Infections

by darkwingweaver

(NON-AU) Kikyo was dying... but so was Kagome. Kikyo was his first love, but Kagome got the better of him. He wanted to save Kikyo, but Kagome was in danger. Kikyo was dead... Kagome was not.

1. Default Chapter

                                                                      Never Have Existed, Never Will

                                                                    By: wingweaver2003/darkwingweaver

                                                    Edited by: Nghi, the obscure horror writer in Inuyasha fandom =p

A/N: Credits to my cousin, who got me addicted to Inuyasha fanfics and Inuyasha. Oi. P.S. Cuz, GIMME BACK MY EVENESCENCE CD BACK!

Editor's Note: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I am back. =) Yes, this is I, NGHI.

….

What? You don't know me? o_0 Well, you're just going to have to go to the find section and read more about me. =) Trust me, my stories are to DIE for. *snickers at stupid joke*

*cough* ANYWAYS… I just wanted to say that I will be editing this story for my dear, dear cousin (Whom I use as a punching bag. ^_~). As some of you all know, her grammar is not that… er, sharp. But the idea is good, so while she is providing the plot, I will be maintaining this story under my hawk eye to make sure it is in top condition as it can get without actually having me to INTERFERE with the whole plot and rearranging it to make it fit MY way. -_-* Will not do that… must work on 'Blood-Stained'. Ai.

So, without further ado, I hope my cousin will thank me for this betaing. *watches as cousin runs away* -_- Fine.

*takes out wooden cousin doll* I love my cousin so much. I want to thank Nghi for editing this because I have the worst- *runs out of the room as author comes in with a chair* o_0

Now, onto the REAL content of the story. (Enjoy the nice format… for once. *cough* =))

                                                                        Never Have Existed, Never Will

                                                                    By: wingweaver2003/darkwingweaver

                                                                                   Edited by: Nghi

"Inuyasha? Where are you?!?!" Kagome cried out vainly, trying to regain her proper footing.

Staggering to her clumsy, numb feet, she groped along thin air, trying to figure out where she was. "Inuyasha… if you can hear me, then say 'I love daisies'! For real this time… I can't see where I'm going!"

Stopping, she waited keenly for some type of response from him. Hearing none, Kagome began to panic just a wee bit, allowing tiny pricks of tears of frustration to spring into her dilated eyes. But they were still tiny tears. Really tiny.

Suddenly, her foot caught on a huge, oafish rock, and she fell onto the ground with a grunt, sprawled across her stomach and the soft… rock? It groaned.

"What the…? Is that you?" Obviously, Kagome was demanding an answer from the… thing. Her hands were lying on a soft cloth, and she used the rest of her hands to search the 'rock', playing higher and higher until she felt a resemblance of a nose. That satisfied her question enough. "It is you!" she exclaimed in a rather schizophrenic way.

With extreme difficulty (Well, he WAS a heavy guy.), she managed to pull the heap upright, supporting his weight across her arms and shoulder. "You'll be OK, Inuyasha, I pro…" her eyes became tiny, unfocused dots as Kagome witnessed a soft breeze… near her right butt cheek.

… OK, so the heap WASN'T Inuyasha… more like Miroku.

In the midst of the darkness, she heard a nice, hard thump, indicating that Sango was very near her.

She probably thought the person she was hitting was the monk. Kagome's presumption was checked true as she heard a shrill scream. "You… you… pervert-advantage-taker, you! How dare you take this darkness as a greeting to 'get it on' with me!"

"What the hell are you saying? Why would I want to 'get it on' with you?!?!"

From a not-so-distant way, Kagome could hear them going at each other's throats.

Not wanting to admit that she mistook Inuyasha for Miroku, Sango protested very loudly in another direction. "I don't care! You don't touch another woman's belongings! They're not yours!"

"Calm down, dammit! It's not like I wanted to!"

"Did you just say that you didn't want to touch my breasts because of the sole fact that they're mine?"

"I said no such thing! I was saying that it was an accident!"

"Oh… so you're using the excuse of an accident at wanting to touch my breasts?!?!"

"Wha-? No, I sa- stop twisting my words around!" he ground out when he realized how cornered he was.

Meanwhile, Kagome, being the smart one, had begun hobbling in the general direction to where the noise was. By now, she was close enough to see Inuyasha's slightly glowing hair and Sango's neon red pads. Releasing the priest from her arms, she started to yell at him for not hearing her, but by then, Miroku had toppled forward from losing support and balance. And, since the two were behind Sango, he landed on top of the exterminator, where his hand immediately took advantage of this innocent situation. "Ah, I've fallen!" he announced quite dramatically. Possibly the end of this drama, as was the end of houshi's life.

Another thump was heard in the dark.

"C'mon, let's get out of this place, wherever we are," Inuyasha sniffed the air as he said so. "I smell something coming from our left."

I*N*U

"But…."

"No! No 'buts'!"

"Butts?"

"Aargh… this is why I can't even trust you in the same room!" Sango accused menacingly, her face becoming red from all the yelling she had to do.

