InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mind's Eye Series: An Interesting Story ❯ An Interesting Story ( One-Shot )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: kaliannameyron 
As I said before, Kagome's POV on the last five years of her life.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Supernatural / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.26.2004 | Updated On: 05.13.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.6K | Visits: 454 | Status: Completed
As I said before, Kagome's POV on the last five years of her life.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Supernatural / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.26.2004 | Updated On: 05.13.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.6K | Visits: 454 | Status: Completed
Note: This is written in Kagome's POV, telling what has happened between when she fell through the well, and the beginning of "A Beautiful Death". It's short, but I felt it was necessary to include.
Second Note: Updated to fix some things I wasn't happy with (spelling errors, semantics, blah, blah, blah). Story unaffected. Sorry about this.
Disclaimer: As always, I don't own Inuyasha, I don't want to own Inuyasha, I don't make any money of this crap, I don't want to make any money of this crap.
Extended Disclaimer:
[deleted for the sake of your sanity]
Enjoy!
----------That said...----------
An Interesting Story
Four in the morning. I’ve been up all night, working on my second book. I can’t stand to write another word, but I still can’t sleep. Mom was right, though, being a writer is perfect for me. What was it she said, that I always told such great stories? And now that I have first hand experience of youkai and miko, writing fantasy novels set in feudal Japan is the easiest thing on Earth. The first book sold pretty well, and I got amazing reviews, so my publisher is clamoring for this next one.
I’m really just telling my own story. Truth is stranger than fiction, and all that.
My story. I fell through the well on my fifteenth birthday, and met Inuyasha. We hated each other for a few weeks, but after the night of the full moon, I really started to see him for who he is. We had a lot of battles; I have a lot of scars. Yura, the Thunder Brothers, that creepy-ass Noh mask, Kikyo’s resurrection, the false water god, the “birth” of Kagura and Kanna... I can’t list them all, there’s no way to quantify everything that happened to us that first year. It all still seems so unreal, like a half-remembered dream.
I do remember the first time we completed the Shikon Jewel. That was a bad day. Kikyo broke down Naraku’s barriers for us and stayed for the battle. The fight went on for what felt like hours, and I honestly have no idea how long it really took. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of demons called down by Naraku. I’m surprised there are any left in all of Japan. It seemed that each one we killed spawned two more.
The clearest memory of that day is being back to back with Inuyasha, me with my bow, and him with Tetsusaiga. Shippou was at my feet. Sango and Miroku were in a similar position with Kirara. Kikyo stood alone, fending off dozens of demons by herself. Every time I looked at her, she was watching us.
Suddenly, the minor demons dispersed, and I had a clear shot at Naraku. My arrow pierced him, and he disappeared. We all thought sure we’d gotten him, the jewel was all that was left behind. But Miroku’s Wind Tunnel didn’t close. We knew then, it wasn’t over yet.
We were all sitting around at Kaede’s after the battle, taking account of injuries, and trying to decide just what to do. Clearly we had to find Naraku and destroy him forever. I didn’t know why my arrow couldn’t kill him. None of us could say what damage had been done. But we were determined to continue.
Kikyo was still with us. During a silent moment, she leaned over and whispered something to Inuyasha.
I try not to be bitter. I love Inuyasha, and Inuyasha loves Kikyo. I know there’s a place in his heart for me, that’s been made abundantly clear, but... They went out into the forest, and I could only watch them go. I decided right then to go home, take the Jewel with me, and never look back. They had Kikyo to help them now. The four of them could take out Naraku. Besides, I had to finish high school. But... these were my best friends.
Sango must have sensed my pain, because she crawled over to where I was sitting, and put her arms around my shoulders.
“Come back and see us, Kagome.” I can still hear her words, clear as day. Shippou came to sit on my lap, tears in his eyes. Miroku, too, came to put one hand on my arm.
“Do what you must, Kagome. We’ll all be here, to see you again.”
“Thank you. I love you guys.” I smiled as best as I could through my sorrow and stood to leave. I walked to the well alone, furiously blinking back my tears. The old well. My well. Before I could jump in, Inuyasha spoke from the edge of the trees.
