-Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi
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-A/N: Just have always felt a rewrite was needed cause this could have been better.
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Flowers for Kagome:
Arigato Domo, Miko Kagome
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Drizzle fell down from the sky, whipping around his body and cloaking the old yokai in a hazy spray. Still, he refused to allow it to deter him from his yearly pilgrimage.
For years the old yokai had carefully watched and avoided running into the former hanyou. It wasn't that he didn't think he would be welcomed, but he felt like he had made the former hanyou suffer enough with her loss, he had no right to make his pain worse by being there as a further reminder. He had never understood why the hanyou hadn't torn him to shreds the night his miko died.
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Her bow broken, she had allowed herself to be encircled by the tentacles and pulled to the evil hanyou with one final arrow concealed, tied to the back of her torn shirt. When she was close enough she ripped the arrow free and plunged it into him, in his distraction he freed her and she snatched the Shikon no Tama and ran free of him.
She was almost in the protective embrace of her hanyou when she suddenly saw the yokai that they thought was dead, waking and shuffling to get clear. Instead of continuing to safety she turned and ran for the yokai to help him, met with an impaling tentacle that tore apart her chest.
To this day the old yokai could still hear the hanyou screaming her name.
The yokai had lain frozen to the spot, watching while the hanyou fell to his knees, sinking into the bloody mud around her. He picked her up and cradled her in his arms, wiping the blood from her face with his sleeves.
They joined hands, the Shikon no Tama between them, resting on her bloody chest and she wished the evil hanyou into hell for all eternity. In a flash of light Naraku was gone and the strangest peace fell over the countryside. All was quiet for a moment, and then the quiet was shattered by the hanyou's screaming sobs as his miko passed from life to death.
The yokai turned his head away embarrassed, ashamed, disgusted that she had died for him. He heard voices behind him and he glanced back just in time to see the last of the hanyou as he become human.
The new human looked up and saw the yokai's eyes on him and the yokai flinched at the pain in the human mans eyes, scarier than the worst rage he could have imagined. The yokai had experienced the worst rage and anger. But pain and sadness, this was something new.
The yokai bowed his head, his eye's asking for permission to approach and the human nodded once. The yokai hesitantly approached, gently brushed his fingers over the girls lifeless cheek, sniffing his own unfamiliar tears away.
Then the yokai turned and walked away silently into the black night.
The yokai had watched silently while the human buried her ashes under Goshinboku and placed a small grave marker that he had carved out with a chisel. It read
…Kioshii Tenshi
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Eventually the yokai left the village to return to his own life. Every year he returned on the anniversary of her death, the day she saved his life, to pay his respects. He was always careful to avoid the former hanyou, not wishing to cause him more pain than he already had. It was on the third year after her death that he stumbled across the former hanyou in the field of wildflowers. Such flowers must grow in patches closer to his home.
He understood then, this place must have been quite special to the miko for the human to come so far from his village, why else would he make such a journey? From then on the old yokai made it a point to stop there to gather flowers for her on his yearly pilgrimage….he had right up until the day he had found the meadow surrounded by a chain link fence, the flowers plowed over with an ugly "under construction" sign in front.
The old yokai had been heartbroken that they could so desecrate this place so sacred to the former hanyou and his miko. As he tearfully turned away that day fifty years before he realized that perhaps his remembering her meadow was a tribute in itself, he could keep it alive forever for them in his heart where none other could destroy it. He decided then that he would hold it for them forever, for the miko and her hanyou turned human. He paid for his purchase, then walked to Higurashi shrine to pay his respects to them, the hanyou turned human and the miko, his hero.
The old miko known as Kaede passed within five years of the great battle. Twenty-five years later both the slayer and houshi died within months of one another, she of pneumonia and he of a broken heart.
The next year when he woke to leave town after paying tribute the previous day, the yokai found the Kitsune burying the former hanyou. He had overtaxed himself in his journey to the field of wildflowers, then fell asleep on her grave and had not woken.
