Through These Pages
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.
~oOo~
"... new book that I had you all purchase last week and open it to the middle where the photographs are," the voice of Kagome's history professor chattered excitedly.
With a bored sigh Kagome reached into her pack and took out the small book, glancing at the cover with little interest. She hadn't even looked the book over since getting it, and flipped it over to read the back cover.
'A new and exciting find in Japanese history. Two years ago a group of hikers stumbled on the remains of what had once been a palatial palace in a remote area of the Western lands of Japan. Completely unknown, it didn't take long for the ruins to excite archeologists and historians alike. Detailed within these pages are some of the stunning finds from these remarkable ruins.'
A pang went through Kagome as she read, mention of the Western lands poking at a wound that had never healed and never would.
Her loss of her past and the people in it that she had loved.
Naraku had finally perished after the day long battle inside his bloated and hulking spider form. As a last blow against her, the wish he'd made had forced her from the past and back into her era, sealing her there. It had completely devastated her, most definitely causing her much suffering and she was pretty sure at this juncture, six years after being cast back into her birth era, that she wasn't ever going to fully heal from the devastation she had suffered the moment she had realized that all those she'd loved in the past were forever lost to her.
Left with no recourse but to try to regain a chance at a life in this era, Kagome had applied herself to her schooling with a vengeance, studying Japanese history as the only way she could once more touch the past she'd lived and loved. It was the only thing she had left, and she always looked out for some possible mention of her friends from back then, though she had little hope of finding any.
It's so awful that they've all faded into obscurity, completely forgotten by the descendents they fought so hard to save. If it hadn't been for them, this Japan wouldn't even exist. Every person alive today owes that to Miroku, Sango, Inuyasha, Shippo, Kirara, and... him. And yet I'm the only one who knows... who remembers. That hurts so much...
Feeling her eyes well up with tears she hastily beat them back and focused once more on her teacher before someone noted her preoccupation.
The woman was opening her own copy of the book, turning to the center where there was a thick sheaf of photos taken from the site. "Let's start with photo number one. Let's see," she said, looking down at the first picture and reading the caption aloud. "One of the first things found in the remains of what was once a huge and beautiful palace was a representation of the supposed master of the area – an inuyoukai. This once grand mural was painted on the wall of what was a reception room."
Kagome's eyes widened and she looked down at the page, astounded. An inuyoukai? A Lord's palace in the West... Could it really be... a sharp pain stabbed her right through her heart and she stared at the representation, completely unable to breathe.
It was Sesshoumaru.
There was no way to mistake that; depicted in his true form with his crescent moon-marked forehead, magenta cheeks stripes, and his piercing crimson eyes staring back at her from the pages of a book she'd paid no real attention to since buying, and the knowledge knocked her breath away.
She was going to be making up for it asap, because this was the only thing she'd ever found that proved to her that she hadn't made the whole thing up in her head – that she wasn't crazy. Sure, her family knew about her time traveling, but they didn't really know about her experiences or the people she'd known except Inuyasha.
Almost desperate for all the information she could get out of the book, she perused the pages slowly, taking in and savoring every detail.
Her teacher, on the other hand, was merely skimming through the photos with the rest of the class, since the hour-and-a-half class period was winding down and there wasn't much time left.
She was yanked from her preoccupation looking over a three-dimensional scale replica of the palace as it had looked during its supposed heyday by the sudden silence from the room; she looked up and into the eyes of a smiling teacher standing right in front of her desk with the book held in one hand while she looked back and forth between her and then the photos.
Frowning uneasily at the look on her sensei's face, she prompted, "Kobayashi-sensei? Is something wrong?"
The woman shook her head, her eyes warm. "Not wrong, Higurashi, but definitely surprising. Apparently you had a famous ancestress."
Kagome blinked uncomprehendingly. What's she speaking of? "Ano... Kobayashi-sensei, I don't understand. My ancestors have always been shrine-keepers. Since Sengoku Jidai, actually."
"Well, perhaps she came before that time, but look." She reached down and flipped a few pages in Kagome's book and then pointed down at it, the class still eerily silent. Even more uneasy now, Kagome followed the woman's finger...
And her world instantly flipped upside down as she looked into her own eyes staring up at her from the pages.
"It says that her name was also Kagome," the teacher said as Kagome stared in heart-stopping shock at the book, breath still frozen inside her chest. "It's remarkable – she looks exactly like you, and the caption says that they believe she even had blue eyes, because there was just enough of the pigment left on the painting to show that. It says that a few of the experts thought that perhaps that was just a later embellishment, but carbon-14 dating has proven that the blue pigment is the same age as the rest of the paint." There was a growing swell of whispering as Kagome listened to the teacher numbly. "It's odd that she even had your eye-color, especially since blue eyes are not native to our race. She could be your doppelganger."
That's because it is me, she thought to herself, though of course she would never say that aloud. She was depicted wearing a beautiful traditional layered kimono in warm crimson tones, her hair left unbound and swirling around her in a breeze with the forms of two small children standing pressed against her legs on either side and clutching to her hand. They both looked just like Sesshoumaru except one had her blue eyes. His twin had their father's piercing gold.
