Well, here we are again! Another chapter of A Change in Our Future! Now, I'm bored. Better get to writing.
A Change in Our Future
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sango's Decision
InuYasha and I walked to the village, our brisk pace never faltering. We needed to find Sango, and we had to get her to agree to fight demons...
Yeah, she is a demon slayer, but asking her to fight demons for the rest of her life... That's a lot to ask of someone. How could we get her to agree? And what about Miroku? What would he think of this? He wants to marry her...
"InuYasha," I started, turning my head towards him, "what if Sango says no? What if she won't take Kane's place?"
InuYasha obviously hadn't thought about that. His eyes widened and a frown formed on his face. "Well, we'll figure that out if that happens," InuYasha said, looking confident once more."
"Yeah, I guess we will," I agreed sadly.
Quickly we made it to Kaede's hut, and once inside everyone was startled to see me standing there.
"Kagome-sama! What are you doing back here so soon?" Miroku asked, looking worried.
"Killing Naraku didn't work," I said right away. I ignored the gasps and continued on, saying, "The demons are still in my era and they're still slaves. InuYasha and I realized that Kane's death was the cause of this. Sango, I have a very important question to ask you." I was surprised that I was so strong during all of this, managing to not feel much sadness in saying Kane's name. I guess I was finally getting over it.
"What do you need to ask me, Kagome?" Sango asked, looking a bit worried.
"We need you to take Kane's place and fight demons. Will you?" I asked, looking determined. I knew this wasn't going to be an easy choice, and if she said no, I hoped that she didn't hate me.
Sango raised an eyebrow. "I already fight demons," Sango answered.
"That's not what I mean. What I mean is, we want you to fight demons like Kane did. He was fighting them and slaying so many that the whole population of demons went down," I explained, hoping she would understand.
Sango frowned. "You mean you want me to fight demons for the rest of my life?" I cringed at her words, but nodded in reply. "I don't know if..."
I frowned. "I know it's a lot to take in and think about. You don't have to answer now. Just think about it," I said, sighing.
- - -
The next day was calmer, and since we didn't really have to do any more jewel shard hunting we could just lay around. Though, after a while, InuYasha couldn't take much more of just sitting there. Yeah, he got in a couple fights with Koga (who was there because he didn't like giving up his shards; he wanted to keep them for as long as he could), but he was itching for a real fight where he could beat something up without being sat by me.
Sango looked to be thinking hard about what we asked her, but also seemed to be happy spending time with her brother, who had also come with us.
I could tell that Sango was torn between her feelings, and the fact that she was one of the few people who could help us.
That night Sango and I decided to take a bath.
The steam from the water rose up into the sky and a fog seemed to creep along the ground. Sango sighed, looking at me through the steam. The forest sang in the wind; the leaves rustled and the clouds moved quickly overhead. I looked up at the sky, smiling slightly. You could never see the stars so clearly in my time. It was nearly impossible. The waxing moon stared down at us, even though less than half of it could be seen.
"Kagome..." Sango started, moving lower into the water, so that the only part of her that wasn't submerged was her neck and head. "I've made my decision."
"You have?" I asked, a little bit excited, but afraid at the same time. I was scared for her; she was one of my best friends.
Sango nodded. "I've decided... that I won't do it. I need to take care of my brother, and I also want to settle down a bit," Sango explained. "And... I... I want to..."
"You want to spend time with Miroku?" I asked. Sango blushed, but nodded. "I figured as much. I wasn't really expecting you to agree, you wouldn't be able to live your life the way you wanted to, and I wouldn't want to take that away from you."
Sango smiled slightly and said, "Thank you for understanding, Kagome."
I shook my head and said, "Don't say that. I should have never asked you such an unreasonable thing."
"You had to. Your world... No, the future, was at stake, but you're going to let me live my life the way I want to," Sango said, her eyes brimming with tears.
I smiled. "You deserve at least that much, Sango."
- - -
I told InuYasha everything about what Sango said the night before, and I think he started to understand what was going on between Sango and Miroku. Though, he couldn't really tell that much.
I sighed, sitting next to InuYasha. We sat there, watching Shippo, Kirara and Kohaku play with a few village children. I rested my head on my hands as the sun warmed me up.
