He found it in the ‘fantasy’ section of the local library, when he was idly browsing for something interesting to read. He’d long ago gotten bored of the monotonous and droning history texts that weren’t even accurate. There was nothing about demons or mikos or anything he knew to be real.
That was all fiction to humans nowadays, though he supposed it was, in part, his own fault.
He, personally, had destroyed far past half of the demon population, after all. The few that remained cowered under his iron rule, fearing his wrath.
It started with a little girl, and he never expected to see her portrayed in a book.
---
Forward
Hi. Thank you so much for picking up this book. I hope you, as the reader, take it to heart. It’s true. All of it. And here I have risked my sanity, my happiness and my standing in society to give you this story, to let you know of the heros that history never bothered to remember. Those people were shunned and forgotten because they weren’t like the majority of the world’s populace.
So I hope to the gods that make me the person I am that you read it.
Welcome to the third book in my series - Sengoku Jidai Abanchu-ru.
Please read this touching story of a child, a demon and the reality that thrust them together.
---
The author’s name was Higurashi Kagome. He recognized that name. Kagome. It was the miko that had traveled with his brother - half brother, a voice mocked him internally. We’re half brothers, bastard.
Inuyasha never had used his name much, had he?
“I know that,” he said softly and went up to the teller, buying the book even if it wasn’t for sale. He ignored the woman’s wide eyes when he dropped a bundle of much-needed money down onto the counter and left with the book. All he could do was stare at the art on the front.
Stare at Rin’s face, and his eyes hovering in the background. He wondered briefly if Higurashi had drawn the art herself.
---
Her name was Rin. She was a gorgeous, thoughtful little girl with an unparalleled love of flowers and pretty things... and him. He was her master, her lord, her true love, though not in a romantic sense. No, he was much closer to a father than a lover.
She was only a child, and he had long since matured into an adult.
I think one of the things that touched those who knew her and loved her was the fact that she didn’t see with her eyes. Well, she saw with them, loved to stare endlessly at a broad back and silvery hair, as well as silken petals and colorful decorations. She did love to see with those big, beautiful brown eyes.
But no, even if she saw with those eyes, she didn’t see with them. She saw with her heart.
She loved and laughed and lived with her heart.
---
Sesshomaru, seated in a chair in his dusty, musty studio, set the book down and closed his eyes, lifting a hand to rub his nose. It was so true. His little Rin...
---
He was a daiyokai. Yes, that’s right, a daiyokai. If you’ve read my other books, you’ve read mention of him and ‘met’ him before. The feared daiyokai, older brother of Inuyasha.
If you haven’t read my other books, here is a description of him.
He was fierce. Angry, when we first met. Passionate, possessive, protective of what was his, and he counted few things among his possessions. His eyes glowed with a fiery fury when crossed, yet chilled you to the bone if he didn’t care about what was happening.
He was terrifying, deadly, amazing, beautiful... I don’t think there are enough words in the dictionary to describe the brilliance that was the icy demon prince Sesshomaru. Even his name struck fear into the hearts of his enemies.
But I have had the opportunity and the privilege of witnessing his one and only true weakness.
Her name was Rin.
---
Sesshomaru jumped when lightening flashed, sometime around four in the morning. He was halfway through the book now, and hadn’t even noticed when the wind picked up and the rain started to fall.
He looked out the window and sighed.
Feeling sorry for yourself again, Sesshomaru? You have nothing anymore, right? Because of what you did. Because of what you let happen.
He longed to silence the bitter, mocking words in his head, but he’d heard them ever since that day.
Ever since the day that everyone he knew died or vanished.
---
It’s something that I hate to tell, this final piece. I hate to tell it because this story doesn’t have a happy ending. This book is the last, will tell the ending, and how I returned home to the future, how I never saw anyone else again.
I can only assume everyone died.
Leaving me alone again.
