Chapter 10
Return to Your Own Time
Kagome stood on the cliff edge above where she had fallen into the rice patties to get Kikyo to help her. If she hadn't known she had fallen in, she wouldn't have been able to tell that the indent in the patty was from her.
The rice fields were empty. The whole village had gathered at the pyre where Kikyo was to be burned. And as the flames rose and the smoke choked out the sun, Kagome felt an overwhelming feeling of guilt.
"And so I am born." she said to herself.
A small thought began to light within that made her feel better. "That's right, if Kikyo didn't die with the jewel then I wouldn't have been born with it. And if I hadn't been born with it, I wouldn't have been pulled into the well by that demon in the first place." A gentle wind pulled at the back of Kagome's raven hair. "I suppose that what happened had to happen one way or another. It's not like we ever asked Naraku if he shot at Inu-Yasha. I'll just have to keep it to myself."
"Good bye, Kikyo... thank you. If you hadn't died, I wouldn't have met Inu-Yasha..." A single tear of gratitude ran down her cheek.
Kagome turned away from watching the smoke climb. When she found her backpack again, she changed quickly back into her school clothes and then buried the priestess outfit, the bow, and the arrows. "I wonder if they'll still be here 50 years from now..."
When she was done, she heaved on her pack and headed back toward the well.
She stepped up onto the stairs and archways that certainly weren't there 50 years from then, which was a shame. Looking first down at her feet she winced at the trail of splattered blood. "She must've died in so much pain. Her shoulder cut open and the man she loved and risked so much for was the one that did it to her. Blinded by her anger and her sense of duty, Kikyo went to finally seal Inu-Yasha like she had resisted to do for who really knows how long."
Kagome walked a bit further and knelt down for a small prayer at the large stain where Kikyo had fallen to the ground and breathed her last in the sight of her beloved.
"Kikyo didn't die here." Kagome thought, despite herself, "She died in the field when the one she loved crushed her fragile heart."
Kagome turned. There he was, the young and arrogant demon boy who fell in love with a human priestess. Kagome stood, dropped her backpack in the archway and walked up to face Inu-Yasha. He hung limp, hanging from the left of his chest. His face was filled with the sadness that consumed him when he starred the one he had vowed to protect in the face after she had pinned him. You could see in his face, right before he passed out, that we would've forgiven her. Kikyo's heart had been weaker than his.
"It wasn't your fault." Kagome said to him, fighting bitter tears. "But it wasn't her fault either."
Kagome looked down for a moment, and then traced the red outline of his kimono and his silver hair until she could look at his face again. He looked like he was only sleeping. Perhaps in this death Kikyo and Inu-Yasha were together. "She did love him. When she was resurrected, her anger burned its way within her and she still lived because of that feeling. And even though Inu-Yasha had hated her for that moment, he still didn't want to loose her. Perhaps it was Kikyo's pride that separated them when they learned of Naraku, but..." Kagome remembered way back then when Kikyo put her duty aside once more for what she wanted and tried to take Inu-Yasha with her to the other world. Kagome remembered again, clearly, the look on Kikyo's face when Inu-Yasha abandoned her. Inu-Yasha. Does that girl mean more to you than I do?
"It was then that Kikyo let go of living off the remnants of hope for a life with Inu-Yasha. It was then that Kikyo picked up her sense of duty once more to collect the shards of the jewel she lived and died to protect."
Kagome fought off the urge to touch him again.
"Just think..." Kagome started, a small smile appearing on her face, 50 years from now I'll awaken you from that tree and we'll meet for the first time. 50 years from now you'll gain your father's fang in a dispute with your older brother. We'll save a young fox cub, a young monk with a curse and a talented young demon slayer. 50 years from now you'll get to see Kikyo again, and learn of the demon Naraku and his plot. 50 years from now we'll change the past and save the future..."
Kagome walked right up to Inu-Yasha, so close she could feel the warmth resonating off his body. "50 years from now, Inu-Yasha, we'll fall in love."
Kagome turned, almost embarrassed that she said it and picked her backpack up again from the archway, looking down at the blood on the ground. "And someday you may leave with Kikyo like you said that you would, but until that day Inu-Yasha-" Kagome turned to look at him once more. "I promise I will always be by your side."
And Kagome quickly returned to the woods and to the side of the well, a gentle glimmer from the jewel shards in the bar at the bottom lit up the bottom of the well. "Wait for me. Please wait for me, Inu-Yasha."