InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Splendent Shorties ❯ Destiny ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

 

~ Destiny ~

 

(canon alt-ending, content warning: temporary main character death)

 

 

Inuyasha’s face was expressionless, even as tears flowed freely down his cheeks. Across from him, Mrs. Higurashi was also weeping, her expression openly reflecting the pain of her broken heart. Beside her, Souta was wrapped in the firm, protective embrace of his grandfather as he buried in his face in the older man’s robes to hide his tears, Jii-chan not allowing his own emotions to show, although hatred towards the hanyou standing across from him was not what he was feeling. He knew, though he was loath to admit it, just how much that boy loved...had loved...his granddaughter.

 

Held tenderly in Inuyasha’s arms was Kagome’s lifeless body, the large blood stain on the front of her blouse betraying how she’d met her end even as he tried to hide the extent of her wound from her family’s gaze.

 

“Higurashi-san, I...” Inuyasha started before his voice cracked.

 

It should have been a joyous occasion. Naraku had just been defeated, the pure, untainted Shikon no Tama currently tucked within the inu-hanyou’s robes, ignored.

 

For as long as he’d wanted the jewel, he would give it up in less than a heartbeat if it meant having his Kagome back, but he wouldn’t dare make a wish on it to restore her to life. Knowing the nature of the sacred jewel, it would probably bring her back as some kind of zombie.

 

It’s all my fault...

 

Naraku had been blasted to pieces, his heart turned to ash as Kagome’s arrow purified the dark hanyou’s taint from the jewel, but all of the various, loose pieces of him that had been hacked off during the preceding battle had not vanished along with him when Naraku’s floating head and torso had disappeared with a bloodcurdling scream.

 

I shouldn’t have lowered my guard...

 

Miroku had gasped in shock as he felt the kazaana begin to close, hesitantly removing the wrappings from his right hand to reveal a smooth, blemish-free palm.

 

I shouldn’t have let myself relax...

 

Kagome had marched confidently forward then, collecting the pure, light pink jewel. They had won.

 

He should have known it was too good to be true.

 

Whether it had been some kind of involuntary muscular reflex similar to a wriggling octopus tentacle, or conscious thought connected to one of the individual youkai that had at one point been absorbed into Naraku – since the dark hanyou had, of course, in truth been a compilation of many beings – one of the severed tentacles lying lifeless nearby had suddenly shot like a dart, moving faster than Kagome’s own arrows, to pierce the future-born miko through the heart as she’d headed back towards Inuyasha with the jewel in hand. Inuyasha had had no time to react. There had been no hint, no warning. No change in scent or demonic aura. He had watched Kagome walking towards him with a huge smile on his face, and then his eyes had widened in horror as she’d collapsed, her own eyes wide in shock.

 

Her unconscious instinct had caused an instant blast of purifying energy to erupt from her core, purifying the tentacle out of existence before it’d been able to run her clean through, only the tip piercing her flesh, but that had been enough. The damage was already done. Not even an emergency mate bond could have saved her life then, because while the blood exchange could technically be done without mating – and Inuyasha wouldn’t have given a damn about how that would’ve gone against every tradition known to youkai kind – the procedure required a beating heart in order to pump the youkai partner’s blood within the human’s body. A cavity the size of a child’s fist existed in Kagome’s chest where her heart had once been.

 

Through sheer desperate willpower to not lose consciousness right away from the shock of it, the miko had lived just long enough to give him the jewel, as he’d cradled her in his arms, as she’d confessed her love to him and he had done the same. Then for the second time, the woman he loved had died in his arms, except Kikyou had been a past love a part of him had been glad to see laid to rest. Kagome...Kagome was supposed to be his future.

 

Returning Kagome to her future had not been his first move after that. In fact, the sun was setting at the Higurashi Shrine, late evening giving way to nightfall, while their defeat of Naraku had been early that morning. Numb, uncaring of the tears that had already been flowing unchecked at that time, Inuyasha had scooped Kagome’s body up into his arms and had taken off into the forest without a word to their friends. He had been seeking his brother.