Miroku smiled placidly and did a peace sign. "Dear… you're mistaken. You can trust me fine."

"Do you take advantage of every situation just to cop a feel at some poor, innocent girl?!?!"

"No," he immediately defended himself. "I make the most use of it."

"… You IDIOT!" came the reply.

Kagome watched with a sort of grim fascination at the two, bickering friends and sighed. "It's amazing what a feud can do to a surrogate family, eh, Inuyasha?"

….

"Inuyasha?" she turned to the front, a bit surprised that no snarky comment was made… and realized what was keeping him quiet. Too stunned, she crashed into his back and fell onto her bottom.

Sango and Miroku had stopped mid-sentence in their win-lose situation, wondering why the easily agitated hanyou wasn't butting in. They saw Kikyo.

And a moment of silence passed.

"May I request Inuyasha's presence?" Kikyo asked, her regal voice showing no emotion to her terse announcement. As his feet began to move forward, so did the rest of the group's, like they had been attached together.

"Alone?"

That effectively killed the attachment.

"Oh," Sango mumbled in a small, clipped voice before turning around.

"All right," Miroku nodded in agreement and followed Sango's lead.

Kagome nodded once firmly, and then she was gone before his eyes.

I*N*U

"Let's do it."

"No."

"Yeah."

"What? Miroku… have you no morals?"

"What?"

"C'mon, Sango… let's go!"

"See? Even Kagome wants to know what's going on."

"But that's… that's eavesdropping! It's a bad habit to get into!" Sango sputtered indignantly.

Kagome knew that no matter how much she was trying to uphold exterminator moral codes, she was also deathly curious of the conversation taking place between the two people. So she decided to push one more button. "But I really want to see Shippo again in the village… and we can't get back unless we get Inuyasha. And it's been a long time, so we have to hurry home. Besides, Miroku's arm is a bit infected."

To back her up, the man held up his bleeding arm. "It hurts," he complained a little, agreeing.

She was silent for a moment… contemplating the matter. Kagome waited impatiently, wanting to hop back and forth on her feet instead of sitting down. "All right," Sango said, quietly resigning into the argument. She didn't feel up for the third argument in a day.

I*N*U

"Please…" she pleaded quietly.

He blinked his stunned, golden eyes at her, his mind not registering the fact that she had begged him for something. "Wha-what?"

"I ask of you…" she murmured again, head bowed down. "To please help me. To please wish upon the Shikon no Tama for a heart of my own, so I may live again. My body is growing weaker ever since my last visit with… Naraku. He has stripped me of my soul stealers… and I am losing my strength and will rapidly every passing day."

….

That was basically what had transpired between the last 30 seconds from Inuyasha to Kikyo.

Without warning, her head snapped up, and she glared at him with a cold fury within the brown gaze. "Oh," she answered simply, the years of being trained paying well off, as the venomous tone in her voice was shamefully concealed to a neutral, if not bitter, tone. "I understand."

"What do you understand…?" Inuyasha asked.

In that one question, Kikyo's anger seemed to boil to surface. "I understand now," she spat out again, "I understand well enough to know that you refuse to help me."

"But…."

"I understand how the past 50 years of you being pinned to the tree did no good to your immaturity. I understand how before that, you cared for yourself, and only yourself. I understand WELL enough now that you will never help me again because of whom I am. Is that it, Inuyasha? Is this it? My skin? My body? My SOUL?!?! You refuse to help me because of who I am?!?!"

By now, her voice was on breaking point, showing beneath the glossy exterior of a broken, dying woman. "You won't help me because I am dead?!?!"

"I never said no!" he butted in angrily, hurt and confused by the blow of barrage. "You just never gave me the chance to talk!"

A few, cold tears slipped past her cheek as she quieted. "What do you want me to do?" he asked slowly.

"I need the Shikon to live…" Kikyo answered, eyes directly into his. "Naraku has stolen my life support. I now need my own beating heart."

At this, Inuyasha slowly backed down from her penetrating stare, until he was examining the lining of her sleeves with great interest. "Well?" she demanded.

"I can't do it," he whispered, and he could hear her voice hitch again. "I'm not the person holding the jewel!"

There was silence again, and he took it as a bad sign. "But I can help you for the remaining days. I can stay with you until you die. I can put you to rest before you died in an untimely place. I can…."

"No…" she whispered, her eyes staring at his twitching ears. "I refuse to."

As if he hadn't heard her, which was not possible, she stated her answer again, clearer this time. "No. I won't go down. There has to be some way, some way to retrieve me a heart. I refuse to go down… I won't go down. Do you hear me, Inuyasha? Do you hear me? Do you HEAR me? I won't be dragged down into the soil again! I won't die again!" her voice screamed the last part out as a mind-numbing sob began to rise up her throat, and past the protected barriers of her feelings.

"I won't die…" she sobbed wretchedly, her shoulders heaving up and down. "Not again…."

In a blur, he was knelt down in the soft, forest dirt with her, his hand wrapped around her priestess robes airily, like he was an illusion. "Kikyo…."

