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Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

When Inuyasha Died…

Chapter 4: Grave Robber

Kagome had decided that Inuyasha would be buried that night and so all the villagers had dressed for the burial of their beloved Hanyou. Kagome noticed Hakkaku and Ginta present but she didn't see Kouga. She saw Rin and Jaken but Sesshoumaru wasn't there either.

Kagome turned to look at Inuyasha's body again and suddenly realized that Kouga was standing beside her.

"K- Kouga?"

He looked solemn. "I didn't hate him," he said stiffly as if he was trying his hardest not to show how much pain he was in.

"I know."

"I felt the fighting," Kouga told her. "I didn't make it in time, though. Without the jewel shards in my legs, I'm not as fast as I used to be."

Kagome nodded. "You don't have to apologize for not being there," she said softly. "There was nothing anyone could do. Humans couldn't help him, demons couldn't help him."

"Kagome," he put his hand on her shoulder and he saw the tear drops fall from her eyes. He pulled her into his arms. "Dammit, that mutt has made you cry so damn much."

Kagome shook in his arms. She could feel his pain as well but she pulled from him. "Can I be alone, please?"

He understood at once and even though he didn't want to he gave her a nod and walked back to Hakkaku and Ginta who were both in tears. They were so adept at showing their true feelings. Kouga wasn't like that, he wasn't adept at it and so he masked it with a coolness that rivaled Sesshoumaru's cold demeanor.

Kouga could feel Sesshoumaru's presence. He wasn't far away, he just wasn't in eyeshot. At least he was there, Kouga supposed.

Kouga also noticed Sesshoumaru's companions the little girl named Rin and the ugly toad Jaken.

"Oh Jaken," Rin cried softly. "I didn't know him much but Lord Sesshoumaru must have really cared for his brother even though he was half."

"Foolish girl," Jaken muttered. "Lord Sesshoumaru never cared for that filthy half bree-"

Suddenly, a rock soared through the air and hit Jaken in his fat green head. Jaken fell to the ground with a lump emerging immediately. Then he got up and apologized at once.

'It seems I've read Lord Sesshoumaru wrong all these years' Jaken thought. 'He really did care for that foolish pup Inuyasha.'

Kouga inhaled deeply and looked back at the service that had just started. Inuyasha's friends, Sango, Miroku, Shippo and Kirara stayed together but Kagome stood by herself wrapped in her own arms. He wanted to go to her but he knew she had to be alone right now so that she could come to terms with Inuyasha's death.

Inuyasha.

Kouga suddenly felt a searing feeling of loss run through his body. Just thinking of Inuyasha caused memories to come crashing back to him. 'Stupid Inuyasha. Why'd you have to go and get yourself killed? You stupid mutt.'

The service was short and mostly quiet except for the people who came up to talk about the good things inuyasha had done for them over the years. Kagome hardly heard them. She felt like a widow mourning the loss of a husband she loved dearly for a long time.

Then Miroku went up to finish off the service.

"Inuyasha, though it may have seemed he hated humans. He didn't, in fact, if anything Inuyasha really cared for humans because even though he constantly said he didn't want to help them, he did. He's helped so many, many people and even demons. He spared the lives of those who promised to change their ways. He killed only demons that were troublesome. Demons like Naraku. Because of Inuyasha, that menace Naraku is dead but in the process Inuyasha died himself." Miroku inhaled deeply.

"Inuyasha would not have wanted us to keep mourning him," Miroku said. "But I'm sure that wherever he is, he's touched that so many have actually showed to bid him farewell."

Kagome could feel the pain starting to overcome her as the memories flooded back to her. She remembered seeing him pinned to the Goshinboku tree and rubbing his ears for the first time. She remembered him telling her to shut up and let him protect her. She remembered him asking her to stay with him. She remembered so many things she wanted to forget.

"Kagome,"

She snapped from her sprint down memory lane and looked up at Miroku.

