A/N: And, finally, we're done with Inuyasha's part of this bit of the story. Who knows, we might see him as point of view later, now let's go back to see how Kagome is doing during the night of Inuyasha's trial in the well. I'm kinda excited to show you this bit of the story, since I waited for months to show it to you
Enjoy and comment as you see fit
Thanks to Fawn_Eyed_Girl. for your feedback
27
The bells sang again, the sound clear and sorrowful.
"Kagome Higurashi," the yasha stood right in front of her, her bare feet covered in mud and with grass blades sticking to them. "I bind you and I bid you to heed my commands. Sit up."
Kagome gasped when her body moved without her command, as if yanked on an invisible thread. She rose to sit on her legs, her eyes wide and full of fear when she looked up at the fae woman.
"Who are you? Why are you...?" Kagome started, remembering Miroku's warnings - too late to be any help. A spirited person was attuned to the charms of the yasha, alluring to them and at the same time more defenseless against their spells, unless the human was keeping their guard up.
Kagome hadn't. And now this yasha had her name. The last rays of the sunlight were seeping away from the landscape, the heavy clouds covering the sky, thunder rolling over the distant hills. A gust of cool wind ran across the meadow.
"Once I was known as Kikyou," the yasha said and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A new look of determination and urgency filled her face. Whatever she'd been regretful and unsure about doing, now she was willing to see it all through. "Try not to fear, Kagome Higurashi. I have no hatred towards you and I shall not kill you. Alas, I shall take your life."
"What? No, why are you doing this?" Kagome shook her head. Kikyou sighed. Cold dread filled her body at the sound of the yasha's words, the mournful tone in them.
"Once I was a human, like you. I endured centuries of imprisonment and torture, but now I am free. The one who has caused my suffering is pursuing me and I cannot flee him, unless I ceased to be as I am now. For that I had to find a kindred spirit and take their life as mine. I am sorry, but I cannot go back. I know I will break and Naraku cannot control me. He has marked me and as I am now I cannot escape, just prolong the hunt."
Kagome's lips trembled when the yasha reached out a hand and touched her cheek. The bright, beautiful eyes of the woman were full of pain and sorrow, of grim determination. Kagome couldn't even imagine through what she'd been over the years, captured by an evil being wanting to control her power, not unlike the kelpie serving Kagewaki. But unlike the kelpie, Kikyou had no malice in her eyes.
"I have come here to find you, Kagome Higurashi. I came here to become you."
"No... You can't..." Kagome shook her head again, her voice trembling, new tears in her eyes. She couldn't move away, bu she she could talk and move her hands. She used them now to grab the coo hand that had touched her face. "You can't do that to me! I didn't... I..."
"You will have plenty of time before he realizes what I have done. I believe you will be able to evade him," the yasha said, looking away from Kagome's wide, panicked eyes. "And were you not happy with your life? You wanted to find a way to escape the fate you were given, just like I am. I long for the life you have. We both shall benefit from this. Please, do not fight me, for the spell I am about to cast is a long one."
"I don't care!" Kagome cried out. "You can't just take my life! I don't want to die!"
"You won't die," Kikyou replied, straightening her back. Rain started falling, at first bit a drizzle, but soon a downpour that drenched their clothes and hair. She lifted her bells to use them again, to aid in her magic. Kagome knew she had little time and it looked like she had no chance of talking the yasha out of her plans. She wasn't even sure she could believe Kikyou's word.
Without thinking much, Kagome grasped the pendant hanging from her neck and called, the rain and wind muffling her voice but she hoped he could hear her over it.
"Inuyasha ap Toga, of the house of Inu no Taisho, come!" she cried out, remembering his promise, remembering that sweet night of joy, the scents of flowers, the moon and stars shining overhead while the ookami danced around their fires deep in the forest. She'd been happy back then, looking to the future with hope.
A soft wind, warm and smelling of cherry flowers, swirled around her and she no longer felt Kikyou's magic controlling her body. She could move again.
But Inuyasha, he...
"The one whose name you invoked is beyond your reach," Kikyou said in the darkness that now enveloped them. There was no sun, no night lights, only an occasional flash of lightning. There was no malice in her voice, it was almost sad, her words soft. Kagome's heart sank. "Maybe he is in trouble and in need of aid. As you are now, a mere human, you have no chance of helping one of the yasha."
