InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Reunions ( Chapter 17 )

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17. Reunions  

Kagome awoke to the hum of low voices. She lay still for a few moments, feeling the snug bandage that had been placed on her leg. The wound didn’t hurt too badly--it had obviously been treated with some skill. She opened her eyes to see that a tentlike structure had been erected overhead from blankets and the side of what appeared to be a wagon.

“You’re awake, I see.”

Half sitting up, Kagome looked around to see that Kaede had somehow arrived here--wherever “here” was. “What happened?”

The old woman smiled. “Quite a lot, from the look of things. We moved the injured away from the battlefield--the scavengers were already at work by the time we got here.”

“How bad is it?” Kagome remembered seeing a couple of injuries, but had no way of knowing just how severe they had been.

“Actually, you were about the worst. Sango has a broken arm--she won’t be doing any fighting for a while, but she’ll be all right. That wolf boy, Kouga, has a nasty cut along the ribs, but he’s being tended by Ayamae. It’s a good thing you didn’t try to pull that arrow out of your leg--you would have bled to death in no time.”

“But,” she said, “I don’t understand--what are you doing here?”

The old woman laughed. “We were on our way to help out: I figured there would be injuries, and most of you don’t know anything about healing. I stopped at Jinenji’s farm to get some medicines in case anyone was poisoned, then I went to that old temple for those two young mikos we met a while ago--I thought that we could use a little help, and that they could use a little training in the healing arts. Actually, we weren’t too far from here when Shippou found us. He led us right to you.”

The little kitsune peered out from behind the old woman. “Are you mad?”

She realized then that she hadn’t seen him at all during the fighting. “You went to get help when the fighting started, didn’t you?” At the little youkai’s nod, she continued, “This time, that was exactly the right thing to do.” Looking around the large campsite visible through the open side of the structure in which she lay, she asked, “Where are the others?”

“They’re scattered all around, mostly waiting for me to tell them if you’re awake enough for visitors. What do you think?”

“How about if I get up and go to see them?”

The old miko shook her head. “Not a good idea. If that wound in your leg reopens, you could still bleed to death. I’ll start sending them in, a few at a time, but first,” she said, “I wanted to talk to you about something. I recognized that arrow in your leg--what happened with my sister?”

Kagome shook her head. “I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but it was all her doing: the fight between Naraku and the rest of us, the arrow in my leg--everything. She was trying to kill me, but her arrow was somehow deflected. When the fighting was over, she came out to the battlefield. Since the people she needed revenge against were already dead, she just fell over dead.”

Kaede was curious. “The only remains we found were Kikyou and Naraku. We recovered the one for burial and burned the other.”

Kagome sat up suddenly, then clutched at her aching head. “That’s right--you don’t know! We were losing the fight. Inuyasha, Kouga, Sango, Kouga’s wolves, and I were all injured. Miroku couldn’t use his kazaana. Even Ayamae’s speed couldn’t get her close enough to attack successfully--all our attacks were being reflected back by the mirror that white youkai held. Inuyasha gave me the Tetsusaiga and went out onto the battlefield alone. When Naraku attacked, he transformed--he literally tore Naraku apart with his claws. Then he came for me. It was like his body was there, but he wasn’t in it. I raised the sword to change him back, and he was stabbed in the chest. I couldn’t stop the bleeding--he died while I was trying. The last thing I remember was Sesshoumaru using the sword his father had left him to revive him.” She looked around at the apparently empty campsite. “Is he all right?”

The old woman nodded. “He’s been unusually quiet, but I think he’s more all right than he’s been in a very long time. By the way,” she said, “I have something that belongs to you.” Being careful not to touch the object, she pulled a fine chain bearing an almost perfect sphere of a nearly black stone from the sash at her waist. “It’s nearly complete. With Naraku gone, you shouldn’t have any trouble gathering the rest.” As Kagome touched the polluted Shikon no Tama, it regained its usual rosy color.

As the girl slipped the chain over her head, Kaede went out into the campsite. “I’ll send a few people in to see you--they don’t seem willing to take my word that you’ll be all right.”

She smiled to see Sango and Miroku enter the structure. “Are you two all right? Is the curse broken, Miroku-sama?”

The monk raised his right hand, exposed to the air for the first time in her experience. “Mushin was right. When Naraku was destroyed, the curse was lifted. I owe all of you my life.”

“Oh, stop it! We’ve been too close for too long for that kind of speech. But what about the rest of you? Sango-chan, I’m so sorry about your brother.”

