InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love Me When I'm Gone ❯ Loss ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha; his universe is the property of the incomparable Rumiko Takahashi.

 

Author's note- Warning of character death. But please, don't despair! Just keep reading.

 

 

Love Me When I'm Gone

 

"With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl

I balance on this wishing well that some men call the world." -Leonard Cohen

 

 

 

1. Loss

 

Before the day of Naraku's final defeat, the only person Inuyasha had ever truly mourned in his life was his mother, because she was the only one he had truly loved. Although death had hounded him, clutched at him, surrounded him since the night of his birth, since the night his father the Dog Lord had fallen protecting his newborn son and mortal wife, his mother's passing was the only death which had ever mattered. Certainly the demons he fought and destroyed every day in the quest for the fragments of the Shikon Jewel were no great loss; in fact, nothing gave him so much satisfaction as the feeling of his blade-sharp claws slicing through hot, heaving flesh, or unleashing the explosive fury of his Tetsuaiga and the windscar. These deaths were necessary, exhilarating, even pleasurable, at least to his demon blood.

He had not even a single memory of his father to justify a focused grief; all he knew was what little his mother had told him, so that he grieved more for the past haven of her silken lap, the pressure of her arms around him, the soft flow of her voice, than for the loss she spoke of. Until the struggle for Tetsuaiga, his father had been an abstract, unreal presence. Now, the sword connected Inuyasha with his father, proved that at least he had been loved. But the ability to wield the Dog Lord's chosen weapon was no substitute for the sort of bond Sesshomaru had shared with him: a bond formed through life, time, experience. This was why Inuyasha found the thought of Sesshomaru's resentment and jealousy ludicrous. What did it matter if father had favored him, if he had never felt the benefits of that favor? What did the royalty of his blood matter, if he had spent almost his entire life alone, miserable, and shunned by both the demon and the human world? What did it matter if he had mastered Tetsuaiga, if it was not his father who had taught him to master it? Lacking his guidance, Inuyasha had to make do with the garbled instructions of the two old loons Miyoga and Totosai.

Inuyasha was not heartless. He had simply become accustomed to death; his life had come to be defined by loss—loss that, except for his mother's death, went unacknowledged and un-mourned. It was as if the pain of losing his mother had exhausted his capacity to grieve; after her passing, the frightened half-demon child had become consumed with survival, hardened by the world's cruelty, handling his pain only by denying it. When he stumbled into a brief happiness with Kikyo, it too was snatched away.

He had not had time to mourn Kikyo's first death: Naraku's inspired deception had seen that he was pinned to the trunk of Goshinboku and sealed into oblivion before the priestess' life had ebbed, so that the moment of their mutual demise was one of stunned confusion, anger and hurt, not of grief. By the time Kagome released him from his slumber, he hated Kikyo as passionately as he had once believed he loved her. After her unnatural resurrection, and the truth of their murderous betrayal, she had come close to dying scores of times. He had regretted every one of them, simply because he could not bear to see her disappear again. But if he mourned at all, it was for the life he and Kikyo might have known, if not for Naraku's malicious interference—not for Kikyo as she existed now, in her cursed half-life, an animated husk of the woman he had loved fifty years ago.

Perhaps referring to Kikyo as `unacknowledged' in any capacity was both shortsighted and complacent: their involvement was hardly private, not since the advent of Kagome and the others. The monk, the demon slayer, and the kitsune pup, owing their loyalty to Kagome, seemed to enjoy harassing him about it. As for Kagome herself, she had stopped trying to pretend she did not care, and Kikyo's presence was a source of constant friction between them. He saw the way her eyes darkened every time the luminous lizard-like soul collectors wafted overhead, and although he tried to ignore her discontentment, he always failed.

Not that any of it mattered any more.

Thinking of Kagome now, Inuyasha growled low in annoyance and shifted position, hunching against the trunk of Goshinboku and crossing his arms in the sleeves of his fire-rat kimono. She had been gone for over three days, ever since he had deposited her back at the well after the final battle, Naraku's death, and all that followed. He understood why she had left, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Apart from the general emptiness he felt whenever she was on the other side of the well, he also felt vaguely annoyed that she had left him alone to deal with his distraught companions: he was awful at comforting them, especially since he too was in pain. Kagome should have known he would be useless at the task of consolation—wasn't she always going on about what an insensitive jerk he was? And then to leave him here, alone, now… Inuyasha scowled, savoring a brief flare of anger directed towards the young miko.

What made it all worse was that this should have been a time of wild celebration. They had finally vanquished the evil which had dictated their lives for the past three years, the evil which united them in suffering and vengeance. But the victory was nothing like he had imagined it so many times during the quest for the jewel shards. It seemed like sheer luck and coincidence that they had managed it at all. And Inuyasha, who usually reveled in the details of his battles, replaying the sequence of blows, leaps, slashes and curses in his head again and again, a litany of his skill and prowess (and even occasionally, he conceded, his mistakes or botched attacks), simply wanted to forget how it had happened—that it had happened at all.

He did not want to remember the frighteningly loud sound of Miroku's flesh ripping as the gaping hole in his palm expanded around the poisonous wasps which had nearly killed him several times before. The wind tunnel sucked up every one of the vivid, lethal insects before the monk staggered backwards and collapsed on the ground, his face ashen but triumphant.

He did not want to remember the dazed expression on Koga's usually smug face as the whirling blade of Kagura's deadly fan swept across his neck, opening a streaming red gash in the exposed flesh. Inuyasha was shocked; Koga really was astoundingly fast, and he had never before allowed one of the windstorms to even graze him- what then had caused this comparative sluggishness? Koga's innate wolf demon strength and the sustaining power of the shards embedded in his legs would have kept him alive, if the fan had been the only thing to hit him: if it were not for the blades which simultaneously arced towards the blur of his legs, gouging out great swathes of flesh, and with them, the jewel shards. Kagura then snatched them up; it was almost as if she had known exactly where to strike him in order to do the most damage, how to ensure his death. When the shards were torn from his body, Koga crumpled to the rocky ground, his lower body drenched in the blood pouring from his slit throat. Somewhere behind him, Inuyasha heard Kagome give a choked gasp, and sensed her straining to reach Koga, but Naraku's enormous surging limbs prevented it.

He did not want to remember the way Kikyo's body dissolved into dust as the last of the animating souls left her. Because everyone else had been engaged in their own private struggle at the time, Kagome was the only one who truly knew what had happened to the other priestess— Inuyasha had seen her fall and crumble into clay only through the glaring prism of the backlash wave he had just sent roaring toward Naraku. He could not imagine what force had wrenched the souls from her body; as far as he knew, nothing but Kanna's mirror held that power, and the little white-haired demon girl was nowhere to be found. Inuyasha had not had the nerve to ask Kagome to recount Kikyo's last actions, what had caused her final death. And in a way, it mattered only that she was gone.

And he especially did not want to remember Sango's scream of rage and pain when one of Naraku's enormous root-like tentacles swept her from Kirara's back and impaled her as she plummeted to the earth. The demon slayer's body dangled limply from the monstrous, whipping appendage like the laundry flapping on the line outside Kaede's hut. Inuyasha, weaving between the roots below, recoiled in horror as Sango's hot blood gushed onto the upraised blade of Tetsuaiga and coated the sleeves of his haoiri. He was soaked with the scent of her dying, so that for a sickening moment it was as if he had killed her. Kirara gave an anguished cat-screech and dove back towards her mistress, but her claws could not free Sango from the cruel spire which held her fast. Inuyasha could only stare for one hellaciously prolonged instant before he was forced back into the fray.

