A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear
Long had paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantom wise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?
"Kagome get down!" Kagome turned and screamed diving out of the way just in time to dodge Kagura's attack. She winced and drew another arrow and sent it towards the wind sorceress but one of Naraku's demons descended to take the arrow the thing disinigrating in a shower of green slime.
Naraku's castle. They'd finally found by daybreak just as Naraku was coming out of his period of weakness and Kagome could see the pulsing of the jewel shard where Naraku had his hand curled around the huge fragment. The last fragment they had to collect. Kagome lifted a hand to touch the shards that hung in the vial around her neck .
Kagome whipped her head around. "Inuyasha! The jewel! He has it in his hand there!" Kagome struggled to her feet and ran towards Inuyasha who stood panting as he faced Naraku, blood and seat coating the half demon.
"Kagome stay back!" Sango's scream stopped her in time as the demon exterminator let her Hirakotsu fly at the same time an arrow shot through the darkness, a purifying arrow, that was not Kagome's.
Kagome turned and say Inuyasha do the same as Kikyou stepped from the dense growth of the forest, bow in hand. Kagome saw Inuyasha's lips form Kikyou's name slowly. The priestess pulsed with a kind of dangerous power, an ethereal glow encasing her bow and arrow both. Her fingers, so like Kagome's own, drew back another arrow and the woman, who was her image and yet wasn't released an arrow with a look of malice and rage that Kagome prayed had never crossed her own face.
Kagura's wind howled just in time to deflect the arrow and it thudded into the wood of the balcony Naraku stood on. Naraku turned on Kikyou and sent the full force of the sacred jewel power towards the priestess. Kagome watched as if in a dream, Inuyasha's voice screaming Kikyou's name even as the violet flame incased her. Kagome felt tears gather as she watched Kikyou's body start to deform into the clay she'd been originally made from. Her voice floated across the distance.
"Finish it. Inuyasha." And then there was nothing left of the woman but lumps of brown clay.
Inuyasha's scream of rage cut through the area like a blade and he charged forward with the Tetsusaiga to swing into downward. Kagome gasped in surprise as the blade sliced through his wrist sending the hand that clutched the jewel shard to land at Inuyasha's feet.
"Die Naraku!" In his haste to keep the jewel from Naraku Inuyasha reached down to take the tainted jem.
"No! Inuyasha don't touch it!" She ran forward in time to grab the sleeve of his kimono just as his fingers brushed the jewel's luminous surface.
Naraku's cackle filled the air, ringing in her ears and seeming to echo around her head loudly. "Fools!" And the world spun.
Kagome shut her eyes in fright and clung to Inuyasha who seemed immobile. Her head pounded, hard and long as if someone where beating it until finally she slipped into the inky black relief of unconsciousness.
Life, what is it but a dream?