Fang of Fury
"Kikyo, how could you?"
I had to ask. I had to know. How could she betray Inuyasha again? Why would she side with the villain that had been the one to take her life in the first place? How could she have allowed herself to be swayed by the power of the tainted jewel?
I could see the tainted Shikon shard glowing darkly within her breast. Nearly half of Naraku's jewel was being carried by the dead priestess. He had tried once before to sway Kikyo by using the jewel fragment to carry his taint into her, but then it had not worked. Perhaps now was different though. Perhaps the sheer size of the fragment had been enough to overcome her, or perhaps it was that Kikyo still carried within her the miasma that Naraku had infused her with during their last encounter at Mt. Hakurei. I had thought that I had purified the miasma that had been slowly killing her, but if some had remained would it have been enough to allow Naraku to control Kikyo now when he could not before?
Kikyo didn't answer my question. I suppose I shouldn't have been very surprised; she never was much of a talker. Instead, she lifted her arm in the air and made a sweeping motion with it. From behind her, through the newly formed opening in the web that the dead priestess had made, a soul collector drifted in carrying wrapped in its slender form Inuyasha's unconscious body.
"He is not dead," she said to me in her measured, emotionless voice, "but if he is to remain alive shall be up to you."
"What are you talking about?" I had had enough games, enough riddles. I would not play for Inuyasha's life in this twisted game of Naraku's making.
"You possess five fragments of the jewel. Hand them over to me now, and Inuyasha will be spared."
"Fine!" It wasn't a trade I would even spend time considering. "If these are what you want! If the precious jewel means more to you than the man who loves you, then you can take them! I never wanted the cursed jewel in the first place! I never wanted any of this! But I haven't been given the choice!"
I started walking towards Kikyo fully intent on giving her exactly what she desired, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me. I turned back to face Sesshomaru. His expression was just as devoid of emotion as the dead woman I had been facing, but I knew he was looking at me with a much more protective eye. He didn't understand why I would so easily give away the only leverage I had left. He wanted to know if I was really thinking about giving up because of Inuyasha's fall.
But I wasn't giving up, nor was I giving in. I knew that the jewel would be whole on this day one way or the other, and if it couldn't be made whole by my hands that didn't mean I wouldn't have a say in what happened after. Naraku was stalling for time. There was still one piece of the jewel missing; the piece carried by Kohaku was still on its way. All that was left was for the final piece to enter the web.
I covered his hand with my own and gave it a gentle squeeze. Even if he couldn't read me as he had before, even if he couldn't tell what I was thinking or feeling; we had been through a lot together in the past week and I think he knew that this would be my battle no matter how many others would become involved.
Sesshomaru inclined his head slightly to me in understanding and moved his hand away from my shoulder.
At least he thought I knew what I was doing; too bad that I wasn't really sure of it myself. But I couldn't dwell on uncertainties at the moment. I wouldn't allow Inuyasha to die when there was a way for me to stop it. The fragments of the jewel meant little to me in the scheme of things anyways. I had thought Naraku would know this, but he obviously couldn't understand that the power of the jewel is weak in comparison to what I feel for my friends.
I started walking towards Kikyo again. For every step I took, I watched as her soul collector moved a little further towards where Sesshomaru stood behind me. When at last I reached Kikyo, she held out her hand expectantly towards me.
Standing so close to her I could see into her eyes. Though she did not have any expression, her eyes revealed to me that, unlike Kohaku whose eyes were dead and soulless, she still had her own will. Though she was playing for Naraku's side, she was doing it of her own volition. I wanted to cry and to scream and to strike out at her all at once. Everything she had done to me and to my friends had always been for her own purpose.
When I looked at her I could see the resentment she bore me for the life that I had, for the soul that was mine and would never be hers. She hated me, but I could not bring myself to feel the same for her. I found then, that though I should hate her for everything that she had put me through; that I could not. In a way she was still a part of me, and I could not bring myself to hate that. I pitied her, I felt sympathy for her plight, and I felt ashamed of where her misguided actions had led her; but still no hatred.
I had come to accept that I could never change what she had become. I could never set her free in the way that she deserved. There was only one way for Kikyo to ever truly know the peace she sought; and that was for this unnatural life she had been granted to come to an end. She knew this, and still she carried on because she felt it was her duty; a duty that had never left her since her life as the miko of the Shikon.