“You’re leaving.” He sounded so sad, and when I turned to face him, his expression matched. Kikyo stood a distance off.
“I’ll come to visit. As long as I have the Jewel, it should be fine.” He still looked sad. “Come on, now, you have Kikyo again.” I reached over to touch him on the arm, but he jerked away from me.
“I can’t... be with her. We don’t trust each other. I am bound to her, but there’s no chance for... us.” He glanced in her direction, as if to confirm his statement.
“I see.” What else could I say? There he was, telling me in so many words than he loved Kikyo, and had to suffer alone. “Well. I’ll come and visit as soon as I can. I have a lot of school to catch up on.”
He was staring at me with those eyes of his. Golden orbs, with all the depth of the Shikon Jewel itself. Suddenly, he grabbed he and pulled me into a tight hug, like he’d done months before, when he sent me home. The irony was not lost on me.
“Promise. Promise you’ll come see us, Kagome.”
“I promise.” Only then did he release me from his embrace, and I walked over to where Kikyo stood. “Take care of everyone while I’m gone, Kikyo.”
She looked shocked, but nodded.
I turned again to hop down into the well. I sat on the edge, my legs dangling in for a moment, before looking back over my shoulder at him. “If I hear about you abusing little Shippou, I’ll say it so many times you’ll have to hike out of the hole for days.” I grinned at him, unable to make him bear the weight of the situation. I was rewarded with a canine smile and a nod. And I slipped down through the portal.
I cried until dawn that night. It was the first time in months that Mom had been able to tell the truth about why I was missing school.
I had managed to get into a decent high school. For those three years, I went back through the well almost nightly. We had the occasional skirmish when some minor demon sensed the Jewel, but I was never there long enough for any real trouble to come up. Those were the best days of my life. Every night, an hour or two with my friends, just sitting around a camp fire, or at Kaede’s shrine, laughing and talking. Sometimes I’d stay weekends. Kaede and one of the village women taught me to use a naginata. I wrote a story, my story with a twist, of course. No Shikon Jewel, just a girl, nothing like me, who falls through an old well and into the past.
Kikyo kept her promise. Shippou had taken a liking to her, and she also seemed to have a soft spot for the little kitsune. She helped cook for the group, but my ramen was still Inuyasha’s favorite. It turns out that with each soul that she used to stay alive, a bit remained. She had pieced together a soul of her own, and has even begun to age again.
The years rolled by, and I was about to graduate. Mom had suggested that I try to get my story published during the summer before my junior year. One day in October, I got the letter from my publisher. They loved it. They wanted other manuscripts. I stopped trying to kill myself to get into college. I also stopped calling it “my story”, and allowed myself to think of it as a book. It was published the day after my graduation, about a year and a half later.
I used my pay to buy Souta and I a trip to America for the next summer. Papa was half-American, and his brother lives in Kansas City. We had such a great time. I’ve always been fascinated by American culture, especially their music. Uncle Kenjiro knew that, and his son, Jacob had an extra ticket to this big show called Ozzfest. That was my real introduction to American heavy metal, and I was very impressed. That was also the day I learned how to properly say “fuck”. It would have been impossible not to.
And if anyone had told me five years ago that I’d be screaming my ass off and jumping around in a mosh pit, I’d have laughed for days.
I changed a lot that day. After getting my ass kicked in the pit for this band called Mudvayne, I tramped over to the lawn seats and sat down in the very back. It was cold and rainy that day, but we stayed for the whole show. I remember being especially impressed by Slipknot. Jacob says there’s something very primal about that band, and I really have to agree with him.
The entire experience was so cathartic. Like cheap therapy, really. For the first time in months, I didn’t care that I wasn’t getting a college education, or that Inuyasha wasn’t mine.
The next few days are still a blur. I came down off what Jacob called ‘concert high’, and nursed my sore neck. The first thing after the show that I really remember is driving east towards Columbia, Missouri, to visit my cousin Terin. Terin’s about two years older than me, and she’s just finished her bachelor’s degree in theater.