"How are we going to find someone who can fight demons? Yeah, lots of people fight them, but there aren't very many who can fight well. Heck, I can fight better than most people," I said, my eyes half closed.
"And you aren't that great of a fighter anyway," InuYasha said, smirking a little bit.
"Hey!"
"What? It's true," InuYasha scoffed, leaning back against the hut we sat next to.
I groaned. "So we're stuck. Well, I guess the best thing to do is look for any rumors about great fighters and find them," I said, sighing. We had just finished traveling around, looking for Naraku! Yeah, Sango and Miroku probably wouldn't travel with us, and Shippo may want to stay in the village. I'd get to spend time with InuYasha, but I didn't really want to travel around.
"Excuse me?" The voice of a young boy brought me out of my thoughts and I looked up to see his face. It was Kohaku. "I heard you talking about needing someone to fight demons..."
Later that day, Sango, Kohaku, InuYasha and I sat inside Kaede's hut, discussing what Kohaku wanted to do.
"If the kid wants to fight demons for the rest of his life, he should be able to do it," InuYasha said gruffly, closing his eyes.
I sighed. "It's not that simple, InuYasha. What if he gets hurt? Or worse, he dies?"
"If he's dead, he's dead."
"INUYASHA! How can you be so heartless?" I shouted, glaring at the hanyou. "Besides the fact that Sango will be heartbroken, the demons probably would still be in my era!" I sighed and turned towards Kohaku, who seemed unaffected by the thought of dying.
Kohaku had taken it pretty hard when he got his memories back completely. Sure, he had some while under Naraku's control, but when they came back, it hit full force. Kohaku could hardly take it. How would you feel if you killed off your family (and you loved them)? He also remembered that he had died once, but that didn't effect him as much.
"I'm pretty much dead already," Kohaku said, his eyes towards the floor.
My eyes widened and I looked down at the nearly completed jewel around my neck. "You don't have to be..." I said, my eyes closed.
"What?" Sango asked, leaning forward.
"If we wish for Kohaku to live so he can can destroy demons, the Shikon Jewel might be purified. The wish of someone else's life may be a bit selfish, but if it has a good reason behind it, then it may work as a plausible wish," I explained, almost feeling the jewel pulsing with agreement.
Kohaku nodded and Sango cringed. "Why do you want to do this, though?" Sango asked, her fists clenched on her lap and her head down.
"Please, sister. I need to do this... because I can't go on with my life unless I protect people... And it will allow me to repent for the death of our comrades," Kohaku explained, looking at his sister. "Will you let me do this?"
Sango's face could not be seen, but a few tears fell from her face and onto her lap and hands. "Y-yes... I give my consent."
I felt horrible for Sango; tears started to form in the corner of my eyes. I could hardly imagine what she was going through.
I saw InuYasha look at me out of the corner of my eye; he didn't like it that I was crying. I could tell. I wiped away the tears and said, "We'll have to train him."
"I will," Sango said, the tears gone from her eyes now. She sat up straight, looking determined. She turned her head towards her brother. "Kohaku, I will teach you everything I know!"
- - -
Kohaku's training began the next day. Luckily for Sango, he was her brother, and, like her, had been trained in demon slaying from birth. Heck, he was pretty much ready to fight demons right away, but Sango needed to train him.
Besides, I could tell that she wanted to spend time with her brother. I watched from the sidelines as she re-taught him the basics; her next test for him, though, was to fight her. Though, they used wooden swords.
It was a good fight, even though I could tell Sango was letting up a lot. Experience won in this battle, though, if I fought Kohaku, I would definitely lose.
Sango would not let up at all. She made Kohaku fight her over and over and over. And over.
By the end of the day he was exhausted.
Sango told me that Kohaku would be done with his training as soon as he could defeat a strong demon by himself. I was surprised at what Kohaku had to do. Demons may not look strong, but for a human to kill them by their selves... It's not that easy.
Though Kohaku's last test was to fight a demon. Sango stood outside with everyone, Kohaku standing next to her and InuYasha sniffing the air.
"Do you smell any demons?" Sango asked InuYasha.
InuYasha sniffed the air once more and his eyes opened. "Yeah. There's one that way," InuYasha said, pointing west.
"We're coming for backup, right?" I asked, gripping my bow.
Sango nodded and said, "Yeah. Just in case something goes wrong."
