– 28 –
.revelations.
A glimpse of something in the distance.
An archway of pure white stone–
…
She gasps wetly, saltwater streaming from her lips and eyes.
Her throat is aflame, despite the dampness. She coughs in vain to soothe it.
“Such foolishness.”
His anger is palpable. It seethes like a current around her.
Blearily, she looks up at him, her breathing ragged from more than just the sea.
“Where,” she asks, half-choking, “where is the Jewel?”
He glares down at her. “It is gone from you.”
Gone, she thinks. No, not gone.
Taken.
On shaking arms, she raises herself up, elbows slicing against the rocky shore. A hiss escapes her, though she hardly feels the pain.
“You,” she manages through gritted teeth, “it was you. You took my memories from me.”
He stares down at her, unblinking.
“Yes,” he says after a moment, “it was I.”
Her left arm buckles, a sort of cry wresting from her lips. It is not a sound of sadness or dejection, but of anguish all the same.
It is a sound of desolation, a confirmation of the secret knowledge in her soul. With unscaled eyes, she looks upon him, and in the flat yellow surface of his gaze, sees only his unfathomable greed.
And the hollowness of her own existence.
“It must have been terrible,” she says, her voice low and trembling, “what you did to me.”
He kneels down above her. With one pale icy hand, he smoothes back a lock of hair plastered to her cheek, his thumb stroking across her lower lip. An act of ownership, masquerading as affection.
“I was careless,” he admits. “But it is of no consequence now.”
“You took my life from me,” she accuses.
His features harden.
“I have given you life in abundance.” His hand slides back, fisting in her hair. “I have given you youth, health, prosperity.” His grip tightens to the point of pain. “All that you need, all that you could ever want, I have given to you.”
Hatefully, she holds his gaze.
“The only thing I want,” she says, “is to be free of you.”
His expression is shadowed, close. For the first time she can recall, he seems weary.
In the span of a breath, they weigh one another, across the centuries.
He releases her and draws back.
“You will always belong to me.”
There is no heat behind his words, no force of conviction. He states them with the cold assurance of truth.
A truth she will never accept.
Her strength has returned. With a steady breath she rises, turning wordlessly from him as she picks her way across the shore.
He makes no move to halt her progress, yet she can feel the sear of his gaze upon her back, branding her through the layers of wet heavy silk.
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi