InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love Me When I'm Gone ❯ Retrieval ( Chapter 2 )

2. Retrieval

 

She had never really believed that any of them could ever die, perhaps because they had all survived battles and injuries that should rightly have killed them. That was the bitter paradox of the feudal age: the very omnipresence of death made it an abstract threat, a nerve plucked once too often. Inuyasha always received and withstood the most dramatic wounds: he had been impaled more times than she could count, even run clear through by Sesshomaru's poisonous claws; he had fallen from cliffs, faced earth-rending blasts of demon energy, and still he healed, and fought again, and lived. His demon blood conquered any outward sign of injury, ensuring that he emerged from convalescence as from the perfecting, penetrating heat of a hot spring.

Yet Inuyasha was not the only one of them to claim victory over death. She herself had overcome several attacks aimed at both soul and body. No matter what the half-demon always insisted, she wasn't completely helpless: she was even justifiably proud of her skill with bow and arrow. Her accuracy had improved dramatically over the years, and the spiritual power which drove the arrow intensified, so that she privately—very privately—felt she was at least as strong as Kikyo had been while she was alive.

Then, of course, there was the time that Mukotsu's noxious vapors had nearly killed her, Miroku, and Sango, and only Miyoga's selfless absorption of the poison had saved them. That was probably the closest they had ever come to death, the one time when, if she had been capable of conscious thought in her fevered misery, she would have thought she was actually going to die.

But Sango was the one who had worn the marks of death, whose very skin bore witness to the nearness of it. Kagome vividly recalled the first time she had seen the silvery scar which spread over Sango's shoulder blade—the flesh puckered, tight, still healing—glowing in the steam from the hot-spring. When she read the pain on her face, Kagome had felt guilty for prying into the other woman's past, for dredging up the memories of the wound's… infliction. Over the years, the scar from Kohaku's weapon, punctuated by the sort of pockmark where Naraku's jewel shard had briefly lived, had smoothed somewhat, but it remained always, and Kagome had long suspected that it was at least as dangerous as Miroku's windtunnel: just as capable of destruction as the black void in the monk's palm, just as capable of swallowing Sango whole.

The last time she saw the scar was when she and Kaede had shut themselves up with Sango's ruined body and prepared it for burial. It was the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life, standing there, trying to help the old priestess and yet barely able to look at the still form in front of her. Kaede was kind, quiet and efficient as always, and did not reproach Kagome for her weakness. How many times had those withered hands moved over the cold flesh of the dead, to say nothing of the young Kaede watching flames engulf the funeral pyre of her only sister? And Kagome could barely manage to look at her friend's body. She was ashamed; Sango deserved more from her.

If she could have been fair to herself, Kagome might have reasoned that it was nearly impossible for Kaede, Miroku—even Inuyasha, who had spent a great deal of time on her side of the well over the years—to comprehend death in the modern world: how it was hidden, denied, sanitized. While her father was dying, Kagome had rarely been allowed to enter his hospital room, and had certainly never seen him pass into the waxy stillness of death. Now, here in the feudal era, she was rather violently confronted with its grotesque reality: straightening the contorted limbs, peeling away the wrecked armor, and bathing Sango in herbed water, ghastly white flesh emerging from the rime of gore. This—this sickeningly close ritual cleansing—was her last act of love and friendship, more than the burial itself, which was defined by family, by a sharing of grief. This was an intimate farewell.

She had been selfish in her suffering, she knew: two days without words, curling around her pain, letting it anesthetize her, make her dumb. The worst was that Inuyasha had borne it quietly, deferred to her grief, and she had let herself sink into his indulgence. She could not explain what had happened to her during those two mute days, or how she had finally forced herself to surface.

She felt awful for the way she had treated Inuyasha, and after her impromptu midnight conference with him the night before, Kagome felt anxious to return to her own time—to escape the accusation in his eyes, his unbearable nearness, the lash of his voice when he made her swear.

She had never lied to Inuyasha before.

As she let herself fall into the pink radiance of the well, felt that familiar moment of pure weightless suspension in time, she could almost believe that none of it had happened, that as long as she remained here, hanging bodiless between two existences, time did not exist. And without time, there could be no end, and no death.

The journey ended, as it always did, as it must. Her feet touched the age-smoothed dirt floor of the well, and once again it was real. Her hand went automatically to the jewel at her neck, its slight but pendulous weight at once a reassurance and a curse. The air smelled damp, sodden.

Never before had the clean brightness of the kitchen seemed so sharp, so garish; when she had clambered out of the well and staggered into the house, she found her mother, brother and grandfather seated around the table in the middle of lunch. The wafting smell of pickled onions nearly turned her stomach, but she resolutely turned to her mother. “Mama, I don't feel well, I'm just going to go to bed,” she said quietly, willing the older woman to suspend her instinct to ask questions. She was halfway up the stairs to her room when she felt the smooth pressure of a hand slipped around her upper arm; she held in a defeated sigh.

“Kagome,” her mother said quietly, “you look awful. What's happened? Did you have another fight with Inuyasha?”

Kagome recognized the sound that emerged from her throat at that moment, but had not thought herself capable of producing it: the precise combination of bitterness, scorn and disgust, contained in a half-snarl, half-bark. She registered her mother's expression of shock, carefully schooled into a look of concern. “Well,” she said gently, “now at least I know it has something to do with Inuyasha.”

