Artificial Love

Artificial Love


Hello peoples! It’s one o’clock in the morning. Do you know where your children are? HUH?
Well I do. Their out terrorizing the town and whatnot. Damn brats just had to TP my trees, didn't they. Well I think I’ll go hard boil some eggs and get in some target practice. Show those little prats a thing or two about mischief and mayhem. Now where’s my paint ball gun again? REVIEW!


Disclaimer: Still don’t own Inuyasha. Though I’m considering adoption. Tax purposes yano. Oh don’t even look at me like that! Now what race would you consider half demon? (checks box marked other)


Chapter 9: A Hollow Place

Inuyasha stared unbelievingly at Miroku for a moment.

“What?” he repeated hollowly, looking at Miroku with desperate eyes, almost pleading to be told that he had heard the monk wrong.

“Kill me.”

There was silence. For a moment it seemed as if time stood still, but Inuyasha’s mind would not be halted.

Kill him. Kill Miroku.

Miroku was his mate. The only thing that he cared about more than his own survival. And he was just supposed to kill him? Just like that, he was supposed to snuff out any reason that he had for living? Miroku might as well have asked him to kill himself. Might as well ask him to smile as the sword went in.

“How could you ask me to do that?” He breathed out incredulously, lifting the monk away from his chest. “To... kill you? Damn you to hell Miroku, how could you ask something like that from me!”

He was so upset that it took a great measure of control to stop himself from shaking the monk.

“It is the only way, Inuyasha. For me to die. To find peace.” Miroku grasped Inuyasha’s shaking wrists gently, willing him to release him. “I would much rather die by your hand, knowing that I have a chance of seeing you again. Than spend an eternity, alone, neither dead nor alive, knowing that you are lost to me forever.”

He cupped Inuyasha’s cheek lovingly, then imitated the hanyou, brushing the white, moonbeam strands from his mate’s smooth, pale, forehead. “Please, Inuyasha,” Miroku softly pleaded. “I don’t want to die... But, knowing that I will be able to see you once again, to hold you, and be with you. I would gladly die for that. I would GLADLY die for that any day.”

Inuyasha lowered Miroku onto his chest once again, and drew him into a gentle embrace.

Miroku understood exactly what he was asking of him.

And it was a sign of just how much Inuyasha loved him, that he didn’t protest. His love meant that he would do anything for the monk. Even this.

He smiled sadly, cradling Miroku to him as tears clouded his vision. “Ya know, Miroku. I’ve always had to be gentle with you. Always careful. You’re so fragile that I was always afraid I’d break you. Even now when I’m holding you, I’m gentle so that I don’t crush you. Don’t kill you.”

He gave Miroku a gentle squeeze as if to emphasize the point. “And now, after all this time being careful with you... I have to break you. And I’m still trying to think of the most gentle way t...”

He let out a sob against the monk that had been held in for so long, his whole body shook with it. “God I love you...”

Miroku stroked Inuyasha’s blanket of snowy hair for a bit, whispering words of calm into his ear, until the hanyou’s desperate sobs quieted. “Shhh... I know, I know. It’s alright. Shhh, it’s ok Inuyasha.”

“No. It’s not,” The hanyou whispered angrily into Miroku’s shoulder, then pushed him away harder than before, sending Miroku tumbling onto his back.

The monk lifted himself to his feet, and found Inuyasha frozen in shock at what he’d done. He sat, staring up at Miroku with such an innocent, heartbroken expression, that the monk felt his eyes start to water.

This is what he would leave behind. He felt his heart wrench in his chest, that he had asked something so terrible, so traumatic, of someone he wished more than anything to protect. That he hadn’t the courage to end his own life and spare Inuyasha at least that much pain.

He lowered his head. Shame, not allowing him to make eye contact with Inuyasha, who loved him so much that he would still do this for him, despite his cowardice. He was truly blessed to be loved so much.

Inuyasha had slowly risen to his feet, and moved toward Miroku. He reached out his hand to lift the monk’s chin. There was no shame in this death. Miroku needn’t have felt ashamed.

“Are you ready, Miroku?” Inuyasha said softly, barely above a ghost of a whisper in the balmy night air.

He pulled Miroku close before he had time to answer, and kissed him deeply, kissing him, so that even if eons separated their next meeting, Miroku would never forget this. That someone loved him. That he could never stop waiting for Inuyasha, no matter how long it took for the hanyou to come.

This though, after a long hard life, would make it rather easy for Inuyasha to follow the monk. He doubted if he could live long without him.

Inuyasha released Miroku’s lips suddenly and gazed for a long moment at the monk’s eyes, wanting to remember them perfectly. No matter what else happened, what else he forgot, he never wanted to forget those eyes.

After he made sure that every miniscule detail was clear in his thoughts, he turned his head and closed his eyes. Though Miroku’s haunting violet gaze still burned in his mind, he wasn’t able to look at the monk anymore.

Not with what he was about to do to him.

“Well... ready then?” he asked, not quite able to keep his emotion behind the ice that he had packed around his heart.

“Yes.”

Miroku let out an anxious sigh, and steadied his quaking body. Inuyasha placed his hands on either side of the monk’s head, trying to stare past him, but failing. With the saddest gaze the world had yet seen, he smoothed Miroku’s bangs back for the last time, and replaced his hand on the side of the monk’s head.

“I love you.” he said simply, his voice strained as he looked up to keep the tears from falling again. His grip on Miroku’s head tightened just a bit.

