Chapter 46

"Kagome." Kikyou breathed her name in return, her eyes setting in a menacing glare that made Kagome stutter on her next words the pushed through her trembling lips.

"K-Kikyou, what are you doing here? You...scared me..." She murmured, her eyes shining in the darkness as she watched the silent miko hide among the safe darkness of the trees. Her trembling hand sank down from her lush lips to quake on their own in the fear that clung tight to her body like soaked clothes on a rainy day.

'Why? Why would she be hiding from me? Watching me? Doesn't she know I have nothing against her?' Kagome wondered, her eyes searching for the deceased priestess she knew was swallowed by the dark. It was no use, until the mysterious miko took a small step forward, her white, slithering youkai swiping along her cheek, brightening a small spot on her stern features. Another slipped passed, adding another helplessly lost soul to the collection within the dead woman.

"Do you know what day it is?" Kikyou asked her confused and abruptly startled reincarnation. A horrific smile crawled over her perfectly placed lips at the frightened school girl's behalf. How scared she had become at the mere sight of her. It terrible to say that the priestess seemed pleased by the flicker of fear in the young girl's watery brown eyes.

"N-No. Yes. Monday...or Tuesday...or...I..." Kagome stopped, her heart hammering so hard she could feel and hear it like the silence that loomed over them both. She found it odd that she had really forgotten was day it was. Or, perhaps, the dead miko was talking about something else. It couldn't be that she knew future names of days. Impossible. Or was she just as sneaky as she had been just a moment ago, all the time?

Kikyou stepped forward, a slithering white demon swept passed to drop yet another glowing soul to settle in the miko's chest. Kagome watched with terror filled eyes as the soul became trapped within the deceased miko. Stealing souls. Was it really the only way to keep her alive? Was it really necessary for her to be alive anymore? What did she still long to do on this foresaken earth?

'No. That's right. How can I even think that.' Kagome scolded herself, blinking slowly as her chocolate brown eyes sank to the pile of sticks below. 'She's here...for Inuyasha. How could I forget how they still love each other. If she leaves, I know Inuyasha will be sad. So maybe it i is /i good that she's still around.'

She bent low, a hand moving down with her to gather a few cracked sticks back into her trembling arms. Her eyes moving, shakily, forward to meet the other miko's sandaled feet so close. A small gasp pulled forth from her lips to add to the tiny smile across the priestesses face. What could she possibly want?

"Stand up." She ordered, watching as the shaken school girl flinched at her words. Their eyes never met as Kagome abandoned the sticks for a second time. How she wished to be back at the hut now, huddling close to the dying fire in silence. Anything was better than this, her eyes shakily moving up to meet Kikyou's narrowed ones as she rose from the ground rather reluctantly.

"Who are you?" Kikyou demanded, her eyes searching the girl for a wisp of something she knew wasn't there. But, Kagome remained dead silent, forcing an annoyed hand forward to grasp around the young miko's chin and snatch her full attention, as if she hadn't had it before. She fed her own anger, her amusement on the soft tears that appeared at Kagome's reddened rims.

She closed her eyes, blinking rapidly to clear away the tears that forced their way up from behind her eyes. The priestesses dead cold touch frightened her, gave her shivers as well as horrible memories and random fantasies. Of who? Inuyasha. They were linked, and with her touch, she felt him. She could feel his rough hands all over her, running up her back beneath the safety of her shirt. All the way up to the back of her neck, those warm hands, before they trailed down, nails dragging over her sensitive skin.

Kagome trembled even harder, feeling those hands draw blood that wasn't there. They felt so real, just like his actual hands as they curved around her waist to drag deadly nails across her stomach. Her eyes flashed downward at nothing. Nothing but the white blouse that covered her shaking body. He wasn't touching her, he wasn't near at all. Only Kikyou, with her hand that had long dropped from the delirious miko's face.

"Look at you. Everyone says I'm you, you're me, but you are nothing like me. Weak. Perky. Happy all the time. Expressive. You're not me at all. Who….are you?" Kikyou demanded of the girl again, her feet moving slowly to pace an uncomfortably tight circle around Kagome. She eyed the girl disgustingly, as if the girl before her hadn't saved her so many times before. A friend. They were supposed be on the same side, not jealous rivals in love, or in something else unseen to the human eye.

Kagome could hardly take it anymore. It felt like the world was spinning around her, spinning in a circle like Kikyou spun slowly around her. She was so close that she could smell the thick scent of soil on her clay skin invading her slightly wrinkled nose.

"I'm just the stupid girl in love with a fool…who's still in love with you." She finally replied, her eyes narrowing, struggling against the tears that were determined to be set free. She held them back as best she could. She just couldn't cry. Not in front of Kikyou. If she knew how much it hurt her, who knew what she would do. That smile would only grow wider until it consumed them all.

"Is that so?" Kikyou snorted, her feet settling in the ankle high grass to stare, eagerly at the girl. She could tell her heart was breaking right in front of her and now her feet were crunching over the broken pieces without a care.

