Loss Reflections on Mortality

by Stardreamer9

True love means not forcing those you love to change for you. But sometimes even true love has a price.

Title: Loss – Reflections on Mortality

Authors: Stardreamer

Fandom: Inuyasha

Rating: PG-13 for Adult Themes

Codes: Angst, Character Death

Summary: True love means not forcing those you love to change for you. But sometimes even true love has a price.

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and other characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and are used here without permission. This work is not made for profit and may not be used for such.

Archive: Yes, just let me know where.

POC: looked in the mirror. How often had he gazed on this visage? He had lost count. It never changed, it looked almost exactly like it looked the day Kagome freed him from Kikyou's arrow.

He spent most of his childhood and early adulthood hating that face. Hating the traces of humanity he found there. He hated being a 'hanyou'. Would have done anything to be a full blooded demon; like his brother.

His quest to destroy the human in him led him to Kikyou. She intoxicated him and showed him the value of humanity. For her, his hatred changed. It was the demon in him that he hated. But still he hated.

Then she came, Kagome who loved him for who and what he was. She accepted him and didn't demand that he change for her. She taught him not to hate himself. She loved him without reservation and he came to return that love.

So when he at last achieved his life long desires, his enemies defeated and the Jewel of Four Souls was in his hand. For her, he did not change but learned to accept himself.

Another image comes behind his in the mirror, dog ears like his own stand out from dark hair.

'He has his mother's eyes too,' Inuyasha thinks to himself.

Behind him Keitaro's brown eyes brim with tears just like Inuyasha's. Turning Inuyasha hugs his oldest son close to him. The boy's hair is so much like hers used to be. He looks over the Keitaro's shoulder at the bed beyond. Her hair now is white like his. The face that was once so full of the shine of life is now dull and still.

For the love of Kagome, he is not demon and not human. And thus unsheltered by the cold heart of a demon, he watched with his damned youthful face as his love of over 80 years breathed her last.

He looked again in the mirror at his face; the face Kagome's love helped him to accept. A face he once again hates.