InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Eight-Fold Path ❯ Alone ( Chapter 19 )

Alone

 

“I can't do this without you.”

 

Her words echoed in his ears; they bounced back as his cries, the last things he'd said to her as the light faded from her eyes.

 

“Don't leave me,” he begged, pressing harder on the wet, sticky mess of blood, skin and leather on her chest. She let out a grunt and he winced with her pain. Still, he refused to let up the pressure, to let any more of that precious, life-giving liquid flow from her body.

 

“I love you,” she murmured weakly, her grasp on his wrist loosening with each labored breath. “I'm so sorry…”

 

“Don't apologize!”

 

Miroku's hand clenched around his shakujou - the rings jangled a mournful tune as his fingers shook against the rising tide of his tears.

 

“Go after them!”

 

“Not without you!”

 

Sango let out a choked laugh, coughing up crimson. “Miroku, if you think I'm going anywhere anymore, you're sadly mistaken.” Her dark eyes dimmed and unfocused before she appeared to wrench strength from somewhere unknown.

 

Miroku reflected for a moment that if he could give any to her, he gladly would.

 

Sango's eyebrows lowered in a near-glare; Miroku despaired as the red that should have flushed her cheeks in anger was blanched away, blood draining from her face and out through her chest. “Don't let them get escape!”

 

Her insistence grated upon his last nerve; he snapped. “I am notgoing to give in to a petty need for vengeance and leave you alone to d-”

 

He couldn't say it.

 

If he said it, it'd be true.

 

Violet eyes closed, then shot frantically back open.

Every time they shut, the gruesome image appeared: his wife, skin bleached white by blood loss and stained red by the hand of a heartless son of a bitch.

 

“Why?” he demanded suddenly, falling to his knees. “Why? After all this time… fighting Naraku, surviving being buried alive and a battle for your brother's life… why now? We should have been happy together!”

 

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, aware that he was wasting the precious little time they had left together being angry with her. “Sango… you can't-”

 

“Take good care of the girls,” Sango interrupted. “And tell Haruo that he will make a remarkable tajiya.”

 

Miroku swallowed. To deny Sango her last wish… and yet, if none traveled that particular path anymore, would the family live longer?

 

As always, she knew him better than he knew himself. “They m-m-must know how to defend themselves… y-you know that.” Her words began to weaken as she shivered from cold.

 

“Sango…” The eloquent monk was reduced to mere syllables. “I can't do this without you…”

 

“Kiss me?”

 

He lowered his lips to hers, inhaled her dying breath and clutched her to him as though he could revive her with his feebly beating, broken heart.

 

“Houshi-sama.” A hand fell on Miroku's shoulder, stronger than the monk would give the younger man credit for until he'd stumbled back, Sango in his arms. “The bandits have been discovered south of here. Their leader is with them.”

 

While Miroku could barely hold himself together, Kohaku handled his sister's death with unwavering stoicism.

 

He wondered if Kohaku cried himself to sleep at night, in the depths of Mushin's temple where nobody else could see or hear.

 

Flames licked Sango's body in an intimate dance, and Miroku mourned to recall that he would never again revel in that particular pleasure.

 

Kagome wept, and even InuYasha appeared teary-eyed. The girls sobbed openly; Haruo bit his lower lip and stared at the burning body unblinkingly. Miroku found the boy's trance a bit disturbing and turned away, wishing for once that he did not have to be the strong one, realizing only now how much weight Sango's strong and capable shoulders had borne. That weight now smothered him, held him down when all he wanted to do was burn with her.

 

He remembered her insistence inside Naraku, during the last battle… it appeared they would not die together after all.

 

Surrounded by friends and family…

 

Miroku was alone.

 

Miroku was alone; Kohaku had left while he was lost in ruminations.

 

“Was it only a season ago that I let you down?” Leaning forward, Miroku reverently laid his prayer beads at the stone that marked his wife's final resting place. “These remind me of you, you know. They're beautiful and held such strength. I always feared that despite their holy backing, one day they would snap and my kazaana would swallow us all whole. They never did… and you never broke, either.”

 

Miroku sobered; gathered his scattered emotions and rose.

 

He had a mission to attend to.

 

---

 

"The Eight-Fold Path" is a serialized fic, written based on prompts from the mirsan_fics community on LiveJournal.

"Alone" was originally posted March 28, 2010

Word Count: 773

Prompt: "Charm"