To Save a Life by Zedaar

Prologue: Predicting the Past

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Sitting on the park bench at the edge of the children's playground, a man in his late twenties watched his little girl as she played among the swings, slides and other equipment. How many more times would he get to do this? How many more times would he get to see her happy smile as she darted around, her ebony hair trailing behind her as carefree as she was? How many more times would he get to see her eyes light up as she made a new friend like she was doing now with another little girl?

The doctor had told him six months. At most.

Six months until the cancer eating away at his pancreas stole his little girl from him. Stole his wife from him. Stole their unborn son from him. He wanted to believe that he would beat it. Beat the disease that was destroying his happiness. Beat the time limit he'd been given. That he would fight to his last for just one more day when the end finally came.

But he was afraid.

He was afraid of the pain. He was afraid of the looks of pity he would get, not from strangers, but from his wife and child. He was afraid that after he died, all they would remember was some skeletal shadow of his former self, struggling to breathe and failing to do anything else. He was afraid that his wife would abandon his weak body, or that his beloved daughter would feel abandoned in the years to come and hate him for leaving.

He didn't want to go.

He wanted to keep his promise to the woman he loved, to be with her forever, to grow old together and spoil their grandchildren. He wanted to see the wonderful woman his daughter would become and have fun scaring away her boyfriends. He wanted to see his unborn son take his first steps, play his first soccer game...

Take his first breath.

'Please,' he prayed. Despite having lived his entire life on a shinto shrine, he'd never really believed in the kami, much to his father's dislike. 'Please give me that much. Let me see my son be brought into this world.'

He dashed the salt water that had welled up in his eyes with the bad of his hand and tried to banish the... grief from his face. As he did so he noticed that at someone had joined him on the bench without him realising. He felt his cheeks warm slightly in embarrassment. It was a woman, quite beautiful, with long black hair and striking blue eyes. It was the eyes that really caught his attention, they were rare among Japanese. His own had come his grandfather – a visiting American soldier just after the war who had fallen in love with a shrine maiden. They had skipped a generation in his own father, but blazed out in both him and his daughter.

Suddenly, he realised he had been staring and his cheeks warmed again. “Sorry. I didn't mean to stare. I just don't often see someone else with blue eyes.”

The woman smiled, a genuine smile that sparkled in those blue eyes. “That's quite alright. I confess it was your own eyes that drew me over here. My little girl just made a new friend with eyes like that and I just knew she had to be your daughter.”

He glanced over at where their children were playing happily. The other little girl had odd, yet very beautiful, silver hair tied back in two plaited pigtails under a broad brimmed floppy hat done in yellow with a red ribbon. The two girls were monopolising the swings now, their mixed giggles easily reaching his ears.

“Yeah,” the man said with a sad smile on his face, “that's my little girl.”

The woman looked pointedly at the broad building that dominated one side of the park. “Not good news then, I take it?”

“No. Pancreatic cancer. Terminal. I'll be lucky to see her next birthday...”

He hated that building. Once he had thought it to be one of the most wonderful places in Tokyo. It was where his daughter had been born after all. It was where his son would be born. But it was there he'd received his death sentence. It was there he would likely die.

He shook his head to clear it. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be unloading all this on you. We've just met. I'm Higarashi Hikaru.”

Hikaru held out his hand and the woman took it. “That's quite alright, Hikaru. I'm a miko, so I'm used to helping others out with their problems, even if its just listening to them.”

“Thank you.”

She tilted her head, looking at him with a strange expression. “I'm guessing you're worried about what's to come? How your family will deal with it? What will happen to them after?”

Hikaru sighed, “Yeah. I love my wife so much... and Kagome really looks up to me. And my son... I'm afraid this will destroy my family. Once I'm gone... Father tries hard, he really does, but he's never really been the best with money. I earn a decent wage now, but that won't last long. And the hospital bills will destroy our savings.”

Suddenly Hikaru felt ashamed. Talking about money to a perfect stranger, like he was begging for a handout.

“Well,” the miko said, interrupting his self-reproach, “what if I could tell you their future? I can, you know. The kami have gifted me with knowing the future just once. Just once, I can look into a person's future and know everything that will happen to them.”

Hikaru laughed softly, “Heh, forgive my scepticism, but my father's the priest at our shrine. All my life I've listened to him going on about the kami and spiritual power but he has never been able to produce anything real. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't quite believe you. Thanks for the thought, though.”

“Some things can be proven. Others require faith.”

“Yeah, I know. My father says the same thing after every failure. But even if it were true, that's too great a gift to waste on...” Hikaru's voice trailed off as his eyes began showing him the impossible. A soft pink glow surrounded the miko's hands.

“This is reiki,” she told him. “In skilled hands, it can purify demons, create barriers and heal wounds. I wish it worked on sickness, but it doesn't.” She had seen the hope flare briefly in Hikaru's eyes and hated to quash it, but it had to be done.

Thoughts and emotions of all kinds stormed through Hikaru's brain. Even later he would not be able to remember them all, but soon, one thought dominated. As much as he wanted to know his future, his family's future, such a thing should not be wasted on him. It should granted to someone worthy. Before he realised it, he'd blurted out exactly that, his brain-mouth filter having shorted out in his shock.

“It's not my choice to make,” the miko told him. “The kami have decreed whose future I know and it has already been done. But you were right in that they would not choose you. They chose her.” She pointed to the little girl who was laughing as she zoomed down the slide, her new best friend following close behind.

Hikaru could only listen numbly as the miko began to tell him his daughter's future. “She will always remember this day. Not only as they day where she had fun in a park with a new friend, but as the day her daddy and mama started being sad a lot. She won't understand why for years to come, but when she does, she'll thank you for spending as much time with her as you could.”

“She'll fall asleep in the hospital while waiting for her little brother to be born, but will be the first person to hold him after both his parents. She'll promise there and then to be the best big sister ever. Her mama will ask her what his name should be and she calls him Sōta. Her daddy will tell her that is the perfect name.”

“She will miss you terribly when you go, but will try her best to keep her promise to her brother. She will grow up doing all those things that young girls do, until the day she turns fifteen.”

Hikaru was almost afraid to ask, “What... what happens when she turns fifteen?”

“She will be pulled into the bone eater's well by a demon and emerge a bit less than five hundred years into the past.”

“Time travel?”

“Yes. There she shall meet the hanyō Inuyasha. Together they will prevent the Shikon no Tama from falling under the control of a demon, only to shatter it in the process.”

“Shikon... that's a legend my father goes on about. I thought it was just a myth.”

“Oh, its very real. They journey together to collect the shards of the jewel and reform it. Along the way Kagome will make friends, adopt a kitsune orphan as her own and have great adventures. She will fall in love, get married and bear you many grandchildren. While they reassemble the jewel she will be able to travel between the two times at will, but once it is completed she will make the choice to remain in the past. ”

The miko took a deep breath, then continued, “She will live a long time. Long enough so that one day, she will take her youngest daughter to a park and introduce her to her grandfather.”

The wind gusted and caught the hat of the young silver haired girl. She caught it immediately and jammed it back on her head, but just for a moment, cute little dog's ears could be seen.