Redemption

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

REDEMPTION

Summary: Specters of the past bring forth questions for the future. Can she save his soul, or will he wander forever in darkness?

WORDS

Shikon no Tama - Jewel of Four Souls

WARNING! DARK IMAGERY AND ADULT TOPICS, FLUFFY WAFF, LIMEY BEHAVIOR AND PURE ANGST, RUN ON SENTENCES AND REALLY BAD POTTY MOUTHS, SPOILERS (EPISODE 122+)

A/N - I can’t believe it! I have finally finished a story. Hallelujah! This little fic has taken the best of me, and opened my eyes to endless possibility. Many thanks go to the continued reviews this story has received, and I may just have to extend it to a little epilogue, an idea I am still playing with. Anywho, I’ll quit while I’m ahead and just give many, many gracias to the friends and reviewers who supported my writing, even in the dark times of slow updates and escaped plot bunnies. Thank you again! (Fate)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Ow!” Kagome winced as she landed right on her bottom. Though amply padded, the rocks of the canyon’s floor were hard and unyielding, and boy, did it hurt! The rain certainly didn’t help, dripping down as it was and making her shiver in the echoingly damp silence of a rather morbid dawn.

“Kagome!” Shippou slid down the sloping canyon’s path right after her in a small shower of disturbed rocks and pebbles, green eyes anxious. Better able to get a grip on the shifting trail by digging in his back paws, he used the downward momentum to leap to the young miko’s shoulder at the last minute.

“Kagome, are you all right?” He asked his adopted okaa-san, touching her dust-streaked cheek with tentative inquiry.

“Of course I am---” Her reassurance was cut off by her mate’s ominous bellow, which was loud enough to wake the dead. Kagome winced mentally as a red blur vaulted over the canyon’s shale-covered slope, landing beside her with far more grace than her own ignoble tumble down the descending trace.

“Damn it, Kagome! I told you to wait while I checked out the village! You could have gotten hurt!” He bristled at her, irritation personified in crossed arms and molten amber eyes.

“Kagome! Are you all right?” Miroku called from the canyon rim a few feet above their heads.

“Kirara!” Shippou shouted with happy recognition, waving at the large neko who wrinkled her nose at the disheveled pair and sniffed in reply. Standing beside the blue-robed monk, the youkai easily came to Miroku’s waist in her larger form.

“Kirara!” Kagome called as the houshi graciously accepted a ride down to the canyon floor from the fiery-footed youkai. Turning back to her mate, she demanded, “Where’s Sango?”

“Sleeping.” Inuyasha said, a shadowed scowl darkening his eyes for a moment. “Kagome, I should let you know that Sango…”

“What?” Kagome turned frightened eyes upon her mate, abruptly rising from where she had been dusting off her green fuku with sharp, disgusted motions. She didn’t like the look in the hanyou’s golden gaze, a strange mixture of angry question and plain old suspicion. “What’s wrong, Inuyasha? Is Sango hurt?”

“She’s fine.” He said with short words, relenting enough to hug her to him in reassurance. “She’s sleeping, like I told you, and Kirara made a big fuss when I wanted to wake her up. She probably needs to sleep, she looked tired as all hell.”

“You’re sure?” Kagome asked, and his ears twitched with irritation.

“Damn it, Kagome---”

Shippou giggled, recalling the pair of them to his presence on the miko’s shoulder. The kitsune’s smile was mischief itself, and Kagome wiped at her sodden bangs with an impatient hand, flushing as Inuyasha leveled a hot glare at the incorrigible fox.

“Kagome, you weren’t hurt in the fall, were you?” Miroku asked with courteous attention, easily breaking up the tensed atmosphere between them with an amused glint in his warm, inviting gaze. “I could check you over, you know, to make certain…”

Inuyasha turned a hotter glare on the incorrigible monk. “Don’t you dare, hentai!”

Miroku shrugged with helpless insincerity. “It’s ever my curse, Inuyasha. Forgive me. I cannot help myself in the presence of a beautiful woman.”

“Spare me.” The hanyou bit out as he stalked past them. Kagome shook her head at the inveterate monk, kneeling down to give Kirara a quick hug.

“Kirara, is Sango just sleeping?” She asked in a low whisper so that her irritated mate wouldn’t hear the traitorous question. The neko blinked once in affirmation, and butted her large, creamy head against Kagome’s scraped knees. Shippou took the opportunity to jump from her shoulder to the neko’s, where he perched with a wide grin, his little paws burying themselves in the thick fur with delight at the warmth.

Rain dripped incessantly from the lowered clouds above them. What weak light there was seemed filtered through a grayed blanket of bleak misery. Kagome shivered, wishing she had thought to bring along her umbrella. Her short, woolen skirt dragged around her thighs and her shirt was now smeared with muddy streaks that would take her forever to get out, unless she managed to get back home long enough to run a load of laundry. She wondered if Inuyasha would let her take that much time, and then shook her head. Here she was, worrying about mud on her school uniform, and who knew what all was going on just around that bend, in Midoriko’s abandoned tomb.

