She knelt in the dim torchlight, focusing all her energy upon the jewel, knowing it must be at its purest tomorrow. When she heard steps on the porch, she started slightly. She had been feeling jumpy lately. Perhaps it was all the newness of what she was experiencing. Perhaps it was Tsubaki's taunts. Perhaps it was that she knew her power had weakened, and feared what might happen next. Perhaps it was Onigumo's disappearance. She still could not help wondering what had happened to him. Had his former friends come to take him away? To what purpose? She worried for him. Helpless as he was, who knew what sort of trouble may have befallen him?

"Who is it?"

"Kikyo, it's me."

InuYasha. There was something off about his voice. A slight hoarseness that worried her.

"What's the matter? Has something happened?"

"I can't stand all this waiting. Kikyo, can you make me human right now?"

She stared at his silhouette curiously. Why the sudden desperation? She had thought he might still be reluctant, nervous about becoming mortal, weak. Yet here he was trying to speed up the process. Perhaps he sought to get it over with as quickly as possible.

"You know I can't. The nighttime is filled with evil. If we are to use the Sacred Jewel, it must be after sunrise."

He seemed to hesitate for a moment.

"All right. Then do it right after the day breaks. Agreed?"

She smiled. InuYasha. She couldn't contain a small chuckle. He was so childish at times. So eager.

"You are so hopeless."

She looked back towards him and was surprised to see him gone. Rising, she hurried to the door. She opened it and found no sign of him.

"InuYasha?"

A long silence met her ears, and she was about to retreat into the shrine, puzzled, when his voice floated down to her from above.

"What is it?"

She moved out from under the overhang of the roof and peered up. He was perched on the top of the shrine, shrouded in the darkness of the night. The nighttime is filled with evil. So much so that it could even make InuYasha look threatening.

"What are you doing up there? You may as well come into the shrine and sit with me, rather than staying out here in the chill."

He seemed again to hesitate, as if uncomfortable with leaving the shadows. But after a few moments he landed lightly on the ground beside her and followed her inside.

She was uncomfortable. Where was the wonderful feeling of peace and joy she had felt emanating from him earlier, just as it had emanated from her? He seemed thoughtful, and almost angry somehow, sullen. There was something somehow wrong with his presence.

"InuYasha? Is something wrong? You don't seem quite yourself."

A strange little smile…no, more of a smirk…played across his features. Then vanished. He watched her every move as she relit a candle which the breeze had blown out. There was something unfamiliar in his eyes...no, not entirely unfamiliar. Onigumo had watched her like that constantly. Occasionally she saw it flicker in InuYasha's eyes as well when he watched her, though it was always pushed quickly aside. Lust. She had pitied Onigumo and so had allowed his constant staring. She loved InuYasha and took a certain pleasure in knowing he desired her. But he had never stared at her so long, with such open desire in his eyes. Something about it made her very uncomfortable. He looked at her now as Onigumo had; a lust bereft of purity. Normally when InuYasha let some hint of his longing for her slip across his features, it was mixed deeply with his love for her, and it felt right. She hoped to one day be his wife, and the consummation of their love would be pure. Love and healthy desire went hand in hand. Love and feral lust did not mix as well. And it was a feral lust he watched her with now.

She watched him nervously out of the corner of her eye.

…

He watched her, delighting in the knowledge of free movement, the knowledge that at any moment, he could spring, pounce, like a predator upon its prey. Before, he had been forced to watch with the inability to move. Now, he could do whatever he pleased. He could have her. He could satiate the desires of the foolish mortal within him, and perhaps put that phase of his existence permanently aside. Perhaps Onigumo would be silenced once his desires were fulfilled. He rose from where he had been sitting in the corner, and approached her.

…

She swallowed her fear when he rose and came towards her. She was being exceedingly foolish. This was InuYasha. She trusted him, above all others. She was his. It was right for him to desire her. That desire must not be fulfilled yet, but it did not make the longing wrong. Why was she so jumpy? Why did she feel so threatened?

…

He must be cautious, very cautious. She was nervous, and that could easily lead her to suspicion. He must not ruin his plans. But if he could succeed here, tonight, with her…then tomorrow would be all the better, the betrayal that much worse. She would believe her beloved had not only used her to get to the Sacred Jewel, but that he had also used her body, and then betrayed her. Her pain, her hate, it would be so much worse. And the Jewel would grow the darker because of it. And even tonight…tonight, the Jewel could absorb lust.

Slowly, as if reaching for a frightened animal, he held out the clawed hand of his borrowed form to her, and forced what he hoped was a pleasant smile. It must have been convincing enough, for she relaxed somewhat and allowed him to link fingers with her.

