Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inuyasha.

Author's Note: This is the last chapter in this Side by Side. Please comment and let me know what more you'd like to see in future Side by Sides.

……….Kikyou died because of Naraku, Inuyasha thought wildly to himself. He followed her Soul Collectors into the distance. The others trailed behind him on Kirara. For some reason, Kagome wasn't on his back as usual. It really would have been better for Kirara, who was already bearing the weight of the others, and Kagome had insisted on going anyways. Inuyasha shook his head. He couldn't fathom the minds of humans sometimes. Returning to his anxious thoughts, his eyes clouded with jealousy. The woman I love died because of him! I won't let him have her!

"Look at this!" Sango heard a buzzing noise. "Insects!" She cut through one with her katana to reveal Naraku's Saimyoushou.

"It's a trap!" Kagome yelled. They all jumped from Kirara, not noticing a fog that had gathered.

They didn't notice that they all began to lose each other.

………."What is that up there?" Inuyasha could see something bright in the fog up ahead. Where is everyone? But his mind was only focused on saving Kikyou. He saw a clearing ahead and jumped up into a tree. "Huh?" Looking down, he saw flames and the very village where he had tried to take the Shikon no Tama all those years ago. This can't be. The hanyou shook his head. "Where am I?"

Suddenly, villagers surrounded him. They screamed at him. "That's him! The one who attacked us! It's Inuyasha!"

No, not, it's not me, I didn't- Without thinking, he ran from then, leaping over posts and trees just like he had before.

The night was suddenly lit up with flames, and Inuyasha was surrounded by them. "This place. I don't know where I am…" Feeling a cool heat in his hand, the hanyou looked down. Shocked, he saw the whole Shikon No Tama, still on the beautiful necklace Kikyou had made for it so long ago. "It can't be? The Shikon jewel!" Then he heard an enraged voice.

"INUYASHA!" It was Kikyou, yelling his name, thinking that he had betrayed her. Inuyasha noticed this time the pain and hurt in her voice. How had he let that escape him before? In an instant he realized what was to befall him, but it was too late.

He felt a hot burn in his chest from a sacred arrow. Surprise hit him like a bucket of cold water. Why am I surprised? I knew this was going to happen. It's just like that day. His memory synchronized with the clinking of the Shikon Jewel falling from his hand onto the ground as it rolled to a stop.

Inuyasha tried to sit up. "Ki… Kikyou." As he looked, she was suddenly there, in front of him. It's fifty years ago. The day she killed me. Tears were flowing down his cheeks, but the hanyou didn't notice them. The village that I attacked so that I could steal the Shikon jewel, when I thought that Kikyou had betrayed me.

Inuyasha noticed the look of pure, bitter hatred on Kikyou's face. She now looked as she did on the day she was resurrected. "Kikyou wait!" He commanded. "It was all a trap! Don't do this! Don't you remember when we, when we-" He broke off as Kikyou raised her bow and arrow and aimed it at him. Tears were now traveling unbidden down her bloodstained cheeks. All that blood. "No!" He cried out it a half-sob. Is this hell? Is it a dream? How did I get here? How did she? Kikyou…

……….Little did Inuyasha know that at that same moment, Sango was reliving the day that Kohaku killed her family, and Miroku was dreaming of his wind tunnel taking him over. And that somewhere in the woods a kitsune demon was lost and alone in a nightmare.

……….Naraku, now sated after committing an act on himself that he thought totally unnecessary, sat watching Kikyou sleeping in a tree. "The soul is such a fragile thing. Sadness, fear, and confusion." Naraku visualized all of the fools that were lost in the nightmares. "If even the slightest doubt exists, then the soul will be consumed with darkness." He looked down at the object of Onigumo's fascination with a half-smile. "You will be mine soon, Kikyou." Then he looked over towards Kagome.

Perhaps because of her jewel shards, that girl remains unaffected.

He smiled. "Only she will make it here. The stage has been set for you, girl." Suddenly, Kikyou's eyes snapped open.

"Aren't you the clever one?" She said in silken tones. With a blinding light she slashed through the puppet on the tree limb.

The real Naraku, still in the castle, chuckled. "How dare she?" He frowned, knowing that now he couldn't see what was going on with everyone. "She destroyed the golem. How dare she defy me?" He was working himself into an outrage. The jewel fragment that I slipped inside Kikyou's body is having no effect on her! I should have taken her while I had the chance! Now she'll escape. She'll escape from my clutches again!

……….Kikyou saw her reincarnation standing before her. She knew what she wanted to do. That fool Naraku thought he could control her. Inuyasha had not come for her. The miko had to rely on herself now.

"Kikyou." Kagome looked up at the miko, who grabbed her bow and arrows. "Kikyou!" She ran towards her. "You're okay! We were so worried about you!"

Kikyou aimed an arrow carefully at the girl. Her body shook from the feeling of Naraku's body against hers. She felt as though something inside of her had snapped.

"We've been so worried, and Inuyasha, he-" The girl was cut off as an arrow grazed her cheek and landed behind her, making a deep ravine in the ground. Gasping, Kagome felt a small trail of blood run down her face. She began to scream. And fell into the pit, grabbing a root to keep her from falling all the way down. Appearing unconcerned, Kikyou made her way slowly over to where Kagome was.

"Naraku finds himself frightened of you," she said to the girl. "He tried to control me with the sacred jewel, wishing that I would turn against you." All I was doing was helping villagers when they came for me, those men, and took me to that prince. The prince that turned out to be Naraku. The one being that I truly loathe. And where was my lover?

