InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love is a Fickle Thing ❯ Soul Searching ( Chapter 16 )

Love is a Fickle Thing

The Violent Tomboy; Well, they're never clear on that in the anime, so let's assume that Naraku masked his scent.

I bet no one saw the ending to this chapter coming! But kudos to Dreammistress Jade for the idea for a name! This is a little shorter then normal, but it's a faster update, and has a good ending.

Chapter 16

Soul Searching

Kagome was nude, wet, crying, and running through the woods. The same three words kept running through her mind. It wasn't him…it wasn't him…

“It wasn't him!” she screamed, throwing her head back. She fell to her knees and cried silently.

Inuyasha. He had been so distant lately. At the time, Kagome had thought he was just being more broody then normal. No wonder we kept running off, she kept pushing him away. He had held her, pleaded with her. He had begged her to believe him when he said he didn't do anything to hurt her. And what did she do? She slapped his across the face. If he had ever felt anything for her before, he must hate her now.

Kagome wiped her face and looked over her shoulder. For the first time since running, she noticed she was nude. She hiccupped and considered going back for her clothes, facing Inuyasha and Kouga. The idea of facing her suitors quickly made her decide against going back. She looked around and tried to find something that she could use to cover herself. She grabbed a bush and pulled off the largest leaf she could find. It barely covered a single breast. Kagome sighed let the leaf fall to the forest floor. She was nude, alone, and had no idea where she was.

“I should face them…” Kagome murmured. It wasn't going to be pretty. What was she going to say to them? She was pretty sure that they were only just going to figure out what had happened. Both had seen Naraku with her under the guise of Inuyasha. It wouldn't take them long to figure out what Naraku was doing. It was a simple matter of deduction from there. Kouga might want to believe that it wasn't always Inuyasha, but even he couldn't deny the truth.

The hanyou had been innocent. He had never done anything to her. What had he done since Kouga had brought her back? He had moped, stared, and simply asked her to trust him. And she had slapped him. She had pushed him and slapped him across the face. And after that? She had run into Kouga's arms. Kagome but her lip and stood up, and started to walk back to the hot springs. There was no way she could avoid it.

She trudged through the forest, her tears finally drying. She hated crying. She had done it so often lately. Who could blame her? It had been hell for her this past week or so. Not even a week. In less then a week, she had pushed away Inuyasha, accepted Kouga's mark, maybe even fallen for him, and then, it was all for nothing.

Kagome sighed. Would Inuyasha ever forgive her? How could he? She had betrayed him, pushed him away, and even come close to hating him for what he had done. Or rather, what she though he had done. What was she supposed to do now? Apologize? `I'm sorry for breaking your heart'?”

Kagome gasped. Broken his heart? Yeah right, Inuyasha didn't love her! But that would explain a lot...his distant behavior, his pleas of forgiveness. Although it seemed she didn't need to forgive him for anything.

Kagome felt cold stone under her feet instead of soft grass. She looked up and found that she wasn't at the hot spring. She found herself at a stony cliff. She walked to the edge and gulped. It was a long way down. Kagome fell to her knees again and groaned. She shouldn't be having these thoughts! She was only fifteen! Okay, maybe sixteen in a few months. But she was still a little girl.

Well, not as little as she might think. She was old in the Sengoku Jidai. If people like Miroku and Kouga was any indication, she was due to have a kid running around at her age. She hadn't forgotten the mere thirteen year-old girl who had asked Miroku is she could bear his children in an ironic twist of fate. She wasn't a girl in the Sengoku Jidai; she was a woman. A woman who was marked to be mated to a youkai. And before that, scent-claimed to another. And before that, propositioned by another, although she didn't really count Miroku.

In her world, she didn't even have a boyfriend. Inuyasha had become notorious as `the two-timer' to her friends, but they had only ever met him once. Hojo was a friend, but he was nothing more then that to her, no matter how many dates her friends set her up on. In her world, her biggest concern was passing math.

Kagome longed for that simple life. She wanted a world of boys, gossip and fast food pig-outs after school. She wanted to gawk at the cute new guy, spend time with her friends, and maybe pass a test for once. She wanted her old life now more then ever. She shouldn't have to deal with rape and youkai marriage at her age. She wanted to go back to her fifteenth birthday, and tell Souta to get his own damn cat out of the well.

