LAST CHAPTER!!
They were finally finished with their food and started walking back. They were both happy to have spent time alone for a night, even if it was because he wanted to visit his dead mother. "Kagome I can only tell you a little more of my past." Inuyasha stated. He actually enjoyed telling her his past.
"Can you tell me about when you talked about the village not allowing you to stay anymore? I want to know about that."
"Alright, well, I was twenty and had been in the village for quite a while. Mai stuck around the village even after her mom left. Her mom said she wanted to go around and patrol "her area". So Mai stuck behind with me and Kira…."
(Start Flashback)
An older Inuyasha was dashing through the forest, looking like he did when he was two hundred, being chased by something. "You'll never catch me!!" He said running and laughing.
An older Mai was right behind him. They got used to their games now and both would get quite loud when playing. "Just you wait!!"
They were jumping through the woods and just reached into the village. Inuyasha jumped from the tops of the huts. "Get out of here when you do that." Rio yelled. The villagers hated them being there but got used to the two running around but almost every time they started to play with each other something in the village would break.
Kira looked over when she heard Rios scream to see a streak of red, 'They're at it again.' She thought. "Inuyasha you know not to play in the village; whenever you do something gets broken." She yelled to him. She got used to him being her son but at the same time, she wanted him to grow up and stop acting like a child. Although he tried to explain to her that since demons live longer, they tend to act younger for more years. He even said that the two, Inuyasha and Mai, were just friends for now. Something about they don't think of each other as anymore than that and probably wont until they are around fifty or so.
'She always takes the fun out of everything' Inuyasha thought and skidded behind a hut and stopped. "Mai will never find me he…"
He turned around to find Mai right in front of him. "Found you" She said.
"You're good" He said laughing and then she tackled him, it was like a ritual that when she found him, she would tackle him. They truly thought at the moment thought that nothing could separate them.
She started to bite his ear and pull, instead of yelping, he would grab her arm in his mouth and just like a puppy, he would nip at it. It never broke skin but it pinched her arm over and over again, "hey, hey, stop that." She said laughing and letting go of his ear.
"Say I win." Inuyasha said.
"No" she yelled and ran off into the woods.
"Get back here." Inuyasha yelled running after her once again.
She ran into the woods and Inuyasha followed close behind. "I won't lose easily." She yelled.
She looked behind her to see that he wasn't there than she looked to see Inuyasha above her, "Iron Reaver Soul Stealer" He yelled. She quickly jumped out of the way. He missed her on purpose and just laughed as she tried to run faster.
"We're evenly matched!!" She said stopping at the edge of a pond. Inuyasha ran right into her knocking them both into the water, SPLASH, they were both soaked in the water and laughed.
"Now we're evenly matched!!" Inuyasha said splashing water at her.
Mai just looked into his eyes. "What can we do now?" She said with a sigh treading the water.
Inuyasha laughed at her and jumped into the deeper parts of the water. "Tonight is when you lose your powers right?" Inuyasha asked. She lost her powers every full moon. This was convenient for both because then they could protect each other when the other was most vulnerable.
"Yeeeeeeah." Mai sighed then joined him out in the middle of the pond. Neither could decide if they found each other as siblings or more than that, both were too afraid to ask. They started splashing each other. What fun it was to be twenty and not have to worry about dying for a long time. They enjoyed it so much.
(Flashback Done)
"Wait, so you had a love before kikyou?" Kagome abruptly asked.
"Kind of" Inuyasha said. He never thought about it until just now when Kagome brought it up. "I guess you can say we were in love. But at the time, we were too young to realize it. We were just friends at the time. I guess with the age group we were in, you can say we were only twelve compared to humans." Inuyasha thought about that one when saying it.
"Oh alright" Kagome shushed up, 'didn't sound like it from what you said.' Kagome thought. "Go on with your story"
"As I was saying we were out in the pond…"
(Flashback)
It was getting night and the moon appeared, just like clock work, Mai turned into a human while they were swimming. "Inuyasha, I think we should be getting back. You know how it is when you feel vulnerable." She said shakily.
"Don't worry I would protect you." He said boastfully thumping his chest, but at that moment he skipped a paddle with his feet went down into the water and went from treading to sinking under.
"Yeah I can really trust you." Mai said laughing at him as he emerged out of the water.
"Shush." He said as they both got out. Inuyasha did his doglike shake and Mai just shook a little. She would normally do the shake too but since she was human tonight it was kind of impossible. "Here you are going to catch a cold." He said handing her his kimono, which Kira had helpfully made bigger as he got older.
