A jaded twenty-four year old nurse, Kagome Higurashi, reflects on her life years after the well closes. After many failed attempts, she can no longer accept it and impulsively tries again with surprising results. What lays before her is more than she ever bargained for an reclaiming the love that was lost to her is the only way she can survive. M. Alt-canon.
Arrows Over the Moon
AN: I haven't had a lot of time for writing lately, and I apologize. I've been focused on my newfound indie art career and traveling around with my husband's band, on top of taking care of my little ones. I hope that you guys enjoy this piece. I wrote it a while back and debating posting it. Let me know what you think. It probably needs a little adjustment. Haha. Happy reading guys! (This is only a three chapter story. Really long chapters...)
Implications of Simplicity
It wasn't in her job description to put up with verbal abuse from her patients, but he had a certain wily charm about him. Every time he pressed the call button, cradled along the grated side of his arm rest, she cringed.
Certainly, the nurse would have to attend to his needs without question, or any distain. It was easier said than done on most occasions, the girl decided as she pulled a pen from her sloppy black bun. This split shift was killing her just about as bad as the over-used Dr. Schol's in her worn down Croc's.
Taking a sip of her coffee, she pushed herself out of her chair at the front desk. A sing-song clatter of keyboards and half-hearted laughter melodiously played with her eardrums. If things had been as they were in her youth, she could have been warm beneath the sunlight and basking in the colorful array of flora across the ancient era of Nippon.
Her heart seceded and held still for a moment, leaving her gasping for breath as blood pricked at her cheeks. "Get it together, you aren't a little girl anymore." The woman said to herself as she pattered forward towards the illuminated hallway that housed a handful of partitions. Each room was covered with glass with tasteless mauve privacy curtains.
Her patient wasn't going to be too thrilled that she was taking so long, but these sleepless nights shook long dead memories from their resting places. "Okay, let's do this." She clapped quietly, grabbing the clipboard from the wall-side basket. Her small knuckles rapped against the door before parting it with a crunching clack. "Evening, Nita-saaan." The woman sang, pressing a warm smile upon her face.
The older man wrinkled his nose against the plastic tubing in his nostrils. "Hmph, it's been taking you longer and longer to get here. I could have been dead by now." He grumbled, voice hoarse and shaken from phlem. "Nurses are supposed to be attentive, Kagome."
Biting her lower lip, Kagome crossed her arms over the clipboard. "Nita-san, I've taken care of people for a long time. It's all I've ever done, or wanted to do." She reassured him, easing herself over towards his mobile of electronics and moniters. "It seems like you aren't going to be dying any time soon. Your results came back, and the doctor will be giving you a script for some antibiotics. Your leg will be in a cast for a while, but you'll be fine with physical therapy."
The man rolled his sunken in eyes as he flipped the channels with his remote. Kagome couldn't understand why he didn't care for her. Everyone else in the hospital adored her. The only other person that had remotely shown displeasure for her care was a certain someone that no longer existed. She wasn't sure if that pained her more than the idea that had he had died long ago, or if her heart still yearned for that shroud of abysmal hope.
Motion after motion, the girl became more aware that her body was slowing. Her mind raced, of course, privy to the notion that there was a world beyond the sterility of this house of decay and afflictions. Healing was all she had left to connect her to the dream-like world that grasped at her imagination with hallucinations of her life prior to her career.
Nita-san kept insulting her. He would continue to insult her. She would continue to come to work with a mish-mosh of drab colored scrubs, pinned back long hair, and a personalized coffee thermos to prevent theft.
But what would it have been like if she had chosen to stay? She would probably still be pining for the affections of the wayward man with the hair like moonlit silk, crying beneath the trees for home, and swimming in the cold rivers outlining the country. If he was still alive, she wondered if he remembered her. All of the time that passed, surely she would have been forgotten like all of those that perished in the act of moving on.
As she washed her hands, disposing of the latex-free gloves in the trash, Kagome caught a glimpse of the television flickering an old Edo war-drama. Water dripped off her fingers as she arched to see the black and white film scroll across the 22" perched television. Nita-san scoffed in amusement as he watched her mouth fall ajar.
"You like these old movies?" He rumbled, pushing himself upon his knuckles until he sat upright. The liver spots on his hands and forearm hung like knobs as he waved at the girl.
Kagome cleared her head enough to turn to him, "I normally don't watch them, but this one takes me to a different place. I watch it every time it's on." She said, finding the man to finally shed a genuine smile.
"You don't strike me as the type. You look like you like your frills and pampering." Nita-san jested as Kagome dragged a chair to his bed side.
