Don't Wait For Me Forever

An Inuyasha Fan-fiction

I'll start from the beginning.

I'll not say that life has not been kind to me. Life, or Fate, as I like to call it now, gave me all that I wanted, all that I needed to live a life full of joy, full of contentment. But it also gave me something that I didn't need…

Inuyasha.

I won't say that I didn't want him… I won't say that I didn't yearn for him, day after day, life after life…

I won't say that I didn't love him.

But I won't say that I didn't hate him. I won't say I wanted to kill him, to make him suffer, to make him fulfill his promise.

To make him return to me.

My name? It is not important. Nothing is important anymore.

I can still see that day. I can still hear his voice, full of concern, worry, anger, fear…

He held my throat. No, it wasn't Inuyasha, though it might as well have been.

My life hung by a thin thread, swaying in the cold autumn breeze of the Sengoku Jidai. Youkai… Do I hate them? Do I even care anymore?

"Shikon no Tama… Give it to me."

I was afraid. The shards were in my backpack. I couldn't reach for them, and even if I could, I would never hand them over to such a youkai.

"Kagome!"

He called my name. I tried to answer.

"Where are the shards?"

Why had he wanted to know?

"Kagome-sama!"

Had he wanted to trade those shards, those precious shards that we had collected with our blood for my life?

"Fools! Give me the shards and the girl will live!"

Did I shake my head? Did I tell him not to give them to him?

"Kagome!"

Stop calling my name.

"Kagome!"

Stop calling my name.

"KAGOME!"

Don't say my name!

"Kagome, wake up, dear."

Was it morning already? Why did it always feel as if though it were night?

"Breakfast is downstairs. Come and eat when you're ready."

I get out of bed. I head downstairs. I eat. I leave.

The autumn winds play with my hair once again. I can almost smell him. That scent…of woods and hopes long lost, forgotten, buried, burned…

"Kagome!"

I turn, and out of habit, I smile. And I remember times when I did such a thing for him… For he who had betrayed me.

"You must not use the Kaze no Kizu."

"I know that!"

"You'll hurt Kagome-sama."

"I know!"

Inuyasha…

"My patience is wearing thin. Give me the shards now, or I will make sure this girl does not live another day."

"Kagome!" Shippou was crying.

The youkai's long, sharp nailed fingers were wrapped around my neck. My throat was burning with blood. Tears slid off my face. Tears of pain? Tears of hatred? Hatred to whom? Inuyasha, who failed to save me? The youkai who did this to me?

"Attack me and the girl will die."

They were attacked by the youkai without mercy. I can still see him. Inuyasha.

The red of his clothes were indistinguishable from the red of his blood.

He wouldn't run. He wouldn't run and leave me. He wouldn't attack to save me.

"She dies now."

Fingers tighten around my throat. Death comes so quickly, so silently that sometimes we forget that it can even occur.

Blood. The white of my uniform was stained with blood. But he wouldn't allow me to die. He would never allow me to die.

If only he had done the same for himself.

"Sankon Tetsusou!"

The blood of the youkai was mixed with my own. I fell on the ground, my hand barely able to touch my throat. My throat; it was on fire. I could barely move with such pain flowing through me.

"Kagome!"

Inuyasha.

"Gomen. Gomen."

Don't cry. Please don't cry for me.

He had held me in his arms. I caught his scent one last time before I passed into darkness.

"So did you prepare for the math test?"

I nod. I smile. I do what is expected of me, and nothing more. Never again will I return to that time; that time of anguish… Of death.

"Was the doctor able to find any way to cure it?" she asked in a low voice.

I shook my head. She looked crestfallen. I was used to it. I was used to all disappointments after Inuyasha…

"Don't worry! I know that there's a doctor out there that can cure it! I just know!"

I smile at her foolishness. No doctor could fix what Inuyasha had failed in. No doctor would understand that this was more than a physical ailment.

"Maybe it'll heal by itself?" she asked hopefully. Again I just smile and shrug. Nothing heals by itself. Everything is dependent of another.

I had awakened in a place familiar and unfamiliar. The smell of Kaede-baa-chan's herbs reached my nose and I opened my eyes, forgetting what had happened.

"Kagome, you're awake?"

Yes… I couldn't answer. I touched my throat, wondering what was wrong. I panicked, and I looked to Kaede-baa-chan for help. She offered none.

"Your throat was damaged in the attack," she said reluctantly. "I do not know if you can ever speak again."

Never speak again?

"But perhaps your time has the knowledge to heal your broken voice. I do not know…"

Inuyasha walked into the room, looking so guilty, so afraid, so much in pain.

"I'm sorry, Kagome. I…"

I ran over to him and hugged him, shaking my head. It hadn't been his fault for what happened. It had just been fate.

Fate… How I hate that word.

Fate pulled us apart. Fate did this to me. Fate is the one thing that I will never be able to fight, never be able to change, to tame, to love…

He saw me off at the well. No good byes were necessary. I would be back as soon as my throat was healed.

But it will never heal, will it?

"Higurashi, can you come up here and do the problem for us?" the teacher asked uncertainly. I got up and did the problem. It seemed so insignificant when weighed against what had happened to me.

"Excellent work, as usual," the teacher congratulated me. I sat back down, still the Kagome that they had known, that they will ever know.

"Right. So five moles of potassium chlorate is necessary to…"

"Kagome-sama, even the doctors in your time were unable to heal you?"

I shook my head, "no."

"What are we going to do?" Sango was worried. I was like a sister to her. Am I still that to her?

"Kagome…"

Please don't cry, Shippou.

"Inuyasha, what are we going to do?" asked Shippou.

