Disclaimer: I do no make claim to any of these characters nor do I make claim to the manga they come from.

Author's Notice: Kagome doesn't turn into a youkai. Ever. At all. Never in my stories will she turn into a youkai or a hanyou.


"We don't always get to choose what we love." - Scott Westerfield, The Last Days


Chapter Seven: Deicide

Stalagmites were spiraling down to spear the unwary, meeting their sibling stalactites, forming rows of jagged teeth that gaped wide like the jaws of Hell. The darkness that surrounded the small company was palpable in the eternal night of the other world. That place was merely one entrance, one gateway, to a realm that seemed to have many. Silence abounded as the group observed their unofficial leader, waited, while Inuyasha knelt down on the cavern floor, sniffing the area like a bloodhound. The rough locks of his fluid hair made a slight rustling noise as he moved about.

Miroku wondered if the inugami's hair could slice flesh – it was not an uncommon trait in youkai to have anything and everything become a weapon: that included body parts. He briefly revisited his memories of training with King Soujoubou. It involved lots of talons, claws and steel crow-feathers. And dodging said steel crow-feathers. Miroku shook his head. He had to focus on his cousin's energy signature.

Inuyasha jumped up and turned to the others. His unnatural eyes glowed phosphorescent, illuminating the dark, his voice grated against the human man's ears. "Juuroumaru. Go forward and scout the perimeters into the depths of and around this cavern. We need to know if there are hidden soldiers around the area."

Juuroumaru nodded, slipping away into the darkness for a few moments. He reappeared, unruffled and unflappable as always. "The path is clear. We will encounter no one."

His words were disregarded by a frantic inugami. "She was here. I can smell it." Inuyasha's mind was racing. He needed to find her. It was absolutely imperative to their cause and their victory. Without her, half of himself was missing. He could feel it. The absence where her presence should have been.

"As I feel traces of her aura." The monk murmured, "I shall attempt to follow her spiritual 'scent', so to speak, through divine jumon. Is that alright?" He was asking because jumon was one of the basic protective kotodama studies that even those not of the priesthood practiced: it was prayer. Prayer that the youkai, filled with malice and unholy intentions, reviled.

Inuyasha nodded. He would accept it. Kagome, after all, had uttered her jumon so frequently that he swiftly became accustomed to the sting of the divine. "Be quick about your incantations monk. The girl could be moving further from us as we speak."

Miroku solemnly sighed. He cleared his mind of all concerns and doubt and let himself be filled with the energy of the universe, the oneness of the divine. "Om..." He set his shakujou into the ground and murmured an incantation, the metal rings moving in a rhythmic pattern to the cadence of his voice. His prayer beads glowed with holy light. "O Most Gracious Gods in the heavens and on the earth, I pray thee, lend me thy sight, thy power, thy strength, for I must reclaim ours, that hath been lost to me..." The rings moved in a more frenzied motion, each resounding clang of metal striking against metal sending a spiritual wavelength through the ground. As he finished the incantation, he raised his free hand towards the darkest part of the cavern. "She is going this way now. If we do not hurry, we will not be able to ever find her again. Not unless her captor chooses to release her."

Bankotsu snorted, "That's as likely as Juuroumaru here turning into a kitten."

Sango nodded her agreement. She set her mouth in a thin line. She was hating what she was about to do. "Lord Monk." Miroku stared at her, amazed that she addressed him at all since he repelled her with the Heavenly Sutra. "When I am down, climb onto my back and ride me."

He colored a dark red. "P-Pardon?" Such a thing to say...he went momentarily to a place in his brain that females do not often dare go, as most men will. But, then he saw her shift. He had only heard about youkai shifting but had never seen it.

Sango was hunching over, her back bowing, her arms elongating, her mouth snarling and feral as a saber tooth tiger. Flames erupted from her maw and under her fingernails. A roar, low and heavy, reverberated through the cavern floor, crawled up the human's chest. Her flesh furred, her teeth lengthened, and her limbs cracked and reformed. Standing before the youkai group was a giant two-tailed cat: a nekomata. Flames licked its claws, its eyes were glowed like the magma of an active volcano. Gone were her pink lips, intelligent eyes and lithe body. A predator stood where Sango once was.

