InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Risaishi ❯ Inuyasha ( Chapter 2 )

 

Disclaimer: This author owns not the Inu-tachi characters, however in the path of world's conquest, she will come to own them. For now they belong to Takahashi Rumiko.

 

 

Risaishi

 

Chapter2-Inuyasha

 

(The lost love story and the kotodama no nenju)

 

 

There was a time in this world that my only concern was to prove to my ani-ue that I wasn't worthless.

There was a time before that I only desired to run away from those who despised me and my mixed blood, and later and desired to be able to defeat them.

There was a time when I was just Inuyasha and my worriesall regarded myself.

That was a long time ago.

Now, I thought while I looked far in the horizon, I had promises to keep to someone.

 

Kikyou…

 

Kikyou should be here by now… didn't she promise we'd use the jewel today? She did… she promised me…

Then a thought occurredme and fear installed from my stomach to my whole body.

Had she changed her mind?

We were in love, she couldn't change her mind. I was going to let go all for Kikyou…

Although I was hanyou, my human side offered me nothing but weakness…

But my youkai side, that was all I ever had wanted, to be youkai, like ani-ue… like my chichi, I had - although I was the bastard child - a place in the Inu youkai clan as a prince and although neither Seshomarou - the new white lord, the Inu-no-Taisho, the Tai Youkai -neither I, wanted me to take it, I still had it. My strength, my claws, my developed senses… this all came from my youkai side.

Although I loved haha-ue, because she loved me , and always stood by me, the youkai part of chichi that I never really saw was the one who gave me the strength to protect myself…

I was giving that up to become human and live with Kikyou… to marry her.

Because she… she had accepted me.

I met Kikyou not a very long time ago. Maybe one year or so, maybe less. At least all I wanted was the shikon no tama, and she was the miko who guarded it.

I was the hanyou, the sully hanyou who was going to rob her.

But she always knew I was there in the trees looking at her, mesmerized by her infinite beauty, her rouge lips remembered me of haha-ue…

She always wore the miko clothes, and she had a younger sister, Kaede.

I didn't knew I had fallen inlove with her until one day she asked me to descend the tree and very gently asked me why did I want the shikon no tama.

I told her the truth with a “keh!” and turned my face. She sighed and said “I see”.

She then pointed her Hama no ya at me her yumi as tall as she was and pinned me to the three by the sleeves of me fire rat red coat.

That was all it all started.

From there on, we started to eat together, in her humble house. But what could I say about houses? I had lived in haha-ue's fallen noble family's house, but all too soon I forgot about how it was. I never entered chichi's house. That is where Sesshoumaru lives…the bastard.

Soon we had built dreams. We wanted to be together.

When she told me that, it was the first time, since haha-ue's death I felt love again.

I kissed her tenderly, softly, and she sighed against my lips.

And although no one in the Areaknew she was with me, an she did tried to hide me… and although it hurt me, I couldn't say I wouldn't change for her…

 

Kikyou… I loved you...

 

Kikyou was the first woman I lovedin that way . I felt almost an unbearable need to be near her, and to hold her, although I could only do that when she demonstrated to be in the mood to cuddle.

The upper hand was kikyou's… and I didn't care. For all that mattered she could have fastened me a leash and walked me around, I wouldn't have cared, I would have gone willingly.

I leaped into the ground…where was she anyway? She was ultra late…

This was our final decision.

In order to ease our lifes, in order to release ourselves of the state of the hanyou prince and the keeper miko… we'd use the jewel for me to become a human,and thenthe jewel would be purified and would disappear.And Kikyou and Icould be happy together, as normal people.

She asked me and I accepted in a whim. There was nothing to consider, we loved each other, and we wanted to be together. If to be together, I had to deny my father's blood then so be it.

Around that time, some weeks ago, it was when she found Onigumo.

He was a thief, and along with a couple of others, he's burnt an Areadown, but they got caught up in the burning flames, and they all died along with the Area's people.

Except Onigumo.

A ningen from Kikyou's Areafound him in the debris with churned flesh barely clinging to his bones, so he'd brought him to Kikyou, for her to heal him, not knowing he was one of the creeps that had provoked that tragedy.

Kikyou, took care of him, while I was out, visiting haha-ue's grave. When I arrived I felt something was wrong, but she assure me that all was fine, Onigumo was sleeping in her room while she slept with Kaede in the other Room.

