Chapter One
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Ahh, I see, in the end, I simply...
Darkness. I lived side by side with it, like a brother in arms. I can't exactly recall when I allowed it to consume me, to eat me away, and leave me empty. If I had to give an answer, I'd say it had devoured me long before 'Naraku' ever had a taste. There had not been much for that darkness to work with, as even when I was Onigumu, my heart had been a scabrous thing. A good man, I had never been but hated those good men. I hated those good women. In the face of what I viewed as innocence, perhaps a part of me always wanted to snuff that light out so they turned into the being that I was. A corrupt thing. Perhaps, in the beginning, that was all that Kikyo had been. Just another thing I wanted to blacken.
So the infinite depth of darkness the jewel has placed me in, honestly, wasn't that drastic a change. It swallowed me whole, leaving me just as I was in the beginning...
Empty.
A wish?
Ah yes. There was a time when I desired something...a time when I wanted something, but I can't remember what it was, or if it ever really existed.
I could hear names drifting off and on, in my head, they sometimes echoed. I wasn't exactly certain when they stopped. Or if they stopped.
Darkness. I lived side by side with it, but was it always this empty?
"Shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be here. Why are you still here?"
The sounds were inhumane, guttural growls, just barely audible in the dark. I doubted they were truly speaking to each other. I think they are speaking to me, but I can't remember anything. There was just the weightless feeling of floating, with no air, or wind upon me. I was drifting in the dark.
"Leave him alone. He doesn't want to go."
Go where?
"Can't stay here. This place is falling apart."
Falling apart? It all feels the same to me. Without her...who is her? Everything is dark...
"The battle is over. This place is crumbling. That miko made a wish..."
I felt something in me stir at the words, but the empty feeling soon overpowered whatever began to appear. I was far more tired than I thought, and for a moment I found the darkness erupting inside me instead of around me.
Echos faded off and on, and soon everything began to conjoin with nothing. I was nothing. There was nothing inside me.
The darkness only continued to rage inside me.
"You still stay..." The voice sparked something inside me, but I was far too submerged into the oddity of nothing to care about that soft monotone. The voice was cold, and I was igniting with an old, new emotion that bordered on pain. What happened to the emptiness? How can this fill me so quickly?
Leave me. I wanted to say it. I didn't know why, but something inside me was saying that in some way, I belonged here.
"Leave you?" The woman's voice grew closer, but still, I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even tell if my eyes were open or shut at this point, but nothing seemed to matter. The voice only continued to grow, until it was echoing all around me. "Leave you?" She repeated something useless. I didn't understand why the emotion burned. "It seems..." She paused, almost hesitant. "Even in death, our fates are intertwined."
The words seemed to echo even louder in the infinite darkness that sailed around me, and soon I was surrounded by a tiny spark of light, cracking through the blackness. I found myself clenching my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than to get away from the blinding pain that was blaring down at my eyes.
"Shy away from redemption like always, Naraku," she whispered this time, and for a moment I felt something lightly brush along my shoulder. Being in darkness for so long, I had forgotten the feeling of touch. I tried to brush off the hand, but my bones were reluctant to obey me. It was silent for a while, and I could no longer hear anything from this unknown woman, this nostalgic woman. "...was it worth it?" The sudden break of silence cause my eyes to snap open, but soon the blinding light caused them to shut tightly closed.
I couldn't even process what she asked for a while, but finally, the last bit of her words seemed to flow through me. What?
Why am I here?
"...your wish...did it come true?"
My wish...
...my wish...?
I wished...
Slowly, as if attached to someone else's desires, my eyes were already opening, only seeing the blinding white light. I didn't close them, and gladly accepted the burn that soared through my body.
Ahh yes. I simply wanted...
Two cold palms, pressed against my face, cupping me and dragging me further out of the darkness. I slowly found my body surrounded by a warmth I had never known before, a warmth that somewhere in me yearned for.
I simply wanted her heart.
β’
"Ironic...to be so intertwined in the fate of my killer," she whispered, but her voice was completely absent from bitterness. There was nothing there, and more than anything, she just wanted to be free of fate.
She wanted to be free from the world that caused her so much suffering.
And yes, she wanted to be free from the presence of Onigumo. Yet, here he was, alone with her in the dark at the very end. She had tried to ignore him, tried to abandon him, but his hollow carcass followed her in this emptiness as her soul merged with the jewel as some sort of last act of her terrible fate. She could not escape him, so as this world began to crumble, his presence stuck with her like a haunting pest. When she touched him, all she felt was the cold skin beneath her fingertips, melding into her like rotting flesh. However, only when she touched him did she see a light in the darkness.
