Sorry it took so long for an update (a little over a week or so I believe), but I had my graduation party and work keeping me pretty busy.
To everyone that reviewed, thank you very much. You all had great things to say and your feedback was great to see.
And for those that read the first chapter when the song wasn't formatted correctly and kind of bunched up-I've gone back and corrected it. If you liked the story before, it should be even better now that the end is you know, readable
Don't Belong: Chapter 2: Broken
Last Time : Seeking shelter from the rain, the group enters a village, whose healer and citizens once left Inuyasha for dead, when he was a child. Stirring up painful memories and fueling his insecurities, Inuyasha flees and takes time to reflect. Reflecting upon his life and the woman he loves, Inuyasha lets himself cry one more time.
Blurring, the forest grew darker and the smell of salt began to overcome the hanyou's senses, his consciousness fading, Inuyasha escaped into the peaceful oblivion of sleep.
walking through the same forest
A small child walks, the sparkling emerald reflections of the wet foliage inspiring awe. Sticking our amongst the green of the forest is a shapely and vibrant orchid. Plucking this flourishing fountain of color and fertility the girl smiles a not so complete smile.
"Sesshoumaru-sama , Rin picked you a flower"
Not much was said, as Sesshoumaru simply took the flower and nodded a silent and dignified acceptance. His eyes suddenly sharpened with a burning intensity, Sesshoumaru's feet spread apart, planted firmly in the ground. His weight shifted forwards in anticipation. His demonic blood began to pump and his hand slid to take a firm grasp of the Tokijin.
Yet nothing had happened, Sesshoumaru stood and time seemed to stand still as it slowly dragged along.
"Inuyasha, I can sense your presence. Make your move and do so quick. I will allow you little opportunity afterwards."
Yet nothing happened, Sesshoumaru stood once again at ease and began to wonder.
'Perhaps I am mistaken. The miserable hanyou may not even be here.'
A gust of wind blew by and his nose began to twitch. With the flow of the wind, the sensation of salt and perspiration had reached him. Inuyasha was in fact nearby. And it was not in the way Sesshoumaru would ever expect. Putting his hand over his eyes, much in the way Inuyasha had done before, Sesshoumaru allowed a simple moment of emotion. His face distressed, he seemed to actually be concerned, rather than the cold and regal demon lord, Rin had been accustomed to traveling with.
"Are you ok Sesshoumaru-sama? Is something wrong?"
"I sense my brother and he seems to be very distressed."
"What's that mean Sesshoumaru-sama?"
"Pathetic human! It means that his even more pathetic half breed of a brother is....."
"Jaken! you will not speak to Rin in such a manner. Er your tone with caution."
"Yes lord Sesshoumaru."
"Rin, what it means is that I have family related matters to attend to and until I return, Jaken will be in charge. If he speaks to you like that again, do tell me and I will deal with him accordingly."
His request accompanied a glare that shocked Jaken to the bone, as he left the vassel and the child so that he may attend to his brother.
Below Inuyasha's resting place
Regal and full of grace, seeming to glide moreso than step, Sesshoumaru approached his brother and prepared to address him.
"Tears brother? You dishonor your blood."
Snapping into consciousness upon hearing the familiar and condescending voice of his brother, Inuyasha's eyes slowly began to open, squinting upon the fresh sight of the sunlight, and the gleam of his brother's sword.
"What is it about that village brother? Must I teach you the value of strength once more?"
Facially frozen, as if disconnected from the world Inuyasha stared at his brother vacantly, his pupils unfocused and his body growing slightly limp. It was as if his soul had left his being, however it was only the flood of memory, coursing through his mind, taking him away from the present and once again into his troublesome past.
Near death near the village's border-after last chapter's flashback
Muttering to himself a fading child cries "mother" as his consciousness fades and the world goes dark.
"Bleed!" "Out of our Town Demon!" "How dare you disguise yourself as a child ?!?" "Why is he not gone! I have children near!"
The citizens cried for bloodshed and banishment, a small Inuyasha would have left willingly, had the opportunity to do so came. But the child would never be granted such opportunity. Jarring pain, stinging sensation, a desperate struggle to even crawl into the woods, to seek shelter. Inuyasha was in fact helpless and his fate seemed immediate.
Villagers, once full of hate, once beaming with their own sick confidence , cowered behind each other, all slowly stepping back. Some began to flee and some began to pray. Ever oblivious, Inuyasha had no idea of what was to come, until he saw the gleam of flowing whitish locks. until he saw the crest of the half moon, until he saw the cold unresponsive stare of his half brother, Sesshoumaru.
"Despite his ever-apparent weakness, he is an heir of the great demon lord InuTaisho and should you strike him down, he will not be the only child to be drained of his essence today."
