he had trusted her in the first place,
if he'd understood the value of his humanity instead of rejecting it,
Naraku's plot never would have been possible, and Kikyo would never have
been condemned to this empty existence, this lifedeath, for eternity.
And now, Inu-Yasha would forever know that he himself had been
responsible what happened here. His own conscience, the very humanity
that he had thought to deny would be his tormenter. How fitting.
Kagome forced herself to break contact. She knew that if she stepped too
close to the dark pit of Kikyo's mind, she would slip and plummet down
to unimaginable depths. *She can't really be me,* Kagome thought.
Whoever had come up with that reincarnation theory had to have been
mistaken. There was no way that she could ever feel such hatred, could
harm innocent people so callously.
As she swam back up toward wakefulness, Kagome was frightened, perhaps
more so than she'd ever been, but she knew what she had to do.
"Kikyo."
The priestess spun in the air at the sound of her name. "You." Looking
down at the girl was akin to seeing her own image mirrored in turbulent
waters; a distorted reflection, a dim memory of what perhaps once was,
of what might have been but would not. Kikyo's lips curved into a smile.
"You will battle against me?"
Kagome gazed upward with steely-hard eyes, barely visible in the
darkness. "No."
"What are you doing, girl?" Inu-Yasha's voice called from within the
protective bubble. "She'll destroy you!" It amused Kikyo to hear such
concern, such weakness from the self-styled ruthless, cold-hearted
demon. But it also hurt, with a pain that twisted deep inside. All the
more reason she would delight in making the prediction a reality.
"I'll not fight you," Kagome said. "I surrender. My... our soul is yours
to take."
"Kagome, no!" Kaede shouted.
"Stop, you fool!" Inu-Yasha cried.
Kikyo peered closely at the girl. "If this is some sort of trickery, it
will not help you."
"No trick." The skirt of her school uniform flapped in the howling wind.
"Take it."
Glowing tendrils of energy sparked out from Kagome's aura. Ripping a
path through the darkness, they enveloped Kikyo in their grasp before
she could react, swallowing her whole like a frog gulping up an insect.
She tried to struggle against it, only to find it as impossible as
pushing the earth out from under her own feet.
Memories, both her own and not her own, smothered the priestess'
consciousness. Memories of a childhood game of kick-ball, of
deliberately aiming the ball at the head of a younger girl, then feeling
so bad that she invited the girl home for juice and cookies to make up.
Memories of being tutored in spirit lore by kindly Suzu-sensei, not
having the heart to reveal that she'd long ago learned everything the
old woman had to teach. Memories of being attacked by Naraku in the
guise of Inu-Yasha, of shooting to trap the half-demon rather than to
kill, going peacefully to her death afterwards rather than risk
corrupting the Jewel, then meeting and freeing him again fifty years and
a lifetime later, trusting him and seeing her trust justified.
In the skies above Musashi country, a storm entity began to slip away
from this plane of existence. It scrabbled desperately for a handhold,
finding none; the spirit to which it had anchored itself had become
ethereal, untouchable, and it slid down, down, pulled by the weight of
its own malevolence to fade into the void. The sky lightened as the
cloud began to dissipate. Cautiously, villagers peeked out from windows
as the sun came into view. The storm was over.
Unnoticed, Kagome crumpled to the ground.
"Kagome!" Inu-Yasha rushed to the fallen girl, with Kaede following
behind him. "You fool, why did you have to sacrifice yourself?"
Kikyo's eyes lowered. She began to speak, but Inu-Yasha silenced her
with a hard stare. At some later time, he would listen to her sorrows
and self-recriminations; for the moment, he had room for none save his
own. He stood silently, eyes riveted to Kagome's lifeless form. Such a
beautiful flower -- all the more beautiful in her fragility, thriving
and growing where it should have been impossible. Yet that same quality
seemed to make it inevitable that such a flower would end up squashed.
If that was so, then perhaps it would have been better to use the Jewel
to become a full demon. Humanity, it seemed, ultimately led to nothing
other than this feeling of something clawing his heart from his chest.
"Kagome!" The howling voice echoed into the distance. "Kagome, you
fool!"
Suddenly, Kagome's eyes flew open, and she sat up. "Huh?"
All eyes gaped at her as she slowly rose to her feet.
"What's going on?" she said. "Am I late for school or something?"
***
"So you didn't die after all?" I asked. Stupid question, of course, to
ask someone who I was speaking to. "Why not?"
Kagome didn't answer, and I looked up from my notepad. A nurse took the
phone receiver from her. "I'm sorry, but visiting hours are ending, and
it's time for Ms. Higurashi's medication. I'll have to ask you to come
back another time."
"All right," I said reluctantly, wanting instead to stay and hear more
of this story. "I'll see you next time, Kagome." She couldn't hear me,
but she nodded and smiled as if she'd understood my meaning.
Walking down the drab and sterile corridors toward the exit, I knew that
I'd be back. These stories of demons and time travel were ludicrous, of
course, but beneath it all, there was... something. I didn't know what
it was, or even what made me think so. But it was something big, maybe
even bigger than the book I was planning. And I was going to find out
what it was.
Acknowledgements and other author's notes to follow part two. All C&C is
welcomed and appreciated.