Golden Eyes
By Lady of the Ink
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, but you knew that . . .I hope. But I do own this plot and all the twists that it takes.

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FlashTwo
Silver Hair

Kagome sat straight up in bed, wide-awake and covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her heart was pounding and her breathing came in fast, shallow pants. The memory of the dream was so strong that she found herself looking around for both the attacker and her savior. There was nothing but her room, of course, familiar and slightly messy, just as she had left it.

She swallowed, trying to ease the dryness in her mouth. It didn't help, only let her know that her throat was tensed painfully in reaction to the dream. Throwing back her covers, Kagome slid her legs over the edge of the bed and stood. Her knees wobbled and she had to hold onto the nightstand for several moments before she gained her balance.

There was little from the moon coming though the windows, but Kagome didn't need to see to make her way down the hall to the bathroom. Flipping on the light, she cringed both at the brightness and the reminder of the nightmare she had woken from but had yet to leave behind. She raised her eyes to the mirror and stared in surprise at what she found. Her complexion was pale and waxy, almost completely devoid of color. Her eyes were wide and glassy and red-rimmed from the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

As she lifted a hand to wipe them away, Kagome realized she was trembling. She sank onto the edge of the bathtub and forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. It had been nothing but a dream, a bad dream, but still just a dream. There was no logical reason for her to be so strongly affected by it.

She dampened a washcloth with cool water and pressed it to her face. Determinedly thinking about nothing, she waited until her breathing evened out and her body stopped trembling. It took longer than usual to calm herself from the nightmare but she did finally accomplish it.

Leaning back against the wall, she let her mind roll tentatively over the images that had come to her in her sleep. There were several things about the sequence that bothered her from the very beginning. It had seemed like there were two of her in that dark place, the one who was living it and the one who was watching it unfold. They were both her and yet so completely different from each other that they felt like two different people.

Even though the Kagome wandering through the shadows had seemed to be her, she had known things that the other Kagome hadn't. She knew why she was surrounded by the blackness and where it came from, too. The voices that were calling out were people that she knew well and the sources of the other noises - the whirling, jingling, and thuds - were sounds that she was familiar with and had been for quite some time. That Kagome also knew why she had to get to the others and exactly what she would do once she got there.

Remembering the fight, which she was now sure was what was going on in the dream, made her feel cold. An echo of the emotion from the nightmare had returned, a cloying mix of fear, adrenaline, and worry. It was no wonder that it had clung to her so tightly even after she woke. Just the small bit of it from her memory was making her feel jumpy with the need to take action.

Something else had stayed with her, too. The very last seconds before she had awakened had been terrifying, yes; but there had been something else there as well. In that moment when her life had been in danger, someone had saved her. They had pulled her away from what she was sure would have been her death and kept her safe. Standing so close to them just before she awoke, she had felt protected, completely and totally sheltered from harm.

It was as she checked to see if the trembling in her hands had stopped that a realization swept over her. It was powerful enough to cause her to freeze and send a chill shooting through her body. She suddenly knew without a doubt that the hand that had grabbed hers in her dream and the phantom grip from her walk home had been one and the same.

x

"Earth to Kagome! Are you listening?"

Kagome blinked rapidly as a face loomed just inches from her nose. Her eyes almost crossed as she tried to focus on it and so she quickly gave up and leaned back. It was only when she was resting on her elbows that she was finally able to make out the almost identical expressions of questioning that all three of her friends wore. She tried to remember what they'd all been talking about but she drew a complete blank - an all too common occurrence of late.

Offering an apologetic smile, she forced herself to put the questions that her dream had raised temporarily out of mind. The gaps in her memory were hard enough to deal with; the last thing she needed was to alienate her friends on top of that. "I'm sorry; I was completely spacing out. What were you saying?"

