Night was beginning to fall as Inuyasha, Miroku, and Sango walked away from the battlefield, exhausted physically and mentally by the day's happenings. Too numb to think, they followed a narrow, overgrown path through the trees until it led them to a sheltered clearing.
"We should stop here for the night," Sango suggested, and Miroku quickly chimed in with his agreement.
Inuyasha wanted to argue, wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the place where everything had gone so wrong. But while he was already healing, Sango and Miroku were much worse for wear after the days exertion, and so he nodded.
It was the work of a few minutes to gather wood and start a small fire. That taken care of, Sango began preparing a meal, a stew of vegetables that could be left to simmer gently while they set up for the night. Their preparations were interrupted briefly when Miroku, who had spent the time mixing a healing salve, insisted that she allow him to treat her wounds, but by the time the stew was ready, everything was done.
The meal was consumed in silence, Inuyasha lost in his thoughts, the others reluctant to intrude upon them. Soon it was over, and the humans prepared themselves for the night, pulling out bedrolls and clearing rocks from the ground.
"Ill keep watch tonight," Inuyasha volunteered. "You guys need the sleep more than I do right now." Besides, he thought, he wouldnt be sleeping anyway.
No one argued.
Sango unrolled her blankets under a tree near the fire. Without a word, Miroku unrolled his next to it. For a moment, the youkai hunter thought about pummeling the monk, but his eyes held none of his usual lecherous humor, only a quiet determination, and she decided to let it stand. For the night at least. Tomorrow was another day.
By the time Inuyasha had taken his customary position in a nearby treetop, they were asleep, Sangos right hand resting lightly on Miroku's, covering the rosary that sealed the Air Rip.
Hours later, still perched in the tree, Inuyasha was staring off into the starry sky, trying to come to grips with the days events.
It hurt. It hurt to know that she was gone, that even when this quest was over, she wouldnt be his. Without his ever having realized it, he had assumed she would stay with him, would continue to comfort him and make him believe in such things as love and compassion. Despite his tangled relationship with Kikyou, despite the fact that she was from his future, he from her past, despite the ever present danger of Naraku, and the youkai who were after the Shikon shards, despite everything, he had believed she would be with him when it was over.
His eyes wandered to a lake in the distance, and on the far shore he could see the faint flicker of another campfire. She was there now, with his half-brother. And he knew she always would be.
In the moonlight, the tears on his face were invisible.