Wondering why the ancient miko had decided to pop inside her head to utter dark warnings about a taijiya who just happened to be back in her own village, comfortably snoring, Kagome hurried to catch up with her mate and the monk, who had stopped just at the sharp curving bend of the narrow canyon, where it widened into a small area before the entrance to the cavernous tomb. Reaching them, Kagome’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, stunned as she was to see the thick curtain of swirling blue energy gone.

Gone, as if it had never been there, swirling across the cave’s mouth with protective eddies of sacred power, guarding the secrets of the tomb from all but the pure of heart and noble of intent. The legendary priestess had guarded the cave zealously, rejecting those who sought to venture inside for their own selfish gain. Even Myouga, with his singular lust for knowledge, had been rejected until he abased himself, smartly reminded to pity those who had lost themselves to the taint of the ill-fated Jewel…

But the entrance stood uncovered and untouched, as if no power had ever crossed it from rock-etched wall to mountain-hewn ceiling. The rain hissed around her, seeping through the tangled locks of her heavy hair. Shivering, Kagome extended her senses, seeking any trace of the miko’s formidable power, and was comforted by the presence of welcoming purity from within, touched by an almost kindred recognition. Her own power---mostly ignored and often dormant, though it was still always there, inside her---rose slowly in answer. Kagome stepped forward as one bemused, her legs breaking into a stumbling run as conscious thought dissolved under that drawing influence…

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“Kagome!” Inuyasha bellowed after his impetuous mate, who was disappearing into that thrice-be-damned cave, all but running like one cracked in the head. Gripping the hilt of his Tetsusaiga with a growl, the hanyou made to follow, but was stopped by an all-too-familiar sound that rose from just behind him…

The roar welled up the narrow canyon walls, bouncing off the rocky heights and echoing back down the treacherous limestone slopes with eerie punctuation. It spoke to his youkai blood of longing and rage, anger, frustration, and a deep, unremitting hunger…

Demons crouched in an eternally shadowed imprisonment laughed with eerie joy; loathsome, impenetrable, angry vengeance. Their menace rose up to unveil the one whom they had searched out and summoned to their side, champion of darkness…

“Inuyasha! It’s…” Miroku whirled, his mouth dropping open.

Kirara snarled, hair standing on end as her twin tails lashed, the tiny kitsune burying himself into the thick fur of her neck with a despairing wail. With a curse at the fucking unfairness of it all, Inuyasha turned around, his claws gripping the hilt of his father’s fang, ready to draw it forth.

“What…?” His mouth fell open in shock, brows raised in pure astonishment.

The demon, for that was what its aura suggested, was nothing he could ever have imagined, even in the worst of mocking nightmares. It towered above them, its head---or what it used for a head, though perhaps it was just the lurching hump of one shoulder, for it was round and bulbous, but lacked eye or ear or even a jagged line for a mouth, which was actually placed somewhere in the area of the creature’s left shoulder, another, slobbering, more toothy version at the base of what could only be a hind leg’s kneecap---was above the narrow canyon’s height. It was furred, or parts of it, with various patches here and there, some coarse, some luxuriant, of various hue and different length, the worst a pink mohawk of jagged spikes growing from the middle of its sunken chest and crawling over the spine of the thing, ending in some kind of divided serpent’s tail, which lashed like a sick version of a snake’s tongue, flick, flick, flick, and then curled around what could only be a rear hoof, cloven and ending in green claws, the other hind leg a chicken’s sinewy talon. The thing actually had five legs, if one counted the elephant’s trunk that hung in the center of the thing, though Inuyasha really fucking hoped it was a leg, and not something else…

Shuddering with that disgusting thought, the hanyou thrust his hands on his hips and demanded with incredulity, “Just what the hell are you supposed to be?”

At his bellow, the creature’s fifth---or third, depending on your viewpoint---leg rose and let out another belching roar of rage, showing a mouth full of jagged teeth at the end of the grey elephant’s trunk that would make a shark jealous. The bulging pustules on the monster’s hunched back suddenly blinked open, revealing various eyes that covered its disgusting form from hip to shoulder, blinking and watering at him as green pus dribbled down from the lippy fish mouth that covered the left shoulder of the hideous creature.

“We want the Jewel shards, we must have the Jewel shards…” The creature gibbered and howled at him. One of its arms---for it roughly stood on the knuckles of the front pair of limbs---rose and reached for him blindly. It must have been hard to grab on to anything, for its eyes were on its back, and blinking up at the dull, grey sky. The unceasing rain continued to drip down, though it did nothing to hide the incredible stench that rose from the thing.

Covering his sensitive nose, Inuyasha felt the sudden urge to laugh. That, or choke, because the thing suddenly let out a belching fart from somewhere out of his line of actual sight that rose about it in a stinking green cloud of noxious fumes.

Miroku did both, choking on a muffled laugh, his blue eyes dancing with merriment even as he made a face at the fetid stink and covered his grin with one sleeve of his dark blue robes.

“Eh! What a smell!” Shippou blurted, using his twitching copper tail as a filter for his sensitive nose. Kirara reowled agreement, wrinkling her nose and hissing in disgust.

“The Jewel, we must have the Jewel!” The beast screamed and whimpered all at the same time, more mouths forming from various parts of it. The tail flicked and the sharp teeth at the end of the grey trunk gnashed in fury at the hanyou’s loud guffaw.