He did not want to remember the grim job of disentangling Sango and Koga's bodies from the wreckage of battle. Naraku had not burst into nothingness like every other demon they had ever destroyed: his determination to exist was so great, his evil and hatred so intense, that chunks of his grotesque, amalgamated body remained after he was gone, scattered over the mutilated land which had witnessed the battle. Fearing that they had achieved nothing but a false respite as long as these lumps of flesh remained to regenerate, Inuyasha reluctantly forced the distraught Miroku to release the prayer beads which restrained his wind-tunnel. As he had suspected, the tunnel had not sealed over or disappeared; its pull was weak, but sufficient to draw in the last bits of Naraku's loathsome body—when no part of him remained, the flesh knit itself over the yawning black hole: Miroku's perfect, healed hand serving as proof that Naraku had finally been sucked out of this world.

He did not want to remember the journey that followed: first, two days to carry Koga's body to his few surviving kinsmen in the Eastern Lands. When they arrived, that foolish lackey Ginta had thrown himself at Kagome, sobbing, babbling about how she might have been their lady one day, and how much Koga had loved her. Inuyasha set his teeth, determined not to say or do anything Kagome would consider insensitive, especially since he truly regretted the loss of the wolf demon. If Kagome thought he was somehow gloating over his death, she was completely wrong, as well as unfair. Yes, they now possessed the last two shards of the jewel, but they could have accomplished the same end without Koga actually dying: he could easily have removed the shards from his own legs with his claws, no doubt all while boasting that he couldn't even feel the pain. Hearing Koga's gravelly voice and arrogant tone in his head, Inuyasha had smiled, utterly without mirth. The wolf demon might have been a self-important ass who couldn't keep his filthy paws off Kagome, but he had been both a worthy adversary and a valuable ally in the fight against Naraku.

Much, much worse was the three day trek to the deserted demon slayers' village. They made a slight detour to Kaede's village in order to inform the old woman of what had happened, and to collect Shippo, who—amid fierce protests—had stayed behind in safety while the rest of them went out to face Naraku for what they had prayed would be the last time. Inuyasha recalled that the only thing that made the runt stop objecting and agree not to follow them was Kagome's tearful appeal: she said she could never live with herself if anything happened to him. Inuyasha privately thought that her plea was slightly histrionic, especially since Shippo had proven himself quite a tough little guy in past fights, and had always come along with them before, in spite of the danger. But Kagome was the closest thing Shippo had to a mother; he knew she considered the little kitsune her special charge, and loved him like she would a pup; Inuyasha and the others could only defer to her judgment in this. Besides, after hearing Kagome declare that she would rather die herself than risk him getting hurt, Shippo immediately subsided and threw himself into her arms, sniffling and compliant. It was clear the kitsune could not withstand the sight of tears glistening in Kagome's black eyes—Inuyasha wondered how he would have reacted, if the young miko had turned her anguished gaze on him: could he have done otherwise than give in, as Shippo had?

Inuyasha dug one of his fangs into the inside of his lower lip when he saw Shippo hurtling out of the hut, and watched as his ecstatic grin slid into an expression of worry, then shocked disbelief, then pain. The fox child had seen their dejected posture, smelled the salt of Kagome's ceaseless tears, seen the still form laid tenderly on Kirara's back, and when he didn't see Sango standing with them, smiling, opening her arms to him, he knew. Inuyasha flattened his sensitive ears against the top of his head as Shippo burst into shrill sobs. At any other time, if Shippo had cried so loudly and made such a fuss, Inuyasha would have told him roughly to shut up before his eardrums burst, probably with a thump on the head for good measure. Now, he simply flattened his ears and let the fox child cry in Kagome's arms.

When Kaede learned of her sister's death, she closed her eyes for a moment, sighed, and that was all. She shot a glance at Inuyasha, but he refused to meet it; he stared at the ground and shuffled his feet, suppressing a growl. He expected the old hag to make one of her infuriating speeches about how it was better this way, how the living and the dead could not be together, how Kikyo had only wished to drag him into hell, but Kaede was silent, and he was grateful. He supposed she'd had plenty of time to reconcile herself to Kikyo's passing, and may even have longed for her sister's unnatural resurrection to end.

Maybe part of the reason for avoiding Kaede's gaze was guilt. If he were honest with himself, Inuyasha had barely spared a thought for Kikyo since he had seen her body disintegrate, because Sango's death had eclipsed the priestess.' Kagome might have been Sango's best female friend, but Inuyasha had much in common with the demon slayer, and they had always gotten along well. For one thing, Sango was the only person he knew who could truly understand what it felt like when Kikyo fixed him with her cold, blank stare, because she lived with the knowledge that Kohaku would never recognize her, and if he ever did regain his consciousness, the memories of what he had done while under Naraku's control would kill him. She knew the pain of the disconnect between body and heart, when your loved one was nothing but a lie encased in flesh, familiar flesh that told you to hope, while the soul you truly loved was gone. When Naraku chose to remove the jewel shard that kept the young boy alive, and left his body splayed across the path to Kaede's village, it was Inuyasha who got to her first, who held her tightly until the sobs slowed, and Kagome could take his place.

He and Sango lived by killing. Miroku and especially Kagome had slipped into the warrior's life by ill fortune or accident, but he and Sango knew the ferocious joy of battle, as well as the terrifying closeness of death. Often, especially when Kagome had returned to her time for supplies or to take one of her `tests,' they would sit around the fire late into the night, swapping tales of victory, discussing strategy, or cleaning their respective weapons in companionable silence while Miroku meditated. In light of her profession, Inuyasha had always felt a vague amazement at Sango's sweet temperament. She was unfailingly kind to Shippo and Kirara, and never seemed to go into irrational rages, like Kagome. The most violent thing she did in everyday life was slap Miroku, and that was only to protect herself from his advances.

Miroku, for his part, had barely spoken since it happened. Inuyasha had always assumed that the monk, while he loved and respected Sango as a friend and partner, had merely chosen her as the most convenient outlet for his lecherous urges, since Inuyasha had made it clear from their first meeting that Kagome was off-limits. In spite of Kagome's smug assurances to the contrary, the half-demon could never believe that there was any deeper feeling behind his seeming addiction to Sango's curves. But, now, seeing Miroku cradling Sango's head in his lap as they made their way toward the demon-slayers' village, Inuyasha wasn't so sure. The monk had insisted on riding Kirara, to hold Sango's body and ensure that she wouldn't be jostled or fall off; he and Kagome had agreed, horrified by the thought of having to lash her to Kirara's back with rope. Inuyasha was impressed: as much as he cared for Sango, he could never have stomached carrying her body for three days, feeling her once-soft skin become cold and waxy, avoiding the open chasm where her belly should have been, her head lolling against his shoulder. Maybe it was these thoughts which, as he leapt along the ground with Kagome on his back, caused him to hold her a little tighter than usual, in order to feel the warm pressure of her body against his back, the reassuring rhythm of her breathing and heartbeat.