So yes although I knew he was no good, and he even told Kikyou the story and said he repent all his sins and Kikyou told me, I was reassure for a while.

Sleeping in the trees, like I had forever since Isaw haha-ue dying in a futon…

As always I left my thought escape to Kikyou.

HowI longed for her… I loved her so much it hurt.

Before her there had been ningen with youkai fantasies with me. It wasn't like I hadn't urges and of course that Isatiated them with them, that so willingly had come to me. But Kikyou…Kikyou was special and if even for a kissit was so difficult to have it, I imagined that to that stage it would take a long time. But I didn't care because I thought we'd have all the time in the world.

It was sometime later that I noticed the way Onigumo looked at Kikyou the yearning in his eyes, when he stirred and woke up, and looked at me and Kaede, who almost always accompanied her to feed him, he'd hate us. He'd hate us with his single eye.

Covered in gauze from head to toe due to the sickening burning flesh that emanated such a foul smell.

But not Kikyou… to Kikyou he looked with longing… passion.

It didn't take long for me to get jealous of him.

But Kikyou almost mocked me, after all he was immobile, and he'd not stay long in this world. So when she started to light some incense (that she well knew my nose couldn't stand) and told me that he was going to die, I went off for a few days, chasing the lost paradise where I had buried haha-ue.

When I come back, Kikyou didn't talk about Onigumo and she received me at the door.

I could feel some strange presence inside the house but I didn't touchitto her, she'd be offended if I stated something that she obviously had noticed too. After all she was the most powerful miko that had ever existed till that day…

She smiled at me and sent me tothe clearingshe said she'd be there in no time, she'd take the jewel and we'd make our wish.

We would see our dream come truth.

We'd be together at last…

So here I was, waiting for her, I leapedfrom one of the trees surrounding the clearinginto the ground and started pacing. She was late… she was late…

But I couldn't help to be happy and smile… thiswas it…

I'd be loved till the rest of my mortal days, although they seemed very few to me, with Kikyou, they'd be enough…

I was so deeply in love with her, her kind smile, her brown beautiful eyes, her pale white skin, her rouge lips and long hair…

She was beautiful and she was going to be …

 

“INUYASHA!”

 

In a blink I turned around in my military combat boots that so many winters had helped me not to freeze my feet to the point where they had to be chopped off. It wasn't that I liked shoes, in fact I hated them,but I had to admit that they'd been a extremely good help.

Kikyou paced herself right in frontof me, her face twisted in mockery, her yumi proud and tall in front of her, her ya pointed at me.

 

“Ki- Kikyou…?” That moment I felt my hackles rise, mytemperament flashing to the sky… what was she doing? Why was she doing this…? Wasn'tshe in love with me? Was that the reason she only kissed me when she wanted, was that the reason she had the upper hand in our relationship? Didn't she want a life together?

Her smile widened, it was a grin of hate of scorn.

I felt my anger rise again. She tried to fire the first arrow and incredibly she failed.

That was weird… why had she failed? Kikyou never failed her target…Two more ya were shot at me until I made my decision.

It was pretty obvious Kikyou had deceived me, she didn't love me, she didn't want the same thing as I… she didn't even want to take my sacrifice of offering her my youkai side…she hated me… she mocked me and my love for her…

And has a hand constricted against my heart squeezing it not so gently, and tear prickled my eyes, I ran to the Shinto shrine intending on grabbing the jewel and as I first wanted … become full youkai…Avenge my stupidity…

 

Why Kikyou? Why did you betray me?

 

But the climax had yet to come.

While I reached the shrine grounds, and turned off the screams of terrified persons around me.

 

“Youkai! A Youkai!”

They screamed in panic

 

-Not yet- I thought with a scowl and entered the small building. The incense and the pure air that reeked of the Hama no Ya that had just now been shot at me burned my eyes while I entered the small building. I reached the jewel that dangled from a necklace made of sakura blossoms and grinned evilly…

It was mine now…

I would be Tai youkai… I would defeat Sesshoumaru; I would be as strong as chichi-ue… I would forget all about Kikyou.

I ran away from there, away and away until I reached Goshinboku.

And the same thing she had just screamed filled my ears.

My name.

 

“INUYASHA!!”

