I loved once.I loved,I admired,I worshipped.But all from afar.One day came,I think I lost my reasoning.But I asked you,asked you just to share a small part of yourself.But you pushed me aside.You just laughed at me,ridiculed me.My heart turned to ice that day.Love is just heartache waiting to happen.So I stopped loving.Heartache can't happen if your heart is locked inside a cage,the key lost to time.

Chapter 4----Window to the Soul

Miroku looked away from the last bit of Sango that lived.He clutched her empty body even closer, dry sobs racking his body.He is never going to let go.Never.

"Sa...Sango.You can't go.You just can't."

His breathing began to rasp, keeping in the tears at the edges of his eyes.They threatened to pour down his cheeks with his next word, or his next breath, whichever came first.But the breaths kept going,and the tears stayed put.

"You can't go because...you said you'd stay with me.You said we'd have twenty children,who...who would know their mother was the...the greatest in the world.Be...because she is.And they wouldn't...they wouldn't have the Kazaana...Look Sango.The...the Kazaana..."

He tore off the rosary that encircled his hand.No rush,no screams,no yawning emptyness came forth.And never,ever would again on any of his descendants.His and Sango's descendants.

"Because...I love you Sango."

He felt Sango's soul jerk suddenly next to him.How he felt it, he didn't know or care.He didn't care about anything anymore,except Sango.And Sango was dead.

A single tear fell from his eye to land on Sango's stone-cold cheek.He cupped her cheek and wiped away the tear with his thumb.

Light shone from beside him,illuminating the soul even more so.And he pulled back from her face,suddenly exhausted to the bone.His tired eyelids fluttered to stay open as the silver light dove into the cold body of his love.He grabbed for her hand and felt it warm under his fingertips as life seeped back into her.His eyes fluttered again,closing and he collapsed beside his betrothed.He raised his eyelids once again,and turned Sango's still head towards him,and kissed her forehead.

Sango's eyes flickered ever so slightly.She ever so slowly opened them.And they were filled with so much love, so much feeling that Miroku thought he was drowning in them.And then she said the words he had always fantasied about.It wasn't really all the words he fantasied about though.Just one of them.

"I love you too Miroku-sama."

And now the tears were pouring down his cheeks and drenching the dirt.His bangs hung over his face, obscuring his eyes from her.

Sango jerked back.Why was he crying?Did she say something wrong?"Please stop crying Houshi-sama!"she pleaded, worry in her voice.

Miroku looked up at her again,showing her the eyes filled with joy."No,"he smiled tiredly,wrapping a loose strand of her hair around his finger."Say it again."

"I love you."

"No.The part where you said my name."His eyes begged her from their postion a foot away from her face.He pulled another one of those smiles, the ones that made her melt and all her troubles slip away.She got her pounding heart under control and said what he wanted to hear,as long as he would never let that smile fade away.

"Miroku-sama."

"Say it just one more time."

"Miroku-sama."

His lips were suddenly so close,an inch away.Her heart pounded with anticipation.Her lips reached out for his.

But rescuing the dead takes a lot of effort.Miroku's eyes slid closed again and stayed like that,his breathing even.Sango was taken aback,but just chuckled at her perverted houshi-sama.She propped herself up with her elbow,and moved the houshi so he was laying on his back."Way to spoil the mood."She lent down and kissed his forehead,her hand brushing away strands of hair from his face.

She froze mid-kiss,her body tensing.With a last look at houshi-sama,she bounded to her feet and stumbled across the field to the bodies that lay clutching each other protectively.She sank to her knees in front of Kohaku and Rin,sobs tearing from her hoarse throat.

Hands held to her face,face against the pebbly ground,legs splayed around her,Sango cried there for what seemed like an eternity.He's gone again.Her thoughts were her greatest enemy.He's gone again because you couldn't save him.You died and so did he.But houshi-sama brought you back.You should have died,should have brought Kohaku back instead.It's all your fault...

The words taunted her,teased her,stabbed daggers through her heart.

A shadow loomed over her.Sango's sobbing didn't cease,but she looked up to see who had interupted her self-punishment.

Sesshoumaru raised his sword,aiming for the two bodies on the ground.She gasped with horror.She moved quicker than ever before,in front of him in a heartbeat.

"I know they're dead,but you can't do this to their corpses!"Her raspy voice barely made a sound.But Sesshoumaru wasn't inuyoukai for nothing.He heard every breathy word.

His eyes still held the same expressionless mask as always."You foolish mortal.I am here to save Rin.My sword restores life to the dead.You know,you have seen it work."

Her grief-addled brain struggled to put this together.It hit upon a crucial fact.

"But...it was broken.I saw it."

His eyes still betrayed nothing."You cannot break Tenseiga.Move aside."

She moved to step to the left.But a thought stopped her."Save Kohaku as well.Please.Bring him back."

Eyes as cold as stone.A hand came out of no-where,slamming across her cheek.She crumpled to the ground,fresh sobs of pain coming from her as she fainted.Sesshoumaru began to nudge the boy off of his charge.He stopped.

Empty eyes.

He looked at the way he held her,the way his arms wrapped around her,trying to save her even in death.And he saw the smile of happiness on the young girl's face,shining through the blood and dirt.And the same look on the boy,a smile that spoke of sacrifice for those who rely on you.

For just a second,there was something that filled the void of his eyes.A blink,and it was gone.Sesshoumaru had made a choice.He swung Tenseiga through both of the children locked in an embrace.

Their wounds disappeared,clothes restitching.Blood disappeared from their cold faces,and their cold faces heated.Rin looked up at her father figure,and the boy who had tried to save her.He opened his eyes.She hugged him tighter.

"Sesshoumaru-sama.Kohaku-kun.Rin thanks you."