Control Side-Stories: Transcendence

Summer was ending.

The days were shortening. The flowers were fading. But the sun was still hot. The air was still thick and stifling with the heat of it, like the woolen blankets her Auntie had forced her to bed down under even when she was sick with fever. She wasn’t really her aunt, that sour-faced woman with the stringy hair and the dark holes in her gums. And it wasn’t a fever she’d been afflicted with—not really.

Thinking back on it, she couldn’t recall a time she’d ever truly been sick. Even when the plague had swept through the village and taken all the other young children, it had skipped right over her. That was when they’d begun to call her ‘unnatural’—when they’d begun to throw stones at her and beat her. She brought disaster, they’d said. She brought evil spirits. First down upon her poor family, then down upon everyone else.

That was when her Auntie had thrown her out and she’d started stealing. She didn’t want to steal, but what else was she supposed to do? She tried to pay her Auntie back for what she took. She foraged all day in the woods. She made a paste out of herbs and spring-water—just like her mother had used to make. She would leave it for her Auntie on the porch. It was for her putrid teeth, which were killing her. Even back then, she could see how the sickness in people would spread—how the rot would creep through them like tree-roots, growing and twisting and burrowing ever deeper until it choked around their hearts and smothered them.

But oftentimes the paste would sit out too long and spoil. And even if it didn’t, her Auntie would know it was she who had stolen the fish or pilfered from the garden. And then the villagers would drive her back into the woods again. She wondered why they didn’t just kill her. It didn’t occur to her until later that maybe they were afraid.

Because of how they’d found her—curled between the corpses, her hands pressed to the ruin of her dead mother’s chest. They had found her sick but alive, stuck in that fever which wasn’t really a fever. Her whole body had glowed with the heat of it. For days, she had sweated and shivered and burned until at last it broke.

She couldn’t speak after that.

The words would stick somewhere in her throat, and when she opened her mouth to let them out, there’d be nothing but empty air. It was yet another thing that made them despise her, this silence. So she took to smiling instead. But it was just as empty.

Until she found him.

“Rin-chan, you were supposed to put that away,” Kanako complained, peering at her. “Kagome-sama said so.”

Slipping the strand of pearls she’d been caressing back beneath her haori, Rin flashed the other girl the same kind of hollow grin she’d used to show to those mean, stupid villagers. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Kanako pursed her lips. “It’s whorish, that necklace.”

“It’s beautiful,” Rin countered, with heat. “You’re just jealous.”

Kanako made a disgusted sound. “You should have refused it. He’ll expect you to lie with him now, that demon.”

Fury surged hot and raw in Rin’s chest. The flare of remembered pain, the lash of ignorance stung deep into her flesh, rung through her bones. She felt it like the thud of rocks against her skin, like the jab of a foot in her ribs.

“Shut up,” Rin said, her voice faintly trembling. “How dare you insult Sesshoumaru-sama. You don’t know anything—about him, or about me.”

When she’d smiled at him, it hadn’t been empty.

No one ever asked about her. No one ever said anything to her that wasn’t a curse or a threat. If she could have spoken, she would have told him that the bruises hurt, but she didn’t mind them anymore.

In his presence, she hardly felt them at all.

He wasn’t human, that much she could see—that much she could feel. It was this feeling which seemed to pour from him, which had raised the hairs on her arms before she’d crept close enough to see him through the brambles. His eyes had been closed as he’d leaned against the tree, the lids of them shaded a peculiar pinkish hue. He had other markings, too. Slashes of red on his cheeks and a crescent moon on his forehead.

He wasn’t a man. He was so much more than a man. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

And yet he was injured, unwell.

She could sense it as much as she could see it, the sickness in him. His sleeve was bloodied, his breathing was shallow. But still he was kind to her, despite the enormity of pain he must be in.

So she had stolen again—not from her Auntie this time, but from the medicine woman. The medicine woman who had gone into Rin’s home in the forest after her mother was dead and taken from her stores. Rin discovered this as she rifled through the woman’s cupboards, and once she’d discovered it, she hadn’t felt guilty anymore.

She stole so that she could brew a special tea, make a special meal of cakes for him. She was sad when he refused them, but after all he was not human.