 

But this time she didn't missed her target. She looked tired… I noticed. Maybe she had tried to run from the forest here? Yeah maybe. Her yumi trembled in her hands and she looked in anger, more than before, as if she had realized something that truly angered her thatbroke her heart.

I couldn't but to askin a whisper full of anguish and thick saliva in the back of my throatas the jewel slipped from my fingers.

 

Why? Why did you betray me?

 

That was my last coherent thought when I looked to my chest and saw the purifying arrow stick deep into my chest her miko powers, I knew, would put me forever into sleep. Oddly it didn't hurt as much as I thought… it didn't hurt as much as betrayal…

 

 

 

A scent assaulted my nose.

Actually it wasn't one scent … There was a lot of them…the scent of the forest… of the Area I so well knew…the scent of ningen and gunpowder… were they fighting? Then a scent of Mukade youkai crushed over me and I tried to hear what I knew she was say… but all I heard was a wretched high pitched wail and I didn't understand why until the scent of burned youkai flesh hit my nose and I smelled… the purifying powers that had just sealed me…

Kikyou…

Kikyou had sealed me… why was I awaking …?

I was awake yes but I absolutely couldn't move…

I felt the shikon no tama and when I opened my eyes, although it took a while to see properly, when I looked to the ground there it was the pinkish white orb covered in blood… blood?

I scented the air again, and it hit me forcefully. Blood yes, from a woman…

Rage blinded me, as I saw that woman come crashing to my feel, bloody beaten…

There were gashes along her body, her entire side covered in blood… she was using strange colors and strange attire for her…

For what I scented was the scent that I had once loved.., and now… now I was decided to hate…But her hair was shorter and she seemed smaller.

 

I can smell it… the scent of the women who sealed me!

 

Kikyou…

 

A baba screamed from a far for her to withdraw from there, from near me…but she couldn't move I think… The Mukade Jurou was struggling with an arrow that had struck her in her chest.

She lifted her head and I cringed at her wounds, her bottom lip was broken and in her temple there was a deep gouge pouring blood to her cheek.

But I couldn't allow myself to be concerned with her… right? She had sealed me after she said she loved me… she was treacherous bitch, she deserve to die… for making me believe I was worthy of something and then crush that hope.

So I smiled in mock like she had done and ask her after holding back the snarl and growl I hadn't even realized I was offering her.

 

“What's with that face Kikyou? What's wrong? Can't you beat a wimpy Mukade youkai?”

 

She looked at me strangely, even cocked her head and opened her mouth slightly, as if she hadn't the slightest idea of what I was talking about… why was she doing this? She knew what she had done right?? She knew…

 

“Kikyou…? I'm not Kikyou…”

 

She looked very irritated and that wasn't a look I was used to see on kikyou's face, the vulgar irritation, of life. She never wore such a mask… but she was wearing it now… what about it…? She was here and I had to get her, to revenge…

I tried to release myself but I couldn't move at all, the roots of Goshinboku had hold one to me… hugged me close as if pleading with me to stay, but I didn't want to stay. I anted to shred her to pieces, I wanted to avenge me, I wanted to make her pay for breaking me.

Suddenly though, my thoughts were cut by the shriek of joy from the Mukade jurou. She advanced had been able of stretching her neck and rip of the Hama no ya - which the power couldn't compare to kikyou's that would have killed it in a blink - and advancing quickly to the ground where the shikon-no tama was.

 

“Kikyou do something!”

 

I raged against the girl in front of me, again she looked at me unnerved, irritated, and confused. She took her hand to her side and I couldn't help but blink when I saw that her camisole was ripper from the hem to the collar bone and her bra was at sight…but her side… it was still pouring blood and as much as I didn't want to be concerned I couldn't help it.

But before I could do or say something the Mukade mononoke swallowed the jewel.

Her features became more animalistic and her torso skin darkened… I suppressed a grown, her burned limps, her six arms grew back, larger I imagined, huge seriously clawed and dangerous, and red striped grew in her cheeks reaching the corners of her mouth that stretched so that her now huge fangs could fit inside it.

Her hair swiveled around her, hand her eyes turned to bright scarlet, a single black iris in the three of them counting with the strange third eye.

Through the whole transformation she let out agonized shrieks and twisted in the air. The end of her disgusting tail spinning, tossing around ningen and breaking tree trunks.

