Water Beneath the Lantern Cranes

Night drew blackness across the skyline over the ghostly shanty town. It was cool, salty and so sublime in the wake of coming home. The ponding of the sea had crept into the nooks and crannies of the sandbar, collecting the stars they reflected.

There was no moon to guide the wayward sailors home by it's position housed in a heavenly gate. Instead, the darkness was pricked by that same starlight, leaving the softest of humming light to bathe down upon already porcelian skin.

Kagome merely stared across the vast expansion of water - churning, rumbling like sirens cried to their savior sailors. She could barely see the flickering of a ship in the distance, and the waving of koi kites that had long been abandoned. She was older now, and her heart yearned for warmth. There was little she could do around the shrine anymore, and it left her pining for an adventure.

Tonight, however, she had been on an errand for her mother when she somehow managed to journey into the ghetto of Tsukiji-mura. It had been devastated by a diaster some years before, and hung like a frame with no photo in memoram.

A soft smile tugged at her lips as she brushed a hand through her hair, tangling her fingers with the knots. Her backpack sat lovingly beside her, distressed as if it had been on one of her journeys in the past. She wondered, as she looked down at the pink mesh, if InuYasha still held onto her beloved bag.

Closing her sleepy eyes, she brushed her fingers along side the pack until she found the zipper. Numbly, she pulled out a stack of paper and sat it upon jean covered knees. A pen followed, as the cap lodged in between her teeth as she began to write.

The low glow of a bonfire nearby illuminated enough of the dark to see the fine lines ingrained into the print. Graduation was coming and all she had done was study. She had hoped to become a nurse, a doctor, anything that was helpful to another. She had injuriously decided never to look back and to only look forward - save for moments like this.

Moments were the moon was recessed into a warm quilt of astral patterns and tired eyes. It would always seem so daunting to stare into the emptiness as though she was still resting beside the hanyou. He was human. She was human. Their hearts beat the same on nights like this.

A warmth hit her chest as it stole the breath from her lungs. Brackish fingers pulled at her lashes, curling them down to her cheeks as she fought the urge to cry. She hadn't in a while, and was proud of herself. It was no grand feat. Yet, to her, it was relieving. The fact that she could overcome such a loss - her lover, her friends, her family...

It was the culmination of restless nights that made her mind rattle like the beating on a war-drum. She could barely stand the plethora of images that bore holes into her memory; transfixing themselves in the blank space she had tried to erase.

Instead of losing her battle, Kagome's cold fingers tightened around her pen. She wrote love letters to a man who would never receive them, saying everything that she had dreamt of saying. When each note was done, her nimble hands crafted awkward paper cranes.

They were wrinkled. Each was a little lopsided, too big, too small...

Eventually, in the soothing tone of the sea's voice, she had drowned and become frantic as she ripped page after page of her school paper. They were personal, so very much pitted in the bottom of her heart. What would he have done if he had read them? He would have been shamed by the fact Miroku-sama would have to read them to him.

He would have blushed, kicked dirt and hid in his tree for days. That tree had letters buried at the base, where the roots parted in a tiny nook. The former miko lolled her head back as she tossed the pen into the dampness of the sand. Her fingers cowered into the earth and clenched to the tiny salty fragments as they slipped through her palms.

It was like time.

It was fleeting. It didn't even exist. Yet, the law it abidded by made it true.

InuYasha was in another world. He was breathing in the freshness of the night, perhaps fearful of his weakened state. She wanted to hold him as she had so many times before. She wanted to let her fingers soothe his aches, and climb the notched ladder of his spine to cradle his dreaming head.

There were so many things...

Even the wind reminded her of the hapless woman that became a part of it upon her passing. As it sweetly brushed her cheeks sweetly, she wondered if it was Kagura mothering her. All of these things that seemed so insignificant to others, were memories to her.

No one understood that in this newly formed body, so filled and womanly, rested a scrawny fifteen year old. Sighing, the woman shook away her sadness, grabbing her collection of cranes. Pushing herself to her feet, she limbed until the foaming mouth of the bay bedraggled her tennis shoes.

Closing her eyes, she sat them down one by one. The fire light charred the murky water, lighting a pathway for the cranes to float upon. They swam eagerly on the highs and lows of the tide as it swept them into the distance.

Each gleamed warmly in the throes of the dimmin golden light as their journey began. Kagome turned away, hesitating to look back at the pieces of her heart dissolving. Out of all of the letters, one held a wish. One simple wish.

A soft smile stole her lips as she picked up her discarded bag. Maybe one day that wish would come true, the girl mused as she listened to the waning crackle of the fire. She had to get ready for her graduation and put on her best facade. Tomorrow was going to be a day that changed her life.