All characters and Inuyasha world created by Takahashi Rumiko-sensei. I am only nibbling on her genius.
Disclaimer: I am an InuKag shipper to the death. Just that it bothered me for so long that Kikyo:
a) fell so easily in Naraku's trap
b) so obsessed with the Shikon-no-tama, all normal miko considerations notwithstanding
c) got hated because of her love/ hate/ love/ jealousy/ possessiveness to Inuyasha (come now, who haven't been in her position if we edit out the dead-and-undead parts)
R&R much appreciated :)
"Kikyo, take Kaede and run!" her mother screamed as the youkai drew near.
"Okaa-san!" Kaede bawled, but Kikyo grabbed her arm and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. So foolish, she berated herself. She had thought that the youkai living in that river was weak, only interested in playing pranks and would never have been able to or even wanted to hurt people. And yet…She remembered the crystal orb he found, the one he so proudly showed her. So pretty, he had said. But that orb was no pretty bauble. It had consumed his heart; gone was the wild jokester, now he had become a monster she couldn't fight. Her foolishness had cost her her parents' lives.
Kaede's cries had subsided to near-silent hiccups beside her. "Kaede," she said. "…Onee-san?" the little girl looked at her. "I will take care of you from now on," Kikyo said, "I will be strong and protect you." And one day, I will get rid of that malicious orb, she vowed to herself. Even if it took her lifetime, even if she had to sacrifice everything, she would destroy the thing that had shattered their lives.
"Oy! Kikyo-san!" the farmer's son bellowed. "Come play with us!"
Kikyo didn't bother answering. In truth, the boy's words could have been the rustles of the leaves for all it mattered to her. She focused on the bow and arrow in her hands, and summoned the power she had felt faintly before. The arrow loosened with a shimmer, and fell short of her target. She shot again and again, her fingers long since callused and stopped bleeding at the exercise. It took time, but she was now able to shoot targets a hundred paces away. Soon she would be able to shoot targets that were two hundred, she promised herself, and then she would practice on moving targets. Youkai were almost always moving, anyway.
She didn't remember when it was that Kaede stopped calling her onee-san and started referring to her as onee-sama. Perhaps it was after her first youkai kill, though she doubted it. She was trembling and scared and almost missed. No, it must be the next one, or the next one. Distantly, she felt a twinge of loss. Her sister was the only family she had left, and yet, while Kaede certainly respected and perhaps even still loved her, she was growing apart from her. She knew it wasn't her sister's fault that she wanted to be a child for a longer time, but sometimes she envied Kaede her light heartedness, her ability to stay a child even after what befell their parents. No matter. She vowed to destroy the Shikon-no-tama, the orb's name as she learnt from some of the demons she had slayed. If loneliness was the price she had to pay, it was too cheap.
When a badly wounded thief stumbled across the road, she couldn't help but to pity him. Out of pity she nursed him in a cave, although she knew he wouldn't survive. He was no good man, she knew. She recognised his lecherous stare at her kimono's closure when she leaned over him to bandage his wounds. She recognised the hungry glare, and knew that he would have raped her or worse had he been able to. But she also knew he wasn't able to. He was disabled, and soon to die. He was a pitiful replacement for the people she had inadvertently isolated herself from: the girls and boys her age, the uncles and aunties and grannies at the village, her sister. He was a pitiful replacement for the human contact she had craved but could not risk, but he was safe, because he was going to die anyway.
When one day she saw that the cave had had a fall-in, she was sad. Sad for the pitiful thief buried inside, and sad that her greedy heart was all he had to miss him in the end.
"Pretty powerful, aren't cha?" the insolent call came from the trees. She had noticed the presence of the hanyou before, but had deemed him no immediate danger. And his voice sounded like that river youkai she used to play with when she was a child. A harmless prankster.
"Not going to kill me, miko?" he taunted.
She ignored him for days, but the hanyou stayed around for goodness knew what reason.
