Author: Soliloquys
Disclaimer: Hiten nor any of the characters in my fanfiction aren't mine, all belong to Rumiko Takahashi.
Chapter 2: A rude awakening
The soft warm fire that had protected her lifted itself off of her body and the unconscious kitsune to her right. Exhaling, Kagome's senses slowly opened to the reek of death and smoke... an odor which clung strongly to her human nose. The dense clouds by now were parting, she noted, as her gaze was affixed to the sky, and that could only mean one thing: the fight between InuYasha and Hiten was over. Her lifeless body creeped up into a sitting position, and depths of sienna were left to scan the rugged terrain.
...InuYasha...? The hesitant and meek call broke the silence, yet the thick coating of quiet served as a menacing response. Wobbily, she took her stand and pulled a fist to her chest, her eyes now dancing about everywhere frantically for any sign of her battle-scarred companion. In all honesty, the girl would have been better off had she not found what she was looking for.
There the body of him lay, turned inside out through the works of one incision, the flesh burnt to the point of crumpling away at the edges. His eyes were still open to half mast, a pupil-less and blank stare tracing his lifeless ambers. Streaks of silvery white were thrown about him, and a sheer layer of settled dust and ashes lay amist his rotting body.
The girl's reaction, at first, was complete immobilty until she fell to her knees at his side. Shakily unstable hands hovered over the cadaverous figure to try to nudge him back to life, but the image lain before her was just too disturbing. Turning away from it completely, she started to sob... first very quietly and then getting louder and unstoppable as each possible result of this occurance presented itself anew in her mind.
The next few countless hours filled Kagome's mind consummately with grief and uncertainty, as she coiled herself around InuYasha's arm... hoping that with enough tears, perhaps he would return to her. Muscles and thoughts grew stiff, her beating hot face buried into the silk of his sleeve undisturbed until a roar of thunder shook the seemingly unstable earth beneath her. A shadow rose from the piles of rocks, human in figure..standing there motionless with a long streaming braid flapping out.
H i t e n... was still alive... Kagome realized and panic struck her. He had won, he had defeated InuYasha...!! And now, now that she had little to no protection and salvation, he would come to steal the jewel shards and kill her to continue the vengence of Manten. Reaching into the haori top of InuYasha, the bottle which held the jewel shards they managed to gather was snatched up, and she rolled swiftly away.
The dark outlines of the thunder god drifted over the form of InuYasha, and Kagome watched from behind a boulder as foreign hands impatiently rummaged through the sleeves and chest area of the hanyou's bloody body. It was obvious that he searched for what he had come after the hanyou for in the first place: the gatherings of Shikon no Tama fragments.
When no objects had been retrieved, the loud and deep angry voice of Hiten cursed into the booming thunder, and Kagome ducked behind the boulder, her back pressed up against the rock as she felt a red stare cross the area she hid. Curled into a ball with her head buried into her knees, she began to weep quietly; Kagome half expected to be creeped up upon and quickly be struck down to her death any moment.
. . . A n y m o m e n t . . .
The thunder fading was unnoticed by her, and when she pulled her face from her knees she saw the sky was clear of the dark clouds, though a certain gloom still hung aloft in the atmosphere. Her fuku shifted as she stood back up, creased with wrinkles, tears, and lines of dirt. Downcast mahogany oculars could only stare forward in a dull comprehension and reaction of what was going on. Her decision on what to do was simple: bury the body of InuYasha and return the shards to Kaede, telling her that she could no longer retrieve them.
A dismal decision she stood at, but what else could she do? Picking up a small and semi-charcoaled flower, her last shreds of respect and decency for anything fell upon the dead body of Manten. Walking away from the cadaverous heap, she pulled her rackety bike from the earthen rocks that had been dug up from the explosions.
Shippou and InuYasha were somehow managed onto her bike, the kitsune resting in the small basket infront of the handlebars and InuYasha's body resting against her chest and on her lap. Across the nearly unnavigatable landscape she petaled that bike...staring ahead with a face wrought with undescribable emotions plastered upon her.