The Portal

Chapter 24 – The Friends She Left Behind

He was walking. Not for any particular reason, he just wanted to be alone and think.

Things didn’t go well at all with Kagome’s family. He finally felt like he was ready to tell them this afternoon. Not that he wanted to. As a matter of fact it was the very last thing he could think of on his list of things he wanted to do. Unfortunately his conscious, combined with the constant nagging of his companions, had finally become too much to bare. So he took a deep breath and jumped into the future.

He felt as low as a damned ant when her mom turned around smiling at him, all motherly and stuff. Only it faded when she noticed Kagome wasn’t with him. He figured the look on his face didn’t help matters none. Her cheerful smile quickly turned into a frown. Before she could ask, a laughing Souta and Gramps joined them.

After he told them what happened the old man broke down crying, while Ms. Higurashi just sat there, slowly turning her head from side to side. Souta was the worst, though. Souta was angry, and wanted to know why he had not protected her. He was her protector, after all. The kid jumped up and shouted that Kagome wasn’t dead. He screamed that he would know. That he would have felt it, and then Souta ran off to his room.

He told ‘em he was sorry. He didn’t know what else to say. Then he left.

Maybe he shouldn’t have taken off like that. Maybe he should have tried to comfort her mother, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He just left.

Inuyasha stared down into the trickling stream of water flowing carelessly by, thinking how nice it would be to be a fish. Just a dumb fish, that swam around mindlessly searching for a meal until one day you die. It would sure as hell beat this shit. He hated the dull pain in his chest, which had now become a permanent part of his daily existence.

He wished he’d never met her.

No.

Never that.

He wouldn’t change the times they had together for anything. Her death only made them that much sweeter.

Inuyasha stopped progression suddenly, and listened. Strange? He thought he heard... crying? He took a few more steps, and heard it again. Someone was crying up ahead. He almost turned around then, but curiosity got the better of him. Instead he quietly continued walking.

She was sitting there on the rocks, sobbing. The wind drifted to him then, and he caught her scent. Wolf. Not the filthy stench of that bastard wolf, Kouga, but a fresh mountain smell. When she felt his presence she looked up. He recognized her then. She was the little wolf princess, that chased Kouga’s dumb ass around all the time. ‘What was her name again?’ Inuyasha thought. Oh well, he couldn’t remember at the moment.

She didn’t leave, but she didn’t invite him over either. He started to turn away, but damn it, he just hate’s to see a woman crying. So Inuyasha walked up to her and took a seat.

“You all right?” the hanyou asked bluntly.

She didn’t answer at all. She only stared down sadly. Her eyes hidden beneath long russet bangs. Inuyasha sat there silently with her for a long while.

Both of them in their own world of sorrow, until her feminine voice softly said, “I waited my whole life for him, and he turned his back on me. I give up. I tried. I even put aside my pride, for the sake of my pack. I chased him around like a silly little twit, begging for him to take me as his mate. No more. He’s humiliated me for the last time.”

Inuyasha grunted his understanding. It was about time she gave up on that stink’n wolf. “Kouga doesn’t deserve you, ya know,” Inuyasha said in a low gruff voice. “Hey, what was your name again?”

“Ayame,” she replied with a tiny hint of a smile.

Inuyasha turned to her and she looked up. Her huge green eyes were glistening with tears. Kouga was an idiot. He had the perfect opportunity to make this pretty young wolf demoness his mate and he turned her down. “Let me guess, Kouga says he’s in love with Kagome, right?”

Ayame nodded sadly. “You know, I don’t even care anymore. What really hurts is that I made such a fool of myself.”

Inuyasha nodded his understanding. He then looked at her with a sad half smile. “I guess Kouga’s gonna be pretty upset when he finds out that she’s dead.”

Ayame gasped in shock. She put her tiny hand out, placing it on his shoulder gently. “Oh, Inuyasha, I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged his shoulder’s, feeling the weight of his grief bearing down on him. He shook his head slowly, “It happened so fast. She was there one minute, and gone the next. Along with her went my half brother, and my greatest enemy. All three of them just... disappeared.”

“Maybe... maybe they will return?” Ayame said with a little hope for the hanyou.

“No. There was a curse on the monk’s hand, put there by Naraku. When they vanished, the curse was lifted. I have to face it; Kagome is never coming back. I just came from telling her family,” Inuyasha said roughly. His voice carried signs of his stress.

“That must have been hard for you,” Ayame said softly. She then did the strangest thing. She had no idea what came over her, but it was just something that she felt like needed to be done. Ayame opened her arms and pulled Inuyasha close to her. She hugged him gently for a moment, offering a small bit of comfort to the grieving man.

He let her hold him. He didn’t care if it made him look weak. It felt nice to accept this small comfort. He was tired of being the strong one. He was just tired.

Inuyasha was surprise at himself, for confiding in the young woman. He wasn’t one to talk about things that bothered him. Even with Kagome, he had clamed up, instead of saying what was on his mind, but for some reason, he felt like he could open up to Ayame. Maybe it was her own confession that brought out the need to share his grief. He didn’t know, and at the moment he really didn’t care.

The hanyou and the wolf princess sat side by side for sometime after their melancholy confessions. They talked occasionally, but mostly they just silently lended each other a little strength.

~~~***~~~

Miroku felt a little better, since he had finally managed to get Sango to take a walk with him. He had been worried about her for the past several days. She stayed in the hut and hardly ate a thing. Kagome’s death had been so hard on her.

He glanced down at the beautiful young woman at his side. She looked a bit pale, but already her color was beginning to return. He never wanted to see her suffer again. He never wanted to see sadness in her eyes again. Over their travels, she had become a most treasured jewel to Miroku. One that he never wished to part with.

Sango gave Miroku a half-hearted smile when he took her hand in his own. She knew he was worried about her, and she was trying to make him feel better, but the pain was still there, and she wondered if it would ever leave her. She turned away, and stared off in the distance.

Her sorrow had been all consuming, but today it was a little different. It was still there, but it was just... different. The slayer looked down to the ground slowly passing below, as she pondered this new feeling. Something inside her was screaming, and she felt like she needed to set it free.

Sango squeezed Miroku’s hand, and stopped walking. She looked up to her friend and love. The screaming had to be released, and now she knew what she had to do. “Come on Miroku, let’s go kill some demons.”

Miroku was a little surprised when Sango announced her plans and began dragging him back to the village. He smiled at her. It seemed that Sango had finally come back to him.