InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Missing Prayers ( Chapter 2 )

~~Chapter 2~~
~Missing Prayers~ 

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InuYasha woke with a start. Instinctively, he lifted his chin and sniffed as his eyes scanned the darkened interior of Kaede's small hut. He wasn't sure what had disturbed him, but something wasn't right. The air felt . . . empty.

"Kagome," he whispered as his gaze fell on the empty pallet where Kagome had slept last night. Shippou was curled next to the pallet with Kirara. InuYasha shook his head as though to assure himself that he was simply overreacting. Maybe she went to bathe or to find something to eat. Then he frowned. No, the atmosphere that surrounded him was weak, pallid. Kagome always left a subtle, rich texture in her wake. In fact, the only times he could recall feeling such a dismal sense of emptiness were the instances when she dropped down the well and had returned to her own time.

With a snort, InuYasha sprang to his feet and stomped out of the hut. 'How dare that stupid girl leave—again—without letting me know?' he fumed, breaking into a sprint as he headed in the direction of the forest—of the Honekui no Ido—the Bone-Eater's Well.  He'd just have to explain to her—again—that she wasn't allowed to do that, wouldn't he?  After all, even with the threat of Naraku gone, there was still a very real danger and would continue to be as long as the Shikon no Tama existed.

'Is that the only reason?'

'Good enough,' he grumbled without breaking his stride.

And speaking of the Sacred Jewel of Four Souls, he needed to talk to her.  There were a few things that he needed to say before they could make any kind of decision as to what, exactly, to do with the Shikon no Tama.  After all, as easy as the idea of purifying the jewel sounded, he had to admit that he was more than a little skeptical about it.  If he'd learned nothing else over the years of his lifetime, he knew that nothing was ever as simple as it might seem.

He stopped abruptly as he reached the edge of the forest, listening for a moment as the morning birds sang, reveling in the freshness that was nearly palpable since the lifting of Naraku's perfidious miasma. A sudden scent assailed him, though, and his hanyou ears twitched, rotating as he listened to the familiar yet entirely unsettling sound.  Turning his head sharply, his brow furrowed, and he glanced around, his mind refusing to believe what he smelled.

"InuYasha."

He blinked quickly, eyes narrowing as he stared in stunned silence. Kikyou walked slowly out of the foliage, heading directly toward him, an odd smile lifting the corners of her lips. She didn't smell like grave soil and clay.  She didn't smell . . . dead . . . "Ki . . . Kikyou?" he whispered, unable to understand what his senses told him to be true. "How . . .?"

Kikyou's smile faded as her head tilted to the side in obvious confusion, herself, as though she didn't really understand how she had been brought back to life, either. "I don't know, InuYasha . . ."

"But your shinigami—

She chuckled, and the sound of it was warm, light. "They were taking me to the other world," she began slowly, almost haltingly, "then suddenly, they put me down and dissolved in a flash of white light. I was left standing there, watching as the souls they'd collected to sustain me disburse."

InuYasha shook his head, hardly daring to believe what his nose told him, still unsure just what he was supposed to believe. "You . . . You're . . . alive?"

Kikyou nodded, a brilliant smile breaking over her features. "Yes.  You and I . . ." Her eyes brightened as she stared at InuYasha. She looked as though she was about to ask him something, but the smile that had been so brilliant only moments before slowly dimmed, faded, replaced by a frown as her gaze lingered on his face, only to drop to his haori. "The kotodama?"

His head dropped at her question, and he put his hands up, feeling around for the dark blue bead and fang necklace that had become a permanent part of his wardrobe the day he'd met Kagome. It was gone? And why did that odd sense that something was very, very wrong escalate at lightning speed at the realization? He reigned in the urge to bolt back to Kaede's hut to turn it over, if need be, to find the missing prayer beads, if only to reassure himself that everything was fine. "Kagome," he murmured, shaking his head, a confused little scowl growing darker by the moment.

Kikyou looked sad just for a moment. The expression dissolved as quickly as it appeared, though, and her voice was strong when she spoke.  "Where is she?" she finally asked.

InuYasha snorted, unwilling to give voice to the feeling of dread that kept boiling higher and higher within him. "Keh! As if I have any idea. Stupid bitch, anyway. I think she jumped into that damn well again, and she didn't even say when she'd be back."

Kikyou raised an eyebrow artfully even as a small smile filtered over her features again. She fell into step next to InuYasha as he continued on his trek to the well. "Honestly, InuYasha . . . does she really appreciate being called that foul name?"

He stopped short, as though the idea that Kagome didn't like being called a bitch hadn't crossed his mind. "What am I supposed to call her? I'm a dog hanyou, remember?"