Driving for two hours was an new experience indeed. And the land there is so beautiful, so undeveloped in so many places. Farmland, winding rivers, rolling hills, and deep forests... It reminded me of Feudal Japan. I kept expecting to catch a glimpse of Inuyasha’s bright red clothes along the tops of the trees.
Terin took us sightseeing in what she calls a little city. I call it a big town. When we went into this local bookstore, I damn near fainted. They had my book displayed in the very front of the shop, with a big poster, and the little picture of me from the back of the book. That was surreal.
And then the clerk recognized me. I thought she was going to faint. She gushed over how she’d loved my book, and couldn’t wait for the next one. Was it going to be made into an anime? She loved anime. Thought that they should do a music tie-in, like Cowboy Bebop. My main character reminded her of Faye.
I thought she was nuts. But I signed a copy of the book for her, and vowed to never step into a bookstore again. Especially in America. Apparently anime fans will gobble up and obsess over anything that could ever come close to seeming like one.
The rest of my vacation was pretty uneventful. Catharsis and surreality, then a short stay in a nice hotel in Branson.
Oh. Branson.
Branson is... Branson is the epitome of every stereotype about midwestern America. But again, the scenery was pretty. There were more hills in the south of the state, but I had to giggle at the locals who think they’re mountains. I got recognized again, this time at a theme park called Silver Dollar City. If my first though in the Feudal Era was “Medieval Times Japan”, this was “Pioneer Days Missouri”. Surprisingly, though, it was fun.
Aside from that, though, pretty uneventful. A long flight home, with a plane change at San Francisco, then an equally uneventful touchdown at Narita in Tokyo. Mom met us at the gate, and that was uneventful, too. Gramps hadn’t been hospitalized, none of her friends’ daughters was pregnant, and she didn’t ask me any embarrassing questions. After presenting the gifts for her and Gramps, I slept, trying to recover from the lag of a fifteen hour flight.
The next afternoon, I dropped through the well to visit my other family. That’s when my week got interesting.
Nothing was wrong when I got there. They were all just hanging out around the shrine, laughing and talking like they did almost every time I saw them. Those were carefree days for them.
Rin was there, as she often was. To this day, she runs around with Sesshoumaru, but she took to providing us with any information she had about Naraku. That little girl has turned into quite the spy. She was the one who’d told us what happened to him after that battle. He was in a hidden cave in the north, gaining strength. My arrow had weakened him greatly, but I...
I was weak, too, that time. Looking back, my thoughts were not where they should have been. I was distracted by Kikyo, distracted by what I thought the end of that battle would mean for me, for her, and for Inuyasha. That day, my heart was not pure enough to destroy him.
Anyway, Rin. She’d bartered an uneasy peace between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, and become our little ambassador to him. That day she had come not to inform us of anything, but merely because she enjoyed our company.
I had gifts for everyone. A handmade quilt for Shippou, a set of copper pots for Kikyo, soaps for Sango, a teddy bear for Rin, American herbs for Kaede, special inks for Miroku, and Kansas City Style beef jerky for Inuyasha. As always, my modern items were well received.
We talked for awhile, catching up on the last few weeks. Rin informed me that Naraku was gaining power more rapidly now, and soon would be able to come after us again. Miroku had come across yet another former lover, this one had miscarried his child. Sango twitched suitably at the memory.
That night, us girls headed to the hot springs for a long soak. Sango and Kikyo have grown close over the years. It’s nice, actually, to see them get along. With Rin, they’ve become my pseudo-sisters. Especially Kikyo. We came to respect each other, and before long, Kikyo was the only one I could tell anything and everything. I still find myself wondering what it would have been like to know her before her first death.
We four sat in the springs talking for quite awhile before it happened. Kikyo was scrubbing my back, and the chain on the Shikon Jewel broke. It slipped into the water, and we all felt around for it for a good fifteen minutes before Rin caught it between her toes. She held it up, and Kikyo and I reached for it at the same time.
