InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Present Perfect ❯ Chapter 31: ( Chapter 31 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Chapter 31

 

 

They were so careful of her, all of them, as if she would fall apart if they let her alone. Kagome hated it.

 

She needed time to be by herself for a while, to sort through things, figure out what she was going to do. Inuyasha would come back to her—that she never doubted. If he couldn't come through the well, then he would find another way. He wouldn't die and leave her all alone, he just wouldn't. Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away angrily. She was done with crying.

 

June turned into July and Kagome found herself settling back into her old routine. She had moved back into her room, she ate, she answered when spoken to, she tried to brush up on her studies. But everyone wanted a piece of her time: Shippo had refused to leave until she told him, quite frankly, “Go home to your family. They need you too.” He went, but only for a few days. Then he was back, although he didn't ask to stay at her house anymore.

 

Kouga and Ayame came to take her out to dinner, or breakfast, or lunch. She thought Kouga was trying to make sure she and the baby were all right by feeding her. His idea of a balanced diet was meat of varied degrees of doneness. Thankfully, Ayame was there to temper his enthusiasm. Kagome found it tiring. She wasn't hungry. She wasn't anything.

 

The youkai doctor said she was doing well, that hanyou babies were generally healthier than pure youkai babies, and that she needn't worry until it was closer to her time. Kagome was happy to hear that.

 

Sesshomaru accompanied her on one of her visits to the doctor. It should have been Inuyasha. But she allowed him to sit in on her discussion with the doctor after her examination. Kagome thought it put Sesshomaru's mind at ease even more than it did hers. She knew her baby was fine. It was strong, like Inuyasha.

 

But all the attention was wearing on Kagome's nerves. The doctor had said it was fine, and she needed to get away. “Mama, I'm going back to the States,” she said one morning as she dutifully ate a balanced breakfast.

 

“So soon?” her mother asked in concern. “School doesn't start for another month.”

 

“I know, but I need to be by myself for a while—to think,” Kagome replied.

 

“Are you sure you should be alone? Do you want me to come stay with you for a while until you get settled? Grandpa can take care of Souta for a few months.”

 

Kagome smiled, and shook her head. She wasn't sure how she would explain Valynne and the little wild youkai to her mother. “Actually, I'd prefer it if you didn't come,” she admitted. “Give me some time just by myself. Then I'll have a better idea of what I want to do.”

 

“I understand. You need to remember to take care of yourself, continue to eat right, take vitamins, all right?”

 

“Mama?” What was she trying to say? Did she know about the baby?

 

Her mother smiled in return. “You're very young, and your friends are a little obvious. I guessed.” She gave her daughter a hug. “Now, you will be back before the baby is born?”

 

Kagome nodded, glad that her secret was finally out in the open. “I Ok'd it with the doctor. I'll be back in mid-December.”

 

Sesshomaru didn't argue about Kagome's choice when she told him. He only made sure she knew how to access her funds and who to contact in case of emergency. He planned to be in New York, on business, he said, and would only be a phone call away. Kagome didn't contradict him, although she didn't for a minute believe he coincidentally had business in New York at exactly the same time she was returning to Connecticut. He would be on a different flight, thank goodness.

 

Kouga, Ayame and especially Shippo were less understanding.

 

“You can't go!” said Shippo, panic in his eyes. He was supposed to watch over her—he had promised Inuyasha.

 

“I'm going with you,” declared Kouga. He folded his arms across his chest in a fair imitation of Inuyasha.

 

“I'll be fine,” Kagome said gently. “I'm going--alone.”

 

It eventually took Sesshomaru's intervention to convince the other youkai to let her go. They saw her off at the airport, along with her family. She hugged each one of them, promising she would see them in December. They all needed this time to reflect on what had happened. She had made her mother agree to take Grandpa and Souta for a week's vacation away from the shrine and the sadness that still hung over the place like a pall.

 

Finally she sat in her seat on the airplane and closed her eyes. Silence at last.

 

 

 

Inuyasha chased Tetsusaiga endlessly through the void. Sometimes he almost had his hands on its hilt, but inevitably his eyes would grow heavy and he would drift into another dream—at least he thought of them as dreams. Some were recollections of incidents in his past, some were imaginings of a future in which he and Kagome were together, always together and always happy.

 

Not so with some of his past memories. They mostly confused him. If they were trying to teach him a lesson, he wasn't getting it. Like the dream about Kikyou. He was there, reliving the time when she had climbed out of the boat, stumbled, and he had caught her. It was so very real, how she looked, how she felt in his arms. It was the moment he had known for sure that he loved her. And she had felt the same way about him. It wasn't the act of catching her as she fell, although it felt like heaven to finally hold her close. It was the fact that she trusted him—him, a reviled hanyou—to catch her and keep her safe. She trusted him.

 

How had it gone so wrong? Now he had a second chance, and he didn't want to mess it up. Kagome had always trusted him, from the beginning when he was first pinned to the tree and she pulled the arrow out of his chest to release him. He had to get back to her again! As always happened after one of these dreams, Inuyasha's eyes popped open and he found himself back in the void. Was Tetsusaiga a little closer this time? He lunged towards the sword.

