-Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi


-

-


-


Three Years:

In Others Eyes

Part One


-


-Kaede=


Three years have passed since that time, still, I remember the day as if it had just been...the day that InuYasha returned from three days in the darkness of hell without Kagome.

I never had children of my own, but Kagome was the closest I can imagine to having a daughter of my own. She was intelligent, and brave. Full to overflowing with youthful energy and spirit. It's impossible to imagine not loving the girl. Kagome came here and stole all of our hearts...but none more than InuYasha.

And then, she was gone.

It's broken my heart, watching him mourn her loss all this time. I always thought his deepest regrets would concern my sister Kikyo, but I was wrong. He confided in me not long after Kagome was lost to him that his deepest regret was never having told Kagome that he loved her, and he often wondered if, had she known, things might have turned out differently.

He was happy to have returned her to her family, so happy that he wonders now if his feelings might have had something to do with the well closing...as if it sensed his relief and mistook it for his not wanting her to return to him, now that her mission on our side of time was completed.

I can't tell him what closed the well, even though after all this time he still ponders that question as frequent as he did in the days immediately after. Miroku and I have discussed it at great length. Common sense tells us that the well opened with the help of the the shikon no tama, so that the things that went wrong could be put right...and, so Kagome could free InuYasha from Goshinboku. Then, once her mission was complete, the well sent her back home. There's a flaw in this reasoning though. Surely, the evil spirit of the tama knew that if Kagome came, she could find a way to destroy it forever. So why would the evil in the jewel have allowed the well to open ? The truth is, we are just as clueless as to why it closed as we are to the reason why it opened in the first place.

Pondering all this leaves me with a horrible, empty feeling. Even if we figured out the truth tomorrow, it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't erase the three years we have mourned Kagome's loss. It wouldn't erase the millions of tears young Shippo has shed, or change the fact that Sango missed having her best friend at her side when her daughters were born. It won't erase the sadness and loneliness that has been my constant companion these past three years.

Answers won't change the fact that I feel sad, and helpless each time I see InuYasha go to the well only to return alone, and I am left wishing so very much that I had the magic that would heal his broken heart, the hanyou that I love as if he were my son.

The only thing that can change anything, would be for the well to reopen, and for it to return our Kagome to our side.


Sango


I have so much to be happy for, my husbands life, our beautiful daughters and the new child who will be born any day now, my brothers survival...yet, I feel a space of terrible emptiness, lodged deep in my heart. I don't have to look far to understand the reason for it's obvious...I miss my best friend, my sister, Kagome.

Kagome came to me during the darkest time of my life. When I was sure that I had lost everything and only my desire to destroy the one who took it from me kept me alive ...the one who I thought was InuYasha.

I thank the gods now that I was wrong, for the fact that I didn't succeed in my mission to kill him. If I had, I would never have known my husband, sweet little Shippo or InuYasha and Kagome. They became my new family And even though I betrayed them in the process, even though Kohaku nearly killed Kagome, they stood by me and they promised to do all in their power to free my brother from Naraku's grasp.

At the heart of it all was Kagome, a sweet, strange girl with ideas and tools that mystified the mind. She always understood, even when I didn't understand myself, particularly in matters concerning my growing love for the man who became my husband.

Even after three years I still think about her everyday. I wonder if she misses me as much as I miss her, if she has found a new friend, someone in her time that she can talk to about the things she use to talk to me about. I realize that she probably has, Kagome was always making new friends in the villages we passed. But I can't help a stab of jealousy as I wish so much that it was me she was sharing her heart with.


Shippo


Sometimes when I look back on my short life I feel so angry. Angry that mama and papa were killed, angry that I lost my family and my innocence in such a cruel way. And of course, I am angry that Kagome was taken away from me when the bone eaters well sealed, leaving me behind to miss her so much that I feel like my heart will never stop hurting.

Kagome was like a mama, a big sister, and a best friend, all rolled into one person. Even now, after three years, I still feel the emptiness inside me and my heart hurts so much that I think the pain will burn me to a cinder, like Hitan tried to do.

InuYasha told me once that it was okay to go on hoping that Kagome would one day return. I took him at his word, even though I could tell just by looking at him that he was losing his hope even as he encouraged me to gp on believing.

Still, my life has gone on, even without Kagome. I've gone up nine ranks in the Kitsune exams since she left. I know Kagome would be proud of me and thats why I work so hard, striving to do my best so that someday if...when...she returns, she will have a reason to look at me with pride. To smile, laugh, and hug me so tight that I feel like my ribs are about to shatter.

