Please note that the rest of this story has received an update and I advise you to go back and re-read to fully enjoy this installment!
Kagome watched the elevator door close and felt her heart sink in time. The vastness of the lobby before them had started to consume her, those elevator doors ahead a small, devastating point. Kagome was left under the Capitol's magnifying glass, the beaming lights of the high ceiling above them searing her in place.
This wasn't what she had expected, but she isn't sure what she should have expected.
Was he supposed to run into her embrace? Inuyasha? Her arms were limp noodles at her sides now, useless and deflated. Koga then put his hand on her bare shoulder and she jumped at the sudden warmth that came over her clammy skin. What could have been a few seconds felt like an entire hour, her body exhausted as if she had been standing there for that long.
"It's alright. These things happen, but now you've been burned into everyone's memories."
"He'll be over it by sunrise, Kagome," Miroku added. His arms were crossed, the event program rolled into a tube held in his fist. Was there a new one every year? Were there collectors? She imagined her name in that program, collecting dust in someone's basement.
She didn't want him to be over it.
Kagome looked down to the floor, thinking maybe she could have done something else to be memorable, to not just be a name on the list of tributes who died trying. The look Inuyasha had on his face was enough to cause her instant regret, it appeared she had caused the death of something else instead. Another part of her delighted at this, her feelings for Inuyasha that she had been shoving down and shrugging off as infatuation was finally given life, words in a sentence.
She liked Inuyasha, she always had, and that was that. Not that it mattered—
Her lips flattened into a firm line and her eyes welled up. She wanted it to matter, wanted something to happen but it could never be. He might as well be in a completely different world from her own, on the other side of a dark abyss. Her hands fisted her dress in anguish as her body hunched in on itself.
Koga leaned into her ear, speaking in a soft voice. "You'll be making harder choices in the arena." He was right, but that didn't mean she had to like it. His hand moved over to stroke her back. "C'mon, it's okay. Best you caught everyone with their pants down now. You want to get back home, don't you?"
Home. Did her family see the broadcast tonight? Sota would have laughed at her for being so gushy on live television, maybe even tossed in some fake gagging noises. Rin would have cooed, even if she had no idea who Inuyasha was. Kagome could see her mother's astonishment in her mind's eye, a delicate handkerchief held up to her face, stopping in the middle of serving dinner. Her grandfather's familiar flare of indignation, his ruddy old cheeks as his jaw gaped in shock.
She peeked up at her mentor and he was looking down at her with a worried but hopeful, expression. Kagome took the time to analyze his features indulgently, the way manicured brows could become stricken, angled cheekbones looking forgotten along the way to concern, lips so used to smiling somehow could take a break and sit straight. She wondered if Koga, a Capitol citizen, is as familiar with distress as she is. As she is about to become.
Every moment since she'd been called up to the stage by Sango felt stolen, each new person she encountered becoming a singular impression; the people from Twelve were somehow infinitely more real. Even their memory had slowly become fossilized as the days bled on, relics of a forgotten past never to be recreated.
There was only what happened next. Somehow, it was comforting.
Miroku leaned into her ear and Sango did her best to tamp down the slight shiver going up her spine, which felt entirely inappropriate. She could smell that tint of alcohol that always colored his breath when he spoke to her, leaned above her, snarked her way.
"Did she tell you about this?"
She turned to him, meeting his gaze. He looked curious, maybe a little disgruntled to be left out of the loop. "She mentioned it in passing, privately. She asked me if I had ever been in love. Didn't even say his name."
"Very hopeful of her, considering their situation," Kikyo said across the way, finger tapping on the edge of her chin. Both parties turned to her at the sound of her voice. "Seems like she surprised us all."
"They're going to eat this up," Miroku said matter-of-factly. Sango knew he was right, but felt disquieted anyway. Undoubtedly, everyone will be keeping their eye on Inuyasha and Kagome. But Sango also knew this: the more attention you draw, the bigger the target on your back.
"It's too late now, Sango," Kikyo had her looking up again. A soft, amused smile graced her sophisticated features and she shrugged. "It's out there. We all hope to protect our tributes each year, but we don't always get so much to work with."
Every tribute Sango has ever met managed to run through her mind at that moment. Every death. She hadn't been doing this for very long, so she knows each face. Eri and Ayumi are the freshest, and now she knows they were Kagome's friends. Eri was practical and honest, she scored mid-range and gave a subpar interview, because who can instill media literacy in a 16-year-old? Ayumi was much too soft-spoken and loving, she endeared her fellow tributes easily but when the games were at their thickest, she was forgotten.
None of those tributes deserved their fate. Sango's eyes stung slightly, as they are wont to do during this time every year.
"By design, Panem never focuses on the lower districts. The tributes are essentially fodder to them." Miroku nodded. "Kagome made sure they wouldn't forget her."
"Indeed," Kikyo replied easily, "We can use this. It can be a blessing."
Kagome inhaled deeply and smoothed the tulle bodice of her dress. She straightened her back and saw Koga crack a smile at her newfound composure. The lobby's marble floor started to warm under her bare feet. Miroku, Kikyo, and Sango were chatting amongst themselves not too far away, Sango appearing more concerned than they were.
Not too long ago, she would have panicked over their distant conversation. She would have tried to read their lips, even, hoping for some kind of hint of what's to come. But none of them actually knew what would happen in the games. She didn't know something as precious as a confession would hurt Inuyasha so much, not that she expected him to be happy. At the same time, she felt lighter anyway.
It had to come out sometime, she rationalized. It had been so long already.
"Back upstairs, then," Sango stated with a sigh, and Kikyo led their company to the elevator Inuyasha had just departed from.
She walked with the crowd of adults to the bank of elevators and pressed the ascending button. Seconds go by in terse silence before there's that reassuring ding that promises Kagome she will get her dress off soon.
The group of them enter the cab and Miroku pressed the button for their floor. As the doors were closing, Kagome swore she could see her mother and grandfather wandering the far lobby, and her heart begins to pound in her chest for what must be the hundredth time that night. Does the Capitol bring family members over this early?
The two people turned their heads and revealed two extremely made-up capital citizens with deceptively tame haircuts.
The doors couldn't shut fast enough—and once the heavy metal thudded together, Kagome closed her eyes as well, trying to erase the disappointment she felt just then. It was better her family hadn't come to the Capitol. She hardly belonged there. She was there by force.
With that cheerful thought, the group was freed from the confines of the elevator. Kagome rushed out the threshold but she was stopped short suddenly; something caught the hem of her gown. The very expensive, one-of-a-kind gown. She turned in frustration, about to give whatever offending piece of furniture that caught her dress the glare of a lifetime, but she saw a luxury men's shoe stepping on it instead.
Behind her was Koga, a cheeky grin on his face. It didn't cheer her up the way most of his smiles did. She was worn too thin for banter this evening; no elasticity left in her to volley any of Koga's words back at him.
"Aren't stylists supposed to treat their haute couture with some respect?" Kagome had just learned that term a few hours ago, but flexed it anyway. No one could say she wasn't quick on the uptake.
He shrugged at her good-naturedly. "What matters more to me is the person who I made it for. There will be more fabric, more dresses, but there's only one Kagome."
Okay, that was hard to turn away from. Kagome gave him a lopsided smile, the tenseness in her body dissipating some. Koga's smile dialed up a notch. He seemed to enjoy flustering her quite a bit. She wouldn't tell him she liked it herself, it would be too easy. But their dynamic was a pocket of normalcy in her confusing situation.
"You don't gotta worry about what your enemies think, Kagome." Inuyasha's face was conjured in her mind, the subject of her affections for at least a decade, turned into an enemy with the unfurling of a single piece of paper. "It's about you in the end."
