Author's Note: Spoilers for Chapters 511 – 512 in the manga – see Kaede's theories.
A Distant Promise – Drabble #2
The Well closed.
Kagome's heart didn't exactly break, but she was far more than disappointed. She couldn't exactly put a name to her feelings. Despondently somber? Discouraged, yet resigned to the facts?
Life wasn't always fair – For instance, Inuyasha had been punished over and over again, because of his half-human bloodline, an issue that wasn't his fault. Sango had lost almost her entire family, due to Naraku's treachery. Kagome had been randomly dragged into the past and nearly failed out of school, simply because she happened to be the reincarnation of an ancient priestess. Fate was often capricious.
But still – she had prayed the time portal in the Bone Eater's Well might remain open, even after Inuyasha made his wish. She had hoped that Kaede, the most knowledgeable priestess she knew, would be proven wrong…
Kaede had theorized that the Jewel of Four Souls and the Bone Eater's Well were connected. Without the Jewel's power, time-travel through the well might not be possible. This theory was based on the fact that the Jewel had drawn Kagome back through time in the first place. First, Kikyou had died, taking the Jewel into the afterlife and sealing its power along with her own. Thus, a portion of Kikyou's willpower had been bundled up alongside the Jewel. And when Kagome was born 500 years later with the Jewel inside her body, Kagome's spiritual powers had been sealed since birth. Yet despite Kikyou's powerful seal on the Jewel's power, Kagome had been drawn into the past anyway. According to Kaede, the Jewel had desired to return to the Warring States Era and finish what it started 500 years ago.
However, this explanation had never made sense to Kagome. Surely, it was not that simple – Inuyasha had been able to travel through the Bone Eater's Well too. All he had to do was jump in, and it transported him to the future. And certainly, Kagome had lost all her Jewel shards, long before the final fight with Naraku, but she had still been able to travel through time to take her high-school entrance exams! So, she had asked herself, how could Jewel Shards really be connected to a time-traveling well? It was one of those unanswerable, mystical questions.
Now, unfortunately, it seemed Kaede had been correct all along. The mechanism of the magic had always been the Jewel – the well was just a pile of useless wood without the Jewel's power to activate it. And she couldn't help being crushed by the finality of it.
When the last person to hold the Jewel of Four Souls makes the right wish…she thought sadly, The Jewel will be purified and disappear from this world. Her grandfather had been relaying various versions of this story since she was a child, although she had never really listened to the old man's ramblings. Perhaps his tale reflected Sango and Miroku's legacy? After all, the monk had promised to tell the world about their fight with Naraku and the battle to reclaim the Jewel of Four Souls… It was pleasant to imagine the legend passed down through the generations, until at last, her grandfather told it to her.
All the same, knowing the story was true left a bittersweet taste in her mouth. Because in that case, only she knew the real ending to her story. Inuyasha had returned to the future with her and wished to become fully human. As the Jewel of Four Souls had faded into glittering dust on his palm, a bright pink light had surrounded her. Then, the strange feeling had passed, and they had celebrated – it must have been the "right wish."
And now…
Weren't fairy tales supposed to end with the heroes living happily ever after? But she wasn't entirely happy. The well had closed, and there was no going back. Today was merely the first day of the rest of their lives. Inuyasha still had a long way to go, before he could really become a part of modern society. She loved him, but she still wanted to attend high school, before she settled down and married her one-time half-human, half-demon sweetheart. Their story hadn't ended – it had only just begun! And yet… and yet… the days seemed sort of anti-climatic now.
