A/N: All credit to Rumiko Takahashi
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same"
—Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
It's over. The jewel, their common purpose, is completed and wished away in a sigh and a halo of pink light. Naraku, their common enemy, is defeated and less than a memory. It's over, and they should be happy, but neither of them can bring themselves to feel anything other than the rising howl of grief in the backs of their twin throats. Inuyasha, their common love, is a smear of white and red against brown earth. He is not breathing. He is not moving. It's over. He is dead.
Kagome wails out her misery like the last wolf howling at the last moon on the last night on earth. She has thrown herself over his still form as if she can hold life in with her slight form. Great, shuddering sobs shake her small body and please no please no please no chatters between her teeth even after dehydration and exhaustion stop the flow of tears. She sobs and calls his name even after blackness swallows her up and unconsciousness sets in. She isn't awake when Sango gently untangles her arms and pulls her against her chest like a child; like she could return Kagome to her heart to keep her safe from pain and the world. She doesn't move when Miroku, tears cutting tracks through the mud and blood caked thick on his face, settles Inuyasha across Kirara's back. She remains still when Shippo presses himself between Kagome and Sango, small and scared and filled with more pain than his little body can stand.
Kikyo stands farther away, watching the cleanup crew work. Her face is set in cold, dead lines; her bow is gripped loosely in a cold, dead hand. She knows what it takes to keep life tethered to a body that doesn't want it anymore. She knows how easy it is to slip through freshly made holes. Even if she could cry, even if the clay pot that keeps her trapped on earth were imbued with that sort of humanity and plumbing, she wouldn't. She isn't sad. Grief, emotions generally, are no longer a part of her. They burned up with the rest of her human form. Despite this, despite the very clear knowledge that she is physically incapable of feeling sad, her head feels wrapped in cotton and smoke. The only thought that runs through her mind is that she has been cheated, again, out of her hard-earned ending. It seems like anytime she gets close to something like satisfaction— love or death or her love in hell— fate yanks the prize back at the last second. She's a rabbit chasing a carrot on a string. It's a huge cosmic joke. She's a huge cosmic joke, and she's the only one not laughing. She turns away on ceramic legs and walks back out into the world. There is nothing left for her here. It's over.
But she doesn't go far. It's not that she can't. She could theoretically walk in a straight line until she reached the ocean and even then, she could keep going, putting one foot in front of the other as the water closed over her head and the sandy shore, Honshu, Japan, the continent, her past, would disappear behind her. She could walk across the bottom of the ocean until she comes to the edge of the world and she could walk right off and probably still keep going. She doesn't need to breathe. She doesn't need to eat or sleep or shit or die. She doesn't need anything. So she isn't sure why she stays. Part of her— the sentimental part— says that it's because she wants to make sure Inuyasha receives a proper burial. Another part of her— she doesn't know what to call this part— doesn't believe that it's over. She suspects that she's going to become something like a ghost. She'll haunt Inuyasha's forest and Kaede's village until some priest or priestess comes along and exorcises her. The thought isn't as depressing as it should be, but that's probably just because she doesn't have feelings.
"She's still here," Miroku says as he wipes grave dirt onto the front of his robes. "In the forest. I can sense her presence." He says it quietly out of the corner of his mouth to Sango, who nods and swings her gaze back to where Kagome sits, still as a doll, beside Inuyasha's grave.
Goshinboku stretches high above her, making her look even smaller than she really is. The well is ten feet away but home is five hundred years out of reach. It hasn't opened since she wished the jewel out of existence. There is nothing left for Kagome here and there is nowhere else for her to go. Grief has closed all the doors and windows in her mind. It's dark and it's quiet, but at least she is beyond the reach of heartbreak. She considers this an improvement.
Sango doesn't know what to do. Grief without rage isn't something she can empathize with. Personally, she's always filled the hollow void of loss with fire and she cannot understand why Kagome chooses to sit in the emptiness instead. There's no enemy to defeat here. All of Sango's normal strategies are useless. She remembers that day, years and lifetimes ago, when Kagome held her as she cried out her helpless rage over the loss of her brother. She wants to do the same for Kagome now, but Kagome hasn't cried for days. She wants to shake Kagome out of her miserable trance, but she's already tried that and all that happened was Kaede got mad.
"Perhaps we should allow her a chance to say goodbye to Inuyasha on her own," Miroku suggests, his thoughtful gaze trained on where Kikyo haunts the shadows, just out of sight.
"I don't think Kagome's going to move," Sango replies, her gaze still fastened on her seated friend.
"Then perhaps they could comfort each other."
Sango snorts and rolls her eyes. "I'm not leaving Kagome alone with that thing. What if it tries something?"
"We won't go far. But Lady Kikyo loved Inuyasha too, in her own way. And perhaps she will leave once she's said goodbye."
They retreat as far as the top of the steps. Kikyo knows better than to think they'll leave her alone with their precious little not-miko, and she knows that this might be her only chance. She's hoping that if she says goodbye to Inuyasha, she'll finally be able to leave. But if she had breath, she wouldn't be holding it over this. She wishes the little not-miko would leave, too. It's hard to get closure when looking at a younger, prettier, warmer version of yourself. She doesn't hate Kagome— she's beyond hate, too, at least for anyone who isn't Inuyasha— but in Kagome's face she sees everything that she could have been, would have been, if the jewel and duty had not shackled her to this little town; if duty and mercy had not ruined her future and if love and hate had not wrecked what was left of her after that. Even now, staring up at her with dead eyes, Kagome looks lighter than Kikyo has ever felt. Kikyo can't help but wonder what it must be like to walk without the weight of responsibility, to love without fear of retribution. Kagome is Kikyo minus consequences. Kikyo minus shame. Kikyo minus death. Kikyo plus a glorious, mysterious future. Kikyo plus friends. Kikyo plus everything Kikyo has ever wanted. Karma, in all its beautiful unfairness, has rewarded Kikyo for all her suffering and sacrifice in this life with happiness in the next, which is great, but Kikyo really doesn't want to have to see it, at least not from this perspective. It's distracting.
