A.N.: SO SORRY! Sorry, sorry, sorry for not updating. For my few loyal reviewers, here is the final chapter of God. I'm very sorry for not updating. Things outside of my control caused me to be unable to write, some of those things being severely depressed, being diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and complications from Ulcerative Colitis. Also, the words spoken by Kagome in the end are Japanese death poems. You can find them all here: http : / 174. 132. 129. 219 / ~jise i/haiku1 .html

(You'll have to put the spaces in)

Inuyasha moved swiftly through the tangles of vines and holes in the dirt path. He could sense Kagome nearby. If only he had the courage to turn around and collect her into his arms, assuring her that everything was all right, that he would fight for her. Around every corner he could hear her voice, hear her sobs, and hear her screams. She was being tortured by Naraku to the point that she would do anything just to get him out of her head. Inuyasha followed the sound of voices until he saw Kagome collapsed on the ground with her face in her hands, tears flowing freely.

"Release me!" she cried out. "Release me from this torture that I have endured." Her eyes focused clearly on Inuyasha for once and glared. "It is YOU that has caused this! I fought beside you, I promised you love. But you never cared for me. Only for Kikyo." She picked up her sword and nearly doubled over with the pain that Naraku was inflicting upon her from behind the shoji screen, his true image unseen by Sango and the others so that they did not know where he was truly hiding. But she clenched her teeth together and raised the sword to its full height and pointed the end of it to Inuyasha, the tip pointed directly at his heart.

"I will seal you once again, so you can rest with Kikyo." Inuyasha could see now that Naraku's influence was fading the farther away she got from him. But the hate and hostility that he had instilled in her was still clear. Inuyasha unsheathed Tetsusaiga and, against his wants and desires, pointed it at Kagome's heart.

"I don't want to fight you, Kagome," he told her softly. "Please, lower your sword and help us defeat Naraku." Kagome smiled sadly and wistfully at that.

"I'll miss you," she told him. His heart pounded in his chest. He knew what would happen when they defeated Naraku. Kagome would die for her soul would lay intertwined with Naraku's evil soul, if he even had one, for all eternity. She would be his forever with no chance of escaping.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Kagome," Inuyasha continued slowly. "We can find some way around this. I'll take you away from here, break the curse somehow." Kagome's eyes filled with immense sadness and regret.

"No. Where you are going I cannot follow. I must die here. I'll never be good enough for you and that will haunt me no matter where I go. Why, Inuyasha? Why was Kikyo so much better than me?" At this point, Kagome was sobbing pitifully. "Do you know how hard I tried, how I dreamed, that some day you would turn to me and say, "I love you"? But I never heard those words, never got that respect, that love, that feeling of passion from you. Everything I did was in vain. Everything I did just threw you more and more at Kikyo's filthy clay feet. She's a shell of a soul, Inuyasha, and now so am I! We're one in the same! And still you won't love me! I hate you!" With this, she raised her sword and moved with blinding speed towards Inuyasha, her left palm glowing with the powers of the miko. Just as her sword was near to plunging through his chest, she halted and broke down into another sob. "No, I won't kill you," she whispered. "That's not me. I want to die the way I should: as I truly am. I will die as a woman that loved but could not have what she so desired. I will go in peace." She pressed the blade of her sword against her chest where the heart that once beat so strongly now played a much more silent tune.

"Naraku," she began. "I know that you can hear me so hear me well. Away from your influence I have gained my true self back. And now I refuse to do your dirty work. I am taking my own life. Inuyasha and the others may attempt to fight you and I hope that they slaughter you, but I will not be the one slaughtering them. I bear no ill will against Inuyasha now and I pray that I will go in peace." Inuyasha watched as blood began to run down the length of her kimono as she pushed the blade deeper and deeper in to her body. There was no expression of pain on her face but there was an expression of bliss. Of freedom. Her breathing became rapid and then slowed as if something had touched her softly, comforting her. Yet as she did all of this, a lone tear was falling down her cheek.

"I will miss you, Summer. I will miss you, Spring," she whispered. Inuyasha grabbed the sword from her, horror evident in his eyes.

"Kagome!" he cried out as he slowly pulled out the blade. Blood fell to the ground like a brief spring shower of crimson. As he was pulling it out, he came to the conclusion that the he didn't realize how deep she had inserted the sword until he was now the one pulling it out. After the entire blade was removed, she fell to the ground and blood pooled around her, coming from the corner of her lip and from the wound site. Inuyasha cradled her broken body in his arms and looked at her with panic in his eyes.

"Don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I promise that I'll leave Kikyo. I won't ever abandon you again!" Kagome smiled sadly and placed a cold, weak hand on his tear-stained cheek.

"Shh, it's all lies you speak now. Speak something to me now about death. Speak to me to ease my passing." Inuyasha began to weep and he whispered, "I know of nothing to ease your passing save for that I always did love but could not express it." Kagome smiled fondly at him for once and whispered as her hand began to slip from his grasp as Death was coming closer," *"This final scene I'll not see
to the end...my dream
is fraying"

And then her hand grew slack. Inuyasha barely heard Sango's voice call out to him that Naraku was dying. Inuyasha heaved heavy sobs as he cradled Kagome's broken body in his arms, his tears falling and mixing in with the crimson. Kagome opened her eyes for one last time and whispered, "So…it is…done? Thank Kami. A bright and pleasant autumn day to make
death's journey.*" And then she whispered with her dying breaths," Inuyasha… I always…always…." And then her eyes fell heavy and her body became too heavy in his arms. Inuyasha's eyes widen and he began to shake her violently.

"Kagome! Kagome!" he cried out over and over. "Tell me what you wanted to say! Tell me!" As Naraku's poisonous body melted away, and Kagome's body was fading as well, Inuyasha felt insanity drawing around him. She was really gone. Sango, Miroku, and Shippo came running and all cried out to see their beautiful friend lying broken in Inuyasha's arms. Sango let out a piteous cry and fell into Miroku's arms. Miroku assumed the prayer stance and bowed his head, allowing a few prayers to slip through his lips to coax Kagome into Heaven, to ease her troubled spirit and protect her body from evil.

"She wanted to tell me something at the end," Inuyasha whispered as he kept his head bowed. The miasma was gone and everything was growing at a rapid rate, full of fertility and life. Sango smiled sadly and touched her best friend's hand.

"I think she wanted to tell you that she forgave you and that she loved you. See now how she shows us her love? She has banished evil by forsaken her own life. Inuyasha, can't you see? She is free now. She felt such a burden with Kikyo being near. And now….now she can rest."

Inuyasha carried her body to the nearest temple which was quite a walks away and allowed a priest to bury her amongst some of the greatest priestesses that had ever served. And so it was done. They recovered the rest of the Shikon Jewel and Inuyasha was allowed to make a wish. With Kikyo at his side, he gazed at her sadly and wished that she would finally seek peace in Heaven. With those prayers uttered, she faded into dust and ascended to Heaven.

Inuyasha never loved after that. He parted from his friends and wandered alone, speaking to Kagome's spirit whom would visit him from time to time. He gave up on everything, fighting Sesshomaru, and seeking a better title for himself. And until the night that he gave up his life, Kagome was his every thought. His every bitter and regretful thought. Kikyo no longer haunted him. It was merely Kagome's presence that haunted him, and he was also haunted by thoughts of what he could have done; how he could have saved her. No one knew where he was buried. That was Kagome's secret that she kept with her from her place in the Otherworld. And the two were reunited in death, with no pain, no regrets, and no temptation. Just each other. Forever.