 

Tetsusaiga shuddered to a halt, drifting a little sideways. The woman and child were gone. There was light, but barely. None of the other life called to Tetsusaiga so strongly as the woman and her child, or the youkai who was stuck in this no-place with it. Tetsusaiga assessed the youkai once more. Now the youkai's eyes were open and he was alert and aware. Perhaps he could once again wield it as he had before. They were good together, before. Tetsusaiga followed the call of the sheath once again towards the youkai.

 

With a cry of triumph, Inuyasha grasped Tetsusaiga and felt it transform in his grip into the great fang which was part of him, part of his father. Now he was whole again, and they could get out of here!

 

 

 

Kagome took a taxi from the airport to the house up on the mountain. She had plenty of money, thanks to Sesshomaru, and she wasn't ready to let any of her friends know she was back yet. It was only mid-July. School wouldn't begin for another month and a half. Kagome fully planned to attend classes in September. She wasn't even showing yet. Of course, she would have to tell her friends what had happened sooner or later, but she needed this time to herself. She wanted to go home, to the home she had built with Inuyasha.

 

She stared out the window at the trees shimmering in the summer heat, as the taxi slowly wound its way up the mountain road. These hills were older and rounder than the ones in Japan, but they were just as wild, and just as beautiful. Her child would be happy here, she thought. Inuyasha, please find me. Even if you had to live the whole five hundred years, you promised me you would find me. I'm waiting here, at our place, for you. Please come soon.

 

It was almost a prayer. She meant it like a prayer. He had said he would come back, and she believed him. This place was special to him, like it was to her, because it was their house, their land. Their Place, with a capital `P.' Sooner or later he would come here. He had to.

 

The taxi pulled up in front of the house, not affected at all by her barrier, which still held against all youkai except their own. The driver helped her pull her big suitcase into the house. She tipped him and watched him drive away. Home. She was home.

 

Youkai filtered around the outside of the house, happy to see her again. Inside, Valynne waited, a hesitant smile on her small face. She came up to Kagome and put her arms around her waist. “Kagome,” she said. She looked up with wonder. “And baby.” And, as if she already knew, she asked in a tiny voice, “Inuyasha?”

 

Kagome, so brave until now, burst into tears. “He's gone,” she cried. “And I don't know . . . when . . . he's coming back!” She hadn't cried this hard since the day when she realized the well was truly sealed.

 

Valynne made her a cup of tea and helped her put her things away. “Soon,” she soothed. “Soon.” Kagome fell asleep, in their bed, the one that Inuyasha had insisted they keep rather than the brand new one she had picked out for the house, because it smelled like the two of them. How glad she was of that now, as she buried her face in Inuyasha's pillow and smelled his faint, lingering scent there.

 

 

 

Inuyasha hadn't realized how much he had missed his sword. Losing Tetsusaiga was like losing an arm, or a leg. He swung it around, and went through some of its moves. Kaze no kizu blazed through the void, no end in sight, until eventually its tracks faded into gray again. The same with kongosouha. There was nothing for its diamond shards to hit. Red Tetsusaiga. Same thing. He hesitated to try the meidou zangetsuha. If he opened up the meidou zangetsuha inside the time void, what would happen?

 

“Ok, Tetsusaiga,” he said conversationally. “What do we do now?” He didn't expect an answer. But Tetsusaiga jerked his arm once, then again. “What is it? Do you want me to go that way?” Inuyasha used the sword to point in the general direction of Tetsusuaiga's pull, and was rewarded with yet another definite jerk. “Ok, sounds good to me.” Inuyasha kicked his legs out and pointed Tetsusaiga in the direction it wanted to go. Was it his imagination, or were they actually moving a little faster? He felt his eyes grow heavy again, and he fought it. No more dreams. He was getting out of here, now that he had Tetsusaiga.

 

A thin speck of brightness became visible ahead. Was that the way out? It was the only disparity in the unending gray that Inuyasha had seen thus far, so he was going for it. As he got closer, the line of brightness did not get any bigger. Looked like it was time to try the meidou after all. He needed something to cut through it, to widen it enough so that he could get out. He could smell the real world on the other side. He sniffed, relieved to finally regain his sense of smell. He smelled—Kagome! This was it, the other side of the well!

 

As best he could with no place to brace his feet, Inuyasha prepared to release the meidou zangetsuha at the tiny crack in the time void. “Come on, Tetsusaiga,” he murmured, “Let's go find Kagome.”

 

Tetsusaiga liked that idea. It resisted the compulsion to produce the meidou zangetsuha, however, and instead steadily pulled Inuyasha's arms down until its point barely touched the sliver of brightness. Tetsusaiga's strength was its ability to absorb other powers into itself. It would take this one, then, so its youkai wielder could return to the place of light where he belonged. Slowly, Tetsusaiga's blade turned blue.

 

Inuyasha stared in amazement at his sword, which now swirled with the same blue as the time slip. He didn't hesitate, but brought the sword down on the small crack. It blazed an electric blue, and Inuyasha stumbled forward, out of time and into the dark recess of the old well on Kagome's family shrine.

 

“Kagome!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the closed space.