Title: A Night on the Town
Chapter: One- Insomnia, Fate, and a Bond Never Broken
Disclaimer: Alas, no, I don't own InuYasha, or his witty sidekicks. Or Kikyou. Or anyone else that I put in here that is from the series. I'm just borrowing them for a little while from the all powerful, though very twisted (Hey, you've got to admit, that Kikyou situation is beyond depressing!), Takahashi-sama.
A/N: Well, I had started this a long while ago, like back when the last episode of Friends was set to air. Yes, that long ago. But after a relaxing summer, and watching the episode, "Return of the Tragic Priestess, Kikyou", I've been re-inspired. I figure it's about time for a happy Kik/Inu fic, and if no one's going to do it, then I may as well do it myself. Angst is overrated, I tell you. I wrote like the first three fourths of this story forever ago, and the last one fourth just now, so if there's any inconsistency, I apologise. The soundtrack to this is a fun, funky mix CD that my friend Kelsey gave me for Christmas (cheers, Kelsey!). And the song for this chapter? A great cover of the song "I'll Be There" by none other than Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.
Enjoy, kids.
I. Insomnia, Fate, and a Bond Never Broken
You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love, I'll be there.
-Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "I'll Be There"
It had become blatantly clear that the world had a penchant for taunting the sanity out of him.
InuYasha watched from his lofty perch as the black hood of night approached, dark as ink and coarse with shimmery stars. 'Feh, so my hair will be as black as your sky in a few hours' time. No need to rub it in my face. Bastard.'
Crickets sang, their shrill notes unusually faint as his senses began to dwindle. Wildflowers closed their petals to him, taking their scent with them. The whole planet was involved in one large and sinister conspiracy to stress the already-obvious fact:
The new moon was ever-approaching, and consequently, his youkai form retreating.
Said moon winked back at him as he shot it a reproachful and almost wounded glance. Rather than being a beacon of light in darkness, it was betraying him, obscuring itself in shadow, taking his youkai powers along.
He snorted. InuYasha wondered if perhaps his heightened sense of irritation could be blamed on the blasted planet as well. Or if it were perhaps the fault of something much larger and infinite than the earth ever could be.
Kagome's high-pitched call shook him from his thoughts, making him wonder briefly if his senses were indeed dulled. "InuYasha! Dinner!"
Another restless night; she'd begun to lose count. Idly letting a shinidamachuu weave through her fingers, Kikyou mused that if people needed beauty sleep, she would be one of the more hideous persons.
Immortality most certainly had its downsides. She wondered now why anyone would wish such a curse upon themselves; days blurred and swirled into each other, weeks turned to months turned to ages, and time simply lost meaning. Another village, more townspeople, more duties; it was all so routine, and there was no possible way that anything could ever be exciting again with the prospect of eternity looming around a corner she could only wish was there. A path with no destination, infinity simply meant nothing to look forward to.
But ever the resourceful one, Kikyou found a way. She always did.
Her current village was about a half day's journey from the Goshinboku, but being an undead miko with incredible power and soul stealing demons had its perks. So it was that in the company of her shinidamachuu, she floated off into the night, heading towards the one thing she had grown to look forward to in these long eternities of sleepless nights.
Leaving heavy-lidded, indignant companions in his wake, InuYasha stomped out of Kaede-baba's hut, tearing through the straw doorway none-too-gently. His human senses were not dimmed enough for him to miss Shippo's pained, albeit sleepy, yelp as Kagome presumably began tending to the lump that began to form on his head mere moments after InuYasha struck him.
"Stupid brat, it was his fault. Just when I'm starting to finally get some sleep, little midget sleep-tackles me. And then they all have the nerve to be mad at me? Feh. Morons, the whole lot of them." He mumbled to himself as he continued to stalk off to some unnamed, unknown location.
Still, despite his continued ranting, InuYasha couldn't get Kagome's aggravated accusals out of his head. "InuYasha, why do you have to be so mean? He didn't mean to do it! He was just having a dream! You need to learn to control your temper. …Don't look at me like that! Sit!"
Was she really mad at him? Sure, being roused from their slumbers had left the group a tad on the irritable side, but there was no need for all that berating. InuYasha had gone without sleep for over two weeks now, and just when he was about to drift off to peaceful shores, he was shaken immediately from that peace by that annoying, brown-nosing pest. It was always Kagome this and Kagome that. Kagome, you're so great; Kagome, don't leave just yet; Kagome, I want presents.
Kagome, Kagome, Kagome. It always led back to her. He didn't want to get started on that. Not right now.
And he didn't get a chance to. Because as she always did, Kikyou prevented it. Kikyou always saved him from the things he couldn't handle.
InuYasha had been thinking of her more and more often in the past few weeks, and he concluded that this always happened in waves. There would be a period of time when she would rarely grace his memories; just a few scents and sights would trigger a whisper of her image before fading into new distractions. Then, slowly, she would appear more often, haunting him in every sense of the word, rising exponentially until it reached such a pitch that InuYasha could swear he felt her skin beneath his fingertips when he passed a clearing that only remotely resembled one where they had shared an intimate moment lifetimes ago.
"Kikyou…" he breathed her name like a prayer.
And being the angel that he suspected she truly was, she answered.
He leapt through the boughs soundlessly, not wanting to herald his presence for fear that she would run off. How many times he'd compared her to a deer, he could no longer tell, but he thought on it once more. How he'd always approach her slowly, even when they were together, because he was afraid that he'd spook her like a flighty gazelle. Her eyes were large and brown, and whenever she gazed on him, they would tremble, like only a doe's could. And it was these thoughts that carried him to the Goshinboku before he knew it. He was lucky he caught himself; any further and he might've startled his Kikyou into galloping away.
