InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Fragile Heart ❯ Chapter Twelve: Sacrifice ( Chapter 12 )

"A Fragile Heart"

By: Banshee Puppet

Chapter Twelve: Sacrifice

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In this world, what we love, and what loves us, are often two different things, but sometimes, we get lucky, even if for only a short while.

Sango smiled softly at her still-remembered dream as the trio of adventurers rested on their way to the North and Kouga's wolf tribe. Miroku had thankfully stopped bleeding, though he'd had to talk Kouga through patching him up, and Kouga was, rather oddly, a little squeamish. Stitching up the wound was something he would not have done himself if Sango did not have a broken arm.

They were all pretty beaten up, but they had not lost hope. In the Northern mountains they would find healing, rest, and allies, and they would return to save their friends. 'It was…all a dream,' Sango thought. It seemed ludicrous in some ways. For them all to have the same dream, the same experience-even if none of it was physically real, did that mean that they hadn't gone through things together, experienced things together…did that mean she hadn't really…loved…for the very first time? It was too much to think about or understand.

Awakened now, she felt drained. It was heartening to listen to Kouga and Miroku bicker as if they'd been friends forever. In this world, they'd hardly been acquaintances….however…it did seem that they had decided what was real and what was not. 'I will follow their lead in seeking the truth then, Inuyasha. And when you awaken, then we'll just have to see.'

She could remember the pain of being stabbed, of being murdered by the man who loved her, who she loved, but she also knew the reasons, and did not know if, given the same circumstances, she would have been as strong. She'd forgiven him immediately, but she did not doubt that he still held onto his own misshapen guilt. 'But…with memories like these, can we ever be happy?' she wondered. The answer was, she didn't know.

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Rin snuck out of her room in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Inuyasha was asleep on the couch. He'd been there since yesterday. She was glad to have her uncle here. He was kind, though he seemed sad for some reason that her child's mind couldn't fully understand.

She stepped forward, one step, noticing something odd about him in the moonlight. Another step, he too had the odd wound-like stripes on his face when he slept, just like Sesshomaru did. She looked down at the hand dangling along the hardwood floor. Also, he had the phantom claws. And atop his head…two white dog-like ears, twitching. And then, they faded. She pouted slightly, reaching up to touch where the ears had been when Inuyasha startled awake and caught her hand. She squeaked.

"Oh. Rin. …Rin?" he asked. The look in his eyes was torn. He had made his decision, but doing it a second time was so very hard.

"Inu-kun is sad," she stated. "Why?"

Inuyasha sat up and sighed. "Because I have to do something bad for a good reason, and I don't know if I can, that's why," he told the girl.

Rin crawled up into his lap and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's okay Inu-kun. Rin will help," she said. "So you don't have to be sad anymore."

"You…you can't," he said, struggling with himself. It would be simple, to strangle her like this, but…he …she was….his niece, maybe not really, but she…was his niece…

He bit his lip and clenched his fist.

"What can Rin do?" the girl asked. He had to do it! Had to! He fought with himself. He reached his hand up to her throat and squeezed, she just stared at him, total acceptance…and he couldn't do it. He pulled away and stood quickly, knocking her back onto the couch and covering his eyes with his hand.

"For Sesshou-kun?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "But I can't…"

"Inu-kun? Rin would like a bath. Rin can bathe herself, but…can you make a bath for Rin?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, sure." He was so stressed out he didn't even realize that it was two in the morning, or why she wanted a bath now.

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Sesshomaru rolled over and groaned. 'Inuyasha must be in a pretty pathetic state if he feels the need to bathe now,' he thought before promptly shrugging it off and falling back to sleep.

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"Inu-kun should go back to bed," Rin said. "Rin will take her own bath."

"… …r-right. Okay." 'I just can't do it…everyone, I'm so sorry, once was enough, I…can't do this…How can I possibly do this?' An image of Sango's bloody body flooded his mind and he had to force himself not to start vomiting again as he returned to the couch.

"Rin will help Sessho-kun, so that Inu-kun can be happy again," the little girl said, dunking her head under the water, and not rising above it again.

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There are so very many ways of loving. This is what Inuyasha learned when he walked into the bathroom the next morning to find Rin face down in the tub, not breathing. It was like the world screeched to a sudden halt, and he screamed out, falling to his knees as tears fell from his eyes unbidden and silent. 'Why why WHY??? This is too much! I can't take this! Am I totally losing my mind???' he wondered.

He felt something arrive, and brush past him. He couldn't hear Sesshomaru's voice cracking as he, long sleeves and all pulled the girl from the bathtub and tried to give her mouth to mouth hours too late. Her heart had already stopped long ago.

"Inuyasha, what happened? Inuyasha, stop screaming," he tried to calm his brother enough to…do something…even as he clutched his daughter's soaking body to his chest, tears flooding his own eyes as well. "INUYASHA!"

Finally, the younger brother snapped out of his fit and stared hopelessly up at his brother's golden eyes. "Wh-what?" he asked.

Sesshomaru swallowed hard. "Call Kagome."

"…y-yeah." Swaying to his feet as if morbidly drunk, Inuyasha went to the kitchen and picked up the phone. His voice was flat when he spoke into the receiver. "Kagome."

"Inuyasha, is that you?"

"You gotta…come over. Sess said to make you come," he stated, and his voice started shaking again as he realized what was going on again, the image of his niece, his tiny little niece, face down in the bathtub, suicide…because he couldn't do it. This was…this was so much worse. "Come…come over. Hurry…okay?"

"Inuyasha, what's happening over there?"

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No. This couldn't be happening. No, not like this. He knew he would loose her eventually, but not like this, not drowned in the bathtub and found in the morning. What the hell had she been doing in the bathtub anyway! No. No! He positively refused to believe it. She wasn't dead. Rin wasn't dead! 'Maybe if I…if I try again…' But Sesshomaru well-knew that mouth-to-mouth only worked if the person was still alive, and he cried out, like a deep howl, in his grief. He didn't know anything could hurt this much.

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"It's Rin. I think she's dead, Kagome." His voice had steadied. 'Think? Hah! She's definitely dead. Because you…and you, like an idiot, sent that little girl back to the normal world all by herself, with no one. … … These are the sacrifices we make for love. These are the sacrifices we make for love? Isn't that price too high? Too great? And that girl…so strong…I need to be at least half as strong, if I want to save my friends…if I want to honor her sacrifice….'

Taking a deep breath, Inuyasha decided, once and for all, he would finish what he started. 'Only two more, and myself. That's all. But…the funeral…for Rin. I can allow them that much at least…and I also would like…' It made no sense and he knew it, because if Rin was a real person, a living person, which he somehow no longer had doubt that she very much was, then she wasn't dead at all, but she was all alone somewhere, with no one to save her, and that was all his fault. 'If I die again, when this is all over, that'll be fine, because at least I'll know that I definitely deserved it.'

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Well! Yow! Geez, this story is just getting too intense. There's nobody but me at work today, so I'm getting a lot done, and I can't seem to stop writing! I may have this story finished by the end of the day! I think there will only be one or two more chapters, or one chapter and an epilogue, or something. (doesn't always write epilogues when the last chapter covers it well enough.) Hmm…maybe three chapters, but I don't think more than that….lol. (hope I didn't just jinx myself. This story has been running forever so I'll be glad to put it to bed and start planning the final story for the arc.