Epilogue

The following day Yuri asked her friends if they wanted to go out for pizza after classes. When asked the occasion she just smiled and responded "a little celebration of something." She was somewhat concerned when Ginta showed up for class. Afterward she was able to corner him in the hall. "Did Kouga say anything? She asked nervously.

"I'm officially relieved of spying duty." he informed her.

"Then why…"

He grinned ironically, "Well I'm only one and half semesters from a Bachelor of Science degree I'd be silly to drop out now." Yuri somehow doubted someone who lived for five hundred years would need a bachelor's degree. Heck, he probably already had earned one, although he would have a hard time convincing employers he graduated in sometime like the 1800s. He shrugged "I'm enjoying biology. Think I could get into grad school?"

"Well if they don't accept you could always work for a year and then reapply. "Something tells me you've got the time." She joked. Ginta nodded.

Well that was one phantom from Kagura's past down. Now to deal with the less pleasant one. Sesshomaru wasn't at what Yuri had come to think of his table. Now that it had gotten cold he was sitting inside the campus coffee shop looking pained at all the noise. She sat down next to and politely declined his offer of a scone, she didn't really care for them. "I just want to say, thanks for last night. For leaving me unguarded so I could see Kouga again and for teaching me Kagura's mannerisms." Yuri smiled remembering, "You should have seen the look on his face."

"Your welcome," he sounded smug but she chose to ignore it.

"I also wanted to say that it's over. I don't think Kouga's coming back and even if he does I'll just have to talk my way out of it. I lost my temper at you but I did mean what I said about your reasons for guarding me being well idiotic." She plunged on quickly before he could take offense. "What I mean is I don't want you to guard me because you fell you owe Kagura something even if your to stubborn to," whops not supposed to go down that path. She took a deep breath and tried again "I mean I don't want you to guard me because of Kagura. It really doesn't make anymore sense then Kouga trying to kill me for something she did. I'm not her. Her soul might be in me but I have to find my way in this world on my own. So I'm saying goodbye. I mean I can't stop you from protecting me and you can do what you want but I just wanted you to know that I think you should move on with you life and I'll more on with mine." She stood up. Sesshomaru wasn't saying anything just looking at her with the damn unreadable expression on his face. She felt like she should add something so she added "and um thanks for the scones."

Admittedly her exit would have been cooler if she had been looking where she was going instead of focusing on looking cool, and not crashed into another student, but still Yuri thought she pulled it off well.

After her celebratory pizza things went back to normal. True to his word Yuri still saw Ginta in classes but she mostly ignored him. When their last semester rolled around they didn't have any classes in common although she still saw him around the science building. Whether their lack of common classes was intentional or not she wasn't sure but she didn't waste anytime thinking about it.

In spite of Yuri's words she saw Sesshomaru braving the noisy coffee shop many times. She made a point of never going over to him but she did catch him looking at her. She also saw him a few times at off campus locals. It bothered her that he hadn't listened to her, but she was determined to ignore him. His sighting eventually became less frequent. Once she had thought they stopped all together because she didn't see him for a whole month. But there he was once again. She figured that she would probably see him about as often as she had when she was growing up. Once when the sighting had grown less frequent she caught him looking at her with this incredibly wistful stare on his face. Only then did she realize what this had been about. He'd liked Kagura. The bastard had had feelings for the wind demon that was entirely possible he still wouldn't admit. And he was just like Kouga; he wanted Yuri to be Kagura so that he could take care of some unfinished business. But of course she wasn't and thus his wistful-what could be stares. Yuri couldn't help but be a little shocked by these revelations. She found herself wondering how long demons lived. If he kept this denial up it would be at least a thousand years before Sesshomaru sorted out all of his problems, and that's if he was lucky.

Yuri also continued to see Kanna about as frequently as she had before this year. Kanna never seemed to be beckoning her and she never bothered trying to approach the demon. Yuri had gotten angry at both Kouga and Sesshomaru for wanting her to be Kagura. But she never felt that way towards Kanna. Something about the unnerving demon made it hard to get angry. At least Kanna was unobtrusive and she no longer had Yuri doubting her sanity. She figured that she would probably see Kanna for the rest of her life, from a distance-the demon patiently watching over her sisters' soul. Sitting on a bench killing time before class she spotted the girl one day and watched her out of the corner of her eye. There was something lonely about the little demon, she concluded. Yuri had decided to separate her life from Kagura's and avoid contact with people from the wind demon's past. Kanna was the only one who tempted her to break this rule. She couldn't help but wonder if the little demon needed a friend.

As Yuri's sightings of her various stalkers grew less frequent life went on. She herself was occupied with getting into med school, finishing up her credits to graduate and of course enjoying senior year. Some days she found herself wondering about her soul, about what Kagura's life had been like. But mostly she worried about living her own life. She still tensed when the doctor got out the stethoscope and went to listen for her heart. And she was still relieved to find it in her chest where it belonged, signifying that she was not a heartless (literally and perhaps figuratively) wind demon named Kagura but that she was a human woman named Yuri, who was scared of snakes and dreamed of being a doctor.

END

Random Notes:

I decided to base how much my reincarnation would be like her 'original' soul and be able to remember about her other life on the theory (or is it fact) that Kagome is a reincarnation of Kikyo. Kagome didn't recognize any of the important people of Kikyo's life, Kaede and Inuyasha. And I would argue Kagome isn't Kikyo, they're not the same person just in two different forms, they don't look identical either.

So I made it so Yuri didn't recognize her stalkers. Yuri was originally supposed to be more Kagura like, but since I didn't know to write Kagura in character, she evolved into her own character. Eventually that became sort of the moral of the story so to speak. Establishing that Yuri wasn't just Kagura was essential in resolving her of the blame of Kagura's past crimes.

I admit that in my original vision had another chapter with Naraku coming back and Yuri becoming Kagura, a Kagura still indentured to him destined to the same fate as a slave and to make the same mistakes until she is saved by an unlikely savoir (kinda). It was a cool idea but I couldn't get it off the ground because I couldn't overcome the practical hurdles of how Yuri could become Kagura and a demon, how Naraku came back after I'd established he'd been defeated, and how Kagura was still indentured to him if she had her heart. When I got towards the end I still hadn't resolved these issues and Yuri miraculously becoming Kagura flew in the face of what I'd just hammered into the ground with the Kouga confrontation, so I dropped it and instead came up with a nice happy ending, well happy for Yuri at least. If there is interest and if there I can work out the problems I might use the idea to write a oneshot about a Kagura reincarnation (with different reincarnation rules) and Naraku coming back.

I am aware of the fanfiction meaning of yuri but when I chose the name I just didn't think of it. I originally named my main character after a Kagura-reincarnation in a different author's story. It was a working name that I planned to change so as not to copy someone else's work. Yuri was the name of a one episode character in another anime. I thought it was a pretty name so I decided to use it. I'd forgotten its other meaning. Yuri's last name was the last name of one of the collaborators on an article I used for a term paper, so she is named after a Japanese scientist working with developmental genes in zebra fish.

A big thank you goes out to my reviewers, Juliakaze, Kah'T.ASTROPHUCK, Ocean Siren, RamblingPhilosopher, NijiHana, Yuubi, KahT, wind-yokai, Lyn Dulce, and 3karen3 for their wonderful words, encouragement and patience with my delayed updates.