InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Only to be Distracted ❯ Alomst Blinded ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Something was very odd. Inuyasha and Kagome had started a walking patrol shortly after seeing the others off. There was an eerie sensation of hidden action that was trebled by shear anticipation. The clearing around the Bone-Eaters well was silent. The first rays of the newly - risen sun scattered across it where they found a path through the trees. There was none of the usual buzz of insects or swoop of birds. But the sunlight glistened on what could have been the trail of some gigantic slug up the side of the well and over. The stench was incredible.

Kagome swallowed bile and looked at Inuyasha anxiously as he gazed at the obscene trail of slime. "Inuyasha, they are in there aren't they?"

"They can't have gone through. They are not you or me."

"Well they're somebody and there just isn't that much to do at the bottom of that well." Kagome retorted.

Inuyasha satisfied himself with a brief huff of air and intense look that sent Kagome onto a blushing pile of confusion before retreating to the obvious: "We must be wrong. There must be a way through that we don't know about."

"Mama, Souta!" Kagome exclaimed, "What if those monsters did get through?"

"Gods, Kagome! The shit you think of!" Inuyasha folded his arms into his sleeves and shook his head. He looked up to see she had left his side and was in the act of jumping into the well. "Oi, KAGOME!!" He rushed to the side of the well only to be brought up short by an arm about his throat.

"Where could you be going, little brother?" Sesshoumaru breathed into Inuyasha's tufted ear. He squeezed his bicep powerfully enough to choke the hanyou.

"Let go of me you jerk! I need Kagome." Inuyasha gurgled, pawing with not much effect at his brother's arm.

"Hmmn, don't we all?" Sesshoumaru released his grip on his brother's throat only to grab his jaw and lift him free of the ground "This time I'm coming with you."

"Fine!" Inuyasha grasped Sesshoumaru's wrist with both hands and Sesshoumaru relaxed his hold to be drawn by his brother's falling body into the Bone Eater's Well.

They tumbled in an undignified heap on the floor of the well in current time. Inuyasha was up first, leaping upwards with a scrabble of claws to the ancient wooden ledge of the well. "So, where have you taken us, Little Brother?" Sesshoumaru inquired politely.

"Kagome's time, as if it were any of your damn business." Inuyasha snarled and flung the shrine doors open to a world that never existed in Sesshoumarufs wildest dreams.

He saw a broad plaza apparently topping a mount. Lit by not only the light of early dawn but by the reflected orangey-pink glow shining from the upper levels of an exceedingly tall building, even taller than the mount was. He moved forward and a rumbling noise accompanied by a warm, cooked smell struck him. It seemed to be some great city, a non-stop beehive of activity. His attention was caught by the twinkling lights of a vehicle-arching overhead accompanied by the insistent beat of some kind of rapid swan's wings. He gazed up at it and discerned that it was held aloft by the dizzying spin of two thin blades that should have been too weak to hold it in air. An artificially strong breeze stirred his hair.

Suddenly Inuyasha was upon him, jostling him aside as he broke past him back into the well house. "Kagome's not here!" Inuyasha was already leaping toward the well opening when Sesshoumaru caught him.

"Where and when is this place?" He strained to hold Inuyasha up by the front of his suikan as the hanyou swung at him.

"My mate is in trouble and you want to chat all sudden like? Answers when you've helped me!"

"Ohh, mated are you?" Sesshoumaru smirked, "I always knew you'd take her." That got him another clout at the head. "Alright, I'll help you. But you must answer my questions later." He threw Inuyasha down, hard, "Don't try that again you dirty pup. Take me out of here, slowly this time."

For once in his life, Inuyasha did not continue the argument.

The trip through the well seemed to extend itself. Rings of frosty blue light advanced towards them, surrounded them and receded behind them with a ghostly whistle. This was wrong. The chill was wrong; the lights shouldnft have been there, sound had never been part of the brief journey before. The fact she had a companion seemed wrong.

Everything seemed to slow, and a landscape of chill blue mist surrounded the two travelers. There was someone holding Kagome's wrist. Kagome found herself facing a distorted vision of Kikyou. She smelt of death and the smooth skin was broken in many places to show the under construction of mud, bones and sticks. Her stance was canted off to one side and the mouth split as she spoke.

