InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Our Decision ❯ How to Save a Life ( Chapter 16 )

A/N: Wow! How long has it been since I last updated? Yeah… Don't answer that. I know it's been a while. Anyway… I've had a lot of personal dilemmas going on, and now I've got an even bigger one. Oddly enough, it's actually inspired me to write, so that's why I'm able to give you this chapter now. Well, I'll stop rambling now. I know you're all looking forward to the chapter just as much as I am. Let's see what I come up with!

 

Disclaimer: I own many things, but I do not own InuYasha. I wish I could just poke him, though.

 

Recommended listening: How to Save a Life by The Fray.

 

Chapter 16: How to Save a Life

 

InuYasha froze. Kagome was just lying limp in the firm hold of his arms, her breathing hollow and struggled. All he could do was stare. In that moment, his mind was taken in the embrace of pure realization. Images of black and white whirled around him in quick tempo, seeming to shadow brilliantly across his blank face. And he saw it. Glancing back at the woman he was holding so tightly, InuYasha suddenly understood something that had been absent from his mind for the past few months—he had made the mistakes. He…hadn't been acting like he should have. And now, in this situation, he couldn't even comprehend what the “should” was. He could only stare at Kagome's whitened, creamy skin with an unknowing look that seemed to create a distance between them that didn't physically exist.

 

“Kagome?” he questioned frantically, shaking away his vacant expression. He was lost—trapped between knowing and being clueless. Growling deeply at his peaking disability, InuYasha rose quickly to his feet without hesitation, clutching Kagome close to his quaking chest. “Hey!” he called out as his feet brushed against the hardwood floor outside of Kagome's room. He jumped the flight of stairs down to the ground floor.

 

“InuYasha?” Mrs. Higurashi poked her head through the kitchen doorway, her hand resting solidly against the wall. Her face turned fearful as InuYasha approached her with her daughter's cold body in his hold. “What happened?” she asked, moving toward him, her heart in a race with its own ability.

 

“I…” InuYasha didn't know what to say. What had happened? He let his fangs break the flesh of his lips, unable to utter a sound or silence his rattling breath.

 

Mrs. Higurashi took a step back. “You didn't hurt her, did you?”

 

InuYasha wanted so much to plead his innocence and deny the guilt that shrewdly engulfed him. But all he could do was lower his gaze in a fit of unrelenting shame. He had been hurting Kagome since the day they met. Quite readily, actually, with every chance he got. He inhaled sharply, letting his eyes drift shut for only a moment, as if to shield the crimes that were latent behind the streams of woven amber.

 

“Kagome needs help,” he said finally.

 

On the way to the hospital, InuYasha felt as if he had left his own body. Sirens roared in the chilling city air, lights flicking around him like shooting stars of fire. But there he was. He could see himself standing in that contraption of metal and speed, watching helplessly as people crowded over Kagome. Their mouths were moving, but he could hear no sound. His own lips remained stiff. He was a corpse among these people, and he knew it was his own fault. He'd been setting himself up for numbness, everyday making it worst with a snide comment or a glower he could throw toward Kagome.

 

“Sir, we need you to move,” a male voice snapped abruptly.

 

InuYasha's eyes darted up. It was one of the humans who had been hovering around Kagome like a preying vulture. He paused for a moment as he stared at the man in front of him, realizing that the cart thing was no longer moving. InuYasha stood, glancing around for any sign of Kagome. “Where did you take her?” he demanded, his voice forced and slightly strained. He nodded as the man pointed at an open passage at the back of the cart, where Mrs. Higurashi was hurrying alongside a rolling bed that held Kagome in its clutches. Rushing toward it, he lost himself in the shuddering night wind that slapped against his face. There wasn't a part of him that knew what he was feeling. All he knew was that he was running and that he was running to Kagome.

 

“Can you tell me about it?” Mrs. Higurashi asked him hours later as the two of them sat securely in blue-blacked chairs at Kagome's bedside, their eyes wandering aimlessly around the pale, white walls and ceiling of the hospital room. She leaned toward him, hands folded at her knees as she eyed his lost gaze. “I can't help you if I don't know.” She hesitated before continuing. “I know that it's hurting you. As a mother, I can sense these things.”

 

“Do you think she'll be okay?” InuYasha said quickly, ignoring her question, though relieved by her light-hearted tone. He let his head fall back to rest against the wall behind him. “I mean… She's probably more vulnerable now, right?”