Still, she forces her eyes closed and performs a quick prayer. When she opens her eyes, she realizes that Kagome's gaze is locked on her face. She looks like she has something to say.
Kikyo holds her gaze for a long time. She has no trouble waiting for Kagome to find whatever words she needs. She is curious what words they will be when they come. Kikyo has always been patient.
Of all the ways Kikyo and Kagome are similar, this is not one of them.
Kagome is not patient. Has never been patient. So she drops her gaze to the freshly turned soil and speaks before she really knows what it is that she wants. "Does it hurt?" she says. Her voice is hoarse from days of wailing without words, "To die, I mean. Does it hurt?" She scrubs at her red eyes with the sleeve of the white haori Kaede's put her in. Somewhere, in the grief-frozen tunnel of her mind, she registers just how much she and Kikyo mirror one another. Same haori, same hakama, same hair tied back at the base of their necks. Days without good sleep or proper exercise has even given Kagome an ashen countenance. Two pale shadows of grief. Twins, but closer. One person, fractured. Kikyo, standing tall and still above her, framed by the setting sun, holds a peace Kagome cannot help but envy. What must it be like, she wonders, to be so still that even death cannot change you? It feels like everything she touches changes Kagome. Every hand she holds leaves fingerprints on her heart. Every smile she shares wedges itself between her lungs and weighs her down. Kikyo is weightless by comparison.
"Yes," Kikyo replies evenly.
"Oh," Kagome says. A tear ekes itself out of her left eye. It beads on the point of her chin. It gleams gold in the setting sun.
Kikyo's legs fold without her consent. She kneels before Kagome, close enough to smell salt and shampoo. Close enough to see the faint jump of her pulse in Kagome's long, thin throat. Close enough to see the skin peeling on her chapped, parted lips. Kikyo's hand moves without her permission. Her index finger catches the tear and the heat that crawls up Kikyo's arm is searing. She is blinded by it. Stunned by it. Broken and remade, forged like the clay pot she is by it. But she recovers quickly; wipes the tear on the hem of her white haori. "It hurts to die, but it also hurts to live." Truth. "The pain of death fades quickly. He did not hurt for long." Kikyo's never been a liar, so she isn't sure why she says it. She reasons that it might be true and she might not be a liar since she doesn't actually remember what it was like to be dead; she just remembers dying and then getting yanked back into life, both of which were excruciating. Either way, her dishonest voice joins her unreliable legs and treacherous hand on the list of things she cannot trust anymore.
Kikyo's words unhinge something inside of Kagome. The cavern that grief has left behind begins to fill. Acceptance, sorrow, and relief vie for custody of her soul. Her shoulders rise and fall. This is the first breath she has taken for days. "Thank you," she sighs.
Kikyo nods once and stands. She's done what she came here to do— more than that, even— so now she can go. She walks into the forest and doesn't look back.
Kagome gets to her feet, dusts herself off, and walks with Sango and Miroku back to the village. She doesn't say much, but there's life in her eyes again and Sango and Miroku both notice it. Miroku traps his questions on the back of his tongue, trying to convince himself that he doesn't need to know what Kikyo said and that the only thing that matters is Kagome has begun to return to herself. Sango decides that one good turn deserves another and she will stop referring to Kikyo as it.
"I was wondering if you'd come back," Kagome says without looking over. Her back is against Inuyasha's tombstone but her gaze is fixed in the tangle of Goshinboku's branches.
Kikyo doesn't say that she tried not to. She doesn't say that she walked as far away as she could but only ever made it to the place where the forest bled into grasslands. She doesn't say that she's spent the last three weeks trying to force her legs to take just one more step but that Kagome's warmth had seared itself into her hand and dogged at the corners of her vision. She doesn't say that when her black hair falls into her face, it reminds her of a similar face framed by similar hair. She doesn't say that she was worried or that she regrets lying to her reincarnation; that it feels like a cross between self-deception and mercy only worse than either.
But the thing is, she doesn't have to say anything. Kagome is used to filling other people's silences. She wraps people in words the way emergency workers wrap frozen hikers in emergency blankets. "I thought you would, of course."
It stings like an accusation but before Kikyo can decide if she wants to leave or retort, Kagome continues, "This is your village and your shrine, after all." She smiles a small, sad smile.
"They are yours as well," Kikyo replies. Her voice is flat, her disguise is flawless, but Kagome winces like she heard all the bitterness and jealousy Kikyo tried to hide. Kikyo wonders if her empathy is this perfect with everyone, or if it's just a byproduct of sharing a soul.
"Can we share them, maybe?" Kagome asks, and looks shyly up at Kikyo through long lashes, "Please?"
Kikyo thinks about everything else they've been sharing already. What difference would it make to share some more? She nods once.
Kagome's sad little smile returns and she scoots over. She is still sitting against Inuyasha's grave, but there's enough space for Kikyo now, too. Kagome pats the ground beside herself in invitation.
Kikyo's treacherous legs obey before she can stop them. She sits so close to Kagome that she can feel the warmth of her reincarnation where their shoulders touch.
