InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal Clear ❯ Lost Love ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

*Kagome's POV*

It was so dark...

Wind was blowing and it was chilly; trees were breaking and rubbing their branches together. My feet were bare, cold and wet. The thought occured to me that I was standing in water, but from the ankle down I couldn't feel much. I was apparently wearing my Miko garments by the feel of the clothes on my skin, but I couldn't even tell that for certain because I was so cold.

Why can't I see?

If there was anything I couldn't stand, it was not being partially aware of where I was, or being able to see when I opened my eyes. The Fuedal Era had given me the ability of light sleep that most teenagers didn't have. This wasn't like being asleep at all.

A gush of wind hit me hard enough that I stumbled. A deep chill shot down my spine.

Suddenly I could hear voices being carried by the wind towards me. There were many, and they were laughing at me, telling me that they were close, but I couldn't see them. They were telling me to run because they were coming. I didn't know the voices, and didn't know why they were coming for me, so I started running.

My pant legs were getting wet and slapping uncomfortably against my calves, so I was definitely standing in water. I ran in any direction I could, twisting, turning and hoping to hit land, but the voices were getting closer no matter where I went, and I was constantly in the water.

Tears trailed down my cheeks as I dashed, but I got nowhere. Almost as if I was standing on a treadmill in a flood.

I stopped. Running may not be my way out of this one. I reached around on my person, trying to locate anything useful. My bows and arrows were gone.

One voice sounded like it was whispering in my ear, and it told me to run like the others had. It apparently wanted to chase me.

I had had enough.

"Inuyasha!"

They were right on top of me now; I could just feel their presence over me somehow. I crouched, grabbed my head for cover (like it would really protect me) and screamed loud, hoping that if I was just far away from Inuyasha he could hear me. I was still standing in the water, but it was suddenly getting hot...so hot. Almost boiling my feet.

I screamed again in shock when the metallic scent of blood hit my nose. The only way a human like me could smell blood was if it was right by my nose, or there was a shitload of it. I prayed that I wasn't standing in a pool of it now.

Where was Inuyasha? Why couldn't I see anything?

'Why is this happening to me?!'

The voices stopped, but the silence was damn near worse. I knew my savior wasn't going to save me this time, but unlike a lot of the times when I was alone I didn't have anything to defend myself with. If they were here to kill me, I was honestly dead.

I heard a familiar chuckle, and slowly looked up, fearing whoever that person was for a minute. Finally, I could see the form of someone, but she was all I could see in the darkness, and honestly, I wasn't all that comforted by her presence.

It was Kikyo.

"Get up."

I just glared at her. What the hell did she want from me?

"Get up now, Child."

I listened not because I wanted to, but because I was angry. I wanted to get to her eye-level and yell at her...even though that was just as childish, but it would make me feel better.

"What the hell do you want, Kikyo? Don't call me a child!"

Her eyes flared with momentary fury. "Don't dare speak to me that way. You remember who's soul you hold in your body."

I snorted. "It's mine, Kikyo. You're supposed to be dead, remember? That makes it mine."
"You would be wise to bite your tongue."

I hated that woman's emotionless voice, but here, in this strange place, she had a lot more emotion than I had ever seen her have. It was kind of unnerving honestly. She could probably kill me with kindness right now because I would be so shocked at her.

"Why did you bring me here?!"

She smirked, and it was frightening like it always was. "You don't know what's going on, do you?"

Blinking and looking around, I sighed, suddenly realizing how silly this was. She was right. None of this made sense...this had to be a dream.

"I'm dreaming. So what?"

She smiled at me unpleasantly. "You're afraid."

"Am I not allowed to be afraid in my dreams?"

"You can always be afraid of your dreams. It is the one place that is safe to let your fear override your emotions."

Okay...so why was she in my dreams? I didn't really fear Kikyo as much as I feared her taking Inuyasha away from me.

But if this was a dream, Inuyasha wasn't in it. That was unnerving all on it's own. When I had dreams of her, he was always there somewhere. Though there has been quite a few wet dreams in which Kikyo wasn't around--it was a game of dream-tag.

There was a sudden noise and I startled. Kikyo grabbed her bow and arrows and dropped them somewhere behind her. When she had reached for them, I thought she was going to try and kill me again. Now I really was confused.

"What are you doing?" I tried not to sound afraid, I really did. I might as well have been telling the boogie man in the closet. It would have phased him more, I'm sure, and I wouldn't have sounded so feeble.

"You, my reincarnation, are starting to get better with your powers. Maybe one day you can proudly say that you are my soul in a new body."

"What of it?" I crossed my arms across my chest. I was getting pretty damn sick of her mindgames.

"You lack the proper training to use the powers that my soul has bestowed upon you."

I sighed and decided I was done. She's not making sense...as usual.

She grabbed my shoulders, out of nowhere, and squeezed. Though this had to be a dream, this felt very real...I could feel her fingers digging into my skin as if it were happening in broad daylight in front of Inuyasha. I screamed, maybe attempting to scare her off, but she hadn't done anything yet and just laughed at me.

