InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Two Worlds ❯ Stowaway WIP ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five

 

Stowaway

 

 

I was teetering crookedly on the balls of my feet now, eyes wide and fingers tingling with numbness. I felt paralyzed by the profuse flood of emotions—more specifically longing and desire—instantaneously quelling my exhaustion until I was full awake and stuck in an infinite bout of shock.

 

“In—Inuyasha…” I whispered, sensing the fear springing in and out of existence in the very pit of my stomach. I hoped. Dear God I'd hoped it was him standing there beyond the dim cascade of shadows with the rim of sheer daylight skirting along the fringes of my white, silk-like curtains, serving as a very surreal backdrop. My eyes swerved sharply along the tantalizing, presumably unaltered outskirts of his shoulders and…side…and…hips…

 

I blushed.

 

Goddamn it!

 

I tried to make some kind of eye contact with him, but only accomplished in squeezing my eyes shut when I saw those same, unforgettable and ghostly amber orbs stare back at me, glinting strangely in the narrow beam of sunlight. But they weren't gleaming in the same, haughty light that I was so doggedly kept on locking away with my secret cobweb of memories. They seemed matured and transformed. So razor-sharp and threatening like a swiping dagger in the night.

 

These couldn't be Inuyasha's eyes.

 

I coughed with as much discretion as I could muster in order to unclog my throat. Funny how it didn't want to cooperate now, just as it had done when I first found myself trapped against him on the Goshinboku, though I wasn't being tormented by these rampant feelings currently inciting a bloodthirsty riot in my chest. I was scared shitless, plain and simple. Once those amber, opalescent eyes met mine, a strange chill played across my spine. But there was one thing that kept my spine from shattering and my heart from hopping directly out of my throat, and that was his unearthly beauty. He proved very handsome in my opinion with his silver, age-mussed hair tossed over his fire-rat clad shoulders and his eyes slicing a clean-cut straight through my soul. He was just so feral, so very unlike the boys at my school.

 

That's why I began to shelter feelings for him.

 

But then came his unique way in showing that he cared. That he actually cared for me, for humans.

 

I held the truth pent up inside me for so long that my heart ached mostly from sun up to sun down while I was in his presence and denial fall on me like a metric ton of bricks. I didn't want to admit to myself, to him, that my gut and heart clenched every time he penetrated my vision, my very dreams, and every time he piggybacked me through the forest, the air whipping through his hair and mine, sweet with the smell of freshly fallen rain.

 

I closed my eyes and allowed those memories to swirl into a desirable image in my head.

 

I smiled grimly to myself. Such days could only be a dream in an average girl's mind, but I'm not such an average girl, am I?

 

I flexed my fingers against the thing pulsing in the bottom of my stomach.

 

“Inuyasha,” I whispered.

 

The thing began to unfurl like a lazy cat rousing from a nap in the sun. It shuddered its way up my spine like a long-lost but eagerly awaited lover. I wrenched my head back, knocking it against the wooden doorframe.

 

I instinctively screeched out in pain.

 

I began to claw at my stomach, doubling over, seeking some relief from the ache steadily building up there. Whatever it was was clambering up my back with thin, sharp claws like those of a cat, dragging idly along my flesh. My breath shortened into wild pants. I waved my hands around feverishly, in search for some type of leverage before my legs fell out beneath me and I collapsed headfirst to the floor.

 

I wasn't wrong for flailing my arms around any more than I was for closing my eyes when I finally felt myself fall.

 

You don't have to worry…someone breathed softly.

 

My jaw trembled. For what reason, I didn't quite know.

 

That was the last feeling, my teeth rattling loosely against one another, before darkness consumed my senses whole. Because

 

ii. Masquerade

 

I could've sworn I dreamed of flowers. Not just that, but a whole field of them! Some were pink, blue, green, white, and purple. If anymore, I didn't quite notice.

 

But I was running. I was dashing through the endless clutter of flowerbeds, my eyes burning and practically watering with joy. And I was wearing my school uniform, radiating youth and profound happiness. My brown eyes were twinkling with something akin to the brilliant glow that only a person who was just stumbling into love for the first time held.

 

Simply put, I was beyond just happy. I was…was in love.

 

“Inuyasha!” my voice wafted with the wind, whistling between the thin, whipping tendrils of my hair.