Once she is settled, Kagome looks back up at the God Tree and says, "This is where I first met Inuyasha, you know. Pinned to this tree. It was my birthday and…" and Kagome shares the story of how she met Inuyasha with Kikyo, who is a very good audience despite the fact that she never smiles. In the silence that settles between them when she finishes her story she asks, "How did you meet him?"
Kikyo considers how she should answer. She doesn't really want to tell Kagome anything. She has nothing left— not even a body or a soul— besides her memories, so she guards them closely.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Kagome says quickly, giving her a nervous glance. "I just thought you might want to, but you don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I'm just grateful that I've got someone to listen to me babble, you know? I can tell you another story if you'd like."
"Please," says Kikyo, who is more relieved than she is comfortable admitting.
Kagome smiles like she understands— although Kikyo doesn't know how she could— and turns her gaze inwards. "Let's see...oh!" She drops her little fist into the upturned palm of her other hand with a light smack. "I've got it! I'll tell you about my friend Jinenji! You'd like him a lot, I think. Inuyasha and I were..."
Kikyo leans into the words. She lets them wash over her and fill her up. She gobbles up Kagome's stories like they are food and she is starving. Like they are water and she is thirsty. Like they are warmth and she is frozen. She tries not to think about what that might mean.
When darkness washes over them, Sango's voice calls for Kagome from the base of the staircase. Kagome stands and stretches. Kikyo tries not to notice Kagome's warmth seeping out of her clay shell. She gathers Kagome's stories around her heart and tells herself that this is good enough, that she is grateful for what warmth was given freely. When Kagome holds a hand out for her, she is surprised and confused.
"Well, you're sharing your village and your shrine with me," Kagome explains, smiling down at her. Her dark hair falls around her face and reminds Kikyo of all the things they have in common. "It's only fair that I share my friends with you."
Sango watches the two priestesses descend the stairs together. They are close enough to each other to touch but they don't touch. Their steps fall in an even cadence but on opposite feet. Their faces, when they turn them to Sango, are different only in the way they regard her and even then, they are symmetrical. Warm and cold, life and death. If she didn't know better, she would think they were twins. Kagome looks happier than she has in weeks and one good turn deserves another, so Sango greets Kikyo with a formal bow and stiffly says, "Kaede says dinner's ready. Will you join us, Kikyo-sama?" and she doesn't miss the way Kagome beams at her.
Kikyo doesn't leave after dinner. Kikyo doesn't leave the next day, either. Every time her thoughts turn to leaving this village in search of somewhere where she isn't the first draft of the final masterpiece, Kagome shares something else with her. Sometimes it's stories— Inuyasha and I… and Once, while we were fighting Sesshoumaru… and I had been kidnapped by... — but she shares people, too. Miroku takes her hand and then tries to grab her ass. Shippo eyes her warily and then offers to share his crayons. Kirara mews and curls around her ankles. Kikyo marvels at this acceptance; wonders what Kagome has done to earn such strange and marvelous companions. But she is greedy and she is cold, so she doesn't wonder too much. Mostly she just hoards what warmth she can get.
As days bleed into weeks and Kagome runs out of friends to introduce and stories to retell, she shares secrets. She tells Kikyo about the future and her past. Cars and crushes and a cat named Buyo. "I can't get home anymore," she confesses, "I'm stuck here, and I'm grateful to Miroku and Sango and Kaede, but I wish I could just go home. Mama must be so worried." Tears slip down her cheeks and bead on the point of her chin. Kikyo is fascinated by them.
Miroku and Sango move out that fall to start a family of their own. Shippo goes with them, as eager as anything to play house and call someone mom and dad again. Kagome and Kikyo stay with Kaede. Three priestesses dressed in red and white with two souls between them. They keep the shrine clean and the town safe. Mostly, they keep each other company. The three of them share chores and duties and, at night, after Kaede has stretched out on her bedroll and is snoring softly, Kagome shares little thoughts and observations with Kikyo, who takes what is given but gives nothing back. When Kagome drifts off to sleep, Kikyo leans in close to listen to the even cadence of her breath and pretends that she can take that, too.
At some point, Kikyo realizes that Kagome never talks about the future. When she talks about the distant-future, it's the same way she talks about the past, so it doesn't count. When she asks Kagome about it, Kagome gives her a small, sad smile and says, "I don't think I've really got much of a future to talk about."
Kaede dies that winter. It isn't a surprise for anyone but Kagome, who has distorted ideas about concepts like forever and mortality, but maybe that's normal for people who spend most of their days with a different version of themselves. Grief, an old wound that's barely scabbed over, opens in Kagome's gut again and she loses herself in it. Kikyo performs the funeral rites and keeps the shrine clean on her own. Miroku and Sango visit when they can, which isn't often now that they're accepting youkai extermination requests. Kikyo keeps a fire going in the hearth and makes sure Kagome eats. Sango is silently grateful to her. Miroku thanks her profusely. Shippo brings little tokens back from their trips and tucks them into bed with Kagome. Kikyo tells him that she will be fine when spring comes.
But she is not fine when spring comes. She retreats farther and farther into herself and Kikyo can no longer force her to eat. So Kikyo tries to fill her with other things. "I met Inuyasha the summer after I turned fifteen," she says. Something shifts behind Kagome's dead eyes. "I was clumsy then. I had tripped and fallen while bringing the remains of a lizard demon to the Bone Eater's Well. I landed face-first in a pile of lizard entrails when I heard a sound. I looked up and there he was, sitting in the God Tree, laughing at me."
