DISCLAIMER: Inuyasha is property of Rumiko Takahashi.
A/N
Strong AU, thorough OOC, told in snippets or short chapters always under 1000 words, rated M. Will include proper warnings when necessary. Currently no ship, will add when relevant. Comments, reviews, questions and general musings are always welcome.
Onmyoji
1. Contact
It was agony.
Torture of the worst kind, a vile, blasphemous practice that should've evoked immediate punishment from the high heavens. The sort of taboo that even the most perverse would never consider preforming and yet – and yet it was happening to her still. There was no outside interference, no one came to save her, no one rescued her from the gnarled hands of the ancient witch and the grasp of her disgusting, polluted, corrupt black magic.
It slid against Kagome's naked skin, sunk into her flesh through her pores and clung to her bones like the stickiest of glues. It violated her. She felt it in her mouth, her nose, her eyes. It invaded through her private parts; areas that shouldn't have been touched outside of hygiene practices – not yet gods above, not yet – almost violently. Kagome felt as if she were being pried apart and torn in half, but she'd not moved at all. She was still bound and submerged in the murky waters of that hag's concoction, slimy half-rotted herbs and weeds slid against her skin and clung to her hair. Her muscles were frozen in place, paralyzed by whatever ritual the witch began, and Kagome was deaf, blind, mute – unaware of everything but simultaneously painfully aware of everything.
Her soul was being stolen from her.
Pried from her very core in violent tugs. The assault was relentless and unceasing, it disregarded the damage caused and destruction left behind. Kagome's soul did not want to go. It struggled and held on to its fleshy home, refused to vacate its spot, screeched and clawed at the offender who would dare to try and steal it, but its struggles only caused more pain. If the fight was corporeal Kagome was sure her body would've become a mess of blood and guts, her muscles nothing more than meaty goo, her bones ground into fine dust.
If the soul were taken, she would die. Kagome realised this suddenly and the knowledge was absolute. There would be no reversing it. If her soul lost its foothold Kagome would cease to exist. Her body would be nothing but an empty corpse, and the puppet made of clay would live in her stead. She would be stranded here, in a filthy ritual tub, five centuries away from her home and loved ones. Would someone find her? Would she have a proper burial, at least? Or was she doomed to rot and fester in this water, or be found by scavengers as their next meal?
Perhaps she should've been disturbed by it, but the thought of such an ending, of the utter shame and dishonour this sort of death would bring to her, her ancestors, her family, should they ever find out about it, was the figurative last straw.
It wasn't her sense of duty towards the shattered shikon. Not her feelings for Inuyasha, her affection or Shippo, her blossoming friendships with both Miroku and Sango. It had nothing to do with Kagome's overflowing love for her family or her desire to see them again. It wasn't even about a will to live or fear of death.
All she felt was a consuming rage about the thought of being used up like some sort of commodity and being left for dead after.
Whatever power Kagome had been cursed with – because it had to be a curse, all of it, what good came to her from these abilities? What did she gain? – bubbled over and exploded. It tore out of her body accompanied by a silent scream of defiance, spread out and reached, groped, fondled, sought desperately for something, anything, a way to avoid such a fate. Further and further away, it expanded and flowed over, passed by what to Kagome seemed like the whole world until finally it grabbed onto something and –
'Fascinating.'