InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Heartless ❯ The Color of Blood ( Chapter 20 )

Disclaimer: I neither own Inuyasha nor make any monetary gains by torturing him.

 

Author's Note: Sorry folks. I didn't mean to make you wait for so long after such a cliffhanger. This chapter is short, but I'm sure it will shed some light to the events of the previous one. The next chapter is on the way. Thanks for sticking around!

 

 

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Special thanks to my lovely betas Ai Kisugi and Hedanicree.

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Warning: Violence

 

 

`Thinking'

“Talking”

Dreams or memories

 

 

Chapter 20: The Color of Blood

 

 

“Damn you.”

 

Miroku's words pierced through her consciousness even though Keiko was immersed in watching her carefully laid out plans unfold with success.

 

The sleeves of his red haori fluttered, and long strands of silver hair gently caressed the jagged stripes on his cheeks as Inuyasha jumped back to avoid yet another one of Sango's blows. Even at his worst, the hanyou was a sight to behold, and looking at him, Miroku's words echoed in the high priestess' mind. `Damn you.' She snorted at the irony. She was already damned…

 

…by her traitor heart.

 

The said part of her body skipped a beat when the slayer's sword sliced through the air too close to the hanyou's neck. Keiko frowned at the unwelcome yet familiar sensation and told the spirited teenager that lingered somewhere in her soul to behave. She wasn't that girl anymore. Life had taught her to see the world with clarity.

 

Demons were evil by nature. Even the friendliest ones had the capability to destroy human life, and they would do so if given the chance. Keiko had been witness to that, been the victim of it. It had cost her more than her face to learn what they were: the natural enemies of humankind. It had shocked and hurt her to see the ones she had once called friends in that new light. She shouldn't have been surprised, though. After all, demons were predators — the top of the food chain. Humanity was bound to be hindered and slaughtered as long as demons existed. That was not acceptable. Humans were not mindless, soulless creatures to be preyed upon. Someone had to put a stop to that. So, Keiko did.

 

Now, the monk, whose wisdom the priestess had admired for so long, was accusing her of being in the wrong. But how could that be? Was she so wrong to want to change the order of the world — the order that killed her kind? Was it bad to want to make the world a safer place for children?

 

`No.' The immediate answer echoed in her thoughts as she shook her head in wordless reply to her unvoiced questions. It was the right thing to do. Miroku could think or say all he wanted. His judgment was clouded by his lingering allegiance to the hanyou, but Keiko could see what the world was made of: pure and tainted, good and evil, black and white. It was as simple as that.

 

`But, he…,' she thought as her gaze followed Inuyasha's movements.

 

He was all red.

 

It had been her favorite color once and the naïve girl in her still cheered for it. Dazzling, exciting and heart-warming…

 

The color of flames. It burned her eyes, yet they stubbornly sought it.

 

The color of passion. It destroyed her soul, but she still craved it.

 

The color of love. It broke her heart, but…

 

But, Keiko knew better now.

 

She had stupidly wanted her world to be painted in his color, until she had found out what it meant in the most painful way. It had nothing to do with love or passion.

 

It was the color of blood.

 

She watched in fascination while the hanyou struggled to dodge the slayer's attacks. His hands were coated with his blood as it flowed down his arms from the wounds the slayer had inflicted. Those hands selflessly took the damage from Sango's sword so that he would not hurt his friend. They were the same hands that had destroyed Keiko's face so easily. It hadn't been his hands that had made her really bleed, though. It had been his refusal.

 

The hatred in his voice, the disgust in his eyes…

 

That day from hell, her face had been the color of blood, but it had been her heart that had bled the most.

 

Unfortunately, a woman's heart was a treacherous little thing, and Keiko had quickly found out that hers was no different. Despite what Inuyasha had done to her, it still beat faster whenever she saw him.

 

And that was what infuriated Keiko the most.

 

She didn't want to feel that spark of excitement and neither did she want to acknowledge the fear of being wrong that came with it and the gnawing suspicion that maybe the monk was right, that she was a bitter woman who couldn't get what she wanted…

 

All she wanted now was for the hanyou to suffer. The more he suffered, the easier it would be for him to show his real colors to the world, starting with his friends.

 

The silver of his hair could outshine the moonlight with its soft glow; the gleam in his eyes could rival the sun on a mid-summer afternoon and the brilliance of his aura could mesmerize the purest of souls. But, none of that mattered.

