Kagome spent a long, long time staring at the clean plot of snow before her. 'He's gone…' She knew that she should feel sad, or angry, or hurt. Only a blank expression crossed her face, and a thud of disbelief landed in her hollow stomach. 'He is gone.' She didn't quite believe it--he was just there a moment ago, within arm's reach. 'Perhaps, if I close my eyes and open them again, he'll be there.' But he wasn't, and she couldn't fool herself into thinking he'd ever be back again.

Sesshomaru spoke first. "He died with honour."

Died. The word echoed in Kagome's hollow thoughts. 'Dead, like Kaede.' Suddenly she was overcome with a wave of fear so thick that it choked her throat. 'Everyone's dying. The earth is dying.' She stumbled away from that horribly normal section of the ground, and felt icy water sting in her damp sneakers. Her skin would sting, and rot, and fall… 'I'm dying.'

She jumped when a heavy hand fell onto her shoulder and rested there. Sesshomaru pulled the girl close to him, his arm moving to twist around her side. Kagome leaned into the Taiyoukai's warmth. She felt safe from fate when she was near him, because he must live so much longer than death, mustn't he?. She pivoted and, without warning, wrapped both arms around him. 'Sesshomaru,' she thought, 'Will protect me from everything.'

Miroku swished towards the spot where Inuyasha had vanished, and lightly stroked the flawless snow with his fingers. "We should hold a ceremony."

His words snapped Kagome out of her trance. She turned towards the monk without relinquishing her grip on Sesshomaru. "But there's no body."

Sesshomaru drew his arms away from the girl. He gracefully swooped over to stand beside Miroku. "I will construct a headstone. His empty grave shall be beside our father's."

The statement took the group by surprise. Shippo hung back beside Sango. "But you hate Inuyasha," the kitsune said, staring the Taiyoukai in the eye.

Sesshomaru didn't respond; Kagome spoke for him. "Shippo, Inuyasha died honourably." She didn't know what else to say, so she looked to the Western Lord with a light shrug of her shoulders.

Sesshomaru swallowed his frustration--he should not have to explain his thoughts--and forced himself to address the irritating child. "Inuyasha fulfilled his vow. He proved himself to me."

Sango smiled awkwardly at Sesshomaru. "He really was a good person."

Suddenly a smirk landed on Kagome's face. The situation was so surreal--her friends talking about Inuyasha's death--that she smiled in spite of the emptiness she felt. She pictured everyone as robots: mechanically acting out the symptoms of mourning, though they were all too stunned to see the full picture. "He was a good person," she agreed.

Sesshomaru almost reached across a stoic sea and touched a wave of regret. He saw another being's future cut short while his dragged on, and all the 'I coulds' of the past flew in his mind.

'I could have saved him

I could have accepted him

I could have understood him

I could have loved him.'

Sesshomaru wanted to reach into yesterday and pluck out all the possibilities, so that each one had a future. It was the not knowing that gnawed at him. Another 'what if', another dead life.

But that's all that it was: dead. He scooped up a handful of snow and watched it melt, running in rivulets that fell off of his warm skin. Inuyasha had walked towards his fate; something only the strong can do. Sesshomaru heard the 'drip dripping' of the clear water, and admired the Hanyou. "He was a good brother."

While the group gawked at his words, Kagome reached out and touched Sesshomaru's wrist. She alone saw the regret lining his eyes. She squeezed his palm in support before shyly letting go. "Thank you, Sesshomaru."

Miroku looked at the pair with interest. He saw the shock that had stiffened Kagome's motions, and wanted to comfort her. "When Inuyasha went down, he was smiling. He will find peace, with time."

His words had the opposite effect on the Miko: her blank look fell into an expression of despair. She hung her head down, and stooped her shoulders. Sango and Shippo, confused in regards to her reaction, moved forwards to comfort her despite their own sorrows. Sesshomaru, however, reached her first. He lowered himself to her level, and then pressed a claw beneath her chin. She raised her head to meet his eyes. He spoke so lowly that her friends couldn't make out his words, but Kagome heard every one. "You were right." He said. "Don't feel guilt." He knew what she was crying over.