The Capitol's invisible hand came down and grabbed her and Inuyasha by the neck and she'd been struggling to breathe ever since. Her heart sank and her stomach formed a knot.
She must have shown her displeasure on her face because Koga's mirth disappeared. He deliberately caught her gaze after that, eyes blue and piercing like a wayward shard of ice. Kagome felt awed, and admittedly, a little shaken.
" 'It's about you in the end,' " he repeated. "That means everything I say is a suggestion. I'll be cheering you in the aisles 'till I see you get to come home. You understand me now?"
She studied those eyes and committed them to memory, so they wouldn't remain just a notion.
"Crystal clear," she smiled and he returned it.
"Anyway—your shoes, princess." Koga held out her heels with a small bow, which were hooked in the crook of his fingers.
Kagome took the pair of shoes graciously, curtseying with one hand and the two parted. Typical pep talk with Koga now off the list of things for her to do that night, Kagome headed for her room, desperate to get out of her dress. She could feel where the bodice was laced closed around her, the taut feeling an imitation of the tension she'd been carrying since before she walked up to Jakotsu.
She noticed a dull light coming from under Inuyasha's door but scrubbed it from her mind. He needed some space.
Kikyo came to him first. She didn't do him the courtesy of knocking, of course. She even flicked on his light like she owned the place. The telltale click of her heels was dulled by the plush carpeting, but the rustled fabric of her white gown sounded noisily in the quiet room as she moved to sit down next to him at the edge of his bed. He looked down at their knees, side by side, before he looked at her. Her makeup was dark but her face was soft in understanding, spiked sleeves curled over the curves of her shoulders. He didn't see it in the crowd, but the lower half of the dress looked unsettlingly like it had been dipped in blood.
Her arm came up around his shoulders in a comforting gesture. "Are you alright?"
Something painful lodged in his chest. "Yes," he replied quickly, "No." He sighed loudly then, running a hand down his face and sighing again. "I have no idea."
Kikyo's arm came back to her side and she rested her hand on his knee, leveling him with her discerning gaze. "Honestly, I didn't expect that you would be."
"What gave you that impression?" Inuyasha said sarcastically, standing up and beginning to pace around the room. The physical comfort Kikyo was offering felt like too much on his battered heart. "Was it being taken from my shitty home? The death competition that starts tomorrow? Or maybe it was the sudden realization that this girl that—that I—grew up with—is…"
He didn't realize just how much he'd been talking with his hands just then. He looked down into his open palms, sharpened claws peering up at him. Inuyasha was all too familiar with helplessness by now, but he'd railed against it for enough years that he thought he might have escaped it. He looked back to his mentor for answers, anything.
She calmly sat and listened to him all the while, nodding before she spoke. "Yes, nothing happened as it should have, but that doesn't mean you can't survive."
He gritted his teeth and sneered at her. "I'm so damn tired of hearing that."
"I'm tired of saying it," she said softly, looking at him with a gentle expression. She looked so young, then, or maybe she was younger than he thought—Inuyasha couldn't say. He didn't form many bonds in his lifetime, but he was struck with the realization that he was looking at someone he can trust. The slight frown that always ornamented her face seemed truly solemn now, in a way he could never read before. "We can only work with what we have."
The sound of his door opening pulled them out of their mutual grief, and he turned to the door with a growl. "Do any of you know how to fucking knock?"
Miroku put his hands up in surrender, lingering in the doorframe. "Can't I come to check on my favorite tribute?"
"Enough." Kikyo huffed as she stood up, smoothing her skirt into place. "Some tact, Miroku?"
He walked into the room with a snort. "You're asking for a lot from someone four drinks in already."
"Did you know?" Inuyasha advanced on Miroku, who sidestepped the entryway and slipped into his room to sit in the spot Inuyasha and Kikyo left open. His focus was entirely on the scheming man with the shit-eating grin on his face.
"I wish I knew," Miroku lamented. "It's brilliant, honestly."
"Brilliant?" He hissed back, "You think that was a stroke of brilliance?"
"Perhaps you can't see the bigger picture, Inuyasha." His mentor gave him a pitying look. "Haven't I hammered it in by now? You need to stand out. Sponsors are vital."
Miroku's words hit him harder than he'd care to admit. He stood there staring at him with a fit of seething anger, until the click of his door falling shut surprised him. Kikyo made a silent exit, and he wished for the reassurance of her empathy.
"I think you did this whole charade a little too long ago, you decrepit, liquored-up asshole," his voice was filled with acrimony, but it sounded sadder than he intended, even to his own ears. "You've forgotten what it feels like to be here."
"We can hardly relate," Miroku shrugged easily, the insult sliding off his shoulders. "I didn't have a pretty girl declaring her intent before I went into the arena."
The doorknob gave way easily under the turn of her hand and Kagome stepped inside, dress rustling with a graceful sound across the threshold. Koga's design could carry her on its own, the outfit elevated her to a new social echelon without any effort on her part. She thought that she would undress as soon as she stepped in because the pressure to be likable and pretty to the Capitol citizens was suffocating. Instead, she caught a glimpse of her glory in the faraway mirror and walked toward her reflection without thinking. It almost felt like she wasn't looking at herself, but as a statue. A goddess. In the dim quiet of her bedroom, she could appreciate the extravagance the outfit afforded her. Even without the light on, the gown sparkled in defiance, the flowers on her person almost opalescent. Kagome gripped the flowing skirt and swished it from side to side to see the flames ignite along her bare feet and trail up the vines adorning her skirt.
Flicking on her light, she shimmied out of Koga's latest creation and watched the fabric become a fluffy pile shaped like a blushing cloud. The vines around her neck and shoulders were begging to come off, some of the edges lifting from her skin already, detaching easily. She left the beautiful makeup he applied, though, wanting to hold on to the magic of it a little longer.
Kagome was surprised how quickly she was able to have her hair tumbling down around her shoulders in the teased waves Ginta and Hakkakku so carefully created. Petals and flowers alike floated to the floor with the motion. It took an incredibly long time to get her hair and face the way her stylist desired, but he orbited her like a moon to a planet once she was all done up, constantly tweaking things here and there like the pulling tides. Her look was nearly identical to the sketch he made of her, which Koga enthusiastically presented when she stepped in for the first fitting.
She couldn't help but blush at the elegant rendition of herself she saw in the photo, Koga drew her prettier than she ever dreamed of. Hakkaku boasted that his master had never put a pencil to paper and finished something in just minutes.
"You're a worthy muse," Koga said calmly, a smug smile growing on his face when he noticed her cheeks.
But it made the dress feel better on her body when it was all said and done. Kagome swore Inuyasha's eyes had lingered on the bare skin of her shoulders for a little while, but she couldn't be sure; it very well could have been some wishful thinking on her part, and it didn't stop her body from humming when they first sat together.
There I go again, she thought to herself. Get your head in the game, Kagome.
Down to her underwear, Kagome slipped on the soft satin pajamas the Capitol placed in her dresser. Shuffling her feet into the matching slippers, Kagome made her determined walk to the door, bracing herself to go next door and see him. Inuyasha probably didn't get enough time to himself, but they were on a tight schedule, and she couldn't leave things the way they were.
If he lets her in, anyway.
At the same time Kagome exited her bedroom, Miroku emerged from the door to Inuyasha's room. They lock eyes and Miroku tilts his head towards her with an easy smirk. "He's calmer now."
The question Miroku answered was probably written all over her expression, projected from the depths of her gaze. She tried not to frown, not to cry in front of him, to hide the fact that the only person she was hoping to see when she left her room was Inuyasha.
"I only suggest going in there if you're ready to fight, though."
Kagome steeled herself and nodded.
"I expected nothing less, you know." Miroku winked and pointed his finger, but she pushed past him and opened the door, not bothering to knock.
