InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ How Do We Learn to Love the Ones We Hate? ❯ And You Thought It Was Over… ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer: I own absolutely no characters created by Rumiko Takahashi; as much as I wish I was brilliant enough to come up with these characters, but I did not. This goes for everything but the ideas. A lot are spin-offs of different ideas in the story, but others are completely off the charts for weirdness and/or are not related to Takahashi's work at all.

 

And You Thought It Was Over…

 

“Do you two young men, take these two lovely young women to be your lawfully wedded wives, through sickness and through health---”

 

Inuyasha drowned the rest of the minister's words out, thinking. What am I doing? He asked himself.

 

You can still leave.

 

I can't, it might start a war. He told himself.

 

“I do.” Bankotsu said.

 

“Inuyasha.” Kikyo shook his arm after a minute.

 

“Oh, um… I-I do.” He looked at Kikyo, almost frowning as he did. She was pretty, but…

 

She's not Kagome. The voice in his head finished.

 

Shut up! Just shut up!

 

“You may now kiss the bride.”

 

Inuyasha gulped and reached down, drawing back her veil and revealing her smiling face. He leaned down and her lips puckered.

 

Stop, I need to stop! He shouted at himself, panicking as they both leaned toward each other.

 

“STOP!”

 

Everyone looked up and gasped.

 

“Ayame!” Inuyasha yelled. What is she doing here?! She'll be killed---what is she doing?

 

The wolf demon was flying towards them, her claws extended and aimed for… Kagome.

 

Everyone screamed as Ayame smashed into Kagome, knocking her backwards forty feet and straight into the wall. The two rolled and thrashed on the ground, slashing and tearing at each other the way ogres or dragons fought.

 

“Seize her!” a guard yelled and every guard in the room charged Ayame. Inuyasha saw red. Ayame was supposed to be her friend. His lip curled back above his lips, revealing his fangs as he lunged.

 

“Inuyasha!” Koga yelled, tackling him and holding him back from slicing Ayame's head off. “That isn't Kagome! Wait! Your nose has been spelled to think it's her!”

 

Inuyasha stopped whipping against Koga's hold and sniffed. It smelled like Kagome, but… the way she was fighting Ayame, with all of the biting and scratching, she was acting like a coyote demon.

 

“Hold your ground!” he barked at the oncoming guards. Shippo jumped down from the window next to him and crouched, ready to fight. Behind him, Rin gasped and clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay back from hugging the daylights out of her fugitive friend and fiancé.

 

Kagome slammed against the wall behind her and put her hands up to shield her face.

 

This is what Kagome would do, right? Fukuhon asked. Damn it! I can't fight her enough because I have to pretend to be that slow, weak, pathetic human!

 

“Well?” Ayame asked, her arms out to the sides.

 

“Well what?” Fukuhon barked, rubbing the gash on her shoulder.

 

“I'm a demon, go ahead, purify me, oh wise priestess.” She offered her armored chest, folding her arms to signify that she wouldn't block.

 

“I would never hurt a friend!” Fukuhon yelled, pretending to be offended.

 

“And yet you ordered my slaughter. So I dare you, please, go ahead.” She gestured at her chest.

 

“You what?”

 

Everyone turned to the new comer… Kagome. Kagome's lip curled back as she stepped slowly down the ballroom stairs.

 

“How dare you order the death of my friends in my body!” she screamed, her palms exploding in blue light that revealed a bow. Fukuhon gasped and dove to the side as the arrow Kagome release shattered the wall behind her.

 

“Kagome?” Inuyasha breathed.

 

Kagome was clothed in blue-tinted armor, and the bow and arrow in her hand trained on the other Kagome was almost see-through. She was breathing like someone in labor, but Inuyasha guessed it was because of how furious she was.

 

The Kagome-copy stood slowly and faced Kagome. “She said you were gone.” She hissed, her voice suddenly snake-like and unlike Kagome's at all, her eyes pitch black.

 

“I came back.” Kagome returned, an evil smile worthy of Tsubaki on her face, who was presently thinking of how to murder Kikyo for botching the plan this much.

 

Fukuhon lunged, hands and the new claws out and poised to kill. Kagome released the arrow and it shattered the air, but Fukuhon dove to the side by ramming her heel against the floor and flipping herself to the side.

