InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark ❯ 50 years of Darkness ( Chapter 10 )

AN - AH, well, 4 months isn't so bad… My muse had larengitis! I swear! Ok, no more long breaks, I'm working hard on the next chapter ^_^ Happy reading!

Chapter 10
In The Dark
Fifty years of darkness

As Kagome slumped into Kikyo's arm; she held the young miko close to her and turned herself towards the red-eyed Inuyasha defiantly. He narrowed his crimson eyes towards her and snorted loudly. "I'm not letting him go Kikyo …" he said to her, low and menacingly. "You must. Their lives are in the balance Inuyasha, this is bigger than the both of us." He snarled loudly at her, claws extending from his fingertips, teeth glistering against the flesh of his lips and said, "I worked too hard to let him forget, you will not force my hand Kikyo!"

"You will let him go" she spoke barely above a whisper as she laid the young miko onto the ground of this sacred place. She stood in front of the youkai and straightened her bloodied robes. She stared at him, a soft blue seeped into her eyes and shimmered through her body, she extended her arms high above herself, letting the light build between her fingers. An unseen wind whipped around her, flailing her hair and robes into different directions. Inuyasha stood his ground, baring his teeth at her "Curse you Miko, you'll destroy them! I've protected him from this for a reason!" He screamed at her, growling his rage but the miko ignored his warnings as she closed her eyes in concentration, allowing her energy to build above her.

"I need forgiveness more than I need you to protect him from these 50 years of darkness Inuyoukai" she spat at him, still harboring darkness in her heart towards his current form. Inuyasha only gave her a keh in response. She opened her eyes and looked towards her former lover. The hanyou had crossed his arms in defiance to her power and stood proudly before her, eyes closed with a frown on his face.

"Forgiveness? Surely it is I who should seek it from you, after all, I can still taste your blood after 500 years and your screams still haunt me at night." He opened his eyes and stared down to his clenched fists, opening them slowly and saw her blood stain his claws and fingers but it was just a fading memory. He looked up towards the dead miko and there she saw such sadness in their depths she nearly wavered in her resolve. There, her lover stood before her in a different form but she could still see her precious Inuyasha, even under his vicious form. She felt the speck of darkness lift itself from her heart and she knew instantly that he had never left her that day like she had believed. He remembered everything but had kept it from himself, his Hanyou consciousness to allow her lover to keep his promise to her, to live. A single tear slipped from her glowing eyes as she finally accepted him.

"I still have to do this Inuyasha, he needs to know and she needs to see it for herself." she whispered to him. His ears drooped slightly and his eyes began to change "I know, but I'm not sure how he will take it." He slumped down to his knees and gave her a soft smile. "Well Miko, time to bid farewell"

"Yes, goodbye Inuyasha." Kikyo brought her hands before her; fingers extended to the sky, palms facing her demon and whispered "Purification"

The blast from her hands extended into the whole room, expanding her energy towards him, he closed his eyes and let her energy absorb him as it forced his youkai consciousness to merge with that of his hanyou and all the memories locked away in careful protection were now seeping into the mind of the unconscious hanyou. The crimson eyed Inuyasha sighed in frustration and wished himself good luck. He was going to need it.

Kikyo dropped to her knees in exhaustion as the light of her purification faded around her and she saw the crumbled form of Inuyasha, the Hanyou soul slumped onto the ground. She pulled the soul of Kagome over to his and merged them together so that Kagome could be there for him, inside his mind's eye as he relived those 50 years. She let out a sigh as the bodies merged and watched as her surroundings shifted from white to black. She let herself fade away into the darkness of the chamber. She was no longer needed here.

* * *

Inuyasha lay motionless on the cold stone floor of his cell, sleeping off his exhaustion of the day. A cold drip of water landed sharply onto the lid of his eyes, which brought him to the surface of consciousness. He blinked into the darkness that greeted him and breathed in the stale air of this place. He frowned as he felt the cold dampness of the stone seep through the skin of his back and tried to roll unto his side and moaned in pain as his body creaked in protest. His muscles burned at every movement and he was seriously believing he had died and been brought back to life.

He sniffed the air and noticed a metallic scent to it, the smell of blood and he grimaced as he noticed it came from him, his clothes were dirtied with it and his claws ached like he had been grinding them against stone all day. His memory was a bit fuzzy on what had happened to him but on his supposed human nights, the spell that forced his youkai blood to the surface would settle and he would return as a hanyou for one night. It was the only time in his life he was glad to be a hanyou once again.