Dark brown eyes darted around the open field surrounding the Honekui no Ido. Satisfied that there were no threats in the vicinity, Kikyou turned her attention back to the hanyou. "Her name would be nice. Or 'girl', even, but that? InuYasha—"

Cutting her off with a low growl as they neared the edge of the well, InuYasha frowned in disbelief.  It was wrong, very wrong: the change in the air, the shifting of the aura surrounding the Bone-Eater's Well . . . A quick inspection raised more questions, and InuYasha shook his head. He didn't understand. 'Why is the well filled with water?'

"That's not right," he said slowly, stepping closer to the well. "What the hell . . .?"

Kikyou frowned, too. A look of slow understanding dawned on her face, and she shook her head, as though she refused to believe what she knew in her heart. "She did it," Kikyou said quietly. "She purified the jewel."

InuYasha shook his head, defying Kikyou's assessment, refusing to believe what the miko had claimed.  "No fucking way!  She wouldn't have.  That would mean . . ." He couldn't even finish his statement. If that were true . . . If Kagome really had done that . . . "K . . . Kagome."

He didn't see the pained look that flickered to life on Kikyou's face. He didn't see the momentary sadness, so vast, so unyielding, that the miko managed to mask before he discerned it.  He was too busy staring down into the sparkling water that had filled the dry well . . . too busy seeing another woman's deep brown eyes that sparkled just the same whenever she smiled, whenever she laughed . . .

"She did it," Kikyou stated once more, her voice barely above a whisper.  "She's the reason I've returned.  She . . . that's how she purified the jewel . . ."

InuYasha's golden eyes shot up to meet Kikyou's as a nameless dread—a slow fear—rose to suffocate him. Eyes glowing savagely, an intense shade of golden yellow. "No," he said quietly, his voice hostile, livid as his eyes crackled gold, twisting on itself, writhing, breathing, glimmering. "She wouldn't have!  Why would she do something that fucking stupid?  What the—?"

Kikyou's defiant glare cut him off.  Her anger rose and spiked, but there was something else underneath it all, something sad and something broken. "Wouldn't she, InuYasha?" she challenged.  The air seemed to crackle around the miko as though it was listening to her, obeying her.  "She would, wouldn't she, if she thought that it was what you wanted. Was it? Did you tell her you wished for my return?"

"Uh . . ." He sighed and let his gaze fall away.  Regret, sure—a lifetime of those as far as Kikyou was concerned—regret for those things that just weren't ever meant to be.  "No," he finally admitted. "I didn't . . . didn't tell her that."

Kikyou swallowed hard as tears gathered in her eyes. He could smell them, and as much as he hated it, he couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear.  "Tell me, InuYasha . . . You chose her long ago, didn't you?"

"Kikyou, I . . ." InuYasha trailed off, having the grace to flush, but he couldn't meet Kikyou's gaze.

Kikyou forced a small smile. "It's better this way," she allowed slowly, almost circumspectly.  "She's changed you—taught you that it's all right to depend on someone else."

InuYasha swung around, clenching his hands in tight fists. A million flashes of Kagome's smile dug at him, tore at him . . . Her laughter . . . and her tears . . . 'Why did she do this? What was she thinking?' His tone was surprisingly hushed when he spoke. If he raised his voice, the images of Kagome would shatter and be lost to him, wouldn't they? "I can't . . . I can't get to her . . ." Ears flattening as he slowly shook his head, he winced, bearing his fangs in an exaggerated show of the pain he just couldn't hide. "What can I do?"

Kikyou didn't answer right away.  As though she needed a moment to gather her thoughts, she reached out, her fingertips setting off ripples in the water that grew and intersected, fanning out, then faded into nothing once more.  "Be truthful with me, InuYasha . . ." she began quietly, carefully, her gaze downcast, focusing on the still water in the once-dry well.  "When you met her . . . I never had any hope of winning back your affections, did I?" she asked quietly.

InuYasha flinched. The question was so softly uttered, so completely unlike her . . . Kikyou was strong, brave. She never showed vulnerability. Yet now she had, and he . . . he wished that he could lie. He wished he could tell her what she wanted to hear. 'Kagome's smile . . .' He shook his head, understanding instinctively that this time—this time—hiding behind a mask of bravado wasn't going to do him any good. "I'm sorry," he said instead as he wheeled around, unable to face the well any longer. "I didn't want . . . I tried not . . . I'm . . . I'm sorry, Kikyou."

Kikyou forced another smile though her tears escaped despite her efforts to the contrary, trailing down her cheeks as she quickly shook her head. "Don't be sorry, InuYasha. I never have been."

Suddenly, InuYasha's temper snapped, and he flopped down, punching his fist into the ground so hard that the earth shook, and even the wood of the well creaked and groaned. "How could she do something so damn stupid?" he roared, his voice thick with rage . . . Or at least he told himself that it had to be fury, this emotion that blocked his throat and made it hard to speak. "Stupid fucking bitch!  She—" He gulped and shook his head before going on. "She said she wanted to stay with me . . . She said she'd never leave me alone . . . She . . . She promised . . ."

