InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 19 ( Chapter 19 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 19:

 

 

Miroku went before Sango. He was surrounded by his loving family at the end, and his last smile was for Sango, his beloved wife. Hiroshi held his mother's shoulders, but Sango was calm, serene almost, as if she knew she would be following him soon. Kazuki comforted Sachi, who sobbed with grief as she buried her face in her husband's shoulder. He stared unseeing across the small room where Miroku lay. Kazuki's eyes were shadowed, and I knew he felt Miroku's loss keenly.

 

My parents came as soon as they heard, and before the rest of the mourners arrived. Mama held Sango, who finally let herself cry in the safety of my mother's arms. I regarded the two of them, best friends since they were teenagers, now one was old and gray and the other looked just the same as she always did. Neither one of them seemed to notice the differences.

 

Once Shippo, Kouga and Ayame, and, surprisingly, Sesshomaru came to pay their respects, my parents had to leave. Little did they know that it would only be a matter of months before they would come back, this time to say good-bye to Sango.

 

It was a sickness that spread quickly through the slayer village. Sango got it, almost all the humans got it to some degree. Only the hanyou, my brother Kazuki and his two children, were completely immune. Hiroshi's wife was extremely sick when we buried Sango, and she died shortly after. It was a way of life in those days, without the advances of modern medicine, but I think Sango would have passed anyway. It was her time, and the sickness was just her excuse to let go.

 

Mama and Papa both took it hard. Sango and Miroku were their connection to this time. With both of them gone, the only things holding them to this time were Kazuki and me. I don't even think the strange youkai they had been pursuing over the years would have been enough to hold them here, except for the fact that the strange youkai seemed to be targeting our family. Papa's protective streak kept him coming back long after Miroku and Sango were finally gone.

 

When Sachi got sick, Kazuki panicked. He even tried to bring her through time, but it didn't work. None of our kids could do it, either. They just couldn't `see' the path like we could. I'm sure it would have been the same result had Papa tried bringing them through using Tetsusaiga. Therefore, Kazuki did the next best thing. He brought our brother Koji to visit Sachi. Koji was the child who finally made Mama's fondest wish for her children come true. He went to college. He even became a doctor and had a booming practice ministering to youkai and hanyou. Mama ministered to their spiritual needs and Koji tended the physical.

 

“I'm sorry,” he said in an aside to Kazuki after he had examined Sachi. “There's nothing I can do.”

 

“Aren't there any antibiotics she can take? Anything?” Kazuki sounded desperate. I had come down with Choko to help out while Sachi was so ill. She was never in the best of health to begin with, so this sickness really hit her hard.

 

“It isn't the same thing that the others had,” Koji said quietly. “I'll have to do a few tests, but I'm pretty sure it's cancer.”

 

“Cancer!” Kazuki and I exclaimed together. They had that in this time? Well, it made sense that they would—they probably just didn't call it that. My heart went out to Kazuki, who looked as if his world had just come crashing down on him. It had. Sachi was his world.

 

I couldn't stay forever, but Choko stayed, helping out where she could, and lending her considerable youki to calm her two hanyou cousins, whose own youki was fluctuating wildly in response to their highly emotional state. It's a hard thing, losing your mother. Kazuki never left Sachi's side. Hiroshi often let the kids sleep over at his place, to give Kazuki some space and to get them out of there for a little while. Kazuki loved his children, but he only had eyes for Sachi at that time. I don't think he even realized that they were hurting, too.

 

Koji made sure she was comfortable, with drugs from our time, and she was lucid at the end, able to say good-bye to her family. They say that it's quite common to rally right before the end. Daichi and I had returned when we knew the time was close. I saw her hug her kids, and tell them to be strong, and then she said something curious to Kazuki. “Live for me,” she told him, and my brother's eyes filled with tears at her whispered words. I ushered everyone out at that point and let them say their final good-bye's without an audience.

 

I felt it when she died. So did Masashi and Akiko, who keened their grief. Choko, little mother that she was for all that she was their same age, pulled them both to her and mourned right along with them. Kazuki did not come out of the house until nightfall. His eyes were dry, and his face was bleak. He took one look at me, then he bolted, out of the village and into the night. I understood his need to run, to get away from everything and let the wind rip his hair and make his eyes tear. He would come back when he was ready. Besides, I sensed Papa out there somewhere. Papa would watch over him.

 

With Miroku gone, the village had to rely on their stout wooden stockade, which was an effective barrier against natural enemies, but not against my kind. Towards morning, I woke early, having felt something, and wondered if Kazuki had returned. He hadn't, but the kids' youki had stirred up some unwanted guests.

 

“Daichi!” I shook his shoulder. He bolted upright, sensing the lesser youkai who had silently streamed over the fence and into the village. I needn't have worried. This was a slayer village. In a moment, I heard the clang of the alarm, and human slayers poured out of their homes, dressed and armed in a matter of seconds. Masashi and Akiko, too, wore slayer garb, completely unaware that they were the cause of this pesky invasion.

 

None of us had a chance to slay anything, however. At that moment, a bright, three-pronged flash of light flew over the stockade fence from behind the streaming youkai, followed by Kazuki, a look of pure rage on his features. In seconds, the swarm of youkai disintegrated, but not before I heard, just at the end, a whisper of my name in my mind. I froze. It couldn't be. Had he sent his youkai?

