Disclaimer: not mine, you know it's not. I'm getting really, really tired of these disclaimers...
-cough- ok I know I didn't post for a long, long time. I also know most of you hate me right now. I would hate me, too, if I were in your shoes. Or socks, or whatever.
So here's the next chapter for you, and a big sorry from me.
Enjoy? Heh... -runs away screaming as angry reviewers pelt her with tomatoes-
Forever
Chapter 14: Patiently Waiting
Kagome
It was her fault. She'd made him angry. She'd laughed at him, hurt him, ruthlessly... And he had every right to push her away like that. She didn't deserve him. She never had.
But now, as Kagome sat there on the ground, watching Inuyasha vanish into the darkness of the trees, she did the only thing she could do.
She cried.
Kagome seemed to be doing that often as of late...but her tears didn't care. They subsided after a while, bringing her into sharp relief of what she'd done.
She'd hurt him. She'd ripped apart his heart after mending it, and he'd pushed her away.
Kagome stood, shaking, and gazed thoughtfully at her hand. It was bleeding.
She must have impaled it on a sharp rock when she fell.
But the pain, the stinging pain that accompanied gushing blood didn't capture Kagome's attention in the least. It was her fear, her guilt, her regret...
Regretting the past wouldn't change anything.
Naraku was gone. What of the jewel?
Inuyasha would find it, become a demon, and live in his era happily, slaughtering at will. But Kagome... she had her own time. She had a mother, a brother, a grandfather, and a fat cat to return to.
She already had a home.
Kagome turned to the well and walked to it slowly. Looking down to its depths, she sighed. "Good-bye, Feudal Era..."
And she jumped.
Inuyasha
He grumbled all the way to the village, returning back to his old self. Ignoring the villagers' looks as he passed them, Inuyasha headed straight to Kaede's hut. She'd just led the villagers back to their homes, seeing that the battle was over.
"Where were ye?" she asked, turning to Inuyasha. "And where is Kagome?"
"I was in the forest." He grumbled.
Shippo jumped on Kaede's shoulder.
"But where's Kagome?" the little kitsune shrilled.
Sango and Miroku appeared behind Kaede, their expressions cool and unreadable. The hentai didn't even bother groping Sango for once...
Still grumbling, Inuyasha went past them and into the hut. He lay down on the floor, hoping to rest.
But rest avoided him, and sleep never came.
Sango, Miroku, Kaede and Shippo
"Where's Kagome?" the kitsune began to whimper.
Ignoring Shippo's sobs, Kaede sighed.
"That fool of a hanyou must have angered her again."
"Well, she'll come back in time... won't she?" Miroku stammered.
Sango held on to his hand as if to her life.
"She doesn't have a reason to return any more. Naraku has been defeated, the jewel returned."
A look of shock passed along her eyes.
"Where is the jewel?" Kaede asked, worried.
"Inuyasha didn't have it..." Miroku replied slowly.
"Kagome wouldn't have taken it..." continued Sango, "She doesn't need it."
"Then... Then Naraku must still have it..."
"I would have known had it been otherwise..." sighed Kaede. "I should have known..."
Sango fell to her knees, and Miroku comforted her.
The demon exterminator looked at Miroku's right hand for a moment.
"Miroku..."
He turned his hand to the ground and opened the wind tunnel.
A large gust of wind pulled the nearest dirt and rocks to him.
Tears stained Sango's cheeks as Miroku closed the wind tunnel.
"He's alive..."
Kagome
She found life in her own time strange, if not boring. She had grown to love all the battles with demons, all the heartbreak and wounds...
As long as she was near Inuyasha.
She knew it sounded sappy, knew her life in the past year had become something just short of an extremely cheesy romance novel. But she couldn't help it.
And Kagome didn't care. She didn't know many things, was ignorant to even more. But one thing she knew for sure.
She loved Inuyasha.
