Hey! Well, I didn't really make you guys wait two weeks, just a week and a half. :) It would have been sooner, but I've run into one problem after another. First my computer starts acting weirder than normal, and then my Internet stops working. Turns out I had like 15 different viruses on my computer. Fun, huh? So, I reformatted my computer and everything is working spiffily now, except… my computer can't find my Ethernet card, so, still no Internet! I'm typing this up from my dorm because I never have enough time at home to type, so there are no review responses. I'll respond to Chapter Nineteen reviews in Chapter Twenty-One.
One more thing before we get into the chapter… I'm attempting to do a little "detailed" action in this. I'm no good at it, so don't laugh! ;) (Slight warning… bad cliffhanger. :) )
Anyways… onto Chapter Twenty!
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The pain of waking up for a second time almost made Kagome pass out again. Being hit in the same place twice was not a pleasant experience, and Kagome hoped to never go through that again. With a barely contained groan she sat up, propping herself up by her shaking arms. Only then did she venture to open her eyes.
Hundreds of demons were swarming around her, but keeping their distance in a radius of about a hundred feet. They were being kept at bay by Kagura, who held her fan in battle position. As if she knew Kagome was finally conscious, she turned around, keeping her fan at ready.
"You do not have long," Kagura said, obviously tense. "Kouga is already surrounded, and your demon exterminator friend is fighting with her brother."
"And Inuyasha?" Kagome asked, hoping that he had not come up against Naraku yet.
"He is beyond the demons," she said, gesturing to the wall of demons. "Naraku has not shown up yet, probably because Kouga's shards have not yet been retrieved, but your half-demon is fighting his own host of demons. Naraku is surely keeping him occupied for the time being."
Kagome felt a swell of fear rushing at her. Soon Kouga would go down and Naraku would be coming for her. She would fuse the shards together and then be killed by the waiting demons. Naraku would become too powerful to beat and everyone would die. Inuyasha would die.
Tears burned behind her eyes, her heart was racing and her lungs were refusing to breathe. Her right hand reached up to grasp the jar of shards, and the moment it hit her palm, calm swept over her. No one would die. She would save them all. She just had to figure out how exactly to purify the jewel once it was whole.
"Kagura," she said, her mind beginning to work once again.
"What?" came the clipped reply.
"How long until Naraku gets here?"
Kagura thought for a moment. "Not long. A couple of minutes at the most."
"Damn," Kagome swore, letting a swear word slip for once. Then her loving nature kicked in. "Once Naraku gets here, run." Kagura's normally emotionless face registered surprise. "He won't notice you missing for awhile, and even if he does he won't have time to do anything about it. And if you stick around, one of my friends will kill you, not knowing whose side you are truly on. Just run and be free for as long as you can be."
Kagura was speechless for a moment before coming to a decision. She bowed. No "thank you" no "all right". She just bowed. She - who never willing bowed before anyone - bowed.
Kagome gave her a small smile before laying back down on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable enough to think.
"All right, Kagome. How do you purify the jewel shards?
I touch them and they're purified.
But when you first held the jewel in your hands, it wasn't purified. Why?
Because I wasn't purifying it.
Right. So how do you purify the jewel?
I don't know."
Kagome groaned in frustration before forcing her mind back to the task.
"Okay, so whenever I have a jewel shard, I purify it but don't know how. What am I thinking when I touch a jewel shard?
That I'm glad the demon is dead. That I'm glad no one was seriously hurt. I'm glad that Inuyasha wasn't hurt. He's strong, but I worry about him all the time…NO! I can't think of him now! I've got to figure this out!"
But she did not have the time to, for a voice interrupted her thoughts. A voice that sent a chill down her spine.
"So good to see you, Kagome."
Kagome slowly sat up and looked up to see Naraku before her. In an instant she was on her feet and backing up as far as she could while still avoiding the wall of demons.
"You are afraid," Naraku said with a smirk. And then he laughed a laugh that grated on her very nerves. "And for good reason." He slowly began to walk towards her, but she stood her ground.
"Such a shame," he said when he was less than an arms length away from her. "Such a shame that such beauty should perish from the world." He cupped her check in his palm, and Kagome stood frozen. She barely registered his movements as his face began to lower to hers. "It doesn't have to," he whispered, his breath brushing across her face. "You could be mine." His lips were a hairsbreadth from hers when she snapped back into reality.