 

“Kagome!” Inuyasha yelled, diving for Kagome. I'm not going to get there in time, and she's not going to form another arrow by then! He thought in terror. Kagome raised her hands to protect her face even though she knew it would do no good.

 

“Ranma!”

 

Ranma? Kagome turned her head to the sound of Akane's distinct yell, and Ranma came rocketing into view above her, his foot connecting squarely with the other Kagome's face. He flipped and landed in front of Kagome in a protective stance as Akane rolled up next to her, taking up a fighting stance.

 

Everyone stared at the newcomers and their strange dress, not to mention how fast they moved despite being human. Inuyasha froze. That boy was protecting Kagome, and despite the fact that he admitted that the boy had saved Kagome's life, a slow growl rose in his throat.

 

“What are you doing here?!” Kagome barked as Fukuhon regained her balance, though she was slightly unsteady because of the power behind the kick.

 

“Ranma-honey!”

“Airen!”

“Akane!”

“Shampoo!”

 

Everyone looked up to the new voices and four more people with strange hair and strange clothes smashed into the room from the ceiling. The two girls fought over the boy with the pigtail, while the two boys just fought him. But the first girl, with short blue hair, looked like she was keeping herself from committing homicide on the boy with the pigtail.

 

“Look out!” Ayame screamed and lunged at Fukuhon, who had plunged toward Kagome, her fangs exposed to tear Kagome's throat open. Ayame and Fukuhon collided in midair, grappling and slashing at each other.

 

“Oh my god!” Ukyo jabbed her finger at Inuyasha, completely ignorant of the fight between Ayame, Fukuhon and Koga who had recently joined to tip the tables in Ayame's favor. Inuyasha's eyebrow twitched, thinking she had a thing against half demons, but was taking completely by surprise when the girl with purple hair yelled:

 

“Aiya! Is Tenma!”

 

Tenma? Inuyasha's head cocked to the side. Who the hell is…?

 

“Inuyasha!” Kagome sobbed, throwing herself into his arms.

 

“Kagome?” he breathed. What if this is another fake?

 

“You're ok, I'm so glad.” She breathed into his shirt, knowing full well that he would be able to hear her.

 

Inuyasha placed his hands on her back and leaned his head into her hair. She smelled so wonderful. He closed his eyes and sighed.

 

“Where the hell were you?” he murmured through a sigh. “And who are they?” he added, noticing the squabbling group before him.

 

“They're my friends, my sort of therapist support group while I was trying to get back.” Kagome choked out through tears. She clutched Inuyasha's shirt like a python, as if she were afraid that they would be separated if she let go.

 

“Thank god Kikyo didn't…” she stopped, unable to make herself say words relating to death.

 

“Didn't what, Kagome?”

 

Kagome stiffened, her shoulders clenching up, and turned her head, her hands clutching Inuyasha's shirt tighter as she did, her eyes meeting the devils.

 

Even Bankotsu had never seen Kikyo so mad. Her hands were at her side in a lax position, but her neck was wound and tilted with her fury. Kagome's eyes widened as she looked at Kikyo.

 

Kikyo's spiritual power had bled red from her violent anger, and crackled like lightning around her, but that wasn't the only thing that was blood red. Kikyo's brown eyes were now streaked with red coloring, like she had blood seeping through them.

 

“I've had to work behind the scenes and underground for this past year because of you,” she hissed dangerously, her spiritual lightning beginning to condense, “but I'm through with hiding, you will see my true power now!” she roared, raising her hands out, her lightening exploding around her and blasting everyone back but Kagome.

 

“Inuyasha!” Kagome screamed, whirling for him, but she was stopped from moving by Kikyo's lightning licking and shattering the ground in front of her.

 

“You aren't going anywhere.” Kikyo hissed through the earsplitting thunder, created by the heat of her wrath pulsing through her power. “I've tried to get rid of you subtly, but now, that's over. I'm sick of your flouncing ways to get whatever you want while the rest of us work every molecule in our body to get what we want. Inuyasha will be mine along with the Takashi lands, and there is nothing you will be able to do about it!”

 

“That's my girl.” Tsubaki approved, forgetting completely about her death threats earlier as she watched her daughter's power.

 

“Kagome!” Inuyasha yelled, lunging towards her to protect her, only to have Rin dive in his way, forcing him to skid to a halting stop.