Another growl rumbled from it's chest and Miroku nodded at it. He tied his shakujou to his back as one would a saber, lifting himself on top of the nekomata. He looked regretfully at Sango. She had been such a beautiful creature. Not that she was any less beautiful but.... He was almost sorry for the change in her appearance. However, it was necessary. He needed to find his cousin. They all needed her.

The youkai hunkered down, Inuyasha seeming to strain at an invisible collar. Juuroumaru gave no indication that he had any opinion on this situation at all. Bankotsu strapped his halberd onto his back and smirked. "Let's do this."

They were gone.


Kagome looked around after finally stopping. Strangely enough, she was not out of breath from running for what seemed like forever. (Everything seemed to be forever to her, it felt like.) Her ebony hair hung about her, plastered to her face and back, dampened heavily from the moisture that hovered in the air. There were mists and fog everywhere and she somehow glowed in this strange burning air. It seemed to be trying to choke her each time she inhaled. She remember the dream she had had for months, about the choking air and the land seeping with blood. She was almost there, it seemed.

She could have wept then, if the memory did not seem to have happened so long ago. The pain brought from the upheaval of the recollection was washed away by tides of rage. How dare this immortal take me?

The man spoke. "This desolate land will be ours. Nothing can change this. You know we never wanted such tragedy." His eyes were tired and sad. Hate-filled and vengeful.

Kagome turned to the towering warrior, knew instantly his name. He of the scarlet hair, the golden skin, the noble features. He who was beloved of all and had fallen from grace. "Guo Shihong." She had foreseen him in a vision.

The warrior nodded. Yes, that was he.

Kagome set her jaw. "I do know. But...your sister began this. She started everything. Your fairy tale could have ended happily. You could have been a hero from long ago. You could have..." she trailed off, frustration overwhelming her ability to convey her feelings. "But, no, you did nothing. Instead, she broke the rules, she loved you, and now your child is running all over the place killing the things I love! You could have ended it long ago. Why didn't you? Do you know what pain I had to go through just to get here? In this place, right now? What I had to do? What an entire nation is suffering?" Her voice began to hit a low note, and she found that she was grounding out the last few words as though they were mulch chips. Her face had twisted bitterly. She kept remembering. My family...is gone from me forever. I can never...I will never again be able to.... Tears leaked out of her eyes. She remained silent.

No more weakness. No more crying.

The miko's back straightened, her expression hardened. She was done with trying to talk. She decided to do things the old-fashioned way. She raised her arms to the sky and began to call on the fresh and new light of sunrise. "Great dawn, radiance of the breaking day, I invoke thee. Thy daughter's will be strength and purpose. Bestow unto me thy gifts..."

And Kagome began to glow gently blue once again. The crescent moon mark that appeared over her heart, the sign of the inugami, flashed. She hurled a bit of her spiritual power at the god but he merely caught it and dispersed the energy. "I would remind you," he said softly, "that I am a god."

The young miko snarled, utterly reminiscent of Inuyasha, the youkai that tainted her, "Even gods can be killed." She had the strangest urge to gouge his eyes out with her massive nails, to cut out his heart and crush it in her hands. Her fingers started twitching in response to her barbarous instincts.... but then she realized that those instincts were not hers. They came through her connection to Inuyasha. The thought scared her for a moment. Our bond must be growing tighter by the second.... She felt her inugami in her essence, becoming tightly woven within her.

So, she called upon the last vestiges of strength from the growing ties with the youkai. Her fingernails lengthened and the Shiranora-Moon mark on her chest grew darker, blackened. Her irises became sere-flecked grey rimmed in charcoal, flashing like the lightning in a stormy sky, her features rearranging, perfecting, enhancing whatever beauty she had and making it more prominent. The knowledge that her eyes would not revert to her normal brown after this slight transfiguration came to her from within. Sharp silver, like a knife's blade plunging through flesh, began to cut into her blue and white aura, melding with the divine purity, turning some of the blue the color of smoke. Poisonous and bitter. Like Naraku. It hurt her, but like the time before it, she understood that it helped. There was absolutely no going back from this, she knew, and it would leave her completely changed, more tightly bound to the youkai.

