Mirror Images

Chapter Six: Tetsusaiga

Wow, my popularity has really gone through the roof, hasn't it? ::sarcastic:: After all, everybody seems to love this story SO MUCH that they don't review…9.9 Ah, what the heck, might as well keep on plowing through.

Sixth chapter up, looks like it's gonna be a doozy, you're all going to hate me but what can I do? Never got to putting up that Tower picture, but I'll see what I can do. Ah, the joys of having a laptop and being able to type to my chewy little heart's content…Wheeeee!

Disclaimer: Oy gevalt…here we go again with the not-owning and the saying and the…yeah. I don't own this. Deal.

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I hurled my shard down to Inuyasha and bit back a gasp from the pain that suddenly coursed through every vein, growing sharper by the second. My vision started fading, but I fought unconsciousness and pain, trying to aim at the approaching big, scary demon. If I even vaguely wanted to survive this, it was going to take everything I had.

Sesshoumaru regarded me levelly, though hidden anger tainted the otherwise emotionless expression. "What are you, girl?" he asked flatly. "No mortal could repulse the Tetsusaiga's power."

"I suppose you could say I'm one of those 'filthy humans'," I retorted, struggling to hide my pain, though it grew with each second. "Funny how that works. The funny thing is, no matter how they looked, with humans I've always been able to tell what gender they are. You, now—there's no telling. I mean, I can understand wanting to get in touch with your feminine side, but really, the makeup's a bit much." I cocked my head to the side, donning a thoughtful look. "And really, that robe isn't your color."

He was only ten feet away, unruffled and coldly calm, and I could hear my heart thudding in my ears. Oh, sure, fantastic idea, Kagome, my mind screamed. Throw away your Shikon shard and call the powerful demon a she-male.

Faster than my eye could follow, clawed fingers dug into my arm's flesh, then released it, a burning sensation spreading over the immediate white-hot pain. Scarlet blossomed from the punctures, and I glared up at Sesshoumaru, wondering how many scars I was going to collect by the time I'd accomplished Midoriko's task.

"How strange," he mused. "You bleed like a human…very strange. If you were more than a mere sorceress with a talent for reverting things, you might have lived."

~

"Kagome!" Sango started to run after the girl as she took off for the watchtower, but a hand seized her arm.

Turning, she found the monk, for once serious. "Don't," he ordered. "Kagome can handle herself. There's more to her than anyone knows, and you're needed here. There are more demons coming." When she hesitated, he added sharply, "I had a premonition of this, and you have to trust me! We have to get everyone that can move as far away from the gate as possible, as fast as we can!"

Scarlet eyes locked on purple for a moment, and then she nodded shortly. "Kirara!" Leaping onto the daemon, she started running to different fallen shapes and pulling them onto Kirara's shoulders if they were still alive.

Miroku went to where he would be heard best and shouted as loud as he could, "Listen to me, everyone! Get as far away from the gate as possible! A terrible attack is coming, and if you don't want to die a horrible death, you must get away from the gate!" Those who were still on their own feet stumbled towards the training field, stopping to pick up the wounded, others loading them onto daemons.

"Hurry!" Miroku yelled, watching the scene unfolding at the watchtower with growing dread. It was his burden to occasionally receive premonitions, for no matter what, they always came true, even if he'd altered the chain of events that had to the occurrence in the first place.

I'm sorry, Kagome. As he watched, something small and glittering was thrown from the platform: it was almost time. "Thirty seconds, at most!" he called in warning, then turned around. It was going to happen soon, and beyond that…that was where the premonition had ended. He started running, found a little girl at the side of a fallen adult, and picked them both up, jogging faster.

"Get on!" Sango hauled the woman across Kirara's shoulders and took the whimpering girl, and swung the priest up behind her. They shot across the open space, and he felt a rise of power behind them.

"We need to go faster," he muttered to her. "If we aren't past the wells in ten seconds we're going to die."

She made no response to him, but leaned forward, murmuring to the cat daemon. Kirara rumbled an answer and took to the sky, soaring even faster.

Looking back, he saw the oncoming wave of white, then the wells drawing near, but they weren't going to make it—it was coming closer—

A wall of shifting blue-silver slammed into place, keeping their doom at bay, and he heaved a sigh of relief. That only lasted for so long, though, when more demons began to gather around the village.