Fucking bitch...I hated Kikyo sometimes.

"STOP! Get off!" I fought with her, trying to force her away, but dead or alive, Kikyo was older and still tougher than me. Her grip held strong.

"You need to learn, Kagome."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Kikyo pressed harder. "Learn to live without your bow and arrows. Protect yourself!"

White, hot power flowed from her palms into my shoulders like scalding water into a drain. What the fuck was she doing? Everything she did felt so real! I grabbed her wrists and she squeezed harder, and suddenly everything was warm...so incredibly warm.

Before I knew it, I had hit my knees in pain. It was a jolt of almost electrical energy that lost me my ability to stand on my feet. The power flowed through me, made my body hot and my knees weak, and now it was scalding my insides. My body was fading from me, my head swimming, and I realized that I was dying.

"No! This is a dream! This is a fucking dream!" I looked into her eyes, and she was focusing hard on her powers. She was even beginning to perspire a little, which I thought was impossible because she was dead...

"This may be a dream, Kagome, but this is very real! I can squeeze you within an inch of your life in seconds. Inuyasha's not coming to save you this time. Protect yourself, damn you!"

The power grew hotter, and I had almost lost control of my body completely. I knew she wasn't lying...she was trying to kill me. Protect myself or die, that was what she meant. And though this was a dream, I somehow knew that she would do it. If I wasn't strong enough, I wouldn't live.

Though a little foggy from the pain, I focused my last energy on calling my power, using the adrenaline rush of almost dying to fuel me. It seemed to take forever. When I found the responding thread of power deep inside me, I used my anger and adrenaline to force it out through my hands, and I screamed while I did it.

My hands glowed a white so bright I couldn't look at it, but the power rushed into Kikyo and my hands literally burned into her wrists. She screamed in surprise more than anything and let go, shoving me away. I weakly fell into the water on my side and tried hopelessly to catch my breath as she did the same.

We stared at each other hard and silently. Then she nodded once in my general direction. "You can protect yourself, yet you lack in practice. Until you have complete control over your powers, you are nothing compared to me."

Then she was gone, mystified into the darkness. I was so very sore now...

And then, suddenly, I was so cold again. I was freezing. My body shivered and became stiff as if I had been sitting in the snow for days without a coat.

At this point, I'm certain that my lips were a frozen, hypothermic blue. My teeth chattered as I heard Inuyasha's voice softly calling me in the darkness.

I slumped to my side. I couldn't breathe. I was alone, and I didn't know why, and I didn't know how. Where I was made no sense, and I felt my lungs give out as they refused to continue breathing for me.

I wasn't scared now as my eyes started to slowly close, my body refusing to work for me anymore. Maybe this is what it was like to die.

The awareness that I was in the dark had left me. The sounds had left me.

It wasn't so bad...



*Inuyasha's POV*

Three days...she'd been out three fucking days without waking once. I was going nuts.

My back was hard against the wall closest to her, and I hadn't left in forever. I was so scared that she would pass when I was gone that I refused to leave. When I would go take a piss because I couldn't hold it in anymore, it seemed my pack would scream at me to come back, because she would stop breathing, but as soon as I returned she was fine again. It didn't make a lot of sense to me.

But tonight was different. She smelled of fear and adrenaline, something I rarely caught on her when she was asleep. In her recent state of health, it wasn't something she needed, but I also thought that she was just having a nightmare until I observed further.

She had started thrashing in her bed around midnight. As it had happened, I was the only one there. Everyone had other things to do tonight and assumed that I would be fine watching Kagome on my own.

But as she thrashed more and I scooted closer to her, my nose picked up another scent.

Kikyo...how? Just how in the fuck could her scent be emitting from Kagome's body? It was as if she was right in the room with her.

"Fuck..."

The scent of the dead Miko disturbed me greatly. We hadn't seen each other in months, and I had assumed she was doing fine on her own. She hadn't summoned me. So what's with this smell here and now?

I reached out to Kagome, trying to touch her face, but the second that my hand landed on her she started screaming violently, twisting and turning so badly I thought she was going to hurt herself again. The words that came from her mouth were unrecognizable, even with my hearing.

Suddenly, I was terrified, and rightfully so, because everything kept getting worse.

I grabbed her from her bed and held her in my lap, trying to calm her, but she continued to scream. Her body became extremely hot, and the scent of Miko magic overcame my senses. The fucking shirt off of her shoulders started burning with no known cause. There were no flames in the room or on her.

"NO!" She screamed suddenly and grabbed at me, gripping my haori tightly.

I looked around in panic, trying desperately to think of something. She wasn't calming, and her heart rate was increasing dangerously. Something was very wrong here. "KAEDE! MIROKU! SOMEBODY GET IN HERE!"

Because of my panic, I laid her down again, and to keep her from thrashing I sat on her hips and held her arms down. She'd hit the wound on her head and it was starting to bleed again, just like I feared it would. Her hands gripped my arms, but her screaming got weaker, her heartbeat slowing dangerously low. The grip on me loosened, though she tried to hold on, almost as if for dear life.

