A/N: Wow, it's been a long time since I've written anything! Well, here's a new chapter, and hopefully I will get back to updating on a more regular basis... Now, what I really wanted to say is that I used my artistic license to separate the Tree of Ages and the tree where Kikyo practiced shooting. It's been a while since I watched that episode, so I can't remember if they're actually the same tree, but for the purposes of this story they are in different places. Enjoy!
The sun is barely up when I wake the next morning. I wish I could linger inside my house (how wonderful it is to have my own roof over my head again!), but there are many things to do around the shrine. I want to give everything a thorough cleaning, and I also want to walk around the village and to the farms, just to see what has changed in the months I have been away. I should also pay some visits to a few of the villagers. I would love to see one's new baby, and I'm sure the oldest lady in the village would enjoy a visit, as it's difficult for her to leave her house.
I breathe in the fresh air outside, and reflect on how much cleaning there is to be done. Master Hiroshi hasn't exactly been keeping things spotless while I've been gone, and all the rooms could do with a good airing out.
Lastly, I want to pay a visit to Kikyo's grave. While her ashes are kept at the shrine, I never like to mourn her there. It's too public, and my sister deserves a quieter place, where she can truly rest in peace. So after her death, I picked a secluded spot in the forest where I could go to pay my respects. I ended up with the tree where I would always practice my shooting. There, I buried a box filled with things from Kikyo's life: her arrows, a lock of her hair, the herbs that she had been using to treat my eye. After much deliberation, I added in a scrap of Inuyasha's clothing that was torn off while he fleeing the shrine. Finally, I put in a picture of the Sacred Jewel. I had drawn this picture for her about a year before, right after she was granted the important job of looking after it. I was intrigued by the large and beautiful jewel, and after I drew my picture I very shyly gave it to her as a sign of my respect for her powers. I'm surprised that she kept it, because it's not very well-drawn. But after her death, I thought of the Sacred Jewel as one of the things that defined her life, so I put it in the box.
I buried the box all alone, and onto the tree I carved a very simple drawing of an arrow. And that is what I consider to be Kikyo's grave. The ashes in the shrine aren't my sister anymore. The place where my sister truly is is where I remember her.
The morning slips away in a whirlwind of cleaning. While I dislike the act of cleaning, it's infinitely less frustrating than practicing my powers as a priestess, so it's comparatively not too bad. Scrubbing a couple of floors is nothing compared to almost starving to death while fighting off demons in the middle of a forest. If I were a normal sort of girl, just about to the age where one could get married, I would actually make a decent wife. Not like Kikyo would have. I allow myself to laugh a little at how anti-men she was. My sister always used to say that she would never fall in love. She was always such an independent person – I admire her so much for it. But sometimes I wonder if it was all just an act put on for her little sister. There was that one time that I found her trying on makeup… I hope to God that wasn't for Inuyasha.
Inuyasha. That name still disgusts me. He's the reason that my sister had to die. Him and that bastard Onigumo and that damn Sacred Jewel.
The afternoon visits go smoothly, thank God. Many of the villagers still treat me like I'm a little off – maybe they're remembering those eighteen months when I refused to go outside – but they all respect me for being a priestess. They all loved Kikyo so much, and I hope that they see a little of her in me. I'd like to think that at least some parts of me are similar to her. But maybe I'm flattering myself. It's useless to compare me and Kikyo – she would just seem more wonderful than before when shown against a short, clumsy, and weak fifteen year old girl.
It is these rather depressing thoughts that fill my head as I head out of the village towards Kikyo's gravesite. By now it's late afternoon, and the sun appears to be trying to compensate for its coming absence by flooding the forest with light. That just makes all the shadows stand out more clearly, though. And when I come to the fork in the path that signals how close I am to the grave, a shadow seems to block my way. The forest path splits to either side of a large oak tree, and from there each smaller path continues on its separate way. One leads to the clearing with the tree where I used to practice my shooting. The other leads to another tree, which is probably much older. The Tree of Ages, where Inuyasha is sealed. My sister told me once that this tree has the ability to transcend time.
Once, a few weeks after Kikyo died, I tried to use this power. I snuck out to the tree at night, carefully avoiding the side where Inuyasha was pinned. There, I pleaded with the tree. I begged it to take me back to a time where Kikyo was alive.
It didn't work. Of course it didn't. There is no amount of magical power great enough to reverse time. But after that, I kept away from that tree. I didn't want to be reminded of the painful events that occurred there.
But now, as I'm standing there feeling the sunshine on my back, staring at the shadow that obscures the oak tree which blocks my way, I realize that there's something that I have to do. Before I go and visit Kikyo, I have to visit the tree. I have to try to make peace with it, and to make peace with Inuyasha.
At least that bastard can never hurt me again.
But even as I think that, I know that I can't go and pray at Kikyo's grave with all of this hatred inside of me. It's been five years. I need to try and come to terms with it.
I need to go back to the Tree of Ages.
It looks exactly like I remember it. It's a little funny how some things never change; trees stand tall, grow leaves and lose them, year after year after year. It's only people who change. But that's a stupid thought. Trees can change too: one lightning bolt, one huntsman in need of firewood, and it's all over. The thought that even the Tree of Ages can be killed is strangely comforting to me. This stupid tree isn't invincible.
But I really should stop feeling so bitter about a tree. As I approach it, slowly, like how you would approach a wild animal, I try and reason with myself. There's nothing wrong with a stupid tree, even a supposedly magical one. Just because it can't transcend time doesn't mean that I should blame it for Kikyo's death.
And as I think that, I realize it's Inuyasha that I hate. I hate this tree because of what it holds onto, what it shelters. All these years I have avoided the Tree of Ages because it has Inuyasha pinned to it. But Inuyasha is dead, or as good as dead. Just like my sister, he is never going to wake up. There is no point in hating a dead man (or demon). But I still do.
So all these years, I really have been hating this tree for nothing. But as I look at its enormous trunk and fresh green leaves, I find that I still resent it. How can it still spout leaves every year, how can it still be alive when my sister is dead? This tree, completely inoffensive except for what is sealed to its bark, is still hateful to me. Maybe I just hate everything that is living since my sister is dead. Especially myself.
I go to the Tree of Ages because I want to make peace with the past. I walk away still hating it.