Raindrops

Chapter 6: To the ones that change us

How can one measure the hearts of men? How can one measure life in blood? You kill in the name of light…a light, which only blinds us when we try to look upon it. Come, turn from this light. I fear the shadows it creates will take me from you. You kill, for you see their darkness. How many more must die, how many more will you kill Valcos, before you see their tears…

Just one…just one more beast remains, then I can put down my sword for good. Huh, ironic…I always thought I picked up the sword for good…


Valcos always had a way with words, but today it seemed silence was all that came to his lips. He was frustrated to say the least, he had come so close but…

Sesshoumaru halted, his claws still glowing with poison…

Kagome wanted to scream. She could feel Inuyasha’s grip tighten around her shoulders. Kirara and Shippo stood; horror etched across their faces.

Miroku didn’t understand, he could still feel the rain upon his skin. He could feel…pain. He could feel the cold steel of a katana piercing his skin. Valcos could not have missed!

Miroku new he was going to die, he waited for it…but as the seconds passed the doubt began to clear, he was sure…Valcos had missed his mark. Slowly, Miroku opened his eyes, curious to see what had distracted the warrior. But on opening them, he was greeted not by the lifeless orbs that resided in Valcos’ skull. Instead he saw sadness. He saw suffering. Pain swam within the amber orbs as he looked upon them. Tears-fighting the onslaught of the rain-trickled down her cheeks.

“S-Sango”

Looking into her eyes he felt a pain deep within his heart, only for it to be replaced by a much more…earthly pain.

“Ahh!!!” looking down Miroku saw the sword exit his own body. He watched it as it then-to his horror-disappeared as it passed through Sango’s chest. Screams, screams all around him, yet all seemed stunned to silence.

Sango’s eyes were still on him as she fell. Slowly slumping to the ground, her exterminator mask falling poetically beside her, blood spreading fast across the watery grass.

Something within Miroku seemed to rise to the surface. It seemed to fight back the boiling hate within him. But it didn’t matter…his mind…his heart seemed to have gone numb. Inuyasha was screaming, something about healing wounds…time…

“Ah well, if you fail once try again, right”

Valcos drew back his sword once more; there would be no further delay. It was simple, the minute he died the hate would consume his love and then would spread, like fire to the driest of leaves it would consume the entire world in hate, there would be no stopping it.

Revenge…Valcos would have his vengeance upon a world that harbored only hate for him.

But his swing was never completed. His eyes saw something then, that his heart refused to believe…

Miroku looked up-tearing his eyes away from Sango’s body-what had stilled his hand for a second time?

Looking up Miroku felt like a thunderbolt had struck him…

Valcos stood-blade suspended in mid strike-a changed man, no longer were his eyes empty. Lifeless. They now swirled with a torrent of emotions that Miroku had never seen before. Valcos’ entire form seemed to sag under the weight of the feelings now flooding his every vein, his every though. As he slowly fell he spoke but one word, his eyes never leaving the girl’s lifeless body…

“Faye…”

Valcos-on his knees-stared at his own hands, lost within the memories surging into him, his feelings for Faye flooding his senses. He felt sadness, he felt pain…but most of all he felt guilt. His love for Faye surged through him, but it brought with it a deluge of shame…of remorse His hate was borne from his love for Faye, his love…

Was this her parting wish, to see a world misunderstood, punished.

Would she have been elated to have her memories festooned with hate…his hate.

Plip

The rain felt unnatural; different from the downpour that had persisted all day. Perhaps the clouds of hate had diluted it…

But on looking up he saw neither rain nor hate. The sun floated calmly in the sky, mocking him as it shone warmly upon his face. Looking back at his hand, Valcos realized for the first time that he was crying…

Miroku held Sango in his arms. He could fell her erratic breaths against his neck. Kagome leaned beside him, tears overwhelming her senses.

Sango’s hand slowly moved towards Miroku’s face…

Shippo clung to Kagome, Kirara howled before their feet…

Miroku stared into Sango’s eyes; they were barely open.