He groaned as he passed a hand through his silver hair but noticed it was sticky and dirty from his battles with others and his ears twitched in annoyance. His fingers felt stiff and he flexed them in hopes to remove the pain from them but to no avail. They reeked of blood even though they were cleaned. He snorted loudly, trying to get rid of the smell from his sensitive nose and picked himself off the ground, staggered a little. He was hungry and tired, exhausted is more of the word. His youkai shifts were making him loose track of time but on this night, he knew one month had passed from another so he marked it on the wall and from what he could tell, two years had gone by. He sighed dejectedly and leaned his head onto the wall. 'Two years since Kikyo's death … and I've had no time to grieve for her. This place has made me nearly crazy… I have to get out … somehow.'

Inuyasha grabbed a sharp stone from the ground and let his fingers travel the crease of a stone until he found a loose spot in the dirt in between the stones. He grinned to himself as he began to dig with the stone and set himself to work until the sun rose again and would have to put this to rest for another month.

* * *

Naraku narrowed his eyes in frustration; the hanyou had managed to overcome the magical effects of the special enchantment that drew his youkai blood in a permanent manner to the surface. He slammed a fist onto his desk and let out an undignified snort. "It's his damned human night, the one thing that loosens my control over him is his flaw, his impurity." The human blood was showing Naraku that his spell was far from the perfection he was assured by the dark miko a few years ago. This lack of control was beginning to irk him. He needed a solution and fast. The Inuyoukai was a powerful pet and ally when he was under his permanent control. Naraku shoved himself away from his desk suddenly and leaned back against the back of his chair. This was very intriguing.

The spell was effective enough to keep the half-breed in his full fledged demon form for nearly a month but at the human nights, the human blood manages to overcome the youkai blood and reduce him to a hanyou once more, instead of a full fledged human. He needed something more potent to increase the power of the spell but at the moment, there was nothing in his grasp that could help him boost that power. Could there be a way for him to control the human blood as well as the youkai blood? Naraku rose from his seat and gracefully stepped towards the opened window of his chamber; he looked out into the moonless sky and let out a silent curse. This moonless night was the cause of his problems.

"What could be powerful enough to grant me the ability to control the human and youkai blood of a half-breed?" He asked out loud to the night.

** *

Inuyasha continued his feverish dig into the stonewall, the darkness covering his hurried actions. Dawn was coming and he needed to get most of this finished before he became youkai again. He never thought he would dread the time as a full youkai, once his dream to achieve that goal but now, now he was glad to be a hanyou, in control of himself. He paused in his digging, whipping his brow of sweat and grime. He looked around into the cell he was being held in and couldn't see anything. He was deep underground and from what he could tell, there were no windows near him. He blew out a breath from deep within him. He was getting very tired and running out of time.

He stretched his arms way up high and cracked his neck in an attempt to loosen the muscles that protested his every move when he saw a sudden shimmer to his right. Startled, he dropped the stone he was holding and blinked, thinking that grime may have gotten into his eyes and made him see something. The shimmer reappeared and there, he saw a figure with no great detail but it was still there. 'Definitely too tired' he thought to himself. He bent down to pick up the rock and felt something brush up against him. He stood up quickly and narrowed his eyes to see who was there but saw nothing. He missed the shimmering shadow that slipped through him and lodged itself inside him. He shook himself lightly, feeling suddenly re-energized. He shrugged lightly and scratched his right ear that was twitching with irritation.

"No time to waste Inuyasha, it's almost dawn…" He thought he heard a female voice whisper to him a gentle warning but brushed it off as his tired mind playing tricks on him, but never the less, he turned his exhausted body to the task of digging himself to freedom.

* * *

It was nearing dawn before a thought struck Naraku. He remembered an important detail about his favorite pet. He gathered his robes and stepped away from the window and crossed his chambers. His bare feet silently stroked the cool stone of the floor as he opened the door to the hall way and urgently stepped out into it. He made his way silently to the Library. The wooden mahogany frame of the door stood tall in front of the man and he smiled wickedly as he pondered the possibilities of his hunch. This could be his most brilliant idea yet if he could confirm it.

He stepped across the wooden floor of the library towards a shelf that held brown leather ledgers, each engraved with a golden letter. These were the records of every youkai he had experimented with that either failed or like Inuyasha, were near successes. He let his extended index finger follow the letters as he mentally whispered to himself the kanji of animals and demons until he arrived to that one of the dog. He let out a soft but dangerous chuckle as he pulled the book from the shelf and his eyes twinkled with glee. "This book holds the answer I seek. I know it."