 

She jumped on him with immense difficulty, her hugely pregnant stomach holding her back from her full mobility.

 

“You idiot!” she grabbed both of his ears and wrenched them to the side to keep him from moving because of the pain.

 

“Let go, you---”

 

“Inuyasha! Kikyo is a priestess, no matter how dark she may be!” Rin screamed over the thunder. “We have to get all demons out of here before he power spreads more!” Rin shrieked across the room. “She'll purify you before you can even blink, you have to get out of here!”

 

“I won't leave---”

 

“Kagome will never forgive you if you die!” Rin screamed in desperation and Shippo finally got to her, dodging the lightning jumping across the ground.

 

Inuyasha stopped, everything going silent around him. I can't do anything, but…

 

“Inuyasha!” Koga dove at him and kicked him out of the way seconds before he was going to be impaled by the lightening. “Let's g---”

 

“You aren't going anywhere.” Tsubaki snarled, appearing above Inuyasha's head, her shikigami wound around her arm and back.

 

“Inuyasha!” Koga used every ounce of strength he had and shoved Inuyasha aside just as Tsubaki raised her arm and her shikigami flew at him. Koga's eyes blurred as the shikigami wrapped around him and clenched, squeezing the life out of him.

 

“Koga!” Inuyasha tore at the snake with his claws, but every time he cut, only paper tore away in his fingers as the snake's hold tightened around Koga.

 

“Damn it!” Inuyasha roared.

 

“Inuyasha!” Ayame dove at him next and shielded his body with hers as blood-red lightning danced where he had been seconds ago, disintegrating the floor. “We have to go!”

 

Inuyasha took one last look at Koga who had begun frothing at the mouth from the pressure being crushed into his body, and then at Kagome, building up her own power, and ran with Ayame.

 

Ranma grabbed Akane's hand and ran as fast as he could for the door. Kagome wasn't kidding when she said this woman would kill her fiancé.

 

“Ranma-honey!”

“Airen!” Shampoo and Ukyo yelled at the same time, latching onto Ranma with as much strength as they could muster.

 

“Get off!” he yelled and pushed Akane towards the door. “Go!” he ordered at her.

 

“Ranma!” Akane yelled as Ryoga grabbed her and leapt for the door.

 

“Take care of her!” Ranma yelled after Ryoga, Ryoga nodding in response.

 

“Shampoo, I will save you! Unlike that useless Ranma Saotome!” Mousse yelled, plummeting to the ground by them and grabbing both Ukyo and Shampoo in his nets and flying them out the door with a hang glider-like machine, Shampoo and Ukyo kicking and yelling the whole way.

 

Good, they're all out of---

 

“RANMA!” Akane screamed. Ranma's heart thudded at the sound of the ceiling cracking above him and looked up just in time to see the last support beam shatter, the ceiling plummeting down on top of him. He raised his hands in instinct to shield himself as his three fiancés screamed bloody murder, but there was no way he would be able to move in time.

 

“Useless.” Inuyasha muttered, racing into the wreckage.

 

“Inuyasha!” Ayame yelled in protest, but was stopped by Lady Higurashi. “Let me go! It's my duty to protect him with my life!” she screamed.

 

Inuyasha slid and swiped up Ranma, jumping out of the way and missing the massive slab of rock by inches as it smashed to the ground into millions of pieces.

 

“You're…!” Ranma looked up at Inuyasha, seeing double of Tenma from the children's story. “Why did you…?”

 

“You saved Kagome's life.” Inuyasha shrugged, setting him down by a tree and rocketing back to the battle. Kagome.

 

Kikyo's chest was heaving from her fury, the lightening and power having finally died down a little. “Winner takes Inuyasha.” She wagered, staring Kagome down with her head tilted.

 

“I plan to.” Kagome agreed and destroyed the damn blocking her spiritual power off inside of her. It felt incredible, all of that power gushing out of her, but she didn't bother with the light show, or the fireworks, concentrating right away to collect every ounce of spiritual energy into her palms.

 

Kikyo smirked as she looked at Kagome's hands, her eyes narrowing as the blue light exploded, snapping back into Kagome's hands in the shape of a bow. “I have yet to be impressed, or even surprised.” She scoffed.

