Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Unto the Few ❯ The Unselfish Wish ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter Two: The Un-Selfish Wish

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“Kagome, what’s going to happen when you fuse this together with the rest of the Jewel?” Shippou asked, hopping into Kagome’s lap where she sat under the God Tree. She was turning the last fragment over and over in her hands, her skin prickling where it touched her skin.

She wouldn’t tell anyone else, but the last fragment felt different than the rest of the Jewel. To her sight only, the shard was a different shade than the rest of the nearly complete Jewel…it was darker, somehow. As she held it between her fingers, she felt the urge to throw it far from her.

“I’m…not exactly sure, Shippou. That’s why I’m waiting to fuse it until I’ve got all of my stuff with me and we’ve all said…You know…just in case I…” Kagome trailed off, not willing, or perhaps not able to finish the sentence.

“Kagome?”

She turned at the soft query to see a somber InuYasha staring at her. She was immediately concerned. “What’s the matter, InuYasha?”

“Can we…talk?”

“Of course we can! Shippou, why don’t you go back down and see if Kaede needs any help?” The kit complied and Kagome slipped the shard into her breast pocket as she made room for InuYasha. He settled beside her. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?” she asked.

“Naraku…” he began, uncertainly.

Kagome tensed at the mention of his name. “…What about him?”

“He was…deafeated.”

“Of course he was. You were the one that defeated him!” Kagome laughed, but the sound was off. She added in a graver tone, “I was there, after all.”

“And so was Kikyou,” Kagome thought in the privacy of her mind.

“But, now that we’ve got all of the shards, when you fuse it all back together, I have to make my wish…”

Kagome leaned over to meet his eyes, as his head was bowed down low. She read his expression instantly and said softly, “You don’t want to become a full demon anymore.” It wasn’t a question.

“…No…”

“What do you want, then?” Kagome asked, genuinely curious now.

“I want…Listen, Kagome.”

“I am.” She replied patiently, leaning forward on her elbows. “Tell me whatever you need to say.”

“Right. Uh…Kagome, I…uh…How do I say this, um…Kagome…Kagome…” He seemed only capable of repeating her name.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with concern now, putting an arm around his shoulders. This seemed to only make it worse and without a word, he drew her into a tight embrace that squished the breath from her lungs. After several seconds, Kagome realized that he had little intention of letting go anytime soon.

She wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed. “It’s okay, InuYasha. Just take your time.”

She got a harsh laugh from her shoulder for that. “That’s funny. That’s the one thing that we have the least of.”

“What?” Kagome asked, her arms slackening.

“Kagome, I don’t…want you…to…go…”

Kagome recoiled slightly in surprise and partial shock, then returned his hug with gusto. “I don’t want to go, either. But, we don’t know what will happen when the Jewel grants the wish.”

“I want my wish to be that you can stay with us forever.”

“Now InuYasha,” Kagome said in a slightly reprimanding tone, although her face was still buried in his hair, “That could cause quite a lot of problems; forever is a long time.”

“Not for us.”

Kagome’s eyes widened at this blunt admittance and didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, she really thought about living life without InuYasha, or Shippou, or Sango or Miroku.

“I…can’t.” Came her shocked reply. “I can’t see myself without them. I honestly can’t think of living my life without them.”

She’d been trying not to think about the whole situation for a long time, and she’d been doing a pretty good job of it. Something that felt a lot like Reality hit her full force.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right, InuYasha.” Kagome pulled back from the extended embrace. “But…” her voice fell and she lost her eye contact with the hanyou. “But, I can’t stay in the Sengoku Jidai. I…I wish that you all could come and live with me in my time.”

“We couldn’t do that either, Kagome.” InuYasha shook his head sadly. “We don’t belong five hundred years in the future…Anymore than you belong here.”

“But…Oh, but! It feels like home to me, InuYasha!” Kagome protested, ignoring what she’d just said moments earlier. “This time, these places, you all just feel so right when I’m here! I can barely stand my own time anymore! I miss my Mom and Grandpa and Souta and Buyo, but I really feel like this is where I belong!”

“But you were born in the future, Kagome. Obviously, that’s where you were meant to stay.”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! But--you said that you want me to stay. Now you’re telling me that I don’t belong here! What do you really mean?”

“I’m just trying to say, that I…just…want you to be…happy…”

Kagome paused and her brilliant blue eyes clouded over, filtering in colors of light gray. “InuYasha, there’s something that you want to say and you’re not saying it. What is it? What did you really want to talk to me about?”

InuYasha seemed flabbergasted for a moment and his jaw hung slightly slack. “Kagome, I—”

“Yes?” Kagome prompted.

“Kagome, I—” He stopped himself, unable to go on.

They sat there for a few minutes, not saying a word to the other, despite knowing what they each needed to say.

Suddenly, InuYasha stood up. “Let’s go back to Kaede’s and be with the others for awhile.” His voice had a distant quality, as though his mind were miles away.

Kagome stood as well, smoothing her skirt nervously. His change in mood had been so abrupt. “O—Okay. Alright.” The hanyou took her by the hand and they walked back to the village together.

