~ Epilogue ~
The Soulmates
"So then Kikai appeared and Mikomi dropped the shakujyou and ran over to him. If I'm not mistaken he was with the girl whose family I had passed when walking down the cave." Sango concluded recalling her ordeal. Bandaged and sitting on a comfortable mat in a warm room with her hiraikotsu just feet away put her at ease as she stared into the faces of her closest friends.
"And that's all that happened, right? You're not leaving anything out?" Miroku asked to reassure himself that she hadn't been molested or something worse. He would never forgive himself if he had been too late to stop something like that. He was already kicking himself for ignoring Kirara for so long.
Sango looked into the eyes of her savior as he sat across from her, "I promise, other than attempting to describe my vision of the future or the weird dreams I had about my family…" Sango stopped herself before she said too much, "I'm not leaving anything out.
Kagome noticed as relief swept across the houshi's face and she smiled. "So did anyone ever figure out how the cave came to be?"
Shippou smiled, "Okay now this I can tell. There was this bat youkai named Gin who fell in love with a beautiful human named Kameko, and she loved him back. But Kameko's family didn't like the idea of her marrying a youkai so the arranged for her to marry some guy that she'd never even met. On the way to his village to be wed she jumped out of her carriage to go and find Gin. However, Gin's heart had already been broken and a void was beginning to grow because of it. This void turned into the cave in the mountain and when Kameko entered it to look for him, it was so large that she couldn't find him in the first week.
Kin, Gin's twin brother is a good-for-nothing youkai who placed a curse on Gin and Kameko that they would never meet. But because they were soulmates their hearts cried out to one another and so Kin had to make the curse greater and it affected the entire void. So that anyone who entered would be stuck forever and would not ever be able to find their soulmate."
"I have a question," Inu-Yasha said from his position just outside of the storytelling group. "How did you three find this cave?"
"Kirara showed us," Miroku replied.
"Yes, but how did she know where it was?"
Shippou raised his hand to speak. "There's one other thing that Kameko told me about the cave. It has been set up so that if your soulmate is on the inside then you can see the cave entrance outside so that you know where to go to find them."
"Well that's just mean…" Kagome began, "If there's a curse preventing you from finding your soulmate and yet you're drawn to the cave because they're in there then the two of you will forever be wandering the cave in search of one another."
"Actually it was supposed to be a ray of hope that one day the curse would be broken." Shippou said again. Proud that for once he was the one with all the information. The day-saving-information.
"Wait. Wait… before we go any further. What the hell is this soulmate crap?" Inu-Yasha asked, also unfamiliar with the term.
"Oh," Kagome said, "your soulmate is the person who you were destined to be with. The one person that your soul leads you to find because your souls are attracted to each other."
"Oh." Inu-Yasha said.
"Basically your soulmate is your true love and the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with," Kagome concluded hoping that what she said was simple enough to understand. She looked at Inu-Yasha and thought, I wonder if I would have been able to see the cave if you'd walked into it. Realizing what she was thinking she began to blush which made her have to look at someone else. Looking over at Miroku she noticed that his cheeks were a little flushed and he was looking down at his hands.
Miroku knew that he could see the cave because Sango was inside. Because as soon as she was clear from it he couldn't see the cave any more. Which meant… which meant that Sango was his… his… soulmate. Miroku's cheeks reddened further.
Sango looked at Shippou the last thing he said had left her curious, "Shippou, you said there was a way to break the curse?"
"Oh yeah, the legendary couple."
"The legendary couple?!" Kagome, Sango, and Miroku said at once looking at Shippou. Miroku glanced at Sango and saw that she was looking at him and his face flushed again and he decided that his hands were more interesting than anything else in the world at that moment.
Sango stared at Shippou in confusion and something slowly began to sink into her… didn't Shippou say that they had broken the curse? That Kameko was free because of them? Because of her and… she looked up towards Miroku. He glanced up at her and instantly reddened and turned his gaze downward. Then…that means he understands what Shippou is implying too.
Shippou continued. "Legend has it that there will one day be a pair of soulmates who will instantly find each other in the cave and be able to break the barrier of the void and leave thus breaking the curse."
Sango swallowed hard, "A… a pair of soulmates…" she said looking at the little kitsune, not daring to look up any higher than his face. "But that's impossible… I mean after we were free from the cave we could still see the entrance. How do you explain that?"
