Calm Waters
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all associated characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.
Today was the day. Naraku's stronghold lay hunched against the horizon, its toxic miasma blighting out all life in the surrounding countryside.
"Are you ready for this?" Inuyasha asked his companions. "Because I can't afford to be held back by any weakness." He cast a hard eye at Sango and at Shippo, blanched and shaky on Miroku's shoulder. He pitied the little bastard, he really did. He shoved the thought aside. No time.
"I believe I understand what is to be done," Miroku muttered.
Inuyasha nodded, a quick thrust of his chin, and held out the crystal the witch had given to him. It pulsed violet for a moment, then grew darker again. "It's time. Now."
He did not wait to see if they followed.
ooOoo
She meant nothing and was nothing. She knew nothing of anyone or anything, but slowly, with great precision, she began to see—and it seemed to her as though it had been a very long time since she had seen anything at all. And the first thing she saw were eyes—lovely and red and rich like blood, like the very life that pooled between her legs even now—and a voice marvelous and so very tender as nothing she had ever heard before.
Kagome
A song, she thought, from her childhood—
Kagome, look at me
She looked at him and knew it—Kagome—to be her name as well.
ooOoo
He had swept into the fortress without detection. He had no care for whether guards were human or youkai or something else entirely—he slit every throat, rent every body—so that none would alert their master. Inuyasha would announce his presence to Naraku's face when he tore the coward's heart out through his asshole and fed it to him.
Behind him, he could hear the clang of Miroku's staff, the deadly whistle of Sango's hiraikotsu as it whipped through the air. The courtyard was neutralized, and still Naraku had not shown his face.
Inuyasha rushed the main doors, was just about to reach them when Kanna stepped out. A pearly force field, shining bright and milky, snapped together around the door and the girl.
Red Tetsusaiga did its trick; Inuyasha crashed through the threshold, unhindered by Kanna's barrier. He did not hesitate to tear her head from her body.
The interior was dark—too dark almost too see—almost. The passage in which he stood branched in two directions. Kagome's scent was everywhere, equally strong in both directions, and mingled with it, burning his nose, was Naraku's stench.
Time was short. With his detachment dead, Naraku must by now be sentient of their presence.
Around him, Inuyasha heard the sound of sick, satisfied laughter.
ooOoo
She was like smooth water, and His fingers were sinking stones whose ripples disturbed her peace and gave her motion, His voice the wind that swept her feelings into the swelling, cresting waves of the open sea. Without Him she was nothing. With Him she was a force of nature, beautiful, divine in her terrible apparition of death.
Kagome Kagome my sweet and loving Kagome be sweet and open your lips part your thighs and let me in my obedient little Kagome my treasure mine
The words, the whisper of a promise of a hope to be fulfilled, made her writhe, digging her shoulders into the rough futon beneath her and arching into Him.
Yes, yes, for this she would do—
Kagome my Kagome—Kill Inuyasha
anything.
ooOoo
Her scent had been everywhere, maddeningly everyfuckingwhere, in this wretched shithole of a fortress. Smeared along the walls, trailing the floor, dripping from the sealing with the fucking insistent rain. Kagome had seeped into the dirt itself and, because of that, he feared.
Finally, in a result of blind luck, he had stumbled upon her.
She was quiet, knees tucked up under her chin, staring straight ahead. She was also filthy.
He approached her quietly. "Kagome?"
"That's my name," she murmured.
"Kagome, are you hurt?" Stupid question. He could smell the blood on her. Another step, and he could smell it permeating from her lips, her eyes, her fingers and between her legs. A roll of nausea worked its way through him, and then rage, terrible rage as he considered what the monster had done to his Kagome. Ruthlessly he smothered the feeling. He would need it when the time came to exterminate the bastard. For now, he had to get Kagome out of here. "Kagome?"
No response.
Shit. "Oi, Kagome, look at me!"
She raised her eyes.
They were not the blank he had been expecting. Instead, a feverish intensity glowed within them.
With a grace not native to the girl he had known a few simple weeks ago, she stood. "Inuyasha." It was not a question, but a statement.
He tensed. Her scent—it permeated the building, rolled down the walls, and it terrified him, this scent of hers, because it bespoke—power. When had Kagome ever possessed this level of power? She had always been strong, as a protector of the Shikon no Tama, but this!
A memory slid through his mind. A barrier—Naraku's—and an arrow, brilliant, pure, slipping through like claws through weak, soft flesh.
Kagome staggered towards him.
Inuyasha reached out his arms, braced to catch her, to carry her out to safety. Strange, that he hadn't run into Naraku yet, but not particularly unusual. No doubt he had set more traps to meet him on his way out. He was just pulling her into his arms when he felt it.
