InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Dreams ❯ Rescue Me ( Chapter 6 )

Broken Dreams

 

Chapter 6

 

Rescue Me

 

Kagome and Kouga walked forward, leading the group. It was getting overcast, which meant good news for Kagome. Kouga never had a tryst when it rained unless they had a convenient cave. But on the downside, it meant he was want an extra long session the next night. Coupled with his payment for letting her talk to Sesshomaru alone, Kagome was not going to enjoy the next few days.

 

She was happy in a way to see Rin. The little girl reminded her of herself, or rather, how she used to be before everything in the last three years. She was so innocent and caring. Kagome vaguely remembered what it was like to be that way.

 

Innocence was a lost cause now. She had lost her innocence - in more ways then one - during her first night with Kouga. Even before that, she had seen more death and destruction then most people did in their entire lifetimes. Traveling five hundred years in the past fighting youkai will do that. She couldn't count the number of youkai she had seen slain. The only youkai whose life hadn't been snuffed out was the one she wanted to die most of all.

 

Caring was something that came to her on occasion still. But even though she was mostly glad to help out a starving villager or a lost traveler, there was now an underlying fear. Fear that they might want something in return. Kouga had always been kind and caring to her. And now?

 

Kagome missed the old days so much. Her least favorite time of day was when they weren't fighting youkai. She hated when silence settled over the group. Silence meant that people were thinking about what they didn't want to say aloud. That used to be her and Inuyasha and their ambiguous relationship, Sango and Miroku and their own troubles, and what Naraku had done to them.

 

Inuyasha would probably be thinking about what do with the jewel. If he still planned to become full youkai, or be full human. If he would use it to bring Kikyo back to life, if he still wanted to be with her, or if he had decided to be with Kagome. As much as Kagome wished he thought about her often, she had to admit that most of his thoughts were probably about the undead miko.

 

She had grown oddly comfortable with the thought of Kikyo. Thinking about her used to bring about feelings of jealousy and sadness, knowing that Inuyasha loved Kikyo and not her. But with Inuyasha gone, it didn't really seem to matter. Plus, Kikyo had not been seen even months before Inuyasha's demise, and hadn't shown up afterwards either. Kagome had no idea what had happened to her.

Sango was probably thinking about her brother Kohaku. He had been seen around a year ago when Naraku had sent him with Kagura, alive and well, so to speak. Kagome had thought that if they ended up fighting alongside Sesshomaru, she could ask him to revive the boy after the fight. But if Sesshomaru wouldn't even try and save the life of his own brother, Kohaku wouldn't fare much better.

 

Miroku still had the Kazaana in his hand. He didn't talk about it much. He and Sango had grown closer over three years, although that was partly thanks to Kagome for becoming distant from them. Kagome supposed that the Kazaana might have been growing bigger in the last little while. She'd have to ask him.

 

A sound of tearing fabric drew her attention, and she turned to see a tree branch ripping a hole in her pack. She twisted away and the contents went spilling on the ground. Kagome cursed and bent down to pick up her thing. Kouga looked over his shoulder.

 

“You need some help there Kagome?” he asked. Kagome started shoving things back into her bag and gasped as her fingertips brushed against Tetsusaiga. She gulped and quickly slid the sword into a cluster of arrows to try and hide it from view. Kouga didn't even know she had carried the sheath with her for three years. If he found out she just wanted to talk to Sesshomaru to get the actual sword…

 

“No, I'm fine. You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up,” Kagome said hurriedly. Kouga reluctantly nodded and kept walking. Kagome tried to shovel the various camping supplies and archery equipment back into the back, shifting around the straps so she could wear it with the rip facing up. After a few minutes, she had everything back inside the pack and got to her feet, running to catch up.

 

Just a few feet ahead the forest faded out into a chasm the cut deep through the countryside. A soft white mist obscured the bottom. As Kagome ran out of the forest, she saw her friends halfway across an old rickety bridge that spanned the cliffs.

 

“Wait up!” she called, running across the bridge. The group turned and watched as Kagome ran up them. Then her foot hit a particularly rotten piece of wood, and stepped right though it. Kagome gasped as her foot went into open air as she fell straight down through the missing section of bridge, her pack catching on the plank behind her. The worn out leather tore again, and Kagome screamed as she fell like a stone, her supplies falling like rain behind her.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

Kagome came awake in stages. First she got her sense of smell, and smelt a fire burning nearby. Next came her sense of hearing, at which point she heard a clash of thunder followed by the patter of rain. He eyes opened and focused on a wall next to her head. Then, sadly, came the pain, and Kagome's nerves went on full alert as she felt searing agony shoot through her body. She screamed in agony as her back arched up from the ground, feeling parts of her clothes sticking to her. She could take a guess what might have caused that.

 

“Stop it,” a voice growled. A hand grabbed her trashing legs to hold them down. The second hand came on her collarbone and held Kagome down as she writhed.

 

“It…hurts…” she groaned.

 

“I know, I know,” The voice replied. “But if you keep moving like that, it will only hurt more.” Kagome tried to listen to whomever was helping her and tried to restrain her urges to move. After what seemed like an eternity of agony, her body settled down, and the hands gripping her form loosened slightly. Kagome whimpered as a wet sensation started moving down her torso.

 

She opened her eyes and moved her neck forward as much as she dared to find out what the feeling was. The man or woman- although it sounded like a man- had taken a damp cloth and was cleaning the blood off of her. And there was a lot of blood.

 

“You got lucky,” the voice said. Kagome was sure it was a man now. “You hit a tree and it broke your fall. You're still badly hurt, but if you had hit the ground, you would have been killed for sure.”

 

“You call this lucky?” Kagome murmured. “I'm in hell.”

 

“I know,” the man said. The hand left the washcloth and the man turned to the fire. He turned back holding a ceramic cup in his hands.

 

“This is hot, and will taste bad,” he warned her. “But it will put you to sleep so it won't hurt anymore, okay?” Kagome stared at the hands holding the cup. One was missing the thumb. A small patch of milky scar tissue ran over where the thumb should be. The other hand was missing appendages too, the pinky and middle fingers, the lumps again covered by milky white skin. Kagome pushed away her unease and nodded slightly, more pain going through her at the gentle movement.

 

“I'm going to hold your nose to make you swallow it. It may hurt going down, but it's good for you.” One hand - the one missing the pinky and middle fingers - pinched her nose. The other pulled her jaw down and slowly poured the concoction down her throat.

 

Kagome had taken the cold medicine Inuyasha had made for her. She had eaten an entire stalk of broccoli on a dare when she was twelve. She had gone through an odd phase when she was eight and she liked eating dirt. But she had never tasted anything like the liquid running down her throat. The man was right; it tasted terrible.

 

Kagome gagged as a reflex, and remembered the hand over her nose. She furrowed her brow and swallowed as much as she could in one gulp. She got most of it, but there was another mouthful. She shook her head, and the hand left go of her nose. Kagome angled her mouth and spit the foul medication onto the stone beside her. She groaned as a sick taste welled up in her stomach, and lurched involuntarily as she empties the contents of her stomach onto the medicine before falling back. The medicine took effect as her eyes drooped closed.