 

Kazuki dropped down in our midst and sheathed his sword. He didn't look at anyone, but just went straight into his house, where Sachi's twin had spent the night preparing her sister's body. After a second, Kazuki came back out. The look on his face said that his Sachi wasn't in there, not anymore. I breathed a little easier. It meant he had finally accepted her loss, and could let her go.

 

After Sachi was buried, I took Kazuki aside. I didn't want to even think it, but what if our strange youkai had somehow caused Sachi's death? He was a stealer of energy. He could have done it, to hurt our family. I told Kazuki what I had heard just before his attack wiped out the swarm of youkai. Instead of considering what I'd said, Kazuki blew up at me.

 

“She died of cancer!” he yelled. “Cancer. That's all. You got it?” Then he stalked away, leaving me stunned and embarrassed. No one else had heard what I'd said to him, but they all heard what he screamed at me. I found myself seeking the comfort of Daichi's arms, wondering if maybe I had been wrong.

 

Kazuki apologized to me later. We sat at the edge of the old slayer practice field in the gathering dusk. He said he was sorry but he didn't believe, couldn't believe, that it was anything but a tragic illness that took Sachi away from him. I didn't say what we both knew—that sooner or later she would have been gone anyway, she was only human.

 

“Maybe it was a mistake,” he murmured. “Maybe we were never meant to come here.”

 

“You can't mean that,” I protested. “You were happy here, I know you were.”

 

“I was,” he admitted. “And now I have a hole in my heart that can never be mended.” He looked up at me through his unruly bangs, still dark with dye. I hadn't seen his real hair color in years. “I'm going home,” he said quietly. “For good.”

 

“What? You can't! What about Masashi and Akiko? They need you, especially now that Sachi is gone.”

 

Kazuki winced at the sound of her name. “They're old enough now. They don't need me to take care of them anymore.” He sighed. “They belong in this age. I don't.”

 

“How can you say that?” I asked. Everything he was saying about himself could apply equally to me. He did so belong here. I belonged here.

 

“I've made up my mind,” he said. “I'll settle things here, then I'm leaving.”

 

“Well, I can't watch,” I said, on the verge of tears. I wasn't sure whether the tears were actually for Kazuki, or for myself. I saw my future in his sad eyes.

 

Kazuki reached out and hugged me. “It's just—everything here reminds me of her, even the kids. I have to get away.”

 

I couldn't be mad at him. He was still in pain. Maybe it was best for him to leave this time for a while. He could always come back. I blinked back my tears and smiled at him. He tugged me to my feet and we strolled back to the village before they closed the gate for the night.

 

Choko stayed when Daichi and I finally left. She would be needed when Kazuki told everyone that he was leaving. He had asked me not to mention it to anyone yet. He wanted to do it himself. Those poor kids. At least they had Hiroshi and my Choko to lean on. I vowed to come by more often. If nothing else, Masashi and Akiko should have a choice about their heritage. Growing up human, they hadn't had nearly enough exposure to their hanyou heritage. Maybe, between Choko and I, we could show them how the other half lived.

 

“Daichi?” I asked, on our way home. It was just the two of us, something that didn't happen that often, and we were taking our time on the trip back to make the most of it. “If something ever happens to me, please take care of our kids.”

 

He laughed. “They're practically all grown. Even little Megumi has been making eyes at some of the older boys.” His eyes twinkled. “I've been thinking, maybe we should have another one.” He tickled me around the waist.

 

Giggling, I pushed him half-heartedly away. “I'm serious,” I told him. “Children always need their parents, no matter how old they get. I still need my parents sometimes.”

 

Daichi nodded thoughtfully. In his mind, Sango and Miroku were my adopted parents. “You'll always have them inside your heart,” he said, and I blinked to hear such a sensitive remark, although I should have expected it. Dai was always sensitive like that on the other side.

 

“So do you promise?” I pressed, tickling him back just a little to soften the urgency of my question. I really needed him to answer.

 

“Yes, yes, I promise to take care of our children. But nothing's going to happen to you, Mayumi. It's different with us.”

 

It was different because we were youkai. We would live forever. I shook off my melancholy mood and smiled up at my husband. “Good,” I said, knowing at least part of it would be so, wishing all of it would.

 

Kazuki didn't go home to Mama and Papa. Instead, he went to Tokyo, to live at the shrine. Uncle Souta was getting on in age too, and Kazuki took over the upkeep of the shrine for a good fifty years. He never did go back in time, but Papa and Mama helped him to find his children, and their children, in our time, and gradually Kazuki began to heal. Some of his great-grandchildren were almost completely human, and he would have to get used to having them die on him someday. Living at the shrine helped him come to terms with his fears of loss, so I guess, in the end, he did the right thing. Masashi and Akiko turned out just fine. Last I heard, Kazuki was preparing to leave the shrine and go back to the States. Our kind couldn't remain in one place for too long. He said he was going to spend some time learning about ancient youkai from Misty, who lived by the sea. Hah, Misty is a cutie, even if she is older than dirt. She may be just what Kazuki needs!