Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, if only I could be the amazing Rumiko Takahashi.
Chapter 3 is up! Ya! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy the latest chapter!
Kagome had fallen three times since she had left the tiny clearing she had woken up in. Each time she fell it got harder to pick herself back up and keep moving. There was no idea in her head of where she was, or where she was going.
Maybe it was pointless to keep moving, the poison was just spreading faster, bringing her closer to death, while she stumbled around trying to find something familiar that she had seen when she had been running away. Of course, she hadn't been looking at anything when she had ran away. So of course, she found nothing.
But she wouldn't allow herself to stop moving. Because if she did, there was no doubt in her mind that she wouldn't make it if she did. The poison had spread much to quickly. It hadn't made it to her heart yet, by sheer luck, but every step she took was laced with agony, and her mind was slowly fogging and hazing over, making it even harder to keep track of where she was.
She wasn't going to stop though. The only time she would allow herself to do that was when her heart gave out. Inuyasha was still fighting. Still fighting for a pointless cause, a useless battle. And it would only serve to get him killed.
If she made it there, even if the moment she warned him she died, she would die peacefully and happily. He wouldn't stop. That much she knew, even if he was warned. But maybe Kikyo could talk some sense into him, or Sango and Miroku, if they had woken up yet. Somehow he would stop. That was the last thing she would do.
And that was how she kept herself going. Kept her feet moving forward, even when all her body wanted to do was admit defeat and stop and just let her die. The ache in her heart hurt more. That's what she told herself. If she didn't make it to him enough time, if he died fighting, her life would be worth nothing.
Honestly, she didn't want to think of Inuyasha. If she thought of him, she thought of Kikyo. They would be together in her mind forever now. The pieces had finally fallen together. She had known all along that he wouldn't pick her. Hope had foolishly blinded her. This was the cost for having an unrequited love. And she was okay with it. She was okay with him not picking her, not loving her how she loved him. She loved him with all her heart and that was all that mattered.
And even so, it hurt horribly. As much as she hated to admit it, she wanted him to pick her. She remembered when she had first walked out of the clearing, crying and stumbling, Hana had followed her, shouting curses and yelling at Kagome to lay back down and just die.
"Seeing you actually fight for something is no fun." she pouted. "They normally all just stop thinking about anyone else but themselves. Even when they're husbands and wives are being torn apart by my pet, they just want the antidote. That's all. Noting else. They don't want they're family to be safe, they're kids to enjoy life, or they're partner to be with them. They just want to live. Why aren't you like that?" she was angry now. "Why can't you just be like them?"
Kagome had looked up into the trees, where the child-like demon had been floating and answered the only way she knew how. "He's more important then my life, or the antidote. If I'm going to die, then he's all that matters."
Hana had watched her curiously for a few more moments, watched her stumble and cry out when the pain was too much. Finally, before disappearing into a tornado of scented, extraordinary flowers, she whispered softly, "He must really care for you then." Almost as if she had known the exact words to make Kagome suffer more, to make her want to stop that much worse. Inuyasha didn't really care for her. He really cared for Kikyo. He wouldn't do this for her. She knew that. He would do it for Kikyo. But Hana hadn't know that, and she hadn't said those words to hurt her.
And Kagome was thankful for Hana saying them. They pushed her own even more. This would be her proof of how much she really did love him. Killing herself slowly for someone who would never love her back.
The fourth time she fell, she felt her neck snap back, and she screamed. Fresh blood poured from the wound, and soaked into her collar, that was already bright red.
She clutched the ground with her fingers and held back her tears. There was no time for them. If she hadn't fallen she wouldn't have noticed the bright pink flowers, with gold dust. She was back in the meadow. Which meant she was that much closer to Inuyasha.
It took her a long time to get back to her feet. It wasn't that she didn't want to, her body wasn't allowing her. Every time she moved, excruciating pain ripped through her. She fought through it and got back up on her feet. She brought flowers up with her and tucked them into her pockets. She wanted to remember them, even in death. They would bring memories of Inuyasha with them. And that was all she needed to remember.
She felt bad, for not thinking of her other friends. She was dying after all. She knew Sango would miss her, because Sango was like a sister to her. She loved Sango, with her long chocolate hair and mahogany eyes. She would miss her kind words and gentle touches, and she wouldn't ever forget how Sango cared for her when she needed her heart mended. A weak smile formed on her lips when she thought of Sango with the monk, Miroku. Hopefully they would realize just how meant for each other they were. She would miss him too. He was lecherous, true, but he cared for Sango deeply, and her took care of them all. And then there was Shippo, her own little son. He was so sweet and always tried to protect her, even when the demon he was facing was many more times experienced then he was.
