Take Two
Chapter 12
Kagome was within arms reach of the top of the well when a familiar
dark shape, complete with triangular ears, blocked out the sun.
Before she could react, she found herself being grabbed under one arm
and hauled up like a sack of rice.
Inuyasha dropped her unceremoniously on the ground, then turned and
crouched, his back to her. “Get on,” he directed.
Kagome clambered to her feet, rubbing the abused hip that had taken the
weight of her fall, then rolling her pulled shoulder. “Mou,
Inuyasha, I might be better off walking to Kaede’s at this rate.”
He shot her an irritated glance over his shoulder, then turned back
around. “We’re not going to the Babaa’s, woman. Now quit
arguing and get on.”
Frowning, she did as he directed, and within seconds, they were flying
low through the trees toward the mountains in the northwest.
“What’s happening, Inuyasha?” she asked, leaning forward to make
herself heard over the rush of wind. “Where are Sango-chan and
Miroku-sama? Where’s Shippou-chan? Where are we going?”
He navigated them silently to the edge of the forest, then burst out to
race along the rolling plain. “It’s complicated,” he said,
settling into a comfortable run. “You remember that village, the
one where Sango picked up a shard just before we got to her?”
“Yes,” she replied instantly. “She exterminated a demon for
them. What about it?”
“They sent a runner to the village this morning. He said they saw
demons go over last night, a whole flight of those damn things Naraku
controls. They were heading into the mountains, toward-”
“Sango-chan’s village!” Kagome shouted, and Inuyasha stumbled, nearly
falling before recovering and running on.
“Damn it, woman! Don’t scream in my ear like that!”
He tightened his grip on her legs where it had slipped at her
exclamation. “Yeah, they were headed for the taiji village.
Sango and the bouzu left on Kirara already, and Shippou’s gonna meet us
there after he flies the guy back to his own village.”
“He’s so young...” Kagome murmured before another thought occurred to
her. “Inuyasha, why didn’t you come for me this morning, when the
man arrived? I would have come right back...”
“Keh. After taking the time to go through and find you, explain
everything and wait for you to pack? Sango wasn’t going to wait,
and Miroku didn’t want her to go alone. You were already coming
back at mid-day, so I said I’d stay behind to wait and explain on the
way.” The mountains in the distance grew larger ever so slowly,
though they were covering ground rapidly.
“It’s happening again, isn’t it? Everything we’ve done to stop it
this time, to make things different, and it’s all falling apart.
Sango-chan is going to lose her brother again, and I can’t stop
it.” Kagome buried her face in Inuyasha’s hair, comforting
herself with its familiar scent.
“Brother?” Inuyasha asked. “Oh, yeah. That kid.
They’re trained youkai taijiya, Kagome. It anyone stands a chance
against those youkai, it’s them. Don’t blame yourself. You
couldn’t have stopped it even if you’d known.”
She bit down on her lip to keep from screaming. It was all
happening too fast: Houjou had lost all active memories of their
future, and now it seemed Inuyasha had lost his own memories of their
past as well.
Kagome had never felt so alone.
---
They were too late, all of them.
It was clear, when Inuyasha and Kagome arrived late in the afternoon,
that they had been too late from the moment they had set out.
Even if the peasant-farmer had been able to travel with the speed of
Sesshoumaru, streaking through the night like a shooting star, they
could not have arrived in time. From the moment the flight of
youkai had been spotted, the village of the demon exterminators was
doomed.
They had not gone quietly or easily, however. Corpses of youkai,
already bloating in the muggy July sun, were thick on the ground.
Kagome wove among them, the red handkerchief of her uniform pressed
tightly over her nose and mouth with one hand to combat the worst of
the stench, the other hand glowing as she purified the putrid bodies
one by one, allowing the others to reach the people crushed to death
underneath. If I never see
another one of these things again, it will be far too soon, she
thought, vaporizing another malevolent air spirit. She’d been
weeping as she worked early on, and now her face felt gritty with salt
and dirt, her eyes hot and swollen.