He had seen her lights in the distance, small glimmers amidst an ethereal glow. His senses were dwindling down, down, but the transformation had not completely taken place yet, and he had smelled her scent almost immediately after sighing her name in what could only be desperation. How could he possibly turn away? It was simple; with Kikyou, he could never just forget. And so it was that InuYasha found himself crouched low in the underbrush on the edge of the Goshinboku's clearing.
It was moments like this that he cherished above all others. Being able to simply watch her, drink her in with his gaze, never being able to get enough. Fleetingly, he wondered why she hadn't said anything yet; she never let him think that she was caught off guard. But thoughts like that were unimportant and unnecessary; he would take advantage when he could.
Right now, Kikyou was taking slow, tentative, almost reverent steps toward the tree. Almost timidly, she reached out and grazed her hand gently against the tree's bark. And as InuYasha watched curiously at this out of character display, Kikyou took a swift step to fill the gap between her and the tree and snuggled against it, burrowing into it like she had burrowed into him when the nights got cold. He managed to stifle a gasp, but not an inquisitive quirk of his eyebrows. And he was completely unable to control his jaw dropping as he heard her whisper his name so softly that his dulling youkai hearing could barely pick it up.
"Inu…Yasha…No matter how hard I try…"
He looked on in a numb daze as she kissed her hand and caressed the place where he had been pinned those many ages ago.
"No matter how hard I try…I can't stop lo—"
His hands clenched into tense fists, InuYasha strained to hear her in a heightened sense of anticipation. And in the process, he stepped on a tree twig, resulting in a resounding snap cracking through the frosty night's hum.
"Inu-InuYasha!" she choked, not turning around.
"Shit…"
"Why are you here?"
InuYasha could only slightly register the shock that he should've been feeling a hundredfold. Instead, he was dwelling on what she was about to say. So close…Absently, he answered, "Couldn't sleep."
Kikyou persisted. "So you came here?"
InuYasha, frustrated at how close he came to something he couldn't name, snapped, "Yeah, well what are you doing here, kissing trees for anyway?"
Kikyou's eyes widened. Did he just say something caustic to her? He was usually so awed by her since they had gotten together, he never would've dared… And the strangest part was, it made her somewhat happy to hear him do that. It meant that he was treating her like he treated his companions, whom she knew meant a lot to him. The fact that he barked at her like that must've meant that he was irritable enough to let his guard down for her. More irritable than usual…oh.
"Kikyou…I didn't mean to—"
Kikyou cut him off. "The new moon approaches." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yeah…" InuYasha was beyond caring why or how she knew. He accepted the fact that she was a step ahead; always was, always would be.
"I've never seen your human form before…not for the duration of the night, anyway…" Kikyou said softly, her eyes giving away nothing, but the inflection in her voice speaking volumes of longing. InuYasha hoped he wasn't just imagining it.
Before he could respond (not like there was anything he could think to say to that), Kikyou continued. "H-how long have you been standing there?" InuYasha would've thought the waver in her usually-monotonous voice to be quite endearing under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances; things with Kikyou hardly ever were.
And as a testament to that, Kikyou whirled around and began to walk away quickly, not waiting for an answer, taking long and deliberate strides.
InuYasha could do nothing but chase.
Kikyou could hear InuYasha's feet as they hit the ground. Thud, thud, thud, thud. So rhythmical, each one bringing him a leap closer to where she was. Her heart began to beat at an erratic pace, adrenalin that she didn't have shooting through veins she didn't possess. A feeling akin to panic seeped through her as she imagined him catching up to her, not knowing what she would do or if she had the will anymore to resist his advances. As the panic raced through her, she quickened her steps, until she found herself sprinting away to some unknown destination.
Instinct had muddled her mind, she decided, after realising an obvious fact: She could just fly away. Up ahead of her, she could see the forest breaking, the number of trees dwindling down until there were none in sight. Still sprinting, and ever-aware of InuYasha just a step behind, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the essence of her shinidamachuu, summoning them to her, as she had done countless times before. Her sprint had carried her out of the forest and into a clearing, and nearby was the bone-eater's well. The air around her sparkled as she felt her shinidamachuu matierialise.
Behind Kikyou, undoubtedly after seeing her soul-stealers coming, InuYasha began to call her name desperately, knowing that she would get away from him again shortly if he didn't do anything to stop her. He pushed his body to its limit, his calves burning as he surged forward, struggling to close the distance between them.
"So…close…" he muttered to himself.
The hanyou could almost reach out and touch her, and she had slowed down, her shinidamachuu now wrapping themselves around her arms. InuYasha reached his arm out, grabbing at the air, feeling the fabric of her hakata grazing his now-human fingernails.
"Kikyou! Stop running away from me, damnit!"
She apparently ignored his cries as her feet began to lift off the ground slowly, momentum from her run still pushing her forward. This was it. He was going to lose her again.
Her feet were level with his face now, she rising steadily into the air. Shutting his eyes tight, InuYasha gathered the last of his stamina and strength and forced himself forward as far as he would go, feeling himself lose his balance in the process. His hand snatched at the air, and he felt his hand connect squarely with what could only be Kikyou's ankle. Closing his hand immediately upon contact, he clutched her foot and had no intention of letting go.
'I'm sorry, InuYasha…' Kikyou thought as she ascended from the ground, making the same exit she had used so many times before.
Then, just as she was ready to feel herself disappear into the night and her musings, a hand with a death grip on her ankle brought her crashing back down to reality.
But more than that, it brought her crashing back down into the earth.
Yet when she braced herself for the jarring impact of herself against the ground, she was met with nothing. Opening her eyes, she could only catch a flash of red and black, a glimpse of twinkling, floating lights, and then darkness. That ground that she had been waiting for soon made its appearance as she and InuYasha crashed into a tangled heap on the dirt floor of the bone-eater's well.