"Would you like to say anything?"

Could she do it? Could she handle going up to tell everyone there how she had met Inuyasha, how she had come to care for him- love him? She inhaled deeply.

"If you can't, we'll understand," Sango told her. "We'll all understand."

Kagome nodded and closed her eyes.

'Stop crying, I'm fine!' Kagome swore she heard Inuyasha's voice. But she knew it wasn't. With another deep breath she got up and went up on the stage where Inuyasha's body lay.

"Inuyasha-" she managed to say and then she swallowed the lump that developed in her throat. "Inuyasha-"

"Oh child," Kaede whispered as tears ran down her face. She wiped them away quickly and watched as Kagome tried to hold her head up and stand tall.

Kagome had to be strong. She lifted her head and stared at them all. "I thank you all for coming here tonight." She said as clearly as she could manage. "I apologize for the service being so short notice, but I find I'm quite selfish and the only way I can move on is if I cannot see Inuyasha's body anymore."

She stared at everyone she could see. "Inuyasha hated tears, but I'm sure he'll understand that he can't ask us not to cry right now."

The truth of her words pierced through everyone. "And so we'll cry. We'll cry until our eyes run dry and then we'll cry some more. But I guess we all have to realize that no matter how many tears we shed, no matter how much pain we feel, Inuyasha is dead and he's not coming back and there's nothing we can do about it."

Kaede began to go to her, but Kouga stopped her. "She needs this. This is the only way for her."

"I'm not here to tell you some sad story about how humans mistreated him or how demons mistreated him. But I will tell you to look around now. Right here, there may be more humans present but demons are among us and those demons cared for Inuyasha in some way or the other. We have to throw away our prejudices; we have to stop hating one another because we're a little different, or a lot of different or completely different. The only thing Inuyasha truly wanted was to fit in, that's why he dedicated his time to finding the jewel shards so that he could get that wish."

She paused but didn't take long to continue her monologue. "But even that stupid jewel couldn't give him that. It's disappeared and I don't know where it went. But I say good riddance to it. All it ever did was cause pain and destruction even though it brought me and Inuyasha together, it tore us apart as well."

She turned to Inuyasha and looked at his cold corpse. He was dressed in his red robes, his hair had been combed through, his face and hands and feet had been cleaned and his Tetsusaiga was beside him. He looked as if he was asleep.

"I won't be much longer," Kagome said to them as she turned back to look at everyone before her. "I just want everyone to know that I'm leaving, back through the well."

The villagers gasped in shock, Hakkaku and Ginta exclaimed tearfully and Shippo cried out.

"I don't belong here any longer," Kagome let the tears fall. "My job was to help Inuyasha get the jewel shards back, and to get rid of it. I have done my task and so, I'm leaving."

"But Kagome!" Miroku took Shippo and held the heartbroken little fox demon.

"There's one more thing I'd like to say before I go," she sniffed. "I never got to tell Inuyasha how I truly felt about him. Saying that we were too busy to talk about it, is a lie we always had time to talk, but we continued to ignore the subject until we could no longer ignore it."

Everyone listened intently. They all knew somehow what Kagome was going to say, but they had to hear it from her.

"The last thing Inuyasha said to me- before he died…" she inhaled shakily. "Was something I realized a long time ago about him but I was too afraid to bring it up. The last thing Inuyasha told me, before he died was… he loved me."

Everyone heard the pain in her voice and they all cried for her and the hanyou that would never be together no matter how hard she wished for it. The Shikon No Tama had disappeared and there was no one that could bring Inuyasha back to life.

Tensaiga, Sesshoumaru's sword couldn't even do it. Secretly, Sesshoumaru had went into Inuyasha's shrine and tried, but it hadn't worked. Sesshoumaru didn't stay to contemplate why it didn't work because he heard Kagome coming to the shrine. He left swiftly.

