Beaming, Sango lifted the baby under her right arm. “This is Aimi.” Her left arm rose as she lifted the other. “And this is Airi.”

“Waaah! How cute!” Kagome gushed as she leaned forward, two pairs of deep brown eyes blinking up at her in sleepy question. “But…Sango-chan, how can you tell them apart? They look exactly the same to me.”

“Here, let me show you,” the taijiya said as she handed off one of the twins to Miroku. Unswaddling the baby in her own arms slightly, she showed the infant girl’s pudgy wrist, which was encircled by a tiny band of silver. “Airi-chan wears this bracelet, whereas Aimi-chan does not.”

“Oh, I see!” Kagome said, her eyes crinkling. “That’s genius!”

“Ah…”

Both women turned toward Miroku, who sweat-dropped.

“…I thought it was the other way around.”

“What?” Sango exclaimed, glancing down at the baby she held. “Then…this is Aimi-chan?”

“Yes,” Miroku said, rubbing his chin in consideration. “I’m almost certain…”

“Almost?!”

As Sango went red, Miroku went pale, and both babies began to cry, Kagome backed away toward the door.

“Seems like you guys have some things to sort out so…I’ll just, uh, leave you to it…”

Her hasty retreat made, the miko wandered over to Kaede’s hut, where she had a late lunch with her mentor along with Shippou and Rin. As the fox boy regaled her with tales of his latest adventures at the kitsune academy, the little girl showed off the pretty pink kimono her guardian had gifted her a few days before.

“Do you ever see Sesshoumaru-sama during your travels, Kagome-chan?” Rin asked brightly.

“Ah, well,” the miko hedged, a light blush fanning across her cheeks as she studiously avoided Kaede’s tractor-beam of a glance, “I haven’t had a reason to travel into the Western Lands as of yet…”

…Thank the gods, she added mentally.

Passing the rest of lunch in a series of strained smiles, the miko retreated at last to her own hut–the one she’d rather unofficially inherited from Inuyasha more than a year ago. Like the great friend she was, Sango had kept the place up for Kagome during her sabbatical–although it had been a couple of weeks since the taijiya had been able to stop by–for obvious reasons.

Stepping across the threshold again felt to Kagome like stepping back in time.

While a fine layer of dust filmed the few scattered belongings she’d left behind, the house looked almost exactly the same as it had when she’d abandoned it months ago. Picking up a broom more for lack of anything else to do than because the place needed it, Kagome swept the dust and cobwebs away, a deep frown etching her features as she discovered a lone spider still lurking in one shadowed corner.

After her time spent in captivity at Naraku’s castle, Kagome’s attitude toward these eight-legged creatures had yet to fully recover. With a strange mixture of pity and revulsion, she drove the spider out of her home with a brisk push of the broom and went outside herself to sit on the low wooden porch.

A melancholy sigh left her lips. There were still a few hours left before sunset, and only one old friend she hadn’t yet mustered the courage to visit. Steeling herself, Kagome rose to her feet.

Entei glanced up at her briefly as she walked past, but her youkai companion had been around her long enough to know when she wanted to be alone. Sensing this was one of those times, he bent his head to the crisp spring grass once more.

A short trek through the wilderness, and Kagome emerged into a familiar clearing.

Though it wasn’t his resting place in the traditional sense, she felt Inuyasha’s spirit here more strongly than anywhere else. With a fragile smile, Kagome raised her hand, brushing her fingers lightly over the faint blemish in Goshinboku’s trunk.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Inuyasha?” she said softly, stepping back to gaze up at the green swaying branches above. “Hope you and Kikyou are doing well.”

Feeling a little silly, Kagome turned away, her blurry eyes falling to the Bone Eaters well. Even before she drew close enough to sit down upon its ledge, she could tell the well was dormant still. The door to the Modern Era, her only path back to her family, remained closed to her—just as it had been on the night she’d resolved to return to Sengoku Jidai and complete her sacred quest.

Running her nails lightly over the weathered wood, Kagome thought back to the last time she’d been in Edo—to the moment when she’d last held the Shikon Jewel in her hand. In hindsight, it had been dangerously naive to think that the Jewel couldn’t tempt her. She was only human, after all, and as it whispered to her that she might yet reverse the decision she’d made, that she might yet surrender her powers and return to the future, she’d felt herself undeniably waver.

She’d seen their faces so clearly—Souta’s and Jii-chan’s, her mother’s…But then, she’d seen another face—the face of the demon she loved, who’d almost died so that she could put an end to the Shikon no Tama and its tyranny.

After that, the choice had been easy. But knowing she’d done the right thing didn’t make the cold, lonely nights any warmer.

Blowing her long bangs out of her eyes, Kagome gave her head a solid shake. What good did it do to dwell on things she couldn’t change—wouldn’t change? She had made the unselfish wish, and she knew that if push came to shove she’d do it again.

