Howdy! I know, I know, this isn't Monday. But remember, I said if I couldn't come up with an idea for Chapter Fourteen then I'd post on Monday. Well, Chapter Fourteen is devised and written. :) But I'll have you know, I'm staying up late tonight (Tuesday night) to get this to you ASAP! :) Just cause I love ya all! ;)
So, here goes… with my 'Rent' soundtrack and my hot tea. I'm addicted to hot tea. Ever since New Zealand… lol, I guess that's what being in a British country will do to ya! Enough babbling… onto the review responses!!
X5-452Star: Yeah, I wasn't very happy with Chapter Eleven either. Sometimes ya just gotta give up though. I don't let it happen often, but I just couldn't be helped. :(
KhmerGirl: Well, here ya go! Enjoy! ;)
Henio: Thank you!
Birdgirl: I'll address the crossover issue further down… But thank you for reading! I'm not planning on stopping my writing any time soon! ;)
Jabba1: Yeah, Kikyo is a heel when it comes to Inuyasha and Kagome's relationship. She just needs to give up! :) But, oh, are you going to hate me for this chapter! Nothing is ever easy in the life of Kagome… ;)
Prophetess of Hearts: True, there is no normal normal but there is normal. Confusing you yet? Well, I actually go over my 'philosophy of normal' a little bit in this chapter. ;)
Simply a Lady: Well more ya got! (Still enjoying your story, btw. Sorry I'm not reviewing, but my computers being a heel.) :)
Yuki Asao: I went as fast as I could! ;)
Sakura-ayame33: Thank you! Yeah, Sailor Moon and Inuyasha are my favorite animes!
Lady Tristana Rouge: Hey, no worries! There is no way I'm abandoning *this* fic!
BTW… I want to thank everyone who's reviewed so far! I love ya all! You really do inspire me to write! ;)
All right, a few things to cover before we continue on to the chapter.
1) Do you want to me to switch this over to Sailor Moon Crossovers? I don't care myself, so it's all up to you guys. If I did switch, would you go over to the Crossovers section to read this?
2) My philosophy of normal (an abridged version) appears in this chapter, so just bear with me. Yes, it does have relevancy to the story! Actually, funny thing is, I didn't realize that this was my philosophy until after I wrote this. I just made so much sense to my life.
Enough chatter. Read the chapter! ;) [Beware! Lots of sighing ahead!]
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As Serena said, she was able to find Inuyasha without trouble. He was sitting atop of a nearby hill, staring up at the sky. Serena moved quietly, but she knew that he could sense her anyway. Neither said anything as she settled herself next to him and stargazed. It was five minutes before the silence was broken.
"I heard everything you said," Inuyasha said in a quiet voice.
"Oh?" Serena responded, already sure of what he was referring to. "I wasn't aware that I was actually talking out loud."
"You were just mumbling, but I heard you fine." He twitched his ears pointedly.
Serena smiled up at his ears before looking at his profile. "And?"
He turned to look at her. "And what?"
"Why did you bring up the fact that you heard my side of the conversation?"
He said nothing for several more minutes. When he did speak, his voice was low and slightly timid. "Does she really…?"
"Love you?" Serena guessed. He nodded his head. "With all of her heart. She just had a lot of doubts hidden away."
"Did she really think that I didn't care about her? At least even as a friend?" The look on his face was one of unmistakable hurt.
Serena smiled her most comforting smile at him. "As I said, they were hidden doubts. Everyone has doubts about their friends intentions sometimes. It's normal."
He nodded, but did not look a hundred percent convinced. Then he sighed. "She really is an idiot if she doesn't think I see her as a friend. She's the first person who ever truly accepted me as I am. I care... deeply for her. But I'm not ready to say that I…"
"That you love her." He nodded. "Have you ever really let yourself think about it?"
He thought for a moment before shaking his head. "I couldn't really let myself think about being happy. My life was Kikyo's. I owed my life to her."