How were they supposed to last the night?

~

I saw Sesshoumaru raise the blade, and felt the tension mount in the air, like the sense of a rising storm. And then it came down, reminiscent of the executioner's axe of Tuzaki.

I threw my arms in front of my face in an instinctive move to protect myself, but it wouldn't have done any good in any case. Dimly I was aware of a scream breaking from my throat, and my mind shouting that I didn't want to die, but with that same unstoppable force roaring towards me, it wasn't like I could hide behind the short wall of the watchtower and hope I wouldn't get hit.

Pale blue-white spurted from my palms, forming a weak shield against the approaching tidal wave of destructive power, and it held for a moment, but broke. I was slammed back, every muscle shrieking in pain, and it was as if every pore wanted to rip free of its anchor in flesh, as if every inch of me wanted to separate.

The village, part of my mind said numbly. This is going to hit the village.

I might die, but I'm not going to let everyone else be killed! With difficulty, I moved my aching arms over my head, still flying headlong through the air, being carried by the terrible power, and shoved all of my reserves out, throwing up a dam of my own magic.

My soul split from my body in that instant, but I could care less. All of my strength and willpower was focused on making the wall hold against the wave of white, holding it back from the rest of the village. Enough people had died tonight; I wasn't going to let anyone else be hurt.

The Testusaiga's power fought mine, tearing and ripping at it, but I refused to let it budge. No—more, my mind ordered. You—have—to—go—back! Sesshoumaru was standing near where the watchtower had once been, watching the attack being restrained with interest. It's—going back—where it came from!

I dragged power up from only heavens knew where, ignoring the pain and dizziness, and forced the whiteness back. His eyes widened when the blaze gave an inch, then a foot, and then snapped. It would obey me now, and only me, and I wasn't in the forgiving mood.

With the Tetsusaiga's own power at my back, my spirit rose in the air and pointed at Sesshoumaru, uttering two simple words, the fatal command. Kill him.

It slammed into him like a beast turned on its master, and he was thrown to the ground. A black aura grew around him, emanating from another blade at his hip, and swallowed most of the white. The rest faded away, but he was left there for a moment, unmoving.

Then I blacked out, and everything faded.

~

In his entire life, Inuyasha had never felt so useless—and so fully ready to kill.

All he could do was watch while Kagome had thrown her shard to him, then challenged Sesshoumaru and paid the price. He hadn't seen her fall in the explosion, but that was assuming anything was left of her…

How could she be dead? She was Kagome—she didn't die, ever, she was Kagome, that annoying girl who told him everything she thought, who never acted like he was a weakling or a monster. She'd all but sacrificed herself to save his life, and now—now she was…gone.

He clenched his fists until a warm trickle told him they were bleeding. He was no saint and he didn't pretend to be, but Sesshoumaru—

He'd killed her. Sesshoumaru had murdered Kagome, his Kagome. In his fury, he didn't see the burning white force turned on Sesshoumaru or him being thrown to the ground for a good thirty seconds. When he opened his eyes, the only thing he saw was Kagome, lying on the ground, her scent still fresh in the air, a cut on her forehead sluggishly dripping blood. She was deathly pale and unmoving, and he knew she would never get up again.

In his mind's eye, she was there, shielding herself, struggling to learn the basics of knife fighting, glaring at him when they both knew he'd done something wrong but he'd thought that like always he was going to get away with it, passing herself off as Kikyo, silencing the entire city, the quiet look in her eyes as she'd knelt for execution, coming to his rescue when he'd rashly hared off to go attack Multaro's castle and come face-to-face with the Dark Priestess…She'd been his companion, possibly his only friend, the only one to take his mannerisms and lineage in stride, the only one to accept him for who he was, not who his title said he was, not what his bloodlines named him as.

But she was lost to him now.

Then he saw how Sesshoumaru's attack had stopped far short of its potential and the clear line where the lines in the earth were halted.

Instead of shielding herself, she had used her last power to stop him from annihilating the broken remnants of the village.

He knew in his heart of hearts that, if it had been Kikyo, she would have saved herself. It was just part of who she was—she'd justify it by saying she could save more lives if she was still alive than if she was dead, but in the end justifications meant nothing to a corpse. Kagome had acted of her own free will and done what her heart told her, and now she was gone.

