The first thing I've posted on this site since 2011. Maybe a few of my old readers and friends are still out there
Inuyasha smiles fondly even though the twinge in his heart still hurts. He places a single flower on a grave. He doesn't know what the name of it is, just knows that it always reminded Kagome of her mother.
He's lost track of the years—eight, nine? Times passes so strangely to him now. But whatever it is, it's too long.
He misses her every single day. It's different from those three years, the ones right after Naraku's defeat. He missed her then but he knew she was safe in her own time, surrounded by her family.
But now her soul is elsewhere, resting peacefully. They had a wonderful life together.
She emerged from that well and he couldn't really believe it. She was back permanently this time. Once it all sank in, he remembers a part of him feeling angry. She had a family, a thing he always yearned for, and she threw it away. For him.
It took him time to realize that she didn't throw them away as if the thought of them was a piece of trash. Kagome had sacrificed. For him. And those two things are not the same.
Where Miroku and Sango decided to settle down and have children, they did not. What he and Kagome had, will always have, is special but not the same as their relationship. They never married, never had kids, never settled in one place for too long.
Inuyasha loves her. She was his best friend, his family, the sibling he never truly had. And she thought of him the same way. They were inseparable. It wasn't long after Kagome returned that they decided to leave the village. But it remained their 'home base' as Kagome called it. It still is an important place to him, even if the village is now so different from all those decades ago.
He's been to many villages, met many people, fought thousands of demons in his lifetime. He and Kagome traveled far and wide—it felt the most natural to them after traveling so much on the hunt for Naraku. Except this time around was vastly different. They moved at a leisurely pace not dictated by Naraku or the jewel shards. They saved many people, helped half-demons like himself. The pair gave them all hope.
"I miss you," he says. Every time he visits, he hopes for a response.
The anger of his more youthful years has tempered over time. Still gruff and sometimes a pain in the ass though, acquaintances have joked in the past. But the pain from his childhood, from the things with Kikyo, from Naraku—he's let a lot of it go.
'Let go' doesn't sound like quite enough for him. He's learned to accept and move on, remember but not descend into rage. Kagome has taught him a lot and he hopes he was able to return the favor.
"I'm happy. I've lived a long life with you and I have no regrets."
The words Kagome said to him as she lay dying in their village. Even though they hadn't wanted to stay, coming back always felt like home. She wouldn't have wanted to be any place else for her final moments on earth.
Inuyasha is happy as well. He travels alone now but he's never really alone. The memories of his friends keep him company. And years from now, when it's finally his time to go, he'll return to this village once more and rejoin them.