Was he truly in trouble? Was it because of her? She couldn't imagine what could have happened to him... Was his family keeping him in a place from where he couldn't escape, so he couldn't go to the human lands again? Was he once again trapped, this time by his kind's magic, chained somewhere against his will?
She jumped to her feet, wanting to run from this yasha. She had to find a way to find him and release him from his prison... But the moment of hesitation was all Kikyou needed from her. Kagome gasped when after taking a few steps towards where the trees shook on the wind she hit an invisible wall. She blinked and reached a hand to where the air was now solid and shimmering pale pink.
Behind that barrier, trapping her in a circle not bigger than two meters, was Kikyou. but no longer was she a woman. Kagome gasped when lightning struck nearby, a flash of light defining more of the creature looming on the other side of the barrier.
A giant dragon, scales shining with all hues of brown and golden, wrapped its tail around the barrier. Blazing blue eyes peered down at her from a head decorated with spines and horns. A pair of wings was folded along the dragon's back.
"Oh kami..." Kagome whispered when the darkness flooded the meadow again.
The dragon moved around her, hissing and singing in the darkness, appearing and disappearing as the storm raged overhead. Kagome fell to her knees, hitting the barrier with her fists, trying to focus her reiki on it to make it disappear. Inuyasha's pendant was cool and lifeless and she dreaded what that could mean. She pleaded and cried for Kikyou to stop, to let her go. She didn't want to lose her family, she didn't want to be chased by an evil yasha like Kikyou had been for kami knew how long.
Nothing she said or did helped. Kikyou's magic was thick in the air, wrapping around her, warm and cool at the same time, pulsing in time with Kagome's heartbeat. Finally, the dragon stopped moving and peered down at her.
"Kagome Higurashi," the dragon hissed in Kikyou's voice. "I command you, drink."
A hand covered in scales and with talons like knives, went through the barrier and Kagome saw a crustal cup nestle safely in the middle of it. There was a clear liquid in it. Water...? There was a hint of iron in the liquid, as if a drop of blood had been put in it.
"N-no... Don't do this..." Kagome sobbed when her hands moved to pick up the cup. It was as if she lost all control of her motions. She focused all her will to spill the water, to drop the cup, but the aura of the yasha was even more terrifying than her true form. The water tasted fresh and sweet. The cup fell out of Kagome's hands when there was no more water to drink, the vessel shattering to shards that reflected the pale light of the barrier. Tears and rain ran down Kagome's face when she saw Kikyou reach with her hand again, this time handing her a pale pink stone, pretty, but not looking very valuable.
"Kagome Higurashi, lay your hand on the jewel," the voice commanded and the girl did so, shaking at how cold the stone was. "This barrier is my womb. I am giving birth to you. From the mother to the daughter, let you be reborn and inherit my duty of protecting the jewel. I was given it by one who had taken it from my predecessor and chained me to it, now I revoke my claim to it. As my old life fades, your new life rises.I give you a new name, child of mine. As I am Kikyou Blodyn y Gloch of Alder, of no house, you are Kagome Cawell ferch Kikyou of Maple of no house. This in your true name, daughter. May it give you a thousand blessings."
Kagome's body shook when she knelt there, hand as if glued to the jewel that now was growing warmer under her palm. She couldn't look away from the blazing eyes of the dragon, who was singing over her, in a small meadow deep in the woods, with the rain and wind shaking the trees that surrounded them. She felt as if her life was falling apart. She tried to speak, but all that came out of her mouth was a keening of hopeless plea. The mane the dragon spoke felt as if a lightning hit her, a strange energy filling her and lifting the ends of her wet hair.
"May your tree grow and flourish when mine is no more. May your true name sing in your veins while mine is a hollow echo. Keep your head high, be swift an may your wings carry you whenever you wish to go, even to the place where your yasha friend you have called upon is imprisoned. Farewell, my daughter, my kindred spirit, my savior. I wish you well, I wish you freedom, I wish you find what I couldn't in the life I was forced to live and that I forced you to live. Maybe one day you will forgive me."
With that being said, Kikyou for the last time sang, adding the last word, the last note to the spells she'd woven. A lightning struck a tree near the waterfall, sending sparks and tremors through the ground. Kagome's fingers closed around the jewel and she fell to the grass with a cry.