How she wished it were that simple. How she wished she could return to the days when her worst emotional crises stemmed from Inuyasha's insensitivity. It was not to dismiss or cheapen the very real pain his stubborn devotion to Kikyo—the knowledge that he had chosen the inhuman priestess, irrevocably, unto his own death—had caused her over the years. That even now, when Kikyo was finally gone forever, she, Kagome, would never be anything but a substitute. Second best.

But in comparison to Sango's death—the anguish of true, binding loss—her troubles with Inuyasha suddenly seemed unspeakably petty. Her mother stood there, waiting, unaware of the upheaval her innocent question and the assumption it entailed had caused Kagome. Her perception of her own emotional history crystallized, splintered, shattered. And the Kagome who had fretted over Inuyasha like a foolish schoolgirl shattered with it, as thoroughly and as irretrievably as the incandescent slivers of the Shikon Jewel had once blasted to the four winds.

“No,” she whispered. “Not him.”

It wasn't true, of course, that the shards were irretrievable: they had proved it. Over three years, it was their blood that had purchased each tiny piece of the jewel, their determination that had held it fast, their spirits that had fused it into a near-perfect whole. And now it was her wish that would purify its evil, banish it forever from the earth.

Her mother looked skeptical. Kagome could not speak for the words that were jammed into her throat: Not Inuyasha. Sango. You can't understand, because you've never seen her, because now, on this side of the well, she's been gone so long that even her bones have turned to dust. But Sango is dead. I watched her die and could do nothing. I watched her blood stream down and twist in the air like a red ribbon. I watched it coat Inuyasha's sword, his hands, his face. He wants to forget it happened. He thinks no one saw, but he's wrong. I saw him that night, waist deep in the river, skinning himself alive to be rid of it. I dressed her for the grave, and then I watched the man who loved her praying for her spirit to find peace. And now I watch it happen over and over, in the dreams that make me cry out in my sleep, the cries that brought him to me in the night.

Of all those trapped words, struggling for release like the souls in Kanna's terrible mirror, only three escaped. “It's over,” Kagome choked out. “Over.”

* * *

 

Somehow, her mother knew it all, though Kagome had no recollection of actually telling her that her best friend was dead, and none of the consoling words and embraces that must have followed. She woke at dawn on the day after her arrival, her mouth tasting of metal and her eyes itchy with too much sleep. Her hand closed around the jewel and she sat up, slowly. The small swatch of sky visible from her open window looked dull and unpromising.

She wondered idly what day it was, if she should even bother feeling guilty for not going to school as long as she was here. If not for the huge chunks of time she lost every time she went through the well, she would have been graduating this year with her friends, but her mother had finally acquiesced to the inevitable and had Kagome classified as a part time student, “due to her constant poor health.” She still attended the odd couple of days here and there, but was allowed to submit most of her assignments over the internet. Kagome often regretted the years of her grandfather's badly researched yarns about her illnesses, the frantic all-night study sessions, the lies and inconsistencies, the awkward questions from Yuka and Ari, and wondered why her family had not arrived at this solution sooner. And yet, she knew that in finally allowing her to forgo a traditional high school and university education, her mother had bravely conceded that the feudal era now held first claim on her daughter's life. That Kagome would not one day simply resume her existence in the modern world as if nothing had changed.

Kagome knew her mother was disappointed that she wouldn't be attending university— at least not for a couple of years, depending on her level of motivation, and several other factors utterly beyond her control, such as when they managed to defeat Naraku. And now that he was finally gone, there was still Inuyasha to consider. She had purposefully kept the knowledge of her school situation from him, reasoning that if he knew she was no longer required to “take those stupid test things,” he would automatically assume that she never had to return to her own time again. The dream she had once had of the growling half-demon binding her to the trunk of Goshinboku wasn't all that farfetched, a thought that alternately delighted and terrified her.

Fortunately, her desk calendar told her it was Sunday, so school was a moot point. Once she had brushed her teeth and taken a hot shower, she felt a bit better and a bit worse all at once. Being on this side of the well was somehow surreal after the ordeal she had faced over the preceding week. Not since the first few days of her double life had she felt so disoriented by the contrast between the two worlds she inhabited. The feudal era seemed to be defined by the extremes of sensation: the grainy chill of dirt floors; the searing crackle of a thousand campfires; the numbing shock of cold water against cringing flesh; the sting of a snapped bowstring; the coarseness of the fire-rat kimono under her fingers, the swish of silver hair in her face; the omnipresent reek of smoke, sweat, earth, iron. A world of rough company and sharp edges. Her own modern time meant moderation, comfort: never any hair or bones in her food; the freshness of newly-laundered sheets; the chatter of the television; the clean, ordered, concrete bustle of the city. In some deep, guarded part of herself— the part that thrilled to the rasp of the red cloth, the cool graze of a claw on her skin, the whipping closeness of the silver hair, the part that begged her to lean close and breathe it in, breathe in the dog, the man, the demon— Kagome had long grappled with the question of which world was really home.

