Like Father
Chapter Ten:
The End of the War
"Like I said before, you have your ways of surprising me, little Kiara. So, what will you do against me, a ghastly vapor, with twin blades that will only slice through the air like cutting thick fog."
"I will defeat you," she growled viciously. "I will protect my brethren with Tetsusaiga, and I will heal what you have destroyed with Tenseiga. I will avenge my family. I wield the brother blades that together destroyed Naraku, who birthed you, and now is your turn to disappear."
She slowly raised both blades above her head. The blades of both transformed swords pulsed in unison.
"The blade made to protect, the blade made to heal – both made to work together and conquer!"
With this lasting shout she drove down both blades simultaneously in a crisscrossing pattern. A white ball of light exploded from where the two blades crossed and engulfed Kiara as well as everything the eye-could-see. There was a blood-curdling scream, neither a man nor a woman's, and as it faded the white light slowly began to disperse.
When the light had finally faded into nothing, Kiara finally collapsed, spent both physically and emotionally. The swords dropped from her grasp and de-transformed as she kneeled and buried her head in her hands and began to weep.
Gingerly a hand touched her shoulder, but she flinched away from it and continued to weep.
"Dammit, I failed…" she growled into her tears. "Just kill me already. There's no one left to torture me with. I'm broken, you win."
"I didn't raise you to talk like that," came a displeased growl.
Her hands slowly left her face as she gradually raised her head. "You damn cruel bastard. What more do you…-?" She stopped mid-sentance and gazed disbelievingly up at him. A cloudless afternoon light blue sky hung in the air behind him. She leapt to her feet and flung her arms around Sesshoumaru's broad shoulders. "Uncle! Please tell me it's really you. I can't take it if you're just another scheme of the darkness!"
A thin smile crept to Sesshoumaru's lips as his one arm went around his niece. "If it weren't me, I would have destroyed you the moment you stood. Besides, look around you. I don't know what you did, but it seems you destroyed the darkness."
Kiara did pull away from her uncle enough to look around her. Everything was still rubble and debris, but the eerie indigo light no longer hung on the air, the vast cloud of violet vapor had completely disappeared, the air was fresh, the trees that had been dead so long she couldn't even remember seeing them once green were now starting to sprout small green buds, and as a light breeze passed them for the first time ever Kiara felt almost at peace with her surroundings. She turned back to look up at Sesshoumaru with wide hopeful amber eyes.
"I used Tetsusaiga and Tenseiga, the sword made to protect and the sword made to heal, I used both blades as one to conquer the darkness. Will things grow once more, as lustrously as in the past? Do you think mother will have been brought back to life? What about Kirara? I promised to come back and find Kirara once I had destroyed the darkness… Will the water be drinkable again? Will fruit grow on trees as it did in the past?" The questions poured out of her mouth before she could stop them as tears coursed down her smooth tan cheeks. "Could I go back to the past, to let them know I succeeded? Do you think the well will allow me to pass through it again? Just to go there quickly then come back?"
Hesitantly Sesshoumaru nodded. "If it'll shut you up," he murmured.
She beamed and kissed his cheek, then released his shoulders and stooped to retrieve both swords. She replaced both in their scabbards, and then offered them to Sesshoumaru, who surveyed them coolly a moment before slowly shaking his head no. She watched him bemusedly.
"But father gave you Tetsusaiga, and grandfather gave you Tenseiga. Neither blades are really mine."
"The Tetsusaiga was repaired with your fang, therefore it becomes rightfully yours." He argued, speaking in his usual calm and collected voice with his usual impassive expression. "Also, I couldn't wield it anymore anyway. As for the Tenseiga, I have no heir, so I might as well pass it onto you. Now go try your luck with the well. If you get through, then when you return you can find me. I need different clothes. If Kirara is alive, undoubtedly the annoying beast will find us, same goes for that damned fox demon and your mother."
Kiara placed both swords in their scabbards at her belt, and then smiled winningly up at her tall and impressive uncle. "Thank you, Sesshoumaru. For killing you previously, you truly have my sincerest apologies, my devoted uncle." She said and inclined her head respectively to him. When she looked back up at him both wore fairly amused expressions. "Y'know, last time I said that to you, you said I was insane."
"And I'm still not positive you aren't," he countered with a thin smirk.
