How Tightly we are Tied
From beneath the murky, swirling surface of the void child's mirror, the images cleared and played out for me to see.
I found myself looking into a mirror, but it wasn't a reflection I was seeing. That face, which bore so much resemblance to my own, was not mine. Those eyes were cold and filled with anger and hatred that should have died long ago. She was a woman whose life had been stolen from her by the way she had lived as much as by the way she had died.
Kikyo.
For so long I had tried to understand her; tried to understand how she could hate someone who only wanted to give her their love; tried to understand how someone claiming to be the pure hand of a priestess could feed their strength by stealing the souls of the dead before they could reach their rest. I had tried to understand her hatred, her anger, her pain; but I could never truly see.
She was me, and yet she wasn't. We shared a destiny, and yet we walked separate paths. We shared a soul, and yet mine would live on hope while hers would live for revenge. For those who would mistake me for her, they could never understand how wrong their assumptions were. Kikyo and I were as different as night from day.
I watched her draw her bowstring back with practiced ease as she lifted her weapon and took aim. Her arrow loosed, and its path was followed by the enchanted mirror. Soon the target was made clear to me, and I was reminded yet again what sets me so far apart from the dead priestess.
How could she be so cruel? How could she be so heartless?
All her life she had dedicated to two things: helping people, and killing youkai. But how could she not see that youkai have emotions as surly as humans, that they feel pain as we do, that they deserve to live as surely as any other? How could she not see that there are those youkai whose hearts can be kind, and those who deserve our understanding and compassion? Had she been so blackened by her own hatred of her destiny that she could not realize this?
Could she not see that the youkai she would destroy with her arrow had already been beaten, had already suffered; had already fallen prey to a monster far worse than he could ever be? Could she not see that the wolf prince, despite his misdeeds, still fought for the same purpose as us?
Though my voice was still, my heart screamed out for someone to stop that arrow. I couldn't watch Kouga die in such a way. Naraku had beaten his body, stolen his strength and his dignity, and left him tied and helpless to face his death. But it was a death he did not deserve.
Surely, one claiming to be a priestess, one claiming to be on the side of righteousness; could see this.
But nothing would stop the path of that arrow. There was no one that could stand in its way, or no one that would try.
I prayed then, in that moment when I was certain that Kouga's life would be taken from this world, that the gods would have mercy. I prayed for them to see the wrong of what was going to transpire. I prayed for them to spare the wolf.
And my prayers were answered, but not by anything that I could have expected.
Just before the arrow could hit its mark, a rush of cutting winds tore across Kouga's tattered form. Though the cutting blades ripped his body even more and drew forth more blood to flow from the wounds; his bindings were also cut though. Kouga dropped to the ground in a heap at the base of the crucifix he had been bound to just as the arrow struck the post where it would have hit his heart.
"Kagura." Naraku's golem was obviously displeased with the actions of the wind witch, and his voice carried his disdain for the sorceress.
The golem lifted his hand from beneath his robes. Held tightly in his grasp I could see something pulse with life, and as his grip tightened around the object and Kagura screamed out in pain; I realized whose life it was he held in his wicked grasp. Kagura was as Sesshomaru had said: nothing but another pawn to that monster. Naraku held Kagura's heart in his hand, and as he applied pressure to the organ she fell to the ground clutching her chest in writhing agony.
But why would Naraku be so angered by the fact that the wind witch had spared the life of the wolf that he would reprimand her in such a brutal way? Wasn't Kouga meant to be bait for Inuyasha? Wasn't the wolf supposed to be yet another distraction in Naraku's twisted game? But then, if the bait had already been taken what further purpose would it serve? Perhaps Naraku simply wanted his hands cleaned of the wolf, and he had wished for Kikyo to do his dirty work for him. But why would Kikyo play his game so readily?
I wouldn't have time to find the answers to my questions though, because a voice calling out from the distance moved the focus of the image to them.
"Kikyo!"
Inuyasha burst onto the scene. His first thought, of course, going to the love he had lost so long ago.
