I do not claim to own Inuyasha, nor do I claim to own any of it's characters.
Chapter One: Confined Within
Inuyasha woke up in a small room in the middle of the night. He knew not of where he was, and so he opted to explore the confines of the room. The walls were covered with sketches, paintings, and drawings that depicted the many horrifying scenes of Inuyasha's troubled past. There were pictures of Koga, Shippou, Miroku, and Sango; there were pictures of battles between himself and Sesshoumaru, Naraku, and countless other demons. A picture of his mother holding him struck his heart like a spear thrown through the head of a carrion crow. It seemed to stick out like a sore thumb against all the baddies around the sketch. Finally, he turned his head away from his mother's picture, and paced the room silently.
The crimson-colored wooden floor was strangely damp and cold; it squished and warped as Inuyasha stepped on it, as if the boards beneath his feet were dead bodies neatly placed on a rainy battlefield. But Inuyasha did not care; his heavy heart was barely beating.
Although there were no windows leading to the outside world, a flash of bright light graced the dark room, illuminating its corners and eliminating the shadows. Then a clap of thunder shook Inuyasha to his core, and he fell to the floor with a thud. The pitter-pat of rain and hail helped Inuyasha's heart beat faster, now with a regular pattern.
Inuyasha stood up, and then the lightning and the thunder came again, knocking him off balance, and sending him to his knees. Inuyasha was now face to face with Naraku's signature disguise, a baboon pelt, which startled him more than the cracks of lightning and the rolling thunder. He reached to draw the Tetsusaiga, yet his tense hands felt nothing at his waist. He looked to where his blade was normally placed, and saw no sword, not even his sheath was left by his side. But even though he didn't possess the blade that his father had entrusted with him long ago, Inuyasha wasn't about to give up this chance to destroy Naraku, and he tore through the snow white fur as if it were rice paper with his sharp claws.
Underneath the shredded pelt, there was no Naraku, not even his scent! There was nothing there but the strips of the harmless pelt that Inuyasha had attacked so foolishly. He sighed in a mixture of relief and despair, for even though there was no Naraku to defeat alone, there was also no Tetsusaiga by his left flank. He roared in anger, only to find that no profanity that he could ever have barked would not, and could not, be heard. Surprised by the ominous lack of noise, Inuyasha stopped and tried to listen. Nothing but the wind outside a non-existent window was audible, even to his enhanced sense of hearing.
"Stop, Inuyasha! Ah!" shrieked a somewhat familiar voice. It was a girl's voice…no, a woman's! Inuyasha was puzzled as to why she was telling him to stop, but he did not hesitate to run through a door to his left that he had never noticed before now, and help whoever it was who needed it.
Chapter Two: Never Ending
The hallway that the door had opened to was quite longer than it had seemed when Inuyasha had first stepped into it. The door had slammed shut on its own, and disappeared once he was inside the hall. All was quiet, and almost peaceful, yet inside Inuyasha's mind nothing could be further from the truth. Who was the woman seeking help? Why did she tell him to stop? And most of all, why was he here? He hadn't fallen asleep there in the room, and he highly doubted that anyone would dare carry him off in his sleep, let alone go anywhere near him while he was in sweet, sweet slumber.
And still the thoughts raced through his aching head, it was as if the pain of thinking would never end…which would match the enormous stretch of the hallway. Inuyasha knew he could see the end of the hall, yet it was as if he were on a treadmill with a meaty bone hung just out of his reach.
"Inuyasha, over here! Come quickly!" said the voice of a younger woman than of the first to graze his ears. This voice, unlike the former, was insecure, and somewhat childish. And yet again, it was familiar, but Inuyasha couldn't put the voice to a name. Inuyasha looked in the direction of where the voice came from, and a door appeared to his right. He opened the door, and he was outside.
Chapter Three: Less Than Three Me Please
To his dismay, the moment he came from the door, there was the body of a girl in some sort of freakish short-bottomed kimono of green and white laid at his feet. Blood stains littered the ground, and even though it was too dark to see them, Inuyasha could smell her blood. It was so sweet a scent to waft by his nose; so familiar, yet so unknown to him.
A hand cold as death himself grasped Inuyasha's ankle, sending a shiver up his spine. He looked down to find the girl desperately trying to hold on to him, as if she would lose him. He knelt to her side, and she began to speak in a voice so faint Inuyasha could barely hear it himself.
"Inuyasha…? You're thinking about her, aren't you…? Tell me the truth, Inuyasha! I…I could always tell...when you were…lying…to me…" tears ran down her face, dripping to the bloody grass that cushioned her head.
"Who…who would do this to you?" Inuyasha said to the girl, hoping she didn't realize that he didn't know who she was.
"I…I'm begging you, tell me…the truth…Inuyasha…"
"What do you mean, 'the truth'? I don't…" the girl's hand covered his mouth suddenly, halting his words. She spoke again, but this time her voice was stronger.
"Do you love her, Inuyasha? Or do you love me?"
Chapter Four: Broken Hearts Unmended
Inuyasha pulled the girl's hand away from his face, and it promptly dropped limp to the ground. Her eyes stared at Inuyasha, accompanied with the burden of great sorrow and grief. He stared back for a while, his eyes heavy with confusion and curiosity. They stayed like that for a while, without a single word exchanged between them.
Then, her eyes finally closed. The tears stopped flowing, and her breath ceased. Inuyasha's heart ached, but why? He did not know this girl, not her face, not her name; nothing was physically familiar to him, but that did not matter. His heart was broken, and the one person who could mend it was gone…