Now his eyes landed on Sesshoumaru, and one thought echoed within his mind, ricocheting back and forth as he tucked Kagome's sacrificed shard in the front of his robe, gathering momentum and force: it was time for a reckoning.

[AN: Yeah, in case you didn't figure it out, while I'm not a Fluffy-hater, I'm no fangirl either. FOR THE LOVE OF CHOCOLATE, HE'S A VILLAIN! HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE WORSHIPPED!!!!]

Inuyasha charged, moving faster than he'd ever moved before, and swung a fist up, ramming his brother in the face. Sesshoumaru was too stunned to react, and thus was caught by Inuyasha's claws on his other side. Never before had he been this furious, never before had he fought like this. This time, his brother had gone too far, much too far, and he wasn't going to get away with it.

Sesshoumaru found himself on the defensive, his brother actually forcing him back, fighting as if his human half didn't exist. He couldn't even use the Tetsusaiga, though it hadn't transformed into its true form after the arrow's shock, but that wasn't what Inuyasha was even after—it was as if he only wanted to kill Sesshoumaru.

"What's the matter, little brother?" Sesshoumaru asked, trying to distract him. "Attached yourself to the human, did you?"

This only seemed to spur him on, and he attacked more viciously. Sesshoumaru swiped at him with his poison-laden claws, tearing three gashes up the side of his face, but Inuyasha hardly noticed, still throwing blow after blow. Finally his older brother landed a hit, tossing him far away, and by now he was very close to losing his formerly unshakable calm. The mere notion of Sesshoumaru wielding his father's blade and still being pushed back by a mere half-breed…

"No more games," he said coldly, icy fury starting to show. "Now is the time for you to die, brother."

"Not likely, you bastard," Inuyasha grunted, trying to get to his feet, but he was swiftly growing more exhausted. The day of travel and the battle had worn on him, as had the pain of having no shard. He remembered Kagome, throwing hers down to him. If she'd kept the shard for herself, maybe she would have survived…It only suppressed part of the pain, but it was enough for him to fight. He'd need his shard from Sesshoumaru if he didn't want to kill Kagome…but she was already dead.

The thought gave him new strength. He waited for Sesshoumaru to come to him, then slashed up, catching his breastplate and breaking it, claws digging into demonflesh.

Sesshoumaru howled his pain, and his eyes turned red, signaling the beginning of his transformation into his true form, but then they faded back to normal and he glanced down at the Tetsusaiga, gaze uncertain for a rare moment.

Leaping forward, Inuyasha sliced down, tearing at his brother's human arm and wrapping a fist around Tetsusaiga's hilt. His claws caught the crook of Sesshoumaru's elbow, making him hiss in pain and his grip loosen just enough for Inuyasha to wrench the blade free and spring back, getting out of range of his brother's poisonous talons.

Surprisingly, Sesshoumaru laughed. "Thank you, Inuyasha. That sword holds a true demon's power in check, and I couldn't transform with it in my grasp, even though it is useless in its form now. Let us see how well you fare against a true demon, half-breed!"

~

Miroku looked down at his hand, wondering if he should in fact use it, but that would only hasten his destruction...Unless his piece of the Shikon Jewel would halt the hellgate's growth, but that wasn't likely. And he could only take in so much of the demonic energy without it being a fatal dosage…

They touched down in the training field and passed off woman and child to those on the ground, watching the battle of wills and something else with wide eyes.

"Can we go closer to the demons approaching the village, Lady Sango?" he asked lowly, not wanting to arouse panic within the people.

She nodded, and they took off again, this time going over the wall. "Please let me down somewhere around here," he requested politely, mind on other things. She gave him a strange look but nodded, and they came down with twenty yards between them and a hoard of demons. "Stand back." Moving in front of them, he slipped the constraining beads from around his right forearm and held his palm out.

With horrendous screams of terror, the monsters found themselves being pulled steadily towards the grim-faced monk and struggled wildly, but to no avail. One by one, they were pulled in, and though he could feel him nearing his limit, he doggedly sucked in more and more until none were left on that wall.

And then he allowed himself to fall to his knees, gasping for breath, sweat rolling down his face. Possibly this was the sickest he'd ever felt, but he wasn't going to die…though he was wishing he would at the moment.