"I know you don't expect to be fuckin' sleepin' here." Inuyasha spat out immediately as if he knew she was approaching. But of course he did.
Kagome was jarred by his words until she looked down at her clothes. She seemed completely ready for a sleepover whereas Inuyasha had only discarded his suit jacket, the cuff glinting like a nightlight in the corner of his room. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in a contemplative position, legs spread apart and firmly planted, elbows on his knees, hands knit together in exasperation.
"I've come to talk—" He leaned forward into his joined knuckles and inhaled sharply through his nose when she'd barely begun. His eyes were shut tight his brow wrinkled to form a dam that wouldn't let anything pass through.
"Tough shit. Get out; I don't want to."
"We need to talk now! When else?" Kagome huffed. He clenched his jaw and crossed his arms in front of him defensively as he studied her for a second, irises twitching across her form and landing on her face. It only hardened her resolve, though, flecks of fiery gold sinking into her and igniting a kindling deep within. Her toes curled in her fancy slippers and she closed her hands into fists, holding on to nothing but needing the support all the same.
"I don't know. Never sound good?" He scoffed at her. "I don't have to fucking listen to you weave a web of more bullshit, Kagome." Inuyasha's arms came apart in one exasperated motion and he stood up. Kagome quickly put her back against the door to prevent any storming out and their eyes stayed on each other, her chin coming up in defiance but to also accommodate the sudden height difference between them. She tried to pretend what he just said didn't hurt, but the swift leap in her stomach was undeniable.
He grimaced at her, eyes looking skyward in exasperation.
"Move over, woman. I'm leavin'."
"Woman?" She exclaimed incredulously. Kagome tilted her head to follow his gaze but Inuyasha only rolled his eyes and looked away, not giving her the gratification of a response. As much as she wanted to fight him, she understood his hesitancy. He was acting skittish, like Buyo in a thunderstorm. The Capitol was overwhelming her, too, to say the least. Kagome took a steadying breath before continuing. "Okay. Nevermind. Would you please listen?" Inuyasha's ear twitched at the notion, but he said nothing.
She stared at his throat and watched it bob as he swallowed thickly and debated her offer. His lips became a conflicted frown; a pout really. The tip of his nose was slightly red—and he was completely disheveled, collar loosened, hair askew. Even his eyes were a little red, too. Inuyasha may have been crying, and her heart ached painfully at the image that formed in her mind. That vivid memory of the little boy choking back tears visited her once again, he didn't hesitate to bare his teeth when she came close back then, either.
Kagome pressed her back to the door even harder, allowing herself to feel that overpowering urge to protect him. Her fists released and she pressed her palms against the finished wood to keep herself steady in the face of the onslaught of emotions swirling through her.
Inuyasha's hand came up over her head, his arm encircling her side. It was almost romantic, in a way. He leaned forward with a hateful sneer, her mind slipping away from her in that one smooth motion. He was so close that they could kiss with just a tilt of their heads. Did he realize it?
"You can lie to these braindead citizens about having some kind of crush on me, and they'll eat it up." His voice was a deep hissing rumble, breath ghosting across her lips. "I don' wanna play their fucked up game but I damn sure know what it looks like, and you're not playin' me."
He didn't believe her. Inuyasha thought she confessed her feelings to the Capitol just to get an edge?
It came out because she couldn't bear to keep it in anymore. Whatever she felt for Inuyasha walked out of her mouth on its own. It was a brewing disaster from the moment she realized they'd be doing this together, which was simultaneously the best scenario but also the worst death sentence she could have ever received. It was fortune cackling at her on their stormcloud, pointing down and saying "that one."
If she remained quiet about her feelings, they would have died with her.
Kagome did not have any words to throw back at him. She only had contemptuous silence to give as she greedily breathed his air, every atom between them reverberating through her like a song. It felt pitiful to be entrenched in conflict with him and eating up every second of it.
As if suddenly sensing their proximity, Inuyasha's eyes traveled across her face the way one would look at a map. Kagome was similarly trying to memorize little details in this precious, painful moment—his lower lashline, those upturned cheekbones of his, his cupid's bow. His breathing became a little labored, a touch shallow, when their eyes finally met again.
Outside the world was bright with jovial cheer. It was preposterous; the difference between the festivities on the sidewalk that Kagome can hear out the window and the chaos that lie ahead for her and Inuyasha come morning. The absolute anguish that she's felt ever since they called his name after she walked on that stage.
His eyes were half-lidded, the soft pink rim of them and the flush on his cheeks stirring something in her. Wildly, Kagome began thinking it was because of her. He can see down into her very pores and maybe he wanted to know what her lips taste like too.
Her mouth opened slightly, as if to speak, maybe even say, "See?" But her chin moved up autonomously to connect their lips like that's where they were supposed to be. She barely felt his lower lip as she captured the edge of it between her own. The skin was as soft and pliant as a grape, yet she knew if she bit down, she would not tear the skin the same way. She thought about biting.
Their lips were slotted together like loose puzzle pieces, just there but with no firm press to keep them in place. Kagome wondered how her heart could be beating out of her chest while simultaneously losing her breath. She turned ever so slightly then, her lips on his cheek instead, their faces a mirror image. Despite all his anger, when she turned away, he followed without question, head leaning toward her magnetically.
"Inuyasha…" she whispered, quietly. Her heart, her feelings, became this gentle, fluttering thing between them. It alighted out of her as softly as her breath. It flowed like a river's stream, subconscious and soothing. "Did you ever stop to think that I said it because it was true?"
A sudden, sharp intake of breath is heard in her ear as his other arm comes up to cradle her neck and his lips touch hers. Finally, finally—she remembered how to exhale, so she does it in his mouth and he leans in further to sweep his tongue along her own. Kagome makes a sound she doesn't recognize and his trailing fingers thread tightly against the hair at her nape as he hears it.
The enthusiasm that takes her is all-encompassing. Her arms become languid suddenly, the stiff posts that kept her balanced against the door once before loop around his neck to keep her steady instead. Kagome had stolen a few kisses in her time, with boys who didn't matter, innocent pecks and sloppy frenching that was primarily teeth and curiosity. All in her final school years, years she wished she got to share with him.
At least they have this, right?
They break away from one another, only centimeters apart. His eyes are searing into hers, dipping back down to her lips. Inuyasha's face was so full of tension, he looked like he was in pain staring at her. Kagome's hands sneak up his back to cradle his head and his façade seems to fracture at the touch, something softer aligning his features. Before she can spend any more time analyzing it like she does any private moment they steal together, he presses his lips to hers tenderly. She formed to him eagerly, already rising to her tiptoes.
If Kagome thought she was pressed against the door before, it was nothing compared to the firm planes of Inuyasha's body fitted against hers on the threshold. His thumb gingerly stroked the side of her neck as his arm left its post on the wall to rest at the small of her back. Heat had thoroughly engulfed her entire being, radiating from the hand that managed to cover the expanse of her lower back. The dress she wore comes to mind, all fake flames and grandeur, how decidedly not like that a simple kiss is proving to be. Something savage began to course through the pair, and they kissed one another with an unexpected fervency. The sound of panting and quickening pulses drowned out the soundtrack of merriment outside, cheers rising and going unnoticed. Kagome couldn't help but lean in closer, nearly clawing at his shoulders now just to feel, trying to become one being entirely, the moment pulsating around them like a throbbing heartbeat.
Inuyasha yanked himself away from her with a bite, which she so longed to return. His hands released her unceremoniously and he purposely looks away, the haze of desire and confusion hardening into an anger she cannot understand.
A pained sigh trailed out of him, more a whimper. His eyes closed. "Don't involve me anymore. I'm sick of this place and everyone in it."
