Awakening
Disclaimer: All recognizable material belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
A/N: Final chapter!
The wind whips in sharp pants against her cheeks as Inuyasha surges and dives beneath her.
He cuts through the dead forest like a needle through flesh, plummeting through the treeline, only to rise against the ancient trunks again.
The process exhilarates Kagome. The catch of her stomach as it fights to keep up with her body reminds her of the feelings she used to have for Inuyasha, of the warm heat she would feel when he moved too close.
She feels a similar heat as she plucks an arrow from her quiver. Her fingers slip languidly over the string as she nocks the arrow back to the joint of her cheek and ear.
"Oi, Kagome. You won't be able to shoot worth shit if you nock it so early."
His voice sounds like it's been filtered by a vast lake of water, and she is the one being held under. She's only sure he spoke at all from the vibration of his chest between her legs.
Still, he is wrong.
Kagome braces her knees against his shoulders and rises from his back like a bird as she shoots the arrow, sure and sharp, toward Naraku's mirage.
A film seems to recede from her vision as her arrow dissipates the force field. Naraku's fortress appears much closer than they had anticipated. One last trap for the road, she supposes.
The mists roll in around them as soon as Inuyasha leaps over the towering fortress walls, clear into the courtyard. Above, the sky rolls with heavy violet thunderheads. The ground beneath them quakes as the roiling heat slashes long, bloody gashes into the caked earth.
White fogs snows them in as the force of Inuyasha's landing sprays debris well above their heads. A rock cuts Kagome's face and she almost slips from her delicate perch on his back. Blood cuts a diagonal across her face, and she savors the sharp sensation.
Somewhere, Naraku hides.
Inuyasha casts a glance over his shoulder. "We've lost the others."
She doesn't respond.
If her lack of acknowledgment bothers him, he doesn't show it.
"Kagome, I'll protect you this time. I promise."
Again, what could she say? She's ready to step out from behind his ineffectual guardianship.
She is worrying her lips, letting the words pool in her mouth like cool syrup, when she hears the telltale clang of Miroku's staff, the whistle of hiraikotsu. Not too far away, the others are battling, probably for their lives.
A star flashes in the distance.
Unthinkingly, she staggers toward it, drawn to its white beauty.
His arm bars her as surely as would iron. "Don't wander."
Absently, she brushes his arm off, unmindful of the way her touch makes his skin boil and fall from the bone like the skim that pools at the surface of hot milk.
He hisses a choice string of curses, but she cannot focus long enough to decipher them.
She takes a few steps forward, and loses Inuyasha in the mist.
Ahead, the star strobes to the rhythm of her heart. It reels her in like a fish, and she does not try to fight the line.
Naraku's puppet greets her, redolent in his baboon's pelt. She does not waste her arrow on it; when the puppet lunges for her, she blasts the facsimile apart with her hands.
Kagome feels his breath hot against her nape.
"Shall we skip the formalities then, my Kagome?" he breathes against her neck.
She turns, but does not find him behind her.
"You're jumping at shadows, Kagome."
Though she does not see him, she can hear the smirk, imagine the white teeth gleaming.
The memory of those teeth on her skin makes her more than a little nauseous. She picks an arrow and slides it into place. The burning star tells her where to aim.
Her arrow pierces Naraku's shoulder. In his hand, the shikon no tama pulses with radiant light.
Naraku seems unperturbed by the wound that devastates his noxious body. Before satisfaction can bloom in her stomach, his shoulder has already begun to reform.
Kagome does not falter. She draws another arrow and shoots again. Again. Again, until she has used her last arrow and sweat drips from the tip of her nose.
"How can you withstand my arrows?" she asks.
Naraku laughs as his fingers flutter around the edges of the jewel. He is nothing but pleased when Inuyasha finally breaks his way into their confrontation.
Kagome notices a dark stain stretching across Inuyasha's midriff.
The hanyou ignores the damage sustained during battle in favor of the old enemy.
Her irritation flares. Kagome will not give him the satisfaction of being the one to kill Naraku. She will not let go of this thing she desires most.
She drops her bow and quiver and looks Naraku in his blood-red eyes as she repeats, "How can you withstand my arrows?"
Naraku answers her leisurely, eyes flicking between his two adversaries. "The power of a miko is not worth much when her soul has no love in it." His gaze settles on Inuyasha as he asks, "Wouldn't you agree, Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha draws Tetsusaiga. "I don't have time for your trash talk, Naraku." He charges, and Kagome can sense the youki building around the blade. Even she is a little frightened by the strength of it.
Naraku bats Inuyasha away like a doll.
"Trash talk, Inuyasha? How very stupid of you. Do you deny, then, being the one who traded her love away?"
For the first time since the moment of remembrance in the cave, sensation sparks at the edges of Kagome's heart. "Inuyasha," she asks, voice almost inaudible against the howl of outside battle, "What is he talking about?"