Inuyasha… Don't look so sad…

"I'm going to find the cure."

"What?"

What? How could he find a cure when the doctors of my time failed?

"The mountains… They hold the Flower of Restoration. I'll find it. I'll bring it back. I'll bring back Kagome's voice…"

Why did you lie?

Sunset. The time that Inuyasha dreaded when the night of the new moon approached. He would turn human. He would turn weak. He would turn vulnerable.

The sighing of the trees hardly placates my hatred. I walk home, home to the family that I love… Home…to the place absent of Inuyasha.

"Nee-chan!"

Souta. I have nothing to say to him anymore. I cannot say anything to him anymore.

"Nee-chan, hurry up and come inside. We've got a surprise for you!"

I follow the child up the stairs, into the place where I had once been happy. He opened the door. I look inside hesitantly.

"Kagome, I thought that this would cheer you up."

Mama… A beautiful kimono, white with blue forget-me-nots…and with a sash red as the blood that I had seen too often on him…

"It's for the upcoming festival."

Arigato, Jii-chan…Mama…Souta.

"Come on! Try it on!"

What for? So I can dress up as someone that I no longer am? Someone I will never be again? Someone who was lost in the streams of time…

"Just go back for now."

But I don't want to leave you. I want to go with you!

"I'll get that flower in no time, then… Then we can start searching for the Shikon shards again."

Shikon shards… Is this what it's only about?

"Kagome…"

Yes?

"I… I promise I'll return with that flower."

It's okay if you never get that flower. Just come back in one piece.

"Will you…wait for me?"

Will I wait for you?

I nod. I smile my last true smile.

I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you now and forever.

Forever…

The festival of the dead.

Time to guide the ghosts of the lost home…

Time to watch as lovers stand together, setting lanterns on the water, watching it float farther and farther away. Away from mortals, away from life, away from time…

I want to leave. I can't bear it if I saw him on this night of all nights.

The night of the new moon.

Months passed as I waited patiently, sometimes not so patiently. And still, he did not return. Still I waited. Still I hoped. I wondered until I could wonder no more.

At that moment, did I stop waiting? Did I break my promise of waiting…waiting for him forever?

The light from the well of time enveloped me and brought me back to the place where I had left my heart behind. The calmness of the swaying trees was all an illusion erected to misguide me, to give me a false sense of hope.

He had never returned after his departure.

Miroku did not know what else to tell me. He never returned. He never came back for me.

Mountains, he had said. I had not known what he had meant.

Miroku told me later, but by then it was too late. Mountains… The mountains that were the gates to Hell, the place where all youkai originally came from. The mountains that were likely his grave.

All for the sake of a flower.

All for the sake of my voice.

I hate him.

I'll never forgive him.

How many days did I stay there? Waiting and waiting, hoping and hoping.

On the night of the new moon, it came.

With a tinkle like a bell, it was dropped in the front of Kaede-baa-chan's hut. I went outside to look.

I don't know how long I cried.

The rosary… The rosary, now stained black. The rosary that he could never take off was now resting in my hands.

The mountains of the devil had swallowed him.

I had promised I would wait for his return. Why didn't he promise to return?

"Kagome, shouldn't you go find your friends?"

No, Mama. I won't go find them. Not if it means seeing the past.

With the rosary in my hands, I returned to my world. I did not give up. Still I dreamt, I hoped, I wished for him to come back… To come back like he had said he would.

Had he said he would return?

That day, Eri had told me that she wanted me to meet her boyfriend. She was so happy, and so I was happy with her. For that one day, before her boyfriend came, I forgot about waiting for Inuyasha. I took comfort in her talks of how great her boyfriend was. They seemed to go well with each other. I was happy for them.

Until I saw him.

Inuyasha!

"I want you to meet my boyfriend."

Inuyasha! What's wrong? Don't you remember me?

"I want you to meet…"

"Kagome!"

No. I don't want to see her now.

"Kagome, wait up!"

I walked away from her. I didn't want to see her. But most of all I didn't want to see…

"Wait, Higurashi!"

You never called me that before…

I bit back the tears that were threatening to fall, and instead smiled. Smile… It has become my mask against the world.

"Ah… Eri and I were wondering if you would like to watch the casting of the lanterns with us."

I don't want to watch the casting of the lanterns with you two. I only want to watch the lanterns with you!

"Come on, Kagome. You've been down ever since…" Eri started to frown.

Ever since what? Ever since I saw your boyfriend?

How would you understand? How can you understand the love I bore for that one, long gone?

How can you understand the hatred that I bear you?

You stole him!

You stole the one I love! The one that I had struggled to gain the trust of, the one that I would give my life to! You, who were nothing in his eyes back then. You, who did not even exist in his mind back then!

But the one before me isn't he.

He isn't the one that I had loved.

But why?

Why?

Why was fate so cruel as to give him a face so similar…and yet so different?

"…Inuyasha. Isn't he cute?"

Inu…yasha?

"Stop embarrassing me, Eri."

Inuyasha?

"We met a couple months ago…"

And I met him five hundred years ago…

The last lantern disappeared in the darkness of the night. The ghosts of the year had departed. Then why wasn't he gone from my heart?

I'll wait for you forever.

I won't wait anymore.

I walked up the stairs of the shrine alone. Everyone else was still having fun at the festival. I have no part in that.

The autumn wind blew softly through the trees, whispering.

A single flower fell from the sky and landed before me.

It glowed with ethereal light.

I promised I would give you the flower.

What?

But, you know… I never asked for you to wait…forever.

Inuyasha?

Don't wait for me.

Don't wait for me forever.