"So… Kagome makes you happy?"
"I - I said that?" Serena nodded. Inuyasha sighed again. "Yeah, she makes me happy. I can laugh and smile when she's around. It wasn't like that with Kikyo, even when she was… even fifty years ago."
She could sense that there was something he was not saying. "But?"
He looked at her with surprise, but answered her anyway. "But do I deserve to be happy, to laugh, to smile when Kikyo never got that second chance?"
"But she did get a second chance. That piece of soul that she had was a life force. It didn't make her feel hate, she choose that." Inuyasha looked at her in disbelief. "It's like the jewel shards. They can be dormant, corrupted or pure. It all depends on who holds them."
"Makes sense, I guess. Still…" he trailed off.
"Look, you deserve to be happy Inuyasha. Everyone deserves to be happy."
"Even if one person's happiness hurts another?"
Serena blinked back at him a couple of times. "I - I don't know. I never thought of that before." She frowned. "But who would be hurt by you being happy?"
"Kagome."
An intelligent "Huh?" escaped her to add to her confused look.
Inuyasha sighed. "To make me happy, I would want Kagome by my side forever. To stay with me no matter where I go or what I do. But I can't ask that of her. Despite any love she may feel for me, I think she would just prefer to be normal."
'Ah,' Serena thought. 'How many times have I wished that for myself? But…'
"What is normal?" she spoke the end of her thought out loud. She saw the unspoken question on in Inuyasha's eyes as he turned to look at her. She looked right back into his eyes. "What do you think is normal?"
Inuyasha returned his gaze to the sky. "For her? Probably going to that school of hers and taking tests. Spending time with her friends and spending time with a," he swallowed hard "a normal human boy."
"That's not normal, not for Kagome anyway." He turned his face towards her. "The moment she was first pulled into that well, her normal changed. It is perfectly normal for her to be traipsing around Feudal Japan by your side."
"Yes, but you also said normal can be changed. She would be happier in her old way of life."
Serena sighed. "I used to have that kind of life, and I loved it. I loved being normal." She stared up at the sky, ignoring the twinkling stars and focusing on the moon instead. Inuyasha was also looking at the sky, but she could sense that she had his full attention. "When I first became Sailor Moon I whined and I cried about fate and destiny not being fair. I hated that my life was suddenly all about protecting people who didn't even know I existed. I had to push my friends away from my life because I couldn't let them know my secret. I was miserable even after Ami, Lita and Rei came into my life. I still wanted the old normal back. But it took coming here to realize that I like my normal. I couldn't go back to my old life even if I tried. I love fighting evil with my friends by my side. I can't go back to being who I was because one, I don't want to and two, the experiences I've had as Sailor Moon have forever changed me."
"What does this have to do with Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, annoyance clear in his voice.
Serena just chuckled. "I was getting to that. You see, Kagome and I are a lot alike. Sure, she was happy with her life before she fell through the well, but she's also happy - or mostly happy - with her life now. She can't go back to her old normal because she cannot forget about you, her friends or this era. It would be impossible for her to find life normal after all she as gone through." Inuyasha looked at her, skepticism evident on his face. "Her normal is being with you, by your side. You are her normal."
He seemed to contemplate this for a moment before saying barely loud enough for Serena to hear, "And she is my normal."
Serena smiled at this confession. "So, are you willing to be happy?"
Inuyasha did not reply for a long moment, but he finally said, "Yes, but not right away. I - I can't just forget about Kikyo completely so quickly. She was my normal long before I knew Kagome, and she will forever be in my heart."
Serena felt a twinge of pity for Kagome, but forced it away. "I don't think Kagome wants you to completely forget about Kikyo and I know that she is aware that Kikyo will forever be in your heart. Just don't remind her of it. Don't ever compare her to Kikyo in any way and if you're thinking about Kikyo, don't show it."
"What do ya mean 'don't show it'?"
