"A deep man believes in miracles, waits for them, believes in magic, believes that the orator will decompose his adversary; believes that the evil eye can wither, that the heart's blessing can heal; that love can exalt talent; can overcome all odds."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

InuYasha stared at legion, and could only think one thing. If I am going to die, I'm taking this fucker with me. He flexed his claws, felt his demon boil, and was fully prepared to throw himself at Tatsuo, when the demons inside the man suddenly screamed. InuYasha covered his ears.

The sound was horrible, like the shrieking of a million crows being unmercifully tortured. The hanyou had no clue what was going on, but to his amazement Tatsuo backed away and his body started to convulse helplessly. Around him, he watched as the fighting stalled and demons started to retreat, running for the forest as if death nipped at their heals.

Bewildered, he watched in dismay as black, wraith-like creatures fled Tatsuo's body, and with each exodus the corpse shriveled more and more. When the last demon had fled InuYasha looked down at the withered husk and saw it blow away in the wind.

Staggered, he retrieved Tetsusaiga and rushed away, knocking fleeing demons out of his path as he ran. He sniffed the air, and amidst the blood and death he caught the scent of the woman he'd given his being to.

"Kagome," he whimpered and ran faster. She was lying on the ground, surrounded by a group of slayers and Isamu, with her head resting in Riko's lap. He started forward but paused when the healer lifted tear dusted eyes to his. Denial, swift and hard, plowed into him and he ruthlessly pushed everyone aside, dropping to his knees.

Riko was the first to speak. "I'm sorry InuYasha, Kaede is still holding her spirit here but her wound, it's…it's…" She trailed off, unable to tell her friend that the wound Kagome had sustained was fatal. InuYasha sat there on his haunches; his head shaking back and forth in denial.

He crept closer and watched as her eyelids fluttered opened. When she caught sight of him a soft smile turned her lips, before it turned into a pain filled, body racking cough. He was at her side in an instant, adjusting her so her head now rested in his lap and gently brushing her hair out of her face.

"InuYasha," she whispered, and blood dusted her pink lips. Fear, like nothing he'd ever known clenched his heart, and a sheen of tears gathered at the corner of his golden eyes. She reached up and cupped her palm over his cheek, rubbing lightly. He turned into her touch and closed his eyes.

"Kagome," he rasped. She smiled again and he opened his eyes, regarding her steadily. Another coughing fit assailed her and she gasped aloud from the pain. He dug his claws into his palms, ignorant of the blood coursing down his hand.

When she could speak again she asked. "Did we…Did we win?" He chuckled, but it sounded sad. He brushed her hair back again.

"Yeah…yeah we won." She nodded and her eyes fluttered closed, but not before she muttered. "I love…you, InuYasha." Her body went still. Silence stretched and the hanyou froze, his body shaking.

He surged to his feet and turned. Catching sight of his brother, he grabbed the youkai prince by his robes and hauled him towards him.

"You can save her. You can save her like you did before." Sesshomaru regarded him with something akin to pity.

"No…I can not." Rage coursed through the hanyou, and he punched his half-brother in the face, sending him sprawling. He would have leapt after him, but Isamu and a half dozen of the village men held him back. InuYasha was snarling and cursing while Sesshomaru calmly rose to his feet. He dusted his clothes off before facing him. Instead of the anger InuYasha had expected he instead saw a profound sense of resignation.

"Tenseiga can only be used once on the same human. It can not save her again."

"You're just making excuses," he growled. Sesshomaru's lips tightened.

"Are you calling me a lair, brother?"

At those words the fight drained out of the hanyou and he slumped back to the ground next to his fallen mate. Sesshomaru was many things, but even he knew his brother's ridged sense of honor made lying impossible for him. With cry of despair he gathered his mate's body against his own and howled.

Across the mountains and chorus of howls joined his, as the wolves of the land heard his mourning cry. It was eerie and heartbreaking all at once. Riko wept freely now and Isamu knelt down, pulling her into his arms. She buried her head in the crook of his neck and let her tears stain his armor.