"I don't know," he grinds out.
She knows him well enough to know that he is purposefully refusing to understand what is unfolding in front of him.
"Inuyasha, think hard," Naraku calls. "Who did you see, when you were looking for Kagome? What price were you willing to pay to get her back?"
Inuyasha snarls. He seems to have riddled Naraku out, but does not elaborate for Kagome's benefit.
"Inuyasha?" she prods. "What is he talking about?"
He swallows hard before he speaks. "You have to understand, when Naraku took you… You were gone. I tried every way I could think of, but the others were worse than useless and I couldn't get anywhere near the fortress. So I did what had to be done. I went to see an old witch, who I thought could help me find a way in. She agreed to help me, but only at a price…"
"What price, Inuyasha?"
He does not answer.
"Inuyasha, what price?"
He does not meet her eyes. "Your love for me."
"I don't think those were her exact words, Inuyasha," Naraku informs him. "I believe the witch asked for the girl's love."
"How do you know?" Inuyasha growls. The hanyou's hands clench in his bloody robes, claws spasming in the dark fluids.
Naraku's eyes bug as he smiles, that horrible, perfect pulling of lips from teeth that Kagome remembers against her skin. "Who do you think you made the deal with? It wasn't terribly difficult to trick you, Inuyasha. I asked for the girl's love, and you assumed I meant just her love for you." Naraku's eyes drag over her as he concludes, satisfaction dripping from his lips, "I took all of it for myself."
"Why?" she gasps.
"Because I wanted to possess you and Inuyasha presented me with the opportunity. Because a miko with no love in her is just the kind of miko I need to fully corrupt the shikon no tama. And with the possession of your love… how easy it was to mold it all into hate. You were so broken inside, with so little sense of self-worth. Inuyasha had honestly convinced you that you were nothing. It was easy to slip in and plant myself inside of you."
"How did Inuyasha have the power to give that to you?"
Naraku strokes the sacred jewel in his palm as he responds, "Because he was the one you loved the most."
"Hijinkessou!"
The blood attack catches Naraku off guard, actually managing to slice the soft flesh of his neck.
By the time Naraku's wound seals itself closed, the flesh slithering together like a snake, Inuyasha has begun what Kagome perceives to be a lethal charge. He swings Tetsusaiga high.
Kagome feels as though she is—surfacing through a dream.
You know I'll always protect you.
She knows what she must do. Kagome feels the strength of it in her limbs as she runs, faster than she had imagined possible. She cannot possibly make it in time. Inuyasha is so, so fast, and Naraku may be faster.
Inuyasha, how long have I been asleep?
Cold rips through her gut as she remembers—him. His hair like black seaweed as he violated her, his mouth hot against her neck as he bit into her.
The image melts into Inuyasha as he made love to her. The memory of the warmth of his eyes suffuses her as she hurtles towards him. She regrets, now, that she did not linger with him longer.
This may be all she ever got.
Against all odds, she, Kagome, the weak, insignificant human girl whose only strength has ever been the ferocity of her love for Inuyasha, makes it.
Before Naraku can execute the final, fatal blow that will kill Inuyasha, Kagome lays her hands—the hands that have burned Inuyasha with every glancing touch—upon him. Her hands have power. Light pours from her, draining from her soul like a river into the ocean.
Naraku's last, twisted words bubble from his warping flesh as he screams, like the coward he is, "How can you—?"
Because the purity of her love for Inuyasha could endure anything. It already had.
Destroying Naraku takes everything. They are connected. She feels it and remembers how he placed himself inside of her, twisted her life-force together with his, and she wishes she had had the confidence to fight him. As she feels the monster die beneath her hands, she knows she must not let even the tiniest remnant remain. She must purify all of him, or he will return, and he will seek vengeance for what she has done. As the last of Naraku's evil dissipates, Kagome feels the last drops of her life drain from her.
The jewel falls from the ghost of Naraku's hands. It rolls, whole and pure, to the ground.
She stumbles, and Inuyasha catches her.
"Why, Kagome?" he asks, his voice catching on her name as uncharacteristic tears begin to leak down his chin.
The warmth in his eyes as he says her name warms her.
"Don't you know, Inuyasha? I'll always protect you."
He repeats her name like a mantra as he gathers her to his chest.
Kagome Kagome Kagome rings in her ears like a song from her childhood.
"I have the strangest feeling," she tells him. "Like I haven't seen you for weeks. If I had, I wouldn't have forgotten how I love you. I feel as though I've been sleeping this whole time."
His face is so close it takes just the barest effort to press her cooling lips to his.
A/N: FINISHED! Thank you to everyone who has read this fic over the last four years—it's been quite a journey! Please review if you've enjoyed it and let me know what you think! I left the ending open to interpretation, because even though Kagome is dying, there is always hope.