Bonus Outtake 2 - Dealing with Kohaku:
Right. Looks like we have all the shards with just the one keeping Kohaku alive left. I bring this to the others' attention…
Miroku wants to talk about possible solutions, Kagome's trying to offer to leave the shard until Kohaku grows old and dies peacefully - a childish wish that is, but Sango...Sango's face is set in a determined and intense look.
She claims she understands, that this...this was the end goal from the start. To release Kohaku from Naraku's control and allow him a peaceful rest in the afterlife.
Miroku and Kagome try to talk her out of it but she stands firm in her decision.
I watch as she takes a dagger that was hidden somewhere on her body, holds the kid in her arms while softly talking to him about how much she loves him-forgives him and that she's sure their father and the others will understand that he's not to blame for everything…then she smoothly sliced the back of his neck open to dig out the shard, eyes wet but no tears have fallen yet, the kid hasn't reacted at all to anything…
Finally getting the shard out she holds it out for one of us to take, her eyes firmly on her brother. I take the shard from her so she can use both hands to hold her little brother in his last moments.
We all respectively look away.
.
.
Bonus End.
.
.
.
/ / / /
/ / /
/ /
AN: I was really tempted to just have Kohaku die flat out in this story. Like, omg you don't even know! But it occured to me that (unlike the canon's half assed bullshit we got where they said he was dead and brought back like a zombie only able to live thanks to the shard, only to then let him live with no explanation once the shard is magically removed at the end) the shared in his neck may have been able to slowly heal him enough to survive without it if he didn't die from the shard extraction. But personally, I was always lowkey expecting something like this to happen to Kohaku in the series. The group delaying taking the last shard from Kohaku out of respect for Sango's love for her brother whom would die without it. That's why this was almost not an outtake, lol.