Another Five Hundred Years
Last night I felt your touch upon my cheek. I sat up in my bed and searched for your eyes but only found shadows in your place. My hand traveled to rest where your fingertips brushed my skin. I shivered at the thought. It felt so real. I don’t know if I dream of your presence and affections or if you are real. Some times it feels like you are real, but locked deep within my memory. I don’t know if I believe in past lives, but if I were to tell you what you are to me, I guess it would be a memory of a love in another life.
You’ve been with me all my life. I felt you watch me everyday for the past fifteen years. When I was small, you were like the anti-boogieman. I would cry at night and then I would feel you hold me in your arms. I could never see your face clearly, but I always felt your soft silvery hair fall over my face and protect me from the dark. Your claws never frightened me. They made me feel like you could protect me.
I remember one night when I was about ten I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamed I was dying. I was in a forest, on a mountain. I was older, a young woman, and you were there. It was the first time I saw your eyes clearly, but your features were still a blur. Your eyes were a color I had never seen before in another person’s. I felt a deep love inside myself in the dream, a love I had never felt in real life. There were people dancing and cheering calling out “Naraku is dead! He has finally perished!”
You turned to look at me and I ran into your arms. I felt your strong arms’ embrace and your claws comb my hair. You whispered words I had been waiting to hear for years “I love you, Kagome.” I began to cry and told you how much I loved you too. Was it my mistake, or in my dream did you begin to cry too?
Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my throat. What was happening? I began to thrash and pulled myself away from you, managing to stand on my own by peddling my arms for balance. I gave up and fell to the ground when I felt my heart skip a beat. I clutched my throat and felt the pain spread into my chest. No, this couldn’t happen. Not when the battle was finally over, not when I finally knew he loved me.
I saw you retreat from me confused and frightened. I could barely hear you say “Kagome! You’re dissolving!” You then turned on your heals and ran for Kaede. How did I know her name? The world was becoming dull and transparent all around me. No, please no. I closed my eyes, but quickly opened them afraid I wouldn’t be able to if I kept them closed too long. I faintly heard you coming back to me with Kaede on your back.
I couldn’t hear most of what the old priestess told you but I saw you pluck the Shikon no Tama from her hand when she was done and grasp in your clutches. It was whole! Why did I know what it was and why was I surprised it was whole? Grandfather had mentioned the Shikon no Tama to me before, so that is what I must had identified it from.
The words your mouth formed and made no sense to me. I saw you looking at me as if you had asked me a question. I cried, “I don’t understand!”
You then bent down to me and spoke into my ear. “I am keeping you! You aren’t leaving!” I felt you grip onto the jewel which now had my hair wrapped around it. I felt relieved to be able to feel the pull on my hair, even if it was faint.
I closed my eyes and waited for you to wish for me to be able to stay or for the well to continue working. What well? It didn’t matter. I was dying and I needed you to say it.
Taking in a deep breath, you began “I wish Kagome would st-”
A pain ripped through me and I screamed. Oh if only I hadn’t screamed!
Your words stopped and hung in the air, no wish made. I wanted to yell to you to continue, damn it! Don’t let me distract you. But, I couldn’t even move my lips. I was going, and I couldn’t even tell you goodbye.
I closed my eyes and woke up in my bedroom. Shivering with sweat running down my back, I quickly glanced around my room searching for you.
“Please be here,” I felt my much more child-like voice call softly into the night. “I need you.”
There was that familiar movement outside my window and I jumped out of bed to let you in. Moon light shown down on your hair and you seemed to glow in it. I unlatched the window and closed it again once you walked in. Immediately, you put your arms around me and picked me up into the cradle of your arms.
“Thank you, thank you…” I sobbed into your shirt.
You walked me over to my bed and set me down in it. I felt you ruffle my bangs and cover me up in blankets, then slide under them along with me. Then you spoke to me for the very first time.
“What’s wrong, Kagome?” I sat up in shock at the sound of your soft, comforting voice. It was rich, unlike any boy’s my age.
I sniffed and held onto you. “I had a bad dream.” I closed my eyes and opened them again to see your face in front of mine.
Your eyes. I think I fell in love with you then, when I saw your eyes as I did in that nightmare. It was the first time I saw them outside of a dream. Or, at least what I knew was a dream. I am still not sure if you have been a piece of my imagination my entire life.
Suddenly I felt older and I felt my voice drop as it took on a more mature nature. “Does this mean you’re real?” I blinked as I saw you stiffen beside me. The breath you took in was a shuddering harsh breath. You looked shocked, now I know it was because my voice changed, not because of what I said.
I was about to ask you again but you stopped me with your lips on mine. I was so surprised I didn’t move until you backed away. I was speechless. I was ten and had never been kissed before, and your dream kisses felt so real.
“I’m sorry.” The second sentence I ever heard from you.
My immaturity returned and so did my normal voice. Even the feeling of the love I had found for you almost disappeared. Almost…
“Sorry, sorry.” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to do it wrong…”
It was as if you remembered I was ten when my voice broke. You lay down in my bed and I settled my face on your chest. You were my best friend. That was the last night you slept beside me. You would still visit me at night so I could sleep until Junior High, then I would only see you every now and then. Sometimes you were perched in the Sacred Tree on my shrine, sometimes you were in the park with a hat on-no doubt to hid your fuzzy dog-ears, and once I thought I saw you at my school watching me from the branch of a nearby tree. I always felt you, though.
Today is my birthday and I don’t feel any older. I must still be a child in many ways because I thought I saw you again this morning, waiting outside my window. You would have no trouble getting in on your own. You never did, which is another reason why I still wonder if you can really be real. My window was always locked at night.
