Mad Lust by scelerus animus

Tragic Pity

Prologue: Tragic Pity

by scelerus animus

***

Kagome ran.

She ran and ran and ran. At the moment, her destination was unknown. And, really, her destination didn't matter to her at all. All that mattered to her at the present was how far she could run and how fast.

As she ran toward a unknown, uncared for destination, ancient, crippled trees with vicious clawing branches and scraping bushes whipped passed her, tearing at her clothes and leaving bloody scratches across bare flesh.

But she took no notice to the several wounds that her pale skin, like the claws of a monster. She simply ran.

Ran and ran and ran.

She ran away from everything she had known and loved. Everything she had loathed with fierce passion. Everything familiar and unfamiliar. It all had turned into a jumbled mess as lines were crossed and barriers broken.

So she ran. Ran and wanted to scream. Wanted to cry. Wanted to die.

/Pure Insanity./

Two names pounded in her head as she ran, whispering gleefully in her mind. They seemed to mock her as she swerved through the dark misty forest.

'Inuyasha and Kikyou,' they taunted her. 'Inuyasha and Kikyou. Inuyasha and Kikyou.'

Kagome jumped over a prickly bush with an extra burst of speed. The trees and the florescent flowers illuminated by the sparkling moonlight became a foggy blur as she continued to run.

But not because of any tears. No, not at all. For some reason no glistening tears streamed down her face. No hurtful whimpers where heard in anger or in sadness. Tears refused to come, and she didn't know why.

Maybe it shock. Maybe it was insanity. The world had had continued to spin as she stood still at the center. Or was it vice versa?

She could picture them perfectly locked in a tight embrace as if, were they to let go, the other would disappear into nonexistence. And him... him whispering soft words of love into her ear.

But as far as Kagome was concerned they weren't soft enough. She had still heard them perfectly from the tree behind which she'd stood.

Kagome raced through the forest with another burst of speed, this time in anger.

Dashing over another clump of bushes, Kagome turned right. The wind thrashed at her hair viciously, and she felt a sharp branch graze her cheek, scar her skin, /claw out her eyes./

A trickle of blood made its way across her jawline, but she took no notice. Just like she took no notice to the rest of the scrapes and cuts that had appeared across her legs and any other skin not covered by ripped clothing.

/InuyashaandKikyouInuyashaandKikyouInuyashaandKikyou.../

Those three vile tasting words echoed and swirled in her mind very similiar to the mist swirling around her, bluring her vision and mind of anything else.

And those words echoed in her mind, low, trecherous, like teeth, sinking inot her brain, infecting her with poison, never letting her go.

/InuyashaandKikyouInuyashaandKikyouInuyashaand--/

"AHHHHHHHHH!" The sharp scream echoed throughout the dense forest as Kagome tripped over an unearthed root and plummeted down a steep slope. Sharp rocks and rough bushes created deep crimson cuts along any skin they could reach.

A sharp cry escaped the young miko as her right shoulder slammed into an exceptionally jagged rock. White-hot pain erupted in her bloody shoulder and spread to her numbing fingertips. But still she tumbled downwards unable to stop, an intense pain coursing through her entire body, like a gleaming hot-white poker against ripe flesh.

As she tumbled downward, for a brief second she was able to catch a glance of her destination, and a cold fear settled itself in the pit of her stomach. A snake that squirmed and wiggled and twisted her insides.

This time her scream lasted, long and shrill.

Kagome's ear-splitting shriek reverberated through the dense woods as she rolled off the precipitous cliff into a misty chasm. In desperation, she flung out her left arm and grabbed the cliff's edge. Her breath came in short gasps, and her heart resounded in her ears, unwilling to slow down.

She peered down at the hazy void unable to discern the ground beneath it. The ashen fog seemed endless, extending for miles and miles.

How in the world did she end up like this... clinging for her life above a wretched bottomless valley, Kagome wondered with desperation, futility.

