Looping by weirdlykagome

The day she broke the loop

Disclaimer: Inuyasha does not belong to me.

I have been meaning to write something like this for some time. This one should be a short piece though. A tragic one through and through. But will have a happy ending.

It might get confusing at times but do not worry, things will become clearer as time passes.

Well then, enjoy the first chapter.

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“You are getting married?” Kagome’s shout rang throughout the quite clearing. A peaceful evening successfully shattered.

“Not married, engaged!”

“Engaged? Is that a political alliance? Sesshoumaru, if it is against your wish, you should say a firm no.”

“I already did!”

“What…- “Kagome was choked from the excessive shock of his sudden unexpected reply.

Honestly, Kagome had thought that he would say something like, ‘Shut up, you are just a human. What do you know about demon politics? We do not care about feelings…and all that.’

But his reply now strangely made her feel secretly ecstatic. And especially when he had that deadpanned, bored expression, it always made her feel like he was being completely honest with her.

Just out of curiosity, she poked him on his newly healed arm and asked, “Why would you do that? I thought you demons never followed your heart.”

“Why, you ask? Because I am the Sesshomaru!”

Ah…there he was again, ruining all the happy moments. Kagome’s face deadpanned and showed her lack of interest in his narcissistic appreciation.

“You can actually start appreciating your handsome face more often. You know stare at a mirror or something.”

Kagome was just being sarcastic, but who knew, the next moment he actually whipped out a shiny hand mirror from the inside of his Haori.

And then began to admire himself seriously. Look at the mirror, touch the arch of your jaw, turn your face from left to right, smirk arrogantly and repeat again.

Why was this naturally infuriating scene so funny to Kagome?

She couldn’t hold back anymore and laughed loudly, tears forming on the side of her eyes as she almost choked from her breathlessness.

Kagome turned her reddened face and looked up at Sesshomaru. Then she inadvertently stopped laughing, her breath had already been stolen away by the gentle smiling expression in Sesshomaru’s eyes. He had already given up on staring at the mirror and was intently staring at her smiling form.

It was like the surrounding had vanished at the moment. The only things that remained were them and the looming presence of the bone eaters' well

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“Huh?”

Kagome woke up from her peaceful sleep, tears streaming down her face.

“What was that? Who was that?”

Kagome touched her heart and it felt strangely empty at that moment. Was it a dream? A premonition? A feeling shrouded her as if engulfing her entire soul. She felt empty, so very empty like she did not exist. Her room was there, the chair, the table, the pink curtains but as if she was not there. She felt like she was a wisp, a figment of some imagination. She was scared. She felt so hollow.

“Kagome, come down for breakfast.” She heard her mother’s voice from downstairs. Kagome frowned, why did she feel like this, like the world around her would disappear any moment? What was this uneasiness?

“Coming Mama!”

Kagome shook her head and tried to smile. She must have been shaken from that weird dream she had. She dragged herself out of her bed and started her daily morning routine.

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“Shikon-no-Tama?” Kagome asked her grandfather. A blank look on her face. She never really liked these historical talks with Grandpa Higurashi.

“Yes, it is known to bring prosperity and happiness.” Grandpa Higurashi tried to teach his granddaughter with gusto and pride.

Kagome shook the weird-looking key-chain in her hand, The ball attached to its end shook as the house cat beside her tried to paw it. Kagome was amused. Was Buyo enjoying this? Grandpa Higurashi looked possibly scandalous as his granddaughter began to play with her cat, paying no attention to him or the keychain also known as the legendary Shikon.

“Anyway Kagome, about the Shikon’s legend…”

“By the way, Jii-chan, do you remember what is tomorrow?” Kagome asked, her face filled with undisguised happiness.

“Of course, it’s my favourite granddaughter’s birthday, how can I forget!”

“Then what is my gift?”

“Here! The mummified hand of an aged Kappa!”

Grandpa threw a mummified, green, clawed, strange-looking hand at Kagome. Kagome was utterly horrified by this sort of gift. What was she even expecting?

Grandpa tried to reach out as Kagome fed the hand to her cat Buyo and unsuccessfully fell down in the process.

The ground shook from Grandpa’s sudden collision and Kagome flinched, the feeling that took over her in the morning returning back to her.

Wait…why do I feel like this has happened before?

Kagome looked dazedly at the fake jewel in her hand, hanging from the end of a keychain. A phantom hand gripping her heart. She felt cold all over, why did she feel like she had gone through this day before, even had the same conversation?

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Could you please bring the review notes?

“Could you please bring the review notes?”

The phone slipped from Kagome’s hand, her hand shaking, eyes wide in horror. How did she know what her friend would say next? The familiar feeling of deja-vu did not leave her after she had woken up yesterday. After that dream, it felt like she had been repeating her day, not once, not twice but many times, so many times that she would know it like the back of her hand.

Of course, she never believed it. It was scientifically and logically impossible after all. She could not possibly be in a time loop. That’s why she decided to test her little theory today morning when her friend called.

She was right, Kagome was right. She knew what was happening and in vivid details like she had repeated the day, the scenario for hundreds and thousands of times. Like she had circled around the entire forest and had returned to the starting point.

It was terrible, it was scary, it was horrifying. Kagome felt her stomach revolting. She felt nauseous. Then suddenly she heard a sound from the woodshed.

No…no…no…

Kagome’s back was wet with cold sweat. It was happening, it was happening again. But what was?

The more horrifying thing than being in a possible time loop was actually forgetting what would happen next.

Kagome felt that hollow feeling again. There was a gap in her memory. Kagome’s head spun, her body feeling weak. She was scared. How was she supposed to battle ‘it’, if she did not remember what was this ‘it’?