She still couldn't see that that duty was no longer hers. I had accepted her for what she was, but she had yet to accept me for what I was.
I am the miko of the Shikon.
Though I may be a reincarnate of what she once was, I am still far more than that because I am Kagome. Kikyo would learn this. But as I handed her the fragments of the jewel that I had possessed and I watched them glow a pure and gentle pink even in her hand, I knew that for her the knowledge would come too late.
I knew what she was planning. She was thinking that she could beat Naraku at his own game. She believed that by allowing herself to be swayed by Naraku's influence that he would not look upon her as the threat that she was. But she still could not understand the true nature of the creature she faced, nor could she see the true nature of what she was.
Kikyo is not of this world. Her body is made of nothing but bones and graveyard soil animated by the souls of the dead. Though her knowledge of the workings of magic and power were carried with her into this form, she would never be the pure vessel she once was. Kikyo had been tainted, but not by Naraku, and not in a way that could ever be repaired. She was dead and yet she walked the earth; she was lost and yet she still sought out the purpose that her life once held; she lived for revenge and cared nothing for the lives of those that would be affected by her course yet she would still call herself a priestess.
For all her training, all her knowledge, and all her power; Kikyo could still not understand what the jewel really was. But since I had been forced to confront my nemesis in this game of his making, since I had watched the suffering and loss of my friends at the hands of that monster, since he had sought to break me by allowing me to connect to a soul so very different and yet so very like my own and then to steal away that which had bound us together; in my heart I knew how Midoriko had so long ago put an end to the madness of the war she fought.
I knew what the Shikon was.
I was so shocked by my revelation, that for a moment my mind wandered from my current surroundings. All of this time it had been so obvious, and yet so concealed. How could I have missed it? The statue in Midoriko's cave of her and the beast locked for eternity in mortal combat, how easily the jewel had shattered in the face of another war and how hard it was to form it back together, how each piece of the broken heart could become pure and full of life or dark and full of malice depending on the heart of the one that picked it up. It all made so much sense now. I knew how the evil of the war had been contained. Midoriko hade made the ultimate sacrifice of love, but in her heart she could not accept the darkness.
Hate and love are both emotions of the heart; you can never truly have one without the other.
Midoriko had failed to see this, and so she had lost. But her sacrifice had not been in vain, for as she could not accept the darkness and the hatred it could not accept the light and the love. And so they both had been sealed away: locked for eternity within her loving heart. Midoriko had given her life, had given her heart, but she had not been able to understand. She could not accept the darkness as being a part of her and so she had fallen.
Such would be the task for me now. The jewel would be made whole again; Midoriko's heart would be pieced back together. But still, within would rage the endless battle until there was one who could accept the truth of both sides. Naraku would attempt to use the jewel, but he could never gain its possession completely because like the demons come before him, Naraku would never be able to accept Midoriko's love.
If I ever wanted to see the end of this battle, if I ever wanted to see the jewel destroyed; I would have to accept the darkness coursing through my enemy, I would have to love him as much I hated him, I would have want for him as I would want for myself.
But how could I do such a thing?
A piercing cry pulled me back from where my mind had wandered into the tangled web of Naraku's deceit. I looked up to see where the cry had come from just in time to see Kikyo fall to the ground. The curved blade that had broken through her unnatural body was jerked back by the long chain attached to it. The blade tore through more of the magic-made flesh, and as it exited Kikyo's body with it was extracted the tainted shard.
I followed the path of the blade to finally set eyes on Kohaku. He paid me no heed as he dashed forward to collect the five jewel fragments which had spilled from Kikyo's hand as she fell. Only once they were secured in his grasp he finally turned to me and locked onto me with his dead eyes.
"Kohaku!"
Sango's call from the breached barrier of the web spurred the boy into action again. He came right at me with his blade raised and ready to attack. But before he could come into range, Hiraikotsu struck the ground in front of his path and stopped him in his tracks. Kohaku turned to face his new opponent, completely heedless of the fact that she was his sister.
