Author's note: Inuyasha is not my puppy. He only hangs out here.
Chapter 6: What Lies Within
"Kagome!" Inuyasha screamed, rushing in on the scene. He could smell the blood of all of his friends by now. The whole place stunk of human panic. He had seen several villagers hiding among the rocks and in the shrines around the village. He had even passed directly by some on the dirt road there. They were all in a huge hurry to get away.
Inuyasha located his friends outside Kaede's hut. Miroku was half immersed in a pool of his own blood. Sango was fallen too. Her neck had red finger marks all over it. Shippo was nowhere to be seen, but Inuyasha could smell Kiara's scent. She must be in the rubble that used to be someone's home. However, as he approached, the only thing Inuyasha focused on was Kagome.
Kagome was weak-kneed and helpless in the clutches of a demon. In fact, if the demon didn't have his claws hooked into her slim arms, she would have collapsed to the ground. As it was, her legs were crumpled grotesquely under her and her head was lolled back, arching her neck. The heathen was holding her up by her upper arms.
Inuyasha felt the blood thumping through his veins. He felt like his face might start combusting, beginning with his ears. He bared his teeth and almost growled. He withdrew Tetsaiga, resolving to slice the bastard in two. His fury would have it no other way.
The demon appeared to be kissing Kagome, on first glance, (which only drove Inuyasha into a deeper rage) but as he closed in, Inuyasha realized he was actually biting her. However, that realization made little difference. Inuyasha's wrath was all consuming.
Inuyasha lunged at him, swiping at him with a mighty thrust from Tessaiga. The demon agilely hopped backwards, releasing Kagome. He was smiling smugly at Inuyasha. Inuyasha shot a glare of pure hate at the fiend, but quickly caught Kagome before she fell. She was stone cold with sweat. She was gritting her teeth in pain. Her eyes were squinting up at him.
"Kagome!" he shook her lightly. "Kagome can you hear me?"
A chuckle interrupted his distress. Inuyasha shot a glance up at the vile being standing before him. Inuyasha's face contorted with pain. He felt a wave of fury swell up in his chest.
"You bastard! What have you done to her?" Inuyasha demanded.
The demon did not respond, but subtly dropped something small in his pocket. Then he slowly and deliberately drew his own sword. It was thin, white, and glinted in the sun. There were words inscribed in the blade. Inuyasha locked eyes with the vermin.
"Kagome, is it?" The demon spoke. "Give her my regards when she awakens."
"What?" Inuyasha bellowed. He was barely controlling himself. He would have attacked the beast by now, but Kagome was showing signs of consciousness. Inuyasha could hardly discern small mumbles coming from her lips. Her eyes blinked. She was weak, incredibly weak.
"Oh, how rude of me," the demon reprimanded himself. He held the sword to the sky, "my name is Kano. Tell Kagome that it was I who overpowered her." Then he brought it before his face and put his free palm on the other side of the blade. A white-pink light transferred from his palm into the sword. The inscriptions on the blade seared pink. Kano sheathed his sword. Then turned to leave.
"Oh no you don't!" Inuyasha roared. He carefully laid Kagome down and then sprinted forward. The demon rotated his head only a few degrees to observe Inuyasha bolting at him. Inuyasha had Tessaiga swinging at Kano, but he nimbly leapt out of the way of each attack. Kano didn't appear the least bit worried, but intrigued. On one of his dodging vaults, Kano did a three sixty turn landing to face Inuyasha.
The instant Kano had ceased his jumping bean exercise, Inuyasha hurled a wind scar at him. Kano's brow furrowed in irritation. He waved his arm in front of the assaulting fissures of light and they evaporated at his feet. Inuyasha's jaw dropped a bit. However, he quickly recovered from the shock to continue thrashing at the demon.
Kano stood waiting for Inuyasha as he charged him. He stared condescendingly at him.
"Did she give you that scar?" Kano questioned.
Inuyasha capitalized on Kano's moment of seeming defenselessness. He flung Tetsaiga down at Kano. To Inuyasha's utter amazement, Kano caught the Tessaiga by the blade with one hand. His visage even suggested he was putting no effort into it. Inuyasha blinked, thunderstruck.
