Part 37

X*****X

"Sesshomaru!"

His eyes were so dim and lidded. I could tell he was not well. His shoulder where the demon grabbed him was shredded and stained red and black with blood and poison. I could see it beneath his skin, around his eyes and face; the black webbing of corruption. I choked on my own words when he fell and rose no more, tremoring on the ground and labouring to breathe.

"I have to get to him. I have to get to him! We have to help him, he's dying!" I glanced up, still mesmerized by the radiance and presence of Midoriko, the woman who formed the Shikon Jewel herself, but terrified all the same. She appeared out of the nothing and wove a protective web over me, purifying the woody tentacles as they touched my skin; as they tried to pierce my body with their impurity. This was no longer a battle of the living realm, but of two spirits pulled from the gem they have inhabited for many, many years. We were just two helpless mortals doomed to ride the tide these spirits left in their wake. Would anything be left of us when the water settled?

She glanced at the demon Magasuhi had possessed; the once stationary and solitary forest that prayed on the weakness and mortality of men, consuming their flesh and blood as they died beneath the boughs of its trees. His 'skin', or rather the trees creating his body were darkening, flaking and chipping in places that once held nothing but strength. The jewel's corruption and taint was spreading, leaving the demon sickly and dark. He wasn't even able to realize he was slowly being eaten away; eaten away until nothing was to remain.

"I will help your demon friend, Kagome, bearer of the jewel. But in return, I need something from you."

"Yes! Yes, anything! Just help him please!" I cried at her, absent mindedly running my hands through my hair.

She didn't tell me what as she drew her blade, dropped her light shield, and threw herself at the massive forest demon.

X*****X

I stood alone in a field, bare of everything but grass and the sweet scent of flowers and a nearby spring. I couldn't see either. The sky was a cloud of mist, surrounding and cloaking me. I took several long steps forward, unfazed by the queer setting. The mist parted slightly to reveal a line of trees on the horizon; a line that seemed to reach for me even as I walked towards it. The mist followed me into the branches, leeching a cool dampness that seemed to penetrate everything; the wood, the soft undergrowth and the fertile soil.

"Do you yet have someone to protect?"

I stopped and focused my gaze on a hooded figure, draped in a cloak of mist and drenched in a familiar scent; father. I didn't answer his century old question; the very question he posed to me many times before.

"You have been running for so long, waiting for me to answer all your questions. Don't you ever tire, waiting for a ghost? Would you want to listen now, even if I were to answer?"

He chuckled at his own question, bristling me. I felt my chest tighten; felt my heart speed up.

"What? Have nothing to say to your own father? Nothing at all? I seem to recall a young pup, hardly fit to hold a sword in his virgin hands seeking me out, demanding answers to questions, demanding a fight for superiority. What happened to him? Is he afraid of a ghost?"

"You are dead. MY father is dead. The answers you have are not the answers I want." I bit my tongue, preventing a volley of words from pouring out. 'He died. This figment is not my father.'

"Yes. Yes I am, but just because I am dead, doesn't mean it isn't me. I charged you with the protection of my pup. I see it in your eyes, Sesshomaru. He changed you. What you feel now, the fear, the pain." He gave a knowing grin, eyes flashing. "Love. To think, my first born, my eldest son, has inherited some of my, as your mother would put it, more odd characteristics. It took me longer to see such follies in my own character than it did you, but you do not wish to feel them, am I correct?"

"This banter and idle chatter do not interest me, father. I have done as asked without obligation, taking care of your Halfling. And you presume to know me. You never were as interested in me as you were with him. Do not pretend to know me, nor what makes up my noble being. I let him live. I can just as easily destroy him." I let my tone go icy as I started to sidestep the manifestation.

He matched my voice with his own, full of indifference and an unfounded rage. "You dare threaten what is mine? You speech well, son, but I can see through you. Easy is a matter of speaking. Killing Inuyasha would be as hard as killing your human mate Kagome. You are not as strong as you pretend to be. You are changed."

"They mean nothing." I lied through my teeth, knowing his verbal skills far surpassed mine. I never was one to enjoy the talking.

"They mean everything! This change is for the better, Sesshomaru; though it has come at the worst possible time. You are on a path that will not last. Your heart is destined to forget, to revert back to its original path in time and your mind will crack and break. Your body may heal, but the mind can't mend on herbs and will to survive alone. You said it so yourself, you can tempt fate, but you can't change it."

I felt myself darken. "What are you saying? You speak in riddles, dancing around a greater truth. Just speak what you mean."

He smirked, "I've seen the end, and one must die for the others to live. Its how it has been, and how it shall be, for future, and past. So it is, and it shall come to pass."

"Speak what you mean and mean what you speak!" I yelled at him.

"There isn't much time. Destiny controls the past as it does the future. Fate and destiny. Light and dark. Both are one in the same, and both are intertwined in this story Sesshomaru; as they are in the next. Past and future are only separated by time. Time for a demon is never ending; insurmountable. My time ended in tragedy. How will yours be?"

He smiled as he morphed quite suddenly, taking an all too familiar shape.

'Kagome.'

She stood there smiling as the world went black and she faded into the nothing, mouthing a few words that had no sound, and therefore no meaning. I sat in the blackness of my psyche for what felt like several long hours after that; thinking, fuming. Wondering, if I should ever wake up again to see my mates warm face; touch her soft skin. Or hear her say my name.

X***X

I was left in the darkness by myself, left to muddle out the meaning behind his words. Take the words at point blank and then turn them inside out and shift them around. There was more to what he said, than just what he had said.

I did not move in all that time. I did not talk. I did not do anything beyond the wandering of my mind, jumping from thought to thought, idea to idea. Waiting. Waiting to die, waiting to live. Or perhaps I am already dead. Maybe this is death, an eternal darkness to relive my life and my father's last words to me as his son; to think about the wrongs and goods and everything between I've done. Yes. That must be it.