Wiping his eyes, which had teared from both the noisome reek and the fucking absurdity of it all, Inuyasha stammered out, “Just what the hell could you want with the Jewel? Kami, could you even pick it up?”

“Don’t mock us, half-breed!” The demon, or demons, or whatever it thought of itself, snarled and howled and screamed in fury. “Fear us, for we are formed of some of the most fearsome demons that ever existed on this earth!”

Miroku, faster at deduction than the hanyou, snickered. “Don’t tell me you were all once devoured by Naraku, and eventually discarded for some reason or another---”

“Naraku!” The fetid, baldy-constructed monster screamed the baboon’s name with utter loathing. “You speak that name to us! You ask for your death, monk!”

Inuyasha choked. Gods, but it made sense. Naraku had ever harvested lesser youkai for their most powerful attributes, rejecting what he could not use or did not want and keeping what he did, combining the worst---or the best---parts of various devoured youkai to form the body that he was ever seeking to improve. The discarded bits had attacked him and his friends once before, in the form of a massive hairball of a demon with a giant, toothy grin. That weak ass hairball had desired Kouga’s Jewel shards, seeking to use the shards to recover its true form…

“This is just damn ridiculous. Will that baboon’s fucking meddling never die?” Inuyasha growled up at the grey heavens, which answered his query with only muffled indifference, the rain continuing to slip down from the thick-bottomed clouds. A drop landed right inside his left ear, which twitched with annoyance.

Fed up and out of patience, Inuyasha gripped the tattered hilt of his sword. Pulling it free to threaten with its deadly length, he scowled testily, willing the fang to life. “I’m going to end this right now. Prepare to die, demon.”

Except Tetsusaiga, held in his two hands, would not transform.

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Gasping from her headlong sprint into the cavern’s mouth, Kagome skidded to a halt, her frank brown eyes widening in surprise.

“Bankotsu?”

The mercenary sat upon a convenient rock at the foot of the monstrous statues, stony testament to the past. His head was down, elbows resting on his bent knees and his hands draped loosely between them. He seemed relaxed and waiting, and Kagome hesitated when the silence dragged on for more than a minute.

“Heh.” He finally broke the silence, and looked up at her, his blue eyes dark, a flash of his old, derisive grin twitching up one corner of his mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you, miko.”

“F-For me?” Kagome squeaked, suddenly feeling very much alone with a man who was well-known for hacking first and asking questions later, when it didn’t really matter all that much...

He took in her expression and smirked, his eyes clouding with something that she could not recognize in him.

*Sadness?*

Bankotsu…sad?

No, she must have imagined it. But even as she told herself that lie, Kagome felt her fears fading, and she had to clutch her hands together in front of her, fighting the sudden desire to go over and give him a hug.

Bankotsu stiffened, as if he understood her sudden urge, and would have none of it. The cavernous tomb was silent and still around them, all sense of an ethereal presence gone, both the demonic and the angelic. Kagome shivered at the utter emptiness of it, and looked around at the shadowy forms that rose behind the seated mercenary. The giant serpent’s coils wrapped over and around the base of the ancient miko in a tableau frozen at the very hour of their death, twined forever on the passion of a last, desperate prayer. The gaping hole in Midoriko’s chest, where the imprisoning bauble had been thrust into the grim reality of the Shikon no Tama, and the serene, patient expression on the stone miko’s face made Kagome’s heart clench, the tears pricking the back of her eyes with the overwhelming pity she always felt staring up at that hideous testimony to an end that had never come…

Forever embattled, forever embittered, forever entombed.

Shuddering, Kagome jerked her eyes away, biting her lip. Her gaze was suddenly drawn to the small, silken bundle Bankotsu was gingerly unwrapping in one hand. His giant sword lay beside him on the ground, forgotten and ignored. Kagome’s brown eyes widened as the tumultuous, half-sphered Jewel shard was revealed, the swirling eddies of malignant power brightening and dimming with unseen menace that she could feel itching along her skin and raising the small hairs at the base of her neck.

“The Jewel…” She stepped forward, fingers extending in mingled curiosity and question. Bankotsu regarded her with an unwavering cobalt gaze, his mobile face for once void of all expression. Kagome leaned forward to touch the rounded shard with the tip of one finger, and the large fragment of the splintered Shikon no Tama flashed with a whitening light of pale purity. Trapped demons shrieked in bitter agony and dismay as an embattled priestess cried out in exultant triumph…

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“We were drawn here, we were promised the Jewel, they promised us to make us whole, to make us what we were, what we lost! We were promised! They promised us the Jewel!”

Inuyasha had always hated a mouthy monster, especially one who didn’t know when to shut the hell up. Tetsusaiga would have put a quick stop to that hideous blob of rejected youkai parts, but the damn sword wasn’t cooperating. Shaking the rusty blade that refused to change into the giant, steel fang of his father, Inuyasha snarled, “Just shut the fuck up, will you! Damn it, Miroku, this damn stick won’t transform!”

Closing his eyes for a moment to concentrate, Miroku raised his bead-wrapped palm in a mystic sign. Opening dark blue eyes in surprise, the houshi answered, “This area is purified, Inuyasha. Tetsusaiga cannot transform here.”

The noisome demon laughed and howled, gibbering and drooling and gnashing its teeth even as it raised one arm to beat its sunken chest with heady glee. “Now you will die, half-breed! Taste our wrath!”

