A QUESTION OF INCARNATION
A/N: Chapter 2! Woot! Hopefully you will like. It's probably pretty obvious who the heck Adrian really is, and for those too thick to figure it out I won't tell you. For the rest, I hope he is properly in charecter. Kagome too. CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is always appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, any of the charecters in the TV show, or any of the plot lines. So there.
CHAPTER 2 Memories of That Which is Lost
"So, this will be your room, right here." Kagome opened the door of the guest bedroom across the hall from her own. Her mother was helping out on a field trip of her brothers, and wouldn't be home until that evening. "The bathroom attached to it is all yours- no one else will use it. All we ask is that you keep both rooms reasonably clean. Because you can't pay, you'll need to help us out with some of the odd jobs around the shrine. At the moment, the old well house is going to need a new roof soon, and the garden out front needs to be replanted and weeded." She rattled off the pre-memorized speech distractedly. Something about Adrian unsettled her. In the back of her mind she knew exactly why, but she wasn't quite ready to admit it yet. Especially on today of all days.
"The room's fully furnished, as is the bathroom, and you'll be eating with my family, but you will need clothes. I assume they're all at your uncles house except what your wearing, right?"
Her only response was a pair of folded arms, a chin stuck in the air, and a small "Keh." She knew the gesture only too well. Kagome strode over to the room's closet, pausing before the closed door. She surveyed the innocent looking slab of wood, composing and bracing herself for the memories, until she felt Adrian's presence behind her. She slowly opened it, unable to stall any longer.
The few outfits inside it were completely ordinary at first glance. They were such that any teenage boy would wear outside of school, inconspicious, for anyone except the pale faced girl looking at them. She had stopped, her hand poised over a green Franz Ferdinand t-shirt, not quite able to pick up the garments that had hung untouched for a little over a year. Noticing her hesitation, Adrian took matters into his own hands. He reached out towards a golden yellow Hollister t-shirt, with an almost transparent white and gold pinstriped western shirt hung over it. "I like this one the best. Can I use it until-" Kagome couldn't move, couldn't speak.
"NO!" she cried, snatching the shirt out of his hands. She slowly sank to the floor, cradling the shirt, burying her head in it so he wouldn't see the tears streaming down her face. It was THE shirt. The shirt she had spent hours shopping for, just for him. It was his first article of "modern" clothing, and it had always been his favorite. She didn't even have to ask him to change before they went into town he liked it so much. He had worn it one their first and only "real" date, just a week before he had died in her arms. She remembered how closely it had matched his eyes, and how his hair was the same color as the stiching. Somehow, someway, his comforting smell still clung to the fabric, woodsy, smokey, evergreen all at the same time. She sobbed on and on, not seeing Adrian's horrified expression.
Naraku had attacked first. He grew tired of waiting, and went after the 4 warriors at his leisure, and his first strike just "happened" to fall on the night of the new moon, when Sango and Miroku were nursing their wounds in Kaede's village, 50 miles away, and both Inuyasha and Kagome were recovering from a previous battle. He had lost many of his jewel shards in a battle, and figured he'd kill two birds with one stone.
Naraku took his time, laughing softly, then increasingly louder as Inuyasha parried with him, slowed by both his wounds and weaker human state, unable to attack effectively because the Tetsusaiga refused to transform. Kagome could only watch on in horror, transfixed and paralyzed by fear.
Naraku was not content to simply kill Inuyasha, he wished for him to suffer. He would not grant him peace quite yet. His beady eyes caught on the girl. A smile spread over his thin lips as he glanced back at Inuyasha. His black hair was matted with blood, his left arm hanging useless, the bicep muscle severed, crimson dripping from his fingertips. Covered in too many deep gashes to count, a dark trail marking his progress, his sword shaking, it was an enormous fight to simply keep standing as blood loss began to take it's toll. Without even a premptive speech reflecting the deep scorn he felt for his victims (this had afterall, been his downfall before), he went for the young priestess.
Without even time to duck, time to think, she closed her eyes and braced herself. She imagined she was in shock, as she could not yet feel the pain, but the warm blood seeping through her shirt was proof enough that she had been wounded. She slowly opened her eyes, expecting the worse, and her soul shattered as she realized it was much more terrible than she had ever thought.
Inuyasha stood in front of her, in all his wild glory, Naraku's many appendages piercing him. His torso, arms, legs, nothing was spared except for his face. He glanced back at Kagome and smiled as Naraku retracted his weapons. It couldn't have been more than 30 seconds, but already a dark pool had formed beneath him. He smiled once more, and mouthed the words, "You'll be okay." at her, then attacked. It was the single most tragic thing she had ever seen.
Hours before the sunrise, with no hope of a last minute transformation saving them, he ran towards his adversary for the last time. He no longer made any effort to dodge his blows. Perhaps he already knew this was the end, and grasped that he might as well take Naraku with him. He no longer felt the pain. Only by throwing his caution, his safety, his very life away was he able to break through Naraku's many defenses, no longer aware or caring about the wounds be afflicted on him, and those already there. He fought in top form in spite of everything, desperation giving him new speed.