"I won't catch a cold" She said giving back his kimono. The two things they had in common, they were half demons and they were both stubborn. "Look at the stars they are so beautiful." She pointed into the sky.
"Yeah, they really are." If Inuyasha knew what was to come, he would have had cherished that moment a little more, no a lot more than he currently did.
They walked along the path back to Kira's hut. Mai loved it there; she always had lunch for them and got them out of more trouble than she could count. "Inuyasha" she said looking up at the sky.
"Yeah?"
"How long do you think we will know each other?"
Inuyasha looked at her perplexed and unknowing, "I don't know, how about as long as we don't forget about each other?"
Mai laughed, "well yeah, but do you think we can always be together?"
"As long as we both want to" Inuyasha said. (Yes, this is Inuyasha talking; he used to have a big heart and loved everything.)
"Alright." They got to the village which seemed even quieter than usual. Inuyasha and Mai went into the hut.
"Something is wrong." Inuyasha whispered.
"What do you mean?" Mai was looking around.
"Kira, she isn't here and she didn't cook."
"I don't think this is the time to think about her cooking." Mai said. They were both looking around the room, neither knowing what to do next.
"She always cooks at night, something happened to her." And as Inuyasha said this he looked up and at the main door. "Mai get out of here." He whispered to her.
"Why?"
"Lets go" Inuyasha pulled Mai's arm as he ran out of the hut. They didn't make it past the door and the villagers where right in front of them. "Where's Kira?" Inuyasha yelled letting off a low growl. He kept Mai behind him. She couldn't fight right now so this was between him and all of the villagers, which was about thirty or more people to one.
"Maybe this will let you know" One of the villagers said throwing a sword covered in blood down.
His heart skipped a beat "How...how could you?" Inuyasha questioned, he could smell exactly who it was from; actually it had two people's blood. Rio must have tried stopping them. "How could you to your own kind." He scolded.
"They were trying to get in our way." The villager said moving closer.
Inuyasha went back into the hut with Mai. He decided that if the front entrance was blocked then he would just make a back entrance. "Light the hut on fire." Some one yelled. This felt just like the way his mom described his dad dying in all of her stories, except this time it was his turn.
Smoke started filling the place and blocked his vision, neither two knew exactly where they were. "Inuyasha we have to get out of here fast." Mai said coughing on the smoke.
"Hold on a little longer." Inuyasha said. He found his room and ran in to get some things. He didn't get anything special, just a few personal things that meant a lot to him. "Mai jump on my back" He said.
"Why? How is that going to help?"
"Just do it. We will jump out from the top of the hut and get away that way."
"Alright" she got on his back, never before did she fear for her life like she did now.
"Are you ready? Keep your head down." He yelled.
"Who do you think I am a weak human?" She joked around.
"Do you want the exact answer or the one you want to hear?" Inuyasha said.
She just smacked him on his head, "Get going" she yelled.
Little did they know the villagers on the outside had planed for them to jump out from the top of the hut. They had hired archer's from other villages to come and help them out with the 'extermination' as they called it.
"Alright on the count of three...one, two…" Inuyasha said.
"Three" They said in unison.
Inuyasha jumped from the top of the roof and got out, then he notice a barrage of arrows coming at them. "Inuyasha watch out." She whispered. She knew what it was like when someone screamed in your ear when you had as sensitive of ears as they did. So she did her best not to freak out.
Inuyasha was easily dodging the arrows in front of him. "Is that all you have." He yelled. Then an arrow hit him in the shoulder and he just laughed and ran into the woods. He knew the arrow didn't go in deep in fact it was about to fall out thanks to his kimono made from the fire rat. 'Wait, Mai hadn't said anything in a while' he thought. He finally stopped and took her off his back. "Mai, are you…" He stopped smiling, stopped talking, in fact his whole world stopped turning.
Mai started getting up but there were three arrows in her back all three lodged in deep. "I'm alright" like always she had that stubborn personality.
"Your hurt, we need to get the arrows out" Inuyasha stated the obvious. Inuyasha helped her pull them out which evidently hurt her more than when they went in because the whole time she was screaming and on the last on she begged him to stop. "We have to get them out to clean up the wou…"
"No, I don't think I will make it. I am losing a lot of blood." She said her vision was getting blurry.
"But you're a half de…"
"Not tonight I'm not" she reminded him by showing no claws.
"But you are the only friend I have. Why didn't you say something earlier when I first got away?"
