InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Fates ❯ Illumination ( Chapter 11 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: kanna37 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Psychological / Hentai / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 10.02.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 922 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Psychological / Hentai / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 10.02.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 922 | Status: Work In Progress
Chapter 11: Illumination
Kagome sat at her window, and stared out at the goshinboku. It was the same place she'd been sitting for the last day and a half. For some reason, she just couldn't find it in herself to move away from that spot.
Ever since the other evening, when some sense of a waiting horror invaded her mind, she'd felt fear - and a sudden desire not to remember whatever it was that was hovering just outside her conscious mind.
And that had her feeling trapped. Her fear was making her weak, and she knew it. Because she was afraid to remember the rest of her past, she was locking herself into a stasis; one of the mind, and one of the heart. To live, you must move - there is no getting around that, and if she let her fear keep her motionless and tied up, then she would be unable to truly live.
She knew these things. She knew the fear was bad - that it was the wickedness that was wrapping her soul in defeat. And still, she couldn't bring herself to move... to break away from it. That was the ultimate cause for this depression she now found herself in.
With no way to break out of it, she was left immobile, staring out her window at a symbol of her past, and wondering why she felt so trapped by the vision of the sacred tree she'd always before seen as a happy, peaceful presence.
All she could do at that point, somewhere deep inside, was hope that someone, anyone, would come that could help her break free. Because at this point, she felt as though she had been hit with a tranquilizer - one of the elephant variety, and it wasn't in her to break through its hold on her own.
At this point, anything that could break through the prison her mind had become would be welcome.
Anything.
---cCc---
Hojo looked up at the shrine steps that he'd found himself standing in front of, and sighed. He couldn't believe the way Kagome had acted the last time he'd seen her... in all the years he'd known her, she had never acted like that - not towards anyone. He knew what her mother had said, that she'd just lost some friends, although he couldn't imagine who. He'd called around to all her friends and everyone was fine - and oddly curious about these 'friends' as well. Who could they be?
Hands in his pockets, he walked across the street and headed west, towards a park that he knew lay a few blocks away. Frowning, his mind turned to everyone he knew that Kagome knew, and still, nothing came to mind. Everyone was fine... there hadn't been any deaths of anyone they knew - not even family of anyone they knew.
A flash of red caught his eye as a car sped past, and his frown deepened as something about it tugged at his memory. Red...
And silver.
Stiffening, he stared at the ground at his feet, watching as the grass bent softly with the breeze. Could it be? He remembered a particular school festival where a young male in red, with long silver hair had shown up. He'd never seen the guy before, but it was more than obvious that Kagome knew him, and well. And that the man had strong feelings for her.
Was he the reason Kagome was grieving so deeply? Hojo's shoulders slumped and he began to look back over the years he had spent pursuing her, hoping to claim Kagome as his. She'd never reciprocated, had avoided most of the dates he'd tried to get with her, and not stayed long for the couple she had agreed to... and she'd looked at that male the way he'd always hoped she'd look at him - but never had.
It was apparent to anyone with sense that he'd been chasing a dream, and his heart hurt as he thought back over the years. He'd always loved Kagome - it hadn't taken long after he'd met her. She was just so special, and he'd never met another woman like her... not once in the five years he'd known her. He doubted now that there was another woman like her.
But then his shoulders perked back up, and he raised his head and lifted it into the breeze. If that other guy truly was the one who had died... maybe he could be her shoulder to lean on - and just maybe, she'd finally be able to see him.
With something very like hope, he smiled into the distance, and shoulders squared, he nodded once to himself, sharply. He would be there for her... and hope.
Maybe the kami, and Kagome, would look favorably on him for his devotion, once she healed, of course.
---cCc---
Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi looked at each other, and then at the stairs ahead of them, and all nodded at the same time. After Hojo had called them all, asking if any of them knew of any friends of Kagome's that had died, and then told them what had happened the day he'd visited her a couple weeks ago, they'd all been mystified, and done their level best to sniff out who could possibly have passed on - but had had no luck.
Then, the other day, it had finally come to Ayumi... and she'd bet that the one who had died had been the jealous, possessive boyfriend that had had Kagome tied all in knots for the last several years. As soon as she'd brought it up to her other two friends, they had agreed - it looked like Kagome had lost someone a lot more important to her than just a friend.
She'd lost Inuyasha.
