Disclaimer: If I owned Inuyasha, I'd be laughing… See this face? I'm not laughing.

The Last Mirror
By Petty Insanity

The rain pounded down on a sad looking tavern in the middle of a lonely street. The stable walls around the back were creaking and the mounts located inside were restless but the stable hands couldn't care less. Inside, dull torches lit up a loud, putrid-smelling room that showed no signs of ever being cleaned. Mouldy straw covered the floor and an odd 50 or 60 people inside danced on the crude tables, roaring drunk.

A waitress sauntered over to one of the unbelievably quiet men slumped over his table and deposited a tankard full of flat ale roughly onto the rotting wood. He looked up from his arms and deposited a gold coin into her grubby hand. Every now and again, he would sip the brew and sigh.

It was a time when the "Kokushibyou" or the Black Death roamed the land. Legend has it, that a if you walked the street alone, one hour after sundown, a cloaked figure would approach you, be you youkai or human, and from his cloak, he will draw out a round black mirror. If you will die that night, the blank reflection will waver into a swirl of black mist. On the stroke of midnight, a round black jewel will form on your chest and when it is complete, you will die.

A slow painful death.

Many youkai have openly scoffed the legend and had all died at the stroke of midnight, after the Kokushibyou had approached them. One hanyou however, was allowed to live and he created uproar in his village. The village had already dubbed him untrustworthy but by the end of the week, only those that were cautious did not die.

Some villages sent out their monks and mikos to destroy this threat but to no avail. They could not find the Kokushibyou no matter how hard they tried. It was rumoured that the creature was not youkai, hanyou or human. He came and went at will.

Soon the warnings had been set all over Japan. Don't go out alone after sunset. Lock your doors. Don't go out alone. The Kokushibyou will never haunt your shadow as long as you are accompanied.

If people were caught out in the dark, they made their way towards taverns and inns where they would stay the night. People lived in fear in the darkness, but during the day, they went about their business as if tragedy doesn't strike each night after sunset.

Just outside of the circle of light, a woman cloaked in black stood, staring at the glee of the establishment. In one gloved hand, she held a velvet pouch full of gold coins. She did not look at all threatening due to her short stature and her unarmed presence. Through the harsh material of the cloak, her skin was pale, almost translucent, her thin frame jutted awkwardly out of the muscle that held it together.

She strolled in through the door way and slowly made her way past a sober man with silvery hair, buried in furs of dirt brown. She smirked from under her hood, a hanyou in the mist of humans. Scarcely managing to avoid a brawl that broke out on the floor, she gracefully sat herself across an unshaven farmer.

"Do you mind?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" He slurred. He was clearly too far-gone in his drink to notice that she was cloaked and female. Not that it would have mattered. The Kokushibyou only struck when you were alone, not in a crowded tavern.

And he certainly wasn't a she, after all, what woman could do a man's job?

She smiled and ordered a drink for her new, drunk friend. His unfocused eyes looked gratefully at her as the tankard of ale came and he gulped it down. "Thanks," he hiccupped, ale dripping out of the corner of his mouth, "I just ran out of coins and I ain't even drunk yet".

"You seem a man of taste," she said after a pause, "why bother yourself with this pathetic excuse for a building?"

"Ah, you must be an outsider," he chortled, the alcohol taking further effect on his speech patterns and movement, " 'aven't you 'eard of the Kokushibyou?"

"Yes of course, but I was wondering what a fine man like yourself would be doing inside this sort of place when there are many better taverns to suit your needs."

"AHAHAHAHAHA," he laughed, opening his mouth wide so that his yellow stained teeth were visible to the world. The woman wrinkled her nose slightly at his breath but waited for him to continue. "FINE MAN! That's a good one toots," he laughed, "I only make three gold a day, yer know 'ow much those piss-whips charge for water?"

"So, why are you drinking yourself stupid here?" She cut in, suppressing her irritation, her voice dripping with fake interest.

"Aw, nothin' much," he sighed, "only that, me wife is rutting with me brother, me uncle's been tryin' ter do me in, and me only daughter 'as run off with a good fer nothin' tramp in pants."

His companion was silent. "Overall, nothin's bothering me."

"So you're a man of ruthless betrayal," she decided firmly.

"I are, what I are."

"Very tragic," she sympathized dryly, "But have you heard the story of true tragedy?"

"Aw yeah?" He quirked, "an' what could that be?"

