Other Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Kagome's Trial ❯ Chapter 23

It's been too long since I've updated. I'm so sorry; I haven't had much time for anything outside school. This story's almost done, but it does have a second part. If anyone wants it, I can post it once this is done, but y'all have to tell me. Right now, I'm thinking no one likes this story anymore. Am I right?

 

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In the blink of an eye, another thousand years passed. The children of her friends continued to prosper and grow in number. They still came to Kagome whenever a child needed to be delivered, and she always welcomed them. Still, there was neither hide nor hair found of the original eight Adepts that disappeared. That never brought Kagome down, though. She kept on believing they were alive, even though common sense and her friends' children told her over and over that her hope was folly.

 

When her children got married, she would try to go to the wedding, but couldn't make the ones that weren't in Vale. Still, they came to her to have their children brought into the world, but that was the only company she got. Well, except for the lost, sick, and Gary and Mina's brood. Their firstborn, and the firstborns after that, seemed to be drawn to her forest, and when they turned eighteen, she took them in. Of course, she wasn't about to let them hermit themselves forever, and would send them every so often into Vale, where they found their spouses. It grew to be routine since it kept happening. For over a thousand years, she took in the firstborns, got them married, then repeated the process when their firstborns came into the world.

 

The newest one, Ivan, and his wife, Karen, were expecting their first child any day now, so they were staying in Kagome's home. Kagome kept Karen in the coolest part of the house, but it was still sweltering in the summer heat. Ivan constantly worried about his wife, so Kagome had to keep sending him on fool's errands, just as she did for all the expectant fathers that came to her. Ivan was not one of the better ones, though. He'd get it done in record time, which meant Kagome had to keep coming up with things for him to do. He even cleaned the house to her satisfaction. That one took him a long time, but once he was done, he was underfoot again.

 

Kagome was outside, weeding the area around the graves of her friends, when Ivan came running out the door. “Is it time?” she calmly asked the distraught man.

 

He could only nod, his voice box refusing to work. “Then I'll go in,” she informed him. “I'll need some wood for the fire, so that'll be your job. Now listen,” she cautioned when he almost ran off to cut some defenseless trees down. “The trees I need are about five miles that way.” She pointed north. “The logs all have to be a foot long. Remember that. They can't be a foot-and-a-half, just a foot.”

 

“Yes, Aunt Kagome.” He was practically hopping from one foot to the other, anxious to get her what he needed.

 

“Here, take this axe.” She reached in the door for the axe she conveniently planted there the day they came to stay with her. The minute the axe was in his hands, he was off like the Roadrunner. She shook her head and went in to tend to Karen.

 

The mother-to-be was practically writhing on the bed, moaning. “You're not dying,” Kagome said from the doorway. “You need to stop moving so much; you're confusing the baby.”

 

Karen obediently stopped moving, though her face showed how much pain she was in. “You'll be fine, sweetie,” Kagome crooned to her. “Here, squeeze this. It helps.” She gave her a small ball filled almost to bursting with sand. Karen took it and immediately clenched her fist. The ball resisted changing its shape quite well, so it took Karen's mind somewhat off the pain in her lower abdomen. Somewhat. A particularly painful contraction caused the girl to scream.

 

“I just want to die,” she sobbed.

 

“You're doing fine,” Kagome soothed her. She could see the head of the child coming out. Wow, that was quick. She just went into labor fifteen minutes ago, and it's already almost there. “I can see the baby. Don't give up. Just keep pushing, just keep pushing, just keep pushing, pushing, pushing.” She frowned. “Now where did that come from? Oh, yeah, that cute kid movie. I can't believe I remember that. What was it called? Little Nemo? No, it was Finding Nemo. Yeah, that's right, Finding Nemo. That blue fish, Dory, was singing about swimming.”

 

She looked down to see Karen staring at her like she had grown an extra head. “What?”

 

“What were you saying?”

 

“Huh?” I guess I was speaking Japanese. I can't believe I still know it, except I talk to myself in Japanese. “Sorry, just reminiscing.”

 

Another contraction, and once again the ball was squeezed and a scream ripped through the otherwise tranquil air of the forest. This time another scream joined Karen's, an infant's scream. Kagome, moving quickly, picked up the baby and began to clean it. “Congratulations, Karen,” she said to the exhausted mother. “You're the proud mother of a new daughter.”

