Notes:
I know you've been wanting to see Kagome -- here she is, with 60% more angst!
Disclaimer in chapter 1.
Releasing Your Heart: Opposing Minds
by arisu-the-pink
"Mama!" Kagome ran outside, catching up to her mother just before she reached the taxi. "We're out of sticky rice, too."
The elder Higurashi nodded, making a mental note of it before giving her daughter a good-bye hug. "I'll be back at four to help you finish dinner. Make sure you're home when Souta gets out of school."
Kagome nodded and, after watching her mother's taxi drive off, turned back to the house. Today would have been her father's fortieth birthday. It was a sad day -- after all, he had only died four years before -- but instead of mourning the Higurashi family spent the day celebrating his life, and enjoying each other's company.
At the moment however, with the wind blowing in the lonely trees around her family's shine, Kagome felt only the sadness. That made two men in her life who'd abandoned her. She trudged up the stairs to her room, wishing she could find her lost diary.
I wish I knew where I left it, Kagome thought to herself. She closed her eyes, a familiar prick piercing her heart. Except I do know where I left it. The only place I haven't looked yet.
Kneeling beside her bedroom window Kagome rested her head on folded arms and gazed at the courtyard below. Her life had settled in the last year, though it never returned to the normalcy she enjoyed before her first trip down the well. Hojou continued to ask her on dates for three months after she returned, certain that her depression was the result of his attention to the freshman girl. Eventually Kagome set the boy straight, and gave him her blessing to move on. He was a sweet boy; under normal circumstances she would have been elated to date an upperclassman with his good looks.
No, Hojou could never satisfy her now. He was too sheltered. Too kind. Too… ordinary. Inuyasha roused her more primal femininity. Around him, she ached to love, to nurture, to procreate -- Kagome blushed, pushing that thought away. Her feelings for him were definitely more than friendship. At least I don't cry anymore, she sighed.
A soft breeze knocked a photograph from her desk and it floated to land beside her leg. Father... Kagome closed her eyes tight, grasping the photo in her hands. With her diary missing, it was all she had left of the man. Suddenly resolute, Kagome stood from her window seat and rushed downstairs. She was going to get that book back.
* * * *
For the first time in over fifty years, the Shikon-no-Tama hung safely on its wooden shrine in the temple. Kikyou and Inuyasha stood back, barely believing their situation. They were back to square one.
"Do you still --"
They blushed, each having spoken the same words. Kikyou looked toward the ground, willing Inuyasha to speak first.
"Do you still want me to become human for you, Kikyou?" He searched her face for a sign but she gave him none.
"It is the only way I know to purify the jewel," Kikyou finally stated, weakly, meeting his gaze. "But," pausing, she took his hand and started to exit the shrine. "I don't know if that is the best thing anymore." She felt the hanyou start. Once outside the temple Kikyou dropped his hand and faced him, her demeanor calm and sure. "I can't be a normal woman, Inuyasha. I don't even want to anymore."
Inuyasha's eyes widened in surprise. "I thought --"
"I did once," she answered his unfinished question. "When I was younger and immature. Before I understood the importance of my calling and came to respect my title. I can't leave that behind me, Inuyasha. I will always be a miko. You can still be human, though. It would purify the Shikon-no-tama and cleanse your soul."
The adolescent half-demon's mind was reeling at the new information. She would always be a miko. She would always stay just out of reach.
Kikyou sighed. "We don't have to do anything about it today. Maybe you should take some time to think about it first. Once the jewel is used, your demon blood will be gone forever."
With a short nod, Inuyasha walked off toward the village edge, his mind clouded with too many thoughts to count.
* * * *
Become a normal man? Inuyasha's eyes were closed, a frown on his face. I always wanted to be full youkai, to challenge my ass of a brother and wipe the floor with his smug face. It wasn't until I met Kikyou that I even considered being human. She made me feel love for the first time.
A wind blew in from the south, heralding the changing of the seasons. It would be autumn soon and then snow would fall. I won't feel that love as a demon, he realized. The first time I transformed, after destroying Goshinki, I felt only the desire to kill. I was no better than an animal then. If I become a full demon, that's all I'll be.
