Sunday, September 26, 2004

   inuyasha 9
"Kagome! Kagome, are you okay? Please wake up, Kagome!" Shippo was tugging at the fallen girl frantically, his eyes going from Kagome's still form to the vicious battle presently going on between Inuyasha and the newest youkai in search of more Shikon shards. It was a humanoid, reptilian youkai that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and attacked, sensing the shards Kagome was carrying. When she had yelled out to Inuyasha that the youkai had a shard in it's chest, the youkai had flung the hanyou aside and come after her.

It had wrapped it's serpentine tail around her throat and lifted her off the ground, intent on leaping off with her, but Inuyasha was faster. Pressing his own attack, he kept the youkai right where he was and gave both Miroku and Sango a chance to attack as well. In his haste to avoid the assault that come on suddenly from three sides, the youkai had flung Kagome away violently and sent her slamming into the rough ground. Kagome had shuddered once and then gone still, momentarily distracting her friends before they renewed their assault even more forcefully than before. Shippo made his way hastily to her side while Inuyasha screamed his anger at the now struggling creature.

*

Kagome was having a day that was fast becoming the worst in her current lifespan.

She'd awakened earlier than everyone else to a shooting pain in her hip that had rocked through her so intensely it had doubled her up in her sleeping bag, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Had Shippo not rolled to the side sometime during the long night, she just may have smashed the poor kitsune with the instinctive motion.

The pain had taken what felt like a lifetime to fade away, leaving behind a searing heat that throbbed and ached with breath-taking strength. Gasping and trembling she had lain still, her eyes wide as fear and panic pounded through her head, each feeling vying for supremacy. It had taken long moments for her to regain control of herself, deep gulping breaths breaking the stillness of the night until she quieted through sheer force of will. She hadn't wanted to wake Inuyasha and bring on questions she couldn't give the answers to.

When she'd made her way to the nearby stream to wash her face, she'd come to find out her nose had been bleeding. Now THAT had most certainly worried her, especially when all the pain had been down at her hip.

Confused, she tugged aside her jeans and looked down at it, dreading what she might see. Disturbingly, the tattoo was glowing very faintly, pulsing an angry red in time with her racing heart. Yanking her jeans back into place, she looked around to make sure no one had seen that before splashing her face with the cold water to wipe away the rest of the blood.

The throbbing hadn't gone away, yet gratefully, the pain had died down into steady heat. But the morning's events had left her drained and pale, obvious enough to draw notice from her companions. It was bad enough that even Inuyasha stopped lecturing her about being drunk and instead been asking if she was all right. She was still annoyed with him herself though and just waved him off with a "fine." Shippo had latched onto her as soon as he woke up and saw her pale face, hissing at anyone and everyone who came close.

She'd barely noticed, instead focused on the bizarre tingling feeling that filled her when they started off for the day. It felt like her entire body had fallen asleep without her mind and she was still trying to wake it up.

That distraction had to have been what kept her from sensing the youkai and the shard he was carrying until it was too late for her to do more than walk right into his assault.

It had to have been due to everything she had gone through this month, but the only thing she felt when she was lifted and thrown was anger. Nothing like the anger she'd felt in the past either. This anger was so intense that it burned through her in waves, making her heart pound so loudly that she could barely hear Shippo calling out to her or even the battle a short distance away. This feeling was something primal, deep and violent as a single thought pulsed over and over through her mind, body, and soul.

Fight.



Shippo sucked in a hopeful breath when Kagome's hand curled into a fist and a shudder wracked her frame. He leaned forward and grabbed her hand, "Kagome? Get up! Please, get up and be okay!"

Kagome's eyes opened a bare slit as she gathered her strength and pushed herself up to her knees. She covered her mouth with one hand when a spasming cough went through her from head to toe, scowling at the blood that covered her hand when she pulled it away from her mouth.

*It's inside you, Kagome, just let it out.*

Kagome frowned, her eyes glassy as she looked for the source of that voice. The unexpected sound hadn't even startled her... It was warm and soothing, undeniable in its authority but subtle at the same time as it filled her.

*You can feel it, can't you? The power running through you...*

Her eyes drifted over to Inuyasha as she rose slowly to her feet, feeling strangely disconnected from everything happening around her. Her own heartbeat thundered much too loudly in her ears for any other sounds to intrude into her distracted thoughts as she watched the youkai crash his tail into the hanyou. Inuyasha was slammed sharply to the ground with a sickening crack even as the youkai turned his focus on Sango and Miroku. The anger she'd lost in her confusion at the voice's presence returned in a dizzying rush and Kagome felt ever muscle tense. Her eyes were riveted to where Inuyasha was struggling to get to his feet, his eyes blazing with rage and parts of his kimono darkening from unseen injuries.

