Through Blood and Fire

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha. He belongs the brilliant Rumiko Takahashi!


Chapter 6: Now Minus One

Kouga began running at full speed towards the well. No, he would not let his mate leave him. He would not let her go. Not at least without one hell of a fight. He loved her. Why would she just up leave hike tke this. Her words kept playing over and over again in his head. “I love you, Kouga, that is why I’m releasing you of your promise.” He still couldn’t believe ears. No, Kagome. I don’t want to be released. I want you to hang on for as long as it takes. I won’t let you go back until I tell you I’m still going to wait for you. With that final thought, Kouga quickened his pace.
Meanwhile, deep in the Western lands, and very upset hanyou named InuYasha, made his way to his brother’s castle in hopes to find him there. He was in luck. He picked up his brother’s scent as well as his sister’s. Might as well tell them now instead of letting them find out later. InuYasha decided to enter the castle through his room’s window. Yes, Sesshoumaru and InuYasha had gotten so close Sesshomaru now allowed InuYasha to live in the castle with Taki and himself. He had his own room and servants and everything.
He entered through his window and continued on out into the extensive hallway and down the grand, marble staircase, following his brother’s scent, into the hot spring room. This room was massive. It was almost like Sesshoumaru had taken a piece of the outside and stuck into this room. The floor was covered in grass with trees and bushes and flowers littering the ground here and there. In the middle of the room was a pool of hot springer, er, on one side which had a small stream running off towards one of the room’s vine covered walls, through bushes and trees until it ran out of a small drain in the wall. On the other side of the hot pool was the source of the water. A seventeen foot waterfall coming from outside somehow, replenished the fairly large pool with fresh, hot water constantly. Above, the roof was made of some kind of clear material, InuYasha had never been sure, but it allowed a crystal clear view of the sky outside.
In this room was where InuYasha found Sesshoumaru, dressing on the bank after finishing a bath. He ran over to his brother, startling him at first. Sesshoumaru looked up at InuYasha and new something was wrong. Just as InuYasha opened his mouth to speak, Taki ran in frantic.

“Fluffy, brother, have you heard!?” cried Taki.

Fluffy was the pet name Taki used for Sesshoumaru, whom she almost resembled. Like her older brother, she had the purple marks on her wrists and cheeks. She also had the long, shimmering silver hair both InuYasha and Sesshoumaru had as well as a long, silver, fluffy tail that fell from her waist to just short of the ground and the crescent moon on her forehead, a mark inherited by her and Sesshoumaru from their mother. But she had also inherited those adorable puppy ears from her father as her younger brother InuYasha had.

“What is wrong Taki?” asked Sesshoumaru, worried.
“Kagome is gone!” replied Taki.
“WHAT!?”

It was InuYasha’s turn to talk.

“It’s true, brother. Kagome has left us.”
“Why?”
“She has some cousin who must live with her now because her own parents are dead. Kagome thought it would be a good idea if she quit coming to the past because of her cousin. So she won’t be coming back anymore. Who knows if she’ll ever return.”
“So she just left?”
“Yes. Kept rambling on about some damn promise she made to her cousin a long time ago and that she had to keep it. She even told Kouga she wanted him to find another mate and released him from the promise they made.”
“WHAT!”
Sesshoumaru felt his head spin. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Kagome was gone. That couldn’t be. And then the whole ordeal with Kouga. Yeah sure he had tried to kill Kagome before, but that was a long time ago. He had learned to trust some humans, namely Kagome, Sango, Miroku, and Kaede and almost completely gotten over his hatred for them. He now thought of the young miko as well as the demon slayer as his little sisters and this news hurt him just as much as it hurt the rest of the group.

“Our pack is now minus one.” Taki stated in a solemn voice. Usually so bubbly, Taki had liked humans regardless of what her mother had taught her and Sesshoumaru, so she instantly like the upbeat Kagome and the two became fast friends, eventually winning over Sango. The trio were usually inseparable, except for a few occasions.
Taki began to cry and sob not bothering to hide her emotions, completely opposite from her older brother, who used to seem emotionless. But that was changing. Sesshoumaru went over and put his arms around his little sister and gave her a comforting hug. InuYasha, too, went over and petted his older sisters hair. It was a sad day indeed. Suddenly, Taki’s head shot up, startling both inu brothers.

“We have to stop Kagome. We have to convince her to stay with us. If we don’t, we may lose her forever.”
“Taki’s right,” stated Sesshoumaru. “We have to convince her that this plan of her’s is foolish.”
“Then what the hell are we still doing here?” came InuYasha’s flat reply.

All three inu’s took off in the directions of the well, running at a speed that would even match Kouga.
As they approached the edge of the forest they ran into Kouga and all four demons made for the break in the trees. What they saw though stopped them dead in their tracks. There was Miroku hold a sobbing Sango who in turn was trying to calm a hysterical Shippou. Then, by the well, was Kaede, a bright, pink light surrounding her and the well. The four walked up to the pitiful trio. Kouga was the first to speak.

“What is going on here?”
“Kaede is sealing up the well,” replied Miroku.
“WHAT! Why!” shouted InuYasha.
“Because, Kagome told her to. She said, she didn’t want any of to try and come after her so she asked Kaede to seal the well,” stated Miroku. “She said that her grandfather was sealing the well on the other side as well.”
“But that would mean she could never come back!” screamed Taki.
“That it would,” came Miroku’s tearful reply.
“That was her intention all along!” sobbed Sango.

Everyone looked at Kaede as she finished her spell. She turned and looked at them with the most solemn expression and left not saying a word. Kouga made a break for her.

“Undo that damn spell, old woman!”
“Alas, I can not.”
“And why not!”
“Because it was sealed on both sides, at the same time. The seal is too strong to be broken unless we were to open it at the same time again. Though I do not think I have enough p for for that. I know the elderly man on the other side does not.”

Kouga turned to InuYasha.

“Go get Kikyou. She could do it.”

At the name, InuYasha cringed. He had once thought he loved the powerful miko priestess, who was also Kaede’s older sister, brought back from the dead. She and Kagome shared a soul because Kagome was her reincarnation. But they were nothing a like. InuYasha used to chase after Kikyou and pine for her and was even ready to go to hell with her to put her wondering body to rest, but then he realized he had never loved her and wanted nothing to with her. He would have killed her, but Kagome still needed her soul back and to kill Kikyou would cause that part of Kagome’s soul to be lost forever.

“Feh. Go get the stupid bitch yourself.”
“Do it InuYasha!”
“Why? I don’t know where that corpse is. I don’t even want to know as long as she is a long way from me.”
“Kouga,” spoke Kaede, “not even my sister, as powerful as she is, could undo that spell. Even if she were still living. No, Kagome is gone forever.”
“NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!” screamed Kouga.

He dropped the elderly miko and fell to his knees sobbing. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. He had lost his Kagome, his mate, forever. He would never see his darling Kagome again. Never kiss her sweet lips, hold her soft body, smell her tantalizing scent.

“Why Kagome? Why did you leave me? Why?” Kouga screamed into the air. Taki, too, fell into a sitting position, sobbing. Sango ran to her and the two did their best to comfort each other. Miroku held a hysterical Shippou, who was now crying for his mama. Sesshoumaru and InuYasha stood, stoic, tears running down their faces. She was really gone, never to return. Their pack really was now minus one.