That realization had the three girls determined to go and speak to her. It had been several weeks now, and hopefully, she was up to having visitors - ones that were concerned about her and wanted to see if there was anything they could do. If it truly had been her boyfriend that had died, she was going to need all the support she could get - because the guy had had Kagome wrapped around his finger for years - she'd been totally in love with him, and would be hurting tremendously, they knew.
That would certainly explain the way she'd reacted to Hojo, too. After all, she'd spent years avoiding him, and he still hadn't gotten the message. It was easy to understand her outburst in these circumstances, and with one final glance amongst themselves, the girls started up the steps.
Sota watched the three girls walk across the lower courtyard, then trip up the steps to the upper level that their private home sat on, and grinned. This might just be a good thing for Kagome's sake... she really needed to get out of the house, and these friends of hers were the best bet for that so far.
Waving at them, he turned a huge smile on the girls, and said, "Hey, Yuka, Eri, Ayumi! Long time no see! Here to visit Kagome?"
Eri smiled and nodded. "Yeah." She lowered her voice and looked around for a moment. "We heard that Kagome lost someone important to her - that a friend of hers had died, and we wanted to come and see how she was doing... you know, see if we could cheer her up a bit."
Sota frowned at that, eyes sliding away from the three, something they all noted. "Yeah...it was Inuyasha. I think you guys met him once, didn't you?" At their shocked looks, he shook his head. "It's been... hard for her. But if you want to go see her, she's up in her room. She doesn't... she doesn't come out of it much anymore, and she won't smile hardly at all."
The girls all exchanged unhappy looks, then Yuka said, "Well, we'll just go up and see how she is - maybe we can get her out of the house at some point this week. It would do her good, I'm sure."
Sota was so grateful at the mere thought of his sister coming out of the house and hanging out with her friends that he completely forgot to mention that Kagome had lost her memories, and that they should be careful of what they said.
It would prove to be the oversight that would break the final barrier on her memory - and this would be both a good thing, and a bad thing.
Only time would tell which would outweigh the other - the good... or the bad.
---cCc---
Upstairs, Kagome heard several voices that she had not heard in a while coming up towards her room, and turned her head to stare at her door. She wasn't sure she wanted them to come in... but she also wasn't sure she didn't, and that was just as important.
When the knock came, along with Ayumi's gentle voice requesting entrance, she let out a tiny sigh, and softly called out, "Come in," before turning and staring back out the window.
The girls piled in, looking around discreetly, and immediately noticed their friends overwhelming sadness and her air of anguished preoccupation. It wasn't hard to, her whole room reeked of pain. Glancing at each, they all saw the same determination on each others eyes - something had to be done about this.
Eri, being the naturally dominant one, marched over to Kagome at her window seat, and pulled her up, guiding her over to her door. "Yuka, grab her sweater and hand it to her... we're taking her outside. At the very least, we're going to go sit under the god tree. The fresh air will do her good."
Nodding to herself and the others firmly, she pulled the unresisting girl down the stairs behind her as soon as she had her sweater in hand, the other two following along, not about to argue. As soon as they reached the genkan, they got her to put the sweater on, and slip on some shoes... and then Eri continued dragging her out of the house, and back down to the lower level of the shrine, towards the tree.
None of them noticed the golden eyes and silver hair of the person hiding in the tops of the goshinboku - in fact, on the same branch his last incarnation had claimed as his own. It was a good place to hide, while still being able to hear and see everything around. It was where he stayed, most of the time now, waiting for his miko to regain her memory.
His wait was just about over.
He watched as the three girls he remembered from his memories of Inuyasha, and his own memories as well, escorted Kagome out of the house, and to the foot of his tree, and then pulled her down into a sitting position before the behemoth, as they plopped down around her and stared at her determinedly.
Yuka reached out and took Kagome's limp hand in her own, and tilted her head to meet her gaze. "Kagome? Come out of it, girl. You need to wake up, and break away from this depression. This isn't like you."
Kagome let slip a tiny exhalation, almost a sigh, and looked away, her gaze trailing slowly back to the tree before her. She was avoiding looking at her friends.
"Why? Why do I have to wake up? It's easier... less painful to sleep. Didn't you all know that?"
Ayumi looked down at the fingers she was twisting in her lap, then back up at Kagome. "You know better than that, though. Life is never easy - but it is interesting. Even when bad things happen, Kagome, you can't give up. That's what you always told us."
A dead laugh bubbled up from Kagome's chest. "You should have slapped me, then. I was spitting meaningless platitudes at you when I said that." Her voice was pained, yet almost listless, and sadness flowed around her like a living thing.
