Chapter 2: Burning Lilies and Borrowed Memories
The spider lilies were a madness of red, a carpet of crimson that stretched to the treeline, each blossom a ragged spear of color. They swayed in a wind that didn’t touch the rest of the world, whispering against each other with a sound like dried bones rubbing together. The air was thick and sweet with their scent, a cloying perfume that hid the rot underneath.
“Don’t touch them,” Kaede warned, her single eye narrowed. “The pollen brings a sleep from which few awaken.”
They picked their way along a narrow animal trail, a ribbon of bare earth cutting through the sea of red. Inuyasha led, his ears flat against his head, the Tessaiga held ready. Kagome followed close behind, then Shippo and Miroku, with Nara bringing up the rear.
Nara felt the flowers watching her. It was a stupid thought, but the sensation crawled up her spine anyway. Their whispers seemed to coil around her ankles, tugging at the edges of her memory. That song again, the one with the cold voice. It felt closer here.
A gust of wind, stronger than the others, swept across the field. A cloud of shimmering orange pollen lifted into the air, swirling directly into their path.
“Cover your mouths!” Miroku shouted, pulling his robes over his face.
Inuyasha spun, his eyes wide. “Kagome!”
Kagome had frozen, a hand pressed to her chest. She’d inhaled. Her eyes, wide and startled, met Inuyasha’s for a second before they fluttered shut. Her legs buckled. She crumpled forward into the blood-red blossoms.
“Kagome!” Inuyasha lunged for her, catching her before she hit the ground. He shook her, his voice raw. “Hey! Wake up!”
She was limp, her breathing shallow and far too slow. A faint dusting of orange pollen glittered on her cheeks.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through Nara’s usual calm. It was a different feeling than the abstract curiosity she usually experienced. This was a visceral, jangling alarm. She saw the terror on Inuyasha’s face, the way his hands trembled as he held Kagome. She felt the oppressive, magical weight of the field pressing down, the whispers now feeling like mocking laughter.
“What do we do?” Shippo cried, his little fists clutching at Inuyasha’s fire-rat robe.
“We need to get her out of this field,” Miroku said, his voice strained. “The further we are from the source, the weaker the curse may be.”
But Inuyasha wasn’t listening. He was staring at Kagome’s pale face, a low growl building in his throat. Helpless. He was completely helpless.
Nara didn’t think. The panic unspooled inside her, and something else answered. A deep, resonant power that she never consciously called. Her blood hummed in response to the field’s dark magic.
She stepped off the path, her feet sinking into the soft earth between the lilies. She pressed a hand to her own arm, where the scar had been. Her nails bit deep, drawing blood. But instead of dripping, the dark liquid instantly vaporized, pouring from the wound not as a trickle, but as a geyser.
It wasn’t the gentle wisp from before. This was a torrent of black smoke, thick and choking, that exploded outwards. It didn’t smell of honey and rain anymore. It was pure ozone and burning stone, a signal fire of raw distress. The cloud billowed upward, a twisting pillar of darkness against the crimson field, blotting out the sun.
Inuyasha coughed, waving a hand in front of his face. “Nara! What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. She was locked in the act, her eyes wide, watching the smoke pour from her. It was a scream made visible.
From the edge of the forest, a figure emerged.
He was there so suddenly it was as if the shadows themselves had congealed into his form. Tall, impassive, with hair like molten silver and a face of carved ice. Sesshomaru.
His golden eyes swept over the scene—the panicked group, the girl lying lifeless in the flowers—and dismissed it all in an instant. His gaze landed on Nara, on the violent, uncontrolled plume of smoke erupting from her body. A faint, almost imperceptible flicker of something crossed his features. Not concern. Recognition.
Inuyasha snarled, holding Kagome tighter. “Sesshomaru! This is your doing?”
Sesshomaru didn’t acknowledge him. He stepped into the field, the poisonous lilies seeming to wither and pull away from the pristine white of his boots. In his hand, Tenseiga was already drawn, the blade pulsing with a soft, ethereal light.
He moved past Inuyasha without a glance, stopping before Kagome. With a motion so fluid it was barely there, he swung the sword. No contact. The blade passed through the air above her, and the spectral imps of the afterlife that only he could see were severed. A wave of pure, healing energy washed over Kagome.
She gasped, her eyes snapping open. She coughed, sucking in a clean breath.
“Kagome!” Inuyasha’s relief was a physical force, his body slumping as he held her.