Kagome and Kaede had shut themselves up in the hut with Sango's body before they set out to bring her home; they had washed away the blood and dirt, removed her mangled pink-and-black armor, and dressed her in the silk kimono she usually wore. Fortunately, it was early spring and still quite chilly, meaning that although the scent and flavor of death settled over them, it was not overwhelming, so that Shippo and Inuyasha could give their friend the consideration she deserved, instead of being revolted by her body's inexorable decay.

As the four remaining companions stood beside Sango's grave, Inuyasha breathed in the smell of freshly turned soil, spring, growth. It was the first time in his life he could remember wishing that his brother were with him. If Sesshomaru had been there, either in the final battle or afterwards in Kaede's village, he could have used Tensaiga to return life to Sango's body and reverse the damage. He wasn't exactly sure how the healing sword worked, and he had never witnessed its resuscitative powers, but he was certain it would have saved his friend. In fact, although he would never admit it, he had called out to Sesshomaru in the moments after he saw Sango fall, and had been willing himself to see a flash of his brother's silver hair in the trees or to catch his scent ever since. But of course the great Lord of the Western Lands would never appear when you actually needed him, he thought viciously. Sesshomaru only made a nuisance of himself when he wasn't wanted.

Then again, as strange and callous as it sounded, maybe it was better that Sesshomaru hadn't wielded Tensaiga: maybe it was better this way. Once Kohaku had finally been killed, Sango was the last of her entire people. It wasn't that she was alone; she had Kagome and all the others, including himself. But there was something disturbingly right about that long row of graves, about laying Sango in the ground next to her kin.

He, Kagome and Shippo stood silently while Miroku blessed her body and prayed that her spirit had found peace. The monk's voice was surprisingly steady, but he spoke low and with obvious effort; Inuyasha suspected that it was only his spiritual strength and extensive training which allowed him to control his sorrow, to tamp it down long enough to honor Sango with a proper burial. Inuyasha was mortified when he felt a hot pricking behind his own eyes—tears were so foreign to him that it took a moment to recognize the sensation. The last time he had even come close to crying was he believed that Miroku, Sango and Kagome had all died of Mukotsu's poison. Then, Miyoga had been able to siphon the toxins from their blood, and Inuyasha had shed a few hidden tears of relief and gratitude.

Now, as Miroku knelt at the head of the grave to place one of his protective sutras, and laid Sango's beloved hiarakots in the earth beside her, his hands lingering on the solid bone, smoothed by her constant touch; as he watched Kagome and Shippo cling to each other and weep almost without sound; as Kirara purred a plaintive goodbye, her head bowed, Inuyasha sharply recalled the pain of death, of loss. He remembered what it felt like when death mattered, because Sango had mattered. And he mourned.

 

* * *

 

Kagome had not said more than ten words to him during their journey back to the Bone Eater's Well, which took almost two days of hard travel, but he felt her clinging to his neck; he knew when she cried because he could smell the salt of her tears. The jewel hung on its customary chain around her neck, warming to her skin. The only two shards missing now were the two which had been torn from Koga's legs—he could hear them clinking in their glass vial, and fancied that the sound was forlorn. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure how or when Kagome had gotten those two shards from Kagura, the last one to possess them. Perhaps Kagome had used her priestess' power to wrest the shards from the female demon; perhaps her existence was so inextricably linked to Naraku's that Kagome had plucked them from her body; perhaps a surviving Kagura had given them up voluntarily once Naraku was dead, or simply whisked herself away from the scene, if she was still alive: he had never really been able to gauge the motives of the mistress of the wind, and he wasn't clear whether she could live once Naraku and his sustaining heart were gone. In any case, the shards now rested safely with Kagome. He wondered why she was so reluctant to let the shards find their place, to finish the jewel, to end this three year ordeal, but for once he refrained from hassling her about her choice. Miroku had announced that he planned to stay in the demon-slayers' village for another day or so, then return to Kaede's village to await Kagome's decision about the jewel, and Shippo had elected to stay with him (Inuyasha knew the little kit wanted to keep Miroku company and comfort him as best he could, but he also suspected that Shippo feared his older friend's inevitable pain-driven anger and surliness, and preferred to let Kagome deal with him).

It appeared her method of coping with the situation was to withdraw completely, to insulate herself in her grief. Inuyasha had never seen her so deeply distressed, not even at any time during her messy history with Kikyo. Her dark, violent moods were usually fleeting, because the causes were temporary. Even when she was dealing with more serious problems, like trouble at school, or brooding over some perceived insult or insensitivity of his, or facing the constant strain of her double life and the threat of Naraku, Kagome was staunch, cheerful, and open. Under normal circumstances, her frankness and amiability had always slightly astounded Inuyasha—and when she was angry or upset with him, when she flew into one of her inexplicable high-pitched rants, a series of good hard `sits' usually worked a charm to mollify her. Although he despised the kotodama rosary and Kagome's liberal use of her power over him, as Inuyasha mentally marked off the fourth consecutive hour of complete silence on Kagome's part, he found himself wishing she would sit him until the spell never wore off, and he lay pinned to the earth as he had once been pinned to Goshinboku, if only it would provoke her to action, make her herself again.

The second dusk brought them within twenty miles of Kaede's village; Inuyasha could easily have covered the distance, but he felt Kagome sagging against him, and knew she preferred to stop and make camp again. She had huddled into her sleeping bag and eaten nothing the night before, so Inuyasha intended to get some food into her tonight, by force if need be. He deposited her at one of their frequented sites, and left her to start a fire while he went off hunting. It wasn't long before he scented prey, a nice rabbit fattened on the spring foliage. He took off after it at a smooth sprint, darting gracefully between the trees; the days of travel had barely dented his energy and strength, and anyway he was so used to carrying Kagome's weight by now that he hardly noticed it, let alone considered it a burden. Instead of killing the animal with his fangs, he gave its neck a quick merciful twist, remembering Kagome's horrified reaction the one time he had sauntered back to the campsite with blood smeared across his mouth—her squeamishness was also the reason why he slit a single claw through fur and flesh and skinned the rabbit in one practiced yank.

He was turning back toward the campsite when, above the iron-tang odor of fresh blood, he caught another scent, silvery, familiar and unwelcome. He waited a few minutes, ears and nose poised. Then:

“What do you want, Sesshomaru?”

His brother laughed softly and stepped fluidly into his sight. “As difficult as it may be for you to believe, I did not seek you out, Inuyasha. I expect I am as delighted by this chance meeting as you are.” Noticing the cleaned game dangling from Inuyasha's hand, the Lord of the Western Lands snorted delicately, his lip curling over glinting teeth. “Ah, I see you have… obligations. Don't let me keep you. Tell me, Inuyasha, do you enjoy your domestication?”

Stung, Inuyasha shot back, “You should talk. Where's your little entourage tonight? How's Rin? Doesn't she miss her precious Daddy Sesshomaru?”

Sesshomaru inclined his head, smoothing an imaginary fold in his white sleeve. “That does not concern you,” he answered evenly.

“I'll ask you again,” Inuyasha barked. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“And I will tell you again, I have no business with you.” He made to sweep past the half-demon.

“Naraku's dead,” Inuyasha called to his retreating back. Sesshomaru paused, turned slightly, so that Inuyasha could see the fading light reflected in one molten-gold eye.

“I know,” he said. “Yet it is not his death I smell on you.”