Shippou smiled, "You could still see the entrance because Miroku's feet were still on the other side. But I know for a fact that Miroku couldn't see it any longer because he couldn't hear me when I told him to catch his staff and threw it at him."
"Any longer?" Kagome said catching on to what Shippou was saying.
"Mmmhmm… Miroku could see it when Kirara dropped us off, but I couldn't. Which means that these two are…" Almost instantly Shippou had two fists come raining down on him from opposite sides.
As his eyes swirled and he no longer chattered away, the two blushing owners of the fists quickly pulled away from the proximity of the other. Kagome laughed a little while watching them, but didn't want to be the next victim of their embarrassment so quieted her giggles. After a minute or ten of uncomfortable silence, Sango spoke. "I wonder if Kameko ever found Gin."
Deep inside the cave a beautiful young woman dressed in an intricate red kimono with white face paint smeared on her sleeve entered a high-ceilinged cavern. Upon second look, she realized that this cavern was the only truly existing part of the cave. This was the battle room that Kin and Gin had created for holding death matches between their enemies, their victims, each other. The walls used to be lined with the skulls of the losers. That was before Gin met her, fell in love with her, and left his twin's influence for her. Now, lining the walls of the cavern were beautiful masks, like the ones she used to collect.
She looked around but in her dark, brown surroundings she saw nothing but the masks. "Gin?" she called out unsure if he was hiding in the darkness.
Two feet in front of her the tall youkai spun around opening his stance so that camouflaging abilities disappeared. A tear rolled down his cheek as he said, "Kameko?"
She smiled at him and flung herself into his opened arms. "I have been waiting for over fifty years to hear you say that." Upon completion of her words she began to cry from happiness.
"You've been here this whole time?" he said hugging her tightly.
Kameko nodded into his chest.
"What about your wedding?" he said taking her face into his hands so that he could look into her eyes.
"I couldn't marry him. Not when I was in love with you. Gin you're my soulmate and I would have gladly waited five hundred years to be with you again."
"Less than a day, huh?" Sango said walking over to where Miroku sat under a tree.
He smiled briefly and gestured for her to join him. Sango sighed and took a seat beside him looking at a magnificent sunset.
"Like I said 'pure dumb luck.'" Miroku sighed, "Of course I supposed it helped that your soul was screaming out to mine telling me which way to go. If I had followed the advice of the Buddha, which can obviously not break the curse any better than Gin and Kameko, I would have been lost and completely on the wrong path."
"So what you're saying is that you followed your heart." Sango sighed looking at the dark swirls of purple forming on the edges of the yellow and pink rays of light.
Miroku nodded, 'she can also read minds.' "Basically," he replied softly looking down at his right hand.
Sango followed his movements as he traced his left fingers over his covered palm. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I don't know if I should tell you this or not," she took a deep breath, "In my vision of the future…I was sitting on a blanket retelling a tale based on this past week to my two young sons."
Miroku turned his head to look at the side of her face, ever so close to his own.
Sango smiled in remembering her vision, "They were such handsome young men with their dark black hair and deep blue eyes. When they ran off to play with Inu-Yasha, Kagome, and a much taller Shippou, my husband came up behind me and placed his smooth, kazaana-free hands over my eyes." She turned her head to look at him, "Proof that someday, I just might actually bear you a few children."
Miroku closed his eyes and leaned his head into hers so that their foreheads were resting on each other.
"Kagome tells me that you were so worried when you couldn't find me that you didn't eat or sleep and went around asking every person you could what they knew." Sango smiled, "If you were truly missing, I probably would have done the same thi…" Sango's words were cut off when Miroku's lips pressed against her own. Knowing exactly what to do, she wrapped a hand around his shoulders and pulled him in as she returned their first—and long-waited for—kiss.
As the sun's last rays cast everything in red and the two pulled apart their blushing couldn't be seen. "So where does this leave us?" Miroku asked just above a whisper.
"That depends on how many women you plan to feel up between now and when we defeat Naraku," Sango smiled.
"Honestly, from the time I first met you I haven't intentionally touched any other woman. I just…" Miroku sighed, "I don't know if I can just rely on your vision of one possible future to be so accurate that I can just stop and give up seeking out an heir."