But Sesshomaru’s work was done. His attention, his entire formidable presence, was already redirected. He turned fully to face Nara.
The smoke still poured from her arm, but it was slowing, the initial surge spent. She stared at him, her chest heaving, confusion and a dawning, deep-seated familiarity warring in her dark blue eyes. He was the cold voice in the song. She knew it with a certainty that shook her to her core.
He took a single step toward her. The air crackled.
Nara looked down at her bleeding arm. As the last pulse of light from Tenseiga faded from the air, the blood at the edges of her wound sizzled and turned to vapor, a perfect, mirroring echo of the sword’s power.
Her head snapped up, her eyes locking with his. “You…”
Sesshomaru stood before her, close enough now that she could feel the chill that radiated from him, a cold that had nothing to do with temperature. He didn’t speak. He simply looked at her, his golden eyes burning with an intensity that was neither love nor hate, but something far more possessive. It was the look of a man finding a relic he thought lost to time.
Inuyasha gently helped a trembling Kagome to her feet, his own gaze darting between his brother and the smoke demon. The relief for Kagome was instantly overshadowed by a new, more volatile tension.
“Hey,” Inuyasha barked, his voice cutting through the silence. “What’s your game, Sesshomaru?”
Sesshomaru’s eyes finally broke from Nara, sliding toward his half-brother with glacial disdain. The moment shattered, but the charge in the air remained, thick and dangerous.
“The game,” Sesshomaru said, his voice so low it was almost a vibration, “is far older than you comprehend.”
His gaze returned to Nara for one last, searing moment before he turned, the white of his robes a stark dismissal, and began to walk away, melting back into the tree line from whence he came.
Nara stood frozen, the cut on her arm now just a cut, the smoke gone. All that was left was the scent of ozone, the memory of a cold, golden stare, and the unsettling certainty that her lost history had just found her.
The silence he left behind was heavier than the pollen-laden air. It pressed in on them, broken only by Kagome’s shaky breaths as she clung to Inuyasha’s sleeve.
“What was that?” Shippo whispered, his voice small.
Inuyasha finally tore his glare from the empty tree line. “Who the hell knows with him.” He looked down at Kagome, his rough demeanor softening by a fraction. “You okay?”
“I think so,” she murmured, still leaning into him. “It was like… a really dark dream. Then this light cut through it.” Her eyes found Nara, who hadn’t moved. “Nara, your arm.”
Nara glanced down. The cut was already sealing itself, the flesh knitting together under a fine, shimmering haze. The familiar scent of woodsmoke and rain returned, washing away the last vestiges of ozone. But a faint, silvery scar remained, a permanent mark she’d never had before.
“It’s nothing,” Nara said, her voice distant. She flexed her hand, feeling a strange, lingering tingle where her blood had vaporized in sync with Sesshomaru’s sword. That wasn’t her power. It was an echo.
“Nothing?” Inuyasha scoffed, the worry making him sharp. “You shot a damn smoke signal to the one guy we don’t need showing up! Since when can you do that?”
“I didn’t know I could.” She met his gaze, her dark blue eyes utterly sincere and full of a confusion that mirrored his own. “It just… happened. When I saw Kagome fall.” The memory of that helpless panic was more frightening than any wound.
Miroku stepped forward, his staff tapping gently on the earth. “It seems your distress call was answered, for better or worse.” He studied the new scar on her arm. “And it seems Lord Sesshomaru’s power left its mark. Literally.”
“He looked right at you,” Kagome said softly, pulling away from Inuyasha to stand on her own. “He saved me, but he was only looking at you.”
Nara’s fingers traced the silver line on her forearm. The cold, golden stare was burned into her mind. That look wasn’t about saving anyone. It was about possession, a claim staked in a language she didn’t remember learning. The whispering song in her memory gained a face.
“I know him,” she said, the words feeling both wrong and utterly true. “I don’t know how, but I do. From before.” The words ‘the cage’ hung unspoken in the air between them.
Inuyasha’s ears twitched. He let out a frustrated grunt, sheathing the Tessaiga with a definitive shink. “Well, his ‘comprehension’ can go jump in a river. We’re not sticking around to be part of his ancient game.” He shot a last, wary look at Nara. “Just… keep the fireworks to yourself next time.”
He turned and started marching, forcing a path through the lilies away from where his brother had vanished. The others followed, the relief of Kagome’s safety now tangled with a new, insidious thread of dread.