"Kikyo." He hated hearing that despicable hanyou's voice coming from himself. Yet it was necessary, for his purpose. "I'm sorry I'm acting strangely. You seem upset…I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable…"

He traced his thumb over her palm. He wanted to nick her with the claw, to watch tiny drops of blood well up, to hear her gasp at the pain. But that must wait. Her blood on his hands would come later. Tomorrow, he would have that. Tonight, he had a different purpose.

"InuYasha…."

She was growing more relaxed. He must have succeeded in lightening his gaze a bit. He leant in to kiss her warm forehead, feeling her soft bangs brush his nose, and was suddenly filled with a rush of despicable, human emotions. Onigumo loved this woman; in his evil, twisted, sick way, he loved her. Onigumo would have given anything…no, had given everything…to be this close to her. To be able to push his fingers into that beautiful hair, as Naraku now did; to be able to watch her long lashed eyes flutter closed and kiss her eyelids, as Naraku now did; to brush his lips to hers, as Naraku now did.

How odd, he thought irritably as he took advantage of her parted lips, deepening the kiss; how odd that he, who wanted nothing more than to kill this woman, should be the one to have this moment. Onigumo and InuYasha, who both loved her so much in their so very different ways, were not the ones to have this moment. Those who wanted her could not have her; and he who only wanted her dead held her in his arms.

How ironic.

He let Onigumo have a bit of air; for though Onigumo's love was anything but pure, Onigumo was far less likely to kill her. Naraku was not at all sure he could resist the temptation to spill her blood. So he let the human within himself out, at least part of the way. Fueled now by Onigumo's lust, he pushed her against the nearest wall and kissed her urgently.

…

Kikyo was torn between fright and a yearning which she had never before felt in such intensity. This didn't feel right. It felt completely wrong. Completely impure. Yet it felt so good. She instinctively knew that this wasn't just a moment of weakness that would be over as quickly as it began. Somehow she knew he wasn't going to suddenly step away, blush boyishly, and run off, as she would normally have expected from him. No; he was here to stay, until she either refused him or gave herself to him.

She internally panicked; something she rarely did. Panic was not a natural thing to her. She was normally very calm, both externally and internally. But ever since InuYasha, and subsequently Onigumo, had entered her life, nothing had been normal. A priestess harboring a bandit. A priestess falling in love with a half-demon. Where had her surety gone? Her sense of knowing who she was and how her life would go?

Her uncertainty spread to this matter, even as his hands trailed down her body, touching her in ways that screamed wrongness, and yet were so indisputably pleasant. What was so wrong about giving him the gift of her virtue now? She would be his wife within a short time, wouldn't she? She was going to give herself to him eventually, wasn't she? So why not now, here?

She reached up and pushed his haori off his shoulders.

…

In the dim light of dawn, she walked carefully across the floor boards, hoping not to awaken Kaede. The younger girl awoke anyway, but Kikyo reassured her quietly and left the building. The ache between her thighs and the guilt within her heart would not let her forget what she had done. Such pleasure…such indescribable, delightful, pleasure. Such horrible guilt.

He had not stayed with her, when it was over. He had smiled at her, and she almost thought his eyes were glowing a dim red in the darkness. Surely she had been wrong. He had grinned at her as he dressed. There was no guilt in his eyes. Perhaps, being part dog demon as he was, he already considered her his mate, without the rituals and ceremonies humans needed to bond two humans, and so perhaps he saw nothing wrong with what they had done. He left quickly, but not as if he was running away. There was a certain dismissive air about his manner, as if once he had taken his pleasure and given her hers, he felt no need to stay. That sense of being indifferently dismissed scared her more than anything else.

The Jewel told her that what she had done was wrong. It was tainted by their lust. It would not have been if their desire had been pure. She had spent all of the night and all of her power trying to restore it. Now, she was weak, drained, aching, and fearful. She could only hope the Jewel had enough pure power left to turn InuYasha human. Then it would not matter that she was weakened, for the Jewel would vanish and she would be free.

She was not particularly surprised that InuYasha was late. Their activities the night before may very well have tired him.

As she stood there, in that field, with her death swiftly approaching, she was already filled with doubt; a doubt that would be confirmed and magnified into a deep, dark monster of hatred and fear within the next moments.

…

In the last few seconds of InuYasha's life, reaching towards the woman he loved desperately, her arrow deep within his heart, he was overwhelmed by one knowledge; one single, unspeakably terrible revelation. The scent of another was around her, on her, in her.

He died horribly betrayed, yet still loving her.