InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Expectation ❯ Chapter 11

*Author's note* - I just want to thank everyone for the outcry of support on getting this next chapter up. You know who you are. As for the people who were rather "angry" about the way the last chapter ended and chose to express their opinions in the form of hate mail (you also know who you are), this is for you… :p" phhhhhhhtttttttt!

"If a man goes back to a woman who's hurt him once, he's a fool. If he goes back to her after she's hurt him twice, he deserves it." - Jack S. Margolis

"Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned." - William Congreve

"You thought that he was wanting you, but he was only wanting you to let him off the hook." - Barenaked Ladies

Part 11

The sound of her voice drifting up from behind made his pulse quicken and the bottom fall out of his stomach. While this was happening, the blood drained from his face, leaving it a fish-belly sort of pale.

'Oh shit…'

"It's that girl." Kikyo said poisonously, her eyes narrowing into thin, angry slits. He felt the long nails at the ends of her fingertips digging painfully into his arms an instant before she pushed away from him.

"Kikyo, wait!" He tried to hold her back, but she easily slipped free of his grasp, snaking around him to stare down the unhappy girl who had discovered them together.

"Why did you follow him here? Are you afraid to be alone in the dar-" She had started her scornful diatribe before the encroaching shadows had even allowed a clear view of the girl. What was ultimately revealed as she forged deeper into the gloom had the effect of halting her tongue in mid-sentence.

In the silence that followed, the shikigami became more of an ominous presence, swarming restlessly above their heads in concurrence with the miko's flaring anger. For her part, Kagome seemed oblivious to the threatening change in their behavior. She looked straight past Kikyo to Inuyasha, her anguish expressed plainly in her shimmering eyes and the tremulous quivering of her voice.

"You promised me."

Inuyasha looked as though he'd been slapped; stunned and a little pink in the face. Incited by the pitiful sound of Kagome's voice, Kikyo began to recover from her initial shock and soon found her own once more.

"You little fool! What have you done?" she hissed, advancing on Kagome. Before anything further could be said or done on either side, Inuyasha came out of his daze and stepped neatly between the two of them.

"Leave her alone." What had been meant as a warning had come out sounding remarkably like a plea. Kikyo turned her face up to regard the hanyou with baleful interest.

"I see." she said coldly. "Of course. It's yours." Inuyasha was becoming convinced that even the wholly sadistic mind of Naraku could not have contrived a more insidious trap than the one he now found himself within. There was no way out, and no matter what he said or did next, someone was going to get hurt. He already knew that he would; that had been a given from the start. At best, he was going to lose one of them, but there existed the very real possibility that he would lose both if he wasn't extremely careful. Starting with a deep breath, he began to awkwardly stumble his way through some sort of explanation.

"That's the real reason why I came here. I had to tell you." His words were directed to Kikyo, but the entire time that he was speaking he shot sidelong glances at Kagome, as if he were saying it more for her benefit. This subtle interaction was not lost on the miko. She could only speculate, but judging by the girl's accusatory stance and Inuyasha's defensive behavior, perhaps the bond between her copy and the hanyou was not as strong as the girl's present condition would suggest. It was an opening, and she planned to use it to her advantage. A simple matter of divide and conquer. Folding an amused lilt into her voice, she locked hard, smiling eyes on Kagome.

"If that is the truth Inuyasha, then why didn't you say anything until now? You had plenty of opportunities to tell me while we were alone. Why did you wait until I had to see for myself?" Kagome tried not to break beneath Kikyo's unwavering gaze, but she found it difficult to ignore the truth behind her hateful words.

"Maybe you weren't planning on telling me at all." Kikyo finished, a faint smile on her lips. Her eyes were still fixed on Kagome, and she looked very satisfied with herself.

"No!" Inuyasha protested vehemently in his own defense. His eyes were also on Kagome, but he was shooting her another panic-filled glance. "I would have told you. I was trying to tell you."

Kikyo clucked her tongue, a small, wet sound of disbelief. She smiled and looked away, shaking her head in a slow, almost despondent manner.

"If that is what you say… Though I suppose it hardly matters now. I see what has happened. This girl has finally managed to replace me, in all the ways that I longed for when I was alive."

"I'm sorry, Kikyo."

"Sorry?" Her smile widened, and her eyes lit up with an unwholesome kind of merriment, the sight of which was awful. "You will be. Both of you. Yes, most decidedly."

