Okay, so this fic is currently under revision. It's been like four years, but I keep obsessively rereading Sandra E.'s masterpiece Chasing Methuselah, and I guess I just really wanted to write another MirKag fic. Hope you enjoy!
"Sango!"
Miroku glanced around at the pained scream, skillfully evading one of Naraku's root-like tentacles. The cry had emanated from Kuranosuke, the taijiya's fiancé, who was kneeling by a prone silhouette clad in pink and black. The monk felt his heart clench painfully in his chest, panic swamping him.
He quickly scrambled down the steep, pebbly slope, his robes making a slithery noise against the rock and soil that slid along with him. He, too, fell to his knees beside Sango, feeling a wild sob build up in his throat. "No…"
Miroku hurriedly checked her pulse, and found none. The world seemed to dim and shift out of focus. He didn't see Inuyasha rush again and again at the other hanyou. He didn't hear Kuranosuke's wild yells, ordering his dead or fleeing soldiers to kill, to injure, to maim. He didn't see Kagome and Kikyou firing arrows in tandem, their faces lit by their own holy power. He didn't hear Kirara's furious roars as she flew straight at her mistress's murderer, only to get torn apart. He didn't hear Shippo sobbing beside him. He was only aware of the hole in Sango's chest, the blood — her blood, and so much of it — staining the ground.
The young monk felt a murderous, desperate rage. How dare Naraku take away everyone he loved. How dare Naraku make his life a living hell.
How dare he kill Sango.
How.
Dare.
He.
Miroku leaped to his feet with a snarl. He whirled to face his mortal enemy, his handsome face feral.
Naraku's gargantuan body, made of demons that he'd tricked into being absorbed, was situated on the very top of a steep hill. The air was filled with his malevolent youki, and Miroku could feel his demonic aura sizzling against his own holy one. His face was exultant, revealing just how inebriated he was on his own raw strength and power as he easily decimated the legions of both demons and humans alike that had gathered in order to defeat him. Glowing in the center of his body was the completed Shikon no Tama, tainted to a shade that was darker than the smoke from his latest fortress, burned to ashes behind them.
"Get behind me!" Miroku roared to his companions. "I'm only going to say this once!"
Inuyasha spared him a look. Seeing the expression on his friend's face, he extracted himself from the battle and complied. Kagome did so as well, and let out a shocked cry at the sight of her friend's corpse. "Sango-chan!"
Miroku quickly made his way over to the powerful miko, shoving a pile of sutras into her arms. "Put these around yourself and the others."
Kagome read the kanji on the slips of paper, comprehension dawning on her face. "Miroku-sama, no! You can't do this!"
"How else can we win?" he snapped. He had no time to regret speaking so harshly, but he still felt an absurd seed of guilt at seeing her surprised expression.
Kagome suddenly embraced him and kissed his cheek. Miroku could feel her tears fall onto his face. The expression in her blue eyes when she pulled away was unfathomable.
"We'll meet again. I know it."
Miroku didn't reply. He strode toward Naraku, determined to end him if it was the last thing he did.
Naraku laughed at him as he approached, unwinding the rosary from his cursed hand.
"Ah, the lecherous monk! Funny that you couldn't save the one girl you cared about, isn't it?"
She wasn't the only one, whispered his subconscious. She isn't. Miroku didn't hear this quiet little voice, this hint in regards to his future. He was filled with intentions of slaughter, and wouldn't hear — couldn't hear — anything else.
His hand fully freed, Miroku turned his head once. He saw Kagome standing in the center of a ring of sutras, holding a sobbing Shippo. He saw Inuyasha yelling at Kikyou to get over here, now! He saw Kuranosuke, his face set like a stone. He could see countless other friends and allies fleeing the battle.
He saw Sango, her glazed eyes gazing up at the night sky. They were empty save for the flickering reflection of the fire burning behind Naraku.
Despite everything, despite the fact that she loved another man, Miroku still loved her so much that it hurt. He'd felt a tight pain in his heart every time he saw her with her beloved feudal lord, but now even a glimpse of her made his chest burn and his eyes well with tears.
"Good bye, Sango."
Miroku opened his fist in Naraku's direction, ignoring his enemy's taunts. The poison insects that he'd come to dread zipped down toward him, attempting to stop up his wind tunnel. The monk gritted his teeth at the pain but doggedly held his hand in Naraku's direction.
"It's no use, monk," Naraku hissed. "You can't avoid my poison insects. Give in."
Miroku didn't respond, attempting to ignore the venom seeping through his body. He must do this. For Sango, and all of his friends.
"Stop now, you idiotic monk," Naraku ordered, his voice turning uneasy. A swirling vortex had begun to take shape, sucking down debris and bodies that no one had bothered to put to rest. The buzzing of the hanyou's insects had reached a frantic pitch, as if realizing that their target wasn't responding to their attacks.
Miroku grinned darkly. Naraku had cursed him with the perfect weapon — a weapon he intended to use.
His adversary became desperate. He attempted to stab him with tentacles that were sucked away, ordered wave after wave of poison insects on suicide flights, yet the monk refused to back down. His vision grew dark, his wind tunnel growing ever wider, but he refused to stop.
"Close your hand, monk!" Naraku howled. "Or you and your companions shall die as well!"
"They won't die-" Miroku jerked his head at the small group that was surrounded by sutras glowing with holy power, "-but we will."
And so they did.
Kagome could only remember bits and pieces of what happened after Miroku had stormed out to confront Naraku.
She could recall his anguished, enraged face, staring down the enemy that had ruined his life. She had thought of his bravery, his selflessness. Would she ever be that strong, that magnificent?
She remembered her terrified screams when he vanished, swallowed by the very blight that had so tormented him his entire life. Naraku had been unable to resist the onslaught of power, and was dragged down along with him, Sacred Jewel and all.
She remembered the kazaana vanishing along with the evil hanyou, and her wish that Miroku could have lived to see it.
She remembered becoming insubstantial, Shippo sliding from her ghostly arms and landing in a heap. She departed with the jewel. Her purpose had been served.
And so time cracked, the clock turned back, and life began anew.
