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The Reckoning

Chapter 2: Matter of Circumstance

Her mother knew she wouldn't be back.

Her younger brother, Souta, had come into her room on that last night among them, that last night that would become merely...did it really happen at all?

She didn't know because to her shame, she changed the memory each time and fill it with bits of things that she had wished that she had said. Time ate away at their faces, and she lost sight of them. She tried to remember each day but it was a futile struggle. Because she had much now...

But she believed that her brother had come into her room that night, hesitating at the door and grasping the knob in his nerves. His footsteps stopped and the wood groaned in protest as he shifted back and forth. Yes, he was nervous for some reason, and she really didn't care.

"Don't you knock?" she muttered, scribbling away and trying to defeat a vicious geometry problem that she had put off till the last second. What was he doing up, anyway? It was one in the morning, she felt it in her limbs and her eyes were becoming blurry. She motioned at him to speak up without daring to tear her eyes away from the smudged paper.

"I think okaasan's crying. In her room. When I knocked, she didn't answer. So I didn't know what to do..."

Crying? Kagome looked up, her brother smeared from her tiredness. He looked very nervous in his over-grown pajamas and hair sticking straight up.

"Are you sure?" Of course, he would know but her mother had never shed a tear as far as she knew. Maybe he had been dreaming.

So she told him to go back to bed, and she journeyed down into the deceptive quiet. It was very hollow sort of quiet that fell across her, so she was half-relieved...when she heard the human sound of a soft sobbing. Still disbelieving her ears, she crossed cautiously towards the bedroom door where a pastel, pink light was seeping underneath. Her mother's favorite lamp by her bed side...the one with koi on the shade...

Kagome knocked with a lump in her throat. The sound dimmed, and the sound of a lock unlatching replaced it.

Her mother had indeed been weeping for her usually bright eyes were dark. But her mother put on a mask to hide unknown grief.

"Hai..." Her voice was laced with powdered sorrow through her smile.

"Are you all right...I thought I heard..." This was suddenly an intimidating situation indeed.

Her mother merely gazed at her from a moment, seeming to drink in the sight of her.

"Come outside with me. You can see the stars tonight."

Taken back, Kagome wordlessly followed her mother outside where the stars welcomed them and where the God Tree stood guard. Even from here, Kagome glimpsed the arrow mark on the aged trunk. Her mother sat on the bench under the tree and motioned for her daughter to join her.

The moon danced around them both as they remained in a now comfortable silence that Kagome credited to the presence of the God Tree.

"It's been awhile since we have had time to talk, hasn't it?" Kagome glanced quickly at her mother, surprised by the declaration. Yes, it was true, but they would have time soon enough when she helped to finally repair the Shikon no Tama and cleanse it of defilement. Yet it was the first time that she had noticed her mother looking so aged, and she felt wrong that she had not seen that sooner.

"Hai."

"Do you remember when the year the festival came and you were so excited? I made your first traditional kimono, the one with the goshiki, and you wanted to wear it to school afterwards."

Kagome was warmed by the memory that seemed so long ago. It was long ago, wasn't? She was six, washing her face in the basins at the shrine and having her picture taken in front of the God Tree. The shrine in which she had wanted to reach the middle, the honden where only the purest could go, and she wasn't allowed to.

"I think I still have it in my closet," she said happily.

"You've grown so much since then. Sometimes I think...you've grown up before your time. You've become someone else."

Kagome was startled into silence and her mother continued on in her thoughts.

"And I can't help but wonder how many mothers would have allowed their daughter to grow so fast. At first...I did so because I knew in my heart that traveling to Sengoku Jidai was in your destiny. But now I question the wisdom of that, I have no idea of the challenges you face there and often fear that...you will not return to me."

"Okaasan, Inuyasha will protect me. Nothing will happen to me along as he's there."

The words burst forth as a universal truth much like the sun will be in the sky tomorrow. She felt that was all she should say because it was definitely best her okaasan didn't know about some aspects of her other life. Kagome was sure that the older woman's imagination just didn't do justice to a past full of demons and spirits, including the 'big three': Sesshomaru, Naraku, and of course, Kikyo.

Her mother looked troubled.

"You are both very young."

"It's different in the past. Besides, the jewel is almost complete. Then I'll be at home, and you won't have to worry."

Kagome had trouble hiding her own fears in her voice, careful of layering over her doubts. When the jewel was complete, then what would become of her travels to the past? What would become of her relationship with Inuyasha? She was sure he felt something for her. She just knew it and heavily dreaded the end of the journey.

"Kagome, I...you are very dear to me, and each time it becomes harder to let you go into the well. None of us can ever be certain about our fates, and I...don't think you should go back again."

