Complete and Unconditional

AN: And so, my friends, we've reached the end of another story. Thanks to your wonderful reviews, this story has given me a lot of uplifting moments despite the sad contents, and I'm currently bragging to my anime-friends that it got over 200 reviews. ::grins proudly:: You've all been so nice to me as I dabbled with Mir/San… please don't ruin it by flaming me at the end of the story! ::bawls:: You know I like my plot twists! I can't help it! Besides, that's what sequels are for! Sequels!

With my begging being over… ::dries eyes:: On to answer some reviews!

Iggy: Really, the whole Arashi/Sango moment was in chapter thirteen, you're right, but I wanted to find a way for Sango to explain how she is dying rather than a bunch of flashbacks, and I wanted Arashi to call Sango 'Mommy' at least once. I wanted to give Sango that much. And this was my experiment in angst. Really, the story started off high, and fluffy, and deteriorated as time went by. Thank god the sequel is fluffy and cute!

Fireblade: Actually, for the past two stories, Sesshy has disappeared. And he will in the next one too. There's a reason for it. Eventually I will determine what it is.

Lily: Um…. ::looks around innocently:: Here's some Kleenex. And no, I don't like making people cry. That's why I like writing fluff. It's happy. I like making people giggle and hyperactive and feel fuzzy-warm inside. But in this case, the story was more important that how I wanted to make people feel. I wanted to try my best to make a "realistic" Mir/San fic regarding their life. I think relationship/character wise, I accomplished that, but my lack of living in Japan, my lack of Sengoku Jidai related knowledge, and my urge to write rather than research meant I sacrificed a lot culturally and historically. But at this point, I think it was a worthy sacrifice.

Snow-Queen: Oh, I think you could tell us apart. Mine would be fluffy. Hers would be more comedic and leave you frustrated and wanting to march into her world and tie her characters together with duck tape until they admit their feelings. But thank you for the lovely compliment.

Starzki: Yes, you're right. And I'm glad that you feel that way about the series. Though if they gave Inuyasha over to me, the series wouldn't go on long enough for producers to make money because I'd have them in love in no time whatsoever… Or something!

Aamalie: ::looks guilty:: Um…. Look! A mermaid! ::runs away::

Chadrific: If that's how you feel about stories that make you cry, then I'm glad. I feel like crap when I cry, and so despite how great the movie or story, I have a tendency to steer clear from it.

Ninalee-chan: Thank you very much! I'm afraid that, in my opinion, Sango's character undergoes a definitive change, but… well, it's understandable, as you will see. I don't want to ruin anything. I completely agree with your idea of Miroku and Sango completing each other. It seems to be a theme. It appears in this chapter, and quite a few times in the sequel. However, I feel a need to work on Arashi's character a lot. I'll have to put it on my list of things to do!

Thank you all once again for all of your great responses and remarks! ::stupidly happy smile:: They keep me warm for all of the cold Canadian winters!

Enjoy, everyone!

Chapter 15: Requiem

"Miroku?"

I awoke with a start, hitting my head on the wall behind me. Cursing lightly, I rubbed my tired eyes. They slowly adjusted to the darkness, though fine details, like the corners of the windows or Sango's long eyelashes, were blurry to my old eyes. Moonlight poured through the windows in front of Sango, highlighting her features. She looked so alive, so like the girl that used to sit out on rocks and pray or think, that for a moment I thought I was looking at a ghost. My voice was hoarse, but audible as we were alone in the room. "Yes?" I asked tentatively.

"I think I would like to go outside, if you wouldn't mind. It's such a nice, warm night, that I'd like to enjoy it with you."

Nodding, I walked to her and helped her up. Her body was far too light from a sickness she could not keep fighting. I escorted her outside, her body cold against mine, though she looked healthier than she had that morning. Maybe the talk with Arashi had done her well. She was breathing steadily, she didn't seem to be in as much pain. I knew better, however, than to imagine these were the sign of some miraculous recovery. Sango was pushing past the pain. She was trying to be herself, allowing me to remember her at her best, rather than face death while she was laying in bed and feeling weak.

