A/N: Here it is, the final chapter. After this, there is no sequal. No continuation. It is being shelved, and it is being mourned, as this has been my favorite story to date.

Please note that I've gone over this story chapter NINE TIMES to get it right! It was so frustrating, but I really did want to get it perfect before I shipped it out. After all, this is what I've been leading up to, and my origional inspirational question from the movie of 'How the heck can that happen? It isn't logical!'

So remember me mentioning the awesmoe song that fits this? Yeah, everyone go listen to Anthem of Our Dying Day by Story of the Year at www(dot)radioblogclub(dot)com (or some other place that allows you to listen to music) while reading this, or listen to it afterward and reflect on the final chapters. It is a perfect match for this story and has been a major influence on the entire writing of the final four or five chapters, I can't remember exactly how many. I have to thank the band for creating that song with all of my gratitude and appreciation. As I said, it is a perfect match.

Finally, the story that has been in my mind since watching Disney's Beauty and the Beast sometime last March or so in good ol' 2005 has been written. I have had it planned out since the beginning. I'm so glad you have read this, you can't know how much it means to have people reading something I not only enjoy writing, but actually enjoy coming up with. This is about my only story where I can honestly say I did well on.

And now, at the end of the ramble-that-wasn't-supposed-to-be-but-is, the thank you's.

Thank you: April-nee (first again!), regretfully-yours-Cassy-chan (Please, keep reading my stories and making me smile whenever I see your reviews, with their constant-ness. X3), KawaiiYuki, kimonoprincess, sarahthewierdo (Your reviews made me chuckle...often), XxcutiekatxX, Kitsune Kagome, Mizu shoubai, Inu-babe666, xxprincess-sakuraxx, Black Hands, Moondust Fireflash, inukuramaRmine, susie202, The Violent Tomboy, Raining Thunder, Deviant Kitsune, pitbull123, FuzzyPurpleWatermelons (whatever happened to that poor teddy bear you strangled way back in ch. 12?), Mizu Kitsune no Kaze, AnimeMoonlightGoddess, Kuronue's Forbidden Lover (caps are always cool!), deathsangel4729, pheonixkid, '-aphros-' (sorry if I made you cry at any point in my story...but I think that happy endings are used too much. Yeah, I'm twisted...), Youka-Chan, Mysticalflame, Akikazu, Dead Blood (What a lovely name...no, I'm serious. I really do like it.), and anyone else who read this story or will read it and review it in the future.

Edit Note: If this ending isn't your kind of ending, I have a story posted that is the alternate for this story. It replaces this chapter, and so if you would like a different reality to go for, go check it out. Its title, obviously, is Alternate Endings.

Edit Note II: Truth not has a theme song. In case you didn't figure it out, it's Anthem of our Dying Day by Story of the Year. I've already explained why.

Now, the final installment of Truth. Enjoy.

Kagome's eyes were wide in shock. She caught Youko as he slumped forward, not expecting the deadly, ivory-handled knife that was sticking out of his upper back. He clung to Kagome, his breath coming in gasps as blood flowed slowly from the wound just below his shoulder.

Kagome looked up, and then wished she hadn't. Standing there, staring at Youko with hate and anger, was the last person she had hoped to see in that situation. It nearly broke her heart knowing that the one innocent soul whom she had thought to be friends with was there, killing the one person she loved. Yes, she had seen him in the mob. He had even talked to her brother, but she had never thought that Houjo would kill someone. She hadn't thought it possible.

The only thing she could choke out with her closed throat, as she supported a half-unconcious fox in the pouring rain, was, "Why?"

Houjo looked up and smiled with his boyish grin. It made Kagome sick to her stomach- he had just killed someone, and then smiled like it was as normal as getting dressed in the morning. "Kagome, I saw him attack you. I couldn't let you get hurt," he stated.

Tears welled up in Kagome's eyes, and she couldn't prevent them from mixing themselves with the rain. "What did you do? Why, Houjo? Don't you think that I wouldn't have come up here if I didn't want to?" She couldn't keep her voice from shaking as she turned from the person whom she had thought a friend and gently began to set Youko down on the marble floor.

Kagome laid him on his side, using one of her hands to try and stem the fatal blow to his left side. His eyes were glossing over, his vision was blurring dangerously. He was so thirsty, he was in so much pain...everything hurt, he just wanted it to stop! He couldn't prevent a small whimper from escaping his throat.

Houjo walked over and grabbed Kagome's upper arm, pulling her up forcefully. Kagome began to struggle as Houjo spun her to face him. "What do you think you're doing, Kagome? That's a dangerous demon there! He's going to kill you if you don't watch out, and that's if you're lucky..."

