Chapter 29 – To Pray

Though her eyes were now open, consciousness still did not return to her body.

She knew her hands were being held but her limbs felt numb. Her mouth still whispered sacred chants but she did not hear them. The control of her body escaped her in that moment, and she did not know at all how she had managed to open her eyes during her trance state, but she had – and the vision she saw was not positive at all.

Everything remained the same.

Through the fog that haunted her mind, Kikyou saw the scene in front of her as if she had never closed her eyes. InuYasha still guarded the door with his arms crossed, Miroku still held her hands and prayed together with her, and Sesshoumaru still looked aged.

For a moment, she felt her faith waver.

Perhaps he was meant to die, she thought. And they were only postponing the inevitable, fighting with fate when all of this was an already lost battle. It surely felt like they had lost from what she saw, for something should have happened by now.

The only alteration in the scene was Kagome, who though remained in the same position as before, now looked like a living ghost. Her skin had lost its color and there was sweat rolling down her forehead. She was exhausted, Kikyou noted, and wondered why had she not given up yet. There was fear in her heart of what would happen if her sister pushed herself too far, but it was too late now to give up. The only thing she could do was pray, pouring all of her hope and faith and love into the action, and then wait and see if any of them would be saved.

Kikyou prayed for both of them to live, because she would not accept to watch them die after all the trouble they went through.

Still, time seemed to not move on.

The words that left her mouth no longer made sense, becoming just a blabbering noise that she did not know how she kept chanting. She wondered if it was even working, for she felt too tired to take any action that would have an impact on the ritual by this point.

Kagome seemed tired too, her form had started to tremble and there was almost a glimpse of pain on her features. She wondered if this was this even worth it, but it had to be. They would not be able to rise without one another, and even though this was not the original path meant to be taken, it had become the only one possible for all of them.

But who were they? And what path was she even talking about? The dizziness that took over her body made her suddenly feel sick, and the nauseous feeling scattered away her confused thoughts. They became nothing but a blur, pushed into the back of her mind, and Kikyou would not remember this knowledge until fate displayed itself right in front of her. But she had known, and if the sudden shift in the energy around her had not caught her attention, she would have seen it all.

The first thing Kikyou noticed besides her urge to puke was the slight frown on InuYasha's expression. His posture became tense, and his hand automatically moved to grab his sword's hilt, an action that announced he had sensed danger. The second thing she saw was her sister's form, trembling so violently that it seemed like her body had become the sole target of an earthquake. She then heard a whisper coming from that direction, and the reiki inside the circle started to shine brighter than before.

''Dona nobis pacem, bona fide absit omen...''

The whisper became louder, and Kikyou recognized only then that it was Kagome's voice, though the meaning of the words were lost in the fog of her mind. It didn't seem like a language she knew and she wasn't even sure if this was a part of the ritual anymore, but the tone of the voice raised as each second passed by and the light became almost blinding.

Yet, Kikyou could not look away. She saw her sister's eyes open all of the sudden, and the reiki she had poured into the daiyoukai's body become almost aggressive as it tried to retreat back from his core.

''Faciam quodlibet quod necesse est,'' Kagome started to shout, and the glimpse Kikyou caught of her eyes made her skin shiver. The blue of her iris had faded away and given place to a blinding shade of silver, seeming to reflect all that stood around her like a mirror. ''Nec metu, resurgam.''

She then saw Kagome's reiki completely pull away from the daiyoukai's body, bringing along a dark green sphere of energy. The shade of it seemed rotten, making her sickness come back at full force. The reiki that surrounded it slowly entered Kagome's body, but the part of it that held the curse seemed to not move at all.

It resisted their spell, wanting to return to its original target, and fear crept into Kikyou's soul. They could not fail now, not after they had managed to finally capture the curse. They had to make it work, to succeed.