She had thought that it would be hard to tell the story; that sharing it with Kagome would somehow make it less real in her own mind, but instead, the memory grows larger the more of it she tells. It swells in her mind's eye until she can hear the rustle of the fire rat robe and feel the lukewarm press of the lizard guts against her skin. It smells like summer. The sun is warm on the back of her neck. Kikyo wonders if this is because she is sharing the story, or if it is because she is sharing the story with Kagome. Either way, it doesn't matter. She tells it because Kagome needs to be filled back up again. Besides, Kagome has shared her memories and secrets with her. It's only fair that she shares some of her own, too.
After she shares that first story, it is like her own words have unhinged something inside of her and all her stories begin pouring out, half because Kagome needs to hear something and half because Kikyo has to tell them. Kagome begins to eat again. Kagome sits up and looks around and takes an interest in things she used to love. When Shippo brings her a pretty stone from a faraway village where he assisted Sango and Miroku in exterminating a giant rat youkai, she smiles and thanks him. When he regales her with his harrowing tale, she oohs and aaahs in all the right places.
When Kikyo runs out of stories, she shares secrets. They are ugly, shameful things that she carried with her into death and back out again, but she drops them at Kagome's feet anyway. I knew Onigumo wanted me and I hated being the older sister and I didn't really care that Inuyasha was Hanyou. I just wanted to get rid of that jewel. Kikyo marvels at how light they are as she says them out loud. She wonders if they are weightless because she is dead or if they are weightless because she gives them to Kagome.
Kikyo never mentions the future because she is dead, so that means that she doesn't have one.
When Kagome leaves their shared home for the first time that spring, she is paler and her hair is longer. Her gaze travels farther into the distance and her smile is a little smaller. People begin to come from farther away to pray at the sunset shrine and to seek favors from the beautiful twin priestesses. Those who do not know Kagome and Kikyo cannot tell them apart, but those who know them well see the differences in Kagome's easy laugh and the way Kikyo's eyes never stay away from her for long.
Spring turns to summer turns to fall and when the temperature drops Kikyo can feel the warmth that she's stored up all summer leaking out of her clay shell. So she huddles closer to Kagome for warmth. Even compared to the rest of the living, Kagome is brilliantly, blindingly hot. Just being near her warms Kikyo, but maybe that's just Kikyo's tiny piece of their shared soul crying out for the rest of itself. She tries not to think about it too much.
When the nights begin to grow long, they re-share stories and secrets to pass the time. Sango, Shippo, and Miroku now have twin baby girls to contend with, so their friends do not visit them often, but Kagome and Kikyo are content in each other's company even if they are not happy.
"Mama must be worried," Kagome hums to Kikyo late one night. "Souta's gotta be in middle school by now. I wonder if they think I'm dead."
Kikyo stares into the fire and contemplates the brevity of heat.
"Yoshi came to see us," Sango hedges, bouncing one of her daughters against her shoulder.
"Who?" Kagome asks as she changes the other one's diaper. She doesn't even look up.
"Yoshi," Sango repeats, "You know, the one from town. The fisherman's son."
"Oh, Yoshi!" Kagome sings out as she ties the diaper shut. "I know him!"
"I know you know him," Sango lets out a gusty laugh. "He knows you, too. And he'd like to get to know you better if you'd have him."
"Yoshi came to talk to you about that?" Kagome laughs as she gathers the little girl up in her arms. She waggles her fingers in front of the infant's face. "Why'd he come to talk to you about me?"
Sango hums noncommittally, "We're the closest thing you have to parents here. He came to ask Miroku for permission to marry you."
Kagome's hands still. "And what did Miroku say?" she asks, too lightly to be genuine.
"He said that Yoshi'd have to ask you."
"Good old Miroku," Kagome says appreciatively and resumes her finger-waggling game.
"What do you think you'll do when he comes to you?"
"I'll let Kikyo handle it. Half the time they can't tell us apart and she's way better at turning them down than I am. She does a pretty convincing me impression if I do say so myself."
"Kagome," Sango begins, squaring her shoulders like she's about to heft Hiraikotsu at a formidable foe, "you aren't getting any younger."
Kagome just blinks at her.
"Have you given any thought to settling down? You're so good with Miyuki and Akari not to mention Shippo. Don't you want children of your own? A husband? A life?"
Kagome thinks about the flutter of red robes and intense yellow eyes. She thinks about forever and protection and other empty promises. She thinks about the smell of grave dirt and the round eternity of death. She thinks about Kikyo, dappled under Goshinboku mighty boughs. It hurts to die, but it also hurts to live. She thinks about secrets. She thinks about the future. "I have a life," she says eventually.
"You don't have to stay a priestess forever, you know. The shrine doesn't need you. It has Kikyo to look after it."
"But who will look after Kikyo?"
Sango snorts, but not cruelly. "Kikyo'll be fine long after the rest of us are dead."
Kagome gets a faraway look in her eyes that Sango's started noticing more and more over the last few months. It's almost wistful. "I hope so," she says.
That summer, Kikyo begins to find little reasons to touch Kagome. Just for the warmth, she tells herself as she ties back her reincarnation's hair. For the warmth, she tells herself as she plucks a stray cherry blossom petal from Kagome's shoulder. The warmth, as she moves her sleeping mat so close to Kagome's that the edges overlap. Warmth, as her fingers brush against the back of her hand as they walk down the stone steps, close enough to touch but not touching. She knows she is lying to herself but she can't think of any other justification for her behavior. Maybe it's just the little piece of the soul she stubbornly clings to crying out for itself.
