Evanescent

By: HalcyonMoments11


I believe in the lost possibilities you can't see.
And I believe that the darkness reminds us where light can be.
I know that your heart is still beating, beating darling;
I believe that you fell so you can land next to me.

-Christina Perri (I Believe)


Before the sun began to rise, Sango helped Miroku onto Kirara to travel the distance to Mushin's shrine. At Kagome's request, Shippō followed them closely in his hawk form. After they had finished gathering the few supplies left at camp, Kagome climbed onto Inuyasha's back and clung to the hanyou's haori as he ran to catch up with their companions. When they arrived at Mushin's shrine the old monk and Sango had already set to work conversing over the circumstances of their battle and settling Miroku into the care of his old mentor.

Several days passed. As Mushin tended to their houshi companion, the rest of the inu-tachi found ways to distract themselves. When they were not helping Mushin and Hachi—who had arrived a day after they had—around the shrine, they took to their own distractions. Sango and Inuyasha cleaning and sharpening their weapons or putting use to the long-unoccupied dojo, and Kagome practicing her reiki techniques or playing with Shippō when he was not occupying himself by playing tricks on Hachi and Mushin, or wrestling with Kirara.

During one such moment in which Shippō had disappeared to set some traps for the unsuspecting tanuki, Kagome found an empty room in the shrine to practice some of her reiki techniques. She took up a seat near the wall farthest from the door and prepared herself to rehearse breathing exercises the houshi had taught her to prepare for meditation, a skill she and Miroku had only rarely practiced. After several minutes, unable to calm her anxious mind, the attempt proved futile. She huffed and called her ki to her hands in its corporeal form, turning her hands and flexing her fingers around the raw sensation that still made her fingertips tingle in the initial moments whenever she called on her powers, despite the months of training she'd now accomplished. She wondered if this sensation—like pulling cotton bandages from a healing wound—would ever fade. She hadn't brought it up to Miroku yet and was usure of how to do so, as she couldn't quite find the words to explain this persistent feeling. Sometimes she idly wondered if it had anything to do with the missing part of her soul that Kikyo still held.

She looked up from her hands when the door slid open; a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips as her azure gaze met the hanyou's amber.

He seemed to pause at the sight of her reiki stretched across her palms, glowing a faint pink. Kagome noticed and let it fade away, turning her hands to rub them against her thighs, feigning a straightening of her skirt and ignoring the ruffled feeling she felt in the hanyou's presence. He hadn't talked to her much over the past few days, had almost seemed to be avoiding her since they had settled in while Mushin tended to Miroku's injuries. His avoidance had only added to her anxious feelings: her concern for Miroku's health; her fear that once he was healed he may try to leave them again; her distress at being unable to connect with and comfort Sango who was also clearly disquieted by the amount of time it was taking Miroku to heal; her restlessness each time she lingered on her memories of their latest battle with Naraku, just days old and still vivid in her mind; the uneasiness she felt when her mind turned to the way she had clung to Miroku after almost being devoured by his kazaana, after he had turned away from her in the woods much later that night, after he had asked her to stay and she had settled against him on his sleeping mat, the relief she felt in his arms feeling like a betrayal of their hanyou and taijiya companions for reasons she still could not fully explain to herself.

"What's up, Inuyasha?" she asked, her voice gentle.

"You wandered off," he responded simply, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his haori.

'Is he here to check on me?'

"Ano… Shippō is off somewhere, probably playing tricks on Hachi again, so I figured I'd try to meditate and practice with my reiki. Since I don't know how to form barriers yet and I don't want to make you, Shippō, or Kiara uncomfortable, I found an empty room," she gestured at the space around her.

Inuyasha remained at the door throughout her long explanation, eyes looking anywhere but at her. He didn't reply and the silence stretched between them for several moments. She tilted her head curiously.

"Is something wrong, Inuyasha?" she asked.

"You coulda been killed." His voice was quiet, but fierce.

Her breath caught in her chest. She knew this conversations was bound to happen, but hadn't anticipated it now. "Inu–"

"What the hell were ya thinking Kagome?!"

He finally stepped into the room, amber eyes burning with anger as he turned them on her.

Kagome tried again. "Miroku needed–"

Inuyasha growled, cutting her off. "Ever since you started training with the bastard houshi you've been putting yourself in danger without using your damn head."

Anger flared and she stood to put herself on equal footing with him. "You're one to talk! Always recklessly leaping into battle without so much as–"

Inuyasha stomped towards her, voice rising as he moved. "I'm not as breakable as you, dammit! You don't have a fucking clue what you're doing. You can't just–"

Kagome yelled in frustration, cutting him off as her anger and reiki sparked simultaneously, crackling across her skin. He felt the scorching power of it at the edges of his own flaring youki, smelled the burning purity of it. His ears twitched in a mix of agitation and weariness.

