Kagome had assumed that it would be excruciating, giving up godhood.
It felt a lot more like being submerged in a warm bath.

The detachment she had always felt had now evaporated away completely. She was of the Earth now, and feelings that had only ever been concepts were so real now. She felt like she was going to drown in them…

Except that he was there, keeping her afloat. His arms protected her from the onslaught of feelings she was not ready to understand, and his embrace steadied her panic. Kagome had turned human because she met Inuyasha, but she had turned human for herself.

"Kagome! Answer me!" Kikyō's voice boomed through the picnic, pulling Kagome out of Inuyasha's embrace and back to the gravity of what she had just done.

"What the fuck is going on?" Inuyasha snapped at Kikyō, while simultaneously releasing Kagome. She didn't like the way it felt outside of his arms.

"Kagome," Kikyō pleaded, "please please tell me what happened!" Kikyō's eyes then filled with daggers as she looked upon the half-demon with the bloody ring finger. Her sister's assailant. "You."

Before Kikyō could exact divine revenge, Kagome threw herself between Inuyasha and her sister.

"I did something," Kagome explained. She wouldn't let her decision cost Inuyasha anything. "Kikyō. This was my choice. He—he didn't know I was going to—"

"To what?" Inuyasha turned his golden eyes to Kagome. They were full of confusion, and fear. "Kagome, what did you just do?"

"Explain yourself!" Kikyō's eyes were full of the same emotions as Inuyasha's now: confusion and fear. Emotions that until recently, Kagome didn't fully understand.

"Kikyō… I want to speak to Inuyasha, okay? Just for a little while? Alone?" Kagome could hear the desperation in her voice, could see the way that both Inuyasha and Kikyō's eyes widened and brows knitted. "Please."

"Ten minutes." Kikyō folded her arms. "You have ten minutes before I come back."

With a poof, Kikyō disappeared.

"Kagome?" He looked so unsure, so worried, and for the first time, Kagome realized that he wasn't worried for himself, but for her.

"After you completed the last wish, you would have died." Kagome didn't want to look at those golden eyes anymore, not with the brand new feeling of guilt that coursed through her. "I—I couldn't. Not like that. Not you."

"You sacrificed immortality," Inuyasha murmured, "for me?"

"It's complicated." Kagome forced her gaze back up to Inuyasha's eyes. Their honeyed gold brought her comfort, encouraged her to try to put to words the feelings that were bouncing through her skull. "And more selfish than that."

Inuyasha didn't reply; he just continued to stare at Kagome.

"You ever have that moment where that nebulous thing that was just always there but you ignored it suddenly… well, you couldn't ignore it anymore?" Kagome wrung her hands. "Well, I stopped ignoring it." She reached out and took one of Inuyasha's hands. He clutched hers without hesitation. "It's funny. All those times that I came to Earth to duel with my sister. I pretended that it was the thrill of the hunt, but… it wasn't that. I liked coming to Earth. I liked the way the air felt and I—I loved watching people. The way they loved, the way they hated, the way they lived." She took a tentative step closer to Inuyasha, still holding his hand. "But I was always apart. Because the people I interacted with either decided to take Kikyō's deal or they wished so quickly that I was done with my job before I could so much as enjoy a good book." Kagome leaned forward, just enough to feel Inuyasha's breath. "Then I met you."

The unclaimed souls were always fun, always a match of wits with her sister, and once she had them, she was guaranteed to keep them. People heard wish and they lost their damn minds, begging for glorious riches and great love stories. It had never been more than a week before Kagome had them. It didn't leave time to think, to dream.

Then Inuyasha changed all that, by being careful about his wishes, asking for ordinary things, attainable things. And by including her so easily in his life.

Kagome lived when she was with Inuyasha. She felt. And suddenly, those boxed away desires, the ones that she never really had time to process, were there, always there.

"Then…" Kagome tried to speak, but now, the utterly aggravating new emotion of grief was hitting her, and there were actual tears in her eyes. "Then you almost made that wish and… and I couldn't let you. Not when…" Kagome paused. She didn't actually know what Inuyasha's last wish was, because she cut him off so abruptly. "Inuyasha?"

She needed to know.

Kagome's use of his name finally returned Inuyasha's brain to operational.

