Mirrored Future
By Amazonian21
Chapter 9
Recap: He cared for the girl and wanted her safe. He wanted her with him. He wanted to see her smile and to have her acting so free and careless when he was around. He wanted her to make it okay for him not to be in control of everything, for it to be okay to feel something aside from rage, to think in ways that weren't solely cold and calculating.
He wanted the miko to live, and that could not happen if the dead miko was left free to cause more damage. Tonight it would end. It would be put right, and as soon as his brother left, he would be the one to do it.
Sesshoumaru moved slowly through the underbrush until he was positioned in such a way that he could watch the proceedings in front of him. He needed to keep an eye on the proceedings so he could confront the dead miko as soon as his brother left her.
At the moment, his half brother stood face to face with the witch, arms wrapped around her ina parody of a warm embrace. He had his arms wrapped securely around her middle, attempting to draw her in near. She would have been drawn into his chest, had she allowed it. As it was, Kikyou seemed to be leaning slightly away from InuYasha even as he leaned in closer to compensate. The tension between their forms could have cut glass. For a couple destined to go to hell together, they sure seemed unpleasantly estranged.
The hanyou's face wore an expression of resigned despair, love, and beseeching. His eyes never left her face, even though she gave him nothing warm to look at. The miko's gaze stayed glued to the ground, the stars, or InuYasha's haori. She did not look him in the eye, and would not look on him with any measure of affection, but neither did she bother to hate him. She seemed neither pleased nor displeased to be held so passionately by her former love. It was as though she merely tolerated his presence for the moment, hoping to get the encounter she'd expected over with as soon as possible.
Her eyes were cold and distant. Even Sesshoumaru, master of all that was aloof and dispassionate, found her countenance especially foreboding. It was just so unnatural. InuYasha was an ignorant and useless half breed, but he always managed to inspire some sort of response from everyone he met. This woman, who supposedly loved him, didn't seem to care if he stayed or left.
So far his hanyou brother's inferior senses hadn't detected his presence in the forest behind him. Sesshoumaru was downwind, and there stirred no errant breeze to give his location away. The miko, on the other hand, seemed to tense minutely. Her senses must have picked up traces of his youkai. She said nothing, however, and made no move to acknowledge him.
Sesshoumaru wondered at that, having expected to be cursed for eavesdropping. The miko, however, seemed to have no intention of stopping him from hearing all that was being said. She did not hold this most private of moments in any high regard. It was not secret or sacred to her.
Sesshoumaru's sensitive hearing could just pick out the words his brother was saying to Kikyou, whispered urgently into her uncaring ears.
"Kikyou, why won't you look at me? We've found the last of the shards. It will be over soon. I'll kill Naraku and we'll be free!" he said, shaking the impassive miko slightly. He couldn't stand that she wouldn't relax, wouldn't respond to him. He didn't expect her to shout for joy or to hug him. Kagome would have, but Kikyou was way too serious for displays like that.
He did, however, want her to at least tell him what she was thinking. When Naraku was dead, they could go on with their lives. They could live the way they'd dreamed of living, before things started going so wrong in the past.
"Things will be all right again," InuYasha said earnestly, trying to infuse her with some enthusiasm, as if his will alone could accomplish that.
"What do you expect will come of this?" Kikyou asked lowly. She didn't raise her face to meet InuYasha's glance. She didn't raise her voice or inject any feeling into her words. She asked him this question as if she didn't much care about the answer one way or the other.
"Naraku will die and we'll…" InuYasha began, unsure of how to phrase his expectations. He'd promised himself to Kikyou. He'd hurt Kagome inadvertently for over four years now, staying steadfast in his loyalty and dedication to a miko who'd died, always knowing that it was his destiny to be with the woman he'd first loved. Why was Kikyou pretending not to understand what he expected?
"We'll live happily ever after?" she finished. If her voice had held any inflection it would have been a sneer. She finally raised her head to look at InuYasha as she stepped forcefully out of his grasp. "You think that's a possibility for us at this point in time?
"You do not deserve anything from me," Kikyou told the shocked hanyou, traces of ire seeping into her words. "You've betrayed me over and over, in every moment we've shared, under every circumstance. There is no true love between us."
"How the hell can you say that!" InuYasha yelled, balling his hands into fists at his side. He'd be damned if he'd let Kikyou dismiss all of his sacrifice just because she still held bitterness in her heart. She had died bitter, she'd been resurrected bitter, and she'd stayed bitter, even when Kagome had sucked herself dry to raise Kikyou's body from death once more. Could she never change?