Inuyasha was taken aback by the reference to Sango, to the surge of her blood which had bathed his sword, his face, his claws in hideous, slippery warmth, but tried not to show it: he decided that Sesshomaru merely wanted to give the impression of knowledge. There was no way he could have known how Inuyasha had scrubbed himself raw trying to rid himself of the metallic taint of Sango's blood; how it had tarnished the blade of Tetsuaiga, as if the sword itself could not bear contact with the blood of a mortal—a dear one, a friend—it was meant to protect. “If you knew about it, then where the hell were you?” he demanded. “We could have used your help,” he added, sullenly.

“Apparently,” Sesshomaru replied, still infuriatingly calm. His brother's exterior was always unfailingly composed, like a thick layer of ice formed over a roiling ocean of ferocity; even as he lashed out, struck, killed, and joyed in the killing, there was something always, always detached, cool, aloof about him. And yet Inuyasha had the strange feeling that at this moment, Sesshomaru was struggling to preserve that usual sneering impassivity, reaching for petty insults. “And how much it has cost you to admit that—perhaps, after two hundred years, you are growing up, little brother. As for the battle, Naraku has always been your concern. You know I have no interest in the Shikon Jewel.”

“What the hell are you talking about? It wasn't just about the jewel, and anyway, Naraku isn't only our concern: he's tried to kill you, too!”

“Be that as it may,” Sesshomaru murmured, “I had no reason to be there, and every reason to be elsewhere. I was otherwise occupied.”

“Doing what? What was so damned important?” Inuyasha snarled.

“This conversation is over. Go back to your little miko, Inuyasha. She shouldn't be left alone at such a time.” By the time Inuyasha had finished fuming over Sesshomaru's maddening false solicitude and imperious air, his brother had slipped away, disappeared into the trees, and he had no desire to chase after him. Looking down at the rabbit in his hand, he realized that at least Sesshomaru had been right about one thing: he shouldn't leave Kagome alone any longer.

When he loped back into the campsite, he found it bathed in firelight; Kagome was bending over the small fire stirring two cups of ramen. She turned and favored him with a wan smile. “You were taking so long I decided to make my own dinner,” she said.

He wasn't sure how to react to the improvement in her mood. Somehow, `I'm glad you're talking to me again' or `Hey, I guess you're feeling better,' didn't seem sufficient. He decided not to comment on it at all.

“Sorry,” he grumbled. He had opened his mouth to tell her about seeing Sesshomaru, but “It took awhile to find the meat. Nothing is out this time of night,” came out instead, and then it was too late to say anything without sounding suspicious; she didn't need to know, anyway.

“Well, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to have any, so go ahead and eat it raw,” she said.

“Oh, no you don't, Kagome,” he said. “You haven't eaten anything in almost two days. There's no way I'm going to let you get away with just having that little cup of noodles.”

“But you love ramen—you eat it all the time! This is beef flavor,” she added. “I know it's your favorite: come and have some.”

He brushed aside the feeble attempt at distraction. “You are going to have some of this nice rabbit meat, Kagome, or you're going to get so weak you'll fall off my back tomorrow. And don't think if that happens I'll be going back for you. You can just find your own way back to the well.”

Ordinarily such a remark would have caused her to scowl at him in mock anger and flounce away. But it was too flippant, too rough—too normal—for this fragile moment. Inuyasha cursed himself when she flinched as if he had struck her. He shuffled his feet, looking at the ground. “Sorry,” he said again. “It was just a joke.”

“A threat, you mean,” she retorted, surprising him. “It's all right, Inuyasha, I know you didn't mean it.” She gave him an exhausted smile, and he decided it was all right to respond in kind.

“Well, I meant the part about force feeding you this rabbit meat.”

In the end, Inuyasha, triumphant, ate the ramen, and was inordinately pleased when she teased him about his concern being a ploy, and only wanting it all to himself, anyway.

* * *

 

After the meal, Kagome remained by the fire, chin propped on her drawn-up knees, seemingly oblivious to his unobstructed view of the back of her thighs, provided by the strategic draping of her school skirt. Inuyasha determinedly fastened his gaze to a tree three feet to the left of her and settled back against the trunk of another, his hands slotted into the sleeves of his haoiri in his customary pose of relaxed vigilance. The night dragged quietly on until Kagome announced she was going to take a bath.

“And don't even think about coming after me,” she warned. “I'll be fine, we've used this hot-spring a thousand times.”

He grunted in combined assent and reproach (“Who do you think I am, Miroku?”) stung by her simple, unconscious use of the word `we.' This was the time of night when Kagome and Sango would repair to the hot spring together, to soak away the tensions of the day, to chat, discuss, analyze—whatever it was they did there, which he was not in a position to know. True, he sometimes lurked nearby, telling himself he was there for the girls' protection, either from demons or from Miroku's lustful spying. This last was quite a credible threat: the monk often got close enough to eavesdrop on their conversations, although Inuyasha was quite sure he wasn't paying attention to what they said.

In spite of the implied promise not to follow after her, Inuyasha felt some lurking was in order tonight. He didn't like the idea of Kagome being so alone and exposed—she hadn't even thought to bring her bow. Keeping a good five yards between them, Inuyasha crept along after Kagome's flitting progress through the trees. The fact that she could not detect his presence, even at such a short distance, seemed to justify that presence even more: what if he had been a demon intent on capturing the jewel which still swayed at her neck?

Inuyasha crouched behind one of the large boulders bordering the hot spring as Kagome undressed and slid into the water; his ears caught her tiny mewling sigh, and the heat intensified the scent of her skin, but he kept his eyes resolutely on the ground. It wasn't until she gave a muffled sob that Inuyasha began to feel he had no right to be there, that instead of keeping her safe, he had intruded on her privacy and sorrow. But he did not retreat. If Kagome would not confide in him, this—this impotent, wistful hovering—was the only way he could help her. He didn't blame her, really, for keeping silent: as she kept reminding him, he wasn't all that perceptive of her feelings, and Sango had been the one she treated as a confidante and best friend.

Perhaps that wasn't quite true. It was not that he could not perceive Kagome's moods and feelings—hell, sometimes the scent of anger, or fear, or happiness, or excitement, or hurt, was so strong on her that Inuyasha rather thought a block of wood could have picked up on it. He always knew what she was feeling. He just didn't necessarily know why she felt the way she did, or what he should do about it, and he always seemed to say precisely the wrong thing. Kagome often baffled him. Sometimes he got so annoyed, both at his emotional clumsiness and at the others needling him about it, that he said snarky things and acted clueless on purpose: the end result was the same, whether he tried or he didn't, so he might as well forgo the effort of being nice. If she was going to get upset and call him an idiot and a child, he might as well deserve her insults, rather than feel persecuted.

When Kagome had been soaking in the spring for nearly a half hour, he reluctantly stole back to the campsite in order to be settled and above suspicion when she returned. He had not been sitting for more than ten minutes when he caught another group of scents he had not expected to detect for at least two more days. Soon afterwards, Kirara landed in the clearing, allowed Miroku to slide off her back with Shippo perched on his right shoulder, then transformed and hopped onto his left, so that the monk appeared to have three decidedly mismatched heads.

Inuyasha stood up, nodding a greeting.

“Are you surprised to see us?” Miroku said, striding over to the fire and helping himself to the remainder of the roasted rabbit, still on the spit.

“Nope, I could smell you coming,” Inuyasha replied smugly. “But what the hell are you doing here, anyway? I thought you wanted to stick around the other village.” He kept his language neutral, avoiding Sango's name, not quite on purpose. It was just easier.

