Note: I changed the title from Saving Him Is Killing Her to "Regretful Repetition"
Regretful Repetition
Chapter Two: Pernicious Poison
Even though the golden globes that were locked on her held nothing but utter bafflement, and generally seemed unpleased, she couldn't have been happier to be able to look into them. Really, she loved them so much. They were his best features, so gorgeous, so expressive—even if he didn't mean it, she could tell how he was actually feeling by just looking in them.
And right then, he was utterly confused and a bit embarrassed from the fact that her hands were all over his face. In front of their comrades no less. If she was going to get touchy, she knew he'd prefer her doing it in private and away from prying eyes. At the moment, there were plenty of perplexed eyes staring at them.
"Kagome," finally snapped her out of her daze. The way he dragged out her name, an edge of concern on it, as he glanced up and down her again made her feel a bit better. Finally she realized what she was doing and removed her hands from his face and took a step back. Quickly, her gaze shifted over every part of him until she was satisfied he was really there.
"Kagome-sama, are you alright?" Miroku finally dared to ask while he walked up to her, glancing over her as well. It was unlike their dear friend to show up in such a state. Usually, she was well dressed and ready to go. This time she wore sweat-pants and a hoodie and her hair looked barely brushed.
"When was the last time I saw you…?" questioned Kagome, her brows bent slightly as she looked over to her friend. She could tell her inquiry only worried the monk further as his brows migrated closer but he answered her all the same.
"You left three days ago for a test."
But… that wasn't right. That was… well, that was that morning. That morning she returned from her three days for her high school entrance exams. It'd be a miracle if she got into a good school with her markings and multiple absences but she thought she'd try anyway.
"Kagome-chan, what is wrong?" Sango had to ask as she walked over to place a hand on her friend's shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red, as if she had been crying, and she had just returned from her world so Sango instantly assumed that something was wrong with her family.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked over to her mahogany eyed friend. Obviously, she was worrying them all a great deal and she hated to do that but… she was worrying herself, too. It had all seemed so real, could it really have just been a dream?
"I don't know what's going on… but I was pretty sure I had already come back today and then…" slowly, her stare shifted over to her irreplaceable inu-hanyou, "this youkai attacked us all of a sudden and you… you died. I went home for the day and decided to come back but…"
To that, Inuyasha cocked a brow before allowing his classic 'keh' to come out accompanied by, "obviously you were dreaming, idiot. I'm not dead and some random youkai sure as hell isn't going to be what ends me if that ever happens."
"You do look like you just got out of bed," Miroku pointed out tenderly, "it must have just been a bad dream, Kagome-sama."
"But it seemed so real," she murmured.
"I ain't dead, so it wasn't real," Inuyasha insisted arrogantly, "now get over it."
Yeah, that was her Inuyasha alright. As sensitive as ever, what a charmer, not… but she was happy to have him back all the same. Well, apparently it was just a bad dream, she never lost him, but…
"I'll be right back," she slowly said as she took a series of steps to the well.
"What? But you just got here!" She heard Inuyasha complain but it was too late, she was over the edge to jump into the well to venture to her side. When she arrived on the other side she took a breath in and climbed out and exit the hut to see it was day outside. Somehow… it must have really been all just a dream.
Just a horrible, horrible, dream.
Lightly, she shook her head then started on her short trek to her house and quietly into her kitchen as not to wake anyone in case she was the first up. Apparently, that was useless though since her grandpa was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. When he looked up to see who was entering, his brow quickly rose up.
"Child, why haven't you changed out of your pajamas yet? I thought you had gone through the well already. In less you have changed your mind…? Your mother would be happy if you spent your birthday here, after all," her grandpa lectured.
That just confirmed it. It was a horrible, horrible dream. A realistic one but just that—a nightmare. Something that she woke up from. She could almost laugh at the thought as she went up stairs to change into a pair of jeans and a shirt then put on a pair of her tennis shoes before finding her yellow bag and heading out. Obviously it had just been a dream.
To think, some random fire youkai without even a name had killed Inuyasha? She just smiled and shook her head. He was too strong for that. He was Inuyasha, he was invincible.
Yet, always infuriated it would seem. Since the moment she climbed her way out of the well she saw him standing there, staring a hole through her. Quickly, he questioned, "what the hell? Are you done now? Can we get going?"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry," she retorted as she swung her legs over the well and rearranged her backpack on her shoulders. "That was just really weird… I was so sure it was real. It seemed so real."
It took him a bit before it seemed to dawn on him that she was talking about the dream, at first he just gave her a small nod, then said, "you're an idiot. I ain't getting killed, ever, you should know that."
"I know," she dragged out, allowing a frown to curve her lips down, "I should. I'm sorry. We can go now."