All I remember is the blinding flash of light. I still don’t know why it shattered again. Kaede suspects that being exposed to the two of us at once was too much, and the fragile bonds that held the Jewel together were broken. When I told Souta, he spouted off some shit about quantum states and a bunch of other crap that I still don’t understand. Little kid is too smart for my good.
Either way, that was about the weirdest day of my life. Falling through the well to the Feudal Era, fine. Getting my soul ripped from my body, no problem. But seeing that thing shatter for no apparent reason... not cool.
And so it all started over. That was a year ago. And in the past year, we collected a sizable chunk, had it stolen, watched it sucked into Hell, and had to go in to get it. That was an interesting experience. Naraku has almost half now, as do I. He’s up to his old tricks again, fucking with our lives. He hasn’t tried to get me to kill Inuyasha in a while, so I’m wondering what he’s planning.
Now I’m almost twenty. I look back at how I’ve changed over the years, and wonder why I’m not insane. I’ve been told that I’m a pure soul. That it’s my purity that heals the Jewel.
Like I said, I try not to be bitter. Most of the time I succeed. There’s no reason for me to be angry with Inuyasha and Kikyo. They’re my friends, and if we complete it this time, and Kikyo decides to go back to Hell and take Inuyasha with her, then there’s nothing I can do. I’ll go on with my life. I’ll continue to write. I’ll always remember the good times I had with them.
I swear, I get angry, I fight bravely, I want Inuyasha. And yet, they still say I’m a pure soul. I don’t understand. Maybe I don’t get what it means to be “pure”.
I don’t know what my future holds. Kikyo has hinted that she intends to stay in this world. Inuyasha has hinted that she has released him from his promise. I know nothing for sure, as I can’t bring myself to ask them.
I do know, that whatever happens, I will always be me. I cannot just give up, not after I’ve come so far. Naraku will be destroyed. Miroku will be healed. Sango’s family will be avenged.
And someday, I’ll have a family of my own, a man that loves me, and children of my own. I’ll be successful, I’ll be happy. I’ll have to leave them behind someday, because we’ve decided that the Jewel has got to go. I probably won’t always be a “pure soul”, whatever the Hell that means. I’ll always be a miko, I know, but there’s no telling how that will change.
And no matter what happens, it’ll be an interesting story.
----------End One-Shot----------
Keep an eye out for "Who am I?" a similar piece in Kikyou's POV [shameless plug].
Second Note: Updated to fix some things I wasn't happy with (spelling errors, semantics, blah, blah, blah). Story unaffected. Sorry about this.
Disclaimer: As always, I don't own Inuyasha, I don't want to own Inuyasha, I don't make any money of this crap, I don't want to make any money of this crap.
Extended Disclaimer:
[deleted for the sake of your sanity]
Enjoy!
----------That said...----------
An Interesting Story
Four in the morning. I’ve been up all night, working on my second book. I can’t stand to write another word, but I still can’t sleep. Mom was right, though, being a writer is perfect for me. What was it she said, that I always told such great stories? And now that I have first hand experience of youkai and miko, writing fantasy novels set in feudal Japan is the easiest thing on Earth. The first book sold pretty well, and I got amazing reviews, so my publisher is clamoring for this next one.
I’m really just telling my own story. Truth is stranger than fiction, and all that.
My story. I fell through the well on my fifteenth birthday, and met Inuyasha. We hated each other for a few weeks, but after the night of the full moon, I really started to see him for who he is. We had a lot of battles; I have a lot of scars. Yura, the Thunder Brothers, that creepy-ass Noh mask, Kikyo’s resurrection, the false water god, the “birth” of Kagura and Kanna... I can’t list them all, there’s no way to quantify everything that happened to us that first year. It all still seems so unreal, like a half-remembered dream.
I do remember the first time we completed the Shikon Jewel. That was a bad day. Kikyo broke down Naraku’s barriers for us and stayed for the battle. The fight went on for what felt like hours, and I honestly have no idea how long it really took. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of demons called down by Naraku. I’m surprised there are any left in all of Japan. It seemed that each one we killed spawned two more.