And now she did let the tears come. She would miss them all so much. They were her best friends, her family. And what would her real family think, when she never came home? They couldn't come here, only she could. Would Inuyasha have to carry her dead body back home?
Forcibly, she pushed the thoughts from her mind. She needed to focus on what she was doing now. She could think of the rest later.
Her feet finally started to move again. But as soon as they did, she doubled over and started to vomit blood. Coughing violently, trembling all over, she lifted hear head back up and wiped her mouth. Her hand came back red.
'Move faster.' The poison was spreading to quickly. If she didn't move faster, she would die before she could get to Inuyasha.
Walking was harder then it had been before. Her feet were getting harder and harder to move, like weights were being to added to her shoes. Each step she took sent tremors through her body and caused her to clutch her stomach to keep from vomiting again. Blood was trickling from her mouth like a steady stream.
She kept moving anyways. The trees had started to thin away. It was only a few more feet, then she would be out of the forest and she would be able to find Inuyasha, to warn him.
Then, suddenly, light was blaring through the trees, white hot and bright. Happiness flooded through her. She had made it!
The trees gave way to another clearing, this one much larger, that was 20 meters away from there rest spot. And in the middle of the clearing, was Inuyasha.
Never before had she been so happy to see him. Then she froze. There was the demon. And it was enormous. Inuyasha looked like a small ant compared to this demon. And it looked so dangerous, with large claws and a deadly tail, spraying poison onto the ground.
All that mattered was making it to him in enough time to tell him to stop fighting. If she just stood here, watching, she would die before she could warn him. So she started pushing her body forward again, never taking her eyes of the demon and Inuyasha. She wanted to scream when the demon sprayed poison into the air from it's mouth, and when it landed on Inuyasha, sizzling and scalding his skin.
He was injured. His arms was bleeding badly and there was a deep cut in his stomach, bleeding as well. Not to mention all the red blistered whelps on his skin and the tiny cuts covering his body. He was losing. The demon had no scratches on it. And it looked like it was enjoying all the miserable attempts Inuyasha and the others made at it. It just swatted them all away, like tiny dolls. Sango and Miroku were slammed into the ground with a great claw, and Shippo narrowly avoided being smashed by the demon's massive tail.
She had to stop them, or they would all die. Then it was all over. Inuyasha drew his sword, sliced through an invisible barrier and buried the sword deep into the demon's chest.
He should have been happy. The demon shrank smaller and smaller underneath his sword, until it shriveled into a tiny ball on the ground. But Inuyasha didn't look happy. He looked horrified. He tore the sword out of the demon's chest so quickly she almost didn't see the movement. Then he was bounding off into the woods, with Sango, Miroku and Shippo following closely behind him, shouting.
Why was he running away? Why did he looked so scared….so sad? She didn't understand. But she didn't like the feeling that was creeping up her spine. Something felt horribly wrong.
Hana had said the demon was almost undefeatable. It shouldn't have fallen so easily. She still had to warn them.
She had almost made it to where she could see Inuyasha's silver head sticking out of the trees when the demon's body started growing in size.
It morphed back into the scorpion demon as soon as it had collapsed into the ball. Except there was no hole in the middle of it's chest like there had been. In fact, there was nothing on it's body to hint that it had been injured at all. It was still alive. And Inuyasha was completely unaware.
She moved faster then she had all day, appearing in front of him in moments. His head snapped up and he looked right at her.
Her heart squeezed painfully tight. He was holding Kikyo so close to his chest, and she had her head buried into it. His grip loosened slightly when he saw her, and she saw the guilty tinge appear in his golden eyes.
He had forgotten about her. Because of Kikyo. It had been inevitable. But it still hurt. Badly.
Now wasn't the time to thing about it. The demon had moved forward, hovering behind Inuyasha, with it's tail suspended over it's head, taut and rigid.
It was getting ready to attack.
Inuyasha wasn't looking away from her. She wanted to scream at him, look behind you, kill it before it kills you. But her voice was long gone. So she could only stare at him, trying to convey the message with her eyes, while her body slowly wasted away from the inside out.
The demon spoke, in it's chilling voice, and Inuyasha froze. But he didn't have time to move. The tail was ready to strike, so even if he had, it would have found him.
