InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Feni's Snippets ❯ Aftermath ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

 

A/N: This snippet was inspired by Kris Cynical's sketch titled `Internal Reflections' posted on Live Journal's `InuErotica' community.

 

 

 

Aftermath

 

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Every morning since that one, it has been the same.

 

Every morning he has greeted the quiet dawn with violent action as he battles the desperation within. He spins, leaps, slashes, feints, retreats, attacks, sending brilliant flashes of dawn's pink and gold light streaking through the meadow's soft air. Enchanted metal whirls, slices, twists; his movements as sharp and angry as his thoughts.

 

It has been this way for him every morning of the last week, ever since the end.

 

The final day, a burning hell of desperation, recklessness and blood, won only by a cooperation of demon-fangs and miko-purity… won and lost all at once.

 

She'd removed the rosary from around his neck that last morning, coming with the dawn to where he sat in wary peace with his brother. Kneeling before him in weighted silence, she'd gazed into his eyes with such sad yearning that he'd held his tongue from gruff rebuke… and then stolen his breath with the swiftness of her movement, the hated beads up and over his head so fast he hadn't time to flatten his ears.

 

He remembered exactly how she warmed the air between them as she leaned into him, in danger of toppling into his lap as she stretched past his shoulders to ease the rosary down the length of his hair… but he'd frozen in place as her lips brushed his cheek and instead of her, his hands had clutched Tetsusaiga for stability. She'd pulled away with the rosary in her hand, her eyes gone dark and haunted, then smiled slightly before retreating into the pale shadows.

 

The regrets of not taking that moment in time, of feeling her weight in his arms, her breath on his throat, wrapping himself around her as much as her warmth wrapped around his soul fuelled his morning destruction of the meadow's gentle peace.

 

After all they had struggled… after all they had suffered… not even the chance to say…

 

He paused, shifted his weight while swinging the transformed fang up over his bare shoulder, the glistening sweat on his naked skin pearlized by the soft light. Wiping his brow with the back of a clawed hand, he stared at the ground but his eyes were turned inward, trying again to see his way through the swirling storm buffeting his heart.

 

Still a hanyou, but not the same one pinned to the Goshinboku. No longer an outcast, but with a home and a pack of his own. No longer alone… but without the one who'd given everything of herself to heal him.

 

He'd never thanked her, never said how much she truly meant to him… the one who'd stayed by his side even when he'd hurt her over and over again by going to the one who'd betrayed him.

 

She'd given him her friendship and then her heart… and that awesome responsibility had frightened him, pushed him away from her gentle hope… but he somehow had thought he'd have time after to tell her…

 

She was gone in the aftermath, before the ground had ceased smoking.

 

The blackened Jewel rocked gently in a hollow where the dark hanyou's foul body had laid before the Meidou sent him through the hell-gates. Kagome had stumbled, dropped to her knees and cupped the tainted orb in her hands. She whimpered once as brilliant violet-pink light shone through the cracks between her fingers… and then the Jewel was whole and unblemished in her palm.

 

Her eyes had sought out his, and even though she smiled, the expression of infinite sadness in her gaze caused his chest to tighten as she slowly extended the softly-glowing Jewel towards him, offering him the wish he'd forsaken in his heart long ago but never retracted. He'd reached for her, a new resolve fuelled by a new wish strengthening his actions… but as his hand had closed over hers, she'd shimmered oddly… and vanished along with his hopes.

 

His hopes… that somehow the fates which had brought them together would permit him to keep her. A selfish wish, yes, but he had barely determined on it when she was gone. His heart literally stopped for a beat before resuming a ragged tempo that persisted even now, disturbing his sleep and reminding him of his might-have-beens.

 

Inhaling and exhaling a deep sigh, he glanced towards the well, the silent witness to his pain… and his heart stopped again. Seated on the wooden lip, her dark hair twining about her sweet face, looking much as she had that day she'd asked his permission to stay by his side… and he'd admitted his need for her to the others… Kagome watched him with a faint smile playing about her lips.

 

He was on her before he could stop himself, dropping Tetsusaiga and snatching her to him in a crushing embrace, burying his face in her hair, breathing in her warm, wonderful scent, listening to her pounding pulse echoing in his own chest. Her arms slipped around him, her hands sliding up under his hair to splay her slender fingers across his skin as she pressed herself into him. Her breath tingled his bare chest, and his mind spun in mad circles.

 

“How…?” he whispered, his lips grazing her ear.

 

Her voice bubbled with happiness. “You wished with your heart… for me.”