InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ And all else will fade ❯ Homecoming ( Chapter 10 )

Miroku

 

Warmth, from within the darkness.

 

It encircled me, bringing with it the fading memories of a familiar human touch- a touch that I had once experienced, yearned for, revelled in, wished that I could sustain through eternity… a touch that brought back fond memories of infatuation, love, admiration… a touch that belonged to…

 

Sango.

 

No… Sango? Was this another trick of the evil that had me captured? Was it another white-hot reminder of the failure I had been?

 

“Miroku…” her voice whispered in my ear, the warmth and the love with which it was spoken tingling the numbed nerves. I forced open my eyes yet again, to gaze into her concerned brown orbs. She smiled faintly, running her fingers through my sweat and blood-drenched hair. “Have faith,” she whispered, and looked up. With great difficulty, I followed her gaze to have my eyes rest upon the irate apparition of the Evil. So… Sango was not an illusion?

 

Was there even a sliver of hope?

 

“You cannot hope to defeat me, demon-slayer, however weak you claim that I have become. This world is of my creation, and everything that is in it answers to my call.”

 

Sango laughed- her laugh short and bitter. “You may bluster all you want, Soul Eater, but it is action that counts for anything.”

 

The halo of burning anger intensified around the evil and it raised its arms. “You will get what you ask for, you pathetic mortal.” To illustrate its point, the ground around us started to crack, shake and heave- like waves of a raging sea. Sango's lap disappeared from beneath my head as she was thrown back. Helpless- absolutely unable to move- I fell back on the ground.

 

The evil moved forward, the beginnings of a smirk on its vile face. “Your agony will finally be complete, monk, for you and your beautiful helper.”

 

“Miroku!” Sango called from a distance. “Get up! I can't do this on my own!”

 

Get up…? I couldn't even move!

 

“Please, Miroku...” Sango's voice pleaded. “I… I… need you- for everything! Don't give up on yourself, me, on us!”

 

On us… The memories of her love came back, stronger than ever. A kaleidoscope of colours flashed before me- the yellow of a sunny day, the fresh green of dew-lined grass, the feel of a delicate hand on my own, the smell of jasmine entwined in silken black hair, the gurgle of streams and a firm, sweet voice instructing me on `proper manners' among women… memories that lightened my spirits, reminding me that there was indeed something to live for.

 

My hand slowly reached for my staff, fingers finally closing over the cold steel. Very slowly, in jerky, stiff movements, using the staff as a support, I forced myself back onto my feet.

 

I got up.

 

The feeling of standing up- holding your chin high and suddenly exposing your eyes to a wider panorama of vision- was by itself an exhilarating one, forcing strength back up my limbs.

 

The Soul Eater advanced. “You're not going any further…”

 

Without even fully comprehending what I was doing, I put up my staff before me in a horizontal stance, and then swirled it forward when the Soul Eater came within range. It made ringing contact with the Soul Eater, nearly numbing my already-weak arms, pushing it back a few inches. But it wasn't that that had caused triumph to well up within me; it was the spontaneous feeling of incredulity that had emanated from the Evil.

 

I had defied it.

 

Sango ran up beside me, her eyes filled with tears of joy. “I knew you could do it, Miroku.”

 

But the battle, by itself, was far from over- a fact well expressed by the Soul Eater's next move - another wave of its hands.

 

Shivering, growing nodes appeared in a circle in the ground around Sango and I, cracking and emitting hideous, ominous noises. Then out of each of them sprang out a hideous monster, with fangs as long as the Tetsusaiga and skins as thick as Inu Yasha's head. The circle of monsters closed in on us.

 

With a familiar battle grunt, Sango swung the Hiraikotsu, obliterating the front line of those demons… only to have many more following them. Many more strokes of the Hiraikotsu followed, with me swinging my staff to provide the little help I could.

 

But it was just useless.

 

One of the monsters, breaking through Sango's defence, tore at her arm, drawing blood and causing her to drop her weapon. I, in a stupid move, swirled around to `aid' Sango, only to have a demon rake its claws viciously in my side. Screaming in pain, I dropped to my knees, the still-drizzling drops of blood mingling with my own.

 

The Hiraikotsu was thrown aside; the staff was lost in the throng of monsters that swooped in like vultures on a carcass to take advantage of our helpless state.

 

“You have lost, demon-slayer,” the Evil said. “Your confident words have been proved as being nothing but empty phrases in the face of my power…”

 

“Revise your facts, Soul Eater,” Sango said through clenched teeth, gripping my arm in a white-knuckled grip. I closed my eyes in silent pain as her fingernails dug deep into my skin, and when I opened them… there was nothing.

 

The monsters had disappeared.

 

How…? I looked at her in awe. Sango got to her feet. “A land like this is not the sole property of a creature like you, Soul Eater- it is part of a human's imagination, a product of his worst fears.” She smirked. “And so are you, in fact. It was no great difficulty to manipulate your creations by using my own imagination.”

 

Now coming from the Soul Eater was blatant surprise. “Once again you have undermined my enemy estimation capabilities by your strength and presence of mind, demon-slayer… but you have not yet won the war.”

 

With that, the chill increased- a chill that even Sango couldn't alleviate… a chill in which I was drowning…

 

Sango came next to me, and with one arm encircling my shoulders, she took my right hand in her other hand and placed it over my heart, even as the chill froze the drops of blood, leaving them suspended in mid-air as tear-shaped red tinged crystals. My teeth chattered.

 

She came even closer to me, pressing her warm body against mine. “You have to live, Miroku,” she said, her own voice holding an undercurrent of shivering from the cold. “You have to live because everyone needs you… because I need you…”

 

“But I have done nothing but fail you,” I whispered hoarsely.

