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Writing on the Wall

Chapter 26: Seeing Red

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Inuyasha doesn't finish his meal. The few bites he does eat sits like a weight, heavy and churning, until it begins to evolve into something else—something safer than the nauseating combination of doubt and betrayal.

Anger.

When he was a kid in the foster system, holding onto anger helped him survive. So long as he fanned it, kept that fire burning, it could eclipse everything else: the pain of losing his mother, the abandonment of his brother, the loneliness of being shipped off to foster parent after foster parent. Now, with the black and white image of Kagome's face—smiling—imprinted in his mind's eye, he falls into the safety anger brings. Let's it burn through his veins and pump through his heart. Anything to distract him from the heaviness in his chest; the overwhelming wave of betrayal threatening to drag him out to sea.

Miroku recognizes the tension in his jaw, the shaking of his closed fists. When Inuyasha goes to leave, he stops him at the door—hand on his shoulder and voice low. "Hey, don't do anything stupid, ok? Stay away from that house."

Inuyasha scoffs, shrugging the hand off his shoulder. "Whatever." He won't make a promise he doesn't intend to keep.

He knows confronting Kagome is stupid, but he has to know. He has to hear it from her. The article must be wrong—some kind of tragic misunderstanding—because the picture in his hands of a happy, carefree girl surrounded by family matches with the ghost haunting his home and casting offers of friendship in words and chalk, but the words detailing how she murdered them doesn't.

It doesn't fit. It can't be true. It can't.

He storms in, slamming the front door behind him. His pulse is drumming in his ears, a pounding beat that makes his palms sweat. The page of newspaper crinkles in fist; the photo of the smiling Higurashi family staring up at him with hollowed, inked eyes. Inuyasha hasn't been able to look at it since he stormed out of Miroku and Sango's apartment. "Kagome!" he bellows, fumbling in the dark for the light switch. "Where the hell are you?!"

He finds the switch—the lights flicker on just as chalk taps against the wall. 'What's wrong?'

He slaps the article against the wall, chest heaving with the force of his breathing. "That's what I want to know," he growls. The chalk drops, bouncing off the floor before rolling to a stop at his boot. He feels her gentle pull and releases the newspaper. It floats; trembling in the air. Inuyasha can make out where her fingers are placed by the dimpled imprints on the page.

"Did you do it?" he asks, hissing the words through gritted teeth. He has to ask—has to know. This isn't something he can overlook. "Did you kill them?"

He waits for her answer, but when it doesn't come quick enough he grabs a piece of chalk and shoves it towards her. "Answer."

She doesn't take it—not at first. When she finally does, the strokes of her hiragana are shaky. Chalk crumbs fall to the floor, lodging between the woven strands of tatami. 'Yes.'

Inuyasha feels his blood go cold.

She starts to write something else—chalk dragging against the wall in rapid, desperate strokes. Inuyasha doesn't stay long enough to read it. Just before he slams the door behind him, he swears he can hear a voice, hidden in the echo of scratching of chalk, begging him to stay.

AN: Sorry for the delay. Been really struggling the past few weeks and my writing has suffered for it. Hoping to get to a better place soon. 3 Thank you to everyone who has offered encouragement and praise for this and all my other fics. It means more than you know.

Word Count: 589