The monk shrugged noncommittally. “We got lonely. We decided to come after you two yesterday, and we've been about 3 hours behind you ever since. I figured Kirara could catch us up before you reached the well.”

“Where's Kagome?” the kitsune piped up, after scanning the campsite and finding no sign of his beloved miko except the omnipresent knapsack.

“Taking a bath,” the half-demon answered shortly.

“Oho, Inuyasha, I see it's a good thing we got here when we did,” Miroku crowed.

“Shut up, pervert,” Inuyasha snapped, extremely glad they had arrived when they did. “What's that supposed to mean, anyway? I'm not like you, I don't need a chaperone.”

Miroku grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Whatever you say, Inuyasha.”

Inuyasha growled, holding back from asking why the hell Miroku appeared to be in such a jovial mood, when it was clear that the reason the monk was here now, able to be pestering him, was that he couldn't handle his bleak vigil beside Sango's grave, and had to cut it short, perhaps for Shippo's sake, more likely for his own. The half-demon knew that his friend attached great significance to place. Inuyasha recalled, relatively early in his and Kagome's partnership with Miroku, visiting the huge green crater which served both as his vanished father's grave, the only corporeal evidence of a man's implosion, and a reminder that his son would inevitably meet the same consuming end, if they failed to destroy Naraku. On the one hand, Inuyasha remembered the crater so vividly because it was the site of his first successful use of the windscar. But it was more than that. It made him see that this was not a solitary fight—he was not alone in his claim to vengeance. And it united them, the monk and the half-demon, for Inuyasha, too, had his places of pilgrimage, the physical touchstones of his life: his mother's grave; the Bone Eater's Well; Goshinboku. Now, they must both amend their lists to include yet another place of burial.

Of course, these were not conscious associations; Inuyasha was a creature of instinct, which applied to his emotions as much as anything else. He felt deeply, intensely, intuitively: he simply could not express what he felt, neither to others nor to himself. For instance, it would not occur to him that he sanctified these places because it was easier than admitting his love for the people they represented: his mother, Kikyo, Sango. And Kagome, the only one he had not yet lost, the one he was absolutely terrified of losing.

Now, he settled for another half-hearted, “Shut up,” to the monk's gleeful insinuation, after which Miroku, still smiling disarmingly, stepped closer to him and slowly unwound the turquoise prayer beads from his right hand. He didn't need to wear them anymore, but Inuyasha supposed the habit of the beads was too ingrained to simply get rid of them—he wondered how he would feel if the familiar weight of the kotodama rosary was suddenly absent from his neck. Combined with Miroku's pointed gaze, Inuyasha interpreted the gesture as an attempt to communicate the need for privacy; he nodded almost imperceptibly in response.

“Hey, Shippo, Kagome's been in the spring a pretty long time- why don't you run and tell her it's time to get out?” he said to the kitsune pup, who was now ensconced in Kagome's down sleeping bag, rootling around in her bag for any treats he might have missed in his first half-dozen searches. “Geez, Shippo, make yourself at home, why don't you?” he added sarcastically, wrinkling his nose.

“This is Kagome's stuff, she doesn't care,” the fox child said brightly. The entire contents of Kagome's bag were now strewn around him: forgotten schoolbooks, candy wrappers, that spiky thing she called a hairbrush, various tubes and jars, a change of clothes. It was all rather overwhelmingly Kagome. Inuyasha did not see either the nearly-completed jewel or the small vial of remaining shards, which confirmed his assumption that she had kept them with her.

“You just better hope I don't get in trouble for it,” he said. “Now go tell her you're here, and she needs to get back.”

“I'm sure Kagome would appreciate you bringing her those clean clothes, Shippo,” Miroku suggested more gently. “But tell her not to hurry back if she's not ready. She might even enjoy your company while she finishes up—you could do with a bath yourself, little one.”

The kitsune's eyes lit up, and Inuyasha cursed himself for not thinking of this more positive tactic: it would certainly keep Shippo out of their way for a good ten minutes. It struck him that with his incredible patience and indulgent attitude, Miroku would have made a good parent, and it struck him just as forcibly that with Sango gone, he was unlikely ever to have that chance, now. The event which had made it possible for Miroku to bear a son without guilt, without cursing that child with the cyclonic evil of the wind-tunnel, was the same which had stolen all hope for his future. When Shippo had scampered off into the trees towards the pool, clutching the fresh blouse and skirt like manna from heaven, Miroku turned back to his friend. “I'll wager you're wondering why we decided to leave so soon after you,” he said, to which Inuyasha nodded. “Well, I thought you should know who visited us at the demon slayers' village. I must say, I was—”

“Don't tell me it was Sesshomaru,” Inuyasha interrupted, cringing inwardly.

“Why, yes.”

“Damn it,” the half-demon swore. “What the hell is he up to now? He was here before—I ran into him in the woods about two miles from the camp. He kept saying his being there didn't have anything to do with us, but I knew he was lying. I told him about Naraku, and he said he already knew about the battle, but he was `otherwise occupied.' Selfish bastard!”

“The reason he knew about Naraku is because I told him what had happened when he showed up in the village,” Miroku supplied. “Although I have no idea what brought him there in the first place. He… he asked about Sango, too.”

“Well, that proves it, he didn't really know anything, he was just trying to do that whole inscrutable, secret-knowledge act to freak me out,” Inuyasha remarked with no little satisfaction. “That fucking moron always—”

“Inuyasha, listen,” the monk broke into his building tirade. “That explains why he seemed to know about what happened in the battle, but I think you're right, he's definitely up to something. He—he didn't just ask about Sango.”

The half-demon raised his eyebrows, Miroku's halting speech and hesitant tone sending unease skittering over his body. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“He wanted to use the Tensaiga on her.”

“To bring her back to life? Why would he want to do that?” Inuyasha demanded.

“Sesshomaru never does anything that is without benefit to him,” Miroku answered, looking thoughtful. “We must assume that Sango's life held some significance to him, or that her death affects him negatively in some way.”

“Sango's life held fucking significance to us!” he yelled, the anger descending in a frightening rush. “Her death affects us negatively! He's got no right to her!”

Miroku looked utterly taken aback; he had never seen his admittedly volatile friend react in such an openly emotional way. “I wouldn't allow it, Inuyasha, and besides, when he stood over her grave he said she'd been gone too long for the resurrection to work.”

“Huh?” was Inuyasha's inelegant response.

“He explained a little of how the sword works when he first insisted on trying it on Sango. Tensaiga doesn't reverse death or somehow force life back into the body—it destroys the demons who appear to conduct the soul into the afterlife. Once the demons that should have guided it to the other world are slain, the soul, not knowing where else to go, is drawn back to what is familiar- the body. Sesshomaru said that Sango's soul was- was already in the other world, and there was nothing he could do, sword or no.” Miroku took a deep, calming breath and continued. “I'm sure that's the only reason he left peaceably, that it didn't make any difference if I consented or not. I certainly couldn't have stopped him, if he'd decided to dig up her body and try it anyway. He has no cause to fear me any more, if he ever did.” He flexed his hand, free of Naraku's curse and lethal vortex, his expression strangely almost regretful.

