InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Interludes ❯ We Are Together ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter 7 - WE ARE TOGETHER

(Vol. 18, Scroll 3: Kikyo's Crisis, to Scroll 8: Kagome's Heart)

 

Tears dripped unchecked down my cheeks. Under the o-Shinboku God Tree, everything always seemed so much clearer, and simpler. I did love him. There was no confusion in my heart about that anymore. I loved him and that wasn't going to change whether he loved me back or not.

 

You love him and he's in pain. That little voice again. He's in pain and cannot move on until it is put to rest. You can help him, but only he can exorcise his own pain.

 

I can help him? But Kikyo loves him too. I heard her saying again as she held him beneath the o-Shinboku of five hundred years ago, “I won't let any man but you touch a single strand of hair on my head.”

 

The little voice spoke up into the silence in my heart. Kikyo seeks only death, his and her own. You would have him live, and love. Only you can help him see the better alternative. His heart is not given to anyone.

 

He may love you still.

 

He might still choose me over Kikyo? Is that what I want, to win him from Kikyo in some kind of stupid competition? Imagining that, my “winning” him, felt empty … wrong. No, I didn't want to compete for his love, I wanted him to understand the kind of love I could give him, have him give that love back to me because he wanted to live with peace and happiness instead of revenge and guilt. And if he couldn't? Well, then my heart would break and I would have feel like the utter and complete fool that I was. But I wasn't ready to give up. He hadn't actually rejected me - yet.

 

So what should I do? If I asked him to choose now, I knew he'd choose Kikyo. I'd heard him say as much to her, “who will protect you?,” he had cried Kikyo told him of Naraku's plan to kill her, “ I'm the only one you have!” His jealousy of Naraku's lust for Kikyo was still fresh, “I can't stomach the thought of of Naraku … of him even looking at you … even hearing your voice. I won't let him!” The words bore into my heart and hurt me all over again. They were raw and spoken with such fervor and sincerity. Even though fifty - or five hundred - years had gone by for the rest of us, it still felt like yesterday to him.

 

Suddenly, I knew what to do. He had vowed to protect Kikyo, but that was not the same as agreeing to go hell with her. There were more than two choices I could give him. I could go back and be patient. I could be with him as he did what he needed to do. And when it was over, he would still have his choice to make. In that time, I hoped to show him another way, a happier way, to be with someone. Maybe I could help him smile sometimes, so that when the time came for him to really choose, he didn't feel that dying with Kikyo was his only path.

 

It would be more complicated for both of us; I would have to be strong. He would have to accept his feelings for both of us. I would have to fight the feeling that I was making an idiotic decision and that he might someday choose Kikyo over me anyway. A small doubt nagged at my thoughts, what if I go back and he won't let me stay, even now?

 

But what if you don't go back and never know?

 

The wood at the edge of the well was rough against my skin. My heart beat so loudly in my ears I could barely hear myself talk. He hadn't looked happy to see me, but he wasn't angry either, which for him meant this conversation we were having mattered a great deal.

 

“I feel lighter with you,” he was saying, “my heart is calm, but,” the pain showed on his face, “I can't afford lightness or peace, not when … I have to protect her. I have to give Kikyo my life.”

 

No you don't, I thought to myself, and almost said as much. Then those words came back to me, you can help him, but only he can exorcise his own pain.

 

“I know,” I said to him.

 

We kept talking, and I came close to admitting my love for him. I didn't say the words, but I'm pretty sure their meaning came through. He looked miserable, and watching the tension on his face, I realized that for the first time in days, I did not feel miserable. I had a way out for us both. It was time to see if he would accept my solution.

 

“InuYasha,” I said taking a deep breath and standing up, “just tell me one thing.”

 

“Yeah,” he looked scared, as if I was going to ask him a question he didn't want to answer. I hoped he wasn't right. Taking a deep breath, I said it, “can I stay by your side?”

 

“You want to stay?” He repeated my question as though he wasn't sure he heard it right.

 

“Yes,” I smiled a little so he knew I meant it. He asked me again, asked me if I understood what I was saying, and again I said yes.

 

His terrified expression softened a little bit and the slightest bit of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. It worked! He was going to let me stay!

 

I can't ever break the bond between InuYasha and Kikyo I know that. But InuYasha, I also know that it was no accident you and I met. I can't leave you now.

 

“Let's go, InuYasha,” I said, forcing some confidence into my voice and reaching out to take his hand.

 

“Yeah,” he said weakly and curled his fingers over mine.

 

It's alright to be light sometimes. I want you to laugh. I don't know what I'll be able to do, but I'll always be near you.

 

The wind blew softly and my heart lifted.

