A/N: Let me just say something. If you write and post stuff for others to validate you, you're bound to be disappointed. It's a good thing I write to write.
This story is probably going to have about 15 or 17 chapters. Depends on how many lemons I end up throwing in.
--Warning--
undetailed lemon in this chapter
--End of Warning--
Anyways, to those (two) who read and review and enjoy- here's the next chapter!
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Chapter Eight
Hurt
Kagome trudged home from school, her feet seemingly connected to the concrete. Inuyasha's hurtful words kept on playing over and over in her mind. Perhaps if this was the first time he had said something like this, she could have brushed it off. However, there were many other occasions, too many, Inuyasha had snapped and bluntly told her that he was involved mainly for the sex. Kagome shuddered. No matter how many times it happened, it hurt as strongly as the first time. She sighed deeply, a memory assaulting her.
-------------2 Years Earlier-----------------
Kagome collapsed on Inuyasha's chest, sweaty, exhausted and sated. Inuyasha was panting happily, arms spread wide.
Sex, she thought with a silent giggle, was not overrated at all. The past six months had completely vindicated her modern era's preoccupation with any type of sex.
"You're comfortable," Kagome whispered as she nuzzled her nose into the crook of Inuyasha's neck. His body did a strange jerk and Kagome giggled out loud.
"Are you ticklish there?" she asked mischievously. Her nose went straight back to the crook and she rubbed his skin enthusiastically.
Inuyasha squirmed and cursed. "No, I am not ticklish!" he spat out. "Just, just get off!" He growled ferociously and Kagome only laughed harder. "I love it when you do that!" she confided.
Kagome kept on snuggling tighter against him, her nose never leaving the sensitive juncture between shoulder and throat. "Get off!" Inuyasha shouted. With a fraction of his strength, Inuyasha shoved Kagome off.
"You know, you've been shoving me a lot recently," Kagome muttered as she glared at the hanyou. "Plus, I'm sweaty and naked and now there's a ton of dirt all over me."
"Gee, I'm sorry!" Inuyasha said sarcastically. Jumping up he rushed around, grabbing his cloths hurriedly and pushing himself into them.
"Inuyasha…?" Kagome asked curiously, "are you all right?"
"No!" Inuyasha spat out. "I am not all right and neither are you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" she huffed, now also trying to dress.
"I thought we discussed this," Inuyasha said finally, not looking into her blue eyes. "I thought we decided to not...to not put emotion in."
Kagome stared at him in shock. "I thought…I thought you….love me."
Inuyasha paced, careful to not glance in the distraught girl's direction. "I do," he admitted after a few minutes passed. "It's just…I don't want to touch you…that way."
Kagome glared and breathed heavily through her nose, trying to remain calm. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, aware her voice was harsher then usual yet again. Inuyasha turned his head away, thick bangs blocking her view of his expressive eyes. Partly desperate and partly furious, Kagome yanked on a triangular ear hard. "Answer me!" she shouted, feeling hurt overwhelming her control. "What do you mean you don't want love when we touch?"
"Bitch, stop it!" he bellowed, slapping her hand away from his sensitive appendages. "I meant that!"
"Well, explain 'that' because I have no idea what you're talking about!" she replied, absentmindedly rubbing her aching hand.
Inuyasha scowled. "Do I have to?" he asked belligerently. "I've talked more lately then I ever have before."
"You're also getting more sex then you ever did before so just call it an even trade," Kagome sniped. "Now talk."
Knowing she was right did not make it any easier. "Shit," he mumbled with heat. "I don't like all the touching and stuff-"
"I know that! I need you to clarify!" the teenaged girl anxiously interrupted.
"Shut up!" Inuyasha shouted, whirling on her. "Just let me fucking talk!"
Kagome nodded slowly, a little frightened by his vehemence. Inuyasha hide his eyes again and tried to ignore the sexual feelings her fear aroused in him. Unhappy and unsure of what to say, Inuyasha continued to pace.
"I do, I do…you know," Inuyasha said, blushing and unable to say the words.
Kagome sighed in irritation. "No, I don't know. Explain."
Inuyasha glared. "Sure, make this harder then it has to be. Why the hell not?" He swallowed. "I do…I do….I….Iloveyou." He exhaled a deep sigh, terribly relieved the words had been said. "I do but recently you've been touching me way too much. You never used to," he accused. "It's like the fact that we're fucking gives you the right to touch me whenever you want to."
Kagome drew back, settling onto her knees. "The fact that we're having sex doesn't mean I can touch you….?"
"Yes," Inuyasha said, relieved she understood. "All that stroking and patting after fucking…I can't do it."
"So no snuggling?" Kagome leaned back onto her elbows. "Is that all?" She laughed. What a silly thing to get so mad about!
Inuyasha growled. "It's more then the snuggling. I don't want the sex to mean anything."
Kagome stopped smiling. "You admitted you love me, I've said I love you. How can the sex not mean something?"