She is still trying to puzzle out her own strange behavior the night Kagome's lips brush against hers. It isn't much of a kiss as far as kisses go. The touch is gentle, fleeting, and lasts only a fraction of a second before Kagome is pulling back, beet-red and stammering apologies over and over. She clutches the broom she should be using to sweep the steps.
Kikyo's hand reaches up on its own to trace her own lips. She can still feel Kagome's warmth on them but it's fading too quickly. She wishes she could hang on to it for a little bit longer. She wishes it would come back.
Kagome is still apologizing, her eyes screwed shut, when Kikyo's hand slides into her hair and her lips slide perfectly over hers. Two brooms clatter to the ground and kisses become another thing they share.
That night, Kikyo wonders if she's always been greedy and demanding or if that's just another part of being dead. Kagome has already fallen asleep. Her long dark hair is spread around her head like a fan and her cheeks are still softly pink. Kikyo traces Kagome's lips with the cold pad of her thumb. She starts at the left corner of her top lip and slowly, gently traces over the arch and bow of her lips, across to the right and then down and back the indulgence of her bottom lip, reveling in the smooth skin and the ghost of breath across her knuckles. She isn't sure why she did it. Kissing isn't something that's ever really interested her, apart from when she was doing it with Inuyasha back when she was alive but looking at Kagome now she thinks she can understand the appeal, but maybe that's just Kikyo's little piece of the soul they share trying to get closer to the rest of itself. Kikyo wants to look at this more closely, but she can't seem to focus on anything besides how soft and warm Kagome is, even now.
When Kagome wakes up, Kikyo is still leaning over her although by now she has managed to keep her hands to herself. With more surety than Kikyo has ever felt in her whole life, Kagome reaches out and cups Kikyo's chin. "I've wanted to do that for years now," she shares. Her breath quickens. Her cheeks darken. Her pupils dilate expansively. "Is that bad, do you think? Because we're, you know..."
Two pieces of one whole? "I don't know," Kikyo replies and, because she's never been a liar, she adds, "But I'm not sorry."
This appears to be as much permission as Kagome needs to kiss her again. When Kagome breaks the kiss to gasp for breath, Kikyo, who does not need to breathe, presses kisses to her cheeks, to her eyes, to her jaw, to her neck. As Kagome's breath hitches and escapes in a small oh, Kikyo finds herself compelled to study what other sorts of sounds and breaths other sorts of kisses can elicit.
Today is not the first day that they have been naked together, but it is the first time that it's been so important. All day long they carve and share new secrets with their hands and mouths. Kagome, warm and welcoming, is pleasing and eager to please but wholly unskilled. Kikyo, cold in more ways than one, is more thoughtful and intentional in her ministrations, carefully cataloging sensation and response despite the fact that she is as unknowledgeable as her reincarnation. She cannot know what Kagome feels, but between memory and careful observation, she thinks she can hazard a pretty decent guess. When Urasue designed Kikyo's clay form, she left out certain important pieces of anatomy. I could fry her all over again for that, Kagome grinds out when they discover this together, but Kikyo finds that she doesn't mind too much. Kagome's every hiss and shudder warm her soul with an arousal deeper than flesh and bone. When Kagome arches back and gasps her name, Kikyo is certain that she is not missing out on anything.
By the time Kikyo remembers that Kagome, as a living person, needs to eat, the human priestess is sweating, smiling, and satisfied.
"Where do we go when we die?" Kagome asks. They are naked and spread across her futon. Their hair is tangled together.
"I don't know," Kikyo replies evenly.
"Alright," Kagome rolls her eyes, "So I'm horrible at pillow talk. But I'm curious. Where do we go?"
Kikyo considers this seriously for a while before saying, "Some go to hell, some go to Nirvana. Most, I think, just reincarnate. Like us."
"But where does the soul go?"
Kikyo doesn't have an answer for that.
They return to their normal duties the next day and they don't talk about what they do in the darkness of their hut with anyone. It isn't that they are ashamed— Kagome is too wrapped up in her own heart and head for shame and Kikyo is dead and beyond such things— but they've always liked having their secrets. They both know that Kagome will be the one to tell their friends when she's ready. Her friends know this, too. Sango has suspected for years but would rather be told than accuse. Miroku begins outright refusing any marital offers for either priestess with a twinkle in his eye. Whenever Shippo tries to ask Kagome if she and Kikyo are going to have kits soon, one parent or the other manages to clamp a hand around his mouth and hastily changes the subject.
After a month, Kagome can't keep it a secret any longer and spills everything, sighing and smiling shyly, to Sango on one of their rare trips to the hot springs unencumbered by any of Sango's ever-growing brood.
"Well of course," Sango says, shrugging and running her fingers through her hair. Motherhood has made her practical. She isn't going to waste this chance to get clean even while she listens to Kagome's romantic saga.
Kagome, who is perched on a stone, dangling her feet in the water, is surprised by Sango's nonchalance. "What do you mean of course."
Sango fixes her with a stony gaze. "The looks you two have been giving each other. And you talk about her constantly. How long has it been now? A year? Two?"
When Kagome finally remembers to stop gaping like a fish, she manages to say, "Like four weeks, Sango!"
Then it's Sango's turn to look surprised. Giving up on getting clean quickly, she plops down on the stone beside Kagome. She squares her shoulders like she's about to heft Hiraikotsu at a formidable foe and begins, "Kagome, Miroku and I moved out to give you two space!" She takes a deep, calming breath. "How long have we known each other?"
Kagome considers this, counting backward through the seasons, but before she comes to an answer Sango continues, "You know I think of you like a sister, right?"
