The Wedding of the New Moon and the Red Thread of Fate

Chapter 7

The couple exchanged smiles and nervous glances where they stood next to each other by the altar. Much to their dismay, this was all there was time for before the welcoming speech, which was to be given by Mrs. Higurashi. Kagome had heard her mother rehearse this speech many times before, for weeks and weeks in advance. And each and every time, the bride had heard her breaking into quiet sobs before she was even halfway through her speech.

"Friends and family of InuYasha and Kagome, welcome and thank you all so much for being here on this very important day," Kagome's mother happily announced, smiling at the bride and groom standing beside her, before she turned her attention back to the many guests.

Where he stood next to his mother-in-law and his soon-to-be wife, InuYasha witnessed several of the guests turning to whoever was seated beside them, with quite the puzzled looks to their faces, exchanging questions as his name was spoken. Even with his efforts to blend in with the citizens of Tokyo, he couldn't do anything about his name, which many might think of as unusual, especially for a human as many thought he was. On this side of the well, nobody except Kagome and her family knew he was a hanyou, after all.. Nor did they know that his human form was only temporary.

Kagome, on the other hand, kept thinking about the wonderful stories she had heard about her mother's wedding when she was younger. She'd always wondered what her own wedding day would be like. What kind of guy she'd end up married to was also something that she had thought about a lot when imagining this particular scenario. Yet, no matter how many times the younger Kagome had tried to imagine this very day, she couldn't, in her wildest dreams imagine that it would be anything like this. Standing at the altar, next to InuYasha of all people, she felt like the happiest girl in the whole world. When she had discovered InuYasha's lingering feelings for Kikyou, Kagome could not help but lose hope that he would never return her feelings for him. Yet, in the end, it was Kagome he chose as his wife..

"We are gathered together to celebrate the strong bond and deep love between these two, by joining them in marriage..." Just as Kagome had foreseen, tears had already started falling from her mother's eyes by the time she had announced the cause of celebration. She couldn't blame her for her tears, though. Kagome imagined how touching it must be for her mother to witness her daughter getting married and she came to the conclusion that if she was in her mother's position right now, if it was her own child who was to be wed on this day, she would no doubt shed tears as well.

For their waiting friends back in the Feudal era, the rest of the day was rather uneventful. Shippo had long grown tired of drawing with his crayons after having already finished several pieces, all of which showed the hanyou and the reincarnated miko on their wedding day and now he was sound asleep in Sango's lap.

Despite there being little to do, except enjoying Kaede's hot stew with the elderly Miko and Miroku in silence, Sango was grateful still. Their battle against Naraku was far from over, the female slayer was painfully aware of that. But ever since InuYasha had proposed to Kagome, there had been little need for concern about Naraku at all. No demon puppets, traps or anything of that nature. However, the female demon slayer felt it was far too soon to rest at ease. She knew what Naraku was like, and she didn't doubt for a second that he would soon be back to cause the group of friends even more suffering...