Suddenly her body seemed to twitch the slightest…

Miroku had seen corpses, he’d seen blood, he’d seen entrails, but never before had he seen death in such vivid detail.

Like a candle being blown out, Miroku saw the life leave Sango’s eyes…forever, her hand dropping limp at her side. Miroku felt himself scream…he had lost the will to control his body; his ears ringing with the others cries.

Kagome’s heart wanted to tear itself out of her chest and run back to the well and never come back. Looking up, she saw Inuyasha, his eyes seemed watery, an expression of sadness and horror across his face.

Miroku held Sango close…he felt the blood from her wound staining his rain soaked robes, he felt the sun; cruelly bathing their misery in its warm rays. He tried to hold her as close as he could, he could feel her cheek against his, her body against his chest, but he knew…he knew that as much as he tried to hold on to her she had already slipped away…gone to a place beyond tears and desolation.

Shippo felt the pain suffocating him; he watched Sango’s lifeless hand, willing it to twitch. But he knew; the had which would once so skillfully repel Miroku’s lecherous attacks would remain idol, never to move again…

Memories. Memories flooded into Miroku’s mind, the time they first met, when he tried to grope her thigh. He remembered their time in Mt.Hakurei. He remembered teaching her about Buddhism…the proposal…


“Please!! Please Sesshoumaru!! You can save her!!” The pain in her throat was unbearable, yet Kagome pleaded, the thought of tenseiga…

“She…she cannot be saved” Valcos was barely able to speak, his words punctuated by his wounds, he knew what the girl was asking…he was no fool, he recognized the sword on the demons hip.

“The hate…it touched her. There’s no bringing her back”

The words disappeared as soon as they left his lips but their meaning lingered on…

Reality defeated their hearts war, enveloping them all in its icy grip. Death was never more real…more absolute to them; it closed in all around them…suffocating them. Sango was gone…never to see her brother saved from the fate of the jewel…never to see the demise of Naraku…she was gone, forever.

Valcos looked back at his hands, tough they appeared spotless he could still see the blood that lay just beneath…

How many more must die, how many more will you kill Valcos before you see their tears

He looked upon the others, he saw the suffering, he saw the dead…

Just one…

‘Cruel’ he thought ‘life has a way with my words’

Looking at the earth once again he saw a pair of black boots before him. Looking up he saw Sesshoumaru looking down on him; Tokijin raised, his flawless white robes, stained with his own blood. Valcos clutched his own wounds, the pain felt distant. Without even wincing he looked up at the demon again.

‘Wow…he’s tall’

The smallest of laughs left Valcos’ lips.

“You know what they say demon, its better to have loved and lost and so on blah blah blah. Well I think they got it just right. Don’t you think?” The others now tore themselves from their grief to look upon the confrontation before them.

Sesshoumaru had heard of the term. Visions of his mother. His father…bleeding…irrelevant. Visions of Rin then Jaken then Rin again. Just as he was about to snap himself out of his revere the final vision appeared before him. Her smile, her crimson eyes, her happiness…

Sesshoumaru prepared tokijin. Allowing a smile to cross his face for the first time he spoke…

“I agree”

The wind picked up, coming from the far side of the meadow bending the grass-like some unseen creature coming to greet them-as it swept towards them. Pearly cherry blossoms seemed to float gently around Sesshoumaru momentarily before continuing their journey across the meadow.

Valcos watched the flowers as they passed, slowly looking back at Sesshoumaru, prepared for his sentence. Looking at the demon’s face once more he knew something was wrong. The mist of compassion that had glazed the demon’s eyes was gone; he stared intently towards the forests behind Valcos…

In the face of death Miroku noticed the oddest of things, it hit him then, the picture was complete in his mind and yet, still…some questions remained unanswered. But they wouldn’t be for long…

Out of the forest cover walked a priest, a cloth over his eyes a frown upon his face

“It seems that it is you that are blind in the end…my friends…”

***

Cmon guys I need reviews!!!
Were almost done here, one more chapter remains!! Hold on, all will soon be made known.

To Ginny:

I had a good laugh when u thought Faye was Kagome.
Please tell me what you thought.