Gravity by x.Amaterasu

Twice the Trouble for the Couple

Disclaimer: Inuyasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and all other entities that hold any rights to the series. There is no profit being made by this written fiction, save for the enjoyment I am hoping to supply you all with it. J

And so, without further ado,

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Gravity

Chapter 1: Twice the Trouble for the Couple

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     “Perfect,” Kagome mumbled, eyeing the bed of sizable rocks she must trek over if any hope for survival was desired.

            She glanced at the man already a few hundred feet ahead of her, studying the way he sprang from one huge rock to another with ease and worthy elegance. His long, glistening silver hair swerved in the opposite direction of his leaps and his landings were light and effortless.

            Kagome winced at the sharp ache on her calves and sighed at the sky, which had already commingled with deep purples and violent oranges from the midday blue and white clouds. Hours have passed since she and Sesshoumaru have started their journey toward any hint of familiarity, and they have been the longest, muted, and most rigorous hours she has ever lived through.

            Of all the luck disposed on Earth, did she have to be burdened with one so ill? With what she had seen and heard of the man, he wouldn’t likely make a likable companion, as he so eagerly proved by his unwillingness to converse. He hasn’t said a single word to her, even when she awoke by the river and he stood at the bank of it, entirely spaced, as though aggregating the details of their circumstance. After he was done, he simply turned and started walking, not once taking a look if she obediently followed.

            Still, she was alive.

            And he likely saved her. How else had she gotten on land with him? The reason why he did was beyond her and the impenetrable stoic of a youkai silenced any question she might have. Though she had plenty to ask, like what in the world happened, she kept them to herself, strictly telling herself that was appropriate.

            So far, he hasn’t demanded that she leave him alone, and for now, that’s enough. His presence offered precious company and safety from the youkai, and that’s enough.

            Despite Sesshoumaru’s leisurely steps, Kagome found herself struggling through the laborious texture of the land. Except for small animals and a couple of wild demons, the terrain for as far as Kagome could see was inhabitable. No sign of human living establishments have been present since they’ve started walking and it was hardly a surprise, for even the soil was dry and so unmanageable, there was difficulty in merely walking on it. The ache in her calves most likely resulted from the constant shift in the unstable level of the ground.

            As Kagome climbed onto the first of the interminable display of rocks that threatened to end her hope to get out of this mess, she recalled the events that played earlier that morning, slowly losing herself in the turmoil it brought to her emotions.

            “She’s…,” Inuyasha began, his face casted down before he peered decidedly at Kagome as he finished, “She’s alive.”

            He mouthed two words, but has determined many. In those words, Kagome unearthed the decision he has ultimately made. And it did not involve her.

            Two weeks earlier, when they encountered Naraku, they witnessed the demise of Kikyo by his fatal hands. The attack had pushed her over a cliff and into the river of Naraku’s lethal, purple miasma. Inuyasha had desperately searched for a hint of her remains – for any sign that could revive his hope for her survival – but to no avail.

Kikyo had disappeared, and she was assumed as dead until they’ve come across a small village earlier that morning, where they learned that an elderly chief was nursed back to health by the priestess Kikyo just days before and had immediately left the village right after.

“I can’t lose her again.”

His words were like salt to her wounds.

“Why does it have to be that way?” Kagome had yelled. Tears had collected in her eyes and blurred her vision, but she didn’t care. Her chest tightened and she enslaved her body just to breathe. “Even if she’s out there, it doesn’t change that she’s still—!”

Dead. But the word clung to her throat. After all he’s done that hurt her, after all he’d ever said that struck her, she wasn’t able to do his heart the harm of knowing hopelessness.

She thought Kikyo’s existence hurt. She didn’t think her disappearance could be so insufferable. To think that the man she loves had… died along with that girl’s death – that he seemed unable to summon love for anyone else once she’s gone – was almost impossible to accept.

Of course, she knew it had always been Kikyo. Inuyasha’s protection of her may have been sincere, but his heart had always been armored by what Kikyo could give—had given him. While the sword does the work and the shield does not, if the sword is turned against the shield, it cannot do much. Kikyo changed Inuyasha for the better. She transformed him to who he was now, and what has she ever done but get in his way during a fight and cry when she felt weak? What has she ever done for him, like Kikyo was so able to?

Her heart clenched when she came up empty. 