Kagome, wondering where this is going, nods.
"So, as your sister and friend, I demand that you tell me everything and that you start by telling me what took you so damn long."
So Kagome shares the story and then asks, "Do you think it's weird?"
"I hope you didn't ask her that," Sango said with a lopsided grin that reminded Kagome how much time Sango has spent with Miroku.
"She said she didn't know."
"Then we're not talking about the same thing."
"Sango!"
"Alright, alright. I know you mean because you're her reincarnation." Sango considered this for a long minute. "After Inuyasha died and the well closed, I was worried about you. No, I mean really worried about you. You didn't eat, you didn't sleep. I was sure that the moment we stopped watching you, you'd go off and...and do something really stupid. After Kohaku, you know," after all these years, she still cannot talk about her brother's death. She glares down at the water, "I was terrified of losing anyone else, especially you. Even more than Miroku and the others, you were the closest I had to family left. And I thought I was losing you, too. But then she showed up and suddenly you started acting like yourself again. She makes you happy and she only really seems alive when you're nearby, which I guess means she's happy too. Isn't that good enough? What else matters?"
Kagome, not daring to hope that this conversation could really be going so well and keenly aware of the social pressure of where and when she is, ventures, "Kids? A husband?"
Sango snorts. "Oh please. I have enough of both of those for both of us, and I'd be more than happy to share if you ever want to take them off my hands."
Kagome laughs and gives her best friend a hug.
"Do you believe in soul mates?" Kagome asks Kikyo, leaning on her rake. The shadows cast by the bare branches of Goshinboku crisscross Kikyo's serene countenance. Kagome thinks that she is very beautiful. Kagome wonders if this is a self-important thought since they are identical.
"No," Kikyo replies evenly. She does not pause in raking up the red and brown leaves that have spilled across the stone. "There are only souls and fate, but perhaps fate places some closer together than others. Soul mates implies that a pair of souls are destined for each other and that will find each other over and over again. Fate is not so kind." She speaks from experience. And then, because she is greedy and wants to have every piece of Kagome for herself, she asks, "What do you think?"
Kagome hums noncommittally and halfheartedly rakes at her (much smaller) leaf pile. "Yeah, I think I do," she says at last. "And I think our, yours and my, soul mate was Inuyasha." She smiles at Kikyo, "I wish we hadn't fought over him now. We wasted so much time."
Kikyo is quiet for so long that Kagome, who has also grown greedy, asks, "What are you thinking?"
"I am not sure that I would want to share," Kikyo replies. She is as surprised as Kagome is by the admission. It is so close to feelings that she wonders if she is broken somehow.
Kagome can feel tears prickling the back of her eyes. She bites her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. She stares at the leaves and, with a wet sniff, begins raking furiously.
Kikyo is pulled out of her internal study by the sniff and looks over at Kagome. In a few strides, she crosses over to the living girl and places a cold hand over warmer ones on the handle of the rake. "No," she says as evenly as ever, "You misunderstand. I do not think that I would want to share you."
Through the winter, Kikyo keeps the fire lit and steals warmth from Kagome. They whisper secrets against each other's skin. When they talk about the future, it is only in the mundane routine— we'll need a new roof next summer and we will need to buy more feathers for fletching— but they both notice the way the future is creeping into their conversations. Kagome thinks it's hope. Kikyo worries that she's stolen too much of Kagome's warmth and taken a bit of her life, too.
When Kagome puzzles, "I wonder how mama is doing," Kikyo says, "Tell me about them again," because no matter how much warmth she steals, she always wants to take just a little more and Kagome always lights up when she talks about her lovely family trapped in a future they cannot reach.
The first time that it occurs to Kikyo that Kagome is beautiful is also the first time that she realizes that they aren't identical anymore. She realizes both because a man who has traveled a great distance to pray for a good crop at the Sunset Shrine mentions something inconsequential about her older sister. If he didn't nod at Kagome, who was busy talking to someone else, Kikyo wouldn't have known who he was talking about. There are thin lines crinkling the corners of Kagome's eyes and her skin is darker than Kikyo's again.
The sun has been good for her, Kikyo thinks. Then, she is beautiful. Lastly, she is aging.
Kikyo wonders if this is what she would look like, too, if she made it to how old Kagome is now. She admires the lines around Kagome's eyes. At night, she traces them delicately the way she traces every other inch of Kagome. While Kagome sleeps, Kikyo thinks, I love those lines, and she is startled for the second time in a single day. She is dead, and so she is supposed to be beyond trivial things like love. She gazes inward, eyeing the new emotion warily, prods it with one suspicious mental finger. I love those lines, she thinks again and then, I love her, too. But she doesn't say it out loud because it's such a new emotion that she doesn't want to share it. Not yet.
Kagome beats her to it, anyway. Less than a week later, while they are pulling weeds from around Inuyasha's grave, Kagome looks over at her and says, "I love you, Kikyo."
Kikyo's face remains expressionless, but Kagome laughs out, "You don't have to look so surprised. I thought it was pretty obvious."
"I love you too," Kikyo replies because sharing is always easier when she doesn't have to go first, which Kagome seems to understand.
And they return to pulling weeds.
"Jii-chan's probably dead," Kagome says it casually.
Kikyo's hands, which have been methodically running a brush over Kagome's long, dark hair, pause.
"I was just thinking about it," she goes on, "I'm, what, thirty-five? That would make Jii-chan like a hundred and two." She's smiling when she says it, but Kikyo recognizes the brittle edge to her voice.
