Chapter 30
Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit
"No mortal is wise at all times."
"It was better to know the worst than to wonder."
—Gone With the Wind
Things never went well for Inuyasha. It was a lesson that he'd learned over the course of his many years of existing.
Anytime that he felt like he was close to happiness, it was always taken from him. His mother, Kikyo—
In all fairness, he should've seen it coming. He should've known better.
Don't expect much from life.
Anything and everything you love will die and rot away.
No one wants you.
These were all the laws hanyou must abide by.
They were concrete and absolute.
His mother taught him how to read, how to write, do some simple adding and subtracting. She educated him to the best of her abilities as a noblewoman. Despite what people might think of him, he actually liked learning, and he wasn't as dumb as people thought. It always made his mother smile when he could solve a problem or read a big word, and he tried to do it as often as possible. He liked asking questions and hearing her answer or tell him long stories. Hours and hours of practicing writing and reading and simple math. What it really boiled down to was getting to spend hours and hours of time with her. That was time where they were alone, and he got all her attention, and she always smiled at him.
He loved his mother. He would do anything for her.
Looking back on it, he was a really good kid. Not in the self-aggrandizing, self-praising way, but he made considerable effort to not be a menace and to do what he knew was right, even if it wasn't what he wanted to do.
She made him hide during his human nights and made him promise not to tell anyone about it. No one should ever know about his human night. It was a weakness, and she explained that some people might try to hurt him. Kill him. It was a heavy sentiment for a four year old.
But really, he didn't have anyone to talk to about it anyway. He was only half-human, and it was only out of his uncle's kindness that she was able to return to the castle anyway. She was given free reign to wander the grounds, but she was not allowed to leave or be seen by anyone outside of the castle. He didn't understand why that made her so sad, but he did now.
Her family was ashamed by her. Because of her relationship to his father, to him.
But he was happy with his mother, even if they couldn't leave the castle. And then his mother got ill. And then she died, miserable and shamed.
She was the first lesson.
Miroku had wandered out and called him and Shippo for dinner.
Inuyasha leapt down from the edge of the forest, starting for the hut.
"Inuyasha, wait," he snagged the edge of Inuyasha's sleeve. "Just let me go first, okay?"
"What's the big deal, monk?" He asked, hesitating just outside the doorway.
"Kagome asked to eat dinner with us, so just," he drifted off as he waved a hand at him. "Be nice?"
Inuyasha cocked an eyebrow at his statement, and Miroku sighed.
"She's," he made a face, scrunching his nose up as he tried to think of a word, "flighty, and I don't want to discourage her."
"She's outside?" He whispered, following on Miroku's heels as he leaned inside the hut. He wanted in. He's never wanted to eat dinner in Kaede's hut so badly. He would be able to see her and smell her and—
Miroku held the flap open.
"Be nice," he whispered the reminder and Inuyasha only glanced his way for a moment as he walked inside.
Kagome.
Her scent permeated the room, and his body acted like he'd just inhaled a drug. And she was his personal drug of choice. God, after a famine like that, he felt like a starving man settling down for a feast. If she let him, he would gladly devour her.
It took a few decades before he met his bastard of a half-brother. He was grown at that point, but years in the wilds had taken the soft contours of himself and chipped them away until they were sharp, jagged edges.
He had no idea who Sesshomaru was, not until he introduced himself as his half-brother.
He'd been so excited to find that, out there, somewhere, family still existed for him. That maybe there was a sanctuary where he didn't have to steal and hide and run from the humans who tried to kill him on sight.
He avoided everyone, human and youkai. They all hated him for who he was, what he was, and they all wanted him dead.
For a long time, he thought that there might be other half-demons out there, but that idea was becoming more and more far-fetched. There was only himself, and it seemed that it would stay that way.
He was all alone in every way possible, in every way that mattered.
His mother had told him to be proud of who he was and what he was, that he was special because his father was special.
"Blood is blood, Inuyasha," his mother had told him. "You can always depend on family, even if you don't agree on everything."
And then Sesshomaru showed up and, in not so many words, demolished any hope of acceptance.
"You are a waste of father's life," he'd said, and then tried to tear out his throat. He'd almost succeeded too. He couldn't speak for months, and it took weeks before the gaping holes healed over enough that he was able to drink water without it and his own blood seeping all over his clothes. Sesshomaru had left thinking him dead, but he'd survived, escaping only by literally holding himself together with his own hands.