Tears started forming in my eyes...I was so lost.

What do I do? She was being attacked somehow and I couldn't save her.

I traded pinning her shoulders for palming her face and trying to wake her. "Kagome, dammit, wake up! Look at me, woman! For the love of GOD, wake the fuck up!"

Right when her heartbeat became very faint, she screamed once more, and the hands that were gripping my arms lit up. I realized a little too late that her protection spells were trying to purify something, and her hands burned right through the cloth of my shirt and into my skin.

"FUCK! DAMMIT!" I jolted backwards, the pain of Miko energy stinging and shocking me. After a second of trying to put out an invisible fire, I returned to her side feeling upset because I had almost forgotten what was going on when I was burned.

Albeit I was a little ticked. There were black hand imprints on my skin, now, smoking like it was still on fire, but the shock had thrown me from my duties and I was ashamed. Her heartbeat was weak, but she was now more peaceful. Her breathing...shit, she wasn't really breathing!

A familiar and horrifying scent started emitting from her; death. She was dying.

I touched her face desperately with my hands, preparing to do something that she taught me to do to someone who couldn't breathe. She was freezing now. Her lips were even turning blue.

She suddenly took one shaky breath, but it seemed like it would be her last. Miroku came running into the hut as I put Kagome on my lap again. "Inuyasha, what's wrong? What happened?!"

I squeezed her to me and rocked back and forth. She wasn't breathing now. "I don't fucking know! She started screaming, and...and burning...and Kikyo, and...FUCK."

Miroku had quickly assessed the situation, then rushed to us and grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse. "She's freezing. Inuyasha, cover her quickly! I'll have to place a spell."

I took off my ruined fire-rat haori and wrapped it around her. It only took a second for me to see Miroku making silent gestures, praying to his gods, calling forth a spell. I dipped my head by Kagome's ear and whispered for her to come back to me, praying that she would wake again.

Miroku formed a triangle with his fingers, still muttering the words to the spell, and the shape of a triangle formed in lines of light out of his hands. The monk ended the incantation, and the shape rushed to Kagome's head, covering it and disappearing. Just as quickly as her heart slowed, it quickened to normal again, and she inhaled deeply, then slowly and regularly like normal.

I took a huge breath or relief. Just like that, she was almost gone to me. I couldn't have handled it...I just couldn't do it.

And there was the question of Kikyo...what did she have to do with this? I did not smell her for no reason.

I glanced at the monk, who was checking her vitals for himself. "I smelled Kikyo a minute ago."

He coughed and looked at me. "Really?"

"It was a scent emanating from her. I smelled Kikyo on her skin."

Miroku gestured wryly to the burn marks on her shoulders and my arms. "That sure didn't happen by accident. Kagome has enough control of her abilities to control that."
I held her closer, kissing her forehead, rocking her harder. "Her shoulders, they just started getting burned...There was no fucking fire anywhere, and nothing hot was touching her. She was just in bed."

Shaking his head, he stood again. "This is very serious, Inuyasha. It's as if she was attacked."

Kaede walked in just then, a solemn look on her face. "The child is better then?"

I couldn't help it; I grew a little angry. "YES, and where the hell were you, old hag?"

"I was merely observing a disturbance in the area."

"If you fucking knew this was happening, why didn't you come back here?!"

Kaede shook her head and walked to her teapot, starting a fire for the kettle. "Because by the time I realized what was going on, it was too late for me to do anything. I came as quickly as I could." Her lone eye settled on our burn marks and I watched as it became wider.

"What, old hag?"

"Where did ye get those burn marks?"

I shrugged, getting suddenly tired. "Mine are from Kagome's hands. Hers, we have no fucking clue."

She sighed as if exhausted. The old hag knew something and wasn't telling me. My patience was wearing thinner every second.

"Do you know where these came from?"

She frowned hard at me, and seemed almost...ashamed? What the hell? "The disturbance."

"What disturbance?"
"Kikyo was the disturbance. For as soon as I investigated the magic source and saw my sister in the woods, she was weak and limping away, and she had handprint burn marks on her wrists."

I froze...

"H-how is that even possible?" Miroku asked.

The older woman shrugged. "I know nothing of what has occurred...Kikyo was always capable of amazing and unexplainable things. Perhaps she took to Kagome's dreams to tell her something."
"She damn near killed her!" I screamed. Kagome shifted against me and I clutched her tighter.

"Aye, she did. But perhaps, even my twisted sister had a good reason."

"There is no good reason for nearly killing Kagome."

Kaede poured tea for the three of them, shaking her head sadly. "Aye, Inuyasha. But remember that my sister is not in her right mind anymore. What she believes to be justice with her actions is different then ye's beliefs."

So, Kikyo was in the area, huh?

The bitch and I were going to have a talk.

She didn't have much longer until morning and I would go looking for her.

She was going to fucking explain this one, and she'd better have a good excuse ready.