 

“We'll see.” Kagome trained her arrow at Kikyo's head and released the hold on the feathers. The arrow destroyed the air as it careened at Kikyo's head, but Kikyo only smirked, and three seconds before she was to be skewered, she raised her hands and spun herself like in a dance.

 

Her power exploded around her, sucking and spiraling into the form of a hurricane, with Kikyo at the center. Kagome shrieked and just barely managed to raise a shield and brace her feet against the ground before the scorching air pummeled her like a tsunami.

 

“You thought you were the only inheritance of Midoriko's power?!” Kikyo roared. Kagome gasped at what she saw through the fiery tornado. Kikyo's aura clung to her body, morphing and shifting into armor exactly like Kagome's, but as she held both of her hands out, the air condensed into two swords, falling into her palms.

 

“Midoriko?” Kagome verified, hoping to buy time to figure out how she was going to survive. Her armor! Kikyo's keeping safe by her armor, I'm going to have to strengthen mine.

 

“It is a honor to inherit the power of Midoriko. Kagome, we are so much alike, it was a wonder, and probably a mistake that we weren't born to the same father.” Kikyo whirled the swords in her hands, they crackled with her blood-lightening, fire dancing around the blades.

 

“I'm nothing like you.” Kagome snarled, her armors forming and twisting around her before it settled around her torso. “It was no mistake that I wasn't born to your bastard of a father!”

 

“But you have only recently discovered your powers, where as I was showed how to control it years ago.” Kikyo smiled widely, twirling the swords in her hand, her dress twisting and snapping against her legs in the burning wind.

 

“Recently is all I need to defeat you!” Kagome yelled and charged the second the double-headed naginata she had pictured formed in her hand.

 

Kagome had never fought with a naginata before, but as she had watched Kikyo's twin swords, she had known that she could, and would wield not only a naginata, but a double-sided naginata.

 

Help me Midoriko! She prayed as the blades connected, the sound cracking with an ear-shattering echo across the hills, their power creating an explosion that swept over and fried everything within a fifty feet radius.

 

“Inuyasha!” Lady Higurashi yelled, fighting her way to her future son-in-law through the storm.

 

“Lady Higurashi!” he jumped to her and held her up as the wind became too strong for humans. Shippo was shielding Rin, and the other humans that Kagome had brought seemed to be doing fine, if not scared out of their fool minds. Why the hell hadn't they left yet?

 

“Below the castle, they brought your father back!” she yelled over the winds, grabbing onto him to not be blown away.

 

My old man?

 

“He asked for no one but your mother to know about him returning to be placed in a tomb, but when Lady Takashi was dying, she told me to tell you when the time was right!”

 

“A tomb?!” he yelled over the winds and the ceaseless clashing of steel on steel.

 

“Your father left you something, to protect yourself and your mate! You must use it now! The Tetsusaiga!” Lady Higurashi pushed him towards the untouched part of the castle.

 

Inuyasha looked back at the crowd again and at Ayame wrestling for Koga's life with the shikigami. He gritted his teeth, telling himself that it was for Kagome, and ran.

 

“Hey!” the boy with the pigtails appeared, running by his side.

 

How the hell is he keeping up with me? I'm not going fast at all, but still, it's damn fast for a human. “What?!” Inuyasha barked.

 

“You aren't going to help Kagome? I thought you were her fiancé!”

 

“You mind your own damn business Pigtails!” Inuyasha snapped back, smashing through the door and into the palace. A tomb? But where…? Maybe… the old man's portrait! There was a passage behind it!

 

“Well, I have someone I want to help too, so tell me how we stop the fighting between the yin yang sisters out there!” he ordered, jabbing his finger over his shoulder.

 

“Listen Pigtails, I didn't even know she could fight like this, ok?! Let alone how to stop it! Just shut your useless human mouth and stay out of my way!” Inuyasha ran up to his father's portrait and hooked his claws behind the frame, tearing back with all the strength he had, sighing in relief when the portrait just came off the wall.

 

“What the hell is going on?! Can you at least tell me that, as payment for me saving Kagome's life.” Ranma bargained, crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

 

Inuyasha leaned his entire body against the door, taking it off its hinges because it wouldn't open. “Fine!” he snapped. “Kagome apparently disappeared, but no one knew because a demon under Naraku's control took her place.” He yelled, thundering down the steps with the boy right behind him.

 

“Naraku?” Ranma repeated, nearly tripping every few steps because of how steep and uneven they were.