Kagome felt strangely betrayed by her mother, feeling resentment towards the woman who cared for her for the first time in her life.

"That's not-." She bit off the word 'fair' because it sounded too childish.

"I have to." There were no words for how she felt about her journey to the past; Sengoku Jidai was too much a part of her, even more so than her life here. She was meant to be there and couldn't imagine herself... She just couldn't quit now. She wouldn't.

"I know."

Kagome was again taken back by the apparent acceptance in her mother's tone and she had to wonder at the purpose of their conversation.

"Promise me...that you'll keep in mind that what is right is never an easy path...do right by others. And...be happy."

A strange, wild horror was building in her because it seemed like her mother was saying good-bye. No...

"I-I'll be back. It's just for this week. And then I'll be home." She hated that she could only say the exact same thing but no other words would dare come.

Her mother brushed Kagome's hair back out of her face and merely nodded. But her eyes were still memorizing her face, glimmering with pride and mourning. Then she hugged her daughter and helped her pack for her last journey.

The final glance Kagome would have of her mother would be of her standing at the entrance of the wall, unspeakably composed and locked in acceptance. Yet her eyes were unlocked. As Kagome was engulfed in that familiar presence of the threads of time, she felt like crying herself. Because something wasn't right...

When she was sitting around the campfire, about to prepare a meal of Ramen for Inuyasha, she came across something silken and small. It was her old kimono.

That night she had difficulty breathing or keeping a cheerful face through a deep hysteria surfacing that was commanding her to flee to the well. The next day Kikyo joined their group. But that night she could have sworn her mother had brushed back her hair again.

"Okaasan!" she cried, and then was thrown back from her efforts to rise.

Her back burned in protest, and as she awoke there, half off the futon, she stared blankly at the spider webs lurking in the rafts, trying to figure out what just happened. Because she had felt someone who...where was she?

Oh kami, where was she?! Where was Inu-

Then it opened up, the dam that was built during merciful sleep, and she knew that Kikyo had taken away everything, that the Jewel had become an entity of its own, reaching and grasping...

Where was she?

Her head pounded, and she could imagine the sound she had made when she hit the floor unconscious. Because she knew that someone had stopped her from...joining Inuyasha and judging by her position, had thrown her haphazardly across this small futon like a rag doll, a worthless thing...She felt like someone had stomped over her early grave.

Then she was struck. Terror unlike she had ever known before almost made her scream. Yet if she started screaming, she didn't know if she could stop. So she bit her lip and strangled the cry climbing up her throat. So she covered her mouth and smelt blood on her icy hands. Her wrist tingled in memory from the grip that halted her. She wanted to flee again, but something...she felt something in the room too.

Numbness made it hard to move and her heart was lead, but she jerked up, biting her lip, to stare wildly into the darkness that lay over the bare room, trying to find that something.

Nothingness greeted her instead...too much nothingness.

The room was too large with too many shadows to hide in. She needed to get out of there before she suffocated. It was silent in a way that pounded at her nerves, fraying them gleefully.

Kagome struggled to her feet, gripping her collar for no reason but panic and discovered that it had been torn. She would have fled from the smell that surrounded her but she knew it would follow her. There was blood on her uniform as well as dirt as well as her fear.

A very faint light helped her find the door which she clung to gratefully but distrusted. Kagome felt something on the other side of the door, an unpleasantly familiar darkness. Her heart sputtered to an indignant stop. Not him...anyone but him!

Then, quite suddenly, heat rose to her face. She was angry, filled to the top with anger!

How dare he...

She couldn't see through hot tears of resentment, balling her hands into painful fists as her nails pierced her palm. He survived after everything then had the nerve to bring her here!

Kagome was pleased as her emotions made her limbs movable, and she slid the door open with unthinkable force, hearing it slam into place successfully shattering the unnatural quiet, while snarling, figuring that is the action Naraku would expect the least.

She jumped into the room, tense and ready, come what may. Then, again, there was nothing. This room was even more barren, immaculate actually. It was almost alarmingly so, almost obsessively. Nothing like she would have expected from the dark hanyou. Kagome more expected heads on poles or something along that gruesome motif. Even though her thoughts were fragmented, she could reason the drive behind this appearance.

So much chaos inside, no room for chaos on the outside...

But there were plenty of shadows were he could be; yes, he belonged in the shadows. She practically felt him beside her, corrupting the very air she breathed yet she couldn't see him. It felt like spider webs were all over her, and she shuddered as she tensed in anticipation of a quick, excruciating slash of claws or mass of shouki. His inaction meant he was playing with her, and she was so very, very sick of being played with.

The darkness was laughing at her, dancing with her, and waiting to pounce, to tear her to pieces. He wanted her to scream.

