To Live Again
By Rurouni Star
Dumdeedum: That was very fulfilling to me as well. I think everyone's going to go back to hating me after this chapter, though.
Sailor Panda: I wasn't in pain… but I had a stuffy nose and the worst insomnia ever, so I count that as worse. ^_~
Emme: Strangely enough, that was what I was thinking as I wrote that. Then I shook it from my head and kept writing.
SilverQuick: Maybe you should start doing Tarot readings? Lol. Update! Your story needs updating!
Elemental Dragon: Yay! That's what I was going for. That and it's nearing the end.
Mala Valvah: It was actually sort of difficult to write. I had to go back and add the little details that make it good.
St Dogbert: You're welcome. I'm a happy person myself right now. Although it's not really reflected in this chapter…
Chapter 18 – A Battle of Wills
Kagome awoke much more relaxed than she'd fallen asleep. Amazingly, she hadn't been dreaming that Sesshoumaru had held her – he was still doing so.
"You're awake?" he asked. She nodded hesitantly. "Good. Are you feeling up to chasing Naraku?" Kagome blinked at the suddenness.
"I suppose so. Actually..." she slowly got up from her warm spot, covered by his long haori sleeves and, oddly enough, his tail. She felt...fine. "Actually, I think I might be of some use if we catch up to him." She turned around to see the demon lord looking at her strangely again. "Why did you...why did you save me?" she asked quietly.
A million responses raced through his head, but instead of picking one, he told the truth. "I don't know."
Kagome was obviously taken aback. "Oh." She looked around nervously for the rest of her clothes, still only wearing her outer robe, and saw them neatly folded by her pack. She wondered in a morbid kind of way if she smelled horrible from the poison and the blood. Despite how dirty she felt, Kagome began hurriedly pulling on what clothes she could as Sesshoumaru stood. He walked over to Rin, who was waiting with Jaken, An, and Un, and playing hopscotch with the toad youkai.
"One, two, three, four – ah! Jaken-sama fell over so he has to start again!" Both snapped back to attention as Sesshoumaru approached.
"We leave immediately, Jaken. Take care of Rin and hide yourselves very well. Naraku may send out one of his detachments."
"Of course, Sesshoumaru-sama! Come on, Rin, we don't have any time to waste." The girl pouted.
"Sesshoumaru-sama's not letting Rin come?" The demon lord's mouth quirked up in what was unmistakably a smile.
"No, Rin. You would not want to come where I am going." The cloud began to materialize below him, and Kagome rushed forward to unceremoniously jump on it. A hand caught her arm, pushing her back off. "You are not coming either."
A slow anger worked its way through her system. "You just asked whether I'm up to killing that jerk or not!" Sesshoumaru's hand had not let go of her arm yet.
"You are not coming." Kagome gasped as she was lifted, dangling by her arm, and thrown through the air. She braced herself for the impact, but was snatched out of the air easily by Un's teeth.
The cloud rose to the sky and disappeared. Kagome was put down gently. She stared unbelievingly at the empty blue space.
"That...bastard..." she gritted through her teeth, not caring that Rin was there for once. "I don't believe him! I don't! He took me this whole way and now he's not even going to let me fight! Why did he even need me then?" Jaken was backing away from her slowly, looking very frightened. She realized then that she was practically burning with an angry light.
Good. She could use it against Naraku when she got to him.
"Give me my bow," she ordered the small demon quietly. He blinked, seeming to regain some of his confidence.
"Sesshoumaru-sama ordered you to stay here! And how dare you order me around like that..." he trailed off as the glow became brighter.
"My bow. That is not a request." Rin was staring at her sister in awe.
"Kagome-nee-san's so cool..." she marveled. "Just like Sesshoumaru-sama." Jaken was unpleasantly reminded what had happened to the human that had refused his master a boat. He reluctantly grabbed the miko's bow and arrows and handed them to her, careful not to touch her skin.
Sesshoumaru was going to kill him when he got back.
But Kagome would kill him before then if he didn't let her have what she wanted.
The girl's knuckles tightened around the bow, and she was gone into the forest, following the trail of a single shard.
Naraku would pay. And Sesshoumaru would definitely get his later.
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"Inu Yasha's not even putting a dent in that immense youki," Miroku observed in despair. "Perhaps I should...even if the bees are here, at least the rest would live..." A boomerang smacked onto his head.
"Don't you dare think about it, Miroku," Sango told him fiercely, not realizing that she had abandoned her usual overly polite name for him. She stepped in front of him grasping his right hand firmly. "If you dare to open that seal then I'm going in with everything else." The priest shook his head.
"Inu Yasha needs your help too much. You're going to have to leave." She stared at him, her spirits sinking.