Unbeknownst to the two, the silver haired hanyou had silently crept closer to listen.

" 'tis a tale, a tale of death and destruction…"

Kagome, clad in her white and green uniform, stood defiant against the enemy, an arrow notched in her bow. As she released it, thousands of youkai around her were destroyed by the purifying power of the arrow. It had been two years since she had started the journey to find the shards of the Shikon no Tama and her power had grown enormously, as she effortlessly took out the remaining creatures that continued to attack Sango, Miroku and Kirara.

At the far end of the battlefield, Inuyasha dodged nimbly around Naraku's slashes. Each half-demon riddled with flesh wounds, fighting to the bitter end, a twirling dance of death.

Kagome started forward, determination shining from her soft eyes, a determination to eradicate the vile heathen from the face of the earth. But Naraku thwarted their actions once again, bringing the past into the present.

Kikyou dangled limply from a bloody chain around her wrist, fresh gushes of the warm liquid cascaded down her arm and into the beautiful mass of raven locks.

"Do not come any closer," the spider almost screamed into the overwhelming silence that threatened to engulf the world. He grinned manically, red eyes widened in desperation.

A single, hoarse cry shattered the peace.

"Kikyou."

Inuyasha lunged forward, heedless of the floating corpse brandished in front of his insanity driven eyes, his demon fangs bared in heart-wrenching anger, Tetsusaiga drawn back into a fatal swing…

The sound of flesh meeting steel echoed and time stopped.

Naraku's face could only be described as mildly surprised, as the dog-fang entered his body seamlessly, and protruded out of his back, right at the heart of his scar. The half-demon released his hold on Kikyou's chain in favour of grasping the ball of decorative fluff where the blade met the hilt, and slid limply off.

The enemy's body laid there, in a gesture of defeat, a trickle of warm blood trailing down his chin and into the dirt where he belonged. With the last breeze, Naraku's body turned to ash, his remains swept up into the canopy of broken trees around them. A pearly stone sat in the dirt, almost red with anger, calling out for blood. Kagome stepped forward and picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

It was over.

Kagome looked at the spot where Naraku once laid and closed her eyes. Behind her form, Miroku's prayer beads shattered at his touch to reveal a normal hand, no kazaana to mar the skin of his right palm, his joyous voice resounded around every shape in the clearing and caught on to the little fox demon. Sango sniffed out of joy and despair, torn between the loss of her little brother and the ending of a nightmare.

But Kagome had eyes for no one but her dog demon friend, bent around her incarnate and her broken body, his face pressed into her clay neck, jewels of tears falling from golden eyes.

Kikyou was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do.

Kagome turned away from the scene and instead, inspected the glowing orb in her grasp. It should've turned pure the moment it touched the priestess' skin, but it was still a hefty red, pulsing wildly against her palm. She focused all her powers onto the ball, and felt the magic drain from her fingers and into it.

Wiping away the tears from his cheeks, Inuyasha brought his head up high and looked down onto his beloved's face and drew back from shock. Her brown eyes were wide, far wider than ever before, scarlet bleeding into her irises. Her lips stretched back into a malevolent grin and Kikyou cackled… in Naraku's voice.

"Did you really think it was that easy to dispose of me? Did you?" his voice shrilled as Kikyou floated up into the sky, billowing miasma holding her limp body upright, "You are too easy to fool, dog, you should know that Kikyou would never bleed in this clay body."

She raised her hands…

Inuyasha looked back in horror as his companions roasted to death before him.

Shippo, Miroku, Sango, Kirara all burned as the red light from Kikyou's fingertips reached their bodies. The smell of burning flesh reached the half-demon's nose as their corpses turned to as before him.

A scream behind him. Kagome's power that flowed into the crystal jewel had prevented the flow of the ray, but the junction where her purification met Kikyou's destruction exploded into the clearing, blasting the dog back, through the forest of trees.

All that was left, was blackened ash as the forest around him burned, small craters where Kagome had once stood, Inuyasha's last friend in the world.

The skies darkened as the horizon swallowed the sun's rays.

"…From then on, no one had been able to find her." The woman said in conclusion to her little story, "But rumour has it that she had not died that fateful day and still roams the land, her soul sitting where life meets death, searching for her peace."

The drunkard's eyes filled with unfocused awe. "Yer don't 'appen to be a bard, are yer?" He asked, " 'cause that be a mighty fine story. Yer tells it as if yer were actually there."

