It was dark. That was the first thing Inuyasha noticed. All around him, dark.
Everything felt dull.
He tried to move. He couldn't.
What the fuck was going on?
Then the next sensation hit him: pain. Excruciating. And seemed to fill every crevice of his unmoving body. He wanted to cry out, to run and hide himself and wait to heal, but… he couldn't. He was trapped in the black.
"Fuck." Inuyasha could… speak?
No. The words did not escape his lips. But… at least he could process language. Wherever this dark prison was, his mind was able to work.
"Well I'll be goddamned." The voice was gruff and familiar, coming from somewhere behind him.
Inuyasha turned around and saw that there was a singular figure in the darkness.
He had long silver hair, and triangular ears. But the things that stood out were that he had purple streaks across his face, blood red sclera and cyan irises. He wore a fangy grin on his face that made Inuyasha want to punch it. His full demon was also wearing a stark black t-shirt and pants with a bright purple belt buckle. When Inuyasha focused on the full demon's claws, they were dark red. Were they dripping with blood? Inuyasha was unsure.
"Traumatic brain injury as a human," the full demon drawled, "that was not how I expected you to bring us back together."
"What the fuck is going on?" Inuyasha stormed at his full demon, stopping just short of the other man's nose.
"You don't remember?" full demon Inuyasha questioned, unphased by Inuyasha's aggressive growling. "The drinking, the self-loathing, the car, then… must be the ambulance? Truly shit-brained thing to do on human night."
"How… how are you—we—even here?" Inuyasha pressed his finger into the chest of his full demon, only to find that it punched directly through, which just added to his confusion.
"I'm in your brain, stupid," his full demon scoffed, "same as you."
"But…" Inuyasha stuttered.
It didn't make sense. It was his human night, so… why was his full demon there?
"Because I am part of your brain, Inuyasha. Kikyo was right. Your locking me out was a brain issue, not a yōki issue. But… you know that."
Inuyasha shook his head. He didn't want to hear it, but… well… he knew it. Obviously.
Please wake up Inuyasha.
It was faint, and both he and his full-demon turned to look around and see where it came from, where she came from.
It was the soft voice of his soulmate, muffled through what he imagined were his human ears. Was she there? Or was she a figment of his broken brain's imagination? Hearing her voice—the voice that he'd only heard on the subway, the voice that the asshole got to hear in the throes of passion, the voice but not the name—set him off.
"You took her away from me." Inuyasha rounded on the full demon. "You took my soulmate away from me."
"You still don't get it, do you?" the full demon shouted back, "I stole nothing from you."
Inuyasha wanted to strike out at his full demon. To shove him away as hard as he could. He wanted to lock his full demon inside even deeper, where he couldn't even come out on full moon nights. And Inuyasha would take his soulmate away and never let him near her again.
Fuck. He knew her scent and he knew she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and he knew he would follow her to the ends of the earth but… he didn't even know…
"Kagome," the full demon said. "Her name is Kagome."
"You get to remember her," Inuyasha said, swallowing heavily.
His full demon howled at this and took a swipe at Inuyasha's face. He flinched, but the bloody claws went right through his face.
"I am you dipshit! We are one in the same! Even when you shoved me aside so you could forget, that didn't make me any less you, or you less me!" The full demon's words echoed through him, but Inuyasha caught what was underneath the fury. Hurt.
"I… I couldn't do what you did." Inuyasha shook his head as hard as he could, trying to will his full demon away.
Inuyasha. I'm here. I'm not leaving. Not today. Not tomorrow. So just… wake up, okay?
Her voice again. Kagome's voice. It was beautiful and so… sad. He'd run away from her, and… she was here. Wherever he was in the darkness.
"She's a nurse." The full demon's voice had emotion in it, sadness, longing.
"So… that must mean I'm at the hospital." Inuyasha wanted to wake up, to see her. But he couldn't even smell her. Fuck. He kept forgetting that he was human right now.
