InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Tears ❯ Looking Back Brings Pain ( Chapter 4 )

AN: I ask again that ya'll review as you read and flamers are welcome for any flamers will be used to drive out the radioactive squirrles from underneath our beds. Now I am sure that you are all tired of reading about me and not the gang so I will stop boring you with my senseless drivel and continue on with the story.

 

On a after thought I'm making the journey through Botan's portal longer than normal. It will no longer be an instantaneous journey.

 

Disclaimer: "I do own InuYasha and YuYu Hakusho" (laughs diabolically) :F.B.I. busts in the front door and surrounds me with guns drawn.: "I'll never let them go" : AgentX runs out from a back room, "Sir shes got Hiei and Sesshomaru chained to a wall in the back." "Well get them out of here." "No! we won't leave, you can't make us." :F.B.I. tries to drag them away: "Thank God for Stockholm Syndrome." (MUhhahhahahhahah)

 

Just joking I don't own either InuYasha or YuYu Hakusho. (weeps softly)

 

"..." talking

*~* Flashback
<...> telepath talk

'...' thinking

 

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Chapter 4

 

 

LOOKING BACK BRINGS PAIN.

 

 

As Kagome stepped through the portal into Koenma's office she continued to mull over the turn of events which had brought her to her current situation. She recalled the events that had taken place over the last three months since the demise of Naraku and the deaths of her family members. She recalled as she walked the fight with Naraku and the death of her friends, she vaguely recalled gathering Shippou into her arms and jumping into the well.

 

In short she recalled the worst moments of her life, so far.

 

Kagome had known that she could never return to the Fuedal Era, not since her "family" was dead. In the years that she had traveled with the group they had become her true family. For the first time in a long time she had felt as if she had truely belonged somewhere, that she no longer had to struggle just to seem normal. Over time the monk had become her brother, the slayer her sister, the kit her son, the neko-youkai another undoubtfully more dangerous Buyo, and InuYasha had been...InuYasha. Now that they were gone she had no reason to look back, looking back only brought pain. Crushing pain.

 

Thinking this she had passed through the well one last time, jumping out into her era and had sealed the well forever. It was her intention to try and glue together the crumbling pieces of her life in this era and moving on. She had had thoughts of going back to school and maybe college, of one day opening a fighting studio for women so that no female would ever have to worry for thier safety as she had, so that no woman would be forced to depend on the protection of a man, for men were not always reliable. She had imagined how happy her mother and gramps would be to know that she would be back for good this time. She new that they would mourn the InuYasha they had known and that Souta would cry over the loss of his hero.

 

No matter what InuYasha had done to her over the years she had refused to take from Souta the innocence that she could see in his eyes. She would not soil Souta's mind with the harsh and often cruel treatment that his hero had forced her to indure. She had then thought how happy Souta and Shippou both would be to have someone their own ages to play with. Someone who they could share all their boyhood secrets with, someone that could be to Shippou the one thing that she could never really be...a joyful friend. She would always be Shippou's best friend but she could not now or ever be truely and wholely cheerful again. But all of Kagome's happy thoughts and planning for the future of her son and brother was not to be for the fates she soon found are truely sadistic.

 

*~Flashback~*

 

Kagome was tired, bone tired. She was the type of weary that came from not just physical exertion, but the type of drained that came from exhausting ones' mental and emotional strength also. All that she wanted to do was go inside, hug her little brother and gramps and mom, settle Shippou down on her bed and take a bath. She desperatly longed to wash from her body the stench and feel of the blood of countless demons and her family.

 

Jumping from the well Shippou cradled in her arms she turned sat the sleeping kit down and unsheathed Midoriko. Driving the deadly blade deep into the wood of the well Kagome allowed a large amount of her spirit energy to seep into the blade of her sword and down into the well. Slowly she managed to change the flow of time so that the well no longer went into the past but held the user immobile for about two minutes in a state of suspended animation. Noone could unseal this well without her now, not even the gods. Her power running at an all time low, Kagome resheathed Midoriko and stooping over picked Shippou back up. Resting him gently in the crook of her arm she slid open the well house doors and stepped outside, or at least started to.

 

She stood frozen staring around her at the burning debris that was once her home. The only things that remained intact were the well house itself and the sacred tree. Not even the most evil beings would dare to risk the wrath of the fates themselves if they dared to tamper with that tree.

 

Cluthing Shippou close to her chest, but softly as not to awaken him, for she had no desire for him to witness such destruction as this she slowly looked around. Kagome began to feel the first stirrings of an emotion she had not felt in a long long time, she felt...fear. True unbriddled fear. The kind that stops your heart and makes your blood run cold.

 

She refused to believe that the fates could be so cruel as to take from this world these innocent people who had done no wrong. She could not accept that these innocents could fall at the hands of such evil. For evil was definatly in the air. There was not enough for her to trace but there was enough that she could feel its presence. She begged that she had not failed Souta, especially Souta. Kami please tell her she had not failed to protect her brother as she had failed to aid Sango in her quest to save Kohaku.

