The Shikon no Tama was a double-edged sword. It would give you whatever you wanted, but if the wish was purely on selfish means, it would be the end of you. What a lovely little sentiment – the warning engraved at the bottom of the cloudy jewel. So few heeded it.

That was why the Shikon no Tama so regularly unleashed disaster in its wake. But now Kagome had given up. Her head was hanging and she'd given up on adding in the cliché 'but the conditions are''s and 'but only if''s...let him do what he wanted. To become a youkai, to stay a hanyou, to do whatever he wanted.

It truly wasn't her place anymore, not at the end of their – relationship – or whatever it was called.

I died to keep you from it, and now I willingly give it to you.

How ironic, how amusing, how terribly sad.

Her unoccupied hand haphazardly brushed at her eyes to that her vision would be a little less blurred by the wet droplets collecting on her eyelashes like morning dew.

"What?"

The girl asked, knowing she'd heard him correctly but asking anyway. The sun warmed the tama, the soft surface too gentle. If it could look a little less benign, if she could have a little more dignity, if he could only look at her – never mind the tears that were freely flowing. She couldn't bring herself to make the hot rivulets stop.

Finally she broke eye contact, resolve shaking as her head lowered to stare at the earth between her feet.

It's funny, once you think about it. How you can say something clear as day, right to someone's face, and they'll still ask you to repeat it like they hadn't understood a word you'd said.

/"I don't want it."/

Those four words, on their own, are so useless. They can good or bad, confusing or simple. Without a situation, without a circumstance, they are nothing. Until you give them a purpose, in this case, a refusal, they are hollow sounds that bounce around an endless void.

They had come so easily, easier than he'd expected. He'd said them without really realizing he'd said them. They'd just come.

There she went again, crying. Inuyasha looked up from the sparkling jewel, intending to make eye contact. But now /she/ was the one looking down. He felt tears come freely from his eyes, trailing down his face to fall to the ground. Gripping the edge of his sleeve, he reached out to Kagome to wipe the tears off her face with the back of his cloth-covered fist.

"I don't want it, Kagome. It would be wasted." His voice was reassuring, but there was no quiver of second thoughts or doubt as he said it.

He put his arms around her tightly, wondering if he could ever truly let go.

Oh no. Not again. Stuck between a rock and a hard place...well, okay, so the place wasn't /hard/ exactly. More like soft, comforting, warm...but he was still stuck. What to do now? The logical thing was to make a pure wish on the jewel, to make it disappear, but what to wish for? It would take a long time to decide how to word it, and in that time, they were in ample danger. There were still youkai out there in Naraku's league that were after the thing.

Ah yes. The youkai. The masses of youkai that would like nothing more than a dead Inuyasha and Kagome and a glowing tama in their hands. They could prove to be very annoying. Fortunately, they always seemed to show up when Kagome was at home, so they'd turned back soon enough. Inuyasha had watched, hungry-eyed, as they approached the village for a sniff. Like dogs to a steak that had once been in a place, and after it was gone, the scent lingered. They'd flit at the edges of his range, taunting him with entertainment that never seemed to come through. Never staying, but never leaving either. They were just...there. It was really only a matter of time before one attacked to found some
half-brained lackey to do it for them.

Kami, time seemed to be catching up to them. The scent that had been bothering him constantly for quite some time now reached his nose. It was too close for comfort. Letting go of Kagome, the hanyou pushed the miko to the side, close enough to come to her aid if needed, but far enough to the point that if whatever was out there was aiming for him, she could get out of the way.

"Show yourself, demon! Fight face to face!" he demanded, one hand on the sword.

A cold, male laugh rang through the air, seemingly out of nowhere. "Why bother doing something so useless? I can kill you from here."

"What the..." A strangled cry erupted from his throat as vines from the trees and roots from the ground encircled him, driving him back towards the water. The hanyou swore, losing his balance as he moved back. One living vine caught him in the neck, a second in the chest, and he was thrown back into the lake, air pushed out of his lungs for the moment. Inuyasha hit the water with a splash, the vines and roots hovering over where he had fallen.

Soft - comforting - warm ... a handle that was almost /too/ real after you'd been falling for ages from the dark recesses of some bad dream that had somehow conjured itself into reality ... a handle that mysteriously sprouted out of some wall so that the downward tangent ceased.

How long /would/ it take? The tama had been known to twist desires, to find the polar opposite of what you wanted but still have the phrasing work it that tainted sense. 'I want my heart's desire..' - some desires are black, even if you are pure hearted all the same. Kagome was too scared to even think about wishing for something like that - what if her heart wanted something it had never cared to share with the rest of her?

The sudden rigidity in the hanyou's body caused Kagome's head to turn behind her, only to see the vague impression of something that /might've/ been there. A good three yards from Inuyasha, she looked at the empty space, the wind stopping and the sakura blossoms stopping their graceful falls per request of whatever youkai wanted to kill them this time.

/This/ time ... it sounded so weary ...

It was too fast for her to tell him to be careful - too fast for her to do anything except hope that whatever it was /did/ show up and fight face-to-face. And then Inuyasha flew back, slamming into the water and sending the pink flowers askew, reminiscent of some film noir samurai film. But this wasn't a movie, and the fear in her heart was very real as she ran towards the water, ignoring the fact that her back was to the invisible enemy.

"Inuyasha?! /Inuyasha?!"

Kagome called loudly, that horrible part of her mind /turning/, the wheels /clicking/ as they budged together as she didn't see the boy thrash. It had been a clean fall - the painful slap and then silence.

Peek your head up, please, do /something/.

His consciousness ended for less than a second, amber eyes snapping open as the breathing reflex kicked in. Water flooded his throat, spilling into his lungs. Clawed hand came up, slowed by the crystalline-blue liquid all around him, to grip his throat lightly. His vision swirled with the water, blurry brown twists that were the offending roots and pink, blotchy spot that were cherry blossoms drifting across the surface like water lights. And in the middle of it he could see Kagome's messy figure, could just barely see her mouth move as she called out to him. He wanted to yell up to her, to gather the strength to swim up. Kami, he tried, but his body didn't respond. He could only grit his teeth and shut his eyes tightly as the bright colors flickered behind his eyelids...

He was dying, and he knew it. Hah, he felt like burning those words he'd said so long ago out of existance. /'Maybe one day I'll die at the hands of someone stronger than me...'/ He hadn't even seen the bastard's face, for he knew the youkai had a face, somewhere deep inside him he just knew. And somewhere, that unknown face was twisted in some kind of sick, demented smile.

Even as the breath was pushed slowly out of his lungs, demonic healing lacing his blood and putting off death just for a while, he couldn't think of himself. He couldn't think, "I'm dying, what's going to happen to me?" Instead, thoughts like, "Will Kagome be okay?" and "I hope that monk lives long enough to have children, since he was so persistant about it" ran through his head. He was scared to death for the miko, regretting having held back the truth from her for so long. Regretting not having hugged her, kissed her, sooner. Regretted not being around for the wonderful wish Kagome would make.

Oncoming death was surprisingly warm. As water filled his lungs, a warm blanket wrapped itself around him. The rainbow colors that had been flashing behind his lids turned to white, morphing and twisting into a human figure. Volumous robes created themselves in the light, draped carefully over a body roughly the size of Kagome's.

"It's not your time yet..." The whisper washed over the hanyou as he slipped away into unconsciousness. "It's not your time to come to us."