Her azure eyes flared, alight with her fury and the unsettling mix of emotions she had felt throughout the past several days. "I'm not helpless Inuyasha," she growled in an impressive echo of his own. "I refuse to always be the one who needs saving, to be the damsel in distress, the shard detector and nothing more!"

"You almost died!" he tried again, a bit of the panic and dread lacing through his anger, the same alarm he had felt just days before when Naraku had caught her in his grasp and tossed her into the path of Miroku's kazaana, knowing he could do nothing to stop it, nothing to save her.

"You don't think I know that?" Kagome spat back, the terror she had felt in that moment rising in her chest. Tears sprung to her eyes; Inuyasha's ears tilted back as he caught the scent of them.

"I can't lose you to some stupid–"

"You can't protect me all the time, Inuyasha! And I won't just stand around and watch. I want to help; I want to fight."

The tears were falling freely now. Her breath fell shuddering from her lips.

Inuyasha moved forward cautiously, reaching out to gently catch her wrist in his hand. She let him pull her towards him and pressed her face into his haori, allowing herself to cry as he wrapped his arms around her, one curling around her shoulders and the other hand settling at the base of her skull, fingers tangling in her hair.

After several moments of silence outside of her muffled crying and Inuyasha's breathing, the hanyou pulled back slightly to look at her and sighed, whispering "Anata baka" almost affectionately before leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers. Despite the traces of frustration and somberness that lingered in her chest, when her azure gaze drifted across his face—so agonizingly close—a faint flush rose to her cheeks.

"I know I can't protect you all the time, but I can't lose you." She felt her heart skip a beat.

He continued, "If you're going to keep this up, promise me you'll be more careful."

Kagome barked a laugh—muffled and wet thanks to the tears that remained in her lashes, built up in her chest—the audacity and irony of his statement not lost on her. How many times had she asked him the same? She smiled despite her tears and nodded. His amber eyes met her blue in a storm of lingering trepidation mixed with relief.

"Hai, I'll try," she replied, taking a deep breath before burrowing herself back into his arms.


Sango gently knocked on the door to Miroku's room and waited to be ushered inside. She slid the door open carefully, balancing a small iron tea kettle and cup in her hands. Miroku looked up from the scroll in his hands, his violet eyes meeting her chocolate brown with a smile.

"Konnichi wa, Sango-san."

The taijiya bowed her head in greeting and held up the kettle in her hand. "I've brought some of Mushin's herbal remedy."

Miroku grimaced slightly in response but nodded and set down the scroll he had found in the shrine's small library earlier that day, having taken to small walks around the premise as he slowly healed from the effects of the miasma.

Sango poured him a cup of the herbal mixture and he thanked her when she handed it to him. "How are you feeling Houshi-sama?"

He sipped the pungent herbal drink and winced.

"Ano… much better, aside from the contined torture of these remedies."

The taijiya gave him a reproachful, yet sympathetic look and he chuckled.

Sango held out her hand for his as she had several times throughout the past few days, taking a seat on the stool at his bedside, a place she had often occupied throughout their time in the shrine. The color of his skin had faded back to normal slowly over the past several days, leaving just a small patch of infected skin that stretched across his palm at the edges of his kazaaza, indicating the minute traces of miasma that remained. She pulled gently at the edges of the glove around his hand, carefully moving the prayer beads that contained the kazaana around to observe the remnants.

Mushin had assured her that he had been able to repair the impacted edges of Miroku's kazaana, and that thanks to her quick thinking and Kagome's makeshift remedy, the miasma would be purged from his blood. Regardless, the amount of time it was taking the houshi to recover had her feeling tense and restless.

She delicately traced the outline of the stain marring the skin of his palm with her finger tips. "It appears to be healing well, as Mushin-sama said."

Miroku nodded and curled his fingers gently over her own. When she looked up to meet his gaze he smiled gently and shifted his hand to hold hers more fully. The taijiya flushed.

"Mushin-sama has insisted that I have you and Kagome-sama to thank for that," Miroku stated. He didn't remember much of their travels to the shrine, nor the first few hours in Mushin's care. His heedless attempt to leave the inu-tachi had sped the miasma's infection in his veins, leaving him delirious in the early morning hours.

Sango shook her head in response. "Kagome-chan's herbal remedy did most of the work to immediately counteract the saimyoushou's poison." The taijiya suspected that the young miko's developing healing abilities had something to do with the halted progress of the miasma's spread as well.

"Hai, but it was you who encouraged her to seek out those herbs, and insisted on giving them time to take effect before travelling here," Miroku replied, looking down at her hand, which he still held.