An arm slipped around his shoulders and led him over to Kirara, the cat-daemon growling her concern. It was a short ride back over the wall, but as his eyes cleared, they both were confronted with something neither had expected to see.

The damage done by Sesshoumaru's deadly maneuver was clear: nothing was left standing in the swath of destruction. It abruptly halted where the wall had been, though there were no traces of either of the titanic powers that had struggled there.

Well, there was one: Kagome's motionless form, lying in the middle of the destruction.

Sango started forward again, and again it was Miroku that held her back. "Curse you, monk, let me go!" Sango cried, voice cracking with tears over the young girl who, though she had only briefly known, had clearly sacrificed her life to save her people.

"There is nothing we can do for her now," he said, trying to keep his voice from giving out. "I've known her since she was born, but even I know when someone is beyond my reach! Your people still need help, and they are the ones she decided to save, not herself. The least we owe her is to take care of them."

Sango's shoulders slumped, trembling a bit, but after a moment she looked angrily out towards where the battle was still raging between the brothers. "I'm going to kill him," she hissed. "I'm going to kill that bedamned monster!"

"Lady Sango, control yourself!" he ordered sternly, wondering where he had dragged up the composure to keep her from losing it when he wanted to go out and strangle the life out of the bastard himself. Didn't he know who Kagome had been? Didn't he know of the hopes that rested on her shoulders, the plans and ancient foretellings that could only be set in motion by her? Didn't he know how much had rested on that one girl? "Kagome would have certainly not wanted us to idiotically charge out and get ourselves killed as well! The only people we can help now are yours—There are still demons out there, and they still want the jewel shards!"

She reluctantly changed direction, and didn't see him slowly shake his head. Now what was going to happen to them, with the one thing to bring about the many Prophecies destroyed?

~

There was a rumble as Sesshoumaru's body shifted, stretching grotesquely, a leering grin that would have been funny if he wasn't transforming warping onto his face. The roar of power building up began to surface, soft at first, though it would crescendo to near-deafening volume. This was not good—perhaps Inuyasha had his father's sword now, but Sesshoumaru had the increasing advantage of size and the fact that the sword wasn't actually working.

Before long, he'd transformed into an enormous dog, tongue lolling sloppily, a greedy gleam in his eyes, though one arm was shorter and shorter-furred than the others. He was also about seventy feet high at the shoulder, and his teeth had gotten longer and sharper. Definitely much sharper.

Sesshoumaru lunged at him, fangs snapping shut on open air as Inuyasha dodged and raked his claws across his brother's sensitive nose. He recoiled with a sharp bark, then let out a growl that shook the earth and brought down a paw the size of a wagon almost on top of Inuyasha.

Inuyasha fruitlessly swung the useless Tetsusaiga at him, frustration mounting in him. He wanted to make Sesshoumaru pay for what he'd done to Kagome, and here he was with a useless piece of junk that somehow worked just for his stupid older brother!

A weak beam of light pierced through the dust clouds that had billowed up from Sesshoumaru's movements and struck him in the side. While at first it didn't seem to have any effect, Inuyasha was amazed to see what had initially happened to the Tetsusaiga was now happening to his brother—he was being forced back into his weaker form.

But there was only one person he knew of that could do that. Heart racing, he turned to the remnants of the village.

Kagome was sitting up, eyes shut in pain, and sporting not only several cuts and bruises but also what was definitely a broken arm, the other outstretched and shaking, but still glowing with the light of her power. She was clearly suffering from not having the jewel shard, and her scent was weak and threaded with pain and blood, but she was alive.

Kagome was alive.

"You filthy little bitch!" Sesshoumaru roared, already moving towards her. "Don't you stay dead?!"

"Don't you touch her!" Somehow, he'd moved fast enough to plant himself between his older brother and the weakened Kagome. The Tetsusaiga shivered beneath his hands, then suddenly turned into the enormous blade his brother had been wielding. He stared at it, bewildered, then ignored the voice that was demanding to know what the hell had just happened and charged towards his brother. He was weakened by battle now, though, and if he didn't end this quickly he wasn't going to end it at all.

