Death Is Only The Beginning by Mad Hatter

Death

A/N: Hello everyone, its been a long time since I wrote anything. Life gets in the way, I'm sure you've all heard that excuse time and time again. Sucks, I know.  

There is good news though, I come bearing a new story idea! I've been reading a lot lately and my muse beat me over the head until I wrote this out. Its all off the top of my head, so I'm doing the best I can to keep it flowing nicely. I'm also trying out a new writing style, first person view. I ask for a sense of gentleness in that aspect. I would love to hear the reader's thoughts, so please review!  

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha and any other known characters. I do not make a profit from this story.      

It wasn't hard being dead, I should know, because I am. My name is Kagome Higurashi, eighteen year old highschool graduate, time traveler, the shikon priestess, the defeater of the vile half-demon Naraku and most importantly, dead.   Many would ask, if you're dead, how can you be there to know about it. Well, thats easy. I'm in limbo, a spirit on the physical plane of existance. It seems that my death isn't the end of my journey. The Gods still have work for me to do. I can't even escape my responsibilities to the fudel era in death, just great.  

I am the recent dead, I know this because I'm standing near my body. What felt like minutes to me appeared to be hours from the moment I died to becoming a spirit. I only know of the time because I remember taking my last breath in the early morning and it high noon right now. I don't remember how I died. My body didn't look mangled, so death by demon or animal, or any sort of attack was out of the question. I simply looked like I had fallen asleep in the middle of Inuyasha's forest near the well.   Looking up from my prone form, I could see my friends standing over me, well, most of them were standing. Sango, my best friend, sister of no blood relation, was on the ground. Her face covered by her hands and sobbing heavily into them. Mirko stood beside her, a hand resting on Sango's shaking shoulders while the other was in front of his chest as he said a prayer for my soul. Kilala was curled up near my body, mourning in her own way.  

Shippou couldn't bring himself to look at my body, he stood facing a tree and cried into it. Inuyasha was the most silent, which was unusual for him. He was always so quick to scream at me for something. I never thought I'd miss him yelling at me, calling me wench. His white puppy ears lay flat against the top of his head, his shaggy silver bangs hide his eyes, but I could distinctly see the glint of tears streaming down his cheeks in the bright sunlight.  

I wanted to tell them I was fine, give them some comfort, but that was silly of me. To them, I am dead and they can't see my spirit. I checked to see if I was most ghost like, but I wasn't. They couldn't even sense I was near them. It made me feel useless. What was I even supposed to do if I couldn't even communicate or physically do anything?  

The sound of shuffling and a small, sharp gasp brought me out of my musings. My head whipped to the side, peering into the tree lining to see a very familiar form step out of the shadows. Sesshoumaru  stood in all his purely white and silver glory, his golden eyes surveyed the group before landing on my body.  Jaken stumbled out of the bushes, about to voice his complaints until he saw what everyone was staring at. Slack jawed, he remained still and slowly closed his mouth. Smart toad.  

Rin was latched onto Sesshoumaru's pant leg, she looked mortified. Brown eyes filled with tears and she turned away into the soft silk of Sesshoumaru's pants and weeped. I broke my heart to see her like that. A shaking voice whined to her protector. "Please, Lord Sesshoumaru, do something, save her!"  

The entire group looked up and over to Sesshoumaru. It was if it dawned on them all at the same moment that his sword could bring back the dead. Rin was living proof of its abilities. Even I held my breath, not that it would do anything, but alive habits die hard. Haha, get it?  

Inuyasha was the first to speak. For the first time in his life, I think Inuyasha actually appreciated his brother 'getting in the way' as he put it. "Sesshoumaru..." The sound of his voice got the attention of his elder half-brother. The two stared at one another in aching silence. Before I found myself screaming for attention, Sesshoumaru stepped foward.  

In an elegant and practiced manor, he drew Tenseiga from its sheath. It sang from the movement and a pale, clawed hand held it over my form and waited. I watched Sesshoumaru intently, as did everyone else. All waiting for the pulse to echo off the fang and to cut the pall bearers to bring me back to life. A few minutes ticked by and nothing happened.

Instinctively I stepped closer and froze when I saw Sesshoumaru's eyes flicker in my direction. He couldn't see me, could he? Impossible! Before I could further investigate his possible awareness of me he stared back at his sword before uprighting straight as a rail and sheathing Tenseiga. "This Sesshoumaru can not bring her back."  

