To Live Again
By Rurouni Star
St Dogbert: He's definitely not happy. As evidenced by the fact that I am STILL running from him! *an energy blast from Toukijin goes past her nose* Uh, gotta go!
Amarome: I just love the heartbeat sound. It's so cool!
Lonely Angel of Sadness: *dodges the shuriken, throws a rubber ducky back* I can write what I want, so there! *someone taps her on the shoulder… a mob of unhappy reviewers is waiting with clubs…* Of course, I'll be writing what YOU want, though…ehehehe…
SilverQuick: I know what you're thinking too. You're rubbing off on me. *sigh* I'm still waiting on YOUR next chapter, you know. *shakes finger* Tsk, tsk.
Sailor Panda: You always know the right questions to ask to make me unable to answer. You'll find the answers in the chapter. ^_^
Rageful Jewel: That's a really nice compliment. I'm glad I could brighten someone's day!
Shade: *points to next chapter* It's not done yet, sorry.
Dumdeedum: *whistles innocently* I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
To all those that suggest I revive her: Um… I'll take the cookie, but no promises.
Chapter 19 – Requiem
Sesshoumaru stared at the dissolving remains of what had once been a commanding creature.
Why?
He stared at the sword in his hand. It wasn't Tenseiga. At some point in his last attack, his brother had thrown the sword's twin at him blindly, and he had caught it, bringing it down on the thing that had taken her life. He had destroyed the creature called Naraku for vengeance with a sword that refused to obey him.
Why could he use it? His arm was still his own. He had no Shikon shard. Why had it worked for him?
The jewel shone before him. His arm was somehow still there, but he didn't care for the jewel. It had taken her life to repair it. It was useless.
A sob made him spin around. Inu Yasha had crumpled to the ground, the arrow holding him to the tree so that he couldn't even run to hold the girl he had failed to save. "Kagome...."
In that instant, the brothers' eyes met, and the impossible happened. Sesshoumaru brought his returned arm to his face to touch the small drop of water trickling down it. Why on earth was he crying for a pitiful human?
"God help me," the demon said in a shaking voice, clutching the sword with white knuckles.
Inu Yasha looked up and locked eyes with the man. "Bring her back," he said quietly. "Bring her back and you can have the damn sword. I don't care. Just bring her back." Sesshoumaru dropped the Tetsusaiga to the ground.
"I don't care about the sword," the demon lord said quietly, his face shadowed.
"What? Take it! Take it, you bastard!" Inu Yasha cried. "You can't choose now to not care! I need her back!" His brother turned his back on him.
"I don't care." Sesshoumaru said. The words broke Inu Yasha instead of sending him into a frenzy as they might have otherwise. Kagome was gone – and she wasn't coming back ever again.
But Sesshoumaru drew the Tenseiga, contradicting his statement. The sound of metal on metal startled his brother from his gloomy thoughts. The sun broke through the clouds silently, shining on the sword of healing and sending a shiver through the hanyou's spine. Something was going to happen.
The world became silent as an intangible energy manifested itself. The air tightened, as though it were awaiting a strike of lightning. The Tenseiga's sickly reflected light fell onto Inu Yasha's dazed face, and he watched the blade as it rose high into the air above the demon's head. The light on it intensified, and began to quiver, like a candle's flame. Soon it was dancing wildly, uncontrollably, as though it could somehow mirror the rising power within the blade. The sword sliced the air above Kagome's body once.
There was a sigh, as though something had been lost or stolen away. The light that shone on the sword was quenched, and the air of anticipation died.
But nothing happened.
Inu Yasha let out his breath, losing the false hope he'd had. She really was gone. Even after all of that… even after he'd dared to want her back so terribly… it had failed. He dropped to his knees wearily, his head falling to his chest in an almost automatic attempt to hide his tears. But the sounds of a breaking heart could not so easily be concealed.
Sesshoumaru stared at the sword in mounting anger. The one time he had asked something of it, it had not lived up to its master's needs. And she was gone.
That now-familiar aching feeling in his chest had returned full force, and his brother's actions reflected almost exactly what was in his own mind. Or heart. He could never tell which was which anymore. But the demon lord had not lived for so long without learning certain things. His face went absolutely cold.
If Kagome had been alive… she would have known, understood, the emptiness in that expression. If she had only been alive. But she wasn't.
Before Sesshoumaru could break the useless sword, a brilliant light burst from it. The slight shaft of sunlight that had claimed a place on the blade before now overwhelmed the senses instead of tantalizing them. The Tenseiga began to vibrate, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed. A single, pure note pierced the air and joined the light, melding with it, intertwining with it, and somehow the two became one and the same.
This energy, the purest, rawest form of an emotion its creator couldn't possibly have, filled the clearing. But it didn't stop there. It spread beyond, as far as the eye could see and farther. Inu Yasha looked up in disbelief as the sword's aura spread quickly, covering the immense field and nearly blinding him. He could not wrench his eyes away for all that his eyes watered at the brilliant white light. The arrow holding the hanyou to the tree disintegrated.
As suddenly as it came, it disappeared. The song vanished and the world came crashing down again. All was silent.
Badum.
Inu Yasha held his breath, wondering if his ears had deceived him. Sesshoumaru stared at the slight, motionless body, not daring to even hope that it could be.
Badum.
Badum, badum, badum.
The unmistakable and beautiful sound of a heartbeat resounded in his demon ears.
Kagome drew breath and sat up, coughing, apparently trying to fight a hand that no longer held her throat. She wasn't prepared for the embrace that nearly suffocated her again. Inu Yasha sobbed into her chest and she gazed up at him wonderingly. The jewel was over there. The one he'd wanted since he'd met her and even fifty years before that was sitting less than five feet from her, and yet he was holding her.