"Well, I've been through more than anyone could imagine." She laughed emptily. "I'm only 24 and have seen more, accomplished so much and saved countless lives. I had a life before I chose to be a nurse, but most people wouldn't understand how wild I was."
"You know that all of us have a little magic in us." Nita breathed, raising up a hand against his I.V.'s and arranged himself attentively. "A lot of young people forget the stories from our families, and the books and scrolls..."
Kagome looked down at the scuff marks along the tiled floor as she brushed the nervous chills away from her arms. "I grew up at the Sunset Shrine. I wasn't allowed to forget the past, I'm still not." She whispered softly, finding heat prying at the corners of her eyes as pressure built behind them.
Nita seemed enthralled, perking a pair of thick bushy brows along the creases in his forehead. "You know the tale of Beggar Girl?" He asked, leaning over his arm rest to see the almost ill expression implanted on her features.
"She chose to go to the West, serving her savior and Lord as an equal in the times of turmoil and rested upon a throne made of stars." Kagome quivered, jostling the darkening spires of her memory. A rapturous want seized her veins as she shot a panicked glance out the 4th story window.
"Ah, it's one of my favorites." The man sighed. His calloused thumbs rolled over his arm as his weak teeth nipped at his lip. "There was one story that I loved more than any," He said as Kagome gripped at the navy fabric covering her legs. She could feel the name on the tip of his tongue, sending rivulets of eletricity through her veins. It was something that she knew would happen one day, and as it were, she still wasn't ready after all of these years.
"Wh-which one?" She mustered, flashing her glassy gray eyes over the frail figure in the bed. Her heart attempted to escape through her throat, but was stamped down by the jagged breaths that refused to let it free itself.
"You lived on the shrine that the tree belongs to, so you should know this story very well." He eyed her precariously, expecting her to open her mouth and sing the tune of the old shamisan song. The knowing vigor in his voice made the nurse's body tense. She glanced at the clock with dismay that there wasn't another round for nearly an hour.
It would be rude for her to excuse herself, and she'd be damned if she ran away from it any longer. Maybe talking about it would make her feel better - even if it wasn't truly her expression.
"The Goshinboku grants many blessings and transcends time." Kagome said quietly, cautiously. "Have you heard the true tale? Or the ones that have been written?"
"I've old heard the ones that have been written and read by my own eyes. I didn't know there was another version, but spoken word is more romantic. Your name always makes me think of it."
"Alright, then." Kagome licked her lips, untying her jacket from her waist to wrap it around her arms. She could do this, she resolved. Every trembling bone in her body could shake to the marrow, but her heart... It ached in a way that was revolting the acknowledgment of her past.
As soon as she forced out the first few sputtered words, so ineloquent and unjust, she closed her eyes. Nita closed his as well, reclining against the hard pillow beneath his head. Her voice was small, certain as though she knew every part.
Kagome recalled sitting at the lacquered table with her now deceased grandfather, now grown brother and withering mother. She had been ungrateful of the gift she had recieved and fed it to her obsese tabi. Had she not done so, would she have still been sitting at that table? Would she have complained about her day like most teens - about school, jobs, boys?
Instead, that pesky creature lead her into a trap where she was absorbed by the voracious hands of a thousand legged beast with a hunger for what lay inside of her. The warmth of time engulfed her, sinking her like a ship in a storm.
What was a child of fifteen to think when the pressue shot from her hands in a decadent light to absolve the ravenous creature? It was something of lore, not of reality, was it not? Spellbound, she fought her way through forest and vine, until she found a princely boy slumbering upon his pseudo-death bed wrapped in a blanket of roots.
That moment was more of an impact than any of the absurd happenings until that point. When her hands crept along his body, releasing him from the unearthly grave, what was she to expect of him? Gratitude? A thank you for saving him?
No.
None of those things.
Upon seeing him for the first time, she was in love. Whether she realized it at the time, she had always belonged to him. To take, to cast a side - her heart had already chosen. That moment was suspended and the breath in her body was expelled into the balmy night as she fought twice for her life. The silver of his hair gleamed like the stars as they fell beneath the murky light of the moon. His eyes were feral, wild like the claws that peeked from his cuticles.
Those terrifying hands became tender, longing in touches as they grew into older versions of themselves. Their travels, their companions, their lives were forever intertwined from that moment on. Whatever the past had written for them was washed away as they rebuilt a destiny fate could not have penned.
Kagome felt the sun on her skin, the smell of honeysuckles filling the base of the Goshinboku, could feel the strength in InuYasha's back as he carried her across the country. What she would give to feel the heat of his skin and the feel of his mouth linger on hers. They had almost made love once,when the dastardly band had almost killed her and their beloved companions.
