The Diary
Final Encounters
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with the owners of, Inuyasha
Kagome could feel it again. Emotions. She hadn't such a string of strong emotions since Inuyasha had told her to go home. At first it was a fast, numbing shock; then it escalated to an explosion of surprise that shattered the comfortable numbness and let the sharp, tantalizing agony in. He was here, standing just before her. Only Takeshi was in the way, and it seemed that he was trying to get away as quicky as possible. He had let go of Kagome, but she stayed where she was; her mind wasn't working well enough to allow her to move.
Meanwhile, Inuyasha was passed the point of furious.
"Hey, man," Takeshi was saying, his voice rattling, "chill out! What's your problem? We were on a date! She was enjoying it!" Inuyasha glanced at Kagome when Takeshi mentioned a date, but otherwise glared at the other boy, baring his lethal fangs. Kagome was just lucid enough to realize that he had come back to her era without a disguise.
"I think it's safe to say," Inuyasha growled, his jaw tightly clenched, "that there is no question about how much she was enjoying it. Enough, I'd say, to want to cry until she dehydrated, or perhaps enough to gouge your eyeballs out. Whichever the case, I feel obliged to stop her... to protect her." Kagome couldn't look at him. She stared unseeingly at the ground through it all.
To protect her? Kagome couldn't imagine why. Maybe he was mad at her for getting herself into trouble again... Or perhaps because he had to save her again. Maybe he wanted to be able to walk peacefully in another's era without having to stop and rescue some pathetic teenage girl who couldn't even keep herself from becoming subject to a male's raging hormones. Whetever the cause of his sudden and unexplainable protectiveness, Kagome was grateful, and yet... she wanted the ground to open up beneath her and swallow her whole.
Inuyasha was staring fixedly at the younger boy. Takeshi was, in turn, staring open-mouthed at the hanyou. Every slight muscle twitch, every angry jerk of his hand, every time his claws extended or his hand reached randomly for the sword hanging at his waist, Takeshi noticed. Inuyasha saw this and sneered.
"Now, I want answers, you little punk," he said angrily. Takeshi nodded. "First off, what gives you the audacity to ask out someone like Kagome?" Kagome blushed, embarrassed; why was she not good enough for him? Takeshi shrugged silently, his vocal cords strangled by pure fear. "Secondly, what makes you think you can force her to 'take a walk' with you?" Takeshi merely whimpered. "Thirdly, what makes you think you can touch her, kiss her, hold her, without her permission?" Takeshi didn't even try to respond.
"And lastly," Inuyasha continued, crouching in front of the boy so that they were on eye level and he could see the rage in the hanyou's eyes clearly, "give me one reason why I shouldn't take out the Tetsusaiga and slice you to ribbons for the maggots to eat as you deserve?" Takeshi's eyes widened and he gained power over his vocal cords yet again.
"Please!" He gasped, fumbling as he tried to back away, and only succeeding in bumping into Kagome, who stared at him through eyes blinded by pain. "Please, I beg of you! Let me live! I... I really had no prior intentions of harming the girl, I thought she was truly interested in me! It was pride, and vanity, that made me do it! Please, don't kill me!" Takeshi's voice broke as he slipped off the bench and landed on his knees, his eyes pleading.
"Wrong answer," Inuyasha whispered murderously, raising the Tetsusaiga into the air. As he brought it down toward the object of his anger, Kagome realized what was about to happen.
"No!" She shrieked, leaping from the bench. Her arms wrapped around Inuyasha's forearm, slowing the speed of his downward arc. Inuyasha stopped the sword with scant inches to spare, staring at the girl clinging to his arm, her eyes screwed up tightly and tears running down her cheeks.
"Kagome," the hanyou whispered. Deftly he pulled her to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he replaced his sword to its sheath. "I'm so sorry. Does this urchin have any worth to you?" Kagome forced him away, the tears falling faster. His arms at his sides, Inuyasha watched her back away, refusing to look at him.
"No," she replied, "but his death will serve no purpose. Please, just let him live. I promise I won't be of any more trouble to you." Takeshi, sensing his chance to escape, scrambled away, back toward the restaurant.
"'Of no more trouble to me'?" Inuyasha asked. To Kagome's surprise, he was angry.