We walked out to the well. By the time we had gotten there, she was breathing heavily. Sango sat down on the ground and collapsed. She smiled up at the sky and inhaled deeply.

"I love the smell of fresh air!" Sango exclaimed. I sat down beside her and she shifted to put her head in my lap. "Thank you, Miroku."

"It was my pleasure," I sighed, starting to run my fingers through her graying hair. I was kind of tired from helping Sango outside, but there was no way that I was going to take a brief nap when we both knew and accepted that this was it; there would be no more painful hours of waiting, no more choking on tears, no more hurried glances that allowed me to make sure that she was still breathing while Sango prepared herself to throw a shoe at me as soon as she saw I was worried. "I enjoy being outside as well, after all. It brings back memories, doesn't it? Camping outside, setting up camp, our first midnight picnic… remember skinny dipping?"

Sango laughed. "If you enjoyed being outside so much or camping under the stars, then why did you stop at so many houses and tell them about 'foreboding auras' and 'dire needs to exorcise'?" I only chuckled at her accusations. Sango hugged my leg tighter. "You know, somehow I never expected to be laying in this hill with you under the stars… dying. I always expected to die in the heat of battle."

Silent, I just kept stroking her long hair. I didn't want to discuss how we had always imagined ourselves dying. I had only ever thought of the wind-tunnel claiming my life. I had been painfully aware of it. After the wind-tunnel had disappeared, however, I had given no thought to my own mortality. As for Sango, besides my fears about taking her into the kazaana if I ever lost control of it, I had never thought about her dying. If I ever did, I tried very hard to think about something else. It was perverse, thinking of how your loved ones might die. Thus, Sango had become immortal in my eyes; harm could come to her, but she would always overcome it, and no death would ever claim my wife.

What was I going to do without her? She was my haven, my whole world. It was like the Earth and the air; one couldn't exist without the other to the point where if one stopped existing, all life would die. If I had a problem, I saw Sango; if I needed reassurance, help with a student, a fight, a taste tester, someone to dress my wounds, I saw Sango.

She wasn't just my wife, she was my comrade in arms. Not a simple partner, a comrade in arms. Someone to watch my back, pick me up when I needed it, clean my wounds…

She was everything to me!

How could I live? How could I go to each class when the students I would teach used to be hers, when I was living her dream? How could I go home when she wasn't going to be coming home after me, jumping on me and biting my ear in greeting and asking what we were having for dinner?

I couldn't. I couldn't do that. The God of Death was going to come for her soul, take the part of mine that I had given her, and take the part that she had given to me.

No more smiles that I had worked so hard to see, no more laughter I would gladly make an ass out of myself to hear.

"You'll be fine."

Snapping from my onslaught of horrifying glimpses of the future, my gaze jumped from a seemingly empty sky to look at my wife. She was gazing up at me with a considerate expression, as if she knew what I was fearing and she sympathized with me. She moved slowly, making sure that I heard each and every single word. "You, Miroku, will be fine."

Something within me broke. I reached down and grabbed her, holding her heart against mine, pressing her to me as tightly as I could. I sobbed suddenly, closing my eyes to the stars and a comforting light I didn't want to see at that moment. "How?"

"That's up to you to decide, Miroku." She reached up and she touched my cheek. Her fingers were cool. "But you will be fine. You're never going to be alone again, Miroku, never!"

Agreeing, I nodded. "I know. I have Arashi, Shippo, Kissaki, your brother, our students… I just don't have you. Sango. I'll keep going, I promise you I will, for the people I love I'll keep going, but how can I do that when I won't have you?"

"Do you know what I told Arashi?" she asked me. I nodded again, and she dried my cheeks for me. "You rogue, you were listening at the key-hole again, weren't you? Twenty-six years of marriage and you still haven't learned any manners at all. You're still a pervert, still a cheat and a liar and completely and utterly irresistible." She giggled into my neck. "The same thing I said to Arashi goes for you too, Houshi-sama."