“I love you t...”

In the second before Inuyasha snapped Miroku’s neck, the tears did fall. Miroku flinched, knowing what was coming, but a cry from above stopped the hanyou’s hands from moving.

“There you are! Do you know how long it took us to backtrack? Why aren’t you heading to Mushin’s?”

At Kagome’s words, Inuyasha’s hands dropped feebly, and he fell limply to his knees, resting the side of his head against Miroku’s stomach. Through the rush of thoughts, and the suffocating numbness that was rising up inside of him, he remembered vaguely that he should have been, had everything not gone all to hell, listening to Miroku’s stomach for the movements of his child.

At that piteous thought the hot salt of his tears flowed freely from him, and he clutched Miroku’s waist for support. As long as he could hold onto Miroku, things would be alright.

The monk placed his hands on Inuyasha’s head sadly, lovingly, but a pain in his hand caused him to draw it back quickly. He stared at his cursed hand in absolute terror. The moment had finally come, and he could do nothing to stop it.

At least he could save Inuyasha.

Miroku shoved Inuyasha as far from him as was possible, and before the hanyou could realize what was happening, yelled to Sango who sat atop Kirarra with fear in her eyes at what she realized was happening.

“Take him! Get him away, Sango!”

Kirarra swooped down, and Sango adeptly swept Inuyasha onto the twintail’s back, who flew low to the ground, and away from the monk as fast as she could.

The ward stopped crackling, and for a brief moment, there was true silence. Then faster than thought, the wind tunnel opened with a deafening roar. Miroku again swung the void upwards, vowing to live as long as the curse would let him, as he felt the rushing, uncontrollable wind start to distort his hand, bending it inwards on itself, and beginning to suck him in.

Inuyasha, looking back from his vantage point atop Kirarra, soon realized what was happening.

“No!” he screamed against the rushing wind, struggling out of Sango’s tight grip. “Goddammit, let me GO!”

He wrenched free and dove from Kirarra, protesting cries fading as the twintails sped away, more concerned about her misteress’s welfare, than saving a love blind, fool of a dog. A last loud cry from Kagome managed to catch his ear.

“Inuyasha, come back! You can’t save him!”

“I’ve gotta try,” he answered her under his breath. “I can’t be left behind again.”

He ran towards Miroku at top speed, reaching the monk within seconds. Miroku fought even harder against his curse upon seeing the hanyou, a desperate, and fearful look in his eyes.

“Inuyasha run! Get away from here, NOW!”

“NO!” Inuyasha screamed, as he closed the gap between himself and the monk, bracing himself carefully against the high winds that surrounded him. When he reached Miroku he grabbed onto the sides of of the monk’s head as gently as possible, and stared intensely into his eyes.

“You wait for me dammit!” he yelled out over the deafening winds. “I don’t care how long it takes, I WILL come for you!”

With one last loving look, Inuyasha forcefully wrenched Miroku’s neck to the side, barely hearing the sickening pops over the cold empty roar of the wind, for which, he was immensely grateful.

The wind’s scream stopped so suddenly that for a moment Inuyasha feared he had gone deaf. Miroku’s body fell bonelessly into the hanyou’s waiting arms, and he lifted the monk easily. Inuyasha marveled at how light Miroku felt. Like a feather. Like a rag doll.

With a world weary sigh, he repositioned the monk lovingly, and started in the direction that the group had fled. Miroku was not all that had died that day. A good part of Inuyasha’s soul had made the journey with him. The monk though, had left no small part of himself to fill the aching void that was left. His mate was dead. He was dead.

After all, what reason did he have left, to go on?

Well there's that. I’m so sad now! Do you know how hard it is to write all of this funny stuff after a depressing chapter like this? Really hard, that’s how hard! I sure hope you guys enjoy these cause it’s murder on my imagination. Well here goes...


Miroku: I’m soooo hungry! What happened to all of our money?

Inuyasha: Genius over there spent it all on tourist attractions and pop.

Immortality lost: (sprawled out on hotel bed with head hanging over edge reading stolen copy of Brokeback Mountain) Hey man, that ball of yarn was HUGE!

Inuyasha: (rolls his eyes) Miroku, there's a broken vending machine outside. Gives out the stuff for free.

Immortality lost: Yeah right, it mysteriously got broken after you went out there. What a big surprise.

Inuyasha: Feh! At least someone gets us food around here.

Immortality lost: You mean gets you food. I didn’t see you sharing with us.

Inuyasha: Whatever. I’m still pissed that you made me kill Miroku.

Miroku: Yeah! Do you know how long I had to hold my breath!

Immortality lost: Bitch, bitch, bitch. That’s all I get from you two. Let me remind you that if you don’t participate in the fic, then there’s no point in having these little skits afterwards, and if there's no skit, then you two cease to exist. Do you see where I’m goin with this?

Inuyasha: Yeah, yeah, we’ll do your stupid little story. Why did he get to die though? He always gets it easy.

Miroku: That’s cause she likes me more than you.

Inuyasha: Yeah, she likes you more, that’s why she killed you right.

Miroku: (mouth hangs open for a bit as if he’s gonna say something, then closes) Good point. And well made.

Immortality lost: (still reading and not really paying attention) Come on you guys stop fighting over me, I love you both. (flips over and glares at story) THAT’S how it ENDS?! (puts down story and rubs temples) See ya next time folks...