After spending so much of my time doing his bidding, I finally have some time to myself to relax without the worry of constantly being watched.
As I lay beneath the stark, unyielding blue sky, clear of any clouds that could obstruct my view, I soaked in the tranquility and silence that filled this place. This place…this is where Sango and I used to come as children and picked flowers. It seems like over a lifetime ago.
While gazing up at the sky, a flock of birds flew across the patch that I was focused on in V-formation. As I watched them fly I raised one hand out as if reaching to touch them, even though I knew that I could not. I wanted to be as free from the chains that bound most creatures to this earth as they were, seemingly untouchable.
Of course, I thought as I slowly brought my hand back down, I know this is not true. Lives, especially human lives, are fragile. I should know this better than anyone. I, who took the lives of my kin with my own two hands. I began to feel what would be the beginning of a steady flow of tears appear in the corners of my eyes, and I covered my face with one arm in an attempt to stop them from coming.
While what felt like a never ending stream of tears ran down my face in rivulets, I could not stop my thoughts from turning back to the events of that day. I remembered my world beginning to darken, seeing images of my father and comrades dying around me as though from far away through a tunnel. I remembered becoming fully aware of myself again, and with it followed the horror that accompanied the realization of what I had done.
In my chest it felt as though an iron hand had a hold of my heart and was slowly beginning to crush me. The more constricted it became, the more difficult it was for me to just keep breathing. I curled up on my side as I waited for the iron hand to loosen its hold on me.
I should have died that day. Everyone I knew and loved has gone from this world, save for my sister. I should have followed them, but my soul was made to linger.
My thoughts then turned to the one who was the cause of all my pain. Naraku…
My hands gripped at the earth beneath me as they balled into fists. He was the mastermind behind the massacre of my village and the one who manipulated me into killing almost all of the demon slayers, including my father. Even now, he continues to use me and control me through the jewel shard embedded in my back. To him, we are nothing but the mere pieces in a game he is playing, waiting for the day when he will have no more use for us and will end it all with death.
All of this may be true, a small voice whispered inside of me. …But the truth is that the only reason he was able to control you was because you were weak. They were always looking out for you, and in the end, it was because of your weakness that everybody died.
By this time my tears had dried, and the iron hand which had been crushing me before now became the armor I wore around my heart to remind me of what I must do. I whispered a prayer, a promise, which no one but the dead could hear.
I picked myself up off the grassy ground, surrounded by the flowers that my sister and I had loved to pick so much, and started heading back towards the direction from which I came. I paused at the edge of the clearing, looked back at this beloved and familiar place for what would probably be for the last time, and then turned away.
I can never take back what had happened that day. I can never undo what has been done. All I can do is keep moving forward, one step at a time, down the path that I have chosen for myself. Down the path that leads to Naraku's destruction. This is the promise that I made to myself, to my sister, and to all the departed here underneath this deep blue sky; and it is for this purpose that I shall live my life from this point onward.