'Don't be such a fool. This is nothing more than a trap; a trap laid by the poison in my blood. Somewhere out there, Kagome still fights. She still lives. I can feel it. And that woman. She is out there. An ally.'

I thought mainly about my conversation with my father, or rather, the watery imprint I had made of him in my mind. That's all he was; a figment of my imagination.

'But his words were true. They had to be. They were my own thoughts echoed back to me. They were pieces of me spoken in a voice I longed to hear.'

Destiny, fate, tempted but never changed. Riddles and half-truths. My heart will forget and my mind will crack? Time and tragedy. Am I to end my life in tragedy, or did he even mean me at all? Is this the fate Kagome was warning me against? For one of us to die, the other will live. So who will make it out of here alive? Kagome, or I? Or does he mean us at all. Maybe it was never our stories that intertwined.

X***X

It started as a light burning in my shoulder, running down my chest like a droplet of water and merging with my abdomen. It morphed into a pulsing sting; stabbing me with every beat of my heart. I could hear the world around me, but I was unable to react to it. Aokigahara continued his relentless rampage upon Kagome and the woman in the white light. He roared and he pounded, he growled and he scratched. It must be the shield of light. I was under it too. The light didn't shatter.

"Foolish, Magatsuhi, very foolish." Midoriko murmured over me as her hands pressed lightly to my chest, exploding the pain into every inch of my being. I tried to growl and flinch away, but my voice and body didn't respond.

"Magatsuhi?"

"The darkness in the Jewel itself."

'Darkness in the Jewel. Is this the Darkness father mentioned?'

"The darkness? What is going on?"

"Midoriko?" She didn't respond.

Kagome said nothing for a long moment after. "Can you save him?"

"Atropa Belladonna. Nightshade. It is not a common poison and it has a low survival rate." Her voice was cold, calculating.

"How low?" Kagome whispered, her face pale.

I tried once again to growl but nothing came out.

I could feel it in my chest, my time has come. The pain was at its climax, ripping through me like a shock wave. This was it. 'Kagome.'

She didn't answer right away and dodged the question when she did. "I'll do my best Kagome."

X*****X

I watched Midoriko press her hands to Sesshomaru, unsure as to how she was going to help him, just that she promised. She said she would, and so she will. His face was still webbed with black corruption, but his breathing seemed to slow down. Whatever it was he was seeing, he must have come to some sort of relief or acceptance. Accepting death?

No! Don't talk like that, he will be fine.

I grabbed his hand, squeezing the cold fingers in my sweaty palms. I bit back tears as I looked into his face. "Sesshomaru. I know I've been a jerk. And I know I've made mistakes. Big mistakes. I don't deserve you, and you deserve so much better than me. I would have left me a long time ago. But you didn't. You came back. You came to find me, Sesshomaru."

Midoriko spoke softly in the background. I only half paid attention. "We only have moments left before my shield gives out. Two minutes max."

"But you have to live! Take care of Inuyasha, and Jaken! You have people counting on you, people years and years from now who will look up to you. Please. Wake up."

His face remained passive, as though he was unaware I even spoke to him. His chest gave a violent shudder, heaving deeply and loudly. I grabbed his armour, cracked and blood stained, and lifted him up and away from Midoriko.

"God damn it Sesshomaru please! Don't go and die for me. I'm not worth it! Sesshomaru!" I screamed at his chest.

Midoriko moved to remove Sesshomaru from my grasp. "Kagome. Kagome, he's gone, and we are out of time."

"What? No. No, no, no, no, no Sesshomaru no. Sesshomaru." My eyes were blurred with tears, warm and thick. Time seemed to stop as I stared down at his face, still cracked with the black; calm, as though he would open his eyes any moment and catch me staring at him. "I'm sorry, Sesshomaru."

I stood up next to Midoriko as she counted down from five. I gripped my bow tight; four. I wiped the tears from my cheeks, three. I knocked an arrow and watched Aokigahara, staring deep into the voids of his eyes; two. Midoriko crouched low, her sword held over her head, her eyes lethal; one. The light barrier she erected fell around us as sparks of gold and white. My heart went cold with fear as the demon rumpled his face in rage, and a long, low rumble filled the surrounding hills and valleys with a deep base tone that brought instant goose bumps to my skin.

X*****X

Sorry. I'm so sorry. Really, I just forgot. I hate when people just stop updating their stories. Pisses me off. I'm apparently one of them. I'm ending this fast now, no joke. Want maybe 2 more chapters. One would be awesome. This chapter was basically half written. So was the part that follows this;

I have given some previously unknown, or maybe implied details that are important. Firstly, Magasuhi and Midoriko have brought their battle to the living realm when Magasuhi possessed Aokigahara in order to Kill Kagome, and remove her from the role she played in her original timeline. That is basically why Naraku's spell so to speak did not work. Kikyo misread Kagome's illness. She wasn't dying, she was traveling through time. The jewel had other plans for Kagome. Her death! And by her death, Kikyo wouldn't be reborn and he would have nobody to fear. Also, by sending her back, he wants to kill Sesshomaru and remove the threat of his Bakusaiga from Naraku, giving them [both] a guaranteed chance to destroy the lives of our Hero's.

I keep messing up the Sesshomaru I have created and the ~real~ one from the show! I should have made mine more of an ass, then it would have worked better. Oh wells.

But, Sesshomaru is supposed to be unconscious here. Hallucinating. Dying. I don't know if I accomplished anything with the Sesshomaru portion of this chapter. Crap. Fcuk it.
But for everything else… There is a method to my madness! And that is my reasoning for everything that has happened.