Disclaimer: Hey, I don't own Inuyasha. Rumiko-san does, which means she has the fame, fortune, recognition, and millions of fans that read the manga and watch the show. However if I did own Inuyasha, I would have all these things.
Summary: Remember when Kagome was under Menomeru's spell from the first movie? Well what if it was never dispelled and just lay dormant within her being? What if it was one day unleashed on a bunch of unsuspecting demons that intend to kill her? Let's just say it doesn't end too well for the bunch of demons, that's for sure.
Rating: T
For violence and mild language
Category: Action/Adventure/ Romance
Hidden Power: Silver Moon Vampiress
Chapter 10: Role Reversal
Sango repeated her question, approaching the two with Miroku and Shippo following close behind.
"You two were making quite a commotion out here, so we came to check on you." She fixed them both with a quizzical stare, taking note of their unexplained nervousness. "Is everything all right?"
Kagome and Inuyasha shared a lookâone of apprehension.
"Sort of . . ." Kagome was steadily eyeing the ground as though it had somehow grown more interesting than it had ever been.
Inuyasha was tactfully avoiding eye contact with everyone, as though the question wasn't directed at him at all. He dropped the cause of their stress, concentrating on not drawing unnecessary attention it.
"Okay . . . Something is definitely up with you two. Tell me what's going on already." Though patience was normally a quality Sango prided herself on, at the moment, it seemed to be running quite thin.
A long stretch of silence elapsed before Kagome spoke up. "Well . . . You know how you let me borrow your Hiraikotsu to practice my telekinetic abilities?"
This was said with her attention focused intently on the ground at her feet. She paused, toeing a pebble, before she started up again.
"Well . . . I . . . I somehow managed to . . ."
"Yes?" Sango's voice was stretched beyond her normal line of practiced patience and was on the verge of anxious frustration.
"Well I . . . I somehow managed to turn it into . . . a feather . . ." The last was barely above a whisper, but was heard by all in the party.
Everyone but Inuyasha's face contorted in disbelief, which spoke louder than the words they were reluctant to share. It wasn't until Kagome picked up the feather that disbelief melted away and became awed belief in the evidence splayed right before their eyes.
Silence huddled around them, unbroken. Kagome and Inuyasha blanched, awaiting the fuming anger that was bound to come from Sango. They weren't expecting the sudden outburst of laughter that shattered the silence coming from the very person they expected the worst from.
"Sango?" Befuddled, Kagome ventured closer to her friend, concern for her friend's mental stability evident in her tone and etched into her features.
Sango bent over at the waist, caught in a fit of hysterical laughter that wracked her slight frame. Her lungs were burning by the time she was through.
After several minutes of incessant laughter, Sango was finally able to form a coherent sentence. "I'm sorry, Kagome . . . I couldn't . . . I couldn't help it!" The latter was said between giggles and desperate gasps for air.
"I just . . . thought of charging into battle with a feather and my mind turned over from the overall hilarity of the situation."
Kagome had to admit that the situation did prove to be humorous once the initial anxiety of telling Sango had eased.
"How did you transmute it," Sango asked, once her breathing had returned to normal.
"I just wished as hard as I could that the Hiraikotsu was a feather and my newfound powers made it so."
"So, theoretically, you should be able to change it back the same way?"
"That's the idea." Kagome was slightly uncertain she would be able to do a repeat performance, but she knew she had to try. She stepped away from Sango in preparation.
She placed the feather on the ground and cleared her mind. She focused all of her concentration on envisioning the feather as the Hiraikotsu; it trembled and was airborne for an instant. Then, in a flash of light, the feather morphed back into the Hiraikotsu before clattering to the ground. Awe washed over everyone's features, including Kagome's.
"I didn't think it was going to work," Kagome murmured, eyeing her handiwork resting at her feet.
"That was amazing, Kagome," Shippo cried, launching himself into her arms. She swept him into an embrace, sharing her relief and joy with the tiny kitsune in her arms.
"He's right," Miroku said. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it."
Sango drew up beside Kagome and they shared a smile. "I'm really glad I don't have to learn how to use a new weapon," she said with a giggle.
She picked up the Hiraikotsu and slung it across her back, smile still lighting up her features.
"Come on, everyone. Let's get back to Kaede's hut. I'm sure she's wondering what all the commotion was about."
Shippo leapt off Kagome's shoulder and followed closely behind Miroku and Sango, leaving Inuyasha and Kagome alone to trail behind them.
For a while, silence charged the air around them stretching into a strained awkwardness, until at last Inuyasha's words ended its streak.
"I'm glad everything worked out." He tactfully avoided her gaze when his words gained her undivided attention.
Thinking nothing of this, she returned her gaze to the path before them and their friends trekking quite a distance ahead of them. She was in no hurry. Her comfort level with Inuyasha was beyond words she would willingly voice aloud, and thus she said and did nothing to ruin the moment.
"Me too," she said at last. "I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't change it back."
They settled into another silence far more comfortable than the last. Their steps in time and the breeze about them light, they followed the distant tread of their companions up ahead, their pace unhurried.
"Kagome . . ." Inuyasha began, but halted before he could utter another word of his secret fear.
Somehow expelling what had been raging in him as a horrid nightmare made him feel all the more weak for harboring it in the first place.
"Nevermind; forget I said a thing."
He brushed past Kagome, none too gently in his haste to escape his growing fear and the woman it directly related to.
"What's with you?" Confusion laced her question and uncertainty shook her limbs, but still she reached out to him and held him firm at the wrist.
He whirled on her then, eyes intense with an unreadable emotion. It startled her; it intrigued her; it confused her even more. The intensity built with their gazes locked, both amber and brown asking an unvoiced question of the other. No answer was given and the tension about them tightened and was amplified by the connection of their bodies. What would've been said or done was forgotten in that moment when Sango called out to them, startling them apart.
"We're coming." Kagome released Inuyasha's wrist, immediately mourning the loss of connection.
She assumed that Inuyasha was at her back and ran to catch up with Sango and the others.
He watched her disappear over the gentle rolls of a grass covered hill before turning tail and seeking refuge in the forest that shared his name. His heart clenched and pounded in anguish as he realized how close he had come to divulging his darkest fears. He growled to himself as a war of unwanted emotions waged on, forcing him to examine what he had kept sheltered from light, not allowing it to be nourished by pity or understanding. Allowing his inner turmoil to make itself known would only present itself as a weakness; he had yielded once and he'd be damned if he ever did it again.
And yet, as he turned it over in his mind he realized how difficult to was to shoulder a burden this great without reprieve. A light breeze played along his back, tossing his tresses aimlessly before dying down. Without meaning to, his feet led him to the Sacred Tree and he was instantly reminded of Kikyo and the arrow she shot that ended his life for 50 years.
Kikyo . . .
Inuyasha's mind was filled with thoughts of her and how Naraku managed to drive a deep wedge between them that could neither be scaled nor mended. Ultimately his fear concerning Kagome related directly to that. With her new powers he was uncertain of how long she would stay by his side.
The reason Kaede paired the two of us together was so that I could protect Kagome. What good will I serve if I can no longer fill that role?
He knew that his longing for Kikyo didn't help their relationship. The fact is there would always be a place for Kikyo in his heart, a place that Kagome would have to share. His feelings were unresolved and he couldn't seem to ease the bitterness of the past. Kikyo's heart had grown cold and clouded with bitterness the moment of her impending death and the feelings returned with her resurrected body. At first he too harbored resentment for Kikyo, but after finding out that Naraku was responsible, he pitied Kikyo and her unending suffering.
There was no closure between them and it was absolutely necessary if he wanted to continue to live on. There were so many things left unsaid; he longed to apologize to her, to make her realize that he should not have allowed his trust in her to wane so easily under the pressure of false betrayal.
Our kiss then should have forged an unbreakable bond and yet it seemed our love for each other was our undoing . . .
After closure, there was the issue of opening his heart to another. Kagome had already proved herself trustworthy, but a small part of him feared a level of intimacy that revealed all his vulnerabilities. His heart would forever be bruised even if it was under false pretenses. After spending his life alone and isolated from both the human and the demon world, he was skeptical of any form of kindness directed towards him. Kikyo was the first and naturally he was curious; he clung to her, starving for the human contact she willingly offered. To have his trust shattered then broke something within him that even Kagome might not be able to heal.
But I hope someday, that she can . . .
The unnatural movement of brush nearby alerted him to hidden company and with one whiff of the scent he knew it to be one of Naraku's minions. Inuyasha dashed into a nearby clearing where the scent was strongest, hand already on the hilt of Tetsusaiga. The clearing swelled with the pressure of an unnatural wind, whipping debris about in a blinding whirlwind. Kagura's laugh erupted, carrying over the rush of wind and then she was above him, flying away on her feather.
"Kagura . . ."
Inuyasha eased his hand from the hilt of Tetsusaiga, watching her retreating form, brows knitted with unease. She'd been there the whole time and he hadn't sensed her up until the last moment.
Now Naraku knows everything we know . . . Shit . . .
A/N: I hadn't even realized I had finished this chapter until now. Hope you enjoyed it! Chapter 11 is on the way!
Silver Moon Vampiress