InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Eclipse ❯ Eclipse ( Chapter 1 )

Summary: And she came tumbling down.
Genre: General/Romance
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: This time, I blame it on the prune juice.

A.N.: Inspired quite loosely by the nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill, and one too many Jay Chow songs. Not that that's a bad thing. Squeal, Jay.

Please review!

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Each night, as constant as the pounding of waves against the foot of a cliff, he came to her, offering yet another minute Shikon fragment.

Tousled, dark bangs danced in the quiet breeze, white fangs flashing in a strained grin. "Hey."

Her wide lips curved sleepily at seeing him.

And the opaque, black jewel shard thrummed ominously in his grasp.

"Thank you," she breathed, slim fingers lightly skimming across his to retrieve her gift. Still warm from the heat of his palm, the shard instantly purified against the paleness of her skin.

Luminous grey eyes brimming with gratitude peered into his, making him remember why all of this was worthwhile, even as the towering trees cast opaque shadows across the left side of his body, effectively hiding the bloody wounds racing jaggedly along his arm and side.

Eclipsed by the darkness, he stood alone, immersed in his own misery.

It doesn't always have to be like this, a dry, selfish voice hissed in his ear. The hanyou had done nothing to deserve her. It is not stealing, when that which you take belongs to no one else.

"Come away with me, Kagome," he said abruptly, voice deepening from the pain lacing his muscles. "Let me take you away." From him, was left unsaid. Yet it loomed heavy in the stark silence between them.

I think that I'm afraid to fall.

"I-I'm not sure that I can," she replied, eyebrows bunching into a delicate frown. Her hands fidgeted awkwardly with the collar of her robe, eyes downcast.

Bright blue eyes narrowed for an instant. "There's nothing keeping you here." His jaw clenched against the sharp discomfort that seared his side.

"Inuyasha, he-"

"Doesn't love you," he whispered savagely, irises burning mysteriously through the darkness.

"But, he needs me," she countered bitterly. A leaf drifted from the star-littered sky, and knelt at her feet.

"I think... I think that I need you more." Stepping forward suddenly, he pressed his cool lips firmly against her surprised ones. "Don't forget that misplaced loyalty can abandon you to the will of the water's current, while the one in whom you had faith is flung aside to shore."

Then, as swiftly as he had come, he was gone in a whirlwind of leaves and debris. Only the wet imprint of blood was left against the back of her thin yukata, where his arms had encompassed her waist for that one moment in time.

The Shikon shards cooed listlessly at the surrounding obscurity.

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He brought with him the scent of dusk.

"You came back," she stated slowly, partly expectant, yet mostly apprehensive.

There was no self-assured smirk this time. Only the deep weariness of a samurai lost beneath the illusory cascade of plum blossoms in wintertime.

He reached out and removed the two, slender jewel pieces from his calves. "These are the last ones. Naraku has the rest."

She felt her arm stretch outward to take them. Felt the violet warmth engulf her hand as the shards regained their deceptively pure radiance.

The Noh mask fell from her face, splitting in two as it welcomed the pebbled ground.

"I think that maybe I can."

So like the tide, he patiently wore away her resistance, until one day, the last grain of sand was swept off into the vast, green sea.

"Run with me," he beckoned. "Promise me...you won't look back."

She calmly took hold of his outstretched hand, and stepped forth into the rippling waves.

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She discerned the unremitting aridity of the rural fields before them, caught the pitter-patter of tiny pebbles being thrown into a drying well, the final, hopeless neigh of a perishing mare.

They told her the world was covered by fathomless oceans.

Her eyes took note of the crimson moon and its wispy smoke curtains, tinting her world in precise strokes of oranges and reds.

They told her nature was its own artist.

She noticed he was running slower now, without the abstruse aid of the jewel fragments embedded in his still seemingly tireless legs.

They told her she was afraid of falling down.

It was impossible to decipher exactly when she stopped listening to what they said.

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The uneven edges of the cliffs stretched out before them, an artless tear in the approaching horizon.

A bittersweet wind engulfed her in its cocoon, muffling her weak cry of protest as she watched him leap easily across the extensive chasm. She shut her eyes tightly, tasting the sharp rancidity of disappointment on her tongue.

Left behind, behind, chanted the stifling air, as it coiled about her neck. Its echo reverberated across the canyon, and filled her ears with its hollow moan.

Biting down hard on her bottom lip, she gladly let the filmy tears waver her vision, hiding her from the faltering sky. Maybe I shouldn't have believed-

Almost without thinking, she turned misty eyes toward the flat landscape behind her, willing there to appear a flash of red, of silver, and deep, amber orbs. Yet, all that sped before her eyes were crackling globes of flame that set ablaze her entire world.

Grimly, the air shifted beneath her feet, and she felt herself tumble downward.

It was then that she could finally see his cobalt eyes, sad and ironic against the disappearing backdrop. Then, the earth creaked, closing shut above her, to leave her adrift with only tears and regret.

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A lone wolf's cry pierced the thick night air.

Kagome woke up crying, in her hands clutched the shattered pieces of a promise.

High up, the full moon burned red.

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End