No, she was so very, very tired and her head buzzed with numbness. She didn't even have time to mourn. She couldn't find any hope at all. It really wasn't worth it, her being here. Maybe her okaasan had been right: it wasn't smart to chase after death. But it wasn't supposed to end up this way. It did, and she didn't want to be anywhere but home...at a time when she didn't know about the magical reaches that lurked in the well. She wished she had had time before she was thrown into jigoku.

"Ana ga attara hairitai..." Kagome hissed, in utter seriousness, at the shadows.

"Careful what you wish for, girl. That can be arranged..." His voice loomed behind her.

She turned, her hands held up in front of her, but again nothing was there. Now the echoes of his voice slid in layers everywhere, seeming a part of everything around her. Again, it was much too vast in its murmuring, and she was drowning. How did she ever imagine that she would defeat him, a product of intensity?

Yes, he was intense, too intense to be meant to be. Sesshomaru, the cold, icy dealer of death, had nothing compared to Naraku's presence. Sesshomaru was meant to be and part of some sort of...balance, cycle, something. But Naraku's creation even broke the rules of that something. She had always had him in low doses. She was always with Inuyasha, always indirectly affected by him. Now she was directly intertwined with him in this room.

Kagome didn't know how to react.

She knew, even if she didn't want to understand a thing about Naraku, that she was his last...hold on his former existence before Kikyo did the unthinkable. He wanted a reaction, a shudder, a whimper, or a curse. But if she showed weakness, he might not stop tormenting her slowly. That was a definite possibility. On the other hand, if she didn't react, he might be spurred onwards towards high machinations. She didn't know what to do for it was quite literally a no-win situation...and she suddenly realized, despite her early yearnings, that she didn't want to...die. It hit her like the force of a small typhoon, weaving its way deep within her heart and making her breaths hitch. She had wanted to before but that time had pasted her by and now that possible death was breathing down her neck, she wanted to live.

"It seems that your Inuyasha is dead...for the sake of another already in the grave. Pity..." Then he was there, and she could see him.

He was sitting down by the window in a bored position as if she wasn't worth the effort of his actually standing. She almost missed him again in the shadows, but it was his eyes that caught her attention and alerted her of his location. His eyes burned a cool crimson, very metallic thus similar to Inuyasha's eyes yet worlds apart. Worlds apart...liquid, biting, acidic metal, hinting at things she was not allowed to know. She felt like he could see inside of her, and despite herself, she stepped back, knocked back from his sudden appearance. He was in control. The once barren room seemed quite full now.

She struggled for a moment then her fear evaporated, perhaps burned away by his gaze. Because now that she could see and it wasn't just the idea of him but actually him, she thought that he looked both cold like the moon yet warmed by pure magic...and that reminded her of Kikyo.

"So it seems," she muttered but made sure he could hear perfectly, words shaping beautifully clear.

She needed something to shoot him with.

"It also seems that you've lost your chance to become anything but a hanyou. Pity..."

Kagome drawled then came back to herself. She had thought those words but hadn't meant to actually say them out loud. Big difference... she gaped in shock, hoping she hadn't actually...

It appeared she had because he grew remarkably still, staring at her with a cold emptiness, and she had the distinct impression he was about to move very fast...to strike her of course.

Kagome merely stood there, ready once more.

The place had never been defilement by the sounds of human breathing in centuries, much before the miko Kikyo had even been born as a mortal. Yet she knew of it because the kaiju in her wake knew of it; it had been there in the earliest of times that history would call the Jomon Period. Thus the existence of such a place was mystifying, but Kikyo listened to its murmurings and followed its guidance past the marshes and fields down into the depths of the earth from which she was made.

What could have formed such a place full of 'roped' pottery? For a moment, she stopped to gaze at the meandering ropes, seeing the message of fate wrapped up in-between, and a frown weighed on her features.

It was endlessly ancient, a shrine to a different time from Sengoku Jidai, and she felt the importance of her presence there, crossing time much like her reincarnation. She smiled in the veil of time, flowing down the crumbling steps quite easily and spotting the bronze mirrors to the left. Those mirrors were brought down later from the creation of this place but suited her purpose well.

Yes, Kikyo and the kaiju had gained the idea from the demon Naraku. A mirror that captures souls...what a novelty...this mirror would do far better for her...the mirror of the two gods.

The room seemed to shrink away from her and the oni that hung from her, but she reached her goal and grasping the handle with unseen gentleness, removed the mirror with the ropes covering the back from the wall that promptly crumbled.

She saw herself through the murk and glimpsed the oni's shadow. She smiled at her image nonetheless. She was still beautiful; she had never had the opportunity to enjoy her beauty in life. In life, she had never once seen herself as a beauty, just as a destroyer and a protector. She was not allowed to enjoy but now, in death, she was free. Inuyasha was free. He was no longer burdened by painful emotions as she once was; now he was free.