Unable to help herself, her eyes were drawn to the caption below the picture.
"This particular painting was found in what would have been the quarters of the palace's master, Sesshoumaru. From the excavation a selection of well-preserved scrolls were found giving the details of the woman's story. She was a human miko, supposedly the protector of the legendary Shikon no Tama. She met the palace's master during a manhunt for a villainous hanyou named Naraku as she traveled with Sesshoumaru's estranged younger half-brother, who was also a hanyou. Sesshoumaru had always claimed to hate humans, but he eventually fell in love with the miko Kagome and wed her. They had five children."
Choking suddenly, she realized that she had been holding her breath for too long, and she couldn't help taking in air in deep draughts that made her sound like she was having a panic attack. She almost was, her heart pounding and stuttering brokenly inside a chest that felt tight with confusion – and nearly debilitating grief.
By the time the final showdown with Naraku had come Kagome's heart had no longer belonged to Inuyasha, but to Sesshoumaru, instead.
They had learned at the time of Kikyou's final death that she was not the other woman's reincarnation at all, a fact which had oddly not surprised her when it had become apparent, for she had begun to suspect such was the truth of the matter. That had allowed her to break free of the mold that Inuyasha, and to a lesser extent Kaede had tried to fit her into. She knew it wasn't done on purpose to hurt her, but in some ways they had almost been trying to bring the other miko back to life by making her into a new Kikyou. To Sesshoumaru, however, she was simply Kagome, and that fact had been a great relief to her. He would only ever see her as Kagome, allowing her to bloom and flourish under his tutelage after he sort of joined forces with them in order to make it easier to finally catch and smash the spider.
She'd tried so hard to keep from falling for the beautiful and powerful Lord, but it had been inevitable – he was everything she wanted in a man – or male, as the case was – mature, intelligent, elegant and deadly when those that he protected were endangered. But she'd always known that the feeling wasn't mutual – she most certainly wasn't what he wanted in a woman. Human, with a blink-and-you-miss-it lifespan, she was beneath him in every way.
But apparently her beliefs on that score had been wrong – if this book was to be believed.
But how could this possibly be true? I'm stranded here in the future with no way to go back, she thought, suddenly ready to cry.
All that passed through Kagome's mind within seconds, and she looked back up at the teacher as she addressed her again. "Are you alright, Higurashi? You look a bit pale."
"I... I'm fine," she whispered breathlessly, summoning a weak smile for the woman. "It's just the shock. It's like looking in a mirror."
The sensei laughed. "It's really remarkable, the resemblance."
The minute hand on the clock hit two-fifty five and the sensei moved away, taking her book with her. She turned to address the class one last time for the day.
"The test next Friday will be over this book, so I suggest you all read through it carefully."
The room emptied swiftly, Kagome also in a rush to get home for the day so she could read more of the book and hopefully come up with some of the answers she now desperately needed. The mad dash was made in a concentrated blur to her, and when she arrived at home she went straight upstairs and into her room, closing and bolting her door. Her mother knew that when she did such a thing she had major studying to do, and would simply bring her up a tray for dinner so that she could work unhindered and uninterrupted.
Tossing everything else aside Kagome dragged the book out of her pack again and plopped down on her bed, opening the book to the first page and plunging right into the story it was telling.
She didn't surface again until her mother brought her dinner tray, and even that was minimally; she answered her mother's queries with little true attention and then went back into that past world that she so yearned for in the only way left to her as soon as her mother left again.
Unnerved by the fact that the book itself had been published from one of the scrolls found at the site – Kagome could only wonder about how this book was even possible. She'd never told Sesshoumaru she had feelings for him let alone been his wife, giving him five children. And as far as she was aware he'd never done anything to even hint that he had such feelings for her.
Even if he had, this book was still impossible – because she wasn't in the past marrying Sesshoumaru, she was forever stranded here in her era, and alone. Maybe... maybe I somehow damaged the timeline? Maybe what this book is talking about was how things were supposed to have been, but somehow I changed it and now this is my reality?
But that explanation didn't really fit, either, because if that was the case then nothing in that palace would have a connection to her.
The only other option in this madness-inducing conundrum was that the well reopened at some point. Maybe it already had, or maybe it would soon, but that was the only explanation that fit all the facts. That somehow the well allowed her back through it at least once more and she returned from her banishment from the past to that side of time.
Hope, that fragile and sometimes unendurably fickle feeling rushed through her and she tossed the book onto her bed carelessly, throwing a sweater over her shoulders on the way out the door. It was time to visit the well.
The doors into the small building slid open willingly with a quiet clacking sound and Kagome stepped into the interior of the well shrine slowly as she breathed deeply and cast her eyes around the dusty building. No one had been in it since the last time she'd tried to jump down it and had broken her ankle with the hard landing she'd suffered, and that had been almost five years ago now.