/Oh. Yeah.../

/Inuyasha and Kikyou./

-

--

They were locked in a passionate kiss when Kagome first spotted them. Then time seemed to stop for the young miko. Everything happened in slow motion and it pained her to watch them, Kikyou and Inuyasha. After what seemed like an eternity they broke apart but still clung to each other as if for dear life. Kagome had stood frozen not wanting to watch the scene before, but unable to move from the spot she stood at. Kagome could still remember those few words that had shattered everything:

"... I can't love Kagome; I love only you, Kikyou..."

Kagome had not stayed to hear the rest. With a furious, "SIT BOY!", she had sped into the forest, Miroku's herbs long forgotten.

--

-

A sharp pain brought the young miko out of her paralyzing thoughts. Kagome looked down at her abdomen to see her earlier wounds, inflicted from that lizard demon, reopened.

She let out a soft whimper in pain--white-hot and burning--and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Everything was so blurry. Her whole body throbbed unbearable pain, and her mind felt as if it might explode. Everything was so dizzy; swirling and swirling, this mist wrapped her mind in a haze. All she could see was Inuyasha and her incarnation, Kikyou. Kissing. Whispering sweet, soul-crushing words of love.

Words of love that had never been spoken to her.

Why? Why her? Maybe she was being selfish, but she just couldn't get that heart-wrenching image out of her mind. It taunted her. Mocked her.

/She'd never been good enough for him. Never as good as Kikyou. Never, never, never./

Not to mention the rest of the cuts and bruises scarring her weak body. She knew she wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. Her eyes and mind were already slipping into unconscious--that whirling mass of endless white--from the severe amount of blood loss.

It hurt /so much./

/So... what should she do now?/

/Hate him. Hurt him./

And, through hazy, tear-filled eyes, as she watched her fingers slip from the grassy cliff, a burning hatred flickered in deep sapphire.

"You shall pay Inuyasha," Kagome whispered, eyes slipping close surrendering to the cataleptic whiteness, as another vicious wave of dizziness rushed through her. Then she lost her grasp and plunged into the misty oblivion.

But revengeful death escaped her once more as a clawed hand fearfully lunged for her flailing one, taking a hold of it; a frantic cry pierced through her melodious unawareness tearing her away the blinding light at the end of the tunnel.

"KAGOME!"

The dazed miko reopened her glazed sapphire--why were they specked with white?--eyes to see the distressed amber eyes of a silver-haired hanyou.

"Inuyasha," she hissed, loathing and hatred coating every syllable with perfect care. She looked at the instantly shocked hanyou with seething fury.

/How dare he. Hate him. Hurt him. How dare he./

How dare he! How dare he shatter her soul and then wrench her away from any heavenly peace in which she might have dwelled! How dare he bring her back into this living world of agony.

"Is this what you wished for?" she asked, her voice intoned with a seething sneer.

"Kagome... I..." he stuttered, his eyes raking over her dying body, trailing from her scored face to her shredded blood-stained clothes and damaging abdomen wound, then to her busted bleeding shoulder, and finally following the heavy streams of blood, flowing down her right arm, dripping off her stained fingers into the cloudy twilight.

"...I..." he repeated, unable to say anything more.

Gold demon eyes staring angrily, questionly down at her, half-breed blood racing through his veins into a half-breed heart. She wanted so badly to hate him.

Just to simply despise him, want to rip out his heart just to show him what it felt like. She wanted to. And on some level, she did.

As Kagome gazed at him with fiery retribution, she watched as pain filled in his eyes leaking through the arrogant, all-powerful mask with which he uses to cover any sentimental feelings.

'Yes,' she slowly thought, another sharp pain ricocheting through her mind and body, 'it would hurt you, Inuyasha. This scenario might seem familiar to you. After all, wasn't this how Kikyou fell following her rebirth by that old witch. She fell off a cliff with burning hatred for you, believing you had betrayed her. Just like I am now...'

The passionate ire that seconds ago dominated the dying miko's eyes dwindled slowly until only a lingering fury was left.