Inuyasha was used to outbursts from Kagome, but never would he have seen it coming out of this young woman.

She gripped onto his kimono and cried harder, hearing his heart beat inside his chest in a pattern.

Boom… boom… boom… boom….

And the sound only made her cry harder.

Inuyasha rocked her back and forth slowly on the balls of his heel, waiting patiently while she reduced her saddened crying into soft hiccups. "I'm sorry…" he muttered, his eyes showing his true sympathy. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you…."

"I don't want your pity," she murmured flatly, eyes dulling and glazing into a dark onyx.

"That is all I can give you…."

With a burst of unexpected emotion, she wrenched herself away from his soft hands, landing on her knees again. "Can your pity save me?" Kikyo asked angrily, the soft tears forgotten already. "Can your sympathy save me from this… this fate? Do I DESERVE this?!?!"

But before he could answer, she had reached out and pulled his head towards her chest, forcing one of the ears over her left breast. "This is me," she said, her hand shaking a little. "Do you hear me? Do you hear my heart? Where is it? Where is that one thing that will ensure my life?!?! The one thing that will secure me… will bind me to this earth so I may live the rest of my unguarded life forever?!?!" Her voice had once again begun to rise as more uncontrolled tears slipped past her face.

Her hands weakened, and it slipped from Inuyasha.

But she was still kneeling, and he was still lying on her chest, trying to hear the heart that was no longer there.

I*N*U

"Sshh!" a voice hissed loudly. "Do you want everything in the forest to hear us?"

"Look who's talking, Kagome," Sango hissed back.

"Girls, girls, let's just keep going to find Inuyasha."

The logical sense of the theory brought the girls back, and they huffed quietly all the while treading through tall, grazing grass.

Suddenly, Sango, who was by far leading them, stopped, and therefore caused a train-like crash to happen behind her. "Ow… what's wrong?" Kagome demanded quietly. "Let's go!"

"Um, no," she argued back, turning around. "I need to polish Hiraikotsu. Let's go."

"What?" Miroku was confused, along with Kagome. "But you did it two hours ago."

"Uh… well, I want to do it again," she offered lamely. "So let's go!"

"Oh, stop being such a party pooper," Kagome insulted her jokingly. "I mean, I'm really curious. And I want to go home. So let's go already. What's the worst…."

She had pushed Sango out of the way while speaking of this, and when her eyes descended upon the image, her words died on her lips… seeing Inuyasha leaning against Kikyo's breast.

Obviously, something was wrong with the picture here… not to mention suggestive.

For a moment, Kagome stared at the scene displaying before her, with just a blank face. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to be shocked or not. It wasn't like she was jealous (Of course not!)… but… well… it was slightly disturbing and embarrassing to catch two people in the act.

"Inuyasha?" she whispered, breathless from seeing this scene before her.

Almost immediately, like he had been stung, his head whipped up from its position, and he swiveled around to see Kagome… before a bit of panicking entered his vision. "What are you doing here?!?!"

There was just the mindless chirping of the birds… as she was too stunned to move.

 "Um… I think I will go back to tending my Hiraikotsu now…" Sango quietly murmured, slipping out of the scene.

"I think I will help Miss Sango with her duty…" Miroku voiced his cued exit and slipped into the past of the forest.

"I asked you, what were you doing here?"

For a moment, Kagome didn't answer again… she was just staring at the two with a blank look. "Kagome!"

She jumped at the voice and immediately smiled upon reflex. "Oops… hehe." She giggled nervously. "I didn't mean to disturb you… see… um… I was… um… trying to… er, find my…." At this point, she bent down to pick up something.

"Kagome, don't touch…."

"This!" And she held up a poison ivy leaf.

I*N*U

*

*

 END OF CHAPTER 1!

Editoer's Note: BWAHAHAHAHA. I just got permission to post anything I wanted. XD I get to have my own free space! *nods* Don't worry, dude, I'll give back your Evanescence CD… after I chuck it out the window and let dancing wolves graze upon it. XD

*cough* o_0 Um… yeah. ^_^

Well, wingweaver2003 would like to ADVERTISE me. But since she doesn't know how to do it properly, let me do it. *clears throat and take out wooden cousin doll again*

My cousin, Nghi, who also happens to be co-writing this story (In terms of editing and adding scenes. ^_^), has written two stories so far on her Inuyasha account. *hugs* She wrote a one-shot and is still continuing the story 'Blood-Stained'. It's Suspense/General (Actually, it's supposed to be Horror. ¬_¬)

But do please read and review her story, since she would be so grateful! ^_^

*puts wooden cousin away* That's right! That's how you do it!

NOTE: Remember that I am not the author! ^_^ Personally, I find this a bit too… fast moving for my taste, but that's all right. I am just the editor, editing and co-writing some scenes. I have no say in this. =) Don't like Kikyo? Don't take it out on the review. I have wingweaver2003's full permission to co-edit it the way I like… and she checks the final copy. =P Tough cookies.

And now… do please review! She'd be so happy! ^_^