InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Unfettered ❯ Reuntied ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha and will make no money from this work of fiction.

A/N: Final edit...

Five hundred years in the past a hanyou sat across the room from an elderly, sleeping miko. The miko stirred, coming awake suddenly.

“InuYasha,” she rasped.

InuYasha came to her side. Kaede was already older than most lived to be and her health was failing. She still tended the village, but it was taking its toll. She was not yet dying, but he doubted she would survive another winter. Then he would be alone again.

While he did go visit his friends in the slayers village, it wasn’t the same. He felt out of place there. He knew it was because while he considered the monk, the exterminator, and even the kitsune among his friends, it had really been Kagome that tied them together. He also didn’t like to leave the village for long on the chance that some miracle would bring Kagome back to him.

“Did you need something, baba?” he asked in a tone that belied the insulting way he addressed the old miko.

“It is not I who needs you, InuYasha,” she replied. “I have received a vision and you are needed by the one whom you need as well. You must go through the well once again. Her spirit is broken, and you are the only one with the power to heal her. She has lost herself and calls out to you to find her.”

“Kagome?” he asked.

“Aye child,” Kaede replied.

“But the well, it’s closed,” he told her. “Don’t you fucking think I would have gone to get her by now if I could?” He was frustrated by the old woman’s rambling, and not wanting to admit to his own fears. He didn’t know if he could stand seeing her happy, as if she hadn’t missed him at all.

“I assure you, InuYasha, the well has been restored. It has been for quite some time. You know this as well as I, even if you refuse to acknowledge it,” Kaede insisted. He didn’t object because she was right. “She is not there now, but as the sun reaches its peak in the sky, she will return to the home of her family.”

InuYasha couldn’t go back to sleep, not after what Kaede had told him. Could Kagome really need him after all this time? In the end, he decided that it couldn’t hurt to check the well. If it worked, when it worked, he would go through to her time and wait. He would watch her, and if she didn’t seem to have need of him, he would return without alerting her to his presence. On the other hand, if she did somehow need him, he would do whatever he could to help her, and maybe, this could be their second chance.

He thought back to the day she left, and how his heart had clenched painfully in his chest as he felt her pass through the time slip. He was reminded of the absolute despair that had gripped him when he felt the connection between their worlds closed.

Deep down, a part of him hadn’t really believed that she would leave, and for months afterwards he had been angry with her for abandoning him, and forgetting her promise to stay by his side. He had cursed her and allowed himself to see her departure as a betrayal, making her just like everyone else, so that he could continue to pretend that he didn’t need her, but his anger had faded.

In its wake came despair, a melancholy that radiated from him so strongly, that even those with no powers what so ever could feel it. Had it not been for the elderly miko’s need of him, he probably would have kept to his place in the Goshinboku until death claimed him.

In the end, though, he knew it was his fault that she had gone. After all, he had not asked her to stay.

Kagome zipped closed the small suitcase she had packed with her clothes. She carried it out to the living room and then went to help Taro. Once they were ready, she spared one last look in the mirror to make sure her make up was hiding the bruise on her cheek, and then they headed out the door.

InuYasha was in the highest branches of the Goshinboku when he saw Kagome and a small boy come up over the top of the shrine steps. She stopped for a moment and seemed to look right at him, before shaking her head and continuing on into the house.

It was only moments later when Kagome came out of the house and walked over the to Goshinboku. InuYasha watched her through the branches. She was still beautiful, but something was wrong. Her once bright aura seemed to radiate an overwhelming sadness, rather than the warmth and light he remembered. What could have done this to her? She really has lost herself. My Kagome, what has happened to you over these long years apart?

Kagome placed her hand against the bare spot left from his time pinned to the tree. “InuYasha, I wonder if you feel the same closeness to me as I do to you when I stand beneath this tree?” she said softly. She rested her forehead against the trunk. “I miss you so much.” Kagome could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks. “You really were my best friend, the only one I could always count on.” She slid down to her knees. “Do you ever think of me? Do you miss me if even a little? Oh kami...” She sobbed openly for several minutes before continuing. “I’ve made such a mess of things and I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t have you anymore to rescue me. I hope, where ever you are, that some part of you hears me and knows that I’ll love you forever.”

“It’d be kind of hard not to hear you,” InuYasha said as he landed on the ground a few feet behind her.

Kagome lifted her head. It couldn’t be... She turned slowly from her place on the ground and stared at him. Her breath caught in her throat.

“You look pretty dumb sitting there like that, Kagome,” he said gently.

She gasped and jumped to her feet. She threw herself into his arms. InuYasha held her as she cried into the front of his haori. “You’re really here. Why now after so long?”