Inuyasha shifted his stance until he was standing directly in front of Kagome, blocking her with his body.

"I won't let you hurt them." This time he managed to force his words into something that sounded hard and determined, but his eyes still pleaded with the soulless miko, rendering them ineffectual. Kikyo laughed. It was a cold, unpleasant sound that made his hackles rise with it's implicit warning.

"Why would I bother now? It's beneath me. Your little miko was a fool, Inuyasha." Kikyo dropped her gaze to regard Kagome, who was peeking out from behind one of Inuyasha's long red sleeves. "Did you think that you could erase everything he and I had together? Do you honestly think that this is what he wants? That when he takes you on the ground like the filthy creature that you've become he's really seeing you?"

"Stop it!" Kagome whispered fiercely. She clenched her jaw, and furrowed her brow in anger, but her eyes betrayed her by filling up with unhappy tears. Kikyo's words had shaken her to the very core, and the miko knew it. Inuyasha knew it as well; he could practically taste the salt in his mouth. Groping blindly behind him, he found her arm and latched on, beginning to gently usher her away from the dark forest and it's restless apparitions.

"Kagome and I are going to leave now," he said with a conviction that he did not feel in the slightest. "I only came here to tell you, and now you know. I can't…" he began, then thought better of it. "I won't be seeing you anymore. I have to… I have a… It's my responsibility, Kikyo." he finished lamely. Kikyo eyed the hanyou with a detached sort of amusement. One of her soul-snatchers descended lazily, running the entire length of it's translucent body beneath her fingertips like an affectionate house pet. Kikyo stroked the milky, eel-like creature absently as it glided past, then turned her attention back to Inuyasha. There was a smug expression gracing her otherwise barren features, as though she were enjoying some momentous Karmatic joke at their expense.

"Oh, we will be meeting again, Inuyasha." she said, chuckling softly to herself. "In fact, before too long you'll come searching for me." Inuyasha made a show of shaking his head adamantly, tossing his snowy mane in frustration.

"No, Kikyo. I won't. Not this time."

"You won't have a choice!" the undead miko cried triumphantly. "That girl has been defiled. By giving herself to you, she has assured her unworthiness to possess the fragments of the jewel. That simpering thing that clings to your arm is no longer a miko, Inuyasha!" Inuyasha stared ahead blankly, his mouth moving up and down as he tried to work something out, but nothing would come.

"I am too!" Kagome cried furiously at the miko. She tugged at Inuyasha's sleeve, trying to get him to turn around and look at her. "Inuyasha, it's not true! Nothing's changed! I'm the same as I always was!"

"You sound desperate, little girl." Kikyo said mockingly, her voice taking on a joyfully malicious quality. "Desperate enough to lie. Don't you see it now? Can't you see what you've done? In trying to replace me, you have only succeeded in ensuring my value. He needs me now more than he ever did before."

"No!"

"While you," Kikyo continued more gently, in the patient, almost friendly manner of an elder sister who is dealing with a rather ignorant child, "you have made yourself worthless. You are of no use to him anymore, I'm afraid."

"I am." Kagome whispered fiercely, tears running down her cheeks.

"That's enough." Inuyasha barked softly, remembering himself. "We're finished here. Let's go, Kagome."

"Don't trouble yourselves. I will leave." Kikyo said quickly. She had seen what she had come to see, and learned a bit of useful information as well. There was no point in lingering about. "But don't attempt to lull yourself into believing that you're through with me, Inuyasha. It's only a matter of time before you realize that everything I've said is true, and when that day comes, I'll be waiting for you." Leaving her promise to hang heavily in the air between them, Kikyo turned and left, melting back into the shadows from whence she had come, her ethereal minions guiding her away through the darkness.

As he watched her walk out of his life again, Inuyasha began to sink deeply into terrible feelings of loss and guilt. So immersed was he that a few moments had passed before he realized that Kagome had also headed off without him, leaving in the direction of the bone-eater's well.

"Kagome?" he called after her when he finally noticed her absence. "What are you doing? You're going the wrong way."

"No I'm not." She whispered mostly to herself, coming right up to the edge. Leaning over, she peered down into it's depths, her hands clenching the wooden lip, nails digging into the grain and drawing soft, damp splinters beneath them. Inuyasha approached her slowly, deliberating on what he might say next that she would want to hear.

