Hello, everyone!

It's chapter 13 time, and we are finally gettin some Inuyasha back into this story!

Now before I send you off on your merry way to read this, a few warnings. While the MPAA may not consider this worthy of a warning, I feel I should just put this out there just in case. There is some adult language- like one or two, depending on what you classify as adult language I guess. In my opinion, there is only one but moving on-. There's a chance it already made its debut in previous chapters but I can't remember so we're getting the warning now :P

And of course, blood! Gore! And Muhahaha!- not really, this chapter is pretty tame-

So, with that out of the way, please enjoy! As always, please follow, favorite, review- you know. the works- especially if you haven't already. I receive the notifications on my phone and it's always really exciting when I see either one of those things. To those of you who have wondered, this does mean that I read every review. And PM's. I may not respond- cause I'm slightly anti-social and get really nervous when it comes down to it. I just... stare at the message, in the middle of the night. My phone the only source of light in the pitch darkness, as I nervously chew at the sides of my fingers- never my fingernails. Not sure why. It's just a quirk of mine- wondering what do I say? How do I respond? Only to fall asleep and begin the process again the next night until I officially surrender, leaving no response and just appreciating the message. Yup, that's basically what I go through... MOVING ON!

Chapter 13: The Mountain of Purple Flowers

Gravel was embedded in his open chest wound. The small, rough pebbles and aggregate clumped together in a mixture with his blood that slowly oozed out of his raw, torn skin. Like salt in the wound, it irritated him into waking from his hungover slumber.

Upon the cold, wet floor, Inuyasha dragged his senses out from their foggy stupor, reeling his consciousness into an inconsistent alertness. The aridity of his lips was next to catch his perplexed perceptions. Adhered together, as if coated in plaster or glue, he forced his lips apart, gulping in a breath of thinned air. Cold oxygen rushed into his vacant lungs, rattling them as if he had inhaled icy water and triggering a triad of violent coughs.

With bones as heavy as hardened cement, Inuyasha groaned as he blinked his crusted eyes open. Red painted the cave floor under him, reflecting a crimson version of himself. A large gash across his forehead accentuated the image.

"Damn," Inuyasha mumbled, struggling to rise only to slump back onto puddle with a splash. Shifting from his uncomfortable position, he pulled his arms out from under him revealing his bloodied fingers. Lifting one arm up, he allowed the blood to slowly drip from his claws; his blood. The small draft in the cave confirmed that fact with the scent that it carried.

Rolling onto his back, Inuyasha placed his hand upon his chest. His haori was pulled apart, exposing his hanju-ban, or what was left of it anyway. The white fabric was now a bright scarlet, the blood still fresh on its shredded pieces. Specs of the fabric were deeply ingrained within his wounds, pressed against the walls of the gashes that ran from one pectoral to the other.

"What… happened to me?" He traced his fingers along the cuts, his claws fitting perfectly within. He struggled to remember anything, his memory returning to him in brief flashes too quick to distinguish any real knowledge from. A few quick recollections of passing trees. A short memory of enhanced strength that tore his muscles apart. The residual dull aches from a deep sorrow that he distinctly recalled but could not determine its source instantaneously. Scraping and prodding against the lapses in his memories he continued to dig at his subconscious that held his repressed history hostage. The majority that came back to him was blackness but then, amongst the thickest of his repression, came small, flickering images. A woman with fiery red hair, her taunting grin smiling at Inuyasha's suffering. The clasp of her hand around a delicate neck. A hand reaching out to him.

Like a crack in a dam splitting open, his memories rushed at him like a flood. They carried an insufferable pain, the discordance of his soul filled with dejection and disparity that made their home in the chambers of his heart. His damnable beating heart, which carried on in its rhythm despite the dismaying, emotional death he had endured, and it shouldn't have been beating! It shouldn't have been beating! Not when she was-

"Kikyo!" Inuyasha shouted, puncturing his chest with his claws, arching his back from emotional agony. Hot tears fell down the sides of his face as his screaming continued, the full memory of seeing her, of knowing she was alive while being held captive, tortured, was firmly redefined in consciousness.

