Give me a Home
Disclaimer: Izumi, even though her name is only said, like, three times in the entire thing, she is my character, not yours, and not Rumiko Takahashi's. :P HA! TAKE THAT TAKAHASHI-SAN! (This is the last chapter! It's sot of short...live with.)
Sango knew exactly where she was. She was once more a Tajiya, fighting with her comrades and father. But when she looked more closely she saw that she wasn't fighting...she was a prisoner, in a building that was not really a building, more like several large slabs of stone with pillars in between, holding it all up. They were all on the very top floor, and there was a roof over it all. There was an array of square holes, each hole the exact size as the next, the total of the holes being sixteen. There was a man who looked like he was of some importance on the top left hand corner of the array, and there were many samurai lining the top and bottom lines of the array of holes.
Sango was there, except she was talking to someone who must have been an emperor, though she didn't know what he was the emperor of, exactly. Sango was...friends with him, and they were talking and laughing, until the emperor announced that he had to leave, and promptly left, taking all of his subjects and followers with him, who she hadn't even noticed were there until that moment. The important man and the samurai stayed, and grouped her and her father and friends onto the opposite side of the slab.
The man then called out, "Group one!" and roughly half of them walked onto the middle of the slab, and stood quivering. Sango didn't know what was going on, and asked her father, but he wouldn't respond. She looked on with wonder. "Go!" cried the man, and Sango gasped as all of her comrades and friends standing in front of the holes promptly jumped in. "Papa-"she gasped, but what happened next really frightened her. The samurai each picked up a cinder block, and stood in front of the holes, standing just where Sango's friends had stood moments before. "Go!" the man cried again, and the samurai dropped the blocks into the holes.
"No!" Sango cried, "Izumi!" "Group two!" The man cried, emotion never flickering across his face. Her group started to move forward, but instead she ran to the important looking man and started to beg. "Please! I don't want to die like this! I'm friends with the emperor!"
"You are not. Get to your place."
"Please! What happens if I survive the fall and the cinder block?"
"Then you'll die of starvation. Well, some people do survive, and manage to get out. But once you've been here, those no hope. You either end up homeless, or burning the water."
Sango woke up in a cold sweat, believing that she was about to die. The back of her pillow was wet, and her hair was in knots. "Burning...the water?" she whispered to no one in particular. "That doesn't even make sense. That dream was so random." She replayed the events in her mind.
"What is 'burning the water'? It's impossible to burn water, you can't do-ah!" Sango jumped at least an inch in the air and clutched the top of her futon cover. "Kohaku-kun!" And, sure enough, Kohaku was sitting with his knees tucked into his chest on the other side of the futon. "But your dead, it happened right in front of me!" She looked at the place his body had been laying and, to her horror, it was still there. "Your body is right there!" she pointed to where her brother lay dead, and the second Kohaku thing looked.
"Sure enough...but it's not really me-"
"Not really you? Kohaku, there's only one of you. Don't try to tell me otherwise."
"Whatever, Sango-chan, just listen. Father wants you to come back to the village."
"...Father?"
"Yea. Father and Izumi and everyone else. We're all waiting for you, big sister. They've been waiting for a long time. They sent me to come get you. Now we can all be together again. Now everything's OK."
Sango smiled and cried at the same time. "Izumi...I'd forgotten about her, but how could I? She was my best friend. Father...oh, I want to come back...but can I really leave Miroku and the others behind?"
"Miroku will be here soon, I know it. Come on Sango. For the first time in a long time, we're going home." Kohaku stood up, and held out his hand.
"Home..." Sango said dreamily, "I'm finally going...home." and she took her brothers hand.
Commentary: What can I say? I'M FINISHED!!!! ::rips up binder hysterically:: I finally finished this stupid fanfic! Ha ha ha ha ha. ::waves to friends in North Carolina and cries:: This fanfic is dedicated to you, Mya, Erin, Emily, Maria, Ellie, Mushie, Christy and most of all Carrie, without whom I would still be lost in a world of confusion. What will I do without you guys? Wither and die, wither and die. Special thanks to Mya for giving me the name Izumi. I love you all. Have fun down there without me! Ja ne!