 

“And we you, if you think that way,” she said, looking up at me earnestly, the corners of her lips already turning blue. “Our day will come, Miroku, and we'll keep fighting for it- together.”

 

“T-to-together…” I murmured.

 

“Everyone has gone through so much to bring you back, Miroku… isn't the fact that the usage of Kikyo and even Sesshoumaru to break us up ended up working against the Soul Eater, an example of the love that bonds us all? That bonds us?”

 

What she had said now was news to me, but also strangely touching. Everybody had done so much to bring me back… my friends must have gone through a lot of trials just to save my life…

 

I realised then, that the greatest sin I could commit was to put their sacrifices to waste, by staying any longer in the hell.

 

I could feel frostbite beginning to extend itself over my fingers, and the cold freeze my limbs, and do the same to Sango… question was, was it too late for us to get out of there? Would we be frozen together in this embrace for eternity, only to be separated when the fiery pits of the underworld melt the ice?

 

“M-Miroku,” Sango murmured, the chill sapping her strength and senses. “I love you…”

 

The statement galvanised me suddenly, and I looked down at her. She smiled tiredly, before leaning her head on my chest. “I love you, Miroku,” she repeated, her voice low and husky.

 

A smile crossed my features and I rested my cheek on her head, suddenly not caring if we were stuck here forever- as long as we were together, frozen through time and space in this beautiful moment. I tightened the embrace, speaking the next few words in the most heartfelt and intense tones that I had ever used in my life.

 

“I love you, as well.”

 

I don't think either of us were prepared for happened next.

 

With a sound that reminded one of a thousand Sacred Jewels breaking, the frozen drops of blood shattered, the high-frequency sound piercing our eardrums. I could hear the Soul Eater gasping. “No… it's impossible… you two are not supposed to…”

 

“Maybe you just didn't know Miroku as well you claimed to,” Sango murmured, the after-effects of the cold still blurring her senses.

 

That was wrong, I thought. Maybe I hadn't known myself as well as I had claimed to do…

 

I pulled Sango closer.

 

The chill dissipated faster.

 

A light seemed to shine from within us, spreading around our unified bodies like a golden halo, radiating warmth like the sun. It soon obscured the black-red of the sky, the rugged, blood-soaked terrain… and finally the dark aura of the Soul Eater, revealing its true form for once. I glanced at it, and I gasped.

 

I was looking into a mirror image of myself.

 

The Soul Eater -nothing but a part of me - faded away into the glare of the golden light- the glare of our love, lips open in a silent scream.

 

And then it was gone forever.

 

The light faded away, to leave us standing on solid ground in the real world, faint specks of dawn touching the night sky. Sango and I stepped apart a couple of inches, blinking our eyes, reorienting ourselves. Hardly had we done so, when a hurricane struck us.

 

“Miroku! Sango!” the hurricane, that was Kagome, said, throwing herself upon us in delight. “You did it! You escaped!” Shippo jumped upon my shoulder as well, and Kirara rubbed herself against her mistress, mewing in relief. “Feh,” was what came from Inu Yasha. “It's a good thing, then; we don't have to waste anymore time here.”

 

I smiled in unrestrained delight; I was back home.

 

Having finally got over the initial pleasantries and warm homecomings, I inquired them of what had happened. Kagome told me everything- interrupted occasionally by Shippo- and I listened, enraptured. So much had gone on in the real world… things that would've taken years to happen all happened in one day…

 

Sometimes, the worst experiences were the only things that could bring out the best in you. Kikyo's fusion with Kagome, Sesshoumaru's unexpected helping hand, the destruction of the Soul Eater's main contact with the outside world- the tree… Sango saving me and we finding our true feelings for one another… I was suddenly inclined to think that the Soul Eater was of Buddha's doing- to nudge us in the direction in which our true destinies lay, and not to let our own petty stubbornness destroy the goal for which we were born to achieve.

 

I was thankful that no one asked for my side of the story.

 

I turned toward Sango, who was still standing by my side, clutching my arm. “I can't thank you enough, Sango, all of you… this is… it's… overwhelming.”

 

Kagome smiled. “What is so overwhelming about it, monk… I mean… Miroku… after all, that's what friends are for, right?”

 

“That's right.” Right in more ways than I could fathom. Meaning had come back into my life- it had shown itself prominently before me, lit by the golden backdrop of friendship and love- a love that had defeated all odds. I embraced Sango again.

 

Inu Yasha himself put an arm around a beaming Kagome's shoulders, both of them having found the answer to the quandary that had threatened to drown their happiness forever. Shippo stood by Kirara, straight-backed and proud, having proved himself in matters of the brain and the heart. I knew Sesshoumaru was somewhere out there, watching us, probably contemplating on new realisations.

 

It was perfect.

 

Each one of us will remember this day for eons to come, surely, for this was the day that had changed our lives irreversibly- for the better. Each of us had faced unimaginable trials, the greatest of odds… but the friendship and love that binds all of us stood up to those odds, toppling them, burying them within the sands of time, only to be brought up as vague nightmares in the future- as reminders of what we had overcome. Emotion welled up inside me.

 

A single tear traced a path down my cheek and onto Sango's hair.

 

Here was where I belonged: here was family, here was compassion, friendship; here was love. Its light will illuminate a singular path to our glowing destinies, and we will travel it together. Only one path will lead us to one destiny…

 

And all else will fade.

 

~*Finis*~

 

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And so it ends. But not before I give a huge thanks to every one who've reviewed, FFRG, or otherwise. Really, your reviews have galvanized me into writing more, and… let's just end with “Thanks”, okay? I'm just out of words… this is my first completed fanfic after all…