Under the next youkai corpse, she found the body of a young girl, no
more than four or five, the hilt of a tanto clenched tightly in one
fist. She’d had a reasonably peaceful end considering all the
chaos, her head resting at an unnatural angle, neck clearly
broken. Tears welled up again to sting her tired eyes, and Kagome
knelt a moment in the dirt next to her, reaching out to brush the back
of her hand over the girl’s pale cheek. She looked so much like
Sango that she had to be close kin; a cousin perhaps, who idolized the
older taijiya. “I’m so sorry about this,” she whispered, easing
the girl’s dull eyes closed. “I hope your next life is a lot
happier.” Pushing herself to her feet, she went back to her
dreadful work.
It was near sunset when Inuyasha pulled her aside, taking her over to
the sad remains of the village’s houses. “See if you can’t figure
out some place for us to sleep tonight,” he directed, his voice
uncharacteristically gentle. He’d been taciturn all day, moving
the bodies so Sango could bathe her loved ones, digging graves with
Miroku in the least-devastated corner of the enclave, checking on
Kagome when her gorge had risen too far to be suppressed. He
hadn’t spoken one word of complaint or reproach, and his directive now
was transparently designed to relieve her of her terrible burden.
“There’s just some small-fry left to clean up.”
“Shippou-chan’s not here yet,” she noted woodenly, trying not to see
the destruction as she looked around. “It’s getting awfully late,
Inuyasha.”
“Keh. Probably met some cute little girl in the jijii’s village
and lost track of time.” He rolled his eyes at her tired
scowl. “I’m gonna take a look around the forest after I finish up
in here. I’ll keep an eye out for the brat, leave him some tracks
he can’t miss.”
“He’s so young, though. I’m worried.”
Inuyasha scoffed again. “He’s youkai and orphaned. You grow
up quick or not at all. Hey, don’t start that,” he warned, seeing
her bottom lip begin to tremble. “I’ll look for him in a
while, but he’s fine. Get on dinner. Whatever you can
find is fine.” He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and slipped
away into the chaos.
---
“Kagome-sama?”
She turned from her contemplation of the decimated tokonoma.
“It’s my fault,” she said, wiping away the last of her tears.
She’d cried herself dry for the moment, a feeling she remembered well.
“What do you mean, Kagome-sama?” Miroku asked, coming further
into the room. He looked disheveled from his hard work, coated in
sweat and dirt. Kagome felt the same grime covering her own skin;
they’d all need baths before settling down for the night.
“This,” she replied, waving at a hand at the wrecked trappings of the
shrine alcove. “There was a Shikon shard here, a pretty big
one. I can feel the imprint of it on the walls, on the
gohei.” She fingered a scrap of paper streamer still hanging from
the shimenawa. “They were protecting it, trying to purify
it. If I hadn’t shattered it in the first place, those things
would never have come here. I should have told them, warned them
to be careful, not to keep shards here, for their own safety...”
“Kagome-sama, you could not have known,” Miroku insisted gently.
“You had no choice, The Jewel had to be kept from Naraku.
And you could not have foreseen such a tragedy. Even those
schooled in the study of the stars and other omens cannot always say
what will happen. A terrible thing has happened here, but you are
not responsible.”
How could she tell him, or any of them, the things she knew? What
did she know anymore, about what was to come? Things were
changing all the time, and her only hope was to go with the flow.
“I suppose you’re right, Miroku-sama. How is Sango-chan?”
“Grieving. All that she knew was here. It pains her
greatly, and yet she has hope. Inuyasha and I cleared the grounds
completely before he left, but there are still people unaccounted
for. Sango believes they may be gone on an extermination.”
Kagome nodded, refusing to think about that possibility. “I think
I can get this room habitable again.”
“I think that would please her greatly. Sango wishes to sit in
vigil for her kin tonight, and I have offered to sit with her.”
He fingered the edge of his kesa almost shyly. “She has accepted
the offer of my company.”
“I should do something about baths and dinner, then. Will you
tell Sango-chan I’m sorry for her loss? I’ll let you know when I
have things ready.” She made her escape quickly, before the guilt
wrung words from her she couldn’t explain.
---
It was full dark before Inuyasha returned. Kagome waited just
outside the palisade, staring into the forest, her senses stretched to
the limits trying to pick up the slightest trace of him. And yet,
when he dropped from a branch to land at her feet, she hadn’t picked up
the slightest hint of his youki. “How did you do that?” she
asked, amazed.
