Ok, I'm back. I'm really tired right now, I've been running around for the past four hours with a bunch of 3rd grade girls… they're really sweet, if energetic. So, it was worth the tiredness I feel now. Anyway, here's the next installment. More evil Kikyo. I realize there are a lot of places I can go with this, and I also realize that I can do a much better job of writing this but I'm formulating another InuYasha and Kagome fanfic in my head, and I'm trying to save some ideas for that, and this fanfic has been dragged out long enough. I've backed myself into a corner, and unless I want to take you all into some other tangent for this fanfic (which I don't since you and I are both getting bored with this fic) there's not much other place to go with this. Even so, I'll probably be using a few lines here and there from this fanfic in the other one. Please understand. Flame me if you like, yell, criticize, it's ok. I'll understand. This is a really bad debut fanfic for me. Even so, when I get the chance to finish writing up the beginning chapters of my Hawksong, Escaflowne, Teen Titans, Harry Potter, and new InuYasha fanfics, I'm hoping you'll take a look at them. Thanks so much for supporting me, all of you.

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Kagome jerked back her hand, clutching it to her chest. Gazing wildly about, she caught sight of a figure wearing red and white in the forest. The figure came forth into the light, hand gripped tightly around the shaft of a Japanese maple longbow, head lowered such that her silky black bangs covered her eyes. A slender pale hand reached back to take an arrow from the quiver slung casually across her back.

"My reincarnation… it only becomes clearer and clearer to me that you do not belong here."

Kagome scrambled up quickly, momentarily forgetting her fatigue. "Kikyo, why are you doing this? Why can't you accept that I can come here from my world?

Kikyo remained silent as she fingered the shaft of the Sacred Arrow in her hand, then answered, "Neither of us belong here. We are here, with tasks to complete. Yours was to collect all the Jewel Shards. Mine is to destroy Naraku, and wreak my revenge on InuYasha. Your task is done. And as such, you are no longer needed."

Nocking the arrow to her bow, Kikyo sighted down the shaft at Kagome. Her fingers pulled back the taut sinew bowstring, feeling the force behind her fingers which she could release at any given time.

Kagome stared at the arrow, the sacred aura dormant presently. She recalled how unpleasant it felt to be at the receiving end of these arrows, remembering when Kaguya, the self proclaimed Princess of the Night, shot her in the back with her own arrow. She repeated softly. "Why are you doing this, Kikyo? What have I done to you?"

Kikyo made an almost snarling sound, "What have you done to me! You stole InuYasha from me! I wanted to be the one to melt his heart, to remove that sullen look from his eyes. And I shall reclaim him and bring him to hell with me."

"Kikyo, what are you doing? You're a priestess. Since when have priestesses believed in killing the innocent?"

The priestess grinned evilly. "Now that I am no longer the guardian of the Shikon No Tama, I can express my emotions freely. I am free to love… and free to hate. No longer am I bound by my duties as a priestess. And even if I were… you are not innocent."

She released the arrow, her characteristic scared purple aura rising to surround the arrow, making a screaming noise as it flew through the air towards Kagome.

Kagome had not the time to blink before the arrow was upon her, though even as she closed her eyes, anticipating the pain, she experienced none. Instead, she found herself pinned slightly underneath the weight of InuYasha, both of them having landed awkwardly as InuYasha rescued her from the arrow's path.

InuYasha rolled onto his side, propping himself on one elbow, panting slightly. As he had been leaping through the forest in search of her, he had sighted Kikyo's Soul Catchers. By some luck, a breath of wind had brought the words of their conversation to him. He'd sped up his pace in time to push Kagome out of the arrow's path. Said arrow quivered in the trunk of a tree to the back and side of them.

"You ok Kagome?" He asked, still out of breath. He moved to a kneeling position, grass stains from his slide on the grass evident against the red of his haori. He held out a hand to her.

"Yeah, thanks to you." She said, a bit breathlessly as well. She accepted his hand, and he rose, pulling her to her feet. Leaving his Tetsusaiga sheathed, he stood protectively in front of Kagome, facing Kikyo. He marveled silently at the differences between them.

Kikyo, and Kagome, the latter the reincarnation of the first. How could he have ever thought them the same? Kagome, with her sweet open nature, her easy smiles and quick tempers. She wasn't the same as Kikyo, mysterious, and stoic. They looked so different, and their scents, so different as well. He marveled again at how he ever could have felt them to be even remotely similar.

"So InuYasha, you choose still to protect this girl?" Asked Kikyo, emphasizing 'girl' with a sneer. "Have you forgotten the promise you made to me, to come to hell with me?"

She stepped out of the woods, taking confident steps towards the two of them, a smirk playing about her lips. Kagome's hand managed somehow to creep its way into InuYasha's. He grasped it, squeezing it reassuringly as if to say, "Don't worry, I'm here."

Kikyo plucked the Sacred Jewel Shard from the stump, examining it critically. "The last shard to the most coveted item in this land…. Key to Naraku's destruction. Originally I would have given this to him, that I might destroy him and the Shikon Jewel. But I'm sick of this world. I'm sick of being surrounded by all this life. I'm dead, and the majority of my soul now resides in you. Perhaps I'll leave that task up to you, my reincarnation. You've been so eager to prove yourself against me all this time."