 

Karen held out her arms for her, and Kagome relinquished her hold on the squalling child. “She's beautiful,” the infatuated mother breathed.

 

That's exactly what every other mother has said, Kagome said to herself, remembering those words. She was actually recalling Sheba, though she had a boy, Tristan. “Yes, now do you want to rest, or would you like me to inform Ivan that he is now a father?”

 

“I'm sure Ivan would like to know,” Karen answered, her mind still completely focused on her baby.

 

Kagome exited the house to find Ivan. Those poor trees. Ivan must have hacked most of them into firewood by this time. Did I tell him to bring it back to the house? No, I didn't. Oops. I guess I'll just have to get him. Now regretting sending him five miles away, she took off at a run, her miko clothes seeming to catch on every branch. “Ivan!” she yelled. “Ivan! I need you!”

 

Almost as if summoned, he appeared before her. “Is everything okay?” he asked, still swinging the axe at the defenseless trees.

 

“Yes,” she reassured him, watching the axe and ducking when it came too close. “Your wife delivered a baby girl. They're both waiting for you at my home.”

 

He dropped the axe and flew past her. “So rash,” she muttered to herself, bending down and picking up the axe he'd almost dropped on his own foot. “But who am I to talk?”

 

She lugged the axe back with her to her home and put it in the room she had dedicated to keeping weapons. Quietly approaching the door where Karen, Ivan, and their daughter were, she peeked in and saw the three of them just looking at their neighbors, Karen and Ivan with love, the baby with curiosity. Kagome left them to get to know each other and went back outside on the porch. A cool breeze flowed through the trees. It felt good on her hot, sweaty face. Out of habit she looked down the path, but it was as empty as it always was.

 

“Maybe they're right,” she murmured to the breeze. “Maybe I am crazy to believe they'll ever come back. It's been two thousand years, and there's been no sign of them. Did they abandon me? No, they wouldn't leave their children. Why couldn't I have died with them?”

 

“Aunt Kagome?”

 

She spun around, wiping the telltale tears from her eyes. “Yes, dear?”

 

“Is everything okay?” Ivan walked out onto the porch.

 

“Yes, everything's fine. How's your wife and daughter?”

 

He went off into a tirade about them, just as she'd hoped. “Do you have a name for her yet?” she asked when he was finished.

 

“Not yet,” he admitted, looking down at his shuffling feet. “Actually, we were sort of hoping you'd do the honor of naming her.” He looked up at her hopefully.

 

“I…see,” she stuttered. No one had asked her to name their baby before.

 

“We wanted to have a name from your hometown, but we don't know where you're from.”

 

“Well, let's go to Karen and the baby, and we'll see what they think.”

 

Karen affirmed her husband's request. “Yes, we feel that it's only right. You delivered her into this world, so you should name her.”

 

Kagome looked down at the infant. “I don't know,” she said. “There's so many names that would suit this beauty.”

 

The baby chose that moment to open her eyes. They weren't blue like most babies' eyes, but a chocolate brown. The beginnings of her hair were a deep blue-black, just like Kagome's, and a name stuck out in her mind. She spoke it without thinking. “Kikyo.”

 

“Kikyo?” Ivan and Karen asked simultaneously.

 

It has a bad connotation for me, but yes, this girl looks like Kikyo and me. I think Kikyo would be a good choice; Inuyasha and Kaede were always saying how she was a good person before she died. “Yes, Kikyo.”

 

“Then you are Kikyo,” Ivan stated mock-formally to his daughter. She only gurgled and closed her eyes again.

 

Kikyo was as smart baby. A few days after she was born, when Kagome said it was okay for them to make the trek back to Vale, she somehow ended up on top of Inuyasha's grave. Her mother declared that she hadn't put her there, and the other two adamantly said the same thing. In the end, they just put it down to someone being absent-minded, but Kagome saw the sly look in Kikyo's eyes. Most babies were basically comatose the first few months of their life, so this was very strange behavior, but she didn't say anything.