"Then...then I have to give you a better reason to live." She pulled him forward by his right arm, pushing her mouth firmly against his. Miroku let out a sound of surprise. The taijiya pulled back quickly. "If you don't finish that later, then you're not the lecher I thought you were," she told him as she left. The priest blinked. A slow smile spread over his face then.
"Well how can I refuse that?" He picked up his staff again, though his body was aching from the blows he'd taken, and charged once more into battle, wondering in a bemused way if cutting off the regenerating tentacles was even doing anything. But really, there was no alternative. He couldn't get close enough to strike at his chest or head.
"Interesting, Inu Yasha," the dark hanyou said. "Your friends are helping again? I thought I'd already taught them a lesson." An appendage slithered around the priest, cutting off his breath. Miroku's eyes widened. He'd been playing with them all along.
Sango's cry made him close his eyes in pain. He couldn't even reach his seal for a final gambit. His thoughts became less coherent as the air in his lungs was consumed. Eventually, he heard a crack, and then felt nothing more.
Inu Yasha watched in horror as the two people fell to the ground, dead. Kirara fell from the sky as a dark arm pierced her body through. The hanyou let out a cry of anguish and threw himself against the monster called Naraku with renewed fervor. Naraku threw back his uncoordinated attacks with ease.
Shippo watched from his hiding place with tears in his eyes. Why couldn't he make himself go out there? Why couldn't he attack even though his friends were dead? He tried to make his body move, but it refused. Whether it was Naraku's youki or just his terrible cowardliness, the fox couldn't face the thing.
Inu Yasha was thrown to the ground, but his eyes were now unseeing.
I'm sorry. I failed you all...
But Naraku's careless attack never reached him.
Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow as the monster's arm crumbled to dust beneath Toukijin's blow. Another grew back just as quickly, but the demon lord had stopped the deathblow.
Inu Yasha was pathetic. Why wasn't he getting up? His eyes moved across the battlefield and settled on the three unmoving figures. He recognized them from his fights with his brother and Kagome's stories. Something approaching pity flashed in his eyes for the barest moment, but was covered soon after.
His brother would not be getting up. He would lay there waiting for death. He had no reason to stay alive.
Naraku's attention turned to the new fighter. The torso of a man looked amused. The demon lord couldn't possibly defeat him with his own creation's tooth.
Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed as Toukijin's evil aura began to increase. He calmly began to throw it from his hand...but found that his arm would no longer obey him. The weapon's power grew greater and greater, and soon he was straining simply to keep it from consuming him.
"It is a pity that you can't fight me for real," Naraku said quietly, in a darkly humored voice. "Especially since I'll be looking for that little girl of yours soon. She'll make a good dessert. You can't imagine how wonderful her skin feels…" The demon lord trembled with anger, but couldn't even speak for fear of losing his concentration.
Naraku laughed and moved closer, coalescing into a humanoid form once more and walking toward the inu youkai. "How long before it consumes you entirely?" he asked with a wicked smile. "Perhaps you forgot that it is made of my own detachment's tooth. Your own weapon. How pitiful," the hanyou said, unconsciously imitating Sesshoumaru's previous thought about his own brother.
A growl escaped the lord's throat as he saw the demon sit down calmly, watching him and waiting for him to die.
His panic only grew when that scent reached him. Her scent. What did she think she was doing here? And where was Kagura? Wouldn't she want to be here?
"Kagura is indisposed at the moment for disobeying my commands," Naraku answered as though reading his mind. "She didn't want to attack the girl, apparently. I took relish in killing her, and it was easier than it might have been thanks to the opportune dismantling of her fan." He smirked at the demon lord, who was apparently just remembering his role in that happening. His concentration wavered slightly, and the sword gained ground. His new arm began to burn as the Shikon shard embedded in it slowly took in the energy Toukijin was releasing.
Naraku's scream of pain cut through the deathly silence as the Tetsusaiga cut his arm off.
Inu Yasha smirked coldly, his sword dripping in the hanyou's blood.
"Surprised? I'm going to rip you limb from limb before you so much as touch her!" It was the girl. She had so much power even while she was still miles away. Naraku bared his teeth in pain and pulled away from the enraged half demon.
"I'll kill the girl, Inu Yasha," the hanyou told him in a low growl. "You won't have anyone left and you will prostrate yourself before me." Sesshoumaru suddenly gained against Toukijin's power. Naraku was going to kill her. No, he would do much worse.
The thing was already gone, running toward the girl he had taken care of for weeks, an enraged Inu Yasha in its wake. Sesshoumaru growled angrily, realizing that he was being left behind. With Naraku's presence gone, the sword's power deflated, and Sesshoumaru gained control of it once more. He broke it over his knee in a rage, knowing that it would be useless against Naraku, even a hindrance. The demon lord turned quickly to begin to catch up with the two opponents.
