A/N ~ (19/10/2010): Dates: november 14
You're Kinda, Sorta, Basically, Pretty Much, Always On My Mind.
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I Do Not Own Inuyasha
25. Illusionary Death
We still stood on the same mountain even though it had been hours since Naraku had left with Kikyo. Miroku, Sango, and Shippo sat a few feet away on a rock that had the snow brushed off, in front of a small fire enjoying a bowl of ramen each and a cup of hot chocolate. Kirara sat beside the kitsune kit, devouring a can of wet cat food. She seemed to enjoy it. I'd been distracted all this time and forgot how much food I had in my backpack from my era, but now, at least, I was glad I could finally share it with them.
"Are you sure, Kaori?" Koga asked me, his bright blue eyes staring at me with great concern.
I nodded as I finished bandaging up his right arm, "Yes. You should go. Naraku isn't one you want to get mixed up with."
"You guys are mixed up with him."
"Yes but that's because he's done thing to us. He hasn't done anything to you and I'd like to keep it that way."
"What about mutt face? I don't think he's able to protect you."
"Mutt fac- I mean Inuyasha is fine," I glanced over my shoulder toward the hanyo and suppressed a sigh. He was sitting with his back to us, his ears droopy and miserable. Well.. fine in a sense.. "and I'm able to protect myself, you know. I'm part yokai now."
He thought that over and scratched the back of his head. I pressed my lips together and glanced over at Inuyasha again, wondering how long he'd sit and mope about Kikyo.. Our eyes met and he snapped his head back to where it was before. I guess that means he's done moping if he's remembered Koga's here.
The wolf boy got to his feet and I followed, "Well I guess I'll be going then but.." Koga reached into a pocket I never knew existed and pulled out a shiny silver object. He threw the shiny around my neck and I reached up to feel the chain and pendant. It was a pewter ring with a wolf howling up at a full moon in the centre of it. I stared at it. It was so shiny, glistening in the sun; so detailed and carefully crafted.. No one had ever given me anything this nice..
"Wow.." I gasped.. "I love it, thank you."
A slight tinge of pink touched Koga's cheeks and he smiled, "I found the metal and made it myself. It's not much but.. There's an enchantment on it too. So no matter where you are I can find you."
No more tricks from Inuyasha then. I smiled and nodded. I really did love it.
"Oh.. also.." he placed a hand over the shard in his arm and then a he placed it in my hand, "You need this more than I do."
Suddenly I felt another presence behind me and a shiver ran down my spine. I turned around.. and Inuyasha stood, absolutely seething in anger. I could hear his heart beating loudly in his chest and my instincts were telling me to run for my. Oh dear..
"Who the hell said you could give her stuff!" Inuyasha growled.
"I did! I'm aloud to give Kaori anything I want to!"
"You bastard.. I'll make it so you wont be able to come wandering after her baring gifts ever again!" Tetsusaiga was out and swung towards the wolf yokai. I dropped to the floor and Koga leaped over the blade easily.
"Heh, what are you so pissed off about, albino," Koga scoffed, "Kaori, you know, would be happier if she came along with me, compared to a weakling like you."
"You think you're stronger than me? Even after your all banged up and I haven't even got a scratch!"
"Either way," Koga continued, "She'd still be happier. I'm not the one who makes her cry or run away."
Inuyasha froze as Koga's remark hit below the belt. Okay, this was getting too out of hand. I jumped between then, pushing against Koga, furthering the distance between them, "Koga I think you should go now. We still have to go save some things and such."
Koga went to protest but I growled, "If you don't leave now I'll never speak to either of you ever again and I'll marry Miroku! So there!"
A few moments later Koga was nothing but a whirlwind on the horizon. I sighed, dropping our only shikon shard into my pocket and turned back to Inuyasha who'd gone back to his moping spot. I sat down beside him, "Inuyasha.. What's a matter?"
"Nothing is 'a matter'," he growled.