Forgive me, Souta, Miroku, Gramps. Momma. I won't be going back as your little girl. She thought of Inuyasha. His radiant eyes. His mercurial locks of hair. His strength. His ferocity. And his utter disregard for humanity. I'm his.

It was done.

Guo Shihong was not prepared when she leapt at him, with actual claws extended. They grazed him, and he was burned with a perfect yet disturbing blend of spiritual power and youki. He screamed and clutched at his face, and felt the energies burrowing deep into his essence like the most deadly of toxins, stumbling back in horror and pain. He cried, "What have those abhorrent beasts done to you?" He straightened, extending an arm. "You poor thing..."

Kagome pulled on her connection to Inuyasha. She then felt his presence in her soul heavily. Inuyasha.

Kagome. Kagome. I feel your pain, little girl. His words came to her not as brief images, impressions, sensations and sentiments like before, but as actual thoughts. He did this to you, did he not? I will disembowel him. She got the distinct impression of cracking knuckles and umbrage.

Kagome grimaced at the revolting image. Lend me some strength. I can't fight him on my own. I want to fight him.

There was a brief pause, laden with the feelings of dark amusement, incredulity and the tiniest amount of pride. You wish to fight with a god? Not without my consent. Tell me where you are. He still thought he could order her around. We will be better when we fight as one.

I want to kill him.

Tell me, wench. Now.

Kagome debated it for a few moments, then saw the reason in it. Shihong would most definitely kill her now if she attempted anything. Better to wait for her guardian. I don't know where I am, Inuyasha. Follow the direction you sense where my soul is....

She was about to tell him more when something hard and weighty pounded into her cheek, flinging her sideways. She tumbled and rolled, stopping with a thwack as her spine cracked against a withered tree's trunk. Pain surged like the swell of a tidal wave, crashing down on her, and she nearly lost herself in it. She bared her teeth, feral, and flipped onto her front in a crouch. Pain surged again, but she ignored it. Energy crackled around her splayed fingers. She needed to calm down before trying to merely stand depleted her further.

Kagome realized how quickly she was changing, becoming more youkai, yet not a youkai at all. She was no longer human, yet retained her spiritual power. She was Inuyasha's. She absently wondered if they were going to meld into one being or if the two of them would just become so similar that neither would know who the other was anymore. That thought should have terrified her, but it didn't. Having someone to spend an eternity with was surely better than dying human and alone.

Right?


Souta was in limbo. He felt the connection between him and his sister becoming fainter. But he would always know where she was. They were siblings, after all. He knew that she would become lost to their family for as long as they were human and she belonged to Inuyasha.

The poor boy did not know where he was. The air was disgusting, the lands ravaged. The very earth was bleeding. Souta began to cry, feeling the land's sorrow flood him. It wanted it's denizens to take it back from the yaoguai. The land reached out to Souta, touched his mind. The young adolescent nearly went insane with the knowledge of ages. He cried out, falling back, and a hulking being rose out of the earth to catch him. It had a long face, like that of a horse and bulbous blue eyes. Its skin was brown like that of tree bark and it had vines of ivy twisting around its shoulder and arms.

"Are you well, little one?" Its voice was the crumbling of rocks in the earth and the hush of wind rustling through the forest leaves.

"Yes...?" Souta shook, nodding. "Who..." his voice failed him. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Who are you?"

"I am Jinenji, the Son of Tokoyo," the giant answered simply. "I have risen because Earth-Mother was sad. I will make her happy again."

Souta's heart nearly stopped. Tokoyo? He almost cried out as remembered the tales his grandfather had always told him and his big sister when they were younger....