Wincing, I tried to remember when I had last heard her call me by that name. It was so long ago I couldn't actually remember it. "I know; you're always going to be with me, Sango."

"Yup. It's because you might be stupid. Houshi-sama, but you're still my Houshi-sama. My Miroku." Finally, she sighed and admitted what I had longed to hear from her for some sadistic reason. "I don't want to leave you, Miroku. I'll still be watching out for you, but I won't be able to touch you, hold you, kiss you… But I'm glad I'm leaving behind you, Miroku, to take care of all our children."

"Please don't watch over me," I joked. "I don't want you to see all the beautiful girls I'm going to…" Her hands tightened around my waist. She said my name warningly. She was so close to death but still so strong and persuasive!

"Sorry! I was just joking. I only wanted to lighten the situation… I didn't do a good job of it. I'm sorry. I just… I want to see you smile at me, Sango. Just one more smile. I want to make sure that you're really happy when… when you… pass on. I want to make sure I made you happy all the way to the end!"

Sango lifted her face from my shoulder. She brushed my grey-streaked hair from my slowly failing eyes, her brown ones level with mine, and scared. The thought of Sango being scared of leaving me, scared of death, made my skin erupt in gooseflesh. "You have made me happy, Miroku. If you want, please, tell me a bedtime story, the kind you would tell Arashi and Shippo when you put them to bed. They always went to sleep smiling if you told them a story. I can't think of a better way to spend my time with you, like this, then to be able to hear your voice and listen and feel it as you hold me and I fall asleep smiling, just like our children."

I laughed a little, and I shifted her in my arms. Her head lay over my heart, her legs mingling with mine, and I reclined on the hill. The night air was cool against the worn fabric of my robe. I don't know, that night, why I chose to wear my old robes. I suppose they gave me a feeling of youthfulness and of comfort. A monk could deal with death, a monk could deal with losing a loved one, a monk could deal with mourning.

A man, even a demon slayer, couldn't.

"Allow me to tell you a story!" I exclaimed, settling down, enjoying my duty. I enjoyed coming up with stories. "This one starts many, many years in the future. There, there was a young girl who was very pretty, but she had very bad dreams. This girl, you see, was a reincarnation of a girl who lived very, very long ago. She was so distracted, thinking about the strapping young monk in her dreams that she got herself into a spot of trouble."

"Oh?" Sango sounded amused. "What exactly happened to her?"

"Hm… she fell into a river. A very deep, fast moving river." I grinned, recalling the fight with the false water god and the first move I had ever made on Sango, planning on breathing for her. "As she cried for help, swallowing water in great gulps and choking, a young man who was very handsome and highly intelligent, heard her cries. He bravely threw himself into the river. He swam against the current, and grabbed the half-drowned woman, drawing her to safety.

"Drawing her up on the shore of the river, he pressed his lips to hers, giving her the sweet breath of life. She coughed up the water in her lungs and stared at the young man who had saved her. She was awe-struck, her heart pounding in her chest. She was in love and he…"

Sango cut me off. "You know, I would never be so stupid as to fall into a river, even if I was thinking about you."

"It's my story! If you don't like it, you can write your own story."

Giggling at my cute face, Sango forced herself to agree with my pathetic excuse. "I suppose I can let you get away with that. Okay, so my future self gets into 'a spot of trouble' as you say, and the love of my life, of both past and future, will save me and I will fall in love all over again. Then what?"

"Well, then we proceed to make amazing, mind-blowing love right there on the beach."

"We're on a beach now? I thought we were on the banks of a river! And just because I was married to you for twenty-six years in this life doesn't mean that I'm going to jump in your pants as soon as I meet you in your next life!" Sango complained with a smile on her face. I think she was trying to infuriate me for her own amusement. "I'm not a pervert, Miroku. What do you take me for? A slut who will have sex with whatever man I tumble across?"