 

Inuyasha was just beyond the threshold of the forest, his very red apparel flapping in the secretive whispers of the subtle breeze. My legs were aching, but I threw such care to the wind as I raced to him, my eyes glittering.

 

Inuyasha, I thought dreamily, beaming.

 

I was panting hard and the pressure on my heart was increasing with every stolen step. And finally, when the pressure became too intolerable, I jerked to a halt, huffing tiredly and glancing up to figure out why Inuyasha was so far away. Just like a bolt of lightning piercing my skull, I began to sense something—jewel shards and plenty of them, tugging at the fragile strings of my mind.

 

I winced and collapsed to the ground, sandwiching my face shakily between my palms. Colors started to explode behind my lids when I clenched my eyes shut and spared a quiet whimper of pain to the unfeeling whispers of the wind. My heart began to hammer erratically against my chest, just about ready to launch itself in my throat.

 

No, I thought, this can't be happening.

 

The trees shook solemnly, yet with a faint sense of mockery that meandered through their radiant, green leaves and hopping up and down on their rickety boughs. I shook violently at the thought that they might be poking fun at my agony, that I might not get a chance to tell Inuyasha the passionate feelings for him gushing through my veins.

 

I pried my eyes open, just a tiny bit, infinitely aware how they might look like diminutive slits glazed over with pain. Initially, my eyes landed on Inuyasha. “Inuyasha,” I rasped and tried to outstretch my hand to touch him, to make it seem like he was far closer than my eyes or mind pictured him to be, “I—I…help.”

 

But then what was a pathetic cry for help left me cold and empty when I saw Kikyo traipse out of the forest, out of the thick blanket of darkness to stand tall beside Inuyasha. She smiled with that traditionally twisted glee of sadism. Every time her eyes settled on me, there was nothing but a filmy mask of disconcertion covering her eyes, underlain by dark tones of disgust. It made me grind my teeth slightly, partially out of fear and hope, hope that Inuyasha would push her away and run over to me, joining my side and drawing his sword from his sheath to quickly ward her away.

 

But he never did that. He didn't even budge a solitary inch from his spot, standing like a wall of red steel until Kikyo walked in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a deep kiss. His eyes darted away from me then, snapping shut as he pulled Kikyo closer to him, savoring what was namely the saccharine passion of the kiss.

 

My bottom lip quivered. I could feel the pain biting into my body, crawling up and down my veins, and leaving unruly goose bumps on my flesh in their wake.

 

iii. Into the Awaking

 

I jolted awake with a start.

 

Sweat was beading down my face, neck, and arms, making my shirt stick tightly to my body, unsettlingly wet. From the dark, blurry kaleidoscope-patterns playing across my vision, I gathered that it was pretty dark out. The moon's, radiant light was already dancing across the tar-colored floors, flickering slightly with every wave and rustle of the trees' boughs and leaves.

 

I looked down silently. A pleasantly thick and soft quilt was weighing down on my lap, yet I didn't remember buying such a thing for my bed and started to put the entire room under swift inspection.

 

The room was far more palatial compared to my smallish, but comfy bedroom. Not only that, but it was filled abundantly with furniture that may've, in all, cost more than my entire banking account…

 

I frowned.

 

There were several, redwood, four-paned windows closing in on me, casting a ghostly, white, slithering snake of light on the huge bed, which just so happened to be made out of the same colored wood.

 

Nope. This was definitely not my less-opulent-but-cozy bedroom nestled smack dab over the garage of my condo.

 

Where am I? I asked myself.

 

Tossing the quilt aside and making an effort to clamber out of the foreign bed, I noticed that my legs felt like they were constructed out of Jell-O or Play-Doe. I had to lunge for the reassuring leverage of the bed several times before I could finally walk freely and boldly around the room. Some minutes later, I ran across my sneakers parked against a wall neighboring what I suspected was a stylish armoire, but I didn't waste any time putting them back on. Instead, I went on relishing intensely in the soft carpet squeezing between my toes while I hobbled around in ultimate wonder beneath the moonlight.

 

When I spotted the door, or what I thought was a door, I approached it slowly. My whorled fingers felt dry against the cool smoothness of the metal knob. Even so, I opened it uncertainly, each creak sounding from its hinges enough to make me have several, fleeting hernias.