She flicked the shard at Kagome, putting a little of her spiritual power behind it. Kagome let go of InuYasha's hand automatically to catch it, wincing as the Shard dug into her skin from the spiritual power behind the shard. She almost cried out in the slight pain, but bit her tongue. Kikyo wouldn't have the satisfaction of hearing her pain. A few drops of blood fell to the ground from her hand.

InuYasha didn't catch himself before he glared reproachfully at Kikyo. Taking up Kagome's hand, he gently laved his tongue over the wounded area, keeping up his ministrations until the blood stopped flowing. Lacking anything else, he tore up one of her handkerchiefs and bound it about her hand.

Kikyo grimaced, and queried, "So InuYasha, have you made your choice? Will you dishonor your vow to me and remain here with her?"

InuYasha opened his mouth but then he felt a strange force come over his body, holding him tight in its grip. He couldn't move of his own will.

Kikyo beckoned to him with her index finger. "Come to me InuYasha. You will come to hell with me."

With a jerk, InuYasha felt his legs moving him forward, though he did not make them move. He couldn't stop moving forward! Through his peripheral vision, he saw Kagome with a confused look on her face, then she dropped her gaze to the forest floor, bangs covering her eyes.

"NO!" He wanted to shout out to her, "It's not me that's making me do this!"

It was no use, his lips would not move to form the words no matter how hard he tried, and eventually he found himself standing in front of Kikyo.

"That's it InuYasha. Good boy." She said derogatively, patting him on the head.

She turned to Kagome. "You see? InuYasha will always be mine, no matter what you do."

"Let's go InuYasha." Kikyo opened up the portal that led to hell, and the two of them began to sink into the ground, bathed in blue light.

She looked again at Kagome, relishing in the defeated posture the girl stood in. "Kiss me one last time, InuYasha. Let my reincarnation know that you will always be mine, and mine alone."

'STOP!' InuYasha screamed at his body within the confines of his mind. However, his arms rose to rest gently on her shoulders, though by then he wished he could grab those shoulders with his sharp claws. He saw her face slowly coming closer and closer, her lips raised for a kiss, the corners of her mouth upturned in a victorious smirk. Through his peripheral vision, InuYasha saw Kagome. She had lifted her face, and was looking at him with sad eyes. He tried to speak to her with his eyes, trying to tell her he wasn't doing this of his own right. He couldn't tell whether or not he was successful in relaying his message.

Kagome said, "Choose InuYasha. For the last time. You can break her bonds on you, if you choose to do so." Her voice was soft, but it came through to his ears clear as day, cutting through the other loud noises of the shifting of the earth and rock, and the ringing of the blue aura that pulled them deeper and deeper into the ground like her Sacred Arrows cut through air and flesh alike.

InuYasha concentrated on Kikyo's face looming closer and closer to him. This isn't what he wanted. He made a vow to follow the woman he loved into death. And this woman in front of him wasn't that one any longer. He'd follow and protect Kagome to the ends of earth, to the ends of time, wherever she would go. She was the one his heart belonged to now. Feeling searing pain as he did so, InuYasha forced all his willpower into pushing himself away from Kikyo, falling backwards onto the ground as he managed to break through her bonds. He leapt quickly out of the pit before Kikyo could recapture him.

"INUYASHA!" Kikyo screamed as hell swallowed her. "What have you done?"

Then the forest was quiet once more, and the sun returned as the ominous clouds that had gathered drifted away, only a depression in the earth filled with crumbled rock and soil remaining as evidence to what had happened.

InuYasha looked back on the filled hole in the ground, falling to his knees, fists clenching the grass in front of him.

"InuYasha!" Kagome cried out, running to him. She knelt beside him, one hand resting tentatively on his shoulder. "You all right?"

He turned to look at her, managing a small smile. "Yeah… just a little overwhelmed by how lucky I am to still be here right now…."

A moment passed between them in silence, then she stated quietly. "You broke your promise to Kikyo…"

InuYasha shook his head. "No. I promised to follow the woman I loved into hell as compensation for her death. She's… not the woman I love anymore."

Kagome's breath hitched in her throat. Could he be implying, what she thought he might be implying?

InuYasha turned to look at her and grinned at the look on her face. "Come on Kagome, you haven't figured it out yet? I love you."

Time seemed to stand still for her, then InuYasha suddenly took her into his arms, one hand gently stroking her hair. "I chose you over her." He said quietly in her ear. "I'll follow you wherever you go Kagome. I'll be with you. Always."

She relaxed into his embrace, leaning her weary frame against his strong chest. "The same goes for you InuYasha. I'll follow you wherever you go. I want to stay with you, always."

He pulled away from her slightly, grinning. "Well, if we're both following each other, we'll never get anywhere, now will we?"

She giggled slightly. "I guess not."

InuYasha shifted her, cradling her in his arms. Getting up, he carried her over to where her bag lay in the woods, slinging one strap over one shoulder. "Come on Kagome. Let's go back to your time. You need some rest."

Kagome settled slowly into sleep as he carried her along the path through the forest, the Jewel Shard clutched tightly in one hand, a smile gracing her face, knowing they'd be together, forever.

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Ok, ok, corny ending… but I hope you guys liked it! Please review! Thanks!