"I didn't want to mess up your concentration on getting out of there. It is tough dodging things in air, I know that for a fact." She smiled and laughed.
"What's so funny?" Inuyasha didn't know what she could possibly laugh at, she was dying after all.
"Your face right now, reminds me of when I first met you. Before I showed you how to play, back when you looked serious about everything." She smiled.
Inuyasha couldn't help but smile. "I see."
"Don't take this too hard on yourself. We knew it was too good to be true to be able to find someone close to the same age and likeness." She said coughing up more and more blood.
"I want to help you." Inuyasha said.
"There is no help. One of the curses of being half demon is the curse of the time when you are human…" she was being very philosophical compared to how she normally acted. It was true, however, and Inuyasha hated this more than anything else in the world.
"I will miss you." Inuyasha said.
"What ever happens after death, I will wait for you, and when you come I will be the first to tackle you and welcome you." She winked at him laughing more. This time she stopped abruptly, "It hurts to laugh now."
"Sounds good." Inuyasha whispered. He held her up while she struggled for her last bit of breath and then fell into her forever slumber. "I will miss you so much." He whispered and pulled the last arrow out, allowing him to lay her flat on the ground.
Then he looked back where he left the village. This was the last straw. Kira took him in, Rio had allowed him to stay, and Mai was his best friend. They took it all away from him. He didn't want to kill the people but he was going to take something from them. He ran back to the village seeing the people receding into the woods to try and find them. He jumped over them and stood behind them. "So you think you can just take everything from me huh?" He said his voice shaked, he didn't cry, but he wanted to.
Everyone turned to see a very angry hanyou. "Get out of here." One of them yelled.
"You should have asked nicely before killing everyone I knew." He said with an evil sound to his voice. This was the last straw, this time he decided from now on he would live for himself, no one else. If he died who would care? No one, that's who, and from that thought he said, "You may want to go back to your village soon, I hear that something is coming" He said running toward the village. When he got there he started destroying every hut in sight. He went from one place to another having fun while doing it. 'This will teach them to kill everyone.' He thought as he just smashed another one.
Shira came out from her hut to see Inuyasha destroying everything. "Inuyasha, stop this at once. This is not what Kira or Mai would want and you know that." She could tell by the way he acted, that something must have happened to Mai too.
Inuyasha stopped and came over to her, "What they want? Did they want to die? Did they ask those idiots to come after us? I am done reasoning with them, if life has to be kill or be killed than so be it." He yelled at her.
Shira's four year old came out and stood behind her mom, "Inuyasa what's wrong?" The little girl said, Other than the three killed, Shira and her little girl always talked to him. "Inuyasa" was the nickname from the little girl because she could not pronounce his name right. Even Shira's husband was against him but these two would always talk to Mai and him.
Inuyasha looked down at the face of innocence, that was where he was at one point and now, a little more than ten years later, he was destroying huts. "Inuyasha, you need to stop what you are doing, you are degrading yourself to their level." Shira brought to his attention.
"Maybe it will teach them." Inuyasha said crossing his arms.
"Inuyasa do you hate us?" the little girl asked.
"Not you or your mom, but everyone else can die." Inuyasha said without thinking.
The girl started to cry. Inuyasha looked over; he didn't mean to make her cry. "You did enough damage, now go." Shira said.
He heard the group of people coming back and decided it was the time to go. "I will" Inuyasha said. He turned around and leaped off as he took off, he did one last slash at a hut that was still standing and then leaped off as if he did nothing. He didn't know where he was going to go, or what he was going to do, but he knew that he was going to trust no one ever again, no matter who they were.
"Inuyasha" Shira whispered watching him leap off and slash that last hut still standing, besides Shira's hut. She realized that the hut he slashed was the hut that Kira lived. "He must not want anyone else staying there" She said to herself as she went inside to await the return of the villagers.
Inuyasha spent the next hundred or so years doing just what he decided; looking after himself and no one else, he never thought of anything wrong with it. He was around hundred fifty and he was running through the woods when he noticed a woman; her name? She turned out to be Kikyou. (And you know the rest)
(Flashback Done)
"Too bad Mai had to die." Kagome said looking down on the ground.
"It was meant to happen." Inuyasha said. Kagome looked up at him.
"Why? She sound like she loved you"
"If she didn't die, then she would still be here and I would have never met you."
Kagome smiled "I'm glad that you could tell me about your past, Inuyasha." Kagome said as they started walking down the path where Inuyasha had first started telling her of his sad history.