Still…

Slipping her pack from her shoulders to the ledge, she rifled through it, closing her hand around a few coins from her own era, which had wedged their way into a corner at the very bottom. Feeling entitled to a selfish wish or two, Kagome extracted the bits of currency with a grin.

Let’s see if this old well still has some magic left in it, after all.

As she set her backpack on the ground and picked a tuft of lint off the coins, a faint flicker of something caught her attention. Tilting her head, Kagome peered inquisitively toward the line of shaded trees before her.

“…Sesshoumaru?” she ventured out on instinct, still scarcely daring to believe it was him even as his pale, solemn figure stepped out into the clearing.

“Kagome,” he said, his unmasked youki now buffeting against her. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” she replied, crooking a smile. “…Not any more than I am, anyway.”

After a moment, Sesshoumaru approached, Kagome trying hard not to blush as the afternoon light played along the angles of his handsome face and lit the golden surface of his eyes. Just the sight of him had her heart clenching sharply in her chest.

“You’ve grown quite perceptive,” the daiyoukai said as he drew to a stop on the other side of the well, “to detect me even when my youki is concealed.”

“A couple of close calls have hammered that lesson home,” Kagome replied without thinking, her palms rising in a flutter at Sesshoumaru’s disapproving frown. “Er, b-but…to be perfectly truthful, it was my reiki in your heart I sensed, not you.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze fell as he touched the tips of his claws to his armored chest. “I see.”

“…How is it, by the way?” she asked gently, her eyes resting on his heart as well.

“Painful,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “But it hurts less when you are near.”

There was no stopping the blush this time. As Kagome’s cheeks helplessly heated, she rounded the corner of the well with a small smile.

“My travels haven’t taken me very closeby, I’m afraid. From what I hear, preying on humans is forbidden in the Western Lands.”

“Yes,” Sesshoumaru agreed, a hint of steel entering his tone, “it is.”

Kagome’s expression turned downright wry. “…Makes me think the demon lord who rules there might actually be fond of humans.”

“Some,” the Lord of the West conceded, catching her eye intently once again.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Kagome glanced away in a fluster. The effect he had on her was so unfair…

“What is that in your hand?” he asked, his gaze slanting toward the coins she was grinding together in her sweaty fist.

“Oh,” Kagome muttered, now attempting to bend the stiff metallic discs between her thumbs, “just some coins from my time…I was going to throw them into the well.”

“Why?”

“Well, they’re not really much use to me here. Plus, there’s this belief where I’m from that if you throw a coin into a well and make a wish, it’ll come true.”

Sesshoumaru arched a brow. “You believe this?”

“Not really!” Kagome said, bristling. “It’s supposed to be more fun than anything…”

When the daiyoukai continued to stare at her, clearly just as dubious at the idea of tossing coins down a well being “fun” as he was of it granting wishes, the miko deflated with a sigh.

“Here,” she said, smiling slightly as she offered him one of the two coins she held. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Suppresssing the shiver that threatened to run through her as his fingers brushed her own, Kagome watched as Sesshoumaru considered the shiny disc in his hand.

“Any wish?” he asked her narrowly.

Kagome nodded. Opening his claws above the dark mouth of the well, he let the coin slip through, both of them watching as it glittered down into obscurity.

“I wish—”

“No!” Kagome cried out as she lunged toward him, clapping her palm to his lips on pure reflex. “If you say your wish out loud, it’ll never come true!”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze sharpened as he peeled her hand away. “And what good has wishing in silence brought me thus far?”

Unsure how to respond to that, Kagome gazed mutely back, realizing only belatedly that he was still holding her fingers in his own.

“My only wish,” he began again, warmth flooding his voice as it roughened with emotion, “is to be with the woman I love.”

Kagome’s eyes widened, the coin in her hand clattering to the ledge as she clasped the front of his armor.

“Tell me again,” she demanded tremulously, tears blurring her vision as she looked up at him in blissful disbelief. “Please, Sesshoumaru, tell me again…”

His arm went around her, drawing her close to him as he released her hand, his claws sliding back into her hair instead. His lashes lowered, his clawed thumb skimming along her cheek.

“I wish to be with you,” he said to her once more.

“…The other part,” she murmured as if in a dream, touching her fingers to the line of his jaw.

“I love you,” he said as he lowered his mouth to hers. “Kagome, I love you…”

The instant her lips pressed against his, she felt it–all the longing, all the love. All the pain, all the guilt between them crystallized in that one moment–and abruptly shattered, as Kagome clung to Sesshoumaru and kissed him back. When at last they parted breathlessly, yet still intertwined, he cast his eyes to the coin lying forgotten on the ledge of the well.

“Aren’t you going to make your wish?” he whispered against the corner of her mouth.

Burying her fingers in his silky hair, Kagome steered his lips back to hers as she shook her head in answer.

“I’m good,” she whispered back.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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