He spread the cover of the book open and let the pages trickle from his fingers as he hurriedly searched for the name of Inuyasha. If he remembered correctly, the hanyou was once mated to a miko, a powerful one at that and she was the guardian of a sacred jewel, a power that was not matched by any other in this world. His eyes finally found the page of his pet's history and as he read the history of the young Inuyoukai, he began to laugh. "The Jewel of Four Souls" he claimed out loud, a note of victory slipped into his voice as he looked up from his ledger "You are the solution to my problem …" He smiled and the light of the rising sun caught his attention. He watched the light engulf the night slowly and pulled a satin cord hanging close to the wall, near the window.

A young woman stepped into the library a few minutes later, asking him what it was he wanted. He only gave her a casual glance and said in a monotone voice "It is time for you to sing my dear, the sun is rising." She nodded to him and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her master. She walked silently down the hall and trough the large home, making her way to the steps of the dark dungeon of the castle. She could hear wild scraping as she descended the stairs and felt a small pang of hate towards her master. She knew of this youkai's story and she felt pity on him, trying to escape from this fate. She opened the thin wood door to the cell area of the dungeon and heard him stop his digging.

"Is it time again Kagura?" she heard his exhausted voice whisper in the darkness. She imagined his golden eyes, once full of life and vigor stare at her flatly. She merely nodded towards the voice and opened her mouth, freeing the sounds from deep within her throat. She felt her eyes tear up as she saw two red eyes glow suddenly in the darkness and the hanyou's voice broke into a scream that was mixed with sorrow and hate. She heard his body crack and creak as he transformed once again and she mentally cursed her master one (one?) last time before Inuyasha let out a final scream that resembled more human than beast before the transformation was complete.

* * *

Naraku only looked out the window as he listened to Inuyasha's transformation. Soon, this defect in the spell would soon be over and he would have the ability to control youkai and hanyous to do his bidding. He smiled at the rising sun. Yes, this was going to be a beautiful day indeed.

* * *

Kagome struggled to wake herself but found that she couldn't quite shake herself free from this daze and she couldn't seem to be able to move freely. She felt trapped.

"What the heck! What's going on!"

She struggled to move any part of her body but stopped out of mere exhaustion. It seemed she wasn't going anywhere. It felt like her body was entirely wrapped by a shell, or a full body cast. She was getting a bit irked. She had enough excitement today, she just wanted to go in her room and take a nap. Enough to know that her boyfriend was a dog demon and she was the reincarnation of his former lover, which by the way, is not as flattering as one would like to believe, she certainly didn't want to add … stuck in a weird body cast like thing to the list. She sighed. This was starting to suck. "Why did I start dating him? Oh yeah, his hair…" She let out a giggle at her own answer 'and his cute puppy ears' she added mentally.

Suddenly, an image appeared inside of her mind of Kikyo and a Red eyed Inuyasha battling each other gave her a cold chill as she witnessed Kikyo defeat the red-eye Inuyasha and cradled her limp body towards her lover's crumpled form on the ground. Kikyo stood above them and a single tear left her eye and fell on them. She felt a sudden surge of energy as she began to sink into the skin of Inuyasha. Kikyo disappeared from her mind and suddenly she was in the dark and a very loud snarl startled her. She felt her throat rumble as the sound drummed into her ears and made her wince. She felt her body being dragged on the ground, her arms bound by a heavy chain, her hair tugging in all directions as they caught in twigs and stones from the ground.

She felt the body twist and turn against the pull and she wanted to scream in pain as the muscles almost seem to rip from the sheer force of the pull to be free. She caught her own reflection in a puddle that was mere inches from her own face. She gasped.

"Holy crap! That's not me!" she let out a shocked yelp as she looked into the red-eyes of Inuyasha. His silver hair full of filth, stones, twigs and dried blood. His smooth skin was bruised and dirtied and his teeth glimmered against the pink flesh of his lips as he snarled the name Naraku. He was so different. She could almost sense him deep within herself but there was something blocking him from taking control of it, to grasp control of this demon.

She began to open her mouth to get his attention, but how do you try to get someone's attention when you're inside them? She never really considered the possibility of this ever happening but you never know with Inuyasha. She mentally sighed. This was a very tense situation. Suddenly she felt a cold shiver run down her spine as she heard a voice deep within her consciousness. "Keep your eyes open and watch little girl." She thought she heard Inuyasha talking to her but couldn't see him anywhere.

