“My Sweet Emotion”
by Ash
Chapter 02:
Blue Jeans
All right, I’ll admit that when that mage died I had no idea what to do. So after he disappeared I decided I’d do the thing that first came to mind. I’d give him re-entry back into life.
What I hadn’t thought about, though I knew this in the back of my mind, was that if he came back he’d come back as a mindless—or soulless—slave. Sure, he’d be alive and all, but he’d have no free will. His soul would be trapped, trapped until I decided I wanted to return him to death. All Shells were as such, unless of course their bodies decomposed first.
I don’t know what happened then. I wasn’t thinking clearly. All I thought was that if I worked quickly I could bring him back before he reached the Netherworld. I thought at least his body and mind could be preserved, if not his spirit.
So I ran as quickly as I could to the center of that huge crater in the ground and I performed the revival. I ventured into the black and white dimension and found his body, I mean, spirit unconscious on the ground.
Then I called out to him. In my haste, I honestly thought everything was going to be OK as long as he was alive. Well, sort of alive, that is.
Problem was, I’d never resurrected a mage before. I never actually stopped to think about it. I never stopped to think about how the revival of a mage could be any different from a normal human’s.
The dead eyes opened, but in that colorless world, all I could see was gray.
The gray of death.
Despite the fact that his death was quite gore-less, his clothes in Black-And-White were covered—no, soaked, in blood. His blood. The black liquid had no doubt seeped through his clothes—that black, baggy t-shirt and those just-as-baggy-if-not-baggier blue jeans. There was no smell of blood there in that other dimension, though. There never is.
When I returned to color I expected him to be right in front of me. Only he wasn’t. He was sitting down, leaning against the nearest tree, his clothes clean as ever, his eyes closed in sleep.
Odd.
I gave him the mental command to wake up, the same mental command I’d given other Shells numerous times before. But he didn’t even lift an eyelid, the lazy bum.
My brow furrowed and I looked to the side, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. The procedure had gone smoothly, no mess-ups or bumpy parts whatsoever. But he was a mage, and I considered this. His association with magic must have altered the resurrection; it probably warped the decomposition rule too.
So I walked over to him, deciding to awaken him the traditional way.
“Hey,” I said, pushing his shoulder. “Wake up, you.” I shook him again.
The space between his eyebrows creased, grumbles escaping his throat in a low rumble.
“Hey, guy. Wake up, I said.”
I slapped him lightly—very lightly—on both cheeks, but the action took no effect. The crease disappeared, and I heard him sigh. Leaning over a bit more, I poked his forehead with my index finger.
“Shell mage. I told you to wake up. So wake up, OK?” I paused. “Please?”
Nothing. No reaction.
I dared to move closer to him. “Hello? Are you even alive, mage?”
At first, I thought that maybe he wasn’t alive.
But that was at first. You know, before I felt the oddest five-fingered human appendage touching my behind.
Oh, he was awake all right.
I slapped him, just like female instinct number 122 says to.
“You perv!” I brought down my fist on the top of his head.
Then his eyes opened, the ones in Color. They were the deepest, truest mix of gray and blue I had ever seen. Not the dead gray I had seen before, but a real blue, if that makes any sense.
Of course, this blissful moment was kind of ruined by the fact that he had laid his hand on my butt.
He spoke, his voice calm. “You misunderstand, my lady. I was simply trying to confirm that person in front of me wasn’t a dream. At first I was certain beauty such as your own was truly unattainable.”
I felt heat rush to my cheeks, but tried to hide it. “Flattery won’t work, mister. First of all, what the hell do you think gives you the right to...”
And then it hit me. Shells weren’t supposed to have minds and say things on their own free will. Hell, they weren’t supposed to be able to talk. But here was this Shell mage, being the most inconsiderate, perverted, insufferable male I’d ever seen and then trying to cover up for it.
“Miss?”
“You can talk.” It was more of a confirmation than a question.
“Well, I’d think so, seeing as I am alive. How am I able to see life again, pray tell? I seem to remember being sucked into the Kazaana and then...”
“Wait. I’m not telling you anything until I get some answers.” Stupid Shell. I had resurrected him, making me his master. How was it possible for him to talk to me so casually like that?
He paused, thinking, his violet eyes reflecting some kind of conflict within them.
“Fair enough, Mistress,” he said, smiling a smile that I could not read.
“Good. What’s your name, mage?”
“My name is Houshi Miroku the aeromancer. And you are?”
I was a little irritated by his question. I had a feeling his own answer wasn’t truthful. Most mages had last names with two words. But I answered anyway. “Sango.” No way was I going to give him my last name. Not yet, at least.
This time his smile was warmer. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sango-sama.”
I nodded. “You too.”
Looking around to survey the damage inflicted to the park, I asked, “How is it that an aeromancer such as yourself was able to manipulate the earth that caused this crater?”
Houshi’s answer was slow, as if he was recalling something he’d rather not. “The Kazaana, the hole in my hand,” he held up his right hand. It was now covered by a purple cloth and a string of rosary beads. The hole must have been some kind of curse. “Can control only the wind. But the wind it rules over is of the most powerful of currents. So strong that it pulls in any matter in the area, including the ground. You could say it’s a miniature black hole. You know, like the ones on Star Trek?”