 

I didn't quite know what was on the other end. Maybe the boogieman himself. Or a wanted murderer. Or a…mentally derelict man charged with rape.

 

I didn't quite understand why, but curiosity got the best of me. I opened the door only to be completely blown away by a lavish hallway, so thick and coated shallowly in darkness and wooden planks that it outstripped the beauty of my own hallway without a second glance. It was also surrounded by white walls garnished in seemingly expensive portraits.

 

There was an endless stream of wall lights, which cast an eerie, golden glow over the floor and put me under the illusion that I was in some vast castle, standing just above the dungeons, which were hidden in flames and death and darkness below.

 

The floor was like ice beneath my feet as I tiptoed down the hallway to what I presumed was the peak of some staircase. Not a single, intelligible strand of thoughtfulness fought through the fog that suddenly bounded my mind whole like chains. I just kept trucking on, moistening my chapped, bottom lip occasionally with my tongue with something akin to anticipation…or…fear. Between here and there, I wanted to see what awaited me at the central opening of the hallway, but then came the deathly white fingers of terror, which grasped my heart and caused a shiver to roll coldly down my spine.

 

However, I was calmed, if only a little, by the discovery that not a single soul occupied the top or base of the wide and breathtakingly long staircase.

 

I gulped gently, stomaching whatever it was making my heart do flip-flops in my chest and twisting and turning my stomach in countless knots. Lunging for the staircase's slicked clean, wooden railing, I tapped the first step hesitantly with the tip of my foot.

 

Hmmm, I pondered wryly, at least I don't have to worry about the stairs vanishing into a slide or something like that…hopefully.

 

Settling both feet down on the stair, I clambered down silently…abandoning all notions of what to do when I was actually found loose and slinking around like the inquisitive snoop I was.

 

iv. The Meeting

 

The air was thick with something sweet, but dizzying and stifling all the same.

 

Undetected, I made it downstairs, past the foyer, past what was allegedly a dining room, down a narrow passageway, and ceased at the gawping entrance of a gourmet kitchen. I was packed in just a little bit by the walls enclosing the thin corridor, which seemed fitted for one, full-grown person…and his midget associate.

 

I hugged my back stiffly against the paint-chipped wall, the tip of my nose just touching the frame of the entry breach, which just so happened to smell like wood soaked in stagnant water. My heart was beating fast against my chest when I heard voices tap my eardrums menacingly and cause my knees to buckle hard into each other. If only I had my bow and arrows. Maybe then I wouldn't have felt so helpless and frightened and so…weak.

 

“Is she okay?” a soft voice whispered through the pressing silence.

 

“I hope she is, dog breath,” silence; a small huff in the graying dimness, “or your head belongs to me.”

 

Impulsively, my eyes widened. K—Kouga…?

 

A sigh, “She just fainted. Don't worry your pretty little head over it, Kouga.”

 

“Inuyasha,” the words fell in a barely audible whisper, “maybe I should go upstairs and check on her.”

 

A dry chuckle flitted through the kitchen and vanished down the corridor, “Why waste your energy when she's already up and walking…”

 

“Huh?”

 

I gradually slinked away from the entrance, not trusting myself fully enough to turn around and make a run for it. But, eventually, I did it despite all of that. I wheeled around sharply and braced myself briefly for a long shot down the corridor and to what I thought was the main entrance and exit.

 

Panting roughly, I jogged…and jogged…and then ran. Unfortunately, a strong wall that felt amazingly like steel—and was never there before—struck me down when my defenses were at their lowest. I was sent flying to the floor, skidding to a halt into the nearest wall, the bright light illuminating the foyer burning my poor eyes.

 

I whimpered. My head was aching and I began to cradle the side of my skull with a cautious hand when I gathered enough sense to open my eyes. I was pushed up loosely against the wall, hissing in pain, frowning at the possibility of dirt and whatever else coating the cracks at the foot of the wall, which my back was so perfectly huddled up against.

 

“That hurt,” I said dryly, and heard my voice crack. I let my hand fall away from my head and slip in front of my eyes.

 

Oh well. At least I didn't have to go to the hospital for a fractured skull or sudden blood loss.

 

Using my elbows as temporary crutches, I made it up to my butt and folded my legs weakly to where I was sitting Indian style…staring up with squinting eyes at a glob of silver and black and…gold.