She was drunk on the visages passing through the backs of her eyes. Eagerly, and absently, Kagome reached forward, finding nothing but the breeze of the air conditioning. The man on the bed had watched her smirking as the cresent curl of her lashes caught the dewy film of tears that crept from her eyes.
Why was she even telling this man such a story? The story he knew was probably the tale of the Shikon no Tama, not the love story that she endured. There was no room for love in the Tale of InuYasha, and his shrew...
Shaking her head, Kagome bit at her knuckles as the darkness spread across the room as the light timed out. "I'm sorry, I always get so emotional when I tell that story. I don't think I can finish. You know the end, don't you?" She breathed, brushing away a few stray tears from her lashes.
Nita shed an apologetic smile and nodded solemnly. "It is what it is, Kagome." He said, reaching over to pay her arm as a parent to their child. "You'll wait a life time to feel a connection to someone, and realize that you had actually had it once. It's more of a life than a story, isn't it? Our times have changed and all of the wonder is gone."
"It's so personal for me. I don't know why I have to get so wrapped up in a fairytale." Kagome sniveled, lying through her teeth. She could feel the world of skyscrappers and high-rise plazas caving around her. What she would give to run barefooted in the grass, no concrete to stumble upon.
Nita sighed, "Time can't take a lover away forever. Time does not truly exist. It's these numbers that set boundaries for what our lives can and cannot do. Just like now, it's 1:05 in the morning, you have rounds just because a number tells you so."
The girl nodded and began to push herself from her chair, keeping her eyes away from the television as it flickered in the background. "I suppose you're right. Time says that your doctor will be here soon, too. You better pretend you were getting some sleep so we both don't get in trouble." She teased, checking his vitals one more time. "You had a phone call earlier, are you going to have anyone stay with you tonight? It is getting late."
The withering old man shrugged a bony shoulder from beneath his gown. "Never can tell. He works the night shift at the mortuary, so I haven't the slighest."
"If I see him, I'll make sure you get another bed in here." She said, pushing her pen back into her hair as she flipped through the chart.
"Don't be alarmed, honey. He's kind of intemidating. Most people think he's a shrew."
Kagome rolled her eyes and wondered where he ever could have gotten that attribute from. If there was still magic left in the world, her eyes couldn't see it anymore. There were no glimmering hints of now-debunked creatures. She had tried for years to use the well again, to no avail. All she saw were normal people, living normal lives.
It was maddening to hold such a secret in. Surely, some of her companions had living kin, but how awkward would that have been? They probably had no idea what their families had been through in Sengoku Jidai. It was a secret that, as she went room to room in her idle state, she wished she could have screamed to the heavens.
Each face that she saw was whittled down and ailing. The astringent aroma from the bleach and canned antibacterial sprays had become almost nauseating. The only thing she had to look forward to at the end of her shift was a microwave dinner and a long Vespa ride home. Her boyfriend would be asleep and she would be left to sit and stare at the television with one of Buyo's kittens, named MewMew.
Fumbling with the wiring on an old woman's cart, Kagome flipped the small watch over on her wrist and exhaled. Twenty more minutes and she could dissolve into the couch for a few hours. If Mister Shrew was going to show up, he needed to soon. The other staff, full of middle-aged women and bitter men in their twenty-somethings, surely wouldn't be as forgiving.
Closing the last heavy door behind her, Kagome relaxed against it as it snapped shut. Her brain had become far too heavily crowded with images of those three years. They all blurred together creating one, large fuming cloud of regret. Wiping away a beading of sweat from her brow, the woman ushered on to the large circulation desk and rushed through her detailing.
One of the younger nurses on staff took her place as she pulled her belongings from beneath the desk. She could barely see straight as she pulled her hair down to tumble about her waist. It felt good at the end of a shift. It was comparable to taking a warm, soapy bath after days, or weeks of traversing the old countryside.
Kagome paused as she punched elevator buttons. Why now? Why did all of these feelings have to resurface after so long? Gripping at the bridge of her nose, she pressed until she saw the floating blacks and greens behind her eyes.
She wasn't that girl anymore. She was no longer a virginal heroine, summoned by some evil to vanquish a demon far beyond her years. No, she was a nurse. She was a girlfriend, soon to be wife. She was the caretaker for her mother, surrogate mother to her brother.
As the gold-plated doors parted, a surly man, who looked to be in his early thirties, stood holding a brown paper bag and a gas-station box dinner. She assumed from his expression that he was, indeed, Mr. Shrew.
"Are you here to see Nita-san?" Kagome asked, adjusting her purse over her shoulder as she held the door open.
