Title The Bravest Man in the World
Author landofthekwt
Rating K
Prompt The Coward dies many deaths Julius Caesar
Word Count
Warning character in coma
Summary Shiori reflects on Kohaku's life
Shiori watched Kohaku with tears in her eyes. She could see the physical pain that he was going through and the mental anguish he was feeling. He had been a coma for nearly six months. Many thought that his mind had shut down, but Shiori knew better. She could feel what he felt. Heard the words that he uttered.
It was his own private hell. He had been it as long as she had known him. When he was explaining why he became a taijiya, he had graphically explained to her just what he had done as a member of Naraku's little band. Why he had to exterminate youkai to make up for all the humans he had killed while an employee of the Avatar of Hell.
She tried to explain that it made no difference to her what he had done while a mindless slave of Naraku. It made no difference to him. In his mind he was as guilty of every murder that he committed whether he remembered them at all. He had made the decision to join Naraku. The decision to take away his memory of the slaughter of his father and their comrades had been his. Everything he did after that was simply a result of that decision in his mind.
It did not matter that he had been under Naraku's control when he killed his father. To him it did not matter that he was dead when Naraku offered him life. That he was only eleven years of age A boy who had never gone on a youkai extermination before. In his mind he was guilty and that was the end of it. Even Sango's forgiveness did not matter. It only allowed him to live and suffer
Youkai exterminations and the reestablishment of the taijiya village were not his salvation or his lifetime achievement. They were his debt to the village to his family and everyone who had been murdered by Naraku. Only bearing that burden could he face his family and all his victims in the afterlife. Even then he was not certain that it was enough.
Shiori understood all this when she married him and moved to the taijiya village. She was his wife and bore the same burden that he did. She had been allowed her grandfather to carry out his destruction of her village by shielding him from the consequences of his act. Inuyasha had been her savior. The one who freed her from her duty to her grandfather, the blood coral and her clan.
Kohaku claimed that Kikyou had saved him. She may have given him back his life instead of sacrificing him to destroy Naraku, but left him a shell of the boy he once had been Kohaku could never the words to thank her for what she had done. Shiori tended to agree with Sango. She was glad that Kikyou saved him in the end, but her plan to use him to kill Naraku was despicable. In the end she was just glad that he was saved. Otherwise, she never would have met him.
She knew what Kohaku felt about what he had done and what he had not done. Sharing his burden was the least she could do for him. She did it just by being there. By bearing his child to carry on his duties as headman of the taijiya village. By being by his side as he struggled to rebuild village and recruit taijiya who would repopulate the village.
She listened as he told her all his sins. To her what he had done did not matter. He was not the monster that he claimed to be. Even if he was, she would have loved him anyway. That was what love is. It forgives all things. She tried to show him that he was loved. By supporting his dream she tried to make him realize that whatever happened before people can create a new life for themselves.
He was her new life. Grandfather killed her father and destroyed their village. She and her mother were driven from town to town for ten years until they reached the Sunset Village Inuyasha had been the dream that kept her going, but when she finally reached the Sunset Village she found that Inuyasha was not available.
Until she found Kohaku, she had no purpose in her life. All her dreams were dead. He and his dreams became her dreams. When she followed him to the taijiya village, she took on the mantle of wife and mother. She raised her son and supported Kohaku in his efforts to revive the taijiya village. Through their work the village became more prosperous than it ever had under his father.
Still she worried about Kohaku Even though he smiled at her, ghosts of the past still haunted his dreams. He would scream at night. Talk in his sleep to Naraku. Yell to his father to watch out in vain. All she could do was to wake him from his sleep and show him that what he had in her. Wipe out the nightmares with her love.
She had always known that he would die before her. Inuyasha's Kagome died shortly after Kohaku fell into the coma. She knew how hard it was for him even though Kagome had not suffered. Instead of passing in his sleep, Kohaku lingered. His sleep was not peaceful. It was fitful He called out and screamed, letting Shiori know that his demons were pursuing him into his unconscious world.
She refused to let him be alone despite her son's misgivings. He had stayed by her side for more than fifty years. She was not about to let him be alone. Sitting by his bed, she would hold his hand and talk to him. She would feed him and change him. Empty the chamber pot when he did his business. While she was on watch, he would not starve to death. When she slept, she slept by his side. Never wanting to leave even for a single minute.
Someday he would and she would be alone. Until that day she would stay by his side. Kohaku had always said he was cowardly because he allowed Naraku to take his memory and use him even after he regained his always rebuked him for these statements. At the time he had been an eleven-year boy. Never been in battle. Never been away from home. To be killed in his first battle and then rebornwas too much for him. No wonder he could not face what he had done. Eventually he did face his past and embrace his sister even at the cost of his own life.
To her he was the bravest man she knew. He fought against someone who could kill him anytime he wanted Fought alone without any hope of anything but his own death. She knew what that was like. Her mother gave her to her grandfather to use as his shield when he slaughtered the villagers. She put up with it until she discovered that her grandfather killed her father.
She could feel what he felt. He stood by her side for so long when she had no long. She would not leave his side until. Her son might question her reasoning, but she would make him see what his father truly was. The bravest man in the world. Such a man deserves the love and support of a good man. She would make sure that he was loved and cared for until he died.