Forgiven's Not Forgotten – In My Lover's Arms
Perhaps, in the end, I am never to know a moment's peace. The last one I can remember happening occurred when I was around the tender age of fourteen years and three hundred and sixty four days.
Been quite a while, no?
Never mind that – Bemoaning my past isn't realistic. Or is it? I don't know, in fact I don't want to know. My goals are not focused on then, the then of. . . My family.
Damn. I can't. . . Think of them right now.
I need hold of what sanity I have left. Then again, was I ever really sane?
There is one question that bears no asking, and most certainly no answering.
"Inuyasha?" His arms tighten around my shoulders, which is actually not what I need right now. I want a semblance of normality, not. . . This somewhat sudden change in heart. Of heart. Or something.
"Hn?"
"Could you please blush or something? This is a bit unnerving."
Ah. That did the trick. He releases me, falling backward with his silvered bangs falling over his face and eyes. I see he has taken my suggestion to heart quite readily, though my mind isn't resting on this fact for long.
"Inuyasha?" I call out again, receiving a grunt in reply. "What if it's the Shikon no Tama?"
He speaks, if gruffly. "What the hell are you talking about, bitch?"
My eyes narrow, but I let the comment pass. This, now, this was more normal to me.
"Nothing. . . " Even as I say this, I know that I am lying. My hand, as if under the control of another, travels to the few shards I hold in my personal possession at the moment. Three there are. They say that all good things come in threes.
They say the same for the bad.
I suppose if I were to go back through the ages I would find that for everything there is a number. Even for the Shikon no Kakera that rested in the hands of friends, enemies, and family across the countryside. I wonder what it might be, what it might. . . Mean. As the most powerful purification force in the past at the moment, I-
Wait. Backtrack a moment. Purification. That is what I do. Yet how does this work? I haven't really thought about this before – Everything was too alien and too far-fetched for much sense to be made concerning the logical reasoning (if there was any) behind my 'mystical' powers. If I purify, then. . .
Water. How do you purify water? This is an easy question with an easy answer. To purify water, you run it through a filter, which collected all the impurities letting the water flow through renewed. My gods. . . A filter. Eventually, filters needed to be replaced, as they become too sullied to continue on as they had before. "I'm a. . . Filter. Chikuso. . . " I murmur under my breath, unaware I do so. Now all the little things that had cumulated to my understanding of my change form a part in a larger puzzle.
It seems that fate has played quite the little trick on us.
Kikyou and Inuyasha really were doomed from the start.
…The thought makes me inexplicably sad.
So introverted I am at the time that it isn't until Inuyasha's hand is tugging at the collar of my shirt that I realize he has come forward again. Irritated for no reason, perhaps the interruption of my own thought processes, I absently slap his hand away.
He ostensibly puts it back.
Silence. "What. . . Exactly. . . Do you think you're doing?" I could think of several things, but name-calling was not my own calling. . . And if therein lies a pun it is not intended.
"Something that I should have done a whole lot sooner."
Ever get that feeling when you're slipping into an ice-cold bath after a long journey, and you don't know wether to shiver in cold or joy? Truth be told, I only have because of my journeying here in the past, but standing here is giving me much the same feeling. "W-What?"
He doesn't bother to voice a reply, though I give him credit for grunting. I do not, however, give him any credit for being able to have me pinned to the ground in under an eye-blink when I attempt to make good my attempt at escaping. The shivers have gotten a bit too much for me to handle.
They have apparently merely gotten on Inuyasha's nerves, frayed as they already were.
Frayed as my clothing now was.
I'll never be wearing this fuku again, even if I want to. Not that I do, no, not that at all.
Sometimes it's easiest to lie to oneself.
At other's you don't even want to pretend. "Get off of me, you clumsy oaf!"
"At least your language has improved," he manages to say, none too tenderly handling the shoulder Sango, with all her good intentions, had mentioned to be mysteriously bruised. I really must get around to telling her some day that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. . . Though she does, perhaps, know as much about one of the seven hells as I do.
"Like hell it has," I manage to state, moving around as much as I can, as violently as I can.
Big mistake on my part, as my movements tweak my shoulder and sorrily enough cause me to screech out in pain.
Saying Inuyasha is none too impressed by the half muffled exclaimation of pain I am producing – I shouldn't expect him to be – Is an understatement. After all, if I am in that much pain, I am hurt in his eyes. How to explain I'm just not much for, oh, let's see. . . A glutton for punishment?
"Stay still already," he growls, and I growl in return. And then scream.
Blackness.
I can see it everywhere.
Not black enough to be night… No, there is light that dances in patterns across my eyes.
Then what?
Waking?
Yes, it is that, though not a pleasant waking. My head pounds, feeling as if someone had dragged burning nails through my flesh. My chest, breasts, and belly burn as nothing else, and my mouth… I open and gasp for breath with the aching cavity of my mouth.
Murmurs, yes – I hear murmurs. Who? I know… Sango. No, wait, Miroku. No, Sango. No, that's Inuyasha. And wait – Shippou? I groan, my eyes opening.
"She's awake," Miroku states, eyes bleeding kindness. And some strange pity.
"Kagome-chan," Sango says, kneeling by my head and taking my hand in her own. "How are you feeling?"
I try to speak, but my words slur, my mouth is dry. "Hurt," I manage, cringing as my stomach sends fire-hot pains up through my body.
I can't see Inuyasha. I smell him, I heard him, but I can't see him.
As if sensing this, he moves into my line of vision. He doesn't speak. He looks… Strange.
Miroku lays his beaded hand over my forehead, depressing the pain there. "Kagome," he says softly, "Do you know what's going on?"
I want to say no, that I have no idea, that all I feel and think of is the pain, but then I know that is not the truth. I can still remember what I said before, or thought, before I blacked out, passed out, whatever it was. "Fil…ter…"
Miroku nods, and Sango speaks. "Filter? Filter what?"
"I," I begin, trying, striving to finish. "I… Filter…"
"That explains the antanae," Miroku states, sighing. Inuyasha glares down at him.
"What does?"
Miroku motions to me, and I await the answer as much as any other in camp. Kirara wanders over, sticking to Sango's side. "Kagome… Has been changing. We all know this." I know I do. "But I couldn't figure out why. I believed that Kagome… Having undergone these… Changes… Would know, or at least guess at, the why. The how."
His forehead furrows. "Kagome says 'filter'. We know she purifies the jewel… And I believe she is saying that she acts as a filter… For the evil in the jewel."
A pause.
And I understand.