The man shrugged in his denim jacket and blew a breath into his frayed hair. He looked like he had been through a lot, and decidedly, Kagome knew when to step aside. "Yeah, is he still on this floor or did you guys move him around?"
"He's still in the same room. If the other staff has any issues tell them to page me." She said with a vagrant smile. She kept staring at a small, heart shaped scar below his lip. InuYasha had had one after the incident with dubious Thunder Brother's and she felt her stomach collapse.
The man grimaced at her and rolled his dark eyes. "Are you going to let me by, or are you just going to gawk at me?"
Kagome's cheeks were bloodied, "Forgive me. I just have a lot on my mind."
He shook his head and weaved away from her as he inspected her name tag in passing. "Well, I'll see you around, Kagome." He said, grinning awkwardly at her. The woman furrowed her manicured brows at the braid of long hair tucked into the collar of his coat. It was unusual for a man to have hair that length these days.
It made her miss the honor tied to it, and the feral men that wore it so proudly. As the doors closed, Kagome leaned with her hands holding the numbered pad. Her eyes watched the man disappearing around the corner, only to find him turning half-heartedly back.
She lost her breath when they made the briefest of eye contact. Did he know something about her that she wasn't aware of? She wasn't that kind of woman. He was an attractive man, lanky, rude, slightly odd features and thick brows. He was just like how she liked them.
Blushing, Kagome bit her pouting lips, slamming her fingers nervously down on the button pad. She couldn't make it to the ground floor fast enough. "What the hell am I so worked up for?" She muttered to herself. Maybe he reminded her of him. Seeing Mr. Shrew was enough to make her foolish enough to jump through all of the wells still live in the entirity of Japan. Her boyfriend wouldn't notice she was even gone until she hadn't been home for a couple of days.
Assuming that he was even there, of course. Once upon a time, Kagome had dated Hojo-kun and almost fallen in love when she met Koji. He worked in the martial arts school next to Hojo-kun's acupuncture facility when she ran into him outside.
He was smoking a cigarette, tying his hair back into a ponytail when she became smitten. It may have been the way he looked at her with his gruff demeanor, but she was his. As the girl mused about that day, she found herself lost in the three story staff garage looking for her scooter. It was a gift from Koji a few years prior, saying she was too old to ride little pink bicycles and paint pictures of school girls and demons.
In a way, as she stumbled over the concrete to find her ride parked between two mountainous SUV's, she scowled. Maybe her life would have been different if she hadn't listened to people who pushed her further away from herself. She became bitter, overly negative in comparision to the wishful dreamer in her youth.
Nothing was impossible then. Now, as she plopped on the scooter, prying the helmet from the back compartment, Kagome realized that her life wasn't terribly different. Instead of fighting demons with magic and searching for pieces of a cursed jewel, she fought her battles against illnesses and searched for pieces of herself.
Riding alone on these nights, feeling the slightest hint of balmy air caress her cheeks and hands as she pursued the lighted tunnels and flickering neons, crawling across the city streets, she felt almost at home. The stars that lit the skyline were bedraggled by the reflection of smog and artificial light from the buildings and she frowned.
Laying in the astral gardens, at the edge of InuYasha's forest and the well, was among her favorite things. To this day, she remembered the first time she laid there, pulling InuYasha down beside her as he quietly enjoyed her company.
He wouldn't have liked who she had become. Hell, no one did. Her best friend subsequently stopped talking to her the day after her 24th birthday due to the failed attempt at a surprise party. Kagome never the fairer, decided to march out and sit beneath the balcony and smoke her fourth or fifth cigarette ever, and sulk. No one else understood why her birthday had been such an issue, but what was she to say?
"Please, I was dragged into the past by a centipede yokai when I turned fifteen. I shattered a jewel that was inside me and I fell in love with a hanyou?" No. She wasn't allowed by any means to share that with anyone so personally.
The story she told Old Nita-san was different.
For all he knew, or cared, she was just a lonely little nurse that had mental problems. Mr. Shrew thought she was smitten, surely and poor Koji... Koji didn't realize he was being compared to a man that she could never have.
He was the closest thing she had to InuYasha, and as she rode passed her exit, idly paying attention to the familiar path to her mother's, she knew that she didn't love him. She had tried. The love she held for InuYasha had died long ago, but not dead enough to flicker back to life on nights like these.
Sure enough, Kagome realized as she passed by the last set of closed markets, that she had driven across the city to her mother's. Grumbling, her numb hands slapped against the handle bars of the scooter as she turned the key.