When I turned to look at you, I saw you leap from my balcony and disappear in the forest. Half-dressed in my skirt and bra, I burst through the doors managing to open them before causing my mother a serious expense. You were gone, if you had ever been there at all.
Whether you are figment of my imagination, or a real-life lover who never ages, I realized when I saw you today that I love you. I love you as a real person, even if you are not one. I suppose that would make me insane.
Hell, I still talk to you. At least in my mind.
But…when I don’t see you…or feel you close, I almost forget about you. Like my mind is trying to force me to grow up from these childish dreams. But is being in love with a dream childish? Especially a dream so real?
My thoughts are so random when it comes to thinking about you.
Again I nearly forgot about you. You see? I don’t mean too, but it happens. I fell through the well, but I am sure you know that. I’m sure you were just waiting for me to all my life. Watching for me, caring for me in secret. No wonder you found you had to stop visiting me, as I got older. It must have been so hard on you not to hold me as a lover that night when I dreamed about my death. I don’t know that I could have been as strong as you, or as patient. Five hundred years is a long time.
I remembered everything when I saw you pinned to the tree. In fact, this time I fell to my knees when I saw you and cried into the dirt. Everything else remained the same. I play along, because you don’t seem to remember me as I remember you. I smiled even while you threatened to “sharpen” your claws on me. I knew the word instantly and called it quicker than I had before.
I guess this will be my last narrative to you, since I can’t seem to find you anywhere in my era now that I fell into that rabbit hole. I have no idea how all this time travel over again makes sense, but I guess you aren’t here any more because I have a chance to re-write our past.
I promise you, this time when I see you with Kikyo, I’ll try no to be as harsh…I’ll try.
My narration to you begins again because I see you again. You remember again. The five hundred years and the two overlapping life times make sense to you. As soon as those words fell from your mouth, you remembered.
The words your mouth formed made no sense to me. I saw you looking at me as if you had asked me a question. I cried, “I don’t understand!”
You then bent down to me and spoke into my ear. “I am keeping you! You aren’t leaving!” I felt you grip onto the jewel which now had my hair wrapped around it. I felt relieved to be able to feel the pull on my hair, even if it was faint.
I closed my eyes and waited for you to wish for me to be able to stay or for the well to continue working. It didn’t matter. I was dying and I needed you to say it.
Taking in a deep breath, you began “I wish Kagome would…”
A pain ripped through me and I…I…
Remember do not panic. If he loses you this time he will wait, you know that now…but girl, don’t make him wait another five hundred years. Don’t you go through this again!
…I held my tong. It was unbearable but I did. The realization that you would yet again go back for me allowed me to hold back my scream. It was your actions that gave me the will to hold on and to fight with you.
“…STAY!” I heard you scream into the air. The mountain around me seamed to echo your word, the one you finally got to say after it all.
“Stay,” you continued. “with the well open!” Again, the air surrounding the mountain shook and echoed your words.
Tears fell from my face as I felt myself being pulled back! Back to you. I was solid and substantial, the world around me brighter than I had ever hoped for it to be. Real, heavy tears, and real, heavy sobs escaped me.
The Shikon no Tama you grasped in your claws escaped your hold and lifted itself. I saw Miroku and Sango behind you holding each other’s hands. Shippo sat on the large Kirara with Kaede standing next to them. Kouga was in the distance and so was Sesshomaru. Rin was undoubtedly in a safe area. Kagura remained of Naraku, lying in her own blood, possibly dying but at last free. Kikyo stood ever further back, seeming to contemplate the situation.
The glow of the jewel swelled and whitened, finally becoming purified. The light overtook us all and I gazed in awe. A sudden blow erupted from the center of the light, the jewel itself now indefinable, and the earth trembled beneath me. The sky was filled with two figures made of that unrelenting light. One a woman, a priestess. The other was the demon from the cave in Sango’s village.
The demon roared at the priestess and wrapped its soul around hers. The priestess was calm, and kept her eyes unwavering from the demon’s. Her hair of light billowed around her face and she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I then felt my hand reaching for my chest. I wasn’t moving it. The priestess held out her hand in sequence with my movement. She then pushed her arm into the demon’s soul, where the heart would be in life. I felt my own hand fall onto my left breast, just where my heartbeat was strongest.
I could see Kikyo in the distance, even while the tremendous light bleared everyone else out. She too had her hand over her heart.
The priestess’s soul grasped the demon’s soul’s heart and I felt a wave of power hit my own heart full force as I saw the ripple erupt from the monster. The priestess opened her mouth in a silent scream as the splash of power escape from her heart. Kikyo and I threw our heads back and opened our mouths. We were screaming, but we couldn’t hear our voices. They must have been in an octave even too high for your ears to hear.
Then, the light broke. That is best way I can describe it. The light just broke and then dimmed quickly to nothing. My screams stopped and I could no longer see anything, my eyes blinded from the sheer strength of the light.
Then your eyes. Your eyes were the first things I saw when my eyes focused properly. I sat up to get closer to them and I saw the recognition inside.
“Kagome…” you said.
Tears fell again from my face when I saw you remembered everything. You grasped me in an embrace so tight, I barely breathed.
“Thank you.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes on your haori. I looked back up into your amber eyes, the eyes that remembered holding me as a baby and rocking me to sleep. The eyes that were so patient and so much older than the body they resided in.
I sniffed again and asked, “What for?”
You smiled and I noted that in all your years your smile had stayed the same but for one thing. It had softened.
“Thank you for not making me live without you for another five hundred years.”