Your Weakness - Ch. 1: A Conversation
An InuYasha Fanfiction
It could have been a night like any other night. The fire was burning brightly, bed rolls had been laid, food had been cooked and eaten and the warmth from the fire pit made for one sleepy evening inside the shack. Outside the stars were waking up, shining brightly in the sky, but the moon was still sleeping, birthing into a new, wondrous thing. Tonight, InuYasha suffered his habitual monthly gatherings of normalcy, or at least normal by anyone else’s terms.
Tonight, InuYasha was human and far from feeling anything regular. In fact, he felt insanely exhausted. It seemed the weight he carried on his shoulders pushed him downward into the hardened ground even more than normal. He wanted to shake off the feeling of unease but it was rough to not feel tough during nights like these.
Three sat around the burning fire pit tonight. Kagome has gone home to her life in the future, seemingly unaware that tonight would be a night where InuYasha needed her most. But Sango and Miroku were there to stay by his side at least.
Shippo lay off with Kirara, happily full of food and already dozing for the night. Miroku had decided to stay up for a little while longer so as to allow Sango some much needed rest.
Their tiresome effort to find Naraku and destroy him seemed never ending so they each took their respite when they could.
“InuYasha, you should get some rest. I don’t feel any threats nearby, we should be safe for the night.” Miroku smiled, still a bit mystified at how InuYasha looked so different yet still the same. His hair lay in the same fashion, but instead of white it was black. His eyes that shone gold most of the time were now a soft dusty amber. The only thing that seemed to stay the same was his face, and his attitude.
Rolling his eyes, InuYasha shuffled to his side, trying to find a comfortable way to lay down on the ground. “I still say staying so far out in the middle of nowhere puts a target on our backs.” He’d shut his eyes, rolling onto his back and tucking his arms into the sleeves of his suikan.
Miroku relaxed a bit as he sat, staring at the fire in the middle of the room. “If something were to happen while we resided in a village, it could put the villagers at risk. Here at least we’d be able to handle it as we normally do.”
Huffing and trying his best to forget his formidable monthly fate, InuYasha had to agree with Miroku. The monk may be shallow and a bit of a liar when it came to relieving others of small and large trinkets for mere monetary gain, but he was also level headed enough to make good points. InuYasha yawned and rolled onto his other side, his back facing the fire pit and the rest of them. “Yeah yeah.” He muttered, exhaustion suddenly washing over him, enveloping him in the comfort of mortal sleep.
----------------------------------------------------
For a moment, InuYasha forgot where he was, until he sat up and recognized the shack and the fire pit in the middle of the room, of which the fire had been put out. He figured it was the middle of the night, for the sun wasn’t even peaking through the cracks in the walls just yet. It was dark inside. With no moon to light up outside and no window with which to look outside, InuYasha could barely see anyone else inside.
He assumed everyone was lying where they had settled earlier and by feeling the ground with his hands and feet, InuYasha was able to stand and shuffle his way to the door. It creaked slightly as he opened it, glancing back to make sure he hadn’t woken anyone up from the sound.
When no one stirred, InuYasha continued on his way outside, shutting the door behind him. He let loose a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. It relaxed his shoulders and brought goosebumps to his skin. It was a chilly night but he was warm enough from the heat his clothing held inside.
Outside wasn’t all that much brighter than inside the shack.
The stars were bright enough to place a dull blue hue on his surroundings, but each shadowed corner was blackened into an abyss. InuYasha could make out the hill they sat upon and the few trees plotted around the building behind him. He could even make out the forest that surrounded them and the path that started from underneath his feet to where it lost itself between the trees.
InuYasha knew he shouldn’t be outside, especially on a night like this, but he couldn’t sleep any longer. All the worries he held onto brought nothing but anxiety when once there had been a readied sureness.
He wondered when it became about what they all wanted in the end instead of just what he wanted. He’d declared Miroku, Sango, Kagome and even Shippo as friends publicly and he wasn’t shy about the trust he placed in the group. But he’d always been steadfast in his belief that when all this shard business was over, he would become what he always thought he should be.
Even more so in his current form, he felt on a shallow level that being a full demon could wipe all his problems away, that he would be complete if he was fully what should have been his since birth. Somewhere deep down inside however, InuYasha knew he’d rather have a life with Kagome and Miroku, Sango, hell even Shippo. If they chose to stay with him in the end that is.
At some point InuYasha found himself down the hill, slowly walking the path away from the shack. He hadn’t realized while being so deep in thought, but a sudden crack sounded to his right, startling him out of his reverie.
Instinctively, he reached down to his hip to retrieve Tessaiga but it wasn’t there. Silently cursing, InuYasha realized it was still sitting back inside the shack, having removed it so as to get a more comfortable position to sleep in.
He thought about running back to grab it, to alert the others of the sound but before he could turn and take a step, he felt something snake around his waist and tug him backward along the path, dragging him in the dirt until the forest and shadows swallowed him up.