"I've given up every chance of happiness I've ever found, just to stay true to you!" InuYasha yelled, feeling the weight of a thousand choices, all leading to this point, all weighing him down with the heaviest of destinies. Had he really been so wrong?
"I'm going to get dragged down to hell, giving up my life and my freedom, just because of you, bitch! And you're trying to make me sound like some faithless bastard?" He was confused, hurt, and enraged. What did he have to do to get a break? Tear out his own eye?
"You haven't done any of this for me," Kikyou spat bitterly. "I know you haven't given in to my reincarnation's many charms," she continued, a mocking tone to her voice. "I know you've been so noble and selfless, keeping her at arm's length all these years. But you've just used me as an excuse," Kikyou accused.
"That's not true!" InuYasha yelled, hurt that Kikyou would toss aside his restraint as if it meant nothing. Deep down he'd always known that if he'd wanted, he and Kagome could have been much more than friends. It was only the memory of the miko in front of him that had restrained him.
"Oh, but it is," Kikyou said earnestly. She had seen much in her personal travels over the years. She knew her reincarnation as well as she knew her own self. She knew the goodness and kindness that resided in the body that held her old soul. She'd seen the way Kagome and InuYasha interacted, and knew that whatever reason the hanyou had for leaving her counterpart without any security, it had nothing to do with her. Not really. He just clung to her memory through fear of an uncertain future. His failure to find comfort and contentment with the living miko wasn't because he mourned the loss of a perfect love in his other life. It was his own personal issue, and she no longer felt like getting written off as an excuse.
"You'll let me drag your body down to hell," she said, bringing her emotions down to a deadened state, worn from using up so much of her passion, "but you have no love to give me. Your body and soul will be mine, but I'll never have your heart."
"No one else has my heart!" InuYasha said wildly. He didn't understand what Kikyou was saying! He'd never allowed himself to relax in anyone's presence enough to really, truly fall in love. He'd denied himself so much, pushed so many people away, missed so many opportunities for happiness, and Kikyou was saying he hadn't done it for her. Who else would it have been for?
"Exactly," Kikyou said, turning her back on InuYasha fully. She knew he would be confused, just as she knew he would overlook everything she had said tonight, repressing it in the back of his mind to mull over at a later date. If there was something he couldn't solve with action, he would ignore it until he could pull it out privately and worry it like a bone.
Sure enough, she felt InuYasha draw up close behind her, wrapping his arms around her front.
"The last battle will be soon," she said, standing stiffly. She would not resist the embrace, but neither would she relax into it. "When it is over, I will take care of some personal business."
"Do you mean killing Naraku?" InuYasha asked into her hair. He was prepared to assure the miko in front of him that he would destroy the evil hanyou himself, once and for all.
"Naraku does not have anything that I am missing," Kikyou whispered softly. InuYasha's ears conveniently decided not to pick up the traces of her answer. He didn't want to understand the implications of the statement. Everyone knew that Kikyou was sustained by a piece of Kagome's soul, the part that held all her love and hate for InuYasha from her past life. Without the remaining pieces, she would never be complete. Her life on earth, such as it was, would always be a shadow and mockery of true life. Feeding off the souls of the dead, operating with nothing except old feelings of love and loathing…
InuYasha would not realize that the woman he had sworn to love would need to absorb the soul of the woman he had sworn to protect in order to regain a semblance of humanity. He could not believe her capable of such devious behavior.
Sesshoumaru, however, had no such mental blocks against the truth.
The miko was planning on killing Kagome. This idea was nothing new to Sesshoumaru; he'd already seen the future where Kikyou had shot Kagome, unprovoked and underhandedly. The hanyou, however, being Kagome's sworn protector, should have been much more willing to see the what was right in front of his face. If the future wherein Kagome was killed at Kikyou's hand were to come true, it would be partly InuYasha's fault for failing to stop the undead miko when he'd had the chance.
Sesshoumaru would not fail, even if his bastard brother would be too weak to succeed. He was sick of seeing his brother's blindness and the miko's self pitying bitterness and anger. A creature such as she should never have the chance to ruin a creature like Kagome. It was unnatural. He would end this abomination tonight, before the moon rose in the sky.
"We can be happy," InuYasha was whispering desperately into Kikyou's hair. "We can be free."
"No," she returned coldly, "it is not our time anymore. There is too much past. There's too much presence. And there's just not enough future. After a certain point, after some decisions are made, you can never go back. We've passed all the forks of fate that would have led to our happy ending. We're not the same people we were."
"I can't accept that!" InuYasha yelled, pulling away from her to hit a tree fiercely with his fist. Why was she being so cruel? Why was she determined to ignore everything they had been?