She spotted something hanging over the edge of the well and went to investigate. It was the little red pull-through from her old middle school uniform, full of dust and a little faded. After a moment she set the old piece of cloth down where she'd found it and carefully, almost timidly placed her hands on the edge of the well and looked down into the darkness inside it.
"This world... it doesn't have the most important person to me in it," she whispered. "And so I want to go back because my heart is still over there. And so is my destiny, if that book is anything to go by." She closed her eyes as she breathed in deeply, trying to calm her nearly overwhelming emotions down as she heard her mother's gentle footsteps approaching the shrine. A slightly pained but also amused smile caressed her pretty, bowed lips for a moment as she said, "Musubi no kami*, please hear my prayer and open the way for me, since you've already hit me with your arrows."
"Kagome?" her mother's soft voice interrupted her little reverie, and reluctantly she opened her eyes and began to turn around – only to stop and turn back to look down into the well at the beautiful deep blue night skies of a time she'd never thought she'd get to see again. Her heart leapt into her throat and her hands clenched on its side.
"The well," she breathed in deeply as hope sprang eternal once more, surging energy and a deep, almost terrifying desire to jump in right now before the well rethought its offer in opening the way.
Her mother stepped down to look over the edge of the well, too, her heart sending a bit of sorrow through her at what she already knew was coming.
"Mama... I... I have to go," Kagome blurted out, meeting her mother's gaze with trepidation. She wasn't lying – she really had to go, but she wanted her mother's blessing for her actions so she wouldn't have to live with the guilt of disappointing her.
"Kagome..." her mother trailed off, then finished slowly with a sad but penetrating look in her eyes, "it's okay. Go, but remember us and most importantly... be happy."
Teary eyes growing bright Kagome hugged her mother one last time and then stepped back, climbing onto the lip of the well and then launching herself into the time-stream.
A few tears escaped her mother's eyes as she vanished into history, but with a smile she brushed them away and climbed the steps to the still-open doors with a softly voiced, "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, Kagome, dear," echoing slightly in the now empty building. With one last glance at the well she slid the doors closed. The well was no longer a pathway between times, it was just an old, dry well – and a silent testament to her daughter's extraordinary fate.
It's finally over, she thought, in a way relieved. It's all come full-circle, ending where it started. Then she chuckled, her mood lightening as she stepped inside her house and continued on with her chores – after all, she didn't want to meet her grandchildren for the first time with the house a mess.
No... it's not an ending, but just another beginning.
A perfect one.
~oOo~
Across the city from the shrine on a beautiful and outrageously expensive estate Kagome Nishiyama smiled up at her mate of five hundred years with excited eyes. It was finally time – as of tomorrow she could openly go visit her family without having to worry about running into herself.
Sesshoumaru met his mate's happy gaze with a quietly pleased expression, but before he could say anything their oldest daughter entered the room and grinned at her parents. She held up the book in her hand and shook her head with amusement. "What a scheme, okaa-san," she said to Kagome. "You wrote yourself a scroll just so you would go back to the past to be with otou-sama. And otou! You even allowed humans to crawl all over the ruins of the family fortress for a month just so I could end up giving my own mother the book that came out of that scroll in history class!"
"Don't blame this on me, it was your father's idea!" Kagome laughed. "And besides, Yuzuki – you know you enjoyed having your mother at your tender mercies in a classroom setting. I know you've had fun with this 'scheme' as you put it, so don't complain," Kagome chuckled. "But now it's time and not only can I see my family, they can finally meet my mate and our children." Her smile dimmed a little and became touched around the edges with sorrow for all the long years she'd had to wait to see her family again. And though she'd seen her mother and even spoken to her occasionally, the contact had been brief and minimal out of necessity. "It's been a long time coming, ne?"
Sesshoumaru wrapped his arms around his mate and thrummed a soft cadence for her.
"Yes, Kagome," he said quietly with a nod at his daughter, "it has, indeed, been a long time coming. But it was worth every bit of that time, was it not?"
Kagome raised her head with a teary smile and nodded decisively. "Yes, it was. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, because I could never imagine being anywhere else than by your side forever."
Smiling eyes held her gaze and he inclined his head gently, already having known what her answer would be, since it was the same as his.
"As I could not, itoshii," he breathed before kissing her, ignoring their daughter's giggle to concentrate on the woman he'd loved for over five hundred years.
He had no regrets for his interference in the timeline, his scheme to get her back through the well having been set in motion long ago, and just like she'd said he'd definitely do it all over again, because he would not allow her to be anywhere else but at his side...
Forever.
~oOo~
Musubi no kami-cupid
A/N: As you can all see, I have a more than passing acquaintance with Archeology. I thought it might be fun to set Sess/Kag up through the pages of time, so to speak. You might look at this as a more in-depth rewriting of my older one shot Accuracy, in a way, as this one was begun not long after. I just kind of got stuck on the last bit of it and never got around to finishing it until now.
Hope everyone enjoys my newest lighthearted and sappy Sess/Kag endeavor!
Amber