Sacrifice, an inuyasha fanfic

Disclaimer: Such a shame.

Summary: And in the end, they're only pawns…and she the unluckiest of them all.

Note: Canon. Kagome-centric. Thanks again goes to Morbidity and Kei the Incarnadine Goddess for helping me.

Author: Done! Finally, I'm rid of you!

Plot Bunny: Ha, you wish.

Sacrifice

( She )

Kagome was not just Kikyou's reincarnation.

People tended to forget that, though it shouldn't have been surprising; after all, a soul does reincarnate more times than one. Kikyou, though lucky enough to live past childhood, had been too misfortuned to live beyond twenty. The memory of the short-lived priestess should have easily been forgotten; her soul had already lived a million other lives, how important could just one more be?

Against all odds, it became legend.

Kikyou, who had been destined to live, to tilt the world once more down the cycled path of destruction and rebirth, had defied fate and died bitterly but selflessly. The Shikon no Tama, which should have been tainted black by her malevolent wish, disappeared off the face of the earth. By sacrificing her life and her vengeance, Kikyou fulfilled her duties as guardian and prolonged others' suffering.

It was for this reason that Kikyou was special, why she would never be forgotten; Kikyou had brought peace

Unfortunately, Fate could not be deterred.

In fifty years' time, through a time-slipped old well, there would emerge disaster and Kagome, whose blood glimmered like (with) a jewel. Starting the war Kikyou had suffered to prevent, Kagome would bleed the destruction of the world and then save it at the cost of her own happiness.

Kikyou's actions, though backed with good intentions, should never have happened. For the assurance of the future, as a means to an end, Kagome would lose her freedom to the cruel hand of fate.

The love (the hate), from a thousand other not-her-own lives, plundered its way into her own empty heart, shaped her into the person she was supposed to become.

(Instead of the person she could be.)

There would be no more choices.

And above all, no more accidents.

( emerged from )

When she was still fresh out of the womb, pink and messy with a crop of wet black hair, she wasn't crying. Her mouth was shaped in a perfect little "o", and she was trembling, her fingers lightly clawing at the pulsing skin over her heart. The lights, the sounds, the smells—white, subdued and harsh—did not seem to reach her. Her eyes (so unnatural) were glassy, tiny pupils drowning within a sea of torrential grey.

In the bright light, beneath the tiny purple nerves and shiny rib bones, her dark red veins shimmered and throbbed. Here and there, along the vein lines of her arms or legs, a tiny marble-sized bump would bubble through her translucent skin like white hot lava before ebbing painfull back into smooth quivering flesh. Her expression, peculiar for a newborn, was neither scared nor pained. Lost, perhaps.

Her small red heart was palpitating much too fast. When the doctor worriedly checked her heartbeat, he found two pulses, not one.

...What is she?

( the sinner's )

When she was four years old, chatter and sticky fingers and large liquid eyes, she was curious.

"Papa?" She tugged on her father's pantsleg, licking her ice cream cone. Beneath her warm hands the vanilla soft serve was already beginning to drip. "Papa, what's a heart?"

Her father glanced casually at his little girl, elbow-deep in suds and dishes. "A heart?" He chuckled softly before wiping his soapy hands on a dishtowel. Turning around, he squatted down to his daughter's level, smiling. "A heart is the warm place in your chest where all your love comes from." He first pointed to his own chest, then Kagome's. "See?"

Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Like a fire?"

"…Yes, you could say that."

Kagome stared at her amused father, thinking. And then, suddenly, she frowned. "Then I don't want a heart."

Her father blinked, then laughed. "And why is that?"

"Because it hurts, Papa. It burns."

Her look—innocent, troubled—strangled the laughter in his throat and he started coughing. Something deep in his chest constricted, despite the absurdity of her answer. After a small coughing fit, her father nervously cleared his throat. "…What do you mean?"

Kagome's eyes glinted in the light, already tiny pupils contracting until the whites of her eyeballs lapped at the grey irises. It gave her a haunted, unnerving look. "You know, Papa," she said softly, voice chiming like a bell. "Like in my dreams. Like the dead lady and her pretty purple necklace. She burns and the fire eats her until she's black, even though it doesn't hurt because she's already gone." Kagome paused thoughtfully, giving her melting ice cream cone a small lick. "Papa, does that mean my heart is black?"

Her father stared, horrified. The warm place in his chest gave way to an icy chill that slip-sloshed like stalactites from the roof of his brain. When he suddenly swept her into his arms, whispering, "No, no, no…" Kagome didn't understand.