"Kagome, I'm…"

"Sorry?" she replied dully, her eyes fixed on the murky depths of the well's interior. "Why should you be sorry? You promised that you would tell her and you did. What is there to be sorry about?"

"Ok…" Inuyasha said, eyeing her warily. "But if you really mean that, why is your voice all funny?"

"Let's just drop it."

"Yeah, sure," he muttered with an uneasy sarcasm, "let's stop talking about it while you're halfway in the well. What are you doing Kagome?" She was silent for a long time, staring down into the well, eyes never blinking, her body never shifting it's position. She remained perched stiffly on the edge, as if she planned at any moment to lean forward and topple in headfirst.

"I want to go home." she said finally.

"Home?" he echoed, his eyebrows drawing together in the middle of his forehead. "But I thought you said -"

"I know what I said," she interrupted, her knuckles bleeding to a lighter shade of pale as her fingers tightened against the lip of the well. "Anything would be better than this."

"I don't want you to go." he said flatly. Kagome bit her lip and sighed through her nose, slowly closing her eyes and then opening them again as she steadied her resolve.

"You don't know what you want, Inuyasha. But I do. I want my mother. I want to see my family again. I don't care if they're disappointed or angry with me, I don't think anything they could say would ever make me feel the way I feel right now."

"Well if that's all, why don't you go for visit?" he said, sounding slightly relieved. "I'll even go with you. There's nothing exciting going on over here anyway."

"No."

"Oh yeah?" He folded his arms, scornfully quirking an eyebrow. "You're just gonna jump right in, in your condition? No fucking way Kagome! Even if you manage to get through without hurting yourself or the pup, how do you plan to climb out the other side?"

"It doesn't matter." she replied leadenly. "I'll scream until someone comes and pulls me out. They can call the fire department to come and haul me out for all I care. You're not coming with me."

"Fine," he snorted with an arrogant turn of his nose, "be a stubborn idiot! What the hell do I know? I'm just the father! Well? Don't let me stand in your way! Go. But I'll expect you back in three days, and no more!" Kagome shook her head sadly. He wasn't getting it.

"I won't be coming back." she said softly. "If I go through, and my mother sees what's become of me, that's the end. Even if I wanted to she wouldn't allow it. I'll probably be forbidden from seeing you again as well, so please don't come looking for me."

"Fuck that!" the hanyou barked incredulously, grabbing her by the arm and spinning he around to face him. "You're not going!"

"I am. I want to."

"No you don't!"

"And why not?" she moaned, looking away from him to stare down at her swollen belly with growing resentment. "You heard what she said. I'm of no use to you anymore. All I'm doing is saving us both some time and injury by going now, because the longer I stay the harder it's going to be when you finally decide to go back to her like you've wanted to all along! You can even follow her right now, if you like. She couldn't have gotten very far."

"What exactly are you accusing me of?" he demanded hotly, using the last little bit of patience he had remaining to keep from baring his teeth at her. "Because I haven't done anything wrong!"

"I'm not accusing you! I've finally realized that you're never going to come around, and I've been clinging to something that isn't real! I don't want to lie to myself anymore. I'm going back to the people who love me!"

"What about the people here who love you?" he insisted, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders.

"Who?" she whimpered, searching his eyes in desperation. The intensity of the moment staggered him, and he floundered, failing disastrously.

"Shippou-" As soon as the kit's name had left his mouth he knew that it had been the wrong thing to say, and it proved to be the last straw as far as Kagome was concerned, the all-deciding moment of truth.

"Let go of me!" she howled, twisting out of his arms.

"No Kagome! I -"

"Osuwari!" In almost the same instant that he hit the ground, Inuyasha began fighting against the spell. He clawed violently at the earth, pushing upward with all his strength until he felt as though his spine might crack from the strain, every fiber of his being focused on a singular idea; He was trapped, and she was leaving him.

"KAGOME DON'T YOU DARE GO DOWN THAT WELL!" he screamed, claws digging and scraping ineffectively against the ground near his head.

"You'll be happier." came the forced reply from an unseen mouth. "You can't keep worrying about both of us, and she's right; she came first. You don't have to worry about me anymore, I'll be alright with my family… Kikyo has no one."

"And she'll be useful to you." she added bitterly.

"What about the pup, Kagome?" he asked, pleading with the backs of her ankles. "I'm supposed to be the Oyajii! I can't be Oyajii from the other side of the well!"

