Author Note: What can I say I was originally possessed to write this for iyfic-challenge for the challenge this week, which ironically was happy endings. Well it didn't turn out to be all that happy. So here's to hoping you enjoy my moment of insanity. It's a one shot, though if you've read my other work you'll probably notice that the main characters name pops up there too. What can I say...I like the name.

White Lotus

Kirika's fingers curled around the fragile green stem, crushing the leaf blades. It was said that the lotus was the wisest of them all. It knew where to bloom and how to bloom. The purest flower of all was born in adversity. White bangs wafted in her face, obscuring her vision of the grave before her. It was almost too small to be noticeable anymore, and yet it commanded her attention all the more. She dropped to her knees, digging her claws into the muck of ages past and drew aside the veil of vines. Kagome Higurashi, her fingers traced the script.

"Where are we going," Kirika asked, her little feet working hard to keep up with the stride of Aunt Kagome. "Auntie Kagome…"

Her aunt drew to a halt almost as if her voice had snapped her out of the hectic pace she was keeping. Long dark hair swirled around a face still young but dotted in places with the passage of time. Brown eyes reflected the smile upon her lips. Kagome knelt down before her, the folds of her auburn and gold kimono swirling down around her. "Want to see something special," Kagome asked.

Auntie Kagome always liked taking her places. It was almost like Kagome thought she was someone else. They were always fun journey's to go on, so she nodded in the affirmative.

Kagome plucked her from the ground settling her and all of her kimonos on one hip. Father didn't like that Kirika spent so much time with his bastard of a brother, but she liked Kagome. She liked Kagome's stories of adventures and places too magical to even be real. Places where trader carts were so big they took up entire fields, Kagome called them stores. Where things called rockets shot off to the moon.

What she got to see that afternoon was an old well. Its boards were worn and beaten. The forest surrounding it had closed in. It was curious that the forest was named after uncle, but it wasn't worth the effort to discover why. "Do you know what this is," Kagome asked.

"It's a well," Kirika hopped down from her Aunt's arms to stand on the well's edge. She peeked downward into the dark depths. "It's an empty well."

"This well can take you to the future." Kagome knelt next to it, settling her arms across the lip of the well. Kirika sat down next to her. "I came from the other side of it."

"You mean there's a world down there." She looked down into the well, wishing that she could see the same world that Aunt Kagome saw. Surely the well wasn't big enough for an entire world. "But how do you fit an entire world into a well?"

"Think of it more like a doorway."

"Oh." Kirika's brow knotted together, drawing down the blue crescent of the moon clan. "Is it closed? Can we go there?"

"It's still open." Kagome's face filled with sadness. "Sometimes I write to them, my family, and I'll drop it into the well."

"Do they write back?"

"I was the only one who could use it," Kagome replied. "Would you do something for me?"

Kirika nodded, her golden eyes still looking down into the well's depths.

"Would you seal it for me?"

"But why," her tiny face scrunched in unhappiness. Kirika was unhappy because Aunt Kagome seemed unhappy. "Don't you want to see them?"

"Because I've chosen my happy ending."

Uncle Inu-Yasha was waiting for them when they came out of the forest. His hand twitched as if it wanted a reason to reach for the Tessaiga, but the only thing he did was turn his golden eyes upon the ground. Kirika blinked, finding herself surprised by her uncle's reaction. He was not one to show sadness; at least he did not choose to show it very often. "You had her do it!" His hands clenched and there was a hint of a growl in his voice. "I told you that you didn't have to."

Kagome left Kirika's side, her stride only stopping just shy of bumping into his chest. Why was she not looking up from the ground? "Stop it," Kagome's voice was just barely audible. Inu-Yasha's head snapped up from the ground as if Kagome had slapped him. "I said good-bye a long time ago," her words were choked with soft sobs.

Kirika hadn't heard much of the rest of the conversation between the two, Rin, who had been sent by her father, had come to take her home. She did remember that time and time again Kagome had told him that she had her happy ending. That being with him would be enough. At that age, Kirika hadn't understood that not all happy endings were like the ones in the fairy tale books. That sometimes to get to the happy part, you had to pass through unhappiness first. Over the years, Aunt Kagome had been happy, just like she had said.

Kirika's claws dug into the gravestone nearest Kagome's feeling the need to remember that though they often hadn't acted like it, they really had loved each other. Her fingers traced the script of Inu-Yasha's name. He'd wanted it that way. He'd wanted to be next to her in death as he had been in life. "I understand now," she whispered to the stones. "I understand why it had to be me Aunt Kagome."

Five hundred years had passed since the day she had sealed it. Now all that was left was to unseal it once again. Her white coat swirled around her as she left the stones behind. The only evidence of her being there was a single white lotus and the rending of the earth. Dawn peeked up above the mountains, reminding her that she did not have much time in which to unseal the well.

This story she knew by heart, on her fifteenth birthday Kagome Higurashi was taken five hundred years into the past by a centipede known only as Mukade Jourou. The centipede had been revived, according to Kagome, by the power of the Shikon no Tama. Unbeknownst to Kagome the Shikon no Tama was safely ensconced in her abdomen. Mukade Jourou would bring about the awakening of the hanyou, Inu-Yasha and the return of the Shikon to the Sengoku Jidai.

