InuYasha nodded dejectedly at his mourning companions. "Go on ahead. I'll finish up here," He urged. Miroku slipped an arm around the crying Sango, and Shippo cuddled a keening Kilala. They left together, slowly, in pain. InuYasha went to Naraku's corpse and briskly searched him for the shards trying to do anything to distract his mind, keep it numb. He placed them by the largest shard of all, a necklace that had been Kagome's and seemingly magnetically they attracted. At last, the Shikon was one.
It was a bitter victory. He knelt by the freshly turned earth, and dug deeply into a rock with his claws, carving the words:
Kagome, priestess of another world, guardian of the shattered jewel and beloved of the demon who failed to protect her.
Closing his eyes against the pain of the too-late confession, he reached up and pulled the now-void spell beads from around his neck, replacing them with the Shikon. Carefully, he placed the rock and the necklace at the head of Kagome's grave.
&
Naraku had been long-dead, and the only shards they needed were those held by Kouga. Since Kouga had claimed Kagome as "his woman", Miroku pointed out that they had the perfect bait.
"I shouldn't have agreed to this!" Kagome fretted, watching the dog and the wolf battle hours later. Songo squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
At the moment of his strike, his left arm flinches, leaving him wide open, InuYasha thought desperately. If I could just...
Kouga growled in triumph at the sight of a badly injured InuYasha dropping the Tetsusaiga, his throat bare as he fell toward the ground. Kagome screamed as the wolf lunged forward...
...Into InuYasha's claws as the dog-demon ferociously sank his hand into Kouga's left lung and heart. Kouga howled in pain, his body's momentum still carrying him forward. Kouga bit deeply into InuYasha's shoulder, and InuYasha reflexively flung his head back in agony.
Kouga's dying act was to rip InuYasha's throat out.
Kagome screamed in anguish, and she collapsed to the forest floor. Sango tried to support the sobbing woman, as Miroku went to the tangled heap of the two bodies and retrieved the shards. Hesitantly, he approached the two girls and held out the shards, which bound into their proper places in the jewel around Kagome's neck.
Shippo helped him bury InuYasha, then burn and scatter the ashes of Kouga. Kagome looked up at him with deadened eyes.
"Please. Take the others and wait for me in the village." She whispered. Miroku nodded and gently laid a hand under Sango's elbow, leading her off to leave Kagome with InuYasha's grave.
Kagome lifted the blade that InuYasha dropped, but was too shocked to care when it leapt into full glory for her. Carefully, she used it to inscribe a rock with:
Here lies the half-demon InuYasha, beloved of the priestess Kagome. In death, may he be freed of the half-life that afflicted him so.
Carefully, she pushed the rock to the head of his grave. Lifting the Tetsusaiga over her head, she thrust downward, the sword biting deeply into the stone. Its transformation reversed, leaving only the battered remains of InuYasha's beloved blade.
&
InuYasha's sensitive nose took in the scent of the direction his friends had taken. He turned and took the alternate path back into the village. He found himself at the old well and paused, figuring that someone should inform Kagome's family.
He stood there for an eternity, trying to convince his body to enter the well. Abruptly, he turned away, flinging himself against the god-tree. The tears he had been trying to deny fell fast and furiously as he dug into the bark, clinging to it as his last support. Here, he had seen her for the first time, and here, here alone could he admit her loss.
A single tear hit the Shikon jewel around his neck, and it began to glow softly...
&
Kagome ran, stumbling through the underbrush, falling and rising again to run on, trying to escape the pain of loosing him.
She tripped again, and fell hard, bruising her back against the hard edge of the well. She knelt there, sobbing, not noticing the gleam of the Shikon as a single tear struck it...
&
He couldn't stand it. He couldn't go on living without Kagome. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the small, sharp knife she had brought for him from the future. Trembling, he laid it against his wrist.
&
She couldn't stand it. She couldn't go on living without InuYasha. She stood and posed for a moment on the edge of the well, sighting on a sharp bone beneath her.
&
InuYasha made a quick, deep slash.
Kagome jumped.
&
The Shikon jewel flared, blinding both would-be suicides. The knife jerked at the critical moment, and the sharp bone was a few inches to far to the right. Kagome cried out in pain.
In a flash, InuYasha was down the well, lifting Kagome out into the brilliant light of the forest clearing. He tore a strip from his shirt, bandaging her even as she sat up and took his wrist between her hands to staunch the flow.
"How are you-" They cried in unison, then cut themselves off, each staring at the other's Shikon. Slowly, InuYasha pulled his from around his neck, holding it near hers. The two Jewels of Four Souls merged into one.
Sango, Miroku, and Shippo pelted into the glade, alarmed by the flare of red light from the old forest. They froze, staring as InuYasha rose and helped Kagome to her feet. The two stared at each other wonderingly for a moment.
With a low growl, InuYasha clutched Kagome to him, bringing his lips down to capture his with her own. Her eyes flew momentarily wide with surprise, then closed as she leaned into his kiss.
Sango wasn't fast enough to stop Miroku, who placed two fingers to his lips in a wolf-whistle. The lovers broke apart, Kagome blushing, InuYasha flashing him an obscene gesture. Sango elbowed him, privately wondering what had happened between the dog demon and the priestess to gain a reaction like that.
"I thought you two went to Kagome's world to live?" Shippo asked, inwardly reflecting that he would never understand adults.
"We changed our minds," He growled, a question in his eyes. Kagome shrugged and mouthed,
A third reality, separate from yours or mine?
He shrugged and bent to pick up the Tetsusaiga. He placed an arm around her waist and looked questioningly at her. She nodded, and together the companions all returned to the village together.