Shattered: Chapter One

Shattered: Chapter One

For CiraArana. Thank you for putting up with my procrastination in beta reading and giving me the desire to write fanfiction again.

 
***

 “But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.”

            —Psalm 9:18

 

Kagome huddled deeper into her blanket, listening to the clock in her apartment tick slowly, the second hand steadily approaching the twelve at the top of the clock. When it did, the journey around began again.

 She turned away from the clock and sighed. She should have realized how terrible it would be to spend her twenty third birthday in bed with a hangover. But she hadn’t been thinking when she had gone out with her friends to that bar. She hadn’t been thinking when she left early and followed that boy back to his apartment for more beers and some privacy.

 With another heaving sigh, Kagome reached for the water bottle and popped two Tylenols in her mouth. She swallowed and slowly stood, stumbling toward the living room. Collapsing on the couch, she waited for the world to stop spinning and cautiously, carefully, began to think.

 When, she wondered, had she ever stopped thinking?

 “Hojo,” she muttered to herself. “When I started dating Hojo…”

 

Her permanent return from the feudal era had thrown her into a serious depression. She hadn’t realized how attached she had become to her friends there. Nor had she realized how detached she had become from her friends in the present day. Moreover, she had grown up a lot during the time she had spent with Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, and Shippo, fighting Naraku. She wasn’t concerned with many of the petty things her friends had cared so much about. It didn’t matter to her who the newest hot pop star was. It didn’t matter that Ralph Lauren, that over-priced imported clothing line, was having a fifty-percent off sale.

 

Feeling so alone, Kagome had spent hours engrossed in her memories, pouring over them, wondering if there could have been a way for her to stay. Eventually, she had been diagnosed with depression. The doctors gave her drugs that left her feeling warmer and happier, but they didn’t take the sharp edge off her memories. Those memories still followed her around, hovering just behind that corner, waiting to leap out at her and drag her into a torrent of emotion.

 

A few weeks after starting the drugs, Hojo had approached her and said he was still interested in a relationship. She had agreed, and they had started to date. Her grandfather and her mother had been so happy for her. They relaxed their rules in their exaltation over her finally moving on and forgetting about her infatuation with Inuyasha. About a month after Hojo had asked her out, they had started sleeping with each other. It had seemed like a grand idea at the time. Kagome really had fancied herself in love with the boy. Then he abruptly ended their relationship. Three days later, he had started dating Yumi. Kagome had plunged head long into another depression, but she concealed it this time.

 

She took to wearing long-sleeved shirts every day of the year, no matter how hot, to hide the white scars that began to appear along her wrists. She made sure her skirts would fall at least to her knees and began to cut her thighs as well. Scars now laced their way, in a delicate sort of pattern, up the insides of her wrists. She still wore long-sleeved shirts to avoid questions and to hide fresh wounds when the world got too cruel and she needed to make sure she was still alive enough to feel something.

 

When Kagome entered Tokyo University, it was as an engineering major, not as a history major as her family had expected. That, she realized as she lay on her couch, staring at the ceiling, was when she had really began to run away from everything. For four years, she studied at Tokyo University, pushing herself harder, forcing herself to be better. Math and physics had never been a strong area for her, but she refused to give up and be forced into anything that might lead her towards the feudal era again.

 

When she graduated, valedictorian of the engineering school, she applied for graduate school in the . She was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, half-way around the world. Kagome packed up her things and moved to Cambridge. She had made friends quickly, and earned the respect of all her professors. She helped teach undergraduates when she wasn’t working on a pet project or in her own classes.

 

In the center of American history, she didn’t have to worry about the feudal era and possibly awakening her memories of it. There were few things to remind her of that dream.

 

A knocked sounded against the door to the apartment and Kagome moaned. The sound reverberated through her head, smashing against her skull and worsening an already terrible head ache. Colors splashed in front of her eyes and, for a moment, Kagome thought she might throw up. When the feeling passed and she felt it was safe to open her eyes, she slowly stood and shuffled over to the door.

 

After peeking through the little eye hole, she opened the door and picked up the plain, nondescript package waiting outside the door. Glancing down the hall, she saw the old landlady bustling towards the stairs. With a smile, Kagome retreated back into the apartment. She returned to her couch and sat, regarding the box in her lap. It was from her family back in .

 

Carefully, Kagome opened the box and pulled out several more boxes, wrapped in festive birthday paper. She picked up the largest one and removed the paper, opening the box to discover a knit, green sweater from her mother. Shrugging out of her blanket, Kagome peeled off the MIT sweatshirt she was wearing and pulled her mother’s sweater on. It fit snug around her body and still carried the lingering scent of her old home.