“Nee-chan! Nee-chan!” Kagome heard her brother shouting from the woodshed.

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Like being able to suddenly breathe after remaining underwater for too long, the previously hazy surrounding suddenly cleared in front of Kagome’s eyes. The crisp and terrifying call of Souta piercing her heart.

No…no…no!

Kagome felt a prickling at the back of her mind. Launching herself from the ground, she dashed madly towards the old woodshed.

I remember now, I remember. The demon…it was here!

“Souta, move!”

Kagome launched herself into the air, lunging towards the pitifully fallen brother, sweeping him from the ground as she threw him far away, out of the woodshed. Almost immediately an intense light flared from the bottom of the well and multiple hands pulled Kagome inside the old-aged family well that had been closed forever.

No…God! Not again, please not again!

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Kagome regained her consciousness not long after. The world and its story rushing forward, giving her one hell of a migraine.

“No! No! NO!” Kagome shouted fiercely as she pounded the ground of the well.

She remembered everything. Everything.

Coming to the Sengoku Jidai, falling in love with Inuyasha, getting jealous of Kikyo, befriending Miroku, Sango and Sesshomaru, adopting and loving Shippo and Rin, defeating Naraku and more than anything losing them all in a battle. All of them!

The scene of them lying on the ground, their bodies broken, splattered with their lifeblood and then her life in the modern era as she got removed from the feudal era forever. She remembered it all. But more than all, the thing she remembered the most was her repeating this cycle. Forever. Forever.

Kagome’s eyes were suddenly open to the cruelty of her fate. She felt the cold dread of a certainty forming in her heart. She was in a time loop, repeating the most painful time of her life, like resurrecting herself over and over again only to kill her from the inside out of her soul. Why was fate so cruel to her?

Kagome wailed loudly as it reverberated inside the hauntingly deep well, making it sound eerier, more heart-wrenching.  

“Why? Why? Why?” Kagome shouted; her voice hoarse from the over abuse of her vocals.

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One day had passed since Kagome had begun repeating the circle again.

Kagome felt numb to everything.

She picked herself from the bottom of the well and very reluctantly climbed the vines on the side of the well. As expected, she found Inuyasha pinned to the tree, but Kagome felt nothing. All her longing and love for Inuyasha seemed to have vanished into the thin air. The only thing that remained was the pain, the heart-wrenching pain of seeing him mauled on his own claws as they had slashed his own throat.

She stared at the half-demon for a long time as she stood in front of her destiny.

“Long time no see, Inuyasha!” A shallow depreciating chuckle left her mouth.

Kagome turned around from the boy, her heart cold as she stepped forward, her feet like lead and her soul aching from the pain of the memories. She walked towards the village, ready to begin another time loop.

If I do not feel anything, nothing will hurt me.

Or so she thought but that day in the eve when Inuyasha coldly sneered at her, trying to claw her face, Kagome felt like a hundred pounds reality settling on her shoulders.

He forgot about me, they forgot about me, I know them but they don’t know me.

She kept on reminding herself the same thing over and over again.

The time she met Sesshomaru, the time she met Shippo, or Miroku, or Sango, or Kouga or Naraku. But every time Kagome was slapped the same way by her fate. She felt numb, cold and frightened. Her heart was pierced every time a new. She felt a bone-chilling sadness every time someone stared at her like she was a stranger. But she was that to them, a stranger. She knew them, would know them every time she came back but they would never remember her.

Then suddenly one day when they were all surrounding a fire, on a picnic blanket being warmed by the fire. Kagome stared long at the harmonious group of shard-hunters. The fire warming their faces, even Sesshomaru’s usual frigid face, They seemed like they were contented. They were in a little world of their own.  

The irrefutable truth passed through Kagome lips, “They would not even notice if I were to disappear one day!”

Kagome cried that night, more than she had ever cried in her life.

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The next day when the final battle began, Kagome felt all the scars she had received in the battles before almost magnified to ten folds. She fought more brutally, more frantically.

Maybe if I died this time…maybe if I could die this time along with them, I would not return to the loop.

But fate was even crueller to her. She lost her right leg, broke her ribs and punctured her lungs but never died. She was back in her world, visiting her school, getting her graduation certificate.

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Then the alarm rang and Kagome suddenly was back in the room, discussing the legend of the Shikon, the day before her fifteenth birthday.

The cold dreary reality enveloped Kagome and she laughed madly.

“I see, I see! I am back! I am back!” Kagome laughed madly, her sorrow and her pain shrouding her. She still felt the horrible pain in the right leg she had lost, which was now whole again. She stared at that leg wanting to chop it off.

Will that stop the looping? Will that free me?

 But nothing did, Kagome slashed her wrist and was admitted to the hospital. But was back even before the whole event happened.

She stared at the wood shed’s door and laughed madly once again. She was back before the loop. It would begin at any moment. Any moment. As if on cue, the well’s magic swelled, the woodshed shook.

Desperation gripped Kagome’s heart, adrenaline flowing through her veins. Not this time, not again. She could not go through that pain again. The pain of being forgotten, the pain of losing all the ones she loved. She could not, she would not!

Shaking the arms of her mother that was supporting her, Kagome flew down the stairs of her shrine to the main street and when she saw the pick-up truck rushing towards her, she welcomed the collision with open arms.

As she felt her blood draining from her body, and the well’s magic receding, she laughed in joy for the first time in her life.

“I am free! I am free!”

Kagome closed her eyes with a smile on her face, welcoming the darkness that made her feel ecstatic.

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A/n: Uwaahhh…what an intense first chapter. Heh! I hope I can maintain the quality of this story. Let me know how you guys feel about this plot.

Ciao~