Extra-Long Author's Note: Hello everyone! Back again! It's so weird, cause there's so much I have planned out for this story, but there are already a ton of chapters. I had a couple PM's after I last posted about why my chapters are shorter this time around, so I'd like to answer it here in this reeeeallly long author's note. I've usually in the past written very long chapters (as you can see in Pretty Kagome: Revised and From the Future), but I've never been able to finish anything that way. It's almost like I lose interest in completing the chapters when they get too long, which is why I decided to experiment with this fic, write shorter chapters, and see if I can actually finish it. With 13 chapters in this fic, it evens out to about three of my normal, long chapters. I'm able to update more frequently this way, write more frequently this way, and plan better as well.
I also plan on buffing up these chapters after I've finished writing the whole story. Think of this as my first draft, so to speak. I'll be going through them all after it's all done, most likely adding in details or scenes that I've deemed too unimportant the first time through.
Aaaanyway, just wanted to let everyone know at once. Sorry, this was so long. On to YITM!
Disclaimer: I wrote my first Inuyasha fanfiction thirteen years ago. And still, I own none of the Inuyasha series or its characters. So sad.
Review Worth Mentioning: So, vampireinu95 wrote in her review: "Some odd reason I just imagine sango as batman XD." And it totally made me want to see Sango as Batman and being a bad-ass. But I suck at drawing! Seriously, my talents skipped right over that and went to writing instead. Soooo if anyone with drawing talent wants to draw Sango as Batman and then send me a link or whatevs so that I can look at it and ohh and ahh, that would freaking make my day.
Okay, NOW onto the story!
.
.
Chapter 14: Bound by Power, Destroyed by Rage
.
.
Kikyou
Kikyou stood in her bedroom naked as the day she was born. She stood in the very center, which was marked by a large, white circle painted on the hardwood floor. A pedestal had been welded there, and the wide basin at the top was filled to the brim with fine-grained sand. So fine was this sand that it felt like powder as it filtered through her fingers.
She let the sand drain completely from her hands before she pushed them back into the basin, sifting her fingers through and picking up another handful. This time she let her pupils un-focus, and her bedroom blurred in front of her eyes. And as the sand trickled slowly back into the basin, she was suddenly back, three hundred years in the past, a visitor to her own timeline.
She could still feel the sand slipping through her fingers, but her bedroom was gone, and her modern attire was gone, and the world had changed completely around her. She wore her priestess robes again, her trusted bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder and snug at her back. She had been walking down a familiar path when she'd slipped unnoticed into her own skin, and she watched through her own eyes as she continued down the mountainside.
She was on her way back to the village, to meet up with her elder sister, Kaede, with a fresh supply of herbs and medicinal flower stems. She could hear herself humming a tune, one her dearly departed mother had sung to her and her sister when they had been children. The path began to even out as she neared the village, and she felt her heart speed up as Inuyasha's familiar aura passed through her.
He was waiting for her, a few feet before the forest broke into the clearing, leaning against a giant, solid tree as she came upon him, his arms crossed, that familiar, confident smirk on his face. He broke out into a grin as she neared.
"Hey you," he said, a soft edge to his tone that he only reserved for when speaking to her.
This particular meeting was one of Kikyou's favorite memories, one that she had sifted back through time to experience again and again. Inuyasha did things to her. The sound of his voice and the way his eyes pierced through her and the shock of intense need every time he touched her practically drove her mad. She never quite had the control she was so used to when he was around. It made her nervous. It also made her so incredibly aroused she felt she might fall apart at the seams.
This time was no different. Dressed in that dirty fire-rat coat he loved so much, his feet bare and his sword resting snug at his hip, he moved towards her with grace only youkai possessed, his ears twitching, his grin playful.
"What are you doing here?" She heard herself ask. Even though Kikyou knew of the events that were about to play out, she still felt the unsettled nerves of her past self. Past Kikyou had worried endlessly about spending too much time around the hanyou, worried about what others would think, even though it was a struggle for her to keep away, the pull towards him too great to ignore.
"What do you think I'm doing here? I caught your scent about halfway down the mountain, I figured I'd head you off here before you go back and do whatever boring things it is you do for the villagers." He stepped closer.
"Inuyasha, we have to be careful, if we're seen-"
"No one will see us, everyone is out in the fields, and your sister is holed up in your hut." His ears twitched atop his head. "Oh, and there's a group of men out hunting for dinner, but they won't head this way," he added.
