Chapter Seven: Blissful Death
"Die Inuyasha!" Kikyo shouted as she loosed her arrow aimed at Inuyasha's heart.
Inuyasha shattered the arrow with a single sword stroke. Inuyasha charged towards Kikyo and struck from above. His holy opponent parried with her bow. "I don't want to do this Kikyo. Don't make me!" Inuyasha warned her.
"I will only find peace in your death!" Kikyo yelled back. She sent a surge of purification towards Inuyasha forcing him back several paces. She fired four more arrows in Inuyasha's direction, but he dodged three nimbly, but one pinned the sleeve of his robe to a sapling tree. Kikyo used those precious few seconds Inuyasha spent freeing himself to count her remaining arrows. Three. She knocked yet another arrow to her bowstring as Inuyasha charged her quickly. Inuyasha got close enough to disarm Kikyo with a horizontal strike. She tripped over a root and Inuyasha stood over her, his sword point at her chest.
"I'll say it again Kikyo. I don't want to hurt you. Are you going to make me?" Inuyasha threatened.
Kikyo spat in his face. "Go to hell half-breed!"
"You don't belong in the living realm." Inuyasha simply stated.
Kikyo smirked. "You won't kill me. You'd miss me."
"True." Inuyasha agreed. "I wouldn't kill you. But you said so yourself. You are already dead." Kikyo's eyes widened in surprise as Inuyasha plunged the Tetsuiga into her chest. A single tear fell down Inuyasha's cheek. "Forgive me Kikyo." Inuyasha could do nothing but watch as Kikyo's "body" disintegrated into the ash and grave-soil that it was birthed from.
Kagome had been searching for Inuyasha for a whole hour and had yet to find a trace of him. "Any luck?" Sango asked.
"No." Kagome replied gravely.
"He's somewhere. Peoples don't just vanish." Haruko interrupted.
"Uncle Inuyasha might be able to though. He's part demon, remember?" Miroku joked.
Sango shot him a glare. "Miroku, don't fill her head with lies like that!"
Kagome suddenly felt a pulse in the air. She felt…different. A more descriptive word didn't fit the profile. Something weird was happening, she just didn't know what. What was this vibe, and what caused it? "Hey, do you guys feel that?" Kagome asked.
"Feel what?" the other three responded simultaneously.
"That. That vibration."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Sango said.
"Me neither." Haruko chimed in. "What does it feel like?"
"Like a part of me that I didn't know I was missing has returned. I feel whole." Kagome described.
Sango and Haruko didn't know what to make of this, but after several moments all the information clicked in Miroku's head. "I know where Inuyasha is."
"Where?" Kagome asked.
"He has seen Lady Kikyo." Miroku explained.
"Oh hell." Sango said, clapping her hands over her eyes. Kagome's futures fell sad.
Miroku smirked at both their reactions. "Don't count your chickens. I believe you may be pleasantly shocked when he returns Lady Kagome."
"I don't see how that's fundamentally possible." Kagome remarked.
Inuyasha's sword fell to the earth, changing back from a razor-sharp broadsword into a rusted, battered katana. He sank to his knees, his face a picture of disbelief at his own actions. "What have I done?"
"I killed her. I killed the woman I love." Inuyasha told himself. The other side of his mind retaliated.
"You didn't kill her. She was already dead. You just put her in her place. Besides what about Kagome?"
"Kagome isn't the issue right now."
"Oh but she is! You love her don't you?"
"Of course."
"And you love Kikyo. Not that puppet of sorcery you just destroyed."
"…"
"Go to Kagome. Find her and tell her. She will forgive you for all the pain you caused her up to this point."
"How do you know?"
"Call it a hunch. Just trust me on this one."
Inuyasha picked up his sword and sheathed it. "I love you Kagome. You may not love me back, but at least you will know."
Back in the village, a few stray tears fell down her cheeks. Miroku embraced her tightly and comfortingly rubber her back. "Don't cry little one. Remember that bizarre feeling you felt? Kikyo holds part of your soul. Suppose that feeling was that part of your soul returning."
"But Miroku how is that possible?" Sango asked.
"Yeah Daddy, how's it possible?"
Well for Lady Kagome's soul to be recovered, Kikyo's body of earth would have to be destroyed." Miroku explained.
"Inuyasha wouldn't do that." Kagome objected.
"Is it really that hard to believe?" Miroku asked.
"Why would Inuyasha kill the woman he loves?" Kagome snapped.
"He didn't kill the woman he loves because he loves you Kagome!" Miroku declared.
Kagome didn't need to be told that. She wasn't blind of course she could tell Inuyasha loved her. That wasn't the problem. The problem was he loved Kikyo as well, and Kagome couldn't be with Inuyasha when he was in love with someone else. That would be self-oppressive, not to mention it might give Inuyasha the impression he could run off to be with Kikyo whenever he saw fit.
"Hey." Inuyasha greeted his partners as he strode into the dwelling they shared. Kagome wiped her tears and nuzzled further into Miroku's robes. "Kagome?" he asked softly. "Can I talk to you alone?"
"Go talk to Kikyo!" Kagome shot back as her eyes began to water again.
Inuyasha sighed. "Kagome, it's not like that at all."
"What is it like then, huh?" Kagome sobbed.
Miroku dismissed all his logical thinking temporarily as Kagome made no more effort to hide her tears and buried her face in his robes again. "Please Inuyasha, tell us, how is Lady Kikyo?" Miroku hissed his voice venomous.
"Dead." Inuyasha replied flatly. "She's gone now."
Kagome gently pulled away from Miroku. "Really?"
"Yes. Can I talk to you now Kagome? In private preferably." Kagome nodded and followed Inuyasha outside. They stopped when both were confident Sango, Miroku, and Haruko weren't listening.
"Why'd you do it?" Kagome questioned, getting straight to the point.
"Huh?"
"Why'd you kill her? You love her."
"I do, but she didn't belong here. She dies fifty years ago, and that's where it should've ended. I love Kikyo, not that abomination Urasue created." Inuyasha explained seriously. "And I could not have her interfering with what I have with the woman I love now." Inuyasha took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I love you Kagome. I love you and have for a long time now."
Kagome leapt into Inuyasha's arms, and Inuyasha, not being prepared for a reaction such as that toppled over. "I love you too Inuyasha. I love you so much."
"You…you do?" Inuyasha asked.
"Of course she does you oaf!" Miroku called out from his and Sango's hiding spot. "Didn't I tell you so before?"
"Way to go Uncle Inuyasha!" Haruko chimed in.
Inuyasha immediately jumped away from Kagome. "This isn't what it looks like, I swear!"