Thank you so much for reviewing! Thanks firyfeline, you really cheered me up. (And I loved your fics too!)
Disclaimer: Uh… I own… nothing. Not Inuyasha, or any of the wonderful characters from the anime. Or necklaces… or … anything.
One for sorrow
Two for Joy
Sango shivered, looking out of the window at the dawn. It was strange, seeing the dawn without the others… it felt like a part of her was missing somehow.
Probably is, she thought bitterly. I've lost my friends and my family. There's nothing dear to me left to take. Even my life seems… empty now.
Sango's storm of weeping and sorrow had passed with the night. She had to be strong for her friends… remember them…
She fingered her necklace.
The problem was that is was too damn hard not to break down and cry. But if she did that… then no one could comfort her.
"Cry and you cry alone."
>
Kaede walked slowly up to the hut, head bent in thought. She had swapped her normal clothes for those of mourning, and looked strangely foreboding on a summer's morning as she went.
Sango saw her coming, and her resolve wavered. She opened the door, letting loose a slight moan at the pain her leg was causing her. The miko saw the movement and girl and hesitated.
And Sango's strength failed.
"Oh! Kaede! They're gone! I never got to see them – and they died to save me! I never even got to say goodbye!"
Kaede blinked with surprise at the sobbing demon slayer who was clinging to her cloak.
"And… Shippou's lost his mother… and… Miroku never got to live without the Kazanna… and Inuyasha never got to say sorry to Kikyo… and…"
She broke off, sobbing.
Kaede felt her tears returning, and furiously blinked them away. Miko's don't cry. Village priestesses don't weep. She kept telling herself. Sango didn't notice.
"Sango…" The girl was beside herself, face pale and eyes red from weeping. She was shaking with tiredness, and looked as though she had only just come from the battle. Her leg was bleeding again, and her hair was a mess. And her hands…
She's been wringing them till they've bled. Thought Kaede, horrified. She hadn't meant for the girl to find out like this.
"Sango, calm down." The old priestess firmly took each of Sango's bleeding hands, trying to ignore the obvious pain in her large brown eyes as Kaede's one met them.
"I was going to tell you. But it looks like you know."
Sango's long brown hair fell in front of her eyes. Kaede couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"Kagome… Kagome didn't make it through the night. She died almost as soon as we got here. So did Miroku. And Kiara died this morning." She said.
Sango bit her lip hard. I mustn't cry… I mustn't cry… they wouldn't have wanted it… no!
She couldn't stop her vision going blurry with the sparkling tears that started trickling down her cheeks.
"But… you made it," the elderly miko continued. "So did Shippou, and Inuyasha."
Sango jerked her head up suddenly. She wasn't all alone! Inuyasha was alive! She furiously brushed the tears away.
"Where…?"
"He's in the small hut over there."
Sango nodded. She wouldn't let him die. She couldn't! Kagome and Miroku had died to save her… she didn't deserve that. Kiara, who she had known for so long, had helped her. She should've saved them. But she could help Inuyasha.
"Can I see him, please?"
Kaede nodded. "Yes. I thought that this might cheer you up slightly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to find Shippou. He needs to know what's happened."
Sango started to hobble away, though her eyes filled with the tears again. No! Shippou's lost his mother again. What'll he do?
There is a strange kind of grief that comes only to a person after loosing loved ones. They feel that they should have died and the others should have lived. That they couldn't save them, that they weren't there for them at a time when they were needed most. A grief that can't be spoken; that is carried secretly forever. Sango knew this.
Yet still she blamed herself.
Inuyasha lay inside the hut, feverish and weak. His torso was smothered in bandages, and one of his ears was too. But Sango had seen him like this before; she knew he would pull through. He always had.
But so had Kagome and Miroku.
But the hanyou was not emitting the rattle of breath that meant he was near death, nor gasping for air. He was breathing strongly, if shallowly.
Inuyasha's not down yet.
Outside, even as the lone magpie flew into the God tree, a second joined it. Sango could hear their cries as she tended to the silver haired boy's needs. Cries of hope.
>
Sango and Kaede tended Inuyasha for the best part of a week before he regained consciousness. Shippou had been moping around for all this time, and though Sango tried, she could not comfort him. It was like he had closed up.
