InuYasha (Another Battle to Conquer)

chapter one, the truth

It's been just a few says since the great and powerful demon, known as Naraku, had been slain. Feudal Japan had become a somewhat safer place. Now that the Sacred Shekon Jewel was whole, demons didn't posses ultimate strength by consuming and taking advantage of a jewel shard. We seemed to be out of immediate danger for now. Before, Kikyo guarded the jewel with her life (quite literally) and even had her life taken from trying to protect it. Her body was burned with the jewel and she took it to the other side where it would stay forever. That was until I found out that I was the reincarnation of her and I had been holding the jewel inside of my body for all this time. This is all ancient history now. I've made so many memories in the time I had been in the feudal era, some good and some not so good.

Sometimes I feel like this could have all be some crazy dream and I'd wake up knowing that none of this had been real. I'd wake up on my fifteen birthday and laugh about the whole thing and how silly it was. A part of me wished it is all just one big dream but the other part felt sickly knowing that if I hadn't fallen into that well on my fifteenth birthday that I would have never met Shippo, Sango, Miroku, Kaede, Koga, and most importantly; I wouldn't have met Inuyasha. I've changed a lot since then, I had gained friends, that now felt more like my family than anything else.

We were all one big family now, and this place, in fuedal Japan, is what I now called home. It was safe here now and there wouldn't have to be any more battles and anymore people that I cared about hurt. There would only be a strong sense of peace and happiness.

Now that this place was safe and the jewel had been restored and is back in it rightful place, they no longer needed me here. I was brought into this world to collect the shards of the jewel and make it whole once more. I knew deep down that it was time that I would have to say goodbye. Goodbye to my friends, goodbye to my unofficial family. I never wanted to leave here and I never thought that I would have to but I knew that I did. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I didn't belong here. I didn't belong in a time so different than my own.

No one noticed this fear but me, the thought was stuck in my head and was all I could think of. Without searching for and collecting the shards of the jewel, I was nothing but useless. I knew it was bound to happen at some point sooner or later, I was hoping that it would have came later, much much later.

The jewel was now whole and Inuyasha was able to become the full-fledged demon he has always wished to become. I knew that once I didn't have the jewel, I could never travel from present Japan to the fuedal era, without the jewel I no longer had the power to travel back and forth from my time to theirs. I had the choice to stay here forever or go home to my family.

I knew I could never leave my family back home but I truly would miss everyone here. The had become my unofficial family, the people I knew I could count on. The past years, the had become a part of me, a part that I was hesitant to let go of.

--

I laid in my sleeping back and stared intently at the burning fire. Red sparks flew up into the night sky, the wood crackled and the heat coming from the pit had warmed my face. I tossed and flopped onto my back to look up at the star filled sky. Shippo had been curled up into my left side, snoring slightly. I'd build up the strength to tell them once we had reached Kaede's hut, the hut that we all called home. The last sight before I had forced my eyes shut, hoping sleep would come to me was the stars shining brightly with smoke and red embers also littering the night sky. I listened to the chirp of the crickets nearby, the light snore escaping Shippo's mouth and the crackle of the firewood.

I soon fell into a deep slumber with one final thought on my mind, everything would be fine. Right? It had to be. I would not have gone through all that trouble to have a bad ending in my fairy tale, except this wasn't a fairy tale but it was real life and some times things don't always go your way.