Each chapter will be the story of one thing that never happened and the consequences. This is probably darker than anything I've ever written to date, and I'd really like feedback! Inspired by a Saiyuki fic of the same name – go check it out if you're into Saiyuki, it is truly worth it.
Kikyou
She dragged herself up painfully from the grass he had knocked her down upon, and Kikyou reflected bitterly that for someone who had sworn never to love – who had been cursed to love in vain and be betrayed – it had certainly been an easy task. Too easy, to expect white and red at the corner of her vision; too easy to wait for Inuyasha to crouch by her in his oddly doglike position and tilt his head at her curiously; too easy, even, to become fond of his harsh, bumbling affection and to need the intensity of emotion in his golden eyes. Too easy to forget what she should always have remembered – that she was not destined for joy.
He had saved her life so many times, and she had saved his as well. She had believed that to be a bond between them, of mutual debt and gratitude. And she had seen – or had it been a lie? Surely it was, or why would he do this? – the slow, slow lowering of his carefully constructed defences, his vulnerability giving her the courage to reveal her own. He had become gentle, even tender, when there was no one else around them. And in battle, he had protected her so fiercely and taken such pride in her power, the pride of a partner, a friend. A lover.
All a lie. She must remember that. Must hold on to that source of sustenance, because if she didn't keep the fire burning the pain would begin again, and if it did she would never be able to walk that infinitesimal, infinite distance to the village where she was sure he would be.
Well, she was thoroughly reminded of it now, in the amazingly painful wound that her – was he her lover? Her love? – had inflicted on her. It bled quickly, and splashed across the green, green grass as redly as the lip stain that he had given her – given her, and then broken as casually as he had broken her heart.
She didn't have much time left, she knew that. but before she gave in to the peace that was calling her name, she had two things left to finish.
The first was the Shikon no Tama. The second, Inuyasha.
She followed him to the tree, fuelled by a dangerous mixture of adrenaline, desperation and righteous fury. He snarled her name, but she couldn't see the anger, the contempt in his eyes that she had heard in his voice minutes ago. I trusted you, she lamented, I believed in you. Damn you, Inuyasha, I loved you!
His eyes narrowed at her, filled with some emotion that she couldn't understand. Why would he look betrayed? What cause had he to feel sorrow?
She drew the arrow, the motions coming as quickly, as naturally, as the (now painful) rise and fall of her breathing. Blue for a barrier, white for sealing, rose for purification, red for cutting……she had recited the list over and over again in her childhood until she knew it perfectly, the colour in her mind dictating the nature of her arrow.
The sealing arrow was the one that came to her first – to bind him into eternal slumber instead of destroying him. It was too much, the thought of killing a man she loved, no matter what he had done to her. But she saw the glowing pink jewel in his clawed hands – the jewel that had become the bane of her existence – and her anger resurfaced. White flashed through her mind again, briefly, but the arrow that sped from her bow was deep pink, brighter and more furious than any of its kind. He saw it coming, and his eyes half-closed in expectation as he mouthed her name one last time. Then the arrow caught him on the heart – perfect aim, she had always had perfect aim – and he was trapped in a flare of power.
He didn't scream, but the expression on his face would haunt her through time, five hundred years into the future in the restless nightmares of a Tokyo schoolgirl who went through life with a haunting sense of loss, bone-deep regret and memories of golden eyes that no longer watched her from the trees, no matter how many times she circled the forest on the edge of her family's property, waiting for something that never happened. She was otherwise completely ordinary, until she vanished unexpectedly on her fifteenth birthday and they found her dead body lying on the base of the family's well three days later. Murdered by a clawed animal, the coroner's report said, although there were no animals in Japan large enough to do that. The case was closed for lack of evidence.
Kikyou didn't know all that, of course. All she was aware of was pain from her shoulder and side, and the rapid disintegration of Inuyasha before her, the accursed jewel slipping from his hands oh so slowly, his palm reaching wonderingly out to her as his eyes turned strangely quiet, introspective, almost serene. His face smoothed, the angry snarl vanishing as he looked into her eyes, and as his soul dissolved he just looked at her. There was no intense emotion there; it was a simple gaze, as if he was memorising her features, as if he was giving her something, as if he……
As if he still loved her.
As if he always had.
She half reached out in return, but as her own teacher had once said, an arrow let loose could not be brought back, and though she had been speaking metaphorically it was exactly right for this situation, and he died.
The anger dead, the adrenaline drained, the pain in Kikyou's shoulder overwhelmed her, and she staggered, her eyes still fixed on the place where Inuyasha had been, and where the solid brown bark of the Goshinboku was all she could see now. Her whispered instructions to Kaede on the disposal of the Shikon no Tama were her last words, but as she died, all she could think of was……
The peace in his eyes.
Why?