He could feel his blood begin to stir, the demon side of him scratching to take control again but it too had been exhausted from its previous exploit. Kikyo! Kikyo! Kikyo! His mind rambled insanely, consumed by her memory, by her scent, her voice, her name, repeating it endlessly as if it were a prayer. His beloved Kikyo.

Unable to withstand lying still as these consumable thoughts rampaged his mind, Inuyasha groaned into rising, another succession of coughs escaping his lips as he relied on the cave's wall for support. With one hand dragging along the rocky surface, Inuyasha stepped out of the small cave and into the lit dusk.

The cold air was a welcomed relief and was especially enjoyed by his wounds that gladly accepted the chill. A quick glance around the area and Inuyasha knew he had no idea where he was.

Two peaks of a mountain faced each other, forming a deep valley below where flowers upon flowers painted the glen in shades of purples and violets. Water from the melted snow at the peaks trickled downward forming thin, short waterfalls that flooded the flowers, making them sway with the movement of water. A vision like some kind of plasma moving in currents, both beautiful and mystifying. But Inuyasha didn't care much for its beauty.

He wanted to find out where he was. Find his way home. Hopefully, his friends, whom he had abandoned, would still be willing to help him find Kikyo. Kagome, if he remembered correctly, had said that they would, but everything after that was blank save those short, blurry images of jumping through the air. And the scream. Oh, kami. He must have frightened someone awful when he had transformed.

Sluggishly, Inuyasha jumped down the side of the mountain, passing through the misty clouds that speckled the area from this height. With his mind fixed on home and Kikyo, Inuyasha continued to jump down ledge after ledge, overlooking the similarity that each ledge had to its predecessor.

In fact, the more he seemed to jump down, the more he seemed to not be moving at all. The cut of the mountain never changed. Clouds reappeared where others were before. The valley was never any closer. It took him longer than it should have for Inuyasha to notice this phenomenon. If only he had noticed the cave sooner, which constantly remained at his backside. He wouldn't have wasted so much time.

When he did notice, he fell to his knees, cursing. "Damnit! What the hell is going on here?!" The gravel felt rough against his knuckles as he pounded his fist into the ground rhythmically as if he were pounding the very emotions that stirred inside him. It was mildly liberating, providing a small sense of control as he reflected on himself, on Kikyo, and the lynching belief that he refused to acknowledge whispering in the shadows of his mind. The belief that he had failed her, that he had always failed her, and that in his attempts to save her, he would only fail again.

The voice that responded to his exclamation was spoken in a nearly silent whisper, so much so that Inuyasha almost mistook it for a turn in the wind. It was a woman's voice, gentle in the currents of the wind, calling out his name. A voice he seemed to recognize.

Following the direction from which it came, Inuyasha hiked along a narrow path that hugged the mountain. Passing crevasses and short ledges, craggy stone ways and slippery, moss covered boulders, the voice gradually became louder and louder, carrying an ethereal tone.

"Inuyasha," it called out, and refraining from hope, Inuyasha listened to pitch of Kikyo's voice. Could it really be her? Should he even believe it? Maybe his mind was tricking him. The voice carried such a heavy echo, he could easily have made a mistake.

He found the voice coming from a crack in the mountain, a tight squeeze of a tunnel that he shuffled through, leading out into a grotto. A vibrant tree glimmered in the sunlight, sprouting out from the edge of a circular pond that reflected the light like a shattered mirror. A line of rocks outlined its perimeter and curved at the center from one side to the other with two large stones on either side of that line. It was a calming area. Tranquil.

And sitting before the tree, within the pond as her long, white hair floated on the ripples of water, was a woman in white. Light showered her presence, illuminating her like a star, but her figure was transparent, begging the question of whether she was really there at all. Was he seeing things?