"You hold his heart in the palm of your hand…but you don't even love him." Kagome said, slipping a daring step forward. Her eyes wouldn't calm, those fiery tears stabbing like icicles into Kikyou's slightly lighter brown eyes. She was right. They were nothing alike. They didn't have the same hair, the same eyes, the same anything. How did people think they were like twins when they were so different?

"You know nothing." Kikyou retorted sharply. She shot daggers back at the miko with deadly brown eyes. Hazel eyes. Eyes that Kagome had always wished to have other than her own. So dark and plain, while hers were fiery and bright. Again, she felt that deep jealousy that always crept up from the pit of her stomach when she heard of or got around the deceased priestess.

"I know him ." Kagome spat back, returning Kikyou's sharpness and sudden anger. It wasn't right, all that she said. It wasn't right, how they stood there, argueing about something neither of them dared to admit. There was a secret hate that had been built up over the years and now she could see it clearly.

"You can't save him." Kikyou suddenly put out, her eyes narrowed seriously and menacingly at the girl who started to back down right in front of her at her words. It was something about her tone and words that scared her to the bone. Froze her, and gave her a nervous bleeding in her brain. And it hurt. She wanted to know that she could save him, from everything, from whatever this ex lover of a hanyou she had left behind at the hut was talking about. She wanted to crawl back into his arms, feel his warm, just to let her know that he didn't need saving.

A second later, darkness had engulfed her again, leaving her in standing in such a heavy silence that gave her a headache. It was no use waiting for the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach to subside. She knew the miko had gone, her brightening youkai following, leaving her in complete and utter darkness. And it scared her. She was so scared that it scared her even more to think about it. She was scared, confused, sad, and mad.

"...I CAN SAVE HIM! I CAN!" She suddenly screamed, dropping down again in the cold grass, the weak sticks cracking underneath her knees, stabbing at her paper skinned legs. Her hands moved up to cover her tear leaking eyes. She hated it, but struggled not to hate her. She hated how the deceased miko made her feel, but she tried so hard not to hate her even though every time she came around, horrible words echoed in her ears. 'Crazy. Ugly. Worthless.'

Kagome hurriedly gathered the firewood back into her trembling arms, wondering so desperatly why Kikyou had said such things. Hadn't she saved the dead woman's life so many times before? Was this her sick and twisted way of repaying her? Would she rather have died? Or was it just her; just Kagome?

She slipped through the forest, tears dripping from her curled lashes and down her cheeks where they silently dried in shining streaks, evidence of her sorrow. She wanted to get back to the hut and thrust herself back into Inuyasha's arms. HE wouldn't leave her. HE wouldn't say such evil things or touch her roughly. HE would comfort her.

Rushing past trees and into the open light once more, the thought stuck. She relied on the slim hope that he would just lie there with her and hold her as if his life depended on it. And if it were only in vain, the tears would surely come falling as a waterfall again.

Kagome sighed heavily, letting the warm rays of sunshine rain down on her, wiping away her tears with it's bright and fiery fingers. She couldn't wait another second before she darted through the bamboo weaving to be greeted with the first pleasant sight of the day.

They all sat, gathered around the weakening fire, each one possessing a content smile on their lips, left afterwards from a pleasant laugh. Even Inuyasha sat against the wall, a small grin over his lush and tempting lips that Kagome couldn't help but stare at. It was so good to see him smiling again, and it lifted a grin to her own features. Maybe Kikyou was just jealous. Maybe it was just a random, freak moment. It didn't mean a thing, and the upturned corners of the hanyou's lips sealed the deal of her thought with a golden stamp.

But it was only a moment afterward when smiles were turned towards her and eyes glittered with happy excitement that Inuyasha's nostrils flared. Slowly, like a clay figure melting in the hot sun, the pleased smile over his mouth slipped away, his eyes growing wide with something Kagome knew she didn't want to understand. He had smelled her tears, he could see them on her face, and she wanted to believe that was what he had jumped up for. She wanted to believe he was running towards her, but the wisp of cold air as he passed sent her hopes hurtling down to the dark depths of our cruel earth again.

The sticks crashed to the hardwood floor, abandoned again as a thin stream of tears rolled down her red cheeks. She knew exactly where he was going. The one place she really couldn't save him.

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DUM DUM DUM! Here it is, with the horribly sad ending and such. Told you, you guys were totally going to kill me! It gets worse.

So...I DREW A PITCHAAAAA...(I drew a picture)...It perdy...I don't have a scanner though...and OH, HEY! Someone drew a perdiful picture for me, of my fic! Here...I'll see if it'll let me put the linkie up here...

That work? Hmmm...no...it probably screwed everything up. Ah, well. It's by Tenseiga-Chan, my luffly rping buddy. I'll get it up sometime...

So, next chapter coming, hope you semi liked this one...aaaand...more reviews, drawings, suggestions, critics...umm...yeah-bye...