But when it ended, Centipede Jurou let out a cry of a victory and came for Kikyou… and for me.

She wrapped her tail around Goshinboku and, Kikyou crushed against me. The scent of blood clogged my senses.

 

“Why haven't you killed it yet Kikyou?”

 

“I already told you I am not Kikyou! Uhh”

 

She answered me with a faint voice and yet it was determinate, coughed some blood aside and tears clogged her eyes. Looking back to the ningen she let those tears stop.

 

“She's going to hurt them…I have to help them”

 

She miserably cried, and that was why she had grunted…This wasn't nothing like Kikyou though… why was she crying over her ningens instead of had already killed the stupid thing with a Hama no ya, a shot, her hands… anything… but not cry… never cry.

 

“Why are crying bitch? Just finished him already just like you did me…!”

 

I screamed to her, fuck now that I had woken up, I'd die here? No way, I wanted the shikon-no tama and I'd have it. I'd be the Tai youkai I'd always had dreamt of being…

Why was Kikyou crying?

Then she hold her head high one more time, leaning her chin against my chest and her voice was rasp and more angry than ever, but somehow… it didn't seem Kikyou now that I looked really well to her…

Something was awfully wrong…

She looked much younger, her eyes were from a different hue of brown that kikyou's peaceful one's, she held a deep passion a strength so raw I didn't ever think I saw…even bloody and broken like she was she screamed at me again.

 

“I TOLD YOU I'M NOT THIS KIKYOU PERSON! MY NAME IS KAGOME… KA-GO-ME!”

 

No, she truly wasn't Kikyou… then why did she look so much like her? Why were their scents…?

I drowned my nose in her hair and breathe in. No she didn't smell like Kikyou… it was somehow like kikyou's scent and at the same time it was so different it made me take my nose out of her wavy onyx tresses… kikyou's hair was straight and longer…. Who was this bitch then? And why could I feel from her the same amount of spiritual powers - if not more I realized with an inwardly gasp- than Kikyou? She wasn't Kikyou… okay…but maybe… maybe she could set me free… maybe she could pull this damned arrow out.

As the tail of the sadistic Mukade youkai began to tighten around Goshinboku, and around us, I gasped as she began to quake, to shudder in fear. She truly wasn't Kikyou… showing her fear? Kikyou wouldn't ever do that.

 

“Listen girl.”

 

She looked at me with half-lidded eyes but her lips were pursed together in a non happy way.

 

“Can you pull out this arrow?”

 

She looked at me with a strange face as if she was pondering and longing at the same time, I didn't understood, nor did I have to. She just had to pull the arrow out and I'd be free, I'd crash this stupid lower youkai and the shikon no tama would be mine… at last…My greed yelled to me that I had to reach it now and for that I needed this girl.

 

“Kagome, no! You must not do it!!”

 

A voice that I didn't know and a scent that I was vaguely aware that I should know, appeared and I notices it was that baba. What did she want anyway? What did she know? How long had I been into this tree? For how long had I remained seized in Shinto magic, forgotten to the world to the people... who would care anyway. Mother was dead, and father was too. Kikyou had betrayed me… and Seshomarou wouldn't give a crap. In fact he'd much prefer if she had killed me.

So who was that baba that was shouting to the kid crushed to me, 16 maybe 17 years old, who was she that I knew her scent but didn'0t knew her face, why couldn't I remember who she was? Why?

 

“Shut the fuck up!”

 

I rasped to the baba. And then disguising my anger, I spoke in a monotone.

 

“Bitch, take this fucking arrow from my chest and I'll get us both out of here. If not you'll die.”

 

I hear her sharp intake of breath and I knew I had won. She was terrified I head her whisper

 

I don't want to die here…

 

Jealousy crossed my mind for a second because she had somewhere to go and I didn't all I had, was this forest… this trees…

 

“Hurry up wench! Or you'll get eaten!”

 

I tried to taunt her… to fill her little head with dreadful images of pools of blood and piles of loins, but the answer she gave me, stunned me, I always flinched with her much stronger tone.

 

“You have a big mouth, but are you good at fighting? Can you save them?”

 

“Keh I'll save no one but me, and kill that Mukade jurou.”