"Okay... so.. then lets go save Kikyo.."
He tensed and I felt the mood around him go from furious to sadness. Well.. at least I fixed his jealousy..
"You lot just stay here," he demanded, obviously still aggravated, "I'll go alone."
All of a sudden Miroku's sandal and foot came down on Inuyasha's head, pushing his nose into the snow, "Stop screwing around you jerk."
"It was Naraku who took off with Kikyo." Sango reminded him.
I sighed. I didn't know if I was happy that we were back on track or upset that now Inuyasha's head would fill up with thoughts of her once more.. I kind of enjoyed his jealousy but.. this is more important I guess.
"Right, it's not just your problem Inuyasha," Miroku agreed.
I inhaled slowly, forcing back some of my own misery, "Inuyasha don't just run off by yourself because you're upset with me. I care about her too so of course we have to save her. So don't be so.. ugh.. sneaky."
"'Sneaky'?, now just wait a minute what abut you and Koga! What were you guys doing? While I wasn't around! Probably something inapproprat-"
"OSUWARI!"
"That's enough you two!" Miroku cut in, "Our guides have arrived."
I turned around and looked to the sky. Saimyoushou.
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They cut through the forest, their feet kicking up snow as they ran. Kirara's powers melted the snow under her and Kaori sighed. sitting behind Sango as Inuyasha cursed under his breath once more.
"Kaori-chan.." Sango glanced over her shoulder, "Shouldn't you be running with Inuyasha like normal?"
"No.." Kaori answered. Because.. after that stupid remark she would have gone home.. and besides. She thought. Inuaysha's head was full with thoughts of Kikyo. There was no room for her in there.
Inuyasha ran faster, ignoring the girl's small chat behind him. That didn't matter right now. Nothing did.. Kikyo had died because of Naraku. He especially wouldn't let Naraku have her.
Suddenly the pale green flying soul collectors joined them at their sides each bearing a silvery wisp.
"She must be close," Kaori murmured, reaching out to touch one of them. It felt smooth and cold beneath her fingers.. They flew ahead, almost reaching the purple and yellow bees, as they disappear into a thick mist.
"That up ahead is probably Naraku's trap," Miroku shouted, "Don't be careless Inuyasha."
"I know!" Inuyasha snapped. He leaped ahead throwing himself into the fog. He stopped as all he could see and hear was white. No Miroku, no Sango, Shippo, Kirara. No Kaori. Just whiteness, just the thick mist that clouded his vision.
All of a sudden a soft crackling sound pierced the silence and Inuyasha whipped around to face it. It was fire. He raced forward. Was this where Kikyo was? As he got closer a village set aflame appeared. The heat was almost unbearable and he walked through it, searching for some kind of answer. The flames crackled and roared up to the giant full moon burning everything in sight. Something seemed familiar about this..
"There he is!" someone shouted, "It's Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha turned at the sound of his name. Wounded villagers stalked toward him, bearing broken spears and swords, "That guy.. stole the shikon no tama and attacked the village!"
Suddenly something small and round jangled in his hand and he looked. In his claws was the jewel in it's original form. Beaded necklace and all.. swirling darker than he'd ever seen it before.
"Inuyasha!"
He whipped around again, instantly recognizing that voice. Kikyo..! She stood a few feet away her face full of sweat and blood. He noticed she held an empty bow and listened against the glare of the fire as a sharp arrow came flying towards him. This was fifty years ago. The day he was killed..! As he backed up against a tree, as the arrow pierced his heart, he listened.. for something that never came. He'd returned to that day.. that time.. but there was something missing..
Inuyasha watched as Kikyo staggered toward him, holding her injured arm and looked down at his own body expecting something to be there that wasn't. He didn't understand.
"Inuyasha.." Kikyo whispered, falling to her knees to take the jewel from the ground, "This shikon no tama.. because of such a thing.. you betrayed me.." A single solitary tear ran down her face.