"Who? What demon is this creature"
"I do not know what purpose is served by answering the questions of such a pathetic peon. You dare address me? What is YOUR presence, YOUR status? For I am heir apparent of the western lands, I am Sesshoumaru"
"If we all strike now, we may be able to stop him"
clumsily falling into a loosely configured formation, frantic men of the village, ages ranged from their twenties to their fifties, were preparing to strike.
"Men prepare yourselves and ready your weapons !" The eldest member of the militia appeared to be it's leader.
Before a single step could be made, light cracked in a manner much like a bolt of lightning. Three of the men were struck down by Sesshoumaru's whip. Fading into a mere after image, Sesshoumaru disappeared as gurgled screams of agony rang throughout the village. Lunging towards the men, claws sinking into their throats at speeds beyond human sight, their blood choking them, blocking their last breaths. Not all were slain, Sesshoumaru merely proved a point.
The ground was forever stained with the tears of grieving women, as the demon lord approached his fading brother. Picking the runt up by his throat, Sesshoumaru leaned in toward's his brother and warned him, "You will be punished for drawing me out so-and wasting my time."
In shock and in pain, a young Inuyasha looked up and couldn't help but to break a smile and stare upon his older brother's face. He had only met Sesshoumaru once before and he had become Inuyasha's savior and role model.
'He is so strong and heroic, I want to be just like him someday.'
Upon reaching a stream, Sesshoumaru summoned Jaken towards him.
"Fetch my brother some water and something for nourishment."
"For the half-breed? Why are you being so kind Sesshoumaru?"
"He will need to recover, so that I may do what I must, with honor."
Slurping bowl after bowl of water, loudly masticating before swallowing his food. Inuyasha filled himself to his heart's content, rapidly and paranoid, subconsciously fearing that somebody or something would take it away from him at one point. Staring with amazement and wonder at what the conditions had done to his brother plunged Sesshoumaru into thought.
'Someday, I will have to slay him, but today is not that day. So weak, he fears the completion of a meal. I will teach him the value of strength and someday I will be able to face him on level terms.'
Even his mind wanted to deny it, but Sesshoumaru had always cared for his brother, even to the heartless demon lord, rivalry truly did not lead to putting your sibling to the grave.
The sun arose,it's morning rays so sharp, raised Sesshoumaru's eyelids as they scanned the features of his face, yielding the sight of even sharper eyes.
Leaping to his feet, his features began to bulge and contort. His skin trembled as it stretched and tore. Fangs growing, his body no longer familiar, Sesshoumaru had taken to all fours. He was a full demon once more- in his truest form.
A chilling roar startled young Inuyasha and before his body could wake up or even do so much as react, he was thrown several feet into a tree. Looming over him was a large demon with the appearance of a dog. His body barely healed, his health still poor, Inuyasha struggled to his feet and began to dodge and flee the creature.
"Sesshoumaru! Help Me!"
A massive white paw came down upon the top of Inuyasha's head, forcefully driving his body face first into the ground. A large claw had pierced Inuyasha's lower back to the right. Recently impaled, Inuyasha continued to scream for assistance.
"Sesshoumaru!!!!!"
The large demon could contain itself no longer. The child's pleas were a plague upon his enhanced hearing.
"Weakling, I AM Sesshoumaru! Defend yourself or perish as you should."
Shock overcame the young and naive hanyou
'I thought my brother had loved me. I thought he would protect me. He saved me from the villagers, I thought we'd be a family.'
But within him an anger that would eventually become all too familiar overcame him. Utilizing the remainder of his energy, Inuyasha had lept through the air and began to use his claws to cut down a branch from a nearby tree. After several swipes with his unfamiliar weapons, the branch had fallen into his arms.
His weight was shifted as his posture leaned so far back. Every inch of movement had almost hurled Inuyasha to the ground as he struggled to hold the large branch in his hands. Leaping towards Sesshoumaru, a young Inuyasha could not even reach his fraternal foe. Weighed down by the weight of the enormous tree limb, Inuyasha was on the ground once more, as the paws of his brother threw him across the forest.
"Use your claws damnit! Drive them into me!"
Bounding towards his younger sibling, the demon prepared to pounce once more .Also preparing to strike was the young child. Both darted with incredible speed, but the young hanyou was down once more, Battered and fading again.
"How worthless, a weakling like you shall never have a place in the world. The humans do not want you, and I now realize that you are not worthy of the blood that runs through your veins. Die Inuyasha."
Realizing his fate would come sooner than he had thought, the child's heart began to pound, began to resonate with the demonic blood that it functioned to pump. Before Sesshoumaru could so much as flinch, a blurr of silver traveled through the air, and his side had been slashed. In the shocking distraction of it all, the child had leapt into the trees and fled at an amazing rate.
'You've done well half breed, run and continue to do so, until the day you can stand as my equal. Neither I nor our father would accept you any other way.'