"Kagome told me all about it. You eyes glaze over and get deep. She called it deep. I guess it means she can tell you're thinking deeply about Kikyo. And your ears... your ears don't move. You're ears always move, but when you're thinking of Kikyo, they don't."
"I never noticed that before," Inuyasha said, slightly embarrassed that he was so easily readable.
"Yeah," Serena giggled, "because you were too busy thinking about Kikyo to notice."
An amused grin quirked at his lips. "So I'm really that bad, huh? No wonder Kagome would sometimes seem a little... colder to me than normal." He sighed. "I'll try to keep that in mind. I don't want to hurt Kagome anymore."
Serena smiled warmly at him. "I'm glad. Then I have only one more piece of advise. Take it slow. Neither of you are ready to get into a relationship right now. Besides, if you suddenly wanted a relationship with Kagome right after… last night, you'd probably hurt her. She would think that she was merely a replacement, that you saw her as nothing but a replacement."
Inuyasha shook his head. "She is nobody's replacement. She is Kagome. If we ever became ma - er - got into a relationship I would want her to know it is because I want to be with her and only her." He swallowed his immense pride to say what he said next. "How would I make sure of that?"
Serena's eyes widened. Inuyasha was actually asking for advice? "Uh, as I said, don't let it show when you're thinking about Kikyo around her." She wracked her brain for more to say. She was usually great at love advice, but this was a… unique case. "Um, don't call her names anymore, she really doesn't like it. Also, be nicer to her. I know you can be because she told me you have before. But when you are nice, don't act like it's an inconvenience to do so. What else? Oh! Never call her a shard detector! She hates that more than anything!" She paused to consider for a moment. "Besides that, I don't think there is anything you can do. She likes you for who you are, so I wouldn't suggest changing too much about yourself. I think if you just give it time everything will be all right."
Inuyasha sat soaking in what she said. He wanted to argue some of the points, but decided against it. For once, he was not in the mood to argue. He was still thinking things over when Serena began to get uncomfortable, like she was about to say something that she did not want to say. "What?" he asked, not unkindly.
Serena looked shocked for a moment, but turned to him anyways, a pleading look in her eyes. "I - I need to know. Will you ever be able to forgive me?"
Inuyasha sighed and looked back up at the stars. "It was going to happen anyway."
"What?" Serena asked, looking at his profile.
"When I went to see her yesterday she told me that she - that her body was crumbling. That she wouldn't last much longer. She wanted me to go to hell with her right there. I - I refused. I told her that I had things I had to do first - mainly kill Naraku. I told her to hold on a little while longer, and then I could go with her. But she got angry and told me that I would regret my decision. I left, thinking nothing of it, but I guess I now know what she had in mind." He could see Serena from the corner of his eye, and she was still staring at him. He forced a small smile to his face for her sake. "So, you only sped up the inevitable. It's just - she didn't want to die alone again, and I didn't want her to either."
Despite the situation, Serena had to grin. His eyes were glazing over and his ears were stationary. She stood up, but Inuyasha seemed not to notice. "Inuyasha?" No response. She tweaked an ear and his head snapped towards her.
"What?" he growled out. She took a step back, but it was not from fear.
"Inuyasha, Kikyo was never technically alive, she was just surviving off of Kagome's soul. That part of her soul is returned to Kagome, so in a sense, Kikyo did not die alone. She is with Kagome just as she always has been." She turned to leave, but turned back a moment later to tweak his ear again. "She was right about your ears and eyes." With a smile she left the half demon deep in his thoughts.
Everyone was waiting for her when she got back to camp. Kagome stood up and moved towards her as soon as she appeared.
"How is he?" The worry was evident in her voice.
Serena smiled at her. "I think he'll be okay. Just give him some time." Kagome nodded. Serena was about to say that she was tired, when her own yawn did it for her. "I guess using the jewel took a lot out of me."
