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She'd never been kissed like that. Not the deliberate slowness poisoned with desperation and lurking unease that this one happened to be laced with like arsenic in an expensive cake. How -- how could he know what was best for her? He didn't know what was best for himself half the time.

Pushed away, Kagome's eyes quickly opened, cheeks still damp as she stumbled. The sounds in his forest seemed amplified, the birds chirping..even the steady blowing of the cherry blossoms as they whistled through the trees like pink snow.

Really? She deserved to go home? To a home that wasn't a home without him, to a mother who didn't trust her, to a brother who believed she was clinically insane, and to a grandfather still adamant that she had rheumatism in both of her ankles? To friends who didn't know her, to an admirer she couldn't care less about? How was that better?

Youkai she could handle, /Sengoku Jidai/ she could handle, but to have clung to this life so strongly and to suddenly be told that she had to go back for her own good...she was torn between a suffocating frustration and the same sickly sadness that had trickled out of the crevices of her heart for the past two weeks.

Peace and safety he couldn't give her here. But he was giving her much more then her own time era could ever produce.

The last five words were like bullets -- one in her left lung, one in her kidney, one in her gall bladder. You would never leave me? Look what you're doing now. You're scared -- just as scared as I am -- but at least I don't try to go.

But she could see what saying them did as he walked away.

Without a second thought, Kagome followed after the hanyou, catching up quickly as her hand touched his shoulder.

"Aishiteru, Inuyasha."

The schoolgirl turned around.

Why?

Why did she have to go and say that? Might as well run him through now, while his chest was practically ripped open, pulsing heartbeat sounding like trumpets. After he'd said goodbye, after he'd almost had it fixed in his mind that she would just go home and live life, she just had to go and say that.

/"Aishiteru, Inuyasha."/

His already phenomenal hearing seemed to get even better. Every time a bird chirped or an animal moved, it pounded against his inu ears, which were near as fragile as his heart. It was all he could do to keep from clap his hands over them, doubling over in the agony of the headache that was brewing right between his eyes. Even his own heartbeat pounded in his head, making it worse.

Maybe he didn't always know what was best for himself, but most people didn't know what was best for themselves anyhow. But he knew - just knew - it was best if the miko never saw him again. As much as it hurt him to even think it, he knew. He could yell and hit and kick and scream like a small child and kill as many things as he wanted, but that didn't change reality.

Inuyasha stopped in his tracks, hesitating. He reached one hand up, roughly wiping his forehead as he thought. She'd said it so clearly, with no hesitation. Her voice had vibrated with a scary amount of truth. He'd never thought of what would happen if she loved him back, never thought that she wouldn't just give him a weird look and say he was a fool. He was paying for that now, really.

For lack of anything to say and fear that he would just stare at her like a zombie if he turned around, he stayed silent and still.

/Which of the bold faced lies will we use?/
/I hope that you're happy, you really deserve it,/
/This will be the best for us both in the end./

It was too late.

Too late for the foolish plans she'd already started – haha, you fell for it, haha, let me stomp on your heart, haha, here is the tama – I'll go without saying goodbye, just to push the dagger in a bit farther...just to twist the hilt a little bit more. Too late to apologize, too late to rant about her insecurities and her idiotic doubt in their fragile existence – too late to explain that it wasn't that she didn't trust him.

It was just that she didn't trust herself not to hurt him, for she was certainly not good enough for him.

He deserved something more then this skittish teenager who feigned nobility and strength...an illusion, an empty mannequin with a face and a name. More then she could ever give.

It was too late to take everything back, and too late to glue her heart back together.

Kami, couldn't he just turn around?

It wouldn't be so hard – just so that she could see his face. Let it be blank, let it be covered with damp, just as long as it was /there/...not his silver hair blowing in the wind. A reaction – anything. Just not the silence. The swish of her skirt, the pounding of her blood in her temples that reminded her that she was alive, and that her veins were not caverns made of ice.

She'd much rather hear him growl at her...hear the clink of his claws as he pushed her away, to the well, to her world where she 'belonged'.

Let him push her away so it would be easier to forget.

Her hand fell to her side limply, throat sore and cracked, every limb aching to fall off so that her fingers would somehow stop what they were trying to do. She grasped the tama gingerly, disgusted with it, wanting no more then to chuck it into some wild expanse so that someone else could take care of it. The infinitesimal grooves where she had pieced the shards together only reminded her more of her lies.

It rolled into the palm of her hand, obscenely pure and shining.

"Take it."

She said without emphasis, holding out her hand as if it were to be rapped by a teacher as the fresh tears streamed down her face, still unnoticed.

/But your taste still lingers on my lips like I just placed them upon yours/
/And I starve for you./
/But this new diet's liquid/
/And dulling to the senses./
/And it's crude but it will do./

It was now that he turned, wondering what she meant.

/"Take it."/

She'd said it with tears clear in her voice, the salty smell catching his nose before she'd even said it. /No, don't cry. Please don't cry. It's bad enough I'm crying...don't you go and do it too.../ Unable to look her in the face without feeling as if his already shattered heart was being ground to pieces, he looked down at her hand.

There it was, shining and refracting the light in an inviting fashion. How odd that something so powerful could be that small, barely the size of a large marble. He could take it now, do whatever he wanted. No stealing, no cheating. The miko was offering it willingly, no "But only if" or "The conditions are." It's what he'd been trying to get for so long, wasn't it?

For a while, he just stared at it. He didn't know how to use it. No youkai did. Only for destruction could they use it. The Shikon no Tama would give him power, all the power he could ever dream of. It sounded wonderful from that retrospect, but there was just this one thing...

"I don't want it."