The clearest memory of that day is being back to back with Inuyasha, me with my bow, and him with Tetsusaiga. Shippou was at my feet. Sango and Miroku were in a similar position with Kirara. Kikyo stood alone, fending off dozens of demons by herself. Every time I looked at her, she was watching us.
Suddenly, the minor demons dispersed, and I had a clear shot at Naraku. My arrow pierced him, and he disappeared. We all thought sure we’d gotten him, the jewel was all that was left behind. But Miroku’s Wind Tunnel didn’t close. We knew then, it wasn’t over yet.
We were all sitting around at Kaede’s after the battle, taking account of injuries, and trying to decide just what to do. Clearly we had to find Naraku and destroy him forever. I didn’t know why my arrow couldn’t kill him. None of us could say what damage had been done. But we were determined to continue.
Kikyo was still with us. During a silent moment, she leaned over and whispered something to Inuyasha.
I try not to be bitter. I love Inuyasha, and Inuyasha loves Kikyo. I know there’s a place in his heart for me, that’s been made abundantly clear, but... They went out into the forest, and I could only watch them go. I decided right then to go home, take the Jewel with me, and never look back. They had Kikyo to help them now. The four of them could take out Naraku. Besides, I had to finish high school. But... these were my best friends.
Sango must have sensed my pain, because she crawled over to where I was sitting, and put her arms around my shoulders.
“Come back and see us, Kagome.” I can still hear her words, clear as day. Shippou came to sit on my lap, tears in his eyes. Miroku, too, came to put one hand on my arm.
“Do what you must, Kagome. We’ll all be here, to see you again.”
“Thank you. I love you guys.” I smiled as best as I could through my sorrow and stood to leave. I walked to the well alone, furiously blinking back my tears. The old well. My well. Before I could jump in, Inuyasha spoke from the edge of the trees.
“You’re leaving.” He sounded so sad, and when I turned to face him, his expression matched. Kikyo stood a distance off.
“I’ll come to visit. As long as I have the Jewel, it should be fine.” He still looked sad. “Come on, now, you have Kikyo again.” I reached over to touch him on the arm, but he jerked away from me.
“I can’t... be with her. We don’t trust each other. I am bound to her, but there’s no chance for... us.” He glanced in her direction, as if to confirm his statement.
“I see.” What else could I say? There he was, telling me in so many words than he loved Kikyo, and had to suffer alone. “Well. I’ll come and visit as soon as I can. I have a lot of school to catch up on.”
He was staring at me with those eyes of his. Golden orbs, with all the depth of the Shikon Jewel itself. Suddenly, he grabbed he and pulled me into a tight hug, like he’d done months before, when he sent me home. The irony was not lost on me.
“Promise. Promise you’ll come see us, Kagome.”
“I promise.” Only then did he release me from his embrace, and I walked over to where Kikyo stood. “Take care of everyone while I’m gone, Kikyo.”
She looked shocked, but nodded.
I turned again to hop down into the well. I sat on the edge, my legs dangling in for a moment, before looking back over my shoulder at him. “If I hear about you abusing little Shippou, I’ll say it so many times you’ll have to hike out of the hole for days.” I grinned at him, unable to make him bear the weight of the situation. I was rewarded with a canine smile and a nod. And I slipped down through the portal.
I cried until dawn that night. It was the first time in months that Mom had been able to tell the truth about why I was missing school.
I had managed to get into a decent high school. For those three years, I went back through the well almost nightly. We had the occasional skirmish when some minor demon sensed the Jewel, but I was never there long enough for any real trouble to come up. Those were the best days of my life. Every night, an hour or two with my friends, just sitting around a camp fire, or at Kaede’s shrine, laughing and talking. Sometimes I’d stay weekends. Kaede and one of the village women taught me to use a naginata. I wrote a story, my story with a twist, of course. No Shikon Jewel, just a girl, nothing like me, who falls through an old well and into the past.
Kikyo kept her promise. Shippou had taken a liking to her, and she also seemed to have a soft spot for the little kitsune. She helped cook for the group, but my ramen was still Inuyasha’s favorite. It turns out that with each soul that she used to stay alive, a bit remained. She had pieced together a soul of her own, and has even begun to age again.
