A/N: Right then. What is this, you ask? Well, let me tell you. I want to be a great writer. I want to make my readers happy. So, in order to not upset a whole slew of people, I'm wrote this, The Truth of Beauty Using an Alternate Ending. Not the entire thing, of course, just the ending chapter.

Everyone happy now? You have your happy ending? And just who can you thank for having me write this? Why, '-aphros-' and Akikazu, of course! I hate leaving people disappointed, and I think that happened with them, so this ending is dedicated to you.

And who knows...with my next sad ending, I just may write an alternate here. I guess this is what this is going to be.

Please keep in mind, though, that this is ONLY for those who are happy-ending starved! The true ending that I have printed is with the story, and I personally think that this is a bit too sappy, but that's me. The worst critic to myself, but I enjoyed writing it.

I hope you enjoy reading this!

Kagome's eyes were wide in shock. She caught Youko as he slumped forward, not expecting the deadly, ivory-handled knife that was sticking out of his upper back. He clung to Kagome, his breath coming in gasps as blood flowed slowly from the wound below his shoulder.

Kagome looked up, and then wished she hadn't. Standing there, staring at Youko with hate and anger, was the last person she had hoped to see in that situation. It nearly broke her heart knowing that the one innocent soul whom she had thought to be friends with was there, killing the one person she loved. Yes, she had seen him in the mob. He had even talked to her brother, but she had never thought that Houjo would kill someone. She hadn't thought it possible.

The only thing she could choke out with her closed throat, as she supported a half-unconcious fox in the pouring rain, was, "Why?"

Houjo looked up and smiled with his boyish grin. It made Kagome sick to her stomach- he had just killed someone, and then smiled like it was as normal as getting dressed in the morning. "Kagome, I saw him attack you. I couldn't let you get hurt," he stated.

Tears welled up in Kagome's eyes, and she couldn't prevent them from mixing themselves with the rain. "What did you do? Why, Houjo? Don't you think that I wouldn't have come up here if I didn't want to?" She couldn't keep her voice from shaking as she turned from the person whom she had thought a friend and gently began to set Youko down on the marble floor.

Kagome laid him on his side, using one of her hands to try and stem the blow to his left side. His eyes were glossing over, his vision was blurring dangerously. He was so thirsty, he was in so much pain...everything hurt, he just wanted it to stop! He couldn't prevent a small whimper from escaping his throat.

Houjo walked over and grabbed Kagome's upper arm, pulling her up forcefully. Kagome began to struggle as Houjo spun her to face him. "What do you think you're doing, Kagome? That's a dangerous demon there! He's going to kill you if you don't watch out, and that's if you're lucky..."

Kagome slapped him. "Go away Houjo! You just attacked the one man who treated me like a person, and not a possession to own. You attacked the one person who respected me for being me, and didn't try to turn me into some kind of glass doll!" Her voice was slightly hysterical.

Houjo shook his head, beginning to pull her away. He was strong enough so that Kagome couldn't pull herself free, but it was still a struggle. He began to speak softly, as if he were adressing a young child throwing a tantrum. "Kagome, he's got you tricked. Let's just get you back to the village, you'll see, it'll be alright..." He was treating her like a dumb animal.

Kagome began to cry harder, not wanting to leave. "Leave me alone! I want to stay with him, let me stay with Youko. Please, Houjo, I just want to stay!"

Youko heard her cries from his position on the bitingly cold stone balcony floor. He had to do something, Kagome was crying. He didn't want her to cry. He had tried so hard to make her happy, why was she crying?

He looked through hazed eyes and saw her trying to pull away from a chesnut-haired young adolescent. He looked like he was hurting her. Youko became angry and willed the plant seeds, stuck in the cracks of the stone, to shoot forward. For the second time that night, his plants imbedded themselves into the stomach of a village boy.

Houjo doubled over in pain, shock and the plant's poisonous venom running through his veins as he fell to the floor. He mouthed something, but no sound came from him and his neck muscles slowly slackened as the poison took over greedily. His eyes finally dulled with death as his head hit the stone.

Kagome didn't even pause. As soon as she was free, she fled to Youko's side. He was attempting to curl up into a fetal position, but was unable to; any movement caused by the knife created laces of pain screaming through the prince's entire body. Kagome's eyes strayed to the delicate handle sticking out from his bloody back, knowing it wasn't a good sign. She could see a dark pool of liquid forming under his body. There was so much blood...

She turned her attention back to his face, ignoring the other things as she tried to keep him from closing his eyes. "Youko?" she asked, swallowing a lump that was forming itself in her throat as she tried to sound brave and confident. "I need you to hang on, it'll be alright. We'll patch you up, you just need to wait long enough for Yukina to get up here."