“Kaede said she had a vision that you needed me, and that the well was open, so I came,” he replied. He went to wipe away her tears and she flinched as his hand grazed her cheek. He saw what she had been trying to hide. “Who the hell did this to you Kagome?”

She stepped back as the same little boy with long black hair came running over. “Hey, what are you doing to make my mama cry,” Taro demanded.

Kagome kneeled down. “It’s all right, baby. This is a friend of mine who I haven’t see since before you were born.”

“If you knew him before I was born, then does that mean he knows my real papa?” Taro asked.

“Yes baby, he does,” she replied.

“Kagome...” InuYasha questioned softly.

“This is InuYasha,” she told the little boy. “And this, InuYasha, is my son Taro.”

“Inu like me,” Taro noted. The boy looked up at InuYasha. “Mama calls me Taro, but my real name is InuTaro. I don’t like to tell people because they make fun of me, but you can’t because your name is Inu too.” Taro suddenly got a very excited look on his face. “Mama, maybe he knows where to find papa. He could tell papa that we need him, and then we wouldn’t have to go back and he wouldn’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

InuYasha squatted down to talk to the little boy. “Who hurt your mama?”

“My stepfather,” Taro said sadly. “I try to remember to pick up my toys, I really do, but sometimes I forget and he gets mad.” Taro forced away his tears. “Mama protects me from him, and when he can’t hurt me he hurts her instead. She made me promise not to help her because she says bad things will happen if anyone finds out how strong I am. I try to be good...Mama says it’s not my fault that there is something wrong with him, but...”

Kagome pulled the little boy into a hug. “It isn’t your fault, baby.”

“Your mother is right,” InuYasha told him.

“Listen, baby, be a good boy for me and go back in with grandma. Tell her we have a guest,” Kagome instructed. “I’ll be inside in a little while.”

The little boy nodded and ran back into the house.

“He’s mine,” InuYasha said. Kagome nodded. “He looks human.”

“It’s a spell,” she explained. “I had him in my bedroom, with mama there to help me. I put it on him right after he was born. He doesn’t even know what he really looks like.”

“What does he look like?” InuYasha asked.

“He looks exactly like his father,” she replied.

“Damn you woman,” he growled grabbing her shoulders. “The well has been open all this time and you never thought I might want to know that I have a son?”

“What was I supposed to do,” she questioned. “Just show up with a baby in my arms and come in between you and Kikyou, between you and happiness. I couldn’t do that.” She lowered her gaze. “I always wanted you to be happy, and more than that, I was afraid, afraid you would take him from me, and raise him with her. He was all I had left of you and I couldn’t lose him. I would have died.”

He wanted to be mad at her for the time he had lost, for thinking such a thing, but he couldn’t. She had thought he was going to be with Kikyou and he had never said otherwise, even after they’d had lain together under the full moon. He pulled her to him.

“How is she?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since the day you left.”

“You and she aren’t?” Kagome asked.

“There was too much hurt between us and not enough trust,” he replied. “I couldn’t ask her to be with me, not when she would have only been a replacement for the one I really wanted to be with.”

Kagome looked up at him poised to speak but didn’t get the chance. “Mama,” Taro called. “Grandma says to hurry and bring him in because you aren’t the only one who has missed him. She’s making ramen.”

“All right,” Kagome called back. “We’re coming, just a minute.”

“Kagome this man, why?” he asked.

“I thought it was for the best,” she explained quietly. “All my friends, even Hojou, didn’t want to be associated with me when they found out I was pregnant. He was nice to me and said he didn’t care that Taro wasn’t his.”

“So you love him then...” InuYasha said with resignation.

“I married him,” Kagome replied. “I wanted Taro to have a male influence in his life, but I don’t love him. I couldn’t. My heart was too full of you. He didn’t start hurting me until after Taro was born. Mama didn’t want me to marry him. I was too embarrassed and ashamed of what was happening to admit that I had made a mistake.”

“You ain’t going back to that bastard,” InuYasha told her. “I don’t care what I have to do, but you ain’t taking my pup back there. You got that?”

Kagome nodded. “Now that you’re here, leaving him doesn’t seem so hard anymore. Do you want to go show your son who he really is?”

In answer he took her hand and they walked together to the house. Her mother smiled at him before she noticed Kagome’s face. “Kagome what happened?” she gasped.

“I promise to tell you everything, but first I have to do something important,” Kagome replied. “Come with me, Taro, I have something to show you.”

In the bathroom Kagome stood Taro on the toilet seat and reached for his rosary. “Mama, you said I can’t ever take this off.”