The next year a marker had been placed next to hers, it read
….. Kioshii Hanyou
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The yokai reached the shrine and climbed the long flight of stairs. He quickly ducked behind a tree when he saw the kitsune knelt before the graves. He cursed silently, after six hundred years you would have thought that darn kitsune would set himself on a normal time for coming and going.
"I already saw you. You may as well come out." Shippo quipped
The yokai sighed and stepped from behind the tree, saying a hesitant hello.
"You know, we've been doing this hide and seek for six hundred years now, don't you think it's time to give it up?"
"Yes, I… suppose it is."
"InuYasha never understood why you insisted on hiding your visits. He appreciated the flowers a great deal."
"He knew?"
"We all knew." Shippo smiled and nodded at the ground, inviting the old yokai to join him. "He turned human, but he still knew those flowers from any others. It was a kind thing to do."
The old yokai sat, then looked at Kagome's grave marker, unable to do more than whisper. "So many things I have never understood. Why…"
He cleared his throat.
"Why did she do it? I was always so rotten to her, to everyone. My lord says she was out of her mind not to let me lay on the ground and rot, and I must say I agree one hundred percent."
"Because she was Kagome."
"I've never understood why InuYasha didn't tear me from limb to limb."
"Because if he had, Kagome would have died for nothing. Kagome lived to love, and because of that, the love she earned in return was hundred times what she gave."
"InuYasha must have loved her at least so much."
"No" Shippo whispered "InuYasha loved her much, much more than that."
Happy shouts burst from the house and came running towards them.
"Grandpa! Grandpa!"
"Grandpa! Grandpa!"
"Grandpa! Grandpa!"
"You have grandchildren?"
"Many, and great-grandchildren. Do you not?"
"Who would mate a mean stupid little toad?" The old Yokai chuckled, remembering the angry teenage girl that had called him that. Such spirit she had.
Shippo laughed "Kagome called you that didn't she?"
The old yokai laughed a little "I deserved it."
"Ho!" He exclaimed as he was jumped on by the excited trio.
"Grammy says the tea is ready and to bring your friend." the little girl giggled.
"Children, this is Mister Jaken."
"Hello Mr. Jaken."
"Hello Mr. Jaken."
"Hello Mr. Jaken."
They smiled and bowed, the picture of breeding and manners, yet in the dancing emerald eyes were the tell tale signs of something stirring deeper, trouble lurking, a penchant for raising hell.
"This is InuYasha, this is Miroku. And this little angel is Kagome." Shippo smiled, tickling the cheeks of the little girl.
"InuYasha, Miroku and Kagome?" Jaken mused, a small smile played about his two hundred year old lips that had evolved from his beak. Judging by the eyes, the names fit. "I'm pleased to meet you."
"Come, meet the rest of my family." Shippo nodded towards the house.
"Certainly." Jaken rose to his knees, then stopped a minute, looking down at the grave markers once again. He brushed his fingers over Kagome's marker as he had her cheek that night six hundred years before, laying the flowers that he had brought.
"Arigato InuYasha. Arigato Domo, Miko Kagome. My hero."
"Hurry Mr. Jaken!" Little Kagome had run back to him and now stood near waving her hand. "Grammy makes the best cookies you ever tasted."
The old Yokai smiled and glanced at the grave stones a final time. Then he rose and followed the girl kitsune inside.
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Kioshii Hanyou -Beloved Half yokai
Kioshii Tenshi – Beloved Angel
Arigato Domo- Thank you much
Miko-Priestess
Shikon no Tama- Jewel of four souls or Shikon Jewel
yokai-Forest Spirit- I hate using the western translation Demon because of the biblical implications which leads one to believe that demons are bad. In Rumiko Takahashi's InuYasha Universe the Yokai can be either good like InuYasha or bad like Naraku or anal retentive good/bad depending on mood like Sesshomaru lol
hanyou-half yokai-half human (like InuYasha)
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