Beside her rested the daunting stairs. They had been such a trivial thought in her teens, and now they seemed to span a distance that she didn't remember. The torii stood tall at the apex, a little more warped than they were when she lived there. Sighing, the girl combed her fingers through her messy hair and grabbed her bag.
Each step felt like her knees were grating against bone. The breeze seemed to tease her, making her shudder with the sticky film of the last days of summer. The top of the stairs were dirtied by leaves and pine needles, which needed a good sweeping. Sota usually cleaned the grounds once a week, but they needed more.
The flagstaff were broken, still pale and smooth in some places. Kagome couldn't bring herself to look towards the Goshinboku, or the little well house. It would have been too painful. Every inch of her skin crawled, oozing hesitance out of the pin-pricks of her pores.
When she made it to the front door, she found one light still on - aside from the three large illuminated flood lights her mother kept for security. Reaching into her bag, she fumbled until she found a keyring with the right key and unlocked the front door to see her mother's guard dog.
You would expect a guard dog to be a lumbering, large beast. Instead, Kagome found a growling Daschund rolling around Buyo's old cat bed. The girl let herself in and reached down to pet Tako on the head. Sota said it's hair looked like an octopus, and Tako just stuck.
Aside from the living room, the rest of the house was the same. Everything smelled like persimmons and cleaner, still arranged the same after the remodel. (Or, the time InuYasha destroyed the kitchen.) Kagome knew her mother was home, due to the low-hum of the television coming from her room.
Quietly, she and Tako dug through the fridge for a snack, leaving Kagome to plop down at the old table where she had shared many a meal with her hanyou and family. Tako hopped into her lap, eating the small strips of cold bacon Kagome nibbled on.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to cry, or just go to sleep in her old room. She hadn't dared to set foot in there in years. If she stayed, she slept in Sota's room or rode the sofa for fear of finding a lost photo, or anything that connected her to him.
When the little dog leapt away, Kagome followed and peeked around the corner into her mother's room. She was laying there, bundled to the nose in blankets. Her hair was longer, peppered with gray and white bundles of curls. She had aged fairly well, but was certainly of a certain age she didn't like to speak of.
Like a spector, Kagome came and went unnoticed. The split-level stairs rested in the dark hallway, leading her into the bowels of her childhood. She stood there, fingering the wooden railing, debating whether or not she should or shouldn't...
After a few minutes, that tingling sensation in her chest became to heavy, too obnoxious to deal with it. Solemnly, she fought the nausea that accompanied it as she trudged slowly up the steps to the platform. To the left, Sota's room rested with the "No Girls Allowed" sign, which was ammended in his high school years to "No Girls Allowed Unless You're Hot."
Kagome had no problem snooping around his room. He still stayed over quite often and all of his manly essentials were strewn about the bed and dresser. His staple of video games and consoles had grown and were stacked near his small flat screen. There was a small, red 3 pack of condoms peaking from the edge of his nightstand, which made Kagome cringe. If their mother had seen them she would have died, she thought as she placed them in a drawer.
It wasn't long before she was greeted by the announcement of Tako's company, by way of jingling tags and pitter-pattering feet. The small dog whimpered at her door and scratched at the base. Kagome glowered, "Damn animals, always making me do things I don't want to." She breathed, flailing her arms as she walked to her old room.
Courage wasn't something that came easily, but she relented to wrapping her hand around the brass knob and closing her eyes. It would definitely soften the sting to set a pace for the shit hitting the fan as soon as she went in. She hadn't felt this sick since she had the flu last month.
"This better not be bad, Tako, otherwise I'm going to have to make a hat out of you." Kagome said under her breath as she opened the door. When the air hit her face, she felt like falling. It smelled like her perfume and still held the draught of a parted window. Opening her eyes, she inhaled as she instantly spotted the Goshinboku resting outside of her window.
The small marring of claw marks still lined the white paint near the sill. Her bed was covered in the pink comforter she always used and her desk still sat with a little dust and photos of school. Hell, her mother had even left a text book and notepad resting in their spots. Kagome didn't have any clothing left in the house, save for a uniform or two from middle and high school. She had far outgrown the greens and whites.
She fingered the fabric as she passed by the closet and removed the red scarf from the one that wasn't wrapped in a drycleaning bag. Tako had taken liberity in hoping onto her bed and nuzzling beneath the mound of pillows at the top. Kagome couldn't place the feeling that seized her. It was just odd, almost strangulated.
She sat down with the dog and smoothed her hands over the cool fabric beneath her bottom. Out of habit, she chewed at her lip, longingly staring into what was left of the forest line. Restlessly, Kagome shot up and involuntarily sped to her window, heart flittering wildly as she shoved it open. Leaning out, she noticed the well house door was parted, exposing the smallest sliver of light from the moon.