A part of Kirika wondered if the story would play out exactly as Kagome had said it had. Would the flow of time end up being the same, or would it differ just a little bit. According to the science books at school, if one traveled back in time, anything they did in the past would affect their present. It was a little strange that in her world everything that Kagome had done in the past had already affected Kagome's present. Kirika wondered what Einstein would think of the well's power. A well that transcended time would be a hard pill to swallow for such a brilliant scientist, almost as much as creatures that could appear as both animal and man. Her hands pried apart the boards. Boards that were in a sense useless, considering that the well was sleeping. Kirika considered it curious that an old empty well would be boarded over in such a manner. It wasn't like anything was going to come popping out of it.

"You're really going to go through with this."

She smiled at the sound of Shippou's voice. "Time flows circularly for Aunt Kagome. What happens in the past affects her present, Shippou-kun." Kirika turned away from the well towards where the kitsune sat, perched on the railing. He wasn't all that different from the little boy Kagome met in the past, save that he was older. His form had filled out to be taller and broader than Inu-Yasha's, though he hadn't lost the paws for feet. In reality, his appearance was according to his wishes, where as when he was younger it was the only form he knew. "Must we have this conversation, again?"

"Sometimes I wonder if it really was worth her coming back to us." His shoulders shrugged. "But then who am I to deny fate."

"Shippou-kun…" Her hands upon the lip of the well Kirika hesitated. "Do you think she enjoyed her happy ending?"

"What do you mean?"

"The day I sealed this well, she kept telling him that this was the happy ending that she wanted. I was just curious, if you thought it was the right one."

"Isn't it a little late for that."

There were times in her life that Shippou ended up sounding like Inu-Yasha. When he did it was like being with uncle again. In the end, Uncle Inu would have told her to do as she pleased. Well, there was no time like the present to get it over with. Couldn't screw up the time line by hesitating, after all she might cause Naraku to live by accident.

As she plummeted into the darkness of the old well Kirika wondered if the powers of the white lotus would work a second time. The white lotus had been housed within her mother and reborn in herself, but she hadn't been able to access its power unless inside the well. She'd used it without even really understanding it the first time. And yet somehow Kagome had known about it.

The thought had barely finished when an arch of pain froze her body. Kirika's head flung back, a growl of pain reverberating against the walls of the well. Wrapped around her wrists, plunged into the fragile space at the join that separated hand and forearm, were the offending invaders the well had sent. They were crawlers with deep thorns that kept her from truly plummeting to the bottom. Kirika had forgotten that part.

Dokkasou flared into her veins, rushing on instinct to remove the offending invader. In a moment the well's tenuous link with the lotus would be broken. She drew Dokkasou back, feeling the lotus twine itself in the grasp of the well. The magic flowed once again catching her in its grasp, drawing her down into the flow of time once again.

The world of the well spun and danced before Kirika's eyes for a moment, before dropping her at the bottom. She looked upwards, wondering what year it was. Wondering why the well had stopped her here. Looking up she saw the roof of the well house and yet there was something odd about it. It was like it was the well house roof, but it wasn't all at the same time. The same naked beams that had spanned to the peak in her present were still there, but something was missing.

"Nine, eight," Kagome's voice rang from up above. "Seven…six…five…four…three…two…one….Ready or not here I come."

"Hide and go seek," her golden eyes blinked in surprise. This couldn't be right. The Kagome of the present was too old to play that game and this one still had the squeak of childhood in her voice.

"Eri, come out…come out where ever you are."

This was not right at all. The well had always gone back five hundred years. Why would it dump her out in Kagome's childhood? A squeal rang from up above her and without even thinking, her arms snapped out to catch the falling child. It was only after Kirika had caught the girl that she even considered that simply catching her would change the time line. "Are you alright," Kirika asked, only to bite down on her tongue to keep the cry of surprise from escaping her mouth.

With wide brown eyes, Kagome started to reach for her white hair or maybe she was reaching for the pointed ears. Either way it was not a good situation to be in. Her future Aunt was standing just before Kirika, her pudgy hands tugging at the strand of white hair in her grasp. And yet Kagome was smiling as she did it. No cry of surprise and no fear were in the girl's expression. "It's so pretty," she squealed. "I wish mine were like yours."

The pull of the well was tugging at her more forcefully than the girl was on her hair. "I have to go now." Kirika unwound the girl's fingers from her hair. "You might want to have someone board up the well to keep anyone from falling in again. Wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

"Will you come back," Kagome's face fell as the last strand was pulled from her grasp.

"You'll get to see me again, I promise."

Kagome's bright smile followed her as the well dragged her once again through time. This time it was different. She didn't drop to the bottom of the well when the journey ended, instead she hung in the moment between times. The well had wound itself around her legs, sending creepers up her body. Yes, this was like it had been the last time. The creepers would consume her and once it knew where to begin and end the journey it would drop her back at the beginning. In the end it was simple. Only a creature that was partially out of the grip of time could set the markers in time for the well. Once the markers were set, Kirika's power over the well would end. The well would deny her after that.

"Kirika," his voice sounded frantic. Why was it frantic? It wasn't like she was dying. She just wanted to sleep for a very long time. Yes, sleep would be nice. "Kirika wake up…please, wake up."

"Did…did it work?"

"Yes." Her body screamed in pain as he gripped her tighter. It was annoying that he wasn't aware that unsealing took a great deal more out of her than sealing had. Couldn't he see the wounds on her wrists, the bruises that marked her body? Oh, that's right he couldn't see them. He was too kind to take advantage the way another might. "Everything happened just as she said it did."

"Well I hope she enjoys her happy ending." The exhaustion had somehow crept into her voice. "I'm certain father will be most displeased to lose that arm of his again." Shippou's laughter followed her into the dream world.