"What, Papa?" was her muffled response against his shoulder. "Don't you believe me?"

My little girl…oh God…

( flame. )

When Kagome was six, unpredictable and burning and wise, she went to a funeral.

"I told you, Papa," she whispered sadly, watching the flickering, eating flames with knowing eyes. "Doesn't it burn?"

She held her bawling mama's hand as they walked closer to the pyre. She didn't weep, despite the pain devouring her insides, and shocked everybody when she smiled at the black body.

Evil, they whispered.

Good, she thought.

At least now you won't hurt anymore, Papa.

( In submission )

When Kagome was eleven, scraped knees and clumsiness and old enough to fear, she kept bringing stray animals home.

"Kagome?" Mrs. Higurashi turned worriedly at the sound of footsteps. She blinked as Kagome stumbled into the kitchen, arms woven around a soaking wet dog twice her size. Without so much as a word, Mrs. Higurashi had both Kagome and the dog wrapped in a towel and huddled in front of the stove. She didn't ask questions; her brittle heart no longer saw fault in her daughter. Whatever the girl did, whatever happened, she would always be there to help. With a dry sigh, like dust stirring in an empty coffin (because no matter how happy she was it always sounded like that now), Mrs. Higurashi reached for the phone, dialing the dog pound. She knew the number by heart; she had called the place so often this past year that she and the female receptionist had become friends.

The chair next to her groaned. "I'm sorry to have worried you, Mama," Kagome mumbled, head enshrouded veil-like in her towel. "I'm sorry."

Mrs. Higurashi glanced at her, phone in hand. "I know you are, dear. I know."

Kagome fidgeted, nervously pushing black wet hair from her flushed face. The dog whined from the floor, and Kagome reached out to pet it unconsciously.

There was silence as Mrs. Higurashi waited for the other line to pick up.

"I couldn't help it, Mama!" Kagome burst out suddenly, voice unnaturally high-pitched. The decrepit chair gave a gasping shudder beneath the slight weight of the girl. Mrs. Higurashi blinked, turning to her daughter. "He was just sitting there, all alone on the side of the road. I had to help him!"

"I know, dear, it's alright, I understand—"

"No, Mama! No, you don't!" Kagome was frustrated now, on the verge of tears. The dog whined softly, nudging gently into her palm, but she didn't notice. "You just don't get it, Mama. I…I couldn't help it."

As if on cue, the clock on the wall chimed midnight, vibrating with shrill little cries. Everything else went silent. Kagome, suddenly horrified, shrank back into her chair and pressed her terrified face into her palms. The phone, having fallen from between lifeless fingers, vibrated a "Hello? Hello?" from the floor, but Mrs. Higurashi didn't even notice it. Her face was pale, alarmed, tired.

The clock died away on the twelth ring. Silence enveloped them, thick and choking, before… "W-What…what do you mean?"

Kagome's strange eyes peeked beneath her fingers and all Mrs.Higurashi saw was white. "I…don't get to decide who I love, Mama," she whispered, and tiny bolts of some unnamed fear shot up her mother's vertebrae. "I just…love."

Mrs. Higurashi's brittle heart burst into tiny fragments and died (a second time). When she buried herself in bed later that night, wrapped in her lonely sheets and makeshift grave, not even the confusion could stop her tears.

Have I lost her, too?

( to memories )

When Kagome was fifteen, forgetful and living and so inevitably doomed, she fell through a time-traveling well, and tumbled straight into love.

Or...remembered love, relived love; because how can one find what one has (never forgotten) had all along?

"Grandpa?" Kagome peered into his bedroom, hair still slick from her bath. Looking up from the bed, a picture frame in his hand, her grandfather saw her and beckoned her inside. She shuffled in nervously, eyes everywhere, and sat down next to him. She glanced shyly at the picture in his hand before instantly looking away. Always polite, never rude.

Her grandfather cracked a smile. "Do you know who this is?"

He held out the picture to her. She glanced at the image, hesitating, before taking the frame and cradling it in her palms. She stared at the picture, carefully studying a man who looked mysteriously like her grandfather and an unfamiliar woman with grey eyes.

"Grandma." Her voice was soft and breathy.

Grandpa's smile widened. "Yes. She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

Kagome nodded. Grandpa sighed. "It's a very sad thing that she died before you were born." A dark shadow, a regret, (because he should have been able to save her) flickered across his face. "She would have loved you…"

The schoolgirl was silent for a moment, just tracing the curves of each face. And then, "She loved dogs…," Kagome whispered softly, unconsciously pressing a hand to her chest.