 

Inuyasha had found Sesshoumaru by mid afternoon, and had begged him to restore Kagome’s life, knowing the daiyoukai possessed the ability to do so. Surely the slayer of Naraku deserved a second chance at life, right? Kagome had proven her strength and her honor, right? But Sesshoumaru had been unmoved, and had Inuyasha not been so utterly distraught, unable to think clearly, he might have thought to find where his brother had left the girl Rin behind with Jaken, not caring how underhanded it would’ve been to let Rin see Kagome’s dead body and get her to beg the daiyoukai to restore her to life, but the thought had honestly not occurred to him.

 

Instead, Inuyasha had gently laid Kagome down and then challenged Sesshoumaru to a fight, thinking that if he could defeat the daiyoukai, but then at the last moment spare his life rather than delivering the final death blow, Sesshoumaru’s honor would force him to acknowledge that he had been bested and owed Inuyasha a life debt.

 

He had very nearly succeeded, too, although his fatigue and injuries from the battle with Naraku had ultimately been his undoing. Had Inuyasha been at full strength he had no doubt he would have beaten Sesshoumaru, as he had even managed to make the daiyoukai bleed in his weakened condition, and that was saying something.

 

Sesshoumaru had given as good as he’d got, of course, though the wounds Inuyasha had gotten from his brother blended in with the wounds he’d already received in the battle with Naraku, and in that moment, as he held Kagome in his arms before her family, he made no attempt to fill them in on the details of what all had transpired, or the fact that most of the blood covering his robes was his own. A wound very similar to hers, but caused by claws instead of a tentacle, was still knitting closed in the center of his chest, and in that moment a part of him desperately wished that Sesshoumaru hadn’t missed his heart. He wouldn’t tell her family of the daiyoukai’s part in this; they didn’t need to know he had failed Kagome twice.

 

“I...I can’t...apologize...” And it was true. How do you tell someone ‘sorry for letting your daughter get killed’?

 

But then suddenly, before anyone from Kagome’s family could even say any a word, before Inuyasha could get out that as far as he was concerned, his life was forfeit, and that he planned on taking his own life after returning to his time, an insanely powerful demonic aura permeated the area, scaring the birds in the trees. It was so strong that even the humans before him, with no spiritual powers to speak of, all looked up with a gasp.

 

Mentally cursing, and unconsciously tightening his hold on the ashen miko, the strangeness of his brother showing up at Kagome’s home in the future did not even occur to him. All Inuyasha could figure was that the daiyoukai had come back to finish the job. He had been the one to best Inuyasha during their original battle, and so the only reason Inuyasha lived was because Sesshoumaru had shown him mercy at the end, or perhaps pity, or perhaps neither because Sesshoumaru had known living with his failure would be a far greater punishment than death.

 

But if Sesshoumaru had come back to kill him now, perhaps only originally sparing him so that he could return Kagome to her family through the well first, then Inuyasha would not even defend himself. So long as Sesshoumaru posed no threat to Kagome’s family, he would let the daiyoukai send him to meet his beloved in the afterlife.

 

Turning at the approaching sensation of his brother’s aura, though, the figure that greeted them when Sesshoumaru reached the top of the shrine steps was not what Inuyasha had been expecting. Gone were Sesshoumaru’s immaculate robes, replaced by a modern light gray suit. In fact, it took the hanyou a second to realize it, because Sesshoumaru still had his long flowing locks of stark white, but gone also were his demonic markings, and were his ears round?!

 

Inuyasha couldn’t help it. Emotionally drained or not, he blurted “What the hell?” even as he instinctively tightened his hold on Kagome’s body a second time.

 

Sesshoumaru walked hastily towards them, anxious worry displayed plainly on his face.