The old Inuyasha came back in full force as he bristled and snarled out. "What do you mean you can't!?" My friends look devestated, Sango even more so as she crippled into herself and a new wave of sobs wrenched themselves from body. Rin latched into Jaken, despite his protests of her touching him, he patted her back as she cried.  

"She is not dead." Came the stoic reply.  

This outraged everyone. "Of course she is dead, you stupid bastard. Get your head out of your ass and you can see she isn't moving. Her heart isn't beating. She isn't breathing!" Inuyasha screamed loud enough to make everyone flinch, a clawed finger pointing at the said 'dead' body.  

"This Sesshoumaru is well aware of the girl's state." He normally wouldn't go into lengthy discussions about what he knew, but I think he may have come to respect me and our somewhat complicated alliance as he said, "Her soul is no longer in her body. If she were truely dead, the pall bearers would have come to take away her soul to the afterlife, leaving the body to decay."  

The silence that followed nearly made him sigh aloud. "If the pall bearers do not take her soul, the body remains in this state." His hand made a gesture to my body. "Until the soul is held in the afterlife, awaiting to be reincarnated, the body will remain in this state of limbo." He took a moment to pause, seeing if everyone understood so far. I had plenty of questions but no one would answer.  

Miroku took in everything Sesshoumaru had to say. His contemplative look had me anxious, hopefully he had some sort of answers. "So Lady Kagome's soul is somewhere... here?" He asked curiously. This made everyone glance around, as if trying to see me. In a futile attempt, I waved my arms to get their attention. It would take some time getting used to not having anyone notice me. I heaved a sigh, I missed the faint flicker of Sesshoumaru's ear.  

"Correct."  

Sango dried her tears at Sesshoumaru's word. "So someone took Kagome's soul?"  

Growling out, "If thats the case then we just track whoever did this to her and make them give it back to Kagome's body!" Inuyasha crossed his arms, nodding to himself as if he had just solved the grand problem. Typical, stupporn puppy.  

Sesshoumaru had lost his patience, I could see the slight twitch to his eye, indicating he probably had a headache from Inuyasha's idiocy. "Fool!" He made the comment and turned to leave. Motioning to Jaken to take Rin and follow him back into the forest to go back to do whatever it was they had been doing before they stumbled upon Inuyasha and everyone else.  

"Hey, its not like you have any better ideas!" Inuyasha shot back at Sesshoumaru.  

I found myself looking back at Sesshoumaru, wondering if he would reply. He usually would let Inuyasha suffer in his own stupidity and go about his business. I was surprised when he stopped and pivoted just enough to cast a side long glance at Inuyasha. His golden eyes narrowing, "What do you plan to do with the body? Take it with you? Should it get destroyed there is nothing that can be done, even if you find whomever took her soul."  

"He is right, Inuyasha. Until where know who took it, where to go and what to do about it, we must make sure Lady Kagome's body is safe." Miroku pulled Sango to her feet and she nodded her agreement. Even Shippou, who had composed himself during the discussion nodded.   

Looking between Sesshoumaru and his friends, Inuyasha sighed and gingerly picked up my body. The way I looked draped in his arms, I really did look asleep. "Let's go back to Kaede, we can keep her safe and think of what to do then." With that, they departed down the beaten path towards the village where Kaede lived. Meanwhile Sesshoumaru vanished into the treeline.  

I was about to follow Inuyasha and everyone back towards Kaede's to figure out what was going to happen to me and what they had planned, when I felt a strong pull towards the other direction. I tried to ignore it, but the more I tried to get closer to Inuyasha the stronger the feeling got. It, whatever it was, was telling me to go the other way, but why?  

I looked behind me, where Sesshoumaru had gone and I took a curious step that way. No pull. My brows furrowed and a frown was set deep on my face. The more I walked towards the trees that entered Inuyasha's forest the less I felt the pulling sensation. Whenever I tried to go back the way I came, I'd be nearly frozen in place until I resumed. So here I was, following Sesshoumaru's trail, getting further and further away from my friends and body all because something, or someone, was forcing me to do it. Today couldn't get any better.

Revision: FML, I wish there was a 'preview' option before posting. I used the word insert to make sure my breaks were there, but it still posted it as a giant wall of text. My most sincere apologies and thank you to the reviewer that brought it to my attention. I'll try to be a bit more diligent about it. Should it happen again, please let me know as soon as possible.

Sincerely, Mad Hatter