When she was just a skinny little girl, Mana learned that love was a complicated thing.

"Doggie," she called, tugging at one of his white forelocks. "Why's Mama so mad?"

"'Cause your old man left your baby brother alone for half a second." He snorted. Then, surprisingly, he added, "He's a moron."

She tore her eyes away from her sleeping sister, who rested her head on Inuyasha's other shoulder, to stare at his profile. "She don't love him anymore?" Mana asked in a small voice.

"Don't be silly." Inuyasha sighed, sounding like a suffering man. "Women can love morons, okay?"

"Why would they?" Mana wrinkled her little nose.

Inuyasha stopped walking.

At the innocent question of a confused child, the world seemed to hold its breath. The forest was silent around them; Mana couldn't even hear the birds' chirping.

"T-To help them," Inuyasha eventually managed to say. "They think they can help them." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "You've nothing to worry about, got it?"

Mana thought that was the stupidest reason she'd ever heard, but she took pity on Doggie and let it go.

"Hey, Jun," Mana called quietly. They were both walking down the path to the tailor's house. "Why do you think Inuyasha doesn't get married?"

Jun's step faltered. She looked at her sister as if Mana were insane. "Um, because he's waiting for Kagome?" She said exasperatedly. "Where have you been for the last, I don't know—nine years?"

Frowning, Mana turned her head to look at Jun. "I don't think she's real," she murmured.

Jun lifted an eyebrow at her. "W-What?" She shook her head. "Where's this even coming from?"

"I think they made her up." Mana sighed. "They made her up so he doesn't feel bad about himself."

"You're an idiot." Jun huffed. "Why would he feel bad about not getting married? He could just say he doesn't want to!" She turned away. "God, I swear, the stupid things you say sometimes…"

That's not what I meant, Mana thought. It's so he doesn't feel bad about not having what Mom and Dad do. She decided not to voice it, though. Kicking a pebble, she trotted after her sister.

Mana only realized how wrong she'd been when the well was destroyed.

Inuyasha wouldn't have kneeled for a week on its remains if it were just an old, meaningless well.

She wanted to run to his hunched form and hug the pain out of him. She wanted to apologize for being so stupid, for believing she and Jun could take on that scorpion demon alone. She wanted to beg for forgiveness for screaming his name, for leaving him no other choice but to strike the thing down.

For leaving him no choice but to strike down his hopes and send them flying.

Mana opened her trembling lips to call Inuyasha, her old friend, her favorite person in the world. When had he stopped being her hero? When had she started seeing him as only a sad, lonely uncle figure? Mana didn't know, but it was gone. She saw him, alright; had seen him in all his glory, blasting the scorpion demon—and the well—to pieces with the Wind Scar.

We owe you a debt we'll never be able to pay, her mother had said between sobs. Inuyasha hadn't said a word as she hugged him tightly, but he held her back, his claws almost digging holes in her taijiya armor (donned too late).

It had been the first time Mana saw tears in his eyes. The invincible, brash, and ever loyal Inuyasha went from hero to sad to hero to man.

Just a man.

She wanted to crawl into a pit and never rise again.

"Are you sure about this, Inuyasha?" Her father asked, sounding old and tired.

Inuyasha sighed. "Yeah." Mana thought he sounded peaceful, but she couldn't see his face to be sure. She felt tempted to stick her head in the hut, but then they would know she and Jun had been listening.

"We'll miss you," Mother mumbled. She sounded like herself. "The children will, too."

"Keh." Inuyasha's huff was soft, so very soft—maybe even happy. "I'll miss your brats, too."

Is he going away?

"Mana, you're breathing too loud!" Jun hissed in the darkness. They had already stopped talking.

On the next day, the reason behind such a strange conversation became clear: Inuyasha had asked the new village priestess to seal him, and the woman had agreed to it.

"You can't!" Mana said as she stood before him in the shrine where they used to keep the Shikon no Tama in Lady Kikyo's time. She, Inuyasha, Shippo, her parents, her siblings, and the priestess were crowding the small space. "You'll—we won't ever—you c-can't!"

It's our fault. We made him destroy the well. It's our fault.

Inuyasha approached her with a slight frown on his face. "It's the only way, kid." He swallowed. "It's the only way I'll see her again."

Mana didn't need to look at Jun to know she was crying.

"B-But—" You're my favorite person. You can't sleep forever. You're my favorite person.

Inuyasha tenderly brushed her bangs away from her forehead. She caught his hand and held it, held it so tight that her knuckles became white. She and Jun launched themselves at him. No one said a word.

Jun was crying, but Mana wasn't. There was an angry lump in her throat that prevented her from doing so. She didn't want to hate him, please—

"You gotta be happy," Inuyasha whispered to them, putting his arms around their shoulders. Mana's head snapped up to see him smiling. "Just be safe and happy."

Then, she cried into the fire-rat fur for the last time.

Mana went to Inuyasha's sleeping form from time to time. She patted his shoulders to free his fire-rat robe from accumulating dust, brushed his forelocks, tugged at the beads on his neck—his old ones and the ones her father had given him.

You're really giving me these? She remembered Inuyasha asking.

I have no use for them anymore. Father had tried to smile. It's just a token; something for you to remember us by.

Mana knew her parents had lived a beautiful, though sometimes rather dark, love story, but Inuyasha and Kagome's seemed much more romantic to her. Was it because it sounded so surreal? Was it because they would remain young in her mind? Or was it just the otherness of it, the fact that they weren't her parents, that made it more alluring?

There were flowers at his feet. Mother has been here today. Mana smiled in the darkness.

It occurred to the girl that Kagome might never fall down the well in five hundred years, seeing as Inuyasha had destroyed it. It occurred to her that her parents' story might never happen, that she might never happen, in another version of reality. It occurred to her that this time, maybe this time, they really had told her a beautiful lie—Inuyasha will be sealed so he can see Kagome again—instead of the ugly truth—this is his last shot, and it might not even work.

All of that did occur to her, but she dismissed it. Mana wasn't rational anymore; she was fifteen.

It was time she fell in love with a moron.

Silly Inuyasha, she thought, listening to her sister's approaching footsteps and remembering a conversation from long ago. It's not because they wanna help them.

They just wanna be happy.

A/N: I wanted to explore Inuyasha's relationship with the twins a little bit. It's nothing romantic, as you can see, and it won't have a sequel. The only reason I didn't post it in my drabbles fic, It's a Dog-Eat-Dog World, is that this diverges from canon. :)