InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Grey Eyes and Golden Nightmares ❯ Fade to Grey ( Chapter 1 )

Standard Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all belong to Rumiko Takahashi.

Grey Eyes and Golden Nightmares

~Fade to Grey~

Kagome watched with a bizarre sense of helplessness as Naraku threw Inuyasha with blurring force against the cliffs surrounding his latest hiding place.  Her heart felt as thought it had lodged in her throat as she watched the impact. But her mind seemed distant… filled with the compelling pulse of something that she couldn't see.  All she knew was that there was a steady, undeniable force resting on her soul and holding her in place. 

She watched mouths moving, but heard nothing.  She could feel the ground trembling beneath her, but she still remained still and impassive, completely unmoved at the edge of the violent fighting.  They were all there in front of her, fighting a desperate, but losing battle as Naraku held the completed Shikon tauntingly before them.

Kagome wanted to look away from the sight, to follow her friends and fight beside them. But her eyes were drawn again and again to the smoky orb whirling above Naraku's palm as though an invisible band held them connected.  She followed the jewel hypnotically, not noticing the stray ripples of energy tearing at her clothing and causing welts and gashes to rise along her almost colorless flesh.

`You know what happens next, miko.'

Her eyes widened at the whisper, the sound penetrating the haze that seemed to surround her mind. The indistinct voice somehow echoed eerily all around her in the oppressive silence.  She opened her mouth to deny it, but the words refused to make the journey from her thoughts to her tongue.

She COULD see it.

Kagome gasped and fell back a step in horror as everything in front of her split and smeared, separate images overlapping what was already before her.  Inuyasha had screamed angrily and launched himself at Naraku again, but abruptly changed course when the remnant soul of Kikyou inside its temporary body was attacked.  The copycat Kikyou fired a shot that pierced the hanyou's shoulder and sent him reeling into Naraku's restricting hold. Whether by accident, or on purpose, she couldn't tell. 

Beyond Inuyasha's battle, she watched Miroku stumble to his knees. The monk was sweating under the debilitating effects of the poisoned bees, but was somehow maintaining consciousness enough to continue the unbalanced fight. At his side, Sango was valiantly pushing her exhausted body in her efforts to defend them.

She could see them dying.

Kagome was barely aware of her hand lifting. Seeing herself move as though watching a stranger's body, or a movie as she reached towards them and screamed.

It may have been denial, or a warning, or even something as simple as pure rage at the thought of their deaths. Not even Kagome could decipher the emotions in that one agonizing moment.  But with the wordless cry, the scene in front of her gave a crystalline "chink" and instantly froze.

Kagome blinked as her mind struggled to process the sudden change. She stared down at her hands and back up to the suspended battle in front of her in confusion.  Naraku was frozen with a look of sadistic glee on his borrowed face. The self-made youkai's deadly tentacles were poised over each of her friends, fed with steady waves of black energy by the corrupted power of the jewel.  Even from this distance, she could clearly see the denial and regret in Miroku's eyes, the fatal point scant inches from his face.  Sango's expression was hard and determined, but sad with the knowledge of impending failure all at the same time as the razor point dug into her throat.

Inuyasha... 

The hanyou she had freed, stood and fought beside… and grown to love so very deeply was making one last desperate swing with the Tetsusaiga. Aiming for the hand holding the spinning Shikon Jewel while the nauseatingly slick tentacle pierced through his robes. There was a glistening spray of blood hanging in the air around that tentacle, a frozen grotesque testament to the driving force sending it directly into the flesh over Inuyasha's heart.

`They all die, Kagome.'

"No," Kagome whispered. Shaking her head in denial, she stumbled into the morbid scene with wide, disbelieving eyes.  "This isn't real.  It can't be!" she crumpled to her knees below Inuyasha's bleeding form. Shivering as she turned her gaze up to his face and hungrily, frantically attempted to memorize every line. If she was wrong…

`But it is.'

"I won't let it end this way," Kagome's hands fisted and she twisted to search out the source of that mocking voice angrily. Unable to pinpoint where it was coming from, she focused instead on the only thing free of the suspension.

The Shikon-no-Tama.

Kagome pushed herself to her feet, facing the spinning jewel with grim determination. "I won't let Inuyasha die."

`There willbe death, miko.'

"It won't be his," she shook her head viciously to reject that promise. Her eyes darkened with conviction, voice miraculously unwavering as she came to stand in front of the glowing artifact.

`Will you stop time?  Alter destiny?  Do you truly think you are powerful enough for that?  One little woman?'