Still, it had felt good to try.

Again and again, she tried. More than anything, she wanted to help him, this lovely wounded creature. She wanted to help him as badly as she’d wanted to help her brothers, her father. Her mother. She got sick again from wanting to help him. Curled against the floorboards of the abandoned hut, she shook and wept as the fever burned in her for days.

By the time she emerged from it, weak and exhausted, he was gone.

Kanako’s look was dark. “You’ll go to hell, carrying on like that.”

Rin smiled again. “I’ve been to hell, Kanako-chan. There are worse places.”

They beat her within an inch of her life, that time.

She didn’t even try to defend herself. She let the blows rain down on her face, her body. She registered the pain only distantly, as though she were already outside of herself. As though it were all happening to someone else.

She didn’t feel connected to her flesh anymore, even as she dragged herself up from the dirt and limped out of town. Now that he was gone, she didn’t want to live anymore. All she wanted was to go back to the clearing where she had found him, to lay down in the spot where he had been and go away to be with her mother.

Perhaps she was cursed. Perhaps she did bring evil spirits. Because that was when the wolves came, with their masters.

She could hear the screams at her back, feel the bloodlust and the darkness. She screamed herself when the beasts set upon her. When they tore into her and gnashed her bones. When her blood ran hot and thick and her breathing shallowed.

Beneath their fangs and their claws, an eternity of torment.

When she opened her eyes again and saw his face, she had thought she was in heaven. She learned his name, and it fell from her lips like a prayer.

Kanako shrank back against the wall of the temple, glaring at her like the villagers had glared at her when they’d called her ‘unnatural’. Smiling still, Rin glared back.

Her first loyalty would always be to him, her Lord Sesshoumaru. Her guardian. Her savior.

Wherever he went, she followed. Whenever he called, she answered. She was whole again, because of him, and yet she still couldn’t shake the sadness that gripped her, even now.

Because he was sick, still.

She had thought it was because of his missing arm.

A wound that refused to heal.

This was the source of the division in him, this severed limb. This was what she had believed. If only he could regrow it, he would be whole once again.

He would be well.

Every day and every night, she studied that wounded spot, until her eyes unfocused and Lord Jakken scolded her for her distraction. Even in her dreams, she searched for an answer. Every malady has a cure, her mother had said. It is only a matter of divining it.

Sometimes she would search so deep within herself that she would forget what she was looking for. Sometimes she would see visions of strange things, strange people and places.

And of demons. Of demons most of all.

The fever would rage in her, after dreams like this. But Lord Sesshoumaru would hold her, and the white-hot heat would bleed from her into him, dissipating in the cool darkness of his presence.

When she saw the sword in him, it wasn’t a vision, though she’d thought it was, at first. She saw the sword, and then she understood—the sword and the arm were connected.

To Tenseiga.

To herself.

Embedded in the wound, a fragment of his brother’s sword, reshaped and regrown. It was her second death that completed the vision. That turned the dream into reality.

But even after his arm had re-appeared with sword in hand, he wasn’t cured. He was still divided, still shadowed. Clinging to him, she wept and wept.

“Rin, why do you cry?” he asked her.

“Because it wasn’t your arm, Sesshoumaru-sama,” she answered. “You’re suffering, still.”

Torn, he lifted her up and set off across the sky. Took her to the field of moon-white flowers. In their infinite beauty, she held his hand, and the sadness went away.

It was a place she would never forget. A place she would beg for them to return to, not long before the battle for the Jewel was over and his sickness reached its peak.

Just like the first time she had found him, he was in the forest, outside of Edo village. But other than that, nothing was the same. Slumped against the roots of a tree, he stared listlessly at the ground. His clothes and fur were disheveled. His hair was askew. His skin was damp and his eyes were glazed, his features drawn in unmistakable pain.

She fell at his side, took his face in her small hands. “Let us go back, Sesshoumaru-sama, to the field of white lilies. Let us go back and stay there forever.”

A stricken look crossed his features as he pulled away. Rin’s heart plummeted. Dark and barbed, tendrils of misery tightened around his own. She wanted to reach inside him, to pluck them out like weeds. Her hands glowed with this want, scalded like hot irons as she pressed them to his chest.

