Title: Free to Love
Author: landofthekwt
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Love ( The Wilted Rose, 4 Spirits)
Word Count: 1092
CU
Warning: None
Summary:Kikyou thinks about love after the Jealousy chapter
Death had freed her to love and to hate. Yet she was no more free than when she alive. She was still the guardian of the jewel. Even though she might have handed it to Naraku to watch over she still intended to send him and Jewel to Hell.
It was love that had started all of this in the first place. Two men. One human had been willing to give up his body to demons for a chance to be with Kikyou. One half-demon had been willing to become human just to be with her. All out of love.
Love gone wrong becomes obsession. As Naraku the first thing he did was mortally wound the woman he loved. All he could do was watch as she dragged herself back to the shrine. Naraku did allow him one thing. His dream had been Kikyou killing Inuyasha. His jealous heart demanded it. Naraku was more than willing since he still needed the jewel.
All she had to do was wish to be alive and the jewel would have Naraku's and Onigumo could have had his Kikyou. Instead she had followed after the worthless hanyou. Dying together. The most pitiful act of love. Her only hope that they would never meet again. She had loved him too much and the betrayal had been too great.
Yet fifty years later they were all back. Inuyasha. Onigumo. Kikyou. The names were the same, but the love was not. Naraku might not be able to kill her Onigumo loved her too much. He watched her and stalked her, obsessed over everything she did. Even his desire to kill her was due to his need to rid himself of his obsession for her.
She had thought that she could hate Inuyasha and rid herself of her attachment to this world by killing him. Instead she found that she still loved him. She still desired the physical attachment to him that she could never have in her present body. The body might look human, but it was not. They could never be together in this world. Only in death could they be together again.
Their love was pathetic. Inuyasha now only felt a duty to her because she had died following after him. He did not want to be with her. Her reincarnation was doing the things for him that she had wanted to do. Naraku wanted to kill her because of Onigumo's obsession for her, but could not. He had tried to use one of his creatures to kill him. Once she covered herself in Onigumo's lust neither he nor his creatures would ever be able to hurt him again.
The jealousy she had experienced by Goshinboku was almost amusing. Naraku was jealous of her holding Inuyasha and telling him that no man would ever touch a strand of her hair even though no man would ever want a dead woman like that. Inuyasha was jealous of the fact that Naraku loved her even though all Naraku wanted to do with her body was to torture her and kill her.
Perhaps the most pathetic creature was her reincarnation. She had Inuyasha's love and did not even realize it. She had known it since he left her side to save that girl instead of going to hell with her. All she had was Inuyasha's misguided sense of duty toward her. She had known his love. All she felt now was a pale shadow of that feeling. She would give anything if Inuyasha would only look at her the way he looked at Kagome. It was too late and she would just have to put those feelings behind her.
When she had realized that the love had gone, it had made her decision to resume her duties as guardian of the Sacred Jewel easier. She knew her place as the guardian. Love was not allowed there. In order for her plan to succeed Naraku would become stronger and stronger. No matter how she felt about Inuyasha in the end he would have to save himself. He might even have to be sacrificed for Naraku to be killed and the Jewel to be driven from this world.
Sometimes she wondered whether she had really loved at all. Inuyasha had been surprised that Onigumo had been so jealous of them that he had wanted her to kill Inuyasha. Was there anything for him to be jealous of? Before they died, they had never kissed or even touched. The original attraction had been Inuyasha's guilt over the look of total loneliness that she had given him. Hardly the basis for love or marriage. Yet they had been so desperate that they ignore all of the signs of impending disaster
They had all died for love. Onigumo, Inuyasha and herself. Yet the Jewel was not finished with them. It had brought them all back to life to play with again. Throw Naraku into the mix who hated her because Onigumo made him love her and Kagome who hated her because she had tried to kill her and Inuyasha and they made quite a group. All trapped in triangles of jealousy.
Only she could escape and look at life rationally. She could manipulate Inuyasha to anger with jealousy and calm him in a moment with words of love. Naraku she could toy with because she knew that Onigumo would never let him harm her. His lust for her was a shield and a weapon against Narkau and his creatures. Kagome she could hurt for taking away the love of the only man she had ever cared for by making her jealous of Inuyasha's attachment to her.
She did not need love. It only hurt her. She knew that she could never have Inuyasha All she could ever hope from him was pity. She did not want Naraku or Onigumo, but their love prevented them from hurting. her. She was condemned to be a creature of duty who was surrounded by people who loved her in ways that she could use to manipulate them, but never a feeling of love which she could be recipricate.
Love had complicated her life so much. Love had killed her. Love had brought her back to this world despite the pain. Yet even though she was free to love she could not return the love of those who loved her and could not win the love of the only man she wanted. Maybe it would have better if she had never loved at all.