"Good," he then gave a nod so that she could follow him to the others and then they were off on their seemingly endless journey of finding all the jewel shards and destroying Naraku. It seemed so crazy that it really had taken a year already to collect as much as they had... and, really, get nowhere.
No. That wasn't true. They had accomplished a lot, saved plenty of people, but they had yet to kill Naraku. That was the most important thing. It was the only thing that could save Miroku—in turn, that would probably be the only thing to save Sango. If she lost her husband-to-be, on top of all she had already lost…
"You're abnormally quiet, Kagome-chan," Sango pointed out after a while of their constant walking. "You look tired, is that it? Would you like to stop for a short break?"
"We just started," Inuyasha quickly bickered as he glared back to those who were following his lead.
Yes… she was really tired, almost as if she hadn't really slept last night. A break might be nice, yet when she looked up the surroundings seemed to be so familiar. They were just like the one in her dream, the one where Inuyasha died.
Which quickly earned a, "no, no, I'm fine. Let's keep going. Inuyasha's right, we only just started."
"Exactly," Inuyasha concurred. "Now let's keep going."
"Are you sure, Kagome-chan?" Sango inquired with a lifted brow. "If you are tired we can rest."
"No, that's not it, I was just thinking," she assured her comrade, even added a smile to make her understand that she was perfectly fine.
"Thinking about what?" Shippou asked as he hopped on to her shoulder.
"One year ago… I fell down the well and met Inuyasha," she said, letting her gaze shift up to the hanyou that led the pack. His ear twitched, so she assumed he was listening now that he had heard his name. "It's crazy to think that much time has passed by… I mean, I didn't meet the rest of you for a while after that but it is still weird."
She was sixteen year old, about to enter in high school, and still traveling to and from one era to the next. A year… she didn't think it would take that long. She thought that it would all be fixed by then and she would have gotten to go back to her normal life. With ease, she would have transitioned back into life as a regular student. A high school student…
Yet, that all seemed so impossible. How was she supposed to leave this world behind, leave Inuyasha…? And go back to that life? At the very same time, she couldn't imagine forsaking her family to stay in the feudal era forever. Did she even really want to do that?
At sixteen, she shouldn't have to make such big decisions. At sixteen… she shouldn't have to make a choice that would forever alter her life. Then again, with the way things were going, maybe she wouldn't have to.
It was noon, or at least somewhere near it, which was nice. It freed her from that aching worry in the back of her head that somehow her nightmare would become a reality. In that dream he had died in the morning. Obviously, it was just a dream. A horrible, horrible, one.
"Kagome," Inuyasha began, startling her enough that she jumped some before looking up to see him walking over to her. Finally, they took that much needed break. Oddly enough, it had been her that had kept saying "let's keep going" instead of Inuyasha but… she just wanted to be as far away from that area as possible.
"Hi," she replied before he sat down next to her on the riverbed. The warm weather was only one of many hints that spring was slowly giving way to summer. To the far right of them, Miroku and Sango sat together underneath the shade of tree. To their left, Kirara and Shippou splashed around in the shallows part of the water.
"You're really quiet today," he dared to say finally, which got her hazels to switched back him. "Is it… because of that dream you had?"
She nodded her head some before she sighed and said, "it seemed so real."
"But it wasn't," he countered. He didn't know how he could emphasize that anymore. Hell, he didn't even know why he had to emphasize it at all. He was Inuyasha, the guy that saved her nine times out of ten without even getting almost killed. Why would she ever think that he would actually get killed, by some nameless youkai nevertheless?
"I know," she whispered back.
Maybe, probably not, but just maybe he when he parted his lips again he was going to say something comforting to her. Something that could magically make that pain she felt in her dream really feel like just a dream—not an aching reality. But, she would never get to hear what he was about to say since his ear tweaked and golden gaze shifted away from her almost instantly.
Quickly, worry wrapped around her heart. She didn't want to ask because she didn't want to know but he stood up and grabbed his sword's handle all the same. So… she had to. "What is it, Inuyasha?"
"I can hear screaming," he answered, "get the others and tell them to follow me."
"Don't go off alone!" Kagome shouted even though she knew it was too late, he took a leap forward without her all the same. Swiftly, she stood up and looked over to her friends who had also noticed him. "Kirara, Shippou, come here."
Reluctantly, they stopped their play to go to her just as Sango and Miroku arrived.
"What's wrong, Kagome-sama?" Miroku inquired.
"Inuyasha said he heard screaming, he wants us to follow him but is so stupid that he went off by himself," she grumbled the end to herself. "We should hurry in case he needs our help."
