LX
Nil Desperandum

Minutes pass, then hours. Still, Kouga has only questions, no answers. He sits in the beautiful rooms that Kagome has stayed in, holds in his arms and counts her breaths. He listens to her heartbeat, slow pulses; he wonders if she is dreaming or awake under the spell of some dark power.

"Kagome...Kagome wake up. Can you hear me, Kagome?"

No response, no shift in her sleeping breaths, the rhythm of her being. Nothing changes, as nothing has changed for hours.

He lifts his eyes from Kagome's face and turns to observe the hanyou, sitting with his own creature, attending to her as closely as he attends to Kagome. There is something awkward in the young Inu's movements, something strained about the way his eyes have fixated on those features, human in seeming even if they are not.

Occasionally, Kouga sees those golden eyes stray to Kagome's face - wonder in them, and questions, and confusion, and greed.

Kouga understands everything, even the last. He has his suspicions about the nature of the creature that is the hanyou's companion. He can smell the odor of death, ashes and bones – he can smell, too, the power of shikon no tama. He is used to it; it is Kagome's scent as much as it is the scent of the gem.

He suspects magic, a reanimated being – he does not know the method or the maker of such powers, but he has heard of them and other things...stranger things. That she looks like Kagome, this Kikyou – it could be coincidence but he thinks not.

He thinks it is something to do with the way they looked at each other, the way they look like each other that has caused this crisis.

He thinks the hanyou's greed is because Kagome has a heartbeat. Kagome is alive.

If only she will stay that way -

"Kagome...please wake up, Kagome."

Darkness.

Deep breaths.

One...Two...Three...

It's very cold here.

So Very Warm.

I wonder if Kouga is waiting for me. I wonder...where I am?

Inuyasha?

Darkness -

Deep Breaths.

"Kagome...please wake up, Kagome -"

Kagome?

Who Is...Kagome?

I know that voice.

"Kagome wake up!"

But who is -

I am Kagome!

Like ice shattering – the truth. The blackness, splintered by a single fragment of right. The voice of her own thoughts is in Kagome, and with it is some other voice, but she knows. She knows herself, and she remembers claiming herself.

With all her will, with everything she is, Kagome pushes back the darkness.

Strain.

Strain against the night -

Together!

The other voice is with her, voice of a stranger, familiar as the heat of her own blood. Kouga's voice is with her, warmth and strength and power.

"Kagome!"

She sucks in a breath that stabs her lungs like fire, deep and sharp and quick. She opens her eyes and sees Kouga's face above her, his mouth still open on the last syllable of her name. Nothing has ever been so welcome to her as that fire and the look of him, love and panic – all for her.

She breathes out, and then in again. The fire passes, and she feels a tingling on her skin that passes too - then a warmth that doesn't, Kouga's hands passing over her, touching her everywhere, everywhere, her cheeks, her arms, her legs, her back, her hair.

"Kagome – Kagome are you -"

"I'm fine, Kouga."

Kagome turns, and sees the woman whose face had accompanied her into unconsciousness – her own face, only slightly changed. Beside her is an Inu-hanyou, and in an instant a thousand memories flash across Kagome's thoughts.

Inuyasha-

Inuyasha...

INUYASHA!

The name rushes in her consciousness, echoes upon echoes. Kagome presses her hands against her ears, recoils back against Kouga's body, squeezes her eyes shut as if she can block out the noises – but they are coming from inside her own head. They are coming from everywhere and nowhere, memories not her own, only recently gained.

Kouga shelters her in his arms, but he cannot protect her from this. Only a single thought streams through her consciousness, a plea with spirits or gods unknown.

Please, please if I could only think, if I could just hear myself think – if I could just make it go away, please, make it go away, I wish I could make it go away -

Silence, within and without.

Slowly, she pulls her hands aware from her ears. Slowly, she looks up from where she has hunched over, curled into Kouga, and turns her eyes a little at a time in the direction of the hanyou.

Inuyasha.

She thinks the name carefully. Within her are bright flashes, but all are subdued, indistinct, no longer a howl of words and images.

"Kagome?"

Kouga's voice is low and full of worry.

"Sorry -"

A woman's voice interrupts Kagome's apology.

"How did you do that?"

Kagome watches Kikyou push herself to her feet using Inuyasha's arm. She is shaking, pale – her eyes are brown and Kagome thinks how strange it is to see her own face with such dark eyes.

"How did – what did I do, Kikyou-san?"

"How did you stop the noise?"

"You heard it too!"

"Kagome."

"But you stopped it."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure how – I just really, really didn't want to hear it anymore. That hurt -"

"Kagome!"

She turns back to Kouga and smiles.

"What is it, Kouga? I'm all right now -"

He is giving her the strangest look she has ever seen on his face.

"Kagome – how do you know that woman? How do you know her name?"

Kagome blinks, turns to look at Kikyou for a moment and then shrugs.

"I've never met her before today, but now I know everything about her. I think...I think I used to be her."

"You...used to...what?"

It is Kikyou who answers, while Kagome only smiles and nods.

"That girl – Kagome is my reincarnation. She and I share the same essence, the same soul. Still...we are not the same. No, I do not think we are the same."

Kikyou steps forward, sways a little without Inuyasha's support, then steadies herself.

"Five hundred years is a long, long time. What is it that you are becoming, to be so different from me?"

Kagome flushes and shrugs again, turns her face away.

"I don't – I don't know what you mean!"

"Of course you do. I know what you know, I know there are shards of shikon no tama in your flesh, I know you brought it here, and how..."

Kikyou smiles faintly.

"This is the same way that you know everything of me, is that not so?"

Kagome matches that smile, but uneasiness is creeping up on her despite it.

Inuyasha is staring at her, gold eyes so familiar, expression so full of...something. What is it? It is almost like the way that Kouga looks at her, but something is wrong about it – something...is just not right.

She leans against Kouga, feels his arms come around her, and closes her eyes.

He leans down to press his cheek against her cheek, speaks softly enough that she can barely hear him.

"I was worried, Kagome. I thought I was losing you."

Kagome turns her lips to his mouth, kisses him gently.

"Kouga. You won't lose me, not if I can help it."

A/N: Tada! Not quite daily updates I know, but I'm SO doing better! Teehee. Today's chapter title, "Nil Desperandum", translates to "never despair". In case it isn't clear, the bits in bold italics are Kikyou's thoughts, and the regular italics are Kagome's in the bits that seem like mind melding. So! Kagome's awake, Kikyou's awake, they have each other's memories and Kouga does not like Inuyasha...any more than Inuyasha likes him. Coming Soon: the Nekomata of the North, and other such Terrible Beasts!

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