"Inuyasha, you finally came." The woman spoke, her back turned to him as she stood up, rising with unsettling grace. Inuyasha's ears twitched at the sound of her voice as an internal alarm rang out with certainty that the woman in front of her was Kikyo. Even the fragrance in the air mimicked her scent. But the white, ghostly figure… it couldn't be her. Even if her hair and figure from behind resembled her. If it was her… what would it mean?

"Who are you?! Are you…"

"Who?" The woman asked, turning around to face Inuyasha, bringing about shock and confusion. Short bangs fell over her eyebrows with the rest of her hair looped back into her ponytail. Contemplative eyes against transparent, alabaster-white skin met him, an adoring look befalling them as a gentle smile appeared on her face. He was so stunned that he struggled to say her name, to even believe it was her. But it had to be, even with her bleached white hair or her ghostly skin. It had to be her; his Chinese Bellflower.

"K-Kikyo?"

She tilted her head down, her eyes closing for a moment as if panged by a sudden onslaught of guilt or distress. When she looked at him again, her eyes were filled with sympathy and sorrow.

"No, Inuyasha. I am not Kikyo."

"But… if that's true, then how come you look so much like her?! How do you know who I am?! And Kikyo! Do you know where she is?! Do you have her?! Who the hell are you?!-"

The doppelganger lifted her hand, motioning him to calm down and be silent. She waited to speak until he complied, patiently waiting until he took a few breaths after his rant.

"Inuyasha, my name is Amellis, and I am appearing to you through the connection that Kikyo's heart has with you. This is why I resemble her. It's how your heart chooses to see me."

"You're- what? My heart? Listen, even if I were to believe it, none of what you're saying makes sense! Not that it matters anyway. What does matter is where is Kikyo?! Where do you have her?! Tell me or I swear-"

"I am with Kikyo, Inuyasha, but it is not as you presume. I do not have her."

"What do you mean?"

"I am a prisoner. Beside her."

"A prisoner…" Inuyasha whispered, his aggressive demeanor shifting to a saddened disposition. He knew it was true before, but hearing it… his heart ached at the mention of Kikyo's imprisonment.

"Yes, and I'm here to tell you-"

"Where? Tell me where you two are! My friends and I, we can help you! We can rescue-"

"I don't know where we are, Inuyasha. I haven't been privileged to see the sunlight with my own eyes in many years. I am sorry."

Silence fell between the two of them, despondency clinging to the air for a few minutes as they wallowed in their sadness. Amellis, unwilling to immerse herself in self-pity for too long, stepped out of the water, the ripples reaching the edges of the pond on either side of the curved line and accentuating a key point in what the symbol meant; the unity of the yin and yang.

"Inuyasha, tell me. How much are you willing to surrender in order to save Kikyo?"

"Why are you even asking?! Anything! Everything! None of it matters without Kikyo! I'd give up my life if it meant I could save her!"

"Even Kagome?"

Flinching back involuntarily, Inuyasha remained silent unable to respond. How could he answer that? Even Kagome? Of course not! I could never do that to her. But then… Kikyo…

"I assume your silence means no?"

Inuyasha grumbled in response.

"In that case, likewise I must ask how much would you surrender in order to save Kagome? Would you be willing to give up Kikyo?"

"Why are you asking me these questions? What's this have to do with anything?"

"... Their lives depend on it…"

Amellis could feel his confused gaze upon her. The scrunched up eyebrows. The questioning amber eyes. She could imagine it perfectly, the part of Kikyo's connection influencing Amellis's imagination. She was beginning to feel the strain of all this, projecting her soul through the means of a priestess's spirit that was being tortured. Her presence felt shaky at best, and her consciousness felt afloat as if she were inhaling a large amount of smoke that choked off her brain. Not much longer she thought to herself before motioning to Inuyasha to stand beside her.

"What?" Inuyasha asked, his speculation rising.

"Look at the water, Inuyasha, and tell me what you see."

