InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Time Rift ❯ Time Rift...Chapter 20 the finale ( Chapter 20 )

Disclaimer: Kagura called. She's pissed. I apologized for not writing her into my story, pointing out that Kanna, Kohaku, Koga or Myoga also were not. That didn't help. Hell has no fury like that of Naraku's incarnation. She's calling Rumiko Takahashi to report me. After all, she is the owner of Inuyasha, not I.

 

 

Time Rift…by taterbean96

 

 

 

Chapter 20...The Finale.

 

 

 

Kagome hit the ground hard, splayed out flat on her abdomen. Wind knocked out of her, she had a good idea of how a bullet felt after being shot out of a gun.

 

Sota's feet appeared before her eyes as she gasped for breath, scrambling to her feet. He was still cradling his arm.

 

“Kagome?” her brother said, tentatively, a little alarmed at the look on his sisters face; one part frantic, one part forlorn.

 

Kagome managed to rise to her feet, spinning towards the black opening that had been her last connection to Inuyasha. Now, approximately the size of a tennis ball, she was mortified by the fact she had made it through alive.

 

`No! Oh god, no,' she thought, her entire being pounded with fear. He had been trying to reach her, had actually brushed the tips of her fingers; they still burned from his final touch. What if he'd tried to follow her? He'd be crushed inside by the weight of time.

 

“Inuyasha!” She pleaded at the hole as if it or he could hear her. “Don't follow me!”

 

Finally, with one last puff of air, like breath through a hollow straw, the rift in time shut. Kagome stared at the blank space where the opening had been just mere moments before.

 

The inevitability of the situation made her heart sink into the pit of her belly along with the knowledge that she was forever shut out. He loved her. All this time, she'd mistaken him; had thought he wanted Kikyo. A round, profoundly sorrowful tear rolled from the corner of her dark eye. He'd actually loved her all along…

 

“Good-bye Inuyasha,” she whispered hoarsely, collapsing to her knees she sobbed bitterly, regretfully, into her hands. Sota felt helpless, watching his shattered, defeated sister, wracked with sobbing grief.

 

 

 

 

Xxx

 

 

The trip back home was hazy in Kagome's memory. She and Sota supported one another, ambling along the road until a police car picked them up, returning the siblings to the family shrine.

 

Gramps promptly took Sota to the hospital, Kagome vaguely remembered her mom helping her into bed and saying that the doctors were going to keep Sota twenty four hours for observation. Everything sounded like an echo, not really tangible. Nothing was real, only her despair. Her mind kept replaying the events at the shrine, her final moments of the bizarre life she'd once led.

 

Kagome felt comatose, disconnected from her body, from the world around her. Her grief ran so deep that she couldn't even feel relief that her brother was being well tended. A dark, uncomfortable sleep gripped her, one she didn't wake from until the following twilit evening.

 

Her mom came into her room, smiling as tenderly as she could at her daughter. She spoke not a word, having dealt with love lost she knew that passage of time was the only way to ease the agony. And that was heart-wrenching in itself. Sitting on the edge of Kagome's bed, she simply stroked her daughters long black mane. A day's worth of shock finally erupted as Kagome wept onto her mothers shoulder.

 

After a long, draining sob, Kagome let her mom draw her a hot, herbal bath. The scent and bubbles relaxed Kagome's tense muscles her mind however, was still in shocked disbelief. He was gone. No chance of a future, no exploring the confessions of love, none of this existed for them. Every crevice of her being ached over her lost opportunity; she felt alone. Even the sound of her gentle mother rummaging in the kitchen below couldn't lift her loneliness.

 

Stepping out, skin pruned, she towel dried then slipped into a long gray night shirt. She stared blankly at her reflected image in the mirror, while running a brush through her hair. She couldn't even feel hatred for Kikyo for having caused all of this torture she was now experiencing. For truly, Kagome realized, Kikyo too had been a victim…

 

From below, she heard her mother drop a dish, probably in her bustle to prepare Kagome a meal. The pounding of footsteps on the stairs did penetrate Kagome's inert senses.

 

“Kagome,” her mom's urgent voice sounded through the door followed by a sharp rap.

 

Kagome opened the door, peeking around the edge. Her mom was looking at her with an unusually anxious expression. Kagome's thoughts turned quickly to her injured brother.

 

“What is it? Is it Sota?” Perplexed by the odd look on her mothers face, she opened the door further.

 

“Oh, no, Gramps called, he's fine, they'll be home shortly, but…I think you're needed in the courtyard.” The words fell out of her mom's mouth so fast, Kagome blinked at her in momentary confusion.