"Better than dead," the full demon deadpanned. "So don't go dyin' like a little bitch. That would piss her off."
"Keh. Sunrise is comin,'" Inuyasha bluffed, "I can make it 'til then."
He could still feel the pain in his body but… he also felt like he was starting to… connect more to it. It was as if he was starting to resurface from wherever he was, buried in his own mind.
"Then we don't have much time to do what we gotta do." the full demon half-commanded, half-pleaded. "You understand, don't you? What I want? What I've wanted since… that day."
"Fuck. I know, okay?" Inuyasha growled, but then grew quieter. "I know."
"Then what the fuck are you waiting for? Hurry and let me back in!" the full demon half-whined and half-snarled. "That's all I ever fucking wanted. To be… back. To not be locked away when I was inconvenient and only gettin' to come out once a fucking month."
"Is that why you did it? Why you kept one of the most important moments of my life away from me?" Inuyasha snarled right back. "Why you took—"
"What did I fucking take?" Rage started to flare in the full demon's eyes at Inuyasha's words. They both knew what Inuyasha meant.
"Her," Inuyasha answered, the low tone of his voice from both anger and desperation. "You took her from me."
"I fucking did not!" The full demon looked desperate. "We met a woman whose scent drove us crazy. We flirted with that woman. We bit her and found out she was our soulmate. And then, because you would fuck it all up, I went to her again… so that we could claim our soulmate!"
"Now that she's seen you she's never gonna want anything to do with me!" Inuyasha shouted back.
"We're the same fucking person!" the full demon protested. "We always have been. You're the one who keeps pretending that we're different. You're the one who hides me away!"
"Well, I'm… scared, okay?," Inuyasha whimpered at his full demon. "I'm fucking terrified of what you made me become. What… what you could make me become again…"
"Fuck!" The full demon turned away from Inuyasha. "You gotta accept me. Jesus-fucking-Christ. You can't keep pretending that I am not you. That you and I are not one and the same."
"B-but… if I accept you… then, what the fuck did I do that day?" Inuyasha could see it: that night. The night he gave into his full demon and massacred a mob.
You're an idiot you know. Did you really think I'd reject you because you're half-demon? I would never do that Inuyasha. We're… stuck with each other. Even if I have to punch you a couple… hundred more times.
Kagome's voice was getting louder. And he swore he could feel a soft hand stroke his forehead.
"She doesn't know… if she can truly accept me," Inuyasha said miserably. "If she knew what yo—what I did."
"Fucking finally we are getting somewhere!" The full demon… grinned.
"Just tell me… Jesus. You're me and you're still choosing to be cagey?" Inuyasha bared his teeth.
"You know what comes next," his full demon asserted.
And well, he did. Inuyasha knew what was coming. What he'd been avoiding. What he had to do. Just as the full demon took a step forward, Inuyasha stopped him.
"Wait. I… I just want to hear her voice. One more time," Inuyasha begged.
The full demon nodded, and together, they waited. They waited for their soulmate to whisper to them, to tell them it was going to be okay, to give them hope. Inuyasha needed Kagome's words to lend him strength to take the step he needed to take to reclaim his full demon. And, as if Kagome's soul heard Inuyasha's, her words followed.
I… I'm scared. Seeing you today, as you are… it… it lit something inside of me. It… it made me want to know you. I don't care if you're a half-demon and I don't care that you can't remember your full moon nights... P-Please Inuyasha, wake up. So I can get to know you. And you can get to know me.
Kagome somehow knew about his full moon nights. And… she didn't care? She wanted to know him anyway? It was… it was almost too much.
It was also everything to him. The words were his hope, his motivation.
Inuyasha would wake up to meet Kagome. Inuyasha would… accept himself… for Kagome.
"Okay." Inuyasha looked at the full demon. "I-I'm ready."
The full demon nodded solemnly, and both of them closed their eyes.