Feudal era-current confrontation with Sesshoumaru
"Brother, I came here for an answer. What is it about this place that makes you so weak?"
Clouds dissipating in his mind, swirls of colors becoming concrete shapes, Inuyasha's mind was focusing once more. Snapping into a sober awareness Inuyasha merely replied a muttered response.
"I am not weak and I did not cry."
"Your deception is rank-that of an amateur. You are a broken shell of what you could have been. Your human emotions make you weak, and is a disgrace to what you are. I do not know the details of the relationship, but I would suggest that you do not let your miko see you in such poor form."
Sesshoumaru turned to leave his brother once more, yet it was Inuyasha who had gone. Leaping through the trees, Inuyasha's presence disappeared again.
'Forever running, pathetic hanyou, dearest brother.'
Modern Times-Kagome's room
Morning had come and gone, alarms rang and the sun rose. It was an average day, in an average world. A world Kagome had grown up in and grown accustomed to. Yet it seemed so dull and foreign. She longed for the fresh smell of the morning dew, to be woken up bathing in sunlight, rather than seeing it creep through her window. She longed to be surrounded by Inuyasha's stare, to sleep on his lap again. In her times, she was alone, and an empty bed ,once a comfort of home, was no longer welcome.
An alarm rings, yet she doesn't touch it, she grabs her pillow and clutches it tighter. Even in her sleep she mutters his name. Her body tried to force itself to awaken, while her mind wished to fade away. She wished to fast-forward time, to fall asleep and awake when Inuyasha recovered and returned to her. Everything else had no meaning and was just another second she would suffer and pine for her lost hanyou.
It was a quarter of one, and she could sleep no more. She felt dizzy and her temperature was practically boiling. She clutched a journal and eternally preserved the memory of her latest adventures. As she wrote, she could sense a smile coming over her face, then a laugh escaped from her lungs, leading to her face freezing into a glare, and then her hand moved over her heart as she exhaled and thought of her would-be lover's pain. She had been through so much with him, what could have been so different? What could he have been keeping from her?
She slowly approached her shower and began to undress. The warm water flowed down her body, trickling down from the rich flowing raven locks of her hair, to the poor tired feet, she always wore down during her travels.
She leaned against the wall, she had little strength, she could barely support herself. She just stared apathetic and lethargic, life bore such little meaning as she merely stood, supported by the wall of her shower. She closed her eyes and thought of him. Just standing there, tears cascading down her face , as time flew by.
Looking at a clock a realization had dawned upon her. "It's 4:00 ! How long have I been in here?" The flow of time seemed to have stopped for her, to be replaced by the flow of water and the flow of tears. It had never occurred to her just why she stood there for so long, but in her heart she knew: she was waiting for him to come once more, to wrap on her door, arrogantly demanding that she would hurry up. Despite it's annoyance, his impatience had always pleased her heart. It showed that despite their arguments, that despite their adventures, and even despite Kikyo, Kagome would always be wanted, and that Inuyasha could not stand a second longer than he should without her. She knew he would never proclaim his love to her, and as saddening as that was, she knew he cared. Her friends and even her foes had been able to figure out the workings of his heart.
Yet it had been days, and he never returned to her.
'I don't understand why he hasn't come back yet. I haven't been able to have a peaceful shower in what seems to be forever. Now that I'm done with school, I never get to spend time in my own era. I have friends, family, things I should be doing-like any normal teen does. Yet he's always fetching me and dragging me back like a damn dog he i........'
"Why aren't you dragging me???????"
Her body heaved as she coughed and cried, she had fallen to her knees and was sitting on the floor, cold and alone, naked and insecure.
'Maybe he just doesn't want me anymore. Maybe I am just a stupid girl. What if this is all just a figment of my imagination? What if he really only needed a jewel detector, and I turned his feelings into something more? Maybe I've always been the stupid girl.'
Angry and detached from the world, her fist clenched into balls and she pounded her floor. Exercising her angst, her mind eased into sound thought.
' I have the jewel! Even if that was all he cared about, he would have came to me by now. Something's not right, Inuyasha never runs away, especially from humans. I don't know what happened to him, to make him look so hurt, to make him seem so scarred , but whatever it was-it struck him deeply. I just wish I could just help him somehow.'
Songs played on her radio for hours, yet it seemed as if she was just beginning to hear. The voices of Seether and Amy Lee rang through her room as their song began to play. It was entitled "Broken", a word that could easily describe Kagome's state of heart and mind.
I wanted you to know,
I love the way you laugh
I want to hold you high
and steal your pain
away
I keep your photograph
and I know it serves me well
I want to hold you high
and steal your pain
' I told you once that all I wanted was to be by your side. I wanted you to laugh a lot, to have good times, and that has never changed. Your life has been filled with so much pain-and it shows. But when you laugh I don't think I could be any happier.'
