A/N: Originally submitted to IY Fanfiction for their prompt Uninvited. Won first position.
"Now pray to the kami and ask for your heart's desire," Kagome urged Inuyasha at the end of the ritual.
Inuyasha was suddenly at a loss for prayers.
Throughout his life everything had come to him uninvited – both the good and the bad. He had never wished for a single thing.
Being orphaned at a young age, living in the forest, struggling for survival, getting chased away by the bigger demons, the jeers, pebbles and sticks that he had collected from the humans he had come in contact with – it was all uninvited, he certainly did not go looking for any of it.
Then Kikyou had come inside his heart without the slightest warning, and when she left, she had walked away without so much as a backward glance. There was nothing he could do about it.
Naraku was uninvited trouble – a bitter enmity that he incurred through no fault of his own.
Kagome didn't wait for an invitation to come crashing through his slumber, to awaken him and free him from his binding seal. Shippou, Miroku, Sango – they all came of their own accord and became a part of his life.
After Naraku was defeated, for a moment he had harboured the desire to settle down to a life of peace with Kagome. But fate had intervened; separation came in, uninvited, and dashed his fragile hope into pieces.
And yet again, after three long years during which he had given up all hope for that future, the portal had opened by itself, and Kagome's scent – inviting and yet unexpected, permeated his entire body once again.
Then the children came uninvited, and became the greatest source of joy to him.
They were all grown up and married now, so Inuyasha had to build a bigger house in order to accommodate the newest members of his family. Kagome officiated a small ceremony to ask for the kami's blessings before they moved into their new home.
"Inuyasha?" she was prodding him, startling him out of his reverie, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'm fine," he replied with a smile as he looked around his family of nine.
He realized that most of all, he had enjoyed the suspense of the ride. Whatever had come to him uninvited were disguised gifts from the kami, and whether he liked them or not, he had embraced them all with open arms. If he had rejected even one of them, he would probably not have been sitting so happily with his family right now.
"Give us all a part of your strength – so we can smilingly bear whatever gifts you have in store for us," the patriarch prayed to the kami.