breaking little twigs with my feet, and underneath is a road that's so steep

[distrustful]

It had only been a few hours since I woke up to find myself fully human on a night other than the new moon, and I was already starting to crawl out of my skin. It wouldn't have been so bad if all that happened was me losing my powers — frustrating though it would have been, there was some part of me that wondered if life would have been easier as a human. Not just in childhood, but also since deciding to live with Kagome. To live among humans. The longevity of a hanyou made that difficult.

You knew, in your heart, that you would eventually lose everyone.

The problem was, I knew at least one person who had become a hanyou in my stead. And all around the city were people who were picking up strange abilities, clearly without any idea how to manage them, or where they even came from. The chaos put everyone in danger, civilian or law enforcement or otherwise.

And there I was, seated in the park without any additional powers of my own, with nothing but a rusty, chipped sword at my side to show for it.

On the bright side, now that my hair was black and ears had shifted down into a human position, fewer people stared. No one immediately marked me as a danger if I decided to make another round through the city, looking for any other telltale glints of silver hair.

I heaved a deep breath, expression thunderous as I sat. And thought. I almost missed that pesky little Myouga bouncing around on my shoulder. Even if he didn't always have a solution to my problems, he was decent for tossing ideas at.

Comments

[unseentides]

I had to do a double take. A triple take, really. It was clearly InuYasha, I'd know his face anywhere, but the things that made him so distinctly him – his ears, his silver mane – were all different. He looked like any other human, and I was almost hesitant to approach him. "InuYasha?" I asked, stepping closer, prepared to apologise and flee if I'd gotten it wrong but so certain it was him. I didn't want to draw attention to it all, either, I didn't want to make a big fuss, but I'd have felt worse if I'd just gone on without saying anything. I know that mentality tended to get me into a lot of trouble, but in Darrow, at least, it did mean I had fewer regrets.

[distrustful]

Apparently, I was thinking so hard that with my muted human senses, I didn't hear Kathy approach. Didn't smell her, see her, or anything until she was suddenly somehow in front of me and calling out my name. I flailed for a moment, nearly losing my balance, before meeting her gaze and trying to ignore the fact that my face was already flooding with warmth over my embarrassment.

"Kathy!" I stammered, relaxing back into my normal sitting position. In Japan, I'd gotten used to dealing with human senses now and again, but between the environment of Darrow and the off timing, every part of me felt clumsier.

"...hi."

Even my words.

[unseentides]

I'd never seen InuYasha so clumsy. Then again, I'd never seen InuYasha like that at all. I was more than a little concerned, and I couldn't help the frown that I wore on my face. There had been some strangeness going around Darrow those few days, I'd noticed, but nothing that had affected anyone I knew as closely as I did him. "Are you alright?" I asked. I wasn't really sure where to start. I think he'd even blushed. "You've... changed."

[distrustful]

I growled slightly under my breath, but it didn't carry the same roll that it usually did. And wasn't that just adding insult to injury? Bad enough that the body I was familiar with was taken away without warning, but it also had to keep me from expressing my frustration in the way I usually did.

"I'm human," I explained with a deep exhale, glaring off to the side. I wasn't angry with Kathy, and didn't want to even risk her thinking that I was. But I wasn't good at hiding my emotions, either. "Something took away my demon blood and gave it to someone else. So I'm human. And I don't know how to change back."

I sounded petulant.

[unseentides]

I hadn't known what to say. I was so utterly normal that it was hard for me to understand what it was to be like him, to be exceptional and then, somehow, to have it taken away. My heart hurt for him nonetheless. I suppose I didn't need to relate to ache.

He was angry and I can't say that I blamed him. To have his identity taken like that and then given to someone else seemed beyond belief. Still, I felt guilt when he looked away, couldn't help but wonder if I'd said something I shouldn't have. "Do you know who's taken your... blood?" I asked. What difference it made, I don't know.

[distrustful]

I could tell that she actually had sympathy for me, which was different than the reaction I would have imagined most of the people I knew back in my world to display. Even the people who I had helped as a hanyou probably would have breathed a sigh of relief to know that my power had been relegated to that of any other human.

Because otherwise, I was still a threat, however well-intentioned of one.

I wasn't sure how to feel about Kathy, save for an uncomfortable warmth across my cheeks that lingered through her question.

"Does anyone know who pulls the strings around here? I don't think even a powerful witch could have managed something like this easily," I muttered softly, trying to temper my frustration for Kathy's sake. "Even in my world, there was only one thing capable of purifying my blood like this, and it was born through the efforts of thousands of demons over just as many years."