Grabbing his photograph, off of the wall-she begins to weep once more. Her voice torn by her tears she forces out whispers.
"I want to help you Inuyasha, I love you. I just want to somehow someway, just wash away your pain. You told me I make you feel lighter, that I make you happy. I believed that once, but if that were true, why are you so torn? And why are you gone? This seems to be all I have left of you. And I don't want you to just be another captured memory."
Because I'm broken
when I'm lonesome
and I don't feel right
when your gone away
'I'm broken Inuyasha. I've been hurt and I don't know if I will recover. A part of me is gone and I can't live like this. I need you. I want to listen to you, I want to shut up and let you protect me. I want you to protect me from this pain, I need to be complete...I need you.'
you've gone away...
you don't feel me here
anymore
'Our connection feels as if it has been severed. What has happened to us? What did that hag do to take you away from me?"
the worst is over now
and we can breathe again
I want to hold you high
and steal my pain
away
there so much left to learn
and noone left to fight
I want to hold you high
and steal your pain
"Naraku has been defeated, where is our happily ever after? We have nothing to fear, no enemy to focus our energies on. Kikyo and Kohaku are avenged, Miroku will live as long as a person should, what else are we waiting for? I know it's crazy, but I used to dream that when we defeated him that you would sweep me off of my feet and tell me you love me. That you would marry me or mate me or whatever it is that hanyous do, but we would have a family together and be together forever.-I guess I am just a stupid girl."
In the Feudal Era
Isolated and alone, dwelling in shadow and shame, Inuyasha sits in penance for his weakness. His own errors and his past had cost him everything he worked to obtain. Friends, love, the respect and acceptance of his brother (who was amazed that his half-breed brother was able to defeat Naraku, when he himself could not.). He had finally found the things he searched for his entire life, yet in the course of a day he had cast it all away.
'I can't face them, I am a coward. I've abandoned them, left them in danger- how could I ever face them again? Miroku, my friend, Your ancestry has been avenged, and I know your line will continue. I wish you and Sango the best of luck. Remember to raise them strong.'
'Shippo, as much as I hate to admit it, you are like a son to me, and I've abandoned you just as my father did me. I am sorry, and I can only hope that Kagome will never leave you. You don't deserve the miserable life that I've led-alone.'
"Kagome......"
because im broken
when im open
and I don't feel like
I am strong enough
because im broken
when im lonesome
and I don't feel right
when your gone away
"It destroys me when I tell you of my past, my shame, my pain. When I slip and let you know how deeply I care. Our friends can see it, and sadly, even our foes can see it. They use it against us-and they would use it against our children. I cannot be open, I can't tell you how deeply I need you, I'm not strong enough."
'I guess I have to move on, I don't know how I will. If only there was a wish that could make me the man you need. But a wish you will make you go away. Maybe in the end that's exactly what you need. The world has no use for Inuyasha any more-so why should you.'
because im broken
when im open
and I don't feel like
I am strong enough
because I am broken
when im lonesome
and I don't feel right
when your gone away
Slowly getting up, trembling at the realization of the decision he was about to make. He dragged himself through the forest. Part of him holding still, part of him pushing forward. His emotions were pushed, his heart was slowly collapsing upon itself in sorrow.
"Kagome, I will always love you, and I can't bare for us to be apart, but I will only cause you more pain. I am not worthy of you. If we must end tonight then so shall I. I have a promise that I should keep."
because im broken
when im lonesome
and I don't feel right
when your gone away
At the edge of the forest and over the hill, a village came into view. It had been late at night, the village dead in the slumber of their nightly sleep. He knew not all of them would awaken, and the thought sickened him. Soul Collectors hovered over the city and Inuyasha clenched his chest as a single tear trailed down his face...apparently his last.
"......I've come Kikyo......."
you've gone away...
you don't feel me here
anymore
Modern Era
A sensation rose through Kagome's body, sorrow overcame her as she collapsed onto the ground. Something was wrong, and she knew it. Struggling to stand once more, Kagome grabbed ahold of her sink and lifted herself upright.
Clinging to the walls as she moved along, Kagome slowly crept down the stairs of her home and through her door. Looming over the bone-eater's well, coughing and barely able to stand, she whispered
"Inuyasha....."
And allowed herself to collapse into the well-determined to find the man she loved-while she still could.
And that was the last of the songs for this fic-sorry about them- I just thought they'd fit my story. And don't worry, the story definitely doesn't end here-he hasn't even transformed yet. Please review-and be kind-this is the second chapter of what is still my first fic.
Oh and I know that Kikyo dies later on in the series. Let's just say she was revived again. People die in cartoons and comics all the time and return with even less explanation than that.