It was over in an instant. Inuyasha lept up, driving his tetsusaiga deep into the center of Naraku's trademark scar. The demon's face contorted in rage for the briefest moment before bursting into dust. Inuyasha landed lightly on his feet, looking completely normal for a small moment, and began to walk back towards Kagome. Each step became harder than the last, and only by using his sword to support him was he able to make it. He stopped in front of her, fighting to remain standing for just a moment more, then collapsed into her arms. They sunk to the ground together.
'How can anyone lose this much blood!' Flit across the girls mind. "Inuyasha!" Kagome breathed, hysterical. He grabbed her gaze desperately, and held it until she began to calm.
"Kagome. I'm not going to live to see sunset tommorow. I need to talk while I'm still able to. So just listen for a few minutes, okay?" She could only manage a small sob as she clung to him, tears running unchecked down her cheeks.
"Kagome, I've always loved you, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't say it before now, and that I'm leaving you all alone, or how I couldn't see how you were the only one I truly loved earlier. I know that you thought I loved Kikyo, not you, and I'm sorry I could never get up the courage to set you straight, make that first move, or just talk to you without getting embarrassed. I'm sorry I didn't spend every minute of every day cherishing you the way I should have, and I'm sorry I didn't let you go because you deserve someone so much better than a withdrawn, moody halfbreed. I'm sorry I never kissed you. I understand if you don't forgive me though, you have every right to, after what I put you through." An infinite wisdom, tinged with desperation and a feeling that made her knees weak, they all played in his violet eyes.
"Inuyasha. I forgive you- How could I not? Because, I love you too." Tears now ran down both their faces.
"Your birthday's tommorow...two years since you first met me...Present on bed." His speech lapsed now, the pauses growing longer and the words more incoherent. "Was I a good present...looking back?" She knew what he meant.
"The best I'll ever have." She replied, totally truthfully.
"I don't have much time...bodies giving up. Soul will leave. I'll find you...I swear. Wait?" His eyes were beginning to get glassy, but the question burned in them all the same. He was fighting valiently.
"I'll wait for you forever. I swear Inuyasha- I'll wait for you." He smiled, satisfied. With a colossal effort he reached up and pulled her down to his level.
"I love you." He whispered in her ear. The kiss was glorious, even if it was brief, even if she could taste his blood, even when she felt his soul leave his body.
Inuyasha managed to hang on for another day, not quite ready to give up entirely. Reverting back to his hanyou state allowed that, but he didn't wake up and he didn't heal. He was too far gone, and you can only heal so much. Kagome never left his side, stroking his hair and saying good bye, saying all the things she never had the courage to. She knew he would hear them somehow. Eventually the time came, and in the bright, cheery light of the sunny afternoon, in such sharp contrast with the battlefield around them and the dieing hanyou in her lap, he gave his last breath. His eyes snapped open as it left his body, and they darted to the sky for a moment, one last look to take with him. But they quickly darted to Kagome's face, and he smiled once more. He knew what the last thing he wanted to see was. His eyes remained on her as his heart stopped beating and the life left the amber orbs. She closed them for him and collapsed.
Sango and Miroku found them both shortly afterward. At first they thought they were both dead, but Kagome was technically alive, even if the look in her eyes was no longer living. Kilala flew his body back to Kaede's village, and the hanyou was given a funeral in grand style. Perhaps he would have felt embarrassed at so much attention, but they all felt he deserved the honor. As a last tribute to their friend, the demon slayer and monk built a funeral pyre at the foot of the sacred tree while Kagome cleaned him up. All three placed him upon it, no longer bloody, hair shining, his sword he lived and died by clasped in his hands. Only one thing didn't fit. He still smiled as he went up in a blaze of glory.
"It was strange," Sango would later remark, "at how Kagome didn't cry the entire time." When she asked her only reply was, "He'll be back, he'll find me. He promised." and that was all they could get from the grieving girl. And so she left the feudal era, the jewel shards entrusted to Sango and Miroku, the bottle now filled with ashes and a single lock of molten silver. A photo album laid, waiting for her, on her bed. All the pictures she had taken, drawn, had drawn for her, flowers she had picked. All carefully put together in one little book by clawed hands, perhaps unconciously knowing that he was giving her something to remember him by.
Somehow, Adrian managed to pry the shirt away from Kagome, hanging it back up carefully. As he stared at her sobbing on the floor of his new bedroom, he saw her too, sobbing on a bloody battlefield, covered in even more blood. He sunk down to her level, and wrapped his arms around her, softly, naturally, without really thinking about it. She sobbed into his chest, and his shirt got rather wet, but he didn't mind at all.
A/N: I can't say that I cried when I wrote this, because that would be a lie, but I hope it is about the only way that Inuyasha could have gone out. I can't picture him as an old married man surrounded by grandchildren with cute little ears- could you? Anywho- review or else. Maybe I'll let my horse have a piece of you. He bucked me off the other day. examines various bruised limbs He may look innocent- but it's all a facade.