 

Pulling the blanket back over her shoulders, Kagome turned to a small present, from her grandfather. She pulled off the wrapping and opened the small box, gasping in delight at the diamond earrings. A throb in her head warned her not to try to breathe so quickly again. As she pulled the earrings from their box and put them on, she saw a note from her grandfather. She smiled at his little note wishing her love and then opened her brother’s gift.

 

Souta had given her one of his paintings. He was phenomenal when he had a brush in his hand. His high school art teacher had said he had a natural affinity for paints of any kind. The picture he had given her was small, only a little large than an average sheet of paper. A line of trees stood in the foreground and, in the background, a silver crescent rose above a rippling purple and silver sea. Stars speckled the night sky above the water, and were reflected in the water. Kagome smiled and touched the frame gently before setting the painting aside.

 

She turned back to the box and pulled out a letter addressed to her from her mother. Opening it, she discovered a plane ticket and the message “Come visit us for Christmas, Kagome.” Kagome laughed softly, trying not to add to her headache.

 

“Sure, mom,” she said quietly, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll come.”

 

***

 

No one was home when Kagome arrived a week and a half later. A message on the refrigerator told her that her mother and grandfather had run out to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Souta, it added was out with some artist friends in a park, painting for an upcoming show. Takiyaki was set out on the table, so she helped herself to one as she walked by with her suitcase.

 

Climbing the stairs, Kagome dropped her suitcase on the bed in the room she had once slept in. Books she didn’t have room for in her apartment still filled the shelves. Drawers still had diaries hidden in them. The picture of her mother, grandfather, brother and herself from six years previous sat on the desk beside a plate of cookies.

 

Kagome groaned. “Mom,” she muttered with a laugh. “You’re fattening me up, aren’t you? And you aren’t even home.” She grabbed a cookie anyway and began to eat that as she finished off the takiyaki.

 

Buyo was sitting on the back of a couch when Kagome padded into the family room. He looked up at her entrance and meowed loudly, as if put off by the fact that she had interrupted his sleeping.

 

“How did you get up there, Buyo?” she asked, scratching his head idly. “You’re too fat to climb up that far.”

 

Buyo meowed again, apparently indignant of how he was being spoken of.

 

“Well, I’m going to go outside for a while,” Kagome told the fat cat, heading back toward the front door. “Watch over the house for me while I’m gone, okay?”

 

The only answer she received was the idle flick of a tail and the narrowing of eyes. With a lighthearted chuckle, Kagome slipped her shoes on and pulled her jacket over her shoulders.

 

She stepped out into the icy afternoon and took a deep breath of the refreshingly cold air. She wandered across the open area between the house and the shrine, hands stuffed in her pockets as she went. A few inches of snow coated the ground and the trees, glistening like so many gems in the afternoon sunlight.

 

“I didn’t realize how much I missed this place,” Kagome said to herself as she wandered aimlessly about. “It’s peaceful here. A lot different from Cambridge… Americans always seem to be in a hurry.”

 

She turned and walked backwards, staring back at where she had come from until she bumped against something. Kagome turned and found herself staring at the well house. She regarded the old shed for a minute before opening the door and walking inside. She stopped at the edge of the well, fingers curled around the lip of it.

 

How many times had she tried to go back through the well after Naraku had been destroyed? How many times had she fallen asleep on the dirt ground, curled in a ball, in only her pajamas, even in the dead of winter? How many times had she beaten the ground, demanding that it open up and take her back?

 

With a snarl of disgust, Kagome whirled from the well. “How many times are you going to come back to this place and pity yourself?” she demanded, knowing that, even as she forced herself not to care, her heart was breaking all over again.

 

By the time she reached the house, she was crying. By the time she was to her room and opening her suitcase, she had removed her clothes. By the time she wasn’t sure she would be able to feel anything anymore, she was in the shower, scalding water pounding against her back. When she finally realized she could still feel something, little rivulets of red flowed freely from her wrists down the drain of the shower.

 

Satisfied, Kagome scrubbed her body down with soap her mother had provided and stepped from the tub. She hurried back into her room and pulled bandages from her suitcase. She retreated back into the bathroom to dress the wounds and put clothing back on.

 

Finished dressing, Kagome stepped from the bathroom and nearly ran Souta down.

 

“Kagome!” he brother exclaimed. He gave her a quick hug. “It’s great to see you! Wow, I’ve got so much to tell you!”

 

Kagome hugged him back. “Me too,” she lied. “Who’s your friend?”

 

Souta looked over at the girl beside him and blushed. “Kagome, this is Hanakari Ayumi. She’s a painter like me. We were going to look at some of my painting sets.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ayumi,” Kagome said to the girl, extending her hand.

 

Ayumi took it, blushing and looking down.

