InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Metemphsychosis ❯ Chapter 1

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Most of the time dying hurts, but being reborn from your corpse hurts even worse, and I should know since I’ve died four times already and am dying again right now.


It happened so fast the first time. One minute I was happy gathering herbs with my beautiful InuYasha and then next I was lying in the grass an arrow sticking out the center of my chest his anguished roar echoing in my ears. My chest was tight and heavy, and it was all I could do to gasp one breath after another fighting to stay long enough to see his face one last time. I tasted blood, heard the screams of the bandits as he slaughtered them and I all I could think about was wanting just a few more minutes with him.

He was covered in blood as he lifted me into his arms, cradling me against his chest. I moved my mouth. I love you, I wanted to say. I’m sorry. Live for me, but nothing would come out. His tears fell against my face. and as he begged me to not to leave him, the pain from the arrow became nothing when compared to agony of breaking his heart. Suddenly everything went still and quiet inside me and I realized that my heart had stopped beating.

I could see myself and wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him as he howled out his grief for the world to hear. I waited for the light or the call or whatever it is that comes to take your spirit to the other side but it never came. Instead there was a great burst of power that threw InuYasha away from body and it burst into flames made of reiki.

There was a tug at my soul and suddenly I was on fire. It burned and the pain was like nothing I had ever felt before and just when I was certain that I would go mad, that I couldn’t endure another second the fire went out and I sat straight up screaming. He was by my side in an instant holding me against him inspite of all the ash and blood and charred flesh from my old body that covered me, saying my name over and over.

We hunted for a while for the answer to my miraculous rebirth, but no one anywhere could tell us anything and finally we gave up.


The second time I died it took a lot longer almost two days in fact. I didn’t know I was dying then, not at first, not until Kaede and Sango brought InuYasha into the birthing hut to be with me for however long I had left.

My beautiful baby was sideways across the birth canal and wouldn’t turn no matter how hard they tried, and they did try. InuYasha even held me down and Kaede shoved her hands inside me. I felt like I was being torn in half, but it was no use.

I didn’t blame InuYasha when he left me. His entire world was dying, and he was trying to spare me from seeing him fall apart.

It was for the best anyway. Otherwise I never would have been able to convince Sango to cut the baby out of me so that she would live even if I wouldn’t. I got to hold her in my arms, see those golden eyes looking into mine, to stroke the ears she had inherited from her father.

InuYasha would live for her and the pain in my heart eased as I felt myself growing colder.

The cry of our baby brought InuYasha back to the hut and I smiled as Sango set her in her father’s arms. He promised to protect her and to love her enough for the both of us. Of course we both prayed that by some miracle I would somehow be restored like I was before, but what were the odds that happening again. It wasn’t until I was looking at myself again from the outside that I really began to hope.

My precious daughter looked right at me and then it happened again, but this time I knew I would have gladly suffered the pain ten times, a hundred, a thousand if it meant I would get to be there to raise my child.

Sango had to act as my wet nurse until I managed to induce lactation since my brand new body had never delivered a baby before. The only upside was that InuYasha and I were able to make love that night while our daughter slept nearby.



My third death came the winter Iza-chan turned three. It was the flu. Ironically or perhaps not, I was the only person in the village to die of the flu that year, but I was also the only one who came back to life too.

At least after that I was able convince InuYasha to have another baby. It’s hard to keep saying no on the grounds of being afraid your wife is going to die when she has already risen from the dead three times. Thankfully the birth of our son was relatively easy as far as giving birth in a hut with no modern medicine is concerned.

It was many years before I died for the fourth time. I was approaching fifty when I found the lump in breast and of course there was nothing I could do about it. I was thankful at least for the time to prepare InuYasha, to tell him what was coming. My beautiful InuYasha, who had aged perhaps only a year but always made me feel beautiful even as streaks of grey appeared in my hair and my body sagged.

It was not an easy death, but only after it was done did I fully realize that there was more to the gift that restored my life than simply allowing me to live again.

I will never forget the way he looked at me when I rose from what was left of my wasted form. I wasn’t a fifty year old woman, but young again, older than I had been at the time of my first death, but only enough so that I my appearance was that of a woman the same age as my husband appeared to be. It was as if our life together was starting all over again. We could have more children if we wanted, another thirty years together. I didn’t know what this power was that I had been given but I had never been more thankful for anything in my entire life.

I spent nearly a week in bed enjoying my new young body which was once again able to express the way I ached for him, the way I burned, the way his touch set me on fire in all the positions my age had no longer permitted. InuYasha enjoyed it too.

After that I spent the same amount of time in meditation and prayer, only taking breaks to eat, sleep and see to the call of nature. I had to figure out who or what allowed me to live again and if there was a limit to the number of times I would be allowed to return. In spite of my efforts in the end the answer came to me in a dream.

Midoriko spoke to me. She said it was my reward for carrying the burden of the Shikon no Tama and ridding the world of both it and Naraku. She could not grant me the life of a youkai of hanyou because I was not either of those things. I was human and humans grew old and they died. It was the natural order. However human were also reborn, as I was Kikyou’s reincarnation. Of course there was a cost, and the price was pain, but as long as I was willing to pay and as long as InuYasha still lived, so would I. That was his reward. As he aged so would I. The only thing that I could never do was kill myself. If I did that I would stay dead.

It was a really good deal as far as I was concerned and when I told InuYasha he agreed. He didn’t care if I got older. He’d already proven that once, and knowing that I would be as young as he was when I came back was just like finding a last cup of ramen in my bag when he thought I was out - a pleasant surprise.



Which brings us to where we are now. InuYasha is beside me, holding my hand. Our two youngest are with their older brother and sister who came when word reached them that I was dying - again.

I’m lying on the floor with only a blanket so that I don’t ruin the thick down filled futon that InuYasha had specially made for me. I feel so stupid and worry that because this time it was my fault that I won’t be allowed to come back. InuYasha shares my worry. I can see it in his eyes but he offers me no recrimination only his gratitude for finding a way to save our children from that youkai without my bow and arrows, which makes me feel even worse since he was only away from our home because I yelled at him for nagging me about always being armed when I went out.

My whole body hurts. I feel like I am burning up from the inside and still I know I have to find the strength to speak. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he says. “I’ll forgive you as soon as you come back.”

He hopes for me, for us and I nod. It’s getting harder to breathe now and I can feel that it won’t be long. “I won’t ever forget them again.”

“I know,” he says once more..

“I love you.” It’s barely a whisper, but he hears me as he always does when I need him to.

His eyes are bright. “I know.”

I scowl at him and he laughs and I think it’s wonderful that the last thing I will hear before I die this time is his laughter. Such a beautiful sound.

I focus on that, his laughter, as my soul catches fire and burns away the old me, the dead one. It is the only thing that makes it possible to stay sane through the torture of being remade. I draw in a long sucking breath and sobs rack my body, but he is here and he shelters me in his arms, soothes me with his love.

“I love you, too,” he says. “Always.”

“Forever.”


I’ ;m certain that this will not be the last time I die and be forced to embrace the the agony of rebirth, but whether I die only once more or a hundred times I know that it will be worth it because it means I can keep my promise to stay forever by side.