Disclaimer : I do not own InuYasha. I wish I did *drool* : ) InuYasha and all character (except the bandits) belong to Rumiko Takahashi, who is a living goddess for creating such wonderful characters and letting us use them for our own twisted ideas.
Author's Notes :
1- For all you Kikyo lovers : Okay folks, here it is. I am not fond of Kikyo. I personally believe what Kagome says in this chapter. If you really love someone, you accept them as they are, not try to change them. Thus, I don't feel Kikyo ever loved InuYasha. If she did, it wasn't a mature love, it was an idealistic one, which is almost as bad. I don't, however, HATE Kikyo. I pity her, and feel that she is one poor lost soul, but I don't like her either. So, forgive me if I bash her just a little.
2- As for what Kagome says . . . I figured it was about time Kag grew some backbone and stood up to her former incarnation and told her what she really thought of her. With all the emotional ups and downs I've put her through in this story, I figured it was pretty logical that she finally snapped.
3- To my reviewers -
Xing@fanfiction.net - hehe, gee, hope you are still alive : ) Keep reading : )
Geminidragon - she's not quite gonna kick her ass, but something a bit better, in my opinion.
KenYasha - stay sane hun, I refuse to leave you all hanging for too long.
Saro - Hope you don't think I'm terribly evil after this one.
Animeangelstar2000 - My thoughts exactly. That poor boy never gets a minute to himself. No, Kikyo will not die however. I don't know how the storyline in the actual anime goes, and don't want to really screw up by killing off major characters that still have a part to play. So, as much as I would love to kill her off, maybe in another story.
NamelessMoonshine - hope you aren't grounded bud.
Aldrean Treu Peri - Wow. Thank you so much. I really had planned this as an emotional roller coaster when I thought of it, but I wasn't sure if I had succeeded. I'm so glad that I did.
Merith - One of my most faithful : ) Hey hun : ) Kag slept through Inu's heart to heart with Miroku cause she was downright emotionally exhausted. Honestly, I think she would have slept through an attack on the village at that point. At least, that's the way I thought of it : )
ArtemisMoon - Okay, Okay, I'm updating *grin*
Blade of Fire - Miroku / Sango pairing . . . the only reason I haven't really done much with them is cause I'm still learning the ins and outs of their characters. I've only seen what Cartoon Network has shown, read up to novel 11 of the manga, and a ton of fan fics, and I wanted to be sure I had a good idea on who they are before I got into them. Expect to see some development for them in a few chapters.
To the rest of you wonderful reviewers I haven't listed - I wanted to thank all of you personally, but realized just how much space I was taking up. So . . . Thank you so much for all your support and ideas and good reviews. I'm so glad you are all enjoying this fic, and hope you will continue reading and enjoying.
With all that said, on to the story before I get stuff thrown at me or my life threatened.
Chapter 5 - Choices and Acceptance (Part 1)
"Kikyo!" Kagome gasped, staring at the undead miko in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to give you a choice," she said coldly, drawing an arrow from the quiver at her back.
"What choice, Kikyo?"
"Leave here. Leave InuYasha, leave the Shikon no Tama, leave through that well and do not ever come back."
"Or what, Kikyo? What's my other choice?"
"Die." She held her bow drawn, arrow calmly pointed at Kagome's heart. "InuYasha is mine. He will go to hell with me, and I will be complete, my hatred appeased. You will not stop it, and you will no longer stand in my way."
Fed up with all the emotional ups and downs of the past couple of days, Kagome snapped. "Maybe I've been around InuYasha a bit too long Kikyo . . . but . . . fuck you," she snarled. Kikyo's eyes widened. "You selfish, heartless, dead BITCH!"
InuYasha, charging blindly down the path towards Kagome's scent, skidded to a dead stop. "Was that . . . Kagome?!" he whispered, shocked. He'd never heard anything like that come out of her before. He crept closer, wondering what was going on, until he caught another scent. "Kikyo?" He peered cautiously into the clearing to see his former interest and his love facing off across the old well. He moved to spring into the clearing, only to be stopped as Kagome continued to vent all the pent up emotions she had.
