Spirits in the Material World

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, so he is probably still a virgin.

A/N: Flashback time!

Contains character dea You You were warned.


Chapter Two: If I could wish it all away....


Blood.

I can smell it everywhere, clouding the atmosphere, as if I were standing on the edge of an OCEAN of blood. As if it were the only thing in the world. The thick, metallic pungency of the coppery liquid presses down, like a pair of huge, physical hands onto the air, compressing it so that no other scent is detectable.

Everything is going wrong.

I can’t stop the slight gagging that crawls up the back of my throat…can’t seem to close the wide staring eyes that continue to soak in the scene of carnage unveiling itself before me with a of the beauty and mystery of a bride. The sense of dread is palpable. I should be able to move, I should be able to do something.

My mouth opens, and my scream sounds unbelievably coarse. The air is so clouded that sound seems to get stuck in it. And so my scream lingers indefinitely, and although the rest do not seem to hear I know that she does. I see the flash of pain in her eyes even though they remain trained on her quarry. Beneath the barrier that she has created, they are locked together. The lights that spill and interplay in the shadows of the advancing dawn are not meant to be beautiful and soft, but they are nevertheless. And the two struggling beneath them, the embodiments of good and evil, they too possess a primordial loveliness that is impossible to ignore. These intangible entities made flesh; they seem to feast on one another fitfully although they barely move. If my mind did not know better, I would call this a lover’s embrace. The power and intensity in the gaze, the hunger of their hands holding onto each other as if the world would shatter if they parted as their inky hair caresses the wide expanses of their pale flesh.

In another time, another place, their mouths would meet and eyes would drift closed bringing this taut revelry at last, to fruition. The breathless perfection of these beings so perfectly mated in their contrasts, joining like puzzle pieces…colliding like forces of Nature. It would be too sacred to look upon.

But that is not what this is.

“KAGOME!!!”

I lurch toward her. That is when I feel his hands gripping my shoulders, pulling me down. I struggle, but it seems to do little. When was there a time when Miroku’s grip could hold me? His voice, that voice like warm honey, is sounding itself in my ears, but between the smell and the mad thoughts careening through my head, I can only catch snatches of what is being said to me. “…Your wound is….lie beside Kikyou and Sango…must not struggle, in the end it will only…Kaede …sent for…No one can get near them…” From the corner of my eye, I see Kouga wrap his arm around my middle. I watch my the red liquid seeping from the torn place in my kimono cover that arm, and his grimace of pain and anger surprise me slightly.

Why koi, I think looking at her, why do they try to stop me from coming to you?

Suddenly, I catch a glimpse of movement from the pair in front of me. Naraku opens his mouth, and the pain in the sound makes the hair stand on the back of my neck. Those dark eyes, once so full of menace, are flashing at her in anger and fear. Now! My demon blood screams to my mate that this is the time to strike, now is the moment to move against him. As if she could hear my very thoughts, her storm cloud eyes flicker with recognition, and the hands that clutched his shoulders with vice like force opened against his flesh to press themselves flat on the plane of his bare chest. The serenity in her open gaze is unsettling, and even though I can’t see movement, I sense her being gather itself and push forward.

There is a flash of energy too colossal to be real, a fall out that makes the winds tear the trees and whole of the earth tremble. The embrace breaks apart, and his hand slices at her shoulder as he falls backward, dissolving like a dream. The air seems to vibrate with a high pitched ring as the power that had so swiftly manifested itself resettles into the small figure left standing in the clearing before me. She staggers backward slowly, clutched right hand emitting a soft, violet glow. Tears spill unchecked down her beautiful face, and I breathe out a sigh at the sight of her. The hands that held me release me, and though I feel odd about the fact that they call out no greeting to her, they move with me, forward.


She looks up into my eyes.

Those eyes…I can never believe that I mistook her for another the first time we met. What manner of creature has eyes like this? Only her. Only my beloved. This is her color, the color of the sea at storm…gales sweeping the waves and stirring the deeps. The shade of mystery.

My hand reaches forward to cradle her jaw, thumb stroking at he baby-soft skin of her cheek. For the first time I feel safe enough to really smile. Looking at her, I notice for the first time how very young she is. Her face still sports the roundness of childhood, and her petal pink lips are so full they seem pouty. I pull her feather lightness into my chest and close my mouth over hers, delighting in the feel of her hands as they encircle my neck only to weave themselves into my hair.

Perfect happiness. A feeling of being invulnerable.

====================================================

And then, the scent caught my attention.

