Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Blank	By : Crescentgray Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Kagome > Sessh?maru/Kagome Views: 19854 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
Disclaimer: I don�t own Inuyasha.

A/N: To Lexy:
I�ve cried too, several times, while writing all this. =(

To Biggles,
Phoenix Wolf, Kitsune Rei
and Clavira: =D� Hopefully you�ll find this a�
satisfactory conclusion.� That being
said, this is an epilogue, not another chapter.�
I did think about writing another couple chapters to explore some
different issues, but I didn�t for a couple reasons.�

One, I don�t think anything could
have been resolved before the epilogue anyway, so it just would have been me rambling
on about how pissed off Inuyasha was and how upset Kagome was and how irritated
Sesshoumaru was.� There�s a bit of that
here, as well as resolution, and I�m happy with it.

Two, I really feel like an integral
part of the story is that it happens at this little cabin, secluded, a little
world shielded by isolation and Kagome�s amnesia.� Since I knew that the whole gang wouldn�t be
able to stay there after the last chapter, I felt that writing more chapters
outside of that setting would have changed Blank into a different
story.� Mostly, though, it was number
one.

Snowfall: Isn�t it funny how people
react differently?� Some of the reviewers
couldn�t believe I had killed off Inuyasha and Sango, while others were
disappointed that Sesshoumaru brought them back.� Anyway, you�re absolutely right � there
really isn�t a lot of action in this piece.�
Hmmm.� I
like action (both the sexy kind and the fighting kind) too.� I�ll work harder in the next story on both.� No beta, though sometimes I think it would be
nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.�
I�m generally tweaking up until the very final moment of posting,
though, which would probably annoy a good beta. =D

Entropy: <writhes> I wanted
to tell you that I laughed for about 10 minutes straight after reading your
review!� I suppose I do have my kinks,
depending on one�s perspective, but I promise not to share them in a public
forum. =D

Last time:

No, she was going back to the cabin, but her time there had been a
dream, only a dream.� And it was over now.

It was over.

Blank: Chapter 13 � Endings
and Epilogues

That first week Kagome cried
herself to sleep every night, gently cradled by Sango.� The demon slayer didn�t really understand
what had happened between the gentle miko and the icy demon lord, but she loved
her best friend and that was that.� Miroku
had no advice for Kagome after she�d told all of them her tale, though he
stopped laughing for a time.� Shippo,
poor little Shippo was so confused, having no idea how to relate to all this
�adult stuff�, and Rin cried with Kagome, even though the little girl couldn�t comprehend
why the miko was so sad.� Inuyasha came
to the cabin at the end of that week, but he refused to even look at Kagome.� And Sesshoumaru, Sesshoumaru did nothing but watch her, his eyes cold and
possessive and annoyed as she used her friends as a buffer between them, never
allowing them to be alone together.� She
knew he felt like he was simply indulging her, but she had decided to take what
she could get.

Kagome didn�t know which was worse
� Inuyasha�s rejection, or Sesshoumaru�s
obsession.� In time, all of them left the
cabin together to hunt down their enemy and put an end to him once and for
all.� The miko felt like she was hanging
on by her fingernails, determined to finish this so that she could just go home
for a little while and let her mother take care of her.� She needed to be away from both brothers; she
needed to sort through the emotions in her trembling, injured heart; she needed
a break.

When they found him, it was almost�
easy.� Easy wasn�t the right word, but
his end came too swiftly for the amount of heartache he�d caused over the past
two years.� The final battle was a blur
of pain and motion, but in the end the important thing was that they stood and
their enemy did not.� They destroyed his
body, his incarnations, his heart. �There was nothing of Naraku left but a memory
and a scorched bit of earth.

Inuyasha�s
eyes dropped to the mark on her neck, the bite healed but still pink, still
clear on her skin. �When he raised his
eyes back to hers, Kagome felt her heart give a sharp wrench.� He loved her.�
After everything, he loved her still.�
He loved her, and this� this was their end.

