Disclaimer: No I do not own Inuyasha. I am borrowing him. Look out, there is no happy ending for this story.
Selfishness is vice. Vice leads to destruction. Kagome did not mean to harbor selfishness in her heart. It came against her unwillingly, germinating in her own heart like a craggy thorn intent on breaking her apart. Kagome abhorred selfishness.
Yet it was still there. Her one true fault, the sacred jewel knew, was her inability to transcend humanity. She was no divine being or immortal saint. Only human.
The jewel knew this and it listened. Tears seeped, dripping down onto the hand of the maiden whom guarded it. The sacred jewel laid in wait, gleaming dark and unholy in its modest glass prison.
"I wish she was gone from our lives forever!" the anguished one said, a tormented cry tearing from her lips against her wishes as the sacred jewel reflected on her own. But then the young maiden stopped, raising a quavering hand to her tear spattered cheek. "Have I truly become such a terrible person?" she murmured. "I probably have a terrible face right now. I can't face him. I can't let him see me like this." With that she turned on her heel, and any unholy wish the jewel might have contemplated granting was wrenched from transient fate. Kagome had escaped. For now.
The journey in the world beyond the well continued, unended. Time found the sacred jewel pieced together, as much from its own actions as that of those enviously desiring it. The jewel waited, biding its time as the thorns worked their way through the veins of its prey.
Love thwarted it. Kagome's heart proved too pure hate anyone, even Kikyo. The jewel scorned.
But footsteps fell, crouching, faltering, as they must ultimately would, leading the love-steeped maiden down to kneel in the clutches of fate. Just like Kikyo.
"I love him," Kagome sat around a campfire one night. The sacred jewel in its entirety winked within her fingertips, daring her to claim its promises. "I love Inuyasha so much. I want him to be happy, Sango, even if it means him being with Kikyo. But it hurts so much. I just wish he had never fallen in love with Kikyo."
An unholy light swirled unbidden. Kagome found herself gulping in a burst of blood tinged pink. Miasma and spiritual power both flashed before her, twining together in towers of blue clashes and spires of red. A new light consumed her, and she began to see things as they were never meant to be seen. Realization came with cruelty.
"If Inuyasha never loved Kikyo," said Kagome from her gravity-less tomb, "then…" Time rent before her as the past became no more.
It all happened simultaneously. The sacred jewel pulsed and then, the tragic truth could be seen. Back then Inuyasha did not love her. Since he could not love anyone, they traveled as strangers. Back then Inuyasha did not protect Kagome. Yura tore out her heart instead. Back then when he awakened, he had killed her without delay. Back then there was no back then as the jewel found its final resolution.
A fragile, snowy hand pushed back a bamboo curtain. The sorrowed melody of its owner's voice could be heard and a miko entered. She silently removed her soaked socks and sandals to come sit by the warmth of a sunken hearth. A gentle creak of wooden boards was the only break in the quiet, aside from the faint crackling of a cooking fire.
"Kaede," the regal one said, lowering a straw hat to the floor. Its dusting of snow vanished in the vapors of heat. "It is done."
"What is done, big sister?" The young girl spoke reverently, focusing both eyes wholly upon her kind and idol. In her ambitions to swallow the vision, she nearly dropped her ladel.
"I destroyed the half-demon today. I do not know why I hesitated for so long." Kikyo accepted a bowl of hot stew as she stated this impassively. This was an unimportant conversation to her. It was if they were speaking of some stray dog, or perhaps a nuisance rat that had scuttled beneath the floorboards and chewed on their bedding.
"That's good sister," Kaede responded. "He was a little scary." Kikyo nodded and the conversation was over. Or so Kaede thought. Her elder sister remained absorbed in the deeds of the day until she finally found expression.
"The jewel did something unusual today," said Kikyo fingering it gently. "While I was dispatching the half-demon the jewel burned dark for only a moment. It became necessary for me to purify it. It was almost as if the jewel had been used in order to fulfill some selfish desire." Kaede blinked, half-frightened by the admission.
"Do you think the hanyou did it?" she asked fretfully.
"It is unlikely."
The eerie conversation dropped. The comfortable, shallow companionship the two sisters shared returned instead, each thinking in their own universe. Kaede looked down into her soup bowl and it was as if there was a question there floating upon the surface. She took it up immediately. Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom after all.
"Big sister, do you think anything bad will come of it?" Kaede asked this curiously. Sometimes, killing one demon meant facing the revenge of other demons.
"I doubt it." Kikyo's chilled voice continued. She breathed gently on a spoonful of stew to cool it. "He was a half-demon, despised by humans and demons alike. No one will miss him."
"Not even you big sister?"
"Not even I," said Kikyo. Soon the firelight dwindled. The two sisters curled up in the same bedding to keep warm. Silence uttered. Between the two sisters there was happiness. But inside the jewel there was disharmony. A screaming pain inside continued as ever it had and ever it would, with one little difference.
As Kikyo lay there lost in the somber moods of her subtle dreams, she dreamt she could hear someone sobbing. The heart-torn wails touched the miko for some reason she could not fathom. It was almost as if it was she who was mourning. But the veil between dreams and the waking world remained untorn. Ultimately, Kikyo's restlessness faded and the miko fell into deeper, quieter dreams. Kikyo failed to notice the beads of moisture that formed along the jewel's surface. No one saw, or even sorrowed for the sacred jewel as it cried.