Title: If He Hadn't Interfered
Author: SakuraRyuu
Rating: K
Genre: Canon, Angst, Friendship
Characters: Inuyasha, Kagome, Kikyo, Miroku, Sango, Shippo
Author's Note: Inuyasha and all characters in this fan fiction are the property of Rumiko Takahashi.
There had been so much that had happened for all of them, bringing people together and tearing them apart. The Sengoku Jidai was already a dangerous place with roaming bandits, poor medical practices and archaic methods, childbirth was dangerous, disease was almost impossible to stop, and drought or flooding would ruin crops, causing food shortages and starvation. Simple things that could be easily fixed in Kagome's time easily killed in Inuyasha's. Naraku's existence changed dangerous living conditions to deadly.
Had the bandit Onigumo simply died from his injuries, he never would have met Kikyo, and Inuyasha's wish would have caused the Sacred Jewel to disappear. He would have been human, stayed with Kikyo, ad died young like so many other humans of his time. If Onigumo had died, Inuyasha never would have met or traveled with Kagome, and they never would have saved Shippo.
Shippo's father probably still would have died, but the young fox kit never would have tried to find the jewel shards to avenge him, therefore, never meeting Kagome. What would have happened to him in a world where he was alone? Would he have stayed the passionate, loving child he was or would a life of growing up without a parent harden and change him?
Kohaku never would have destroyed Sango's family without Naraku's influence. The demon slayer village would still exist. Sango and Kohaku probably would have been married off to people from their village and lived the life generations of villagers before them lived.
Miroku? He probably would have ended up killed by an angry husband, or cheated village headman. Had Naraku never interfered with his lineage, Miroku wouldn't have had a purpose in life, aside of womanizing or cheating people. He certainly never would have met Sango.
For as much as Naraku was key, so was Kagome. It was her influence that kept them all together. She changed Inuyasha, made him better. She took care of Shippo, letting him stay the child he needed to be. Without Kagome, Miroku and Sango wouldn't have come together. Kagome and Inuyasha finally destroyed the jewel, ending the horrible cycle of it's existence.
They all had started their Naraku-influenced journeys alone, but thanks to Naraku; they all were brought together to finish it in a life together. If ever a group of people lived that needed the help and influence of the people around them, this group of five were the beginning. They wouldn't have been who they were, nor would they be where they were, if it wasn't for the relationships they made that lasted them till the end.