50-3
AU- End of Inuyasha
The well never reopens, leaving Kagome Higurashi seeing things she shouldn't, -Kagome
All the normal disclaimers apply.
The first day was the hardest.
She doesn't know what to make of 'normalcy' as she flops on her bed, pillow crushed against her chest.
Kagome stares at the window longingly, waiting for the boy in the red robe to jump through.
She shakes her head, gets up and makes her way out the door to the bathroom. She needs to get ready for bed, she has school in the morning and needs to get a good night's rest. She can't afford another day off-she's already failing as it is.
Yet, she leaves her window open as she sleeps.
When she walks into school she feels like an outsider. Everyone stares.
Not because 'Kagome Higurashi is coming back to school after all this time?' but because of her disheveled appearance.
She thinks this is only one sleepless night for many to come.
It's been weeks since and catching up on work has been a breeze.
Sure, she doesn't understand some of the math, fumbles with sentence structure, has to attend extra tutoring and might possibly be left back if she doesn't get her things in order but it's been going well.
She has her amazing friends to help her after all. Even if Eri, Yuka and Ayumi seem a little distance these days. They're still willing to help.
But she doesn't let the distance bother her, because after all, soon the well will reopen and she'll rejoin everyone else again.
When her history class starts the Sengoku Jidai period, she can't help but excuse herself for most of the lessons.
Though she weirdly passes all the tests with perfects scores.
Her friends are baffled by this. Yuka, tired of getting low marks on tests decides to ask Kagome for her notes on the era. When she gets declined with the poor excuses of 'I don't really take good notes' or 'I just have a good memory,' she doesn't believe it.
With Eri's support and Ayumi's dismayed attempts to talk her down, Yuka steals Kagome's history notebook when she's not looking.
All she finds inside are doodles of fire cats with two tails, small fox boys surrounded by fire, little fleas in the corners of the book, two-headed dragon horse hybrids and the occasional cartoonish raccoon. Yuka quickly puts the book down and walks away.
Now that they think of it, Yuka, Ayumi and Eri haven't seen or heard of her biracial 'boyfriend' for a while.
Hojo walks with them as they go home together and overhears there chatter and gossip and worry about Kagome's recent quiet attitude. He was initially going to wait for Kagome till her tutoring finished but the group of girls urged him to walk with them and now he sees why.
They wanted him to overhear.
And now he will make his move.
Kagome is presented with a load of beautifully wrung-together flowers in a basket and lots of herbal medicines and tea's.
A lot of them, a lot of them are old fashioned remedies she's seen all too much in the past. So much of them she's had to make herself for when the battles got to tough and when the injuries just got so severe-
"You know? They're for when you get sick again. Your body must be pretty weak, Kagome, from all the recent sicknesses you've had and you know, I just thought these would help-" Hojo rambles on and on about all the herbs he had to look up and how his family's extensive ancestry helped.
Kagome can only stare at the basket in awe and her mind blanking on a name.
It's when they're about to say their good-byes it hits her. Hard.
"Thank you-" Her mind screams Jinenji. "-Hojo," she chokes out and quickly makes her way home.
For art class, Kagome has to design outfits and then by method of choice, has to draw or paint them on models.
She has to choose two outfits and 4 models. So in total she has 8 combos to present in front of the class, along with an explanation for drawing them.
She finds herself drawing a familiar demon slayer outfit and monk garb.
Her models are the demon slayer herself, the monk himself, a certain Inu-hanyou and herself.
She aces the project and takes the criticism well, on how old-fashioned they are.
A part of her mind wonders how old-fashioned they really are when she just saw them a year ago being worn casually as ever.
That night, Kagome dreams of Sango and Miroku's reactions to her art and the sounds of a piercing slap when his hand goes too far down Sango's side.
Buyo wanders into her room one night, as she sits by her desk doing her latest literature assignment.
Kagome takes notice to him, but doesn't take his presence seriously and therefore, doesn't notice when he attempts to jump on her laundry basket. The lid wasn't closed properly and the cat promptly falls into the basket and starts to meow loudly, finally gaining her attention.
She looks over in his direction, realizes what happened and starts to laugh softly to herself.
"Oh Kirara, you're so silly," she continues to do her work, unaware of the words she just said until she wakes up in the middle of night in midst of realization and silently apologizes to the sleeping cat at the foot of her bed.
This isn't normal are the first thoughts she thinks when she passes by some local elementary school children on her way back from the convenience store.
She swears she sees Shippo amongst them, running and laughing happily. Kanna walks not too far behind them, sighing and shaking her head.
Kagome wonders if she can be like that boy, living life without a care in the world.
She makes it back to the shrine in one piece, no more glimpses of the past in her way.
That is, until she notices Rin, Kohaku and Sesshomaru sitting on the steps.
She has to blink and rub her eyes a few times before those images fade into Souta, Hitomi and a fluffy white dog.
"Hey sis! Check out Hitomi's new dog!" Souta calls her from above and Kagome forces herself to walk up the steps speedily, just get this over with.
"Oh," Kagome smiles sweetly and oh so plastered and pets the tired dog on the head. "What's his name?"