As a human I'd be free to love, though I'd come second to Kikyou's work. I don't need Tessaiga to protect her. I'll train, and get used to my weaker human body. Even as he indulged these thoughts, Inuyasha knew them to be untrue. As a demon I can't love her, and as a human I can't protect her the way I want to.
"Ahem." Miroku's tentative coughing stole Inuyasha from his introspection.
"What do you want, Bouzou?"
Miroku faltered, though he didn't know why the attitude surprised him. Then again, didn't Inuyasha have exactly what he wanted? Naraku was defeated, Kikyou was alive and by his side, and the Shikon jewel was finally whole and in safe hands. "I just wanted to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" The hanyou jumped down from the fence and stood before the monk. "Where are ya going?"
"I am returning to my village for a couple of days. The village elders requested my help in preparing for the fall festival."
"Oh." Miroku found Inuyasha's behavior unsettling.
"Is something wrong, Inuyasha?" He leaned against the fence the half-demon had occupied and crossed his arms across his chest. "Did you and Kikyou have a fight?"
"No." Miroku was almost convinced the hanyou was going to stop there when he suddenly continued, "Kikyou still wants me to become human and I don't want to."
"I see."
"Before Naraku, we had it all planned out. I was going to use the jewel to become human and we were going to live together in the village like normal people. We thought that's what we needed to be happy."
"But?"
"Keh! She wants to stay a miko, and to keep me as her pet. I'm supposed to be a faithful little weakling while she flits around town casting spells and slaying demons. What kind of life is that for someone like me?"
He was actually asking! Miroku blinked in astonishment at the openness the hanyou displayed toward him. The monk was almost at a loss for words, but finally found his voice.
"You aren't married yet, Inuyasha. You can always refuse."
Inuyasha snorted. "I promised her my life, Miroku. My life and my soul for all eternity. I don't know how much more committed a person can get."
"You were both young? When you met, I mean?" The boy gave a curt nod. "Did you really expect your feelings to remain the same for your entire life? It is possible for love to change, Inuyasha. The feelings you have as a teenager or young adult, when you meet your first love... they can be so strong that you convince yourself this person is your soul mate. Somehow, you think, the gods have deemed you worthy of this instant connection and you are ready to give up your life for such a noble cause."
Miroku watched his friend stare off into the distance as though he were daydreaming, but the monk knew he was absorbing every word.
"It feels like being a part of heaven, doesn't it? As though you and she occupy some special place outside the rest of the world and even in the worst moments you ignore all the bad because this is meant to be. But you know what? It isn't always right. People have to grow, and sometimes they grow apart. That doesn't mean you have to stop being friends, it just means you have to stop being naïve.
"When someone truly loves you, they want what's best for you. They don't ask you to change for them, or to be anything less than you are."
Inuyasha remained silent, various thoughts and emotions still raging in his thick skull. Miroku stood up from the fence and coughed again. "Well my friend, I really must be going. I hope you find the answers you're looking for."
* * * *
The well house was dark and damp from the late summer rains. As Kagome approached her destination, a feeling of intense apprehension gripped her. I'll go back, and ask Kaede if she has my diary. I'm sure they wouldn't have thrown it away. Unless... unless Inuyasha disposed of it. Perhaps Kikyou would have asked him to. Kagome plopped down beside the well, a pensive expression on her face. He never did say goodbye, she remembered sadly. Maybe he was angry with me when I left. He's probably completely forgotten me.
Tears began to well up in her eyes for the first time in a month. "Kagome stop it!" she scolded herself, a frustrated hand grabbing at the dirt floor beneath her. Blinking away the unwanted emotions Kagome felt something smooth beneath her fingers. The dirt by the well was covering something.
She dug quickly, the rest of the box was uncovered in mere minutes. How long has this been here? It appeared quite ancient, and the lock that sealed it was rusted past function. She ripped it off with ease and slowly opened the lid.
"My diary."
The implications of her find weighed on her heavily. I never went back, she realized. The diary stayed in Sengoku Jidai and was buried.
"It's just as well," Kagome spoke aloud in a vain attempt to comfort herself. "Now I don't have to bother Kaede to find it. I won't ruin the happiness between Inuyasha and Kikyou." The tears fell once more, unstoppable, as she finally swallowed the truth. I will never see him again.