She moved forward on instinct, hoping to console him. Maybe to kiss him again, to rewind to just a few seconds ago. But he stepped back.
"Including you."
Kagome clenched her teeth and stared at his twisted expression through the tears welling in her eyes. "Inuyasha—" she whined, pushing forward for anything, the situation canonically desperate, a mere fact of life once she saw Rin being dragged away by Peacekeepers—there she was, calling out to that frightening stage, knowing how the story goes.
He glared at her. "Leave."
When she made no plans to move, he sucked his teeth.
"Go!" Inuyasha shouted and she flinched. There's no time to wait for him to calm down—it's now or never—
"No! You're not scaring me away!" She demanded, leaning forward, causing him to step back. She ignored the pang in her chest and pointed to the door behind her. "You can't just kiss me and kick me out. I didn't do it for them!"
"Maybe I was getting camera ready," He laughed sardonically, seemingly unaffected by her pleas. His head shook in disbelief. "It doesn't add up. You confess now, in front of an audience and that fucker in a fancy suit, and I'm supposed to take it as the truth?"
Kagome was getting even more frustrated. He still couldn't understand how it was practically involuntary at this point, she didn't choose them in the first place—why would her heart listen to her now? Anger rose out of her like a threatening gale.
"Tell me, Inuyasha, when was there time?" His expression, which seemed to relish in his triumph just before, withered. Kagome egged on. "When have you been around long enough for me to say anything more than a few sentences to you after you left school for good?"
"I don't know," he said sarcastically, "An entire fucking 12 years sound like enough time for you?"
The truth sucked everything out of her. In the back of her mind, she foolishly thought she had more time. Any wild dreams of running into his arms and sharing a beloved kiss after her confession was torn away and crumpled into an unrecognizable ball. The Capitol took it all, and she was led blindly by her hand into her demise. She couldn't have anticipated being in league with the Capitol, how playing their little game for one interview sacrificed a part of herself, her long kept secret. It had been far too bastardized by now.
"Please...Inuyasha," she whispered tenderly, managing to bring his eyes back to hers. She is awed by their glow in the low light, nearly forgetting the feeling of losing him— it works only for a second, his hard browline centimeters above their perpetual warmth. She remembered putting her lips right there, too. When he almost did the same thing—the ghost of a memory burned like a brand on her forehead. "You can't see?" Her voice was watery and clotted with emotion. The tension was stifling. I said it because it's true, she wished to say again. At that moment, it felt like even that wouldn't be enough.
"Inuyasha...do you even care? That I said it?" His lids lowered a fraction, the slightest amount of change flitting across his face, but it was smothered seconds later.
"Real or not real," he said in a shuddering breath, raising a pointed gaze to her, "It's never going to happen. It never was."
Kagome could only get out a strained croak, mouth opening and closing as she advanced toward him.
He closed his eyes, stepped back, and then ordered through clenched teeth, "Get out."
Tears began to flood her eyes, coming down in waves. In her blurred periphery, she watched his hand strain between opening and closing beside him. She fought the urge to linger there with him and push further; she wished things were different, but he didn't want her around and she would hate to make things worse before entering the arena. Kagome turned and left the room, not before noticing a crack in the wall by the door frame that wasn't there before.
Inuyasha locked the door behind her, the latch resounding a noisy clack! Kagome winced when she heard it.
As she took those few steps to her room and cracked open the door, Kagome quelled the adamant barrage of melancholy thoughts that threaten to overcome her. Taking a note from Inuyasha, she locked away the rest of the world on the other side of the door.
She dropped onto the mattress with a loud sigh, silently pulling the comforter over her head and curling into the soft blanket.
Capitol citizens' celebrations could be heard through the window of her room too, the noises melting into an indiscernible buzz far away from her. Kagome's day quickly caught up to her and she was led into a restless sleep in moments.
"You've got to be shitting me." Koga glanced down at the open portfolio on Kikyo's desk, releasing a disbelieving breath.
In front of her were a series of outfits for their beloved tributes with a percentage at the bottom. Citizens were allowed to vote on what outfit they would be wearing to their doom on social media, the notion so devilish and inconsiderate that it can only be from the mind of the president himself.
"I wasn't sure he'd go through with it," she sighed, hand skimming over the glossy paper that showed the outfit chosen for Inuyasha. How terribly cliché it looked. "I thought he'd keep to the theme of every tribute in a standard outfit befitted for the terrain in question."
"Okay, I know, treason or whatever but," he tapped his unforgivingly sharp nail onto the printout of Kagome, "this is fucked. Terrible, even. Unfair."
Kikyo looked up at her partner with a resigned expression. "You know it's never been about fair."
"And he just put it up tonight? After the interviews?"
She closed her eyes as her exhaustion crept up on her. "The polls were only up for 2 hours."
"We're their damn stylists!" Koga paced about the room anxiously. "We couldn't even choose the options?"
"All we can do is say the right thing before they go in," Kikyo looked down again at Inuyasha's face in the photo, the dour expression he always seemed to wear. A pang of great sadness lanced through her chest. "If there is a right thing."
"There isn't, but you know that."
Inuyasha couldn't bring himself to sleep. As soon as Kagome left his room, he locked the door for good measure and ripped away the rest of Kikyo's handiwork. He would feel sorry about it, but he didn't have the energy within him to feel much of anything right now.
Her glassy eyes stood vigil in his mind's eye, the way his hands messed up her hair, the fact that her lips looked so rosy and full because he spent a couple of minutes kissing them.
It was a lie, and he had to remember that. Inuyasha sat in the window of his room and waited for dawn.
The first sign of light creeping through her window made Kagome rise from her slumber. Internally she lamented that she didn't feel rested in the slightest, but it was better than a knocking alarm she'd become used to. It was early, Sango had yet to appear, and she was grateful for it. Some time alone wasn't unwelcome.
Kagome closed her eyes in quiet reflection and let herself meditate. She prayed for a clear head, for her fellow tributes (unlikable as some may be), and for Inuyasha's safety. Searching inside her heart for the warmth of her family's memory, Kagome felt like she's been fortified with armor as she inhales deeply.
Once she flicks on the bathroom light and is greeted with her reflection, she is nothing short of horrified. The peachy makeup she wore the night before had been smudged around her eyes. Kagome rushed out of the bathroom to look at her white pillow, stained with makeup. Fake lashes looked like fuzzy centipedes crawling on the cushion.
"Goodness…" she sighed and brought her hand to her forehead in exasperation.
She turned the bathroom water to steaming hot and washed herself thoroughly in the shower, the pigments in her makeup making the water funneling into the drain pretty and iridescent. Cleansing her hair and body one last time before the bloodbath felt necessary anyhow. Kagome shut off the water when she was done, hugging the soft towel to her frame and patting herself dry. She walked to the mirror again, just to check for any further makeup residue—she was happy to greet her regular face.
Kagome leaned back, satisfied, and used another towel to squeeze the excess water from her hair.
Anything that could be considered indecorous felt like an act of rebellion for her, so Kagome let her damp feet tread the expensive carpet in her bedroom. She approached the standing closet apprehensively, fearing what her outfit for the arena will be like as she parted the doors. Would the clothes reveal anything about where she was going? The door creaked ominously when she opened it.
A green and white uniform with a red ribbon.
Kagome gawked at the ensemble for a second. This? No boots, not even a pocket in sight. She smoothed her fingers over the starchy fabric. It appeared sturdy but fundamentally useless.
She made an annoyed noise as she took the top off of its hanger. Suspending her disbelief as she dressed, Kagome tried to do so with care, relishing in the routine of it. Once her socks were on snugly and pulled up to cover her shins, she wiggled her feet into the new loafers, which weren't broken in.
Kagome looked in her mirror and assessed her appearance. I look like I'm going to my first day of school, she bemoaned in her mind.