"Keh. It's just a big puddle of water. Ain't nothing special about it. How 'bout you tell me what you meant right now-"

"Look at the water!" Amellis demanded, surprising Inuyasha. How either woman of his affections could tolerate his stubborn self-righteousness Amellis could not understand, but at least he was listening to her now.

The water was a conjuration of her own inspiration, a fabrication created from her vision that she manipulated to project images of her choosing. The water was false. The area, however, with its natural formations of the grotto, the tree, and even the rocks that lined the pond into the iconic symbol was considered a holy place and gave her the ability to manifest the images of Kikyo and Kagome.

Kikyo resided on the side of yin, the water becoming dark with her image, while Kagome resided on the side of yang, the water on her side turning white. Both women on a side of the same coin, and yet remarkably different.

"Huh? But that's Kikyo… and Kagome… I don't understand."

"You don't? Look at them, Inuyasha. Are they not perfectly represented here?"

"What's it gotta do with me?" Inuyasha asked, folding his arms beneath his haori. He wanted to hide how sweaty his palms had become. How nervous he had become.

"You're at the center of it, Inuyasha. You're the one that tears them apart. You'll be the deciding factor of whether they will live or die."

"I'll protect both of them. I always have-"

"No, you've always left them in danger. At moments where they thought you would protect them, you left because of your selfishness."

Inuyasha's ears fell flat as he ground his teeth. A hotness burned inside him making everything raw. His sharp breathing, the quickening pace of his heart, the tension in his muscles. He felt it all, down to the microfibers, and in his mind the only thought that passed through was bitch.

"You're angry."

"No shit. And say, where the hell do get off thinking you can say this crap about me, huh? Talking as if you know me-"

"But I do know you, Inuyasha. I know you through Kikyo and Kagome. Through the lives, I've witnessed them go through."

"Keh, yeah right! And I'm just supposed to take your word on that huh? You know, you haven't exactly convinced me that you're not a bad guy either. What's to stop me from slicing you two and shutting you up?!"

"Because then you wouldn't know how to save them."

Silence echoed between them again, an unsettling silence filled with reluctant complacency, and for a moment, as Inuyasha turned away, it seemed that the conversation was over. But Inuyasha never left. He simply chose to not look at her anymore. Was that because of his anger, or because he couldn't look into Kikyo's face anymore knowing it wasn't really her?

"Well? You gonna tell me how or what?"

Amellis smiled sympathetically. This poor half demon was filled with so much emotion, and given the nature of his blood she could hardly blame him for struggling to control them. Of course, that could have easily been Kikyo's side influencing her, as she found Inuyasha rather difficult to work with.

"Inuyasha, I know the reason why you are angry is that you know I am right, and you'd rather be angry about it instead of accepting it-"

"You're shrink'n me know?" Inuyasha remarked over his shoulder, clearly unamused.

"Fine," Amellis replied, her own annoyance showing through as she decided to remove all subtly. He wanted straightforward so she would give him straightforward. "Inuyasha, you are constantly discontent. When you have one woman in your arms you hunger for the other and vice versa. In doing so you have caused hatred between them, have separated them, and not only that but you have made them weaker! You have caused so much damage to their spirits and have unbalanced them! You are the reason for so many of their insecurities and self-doubt-"

"I know, okay!" Inuyasha lashed out, his hands in a fist as he swung them to his side unable to control himself for much longer and simply hoping that this Kikyo imposter would shut the hell up. He didn't want to hear these words, to listen as they came out in Kikyo's voice. He didn't want to hear how he had hurt her or Kagome. "... I know… okay?" he said calmly, his shoulders slumping over with his guilt, containing the dejection that raged inside him.

"Inuyasha," Amellis spoke, calming down herself, "you need to choose one."

"What?" Inuyasha questioned, finally turning back around to look at her.

Amellis exhaled a breath she had been holding in, taking a moment to collect her words before speaking.