Inuyasha ran a hand through his hair. "I know it makes no sense. I just don't like it."
"The sex?"
"No, that's the best part of all this," Inuyasha said carelessly. "I mean, I never would have said that I loved you if I wouldn't have gotten the sex in the bargain."
Kagome felt the world slowly grind to a halt. "…What?"
Inuyasha shrugged. "Why else would I have said it?"
"Because you love me!" Kagome sputtered.
"So?"
Kagome stared at Inuyasha. He met her eyes easily, with no reservations or embarrassment. He has no idea! She thought incredulously. No idea at all!
"If you love someone, you tell them," Kagome said slowly.
"You don't have to," Inuyasha replied sensibly.
Kagome sputtered, fighting for words. "But, but, I mean- of course you do!"
"No," Inuyasha disagreed. "You don't. Everything in life is a barter- you give something and get something back in exchange. I never would have said I loved you if I was going to get nothing back."
Kagome stumbled to her feet. "Meaning that if I wouldn't have slept with you, you never would have said anything?"
Inuyasha thought for a moment, the audacity of his speech becoming uncomfortably clear to him. "Um, yeah," he admitted with a sigh.
"You jerk!" Kagome shouted and reacted on instinct. The sound of her hand cracking against his cheek reverberated through the cave.
Inuyasha rubbed his face thoughtfully. "I kind of deserved that," he admitted softly. Kagome, panting and struggling not to cry again, nodded in a jerking motion. "Did it just come out wrong?" she asked hesitantly and hopefully.
Inuyasha shook his head slowly. "I told you I wasn't ready…"
"Shut up," Kagome snapped as she stormed from the cave. "I'm not talking to you!"
"Again?" retorted Inuyasha as he walked behind her, his arms firmly folded into his sleeves.
"Shut up!" Stumbling out of the cave that housed their illicit affair, Kagome forced herself into a quick march. "Don't you dare follow me!" she shouted over her shoulder.
"I wasn't planning on it!" Inuyasha yelled back, leaping away quickly.
Kagome began to run until she couldn't run any farther, a stitch piercing her side. I can't believe he said that, she thought for the thousandth time. Doesn't he understand how horrible that was? Kneeling on the ground, she placed her head onto the tree trunk behind her with a thunk. I hate my life…
"It will soon get much worse," came the quiet comment. Kagome sat up abruptly and looked around, seeing no one but knowing the voice intimately. It was hers but deeper.
"Kikyou? Where are you?" the modern school girl called out, the recent events making her serenity short lived. "I know you're out here! You obviously have something to say so hiding is ridiculous!"
"Well look who has developed a temper…," an amused voice said. From the surrounding trees, a ghostly figure of a reincarnated shrine maiden emerged. Kikyou was flawlessly attired as usual, her white shirt sparkling and her pants perfectly clean with the one neat crease down the middle. Her black hair was shiny and healthy, neatly arranged in a ponytail that ended past her waist. Brown eyes looked down at their reincarnation. "I still cannot believe you were such a fool."
Kagome looked up at the dead version of herself. "What do you want? Last time I saw you, you were insulting Inuyasha and decided to leave forever."
"Silly child," sighed Kikyou. "Why did you have to have relations with him?"
"I wanted to," Kagome answered bitingly. "Girls in my time tend to do it whenever they want."
"He told you he loved you," Kikyou intuited from Kagome's bluster. The younger woman deflated under the knowing eyes of her older self.
"Yeah," she admitted with a sigh. "And I believed him."
"He was not lying to you," Kikyou said softly and firmly. "He does…love you."
"No, he loves sex," whispered Kagome as she rested her head on her knees in shame.
"A man such as Inuyasha does not have relations without love. He loves you," Kikyou insisted in her usual calm tone.
"He said that he only admitted he loved me so that he could have sex."
"You are so young…" murmured Kikyou, eyeing her reincarnation with something close to sympathy.
Kagome bit her lip and asked a question. "How did you know? About he and I?"
"My heart hurt suddenly…" the dead priestess answered absently. "I am a spiritual person and am sensitive to the fluctuations in emotions of those I hold close to me. Thus, when I felt his happiness with another woman, my heart ached…and I knew it could only be from one deed." Kikyou's wise brown eyes looked at Kagome's pink cheeks and downcast eyes and could not resist smiling. "It is all right. I have been waiting for this."
Kagome's head shot up and she stared at Kikyou incredulously. "What?"
"Everyone has their destiny. Mine was to be what I've become- a soulless shell of a woman," Kikyou said, each word weighed and carefully released. "You still have a chance with him…with happiness. Grab what you can. Everything else will work itself out."
Kagome stared at Kikyou. She sounds as if she still…! "But all those cruel things you said…" the schoolgirl whispered, terribly confused.