 

Mrs. Higurashi sighed. “We can't know anything until the doctors talk to us,” she told him. “But if I know Kagome, she's probably fighting with everything she has. And the baby… The baby has the two most stubborn teenagers I know for parents, so I imagine she's probably fighting with all her might, too.”

 

InuYasha smiled slightly. “You should know,” he began, his peaceful look fading, “I've been… I've been causing her so much pain in ways that I still can't believe I have…” His voice threatened to stop as he prepared himself for what he was about to say. “I hit her… Before we ever decided to do this, I actually struck her. And after she was pregnant, I left her. It just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't do anything like that…”

 

“I know.” She forced back her motherly instinct to lash out at him without remorse and nodded kindly. “I also know that she's done her share of damage to you, “ she said. “Kagome told me today before she went to talk to you. She told me about the pain you were causing one another and how she couldn't stand the fact that she pushed you into this.” She placed her hand over InuYasha's. “I know it's easy to blame yourself for everything, but… You really are both at fault.”

 

InuYasha longed to tell her that she knew nothing of it and that she should mind her own damn business. But for the first time in so long, he was able to let his defensive half wither.

 

“And I shouldn't have even let you two get into this mess in the first place,” Mrs. Higurashi continued suddenly. “So, you see? Everyone has a reason to be guilty.”

 

He huffed, turning his head sharply. “I guess,” he muttered. His eyes landed on Kagome's unmoving form. He let them linger, his heart sinking low into his chest. As he scanned her body, he stopped at her face. Her eyes were wide open. “She's awake,” he whispered more to himself than anyone else.

 

Her voice reached his ears in a way that he never though it would—it was stony and lifeless. “Get out,” she murmured without feeling, catching his shocked expression in a shattering glare.

 

“Kagome,” her mother said gratefully, moving to clasp one of her daughter's clammy hands, “how are you feeling?”

 

“I want him out,” Kagome pressed unwaveringly, her eyes still on the hanyou in flawless contempt. She sat up abruptly, anger flushing her face with its burnt hue. “Get out now!”

 

“What the hell?” InuYasha was on his feet, fettered by rage. “What's your problem?” His claws converged with the skin on his palms as he bit back a growl.

 

“Just go! I hate you! I don't want to see your face again! Go!”

 

He stepped back as doctors began flying past him toward Kagome's now quivering body. But he wasn't there. He could only watch himself leave.

 

(00000000000000000)

 

InuYasha didn't understand it. Stepping languidly through the thick brush of his era, the moon beating lightly against his face, he let out a frustrated groan. What had spurred Kagome on like that? Before she collapsed, she had been at the knees of his forgiveness. What changed? He swept a hanging branch over his head, ducking under it and swearing spitefully to the night air. As his body began to feel heavy in an emotion he couldn't place, he wondered what exactly he'd done to deserve such a predicament. Yes, he'd now hurt Kagome more than he ever intended to… But why did the prophecy have to ask so much from them?

 

He sighed at the memory of Kagome's empty eyes and shrill, abhorring words. His heart had frayed—threatened to tear—the instant she said she hated him. It made his insides twinge in agony. Oh, she had every right to hold herself against him—that, he was sure of. But he had been kind to her lately, though slightly unsure of himself. And even though she had been the one to betray him this time, he did not hold it against her when he could have.

 

InuYasha approached the cave in disgruntlement, catching it in a menacing stare. “Sango!” he called out, not knowing what else to say or who else to ask for. He moved swiftly into the structure, bent of stamping his feet as hard as he could against the gravel. Sango was standing in the back of the crevice, her hands folded limply over her torso as she fixated her gaze on the stone that had captured Miroku.

 

“InuYasha,” she said, “there's something else…”

 

“There's something wrong with Kagome!” InuYasha spouted immediately, balling his hands into fists at each side of his body, his teeth gritted tightly. “One minute she's asking me to forgive her, and then she starts going off on me, saying that she hates me! I didn't do anything this time!” He paced rapidly, grunting.

 

“InuYasha…” Sango began again.

 

He ignored her. “She doesn't even want me around her anymore! This all came out of nowhere! She acts like she has a reason for suddenly wanting me away from her!”

 

“A parasite has entered the flesh of those chosen!” Sango shouted over him, and she waited for his silence. “With their minds tattered, they will not see. They will parish. Let their creation alleviate them with a spoken spell…” She trailed off for a moment. “Or let a poisoned one be a sacrifice. And with his blood, the demon inside of the chosen will decease.”

 

InuYasha shook his head slowly, narrowing his eyes in uncertainty of her words. “What the hell are you going on about?” he insisted.