Hitomi giggles a bit before responding, "His name is Fluffy,"
Out the corner of her eye, Kagome sees a green toad hop by and she suddenly feels like screaming.
It's Saturday and Kagome decided to take this time to go do some research.
It's been 2 years and she figures now she needs some closure.
She walks into the shrine storage and digs through everything she could find. She starts with the dusty ones and makes her way through boxes and scrolls until she comes across a book.
It's thin and weary and she's almost afraid to open it, but she does anyways and much to her surprise of having 5 hours of having her day wasted, she finds something.
"The Legend of the Shikon Jewel" details the origins and powers of the jewel that doesn't exist anymore and she's almost about to close the book when she's sees the name Kikyo.
It goes into brief history of the miko and she protected the jewel and how she died with it. Inuyasha is mentioned, but not by name, only as 'that hanyou stole the jewel causing Kikyo to die'. Kagome shakes her head, knowing very well that it's not the full story and there's just so much more that others will never get to know of.
When she sees the name signed off at the bottom, she's baffled.
Kaede Higurashi
She dismisses the sudden revelation that she and Kaede were related to dig through other books to find something else written by her that explains more, but she finds nothing. The name Kaede appears through nothing else and the tale of Shikon Jewel is just retold with the same information from the first copy.
She's left wondering why Kaede let this story be so vague for history to know.
It's been two weeks since then.
No more glimpses.
No more allusions.
She walks home with Eri, Yuka and Ayumi, all of them laughing and smiling with hopes and wonders for the next year to be their last of high school. Also boys and meetings with boyfriends.
This, Kagome thinks, This, is what it would be like to go to school with Sango, Kagura and Ayame, the thought flies through her head before she can stop it.
That doesn't even make sense, she tries to tell herself.
When Ayumi's new boyfriend arrives, all Kagome can see is Koga.
When Yuka's new boyfriend arrives, Kagome sees Naraku and ducks in the crowds of the city and heads home.
She doesn't even want to see if Eri's boyfriend looks like Miroku.
When her final exams hit, she can't help to be thankful for the stress diverting her attention during the day.
But at night, dreams of him in his red robe and his long silver mane haunt her.
She doesn't even want to say his name anymore, it hurts too much.
Soon it'll be 3 years.
3 years since she's been down the well into another world, another time and into another life she lived.
She wonders how history played itself out, how everyone ended up living there lives. She wishes she can find records, but the only thing was Kaede's little synopsis of the jewel and Kikyo and that's it.
She's checked everywhere, in libraries and the internet.
She wants to move on but, something always pulls her back. Primarily having to live a place where she can see the well every day.
When she graduates, it's almost a relief.
She'll go somewhere far from the shrine and the well that's etched itself into her life for all the wrong and the right reasons.
One last visit won't hurt, she tells herself.
One last chance to see him again.
Kagome peers into the well and stares.
Wind.
Not from in the well, but a strong gust from outside the shed catches her attention. She turns around and sees a glimmer of silver hair walk past left of the exit. Her mother walks into her vision from the right of the entrance and softly smiles at her. She gestures towards the direction the long-haired silver person walked past and Kagome finds herself running.
She's out the shed and looking at the shrine steps where a lone figure stood looking at her. Long silver hair, in a red plaid shirt, light blue jeans, black sneakers and red bandana on the top his head, presumably covering his inhuman ears.
They both stay silent, looking at each other for a while, until the man's eye's shift slightly, as if expressing something. It's a silent conversation as they stare at each other, words cannot describe the time that past between them.
Feh, it's been 500 years and you're just going to keep me waiting over here?
Her mouth twists up into a genuine smile and she's running into his open arms.
You idiot. It's only been 3.
Kagome buries herself into Inuyasha's arms and lets her tears fall happily and silently until she's full blown sobbing in his arms and he's patting her back affectionately.
No more glimpses.
He's the real thing.
.
.
.
FIN.
Author's Notes
So 50-3 is weird combo of the 500 years Inuyasha was waiting for her and the 3 Kagome waited for him. In total it's 503 but Inuyasha just estimated and said 500 and the 3 is separated for Kagome's wait.
Also, don't you think Kagome seeing Sango, Kagura and Ayame in her school friends was a bit of a stretch? I thought so too, but it shows that her mental state isn't the best at that point.
Finally, my original plan for the ending was to have her run into Inuyasha's reincarnation, see him as Inuyasha and be surprised that he looked different. But I decided to leave it vague, leaning more on her running into the same Inuyasha from Sengoku Jidai. You can still interpret it how you want though, as the same Inuyasha or his reincarnation because after all, Kagome only presumed the bandana was covering up his ears, and the silver hair could be dyed (either for fashion or as a way for Kagome to recognize him. And the 500 year wait still makes sense, he has memories of the past/the soul still waits). She could be just seeing things too, as she was the whole story and at the end, while realizing that it is Inuyasha in another form, just saw him as his past self.
And I wonder what happened to everyone else, hmm?
Anyways, thanks for reading.
-Sailor Rayquaza