 

“You know curiosity killed the cat,” rumbled a husky, but, to my own ears, reassuring voice, “Snooping around only kept it occupied before it ran straight into a death trap.”

 

My eyes were still blazing from dehydration and those same infuriating lights, but it didn't stop me any from letting them engorge to the size of golf balls. My breathing fell shallow, hollowly tracing the fringes of awareness in my head. My nose burned and, evilly enough, the sensation made me shake my head detachedly. But the unending suspense of seeing what my supposed future actually looked like now—what things have changed and what have not—squished me between the firm, squeezing planks of modesty and reservation.

 

In—Inuyasha…

 

I peered up hesitantly, disregarding the ache in my teary eyes and the dull throbbing idly trying to nail a hole in the rear end of my skull. My mouth fell ajar with little decency, so I realized. I couldn't stop the fiery, thick, red-hot magma oozing up to caress my cheeks like a kiss bestowed sinisterly by the roaring flames of death.

 

His skin. There was a certain balance to it. It was toned out equally in both bronze and pastel white.

 

So beautiful, I thought.

 

His eyes were the same, the finest of ruthlessly honed gold. My eyes drifted down gradually, dropping to observe the bare swell of his chest, the tightly coiled plains of his abdominal muscles, and the span of his barely seeable hips, which were partially submerged in tight-fitting jeans…

 

I gulped back the dark silk of lust fluttered singularly through my body and blushed furiously. I slapped both hands over my cheeks to hide the severe flush, my heart doing maniacal somersaults in my chest. “Oh God…” I murmured.

 

I was unaware of the wilting shift in his eyes and his slowly advancing fingers, which soon preyed upon my shoulder with a touch that seemed prominently out of place when compared to the glint in his eyes and the calluses hidden beneath the folds of skin on his palm. I smiled a bit at the fact that it was actually his fingers that were touching me and not those of his wraithlike copy. But I had yet to notice the real truth hidden behind the comforting caress, that is, until I looked up with much clarity and a mind somehow kicked broadly ajar.

 

This man. He felt like Inuyasha, harbored a voice like Inuyasha, and secreted the same, soothing warmth like Inuyasha, but he was not the Inuyasha I remembered. He was different, too like Sesshoumaru and less like my doggy-eared knight swathed in crimson armor.

 

No fluffy dog ears, I pondered and almost pouted like I'd lost my best friend or my parents all over again, He's…no, he couldn't be.

 

I grappled the bronzy hand off my shoulder and wasn't aware of the cloudy look in my eyes when I lunged for the man's silvery mane and pushed it back just far enough to spot an elfin ear settled on the side of his head…and nearby a scraggly few of purplish chicken scratches.

 

“Y—you're a full…demon?” The question left a bitter tang on my tongue, “But why…how?”

 

His lips creased into a thin, attractively curvaceous line. I couldn't shake off the spur of desire that suddenly flattened me, rationalized with me with soft, slippery words that slinked into my ears one second and exited straight out the other the next. It kept on telling me that one kiss wouldn't hurt, but something within me kept repeatedly saying it would. That's when anger weaseled through the vines of debate and entrapped itself in a spiky briar patch near my heart.

 

Before I could say anything else to him, he turned his bare back on me and left me gawping like a fish abducted straight out of water. Thankfully, the swinging motion his hair made every time he took a step consoled me slightly. I pacified like a baby on the majestic sight of his long, silver curls and imagined it briefly spilling between and over my fingers like water.

 

“Why?” I murmured detachedly, “Was it because you hated me for leaving?”

 

Abruptly, he said in a cogent baritone that had goose bumps breaking out all over my skin, “Honestly, I really don't know.”

 

I, as able as it came to somebody with a light migraine and whose brain rate seemed to die gradually in the clutches of it, tried to stand up and grind my teeth forcefully against one another. I balled my hands into tight fists and allowed murderous daggers to shoot from my eyes and pierce straight into his backside. If only he understood how much I wanted to strangle him, to wring his neck tightly with my arms wrought like a noose. But, alas, I didn't have the heart to. Instead, I took the gentler route and chose soft conversation over bestial brawling, “Just tell me why. Why did you use the jewel to turn yourself into…into this?”

