InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Yume ❯ premonition ( Chapter 1 )

[i/k/k] Dreams are fantasies, wishes, jealousies, yearnings, the darkest and most desperate secrets of the heart. And when we wake, they are gone, chased away for another night. Or are they? What if dreams are something a little more...real?

 

 

yume

(dream)

[a darker inuyasha/kagome/kikyou]

 

 

I wake.

 

It is not a pleasant sensation; the second I regain consciousness I wish I had never opened my eyes. So I squeeze them shut again. But I am awake, and my body refuses to obey the order to sleep.

 

Slowly, I glance around. Dark walls, dark air, and not a window in the place to let in the faint twilight. The white of my miko's robes almost glow in this oppressive place, like some absurd beacon of—of what? Hope? Luck? I can feel a tiny, ironic smile tug at the corners of my lips—I am certainly neither.

 

Inuyasha.

 

Some lingering, fragmented memory of a dream suddenly resurfaces, and my thoughts swing to that topic. Conflicting emotions hit me, sugar and salt, pleasure and pain. What confusion that one hanyô causes in my mind...

 

I loved him. Once.

 

That dream—for a moment the world inverts itself in a dizzying wave of vertigo, and I am in the dream, still sleeping, still helpless, still watching as something horribly red and dark splatters over the ground in droplets and streams and waves, puddles of life's blood spraying out in a fine red mist—

 

Then the moment passes. I can hear the small gasping sounds of my own breath, far away. I force myself to concentrate, to ignore the cold sweat trickling down my face like

 

(blood)

 

something I do not want to think about.

 

"Kikyou-sama. Is something wrong?"

 

I turn; standing in the doorway are Asuka and Kochou. I imagine for a second that there is concern on their childish faces, but that is impossible. They are no more than paper dolls given form and movement by my magic, no more than puppets to do my bidding—alive and yet not alive.

 

Like me.

 

"You are back. Have you learned anything new about Naraku?"

 

As one, they bow and shake their heads.

 

Suddenly, I am tired of their company, their false little-girl forms, their blank and expressionless eyes so like and yet not like Kaede's. Kaede, now an old woman while I stay young—how odd.

 

But, really, I am the odd one, not her.

 

"Asuka, Kochou."

 

Once again, they bow simultaneously. Really, it is getting quite monotonous. I will need to change their personalities next time they are remade.

 

"Leave me."

 

Inhumanely obedient as always, with none of the fuss and objection a child would put up at that command, my two shikigami fly off. I watch until they are mere dots on the horizon.

 

My bow lies in the corner. Idly, I pick it up and stroke the smooth, ebony-hued wood. I finger the sharp arrowheads, their straight hafts; imagine them flying steady and true towards a target. I can almost hear the whistling buzz as they streak through the air, the solid thunk as they bury themselves viciously into yielding flesh, the painful expulsion of air from Inuyasha as the magical fire takes effect—

 

I recoil; the bow and arrows clatter harmlessly to the floor as I clutch my head. What is wrong with me today? Why am I imagining Inuyasha's death?

 

From the part of my heart that is human still, I can feel a solitary tear move down my cheek.

 

I still love him.

 

I will kill him.

 

 

 

A few minutes later, the bow clutched once again in still-numb fingers and a quiver of arrows slung at my side, I am striding through the forest. Today...today is not right. That fact would be obvious to one struck deaf and blind.

 

But I am neither; I am a miko, with a miko's powers. Frowning, I stop, brushing my fingers over the ground. I feel something, something frighteningly strong, but in one elusive sweep the sensation is gone, leaving me with a prickling sting in my hand and a bitter taste in my mouth.

 

That something does not want me to find it.

 

I lift my face toward the sun, closing my eyes as the warmth hits my pseudo flesh, imagining the lancing rays soaking through earth and burnt bone to spread comfortable heat through my body. And yet it is no more than that: my imagination.

 

That some unknown presence should be able to elude the magical grasp of I, Kikyou...it sends an almost-forgotten thrill of fear down my spine, but more than that. This presence is dangerous, powerful; I can feel that. Still, it intrigues me.

 

What is destiny? I sense that this is mine.

 

 

 

Red.

 

I whip around, with an arrow already nocked to taut bow string. The momentary flash of crimson is gone. I exhale slowly, shifting the bow to a more comfortable position. In my mind, that red is just the color of fresh-spilt blood...

 

There it is, again. And again, it is gone when I turn. This part of the woods is familiar to me; south of my birth village. I mentally run through a list of possible threats in this area: some small yôkai, but nothing really dangerous.

 

And nothing red.

 

Or is there? My head is throbbing. Of their own volitions, my fingers clench and unclench in nervous expectation. Oh yes, one thing distinctly red may be wandering this stretch of forest.

 

It has been a few weeks since we last met. Perhaps I will enjoy this encounter, but as my fingers play once again over the arrows, I doubt that Inuyasha will leave it alive.