Kikyo turned to face Inuyasha, but once her back was turned, the cowardly Naraku took his chance to strike. Inuyasha called out again, but even with his speed he would not make it in time. Naraku's tentacles shot out with incredible speed and pierced through the clay body of the dead priestess, breaking through her back and coming out through her chest.
She didn't even cry out. Even when she sunk to her knees on the ground, a gaping hole through her unnatural frame, Kikyo remained silent. Even her eyes revealed nothing of her pain, nothing of her thoughts.
Inuyasha was at her side almost instantly. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
"Kikyo, no." he whispered in a broken voice.
"I'll be waiting for you, Inuyasha," she whispered back to him before she closed her eyes.
"How touching." Naraku, that monster, wouldn't even allow the pair of star-crossed lovers to share a moment of peace before he continued with his wretched plans. "How nice of you to join us, Inuyasha. It seems you are just in time to have your heart torn from you again."
"You monster!" Inuyasha set Kikyo's broken form carefully down on the ground, and then stood to confront the beast. "I'm gonna slit you open and throttle you with your own innards!"
Inuyasha charged towards the golem. In his eyes I could see the fury and hatred that burned within him. That beast had stolen love from him once, and had nearly accomplished that feat again. Were it not for the fact that Kikyo's body is not made of flesh, she would have died again at Naraku's hand. He wore his furry on the outside to conceal the pain within.
As Inuyasha approached the golem however, the image of Naraku did not try to lash out at him. Even after Inuyasha had released the fury of the Windscar, all the golem did was lift his hand before him again; holding up Kagura's heart to take the force of the blast. The fury of the torn winds ripped through the image of Naraku, obliterating everything in its path.
Even in death, the beast that is Naraku, always seems to have the last laugh. As his form was torn apart, his wicked laughter mingled with the scream of horror being released by the wind witch.
I was granted an image of Kagura then. She lay on the ground, her hand clutching tightly to her breast, and tears of lost hope and lost faith spilling down her face. A figure approached her. Coming into view of the mirror's reflection, I saw Kouga. He was still weak, and he barely had the strength to pull himself to the woman who had fallen so close to where she had released him. He asked her one question.
"Why did you release me?"
"You are the enemy of my enemy," she replied as her body began to fade to glittering ash. "We all deserve to be free."
And then she closed her eyes for the last time, and the winds that had served her carried her away.
My heart went out to Kagura even though she had been my enemy. She had been trapped too within Naraku's evil grasp. She had never been free. Born a slave, the closet thing to freedom she had ever had she found within the dancing winds.
But if Kagura saw Naraku as her enemy, then why would she have protected him from Kikyo? Why would she have been so ready to put herself in danger against the powerful priestess when she knew Kikyo may have the strength to take down her only true enemy?
It was then that I finally knew the answer. I knew why Naraku had allowed that golem to die so easily. I knew why Kagura had set the wolf free. I knew why she had attacked Kikyo.
"No," my whisper was filled with horror. "Not again. Please, not again."
But it was. And there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
I was forced to watch as Inuyasha turned back to where Kikyo had fallen. But it was she that was in possession of the Shikon and her supernatural body had already healed. She faced Inuyasha, but she would spare no reprieve for the man that loved her. She called forth her sacred powers, which now bore the gleam of Naraku's taint, and stuck out at him.
To be betrayed again by the one he loved; to be struck down by her a second time. There was no fight left in him for what was to come. I could see it in his eyes. Inuyasha didn't even bother lifting his sword, he didn't bother to defend. He just let her hatred wash over him.
He was thrown into the air from the force of the blast, but even before he began his decent; a soul collector rapped itself around his unconscious from.
"INUYASHA!"
My call out to him was ended with an anguished screech wrenched out of me when the blinding pain ripped through my side. My hand flew to my side to try and contain the agonizing pulse, but once there I could feel the hot, sticky, wetness of my own blood.
"Kagome!"
