InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Message in a Bottle ❯ Time Capsule ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: SplendentGoddess 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 09.03.2005 | Updated On: 12.30.2010 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 4.3K | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 09.03.2005 | Updated On: 12.30.2010 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 4.3K | Status: Completed
Blanket Disclaimer:
Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.
========================
Chapter 3 – Time Capsule
“So, when is the wedding?” Kaede questioned the young couple with a knowing smirk twinkling in her eye.
“Umm, we haven’t discussed it yet.” Sango stated while blushing slightly.
“No time like the present!” her husband-to-be chimed in.
“Houshi-sama!” Sango yelled, the crimson on her cheeks darkening further.
“My dearest Sango, I meant only that there was no time like the present to discuss the wedding, not to perform the wedding.”
“Oh…” the slayer mumbled in reply, now even more embarrassed.
Leaning in, Miroku managed a gentle kiss from his Sango without any objection.
“Ewwww, gross!” Kohaku shrieked teasingly.
Well, okay, almost no objection.
“Better get used to it, Kohaku.” Miroku warned with a playful wink. “If you are going to live with your sister and I, then you are going to see a lot of kissing.”
Sango, blushing even darker than all previous times combined, managed to suggest to Kohaku that he go outside to play with Shippou. Rolling his eyes at his sister, Kohaku agreed and vacated the hut, clearing the doorway just in time to not get run over by a half-crazed Inuyasha.
“The well is sealed!” he screamed.
“What do you mean, Inuyasha?” asked Miroku.
“Kagome’s gone, and I can’t get through the well!” He sounded completely panic-stricken.
Sango, having a little knowledge of the workings of the sacred jewel, being from the village of its birth, after all, quietly hypothesized with, “Hmm… It must be because she has the complete Shikon no Tama with her on her side of time, so no part of the jewel remains in this world, allowing the portal to remain open.”
“Okay, so then how do I get through?” he demanded impatiently.
“I doubt ye can, Inuyasha.” Kaede chimed in, agreeing with the slayer. “Sango knows of what she speaks. It would appear that Kagome can return to us when she chooses, but ye cannot get through to her, not without any shards of the jewel remaining on this side of time to act as a means for the portal to remain open to ye.”
After waiting for his turn to speak, Miroku asked politely, “Why do you need to go through the well? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“What kind of stupid question is that, monk?” Inuyasha hissed. “To get Kagome back, of course!”
Understanding where Miroku was coming from, Sango continued for him. “But…we all thought you were leaving with Kikyou.”
Calming down slightly as he realized his friends would obviously have no way of knowing what had just happened between himself and the two miko, Inuyasha plopped himself down around the fire-pit before beginning his story.
“I was, but…apparently…my ‘heart’ just wasn’t in it, she said.”
“My sister said, ye mean?” Kaede wished to clarify.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, nodding. “Kikyou said that since I love Kagome, I couldn’t-”
He was interrupted by a certain soon-to-be ex-monk.
“Whoa, stop right there…” Miroku stated with a raised hand. “What did you just say?”
Lowering his gaze so that nobody could look him in the eyes any longer, the hanyou repeated himself, shame for his belated revelation dripping off his tongue. “I…I love Kagome.”
Sango was no help, instantly berating him.
“Well now’s a fine time to realize that, baka!” she scolded. “Poor Kagome-chan ran home practically crying her eyes out over you dying for Kikyou!”
Inuyasha cringed at the reminder of Kagome’s tears.
“I…I know…I saw her…we spoke…”
“And?” probed the monk.
“And what?”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
“No, but…she told me she loved me.”
Snapping for the second time in a row, the youkai exterminator really let the hanyou have it.
“She did? She finally had the courage to tell you how she’s always felt, and you just let her leave? Let her think that you don’t return her feelings? If I could sit you I would!”
“Calm down, my sweet.” Miroku stated quietly.
Inuyasha’s ears had lowered further and further at Sango’s words, but not really so much due to the volume of her yelling. It was from the depression he felt, the depression she was making sure he felt.
“It’s all right…” the inu-hanyou spoke softly in that moment, tilting his eyes up to meet Miroku’s for a second as he muttered “…I deserve it.”
With his gaze softening in the hanyou’s direction at his words, Miroku felt a genuine wave of sympathy for the man. Then, catching notice of something his fiancée had made mention of during her tirade, Miroku commented aloud… “Speaking of sitting, where are your beads, Inuyasha?”
