"Kagome wasn't herself this morning," Sango explained while they walked. "She just walk right past....holy..."

Well....that was an odd sight...

"Hey, Miroku? Isn't Inuyasha still hung up on Kikyou?"

"What do you mean? I'm not getting at anything."

He replied with ease, having said it a million times before. She /seemed/ normal, but there was still something edgy about her. Something that just wasn't quite Kagome.

The woman was good, no doubt. The hanyou barely noticed the tough inner battle within Kagome's mind, if he noticed at all. She was acting normal, giving him the same accusational tone when he asked how she'd slept.

Well, maybe not exactly the same. There was a hint of fluidness, more like a hot knife through butter, as opposed to his best friend's usual knife through bread. Hesitant for half a second before sliding through the line.

Kami, she'd barely blinked.

When was the last time words had come so easily for her?

He flinched when their lips met, blinking once before it really hit him what "Kagome" had just done.

And when he did realize, he pushed her away as fast as he could, lingering perhaps a second after his brain began working again. And it was a second too long. Inuyasha wiped his mouth on his sleeve, giving her a wide-eyed "What the hell?!?" look.

Guilt washed over him. He felt horrible for having lingered there, for having maybe enjoyed it just a little. For having maybe kissed back, if only for a second. For having let "Kagome" kiss him when he felt he still loved Kikyou, even if she /had/ sorta jumped him.

"Kagome, what the hell...?"

The hanyou took a step back away from his "friend," eyes narrowing.

"What's wrong with you?"

"That isn't like her…"

His voice trailed as he gaped at the extremely unusual sight.

"Wow."

Still /felt/ he loved Kikyou.

That possibly meant something.

Kagome was furious. Thrashing, thrashing in the padded walls of her cage, and trying so bloody hard to get any sort of flinch from the miko to no avail. She was trapped inside one of those old Iron Maidens…the pseudo-sarcophaguses that had spikes sticking out from all sides.

When you relaxed, one would pierce you in the middle. In the leg. In the foot.

In the heart.

She 'smiled' when she finally felt Kikyou double. For just a second, just a fraction of a second, Kagome knew that the bashing was getting her places. Just when she ran a hand through her hair and stopped through the middle as if a very large, ugly bug had landed on her nose, Kagome knew that Kikyou was hurting right along with her.

Every limb, every fragment, /everything/ burned. How could she keep standing?

Because I'm not alive, baka.

Inuyasha's reaction was meaningless. It was making Kikyou remotely giddy, in fact.

The miko was having a good time being alive … or as close to it as this was.

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

Kikyou had never been vindictive … but for some reason, she found the basis to do so. Merely because Inuyasha had smiled at 'Kagome', merely because he seemed so familiar and calm that it sickened her.

Merely when it tore her heart in two to know he hadn't recognized her straight off the bat. That he was just confused. That he didn't understand what was going on.

Kagome took a double-take at such a random switch of emotions.

The miko was bleeding, but not from any flesh wound.

"Ignorant as ever, hanyou."

She whispered quietly, turning away.

"What do you mean 'wow'?!?"

Sango punched him in the arm.

"That's bad!"

For a moment, he could only stand there, staring at her back. He could've sworn something flickered in her eyes, something so achingly familiar his heart began to pound.

It had struck up old memories for the second time in two days. Kagome may have been kissing him, but it had /felt/ like Kikyou. He couldn't quite explain it, but Kikyou had this something that he'd never let slip away. Just like the way she smiled, the way she walked, or the reassured air around her. Some things, he had to admit, he had forgotten some things about the deceased miko. Her favorite color, her work hours, her school schedule - he'd memorized it before so he would always know where she was - her phone number. Now all these little things came rushing back like a fire through dry trees.

Red, 4:30 PM-7:30 PM, English to math to science to world history to lunch to gym to health to language to special class, 836-7168.

And now Kagome was calling him ignorant. /Ignorant./ She'd never called him ignorant before. Baka, silly, forgetful, pain in the ass. But never ignorant.

He'd only once been called ignorant.

And somehow he didn't think it was Kagome's word-for-the-day.

"Kagome, I know I asked you to go to the dance with me, but...I wanted to help you out. When did you start acting like Kikyou all of a sudden?"

When did you start kissing like her should have been the question.

"Oh… really? Gomen…"

Miroku replied absently, more inclined to stare at his friends despite not being able to catch any of the conversation.