 

 

InuYasha

 

Miroku, Sango and Shippo had just been there talking to me, and I got so mad and ranted that I didn't even notice that they had left. What was wrong with me? Was I going crazy? I sat back down with a thump on the roots that had bound me once. The sunlight under the o-Shinboku tree filtered down to splash on my red haori, the bright happy color mocking my gloomy mood.

 

Miroku said I looked like the Buddah. Feh! What an idiot. I felt less at peace than I could ever remember. I could hardly think or talk. I was lost in a morass of confused and conflicting emotions, flitting from one pain to the next, never holding on to any one feeling long enough to exorcise it. I didn't like being like this, it made me feel vulnerable and unfocused, too exposed to dangers from within and without. I growled and shook my head, as if that could knock this stuff loose inside me.

 

My heart felt like an open wound seething with guilt for letting Kikyo fall prey to Naraku, jealousy over Naraku's feelings for Kikyo, jealousy at Koga's affections for Kagome, anger at seeing Kikyo so weakened by Naraku's beast, and anguish over having to tell Kagome I couldn't see her any more so I could go deal with all this other stuff. I felt like I was gonna scream. If I hadn't been so exhausted, I probably would have roared out my frustration. But I hadn't slept in two days, trying to decide how to tell Kagome good-bye. The roar died in my throat.

 

The simple truth of it was that I didn't want to tell Kagome good-bye. I had grown to like the warmth and friendship I felt with her. When she was gone, I missed her. When she was there, I wanted to be near her. I'd pushed her away so many times before, and each time it just hurt us both more. I didn't even want to think about how she must be feeling right now, the last thing I needed was more guilt. With this thought, another big blop of the stuff fell right onto my pile.

 

“Shit!” I growled out loud.

 

Still, my mind was made up. I had to finish what I had started so many years ago. I had to right the wrong I'd done to Kikyo by not protecting her, not trusting her. Now that Naraku was coming after her again, I had no choice. Until that debt was paid, I would not be free to wallow in peace and happiness, if indeed I was alive to wallow in anything.

 

What I really wanted was to ask Kagome to come back and stay with me, even while I chased down Naraku to avenge Kikyo. The very thought of asking her made me feel so guilty, imagining what Miroku and Sango would think - and what Shippo would scream at my face until I boxed him -- I just didn't think I could do it. She'd be risking her life, and for what? To help me avenge Kikyo? To watch me give up my life for Kikyo? All that, just to keep me company and make me smile sometimes? Imagining Kagome standing by as I died for Kikyo made me feel so selfish that I just gave in to feeling totally disgusted with myself. I am such a complete slime! What a total prick! I couldn't believe I was even thinking of asking Kagome to come back to me.

 

No. It wasn't fair to either one of them. I couldn't be both the people they needed me to be - the protector/avenger and the protector/companion. I would probably go crazy and disappoint them both, especially Kagome. She deserved more than that. She had done enough in helping us get this far. She needed to be home and get on with her life. Those thoughts stuck in my throat. Go back for good? Never see her again?

 

And what about what you deserve? What you want?

 

That stupid little voice was back. It was the voice that tended to say the things I was trying not to think. It was the voice that didn't want me to give my life to Kikyo. It hadn't shut up once since I rescued Kikyo from Naraku's giant soul stealer.

 

It's not about what I want or don't want! We'd been through this before, god damn it! I was screaming again inside, at myself this time. It's about what I have to do! Now please shut up!

 

I got up and walked to the well. We were leaving in the morning to hunt Naraku, and it was time I put this behind me, did the right thing by Kagome and got on with my task.

 

I stopped short as I broke the treeline around the well. Kagome. She was sitting there, deep in thought. I was completely caught off guard. I was supposed to go through the well, find her unprepared and tell her what I had decided and leave her forever. I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there with my mouth half open.

 

She looked at me with a probing expression, like she was thinking a hundred things and trying to read a hundred things in my face as well. For a moment we just looked at each other. I couldn't keep looking at her or I was going to say something dumb.

 

She started to talk. But I had to talk more, I had to tell her why I couldn't afford to be peaceful, why I had to give Kikyo my life. I was sure after I said these things, she would understand what I was saying, cry a little and then leave. But she didn't. She said, “I can't compete against Kikyo … because I'm still alive.”

 

Alive! She says it like it's a curse! You dumb shit, how screwed up are you to make such a young woman feel cursed because she's not dead?!

 

More guilt.

 

She kept talking. She couldn't bear not to see me again? She's made peace with her jealousy for Kikyo? She … she wants to stay with me?

 

Stay with me?