He’d actually forgotten he wasn’t wearing the rosary for a moment, only having not cringed when Sango had yelled ‘sit’ because he knew for a fact that the spell wouldn’t activate for her; she’d already tried it once in the past.
“Kagome… took them off me.” he started, cringing again just at the sound of her name because of how stupid he’d been. “She…she has them with her.” he finished.
“I see…” was all Miroku said in response, which ironically provoked more of a reaction from the hanyou than Sango’s earlier ranting.
“I get it, okay!?” he screamed suddenly. “I screwed up! I admit it! Now how do I fix it?”
“I don’t think there’s much you can do,” the monk replied sympathetically. “Not until Kagome-sama comes back through the well on her own.”
“Yeah, she said she’d come back to visit from time to time.” Sango interjected, trying to sound positive for her friend, feeling a little guilty of the bashing she’d just given him moments prior. “She promised Shippou, so you know she’ll keep her word to the kit.” she said, figuring that that’d be enough to lift his spirits, but she was wrong.
Inuyasha flashed her an, Are you crazy? expression before proclaiming, “I can’t wait! Who knows how long she’ll stay in her world before she decides to come back here for a ‘visit’!?”
He was right, of course, everyone in the hut thought silently to themselves. After all, Kagome hadn’t said how long she would be gone, but from the way she’d said her goodbyes, it had sounded like she might be gone for quite a while. Still believing that Inuyasha had left for Hell with Kikyou, the future-born-miko probably wanted to allow herself the necessary time to mourn.
The other occupants of the hut were each pulled from their equally melancholy thoughts when they suddenly heard the hanyou ask, “What if she hooks up with that Ho-ho guy while she’s over there?”
“Who?” Miroku and Sango both asked in unison.
“Never mind…” Inuyasha sighed. This was getting him nowhere.
Suddenly, Kaede spoke, and he liked what she had to say.
“Inuyasha, there may be a way to contact Kagome.”
That statement from the old miko got everyone’s immediate attention; she never seemed to cease to amaze anyone with her wisdom. Even Inuyasha, who always did very well at hiding it, had a certain respect for the old woman.
“Ye know that Kagome lives in our own future, so then it should be possible for ye to write a message to her, and then store it for her to find.” Kaede explained.
“But…five hundred years is a long time.” Miroku pointed out hesitantly. “Kagome-sama has stated that most parchments from our time are too fragile to touch, that they remain bound and unread.” the houshi added, not wishing for his words to sound as pessimistic as they did, but still…
Kaede wasn’t fazed, though, and actually agreed with him. “This is true.” she stated, adding, “So we shall have to be creative.”
“But…” Sango chimed in in that moment. “How will we know nothing interferes with our message before enough time has passed for Kagome-chan to find it?”
“It will be tricky.” Kaede agreed. “We shall have to bury it.” the miko instructed.
“But how will we write it?” Inuyasha asked then, finally joining in on the conversation. “Anything we buried in the ground would rot long before reaching her time!”
“Not everything…” Kaede answered cryptically, a knowing smirk twinkling in her eye. “There are some things we could bury that would not even begin to decay after five centuries had passed.” she stated knowingly, reaching forward and gently fondling between her index and middle finger the fire-rat material of Inuyasha’s suikan.
“Of course! The self-healing fire-rat fur!” Miroku stated, lightly slapping his forehead for not having thought of it himself. “It will most certainly survive the passage of time.” he agreed, adding, “Good thinking, Kaede-sama.”
“Yeah, smart idea Baba...” Inuyasha replied sarcastically, “…except how do we write on cloth?”
“I could sew a message onto it.” Sango volunteered in that moment.
She might have been raised to be a warrior woman, but that didn’t mean she had never learned the basic fundamentals of being a girl. Besides, even the men in her old village had known how to sew, in case their uniforms had required repair work while out on the road.
“But what will you use for thread?” Miroku asked then, stating again how any normal material would surely crumble away after five centuries underground.
“Hah! I got this part answered!” Inuyasha chimed in cheerfully.
Kaede, Miroku and Sango all then looked on in surprise and amazement as Inuyasha proceeded to yank out strand after strand of his own hair. “Keh, even human hair don’t rot too fast unless something gets to it, so mine’ll last for sure!”
