InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Synthetic Twilight ❯ XV ( Chapter 15 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Kagome stomped out of the forrest, her bow drawn, "You knew Inuyasha was there before he ever said anything, why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?!" A large oni that was was in the dwindling group of demons still assaulting the slayers turned and faced the two, "She has it! The-", Kagome's arrow ripped through its body and took out three more large demons before striking a tree, where it finally stopped.
Kouga gulped, he'd never been on the receiving end of Kagome's anger before, I hope she doesn't have any more of those collars she put on Inuyasha. "I didn't know he was there until we were inside the forrest," he flinched as she powered another arrow, taking out two more demons. "Even if I told you, would it have made a difference?"
No. Kagome growled and shot another arrow into one of the three remaining demons, "Forget it, I just want to go home." Home. With the jewel, I could go back. She watched as the group of slayers leaned on each other tiredly as the last demon was felled. She truely felt that this was her home now, but if she could just see her family...
"Ah, Kagome, did you find the jewel?" Miroku asked, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.
"Yeah, I have it," she said, taking Umakuroi's reins from a man leading their horses to the rest of the group. "Hey, Sango? Would it be okay if I took off to Kaede's for a few days?" she asked, climbing onto the horse's saddle.
Sango shared a look with Miroku, "Of course, Kagome-chan. Do you want to take Kilala out there instead of your horse? She'll know the way-"
"It's fine Sango-chan, I want to go by myself," she looked down at Kouga, who was standing beside her, "alone, I mean."
Kouga smiled wanly and handed over Uchikirijihi to Kagome that he'd picked up from the dirt, "I should go. Stay safe, okay," he said before running toward the mountains.
Miroku coughed lightly into his gloved hand, "So who had the jewel?"
Kagome looked uneasily at the forrest where she'd seen Inuyasha, "No one worth mentioning. I should be going too," she nudged the horse onto the trail leading back to the slayer's village.
"Kagome-chan, wait-!" Sango called to her friend, who was rapidly fading into the distance, "...you're going the long way," she finished impassively.
A black and white blur rustled the leaves overhead, following the trail the young woman had just set out on. "No one worth mentioning, hmm?" Miroku said sarcastically.

Inuyasha followed Kagome to the slayer's village, where she picked up a bag and hugged Shippo goodbye. She paused once she reached the main road leading to Edo and scanned the treeline, his heart leapt into his throat when her eyes narrowed in his direction. She knows I'm here. She said something so softly he couldn't hear it over the distance, he slammed to the ground. "Stop following me, Inuyasha," she called and ran the horse at a full gallop. Bitch!
He caught up to her easily enough a mile further down the road, "You said you wanted to talk to me and now you're telling me to stay away? What the fuck's your problem?"
Umakuroi reared up, and Kagome struggled to hang onto the horse. "MY problem? Are you serious? You don't know what my problem could possibly be? I mean, fuck, it should be obvious, right?" with every question Kagome's voice became louder, the mare whinied nervously. "And just what the hell did you mean by 'what are you doing here' anyway?!"
By this point, Kagome was screaming, Inuyasha flattened his ears against his head. He'd missed her dearly, sometimes he thought about what his life would have been like if he had kept her with him. He almost smiled, he'd probably be surrounded by children in Kaede's village- though the woman beside him hardly reminded him of the girl that had begged to stay by his side. Kikyo was right though, if he wanted to save her from the hardships of this life and the troubles the jewel naturally attracted, he'd have to take it back and send her home. Why couldn't she understand? He took the reins from Kagome's hands and led the horse. "You can't just guard the jewel by yourself. It's better for you to go home, where you're safe."
Kagome took her bow and struck the hand holding the reins hard. "You're no longer in charge of making the decisions here. You had-," she took a deep breath to calm herself, "You had no right to send me back the way you did. Besides," she rubbed a hand across her face wearily, "I don't even know if I can pass through the well- I couldn't when I first came back, at least." She straightend, "Even if I can pass through, I'm not leaving. If that doesn't please you, you can just go back to where ever or whoever you were with before I found you," she bit out.
Inuyasha sighed, even if his ego did swell a bit that Kagome was jealous over him, still... "Just give me back the jewel, Kagome. It's not safe."
"You don't get it, do you? NO!" she hissed. "I can guard it just as well as Kikyo did-"
"And she's dead because of it! You're not safe because you have it!" he shouted.
"She died because she was too proud to let me have the damn thing! She said that I was the only one who could destroy-"
"She never said that!"
"She never said it to you. She told Kaede before she died, how do you think I got through the well in the first place? Do you think I asked it nicely and it just openned out of kindness?" Kagome sneered, Inuyasha stared at her in stunned silence. "She openned the well so I could pass through. And because she's dead, I don't know how to destroy it, I don't think anyone knows. So here I am, I've been here for months! And I'm not letting you send me back again because I refuse to have sacrificed my job and my home for nothing!"
Inyasha blanched, Sacrificed? He just figured she was still living at the shrine and taking those tests of hers all day long, it's all she talked about when they were on their quest. "Then let me hold it for you then, I'll protect y-"
"Don't say it," she broke in harshly, "I believed you once, but I can't- not with this. Not now." She pulled out two small green balls.
Inuyasha's eyes widened, he remembered those! Sango used to carry them to- "Kagome? What are you doing?" he asked nervously as she took them and placed them gently inside his shirt. Her fingers felt cool against his flushed skin, warmed by her contact. He gulped, nothing good ever happened when he felt like this.
"Buying time," she whispered, withdrew her hand and smacked his chest hard, crushing the pellets against his skin.
Inuyasha quickly released the reins to the horse to defend his poor nose against the green smoke pouring out of his shirt. His vision blurred and he fought to stay concious as he watched Kagome swing back on Umakuroi. She turned back to look at him once, her mask obscuring half of her face. Her eyes narrowed and she threw something at him, thick white smoke rose and he couldn't see her at all. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha," he heard her say before he slipped into blackness.

