Disclaimer: The characters within this story all belong to Takahashi-san.
Warnings: Clean.
Summary: He's waited five hundred years to meet her again, and after only eight short years, he's got to leave her along for another ten.
Completed: January 5, 2010
Wait
by: Kagome-reincarnation
"Onii-chan!" Kagome cried out gleefully when she caught sight of her favorite person. Without a moment's hesitation, she dropped her school bag and ran towards him from the shrine gate, her outstretched arms obviously expecting the customary hug that she received whenever she saw him.
The black-haired man turned around at her call, surprised. The surprise, however, quickly changed to an amused smile when he saw her running at him so happily. Knowing full well what was coming, he opened his own arms and stooped to pick her up, spinning her around a couple of times before settling her on his hip. "How have you been, Kagome-chan?" he asked her with a smile.
"I've been a good girl!" she said proudly. "How about you, onii-chan?"
The black-haired man chuckled at her, tossing her up for a moment before catching her. "I've been doing okay," he told her before setting her back on her feet. Then, remembering that she'd left her bag, he reminded her of it: "Go get your backpack before some bird takes it away."
Alarmed at the thought, the little girl immediately turned tail to run for her bag. Once there, she picked it up, slinging it over her small shoulders easily.
Inuyasha felt a pang of sorrow at the casual move that he'd seen so many times five centuries ago. After Kagome had disappeared, it just hadn't been the same anymore. Unable to concentrate on anything else, he'd barely made it through each day. He'd completely lost touch with the world when he'd realized that the well had stopped working.
Seeing her in the hospital on the day she'd been born had been a relief to him. An ache in his chest that he hadn't even noticed immediately eased. It was as though the sun was shining more brightly – as though the very colors around him had grown more vibrant.
He'd been happy to see her again, even if she was only just being born.
Inuyasha looked down as Kagome tugged on his hand. "Are you coming or not?" she pouted up at him, leading him towards her house.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," he chuckled at her blatant ploys for his attention. He couldn't help but wonder if Kagome had always been so adorable before promptly finding his mind wandering in territory he didn't want to deal with because of the headaches and migraines: time travel, the time-space continuum, and the fourth dimension.
He thought about the family as he observed the tree branches rustling in the wind. The colors were changing and he knew the leaves would soon be falling. It was just too bad that he'd be gone before he could help rake them up again this year.
From five years before Kagome's birth, he'd begun coming to the shrine to pray. Once every two months, at least. Through his constant prayers and contributions to the shrine, he'd grown close with Kagome's mother and father, though the grandfather still tried to stick him with his useless ofuda.
He'd anonymously given them money – which they'd been wary of accepting at first, but had begun to accept has some shrine-visiting sponsor that didn't want to be known by anyone yet.
While they were correct, he certainly wasn't going to point it out to them. He'd waited far too long to blow his identity away like that. It hadn't been easy getting to where he was. As it was, he now owned a bodyguard company and made more than enough to support the whole family and their grandchildren without lifting another finger.
His constant presence had made him a family friend, and that position gave him the privilege of being at the hospital to see his most beloved person in the universe entering the world.
He looked down at the top of her head as they entered her house, taking their shoes off at the front before entering the living space. It was too bad. He'd miss her.
"Oh, my! Is that you, Nuya-kun?" Kagome's mother called from the kitchen. He grinned. She'd know him as the brash Inuyasha in the future, but for now, Nuya was good.
"Hai," he called back. "I came to ask if I could take Kagome to the festival at the neighboring shrine."
While most shrines were competitive, he'd found that the Higurashi family found it silly and bothersome to compete in their service to the gods, because service was service and doing it the best one could was only to be expected. Kagome's jii-chan had explained to him quite thoroughly that they felt that it was a disservice to the gods to be so prideful about how much better one shrine was compared to another.
"We'd rather work our hardest here and be proud of it than work hard just for the sake of bragging," he'd explained. "Bragging rights don't get you any friends, but working well has given us you." He'd spoken with a twinkle in his eye, and Inuyasha had blinked in surprise. This was the old man that so frequently had attempted to abuse his strength and test his ofudas? He wondered if the old man had lost touch with the world when—
Inuyasha's eyes narrowed before softening. Kagome's father would be dying soon according to the timeline. He had to disappear before them so the rest of the timeline could follow suit as normally as possible.
"That's fine," the woman said cheerily. She'd trusted Nuya from the first day and he'd never given her any reason to doubt him. He was hoping she'd be his future mother-in-law, after all. "I've got to look after my husband anyways."
"Yay!" eight-year-old Kagome shrieked with joy, her simple and childish mind focusing only on the coming festival.
Inuyasha and her mother exchanged glances over her head. He mouthed a few words to her and she'd mouthed a few back. Her inaudible words hit him like a ton of bricks and, despite his own wants, realized what he had to do.
Today would be his last day with Kagome for a long time.
AN: Some words for those that do not know them. And yes, I do realize this one's a bit abrupt compared to the others. It depresses me. D:
onii-chan: older brother
ofuda: spiritual seal
jii-chan: grandfather