She often wondered what she would do if the jewel was ever completed. Could she really go back? Could she go through the well, say goodbye to her feudal friends and live a normal life again? Could she really go back to being a normal Japanese school girl? What if she did? Would she go through high school, marry, and have kids? Would her grandfather walk her down the isle in her wedding dress, to the alter where she would commit herself to a man she loved? Kagome often fantasized about her wedding; a beautiful white dress, a bouquet of red roses, her mother crying, her brother smiling like an idiot and her grandfather beaming with pride.

Then reality would rear it's head, and she would look up into the golden eyes of her groom. Only now, sometimes the eyes were blue. The hair used to always be silver. Now sometimes it was black. Whenever Kagome tried to imagine a normal life, Inuyasha, and now Kouga, wormed their way in, reminding her that she was still a time traveling schoolgirl-turned-miko, no matter how much she fantasized. Could she go back to a normal life once the jewel was completed? No. Not after all she had seen and done. She had killed youkai ten times her size. She had traveled around the country, meeting all types of humans and youkai, not to mention the occasional hanyou. No matter what, she was always going to be Kagome, the feudal miko. Kagome the schoolgirl was going to have to take a back seat.

“I don't want this.” Kagome sobbed. She didn't want to have to live like this, fighting youkai and having to break a heart. No matter what she did, Kouga and Inuyasha were going to be hurt. Hell, Inuyasha had already been hurt. She never wanted to hurt him. But she did. She never wanted to have a wolf and a hanyou fight to the death over her. She never wanted…

She hadn't wanted to fall in love.

Kagome stopped crying for a minute and smiled. She hadn't meant to fall in love with a courageous hanyou that she had released from what was supposed to be an eternal sleep. She hadn't meant to travel with him, learning his secrets, seeing what he really was, youkai and human. She hadn't meant to catch the eye of a handsome wolf youkai. She hadn't meant for him to declare his love to her. She hadn't meant for two handsome men to want to be with her.

She hadn't meant to find friendship in a perverted houshi and a homeless taijya. She hadn't meant to be a mother to an orphaned kitsune. She hadn't meant to help the houshi and the taijya to find love in one another, no matter what they claimed. She hadn't meant to become a student and daughter to a kindly old woman.

But she had.

Kagome laughed lightly. She hadn't wanted to be a hero. She hadn't wanted to become a friend or even savior to countless villagers in turmoil. She hadn't wanted to fight an evil hanyou that had caused death and sorrow all over Japan.

But she was.

Could she give all this up? No. Would she? Not if she could help it. She had been more then willing to give her life for people on multiple occasions. And her friends had been willing to give their lives for her too, Inuyasha more so then the rest of them combined. Kagome's life wasn't perfect. But she liked it.

“I really do.” She said, grinning. She stood up and looked over the edge of the cliff. She had run away, and for all she knew, Kouga and Inuyasha had ripped each other apart by now. No matter who she loved, no matter who loved her, no matter who she hurt, she owed it to them to talk to them. And no matter what, no matter what they did to her, how Inuyasha felt about her, she was going to deal with it. She would cry, she would apologize, and she would do it willing. Because there was always the chance that he might forgive her. Because her friends would understand and be there for her. The idea of what was to come killed much of her happiness, but she was going to have to deal with it.

“It's time to go back and say I'm sorry.” She whispered, stomping her foot. Unfortunately, the cliff she was on had other ideas. Kagome gasped as a series of cracks shot through the cliff, shattering it. Kagome screamed as she fell into open air.

“I never got to tell him.” She sobbed, closing her. She never got to tell Inuyasha how she felt. She sighed and shut her eyes tighter. Kagome waited for the hit, hoping the Inuyasha and Kouga could move on. she waited. And waited and waited. It was then she realized that she wasn't falling anymore. She cried out softly as a cold, silky, thin object slid along her back. He opened her eyes, and a soft white glow filled her vision. She looked to the left and saw a thin, snake-like body. She turned to the right and saw a thin snake head that stared at her. She then looked straight up and gasped as another one of the white snakes slithered through the air towards her. The one that had wrapped itself around her torso, graciously covering her, began to lift her through the air. Kagome wasn't relieved, however; she had seen these creatures before.

The second snake wound over her backside and hips, again, having the modesty to cover her. And no wonder. They wouldn't want to bring her to their mistress nude. The two shifted her in the air so that she as almost in a standing position as they lifted her. Finally, they lifted her above the cliff. And Kagome saw the person she knew was commanding these things. The baggy red hakama. The white top. The quiver of arrows and bow over one shoulder. The sack of goods over the other. And the face Kagome had been mistaken for time and time again.

Kagome gulped as her emotionless brown eyes bored into her own.

“Kikyo…”