The strong, which has quickly come, now was moving away, leaving behind a clear, star-filled sky. The rain had doused the fire, the wind was now merely a soothing breeze. The tempest has passed and the forest was slowly resuming its usual nightly noises. the animals that roamed the woods at night exited their hiding places to hunt, others went to slumber.
The meadow deep in the woods, where a waterfall sang, was eerily silent. A girl sat on the trampled grass, adjusting her dress, stretching her limbs as if trying to get a feel of her body. Finally she rose to her feet and turned to where another creature was laying, unconscious and unaware of what was happening around. The girl sighed and reached to removed a thin silver chain from around the other's neck, a small rock with a hole in it the pendant that hung from the chain. She looked at it for a while, as if thinking something over before she made a choice. The girl put it around her neck and stroked the head of the slumbering one, blanketed by a shawl that looked like a pair of folded wings.
"Thank you."
Then she turned around and went into the forest, stumbling down a path that led to the Higurashi shrine and her new life.
.
In an ancient forest far away, an ageless creature lifted its head from where it had been peering into an old well. It looked through the darkness accented by trunks of various trees growing around, searching with its pale pink eyes that shone like gems.
At last its gaze laid upon an alder tree, the same that had drawn its attention for the past day. The tree shimmered in the darkness, as it illuminated by a lightning. With no sound the tree disappeared in a cloud of eerie lights that streaked to the sky, akin to stars flying from the earth to join the night lights. The vines that had been wrapped around the alder and the yew that the alder had been resting against, now fell to the ground and hung limply from the remaining tree.
"Farewell, child," the creature lowered its head, its horn catching the moonlight as it moved.
The sennin meditating under hi own tree near the edge of the meadow, looked at the rising, twirling lights impassively.
"A yasha has passed," he remarked, his voice distant. The divine creature glanced at him, then pointed to the other side of the giant tree growing in the center of the meadow.
"And a new one was born," it said, its voice soft, sorrow after the departed one still ringing in its voice despite the joy that shone in its eyes. The sennin looked towards a new tree growing near a tall cherry tree, hidden in its shadow.
"Such is the way of life," the sennin said and closed his eyes again. "Is this one's foolish little brother done?
"Not yet," the entity turned its gaze to glance into the well. "Do not be impatient. How long did it take you to find a new source of wisdom in you, to find the compassion to use your father's fang and power to forge your own?"
The sennin didn't respond. .
.
Souta jumped off of his chair as soon as he heard the door open. He knew he shouldn't be up, but Kagome was missing and he was very worried. He'd seen her run into the forest and later at the supper had been informed about the engagement. He'd tried to voice his opinion on the fact that Kagome and the young lord weren't really that friendly and that he was pretty sure Kagome didn't want to marry him, but he was ignored.
Now he ran past his mother, who had been trying to focus on a book next to a lamp. She put the book on the table and rose to her feet, an uncertain expression on her face.
"Kagome!" he greeted the girl as soon as she stepped inside the living room. She blinked at him, then smiled and Souta's anxiety melted in the light of that smile. His sister was fine. He was sure she had a plan to evade the marriage, maybe she'd seen Inuyasha and he was going to help her? He couldn't wait to hear all about it! The boy stepped aside, knowing that now she had to face the adults, their mother standing in the middle of the room, their grandfather seated in his favorite chair and watching her calmly. Neither spoke a word about Kagome's damp hair and the hem of her dress being coated in mud and leaves.
"Mom, grandpa," the young girl said softly and bowed a formal bow. "I apologize for my earlier behavior. I was... shocked and acted impulsively."
"So, you saw reason, granddaughter?" the old shrine keeper asked.
"Yes, grandpa. I'll marry the young lord," there was no enthusiasm in her voice, but she sounded perfectly collected. Souta blinked up at her and frowned a bit when he noticed something odd.
"That's amazing!" their mother clasped her hands in relief. "I was so worried!"
"I told you, maidenly nerves, nothing more," the old male nodded sagely. "Go and get change and to the bed. You're drenched."
"Yes, grandpa," Kagome nodded and smiled shyly.
"Oh, I'll better make you some honey tea!" Mrs Higurashi ran towards the kitchen when her daughter went upstairs to dress in a warm nightgown.
Souta walked back to his room, frowning and puzzled. Kagome had some sneaky plan, he was sure of it. She was only trying to appease grandpa for now. Was Inuyasha going to steal her from the altar?
And... He was pretty sure Kagome's eyes were brown, like his and their mother, not sky blue.