Kikyou sighed and tried to side-step him. She was having a hard time, as always, refusing his advances, which made her try harder. "Inuyasha, can you not wait until our agreed time of meeting? It's only three days until-"
"I can't wait three days," he interrupted her again, moving to cut her off. He swept her up into his arms, and pressed his lips against her.
She felt that familiar shock, that absolute need as her feet lifted off the ground. He had her arms pinned at her sides in his bear hug, she couldn't wiggle them free. Captive against him, she melted, letting him take what he wanted.
Present Kikyou could feel it all. This was the reason why she came back again and again, reliving this moment as many times as she could. She let her past self's emotions run through her. It was like a drug, these feelings, and she was an addict in her present, an addict cut off forever from her addiction.
That's why she came back to these moments. To get high again. To feed her addiction.
Her past self was lost in these feelings, in Inuyasha's arms. Growling, the hanyou wrapped his clawed fingers around her bottom and brought her legs to wrap around his hips, walking her further back into the trees, where the dense foliage would provide better cover for them.
He pushed her back up against a tree, carefully – he was always so careful with her – and kissed her breath away. Quick kisses mixed with deep, intense, soul-probing kisses, and his hands roamed, teasing her in a way she'd grown accustomed to. Yet she started to sense something different this time. Inuyasha's movements were urgent – desperate almost. His hands reached to her waist ties and he hesitated only a second before he started to work deftly at the knots.
Kikyou broke away then, head tilting back to look into his eyes. "What are you doing, Inuyasha?" She asked, breathless.
"Keh," he murmured, eyes showing everything that was tender about him, so different from the rash, destructive, uncontrollable brat she'd first met two years ago. "I can't stand it anymore, Kikyou. I want to claim you. I want other youkai to know that you are mine."
She felt herself frown, and she tried to detangle herself from him, but his hands tightened on her hips, holding her in place. "Inuyasha, you cannot claim me, not as you are now."
His face fell slightly, his smile sad. "I know you're worried about your purity-" he started.
"Of course I'm worried about my purity," she cut him off. They'd had this conversation now what had to be a hundred times. "If I mate with you as you are now, I will lose my priestess-hood. I will lose my purity and my power."
"But you don't know that for sure." He insisted stubbornly, still keeping her in place. His bottom lip pushed out, and he somewhat resembled a pouting child.
"The risk is too great," she pleaded with him, willing him to understand. "Which is why when I finally defeat Naraku and the jewel is purified we can use it to change you, to make you fully human. And then you can claim me."
Reluctantly, he slowly let her slip to the ground, placing her gently on her feet. "I still don't like it. A claiming by a human male is not the same as a claiming by a youkai, or even a hanyou. You will not be protected from advances by other youkai, and a claiming certainly won't stop human men. Plus," he bit at his bottom lip, showing a fang, "I can't protect you very well as a human. I'm too weak."
Smiling, Kikyou reached up and placed her hand against his cheek. "I can protect us well enough, Inuyasha. I am very powerful."
"I know you are," he said. "But I am the man, I should be doing the protecting. I cannot sit on the side while you risk your life to protect mine."
"Hush now," she said. "You told me you love me. Did you mean your words?"
"Of course I did," he replied without hesitation.
"Then prove it to me by waiting to become human. If you love me, if you truly love me as I love you, you will become human so as not to rob me of my powers. If you truly love me, you will wait to claim me."
He exhaled, slow and powerful and impatient. He nodded once.
"Good," Kikyou purred, releasing his face and moving her hand down to the hardness pressed against his hakama, and pushed her palm to him, rubbing up and down, creating friction. "Let us do as we've been doing Inuyasha. It is enough for me right now. I love you. Let me show you." And she wrapped her hand around him, hakama and all, and pumped at his erection through his clothing.
He let out a hiss of pleasure before capturing her lips.
This was it, this was the moment present Kikyou came back to feel alive for. She melted as Inuyasha brought his own hand down to the apex of her thighs, his thumb finding the little nub that made her feel so deliciously alive and created friction of his own.
Pleasure mounted inside of her, and she panted into his mouth, kissing him with everything she had.
He came first, crying out her name and releasing himself into his hakama. Panting, his orgasm leaving his legs wobbly, he knelt to the ground in front of her, pressing his mouth against that same little nub, sucking and nipping at it through her clothing. His fingers probed at her through the rough material, and with this, she finally, finally rose to her peek and then-"
"Lady Kikyou."
Instantly she was ripped away from her body, her vision blurring, disconnecting from the past and forced into the present. She was back in her room, inside the white, painted circle, the last few bits of sand falling between her fingers and dropping into the basin. Her present body ached without release. Rage filled her. She whipped her head around to glare at the human male she considered her right hand. Her lackey. Her pet. She wanted to throttle him.