*Let your soul break free.*

A clawed hand seized her neck from behind just as a second youkai presence with a shard registered in the red haze of her thoughts. She felt the vibrations of its laughter as she was turned in the air to face a youkai nearly identical to the one fighting with her friends. His fanged mouth moved around an arrogant smirk, but the blood rushing through her made it impossible for her to make out what the actual words were. Kagome just stared at him blankly, feeling the hum and tingle coursing through her as his claws tightened, digging into her flesh and drawing blood.

Something deep inside cracked...

And shattered.

"You picked the wrong bitch to fuck with today, youkai," Kagome wouldn't have recognized the voice coming from her own throat in a million years.

*

The unexpected sound cut through the fight, bringing it to a bemused halt. A creaking noise, like a great tree about to snap in a storm, following closely by a thick tearing. Overlapping the grotesque sound almost instantly, an inhuman scream of terrified pain had all eyes snapping towards the source with a sense of unreal disbelief. Inuyasha gaped, stumbling back instinctively as he watched the second youkai crashing to the ground. That in itself wasn't overly remarkable.

Kagome tossing aside the youkai's arms, ripped violently from their sockets, was.

The ground at her feet crackled with energy, ripples curling around her like waves on a pond before arching around her in pink and scarlet flashes. Before their stunned eyes, she straightened her spine, rotating her head in a slow circle to release the tension along her neck. That done, she walked forward with smooth, deliberate steps and as calmly as though it were an everyday occurrence, she put her fist through his face. Literally.

The youkai's body crumbled into dust and Kagome bent down, taking the shard between her thumb and forefinger before turning to face the other youkai. Her eyes were narrowed, glowing scarlet and flashing in time with that violent aura rippling around her. Fisting her hand around the purified shard, her eyes narrowed sharply and a gray tint spread across the skin beneath her eyes. Her lip curled back off her teeth in a mocking snarl, "Now you."

This time she simply held up her hand, the energy pulling from her aura to collect around her hand before blasting across the grove, tearing up the ground as it went. Her friends instinctively leapt out of the way as the energy slammed into the youkai, enveloping and consuming him as he screamed in helpless rage and pain. But that too was quickly choked off to leave only the sound of wind curling through the trees.

When the energy had died down to uneasy silence, Kagome walked through the furrows her energy had created and picked up that shard as well before slipping both of them into the vial necklace with a pink flash and a soft clink.

Her expression relaxed out of the feral rage, but her eyes still gleamed crimson as she turned to look at Inuyasha's astounded expression, his hands lax at his sides and his mouth working soundlessly. An amused smile played across her lips as she walked up to him, that smile widening when he took an uncertain step back away from her.

"Inuyasha," Kagome's voice had returned to almost normal...

"Ka-Kagome?" he leaned away from her, casting desperate looks to the equally stunned Sango and Miroku.

Without warning, her hand tangled in the front of his haori, lifting him effortlessly until his feet barely touched the ground. His eyes were wider than she'd ever seen, a strangled sound working its way from his throat as Miroku and Sango took up uncertain battle stances behind her. She pulled his face close to hers and whispered gently, "I've had a bad month, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha swallowed nervously, ears flattening as his hand closed over her wrist, "I..."

She flashed him a smirk disturbingly similar to his own, eyes filled with promise as she cut him off, "If you make my next one worse, I'll break you in half."

Kagome yanked him downwards, slamming him face first into the ground at her feet. Satisfied, she walked over him, planting her foot between his shoulder blades and putting her weight into it before she stepped off him.

She hadn't taken more than two steps, however, when the energy around her abruptly retracted. Kagome wavered on her feet for a moment, the red fading from her eyes and returning them to that glassy blue stare a moment before her legs collapsed, crumpling the girl to the ground in a dead faint.

Inuyasha picked himself up, his face pale and eyes enormous as he looked at her in concern, "Wha-what the *FUCK* was that!?"



***



I knew you weren't to young to use your powers.

'Who ARE you?'

In time, Kagome. For now, you need only to know that I will not hurt you.

'Why should I believe you? Was that me? How did I do that?'

Of course that was you! You said once yourself that the only way you knew how to swear was watching Inuyasha. Don't you think with as much as you watch him fight that you learned some of that too?

'That's ridiculous. I don't have the strength for that kind of thing.'

You carried the Shikon-no-Tama inside you for fifteen years while you lived... For centuries within your soul. How can you doubt that the power is there? You're strong enough to *not* absorb that jewel and to purify it no matter how saturated with evil it becomes. Don't you have any faith in yourself at all?

.....

I see.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

That you have a lot of growing up to do, Kagome.



***



"Dammit, Kagome, wake up!" Inuyasha shook her gently, scooping a handful of water from the little creek at his side and pouring it over her face.

Kagome's eyes snapped open and she tried to arch away from the water, sputtering in surprise, "Cold!"