 

I heard a very soft snicker blossom in his throat, which made me even angrier and made my cheeks puff out like a blowfish. That was exactly when the snickers grew louder and his body language betrayed his inward emotions like an obdurate traitor. I felt a plague of goose bumps overwhelm me again when the hearty fits of laughter reached my ears and suddenly made me feel like I wasn't tuned in with reality anymore. For that particular reason, I felt my knees buckle and a heavy wave of anesthesia wash over me in an unsuccessful attempt to push me down. But, before I fell, a strong pair of arms hoisted me back up precisely to where I could see clear into the treacherous depths of The Mystery Man's eyes.

 

I held my breath, refusing to breathe since I was sure my breath probably still reeked of Doritos and that my breathing would only cause me to pass out again. I was as silent as a mouse diving in for a nice piece of cheddar, which proved quite uncomfortable on my part. But I tried my best to distract my thoughts and my eyes with the long-envied silkiness of his skin and hair, the gentle whispers of his breathing, and the subtle fidgeting of his pursed lips.

 

“Tell me, Kagome,” he murmured for only me to hear, “do you think of me as the same evil, demonic bastard from the first time we met?”

 

I yearned considerably to play his game, his version of Punch Me-Punch You, because I've never backed down from a challenge—and absolutely refused to start now—and couldn't hold back my giddiness over the fact that time seemed to mold both him and me into these outwardly discrepant clones who couldn't have possibly been star-crossed lovers from a glance.

 

“And tell me, Inuyasha,” I spoke softly, almost venomously, both my eyes and thoughts zeroing out my surroundings and the screeching silence, “do I honestly look like the same girl that overcame time and fell in love with you?”

 

He huffed out a half-laugh that left me arranging my features into a smart-alecky look even though I knew that that would only succeed in humoring him even more. But I didn't care. I just longed to have the last word, to be the last one to serve up a dish best served cold.

 

“You're as spirited as ever,” he abruptly muttered and released me before continuing, “I can't believe she was right about you.”

 

Shortly, my cheeky look disappeared and I was left befuddled. I opened my mouth to say something, but was just as promptly interrupted by a deep, heart stopping voice that caused ice to trickle down my spine.

 

“I can't believe this. Why do you continue on fighting with mutt-face here when you could have a real man who wouldn't give you such a hard time?”

 

My face scrunched briefly, but then molded into something jubilant and bright once I turned around. I happily eyed the man standing in the dim entryway of the vestibule with his shoulder slumped casually against the doorframe and his aqua-blue eyes glistening wistfully, yet cunningly. He was garbed stunningly from head to toe in brown—brown, dress shoes, pants, a vest-coat combo, and a western-styled hat to boot! There was even a large, dark arrangement of stubble covering his tanned chin and partly all of his cheeks that set some unfamiliar part of me on fire.

 

I scooted one foot forward and then another and another until it all built up into a head-on stampede. No sooner had his arms outstretched was I nestled against the fine fabric of his elaborate coat, tears dribbling down my cheeks as I wrapped my arms around him and reveled in the bit of cologne that clung to him. “I can't believe it's you,” I mumbled into the jacket's priceless cloth, plainly overlooking the fact that I was starting to soak it in my tears.

 

His burly arms enveloped me whole and his friendly chuckle warmed me to the bone. My heart hitched slightly as the full effect of his hug overwhelmed my body and weakened my thoughts to a slow, numbing trickle. I remembered that chuckle so well that it almost scared me.

 

“I guess this means I've been kicked out of the loop right, Kagome-chan?”

 

Mindlessly, I slipped out of Kouga's bind as my attention slowly honed in on the darkness looming within the packed-in corridor that led to the alleged kitchen. I could tell that my eyes were wide because of the dull ache pulsing behind them. The ache left my heart beating erratically against my chest and caused my breath to hitch noticeably in my throat. I had a bad case of the shivers and things seemed to be looking more so down than up. However, one thing reached up for the sky and touched it, unleashing some kind of blinding radiance that chased away the persistent shivers.

 

“Sango,” I uttered softly, “is that really you?”

 

The gloom lingering in the hallway that led to the kitchen, moved; it seemed to be…budding…like a cell would when it reproduced. At the opening that poured out into the hall, a shadowy, yet curvy figure separated itself from the darkness and began to walk into the light. A tender smile cricked its lips, immediately expanding to its brown eyes, which were tinged neatly in magenta eyeliner.

 

My eyes widened.