Robins and birds of all breeds chirped their morning sound, flying about gleefully. They landed on the jutting rocks, black birds gently picking flakes of bloody mica from the boulders. They waded in the crimson puddles that dotted the rocks below, as if something horrible had not happened, as if they just couldn't sense the vibe of pure horror and sorrow that had dwelled there for hours during the night. Had it all been swept away with death, or the wind?
A tiny grunt lifted from cracked and sore lips, bloody beyond imaginable. The figure, drenched in nothing but red, shifted painfully. Silver hair cast aside at the turn of his head, revealing handsome, youthful features. Pure red was smeared across his lips and cheeks, forehead and neck. There wasn't an inch of him that wasn't covered in the thick, vital, fluid.
'W-What am I doing? Where am I? What did I do? What happened last night?' Were his first thoughts of the day as he snuggled his head against the soft pillow he seemed to be resting his head against. His hands moved through satin strings, and, as curious as he was to know what it was, he kept his eyes shut tightly.
Then, it hit him, hard, in the groin. Kagome. He was with Kagome last night. He could still feel her lips on his, on his chest and neck. And when he swallowed, he could taste her blood. He trembled, afraid, now, of what he lay against, afraid to remember what caused that unbearable scent of tears and blood.
He let out a groan, amber eyes cracking open to shut again, wishing he had never seen. A choked, sob-like sound cracked through his throat as he gently pulled his head away from where it was nestled, against the girl's breasts.
The hanyou breathed out slowly, closing his eyes as soon as he opened them again to look upon the mangled girl. Her hair was thrashed over her face, parting in some places to reveal deadly pail skin and nearly blue lips. Bloody gashes were worked into her sides, streaks of nails down her thighs and calves, punctures in her wrists and arms and fang marks on her neck.
He recognized the markings as his own, as a mark one would put on a mate. But she wasn't his, was she? He would have surely remembered every second of it if that had been the case. No. Her clothes, ragged and ripped, barely covering her anymore, but still in tact and covering her body. But what had happened?
Inuyasha's head snapped back, his solid red eyes gleaming fiercely as he let out a snarl. His silvery white hair flung through the darkness, whipping blood and water onto ever rock and rose that surrounded them. His claws ripped away from her back, slamming, open palmed, to each side of her head. His legs and hips pinned her down so that she couldn't move, even if she tried.
He listened to her screaming moans, and something inside him snapped. His red eyes lowered, blue pupils narrowing at her blood smeared face. Blood trailed across her flesh, from her lips to her chest, to her shoulders and neck. The hanyou knew he had done it, but it didn't yet come to him that it was bad, what he had done.
Kagome looked up at him, gently tracing her fingers along the bulging muscles of his arms to calm him. Nothing could anymore. Her kisses and words just sent him more and more over the edge, and made her realize more and more how this may be the end of her own life. She could see her own blood dripping from his fangs and splattering onto her face in clean dots of red, like his eyes.
His hands clenched into fists so he could feel the blood spread over every inch of his raw skin. HER blood. He didn't even know how much he had hurt her or where, exactly , all the blood was coming from. His vision was far too blurred to see anything at this point. All he had to go off of were the anguishing moans of white hot pain that trailed from the miko's throat in a never ending chorus.
He dipped his face down to kiss her with a soft whimper. The first gentle kiss after all the pain and blood and screaming. Was he finally spiraling down into his old self again? Kagome could only hope so as her lids grew heavier and it took more than the usual effort to kiss him back or even breathe correctly.
It was still all too weird to have him kissing her. She would have never guessed these moments would escape the dark depths of her dreams and silent wishes. Now, laying under him with her heart in his teeth, it almost seemed natural. But not quite.
Again, she felt his fangs sink into her lips, drawing blood like a vampire. She turned her head, panting for her breath that had filtered from her lungs as his nails moved back to her shoulders. They sank in, slower than usual, feeding off the way her hands clenched in his hair, her lips brushing to his furry ears as his face buried into her neck again. Every sound she made echoed through his ears, each and every moan or squeak of pain that made his ears twitch wildly but always turning back for more. Was he going to kill her now? Was this what he had in mind all along? She just couldn't think straight until her mind fell black and she finally fell limp under him with a last weak plea for her survival.
"Inuyasha...Please...I don't want to...die."
'No!' His mind that he sworn he had lost suddenly screamed out to him. 'No! I have to stop! I have to tame this damned animal! It's not the real me! I just can't control myself!'
