Title: Duplicity

Summary: There is pain in numbers.

Spoilers: Yes. But they are vague, as am I.

Note: Kikyou/Inuyasha...ish.

She trapped death in numbers.

It was caught in the crook of her fingers, in the flat of her palm, and she would never let it escape.

It was beautiful, it was cool, and it reflected the way she felt inside, the way she didn't want to feel inside.

Because every time she saw him, he was with her, and every time she saw her she wanted to capture it all, to feel the darkness wrapping around her body and drowning her in her own essence.

The souls burned.

It was a hot, immense pain. One that she was never able to get rid of, one that continually spiraled through her mind and gave her sharp stabs of agony.

And it told her, coldly, cruelly, you are not perfect.

But then, if being perfect meant having him, she didn't want it.

She had been in her own mind, when she touched the jewel, when she pulled it from around her reincarnations neck, watching her smoky blue eyes widen in shock and despair.

She had been in her own mind when it pulsated, tickling her fingers, recognizing the missing part of her, desiring it once more.

So she had handed it to him, her face expressionless, and quietly, she had taken a piece of it with her.

"If only to help you on your quest," she had told him, her fingers curling around the death in her palm.

And he had looked down at the tiny sliver of glass, anger, betrayal, sadness in his eyes, and it caused her to be weak.

Because he couldn't feel how she felt.

Because she wanted him to understand, wanted him to know what it truly felt like to taste and breathe and devour hell, but he was always escaping. He was always surviving when she needed to. When she wanted to, and it made her burn.

He always cheated and she was soft and gentle and innocent and was always playing by the rules because -

Because she was a miko and she had duties, even in death.

Death was cold and haunting and black and she didn't even want it.

A soul pressed against her hand, and she remembered, crazily, what it felt like to hand out death instead of taking it in, and it made her happy.

Because he didn't deserve life, not the way she did, not the way she wanted it, and hell was so warm, even for someone who couldn't atone and pretend and make believe that death wasn't so ugly and stale and imperfect.

Something quivered inside of her, disgusting her, and she moved away, refusing to touch the burning souls.

Because, it was his fault that she was like this. It was his fault that she was rotting and useless and pathetic and dead and still a child trying to decide between what is easy and what is right.

Because in her duties she had loved him, had tried to love him, and he left her to die because he didn't want to love her the way she loved him and -

- and death hurt.

She didn't want to face the burden alone.

Shouldn't have to.

But the numbers were staggering, and they left her to ache.