"Sesshomaru! Sesshomaru, please!" I shout, beyond the capacity for rational thought.
I run into the house, searching for you, but you aren't forthcoming. In fact, no one is there, and it takes me several minutes to regulate my breathing.
"Not everything is as it seems" I whisper to myself, and repeat it, again and again, attempting to understand this. It had to be part of the training, it made sense to jump to that conclusion. I tried to remember what Shippo had been like, what methods he used, but I couldn't make out more than acorns and tops, weapons faded into antiquity in the five hundred years since I had been part of the group that I had sacrificed everything for.
I could only decide one thing for certain, and that was that remaining calm was a necessity. I had to breathe. I had to relax.
"Sesshomaru" You came to mind, you bastard. You would see through this. Maybe, if I tried seeing things through your eyes. What would you do? What would you do?
You'd see through the trick, force your way out of the hallucination. That much is obvious , but useless to me as I can't do that. I know that I can't, especially with me hovering above the precipice of histrionics. Useless. Useless.
What else, what else? Shippo is playing with my mind. I'm not in any real danger. Shippo wouldn't cause me any real harm. But what if it were Naraku? I would have to work fast, in the web Naraku spun, lest I suffer irrevocable damage to my mind.
My mind, the entirety of this is occurring in my mind. My mind. I should be able to change things in my mind, right? Isn't that how these things work? I thought to Toran's training, and felt my energies flow into my muscles with the ease of practice. I held the glowing energy in my fists, peering around, attempting to find the way out of this.
I wandered around the house, looking for a clue or some-such, anything that would tell me what I needed to do in order to break free of the confines of this mind trick.
I made my way into my room, in the basement, and considered it for a second. Being in here, with you, flashed into my mind, a memory I didn't really want to remember summoned up against my will. I turn to leave, and collide with you, your body warm against mine. I rear back, ready to flee, but before I can do so, our mouths come together, yours incessant upon mine. I struggle, and you become more forceful, your teeth and mouth marring my skin with bruises and bites hard enough to break the skin.
Fuck. Fuck. It's just a mind trick. Don't panic. I raise my hand, and it glows a violent pink even as I swing my fist in your direction. When the body collapses this time, it's not snakes, but spiders. Millions of spiders of all sizes, crawling on and around me. I scream, the panic bubbling in my throat until I could no longer control it, despite my frenzied attempts to remain calm.
Shit. What do I do? Fuck, fuck, fuck! Toran, Toran had trained me to control my energies below the skin. Maybe I could surround myself in the energy.
I let it bubble just below the surface, focused not on the millions of tiny legs crawling around my skin, but on the skin itself. I tried to focus it, my energy control only adequate, and instead of a thin layer of it, protecting my skin from the spiders, it explodes out of me, killing the spiders and surrounding me in something like a barrier. After a few minutes pass, it's still there. I decide I would accept the blessing that this was, and crumple to my knees and then onto my side, my brain struggling to make sense of the trick. There had to be something that was making this happen. There had to be a way to stop it.
What would Toran do? What would you do? How do I beat this? How? Someone, please, help me.
Toran's trick was to use my energy to make my muscles stronger. That was what the entirety of our training was working towards. What is Shippo trying to get me to work towards?
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears. Gods damn, I'm so useless. Why am I so useless?
"No. I'm not useless. I'm only human. Breathe, Kagome."
I laid there for a long time, trying to work out this puzzle that refused to come easily. There was a piece I was missing. After what felt like an hour, I decided that the floor didn't hold the answers for me, at least not this piece of it. I stood, slowly, and peered around my room. I didn't want to risk coming into contact with any other memories that would be skewed, so I made my way back outside as fast as humanly possible.
The sight that greeted me though, was not one I would have expected, and, truth be told, I would have preferred the near-miss rape to seeing her. We leveled our eyes at one another.
"You" It was a sickening echo, bouncing back and forth between us.
"Kagome" A smile mars her mouth, off and wrong. I resist the urge to snarl, but only for a second.
"Who are you?" Venom and anger seep into my tone, and I can't help but be upset at myself, mentally berating my lack of apathy and inability to hide my emotions.
"It's ironic, you know? That a worthless copy thinks that she's been replaced, and by the Kami themselves no less! You think that I have taken your life from you, when actually the life I was owed was given back to me, as was right" The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as she talks, and I can't force the glare from my face.
"I am not a copy, you bitch! You act like you know so much, but only a fool thinks the Kami owe them anything." I stand my ground, determined to see this through. This woman who had replaced me, here, was not only unexpected, but also a perfect distraction to the absolute hopelessness of my situation.
We close in on one another, and before I can react, she's pulling my hair and attacking me. I didn't have time to react, but I remember that it's my mind. It's my mind, and I can control this. My powers explode from me again, and she's blown away, but not before her laugh echos through the back yard.
My legs buckle under me, and I fall to the ground. After using so much energy, my body isn't equipped to function, and so I crumple, unconscious.