 

“Kagome,” I stammered, intending to tell her she was crazy and push her back down the well for the last time. But my mouth failed to utter the mean words that rose weakly in my brain and compassion dripped from the ones that actually emerged, “do you understand what you're saying? Do you know what staying with me means? It means helping me avenge Kikyo's death. It means maybe having to watch me die.” It means maybe dying with me. My heart skipped a beat at that thought, but my great desire to protect her couldn't allow me to believe that would happen. I would be the one to die. I was sure of it. “You're risking your life if you come back here. Kagome, is that really what you want?”

 

I was sure that when she heard it put that way, she would realize her mistake and back away. But she didn't. She kept looking at me with that sweet face. Calm eyes.

 

“Yes. If you'll let me,” she said. “I'll be with you if you'll be with me.” She didn't move her eyes from mine. She wasn't asking me to give up my quest for revenge. She wasn't asking me to choose her over Kikyo. She was asking me if I would continue to protect her, continue to struggle between my feelings of duty and desire.

 

Her eyes told me that she did indeed know what her words meant. It was me that was still trying to understand. I saw that she meant everything she'd said about wanting to be with me. Me! I saw that she wanted me to be happy.

 

Happy.

 

Looking at her face, a small space in the mess inside me settled, and I did feel a tiny bit of happiness find a place in there. A small smile tugged at a corner of my heart for the first time in days.

 

“Let's go, InuYasha,” she said and reaching out to take my hand.

 

“Yeah,” I said weakly. My heart was still a jumble of emotions, but something small had changed, was different. Now all those feelings had something at their center, some little bit of stillness to hold on to, and I felt hopeful for the first time since before that terrible day Kikyo shot me in the heart. I curled my fingers over hers. Something to hold on to.

 

It's alright to be light sometimes. She wants you to laugh and to be alive.

 

The wind blew softly and my heart lifted.

 

 

Kikyo

 

I was so happy, the words I'd just said to you reverberated in my mind as I walked away from your embrace under the o-Shinboku tree, my soul skimmers lighting the way. I glanced back once to see you watching me, a sadness on your face. I took the memory of that sadness with me.

 

Happy. It was not a word I had planned to use, for I did not really feel what I remembered true happiness to be. It was more like a memory of happiness that echoed inside me now.

 

As I walked towards that dank cave where I had tended the cursed soul, Onigumo, I wove the spell in my mind that I would use to shield myself from Naraku, Onigumo's abominable incarnation. I slipped into the quieter conscious needed to knit the most powerful spells into being. There I wrapped your jealousy, guilt and desire to protect me into my own hatred and determination to kill him. Soon I had a broiling mass of energy collected around the remains of my heart, ready to channel into the soil I would use to protect this body.

 

I gathered the soil where he had lain; dragging his own hatred, desire and lust into the dark energy I had brewed and began the ritual to infuse it all into my new protective shell. As the spell took shape, exactly as I had planned, I took satisfaction in the fact that we three had birthed the very source of what would become Naraku's greatest weakness. This tainted soil would let me get close enough to him to kill him. And then we three would be two. Maybe there was a way to kill Naraku without going to hell with him?

 

I stood and secured the pouch with this new weapon to my belt. The place had no more power in it. I emerged on the edge of the hillock and sat to watch the wind blow intermittently at the tall grass on the plain below.

 

When Naraku had assembled the jewel and I moved to finally destroy him, would I really bring you into our last death's embrace? Those echoes in my soul, of love and happiness and other human emotion, they whispered to me that this was wrong to hope for. That my gift to you should be your life as I sacrificed myself to Naraku's demise. But they were only whispers, remnants of feeling that no longer constrained my actions.

 

For in my new state, I saw them for what they were, the weak threads that bound a soul to a living body. Now I could see that their power was useful when seeking to manipulate the living, but not ultimately valuable and worthy of protection. No, I needed your hatred, jealousy and guilt. I needed it to protect me until I could kill Naraku, and I would need it to kill Naraku.

 

With this thought, despite a slight cry somewhere inside, I felt relief. Imagining the day that you and I would bind Naraku's soul and carry it with us beyond this world gave me satisfaction. For I found being in this world wearisome. The constant desire to relax into the river of death was exhausting to resist. I closed my eyes and toyed with the flow of it around me for just a moment, letting it tease at my consciousness, tug at the souls within me. When Naraku's monstrous soul skimmer had taken so many of them only hours ago, I had begun to float in it, I had begun to rest. Now I let myself drift just a bit.

 

No more hate.

Peace brushes my face like feathers.

Without you the peace is incomplete.

 

Without him.

No final peace for us can be.

We three, all, will be the final peace.

 

I resisted the pull fully and brought myself back to the hillside. Back to the dark. For you, and for him, I would stay in this world a while longer.