InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Inevitable ❯ Remorse ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: Why do I even bother? I do not own Inuyasha. There, I bothered.

 

Author's Note: A great big thank you and extra large beta-snaps go out to Wendy, Master of the Red Font, for this chapter!

 

 

 

Inevitable

 

Chapter 7

Remorse

 

 

Sometimes, when you see something that is so unexpected, so incredibly not what you are so sure you are going to see, for a few very long seconds everything stops and your mind will simply not process what your eyes are seeing, and you can't breathe.

 

When I hadn't been able to puke anymore, I had crawled away and collapsed, and then I'd started crying.

 

In the back of my mind I wasn't surprised by it. I'd suspected it, yes, seen it coming even, but there had never been anything that I, or anyone else for that matter, would have been able to do about. It didn't make me feel any less worse, however.

 

I had seen a lot of dead people. Youkai, humans…children. After all those years, I had thought I had become immune to most of the nausea and horror that I always used to suffer from.

 

That day certainly proved me wrong.

 

I'd puked my guts out to the point where I was dry heaving, but I still couldn't seem to rid myself of the horrid, dirty feeling that had my skin crawling and my conscience screaming.

 

I think in part it was also him though. The bastard had come that close to raping me that day. I was entitled to a little relief.

 

But no - no, I kept telling myself. Not him, not him. If only the idiot had held on to his stupid, stupid sword.

 

Then maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they had.

 

But, it had happened, and despite how much I wished it hadn't, there was nothing I could do. What was done was done, and even in a time full of youkai and oni, priests and priestesses, the power to alter the past was nonexistent. I could not change it.

 

I had never felt like swearing so much in my life as I had then.

 

As I wiped my mouth and nose, the snot and bile smeared on the back of my hand. Making a whining sound in the back of my throat, I turned my head away, and slowly shuffled on my knees to the river, immersing my hand in the cold water.

 

I had had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.

 

Something had to be wrong with him. Gods, we never should have had sex. Never.

 

I'd sat there, freezing and wet, the autumn air chilling my skin and raising goose bumps all along my flesh. Hugging myself, I tried to pull myself together, but I kept looking down at myself and then behind me at…at…

 

But I could not let it break me; I had to hold myself together. I had to keep all the pieces locked tight and not let a single one slip. I had to stay whole, because everyone else was broken or soon would be.

 

I was close, barely holding onto the ledge, but I couldn't let myself fall. I had to keep my grip strong. I couldn't let go, because if I did… I couldn't let myself drown, not in the madness and the despair that just waited beneath me, urging me to let go, to let myself fall into their waiting depths. I had to hold on. I couldn't break. I couldn't.

 

I wasn't scared of him anymore, not he himself, but I was absolutely petrified about…about life. About everything, just everything, and it was all so ruined and so wrong and I was so afraid… But I had to save him, I had to, I just had to. Even if saving him meant saving him from me. Yes, it was always me.

 

Taking my numbed hand from the water, I raised it to my face, covering my mouth, trying to quell the emotions, and failing. Even though I tried not to, I sobbed. The sound was muffled by my hand as my eyes closed and the warm tears slid from beneath my lids and down my already streaked cheeks, dropping to the ground.

 

My lips curled away from my teeth and I shook, the awful sound of my own weeping my only company in the dreadful silence, save for the soft singing of the river.

 

The warm mucus ran from my nose and I had to wipe it again with my hand, but I still tasted the saltiness on my lips along with my tears, and this time I just wiped my hand on the grass, spitting once.

 

I turned back, biting my lip, and slowly I crawled over, stopping at his side to gaze down at his face.

 

I was going to cry again, so I turned away immediately lest my tears fall on his face.

 

Rubbing my eyes, I once again looked back, careful not to lean over him so that my tears wouldn't fall on him.

 

His right hand still gripped his kusarikama, his blood covered his stomach and pooled around him on the ground. The gruesome cut started on the left side of his stomach and extended upwards and to the right.

 

The sleeves of his white kimono had been tucked under his knees, his blood staining the material a brilliant red. He had fallen backwards after his death, his legs still drawn up beneath his body. A trickle of red stained a line from his mouth to his chin.

 

There was an odd expression on his face, one that still remains clear in my mind to this day. His features were slack, his entire form limp, but the tight line of his mouth still remained as an obvious sign of the agony he had suffered. But his eyes - his eyes were…strangely calm, emotionless…even peaceful.

 

“Dear gods,” I'd choked, smothering another sob and resisting the urge to vomit again.

 

“Dear gods, dear gods,” I murmured. “What will I tell her?” I asked him, weeping. “What am I going to tell her?”

 

Choking on my own sobs, I scrambled backwards, away from his corpse, suddenly aware of how very cold I was.

 

“Dear gods,” I murmured again through my tears, wet, hot and sticky on my skin, “what am I going to do?”

 

Shaking, I lowered my head, still sobbing. “I should have known,” I muttered. “But even then I couldn't have stopped you….”

 

I raised my head. “But - but I understand. I understand…”

 

I kept muttering incoherently, sobbing and cursing, rubbing my arms and spitting every now and then.

 

“Stupid, stupid,” I cursed. “Stupid. Just stupid. Shit - I - where the heck is the damned sun when you need it? Hell - I want my clothes -any clothes, just - just some damn clothes, I mean, gods, it's freezing! Where the heck am I anyway?”

 

Screaming the last words, I pounded the ground with my fists and looked skyward, straining my neck as more tears coursed a steady stream down my face.

 

Closing my eyes, I let my head fall, my chin hitting my chest and I slumped, shoulders shaking as I cried.

 

I am surprised at myself even today that I did not notice him. Not at first anyway.

 

Silent and wary, he had not said a word, keeping himself a fair distance away, hesitant and strangely patient, waiting for me to acknowledge his presence.

 

I was sobbing still and had not yet noticed him, but then I felt that unmistakable twinge in my senses that told me he was near, and I stopped so suddenly that I forgot to breathe and had to gasp in a lungful of air, nearly choking.

 

Coughing, I tried to cover myself with my arms, whipping my head around to stare at him.

 

He was standing there, just standing there; the water not quite up to his knees, the current forming small eddies around his legs. He stood stock still save for the slight breeze that lifted stray tendrils of white hair. He was no longer bare-chested. He wore his under kimono with his haori overtop but undone. There was no evident trace of blood on him, none that I could see. He must have washed it off in the river. He wore his sword.

 

His arms were at his sides, clean claws just visible. There was a certain pain in his expression that made it hard to remember that I still had to breathe. I wondered briefly if he'd seen the body, but his gaze was centered on me.

 

His eyes had been amber. That, I so very clearly remember. It had been him that time, him.