Kagome just hung on for dear life, gasping at the other miko. Will she save me? Noticing the Soul Collectors gathering, Kagome looked at Kikyou again. "There's a jewel shard in your chest." The Soul Collectors then held Kagome up in the air.

Kikyou continued. "Surely the priestess who guarded the Shikon Jewel has not fallen so low as to be controlled by a mere shard of the jewel."

Kagome watched, awestruck, as Kikyou purified the shard in her chest. Then she reached down and grabbed Kagome's shards. I can't think of Inuyasha now. And there's no way that any of them would understand, even Inuyasha himself. I have to finish him. I have to kill Naraku on my own.

"Hey!" Kagome gasped. Then the roots grabbed her and pulled her down.

………."Kikyou!" Inuyasha reached out for his beloved miko as she suddenly sank to the ground. Blood was seeping from the wound in her right shoulder. The wound made by his claws. It didn't matter that Naraku had shape-shifted into him. It was with those claws that the wound had been made. His claws.

Kikyou was shaking, holding her arm. Her emotions were intense; Inuyasha could tell. He ran over to her, pulling the arrow from his chest and throwing it down. Blood spilled down his front. Unconcerned, he ran over to the miko. "Kikyou," he cried, holding his beloved. She came to me in her pain. All alone. "Kikyou, you'll never be alone again. I swear it. I will always protect you. I will always love you." It seemed as though a spotlight was on them. He looked into the miko's eyes. They weren't joyful, as he had expected. Instead, she glanced sideways.

"Do you mean that there's someone else I have to protect?" He looked over to see another spotlight, where Kagome stood with her smiling face. When he looked back at Kikyou, she had turned into a root, and then burst into flames. Angrily, he pushed the remains away. "Of course! This isn't real. It's an illusion! How in the hell could I have…" Because I want there to be a life where I can be with Kikyou… He admitted to himself. But I can't leave Kagome, and Kikyou knows that. He ran off into the distance, the fog suddenly clearing.

Finding Miroku, he saved him from the illusory death. Then he directed him off to find the others. He would find Kagome. And he did.

Pulling her from the tangled roots, Inuyasha stood her up on the solid ground. "Kagome," he started, relieved. "These roots caused some kind of an illusion. It looks like you got away from it okay, though." He noticed that Kagome was looking right behind him, terrified. Ready to draw his sword, he turned around.

"Kikyou!" He called out in a strangled gasp. He saw that Kikyou had the jewel shards in her hand, the ones that Kagome usually carried. "Those are Kagome's jewel shards!" He then looked back to the frightened Kagome. "Kagome…"

Angrily, he turned back towards Kikyou. "Don't tell me that it was you?" You don't hurt innocent people, Kikyou.

Kikyou wanted to melt into his arms, but she forced herself to appear unfazed. "What's wrong, Inuyasha?" You didn't come for me, like you promised. "Why is it you're unhappy to see that I'm well?" You don't really care for me, do you?

"Tell me what you did to her!" The hanyou yelled, shocked. Is this what I get for leaving you alone by the river, after swearing that I loved you? I meant it, I meant it Kikyou. I still mean it. But he couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud with Kagome so close by.

"I tried to kill her," Kikyou said nonchalantly. She wondered if Inuyasha realized that if she really had wanted Kagome dead, it would have been easy. But she would make him pay. She would torment him. "What is it you're going to do about it?" She felt angry, betrayed.

His eyes flashed angrily into hers. He was trying to read her, but Kikyou wouldn't let him. Naraku's words rang in her mind. "What are you, a miko or a whore?"

"When Naraku had you under his spell, what did you think about?" Kikyou's breath caught as Inuyasha remembered the moments before, and a wide blush crept onto his cheeks. The miko laughed mirthlessly. "Would you have said all those things if you were going to kill me?" She wished that they were true. They had to be true. Perhaps one day, when it was all over… No. There would never be that time.

Her Soul Collectors gathered their mistress and started to take her into the sky. Running. I'm always running. I'm sorry, Inuyasha. That nightmare you had… It was my dream. Aloud, she said, "Embracing death together! Now that's a day I'll wait for!" Hoping that the hanyou didn't notice the tears running down her face, she rose upwards.

Looking down at her reincarnation, Inuyasha gulped. He scratched his head. "Tell me what she did to you Kagome."

"She took the sacred jewel back from me... I'm sorry," the girl said in a detached kind of way.

Inuyasha was furious. "That's not what I'm asking! I want to know did Kikyou really try to…" Not Kikyou. She would never harm an innocent person.

"Then don't ask me!" Kagome screamed and stalked off.

"I'll catch up, then!" Inuyasha hollered after her, and then sat down on the ground. He put his face in his hands.

"Kikyou, what did I ever do to you?" He looked up at the sky. "Was it killing you that day, even though it wasn't me? Was it not trusting you?" Probably. "Even though it wasn't my fault. Does that make me guilty?" Guilty enough.

The tears filled his hands and ran down his wrists. He didn't even try to stop them. His mind was in another place now. A place where he had loved Kikyou in the past, and even now, he still couldn't get the thoughts of her from his mind. He thought that consummating that ancient love would make it lessen; instead, it had grown. And it was now getting to a point where neither one of them could control it.

……….Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed it! The next one will come hopefully in a week or so…