InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Collected Works ❯ The Strongest of All ( Chapter 55 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Title: The Strongest of All
Author: LuxKen27
Genre: Vignette
Universe: Canon
Rating: T
Warnings: mention of character death
Word Count: 440
Summary: He had known many women in his life, but only one had been strong enough to capture his heart.

Entry for: ebony_silks [Sess/Kag] Week #88, “Strongest” prompt (1st Place)

Disclaimer: The Inuyasha concept, story, and characters are copyright Rumiko Takahashi and Viz Media.

He had lived for countless centuries, and had known many different sorts of women in his time. Each of them had a strength uniquely their own, a quality from which he learned some valuable lesson.

The first, of course, had been his mother, and in her he saw the strength of a woman’s pride. She was a regal, elegant taiyoukai, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and yet somehow his father had found it within himself to turn his back on her. His mother never wavered, however, her head always held high, in spite of her mate’s infidelity.

The little girl, Rin, had shown him the strength of unconditional love. Her faith and devotion to him from the first moment of their meeting had utterly changed him, opening his shuttered heart, teaching him compassion and empathy for another’s plight. He had followed her to the very depths of hell in return for that simple, childlike love, a testament to their unlikely, yet lasting, bond.

The wind witch had loved him as well, and it was in this ethereal woman he saw the strength of desperation. Borne of the vile Naraku, Kagura yearned for nothing more than to be free – free from the obligations and responsibilities of her father, a sentiment he well understood. She had flattered him unabashedly, offering her powers – and eventually even herself – in exchange for his aid in this quest. In the end, her desperation was her undoing; he had not been able to save her, but he couldn’t allow her to die in vain.

Each of these women directed his destiny in some way, but none had so shaped the very core of his being as the last, the greatest, the best.

She was proud, this warrior miko. Her heart was large enough to feel compassion even for those who wanted her dead. It was desperation that led her back into his life after a long absence, but it was a fierce and passionate love that ultimately bound them together. They presented a united front in public, fighting shoulder to shoulder as equals, and healed each other’s long-ago buried wounds in private. It wasn’t easy: they sparred and prodded and grieved; they held and kissed and forgave.

Yes, it was in Kagome that he saw the true strength of character, the real measure of humanity. It was in her volatile yet fragile emotions that he found the complete package – dignity, solace, pleasure, tranquility. She was not perfect, but at the same time, she never tried to be. She was just her, flaws and all, and somehow, she proved to be the strongest of them all.