The older woman smiled, something Kagome had seen only rarely. “There’s no need. That little girl with Sesshoumaru saved him. She got to know him when Naraku held her prisoner, and she got Sesshoumaru to revive him. He remembers everything, but understands that it wasn’t his fault--he knows that he was being controlled by Naraku. He’ll probably avoid you for a couple of days, but be patient: he’s always been a little shy, and the fact that Naraku manipulated him so easily embarrasses him.”

It was late afternoon when Ayamae ducked under the blankets shading Kagome. “That old miko tells me that you’ll recover fully in time.”

“I guess so. Is Kouga all right? And the others?”

Ayamae shook her head. “The wolves took the worst of it--they breathed a lot of that poisonous mist before Ginta and Hakkaku got them out. Kouga has a bad cut and some bruised ribs, but he’ll get over it. In any case, I wanted to see you before we left--we’re heading back home to the mountains in the morning.” She extended a hand toward the girl, dropping two small slivers of the Shikon into her open palm. “I persuaded Kouga to give them up. You’ll be needing them a lot more than we will.”

Kagome took the fragments and gripped Ayamae’s hand. “If you ever need our help, just send word. I want to keep in touch.”

After Ayamae had left, Kagome held the two new fragments between her hands along with the larger piece that had been in Naraku’s possession and the shards from the little jar she wore around her neck. Concentrating all her energy on the jewel between her palms, she could feel a comfortable warmth growing in her hands. When she spread her hands once again, she looked down to see a complete sphere of rose pink. After all that she and the others had been through, the idea that they had finally completed the entire jewel was hard to accept.

The rest of the day was taken up with visits from the others, including Ginta and Hakkaku, Kouga, the two young mikos, and Shippou. She was surprised and a little hurt that the hanyou had not made an appearance. She said as much when Kaede returned to change the bandage on her leg near nightfall. The old woman shook her head. “He’s worried. I think that something that happened during the fighting is bothering him. He’ll probably be in a little later on.”

The monk wandered along the small stream that flowed near the campsite. This was not a random act--he was searching for help with a problem that had been growing on his mind for months now. Until Naraku’s defeat, there had been no reason to speak of the things on his mind. Now that the time had come when the group would almost certainly be splitting up to go their separate ways, he had run out of options. What he needed, he thought, was a little advice from a kindred spirit.

Walking along, he finally found what he was looking for. Stopping behind the hanyou who was staring moodily at the ground, he planted the butt of his staff firmly, the rings at the head jingling faintly. “I need your help.”

Inuyasha looked up in surprise. “What the hell makes you think I can help?”

The other shook his head slowly. “The fact of the matter is that we’ll probably be going our separate ways very soon. I find that I don’t want to do that--I’ve decided that it’s time to make a start on the beginnings of a normal life. I just don’t know how to approach her.”

“Sango.”

The monk stared. “You knew?”

The hanyou shook his head. “I may not be the most perceptive guy alive, but I’m not blind. Kagome knew a lot sooner than I did, but I didn’t believe her. I’ve been watching you two ever since, though, and I can see that she’s important to you.” He glared at Miroku. “You’ll never know if she feels the same way unless you open your mouth and say something. Kagome’s little brother had the same problem with a girl at his school--I had to threaten to not let him back in the house before he would actually go and talk to her.”

“That’s good advice,” Miroku said, heading back toward the campsite. “Maybe more people should listen to it.”

Sango had been sitting with Kagome for a while. From the way the younger girl kept looking out at the campsite, she could tell that the other was worried about something. Long months of travel together had given her a pretty good idea about what that something might be. “When do you suppose Kaede-baachan will let me get up?”

Sango shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably not for a few days yet. Why?”

“I can’t stay here, Sango-chan. I have to get away from here as soon as I can.”

“Let me talk to her--maybe there’s something we can do. You know,” she said, turning to leave, “You’re not being entirely fair. He’s been asking everybody who comes in here how you are.”

“I wondered where you were hiding.”

The hanyou looked up in surprise to see Kaede standing on the other side of the stream. “What do you want, Babaa?”

“I need your help. Kagome is badly hurt, and I can do nothing to ease her pain.”

Inuyasha blinked a few times in surprise, then shook his head. “I don’t know all that much about medicine. Besides,” he said, “Her leg didn’t look all that bad.”

