yume

(dream)

[a darker inuyasha/kikyou/kagome

I wake.

Before I’ve caught my first wheezing, gasping, panicked breath of air, my fingers are jumping around in a frenzied dance. I grope for sleeping bag, clothes, chest, searching for the terrifyingly solid arrow shaft that I know is there.

Only it’s not. The part of my mind not screaming in sheer, instinctive terror reasserts itself with firm common sense. I’m alive, I’m not bleeding, and dreams are just dreams. I know that as surely as one plus one makes two, and I’m Higurashi Kagome.

But it’s not so easy to convince my fingers. They're sticky with blood that I know isn’t there.

It’s stupid, it’s dumb, it’s a trick of the imagination that I should just shrug off. I repeat this mantra to myself as I lie in my immaculate sleeping bag, feeling red liquid trickle down in viscous streams from an invisible wound: pooling in the hollow at my collarbone, soaking into my clothes, tangling my just-washed hair into impossible knots.

I take deep, steadying breaths. The night air is suddenly stale and my nose stings with the heavy stench of copper.

I squeeze my eyes shut and battle this crazy hallucination. I want nothing more than to get up, throw my

(wetdrippingsoddenbloody)

—clean clothes off, take a cold bath in that little stream nearby, and stop torturing myself. But I won’t. I can’t. Though the exact details are already fading away with the first touch of misty-gray dawn on the horizon, there was—still is—an eerie crystal clarity about my dream. The touch and scent and taste of warm blood shiver on that indefinable border between illusion and reality, and giving in to the impulse to scrub myself clean would mean admitting the frightening possibility that they belong to the latter.

So I lie there as the sun inches its way over the edge of the earth and try not to scream.

-------

I’m a wreck by the time my friends start stirring. Bleary-eyed and yawning, I stumble and stagger and lurch around, making such a mess of things that Sango-chan finally sits me down in a corner and tells me not to move for a while. She does it in the kindest of ways, but her firm grip on my arm doesn’t let me forget that my friend is a taijiya after all.

I roll my eyes when I see Inuyasha headed in my direction. Great. It’s not like I meant to tip over the last cup of ramen in my sleepy attempt to ‘help’ this morning.

Inuyasha storms up to me with his familiar petulant expression and freezes. Literally. It’s like one of those hunting dogs that point when they’ve caught the scent, nose quivering, one leg up in mid-step, ears and tail alert. I would laugh if his eyes didn’t flicker in something akin to fear.

“What?”

“...Nothing,” he mumbles, giving me a troubled, searching glance that means just the opposite. “It’s just...I thought...nothing.”

“What?” I leap to my feet with the question this time, shedding sleepiness for the heady rush of adrenaline humming in my veins. The air tingles like it’s been supercharged, an electric crackle something close to the sensation of a Shikon shard nearby. I yank his hair as he tries to turn away. “Tell me.”

He meets my eyes reluctantly. I bet I’m a mess—bedhead, bags under my eyes, the whole nine yards. Is there something else he sees too? Something else that makes him duck away again and tell me the truth without meeting my eyes?

“It’s nothing! It was just for a second and it’s gone now. I thought...coming from you...I thought I smelled blood.”

It’s strange how little his words surprise me. I feel like I’ve known all along what he was going to say. There’s a certain rightness about hearing the words, like a lock clicking into place, like...destiny.

“Oh.”

Maybe Inuyasha feels it too. His next words are delivered in a strange monotone: “Kikyou’s blood.”

I clutch suddenly at his arm, as if the touch of skin against skin can chase away the weight I feel descending on us. I look up at his face for comfort, he looks down at mine, and we both shift our eyes away.

“It’s going to be ok,” I tell him unconvincingly, trying and failing to find my usual cheery optimism through the thick fog of the remnants of last night’s dream.

We both feel it, through the hollowness of my words: something ominous billowing up on the horizon like a thundercloud.

-------

We break camp more quickly than usual, thanks in large part to Inuyasha’s terse yelling and my quiet but harried packing, as if by moving fast enough we could our problems. Miroku and Sango exchange looks of confusion that become less confused and more worried as the day progresses and the oppressive atmosphere deepens.

Dusk falls on a nearly silent company of travelers. Even Shippou is oddly repressed as he requests his pre-dinner lollipop, and I hand it to him with a vague pat on the head.

I need to get out of here. I need—with choking, insistent urgency—tobreathe.