The emotionless warrior stood in the mirror behind her, watching without seeing. Something was in his hand...

"Inuyasha?"

The miko turned suspiciously to study the hanyou. Clenched in his hand was an emerald green cloth that she recognized instantly.

She dropped the mirror that miraculously didn't shatter from the force. The figure didn't notice; he only stared in emptiness, life's colors gone from his eyes and face utterly blank. Kikyo tapped her bow sharply against the stones and Inuyasha stirred.

She walked slowly up to him, the oni dancing in glee. Kikyo slapped him hard and torn the cloth from his grip. His face now colored from the blow, he still didn't react for his only purpose was to please her. The cloth had blown across the field as they had been leaving and snagged on his arm. Kikyo had not seen this.

She burned the cloth instantly and glared to see his reaction at the burning smell. He gave nothing. She grimaced; the process had been sloppy and too much of Inuyasha had been lost. But she knew how to bring him back to her. There was still some glimmer in his eyes that had made her want him in her life and throughout her silence of centuries. She would bring warmth to him again.

She sighed at the task before her. Kikyo stroked Inuyasha face lovingly, softening at the feel of his skin against hers. They were both cold.

"You will see, my love. I will bring you everything. But first, we have to take care of them. We have to take care of them before we continue. It is what is right...and it is demanded." The tumunci flickered behind her, caressing her arms. "My reincarnation has something I want...something I need. Naraku must be disposed of...and this is our fate, Inuyasha. This is the fate of these lands." Her eyes faded as she listened to that undercurrent voice.

The three left with the mirror in tow, wandering to the nearest lord's castle with a dark purpose.

Kagome continued to back away, keeping her eyes glued to his body, waiting for the rustle of cloth and the impact that was sure to follow.

He started to laugh.

She was certifiably surprised.

What the hell is he laughing at? Nothing about this is funny?!

Then he moved, like liquid, like time, and grabbed her throat, pushing her up against the wall which shook. Her feet dangled above the floor, and she watched this all in detachment.

Good, this is fine. I don't care.

Kagome registered the relatively silken feeling of his hand on her throat, making the cold disappear. He didn't pierce her with his claws yet, so she waited patiently. There, he had moved his thumb to her throat, applying pressure. So he was...

"You never fail to amuse me, girl." He muttered...his voice like ocean, drown-worthy deep as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Wasting yourself, dying for a nothing, a ragtag group of fools walking into death. Pointless..."

I don't care.

He was very close now, his body up against hers, and she was sure he felt the pounding of her heart. His hair brushed her face lightly, and she closed her eyes, still waiting.

"I would love to put an end to you."

THEN DO IT!

"But..." A sharp claw rubbed up against her lifeline in her throat, pounding against his thumb, and she stiffened.

"Circumstances guard your life for now, miko." His voice was apathetic, and she opened her eyes to gaze up at him, amazed out of her senses. He wasn't going to kill her?!

Now he seemed completely foreign to her; his eyes burned through hers as she was trying to see through him. She had never been this close up to him before and her perspective shifted ever so slightly. He was simply looking at her, and she felt quite trapped in a moment of time...but then it was fine.

He was so unlike...Inuyasha. He was subtle...that's all she could think of. Inuyasha were for the day when he was for the night, inky blackness, something that would always be there, fairly eternal...

Kagome felt time completely grind to a stop.

Then he dropped her on the ground and it painfully started again. He moved back to his original position, and she kept her distance, backed-up against the unyielding wall. Kagome rubbed her neck bitterly.

"What circumstances?" she muttered darkly.

He didn't bother to look at her again, but she could feel his annoyance in waves.

"Tell me...what do you remember?"

Translations:

Hai-yes

Okaasan-mother

Koi-Japanese fish

Goshiki-type of koi

Honden- in Shinto shrines, the actual architecture of the building is designed to mimic nature. Shintoism is based on the idea of nature and kami (god/gods) in nature while practicing this religion is based on purification and mediation. Thus, the shrine symbolizes the levels of purification, and the honden is the most inner part of the shrine where only priests can go. Shinto literally means 'the way of kami'.

At least, I hope that's right with my Western mind and such...

Jigoku-hell, hades

Ana ga attara hairitai-I want to crawl in a hole and die O-O

Kaiju-monster

Jomon Peroid/ Jomon jidai- (10,000 BC-300BC) Jomon literally means 'cord-marked' and this age was known for pottery.

Oni-demon, evil spirit

Tumunci (actually an Ainu word)-demon, devil

And I guess that's it...

Again, thank you Aiffe, profiler120, Elementsofmine, lady sakura, Naroki, and BakaBokken.

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