Back in her room, standing before the full-length mirror in her closet door, Kagome caught sight of a secret coaxed out by the heat of the water: ten perfect, finger-sized bruises, mottled red and blue, latticed across her shoulders, where last night his hands had clenched convulsively as his eyes bored into her— compelling truth, receiving a lie. She recalled the moment of this marking, this deserved pain, and decided to put on a sweater instead of the t-shirt she had intended to wear. There was no point in exposing herself to undue scrutiny, as she'd learned from her mother's horrified reaction to numerous injuries, ranging from massive purpling bruises to various cuts and scrapes. It had been a long time, though, since she'd had to explain the precise, bloodied tracks of Inuyasha's claws in her thighs or arms: he was less careless now than in the past, or perhaps simply accustomed to the movements necessary to protect her from accidental slashes, the way she'd learned to skip the creaky stair on the second landing outside her bedroom, so that her legs automatically, fluidly performed the motion—as they did when she descended into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Kagome,” said her mother quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“All right, mom, thanks,” she answered.

Sota looked confused. “What's the matter, you get sick or something?” he asked gracelessly, his mouth full of rice.

She smiled slightly. “No, just dealing with some stuff on the other side of the well.” She sent a silent apology to Sango's spirit for her dismissive tone, but knew that if anyone could understand her need to protect her younger brother, to spare him as much as possible, Sango could.

“Is Inuyasha gonna be here too? I have a new video game to show him,” he said eagerly.

“We'll see,” she said, shrugging.

“Awww, you guys had another fight, didn't you?” Sota demanded.

“Sota, that's enough,” said her mother, her voice as sharp as it ever managed to get. Her brother subsided, looking sulky. He obviously had not taken the hint, because on her way back upstairs, Kagome heard him mumble,

“Geez, whatever it is, get over it already.”

* * *

 

One arrow remains in Kikyo's quiver. She has used the others judiciously, aiming always for Naraku; even her intense spiritual power can only dent his strength, provide openings for the others' attacks. She isn't quite at her best, either: the priestess can feel herself weakening, feel the souls which sustain her life leeching one by one from her body as the chaos of battle demands more and more energy. Her ethereal soul collectors circle overhead, their strange eel-like bodies flagging like sails deprived of wind, no longer buoyed by the luminescent spirits she so desperately needs.

Actually, it surprises her that they have managed to hang so close for this long, what with the buffeting of Kagura's wind storms. Even if they had been bursting with souls, Kikyo knows they could never penetrate Naraku's barrier, the force of which needles the fine hairs on her arms: if she knew Kagome's time, she would liken the sensation to an electric charge. She surveys the field of battle with narrowed eyes, isolated and for the moment unnoticed in the midst of struggle, the others scurrying around her like sand around a boulder: the wolf demon has fallen some time ago, and the monk has dragged himself off somewhere, presumably to recover from the effects of sucking up an army of poisonous wasps.

She hasn't seen the girl for awhile, but occasional flashes of pink tell her Kagome is still fighting—doubtless wasting her energy and her arrows, the little well-meaning fool.

The ground shakes as Inuyasha lets fly another windscar, and she languidly lifts her arm to shield herself from the blinding force—as well as the huge, hurtling tree-like limbs which prove that the blow has hit its mark.

But it isn't enough. How many times have they enacted this same scene, employed these same insufficient weapons, the monk, the demon-slayer, the half demon, the mortal miko? She isn't fighting for them, or even with them—only for herself. She thinks Inuyasha understands this driving compulsion, this insular, unfeeling thing that looks like solidarity only because they are desperate enough to believe it. They are stubbornly pounding away the only way they know how, and they will never beat him this way.

She still has a single arrow left.

She thinks about Kagome. The girl who she should hate, the girl who saved her life, that day in the belly of the demon, who refused to leave her behind: Kikyo, her enemy, her rival in all things. Who loves Inuyasha even unto her own emotional destruction, enough to ensure his happiness by keeping the dead priestess from returning to the earth of which her body is made. Who grasped Kikyo's hands and prayed with her, gave freely of her miko energy. She recalls the instant that their joined fingers glowed with combined power, melting the separate shards into one.

And she finally understands.

There isn't much time; without being bolstered by more souls, she won't be strong enough for longer than a few minutes more. She closes her eyes and seeks Kagome, willing the young miko to hear her silent plea, to come to her. At that moment she hears a shrill scream and the blunt, wet sound of rent flesh. One of Naraku's appendages whips into her line of sight, bearing the body of the demon-slayer like a terrible parody of a samurai's banner.

Kikyo turns away. It is too late now, to save them all, but what must be done, must still be done. Almost, she regrets; almost, she grieves; almost, Kikyo feels, and then it is gone, and only hard purpose remains.

* * *

 

It was the first time that Kagura had ridden the wind since the Naraku's death and her own. She'd only been dead a few hours, but she recalled everything with painful precision: killing the wolf demon, seeing the surprise in his gray eyes as her lethal blades bit into his legs, which he had believed so invulnerable. She wondered if the mortal miko knew it was her fault that the wolf was dead, that it was her open, unguarded mind which revealed the location of his shards and made him a target. The chaos of the continued battle, and the explosion of death. She was whipping through the air about fifty feet from Naraku when the fatal blow came, but distance or proximity meant nothing; she was enveloped in the same blaze that consumed her despised sire, her heart sharing his doom. It was like a burst of pink flame behind her eyes, a clutching pain in her chest, and then an instantaneous and unrelenting blackness.