"He died without knowing what happened to me."
Kikyo's fingers curl around a hair and yank.
"Ow!" Kagome yelps and jumps. She turns to face a younger version of her own face. "What was that for?"
"Another gray hair," Kikyo holds it up for inspection.
Kagome rubs her scalp. "I wish you'd stop waging war on my head. Gray hairs happen. It's just part of life," she grumbles.
Yes, Kikyo doesn't say. Life is happening to you.
Sango dies younger than any of them would have liked. She leaves behind a disconsolate husband and a large gaggle of inconsolable children, several of whom are fully grown by now. Shippo, ever the good son, takes care of all of them, even though he can hardly see through his own haze of grief.
Kagome cries into Kikyo's shoulder and they both comfort Shippo when he comes to them.
"What will you do when I die?" Kagome asks once they send Shippo home (he's got to put the littlest ones to bed).
Kikyo doesn't know how to answer, so she doesn't. Instead, she whispers secrets and memories and stories into Kagome's skin. Sometimes the stories are her own— I met Inuyasha like this... and When Kaede was a girl we…— but sometimes the stories are Kagome's— I met Inuyasha when I… and When Souta was five we…— Kagome likes hearing her stories in Kikyo's mouth, so Kikyo keeps going.
"You know what I think?" Kagome says, turns to her on their shared futon.
Kikyo doesn't answer. Kagome thinks many things and Kikyo could probably guess what this is about but she knows that Kagome prefers telling to being told.
"I think that, if soul mates are real and even if Inuyasha was ours, it doesn't matter." Kagome wriggles closer under the blankets. In the winter, Kagome keeps Kikyo warm, but in the summer, when Kikyo's body is cooler than the night air, it is Kagome who huddles close to escape the oppressive heat.
Kikyo waits to see where this train of thought will end. She never has to wait long. Kagome is never patient and has no sense of pacing.
"We're two halves of the same whole. Our souls are the same. We fit together perfectly."
Kikyo doesn't mention that Kagome is most of their shared soul and if Kikyo has anything it is only what Kagome has graciously spared.
"Two halves," Kagome says emphatically, looking up at her.
Kikyo only realizes how many years have passed when Kagome starts forgetting things. She realizes both of these things when Kagome offhandedly asks if they should offer to watch Sango and Miroku's children. "So they can go out on a date, you know," Kagome says with a shrug of her curved shoulder. They're supposed to be setting up for New Year's. Kagome is toying with a slip of paper while Kikyo's steady hands write out fortunes.
Nobody mistakes Kikyo for Kagome's twin anymore. Mostly they think she's her daughter or, more recently, her granddaughter.
"Sango is dead," Kikyo reminds coldly. If she had a heart, she suspects that it would be breaking. Because she is dead and beyond things such as heartbreak, all she feels is lonely. Life is happening to Kagome and Kikyo can only watch from the outside. Is this what I would have looked like? She asks herself. Would I have been so beautiful as this? She writes out a very bad fortune for some very unlucky temple-goer.
"What?" Kagome's large eyes swim with tears. "What happened?"
Kikyo sets down the brush and gathers Kagome to her chest. She rubs small circles on her back and makes soft tutting sounds. She tells Kagome the story of Sango's death. After that, she makes slow and careful love to Kagome's aging, beautiful body. While Kagome sleeps, Kikyo whispers Kagome's stories back to her, as if they are a spell to ward off the forgetfulness. They don't work.
Kagome's memory fails faster than Kikyo can comprehend and her body isn't far behind, but Kikyo is nothing if not good at caring for the sick and injured and she tends to the other half of her soul with as much tenderness as her cold, clay hands allow.
"Talk to me," Kagome says sometimes, childishly. She is afraid of the dark and Kikyo's voice calms her down.
So Kikyo tells stories as they surface in her mind— indiscriminately, coldly. She pours out everything Kagome has told her over the years. Every memory, every fear, every secret. She doesn't know whose are whose anymore, only that they belong in the space between them. They exist to be shared.
"I miss mama," Kagome says more and more often. "I miss Souta. I miss Jii-chan. I think they're worried about me. I need to get home."
Kikyo wishes Kagome could get home now. She thinks that maybe what Kagome has can be cured the way they cure other things in the future. She'd carry her there on her back if she could. She'd send her soul collectors to the edge of the world and back if it would make any difference.
Miroku dies and Kikyo doesn't bother telling Kagome. Shippo agrees with this decision, even though it hurts. What is the point of pouring tea into a cracked mug? It would only upset her, anyway.
Three days before Kagome dies, she opens her eyes and knows where she is. It's the first time this has happened in several months and Kikyo is at a loss for words.
"Kikyo," she says softly. Her younger incarnation's hands still on their trek through her hair with the brush.
"Yes, Kagome?"
"You're so beautiful," she hums, smiling up at her. She reaches up a hand.
If Kikyo had a heart, it would be breaking, but because she doesn't, she settles for being cruel instead. "We have the same face," she points out and turns away from the touch. "I look exactly the same as you."
But Kagome doesn't buy it so the smile stays in place. "You know what I think?" she presses.
"What?" Kikyo asks like she isn't hanging on Kagome's every word.
"I think we're two halves of one whole. I'm not afraid to die, even if it hurts, because I know exactly where I'll be going."
"Where is that?" Kikyo asks. She memorizes the lines of Kagome's face, the soft lilt of her voice.
"Back to you. I'll be going home."
"Home." Kikyo echoes, testing out the word, weighing it on her tongue.
"Yeah," Kagome's hand drops back. She fiddles with the blanket. "I really should be getting home. Mama must be worried."