But the boy-puppet of Naraku would not have to face Sango this time. From out of the webbed dome above us, the spider creature revealed himself again and descended towards the demon slayer. Seeing the new threat, Miroku stepped forward to protect Sango. He set his cursed hand before him and prepared to unleash the void, but the spider was too quick and it opened it giant maw and spit forth a hissing gush of its sticky web.
The spider's silk impacted Miroku with such force that it threw him back against the woman he had stood protectively in front of. The monk and demon slayer were forced back against the trappings of the great web and held in place by the unbreakable threads.
Through the diversion though, Sesshomaru took his chance to attack. His acid whip extended in the air around him in a searing dance of crackling fire. It cut through the air, leaving a burning wake in its path towards the creature. The spider spun round to face the onslaught, but instead of hissing out its fury or roaring for its loss; the beast lifted its cackling laughter to echo off the entrapments of the great web.
It was then that I felt it. Like a serrated blade pushed through my heart and twisted to extend the horrid agony, the pain ripped through me. I felt as though my life had ended in an inferno as hot as the scorching surface of the sun. It was suffering unimaginable and agony that was indescribable. It ripped through me in every way I could ever imagine pain, and in every way I would dread to think it may be. I was consumed by its intensity and driven to the boarders of insanity by its sheer force. My soul had been ripped and torn, and left bare and exposed to the horrors of the world thrust upon me.
My scream was torn out from my very core. It was my agony and my suffering. It was my anguish and my horror. It was my breaking heart and my shattered soul. It was pain, and I was not alone.
In the vast dome of our prison mixing with the scream that had been pulled forth from me, was the howling roar of equal suffering that had been torn from Sesshomaru when he, like me, felt the final ties of our bond being ripped away.
The intensity of the pain forced me to my knees to try and brace against the onslaught, but Sesshomaru was not nearly as lucky. He had been in the middle of an attack when the final shard had been pulled from the mirror to shatter what was left of the ties binding us together. When the pain overtook him, there was nowhere for him to go but down. He plummeted towards the earth uninhibitedly, not possessing the strength to fight against the consuming anguish and against the forces of gravity. When he struck the earth, a great crater was formed by the force of the impact.
I called out to him through my anguish and fought against the pain holding me back to move my unresponsive body to where he had fallen. But my struggle was in vain. I could never make it to him in time. The spider creature had set itself to attack. This time, however, Sesshomaru had no way to defend. He had been weakened terribly by the breaking of the bond. All along this had been Naraku's plan. He set us up to take the fall, and now that we were down he would strike the killing blow.
I needed to get to him. If I could I could erect a barrier. In my weakened state suffering a blast of such power from that monster would likely have killed me, but I didn't care. I called upon every ounce of strength and every part of hidden power. I called upon my will, my determination, and upon the love that I had been hiding from for so long. But even that would not be enough. My body could only move inches when I was screaming in my mind for it to move miles. I was helpless to stop what was coming.
The spider opened its fanged maw again, but this time it brought its foremost legs together before it. Adorning each clawed appendage was a wickedly glowing shard of the Shikon. Naraku would spare no allowances for error in this blast. From the creature's mouth a giant, swirling ball of energy formed. As the blast passed by the shards held before it, the energy intensified and the power of it grew.
When the blast was finally released it was massive. Twisting and churning with deadly waves of darkened energy, the surging blast was propelled forth from the creature to Sesshomaru's fallen form.
I tried to scream, to call out; but my voice had been stolen from me. All I could do was watch as the blast approached. Helpless and broken and consumed with dreadful grief; I was forced to watch the powerful blast explode on impact with its destination.
The devastating energy of the attack tore through everything in its path. The ground was ripped through leaving gaping crevices in the path of the assault which still burned with fires fueled by dark energy. And in the crater where Sesshomaru had fallen, the wicked fires burned the brightest with enough intensity to obliterate everything it touched.
Only when it was too late, only when the dark fires began to subside; was I finally able to form my body to move. I pushed away from the ground with great difficulty and made my way over to the blackened pile of smoldering earth. When I reached the edge of the crater and looked down I saw something that I never in my life could have believed possible, and I didn't know if I should be weeping from sorrow or from joy.