It was a way out. She let him go, and the light dissipated like sea foam. If she had it in her to laugh, she might have thought it humorous that her death could be just as unfair as her life. She just wished for a way out, any way out.
As if someone was moving in her skin, her arms wrapped around the rather helpless body of Naraku, her pale skin blending perfectly with his own. The very presence of him next to her made her sick, but still, she was unable to leave him here. Much like those many years ago, she once more was stuck in the endless cycle of saving this man.
The Onigumo who she should have let die, broken and burned on the ground.
And the Naraku, who she should have let crumble in the dark, broken and nothing.
She let out a sigh, finding the warmth of light towering over her, her arms continued to wind around him, even as the light faded. Her feet were pressed up against the cold ground, small painful pebbles pressed against the heels of her feet. She could feel it all, could see it all, from the skin touching the dirt, her legs covered in the red material of her robes, and yes...
Naraku, covered in his familiar dark blue clothes, with his raven hair, scattered all over his body. She felt her entire form shake as she crawled away from him, the sickness in her gut stabbing through her like a blade. Her nails dug into her palms, scrapping against the skin as she realized she was back inside the familiar cave in which Onigumo spent his waking hours' yearning for her.
She dug her face into her knees, feeling her frame start to crumble as she noticed her nails had successfully managed to draw blood.
The sight of the scarlet color running down her skin seemed to calm her down completely, and she was absorbed into the cut.
So, I've gained life once more.
She let out a bitter laugh, her head resting against the cave wall. The laugh continued and she was shaking until she felt tears flow down her cheeks. She slapped them away, the blood from her palm, scraping against her skin. She let her arm fall limply at her side as she stared into the nothingness of the wall.
Her eyes narrowed as she heard Naraku's body shift. Somewhere, she had hoped that the man had died, finally doing the world a favor. But it appeared fate had decided to make both of them impossible to kill, despite all of Inuyasha's efforts for her life and him to die. In the end, at least one of those outcomes had arisen. Not at all in the way she would have liked.
His scarlet eyes connected onto hers, she was unable to look away. Not by some unknown force, connecting their eyes, but rather, she was exhausted. Just tired. Why he continued was unknown to her. Perhaps he was delirious from three years drifting in pure nothingness, perhaps it was because seconds feel like hundreds of years in nothingness, perhaps he didn't trust anything he saw, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. She didn't care. She realized that she was also unable to care about anything. She was drained.
"You're dead," he stated, and she gave him an uncaring blink in return.
"As were you," she finally replied, and he narrowed his scarlet eyes as he noticed the familiar cave in which he had once laid, weak and broken. It slightly amused her when she saw his expression darken into the Naraku she had come to know, not surprised that he hadn't been completely burned out. "Fitting place to end up, do you not think so?"
His eyes narrowed on her, before he looked down at his hands, finding them much weaker than he had ever seen them. His entire body felt weak. He barely had even the strength to stand up. His eyes snapped to her as he noticed her complacent stare, seeping into his body.
"It would appear...you are back to your original state as a hanyou," she murmured, genuinely expecting him to have become human, as it would have made things so much easier to wait for his death. Although, she still wasn't able to feel too worried, as without the jewel, as far as she could see, Naraku was without purpose. Then again, it was as a hanyou, he had killed her and manipulated Inuyasha to get pinned to a tree. The thought was a passing one she felt crumble in her mind with a sense of emptiness.
His existence was based around becoming full youkai, and as far as she could see, a demon without a purpose could just as easily become dirt.
She slowly stood up, fully aware of his eyes narrowing on every last movement of her body. She could feel his entire existence from the darkness in his soul, the taint of malice like an egg gone bad, all proving that her power as a Miko hadn't even slightly diminished. The light of the cave's exit only got closer and closer, and she was still hesitating to step out from it, finding that the presence of Naraku's unmoving, broken frame, managed to cause her heart to halt.
She didn't dare look back at him, not wanting to catch his eyes. She didn't want to look upon his tainted form ever again, and she wanted him to disappear from every corner of the world. She wanted him to leave every corner of her memories, every corner of her mind, every corner of her heart, and yet there he lingered, in every corner she turned.
Her lips trembled, opening and closing before she finally forced her body out of the cave, leaving him in the dark. In the dark is where she should have left him in the first place.
β’
Kikyo felt her legs obeying her far better than she had originally thought, allowing her to grow further and further from the darkness that lingered around Onigumo's cave. Whether the hanyou was still there, she couldn't help but wonder. How could she not? Shikon no Tama or not, he was still dangerous and had managed to end her life prior to all his increases in power.
If she had any of her weapons, she was fairly certain that she could have killed him. Yet the thoughts of killing him only seemed to grow stronger now that she had likely missed her chance.