 

“What are you…?”

 

Her mom gave her an impatient shove towards the stairs. “Just go see.”

 

With a befuddled glance over her shoulder at her mother, Kagome alighted the stairs, out the front door and into the open court of the family shrine. The summer breeze was sweet, blowing through her damp hair. Silvery stars glinted down onto her, crickets serenaded an evening lullaby. Everything was crisp, clean and beautiful; she despaired at her lack of joy for it.

 

Shooting a curious look to the kitchen window, she saw her mother standing there, hands tucked up under her chin, looking incredibly fidgety. She wondered what had gotten her mom so riled up.

 

Slowly, she turned her head, looking from the building that had housed the bone-eaters well, until Sesshomaru obliterated it, to the go-shinboku, draped in sacred beads…

 

She froze. She scarcely chanced to breathe in case her mind was deceiving her and the illusion would vanish with a single exhale. She finally dared to blink…still there. Her heart began racing a marathon. Was it…could it really be…? She took several unsteady steps towards the tree. Red firerat coat, silvery hair came more clearly into focus; shimmering like moonlight breaking through a watery surface. She broke into a full sprint.

 

Asleep, bound to the tree with a sacred arrow piercing his shoulder, hung an ageless Inuyasha.

 

“Oh my God,” her voice was shaking with mingled exuberance and fear. Fear that she might wake up and find herself dreaming his reappearance. That was a let down that would do nothing short of destroy her.

 

Kagome stopped, face to face with the hanyou, slowly reaching up with visibly trembling hands to rub his fuzzy ears, as she had the first time she had ever laid eyes on him.

 

“Inuyasha,” she choked, tears now flowing rivers down her cheeks.

 

She wrapped a fist around the arrow, it immediately began to glow pink as her energy cancelled out the spell, releasing him. His lids slowly lifted. Kagome smiled brightly as his golden eyes focused in on her face.

 

“Hey.” He whispered, his voice sleep-filled.

 

“Hey.” She half-choked, half laughed.

 

He looked down at the sacred arrow that she still had clutched in her fist. He felt himself becoming more alert, the haze of the spell wearing away, his heart beat happily at her presence.

 

“Kaede's work?” she asked through the splashing tears.

 

He nodded. “Wanna get me down?”

 

Without hesitation, Kagome yanked the arrow that had been embedded into his shoulder. It broke apart in her hand, dissolving into nothing.

 

Inuyasha hopped down from the tree that had held him prisoner for five hundred years. He wrapped his arms around Kagome's waist, pulling her to him as he did.

 

She couldn't stop the tears or staring at him in adoring awe. Happiness, joy and relief all swept her at the same time; nearly more emotion then she could bear.

 

“I…I can't believe it. Y…you did this…for me…” she stammered, voice shaking with sheer bliss.

 

He lowered his face closer to hers, his eyes penetrating her.

 

“Keh, silly, I said I loved you. I'd bind myself to a tree for another five hundred years if I have to…” he blushed before adding, “…I just don't want to think about life without you.”

 

Without an ounce of apprehension, Kagome threw her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his. Inuyasha's eyes popped briefly in surprise, then slid shut and eased into her eager kiss.

 

Joy completely drowned her earlier deep grief to death. As she sunk into his arms, enjoying the first willingly given kiss he'd ever given her, a slightly familiar tingling sensation began to invade her senses. It couldn't be…

 

She pulled back, gasping, looking up into a heated pair of gold eyes. Hers were wide, bewildered.

 

“What?” he asked, his voice husky from the heightening enjoyment of their fiery kiss.

 

A light smile touched her lips, red from the kiss. “You're not going to believe this. I…I think I sense a…”

 

Inuyasha put a clawed finger to her lips, cutting off her words. He smiled calmly at her.

 

“I'll explain everything later, we've got centuries of making up to do.”

 

Kagome let him capture her lips again; shamelessly sinking into his embrace, not caring that all the stars above and family eyes were twinkling at them. He was right, it could wait, the world could wait for all she cared. They hadn't journeyed through gaps in time to let a tender moment like this pass them by…

 

 

The End.

 

 

 

Authors Note: Arigato! Thank you, thank you to all who have read and all the incredibly supportive reviews that I received. Thanks mom for your editing, I know that you caught a lot of things that would have slipped by me. Please note that there is a bonus chapter that I will post along with this one. Hope you enjoy it. Again, Rumiko Takahashi is the owner of Inuyasha not me. She made it possible for writers like me to get imaginative with her wonderful characters.