Nara fell into step at the rear, her mind churning. She replayed the moment her smoke met his gaze, the way her blood had reacted to his sword without her command. It felt like a key turning in a lock deep inside her, one she hadn’t known existed.
As they left the crimson field behind, the normal sounds of the forest returning, she could still feel it. The ghost of that cold song, and the man who now sang it.
The forest closed around them again, the oppressive crimson of the spider lilies replaced by deep green shadow. The normal sounds of birds and rustling leaves should have been a comfort, but the silence within their group was a heavy, tangible thing.
Inuyasha marched several paces ahead, his shoulders rigid. "Keh! Of all the lousy luck." He kicked a loose stone, sending it skittering into the undergrowth. "We get Kagome back and that bastard has to show up and make it weird."
"He did save me, Inuyasha," Kagome reminded him softly, though her own expression was troubled. She kept glancing back at Nara, who walked silently, her gaze distant.
"Yeah, and then he stared at Nara like she was a lost toy he forgot he owned." Inuyasha shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. "What was that about? And that scar. That's new."
Nara didn't answer immediately. Her fingers kept tracing the thin, silver line on her forearm. It felt cold, a permanent sliver of ice under her skin where only warm, regenerating flesh had ever been.
"It formed when his sword pulsed," she said, her voice quiet. "My blood… it reacted. It wasn't me doing it."
Miroku hummed, his expression thoughtful. "Tenseiga deals with the realms of life and death. It seems your unique physiology has a previously unknown resonance with it." He tapped his staff on a root. "A concerning development."
"No kidding," Inuyasha muttered.
"Does it hurt?" Shippo asked, peering at Nara's arm from the safety of Kagome's shoulder.
Nara shook her head. "No. It just feels… empty." It was the only word she could find. A tiny, numb void where a part of her should be.
The memory of Sesshomaru’s gaze was anything but empty. It was a weight, a pressure against her mind. That cold, melodic hum from her fragmented past now had a face of sharp angles and molten gold eyes. The two sensations—the hollow scar and the intense focus of his stare—were inextricably linked, a lock and key made of her own flesh and his power.
As dusk began to bleed the color from the world, they found a clearing near a shallow stream. The decision to stop was wordless, everyone feeling the day's drain.
"I'll gather firewood," Miroku offered, already moving toward the trees.
"I'll help!" Shippo scampered after him, eager for a task.
Inuyasha leaped into the lower branches of a massive cedar, perched as their lookout. His posture was still tight, but his eyes were on the darkening tree line, not on Nara.
Kagome knelt by the stream, splashing water on her face. She sighed, the last of the pollen-induced dread seeming to wash away with the current. She then looked over at Nara, who was standing motionless by the water's edge.
"Are you okay?" Kagome asked, her voice gentle. "Really okay?"
Nara looked down at her reflection in the twilight water, distorted by the ripples. "I don't know." The honesty felt strange on her tongue. "When I saw you fall, something just… broke open. I didn't call that smoke. It called itself."
She flexed her hand, watching the silver scar gleam dully in the fading light. "And he answered. Like I'd tugged on a leash he was holding."
Inuyasha dropped from the tree branch, landing with a soft thud between them. He didn't look at Nara directly, instead scowling at the ground. "Look, just… be careful. Sesshomaru doesn't do anything without a reason. If he wants something from you, it's not gonna be good."
"I don't even know what he wants," Nara said, frustration edging her voice. "I don't remember him. But my blood does. This does." She held up her scarred arm. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
"Maybe you don't have to do anything," Kagome suggested, standing and brushing off her knees. "Maybe for now, we just keep moving. We have our own goal."
The fire crackled to life as Miroku and Shippo returned, its warm, ordinary light pushing back the forest's gloom. They sat around it, the normalcy of the routine a fragile shield. Nara accepted a bowl of food from Kagome, the simple warmth of it grounding.
But as she sat, the hum returned. Not a memory this time. It was a vibration in the air, a frequency that resonated directly with the cold silver in her arm. It was faint, a single, sustained note from somewhere deep in the night.
Her head came up sharply. Her fingers clenched around the wooden bowl.
Inuyasha was on his feet in an instant, Tessaiga already in hand. "What? What is it?"
Nara didn't answer. She was listening, her whole body tuned to that silent song. It wasn't a summons. It was a presence. A declaration.
He was near. He was watching.
The scar on her arm throbbed once, a deep, internal ache, and in that moment, a single, crystal-clear image flashed behind her eyes: not a cage of iron, but one of gnarled, ancient wood, and the scent of a single, dying lily.