And that was exactly what they did, Kirara transformed to give them a ride so they could follow their comrade to where the screaming originated from. A village torn apart, injured spewed across the floor, dead torn to shreds. It didn't take long to find the source of all the misery—a monstrosity. It was huge in size, with eight legs and a bunch of beady eyes but it wasn't a spider youkai. At least, not purely, since it had a long scorpion tail ready to strike.
But none of them ever had to worry about that, since in a slash from Inuyasha's sword destroyed it as soon as they all got off of Kirara.
"See, Kagome-sama, Inuyasha is fine," Miroku declared, but that didn't stop her from rushing up to him.
The first thing that caught her attention was a bleeding spot on his back, a fairly large gash being the root cause upon his shoulder. It wasn't until she placed a hand on his lower back that he seemed to notice her.
"Are you alright?" Kagome quickly questioned.
"I'm fine," he grunted before taking in a deep breath, "it surprised me with its tail. It doesn't feel that deep, it just burns. I'll be alright."
"It burns?" she countered with a raised brow, "Inuyasha… that doesn't sound good. Maybe it had venom? Where's Myoga? We should get him to suck it out—"
"Kagome, I'm fine," Inuyasha asserted but the groan that followed and the way he grabbed his side didn't seem to say the same thing. "I don't know where Myoga is anyway."
"We should find him then!"
Though… she had no idea how to do that. The little flee showed up when he wanted to. They never had to go out of their way to find him.
"I might have something that'll help," she decided as she took off her backpack and began to rummage through it as Inuyasha slowly kneeled down.
"Kagome-sama!" Miroku called out, "do you have any medicine for these injured people?"
"Go help them, Kagome," Inuyasha ordered, "I'll be fine."
"But you're hurt," she stated in a strained voice as her eyes wandered back to his wound.
"In less you have some anti-venom ointment or something like that in your bag, you'll be more help to them. I'm just going to rest here for a little bit, I'll be fine."
"You promise?" she asked with a small frown. If not for that dream she wouldn't even question him… he had been poisoned before and pulled through. He did have a higher tolerance to that type of thing than a mortal, after all. But… she just couldn't lose him. Not really.
"Yeah, sure, I promise," he muttered back.
So… reluctantly she walked away, watching him ever so carefully as he leaned against a nearby hut. Eventually, to help the injured, she had to take her eyes off of him to put medicine on their wounds and wrap them up. Every once and a while she'd look back at him and like promised, he seemed to be fine.
Except… when he fell asleep. She didn't like that too much so she paused helping strangers to go check on him. He probably need to rest so she didn't shot his name, just kneeled down beside him to make sure he was alright.
He seemed so peaceful but he didn't move at all. Not even his chest.
"I-Inuyasha?" she stammered as she lifted her hand up to in front of his nose but there was no breath. No. No. No. Her mind screamed as she grabbed his shoulder and shook him frantically to try and get him to move at all.
Why did she leave his side? Why did she believe him? She shouldn't have… she wouldn't ever do that again if only he just woke up.
"Inuyasha! Wake up! Inuyasha!"
"Kagome-chan?" Sango questioned once she reached her side, "what's… wrong?"
"Inuyasha's not breathing," she quickly replied which sparked her friend to kneel down next to her with worry written in the wrinkles that were created from bent brows.
But… no matter what they did. He wouldn't start breathing again. His heart would no longer beat.
"Kagome-sama, I understand how upset you must be," Miroku assured her as he placed a hand on her shoulder to try his best to comfort her. "None of us could have seen this coming… to think some random youkai would be Inuyasha's downfall."
"I knew this was going to happen," Kagome countered as she tore herself away to climb onto Kirara's back. "I have to go."
"Kagome-sama, these people still need your help," Miroku kept up while he motioned to those with injured that she hadn't helped yet but that seemed so… unimportant in the grand scheme of things so she just shook her head and got Kirara to take off.
If it wasn't a dream… then that meant all she had to do was go to the well, back to her world, and then back again. Right? That would work and Inuyasha would be alive. She'd be able to prevent him from dying that time because she knew it wasn't just a dream.
It took until nightfall for Kirara to get them back to the well. Without hesitation, she leaped off and into the well to zoom through the blue and end up on her side again. She grabbed her ladder and climbed up only enough so that when she jumped back down she flew back to the past. Hopefully, so far back that that horrible day never actually happened.
When she got back her eyes were shut—she was far too scared to see whether or not it was light out again. Her breath was hitched in her throat, though her lungs burned for her to take allow air back in. For a minute, she stood here, just praying that when she opened her eyes all would be well again.
So, slowly, her lids lifted to see that there was light shinning down on down on her. With that, she let out her breath. She had no idea what was going on but that time she wouldn't let history repeat itself.
That time, she'd find a way to save him even if it killed her.
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews. I hope you continue to review and enjoy the story.