Kirara rowled, jumping back as a large gap suddenly split along the spikey protrusion of pink hair, spitting forth a sizzling green glob of acidic poison that had all of them diving out of the way, afraid of being touched by that smoking bile, and uncertain of the monster’s range.

But it fell far short, landing on the ground with a dull splat, spattering and sighing into a vile, steaming, mucus-covered mess.

“Is that a booger?” Inuyasha demanded, incredulous. He didn’t know whether to laugh or howl in frustration at the rank absurdity of it all.

The monster screamed and whistled in fury. It also drooled and squealed, and worked itself up so much that it let out another hideously foul green fart into the air, making them all gag. It was one potent weapon, though the disgusting beast didn’t seem to recognize that fact.

“Die, half-demon dog!” The monster whirled suddenly, the various eyes bugling out from its ludicrous backside glaring for his blood. With a snarl and a shriek, it charged at him. Using all five of its unsteady limbs, it raced across the rocky ground, reaching out awkwardly with one clawed hand, the fishy lips at the shoulder making disgusting, suckling noises as it drooled and spit.

Sheathing his sword, Inuyasha dove to one side, easily avoiding the clumsy charge. Finally pissed off, the hanyou whirled around and cracked his knuckles with menacing promise. “Fine! If that stupid sword won’t work, then I’ll just have to claw you to death!”

Though the thought of sinking his claws into that vile mass was enough to make him want to just drop the idea altogether. Too bad Miroku had lost the Wind Tunnel upon Naraku’s death, that sure would have been a nice, easy way to dispose of this ridiculous excuse of a demon…

Bracing himself with a grimace, Inuyasha struck---and suddenly reversed his leap, backpedaling on air alone as the monster, snarling and howling and screaming up at him, suddenly exploded in a flash of violent white light, a sacred pink aura like one of Kagome’s energized arrows swallowing the hideous being in blinding waves of raw power.

Somersaulting to a braced landing, Inuyasha covered his eyes with one red sleeve, blinking away the sparking flashes the blast of purification had left across his reeling vision. Coughing and tearing, he waited in tensed silence for his eyes to clear, and then had to blink a few times at the sight that greeted him.

For the monster had completely disappeared, leaving not one trace of itself, not even the sticky blob of green snot that had splattered across the rocky floor of the narrow canyon.

Glaring in ominous disquiet, the hanyou wondered what the hell had just happened, and suddenly remembered that his mate had disappeared into that infernal cave and was probably getting herself into who knew how much trouble without him there to rescue her.

“Damn it, Kagome!” Snarling, he raced for the cave, the monk and the neko not far behind. The entrance seemed bathed in a soft blue light---not the curtain of enigmatic energy it had once been, but a soft, welcoming glow.

Inuyasha didn’t trust it. Growling, amber eyes bright, he vaulted inside, expecting resistance and finding none.

Finding Kagome bent over that stupid, cocky bastard of a mercenary did nothing for his temper, which was all keyed up for a fight that didn’t seem to be developing. Inuyasha, frustrated, pissed, and quite frankly put out by that ridiculous excuse for a monster, was more than willing to start one himself.

“Bankotsu, you fucking corpse! Get away from my mate!”

Kagome jumped as if shot, one hand flying to cover her mouth. “Inuyasha…” She breathed, with that look of love and trust and outright fury all mixed up together, just like he loved to see it, flashing across her beautiful brown eyes.

“Kagome! Are you okay?” Shippou piped up from somewhere behind him, and Inuyasha growled as Bankotsu smirked.

“Of course I am!” Kagome insisted, her eyes snapping at her irritated mate.

“Is that a piece of the Shikon no Tama?” Miroku’s voice was grave as he drew alongside the red-robed hanyou.

“Yes…” Kagome made a helpless, shrugging gesture toward the seated mercenary, who raised a thick black brow at them, as if silently challenging their sanity.

“I have a score to settle with you, Bankotsu.” Inuyasha growled, claws caressing the frayed hilt of his Tetsusaiga, before he suddenly remembered what Miroku had said about the area being too full of purity for the sword to be able to transform. “Damn it!”

“Inuyasha, wait.” Miroku laid a firm hand on his arm, the rings on his staff tinkling faintly at the abrupt movement. Bankotsu had unfolded himself from the flat stone that had served him as a throne and stood waiting impassively, the giant halberd ignored and untouched at his feet.

The houshi stepped forward as Kagome turned to stare at the mercenary, who stood unusually silent and still. Inuyasha folded his arms across his chest and let out a gusty sigh of growlly impatience. “Just what the hell do you think that stupid mercenary is gonna say, monk? Don’t tell me you think he’s going to actually admit to fucking around with Sango’s emotions. That cocky bastard has no feelings---”

There was a flash in the mercenary’s blue eyes, and the look he gave the hanyou did the impossible, and abruptly shut him up. “You know nothing, dog-boy.”

Inuyasha was quick to recover his ire. “And you do? I’m gonna enjoy wiping that smug look off your face, ass hole. I killed you once, I don’t mind doing it again. Let’s just say that Sango is just one of the many reasons I have for wanting your head on a stick.”