The image vanished, leaving only the phantom scent of decay and a cold certainty lodged beneath her ribs.
“Nara?” Inuyasha’s voice was a low growl, his knuckles white on the Tessaiga’s hilt. His eyes scanned the oppressive darkness between the trees. “What did you see?”
She forced her breathing to slow, unclenching her jaw. The thrum in her scar faded to a dull, persistent whisper. He was still out there, a silhouette against the moon, waiting. But the memory of the wooden cage and his sword’s healing light wove together into a confusing, contradictory tapestry. He was the danger, and yet…
Nara shook her head, lowering her gaze to the crackling fire as if embarrassed. “It’s nothing. Just the shadows playing tricks.” She offered a small, unconvincing smile. “I’m just being jumpy.”
It was a flimsy shield, and she knew it. Inuyasha’s skeptical snort confirmed he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t press further. He remained standing, a tense sentinel, while the others slowly settled back down. The normalcy of the camp was fractured, every rustle of leaves now a potential footfall.
She could still feel him, a static charge in the atmosphere that made the fine hairs on her arms stand up. He was a predator holding perfectly still, and the forest itself seemed to be holding its breath in deference. The strange, calm knowledge solidified within her: he was watching, but he wouldn’t strike. Not tonight. Probably.
The certainty felt less like a thought and more like an old, ingrained instinct, a relic from a time her mind had locked away but her body remembered.
“You sure?” Kagome asked, her voice soft with concern. She nudged a log deeper into the flames with a stick, sending a shower of sparks spiraling into the night. “After today, I think we’re all a little on edge.”
“Yeah,” Nara murmured, pulling her knees to her chest. The silver scar on her arm caught the firelight, a faint, gleaming line. She covered it with her other hand. “It’s just… a lot.”
Miroku watched her over his steepled fingers, his gaze far too perceptive. “The bonds of fate often pull most fiercely when we are least aware of them,” he said, almost to himself. “And some ties are forged in materials stronger than memory.”
Inuyasha shot the monk a glare. “Can it with the cryptic crap. If my brother’s out there, he’s up to something. He’s always up to something.” He finally sat, though he kept the Tessaiga across his lap, his ears twitching at every night sound.
The conversation died, suffocated by the unspoken presence lingering just beyond the firelight. Nara stared into the flames, the image of the gnarled wood cage floating behind her eyes. It felt familiar, a texture her fingertips knew. And the scent of that single, dying lily was a mourning she couldn’t place.
Hours later, the fire was embers and the others slept. Shippo was curled against Kagome’s side, Miroku leaned against his staff, and Inuyasha snored lightly, his body still angled protectively toward the group. The deep, resonant hum had faded entirely, leaving a profound silence in its wake.
He was gone. She knew it with the same inexplicable certainty with which she had known he was there.
A single, perfect spider lily lay on the moss just outside the circle of dying light. It was fresh, its crimson petals dewed with night moisture, a stark, bloody punctuation to the evening’s terror. It hadn’t been there before.
Nara didn’t move to touch it. She just stared, the cold from her scar seeming to seep into her bones. This wasn’t a message. It was a reminder. The game, as he’d called it, was far from over, and he had just made the first, quiet move.
The lily seemed to pulse in the weak morning light, a drop of fresh blood on the moss. Its vibrancy was an obscenity next to the ashes of their fire. Nara hadn’t slept, her eyes raw from staring at it, from waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did. The silence had been its own kind of violence.
Inuyasha saw it the moment he dropped from his tree. His whole body went rigid. “That wasn’t there last night.” It wasn’t a question. His gaze, sharp and accusing, swung to Nara. “You. You knew.”
“I felt him leave,” she admitted, her voice hoarse. She didn’t look away from the flower. “I didn’t see him place it.”
“Keh!” He stomped over, his hand hovering over the Tessaiga’s hilt as if the blossom itself might attack. “What’s it mean? Some kind of threat?”
“It is a message,” Miroku said, approaching cautiously. He didn’t get too close. “But its meaning is for her alone, I suspect.” He glanced at Nara, his expression unreadable. “Spider lilies guide the dead. They are flowers of farewell, and of ominous change.”
Kagome hugged herself, a shiver running through her despite the growing warmth of the day. “He saved me, then leaves this? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if he’s messing with us!” Inuyasha snapped. He kicked at the ground near the lily, but carefully avoided touching it. “He’s always been a bastard. This is just his way of saying he’s watching.” He finally turned his full glare on Nara. “And he’s watching you.”