Kagura did not remember her last thought, her last moment of conscious clarity, but she liked to think that she spent it cursing the demon who had created and subjugated her. She did not recall what must have been a long, inexorable, heavy plunge to the earth as her powers collapsed and the wind deserted her.

She did not know what had become of the jewel shards stolen from the wolf-demon's legs after her fall. And she did not know by what power she had been revived. She woke some unfathomable stretch of time later to find herself staring into the cold golden eyes of Sesshomaru; when she struggled to rise, he placed his palm flat over her chest and pressed down, hard.

“No,” he said. “You haven't the strength. Give your new heart time.”

“My… new heart…” she gasped. “How…?”

He smiled a smile that sent liquid fear sliding down her throat into her belly and flexed his long elegant fingers on her chest, his noxious claws just pricking the flesh beneath the silk. “Never mind how,” he murmured. “I have given you a heart, but I have returned your soul—that is all that signifies at the moment. Perhaps I shall tell you more in time.”

“How long have I—”

“Been dead? Two hours at most. I arrived soon after the battle and found you. We are presently in my territory in the Western Lands.”

“Naraku—”

“Vanquished, his body disappeared: I assume it disintegrated. That your body did not we must see as simply good fortune, proving that you were not so irrevocably tied to Naraku as you thought.”

“But—”

“Sleep,” the dog demon interrupted smoothly, the claws digging just deep enough to make his impassive, impossibly beautiful face blur in her uncertain sight. “We will have much to discuss at first light.”

The next time she saw him he allowed her to sit up, at least. “I have told you before,” he began, settling cross-legged beside her, his back ramrod straight and his robes pooling perfectly around him, “that I neither had nor have any interest in obtaining the Shikon jewel, and my actions until this moment have proved so. I despised Naraku, but his success or failure ultimately had little bearing on my plans.”

Kagura was silent, remembering how Sesshomaru had refused to stand against Naraku, had ignored her plea. Did he think she didn't bear him a grudge? Well, at least she had been wrong: the Lord of the Western Lands was not the only demon strong enough to defeat her master. Bested by a half-breed and a few humans—how it must chafe him! She ground her teeth, for the first time taking in her surroundings with surreptitious sweeps of her eyes. She was lying on a comfortable straw pallet on the floor of a cave, not damp and rocky but cool and dry. The walls looked somehow smooth, refined, more like the inside of a hollowed gourd than a crude hole in the side of a mountain. She wondered if they were in a sort of den, Sesshomaru's private retreat. He noticed her scrutiny and raised one silver eyebrow as though daring her to question him.

“But now that he is dead my plans have had to be altered,” he said. “Inuyasha and his human allies have the jewel, but they are ignorant: they do not realize what will be necessary in order to finally dispose of it.”

“Is that what you intend to do?” she asked, finding her voice. “Dispose of it?”

Sesshomaru gave what she might consider a nod, but only if she were inclined to see it as such.

“Why have you brought me back? I will not ask how—but what possible use could I be to you?”

“Surely you do not think me so… mercurial as all that,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I only desired you alive to reverse as much of Naraku's damage as possible.”

“If that were true, you would have revived the wolf,” she said.

“You are free to leave here, Kagura. I have no hold over you except the debt of life. But I may call on you before long.”

She didn't ask any more questions about her restored life or the heart he had bestowed upon her; Sesshomaru's gifts frightened her, and she wanted nothing more than to escape this new pressure of splayed fingers on her chest, the heady kiss of poisonous claws. She'd had enough of being owned.

Once she was out of the cave and returned to the air, she felt better, simply letting herself drift for several hours like a swimmer floating in the shallows of a great river. She estimated that she had been in Sesshomaru's dubious care for about twelve hours, from the night after the battle until `first light' that morning. He really had let her go; both of them knew that her freedom was only an illusion, a formality, that she had traded one master for another. But anything to feel the wind again, its invisible currents buoying her giant feather, sliding through her hair and across her fevered skin—it had been a long time since she'd felt warm in this way, felt the warmth of blood in her veins. Kagura smiled, slipping her fingers back and forth over the metallic perfection of her fan.

The wind sensed her dark mood and streamed past her in waves alternately soothing and rousing, reminding her of her power. She wondered how far from the site of battle Sesshomaru had carried her, and all at once she wanted to see it, see the ground where she had fallen. Closing her eyes, she spoke to the wind, asking it to bear her toward the place; although she had no idea of her relative location, an image formed in her mind, and that was enough. Just over one day had passed since Naraku's demise. Strangely, she found herself thinking of Inuyasha and his companions. They had finally managed to defeat their common enemy, while Sesshomaru skulked at the edges of the conflict, jealously guarding his strength. He may have brought her back to life and given her a new untainted heart—the gods knew where he had gotten it, what he had stolen or killed in order to possess her— but Kagura valued her death much more: it had released her from Naraku. And Inuyasha had freed her without thought of debt or payment, without even meaning to do it, as an inevitable side effect of a greater purpose.

It wasn't that she was grateful to the half-demon and the humans; without intent, there could be no gratitude. Kagura tried to push this half-formed feeling from her mind, refusing to put a name to its unfamiliar contours. She frowned and leaned into the wind, flying away from the sinking sun, out of the Western Lands and toward her death.