"This is a joke," Inuyasha groaned, yanking the casual outfit out of the closet. "This entire place is a fucking circus."
Sango came knocking shortly after Kagome was dressed. Her mentor spared her any morning chatter and merely provided her a supportive smile when she unlocked the door for her.
She looked the least like a Capitol citizen today, dressed in one color, save for a brooch on the lapel of her coat: a bird. When Kagome noticed it, she gasped, and Sango finally broke her silence.
"Do you like it? It reminded me of your performance so far," the older girl boasted, "Figured I'd wear my support for you today."
Kagome, awed, gave her mentor a brief hug. "Get me to the helicopter before you have to drag me kicking and screaming."
Sango let out a watery laugh and nodded, leading Kagome through a part of the penthouse she never cared to explore. It was a long hallway with floor-to-ceiling windows. As she walked by, Kagome tried not to get queasy when she peeked down at the city streets below.
"Make sure you find yourself some high ground, Kagome." Sango impressed upon her.
They went up a ramp and then a flight of stairs. It led them to one of the multiple roof entrances in the building.
"Don't get off the platform until the Games officially start or you will be blown to smithereens."
Sango pulled the startled Kagome into another hug, slipping something into her palm. "Find water first. Water is your most trusted friend."
She hugged her mentor with a desperate ferocity. Despite their differences, despite the odds stacked against her, Sango really believed in her now.
"I'm sorry I didn't support you properly sooner," Sango said as she pulled back to look at her. "The moment you took up for Rin I felt you had it in you to take this thing, but—"
Kagome shook her head to stop her train of thought. "I don't blame you. I-I'm going to do my best. I have to for my family."
"I'll see you when you come back."
The words made her chest tighten and her eyes well up with tears. Her mentor pulled open the heavy door and the noisy whipping of the helicopter's propellers made it impossible for Sango to hear Kagome's response if she had one. Poking the center of her palm was the beak of Sango's bird brooch, and she sneakily pinned the keepsake under her ribbon.
Kagome didn't look back at her, just let the Peacekeepers usher her into the helicopter packed with the other kids. Every tribute had a unique outfit, something that had never been done before. When she was buckled into her seat, an officer approached. She couldn't tell if she preferred Ginta and Hakkaku's invasive primping or the cold, distorted reflection of herself that she saw in the tinted glass pane of Peacekeepers' helmets.
"Hold out your arm."
"For what?" Kagome flinched, bringing her arms closer to her body.
"Your tracker." the impatient man scoffed, grabbing her by the wrist roughly and indelicately injecting the device into her arm. She cringed as the sharp metal pinched her skin on the way in. He had her synced to the device in his hand, like her seated in front of him or the many cameras in the arena wasn't going to be proof enough. "Helps us monitor your vitals, too."
Her stomach lurched when they took to flight, and Kagome tried not to spend her free time looking for Inuyasha somewhere in the lineup. She won't be accepting his protection anyway (though the offer was probably off the table). It took a half hour for the copter to descend to the arena, which was obscured as they landed on a domed platform that kept the mystery of the terrain beyond.
Kagome was escorted to a room where she found Koga waiting for her. Behind him was a pod, probably the one that will place her into the arena. It looked small and uncomfortable. Immediately, her body became wrought with trembles, the fear of what was to come overtaking her right at the starting line.
Koga took her into his arms and she felt soothed by the pressure of his embrace. But her mind was flooded with a million other thoughts, possibilities of her imminent death, the fear that she'll never see her family again.
He hummed deep within his chest as he stroked her back a little, it rang through her and she inhaled shakily after they parted. "Based on your clothes, I'd say the weather will be fair. I don't know where they'll be taking you. You got your ring?"
She nodded silently and he held her by the shoulders and leveled her with his gaze. "It will be alright." Koga then walked behind her and she felt the familiar graze of his tar-tipped claws as his fingers gathered her hair into the high ponytail he was so fond of giving her. He gnaws another elastic from around his wrist with his teeth and secures that one to her hair as well.
"Always good to have two on you. Give 'em hell, Kagome."
She bit her lip, worry coursing through her. Before she rode in the plane she had at least a semblance of confidence, or maybe that was adrenaline, but it disappeared the more the Games became a real, actual bloody event she will need to somehow conquer. "I don't know if I can," she said shakily.
"Good thing I do," Koga said with confidence, ushering her to the dreaded transparent portal she was supposed to step into, and she tried not to trip over her feet. "I've got a nose for these things, Kagome."
He patted the tube and a door slid down from above and sealed her inside. Kagome fearfully looked at her stylist's shrinking figure as the platform beneath her feet began to lift her off. Her hands touched the glass for a quick second but smeared away when she levitated too high up.
"Why did you keep saying my name?" Her voice echoed inside the chamber; she feared he couldn't hear her.
"Trying to remind you that no one's gonna forget it."
Kagome crouched to hear him more clearly, but as the shutter overhead started opening to reveal sunlight, she shut her eyes tight in childish fear. Before the platform beneath her stopped moving, she could hear Koga shout, "See you on the other side!"
The air was dead quiet. There is no supernova of catastrophe like she expected, just the anxious hum of the tributes waiting for their orders. Sango told her if she stepped off the platform without hearing the horn blare, it would explode. At the very least, Kagome can manage that. A faint breeze caressed her and she decided to open her eyes and stand up straight, albeit timorously.
The scenery that is revealed looks like an abandoned metropolis. Something like the Capitol, but entirely unfamiliar to her more rural sensibilities from Twelve. But it wasn't frightening. Nothing she couldn't work with—sure the sidewalks had some cracks, and windows were boarded up everywhere; but maybe supplies were waiting to be found inside.
She and her fellow tributes were in a circular formation, an empty fountain encircled by a gazebo in the middle of them; all weathered concrete, vines, and moss. Where the water should be is a bounty of weapons, produce, and probably other gems if someone gets the chance to dig. Directly across from her was Inuyasha, of course. Their eyes locked and he squints. So, he's still mad then. Fair.
Do not go into the cornucopia.
Another beat passed, but everybody couldn't be idling for more than a minute. An omnipotent voice frighteningly echoed above them from the sky, Kagome realizes it's Jakotsu.
"Tributes, it is my honor to be the countdown liaison to your 74th Hunger Games," his voice was eager, a complete contrast to the caustic knot that's found itself a home inside of her. "May the odds be ever in your favor."
There was a deafening horn and then a hailstorm of shots that follow shortly after as tributes descend upon the center of the plaza, and she nearly pisses herself as she scrambles off the smooth surface of the pod to the cobblestone in the park and away from all the nutjobs. Kagome heard the sound of metal slicing the air and squelching into flesh during her escape and it gave her cause to pick up the pace.
Do not go into the cornucopia, he was told. Repeatedly.
But when Inuyasha scanned the chipped paint on the white gazebo and the worn fountain within it, he spotted a few things worth scrapping for.
You'll easily die within minutes, they said. Careers monopolize it every year.
There was a sword glinting from the inside, mounted on a beam. He could probably make use of that. There were backpacks strewn all over; thrown on the ground, hanging from the ceiling trim, sitting on ledges; all stuffed to the brim. Inuyasha bounced on the balls of his feet then, gearing up to spring forward and quickly get in and out.
After Kikyo touched up his hair one last time that morning and smoothed down the lapels of his red leather jacket, she gave him her parting words. Her hair looked like bleeding ink, her lips red and painted in a geometric pattern. "Trust no one at face value. Believe in yourself, and come back alive."
The lump in his throat made it hard for him to reply in thanks, or even fully absorb her words. He barely registered the warm kiss on his cheek.
Inuyasha was too focused on being minutes away from this.