The floodgates had opened before she even knew what hit her. Her legs started to shake, then buckled beneath her as she fell to her knees, still holding tenaciously to the edge of the well with her small hands, as if hanging on for dear life.

"Coward! Fucking coward!" she screamed at herself as choking sobs wracked her body. 'Get up! You can do this!'

"Don't go Kagome! I'm trying! Haven't I been trying?"

"It shouldn't have to be that hard!" she wailed. 'It shouldn't be this hard, just do it!'

"Kagome?!"

"I have to go. I don't belong here!" A sudden feeling of panic seized her at that moment, and the need for flight became overpowering. She pushed herself back onto her feet as nimbly as she could, then recklessly swung one leg over the edge of the well. Her hasty movements had left her unbalanced, and she began to tumble as the spell wore off, freeing the hanyou. He caught her by the wrist, then underneath the arm, pulling her out and dragging her down beneath him onto the ground. He pinned her with his body, resting his weight over her so that she couldn't move from the spot, and she cried beneath him.

"I don't care if you belong here or not, I need you here."

"But what if she's right?" she asked weakly, barely comprehensible through her weeping. "What if I can't help you anymore? I won't stay here and be a burden to you, I won't!" Inuyasha frowned. Leaning down, he brushed the hair away from her sopping face and turned her by the chin until their eyes met.

"And what if she's wrong about you? It wouldn't be the first time, you know." Kagome turned her face away from him obstinately, but something of his argument must have gotten through, because her anguished tears began to dry out into miserable sniffling.

"None of this matters anyway." he continued, running the flat, open palm of his hand over her abdomen. "Do you really think after all this time that the only thing I need you for are your abilities as a miko? Shit, Kagome. I thought you said you were going to be tough." Kagome sighed heavily; she was bone-weary and all cried out.

"My heart's not that tough." she explained. "It won't take much for it to break completely."

"I promised I'd stay. I'm staying."

"I know, but-"

"Why are you always so hard on me?"

"Why can't you…" she trailed off helplessly.

"What?! What do you want from me?"

"I… I shouldn't have to tell you!"

"Oh I am so fucking sick of this!" he hollered, pushing himself off of her to rest on his haunches.

"What do you mean?" she cried, struggling to sit up.

"Look," he barked, glaring down at her. "I'm not perfect! I've never been perfect and I never will be! You knew that going into this. I know these hormone-things have got you all screwed up in the head, but you can't be so far gone that you don't remember who I am or what I'm usually like! I've given up everything for this Kagome! Everything! And for what? For you to run off on me when I haven't done anything wrong? For you to shut yourself off every time I try to talk to you?"

"ME?" she screamed in furious disbelief. "You're the one who ran off to Kikyo!"

"AH HA!" he cried triumphantly, pointing a long, clawed finger at her nose. "I knew it! I knew that's what you were pissed about! Here you are giving me all this 'woe is me' crap and you're jealous!"

"I-" Kagome began indignantly, but he cut her off.

"This is so stupid, Kagome! Tell me, exactly how long was I supposed to let Kikyo loom over our heads without dealing with her? I promised you I'd tell her. How was I supposed to tell her without going to see her?" he was near laughing by the time he was finished, and Kagome was half convinced that she'd like nothing better than to test his theory about her miko powers by ripping his over-inflated head off of his shoulders.

"What part of telling her had to involve cuddling?!" she demanded, glaring at him.

"Oi!" he barked, scowling in annoyance. "She hugged me! What the hell was I supposed to do, punch her in the face? She was the first person who ever cared about me after my mother died. You know she's important to me, but I'm here with you, aren't I? Shouldn't that count for something?"

Apparently Kagome wasn't as cried out as she had thought she was, because at that moment, her eyes started leaking again. At the first sniffle, Inuyasha scooped her into his arms, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

"Don't cry." he pleaded softly with her. "I'm sorry I keep fucking up…but I'm trying, I really am."

"I know! I know you are! I'm sorry! I don't know what's wrong with me!" she moaned. "I've always felt a little…but NOW…I just can't seem to control myself! I don't feel like me, and I hate it! Everything feels so BIG, and it overwhelms me…" the rest was lost as she buried her face into the loose fabric of his hoari, sobbing pitifully into his chest.

"Calm down…" he whispered, trying to be reassuring. "You're still you, no matter what happens next. You're you and then some. There's…you know, extra. But that's ok. Kagome is Kagome, and that's not gonna change."