In the last days of Kagome's life, she says "I really should be getting home. Mama must be worried," so often that it almost drives Kikyo mad. It's like a prayer, a mantra, a god damned curse and Kikyo is sick of hearing it.
After two and a half days of listening to the same phrase over and over, Kikyo finally bites out, "I'll let your mother know when I see her."
Kagome's answering smile unhinges something in Kikyo. She can feel something inside of her hollow chest snap and crumple in on itself. Her eyes burn. Her hands shake. She wants to tear the whole world down and tear herself apart. But she can't tear her eyes away from Kagome, so she does neither. Instead, she tells stories. She doesn't know whose they are. She doesn't know anymore whether she is part of Kagome or Kagome is part of her. She doesn't know the difference between stories and secrets and memories. Her sliver of their shared soul is crying out for the rest of itself and she is fairly sure that she can feel the rest of it calling for her, too. It won't be long now. She can tell.
Kikyo feels rather than sees the moment Kagome dies. One moment she is watching the shallow rise and fall of Kagome's chest and in the next, she isn't sure whose chest it is but she is laying across something and somewhere nearby something is wailing out its misery like the last wolf howling at the last moon on the last night on earth. After a long and confusing moment, she realizes that the sound is coming from her.
She has thrown herself over Kagome's (mine? yours?) still form as if she could hold life in with her cold, clay form; as if she doesn't very well know where the soul already is.
Grief washes over her like an ocean. She sobs brokenly even though she cannot produce tears. Her lips chatter around the words please no please no please no even though she is not cold. And she hurts. Suddenly she understands all those years ago what Kikyo (she? Herself? I?) meant when she said that dying hurts and she also understands what she means when she said that living hurts. Living and dying are both pain, maybe even the same pain, like two sides of a single coin, and she is wrapped in both, swallowed up completely by just how big they are. And she also sees her lie, because she hurts, hurts, hurts and she knows that she will continue to hurt even when she rises.
She isn't sure when she wakes up, but at some point, she wakes up. She is more herself than she has been in years but she's someone else, too. Hazily, she weighs her options. She could make a clay body like hers and coax Kagome back to life. Twin clay priestesses. Two halves of one whole. But it's useless and she knows it. Their soul has already reformed and, even if she made a body there would be no soul to fill it. She could never break off a piece so neatly as to bring Kagome back to herself. If the jewel were here, she would make a selfish wish— universe be damned. She considers dark magic, deals with demons, even suicide, but as she roils in the darkness of her grief, the idea that surfaces is foolish and ugly and wrong, wrong, wrong. Even before she walks out of the hut they shared, she knows that she will do it. There is nothing else.
She changes her name over the years. Sometimes she is Kikyo. Sometimes she is Kagome. Sometimes she is someone else entirely. She never wanders far. Even as the world changes, grows, burns, and grows again, she cannot bring herself to go any farther away than the edge of Inuyasha's forest. Home is an anchor. Home is a hand around her throat. Home keeps her moving forward.
She knows when Kagome is born because of the way her soul cries out for itself. She does not answer the call. She lurks, never far, and remains unseen. It would hurt too much to see herself, to have herself seen. Until she cannot come back, she knows how much she hates the clay priestess. She has no desire to wound Kagome in any way.
But she watches. Her soul longs for Kagome. Her untrusted hands and mouth and legs ache for Kagome. There is not, has never been, anything in this world other than Kagome. But she has been patient for five hundred years. She will be patient for a few more. She is haunted by what she will do, but she cannot ask forgiveness. Neither deserves it nor wants it. She is afraid of the future that is quickly rising to meet her. Fate has played one last horrible joke on her.
If she had a heart, she would call it Kagome.
She can feel when the well seals itself. More specifically, she can feel the moment Kagome is gone forever because for the first time in fifteen years her soul stops keening for itself.
She knows what she has to do. Cold, clay fingers fumble with unfamiliar clothing (pilfered long ago for this exact purpose). Hair is teased wild and chaotic. She takes an experimental breath, just to see how it feels (it doesn't feel like anything).
Whatever stuff souls are, she is two halves of one whole; cracked like an egg; complete in her incompleteness. She guards Kikyo's secrets and Kagome's secrets. She has reached her fingers into the darkest corners of their minds and histories and has become more of each of them than either of them ever were on their own.
Her legs carry her against her will to the well house. Her hands slide the door shut behind her without invitation. She is still for a moment, knowing that this is the last one she will have as herself before she is Kagome for the last people alive who Kagome loved. It is the last, best thing she can do for the woman she loves. It is the closest thing to bringing her home. It is a lie, and she has never been a liar, but sometimes a lie is the greatest love that can be given. Maybe. Five hundred years to think about it, and she still isn't sure.
She throws open the well house door, dressed in her green school uniform. She dances out onto the shrine's courtyard, squinting into the bright afternoon sunlight. When "Mama!" she calls, "Jii-chan! Souta! I'm home!" her dishonest voice joins her unreliable legs and treacherous hand on the list of things she cannot trust anymore.
Her mother opens the back door, a smile on her face for her only daughter, but she freezes in place. Something doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like her daughter, although she can't say why. For several long seconds, she searches the girl's face, looking for something that could tell her what is off. She can't find anything. Her daughter, exactly as she has always been, is standing in front of her, looking anxious but happy to be home. No, she decides, it must just have been a trick of the light. Drawing her daughter into a warm embrace, she smiles and says, "Welcome home," and then, after a moment, "Goodness, Kagome! You're so cold!"