Jerking her head away from his hand and his lips she spat out "Never!"
"So be it," Naraku hissed out, backing away a bit, but not before painfully ripping from her neck the chain that held the jar of shards. He tore the lid from the jar and shook the shards onto his hand. From seemingly nowhere a dozen more shards appeared along with the big chunk that had originally been hers.
Absently rubbing her neck Kagome could not help but to stare at the shards and wonder if Naraku truly now held the entirety of the Shikon jewel in his hand. All of the time spent looking for shards and all of the blood spilt had come to this. Naraku - a being of supreme evil - holding the shards of the Shikon jewel - an object of supreme power.
"Yes, this is all of it," Naraku said, answering her unspoken question. "And you will fuse the shards together for me."
"Who should I?" she asked even though she ached to hold the shards in her hands. Ached to hold the jewel that she knew with all of her being was solely hers.
"If you don't, I will kill him," and Naraku pointed to something to her right. There, in the arms of Kanna, was a limp - but still breathing - Shippou. Naraku had taken him from the campsite while everyone else had been running for the hot springs at Inuyasha's cry. Shippou had been forgotten in the bedlam that followed.
Kagome's heart gave a painful lurch at seeing the fox demon in the arms of the enemy. She forced herself not to show her anxiety to Naraku and turned back to him steel faced.
"You're only going to kill him when I'm dead anyway." She shuddered at how callus she sounded but kept her straight face.
"You would stand there and let him be killed before your eyes?" Naraku asked, seeing through the charade, but Kagome did not move. Naraku turned and pointed a hand towards Shippou. Three poison bees broke from the demons and shot towards Shippou, poisoned stingers aiming for him.
"No!" Kagome shouted, unable to actually watch such a thing.
Naraku flicked his wrist and the bees moved off to rejoin the wall. When he turned back to Kagome there was an arrogant smirk on his face.
"So, you will do as I say," he said rather than asked, and Kagome nodded. When he took her left hand into his she did nothing but flinch. She felt the shards hitting her palm and felt the power they contained but she could not yet tap. Once Naraku let go of her hand, she brought her right hand up to help hold the abundance of shards. She looked up at Naraku, who was looking back at her with impatience.
"I-I," she swallowed dryly and tried again. "I need to be able to concentrate, and I can't if you're standing so close." She winced, expecting an angry outburst, and so was surprised when he merely backed up to stand in front of the far wall of demons.
With a sigh she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Instead her mind was still on the problem of purifying the jewel. It was only a moment later when she felt Naraku's aura surge with impatience that she was finally able to think about the task at hand.
As she thought about the jewel being whole, she could actually feel the shards melding together within the sanctuary of her hands. It was all too short of a time later that she felt it was done. Opening her eyes she beheld the whole jewel for the first time in a long time. But Naraku was already moving towards her.
Kagome could feel eyes burning into her from afar. She looked up - past Naraku, past the demons - and finally caught sight of the figure on a low hill that had been looking at her the whole time. She could not see details, but she knew who the red-clad figure was, and who the figures around him were.
Kagome closed her eyes and clasped the jewel in her hands in a futile attempt to save it from Naraku. She silently said goodbye to her friends, and love for them surged through her heart as she prepared to take whatever destiny was going to give her.
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When Tuxedo Mask and Kouga finally caught up with Inuyasha, they found him in the middle of a mass of demons - more demons than any of them had ever seen before. They watched as one "Wound of the Wind" from Tetsusaiga cut down a hundred demons, but barely made a dent in the numbers.
"Inuyasha!" Tuxedo Mask called out as he and Kouga ducked, dodged and dealt death on their way to Inuyasha's side. Said half demon turned and acknowledged them with a nod before swinging Tetsusaiga again. Between hits, ducks, swings and jabs the three men had a conversation of sorts.
"Where's Kagome?" Kouga shouted over to Inuyasha right before he killed a lizard demon with a punch to the throat.
"Bottom of the hill!" Inuyasha shouted back as he used his free hand to flip over to recover from being hit by the tail of a snake demon.