"As long as you continue to sway between these two women… Inuyasha you'll only make them weaker, and they won't be able to survive against my mother if they remain that way."

"You're mother?"

"Yes," Amellis confirmed, feeling weaker herself as she admitted this fact. "She plays against emotions. Uses them to her advantage to make her opponents fall. She finds it… entertaining. And with the damage you have caused, you've only made Kikyo and Kagome easy targets."

"I've promised to protect them both-"

"If you try to fulfill your promise, Inuyasha, they will both die. But if you chose to protect only one, there is a chance they'll both survive."

"A chance?! You want me to do this based on a chance?!"

"It's the only hope they've got!" Amellis shouted, pointing at the water. She could hardly believe how easily this boy could make her lose her temper. Perhaps it was simply the strain though. With each passing second, she was feeling more exhausted, as was Kikyo's spirit, which was already near collapse. The fact of the matter was that she didn't have enough time, and Inuyasha acted as though she had all the time in the world. She was fading, her transparency increasing, and he was completely oblivious.

"I don't have time for this." She spoke plainly, reclaiming Inuyasha's attention who was self-absorbed in his own thoughts full of denial. "I'm already fading-"

"Wait a second! You can't go yet! I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to do…"

"I've already told you. You have to choose one, Inuyasha. Or do you honestly prefer to cause them more suffering just to fulfill your selfish lustful appetite?"

"But I can protect them-"

"Kagome has already been attacked! And where were you? Blacked out as your demon blood controlled you without any direction."

Inuyasha flinched. What did she say? Had he heard her correctly? Kagome was attacked? No, it couldn't have been true. But what if it was? What if she was still in danger?

"I… I have to go… I have to save her!-"

"You're brother has already saved her, Inuyasha. He's kept her safe." As she spoke, Amellis expected relief from Inuyasha, so it was a surprise when what she did receive was a look of disbelief; a disgruntled, disgusted look of disbelief coated with jealousy as though he had learned that another dog had taken up to chewing his favorite bone. It was all so childish and petty in her eyes and what seemed to be Inuyasha's lack of perspective was utterly baffling. "Inuyasha, your brother has already succeeded in what you failed to do; protect Kagome. Do you understand what I mean now? By choosing one you won't be abandoning the other. You'll be giving them a chance to find another source of protection."

"I… Are you saying I should choose Kikyo? To actually believe that my murderous prick of a brother would really choose to protect Kagome without some sort of self-gain involved? Or anyone else for that matter?"

"I can't tell you who to chose, or what to believe. Whether someone else will step in to protect them or they learn to protect themselves is something I cannot predict. I can only tell you to chose one. You will all be better for it. Stronger, and more capable of surviving."

"You can't give me some advice? How do I keep them both alive? Who should I chose?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know." She lowered her head, much like she had before when she clarified who she was, carrying the burden of disappointment. Her shoulders hunched, and she averted her eyes away from Inuyasha, focusing on her clasped hands as she folded and unfolded her fingers around each other. The transparency of her skin held the solidity of steam in the air, and each time she closed her eyes she could see the dark pit, hear the vile roaring and the sorrowful screaming. It was time to say goodbye.

"Keh. Well, maybe you could be more helpful next time I see ya, huh?" Inuyasha prompted, catching that her increase in transparency meant she wasn't to be here for much longer and believing that there would be a next time. As if she'd ever could do this again.

"No," Amellis responded, "you won't be seeing me again."

"Why not?"

"I was only able to this now because of this place. This former holy place that you managed to find your way to and that I could still connect to. That, and my current isolation."

"What do you mean?"

"My mother is gone. Out for a walk, or so she said. I'm not sure what it means but it is not something she does regularly. She must be up to something, but what I do not know, only that it won't be good. But given the circumstance, it has left Kikyo and I relatively alone for the moment, demons with little to no intelligence aside, and that gave me the opportunity to work through her even in her tormented state."

"So that's it, huh? Come here to give me an ultimatum, tell me how Kikyo's being tortured, and then just leave?"