“I’m going to take a walk,” I say, my voice all artificial sunshine. “I’ll be back before night.”

And I bolt. I walk quickly—not running, because there’s nothingwrong so why would I run—until the crunch of dry leaves underfoot drown out the murmur of Sango’s worried voice and Inuyasha’s reassurances. The forest closes behind me; in the twilight, the trees are painted over with a fine veil of ethereal gray, and I imagine that I can see infinitely far, maybe even see through the trunks and branches and leaves. It’s a safe feeling.

Until I step forward into a clearing that catches the last rays of fast-fading sunlight and reality flips head-over-heels, an inverting mirror in which I see my own face, my own shock, my own vulnerability reflected in Kikyou’s eyes. I stand rooted to the spot not out of fear, not out of panic, but out of the irresistible, inescapable sensation of déjà vu. That same part of my mind that woke up screaming this morning is calm; its terror is already spent and it simply waits for the inevitable.

(ohmygodohmygodit’sthedreamrunrunrunrunrun)

but the calmness has spread its way through my body and my limbs feel soft and heavy and sleepy so that when the arrow does come, its graceful arc exactly the same as I remember, I—

-------

I wake.

“Kagome!”

Inuyasha’s voice is the first thing that registers. I open my eyes and pat myself over with the familiarity of repetition, but this time I’m expecting it when my fingers hit no arrow.

“What are you doing here?”

“I guess I fell asleep,” I say slowly, testing the feel of the words in my mouth. They taste false. Tinny.

“Why…are you holding that?”

My groggy mind registers the curious flatness that has returned to his voice, and I look down at my right hand.

“This bow? I don’t know.” No, not tinny, more like…copper.

“It’s Kikyou’s bow.”

“Kikyou’s blood, Kikyou’s bow, Kikyou’s arrow…” I murmur, touching the smooth haft. Automatically, I reach for an arrow.

“Kagome? How did you get that?

“Kikyou’s blood, Kikyou’s bow, Kikyou’s arrow,” I repeat in singsong, gracefully drawing a single arrow to the string. Wait, only one? I always grab at least three, just in case—but it’s ok, because Kikyou never misses.

(I never miss)

“Kagome?!” Inuyasha calls, eyes flicking nervously from her bow to my face.

“What?” I snap irritably.

(Wrong one)

“Kagome, what’s wrong? What are you doing?”

“Shut up for a second, Inuyasha. I think I’m starting to figure this out." I murmur the magic words under my breath—"kikyou'sbloodkikyou'sbowikyou'sarrow"

(My blood, my bow, my arrow)

—and something is indeed falling into place, a deep reverberation that hums into my bones. I block him out: check the feathers. Perfect. Check the shaft. Straight and true. Check the arrowhead: sharp enough to prick my finger. I raise the wound to my mouth but barely feel it because my mouth already tastes like copper.

“Kagome, please, listen to me—“

Finger to arrow to string. Left hand resting on the worn grip. The hum becomes a rumble becomes a roar that chases away the lingering uneasiness and all is right with the world. So long as I hold Kikyou’s bow.

(So long as I hold my bow)

“Put that down and we’ll go back to Kaede-baba, figure out—“

My fingers twitch, itching for more, and I obligingly swing the bow up and look out over the shaft. It points straight and true into the dark forest. The trees are somehow unsatisfying; I scan my surroundings until I find a promising swatch of bright red that glows like a bullseyes in the gloom.

(Red: the circle completes itself)

“Kagome, it’s me!”

(I know)

I think I may be crying; someone is sobbing in deep, wheezing gulps and there is liquid running down my cheeks but I can’t tell if it’s tears or blood all I can see is red red red

“KAGOME!”

Finger to arrow to string. Draw back the arm. Loose. The warmth of fulfillment, of finality flows through me and burns the liquid off my face because I see the target moving, dodging, but all too slowly because Kikyou is fast

(I am fast)

Kikyou’s arrows fly true

(my arrows fly true)

Kikyou never misses

(I never miss)

and all that I, Kagome, can do as the roar fills my head and blocks my ears and shatters me to my very core is hope that this is all a dream.

(and this time, it’s not a dream)

-------

Done. Finally. Don’t even bother asking what it means, because I’m quite as lost as everyone else. This isn’t meant to be logical or suspect to explanation. If it makes your skin crawl, that’s enough. Thanks for reading!