When they opened them, the landscape was completely changed. Instead of blackness, or even the metal of the city, they were standing in the square of a small village. Huts were burning, and Inuyasha could hear the muffled whimpers of women and children in the background. The memory of the smell hit him first. He could smell the charred buildings and the musk of entrails but… all was overpowered by blood. At least twenty different signatures of blood coated his nostrils, leaving the burn of guilt in its wake.
Most of the men were dead, laying like limp dolls in a circle around Inuyasha, pitchforks, torches, and rifles scattered where they were dropped. There were slashes across most of their bodies, deep enough that the dead were watering the land with their blood. The eyes of most of the men were open, frozen in the fear they experienced in their last moments alive, regretting their hunt for the half-breed. Closer in, they lay still where they'd attacked, but further out, the men were cut down as they fled. It looked like he'd even slashed the throat of one man who'd dropped to his knees to beg for his life. None of them were shown mercy, none of them were given even the decency of a clean death.
"I did this." Inuyasha looked down at his claws, coated in blood.
"We did this," his full demon corrected.
"No. I did this." Inuyasha wasn't going to hide from it anymore. "They… pissed me off. I was so fucking tired of running from dipshits calling me an abomination. And they… they… insulted my mother. I… I knew what would happen if I let you loose and I chose to do it anyway."
"I remember. You… usually hold me back. But… you didn't." The full demon looked into Inuyasha's eyes. "You wanted to let your rage out."
"I used you as a weapon," Inuyasha admitted. "Then… I blamed you when… it was always me. I-I'm sorry. To you. To these men. To… to the people whimpering in those houses. I… I don't ever want to do that again."
"Shoving me down isn't the way to prevent this from happening," the full demon said.
"No," Inuyasha answered. "I… my rage. I can't let it ever get the best of me like that again."
"Has it?" the full demon asked.
"No… not… after that." Inuyasha swallowed. "Not after I did that."
After that night, he suppressed his full demon in fear of it happening again because… because he wasn't willing to admit to himself that he'd made the choice to let the full demon out to eviscerate those men. But, he was the one who killed all those men. And he was the one who knew he would never do it again.
The moment that Inuyasha really truly accepted that truth, he felt himself being tugged forward, toward his other self. When the two made contact, Inuyasha felt strangely like he was being submerged in water, holding his breath while it overtook more and more of his senses. As he slowly felt himself rising to the surface, he felt more… complete, as if he were… absorbing something… someone.
By the time he felt like he could breathe again, he was alone, but he was also whole.
Then images started flooding his mind.
He was bounding through the woods, dancing from tree to tree howling at the full moon. Then he was at a bar joking around with a bald and mohawked wolf demon, buying the rest of the bar a round. Then he was on the top of a skyscraper (and then he was in jail…)
Memories. His lost memories were streaming back into his mind. Women he picked up, cigarettes he smoked, the kebab vendor who liked to greet him with a "yo dog!"
And finally, the memories Inuyasha wanted most. The ones of her.
He was wandering through Manhattan, planning on finding a bar and maybe a good-looking woman when he smelled it: cherry blossoms and vanilla. He growled at the cigarette in his mouth; it obscured the delicate scent he now knew he had to follow. So he used his nose as best he could to trail it. Then, before he knew it, he saw her, the source of the scent. Black wavy hair, chocolate eyes and a scowl. Her gait was stunted, as if she'd been on her feet all day. It made him want to throw her on his back and take her wherever she wanted to go. He needed to know who this woman was, so he followed her.
She was different from the other ones. Unique. He liked the scowl on her face. So when she hopped onto the A train toward Far Rockaway, he couldn't resist. He would go anywhere she was going. They bantered, they walked under the moon, they kissed and he bit her, desperately hoping that her soul would accept his. As he walked home, he kept glancing down at the place on his wrist where a mark would appear. When it didn't, he pushed her scent out of his mind with cigarettes, and the taste of her sweet lips and salty skin out with kebabs. He would never regret trying, and he would never regret hoping that Kagome, the woman with the whip-sharp wit and the intoxicating scent was meant to be his soulmate.
