InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Learning to Live Again ❯ I'll Be There For You ( Chapter 4 )

A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers! Your reviews keep me focused. Thank you.

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, but I wish I did. That should count for something. Shouldn't it?

 

I'll Be There For You

 

“Kaede.” Kikyo staggered through the door.

 

The old woman jolted from preparing her stew and faced the younger priestess who was bracing herself on the wall. “Kagome?”

 

She laughed softly. “Now I know how she feels. I am not Kagome. I am Kikyo,” she corrected.

 

“Kikyo? Why are ye dressed in Kagome's clothing?” Kaede looked at her elder sister cautiously.

 

Kikyo smiled in the semidarkness. The dancing flames made her look sinister and victimized at the same time. She knew that Kaede was afraid of her. She wasn't natural and while Kaede held no animosity toward her, she didn't welcome her either. Kikyo knew her sister would rather her stay away. She usually respected those feelings and stayed away, but tonight she needed a person to talk to. She placed her clothing on the floor, and dropped her bow and arrows on top of them.

 

She eased herself down across the fire from Kaede. A groan was torn from her lips. It was painful for her to move. The walk had been nearly unbearable. Pain the likes of which she hadn't felt since Naraku cut her down fifty two years earlier was pumping through her body. A number of things increased her pain this night. The weakness from vomiting, roughness of her demon lover, the mental fatigue of her confrontations with Kagome and Sesshomaru, and the miles of walking all enhanced what she felt.

 

She pulled the shredded remnants of her pants into her lap and began to play with a string. “I'm sorry I came here, Kaede.” She stared at the fire. “I know how uncomfortable I make you. I needed to come here. I need food, a place to sleep, and some one to talk to.” She looked up. “If I came here, I could leave Kagome's clothing.”

 

Kaede looked at her older sister, who forever would look like an eighteen year old. Had Kikyo not died fifty two years earlier, she would be seventy. The bitterness and hatred, Kaede had seen in Kikyo when she had been resurrected two years earlier, terrified her. Kaede hadn't seen her since the night that Kagome and Kikyo had first meet, not even a month after the resurrection. Kaede studied her sister and noticed the dark splotches staining the uniform top. Looking at Kikyo's snow white legs, Kaede saw the vicious scratches and bite marks from her knees and vanishing under her skirt. “What happened to ye, Kikyo?”

 

“An enraged, out of control demon lord happened to me,” Kikyo replied.

 

“Were ye raped?”

 

“Raped? No, I let him take me.” She watched as Kaede stood and walked to a chest and pulled out the contents. She walked back to Kikyo and sat behind her.

 

“Will ye remove the shirt, Kikyo?” Kikyo pulled the shirt from her torso and heard Kaede's sharp intake of breath. “Only one demon did this to ye?” Kaede brushed Kikyo's hair aside so it fell across her left breast. Kaede stared in shock at her sister's back. The demon had carved his name in kanji into the flesh over her spine.

 

“Yes. And he only had one arm.”

 

“Ye were with Inuyasha's brother?”

 

Kikyo frowned and glanced over shoulder as some kind of ointment was rubbed in. “How did you know that? I didn't even know until Kagome confronted me about it.”

 

“Inuyasha cut off Lord Sesshomaru's left arm in a battle with Inuyasha over Tetsusiaga, thus he only has one arm.”

 

Kikyo's eyes narrowed into slits. She remembered when she had watched over Kaede when Kaede was a young child. It might have been fifty two years since then, but she still knew when her sister was lying to her. “What do you fear to tell me, Kaede?”

 

“When ye and Sesshomaru had the…uh…encounter…did he lick the claws marks on your back?”

 

Kikyo frowned. “Yes. He…oh no… he claimed me as a toy didn't he?”

 

“Aye.” Kaede wanted to change the subject. She knew things would get much more difficult for her sister now that a demon lord had marked her as his own personal toy. It's not like things were already complicated for Kikyo as they were. “Ye said Kagome knows about you and Sesshomaru. How did she find out about that?”

 

“She came across us in a `compromising postion'.”

 

Kaede stared at her sister as the young woman blankly gazed into the flames. “What kind of position?”

 

Kikyo blushed bright red at the thought of telling her elderly sister. “I was on top of him, our hands were between my legs, and he was buried deeply inside me.”

 

“You're lucky Inuyasha or Naraku didn't come across that instead of Kagome. Do you think she will tell Inuyasha?”

 

“No.” Kikyo flinched when Kaede continued to rub ointment into the claw marks on her back. “It feel like he burnt me with acid, Kaede. What did he do?”

 

“Lord Sesshomaru's claws drip an acidic poison. This ointment I am applying to your back, is the same that I use on Inuyasha when Sesshomaru uses his poison claws on him.”

 

“Don't use too much of it. I don't want to cause you to run out in case Inuyasha needs it.”

 

“How did ye end up with Kagome's clothing?”

 

“I told her that if she didn't give me any clothing, Inuyasha would smell his brother and find me instead. Seeing me naked and clawed with his brother's name sliced into my back, Inuyasha would believe that I was raped. He wouldn't think otherwise. I told her that if Inuyasha went after Sesshomaru, he would be killed.”

 

Kaede shook her head at the manipulation. “Ye do know how they feel for one another, do you not?”

 

“Of course I know that they love one another! I'm dead, not stupid!” Kikyo snapped.

 

“I meant nothing by it, Kikyo. I was simply asking.”

 

“I am sorry, Kaede. I did not mean to be so rude. Is there any way I could have some stew? I'm very hungry.”

 

Kaede stood and poured Kikyo a bowl of stew. She handed it to the eternal eighteen year old , who gratefully took it. “I did not know that ye needed to eat food to survive Kikyo.”

 

Kikyo smiled and laughed softly. “I only need to eat a few times a week. The souls I collect allow me to be aware. The food I eat allows me to function.” Kikyo began to eat voraciously. Kaede took the bowl from her and poured her more when she finished.

 

“Thank you.” Kikyo began to eat again.

 

Kaede studied her carefully. “When was the last time you ate?”

 

“Yesterday.”

 

“But ye said…”

 

“I met the one thing today that makes me throw up.”

 

“Which is?”

 

“The one thing I fear. Naraku.”

 

“You fear Naraku? From what Kagome says I thought…”

 

Kikyo rolled her eyes. “I could only imagine what she says about me. Most of it is what she believes. I despise Naraku more than anyone could ever comprehend. There are things worse than death. Being with Naraku would be one of them.” Kikyo sat the bowl aside. She began to tear up pieces of her clothing and threw them in the fire, until they were all burnt.

 

“Here ye are, Kikyo.” Kaede handed her a new priestess habit.

 

“Thank you, sister.” Kikyo changed her clothing and laid down in the same place her bed had been fifty two years before.

 

“I'll be there for you, Kikyo. Anytime ye need me. It's not easy being lonely.” Kaede stroked her older sister's hair. Whether or not she heard Kaede, was unknow for the first time since, Naraku had turned Kikyo and Inuyasha against each other, Kikyo had fallen asleep in the hut she had grown up in.

 

A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter was lame. It was really hard for me to write and I'm not very happy with it. Next chapter will be better and longer, I promise.