The howls subsided and the hanyou buried his face in Kagome's hair. For the first time in a long, long time, he cried.

Kaede felt the last of her strength waver as she teetered and fell over unconscious. She used the last of her power to hold Kagome's spirit, but even she knew that it was temporary. Soon, the pull of the underworld would grab the young miko, and nothing they could do would stop it.

She sighed in her sleep. She was tired…so very, very tired. She'd lived a lot longer than she'd ever thought possible while her sister, her beautiful, talented, and powerful sister, had embraced death long before her time should have come.

Kikyo should have been the one to survive and she still often wondered why it was she the gods had allowed to become twisted with time and aged with wisdom. It was, perhaps, the most perplexing question she'd had throughout her long life, and she'd come to realize through the years, that the reason had been staring back at her the moment she'd looked into young Kagome's features for the first time.

She smiled, or at least she felt as if she did. That girl was more powerful than all of them and she still didn't realize it. She couldn't allow her to die before her time, not again, not like Kikyo had. The answer to her unconscious prayer appeared before her. She found herself back on top of his mountain top, but this time the castle in the distance was burning.

"I see Sango and Miroku have won the day."

Komoku chuckled and came to stand beside her. "Had you any doubts?" She smiled ruefully.

"Nay, my lord. The taijiya and the monk, they make a good pair." She sobered slightly and turned to him. She couldn't feel Miroku's spiritual presence and she instantly knew why.

"Is he lost to her?"

Komoku sighed.

"I am not able to say. The houshi's fate is not mine to hold. Young Kagome's however..."

Kaede glanced at him and nodded.

"There is always a price though? Be there not?"

He looked into the distance and nodded once. "Always astute, my Kaede. Do you know what it is?"

She smiled, and as he gazed at her the wrinkles of time and age started to slowly lift. Her heavy body grew slender, her skin smoothed, and her one twinkling brown eye became two twinkling brown eyes. Kaede now stood before him, a girl of seventeen winters instead of the matron of before. She wasn't enchantingly beautiful, not like Kikyo had been, but the warmth and light that were always so much a part of her nature, shown through like a beacon.

He smiled and laced his fingers with hers. "I see you've made your choice." She smiled and nodded.

Her voice, clear and smooth, instead of aged and raspy, replied.

"I have had a good many years, a good run as Kagome would say. It be time for me to let those of a new generation take over the responsibilities. I only asked one more thing, my lord."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it and she blushed prettily. "Anything, I've waited a great many years for you my Kaede."

"The boy, Kohaku…be it ye power?" He frowned thoughtfully and nodded again.

"Yes love, I do believe it is." With that he wrapped his arm around her now slim waist, waved his hand, and they vanished. Back in the village, the ground under the body of the elderly miko pulsed once, twice and a wave of power erupted from her. Gasps and cries could be heard throughout the village. The wave washed over all, and a peace unlike any other fell upon them.

Kaede and Komoku were going home, but they had one final task before them.

Near the fallen elderly miko, Kohaku felt his body jerk and twitch. When his eyes finally opened he collapsed to the ground and panted like a winded marathon runner. Slowly, he started to comprehend his surroundings and was surprised to see Chie and Benji leaning over him, pouring some strange liquid down his throat.

Chie was the first to notice his open eyes and she squealed in delight, tugging on her friend's sleeve.

"Benji, look, he's awake. Kohaku's awake." The boy pushed himself into a sitting position and shook his head like a dog, trying to clear it.

He looked around blearily. The battle appeared to be over and it looked as if they'd won. Groggy, he smacked his lips together and promptly gagged.

"W-What did you give me?" Benji beamed at him and held up the bottle.

"Mom uses it when someone gets bite by a snake. It makes them better." Kohaku took the bottle with shaking fingers and noticed the tag.

"Anti-venom," he muttered and pushed himself to his feet, only to fall back down. Chie tugged on his arm concerned.

"You need to rest." He nodded again and would have let his eyelids flutter shut if he hadn't heard Benji say.

"Chie, what's this?" He bent down to pick something up and she crowded around him, her eyes wide.