[unseentides]

"There's nothing I can do to help, is there?" I said after a moment, after trying to take it all in and still coming up empty. I was trained to deal with crises, yes, but a very specific kind. The crisis of an IV ripped from an arm when a donor would thrash about in the night, the crisis of Tommy's rages that went away for so much of his life but arrived back as soon as he was too weak to fight them off. This was different. And I hated feeling so helpless. "Because if there's anything, you need only tell me. Truly. I... I can't imagine how you must feel." Empty, maybe. Vulnerable.

[distrustful]

I looked in her eyes and found something like sympathy. Not quite like pity, which I was thankful for, but a genuine desire to return me to the state I was in before, comfortable and confident. But it did make me feel slightly humiliated that I probably looked torn up to hell over the whole situation. All things considered, being human wasn't bad. I could live with it.

For a time, many decades ago, I even... wanted it.

"Weak," I shared, glancing up to meet her gaze. "I feel weak. The physical strength I have now doesn't compare to what I had before. And... walking around the streets, people don't turn and look anymore. It's strange, feeling almost invisible."

[unseentides]

What I wanted to tell InuYasha was that weakness had little to do with lack of physical strength. That at the end, even when my donors weren't just powerless, but helpless, they were still infinitely stronger than I could have ever hoped to be. But I knew that wouldn't make this any easier for InuYasha. I knew there were parts of a person's identity that they would be lost without. "Do you want them to look?" I asked softly. I never wanted people to know I was a donor, but maybe he felt differently. Maybe he felt its absence with ache, where I relished the eyes that didn't bore into my back.

[distrustful]

"It's not that," I said, frowning to myself as I shook my head quickly. Putting a finger on what bothered me was always a trial. Growing up, most of the time I didn't have the luxury of contemplating the parts of my situation that I wasn't fond of. Didn't think anything through more deeply than the swath of anger that lingered around me, like a haze of red, broken by the occasional burst of fear.

The difference between surviving and living, I suppose.

"It's not that I want people to gawk. It's not that I need to prove myself, or to be special, it's just..." I rubbed at my lower lip. "When you've spent so much of your time fighting for your place when the world thinks you don't deserve one, suddenly passing as normal is strange. When the world's definition of normal isn't what you are at all. When you know, deep down, that people are accepting you for something that you aren't. It doesn't feel right. I want to be seen for what I really am."

[unseentides]

Though I nodded, I'm not sure I could have ever really understood. What I did, instead, was appreciate what he was saying. Value how he felt. I'd spent too much of my life minimising my own feelings, pushing them down for others and for the system that I'd been born into but never asked if I wanted to be a part of. "I'm not sure how much it counts for," I said slowly, considering my words before I spoke. "But whatever you are, whatever you look like, I accept you no matter what. I do hope, for your sake, you get your... strength back, though."

[distrustful]

You could tell that the thoughts were weaving slowly in her mind. I don't mean that she was slow to pick up on things — far from it, actually. But she was conscientious in the way that she observed the world, and in the way that she chose to learn about me, at least. I don't know if I'd ever come across someone who gave me the permission to be painted on a blank slate like Kathy did. People saw me as dangerous. As different.

But Kathy didn't start with assumptions so much as taking in every detail that was offered to her. I drew a soft breath between my lips.

"Sometimes I wonder if you really know what you're accepting," I said softly. "You haven't seen me when I'm truly angry."

[unseentides]

"I know better than to judge someone for their anger," I told him, more fiercely than I'd said just about anything else. So many dismissed Tommy on the basis of his rages, so many didn't get to see the softer side of him as a consequence. Not even Ruth, I don't think. It was their loss. I only wish it hadn't taken me so long to gain in turn. "Not without knowing what prompts it, at least." I shook my head.

[distrustful]

There was someone that Kathy was thinking of. Her gaze alone reflected it, gazing straight past me and towards someone who wasn't in the city. Someone that she might have parted ways with even before arriving in Darrow. The faith that she offered me was heartwarming, but there was a twist of something like shame in my stomach, and I stared down at my hands.

Even though it had been years, there were times when I swore I could still smell the human blood under my claws.

"I wouldn't want to be forgiven for some of the things I did. I hurt people. A lot of people," I admitted, clenching a hand into a fist. "But now all that matters is that I remain strong enough never to give into those weaknesses again. Having people like you around reminds me of that."