�Inuyasha�,� she began, but his
voice cut across hers.

�I�m ready, Kikyo,� he said to no
one in particular, eyeing the Jewel thoughtfully before holding it up in the
air between his thumb and first finger.�
Then he looked Kagome straight in the eye and her throat seized up.� The warm gold, so familiar yet so distant
now, and she read everything there.� Love.� Loss.� Sadness.�

Forgiveness.

Inuyasha Wished.

The Shikon
no Tama disappeared anticlimactically.�
No glittering sparkles, no searing light, no puffs of smoke.� One moment, it simply was, the next moment,
it simply wasn�t.

The quest was complete.

She descended from the heavens
behind him, dressed in red and white with pale skin and dark eyes that no
longer burned with fury, but with both joy and regret.� The hanyou bowed his head and Kagome stepped
forward, a denial on her lips.� Sango and
Miroku held each other and Shippo wept and Kirara whined softly and Sesshoumaru
watched it all with a dispassionate expression on his face.� How Kagome hated the daiyoukai in that moment,
hated him for being able to look on stoically while the soul collectors wrapped
around his half-brother and pulled him back into the shrine maiden�s embrace,
hated him because she could not bring herself to hate him.

Kikyo�s
gaze met Kagome�s over Inuyasha�s shoulder as the
dead miko wrapped her arms around her lover. �Kagome paused as she suddenly remembered what
Sesshoumaru had said, that there were laws, rules that had to be followed.� And Kikyo�s enigmatic
eyes, sad, almost apologetic, and� compassionate?� Sympathetic?� Understanding?

Then the two of them rose into the
air in a shimmering glow and Kagome wailed as she watched the departure of her
friend, her first love that was her love no more.� Shippo sobbed loudly and clung to Kirara,
Sango turned her face into Miroku�s shoulder while
the monk looked over at Kagome, his face hard but his violet eyes full of sorrow.

�Come, my mate,� Sesshoumaru said
quietly, so quietly she barely heard him.

She turned towards the daiyoukai, incredulous,
unable to believe that he thought she would want to go with him now, with the wounds so fresh inside and
her pain like dark poison bleeding out of her.�
She realized that she didn�t want to go with him now, and perhaps she didn�t want to go with him ever.

Sesshoumaru frowned at her, his
brow furrowing.� He stepped towards her
and he spoke again but she could not hear him, he was going all fuzzy around
the edges and something flashed in his eyes, something she�d never seen before,
something she had never ever expected to see.�
Then she was standing at the bottom of the Bone Eater�s Well, the Jewel
gone, Inuyasha gone, her ties to the Sengoku Era severed and raw and bloody. �She heard a jet pass overhead and her eyes
were dry, not even a single shimmer of a tear in them. �She was too full of endings, too full of nothings to cry.

Time passed.

She climbed out of the well.

Time passed.

She drank bitter green tea while
her mother watched her worriedly.

Time passed.

Her friends came for an almost
unbearable visit, trying to cheer her up, but she was as different from them
now as oil was from water.� She was
relieved when they finally left and they did not come again, sensing that she
was no longer one of them, that she was no longer a normal teenager, and
perhaps realizing that she hadn�t been one for a long, long time.� Dear, sweet, clueless Hojo
stopped by once as well, Hojo who suddenly reminded
her in a strange way of Koga, Hojo who never
understood that she was always trying to turn him down.� On that day she used what the daiyoukai had
taught her and dispassionately told her former schoolmate that she Was.� Not.� Interested.

Time passed.

She didn�t sleep very much, only a
few hours each night.� Her excuse was
that she was catching up at school, but really she feared the dreams that came
with every slumber, aching dreams of loss and golden eyes, and she hated how
she would wake and pretend to wonder which set of golden eyes she dreamt of.� She wished she could dream of Sango and
Miroku, Shippo and Kirara, Rin and Jaken, kami,
even Ah-Un and her long lost bicycle, anything, anything, anything but golden eyes filled with the awareness that he was
losing her and the brief flash of almost
panic she�d seen in them at that realization.