"There is one more thing, Inuyasha." Her voice came out as an echo, matching her disappearing figure. It hadn't crossed her mind before, this one piece of information that even he would find useful because it was something she had already gotten used to. Something she had been accustomed to ignoring. But now, as her senses had spent time away from her body, she noticed it as she drifted back into the pit. "Where Kikyo and I are being held," she spoke rapidly, "beneath the earth, I can hear the w…"

She faded away before she could finish speaking, her figure turning to catch Inuyasha's eye as she disappeared into a light mist imploding into an anchored point in the air. Her voice echoed in existence for a few breaths longer, carrying the partial clue she aimed to give him when she was already gone. When it vanished, so too did the light. As did the leaves in the tree. The green in the grass. The water in the pond.

Within seconds, the luscious grotto became dry and barren, slathered in the brown tint of the clay formations. The tree was black and skeletal, with matching dead shrubby spotting the area around the empty, cracked crater in the ground that was the pond. Life left with her, that random woman that he was still suspicious about, but her absence made Inuyasha feel… unsettled.

Suddenly this place appeared more familiar, as though he had been here before and it was a place that carried a heavy significance to him. A horrifying, demoralizing significance.

Inuyasha stepped out of the grotto, the short, craggy tunnel being more unstable now than it had been when he first passed through. The changes carried onto the mountain side, where clouds of smoke loomed above where no ice caps resided; only the ashen soot upon the peaks. There were no waterfalls, no vegetation, no flowers. Only the miasma which soaked itself into the air and the river below. A river of purple flowers was what it had been before but it had changed just as everything else had. Or had a veil of falsehood simply been removed?

Inuyasha knew this place. He had suffered here. Had lost someone here, or so he had believed. For days he had carried that suffering; the loss of someone he loved. For weeks this place was a grave marker. Mount Hakurei had never seen more poisonous. He traversed carefully down the brittle mountainside, past the river, and past the toxic, abandoned villages. It took a great distance to remove himself from the airborne folds and pockets of miasma, but he found coverage in the woods where he took a pause to rest and examine his wounds and contemplate his encounter with Amellis, the woman in Kikyo's image.

His wounds were taking slightly longer than usual to live, most likely due to the overuse of his demon blood, but they no longer ached as they had when he awoke. Given a day, or maybe less, and they would be gone. It was good news, as was what he learned from Amellis. Or so he told himself. She had given him clues to find them, a place underground with something starting with a "w" near by. He could share this information with his friends, and they could start their search with an idea of where to start looking. It was good news. So why did he delay in leaving? Why did he sit there, waiting, as if the emptiness that had found a place inside him would subside? An ultimatum. That was what he was facing.

He thought of ignoring this 'advice' Amellis had given him, but as he thought of Kikyo, of where she was and what was happening to her, was he really willing to put anything to chance? Without an answer, he stood and began making his way through the trees again. Making his way home.

It was odd to see, then, the demons that emerged from the woods taking a course beside him. At first, he assumed they were there to attack him, but quickly realized that they gave no attention to him at all. Where ever they were heading, they moved in large numbers, and amongst the snarls and hissing, Inuyasha heard a number of demons call out a familiar phrase.

"The Shikon Jewel! I must possess the Shikon Jewel!"

Tehe... did you notice? For those of you who have done extensive research on the characters -looking them up on Wikipedia- you know I left a little trivia there. Tehe.

Anyway, quite a bit of stuff going on here. Inuyasha going home with an ultimatum. Amellis taking on a more active role. Her mother out for a "walk?" whatever that means. And the array of demons taking on the hunt for a jewel that was destroyed. Weird huh? I wonder what it all means.

Oh, and I recently discovered a post? site? with a better description of the characters clothing, so things down the line may or may not match previous descriptions -basically changing out the generic "kimono" for the proper term of their clothing if I can understand it correctly.-

So, that was the end of that chapter! See ya'll in a few weeks :)