Theme: Death Blow
Word Count: 285
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A fate worse than death.
When Inuyasha felt metal and then wood force its way through skin to pierce muscle, bone and finally his own racing heart in that one searing moment, the last thing he expected to feel was relief. He had expected more of the same emotions since that morning: betrayal, hurt, anger. He felt all of those things and something more inexplicable. Finally, after all these months she had executed the move she should have from the moment they first met. Of course it was too good to be true. Really she had only shown him that he had been right all along. But somehow, he thought maybe he still loved her.
Doomed.
And then he felt his soul fade into immense white light or endless darkness; he couldn't decide. Just as in life, how he had neither been wholly human nor demon, he found a mixture waiting for him called death. As the gray washed over him, encompassing him like a tangible mist, he felt his body set as if slowly turned to stone in the process, the muscles suddenly straining painfully, fruitlessly under immobile skin. He felt panicked, helpless to so much as flutter his eyelids and unwilling still to give in.
Time doesn't exist here.
It could have been seconds or an eternity. All that mattered was the present—this struggle that he could never hope to win. And then later he learned the truth: he had been in agony for 50 years before she rescued him.
Kagome asked him once if he had dreamed at all during that time. He didn't have the heart to tell her what it was really like. Or maybe he couldn't face what Kikyou had done to him, meant for him knowingly with that final blow. A fate worse than death.
"I don't remember."