Tears slipped down Kagome's cheeks. Everyone seemed to be far away, and it was only her, Sesshomaru, and an absent corpse. "But I lied," she whispered. 'He will never learn the truth.'

"You believe in a God?" he murmered.

She blinked, tear droplets hanging off of her eyelashes. "How can I…." Her throat felt thick as she thought of all the hurt in the world. "When He let this happen?"

Sesshomaru gently steered her away from her companions' prying eyes. They didn't move from their spots; after witnessing Sesshomaru's full power, none of them wished to challenge the Taiyoukai. The pair walked for a while, stopping beside a small, scraggly tree. Sesshomaru resumed the conversation. "What if I said that I believed in my God, and drew strength from their power. Would you argue?"

"No." Kagome thought for a moment that she'd offended him.

He reached out and held her cold wrist. "Why not?" His gaze was bright against the cloudy sky.

Kagome swallowed and straightened her shoulders. "Because He's real to you."

Sesshomaru smiled at her. "And for Inuyasha, your love is as real as the sun and moon."

"But I lied."

He shuffled in impatience. "I know you lied--I am no idiot. But it helped him. What is wrong with that?"

'Then, maybe, I did the right thing.' She smiled at him through the veil of tears. "Thanks."

Sesshomaru allowed the girl to hug him. "You wish to see your friends?"

She thought of all the actions they would go through: shock, depression… anger? She didn't quite remember, but she knew that they would all act sad and grave. They all thought that she meant her words. She didn't want to cry with them, and pretend, pretend, pretend. She wanted to mourn on her own terms. "No." She didn't want to lie anymore.

He didn't question her decision, and Kagome wished that her friends would accept her as much as Sesshomaru did. "You will accompany me, then?"

"To my time?"

"No." He thought of all the suffering he'd seen, and wished that he could spend some time with the happy, simple child he once had. "We are going to see Rin."

"Okay." She didn't question him either. "We have to tell them, though." She started walking back to the group.


"Why is she with Sesshomaru?" Shippo asked for the millionth time.

Sango sighed and ignored the kitsune. She watched the pair tread back towards them from across the expanse of bloodstained snow.

Shippo clapped his chubby hands. "Oh! They're coming back!"

Sango inched closer to Miroku. "Why do you think they've gone off?" She asked. "What has he said to her?"

The monk shrugged. "I'm just surprised that he offered his comfort." His robes fluttered as he stepped forwards to greet the couple. "His behavior is… unusual."

Sango struggled to plaster a warm smile onto her face. She had to be strong for Kagome, and push her own sadness behind her. "Quite odd." she agreed.

Shippo sat confused at their feet, and thought that Kagome was lucky to make a new friend. They all tried, unsuccessfully, not to think of Inuyasha.


Sesshomaru did the talking. "I am visiting an old acquaintance," he said. "Kagome will accompany me." Upon seeing Sango's angry face, he reiterated that "No harm will come to her."

Miroku tried to reason peacefully. "Can she not stay with us for a few days, Sesshomaru? Surely we'd like to remember Inuyasha together."

Sango tried to threaten. "If you don't let go of her, I'll rip your arm off. Don't laugh at me!"

Shippo tried to understand. "Why are you leaving? Why can't we bring Sesshomaru's friend over here? That way, we could all be together." He was still a child in many ways.

In the end, Kagome had to explain herself after all. "I have to go, you guys."

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Because I made a vow." The group immediately thought of Inuyasha, and how he had walked so bravely into Kikyo's clutches. Those words stopped them in their tracks. "Okay," they said. "Go."

Kagome did.


A thousand years ago, when Sesshomaru was young, he was once blinded by hope.

Inutaisho, the great demon lord, was dead.

"We won the war," the courtyards buzzed. "What an admirable fight he put up! The gift of victory, glory, honour…"

Sesshomaru heard the gossip buzzing around his ears like insects. The bitter taste of power stung his mouth as he was lead into his father's private rooms. "Lord Sesshomaru," they called him, as they pulled him to a small storage space. "Great Sesshomaru," they praised, as they cleared aside cobwebs and shuffled amidst dust. "The next Inutaisho!" They proclaimed, as his father's chest creaked open. "For you, my lord."

A sword. The wrong sword. How did his father expect him to run a kingdom with the promise of life? How could a weapon that chases death away possibly frighten enemies? The other sword. He needed the other one.

