Chapter 92
Clavis aurea
"The means of discovering hidden or mysterious meanings"

"There's a reason for everything, you said,
and though it's a mystery to me now,
I know it won't always be so."
—The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

Inuyasha opened the door to let them know that they could come inside, and Kagome trailed behind him a step. Miroku and Sango were both sitting out on the patio while Shippo was out running and playing with Kirara in the meadow.

They both turned to look at them, and Kagome felt herself shrinking back a little at the attention, but Inuyasha had already reached back and grabbed her hand, dragging her forward.

"Would you like to join us?" Sango asked, shifting a bit so that she would be facing them.

He tugged her over to the column before sinking down and tugging at her wrist. She lowered herself slowly, but his other hand was there to help her. She started to drop down next to him, but he tugged her into the space between his legs where he sat, one leg hanging off the porch and the other propped up.

No one said anything about it, but once she sat down, his arms were around her and dragging her against him.

"Glad to see everything worked out," Miroku commented, leaning against the other column while Sango sat with her legs hanging off the porch as she mended a spot on the hem of Miroku's robes while he sat.

"Yeah," she whispered, and Inuyasha squeezed her a bit.

"Do you feel better?" Sango asked her, looking up from where she was sewing his hem.

"Yeah?" She asked, staring at Inuyasha's arms as they wrapped around her.

Inuyasha's hand snaked over hers, wrapping his fingers around her own.

Kagome looked up at Inuyasha, who met her gaze firmly and didn't look away from her.

She felt her cheeks grow warm and had to look away from him. It felt like too much, even though she could feel him staring at the back of her head.

"Good. Miroku and I had a busy morning."

There was a slight sniffing behind her, and she turned slightly to see Inuyasha with his nose in the air. His gaze drifted to her, and he stopped.

"Smells like it," he said with a grin.

"Yes," Miroku continued, clearing his throat, shifting a bit to allow Sango to continue working on his robe. "We did—uh—hike for a little bit."

Sango snapped a glare at Inuyasha, and she took a deep breath before refocusing on the hem of the robe under her fingers.

"Yes, so, what we found," Miroku cleared his throat, "we went back to the barrier and looked around, now that we had an idea of what we were looking for."

The barrier.

She couldn't help how she tensed at the thought of seeing it again, even as Inuyasha tightened his grip on her.

Maybe they had patched things up. But the wound still felt raw to her. Like fresh stitches over a wide gash, and she still felt the need to run and get away from the conversation.

Some parts of her still wondered if it was all just a ploy of her mind. Like she was reading into his words more than they meant.

He couldn't really want her more than Kikyo.

Even though he'd said that he did.

She still didn't understand why.

What did she have to offer that Kikyo couldn't do better?

It didn't mean that he loved her.

It didn't mean that he loved her back.

It hadn't felt like he meant just as friends though. It felt like something more than that.

He hadn't said that he loved her, and he'd said that he'd loved Kikyo when she was alive.

She was just projecting what she really wanted from him and twisting his words for them to work in her favor. That was all.

"Did you find any more ofuda?" Inuyasha asked behind her.

"No. I think the one you found last night might've been the last."

"Ofuda?" Kagome asked, looking up at Miroku. "What ofuda?"

"Inuyasha found a youkai trapped in the clearing last night disguised as a tree."

She turned her head to look at him.

He'd gone to the clearing? He hadn't left to go find Kikyo?

"Needed to burn off some shit," he said, casually. "Decided to go snooping." There was a fierce look directed at her, but she wasn't entirely clear on why she was the subject of his ire.

What was he snooping for? What did he think he was going to find?

She hadn't done anything wrong—not on purpose at least—she was just trying to help! She didn't know that it would hurt her!

She'd told him that!

"What're you freaking out for?" Inuyasha asked, pulling an arm away from her and grabbing her hand, stilling her fingers.

"I'm not," she breathed, taking a deep breath. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she tried to get her breathing under control.

Everyone was watching her, and she wanted to bolt, to hide, to do something to alleviate the weight of their gaze on her and her alone.

"Kagome?" Miroku started, already leaning forward.

"I'm fine!" Kagome shouted. She tried to take a breath, even though the pressure on her chest only increased. Breathing wasn't solving the burning in her chest and her lungs.

Being outside was too much—too bright and too loud and too quiet—the ringing in her ears built to a crescendo and she could feel herself gasping like she was being throttled.

Shoving Inuyasha's arms off her, she scrambled to her feet, staggering a step towards the grassy area. Inuyasha grabbed her, the tips of his claws digging into her hips without pain, and he dragged her into him. Her face buried into his chest, a hand cupping the back of her head, as his other arm wrapped firmly around her waist.

She couldn't—she couldn't find her bearings. It was all just too much. Too much noise and light and everything.

Her chest tightened around her ribcage until she was sure that it would break something.

"Breathe, Kagome," Inuyasha whispered.

She was trying! Didn't he get that? She was trying to breathe, trying to grasp at straws to keep everything from falling to pieces.

He wouldn't let her move, and she needed to do something, anything, just to relieve this pressure and this urge to dissolve into nothing.

Trying to push herself away, he tugged her against him tighter, refusing her the freedom she needed. She needed to go.

Her legs trembled, as did the rest of her, but even when they gave out under her, Inuyasha held her firmly against himself.

All she could do was clutch at the sides of his shirt and trust that he wouldn't let her fall.

"Breathe, Kagome," he whispered again, like it was just so easy, like she wasn't gasping for trace amount of air into her lungs, like her heart wasn't hammering so hard in her chest it was a physical punch each time it beat. He should've been able to feel it.

She was trying—she'd been trying—so freaking hard to do the right thing, and every single time she tried, it just—it just—exploded right back in her face, coating her in muck and mire and leaving her worse off than if she'd just let things be.

None of them understood what it was like.

None of them got what it was like to struggle like this.

"Kagome," Inuyasha said quietly, trying to draw her focus—why couldn't he just let her figure this out? Why was he being so nice?

Her legs wobbled as she tried to stand on them, and Inuyasha just leaned over her so slightly, bending her just a little at the waist, and forcing her to lean on him, rely that he wasn't just going to drop her down to the hard wood beneath her feet.

"Stop," he whispered, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

His words were quiet and impossible to hear if he hadn't said them right in her ear. Like he'd known what she'd wanted and needed to hear from him, whatever had kept her locked up seemed to unlatch, and there was now air enough to fill her lungs. The wisps of precious oxygen had turned to full and deep breaths.

He lowered the both of them slowly to the ground, keeping her close to him—not that she minded, because she didn't mind at all.

He drowned out the loudness, the brightness, he swallowed up all the extra that tried to overwhelm her, absorbing it from the air and the earth around her.

He'd stayed with her.

He knew, and he'd stayed.

"Kagome?" Sango asked, and she was aware of claws drifting through her hair and down her back.

His legs were curled around her, and drawing her closer and closer to him.

His cheek rested on her head as she slumped against him, still clutching onto his shirt. Her face firmly planted against the delicate space of his neck and collar bone.

His fingers continued to comb her hair and drift along her body.

"She's fine. Just let her breathe for a fucking second before you climb down her throat."

"From what I saw, you" Miroku started, but there was a sharp growl and Miroku made a small noise before he cleared his throat. "Anyway, we didn't find any other ofuda."

Kagome took a shuddering breath, trying to find a way to ground herself enough to focus on what they were talking about.

There had been ofuda in the clearing. Of course, there had been, she'd ripped the one right out of the ground and brought down the barrier.

She remembered the heat and the concussive sound for the brief moment that she was still aware of anything around her.

"So what're you thinking?" Inuyasha asked.

There was a long pause and then a long, slow exhale.

"It doesn't make sense," Miroku stated, and Kagome could picture him sitting cross legged, one elbow resting on his knee as he leaned his chin into his hand. "Why trap low-level youkai like that? It had to take more energy to use those ofuda than it would to purify them."

Inuyasha's hands slipped under her legs, shifting her weight a bit, dragging her closer to himself. Tucking her legs up, she let him hold her close, curling up in the safety of his lap.

He wouldn't let anything happen to her.

He wouldn't.

His hands returned to her waist and back, gently stroking through her hair again.

"Kagome said she was using a shard. Wouldn't it be easier to purify the shard than it would be to do any of that?"

"Which brings up another mass of questions? What happened to Kikyo's reiki?"

Inuyasha's grip tightened on her for just a moment as Kagome flinched.

"She said that it was my fault," Kagome whispered.

"Like you'd do anything to hurt anyone," Inuyasha snorted with a hard scoff.

"Not intentionally," she murmured.

She wanted to hide, dig herself deep underneath his clothes and bury herself in embarrassment. She didn't even know what had freaked her out so much this time.

God, she was a chaotic mess of nerves, wasn't she?

One of her hands released his shirt and drifted up to the beads around his neck. The smooth warmth of them soothed her in a strange way. She kept her face hidden in the side of his neck, trying to keep her body from vibrating free of reality.

Shifting a bit more, she turned herself just enough to see everyone else and the trees beyond. It was still too bright for her eyes, and she kept her face hidden in the warm shade of Inuyasha's neck.

"Do you feel up to talking, Kagome?" Sango asked.

She started to say 'sure,' but honestly, she didn't know. She didn't want to talk about this anymore, but she knew that she'd have to. After everything else she'd kept from them, she knew that they weren't going to let anything else slide.

"We have some theories," Miroku started, filling in the great quiet. "Perhaps we could start to voice them, and you two could add in what you know?"

Kagome nodded. She could handle that. Inuyasha had told her that he wasn't going anywhere.

And Inuyasha didn't lie to her.

"Right, good."

"Tell us if you need to stop, okay?" Sango interjected quickly.

"Just start talking," Inuyasha ordered, hands still drifting along her spine.

"Right," Miroku cleared his throat. "I think it's best to maybe start at the beginning?" There was a lull, and Kagome assumed someone must've answered him.

She shifted her head slightly so she could see both Sango and Miroku.

"By the time we'd arrived, there had already been youkai bothering the village. But as we noticed, there wasn't anything—aggressive, in a sense—not until days before we'd gotten here."

"The headman did mention that it had only been in the last few weeks that they'd seen the tracks around the village, and when they did attack, no one was injured."

"At first," Miroku added. "So why the escalation?"

"What're you implying, monk?"

"I think that someone has been manipulating youkai."

"Who could do that? And for what purpose? Even if they could control a youkai, then the moment that youkai was free, it'd turn on them."

"You said yourself that the trails would just vanish at a certain point."

"Yeah, and?"

"What if they weren't vanishing? What if they were being purified?"

"It would explain the disappearing scent trails and why there were no carcasses left behind."

It was strange. This entire thing had been strange.

The implication was saying without saying was that it simply had to be Kikyo. She was the only one capable of such things, and to be honest, Kagome didn't think that even if Miroku knew how to do that sort of thing that she could learn the finesse of reiki enough to manage it.

Most days, her reiki felt like a battering ram that just blew through anything and everything in its path.

But the beetle that had attacked them had a jewel shard.

That is what had made it so strong and difficult for Inuyasha and Sango to defeat quickly.

Kikyo made sense.

Kikyo had wanted her trapped, but she'd also expected Inuyasha.

Or else she wouldn't have had the poison ready to go.

She knew that Inuyasha was coming, and she was keenly prepared for the both of them.

So what did Kikyo know that none of them did?

"You're thinking that Kikyo was behind this mess from the get go?" Inuyasha asked, and Kagome turned her face back towards him. He was going to freak out. He was going to yell and rant, and she could already feel the anxiousness spiraling in her gut.

But he let out a long exhale, and she could feel his body sink.

"Let's say you're right. So why the fuck would she do it? We didn't even know that we were coming here."

"Remember when Kunitame told us about the village up north that was having issues with youkai?"

Inuyasha inhaled sharply.

"You're fucking kidding me," he muttered.

"Unfortunately not."

"They've been having issues for months, but when anyone else showed up, the problem vanished for a few weeks and then started back up once the monks or priests left," Sango filled in.

"And then we showed up," Miroku said.

"And got lured into a trap within a few days of being here like some kind of fucking novices."

"Right," Miroku said. "I'm pretty sure that all of this was meant to lure us here from the very beginning."

"We just took a very roundabout path of getting here," Sango added.

"So what? Kikyo did all this shit to just lure us here to do what?"

There was a long pause between them, but Kagome knew what Kikyo had wanted.

She'd wanted to steal back her soul. Kikyo wanted her nothing short of dead.

Inuyasha's arms shifted to wrap more securely around her, and she was glad for the reassuring move.

"I think that part was pretty obvious."

"She ain't—" Inuyasha cut himself off quickly before letting out a huff. "She hasn't pulled anything like this in a while, so what gives?"

"That's where Miroku and I were stumped."

"Kikyo was and is a powerful priestess," Miroku started, clearly hesitating in his language. Kagome shifted her gaze to him. "And like you said, she hadn't tried anything so violent in quite a long time."

"Your point, monk?" Inuyasha growled.

"We know that someone was behind Kouga's attack," Sango said, and Inuyasha let out a low, rumbling growl as he hunched over her a bit more. "And they were controlling him through his shards."

"They were able to take a powerful friend—" Inuyasha's growl sharpened. "Ally, if you'd prefer, and turn them against us fairly effectively."

"Get to the fucking point, monk!"

"WhatifitwasKikyo?" Miroku blurted out, and the silence that followed made the air feel like she was in a vacuum again. "What if it was Kikyo?" Miroku repeated quietly. "What if she's been behind everything? The attack with the cat demons. They specifically went after Kagome. We know that."

"There's no way that everything that's happened has been fucking planned!"

"I'm not saying that everything that's happened has been planned or coordinated, but what if Kikyo was the one that started us down this path."

Kagome could read between Miroku's thinly veiled lines.

What if Kikyo had been behind it all?

Inuyasha's hand slid up to the back of her head, fingers sliding through her hair as he held her close.

"No," Inuyasha's voice was firm, leaving no room for any questioning of his intent. "No. You're wrong."

"Inuyasha, I know that this is a hard thing to—"

"That's not it, monk, you know it," Inuyasha snapped back. "I know Kikyo."

Both Sango and Miroku let out soft sighs.

"Give me a fucking moment to talk before you make up your fucking minds, would you?" Kagome could feel his pulse racing under his skin, and she was sure that hers was pounding even faster. "I know Kikyo. She was fucking smart, and she knew her priestess shit, but she wasn't," Inuyasha paused, clearly trying to come up with a word that wasn't presenting itself. "She wasn't planning-smart."

"Strategic?" Sango asked.

"Sure, whatever—she didn't know how to con people."

"And you think that this is what all this was? A con?" Miroku asked.

"Someone wants us to believe that Kikyo is responsible for this."

Sango let out a huff, dropping the edge of Miroku's robe.

"Hate to say it, but you may have a point."

"Yeah, well, fuck you too, Sango."

There was another long lingering pause, and Inuyasha turned his face towards hers and his nose pressed firmly against her hair.

"Kagome? Any thoughts?"

She turned her head slightly—as much as Inuyasha's hand would allow her to at the moment—but she didn't know what to add.

"She keeps saying that it's my fault. That I did something to her."

"You've done jack shit," Inuyasha commented, his breath warm over her hair and scalp.

"She keeps saying that I let in the corruption and that I've ruined our soul."

"That is—odd to say the least," Miroku said. "If you were corrupted, we would see it in your reiki, which we haven't."

"But it's stronger now," she said, and Inuyasha's arm around her tightened. "It's never been like that before."

"When did she tell that to you?" Sango asked. "The first time she said it?"

"The lake," she answered quietly. "But there's something wrong with her."

"You said that her reiki was gone," Sango started.

"No," Kagome said, shaking her head slightly. She leaned back against Inuyasha's hold, and he released her just enough so that she could turn her head to see them, but not enough to push herself away from him. "There was something else."

"Like what?" Miroku asked after a long moment.

"She was," Kagome struggled to find the word. "She was dirty."

Another long stretch of silence between them before Kagome found her voice again. Inuyasha's thumb ran a line back and forth across her back.

"Kikyo never looks dirty, but she's looked like she's rolled around in the dirt, and then just never washed it off."

She turned her gaze back to Inuyasha to see what he was thinking.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like her." His gaze met hers. "Kikyo was a neat freak," Inuyasha said, drawing her back against him.

He believed her, but Kagome wasn't sure if that made her feel better or not.

"Be that as it may, this whole situation begs the question—well, several questions actually." Miroku took a short breath. "What happened to Kikyo and her reiki? Is this madness a side effect of losing her reiki?"

"What if it is my fault?"

"It's not," Inuyasha said, head turning towards her slightly.

"You don't know that."

"You don't either."

"Inuyasha brings up a valid point," Miroku said. "None of us know what's happened to Kikyo or who might or might not be at fault. It's too early to say who or what might be the cause or who might be the culprit."

Kagome twisted herself a bit, and Inuyasha helped shift her so that she was curled up in his lap, but he kept his legs and arms wrapped around her.

"Who else would go through all this bullshit? It's gotta be Naraku."

"He is an easy target," Miroku started, "and I, for one, am in agreement with you. This has Naraku written all over it, but I would hate to overlook anything other possibilities."

Inuyasha grunted behind her as his thumbs both rubbed short narrow lines along her side and shoulder.

Miroku was right. This did seem like the sort of stunt that he would pull. They were a threat to him, and Naraku was always trying to manipulate everyone around him.

Maybe he'd thought that he'd drive a wedge between all of them?

He knew that Kikyo was a sore spot. He knew that Inuyasha loved her. Maybe he thought that it would finally divide their team.

Or maybe he was just hoping to kill her from the start, and she'd just ruined all his effort and plans.

She pressed herself more firmly against Inuyasha's chest.

Inuyasha didn't say anything, but he rested his chin on the top of her head.

Kikyo.

Kouga.

He'd done so much damage to so many people.

He'd taken so much from her, but maybe this was her moment.

Everyone else had a reason to fight Naraku—they'd all lost or stood to lose everything to Naraku.

Maybe this would become her reason—this was her ticket into the ring—this was her reason to stand on equal footing with the rest of them.

A/N: Happy Thursday!

I sincerely hope that this chapter cuts the muster after the last one. I'm so glad that you all liked that one so much; it honestly makes me so happy.

Not a lot happens, but the group needs to start hashing out for some of the information that they've gathered. They have a lot of pieces, but they haven't had a lot of time to hash them out. So now it's relatively peaceful and they can start figuring things out.

I've got 15 days left until Summer. I'm gonna make it. I swear I am. 😂