"Yeah?" They were so close together. Why were they so close? Why did she become human? Why did she look as confused as he was?

"What was your last wish going to be?" She squeezed his hand, and a blush (human Kagome blushed?) came to her face. "I… I just need to know."

"I—" Inuyasha hesitated, then smiled. What the hell, he was one second away from making that wish as it was, to Kagome no less. "I was gonna wish not to be alone."

Inuyasha's answer meant that Kagome had guessed right. It was thrilling and relieving, though truth be told, her turning human and nullifying the contract would have probably happened no matter what it was that he wished.

But there was more—so much more—to that being his wish. To those being the words he would have spoken.

Because… because...

Because Kagome was lonely. So goddamned lonely she didn't know what to do with the eternity she spent in hell. It was a world that one could make into whatever they wanted, but ultimately hell was about being alone.

She could magic a costume party into existence, full of the most opulent guests one could imagine, and have splendid conversations, but they were hollow, like a small and lonely child hosting a tea party for her dolls.

It was why Kagome loved the summons from Kikyō. Without even realizing it, Kagome had begun to wait for her sister's arrival, even if it took decades, because Kikyō was something real and Naraku was too busy both managing hell and trying to think of ways to one-up Midoriko that he didn't really have time to be with his daughter.

It was why… she spent that time with Inuyasha, on the periphery but always present, and why those closed-off feelings had started to whisper to her with every smile in her direction. Why, ultimately, she had found that she couldn't run away from it, from him. Because with Inuyasha, she wasn't lonely. Not anymore.

"Me too," she whispered, but Inuyasha's half-demon ears heard it loud and clear. "That would have been my wish… too."

Kagome didn't want to say the rest; she just wanted to leave it at that. That hell was lonely, and now that she was free to feel, it was so clear how desperately lonely she had been. How the small child who watched her parents separate was wailing inside of her and she hadn't realized how much that hurt.

Inuyasha leaned his forehead against hers, and pulled her tightly to him. Without needing to say the words, Kagome understood what this meant: I'm here.

"I'm s-sorry." Kagome let go, let tears of eternal bottled-up loneliness surround her. "I would have taken your soul and you would have been stuck alone because of me and—"

"You woulda been down there, with me," Inuyasha interrupted her. "Dunno if that's how shit works but… I woulda found you." His eyes raged like wildfires as they stared into hers. "I woulda made that wish to not be alone, and I woulda turned hell inside out to find you and make sure you kept your side of the deal. Because—" Kagome waited for Inuyasha to finish. She needed to hear the rest. "Because I… I wanna be with you."

There it was. The wish they both wished. The wish that electrified the air between them on all the days they had spent together, since Inuyasha signed Kagome's contract. The wish that was so close to being uttered when Kagome was still a god, the one that, now that Kagome was a human…

"Yes," she beamed. "I can grant that wish, Inuyasha."

It was so simple to say. Simpler than finding Shiori (which would have happened eventually) or bringing Sesshōmaru back into Inuyasha's life (a little bit sooner than would have happened naturally). Simpler than all the rest. And the last wish that Kagome would ever fulfill for someone. Inuyasha had never surrendered his soul to her, no: Inuyasha had helped her find her own soul.

In Kagome's long life, she had watched people fight and kill, cry and beg, and die. She oversaw love and betrayal, and was the arbiter of people's most secret and darkest desires.

What she hadn't done was kiss.
Or get kissed.

Yet Inuyasha's hands were now caressing her hair, and his lips were soft and sumptuous, gentle, as if his spur-of-the moment decision had come as much of a shock to him as it had to her. But once they started, Kagome didn't want to stop. Inuyasha's tongue tested the seam of Kagome's lips, asking her for permission, and she complied, surrendering herself entirely to the sensation, to Inuyasha, to—

Love.

That's what this was, wasn't it?
Inuyasha wasn't just a means to finding her soul, or even a companion to end her loneliness.
She was to end his loneliness by loving him.

"Kagome…" Inuyasha broke away just long enough to say her name.

"Inuyasha," Kagome responded, and she let herself laugh and she let herself cry.

Neither would say I love you on that day, while they kissed at the sunlit picnic. That would come a little later.

When Kikyō returned, she couldn't bring herself to interrupt the pair, because as she watched her sister laugh and kiss the half-demon, she no longer needed an explanation. It was right there in front of her. Maybe it had been all along.