She was so fierce and beautiful, standing there in the middle of the battlefield. When Naraku knocked Sesshomaru down, that thirteen year old little girl ran to his rescue. She wasn’t very big, and was muddy from half a day’s rain already. She threw herself over Sesshomaru, sobbing, and pleaded for his life.
Inuyasha had gotten in the way, standing between her and Naraku.
As the battle raged on around us, Rin wept for her wounded lord. He placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her up, so she wasn’t getting herself bloodied up on him anymore. I don’t know what he said, but he whispered to her.
Slowly, Rin stood and stepped between the fight and her lord. It was not the reaction Sesshomaru was expecting, for his eyes widened and a stunned expression crossed his face.
We all watched Naraku strike Inuyasha down in the following moments. A tentacle ripped him apart, right before my eyes. I was already crying, but then, I felt numb.
My Inuyasha was gone.
---
Sesshomaru had to stop there and get ready for work. He worked at an office as someone’s secretary. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
But it was part of keeping a low profile.
Why are you afraid, Sesshomaru? Are you really afraid of facing him? Just go out and kill him already. You know where he is. You know where he hides. You can do it. You don’t need anyone else, remember? That’s what you’ve always said.
“Shut up,” Sesshomaru muttered as he straightened his tie, checked his shoulder-length black hair in the mirror (dyed of course) and left for work.
The whole day, his mind was on that book.
Ten long hours later, he locked his studio door behind him again and picked it back up.
---
To this day, I don’t quite know what happened. All I know is that Naraku struck Rin down, tearing her viciously to pieces like an old unwanted toy. Then he came after me, but Sesshomaru was in the way.
Wounded, brilliant Sesshomaru, furiously ripping tentacles off and tossing them away like so many petals of the flowers Rin so loved and cherished.
A tentacle got me, though. One landed near me and wrapped around me, squeezing the air from my lungs. It’s end turned to a point and plunged into my chest. I remember screaming. I remember pain like nothing I had ever, ever felt before. It felt like he was ripping my ribcage out through that tiny hole.
I started to glow an iridescent pink, then. Somehow, the world went black and when I woke...
Perhaps I’d wished none of this had ever happened. But when I woke, I was perfectly healthy, laying in bed.
On my 15th birthday.
---
He remembered the day all too well. Remembered it like it was yesterday (sometimes, he would delude himself into thinking it was, and then the pain would be raw again and Inuyasha would stop mocking him, disgusted with him and and and and).
“I love you, Rin. You are my daughter, my family. I don’t want to lose you. Run. Run away, please, Rin.”
“Sesshomaru-sama...” she whispered, lips parting in saddened shock. She gulped and stood, fire in her eyes. “Sesshomaru-sama, I love you too. But I was never your daughter.”
He’d watched her walk to her death. He had been too weak, too stupid to stop her! His little Rin, his daughter, the girl who had, at some point, fallen hopelessly in love with him.
Romantically.
How could he have just watched her die? She’d known she would die. He saw it in her eyes, but she was doing what she thought was the right thing. She was stepping up and protecting her beloved from certain death (perhaps she’d known what his reaction would be and had counted on it to save his life. It had).
The girl that had saved him... she was no longer a girl. Not really. She’d had a girl’s body and a girl’s mind, but her heart was that of a woman’s.
Avenge her, bastard, a voice whispered.
Sesshomaru stared down at his hand, watching as claws slid out of his fingertips, gleaming and sharp.
Avenge her he would.
---
Kagome was getting ready. She was still searching, but she was getting ready. Soon, she’d find him, and make him pay for all the lives he’d wasted.
Slim fingers curled into angry fists as she glared out the window. Kagome had changed a lot since she’d returned. She was twenty now, wise, smart, accomplished... crazy, angry, depressed.
Her destiny was irrevocably changed. She no longer had the Shikon, but that was fine. She just needed to kill Naraku now. Even if it meant dying too.
“Neesan?”
The voice belonged to her fifteen year old brother, who eyed her uncertainly.