Like Inuyasha.
The hanyou in question lay on the pallet, pale, but his open eyes, golden and thoughtful, were clear and bright, not dim as they had been.
"What the hell happened?" He asked.
"You killed Naraku." Whispered Sango as Kaede took her leave.
Better he hears it from her.
"Yeah… but why's that old hag treating me? Where's Kagome?"
"…"
"Well? Hurry up about it!"
Same old Inuyasha.
He'll never forgive himself. Not for Kagome's death.
"Miroku didn't make it."
"Ah." Inuyasha looked down, his silver-whit bangs covering his eyes. "But Kagome…"
Sango couldn't speak. She could only look. And Inuyasha saw the answer in her eyes as he looked up.
"She… didn't, did she." It was a statement of fact. Not a question. But Sango shook her head anyway.
An expression came over Inuyasha's face that she had never seen before. But then, she'd forgotten that he'd lost before, too,
Betrayal flashed first. Then guilt, anger and sorrow all seemed to hit at once. The anger became prominent.
"Crap!" Sango worriedly looked around for the tetsusaiga as he punched the wall. There, on that table. She gave it a little nudge so it fell onto his leg. There.
"How… could… this… happen?" Inuyasha snarled as he sprung up and demolished the table in question with the sword, emphasising each word with a sword stroke.
"I should have been able to save them, dammit! I should've never let them come!"
Ooops. Not quite what I had in mind.
Sango looked up at the boy and realised that his grief was every bit as strong as hers. But Inuyasha reacted in a different way. He took his sorrow and anger out on the nearest inanimate object.
Kaede won't be happy.
"Inuyasha." The word was soft, but he stopped fighting with the remains of the wood and cloth and turned to look at the demon slayer, breathing heavily.
"If Kagome was here now, you know what she'd say?"
Inuyasha narrowed his eyes.
"She'd say, "Sit." Then she'd tell you that what happened was not your fault, not her fault, but that bastard Naraku's fault, and that he's paying the ultimate price in hell right about now."
Inuyasha blinked.
"And if Miroku was here…" Sango forced her voice to be steady, "He'd be laughing at the both of us."
Inuyasha sunk down at the bed, for the first time realising how injured he was. Sango was right, he decided.
Kagome would yell at me now if she were here. She'd tell me that grief is good but it shouldn't upset me – or some crap like that.
"I hope those fires in hell are hot." He said furiously. "Because that piece of… of… shit deserves them."
Shippou ran in, suddenly.
"Inuyasha! You're ok!"
The kitsune pounced on the hanyou with eagerness. "You made it! Kaede said you would! If mamma was here she'd be thrilled!"
"Kaede also said that you should not bother the poor boy." A voice said from the doorway. Kaede. "And I distinctly remember telling you to find me a large log, too."
"Okay!" And with that, he was gone. Kaede looked at Inuyasha. Then at the table. (or its remains.) Then back to Inuyasha.
"I see you are feeling better." And the boy knew she wasn't talking about the fever.
"Feh."
Kaede left.
Sometimes, sorrow brought you closer to the things that meant most to you. Inuyasha looked out of the window, and remembered.
"Inuyasha!" the hanyou looked down from his tree to see Shippou prancing underneath him. "Play with me!"
Kagome looked up too. "Go on, Inuyasha."
"Fine. Get ready to run!"
"Whoa!" Sango and Miroku narrowly escaped being run over by a flash of red and silver.
"He's eager." Sango observed, dropping her load of firewood.
"He's afraid he'll get "sat" if he doesn't." Replied the monk as Shippou whizzed past.
"Meow." Kiara rubbed against Kagome's leg.
There had been sad parts to his time with his friends, but there had been happy ones too. And he meant to remember every one.
Sango looked closely at the half-dog. He's zoned out. I guess I'd better say my final bit.
"Inuyasha…" This was the part she had been dreading the most.
He turned.
"You'll need to give Kagome back to her mother."
He turned away.
Joy and sorrow so often went hand in hand.
And the magpies lifted their heads and cawed together.
>
>
Ok… second chappie up… whatcha think?
Please R 'n' R…
CN.