"Do you know why I have power over you?" Kikyou mouthed. Only a cracked whisper came forth.

"Let go of me." Kagome wrenched at the hold on her wrist with far greater strength than she had ever had before, breaking the clutch of dry, brittle fingers.

Kikyou hissed like a snake. "You are now the same age as I was when my life was torn from me. I resent that- and you are in the way."

A glint at Kikyou's throat caught Kagome's attention. "You bitch! You've had a shikon shard all along!"

Kikyou stepped back a few feet and suddenly produced a bow from nowhere. With a smile she drew the old bow with a great sound of creaking wood. There was an even hum of over stretched bowstring as Kikyou's revenant aimed at her reincarnation.

Kagome thought fast. 'She has no right to my life; whatever was good in her is long wiped out. But she thinks I can't learn anything.'

Kagome suddenly dove for Kikyou's ankles while allowing a barrier of her own self-assurance to surround her. The arrow pinged off of the floor and rattled away into the shadows as she contacted in a painful slide into Kikyou's knees. Kikyou went over into a bony, struggling heap.

"You disgusting piece of trash!" Kikyou's voice hissed as the bow was smashed repeatedly against Kagome's bent back.

There was a percussivly explosive sound at the wall through which Kagome had entered. The wall crumbled into dust and Inuyasha was revealed holding the red Tetsusaiga with Sesshoumaru behind him. "Kagome-e!" Inuyasha leaped into the chamber.

Kikyou raised an outspread hand, it glowed an instant and the world disappeared from sight for Inuyasha. There was a blinding flash of light and his vision cleared slowly. Kikyou's face seemed to all he could see. Her eyes held a wild white glint. Her voice was as cold as ice but intense; "You see, I told you, I will allow no one else to have your life. You are joining me in hell."

Inuyasha found within himself a hard core of resistance.

"What of Kagome?"

"What of her? Her misbegotten existence has no place between us. And she knows it. It is possibly ending even as we speak."

"So it's true - what the baby said." The darkness around them shivered. "My involvement with a dead woman has weakened the living one. Weakened her! And my only promise with you is death!"

"Yes! You know that!" Her face burned whitely there in his vision.

"Then it's my fault if she dies. No Kikyou. I cannot leave Kagome alone - not as long as she's alive. I'll never leave her. I heard what you've told her. How she is just a pale copy. But you are wrong. It is you who can only fill up one small corner of Kagome's soul."

Kikyou's face swam away from him as the darkness split with a sudden resumption of sound and pain. Sesshoumaru had struck him on the jaw. Inuyasha worked on retaining his feet as Sesshoumaru strode swiftly across the room to confront Kikyou, who was rising, leaving a still Kagome behind her.

"You do seem to have left the whole miko idea behind in the dust in your idiotic search for vengeance." He spun, swinging the Tenseiga at the ex-miko almost as some kind of experiment.

His amber eyes narrowed as Kikyou only just escaped the tip of the blade by leaping back with a hiss. She glared at him and quickly took the moment to produce a bow, notching an arrow swiftly and drawing it to aim at him. "I cannot loose yet!"

"You cannot win either. You are trying to kill my brother, kill my sister-in-law, and destroy every chance that we ever had for peace. Beyond it all, you are starting to annoy me."

The miko snarled silently. "You have no place in this battle, why should you care what happens to this girl-or Inuyasha? Inuyasha is my business and this fake is in my way-though no longer now since she appears to be dead." She held her aim steady.

He sighed and almost turned away. "Look," he said, " you bore me." He suddenly let loose with his mind whip. A golden flash released across the room they were in and licked her around the arm.

She gritted her teeth to suppress a cry-and her eyes widened as a few pieces of her arm crumbled to the floor. "Chikushou!" She hissed lifting her burning eyes to Sesshoumaru. "I am not- going to loose here-not like this!" She lifted her arms and let the arrow fly.

Sesshoumaru deftly dropped and surged up in front of her again, far too close, his eyes glowing a vivid crimson. "You have overstepped your boundary, Dead Miko..." Within the blink of an eye he drew the Tenseiga and brought it down upon her for the second and final time, giving her no chance for escape.