Lord Sesshoumaru hissed in a breath. Grabbing her wrists, he wrenched them back and glared into her eyes.

“Stop it, Rin. You cannot help me.”

Her lower lip trembled. No, she couldn’t help him any more now than she ever could. But the burn of her touch had returned a bit of life to him. Had made her wonder.

“Sesshoumaru-sama, who can?”

His eyes had widened. A shiver rippled their fevered surface. Then, leaning his brow to hers, he told her.

She knew his heart. He trusted her with his heart, and she loved him for it.

She loved him more than anyone. More even than her mother, whom she now scarcely remembered. More than her Granny Kaede or her dearest Kohaku.

More even than Kagome.

It had been a similar feeling, the first time Rin had seen her. How lovely she was, how brave and strong and kind. A brilliance had radiated from her—so bright at times that it seemed to hurt Rin’s eyes if she looked too long upon her.

It always hurt, to look at her now.

Following her out into the grassy hills beyond the temple, Rin felt a sinking in her stomach. A preemptive dread. It was a feeling that intensified as they encountered Kohaku. He himself was in the middle of training. Sunlight glinted from the flashing streak of his sickle blade. Alternatively, it gouged the hard earth like tallow and skimmed precisely over the very tops of the grass blades. Overripe, they burst against the cutting edge, staining it with their greenish blood as he stopped and turned toward them.

Hopefully, she looked at him, but his eyes were trained on Kagome. Always on Kagome. There was an intensity, an animosity in that look which Rin didn’t quite understand. But that still she recognized—

It was the same way Kagome looked at Lord Sesshoumaru.

“Sorry, Kohaku-kun,” she said. Her blue eyes flicked over him as she started to turn. “I didn’t think anyone would be back here.”

Reeling in the silver chain of his weapon with a snap, he sheathed it and strode past her. “No need to apologize, Kagome-san.” His smile was flinty, edged like the curve of the blade at his back. “Pretend I wasn’t.”

Kagome frowned after him as his tall dark figure disappeared into the trees. Flaring anew, she rounded upon Rin with a smile just as piercing.

“Okay, Rin-chan, let’s begin.”

The shortbow was clammy in Rin’s hold. With uncertain fingers, she threaded it with an arrow. Her dread steepened with the certainty of disappointment. Sweat broke out across her brow as she attempted to channel her power down the arrow shaft. But her aim was poor, her focus too broad. Her shots fell short of the mark, leaden and dull.

“Don’t try so hard to form the attack yourself,” Kagome advised her. “Let the shape of the arrow give your reiki its point.”

Panting, Rin nodded. A miko’s power worked best through an earthly conduit. But even knowing this, she struggled to hone her reiki offensively. It flowed deep into the fibers of the wood instead, knitting them together where they were broken, causing buds to sprout along the bowframe, for sprigs of leaves to burst from it. Gasping, Rin dropped the warped weapon. Kagome’s brows drew together in consternation.

“It’s useless, Kagome-sama,” Kanako snipped. “She can’t do it. All she can do is grow plants and brew potions.”

Rin’s eyes shot daggers at her. “If anyone’s useless, it’s you.”

The other girl glowered as Kagome sighed in exasperation.

“Go sweep the shrine steps, Kanako-chan.”

“But, Kagome-sama, I swept them this morning!” Kanako whined.

“Well, go and sweep them again,” Kagome ground out, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Tossing Rin another spiteful look, Kanako slunk off to do as she was told.

“And if Kaede-baa-chan offers you a double-portion at dinner, you’d better eat it!” Kagome hollered after her, before turning back to Rin with an irritable mutter. “I can’t stand how pale and skeletal that girl is. It turns my stomach.”

Rin blinked, confused. Maybe Kanako was a little slender, a little fair—but she was far from skin and bones. She supposed Kagome just hadn’t happened to notice how the village men looked after her, the grey-eyed girl with the loose limbs and shadowy manner…

Still, Rin could certainly understand Kagome’s aversion to her. It was an aversion Rin felt keenly herself. Because there was something wrong with Kanako. A contagion of the spirit.