The girls all stared at each other, unsure of what to make of it. They'd never seen Kagome like this, not once in all the years they'd known her. The odd thing was, she'd lost other friends before, and had never reacted this way. Even considering that she had been in love with the guy... this just seemed to go beyond that - it was like there was something deeper there that was causing more harm to the already broken young woman.
But what was it?
Eri sighed, and looked up at the tree for a moment, a slight frown crossing her face. "Kagome... Inuyasha wouldn't have wanted you to give up, you know that right? You have to let go..." she trailed off, head whipping back around at the girls' indrawn breath and the sharp, shocked sound she made. Staring, unsure of what was going on, they all watched as Kagome's face paled even further than it already was, and her eyes lost focus, staring inside herself with a look of unequaled pain.
"Inu..yasha?" she whispered, eyes still blank and unfocused. "That name again... you three knew him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and the girl's stared first at her, and then at each other, all wearing identical looks of confusion.
"H-hai, Kagome... uhhh...?" Yuka drew in a deep breath and shook her head in an attempt to clear the befuddlement in her mind. "Don't you... don't you remember?"
A slow shake of the head, Kagome obviously still mostly lost in her thoughts. "No... I don't remember - only the name. Maybe..." she looked up suddenly, eyes focusing for a moment on Ayumi. "Who was Kikyou? Did you know her, too?"
Eyes widening in something close to shock, Ayumi cast a quick, uncertain look at the other two, and then slowly looked back at Kagome. Reluctantly, unsure if honesty was really the best policy at this point, but not knowing what else to do, she nodded.
"We only know what you told us about her, Kagome. We never met her. She was Inuyasha's first girlfriend, and, from the things you said, he couldn't seem to let her go. I know you guys fought a lot about it... but no more than that."
A light suddenly flared in Kagome's eyes, as if something had finally clicked, and she frowned, deeply, and then a look of horror washed across her face - a look mixed in equal parts of betrayal... and with a silent cry, she slumped forward with uncontainable grief as the last of her memories played out against the background of of her broken heart.
Collapsing in on herself, unable to even keep herself upright, tears streamed down her face, silently, as she looked inside and found...
Kikyou.
With her memories returned, she had finally remembered that soul orb - and what she'd never wanted back inside her.
And yet... it was there. Meaning that Mika, her mother, Yasha... all of them... they had betrayed her. And there was nothing she could do about it - it was too late. She would never be free of Kikyou, she would never be just Kagome ever again.
She was doomed to be Kikyou's copy... forever.
Maybe... maybe Kagome never really even existed. Maybe she was just a hallucination.
A fake.
Just as Kikyou had always said.
---cCc---
Somewhere deep inside, in a place of pain, panic, and darkness, a piece of soul shivered in grief for what it was feeling. In subconscious awareness, what had once been known as Kikyou shuddered as it looked on to what it's actions had wrought - and felt sorrow, and fear.
In it's short-sighted actions within the confines of it's last life, it had crushed the seeds of its next life, and there was no telling if the damage it had created could ever be reversed. Like shattered glass, the shards of the rest of the soul lay sprinkled and scattered across the inner horizon of the psyche of the one known now as Kagome. It was a spectacular, glowing disaster, the beauty of the soul evident even its destruction.
At that moment, what had once been Kikyou finally understood the differences between she, and the one known as Kagome. As Kikyou, she had been as an infant in the cycle of birth and rebirth, but Kagome was nearing her ascension.
Or had been. Because now, the only way she could gain that fate was to overcome the destruction that had been wrought on her by a spoiled child with so little wisdom that she had literally cut off her nose to spite her face.
The first thing... this soul could not exist in darkness. It needed light - and it needed love. What had been Kikyou needed to find a way to illuminate the darkness of this place - to bring back the light, and pour it into the darkness that she had forced into existence within the greater portion of the combined soul known as Kagome.
Considering all that it needed to undertake, the soul felt the tug within itself that signified the tie to its other self... and realized that in order to bring back the light, it would have to bring itself together again. Light could not exist when only half of itself was present.
It would have to find its counterpart - the soul that had once been Inuyasha. It was close, the tugging spoke of that, but Kagome had to accept it.
Only then could light exist again within its confines.
---cCc---
A/N: Sorry about the delays with chapters lately, as I said in the last update, I'm pretty sick, and have been having a hard time even staying awake long enough to write anything. Hopefully, this chapter turned out okay, because I'm still out of it enough that I can't tell if it's decent, or not. Hope it's okay!
