"Only You" - continued from 4

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He came awake slowly, gradually...like rising up a great, darkened staircase. The first thing he noticed was the cool, mottled sky above him, the streaks of sapphire and ivory...the lingering gold of the warm morning sun. He stared into that sky for a long time, hearing nothing, knowing nothing...glimpsing only that soft, pure blue...that clear, glorious beauty he'd never taken the time to appreciate before.

He was lying on his back, the warmth of his blood seeping out into the snow...but, he regretted never having taken the time to look at this sky before, never having bothered to appreciate the beauty hanging just above him. And, it really was beautiful. All life was reflected in that sky...all life, all friendship, all love. He could almost see himself in the cool shift of clouds, the gentle strokes of the sun against the distant hills...yes. He could almost see it all.

"N...Nuriko?"

He blinked a few times, the dark wisps of his eyelashes moving slowly, almost painfully...flitting away the anguished tears flooding at his eyes, making the world seem clearer, brighter...realer. And, now that he looked...he realized that he was not alone, that he was lying here on the soft, crimson-stained snow with Miaka just beside him, holding his head in her lap...clutching onto the fingers of his right hand. He glanced briefly at his left arm, saw it lying limply beside him, bent at a strange, unnatural angle...it didn't hurt, though. Nothing did. There was a soft, whispering warmth sliding over him, now, covering his flesh in a painless, comforting glow...drawing the agony from his body...drawing the life away...

Miaka was leaning over him, her eyes large and filled with tears, struggling vainly to hold his limp body in her arms while still wiping at the wetness on her cheeks. At last, she gave up, let the tears slide down unchecked. "Nuriko," she repeated. Her voice broke halfway through the word, and for a moment he was afraid she was going to begin to cry in earnest, that she wouldn't be able to hear what he had to tell her...but, then, she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, clutched onto his fingers a little more tightly. "Nuriko...Tamahome went to find the others. They...they should be back w-with Mitsukake...soon." Her eyes widened, and her voice quickened, grew more frantic. "So, d-don't move around, okay? Just lay here, and...and try not to move around too much...okay? Please?" The tears began to streak more quickly down her cheeks, trickle to the edge of her chin and drip very lightly onto his bloodied flesh.

"Don't cry, Miaka," he managed. His voice was very soft, very low...but, he knew she heard it. Somehow, he managed to lift his hand from the confines of her fingers, wipe at the tears clinging to her cheeks with the side of his index finger. "It'll...be all right," he continued softly. "It isn't bad enough to kill me."

But, it was...and, he knew it. In just a few moments...gods, in just a few moments, he was going to...die...wasn't he? He wondered, very briefly, what it would be like, what it would feel like...if he would be able to remember Miaka, Hotohori, Tamahome...the people he loved...if he would be able to see Korin again...

"I can't leave you," he whispered.

"Nuriko, please," Miaka pleaded, clutching at his hand, pulling it close to her chest and pressing it against the warmth of her heart. "Please...don't try to talk. Mitsukake will be here soon, and then...then...please..." She began to cry again.

Nuriko stared up at her, feeling that suffocating warmth flooding into his lungs, that cool, heavy darkness wrapping itself over his body, over his vision...he blinked a few times, forced it back. No...he had to say this...he had to say this before he left...

"You're such...a glutton," he murmured. "Clumsy...stupid...but..." He managed a weak, pained smile, tightened his grip on her hand as best he could. "But, there's something...special about you."

Miaka pressed his hand to her cheek, her lip beginning to waver. "N-Nuriko..."

"So...don't lose." His words were hard, fervent--she had to understand...she had to know how important this was... "No matter what."

The girl's eyes were large and wet, the ghost of comprehension flitting beneath the soft, glistening green. She clutched more tightly onto his fingers, somehow managed to match his smile...but the expression never came close to touching her eyes. "What're you saying?" she asked softly. "You sound like...like we won't see each other again. That's impossible. I'll be watched over by Nuriko-sama..."

He wanted to answer her, to say something--anything...to draw another breath, to pull her into his arms, to perhaps just stare at her for one more moment...but, the world was fading around him, now, drifting away into the darkness, tugging him with it... He felt the strength leaving his muscles, felt his fingers go limp in Miaka's slim hand...knew he was dying, knew this was the last moment he spent in this body, on this earth, with this girl he loved so dearly... He was...dying.

But, as he faded away, as he felt himself slipping into the darkness, falling into the vast pits of oblivion...suddenly, something changed. A dark shadow formed above him--a crunch of snow, a pleading cry...a wash of soft, green light. And then, suddenly, he felt himself being dragged up from the blackened depths, felt himself rising swiftly to the surface as if through a vast, dark ocean...and, suddenly, the light flared around him, the breath surged back into his lungs, the life splashed back into his body.

His back arched as he sucked in that first long, heavy breath, and he immediately began to cough, was forced to fall to his side on the snow, cough and gasp until he could breathe normally again...gods. Breathe normally...breathe... Nuriko drew in a long, sweet breath of the icy air, let it out slowly through his nostrils.

Gods. Gods, he was alive. He was...he was alive!

Suddenly, there were slim, warm arms around him, a welcome weight on his chest, a soft mass of hair resting beneath his chin...the sound of harsh, uncontrollable sobbing. Miaka was lying on top of him, her face buried in the now-unmarred flesh of his chest, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs, shuddering through him as he lay there, eyes lightly open, staring up at the sky. Gradually, he became aware of the presence of others around him, of Tamahome, kneeling there just behind Miaka, looking relieved and happy and a bit pale. And, there was Mitsukake, resting quietly a few feet away, his back pressed against the wall of a building, his eyes closed softly..contentedly. And, there was Tasuki...Chichiri...Chiriko...his friends, his brothers...his fellow seishi.