"Well?" Kano persisted.
"What are you going on about?" Inuyasha grasped hold of the situation again.
"Did Kagome give you that scar on your chest?"
"None of your damn business," spat Inuyasha. At that, the demon thrust his fist into Inuyasha's gut, winding him. Inuyasha doubled over in pain. Kano touched two of his fingers to the exact spot Kikyo's arrow had pierced Inuyasha's chest. Inuyasha felt a warm surge flow through his body coming from Kano's fingers. Inuyasha batted Kano's arm away and recoiled back, ripping Tessaiga from his grasp. How can he see the scar on my chest? Only I can feel it. I'm even wearing my fire rat cloak. How is he able to see it?
"It's weak, but it's still there." Kano said mostly to himself. "No,..." Kano pondered aloud, "no, Kagome did not do this."Inuyasha was breathing hard, but he managed to whirl Tessaiga about himself to force Kano to retreat. Again, Kano caught the sword, except this time it transformed back to normal; it's rusty blade the ultimate disguise for its true magnificence. "Kikyo..." Kano grinned.
"What? You know her?" Inuyasha's voice was almost frantic. The maniac's smile widened. He flashed his conical teeth.
"Out to purify all the sacred jewel seekers, is she? Looks like we have more in common than you think." With that, Kano started to disappear. Inuyasha tried to slash at him with his claws, but to no avail. He was gone.
"Damn him!" Inuyasha cursed. Then, realizing the imperative situation back in the village, Inuyasha hurried to help his friends.
Kagome was falling. She was falling a very long distance. She could feel the wind at her back, the cold sweat rapidly evaporating from her pale skin, and the sense of helplessness that accompanies an eternal plummet. The black shadows were tugging her down into the endless void of night. The light above her was fading fast. She screamed. She couldn't stop herself. Her short gasping breaths of much needed air burst out of her lungs in fear-filled shrieks. Kagome had never felt so powerless. There was nothing to catch her but the darkness that steadily engulfed her entire being.
Her heart thumped against her chest like a frantic caged bird, ready to break bone and tear tissue to erupt forth. Her hands and fingers felt like ice sickles as they desperately flapped about, as though attempting to fly. And how helpful flight would have been in her situation was evident, but it was not to be. She bucked her hips and kicked her legs. Nothing was working. Why she expected it to was beyond questioning, as though she could fight gravity.
Tears started streaming down her eyes, but she could feel the thirsty air siphon them away. The sensation of impending doom was eating her whole, but death would not come. It was cruelly toying with her, delighting in her prolonged horror.
She didn't know where she was nor could she remember anything in the recent past. However, one coherent word finally did emerge from the torrent of outcries.
"INUYASHA!" It hurtled out of her throat. After which she swallowed hard and clasped her neck. It hurt from overuse. She panted and coughed. She tried to envision her great defender, but found herself incapable of doing so. She concentrated hard as though a mental projection of him might summon him. But the image still wouldn't come.
Kagome turned herself about in the air so she was facing the black space. She managed to silence herself. She wrapped her arms about herself and tucked in her legs. Her eyes were fully dilated and staring down. She felt the near intolerable wind suck at her sockets. She shut her eyes tight and pulled into herself. She tried to zone out from everything else and regain her lost memory, starting with Inuyasha. She remembered everything about him, except his appearance. She bit her bottom lip and focused hard.
An image jumped forth and startled her. Where she expected a hanyou dressed in red she discovered a priestess of oil black hair clad in white and red.
Kikyo!
Kagome's eyes popped open to a flash of white light. She screamed. The ground was right in front of her. She smashed her eyelids shut. Here it comes...
Thunk! Kagome didn't slam into the ground as she thought she would. The sheer velocity of her fall should have popped her body like a balloon and littered the ground with crimson entrails.
She had landed on something soft and after gauging the pain in her body, she surmised that she was, at most, bruised. Her shaky arms feebly attempted to lift her small frame. When her eyes came to a focus, she was on a grassy field in the grace of the warm sunshine. She sat up.