"I'm sorry!" She cried in aguish. "I didn't mean to make you save me! I thought he was harmless, most guys in this era are, but... I'm sorry you had to protect me again. Please, accept my apology... I know you had no intentions of having to do any real work tonight. I'm sorry for making you feel that you had to." Inuyasha growled, surprising Kagome into looking at him.
His eyes were narrowed angrily, his eyebrows drawn tightly together. His mouth was a grimace of hateful anger, and his hands were tensed like he wanted more than anything to rip her apart with his claws. He was glaring at the ground, his whole body rigid.
"That moron got away," he said, a deep rumbling accompanying his voice, "and all you can say is that you're sorry for being a nuisance?!?"
"Inuyasha, killing him would have complicated things-"
"Killing him would have satisfied me to no end!"
"Get a hold of yourself!" Kagome was trembling with fear now. "I couldn't just let him die because you felt like killing him!"
"I couldn't stand to see him live just because you don't want me around you anymore!" Kagome sucked in a sharp breath.
"Is that... what you really think?" Kagome murmured. "Inuyasha, you make no sense to me! I wanted to be with you, but you wouldn't let me! You made me come home and stay here with all these pathetic boys and you told me that I didn't belong with you! Why can't you just make sense?!?" Kagome shoved him, but Inuyasha was too strong; even the surprise didn't knock him over. Instead he grabbed her arms and pulled her against him again, holding her there. As much as she fought, he refused to let go.
"Kagome," he said sternly, "you know why I had to do that. You were living a double life. You were barely passing school, you were lying to all your friends, and you were denying yourself the modern pleasures of being a young girl just because of me and your friends in the feudal era. You were holding the boys in your own time to standards you know they couldn't possibly reach because they aren't faced with the challenges that we are. It wasn't healthy for you."
"I don't care!" Kagome screamed in reply. "If I cared what was healthy for me and me alone, I wouldn't have helped you defeat Naraku! I wouldn't have dreamed of risking my life all those times, I wouldn't have learned to use a bow, I wouldn't have found my most precious friends! I wouldn't have truly lived, Inuyasha! If the way it was before was unhealthy for me, what I'm doing now is just plain deadly! Now let me go!" Kagome managed to tear herself away from the hanyou again, and heard a consequential rip. Looking down at her kimono, she found that one of the beautiful sleeves had been ripped along the seam.
"My beautiful kimono," she murmured abstractedly, staring at the ragged tear. A single tear rolled gently down her nose, over her lips, and dropped from her chin. Inuyasha watched the progress of the tear with growing helplessness, as Kagome continued to stare at the rip. "Kaede... she gave me this kimono... and that night... that night..." Kagome broked into a torrent of unstoppable sobbing. Inuyasha gently led her to the bench and sat with her.
"Kagome... I'm so very sorry," he said, gently holding her hand in his. "I didn't mean to rip it... It was my fault, after all... Please, is there anything I can do?" Kagome simply shook her head, unable to make words through her cries. So he sat with her, content to wait it out. Eventually they died down, and Kagome sat slumped on the bench beside Inuyasha.
"Kagome, can I tell you something?" Inuyasha asked hesitantly. Kagome nodded, sniffling. "Ever since the day you left... I've been coming back to your era." Kagome stopped rubbing her eyes to look at him inquisitively. "At first," he continued, looking up at the trees, "it was to make sure you adjusted okay. Then, when it was obvious that you were doing fine, I convinced myself that it was to periodically check up on you. Then I recognized it for what it was: a vain attempt to see you more than I knew I should. I never let you see me, and I never made contact with you or your family, but... I knew I was cheating you. I was letting myself do as I wouldn't allow you to. This was supposed to be my last night to see you. I even left you a note on your bed... Then I came to see you one last time. When I got here, that... that bastard was hurting you. But before I could get to you, I heard what you said." Inuyasha's grip tightened on her hand and he fell silent.
"And?" Kagome asked through her sniffles.
"And I couldn't help but realize that... you were right. I never really showed you how I feel until I was forcing you away, and I've regretted that ever since I made the decision. I've been so out of myself... even Sango left me alone."
"You're not travelling with the others anymore?" Kagome asked, surprised. Inuyasha gave her a sad smile.