My awareness caught our scents mingling, as they should. Mated, my scent chased away the other scents present on her flesh,vingving only mine and pulling hers to the surface. That is when I smelled it. Death…the scent the body makes as all that sustains life within it flows away. I pull back to look down at her, and I can feel my face stretching into a mask of horror. Her unwavering gaze catches mine, holding it, as I feel her press something into my hand. I know what it is without having to look.

Shikon no Tama. The Jewel of Souls, made whole once again.

“I promised you, Inuyasha.” Smiling sweetly, she traces her hand over my heart, closing her eyes as she pauses to feel the movement of it beneath my flesh. “To always stay by your side, to bring the jewel into your possession….from that first moment, my life was yours. There has never been a doubt in my mind, I have never regretted…” A violent fit of coughing shook her her, bringing blood to her lips. As her chin sagged to her chest, and she struggled through the worst of the pain, I could hear the wet sucking her breathing made as the blood filled up her lungs. Moving my eyes over her nearly bare torso, I notice her shoulder for the first time.

It is the same wound that had killed Kikyou. The flesh on the inside of her shoulder, tormostmost completely through, nearly severing the arm…white flashes of bone peeked out, glaring sickly in the interior of the hurt place, making my head pound as I took it in. My mouth worked silently, and I raised the hand that did not circle her waist toward the wound, to do what I have no idea.

The salt in the air was the next thing I smelled. The sounds of mourning caressed the clearing air, blending themselves with her shallow breathing. It would be soon now.

Kneeling, I took her down to the ground as softly as I could. Reality attacked me like a typhoon, my hands regaining strength, and I knelt over her, straddling her leg. I looked up at the others, searching their shocked masks for advice on how to proceed. My gaze shot back to her shoulder, and I began to tear the sleeve from my kimono.

“We need to stop the bleeding, Kagome….breathe as softly as you can, koi, I will try to make it as p-" Her hand, turning my face back toward her face, cut off the flow of my words.

“Inuyasha.” She breathed the word softly, reverently. Indulgently. Gently she shook her head. “We both know that it can’t be mended.”

“No… no, we’ll stop the bleeding. You’ll cough up the d. d. It can heal…my blood should speed up the process a bit. We have to find a way!! Kagome, listen to me, goddanm it, you can’t just fucking GIVE UP!!!”

Even speaking the words, as badly as I fought to believe, I knew it was hopeless. She would be gone in mere moments. I placed a hand on the ground above her shoulder, and I leaned forward looking into her eyes. Although she was nearly gone, they had yet to glaze over….she was fighting hard. She would fight until she expelled her dying breath. Not that it should surprise me. That was why I had fallen in love with her, wasn’t it? She undaunted by challenge; Kagome didn’t have any concept of the word defeat.

Her one usable hand caressed my face, vying for my attention. She didn’t try to talk loudly, knowing I could hear her slightest whisper. Her eyes, those beautiful eyes that I loved so to look into, held me riveted to the spot. “Inuyasha…I will never regret this. The only path for me was the one that held me in step with you.” Her hand tensed as she tried desperately to keep her grip on me, to hold on until she was finished.

Struck by sudden inspiration, I leaned forward and covered my mouth with hers. Her flesh was cool, but she was as fierce as she had always been. This passion that she wielded still held such sway over me that for a time I could not recall why I felt such bittersweet sadness. I couldn’t recall the cause of the panic and madness that danced at the edge of my mind. There was only the two of us, her and I , the same as it was every time. I kissed until I felt my lungs burn and my head became light, and when I thought that I would pass out for lack of breath, I just kept kissing. Because this was the last time. If she dies, my heart whispered, then best it were like this…let her meet this fate unable to feel anything but the heat that drowns out the whole world every time we touch.

Finally it happened. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. I kissed her to sleep once, and that’s how it was. No abrupt jerks…nothing dramatic…just a simple…drifting… away.

And here, she lay as quiet as a babe; her face serene. The heavy peace death did suggest sleep, I thought wryly…just like the verse from the old poem she read me on the night of the new moon last winter. How did that go? “…her visage chill and pale in Death, but still so sweet as if she slept,” I murmered as I lay over her, foreheads touching. My free hand tightened into a fist as I tried to control the dam that threatened to break within me, tightened around a small, hard ball of something.

Slowly, I lifted upper body and looked down at her. Bringing my hand up, I opened it and gazed upon it’s contents.

The jewel winked in the rapidly intensifying light, and looking upon it at that moment I felt so many things. Anger, melancholy, hatred, awe…and hope. Perhaps, this time….

Looking down at her, I closed my hand around the jewel, and closing my eyes, I whispered my wish.


“I wish that our spirits would be together for all time.”