 

“Well, I’ll let you two do artist things. Are mom and grandpa home?”

 

“They should be. See you at dinner, Kagome.” With that, Souta and Ayumi disappeared into his room.

 

Kagome headed down the steps and into the kitchen. “Mom? Grandpa?”

 

“Kagome!” her mother exclaimed. She gave Kagome a quick hug as she put a bag of groceries down. “How long have you been here?”

 

“Not very. Hi, grandpa,” Kagome replied, giving her grandfather a hug as well.

 

The old man grinned. “Welcome home,” he said as he ambled into the family room and turned on the TV.

 

Kagome smiled after her grandfather before turning back to her mother. “Do you need any help?” she asked.

 

“If you could help me put some of these groceries away, that’d be great, honey,” her mom replied. “How have you been?”

 

“Great. MIT is a lot of fun.”

 

“ is different,” her mom said as she began putting vegetables into the refrigerator.

 

“It’s a lot… busier. Everyone always has something to do or somewhere to be and, when you don’t, you’re at a loss,” Kagome replied with a laugh. “But Tokyo University was like that, too.”

 

“Are you making friends?”

 

“Yeah, a lot, actually. Americans are really nice. I thin some of them felt bad for me when we first met, since I still had a pronounced accent. Natalie helped me a lot with my accent, though, so it’s better now.”

 

“Natalie is one of your friends there?”

 

“Yeah. We’re in the same biomolecular engineering course.”

 

Silence fell between the two women as Kagome finished putting the rice bags in the pantry. When she was done, she sat next to her mom at the table. “I was thinking of going out for a little while tonight to do some shopping you can only do in . I know you were just out with Grandpa, but would you like to come with me?” she asked.

 

Her mother smiled up at her and Kagome noticed the gray that was beginning to show in her hair. “I’d love to, Kagome.”

 

***

 

Kagome lay in her bed three days later, on Christmas Eve, unable to sleep. An uneasy feeling made her skin prickle and her stomach queasy. Whenever she closed her eyes, she felt as if the darkness was closing in on her, reaching out to grab her and drag her away. After lying in bed until nearly midnight, Kagome got up. She slipped her feet into her slippers and pulled a light robe over her pajamas.

 

Quietly, Kagome walked down the stairs to the family room. She walked up to the porch door and looked outside, over the land, at the Goshinboku that stood tall and proud against the night sky. Wind danced through its branches, making them dance in front of the moon.

 

Kagome turned away and walked back up the stairs and into the bathroom she shared with Souta. She shut the door quietly behind her and sat on the toilet, staring across the space to the mirror, watching herself in it. Unable to sit still, she stood up and paced the small length of the room.

 

She finally came to a rest in front of the mirror, hands braced on either side of her head and on the cool glass surface of the mirror. She looked up and gasped, seeing another face, not her own, staring back at her. A young woman in a dirty kimono smiled  prettily, her hair in a loose ponytail. Kagome turned her head to the side and saw no one. She looked back at the mirror and there the girl was. Still smiling, she reached out and placed her hands against Kagome’s on the other side of the glass.

 

Kagome wanted to back away from the mirror, but she found that she was too enthralled. She wanted to scream, but found her voice muffled by her desire to know what was going on.

 

The woman in the mirror said something. Her lips moved, but Kagome couldn’t hear anything. She looked familiar, though, the girl in the mirror. As Kagome watched the woman speak, silent, she tried to place her face.

 

Suddenly, Kagome realized who the woman in the mirror was. Yes, she was older; yes, she looked different. But she still wore the same smile.

 

Kagome’s lips parted. She breathed a name she hadn’t spoken in years. “Rin…”

 

And the world shattered into a million pieces around her.

 

***

 

The same dream, night after night. It never changed. It was always that Other, and it was always being smothered by the darkness. Sesshoumaru wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand to have that same dream from the moment he fell asleep until the moment he woke, night after night, week after week, month after month.

 

He took some solace in the fact that he no longer dreamed about her death; about her rape and murder. Even so, the monotony of this dream was eating at him. He snarled silently as he shredded a scroll under his sharp nails, ceding to the fact that it wasn’t really the monotony of the dream that was starting to wreck his nerves. It was the content, the underlying sense of desperation for something more than what was had.

Sesshoumaru stood abruptly from the table his work was spread over and began pacing the length of his study. He needed to find a way to end the dream. There had to be some way, something he could do to make it stop. All he needed to do was find out what. He snarled again at the thought of that. He would not bend himself to a mere dream.

The storm outside his castle picked up. Rain pounded harder against his walls as thunder roared loudly, demanding the world revere and fear it. Lightning danced across the mountains in tandem with the thunder, the only light in the midst of the dark storm. Somewhere in the castle, a baby began to cry.