Inuyasha stared at Kagome's eyes, wondering what in the hell was she doing? Clumsy girl, he had almost lost her!

And then the hanyou's eyes widened in slight surprise, confusion glimmering beneath golden depths. Anger, hurt and other emotions he couldn't identify flittered across Kagome's eyes. What was the matter with her? Did he do something wrong? What the hell!

The battle within her finished, and the emotion that dominated her warring eyes was... pity? and something else Inuyasha couldn't identify. Whatever it was Inuyasha knew he didn't like it. And why the hell was she looking at him like that? As a matter of fact, she looked a little strange, her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes. LIke a white mist swirling in them.

/Something terrible wrong./

"Kagome," Inuyasha said slowly, his grip tightening on her hand so she wouldn't slip, "What the hell's matter with you, stupid girl! What do you think you're doing, falling off a fuckin' cliff?"

"Kikyou," Kagome whispered, more liked breathed, interrupting his tirade, "isn't it funny Inuyasha? She was in this exact same position when she first returned while her spirit burned with a hate for you. And, now, you lie in each other's arms simply content."

Kagome watched the surprise appear in his golden orbs and silently laughed. Not a cruel malicious laugh, but more of sad merciful laugh.

Fate was so very cruel to her.

Kagome still despised Inuyasha, but it was not a burning vengeance like before. No, it had diminished until a miniscule spot was there for her hatred to fill. And there it existed because the young miko knew she could never completely hate Inuyasha, like she could never completely stop loving him. No matter what he did.

/No! Hate him!/

It had never fully been her choice to fall in love with the arrogant hanyou, but she could blame that on 'destiny.'

Everybody called Kagome the reincarnation of the kind and pure priestess Kikyou that lived fifty years into the past, but yet...

It seemed that even Kikyou, a soul of utter purity, still fell to the ways of darkness and evil, fueled by anger and disgust for her previous love, Inuyasha, whom she believed betrayed her. However, in spite of what everybody else thought, Kagome refused to let her fate be that of Kikyou's

"What?" Inuyasha demanded, his voice harsh, loud, but Kagome could detect the slightest bit of worry and confusion in that rough baritone. That was rather odd. Why would Inuyasha be...

Oww, her head hurt /so much./ And she was so dizzy. Everything was spinning, a whirl of white mist. Why did it hurt so much?

/Hate him./

"What the fuck are you talking about Kagome?" he demanded again.

As if not hearing him, or at least not entirely comprehending his words, Kagome looked at the pleading hanyou through thick eyelashes. And what she felt was... sadness and pity for him and... for Kikyou.

/Hate him./

/...Why?/

Kagome held no sympathy for herself though she knew she would surely fall to her death. It was inevitable, and she had accepted that. All her feelings were regarded toward the hanyou. Almost a tragic pity.

All his life he had been treated different for some reason or another, and hardships and disasters had seemed to follow him wherever he ventured. He'd felt like he'd never truly belonged anywhere and when he had finally found love with a miko named Kikyou, that, too, ended with loathing and punishment. Even though he wouldn't admit to it, the sapphire-eyed priestess knew.

Truly, tragic pity.

Another pain shot through her mind and being, and this time she was swept along into a current of misty white, suffocating and alluring. She still couldn't see properly, everything was so blurry, dizzying. Even Inuyasha himself. Almost as if... as if... she wasn't really there... or ...no, almost as if Inuyasha... Inuyasha was not th--

/It hurt so much./

/Where?/

But Kagome kept strong... just for a bit longer.

"You don't need to cry for me, Inuyasha," she murmured, smiling softly, eyelids slipping lower. "Funny how, I'll fall, but I won't not survive and return to you as your precious Kikyou did. You shall never see me as I am now. I will disappear and all you will have left is a dead priestess made of old bones crafted from clay and dirt. As a result of my death, my soul will return to your Kikyou's heatless body of clay. I hope you'll be happy."

"Fuck Kagome, what kind of crap are you spewing now? You can't go, stupid girl! What about the jewel?!" Inuyasha said angrily unable to except what was before his eyes. Had Kagome totally lost it?