“What?” he asked, rising. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I was waiting for you, trying to feel your youki, but I got
nothing.” She looked around, concerned. “Where’s
Shippou-chan? Did you find him?”
Inuyasha took her by the elbow, trying to lead her back inside the
village. “I found the jijii’s village. The brat found some
kids to play with. I told him we’d pick him up on the way back.”
Kagome nodded. He seemed no more eager for Shippou to see the
devastation than she was. Resisting his gentle tug toward the
gate, she moved toward the trees. “I don’t want to go back inside
yet. It’s too...”
“Creepy?” he supplied. He studied the nearby trees, then lifted
them effortlessly to a wide branch and settled with his back against
the trunk, Kagome perched across his lap.
What would she have given to be with him like this the first
time? He was still arrogant and temperamental as ever, but now
they had these moments where she felt safe and comforted, like the only
other being in his world. “Sad,” she finally finished.
“Poor Sango-chan. Everyone in this place was a member of her
family, and now they’re gone.” She shifted her head more
comfortably against his shoulder. “We never found her father or
Kohaku-kun, or some of the other taijiya. Sango-chan thinks they
may be alive somewhere, out on a job.” She hadn’t been able to
find the courage during the agonizingly long afternoon to tell Sango
the truth about the exterminators’ finale mission.
“Where is she now?” Inuyasha asked, his breath a warm puff against her
ear.
“In her house, with Miroku-sama. He’s been so different today,
Inuyasha. He hasn’t tried anything perverted. I was
shocked.” His hands moved where they cradled her against him,
sliding under her clothing to caress bare skin, and Kagome fought back
a shiver of anticipation. “I-I thought maybe they could use some
privacy.” She fought to focus against the distraction of his warm
and gentle touch. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmured,
trying not to let her voice quaver with desire. How could she
want him so much after the things she’d seen that day?
“Kagome...” His breath puffed warm in her ear again. “You smell
so alive.” he whispered. “All day, all I could smell was
death. But you smell alive.” His hands shifted again, then
the front-clasp of her bra popped open and he pushed the fabric aside,
hands sliding up to cup her breasts. Then she felt the press of
his lips against the sensitive skin between ear and jaw, the touch of a
fang that pressed but did not bite. “Kagome, please...”
She slid a hand into his hair, fingers brushing one ear, and her
pounding heart raced when his hands tightened against her.
“Hai...”
---
She woke in the dark to the feeling of energy skittering over her skin,
Inuyasha’s closest and strangely calming. But she could feel
waves of it rolling over her from a hundred other sources and she
tensed, burying her face in his neck and inhaling great gulps of his
woodsy scent, waking him in the process.
“What?” he demanded, snapping to attention. “What is it?
What’s wrong?”
“Youki,” she whispered, trying to crawl further into his embrace.
“It’s huge, everywhere. I can’t... I can’t...”
She heard him sniffing, better able to perceive though smell than her
poorly described ‘feel,’ then snorted and settled back against the
trunk, eyes closing. “Nothin’ there. Everything’s fine.”
She pushed up a little, irritated. “Inuyasha, I have never felt
that much youki in my life without some kind of threat present.
And it’s coming from everything. I could swear I’m getting youki
from this tree.”
“You are,” he muttered. “Tree’s got a spirit, doesn’t it?
Not my fault most of the trees in your time are dead on the
inside.” He cracked one eye open to gaze at her as she settled
back against him. “Everything alive has some kind of energy,
Kagome. Should be wondering why you never felt it before,” he
pronounced before sliding back into sleep.
It was a question that kept her up well past dawn.
AN: For my purposes here, ‘youki’ refers to magical energy of any
kind, whatever the source, as opposed to ‘jaki,’ the energy given off
by demons and demon items (i.e. Toukijin) that has a particularly nasty
feel to it.
PSA: Book 15 rocks, and was a source of inspiration, as always.
And extra-special thanks to Pip, who kept Yash and Kagome out of a
truck, among other things.
TBC...
Chapter 11
Interlude II
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