“What do you mean, Sango?” Kagome demanded, grabbing his arm and glaring up at him. “There’s something you aren’t telling me, Inuyasha!”

“What’s the matter with Sango, Inuyasha?” Shippou demanded, paws curling into the thick fur of Kirara’s shoulders. The cat rumbled a soothing answer as Inuyasha’s attention wavered between that cocky bastard and his insistent mate.

Kagome wiped her tangled bangs back with an impatient motion. “Damn it, Inuyasha! Tell me what you mean by that remark.”

“Just that that bastard’s scent was all over Sango, and you know how depressed she’s been since he took her hostage. That ass hole’s been playing with Sango’s feelings, and took advantage of just how lonely she’s been since Kohaku died. You just don’t do that to one of my friends, damn it.”

“Inuyasha…” Kagome was giving him one of her approving, soft-eyed smiles, as if he had just said something that made her feel all stupid and happy---though Inuyasha hadn’t a clue what he might have said to give her that damn look.

Irritated, he scratched the back of his head and scowled down at her. “What?”

“Wow, he’s dense.” Shippou said in disgust and Kirara wuffed agreement.

“Sometimes,” Kagome smiled up at him, giving his a light hug. “But not when it counts.”

Inuyasha bristled, not knowing just who it was that was now insulting him.

“Gods, hanyou, you are thick.” Bankotsu smirked at him, some of his old fire returning for a moment. Amber eyes blazed, finding a good target, as the mercenary calmly stooped down to pick up his giant sword and casually point it at the monk. Miroku paused, a hair’s breadth from the sharply gleaming tip.

Dark eyes of pain rested on the monk with marked warning before flicking past him to the hanyou. Sneering, he said, “You know nothing, dog-boy. What is between me and Sango is between us, and no one else. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, least of all you, half-breed.”

Inuyasha’s jaw clenched, but Kagome laid a gentle hand on his arm, her brown eyes frank as she looked back at the defensive mercenary. “But what about Sango, Bankotsu? What is she to you?”

The grip on the long hilt of his halberd tightened imperceptibly as the mercenary said with a bleak look in his cobalt eyes, “Everything.”

Kagome started, and then looked down at her feet as a blush spread across her cheeks. She felt as if she had just lanced open the heart-wound on someone already dying. There was such a wealth of feeling in that single, stark word; and she felt a sudden sense of overwhelming pity for it that she could not explain away, even to herself.

“Know that I would never intentionally hurt her, miko.” Bankotsu said with bitter irony. Miroku stirred, wondering at that statement and what it might mean for his friend the taijiya.

The mercenary’s eyes blazed as they settled on the hapless houshi. “Know that if I hear of you laying that damn hand on her again, monk, I will come back from the grave a third time to chop it off at the wrist. Got that?”

Miroku’s fingers twitched in their wrapped beads, and a guilty flush spread up his face. “Ah, er…cough…”

“Now you’re making threats?” Inuyasha snarled, but Miroku thrust his clanging staff between them. His eyes, a darker shade of midnight than the mercenary’s, were serious as he studied him intently. Bankotsu withstood the monk’s scrutiny with nary a flicker of impatience. Instead, he held the houshi’s gaze for a long moment without flinching.

Miroku suddenly bowed, surprising them all, and made a graceful gesture of blessing between them. “I think I understand you now, Bankotsu. The gods ease your chosen path, speed your way and grant you find eternal peace in the afterlife.”

Bankotsu stiffened at the monk’s prayer, but then he relaxed minutely and bowed stiffly in return. “Thank you, houshi-sama.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Inuyasha snarled with little understanding and a whole lot of annoyance. His mate was actually shivering, her eyes wide, as if she knew all too well what the hell was going on, and even Miroku was looking suddenly grim.

“Sit, boy.”

Inuyasha abruptly smacked into the rocky earth, which wasn’t all that forgiving about it. He wanted to snarl at the indignity of it all, but was too busy trying to force his head back up so that he could see just what the hell was happening. He felt a headache starting as the tiny sparks of dizziness left his vision, and he growled as he shook off the last vestiges of the potent spell.

Kagome, hardly repentant, stepped around his prone position, and pulled the small glass bottle from among the damp folds of her short, green skirt. The pale pink light from the jagged shards held within the bottle flashed across the hanyou’s ambered gaze, and he stared in shock as the young miko uncorked the lid and shook the small, jagged pieces into her cupped palm. Gingerly approaching the stone-faced mercenary, she extended her hand with a wordless gesture.

“Kagome!” Inuyasha snarled, getting ready to jump to his feet and stop the crazy wench from doing something so stupid. What in all that was holy was possessing her to take their few, hoarded shards and just hand them over to that stinking corpse?

But Inuyasha was silenced, and not by another mild utterance of Kagome’s subduing spell, but by the awesome aura that was slowly seeping out from the frozen statue of Midoriko just beyond them. Lines of blue power expanded, swirling into a gleaming mist of pearlescent purity as a vague shape took form, rising out of the blazing glow of expanding power and resolving itself into the bowed form of a small woman. A woman who was wrapped in ancient armor, the long, dark tresses of her midnight hair sparkling with the twinkling lights of a thousand stars, seen only on the clearest of nights under a scant moon. Her eyes, dark, compassionate, and gently reproving, turned on him with both amusement and welcome.