"Inuyasha, your younger brother--"

"--half brother." He frowned at the dull metal, and wondered if it was even strong enough to kill that irritating adviser.

"He is receiving Tetsusaiga. Your father wished it so."

Dust particles swirled in the dim light as Sesshomaru dropped the sword to the ground. It clattered and echoed in the empty room. The men held their breaths and waited to see what Sesshomaru would say next. "Well. My father's dead, isn't he."

A man--Sesshomaru couldn't recall his name--scurried to kneel before him. "Sesshomaru-sama, your father explicitly stated that he wished this sword to go to you. We would not make such a grave error."

The new lord knew that the panel of advisers and politicians certainly wouldn't mix up such a simple message. Anger bubbled in his chest--anger about the war, anger about his responsibilities, anger about his parents' deaths. He was abandoned.

A burst of inspiration broke through Sesshomaru's cloudy wall of troubled thoughts. 'Father is dead, and I have the sword, and I have the power over life itself…' Sesshomaru ran, past the stunned demons crowded around fluttering dust. He ran through bustling corridors and into the courtyard.

The grave sat there, ornate and expensive, beneath heaps flowers rotting in the hot summer wind. He stood before the headstone, held his breath, and drew the sword. 'This is my purpose.' He weighed the cold metal in his palms. 'This was his plan.' He tightened his grip. 'I will not take part in any wars. I will not become king.' Reigning during the battle, in his father's absence, had revealed to him how unpleasant his duties were. A smile brightened his adolescent features. The sun glinted gold off of the twisting metal. Sesshomaru raised the sword high above his head, pointing it towards the billowing sky. 'I will see father again.' He cut the pungent air with a one clean, metallic swipe.

For one moment, all of his joy and relief and hope boiled over into a solid laugh. It was the happiest moment of his life.

And then the sword was silent at his feet, and the grave sat still in the sunlight. He wasn't sure how long it would take, nor what would happen, so he stood there on the mound of dry earth. The moon and sun traded places in the sky; a week passed before one of his father's old friends persuaded Sesshomaru to retire to his rooms.

The new Lord of the Western Lands left the useless weapon atop his father's body and walked away. He vowed, as he exited the courtyards, that he'd never laugh again.

It just wasn't worth it.


"I don't suppose you could have used your sword."

Sesshomaru laid the rabbit's carcass out on a flat rock. Kagome tried not to look at her 'dinner.' "I don't suppose you could have used the jewel?" He retorted sharply.

Kagome frowned at him; it was unusual for Sesshomaru to resort to avoidance tactics. She thought that this was the first time he hadn't given her a full answer. She halfheartedly tossed another twig onto the fire. 'What is he hiding?'

Sesshomaru's navy blue kimono faded into the gray-tinged evening sky. He started to skin the rabbit; Kagome looked away. "Why does this disgust you?"

The sound of the animal being butchered made her want to gag. "Because it's dead."

He shrugged and strung the animal up on a branch, allowing its blood to drain away. "Kikyo was dead. You did not vomit in her presence."

Kikyo. Kagome felt like crying all over again.

"Don't cry."

Kagome wondered how he detected her feelings so easily, and why he cared.

"It smells unpleasant."

The girl rolled her eyes and tried to come up with a witty comeback. None sprung to mind, so she stared into the flames and tried to lose her troubles. It worked for a few minutes; she was getting better at meditating. See, if she thought about not thinking about something, she was thinking and therefore not meditating. So she tried not to not think about anything; nothing but the flames casting shifting shadows against tree trunks.

"If the hare were carrying a disease, you wouldn't be aware of it. Do humans stuff all of their foods into their mouths without inspecting it?" He snapped a branch off of a tree and, in one swift motion, speared a thick section or rabbit meat with it. "It seems silly to me. If you're going to eat it, what's wrong with preparing it?" He offered the stick to Kagome.

She eyed the bloody hunk of flesh in disgust. "Why can't you cook it?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I can." Her thrust the hunk of rabbit into the center of the fire.

Kagome jumped up. "No! You'll burn it!"