"It is a strange, strange land where humans die as easily as flies do here. The road you walk upon will suddenly be burning coals or a rushing river and you will be engulfed in fire or swept away by a current. The winds that blow are like blades that cut you and try to pierce your skin. There is no day – only eternal night. It is a pale moon that hangs overhead, casting a cruel light that twists and distorts images even as it reveals the truth of them...."

"Tokoyo is alive?" That thought alone was enough to terrify anyone to death. Especially a child like Souta, who had heard stories from his mother of how Kagome used to get lost in the forest by their shrine, led astray often by youkai.

"Are you not alive as well?" Jinenji set Souta down and adjusted his large haori, brushing off little flowers, vines of ivy, patches of moss, and bits of dirt. The vegetation on his raiment regrew itself. He noticed Souta's trembling and bent down, peering closely at the small child. "What ails you, little human? Are you sick with something?"

"Tokoyo is alive?" Souta repeated. He shook his head, trying to deny what was happening, backing away. "The youkai realm can think and feel?" The giant reached out and picked him up. "What—?" He sat on one of the giant's shoulders, ivy beginning to wind around his left leg.

"Tokoyo-Earth-Mother feels emotions as much as you or I." It smiled good-naturedly. "You wanted to help your family, yet you were powerless. Tokoyo heard your anguish. I know your sister is in danger. Come with me. I will aid you."

Jinenji began to walk off in the direction of the sense of death and the smell of blood.

"I will help."


Sesshoumaru and his daiyoukai generals were still in the war council room when his attendant burst in. "M-My Lord!" It gasped.

Sesshoumaru's gaze paralyzed the little youkai with fear. "Have you no sense of propriety, Jaken? You shame the House you serve."

"B-but, Lord Sesshoumaru.... The yaoguai have begun to move! Their armies are in the thousands. Great numbers of the dead and the living...our dead!"

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed. It came earlier than expected, but the youkai were ready. "Lord Naraku. Call the girl that was under your protection. I will bring those who went with her to the forefront of our forces." It was a dismissal. As one the daiyoukai stood. They moved out from they're positions and Sesshoumaru swept out his arm, "Call your people and gather them. Head your legions. We move out now."

Naraku murmured, a smile hovering about his mouth, "So it begins."


Inuyasha pursued the trail left behind by Kagome's essence. Suddenly, he felt Hiten at his side. Inuyasha turned his head slightly, an acknowledgment of the raijuu's presence. "Hiten?"

"Lord Inuyasha." The raijuu said, "The Commander desires that you hasten in your search and fetch the human girl at once. She is needed, for our struggle quickens now. Be prepared to take up arms. The legions move out in three passings of the soaring star." The raijuu vanished in a swirl of cloud-gust.

Inuyasha cursed atrociously increased his flight-speed. It was too soon.


Another thwack resounded through the surrounding area as Kagome was thrown to the ground for the seventh time. She determinedly pushed herself onto her feet. Her vision spun sickeningly. She cried out and fell to the ground, scraping her knees. She felt blood dripping warm and thick down her arms. Her back was tight, the muscles sensitive and raw. It had been ripped open. Tears rolled silently down her face. Her body was not going to be able to handle much more brutalizing, even with the youki infused within her.

"Human." Shihong was above her. She could feel him. She could hear the buzzing in his aura that signified a fallen god. "I know how you struggle and try. I, too, was once mortal. I know how insignificant your lives are, and I know how you think you're the center of the universe. Humans have no regard for others when they act. My sister was the same way. I wish for you to know these things because I see that you have a long way to go." He gripped the girl by the neck and lifted, beginning to walk her backwards. She scrambled to stay upright and not be dragged. Shihong slammed her against the tree she had first hit.

Kagome reeled and shrieked in pain: the tree bark was grating against her spine. She felt the blood flow freely now, too freely. It soaked her hitoe and hakama. A silent sob was choking her, forcing its way out of her throat. Shudders moved over her. Blood and bile coated her mouth, spilling out. "Inu...Inuyasha..."