Kikyou gave a whistling shriek like a teakettle and the artificial body completed the task that it should have finished so long ago; it disintegrated.

A golden ball of light appeared to emerge from the revenant's mouth like a breath, but hovered in the air. Inuyasha gasped; his attention brought to Kagome.

She lay so very still, the great bow broken over her body. He was at her side in an instant, afraid to touch. "Kagome," he breathed, leaning over her. Golden spots seemed to be coalescing in front of his vision. They were rising up in front of him, six, or seven of them, some brighter than others. Inuyasha pulled her into his arms. Was she breathing?

Inuyasha was torn by the wonder of the vision and the need to be sure Kagome was all right. He looked up with a gasp as another golden light joined the others and was gone with the others to infuse the girl in his arms with a glow as incandescent as a bonfire. The glow faded, and she stirred in his arms.

Sesshoumaru sheathed his Tenseiga, as there was a tiny, ringing clatter on the floor. He bent down and picked it up, looking at it with bemused interest.

Kagome's head nudged against Inuyasha's chest; giving him the greatest thrill he had ever felt. Not winning a fight, not physical affection, but rather a chance to continue in a life deeply wanted. All things were possible if he could only have time. No matter how little. "Can you get up?" he asked. "We have to finish this."

They readied themselves quickly and gathered to stride back to where a black spot showed on the wall. They found themselves stumbling in the base of the old well in the feudal era. It was unexpectedly very dark.

Sesshoumaru hissed with frustration. With an impatient flash of his hand they were violently expelled upwards. Inuyasha held Kogome close, shielding her from the worst of the shock as he landed in the clearing of the well.

Naraku awaited them. His appearance shocked even Sesshoumaru. The tousled hair beauty was gone from him, changed beyond all possible recognition. Human he had never truly looked. And each transformation had twisted him until now the designation "he" was seriously up for grabs.

Inuyasha firmed up his stance and readied his sword.

"Do you think you can do it alone hanyou?" A chill voice spoke beside him. Inuyasha turned with a snap. Sesshoumaru was there, just yards away.

A wind appeared out of nowhere, flattening grass and stripping leaves and small twigs from the trees as it passed. A rumbling sound followed making both brothers turn their attention to where Naraku had been forming.

"Well, well, this is a morning of gifts. Here I see both ingredients I need for the perfect youkai body and the final shard to the shikon-no-tama. This family togetherness on your part is touching."

Inuyasha growled as Naraku chuckled and one abominable part made the first strike, causing the brothers to leap to either side. But Naraku with his many pieces, parts, limbs, just smiled wickedly and sent out twenty more, each one harder to dodge than the last. Sesshoumaru growled. "What an inconvenience." A large praying mantis claw came towards him at tremendous speed, but without a thought the elder dog youkai whipped out the Tenseiga and took a wild swipe. Naraku's limbs fizzled and began to fall from him and gain shape of what they originally were on the ground. Naraku hissed and frowned.

"Sesshoumaru! What the hell are you doing?!" Inuyasha called, back flipping from another deadly appendage, taking a great swipe with the Tetsusaiga; "Kaze no Kizu!" He cried causing the flopping limbs that were becoming youkai to vanish.

"I think it should be obvious Little Brother." He answered making another swing at an oncoming limb giving no more explanation then that.

"Whatever it is it will not succeed, I have the complete Shikon no Tama, there is no way you can win." Naraku snarled cpmtempuously.

Kagome stood poised the side of the Bone-Eater's Well. The bow that she had picked up from Kikyou's dusty remains held loosely in her grasp. "Naraku!" She called, "Did you forget? We have an appointment and I am here to keep it!"

Naraku turned his head suddenly, all attention upon her and his eyes opened wide. 'This girl's power, it's greater than it was. What does this mean?'

Kagome drew the bow to its greatest extent and whispered "This time I know you will hit. There is no stopping you." She let lose the arrow and it flew fast and straight into the roiling mass that was Naraku, gathering a white-hot glow as it flew. It struck with a purifying sheet of holy fire that exploded upwards into the air and stayed for several moments, forcing all observers to shield their eyes. This time there were no scattered pieces to fall to earth. Only a nearly perfect crystal sphere which bounced on the ground by Sesshoumaru's booted feet.

