InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ My One and Only ❯ Trapped ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3: Trapped

"You're supposed to be dead!"

Kagome shivered as the cool night air chilled her skin. Ice traveled down her spine as fear froze her limbs.

Naraku's mouth barely moved as he spoke, "Are you afraid? You should be."

He was silent, allowing Kagome's exhausted mind to chaotically turn over this new development.

Impatient, Naraku explained, "I would never allow myself to be killed. Is it not obvious that this is just a trap you gullible fools all too easily fell into? Here I am, and here you are, alone. All your friends have abandoned you-"

"Tell me what you've done to them!" Kagome shouted, her fear for her friends completely overwhelming her fear over her own welfare.

Naraku gracefully knelt and tightly clutched Kagome's skull by her thick black hair, making her whimper in pain. He sneered, "You humans are pathetic. Here you lie at the whim of my nonexistent mercy, and your first thought is of the very people that abandoned you in your time of need? And you call these people friends! There is no such thing."

Kagome found strength deep insider herself, where few would ever be forced to look. "That's not true! One as evil as you are could never understand. Now tell me what you did to them!"

Naraku's eyes narrowed into two glittering blood-red orbs. He then tightened his grasp on Kagome and threw her weakened body into a nearby tree. Her ear-splitting screech tore through the night air the moment that the sickening crack of bone filled the clearing.

"You want to know? Do you? The fox kit, the one you treat as your own son, abandoned you for an illusion. That idiotic demon slayer believed her brother, who was still under my control, was worth more than your safety. The monk, ignorant of his ridiculous fondness for the girl, joined her in forsaking you. And Inuyasha, your beloved hanyou, you know what happened to him, don't you? He abandoned you all too quickly."

Kagome, her chest heaving in her pain, turned her face away from Naraku for the first time. "You're despicable."

Naraku ignored her. "Even now he is most likely gently cradling that miko I injured to his chest, asking the one he loves-"

"Stop it!" Kagome shouted as the jewel clutched in her sweaty palm pulsed anew. Although the pain of her body was great, the one in her heart was unbearable.

Naraku approached Kagome and with his great strength ripped his fingers into her shoulders to throw her across the clearing once again. The brutal scent of Kagome's blood filled the air and her multiple pains brought her to the edge of oblivion. Naraku shook her awake, "Kikyou is the original. You didn't actually think he could ever love you, the second-rate substitute, did you?"

Kagome's head moved back and forth slightly in her denial. Her wounds caused her words to be barely audible, "No…It is enough just to see Inuyasha happy."

Naraku sneered again, "You really are pathetic. Do you even realize what I am here for?"

Wariness filled Kagome's fading mind. "What did you want, Naraku?"

He smiled in an evil ecstasy. "Can't you feel it? You're very soul is so deeply imbedded within the jewel of four souls that every pain you feel, whether emotional or physical, becomes a part of the jewel. I was unable to taint the shikon no tama to the extent that I wished. However, with your ability to connect to the jewel itself, you can further the taint of the jewel even beyond my expectations. You will be the instrument of my cause."

Kagome finally realized the full implications of Naraku's presence. "I won't let you!"

"Do you think I care what you think?" Naraku questioned with a menacing calm. "You are weak, trapped, and completely under my control. When I kill you the jewel connected to you will absorb the evil and become what I have always longed for: the most potent force of evil at my bidding."

As Naraku approached Kagome to make his final blow, Kagome's eyes filled with an inhuman determination. With her last breath she whispered, "I will protect the ones I love."

With those words, the soft violet glow of the shikon no tama separated into four distinct, purified fragments that filled the night with a virulent storm of light.

And then there was darkness.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

In another part of the forest, Inuyasha came upon the wounded form of Kikyou just as he caught sight of the violet spectacle. Wary, he scented the air for danger and found something more horrifying than he had ever known.

It was the stench of Kagome's blood.

Completely disregarding the pleading bleats of Kikyou, the hanyou hurried with all due haste back to the campsite. Terror pulsed through his blood and his mind shouted for the cause in a continuous litany of panic. He reached the clearing.

"Kagome!"

~End of Chapter 3~

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