The years rolled by, and I was about to graduate. Mom had suggested that I try to get my story published during the summer before my junior year. One day in October, I got the letter from my publisher. They loved it. They wanted other manuscripts. I stopped trying to kill myself to get into college. I also stopped calling it “my story”, and allowed myself to think of it as a book. It was published the day after my graduation, about a year and a half later.
I used my pay to buy Souta and I a trip to America for the next summer. Papa was half-American, and his brother lives in Kansas City. We had such a great time. I’ve always been fascinated by American culture, especially their music. Uncle Kenjiro knew that, and his son, Jacob had an extra ticket to this big show called Ozzfest. That was my real introduction to American heavy metal, and I was very impressed. That was also the day I learned how to properly say “fuck”. It would have been impossible not to.
And if anyone had told me five years ago that I’d be screaming my ass off and jumping around in a mosh pit, I’d have laughed for days.
I changed a lot that day. After getting my ass kicked in the pit for this band called Mudvayne, I tramped over to the lawn seats and sat down in the very back. It was cold and rainy that day, but we stayed for the whole show. I remember being especially impressed by Slipknot. Jacob says there’s something very primal about that band, and I really have to agree with him.
The entire experience was so cathartic. Like cheap therapy, really. For the first time in months, I didn’t care that I wasn’t getting a college education, or that Inuyasha wasn’t mine.
The next few days are still a blur. I came down off what Jacob called ‘concert high’, and nursed my sore neck. The first thing after the show that I really remember is driving east towards Columbia, Missouri, to visit my cousin Terin. Terin’s about two years older than me, and she’s just finished her bachelor’s degree in theater.
Driving for two hours was an new experience indeed. And the land there is so beautiful, so undeveloped in so many places. Farmland, winding rivers, rolling hills, and deep forests... It reminded me of Feudal Japan. I kept expecting to catch a glimpse of Inuyasha’s bright red clothes along the tops of the trees.
Terin took us sightseeing in what she calls a little city. I call it a big town. When we went into this local bookstore, I damn near fainted. They had my book displayed in the very front of the shop, with a big poster, and the little picture of me from the back of the book. That was surreal.
And then the clerk recognized me. I thought she was going to faint. She gushed over how she’d loved my book, and couldn’t wait for the next one. Was it going to be made into an anime? She loved anime. Thought that they should do a music tie-in, like Cowboy Bebop. My main character reminded her of Faye.
I thought she was nuts. But I signed a copy of the book for her, and vowed to never step into a bookstore again. Especially in America. Apparently anime fans will gobble up and obsess over anything that could ever come close to seeming like one.
The rest of my vacation was pretty uneventful. Catharsis and surreality, then a short stay in a nice hotel in Branson.
Oh. Branson.
Branson is... Branson is the epitome of every stereotype about midwestern America. But again, the scenery was pretty. There were more hills in the south of the state, but I had to giggle at the locals who think they’re mountains. I got recognized again, this time at a theme park called Silver Dollar City. If my first though in the Feudal Era was “Medieval Times Japan”, this was “Pioneer Days Missouri”. Surprisingly, though, it was fun.
Aside from that, though, pretty uneventful. A long flight home, with a plane change at San Francisco, then an equally uneventful touchdown at Narita in Tokyo. Mom met us at the gate, and that was uneventful, too. Gramps hadn’t been hospitalized, none of her friends’ daughters was pregnant, and she didn’t ask me any embarrassing questions. After presenting the gifts for her and Gramps, I slept, trying to recover from the lag of a fifteen hour flight.
The next afternoon, I dropped through the well to visit my other family. That’s when my week got interesting.
Nothing was wrong when I got there. They were all just hanging out around the shrine, laughing and talking like they did almost every time I saw them. Those were carefree days for them.
Rin was there, as she often was. To this day, she runs around with Sesshoumaru, but she took to providing us with any information she had about Naraku. That little girl has turned into quite the spy. She was the one who’d told us what happened to him after that battle. He was in a hidden cave in the north, gaining strength. My arrow had weakened him greatly, but I...