:Peace, young child of two worlds. Know you that this has been fore-ordained by the gods, and that the mercenary’s sacrifice will not be in vain.:

Inuyasha could only stare up at her, ears twitching with astonishment.

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Bankotsu could feel the awesome presence behind him, the awareness of her stunning aura tingling down the back of his spine as the heart tightened in his chest. It was time, then. With a stoic expression he was far from feeling, he took the proffered shards from the young miko’s hand, and noted idly that there were tears in her wide brown eyes. They were a darker shade than his taijiya’s, more of a damp pine than a rich mahogany…

Thoughts of Sango hurt him, and so he shied away from them. Determination stiffened his shoulders, and he ignored the comforting essence of Midoriko that tried to surrounded him in a reassuring embrace.

:Feel not sad, my child. Your sacrifice will assure you of the gods’ favor, and the gratitude of many in both this world and the next…:

Did she really think he gave a rat’s ass for anyone’s pitiful appreciation? He wasn’t doing this shit for anyone but himself…

:So you can still lie, even to yourself.: The miko’s rich voice, mixed harmonies of a thousand souls both joyous and sad, glowed with amusement across the back of his thoughts. :See it as you will, then. Still, we know your true heart. You cannot hide it from us.:

The damn bitch was as annoying as that ghost-child of the Void with all her smug double-talk of ‘us’ and ‘we’. Couldn’t any of those damn haunts just use the singular ‘I’ when referring to themselves? Gods, was it irritating!

Desperately distracting himself from what he planned to do, Bankotsu shook away the silk cloth wrapping the largest piece of the Jewel of Four Souls and let it fall unnoticed to the ground with a soft, rasping whisper of rustling discard. Shifting the weight of his Banryuu in his hardened palm, he abruptly turned the giant sword and thrust it deep into the hard earth, the rocky ground no deterrent for his shard-enhanced strength. The blade quivered in arrested motion, and his heart tightened in the knowledge of what he was about to do to the shining length of gleaming steel when he removed the shards from within it.

*Damn.* It was just a sword, a stupid sword---but it was his sword. His companion, and his friend. A beloved throughout the long, lonely years of not knowing another, or truly knowing if any other kind could exist. Loyal, true, a symbol of all he had lost of family and clan, and yet remaining unscathed through many a bitter battle. Edged in anger, and destroyed once in his blind quest for a strength that had always been there, inside him, just unrecognized…

Jaw tightening, Bankotsu pulled free the various splintered shards he had thrust in blade and hilt, his eyes avoiding the aching sight as the giant blade slowly scorched and blackened with age and disuse, cracks appearing like jagged lines of pain-etched dissonance along the once smooth, shining surface. It did not shatter, as he had half-expected it would, as it had done when he had died that last time, under Naraku’s manipulation…

Grateful, at least, that he would be spared that, if nothing else, he slowly brought his palms together and held them cupped before him as he turned to face the misty presence of the ancient miko, her stunning aura filling every aspect of his soul, comforting him even as he refused to look up into her compassionate gaze.

:Brave warrior, you cannot know what this sacrifice means to us.:

The mercenary’s mouth twisted in wry amusement as his heart clenched. She could not know what this truly cost him…

:We know, lonely warrior, and truly, we understand.:

Bankotsu suddenly felt like laughing, though he did not let the bitter sound pass through his tight-pressed lips. Instead, he nodded, and waited for her to tell him what, exactly, she wanted him to do.

:You, my loyal children, must know this man’s strength. He gives of himself, asking nothing, and sacrificing everything so that we may be freed and the Jewel destroyed for all time. His heart is great, his honor greater. Rare is he among men, and so should his true character be remembered by all…:

The ancient priestess’s gaze glanced over them, touching across the monk who stood gripping his staff, stone-faced and silent, to the young miko who was huddled in her mate’s protective embrace, her face streaked with tears and bravely trying to gulp back her sobs at the absolute finality of it all. The kitsune hugged himself into the neko’s fur, eyes squinted against the unavoidable tears that slid down his little cheeks. The red-eyed youkai looked up at Midoriko with adoring intensity before bowing her great head in silent homage and final farewell.

The miko’s kind expression became remote and austere as she turned her heavy gaze back to rest upon the mercenary who knelt before her, head bowed and scattered fragments of the Jewel of Four Souls glinting in the bowl of his joined hands.

:Bankotsu of the Shichinintai, is it your true desire that the Shikon no Tama be restored from what first made it, and that your life be held forfeit? Do you wish this, knowing what price you must pay?:

“I do.” His voice was harsh and unyielding, as flinty and unwavering as the cobalt gaze he raised to the miko’s stern face.

Kagome shuddered, seeking solace from her mate, who stood as if rooted, his expression bearing witness to a turmoil of emotions he would ever deny.

:Are you then ready to give up your life to ensure the Jewel of Four Souls’ destruction?:

“I am.” His reply was quick and hard, resolute. Kirara moaned low into the heavy silence, the kitsune’s wail an echoing counterpoint.

:This is the true wish of your heart, then, that you be sacrificed in return for the Jewel’s destruction? This is what you truly desire?:

“It is.” He bowed his head to the inevitable, and added in fervent pledge, “This is my wish.”