You're wrong Kikyo. Inuyasha cried from his thoughts unable to speak anymore. Both of us have been caught up in Naraku's trap. I haven't betrayed you!
"I have been a damn fool to think, for just a moment that I had ever wanted to be with you," the miko cried. She staggered to her feet and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his slowly dying body.. "But... I won't.. let you die by yourself."
Inuyasha closed his eyes, remembering how she'd died after him. Accepting as the flames slowly crawled along the ground, devouring the grass and flowers at his feet. They would go together.
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Miroku walked through the mist, glancing quickly around him. Where were the others? He wondered.
A soft hiss of wind brought his attention to his right arm. He raised it and stared at the beads keeping back his Kazanna curiously. What was this sound? The hissing grew, worse and worse, louder and louder until.. Suddenly the kazana opened sucking and pulling everything in. Miroku gasped and yanked his hand away from his face trying to throw the beads around it.. but they were already on.
He was going to be sucked in! He was going to die.
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Sango stepped into a clearing as the mist dissipated and gasped. Blood was everywhere, covering and dripping from almost every surface. Kaori lay her eyes closed in a pool of her own blood. Her pale skin glistened with sweat and tears and her strange modern clothng were slashed in many places where bright red gashes exposed themselves.
Miroku lay on his back his dark blue eyes half open, blood seeping from a wound in his stomach and wrists.
Inuyasha was propped up against a tree a long thick gash creeping from his left shouter right up to the corner of his eye and even along the tree behind him.
Shippo and Kirara were no where to be seen.
Tears welled up in Sango's eyes. But suddenly a sharp excruciating pain erupted from the centre of her back, sending flashes of memory over her eyes. This was.. so similar.. She collapsed on all fours and turned around, her breathing coming out in short laboured breaths as blood dribbled down her sides.
Her eyes landed on a short male figure and she gasped. Kohaku!
"Thank you anu-ue," he said, stepping toward her, "You always protected my life, anu-ue. Thanks to that.. As Naraku-sama ordered I could finish everyone off," he raised his chain blade, "Go to the after world soon.. "
The blade made two new gashes across her chest.. and Sango fell to the ground, tears spilling from her eyes, "Kohaku.."
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Kaori stood on the edge of a cliff, the wind tossing raven tendrils of hair around her face. She would do it now. No more waiting. No one was here to stop her, no one would stop her. If she couldn't have Airi then what was the point of living? Living in this life were she'd been betrayed, where her daughter called another woman 'mother', where the man she loved had changed his entire being for someone else.. It wasn't worth it. No one needed her here..
She stepped off the cliff and welcomed the numbing sensation as she watched the ground come speeding towards her. No one.. no one..
Suddenly a flash of red appeared before her eyes and when she blinked, the ground was white and bright blue hair fell over her shoulders brushing the snow. Kaori tried to move but something had wrapped itself around her body. Thick.. brown vines had raised her above the ground. She looked like she was suspended in a falling position.
She growled as she struggled to pull herself free and her katana's flashed red once more and the vines broke apart. Her hands fell into the snow and sent shivers down her spine. So that was it? The vines..? Naraku's trap? Kaori felt a weakness in her chest as she pulled herself to her feet. What would have happened if her swords hadn't woken her up? Would.. when she had hit the ground in her dream.. would she have died? Died an illusionary death.. yeah that's exactly how she wanted to go.
Kaori stalked through the trees, pulling out and slashing though any vines with her katanas as she seen them. What a dirty trick. A horrible cowardly trap to have fallen into. Using.. any kinda of weakness in their hearts to capture them and send them to oblivion. Ugh..
She looked up and came face to face with a giant tree. The tree's trunk was short and stumpy but the branches grew out wide and reached high above any other tree in this forest. In the middle of it.. sat Naraku and Kikyo, unconscious.. or even dead? Kaori ran behind a bush and quietly transformed a bow and arrow. It hadn't looked like he'd noticed her. She'd have to act now.