Sesshoumaru hadn't lost any of his speed, and a moment later they were locked in combat, Inuyasha struggling to strike down his brother and Kagome watching through glazed eyes. The battle was still in his elder brother's favor, though, for he had no knowledge of how to draw out the Tetsusaiga's full power like Sesshoumaru could.

In an eyeblink, Sesshoumaru had seized the hilt again and pried it from Inuyasha's aching grip, raising the blade high in preparation to unleash that catastrophic attack again. He couldn't let him do it, Inuyasha couldn't, Kagome would be caught in it and weakened as she was, she wouldn't survive twice.

He saw Miroku nearing Kagome, the Taiji-ya girl hard on his heels. "Get Kagome away from here!" His voice was hoarse, but that wouldn't matter. Springing at his brother, he latched onto the human arm wielding the Tetsusaiga and forced his strength into keeping it from falling. No matter what, he couldn't let it fall—Kagome and everyone would die—he couldn't let it happen, wouldn't let them get killed—not this time—

Agony shot through him as he was impaled on Sesshoumaru's other hand, his claws' poison burning the sides of the wound. His vision blacked for a second, and he dragged in a breath, eyes blurring and every instinct screaming for him to just give up and die.

Die…

Don't…let…Kagome…Die…

Sesshoumaru pulled his arm out slowly, smirking down on Inuyasha's obvious pain. He would do worse to any survivors, and both of them knew that.

His fists somehow tightened on his brother's arm, then ripped it off, pulling out the bloody Shikon shard and clenching it tightly in one hand, the scarlet-stained sword hilt in the other. Then he fell to his knees, Tetsusaiga still at the ready, eyes blank.

Sesshoumaru took a step forward, and it was the most foolish thing he had ever done.

The dog-demon was blasted back by the same force he'd used to decimate the village, nearly kill Kagome, and claim the lives of countless others, though this was channeled directly at him, the full fury of it sweeping down on him like an unstoppable tsunami.

When the light cleared, there was no sign of him, though what remained of Inuyasha's conscious knew that he wasn't dead.

"I-Inuyasha!"

Kagome's voice cut through his mental fog like a beam of light, and his eyes cleared somewhat. He saw her fuzzy outline, mind mechanically registering that she wasn't dead. And then he collapsed, falling face-forward onto reddened ground. He wasn't fully unconscious, but he was going to need more than a nap and lots of fluids to recover from this one. Miroku's scent was drawing closer… A hand turned him over, and he forced out, "My mother…we need to get…to Tetsui…my mother can heal…give shard…Kagome…" He pulled the shard out from his robe, but that was all he could manage, hand flopping limply onto the ground.

Then everything faded into darkness.

~

Miroku stared at the fatal—or it would be fatal for a human—wound Inuyasha was sporting and leaned heavily on his staff. Both he and Kagome needed serious help, for Kagome also had been struck by Sesshoumaru's claws and suffered the poison, which could be deeply serious.

With a sigh, he plucked the Kagome's shard from Inuyasha's palm and waved to Sango, then threw it to her. She caught it, holding onto the fainting Kagome, and put it in the younger girl's hand, though it didn't seem to help anything. Then he undid a leather thong around his neck and pulled out an odd leaf-shaped pendant, dropping it on the ground and tapping it with his staff.

There was a puff of white smoke, and out from it stepped a raccoon daemon, about four feet tall and round as an egg and clad in a jacket and trousers. "You called, Lord?" he asked nervously.

"We could use some assistance with transportation, and fast transportation at that, Tanuki," Miroku said wryly. "We need to get the poor sod here and that young lady over to the Tetsui Palace within the hour at the slowest—are you up to it?"

"What my master wishes." With another puff of smoke, the Tanuki had turned into an oblong—thing—and was looking decidedly odd, but it would have to work.

"Lady Sango, if you don't mind?" He gestured to the Tanuki.

"What about my village?" she demanded. "I have no intention of leaving them to fend for themselves! What if more demons attack?"

"Demons have a sense of where the Shikon Jewel is at all times, which is why they have been assaulting you and your home. If you come with us, if anything they will follow us straight into Tetsui and then be caught and killed by the guards." She didn't respond. "Please, Sango," he said quietly. "If we're set upon by demons, I alone cannot defend them, not when they are in this state. If Kagome dies—"

"She's the Fushiginoko, isn't she?" Sango asked, voice strained. "The one the Prophecies foretold of."

