Title Hate Them

Author landofthekwt

Rating K

Prompt Bad Advice (Inuyasha fanfic)

Word Count 576

Warning Character death

Summary Hakushin works through his issues

"Hate them"

Those words in the darkness had brought him back to life. A life very different from the life of a saint which he had led. There everything he had done had been for the masses. The same masses who called for his death as a living Buddha in order to save their own miserable lives.

He had eagerly embraced Naraku's though he knew what Naraku was and what his purposes were. The life of a saint was left behind. He had failed after all. In his moment of crisis he had been afraid to die the death that people wanted him to die. As a result he had been cast in the limbo between heaven and hell. Alone in the darkness with the sorrow.

Naraku offered him a second chance. He was not alive, but he still had the chance to do what he wanted with his life. No longer did he have to give up what he wanted for others. It was a chance to live the way he wanted to without boundaries. Providing Naraku with a purifying barrier to keep out youkai was a small price to pay for the freedom.

Only when Kikyou embraced did he see the folly of what he was doing. He did not hate humans for what they had done to him. What held him to the world was a deep sorrow that he had failed in his lifelong mission to be a saint. Until he allowed himself to cry and release that sorrow it would eat away at his soul until there would be nothing left.

He had assumed that Kikyou had come to quiet his soul and dissolve the barrier. Instead she had asked the right question " Why are you so sad?"

Once he asked himself that question, he realized that his sorrow was that he had failed to become a saint. His fear of death in his final moments caused him to waver in his belief. For a single moment he had doubted. That doubt was enough to condemn him to the darkness until Naraku found him and offered him hate as a substitute.

Now he realized the truth. He had never hated humanity. Working for people had people had been his vocation. It was only when his desire to become a saint failed him that doubt crept into his thoughts. He no longer believed all the things that he had fought for all his life. Instead, he was ready to act entirely for himself.

Kikyou released him by telling him that it was OK to doubt and be afraid. It just meant that he was human. He had done enough good in his life that he did not need to hang on anymore. In that moment she freed him from being a saint and allowed him to be a man. Only as a man could he ascend to Nirvana.

Kikyou watched him go. She envied him. Like him she had pride in herself as a miko. She too had tried to live a perfect life without doubt. There was still too much to do before she could pass on. Only when she stopped being a miko and was allowed to become an imperfect ordinary woman with doubts and fears. Then at least she could be truly free of this world and ascend to Nirvana.