He couldn't even help his brother. To say the least, it had caused him to feel pain to know there was absolutely nothing he could do. The last time he recalled ever feeling such a great pain was during The Great Tragedy hundreds of years ago, before Inuyasha was born when he had lost someone close to him and destroyed an entire village.

Right now, Sesshoumaru could understand Kagome's pain, because long ago he had felt the pain as well. It was a pain he had wished he never felt again, and yet he was feeling it at the moment. Just knowing his foolish younger brother was dead, bothered him immensely. He felt as if he had somehow failed his father again.

'I shall fix this problem, father,' Sesshoumaru thought. 'Somehow, Inuyasha will live again. Maybe not for a couple hundred years but he will live again.'

Sesshoumaru watched Kagome and remembered when she had bravely stood up to him on a number of occasions. The most recent time was when she had convinced him to do something that could alter his future forever. If she was right about him desecrating the grave of a human woman he had buried years ago, then his future would be much better than his past. 'Perhaps I can do the same for Inuyasha?' he thought as he watched Kagome.

"Inuyasha-" she said heartbrokenly and then she turned to take a look at him. That was the worst thing she could have done because the moment she saw him, she collapsed.

Everyone gasped suddenly as Kagome fell unconscious. She couldn't do it. She thought she could be strong, but she couldn't. When Inuyasha died her strength had died. When Inuyasha died her hope had died. When Inuyasha died…she had died.

"Kagome!"

Kagome woke the next morning and realized she hadn't been present for Inuyasha's interment. She sighed and sat up; everyone in the hut was asleep. She had said she'd leave this morning. She wanted to go now. Right after she saw Inuyasha one more time but she had to tell her friends goodbye didn't she?

Sighing, Kagome went to her large yellow backpack and pulled out a pen and sheets of paper. It was still very early. The sun wasn't even up yet. She took out her flashlight and turned it on. She would write them all letters.

It didn't take long to write the personal letters to all of them because she knew exactly what she wanted to say. She told Sango that she shouldn't keep telling Miroku that she didn't want to bear his child since she truly wanted to. She told Miroku to give all his perverted ways to Sango only because she truly wanted that. She apologized to Shippo for not being able to stay with him as his mother as she had wanted to, but she did tell him that he would grow up to be a strong demon who would do great things in his life. To Kouga she told him that he was better off with Ayame and that they would be happy together. And to Kaede, Kagome thanked her for everything she had done. Kagome had thanked them all for being such great friends and companions and she apologized for leaving them but she had to.

Once she was done, she picked up her yellow bag and ran out of the hut. She had to go now before anyone noticed she was gone but she had to see Inuyasha one last time. Kagome first went to the well and dropped her yellow bag in. But when she turned to run back through the familiar forest to go to Inuyasha's shrine she saw Inuyasha's body in the arms of…

She froze.

"Sesshoumaru?"

He stared at her; his gold eyes glinted as the sun began to rise.

"Why?" Kagome's voice cracked. "Why do you have Inuyasha's body and the Tetsusaiga?"

"It's not your concern," he said to her calmly.

"Put it back!" Kagome felt her anger and rage rise. "Put Inuyasha's body and his sword back in his grave where they belong!"

"You should leave this place," he said. "You don't belong here any longer. You said so yourself."

"Don't quote me you narcissistic bastard!" Kagome shouted at him and started to run to him, but suddenly, Sesshoumaru disappeared.

When he reappeared, he was in front of Kagome and with one ungentle push, Kagome dropped into the well with a scream. A great pink light engulfed Kagome and Sesshoumaru watched as the well suddenly sealed off and knew that Kagome Higurashi, the mysterious miko from a far away land would never come back to the feudal era ever again. As for his brother, Sesshoumaru looked down at Inuyasha's face the subjugation necklace he always wore was still there.

Maybe someday in the future Inuyasha and Kagome would meet again.

There you go guys another chapter finished! Please continue to review. I get really inspired by your responses to the story

Thank you.

Apryl