She could see the step. The first step.
Was she foolish for wanting to try after all of these years? Did the well not open for her because of her feelings at the time? Was her life destined to belong in shambles after such a great journey? All of these questions inundated her like a hurricane erroding the shoreline.
InuYasha had surely forgotten her, if he was even still alive.
Was he still a hanyou? Was he human? Did his yokai blood thin the older he became? Did he survive the war?
Kagome wrung her hands through her hair as though she were mad. There was a dire need to escape this life she had built out of emptiness. She could no longer bear it. This wasn't what was meant for her. She was fated to exist for greatness, not as a hollow shell. This was what Kikyo must have felt like in her rebirth. It was unjust and cruel to assume that one would want something that was written for another.
Closing her eyes, Kagome prayed to the heavens as she recalled the one possession she still owned of InuYasha's. A few days after the well had sealed, she had found his robes buried in a box in the well house. She had instantly become ill and cried. They had been stuffed back in the box Jii-chan had found them in and sealed with a dime-store sutra.
Blindly, Kagome bolted from her room, leaving Tako yipping as he ran around in circles. He soon jumped off the bed and followed her thundrous footsteps on the wooden floor. Her mother as surely up by this point, and as it were, she was stumbling out of her room.
"Kagome, what are you doing?" She muttered, wrapping up in a plush minty colored robe. Her daughter was rifling through the drawers in the kitchen, blazing hot beneath the creamy yellow lights.
"Mama, where are Jii-chan's keys to the boxes in the well house? I need them." Kagome said frantically, finding her mother's disposition to be less than surprised.
Ume ran a hand through her hair as she shuffled about in her house slippers. Tako pawed at her legs until she picked him up, "Kagome, I'm not sure. Jii-chan hid them. Everything was so valuable to him that he didn't even trust me."
"How disrespectful is it to break the box with a hammer?" Kagome paused, raising her brows curiously, oblivious to the guilt that ate at her.
Her mother rolled her eyes and walked towards the counter to brew a cup of coffee. "You need to slow down and tell me what's going on. I didn't have to worry about you this much when you were a teenager..." she sighed.
Kagome's eyes widened and she scoffed, turning to her mother's hunched over form in awe. "Mama! You let me jump into a well and fight demons with a boy five hundred years in the past! That is when you should have worried!"
Ume pinched the bridge of her nose and scowled. "Oh please, that InuYasha was too afraid to touch you inappropriately. He took care of you, didn't he?"
"You're missing my point, Mama."
"No, Kagome. I understand that it was convuluted of me to let my child do something like that. Do you know what I would have done to do something like that?"
"This is almost as painful as talking to Nita-san and Mr. Shrew." Kagome muttered, resuming her hunt for the keys in the cupboards.
"You wanted to stay, didn't you?" Ume asked, taking a seat at the low lying table.
"What kind of question in that? Of course I wanted to. InuYasha was the only man I ever loved and my only real friends are dead and gone. I'm just a part of a fairytale." Kagome seethed, slamming the doors shut as she finally slumped down in defeat.
"Have you tried the well again?" Her mother asked, sipping on her coffee.
"I have nothing that connects me to that era without the keys." Kagome huffed, holding her head in her hands like a scolded child.
Ume closed her worn eyes and quietly pushed herself away from the table. Kagome watched her mother's form disappear behind the pantry door and watched as she fumbled around the kitchen. When she returned, she held a hammer in her hands with her father's intials carved into the side of the smooth handle.
"Jii-chan would be so proud." Ume said sarcastically, extending the tool to her daughter.
Kagome aptly took it, fingering the smooth head absently. "Are you sure?"
"Kagome, you would have done it anyway."
"That is a good point, isn't it?" The girl smiled. It was her first genuine smile in months. "I think it's crazy that I'm trying to do this after all this time. If it doesn't work, I think I'll just jump off Tokyo Tower like a madman."
"Kagome..." Ume breathed, "Did you ever think so hard when it did work?"
"Sometimes," She replied honestly. "I was so afraid that it wouldn't let me through sometimes. I never knew anything so amazing could exist. To have that taken away is like being addicted to a drug - a hard one - and struggling to live without it after it's gone. At first, I was fearful it was my feelings, or uncertainty. I guess I missed my opportunity."
Kagome held her breath in the wake of hearing her own raspy voice. It was pushing three, and there wasn't much more time she could waste. If Koji looked for her, he would try the hospital first and here second. The hospital would live without her if the well worked. The idea of it actually happening was so slim that she didn't think she would even begin to know what to do.