Once he had pulled what he figured would surely be enough, he refolded his arms with a prideful look shining in his eyes for his own genius in that regard, even if it was just for one moment. It still wouldn’t make up for how much of an idiot he had been earlier, but that was where the message itself came in.
“White on red will definitely be easy to work with, and to read.” Sango complimented. “That was an excellent idea, Inuyasha.”
Kaede continued then, explaining to the slayer, “Ye can roll up the finished message and place it inside a glass bottle. That will surely guarantee its safe journey through time.”
“Now, the only question remaining is where to bury it.” Miroku stated thoughtfully.
But that was no question at all for the hanyou. There wasn’t any doubt in Inuyasha’s mind as to where the message in the bottle should be buried.
“At the base of the Goshinboku.” he stated simply.
That tree was still standing tall and proud in Kagome’s time, on the grounds of the shrine at which she lived. It was practically her tree; she was bound to find the message there. Wasn’t she?
“Kaede-sama…” Sango asked in that moment, unknowingly voicing the hanyou’s concerns. “How do you propose we make it so that Kagome-chan will become aware of the message’s presence?”
The slayer did have a good point. After all, Kagome wouldn’t just start digging around in her yard for no reason. But Kaede had already formulated a plan, and she explained her idea to the others in that moment. She would make a new rosary, one whose spell linked it directly to the forces of the completed Shikon no Tama. She was certain she could accomplish that connection, on the surface, because after so long the elderly miko was intimately familiar with the feel of the jewel’s aura, and could therefore transfer that sensation into the magics of this new rosary. It would be tricky, however. She would have to make sure that the magic was strong enough to keep its potency over a course of five centuries, yet still be weak enough so that in Kagome’s past, when she’d been in possession of some of the jewel shards, they alone would not be enough to activate the power of her spell. It was imperative not to interfere with Kagome’s previous timeline, what they themselves would now consider to be the past. Events that had already come to play from everyone’s perspective, even though as time looped around, those events would come to play again from the perspective of their buried message. Everything had to happen again as it had happened the first time, leaving Kagome to not discover their buried note until after the jewel was completed, or in other words, not until now. Kaede also took into consideration the fact that before any of this had begun, Kagome had previously had the completed Shikon no Tama within her very body, but fortunately, after the two year ordeal, and having been split into many pieces, touched by many youkai, purified, tainted, and purified again, the jewel’s aura had changed, and it was the sensation of its new aura which Kaede would imprint upon her rosary.
“But Kagome-chan has already returned to her world with the newly completed jewel around her neck.” Sango commented thoughtfully, pondering, “What’s to stop her from immediately discovering our message and returning to our time before we even have this conversation? Wouldn’t that create one of those para…dox…things that Kagome-chan had mentioned once before?”
“But, my dear Sango…” Miroku pointed out in that moment. “Were Kagome-sama to have discovered our message immediately upon her return to her world, then you are right, she would surely have already returned to ours… which would then not only have prevented this conversation, but your very question. The fact that she is not here now already proves that she shall not return before she is meant to.”
“Oh…right.”
“The Goshinboku is a tree of ages capable of transcending time.” Kaede pointed out in that moment, adding, “I believe that Inuyasha is most wise for suggesting that place for our message to be buried. I have faith that the tree will aid in my powers, and not permit any such paradoxes to take place.”
Inuyasha waited patiently for Kaede to finish speaking, then he commented, “Okay, so we got all that figured out.” Meeting the miko’s gaze head on, he commanded, “Get Sango a needle and let’s get started already.”
They weren’t upset at his sudden bossy attitude; they all understood that his gruff behavior was only a mask for his pain, and the truth was they wanted Kagome back almost as badly as he did. But one tiny little question still remained.
“Inuyasha…” Sango inquired softly. “What do you want me to write?”
Inuyasha gave the matter some genuine thought, a light blush rising to his cheeks, which caused Kaede and Miroku to each raise an eyebrow and pass looks between one another. Leaning forward, Inuyasha whispered his message into Sango’s ear. He then used his claws to cut off a rectangular section of fire-rat cloth from the bottom edge of his left sleeve, knowing that the fabric would regenerate itself and that his robe would be whole again by nightfall. Sango, having already been handed a needle by Kaede, immediately began the time-consuming task of stitching the hanyou’s heartfelt message. She would write it in first-person on his behalf. After all, this was his message, and Kagome deserved to hear Inuyasha’s words from his own lips as she read it.