Why could she forget the past so easily, when he'd wanted to so badly for ages? Why was she blessed with this cruel capacity for dismissal, when he'd been denied that freedom for four important years?
"There is nothing for you to do," Kikyou said, beginning to walk away. "Soon this farce will end, and we'll go together down to hell. Maybe that's where we were meant to be from the beginning," she said, with cold resignation.
"I won't accept that, Kikyou," InuYasha swore, angry and hurt beyond anything he'd felt before in his life. He'd done all he could, hurt himself and others beyond fairness, beyond reason, and beyond expectation, and now he was being told it wouldn't matter in the end.
"You will soon enough," Kikyou promised. Then, without another word, she walked away, leaving InuYasha behind to make some sense out of what had happened.
Sesshoumaru left just as Kikyou did. He didn't make it a habit to pity his bastard brother, but that confrontation left him feeling something almost like… compassion… for the broken hanyou standing in a moonlit glade.
He would enjoy killing this miko far more than he should.
He stopped a ways away, out of the range of InuYasha's senses. Something told him to stay where he was. He expected that Kikyou would find him.
He wasn't disappointed. Within moments, the dead miko's soul collectors filled the small clearing and swirled around him lazily. The miko herself walked into the clearing a minute later, completely unsurprised to see the cold TaiYoukai waiting for her.
"So you've come to put an end to me?" she asked, without feeling or concern.
"I have," Sesshoumaru stated, drawing his blade slowly, watching the miko's every reaction.
"I won't go easily," she promised him, drawing her own bow from her shoulder. "There is nothing left to my existence except promises and obligations. I will collect what is mine. The miko's soul belongs to me, and I will have it."
"Hn," was all he replied, as he prepared to attack.
He leapt with lazy grace towards the armed miko. He wanted to destroy her, but something held him back from a clean, quick kill. It would have been ultimately safer to end her life before she felt inspired to demonstrate devastating levels of power, but he wasn't ready to put her out of her misery.
Kikyou notched an arrow to her bow and drew back the string with a deft grace. She brought the weapon to her line of sight, steadied herself, and took aim on Sesshoumaru, all in the blink of an eye. She was cool and methodical, strong and sure. She was far superior to Kagome in skill, and yet...
As Sesshoumaru darted in zig zags to throw off the miko's aim, rapidly closing in on her, he noticed that she had a huge hole in her destructive force. Kagome had warded off a massively powerful and vicious youkai all on her own, unarmed and unaided, with just the strength of her inner power.
Kikyou had none of that passion. She had no raw, unrefined reserves to call upon. Even if she did, she lacked the motivation to pull them from the depths of her being. She did not truly desire to act in her own defense. Her life meant nothing, even in her own eyes, because she couldn't find any reason to preserve it. She loved no one, not InuYasha, not herself.
'Who do you love? Who do you protect?'
Sesshoumaru darted around the miko, preparing himself to make the first blow. So far she hadn't loosened any arrows upon him. She would not do anything rashly; all of her shots would count. In this respect, the miko and TaiYoukai were evenly matched. He did not waste energy slashing at her, flinging attack after attack wastefully in her direction. Every move was perfectly choreographed, every breath measured and deliberate.
Taking aim on the center of his being, Kikyou let loose the first bolt. Sesshoumaru easily dodged the arrow, feeling the blazing trail of purification pass by him, inches away. It singed the hairs on his arms and created a tangy taste in his mouth.
He made his own retaliatory swipe with his sword, meaning to take the miko's head off. The miko raised a charged hand to halt his progress, repelling him with the force of her powers.
It continued for a couple of silent minutes in this manner. Sesshoumaru was unafraid. He wouldn't even break a sweat this evening. The miko would ultimately be an easy foe to defeat.
He wasn't sure why she still lived. He should have crushed her in seconds. What was he waiting for? What held him back and made him pull his punches?
"You fight me for my reincarnation, youkai," Kikyou stated coldly, breaking the silence as she continued her half of their deadly dance.
Sesshoumaru was surprised at her attempt to engage him in conversation. They were fighting to her death, afterall. It threw him off momentarily until he decided it was almost be expected. After all, her attempts at self defense had been just as half-hearted as his attacks. Kagome, in a similar position, would have launched many more impressive attacks at this point in the game.
"That is no concern of yours, witch," he replied stoically. He had no desire to discuss his life with clay pots.
"I will die so that she can live," Kikyou said, the ever present bitterness seeping up from her heart to drench all her words. "She will be the cause of my death," she said, mostly to herself.
