Title: Not Today
Author: Priestess Skye
Genre: Introspective, psychological
Rating: R for images
Characters: Inuyasha
Word Count: 555
Warnings:
Universe: Canon
Originally posted for Iyficcontest – Fight The Power theme
The blood on the ground…
The blood on his claws…
Dripping, oozing, sliding down from the tips of his fingers to the palm of his hands, hot and fresh. Sickingly saccharine, he fought the urge to run his tongue over it, savour it.
He fought the urge to use it to his advantage.
It was calling to him though, silently at first but steadily getting louder each and every time he ran his claws through the flesh of man. The crunch of bones as his grip strengthened around the foul man's arms, his scream of anguish and pain, the unsteady beat of his heart as it faltered from the loss of blood. They were both his downfall and his joy.
He couldn't stop, though he wanted to.
He couldn't fight it, though he put all his effort into it.
It was too strong, to demanding, entirely too sweet and beyond all resistance. Holding onto his fight tightly with one hand, the pain was becoming too much as his white-knuckle grip onto the hilt only turned white. Clinging to this single with the last shred of sanity inside him, he mentally repeated his mantra. 'Not today, not today, no today.'
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever again.
Not after the last time he lost all control. Not after he saw both the horror and the pity in her eyes, the way she stared at his bloody claws though she was fearless.
Not today.
But the intensity of the call was difficult to ignore. He could feel the darkness encroaching. Welcoming, enticing, alluring. The promises it held, though he knew them to be false, were too immense to ignore.
Sanity vs. insanity.
Common sense and reason vs. feral liberty, free reign to do what he will. The line between the two was beginning to blur.
Looking around the battlefield he could see his friends, strewn about as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience in his opponent's goal, a block in the road. Eyes on Kagome, a ball of rage built up within his gut. Her once black hair, shiny and full of life now lay haphazardly across her face, soaked in the blood of those around her. She wasn't dead, he knew, he could feel the life within her, but she may as well be looking the way she did.
Fragile. Pale. Someone he needed to protect.
The darkness, like a beacon, hailed him, promising him the revenge he sought. Falling to his knees, fisting his hands and clenching them tight, Inuyasha ignored the subtle pain of his claws as they cut through his own flesh. Eyes on the ground and hair shielding him from the view of all, he succumbed, his finely tethered control snapping.
'No one would hurt her again.' A small voice echoed at the back of his mind. 'No one would hurt her again.'
Rage. Hate. Darkness. The strength of a thousand youkai. One by one he could feel all of these flowing through him, offering themselves to him, allowing them to be used.
Eyes wide he looked at the last of the men looming ahead. Through the red haze he spotted his target, allowing a small grin to settle on his lips.
'No one,' he vowed, dropping the last of his barriers and letting go.
'No one.'
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company does not belong to me, they belong to Rumiko Takahashi.