 

“This isn't just about you two having a baby anymore,” Sango told him. She swatted a hand at the stone callously. “There's something else engraved here—what I just said… I repeated it to myself over and over, and I know what it means…” She nodded. “You're right… There is something wrong with Kagome. It's in both of you. You've got some sort of parasite or virus that disables you from thinking clearly… It will kill you if we can't…do something.”

 

He didn't know what to say at first. He could only try and convince himself that none of this was happening—that it was all a deathly nightmare that he was temporarily trapped in. His mouth hung agape. “What?” he finally asked, stepping forward. “Are you saying that she's acting violent because of this damn stone?”

 

“It's probably why you've been violent, too,” she said softly. “This virus is killing both of you… `Let their creation alleviate them with a spoken spell'… InuYasha, your child has to be the one to fix this…” She held her eyes shut to fight the tears that were peeking out to taste the earth. “But the this `spell' needs to be spoken by the child… That won't happen… Not soon enough…” She began to shake, shooting a glimpse at the ceiling of the cave. “Sacrifice,” she murmured.

 

“So… Either Kagome or me has to die for this thing to go away?”

 

Sango pressed her hands to her face as if to mask her anguish and let them slide slowly to her sides. “I wish it weren't true,” she pleaded to herself quietly. “I know what you're thinking... InuYasha, you can't be the one to go! Neither of you can die! We'll just have to find some other way to change this!”

 

“Damn it, Sango!” InuYasha's face was jeering, as if he were a serpent ready to release its deadly poison. “You don't get to decide what sacrifices I make anymore!” he said hotly. “I'm tired of being expected to make certain choices! I will… I will die if I have to…”

 

(000000000000000)

 

InuYasha left for Kagome's time early the next morning without a word to Sango. He'd spent the rest of the night in the shelter of a nearby tree, curled atop its gnarled branches, unable to keep himself from fidgeting in discomfort. He watched people brush past him as he walked through the hospital hallways, his surroundings blurry and stifled in slow motion. He wanted to do it right then—to die. Kagome would live and complete the first part of the prophecy. Miroku would be free. A chilling wind seemed to blow over him, dancing on his spine as that thought came to his mind. He'd be dead.

 

He stopped to let his vision gape through the window of Kagome's room. It was haunting, lights dim and flickering. He blinked. No, everything was normal. Shaking his head quickly, he let himself take in what was truly before him. Kagome was sitting up, her head turned toward a window that hung on the wall at her side, her arms quaking slightly. He took a deep breath and turned the handle of the door beside him slowly.

 

“Kagome…” he offered tentatively as moved inside, keeping his footing steady.

 

She glared. “What do you want?”

 

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to show her how much he wished he could change everything that had happened—how he longed to go back. InuYasha did nothing. Instead, he simply forced a smile. “I'm not going to stay,” he said. “I'm going to leave.”

 

“Then leave!” Kagome was grimacing wildly, kicking her legs impatiently as she glanced back at him. “What are you waiting here for?”

 

InuYasha swallowed hard and cleared his throat with as much strength as he had in him. He knelt at her bedside, presenting her his hand, sighing in relief when she took it. “When you get out of here,” he told her, “I want you to know that nothing will be your fault. This is me—my choice. It has to be done.”

 

“What are you getting at?” Kagome asked with a softness that was unlike that of this new Kagome. Her face was nervous. “InuYasha…”

 

“I was just coming to say goodbye,” he forced hesitantly, almost forgetting to breathe as a tear strode idly down Kagome's left cheek. “I don't want you to cry or to whine like you always do… I know that you don't want me here, so don't go changing your mind now. I… I want you to be okay, all right?”

 

As she began to pull away in speechlessness, InuYasha brought her closer. His lips drew hers in like the poignant melody of a Siren to a sailor's ears. He let his hands find refuge in her smooth, raven locks, fighting the urge to press her fully against his body. She was like air to him at that moment—an angel that had given him wings. Gradually, he moved back, locking his eyes with hers, resting his hands on her cheeks.

 

“Stay,” Kagome whimpered frantically, moving her palms in circles at his shoulders. “Please?”

 

InuYasha shook his head. “Goodbye, Kagome.”

 

 

A/N: Okay then! Well that was more than fun to write! I hope you all liked it! I'm so sorry for the wait. I sure hope it wasn't too taxing for you. Anyway, things are getting interesting now, as they always do at chapter sixteen. That's my lucky number! Again, I'm sorry for the wait. I have so much going on right now. You would not even believe… Anyway, the update should be soon because I have gotten myself very excited about this story. Reviews are adored! Thank you!