Amber
Kagome sat at her window, and stared out at the goshinboku. It was the same place she'd been sitting for the last day and a half. For some reason, she just couldn't find it in herself to move away from that spot.
Ever since the other evening, when some sense of a waiting horror invaded her mind, she'd felt fear - and a sudden desire not to remember whatever it was that was hovering just outside her conscious mind.
And that had her feeling trapped. Her fear was making her weak, and she knew it. Because she was afraid to remember the rest of her past, she was locking herself into a stasis; one of the mind, and one of the heart. To live, you must move - there is no getting around that, and if she let her fear keep her motionless and tied up, then she would be unable to truly live.
She knew these things. She knew the fear was bad - that it was the wickedness that was wrapping her soul in defeat. And still, she couldn't bring herself to move... to break away from it. That was the ultimate cause for this depression she now found herself in.
With no way to break out of it, she was left immobile, staring out her window at a symbol of her past, and wondering why she felt so trapped by the vision of the sacred tree she'd always before seen as a happy, peaceful presence.
All she could do at that point, somewhere deep inside, was hope that someone, anyone, would come that could help her break free. Because at this point, she felt as though she had been hit with a tranquilizer - one of the elephant variety, and it wasn't in her to break through its hold on her own.
At this point, anything that could break through the prison her mind had become would be welcome.
Anything.
---cCc---
Hojo looked up at the shrine steps that he'd found himself standing in front of, and sighed. He couldn't believe the way Kagome had acted the last time he'd seen her... in all the years he'd known her, she had never acted like that - not towards anyone. He knew what her mother had said, that she'd just lost some friends, although he couldn't imagine who. He'd called around to all her friends and everyone was fine - and oddly curious about these 'friends' as well. Who could they be?
Hands in his pockets, he walked across the street and headed west, towards a park that he knew lay a few blocks away. Frowning, his mind turned to everyone he knew that Kagome knew, and still, nothing came to mind. Everyone was fine... there hadn't been any deaths of anyone they knew - not even family of anyone they knew.
A flash of red caught his eye as a car sped past, and his frown deepened as something about it tugged at his memory. Red...
And silver.
Stiffening, he stared at the ground at his feet, watching as the grass bent softly with the breeze. Could it be? He remembered a particular school festival where a young male in red, with long silver hair had shown up. He'd never seen the guy before, but it was more than obvious that Kagome knew him, and well. And that the man had strong feelings for her.
Was he the reason Kagome was grieving so deeply? Hojo's shoulders slumped and he began to look back over the years he had spent pursuing her, hoping to claim Kagome as his. She'd never reciprocated, had avoided most of the dates he'd tried to get with her, and not stayed long for the couple she had agreed to... and she'd looked at that male the way he'd always hoped she'd look at him - but never had.
It was apparent to anyone with sense that he'd been chasing a dream, and his heart hurt as he thought back over the years. He'd always loved Kagome - it hadn't taken long after he'd met her. She was just so special, and he'd never met another woman like her... not once in the five years he'd known her. He doubted now that there was another woman like her.
But then his shoulders perked back up, and he raised his head and lifted it into the breeze. If that other guy truly was the one who had died... maybe he could be her shoulder to lean on - and just maybe, she'd finally be able to see him.
With something very like hope, he smiled into the distance, and shoulders squared, he nodded once to himself, sharply. He would be there for her... and hope.
Maybe the kami, and Kagome, would look favorably on him for his devotion, once she healed, of course.
---cCc---
Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi looked at each other, and then at the stairs ahead of them, and all nodded at the same time. After Hojo had called them all, asking if any of them knew of any friends of Kagome's that had died, and then told them what had happened the day he'd visited her a couple weeks ago, they'd all been mystified, and done their level best to sniff out who could possibly have passed on - but had had no luck.
Then, the other day, it had finally come to Ayumi... and she'd bet that the one who had died had been the jealous, possessive boyfriend that had had Kagome tied all in knots for the last several years. As soon as she'd brought it up to her other two friends, they had agreed - it looked like Kagome had lost someone a lot more important to her than just a friend.
She'd lost Inuyasha.
That realization had the three girls determined to go and speak to her. It had been several weeks now, and hopefully, she was up to having visitors - ones that were concerned about her and wanted to see if there was anything they could do. If it truly had been her boyfriend that had died, she was going to need all the support she could get - because the guy had had Kagome wrapped around his finger for years - she'd been totally in love with him, and would be hurting tremendously, they knew.