“Anyway,” Kagome said, leveling her over-bright gaze upon Rin, “it’s high time I told you something, Rin-chan. Something that I think will help you become stronger, faster. The fact is, you’re just like me.”

Rin stared at her. Her heart gave an unsteady throb. There was nothing Rin had wanted more, than to be like Kagome. This was why she had remained in Edo village. This was why she had continued to train as a miko, even after Granny Kaede had taught her how to channel her reiki so that the fevers would go away. It was fair to say that Rin had striven to emulate Kagome in all that she did—even knowing that she would always fall short. Where Kagome was beautiful, Rin was pretty. Where Kagome was powerful, Rin was capable. Where Kagome was divine, Rin was pure and chaste.

Kagome was the shining ideal, the one who drew even Lord Sesshoumaru’s gaze. The one who dazzled the masses. Who had blinded Rin’s Kohaku-kun without a care.

Had it been that day in the garden, Rin wondered, when she herself had finally broken from the spell? When her idolatry of Kagome had turned to envy instead? This was the sickness in her, she realized. And yet she nurtured it, had been nurturing it more and more, not even realizing how deep it had twisted its black thorny roots into her, until Kagome’s words had blazed down upon it, shriveling it up inside.

“I am?” Rin whispered.

“You know about the Four Souls,” Kagome said, stepping toward her. “Aramitama, the aggressive soul. Nigimitama, the peaceful soul. Kushimitama, the wise soul. And Shikimitama, the loving soul. When the four souls are at balance, spiritual perfection is achieved. But that’s just a theory. In reality, everyone leans more toward one than the other.”

Drawing to a stop, Kagome fixed Rin with a heavy glance. “Youkai don’t reincarnate like we do. Their souls are fixed, but ours are fluid, because we live a multitude of lives, and the character of the soul is influenced by these experiences. This is why humans are superior to demons—this is the gods’ divine plan: for the human soul to mature to perfection. I’m telling you that you’re like me, Rin-chan, because your power isn’t bound by your own life experiences. Because the bond between your body and your soul has been broken.”

“Because I’ve died?” Rin guessed, placing a cold hand to her throat.

“That’s right,” Kagome said, smiling slightly. “For me, it was a little different. But the end result is the same. You’re not locked into this one life, or your present abilities. You can draw upon the knowledge and strength of your previous incarnations. You can harness the full power of your immortal soul.”

Rin swallowed, a faint shiver running through her. “But, Kagome-chan, that seems…wrong.”

“What’s so wrong about it?” Kagome said, a little sharply. “You didn’t ask to be killed and brought back to life. It was out of your hands. If that’s not ‘divine intervention’, I don’t know what is.”

Rin nodded, still not entirely convinced.

“It’s called ‘transcendence’—this rare ability,” Kagome continued on. “Through meditation, you can venture into your past lives.”

“I think,” Rin said, her brow creasing. “I think I have before—in my dreams.”

Kagome nodded. “It’s safer that way, while you’re sleeping. In your dreams you can’t ever really forget yourself, because you’ll always wake up. But when you’re awake…that’s when you have to be careful, not to forget. If you forget who you are, you might as well be dead.” She flashed a radiant smile as she settled cross-legged upon the ground. “But don’t worry, Rin-chan, I’m here to help you.”

Warily, Rin sat down across from her.

“Close your eyes,” Kagome said, shutting her own, “and try to remember…who you were before.”

In her dreams, it was easy. But in her waking mind, it was difficult for Rin to transcend the boundaries of her own existence. To see beyond the present life into the past. She thought of the wolves, of the Hounds of Hell and their rending claws and fangs. In thinking of them, she tore at last through her mortal shell, and drifted into the sea of eternity.

Memories swept by her in a tumult—not just of the life before, but of all her lives. It was overwhelming, nearly impossible to tell the difference in the confusion. But she focused upon the clearest image, the most recent—of a castle in the mountains, of a demon who looked so much like her Lord Sesshoumaru that she forgot all else.

“My lord,” she said to him, her eyes aglow.

“My lady,” he said to her in turn, as he swept her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers.