“I’m leaving,” he whispered, his eyes hiding from her. And it was because he knew what she felt and what he’s making her endure, but he’s fighting to keep his decision intact anyway. “I’m going to find her, because there’s been so many times I could have been there and I wasn’t. This time, I need to save her. But, I’ll come back.”

Kagome escaped the scene, not wanting to see how it will end, because she knew how it will end. She can’t convince him anymore, and she won’t try to. To fail this time would be fatal.

He chose her. Even now, he can’t help but choose Kikyo over her. He chose Kikyo over the Shikon no Tama. Inuyasha had butchered her into searching for the sacred jewel, yet he would abandon it all for Kikyo’s sake. Where does that put her? Below Kikyo, below the jewel…

  Kagome was tired of questions. It was a sad thing if your mind could only inquire, could only ask, and could only wonder.

She darted through the woods for as long as she could go, ignoring the jagged sting in her lungs as she pushed herself to carry on longer, farther. Her cheeks leaked with blood from small cuts she’d received and her legs and arms were roughly bruised and bloodied with injuries.

She gasped loudly and fell on her knees when she reached a clearing and realized she was whisking toward a cliff. She stayed on her knees and stared at the ground underneath her before her tears began to drool onto the earth.

After a while, she slowly collected what little she could of herself and scrambled uneasily onto her feet. Absently plodding toward the cliff, she sighed and closed her eyes, trying to feel the breeze—or anything, really—but just to feel something other than the pain. Her entire body felt numb and her chest felt like a giant knot of emotions that snaked throughout her body, down to the last fingertip.

“You are unfortunate.”

The girl yelped as she pivoted around instantaneously, briefly espying thin, silver strands before displacing her foot and losing balance over the edge of the cliff. She closed her eyes tightly as she felt herself fall. Suddenly, soft silk and firm, robust arms wrapped around her. Instinct compelled her to struggle against him.

Allowing him to save her would be unforgivable to herself. She was still angry, she was still hurt. “I need to save her”. It was Kikyo he wished to save, and so his rescue could only hurt her more. She felt neither relieved nor scared; she didn’t know how to feel anymore.

She sobbed quiet tears as she contested against him, throwing her arms blindly and jerking her legs wildly about.

But where did life threaten to take her now? Only once, did God feel, was enough for humans to live fully. Hurt is so natural and love, even more so. Love is unprecedented, for the same love is never felt twice. Love for everyone is different, like a new and brilliant, unknown color, when before, all we ever knew was black and white.

And if it so happens that her love should hurt this much, then she could only hope to have her heart broken by him, who has also made her so happy.

No sooner had she started to resist him, she flung her arms around him and held onto him solidly. Without a second thought, thinking she doesn’t have a second to spare for regrettable hesitations, she drew her lips hard against his and discharged every fiber of herself in that kiss.

Fire burned within her. Memories flashed more rapidly than she fell and all of them were happy. These will be what she’ll remember and keep. These will be all she ever took from him. Her broken heart soared and joined with the wind, and she wanted so much to kiss him forever.

They disappeared into the raging belly of the waterfall, their lips still intact, until Kagome is suddenly plunged into complete darkness.

Kagome tripped over the rock she was perched on and awoke from her recollection. Hot. It felt so hot all of a sudden. She assigned her right hand against her cheek and realized she was blushing.

That’s right. She had actually kissed Sesshoumaru, thinking he was Inuyasha. Mentally slapping herself didn’t feel like it would suffice for the humiliation she had literally plummeted herself into. If he had been angry about it, he did an incredibly annoying good job at hiding it. A small part of her felt insulted that the kiss she had poured her whole being into could be tossed aside and dismissed so easily.

She scoffed. All at once, she grasped reality. She was in the middle of nowhere, alone. The bed of rock stretched behind her, which meant she must have continued trekking along while she daydreamed, but in that time, had lost sight of her companion. Looking onwards, she found land, and more land. It was dark and chilly all of a sudden, and fright consumed her entirely.

What now? What in the world now?

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            Sesshoumaru sensed her aura pace from one emotion to another at unbelievable haste and each as heightened and intense as the next.

            Something had saddened her right before it angered her. Then she became indifferent and almost relieved, and then panicked and immediately scared. She was angered again and saddened again, all before she quickly felt determined, followed by aroused—

            The damned girl! She was recalling the morning’s riotous happenings.

            He had only pursued her after glimpsing her distressed dash through the forest. His feet had brought him to her by intrigued command and he watched in lack of interest as she merely emptied her human feelings. The stress in her heart clashed with his aura and its violent dance fascinated him.