Sango shrugged, ignoring the uneasy feeling stirring in her chest as she remembered the way the monk and miko had clung to each other when she found them after their close call with the kazaana, the way their hands had rested together, entwined in their sleep before she woke them the next morning, the way Miroku had whispered "Stay" to Kagome late in the night. She shook her head again, this time to clear her mind.

'They went through a terrible experience together; of course they sought each other out.'

She offered Miroku a small smile when he raised an eyebrow in question.

"You should finish the remedy," she said, gesturing to the cup he had set on his bedside table. "I'll leave you to keep resting."

As she stood to leave, his hand tightened around hers, the other coming to rest on top of her hand and making her pause.

"Sango-san, wait?"

Her breath caught in her chest as she met his stunning violet gaze, seeing distress and doubt flash through them.

"I'm sorry to have worried you." He said quietly.

Her expression softened as he brushed his thumb across the top of her wrist, almost nervously and continued. "I can't promise you that it won't happen again… the kazaana is unpredictable and as long as I am its wielder, it… I will never stop being a potential danger to you all."

"Miroku-sama, what are you–"

He interrupted her and looked down at their hands, his thumb still gently rubbing a small circle across the top of her wrist.

"We promised ourselves to each other once, if we both survive this journey to collect the shards of the Shikon no Tama and defeat Naraku…" Her heart stuttered at the mention of their promise to one another. He continued, voice dropping to almost a whisper, "… but I would understand if that promise is something you cannot bear."

Something akin to the dread that seats itself in the pit of her stomach each time she loses Kohaku settled in and made it hard to breathe. 'Don't leave me. Not you too.'

"Is that what you want, Miroku-sama?" She asked, the pitch of her voice echoing his, faint and melancholy.

He didn't at look her, but his hands stilled against hers.

"I don't want to hurt you, Sango-san."

Her lips parted slightly, allowing air into lungs that felt entirely too tight. "Then stay with me," she said quietly, almost pleading.

She squeezed his hand, drawing his amethyst gaze up to meet her brown. His grip on her hand tightened in response and he offered her a soft smile, nodding his agreement.


"What brings you out here, Kagome-sama?"

Azure blue meet violet in the faint lantern light he holds between them from where she sits at the edge of the crater that marks his father's grave.

She smiles gently up at him despite her startled state, eyes washing over him in an assessing manner.

"Ano… we don't pass by this way often, and I wanted to make sure to pay our respects before we leave," the miko says quietly.

Miroku's eyes turn to the dark bowl of the earth where his father succumbed to his kazaana, the light of his lantern deepening the shadows encased within; even without the light of the first quarter moon and his lantern he sees the incense burning at the center of the crater where he knows a small, stone Buddha statue marks his father's absence from the world.

"It's good to see you up and moving, Miroku-sama." Kagome's quiet comment draws his attention back to her, to blue eyes turned up to him through ebony locks in the soft orange light of his lantern, and he feels an odd little flip in his stomach as he remembers the last time he observed her lovely features in similar lighting, the warmth of her body pressed close, seeping through thin layers of blankets and clothing, the soothing, almost imperceptible hum of her reiki entangling with his, sinking into and beneath his skin, instinctively seeking out the miasma leaking through his blood.

He hasn't seen much of her over the past several days, only brief check-ins, and only when Sango, Mushin, or Hachi are looking in on him—never alone. He knows avoidance when he sees it. And he also knows it is not so much him she is evading—she is too good of a friend not to show she cares about his healing process—but he has felt her absence like the peculiar chill that seeps into bones on long winter nights, despite the heat of the short summer evenings they had spent at Mushin's shrine.

He smiles and remarks, "It's feels good to be doing so," while waving a hand at the ground beside her. "May I join you?"

Her eyes widen slightly and she glances between him and the grassy crater in the earth as if just realizing it is his father's grave and stutters an "O-of course!"

He settles beside her carefully, setting the lantern between them and making sure not to allow his knee to brush hers as he crosses his legs beneath him. They sit in silence for several minutes, eyes turned to the small, orange ember of the burning incense below them.

Kagome shifts beside him and he hears the rustle of her clothing as she smooths out her fuku nervously. Moments later her hand perches in the grass between them and she says feebly, "I should give you some time to yourself here."

Before she can stand, he grasps her wrist, reaching for her simultaneously with his reiki in a manner he hopes feels calmer than the tangled, breathless weight that settles in his chest as she moves to leave.

"Stay?"

He feels selfish for asking when she is clearly uncomfortable; for attempting to deflect his own fears that he has in fact lost something of her, of the warmth and closeness they have developed over the years, to the void in his hand; for using the same pleading request he had days before when she agreed to lie beside him in a comforting embrace just hours after he had almost been the cause of her demise.

A flush rises to her cheeks as she clearly draws the connections between these moments in her mind, azure eyes turning down to his hand on her wrist. He doesn't let go, is not sure he could if she tried to pull away now.