Inuyasha gasped as it all came back to him. There she was, Kagome. Calling him an asshole, and stealing the cigarette he hated but his full demon seemed to love. Kissing him and punching him. He'd loved her from her scent alone, but this. It was more than he could have dreamed.
Before he could fully process that memory, another came rushing in.
Kagome. All of Kagome. Of her arousal and her lips and her hands. Of the bites she used when he misbehaved. Of her impish smile as she peeled off her clothing. Of her moans of his name. Of claiming her and feeling claimed by her. Of… of her misery as he tried to figure out how to get himself out of the hell of his own creation. Of… tearing everything apart in his rage and desperation.
Inuyasha dropped to his knees. In that dark place, he'd reclaimed himself. He could feel him—the full demon—settling back into his soul, now liberated from his prison, and… it felt great. He had not realized how much he missed that part of him until he was back.
"Now I just need to wake up," he thought, looking around in the darkness, pleased to feel the full demon part of him smirk. "But… that feels like it's comin' soon too."
It's almost here Inuyasha. You almost made it!
Kagome's voice was ragged, but closer than it had been before. And this time, he definitely felt her hands stroking his cheek. The pain too was feeling more substantive, like the walls of the darkness were thinning, like he was starting to feel his own body again.
Fuck, he wanted to touch her back so badly. He wanted to see her with his own eyes. To say how sorry he was for his assholery and tell her everything was going to be okay, that he'd found himself again. He wanted to kiss her and ask her on a date and tell her how fucking elated he was that she was his soulmate.
"Kagome." As Inuyasha tried to say her name, he found himself struggling against some unknown force.
Then he felt it—one of his favorite feelings in the whole world. The stirring of his yōki. Sunrise was almost here.
I-Inuyasha?
Kagome's voice was clearer than ever. And… she was replying to him.
It wasn't just his yōki awakening, it was also him.
He tried not to squeal with the glee he felt. The pain was growing with his awareness, but… Inuyasha had felt worse. He wasn't going to die; he refused to. Not when he was this close to seeing Kagome.
A second pulse hit him and he felt the fire of his yōki light. If he was awake, he knew his hair would be turning from black to silver, that his eyes would become amber, his claws would emerge and his ears would shift to their rightful place. His senses were returning too—he could hear the beeps of the machines he was hooked to, and the quiet breathing of someone in his room. But it was when his sense of smell returned, when he made out the cherry blossoms and vanilla, that he knew she was the one sitting in that room with him. He felt his yōki surround his injuries and start knitting him back together. It hurt like fuck, but it also told him that he was indeed alive. He'd made it.
"Kitten?" Inuyasha's words still came out muffled, but he was finally waking up properly.
"W-what did you call me?" Kagome's footsteps brought her to him, and he felt her warm hand stroke his hair.
It took enormous effort, but Inuyasha did not give up until he managed to open his eyes. Staring back at him was the most beautiful woman he could ever imagine. He wanted to raise his arm and touch her back but… he was hooked to too many things.
"I called ya kitten," Inuyasha smiled, transfixed on the sight of his soulmate before him. "Hope you don't hate it when a half-demon calls you it."
"You… do you remember?" Kagome whimpered, obviously holding back tears threatening to escape her luminous chocolate eyes.
"Short answer is yeah," Inuyasha replied, his voice ragged both from his (now rapidly-healing) injuries but also from his joy. "Long answer is… I'll tell you all about it if you let me take you out to dinner."
Kagome threw her head back in a truly rapturous laugh. "Fuck yes, asshole!"
She then threw her arms around him and kissed him with the fervor she'd done when he was a full demon, erasing any lingering doubts he may have had about whether she would accept him as a half-demon. The moment her delicate hands cupped his ears? He was ready to marry her.
"Tonight. Dinner tonight. I don't wanna wait. We… waited long enough for each other," Inuyasha whispered, and he lifted his head so he could give his perfect soulmate one more kiss before the doctors caught on that he was awake.