“It really seems like he's been following us around: Tensaiga wouldn't work on Sango, so he finds me. I'll bet he's planning to follow us where ever we go, which means the well—we'll have to be very careful from now on, and try to figure out what's going on with him.”

“What's going on with who?”

Both Miroku and Inuyasha jumped guiltily at the sound of Kagome's voice, even as they tried desperately to minimize their startled reaction. The half-demon wondered why he hadn't scented her approach; even with the distraction, he should have been more alert to the possibility of her return. The monk turned, plastering an unconvincing smile on his face. “Nothing to worry about, Kagome. Aren't you pleased to see us? Did you enjoy Shippo's surprise?”

“Yes, very much,” the girl said, motioning to the kit, who had clambered onto her shoulder even though he was getting a little big for his favorite perch; Inuyasha glared when he noticed Shippo smiling in devilish anticipation: he recognized the storm that was brewing. “And don't try to change the subject. What and who are you talking about?”

Inuyasha growled in frustration. “It doesn't concern you, Kagome.”

“It certainly does, Inuyasha. I heard you saying someone was planning to follow us to the well. I've got a right to know what's going on here.”

“Fine! It was Sesshomaru, happy?”

“Go on,” she said coolly.

“He went to see Miroku at the demon-slayers' village and wanted to bring Sango back to life,” he said as bluntly as he could, as though to make her sorry she had asked.

Kagome looked confused, then alarmed. “Why on earth would he want to do that?”

“I have no clue,” he replied, willing the monk not to contradict him. Further details would only upset and offend her.

“But if he was as far away as Sango's village, what makes you think he'll come after us at the well?” she asked, frowning slightly. Miroku looked surprised, realizing that Inuyasha had kept the encounter with his brother a secret from Kagome, then tensed as he waited for the inevitable confrontation. He himself had only wanted to spare her the knowledge of his half of the meeting—the futility of any attempt at resurrection— not from any mention of Sesshomaru whatsoever.

When Kagome's black eyes narrowed dangerously, Inuyasha decided there was nothing else for it but to tell the truth. “I saw him earlier, in the woods close to camp. We… talked,” he added, his lip curling.

“You didn't tell me about seeing him,” Kagome said, with an edge to her voice. “Is that why you were gone so long before dinner?”

He shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to tell her. It didn't help that he didn't understand exactly why he'd kept the information from her in the first place— he hadn't wanted to burden her with unpleasant news that served no purpose, true, but he could not blame his silence entirely on the wish to preserve her from further distress— something had stayed his tongue, kept him from telling her. “I just… didn't think it was that important,” he muttered. “And I figured you wouldn't care, either.”

“Oh, you can do better than that, Inuyasha,” she countered.

“No, I can't do any better than that, because it's true! You know Sesshomaru, he just likes to jerk me around! I figured you didn't need to know about his latest insults. I had no idea his being around here meant anything until Miroku showed up and told me! I'm sorry, all right!”

Kagome drummed the fingers of one hand on her crossed arms, still frowning. Inuyasha, who was rather proud of himself for apologizing, albeit with bad grace, was annoyed that she didn't appear to appreciate it. She knew how difficult it was for him to admit when he was wrong (not, he maintained, that he had actually done anything wrong in this case; coupled with the fact that his explanation of events was as close to the truth as he could come given his confusion about seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time motives, he felt he deserved some leniency) and apologies were a panacea for her displeasure and hurt. Only this time it didn't seem to have a positive effect.

When she opened her mouth again, Inuyasha had the creeping sensation that she had wormed her way into his brain, observed the thoughts it was churning out, and left, disgusted. “Just because you bark an off-hand `I'm sorry' at me doesn't mean everything's automatically okay, Inuyasha,” she said. “You as good as lied to me!”

The escalating tone and volume of her voice was beginning to grate on his ears, causing him to grind his teeth in discomfort, and making everything seem that much worse. He wasn't even necessarily sure what he was in trouble for: was it for failing to tell her about Sesshomaru, for trying to gloss over it when she found out, or for not apologizing adequately? Or perhaps some combination of all three, known only to Kagome and her torturously complex moral and emotional code, which she expected him to comprehend and follow. That was just like her, Inuyasha thought bitterly, all his previous concern for her grief and vulnerability evaporating in the heat of the clash, like the thousands which preceded it. “Gods, what do you want me to say, woman?” he yelled. “What do you want from me? So I made a mistake! Did you ever think maybe you're overreacting just a tad?”

“Don't tell me how I should feel!”

“OK, but I'm sure as hell gonna tell you when you're acting like a crazy bitch!”

Kagome froze, and Inuyasha, aghast, bowed his head. It seemed that every time they fought he swore to himself never to call her that name again, but it was difficult to curb the habit, especially since he didn't quite understand why she found it so insulting. True, it only seemed to pop out of his mouth when his temper got the better of him, so it wasn't quite accurate to say that it had no negative connotation. But perhaps it only slipped out in the midst of argument or irritation because that was when the primal, demon side of his nature flared into prominence, when it was harder for him to remember the niceties of Kagome's world—when the dog side of him sensed Kagome's stubborn resistance to his authority, and that part of himself which was purely, instinctually, inexorably male sought to dominate her. Doubtless, Kagome would find this `sexist' reasoning as insulting as the word itself, but Inuyasha couldn't help it: the fact was that Kagome was a female, and some frustrated part of him would always respond to her as such, according to the timeless laws which governed sexuality in the demon world and indeed all of nature. `Bitch' was only a title; calling her a bitch was merely the act of acknowledging her femaleness.

Not surprisingly, the half-demon had never even attempted to explain this concept to his human companion, mostly because it was impossible to explain the base urges of his demon blood to one who did not feel that ineffable power: the bloodlust, the joy in the chase, the hunt, the kill; the need to prove ownership, to dominate, to possess; the keen awareness, senses sharp enough to perceive shifts in mood, to read the smallest change in weather, in surroundings, in physiology. His demon blood— its visceral lusts, skills, powers, sensitivities, imperatives— was like music, weaving into a wild harmony no one else could hear, a harmony so elemental, so integral to his existence, that the silence—the deafness—of the human world was incomprehensible to him.

Inuyasha, as a half-demon, experienced the call of his demon blood differently than most: for him, the wild music was simultaneously muffled by his human blood, and heightened by its struggle against that mortal dullness, like a desperate howling heard from a great distance. Since he had begun traveling with Miroku, Sango, and Kagome, their constant reprimands and disgust at his behavior had made him suppress that feral part of himself even further: to maintain at least a semblance of manners, human civility. Kagome was especially sensitive to lapses in this begrudging, earnest, and often ineffective act. Although she had sworn that she never wanted him to change, that she, unlike Kikyo, demanded no sacrifice, no transformation, she still seemed to become upset whenever the demon side forced its way through. And so, some tiny, deep, quiet part of himself had long whispered that her tolerance and fidelity were lies, pretty illusions, that she couldn't possibly care enough.

Sesshomaru's disdainful words, uttered in the forest that evening, returned to him now: Tell me, Inuyasha, do you enjoy your domestication? And after all, merely because his brother had meant to anger him did not make his derisive remark any less true. Even if she did unintentionally, or out of affection, didn't Kagome want to tame him? To turn him into a well-behaved pet? And would she never be satisfied?

Still, he tried. “I didn't mean—” he muttered, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Oh, you made a mistake all right, Inuyasha, and you just made another one,” she snapped. “SIT!”