"No. I angered Miroku when I made you go home, and Shippo ran away; he said that without you there to protect him from me, the only thing to stay for would be death. Sango came to see me at the hut every now and then, but... the last time I told her about my decision to stop coming to the modern era, and she got mad at me. I think she was holding out hope that I'd eventually come to my senses and change my mind, but... I gave up. And she knew it. So she told me that she was sorry about the pain I was going to go through, but that... it would teach me a lesson. And then she left, and I didn't see her again before I came here." Kagome looked at the ground.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know how it feels to lose all your friends because of one decision." Inuyasha glanced at her, then looked away.
"Thank you."
They sat in silence for a while, Inuyasha's clawed, gently muscled hand still encircling Kagome's small, fragile one. After a bit, Kagome looked down at the entwined fingers and wondered what it would be like once Inuyasha was gone again. Once he had left her. The pain of his inevitable departure was already twisting her heart into an indefinable lump and stabbing it like a voodoo doll as it laughed in her face. What would it be like when he was truly gone? Kagome realized that no matter how much it hurt now, it would hurt far more if she continued to let things happen. Slowly she unwound her fingers from Inuyasha's and stood up.
"Kagome?" He whispered, his hand still open on the bench. He looked up at her curiously, and a flash of pain across his face to be replaced by hurt understanding. Looking at his hand, he said quietly, "I'm sorry, Kagome. I understand... if you don't want to see me again."
Feeling the tears returning, Kagome turned away so that Inuyasha wouldn't see the fresh new wave as she replied. "I don't think it matters anymore, Inyuasha."
"What does that mean?" Inuyasha asked desperately. "Of course it matters! Why wouldn't it?"
Still looking away, Kagome closed her eyes. "Because... you're leaving. I'll never see you again."
"... You really want me to leave?"
Kagome shook her head, tears falling from her face. "No, that's not what I meant-"
"Then what did you mean?"
Irritably, Kagome turned back to face him, her tears of pain and loss now mingled with frustration, "You don't love me, Inuyasha! Why else would you want to leave me again? Why else would you be here? You came for a final check-up, and now-" Kagome stopped, anger forcing her to run her hands frustratedly through her hair. Inuyasha slowly stood up, beginning to walk toward her as an odd light filled his eyes.
"You don't... hate me?" Inuyasha whispered, disbelief coloring his tones. His look leeched her anger like water through a drain.
"How could I hate you?" Kagome whispered in reply. "I can't stop loving you."
"Then why don't you just say it?" Inuyasha asked happily, gently taking the girl by her arms. "Kagome, say the words, and it'll be okay! Just say it... please, Kagome... I need to hear it." Inuyasha lowered his face so that he could nuzzle Kagome's hair, his eyes closing softly.
"I don't understand," Kagome whispered. "I don't know what you're asking of me."
"Kagome... I was lost without you. I was in constant agony, feeling out of place and confused, and I didn't know what I was living for anymore. I knew I'd come back to you eventually... but I have to know that it's what's best for you. If you say you love me... I'll know it's best for you."
Kagome leaned away from the hanyou, looking up into his eyes. "That's all I had to do?" Kagome whispered. "Just tell you the truth?" Inuyasha nodded, staring back into her deep brown eyes cautiously.
"Inuyasha," Kagome said softly, "I... I love you."
Instantly she was in bliss. Inuyasha smiled widely and wrapped his arms around her again, this time picking her up and raining kisses upon her. He kissed her face, her hair, anything he could reach. Finally, he placed her back on the ground and kissed her lips, softly and deeply, and wrapped his strong arms around her protectively. Finally he pulled back for air and to run his fingers gently through his love's hair.
"Kagome..."
"Hmm?"
Inuyasha came closer, pressing his lips against her ear: "I love you, too."
I am slightly depressed that this is, in fact, the end. No more adding chapters to the flowering love story! I could go on and on, but then it would become more ofa ramble. And besides, I think that one of the best types of ending are the ones that leave readers wanting to read more, you know? always get so mad at authors who do that, and yet... It's the best kind of ending in my opinion. Makes no sense, eh? Whatever. Anyway, thank you all for reading! And... I know there are lots of holes in this one, so... I'm really sorry about that '. I was just so caught up in it that I think I missed a few unexplained factors when I went back to reread it. Well, ciao!