He had always been a religious man.

Not devout in the traditional sense, yet unquestionably devoted to his own set of guiding principles. Like the Buddha, he rejected asceticism in favor of the Middle Way. How could it be a sin, he had reasoned from an early age, to enjoy the pleasures of this world? It was arrogance to assume that there might not be enlightenment to be found in such pursuits. If anything, he had erred perhaps a bit too strongly on the side of indulgence. Yet despite his past proclivities, he had never before feared for his soul.

The nature of the soul was more to him than an intellectual question. He had met demons, battled them, been cursed by them. He had seen them in their own flesh and in others’. Most humans considered them to be inherently evil, but he knew this to be about as true as assuming all holy men to be inherently good.

‘Good’ and ‘evil’ were relative terms, and ‘demon’ was simply another name for creatures not belonging to the mortal realm. There were higher planes of existence than met the eye. And more profound mystery to the human heart and soul than all of them combined.

The universe within. At times, he glimpsed it in Kagome’s eyes and felt the vastness of it come to bear.

Pushing the noren curtain aside, he stepped across the threshold of his home. The girls were napping in their bed. Lying near the hearth with Komori dozing against her, Sango was drowsing as well. At his entrance, her long dark lashes fluttered open.

“Husband,” she said with a faint blush, rising with the sleeping baby in her arms, “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.” The frown on her lovely face mirrored his own. “Is everything all right?”

Miroku’s jaw locked tight. He could hardly say.

Sensing his agitation, Sango slipped Komori into his crib before stepping forward to take Miroku’s hand in hers. Numbly, he let her lead him out to the back porch, let her guide him down to sit beside her on the step.

“Did something happen at the temple?” she ventured again. “What did the mystics have to say?”

Mikroku ground a knuckle between his knitted brows, endeavored to unclench his jaw. “Nothing we were not apprised of already.”

Slowly, Sango nodded. “Well then, what did they want?”

“Instruction,” Miroku answered tightly, glancing away. “Unnatural knowledge.” Patiently, his wife waited for him to elaborate. “They wished for Kagome to teach them how to transcend beyond the present existence, into past lives. In short, how to return from the dead.”

Sango’s brows knit as deeply as his. “Why would they ask such a thing of Kagome-chan? Why would they assume she could do something like that? She is a sacred priestess.” Sango’s voice grew hot with anger. “This sounds like sorcery.”

At her rightful censure, Miroku’s dread intensified. “Because she can,” he said, meeting his wife’s widening gaze. “Seiryuu guessed correctly: Kagome does possess this transcendent ability. She said so herself, and I…” Trailing off, he gazed beyond Sango, deep into the shadow of the surrounding wood. “I believe her.”

“Because of Kikyou?” Sango asked, her voice deathly soft.

Miroku’s lips twisted. “That is what Kagome said—that it was sorcery. I have told you before that it was the witch Urasue who resurrected Kikyou, who split apart Kagome’s soul in order to revive her past self. Kagome believes that it was this severing and ultimate restoration of her soul in full, upon Kikyou’s demise, which allowed her to transcend.”

He said this stiffly, carefully—as though delivering an argument crafted well in advance. And perhaps on some level he had been crafting it, in some dark corner of his mind. In the grim, murky depths of his conscience.

Depths that were now dredging up to the surface, into plain sight.

Sango’s gaze was riveted upon him, her grip on his knee over-tight. “…But you don’t believe it.”

“I want to believe it,” he said, gripping her back. “But the timing, Sango—it is close. Too close.” Swallowing, he forced himself to say it. “Too close to that night.”

Sango drew back from him sharply, her mouth a thin, forbidding line. “We promised we would never speak of it, Miroku.”

“I know,” he said, pain lancing through each syllable as he spoke it. “But I wonder, with the way that we found her—”

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Sango said firmly, heatedly. “We don’t know what happened, and neither does Kagome-chan.”

“There was water in her lungs,” Miroku retorted. “She wasn’t breathing—that much we know for certain.”

Sango’s back was board-straight, her eyes flinty and distant. She wasn’t touching him anymore. “The cut on her head was still bleeding. She had lost consciousness. She had just fallen in, that was all.”

This was the story they had told her, after. This was the story they had all told themselves.

“And the rest?” Miroku said, unable to bring himself even now to form the words, though the images flashed with piercing clarity in his mind. “How do you explain the rest?”

His wife seemed to shrink from him, to cave in upon herself. At the sight, Miroku cursed himself. Regretting his tone—regretting everything—he reached across the space between them and clasped her pale, icy cheek. Her lashes shivered against his thumb.

“We should have told her,” he said, his shoulders sinking at the admission. In the span of it, he felt himself age a hundred years. “We should have told her the truth, back then.”

Sango stared at him in pure desperation. “We agreed—we all agreed it was best not to tell her. Inuyasha agreed with us.”

“Inuyasha wasn’t there,” Miroku said, his tone empty. Bereft. “He didn’t see what we saw.”

If he had…

Miroku’s fingertips pressed into his wife’s tense, trembling jaw. “We lied to him, too. You know this.”

And now he is dead, her glazed, leaden eyes seemed to say.

“We wanted to protect her,” Sango whispered, but the words were hollow. “We wanted to protect them both.”

Miroku nodded, his reassurance as false as hers. Despite their past camaraderie, despite their love and their passion, despite even their own precious children, it was this secret which had bound them together inextricably. In their guilt and shared denial, they were truly one.

And so there was no need for him to glance in the direction of Kohaku’s home. No need for him to curl his fingers into the smooth, unblemished flesh of his right palm. There was no need to give voice to ulterior motives, to speak of ill-gotten gains.

Within them and between them, the understanding was self-evident.

This was the price they had paid, to preserve order. To maintain sanity.

“It’s too late now,” Sango said at last.

“Yes,” Miroku replied.

For a time it had seemed as though all would be well. But even that had been a lie. Looking back, Miroku could see things unraveling, almost from the start. One piece after another had frayed and fallen away, like ropes come untethered. By the time he and Sango had tried to bridge the growing distance, Kagome had drifted beyond their reach.

“There isn’t anything we can do.”

“No,” Miroku said, “there isn’t.”

He thought of Kagome’s power, how great it had been even before her transcendence.

For one such as she to have broken the karmic cycle…

Miroku squeezed his eyes shut on this dangerous train of thought. He had always believed in Kagome’s goodness, the purity of her heart. If anyone could wield such power uncorrupted, it would be she.

And yet…

He could not help but think of her paranoia, her growing mania. He could not help but think of that night, and fear that a part of her yet remembered.

Perhaps if Inuyasha had lived, it could have been forgotten.

Perhaps if he had known more, it could have remained buried.

Instead, it had buried him. Of this, Miroku was convinced.

This was why he had broken his vow to Sango. Why he had gone to Sesshoumaru with the truth of what he knew. The demon lord had listened to him, had confessed to him a truth in turn. Both revelations had come as strangely expected.

Miroku could only hope that it would be enough this time, to lay the sins of the past forever to rest. To contain Kagome’s raging soul.

If not…

May the gods have mercy upon them all.

To be continued…

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 4/4/23

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