Come the Light Chapter 1, an inuyasha fanfic

Come the Light

By Rymsie

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Along the third minor tributary to the southwest, below caves as ancient as time unfolding, yet above newly cleared peasant fields, the village had grown from nothing, into a thriving community. It had known the ups and downs of seasonal flux, experienced times of peace and ravaging war, and even survived attacks from more supernatural forces. Youkai forces, miko struggles, and enchantments.

Such times were of the past though, washed like water thin blood to the river and beyond, and still, the village stood. Hearty and strong, fifty years past its last great hurtle, the hanyou InuYasha's revenge. Well, fifty-six to be exact, but why keep track of mortal years when one is ageless?

Because she was not, he reminded himself, looking down from the caves to InuYasha's Forrest below. She was mortal and followed the courses of time that brought life to this world and then, so unfairly, snatched it away. She'd been born centuries in the future, a time he could not comprehend, yet would use his eternal life to see. And his existence was an eternity, alone and angry, and oh so slow.

Anger that even now, a half-year after her loss, had yet to dissipate. It was because of the cause, that tiny seed that she'd planed in his heart and nurtured to full bloom, the now rotting garden of her love that he could not tend without her. From this he wrought eternal pain. How could she turn from him after all they had shared? Was his love not strong enough for her that she felt obligated to his worthless hanyou brother - a creature so below him and her that the cretin knew nothing but to hurt and destroy such a fragile and precious gift?

That's how he'd found her five years ago. It had been not a month before her sixteenth birthday, the one-year anniversary of her coming to this age, and she'd been betrayed for the last time. Broken by InuYasha into a near empty shell. The hanyou had sapped her spirit and shattered her being, leaving his way open to interference; simple, clean, without restriction.

And he's saved her that day, stopped her from giving over the rest of the soul within her to that walking corpse. In doing so he'd signed Fate's contract of destiny, following in his father's steps and tilling the emotional earth of his soul.

Yet he was here and she was not. The completed Shikon-no-Tama had stolen her away, back to her time. Even InuYasha had been unable to attain the stone, a point he loved to bring up now and then, just to rub salt in an open wound. Indeed, SesshouMaru took great pride that he'd been her lover and mate, and that even after all his brother had struggled for, InuYasha was not given what he sought. Neither Kagome nor the Shikon-no-Tama would ever belong to the hanyou again.

SesshouMaru could feel the presence, and knew it was time. Tonight he would bring home his lover, his mate, his Kagome. She would come to him by the light of dawn and tend the garden of his heart forever more.

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He came to the last spot she'd even stood at and waited. The dead priestess, his former lover, was never far off. She haunted these parts of the forest because she was bound here. It was not difficult to know why - Kagome's soul, that tiny piece that gave Kikyou life, sought it's home and mistress.

Sounds of the forest that were easily taken for granted became blatantly absent at her approach. The trees themselves silenced in her wake, out of fear and hatred rather than respect. He could track her progress without sight or smell for the ground beneath her light step groaned in yearning for the soil and bone once lost to it. It was not a noise even dull human ears could miss.

"You should not have come, InuYasha." She spoke, the tone encouraging departure.

"He is close," was the careless reply. He lifted his shoulder in a shrug; "I will not interfere... merely want to see what happens."

"LIAR!" Kikyou gave the response without emotion, her voice dripping in malice and mistrust. "You came to see her, to see if he would bring her back." Her undead soul quivered in thought of the being that stalked her. It was enraging that her reincarnation would have both these men, one she sought to kill and punish for his betrayal and the other, most powerful and feared of all youkai in the Western Lands, the dark prince SesshouMaru.

She paused above the spot where Kagome had vanished six months ago to the night, seething. When she looked up InuYasha saw the anger in her eyes, bright and bled through with madness. How could he have turned his back on innocence and purity for this, he wondered. What had he seen in her, be it by magic or illusion, which had caused him to lose another, so important and irreplaceable? She was right though; he was here for Kagome.