It was my turn to smile. “Yeah, I know.” I wanted to learn more about this Kazaana. Where did he attain the curse? Why? Where its effects instantaneous, or did it take a while for it to suck its beholder in along with everything else? Had it killed anyone else?
But I decided not to push it. The curse seemed like a sensitive subject for Houshi, a man I had just met.
Wait. “Man?” No, I had to remind myself. He was no man. He was a Shell. A mindless, stupid Shell. He wasn’t human, not by a hell of a long shot. He was dead.
My thoughts brought about another question. “How is it that you’re able to speak? All my other Shells were incapable of speech.”
He sighed. “You’re newly graduated, aren’t you? Did your mentors not teach you what happens were people of magic are revived? We are able to walk normally, talk normally, and think as we did when we were human. And we don’t rot, thank God for that. But we’re not alive, something you’re going to need to remember, little necromancer. We have no souls.”
Well, that explained a heck of a lot. But you know what really bugged me? It was that he had just called me “little necromancer.” Nobody calls me little, especially not a Shell, and I told him so.
The idiot looked amused; he didn’t seem to take what I said seriously. At all. “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, Mistress.” There he went again, emphasizing the formal title. “But to me, you are little.” He mussed up the hair on the top of my head. “And you have a lot to learn. Not just about necromancy, but about magic in general, among other things...”
“Are you insinuating that I am more ignorant than you? You? A Shell?”
Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. I’ve never died before—yet—but I’m sure the dead don’t enjoy being reminded of the fact that they’re not alive anymore. So, quickly, I apologized.
He shook his head and looked away, just as I felt a breeze. “Whatever.”
And the way the wind blew his bangs around gently like that, making him look even more boyish than before, it made me forget for a minute that he was dead. Not only was he a resurrected mage, but I had caught him just after death, so he looked as alive as any human. His eyes were still full and deep, like in life, but they had lost the shine that human eyes had. Eyes like Kagome and Inuyasha.
I was so lost in my reverie that it took me a while to notice he had placed his normal hand on my cheek. I looked up into his eyes and was caught there, unable to tear my gaze away. His face neared mine, slowly, and my heart began to beat faster.
Doki doki...
Is he going to kiss me?
Doki doki...
Wait. Pause. Before this goes on, let me tell you something. Up to that moment, I had never been kissed before. I was sixteen and I had never been kissed before. I was a deprived child, OK! My mentor, Amethyst, always kept me away from guys, apart from Inuyasha, who was more of a brother than anything else (though I know a certain hydromancer who thinks of him in a very non-sibling way). I had never been kissed, and I was saving my first for someone special—not just anyone off the street, and certainly not a Shell. (Besides, Houshi was just being his normal perverted self, although I didn’t know it back then.)
So when Houshi’s face got just a little closer to mine... I slapped him.
Hard. Harder than before. Perhaps I should have just pulled away instead?
He looked rather surprised at the red mark on his face. It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time that Shell’s faces could do that—turn red. Most Shells tend to not have blood, much less flowing blood. I was so embarrassed; I ran away toward the house where the others were waiting for me.
By the time I got back to the house, my legs weren’t working properly anymore. Kagome rushed to me while Inuyasha leaned against the doorframe like he didn’t care.
“Sango, what happened? What was that earthquake? Did you stop it? Did you get hurt?”
I sat down on the porch, too tired to answer her questions so quickly. My mind was a little preoccupied with trying to breathe. Well, that and the fact that a Shell had just tried to kiss me. A Shell! Although he hadn’t smelled like rotting flesh, like most do, much to my relief.
Kagome must have noticed my exasperation because she quickly kneeled down next to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, a good friend, like always. Scratch that. A best friend, like always.
I decided to tell her the truth. What could it hurt? “All right, all right.” My glance turned to Inuyasha—a glance I made sure read, “we’re going to talk now so go away.”
Taking the hint, Inuyasha turned and walked politely – silently—into the house. Of course, Inuyasha’s always polite. Always.
Ha ha. Yeah. Right.
“So I was in the park and I saw this aeromancer and he was getting pulled into this hole in his hand, which was the cause of the quake and the winds—”
“What do you say?” interrupted a singsong voice from behind the front door.
“You better not have been listening!” I rolled my eyes. That was just like him, eavesdropping on our conversations. He always thinks we’re saying nasty things about him, like he’s that special. “Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted—”
“What do you say?” he said again in that same obnoxious tone.
The two of us glared at the closed door that Inuyasha was no doubt leaning against.
“Thank you, Inuyasha,” we chimed in unison in the highest, squeakiest voices we could manage.
“As I was saying,” I emphasized, “I was at the park checking out what the winds were coming from when I saw this guy. I saw him die. I saw him die, Kagome.
Kagome plastered a grim smile on her face. I knew she was trying to be optimistic, to make me feel optimistic, even if she didn’t know who or what I was talking about. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s got a time to die. You say that yourself all the time. I’m sure this guy, whoever he was, just—”
“I brought him back.”