The unnerving quiet. Tributes sized each other up across an expanse of goodies, all given costumes tailored to the image Capitol citizens had of them. He did his best to avoid Kagome's piercing gaze, but he couldn't help it. She looked at him with a helpless expression, and he can't help the grimace that comes unbidden. They put her in a school uniform.
He hates that he looked for a bow and arrows in the cornucopia. He hates even more that he found them, underneath the sword he planned to take.
That interviewer's obnoxious voice flared out of invisible loudspeakers, and Inuyasha's body somehow found the space to tense some more.
When the sound of the too-loud horn pierced his sensitive eardrums, Inuyasha wasted no time in leaping off of his platform while he saw Kagome make a break for it in the other direction just on the edge of his periphery. He weaved through the bodies of scuffling teenagers and jumped up to grab onto the eave of the gazebo, swinging inside and landing lightly on his feet.
It's empty, for the most part. But he can hear fighting going on just outside, can see it down the decaying steps just beyond. Inuyasha scooped up two knapsacks and pulled the sword off the wall. Already his hands were getting full, but it wasn't a matter of being able to carry anything. It was being able to fight without being encumbered by provisions. He leveraged the two bags onto one shoulder.
The bow was there.
In the half second Inuyasha debated grabbing the quiver full of arrows and the bow beneath it, a tribute from 9 that he remembers as Muso leans into his field of vision with bared teeth.
"Look, it's loverboy, Akemi." He'd been dressed like a farmhand, obviously an afterthought. He swung out his left arm and it morphed into a tree with a loud, thunderous ripple. His willowy hand starts reaching for him. Inuyasha stepped out of his grasp, the other tributes sweeping in behind him to grab what they can and trying to pull the items he just secured right off his back. His nails dug into the straps of the backpacks defiantly and he gritted his teeth. He had to get out of there before it got worse.
"You said he was cute, right?"
A redhead with skimpy clothes danced behind her fellow tribute, separate from the chaos around them, delicately placing manicured fingers onto the bark of his arm as she peeked over. "For a half-demon like you, Muso!"
Muso smirked, diving into Inuyasha's space, and no matter how far he stepped back, Muso's tentacle of foliage grew long enough to accommodate the distance. It was easily whipping down others in its path, making them easier kills for other swarming tributes. Akemi egged him on from the sidelines, staying behind her district companion as a cover. They circled the perimeter of the fountain at least twice now, and he was surprised no one else was taking the opportunity to intervene; everyone was equally lost in what was happening two feet ahead of them.
Inuyasha growled and unsheathed the pristine sword with his free hand, running forward into the pair, shoulder-checking Akemi into the ground as he drove the sword straight into Muso's gut without preamble, carving upward. He wasn't used to the weight of a sword but it turns out flesh is unsettlingly easy to tear once you've made the first slice. Muso's demon blood mattered little in the wake of a blade flaying his heart in two, blood coming up out of his mouth in a pitiful gurgle. A cannon sounded off in the far distance when Inuyasha slid the sword out of Muso's body. Suddenly, he remembered that cannons signaled a tribute's death. He wasn't keeping track of how many sounded off already. He just hoped none of them meant Kagome.
Akemi barely had the chance to sit up before a flail swung into her temple, hard enough that there is another bang from the sky before her body hit the ground. Epinephrine has thoroughly numbed him from shock by then; Inuyasha looked up to frantically scan the perimeter for an out.
He met the eyes of a girl with purple buns and she smiles at him mischievously. Her weapon was swaying behind her back, dripping in Akemi's blood. "Hello, Inuyasha!" she said in a sweet accent he couldn't discern.
Just behind her, he found an opening in the structure that had been picked clean of available weaponry (the bow and arrows are gone too, damn it all) and he skirts by the girl to jump to the ledge.
"No, Shampoo wants to be friends!"
Like he'd ever believe that.
Kagome laced through the streets and ran as far away from the fray as possible, until she couldn't hear anyone behind her. Once the noise was gone, she slowed to a stride as she passed by deserted alleyways, the soles of her loafers making a dull noise against the stone. Before she wandered within the maze of buildings forever, she decided to make a random turn and stick to it.
That is until she heard some people talking.
"Kodachi, it is best you stick by me, your venerable brother, Tatewaki Kuno." One of the paths leading off from her journey showed the Kuno siblings, who she remembered from Jakotsu's interviews. The brother seemed relatively harmless, he certainly had a flair for the dramatic, but his sister seemed to have a tendency towards the underhanded that complemented it. Tatewaki donned a traditional outfit Kagome recalled learning about in school, and Kodachi wore a leotard.
Kodachi faced Kagome's direction, beginning to walk towards her. However, she was too caught up in her superfluous flourishing to notice her. Kagome stepped out of sight by walking a few steps behind one of the brick buildings that lined the area.
"Is that a fair maiden I see over yonder?"
Kagome's stomach dropped. Discreetly, she looked to the left and right of her, hoping to conjure another girl that Kuno was addressing. She receded further against the wall, hoping to slip away and be forgotten.
She heard Kuno's hasty steps go off in the other direction and the gust of relief that followed.
"Oh, darling brother, how am I going make any headway with your chivalry holding us back?" If Kodachi moved, she couldn't tell. The girl's steps were silent, graceful.
Kagome decided to peek, noticing someone approaching from the other end of the alley, this girl speaking in the softest voice with a gentle demeanor.
"Hello," she smiled demurely, hands tucked behind her back. She had been dressed like a homemaker. Kagome suddenly recognized Kasumi from that day in the training center, her heart speeding up in anxiety. "I didn't expect to run into you two."
"Oh, Kasumi! Beautiful flower, have you come to seek shelter in my arms? I knew my charms won you over during training—" Kuno gesticulated with gusto, advancing on the poor girl before she could consider protesting, his hands coming up to cradle her upper arms. It was hardly a second before Kasumi maneuvered and pulled a knife to shove straight into his gut. She could see the girl's elbow move as she twisted the blade in with a desperate expression. Kagome let out a small gasp but covered her mouth to muffle it. Kuno grunted at the assault, stumbling backward against the wall and sliding down against it.
"Bested by a woman, my greatest weakness," he choked out, one hand leaving her to clutch his wounded side. "It is only fitting for things to end this way."
A shot went off, signaling his demise. Kasumi made to yank herself away from the dead boy's grasp, but his grip appeared to have been tighter than she initially thought.
"Brother!" Kodachi ran towards her sibling to kneel in front of his body, hands coming up to cradle his serene face. She slapped his cheek for good measure. "You dare leave me here to weather this storm? How utterly shameful!"
Sota came to mind immediately and Kagome squashed the rising empathy down. He wasn't even in the arena with her.
Kasumi managed to break free from Kuno's death grip, but not without being noticed. She made to run, but Kodachi volleyed ahead of the girl with cutting elegance, eyes narrowed upon her in a fierce glare.
"You brazen whore," she spat, "did you hope I would bear this slight upon the Kuno name with ease? Think again."
Kasumi tried to move in just about any direction to avoid Kodachi, but the latter was infinitely quicker. She circled behind her and relieved Kasumi of the apron around her waist, wrapping the tie around her neck in a sweeping motion.
"A sister without her brother," she cried out, "might as well be a left hand without a right."
Kasumi thrashed in front of Kodachi to no avail.
"But I was always the stronger of the two of us."
Before Kagome could become caught up in the mess she was witnessing, she barreled off and tried to weave through the neighborhood even more to lose any sign of life. Another shot was heard shortly after she left, and she couldn't help the shiver that raked through her body.
Kasumi's entire family must be devastated.