 

The tail of the latter, tensed again and its hold become unbearable tightened, the little girl tensed and gasped … then she pondered for no more than a second a looked at my eyes.. this was weird, she had to had noticed I was no ordinary ningen… she should be aware that I was hanyou… - After all she was a miko too - more than disgusted she should be terrified! And yet she wasn't… I could see she was relying on me… actually relying on me… and all she wanted was to be able to save the ningen of this Area?

Why would she do that?

Couldn't she tell she was loosing too much blood? Her face was growing paler and paler by the minute. Still he looked me in the eyes and nodded.

 

“That's good enough”

 

And she extended her hand to the wood shaft in my chest… When she touched it, I wailed in pain, all the dormant magic pinched my body and she closed her eyes in concentration, the last word I heard her say before the bright light of the shredded ya engulfed us was…

 

“Onegai, Kami-sama…”

 

Was this girl that naïve? How could it be that all she wanted was to save this ningen? She didn't even smell from here, she wore strange clothes; she was obviously a gaijin… why was she doing this for them then…?

 

When the weapon completely left my body, the bright light left us dispersing in the air, and I could feel the strength coming back to my limbs, I crackled my knuckles and revealed in the sensation of power that coursed though my veins.

I howled in satisfaction and with a single blow, holding the girl to me I shredded Mukade jurou's tail.

 

“SANKOTESSOU!”

 

That high pitched piercing wail came to my ears again as I leaped from the Goshinboku roots that had hugged my body and landed in a fat chuck of tail. But Centipede Jurou wasn't dead… oh no, she squirmed in the ground but the chunk under my boots flew to her as the others and the slime in it quickly cling it back together. She drew out a nasty laugh and faced me.

Behind me the girl eyes us intently, was she making sure I got read of this nuisance?

Keh! Like a cared!

 

“I heard there was a hanyou brat Inuyasha that was after the jewel, are you this Inuyasha person?”

 

I smirked a bit, so she had heard about me had she?

 

“None of your business Mukade! Fight me!”

 

She laughed again, her tone guttural.

 

And shrugged her upper shoulders, her arms drawing to the side in nonchalance.

 

“you're just a hanyou, what can you do? I'm a full youkai, and… I possessed what you wanted fifty years ago…”

 

Fifty whole years ago huh? My anger flooded my throat and my brain.

For fifty years I had been bound to this tree, forgot and betrayed for fifty fucking years?

When that Kikyou bitch was all happy running around in her dream of being a normal woman, with some other guy?

A growled issued in, my throat.

 

“Treacherous bitch!” I whimpered to myself only, but the girl behind me, looked at me with a funny look. Had she heard me?

 

“Keh! Don't underestimate me centipede Jurou! I'm not like the others!”

 

She laughed again, scorn her powerful voice and finally my anger clogged me entirely. Tainting me in a animalistic Growl that came from the depths of my soul.

Advancing over her she opened her huge mouth and tried to catch me but it was too late, my claws were already bloodied from been carving them in the palm of my hand

 

“Sayonara Mukade-baba!”

 

I answered with vicious grin as in leap I landed with brut strength in her tail, meters ahead, my booths entering her body splitting it and creating a hole in it, blood clung to my leather shoes and, without letting her talk or wail I screamed

 

“HIJINTESSOU”

 

That scream, the scream of death, that rejoiced in its new found body, the one of the Mukade centipede, brushed every leaf in the meadow and all the birds and wildlife- I heard and saw- left that space in a whim. And the body of the fallen Mukade mononoke lay limp in the ground.

The girl behind me gasped at the body of the Mukade mononoke and I couldn't help but to star at those people who held her machine guns close to them but weren't aiming them at me… that was weird… why weren't they?

That old baba that had screamed for the girl behind me not to free me , gazed at me in wonder and pain at the same time… her clothes… she wore the suikan and the hakama of a miko…

 

Kikyou…

 

I was almost sure I knew her and her scent but I still couldn't discern who was it… she was someone I had known in the past in this same Area…

 

Who are you?

 

 

I wanted to ask, but then I remembered something much more important…

The shikon no tama… I had to get them before those persons…

But when I turned around I lost a kid who had just now arrived giving something to the baba and he hide it under her suikan..

Near the cut and bloody body of centipede jurou, that had hunks of flesh cut all around her, stood that girl in a torn camisole with a strange collar, her skirt was of a pure purple the color of the sunset, of twilight… it wasn't a much used color though. Why was she wearing them?

