Mustering what strength he had left, Inuyasha managed to rise to his knees before losing his balance and sitting back gracelessly against the tree. His head was swimming, and his muscles felt weak and twitchy. The pain in his chest was intense, shooting out through the rest of his body likes arcs of lightning from the arrowhead lodged deep within him. His left arm hung limply even as he strained to raise it. The arrow itself wasn't the root of the problem, for it was Kikyo's formidable spiritual power, channeled through the weapon, that dealt him the most severe harm and rendered his mongrel body so useless.
"Hello, Inuyasha," Kikyo said as she stood over him, her voice as smooth and mild as if she were conversing with him over a meal.
Inuyasha ignored her, struggling to control his own shaking right arm enough to grasp the arrow that pierced him. He sucked in a sharp breath as his hand closed around the shaft. There was the faint sizzle of charring flesh as the arrow's magic burnt into his palm. He grit his teeth as he strained to pull the arrow out, but was forced to give up after a moment's struggle when the flaring pain became overpowering.
Kikyo smiled her soft, knowing smile, kneeling before Inuyasha and examining the wound. Her slender fingers trailed up the arrow's shaft until it disappeared into his chest. Her hands were still red with the blood of the murdered child, and the blood trailed off her fingertips in macabre trails wherever she touched him. Gingerly, with trained precision, she pulled the torn bits of his cloak from the wound.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Inuyasha's voice worked whether or not anything else did, and he practically spat in fury as he barked at her.
"It missed your heart this time," she said matter-of-factly. She looked him in the eyes as she found a grip on the shaft of the arrow. "Because the angle was different, I suspect."
Inuyasha glared at her defiantly.
"Thanks so much for your concern," he growled, feebly trying to bat her hand away. "Now get the hell away from me."
Kikyo's face darkened, and she twisted her wrist ever so slightly. Inuyasha cursed her as the razor sharp arrowhead rotated within him, slicing and snagging flesh. He writhed, trying in vain to pull away from her.
"Be still, Inuyasha" she scolded him. "I shall remove the arrow."
Before Inuyasha could protest further she set one knee on his lap, pressing her chest against his. She lingered in their mock embrace for a moment then threw her weight back sharply, wrenching the arrow out of him. Having been turned inside of him, the arrowhead tore a gout of flesh out with it as it exited his body, leaving him with a gaping, ugly wound. He screamed at her, his body surging forward despite the magical tremors that still wracked it.
"Hush, lest the villagers hear you upon their return."
"To hell with…"
Inuyasha's epithet was cut short as Kikyo reached into her robes and produced a small prayer strip scribed with a spirit ward and placed it on his forehead. It was a testament to Kikyo's former spiritual powers that, even in their corrupt and deteriorating state, the energies within the ward were potent enough to paralyze Inuyasha completely despite his formidable heritage. As his body seized up, Kikyo unceremoniously pushed him over into a nearby patch of undergrowth. She carelessly dropped the soiled arrow next to him as she turned to walk away.
"The girl's parents shall return for her remains shortly. Once I have tended to their grief I will be back to see you, Inuyasha."
*****
Sango set down the hiraikotsu and stretched deliciously. The day had been a long one, spent as it was running a rat demon to ground. The elderly couple who had hired her were destitute in the extreme, due largely to the rat's voracious and repeated assaults upon their grain stores and chickens, so she had accepted the task of slaying the creature for no greater a payment than spending the night in their home. Though the beast was simple enough to kill once forced into a confrontation, it had been late in the evening before Kirara tracked the monster and rooted it out of its hiding place in a long forgotten deadfall.
The old couple was long since asleep when Sango returned, and it was therefore with the utmost care and stealth that she made her way to the mat that they had prepared for her. Their home, more a hut than anything else, consisted of but one room, with little more to it than a table, a modest shrine, and a small hearth.
Not too bad of a life, Sango thought to herself as she curled up on her mat. Kirara quickly nestled in against her, falling asleep almost instantaneously. Sango ran her fingers through Kirara's fur, letting her eyes rest on the elderly pair sleeping nearby. She wondered how many nights they had spent together in this place, how many dawns they had seen side by side. She allowed herself a small smile, and just the slightest bit of jealousy, before she surrendered herself to her exhaustion and let sleep take her.
*****
If not for the gift his father passed onto him in the form of his powerful demonic constitution, Inuyasha would almost certainly have bled to death long before Kikyo returned for him. He felt as is he had been laying in the dirt forever, his body paralyzed as it was by her spirit ward. At one point a passing dog had stopped to sniff him, but otherwise he had gone unmolested for the past several hours. The sun had long disappeared beneath the horizon when Kikyo's scent trickled into his senses. Inuyasha struggled to lift his head as the sound of her footsteps drew near.
"Forgive me, Inuyasha. I had not expected so long of a delay."
There was a long silence, as if she were waiting for him to reply. After a moment, almost as an afterthought, she knelt down beside him and plucked the spirit ward from his forehead. Inuyasha's head spun as his strength rushed back to him, and he was on his feet in an instant.
