~The Will to Die, The Will to Move On~
A bittersweet Oneshot Story
No one could know for sure, but they all agreed he should have lived longer.
Half-demons were funny that way: there were so few who lived beyond childhood, and none they knew of who hadn't died at an early age from battle or murder or starvation or just sheer loneliness.
But he hadn't been struck down in battle. Most agreed it wouldn't have been possible.
No one had killed him, and no one had sought to in a long time.
Who would try to kill an old man?
He certainly hadn't starved – his loving wife saw to that, even in her waning age.
And loneliness wasn't even a question. He hadn't been lonely in many, many long years.
So it was difficult to understand for the friends and children and even grandchildren that he left behind just what had brought the mighty Inuyasha to his (surprisingly early some thought) grave.
Miroku and Sango's children could remember certain conversations from when their parents were still alive, theorizing for hours over what would become of the half-demon.
In the beginning there were many worried speculations that Inuyasha would be alone again once his precious Kagome succumbed to time and passed on. Having a large amount of demon blood, it was expected that he would probably live for centuries after their deaths. Hadn't he already lived longer than all of them?
That was a sad theory, but the one that followed it was what really scared them and kept them up at night: that the grief of losing his beloved Kagome would be too much for Inuyasha and he would kill himself to follow her.
He had barely handled three years without her; how was he going to survive centuries?
But with all their theorizing, they never predicted what actually happened.
It really wasn't until Kagome turned fifty that they noticed she looked a little more weathered and her energy wasn't what it used to be. That was to be expected.
What they hadn't expected was to see creases on Inuyasha's face as well.
By sixty Kagome was starting to gray, giving her hair a salt and pepper shine.
The white of Inuyasha's hair was decidedly duller than it used to be, and a quick check on his human night confirmed that he was graying as well.
Kagome's back was bent slightly from a life of collecting herbs and taking care of children.
Inuyasha's back shouldn't have been bent at all, but from the angle of it, everyone guessed it was from tending to his wife.
Seventy and Eighty came with the usual changes, and no one would have known to look at him that Inuyasha wasn't supposed to be a normally aging man.
No one would have noticed… except his children still didn't look a day over twenty.
Their ten boys and baby girl had all grown up just like normal children until they hit adulthood, at which point it seemed time for them had stopped.
A quick check with Sesshomaru confirmed they were indeed aging, but at a rate much closer to full demons.
It was expected of those with demon blood.
And so the full dog-demon was just as puzzled as the rest of them as to why his little brother was already growing old.
Boksenou didn't know. Totosai didn't know. Even Myoga was clueless as to why it was happening.
Miroku teased from his death bed, with no Sango there to hit him, that Inuyasha was so stubborn he was probably aging on purpose.
… They all agreed this must have been truth.
And despite the confusion and worries of everyone around him, Inuyasha was perfectly content to grow old with his wife.
"Good thing too!" Kagome would say with a laugh, as they sat on their hill, just as wrapped up in each other as when they were newly married, "It's only fair that if I get ugly and wrinkled, you should have to suffer too!"
And he would laugh and pull her closer in his weakened and weathered arms, and tell her she could never be ugly even if she tried, and he would smile softly and think that this was the farthest he had ever felt from suffering.
When they were found one morning in early spring, holding each other in bed with the most peaceful, loving expressions on their still and cold faces, no one was surprised.
Their children bore their burial with strong wills and dry faces. Their father had taught them not to cry over things they couldn't control. Their mother had taught them how to take peace in hard times and appreciate what they still had.
They had expected to outlive their father – it was only natural.
The quarter-demon children lived a couple more centuries before finally joining their mother and father, but there was one who outlived them all and made sure the graves of his precious family were never disturbed or desecrated.
The auburn-haired fox, much taller than he had been when the half-demon and his wife were alive and with far more tails than a fox his age should normally have gained, set up his home near the graves and promised to protect them until his dying breath.
He knew that would not be for many centuries still.
Shippo sometimes wondered if his friends had been reincarnated – if he would ever see them again.
But the more he thought of it, the more he hoped they hadn't. Inuyasha and Kagome and Miroku and Sango had all been through more than enough in life, and it would be cruel if they had to find each other all over again.
No, let them rest among the gods, together and at peace, and one day he would gain enough tails to join them up there and finally get his family back.
He wasn't about to let death get him first – he had learned stubbornness well from the half-demon he had secretly called father, and he would make sure things worked out as planned.
When the area around the well and sacred tree was designated sacred and a shrine built around it, Shippo nearly leapt for joy.
When he learned that the family assigned to care for the shrine was of the surname 'Higurashi', he wept his joy openly.
With trickery only a fox could achieve, he convinced the shrine builders to expand the sacred grounds until it included the 'graves of the four heroes', and he made sure that the small building encasing the space was of the finest quality workmanship.
He almost laughed at the thought of teenaged Kagome running past her own grave on the way to school every day; a bit morbid, but imagining her look of disgusted shock should she find out was too funny to not think of.
He would be sure to tell her in the next life.
He stayed near the shrine, living in the woods, playing tricks and transforming to get by and stay active, and he saw as more trees were chopped down and skyscrapers were built.
One afternoon he peeked out from his woods and saw a black-haired little girl playing happily beneath the boughs of the scarred sacred tree, and heard her mother call out to her "Kagome".
It was then he decided it had been enough.
He'd let fate handle things from here.
His ninth tail was easy to achieve – he'd just been putting it off for a while after all.
And five hundred years was all the waiting he wanted to do.
*Author's Note:
Whether you agree that Inuyasha is centuries old or not, I don't think he'd just let his Kagome die alone. And I don't like him killing himself to be with her. But then there are tons of theories as to how she could live a long time too, however they never quite work for me.
So my magical solution to dying together? He freakin' wants to grow old with his wife, and darn it he will.
The sheer power of Inuyasha's stubbornness is not something to take lightly.
Also the thing with Shippo is taken from the belief in some Asian mythologies (not just Japanese) that foxes become deities or ascend to heaven when they gain nine tails, which actually shouldn't happen until they turn 1000 years old.
But Shippo got to seventh rank in the fox demon exams after, like, three years, and it's supposed to take centuries.
Shippo don't care, he does what he wants.