Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, and I'm not making any money off this "drabble" thing.

Warnings/Notes: Spoilers for Inuyasha: Final Act Episode 2. Kagura/Sesshomaru. My twisting the episode to suit my "evil" purposes? Angst? Character death. I wouldn't exactly call this fluffy or even all that romantic. But it is my way of giving homage to Kagura...and coming back into the fandom again. As you will note, this was not written because of a prompt. I would venture to say that I am Inspiration's plaything as this piece was written on a pure whim. Just by watching that episode...


Of Birds and Wings and What Snaps Puppet Strings
by Yodai Hiro Reborn (aka Ainohimitsu)
on 12.19.10 at approximately 500 words


Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away./For we know in part and we prophesy in part,/but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. - 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10


She'd been imprisoned for so long because of Naraku. Like a bird with wings attached to strings, she had no choice but to fly the way the Puppet Master intended. She danced the way he would have her dance. He forced her direction with her heart in the palm of his hand.

She was the wind, but she wasn't truly free—not until her last moments of life. And even then, it was only because Naraku wished it. He returned her heart and then pierced her there, injecting miasma into her body. She could only have freedom in despair.

But she didn't despair as she was dying. Nor was it misery beating through her heart.

A flurry of red stained petals traversed the wind. To Sesshomaru and Inuyasha. They were white petals from the field of flowers where she had fallen, a puddle of mortal crimson billowing out beneath her and black poison seeping from her wounds.

The scent of her blood drew the half-brothers to her.

Sesshomaru reached her first, knowing Tenseiga couldn't save her. The look in her eyes would later—long after Naraku's defeat—haunt him for reasons he couldn't fathom. And there was a little tearing in his cold heart every year after. A little more and more as time went on...when he thought of her...of the peace he had seen in those dimming red eyes. And that something else there that always bothered him.

"Did Kagura suffer?" Inuyasha asked him after the hanyou and his entourage arrived behind Sesshomaru.

"She was smiling," Sesshomaru responded as he walked away.

The wind can't be held in your hands anymore than a sparrow with broken wings loses its will to fly. Naraku never possessed Kagura's soul, and that was what made her free at the end.

Something deep inside Sesshomaru whispered that he should've held her in those final moments before she disappeared in a whirl of white petals. Maybe caress her cheek. Something. He should've done something more. He didn't understand the tenderness or the persistent ache in his chest every time he remembered that smile. Those eyes. And he refused to let himself think too long about it.

What he didn't know was that he'd done enough for her. By letting her see him one last time. By coming to her knowing she wasn't Naraku. Sesshomaru had been the catalyst for her release. He cut the strings so she could finally fly in her own way.

Love was like that. And love—Naraku could never understand.

Because love was a soul thing.


Where ever the wind blows
You will find me there
Standing exactly where I wanna be

- From Pillar's "Wherever the Wind Blows"


Owari