“I’m going out again,” Kagome replied, turning back to her shoulder bag. It was packed with various items; knives, arrows, a crossbow. She’d be ready this time. It wouldn’t end like last time. She wouldn’t lose Sota and Emiko like she had gramps.
---
She’d just come home from school. She’d been home a week. No one remembered. No one cared. Her mother did realize something was up with her and had put her into counseling. He’d suggested she write a book about this supposed experience of hers.
Maybe she would.
Closing the door behind her, she toed her shoes off and set them neatly on the shoe rack before trailing through the house. She stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, staring.
Her mother turned and smiled. “Kagome! I’m so happy to see you!” she greeted cheerfully. “Your teacher stopped by with such praise! I’m making oden for dinner as celebration!” She turned to the dark-haired male smiling gently up at Kagome. “Naraku-san, are you staying?”
Naraku met Kagome’s eyes. “No, no, I couldn’t,” he replied, amused.
Kagome swallowed. “No...”
---
Initially, she’d thought that everything had been erased, but that wasn’t quite the case. Her disappearances in the future had been reset. However, her time in the past was set in stone.
She’d found that out the hard way, and now her grandfather was dead and her mother believed her story. Sota had once expressed that he didn’t believe her and gramps was just murdered by a regular human.
Kagome guessed she didn’t blame him. After all, he’d never met Inuyasha himself. Not this time around.
With a sigh, she stepped from the house, into the cool night air, Sota’s protests and Emiko’s sorrowful glances left behind. She had to do this. For gramps, for Inuyasha. For everyone.
Naraku had to die.
---
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” Dr. Aizawa Nakimo stated, brow quirked slightly as she surveyed her eighteen year old patient. “You actually wrote a book, and even have two more books planned. Amazing.” She gave a faint smile, clearly impressed by the younger woman’s determination.
“But then, you’re wiser than one would assume, right.” It wasn’t a question.
And Kagome didn’t answer. Instead, she just stared out the window, contemplating. Now that her hunt for Naraku was somewhat tempered by the writing of her book, she was noticing a lot of things. Like her state of physical health.
She’d lost quite a bit of weight and was only now gaining it back.
Her psychiatrist seemed to notice this. “It’s been doing you some good, I see. Your mother says you’ve gained five pounds in the last two weeks. She says that you’ve been eating more since you started writing.” Aizawa’s brow lifted again. “I’m glad.”
“... it’s not because it’s helping my mental state any,” Kagome said after a moment, realizing it was true as soon as she said it.
Aizawa frowned at this and made a note on her clipboard. “Oh? Then why is it?”
Kagome shrugged. “It helps me focus. I eat while I write, and that keeps me focused.”
“Do you-”
“I eat a lot of ramen,” Kagome interrupted, ignoring the frown that furrowed Aizawa’s brows.
“Why?” the woman asked, instead of continuing with her previous line of thought.
Kagome finally looked away from the window, blue eyes dark with melancholy. “He likes ramen.”
---
Kagome trudged through the park, eyes narrowed. She felt him. She knew he was near.
Naraku...
---
“Do you have any proof? Besides your word?” Sota demanded angrily, on a fit about her obsession with the past.
Kagome, finished with the second book and plotting the third, turned away from the computer. “No,” she answered frankly.
“Then stop it!” he shouted unnecessarily. “I want my sister back! Give her back!”
Kagome just watched him storm away, eyes lowering with shame.
---
It was like déjà vu all over again. Before Kagome had even the slightest chance of defending herself, a tentacle came flying at her out of nowhere. It punched through her chest, making her stumble, and she coughed up blood.
Blue eyes lifted to meet cruel red. This time, unlike many, many times before, there was a crucial difference.
Kagome was ready to die, in order to kill him.
---
It wasn’t really much effort to get fear of his name circulating again. All he had to do was kill the biggest, baddest demon around. Ironically, it was a wolf.
