A/N: And now...Kirara, one thousand years after the death of Sango. The line in the middle is the story we all know so well; obviously I wasn't going to rewrite the entirety of Inuyasha in a one-shot. Don't laugh. Kirara. Yes. Coming soon: A Few that Are Not depressing. And Revised Inuyasha. (because I can.)
XI.
Do not run, girl, I will not eat you; I am tired, and the air of this place is a premonition of death, coming to me.
Soon, soon, I have been thinking, I will die. But what does that mean to you?
Surely you will be glad of it, you and all your kind.
I was loved once - you do not believe me, I can see it in your eyes, but it is true. Even if it was only once, I was loved.
Can you say as much? No?
You are only a child, so maybe it is not too late.
Carefully, now that I can express that tender feeling, I hold back the fiery tears. Someday, perhaps you too will weep.
You have her look; kind eyes, kind smile, that steel, in a slender frame. Do you understand me, child? It is why I am talking to you, why I am telling you this story. Listen…
My breath is less now. I can feel the long, slow fire beginning to fade, dying down to embers, red coals. I have told you this story so that when I become ashes, not all is lost, not all is forgotten.
Alone for the last time, I have suffered, waiting for this day and the promise it brings.
Tell me, child; do you understand how I can suffer, and not suffer? Do you understand how I could wait for the day of my own death, and find it beautiful?
No. I did not think you could.
Is it strange, is it difficult not to know? Not to remember? To forget this most basic thing?
How beautiful it is - the slow approach of this long night. What a hold it has on us; and the answer it demands, the answer it brings!
Truth, this knowledge. How could we be born, unless we die? How can we hold our own, unless we let go, and in letting go, become more than was ever expected of us?
Like the ones who came before, holding in, holding back; they left nothing behind, became the myths by which men burn.
I knew them, those myths - I walked by their side but those days are long gone, down into the dirt, down into dust. Where our enemies were laid to rest in the silent past; where soon, I will go to join them.
When the fire goes out; when the stars roll over me for the last time…