* * *

 

Sesshomaru watched Kagura until she was no more than a drifting speck on the horizon. He wondered if she knew that her eyes were no longer blood-red but as green as the pines which determinedly struggled up the slope toward the cave where he had spent the last day and a half. It was not one he frequented, merely a link in the network of caves and dens known only to himself: he was, after all, the undisputed lord of these lands. When he thought of her green eyes, he deliberately thought of the pines, and not the emerald lash of his whip, for those thoughts were dangerous.

He was not certain why he had bothered with her. When he told her he had arrived at the scene of the battle and found her body, it was not a lie, but perhaps sounded too intentional, as though he had searched for her. It was not so. He had been drawn by the scent of uprooted trees, scorched earth, and blood. Instructing Rin to stay behind with Jakken and the twin beasts she loved so well, he set out to locate the source of these ominous scents only because they were close to the eastern boundary of his territory and he could not be caught unawares by any invaders. As he neared the site, the air fairly throbbed with residual spiritual and demonic energy, and Sesshomaru immediately recognized the signs of his brother and his human party: he knew at once that Naraku was dead, that Inuyasha had triumphed, but not without cost. The place stank of death. That was all he could read of the battle from the signs left behind, but he knew that Inuyasha had lost at least one of his companions.

Sesshomaru seethed. Inuyasha had confronted Naraku without his knowledge, and now his brother had gotten one of the humans killed. It was a disastrous development he must remedy if he ever wanted to be rid of the Shikon jewel. Gliding across the field of battle, avoiding the great swathes of burned and peaked earth that were the tracks of the windscar, Sesshomaru noticed something red and white tossed against a downed tree and made his way toward the splash of color.

When he came close enough he recognized Kagura, one of Naraku's incarnations and the only one he'd ever had much contact with. She lay sprawled on her side, one leg bent awkwardly forward and her blood-red eyes fixed and unseeing. She'd asked him to join with her, once, to fight against Naraku. She flattered his strength, but he had refused. It had not suited him to declare himself an enemy of Naraku then.

But perhaps he could render her a service; it always suited him to create debts, to make powerful beings beholden to him. He could see at a glance that Kagura's situation was unusual; she hadn't been dead long, but the imps appointed to lead her soul into the next world—most likely hell, he amended—hovered confusedly around her twisted body. He remembered then that the female demon possessed no heart of her own, that a sliver of Naraku's heart sustained her life as long as she was useful to him. But she had a soul; that much was clear.

Sesshomaru knelt beside Kagura's body and tipped her face so that he could look into her eyes. From the soft-but-cool feel of the flesh and the awkward loll of her head, he estimated that she had died about two hours ago; her limbs yielded to his attempts to bend and flex them. Could the body survive without the pumping force of a heart? His hand drifted to the hilt of Tensaiga as he considered the question. This might prove a good opportunity to test the power of the sword.

Before this moment, the only being he had ever resurrected with Tensaiga was Rin. He assured himself that while he had saved her following a dangerous and inexplicable impulse, if he saved Kagura too it was only to press her into his service. Rin had been savaged by wolves, sustaining limited but gruesome injuries, and Tensaiga had healed them. Perhaps the sword simply removed or repaired whatever had robbed the body of life, whether that meant closing the flesh over fatal bite wounds or compensating for the lack of a vital organ. He wasn't sure what the Tensaiga could do, but he found himself willing to experiment. If she remained dead, it was no great tragedy.

He unsheathed the sword and felt it humming in his hand, as though sensing death and eager to reverse it. With the flat of the blade, he nudged Kagura's neck and face into a straight position so that she was gazing up at the sky. Then he brought it down with a swift crackling stroke; the demons disappeared.

Nothing happened for a good minute. Sesshomaru placed the palm of his hand flat against her chest, seeking a heartbeat. There was nothing but emptiness. He frowned, somewhat disappointed in the sword's failure—then startled by a flash of energy that traveled from the sword into his hand and up toward his shoulder. When the sword spoke, Sesshomaru could not but listen: he rose slowly and pressed the tip of the blade into the gentle slope of her breast, above the place where a heart should have been, hard and deep enough to draw blood in a living body. The energy shot down the length of the sword again and Sesshomaru felt it pooling in the empty place in Kagura's body, thickening and coalescing into a mass of muscle. It began to vibrate slightly in his hand, and the new heart stirred, learning its pulse. Sesshomaru could see the phantom heart nestling itself into Kagura's body, knitting itself into her flesh.

Anyone coming upon this impossible scene would never have guessed that this was the first time Sesshomaru had performed this generative miracle, for his only reaction was to raise one silver brow and hum meditatively. But he was genuinely shocked by the depth of this sword's power. Tensaiga not only saved life, but created it. Eventually, it stopped vibrating and he recognized that it was time to extract the point from Kagura's body. The blade was clean of any blood or flesh, and the hole in her chest sealed itself the moment it withdrew.

The she-demon still did not move or even blink her staring eyes, but he knew she was alive. If she woke fully alone in the middle of the field where she had fallen, she would never know to whom she owed her life. Without reflecting much more than that, Sesshomaru picked up her limp body and held her securely at his side with his one arm, then blinked out of being and back, transporting them to the nearest cave where he knew they would be undisturbed.