After that, Sesshomaru’s name started to spread, like it had in the past. Many a yokai flinched when they felt his yoki.
He reveled in it.
Now, finally, the fruits of his efforts were beared. He could feel him. He could feel Naraku.
It took less than five minutes to summon his yoki cloud and arrive at his destination. What he found was the last thing he expected.
Though he really should have.
---
Kagome wrapped her bare hands around the tentacle plunged into her chest. She waited, but not for long. Soon enough, Naraku stepped from the trees, smirking at her. “Silly little miko,” he chided. “Did you think you could kill me? How naive of you.”
She gritted her teeth against the pain as he withdrew the limb, regaining his human appearance. She thumped to her knees, held up by a wobbly arm and pure will power. “I hate you,” she replied venomously, clutching her chest with her free arm as he drew nearer. She spat on his boot when he loomed over her.
He sneered. “Stupid woman,” he snarled, grabbing her by the throat and lifting her.
She lifted a hand to shove ineffectually at his chest, ripples of black shuddering through the air between them. Naraku lifted a brow before he threw back his head and laughed. “Look what you’ve done to yourself!” he cried, amused. “A kuromiko! How amusing. Just like your predecessor, aren’t you?”
White-hot fury slammed into her gut like the force of a bullet. “I’M NOTHING LIKE HER!!!” she screamed, face twisting with her anger, her insanity, her anguish.
He scoffed. “You’re just like her,” he replied, fingers tightening around her throat.
She couldn’t scream, so instead, she punched him. It was weak and pointless, but the contact between her fist and his armor reminded her.
She was a miko.
---
He could only stare, watching the scene unfold. The dying kuromiko - once one of the purest mikos he’d ever met - reached out and touched Naraku’s face. He seemed stunned for half a second, likely by the sad expression on her face.
And then, with a flash of black light - a rather ironic description - he turned to ash.
The woman fell to her knees, and would have continued falling if Sesshomaru hadn’t been right there, pulling her back against his chest. This woman, powerful, lovely, evil...
Blue eyes, so dark in color they appeared black, looked up. She smiled crookedly, the light slowly going out of her eyes. “Sesshomaru. I thought I was alone,” she whispered.
“Heal yourself,” he ordered curtly. “Don’t die.” He, too, was alone.
Kagome laughed huskily, weakly. “Are you hurt?” she asked as, slowly, the black aura around her abated, turning lighter and lighter in color.
He shook his head, confused. Why was the black turning pink? “No. Heal yourself.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, lifting a hand and touching his cheek. “Sesshomaru? I’ve got a last request. Please?”
“No.” He scowled. “You’re not going to die.
“Please,” she repeated, sounding so sad.
He stared down at her. In her, she saw brown, brown eyes and brown, brown hair and a smile so sweet...
... Kagome...
“Yes,” he whispered. “Anything.”
“Protect my family,” she pleaded, hand closing over his where it rested on her waist.
She’s going to die, he realized numbly. She’s going to die, because I didn’t get here in time.
Time was repeating itself right before his eyes... “Kagome,” he muttered, cupping her cheek. “I will. I will protect them,” he promised, seeing brown and brown and sunshine.
Slowly, he lowered his mouth to her’s, kissing her gently, tenderly. She pressed her lips back weakly for a moment, eyes sliding shut. Then the pressure stopped.
When he lifted his head, she was asleep.
She would never, ever wake up.
---
Epilogue.
This will be the last book. Thank you so much for reading. It means a lot to me.
My name is Higurashi Kagome, I’m twenty years old, my favorite food is oden and my birthday is March fifteenth.
This is my story, Inuyasha’s story, Rin’s story... Everyone’s story.
I miss you all, so much.
R.I.P.
---
Owari
Thanks so much to everyone that hung out with me and encouraged me! I’m so happy! I mean, it’s not like this is a major novel or whatever, but still. It took a lot of effort and concentration on my part, so I’m glad it’s done. Please vote for me! ^^
Ja ne
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