Chapter Nineteen
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I’m Only Human
“InuYasha, take me back…” Kagome said for the thousandth time, her voice strained from crying and screaming. “Take me back…”

“I told you no, he asked for this. Besides, do you want to die?” The hanyou snapped at her. “So shut up and stop moving so much, you’ll lose more blood.”

Kagome had barely paid attention to her injury. She was so wound up in her thoughts that it didn’t even cross her mind how badly it hurt until the half-demon had pointed it out.

InuYasha carefully set her down in a spot that wasn’t so snowy and tore off a strip of cloth from his robe. He tore the sleeve from the arm of the wounded shoulder so that he could dress her laceration. She winced as he first wiped the excess blood from the area, then, to her surprise, began to clean the wound with his tongue as a dog would.

“W-what are you doing?” She said with the last bit of the strength she could muster.

“Cleaning your cut. Now shut up.” He said hoarsely, then finished and tied the cloth around her shoulder. “It’s not perfect, but for now it will work.” He grabbed her other arm and yanked her off of the ground. “Can you walk?” He asked, but to answer his own question, she stumbled, briefly resting on his chest. Like old times, something in him stirred up and made his stomach feel funny from the contact. He pushed her back to stand on her own and she looked up at him through drooped eyelids.

“I don’t know… I’m really dizzy…” she mumbled. “But if I have to I-” she blinked and then her eyes didn’t open after that. She fell onto him again, breathing lightly.

“Stupid.” InuYasha said, lifting her up and continuing away from that area. ‘We have to get out of here. We aren’t too far from Sesshoumaru. Even if he can’t smell us, he is still drawn to her, because of that shard…’

“Damn Naraku. Brining us back from the dead and torturing Kagome like this.” He muttered under his breath, adjusting the wounded miko in his arms.

“But you wished to take part as well, InuYasha.”

InuYasha searched around for the voice he heard and spied Kikyou. “What are you doing here?” He snapped.

Kikyou dropped the bow in her hands and began to come towards him. “Naraku asked for me to come and kill you.” She said very calmly, not even flinching.

InuYasha took a step back, looking for an escape route.

“I had a deal with him.” She began, her placid hand feeling the rough bark of a tree next to her. “He was to bring you back, and we were to kill Kagome and your brother. If that was achieved, he would let you live.”

InuYasha still didn’t speak, but watched her as she came closer to him. “Why did you change your mind?” Kikyou put a sad expression on her face, almost pouting, something very uncharacteristic of the miko. “You were set on killing Kagome and your brother. She didn’t care when you died, she left you and went with Sesshoumaru. How can you forgive her for that, InuYasha? Didn‘t you want to be with me?” Kikyou was in front of him now, not even an arms length away. She lifted a cold hand to caress his cheek. “She never loved you, InuYasha.” She whispered softly, shaking her head marginally. “And she never will.”

The hanyou’s jaw dropped as he fumbled over words. He looked down at the still living priestess in his arms. ‘Did she never really love me?’

“Give it up, InuYasha. Keeping her alive will only hurt you. She has no use.”

InuYasha shook his head and took another step away from the dead miko. These words… all the things she was telling him sounded strangely familiar.

“I remember… the day you brought me back from the grave. I opened my eyes… I was glad to see you, Kikyou. Then you told me… all of these things, the things you’re telling me now. I was like a newborn, and I believed you. I had forgotten a lot of things that happened while I was living, so I gladly trusted the things you told me. I thirsted for memories, so I took ones that weren’t real.” InuYasha gritted his fangs together. “But now… I realize you only said those things to keep me on your side; on Naraku’s side. You never cared about me. Maybe you did once, but not anymore.”

“InuYasha-” She tried to interject.

“But I’ll tell you something, Kikyou; I don’t even give a damn about you after the things you did.” He glared at her through reddening eyes as he kept Kagome’s unconscious body close to him.

Kikyou narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine, that’s how it is.” She scoffed, and darted back for her bow, but by the time she reached it, InuYasha was off, dashing through the trees.

They were being chased after by two formidable foes now, but InuYasha couldn’t stop to battle them, it would endanger Kagome. He had to think of a plan, and fast.
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The jewel embedded in Sesshoumaru’s neck began to burn. If he could only extract it somehow… but it seemed too simple. He had been thinking about it for a while; he could just rip it out, but then what? Would Naraku know? Would he die? Whatever the risks, he decided to do it.

Carefully, he pushed his claws into the flesh of his neck, with much discomfort, and pulled the shard out. It burned the skin on his hand and the wound on his neck seemed to be growing. He felt faint, the forest around him blurring and refocusing, colors mashing together. He ripped a strip of cloth off of his haori and tied it around his neck to lessen the blood flow. The shard he held in his hand glowed a bright red. That’s when he knew that something was wrong.

In the mean time, despite the pain he was in, he’d track down InuYasha and get Kagome back from him. Now that he was free from the grip of the possessed shard, he wondered what he was thinking letting that hanyou take her. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her…