"Why are you still here?" she asked one day. "Why haven't ya killed me yet?" he retorted smartly.
She walked away.
Then came a time when he became a permanent fixture of her life, more real than the villagers, even more real than Kaede, sometimes. His brashness no longer annoyed her, if ever it did, but comforted her with its familiarity.
"You got a name?" he asked one day. "Kikyo," she answered in between her practice shots.
"You're good, but slow," he sniggered. "Couldn't catch anyone strong that way."
She turned around and looked at him for the first time. The villagers usually shrank back or at least fidget uncomfortably when she looked directly at them, but the hanyou seemed unfazed.
"Ya gotta aim where they gonna be, ya know? Else they woulda fly when your arrow hit," he laughed.
She aimed at a falling leaf and shot it through as it fell to the ground.
He laughed. "Leaf is dumb, it only fall down," he said. "Me, I ran forward and up and sideways. Much harder ta hit that way," he said.
"What's your name?" she asked one day. He looked at her for a moment before answering. "Inuyasha."
"You're alone too, aren't you?" she asked. "When I have destroyed the Shikon-no-tama, let's go together," she said. "We'll be free then."
"I can go now," he said.
She smiled. "I can't," she said simply.
"Why would I wait for ya?" he asked, but in his eyes she saw that he would wait for her. She had seen rightly. They were alike, this hanyou and she. They were lonely creatures, misunderstood by other people. But they understood each other, she thought.
She wasn't so foolish to trust him fully, of course. Never again would she trust anyone as fully as she had in her childhood. It was tempting, though.
"If you have the Shikon-no-tama, you could be human," she said to Inuyasha one day. "And when the right wish is made upon the Shikon-no-tama, it would disappear. I would be free, then," she said. He looked at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Well?" she pressed further, uncertain of her motive.
"Maybe," he answered.
Kikyo knew something was wrong when she saw smoke coming up from the temple. "It's Inuyasha, miko-sama! He had stolen the Shikon-no-tama!" The village was in shambles: thatch roofs were burning, and some people laid on the ground bleeding.
Kikyo couldn't move for a moment. Impossible, was her first response. And yet this whisper was immediately swamped and buried by her uncertainties. But of course. She had been so foolish. She hadn't learnt, after all. It was this all over again.
No more.
She had vowed to herself.
No more.
She had to stop him herself.
Maybe there was some misunderstanding; he wanted the Shikon-no-tama to be a human, did he not?
He never said yes.
A searing pain teared through her shoulder and seared her back. She wheeled around, and saw his claws soaked in blood.
"Why?!" she might have wailed, instead she pursued him. She lost him for a moment, her wounds causing her to be dizzy. From a distance, she saw Kaede rushing towards her. NO, she wanted to shout. NO, you cannot die, she wanted to warn her, but she had no strength left.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Inuyasha with the Shikon-no-tama in his claws, tearing through the forest, laughing wildly.
Me, I run forward and up and sideways, his voice echoed. Much harder ta hit that way.
"INUYASHA!" she shouted. He turned to look at her with a strange expression on his face. Surprise? Was he surprised she would actually him down, the arrogant hanyou? She loosened her arrow with all her power behind it, just ahead of him, where he would be when her arrow hit. She saw his eyes widened as he slammed back into the Goshinboku, his hand reaching out to grasp the cursed jewel but his eyes fixed on her.
As she felt her seal took effect, Kikyo fell to the ground. The Shikon-no-tama! She vowed…what was it she vowed? "Kaede, burn this with me," she murmured to her sister, her fingers grasping the cursed jewel. "Onee-sama, hold on," Kaede cried, but she was beyond hearing. As she clutched onto the crystal orb, she felt Inuyasha's eyes on her, his hand reaching for her. She tried to twist her body to see him one more time, but her body wouldn't obey her any more. I want to see him one more time, she cursed silently, tears and blood falling on the ground. It is so cold, Inuyasha. It is so cold to be lonely…