He gazed out over Kaede's village. The smoldering embers were just beginning to cool.
The sounds of the prior night were still ringing in his ears. The screaming of the people as they rushed to escape the blaze. The roar of the fire as it raced through the village. The sounds of the terrified animals fleeing the inferno.
As he surveyed the damage, he was struck by what had escaped his fury. Kaede's hut, the Torii Gate, the stairs and Kikyo's shrine were undamaged. The kami must provide protection to their own shrine from fools such as himself.
As he tried to remember the previous evening it was a blur of grief over the departure of Kagome
and the bottle of sake in which he had drowned that grief. The flames reminded of him of the fires he had set fifty years ago. On that day both he and Kikyo had died. Yesterday he had died when Kagome had left him. Now she was dead to him. With her had died all of his hopes and his dreams.
She had been his home. Now his home was gone. He could not stay here. He had destroyed Kaede's village in his grief. The humans would view him as just another demon to be purified.
What could he say to the companions of the quest? Miroku and Sango would soon be married and would be leaving for the demonslayers village. They had their own lives and their own futures. Shippou would think that somehow he had driven Kagome to leave with Sesshoumaru.
He could not stay in his forest. There were too many reminders of her. The tree where she
had restored his life mocked him. That renewed life now seemed totally empty of meaning and purpose. The well was worst. It was the means by which she had come to this world.
He wanted to destroy them. The well and the tree. He wondered what held him back. All he could feel for her now was a burning and smoldering hate. Yet he could not destroy
the objects of his anger. Did he still love her? He desperately needed to get her out of his mind and heart completely or he would go mad..
Better that he leave now and never return. Maybe by distancing himself from Kaede's village the pain would subside and he could live again..
He brushed soil of the village off the soles of his feet and bounded west to a new life.