Dropping to her knees beside him, Kikyou tugged on InuYasha's shoulders. He resisted for just a moment then let her pull him into her embrace. Her action was meant to comfort him. It made him feel even more alone as the first jarring sobs escaped him, raged through him.

She shushed him, rocked him, smoothed his hair as though he were a child. Vague memories of his mother doing the same thing filtered through his mind, but faded as visions of Kagome's smile replaced them and forced more jagged tears from his soul.

'How could she have thought . . .?  Why would she have wished Kikyou back to life?  Why in hell would she have believed . . .?'

It seemed like forever before InuYasha stopped sobbing. The discordant sound of his grief colored the air and rattled the serenity of the meadow. Finally he pulled away and swiped the lingering tears off his cheeks, his expression disgusted, hostile. The questions had no answers.  The one with the answers . . . She'd left him, and she'd sealed him here without a hope in hell of getting to her.

Kikyou sighed, more of an exhalation than a sound.  She was sitting in the grass, her eyes full of the kind of appreciation that InuYasha understood.  She hadn't thought that she'd ever get a chance to see this world through the eyes of a mortal again, had she?  Suddenly she shook her head, turned her face to look at him, and the smile that surfaced on her features was tender, brilliant—the smile that had compelled him to follow  her around all those years ago . . . "It's all right, InuYasha. You can weep for someone you love."

"Keh!" he snorted, forcing himself to look away from Kikyou's gaze.  He reached up to touch the necklace that was no longer there.  Much to his undisguised irritation, though, another wash of tears sprang to his amber eyes. Kikyou started to reach for him but pulled her hand away.  The comfort that he needed . . . It wouldn't come from Kikyou . . .

"There might be a way," Kikyou said softly. InuYasha's eyes flashed to meet hers, the intensity of his expression daring her to lie.  A moment of hesitation drew a frown from her, but it disappeared a moment later, replaced by a grim sense of determination that InuYasha couldn't comprehend.  "Think on it well, InuYasha.  Once you pass through, you cannot return.  I'm not powerful enough to keep it open."

InuYasha didn't fully understand what Kikyou meant. He understood that she was telling him that she could open the well for him to go to Kagome. But to never come back . . .?

But even as he questioned himself, even as he wondered if he could really stand to do it, he knew, didn't he?  Deep in his  heart, he knew.  He had friends here, yes, people he protected because they accepted him, but Kagome . . . It only took him a second to decide. His life here had been nothing but pain and harsh realities.  The friends he'd made here . . . But if it weren't for her . . . She had given him those friends, hadn't she?  She'd given him hope, and now . . . Grimacing as a fierce wave of determination shot through him, he dug his claws into the earth.  Kagome was on the other side of that well, and Kagome had somehow become his family. Was there ever even a question?

"You . . . You can open it?" he asked quietly.

She didn't seem at all surprised by his question, and she didn't seem at all surprised that he'd want to go to Kagome, either.  "I can for you, but . . . Do you not wish to say goodbye to your friends?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Kikyou that he just wanted to go.  The memory of the emptiness he'd felt when he'd woken up, only to find Kagome had gone, however, tempered his impatience, and while he was anxious to follow her, he owed his friends that much, didn't he?  After the months and months of traveling together, how would they feel if he disappeared, too?  "Y-Yeah," he muttered, standing up, squaring his shoulders, and started to head back.  Suddenly he stopped and whirled around to face Kikyou once more.  "What about you?"

A flash of sadness washed over her features but was replaced by an enigmatic smile.  "Don't worry about me, InuYasha.  She . . ." her eyes dropped to her lap, and she didn't look up again.  "She loves you more than she loves herself, and I . . . I will go on.  All will be the way it was meant to be."

InuYasha digested her words and offered her a comforting squeeze on the shoulder, deliberately ignoring the strange undercurrent that emphasized her words. Then he bounded away and disappeared back into the forest.

The melancholy was being fast nudged aside with a purpose, and as it did, an unerring level of anger rose, too. 'Thought you'd escape me, did you, wench?' he fumed as he vaulted through the trees, his emotions lending him an extra strength, a haste that pushed him faster.  Had she really believed that he'd let her disappear from his life without as much as a second thought?

Anger welled up inside him again. 'Damn that woman! Why does she always do this? Just when I thought that it was all over, that there would finally be a chance for me to . . . and she has to run off and fuck everything up. Well, I'll show her!'

"Just you wait, Kagome!" he muttered as he zipped toward the village. "I'll beat you black and blue, I swear . . . Or—" 

'Or you could kiss her,' his mind chortled. He snorted at his own thoughts as he pushed off the ground to soar above the trees again. "Keh!"

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A/N: 

Honekui no Ido: the Bone-Eater's Well.
Shinigami: Death deities.
Haori: InuYasha's fire rat shirt. 

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Purity): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

~Sue~