Chapter 9: You don't know what loneliness means until you are lonely and it's too late to undo everything

The little candle burns again in the dark light. My eyes are already numb from the harsh light that has surely been shining in my eyes for hours. My thoughts brushed, like the wind that blew around the little hut. How often I sat in this hut on stormy nights, how often I had watched Kagome sleep calmly. Back then, at that time I would never have thought that I would one day sit here alone, lonely and alone and above all desperate, yes I was desperate, I saw it, but how should I find my way out of this pit into which I am had been buried for years?
For the first time I felt myself really falling. I fell into a dark nothing, everything around me has changed and turned away from me. Any good deeds that I thought were did accomplish just the opposite.Kagome ... these men had them ... and was that just because of me? Where were my tears for her right now? I put my hand on my cheek, dry! Why didn't I cry over her? Was I already so desperate and so far removed from reality that this unreal event no longer took hold of me? Kagome, how could I leave you alone ...?
My eyes straightened up, outside the rain lashed inexorably against the small window pane. Only darkness ... and this too was alone ... no light ... but?
I rubbed my eyes briefly, hadn't a small shred of light flown past in the forest? I looked again and really saw something slightly glowing. Was it soul catches? But Kikyou wasn't dead anymore, but this little girl, Rin, followed her ...
Before I even noticed my feet were moving, I could already feel the wet and cold drops on my bare skin. These human clothing soaked through faster than my skin was ever able to, it now stuck to my upper body and cooled it noticeably.I blinked a few times before seeing the little light again. I took the short path into the forest in a few steps, the match making soft squeezing noises between my feet.
Under the canopy of leaves the view for my human eyes got a lot better, even better. The leaves held back many of the thick raindrops, which made the light glow in the distance all the better. I continued to follow my path into the forest and was soon able to see a girl standing in the midst of these soul catchers. I knew this procedure well enough from Kikyou. The little one took in the shining souls like the air to breathe.
I stopped without really wanting to, but my feet suddenly felt so cold, so, unreal ...
The longer I looked at the little one, the more she reminded me of Kikyou, although these pictures rather hurt, the fact that Kikyou had to move around as a dead person still occupied me, even if I didn't think about it at the moment, there was still time for it had to think about it at all."... Inu ... Yasha ...", came her soft voice through the rain, so she had noticed me.
I took a few steps out of the thicket, straight towards her. I had never called her by name, nor had I known her as a person.
"... yes ...", I just answer quietly.
"Kikyou is already expecting you ..." Her voice gave me goose bumps for the first time, or was it the fact that Kikyou thought I would be there? Kikyou, she knew me too well, she probably knew that I would come as soon as I saw one of the soul catchers. It was just an old habit that I still clung to so tightly. I clung to it like a prop, what if I didn't?
Before I could even think of going to her, I felt the strangely warm hand on my shoulder. I turned around immediately and looked into Kikyou's brown eyes. This brown, the same eyes as Kagome's, the same brown ..."Inuyasha ... please follow me ..."
Her voice was strange, so calm and yet sad. What was she up to? Without waiting for an answer, she turned her back on me and wordlessly expected me to follow her. Did I actually have a choice?
She was the only one who could turn me back into a hanyou ...
I followed her immediately without taking my eyes off her delicate back. I had touched her so often, hugged her so often, and now she seemed so human. I caught myself thinking of just hugging her and crying on her shoulder, but I couldn't. No, something in me was holding me back, was it the pride? I had lost it a long time ago ...
The forest around me became thicker and I struggled more and more with annoying branches. I used to just run through these branches, I didn't care, I had never felt if my skin was ripped open, but as a person it looked very different. I felt every tiny branch that scratched my skin and took a small scrap from me.Kikyou, she didn't seem to mind ... she was used to it, after all, she was human before. Everything that would normally have been taken for granted now turned and appeared in a completely new light ... how I hated being human ...
But after a while the branches thinned and I soon heard the babbling of a brook. It reminded me of my wet clothes and the cold that had already eaten into my bones. It was still raining, but the little stream seemed hardly to have been affected.
Now Kikyou turns to me, which immediately brought me to a standstill. Her eyes showed seriousness and bitterness. I just stared at her questioningly and again my gaze was fixed on the familiar doe eyes.
"Please listen to me ... something is approaching, something that is worse than Naraku ... worse than the devil himself ... something that even scares your brother Sesshomaru ...", she spoke to me in a calm and calm voice.But her words shook something completely different in me. Something worse than Naraku? Could that even be possible? I opened my mouth and wanted to say something, but the words stuck in my throat. Normally I would have asked immediately where this 'something' was, but what use is it to me if I knew it? I was human ... unable to act ...
But Kikyou didn't seem to care about my reaction, not even that I wasn't capable of a fight at all.
"We need the jewel for the fight and ... you!"
Did I know it ... she had probably forgotten ... the jewel was anchored in me and I was a person, even if a person whose heart had stopped beating and whose blood had long ago stopped flowing ...
But she turned to me and put her hand on my chest where the jewel was resting. It glowed at her touch and I thought I heard a cry of pain in my mind. But I didn't care at that moment, because I felt my own pain, I felt how she gradually snatched the jewel from me.My eyes widen in panic, didn't she know I was going to die this way? Did she still want something in my life? I thought she had realized her revenge was in vain. Or was it jealousy of Kagome?
The pain seemed to be easing and my vision was getting cloudy. I saw something light in front of me, in Kikyou's hands, soaked in dark blood. My blood?
"So it was you ... who is to blame for everything ..." I heard her voice from afar before everything went black around me. I was only vaguely aware of the impact of my body on the floor. My chest rose and fell a few more times. In the distance, someone seemed to be screaming. Who was screaming like that? Who was yelling ... my ... name?
"INU YASHA!"
I heard him, my name, but to whom did this voice belong, I knew it only too well, but what was it doing here? Did she follow me?
My thoughts pushed this familiar voice out of my thoughts more and more, the horror still reigned in my subconscious.How could Kikyou kill me? Kill ... what a strange word ... wasn't that what I secretly wished for, my death? I always wanted to run away, but I couldn't die ... but ... I wanted to die ... I was desperate.
But it confused me, her words, she said she needed the jewel AND me! What was she going to do then? If she needed me, she couldn't just let me die that easily. What voice was that that I had just heard? Who had called for me? Who? I forgot ... who killed me? Who was it, didn't I just remember? What was going on…. what was I thinking about?