White flames of holy power flared around the ancient warrior-priestess, flames tinged with the reddened malice of ancient anger and encroaching evil---though they were a pale counterpoint to the blending purity of her awesome aura. The mercenary was bathed in blazing lines of swirling luminance that bleached his tanned skin and deepened the stark contrast of the long black braid that hung down his back amid the pale white silk of his clothing.

:So be it!:

The priestess’s voice thundered across their minds, melding them all into one, sweeping them up to witness one man’s unselfish sacrifice in giving all, even himself and his dreams, his own wishes and desires, his own hopes and his own small life in order to stand between those unknowing and the darkness that ever hovered, eager to consume and twist that which was good and whole to their own dark purpose…

Bankotsu heard the young miko gasp, and felt the monk’s prayers even as he muttered them, soothing the mercenary’s troubled spirit as he slowly felt his body dissolving into a blinding light of raw power. Physical vision blurred into pinpoints of dancing light as the Jewel shards within him, aiding breath and life, melted into one. The burning sensation in his hands flared with fierce complaint. The pain was something unexpected, and added to the fear that hovered there in the darkest shadows of his aching heart, though the stubborn will was also there to see it through, no matter what. This was the fate demanded him by the gods, and any anger and bitterness he had ever harbored toward it had disappeared under that hardened resolve within him to see it done for once and all time…

“Bankotsu!”

The cry was wild and terrible in all its screaming denial, but Bankotsu was beyond caring. His soul was spreading up and outward, unable to see the small form that shot toward him, arms outstretched and heart crying out in utter agony. A part of him recognized her, and he felt again that wrenching pain, tasted again for the last time the sweet joy of her as she was…

*Sango. Be ever happy, my love.*

That was his true wish…a small, selfish little wish among all the rest that he instinctively recognized as the only thing he could ever really give to her without qualm or aching awareness of what he could not take for himself.

Happiness…

And then all was light and loss, and he was gone.

1515151515151515

“No! Oh, please God, no!!!”

The pain of her cry echoed off the roughened walls, falling back and doubling the heart-torn anguish of it.

“Bankotsu! Oh, God, Bankotsu!”

She could not seem to stop screaming, her eyes so brittle and dry, though the tears choked her, and her throat was hoarse from screaming out her denial of his death, the sacrifice of his life and her love. She coughed, and the sobs choked her throat, along with the dust and the light, which blazed and dimmed around her, and she willed herself to follow him, unable to live in this desolate world without him, without his strength and without his laughter, his comfort and his love…

*Please, oh gods, please just let me die!*

But her traitorous heart kept beating in her chest, the air kept gasping through her tight lungs, and the tears kept running down her dirty face. She beat futilely against the strong arms that held her, tried to ignore the soothing voice that urged her to silence.

“Sango, Sango, please listen to us. We need you here. Please don’t go, don’t die, don’t die on us. We need you, taijiya…”

“Sango-chan! Oh, Sango-chan!” She recognized Kagome’s soft touch feathering across her hot face, and Sango resented it, the intrusion of it.

“Damn it, taijiya! You better not die on us…”

Inuyasha. Even now, he acted the ass.

*Damn them. Why couldn’t they just let me die…*

But she couldn’t die, they would never let her, and her will finally broke as the sobs tore through her, shaking her with convulsions of ever-fresh pain. The knowledge of it was raw and bitter, and she could only sob against the houshi’s chest, his arms holding her as she curled against him. Kagome continued to stroke the long tangles of her hair from off her damp cheeks, and Shippou hugged her knees with fierce intensity, his wails matching her heart-wrenching regret.

Grief was finally spent in dull exhaustion, and aching silence descended on them all. Kirara nudged her with a sad little mew, her red eyes glowing as she butted her small head against her hand. Sango uncurled her fingers enough to rub them across the kitten’s creamy fur, and Kirara purred with tremulous empathy.

Sighing at inevitability, Sango opened her gritty eyes, and looked about her, ashamed at how sullen she still felt at the caring friends who surrounded her. Kagome’s smile was tentative, the monk’s grave.

“Welcome back, Sango.” He said with a sigh as she shrugged out of his comforting embrace. “We were deeply worried about you.”

“I…I must see.” She said, managing to get to her feet with a shaky lurch.

“There’s nothing there, taijiya.” Inuyasha said, his growl rough but meant to be kind. Kagome gave him a Look he ignored, as usual. “You won’t find anything.”

“I have to see.” She insisted mulishly, pushing past the silver-haired hanyou to stumble back into the cave’s shadows, for they had dragged her outside sometime after that final explosion of brilliant light, when Bankotsu, the Jewel and the ancient, kindly face of a sad miko had all dissolved together as one…

She blinked back the encroaching shadows, rubbing at her dry eyes, which ached and burned. She felt raw all over, but she had to see the truth of it, had to confront and confirm the undeniable, though her heart flinched from it even as her lagging steps dragged her ever closer.