"Don't you fucking realize you've won!? InuYasha loves YOU! Not me . . . you . . . a dead construct of the woman he loved. Hell, he thinks about you all the time . . . as soon as Naraku is dead . . . which he is doing to avenge YOU, I might add . . . he intends fully to go to hell with you! He's doing everything for YOU . . . who couldn't even accept him as himself when you were alive. He's willing to give up his LIFE for you . . . just as he was willing to become HUMAN for you! God, you selfish bitch! Did you ever even love him? Or was he just a convenient way for you to rid yourself of the jewel? Love is accepting someone as they are, no matter who or what they are! How could you EVER say you loved him when you wouldn't accept him as anything but a human!" Kikyo's eyes narrowed during this little speech, the arrow pulling back further as she prepared to shoot.
Kagome took a breath, and opened her arms invitingly towards her former incarnation. "You know what, Kikyo? Go ahead and shoot. Death, at this point, is infinitely preferable to the pain of knowing that InuYasha . . . that my best friend . . . is going to give up his life for some undead bitch who probably never loved him. So, go ahead and do it. I won't stop you . . . You'll be doing me a favor. I'd rather be dead then watch him throw his life away like that."
"I have a much better idea," Kikyo snarled. Glaring at the young girl across from her, she loosed her arrow.
"NO!" InuYasha shouted. Caught off guard by Kagome's speech, he scrambled to interpose himself between the flying arrow and Kagome. He was seconds late. There was a brilliant flash of light as the aura of the undead miko's arrow met with the aura of the untrained young miko from the future. InuYasha spun, shielding his sensitive eyes from the blinding flash.
He spun back to find Kagome pinned to a nearby tree, Kikyo's arrow protruding from her chest. "KAGOME!" he howled, launching himself across the clearing to her. Dropping Tetsusiaga, he cupped her face gently in his hands, noting as he did so that there was no blood from the arrow. "Oh gods, Kagome . . . oh no . . . please . . . no!" he whispered. He brushed her hair back gently, seeking some sign of consciousness from her. There was none. She appeared to be sleeping . . . her skin still warm to the touch, but with no breath, no life in it at all.
He spun to face Kikyo. "What did you do to her!?" he snarled.
The undead miko smiled at him coldly. "I sealed her . . . as I sealed you so long ago. A fitting punishment, I think. Now, she and I will never be reborn. Our story will end when you come to hell with me. Our soul will never have to suffer again." She turned to leave. "Come to me when Naraku is dead and the jewel is complete, InuYasha. I will be waiting." She faded slowly into the forest, InuYasha too stunned to go after her.
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Sango and Miroku stopped in horror at the primal howl of rage and anguish that arose from the clearing ahead of them.
"Was that . . .?"
"InuYasha," Miroku confirmed. "Something has happened." They ran faster, bursting into the clearing prepared for battle. What met their eyes was not carnage, as they expected, but something they considered infinitely worse - InuYasha, kneeling at the base of a tree, to which Kagome was pinned by an arrow . . . through her heart.
With a cry of disbelief and sorrow, Sango dropped her boomerang, running across the clearing to her kneeling friend, Miroku not far behind.
"Oh no! Kagome! Is she . . ."
"No," came the soft reply from the hanyou. "She's not dead. Kikyo . . ."
Miroku broke in. "Kikyo was here?"
InuYasha nodded, not raising his head to meet their eyes. 'I never got to tell her . . . and now I never will . . .' the thought cycled through his mind over and over again. 'Kagome. . . why?'
Miroku moved to touch the arrow protruding from Kagome's chest. There was a crack, and a blinding flash of light. He pulled his hand back sharply, wincing at the blackened mark on his palm. "It's spelled."
"Yes," InuYasha sighed. "Kikyo . . . sealed her . . . as she did me. Kagome . . . Kagome confronted her . . . about me . . ." he grinned slightly. "She pissed Kikyo off." He himself was still in shock over what Kagome had said. She truly still believed that he had chosen to die with Kikyo . . . he shook his head, and told his companions all of what Kagome had said . . . even leaving in her overly colorful language.
"There has to be a way to break it . . ." Sango muttered. "Didn't Kagome break Kikyo's seal on you?"
"Yes . . ." InuYasha replied, his eyes brightening a little at the thought. "Kaede may know something!" He looked pleadingly at Miroku and Sango. "Will you . . ."
"We'll go get her." Miroku said, clasping the hanyou's shoulder. "Stay here." Turning, he and Sango moved towards the village, retrieving Sango's weapon on the way.
"He's not himself . . . I've never seen him so desolate and . . . polite." Sango murmured.
