InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dante's Prayer ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

`Oh Kami.' Was the only thing that came to her shocked and pain muddled mind when he said her name. Tears continued to run unchecked down her face, the salt in them stinging the gashes his claws had left on her face. Confusion still glazed his face, his transformation always seemed to leave him a bit disoriented as his body and senses shifted from demon to human.

"Kagome…" he whispered again, drawing her out of her mental reverie. Shifting his feet underneath him, he brought himself within touching space of her. She wanted desperately to move away from him, she did not want him to touch her. Moving away though was proving to be more difficult than she imagined. The adrenaline that had helped her to stay alive during his attack was fading from her system. Every nerve ending seemed to be on fire and she felt as though she had been hit by a train. Exhaustion from the battle and her ordeal were beginning to take its toll.

When the tips of his fingers touched her check she fought the urge to scream, it wouldn't help her now. "Did I…" he began his voice shaking with emotion. "I did this to you didn't I?" the implications of what he thought he might of done was clearly in his voice. At that moment, as he had said those words and they had registered in her mind, it all became too much. Bile rose in her throat, the never ending pain seemed to increase ten fold.

Instinctively she curled into a ball, gripping her stomach as she sought to not be sick. `He doesn't remember! Of course he doesn't fucking remember! It would all be too easy for him to remember!' Far away someone was screaming, she could hear them and wondered why anyone else would be doing such a thing. Vaguely she realized that she was the one screaming as she sank gratefully into the welcoming nothingness of unconsciousness.

He shouldn't have touched her, every sign she had given him told him to stay away. It wasn't until she had curled into a ball and the keening wail had left her mouth that he truly known for sure that he had been the one to do her harm. He cursed his akuma side, even now in the darkness of the new moon night he could still feel it just under the surface of his soul.

Images of him rushing to attack the doragon akuma and his horde of lesser akuma filled his mind. The doragon possessed a shikon shard making him that much more powerful. Tessaiga had been wrenched from his grasp when the dragon had caught it in his jaws. His companions and himself had found themselves surrounded; after that his mind was confronted with a red haze of full akuma power.

A soft moan of sorts reached his now human ears, glancing down he realized that she had sub come to her body's demand to escape reality. Shrugging of his haori he covered her sullied body, letting his gaze linger on her face as she rested. Echoes of peaceful and relaxed sleep features rested on her face, only the image was marred by the still visible wounds there. The gashes along her check oozed slowly, her lips were swollen and bleeding, and the tracks of tears that had run through the drying blood and grime were all a testimony to her ordeal.

Turning from her, knowing that it was better for to leave her to rest at the moment, he took in the battle field that lay behind him. He could just make out the huge corpse of the doragon akuma and the bodies of his followers that lay here and there. Spotting a tawny pile of fur in the distance, he ran towards what he hoped to be one of his companions while keeping a careful eye on the area.

Kneeling down he carefully moved the pile of fur, a soft plaintive `meow' came as the tiny figure of Kirara curled around Shippou's body emerged in the darkness. The nit e-ru hi akuma neko was in his smaller form, his pelt was streaked with blood whether it was the neko's or other he didn't know.

A deep gash ran down his flank and his one leg was plainly broken; other than that the tiny neko seemed alright. Offering his hand to be smelled, Inuyasha smiled slightly as the fuzzy head butted against his outstretched fingers. Scratching gently behind Kirara's ears he looked over Shippou. The kitsune was breathing shallowly, with tiny hitches at the end of each breath. Carefully feeling around kit's ribs he found the edges of the broken ribs as they rubbed against each other, the injury wasn't life threatening but would take time to heal.

What worried him though was the large welt on his forehead that was swollen and bruised; it was shaped somewhat like the pommel of a sword as if someone had struck him a glancing blow, knocking him unconscious. "Stay with him." He instructed the neko, "I'm going to try and find Sango and Miroku." Night had completely fallen, making him wish momentarily that the moon was out so that he could seek out his friends.

His chided himself the moment the thought came to mind. `If the moon had risen tonight, you would have raped Kagome! You probably would have killed her too.' The clinking of metal against metal and a weak, but harsh "Inuyasha" caught his attention. He quickly turned in the direction of the sound, following the sound to a boulder hidden in the darkness. A body lay propped against it, with the prone body of another next to it.

Whispered words caught his ear as a softly glowing light appeared in the hand of the body. The ofuda lit the area just enough so that Inuyasha could see his companions, he almost wished he hadn't when he did. Sango's head rested on the monk's lap, her hair pulled back so that it stayed out of the slash wounds that ran from her shoulder across her chest and down her belly. Blood pooled in several of the deeper cuts, the muscle plainly visible in each mark. He could just barely see the matching wound that ran from the back of her hip up her back to her shoulder. The one on her front had been first, and as she had spun with the momentum of the slash she had been caught on her lower hip and the wound had been opened across her back as she fell.

The pale pallor of her skin let on to how much blood she had actually lost, her breaths come in shallow pants. Miroku gripped her hand in his free one, muttering healing kigan to her pushing his strength reserves to her. His injuries lay hidden under his voluminous monk robes, but in the glow of the ofuda showed dark wet spots in the material where his wounds lay. Off to the side lay the deteriorated blade and sheath of Tessaiga, the blade throwing back the pale glow of the ofuda.

Miroku locked eyes with him for a moment before glancing over at the weapon that was responsible for keeping the full akuma in him controlled. He knelt and picked the sword, it did not transform for him since his hanyou abilities were dormant for the night. Holding it up in front of his face he rested his forehead against the cool metal, the pits and gouges of age biting into his skin and hair. "Kagome, is she…you didn't?" came Miroku's voice from behind him.

Finding his voice after a moment he stood and looked up at the stars. "She's unconscious, back in the trees. She has injuries, but she'll heal eventually." He stopped again and took a shuddering breath to steady himself. Turning around to face his friend he answered the rest of his question. "It was a close thing, if the sun had not set and the moon had not been new tonight I would have violated her. I would have raped Kagome…" he whispered hoarsely as the tears he had been holding back for so long finally spilled over.

Somehow he made his way back to Miroku and Sango, his tears still flowing. Kneeling he gently touched Sango's face taking in how that for the first time since he had known her she appeared fragile, her life hanging in the balance. Looking up his gaze meet Miroku's whose own eyes held such pain and suffering. Dropping his head in defeat to his chest, the long black locks hiding the sobs that racked his features he could only choke out a handful of words to Miroku. "What have I done? Oh, kami what have I done…"

Akuma ~ demon

Ofuda ~ buddist seal

Kigan ~ prayer

Ni te-ru hi akuma neko ~ two tailed fire demon cat

Neko ~ cat

Kitsune ~ fox