Endless Circles
Death is too, too cruel. So is life.
Kikyou looks out the window of their small hut, with eyes that are living, yet so dead it could make you weep. She realizes a little too late that the past can never be undone, not even if you defeat death and cheat it three times over. It will always come back to haunt you, and no one can save you from something you've been running from all your life, even though you never went forward a step. Kikyou thinks it isn't fair. It isn't fair that she was brought back, was supposed to be living, but was still dead all the same. She learned too late that the past cannot be undone, even if you undo all of its awful consequences. Even if you undo death.
The memories, the remembrance of claws digging deep into flesh, her flesh, can never be forgotten. And she thinks, how nice it must have been to have been Kohaku, the Kohaku who was nothing but Naraku's mindless puppet, not the Kohaku who set out to rescue the world. He had used her. He had used her to free him from this world, his own selfish desire, but to give him glory and renown all the same. But, Kikyou realizes, everyone had used her. Fate, Kagome, Naraku, Kohaku, Midoriko, Onigumo, Kaede, the monk and Taijiya, and even Inuyasha. The one who was holding her close at this very moment.
She did not look away from the window. She did not stop looking at freedom. She didn't stop dreaming of death. Of a life away from Inuyasha.
She gently untangles herself from him, and he stares at her back questioningly. "You still love her, want her, do you not, Inuyasha?" She turned to look at him, and when he shook his head fervently, denying her declaration, she dies a little more than she already his. "Stop this foolishness. Let me go, Inuyasha. Let me go," she whispered, her simple request turning into a desperate plea.
His embraces were no longer warm and comforting, his voice no longer held that softness for her it once had, and his eyes no longer held the love they had long ago. At least, not for her. He loved her reincarnation. But she was dead, had been dead for the past twenty years. Kikyou had been blessed eternal life, just as Inuyasha had wanted it. If he couldn't have Kagome, he wanted the other one. The other one who looked like her, was her, in a sense. At one time, Inuyasha had wanted Kikyou, and had used Kagome because she looked like Kikyou, was her reflection. It was now Kikyou who was thought of as the reflection.
Kikyou never did like being compared to the girl, to anyone. But, she does question, does not resist when he pulls her to him again.
Unlike Kagome, Kikyou could never say no to Inuyasha.
Unlike Kagome, Kikyou wanted nothing more than for Inuyasha to hate her.
Unlike Kagome, Kikyou was not so patient, and she was not so tolerant.
Unlike Kagome, Kikyou was going to leave. Whether Inuyasha liked it or not.
"Inuyasha, enough is enough," she said, trying to sound firm and determined. One look from Inuyasha's sad golden eyes, and Kikyou mentally slapped herself.
"Kikyou, please, don't leave me. Stay," he begged, kissing her forehead softly.
Fifty years ago, even a year ago, Kikyou would have been flattered. Kikyou would have believe his words. Kikyou would have allowed herself to believe in this dream, in this one in a life time chance.
But this was the present. And Kikyou was not flattered, she did not believe him, just like she did not believe in dreams. He was the one dream she had allowed herself to believe in, and it had turned into her greatest nightmare. No, never again would she fall to him and his pleas. She was leaving, and that was that.
Five hundred years in the future, Kikyou is sitting alone in her house, no longer a small hut. Inuyasha died two years ago, but she still did not leave this cursed life. Inuyasha wished into the jewel for her to remain amongst the living until he wished so otherwise, to stay with him forever. Inuyasha told her on his deathbed to join him in five years. She wanted to protest, wanted to join him now, but he insisted that she wait. He told he had other matters to attend to before she could arrive. He didn't say another word, and Kikyou knew who he had to see.
Five years later, Kikyou killed herself with a rusty, dusty old Tessaiga. As she closed her eyes, she wept one last time for not only her lost chance at a peaceful, meaningful death, but at her lost chance for a life away from Inuyasha.
Yes, unlike Kagome, Kikyou could never say no to Inuyasha.