Chapter Thirteen
Story of the Past
When Inuyasha woke, his first thought was, What the heck happened?
His body was paralyzed. He found he could open his eyes and move his mouth, but the rest of his body was unresponsive. He was once again lying in a hut, staring up at the ceiling.
"Kimiko-sama, Inuyasha is awake!"
The voice came from the doorway. It was male, and seemed somewhat excited. Inuyasha tried to lift his head to look up at the speaker, but his neck wouldn't move. He heard a rustle of cloth and footsteps, and red hakama entered his line of sight.
"So the hanyou is awake." It was her voice. Kimiko's voice. Straining his eyes, he tried to look over towards her, and managed to get a glimpse of his own hair. It was an eerie half silver, half black, as though he were stuck in mid-transformation to his human form.
"What…" he managed to gasp, glad that at least his voice was working. The miko sat right out of his sight.
"You are lucky to be hanyou," she told him. "A true youkai would have been killed by my purification. Your human blood saved your life."
"What did you do to me?" he growled, sounding not at all threatening. He could hear her shifting, and wanted to yell at her to move to where he could see her.
"I attempted to purify you," she said simply. "Your youkai blood had, for the most part, entirely disappeared. It has been returning slowly over the past four days that you have been asleep. Your appearance is…strange, to say the least."
He knew she had to be right about that. His hair was half silver and half black, and his eyes were gold, but not yet slitted. His ears were on the sides of his head, but were pointed like a normal youkai's ears. His human nails were pointed but not strong, and his fangs were dull. He could feel none of his youkai power.
"It will be a few more days before you can move, hanyou," Kimiko said flatly. Inuyasha cringed inwardly at her refusal to call him by name. "I will have other villagers taking care of you until you can move on your own. Don't do anything stupid."
He heard the rustle of cloth, and soon the room felt empty. She left, he thought sadly, remembering what had taken place before she had shocked him. You idiot, Inuyasha. What happened to your self-control?
He felt very ashamed of himself for what he'd done. Kimiko's similarity to Kagome had made him want to touch her, to see if she felt the same as his wife had. He had actually tried to kiss the girl, and had been purified with holy powers for his stupidity. Kikyou shocked me with her holy powers before, he remembered. But she never held on long enough to entirely purify me.
Inuyasha remembered something similar happening to him before. When Naraku had hidden himself in the holy barrier at Mount Hakurei, the hanyou had entered the holy ground when his companions, Miroku and Sango, had not returned. The intense purifying power of the mountain had turned him into a human, and he had remained that way until the holy barrier had been destroyed and his youkai power had returned. But that experience hadn't hurt as this one had.
In the few days it took for Inuyasha's appearance to stabilize, he was taken care of by numerous village women, but did not see Kimiko again. When he finally looked normal again the numbness in his body lessened, and he could soon move.
When Inuyasha was finally able to walk again, he shakily left the house he had been in and stiffly walked towards the forest. His youkai powers had not yet returned, and he knew he would be vulnerable out by himself, but he couldn't stay locked up in that room anymore. The confinement was driving him insane.
Using Tetsusaiga in its scabbard to steady himself, he walked towards the trees, and suddenly stopped. Sitting at the base of a tree, as though she were waiting for him, was Kimiko.
The miko didn't look up as the hanyou made his way to her; she didn't blink when he rather ungracefully sat down beside her.
"Oi…" he started.
"You overstepped your boundaries, hanyou," she interrupted, her voice cold. She still refused to look towards him.
Her words stung, and he looked down at the grass. I suppose I was acting rather badly, he thought. She probably thinks I was going to rape her or something.
"Y…yeah," he said softly. "I know. I…"
"You were allowed to stay in the village until you were able to move again. As soon as your youkai power returns to you, you are no longer welcome here."
Inuyasha closed his eyes, sighing in defeat. "I'm sorry. If you would…I mean…um…" He sighed again. "Can I tell you a story?"
Kimiko's gaze remained straight, but she nodded slightly. "Go ahead."
Inuyasha hesitated, unsure of just where to start. May as well start at the beginning, he thought. He shifted slightly to lean back against the tree more comfortably.
"A very long time ago," he began. "There was a miko who guarded the Shikon no Tama. Her name was Kikyou, and she kept the jewel pure. She had strong spiritual powers, and was a master at the bow." He paused, the memory of her arrows coming towards him suddenly fresh and painful in his mind.
"At that time, I wanted the Shikon no Tama. I'm only a hanyou, and I thought the jewel could make me a true youkai, so I could be powerful. But whenever I got close, Kikyou was always in the way. She would shoot arrows at me and pin my clothes to trees, but she would never kill me.
"Kikyou and I…we got very close from all the contact we had with each other. She was different from the other humans, and was kind to me. But she was very sad, and I found myself wanting to make her happy."
For the first time since he had arrived, Kimiko looked at Inuyasha. "You loved her."
He nodded. "I did. I loved Kikyou, and I wanted to be with her. To make her happy. She told me that if I were to wish on the jewel to be a human, the jewel would disappear, and she could be a normal woman, and then we could live together as humans. I…I would do anything for her. I thought that if I could be with Kikyou, then I could become a human."
"What happened?" Kimiko asked softly. Inuyasha looked off in the distance, not wanting her to see the hurt on his face.
"We were tricked. A creature known as Naraku made us betray each other. Kikyou used a miko arrow to seal me to a tree in eternal sleep, and then she died. I later heard that the Shikon no Tama had been burned with her body."
"So you were sealed," the miko said. "How did you get free again?"
"Fifty years after that happened, a girl appeared out of nowhere. A girl who looked like Kikyou, but wasn't Kikyou. Her name was Kagome. She unsealed me, and the Shikon no Tama was discovered. It had been inside of Kagome's body. A few days later, the jewel was shattered, and Kagome and I had to team up to find the shards.
"It was hard, because that same creature who tricked me and Kikyou, that Naraku, was still out there, and was also collecting the shards of the Shikon no Tama. It was also hard because we had learned that Kagome was actually Kikyou's reincarnation. They had the same smell, the same appearance, and they both had the Shikon no Tama. Being with her all the time, I found myself liking her more and more."
"You fell in love with her," Kimiko spoke up again. "The reincarnation of your first love."
Inuyasha nodded. "I did, though I didn't admit it for a long time. After the jewel was put back together, and Naraku was defeated, Kagome became my wife. We lived the way I would have lived with Kikyou, had children, had a life together. But human lives…they are so short. Fifty years ago, my Kagome left me, and I've been alone since then."
Kimiko's face had an expression of both sadness and surprise. "So both of your loves are gone," she said softly. "And you have the Shikon no Tama."
He shook his head. "No. The jewel was purified when it was completed, and disappeared."
The girl looked confused. "How did you purify it?"
"I wished on it. I wished that Kagome would always be with me, and the jewel disappeared."
"But what was the point of that wish? She loved you too, didn't she? Wouldn't she have stayed with you?"
He smiled slightly. "Kagome wasn't from around here. She came from the future. My wish made it possible to be with her, and allowed her to always cross time to visit her future family. If I paid attention to her correctly, Kagome will be born in about four hundred years, and her adventures will start all over again."
Kimiko looked somewhat confused into the hanyou's golden eyes. "Why are you telling me this, Inuyasha?"
He smiled when she finally said his name again, and turned towards her.
"I wanted you to understand why I did what I did that night," Inuyasha said. "You see, Kimiko, you look and smell exactly like Kagome and Kikyou, and I'm fairly certain the Shikon no Tama is in your body."