Time passed.

She studied hard and graduated from
high school only a year behind, with grades decent enough to get into
University.� Sometimes she would gaze in
the mirror for hours, time meaningless, and stare at the scar he�d left on her
neck, the outward manifestation of all the wounds she�d acquired in the Sengoku
Era.� Amazingly, through all her travels
she�d only managed to acquire two major scars � the one on her side where the Shikon no Tama had been ripped from her by Mistress
Centipede, and his mark on her
neck.� One marked the beginning, the
other marked the end, and sometimes she would smile a sad, gentle smile and
think of her first love, Inuyasha, who had guarded her so well that her body
had remained practically unmarred during the Shikon
quest and the war with Naraku.� If only� if only he had been able to guard her heart, her soul half
as well.� But that wasn�t really
fair to him, either.

Time passed.

She floundered, throwing herself
into her schoolwork but lost, completely without direction.� Her professors adored her, her grades were
excellent but she knew she was only wasting her time, wasting her life.� She just didn�t know what else to do.� She wasn�t sure if she was trying to get over
losing the past, losing Inuyasha, or losing� no.� She couldn�t think about that.� Not while she was awake.

Time passed.

During the first semester of her
third year at University, she sat at the kitchen table early on a Wednesday
afternoon, drinking a glass of water.� She
was done with classes for the day, Souta was at school, her mother was at work,
Grandpa out in his storage shed doing whatever it was that he did out
there.� There was a knock on the front
door, a polite but firm rapping, and she frowned.

Carefully, she put down the glass,
then stood and went to the door.

He was so like she remembered him,
so like she dreamt of him, yet so different as well.� The silver hair was still ridiculously long
but was styled back into a single thick braid, his skin still a smooth
alabaster and she could almost taste the magic that hid his markings.� The expensive suit was new but reminded her
in an odd way of his spiked armor, the jacket cut so that it deemphasized his
missing left arm.� He held a small
bouquet of flowers in his right hand, nothing flashy or extravagant, just a
simple spray of red and white.� It looked
freshly hand-picked.

He watched her as she stared at
him, his expression blank but cracking around the edges, his eyes, those golden
eyes she�d always been able to read so well, so eager and filled with hope and
longing and perhaps just a touch of nervousness.� It was the eyes that did it.� She didn�t know what she would have done if
he�d had the same eyes as before, hard and cold and alien.� Oh, his eyes were certainly still inhuman,
the weight of countless years clear for her to see,
but she found she could understand everything in them now.

She saw, too, how long he had been
watching her.� His eyes spoke of years,
perhaps even her entire life.� She
wondered how he�d been able to stand it, the waiting.� Had he been there when she�d first been
pulled into the well?� Had he been
watching when she�d returned that last time, so broken and bitter?� He�d been waiting, waiting, waiting for so
long, for her life to begin, for them to meet in the past, for her to come back
to the present, for her to heal.� He�d
been giving her the only thing she�d ever asked of him.� Time.

She wondered if he would ever be
able to say them, the words in his eyes.�
Did she actually need to hear them when they were so clear in his eyes,
in his soul and in hers?� She wondered
for a moment how much of it was a change in him and how much of it was a change
in her.� She suspected it was a little of
both but, to be honest, she didn�t think it mattered, not really.

Time passed.� But only a little bit.

She opened the door wide and let
him in.

Time passed.

And with all the endings, all the
epilogues and all the words left unsaid, all the lives left unfinished, they
discovered in each other the truth of all things.� In every ending there is a beginning, and
time heals all sorrows, time heals all joys.

Life � trembling, afraid, brave � began anew.

***

Thank you.

Crescentgray
- 12
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