The demon hadn't looked over at her once. He didn't know she was there. Which meant she had a chance to save Inuyasha.
Her mind had cleared, to where the only thought in her head was, 'Not him. Don't let him die.'
Inuyasha eyes never moved from hers, and his hands slid away from Kikyo's shoulders, almost as if an apology.
'I love you'
After that, everything happened in a blur.
Inuyasha closed his eyes, as the tail whistled through the air.
The demon's head whipped towards her, like it had read her mind.
It knew she was there. It knew what she was doing. And it was to late to stop her. Smiling in spite of the pain ripping through her body she threw herself in front of Inuyasha just as the demon's stinger finished it's plunge.
It stabbed through her chest, then stopped moving. She would have screamed if she had enough energy left. But she didn't. So her mouth stayed closed.
Sango yelled and rushed forward, followed closely behind by Miroku.
Kagome looked down, just as Inuyasha opened his eyes and looked up, straight into her own.
A high-pitched keening floated through the trees, and the demon hissed angrily, before ripping it's tail from Kagome's chest and scuttling off towards the noise.
She sank to her knees and fell into Sango's lap, who was crying now. Her tears were falling onto Kagome's face, salty and wet.
She was speaking, saying something again and again, but Kagome didn't understand.
Her vision was getting blurry and her body was going numb, so much so that she didn't feel the monk trying to stop the flow of blood from the hole in her torso. What a pointless task.
Inuyasha had pushed Kikyo off him and was by her side in seconds. He grabbed her hand, pushed hair of her forehead, and said something into her ear.
She strained to hear, and it took a few moments for her brain to process it.
"Why would you do something so stupid?" that's what he had whispered to her.
When she looked up she was surprised to see the tears that were forming in his eyes. Sango was running her hands up and down Kagome's face gently, wiping away blood and tears.
"I love you." she answered, trying to suck in more air so she could breath, and failing. Her vision was filling with black fog.
Squeezing his hand with as much strength she could muster, she tried to show him just how much she needed him, just how important he was to her.
A tear fell from his eyes and landed on her cheek.
"Sayonara." she whispered, trying to make a joke. It didn't work. Sango cried harder, and Miroku stopped trying to bandage her wounds and ran to Sango's side, holding her to his chest.
Kagome felt a single tear escape from her eye. This was the last time she would see any of them. She loved them all so much. If only she could tell them.
But she couldn't breath anymore. She couldn't feel her heart beating. Couldn't hear the voices of her friends, the people she loved so much. Couldn't decipher anything except blackness and pain. Cold, hungry pain that swallowed up everything she knew.
Then there was nothing.
It was like his own personal nightmare come to life. He couldn't imagine a worse image then the one that was playing out right before his own eyes. It was too surreal, almost the exact same image that had caused him to go running to Kikyo in the first place. But instead of his sword, it was the demon's tail. And instead of being a trick of the mind, this was real.
He hoped uselessly that this was all just a dream. A horrible, terrifying dream that he wanted desperately to wake up from. And even so, he knew he wasn't dreaming. Because he could feel all to real the miko's face buried into his chest, where she hadn't moved an inch from when Inuyasha had rushed to her. He could hear all to loud Sango's heartbroken scream, intensified by the echoing in the trees. He could see all to easily her rushing forward, a hand covering her mouth and her face covered in tears already, Miroku falling behind her. He didn't rush forward like they did. He was frozen to the spot, unable to move.
He was reminded of just how fragile Kagome was, seeing her hovering in air, the demon's tail jutting out of her chest. It was such a horrible sight, to see her tiny body bent in half, blood dripping from the hole in her chest to pool on the ground, making a dark circle on the dirt. He wanted to look away, to not see her chocolate eyes tighten from the pain she was holding in. her mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water, and blood bubbled up out of it. She spit it out weakly before coughing violently.
The demon jerked it's tail out of her torso, only to increase the damage she was suffering. She fell to her knees, before falling back into Sango's waiting lap. Sango looked up at the monk, who was busying himself with trying to stop the flow of the blood that was gushing from the wound.
Inuyasha could already see what a hopeless task it was. She had been in bad shape already. The hole in her chest was only making her death quicker.
Watching Sango wipe the blood from Kagome's mouth and clean the tears silently streaming down her cheek, he felt a part of his heart disappearing slowly.
The demon slayer was whispering something into Kagome's ear, repeating again and again. "He wasn't worth it Kagome. He wasn't worth it."