Sesshomaru was beside me. He took hold of my hand and ripped it away from where I was clutching my side. As he looked upon the red blood soaking my hand, I could see the crimson waves breaking through the golden barrier of his eyes.
"What have you done!" His roaring voice lifted into the vast web around us, echoing against the woven bands to fill the space with his fury.
The hissing laugh of the creature in the web chased away the lingering of Sesshomaru's enraged demand.
"Are you just now realizing that the bond shared between you is not natural?"
I didn't know what the beast was talking about. What did the bond have to do with my injury? I looked at Sesshomaru to ask him what was going on, but my eyes caught sight of something in doing so. His side, the same side that I had been injured on, was torn with a deep gash spreading from just under his missing arm downwards towards his hip. Sesshomaru had been injured during his battle against the spider. An injury no doubt acquired the instant I called out to Inuyasha. And his injury had been transferred to me as well.
That was why he was so enraged. Though the bond between us allowed us to feel the others pain, it was unnatural to have the injuries of the other inflicted in a physical sense. Naraku; this had all been his doing. All along he had been playing us. All along he was setting us up to take the fall.
"Did you think that she was actually meant to be your mate, Sesshomaru? I would not have taken you for such a fool. You should have killed her while you were still able. But now it shall be you that dies; and I that shall pick up the pieces of her tattered heart and soul; molding them to fit in my image."
Suddenly the spider dropped down from the web directly above us. Sesshomaru picked me up in a blinding flash and carried us both to a safe distance from the creature before he set me down. He stepped in front of me to face the beast.
From the side of the creature, Kanna approached. She came to stop beside one of the hideously long and sharp legs and held out her mirror to it. The spider lifted its clawed appendage, resting it on the surface of the mirror for a moment before turning back to us.
"I don't want my trophy to bleed to death before I can claim her."
When he lifted his leg away from the mirror, he took with it two of the shards which were affixed to the surface.
It felt as though he had ripped out a part of me. When he removed the jewel shards from the mirror, I could feel, deep within me, something break. I doubled over in pain and reached out to Sesshomaru. I needed his strength for what that monster was doing to me. Naraku was playing with more than my mind and more than my body; now he was attacking my very soul.
But when Sesshomaru looked back to me and met my gaze, I knew that what Naraku had done had hurt him just as much. His eyes frantically searched mine, almost as though he were searching for something lost. I could feel it too. Though we were still connected, the bond was weak. I couldn't feel what he was feeling, nor hear his thoughts anymore. I knew that he was with me still, but so much of him had been taken away from me.
"Do you know what would happen if I took away the last shard?"
I broke away from Sesshomaru's eyes to look back at the creature. When my sight finally landed on the monster that would play my life like some twisted game, I hardened on the inside. I stepped away from Sesshomaru and pulled my bow from my shoulder. In less than a second I had loosed an arrow at the beast.
The spider hissed with fury as it swung back up into the vast dome of the web to avoid being hit by my arrow. But it would not escape our fury for what it had done. Sesshomaru took off from my side to launch an attack of his own against the beast. He lifted his blade and brought it down in what would be the final stroke.
But before the devastating power of his attack could be released, an arrow immersed in a brilliant light hit the blade of Tokijin; shattering the demonic sword.
I turned to face the back-stabbing bitch who had just interrupted the attack. Kikyo stood proudly and defiantly before me as always and locked her hard, cold eyes onto mine.
"I propose," she started in a tone which told me plenty of just how fair this offer was going to be, "that we make a trade."
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Lordy! Battle scenes take forever to write! But I'm getting there…slowly. Still, despite how long it is taking me; these chapters are coming along nicely I think. About two more chappies for the battle and then I can finally get back to writing the easier, fluffier, and funnier stuff.
Chow
ShadowsWeaver1
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters I am about to weave into my web of chaos. Any and all definitions (with the exception of those cited specifically) have been taken directly from Wikipedia the online encyclopedia because I am far too lazy to do any further research to support my Inuyasha obsession.