"He's been through a lot in the last two days as well. Sudden revelations of one's own emotions to one's self can shock anyone, and so much has happened in the past two days . . . to both of them . . . He's had to mature rather suddenly." Miroku replied. "Fate has not been kind to him at all. First the betrayal that Naraku orchestrated, and now, just as he's realized he loves Kagome, she's been taken away, perhaps forever."
Sango glance back to the clearing, where they could just make out InuYasha's huddled red form. "InuYasha . . . he's been cursed since he was born to have a hard life, hasn't he?"
"Being a hanyou . . . belonging to neither their world nor ours . . . yes, his life was destined to be difficult. But even he doesn't deserve everything that Fate has handed him. He's basically good at heart . . .I hope Fate decides he's had enough." Miroku sighed and fell silent, contemplating his own life and what he knew of InuYasha's. Sango walked silently by his side, lost in her own thoughts.
Back in the clearing, InuYasha rose slowly to his feet to approach the still form of his unclaimed love. Cupping her cheek gently in one clawed hand, he rubbed a light thumb over her closed lips. "Kagome . . ." he whispered. "Why did you push Kikyo like that? Do you truly believe everything you said to her? If only you knew . . . it's been months since I really thought about Kikyo as anything other than a debt to repay. Every time I thought of going to hell with her . . . I saw your face, your smile . . . and didn't want to die anymore. Kikyo will have to go to hell without me . . . because the only hell I can imagine is a life without you."
He sighed, dropping to sit cross legged against the tree, he back resting against her legs. "You've changed me Kagome. In so many little ways . . . and I never noticed until now. You gave me back my soul . . . my heart . . . things that slowly disappeared from my life when my mother was killed." He grinned wryly. "You've even given me back my life once or twice . . . and you gave me acceptance and friendship." He sat in silence for a moment. "Please . . . come back to me," he whispered finally. "Don't leave me alone in the dark again."
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"This spell is different," Kaede stated firmly, after examining Kagome carefully. "Tis not the same spell as that which my sister used to seal thee away InuYasha."
"What do you mean Kaede?" InuYasha asked, his voice gruff.
Kaede turned to him, tucking her hands into her sleeves. "The spell my sister cast upon thee is there, but it has been altered . . . by Kagome."
"WHAT!?" Three different voices echoed through the clearing as Miroku, Sango, and InuYasha all stared at Kaede in shock. Shippo lay asleep at the base of the well, where he had curled into a ball to cry after seeing Kagome.
"Kagome seems to have modified the spell as it hit her. She may have done it unconsciously, but there appears to be a . . ." she searched for the word, "a gap in the spell . . . like a keyhole . . . as if, when the spell hit her, she made a way for her to be awoke. But . . . I know not what that way may be."
"How can we find out?" InuYasha asked, controlling his impatience with the elderly miko at the thought of a possible way of waking Kagome.
"Kagome's soul is . . . suspended, between life and death. There be only one possible way to reach her . . . if it is indeed at all possible. And it will take some time to prepare."
"What will it take, Lady Kaede?" Miroku asked, seeing InuYasha's ears flatten in despair at her words.
"It will take but a month to prepare the spell . . .at the very least. Someone with a strong tie to Kagome's soul will have to try to enter into her dream state and discover what she did to the spell." Three pairs of eyes turned to the hanyou sitting at the base of the tree.
"I'll do it." InuYasha said. "But I have one thing I must do first."
To Be Continued
AN : So, what is it InuYasha has to do before he undergoes Kaede's spell? And can the seal Kikyo place on Kagome be broken? Guess you'll have to keep reading to find out.
Future Warning : okay, here it is. Chapter 6 will contain a LEMON! Not an overly pathetic one, but a lemon none the less. I will post a warning at the beginning of the chapter. Now, before you all decide to kill me, here's the deal . . . I wrote chapter 6 so that It would fit into the story with or without the lemon section, so if you aren't of age, you won't be getting lost by not reading it. I will post the section separately . . . as in Chapter 6 Part 1, Chapter 6 Part 2 (lemon), and Chapter 6 Part 3. And yes, I will post it all at once so people don't send me death threats. So, consider yourselves warned and please keep me out of trouble. Thanks, and don't forget to review : )
PS : oh, and before I forget . . . I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes going "Well, there goes another perfectly good story down the drain." just because there will be a lemon. I beg you, don't judge it until you read it. Trust me, I'm not another 13 year old trying to write about something I've never experienced : ) I'm a bit older then that ; ) So no, it won't be smut. I like to think of it as a tastefully done love scene.