Though it galled him to admit it, he hoped SesshouMaru had finally unlocked the mystery, that killing the undead miko would release the seal on the well and allow Kagome to return. It had been too long since she'd stood upon the valiantly living patch of earth below Kikyou and disappeared from their lives. Months that felt like years, the time when they should have been together, even if SesshouMaru had her love as a mate. He'd still take being her friend.

The forest grew silent beyond the glade and InuYasha knew his brother had arrived. It had taken time and numerous beatings of Jaken to gather the location and event of this evening. He was not meant to know, not meant to be here, and it would be greatly amusing to see his brother's reaction.

The Western Lord arrived and no words were lost before the battle began.

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Kagome sighed and placed the last of the flowers at the base of the Goshinboku Tree. Tonight marked a half a year since she'd been brought back, since the Shikon-no-Tame had been made whole and purified. It had returned her to her time and absorbed into her body once more, yet still she felt incomplete.

Her soul was torn still, missing that one link to the past that kept her from being herself again.

From within her abdomen a slight, though noticeable, jab to the ribs reminded her that Kikyou's piece of her soul was not the only connection. Rubbing her slightly swollen belly Kagome cooed to the unborn, soothing his concerns over her sadness.

"Yes, I know, Little One," she whispered, pleased when the overactive movement subsided to something more normal. "You are proof of my other half, my better half," she amended with a smile.

It had taken only a month after her return to the future to realize she was carrying his child, but what Kagome, her grandfather, and the Doctor couldn't understand was why her terms were longer than normal. She had a hunch it had to do with being impregnated by a youkai - not something you could confide to a modern medical professional without being sent to a loony farm - but her humanity should have countered that.

Granted, she had never asked how long one carried a hanyou, but still... six months after the last time she'd been with SesshouMaru, add to that another three weeks [since she was positive she'd been pregnant for a while before that final night with him] and she was still only at a term equivalent to the mid to late second-trimester of a normal pregnancy. If this kept up she'd be pregnant through her next birthday, close to four months from now!

Just the thought made her back ache.

With a final swipe over her child, she stood once more and headed to the well shrine. It was time to check and make sure the well was still blocked. This was a ritual now, one preformed every two weeks [at first it was more like every day] to make sure there was no way for her to return.

She was still haunted in her dreams by his cry to her, the way his normally emotionless facade had slipped and pure panic was evident in every line of his face and body. It was a moment in her life, one of three that she would never forget and always be able to recall as though it had just happened.

The shrine was spotless, as per her daily sweeping of the steps and deck within. There seemed to be an in-flux of tourists over the last few months, many American and curious European types searching for the romance and adventure of ancient Japan. If they only knew, she thought after checking down the well and then returning to the top deck for the broom.

It was a calming motion, cleaning the shrine. She would always tell her child about his father, letting the love flow into him as it did through her. He would know his papa from her stories only, a point of sadness for her, but one quickly driven away with a tiny kick or nudge. If only one thing could be said about SesshouMaru's offspring, he would have his way!

Outside the shrine building noise from the city and surrounding neighborhood seemed to die away. Kagome didn't notice the silence until it literally entered the shrine itself. She stopped mid sweep with realization that the crickets had halted their nightly serenade and that even the soft tinkling of her mother's wind chimes was no more.

The air thickened as though an electric current was present, waiting for one simple spark to set it all alight. The eerie quality even set her son to rest and Kagome swore she felt the unborn child shiver within her, his sense of premonition far more acute than her own.

It was the well, she knew that without even thinking, but what could be causing this? What would bring such a force to her after so much time? Was it her mate calling her back? Could she now use the well?

The broomstick clattered to the deck as she raced to the well's rim. In it's normally dark depths a blue glow was beginning, spreading, and shining up to her. It was the glow she had known every time she'd traveled through this gate to the past. It was her opening to return.

Kagome turned to look back at her home, the top floor and roof just visible through the open shrine doors. "Mother, Souta, Grandpa... I love you," she said, in neither a whisper nor a shout for she just spoke it, knowing that the shrine would harbor her words so that her family would know them every time they came here.

With a final prayer sent to the gods for her second chance Kagome leapt over the well's rim and returned to her future.