Inuyasha extracted the jewel for me. It was a bloody mess; Naraku's hands looked like bubbling pomegranates afterwards, and each shard came out with a squelch and torrent of blood. He didn't seem to mind; I thought it instinct. My arm was sore from firing arrows when the shards were placed in my hand, and like minnows swam around until they were rearranged into the jewel, cracked-scars lining it. I looked at it with fondness, as if it were a weather-worn face.
We were all silent: the moment seemed to warrant it. Even Shippo lay curled without a word in Sango's arms. Naraku placed the fight in thick-knitted woods, hoping the tall straight trees would give him an advantage. Kikyo hadn't arrived. The jewel shard was warm in my palm, almost glowing, and then it hit me that I had that power. I had this planned out. I sat down on a mossy rock, trying to think of its beauty instead of demon-bodies littering the forest floor.
I looked at Inuyasha's ageless body and thought of all the years we'd have together, up until the modern day when I'd see it all over again from a distance.
"I wish to be a demon."
And it was done.
Bodies smell revolting. Shit and piss and blood clawed up my nostrils, sharp stinging ants of smell. My aches and pains were gone.
The jewel broke apart, each piece falling slow like a tree tumbling, until it was only glass. And I knew it was only beautiful stained-glass in the light filtering through the canopy because I still felt my Miko powers churning within me, pulsing to its fading glow.
"Check out your teeth!" Shippo cried, and then I realized that everyone was staring at me as if it were my birthday and I were about to open a present. Dusty breathing filtered through my ears, heavy and hypnotic. It would take a lot of meditation to get past the sounds. I could hear the leaves rubbing against one another hundreds of feet in the air, insects burrowing beneath my feet, and all the heartbeats slammed in and out, in and out, and then I realized that everything had a certain timing and it was all in rhythm.
I reached up a hand and poked a fang. I cut my fingertip and then it healed before my eyes. I did it once more. I felt my face with my hands, and the texture of my skin was rougher, my touch softer, and I wondered what I had felt like to Inuyasha nights before.
I felt uneasy, the gravity of the change hitting me fully; I let the shards drop onto the bloody moss, just glass, and felt an era of my life end when I heard them hitting the floor sharp as daylight.
I raised my head: my friends were still watching me. "I want to go home," I said. "Alone."
"I could teach you," said Inuyasha.
"I just need some time alone." I had this part rehearsed as well.
They didn't protest; Shippo was studying the shard bits, picking them up and dropping them like rocks. I jumped. I hit a tree. Everything healed instantly. I jumped again, bounced off of one tree and then hit another. Inuyasha was laughing.
"I'll get the hang of it!" I said brightly. I put my light pack on my shoulders and sauntered off towards the well, a world opening up already.
He was doing paperwork. Tax returns. The tediousness of modern-day living. At least he'd made something of himself, nobility being measured in dollars in this modern era. An incredibly successful law firm; he'd always had a knack for arguing.
He smelled it, in his business suit at his desk, hair brushing his shoulders as he turned his head. A demon. Still alive.
He perched on the ledge of the window like a gargoyle and jumped.