I was weak, too, that time. Looking back, my thoughts were not where they should have been. I was distracted by Kikyo, distracted by what I thought the end of that battle would mean for me, for her, and for Inuyasha. That day, my heart was not pure enough to destroy him.
Anyway, Rin. She’d bartered an uneasy peace between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, and become our little ambassador to him. That day she had come not to inform us of anything, but merely because she enjoyed our company.
I had gifts for everyone. A handmade quilt for Shippou, a set of copper pots for Kikyo, soaps for Sango, a teddy bear for Rin, American herbs for Kaede, special inks for Miroku, and Kansas City Style beef jerky for Inuyasha. As always, my modern items were well received.
We talked for awhile, catching up on the last few weeks. Rin informed me that Naraku was gaining power more rapidly now, and soon would be able to come after us again. Miroku had come across yet another former lover, this one had miscarried his child. Sango twitched suitably at the memory.
That night, us girls headed to the hot springs for a long soak. Sango and Kikyo have grown close over the years. It’s nice, actually, to see them get along. With Rin, they’ve become my pseudo-sisters. Especially Kikyo. We came to respect each other, and before long, Kikyo was the only one I could tell anything and everything. I still find myself wondering what it would have been like to know her before her first death.
We four sat in the springs talking for quite awhile before it happened. Kikyo was scrubbing my back, and the chain on the Shikon Jewel broke. It slipped into the water, and we all felt around for it for a good fifteen minutes before Rin caught it between her toes. She held it up, and Kikyo and I reached for it at the same time.
All I remember is the blinding flash of light. I still don’t know why it shattered again. Kaede suspects that being exposed to the two of us at once was too much, and the fragile bonds that held the Jewel together were broken. When I told Souta, he spouted off some shit about quantum states and a bunch of other crap that I still don’t understand. Little kid is too smart for my good.
Either way, that was about the weirdest day of my life. Falling through the well to the Feudal Era, fine. Getting my soul ripped from my body, no problem. But seeing that thing shatter for no apparent reason... not cool.
And so it all started over. That was a year ago. And in the past year, we collected a sizable chunk, had it stolen, watched it sucked into Hell, and had to go in to get it. That was an interesting experience. Naraku has almost half now, as do I. He’s up to his old tricks again, fucking with our lives. He hasn’t tried to get me to kill Inuyasha in a while, so I’m wondering what he’s planning.
Now I’m almost twenty. I look back at how I’ve changed over the years, and wonder why I’m not insane. I’ve been told that I’m a pure soul. That it’s my purity that heals the Jewel.
Like I said, I try not to be bitter. Most of the time I succeed. There’s no reason for me to be angry with Inuyasha and Kikyo. They’re my friends, and if we complete it this time, and Kikyo decides to go back to Hell and take Inuyasha with her, then there’s nothing I can do. I’ll go on with my life. I’ll continue to write. I’ll always remember the good times I had with them.
I swear, I get angry, I fight bravely, I want Inuyasha. And yet, they still say I’m a pure soul. I don’t understand. Maybe I don’t get what it means to be “pure”.
I don’t know what my future holds. Kikyo has hinted that she intends to stay in this world. Inuyasha has hinted that she has released him from his promise. I know nothing for sure, as I can’t bring myself to ask them.
I do know, that whatever happens, I will always be me. I cannot just give up, not after I’ve come so far. Naraku will be destroyed. Miroku will be healed. Sango’s family will be avenged.
And someday, I’ll have a family of my own, a man that loves me, and children of my own. I’ll be successful, I’ll be happy. I’ll have to leave them behind someday, because we’ve decided that the Jewel has got to go. I probably won’t always be a “pure soul”, whatever the Hell that means. I’ll always be a miko, I know, but there’s no telling how that will change.
And no matter what happens, it’ll be an interesting story.
----------End One-Shot----------
Keep an eye out for "Who am I?" a similar piece in Kikyou's POV [shameless plug].