That would certainly explain the way she'd reacted to Hojo, too. After all, she'd spent years avoiding him, and he still hadn't gotten the message. It was easy to understand her outburst in these circumstances, and with one final glance amongst themselves, the girls started up the steps.
Sota watched the three girls walk across the lower courtyard, then trip up the steps to the upper level that their private home sat on, and grinned. This might just be a good thing for Kagome's sake... she really needed to get out of the house, and these friends of hers were the best bet for that so far.
Waving at them, he turned a huge smile on the girls, and said, "Hey, Yuka, Eri, Ayumi! Long time no see! Here to visit Kagome?"
Eri smiled and nodded. "Yeah." She lowered her voice and looked around for a moment. "We heard that Kagome lost someone important to her - that a friend of hers had died, and we wanted to come and see how she was doing... you know, see if we could cheer her up a bit."
Sota frowned at that, eyes sliding away from the three, something they all noted. "Yeah...it was Inuyasha. I think you guys met him once, didn't you?" At their shocked looks, he shook his head. "It's been... hard for her. But if you want to go see her, she's up in her room. She doesn't... she doesn't come out of it much anymore, and she won't smile hardly at all."
The girls all exchanged unhappy looks, then Yuka said, "Well, we'll just go up and see how she is - maybe we can get her out of the house at some point this week. It would do her good, I'm sure."
Sota was so grateful at the mere thought of his sister coming out of the house and hanging out with her friends that he completely forgot to mention that Kagome had lost her memories, and that they should be careful of what they said.
It would prove to be the oversight that would break the final barrier on her memory - and this would be both a good thing, and a bad thing.
Only time would tell which would outweigh the other - the good... or the bad.
---cCc---
Upstairs, Kagome heard several voices that she had not heard in a while coming up towards her room, and turned her head to stare at her door. She wasn't sure she wanted them to come in... but she also wasn't sure she didn't, and that was just as important.
When the knock came, along with Ayumi's gentle voice requesting entrance, she let out a tiny sigh, and softly called out, "Come in," before turning and staring back out the window.
The girls piled in, looking around discreetly, and immediately noticed their friends overwhelming sadness and her air of anguished preoccupation. It wasn't hard to, her whole room reeked of pain. Glancing at each, they all saw the same determination on each others eyes - something had to be done about this.
Eri, being the naturally dominant one, marched over to Kagome at her window seat, and pulled her up, guiding her over to her door. "Yuka, grab her sweater and hand it to her... we're taking her outside. At the very least, we're going to go sit under the god tree. The fresh air will do her good."
Nodding to herself and the others firmly, she pulled the unresisting girl down the stairs behind her as soon as she had her sweater in hand, the other two following along, not about to argue. As soon as they reached the genkan, they got her to put the sweater on, and slip on some shoes... and then Eri continued dragging her out of the house, and back down to the lower level of the shrine, towards the tree.
None of them noticed the golden eyes and silver hair of the person hiding in the tops of the goshinboku - in fact, on the same branch his last incarnation had claimed as his own. It was a good place to hide, while still being able to hear and see everything around. It was where he stayed, most of the time now, waiting for his miko to regain her memory.
His wait was just about over.
He watched as the three girls he remembered from his memories of Inuyasha, and his own memories as well, escorted Kagome out of the house, and to the foot of his tree, and then pulled her down into a sitting position before the behemoth, as they plopped down around her and stared at her determinedly.
Yuka reached out and took Kagome's limp hand in her own, and tilted her head to meet her gaze. "Kagome? Come out of it, girl. You need to wake up, and break away from this depression. This isn't like you."
Kagome let slip a tiny exhalation, almost a sigh, and looked away, her gaze trailing slowly back to the tree before her. She was avoiding looking at her friends.
"Why? Why do I have to wake up? It's easier... less painful to sleep. Didn't you all know that?"
Ayumi looked down at the fingers she was twisting in her lap, then back up at Kagome. "You know better than that, though. Life is never easy - but it is interesting. Even when bad things happen, Kagome, you can't give up. That's what you always told us."
A dead laugh bubbled up from Kagome's chest. "You should have slapped me, then. I was spitting meaningless platitudes at you when I said that." Her voice was pained, yet almost listless, and sadness flowed around her like a living thing.
