Kikyo breathed in as she set foot to the grass just beside the well, comforted by the familiar surroundings she had grown up knowing and memorizing. Here in the clearing of the Bone Eater's Well, she had spent many hours training, collecting herbs and roots with Kaede, travelling through the surrounding wooded area from the village and back. Now the desolate clearing reminded her that she had to move quickly; she began her travel immediately in the direction of the village, taking on the arduous walk with a purposeful speed. While it took some time, she found herself in her home village before the sun had set.
Although dark was setting in, she kept herself to the tree-lined pathways and obscure corners as she inspected the area and realized, save for a few soldiers, the village's uppermost working slayers and attendees were already gone.
"They've left." She confirmed, sighing, and departing back into the woods before she could become discovered. Though she feared no one, demon or man, the confusion was not something she had time to deliberate over.
If the procession had already taken off, with the time that had passed, they would be coming to the ceremonial fountain shortly. Of course, with the amount of people they had in their company, their journey would take longer than a single traveller's shortcut; Kikyo prepared herself with a bow and arrow that she'd stopped to stealthily lift from the hut she shared with her sister. She knew Kaede had been taken along on the journey with her "only guardian," so she didn't bother to stop and look for her but headed in the direction of the fountain of prosper, prepared to relieve her counterpart and honour the agreement made.
If only I had been Kagome. She thought, but shook her head with a grim, private smile. Of course, if I were, I suppose I'd still end up here. Inescapable, isn't it?
XOX
"Lord Inuyasha, sir."
"What is it now?"
Inuyasha skidded to a halt and stared at the man who had rushed ahead by horse to meet him. Swinging around, he shifted Kagome on his back but didn't let her down. They were almost at the edge of the forest containing the fountain and he was anxious to get the trip over with.
"The monk has felt a demonic aura."
"Keh, another one?" Inuyasha rolled his eyes, "Deal with it."
"Another one?" Kagome gasped, tightening her grip on the hanyou. "What do you mean, like the one from the forest?"
"No, like the several that we've already dealt with along this trip." Inuyasha nodded at the man, who turned his horse to charge back in the direction of their comrades, and continued to run down the pathway they had been following for what seemed like hours.
"W-why didn't you tell me? You remember why I'm even on your back, don't you?" She thought back to the horrific encounter with the demon in the forest and shivered.
"Would you shut up?" Inuyasha leapt into the air and turned to look back at her, "I got this, okay? We're almost there anyway. I thought you were going to trust me."
"I-" Kagome gulped, then looked up quickly, letting out a surprised inhale.
"What?"
"Th-that dark cloud." She pointed to a shadowy spot just ahead of them that seemed to swirl with noxious and intimidating prowess, ripping and reinventing itself as it spread murkily across the blue of the darkening evening sky. "It's pulsating just like the aura around that demon who attacked me. Inuyasha, is that what it is?"
Inuyasha squinted in the direction she pointed to, stopping once more and letting her down so his hands were freed to grab the hilt of his Tessaiga.
"I can't see what you're pointing at, Kagome." He turned to her quickly, eyebrows raised. "But I can sense the demonic aura ahead. You can see it?"
"It's getting bigger!" Kagome cried. Inuyasha noted her panic and pushed her behind him, but one second too late.
A rupture of energy burst forward, and the dark aura Kagome had been gesturing to blasted them back as its owner emerged, growing spider like from the void that had torn itself into existence. What looked to be a man, pale but muscular in his thin and naked stance, grinned from the center of the billowing miasma. Kagome watched in terror as he lifted his arms and generated a great ball of dark energy between his hands, aiming it at her and Inuyasha.
"Get out of the way!" Inuyasha screamed, lifting her roughly to throw her aside. She didn't realize until Koga caught her that this had been intentional, and not a frantic reaction as the strange demon launched his attack.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried, attempting to pull herself from Koga's grasp.
"Don't, Kagome." Koga wrapped his arms around her and turned so his back absorbed the blow of aftershock; even as she writhed to be released, he held her close, encaged by his embrace.
"Let me go!" She whined, struggling against the wolf yokai. "Is he okay? What happened?"
"Mutt-face is fine." Koga promised, then began to run with Kagome in his arms back down the pathway to where Sango and Miroku waited.
Sango held her great bone weapon readily on her back and, upon seeing Koga approach with Kagome in his arms, looked to the monk at her side.