 

“Inuyasha, thank the gods, I have been waiting centuries for this day,” he said, his face and tone of voice now easily displaying the relief he clearly felt. “I knew you would have the completed jewel on you, so that was the aura I’ve been waiting for. As urgent as this moment is I knew I couldn’t risk showing up too early and disrupting the timeline.”

 

“Ex...excuse me...” Kagome’s mother hesitantly spoke up then.

 

“I will explain shortly,” Sesshoumaru stated, as he reached for nothing on the side of his pants only to suddenly pull a sword from an apparently invisible sheath.

 

Mrs. Higurashi, Jii-chan and Souta all took a few steps back in fear at the sword’s sudden appearance, but Inuyasha recognized which blade Sesshoumaru had drawn.

 

Choking back on a sob, he dared to ask, “Sess...Sesshoumaru?”

 

“It is I who must apologize, little brother,” Sesshoumaru stated, the term of endearment void of disdain even as what he said revealed he had been able to overhear Inuyasha during his approach. However his ears had turned round, they were still just as powerful as ever.

 

Without further delay, Sesshoumaru swung Tenseiga at Kagome, who was still cradled in Inuyasha’s arms. The blade that could not cut passed harmlessly through Inuyasha’s body as well as Kagome’s, and her mother let out the start of a scream that died on her tongue as soon as she realized nothing had happened. Just what the hell was going on?! But then Kagome moaned, as her color returned to normal, and Mrs. Higurashi collapsed to her knees, staring in disbelief. Souta separated from Jii-chan to run to his mother’s side, and they held each other, Jii-chan coming up to stand behind his daughter-in-law with a hand on her shoulder as all three humans watched the miracle unfolding before them.

 

Sesshoumaru explained, then. Explained to Kagome’s family how Inuyasha had come to him, first begging him to save Kagome’s life before then trying to force him to do so, but he had refused. He next elaborated beyond what Inuyasha already knew, and told him how afterwards, when Rin had found out about what had happened, because he had not thought to keep the truth from her when she’d asked how he’d gotten injured, the little girl she had been at that time had started crying, and angrily demanded that he restore Kagome to life, threatening to never forgive him if he refused.

 

He had remembered, then, how he had felt when his own foolishness, his selfishness regarding Tenseiga, had caused Rin to die a second time, and how grateful he had been when his mother had restored her to life.

 

“I had not been thinking clearly when I refused you,” Sesshoumaru admitted, addressing his brother.

 

He had not been thinking of Kagome herself, he confessed, but only of wanting to hurt Inuyasha. It had been petty, his hatred of his younger half brother, his jealousy and envy stemmed from the belief that their father had preferred the hanyou to himself.

 

“When I sought you out upon Rin’s insistence, you were already gone,” he told Inuyasha then, explaining that the slayer and monk had, reluctantly, confessed the secret of the Bone-Eater’s Well when he had refused to accept their initial explanation that he and Kagome were just gone, going somewhere where he could not follow them.

 

“It was so preposterous that I knew it must be true,” he said with a quirk of his lips.

 

He had even tried to follow them through the well, but Sango and Miroku had been correct in their assumption that it would deny him entry, forcing him to go the long way around.

 

Kagome regained consciousness at this point, and looked up at Inuyasha in confusion.

 

“Inuyasha…?” she voiced softly, looking up into relieved, tear-filled eyes of honey gold as he gazed down at her in return.

 

She remembered dying, and reached up in shock to feel that the wound in her chest had been healed.

 

“It’s all right now, Kagome,” Inuyasha confirmed as her eyes widened. “Everything’s going to be all right, now.”

 

“Rin will be pleased,” Sesshoumaru said with a relieved sigh and smile that unnerved Inuyasha.

 

Even fully comprehending that this Sesshoumaru was five hundred years older than the one he’d left behind in the Sengoku jidai and had obviously gotten used to living around humans, it was still baffling seeing him so openly express any emotion other than sadistic delight or anger.