Eri huffed so loudly that her bangs fluttered. "We were talking about the same thing that we've been trying to talk about for days! The thing that you've been avoiding telling us about, the thing that we want to know so badly that it's driving us crazy! Your date with Hojo, of course." She leaned forward eagerly, her eyebrows raised so far that they disappeared into her hairline. Yuka and Ayumi mirrored the action, all but rubbing their hands together as they waited for details.

Kagome stifled a groan. She had been trying to avoid this conversation for four days. She didn't blame her friends for wanting to know what had happened; they had an almost ritual that they followed after any one of them went out with a boy. First they'd go through everything that had happened before he'd even arrived, covering hair, clothes, and makeup. Then came the recounting of every second of the date down to the smallest word or action. The process had been known to last for a week or more.

That was exactly what Kagome was afraid would happen. She had hoped that being with her friends would help distract her from her worries. If all they wanted to talk about was her date with Hojo, she knew that the only thing that she would be able to think about would be the one thing that she wanted to put out of her mind the most.

She decided that the best course of action was to get it over with as quickly as possible. As great a catch as Hojo was, there was no way her friends would let her get away with not telling them everything. The sooner it was out of the way, the sooner they could hopefully move on to another, less troubling topic of interest.

"The date was nice." Except for the weird hallucination that I had on the way home. "We went for a movie and then for ice cream. He walked me home . . ."Kagome hesitated, unsure if she wanted to mention what had happened during that walk. Her knowledge of her friends and how tenacious they could be when they knew they were being held out on made her decide to tell in the end. "And he held my hand."

The three girls across from her squealed loudly. Kagome mustered the most excited expression that she could. If she didn't project the right reactions, her friends would know that something was up and subject her to the third degree until they found out every little detail. That was something she really didn't want to happen. She thought back to the happiness that she'd felt before the date and tried to recapture and immerse herself in it. Maybe if she focused only on the good points of the evening she could free her mind of the odd ones.

For the next hour, she did just that. They talked about her dress, her hair, her makeup, and her shoes. Everything that she and Hojo had said and done was gone over twice before she was finally able to convince them to break it off for the night. She gathered the books that she had checked out of the library before she'd gotten cornered and started towards the shrine.

Kagome was a third of the way there when a voice from behind her startled her from her thoughts. She jumped so forcibly that her books fell from her arms and onto the sidewalk. Her heart pounding fiercely in her chest, she turned to face her surprise company.

Hojo stood there, an abashed expression on his handsome face. "I'm sorry, Higurashi. I thought you heard me calling you." His eyes dropped to the books lying in messy piles at her feet and he was quick to offer his assistance. "Let me help you with those."

"Oh, no, that's all right. I can get them. It was my own fault for not paying attention." Kagome knelt at the same time as Hojo, trying to save him the trouble of gathering them up. Their hands brushed and they both blushed and studiously avoided looking at each other. Hojo was so intent on reaching the final tome that he leaned near enough that his hair brushed against her chin . . .

Long strands glimmered in the sunlight . . .brushed against her shoulder as she walked . . .fluttered gently against her face as she was propelled forward with a bouncing motion . . .pooled beneath the head resting in her lap . . .

A gasp scraped through her throat as she was assaulted with a stream of rapid-fire images. She swayed slightly as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her hands fell away from her books, flattening against the rough sidewalk in order to help maintain her suddenly threatened balance. Hojo didn't seem notice as he continued to carefully stack the books.

Kagome took advantage of his distraction to try and get a hold of herself. She closed her eyes and pulled in a few deep breaths. By the time he finished his task and looked over at her, she had managed to calm herself enough to smile.

"Thanks, Hojo," she said as they stood and he handed her the pile. "You didn't have to do that."

"Really, it was no trouble. Besides, you only dropped them because I startled you." He paused, sliding his hands into his pockets. Kagome knew he was either waiting for her to say something or he was slowly getting around to another comment of his own. At the moment, she didn't have the patience to deal with either. While the sudden burst that had flooded through her mind had passed, the effects of it still lingered. It was as though there were a dam just behind her eyes that had been rammed with the strange flashes. Although they had receded, the battering had left a steady throbbing behind, as if it had been an actual, physical occurrence instead of a psychological one.