She was unconscious for another hour; they spoke briefly, then he sent her into sleep again, and he sat close and watched her breathing. He, Sesshomaru, had done this. Tensaiga had done this. Could the sword rebuild his mangled arm, give him a new limb, a new hand? And if it could, why had it never signaled its power before now? He sat still and tried to reconnect with the burning flare of regenerative heat he had felt while he leaned over Kagura's body. There was nothing. Perhaps that was another of the sword's tricks, that it only made Sesshomaru an instrument of salvation, refusing to provide him with the same.

He growled in a rare moment of angry weakness and settled back against the sandy wall of the cave, waiting for first light. Kagura could not wait to escape him, he saw that easily enough: and why should she want to stay with him, when he had made her bondage perfectly clear?

And now he watched her drifting away in the sky, knowing that he could not go back to Rin as he wanted. He must track his brother's scent, find out which of his companions had been slain, and hope that the sword spoke to him again.

* * *

 

Kagome lay on her narrow child's bed with the fussy pink spread, looking at the Jewel, holding it lazily aloft on its fine, sinuous chain, which dangled and flowed from finger to finger like woven light.

How she hated it; how she longed to be rid of it. And yet she allowed the familiar glowing sphere to brush the side of her cheek and travel across her face; in the midst of its smooth perfection, its only flaw grazed the delicate skin of her lower lip, as though she had rolled onto a hidden burr clinging to a silk sheet: the crystalline fissure of its incompleteness made itself felt once again, insistently, intrusively.

She sighed in exasperation, acknowledging the reminder. She didn't need to be reminded of what she could not possibly forget.

It wasn't only Sango's face she saw branded across the inside of her eyelids; not only Sango's death-scream she heard in sleep. She saw Koga. True, she had never fully returned the wolf demon's brusque, rather too openly declared affection, but that was no comfort now that he was dead; in fact it made her feel somehow worse, adding a liberal dash of remorse to her sorrow. She felt perhaps she should have loved him back, before it was too late. But she could not— cannot, even now. There is only Inuyasha.

And she saw Kikyo. Most of all she recalled the priestess' face in the instant of her death: the black eyes depthless, turned inward, unseeing; the delicate mouth set in a firm line; the pallid flesh flooded with the sudden light which enveloped her, lending it the lost radiance of blood, warmth, life. Even as she watched it happen, almost paralyzed by a strange blend of horror, comprehension and admiration, Kagome envied the fixity of mind, the sheer power, the sang-froid which had led Kikyo to this supreme fate. The priestess was resplendent, lit with martyrdom, finally mistress of her own end, so beautiful that it hurt to look at her.

Kagome stared into the brilliant universe of the jewel, praying for some measure of that force and serenity of spirit, and instead feeling more sharply than ever her own weakness, her inferiority. Even in death Kikyo had surpassed her, and even now Kagome could not blame her, could not hate her.

She remembered it all crawling past, with the same agonizing sluggishness that is always only as fast as you can run in your nightmares. But really, the time between Sango's death and Kikyo's could not have been more than a few seconds: ten, twenty, not more. Ten, twenty seconds she tried desperately to banish from her conscious mind but which still visited her in sleep.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Kagome jerked her head back and forth as if the motion could dispel the rising memory of Kikyo's magnificent death. The tiny jar of remaining shards seemed to throb against her chest, demanding release, joining. The jewel ached to be complete, and every moment that she stalled she felt the ache as her own. Usually her home on this side of the well provided a respite from the anxiety of the feudal era (with a few notable exceptions such as the cursed Noh mask which had briefly terrorized the family shrine before Inuyasha arrived to subdue it, thereby gaining Sota's undying admiration and the little-brother hero worship that Inuyasha needed so badly). But the four days she'd spent in her own time since Naraku's death were not an escape—only a painful exile. She was hiding, and she knew it. She was supposed to be deciding what to do about the jewel, not completing it here, alone, without consulting anyone.

Perhaps her choice was cowardly. The others were waiting patiently—or not so patiently in Inuyasha's case, she was sure—for her return. She had no idea how long she had before his temper snapped and he appeared in her bedroom to drag her back to the past, and she knew she couldn't stop him when he did. As long as the well functioned, she could never sever herself from the feudal era. The difference was that this time, she hoped to complete and purify the jewel before Inuyasha came for her, and since she had almost no idea what effects the purification would have, she could not be certain that the well would continue to function, or if she would retain her ability to pass through the time slip. It wasn't that she would never go back—but she had to prepare herself for not being able to go back. As she said her carefully simple goodbyes at the side of the well, she had nurtured a small irrational hope, that Inuyasha could not mistake her intentions. Those sharp golden eyes would see, that infallible nose scent, those sensitive fingers soak up something of what she was trying so hard to suppress: the choking misery of last looks, last words. He would know, would feel it seeping from her skin, and he would refuse to let her leave.

But Inuyasha, too, was studiously casual that last day. For once, he was trying to respect her decision, and Kagome laughed hopelessly now at the irony. The one time she needed him to be his usual tyrannical self, he became diffident. Or perhaps he just didn't understand what she was trying to tell him; perhaps he read nothing in the depths of her eyes, saw nothing of the pain she could not conceal. The idea that she was only a blank to Inuyasha tightened her throat and closed her fist around the skin-warm vial. She must end this, but even now she had no wish to make, no wish not tainted by selfishness, not laced with self-interest. She could not wish for anything that would benefit her or those she loved: no happiness for her friends, and no unhappiness for herself, since self-punishment was but a false altruism. Kagome was no martyr.

