love breaks skin and bones

The smell of Kagome's blood had been enough motivation for him to run at a dangerously fast speed. Something greater than panic swirled in the air around him, but Inuyasha refused to allow himself any negative thoughts. It was likely that she'd merely hurt herself, what with how clumsy she always was, though the intensity of the stench from such a large distance told him otherwise.

'No. I'm not gonna think about that. She's all right.'

He repelled any dark thoughts and kept running, wondering how he'd fallen behind so much. Truth was, he'd taken a few hours to think about Kikyou again. Her face had simply popped into his mind and he'd told Miroku he would be right behind him and the little fox demon. In fact, he'd got caught up in his own musings. Then, following the same path as the monk, he'd reached a spot where the smell of Kagome's blood had smacked him in the face viciously, almost making his feet go limp beneath him.

But Kagome was all right. Kagome had to be all right.

He'd thought she was at home, though.

"Inuyasha?"
"Yeah?"
"Well… I wanted to say I won't be coming with you and Miroku and Shippou to check if the rumor about another Shikon no Kakera is true. I hope you won't get mad, but I'm staying home this time."
He was partly angry, partly relieved. Her safety was guaranteed, but she wouldn't be there, by his side.
"Do you think you can manage without me?" she asked him quite demurely, looking anywhere but at him.
"Keh. As if you don't already know the answer to that."
"All right then…"
She bit her lip and smiled.
"Sorry, ok?"
He felt as if she was apologizing for something else entirely.
"Keh, no big deal."

He reached the clearing where he was met with the sight of Sango hovering over a body. Acid dread gripped his heart and squeezed ferociously, leaving him oddly breathless. He was grateful for the lack of air entering his lungs, because otherwise he'd have to deal with the increased, sickening reek of Kagome's blood. Cold comprehension flowed through his veins at the sight before him. His eyes went wide on their own accord, even though he'd already realized what had happened.

Kagome was injured. Gravely.

"Sango?"

The slayer refused to look up, she refused to do anything else than to just sit there and cradle Kagome's body.

"Dammit, woman, get the fuck away from her so I can take her to Kaede. She'll fix her for sure."

That got him a reaction as Sango cringed visibly, her shoulders hunched as if the weight of the world had been dropped on them.

"Inuyasha, I… don't… come near."

The hanyou gulped – his body was doing things without his awareness – and he heard the monk approach the ghastly battle scene. Guts of demons were scattered everywhere and amongst them a single body concerned him most, yet this time something held him rooted to his spot.

Miroku rushed to him and tried to pull him away, telling him not to go see, telling him to join Shippou, that 'it was better that way'.

His throat went dry at the implications of such frantic requests from his friends.

"Miroku, get him out of here," Sango demanded fiercely, giving the monk a pained, though unwavering look. The ache in her eyes was unfathomable and Inuyasha's heart stopped for a moment. Miroku pulled at his clothes, but the hanyou pulled back steadfast.

Slowly, against his will, Inuyasha reached the slayer that seemed resigned with the failure of delaying the inevitable.

The sky was bright and sunny and birds were chirping blissfully, but Kagome was lying on the ground, the smell of blood thick around her. There was something so terribly wrong with that picture that Inuyasha wanted to throw up. His eyes remained wide and his claws pierced his thighs when he noticed something out the corner of his eyes. To their right, lying on the ground, gory and in a semi-relaxed state was Kagome's hand. The digits that had clutched a pen so many times in the past were now separated from their owner in such an unnatural way. No matter how much he wished it, the hanyou couldn't wrap his mind around the view. He wanted to reach toward the appendage, and he wanted to ignore it at the same time. As if ignoring it with enough zeal would somehow attach it back to Kagome's arm. His lips parted to give way to an excruciating scream, but no sound came out. He felt strangely bare inside, as if a fundamental part of him was missing.

Directing his gaze to the left, where Sango and Kagome were, he finally grasped the whole extent of the damage. This time it wasn't something fixable, it wasn't something he would ever get over.

The look on her face, he'd always and forever see in his cruelest nightmares. The sight of her lying there would haunt him even on the brightest days, would torment him with such passion that he'd never be sane again. Tears flowed freely on his face, but he didn't sense them. The only thing he did feel was a bitter, emptiness.

His future was compromised. A future without Kagome was an inexistent one, and guilt and regret at having never confessed his feelings punched him in the sides mercilessly.

Her last words to him echoed inside his mind, but it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough.

Sorry, ok? … sorry…

With eerie speed he pushed Sango away and took Kagome's body in his arms, pulling her to his chest and crying desperately against her shoulder. The entire forest shook with his mind-numbing muffled cries, and he barely registered the choked sounds of his friends behind him.

Kagome's blood was all over him.

Kami…

Her… blood.

She wasn't breathing, she would never breathe again. Her eyes were closed, her neck has been snapped. It hung awkwardly over his shoulder and a sickened shudder pierced right through him when he noticed it.

Kagome… His Kagome… the girl that held his heart in her tiny, frail, now lifeless hands, was dead.

His world would never be the same, his soul would never heal. She'd taken away with her even the last fraction of himself that could ever carry on in her absence.

Determined, he stood up and turned around slowly.

"Who did this?"

He knew the answer. He could smell his presence, the lingering stench of miasma. He could see the lesser demons scattered everywhere and sliced-off tentacles, but a deep part inside of him wanted to hear the name. Calculated anger crept up his bones and scraped his skin with sadistic pleasure. The demon inside him begged to come out, but he denied permission. An inhuman look cast at the slayer had her whispering breathlessly, "Naraku."

In a flash, Inuyasha was gone.

Had he paid attention, he would have smelled Byakuya downwind. He would have predicted the trap, he would have lived. But hours later, on another battlefield, a dead hanyou's soul joined a miko's.