A whimper from one of the trees stopped him. A fox demon tumbled out of the tree's branches, running toward him in a panic.
"Take me with you! We gotta save Kagome!" With no time for haughtiness, the demon lord simply picked the rodent up by its tail, turning to leave the empty field.
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Kagome ran with all the energy in her body, gasping for breath. She wouldn't make it in time. She had a sinking feeling in the bottom of her stomach that she had already failed in some way.
Her legs refused to obey her then, giving out for lack of energy. She willed them futilely to move, breathing hard, unable to do anything at all.
Shards. Her head snapped up. Lots of shards. And a smaller amount of shards moving with them. And then, farther behind the two but steadily catching up, a single shard.
Two shards coming from the east, coming at such a speed as she'd never felt before. Another single shard coming from the west.
Kagome's head pounded at their presence. The shards of the Shikon jewel were coming to meet in battle. All of them.
The aura around her died out slowly as she tried to regain her breath. It escaped her, fleeing into the approaching shards. She wouldn't normally feel the loss of the energy that went into purifying the shards. But now that the whole jewel was there...she had barely enough left to keep her alive.
A massive youki unlike any she'd ever felt before approached her. She panicked, trying to get to her feet, but stumbling. Why now, of all times?
The first to arrive was the one with the most shards. Kagome fell to her knees again as the dark power washed over her. Her powers were not here to purify it. Her eyes dilated as her body was overloaded.
"Kukukuku..."
Not now, god, please not now...
"Come, priestess. Let's try this again, shall we?" The thing grabbed her arm and she cried out as she was suffused in dark power. A large bead of light within the hanyou drew away her energy, attempting vainly to purify itself within the midst of so much evil.
A claw went around her throat, and she realized that Naraku had only one arm. The cause of his dismemberment ran into the clearing moments later, growling in anger.
"You bastard! Let her go!" Inu Yasha charged at the demon.
An arrow made him pull back in alarm. Kagome's darkening mind recognized the figure.
"I am not helping him, no matter what I do. I need you to trust me." Kikyo. How could she trust her when she was being suffocated?
The priestess' gaze flickered to her, and she had the strangest feeling that she was reading her mind. Kikyo's dull eyes stared into hers and Kagome knew that she still had to listen to her. Her mind began to fade.
"KAGOME!" Two voices sounded in unison as both Inu Yasha and Kouga tried for her. Kikyo looked desperate as she fired quickly, pinning Inu Yasha's haori to a tree and stopping Kouga with an arrow pointed at his heart.
"Don't do it!" Kikyo said in a cold voice. "I will shoot you down if I have to."
"Do it then!" Kouga yelled at her. "I'll take you down first!"
Kikyo bit her lip, but fired as he rushed her. The arrow was not aimed for his heart, however. It hit the wolf's shoulder and went clean through, making his eyes go dull. Kagome's mouth worked silently for air.
The last arrival came quietly, but no less urgency. Sesshoumaru looked fearsome as he gazed death upon the priestess. Kikyo stepped back in uncertainty. It was her last mistake as a whip of energy went through her body. Shippo yelped as he was dropped to the ground.
Kagome felt something snap inside of her. A small but definite line of energy was cut as Kikyo was destroyed, and the thing that had been keeping her alive was gone.
"You haven't learned your lesson yet, dog?" Naraku snarled. "I don't need to kill you with your own sword. I can do it on my own." Inu Yasha was yelping with pain as his hand grasped the arrow that pinned him to the tree. It burned, but he held on tightly, trying vainly to pull it out.
Naraku's tentacle leapt out as his form once more collapsed into darkness, but it didn't touch the enraged demon lord.
It struck the fox behind him.
Shippo fell to the ground, eyes unseeing.
Kagome snapped. The last of her energy flew from her wildly, and the shards of the jewel were ripped from their respective owners, snapping together with a howl of the wind. The jewel, whole and purified and burning with a fiery white light, fell to the ground along with her dead body.
Only one person went for the jewel. The other went for his opponent's neck with a useless sword that couldn't kill.
When the light cleared, only one was left standing.
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A/N: Yes. Kagome is dead. I am sorry. *sniff* It's making up for sparing her that one time…
Kagome: YOU!
Ehehehe… I'm just going to hide over here…
Inu Yasha: *growls deeply, brings up a claw*
Um, not there. Here.
Sesshoumaru: *holds up Toukijin*
HA! That's broken!
Sesshoumaru: Care to test that theory?
Um… no. Got to go people!