She had considered and almost immediately rejected the wish that none of this had ever happened, because the idea that she might awaken with no memory of her time on the other side of the wall was literally unbearable. Losing Sango, Miroku, Shippo—losing Inuyasha—was tantamount to losing her self. Besides, she had seen enough science fiction films to know that vague requests like that had unforeseen and unpredictable consequences; how could she simply erase the last three years of her existence?

She could only guess at what would happen once the jewel was whole, so asking that it cease to exist might be a moot point. If she asked that it lose the power to torment, tempt, control… that no one else would be allowed to suffer as they had on its account? Would that be enough? Or would it prove only her selfish longing to keep Inuyasha a half-demon forever, to deny him the means to become a full-blooded demon, as he had so often attempted, so long desired?

No happiness for those she loved. No unhappiness for herself. There was no reason these two truths must be mutually exclusive, was there? She thought of Shippo, her surrogate son, and felt almost worse about leaving him behind than about leaving Inuyasha. She could see the two of them now, in her mind, scrambling around one of their habitual campsites: Inuyasha's fluid strides hampered by the kitsune's frenetic, zigzag movements. Inuyasha often complained about “the runt being underfoot,” and it wasn't just a figure of speech, as Shippo literally bounced between Inuyasha's moving feet trying to send him sprawling. She smiled now at the unorthodox domesticity of the scene.

Not being a demon herself, it had taken Kagome a while to understand some aspects of youkai life and behavior, and she hadn't truly appreciated Inuyasha's acceptance of Shippo until she realized Koga's obvious disgust with their arrangement. On one of his whirlwind visits, she heard him mutter to his packmates that he wouldn't be caught dead caring for some one else's pup. His disgust seemed aimed at Inuyasha rather than at Shippo himself, so she was not as angry as she might have been had Koga slighted the little one, but Kagome was still incensed on Inuyasha's behalf. Apparently caring for a pup not his own made him weak in the eyes of other demons, and an action she had, in her human mindset, taken for granted suddenly made her admire him.

Kagome reflected that Inuyasha probably tolerated Shippo because, while she was unquestionably the kit's adopted mother, his relationship with Shippo was anything but fatherly. They were more like squabbling brothers than parent and child—although she hesitated to assign Inuyasha any more brothers than the one he already had. Sesshomaru caused them enough trouble. True, Inuyasha tended to react with violence when provoked by either, but a thump on the head bore little resemblance to the furious, deadly clashes between the sons of the Dog Lord. She'd long ago decided that the beatings and insults between the fox child and the half demon were… affectionate, and only intervened in the direst cases.

She still recalled Shippo's thrilled reaction when Inuyasha offered to teach him how to track. Of course, the offer was couched in insults about his lack of youkai skill, but Shippo's eyes shown all the same. “You mean you'll teach me how to do- everything?” he'd demanded breathlessly.

“Sure. I don't want to trust my neck to a kid who can't even tell the difference between demon-sign and cart tracks.”

“Shut up, I can so! I made it on my own before you guys came.”

“I'll believe that when I see it,” Inuyasha remarked mildly, and she was relieved, thinking of what he might have said instead. He rarely—if ever— spoke of his childhood, and most of what she knew of those days she read in his golden eyes, or in the thousands of tiny ingrained habits and mannerisms she had learned over the years: defensive postures, twitching muscles; when he yelled and when he stayed quiet. She treasured his few confidences about his mother and his time eluding full-blood demons and irate human villagers after her death. She knew more from the faithful if gutless Miyoga and from certain barbed comments of Sesshomaru's, but she would never let him know how much more. He hated to be thought weak in any way, even if his solitary struggle to live had proved him otherwise.

Even one year ago, Inuyasha would have snorted contemptuously at Shippo's shrill assertion, snarling that he was a spoiled baby who had never known what it was like to make it on one's own and would never have survived after his parents' deaths without his and Kagome's protection. That day he settled for a gentle dig that only served to motivate the kitsune: Shippo had worked hard, desperate to please and impress Inuyasha. The lessons had continued for a good two months; Kagome would often see the two streak off together into the trees in pursuit of some prey perceptible only by sharp youkai senses, or stumble upon them crouched over some fascinating natural phenomenon that usually looked like a tangle of weeds or scattered pollen to her untrained eye.

When Shippo had memorized the blood-signs of all major animals and demons in the forest, Inuyasha announced that he was satisfied with the runt's progress, but it was now time to learn what was most important. Kagome was sitting by the fire with a well-loved novel, straining to read by the erratic light, when Inuyasha appeared at her side, soundlessly and without warning as only he was capable. He peered over her shoulder as she turned slightly toward him, wondering if he could feel the way her heart accelerated. “What is it, Inuyasha?” she asked curiously.

The half-demon's ears swiveled in uncertainty and he glanced at Shippo, who scampered quickly to her side as well. “Umm, Kagome?” he squeaked. “Can you help me with something?” She understood immediately that Inuyasha had signaled the kit to join them; feeling a flash of concern, she hoped that this `something' wasn't serious. This was the first night after the new moon and Inuyasha's period of human vulnerability, and she was still telling herself there was no need to worry about him now that he was back to full strength, but worrying anyway. She tried to keep her misgivings out of her voice as she answered,

“Of course, Shippo, what do you need?”