Kagome spent the day playing with Shippou and Kirara, and helping Kaede sort and measure some dried herbs. Sango helped Kagome with the basic blocks for self-defense that she’d been drilling into the young miko. Miroku and Kaede sat down with her to work on her meditation and later the control of her purification powers. InuYasha watched over them silently all day, and then through the night as well. His golden eyes never seemed to leave Kagome, as she lay down by the fire to sleep. After she was fully asleep, he crept over to her.

InuYasha’s gaze softened as he saw Shippou cuddled against his surrogate mother. Then another thought crossed his mind and his expression faded to a detached sort of sadness. Kneeling beside Kagome, he allowed himself to caress her cheek with one long claw. He brushed the hair from her face, memorizing the way it felt against his skin.

Kagome stirred in her sleep and mumbled his name. Gently, InuYasha shifted her until he could reach into the pocket below the lapel of her shirt. A dull sensation of power emanated from within the confines of the fabric. Quickly, he extracted the final shard. As his palm closed over the fragment, he found that its pulsating power no longer held sway over him. He sighed softly, almost inaudibly. Then he swept Kagome’s thick mane of hair away from the nape of her neck and un-hooked the necklace that held the pearlescent Shikon No Tama.

Kagome began to awaken, and InuYasha’s eyes softened and gleamed in the low firelight as he took in every detail about her. “I let you be second to her. Now I’m going to put you first.”

The miko’s eyes fluttered and she lifted her head. “InuYasha?” She asked in question. When she saw that he held the Jewel and the last shard, she gasped softly, “What are you doing?”

One fang showed as InuYasha attempted a smirk, but grimaced instead. “I’m putting you first. I’m making my wish.”

Kagome sat up suddenly, disrupting Shippou from her lap. He awoke with a shout that roused everyone in the hut.

“What’s going on? Kagome?” Sango asked, rubbing her head.

“InuYasha, what do you think you’re doing!” Shippou demanded, as he had seen the Jewel before Sango.

Miroku was still and silent, his eyes searching InuYasha for unspoken answers.

InuYasha’s eyes didn’t move from Kagome, but he replied, “I’m setting things right. If I don’t, it will all begin again.”

“InuYasha,” Kagome murmured, tears glistening in her eyes. “Don’t—You don’t know what will happen.”

He remained silent.

Kagome’s tears spilled over as she reached for him. “Not yet. Please, not yet, InuYasha. There has to be another way!”

“There isn’t. I’ve made too many mistakes before, Kagome. I’m going to make sure that this time I do the right thing.”

“What if it’s not right?” Kagome demanded, rising to her knees, but not able to bring herself to touch him. The hanyou was silent and still, his gaze never leaving hers. There was misery in his eyes, but resilience and the most haunted look Kagome had ever seen.

“Don’t do this to us! We love her too, InuYasha!” Shippou cried, grabbing on to Kagome.

The miko pressed the kit to her side, but even as she did, she knew that InuYasha was right. There was no way to escape what was coming next. She saw the future looming before her, gaping wide and dark and empty. She didn’t make another sound until he brought the shard to the Jewel and closed his hands together, and then she shouted.

Sango, Miroku, and Shippou lunged for the hanyou, cries of outrage on their lips. They were stopped suddenly by a brilliant white light that flashed through InuYasha’s hands, blinding them all.

All of a sudden, a streak of light the color of miasma joined the blaze of purity and Kagome yelled something incoherent. In her mind, she heard the priestess Kikyou’s last words: “A curse on you! I will live in your heart and soul for every day you wake, and in every step you take, I will be there! Never will you forget, priestess. You will never be whole again!”

Kagome collapsed forward and InuYasha tried to reach for her, but found that his hands were locked together. The flash of purple faded as the light intensified and the world went still.

An ethereal voice, neither male nor female spoke. “Your wish.”

InuYasha’s eyes blinked and he looked around him, at his traveling companions and his friends, all completely frozen in the moment. His gaze returned to Kagome, who was looking at him with hopelessness in her eyes. “For Kagome to be where she belongs.” He paused, as if there was more that he wanted to add. Then he whispered, “That is my wish.”

Suddenly, the world moved in real time again. The light faded quickly as the Jewel left InuYasha’s hands and returned to Kagome. It passed through the material of her skirt and through the skin of her hip, where it had hidden for so many years.

After the bright flash, the dim residue of the fire made the room seem black.

Kagome whispered in the dark, “InuYasha…”

There was a silence, and then Kagome began to glow an unearthly blue. She panicked and looked around the hut, reaching out for the hands of her friends. She may have called out their names, but suddenly everyone was holding on to her, even InuYasha. His grip was the strongest, even as her body began to soften and blur like the light of a dying sunset.

Kagome’s form faded more quickly now, and she heard Shippou fall to the ground as her lap disappeared. Faster and faster, her body melted away as Sango and Miroku lost their grip on her.

Then there was only InuYasha, who cradled her face between his hands. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks when she told him, “I love you,” Her voice was distant and echoed.

His golden eyes burned as he replied, “I know,” He blinked.

And she was gone.

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