How fiercely she loved him, and the child within her. So fiercely that no amount of condemnation, of ridicule could break her. She had learned how to reach into their minds, how to soften their thoughts from violence. She had learned how to shape their attitudes into a semblance of tolerance instead.

This was her power.

“She is our Hime-sama,” they relented. “Our treasure.”

“It was my own fault for not keeping her well-hidden,” her aged father agreed.

There was only one she could not sway, her former suitor. She felt the bite of his katana slash into her, she felt the heat of the demonic flames. She saw her beloved’s face swim into focus above her, as he bid her and the baby to go.

In the gold of his eyes, she was lost. Suspended.

Rin-chan, a voice seemed to say. But who was ‘Rin’?

That wasn’t her name.

“Rin-chan!” the voice insisted.

Her eyes fluttered open, meeting Kagome’s in the present. Vertigo roiled through her, making her feel faint. Blanched and drained, Rin took a deep breath and forced herself to stare back.

“Well?” Kagome pressed. “Did you learn something useful?”

Rin frowned. “I…I’m not sure.”

Leaning back a little, Kagome crossed her arms at her chest. “It takes time, to learn how to navigate the soul. Don’t be discouraged, Rin-chan—you did really well. We’ll practice again tomorrow.”

Giving her a brief, tight hug, Kagome rose. Clearly she was tense, agitated. Quickly she turned away, set off in the direction of her home. But not quickly enough for Rin to miss the grimness that lined her expression, the bitter anger that edged her spirit. As she walked away, the longbow at her back seemed an extension of her—trim and taut and sharp.

Once, Kagome had been softer, warmer. But the years had hardened her, chilled her. Chiseled her into an object of legend, like the Shikon no Tama itself. But Rin could see the flaws within her, the cracks in her heart and mind. Dark fissures that were spreading ever deeper, as she strove to do what Rin could not—no matter how many past lives she transcended.

Whether made of diamond or of glass, how much pressure could Kagome stand before she fractured? And if she did…

Who would fix her?


Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 5/2/23

12 thoughts on “Control Side-Stories: Transcendence

  1. Whoa, girl. You’ve been writing- a lot. I took a long break from fanfiction and out curiosity came back to your blog.

    And I stayed for the several hours.

    I finished Statis and Transgressions.

    Took a long break to process the emotional rollercoaster you’ve left me in. And then jumped straight into The Pact and Control.

    Where do you get that talent from?

    I’m in utter awe of your writing.

    Wha I truly LOVE about your storytelling is how beautifully tragic your make the characters. They are not just fictious characters but real humans who suffer and live and laugh and hate and despise and live but most of all live despite the pain.

    It’s been a long day and its veen a real pleasure to catch up on all your writing, so this review won’t be as long and detailed and I would want to, but know this, you’ve me now waiting desperate for each new little bit of writing.

    I think Contol might be my new favourite. And the Pact too.

    The complexity of your characters, the internal suffering and struggles, their mistakes and them the PLOT and all its twist – that story is another league. Statis was superb storytelling but you might have outdone yourself with that one.

    Please, please do write an original story one day!! Your fanfiction is miles and leagues above anything that’s being published every day.

    1. Aww thank you so much!! – I’m so flattered 🙂

      So happy you enjoyed Stasis and Transgressions and that you’re enjoying the newer stories too, including Control! I’m very excited to finish out these tales (if only I had more time to devote to writing lol!), and incredibly encouraged to hear that you’re awaiting updates! 🙂

      Truly appreciate all the kind words and support! I would absolutely love to write original fiction someday, if and when life allows 🙂 Writing is my passion!

      Thanks again and hope you continue to enjoy the stories!! <3 <3

  2. So Izayoi had the power to influence the minds of those around her. But in this she died pregnant? So it wasn’t Izayoi? Hmm…

    I have so much catching up to do. You’re breaking my heart

    1. Aww I’m sorry to break it!

      Thanks for sharing your reactions – hope you enjoy where the story goes from here!! <3

  3. !!

    I was reading this thinking, oh in a previous life there was some other demon like Sesshomaru that Rin loved. That makes sense. Then I realized I know a demon like that. his father? His father! Holy shit.

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