So here's the first story that I've ever written, well, scratch that. Here's the first story that I've ever finished and had the courage to put up. I hope you guys enjoy, be sure to tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Sad isn't it?
She was gone. She was no longer his to protect, to hold, to love…
Five years. Five years he had searched for a way to her time. The Bone Eater's well had closed behind her permanently after the completion of the Shikon no Tama. And so he had searched for a way to get her back, traveling from land to land, seeking anything resembling the Bone Eater's well that would allow him to travel to her time. To get her back. To tell her the truth.
But he had found nothing. Five years and a million crushed dreams. He had traveled the world in search of her, but now he had no hope left. He was returning to Kaede's village, hoping that the old woman would give him some clue as to how to find her.
He stood on the bow of the ship, feeling the wind whip his long silver hair behind him, flattening his ears to his head. He couldn't take it anymore, all the guilt, all the love he carried with him. It had become too much for him to bear alone. How he wished, staring up at a sky full of dark clouds, how he wished that he had told her the truth.
He loved Kikyo, yes, he always would. He had told the truth that day in the field. He had thought of her every instant; he wanted her to come back, that lovely miko that had opened his heart. Yet, he had come to find that she was cold and that Kagome had long since capture his heart. He would love Kikyo, yes, but not that graveyard corpse so full of hatred that had confronted him 50 years later. That creature was an abomination of the woman he had loved.
Kagome had held his heart from the moment he saw her. Not because she looked like Kikyo but because of her spirit. She was far from perfect. A small smile flitted across his features; he could have done without all the 'Oswaris.'
The thought only served to bring him a wave of unhappiness that chased away his happy memories of her. He would never see her smiling face again, and he had to accept that. He would never get to tell her that he loved her. There would be no wise advice from Kaede. No way to find Kagome.
What was left for him then?
He turned himself away from his place on the bow and made his way to the mast of the ship, observing the way that the sailors backed away from him in fear. His countenance had hardened with his lose of her, his temper had become irritable, he had changed so drastically that not even the most loyal of his friends wished to be around him. He climbed the mast until he was perched on the top of the ship, facing the island that he had come from on this god forsaken vessel. Kagome would have loved that little island; it was covered in weeping willows, her favorite type of tree, next to the Goshinbuko. The peace that the isolation of those trees had given him had calmed his soul some. His blind anger at all his failures had faded. He had become numb.
He wished only for peace, and for her. He glanced sadly over his shoulder at his destination, turning slowly to take in the view of his home country fully. With one last glance at his past, he took a deep breath and made his decision.
He fell.
He fell backwards off the mast of the ship, time seeming to stop as he watched his hair fly up above him, obscuring his view of the sky. It began to rain as he fell; light drops of rain that raced him downward to the ocean. His hair parted suddenly above him, giving him a glimpse of the troubled dark blue sky. Her eyes had been that color when she was angry. When they had fought her eyes grew stormy like the sky before a raging storm. He reached up a hand to touch that color, her anger seeming better than nothing at all. Any touch from her, any reminder of her welcome.
And that was the last the sailors saw of him, the beautiful, dangerous hanyou falling from the mast, barely missing the rear of the ship, his hand stretched to the sky in supplication, his silver hair flying elegantly above him.
He saw her there then, an image created by his desperate imagination from storm clouds and rain. She reached down to grasp his hand, attempting to save him. He stretched out to reach her, his last hope, but instead of feeling the soft warmth of her hand in his, he felt the cold shock of his body colliding with the ocean. The water came up around him. The waves he had himself created by his fall came up to obscure her from his vision, wrapping him in their cold arms.
As the force of his fall carried him downwards he looked around, forcing his eyes open against the sting of the salt water. He caught a glimpse of whales diving down beneath him and schools of brightly colored fish that were darting away from him. He watched the rain drops strike the surface of the water and all of it seemed to be in slow motion. The only thought coursing through his mind,
'She's here.'
It couldn't have been an illusion, it couldn't have been. She had seemed to real, to real to be a figment of his imagination…
He began to fight the pull of the oceans depth's, fighting his way to the surface, to her. But he couldn't swim; he had never needed to learn, never deemed it important that he know how. Kagome had tried to reach him to swim once; he still remembered that event so clearly. She had started out teaching him how to float, her small hands supporting his large frame in the water, balancing his weight until he got used to the sensation. Her delicious scent had engulfed him, making it hard to concentrate on her instructions. However it was imperative now that he remember how to float.
He thought of her face, her eyes crinkled in amusement and laughter, and relaxed, allowing all the tension in his body to leave him. He thought of her face and he floated towards the surface.
When he finally breached the surface of the water he looked around carefully, searching for any sign of Kagome. He found nothing. No sign that she had ever been there at all. It couldn't be! He had seen her! She hadn't been a figment of his imagination!
He became frantic, looking everywhere at once, peering through the rain that had at once become heavy, through the fog and the mist that had begun to form. He saw her eyes again as he had last seen them. Storm blue filled with worry. He tried to swim in the direction of clearer skies, thinking that maybe he would find her there, but couldn't get away from the rain that was pelting him with its cold denial.
She wasn't there.
"No" He whispered.
She had never been there.
"No." His voice trembled.
He would never see her again.
"No."
She was gone. Forever.
"NOOOOOOOO…." He howled to the heavens, his last hope broken, his soul shattered. Crystal tears raced down his face mixing with the salt of the ocean. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true, not again, she wasn't gone again.
'But it is, it is.' His mind moaned at him, 'She's gone. You have nothing left, nothing at all.'
His heart grew heavy with that betrayal of her love. He would stop searching. He knew that now. He couldn't find the light within that would lead him to her. She would never know how he felt. He would never get to show her the beautiful island of weeping willows. She was lost to him in this life.
His body had grown cold, the fire of his hope no longer pushing him forward. He searched desperately inside himself for any vestiges of life, of hope. But he could find only guilt and despair. How could he have stopped his ending he wondered? She would have left no matter what. He would have been alone. So how could he have prevented this? How could he have stopped her from leaving? How could he save himself now? Did he even want to?
There was no life left within him. His beacon of hope was gone. Just as he would soon be. Another hopeless fool who was too much of a coward to live. To fight.
He would go, and hope, wish with all that was left of his heart, that he would awaken on an island of weeping willows with the one he loved.
He thought of her now, everything he could recall of their time together. He relaxed and let his heart, heavy with sorrow, drag him down. He sank into the ocean, suspended in between an island of dreams and his past, left with only the cold feeling of falling into the ocean.
Of floating into space.