Youko tried to laugh, but the attempt turned into a gurgling couch as blood began to drip from the side of his mouth. "Don't lie. I know- how bad it is," he gasped out. Things were quickly going downhill, his breath was becoming quicker. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, could just see the blood that was welling up and spilling out of the deep wound from his back.

Kagome put a hand to his mouth. "Don't speak, you idiot!" she practically screamed, panic making her harsher than she wanted to be. "You'll just waste your energy when you should be saving it, saving yourself..." Her lip trembled slightly.

Youko took a hand and brought it up to Kagome's. He grabbed her hand and brought it up to his back, placing it as close to the hilt as he could without fainting from the pain. "Pull it out." When she tried to pull her hand back, he continued. "I want to look at you, properly, and," he had to pause for a breath before he could move on, "and I can't do that with this here."

Kagome nearly sobbed as she grasped the innocent-looking hilt. She took a breath, then wrenched it from its place. Youko screamed, the sound echoing through the night. Somewhere between their kiss and where they were, the rain had slackened to a small drizzle. There was no thunder to block out the heart wrenching cry.

Kagome gasped and pressed one of her hands to try and stop the stream of blood from the gaping wound. If anything, it was becoming worse. Too much. Should a simple knife wound bleed that much? she wondered somewhere in a dark recess of her mind that wasn't wild with panic. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Why did he do this?" she asked herself quietly in a half sob.

Youko stared into Kagome's eyes, feeling his life slipping from his body. He knew what was happening, and as much as he knew it would hurt her, he knew that he couldn't hang on much longer. It was all he could do to gather enough breath to speak again to the sad angel sitting beside him. A single tear fell onto his face from above. "Don't...apologize. My fault anyway...Sorry." He desperatly wanted to close his eyes, just sleep and leave the pain-induced haze that was covering him. But there was one last thing he needed to say.

Kagome's eyes shot open as she heard Youko's next words. "Love you..." he whispered before closing his eyes with a sigh.

Kagome looked down at him, disbelief coating her entire manner. "Youko, don't close your eyes!" she cried. She shook him gently, hoping that he would cry out in pain. She wished he would, instead of staying still like he did. "Don't leave me, do you hear me!" Her frame was shivering with desperation and fear, fear that the worst was happening and she couldn't do anything about it. Tears were once again flowing. She could feel her heart shatter when his chest ceased all movement.

"Youko! Dammit, answer me," she screamed at him. She leaned over his face, one of her hands still trying to stem the now non-existant flow of blood while the other began to beat his chest. "Don't leave! I can't follow you...I can't, and you can't leave until I tell you that I love you!"

Even as those words were uttered, deep in the bowels of the castle, in an abandoned study with dented and chipped stone walls, in a cracked vase coated with dust, the very last petal of the enchanted rose fell as the spell reached its end.

When Yuusuke and Keiko chose to look for their lord after the battle, they were shocked by the scene that greeted them. They had decided to look for him when they felt some sort of change in themselves, and when Jin complained with confusion that the wind wouldn't respond to him anymore.

They found him on the roof, laying in Kagome's lap.

There was an annoying throbbing in his side. It wouldn't go away. He tried to shift, wondering if that would take care of it. That was a bad idea. Then again, it seemed that waking up had been a very bad idea. The movement caused a chain reaction to follow: Youko shifted, a sharp pain in his left shoulder burned, he sat up with a scream, then fell back with another scream as his skin pulled taught and nerves were stabbed with a thousand tiny knives.

"Damn it, damn it," he was muttering, whimpering slightly as the pain crashed over him in a tidal wave.

Shifting next to him was barely registered, since he was much more aware of the horrible sensations running through his system. He bared his teeth at nothing, trying to cope with whatever it was that had hurt him in his shoulder. He couldn't quite remember...but it wasn't like the pain was helping any.

"Yer majesty!" a thickly accented voice cried. Running feet and an opening door were heard before a very loud shout was heard. "Oi, ever'un! 'E's up!" By now the pain had subsided slightly, and more rushing feet were heard before Jin's peppy face appeared in Youko's vision. "Abou' time," he said.

All of Youko's strength left him. He felt like a newborn kit, not even strong enough to say anything. Well, there was that, and the fact that he was starved and incredibly thirsty.

Jin seemed to anticipate his needs, for a glass of water appeared. The hyper wind demon helped his prince sit up and drink from the crystal clear glass, the water blissfully cool and wet.

When he had drunk his fill, there was a thunderous caucophany of bodies thundering up the stairs. He closed his eyes briefly, a slight pounding making itself known in his left temple.

The door flew open and a very distraught, very ragged Kagome flew into the room. She saw Youko, breathing much easier than he had been, and ran over with a strangled cry. "Youko!" she managed to choke out, flinging herself to her knees and grasping his hand, placing the cold appendage to her forehead.