The sensation burst in his side where Kagome's hands touched him. She buried them into his flanks and for all his might, he could not shake her off. Her powers of purification snapped white heat into his body, sank into his blood and chased along his veins into his limbs. His brain sizzled, and he began to see black spots patter violently against his eyes.
She locked eyes with him, and he saw in them something alien and beautiful.
From the darkest corner of the room, he heard laughter.
"How does it feel, Inuyasha? Betrayed, again, by the woman you love?" came the sibilant voice.
Inuyasha could not speak. Boils formed and split in his mouth. In another moment, he risked total purification.
"Amazing, that she should still possess such strong miko powers, is it not? Here she stands, defiled as completely as I could make her. I possessed her and cored out her mind to the point of breaking and refilled it with the stuff of nightmares. She should be like rotting fruit inside, and yet—Well, you feel it, don't you?" Naraku stepped out from the shadows. He glided toward them and stopped within what should have been in Inuyasha's striking distance, if Kagome's attack were not paralyzing him. Naraku reached out a finger, stopping within a hair's breadth of Kagome's cheek. "Such a strong girl. I see why you cherish her."
"Enough." The word burbled out wet and bloody from Inuyasha's lips.
"She fought me for the longest time. But now—she'll do anything for me, Inuyasha. She'll kill you, her friends in the courtyard, the kitsune child, all of them. And then, who knows? She's got such a delicious talent—"
Miroku burst through the doors and, without hesitation, ripped open his kazaana. It was reckless. It was probably hopelessly stupid. But it worked.
Naraku's attention was shifted for just the faintest moment. Long enough to break Naraku's hold over Kagome's mind for a precious, desperately needed second.
For just that second, Kagome's attack weakened an infinitesimal amount.
"I said fucking enough!" Summoning the last remnant of his strength, Inuyasha took hold of Kagome and threw her hard against the paneled walls. Tetsusaiga pulsed at his side, urging him to draw it. "I'm done playing your games, Naraku. Tonight we settle this."
The saimyousho had already been released, poisoning Miroku. Time was short. He must finish this now if Miroku was to make it out of this battle alive.
He drew the blade.
Although Naraku raised his barrier, Inuyasha had no fear. Tetsusaiga already glowed a menacing red in his hand. He charged, prepared to land the blade home.
Kagome stepped in front of him.
Tetsusaiga pierced the girl's breast, and she crumpled.
"A high price to pay, Inuyasha." Naraku sneered as he began his inevitable retreat. "Mind that I will not be willing to make it in the future."
There was no time to pay any attention to the coward. Kagome lay bleeding out in his arms, Miroku dying by slow degrees by the door. He cupped his clawed hands over her sodden shirt, trying in vain to staunch the blood. Pressure, he thought. Enough pressure and she will survive this.
"Sango! Shippo!" he screamed raggedly. "Sango!"
The woman crashed through the doors riding Kirara. She let out a strangled cry when she saw Kagome's pale sweaty face and the dark liquid gushing between his fingers.
"Tear off some fabric from my sleeve. Now! I need to bind this before she bleeds out."
Sango stepped forward and obliged, handing him the red shred with still hands.
"Don't just stand there. Take care of Miroku," he snapped.
Hurriedly, she fed the monk the last remnants of Kagome's world's medicine.
"What happened to Kagome?" Sango asked, her voice hushed.
"She got in the way defending Naraku." He spat a long string of curses. "She got caught with Tetsusaiga."
The woman's eyes bulged, but she said nothing. Probably for the best.
"Inuyasha, she's losing a lot of blood. If we don't get her help now, she'll die."
"I know."
"Inuyasha?"
He stood.
"Should we load her on Kirara? I think she can carry both Kagome and Miroku."
"No time. I'm taking her. Meet back at Kaede's village."
"That's weeks from here! What if she doesn't make it?"
He fixed on her his coldest look. How he had desired to end this woman for her weakness the last few weeks. And now, when her strength had, inexplicably, returned, he wished it even more. He understood that these black feelings were not how he should feel toward a friend and an ally.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered beside Kagome.
"She'll make it. I swear it, Sango, she'll make it." Carefully, Inuyasha swept her up and settled her on her back. "Find me in Kaede's village. If I'm not there, I'll leave word."
Against his back, Inuyasha felt the incessant heat of Kagome's blood boiling beneath the surface of her thin skin. He did not have long. If he was going to save her, he had to do it now.
A/N: Wow. This was just a pathetically long time between updates. Thank you to all who have reviewed and to those who have been patient over the hiatus!