The girls all stared at each other, unsure of what to make of it. They'd never seen Kagome like this, not once in all the years they'd known her. The odd thing was, she'd lost other friends before, and had never reacted this way. Even considering that she had been in love with the guy... this just seemed to go beyond that - it was like there was something deeper there that was causing more harm to the already broken young woman.
But what was it?
Eri sighed, and looked up at the tree for a moment, a slight frown crossing her face. "Kagome... Inuyasha wouldn't have wanted you to give up, you know that right? You have to let go..." she trailed off, head whipping back around at the girls' indrawn breath and the sharp, shocked sound she made. Staring, unsure of what was going on, they all watched as Kagome's face paled even further than it already was, and her eyes lost focus, staring inside herself with a look of unequaled pain.
"Inu..yasha?" she whispered, eyes still blank and unfocused. "That name again... you three knew him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and the girl's stared first at her, and then at each other, all wearing identical looks of confusion.
"H-hai, Kagome... uhhh...?" Yuka drew in a deep breath and shook her head in an attempt to clear the befuddlement in her mind. "Don't you... don't you remember?"
A slow shake of the head, Kagome obviously still mostly lost in her thoughts. "No... I don't remember - only the name. Maybe..." she looked up suddenly, eyes focusing for a moment on Ayumi. "Who was Kikyou? Did you know her, too?"
Eyes widening in something close to shock, Ayumi cast a quick, uncertain look at the other two, and then slowly looked back at Kagome. Reluctantly, unsure if honesty was really the best policy at this point, but not knowing what else to do, she nodded.
"We only know what you told us about her, Kagome. We never met her. She was Inuyasha's first girlfriend, and, from the things you said, he couldn't seem to let her go. I know you guys fought a lot about it... but no more than that."
A light suddenly flared in Kagome's eyes, as if something had finally clicked, and she frowned, deeply, and then a look of horror washed across her face - a look mixed in equal parts of betrayal... and with a silent cry, she slumped forward with uncontainable grief as the last of her memories played out against the background of of her broken heart.
Collapsing in on herself, unable to even keep herself upright, tears streamed down her face, silently, as she looked inside and found...
Kikyou.
With her memories returned, she had finally remembered that soul orb - and what she'd never wanted back inside her.
And yet... it was there. Meaning that Mika, her mother, Yasha... all of them... they had betrayed her. And there was nothing she could do about it - it was too late. She would never be free of Kikyou, she would never be just Kagome ever again.
She was doomed to be Kikyou's copy... forever.
Maybe... maybe Kagome never really even existed. Maybe she was just a hallucination.
A fake.
Just as Kikyou had always said.
---cCc---
Somewhere deep inside, in a place of pain, panic, and darkness, a piece of soul shivered in grief for what it was feeling. In subconscious awareness, what had once been known as Kikyou shuddered as it looked on to what it's actions had wrought - and felt sorrow, and fear.
In it's short-sighted actions within the confines of it's last life, it had crushed the seeds of its next life, and there was no telling if the damage it had created could ever be reversed. Like shattered glass, the shards of the rest of the soul lay sprinkled and scattered across the inner horizon of the psyche of the one known now as Kagome. It was a spectacular, glowing disaster, the beauty of the soul evident even its destruction.
At that moment, what had once been Kikyou finally understood the differences between she, and the one known as Kagome. As Kikyou, she had been as an infant in the cycle of birth and rebirth, but Kagome was nearing her ascension.
Or had been. Because now, the only way she could gain that fate was to overcome the destruction that had been wrought on her by a spoiled child with so little wisdom that she had literally cut off her nose to spite her face.
The first thing... this soul could not exist in darkness. It needed light - and it needed love. What had been Kikyou needed to find a way to illuminate the darkness of this place - to bring back the light, and pour it into the darkness that she had forced into existence within the greater portion of the combined soul known as Kagome.
Considering all that it needed to undertake, the soul felt the tug within itself that signified the tie to its other self... and realized that in order to bring back the light, it would have to bring itself together again. Light could not exist when only half of itself was present.
It would have to find its counterpart - the soul that had once been Inuyasha. It was close, the tugging spoke of that, but Kagome had to accept it.
Only then could light exist again within its confines.
---cCc---
A/N: Sorry about the delays with chapters lately, as I said in the last update, I'm pretty sick, and have been having a hard time even staying awake long enough to write anything. Hopefully, this chapter turned out okay, because I'm still out of it enough that I can't tell if it's decent, or not. Hope it's okay!
Amber