Chapter 7: A Season of Proposals

“Its been quiet as of late…” Sango replied, her Hirakotsu on her right side as she sanded it down. Kirara was sleeping on her lap and Miroku was sitting to her left quietly.

Winter had come and gone, leaving Sango and the others to enjoy the spring air.

It had been nearly six months since anyone (even Shippou, who had come back to the village a week after the attack) had seen Kagome. They were all restless not knowing where she had gone or when she would attack again.

“Yes, it has, my dear Sango.” Miroku pulled her closer rubbing his hand in cricels on her back. He had been decidedly non-perverted since his return to the village. “Kagome had not seen fit to attack us once again…” Miroku fell silent for a long while.

When Sango looked up from her Hirakotsu, Miroku was staring at the setting sun with a question in his eyes. Miroku sighed and looked down, hoping to avoid Sango’s glaze.

Failing, Miroku sighed once more. “I have a question to ask of you, dear Sango. Though I am not sure this would be the proper time to ask. I have been struggling with it for nearly a year now though.”

“What is it?” Sango wondered what it could be that would make Miroku so serious.

“After this is all over… I mean, beating Naraku, helping Kagome, bringing back Inuyasha…” he paused a moment. “After all of it… Will you… marry me?”

Sango sucked in a breath, automatically wanting to answer. “When everything is over,” Sango paused as Miroku had. “Ask me again.” Sango laid her head against Miroku’s shoulder, watching the sun finally dip under the horizon.

“I will,” he whispered. “I promise you that, Sango.”

^_^

*boom*

Kagome hit her target so hard, it broke into four large pieces. Kagome was pissed. It had been two weeks. Two weeks of being stuck inside Saru castle walls. Two weeks of hell, all because of Kagura.

Well, I did go a little overboard on that last fight… Kagome admitted as she knocked an arrow in her bow and aimed for a new target. But…

Kagura had picked her last fight with Kagome right before she had been banished to the grounds of Saru. It wasn’t so much that Kagura picked a fight – that she could deal with – the problem had been that this particular fight was that Kagome had been sleeping when Kagura decided to engage it.

Kagome had gotten so angry; she had destroyed Kagura before she had grasped what she had done. And now Kagome was being confined inside the gardens of the castle. The only places she was allowed inside were her sleeping rooms and the kitchen. Not to mention all of her jewel shards had been confiscated, except for the one near her heart. She also hadn’t been allowed to go roaming as she had been for months past.

“Kagome,” Kanna’s soft voice called from the entrance to Naraku’s private rooms. “Lord Naraku would like to see you.”

Kagome nodded as she put down her bow, leaving it on the flat rock next to her targets. Her ears flattened against her hair and she curled her tail sorrowfully, trying to express her guilt. If Lord Naraku wants to see me now, it must mean something else is wrong…

As Kanna closed the paper door behind her, Kagome pushed herself into a kneeling position on the tatami mat in front of Naraku. “You summoned me, Lord Naraku?”

“Kagome,” he spoke softly as he carefully lifted himself off the floor. Another reason she had been banned to the yards was because she had badly injured Naraku’s left arm in the fight with Kagura when he attempted to break them apart. “I have a proposal for you.”

“Yes?” Kagome’s ears perked up, happy to have another chance at pleasing her lord.

“I will allow you one more chance to redeem yourself,” he started. Pausing for a moment, he walked to Kagome and set his hand on her shoulder. “But this will be your last chance.”

“Yes, Lord.” Kagome stood quietly and bowed her head, both showing respect to Naraku for the second chance and praying to Kami she would get it right this time and not screw up again.

Naraku handed the bottle with one of Kagome’s shards back to her. “Go find more shards, and destroy those who have cursed you.”

“Yes, Lord Naraku,” Kagome replied softly and darted out of the room as fast as she could to retrieve her bow and arrows from the courtyard.

Yes, Kagome. Go destroy them. Naraku laughed silently to himself as he transformed into his baboon skin following Kagome out of the castle’s walls.

^_^

Finally, I get a chance to redeem myself. Kagome thought as she happily rushed through the trees towards Inuyasha’s Forest. She was itching to see her victory over him once again.

As she neared the tree the hanyou was pinned to, she smelled death – and close by. Maybe some of the villagers rebelled against their town leader… Kagome smiled and promised herself she would go see the carnage after she gloated in her victory one last time.

She approached the tree swiftly and entering the clearing, saw a woman standing at the base of the tree looking up at the fallen hanyou.

It had been six – nearly seven – months since she had killed Inuyasha. Kagome noticed how the branches had started to surround his lifeless form.

Kagome stopped behind the woman admiring her work. “He will never move again. Quit wasting breath about it.” She scoffed lightly. The woman turned around and Kagome gasped at the woman’s appearance.

It was an exact replica of herself, in human form, just a couple of years older. “Were you the one who harmed my Inuyasha?” The woman hissed softly. “Was it you, Kagome? Was it you who killed Inuyasha?”

Cockiness for the better of Kagome as she replied, “That’s right. I killed that worthless hanyou.”

“Then you die as well.”

As the woman nocked an arrow in her bow, Kagome cursed. Why had I not smelled her sooner? The smell of death she had noticed earlier was emanating from this girl in waves. “The dead should stay that way, Kikyou.”

Wait… Kikyou? How did I know her name? Kagome wondered briefly before forcing herself to shrug the whole thought off, aiming her bow as well.

Kagome dodged the arrow from Kikyou’s bow. “You’ll have to do better than that to kill me.” Kagome let her own arrow fly. It hit Kikyou by less than a centimeter, drawing a small line of blood on her left cheek.

Kikyou’s face turned angry as she pulled her bow back to full form and fired and arrow at Kagome’s head. As it turned pink, both Kikyou and Kagome felt a giant disruption in the wind, throwing Kikyou’s arrow off course and into the tree near Kagome’s head.

Both turned to see the air being sucked into a hole into the monk’s hand.

Naraku had warned Kagome of this monk. He had a powerful wind tunnel in his hand. Kagome berated herself as she recognized him at the man she had let pass on the road the day she met that kitsune.

Kagome turned her attention from Kikyou to the monk. As she began to be sucked towards him, she came up with a plan. Planting herself firmly behind a tree, she raised her bow and fired an arrow at him. It hit firmly on his right hand.

The monk – Miroku, Kagome now remembered what Naraku had called him – doubled over grasping his hand in agony. The purity arrow cause pain – as it intended to – Kami knew what Naraku would do if she killed him, he wanted this one alive.

Kagome reached the monk in less than four seconds after the wind tunnel stopped. As she stepped up to him, Miroku looked up at her and whispered, “Lady Kagome…” before she hit him across the face as hard as she could, rendering him unconscious.

Without looking back at Kikyou or Inuyasha, Kagome carried Miroku back to Saru castle.

END OF CHAPTER SEVEN...