Kagome stared, feeling her hand pull until her palm was directly below Naraku's hand. The jewel pulsed and melted down through Naraku's skin, sinking through until it was instead hovered above her own. Strangely entranced, she curled her fingers around it and took a step back.  It continued to spin there, casting its ominous light over her translucent skin. Every pulse echoing through her aching chest as she lifted her other hand to cup around it carefully, "I'll have to be."

`Why do you even care?  He is only a hanyou.'

"I won't let him die.  No matter what it takes."

`Not even you will be able to hold off Death when it comes,' the frozen landscape trembled as the jewel flashed, slamming through her chest.  Kagome let out a choked, startled gasp at the abrupt attack. Stumbling back, she pressed her hand up over the wound in pure reflex.  Her hand was shaking as she drew it back and stared down at her stained palm.

"Grey…?"  Why was the blood on her hand grey?

`Everything fades to grey, little miko, when the lifeinside itdies.'

"Am I dead?"

`Were you ever really alive?'

Kagome shook her head in deepening confusion as her legs began to go numb. Sliding to her knees, she continued to gape at the grey blood steadily darkening the front of her white kimono.  Morbidly fascinated at the dark grey liquid trailing along paler but equally monochromatic flesh, she whispered, "I don't… understand…"

`Will you live after your purpose is served?  Do you know?  Do you even want to…?'

Kagome squeezed her eyes shut. Reaching up, she clamped her bloody hands over her ears in an effort to shut out those words. But they remained there only a moment before they seemed to obey some unspoken directive. Helpless to stop herself, she could only watch as she slid her hands down to the wound again.  Bile rose in her throat, viciously wrenching her fingers back in instinctive horror when she could feel the tips brush against something inside her chest. Something that she should never have felt.

Her own heart.

`Do you even know what your purpose is?'

At the biting taunt, her attention wavered and her eyes narrowed. "I'm not the little girl that fell through the well anymore.  I haven't been that girl for a long time.  My purpose is to destroy Naraku and give Inuyasha the Shikon-no-Tama."

`Even in death?'

"Inuyasha will not die," Kagome's voice gained strength through her rising anger, taking on a severe, warning edge.

Her body moved like a puppet on strings, feeling her hand grow steady. She reached into her chest to where she could feel the steady pulse of the jewel vibrating within her.  Her entire body lurched forward when her fingers closed around it, but she still felt nothing but the odd texture of the ruined flesh against her skin.  She let out a shuddering breath, her mind rebelling at the very idea of her own actions. Even as the compulsion guiding her fingers grew stronger.  The trembling in her muscles spread as Kagome eased her hand out of her chest. Her eyes clenched shut and her stomach turning.

When she convinced her eyes to open, she found herself staring down at her hand with disconnected confusion. Or more correctly, at the heart resting in her palm with eyes wide and glassy.  Each pulse sent a ripple through her heart, flicker to the jewel and back again. It was cold in her hand and just as grey as the blood soaking the ground around her.  The beats grew deafening to her ears, but still… unnatural. The heart remained perfectly still, only changing when the jewel took its place.

The jewel pulsed. 

The disgust and nausea roiling in her belly slowly faded away the longer she stared at it. The minuscule amount of color remaining around her was slowly draining from her sight. Seeping away until everything had become that same cold and unfeeling grey in her eyes.

`Do you not see its beauty, miko?  The life that beats within the jewel?  The soul?'

"Four souls," Kagome corrected automatically. Closing her eyes again, she felt her hands grow cold. The icy chill was spreading up her arms. Deadening her senses until they rested limply in her lap.

`The jewel that brings to life the darkest desires of the heart.'

"Unless it's used for a pure wish," she repeated the words that had been drilled into her for seven years. Since the first, when she had been forced to open her eyes to the legend of the Shikon jewel.

`And you think a hanyou can make such a wish?'

"I can feel the difference between an evil soul and a good one after so long." Her brows furrowed. But no matter how angry she knew she should be, there was nothing but hollow, gnawing emptiness.  Her feelings just as dulled as the world around her.  "Maybe once I could have made the mistake… before I understood the game I was playing."

`Life has a way of breaking us, miko.'

"Inuyasha has been broken enough."

`You cannot stop Death.  I thought you had learned that lesson already.'

"I was weak before," Kagome denied. Forcing her eyes to open and look at her hands as she lifted her hands up level with her face.  "This time will be different."

`You already know you will watch them be killed.'