/Crack./

Kagome wondered whether she had shattered a spiritual rib, considering to the extent of which all of those '/crack/'s stung. She felt so tired, and the throbbing pain was more incentive to fold a few times and dream endlessly, but she couldn't. Not now, not when she was too busy praying that Inuyasha would think of possession as a possible cause for her distinct change in behavior.

(Please, /please/ have seen the dubbed version of The Exorcist...Kami-sama...)

God can't hear you.

"I'm not acting, Inuyasha."

The usual 'like anyone' that was added to that statement hung with startling foreboding as Kikyou pushed a smile across muscles that weren't her own.

What was a decent reason to want to die? I failed my test, I've got horrible acne, my parents hate me, my significant other bruises my arms…? What if you didn't have that? Were you grappling with the serious or the frivolous? Was it enough incentive merely because of /boredom/ to drag a butcher knife across your skin? To yell at your loving boyfriend and to be so…so…

So /what/, exactly?

…selfish.

Slender fingers curled around her left wrist (my wrist, not your wrist), gently dragging a chewed and thus jagged nail over the jacaranda-hued veins.

/i'm waiting for blood to flow to my fingers/
/i'll be alright when my hands get warm/
/ignoring the phone/
/i'd rather say nothing/
/i'd rather you never heard my voice/
/you're calling too late, too late to be gracious/
/you do not warrant long goodbyes/
/you're calling too late/

"Ignorant? For wanting you to live?"

She said it rudely, in a quiet but high-pitched singsong that was a mockery of the hanyou's original tear-ridden cry.

Everything seemed to have gone quiet. Every person seemed to have stopped to watch, or perhaps it just seemed that way to him as he stared almost mindlessly, confused, at the girl he called 'Kagome,' though it clearly wasn't her at all. It was....Kami, no....it couldn't be....He couldn't remember Kikyou being so snide, so insulting, so...so...

Mockingly painful.

In an instant, his expression changed. His hands shot out to roughly grip her forearms, though he did nothing else in any way harmful. He was leaning forward a little, his head bowed so his bangs covered his eyes. It was...unthinkable, what he knew was happening. Yet, it was. This wasn't Kagome; it was /Kikyou/, somehow, unthinkably, back from the dead and posessing his best friend. Which was /wrong/...

Funny how, when someone died, you had all these things you'd say if they came back, all these things you'd do. You'd pray there was some way for them to come back in the first place, which they hadn't left. And then once they really came back...all you could be...

...was pissed off.

He'd have forgiven her if she hadn't mocked him. But it had been more than just mockery. And it /hurt/.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words break my heart...

"How.../dare/...you. How dare you!" The hanyou's voice was a bit choked, his head still down. "Where is Kagome!? Bring her back!" He sounded somewhat like a child, begging for something he loved dearly.

He didn't want Kikyou back. Though his still loved her, his heart still bled and cracked like a week-old wound. Not now.

And not at the expense of Kagome.

It was a broken sort of relief as Kagome felt her body shake, though any happiness dissolved at the sight of Inuyasha's down-turned face. What had happened to make Kikyou's personality warp? Even the spark in her eyes (my eyes, stop thinking like that) had its own degree of disparaging angst.

Despite all of this, all the live schoolgirl could manage was mix of anger and pity.

The miko stopped tracing lines down Kagome's veins; placing a hand on the side of the hanyou's face, her smile dissolved as she briefly ignored his choked pleas.

Wants you more then me. Crack. Needs you more then me. Crack. How dare I?. Crack.

Kuso, this really hurt. It was getting hard to form thoughts, let alone fight against Kikyou's control.

"I thought you'd want to speak to me. I thought you'd be…happy."

Each word was softer, now, with no trace of the mocking sarcasm that had thickly coated her tone just seconds before. The passerby that were watching had started to walk off rather fast, the tension exuded from the duo enough to steer them away.

"…she's here; don't worry about your little friend. I wanted to…/talk/ to you no matter what the cost."

(talk, kill, mock, anger)

Back from the dead. The statement evoked the scent of soil and depression, old B-movies in which the heroine always lived and her best friend always died. Kikyou wasn't a /zombie/, though. She didn't have a truly corporeal form…this had been stolen (borrowed, hopefully). No biting or gnawing involved.

How the hell had Kikyou found her? They were never friends. But maybe at Inuyasha's house…maybe being asleep and being unaware had been /just/ enough.

A shaky laugh could be misconstrued as mild fear as Kikyou questioned : "Didn't you miss me at all?"