“Oh...”
“And when I came back to Color he... I saw him sleeping against a tree and he wouldn’t wake up. The mage,” I added when I saw her surprised look.
Kagome obviously knew about the differences between Shells and Shell mages. That the Shell mages had their own personalities and didn’t always listen right away. Was I the only one who hadn’t known?
I hesitated when I came to the part where Houshi actually woke up. Could you blame me? I had just been violated by a Shell! Twice! A Shell! An incredibly cute Shell mage, but a Shell nonetheless!
“And, um, I finally noticed he...” I faded out, looking up at the new arrival on our front porch. “He’s here,” I said simply.
Oh, why me?
“There you are, Mistress. I was wondering where you’d wandered off to.”
“Houshi! Why—?”
“Excuse me.” Kagome had turned to face him. “Who are you?”
“I am my mistress’ Shell mage,” he said, nodding toward me. Then he bowed. “Aeromancer, Houshi Miroku, ready to serve.”
“Oh.” Kagome seemed a little surprised at his tactfulness. “Is this the guy you were talking about, Sango?” she asked, pointing at Houshi.
“Yeah...”
Houshi smiled mischievously, looking up from his bow. “What has Mistress said about me?”
“It’s none of your business what I say to my friends, Shell.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said as he came up to stand behind Kagome. “But you were talking about me, so don’t you think I have a right to know? At least in this case?”
I glared at him.
Stupid Houshi. Oops! My mistake. It isn’t proper grammar to use a double negative, is it?
“Whatever,” I mumbled. “I was just saying that I had brought some mancer who’d died back to life. There. That wasn’t too scandalous for your virgin ears, was it?” I said, pushing the sarcasm.
“No, Mistress.” He smiled again, but only I could see it. It was as if he was planning something clandestinely and actually wanted me to know about it, just so he could show off or something stupid like that. “It wasn’t too scandalous.”
The four of us were back in the house, safe—for now. Introductions between the boys had been awkward, to say the least, and the fact that Houshi had his hand on Kagome’s shoulder when we walked into the house didn’t help any. Upon seeing us, I could hear a growl resonate from deep inside Inuyasha’s throat, and it sounded a lot more dangerous than it had for a while.
I gave Houshi a warning look, and he took the hint, removing his hand from my best friend.
So there I was, sitting on the couch, with no idea what I was supposed to do with this Shell. I didn’t need him to fight for me—I could do that myself; we didn’t really need a housekeeper either, not to mention I didn’t exactly feel like seeing a guy in a pink, heart-patterned apron washing dishes. Then again, that wouldn’t be so bad. What to do, what to do...
“Wait. Say that again?”
“We. Want you. To do the VA-CUU-MING.”
“That’s not a very funny joke, Mistress.”
“It’s no joke. You’re staying here, and therefore you need to do something to earn your keep.”
“Have you forgotten that I’m a Shell? Couldn’t you just... I don’t know, get rid of me like you necromancers do when they’re finished with their Shells?”
I stared blankly at him. It wasn’t a fair thing to say! Didn’t he know he was different? He at least seemed like he had a soul, which is more than I could say for most other Shells.
He must’ve noticed my irritableness because he changed the subject—a wise choice. “Where’s the vacuum?”
“We don’t own one.”
“You don’t have a vacuum? What kind of homeowners don’t have a vacuum? When was the last time you cleaned this place?”
“You mean the carpet? Two years ago, when we first moved in.”
“That’s sick!”
“You shouldn’t talk, you child molester.”
“You, Milady, are no child.”
“What’s your point? Just get to work, Shell.” I turned around, making my way back to the kitchen for an apple.
“How am I supposed to clean the carpet without a vacuum?”
“Um, your hand? What else?” Honestly, it was obvious...
...Or not, on account of the fact that he filed a verbal complaint. “The Kazaana was not designed for housecleaning.”
“But you said yourself that this house is a pigsty,” I reminded him, biting into my apple.
“I said no such thing.”
“If you’re not going to vacuum could you at least do some yard work?” Dropping the apple on the countertop, I pulled him by his shirtsleeve from the kitchen to the door in record timing. Out of the house I dragged him, past the porch and onto the lawn that would have been green were it not for the desert of leaves covering the grass. “There you go,” I said with finality.
Rolling those inimitably violet eyes of his, he removed the rosary beads from his forearm and aimed his palm toward the rather offensive wasteland we dared to call a yard. The winds collected again, just as I remembered them. The eye of his hurricane, his hand, pulled in every stray piece of debris that covered the garden, and before I knew it the whole place was sparkling green. Like mint.
I was so wrapped up in my amazement that I hadn’t noticed a man had come to the gate.
“Enjoying your newest boy-toy, Sango?”
I jumped. The voice was cold and deep, like the Mariana Trench. It reminded me of snaking brown arms reaching and reaching out toward me, strangling, thick vines.
“Naraku.”
And I do realize that “Houshi” is a title, not a name, but I didn’t want to go and figure one out! Besides, like Sango said, it’s probably not his real last name.... Or is it? Hmmmm.... Once again, constructive criticism and other comments are much appreciated! Thanks for reading!
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