She knew just the right words to say to strike his heart in such a way that he felt miserable for even being alive. He was disgusted with himself for still just sitting here, watching everyone else taking care of her when it was his fault she was dying. Why was he so stupid? Why was he so blind? Why had he taken her so for granted? Now he would never be able to show her just how much she really did mean to him. He hated himself, for always running after Kikyo, for not spending more time with Kagome, just getting to know her.
Sango was right. He wasn't worth it. Not at all. He pushed Kikyo off his lap angrily, mad at her for sitting there, unfazed, uncaring that the girl who had saved her life twice was dying. What an insensitive person. Why did he run after her? It was all his fault Kagome was even here. If he just hadn't…
Wiping furiously at the tears that were forming in his eyes, he leaped to his feet, ignoring Kikyo's hurt and angry expression and rushed to Kagome's side.
Her breathing was already labored, and she would occasionally close her eyes and Sango would squeeze her hand frantically until her eyes opened again.
As soon as Inuyasha appeared by Kagome's side, the demon slayer looked up at him, fury in her eyes. "I hate you Inuyasha, for doing this to Kagome. How could you do this? How could you?" she stopped, breaking into heavy sobs, and Miroku gave up trying to stop the flow of blood and hurried to her side, pulling her tight to him when he got there. Sango turned away from Kagome and sobbed into his chest. "She's like my sister. I love her so much. She can't die!"
"I know. I know." Miroku whispered soothingly, rubbing her hair softly.
Inuyasha looked down at the pale girl underneath him, who was gazing up at him. Her eyes were cloudy and her chest was barley rising and falling. Her hair was glued to her forehead from sweat and he pushed it back gently. He leaned down and whispered into her ear, voice cracking from the tears he was trying so hard to hold back. "Why would you do something so stupid?"
Then the tears were cracking through his barriers and appearing in the corner of his eyes. Kagome was silent for a moment, and all you could hear in the forest was the silent sobs of Sango and Kagome's heavy breathing. Her face suddenly broke into small smile and she looked straight into his eyes, trying to hide the pain in her own. She failed miserably, and it hurt Inuyasha's heart even more to see her still trying to please him, even when she was dying. "I love you." she responded, her breath escaping her lungs in whoosh. She tried to suck in a breath, but he couldn't hear any air entering her lungs.
'No, no don't let her die. I'll do anything just don't let her die!' he screamed in his head, but no one answered. She squeezed his hand so soft, he almost didn't feel it. But he knew what she was telling him. She was showing him that she loved him, love he didn't deserve.
A tear escaped from his eyes and landed on her cheek, gleaming in the sunlight. Why couldn't he have seen what was right in front of his eyes the whole time? Why did he have to discover now just how much he cared for her? When it no longer mattered. Nothing he said would save her. Nothing he did would keep her alive. He hadn't felt so heartbroken and useless in all his life, not even when Kikyo died. When Kikyo had died, he had felt a dull ache, like when someone loses a pet. At the time, he had thought he was going through the most pain he ever could, thought he had lost the other half of him. Now he understood just how something like that felt. He understood how it felt to lose someone that meant more to you then your own life.
"Sayonara." Kagome breathed, looking at Sango and Miroku then back at Inuyasha. She smiled pitifully, trying to make them all smile. Didn't she understand that he was never going to smile again. Didn't she know his life had no meaning for him now. Was this karma? He had thought Kikyo was so important, important enough to leave Kagome sad and heartbroken to spend few moments in the forest with her. And yet every time he came back, she welcomed him with open arms and forced a smile, so he wouldn't have to see her pain. She was so good, and he had never even noticed, he had been so caught up in himself. And now she was dying, dying for him. If only he could go in her place. If only someone would give him one more chance, one more opportunity to prove himself, to show that he could be worthy of Kagome. But he had one to many chances, and his luck was running out and the pain he had shown her was finally catching up to him.
Inuyasha saw a tear leak from her eyes and he reached to wipe it away. He realized then that he couldn't feel the beating of her heart anymore, couldn't see the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
"No, no! Kagome, please don't die. Please don't die. I need you." he pulled her to his chest, and looked into her eyes, watched as they slowly dulled into there was no glimmer left in them. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." he whispered, rocking back and forth. "Don't die. Don't die. I need you so much. I'm so sorry I didn't show you, didn't tell you." it was useless, but he wouldn't admit it. He wouldn't admit she was dead, he would never accept it. "Kagome, I love you." he whispered, but she was no longer there to hear him. And the world no longer mattered.