"Should he go on loving a woman made from clay and graveyard soul?" Kikyou asked rhetorically. "It took me some time to realize that. So I set him free…" Her back straight and tall, her chin up and her eyes resolute, Kikyou admitted to her future self her last remaining secret. "You see, I am quite in love with Inuyasha. He made me smile when no one else could. He still does." The priestess looked at Kagome sadly. "I'd give almost anything to see him smile at me with that old unconditional love. Yet he never shall and I know this. It is my fate." Getting up, Kikyou picked up her bow and arrows, settling them against her hip. "I gave him away because I love him. All I want is for him to be happy…he cannot be happy with a dead woman. Because I love him as much as I do, because I know him so well and understand him as I do, I gave him away. His honor and loyalty are unconditional but he is torn between one who is living and one who is dead. I would not have him suffer simply so I could be happy."
Kagome looked up at her predecessor and saw the true Kikyou for the first time. She was a magnificent woman, strong and powerful in not just her Powers but in her heart and will. "You awe me," Kagome admitted. "I couldn't do what you did."
"You've been doing it for years," contradicted Kikyou with a sad smile. "I suppose we truly are the same woman."
Kagome smiled and nodded ruefully. "Yep. Two sides of the same coin."
"I have something to give back to you," Kikyou said suddenly, her voice loud and suddenly jarring.
Kagome's confusion plainly showed on her expressive face.
"Sweet, innocent girl, do you not remember?" the priestess chided. "You truly are a fool."
Leaning down Kikyou softly pressed her lips against Kagome's. Frozen with shock, Kagome could only watch as a glowing light drifted from Kikyou and settled into her own chest. The cavity that held her heart suddenly felt as if it was weighed down by a great burden and Kagome realized the full import of what Kikyou had done.
"My soul," breathed the schoolgirl in a gasp.
"Your soul is returning to its full measure now," Kikyou announced softly. "Be very careful with it."
"I will," Kagome said, her hand touching her chest gently as the bursts of light increased in intensity.
With a muted groan, Kikyou fell to the floor, gasping in pain as she started the reversion to dirt and bones. "Grant me a boon," requested the dying woman softly, her hand clutching Kagome's. Her face was already losing its animation, her eyes fixed on nothingness and her lips barely moving.
Blue eyes met brown. "Sure," Kagome agreed as she stroked the rapidly cooling hand in hers.
"Do no tell him when I am gone."
"What? Why?" Kagome asked. "Doesn't he have the right to know?"
"No, it is better he go on in ignorance. Then he will not mourn. I do not wish him to be unhappy." Kikyou spasmed as the last of her stolen souls flowed away. "Remember Kagome, you and I are one person. We are one and the same…Fate is unkind…"
"I know," Kagome answered but she replied to no one.
Kikyou's body weighed heavily in her reincarnations arms and, as the girl slowly lowered the clay body to the ground, it disintegrated completely.
As Kikyou's ashes spun in the wind and began to roam the world, the words from an old song echoed in Kagome's mind. All we are is dust in the wind…dust in the wind….
---------------------------------
Inuyasha paced.
Where the hell is she? It's fully dark and I can't sense her anywhere! He thought worriedly. What if a demon got her or she broke her leg in some weird place or-
Suddenly, her scent was in the air as if it had never left. Moving as fast as possible, Inuyasha found his missing woman. "Kagome!" he called out, nerves evaporating as she came into view, whole and healthy. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, grabbing her shoulders.
Her big blue grey eyes were red rimmed and Inuyasha could feel his heart being squeezed in his chest. She hates me, he thought miserably. She hates me but I can't take back what I said.
He was thus quite shocked when she leaned into his touch and wrapped her arms around his torso, hugging him tightly.
"I'm sorry," he heard her say quietly. "I shouldn't have pressured you into something you weren't ready for yet."
"Kagome…," he trailed off, unable to get the words out.
"I know," the small girl said, sparring him the verbal struggle. "I know." She hugged him tighter for one moment and then released him gently. "I'll take what I can get," Kagome said with a sad smile as she looked into his golden eyes. "I always have."
"I-" Inuyasha blurted out, trying to find something to say.
Kagome shushed him and drew his mouth down to hers. With a sad groan he accepted what she was offering.
"We shouldn't be doing this with all the rest of this shit between us," he whispered before lust overtook his senses completely.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Kagome agreed between kisses. "But let's live for the now and hope that the rest will work itself out."
"We're being foolish," Inuyasha mumbled as he undressed her.
"I know."
Bodies on fire with lust, Inuyasha and Kagome's brains emptied of anything beyond the extreme sensations ricocheting through their bodies. It was a glorious, feeling nothing beyond the present. It was a wonder and Kagome finally understood why people killed for sex. It was not the emotions involved but rather the lack of all emotion but one that made it all so extraordinary.
Afterwards she was the one to roll away first.
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A/N: Well, that's another chapter up! I always have thought of Kikyou as maligned by the audience for being a selfish bitch but I honestly think she's a much deeper character then given credit for.
I hope you all liked it!
Review please!