"Inu Yasha…" She felt tears well up in her own eyes as she hugged him back. She'd missed him. So very much.
Sesshoumaru watched with an odd ache in his chest where he imagined his heart would be. He turned silently and left, the Shikon jewel and the Tetsusaiga left where they lay. Although his face was as calm as always, as calm as it had been the last hundred years, the fingers that gripped the Tenseiga were turning white.
Such a wonderful, terrible thing it was. Kagome was alive. But she had chosen.
*
*
*
*
*
"Thank god, Kagome!" Kouga pulled himself up from where he'd been, nearly bowling her over with another embrace. She smiled as Inu Yasha gave a shaky 'feh' from her side, still sniffing every few seconds with his back to her.
She returned Kouga's hug tightly. "It's okay, Kouga, really," she told him with a small laugh. "I'm not going to disappear." A small ball of fur wriggled its way between them, and Kagome's eyes widened.
"Kagome! I thought he was gonna kill you!" Shippo hung from her neck and she cried out in joy.
"I thought you were dead!" she told him, shocked. He shook his head.
"I guess I was just unconscious, cause the bright light woke me up!" Kagome dropped to her knees.
Sesshoumaru! He couldn't have...could he? He doesn't have any sympathy for humans!
"That's impossible," came Inu Yasha's amazed voice from her side. He was grasping her hand again, as if to make sure she were real. "He really did. He used the Tenseiga's ultimate power!" Kagome looked frantically around the clearing for the demon lord. He was nowhere to be found. "That means they're alive too!" the hanyou's voice continued in an awed happiness.
Surely enough, a fiery cat came bounding into the clearing, two passengers on top of her. Miroku and Sango jumped off before Kirara landed, rushing the overwhelmed girl.
"Kagome-chan!"
"Kagome-sama!" The miko felt her heart swell so that it might burst out of her chest. People were surrounding her with warmth, the warmth that she'd thought she would never have again. She felt a sob wrack her as she returned their hugs, all of them, over and over.
But unfinished business always had a terrible way of interrupted joyous occasions.
Kagome's gaze inevitably settled on the one person that hadn't revived. Kikyo.
"She can't," Inu Yasha's voice answered her, the smallest bit of grief escaping his control and worming its way into his voice. "She wasn't living in the first place. And... and her soul's rejoined yours." The girl shook her head.
"She helped me. If she hadn't, Naraku's shards would have overcome everyone. The only reason I could purify him was because I was so close." Kagome walked slowly over to the jewel, her hand reaching out hesitantly to touch it, cupping the now clear bead in her hand. "Inu Yasha," she whispered, knowing he could hear her. "Can I have it? Please?" He blinked in surprise.
"Sure. I mean, it's been yours all along, I think." Kagome stiffened as his terrible words came back to her. He seemed to understand what she was thinking of. His face became even more pained. "I'm... I'm sorry, Kagome. You can't know how much. I wanted you home when this happened. It was the only way I knew how..." she nodded quietly, knowing that things could never be the same again.
"Then I'll get rid of the jewel once and for all," she murmured. "It will be an end to all things."
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, sending herself into the depths of the thing everyone had suffered so much for. The world disappeared from around her, the sounds of joyous reunion fading slowly into nothingness. Even Kagome's great spirit, possibly the most powerful of all the souls of priestesses, was dwarfed by what she felt, enclosed in this somehow enormous space, which was itself enclosed by only a tiny jewel.
You are the one that freed me?
A voice penetrated her mind and she opened her eyes to see the depths of the jewel, reflections of herself all around her. Some were surprised, some were angry, some were smiling gently, all were captured moments of her emotions.
"I am." She responded faintly, overwhelmed by the infinite vastness around her.
Then tell me your wish. And beware – for if you wish wrongly then all will be for naught. Kagome smiled shakily in spite of herself.
"I already know what to do."
She willed the power around her to complete the only possible wish. The world around her began to fade as her mind returned to her.
You truly are a great woman... the voice said in awe as it faded away.
"Thank you, Midoriko." The words were whispered aloud. Kagome looked down at the thing that had caused her so much grief. It was slowly becoming smaller, the power pulsating from it in scintillating waves. Eventually, it shrunk to nothing and the remainder of the pure light washed over Kagome's body.
"What...what did you wish for?" Inu Yasha asked her uncertainly, his voice piercing the terrible silence. Her smile turned sad, and she turned her gaze from his concerned face to the ground.
"A happily ever after," Kagome told him. "You'll love it." She got to her feet and brushed the dirt from her hakama tiredly. The girl began to walk away, to the complete surprise of all.
"Wait! Kagome, where are you going?" Sango's voice called after her.
"Don't know," the miko whispered. "I just wished myself out of a home, I think."
She looked up to see herself, a reflection in every aspect except for the longer hair that trailed behind her mirror image.
"You could have wished yourself home," Kikyo said quietly, touching her new, soft skin in awe. Kagome nodded.
"But I'd never forgive myself. And if you absolutely must find some selfishness to it all, consider it a parting of ways for us. I'm no longer you, not in the literal sense. Our soul has split." She ignored her reflection's amazed look and continued on, trying to ignore Inu Yasha's amazed cry of happiness that drifted to her over the wind. They could finish what they'd started fifty years ago. She'd loved him, true, but she'd also fallen in love with another man that couldn't care less about her. It was better that one of them be happy.
Happily ever after indeed. It was always happy for everyone but her.
*
*
*
*
*
A/N: NOT THE END! Just gotta get that out of the way for those of you that panicked right there. After all of my lovely angst, I'm not letting this end so terribly. There's one more chapter, people.