She looked up in alarm at the change in the voice echoing from the jewel.  The inhabitants of the frozen world around her twitched and shivered. The air became seemed to bow inward for just a moment. The scene abruptly jolted to motion.  Kagome's eyes were already closing when Naraku's attacks resumed in a blinding rush.

"NO!!"

~

Kagome shot up.

Panting hard and clutching her hand over her racing heart, Kagome's gaze swept around the quiet grove with blurry disorientation.  Shaking so hard she could feel her muscles spasm in protest, she brushed her hand over her face. Only mildly surprised when her hand came away cold and covered with her own tears.

It was hard, much harder than the other nights as she pressed her palms to the soft grass. Sliding out of her sleeping bag, she backed up to brace herself up against the thick tree behind her.  She tucked her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees with painstaking care. Burying her face in the cradle of limbs as she tried to soothe her own trembling by rationalizing in a shaky litany, `A nightmare… just another nightmare…'

"Kagome-sama," the quiet, soothing cadence of the voice so close beside her made her jump. Her head snapped up, knocking hard into the unyielding wood as her glazed eyes focused on the monk kneeling at her side.

Miroku frowned in concern at the momentary, almost blind panic in her eyes. There was something different in her eyes tonight, wrong even…  They were almost completely flat and emotionless with a thick rim of grey nearly swallowing the normal blue.  In all the nights he'd witnessed her late awakenings, this was the first time she had looked like this.  Or felt so very cold…  "Kagome-sama, are you all right?  What happened?"

Kagome blinked, trying to clear the grey haze from the edges of her vision. She swallowed hard and shook her head to dismiss his concern. "I'm fine, Miroku-sama… Just …just a nightmare.  It's stupid really."

The monk sat down and reached out, pressing his bare palm to her forehead. "Kagome-sama, it's not stupid if it has caused you such distress. Nor if it has caused such an unhealthy aura to surround you."

She reached up, her eyes somber and searching as she took his wrist. "Is it unhealthy?  What do you feel in me now?"

Miroku's brows drew together sharply at the sharp edge coloring her voice. The edge of almost frightened desperation in that question so strong it chilled him to the bone.  He carefully set his staff aside, reaching out to take her hands and slowly pull her upwards into his lap.  Kagome squirmed briefly, half-heartedly, but he simply folded his legs and arms around her to pin her against him.  He was physically stronger than she was. And the past had taught her that he wouldn't release her until he was certain she calmed and answered his questions.

"Miroku-sama, please…" Kagome's eyes clenched shut, but her fingers curled in his robes as she felt his warmth seep into her.

"You have been doing this nearly every night, Kagome-sama." Miroku lifted his hand to gently stroke her hair, unable to hide the concern in his voice.  "Why are you trying to keep this from us?  `What' are you trying to keep from us?"

Kagome shook her head, her arms slowly sliding around his waist. "They're only dreams."

Miroku reached up with his cursed hand, urging her chin up enough to meet her eyes.  He gently touched a fingertip to the edge of the faded scar starting at her right cheekbone. Traced the path of the chain-blade had taken across the bridge of her nose. "I think you have faced more than enough on your own, Kagome."

Kagome blushed faintly at the warmth in his tone, still a bit unused to being so familiar with the monk. Even though it had steadily become less and less formal between them once the others were asleep or away.  She lifted her hand to catch his and draw it away from the long-healed injury. "My problems really are stupid compared to what everyone else has gone through, Miroku."

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. Shifting his body to lean against the same tree she'd been using for that purpose a moment ago. "You're not any less important than any of us.  As much as we all wished you would never be so direct a focus of Naraku's evil.  I am sorry you had to join us in that way."

"It was no one's fault but mine," Kagome denied firmly.  "I should have known better."

"We should have been prepared." He gripped her chin and stopped her from looking away.  "Is that what the nightmares are about?"

"Not so much anymore," she whispered. Laying her head on his shoulder, she tried to banish the crystal clear images of her friends' faces frozen at the point of death.  "They're… different now.  Darker."

Miroku let her lie quietly against him, her arms tight around his waist as he continued to stroke her hair.  His eyes moved thoughtfully over the young kitsune cuddled up with Sango on the other side of the grove. Their faces relaxed with slumber and missing the usual grim strain that was far too frequent these days.

"You won't hurt any of us, Kagome," Miroku murmured against her hair. His gaze swept the empty trees for Inuyasha, hiding a scowl of old anger over the typically absent hanyou.  He left earlier every night, claiming to search their surroundings until morning.