She leaped out of the bush and let the arrow fly. It struck the yokai and his baboon pelt burst into pieces. The head laughed.
"Kukuku, nice to see you again Kaori. I knew you'd be the only one to make it this far."
Kaori blinked. Her arrow.. didn't hurt him like last time.. The ground started to rumble and shake and in a moment it broke apart. Kaori gasped as she fell and reached out for the vines that reached down into the abyss. At the bottom was a sea of miasma. She wouldn't die.. not in a dream death, not by miasma. Never..
"Inuyasha!" she screamed. Kaori kicked off her black sneakers, trying to use the claws on her feet to boost herself back up.. but the wall was impossible to climb.
"Kukuku.." Naraku's head crackled, "He won't come. Inuyasha and the others have their souls caught up in the Illusionary Death and are about to go to their deaths."
Kaori didn't care and screamed his name once more. The sounds of footsteps filled her heart with hope and she raised her head to look up. Kikyo peered down at her.
Kikyo chuckled holding up a little wooden doll, "Heh, using puppets like this... Naraku certainly did not want to get close to you," she broke apart the doll in her fist and Kaori's face flushed.
"You can move?"
"Had I wished to do so," Kikyo explained, making no move to save her, "I could have moved at any time.. however I decided to try to establish what Naraku was up to. At any rate, for Naraku was well.. you, little sister, seem to be the greatest obstacle."
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Fire now licked at Inuyasha's cheeks but he made no move to save himself. If he has just trusted Kikyo then.. then maybe none of this would have happened. They could have lived together.. but.. when her arrow had pierced through him.. he'd became alone again.. Completely alone.
"Inuyasha!" A little girl screamed, "Nii-Chan, wake up! Wake up Inuyasha-Onii-Chan! You can't be.. You've gotta wake up!"
Inuyasha opened his eyes to see a little brown haired girl burring her face into his leg, little tears streaming down her face. The little girl looked up at him with watery green eyes.
"Inuyasha.." Suddenly she turned around and a short young woman with bright blue hair and black dog ears and a fluffy tail walked through the fading flames. She still stared at him, the dark green speckles in her aquamarine eyes revealing the human side of her, and took the hand of the little girl, "You're not alone anymore, remember?"
"Kaori.."
That was right.. even though Kikyo had killed him.. even though they had betrayed each other.. Kaori had always been there. Ever since she'd first lay those wide curious eyes on him that day he hadn't been alone..
A loud rumbling shook the ground and the older and little Kaori snapped their heads to the left. The present Kaori reached down and pulled her child equivalent into her arms and leaped into the flames. A wave of panic struck Inuyasha. Wait.. that was impossible. Both Kaori's been here in the same moment.. He blinked and the flamed disappeared into mist. That was right.. this was the middle of Naraku's trap.
Where was Kaori?
"Inuyasha.." Kikyo hissed, gripping onto his kimono with all her strength. Her skin was suddenly green and brown, looking as if it were made of wood, "You want to carry on living?"
"Kikyo.." he strained against her, little beads of sweat appearing on his face. When he had first met Kaori he'd gained something he never really thought existed.. love.. and then.. after the betrayal.. She worked hard everyday to bring back and then repair the lost broken heart. Even though there were days when she ran away.. she always came back and filled his life with so much happiness that anything and everything was forgiven.. he never blamed her for leaving that one time.. Never..
"There is no way.. I could let Kaori die here," he grabbed Kikyo's shoulders and yanked her off him, "Maybe someday I'll be with you! But now is not that time!"
Her face twisted into a look of pure evil and malice.. and her body turned to wood and vines and she was gone. The flames disappeared and faded to mist and there was nothing. It all had just been an illusion.
"Damnit!" he cursed ripping through the vines. He searched around him and caught sight of Miroku wrapped up in them as well.
Inuyasha freed the monk from the vines a second later and the monk fell to the ground screaming, "My arm!"
He grabbed the human's body and shook him, "Miroku wake up! Your arm is fine!"