With this sole purpose in mind, Kikyou raised her voice. A new incantation started being chanted by her lips, the words coming from a place so deep in her soul that she hadn't known it existed at all. Her hand's squeezed the monk's ones, and though she did not know how, he started to say exactly the same words as her, their voices getting louder and louder as each second passed by.

''Coniunctis viribus, absit omen.'' They spoke, their voices suddenly being accompanied by Kagome's one.

Kagome's reiki suddenly started to pull the curse along, moving it away from the daiyoukai's body and closer to her own. Hope started to blossom in Kikyou's chest, and she poured all of her strength into her final prayer. ''Coniunctis viribus, consummatum est.''

''Ego te provoco, resurgam.'' Kagome's voice resonated on her own, pulling the curse violently into her own soul. The impact of the action caused her body to be thrown out of the sacred space of the ritual, and had her fall on the other side of the room, crashing right into a shelf full of scripts that scattered along the floor.

Unbeknownst to them, a single thought of relief crossed Kagome's mind before she passed out.

Finally, the damned noise had silenced.

InuYasha stared at the full moon up in the sky through the window of his brother's room and frowned, he felt restless.

It had been almost a whole day since the priestess freed his brother from the curse, but he still hadn't woken up. How much longer could it take for a daiyoukai to heal from a curse? If it hadn't been for the fact that Sesshoumaru's markings came back and now he looked young again, InuYasha would've thought that the woman's plan had failed because nothing else had happened at all.

Miroku went to meditate as soon as he sealed the girl and remained in deep contact with the Kamis or whatever until now, while Kikyou passed out right after she was done helping the monk. She had barely moved and he didn't wish to wake her up, so he simply covered her with some fur and decided to keep a watch on everyone.

Not that he had anything to watch for, honestly.

The fact that the whole scene around him remained the same unsettled him in a way that he could not explain. The storm had already passed by them, but deep down he felt like this was the moment of calm before everything came crashing down.

He didn't even feel hunger, for Kami's sake. And it had been more than twenty-four hours since the last time he had a proper meal. He thought about getting some sleep but his mind raced too much for him to rest, and his thoughts moved to the children while he wondered if they were fine.

His brother's ward was most likely still in the dark about his whole situation, but the kitsune knew what was going on and InuYasha wondered how he was dealing with everything. Perhaps it was for the best that no one could leave or enter the room, since he didn't know how the kit would react upon seeing the miko he considered as his mother like that.

Speaking of said miko, she seemed to be simply asleep as he stared at her, and he questioned if that was a good sign or not. InuYasha had been used to the chaos around his life, and somehow could not bring himself to be relieved just yet because things were way too calm for his taste. His past proved that whenever things slowed down like this, something bad was bound to happen.

Time itself seeming to be frozen felt like a warning to him.

Sighing and closing his eyes to try to sleep yet again, the hanyou felt his nose itch and sneezed, feeling annoyed at the sensation of something crawling on his skin. He moved his hand to scratch his face, wondering if somehow there was a bug on his nose, but met nothing as his claws brushed through his skin. Sneezing yet again because the itching became worst, InuYasha opened his eyes to glare at his own body, and let out a frustrated sound when he saw no mosquitoes around for him to kill and end this annoyance.

''Is everything okay?'' Kikyou's voice caught his attention, and he turned around to see the priestess sitting and rubbing her eyes, no doubt having just woken up from her sleep.

He wanted to tell her to go back to her nap since she still seemed tired and things were under his control, but a sneeze forced him to stay silent and keep scratching his nose.

''Do you have an allergy?'' Kikyou said, frowning as she looked at him with concern on her face.

InuYasha opened his mouth to tell her that he was fine, but his voice died out once another sneeze left his body. The itch then became worse, and moved from the tip of his nose to the whole extension of his face, making the hanyou let out a curse loud enough to wake up the monk from his meditation.

''What is going on?'' Miroku asked as he stared at the hanyou, that had now started to scratch his head with his feet in a typical dog fashion. ''...Did he somehow get fleas?''