 

Unlike the others, Ivan and Karen came to see her almost every week, so she got to see Kikyo progress. Once she learned to crawl, Kagome had to re-baby proof the house or there would've been an accident, a painful one.

 

Then disaster struck.

 

Kagome heard from Ivan that there was a plague in Contigo. They talked about how tragic it was, but it didn't really affect them. When he came again, the news was that it spread to Madra. Again, it was terrible, but it was on another continent, so it wasn't a big deal. Then it was discovered in Alhafra. Now they were getting worried.

 

“Do you know the symptoms?” Kagome asked.

 

He shook his head. “It could be anything. I think the Healers know, but they haven't told us yet. They just said if you think you're sick, then go see them.”

 

“They probably don't know.” She sighed. “Just be careful. Do you know if they've confined it yet?”

 

“It's spread to Kalay.”

 

She had heard from Ivan, the original Ivan, that Kalay was a trading town, and its merchants traveled everywhere. Now the disease could be anywhere.

 

“Have there been any merchants from Kalay recently?”

 

“Yes, but that was a few weeks ago.”

 

“I don't want you to stay there.”

 

“Aunt Kagome, it's been three weeks since he was there.”

 

“Ivan, I really don't think you should stay in Vale.”

 

“We'll be fine.” He coughed, causing her to run to the sink and make him hot tea. “It's just a cough,” he assured her. “I'll be fine. We all will.”

 

He couldn't have been more wrong. A few days after he visited, Karen came running up the path, screaming Kagome's name. “What's wrong?” she asked the hysterical woman.

 

“It's Ivan,” she panted. “The sickness is in Vale, and he's got it. Please help him.”

 

Kagome rushed inside, grabbed one of her emergency bags, and made tracks to Vale, Karen hot on her heels. They arrived in Vale in record time, and Karen all but smashed her door to pieces in her hurry to get Kagome to her husband. Ivan's wife led her to the room where Ivan lay, coughing. Kagome crossed the room and put her hand on his forehead. He didn't have a fever, yet he was sweating like crazy.

 

“This doesn't make sense,” she muttered to herself. “He shouldn't be sweating this much; it's the middle of winter.”

 

“Can you help him?” Karen asked from the doorway.

 

“I don't know,” Kagome answered honestly. “I've not seen this before, but I'll do my best to save him.”

 

Karen's look of gratitude showed how much she needed Kagome to succeed. The woman turned away, probably to get Kikyo from wherever she was, when she fell down in a fit of coughing. “You get in bed,” Kagome ordered. “You're not allowed out of this house. Where's Kikyo?”

 

“I left her with Ivan's parents,” she whispered between bouts of coughing.

 

Kagome hustled Karen into a bed and put a mug of hot tea by her bed. “Drink when you can,” she ordered. “I'll inform Gavin and Deborah that they'll take care of Kikyo until you get better. Do you want her to catch this?” she demanded when it looked like Karen would protest. That toppled the woman's arguments.

 

Kagome did her best, like she said, but her best wasn't enough. Other caught sick, and she tried to help them as well, but one by one, they started dropping like flies. As the number of dead rose, the spirits of the living dragged down. It hit Kagome hard. People might suppose she would be used to death since she'd lived for over two thousand years and had seen plagues in her time, but this one was taking its toll on her.

 

By the time the plague had run its course, the population in Vale had been decimated. Maybe one out of every twenty people survived. Numbered among the dead were Gavin, Deborah, all of Ivan's siblings, Karen, and Ivan himself. It broke Kagome's heart to have her entire family wiped out in just one plague, except for Kikyo. Once it was certain that the plague was gone from Vale, Kagome took Kikyo and returned to her forest.

 

From there, she raised Kikyo, just like she did to her friends' children. As the young girl grew, she looked exactly like the Kikyo Kagome knew, just as she had predicted. At eighteen, strangers that wandered in on them couldn't tell them apart; Kikyo chose to wear the miko garb and hairstyle just like Kagome, so they looked like clones of each other, though there was a two thousand year difference in their ages. When the time came for Kagome to send her back to Vale, she refused to go. “I won't leave you alone,” Kikyo declared. “Without me, who would stay with you?” Kagome relented, but didn't give up. Eventually, she would do as she was told; they always did.

 

~*~