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Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.
========================
Chapter 3 – Time Capsule
“So, when is the wedding?” Kaede questioned the young couple with a knowing smirk twinkling in her eye.
“Umm, we haven’t discussed it yet.” Sango stated while blushing slightly.
“No time like the present!” her husband-to-be chimed in.
“Houshi-sama!” Sango yelled, the crimson on her cheeks darkening further.
“My dearest Sango, I meant only that there was no time like the present to discuss the wedding, not to perform the wedding.”
“Oh…” the slayer mumbled in reply, now even more embarrassed.
Leaning in, Miroku managed a gentle kiss from his Sango without any objection.
“Ewwww, gross!” Kohaku shrieked teasingly.
Well, okay, almost no objection.
“Better get used to it, Kohaku.” Miroku warned with a playful wink. “If you are going to live with your sister and I, then you are going to see a lot of kissing.”
Sango, blushing even darker than all previous times combined, managed to suggest to Kohaku that he go outside to play with Shippou. Rolling his eyes at his sister, Kohaku agreed and vacated the hut, clearing the doorway just in time to not get run over by a half-crazed Inuyasha.
“The well is sealed!” he screamed.
“What do you mean, Inuyasha?” asked Miroku.
“Kagome’s gone, and I can’t get through the well!” He sounded completely panic-stricken.
Sango, having a little knowledge of the workings of the sacred jewel, being from the village of its birth, after all, quietly hypothesized with, “Hmm… It must be because she has the complete Shikon no Tama with her on her side of time, so no part of the jewel remains in this world, allowing the portal to remain open.”
“Okay, so then how do I get through?” he demanded impatiently.
“I doubt ye can, Inuyasha.” Kaede chimed in, agreeing with the slayer. “Sango knows of what she speaks. It would appear that Kagome can return to us when she chooses, but ye cannot get through to her, not without any shards of the jewel remaining on this side of time to act as a means for the portal to remain open to ye.”
After waiting for his turn to speak, Miroku asked politely, “Why do you need to go through the well? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“What kind of stupid question is that, monk?” Inuyasha hissed. “To get Kagome back, of course!”
Understanding where Miroku was coming from, Sango continued for him. “But…we all thought you were leaving with Kikyou.”
Calming down slightly as he realized his friends would obviously have no way of knowing what had just happened between himself and the two miko, Inuyasha plopped himself down around the fire-pit before beginning his story.
“I was, but…apparently…my ‘heart’ just wasn’t in it, she said.”
“My sister said, ye mean?” Kaede wished to clarify.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, nodding. “Kikyou said that since I love Kagome, I couldn’t-”
He was interrupted by a certain soon-to-be ex-monk.
“Whoa, stop right there…” Miroku stated with a raised hand. “What did you just say?”
Lowering his gaze so that nobody could look him in the eyes any longer, the hanyou repeated himself, shame for his belated revelation dripping off his tongue. “I…I love Kagome.”
Sango was no help, instantly berating him.
“Well now’s a fine time to realize that, baka!” she scolded. “Poor Kagome-chan ran home practically crying her eyes out over you dying for Kikyou!”
Inuyasha cringed at the reminder of Kagome’s tears.
“I…I know…I saw her…we spoke…”
“And?” probed the monk.
“And what?”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
“No, but…she told me she loved me.”
Snapping for the second time in a row, the youkai exterminator really let the hanyou have it.
“She did? She finally had the courage to tell you how she’s always felt, and you just let her leave? Let her think that you don’t return her feelings? If I could sit you I would!”
“Calm down, my sweet.” Miroku stated quietly.
Inuyasha’s ears had lowered further and further at Sango’s words, but not really so much due to the volume of her yelling. It was from the depression he felt, the depression she was making sure he felt.
“It’s all right…” the inu-hanyou spoke softly in that moment, tilting his eyes up to meet Miroku’s for a second as he muttered “…I deserve it.”
With his gaze softening in the hanyou’s direction at his words, Miroku felt a genuine wave of sympathy for the man. Then, catching notice of something his fiancée had made mention of during her tirade, Miroku commented aloud… “Speaking of sitting, where are your beads, Inuyasha?”