 

“Yeah,” Inuyasha agreed despite his unease, definitely not wanting to be rude to this new and improved version of his older brother. “I’m sure she’s looking down on all of us with a happy smile.”

 

“Rin is not dead,” Sesshoumaru informed Inuyasha then, chuckling as the hanyou’s eyes widened in disbelief.

 

“You mated a human?!” he blurted, finally using his nose.

 

He would believe that Sesshoumaru had managed to find some other way to extend Rin’s lifespan, but now that he could smell more than just his and Kagome’s blood, there was no doubt about it.

 

“Mate bonded with a human?”

 

Sesshoumaru merely nodded.

 

“She eventually forgave me for my previous hostility towards you, but only because she made me vow to rectify the situation in five hundred years’ time.”

 

Putting two and two together, Kagome gestured for Inuyasha to put her down in that moment. He steadied her as she wobbled briefly, and then she bowed her thanks to the daiyoukai.

 

“I am in your debt,” she stated formally, but Sesshoumaru waved it off.

 

“Nonsense,” he denied.

 

Sesshoumaru continued to explain to everyone, then, how the lower beastly youkai were long extinct but there were plenty of higher youkai, like himself, who lived peacefully among humans with the aid of concealment charms to disguise their youkai nature. He told Inuyasha how he’d had a trust put aside for him, and so if he chose to remain in the modern world with Kagome, he would definitely have the means with which to care for both himself and his mate.

 

Kagome and Inuyasha both blushed a little at Sesshoumaru calling them mates in front of her family, but it was true that that was what they both wanted, more than anything. Sesshoumaru then went on to tell them how upon failing to follow after them into the future via the well, he had left Kaede’s village, seeing no point in waiting around for the hanyou’s return, if he returned at all, because surely if he did he would not have had Kagome with him. So he had left, and had already been thinking about what he had done, or not done, and had already been regretting it, but he would not see his brother again for five hundred years.

 

“I discovered a few years later, after I had already made my vow to Rin to seek you out in the future, that you had in fact returned to the village that night, this night, to tell your friends the good news, and goodbye, before disappearing forever back through the well again. It solidified for me my duty here on this day, knowing such an event had already come to pass on the other side of the well.”

 

With everyone heading inside, Kagome cleaning up and changing into some clean clothes while Inuyasha also washed the dried blood from his hands, his robes cleaning themselves, Sesshoumaru stayed and visited for a while longer, filling everyone in on the evolution of youkai society. Then Inuyasha and Kagome decided they’d better fulfill their end of destiny and head back into the past together, one final time.

 

Sango and Miroku, and especially little Shippou, were understandably ecstatic to learn what had happened, and considering the life Sesshoumaru had set up for Inuyasha in the future, the two of them deciding to live in Kagome’s world was a no-brainer. There were many tearful goodbyes, then, but they were tears of joy, even if it was a little bittersweet for the humans who knew they would never see each other again. Shippou, though, promised he’d look them both up after allowing these events to take place.

 

The kitsune kept his word, as he showed up at Kagome’s house in the future the following morning. It turned out he’d kept in touch with Sesshoumaru all these years, and the daiyoukai had called him the night before to let him know the deed was done.

 

With Shippou’s help, Inuyasha learned how to fit in in modern youkai society. The Shikon jewel was also dealt with when Kagome figured out that the ‘right wish’ was to simply wish the thing out of existence. Knowing now that their world was still full of youkai, even if everyone was supposedly peaceful, having a temptation like the Shikon no Tama lying around was definitely not a good idea.

 

While their lives did not turn out the way either of them had originally envisioned, Inuyasha and Kagome were together, and that was truly all that mattered. Mate bonding, Inuyasha also ensured that he would not lose Kagome again, this time to the ravages of time. He had thought their life together was over before it’d even began, but it had just turned out that she wasn’t the one meant for his time. Rather, destiny had intended for him to live in hers, and who was he to question destiny?