"Okay, fine. She doesn't have sex with the handsome, kind man who just risked his life to save hers. First, they fight for a whole day and a whole night about whether or not the girl was really able to have saved herself, or if she needed rescuing." Sango laughed out loud, and I rejoiced in the sound. I knew she'd like that part. "Okay then, after they fight for a whole day and a whole night, they profess their undying love for each other and that's when they have mind-blowing, passionate sex! The best sex ever, in the history of the whole world!"

"Are they still on a beach?"

I rubbed my chin. "That's a good question. I don't know if they are still on a beach. No, I think we'll put them in a bed. Yes, they went to the boy's house because they were hungry, and he was a good cook? Did I say 'boy'? I meant to say 'man'!"

We were silent. Sango rubbed my kesa between her fingers. "Do you think that we really will be able to find each other in the next life, Miroku? I mean, we won't have any memories of this life, will we? How will we recognize each other? Besides looking different, we'll be two different people. We'll be leading two different lives, and because of such, we will be different people. It's not like I can go to every shrine or temple I see and ask if they have a lecherous monk, because you might not be a lecherous monk in the next life. You might not even be a man in the next life, Miroku! Maybe you'll be a girl!"

I kissed her hair gently and snickered a little, imagining my head on the body of a voluptuous girl. Okay, the image was jejune, but it was a comfort on a frightening night. I touched Sango's chest, cupping a breast in my hand. "Imagine, having a pair of these of my own…"

"Miroku!" She slapped my hand away from her chest, laughing. I felt my face fill with love for her. This time, when I closed my eyes, it was not out of hatred for the calming celestial lights, but to listen closely to her laughter, memorizing the sound in my mind so that I could replay it and cherish it on the cold nights I knew would come in the years ahead.

She breathed in deeply. "I love the way you smell, Miroku. I love your voice, and your stories. Thank you, Miroku. Thank you for loving me. Honestly, sometimes I thought you were too good for me. Hm, I know, it sounds weird, me not feeling good enough for you, what with you being a pervert and all, but it's true. No mater how other people may see you, Miroku, you've always seemed perfect to me."

I looked down at her. I could barely see her face in the darkness, her eyes shining with tears. My voice caught in my throat. How could I tell her that I had always felt the other way around, that she was too good for a man such as myself when she had said it with such simple sincerity that no eloquence could match it? "I… I did?" She nodded, turning towards me a bit more as the tears slipped over her blushing cheeks. "But… why?"

"Because you've always been nice to me, and to the people I've cared about. My friends, our students, our family… You gave me everything I wanted, you were everything I needed, you protected me and everything I loved. I suppose that because I loved you, I only saw the good things, the bad were inconsequential, and now I find myself asking, 'What bad?' You never lied to me, never cheated, never failed to be a good role model or a teacher…"

"But… we fought…"

"Everyone fights. Fighting is just bad communication, as Kagome once yelled at Inuyasha when he was having one of his brooding moments." Sango shrugged a little, playing with my robes still. "Kagome said once, that a man in the future said something along the lines of 'never say a man is happy until his death'. Looking at my death now, I can say it. I was, am, and will be happy. The reason for it is because I shared my life with my friends and family, and you were both… Miroku."

I dried her cheeks for her, kissing her with all the love I could.

We kissed for a long time; over the days and years, I had only grown to love Sango more.

"Do you believe, Miroku, that there is only one person for everyone?"

"Absolutely, Sango," I purred, cradling her in my arms. "You see, I knew a young man who had his eyes on many women, and then he met one girl who seemed on the surface to be entirely the wrong person for him. She rejected his advances, chastised him, got jealous easily… But they lived happily ever after. Oh sure, they had their share of troubles, all of them hard and leaving behind scars, but they were able to overcome those hard times because they had each other. They were attracted to each other's similarities and differences. Over time, they became so close they seemed intertwined and unless one knew these two before they wedded, it would be impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

"As a result, they will always be inseparable, and one day, I will find you again to get back that piece of myself, Sango, only to find that you are the best one to hold it." I gazed down at her, finding her asleep. I kissed her cheeks, and she did not wake. "I love you, Sango."

The sunrise that morning was filled with hope, filled with beautiful colors, like flower orange, deep violet, and my favorite, coral pink.

