A/N: I wrote this several months back but decided not to post it after my little sister told me that she thought she recalled once reading something similar to it (which, for me, is a verbal kiss-of-death). But then I found it again today and thought, "Eh, what the heck." My apologies if the theme is hackneyed.

…What is the difference between tragedy and angst, anyway?

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Ordinary

"Inuyasha, use the Shikon jewel… become a man."

She had never expected him to agree right away. In fact, Kikyo had entered this topic of conversation fully anticipating a flat-out rejection from the hanyou, combined with a scoff and his reaffirmation that he still intended to become a full-blooded demon through the Shikon, just as soon as he could get his hands on it.

To her surprise, though, he had actually contemplated her suggestion, giving her the chance to argue her case. If Inuyasha became human, the jewel would cease to exist; she could be a normal woman then, and they… they could be together, living a normal life…

At his nod of assent, she had felt such a burden lift from her heart, a lightness encompassing her soul. They would purify the jewel, then live together, husband and wife. Ordinary.

It was everything she'd ever dreamed.

And so, at the appointed time, at the appointed place, she pressed the Shikon jewel into his clawed hands, watching with a sort of sick fascination as it glinted and darkened in hue. Even the mere half-taint of the hanyou's blood was enough to contaminate the coveted item on contact. Many said the Shikon was cursed, and Kikyo believed it, easily corruptible as it was. In only a brief moment, Inuyasha's somber golden eyes shifted to red, and a set of jagged demon markings manifested on his face, his fangs lengthening.

Calmly, she gathered her energy, stretching forth one hand to press two fingers upon the jewel in his grasp, flooding it with purity at her touch. The Shikon acted as a conduit, brightening in color as her power coursed through it and into the transforming hanyou.

She could literally feel his youki dissolve, and the jewel along with it.

When it was over, a ridiculously easy process, the two stood staring at one another, tendrils of wind threading across the clearing, ruffling the tall grasses around them with a quiet whisper.

Inuyasha was human; the Shikon jewel had left this world forever, and Kikyo was no longer duty-bound to protect it. She was free — they both were free.

They fell into one another's arms then, joy consuming them in their hour of triumph. They were free, free to live, free to be together, free to be happy, to be ordinary.

Ordinary, though, was not as wonderful as it had once seemed.

Inuyasha hated farming. He hated the long hours toiling in the rice fields, he hated the thick, hard calluses on his hands and the way the sun burned his skin so easily. He hated how one bad storm could destroy an entire crop. Most of all, he hated being so very weak. At times, he would stare at his work-roughened hands, feeling the sluggish blood pulse through them and recalling the demonic strength he had once taken for granted. Injury and infection seemed to prey on this puny human form; he had spilled his own blood more times than he could remember, typically because of some carelessness while out tending the crops. He really was not fit for this life, but it wasn't as though he had much choice in the matter. Vocations were limited in this society, and he had a wife and family to feed. And so he kept at it, day in, day out, year after year after year after year.

Inuyasha hated farming.

Kikyo hated housekeeping. She hated the cooking and the cleaning, and every mundane task that demanded her attention on a daily basis. She had never anticipated the difficulty involved in raising a family, had never expected weeks on end of sleepless nights spent tending a fussy baby, or countless hours of doing laundry and mending clothes that wore too thin, too fast. She hated passing her days isolated within her little hut, hated how her husband came home too exhausted to talk, let alone interact with her, hated how the only adult conversations she ever had anymore occurred on the infrequent visits from her sister, Kaede — Kaede, who had taken her position as a town miko, who wore that mantle with grace and dignity, who strode tall and proud and lived a life with purpose and meaning to it.

Kikyo hated housekeeping.

Each could sense the other's discontent. Each knew the other had sacrificed much for their life together. That knowledge begat regret, begat guilt, begat resentment, for Kikyo, knowing what Inuyasha had once been, could not help but remember the calling she had abandoned for him, and Inuyasha, knowing what she had freely given up, could not help but recollect his true form and all the advantages he had forsaken.

Was it a worthwhile sacrifice? Had she ever really loved him, or he her? They had been children, playing with a power far beyond their comprehension, neither understanding the consequences of their actions. As the years trudged by, resentment turned to bitterness, and bitterness to loathing. This was not the life she had been born to live; this was not the fate he had been destined to fulfill. Each was the other's anchor, dragging one another beneath the currents they were meant to ride upon, condemning one another to a life of stagnant drudgery from which there was no escape.

She could not look at him anymore without seeing her own lost potential; he could not look at her without recalling his cast-off power. And so they turned their attention elsewhere, nursing their own grievances but never voicing them aloud. They were as strangers living under the same roof, never speaking, never interacting, and despising one another for it.

Such was the nature of the jewel, Kikyo bitterly reflected as the years stretched before her like an endless, ragged pathway. Even when purified, it had bred corruption.

Too late did she realize her mistake, pieces of her past life fluttering before her eyes, taunting her ordinary self. She had chosen this path blindly, foolishly. She had gone against her duty in an act of ultimate betrayal, placing the jewel in Inuyasha's hands and willing it from existence, not realizing that she had willed both of them from existence as well. This was not the happy ending she had sought. Instead, by her own hand, she had condemned them both to this damnation.

If only some kind god or twist of fate could give her that day over again, she would… she would…

"Sister Kikyo!"

An insistent shaking of her shoulder wrenched her from slumber, and she blinked twice, her mind registering her familiar surroundings as she tried to focus on the face hovering above her in the dimness.

"Kaede?" she intoned blearily.

"Sister," the girl whispered, her voice no louder than the rustle of wind among the leaves, and infused throughout with dread. "Something has happened, something terrible."

Kikyo sat bolt upright, trying to shake the fog from her sleep-encumbered mind. She had been dreaming but could not quite remember…

"I sensed something demonic," Kaede was babbling, wide-eyed, "something powerful, coming from the direction of… of where he is."

The image of a badly injured bandit flickered through Kikyo's mind, and she felt no compunction to inquire who he was. "What time is it?" she asked, rising and pulling on her white-and-red robes, just as she did every morning.

"Dawn is breaking," came her sister's quiet response.

Kikyo's expression was unreadable, firmly set as always. "You don't need to worry about demons, Kaede," she stated. "After today they'll never bother us again." Offering no further explanation, she turned her back to the girl, sliding open the door that connected her room to the main part of the shrine. There before her, glowing a faint, sinister pink, sat the Shikon, safe in its resting place.

Even as she reached forward to grasp the jewel, a thread of memory tore through her mind, a hissed warning that suffused her senses with images from her dream, of bitterness, loathing, misery, regret. The jewel was cursed, it whispered, and no good would come of using it.

Kikyo plucked the sacred object from its pedestal all the same, tucking it safely into one sleeve as she left the shrine. Inuyasha would be waiting for her in their appointed meeting place; her decision had already been made.

Besides, it had only been a bad dream, she assured herself as she banished its last vestiges from her thoughts. The future waiting for her could not possibly be so cruel.