Thus Spake the Dog by Ross

A Whim

Kagome never did know when to leave well enough alone.

They ranged around the campfire, light dancing across the planes of their faces. She watched them, waited, prolonged the enevitable to memorize their expressions, the simple nuances that defined them. How could she ever live without them? She'd given them more then she'd ever asked for; no bitterness, no regrets.

It was almost time. Kagome clenched her hand around the near completed Shikkon no Tama and fisted the other in her shirt's pocket; she couldn't...A pinprick from what she gripped brought her to herself and she drew a hand across her damp eyes. This was no end, she told herself fiercly, it was a beginning. Be glad for your friends, for all the hurts that will be healed... It was a downward pull; she was tired of fighting it.

There was only one chance for goodbyes; she stood up. "Everyone?"

Sango smiled wanly and Miroku, still rubbing his cursed hand, turned to face her with haunted eyes; even after the Final Battle, the kazanna had stayed. Shippo darted forward but Kagome held up a hand and he halted a few feet away from her. InuYasha was out hunting, but it was probably better that way- she wouldn't have known how to say good bye to him, of all people.When Inu Yasha wasn't there, there was always something left unsaid.

"Everyone?" They waited patiently, indulgently; utterly unsuspecting. "I'm...I'm..." She lost her nerve suddenly, all words melting in her mouth, instead holding up the final shard that she'd held seperate and snapped it into its place in the pink

sphere.

"I wish that all of jewel's influences be removed from this era!" For a second, they balanced on the edge of a knife; she could see their faces frozen with shock and fear.

Then the world exploded in a nova of white power that rippled, pouring down her legs like molten fire--pouring over their marbled faces and up to encompass the entire globe. Kagome could feel her tenacious hold on reality stretch-

-and then pop back into place.

A thousand inages came hurtling at her quicker than she could process them and she screamed in broken protest, images then slowing and languid as if they took pity on her mental fraility. They moved with languid solidity through her mind; Onigumo, dead; Shippo with his kitsune parents, with the childhood she'd never been able to give him; Sango with her brother, hunting demons with her family, no crows' feet in the corners of her eyes and more laugh lines along her mouth; Miroku, no kazana, but still flamboyantly lecherous and so very empathetic; Kikyo just another village priestess, not a protectress- she was calmer, more carefree yet still solemn; finally Inu Yasha was just a half-demon who fell in love with a priestess- not her Inu Yasha! no bitterness and so carefree! no cyicism, just the gentleness he'd shown her but not so deep-not her Inu Yasha for sure! which eased the pain of seeing him so very happy.

It was a slow death that took her, like there had been little chips tanken away at the foundation under feet and she just now realised that she was standing on air. The decision on the wish had never been a choice, promise to Inu Yasha or no

promise.

She was almost glad now, that the wait was over-something tingled on the edge of her concience. Something was fighting back; yelling insistantly that what she was doing was wrong. It sounded suspiciously like her friends.

It's too late, she tried to tell them; it's better this way. You'll be happier, I promise! Kagome choked as their protests were wiped out with all their memory of her; it was better this way.

Then why did she still feel like dying? The burning intesnsified in her hand, but she held on; it was nessescery for the completion of the wish and the purification of the jewel; it spread through her veins slowly until she felt it in every fiber,

every hair, every singing cell, all resonating.

As a woman, she finally found regret for the fact that she'd given her life away for anything more than a whim.

*

Kagome came to in seconds, with the wood of the well shooting a dozen splinters into her back with the force that she was set down with.

The completed Shikkon sat in her hand, a perfect orb that glowed, white reflected the scar tissue that formed a perfect moon on her palm. She transfered the jewel and flexed her hand, watching the scar stretch and shiver over

her tendons.

She was in the well house, the aged walls more a prison of memory than wood.

"Kagome?" Her mother pulled the door back and Kagome waited for the tears to come, "What are you doing in this death trap?" She grinned and knocked on the slatted boards but before Kagome had a chance to reply, her mother's eyes

fastened on her face.

"Kagome?"

She launched herself into her mother's arms, slamming them both into the wall. Dry sobs wracked her body, no tears, and her mother hesitantly put her arms around her. She pulled Kagome down and rocked against the wall. "Shhhh...what's wrong, honey?"

Not a blessed thing, that's what's wrong. Nothing will ever be wrong again.