Pushing herself to her feet, Kagome hugged her mother and held on for a moment. Tako jingled about as she slid on her shoes and zipped her jacket to her breast. Ume followed her and flipped on a few of the lights lining the shrine house and held the old well house door open with a flashlight shining in.
Kagome was diluted. Inching along the rows of boxes and glass cases, sutras strewn about and neatly placed pottery, the girl found the back of the house to be covered in cobwebs. Through the murky light, she spotted the wooden trunk, stuffed in the back near the wall. She placed the flashlight beneath her chin as she struggled to pull it out of hiding.
As she manuevered it onto the small area of standing room, she pulled the hammer from her scrub pocket and began voraciously swatting at the moldy wood. It didn't take much until the brightly colored garment peered warmly at her. She felt the planks scrap at her sleeves as she plucked the haori from its home.
Spellbound, the woman crushed it to her chest in disbelief. She stroked the fine material as she fought the urge to wept upon it the threads. "Inu...Yasha..." She breathed, inhaling the musty odor of pines and age. Below the mildew in the room, she could still find his scent thickly laced in the fabric.
Ume peeked in and expressed her grief in silence. She watched as her daughter held tightly to the haori and walked to the small rickety ladder they fashioned for her. It was dryrotted and mangled by flooding and weather.
Ume placed a hand on her shoulder, as she had many times as they stared in utter darkness at an even more ominous blackness. Kagome's eyes were transfixed, never moving as she lowered herself on baited breath.
She sat upon the lip for several minutes before Tako came barreling into the well house. He yipped and carried on like he was injured before stumbling over the lip. Kagome panicked, gasping as she leaned forward trying to capture her mother's best friend. It had been Buyo all those years ago. A fat cat and a scrawy dog were different. Buyo would have managed. Tako, on the other hand, would have ended up at the vet with a broken leg and a doggy wheelchair.
It had taken a few seconds for Kagome to catch him before he hit the bottom. Her mother called for her, but she hadn't heard her. Tako was no where to be found and her mother was gone in a plane of existence that no longer existed.
Kagome's skin burned with warmth and spiraled with a bottomless wave of realization. She slapped her palms to her cheeks to find them weightlessly tingling within the vortex of orbs and starlit hues that were taking her home. A panic attack gripped at her as she struggled to breathe. Her cheeks were fiery, sore from the heat that permeated. And her heart...
Her heart was a war drum.
The infinity of falling ended abruptly with her knees upon bone and muddy earth. She began to cry, expelling years of tension, want, poisonous vigor into the ground. Her fingers wound into the soil, dirtying them with disbelief. Daring to look up, Kagome's gray eyes reflected the heavenly pallor that swam above her like a garden of stars.
Trembling, she stood and brushed her knees as she gripped to the slick, dewy vines winding down from the world above her. The haori was stuffed into her jacket, still folded. Sniveling, she mustered the strength to surmount her prison.
Outside of the well was exactly the same. The grass was lush, thick with the last flickers of fireflies crawling across the night. The trees were still green, heavy with leaves and flora abounding around their roots. She inhaled the crisp, clean air as she found herself wandering along a familiar house to Kaede-baba's village.
If InuYasha was still alive, he would have come for her. He would have been there instantly. She had to look for him now. Search for any trace of the beast that she had tamed. Taking a moment to collect herself, Kagome swallowed only to realized she was parched.
Across the dirt path, there were newly built huts and gardens planted along the fenced in lines. Kaede's hut was still standing. It was more dilapidated than she remembered, but there was a light still gleaming in the window. No soul was roaming on this night and it made her heart sink. Kaede-bachan surely couldn't have still been alive in these times.
She was lucky to make it to fifty. She would have been well into her seventies by now, the girl thought as she straightened herself up. When she reached the entrance, she heard whispers of young girls as they giggled about the village boys. Kagome's brows instantly furrowed, leading her to believe that Kaede was, infact, deceased.
Clearing her throat, the voices hushed as one set of feet pattered along the floor. When the curtain moved, a girl of marrying age smiled crookedly, nervously keeping her distance. "It's late, can I help you?"
Kagome smiled brightly, looking around out of sheer curiosity. "I..Is Kaede-bachan is still here?"
The girl grimaced and looked over her shoulder at the other two girls. "No ma'am. She married an old yokai a few years ago. My parents live over there." She pointed to a small hut with a rickshaw resting along the side. "She comes by every now and then. Best to go find her in the mountains. The forger stole her heart."
"Totosai-san?" Kagome gaped, trying to make sense of any of this.
The young woman beamed. "It was him. He was bringing the old hanyou a new sword and took Baba away."