Inuyasha let out a sigh of relief, dragging her up against his chest and burying his face in her hair. His arms tightened around her and he closed his eyes, turning her to tuck her head beneath his chin, "You scared us back there, bitch."

Kagome blinked rapidly, trying to clear the stubborn fog in her head, "Wow...what the hell was that?"

Shippo hopped onto Inuyasha's head, leaning down until he could pet Kagome's head comfortingly, "It was scary, Kagome! Your eyes glowed all red, and you killed those two youkai... By yourself."

Kagome pulled out of Inuyasha's embrace enough to look up at Shippo's worried face, "I did?"

"It was quite alarming, Kagome-sama," Miroku said quietly, drawing her gaze to where he and Sango sat close at her right, watching her in concern.

"What happened to you?" Sango leaned in, laying a hand on her back as her eyes searched the younger girl's face.

Kagome shook her head, raising on hand to her head as her gaze turned inward, "Actually, I don't... I don't really know. There was a voice in my head. Telling me to fight. Telling me I could..."

Inuyasha growled in frustration, his brows lowering, "I knew it. It's that goddamn spell!"

Kagome reached up, frowning as she set a comforting hand on his tense shoulder, "No... No, I think this is something else."

He didn't look convinced as he half carried her to a soft spot on the bank, taking the cloth Shippo passed him. He was growling under his breath as he dipped it in the water and lifted it to her brow, the sound severely at odds with the lightness of his touch, "It's too coincidental that this happened now, Kagome. What the hell else could it be?"

A wry smile touched her mouth as she recalled what the voice had told her just before she'd jolted awake, "Maybe I'm just growing up."

Inuyasha snorted, but he gave her a little smile that echoed the relief in his amber eyes, "Humans don't grow up, they just get taller."

Kagome rolled her eyes and muttered, "That sounds more like a hanyou to me."

Miroku shared a long look with Sango, shaking his head as he sent Inuyasha a speaking glare. With a deep sigh, he rose to his feet and grabbed Shippo by the tail as he walked past the pair, "You should see to Kagome-sama's injuries. We'll set up the campsite for this evening, Inuyasha. Won't we, Sango?" his voice trailed off with the broad hint.

"H-hai!" she jumped to her feet hastily and followed him, casting a concerned look back at Kagome, but giving her a wave to answer the question in her friend's eyes. "Don't worry, Kagome-chan, you just relax. Call if you need us."

Kagome nodded and sighed as they disappeared into the trees, "Is it just me, or do you get the impression they just don't know how to act around us since this whole mess started?"

Inuyasha cast a quick look over his shoulder before rising out the little cloth and turning her face back so he could wipe away the blood on her face and neck, "Keh, I think it's more that they don't know how to take you lifting me up and knocking my head into the fucking ground."

She blushed, laughing softly at the fuzzy image her mind gave her, "It felt good."

"I bet," he gave her a dry look.

"What? Don't give me your shit, Inuyasha, when you're the one going on about things being even between you and me," Kagome made a face at him, wincing when he rubbed a tender spot.

"Sorry," he apologized distractedly, but his eyes had softened as he brushed the damp cloth over her cheek with more care. "You hit pretty hard there, there'll definitely be bruises."

"Hn, if I can just somehow heal as fast as you I think we really WILL be even," she flashed him a smile and rubbed at a stubborn ache in her neck, ignoring the muted throb that was now becoming familiar at her hip. "Do you think that really was the spell?"

Inuyasha couldn't help but chuckle at the disappointed tone in her voice, "You'd rather it was all you?"

She shrugged, "It'd be a great bargaining angle for getting home."

He gave a short bark of laughter, "I knew it!"

Kagome frowned, punching him lightly in the chest and letting herself smile when he grunted, "I remember thinking that maybe I learned more from you than swearing."

"Fuck, don't tell me you learned that from me," he made a face himself, looking her over to make sure there were no more injuries. When his hand touched her ribs above her scar, her hand came up to stop him and his brows rose in question. "Here?"

"No, nothing else," she murmured softly, removing the hand and taking it in both of hers to distract him. "It's my head and all around my shoulders. Probably when I hit the ground."

Inuyasha nodded, once again pulling her up into his lap, her back to his chest as he wrapped his arms around her carefully, "I wanted to kill him. It seems like I'm not doing a decent job protecting you lately."

Kagome leaned back into him, closing her eyes wearily, "Maybe I'll have a chance to protect you for a change, Inuyasha."

She felt him smile against her hair before he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her temple. He sighed and grudgingly muttered, "Maybe I should start teaching you how to fight."

Her own mouth spread in a delighted smile and she craned her neck up to give him a little kiss on the cheek herself before resettling with a contented sigh, "That, Inuyasha, is the sweetest thing to come out of your mouth in weeks."


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