His head was bowed, his knees tucked under, his dark hair covering his eyes. "Lady Kikyou," he said again from his position on the floor. He didn't move. He knew better. He had been with her long enough to realize what he'd done was almost unforgivable.
"What," she asked, her voice icy and flat, "is so important that you interrupt me while I sift time?"
"Lady Kikyou, my work for tonight is done."
"And?"
"And everything went as planned, as it always does."
Stepping away from the basin, Kikyou grabbed a bathrobe she had discarded on her bed earlier and covered her nudity before approaching the man, placing her fingers on his head. "Arise."
He did as he was told, standing a good six inches over her; his eyes, which had long since lost their disobedient spark, were kept firmly glued to the floor. His staff jingled as he rose, the noise echoing off the walls. He kept his right hand closed firmly into a fist, his prayer beads clutched in his grip.
Reaching up, she wrapped her fingers around the short ponytail he kept at the base of his neck, yanking his head back and pushing him closer to her, forcing his eyes to meet hers. She stared long and hard into those eyes. They were the loveliest shade of violet. Never before had she met anyone with that particular color. Perhaps that is why she was so fond of the monk. Other than his wonderful, powerful, cursed hand of course. And the fact that his exorcism powers were actually legitimate, which was hard to find these days amongst all the fakes.
"Miroku," she purred, "I still do not understand why you could not wait until my sifting was over and I was satisfied. You would have found me in a much better mood." She pulled back and slapped him hard across the face. Normally it wouldn't have done much, but Kikyou wasn't normal, and putting some powerful 'oomph' into the slap gave her the edge she needed. When he turned to face her again his lip had split open and a trickle of blood oozed its way down his chin.
"I'm very sorry, my lady," he said, without the barest hint of remorse in his voice. His eyes, so lovely, gazed at her as they always had: with absolute hate.
"Dearest monk," she said, keeping her grip on his hair tight as she wiped the trickle of blood away with her thumb. "I do wish that you would just relax a bit. You might even enjoy your duties to me then."
"I enjoy them, my lady," he lied.
Kikyou rolled her eyes, releasing his head with a shove before turning and stalking back to the basin. "It is almost midnight. Prepare for our departure to the mirror."
"As you wish." Was all he said before turning on the spot and disappearing in a whirl of purple robes and the jangle of his staff.
Kikyou moved towards her closet to get dressed. She always made sure to look her best in front of Inuyasha. She wanted to remind him every time he saw her what he was missing. What he had lost when he had betrayed her all those years ago.
It was all part of keeping things under her control. She had been since she could remember, and her need for it had grown as her powers had. Once she had defeated Naraku those three hundred years past and taken the jewel, and Inuyasha had turned his back on her, what could she do but take control of everything herself?
And that's exactly what she had done. Taken control. Used the jewel not to turn Inuyasha human as originally planned, but to boost her power, to make sure that no one could betray her again. To make sure that the plan she foresaw for the future of humanity was kept firmly under her thumb. She was, in most terms of the word, a God. With her abilities at the level they were and with her capability to sift through time, she, in essence, was the one guiding the path the human race must follow in order to survive.
And although her addiction to Inuyasha caused her to crave her past memories, enough to go back and relive them over and over again, she knew he was only that: an addiction. And there was simply no such thing as an addiction that was good for you.
Youkai, and yes, hanyou too, would be the downfall of the human race. She knew this to be fact. Absolute. Like the sun would always rise, like the tide would never cease to ebb and flow, she knew that youkai were to bring humans to ruin. So she protected the human race as if they were her own children, and in a way, they were.
And so be it if she had to kill youkai. So be it if she had to take control of certain beings, both human and youkai, to do some of the work she could not do herself? Over the years many youkai had fallen to her hands, and many had been used for a good purpose as well.
Inuyasha had been the first, though. The first youkai, even if only half of one, to be used for her greater purpose. He was what sustained her power, and her power was what sustained her immortality. She did not age. She did not die. And it was because of this certain mirror spell, with the one and only youkai she had ever felt anything towards other than hate, that she had to keep going back to re-work her spell over and over again every week.
She tried to explain to Inuyasha over and over in the beginning why his sacrifice was worth it, why it was good that he was forever living in the mirror. For one thing, he had become immortal himself. He never aged, and he never died. Her powers and that mirror sustained him over the centuries.