The youkai's shoulders heaved, his forehead creased with youthfull wrinkles of a hidden worry. His brows curled, his lips quivering. With a long and loud whimper, he let her begging voice echo through his mind before finally tossing himself away from her, completely exhausted. He tumbled to a nearby puddle, curling inward with her blood still swirling in his mouth. To save her, he had to get away from her.
Get away. Leave her alone. Never touch or speak to her again. How was it possible? But he just wasn't able to think anymore that night as his lids dropped shut, sending him into a pit of oily black sleep that separated him from the girl he so wanted to save.
So that was it. That was what he had done. He jerked his vision back. All the blood was around them and he couldn't even tell where it was all coming from, but he knew he had done it. Had he killed her? Had she died somewhere in the middle of the night while he slept like a damn baby right beside her?
Inuyasha swiped aside her raven hair, kissing her pale, cracked, bruised and bloody lips. His own stung at the touch of hers, but he didn't hesitate to bring his lips to her forehead and then to her lips again in gentle, apologetic kisses. He knew they wouldn't help now. Not if she was dead.
He kissed her again, his hand lightly touching her chest just in case there was just one breath left. He waited, his lips hovering over hers, not breathing at all until he felt a tiny wisp of air move over his mouth. A huge wave of cold relief spread over him and he quickly blinked the surprised tears from his eyes.
The thought of losing her, the thought of knowing he did it, truly ripped him apart inside. That horrible feeling where he would never hold her again, never hear her randomly rooting him on in battle, never hear her sweet voice coo to him or feel her sweet touch, never have her bandage his bloody wound he had been inflicted with while protecting her, never look into those soulful brown eyes again, made him tremble with a pain that could surely kill him on the spot.
Inuyasha brought the limp and bloody girl into his arms as gently as possible, not to wake her. He couldn't see a lot of what he had done, his vision was still blurred with a slight red from the night before. All he could see was the dark red through his own red eyes.
He looked down at her, in those bloody and ripped clothes. He could see pastures of her pale skin, blood smeared, through the rips in the fabric. He couldn't leave her like that. The hanyou gently began to peel the bloody clothing from her body, careful not to look down at what was underneath. He pulled away the useless shards of clothing to leave her torso bare, aside from that 'restriction' she always wore.
He steered his eyes downward to her flat stomach, staring with narrowed eyes at the fingerprints, left in blood, he had printed there. He cringed, quickly swiping his hand over the prints, feeling Kagome's frozen skin beneath his fingers. The hanyou wanted to say he hadn't done it, but he knew the truth now.
He slipped out from under her, laying her back to crimson stained rock, hearing her moan slightly in her sleep. It almost made him smile as he backed away to wade back through the warm water, swiping his haori from a patch of blue flowers before hurrying back, wringing it in his hands.
"Good, It's dry." He spoke softly, shocked at his own voice. It sounded cracked and hoarse, and it hurt to speak. But he pushed aside the wonder of what had made that so and bent down to spread the haori over his crossed legs and bring Kagome back onto his lap.
Inuyasha breathed out slowly, gently tugging her just-as-ragged green skirt down over her hips. He tried now to let his vision stray from her face as he did so, but the disgusting urge was overwhelming. He had to admit, all of them knew by now, that Kagome wasn't too hard on the eyes. No. She was beautiful, clothes or not. But it felt more than awkward to be undressing her the day after their first kiss. 'It isn't like that.' He had to tell himself. 'I'm just trying to help her.'
He pushed the skirt down her scratched and gashed legs until it lay on the rock below. He pulled her in closer, shivering slightly at the thought of how cold she must be. He could hear her moaning again, shifting weakly in his grip. It was more than he could handle. This was the girl he had almost killed, almost made his own and then ripped to shreds.
Inuyasha pulled the edges of his haori around her, letting her arms fall through the arm holes. It almost made him smile to see that her hands never made it out of the sleeves. He knew he was taller than her, a whole head taller, but it was still a cute sight to put his mind temporarily out of it's misery as he tied it securely around her waist.
He dipped down to place a kiss over her dead-like lips, frigid and tasting of pure blood. Had he kissed off all that delicious candy he adored? The inu hanyou felt the need to stay by her side, cradle her in his lap until she awoke and healed completely. Then, he could tell her how desperately sorry he was for the first time in his life. And he would have, if a horrid stench aside from blood and tears entered his nose.