She let out a soft cry, more of a moan, and felt the sadness engulf her in fresh pangs of grief as she looked around her in dismay. For there was nothing there---no warring statues, or scrap of charred clothing, or even the splintered remains of his broken sword. The cave floor was swept clean of even the dusty remnants of discarded youkai parts the village had always taken there, their menacing auras protectively shielded by Midoriko’s sacred barrier…

There was nothing, then, for her to even grieve over, nothing for her to take and bury among the honored graves of her ancestors, where she might mourn him among the other fallen kindred of her heart who were lost to her forever…

But somehow that thought was not as bitter as it should have been. He would not have wanted her to mourn him, would not have wanted her to continue to grieve him, forgetting life and desiring death with each labored breath of a dulled shadow at existence. It was unworthy of her, and unworthy of his memory, his sacrifice.

Closing her eyes, she spoke of her hurt and of her love, and the unspeakable gift of his brief presence in her life. *I will never forget you, Bankotsu…*

The tears came again, welling up out of her eyes with fresh sorrow, but it was of healing this time, and weary resignation. The sadness ate at her, would ever eat at her, but she could bear it, and would honor his memory and his sacrifice with her life.

Her friends had gathered around her inside the empty cave without her noticing. She was grateful for their continued strength and their continued support. She could not now remember a time when she had not needed them, though she had denied it, fiercely independent and always afraid of being somehow hurt by them, through no intention of their own. How stupid it all seemed now, how petty and how unworthy of her.

“Sango-chan.” Kagome whispered, her voice soft and hesitant.

Sango managed a weak smile through the tears that dampened her cheeks. “Kagome-chan. I’m okay now, I promise.”

Kagome swept the taijiya in a tight hug, the kitsune adding his glad cries as Kirara wound herself in crazy circles around their legs, purring like a small thunderstorm. Sango even managed a shaky laugh as she all but tripped over the impossible neko, who yowled a protest and ran behind the safety of the monk’s draping robes.

“Stupid cat,” Inuyasha scowled. They were quiet, sensitive to Sango’s mood, but she smiled wistfully at them, and when she turned to leave, they silently followed.

She led them back out into the windswept dawn. Surprising how little time had truly passed. The incessant, dripping rain had finally stopped, but the air was chilled and damp. The clouds still hovered, but seemed lighter, and not as sullen or heavy. Sango led them along the lonely path that rose up from the narrow canyon and would eventually lead them to the empty village. Kagome walked hand-in-hand with her hanyou, Shippou on her shoulder. Kirara bound ahead of all of them, eager to put the cave behind her.

None of them could speak of what had just happened as yet, still in shock and not quite knowing what to say, but Miroku, who kept pace at Sango’s side, broke the silence between them with a simple, quiet question. “What will you do now, Sango-san?”

Sango shrugged uneasily. “Rebuild my village, I guess.”

She turned the idea over in her mind, and found she tentatively liked it. There was a purpose in it--something she would need to keep the sad sense of loss from eating away at her heart.

*I will rebuild my village, in honor of both our clans.*

It just might be enough…

Sango’s head was bowed as she emerged from amidst the canyon’s shadows, watching where she placed her feet, for the steep path grew treacherous at that particular spot. Her attention jerked up at Kagome’s startled gasp behind her, and her heart clenched as she blinked in stunned disbelief.

For he was there, outlined in the watery sunlight that had finally broken through the sullen clouds of mourning, his white clothing lit from behind as if spun from the pure essence of light, the giant sword casually draped over one shoulder awash with brilliance, as if he were some shining warrior out of legend.

He had to be a ghost, or a figment of her traitorous imagination, but the cocky grin that split his face, not to mention the mischief that glinted in his deep blue eyes was all too real, all too human, and utterly, undeniably Bankotsu.

There was nothing she could say, but her glad cry as she sprinted for him spoke everything held in her heart. The joy tumbled forth, fresh tears welling up in her reddened eyes as she was swept into his hard embrace, her trembling fingers sweeping across his beloved features, feeling the tanned skin warm and alive beneath her tentative touch. He was kissing her then, his mouth claiming hers in a hard kiss of fierce need, reunited passion blazing forth between them as if it had never stood discarded. She willingly lost herself in it, needing it as solid testimony that he was here, with her, and not gone, not dead, not gone…

“Sango, gods, Sango…” He whispered to her, hugging her to him with a fierce possessiveness that sent tingles racing down her back at the feel of his firm hand on the arch of her spine, and the supportive weight of his curled arm as she leaned back to touch his smiling mouth with her shaking fingers, the tears coursing unnoticed down her cheeks.

“How…?” She asked, the love and hope in her eyes wondering.

“It was you, my beloved. You who brought me back. You, who could be strong but not truly happy without me.”

There was wonder in his voice at it, that she needed him so much in her life. He had wished for it, her happiness, in his secret, hidden soul even as he had mouthed the wish to make whole the Jewel and heal the wound in Midoriko’s heart. It stunned him, amazed and humbled him, that it was she who could never be truly happy without him, there in her life, wholly a man, living and breathing and truly a soul redeemed and spirit recalled. One who could live with her and grow old together, reclaiming her village and rebuilding their clans in the unfailing honor of fulfilled dreams and renewed hopes…

Weak sunlight touched across the entwined pair, a playful breeze tangling the ends of their midnight hair as Sango stared up at him, unbound and unhindered love shining in her beautiful brown eyes.

Grinning down at her, Bankotsu said simply, “I am but a man, ninja. But a man who loves the shit out of you.”

And that, in itself, was enough for true happiness.