It was always the same. Inuyasha would wait until they had camped and pull Kagome aside where they spoke in low tones.  Sometimes it was only a few words. Other times Inuyasha would glare at them and guide Kagome off into the woods for a longer conversation.  He would return her before he left. And while Kagome would never meet his gaze, without fail she would catch his hand and squeeze as he walked past.  Their hands would linger until there was only the tips of their fingers touched before he moved out of reach.

Kagome would smile brightly at them after he was gone. But her eyes were subdued as went about her usual routine. She would practice with her bow before moving on to the close-contact skills she was learning from both Miroku and Sango.  Yet it was painfully clear that Kagome was always much more relaxed with him than with the exterminator.  She still loved the woman; that was readily apparent. But there was a stilted air between them, an awkwardness that had never been there before.

Ever since Kagome had sealed the well.

Since she had been so violently scarred.

It was hard to say who tried to take the most blame for what had happened, and in four years that silent argument was still going strong. 

Kagome still insisted that it hadn't been anyone's fault but hers. She held her guilt inside, right beside her attempts to be the same bright, cheerful girl they had all come to know and love.  Inuyasha had been enraged beyond anything the monk had ever seen short of transformation. And only Miroku had been privy to the snarling fits that leveled sections of forests when the hanyou was brooding over the past.  He would take hours to wind down, panting and swearing quietly that he should have been there for her.  Miroku's own guilt was similar to Inuyasha's, but to be fair, the monk knew his paled in comparison.

Sango, however, was another story. She blamed herself more than any of them for not preventing the attack the way she could have a hundred times over. Despite Kagome's constant assurance that she didn't once think the taijiya was at fault.  Nor did she say she wished Sango had taken the chance to kill Kohaku long ago.  At the same time, Kagome carried even more guilt over making that choice. One she'd never felt she had the right to make. 

Kagome confided in him years ago that she felt she'd stolen something precious from the woman. The miko's stubbornness unfortunately carrying over, wanting to take the blame for something they all knew was beyond her control.

That day had been one that Miroku knew he would never be able to forget for as long as he lived. He could still clearly remember the way Inuyasha had appeared, carrying Kagome in his arms.  The hanyou had been literally shaking with the extent of his fear and rage. His eyes had been dangerously flashing scarlet and unfocused as he held her blood-soaked body so protectively to him.

Unconscious, pale, and bleeding from so many wounds that for a moment they'd been afraid she was dead.  It wasn't until Inuyasha had taken her to Kaede, and made certain she was treated and resting, that he told them what he'd seen.

Miroku could still recall the uneasy feeling that had plagued that morning. The concerns he'd had that let him to suggest Inuyasha patrol the woods. Inuyasha told them he'd caught Naraku's scent near the well. And that he'd gone straight to Kagome's time as fast as possible.  Only to find out he was arriving too late to be of much help beyond pulling her family from the wreckage.

He had found her in the largest room of her house. The wall nothing but a shattered, broken mess that left the interior fully exposed to the courtyard.  The shrine had been on fire, collapsing in around her and her family. 

Inuyasha wasn't a storyteller by nature. But the details he'd subconsciously offered in his attempt to talk out his own trauma still haunted Miroku. The hanyou had told them how he found Kagome bleeding. Holding Souta to her chest and rocking the boy with a vacant, glassy look to her eyes that had terrified him.  Her brother had been as badly wounded as she was, as well as her mother beside her.  It had been obvious at a glance that her grandfather was dead. His torn body crumpled against the gashed and smoking wall beyond them.

Perhaps more disturbingly, Kagome had been surrounded by violent, visible arcs of power. Arcs stroking over the wood and furniture, each one leaving a trail of destructive flames as it passed.  Inuyasha had taken enough time to dodge the wild energy, grab the three living Higurashis, and get them out of the house before it collapsed.  Kagome latched onto his robes when he tried to set her down. Awkwardly fumbling with one hand and pressing something sharp into the Inuyasha's palm with amazing force for a human.

A Shikon shard.

Inuyasha had been glaring at that shard as he told them what he'd seen. Going on to say that Kagome was begging him to bring her back to the past when they heard the shrill whine of something she called sirens.  At the intrusive noise, she'd amended that request. Telling him that she wanted to make certain the healers took her mother and brother away.