"You've got a hell of a lot of nerve doing something like that!" Inuyasha couldn't remember the last time he raised his voice to Kikyo, and his throat constricted momentarily as he struggled with the urge to censor himself. After an instant he remembered the circumstances and swore at himself for being so stupid.
Kikyo's impossibly pale skin almost seemed to glow in the moonlight, and she let the corners of her mouth rise into the faintest and most demure of smiles.
"I remember that fire in your voice," she said, rising to her feet. She drew in a long breath, trapping him in her sad eyes. "I've missed you, Inuyasha."
Inuyasha retreated a step, as if he could somehow evade her words. She moved towards him, reaching out almost timidly and curling her fingers in his cloak. Since their last meeting he had thought a thousand times of what he would do if he were to see her again, but as she pressed her delicate weight against his chest, all he could do was stand transfixed in the onyx pools of her eyes. His heart pounded in his ears as she nestled her head against his shoulder. Kikyo sighed softly and wrapped her slender arms around him.
Damn it, he thought bitterly. Why couldn't it have been like this before?
"Why don't you hold me, Inuyasha?" Kikyo's voice was suddenly the shy whisper it had been fifty years before, when they had first begun to show tenderness to one another.
Inuyasha's hand trembled as he set them on Kikyo's narrow shoulders. She tilted her head to one side, and for one short second all he was aware of was her cold, silken hair draping over his right hand. She slowly leaned forward, her lips tempting and sweet. Inuyasha closed his eyes.
"Stay with me, Inuyasha," Kikyo cooed softly, her breath whispering across his lips like butterfly wings. "Stay with me."
Mustering up all the willpower he had left, Inuyasha pushed her away.
"Kikyo, no…" he began, the flames in his voice thoroughly quenched.
Kikyo's eyes hardened so suddenly that Inuyasha braced himself for an attack. The transformation from the lovely, pure woman he had once loved back into the flinty, cold specter that she had become was instantaneous and complete. Kikyo looked him over coldly.
"Why must you cling to this life so dearly, Inuyasha?" She asked, her voice cool and even. "Do you wish so badly to forget about me?"
"You know that's not true, Kikyo," Inuyasha began. His voice trailed off as she slipped something small and sharp from the sleeve of her robe. A familiar smell, too faint to make out, suddenly hung about her.
"Your heart is mine, Inuyasha," Kikyo whispered, icy anger filling her voice. "Your heart and your life."
Kikyo raised her hand to her mouth and ran the object in her grasp across her lips. When she pulled her hand away, her lips were glistening in the ghostly moonlight. Every fiber of Inuyasha's being screamed at him to flee, that something bad was about to happen, but something kept him in place. Even in the macabre blue glow of the moon she was beautiful.
"When no one else will lay claim to you Inuyasha, when all your attachments in this world have been broken, will you return to me?"
Before he could reply, Kikyo's arms folded loosely around his neck.
"When your business is done in this life, will you return to me?" Kikyo insisted, her voice suddenly threatening tears.
"Yes…" Inuyasha heard himself say, his voice faraway from his own ears. He felt lost, detached from what was happening around him. "I will."
Kikyo kissed him, her lips unnaturally cool against his. Inuyasha felt his arms wrap around her, embracing her, needful of her. The rest of the world went black. Only they remained, their bodies twined perfectly about one another. Then the bitter taste of blood swirled through his mouth, and Inuyasha pulled away from her with a start. Kikyo was smiling at him.
"You never tasted of my flesh in life, Inuyasha," she began. "But in death, know the taste of my blood."
"Kikyo, what did you…"
"And know you, Inuyasha, the sweet taste of a child's blood as well," Kikyo's quietly knowing smile had returned, but a new predatory glint had appeared in her eyes. "Remember it well, Inuyasha, for your demon blood lusts for it. Your demon blood wishes to taste of it again."
"Damn you, Kikyo. What's going on?" Inuyasha demanded. There was a tremor of fear in his voice.
An eerie blue aura shone about Kikyo as her soul collectors appeared and began to coil around her, staring at Inuyasha with their shining, empty eyes. The demons tangled around Kikyo's slight frame and slowly began to lift her into the night sky.
"When no one else would claim your heart, Inuyasha, return to me," Kikyo called down to him. "Once your sins in the world are too great, Hell will welcome us together."
Inuyasha stood staring up at her until she was gone. The taste of blood, sweet and thick, washed over his senses. His mouth flooded with saliva as if trying to wash the taste away. After the priestess had disappeared, Inuyasha should his head angrily.
"Damn you, Kikyo. Why do you always have to do things like that?"
As he was about to walk away, he happened to glance at where Kikyo had been standing. Resting on the flattened grass, barely visible in the faint light, was the bloody fang of a kappa. As Inuyasha bent down to examine it, he barely even noticed himself licking the last traces of blood from his lips.