She had been lectured on how bad he had been, and she was taking exquisite care to make sure that Shizuru didn't have to make good on her threat to throw Kagome bodily from the room if she made the young prince so much as wince. "Are you alright?" she asked, lifting her face to look at him. "You're feeling fine?"

Youko blinked, his mind slowly catching up to him. He wondered what had happened; the events of the previous night were incredibly fogged and hazy. He could barely remember seeing Kagome on the roof when he had been fighting that Inuyasha character...

Jin scoffed. "Kag'me, 'e wus jus' stabbed! How d'ye think 'e feels?"

Kagome hung her head, but Youko's mind was whirring. He had been stabbed? Well, that would explain the sore back... Some events began to clear in his head, and he remembered a lot more than he did before. He remembered kissing Kagome, remembered that guy stabbing him and stabbing the guy in return. He also remembered thinking he was dying, and then telling Kagome... He couldn't help a slight blush from touching his pale cheeks. "What happened?" he croaked out, hoping nobody called him on his moment of being soft.

Kagome looked at Jin and they seemed to share the same idea. The wind demon quickly bid Youko fairwell then left, leaving the two young people to themselves.

Kagome sat back, but her hand was still grasped in Youko's. "Do you remember what happened?" she asked. Youko nodded. "Well, after you said..." she trailed off, then continued. "I thought you were dead. We all did, since your wound had been so bad. There was so much blood, none of us knew what to do. We were all nearly blind with panic."

Her soft voice continued. "Yukina finally managed to get to you, using everything in her power to save you. She finally managed to get some semblence of order around and began to direct people around. I'm going to make a long story short, since I've been told you're still recovering." She gave him a small smile.

"We finally managed to patch you up as best we could, but you had lost so much blood." Her eyes began to tear up. "You were so pale, barely breathing, and you had no warmth. The only reason we knew you were alive was because your chest kept moving." She took a moment to compose herself. "A little while back, though, you began to recover. And now you're awake."

There was something missing, and Youko felt the need to voice his thoughts. "How much time has passed?"

"You've been out for nearly two months." That explained the raggedness, Youko thought absently in a small part of his mind. That, and the black circles that had taken residence under Kagome's eyes. She looked as bad as Youko felt.

Youko's next question took a moment to form. "Why didn't my healing kick in?"

Kagome stood in response. Walking over to a small hidden table in the far corner, she picked up something and brought it back to the prince. Lifting it, she held up the enchanted mirror for him. The reflection was much more different than he remembered. In fact, it was a face that he hadn't seen for over a century. He lifted a hand to grasp the mirror, the object shaking as Kagome let go.

Bright green eyes gazed back where golden eyes had been previously. His face was still pale, but he supposed that when he got better his face would hold much more color. Red locks fell limply around his shoulders, almost as odd a shade as his previously silver hair. The fingers that curled around the handle were absent of demon claws. He couldn't help but open his mouth to examine his fangs- which were conspicuously absent.

He set down the mirror and looked at Kagome in question, unable to form words to express his thoughts.

"No, that's the real reflection," she said. Her smile had a sad tone to it. "When you told me you loved me," she began, finally acknowledging the words that had left Youko's lips on that night, "I said the same." She turned her eyes to gaze into his. "I said that I love you. The enchantment broke, and with it, all of the spells and magical objects became as they were."

She knelt by the bed, continuing her story. "Hiei and Botan went back to the village for me, getting all of my things and telling my family what was going on. Kaoru and Kenshin agreed to watch my brother." Youko noted dully that she didn't mention her father. He figured the man probably died, and although it was slightly cold, he was still in a somewhat shocked state. "Unfortunately, releasing the curse had certain repricussions."

She took another breath. "Kuronue was killed and died almost immediately after taking the wound." Her voice was tight, and Youko looked away. She allowed him a moment before continuing. "He was the only one to be killed from the castle, and only Inuyasha and Houjo were killed here. Whether or not the rest of the villagers made it back is unknown- some are still missing and probably will never be found."

Youko spent a small while to take all of the information in, laying in the bed without moving. Finally, without turning back to the brunette beside him, he asked "So what are you going to do now?"

Kagome looked to the floor. Twisting her hands in her lap, she mumbled, "I want to stay with you." Youko barely caught the words, and he figured that they were said in a low tone because Kagome wasn't sure what to say to him. He didn't think she realised she had said her thoughts out loud.

Turning his head to her, he made his decision. "Will you stay with me?" he offered. After a moment, when Kagome's head had snapped up to stare into his face with shock and she still hadn't answered, he added, "Please?"

Kagome smiled, and this time her smile was free of all emotion but the utmost joy. "Of course I will," she said, moving to hug the one she loved.

Youko's arms came around her, and even though he winced from it, he hugged her with all his might. "Until death and beyond."

End Alternate Ending
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