The way that she use to hug me everyday...the way I have only been hugged once in three years and by the most unlikely source of all...InuYasha.


Sesshomaru


I have no choice but to visit frequently the village near Musashi. There is a young lady there who holds this Sesshomaru's heart in the palm of her tiny hand, but, if I were to be honest, I would have to admit that she isn't the only reason I return.

I return because my brother resides there as well, and yet, he is more and more becoming a shell of the hanyou he once was. Oh yes, on the outside he is as cocky and crass as ever. His spirit seems strong, as if he would gladly take on the world should it give him the opportunity to show off the fang of our father that he wields so well and with such pride.

But this Sesshomaru, and the others who are his friends, know different. My brother is slowly dying inside, his spirit is shrinking with each passing moon. InuYasha mourns the one he loves, the one who was taken from him by a cruel act of fate, the same fate that brought her to him.

What is perhaps the most surprising thing of all is the way this Sesshomaru feels about his brothers pain. I am filled with a enigmatic ache for my brothers suffering. I find myself longing to be able to utter words that will bring comfort, even though I know no such words exist. I feel angry that even time is not destined to work as a salve. My brothers sadness grows with each sunrise that finds him separated from the young miko, even though by now surely a thousand have come and gone.

The only thing that can save InuYasha, is her...his Kagome.


Miroku


I can't help but look around me and feel that I have been incredibly blessed. Four years ago I was alone, traveling through my homeland searching for something...anything...that would lead me to a way to break my families curse. The Kazaana...a void of wind that I held in the palm of my hand, a void that was meant to end my life.

I stayed alone by design, moving from village to village to ply my trade and make a living. Roaming from one nameless, faceless woman to another to sate my baser desires and needs. None of them mattered to me and despite my frequent requests for a woman who would bear me a child I was always extremely careful to prevent that very thing from happening. Why? Because I was deathly afraid that the woman would bear a son, a son to whom I would pass on the curse put upon my fathers by Naraku.

It was unthinkable to me then, that I would one day have friends, a wife, two beautiful daughters, and a friendly village to call home. But the gods smiled on me. I have all of that and more, and it is because of her.

The truly sad thing is that Kagome can't be here to share in all my happiness. The ancient well that brought her to us has rebelled, taking her from all of us... from the one who loves her, the one she loves...InuYasha.

For a long time all of us, myself included, encouraged him to hope...to believe that one day she would return to us...return to him. Once, we watched hopefully as he left the village to make his pilgrimage to the bone eaters well. Back then, there was a stab of pain each time he returned alone. Now, the pain comes when we watch him leave...after all this time, we already know what the outcome will be. InuYasha will once again return alone...just as he has each time over the past three years.

It seems to me that he has lost his heart. The more time that passes it becomes more noticeable as the light in his eyes is fading, the light that his belief in Kagome's return gives him. I've wondered at times if I shouldn't try to stop him, to talk to him and see if I can't get him to let her go, to end his visits to the well. But I don't think I will ever be able to do that. It's his hope that keeps him alive, his stubborn refusal to give up.

I'd like to believe that Kagome will return to us one day, I miss her too...she was like a sister, someone I could help protect and take care of. I know her absence is still greatly felt by my wife, and Kaede too.

But it's been three years.

Once, about a year after the well took Kagome away I followed Inuyasha, meaning to speak to him of giving up his trips to the well. Instead, I stood hidden in the high grass, watching and listening because InuYasha wasn't the only one who had chosen that night to visit.

InuYasha had found Shippo, sitting next to the well and crying his heart out. InuYasha attempted to console him, doing everything in his power to stop the young kitsune's tears. Instead, Shippo grew angry, and he screamed out the words...

"I wish Kagome had never come at all!"

I winced, I imagined that statement would bring on InuYasha's temper and even though he rarely hit the boy anymore, I expected he would receive the biggest thumping that he had received in a long, long time.

I was wrong.

Instead, InuYasha sat down, picked Shippo up in his arms and hugged him so tight I thought his lungs might burst. Then, he sat him on his lap and asked...

"Shippo..." he said softly "Would you really rather you had never known Kagome...to have never known her smile, or her laugh or her hugs? Would you really rather give all that up in exchange for missing her now?"

Shippo turned around and looked at him, then he shook his head before falling back into InuYasha's chest to cry.

I understand how they feel. As sad as her loss has made me... losing her isn't a tragedy. To have never heard her laugh, or seen her smile...to have never felt her caring warmth and the bright sunshine that she brought into all of our lives...

To have never known the girl named Kagome...

...THAT would have been a tragedy.


-


-


-


-