Kagome examined her condition. Her legs were locked together, but would come unglued after she recovered a bit. Her whole body was dry and wind-swept. She was sure she would have wetted herself anytime during the incident, had she been able to. However, apparently she hadn't. She rubbed up her right arm with her left hand to discover some sore spots. She gasped and quickly turned her attention to the wounds. It turned out there was a matching pair on the other arm. They were... claw marks?
A spark ignited Kagome's brain. Now I remember! She recalled the smurf headed, tangerine eyed demon. Her lips peeled back from her teeth in anger. Yes, she remembered. Sango, Miroku, Kiara... A tear slipped from one eye and dripped into the velvet grass.
One thing disturbed her from her mourning, the shiny ooze that had frozen her flesh before was gone. That was strange. If the claw marks remained, then shouldn't her whole body look like she'd bathed in hair gel?
This must be a dream. She absent mindedly ripped some grass out of the earth and then grabbed for more. This has to be a dream. Maybe it was all a dream she hoped. But where on earth was she? For the first time, she stood up and tried to rationalize her surroundings. She took a step forward and then hopped backward. She was right on the edge of a cliff! Looking a bit harder she realized the landscape actually compromised a plateau. She circled around to retreat further from the edge.
Her eyes bulged and her voice caught in her throat. There, standing not more than an inch before her face, was the demon. All her carefully gathered feelings of calm and complacency raced down her legs and settled into the ground.
"Ah... ah... ah" Kagome sputtered.
"And just where do you think you're going?" he asked in the softest, calmest, and cruelest voice Kagome ever felt burn her ears. He stepped forward. Kagome cried a weak plea and stumbled backward, then before she could stop herself, tumbled head first back into the ominous pit.
Kano stood resigned, regarding the vast emptiness. A very slight smile cracked his mouth in an otherwise dignified, yet condescending stance.
"No, not again." Kagome's voice died.
Her feet were above her. Her body was exhausted, yet still clamoring for the primal responses that rallied to fear. Her hair billowed behind her.
She felt herself giving in. She wanted to rest. For all she knew, her friends were dead. Her heart squeezed in her chest at the thought and her conscience admonished her for considering giving up. Still, her pangs were slowly devouring her. She'd wasted all her energy in the first adrenaline rush. She couldn't take another. However, a bottomless vacuity did reinvigorate Kagome enough to force her to endure at least a little longer.
She was losing to dizziness. Her head was spinning. She felt she might throw up. That would make the situation even more unpleasant. What if it didn't go away? Kagome recalled her physics class and how all objects move at a constant rate of motion. Ugh she groaned to herself. To think that physics would even occur to her at a time like this...
Kagome managed to pull herself into a reclining position. She couldn't say how. The cold was taking over again; she shivered compulsively. She felt herself slipping inside herself again. Then she felt something wrap around her. Something was holding her. She quirked her head to the left and right only to be greeted by emptiness. She furrowed her brow, confused. Something wet touched her temple. She jerked. What was that?
Suddenly she felt a splash of warm embrace the trunk of her body, but then immediately dissipate.
"Ahh..." she half sighed and half huffed. A soothing rocking movement shook her body. Then as if a phantom feeling, it released her. What kind of torture is this? She gave in and started to whimper. The strange embrace tightened upon her.
Everything was pitch black. She could no longer see even with her eyes open. She closed them. But the specter, kept nagging her. The on-and-off rhythm was going into overdrive. It was like someone flicking the light switch on and off, except with physical sensations. She yelped.
That demon was gonna pay. She decided to rest easy believing Inuyasha would at least avenge her. He'd do her that one last favor, wouldn't he? He'd consummate the revenge owed to his fallen friends. Of course he would.
Why does this even matter? Kagome scolded herself. No, it didn't matter. Kagome smiled sadly to herself. He'll be ok, that's all that matters.
Inuyasha rushed back to the village. It was desolate besides the bodies of his friends. Then he found Kaede, in her weakened state, attending to Miroku. She was tightly bandaging some cloth around his bleeding arm. She was startled when Inuyasha approached.
"Oh, it is only ye, Inuyasha." She looked relieved. "Help me get them inside immediately." He obeyed and gingerly placed each pitiful human back inside Kaede's hut. Inuyasha couldn't think of anything to say. None of their battles had ever gone this wrong except maybe when the Band of Seven first showed up. He let the silence speak for him.