“I know, baby, but this once it’s okay,” she said.

Kagome removed the rosary and in an instant black hair turned silver, violet eyes turned amber, twin triangles appeared on the top of his head, and fangs and claws became visible. Kagome moved him to the counter and Taro looked in the mirror. InuYasha came to stand behind them. The resemblance was uncanny. Taro looked twice between the mirror and his mother.

“Mama?”

“Yes, baby, he is."

The little boy launched himself at InuYasha and clung to his neck, not even attempting to hold back his tears. “Papa, I knew you would come. I knew it,” he cried. InuYasha held the boy close to him. “Please take us with you. I don’t want mama to be hurt anymore. I’ll be good I promise. I won’t forget to pick up my toys or run in the house, please.”

Kagome felt a fresh round of tears spring to her eyes. She rubbed her son’s back. “Oh, my poor baby.”

InuYasha didn’t fully understand the urge to growl welling up inside him, but as it spilled forth and the little boy's tears slowed, he was glad that he had trusted his instincts. “It’s all right now, pup. Otou is here now, and if it is what your mother wants, then I’ll take you both with me when I go back home.”

“Mama, did you hear that?” Taro asked.

Kagome looked at InuYasha. “Yes, baby, I heard, and your father and I are going to have to talk about that,” she told him. “But no matter what, we aren’t going back to him ever again.”

“I love you, papa. Mama said that if you ever found out about me that you would love me too. Was she right?” Taro asked.

InuYasha nuzzled the boys face with his own. “Yeah, she was. Listen, pup, will you go downstairs so I can talk to your mother for a minute?”

“Yes papa,” Taro replied, and he left them.

They went to Kagome’s room and sat side by side on her bed. “It was nice of you to offer, but you don’t have to take us back with you. You don’t owe me anything. I won’t go back to him now. And you can see Taro anytime you want.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “Look at me, Kagome,” he ordered. Slowly she raised her eyes to meet his. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” she countered. “My problem is I don’t want you to be with me out of a feeling of obligation. I made the choice to have our baby.”

“Who the hell said anything about obligation?” he replied. “I want you with me Kagome, you and our pup. I always have. Hell, I built a fucking house hoping that you might come back one day.”

“Your really want me, not just because of Taro, and not because you can’t be with her?” she asked.

“Damn it. Isn’t that what I just said?” he told her.

Before he fully realized what was happening, Kagome was in his arms, her lips pressed against his. She started to pull away when he didn’t react, and it broke through his stalled mind. He pulled her closer and kissed her deeply. She all but melted into him as he embraced her.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips. “Please, take me home.”

He broke their kiss and looked into her eyes. “I will take you home, but first I have to go back and make it fit to live in. I haven’t been there in over a year. I couldn’t live there without you.”

They went downstairs and Kagome told her mother everything. The whole time InuYasha sat beside her, holding her hand. “Mama I need your help,” she said. “I need a lawyer and I need to see a doctor.”

“A doctor dear? Whatever for?” her mother asked.

“You know when I went about three years ago to see if there was anything wrong with me because I wasn’t able to get pregnant...” she asked. Her mother nodded. “I really went to make sure I didn’t get pregnant. He was suspicious and I couldn’t keep my birth control pills hidden any longer so I got an IUD.”

InuYasha looked at Kagome curiously. Can she not have any more children? Not that it would change his mind about being with her, but he had to know. “You can’t have children?"

Kagome realized InuYasha probably didn’t understand most of what she had just told her mother. “Not right now. That is why I have to see the doctor,” she explained. “I didn’t want to have another man’s baby, especially not his. In this time there are ways to make sure that doesn’t happen. After I go to the doctor though, I will be able to have another baby.”

“I assume the lawyer is to file for divorce,” her mother stated.

“What’s that?” InuYasha asked.

“It will make it so that in the eyes of the law, I am no longer married to him, and free to be with another,” she told him. “It should be easy. I don’t want anything from him. I just want my life back. The first thing I need to do is go get mine and Taro’s things so I don’t ever have to go back there.” Kagome turned to InuYasha. “Will you come with me? I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“Keh, as if I’d let you go see that bastard alone,” he growled.

“InuYasha, you have to promise me you won’t do anything to him,” she pleaded. “I need you with me, but if you can’t promise me that, you can’t go.”

“I promise, but only as long as that asshole doesn’t lay a hand on you,” he agreed.

“There are boxes in the store room and you can take my car,” her mother offered. “Perhaps it would be better if Taro were to stay here with me.”

Kagome charmed his rosary with the same spell she used on Taro and led the way out to the car.