A sparkling mote fell from the front of his kosode as he bent and joined the sphere with an odd, ringing, click. He picked it up. "So this is what it's been all about? This shikon-no-tama?" He regarded it in considerable puzzlement while Inuyasha walked across the ground towards him. "I am the unquestioned Lord of the Western Lands. Correct? Little Brother?"

Inuyasha looked at his brother with a massive frown. "You are." He said. "Why question a fact?" The Tetsusaiga was sheathed but his hand was on its hilt. "What are you doing with that?"

"Well, Inuyasha, I, Sesshoumaru, find I have a request to make of you." Sesshoumaru said, lightly tossing the little ball to his brother. "Do something about yourself that doesn't involve challenging me. You will find me supportive and grateful." He turned his eyes briefly to where Kagome stood by the well, listening. Then, turning away he whistled and Ah-Un appeared over the tree line with two passengers on its back. "Farewell, we have a discussion to make in the near future. I will see you."

Then Sesshoumaru was gone. At least for the moment. Kagome watched him fly of wondering what he was up to. She turned her attention back to Inuyasha.

As she did a sudden rich chuckle filled the glade. Inuyasha held the purified shikon-no-tama up in his fingers for an instant, catching the suns rays and scattering multi-colored sparkles on the green grass. A twist of his fingers and it was gone.

He turned and said "Kagome, come here." And stood waiting as she crossed the churned-up earth to him. "Do you think we could be together you and I?" He held her lightly by the elbows.

"I wish that we could -but how?" Her voice cracked miserably on the last word.

He smiled brilliantly and dipped his head catching her lips in a swift hard kiss.

"Just say yes, Baka."

"Y-yes."

He drew her closer and kissed her again, making her dizzy with a sudden rush of sensation that seemed crazily out of joint with their current situation. Here, with all that had happened.

As he stepped back she gasped. For it was an Inuyasha with black hair and a merry smile that greeted her eyes.

He pulled her then into a drugging embrace; making her senses swim as he ran his hands down her back, drawing her firmly to him. This time silver hair glinted in the sunlight and golden glowing eyes gazed down at her when he lifted his head.

"I have decided to give nothing up. Not you, nor any part of myself. I have taken control. I will be human when it is right to be human and youkai when I damned well feel like it."

"An excellent choice Inuyasha-sama. You fulfill the expectations of your departed sire. Indeed I may say..." Flick! A pair of claws twisted him off of his hiding place in Inuyasha's hair and sent him off into space.

"When did he show up?"

"Keh, who cares."

It was Sango who sat up first. She had lain for some time in a stunned condition, sure that the sudden release from pain had been an indication of her immanent death. The beginnings of cramp brought on by her doubled over position caused her to move cautiously into a more comfortable one. She looked sadly over at Miroku, who was laying face down a short distance away, his bare right hand stretched out before him.

"Miroku," she called softly, "Miroku!"

"Does this mean we have at last died together?" He mumbled into the ground.

"Miroku, look at your hand!"

"Huh?" He lifted his head and brought his hand towards his face. He stared for a moment and swiftly rose to his knees, his gore bespattered face incredulous. He looked up; a dawning joy flickered and was dimmed as he caught sight of the still body of Kohaku. "Oh, Sango..."

Kohaku sighed and shifted slightly. He was deeply asleep and slept on oblivious to the sounds of laughter and frantic weeping going on right next to him.

By the time the morning was halfway advanced they had all gathered by Kaede's hut. Kohaku was awake but confused. He remembered little of the past two years and no one seemed in any great hurry to fill him in. He could not help noticing the way Sango held on to the Buddhist Priest though.

Kagome went to Kaede and pulled a little bag from her pocket made of a handkerchief. "Here, Kaede-sama, here is all that remains of Kikyou-sama in this world. It is for her shrine."

Kaede accepted the small packet with a bent head. "Thank-you, I did not hope for this. Now she will rest at home."

Inuyasha watched silently and slid his arm about Kagome. "That's over then, come."