It was too late; the meat was a blackening ball of flame. Sesshomaru sighed and put it out onto the snow. "I don't cook food," was all that he said. He squinted at the damp pile of charcoal and leathery rabbit bits. "Is it edible?"

"No." Kagome swallowed her disgust and managed to wrestle a sizeable amount of meat onto a straight branch. Proudly, she held it beside the blaze. Leaping shoots of flame shone shades of gold over Sesshomaru's features. She thought that he was like snow: cold and calm, sucking up whatever colours are thrown upon it. Only snow melted, and Sesshomaru would reflect up the world's light forever.

"Did you ever love him?" Sesshomaru asked out of the blue. He was beside her, seated on the bare ground.

Kagome edged a bit closer to him. She was secretly glad that Sesshomaru would dare to ask these questions about Inuyasha. He was an outlet--her private emotional sponge. "I loved him as a friend." She felt hollow as she talked, but she wanted that empty feeling out into the air, away from her heart. "Yeah, I love him a lot." Her stick wavered over the fire.

"Loved." Sesshomaru corrected.

"No." Kagome looked the Taiyoukai in his eyes, and smiled sadly. "If he can cherish my love, then I can love him. Even though he's gone." A chord of sadness struck a note in her empty chest, and she welcomed the feeling. It was something to latch on to and deal with. She was sad--she was normal. She would heal. "He's gone." The words seemed more real the second time around. "And I will never forget him, as long as I live."

Sesshomaru averted his eyes and changed the subject. "What will you wish for?"

Kagome felt the jewel roll around in her pocket like a pebble. "I don't know." She thought of Kaede's words: "Hold on to it, Kagome." "I'll think about it for a while." She withdrew her stick and laid it against a log. The rabbit meat cooled in the evening air. "What would you wish for, if you had to?"

"I would like…" He thought of his father, and the person he never really knew. He thought of Inuyasha: the brother he'd given up. He remembered Rin, and all of the smiles he'd missed over the years. Would it be easier to never know them? Would it be harder to live without them? Would it be worth it, giving them up? "I'd like to start again."

Kagome didn't really know what he meant. "Do you mean, you'd wish you were younger?"

Sesshomaru watched her frail body turn to him, awaiting his response. The firelight flickered in her eyes, and he thought that humans were so full of answerless questions that they burned themselves out looking for invisible truths. "Nevermind." He handed her a lukewarm section of juicy meat. She gave it a troubled look. "Eat it. You will become malnourished."

Kagome swallowed a chunk; it wasn't bad. "Thank you, Sesshomaru." He deliberately didn't look at her mouth--he didn't find half-digested rabbit appealing. "Thanks for the food, I mean. I didn't know how hungry I was."

The fire was dying out. Sesshomaru watched the flames spit and hiss, shrinking into glowing coals. The sun had set by the time Kagome finished her meal. "I suppose we're traveling through the night?" She said.

"You may sleep, if you wish." He was standing before her. "May I pick you up?"

"Sure." They took off into the sky.

She snuggled into his robes--they smelled faintly of Naraku, planting an uneasy feeling in her stomach. "Those clothes," she mumbled, "You won't keep wearing them, will you?"

"Of course not. I will obtain another pair as soon as the opportunity presents itself."

Kagome shivered as the cold wind pummeled her body. "When will we get to where Rin is?"

Sesshomaru drifted through fog. Even the moon was barely visible, swaddled up in layers of gray whisps. He wrapped his arms a little tighter around Kagome. "Morning." He pictured the little girl he'd never let himself love, and his speed increased. He saw her face, untouched by time, waiting for him exactly where he'd left her. Hope grew, from a small note to a raging symphony of joy. 'She will have waited for me.' The clouds caressed his smile. "By the time the sun rises, we will be there."

He could only hope that reality matched his vision of the future. And hope he did, as he flew beneath the moon, with a human girl in his arms. He hoped for the first time in hundreds upon hundreds of years. He thought that even if Rin were nothing like he imagined, the feeling of joy was worth it. It had been so long since he'd given himself something to look forward to; for the future's embedded in the past, and he'd always cut away any link to what had been.

'It is worth it.' Sesshomaru's deep laugh faded into the night.


A/N-- So what do you think aboot this story? Too obscure? Too obvious? Not enough action? Not enough character developement? Comments/compliments welcome!