            Tears are weaknesses. Mundane things for humans, who find no fault in the display of such things. Yet her aura almost challenged his. In her oppressed state, she unconsciously dared a fight instead of wallowing within the flaw that only makes demons that much more superior to humans. As a lord of a most exuberant land, he, Sesshoumaru, possessed no tolerance for anything beneath his considerable magnitude. Nevertheless, he would never bother with his claws needlessly. Such inconvenience would only stain his glory as well as his claws, which he wasn’t fond of cleaning up so the stench could leave his person.

            He inspected the way she moved – so pathetically weakened by mental things. She treaded carelessly near the cliff and he smirked at how truly demented she must have driven herself into. But then she lifted her chin at the empty air and lightly veiled her eyes, and it baffled him that she didn’t dive to her own death after her overwhelming show of water works.

            Advancing forward so that he is revealed from the shadows of the surrounding trees, he stood right behind her for a while. Contemplating what to do was blurred momentarily by the confusions she had successfully provoked, but he quickly recollected himself.

            “You are unfortunate,” he heard himself voice indifferently.

            Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at what happened next. His actions were beyond him, but he eased it by accrediting her ability to bewilder the Lord of the Western Lands.

            Her aura was still distracted by her thoughts when Sesshoumaru heard a rustle several hundred feet away. Without hesitating, he raced toward the small-fry fiends that would so willingly blurt what Sesshoumaru wanted to know about their whereabouts, or otherwise taste the poison of his claws.

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            Kagome scanned her surroundings listlessly. Her ability to care was diminishing fast with her hopeless situation. Sesshoumaru had abandoned her; guiltlessly forsaken her into the great unknown. Having walked, hopped, fallen, jumped – and on and on – all day has drained her energy and she was on the verge of giving in to her exhaustion.

            However, if she doesn’t find a safe and preferably warm place to stay for the night, she knew she would be as good as breakfast buffet for the animals undoubtedly desperate for food in this kind of region. Deciding she would rather die peacefully in a dirty, chilly cove than be scattered all across an isolated terrain in the bellies of wild animals, she continued weakly on.

            About an hour into the dark night later, Kagome caught a glimpse of familiarity. Feeling hope surge throughout her body and fuel her bones, she ran toward the sight.

            Her object of faith turned out to be an old, ramshackle well. It almost perfectly resembled the Bones Eater’s Well, except this one was visibly much older. Not to mention the area around it completely lacked the greenery and fresh air the Bones Eater’s Well had. She sighed as the last thread of hope fled from her body and she stood downcast in front of the well. It was getting harder and harder to see what’s in front of her, and she knew that it would be impossible for her to find her dirty, peaceful cove now.

            She wasn’t sure how everything could have turned around so relentlessly for her in only one day and she was so tempted to scream and cry, if she didn’t know that youkai would flock around her at the deafening noise. And, she decided, that whether she lived through this or not, she will not cry anymore. Being so vulnerable had taken her here, alone in the dark unknown. If Fate was trying to be funny, she was afraid of what cunning trick was up Her sleeve once she conceded to tears again.

            Absently sitting on the bank of the well, she allowed horror and fear to consume her. Loneliness, too, and the bitter, stinging cold.

            “Miko.”

            Kagome snapped her head up in alarm, but found only darkness and a hint of white sparkle before realizing she had looked up too abruptly with much force. Her balance on the aging wooden well was lost and it gave in to her weight, easily breaking the tampered wood and sending her down the well.

            But she was exhausted now and her body failed her. Her mind failed her as it just then decided to finally give in. Warmth pricked her skin gently and a small, quivering smile found itself on her lips as she embraced the feeling of Heaven. At least this must be Heaven, for it felt cool and relaxed, and her emotions drifted into nothingness.

            It somehow felt familiar.

            A hefty weight suddenly surrounded her and her lungs suffered painfully from the enormous pressure being brought down on her. Everything else felt numb but the sharp pull at her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. It was wet and freezing cold and the pressure was so heavy.

            Either she was being pulled or pushed, but either way, the force was adamant. It was difficult to even think—only feel. If a cold and wet Hell existed, she didn’t doubt that was where she was. It was suffocating.

            ‘Make it stop!’ she screamed in her mind.

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A/N: Chapter 2 will be up by Sunday, March 7. I hope you've all enjoyed the first chapter as much as I've delighted in writing it for you.

So so much love, xAma.