InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Acting ❯ Chapter 0: The Obligatory Prologue ( Prologue )

Acting

Bainidhe Dub

0: Prologue

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0.1 [ Sengoku Jidai ]

Her hands reached up to touch the ones clasped around her throat, clawed desperately at the grip. She felt the hands tighten; felt her throat begin to close and watched the world gray around the edges and her vision blur. Her legs kicked aimlessly, occasionally striking the legs of the one who held her.

"KAGOME!" The sharp cry, filled with pain and fear reached her ears.

Kagome struggled harder. With each kick or wriggle, the hands tightened more. She felt her lungs burn with the need for oxygen. Desperately, she once again clawed at the hands encircling her neck.

A bright flash, yellow like lightning rendered her nearly blind and a sharp gust of wind buffeted into her. A splash of something warm and wet soaked her but nothing harmed her that she could feel. Kagome heard her attacker cry out in pain as the wind made dozens of tiny cuts in his skin and then split his head neatly in half, horizontally. She felt the earth quiver and rend itself into claw marks stretching away from her.

She turned to see Inuyasha staring wide-eyed at her.

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0.12 (Interlude)

His wide eyes stare in a mixture of shock and something she cannot describe, something she has never seen before. His hands tremble at his sides, his ears quiver from the stress of whatever emotion lurks in his eyes.

She smiles faintly at him but the smile isn't real- she feels no cause for smiling, nor anything at all. The world seems tinged with black, and she lets herself fall into an inky, sticky darkness.

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0.2 [Modern Era]

"Kagome, wake up!"

Kagome rolled over and opened her eyes to see her younger brother, Souta, worriedly staring down at her. His earnest expression and trembling eyes clued her in on the seriousness of her condition.

"SHE COULD HAVE DIED!" Her grandfather's voice echoed to her.

"YOU ACT AS THOUGH I DIDN'T KNOW!" Another voices roared.

'Is that... Inuyasha?' She wondered. 'COULD it be Inuyasha? It doesn't SEEM so absurd! Ugh, doesn't seem absurd?! What am I thinking?!'

"DEMON!"

"IDIOT!"

"YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER!"

Kagome lay still and felt an awful silence, a horrible stillness, come over them all. It seemed as though she could hear Inuyasha's low, deep breaths as he struggled to get a grip on his temper.

"I could have killed her?" Inuyasha's voice finally came, thick with an emotion Kagome had never seen in him before. She could feel the shock of rage, rolling off of him in waves. His youki was beginning to become a powerful aura, an aura that sent his emotions crashing into the humans around him. Raw anger, grief, terror- all of it fresh, all of it crashing into her like waves on the shore.

To say the least, it hurt like hell.

"Inu...ya...sha," she managed to croak out, her throat badly in need of water and her wounds in need of changed bandages.

Souta stared down at her, apparently overjoyed to see that she was awake and, indeed, on the road to getting better. He ran out of her room and down the hall.

A moment later, the sound of Souta shouting that 'Kagome's awake' filled her ears. Footsteps thundered towards her room. Inuyasha came sliding in, and Ojii-san entered soon after the dog demon.

Inuyasha stopped before her bed and looked down at her.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

'WHAT? Inuyasha is APOLOGIZING?'

It was horridly out of character.

"For what?" Kagome replied, reaching out to make him help her stand.

"For letting you into danger. For using a move with the possibility of killing you. For not bringing you back sooner."