Inuyasha shifted his weight and took charge. “Well, you know that Shippo's been working on tracking and other demon stuff. He's doing ok, so we need to get to the last step. He needs to learn you, Kagome.”

Her face crinkled in confusion. “I don't understand what you mean,” she said.

“He needs to know how to sense everyone: me, Sango, Miroku, and he's been practicing with our scents and everything. But since you're like his mother, I want him to know your blood-sign.”

“I just need to smell a tiny bit of blood,” Shippo said in a rush. “It won't hurt, I promise.”

“Oh, ok,” she agreed, still a bit reluctant, but unwilling to deny Shippo's anxious request. She had a needle in her pack for emergency clothing repairs, and it wouldn't hurt much. “I guess I'll just prick a finger for you.”

“Nah, let me do it,” said Inuyasha quickly, and before she could protest she felt an icy flick at the base of her throat, in the notch below her voice box. “There,” he murmured, lowering his claws, one of which sparkled with the smallest splash of red. “It's just a few drops, Kagome, don't worry.”

Kagome found she couldn't speak, and the sudden tightening of her throat had nothing to do with the trifling pain. Inuyasha nodded at Shippo, and the kit braced his tiny hands on Kagome's shoulders and breathed deeply over the tiny opening in her skin.

“Do you have it?” Inuyasha asked, his voice still low and slightly raspy.

“Yeah, I think so. Yes, I've got it.”

“Ok. That is Kagome, and don't you ever forget it.”

Shippo's eyebrows twitched as an idea struck him. “Hey, Inuyasha, shouldn't you—”

“Keh, I don't need to,” he interrupted, and something in his tone caused all the blood still in her body to swell up towards her skin in a burning blush. Shippo, for once, knew to stay silent.

“Thanks, Kagome,” he said, and returned to his spot on the other side of the flames. Kagome noticed Sango watching them, her eyes widened and gleaming orange. Kagome blushed even harder, resolving to ask the demon-slayer about this strange interplay when they were alone. But she never quite worked up the nerve, and now she never could ask. Sango's knowledge of demons was lost with her.

Tears stung her eyes and Kagome cast desperately for another place to focus her thoughts. She thought again of Sota. Any time she visited this side of the well, it seemed the first thing he wanted to know was whether Inuyasha would be joining her. It was obvious that he both adored his sister's half-demon companion and looked up to him. Used to suspicion and outright derision, Inuyasha seemed to inflate at every evidence of Sota's panting devotion—his childish admiration was like the almost unbearable surge of blood into long-withered flesh. Even his bark of laughter at Sota's request to learn how to “survive in the wild, like you're teaching Shippo,” was half-indulgent.

“Keh, I would if I could, kid, but you want I should teach you how to survive in the wild, first there needs to be a wild place to do it in. Nothing on this side of the well but con-crete.” He grimaced, but his next words were apologetic. “And anyway, Shippo's a demon, and you've only got the senses of a human.”

But how Inuyasha craved those little shows of admiration, and how he thrived under the attention! Really, it broke her heart. But now Kagome shook herself and tried to wipe Inuyasha too from her thoughts: these fond reminisces were distracting her from her real task, keeping her from her decision.

What they really made her feel, though, was guilty. Here she was fawning over memories of her friends, and she had as good as abandoned them, escaping to the other side of the well where they could not follow—no one but Inuyasha. She wondered again how the others were faring without her, but she could never have imagined how at sea the group was. Kagome drastically underestimated her importance to her haphazard, accumulated family; she would never have guessed how crucial her presence was to maintaining peace, and she had no idea that she was not the only one who thought of it as a family.

If there was some way to ensure that they would be all right, together, even without her…? Could she use the jewel in that way? To bind the three remaining members of the group together even if she were forced to stay in her own time—or if she chose to stay? She remembered her promise to Inuyasha, to stay by his side as long as he wanted her. But did he want her?

It wasn't until a few hours after the end of the battle, when the shock of losing Sango had receded just far enough to allow rational thought, that Kagome realized how close she had come to losing Inuyasha too. For hadn't he once pledged his soul to Kikyo, sworn to follow her into hell after her death? But Kikyo was dead, disintegrated in the final battle inches from Kagome's trembling outstretched hands, yet he was still here; did that mean anything other than that he didn't want to die? She could only be grateful that he was still alive; she refused to assume his motives. Perhaps the pact between them had been broken a long time ago—Kagome was hardly privy to their private discussions.

Every time she had convinced herself that Inuyasha would not care if she did not return to his time, she recalled the desperation in his golden eyes, gazing down at her like twin moons, when he asked her to swear: “Swear you are coming back.” If she couldn't come to a decision soon it wouldn't matter anyway, because Inuyasha would come for her, and she knew she could never resist; if he said one word, touched her with one finger, she could not but go with him back to the feudal era.

When someone knocked hesitantly on her bedroom door, Kagome was so startled that she launched herself out of bed and wrenched the door open. She saw immediately that it was only Sota, and almost laughed at her hyper-extended reflexes, until she noticed the odd look on his good-natured face.

“Uh, Kagome,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot almost nervously in her doorway, “there's someone here to see you. He says he's Inuyasha's older brother.”