"Thank you friend, but I didn't come here to tell you a story," she said gingerly, "I want to show you something."

From inside her cloak, she pulled out a small round mirror. The frame was made of a black stone that glowed red. On it, a dark dragon was carved, his face devoid of any emotion as one claw reaches for a skull carved at the top.

As the farmer peered into the mirror, his reflection wavered and a swirl of black mist rose from the glass. He unwillingly breathed it in as he watched his companion pulled out a short black pin. With his breath constricted and his body paralysed, he watched as the women in the black cloak pushed it past his skin where his heart should be, and let it disappear under his flesh. The wound healed as if it were never there.

As she pulled away, she made to leave. "Wai' a sec," he hollered, "I don't even know yer name." She smiled from under the fabric and made her way back toward him. Leaning in toward his ear, she whispered, "I'm better known as the Kokushibyou…"

The man immediately sobered up and began gibbering in fright, rising onto ungainly legs, stumbling backwards away from the plague. Many were laughing at his antics as the woman made her way out the door. The only one not laughing however was the half-demon and he made to follow her out the door.

Just as he made it out of the door, she stopped.

"Why are you following me?" She asked, from the shadows.

"I wanted to make sure it was really you," he replied.

"Oh."

There as a pregnant puase before a scream erupted inside the establishment, sounds of wood hitting mouldy straw as the people struggled over the furnishing to get away from one particular individual.

"If you were still alive-"

"Why didn't I come back?"

The half-demon nodded his head heavily, not really wanting to know the answer.

"I don't belong to the world that I left so abruptly," the woman replied, just a little hint of regret creasing the natural timbre of her voice, "There's nothing there that could tempt me back anyway."

They stood in silence for a moment.

Her companion looked at his feet, feeling the way the mud sucked at his toes. "There's me," came the soft whisper, full of longing and promises of love.

The woman laughed, a harsh sound that was never meant for the living to hear, holding out her hand as a gesture of welcome to a odd-shaped jewel that formed almost lazily in the palm of her hand.

"Not even you," she choked, pulling out her mirror and carefully dropping the lump into the liquid like surface, and watching it sink into oblivion, "I've been granted a far greater reward for participating in Naraku's death than anything you could ever hope to give me."

"What?" He asked, frustration creeping into his voice, eyes glinting with madness, "Stealing the souls of anyone who passes with the flick of the wrist and feeding it to the underworld?"

"It's far more than just a flick of the wrist," she said quietly, "But yes, that's basically it."

"Some reward."

The woman lifted her hood over her head, and peered into the hanyou's pain riddled eyes with her doe-brown ones. "And what about you?" She asked, an emotionless mask creeping over her face, "What were you given for eradicating the evil that threatened to engulf us all? What did you get for doing the world a favour?"

He was stunned into a shaky silence, his memories glazing over at the events of his life. His friends, gone in their moment of triumph, both of his loves, one dead, the other a shadow, his brother, taken into the arms of the Black Death. Oh, he was given a reward, a life of eternal loss.

"At first it was just revenge," she murmured as she turned to leave him, waving a gloved hand in his direction, tugging her hood back into place, over her face, "Then before I knew it, I was killing to feel alive."

"Kagome…"

"I'm not alive, stop chasing dreams, Inuyasha, you could never love someone as dead as me."

"KAGOME."

"Farewell beloved."

Inuyasha fell to his knees, crystalline tears marking trenches in the pale skin of his cheeks, mingling with the rain that drenched his body. He screamed into the lighting and beat the mud in time with the thunder, his claws cutting crescent shapes into his palm, the blood flowing down to disappear in the darkness.

In the beginning, he was alone.

Then he had friends and lovers, had tasted the sweet nectar of ecstasy.

Now, after a century of searching, Inuyasha died at the words of his last remaining tie to paradise.

This is your authoress speaking and I'd just like to say that yes.. This certainly is different from what it used to be… blah… For anyone who had read it before this change, I'd just like to say thanks.

Especially thanks for Miss neko-yashaccs and her review where she sort of helped me see the light. Thanks to her for being my very first review person and I hope other people will eventually find and READ my work…

So thank you.

Also, as a side note, it wasn't Kikyou who killed everyone, she died by Naraku in a place and way that wasn't described in this story. Naraku had somehow gotten his awareness into Kikyou's animated body and killed everyone. But he was killed in the instant where everything exploded, his vessel being shreded by the blast.