All of the training, all of the fighting. All of the bullshit over the last six years, and this was the payoff: being reduced to a mere spectre forced to walk the earth without anyone being able to see her.
If given the option, she might've taken Midoriko's place inside the jewel. Anything was better than this.
Sighing, Kagome waved her hands again. Inuyasha was sitting in front of her, crossed-legged, Sango's twins clambering over his back. His ears were their favourite pastime, and it was now a game to see which would get to them first.
He'd been so great with them. Miroku had been a wreck when she'd gone into labour, as twin pregnancies were complicated in the modern era. Sango had made it to just shy of eight months before the contractions started, and they'd all been worried.
Kaede had done her best, and Rin provided as much hot water as possible, but Inuyasha had been the one to keep his wits about him, yelling at Miroku to focus and hold Sango's hand. She'd been so strong, pushing out not one but two babies, all while dealing with the lack of modern medicine. The babies were tiny, but their wails had filled the hut as soon as their lungs had filled with air, and the relief had been palpable. They were two years old now.
She'd been a ghost for two years.
Kagome stood up, trying to grab his ears, but her hand passed right through him. Inuyasha didn't even flinch. She couldn't even haunt them.
It was her own version of hell.
She kicked a rock as she left the village, or she would've if any part of her were solid. Everything was muted—sounds, sights, feelings. Kagome knew she was frustrated about being invisible to everyone she cared about, but it never lasted long, and she had to focus on the feeling to keep it from fading.
Maybe that was part of her punishment. She felt so much during their search for the shards, what with Inuyasha's floundering heart and the various ways Naraku and Magatsuhi had tried to invade her mind. Maybe the gods were trying to make it up to her by not allowing her to feel anything.
It didn't help. She remembered what it was like to feel. She wanted to feel. She wanted to sing and scream and cry when her friends talked about her as if she would be back at any moment.
She wouldn't be back; she was gone, forever doomed to wander the earth without a soul to talk to.