At the bottom of the blackened pit Sesshomaru was still alive, and his arm was wrapped around the torn, burned, and bloodied form of the brother that had saved his life at the last moment. Inuyasha had come to Sesshomaru's defense when no one could. Even after all the years of distrust and of misunderstanding and hard feelings, still Inuyasha had put himself in the way of the terrifying blast because he knew that only he could, because he knew that his father's fang coupled with his iron will would be enough to shield his brother in his moment of weakness.
I could tell that Inuyasha couldn't hold on to consciousness for much longer. He had been severely weakened by Kikyo's assault against him and Naraku's attack had overdrawn his energy stores; but he wouldn't close his eyes before he gave us one more weapon to use against the monster that had trapped us all here.
Inuyasha lifted Tetsusaiga with a shaky hand and held it out to Sesshomaru.
"Only you can protect her now," was all Inuyasha said to his brother before he gave in to the rest that would claim him.
Sesshomaru looked up at me then. His eyes were burning crimson for the atrocities that had been committed on this day and for the hatred that burned within him for the beast responsible. But for a moment, when his eyes locked with mine, there was something more. He tore his eyes away from mine before I could figure out what it was I had seen, and he turned back to Inuyasha.
He moved his hand to rest on the hilt of the legendary fang. For so long Sesshomaru had coveted the power of his father's fang, but now he seemed to hesitate. I think that he knew as well as I had always known that Tetsusaiga was meant to be wielded by Inuyasha, and I think that on this day he had finally seen why. But Inuyasha's sacrifice would not be wasted. Sesshomaru steeled his resolve and pulled forth the great fang from his brother's grasp.
Tetsusaiga accepted Sesshomaru's hand as easily as it had accepted Inuyasha's or his father's before him. The fang of power crafted to protect life now answered to Sesshomaru's call. When he stood, his aura flared up around him. Burning crimson to match the eerie color of his eyes, his youki lashed out in dangerous spindles of untamed power. There was nothing that could stand against him now.
Sesshomaru lifted the great fang in the air, wrapping it in the surging energies of his own power. Then, in a movement so fast it could not be seen, he brought the blade down and unleashed the devastating fury of the Windscar.
The spider creature in the web barely had the time to screech out its fury and its revulsion for its approaching miserable fate before it was torn apart by the cutting winds and the untamed force of sheer power. Its bulging, ugly form disintegrated to nothing but darkened ash in the wake of the blast, and as its hissing scream was carried upwards into the dome of the great web, the Shikon shards that had fueled its power fell down towards the ground.
The shards would not land unclaimed however, for standing just below where the spider had been ripped apart by the destruction of the Windscar; Kohaku was there to catch the last fragments of the jewel. In his hands he held all of the pieces of the sacred jewel and I knew that hidden within the empty shell of the boy lay concealed the monster that for so long had plagued my nightmares.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm back! I know I've been gone for a while (4 days! That's the longest I've been away yet!) I'm sorry, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. You know that thing called a life with those annoying little responsibilities that seem to go along with it? Ah well, what can you do?
HaHa! Now everyone knows where Naraku really is! Kukukuku wasn't that just evil of me? Oh, but it was the perfect place ;P Besides, if Kohaku's jewel shard had been affixed to Kanna's mirror, something had to be keeping him alive. And Naraku wouldn't just let all of his precious jewel fragments out of his hands. If you are thinking that there was no way for you to have discovered this plot twist from the riddles I gave you (though you are probably right because I really didn't think anyone would get it) but the riddle that was meant to give it away was 'WHAT lives and WHAT dies is not for me to decide' Kanna was implying either that Kohaku is merely a puppet, or that he is already dead by saying WHAT and not WHO when Kagome asked if Kohaku is alive. Also, since I so enjoy using dialogue and plots that are actually used in the show and movies; using Kohaku as the vessel for Naraku seemed like the right thing to do.
Well I hope you have enjoyed the untangling of the great web. Now that all the characters have found their way into the middle, the battle will soon come to an end.
One more thing (sorry this is so long, but I'm in a talkative mood) for those Kikyo fans out there, I apologize for the way I have treated her. I don't like Kikyo's character myself, but I have tried not to make her a bitch simply because I don't like her. I used ideas from the show that she has actually done, and tried to describe her from my perspective of things. I hope that I wasn't too cruel.
Ok, that's it for today.
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.
