The Shikkon Jewel was completed on a night with no moon to speak of.

Inuyasha and the others watched in desperation as the one thing they didn't want happened. Kagome disappeared.

Years passed. Time grew old – as it always does. Inuyasha became a whole demon and lived on, abandoning the others and going on to live in solitude and mourning.

Shippo lived on as well – but died at the young age of 300 years. In human years he would have been about 17. He died after, ironically, being struck by thunder. Exactly as his father had died.

Miroku and Sango tried to have children but Sango soon grew aware to the fact that she was barren. With nothing else to keep her going, knowing she had disappointed Miroku, she killed herself. Miroku died soon after of a broken heart.

Koga the wolf demon disappeared, like Inuyasha to live on alone in the world. There was nothing left for him. His gang all abandoned him and he reverted to taking out his anger on villages – he was swallowed up by his demon side completely and forgot he had ever known a hanyou named Inuyasha or a young miko named Kagome.

After many, many decades legends about all of them grew to be bedtime stories for young children. The one thing that disappointed them all was the ending.

There was none.

Many people tried to come up with a story of what happened after the Jewel was completed. There were many versions of the story. Some say that Kagome wasn't even really there – that all of the adventures they'd heard of since childhood had happened to a young hanyou who happened to become colleagues with a cursed priest and a vengeful woman.

Others say that everything truly ended well – Kagome returned and Inuyasha became a human. Like all other "fairytales" they lived happily ever after.

Wishful thinking.

Inuyasha eventually grew tired and exhausted of life in general. He had been alive far too long, he decided. And so, he destroyed the Shikkon Jewel, returning to his old half-demon self. He then committed suicide, leaving behind only a short letter to anyone that even cared.

.........If anyone really cared.

-Excerpt from the book The Hanyou and The Miko – Author...Unknown

"'Nothing can truly go wrong now – everything already has. I once thought that the world was full of goodness and hope, but it seems that it is just the opposite. Nothing ever goes right.

I don't understand who I am anymore – or what I am supposed to do. Being confused, people once told me, was the one thing in the world that screwed people up.

I have come to believe that this is true.

A young miko left this world for the final time without knowing how I felt because I was confused.

Confused about whether or not I truly loved her or Kikyou.

Confused about what decisions I would make regarding the Jewel.

Confused.

I wonder that the whole world isn't screwed up considering all the confusion wracking the entire earth like a massive earthquake – no, like a tsunami: giant waves suddenly coming to life simply to crash down in an entirely huge epidemic of perplexity, sinking into the soil and into people's hearts and souls.

Funny thing is – I was happy for a while and then it all ended with the departure of a young girl, a girl that I, to this day, regret letting go of.

The day the Shikkon Jewel was completed, my life began falling apart. Where ever I looked, havoc leered at me straight in the eye, while chaos pulled painfully at my hair like a mean little boy.

Anger wrapped itself around my heart and suddenly everything didn't seem so happy.

I wandered for decades, finally a full demon. But now that my wish had come true, what was left?

....

...Nothing.

Eventually I ended up here. In this God-forsaken place.

...The place I will die.

I wonder what would have happened all those years ago...what would have happened if I hadn't been confused – what my life would have been like, living alongside Kagome.

Confusion screws up people's lives.

............................

I know...because it sure screwed up mine.' "

The young girl slowly lowered the note as tears ran down her face and dripped onto the ancient paper she held in her hands. Her beautiful black hair fell around her face like a curtain, covering her face and her pain- filled brown eyes.

"Inuyasha..." she whispered, and then fell to the ground...sobbing.

[Fin]