After Inuyasha gathered Kiara up out of the rubble from a destroyed hut and determined Shippo was no where to be found, he planted himself at Kagome's side. His eyes crinkled in pain. How did this happen? He slammed his fist into the ground.
"Damn!.. Damn! Damn! Damn!" His breathing was labored. Kaede looked up from attending Sango.
"Calm yeeself, Inuyasha, It won't help the situation at hand." Inuyasha gave her a pained look, then grudgingly nodded. Kaede scooted over to kneel on the other side of Kagome. She felt the girl's forehead. She was icy cold, and somehow she wasn't freezing to death. Kaede had covered her in blanket's but she was still an ice cube. She had wrapped her arms in bandages, but other than those minor puncture wounds, Kagome should be physically fine.
Kaede pondered Kagome's spiritual well being. She had not been present when the demon attacked for the second time. She had been resting until a great commotion shook the village. Her injuries prevented her from helping before she saw Inuyasha chase the demon away into the woods. Now the girl was deathly pale, shivering, and delirious.
Kaede reached inside her pocket and pulled out her sister's necklace. "I wonder..." she pondered aloud.
"What?" Inuyasha looked anxious.
"When I awoke from my slumber, this was under my hands. My sister left it over my heart. I wonder if she blessed it. That would explain why I awoke so soon. Perhaps it will work on Kagome as well." Inuyasha shot Kaede an intrigued and hopeful glance. Kaede blessed the necklace herself, then slipped the necklace under Kagome's palms over her heart.
A orange-yellow light glowed from the spaces between Kagome's fingers as though her hands concealed a flame. Kaede and Inuyasha's eyes widened. Kaede felt her forehead again. It was not cold. She smiled warmly.
"It seems to have worked." Kaede declared. Inuyasha's visage revealed awe. Kaede removed the excess sheets. "Tell me when she wakes." Inuyasha nodded in response.
Even though Kaede herself was wounded, she was healing remarkably fast. She explained it by the omnipotence of spiritual power in the air due to the demon. She said that was the only reason Sango and Miroku would survive this. Kagome had to pay for their lives. It was she who provided the majority of the spiritual energy. However after seeing his face drop, Kaede reassured Inuyasha that Kagome is a strong young woman who never gives up. It didn't seem to help much. He clung ever harder to her side.
Kaede left to get more herbs for Miroku's arm. Inuyasha grimaced while observing the devastation wrought by Kano. The bastard would pay with his life. He'd see to it.
Suddenly Kagome cried out quietly. She was in pain. Anguish racked Inuyasha's face. This is all my fault.
"Kagome," he called to her. "I'm so sorry." He felt the emotions start building up inside of himself. He pulled her up off the floor into his lap. He cradled her in his arms.
Inuyasha felt the war start raging between his feelings and his pride. He bit his lip. He hated these emotions. He despised them and loved them. It was more proof that he was half human. But sometimes he didn't mind them. Sometimes, when they dawned on him he'd reminisce about how he could have lived as a human, with Kikyo. Then all the haunting memories would come back. They weren't worth the effort. He'd decided that, long ago. Long before you, Kagome, and before Kikyo...
Kagome started to jolt and whimper. Inuyasha snapped to attention. Her skin started freezing. He held Kagome tighter. He let her forehead rest on his cheek. He lightly ran his fingers over her head, combing through her hair. It's alright Kagome, I'm here.
"Kagome..." He paused as a single tear slipped out of his control and ran down to kiss Kagome's forehead. "...forgive me."
Inuyasha's instincts gave him a foreboding feeling. He grimaced. It was as though... It was as though he could smell the slow approach of death. That scent that lingers and taints all mortals and eventually comes to claim them.
Inuyasha buried his face in Kagome's bangs and hair. He rubbed her arms firmly but gently. He didn't want to disturb her wounds, but her arms, especially, were so cold.
"Don't leave me." Inuyasha whispered.
Night crept in on the deserted town. A bruised blue trickled down the horizon, snuffing out the last rays of light. The world was enveloped in an unfathomable darkness.