Kagome slapped him. "Go away Houjo! You just attacked the one man who treated me like a person, and not a possession to own. You attacked the one person who respected me for being me, and didn't try to turn me into some kind of glass doll!" Her voice was slightly hysterical.

Houjo shook his head, beginning to pull her away. He was strong enough so that Kagome couldn't pull herself free, but it was still a struggle. He began to speak softly, as if he were adressing a young child throwing a tantrum. "Kagome, he's got you tricked. Let's just get you back to the village, you'll see, it'll be alright..." He was treating her like a dumb animal.

Kagome began to cry harder, not wanting to leave. "Leave me alone! I want to stay with him, let me stay with Youko. Please, Houjo, I just want to stay!"

Youko heard her cries from his position on the bitingly cold stone balcony floor. He had to do something, Kagome was crying. He didn't want her to cry. He had tried so hard to make her happy, why was she crying?

He looked through hazed eyes and saw her trying to pull away from a chesnut-haired young adolescent. He looked like he was hurting her. Youko became angry and willed the plant seeds, stuck in the cracks of the stone, to shoot forward. For the second time that night, his plants imbedded themselves into the stomach of a village boy.

Houjo doubled over in pain, shock and the plant's poisonous venom running through his veins as he fell to the floor. He mouthed something, but no sound came from him and his neck muscles slowly slackened as the poison took over greedily. His eyes finally dulled with death as his head hit the stone.

Kagome didn't even pause. As soon as she was free, she fled to Youko's side. He was attempting to curl up into a fetal position, but was unable to; any movement caused by the knife created laces of pain screaming through the prince's entire body. Kagome's eyes strayed to the delicate handle sticking out from his bloody back, knowing it wasn't a good sign. She could see a dark pool of liquid forming under his body. There was so much blood...

She turned her attention back to his face, ignoring the other things as she tried to keep him from closing his eyes. "Youko?" she asked, swallowing a lump that was forming itself in her throat as she tried to sound brave and confident. "I need you to hang on, it'll be alright. We'll patch you up, you just need to wait long enough for Yukina to get up here."

Youko tried to laugh, but the attempt turned into a gurgling couch as blood began to drip from the side of his mouth. "Don't lie. I know- how bad it is," he gasped out. Things were quickly going downhill, his breath was becoming quicker. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, could just see the blood that was welling up and spilling out of the deep wound from his back.

Kagome put a hand to his mouth. "Don't speak, you idiot!" she practically screamed, panic making her harsher than she wanted to be. "You'll just waste your energy when you should be saving it, saving yourself..." Her lip trembled slightly.

Youko took a hand and brought it up to Kagome's. He grabbed her hand and brought it up to his back, placing it as close to the hilt as he could without fainting from the pain. "Pull it out." When she tried to pull her hand back, he continued. "I want to look at you, properly, and," he had to pause for a breath before he could move on, "and I can't do that with this here."

Kagome nearly sobbed as she grasped the innocent-looking hilt. She took a breath, then wrenched it from its place. Youko screamed, the sound echoing through the night. Somewhere between their kiss and where they were, the rain had slackened to a small drizzle. There was no thunder to block out the heart wrenching cry.

Kagome gasped and pressed one of her hands to try and stop the stream of blood from the gaping wound. If anything, it was becoming worse. Too much. Should a simple knife wound bleed that much, she wondered somewhere in a dark recess of her mind that wasn't wild with panic. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Why did he do this?" she asked herself quietly in a half sob.

Youko stared into Kagome's eyes, feeling his life slipping from his body. He knew what was happening, and as much as he knew it would hurt her, he knew that he couldn't hang on much longer. It was all he could do to gather enough breath to speak again to the sad angel sitting beside him. A single tear fell onto his face from above. "Don't...apologize. My fault anyway...Sorry." He desperatly wanted to close his eyes, just sleep and leave the pain-induced haze that was covering him. But there was one last thing he needed to say.

Kagome's eyes shot open as she heard Youko's next words. "Love you..." he whispered before closing his eyes with a sigh.

Kagome looked down at him, disbelief coating her entire manner. "Youko, don't close your eyes!" she cried. She shook him gently, hoping that he would cry out in pain. She wished he would, instead of staying still like he did. "Don't leave me, do you hear me!" Her frame was shivering with desperation and fear, fear that the worst was happening and she couldn't do anything about it. Tears were once again flowing. She could feel her heart shatter when his chest ceased all movement.