She bent her knees and kneaded at the naked upper body of the deceased youkai. I saw her cringe in pain one of her hands resting at her side, where from breast to hips she had blood smeared all over. Her other hand came forward and I understood what she was doing…

 

Think you can have the shikon no tama uhbitch?

 

Fat chance, the jewel was mine; I was the one who had a purpose to it… not her, no some weakling ningen.

 

“Bitch, take you fucking hands from that flesh. I hunted it! It's my game!”

 

“Well baka…”

 

She replied - and that for itself amazed me not to talk about what she called me… - and continued not facing me until her hand closed around something. I didn't even had to think twice about what it was, because she actually opened her palm and furrowed her thin eyebrows at the sphere.

 

“The youkai is all yours…”

 

She answered in a dulled tone that I realized was controlling her voice due to the lack of strength in her… I smirked this was the perfect time to give her a blow and run with the shikon no tama…

 

“Woman…”

 

She had begun to approach the Area people and consequently me. The orb clasped tightly in her fingers.

Ningen no baka… she thought she could protect it from me? I almost laugh at the thought of that girl, younger than me, much younger, taking something or protecting something from me.

She was tiny…

 

“Don't be stupid and give me that.”

 

A growl trembling in my lips, my fangs bared to her… she stepped back… Fear in her eyes and in her scent… That's right, this was how she should have reacted at me in the first time…a cruel glint in my eyes and she drew one more step back and shook her head vehemently.

 

No?

 

She was denying me the jewel after I just slaughtered that lower youkai to have it? I growled laughter and crackled my knuckles just in front of my chest, she flinched and I smirked again.

This girl was a paradox. She was afraid and yet she didn't do what was correct to her… what would perhaps spare her life…

She looked around her bloody face set in a scowl and she took a sharp intake of breath I heard that word again and that surprised me for a bit.

 

“Onegai…Onegai…”

 

What was she asking please? Why? Then I noticed the tension in her legs and understood, again her courage and foolishness shocked me… she was getting ready to run? Hadn't she seen that I was much faster than any ningen? Was she insane?

And just like that she began to run.

I let out for the first time, in what had been fifty years, a howl of laughter and leaped into the trees chasing her.

Long gone was the clearing and the Area ningen, I was actually having a lot of fun I just wish I hadn't my booths now to savor the feeling of wild wood beneath my feet, but the sensation the wind on my face brought was enough, although I wasn't running nearly as fast I could and loved, this ningen - even hurt and tired - ran fast and she never ever let out of her hand the Shikon no tama.

He was going to chase her until she got so tired she' throw herself to the ground and beg him for mercy, and she'd give him…willingly give him the shikon no tama.

Besides all that he was furious. His anger rising more and more in each jump he gave.

How dare she have her face?

How dare this little girl this simple girl have Kikyou's face? How could she?

She was nothing like Kikyou, she couldn't have her face!

She couldn't be like Kikyou she wasn't her!

Or maybe she was.

Maybe she was like the Kikyou he had met only once in what he thought would be the end of his life… the bitch the evil onna that had betrayed him and sealed him. Maybe she was the evil demoness that had crushed his heart and stomp on it…

She leaped to the ground and she ran faster.

 

“Stop!”

 

She yelled over her shoulder, but she was slowing… the hand that gripped her side tightened and she moaned in pain. She started to bend her body, her speed more and more sluggish and I - consumed in rage- increased mine, until I was almost able to catch her.

We had gotten to a bridge a stone bridge over a small river that I remembered ran to a larger one…. We had gotten pretty close to the Area again in mere seconds…

She stopped and I stopped like thirty inches away from her. She narrowed her eyes in accusation

 

“Why are you doing this? Leave me alone!”

 

I did the same to my eyes and I saw that she never ever averted her gaze from me, as if she was mesmerized… Yeah right mesmerized by a Hanyou! I see I've come back with jokes no doubt…

I walked one step forward and she drew one backwards really quick with a smothered gasp.

 

“You choose not to hand over the shikon no tama bitch?”

 

My tone low, as if I was giving her to choose the most important decision in her life… and maybe… maybe I was.