---

Sango didn't get to see it.

Arashi wiped clean a bit of blood from her sword; from Sango's old sword. I can still remember giving it to Arashi after Sango had died a year and a half ago, still remember the way her eyes filled with respect and she clutched the sword in her hand. She had taken excellent care of it, keeping the blade so sharp she could slice a leaf floating on the breeze.

The breeze…

We were walking back from the demon slayer village. It was Kari's third child, and she had specifically asked for Arashi, not just because my daughter was getting a reputation as being one of the best healers around, but because Arashi was Sango's daughter, and Sango had been like a mother to her. If her mother couldn't be there, than the girl that Kari had helped to raise should be, she had said.

I was there as an escort to my daughter. The roads were becoming more and more dangerous, but perhaps it was my age that made me look fondly on the past and remember those times as being better than the present. We had been attacked by demons, but Arashi pressed on. She wanted to make it back before dark, and so we continued.

Sheathing her sword, her hands moved quickly as she spoke. "Oh, Daddy, you wouldn't have believed it…"

Arashi stopped, lifting her eyes from the road to the forest around us. Her eyes flashed, steeling over. I stopped as well, closing my tired eyes to the sounds she was hearing, to the auras she must be sensing. More demons?

"Human auras," I said, gripping my staff. I was tired from fighting the last battle, though it had been no more than simple weasel demons, once an easy kill for me, and the weasel demon had already been weakened, probably by another monk.

Yes, I wore my monk robes all the time after Sango died. I think, deep down, that some part of me still had not accepted that she was gone. My demon slayer armor was hidden under my robes. I leaned heavily on my staff. It was not my shakujo, but a heavy wooden staff capable of bearing much more of my weight than my normal staff. We waited to see if they were friends or foes, Arashi slipping behind me slightly and gripping her sword handle, ready to leap out and take them by surprise if they were attackers. Being a priestess and a girl, they would not expect her to be so adept with a sword.

Men emerged from the dense forest around us. They were armed and scarred, with unhealed sores which oozed puss and blood, and their fingers caked with dirt. Their armor was ill-kept, and chipped, no doubt ripped off from the men that they had killed, their weapons rusty but still sharp. They stared at us a moment, and we them, and then someone said "It's just a priestess and some old monk. We won't get anything of value from them."

The largest men there knocked the speaker on the head. "Maybe not, ya idiot, but she's got a pretty little sword, that one. Think she can use it?"

My daughter only grinned. I wish she would keep her mouth shut, and she did. But her body didn't. Sensing the coming fight, she sank her feet into the ground, tightening her fingers around the hilt of her sword.

"Boss!" another man said, elbowing the second speaker. He whispered in his ear, but Arashi and I could catch a few of the words, and the lust in his eyes made it obvious of what he was thinking.

Disgusted, Arashi rolled her eyes. "Bandits. I hate bandits."

I lifted my staff, holding it in both hands. "Remember, they're humans. Try to avoid killing blows, love."

"Get them!"

The order was simple and quick. The men rushed us. I turned my back to Arashi, trying to keep us both from getting surrounded and flanked by the swarming men, but we were soon driven apart. I was overly wary. My staff was heavier and thicker than my shakujo. Though better for walking, it was harder for me to fight with. If one of those axes or maces broke my staff, I would be unarmed, and in a fight such as this one, it was a very bad thing.

The familiar sound of Sango's blade meeting blade filled the air. Arashi was as good as Inuyasha; I needed to take care of myself. Blocking a low strike, I felt some of my muscles tear, but I didn't feel any pain. I blocked another strike calmly and slipped up my staff, butting the attacker with the pommel of my weapon. He crumpled to the ground and more took his place.

Time began to mean nothing. I blocked and attacked like an automaton. The wind rustled around me, leaves kicking up at my feet. I felt stronger than I ever had in my life, especially when the wind touched me. The wind always reminded me of Sango; her breath on my neck, my name on her lips, even the way she had held my hand that contained the kazaana.