That idea was simply absurd. InuYasha wanted to argue that he took proper care of his hygiene and bathed regularly unlike other inferior species of youkai, that mutt Kouga being an example, but he found himself unable to speak when yet another sneeze took over his body.

''I think he has an allergy, though I do not know why.'' Kikyou muttered, moving to stand closer to the itching hanyou and poking him in the cheek. ''You're getting a little bit red, Inu, did you eat something you found in here?''

The only response she got was a glare as he pointed around the room, trying to say through his gestures that there was nothing in that damned place he could've eaten, and it was then that he noticed. There was a prickling in his skin, and as he stopped scratching himself to properly pay attention to it, he realized that it came from the direction of the fallen miko.

Turning to stare at her, he saw the body of the girl glowing in red and getting brighter as each second passed by, and let out a curse once he realized what that meant.

''Kikyou, put another barrier around her, now!" He shouted, gaining the attention of his companions and making them look at the same direction he had been staring.

''What in Kami's sake is that?'' Miroku whispered, his eyes wide as he noticed that Kagome's reiki started to move out of her body in a spiral motion.

Doing as she was told, Kikyou gulped as she cast the strongest barrier she could muster up around the woman, but somehow that didn't feel safe at all. Looking at Miroku, she motioned for him to help and watched as his ofudas were thrown in the air reinforcing the protection.

InuYasha had moved to stand in front of his brother, Tessaiga drawn in a protective stance in case he needed its barrier up too, and Kikyou trembled as she felt power sizzling in the air. As Miroku finished reciting his prayers and the ofudas shone with magic, a scream left the fallen priestess' throat and her reiki exploded violently around her, almost breaking apart the first barrier they had cast.

''What the fuck is happening to her?'' InuYasha shouted, for the girl didn't stop screaming and her voice drowned every single sound around the area. He was frightened to be honest, because if the barriers around the woman broke down, he wouldn't even notice the damage until he became dust.

It took every willpower inside his being to not run away from that room, the reiki crackling the air around him and leaving little burns on his skin was enough to send his instincts into overdrive. And just as InuYasha thought that this situation couldn't get any worse, a clawed hand squeezed his shoulders a bit too tight for his liking, and he turned around to face his standing brother.

His standing, fully awaken, and bleeding red-eyed brother.

Cursing as he stared at the ragged markings on Sesshoumaru's face, InuYasha hated being right for the first time in his life. He knew that the stillness from before was a warning. As the daiyoukai opened his mouth to speak and the voice that left his throat was not his usual one, but a more guttural and angered version of it, InuYasha's only thought was that they were, to put it simply, completely fucked.

First of it all, here are the translations of the latin phrases I used this chapter:

''Dona nobis pacem, bona fide absit omen...'' = Give us peace, in good faith, let omens be absent.

''Faciam quodlibet quod necesse est,'' = I'll do whatever it takes.

'Nec metu, resurgam.'' = Without fear, I shall arise.

''Coniunctis viribus, luctor et emergo.'' = With connected strenght, let omens be absent.

''Coniunctis viribus, consummatum est.'' = With connected strenght, it's complete.

''Ego te provoco, resurgam.'' = I challenge you, I shall arise.

Now, what do you guys think about the direction the story is going? I hope you're enjoying it because we're getting closer to the end now. I'm not gonna lie, I struggled to write this chapter because I just couldn't find the right PoV to narrate what was happening. Finally, I decided to tell the story from Kikyou's PoV mostly, and I'm quite happy with the result. I've been enjoying writing from her perspective lately, as well as InuYasha's, and maybe we'll have a chapter from Miroku's PoV soon since Kagome's staying out of the picture for a while. On a happier note, our beloved Lord is now awake, so that gives me some points, huh? Hahaha!

As I always say, thank you for your support and let me hear your thoughts. I'll see you guys on the next chapter!