 

The gods were apparently being exceptionally cruel this day for her pleas and prayers feel on deaf ears.

 

In the rubble that Kagome recognized as the spot where her bedroom had once stood, the horrified miko spotted the broken and battered form of what appeared to be a hand. The appendage was to say the least in a horrible state. The skin was ripped and gashed in places and completely missing in some. What skin that did remain was terribly burned. The fingers were twisted at random and unnatural angles and the bone could be seen in some spots.

 

Now what struck Kagome the most about this lump of flesh was not the blood or the terrible burns but the size, it was...small. Like the hand of a woman or a smaller child. Then it struck her, the hand was childishly small.

 

Rushing forward intent on discovering to whom this hand belonged to Kagome stopped realizing that she still held Shippou. Turnig back she sprinted to the god tree and layed the sleeping kit in the protetive embrace of the trees roots. Whispering a request to the tree to keep the sleeping form of her son safe she was not suprised when she was answered with a low "yes" in her mind.

 

The tree had been talking to Kagome all her life. She had once tought that it was her imagination but had realized shortly after the start of her journey that the tree was "alive" that it had a voice of its own and it considred her its daughter. As long as the tree still lived Kagome knew that she would be forever safe in the forest. That was one of the reasons that she had never really complained about sleeping outside. Leaving the kit in his comfortable hollow on the ground Kagome went forward to the burning rubble that was once her home.

 

When she reached the spot where her room had stood and the hand now lay Kagome drew on her ever dwindling power supply. She had never been this drained before and it was taking its toll. Calling on her telekenitic abilities Kagome slowly lifted the debris from off of the figure that the hand belonged to. She gasped in shock as dozens of emotions flooded her. There was pain and anger, shock and grief, and the undying need for revenge that now burned in her soul. There laying in the burning debris, his body broken, bleeding,and scorched, his light forever extingueshed lay Souta.

 

His eyes were open and forever locked in the expression of sheer terror that comes from knowing that you are about to die and that there is noone to save you. Kagome knew that look, she had seen it many times on the faces of the children that she and the others had been unable to save. That was the look that had haunted her on the nights when she had been staring at the stars when she was supposed to be sleeping, the look that had followed her from the days when she had covered her true feelings with a smile, to the days where she showed barely any emotions at all. That was the look that would countinue to haunt her for the rest of her existance.

 

His skin was burned all over so that barely any remained at all. By the looks of the house Kagome could tell that the fire had been hot, unnaturally hot.

 

As she gazed on the form of her brother she felt her already broken heart shatter into a billion glimmering pieces that Kagome knew all of which could never be found. No matter how many years passed or what happened her heart would never be completely whole again.

 

As she stood there over his lifeless form she realzed that before she could gain her revenge she needed to know what had transpired here, who had commited this terrible crime, who she needed to kill. Whoever had done this was living on borrowed time.

 

Drawing on her powers once again she opened her mind to the still firing nerve endings of her brothers brain and filled them with the desire to replay the events of the day. Drove to her knees as weakness resulting from over exertion, a common side effect from using her powers as much as she had today, washed over her body she allowed what had surely been the last moments of her brother life fill her mind. The images came to her in fragments since much of his memory had deteriorated due to the fact that he had been dead for hours now. As if in slow motion she watched the last hours of Soutas life on Earth take place seemingly before her very eyes.

 

She saw as if through his eyes his walk home from school with his friends, she felt as if his legs as he kicked his soccer ball around the shrine yard. She watched as he sat to eat dinner with mom and gramps. What hit her the hardest was when she saw as from a distance as Souta entered her room and layed down on her bed. As he grasped her pillow and tightly hugged it to his chest as he inhailed her sent. She saw as he prayed for her safety and heard his sweet voice as he begged for her to return home soon.

 

She could only stand helplessly by as she heard as if through his ears the screams of pain and despair from mom and gramps, how they screames for Souta to run and get to safety. She felt his panic and then the blinding pain of red hot flames as his flesh was scorched from his body and the crushing weight as the roof of her room colapsed on his body. The last thought that went through his mind was a name, Hiei Jaganshi Forbbiden...Child.

 

With a jerk she was violently expelled from his mind as the last of his bodies energy was expelled in a violent blast. She felt as the final bit of Souta's life force finally ebbed from his body.

 

Gasping she opened her eyes to stare at her brothers body. Bending over she placed a gentle kiss him on his forehead and gently closed his still open eyes. Unleshing her powers once agian she searched for the bodies of mom and gramps, she knew that they were dead she had heard their death cries in Souta's mind. When she located them she let out a sigh, she knew what she had to do.

 

Stooping she gently picked up Souta's broken form and cradleing him as if he were the most delicate creature on earth she walked to the god tree. Laying him down in front of where Shippou rested she walked to her kit and picked him up. Turning she walked to the well house and lay him on the floor, she walked out and closed the door behind her. She didn't want him to see this either.