"Didn't you see? One of her gifts is returning things to the form that she wants them to be in." He carefully levered Inuyasha onto his daemon's back. "All the omens were present at her birth—the blue star over the Tower, heatless stars falling to the ground—they were collected and still burn in the castle where the queen sleeps; and that wasn't the least of it. She silenced an entire city with only her gaze before she knew of her powers."

"So she really has come," Sango breathed, looking wide-eyed down at the pale, bloodied girl she was barely holding up.

"Will you come with us or not?" Miroku asked. "I swear to you, we will return to help your village recover, but for now all we can do is lead the demons away and get these two to safety. Undoubtedly you've read the entirety of the First Prophecy—when it comes down to the inevitable, neither you nor I will be the one to be in the Tower with her, it will be Inuyasha. More than either of these two know and can know hangs upon them and the reuniting of the Shikon Jewel, and the only remaining piece lies in Naraku's hands. It is of the utmost importance that we keep it so he only has one piece—so will you come with us or not?"

She didn't move for a moment, then slowly stepped forward, supporting Kagome, Kirara following at her heel.

~

When I opened my eyes, it was the third time in my life that my head hurt that much. Also, in strange coincidence, it was relieved in the exact same manner—my shard, clutched in the same hand, sent a pulse through me, numbing my multiple aches and pains to a tolerable level.

"You're awake," a woman's voice said from somewhere nearby, a voice I only barely recognized, though I couldn't place it.

"And wishing I wasn't," I muttered before realizing I was in someone else's house and most likely it would be in my interests to keep from shooting my mouth off.

Fortunately, the woman laughed. I opened my eyes onto darkness, but it quickly turned to a ceiling.

"In your position, I wouldn't want to be awake either," she said lightly. "Your injuries alone would justify the three days you've been asleep."

I sat up, finding myself in a room that was simple but not inexpensive and with a splint on one arm and bandages around the other, as well as in other places. There were dozens more bruises and scratches that had been cleaned and were on their way to healing completely, but my muscles yet protested moving after one long night of abuse and three day's worth of rest. "Three days?" I couldn't believe it—here we were, trying to hunt down Naraku and stop an unstoppable war, and I had been in bed for three whole days?! "I don't even want to think about what Inuyasha's going to say," I muttered into my hands.

"Most likely very little. He's still asleep himself—his injuries were more serious than yours, though to a half-demon your and his should be about equal. He woke up once, asked where you were, and went back to sleep." The woman speaking was seated in a chair about five feet away, watching me with dark violet eyes. Her straight black hair was tied back for the most part, though two locks framed her face. She had a regal bearing, and something about her was familiar, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it, like her voice.

"Where am I?" I finally asked, swallowing.

"Royal Palace of Tetsui," she answered smoothly. "You were brought here after the battle for treatment of your wounds. My name is Akiko, if you were wondering. I'm Inuyasha's mother."

"Oh…I see," I said slowly, feeling remarkably dim-witted. I was face-to-face with the queen of Tetsui—me, a peasant, being treated with politeness and courtesy.

This led me to wonder where on earth Inuyasha had picked up those horrendous manners from.

"A bath is waiting in the room to your left, and clean clothes are coming," Akiko informed me, getting to her feet. "I would like to hear of your part in this story later, when you are not three steps from Death's doorway."

I blinked, then nodded, and only when she'd left did I bring myself to move. A groan escaped my lips as I forced unwilling muscles into use and staggered into the bathroom.

~

A long soak and a longer discussion with Lady Akiko, and I was feeling more like myself. We talked of my powers, of the Shikon Jewel and Fushiginoko Tower, and of other things. Of Inuyasha's father's death when he'd been twelve, of the Tetsusaiga, of what was going to happen in Tetsui now.

His betrothal to Kikyo also came up. "His father arranged it," she informed me, rolling her eyes. "It was five years before the barrier went up around Aohoshi, and Sesshoumaru's mother had been killed. Shirome and Tetsui are the largest kingdoms, and if there was a war between them, not only would it weaken both countries but it'd fuel the other nations' economies because we'd need to buy extra supplies and soldiers from them. The assassination was set up to look like it was done by a Shiromean, but Daisuke was too smart for that. We later found it was one of his relatives, who was being bribed by the other kingdoms and who could claim the throne if Daisuke was killed after war was declared—Sesshoumaru was much too young and would have died in an 'accident' soon after. Daisuke let things simmer for a while, and then married me. Coincidentally, Kikyo and Inuyasha were born within a year of each other, and in order to keep his cousin's plan from going through he signed a non-aggression pact with Shirome and it was sealed in Kikyo and Inuyasha's betrothal. His father had the fool notion that Inuyasha would of course fall for a human like he had." Akiko let out a long sigh, and then a sly smile quirked at the corner of her mouth, then vanished. "How interesting it is that he was right."

"Yeah, he's head over heels for Kikyo now, isn't he?" I asked, ignoring a sense of bitterness in the back of my head.

"You…could say that, I suppose," Lady Akiko said, giving me an unreadable look. "My son feels responsible for her well-being—Daisuke always made sure he treated humans with respect, or at least when he was watching."

I hmphed to myself, recalling how very respectful Inuyasha had been when I'd first met him, then changed the subject.

~

After the talk with Lady Akiko, she left to go check on Inuyasha and I went to go see how Miroku and Sango were doing. We stayed up late, discussing what courses of action might be best and what the Tetsusaiga might be capable of, but we all agreed we'd need Inuyasha's input to make any decisions.

And of course, by the end of our little chat, Miroku was almost as bruised as he had been after the battle, though it was as if every bruise had collected in his face after it'd been slapped so many times.

As soon as I'd gone to sleep, the nightmares began.

I saw chaos, demons, smoke. I heard screaming, felt the pain, tried to fight back and save anyone I could, but somehow I was bound. I could only run, struggling to lead a group of hollow-eyed women out, away, away from the destruction…Fire erupted on my left, teeth flashing on the right, behind lay death…

Then unspeakable pain as something fell with a sickening crunch, and everything blacked out.

A scream tore from my throat as I sat bolt upright, drenched in sweat, clutching the sheets with violently shaking hands. A bell rang, tolling the midnight hour.

Somehow I knew the dream was no mistake.

I pulled a robe on over my thin nightshirt and stuffed my feet into slippers, racing down the hall towards the emanation of a strange energy. My mind was numbly going over what had happened—was it a prophetic dream? Could it be a warning? Or was it a vision of something taking place? Was it my fate?

I burst through a set of double doors, only to find myself in a large stone chamber. The only items within were a plain chair in the corner and a strange fountain that loosed water from a three-foot-wide slit in the wall to fall down in a smooth sheet, crashing to a basin at the bottom. Above the fountain was a large, circular window that let moonlight in as the room's only illumination. Lady Akiko stood before that wall, and the crisp, slightly spicy scent of hithen—the herb for visions and sight beyond the ordinary—hung in the air, mingling with the cool scent of water.

She turned to me, face white, eyes huge. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Swallowing, she covered her mouth with a trembling hand and closed her eyes, then looked up at me. A slightly chilly draft blew in from the doors, as I'd left them open.

Her dark eyes were full of shock and pain, and just as Inuyasha appeared in the open doorway, she said, voice full of disbelief, "Kikyo is…dead."

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Oh, would you look at that. Well, I've got to get to my homework…la la la la la…

You want to hear about the next chapter? Too bad. I've got a paper to write and two math assignments to do, one of which I don't have the notes for because I had to take the dumbsh%t smart kid test. You know me, now I've got my laptop I'm not exactly prone to slow updates.

Oh yes, and a picture of the Fushiginoko Tower is up on my Side7 account. You can either look up my profile under JadeWing for Fanfiction.net and click on my homepage link, or go to Side7.com yourself and look up Black Lillian. It'll be under that.

And thank you to the people who actually did read and review; I love you guys! (One of you mentioned this could be better than Lord of the Rings, which I very much appreciated, but it's a cold day in hell when I surpass Tolkien.) For anyone who is curious, I am going to start posting the non-IY fic version of this story on Fictionpress.net, though I'm not sure what name it'll be under, so just keep your eye out and I'll see what I can do to let you know. It might be under UnicornHalo, though I'm not sure—I'd have to get Saph's consent.