She laughed lightly as she threw her arms around him in another lasting hug. "I do appreciate you uncle, for everything you've done for myself and my family. And I do love, respect, and admire you." And with a last ginger kiss on his cheek, she turned and went to the hole in the ground and disappeared down it without more of a warning.
In another moment Kiara leapt out of the hole, and landed on the lip of the well. She looked about her at her surroundings, and took one long deep breath then sighed out and her face spread into a broad smile as she leapt onto the ground from the lip of the well and sprinted into the surrounding forest.
Just moments later she halted atop a hill where a dead tree stood tall.
Father…"Yo! Dad!" She called up the tree.
Inuyasha leapt down and stared in stunned surprise at Kiara as she grinned.
"You're alive? B-but Sesshoumaru…?"
"Yep. It's not a very long story…" and with that she excitedly took off on an explanation on how she had done it. When she had finished, rather quickly, she looked about her. "Is mom around? I don't want to bug her, you can tell her I won; I just want to see her before I head back. I'm not sure she was revived…" Kiara trailed off and purposely-avoided Inuyasha's eye so he wouldn't see her sadness.
"She's moping around Kaede's. Before you go, about Sesshoumaru… Is he still wearing that fluffy fur pelt thing?"
Kiara looked back to him with a playful light added to her identical amber eyes. "He's got it, but he doesn't wear it. I'm going to go check on mom then head home from there; if I'm gone long uncle gets irritated with me. So," she flung her arms around his shoulders in a hug then kissed his cheek, and before he knew it, she was gone, sprinting down the hill toward the village. She skidded to a halt just outside the hut she recognized as Kaede's and slowly peeled back the door flap and peaked inside.
Kagome sat with the old woman, stoking the flames with a long thin branch, her face paler than usual. Shippou sat beside her, every-so-often glancing up at Kagome every time she let out a deep breath jadedly.
Mother…"Mew."
Kiara looked down and smirked.
"Hello again, old friend." She greeted the two-tailed catlike demon and stooped to pick it up as she stepped into the hut.
"Kiara!" Kagome shrieked and threw herself on her future-daughter in a vice-like hug. "But I thought you-…"
Kiara interrupted with a light laugh, though she returned Kagome's warm embrace. "Yeah, I really thought I was done-for for a while there, too. Dad can tell you, I already told him all about it. I just came back to let you know that that wasn't my final farewell. I'm heading back in a minute here."
"You're going back already? You've only been here for a minute or two!"
"I know, but I told uncle I would be here and back. He'll blow his top if I'm not back soon."
"Well… Okay. Just try and be safe."
"I will, mom, no worries. Say 'bye to Miroku and Sango for me when they get back from wherever."
"All right."
Both paused and released each other then stared at each other awkwardly.
"That felt like deja-vu," said Kagome.
Kiara smiled. "'Cause that's almost exactly how you and your mom said goodbye just before you jumped down the well and found me," she explained casually then looked past her to Kaede and Shippou. "Y'see, I didn't forget you guys, Shippou. 'Bye Kaede, I'm glad I was able to meet you, as well as Miroku and Sango, whenever they show up. Oh, and mom, when Miroku and Sango have their baby, tell 'em I say congratulations. See you in the future, Shippou, you too, Kirara." With that Kiara kissed Kagome gingerly on the cheek, then turned and left the hut before anyone could twitch a tail.
She sprinted all the way back to the well and paused once she was on the lip of it.
Mother… Father… My friends… Take me home…-
"Uncle Sesshoumaru?"
"What?"
"Did you really used to wear that fluffy pelt thing? The one you gave to me as a baby blanket?"
"Kiara, leave your uncle alone about that."
"Yes, mother."
"Yeah, Kiara. Sesshoumaru was real fond of that fluffy pelt thing. It might be painful for him to talk about."
"Shippou! Kiara, that isn't funny."
"Mew."
-
Author's note: Okay, the last eight lines are just loose ends I was tying up. So how'd ya'll like it? I tried not to interfere with the 'real series' plotline too much. Ya'll can figure out the mystery between the lines – that's what makes reading fan fictions so fun. Keep rockin' and rollin'.
-Clever Fox Child
Disclaimer: I don't own any copyrights to Inuyasha™. I only own Kiara®.