Nara finally stood, her joints stiff. The silver scar on her arm felt like ice. She walked toward the flower, ignoring Inuyasha’s grunt of warning. She knelt, the scent of damp earth and that faint, cloying perfume filling her nose. It was identical to the field that had claimed Kagome.
“Well?” Inuyasha demanded. “You got some special demon decoder ring for this? What’s it say?”
“It’s not a word,” she whispered. Her fingers itched to touch it, to see if it would crumble to smoke like her blood. She didn’t. “It’s a… feeling. It’s the same as the song in my head.”
The memory of the gnarled wood cage flashed again, more persistent this time. The scent of a single, dying lily. A profound sense of loss, so deep it was a physical ache. She looked up at Inuyasha, her dark blue eyes wide with a confusion that was starting to curdle into fear. “I think he’s saying goodbye. To something I can’t remember.”
Inuyasha stared at her, the anger on his face faltering for a moment, replaced by a flicker of something else—frustration, maybe, or a reluctant understanding of being caught between two worlds. He let out a long, slow breath. “This is such a pain.”
“We can’t just stand here all day,” Kagome said, her practical tone cutting through the tension. She shouldered her yellow pack. “Naraku isn’t going to wait for us to figure out your brother’s flower delivery service.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Inuyasha shot one last, distrustful look at the lily before turning away. “Let’s move. And you,” he pointed a claw at Nara, “no more smoke signals. If you feel that creep watching, you tell me. Got it?”
Nara nodded, falling into step behind them as they moved out. She glanced back once. The crimson flower stood alone in the clearing, a tiny, defiant wound in the earth. The further they walked, the colder the scar on her arm became.
The forest grew denser, the canopy closing out the sky. The normal sounds of life were muted here. It was Inuyasha who broke the silence hours later, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “That cage you mentioned before. The wooden one.”
Nara flinched, the question a physical touch. “What about it?”
“You said it was gnarled wood.” He pushed a low-hanging branch aside for Kagome. “There’s an old story. Our father… he sealed a powerful demon away once. Not killed. Contained.” He kept his eyes forward. “They said the prison was made from the heartwood of a sacred tree. That it would look like twisted, living bark.”
The air left Nara’s lungs. The vague image in her mind suddenly had edges, a history. A cold that had nothing to do with the shade settled deep in her bones. “My blood reacted to Tenseiga. A sword that deals with life and death.” She spoke the words slowly, piecing it together as she said them. “What if I wasn’t just kept in a cage, Inuyasha? What if I was sealed? And his sword… what if it didn’t just save Kagome? What if it unlocked something?”
Inuyasha stopped dead in his tracks. He turned, his amber eyes wide with dawning, horrific understanding. The Tessaiga felt heavy in his grip.
Before he could speak, a wave of pure, malevolent energy washed over them, so thick it was difficult to breathe. It was familiar, a poison they had chased for so long.
Shippo whimpered, clinging to Kagome’s leg. “Naraku,” he whispered.
From the shadows between the ancient trees, a figure emerged. But it wasn’t the brooding half-demon they expected. It was a young woman with dark hair and cold, knowing eyes. She smiled, a hollow, predatory thing.
“The scent of smoke and regret led us right to you,” the woman said, her voice a mockery of sweetness. Her gaze slid past Inuyasha, past Kagome, and landed squarely on Nara. “He is most interested in the one who remembers nothing. A blank slate, he says, is so easily rewritten.”
Inuyasha shoved Kagome behind him, the Tessaiga transforming in a flash of light. “Get back!”
The woman—a puppet, a incarnation—merely laughed. “The Master has a proposal for the smoke demon. He offers you your true past, not the faded songs and pretty flowers your jailer leaves you.”
Nara felt the words like a blow. Your jailer. The silver scar on her arm flared with such intense, biting cold that she cried out, stumbling back a step. The gnarled wood, the dying lily, Sesshomaru’s golden, possessive stare—it wasn’t a courtship. It was a custody.
And Naraku was making a counteroffer.
Inuyasha’s snarl ripped through the clearing. “Over my dead body!”
The puppet’s smile widened. “That,” she said pleasantly, “can be arranged.”
The forest erupted. Tendrils of miasma, thick as pythons and dripping with venom, shot from the ground at their feet. The game had just changed players, and the stakes were no longer just a memory, but the very soul they were trying to reclaim.