Slowly, he realized that the strength seemed to have returned to his limbs, that he could move without much difficulty, even tense the weakened length of his left arm. Experimentally, he lifted his arms, held them out in front of him for a moment...and then, he lifted them a little higher, wrapped them tightly around Miaka's back and held her close.

"It's all right," he whispered, closing his eyes tightly, savoring the warmth of the girl's body against his own, the cool touch of her tears against his skin. "I told you I couldn't leave you, ne?"

Something thudded into his side. He glanced up in surprise, saw Tasuki standing there above him, wiping vainly at the tears streaking over his cheeks, looking angry and irritated and thankful all at once. "Damn you!" he bellowed, kicking him again in the ribs. "What the @(#*$&@$ is wrong with you, goin' up against a guy like that? Huh? What the @(#*$& is wrong with you???"

"Sorry," he murmured. His eyes closed, very lightly. His voice sank to a whisper. "I almost died."

Tasuki nodded angrily. "Damn right, you almost died. If Tamahome hadn't found us...if we hadn't been walkin' through the city...damn it, if we hadn't @#$*&$ FELT you..." He let out a heavy, irritated huff of air, kicked angrily at a patch of blood-stained snow. "Can't believe you @(*#$& did that," he whispered ardently. "Can't @#$*(& believe it."

Mitsukake rose slowly to his feet, smiled gently down at the violet-haired seishi. "That's enough, Tasuki," he said quietly. "Let's help him up."

They were moving towards him, then, Miaka slowly crawling up from where she'd been lying...and then, suddenly...something changed.

A snarl, a flash of grey fur...his eyes widened, and he sat up straight where he lay, tried to scramble out of the way...gods, they didn't see, they didn't realize...Miaka was still sitting there, innocent, unseeing--and, there was the wolf, leaping for him...leaping for her...if he didn't do something--!

"Look out!" he cried. He tried to tug her out of the way, but he couldn't--gods, he was still too weak! The wolf...somehow, it was that monster, wasn't it? He didn't know how...but, as he looked into those eyes, saw the wolf lunging towards him and Miaka...somehow, he knew they were the same eyes he'd gazed into before, the same eyes that had almost swallowed him up....

Miaka was turning, very slowly...so were the others...none of them saw, none of them could do anything...gods, no!

And then...abruptly...there was a flash of reddish fabric, a sweep of dark hair...and the wolf went surging to the side, fell heavily to the ground. Tamahome landed hard on top of it, having leapt from the side, knocked it out of the way...but, before he could climb to his feet, before he could get away...the wolf was twisting on its side, lashing out at him with teeth, claws, fangs...Tamahome cried out, tried to fight against it...but, the wolf had a grip on his flesh, was tearing at it, ripping at it, rending it from him...

"TAMAHOME!" Miaka screamed.

With the sound of her voice, the others broke free of their shocked paralysis, began to rush forward all at once. Tasuki got there first.

"LEKKA...SHIEN!"

The fire surged forward, ripped over the blood-stained snow...slammed directly into the wolf and incinerated it in seconds. The charred remains fell heavily to the ground, lay still...and it was only then that any of them got a full glimpse of Tamahome.

Miaka let out a high, shrieking squeal in the back of her throat, fell limply to her knees and tried to crawl to his side. "T...Tama...home," she whispered.

The dark-haired seishi lay on his side in the snow, unmoving, no sign of breath...no sign of life. The flesh of his arms, chest, throat...it had been torn by the fangs, the claws...his tunic had been ripped into tattered, crimson-stained shreds, lay scattered around him in the snow. Somehow, Nuriko managed to crawl to his feet, sprinted to Tamahome's side...lifted the battered body up into his arms. Miaka was there a moment later, barely able to speak for the weight of the tears in her throat, barely able to form a word or thought or to even draw breath.

Nuriko clutched the lifeless body to his chest, carefully raised his hand over Tamahome's mouth and nostrils, let his shaking fingers rest there for a moment. "He's not breathing," he whispered.

Miaka stared at him for a long moment as if not understanding, shook her head and lunged forward. "No," she whimpered. Her fingers tugged at the tattered fabric, clutched at the torn, bloodied flesh of Tamahome's arm. "No...no, he...he...he must be breathing! Nuriko! Check again--check again, please!!"

Nuriko felt himself begin to tremble, felt the anguish rising up through his throat. He stared out plaintively at the others, met Mitsukake's horrified gaze. "Please...Mitsukake," he said, his voice hoarse, broken. "Can't...can't you do something?"

The healer could only shake his head, eyes wide and pained. "I...I can only heal once...I...I can't..."

"Tamahome!" Miaka shrieked. "TAMAHOME, NO! PLEASE!"

The violet-haired seishi closed his eyes, felt the life ebbing from the body in his arms, felt the icy darkness of death washing over Tamahome, sweeping him up into its embrace...gods. Gods, it had happened again. It had...happened again. "My fault," he whispered. "M...my fault..."

Miaka's shrieking sobs echoed into the chill morning...rose up into the perfect, mottled sapphire of the sky.

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AN: I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Don't kill me!! *cowers and hides*