"Ohhh, it's pretty. Can I have it Benji?" Benji frowned down at the object, the way only five year olds can and said.

"I don't think so. I think I better give it to Kagome. It looks like the ones she keeps in her bottle."

At that Kohaku's eyes went wide and he croaked. "Benji, let me see what you've found." The smaller boy looked guilty for a minute and then reluctantly made his way over to Kohaku. He opened his hand and the older boy started, his hand instantly flying to his back.

What he found had his hands shaking even more than before. Kami, he thought, it can't be.

Trembling, he ran his fingers over the wound that should have been gaping between his shoulder blades. All he found was a scare. Snatching his hand back, he looked from the shard to the sky and back again, tears pouring down his cheeks. Chie stepped forward and wrapped her small fingers around his wrist.

"Kohaku?" He looked at the girl and the boy and pulled them into a hug.

"I'm free," he whispered. "I'm free."

InuYasha was still holding Kagome and rocking her still form back and forth, when he suddenly felt her fingers twitch. He froze. Pulling away, he looked down at the girl in his arms and felt hope bloom. When her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him he almost leapt out of his own skin.

"K-Kagome?" Hearing the strange note in is voice, Isamu and Riko and the others turned towards them and a collective gasp echoed. Riko, her eyes wide, asked.

"InuYasha, she's…she's…"

"Alive," he finished for her. Kagome was more than just alive, she was fast becoming irritably.

"InuYasha," she whined. "Ease up a bit, you're squishing me." He immediately loosened his hold and watched in awe as she sat up. His gaze went to her stomach but where a gaping hole had once been, all he saw now was pink flesh.

"Kagome…your wound." Confused, she followed his gaze and looked down.

"Huh? What wound. What's going on InuYasha?"

"I believe I can answer ye that child." Startled at the sound of the strange voice addressing her, Kagome looked up and gasped softly.

The woman before her was dressed in the red and white traditional garb of a miko and looked to be around her age. Behind her a shimmering man in old fashioned armor stood at her back, his arm around her waist. The girl smiled.

"Ye looked shocked to see me, young Kagome. Be it that you don't know who I be?"

Kagome's mouth worked back and forth and finally her lips parted with one questioning word. "K-Kaede?" InuYasha jumped up at that, his own eyes wide.

"Are you nuts Kagome? There's no way this can be the old bag?"

Komoku scowled and waved his hand, knocking the hanyou on the ground. He got up with a growl, and would have attacked, had not Kagome sighed in exasperation and muttered.

"Sit boy!" The prayer beads around his neck glowed and he found himself eating dirt.

"Kagome!" he whined, she sniffed.

"Serves you right." To Kaede she said. "Lady Kaede, how…why?" The miko smiled and rested her head against Komoku's chest.

"Don't fret, child. I have made my choice. I will go with Lord Komoku. The villagers will look to ye now child, and I have no doubt ye will make me proud."

It finally dawned on Kagome what she was seeing and tears started leaking out of her eyes.

"Kaede…are you…" She smiled gently and nodded.

"Do not mourn me. I had a good life and now I can be with Komoku. It is well." She waved her hand and the beads of subjugation released the hanyou. He stumbled to his feet and glared at them both. She eyed him indulgently.

"Ye take care of her InuYasha. I will be counting on ye."

"Keh, whatever," he scoffed, but a hint of sadness touched his eyes. She reached out and brushed his cheek and his lips twisted into a half smile.

"You always had too much faith in me, you old witch." She laughed.

"And ye never had enough in thyself. Goodbye InuYasha, Kagome. I shall miss thee."

With that final statement Kaede and Komoku shimmered and were gone. InuYasha grunted and pulled Kagome up.

"InuYasha what are you…" He cut her off with a brief, harsh kiss and muttered.

"You are never allowed to die on me again. You hear me?" Her chocolate eyes went soft and she snuggled against him.

"Okay," she whispered.

He sighed. She was in his arms, she was safe. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Silently, he thanked the old hag and in the distance his sensitive ears picked up a laugh.

The wind whispered. "Take care of her."

Always, he thought. Always and forever.