Darien was already laying down, halfway asleep. When he opened up his arms to her she gladly laid down next to him, cuddling into his warmth. She remembered two things before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep One was the soft kiss placed upon her lips by Darien with a mumbled "Goodnight." The second was a soft voice floating over camp from above that said, "Get some sleep, Kagome. We're heading out again tomorrow."
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Morning came all too soon for the tired travelers, but they got up and left after a hurried breakfast anyway. Nothing was said beyond what was necessary as everyone's minds were turned toward the events of the last couple of days. Finally after two hours of traveling in silence, the tension was lifted.
Kagome was walking on her own, with only a sleeping Shippou cradled in her arms to keep her company. Inuyasha was walking out in front. She made a point to look at his ears every once in a while, and was slightly angry at the satisfaction se felt when she saw that they were forever moving.
'He has every right to think about her!' she scolded herself. She shook her head to rid herself of her thoughts and instead focused in on Serena and Darien walking in front of her. She had to smile at how much of a difference the last few days had made in their relationship. When before they had walked with space between them, now they were pressed together. They walked with their arms around the other's waist, walking in step.
When she found herself wishing that she and Inuyasha could be like that, she once again shook her head, ridding herself of her traitorous thoughts. Instead she turned to see how Sango and Miroku were doing. She smiled at their clasped hands and turned forward once again, only to stop in her tracks with a gasp. She slowly turned around and looked back again at the now blushing Sango and Miroku. Her eyes trailed down to their hands, which were indeed clasped together.
"What?" Miroku asked innocently. Kagome continued staring at their hands.
"It's a way to keep him from groping me," Sango said, trying to be nonchalant but failing miserably. For the dark red blush on her cheeks gave her away.
Kagome just smiled a knowing smile and turned to start walking again. She was surprised to see smiles on Serena and Darien's faces, but even more surprised to see a small one on Inuyasha. With the tension finally broken they walked on in peace.
They walked on in an easy-going silence for an hour more, before Inuyasha suddenly stopped before them, his back rigid and his hand ready on Tetsusaiga.
"What is it?" Kagome called ahead.
"Sesshomaru," was the chilling answer.
They had stopped in the middle of an abandoned pasture, and sure enough at the other end appeared Sesshomaru.
Serena stared at Sesshomaru, who she had been told was Inuyasha's half brother, and a full demon. Sesshomaru wanted Tetsusaiga for himself and would kill Inuyasha for it if he had to. She studied him, trying to figure out how he could so easily wish to kill his own brother, and she found her answer. He was cold, through and through. His face was stone - emotionless - and even his eyes let nothing show forth. He held himself like one who knew he could do anything he wanted, and would do anything he wanted. Despite the rigidity of his body, he had an easy to see grace that flowed through him, and was proved by the way he almost floated when he walked. Serena found him to be beautiful - in a masculine way - and would probably have swooned over him in the past, before she knew that evil could hide behind beauty.
"What are you doing here, Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha asked, hate radiating in his voice.
"There was a surge of power near here the other day, and I came to see if it was Naraku," Sesshomaru replied in his emotionless voice. "But as long as you are here, I will take pleasure in taking Tetsusaiga from you."
A wind swept up, tossing Sesshomaru's hair about, making him look all that much more dramatic. Except, for some reason, it caused a giggle to escape Serena. All eyes turned to her, as the giggles turned into laughter.
"T - that's your brother?" Serena said to Inuyasha between deep breaths as she tried to control herself. But it did not work. A moment later she was laughing hysterically.
Everyone was staring at her, wondering if she had gone crazy. Darien was about to reach over and shake her shoulders to try to snap her out of it, when someone beat him to it.
Sesshomaru had moved so fast that no one had seen him do it, but they could clearly see him now, standing before Serena.
"No one laughs at this Sesshomaru," he said to her in a low voice, anger almost coming through.
His hands were wrapped around her throat, but that was not what was worrying her friends. It was the fact that his hand was glowing green with his deadly poison, and his claws were puncturing her skin.