He’d actually forgotten he wasn’t wearing the rosary for a moment, only having not cringed when Sango had yelled ‘sit’ because he knew for a fact that the spell wouldn’t activate for her; she’d already tried it once in the past.
“Kagome… took them off me.” he started, cringing again just at the sound of her name because of how stupid he’d been. “She…she has them with her.” he finished.
“I see…” was all Miroku said in response, which ironically provoked more of a reaction from the hanyou than Sango’s earlier ranting.
“I get it, okay!?” he screamed suddenly. “I screwed up! I admit it! Now how do I fix it?”
“I don’t think there’s much you can do,” the monk replied sympathetically. “Not until Kagome-sama comes back through the well on her own.”
“Yeah, she said she’d come back to visit from time to time.” Sango interjected, trying to sound positive for her friend, feeling a little guilty of the bashing she’d just given him moments prior. “She promised Shippou, so you know she’ll keep her word to the kit.” she said, figuring that that’d be enough to lift his spirits, but she was wrong.
Inuyasha flashed her an, Are you crazy? expression before proclaiming, “I can’t wait! Who knows how long she’ll stay in her world before she decides to come back here for a ‘visit’!?”
He was right, of course, everyone in the hut thought silently to themselves. After all, Kagome hadn’t said how long she would be gone, but from the way she’d said her goodbyes, it had sounded like she might be gone for quite a while. Still believing that Inuyasha had left for Hell with Kikyou, the future-born-miko probably wanted to allow herself the necessary time to mourn.
The other occupants of the hut were each pulled from their equally melancholy thoughts when they suddenly heard the hanyou ask, “What if she hooks up with that Ho-ho guy while she’s over there?”
“Who?” Miroku and Sango both asked in unison.
“Never mind…” Inuyasha sighed. This was getting him nowhere.
Suddenly, Kaede spoke, and he liked what she had to say.
“Inuyasha, there may be a way to contact Kagome.”
That statement from the old miko got everyone’s immediate attention; she never seemed to cease to amaze anyone with her wisdom. Even Inuyasha, who always did very well at hiding it, had a certain respect for the old woman.
“Ye know that Kagome lives in our own future, so then it should be possible for ye to write a message to her, and then store it for her to find.” Kaede explained.
“But…five hundred years is a long time.” Miroku pointed out hesitantly. “Kagome-sama has stated that most parchments from our time are too fragile to touch, that they remain bound and unread.” the houshi added, not wishing for his words to sound as pessimistic as they did, but still…
Kaede wasn’t fazed, though, and actually agreed with him. “This is true.” she stated, adding, “So we shall have to be creative.”
“But…” Sango chimed in in that moment. “How will we know nothing interferes with our message before enough time has passed for Kagome-chan to find it?”
“It will be tricky.” Kaede agreed. “We shall have to bury it.” the miko instructed.
“But how will we write it?” Inuyasha asked then, finally joining in on the conversation. “Anything we buried in the ground would rot long before reaching her time!”
“Not everything…” Kaede answered cryptically, a knowing smirk twinkling in her eye. “There are some things we could bury that would not even begin to decay after five centuries had passed.” she stated knowingly, reaching forward and gently fondling between her index and middle finger the fire-rat material of Inuyasha’s suikan.
“Of course! The self-healing fire-rat fur!” Miroku stated, lightly slapping his forehead for not having thought of it himself. “It will most certainly survive the passage of time.” he agreed, adding, “Good thinking, Kaede-sama.”
“Yeah, smart idea Baba...” Inuyasha replied sarcastically, “…except how do we write on cloth?”
“I could sew a message onto it.” Sango volunteered in that moment.
She might have been raised to be a warrior woman, but that didn’t mean she had never learned the basic fundamentals of being a girl. Besides, even the men in her old village had known how to sew, in case their uniforms had required repair work while out on the road.
“But what will you use for thread?” Miroku asked then, stating again how any normal material would surely crumble away after five centuries underground.
“Hah! I got this part answered!” Inuyasha chimed in cheerfully.
Kaede, Miroku and Sango all then looked on in surprise and amazement as Inuyasha proceeded to yank out strand after strand of his own hair. “Keh, even human hair don’t rot too fast unless something gets to it, so mine’ll last for sure!”