She walked further down and away from the cornucopia, and soon the trek seemed to bear fruit: there was the light of day peeking through at the end of the block she was walking. Excited for something, anything, Kagome started to run toward the sunlight. Soon the carefully stoned floors beneath her began to fade and wear down the closer she became. Grass was peeking through, small dandelions growing in spite of their conditions. When the stones turned into dirt, there was a clearing where she heard the most wonderful sound that made her stop.
Kagome could hear the rippling water of a lake not too far ahead. She walked into the grass clearing and was surprised to see that the metropolis had a defined edge where all the streets seemed to stop. Wildlife was peeking through everywhere, and there was an old wooden fence teetering along a clifftop. To the left of her was a hill that looked like it was going to lead straight to her new best friend: water.
She tried to contain herself as she walked down, the tranquil sound of rushing water becoming louder, her excitement rising to meet it. The area was so quiet that Kagome considered that she might be the first one to find this spot and she was a little giddy. Below the cliff, there were trees that went as far as the water flowed. Truly, it felt like a private oasis—she was reminded of the meadow near the schoolhouse in Twelve, with its fence that lined the forest clearing. A fence that she only saw Inuyasha jump over.
It looked too much like home. It's almost like the Games didn't even exist.
Another boom signaled the fall of another tribute and her bubble burst. Kagome reasoned that she wouldn't be alone for long, anyone with supernatural senses could find the lake faster than she did. She quickly scanned her surroundings to give herself a way into the forest. There was a gully nearby with what looked like a ginseng plant at the top of it; it had her name written all over it.
The moment Kagome was ready to go with her plan, she heard the sound of the fence creaking above her. She froze in her tracks and tiptoed out of view quietly. Her heart raced; she didn't have anything at all to protect her but her wits.
Before Kagome could begin to say a few prayers, Inuyasha dropped down in front of her. His back was to her, but she could tell his hair was mussed already. She could imagine poor Kikyo's dismay, all of her hard work tousled away in moments. But Kagome preferred Inuyasha like this.
He was dressed rather stylishly for a boy going on to fight for his life in an arena. Kagome almost resented it, at least his outfit maintained a semblance of usefulness. He had a red leather jacket and black denim jeans on with sneakers. He could run and climb anywhere without worry; the jacket could keep him warm when it got chilly.
She noticed on his shoulder was a bookbag, and another one was hanging from a fist. He had a sword tucked in his belt that flashed in the sunlight.
"Inuyasha?" she called, and he rose from his crouched position quietly, the fresh leather of his jacket crinkling noisily. He turned around and his familiar scowl was there on his face while he tossed the extra bag at her feet. She tore her gaze away from his lips. His white t-shirt already had a sprinkling of blood by the collar.
"There," he barked. "We're even."
"What?" She looked at the bag, and back to him. Kagome went and picked up the bookbag, not too proud to take the obvious handout, especially given the circumstances. "You're going to give me this bag so you can avoid talking to me about the kiss?"
Kagome was aware it was underhanded to mention it. It was private, it was theirs. Something so dreamlike it felt painful to share it with an audience, but she was smart enough to realize they'd eat it up. It would buy both of them time.
His face screwed up in disbelief, and he began stuttering. "I—that was—gah…" he did a full turn, a finger coming out to point at her. "You!"
She pressed her lips together to rein in some of the laughter that threatened to bubble up inside her. His reaction wasn't very reassuring for her feelings, but it was kind of cute. She shrugged and looked away innocently. "Sure, it was just me. Even though you kissed me first."
Inuyasha's eyes narrowed with newfound clarity, or maybe resentment; it's the same way they do when Miroku talks about image and strategy. He could probably tell that she won't be the one to drop it, even if he refused to fully engage. Even then, he couldn't relent. "You threw yourself in my way."
She finally laughed, an exclamation of utter disbelief. "I don't recall you being the one pinned to a door."
If she needled him enough, maybe he'll stay. Half of it was for the Capitol, sure, but the other half was purely for her. She wanted to see him squirm a little over her, for it to have meant something. Kagome desperately wanted to talk openly again but didn't know what could be said. Not only that, but it wasn't Inuyasha's strong suit in the first place. For all her pushing in the past couple of minutes, he only rolled his eyes in face of the truth.
"Keh! I'm givin' you the bag because you looked out for me," he glanced away and crossed his arms, his tone only becoming more resentful. "Once upon a time."
She stared down at the bag again. Was it an olive branch instead? She sanctimoniously denied his help before they got to the arena, but she wanted his company. She was always around her family in Twelve, and Inuyasha is the only familiar person she has now. "Thank you, Inuyasha. I—"
"Stay the hell away from me." He glared at her, cutting her off quickly.
"Um, you came to me!" She accused, stomping her foot.
"'Cause we had unfinished business, wench!"
"And that really mattered at a time like this?!" She stepped forward, and him backward. Of course it mattered. The supplies guaranteed she'd survive the night. Kagome just wanted him to admit he wanted to talk to her again.
He scoffed and stared through her angrily. Does he know she's happy to see him nonetheless?
"Like being all over Koga mattered at a time like this?" Inuyasha even added a mocking lilt to his words. "You reek of wolf!"
"What!" She shouted in disbelief. Why would he care? And she had every right to be comforted by someone before being sent to the arena. "Koga isn't even here! You're just avoiding the question!"
"It's a stupid question!" He asserted, leaning a little forward in his anger.
"And by the way, you are totally close to Kikyo too!" Kagome crossed her arms and glared back at him. "I just can't see why you'd go out of your way to talk to me today when you just pushed me away last night!"
"Stop talking about last night. Just take the stupid bag!"
"I already did!" She pointed to the bag in her hand.
Inuyasha's glittering eyes scanned the length of her form and a part of Kagome felt unnecessarily exposed—in the way that acknowledging cameras were watching her didn't do, in a way she had already become used to focusing lenses and probable jumpcuts. "You know," he grumbled, "I think I hate you sometimes."
She stumbled back, dropping the bag clutched in her fist with a trembling gait. "You don't make it any easier, you know."
"To what?" He spat.
"To like you," she whispered.
"Then, fine!" He threw his arms up in exasperation, as if he didn't start it.
"Fine!"
He sucked his teeth and jumped across the river at top speed, and soon he disappeared right into the trees.
Kagome tried not to let the argument bother her because she had much bigger things to worry about. But it was awfully bothersome to be arguing with him now of all times, to let herself recognize that he said he hated her. In a way, Kagome had begun to hate herself too—what the games have started to turn her into. She thinks her mom would be unhappy if she knew that.
Slinging the backpack over her shoulders with a beleaguered sigh, she clutched the straps hard to will herself forward into the riverbank. There were quite a few spaced rocks crossing the river into the gully, so Kagome hopped across each one, the soothing water's flow grounding her senses and keeping her steady. She could almost transport herself to that nice little pond back home again, could imagine a picnic set up not too far away on the grass.
She made a large, confident leap over to the forest side of the river and fumbled in her foolish attempt, the distance much too far. Her feet dug into the side of the ledge and she hauled herself up onto the cliff's edge. Kneeling in the dirt now, the ginseng plant was right in front of her, ready to be harvested.
Kagome grabbed it by the leaves and began to pull, a sound of rustling in the trees beyond gave her pause. She looked into the treeline frantically, unsure and unable to see anything. She slowly pulled her bag around her and unzipped it to look inside for anything that can help her.
She found a small dagger, much like the one she saw Kasumi brandish to kill Kuno. She set it beside her in the dirt and put her pack on her back again; she will go through it when she feels she is less vulnerable.
Stomps came approaching and Kagome was still loosening the roots of the ginseng. She quickly picked up the knife near her, getting ready to move away before the looming Jinenji appeared. Hanging on his shoulder was the young Shiori, looking over at her with her big purple eyes. He was dressed in a plain shirt and trousers, nothing particularly useful standing out on his person. Shiori was wearing a white dress, looking serene and sweet and oh so young.