Shihong slammed her back again. He lowered his head to whisper in her ear, "I am profoundly sorry for what I have done and am doing to you. I regret that you would be hurt." He stabbed her through with his sword. "You have to trust me. You must understand. It must appear sincere. When the time comes, I will surrender myself to your power, and you and your inugami shall eliminate me." Shihong paused and glanced away, head tilted as if listening for something, before smiling at her. "He comes for you now. I will take my leave. I wish you the best of luck, young Higurashi. You shall need it."

The immortal's hand disappeared from Kagome's bruised throat and she fell forward into the dirt, coughing and crying from the tear in her back. She felt Inuyasha at her side. The rest of the guards landed beside her, forming great craters in the rocky land.

"Kagome, Kagome..."

She was having trouble focusing on them. Their voices faded in and out.

"Inuyasha...don't...her, you'll hurt her back. Look at...size of the gash."

The thought of her wound sickened her. She wanted to sleep.

"Can...heal her? ...have...time."

"I can try." Hands laid on Kagome's shoulders and others braced each arm and her legs.

"Kagome?" It was Miroku. His eyes were full of worry and the usual merriment had vanished. "Your inugami thinks he can heal you now. However, before your...bonding, he calls it, the lady Suijin had to heal you. First it burned and then it felt good; do you remember?"

He waited until Kagome whispered, "When it was cool water?"

"Yes. Like water." Miroku inclined his head. His expression was bittersweet: he hated what they were going to do to her. "Unlike before, this will hurt a lot more, but it's a good pain. It means that your muscle is repairing itself. Now, we're going to hold you in place so your muscle knits itself the right way, okay?" He took a deep breath, looked into her now storm-grey eyes. "I'll tell you when he begins. You need to relax."

Kagome nodded weakly, "'kay." The hands on her body tightened and she felt someone crouching over her. She knew it was Inuyasha.

"You ready?" Miroku asked.

Kagome squeezed her eyes shut. "Uh-huh."

"Now."

This fire inside of her was worse. Worse than the one before. Her bones were moving back into place. He muscles were stretching and pulling and growing together. It was unimaginable. She was going insane she couldn't take it couldn't take it couldn't take it couldn't take it— "Inuyasha, focus on holding her consciousness intact! You can't let her go to that place!" and then someone was there inside of her and she screamed at the intrusion, tried to force it out, but the foreign thing pushed further into her and nearly split her in two. It held her, clamped onto her, tightly as a dog's jaws, sinking into her like teeth. She screamed again, her eyes going wide and wild, roving frenetically. Her mind was desperately struggling to get away from its captor yet, the grip was unyielding.

Kagome. Listen.

No. Please, no.

Kagome.

She knew that voice. She didn't want to understand it. Didn't want to feel the mind that touched hers. Not while it hurt her.

Kagome. Listen to me.

She began to whimper. She was being pulled from the dark recesses of her mind unwillingly.

Kagome. Wake up. It is done. It is done. You will feel a little tender on your back but we must continue to go on our way. Kagome.

She creaked an eye open, blinking away the crust of dried tears. Her sight cleared. She saw that her cousin Miroku was pale, his face drawn. He let go of her arm and ran off. She could hear the sounds of his retching. He came back, slightly smelling of sickness. Inuyasha was standing above her, with the rest of the youkai. They all slightly shaken, even Juuroumaru and Bankotsu, their faces as grim as the reaper himself.

"Inuya..." She stopped because her throat felt as though it had been carved. Her voice came out a croak, a call similar to that of a crow.

"Refrain from moving or talking. Rest." He knelt down to her, lifting up her from under her armpits. He kept her against him, for fear that she would crumple to the ground as soon as he let go. "Hiten." The daiyoukai summoned his thundercloud down to hover beside Kagome. Inuyasha set the girl onto the cloud. "This cloud," he said to her, "shouldn't hurt you while the sensitivity in your back is fading. Just rest."

Kagome smiled slightly. "Yeah..." she laid herself back, floating on air. She shut her eyes, tired. Then, she knew nothing more of the pain, asleep.

Inuyasha gripped the hilt of his sword. He was enraged. He would find that immortal and flay him alive. "Come. Let us rejoin my brother. He is not a patient youkai."