InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ No One's Laughing ❯ Conflict ( Chapter 2 )

Oh my goodness, I couldn't wait any longer to post this. I am just too impatient.

Disclaimer: I own a car, a TV, a couple of lamps, and a utility cabinet that I assembled myself, nothing else.

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Inuyasha just stood there for what seemed like forever between Kagome and Kikyo. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours, but he did nothing but stand and stare back and forth. Neither girl did anything; they didn't even look each other, just stared at him. Their eyes bore into him, trying to expose his soul. Finally, the silence got to be too much. It was lying like a blanket, cutting of his air.

"What do you want from me?" he whispered at long last. Simultaneously, both women reached out their hands. It was an inviting pose they were adopting. It was one of beckoning. Each woman wanted him to run into her arms. He just stared dumbly. Were they really doing this to him? They were forcing him to make a decision. There would no longer be him teetering back and forth, stringing both women along with promises of caring. He had to choose. Go to one and let the other go.

"But then," he thought, "the one I choose will be gone too." Fate had dealt him a cruel hand. He was in love with two women. One from his past, an undead Miko with a body of clay, kept alive only by her need for revenge and desire to take Inuyasha to hell with her. She was only able to move about because of the souls she stole from young women. The other, from five hundred years in the future. She came only to him through a portal that shouldn't even exist. Her world was not his world. Her time was not his time, and when the jewel was completed, she would probably want to go home and leave him. He was in awe at his misfortune. He wanted to laugh and cry all at once. He looked back and forth between the two women, both pleading with their eyes for him to hold them, and did neither.

To say that Kagome was worried was and understatement. She just sat there next to Inuyasha and continued to run the cool rag over his body. "He's been muttering nonsense," said Miroku. He didn't wasn't her to know that he had called out Kikyo's name. Kagome looked up. She had forgotten anyone else was there. She was just so wrapped up in Inuyasha. Sango watched her best friend as tears trekked down her cheeks. "She really is in love with him," she thought. All eyes turned suddenly to the boy. He was murmuring again.

"What do you want from me?"

He sounded so scared. Kagome's breath hitched in her throat. He was having a nightmare. Her darling, her puppy, the bravest and strongest of men, was whimpering in his sleep. Kaede laid her hand on his forehead. "Oh, dear," she remarked.

"What is it Kaede?" asked Kagome. Kaede remained silent for a moment then put her arm around the frantic girl.

"Tell me what's wrong, damn it!" Her tears were no longer gentle streams, but raging torrents pouring down her face, desperate to get away from the pain inside her. Kaede sighed.

"His fever has gotten worse child. I don't know how to make it better. I've given him all the herbs I know to give and have kept him cool. I just can't think of anything else to do except…" The rest of Kaede's sentence was cut off by and ear-splitting roar. It was guttural and inhuman, and it came from the object of their discussion. His breathing sped u with Kagome's until it seemed they were both hyperventilating. Tears glistened down his cheeks and mixed with the sweat.

"…except make him comfortable," she finished quietly. Kagome crawled closer to him and pulled his head from the hard floor to her lap.

"No," she breathed shakily, "he can't go yet." An image of Inuyasha telling Kikyo he'd always protect her flashed through her mind. "He still has promises to keep."

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A/N: Okay, what did you think? I wanted to wait until some reviews cam to post the second chapter, but that didn't quite work out. Oh well. Please review, thanks a bunch.