Should she keep holding her knife? He made no move toward her.
"Kagome," he said in a low, resonant voice. "You found the ginseng."
"...Yes." She agreed slowly, tucking the knife away in her skirt, the sharp point digging into her a little bit. It was just as well. She didn't want to feel so changed so soon. Jinenji timidly began to sink back into the treeline and she rose on her knees and waved her hands in front of her. "I-I won't hurt you, I promise!"
Four suspicious eyes lingered over her, assessing her. She couldn't blame them for their reluctance to be near her. Never mind the nature of the Games; how many times could they have been mistreated in their lives? Surely too many to count.
"I just want to gather some herbs," she said frankly, sinking back down. "If you don't mind, we can do it together."
They both came forward and Shiori slid down his back to sit on the grass next to her. Jinenji looked around for a second and did the same. Again, Kagome started to wiggle around the ginseng root, trying to get it free. Slowly Jinenji's large hand covered hers and he set the plant free. He pulled it out with one tug and handed it to her and she smiled softly.
"Thank you," she said, bringing the knife back out only to see him flinch. Kagome brought her hand up to steady his worries, "I'm going to cut you a piece."
With a bit of a struggle, the stubby blade pierced the root unevenly and she was able to hand him half of it. "I know you cannot gain much from helping me, but I appreciate it."
"You were kind to him," Jinenji declared. "I did not forget that."
"Being kind is hardly heroic, it is actually rather easy," she shrugged, the meaning behind his words hanging in the air unanswered. "I'm glad I got to meet you two again. I wish it was…" her voice trailed off. What to say? I wish we weren't about to die, probably.
Next to her, she saw little Shiori give a nod and an understanding smile that was wise beyond her years, blessedly. Her quiet demeanor reminded Kagome so much of Rin, and it made her sad to think about how Shiori went into the Games because no one could advocate in her place, how helpless her parents must still feel watching this daughter, perhaps in this very moment.
All of them were crouched together on the grassy knoll, the gathering almost peaceful to an onlooker. It was nice to see a forest in front of her that wasn't obscured by a barb-wired fence. Looking down, she noticed more useful herbs she could gather and started plucking a few up.
Soon, Jinenji started to pluck some as well and Shiori followed suit. Kagome asked them about their lives in District 11, partially to satisfy her curiosity about life outside her corner of Panem, and partially to make new friends. Jinenji told her about horticulture, the feeling of meditation and reflection for him when he cares for something and lets it grow. He scooped up dirt in his hand and showed it to her up close, giving fascinating information about how viable the soil beneath them was.
Shiori talked about how much she spends working with grain too, but she prefers to spend her time in the trees with the mockingjays. Recently, her mother took her out of school so that she could work full time.
"Wait. You couldn't go to school anymore?" She asked incredulously, the idea foreign to her. Inuyasha was the only one to drop out in her small graduating class, most kids avoiding the District's famous mines for as long as possible unless there was a dire need in the family. Only Inuyasha fell into that category, she remembered ruefully, because he had no one. But even he avoided the mines, which had accidents every year. She lost her father to the mines before she could remember.
"I stopped school early, too," Jinenji added with a shrug, the sound of roots snapping undercutting his deep, soft-spoken tone. "Doing work and school at the same time was too much every day."
Kagome looked down at the herbs in her lap in contemplation. She couldn't shake the thought that her new acquaintances were robbed of something important. Putting her melancholy aside, she looked over at a bush closer to the trees and crawled to it. Juicy black berries hung from a stem, begging to be eaten. Kagome cupped a few into her palm, bringing one up to her mouth to give it a try.
Before she could even bite into the berry, Jinenji, in one sweep of his long arm, reached over and pulled her wrist away. Kagome looked up at him in bewilderment.
"I-I'm sorry," he rushed out, frantic tears welling in his round blue eyes when he released her arm as if it burned. "But that's nightshade! You'll die if you eat it!"
Kagome let the berries tumble from her fingers, all of them thumping down on the grass beneath it. She nearly lost it all over a single bite. "Ah. Uh. Thank you."
In her hand were the remnants of the berry's juice, a dark purple color that clung to the lines of her palm like blood. She wiped her hand on the grass in front of her like it could poison her through her skin. Kagome was in a shock-filled haze, but she managed to gather herself up enough to look at Jinenji again to properly express her gratitude. "You definitely didn't have to do that. I'm almost shocked you did—" she awed, "it would have been a small victory."
"It's just who I am," Jinenji stated and suddenly Kagome understood the sentiment perfectly. "Can't let this change every part of me."
Kagome nodded enthusiastically at that, though she couldn't help the bubbling of guilt and shame she felt about how much the Games had already changed her and they've only just begun.
Jinenji and Shiori then asked her about Twelve, and she told them about the crappy mines, about their hidden market, and because she couldn't help herself, a little bit about Inuyasha, too.
The sun dipped lower in the sky and Kagome decided she would be off and they both went their separate ways. She looked in the bag of supplies she had and found a canteen she could fill with water to take on the road with her.
Inuyasha took the high ground. He swung and bounced from branch to branch in the surrounding forest, looking out for another body of water beside the one at the edge of town, which was bound to become a hotspot for killing soon enough.
He left Kagome there, knowing it was dangerous. But he had to start forgetting about her now, he was already doing it much later than he should have, but it was so much harder to do with her nearby—looking at him with those eyes, scheming with that mouth.
That mouth, his memory beckoned again. Inuyasha paused on a large bough and sighed sharply, hands coming up to comb through his hair haphazardly; hoping it could be whisked off like a wayward leaf that landed on his head. No, more like a bug. When he said he hated her, when he meant that she hated how she made him feel, the look on her face was hard to resist. Her expression immediately looked guilty, smugness from seconds before gone, lips trembling and eyes glistening, her unshed tears shining like polished steel.
He grunted and scanned the clearing, listening closely. He could hear some tributes a ways away, though he won't go investigating who they were. The further away from people he was, the better off he felt. He almost wished the trees were even taller. The sky beyond appeared to have an imperceptible sheen to it, but he didn't dwell on it for too long. Everything by the Capitol is fabricated, even if these woods looked real.
Inuyasha jumped on another sturdy looking tree limb like he'd been doing for the last half hour, but it was as if the once dense bark suddenly hollowed beneath his feet and snapped. He was falling from a height he'd never caught himself from; the trees in 12 weren't nearly as full and high. Fruitlessly, he tried grasping at anything he could touch, leaves popping off into his hands as he made to hold on to branches that passed him on his descent. When Inuyasha finally held on tight to a tree halfway down, the branch supporting him broke as well.
Since the ground was getting closer and it looked like hitting it was inevitable, he just moved to break his fall in the way that seemed most practical.
Right on his back.
He smacked the ground with a loud thump, the grass and foliage beneath him graciously cushioning his fall somewhat, but not leaving him any less winded. His vision blurred in front of him, trees multiplying into a halo above his eyes as he tried to thread breath back into his lungs. Inuyasha tried to sit up, but it was excruciatingly painful, too much for what he just put his body through. Maybe landing on your back is the wrong idea?
Definitely, bones were broken. Based on the searing pain he was feeling in his chest and his fitful breathing, he might have punctured a lung with the edge of a broken rib. Hopefully, no one finds him like this, a useless heap at the brink of the forest.
Great, he wanted to say. He only winced, though, sucking on his teeth as he withstood the pain that should only last a few more hours at most.
He distantly wondered what Kagome was up to before he passed out
notes: I've upped the rating for this story to M since we're only going to get more gruesome from here! And boy does our half-demon have a potty mouth. I'm excited to have reached the arena. Please let me know what you think, on here or send me something at doginabirdcage on tumblr!
