InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ I Am ❯ Inuyasha ( One-Shot )

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"It's better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you're not." Unknown



There are some common sayings among people like "you only live once" or "death is final" or "you never get a second chance" and other such nonsense as that. Well, so maybe it's not nonsense to most people and especially to those that say them, but to me and a select other few beings, they've got it all wrong. I actually prefer something I heard in a 'mo-vee' one time..."death is only the beginning." Now that's more like it.



I have died and I have wished I were dead and someday, hopefully many from years from now, I will die again. Under better circumstances, of course. Say, maybe peacefully, painlessly, in my sleep. Not that I sleep much. One becomes much to vulnerable when he sleeps to long or to heavily and vulnerability is not something that I can afford if I wish to die that peaceful and painless death far in the future.



I am a mixture of two races, the perfect balance between power and emotion...or in theory anyway. My father was a inu taiyoukai, great lord of the Western Lands. My mother was a hime, human. I suppose that makes me nobility in some off handed way, not that it really matters. I will never lay claim to any part of my father's lands nor my mother',s as her family would sooner see me dead than have me burden them with my despicable presence.



I am a hanyou, despised by both races. I do not carry enough youkai blood within me to find a place amongst the youkai and the humans are terrified of me because of the youkai blood I do have. I have been beaten, spit on and starved. I have been cursed and ostracized by everyone I have ever met. I lived my life alone, deprived of affection and acceptance, striving to belong to someone or to some place. That is...until I met her.



Don't take that the wrong way. It wasn't her specifically I was after in the beginning. I wanted something far more precious. I wanted that which she guarded, the one thing in this world that could give me what I long for - the acceptance I coveted. But to get to that which would grant me my truest desires, I had to get through the priestess that guarded it.



Simple, ne?



Not in the least.



I have committed a lot of sins and I have made more mistakes than I could ever count and I have done things that I will regret for the rest of my life. None of them, however, will ever top what I did to gain the acceptance I lusted for. Innocent people were hurt and killed for my desires. The woman I loved died because of them. I will never forget that.



I deserved to die.



It was only fitting that she was the one to end it. She who would have been my mate took my life on what would have been, in a way, my wedding day. My dreams crumbled at my feet in the same moment her arrow pinned me to the sacred tree. With my last breath, I cursed her name.



My death lasted fifty years.



That my first love's reincarnation would be the one to resurrect me from the grave would be called irony, I believe. Perhaps it should be called fate at work.



Since my resurrection I have learned things that I couldn't have fathomed in my first life. I have done things that I would never have considered doing. I have become more than I ever expected to be. And I owe it all to one person, the person who granted me this second chance and who has promised to stay by my side for as long as I'll let her.



She doesn't know what she's gotten herself into.



I have learned to deal with emotions that terrified me before: sorrow, compassion, happiness, love. Because of her I have found what I wanted so badly without the help of some jewel. I have been given a second chance to live...and love.



Love is something I don't have much experience or knowledge about. I loved my mother. I thought I loved Kikyo. I know I love Kagome. I love her scent, her smile, her voice. Her presence is comforting and relaxing. She has given me acceptance, friendship and purpose. She has shed tears for me. She has risked her own life to protect mine when everyone thought my life was worthless. Everything that I have and everything that I have become is because of her. I owe Kagome my life.



But I owe Kikyo my death.



Kikyo killed me that day because she believed I had betrayed her. She died that day because she loved me. She died to follow me. And, because of me, she now walks the earth once more unable to rest peacefully because she is filled with hatred for me.



I hate being confused. In my first life, I knew what I wanted and I knew what I had to do to acquire it. And that was the gist of how my mind worked. I have, however, lived my second life in a constant state of utter confusion. Kagome boggles my mind. She is beyond my understanding and I have long since given up trying. When I first revived, I thought of her as Kikyo, but not even Kikyo could manage to baffle me the way that Kagome does and I have learned in the months following those days that Kagome is Kagome and no one else. I wouldn't want her to be. I would only confuse me more. Even more confusing are the decisions that I will have to make when our quest is finished and I no longer have a reason to put them off.



I am the legendary Inuyasha. I am the youngest son of the great Inu Taiyoukai of the Western Lands. I am the only son of a beautiful hime. I am the younger brother of Sesshomaru, taiyoukai of our father's holdings.



I am the legendary Inuyasha. I am a grandson to a priestess who takes care of me, but has every reason to despise me. I am a son to a woman who has no reason to trust me, but who puts the life of her daughter into my hands every day. I am a brother to an annoying and lecherous monk. I am a brother to a woman who has been trained all of her life to kill creatures like me, but who sees me as a person instead of a creature, for which I am grateful. I am a father to an orphaned kitsune. I am loved by a woman I will eventually have to let go.



I am the legendary Inuyasha. I am a plague to humanity. I am a sin against nature. I am a creature to be beaten. I am hated for my heritage, punished for my parents actions. I am a protector and a destroyer. I am a friend and a foe. I am evil and I am good. I am hated and I am loved.



I am the legendary Inuyasha. I wield the Tetsuseiga to protect those that would do me harm. I am a leader of a pack. I am a pursuer of the Shikon no Tama.



I am the legendary Inuyasha. And for the first time in either of my lives, I am happy.



I am Inuyasha.