She pressed Naraku to the back of her mind, deciding that she no longer wanted to further cause her thoughts to suffer on his behalf. She wasn't even certain how long had passed and what time period she would arrive in, but her feet continued to walk the familiar path where her home village had laid. She wasn't even that surprised that her legs remembered the way.
A large part of herself was hoping it hadn't been that long, and that she could see her sister once more. Lay herself down to rest in her home. The bed where she had once slept so many years ago. She found herself walking faster at the thought, slightly surprised when she found the familiar orchards of crops, were nowhere to be found. The familiar river, where she used to sit and watch the currents go by (mind you, she had usually been using herself as bait for youkai lurking in the shadows, but it had been sort of nice), was dried up.
Her face gave away nothing, and her lips were empty of movement. She found herself just staring at the dried-up canal. Her eyes quickly moved up, staring at the vacant field, catching the glimpse of burned-down houses.
The expression on her face further emptied as she walked closer to the village where she had been born. Her eyes wandering over to the area where she had shot her first bow, the spot on the river where she had met Inuyasha, before finally lingering on the place where the broken remnants of her house lay buried. Where her parents had succumbed to their wounds, where she had learned how to walk, where she had first discovered she was different.
Was there where her sister met her end as well?
Kikyo's expression only hardened, the wall between her heart and her eyes, thickening until she was gazing at nothing. She found her earlier, hopeful thoughts of finding her sister, her home, intact to be foolish now.
She knelt down to the ground, able to feel the presence of life underneath, the souls of the dead were buried here. They were without rest and without light. She slowly pressed her palm, flat against the ground, the dried earth becoming a bit softer with the pure light rushing from her body.
The souls underneath became calm, their bitterness purified so they can pass onto the next world. She glanced up at her house, her eyes half open and her lips slightly parted.
She almost wished she could purify herself, instead of always using her powers on others. Even in death, she was still only a Miko. In life, she will also only be a Miko.
She pressed her hands up against the ground once more. There had been many times she wanted to cry as a child raised to be so different. She hadn't cried back then and she wouldn't cry now. The water that seemed to fill her body didn't escape, and she could only stare out into nothing. Her eyes were unfocused, everything blurry and unfocused. For a moment, time seemed to slip away from her, but like always, his face once again came to her eyes and she was swelling with old hatred. She clutched her stomach, trying to strip it from the depths of her mind.
She had gotten her revenge. He was stripped of his powers, of his jewel, and now, of his time period.
And she was fairly certain that she had gained nothing out of any of the things she had managed to seize from him. More than anything, she wished only to have remained dead.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw a lone bow, sitting all by itself, slightly buried in the dirt. She was drawn to it, and the closer she got, the more it looked appealing. There were stray arrows all around the area, along with other weapons, thrown aside and abandoned. Just as she was as a child, the bow and arrow always was her favorite. It sucked up her spirituals in a way that no dagger ever really could. When she had been younger, she realized quickly what her family, her village expected her to do upon discovering her inate and brillant spiritual gifts-althought they had always been more of a curse, isolating her.
She was always so small, human in all the ways that made her body fragile. A blade had been too close for demons much bigger and stronger than her. The bow was safer and just as dangerous so long as she practiced how to use it. Looking at the old thing, half-buried, she still remembered the first one her father had chiseled for her some months before the demons had torn him in half and she clumsily killed them.
She could only assume there had been a fight here as well, but when that was or how it turned out, she couldn't know. Although, by the bodies and blood buried under the ground, she could assume it hadn't turned out very well.
Her fingers gripped the bow, inspecting the string, and wondering if fate had decided her next path with the bow being in far better condition than she would have guessed. Especially considering it looked to be far older than any bow she had ever obtained. Her eyes immediately wandered over to the arrows, scattered along the ground.
Maybe the Gods were merciful after all, and she could exact her revenge more permanently for once.
Author's Note
So I was all looking through the tags for fanfiction's NarKik, and I saw they were totally virtually nonexistent, especially considering I have a lot of standards for a good pairing story. Example being, no smut for my childhood anime. I don't know. It's like watching my parents or siblings have sex. I am totally not interested in reading about the characters I grew alongside get down and dirty.
So it caused me to begin this fanfiction.
I should warn everyone. I am slow as shit. But I am hardworking and refuse to give up on stories. It's just like me.
I have other works on other sites, so juggling all of them can be hard.
BUT~ I won't ever forget about any of my uploaded fanfictions. :D
Please take care of me. I will do my best to make this a wonderful story to read. And if it sucks completely, I will do my best to make it better and improve with every chapter. Thank you very much~ :D