When she turns her hand over in his and entwines her fingers with his he remembers to breathe. Her eyes turn back to the blackness of the earthen bowl before them and he follows her gaze, lingering on the faint pin-prick of the burning incense as it fades away.

Her breath shudders when she breathes in beside him. When she speaks, her voice is barely a whisper. "I keep picturing it as a disappearing, a vanishing, but it's… falling into the kazaana is more than that, isn't it?"

Miroku feels the gut wrenching guilt everywhere—in lungs that are suddenly too tight, in the pinch of tears rising to his eyes, in the numbness he feels stretching into his limbs—as he turns his violet gaze on her. She doesn't look at him; her azure gaze remains blearily fixed on the place where the ashes of her incense offering remain at the bottom of his father's grave.

He remembers watching his father crumble into screams of agony from Mushin's arms, the edges of the man blurring, fraying, tearing. A fate that haunts his dreams and each waking moment he wields the kazaana; a fate that awaits him someday.

"From what I understand… it's an unmaking," he replies quietly.

She's silent for a time, face blank. He squeezes her hand in his.

"Does it hurt?" she asks when her cobalt gaze finally meets his amethyst. There's something desolate and dark in her eyes, and he prays to Buddha that he hasn't marred her light.

'Does what hurt?' He's not sure what she's referring to. Being host to the kazaana? Wielding it? Unmaking? Being unmade?

He doesn't know how to answer any of these questions, so instead he says: "I'm so sorry, Kagome-sama. I never wanted anyone else to know… to understand... I don't know how to beg your forgiveness." He looks away from her this time, gaze turning back to the shadows of his father's grave.

He knows how it feels to be haunted by the threat of inescapable darkness, the lingering loneliness and dismay of a gaping, devouring emptiness. Such was his life, and that of any heir he may produce should they fail in their pursuit of Naraku and the Shikon no Tama. And yet he had hoped to never have to share these ghosts with another; it pained him to see them hover beneath her lashes in the storm of her eyes.

She shifts beside him and he assumes she is rising to leave. To his surprise her hand rests softly against his cheek and pulls his attention back to her. She is on her knees beside him, turned towards him; her eyes roam his face as she brushes her thumb carefully along the edge of his cheekbone. He notices the bleak weariness is gone from hers.

"I told you, Miroku-sama, there is nothing to forgive."

"Please don't go Miroku…"

He recalls the way she clung to him among the trees, the way his breath hitched when she had said his name with a fierce familiarity, and how her warmth encompassed him, seeped into him, and found places to gather and coil in his throat, his chest, and low in his stomach. He feels that heat bloom within him now and the force of it steals his breath.

She looks down, her hand falling from his face to take his right hand in both her own. He follows her gaze, watches as she carefully runs her fingers over the beads wrapped around his wrist, feels her reiki press softly against his.

"It's weird, but I'm actually kind of glad it happened. There's been so much of this journey—collecting the Shikon no Kakera, I mean—that has been so incredibly difficult and painful for everyone, and if it wasn't for each of you—Sango-chan and Kirara, Shippō-kun, Inuyasha… you—I don't know if I could keep fighting. What I'm trying to say is you shouldn't have to bear this alone and I… I can share it with you if you…"

She doesn't say it, but he hears it anyways with the same devastating and passionate force her plea held days before. "Stay."

'She still fears that I intend to leave.'

Miroku shifts so that he is facing her more fully and catches her chin with his left hand, lifts it up to meet her gaze. He smiles affectionately when her blue eyes meet his violet. "You're rambling, Kagome-sama."

She flushes slightly and, with a chuckle, his hand cups her cheek in an echo of her own earlier gesture. She raises a hand to catch his gently, but doesn't pull away.

"I won't leave you alone with this either," he says quietly, entwining his fingers with hers and bringing her hand to his lips, bestowing a feather-light kiss to the back of her hand, imploring and promising, an assemblage of hopes that holds a force he knows could become a new kind of unmaking by her hands. But in this moment it feels like an unfolding, an unveiling, like something is taking shape where their fingers and reiki and lives entangle and he can't walk away from it now.


A/N: Well, here's an abnormally long chapter for you! I hope you enjoyed it and that I was able to capture some of the emotions between everyone in the group well enough for you. There may be a break between this chapter and the next posting (about two weeks) depending on how busy the last few weeks of my semester turn out to be. Hope you'll stick around! -HM11

Vocabulary: Anata – you; Baka – idiot; Ano – well; ki – spirit, energy; konnichi wa – hello; saimyoushou – Naraku's poison flying insects; taijiya – demon slayer; houshi – monk; miko – priestess; hanyou – half demon; kazaana – Miroku's wind tunnel; Shikon no Tama – sacred jewel; Shikon no Kakera – jewel shards