Deep in the woods a single pine tree glimmered with the star-like quality of stolen souls. A tangle of inky hair and alabaster limbs swam into view as Kikyo's collectors, eel-like and expressionless, wove gracefully around her slumped body. Tentatively she dug her delicate hands into the gnarled bark to pull herself up into a limp sitting position. The collectors' arachnid legs released their glowing orbs, which immediately sought to be absorbed into Kikyo's waxy flesh, imbuing her bloodless cheeks with a blooming mockery of a blush.
As Kikyo bathed in the warmth of stolen life, her thoughts turned, as they always did, toward InuYasha. A familiar hatred blossomed in her chest as she relived her final moments-InuYasha's snarling face, the shattering of her heart into a million [irrecoverable] fragments. To revisit these painful moments was to remember how it felt to be mortal. Kikyo could feel many emotions, but only rage filled her with enough vigor to sustain her crumbling body.
In her blackest core, Kikyo desired InuYasha's death at her cold hands. Each chance encounter with the hanyou made her very spirit itch for his demise. But when Kikyo looked into his amber eyes, she saw her future as she did fifty years ago-without the fresh well of hatred to draw from, she would forget mortality and sink to the other side forever. This cruel mirroring of emotions meant that she could never end his life without ending her own, though she had come close to both many times.
Of course, InuYasha had chosen to cling to a living but laughable imitation of what Kikyo had once been-Kagome.
If Kagome wasn't the only other creature with the perception for the Shikon Jewel, Kikyo would have murdered her long ago. Kagome's very face, so like Kikyo's own, filled the undead priestess with a bellyful of unbridled malice. Although InuYasha and Kagome squabbled in a way that was unthinkable when Kikyo was alive, Kikyo could see the current of love that ran between them. More than once had Kikyo schemed to murder her own reincarnation, but it seemed the spirit of the living would always outshine that of a lich.
What Kiko had forgotten was the attraction the dead garner toward the living. Although Kikyo loathed Kagome, she could no more kill her own spirit than she could allow her clay body to be swept away into the river.
As Kikyo's body wove itself back together with threads of the dead, she mused on the two priestesses' most recent meeting.
Fittingly, it had occurred in the very lands where Kikyo met her demise. She often returned, unable to resist steeping herself in the distilled memories of the earth that had soaked up her blood. She stood in the field, the flowers climbing to her slender waist. A soft humming floated up from the rustling leaves, and Kikyo tensed as she recognized the voice. Kagome suddenly stood up amongst the flowers, clutching her basket in alarm as she whirled around, locking eyes with Kikyo.
Their eyes met, Kikyo's narrowed in rancor, but as she continued to study Kagome's face - the pointed chin, long black hair, and deep amber eyes - she saw that this woman both was and wasn't her. Something different rested on Kagome's troubled countenance, and she carried herself more easily, though with Kikyo's same subtle pride. As they stared frankly at each other, Kikyo's boiling rage slowly simmered away, replaced by a new electrifying curiosity. Taken aback, Kikyo broke eye contact, walking away with a racing heart.
To forget this viewing of Kagome through a new and confusing lens, Kikyo had thrown herself into purifying a small town nearby. As she lay now in the twilight, however, body exhausted but never truly capable of a restful sleep, Kikyo still found herself thinking of Kagome. The wind in her hair. The cautious fire in her gaze. That strange little shirt, fluttering in the wind to reveal a smooth, soft navel….
Kikyo flushed angrily. Kagome had stolen her role and her love and knew nothing of the nature of this world. She was not desirable. At dawn, Kikyo decided, she would purify herself of these unwanted inklings.