He'd been afraid to argue, hiding with her like a criminal in the deep shadows of the well house. Her silent tears trailing forgotten down her cheeks and murmuring her family members' names like a mantra.  He'd been close to dragging her back to Kaede's despite her desires. Completely conscious of the blood sliding over his skin and dampening not only her clothes, but his as well when the humans came into view.  Kagome had gone silent while they watched men in identical uniforms strap both mother and son onto long stretchers. Using all sorts of things Inuyasha had never seen before.  They were gone again with amazing speed, leaving behind only the odd shaped figures fighting the fire. That was when Kagome had buried her face against his chest and whispered for him to go.  Finally admitting who had attacked her just as he dropped into the well.

"I'm sorry I keep waking you, Miroku." Kagome's quiet whisper snapped him out of the grim reverie that replayed through all their heads far too often.

Taking a cleansing breath to banish the unwelcome thoughts, Miroku dropped his chin to rest on her head. Wrapping his arms around her more securely and gently rocking her in his lap, he reassured her. "I am already awake keeping watch while Inuyasha searches for more rumors.  It's my pleasure to give you comfort."

She smiled in warm amusement at the particularly debonair affectation he'd put into his voice. Bracing a hand on his thigh, she leaned up and brushed a light kiss over his lips. "You are the most wonderful friend, hentai."

His eyes were still melancholy as his lips quirked and his slid a hand down to rub the curve of her backside. "You could always agree to bear me a child as reward for being such a wonderful friend, Kagome."

This time the smile reached his eyes when she actually giggled, snuggling against him and shaking her head. "I love you, Miroku. Not that kind of love, but I do love you.  Maybe… maybe if things don't work the way… we hope."

Miroku closed his eyes, bringing his hand to cup her cheek and slide his thumb across it in an absent caress. "If things don't work out the way we hope, better with a friend than alone?"

Kagome leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. "At least we both understand rejection."

The monk gave an exaggerated sigh of mock sorrow, dropped his chin to rest on her shoulder. "Aa, but your rejection does not leave bruises or have the potential to break any of my bones."

The giggle bubbled up and over again, some of the grey leaving her eyes as she covered her lips with her hand. "Maybe if you would take my advice once in a while it would be less painful."

"Or maybe I should have fallen in love with a less violent woman," he sighed. Gazing with unabashed longing across the fire to Sango's sleeping face.

Kagome let her arms fall back around his waist, tucking up in his lap as he spread his robes over her with extra care. "The way I fell in love with a cocky, anti-social hanyou who loved my previous incarnation?"

"We have horrible taste, Kagome," Miroku teased and kissed her cheek.

"No argument," she wrinkled her nose. A yawn managed to ease its way free as his warmth and teasing finally reached the ice-cold core left behind by her nightmares.  It was the only way she ever got back to sleep. Surrounded by strong, warm arms and feeling protected.  With Inuyasha gone at night, she'd grown used to taking comfort from the monk. Lethargy made her eyelids droop as Kagome began to relax. Her voice was soft, almost dreamy as she gave him the usual reminder. "Don't forget to move before sunrise.  Inuyasha wouldn't understand."

And as always, he offered back the same response, "Tell him about the nightmares, Kagome."

"It wouldn't be fair to him.  I will not be an obligation just because I can't control my own mind when I'm sleeping." Kagome's eyes closed, settling her ear against his chest to listen for the steady beat of his heart.

"It's unhealthy to hide this from the others," he scolded lightly. Reaching out to make sure his staff was within arm's reach, he settled himself against the tree more comfortably.  "The aura that surrounds you when you wake is painful to feel.  You don't deserve that kind of misery."

"I'm just on edge, Miroku," she assured him. Her eyes barely opened, greying again as she stared off into the dark woods.  The shadowed, greyscale haze she had come grown used to having disrupt her peripheral vision was stronger now. Dancing even higher in the edges of her sight and spreading wider than she remembered. "We can all feel the end getting closer."

"That doesn't mean we want you to put aside your own health." Miroku leaned his cheek against hers, looking down at his cursed hand somberly.

Kagome's hand slid down his arm and over the sealing glove. Ignoring the bite of the prayer beads, she tugged his hand down into her lap and gave it a squeeze. "I will not take the chance that something I do or say could lose more any time. Not when we aren't sure how much we have left."

"Not sure how much longer you can hold back the void, Kagome?" Miroku tried to keep the question steady and light, but the tone fell flat.  They were both well aware that if her powers hadn't been so startlingly, massively awakened, he would have been out of time years ago.  It wasn't an event that they would be able to forget either.

A girl could never forget her first kiss.