InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Drifting ❯ Withdrawal ( Chapter 3 )

Withdrawal

 

Sango and Miroku hovered over Kagome, distracting Kaede and getting in the way as she tried to bring down the girl's fever. While out searching for InuYasha, Miroku had found Kagome by the well, feverish and delirious. He had brought her to Kaede, and many tense hours had passed while the woman worked on the girl. Her delirium had passed, but her fever was still dangerously high, and the girl suffered from obvious dehydration. Under normal circumstances Kaede would not have worried too much about the girl, but Kagome had already looked sickly before the illness.

 

“Enough already!” she yelled at Miroku as he knocked over a jug of water, “She'll never get better with you two hovering over her! Out! Out!”

 

Kaede put a cool cloth on the girl's brow as the others scuttled out, trying to calm her as she thrashed around. Wake up, Kagome. Please, wake up.

 

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“Is he gone?” Kagome asked, peeking out from behind InuYasha.

 

InuYasha panted, still grasping the enormous tetsusaiga in front of him.

 

“I don't know,” he said guardedly, “His body has always regenerated…” He glanced over at Sango, who was digging through pieces of the rubble.

 

“What is it, Sango?” Miroku asked her, guarding her back in case the demon should return.

 

“I don't think he's coming back this time.” Sango stood up, and revealed the completed jewel in her hand. “He never would have left without this.”

 

“Naraku, he's dead…”

 

Kagome's eyes went wide while they all stared at the jewel in Sango's hand. Minutes passed without a sound from anyone.

 

“It's yours, Kagome,” Shippou said.

 

Kagome reached out her hand and slowly took the jewel from Sango. A wave of relief seemed to hit the group, and smiles spread over their faces as they started to grasp what it all meant…

 

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Kagome was trapped in the well. It wasn't letting her leave; it wasn't letting her go to him. She cried, begged, prayed, fought, screamed, but the well wouldn't let her go. Her body ached, and she knew that the pain would all be gone if she could just get to him. Everything was always better when she was with him.

 

The aching got stronger, and she felt cold. Her body convulsed in shivers. The walls of the well mocked her, dancing across her vision as she dizzily looked up, wishing to see that she had passed through. All she could see was darkness at the top, neither the feudal era nor her home. Desperately, she clawed the bottom of the well, trying to dig her way out, but it was useless.

 

She wailed, throwing her body against the sides of the well, ignoring the ache in her body. She couldn't exist here. She couldn't exist without him.

 

“InuYasha!” she called out desperately, “InuYasha!”

 

She was answered only by silence.

 

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“I think she is waking up,” Sango said.

 

“You have worked a miracle, Kaede,” Miroku said.

 

“She is a fighter, even in her weakened state,” Kaede said.

 

Kagome did not hear InuYasha's voice. When she opened her eyes, she did not see InuYasha's face. When the others reached to hug her she did not feel InuYasha's embrace. He was gone.

 

Gone, gone, gone. The words mocked her. She let out a strangled cry, surprising her friends. She struggled to get out of the bed, only to find herself too weak to move. Her friends gently pushed her struggling limbs back into the futon.

 

“Relax, Kagome, you're fine. You are getting better.”

 

I am not fine! I will not get better! Where is he? Why did he leave me? Her mouth was too dry to form the words. Instead she just whimpered.

 

“You need to eat, Kagome. You need to get stronger.” Kagome almost choked at the soup that was poured down her throat. The taste was too strong; the soup burned her. She coughed, harsh, ragged breaths escaping her.

 

She didn't understand it. InuYasha wasn't with her. He had always been there when she was hurt or injured, and after she had purified the jewel it seemed that he had always been there when she needed him. The purification process had been awful. When she let all those spirits go free, she had felt as if she had lost her own with it. InuYasha had brought it back to her. She had felt lost without the power in the jewel, but InuYasha had found her. Her entire life had all led up to that moment when the spirits were set free, and then it was gone. She was left without a purpose. InuYasha had given her a new purpose, a new reason for being. And slowly, she became that being, existing solely for him.

 

Gone, gone, gone.

 

The days slowly passed. InuYasha was gone, and once again her life lacked a purpose. Kagome wasted away even more. Kaede could barely persuade her to eat, trying to tempt her with every food creation she could think of. The only thing that Kagome could swallow was the blandest of soups. Sango and Miroku came to see her often, but their visits were short. They couldn't bear to see the hopelessness in her eyes. Even after her body had cooled, her eyes still burned with an inner fever, and just as her old optimism was contagious, she now spread a feeling of desperation to any who came near her.

 

“Where is he?” she once heard Sango say to Miroku.

 

“I don't know. He left without saying anything. The last time I saw him was when he went to the well to get her. When I went to check on him, she was sitting there. I thought she was dead.” Miroku let out an exasperated sigh. “What the hell happened?”

 

“Houshi-sama…”

 

“I know him, Sango. He wouldn't just take off. He never took off unless…”

 

“Unless Kikyou was around,” Sango finished for him.

 

Kagome felt dead. The heart still beat, the blood flowed, but Kagome couldn't understand it. She couldn't recognize her own body. It had changed so much, and even now it betrayed her by clinging to a useless life.

 

It was slow, but the realization dawned over Kagome that her body wasn't going to die. It was weak, but no matter how much she wanted it to, it was not going to let go. Something in her wanted to live, and she slowly succumbed to it. She started to move around, taking small steps with her unreliable body. Sango helped her to change and bathe. She tried to eat more, forcing herself to hold down her food. But even as she made the efforts, a part of her hated herself for it. Why did she bother?

 

Gone, gone, gone.

 

The words were softer, farther away. She began to help Kaede around the town a little, tending to the temple and caring for the few sick, though she tired easily, often needing to rest to regain her energy. She still felt lost, but she spent the days trying to tire herself out enough so that at night her dreams would stop haunting her with his face.

 

It was exactly twenty-four days after Kagome had fallen sick when InuYasha walked through the door.

 

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AN: I do not own the rights to InuYasha.