"Youko! Dammit, answer me," she screamed at him. She leaned over his face, one of her hands still trying to stem the now non-existant flow of blood while the other began to beat his chest. "Don't leave! I can't follow you...I can't, and you can't leave until I tell you that I love you!"

Too late. Even as those words were uttered, deep in the bowels of the castle, in an abandoned study with dented and chipped stone walls, in a cracked vase coated with dust, the very last petal of the enchanted rose fell as the spell reached its end.

When Yuusuke and Keiko chose to look for their lord after the battle, they were shocked by the scene that greeted them. They had decided to look for him when they felt some sort of change in themselves, and when Jin complained with confusion that the wind wouldn't respond to him anymore.

They found him on the roof, laying in Kagome's lap. If they would have looked, they would have recognized the features that had belonged to him long ago, when the curse was first placed on him. The dark red hair, the fair skin and delicate features that were from his mother. If they would have seen his eyes, they would have been as green as the first blades of grass in spring, courtesy of a great-grandfather long since passed.

Instead, they couldn't shake the sight of Kagome crying her heart out over Youko's prone form.

It was only weeks after that Kagome let herself fully mourn her losses. She hadn't let herself break before then, for she had been too busy. First she had had to go and see how her father was doing, and found out that he had died while she was gone. He just stopped breathing one night. Then she had helped the entire castle to move out to various places.

Yukina and Kuwabara had accompanied Kagome to her village after the castle was cleaned out and the dead buried. They met Kaoru and Kenshin, who had apparently been friends with Yukina's family. All four announced that they were leaving to go back to (or, in Kuwabara's case, go move to) Yukina's homeland, and left soon after that announcement. Kuwabara had last been seen trying to pluck up the courage to ask for the young maiden's hand in marriage before the carriage left and took them from sight.

Hiei had left soon after, not letting anyone know where he was going nor what he would do. He had never been outspoken, and never told anyone anything remotely related to his personal life. That was, he never did after Youko died.

Yuusuke, Keiko and Shizuru all moved north a few days after the others left, to some new city that was quickly growing in fashion style and size. Yuusuke had proposed before leaving, but had been seen arguing with the two women as they rode off down the road. They all found places to live in the new city, and Yuusuke had even been hired as additional help to building a large structure that would be the main attraction for the new capital.

Jin and Touya decided to move down south, where there were rumors of a land that was covered in snow and constantly had huge blizzards with gale-force winds. They sais they wanted conditions so snowy that you couldn't see two feet in front of you. Kagome thought them crazy for choosing such a place, but it was their lives to live.

Kuronue was the only one to not leave the castle grounds. He was killed trying to prevent some of the more determined people from getting to the armory. If it weren't for him, there was no doubt that the villagers would have overwhelmed the others. He was buried on the castle grounds near the barn, where he was rarely seen from and where he worked with his beloved animals.

The burial ceremony for the chimera was followed shortly after with the one for Youko. Kagome didn't even try to speak, nor did she cry; she just didn't have any more emotion to express. The beautifully carved, oak casket had depicted the events of Youko's lonely life, ending with Kagome meeting him and them falling in love. Nobody spoke as he was lowered into his final resting place, the same courtyard where Kagome and him had had their snow war. It seemed like ages ago.

Kagome moved into a little cottage with her brother. She worried many of the people who cared about her, hardly leaving her property and never going into the village. However, a few weeks after purchasing the small house, she announced that she would be setting up a school for the village children to learn how to read and write in. Her brother was one of her first students.

And so she taught and buried herself in her work. She refused to marry in the years to come, making a vow that she would wait until she could meet up with the siver haired fox prince that had captured her heart.

Her brother moved out and married a pretty young girl from a neighboring village. It was one of the few times that Kagome left her house to go someplace else. He took over their childhood home, expanding it when him and his wife had their fourth child. They made a point to visit 'Auntie Kags' as often as they could, always asking for her to tell them about the people of Tamashii castle.

Kagome ran her school for years and years, it being the only thing that kept her from falling into a deep depression. She had never fully gotten over the loss of Youko, even though she had cried herself to sleep countless times and knew that he was always on her mind. There were times when she thought of him, then thought up countless ways in which she could have saved him. But reality always came back in full swing, and the reality of the situation was that it was mostly her fault that Youko wasn't there. So she kept up with the school to keep herself going, for having a reason to stay.

And, until she couldn't move easily from her 'classroom' to her bedroom, she continued to teach the next generation about the beauty that could be found in the most unlikely places.

End Story

Thank you for reading The Truth of Beauty.