"It actually did feel good to tell someone." Inuyasha said looking down the path, 'I can't believe we're back already.' He thought.
Kagome turned to see the three cocoons that they left when they first started to walk off. "Look Inuyasha" She said pointing at two of the cocoons. "They're coming out, Inuyasha" she whispered.
"So" Inuyasha said, "I don't care"
"You know these butterflies first started out as caterpillars. Many people say they are disgusting and many tried to kill them in order to keep them away from their crops."
Inuyasha looked over and watched as the butterflies were flapping their wings in order to dry themselves up before they flew off. "So, why should I care?"
"You see Inuyasha, many people say they hate caterpillars, they say how disgusting they are and how they try destroy everything. But there comes a time where the caterpillars get so unneeded that they keep them selves away from the world and cocoon themselves. But at some point they will merge out of the cocoon and let everyone know just what they are capable of." Kagome was watching the butterflies with great expectations of them.
Inuyasha started to get closer, 'I never thought of it that way.' Inuyasha thought.
"After they come out of their little corner and back into the world everyone now loves them. They then realize that this once ugly and vile thing is now a beautiful animal that helps their crops pollinate and makes the world a stunning place."
Right when she finished, as if it was staged, both butterflies flew off of the cocoons and flew around the two. One landed on Kagome's finger that she stood out and the other landed on Inuyasha's nose. He looked cross eyed at it as Kagome laughed at him. "Why are you laughing?" He said in a soft voice. It made him very uncomfortable. Then the two butterflies flew off into the trees and where ever they wanted. The world was now there's to explore, they were no longer the grounds pets but the sky's friends. Inuyasha watched with a big smile on his face.
"I wonder what it is like to be a caterpillar, once you break out of your cocoon and then you are able to fly wherever you want." Kagome said watching the butterflies go out of sight.
'It feels good Kagome' Inuyasha thought to himself. "Who knows" he said.
She looked over at him "Lets get back before the others come searching for us" she said.
"Yeah, I'll race you." Inuyasha said running ahead of her.
"That's not fair you run faster than I do" she said chasing after him.
He then stopped to let her catch up and then walked the rest of the way back to camp with her. He never noticed how many people actually cared about him before he closed everything and everyone out of his life. 'This time will be different, unlike before, I have many friends and we will help protect each other.' Inuyasha thought to himself.
EPILOGUE
A few weeks later, the group was walking down the same path that they saw the two butterflies fly away. Kagome was ticked at Inuyasha from earlier and stayed in front of him with the others. No one said a word to Kagome; they just followed her and didn't say anything. Inuyasha just kept his distance at the moment, muttering under his breath. He didn't know why she was so mad, but whenever he tried to talk to her, she would 'sit' him so he just walked behind the whole group. Then he realized the last butterfly all alone, drying its wings before it flew away. Then it started flying off and then came back and flew around him and then flew over to Kagome and flew around her until she noticed it. She started to smile and laugh. Then the butterfly flew behind her and went back to Inuyasha and landed on his left ear. He felt it on his ear, but it tickled so he left it alone. He got up from looking at the cocoon to see Kagome staring at him and the butterfly on his ear. The others stopped when they realized Kagome did and were trying to figure out why she was looking over at Inuyasha with the butterfly on his ear.
"Can we have some privacy?" Kagome whispered
"Sure" Sango said grabbing Shippo and dragging Miroku off before either could protest.
"Inuyasha" Inuyasha kind of twitched at his name, "I'm sorry that I got so mad." She said looking down
"Really?" Inuyasha looked at her. 'Why is she apologizing?' he thought. "I should apologize too; I need to think of what I say before I say it." He admitted.
"No, sometimes you deserve to be able to keep stuff to yourself, I forget what you went through" Then she did something that Inuyasha wasn't expecting. She kissed him on the cheek and then grabbed his hand.
"Kagome" he whispered.
"Yes?" she said
"Nothing." He couldn't find anything to say, this is what he wanted and he knew it. They walked down the path towards the ones waiting for them. Neither knew what they would say when they saw the two holding hands but at that moment they didn't care. Life was as it should be.
The end!!
Now that it is done, tell me what you think!! Was it good, awesome, terrible? I hope it wasn't terrible if you made it this far in reading it. Any questions go ahead and ask, if I feel that it is a good question that I clearly didn't cover than I will add it in.
HOPE YOU ENJOYED READING IT AS MUCH AS I ENJOYED TYPING IT!!