Higurashi by Willow_FuyuKuri

Remember

"I'm leaving, Inuyasha... For good this time..."

*~~~

They were the words that had brought her here. The words that had set them both free of the burden of a misguided friendship. They weren't spoken in anger. Not in fear, nor in resentment. But were delivered in a manner that made them ever the more real.

Kagome was going away. And this time, it meant forever.

Dark, emotionless eyes stared out of the car window, barely taking in the heat-infused scenery of mid-summer Japan. The city, with its busy-body friends and mysterious wells leading to unfamiliar lands, was far behind her now. The concrete jungle of childhood had given way to lush rice paddies and emerald-gold meadows as far as one's eye could see. Rays of brutal sunlight reflected off the surfaces of channels and ponds that whispered by the rapidly moving car, but within the mind of the to-be miko, the light was as dim and lacking in warmth as her heart had felt since that unforgiving day.

*~~~

"What?! What'd I do now?"

She had to smile, despite it all. "It's not you..."

He was angry, she knew. Through fear, as much as caring and worry.

"Then why? I don't get it!"

"We're moving," she breathed, twisting the soft satin of her skirt between her hands as she sat at the river's bank. "Mom found a little house in Tokorozawa. She thinks it'll help Souta get over Grampa's..."

The words wouldn't come, and she looked blindly at the teardrop that had slid from her cheek to land on her left wrist.

"Kagome..."

His voice was soft, as she knew it was prone to become in times of sorrow. That voice that was her undoing, as she knew only then how deeply he felt for her.

"Look at the bright side," she forced cheerfulness into her voice, the smile on her lips quivering dangerously. "You don't even need me anymore! Kaede has the jewel now. There's no need for me to be here. There's Sango... and Miroku..."

She knew that she was breaking, even before the tears began to fall. Felt the cheery expression crumble as she swiped at the cold moisture drifting down her cheek.

"And Shippou! There's always Shippou, right?"

More quickly than she anticipated, the dam had begun to weaken under the pressure of her emotions.

"There's Kirara and even Kouga!" the words had grown feverish and quick, bursting from her as she fought to convince not only him but herself. "I'd just get in the way, right?? I'd be there, always getting caught, and always getting in trouble... You don't need me... right... Inuyasha...?"

And then it came. Like the rivers of a flood that had bided its time at a mountain's peak, unbeknownst to the village of fools below. The sobs tore through her, burning her throat and clasping a vise-like grip around her lungs. The wails were long and loud, a howl to the very heavens of the pain she had been dealt.

"I don't want to go!" she cried pitifully, pushing him away even as her mind screamed for him to hold her near. "Inuyasha!"

His arms were around her, firm and secure. A shelter from the world. An escape from existence, as she needed him to be... Until the time had come to turn away from it all.

They all saw her off that day. But teary embraces were no replacement for what would be lost forever...

*~~~

The well was brought down soon after. The image of the broken boards and rising dust, growing slowly further away through the rear window of the small car, were still vivid in the back of her mind.

It was Grandpa's wish to have the small well-shrine destroyed upon their departure from their home. A year before his death, he had warned them of the dangers of leaving the gateway intact with an entire other world's safety at stake. And so it came to be that on that day that she bid her second life farewell, Kagome had to be the one to give the word to have the building torn down.

She shed not a single tear.

"Kagome?"

Raising a blank gaze to the reflection of her mother in the rearview mirror, Kagome allowed the unspoken answer to pass through her eyes.

"It'll be lunch time soon, and Yutaka did offer to take you out," Ms.Higurashi's gentle voice coaxed as she glanced between the road and the mirror. "Wouldn't you rather take the car into Kyoto for the day and have something to eat, than to spend another afternoon at home with me and Souta?"

The memory of Yutaka's offer was vague, another muddled recollection among thousands of others in her ever-wandering mind. The boy was little more than an acquaintance to her, though they had been neighbors for all of 5 months. Though Yutaka had made many an attempt to grow closer, Kagome could scarcely find the energy to accept or even respond to the boy.