Kagome felt bad for riding the horse so hard for such a long period of time. The sun was rising when she reached the village she had spent a night in on her trip to find Sango and Miroku so many months ago. She tiredly led Umakuroi into the stable and paid the boy working there a little extra to brush her down. She walked into the inn and asked if she could rent a room to sleep in for a few hours, the old man smiled and showed her to the same room she had stayed in. "So the kitsune is a demonslayer, hmm?"
She looked up from where she had been laying the futon on the floor, "So it seems," she said smiling.

Inuyasha woke to see the sun shining brightly overhead. "Wench," he muttered and tried to find her scent. He coughed, he could only smell the scent of the damned pellets she'd crushed against him. It clung heavily to his clothes and skin, his eyes felt dry and itchy. He knew she was headed for the well, but first he needed to clean up, the stench was making him nauseous again. He looked over at some travelers and approached them, "Could one of you tell me where a stream-"
They wrinkled their noses at him and then panicked, "It's a skunk demon! Run! Save yourselves!" they dropped their bags and ran off.
Inuyasha sighed, without his nose working properly, it was looking to be a long day.

Kagome reached the Bone Eater's Well later that night. The torch she carried left eerie shadows stretched across the grass, she shook it several times until the flame finally sputtered out, leaving her in darkness. She groped around the rim of the well blindy for a vine she could use to climb in, when she put her full weight onto it, it snapped and she fell to the bottom. "Ouch!" she cried and felt around the walls, this time for a ladder. More vines... she sighed and climbed on the vines to jump down again. Nothing. It doesn't make sense! I should be able to go through if I have the jewel! She clawed at the dirt in frustration, "I'm sorry, Mama." She breathed heavily, I'll never see them again. Mama... Grandpa... Souta... "What the fuck am I supposed to do here?!" she screamed. The only answer she received was her voice echoing through the empty forrest, she jammed one of her swords angrily into the wall and jerked it out. Kagome shuddered as she placed her hand over the scarred wood, how many times had she wondered about the blemished wood pannel as a girl? She rested her head against it miserably, if she ever met the ones who governed fate and time, she was going to backhand them as hard as she could manage.


AN: Fluffy bits, I can do that... just not yet ;)

About 'El Gato' in chapter 12- The older people on my mother's side of the family (we're talking OLD here, ~80 years) refer to the devil as El Gato in stories, I guess it would kind of be slang... just really old slang. Different spanish speaking countries have different slang for things depending on where you go. I didn't use 'diablo' because it reminds me of a well-to-do middle-class neighborhood where a lot of the Americans not associated with the military working on the canal lived. Kinda takes the sting out of it. Oh well, I should've capitalized it.
(Apparently, I do that a lot, I had a tendency to infuriate my spanish teacher in high school because I used different terms than the text book he was going by that was based off of spanish from Spain... that and I refused to speak with a lisp. It was a sleeper course anyway. I still wonder how many people speak with a castilian accent, since he's the only one I've ever heard to use it.)

Thanks for stopping by!
I do not own any of the characters from the manga/anime Inuyasha.