As he plummeted to the earth, Inuyasha felt strangely ecstatic. Suddenly it didn't matter that he little deserved this punishment, that she had wielded the hated spell like a weapon of vengeance for some exaggerated slight. It didn't matter that a moment before he had been furious with her. It didn't matter that she had subjugated him once again, that his body slammed into the ground with a sickening, painful crash—all that mattered was that she had reacted. Anger and annoyance had chipped away her cocoon of unresponsive grief; that she used the spell, even if its use was unjustified, reassured him that Kagome's drifting, blank-eyed sorrow had abated, that she had returned to herself. And the joy of this return was worth any pain, any subjugation she could inflict.

When he finally dragged himself up from the ground, dislodging clods of dirt from his clothing, he didn't realize he was smiling until Miroku `hmmm'ed meditatively. “I never figured you for a masochist, Inuyasha,” he said, giving him a significant look. The half-demon swept his eyes around the campsite, but Kagome appeared to have left, taking the kitsune for company; their combined scent trailed a short way into the wood, not far enough to be in danger, he decided. “She stormed off while you were still face down,” Miroku supplied helpfully.

“Keh,” he spat. “Let her go, Shippo will help calm her down. Anyway, I'm not a masochist.”

“Then why were you smiling? You can't stand getting sat.”

“You should talk about getting off on pain,” Inuyasha said defensively. “I'm surprised you don't have a permanent imprint of Sango's hand on your cheek!”

The instant the words left his mouth, Inuyasha gave a strangled, incredulous groan, marveling at the depths of his own stupidity. “Miroku, he began, “I can't believe I just said—”

“I wish I did have one,” came the monk's quiet voice. “It might keep me from feeling like she's completely gone.”

Inuyasha felt, if possible, even worse. “But you seem so cheerful,” he said, knowing it was a question.

“I don't have to tell you what it's like to lose someone you love, Inuyasha,” the monk replied. “I'm as low as you are right now. It's only my spiritual training that keeps me afloat. And Shippo, of course. He's so young, and hurting so much himself- I didn't want him to see me fall apart.”

The two men were silent awhile. Then, as if to make up for his unforgivable blunder, Inuyasha chose to trade confidence for confidence. “You're right, I hate it when Kagome sits me. But this time I'm glad she did it. I was getting worried.”

His friend looked both surprised and pleased at this confession. “You're feeling uncommonly communicative, Inuyasha,” he remarked mildly.

“Yeah, well it's only cause Kagome has barely spoken to me since we left you guys- I guess I just gotta talk to somebody. That's what I meant about being worried about her. I mean, we're all depressed, but she's taking it so hard. I've been wishing that she would scream at me, throw something, anything besides sit there and cry and not talk. When she sat me, it was kind of like things were getting back to normal.”

“I see.”

“So, that's why I was smiling,” he finished lamely.

“It's the best reason I can see for smiling at the moment,” Miroku said, settling down in front of the fire and taking up a handful of sticks. As he fed them patiently into the dying flames, Kirara hopped back onto his shoulder and nuzzled into the space behind his ear; her purring reverberated against Inuyasha's breast bone. It seemed that the cat had chosen Miroku as her new companion. And after all, it made perfect sense: next to Sango, Miroku had always had the best rapport with the feline—in either form. He had fought alongside her in battle, slept curled against her furry side, slipped her bits of his meat at countless meals; when not occupied by Shippo, his shoulder provided a comfortable roost. She owed her loyalty to him now, for Sango's sake, but also for his own, for their history.

Inuyasha joined the two by the fire to wait for Kagome. When she appeared a short time later, he greeted her with raised eyebrows. “What do you think you're doing, going off by yourself like that?” he asked, because she would expect it. She would not expect the lazy, unconcerned tone, lacking any real accusation.

“Shippo and I just went for a little walk,” she answered.

“Fine.” He could see her jaw stiffen, no doubt readying a retort, something along the lines of `It's not like I need your permission, anyway,' but she seemed to decide that it wasn't worth disturbing the relative peace.

“It's… getting a bit late, I think I'll go to bed,” she said to no one in particular. “Good night, Inuyasha, Miroku.”

“Sleep well, Kagome,” said the monk warmly as the young girl burrowed into her sleeping bag and rolled over, Shippo snuggled in beside her. The kit's habit of sleeping with Kagome usually irked him, perhaps because it spoiled the unconscious illusion of access, an illusion—an expectation— emanating from his demon blood, denied by his human conscience. Sometimes during the night as his companions slumbered in their separate corners, Inuyasha, dozing, deceptively alert, watched Kagome through half-closed eyes: watched her sigh, and turn, flopping this way and that in her quest for a comfortable position, following the subtle changes in her scent while she dreamed. And a part of his mind so deeply suppressed that it was no more than a slow, insistent murmur, a red, aching current, asked what, exactly, he thought—imagined, craved— would happen if the fox child chose another bed.

Nodding a goodnight to his friend, Miroku soon followed suit, resting on Kirara's warm belly, his staff within reach. It wasn't long before all four, demon and human, were snoring gently. Inuyasha settled back, prepared to wait out the night, wondering about Sesshomaru. Would he be skulking in the woods that bordered the Bone Eater's well when they reached it tomorrow, or should he assume that his brother truly had no interest in their affairs now that it was clear Sango could not be resuscitated? (His mind refused to deal with the question of why Sesshomaru had been so determined to bring his friend back to life—he fervently hoped he would never have to know). If Sesshomaru was there tomorrow, there was no way they could send Kagome home as long as he was watching. Only six people in this world knew about the time slip, and he would much prefer that his enigmatic brother did not become number seven.

At that moment, his ears snapped towards Kagome, who was shifting restlessly, muttering in her sleep: maybe if he went nearer, he could make out what she was saying. He rose from his crouch and stole over to her side, curiosity warring with concern as he bent close to her sleeping form. “Kagome,” he whispered, wondering how deeply asleep she really was; when she didn't respond, he continued to watch her in silence, especially the frantic trembling of her eyelids, the skin translucent and impossibly delicate.

“No,” she muttered, the words coming clearer, the expression strangely coherent. Kagome rarely talked in her sleep, and when she did, it was more of an unfocused murmuring, nothing like the full-blown declaration which followed. “No, you can't, I won't let you, I—Kikyo! Stop, you'll—he'll be so angry. No!”

As her voice rose to a shriek on the last exclamation, Inuyasha's hand instinctively shot out to stifle the cry. With his fingers clamped firmly over her mouth, the only effect of Kagome's unconscious outburst was that Shippo sighed and rolled over, still nursing his thumb. No one woke, not even Kagome, which he found strange but not unfortunate- waking to find him looming over her would probably give her a nasty shock. Now he gazed down at her, frowning. Why had Kagome called out to Kikyo? Was she reliving the moments of Kikyo's death in the final battle, or some other private encounter unknown to him? Somehow he had always assumed that Kagome anticipated Kikyo's death, perhaps even wished for it—so the genuine distress and regret in her voice surprised him. This assumption, of course, was grossly unfair. The idea that Kagome—gentle, accepting, and good as she was— would wish for any death but Naraku's was as ridiculous as the thought that Koga's death had pleased Inuyasha. It hadn't, no matter what the girl suspected.

