Forgiven's Not Forgotten – Bend In The River
"I want to be alone." My voice is grating and raspy. My teeth ache, pressing against the soft flesh of my inner lips. I can feel my elongated canines. I feel so much, pain, sensation, everything is overwhelming. I must be alone.
"Kagome-chan…" Shippou's concern washes over me as a wave of salt, pouring into my open, if invisible, wounds.
"Alone," I repeat, wishing they could understand and glad none of them could. "Please! Just… Alone."
Miroku pauses, the concern radiating from his body, the purity of what he stood for (if not his actions) a cool brush of air against the burning that my body has become. He looks about to speak before Sango shakes her head and they turn to leave, a firm hand on Shippou. I sense Inuyasha near me, and I won't meet his gaze.
His repulsed gaze.
The smallest movement of air over leaves above sends jarring pains into my skull. Inuyasha steps toward me, and in defensive reflex my hands fly up, covering my ears. My sensitive, furry, slightly misplaced ears.
He is fighting for words but his body says everything. He can be dishonest in words, but Inuyasha never lies with his body. "I know you," he says. I read him as a book. "I am scared of you."
Not scared enough.
"Didn't you hear me?"
"Kagome, I-"
"If it's enough, already, Inuyasha, then go." Frustration builds in the hollow of my chest, a rough energy with no release or tangibility. "Get it through your thick skull, Inuyasha. I want to be-"
He's gone. So much for stubborn. And to think I once believed Inuyasha could never back down from a good fight.
Why do I feel let down?
The pains aren't as shooting now. I am burning up, too warm under the blankets that had been lain over me in care. Too weak to stand, to restless to lay back. I sit up, closing my eyes and being shocked as a red afterglow dances across my inner lids. Movement. Heat. I look – it's the fire.
Ah. So I'm heat sensitive now.
The first sensation other than pain lurks at the back of my mind. I itch on my finger tips, underneath the nail beds. I scratch without thinking, then I bring my hands close to my face to examine them.
I've seen these hands before. On Inuyasha – on any youkai found in human form. A milky-steel claw, sharp to the touch, pushing my old calcium nails right out. Oh, how they itch!
I force myself to stop, tearing my eyes from my nails to notice the thicker pads on my palms, the strange patterns on the inside of my arm. I run one fingertip across my skin, seeing it become clear. Scales. Snake scales, soft, small and fine, on the inside of my arms. How far? I peer down my shirt and swallow. Larger here, but down my front. Still skin-toned, but I know in the core of my being this will change the longer I stay.
How in hell could I go home now? Even if there was a home, even if…
The if's are not worth considering. I pool my energy, forcing myself to my feet and finding what once passed as clothing sliding right off my shoulders and puddling around my still-human toes. How curious. In the light of this fire I seem to glow with an iridescent sheen. A translucent rainbow of monstrosity.
The new me.
I'm forgetting something. The result, this change, this unwanted shift… The shards! Where are they? My eyes fly to what I think is my backpack when I register an unfamiliar pressure around my neck. I grab it, finding a leather thong, and a pouch. The cool energy, a sweet, alluring call, caresses my palm. The relief of the shards smooths over my discovery of a ruff of fur around my neck. I don't want to explore to where it extends.
The hunger returns. I glance skyward, noticing in subdued shock the moon is different than I recall. How long have I been lost in the dark? The moon shines above me so small now, a sliver of a promise.
A promise of blood.
Naraku's.
Maybe I should worry about this hatred, but it fuels me. My hand tightens around the pouch with the three lonely shards, calling for their help. "Find them," I wish, hoping, "Find them for me."
Nothing.
Minutes of intense concentration, and nothing.
My eyes slam shut, and I start focusing on only the shards. Their voices, calls of power and purity and lust. Remnants of past evils and goods and intentions.
A faint reply, to the south. A wicked grin splits my face.
Bingo.
Motion to my left breaks my concentration. The signal is lost, and the frustration returns as I whirl around, facing… Nothing.
I feel dawn coming on as I search around me for the perpetrator of movement. No one.
Except…
"Do you understand the meaning of alone?" My eyes, simple blue, part the limbs of the trees as I crane my head backward, finding the faintest hint of the familiar form I have fallen in love with despite everything I know. Inuyasha, again.
Forever not mine.
He refuses to move, as if staying still will make me wrong.
I wonder…
With a crash, I land hard on my thigh. My attempt to leap has not met with success this time. Unless success comes in a red robe with white ears. Almost before I knew I was falling, I felt him there.
I feel him here now, kneeling next to me. Staring at me in what would have been lewd just days before. Now me, nude, is scary. Is inhuman.
Is unbearable.
"Don't look at me," I plead. The fire, the rage for Naraku has burned low, leaving me cold and hollow, lost and hoping. "Please, god, don't look at me!"
He frowns and doesn't listen. His eyes, those amber orbs, stare at me, all of me, without holding back. "Where does it hurt, Kagome?" His voice is steady, unexpected from my vibrant hanyou.
I feel myself slipping, feel the tears welling up in my eyes – only to realize there is no water. Then his hand brushes my shoulder, and the pain I have been denying takes hold, tearing at my heart. I burst into sobs, dry, pained, wracking sobs, struggling to sit up, to get up and away. To run away.
Inuyasha won't let me. He is faster and stronger and familiar as he does the first mature thing I recall in a long while. Forcing me to stay seated, he holds me, and tells me to let it go.
Maybe a month.
Time to start letting go.
I have no idea how long I cry, this strange, wordless, tearless fit where the pain is so emotional it tears my heart, leaving me feeling as if I should be dying, dying as so many in this time, as so many were right now across the world. And in this same instant, I want to live more strongly than ever before.
"I know where he is, Inuyasha." My voice is steady, small. "I want to kill him. I will kill him."
He isn't replying. I feel sick to my stomach, starting to shake with a mixture of the grief, shock, and rage. He isn't replying.
And then, the darkness. Not again. Dear lord, not...