"Let's go, Miroku." He nodded back at her, and they sprinted ahead without looking back, Miroku with a particular determination in his eyes.
"Stay here." Koga set Kagome down behind a few of the human soldiers that had accompanied them. Before turning to join the battle, he slipped a finger beneath her chin and gazed at her intensely. "I promise I'll return to you, Kagome, if you promise you won't follow me into battle, no matter how hard you-"
"Finally, Kikyo." Both Koga and Kagome lifted their gaze in the direction of the chilly voice that had cackled down upon them, "I, Naraku, have returned, just as I warned you I would."
Koga whipped around, snarling, and falling into an attack stance before Kagome. Facing off the demon with the long black hair and cold, empty stare, he flexed his fingers to crack his knuckles in preparation. Kagome looked from behind his shoulder to see that the demon in the cloud of noxious gas still held a cryptic and calm smile. It was as though he, a single entity, had no fear for the large group he faced.
"Stay back, or I won't go easy on you." Koga shouted, threatening with his claws.
Even as Koga leapt forward to strike, a green-black tentacle unrolled itself with blinding swiftness and soared past him to slam into Kagome, knocking her to the ground before wrapping itself around her waist and yanking her toward the demon with coarse apathy.
The demon Naraku held up the shrieking girl to face him and his dead smile, apprising her with a sickening stare. Down below, Kagome could make out the red of Inuyasha's clothing as he lifted himself from the ground, still recovering from the attack he'd absorbed in her stead. She squinted down to see if she could make out any wounds, but a sharp slap to the face forced her line of sight back to the demon in front of her.
"Kikyo, did I not say we would meet again, and you would be mine?" The tentacle at her chin continued to push her, constraining her movements. She felt her wrists and ankles clamped and began to struggle even as multiple cold appendages wrapped around her limbs. "And here you are, in my arms. Shall we continue where we left-"
The demon stopped, and Kagome felt herself being dragged even closer to his miserable apparition. With an unreadable expression, he looked her over only once before swooping directly to her, coming almost nose to nose. Glaring down into her face as she fought to back away, he took her chin in his fingers and squeezed, hard.
"You're not Kikyo." He stated simply, then gave a great inhale against her skin. "And yet, you have the jewel. How odd. In that case," His tongue extended and sank to her shoulder, lapping where Inuyasha and Koga had both located the jewel. "I'll absorb you here and now, jewel and all."
The whistling and snap of wind announced the arrival of Sango's weapon before it sliced neatly through two of the tentacles holding Kagome against her will, snapping their boughs as it sailed past in a blur. At the same time, a scream louder and more furious than Kagome had ever heard called out,
"WIND SCAR!"
A blinding force of power broke through the final grasp Naraku held on Kagome, almost sending her plummeting to the ground below, had the demon with the evil aura not sharply seized her shoulder.
"You will not escape." Naraku grunted through clenched teeth, eyes frenzied with malice.
"Get- off- of- me!" Kagome shrieked and used her now free hand to press forward with all her strength. As she did, a hiss and snap of electric frequency crackled from her palm, exploding into a bright and forceful net that pushed the demon off of her in finality, freeing her and sending her flying.
What was that? She wondered, feeling the tingle in her hand as the mysterious power subsided, though a rush of pins and needles flushed through her like a calming bolt of lightning. She sailed toward the ground, staring at her hand in wonder, until a scorching pain pierced through her, alerting her to a shadowy tentacle that had caught up and taken the chance of distraction to sink itself into her body. An immense pressure swelled in her shoulder, followed by a ripping ache that bloomed into agony, even as a light pressure relieved itself and a sparkling object emitted from a wound now blooming across her torso. Blood sprayed alongside the glowing pink sphere as it fell away from her, and Kagome toward the ground.
Inuyasha, she thought, and closed her eyes before impact.
Instead, a soft bed of fur thumped beneath her, rumbling as its owner dropped down to the pathway and gently knelt so Kagome could lower herself from its back. Kirara the nekomata purred gently against Kagome, though blood spewed from her wound in torrents, drenching a slick path where she had fallen.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha cried, regardless of the strange looks from their travel companions as he burst forward and pulled her into his hold, touching the spot near her wound. When she hissed and pulled away, he screamed over his shoulder, "She's wounded – someone, hurry, she's bleeding!"