 

His soul was black.

 

And once he killed Sango in this meadow, everyone would see that, including the priestess' heart.

 

Keiko wasn't blind. Even in war, she had seen how Inuyasha had refrained from killing humans as much as he could. Everything added to her fears, and that only increased her anger. The monk and the slayer's betrayal had been the last straw. For her sanity, she had to make everyone recognize what the hanyou was — a monster. Or else, the inkling of guilt that had been seeded in her chest long ago was going to be the end of her.

 

She shook her head to dispel that thought. Looking ahead, she did her best to ignore the grace of Inuyasha's movements and focused on the fight instead. She watched him struggle to stay in control while Sango made him bleed with her every move. And with his every move, Keiko's doubts sneaked back into her thoughts, starting to dominate her jumbled mind, and her fears clawed at her chest, making it harder to breathe.

 

The hanyou had transformed completely. The stripes on his cheeks were more prominent than ever; his claws were long enough to be noticeable from the distance and his menacing growls were loud enough to be heard even by Keiko's human ears, sending chills up her spine. But, he still wasn't attacking the slayer.

 

Dread filled the priestess' heart at the scene before her. This had not been in her plan.

 

The way Inuyasha looked — defeated but determined as he gave up — had not been in the plan. The way her heart jumped to her throat when he fell to his knees was not in the plan. The pain that shot through her chest when she thought of him gone from this world forever…

 

That certainly had not been in the plan.

 

Before Keiko knew it, her legs were moving. Her veil flew off of her head, and all the barriers she had carefully constructed fell apart along with the lies she had told herself for years as she ran forward without hesitation.

 

In the brief moments that it took for her to shield the hanyou from Sango's view and grab the slayer's hand to stop her blow, Keiko's mind had caught up to her heart and body. Despite the state he was in, Inuyasha didn't kill his friend; he chose to die instead. His soul was not black, after all.

 

She had been wrong.

 

Inuyasha was not a monster.

 

With Keiko's intrusion, the spell over Sango disappeared. The sword fell from the woman's hand, and she staggered back. The priestess watched the emotions swirl in the slayer's eyes; confusion flashed in her brown orbs as they switched from Keiko to the kneeling figure of the hanyou behind her before they widened in horror.

 

That look, coupled with Miroku's earlier accusations and her recent revelations, knocked the breath out of Keiko's lungs. She opened her mouth to say something to wipe that look off of her former friend's face, but words failed her. A deep growl was the only warning she received before she realized the big mistake she had made by focusing on Sango and turning her back to the one she had really wronged.

 

The instant pain in her back reminded her of that as Inuyasha's claws cut through her skin.

 

She blinked in shock as it spread through her nerves in scorching waves. Gasping for breath, she turned to face him. Looking down at the man she had loved and tortured to the brink of death, the pain in her body dulled in comparison to the one in her heart.

 

Miroku had been right. Keiko had told herself that she had done everything because Inuyasha was a monster and she was meant to be a great priestess that cleansed the world from the evil of his kind. But, the truth was that she was a woman scorned and she only wanted to make the object of her twisted affections suffer because of it. Without realizing it, she had become her worst enemy by lying to herself.

 

How had she become so blind?

 

Now, as she looked down at the half-demon, Keiko could see clearly. It had been her all along, not him. She successfully brought out the evil that he fought against with all his being.

 

Didn't that make her the real monster?

 

It had to; no one else could have hurt the one they loved so badly.

 

Her limbs trembled, and her knees threatened to give out. “I'm sorry,” she croaked out. “I've been a fool who doesn't know how to love.” Breathing was becoming harder, and with each word, her voice weakened until she was merely whispering. Praying that he understood, that he was at least listening, she inhaled a shaky breath and added, “If you could only see…”

 

But, he didn't.

 

The hanyou only smirked, his red eyes uncaring, before he plunged his hand into her chest and squeezed her heart, finally putting an end to her years of suffering. He had the same indifferent look as she fell down at his feet.

 

Keiko's thoughts were fading fast along with her pain. Just like Kikyo, she was bleeding to death from the claws of a hanyou. But this wasn't what she wanted, was it? She couldn't remember; she didn't know. Before blackness took over her world, the last thing she saw was Inuyasha's face. And, his eyes…

 

His eyes were the color of blood.

 

And, they were beautiful.

 

End of Chapter 20