"Yes, how she…loved…them…"

Grandpa trailed off, blinking. His expression suddenly turned puzzled. "Wait…how did you know that?"

Kagome didn't answer him. "Grandpa," she said instead. "Will you always love Grandma?"

He frowned slightly, surprised. "Why…yes, of course. Why?"

"Even when you get older?"

"Yes Kagome. But wh—"

"And loving her doesn't…hurt, right?"

Grandpa's face flickered with a tiny perplexed smile, but his eyes sharpened. She gazed at him innocently.

His answer was slow, a little suspicious. "…Sometimes. Why?"

"It burns, right?"

(The hope in her voice had to be a figment of his senile imagination.)

The conversation lapsed into abrupt silence. Grandpa was quiet. "…What do you mean?" he said finally. "I don't understand…"

"Loving Grandma hurts, right?"

His small confused smile cracked. Suddenly, her grandpa sighed, the lines and wrinkles in his face sharpening. He looked…old. "Kagome…," he said tentatively. "I don't think you understand. It hurts to love Grandma because I miss her. Not because it hurts to love her…"

His words seemed to pierce straight through her.

"…Oh." She quickly looked away.

Between her sweaty fingers, the picture frame slipped, glass exploding in tiny shards and dust. Hiding her eyes beneath her bangs, Kagome leaned down to pick up the photo.

In the window box of her grandpa's eye, from a distant memory aged by a distant time, a dying woman turned to a weeping man with a sad smile and whispered, "Promise me…you'll protect them. Don't let our children suffer."

It took fifty years and a broken girl for an aged old man to realize that he wouldn't have been able to save his wife from the inevitable, that he couldn't protect his children from everything.

(His wife had known all along he would fail; some promises are meant to be broken.)

Some people just couldn't be saved

Kagome…I'm so sorry.

( her heart )

When Kagome was sixteen, lost and aging and already burdened with a thousand lives, she remembered.

And she broke.

"What's wrong, sis?" Souta asked anxiously, moving to sit next to his sister; she was bawling into her pillow like the world had come crashing down over her head (because it had). He reached out tentatively to grip hertrembling shoulder. "Kagome?"

She hiccupped, shifted, and didn't answer. For a long moment, she just sniffled into her pillow, and stared straight ahead of her. Uncertain, Souta wondered if she had even heard him at all.

She had. Suddenly, she sat up and reached out to him. He let her hold him, returning the hug the best that he could.

He could feel the heavy frantic beats of her heart in her chest, a burning heat resonating through her clothing. Her face was flushed not just from crying.

"I remember," she croaked, burrowing her face into her brother's black hair. A trickle of sweat traced itself down her cheek. Her shoulders began to shake violently. "I remember."

Souta frowned, uneasy at the feverish feel of her skin. Was she…sick? "What do you mean? What do you remember?"

A pause, a sniffle, a hiccup, before…"I remember him. I remember her. Us." Her lip trembled. "They."

"…Who?" he asked, confused.

But by that time, she wasn't talking to him anymore. "I'm not me. I don't own me." Her tears soaked his shirt. Her words clawed their way out of her mouth and she screamed. "Why can't I just hate them? Why can't I forget? Why can't they just die!"

Kagome wrenched away from him and buried herself back into her pillow, violent gasps thrashing through her raw throat. Against her bedpost Souta sat, arms still raised in a half-embrace. Horror, terror, carved bloody patterns in the back of his eyelids and the hatred curdling in his mouth choked him.

His heart burst.

Inuyasha…what have you done?

( surrendered as )

When Kagome's body was seventeen, but she was really seventeen hundred (for all the years she had died in and all the lives she had relived again), Kagome succumbed.

(She loved too much to do anything else.)

When she came to him, gave herself to him, both of them knew it was for all the wrong reasons.

But both wanted it too much to truly care.

"Inuyasha...," she whispered against his throat.

He buried his fingers in her hair, clutching her bones tightly with a guilty pleasure. His voice alone held a strand of reason. "But…I can't stay with you forever," he labored, fighting off his own wistful thoughts. "Kikyou…"

"It's alright."

And that was that.

Together, in the evening breeze, they buckled beneath an oppressing requiem, a distant memory.

Oh Kagome…what have I done?

( a Sacrifice )

Somewhere, five hundred years in the past,

the rest of her

(Kikyou)

laughed.

My little reincarnation…see what it is to suffer?