 

“The lord of their lands, their king, he's Kikyo's father.”

 

“Kikyo is the girl back there?” Ranma asked, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. “She's like, Kagome's double.” He gaped. Inuyasha nodded, forcing himself to keep going forward and not turn around to try and rip Kikyo's head off. What did his old man even leave him?

 

“So you love---”

 

“Kagome.” Inuyasha cut in roughly, bursting into the room through the door, still smashed from the last time he had to rescue Kagome from this place.

 

“And she---”

 

“Wait.” Inuyasha cut him off again, his hand up to signal for the boy to be silent. He was sure he had heard something, he was positive.

 

“What?” the boy whispered, inching closer to Inuyasha. The room was giving him the creeps, and it wasn't because it was burnt to crisp, or looked like it was about to cave in.

 

“I thought…” Inuyasha sniffed the air. It still smelled like black fire, but… somewhere in here…

 

“Sango?” he called, whipping towards the answer of a desperate shriek from the west wall.

 

Inuyasha walked up to it and laid his hand on the stone. When it felt six feet thick, he pressed his ear to the cold rock; someone was moving inside, and it actually wasn't that thick at all. Inuyasha stepped back and flexed his claws.

 

“What?” Ranma repeated, jumping back in shock when Inuyasha suddenly lashed out at the wall.

 

“Iron-reaver, soul stealer!”

 

the wall tore to shreds like paper in a bright flash of light that was almost shaped like claw marks. Ranma stepped forward and looked around Inuyasha. Two people, floating in bubbles of grey… smoke? Liquid? He couldn't tell.

 

“Sango, Miroku!” Inuyasha yelled, dashing for them and tearing at the bubbles, they burst in an explosion of grey smoke that made Ranma dizzy as the two people fell to the floor.

 

“Are you ok?” Inuyasha yelled, helping the two up as the hacked and coughed, trying to rid the smoke from their systems.

 

Ranma studied the two. One was a girl and one a boy… but…

 

“Of great.” Ranma muttered. “And I thought this place was weird enough, now guys are wearing dresses.”

 

“It's a robe.” The man called Miroku snapped, helping the woman----Sango----up.

 

Inuyasha had stopped moving, just staring at the wall he had smashed.

 

“What is it?” Sango asked Inuyasha. “And who is he?” she pointed at Ranma.

 

“Now isn't the time!” Inuyasha roared, charging the wall and slashing at it again. The smell of… dog… is back here, through the wall.

 

Inuyasha sniffed again as the smell grew stronger, and rammed his body up against the stone. It shattered beneath him and he fell through to the other side, catching himself on the ground… no, catching himself on the bones.

 

“Ugh.” Ranma stuck his tongue out. The entire room was almost buried in bones. The bones of humans and other things, things he'd never seen before. Human-like creatures, but with skulls that resembled different animals. Demons?

 

Inuyasha looked up at the light, glinting off of something. He shielded his eyes against the light with his hand, managing to see a sword through the haze.

 

“The Tetsusaiga.” He whispered.

 

Meanwhile

 

Kikyo laughed. “You're going to have to give it more than that!” she taunted, charging Kagome again. By now, her tornado of fire had grown so much that everyone around them had been forced another hundred feet away, and both she and Kagome fought in the eye of the storm of flames.

 

Kagome was using every ounce of power she had to keep away from the fire, let alone kill Kikyo. She gasped in pain as Kikyo sliced her upper arm.

 

“You can't even stand pain, let alone get to me to attack!” Kikyo laughed, slashing at Kagome again.

 

How is she unaffected by the fire? Kagome panted, dodging another thrust from the twin blades. Her armor? Or maybe she is the fire… so I need to quench that fire.

 

Kagome furrowed her brow and held her naginata out with both hands at the center. She concentrated all of her energy into her palms and began to spin the naginata so fast that even she couldn't see it, her power running cool as she kept her temper and spirit calm, not letting any anger seep into it.

 

Kikyo growled as Kagome's energy continued to flow, not wavered by the velocity of it, but now it was getting colder, and harder for her to keep the temperature in the fire storm.

 

 

 

 

 

Heh, I'm evil, here's another cliffhanger for you! *Maniacal Laughter*

 

Sorry about the long wait for this chapter, vacation takes its tolls on time spent on writing.