Impermanence by Mynameishuman

the first

 She hadn’t been ready.

Not for the adventure. Not for the danger. The power she held still shocked her at times. The relations she’d built, the friendships she’d forged.

She hadn’t been ready for any of it.

But, who would’ve been at the tender age of fifteen? Running for your life on an almost constant basis…she hadn’t been ready for such a thing. It wasn’t where she’d thought her path would take her.

And now? Now that she’d spent so much time with her loved ones in the feudal era, she couldn’t be anything but grateful for the path she’d been given. The chances she’d taken. The fears overcome. The luck she had to have, because she’d survived so long when the odds were stacked so high against her.

“Rin! Look out!”

It would seem, however, that her luck had finally run out.

Shoving the girl clear of certain death, a searing, burning, tearing sliced across Kagome’s abdomen and warm blood soaked her shirt.

“Kagome!”

Inuyasha’s scream went unheard by the miko as her knees gave out beneath her and she fell to the grass, a hand over the gaping wound in her abdomen. The world around her flashed white and she blinked hard, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

She felt sick as a wave of heat crashed over her.

It was odd, how quickly an injured body could lose strength. Unable to hold herself up, Kagome slumped over, falling onto her side, and she groaned as her wound tore and burned and bled more.

“Gods,” she heard Sango’s panicked voice above her. “Oh gods, Kagome.”

She cried out in pain as someone pressed deeply on her wound. The pain drew the breath from her lungs in violent gasps.

Reaching out blindly, Kagome grasped Sango’s sleeve in weak, blood-drenched fingers. But weakness born of blood loss had captured her and the sleeve slipped from her grip, her hand falling to the ground.

“It’s going to be okay,” she heard someone say. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

“Oh Gods,” she heard again, a deeper voice this time.

Then the sound of someone vomiting.

Shaking her head to clear it, she tried to swallow as bile rose in her throat.

Coughing, she turned her head so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit, only to realize that it didn’t taste like vomit. It tasted like iron. Like blood.

Off to the side, she could still hear someone throwing up, but the world was shifting around her, and she couldn’t seem to stop trembling.

“It’s okay,” she breathed, as the pain began to subside. “I think I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt as bad a-a-anymore.”

“Oh, no. No, please don’t say that,” her mother said from above her.

“Mom?” Kagome asked in shock, her words becoming slurred. “How did you get here?”

“No, Kagome. It’s Sango.”

“Sango?”

“Inuyasha! Damn it! Help me!”

“Her lips are blue,” Inuyasha whispered, in a state of shock.

His knees buckled and he pushed himself backward. Away from Kagome and the smell of her blood as it soaked the ground beneath her.

“Miroku! Pull yourself together and help me! Someone help me, or she’ll die!” Sango screamed, panicking as her friend bled out in her arms.

Shippo curled in on himself, crying in desperation as he lost another person he loved.

Not too far away, Rin screamed for her lord, begging him to return. He could save Kagome. If only he were there.

“Please, please don’t die, Kagome. Please,” Sango begged, her hands trembling as she tried to stop the gushing blood flowing from the terrible wound.

“It’s okay, Sango,” Kagome breathed, trying to lift her arm to comfort her friend but it was hopeless. She was too weak.

I’m dying…aren’t I?

Unable to keep her eyes open any longer, they closed.

And she was swallowed by the darkness.