"Well, let's go," Miroku said, letting Shippo jump onto his shoulder.
InuYasha nodded and we set off, towards where he had pointed just a minute before. I held onto InuYasha's shoulders as he sped forward, leading the group to the demon.
"This is Kohaku's fight, OK?" Sango said to everyone, making sure they knew what to do. We nodded, though it was hard to see sometimes because we were all moving so fast and bouncing up and down with the running.
Soon enough we were near enough hear the demon, but we were down wind, so they would not smell us. We stopped and walked over to a good hiding spot to look at the demon.
It was a large, ugly thing with lots of arms and red eyes. He sat in an extremely small clearing and looked to be eating the flesh of a human, since a head started to roll towards us. I had to cover my mouth to stop myself from vomiting. I had seen people decapitated before, but it wasn't pleasant no matter how many times you saw it.
Sango turned to Kohaku and whispered, "All right, Kohaku. This is your chance. You need to go kill that demon."
Kohaku nodded and went out into the clearing, swinging around his chain blade.
Even though the demon wasn't facing him, he could tell Kohaku was there. The demon turned, just in time to see a shiny blade come straight towards his face.
The demon dodged with a yelp of surprise, but quickly regrouped and got ready to fight.
"What a small boy. You dare challenge me?" the demon asked, smirking. His voice was deep and echoed through the trees, making him sound like he had two people speaking at the same time.
Kohaku just glared and sent his chain blade at the demon again, but the demon easily dodged it.
"Is that all you've got?" the demon asked. He laughed heartily and ran towards Kohaku, his claws ready and teeth bared.
It took a lot of self-control for Sango to stay in her hiding spot. The rest of us didn't have as much trouble, but it was still hard. Though, I think that the tree that Sango was holding on to – so she would stay back – was starting to bend. And when she did let go a little later, her fingers left dents in the tree.
Kohaku jumped out of the way and sent his blade toward the demon again, but the demon dodged it.
It was a pretty even battle... until Kohaku tripped. Kohaku tried to get up, but he kept stumbling. There was no way that he was going to stop that demon or dodge it.
Sango let go of the tree and ran out into the clearing, jumping up and attacking the demon with her Hiraikotsu. It was sent back, knocking over a couple smaller trees in the process. Sango jumped forward and sent her boomerang flying, it hitting perfectly and knocking the demon's head off.
She landed and raised up her arm, grabbing the Hiraikotsu as it came back to her. Her eyes were closed and she sighed, but she didn't look disappointed in her brother, just relief that he was safe.
After noticing the dents in the tree left by Sango's hand while she was worried, I walked out from where we were all hiding with my first-aid kit in hand. I knelt by Kohaku and took care of his wounds, which were only a few scratches.
After a few tense moments of silence between Sango and her brother, Kohaku sighed and said bluntly, "I was awful."
Sango looked at him with a look that was impossible to pinpoint an exact emotion in. Then, surpassingly, she smiled. "I wasn't the greatest demon slayer ever when I first fought a demon."
Kohaku looked at her with a raised eyebrow, curious to what she was saying.
"The first time I fought a demon, I fell over from a mixture of nervousness and the weight of my weapon. Then, after narrowly avoiding getting stomped upon by the demon we were trying to kill, I accidentally grabbed the demon's poisonous tail, trying to grab something to prevent me from falling again," Sango said, smirking. "To put it bluntly, I was a wreak."
Kohaku was now smiling at the end of his story, and Miroku and I were chuckling softly.
"At least you two have talent," I said, putting one last bandage on Kohaku's nose. He scratched at the Band-Aid brand bandage and muttered something about the strange object feeling funny. "I can hardly protect myself."
"Eh, that's OK, Kagome. I don't mind having to save you," InuYasha said, his back towards me.
My eyebrows practically flew off my face.
Then I smiled and said, "Thank you, InuYasha."
Ah, I'm glad this chapter is over. I actually thought it was easier to write.
For my next fanfic, either I'm going to do a remake of my first fic (A Strand of Golden Hair), a Ranma 1/2 fic, or a whole new InuYasha story, obviously having the InuKag paring. I really want to do that Ranma fic, but maybe I can work on all of them at the same time...
Next Chapter: Kohaku obviously needs to train more, but what happens when one of his friends is in danger? Can he save them, or will demon slaying prove to be too much for him?