 

Going back to the house she dragged/carried mom and gramps to lay beside Souta. Calling once again on her ever dwindeling powers she called a large sphere of flame into her hands throwing it forward she watched as the flaming sphere quickly incinerated the bodies of her family once again and their souls were sent to the next plane.

 

Sending out a second flow of power this time in the form of ice she calmed the flames that still leaped around her once happy home. Calling upon her miko powers she scattered their ashes to the winds as she knew they would have wanted.

 

When that work was finished Kagome called to the god tree, ruler of the forests and gaurdian of time itself. "Sacred tree you have often protected me and my family, your presence has brought great joy to my home, I now have a favor to ask of you. Help me to raise a memorial for the ones that I have loved and lost. You have control over the earth and I know that underneath your boughs any memorial that was erected would always be safe. I beg of you, you who have lived through the ages, you once knew the Inu hanyou InuYasha, the slayer Sango, monk Miroku, and the neko Kirara, you watched as my brother Souta grew and you saw my gandfathers crazy antics, you remember my childhood and the life of my mother, I ask only for your assistance in remembering the ones who have always cared for you and those who have cared for me. Please I implore you."

 

"My daughter there is no need to beg me for anything. I do remember the ones of who you spoke of and I remember your family and your childhood. I also recall the pain that you suffered in the past. I have no desire for you to feel any more pain, so yes my child I will help you to erect a memorial fitting of your family."

 

"Thank you my lord." Kagome bowed respectfully to the tree.

 

With awe she watched as the ground before the tree began to shift and shake. Slowly the earth itself raised up and was shaped. When the statue was finished Kagome could only stare at the beautiful figures that stood before her.

 

There before her stood her family, her whole family in all their glory, untouched, unharmed and unaged. Reaching out she stopped short of stroking the now stone face of her brother.

 

The figures stood on a slightly raised stone platform. Off to one side stood her family from the past, Miroku stood close to Sango's side his arm suprisingly around her waist. Sango stood relaxed, a quiet contented smile on her beautiful face while Kirara perched on her shoulder. And there was InuYash, the InuYasha before the return of Kikyou to their group, the InuYasha that she had loved. His face held a gentle loving smile as he seemed to stare into her eyes.

 

To the right of them stood her other family. Mom had her arm aroung Souta's shoulders and gramps stood beside them ofuda in hand. All held gentle smiles and lovingexpressions.

 

As she gazed at the statue she noticed at the base of the statue the words that were carved into the platform the figures stood on.

 

"To those who went before us. Until we meet again."

 

Dropping to her knees Kagome allowed a tear to slide slowly down her cheek and to the ground. "Thank you. May this memorial stand as a testament to what has happened here today and what had happened in the past." Suddenly she heard a noise of to her right. Spinnig swiftly around but still on her knees Kagome rested one hand on Midoriko's hilt. That hand was quickly removed as she realized that the cause of the noise was Shippou. Holding out her arms she motioned for Shippou to come to her. When he crawled into her arms she heard his voice as if from a distance, "Momma what happened? Where is everyone? What happened here?" Kagome could hear his voice grow more and more confused and nervous.

 

"Ssshhh. Baby its okay, their all gone. But don't worry you still have me and I'll never leave you not even in death. I will always find you, that I promise."

 

A few moments passed before Shippou spoke again. "Momma, what are these?"

Kagome looked down and noticed what Shippou held. In his tiny palm Shippou held two small perfectly round stones. One was pink with swirls of silver and the other was forest green with swirls of pink. Kagome instantly recognized what they were.

 

"They are our tears baby. This one," she pointed at the pink gem, "is mine and the other is yours."

 

"Pretty." Shippou whispered, his kitsune love for bright things evident in his voice. "I'll tell you what, I'll keep yours and you keep mine, I'll even make them into pendants for us."

 

Calling on her last bit of power Kagome summoned a small flame up into her palm,using her miko powers she froze the flame so that one could she its dance but no longer feel its burn. Grasping the green gem in her finger tips she thrust the jewel into the center of the flame and formed a unbreakable chain. She then slipped the chian over her head and repeated the process with her ice powers and slipped that pendant over Shippous head.

 

"Now baby no matter where you go I can always follow and no matter what happens we can always communicate, never take it off."

 

Kissing his head she cradled his still sleeping form as she fingered the pendant that now hung around his neck. Runnig her finger over the stone in the middle she vowed that she would get revenge, 'Koenma-sama should know something about this Hiei...maybe I'll go and see him in the morning."

 

Before Kagome fell into the deepest pits of sleep she vowed to herself that the tear that Shippou now held would be her last shead in sadness.

 

*~End Flashback~*

 

 

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An: I know that you guys want to kill me right now, but i do so love a cliffy. Well can anyone guess what's gonna happen. Give it your best shot. I might dedicate the next chappy to whoever gets closest. REVIEW!