He snarled quietly, his arms moving protectively around the girl he held. His eyes darted around, sure the enemy wasn't around there, but close. Somewhere in that same clearing in the forest. He could smell every inch, even the slight scent of a still-open wound.
"I guess we didn't shake the damn demon off...that hiding was for nothing..." He cursed under his breath, shifting his eyes back down to Kagome with a look that screamed 'I'm sorry'. "I'm sorry, Kagome. I'm so sorry." He whispered into her ear, dropping his lips afterwards to kiss her there. He moved his lips to scan her face, dropping kisses wherever he could before he stroked her cheek with his crimson tinged nails as lay her back to the boulder below.
The angry half demon stood, his legs like rubbery sticks when he tried to walk. But he pushed on, stepping through puddles of Kagome's dark red blood as he went. Suddenly, he felt his foot kick onto something unfamiliar. His eyes cast down, staring at the beads of purple and white. That necklace. His face lifted to the air as he tried to remember what it felt like to have the miko kissing his neck so gently. So it really had happened. It hadn't been a dream. He brought a hand up to touch the skin there before dropping it to move quickly away.
Free. He was finally free from that necklace. No more 'sittings'. No more fear. He could do or say anything he liked now without the consequence he so dreaded. But would it even matter, if Kagome didn't make it at all. What if she died in that horrible pit stained with her own blood. And if not, how would she wake up and know that he had sat there with her in his lap, kissing her face and whispering he was sorry? How would she know?
He growled to himself, crushing multicolored flowers underneath his angry feet as he stormed out, moving back to the hut where he had left his father's fang. It seemed like only seconds before he arrived at the flapping bamboo weaving. He pushed it aside to cast his narrowed golden eyes around the empty hut. Inuyasha easily figured they had already been plunged into battle with Sanraku.
The half demon snatched up his sword, swinging it experimentally in his blood drenched hands. He turned on his heels, pulling the fang from it's sheath and ripping aside the weaving so harshly that it nearly floated to the floor beneath his feet. He broke into a sprint, his nostrils flaring, taking in wave after wave of the detachment's nose-wrinkling scent.
---
"You worthless half breed. Hanyou. Mutt. This wasn't the plan. She was supposed to die...No matter. I did not let the knowledge of what strength you do have slip my mind. There is another plan, always another way to die."
"Hiraikotsu!"
A massive boomerang-like weapon hurtled towards the deadly pale demon. His pitch black cat-like pupils narrowed threateningly, a smirk on his lips as the weapon bounced off his hazy black barrier. It shivered around his form that almost seemed to be floating above the ground. Each step he took was silent over the dried leaves. Each step closer frightened the four fighters more and more.
They knew they couldn't break the barrier. Inuyasha couldn't even break it, not even with his red Tessaiga. Only Kagome could save them. Where was she? Sango stopped, eyes shooting into the distance as if a battle wasn't taking place right before her. She dazed off, listening to Kagome's screams echoed in her ears from last night. They were so loud, the two youths. She hated to think what they were doing, but those moans, those screams and snarls. The only thing that reverted her thoughts into bloody ground were the shouts for her life that the miko cried out. They had stayed out all night. What could have happened. Surely they didn't get hurt. Surely Inuyasha didn't harm her.
Her Hiraikotsu stabbed into the ground, severing the surface of grass and dirt just as the slayer jumped back with wide eyes. If her mind had been open to take in Shippo's shrill call, she wouldn't have to be so surprised. Her breathing quickened at the sound of buzzing and Miroku's heavy shouts. Her eyes shot to the hissing insect that hovered before her eyes only to be whipped away from her sight by a rush of sucking wind.
"Miroku!" She screamed in at the same time as the kitsune that sped to his side as the slayer whirled around to take his hand in her own. She wanted to kiss it, make the diseased look melt from the young monk's features, but she knew she couldn't. If any of their enemies knew there was more than just a friendship between any of them, they would surely use it against them. She could almost see the poison spreading through his veins.
The remainder of the insects bristled dangerously, zipping forward to the monk whose cursed hand had devoured their fellow demon. They hissed menacingly, Sanraku watching closely as the slayer touched his hand, cooing softly to him with concerned eyes almost full of tears now. Sango turned, reaching frantically for her large weapon as a last attempt to save their lives.
A sudden flash of light, like lightening cracking through the air, shot through the space that was slowly being closed between the secret lovers and opponents. The hissing insects screamed painfully as they dissolved in the blinding light and air that tore apart their outer skeletons and what was still left inside. The strike lightly grazed over the misty barrier that surrounded Sanraku as he wore a disapproving frown.
"Dammit, Miroku! Can't you take care of yourself for a few minutes while I'm gone!" A confident voice called out to them. No one answered back as the monk and slayer's eyes danced over the hanyou's body. His hakamas where sagging limply around his jutting hips, stained with blood that didn't seem to be his own. One could never guess his yukata was once white with all the crimson that was splotched onto it's surface. Frantic handprints of blood where printed, slightly smudged, over his bare chest. His silvery locks were streaked with red, the tresses tangled madly. When he turned, they could see the blood coating his sore and cut lips. Instantly, they knew.
Miroku stared, almost as if the pain that throbbed through his entire arm was no longer there. His mind as wandered as Kirara moved closed to lick at his twitching fingers. He didn't have to think long, those bloody lips and dripping fangs were enough to tell them both right out what had caused those exhausted moans.
"No. Don't thank me for saving your useless lives or anything." Inuyasha retorted, turning away, brows furrowed at their strange reaction. His amber eyes settled on the demon before him but it took him awhile to work of a snappy line for him, his mind wandering back to the girl he had left behind. When tried to step forward, finally shaking her from his mind, he felt like he was walking over broken glass.
He stopped, letting his breathes drift slowly in front of him as he raised the deadly blade of his father's fang. There, all could see the miko's blood that coated his pointed tipped hands. They knew, and it made a horrible blush rise to his cheeks with his next words.
"What do you want from us, anyway. It's rather pathetic to keep popping up, wasting our time, for no reason." He shouted out. His brows curled inward even further when the youkai didn't reply. So the hanyou spoke again. "Are you that damned Naraku's incarnation or not?"
Again, the youkai didn't answer, even after an over raged "Answer me!". Soon, at the turn of his head, he knew why.
First, he caught the long raven tresses that danced in the air behind her. Then he saw the red she wore around her, and the red dripping down her entire body. He knew who it was and couldn't help but part his lips to squeak out her name. Soon, all the thoughts and memories, all the horrors returned.
He ran his tongue over his dried, bruised, bloody lips, savoring the taste of her. He could still taste her blood on his tongue, teasing his taste buds, leaving him wanting more. But he couldn't have more. Not now, not ever. Her broken and bleeding body was coming even closer, each step she took, running straight over his heart as he realized what he had done to her. Now he could see each cut over her body clearly when he couldn't before.
He tried refusing it, at first. He tried telling himself 'No. I did NOT do that to her. It wasn't me.' But the ghoulish, animalistic, bloody, designs he had carved into her soft flesh, told him otherwise.
The sound of skin forming together, ripping and tearing loudly, his eyes reverted back to Sanraku as a slim, spiked finger, formed into a stretching pole, slid along the length of his shoulder. Breath filtered from his lungs as another swiped across his cheek. He jumped back, reverting his eyes again at the sound of Kagome's shrill cry of horror. It wasn't long until he finally felt the blood seeping from the places he had been hit.
He felt the burn, but didn't make a move to tend to himself as the snake-like fingers stretched yards to hurtle towards Kagome. The breath stole from his throat faster than when he was the one being attacked. Not again. He wouldn't watch any more of her blood splatter to the ground. She had had enough.
Inuyasha sped forward, Miroku and Sango's shouts ringing out behind him as he went. He promised he would never let the demon touch her again, and he meant it. His arms spread wide to take her in his embrace, dart in front of the spiked hand and take the brutal blow for her.
A sickening rip of flesh and clothing rang out to startle the birds from their safe nests in the trees. The four that stood by gasped horribly, eyes going wide as a pool of dark red blood splattered over the blanket of leaves that had settled beneath them.
..:--.-.--..-.-:..
-hums-
Oh, Hi there!
How'd you like it? Bet you love me for not killing off Kagome, eh? And Inuyasha stopped himself all my his lonesome. Good boy. -throws a bone-
Hm. So...who do you think got hit? Do you think Inuyasha got there in time, and he was the one who got hit? Or did he fall behind, and Kagome was impaled? Or was it Sanraku who was injured? O.o
Who knows?...I DO! But I'm not telling. -turns up nose.
But, seriously. Don't be afraid to leave a review. Maybe even two! I'm going for the 100 goal. Though, I'd always love more that just that much. I love you guys! I love hearing from you!
Till next time, and sorry for taking so long.
Bye!