For another thing, he was what allowed her to keep the human race alive. But even after all those years, he was a stubborn bastard. Those golden yellow eyes that had once gazed upon her with love and adoration now turned to anger and hatred. Not once had he given in and relented to her. Not once did he pass by a chance to try and escape.
…Not that there were many chances of that. Her many sub-spells made it all but impossible.
She shivered with the anticipation of seeing him again, of kissing him free, of letting him out for the night. She had things for him to do, youkai for him to track down. There had been a small surge in youkai power around the outskirts of Nara, and she would need him to check it out and report back to her, see if it was something she should act on immediately or not.
She finished dressing herself, placing the perfect amount of jewelry around her wrists and neck and ears, checking her makeup, making sure everything was right. When Miroku reappeared back into the room, his split lip was healed, and Kikyou was ready to go.
"Come," she said, and Miroku followed her to the basin, stepping inside the white circle and staying close at her side. She pressed her fingers into the white sand, submerging them up to her wrists before pulling them halfway out. She began to circle her hands in intricate patterns through the sand, sifting and pushing as her bedroom disappeared. She closed her eyes, concentrating.
Sifting herself through present space was not the same as sifting herself through time. While a representation of her body stayed behind in her bedroom when she visited her memories of the past or the many realities of the future, her body moved with her to the museum. She was physically there, just as she had been physically in her room.
Her eyes snapped open when she heard Miroku take in a sharp breath. Her dead, beating heart stopped.
The mirror was broken. Shattered. Destroyed.
But how could this have happened?
Kikyou whipped her head around to glare at the monk beside her, whose wide eyes matched her own.
"Miroku," she hissed, "what do you know?"
"Nothing, my lady." It was one of his few honest answers, she could see it him, feel it in him.
She seethed, her power pulsing beneath her skin. There were only two outcomes to the destruction of the mirror. Either it broke with Inuyasha still inside, which would mean that he was trapped forever, or…
Or he had escaped.
Slowly, oh-so-carefully, Kikyou moved towards the mirror, reaching out with her powers, feeling for the brush of the mirror's spell against her.
Nothing. It was dead.
Her eyes shot down and narrowed at the ripped, golden frame.
He'd figured out how to escape this mirror, although from the looks of it, he'd only realized how to transfer the spell, not how to break it.
But even so, how? How? It was impossible for him to leave unless someone kissed him free, and he could not have possibly talked another girl into granting him a night's freedom so soon after the last. The doppelganger certainly hadn't come back, she'd seen to that! No one could retain their memories after Kikyou wove a memory spell. The girl would have been extremely physically ill and nervous if she even stepped one foot inside the museum, and the only way to break that was to get close enough to the mirror.
Impossible! Her mind screamed. Utterly impossible!
And yet, the girl had been her doppelganger, almost a copy of her. The proof was in the jewel she had found inside of her. If anyone could push past a memory spell…
She could. Her mind taunted.
Kikyou bent down and picked up a glass shard. Inuyasha was getting smart in his old age. How he had realized that making a portable mirror would buy him some time she couldn't guess. But really, it didn't matter in the end. He might have bought himself a day or two, or perhaps even three, but she would track him down, and she would find him, and when she did, she was never letting the bastard out again.
Closing her eyes, the glass shard gripped tightly in her hands, she let her power build up around her, letting the glass tell its story. She listened as it spilled the events of Inuyasha's escape.
"Miroku," Kikyou called, her voice deadly quiet with the urge to keep it together, to keep her control. He was by her side in an instant. "Inuyasha has escaped."
He didn't reply this time, which was smart of him. If she heard his voice right now she might lose it.
"Track him down," she commanded.
He nodded and began the turn, but Kikyou reached out and grabbed onto his robe before he could complete it. "Wait," she said.
She'd have to be smart about this. Tracking Inuyasha would get her nowhere. As long as her doppelganger was on the loose, she would keep coming back to get him. And now that she thought about it, now that she was calm enough, she realized that this whole ordeal was nothing but a simple nuisance. Kikyou could see the big picture. She understood the best action to take. She smiled at Miroku, her new plan firmly set in her head.
"Track the girl down instead. Get her when she's alone and then call me. I want to have a little chat with my other self."
In a rush of purple robes, he was gone.
.
.
Well then. That's that. This is another chapter ending that I had to re-write a couple times because: meh. But I'm glad I finally got it out so I'm happy with it.
Please remember to review, I'm serious about my writing and my stories, and if you have anything to comment about or anything to mention or anything to say, I would love to hear it.
~SugarRos