They shared the same father, but little else.
Sesshomaru was the second lesson.
He could feel her eyes on him from across the fire, but he refused to look up. Refused to meet her gaze and risk seeing something there that he didn't want—couldn't bear to see. They kept saying that she needed him and that she wanted him around, but he didn't see how that could be true.
Why would she?
Shippo had curled against her, mumbling her name into her clothing.
Inuyasha remembered his own mother being ill, before she died, and how he'd done almost the same thing, curling up against her chest, rubbing his face against her, muttering whatever seemed to give him a reprieve from the fear that she would be whisked away to somewhere he could not reach and could not go, not for a very long time anyway.
"Are you hurting anywhere?" Sango's voice brought him out of his reverie, and he listened for her reply. His eyes drifted over her, as he tried to determine if anything was actually wrong or if it was just Sango acting like a mother hen. Shippo didn't seem to be bothered by her, so it couldn't be serious, but still anything was something at this point. The kit still clung to her side.
"I'm okay. I just needed to shift a little."
"You should be in bed if you're that weak," he stated, and immediately kicked himself for the response.
Fuck.
Could he not be nice for one fucking second? He stilled himself, waiting for someone to berate him for his remarks.
His opinion was that she should still be in bed. She smelled like she was struggling, and it was obviously tiring for her to be holding her bowl in one hand and eating with the other, especially since she kept placing it in her lap over the course of the meal. She should still be in bed, but Miroku had said that she wanted to eat out here, and it did get her out of the room, so who was he to say anything to that?
And then she asked the fateful question, if they knew what had happened to her days ago, and the image of her thrashing across the ground and going stock still, like she'd—he closed his eyes for a second to rid himself of the image and the thought. It was hard enough to function as it was with her being so close and so far out of arm's reach. But his eyes did slide over to Kaede, who met his gaze across the fire and gave him an acknowledging nod. She knew what she had to do, and he'd stay to make sure she told her all of it.
Shippo encouraged her to eat more whenever she stopped, and Inuyasha caught the moment when he'd pushed her hand away and told her to eat instead. He restrained a wince. Shippo was young; he kept forgetting that Shippo's circumstances were different from his own. Shippo had been been found early after being orphaned. Inuyasha, only the other hand, had only known hardship as a child; he had to fend for himself or had someone constantly out to kill him. Shippo, by comparison to his own up bringing, was relatively sheltered, surrounded by people who were willing to protect him and care for him.
The kit was going to give himself an ulcer at this rate.
He'd get Miroku to talk to him about it, though judging from the concerned look running across the lecher's face, that thought seemed to have already taken root.
But when Kagome had offered him her lap, and Shippo had waited, deferred, almost, to him, asking for permission.
"Be gentle," he mumbled, knowing full well the kit could hear him. Shippo could hear just fine, even for a kitsune, it was his selective hearing that always managed to piss Inuyasha off.
Shippo climbed into her lap, careful of his claws and the position of his weight as he moved across her legs before settling down and accepting his bowl from Kaede.
For a moment, Inuyasha allowed himself the jealousy of wanting to be in the runt's place where Kagome's fingers would drift across his skin in a gentle touch.
When he'd heard of the jewel, initially he'd passed it off as a hopeful man's story. A jewel that could grant any wish that a man, or youkai, could desire. But he was inbetween, but would the jewel even know such a thing? They'd said anyone, and he was anyone. It had been well over a century since his mother had died and her ancestral home wiped out. He was the last living male from her side of the family, though that did little to appease his sense of loss.
Inuyasha listened to stories of people passing through, perching himself on roof tops at night to overhear snippets of conversation before starting his way in the direction that promised a type of salvation.
If he was inbetween, the jewel could make him whole.
He would not be a waste of his father's blood, and youkai at least would stop hunting him down and trying to kill him at every turn. Or better yet, his own strength would grow and they would be terrified to even attempt an attack.
Over those many years, he'd encountered his half-brother three more times. Each time, he only narrowly evaded death and serious injury. He'd learned how to fight, weave, dodge blow after blow and even get in some of his own. Sesshomaru was fast, but Inuyasha knew how to survive.
But maybe, with the help of the jewel, he'd be accepted by him.
His blood no longer a taint on the family name.
He just needed someone.
So imagine his surprise when he tried to steal it from the priestess, and she in turn pinned him by his sleeve to a tree.
Kikyo.
The first person to love him besides his mother in his very long and miserable life.
He'd never met another half-demon and was convinced he was the only one.
So when she'd made the offer, turn human so that they could both be free, he of his youkai blood, her of her burden of the jewel, it had seemed to good to be true.
Guaranteed acceptance by Kikyo by becoming human versus potential acceptance by Sesshomaru by becoming youkai. It really wasn't a hard decision to make. He'd lose Kikyo if he became wholly youkai, lose that acceptance and love he'd sought for so long on the chance, the merest sliver of possibility that his own flesh and blood would not hate him or at least acknowledge his presence without trying to spill blood.
Becoming human seemed like a little price in comparison to the reward.
Kikyo.
A life.
Companionship.
He would not be lonely anymore.
No, it wasn't a choice at all.
And then it all went up in flames and purification.
He'd put so much faith and trust in her, and it broke so, so easily. Because the simple truth was that he was damaged, far more than the surface, where the veins of fear and abandonment ran deep beneath the skin; dark, black roots webbing their way around his very existence, pulsating with the very beat of heart.
Too damaged to be fixed by one person who wanted him to give up everything for her. So when his fingers lurched out, reaching for the jewel that seemed to always remain just out of his grasp, only to fall short as Kikyo's spell forced him into an endless slumber, he realized that he'd been tricked once again.
Acceptance, love, all that was not meant for someone like him.
He was hanyou, the only one, and everything he loved and wanted, would always fall away damaged and just out of reach.
And when he learned later of Naraku's deception, the loss of her changed. He no longer felt angry and violent at her memory, but it became a missed opportunity. It was a loss of what could have been and how the woman he thought she was had been real and within his grasp all along.
Kikyo and her subsequent death taught him a lot of lessons.
He'd felt a spark of something familiar and yet foreign to him wash over the room.
"Kagome?" Miroku asked, and Inuyasha scrambled to his feet as Kagome practically launched herself out of his friends' arms, falling back to the floor before he could reach her. Her hands clutched at the front of her robe, fingers digging into the fabric and the skin underneath. He reached her first, grabbing at her wrists to pull her away from herself.
She fought him, inhaling sharply, and then let loose a scream that made his chest throb and burn and his ears flatten back against his skull. It wasn't a sound that he wanted to hear from her ever. Shrill and piercing as it echoed around the hut.
Shippo squealed in response but stayed where he was.
Miroku and Sango both appeared beside him. Kaede was darting into the storage room, and Kagome let loose another howl, making his ears pin to his head.
"Kagome! What's happening to her?" He snapped at Miroku, who was working to find something with his reiki. Burns flashed against Inuyasha's skin when he passed too close.
"Sorry!"
"Don't worry about me! Just stop this before—" She wrenched her arms against his grip as her entire body arched in torment. Her face contorted in pain and agony.
"Kagome!" Shippo cried out from beside the fire.
Kagome grit her teeth, and Inuyasha grunted as it felt like something tried to claw its way into his own chest. Sango was wrestling Kagome's legs to the ground behind him, pinning her down with her own weight.
Her hand broke free from his grip as a particularly sharp pain lanced through his ribs, and his claws nicked her skin as she broke free. Kagome grabbed Miroku's wrist, eyes barely cracking open to meet his gaze.
"Kagome, what is it?"
"Ki—!" Whatever it was she was about to say, broke off into a terrible screech.
"Do something!" Inuyasha shouted at him, snatching her wrist again.
"I'm trying!" He snapped back. "I don't know where it's coming from! Ah—here!" Miroku placed his hand over her sternum, pressing down and flooding her with so much reiki that it made Inuyasha's own skin redden and blister.
"Miroku!" Kaede shouted, knocking his hand away, gripping Kagome's face and pouring a vial of something into her mouth, seemingly unworried as she hacked and coughed at the onslaught of liquid. "We don't know what a wash of reiki will do to her!"
"We have—" Miroku winced as Kagome shrieked in pain again. "We have to do something!"
"We can't risk the curse reacting any more than it already is!"
"Would someone do something already!" Inuyasha shouted as Kagome let out another wail, though the length and intensity were waning. He ground his teeth together, muffling his own snarl as his heart burned with each beat in his chest, and his hands throbbed from the reiki burns.
"The curse has shifted," Miroku said. "It's here. Right over her heart."
"But how—"
"Just—" Inuyasha let out a harsh grunt as it felt like someone tried to separate his ribs, and he let go of her wrist in fear that it would snap under his fingers. She was delicate, fragile, and he was nothing more than a brute who would crush her under his own strength. His claws dug into the wood of Kaede's floor as he violently gagged on something in the back of his throat.
"Inuyasha!" Miroku snagged the fabric of his shoulder, reaching over Kagome to do so.
"Her—" A sharp digging pain made him gag and curl in on himself. "Her first," he gasped, shoving the hand away.
Kagome hacked once, a wet sound from her chest that made him wince. He glanced over as her hand wound into Miroku's robes, a wide swath of blood smeared across her cheekbone. Tears ran into her hairline, Kaede chanted, two fingers resting on her forehead.
But it was all for naught.
Drip.
He could feel it, the curse, as it tried to drag her under, across the river and the fields beyond.
He'd sworn to follow her wherever she went, and like hell, was she fucking leaving him. If he couldn't follow, she wasn't going without him.
Drip.
He snagged the wrist closest to himself, the one clutching onto the hem of Kaede's sleeve.
Dripdrip.
Fuck, like he'd ever let her go.
She was his and his alone.
"Miroku, now!" Kaede shouted.
Miroku's hand slammed down just below the hollow of her throat, releasing his reiki into her, over and into her heart.
The sound she made—it was almost inhuman—a keening shriek that she should never have to make again—his eyes widened as every part of her fell slack under their hold.
But whatever it was that tortured her hadn't broken, instead it simmered like it had just absorbed whatever they used against it.
Drip.
No sounds came from her.
Just stillness and silence.
"Kagome?" Sango asked, rising from where she'd thrown herself across Kagome's legs, and Miroku took a shuddering breath as his hand pulled away from her, trembling and twitching. Across the pale flesh of her chest, was a bright red burn.
Miroku had burned her with his reiki.
It—It shouldn't be possible. Reiki didn't burn humans like that. It shouldn't burn humans like that.
Drip.
All this and they'd only just convinced the curse to recede, not disappear altogether.
His own ears strained to hear anything over the whoosing sound of his own blood roaring through his body.
Fuck, it felt like he was burning at his very core.
Kaede's fingers pressed along the line of Kagome's neck, feeling for something, anything that would show the curse had not won.
"Kagome, child," Kaede warned, fingers fluttering across her skin, pressing in various places. "Inuyasha, ye need—" Her words died off as she stared at him, mouth agape, and her one eye wide and unblinking.
Drip.
"What?" He ground out, still panting and clutching onto her hand like a lifeline. His youki flared and rolled around the room, he could feel it but didn't have the wherewithal to drag it back. He licked his lip, tasting his blood on his tongue. He glanced up at Miroku and Sango, and while Miroku sat stock still as he met his gaze,
Sango scrambled backwards a couple steps before stopping.
He growled.
"What? What the fuck is it?"
Dripdrip.
"Your—Your nose is bleeding," Miroku stammered out, eyes darting all over him.
"And your face," Sango added. "Your eye is blood red."
"You're transforming," Miroku whispered again.
Kagome took a slow, wheezing breath.
Drip.
"Oh, thank the heavens," Kaede mumbled, smoothing the damp hair from her face. Every breath was a rattling wheeze, and the sound grated on his nerves. "Inuyasha, we need to move her. Let go of her hand," Kaede said, reaching for his fingers.
But she was old, and he was faster than her anyway. He'd always been faster than her. His free hand slid under her as he snapped his teeth at Kaede's palm, ripping Kagome away from them and against his chest.
Don't let her go.
She was limp, dead weight, and he was tired and weakened by whatever the fuck was going on, but he cradled her against his chest and shoulder, one hand under her head, the other arm around her hips, keeping her close, safe, protected.
He would die before giving her up.
He would die before he let them take her from him again.
Don't let her go.
Don't you dare let her go.
A/N: To give you an idea of how my week has gone, I completely forgot that I had to post a chapter today. I mean, there was a hurricane on Tuesday, and we were back in school on Wednesday. But that's the south for you. (We were completely fine, just a lot of pine straw everywhere.) Today, there was a fight in the classroom next to mine. So I completely forgot that today was Thursday, and then panicked.