Kagome gently shook her head as the soaring pain from her injuries began to take a toll on her conscious once again, the anger-powered energy having diminished away to a small dot along with her hatred. She strained against the darkness--whiteness?--that threatened to envelop her as she peered at the hanyou with a sad, cracked smile.

/Hate him./

/No... Hs can't./

/Hate him./

/Want to, want to hate him so badly, but can't./

Even when she was hanging off the cliff, Inuyasha always had a slight one-track mind. Just like him.

Just like he would always chose his true love, Kikyou, first. No matter what tainted the dead miko's once pure soul. After all, she had seen them, hadn't she? Of course.

Moreover, Kagome accepted and understood the hardships those past lovers experienced. She understood that Inuyasha could never love her like he did Kikyou, no matter how much she wished he would.

And that was where her teeny pool of hatred for Inuyasha and the dead Kikyou had come to reside deep within her.

It would always be there, precisely like the love she held for the hanyou who'd betrayed her.

/And she so wanted to hate him, rip out his heart and give it to the wretched hanyou on a platter. Fucking bastard. She wanted to hate him!/

"I'm sure... Kikyou could help you recover the last of the shards." She paused lightly. "I do love you, Inuyasha," Kagome whispered as his eyes widened several time their size, "but you have chosen what your heart desires and that is all I con hope for."

"What the hell... Kagome? What are you blabbing about, dammit! he yelled, looking at her as if she were crazy.

Kagome softly sighed, the dank air scratchy against her dry throat.

She would not be like the currently hatred-filled Priestess Kikyou who had perished fifty years ago. She would not give in to the raptures of pounding abhorrence and reprisal.

/Hate him! Hate him! InuyashaandKikyouInuyashaandKikyouHateHateHate!/

She continued unperturbed by Inuyasha's outburst, still as if she could not understand his words or didn't hear him at all. The empty hollowness of death started to creep into her flickering eyes, white spots that blinded with fiery pain. Why was the world spinning?

"I am not Kikyou and never will be Inuyasha," she breathed out, almost gasping, breathless, eyes flickering uncannily. "I only hope you will someday underst–stand this. The body made of clay and dead souls you are so enticed with, now, is not the Kikyou you once knew. I–it seems this world does n–not like you. I–I really do wish that you will find the happiness you could not find with me, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha finally managed to shout, "What the hell are you talking about, Kagome! You're not going anywhere!!"

The bloodied miko's white-speckled eyes fluttered faintly as her vision blurred completely; she had lost way to much blood and death--though why did it have to spin so much?--was coming to claim what was theirs. Nevertheless, Kagome managed to murmur one last thing, her voice delicately tinted with emotions indecipherable to Inuyasha.

"Right now, I pity you, Inuyasha," Kagome uttered and suddenly let go of his hand, white exploding before her eyes.

/Yes, a tragic pity./

All Inuyasha could do was stare in a shocked stupor as the oblivious miko dropped further and further away from him.

"KAGOME!" he screamed hopelessly reaching out to snatch her hand once more, only to realize he was too late.

Kagome fell into the silvery-white mist, her life

fluttering through her mind and her eyes drifting close not seeing the white and red hanyou above her, his golden eyes blazing with defeat.

/It hurts so much. This hate. But she could never hate. Never hate him. Nobody could make her./

The pure-hearted miko sunk into oblivion as she disappeared beneath the foggy clouds, her soul shattered but nevertheless, untainted.

***

A/N: Yes, this a long-overdo rewrite of a previous SessKag story. Most probably won't recognize it, since I haven't worked on it for nearly a year, which is a good thing 'cause I basically changed the whole plot line. Originally, I had a more annoying, cliche plotline that I hated so I got rid of it and am finally redoing the whole story. Still slightly rough around edges but hopefully, it will get better. ^__^ Anyway, hope you enjoyed and, please, reviews are greatly appreciated. Until next chap... later!