More surely she loved him than she adored her very own life. She would trade everything she had: her home, her family, her friends, her time... everything, anything for Inuyasha.
He loved her. She knew just about that much.
But Kagome was no simpleton. She knew he was devoted, tied to Kikyo by his promise.
Kikyo was dead...
Did that mean he would be free? Did that mean she could return to him?
Kagome sighed, looking once again at the pile of homework she had missed while in the Feudal Era.
At least she had something to keep her mind off him for a while...
Naraku
With his last breath he cursed that insolent mutt of a hanyou. To the last drop of Naraku's spilled blood he hated the dog and the miko that trailed near him.
He was the strongest demon in the world! With the power of the Shikon No Tama, Naraku should have defeated Inuyasha with ease.
But he hadn't.
No, the jewel's power had been strong. So it couldn't have been weakness on his part.
It must have been strength on the mutt's.
Growling as he attempted in vain again to stand, and fell to the ground in pain. Laying there, crumpled somewhere in the middle of the woods, unable to stand or defend himself in the least, Naraku felt helpless.
Almost as helpless as Onigumo had, laying in that cold cavern, covered in bandages and unable to move. Then again, Naraku felt more helpless than that insolent fool of a human had. For that fool had had Kikyo, the priestess, to take care of him. And who did Naraku the demon have?
No one. He had no one to laugh with, cry with, or share his ambitions with.
His incarnations hated him. He had killed anyone else that tried to get near him... Kikyo had remained somewhere in his heart still, but Naraku had used Kagome to kill her.
He'd destroyed all chance of life. Oh, he would live, for the Shikon jewel wouldn't let him die. No, it would let him live until the end of time, with nothing but his own company to benefit from. Not that his own company was in the least pleasing.
Perhaps he could have revenge on that hanyou.... When he mustered his power.
He could wait for the dog to come about, and pounce on him when he least expected it, ripping him to shreds...
That wouldn't help Naraku's loneliness in the least...
But at least he had a goal now, a reason for living.
He had to have his revenge.
Inuyasha
He was still laying still in the hut, cursing all the gods he knew. Why had he had that outburst then? Why had he pushed Kagome away then, when he could have held her?
All the guilt for everything he'd ever said or done to hurt her came sweeping over him.
He'd hurt her, broken her heart a million times, shouted at her, almost killed her, rejected her... and yet Kagome still loved him. She loved him!
He didn't deserve her; he knew that for sure. But something told the hanyou that he had to protect her, no matter what. And that meant apologizing.
He hated apologies. He'd despised them since the first one he'd been forced to make.
To Inuyasha, the arrogantly self-centered hanyou, apologies were a waste of perfectly good time that could have been spent beating the stuffing out of some innocent-looking kitsune.
But this was Kagome... the girl that had suffered so much already, the girl he was forcing to suffer even more because of his selfishness.
He would have remained the monster that he'd been, would have continued on robbing villages and scaring the daylights out of children. But then something had happened that changed him forever. For good or worse he didn't know.
She happened.
He remembered her curious raven eyes staring into his golden ones as she stroked his ears curiously.
Inuyasha had been irritated then. No question. But gradually, he came to like her, to befriend her, and eventually – though he couldn't recall exactly when – he'd begun to fall in love with her.
So as much as he hated to apologize, he'd have to do it. He'd have to give her the love she deserved, and the apology she'd never been given.
The hanyou stood, and stepped from the hut. But as soon as his hopes rose at the thought of seeing Kagome smile for him again, they sank.
For before him were three very crestfallen expressions.
Sango sat on the priest's lap, her knees hugging her chest tightly as Miroku rocked her gently. Kaede paced behind them, an extremely restless look on her face.
"Oh no..." Inuyasha groaned, "What is it?"
But nothing in the world could prepare him for what they told him next.
Ok that was longer than usual... heh is that good enough for you? Tell me, please, and give me some more plot ideas... cause I'm almost out, and I want to keep this going.
As usual, review!