But in the end, the sound of a female scream made me stop. It made everyone stop. The leader held my daughter, his dirty fingers laced in her black hair and fingernails digging into her scalp. His rusty dagger pressed against her pale neck, and Arashi's hands clasped his wrists, trying to pull him away. Her white shirt blossomed with blood on her shoulder. The wound had caused her to drop her sword, which was now held by another bandit.

"Drop your weapon."

Staring at my daughter, I dropped my staff on the ground. It landed in the dirt with an intense thud, kicking up a bit of dirt. Arashi's eyes opened when she heard the sound, and her grey eyes filled with fear not for herself, but for me.

This was the one fear that Sango had never been able to alleviate. Helplessness. We both had a problem with it, Sango and I. She didn't like being incapacitated, and I didn't like it either when it came to battle. I hadn't been bred to fight, and I had relied on the kazaana too often. Without it, in battle, ironically, I felt weak.

I knew Sango's moves. I could have fought beside her blind, just by the way her aura moved in battle as it brushed my mind. When I was younger, if it had come to this scenario, I would have unleashed the wind tunnel and sucked up everyone. But Sango and I, surely, would have never come across such a scenario. If she had, if we had contended with this before, I might have been able to deal with the sudden sense of helplessness that put me in control of the leader's words, that froze my body and made my mind scream for the wind-tunnel, beg and plead to have it back just for this one moment, just so that I could help Arashi.

Had it reopened, I would have sucked in all of those fucking bastards for even looking at my daughter!

The wind began to pick up. I remembered once someone asking me if Sango was going to transform into a demon when she was very pissed. She was strong enough for someone to mistake her aura for that of a furious demon's. For a moment I felt that anger, I felt that power rising like a wind around me as if by thought and will alone. I could make the wind tunnel reappear and swallow the souls of all these men!

"What should I do with the monk?"

The leader looked at me, at my shabby clothes, the graying hair, and the furious eyes. Though dirty, he was smart, and knew just how to hurt both of us. "Hmph. Kill him."

The wind stopped.

The beating of my heart, so loud in my ears, stopped.

The ground rushed up at me, and I watched the bloody sword protruding from chest disappear from my heart and lungs. I landed in the dirt with a thud, just like my staff had a moment ago.

I felt warmth on my chest. I vaguely heard my breathing become raspier.

And I heard Arashi screaming.

---

I screamed.

Gripping the collar of the man holding me still, I pulled him over my shoulder with a strength I couldn't muster before. I pulled him over my shoulder, twisting his dagger out of his grasp. I flung him on the ground and dove the dagger across his neck, spraying blood into the still air before I whirled on the other men still standing.

And I showed them just what Inuyasha had taught me, how strong I was, how like my mother.

They screamed. Oh, how they screamed.

Those bastards had taken my father.

I was the only one who left that path alive. When I got to Daddy, he was already dead, but his body was still warm. I held him, and I grieved. I cried until I couldn't utter a single sound, my throat torn from sobs and curses no priestess should know. I held him so close! And like him, I could do nothing. I could do nothing to save him.

But then, the winds stirred the trees. It kissed my cheeks and brushed my hair. My sense of calm, my power, my aura, my mask, covered me again. I became impenetrable.

Though covered with blood, I didn't leave until I had buried my father.

---

Shippo greeted me at the temple when I returned home. His juvenile voice was happy, until he saw that I was alone, and he saw the blood that covered my hands, my feet, that drenched my shirt and splattered my face, matting together my hair.

"Arashi!" he cried, scampering after me as I brushed by him. "Arashi! What happened? Whose blood is that? Are you hurt?" And then, finally, the question that I knew would break his little heart. "Where's Miroku?"

"I need to cleanse myself," I said wearily, undoing the bonds of my shirt. I felt disgusted with myself. The blood crawled on my skin like a giant disease, trying to find a way to filter into my body. I needed to cleanse myself lest I become infected. "Their dirty blood… I need to cleanse myself. And their screams… I killed them, those bastards, and even from beyond the grave, they mock me!"