“It’s not. That leg is healing nicely--she may not even have a limp by the end.” The old woman shook her head slowly. “Some wounds don’t show. Even the best healer can’t fix a broken heart. Sango tells me that she’s been asking when she’ll be allowed to leave. Go and talk to her--I can’t keep using her injured leg as an excuse to keep her down forever.”

The hanyou nodded silently, more to rid himself of the intruder than because he wanted to face Kagome. As he watched the old miko head back to her makeshift hospital, his gloom deepened. Only a day after the battle with Naraku, and Kagome was already talking about going home? She must really be mad this time!

He thought back to the confusing events of the previous morning. Although he had no real memory of what had happened between the time he had forced Naraku to transform him and the time he awoke with a splitting headache just in time to see the human girl faint dead away, there were a number of clues around the battlefield that told him part of the story. The utterly destroyed body of Naraku coupled with the stink of the enemy that--even now--clung to his clothing and his claws told him that he had won the battle. That was the easy part. But what, he wondered, did Kikyou’s body lying nearby mean? The resurrected miko had not been wounded in any way: it looked as though she had simply…died.

By far the greatest puzzle of all was posed by the fact that he had awakened next to Kagome, his Tetsusaiga at his side. The fact that more than half the blade was covered with blood--his own, from the smell of it--bothered him. Clearly, he had been wounded by his own sword, but how? Had he frightened her so badly that she had turned the weapon against him? And what had happened to his injury? To have left that much blood on Tetsusaiga’s blade, he would have to have been seriously hurt, but he didn’t have a scratch. Even the deep scalp cut he had suffered early in the fight had disappeared.

At the faint jingle of the rings at the head of the monk’s staff he made up his mind. No matter what, he would go to speak with the girl before she left.

He turned and looked on in shock as the monk carefully deposited his burden on the soft grass. “Be careful. If anything happens to her, Kaede-sama and Sango-chan will both have my head.” Without another word, Miroku faded away into the gathering twilight.

The hanyou sank to the ground a short distance away. This, he decided, was not going to be pretty. “Exactly what did I do?”

“It happened just like you knew it would. When Naraku attacked, you transformed. He must have sensed something, because he tried to escape in a cloud of poisonous fumes. You never even noticed. I don’t think the whole thing lasted more than a minute or so. Then you came back to where I was.” She looked away.

That gesture seemed to confirm his worst fears. “Kagome--what did I do?”

She looked up in surprise. “You? You didn’t do anything. You were coming toward me really fast, and I raised the Tetsusaiga to undo your transformation, and--” She stopped, tears filling her eyes. “It was an accident!”

He was growing concerned--this was as close to hysterical as he had ever seen her. “What the hell are you talking about? What was an accident?”

Her voice was faint, barely audible even to his sensitive ears. “I stabbed you through the heart. You were dead until Sesshoumaru came along and revived you with the Tenseiga. Anyway,” she said, looking directly at him, “I have something for you.” At his blank expression she held out her closed hand. When he extended his own, she dropped the complete Shikon no Tama into his palm. “Ayamae just gave me the last pieces. Now you can use this to revive Kikyou.”

“NANI?”

She ignored the outburst. “I know that you’ve devoted your life to saving Kikyou from Naraku. If you use the jewel to revive her, you can be together without any interference from anybody else. You see,” she said, looking away, “I have to be going home soon, and I didn’t want to forget to give you this.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. With Naraku gone, my obligation to Kikyou is over. I won’t be using this to revive her.”

She looked up suddenly. “I thought you gave up your plans to become a full youkai with this thing.”

He nodded slowly, trying to decide how to best explain his thinking. “I did. That’s not what I want--not any more.” He stood up and paced back and forth briefly. “You said you were going home soon. Why is that?”

She shrugged. “It’s been more than a month since I’ve been there--my family must be worried about me by now. I won’t be going back right away, though, because it’ll be the last time--without the Shikon no Tama, I won’t ever be able to come back, and I want to see all my friends here one last time.”

This was something he hadn’t considered. He smiled, something he did rarely, and lifted her from the grass. “Let’s get you back to the old woman--I need to talk to her about something.”

She looked at him curiously, but said nothing. Since the old miko was Kikyou’s only living relative, it was only natural that the hanyou would want to discuss the matter with her before proceeding. Kagome only hoped that he wouldn’t actually do it until after she had gone home--she didn’t think she could face the two of them together, even if it was what he wanted. Resting her head against his chest for what would probably be the last time, she enjoyed the encircling warmth of his arms as they returned to the others once again.