V. Entzweibrechen

broken into two.

Kagome climbed steadily up the ladder her grandfather had placed in the well for her, the Tetsusaiga thumping lightly against one thigh and her bow slung across her backpack. She let her mind wander.

She carried spirit wards for the well, a gift from Kaede, whose powers far surpassed those of Kagome's grandfather, and a packet of leaves from Shippo which could be activated with her fingertip to become small statuettes. She had told Shippo that her family would probably sell replicas of his little statues as commemorative artifacts, and he had smiled and cried and hugged her tight, and then decided that with the loss of both she and Inu Yasha from his life, it was time for him to stand up and make his own way in the world. He had promised to look after Kaede, and the old woman had patted him on the shoulder affectionately and nodded.

Kaede herself had not spoken much, though she had been startled to hear that Kikyo had been tracking the Jewel. She confirmed Kagome's suspicion that Kikyo's spell was effectively unbreakable by any means in her power, which though disappointing was not unexpected. She had met Kagome's weary gaze with a sad, knowing one of her own, understanding that the young woman would have to find her own path, with or without the half-demon who had been her constant companion and partner for the past few years of their quest.

They still weren't really sure what Inu Yasha had done when he used the Jewel, but nothing immediately horrible had happened, and Kagome hadn't felt up to facing any more bad news, so they hadn't talked much about it. Now she was still curious, but since Kaede was the most likely person to figure it out and even she hadn't known where to begin...

The older woman had offered her some food, but Kagome hadn't been hungry. Instead, she had asked Kaede and Shippo to walk to the well with her, and with one last quiet farewell they had stood watching as she jumped into the well one last time. Kagome had looked back up only once, seeing the small patch of sky shrinking far above her as she fell.

That was over. She reached the top of the ladder and climbed out of the well.

Kagome sighed, placed the wards carefully around the well and on the wellhouse walls, and trudged up the steps. As she slid open the doors, she could hear all of the usual sounds of deepening twilight in Tokyo, unusual and harsh to her ears now. She glanced up, lifting her eyes above the rooftops of the shrine buildings to the sky where the moon's pale sliver rose. It looked broken, and there were fewer stars than she wanted.

She did not turn toward the god-tree, on the familiar hill across from the shrine.

She took a deep breath, and closed the wellhouse doors behind her. It was time to tell as abbreviated a version of the end of the Shikon Jewel as possible to her family... hopefully her mother would keep her grandfather from pressing for details... and then she could have a hot bath... and then she could fall into bed. A real bed... her own real bed. She would deal with her schoolwork in the morning... and every day from then on. She didn't have to go back into the past. There was no quest to return to, no duty left unfinished, no danger waiting to be faced, no one waiting there for her to return, no one who would come through the well for her. Until she found some way to break Kikyo's spell, if that was even possible, there was no one...

She blinked her dry eyes, tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear, and walked back into modern life.

Not far away, but separated by a gulf of time, Kaede and Shippo had collected Kikyo's remains after Kagome left, and would lay them to rest again in the tomb shrine at dawn. The village around them slumbered, but now they sat quietly in the firelight of Kaede's hut, watching bright flames crackle and firewood fall to ash, sitting vigil until the sunrise.