– 33 –
.the void.

She stands in a pall of darkness, her footsteps echoing with every step she takes.

Where the Jewel has brought her, she cannot imagine. And yet it is here with her, too.

In the twist and swell of the shadows that surround her, she feels its gloating presence.

Why tarry, Miko? the Voice of the Shikon no Tama rumbles. We both know, even now, the one desire of your heart.

“How can I be certain of anything,” she challenges back, “when I don’t even truly know myself?”

Then I will show you the truth, the Voice answers silkily.

Though it will change nothing.

The shadows part, and in the lighter darkness between them, stands a mirror framed with thousands of sharp, black sickle-shapes.

Approaching it, she studies the image trapped within. It is herself, yet not herself. A girl of fifteen mortal years, clothed in green and white, with a quiver at her back and a bow in her hand, and on her face an expression of hatred so savage and determined and fierce that she recoils from the sight of it as if burned.

The darkness around her echoes with mocking laughter.

Are you frightened now, Miko? Frightened of the truth you claim to seek?

She grits her teeth and steps toward the mirror again.

Foolish girl, the Voice goads her.

You should be afraid.

Her hand extends toward the looking glass, fingertips rising to meet those of her reflected self.

She is Pandora.

She is Eve.

She is Izanami.

And with a scream of rage and grief and pain, with a cry of such great and terrible knowing that the mirror shatters and the darkness around her dissolves in an explosion of rose-colored light, she is Higurashi Kagome.

…

Her eyes are open.

Tears stream from them, only to be scorched away by the radiance that enfolds her like a candle flame. Flickering, pulsing, her powers strain against the dark bonds of the curse that binds her still.

Now do you see? the Voice sounds in her mind, though less imposing than before.

And she sees. She sees Sesshoumaru standing triumphant yet again, Yashamaru’s lifeless body slumped at his feet. She sees the blood on his hands, the greed in his expression.

It is a sight she has seen before.

Yet when he turns toward her at last, for the first time in more than five hundred years, what she sees in his eyes is fear.

Now is the time, Kagome. Take your vengeance for the ones you love. For Yashamaru. For Kohaku.

For Inuyasha.

She trembles at the sound of that precious name, once lost to her mind, but never to her heart and soul.

This is your wish now, as it was then. You need speak only the words for it to be so.

At this, she stiffens, her gaze falling to the Jewel in her palm.

I don’t need a wish to kill Sesshoumaru. After I’ve destroyed you and broken the curse, I’ll kill him myself.

The Jewel blazes with purple light, its Voice a roar in her thoughts.

It takes her a moment to understand–its outburst was not of anger, but of glee.

Ignorant girl, the Voice jeers, even if you could destroy Me, the curses laid upon you would remain. Your memories, too, would return to the Void, for I reveal them to you only now under My own power.

You lie! Izanami-sama told me–

Yet here she falters. For in truth the goddess had only told her that the Jewel could be used to free her from Sesshoumaru’s tyranny. That, and nothing more.

The Jewel laughs again, long and deep.

NOW MIKO

NOW, DO YOU SEE.

She falls to her knees.

Bitterness chokes her lungs. Tears cloud her eyes. She cannot dispel them.

And yet the path before her is clear.

“My task”, she says faintly, “my task was to destroy you…”

A fool’s errand, and pointless besides. Who is there to hold you to this task?

Who is there…

The holy blaze around her dims. Her strength is fading, bleeding from her through the rends in her heart.

And he is advancing upon her now, scenting her weakness like a wolf on the prowl. Closing in on her, once more, through the carnage.

Yet she forces herself to look past him, to look down at the Jewel simmering in her palm.

Staring at it, she can see now with perfect clarity the dark tendrils that extend from its polished surface, black threads that weave between her and Sesshoumaru like puppet strings.

It is easy, she remembers, to forget one enemy in the presence of another.

“Who is there,” she repeats, fingers clenching around her ancient foe, voice trembling and powers flaring brighter with every gritted word.

Faces flash before her–Shippou’s and Miroku’s, Sango’s and Kohaku’s, Yashamaru’s and Inuyasha’s…

Even Kikyou’s and Naraku’s.

Faces that are no more. Lives undone by the architect of her own demise.

“There is no one,” she answers the Jewel at last. “You have seen to that.”

The full force of her power floods the Shikon no Tama, and it burns in her hand like a dying star.

NO, the Voice howls, as the Jewel begins to splinter. You stupid girl!

Without ME you will never be free

NEVER

Sorrow sharpens to the keenest point within her. And though her resolve wavers, and though every fiber of her earthly being cries out against her, she looks down at her last chance for salvation and wishes to it, “Begone.”

A scream of anguish lances the air, deafening her, though whether it was torn from the Jewel or from her own throat, she cannot say–only that in the silence thereafter, the Shikon no Tama is no more.

As the last shimmer of it disappears into the Void, she struggles to hold fast to her memories, slipping through her mind like the sparkling grains through her fingers.

Her friends are forgotten, her family too. In the end only two remain–her love and her hate, between which she cannot choose.

And so they swirl together, in fragments of remembrance so sharp and piercing that even as they tumble into oblivion, the impression of them remains, like a scar upon her mind.

Blinking, she looks up at Sesshoumaru at last.

In infinite weariness. In peace and hostility.

In victory and defeat.

“I’d like to go home now,” she says.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi