LXII

Modus Vivendi

An uncomfortable silence grows between Kouga and Inuyasha after their women leave. Kouga does not like Inu – nothing about them, not their scent, not their arrogance, not the way generations of their kind have flaunted their power. A growl haunts his throat. This is an uneven rupture in the passage of the soft time he's shared with Kagome – he does not like it. His eyes remain on the hanyou beside him, but his senses are tuned to Kagome, her scent, her sounds, her safety.

Inuyasha knows nothing of his own kind, and thus nothing of Kouga's trouble. In the bitter briefness of his youth he had learned nothing of youkai, nothing of the Inu half of his bloodline and the feuds it carried with it. He doesn't like Kouga, but that is because Kouga's presence, his woman's presence – that Kagome – they have undone the fragile threads of control he has built around his life.

How to live now, when things, once again, are changing? Inuyasha doesn't know, and knows even less how to put his thoughts and feelings into words. Instead he sits in silence, listening for the slightest hint of trouble from Kikyou's direction. Appearances can be deceiving – he has learned that enough times. And that girl…nothing about her is right. Her eyes, her voice, her manner - how can she be Kikyou's reincarnation when Kikyou is right here? And if she is, doesn't that mean that she is more Kikyou than the copy that had found him?

Inuyasha wonders if he could grow used to looking at a Kikyou with blue eyes.

He is missing the point entirely, the thing that Kikyou said herself. "She and I share the same essence…but we are not the same." His thoughts are only on the shape of her face – the scent of her power. The way the shikon no tama, which he covets above all other things, seems to be a part of her…or becoming so.

Shards sucked through her skin – what was that?

Each of them in silent thoughts, uncomfortable, disquieted, they sit, waiting.

It is like looking into a mirror – and yet it is not. Kagome stares at Kikyou's face, the placid lines of it…it is her face, but she can't remember ever seeing herself with an expression like that. More than calm…less than empty. So strange. Part of my own soul. The past…

Images flicker through her awareness, faster – faster – faster – she cannot control or contain them, can only stare forward as blankly as Kikyou. Few things stay within her consciousness long enough for her to grasp them, but what she sees is disturbing. Inuyasha. Without knowing him, she knows the sensation of his kiss. The warmth behind the gruffness – Inuyasha, the one she loves. The miko of Edo, on the edge of breaking all her vows –

Then, in startling contrast to that private moment, Kagome hears a terrible cry, Kikyou's voice impassioned with the fire and fury of a living woman. "You betrayed me, Inuyasha!" And a scattering of light that Kagome knows comes from the hama no ya.

She shakes her head, tries to dispel the spinning images – despite herself, she can do nothing until they are gone, a whole life that does not belong to her spun out within the soul that does.

"Kikyou, you –"

The words cancel themselves in her throat and leave Kagome with nothing, because all of her questions are too personal, are wrong –

"You shouldn't worry, Kagome. You are me, and I am you, though we are not and may not be one again. It depends on how kind you are, Kagome."

"How – kind…"

Kikyou shifts through the water, through the steam, comes close enough that Kagome flushes and turns her head aside. How awkward this is!

"Look at me."

Kikyou's voice is quiet, but commanding, and Kagome obeys. Her gaze focuses despite herself, not on Kikyou's face, but on the glow beneath the surface of her skin, one point of light – shikon no tama.

"Yes. You see it, don't you? Of course you do."

Kikyou presses two fingers against the spot, speaks in contemplative tones.

"I have been thinking, while I sat here with you – do you know what you have given me, Kagome? Do you know what you have taken away?"

Kagome is startled, but Kikyou does not allow her time to speak.

"I remembered nothing of my life before you came, except bits and pieces of my time with Inuyasha…he was with me. He spoke to me. He was close to me – perhaps that is why. Yet now that I remember, I know too many things that I would rather not know. I know that I am not alive, not human. I have no heartbeat, no blood in my veins – no veins, if there was blood. I am a hollow shell, not a woman…animate, maybe. Moving, thinking, feeling…but only a speck of soul."

She closes her eyes, and Kagome cannot help herself. She reaches out a hand for Kikyou's chest, presses her palm against it, listens with her flesh. Nothing. She didn't think there would be something – knew better, knew the truth just as Kikyou did, but…

"You're still you, Kikyou. The body isn't what matters, you know –"

"Oh, I know. How I know – now."

For a moment Kikyou was silent, poised in utter stillness, captured in a moment of regret.

"But don't you see, Kagome? This body is nothing. I know the magics that made it, I know dark power and their uses…if my soul was trapped here, even a fragment of it, there would have been far less trouble, and it would be far more like flesh. But I do not feel. I am only…aware. I wonder, Kagome. Would I be aware if not for the shard of jewel inside me?"

Kikyou's stare gains intensity, purpose. Kagome returns it with bewildered look, confused, out of her depth. She does not feel? Her soul…I don't understand. I don't understand. There is something that Kikyou wants her to understand. Something about the jewel inside her – inside them both.

"I don't – Kikyou, if you're trying to tell me something you're just going to have to say it. I'm no good at riddles –"

"I do not know the answer to my question, Kagome. It is a thing that worries, me that is all. Should it worry you, too? Perhaps. There is far more brightness in you than in me. Far more. But something tells me that as it was born within you, the shikon no tama belongs within you. It is what that means for me that worries me, Kagome."

"I won't take it – the shard inside you, I mean."

Kikyou meets Kagome's glance with a sudden sharpness, but Kagome only shrugs.

"What? What else could you be worried about? Whether it's keep you…alive…or not won't matter if you stay like you are now, right?"

"You won't…take it."

"Of course not!"

Kikyou smiles, but it is the saddest smile Kagome has ever seen.

"So you are kind."

So kind you are cruel. Cruel in your innocence, Kagome.

A/N: Ah…ha. This is a chapter and the title translates to "methods of living" and hopefully you enjoy and sorry I am the slowest updater ever and eek eek eek forgive me! I wrote another book, and then another book, and both are on their way to being published, so hopefully you can forgive me, and I…will try to be less slow. But never fear! Nothing. Is ever! Abandoned! EVER! Also this chapter is dedicated to Fearless Miko, for bunches and bunches of glorious reviews that are 93% responsible for me actually writing this chapter!

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