Once he had pulled what he figured would surely be enough, he refolded his arms with a prideful look shining in his eyes for his own genius in that regard, even if it was just for one moment. It still wouldn’t make up for how much of an idiot he had been earlier, but that was where the message itself came in.
“White on red will definitely be easy to work with, and to read.” Sango complimented. “That was an excellent idea, Inuyasha.”
Kaede continued then, explaining to the slayer, “Ye can roll up the finished message and place it inside a glass bottle. That will surely guarantee its safe journey through time.”
“Now, the only question remaining is where to bury it.” Miroku stated thoughtfully.
But that was no question at all for the hanyou. There wasn’t any doubt in Inuyasha’s mind as to where the message in the bottle should be buried.
“At the base of the Goshinboku.” he stated simply.
That tree was still standing tall and proud in Kagome’s time, on the grounds of the shrine at which she lived. It was practically her tree; she was bound to find the message there. Wasn’t she?
“Kaede-sama…” Sango asked in that moment, unknowingly voicing the hanyou’s concerns. “How do you propose we make it so that Kagome-chan will become aware of the message’s presence?”
The slayer did have a good point. After all, Kagome wouldn’t just start digging around in her yard for no reason. But Kaede had already formulated a plan, and she explained her idea to the others in that moment. She would make a new rosary, one whose spell linked it directly to the forces of the completed Shikon no Tama. She was certain she could accomplish that connection, on the surface, because after so long the elderly miko was intimately familiar with the feel of the jewel’s aura, and could therefore transfer that sensation into the magics of this new rosary. It would be tricky, however. She would have to make sure that the magic was strong enough to keep its potency over a course of five centuries, yet still be weak enough so that in Kagome’s past, when she’d been in possession of some of the jewel shards, they alone would not be enough to activate the power of her spell. It was imperative not to interfere with Kagome’s previous timeline, what they themselves would now consider to be the past. Events that had already come to play from everyone’s perspective, even though as time looped around, those events would come to play again from the perspective of their buried message. Everything had to happen again as it had happened the first time, leaving Kagome to not discover their buried note until after the jewel was completed, or in other words, not until now. Kaede also took into consideration the fact that before any of this had begun, Kagome had previously had the completed Shikon no Tama within her very body, but fortunately, after the two year ordeal, and having been split into many pieces, touched by many youkai, purified, tainted, and purified again, the jewel’s aura had changed, and it was the sensation of its new aura which Kaede would imprint upon her rosary.
“But Kagome-chan has already returned to her world with the newly completed jewel around her neck.” Sango commented thoughtfully, pondering, “What’s to stop her from immediately discovering our message and returning to our time before we even have this conversation? Wouldn’t that create one of those para…dox…things that Kagome-chan had mentioned once before?”
“But, my dear Sango…” Miroku pointed out in that moment. “Were Kagome-sama to have discovered our message immediately upon her return to her world, then you are right, she would surely have already returned to ours… which would then not only have prevented this conversation, but your very question. The fact that she is not here now already proves that she shall not return before she is meant to.”
“Oh…right.”
“The Goshinboku is a tree of ages capable of transcending time.” Kaede pointed out in that moment, adding, “I believe that Inuyasha is most wise for suggesting that place for our message to be buried. I have faith that the tree will aid in my powers, and not permit any such paradoxes to take place.”
Inuyasha waited patiently for Kaede to finish speaking, then he commented, “Okay, so we got all that figured out.” Meeting the miko’s gaze head on, he commanded, “Get Sango a needle and let’s get started already.”
They weren’t upset at his sudden bossy attitude; they all understood that his gruff behavior was only a mask for his pain, and the truth was they wanted Kagome back almost as badly as he did. But one tiny little question still remained.
“Inuyasha…” Sango inquired softly. “What do you want me to write?”
Inuyasha gave the matter some genuine thought, a light blush rising to his cheeks, which caused Kaede and Miroku to each raise an eyebrow and pass looks between one another. Leaning forward, Inuyasha whispered his message into Sango’s ear. He then used his claws to cut off a rectangular section of fire-rat cloth from the bottom edge of his left sleeve, knowing that the fabric would regenerate itself and that his robe would be whole again by nightfall. Sango, having already been handed a needle by Kaede, immediately began the time-consuming task of stitching the hanyou’s heartfelt message. She would write it in first-person on his behalf. After all, this was his message, and Kagome deserved to hear Inuyasha’s words from his own lips as she read it.
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