Miroku blinked and gasped, sweat dripping down his face, "My.. the kazana was.. sucking up my body.."
"Miroku go find Sango," Inuyasha growled, helping him up, "She should also be tangled up in the vines."
Where was Kaori?
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I stared up at my sister, her long raven locks falling just out of reach. Her indifferent attitude scared me. Why didn't she help? My feet were bare and scratching against the cliff, my shoes already dissolved into the toxic poison below. I would die.. unless she did something. The pale green flying snakes coiled around her then slunk off her figure toward me. I cringed against their cold scaly bodies until I realized they were lifting me up. I watched as the miasma grew distant and my tail and ears flicked as I was suspended in mid air.
Kikyo stood up and watched me, her pale face disapproving. She reached out a hand and I felt her fingers in the pocket with Koga's shikon shard. I gasped and started to struggle, "Hey! That's mine!"
"The shikon no tama was originally purified by me," she said, her voice unemotional, yet it sent a chill through my body, "Midoriko's daughter or not, it is not for the likes of impure hanyos such as yourself."
A pang hit my chest and pain throbbed through my body. Why..? Ebony bangs fell over her eyes and as she whispered the soul collectors glided away from my body, "I've had enough of the lot of you.."
The air rushed past me and any screams I might have held back burst through my lips. I was going to die.. at Kikyo's hand.
"Kaori!" All of a sudden warm arms wrapped around my body and I felt my feet touch solid ground. I collapsed to all fours at Inuyasha's feet and tried to hold back the sudden wave of tears.
"Inuyasha.." I gasped.
He dropped to his knees and pulled my hands away from my face, "You're not hurt are you?"
"Kik-Kikyo.." I stuttered, staring up at him.. begging for some kind of realization to hit those amber eyes, "Was trying to.."
"I just took the shikon fragment," Kikyo cut in, holding up the small pink shard to her chest.
"Kikyo you.." Inuyasha trailed off, looking from me to her. I could see my own face in the reflection of his eyes. I looked terrified.
"Because she had this thing.. Kaori's life was being targeted," Kikyo lied. The tears became harder to hold back, "Presumably Naraku intended to dissolve Kaori's body.. and get hold of the shikon fragment."
Her pale snake like monsters coiled around her body again and lifted her away. Inuyasha let go of me and jumped to his feet, staring after her again, "Kikyo where are you going?"
Silence was her reply.
I felt something wet trickle down my face and I wiped it away furiously. How dare you cry Kaori!
"Kaori.." Inuyasha said turning towards me again, "Something didn't happen between you and Kikyo did it?"
"She.. stole Koga's shard.. I'm sorry!" I squeaked.
"I'm not asking about that!" Inuyasha shouted, "She wasn't.. trying to kill you was she?"
I stared at the ground. Why wasn't I telling..? Would he believe me..? I glanced up at him. His face was flushed and glistened with sweat so silver strands stuck to his face. His gold eyes were searching, looking for truth, looking for answers. I looked away. I couldn't tell him.. even I didn't believe it.
"You.. still love Kikyo, don't you?" I asked, trying to change the subject. What was I asking..? It was obvious. I knew the answer to this.. but.. I just wanted to hear him say it.
"What are you saying at a time like this?" he practically shouting, sounding defensive.
"Why are you getting all emotional about it?" I replied.
"St.. stupid idiot!" he stuttered, "It's because I remembered about you that I came rushing over here like this!"
"So then you forgot about me..?"
He grabbed my hands and held them in his own. Fire rushed to my cheeks and I stared at our hands.. They fit too perfectly.. "Shut up, Kaori. You don't know what you're talking about. Have a bit more confidence in me."
I stared up at him, and then down, "I do.. it's just.."
I heard someone clear their throat and Inuyasha dropped my hands in an instant. Miroku stood on the other side of the abyss. Sango, her boomerang, Kirara and Shippo all riding on his back, "Are you finished with you're conversation?"