She shifted her weight impatiently from one foot to the other as the silence dragged on. The thought of her own quiet room and comfy bed finally spurred her to take action. She took a half step away from Hojo and smiled apologetically. "Was what you wanted really important? I'm not feeling too well right now. I think that's why I jumped so badly."

Just because it was now the truth didn't make her feel any less bad at his crestfallen expression. He was a really nice guy and she hated to brush him off. It wasn't his fault that she kept having weird visions.

Wanting to try and make up for it, Kagome reached out to touch his arm. Ignoring the relief she felt when there was no repeat of the unexplainable images, she spoke gently. "I think I'm going to go home and crash now, but how about I call you tomorrow?"

Hojo's face brightened like it was a light bulb that had just been switched on. He smiled widely. "That would be great. Do you want me to walk you home?"

"No, that's all right. It's not too far. So I'll talk to you tomorrow." Tossing off a small wave, She resumed her walk home.

Too tired to think and feeling as though she were on autopilot, she greeted her mother and then headed straight for the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was filled with the usual items and it didn't take her long to find what she wanted. She swallowed the aspirin on the way to her room. After dropping her books on the desk, Kagome fell fully dressed onto the bed hoping that a nap before dinner would make her feel better.

Her eyes opened a crack, admitting a bit of light through her lashes.

She had come so close to death . . .

Her eyes opened further, revealing a blur of subtle movement and color.

So close . . .

Kagome gasped as her shoulders were gripped tightly and she was forcibly shoved backward. Her feet stumbled over the uneven floor and she had to through her arms out to keep from falling. She looked up and began trying to piece together what was going on.

She seemed to be standing just inside a huge cavern. There was more light than had been in the smaller tunnel that she had just come through but it was still hard to see. The edges of the space were shrouded in clinging shadows, masking the true size. However, the hollow echoes that followed every noise and then seemed to swallow them made it clear it was very large. And at that moment, it was being filled with the sound of loud voices.

"Now that the jewel has been completed, my power is unstoppable. It's time for you to be dealt with once and for all. Don't worry; it'll be over so quickly that you'll hardly feel a thing." A laugh all the more frightening for its quiet tone bounced around the room and raised goose bumps on Kagome's skin. The voice had come from the darkness in front of her and to the left of where she stood. Although it was smooth and cultured, it had slid over her like oil, bringing with it a wave of anger and disgust. There was also a burst of determination that this man - no, creature be stopped.

Kagome jumped when the person in front of her yelled a response. "Like hell it will be. Jewel or no jewel, you're going down!"

His voice was the exact opposite of the other's, his tone brash and rough. But when he spoke, she was filled with a gentle warmth that had nothing to do with his words and everything to do with the speaker. This was someone she believed in, someone she trusted, someone she cared for deeply.

She squinted through the darkness until she could make out the suggestion of his form. He stood just in front of her with his legs braced shoulder width apart and his arms akimbo. Every line of his body broadcast that he was ready to take on anything that came at him.

No, she quickly corrected herself, anything that came at them. When he'd pushed her backwards, he'd neatly placed himself between her and any danger. His caring move warmed her and she finally felt able to take action.

Kagome stepped forward until she felt strands of his long hair brush against her face. Reaching out to grab a handful of his sleeve, she clasped the rough material tightly in her fist. "I need to be higher to get a clear shot." Her words came out as the merest breath of sound but he gave a curt nod that showed he had heard her. The motion caused the small bit of light to reflect off his hair, illuminating the silvery length for a split second.

As though that glint were the sparks from a starting pistol that had just been fired, the whole room seemed to explode into action. The fierce battle cries that had led her to the cavern had fallen silent upon her arrival. Now they began again, louder and more fierce than before. Although she couldn't see it, Kagome knew a massive and important fight had just begun.