"You're already dead," Sesshoumaru pointed out impassively. "I'm not killing you tonight. That happened long ago. Several times, in fact. You are the greedy one, hanging on where you are not wanted."
"Hm," Kikyou said disgustedly, sending another arrow his way. He dodged this just as easily as all the others.
"You smell like dirt," Sesshoumaru informed her. He could never resist taunting his opponents. He probably should have been above such antics, but in truth, he wasn't. Their fury and impotent rage never failed to amuse him, even as he destroyed them.
Kikyou's eyes narrowed and her lips pursed in anger. She hated this youkai before her. She hated the way he would kill her without remorse, without grief, without guilt. She hated that when she was gone he wouldn't care, and certainly wouldn't ruin the rest of his life wishing she were still around.
"You are a fool," she countered, lips curling into a sneer. "You love something that was never meant for the likes of you," she said, hating that her reincarnation could inspire such love from all she met, even those who should hate her. Kikyou never had that power. The best she'd gotten from anyone had been respect and fear, InuYasha included.
"That may be so," Sesshoumaru said, swinging his sword in an arc she deflected with her bow.
"I hate her," Kikyou murmured in tones only his sensitive ears would pick up. The lowness created a necessity for Sesshoumaru to strain to catch the words. The effort created an intimate connection between demon and miko, forcing them to block out the external world so that her words could be understood fully. It was a confidence she was sharing, more truthful than any of the usual banter foes make when getting about the business of killing.
"You hate yourself," Sesshoumaru countered, sharing this truth in their perverse and close bond of villain and victim. He didn't know who was who precisely, but could not deny the strength and importance of their temporary relationship.
"She is me. I hate her, so I must hate me," Kikyou said, sagging deeply into herself even as she continued to fight.
"She is not you," Sesshoumaru said with finality. "You are alone in your hatred. Let it die with you."
Kikyou's head snapped up at his words, and she fixed him with a glare of pure malice. Her anger summoned up the first evidence of her legendarily great powers that he'd ever seen. The air crackled with her energy, pink waves licking the air as she prepared to direct the brunt of her attack straight into Sesshoumaru.
The demon lord, however, quickly and calmly brought his sword down in a final arc, slicing through the miko's torso and stilling her bitter heart.
In seconds the purifying energy dissipated, returning to the universe to be recycled as it always had. The air surrounding the still pair calmed and settled, allowing a deep hush to fall on the gruesome scene.
Sesshoumaru stood proud and pitiless over the body of the fallen miko, sword still dripping with her acrid blood. The miko breathed no longer, and the souls her unnatural body contained were no longer trapped in what had become a nightmare of passive aggressive vengeance and emotional destruction.
Sesshoumaru watched as the miko's face relaxed into a true picture of peace. He allowed himself small flights of fancy, imagining that somewhere, the good woman she used to be was thanking him for ending the reign of the monster she'd become. He halted these thoughts soon, however, when the miko's body turned to clay, then to dust, and then blew away in the newly stirring breeze. The time for romance to be wasted on such base material was over.
There was no body left behind. There was no proof of their encounter. Even the blood that had run so freely from his blade was gone, drifting away as ash with the rest of the miko's dusty remains.
He wouldn't have any reason to explain himself or his actions this evening to anyone. InuYasha would never need know.
It was probably wrong to fight your brother's ex girlfriend on behalf of his current female companion without any direct provocation. It was almost certainly morally bankrupt to kill your brother's first love without even telling him about it, leaving her remains to disappear into the wild countryside. It was definitely wicked to be feeling so smug about all of it. And yet, be that as it may, Sesshoumaru was strangely comfortable with all his actions this night. He didn't even blink at the thought of lying to his brother forever, if need be.
He had done what he needed to do. He had done what he had become fated to do, and he would not look back from the course he was fast approaching, wherever it would lead. It was too late to pretend that he could walk away at any point. For better or worse, this wheel was turning and he was caught up in it.
He was now tied forever to the young miko who traveled with his younger brother. Their futures, beginning at the well that fateful night, were not going to part if he had anything to say about it.
Sesshoumaru didn't know exactly what that meant, but he did know one thing for sure; Kagome was his. She owed him a life debt, whether she knew it or not. He found himself smirking at the thought of how he would make her repay it.
A/N: 9,423 views. So that means we'll definitely hit 10,000 before chapter 10, which will coincidentally be the last chapter. So stick figure!
P.S. All you readers (Approximately 500 of you) are horrendously lazy about reviewing. Except those of you who aren't. Your souls are assurred 7 blushing virgins when you die. The rest of you, however, get nothing. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