"Inuyasha," a familiar voice joined them. Kagome looked up wearily to see Miroku eyeing her wound seriously, holding something that glowed in his hand. Inuyasha turned to the monk and waited for him to say his piece, but Miroku remained silent, seeming hesitant to continue.
They could understand why when he sighed and opened his hand, revealing to them the shikon jewel, or what remained of it – only half a sphere, pulsing with a warning glow against the skin of his palm.
XOX
"Sango…"
"Kagome, try not to speak, just for now." The demon slayer knelt over her companion, finishing up the dressing she had wrapped around the now treated wound, though it gaped against the bandages. Already, a small bloom of red began to crawl across the fabric.
"Sango, is he angry?"
Sango looked away toward the partition of the tent that Kagome lay in; she could see that Inuyasha still waited outside, though he'd been in the same spot for hours, his back turned to the tent and his sword at the ready in his hand. Next to him, Koga leaned against a rock with his hands behind his head. She could tell he was listening with his ears poised and tense; the demon Naraku had vanished after Kagome blasted him with the surge of spiritual power, they'd all witnessed it. Kaede had confirmed, the move from Kagome was an exact match to what Kikyo's early abilities had looked like.
She looked back to her friend, pale and weak, but still pressing with her eyes for an answer from Sango. Around her neck, the shikon jewel half hung from a threaded rope of wool woven with prayer beads. Miroku had fashioned it while waiting for Sango and a few others to deliberate over Kagome's wound.
At first, Kagome had been out cold, and Sango had emerged from the tent to see Inuyasha leap to his feet and Koga bolt forward, both inclining their necks to see behind Sango and into where Kagome rested.
"Back, you perverts!" Sango had slapped out her hand and reached behind her to temporarily close the tent. "They're still working on the wound, so back off. And for the record, she is alive, she will recover. You can stop hovering!"
"The jewel half," Inuyasha had rushed to inquire, "Is it larger or smaller? Do we have more or less than that damned Naraku?"
"You heartless bastard," Koga roared, "Asking about such a thing when Kagome lay in pain!"
Sango had insisted they take a walk, but now they had returned, and with Kagome clothed and resting, she had opened the door to let in some fresh air.
"He isn't angry at you." Sango replied truthfully, lifting a blanket over Kagome. "You should try to recover."
"But I-"
"Kagome."
Both girls looked up to take in Inuyasha standing in the tent, head bowed. Taken back by his addressing of her, Sango looked between them shortly before excusing herself and allowing them some time alone.
Kagome fiddled with the edge of the blanket, unable to meet his eye. She knew it was her fault that the jewel was damaged, knew she had to say something, but nothing came to mind. How could she just say sorry? Sorry, I broke the one thing you want, the one reason I'm here at all. I've made myself more useless than I could possibly ever be – sorry, sorry, sorry.
She was so caught up in herself deprecation that she didn't notice Inuyasha had picked her up until the atmosphere of outside distracted her, kissing her skin with cool relief. She nervously glanced up at his face, but he remained stoic as he carried her through the camp until they reached a crackling firepit, and he set her down on a sleeping bag that had been spread out before it.
He gently kneeled beside her and removed his suikan, once more draping it over her, but allowing some room for the wound to breathe.
"What… what are you doing?" Kagome finally asked, her voice timid, unsure if he meant to yell at her or berate her for her stupidity in the battle.
But he only leaned against a tree and crossed his arms, sword resting between them at the ready. With his eyes shut, he finally spoke,
"Rest here with me tonight."
"But why? Why not with the women like usual?"
Inuyasha growled, snapping at her as his face became heated. "Just listen to me, okay? You're sleeping here from now on."
She could see in the firelight, he kept his eyes only half lidded, and it occurred to her that he was watching over her, even though Koga sat near with dissatisfaction playing his lips. Kagome closed her eyes and hoped fervently that the glow of the fire outshone the glow of her cheeks as she fell asleep beneath Inuyasha's protection, wondering why he didn't just take the jewel from around her neck and leave her to sleep where she normally did now that it was no longer encased in her body. She wondered if it had truly been there the entire time, pulsating below her shoulder where now a wound ripped her open, exposed. Questions unanswered, she finally fell into a rest, the crackling fire lulling her into an exhausted descent.