Looking into her mother's eyes, she tried half-heartedly to maintain the direction of the conversation. But the words began to fail her. Sentences blended into a waspy drone, and she found herself turning away, eyes captured once again by the passing scenery.

Ms.Higurashi sighed.

Five months had passed, and Kagome had yet to break free of the depressive state she had fallen into. At first, the woman had had little fear that the episode was as troubling as it seemed. After all, her daughter was known for her resilience in spirits, if nothing else. But... this was different... Since the death of the elder Higurashi patriarch, Kagome had done little more than gaze out of windows with the same hauntingly empty stare she now wore. She had eaten little, and had grown pale and thin. And deep within the older woman's mind, there was fear that the young girl would end her very life without so much as a thought to what would be lost.

My poor, sweet baby girl... the thought came as the gravity of the moment caused her heart to constrict painfully.

Returning her eyes to the road ahead, she pushed aside the feeling of distress. Little could be done to lighten such a mood other than to find an enjoyable distraction to occupy one's time, and that was precisely what she intended to do. For her, and for her two children.

*~~~

"Onee-chan..."

Kagome looked up from the book she had been reading to find her brother in her bedroom doorway. The younger boy's shoulders were slumped, eyes red as he held his favorite teddy bear tightly to his chest.

"C-can I stay in here with you?"

She placed the book on the little table beside her bed and scooted forward until her feet were on the floor. Without a word, she lifted her arms. She gasped slightly as Souta ran to her with such force that they nearly toppled backward. She petted the boy's head gently, clenching her teeth and closing her eyes to force back the tears as he shuddered in her arms.

"Do you miss him a lot...?" the tiny voice came out shakily.

She opened her eyes, staring ahead at the wall before her. This new wall, in a new room, in a new town far away from home.

"He'll always be with us," she whispered, "no matter where we are."

Souta's head lifted, eyes searching hers as he shook his head slowly. "No... I mean... Inuyasha. Do you miss Inuyasha?"

The sound of his name drove pins into her already broken heart, and she turned her head away from the boy's searching eyes to gaze out the window to the darkness beyond. Souta watched the shadows pass within his sister's eyes and lowered his own head. He knew that look. It told him that it would be pointless to ask again. For as her embrace slackened to a barely perceptible touch, he knew that Kagome was gone. And so he lay, tiny hands grasping onto the warm yet emotionless shell that was now his dear onee-chan, until sleep overtook him and he didn't have to see that empty gaze anymore.

*~~~

Ms.Higurashi's eyes widened as she watched the tall young man cross the old dirt road in front of her car. She couldn't make out his face in the glaring sunlight, but despite the braided stream of pure white hair running down his back from beneath a red baseball cap, she was sure he could be no older than twenty-five. His stride was long and rhythmic as though he had trodden this very road before, and his straight shoulders and casual profile told her that there was nowhere for him to be other than the very path his feet were taking him.

He wore heavy black jeans, and even heavier black boots, that seemed oddly out of place in the mid-summer blaze. His white cotton shirt flapped lazily in the mild breeze that wafted past, and she could make out the lowermost lines of a strange tattoo on his upper left arm. He turned at the crossroad corner, and her breath caught as he made to walk past the front left end of the vehicle.

"Inu... yasha....?" the tiny whisper barely passed her lips.

His head lifted then, and it was as though the world moved in slow motion. Piercing golden eyes met her hazel ones, unblinking and unnerving in their intensity. He seemed to pause in mid-stride, and the steely gaze shifted past her to the rear passenger seat. Light seemed to shine within the depths of those haunting eyes, and she gasped, shaking herself from her stupor. Pressing her foot to the gas pedal, she eased her way across the intersection. The spell now broken, she could breathe once again.

Kagome, she realized with a glance to the rearview mirror, had not seen a thing. Looking backward to the brightly lit, dust filled road behind her, she felt a shiver run along her spine as her eyes locked with those of the man at the side of the road. It was undeniable. It was not only interest she had seen in those amber eyes, but recognition as well.