Deceit, Lies and Malice
(FanFiction/Inuyasha/Angst)
By Danyealle
Chapter 5
By the time they stopped for the night things between Inuyasha and the rest of his pack were tense. Although they were still on speaking terms it was just barely and there was a distinct undercurrent of hostility directed towards the hanyou. Inuyasha was grateful that everyone was tired and bedded down early. If they hadn’t he was sure that there would have been a fight between them.
After making sure there were no threats in the area, that the fire was good to go with plenty of extra wood if it was a need and that everyone was safe, Inuyasha hopped up into a tree then settled on a branch that gave him the view of the camp he wanted. For the first time since Kagome had left he had time to think.
His first thought was one he had a lot anymore; if he had made sure that Kikyo had been destroyed after Urasue had brought her back they wouldn’t be in this mess!
After she had been resurrected he had become confused. Yes, he had begun to have feelings for Kagome by that point, a lot of them, and they were strong. Seeing Kikyo once again had thrown him into turmoil. Her anger towards him had also disturbed him. But he had pushed it aside. He felt that if he could just explain what happened then everything would go back to the way it had been.
He was wrong.
When she had tried to take him to hell and stole Kagomes’ shards to give to Naraku things began to change for him. Kagome had gone home after the incidents so the hanyou had plenty of time to think. To be honest, the things that crossed his mind about the subject disturbed him greatly. Quite honestly, the Kikyo he had known and fallen in love with would never have done those things.
When Kagome had come back he had slipped her away without anyone knowing to talked to her about what was going on. What they came up with was to let things seem to go on like they were to see what happened to find out where Kikyo was going with what she was doing. He and Kagome would act as they had been and not let on they had talked about it at all. He could handle the ire of his growing pack without a problem.
It was then that he realized that there was more to the little futuristic miko than he had realized. Though she could be a bit scatter-brained and change emotions and moods at light speed, she was intelligent. It was her, not him, which had come up with the plan. That was when he first realized that he would rather be with Kagome, the real Kagome, not the resurrected version of Kikyo.
It took only a few weeks for him to find out that things he was saying to Kikyo were getting back to Naraku. During a confrontation with one of the arachnids’ golems’ it had spouted almost word for word something he had said to Kikyo when there alone. It was then that he realized that, despite her assertions, she was indeed working with Naraku on some level. To say he was livid was an understatement! He had wanted to send her to the next life right then. And he would have done it too if Kagome hadn’t stopped him. Once again she had come up with a plan that made him proud. From then on he would start feeding Kikyo false information about Kagome, who Naraku seemed to have a keen interest in, and what his pack was doing. Hopefully, that could buy them some time to get a few things done without having to worry about Naraku dogging them at every turn. It also gave him a chance to make sure that everyone underestimated Kagome’s power.
The information he gave Kikyo was that Kagome wasn’t much of threat and that she wasn’t as powerful as what people thought. What power she did have was so chaotic and untrained that she wasn’t anything to worry about. He went out of his way to make people thing that Kagome wasn’t even close to measuring up to the power Kikyo had when she was alive. Thing was, it was an out and out lie. Kagome’s power fare surpassed Kikyo’s. While Kagome wasn’t fully trained nor in complete control of her powers, she was, most assuredly, a devastating threat especially when angry or protecting her friends. Realistically, Kagome was their secret weapon. Even the rest of his pack had no real idea how devastating her powers were. Most of the time she practiced away from everyone’s prying eyes. The only ones that ever got to see the true extent of her powers were him and Kaede. Both were very careful about what they said to people about what she could or couldn’t do. Inuyasha found it easier to say she wasn’t Kikyo to everyone and let them think what they wanted. When they were alone he always made sure he told her how proud he was of her and that Kikyo wasn’t nearly as good as her, the honest truth.
It was during this time that he realized that whatever feelings he had for Kikyo were a thing of the past. He couldn’t trust her any more and loathed what she had become. There was no way he could see himself with her again. In fact, each time he met her he found it harder and harder to remember what it was he saw in her in the first place. By this point in time things were actually opposite of what most people thought; he was comparing Kikyo to Kagome and Kikyo was the one that couldn’t measure up.
This was something that had helped him. Now he knew he had fallen madly in love with Kagome. The sweet, temperamental miko had stolen his heart and he fully intended to make her his mate once Kikyo was dispatched to the afterlife by his hand.
~~~@~~~
As the moon hit its highest point he saw a couple of Kikyos’ soul collectors flit though the trees, a signal that the walking piece of pottery wanted to see him. Shuddering in disgust, he checked his pack to make sure they were okay then took off to meet up with a being he was beginning to hate almost as much as he did Naraku.