Tuxedo Mask and Kouga looked around, but demons were all they could see. They had not even known they were on a hill.
"Is she okay?" Tuxedo Mask asked, throwing a rose past Inuyasha's head to kill the demon sneaking up behind him.
"What the -?!" Inuyasha yelled as he dodged the rose. Turning around he saw the slug demon impaled by a rose and understood. Turning back to Tuxedo Mask he answered. "She was knocked out. Kagura is standing guard over her but there's a fucking horde of demons surrounding her, waiting for something."
At that time Inuyasha had to crouch down to avoid the swinging arm of a rat demon and as he crouched he saw the blood that was still seeping from Kouga's wounded legs.
"You fucking wolf! You let Naraku get your shards!" Inuyasha screamed as he leapt up and chopped off the rat demon's head with a swing of Tetsusaiga.
"Let nothing, dogturd! I was against hundreds of demons alone!" Kouga yelled in reply.
"And I wasn't?" Inuyasha said, sneering at the wolf demon.
"Sorry that I don't have to overcompensate by having a big sword!" Kouga returned, sneering back. Tuxedo Mask had to hold back a laugh.
Inuyasha was about to go ballistic on Kouga when a golden disk shot past his head and obliterated an ape demon that had been about to smash him upside his head.
"Tuxedo Mask!" a voice from above them shouted. Tuxedo Mask looked up and saw Sailor Moon on the back of Kirara with Sango and Miroku. He opened up his arms and without hesitation Sailor Moon slid off Kirara's back and smoothly landed in his arms. He gave her a quick kiss before letting her down. A moment later Miroku landed ungracefully on his butt next to Tuxedo Mask. Miroku managed to retain in calm composure as he scrambled to his feet. Sango remained on Kirara in the air, where the two of them fought best.
The group of friends took a moment to share a steely look between them and then got down to work. Within five minutes the fighters had efficiently gotten rid of every last demon.
Looking down at the demons encircling Kagome it was obvious that Naraku had not expected the other mass of demons to be wiped out so quickly. Naraku did not even bother to glance at the hilltop, and if he had, he would have seen the group of friends standing there, with Kouga and Tuxedo Mask just barely holding Inuyasha back.
"Let me go you bastards! Kagome needs me!" Inuyasha yelled as he struggled against the superhuman grips.
"Calm down, Inuyasha," Miroku said soothingly. "Naraku has not harmed Lady Kagome yet and that's a good thing. But if we go barreling down there he'll kill her for sure."
Inuyasha stopped struggling and was obviously not happy about it but he saw the truth of Miroku's words. Luckily for Tuxedo Mask and Kouga, Inuyasha had not seen the almost-kiss between Naraku and Kagome because if he had nothing would have kept him on that hilltop.
"Oh shit!" Kouga shouted. "They have the little fox brat!" he said, pointed down at Kanna. Only Miroku and Sango could not see Shippou but they knew it was true from the looks on their friend's faces. They too felt dread in the pit of their stomachs at the thought of their little friend in the grasp of the enemy.
"I can't believe we forgot about Shippou!" Sailor Moon said, horrified that she could do such a thing.
"She doing it," Miroku said. His voice was quiet but his words rang loudly in their hearts. They knew what he meant. Kagome was fusing the jewel shards into one.
They were all silent as they each watched to the best of their abilities. Inuyasha, Kouga, Kirara, Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon could see with their enhanced vision, although Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon could not see as well as the demons. Sailor Moon could see the glow of the shards joining together, as could Miroku to a lesser extent. Sango alone could see nothing, but she stood watching with her friends anyway.
"It's done," Inuyasha said as he looked at the whole jewel resting in the palms of Kagome's hands. Even though he had longed to see the jewel whole for so long of a time, he could not keep his eyes on it. Instead, he found himself looking at Kagome's face, trying to memorize her beautiful look of awe at that moment in time.
As Inuyasha gazed at Kagome he could have sworn that their eyes met for the briefest moment. But it was only a moment, because she closed her eyes and seemed to brace herself. A moment later he knew why she was bracing herself, for before he knew it she was blocked from his sight by the entire horde of demons swarming to the spot where she stood. In that moment he knew only two things: Kagome was gone, and he had never told her he loved her.