"Where is the hanyou?" Kagome snapped, a little less graciously than expected.
"I'm not sure." The girl responded with a shrug. "My mother and father may be of some help. I'm not supposed to be talking to you this late, especially with all of the bewitching going on."
"Alright. I thank you for talking to me this long...er..."
"Saori." The girl stated proudly.
"Arigato, Saori-chan." Kagome bowed, waving at the younger girls pressed to the window. As she turned away, she stared at the hut the girl had pointed at and thought better of knocking on the frame. Still, she didn't have much time.
Sighing, she rubbed her sore eyes and fought the urge to run away. She sucked up her nerve and pattered on the edge of the hut. Soon after, a grumbling man dragged something heavy across the room - no surprise given the times.
When the flap parted, Kagome fell to pieces. There, equally as astounded as she, stood Miroku-sama gaping his mouth like a little boy. His staff hit the ground as his arms latched around her small frame. "Kagome-sama..." he breathed into her shoulder, holding her as tightly as he could. "It's been too long."
"Miroku-sama, I tried to come back a long time ago." The woman unraveled.
Over his shoulder, the houshi, aged by more masculine features and longer hair, still pulled back along his shoulders, called for his wife. "Sango! Someone is here for you." He said in a broken disbelief.
When the woman staggered to the door, her arms instantly flew around the girl as her eyes became alive with delight. "I've missed you!" She cried into the night as she pushed her husband away from the girl. "I've missed you everyday."
The women sat on the ground crying while Miroku lit a fire in the pit. He tended to the tea while the women talked about their lives until now. They were animated, like children that had played their favorite games.
Sango was the first to mention InuYasha. It hadn't been as expected, but Kagome listened intently. He had left the village in search of guidance and discipline. It unlike him, but he had come and gone for the last several years. Sango told her of a woman that was taken by him and tried so desperately to win his affections.
It had sounded a lot like her. This woman didn't hold his heart, didn't own any piece of his history, or belong in the same life as he did and she was jealous of a woman that had claimed him?
Miroku's nature lead him to interject as he poured a few cups of tea for the company. "You know, Kagome-sama... InuYasha will return as he pleases. Every time, he goes to the well and tries to use it and then leaves for months. It's been this way for almost ten years."
"That makes me feel a little better that he remembers me. I have something I need to give him before I return. I don't know why I have it. Maybe it was lost, but I found it before my Jii-chan passed and couldn't look at it." Kagome said as she pulled out the haori.
Both looked to one another and back to the girl. Sango's thin hand rested on Kagome's with a frown, "He may not be what you remember, Kagome-chan..."
"What do you mean?" She furrowed her brows, inspecting Miroku's expression waning like the fire in the house.
"His yokai blood was sealed and he is no longer a hanyou." The priest looked away as he plucked at the ground beneath his body. Kagome's reaction was exactly as expected and Sango could do nothing but offer the girl her hand.
"How? When? Why would someone take that away from him?" The former miko whailed, holding the robe to her chest as if it it was injured.
"He chose to have a mortal life, Kagome-sama." Miroku said, "He chose to die and be reincarnated to find you. The problem with that is, it may or not work in this lifetime or the next. You may not be you, and your souls, even though they were bound, may not find one another."
All hope was lost, wasn't it? It was certainly a catch 22 if there ever had been one, and Kagome decidedly wished she would have just sucked it up and not acted on impulse. Maybe her mundane life with Koji wasn't so bad.
"Where does he go when he isn't here?" Kagome asked.
"Kagome-chan you..."
"Ah, Sango, my love..." Miroku interjected, "The heart wants what it wants and if she wants to know the truth of what happened to him, she needs to see for herself. She can't change what has happened, but she can save him from his own mind."
"But, not alone." Sango said darkly, both oblivious to the woman sitting in front of them. Kagome really didn't feel like being in a lover's spat right now. She wanted to go crawl back in bed and eat that TV dinner she was complaining about. All of this was overwhelming. Smothering among other things...
"Where is he?" Kagome asked again, raking her nails across the ground. She wasn't in any state of mind to be told 'no', or be told she needed to do anything, actually.
Sango's dark eyes fell over her husband as he pointed down the pathway out of the village. "Aokigahara." Was all he said.
Assuming the yokai were still treacherous, Kagome knew that it meant she had to find a bow. Not that she would have still held the same skill as when she had left, but she could make do, she supposed. Koji did teach her kendo and various other martial arts she could use on human counterparts, but without her magic, where was she?
"I'll set out in the morning. I have to find him." Kagome whispered, trying to wrap her head around all of this. "I can't forget him."