Anticipated or no, this nightmare proved that Kikyo's death now tormented Kagome. However, she had spent every night since Sango's death under his watch; until now, he had heard nothing from her to indicate that she was seeing Kikyo in her dreams. Why tonight? What blow had dislodged the trapped memories and allowed them to rise to the surface like so much terrible flotsam?

Inuyasha realized that his hand was still pressed over Kagome's mouth, her warm breath leaking between his fingers in a sweet, drugging miasma. He didn't remove them right away, not until he noticed her black eyes, wide and staring, fixed on his face. Then he jerked his hand away from her lips as if she had bitten him, willing himself not to blush. She didn't ask what he was doing there, above her; in fact, she didn't speak at all.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he whispered by way of an explanation, not elaborating. She didn't ask him to. When the silence stretched, he searched for something else to say, and the eternal subject presented itself. “Kagome… what are you going to do about the jewel?”

“I don't know. I need to go home to think about how to purify it- what I should wish for,” she whispered back, her face turned to the side so that the muscles of her neck pulled taut.

“You don't have to go home to complete the jewel. Why don't you put in the last two shards here, with us, and wish for Sango to be alive again?” he suggested quietly, feeling vaguely ashamed of his weakness.

“I've thought about it,” she admitted. “But the wish has to be unselfish. And I want her back so badly there's no way it would work, even if I did it for Miroku's sake. Midoriko would never accept such a self-serving wish.”

“I guess you're right,” he said, disappointed. “Well, anyway, try not to be gone too long. I want to finish this whole stupid thing as much as you do.”

Although her face was still turned away, Inuyasha saw Kagome's eyes darken. “Don't worry, Inuyasha, everything will be over soon,” she said simply.

Something about her voice, the dreadful promise it contained, sent an unpleasant thrill over his skin. “What does that mean?” he asked carefully, alarmed when he scented the tears gathering in her eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Look at me,” he demanded in a whisper. She was still. “Look at me, Kagome!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, more roughly than he meant to in his agitation. “You meant something by that.” Finally, reluctantly, mutely, black eyes met gold. “Just promise me one thing,” Inuyasha ground out, still clutching her shoulders, staring at her with breathless, molten intensity. “Promise me that you are coming back.”

Kagome swallowed hard. “I'm coming back,” she whispered shakily.

“Swear it!” he hissed.

“Inuyasha, I swear, I am coming back to you.”

He released her before she could feel the trembling that had overtaken his body. “I'm sorry I woke you up, Kagome,” he said gruffly. “Go back to sleep now.” As the girl obediently closed her eyes again, Inuyasha returned to his tree—but this time, he sprang almost effortlessly into the lower branches, lifting his face to the cool night breeze that teased his hair, smelling of green. He set Tetsuaiga across his lap and leaned back, guarding those who slept on below him.

* * *

 

The next morning they covered the final stretch to Kaede's village and the well without incident, Kagome perched on Inuyasha's back and Miroku and Shippo riding the transformed Kirara about fifty feet over their heads, the fox child occasionally calling down observations about the scenery or their progress. Miroku was noticeably quiet, perhaps lost in thoughts of the woman who should have been seated in front of him, her bone weapon slung low across her hips, stroking Kirara's ears and waiting to feel the pressure of presumptuous fingers. How many thousands of miles had they traveled this way, Inuyasha wondered idly, hitching Kagome's weight and readjusting his grip on her knees as he skimmed the treetops with each leap. And yet how strange it all felt, now, with Sango gone, like a missed step, a stumble in the smooth pattern of a familiar dance.

Despite the awkwardness of the demon slayer's absence, they made good time, and reached their destination by late afternoon. A thorough search of the area convinced Inuyasha that his brother was no where near the well, so he made no objection to sending her home. After stopping to greet Kaede and inform her of Kagome's purpose in going back to her own time, Miroku, Shippo and Inuyasha all accompanied her to the lip of the well, where, after bidding each of them a quiet goodbye and promising to return as soon as she could, she slid easily into the time slip; the enveloping pink glow told him she had made it safely.

By unspoken agreement, the three remaining companions trooped back to Kaede's hut to await her return, knowing that the next time they saw Kagome, she would be ready to complete the jewel and end the mission that had consumed three years of their lives. The waiting wasn't too bad at first, but by the time a few days had passed, Inuyasha was literally gnashing his teeth with impatience. He spent hours pacing around the well, berating Kagome out loud and in his head.

“I'm going after her,” he announced at lunch time on the fourth day of Kagome's absence. “She's taking too damn long!”

“You mustn't rush Kagome,” said Miroku sagely in between bites of dumpling. “This is an incredibly important time for all of us.”

“Yeah, that's right, all of us! That's why we shouldn't be sitting around here while she gets to decide everything by herself!”

“Patience, Inuyasha,” Kaede counseled. “Kagome will return soon enough without your meddling.”

“Oh, what would you know about it, you old hag?” he snapped.

“I know that Kagome is a priestess and quite capable of this task. And after all, she alone will make the wish that purifies the jewel.”

“I think you just miss her,” Shippo volunteered smugly. “That's OK, Inuyasha, I miss her too, you know.”

“Shut up, runt,” the half-demon growled. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Has it occurred to you that as long as Kagome remains in her time, no demons will be able to sense the jewel's presence and come looking for it? She might as well stay where she's safe,” said Miroku.

Now that the monk mentioned the comparative safety of Kagome's time, it struck Inuyasha that the last week had brought not a single encounter with a demon bent on possessing the jewel. Before Naraku's death, they seemed to meet up with two or three demons a day- all vanquished by Tetsuaiga, of course. But now that the jewel was even closer to wholeness and full power, its siren call should have brought every demon within 100 miles down on their heads- and yet not one fight since the battle with Naraku. “Does anyone else think it's strange that no one has attacked us in awhile?” he asked abruptly.

Miroku looked thoughtful. “Remember when Kagome destroyed the illusion of Naraku's castle and he went into hiding? All the lesser demons came out to attack us because they felt Naraku was no longer a threat. What if his death has had the reverse effect? What if, knowing that we defeated Naraku, the most powerful demon of all, the other demons are afraid to challenge us, in spite of the jewel?”

“That does make sense,” Inuyasha agreed, inordinately pleased by Miroku's explanation, which referred to their collective power. “But somehow I don't think the demons could have made that kind of decision, not with the jewel so close to whole. It should be driving them absolutely insane, overriding any sense they have, even the survival instinct.”

“Are you speaking from experience, Inuyasha?” his friend asked, his tone cautious, neutral.

“No,” he said firmly. “I'm practically immune to the jewel after all this time. But I remember how badly I wanted it when I was with Kik— fifty years ago, when it was whole. And I'm not even a full demon. The only full demon I know who really doesn't feel its pull is Sesshomaru, and who the hell knows what his deal is.”

“I don't feel it either!” piped up Shippo proudly.

Inuyasha had to grin at that. “You're right, Shippo, sorry. Of course, you too.”

“I don't care about the jewel. I just want Kagome to come back,” the kitsune added wistfully.

“As do we all, Shippo,” the monk replied.

Inuyasha harrumphed rather violently, rose, and stalked out of the hut, the fox child's voice following him: “If you see Kagome, tell her I miss her but don't rush!” He had a feeling that last bit resulted from Miroku's coaching, and he growled in annoyance. So Miroku knew he was going to go through the well, did he? Well, far be it from him to disappoint the monk, then. He ran the rest of the way to the well and dived in without breaking stride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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