"Damn." Kikyō smiled and frowned at the same time. "Mom is going to have a field day with this one." Then she turned and she left Earth for Heaven. There was a lot of paperwork to do.

"Interesting one." Inky-black eyes, the color of the midnight sky, stared down at the file before him. "I thought that pairs weren't allowed."

"That was always more a guideline than something set in stone," Kikyō sneered. "These two are not going to be separated, even in death, Jakotsu."

"Hmm." Jakotsu went back to studying the file. Apparently the woman in it—Kagome—was his older sister. That's what the file said; that's what he had been told…

Kagome looked happy, beaming at nieces and nephews, then later, at her own children. She always seemed to be cuddled into the arms of the half-demon, who only had eyes for her.

"Didn't you say that souls stopped being bound together when they passed?" Jakotsu tried again.

"Not all souls," Kikyō lectured. Sometimes, after all, rules were created to be broken.

"The half-demon, Inuyasha, is his name? He's a tasty one." Jakotsu eyed the handsome man, a smirk coming to his face. The things he would do to that ma—

"Stop," Kikyō growled. "Don't think that I won't send you right back to dad if you can't behave."

"Dad won't do anything," Jakotsu huffed.

"You're underestimating these particular souls." Kikyō shook her head. "And mom and dad."

"Just because you've been around a lot longer than me—" Jakotsu grumbled.

"A lot lot longer," Kikyō interrupted. "So look at the file and pay attention to it. Or so help me mom, I will summon our parents to explain to you one more time what our job is."

"Whatever." Jakotsu tugged the file up so that Kikyō couldn't see it (not that she needed to, this file was a file that Kikyō knew, front to back, by heart).

Jakotsu's very existence had come about because of this file. Naraku and Midoriko had not admitted it, but Kagome's departure from godhood had broken both of their hearts, and for the first time in centuries, they sought comfort in one another. Jakotsu was born (they claimed it was an accident; Kikyō was not fooled). Sure, mom and dad could never live together, but apparently the love and the passion between them had not abated.

The visits started increasing after that, too. Never enough that Heaven and Hell would be reconciled (after all, Midoriko and Naraku divorced for good reason), but it was nice to meet on Earth, to see her family, to watch baby Jakotsu grow into a hellion who was definitely slated to go with dad.

To watch quietly over Kagome's new life.

Kikyō didn't get to speak to Kagome again after she made the choice to become a human, but that didn't mean that she didn't check in. And Kagome always seemed to know when Kikyō was there, an inward smile coming to her face the moment she peered into whatever out-of-the-way corner Kikyō had tucked herself into.

"Three kids, five grandkids, and nieces and nephews." Jakotsu returned to his study. "Founded a half-demon halfway house that helps foster kids find good families—looks like they set that up with Inuyasha's brother."

Kikyō nodded. She remembered watching as Kagome and Inuyasha put the final coat of paint on the building, and how Kagome launched herself into Inuyasha's arms to kiss him. Kikyō nearly shot out from behind her tree to yell at her sister about the fragility of the pregnant human body, but… Inuyasha had taken care of that for her.

"So what even is the argument here?" Jakotsu looked genuinely curious. "The smiles and the rules and everything, they're going up… right?"

"Turn the page," Kikyō chuckled. Jakotsu turned the page.

"Wait, wait," Jakotsu gawped. "Kagome and Inuyasha were the ones who took down Oni Corp?"

"Hacking and sweet-talking…" Kikyō beamed. It was nice to see that Kagome had not lost the sharpness of her tongue in the transition.

"She got him to admit to the hanyō-trafficking on live television." Jakotsu looked at his sister, then guffawed. "And to out all of his co-conspirators? Whose private details were conveniently leaked onto the web just moments before." Jakotsu liked this pair. "Okay, fine, I see your point."

"So." Kikyō leaned across the table. "You in?"

Jakotsu looked back down at the file, at the beaming faces, at the mischievous fire in their eyes, at the halfway house and the hacking.

No wonder Kikyō was so convinced that these two's souls were unclaimed.

"You're on," he said, and shook Kikyō's hand.

There was no way that Kagome and Inuyasha Taisho's souls were not going to be his.