through a lot. Why does everyone hate her so much?
This is my first Inuyasha fanfic. Reveiws are greatly
appreciated, I could use the feedback.
Update 9/29/01: Fixed Kikyou's age. Thanks for
pointing out I had it wrong, Cat Who.
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Reflections: Kikyou
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I still remember the day they gave me the
Shikon Jewel.
I was sixteen. Kaede was eight. We lived by
ourselves. Our parents had died a few years earlier,
leaving a fourteen-year-old to take care of
her little sister and take on her mother's duties
as priestess. The townspeople helped me raise
Kaede, of course. Especially after she got in the
way while I was battling a youkai and got hurt.
I think they took such good care of her because
they felt sorry for her. I had a reputation for
sometimes being cold and unfeeling, and I know
how some of the villagers felt about me. I
knew about the hard stares directed at my back
and the whispered words of derision exchanged
when they thought I couldn't hear. None of
them dared to say anything to my face. I had
power and status; my parents had been important.
And my little sister loved me with a particular
fierceness, and none of them wanted to hurt her
by insulting me.
I was powerful in those days, and I suppose my
reputation spread. Less than a week after my
sixteenth birthday, a married couple with their
son came to the village requesting to talk with me.
Kaede led them to our cottage, and they asked
me to keep the jewel, to purify and protect it.
I accepted the responsibility, and may very well
have been damned from the moment I took the
jewel from the man's hand.
That couple was Sango's grandparents. Their son
was her father, later killed at the hands of his own
son when Naraku chose Kohaku as a pawn.
A year passed by peacefully enough, and I was
seventeen, and Kaede was nine. And then he appeared
out of nowhere, his long white hair flying behind him
as he attacked the village. I still don't know where
Inuyasha came from. I've since learned about his
lineage; I know about Sesshoumaru and who his
father was. I can't even begin to imagine what his
childhood was like.
He tried to steal the Jewel, and I fought him off
easily. I was more than a match for him those days,
at the height of my powers. As time passed and he
showed up more and more, I got used to him. Kaede
never did. She hated him as much as she loved me.
The first time he didn't try to attack was about six
months after he had initially come out of the forest
to take our little village by storm. I was in a field
near the village, watching over Kaede and several
of the village children as they gathered herbs for the
local healer. I heard a noise in the bushes behind
me, and then he was there. We had last fought just
a few days before, and he asked me once again why I
refused to kill him.
That day changed everything. To this day I'm not sure
how I answered him, or even if I had time to answer
before one of the children turned and saw him next to
me. She screamed. He swore and left, disappearing back
into the forest. After that day, we began to grow closer.
Our battles were over, and we would sit and cautiously
exchange a few brief words, and then our conversations
began to get longer and longer. Kaede snuck from the
village once and caught us together, and I could barely
calm her down. She still harbored a bitter dislike for
him, hating him more than anything.
I loved him.
It wasn't long after I realized that that Onigumo
appeared. Kaede warned me about him time after
time, often yelling and once becoming so frantic
that she reduced herself to tears of anger and fear.
She knew him for what he was, somehow sensing
what he would become. I didn't fear him. He
was paralyzed and would never move from his
spot in that cave.
Then he disappeared. Kaede was terrified and
tried to persuade me to take some sort of action,
but there was nothing I could do. I still believed
myself to be strong enough to defeat him, anyway.
The next day I sealed Inuyasha away and died.
I had been mortally wounded and went willingly
to my death, taking the Shikon Jewel with me.
I believed if it was gone, out of reach of those
who would use it for evil, the world might be
improved in some small way.
I found out I was wrong fifty years later when I
was ripped from the afterlife by a demoness named
Urasue, given a hastily constructed body of dirt
and bones, and reduced to stealing souls to survive
as I watched my beloved fall in love with a girl who
has my face.
And survive I must, until the day a hanyou named
Inuyasha dies with me. I died hating him, and
some part of my soul is forever locked in statis
in that position. I hate him, and I will not return
to my rest without bringing him with me. And
yet I somehow love him still. I didn't want to
return to this life, and yet a part of me is glad
even for this sham body of dirt and bones. My
soul is torn, pulled in two different directions. I
cling to the emotions I died with, and yet desire
nothing more than to forget the past and see the
truth, and the future.
His future, that is. My future is over, except for
her; the one who had the Jewel enclosed within
her flesh. The one who is me and isn't. My
reincarnation. She is his future, and loves him as
he loves her. I know him well enough to see that,
even if he doesn't know it himself. When the
jewel is whole once again, he will become human
to be with her.
I see that too.
And as for my own existence… I am here to kill
him, and yet can't. She won't let me, though I
have the power. And I can't allow myself to do it.
I loved him once, too much to destroy him now.
So I wander, still sealing souls to live, still not
knowing my true purpose.
When their quest is finished, I will perhaps go
quietly to my grave once again. I know Inuyasha
and Kaede would prefer it that way. My presence
makes them uncomfortable. They don't like seeing
me like this, a shadow of the past that doesn't belong
in the present. It's not what I want to be, not how I
want to be seen. And I have my own discomforts,
here in the present, fifty years after my death. It
hurts to simply look at my sister; her age reminds
me of how long I was gone. I should return to the
afterlife.
But I can't, and won't. Peace is still denied to me.
I still can't rest.
Sometimes I wonder if Naraku ordered Urasue to bring
me back.
Naraku.. Hell. A fitting name, for Hell is where he has
put the the people whose lives he has touched. Myself.
Inuyasha. Kagome. Kaede. Sango. Miroku. Shippo.
Naraku is truly to blame, for all of this.
Perhaps soon I'll make him pay, and claim peace for
myself once again.