"You're about to witness everything I suppressed from my hanyou form to protect myself. 50 long years of darkness and nothing to be proud of." She heard a snort of disgust and a curse to Kikyo. She blinked and felt the chaos of Inuyasha's mind begin to mingle with her own. She sensed his struggle to overcome the barrier that kept him from controlling himself. She heard him snarl in anguish as he tried to surface from the heat of youkai blood, drowning his human blood. She let her mind reach out to him but it was almost too much for her. The chaos of his struggle almost dragged her from the safety of her own mind. She withdrew in time as her hanyou slowly began to lose his resistance to the youkai inside him. She felt her eyes tear up and tried to say his name but nothing. It suddenly went silent and still.

A loud musical sound filled her ears as the chaos of Inuyasha's mind settled and the hanyou retreated and submitted to the Youkai of his blood. He was still angry but the thoughts seem to be less chaotic.

"Inuyasha! You wish to be free of this no? Free of my control, free of your pain?" the voice called out to him, he only snorted in answer, deeming it undignified to answer to his enslaver. Kagome was confused. She wasn't sure what was happening. Inuyasha's cold mind voice returned to her and whispered, "This is the past Kagome, this is what Kikyo wanted him to see for himself. This could destroy both of you. The world seen through the eyes of a mad man and all you can do is watch as the memories trickle back into Inuyasha."

"I'm in the past?" she whispered softly to the voice.

"Yes, in the past. 450 years ago, Inuyasha became a slave to a magic so powerful, it was wiped from his memory to keep him balanced." The voice answered. "And you my dear are the lucky witness to Kikyo's undoing."

Kagome's eyes opened wide as a man stood before her, dressed in robes of high class of the past. He smirked down to them and ordered a young woman to sing a spell. He held above Inuyasha's head a small fragment of a pink stone and grinned.

"Imagine Inuyasha, what I can do with the full Shikon jewel."

She felt her miko powers rise within herself, building a barrier around the soul of her lover, trying to protect them from the overwhelming wrongness of this man that surrounded them. She sensed the stone was being corrupted somehow, by his darkness. She couldn't completely protect Inuyasha as the song became amplified by the stone's magic and she felt her lover slip deeper within himself. This new Inuyasha seemed hollow. There was no struggle inside him, no chaos of thought. It was eerily silent. Kagome felt panic build inside herself. This was not good.

"Now, Inuyasha. Let us begin the search of the Jewel. We will tear all of Japan to find it if we must." Naraku grinned at the mindless Inuyoukai and all she could do was watch as Inuyasha spent the next 50 years tearing through villages of both human and youkai, searching for the Shikon jewel. A myth and legend amongst men but a known truth to all youkai. All she could see were the faces of those that died under his claws, the stench of the bodies and homes burning to the ground. She sensed moments of clarity as the hanyou resurfaced once in a while on his human nights. His mind foggy from the spell and thoughts of escaping still lingered in its haze.

She wailed as she felt the pain of his body being injured from his battles, his soul cried out as he killed the innocent and continued his rampage through Japan with Naraku watching his every move and kill. She felt ill and such deep sorrow overwhelmed her as her lover's soul withered inside himself. This was not him, this was the work of evil.

Kagome screamed at his sorrow and anger, all these years of killing and slaughtering. All these years of blessed darkness was now pouring into his mind. Inuyasha was overwhelmed by this, his soul was withering and Kagome needed to keep him safe. She ignored her sorrow and what she witnessed and looked for any sign of Inuyasha, the hanyou she loved. It was faint and being buried under the hate of the spell but she found it. She took her miko powers and wrapped them around the small bit of soul left that told her it was him, his true self and cradled it to her breast. She was going to get through this chaos and save him. She had to or they would both die.

* * *

The two motionless bodies of Inuyasha and Kagome, still in a comatose state suddenly grew bright. Miroku winced at the sudden burst of power that came from the two and he struggled to retain his control over the barrier that protected the people Kagome and Inuyasha held dearly to their hearts. He was worried. This light was a bad omen.

The pressure of the light grew intensely; cracking the monk's barrier and Miroku grunted out loud from the sheer energy it was taking him to control the surge. He heard the loud snap and crack of the barrier breaking and opened his eyes slowly, trying to keep control and all he could see was white and a blur of colors flashing quickly before his eyes. This was the suppressed memories of his friend but they were too fast for him to see them clearly. He heard Kagome suddenly scream and the pressure became overwhelming for him to hold. He felt his robes begin to move against the wind created by the light. He held his ground, unwilling to let his friends die but he was fighting a losing battle. He was soon overwhelmed as the light finally broke free from the barrier and engulfed him and the room in its entirety.

"I can't fail, not now, they need me!" was the last thing he remembered saying out loud before he allowed himself to be swallowed by the light.

* * *

o.O Looks like a cliffie! Ut oh! *Hides behind notoes* Next chappie is out soon, keep reading and reviewing :)