 

“I can't give it to you…”

 

She said looking the shikon no tama with understanding, as if she was sensing the jewel, she looked absorbedly at the gold sphere and repeated her previous statement,

My anger rose again, how was she reading the jewel? Why was she doing that? Of course such a powerful object didn't want to be tamed, but that didn't really matter to me, I would have what I wanted. I growled warningly her. She shook her head no. I took one more step and this time she didn't drew one back, she didn't look at me again until I crackled my knuckles trying really hard not to concentrate in the way she looked with Kikyou... that would be wrong…I couldn't care for nor did I want to… I wanted to kill her and take the shikon no tama, no matter who she looked like…her breath slowed as if something was reassuring her and she nodded. My claws raked my white wool turtle neck camisole I smiled as I leapt.

But in the air in a crouch with my right hand drew bridge wards, I noticed she wasn't in the slightly curved construction anymore. The bubbles in the water and the shadow of her midnight hair and light purple skirt drew my attention and I had her. Landing in the bridge seeing it was too late to change course. I waited until she got to her feet and smirked again, again my knuckles snapper and I took one step back for balance.

She looked at me with sheer fear in her face, and where that expression should have comforted me, it was oddly unpleasant… maybe it was because I was seeing it in kikyou's face?

 

No…

 

I hated that bitch that couldn't be… couldn't be…

She flinched as she saw me ready to jump over her and I said one last time.

 

“give me the shikon no tama wench! I mean it, I'll kill you!”

 

She didn't answer but clutched the jewel closer to her chest the soaked clothes clinging to her body and I made myself ignore how she looked like in the ethereal glint of moon in the wet skin and midnight hair reaching the back of her body plastered to her, and eyes drew upwards she uttered that nuisance of a word, that disturbing thought again…

 

“Onegai… Kami-sama…Onegai…”

 

That words alone stopped me again… she was asking mercy… she was really terrified… she was praying I noticed…

She wasn't Kikyou no… Kikyou would have killed me in an instant. I could feel the power oozing from her, her aura a beautiful thing tinged in white. She had the purest aura I'd ever seen, purer than Kikyou, purer than my mothers… as pure as an innocent child…

Why didn't she kill me then? I couldn't understand she had enough power for that… she had enough power to purify Seshomarou! Why didn't she do it?

Something in my body didn't move as the words of the person I most cherished in the world flew back to me permeated my thought for the tiniest part of a second…

 

“Inuyasha no chichi-ue, always said to me that he found love between battle, Inu-chan”

 

I didn't comprehend why I was remembering such words… those in particular were very painful because had been the last my mother had uttered… and what had that to do with this bitch and her hold on the shikon no tama?

Banishing all silly thoughts from my head, I advanced again, the silly girl was again looking at me, her eyes pleading, but I wouldn't be hold no more…

No woman would ever deceive again, and leaping high in the sky I was distracted by the feeling of strong miko energy against my neck and when I looked down I had a nenju resting against my collar bones. Looking behind me I saw the baba again and she had a very concentrated scowl on her face her forefinger and middle finger of her right hand drew together against her face and her thumb was too tensed and curved molding itself between the curves of her old wrinkled lips.

Still with the Kotodama no neju in my fingers the old hag screamed at Kagome that was watching startled.

 

“Kagome say the subjugation word now! With that he can't hurt you!”

 

She looked at us both and trembled a bit…

 

“Subjugation…?”

 

She repeated the word the baba had used and my mind finally snapped… what the fuck... Subjugating? Me? Ah! I see they've jokes, as if these miserable beads could hold me!

I saw the girl opening her mouth

She really asked - what should I say? - I was told later, but at the moment I only though that she was going to say something to subjugate me or whatever that meant…and I surely didn't want that… so I really leapt this time, ready to sharpen my claws on her.

 

“Oh no, you don't!”

 

When she heard my shout though she furrowed her brows and looked mad… again it was a vulgar irritation, one that Kikyou never showed one that I could see it suit her nicely stinging her cheeks red and she pursed her lips, Well I didn't care… she could shove her irritation and her subjugation where …When she opened her lips she cut off my thoughts as she uttered that word… the word I never ever, in my whole life would forget…

And I don't life so little time as ningen…

 

“OSUWARI!”

 

And I came quickly flying downwards with a deafening crash.

My heart exploded inside my cranium and my whole body went tender and sore.

If my head wasn't cushioned in the rock of that construction I'd have seen Kagome's preoccupied expression while she advanced at me with water to her knees, and the old hag's smug satisfied expression.