"I know…" she said as she wrapped her arms around his. "But… can you honestly tell me that you've kept track of every single woman and can tell me that you don't already have an heir to this curse?"
"Hm," Miroku thought deeply turning his head to stare into her eyes. The last rays of light flickered off of her brown eyes and he grinned, leaned in to give her one light kiss, and said, "Does that really matter?"
Sango smiled back at him, cutting off all circulation in his arm and said, "You are such a lecher."
"Well I've grown rather accustomed to my ways, and I am under the impression that I cannot actually touch you until we defeat Naraku." He said putting a finger to her nose and clenching his jaw to try and ignore the pain shooting through his arm.
"So stop focusing half of your attention on women and focus all of your attention on beating him," she said through gritted teeth.
"Stop killing my arm and maybe I will," he replied back through gritted teeth.
As darkness covered the land, their quiet arguing could be heard from the door of the house where Kagome and Shippou watched with awed expressions on their faces.
"Feh. This will never last. I give them ten minutes before he says or does something to make her slap him into that tree." Inu-Yasha said grumpily folding his arms and walking away from the opened door.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Notes:
By now everyone should know that I do not own Inu-Yasha and that Rumiko Takahashi does.
I thank her greatly for making such fun characters to write about and for not suing those of us who do.
Uh… if there are grammatical mistakes… live with them Usa-chan lives a state away and since we graduated from college it's not likely that I'll be running things past her anytime soon. Besides there are always some mistakes in just about every chapter.
**~**
Okay… So some of you may have noticed the sporadic Japanese terms that keep popping up in my writing. Um… well they exist in my writing because they exist in my speech. Which is really embarrassing when you go into a Chinese restaurant and say random Japanese phrases and they look at you like you're stupid and don't know the difference between the two countries. Okay for those of you who truly have no idea what these words mean I'll define for you anything non-Inu-Yasha related right now. "Hai" means yes, "Iie" means no, "Mou" is a sound to express anger or frustration, "Nani?" means what? "Arigatou" means thank you, "Kon'nichi wa" means hello, "Daijoubu ka?" means "are you alright?" and "Daijoubu" is the response meaning, "I am alright/I am fine," By itself "daijoubu," simply means that "It is fine/ things are okay."
In the fight sequence I used words like "Koi" which means come or at it is generally translated "bring it on," and "Yosh," which well is something said when you've just kicked someone's butt, or broke a videogame record, or the girl of your dreams just agreed to go out with you and is now out of earshot… you get the idea :-) "Oi" is simply another spelling of Oy, or hey. "Suke" is a not so polite word that Inu-Yasha says a lot (usually after he's been sat). "Hentai" pretty much means Pervert… as in Really Big Pervert who needs to get his hands off of my person.
Okay people, "Jii-jii" (if I didn't take the word out) means old geezer, and "Baa-baa" means old hag. "Oji" in the case of when Kikai said it means uncle. "Okaa-san" means mother.
I'm sure there are scores of other words that are in there… if you're chibi then you are small, if you're a baka then you're an idiot, and a kitsune is a fox… anything else that you need to know or haven't figured out by reading other fanfics, watching Inu-Yasha (because I know a dubbed version doesn't exist—er at least it didn't when I wrote and posted this), or by reading the manga… uh… well e-mail me, ask your friends, consult with your alien abductors or just shrug it off and pray that one day you figure it out on your own. ^_~
**~**
I couldn't decide if I wanted them to actually learn that they were soulmates or not, but I couldn't honestly see Shippou keeping that a secret. And the little kitsune is so young that getting to rub it into their faces when he had the chance had to seem so much more appealing than telling Kagome and Inu-Yasha behind their backs.
I decided that since this is a romance (and since I let Shippou spill the beans) to go ahead and let them have their moment because who knows if it'll ever happen in the show. ^_~
As for Inu-Yasha's last comment, I'll leave it up to your imaginations on how the rest of the night plays out. How long do you think it will be until Sango handprints his face?
I just wanted to add that there is a sequel to this story. It's also listed on fanfiction.net it's called Miroku's Worst Fear. If you haven't already, go check it out. Another interesting curse has been met by our favorite couple, how will they handle this one?