His green eyes filled up with nervousness, his tail moving so quickly it was positively vibrating. I dropped my shirt on the ground, heading to the sacred pond in the back of the shrine where I could purify myself. Shippo gripped the bloody shirt in his little hands. "Arashi! What happened to him!"

Silence; then, abruptly…

"Dead."

It took a moment for things to sit in for Shippo. I couldn't stand to look at him, but he slowly moved forward, dragging my shirt in the grass and wrapping his arms around my legs. I continued talking, because somehow talking made it hurt less. "We were attacked by bandits. They killed him. And I… I went insane, Shippo. Their screams… I took pleasure in their screams. I took pleasure in their pain, in making them hurt as much as I did when I saw them stab him. No one made it out of their alive, except for me, and that's only in a manner of speaking.

"Mother and Father had always told me 'be careful with the humans. They have families, they have loved ones, like you do. Try and reason with them, scare them off, they're really just cowards. Never kill humans. Demons think less of us, but try to reason with them if you can. Kill the demons, never think twice about doing that, because to them, we're prey, but to other humans, we are equals.' I had only ever killed demons until today. Now… there were ten of them. I killed them all. Ten men, Shippo! And they laugh at me from beyond the grave because I stained myself with their blood, and I will never be the same again."

Shippo felt worse than I did. I had had some time to grieve. Shippo was suddenly, and very painfully aware of his predicament. He had known it was coming, he knew that one day Miroku would die, but he had always expected it to take more than a year and a half. Father had been strong after all, though his muscles hurt more and he was having trouble reading, he was still sharp minded and strong. Shippo was going to watch the people he loved grow old and die, and somehow, it had been easier to tell himself he could deal with it than it was to actually accept the people he though of as mother and father being dead, and that he would never see them again.

He shuddered. I couldn't face my brother as I heard him start to cry. I couldn't comfort him. I was ruined, I was disgraced for having killed those men. Besides, how was I supposed to comfort something as big as this? But Sango and Miroku would have done it. They would have found some way to comfort him.

Shippo looked up at me, and I helplessly shook my head. His bottom lip shook, and he tried his best to hold back his tears. Ashamed to cry in front of me, and furious with himself that he was suddenly looking up to me for help instead of offering it to me, he ran. I don't know where he ran to, not at first, because at first I went and I bathed. I soaked in the tub for as long as I could stand. When I came out, my fingers were not only wrinkled but had the slightest tinges of blue, my nose was pink and I was sniffling. But the blood was all gone. I was once again purified.

Then I tried to find Shippo. I found him at the well. He always seemed to go to the well or to the tree whenever he had a problem. He was curled up inside the well. It amazed me that he was able to climb in and out of the old thing. Personally, I don't think I could have done it. I sat on the edge of the well and called out softly for him to come up and join me.

When he reached the top, he looked up at me, and he frowned. "You don't look like you're in mourning at all," he said, and it was true. I looked like I normally did. My gaze was even and level, and I sat straight and tall, an impressive force that took others by surprise. But inside I felt hollow, so very hollow!

"Shippo, the time has come to make changes. Father and Mother are dead. I… I need to do things, and you have to see that I'm right in doing them. The well will not continue to remain open. The others… Kaede-chan, Uncle Inuyasha and Aunt Kagome, they can't continue to come here anymore. The timeline must be straightened out. It saddens me that I'm the one to have to do this… Listen to me, Shippo, listen to me carefully."

I told him my plan. At first he hated it, but then he started to realize that I was right. It was a paradox. For Kagome's timeline to work out, I needed to do this. It was fate that I should make these decisions, and she laughed at me that I had to take the rest of Shippo's family from him.

We mourned together that day. The entire day we sat alone in the shrine, praying and crying, and by night we were exhausted, but we felt better. Shippo refused to leave my side, and I loved him for it. I loved having him there, on my shoulder. The following night, we went to the well, and Kirara even followed us, trotting beside us. She had left her post with the demon slayers and had decided that we needed her comfort more that evening.

