Disclaimer: The characters of InuYasha are not mine; they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. The following story is for entertainment and not profit.
Epilogue: Unchanged
He stood on his private balcony listening to the rhythmic crash of the waves against the cliff. Rin and Jakken left to return Kohaku to his sister. Sesshomaru had felt no need to accompany them. The death of Naraku had created chaos among most of the youkia world. Every lesser demon with dreams of grandeur was fighting for control of the dispatched hanyou's lands, leaving much of the country relatively safe for human travelers.
Rin had been eager to show him the skills she had learned in his absence and he had been impressed at how well the boy had trained her in so short a time. Jakken had been unsure of leaving again so soon, and without his Lord. Sesshomaru still found amusement in remembering the defeated look on his retainer's face as the small girl had assured him, with puffed out chest, that she would protect him in their master's stead. He knew that they would not return until sometime late the following afternoon as the elder miko, Kaede would be insistent that they rest the night in the village.
He turned from the sunset and looked back through the rough archway towards his rooms. Everything was still and silent. There would be no running child, no girlish giggles, no little toad stumbling and chasing after her, not tonight. Tonight it would be quiet and empty, and he noticed that is left him with an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling of loneliness. He couldn't place just when he had become so attached to the young human child, or the smaller youkia, but it was their absence that was the source of this feeling. As Sesshomaru stood staring into the empty apartments he thought he heard the rustling of fabric, the swish of silk on silk. He felt the breeze coming off the water as he heard it again. Looking down he realized it was the movement of his own clothes in the wind that he heard.
Snorting at his own foolishness, Sesshomaru turned back towards the western horizon. He ran his hands over the polished stone rail with a sense that something was missing. It was a feeling that he hadn't been able to shake since returning home as if he was being haunted, not by a restless spirit, but by a memory nearly lost and clinging to the edge of his unconscious. It was similar to the return of his arm. He knew it hadn't grown back on its own but what, or who, had caused it he couldn't remember.
"Sesshomaru-sama." The whispered words slipped into his mind, refugees of the fading memory that haunted him. "If only I could stay with you forever." A fleeting image of black and white hair falling over his haori flashed before his eyes.
"My heart will never forget you." The words, although from his own lips, caught him by surprise in the stillness. He was sure he had heard them before, although spoken by another, if only he could remember who.
A sudden spark in the darkened sky caught his attention, pulling him from his thoughts. A falling star was lighting a path through the evening sky. As the light reached its brightest the star and its fiery tail both disappeared as if they had never existed. Only a few would ever know that she had.