Will be mostly Anime Canon, but I think I'm writing a very manga-coded Kikyo. Also, I will not be entirely following anime eps 147-148, because while the Inukik backstory depicted there has my heart in a death grip, a lot of the logic with Naraku's plans in 148 doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Everything is set 50 years before the main series, so obviously, no Kagome and co. It's really just a fix-it for Inuyasha and Kikyo's tragic story, because as much as I love Kagome too, you can't tell me that Kikyo didn't deserve so much better.

XXX

"Well, well, Inuyasha. It would seem that you are smarter than you look."

Inuyasha felt the growl rip from deep in his chest. In his arms, Kikyo gasped, then shuddered again with pain. Inuyasha gripped her closer to him, careful to avoid the gash on her shoulder.

Before them, the figure draped in a baboon pelt stood amidst the ruins of the village shrine, evil malice pouring from under his mask as he spoke.

"The same cannot be said of you, Kikyo. Even now, as you lie in your lovers arms, are you certain he did not betray you?"

The figure dropped his fur pelt then, and Inuyasha felt his eyes bulge as the gasps of villagers rose behind them. Amidst the rubble appeared his mirror image—white hair, white ears, red kimono. A terrible sneer on his face. And in his clawed hand dangled the Shikon Jewel, swaying violently in the howling wind.

"Why you…"

Kikyo had turned to stone against his chest. This had to be him, then. This was the bastard who had attacked Kikyo—who had spilled her blood and ripped at her heart—and he'd done it looking just like Inuyasha.

Rage flooded his blood, gathering into another growl at his throat, and red crowded his vision. But deep beneath the rage, there was a ribbon of relief, too, that shamed him. Because it was only seeing the demon turn into himself that killed the last shred of his doubt; it had truly not been Kikyo who had shot at him in the woods.

At noon that day, Inuyasha had arrived to meet Kikyo upon their hillside, just as they'd agreed.

Kikyo was nowhere to be seen, and Inuyasha—fool that he was—had assumed she was slowed by the windstorm as he was. To think, if he'd thought to look for her…perhaps now she would not be trembling in his arms, her lifeblood staining his hands.

But he was a fool. He'd leisurely tucked himself into a tree to wait, casting his eyes over the landscape that had become so familiar to him this year past. Grinning to himself and thinking how funny life was.

He'd lived one hundred and fifty years, and for more than a hundred of those, his life had been the same—always on the run, always alert and wary. Always alone.

And then, in a single year, everything in that well-worn, tedious life had been taken apart and remade into something completely new. Something wonderful and colourful and filled with…what must be hope. All because of her.

All because that day, when spring was opening into summer, Kikyo had beckoned him to sit beside her on this very hillside. And Inuyasha, prompted by the warm something that had tugged in his chest when he looked at her, had done as she'd asked.

Sitting in his tree at midday, he'd been glad he'd arrived to their meeting before her. Despite the strong winds that kept blowing him off course, Inuyasha had taken care not to be late, not wanting her to think he'd changed his mind.

Because he hadn't. Not one bit. He would become human today, and he had never been so sure of anything in his life. He would give up his claws, his strength, his keen senses and his longevity, but he didn't mind. In fact, he was more than willing to offer these up on a silver platter.

Because giving up those things meant that he would have a place in this world for the first time in his life. He would be part of some village, some group of others who did not hurl rejection his way or cast him sideways glances. And Kikyo could stand beside him, this human woman who made him ache with her strength and beauty and that hopeful, longing look in her eyes.

This woman, who was the first since his mother to embrace him, outcast and despised as he was.

This woman, whose heart yearned as his did for an ordinary life—whose heart broke as his did, denied that humble wish.

No more. He could grant her this wish—no, grant them both this wish. He would become human—release himself from the chains that clanked with the words "half-breed"—and in doing so, he'd release her, too.

They would live out the rest of their years as two ordinary people, belonging and accepted in their little ordinary place in this world. And with her, Inuyasha would finally have a home.

But then, a cold laugh from the woods had chilled him down to his marrow. In a heartbeat, all his hope had crumbled into dust, miring his muscles and clogging his lungs.

There he had seen Kikyo, a jeering smirk twisting her familiar face, an arrow aimed at his chest. There he had heard her, words of mocking disgust upon her lips. And in that moment, he'd not had the wherewithal to wonder why he'd not caught her scent before anything else.

"Half-breed," she'd called him, and Inuyasha had thought—had prayed—that he was going crazy. Anything would have been better than having to accept what he saw and heard.

But it was real, all real. He couldn't breath, couldn't move. His skin prickled, hot and cold at once, and dread spread like miasma through his blood.

Kikyo had fired her arrow then, and only the primal instinct for survival had launched him into the air. The wind slashed at his ears and face, battering at his body, but he was numb to everything except the agony ripping open his chest.

As he'd leapt from tree to tree, directionless and frantic, all that filled him was pain and despair and why, why, why? Terrible thoughts had emerged—that she'd lured him in with the intention of doing this the entire time, that she had enjoyed getting him to expose the soft thing at his core just so she could slash it to shreds and watch him writhe.

He'd dug his nails so hard into a branch that he'd driven splinters into his fingers, letting those imaginings fester until his burning agony turned to rage. Half-breed, was he? Was that what he was to her? Some pathetic creature to toy with and kick aside? The rage burned too, but anything was better than the pain of despair, and he'd decided then that he'd show her just what he was capable of.

And he would have, too. In the next moment, he'd bounded towards the shrine, determined to take the Shikon Jewel by any means necessary and forever silence the words "half-breed" in Kikyo's jeering voice.

But it was then that another gust of wind had engulfed him, and the sudden bite in his nostrils had frozen him in his tracks.

Blood. Metallic, raw, hot. It was Kikyo's blood—a scent he knew from the few times she'd been injured in battle—and even on the wind, the scent was stronger than he'd ever smelled it when standing next to her.

Perhaps it was because the sharp tang had awakened a reasonable corner in his mind. Or perhaps, despite what had just happened, the idea of Kikyo's life running out onto the forest floor was still too much to bear. Whatever the reason, Inuyasha had not struggled long with himself before he'd abandoned thoughts of the jewel to search desperately for the source of her blood on the wind.