Shippo held the demon cat tightly as I worked my magic. By dawn's first light, I was exhausted, and I carried a sleeping Shippo ad Kirara back to the village. The illusion was complete. The timeline would be fixed now. I had sealed the well, both physically and spiritually. Kagome and Inuyasha would not be able to come back.

I hoped.

That was what the plan was. Whenever Kagome came back to the well, she came back the same number as years and days as she always did. Confusing? Kagome's well wasn't a link back into just one day in the past. It was a link back a certain number of years and days, it seemed, so that as time passed in her world, it also passed in ours, always on the same steady flow. In Kagome's past, in my future, someone had sealed the well with a lid to keep anyone from falling into it, and to keep anyone from the future from coming through time.

A little under five hundred years, Kagome Higurashi would break that shield as a sixteen year old girl, and Mistress Centipede would break the physical barrier, drawing her back five hundred years into the past. But if Kagome Higurashi, the wife of a demon and the priestess in the Higurashi shrine, were to try coming back, she would not be able to because the spell exists in my time, unlike in the days of Kaede and Naraku, because she hasn't broken it yet. She will break it, all those centuries from now.

I hope.

I didn't want them to cross over anymore. Kagome would continue being in her time, and hopefully my parents would be reincarnated there. Shippo would continue being here, and I would put him in charge of the shrine after I left. It needed a permanent guardian, someone to take care of it until the next priestess was trained. Shippo would fail once or twice in his duties, I knew this, and it would be him who would move the shrine further into the woods, where it could have some safety, and build the new shrine up around Inuyasha's tree and the well there.

And in the end, Shippo would grow up, and find them again in the future sometime. I would fade into remembrance. My parents would find each other in the future, and who knows? Maybe I would be reincarnated too and I would have the joy of seeing them again. But Shippo, Shippo was the key. He would guide everything so that everything would be perfect, and everything would happen exactly as it had. He would guard the shrine, rebuild it when it would burn down, protect the village, guide the demon slayers…

I loved my brother so much, it pained me to put such a weight on him, but I felt it was a necessity.

He stirred in my arms and I smiled at him as the wind gently drifted by us. "Shippo? Do you hear that? It's the wind. It's their wind. Every time you feel that wind, it's Mother and Father telling you that they love you, it's them giving you strength and guidance… Every time you feel that wind, Shippo-chan, think of them."

"I will," he promised me, slowly falling asleep again.

Everything was too perfect. I should have realized that something was wrong.

The next morning, I woke up and found my cousin in the shrine, praying. She looked at me when I walked in, smiling her cheerful, Kagome-like smile. The Tetsusaiga was laying beside her. I stared in shock. "Ka… Kaede! When did you get here!"

"Yesterday morning. The demon slayers told me that you were in mourning, so I figured that you and Shippo could use some time by yourselves. Don't forget that I'm at least partially trained too, Arashi. I can help take care of the shrine if you need more time in mourning. Don't force yourself or anything." She stood up gracefully, slipping the sword in the belt she always wore. When she came to this world, she always wore the same red pants as I, but her father's armor, and we both carried our swords the same way. We looked very much like sisters, but I was staring at her. "What is it?"

"You… you came here yesterday? Kaede… I sealed the well yesterday."

"Oh." She looked confused a moment, and then it dawned on her. "You sealed it before I got here, right?" she asked hopefully, though her face fell when I shook my head. She had not been able to break through the well. She had not been strong enough to make it through the well and my wards. She had come here before I had cast the ritual.

"Undo it!" she ordered, the slightest hint of panic in her voice.

I shook my head. "I don't know how, Kaede."

"So…" she said, swallowing hard. "I'm stuck here in the feudal era…"

"Yes," I replied gently, swallowing. "It seems that you are."

---

-Sango and Miroku's story will be continued in 'Comrade in Arms'

-As for Kissaki and Kaede-chan…. I have to write their story still, but as a temporary title, I think I might call it 'Duty and Honor'. Or vice versa! ::smiles::

-Oh, and please, remember that all like all evil…er, good geniuses, I have a master plan… Even if I don't know what it is yet!