Someone to Protect: Toga x Izayoi

Chapter 13: Forever - Part 2

Picture: Broken links... this is such an amazing piece of art. If you know the artist, please let me know. 

Though Benjiro's family was against it, Ika insisted Izayoi and Inuyasha would remain with her. Benjiro allowed it, begrudgingly, on the condition that Totosai left and did not return. Totosai submitted to the request, but Myoga, small enough to come and go without being seen, visited them both often.

The other nobles, even Ika's own children, ostracized the widow and her child. Still, Izayoi was grateful for a place to live and food to feed her son, so she stayed quiet and out of the way. It wasn't so difficult for her to be cut off from everyone. She didn't have the energy to put up pretenses and pretend she was okay.

Each morning she woke up without Toga she fell into despair, lacking the will to rise, the will to live. When she was at her darkest, as if he sensed it, Inuyasha would cry and call her back from the darkness, giving her the strength to stand once again. She forced herself to eat so that she would have milk to feed him. She forced herself to walk so that she could carry him. Looking into his amber eyes, she even sometimes found the ability to smile again.

Her world narrowed to that duality of loss and love, waking each morning wishing for death only to be met with the needy cries of her son, and from that gaining the resilience to carry on for one more day.

Slowly, eventually, living became easier. Life with her son became enjoyable. Loneliness, her ever-present foe, became less aggressive and debilitating.

Because of Inuyasha she continued, she endured, she healed. But healing did not make her love for Toga any less.

As the years sped by, Inuyasha slowly grew from a defenseless baby, to a rambunctious toddler, and into a spunky child.

Five years passed. Ten years. Fifteen.

Izayoi could tell Inuyasha was still growing, but it was slow, so slow, as if for every ten years of her life Inuysha only gained one or two. Izayoi began to wonder if she would live long enough to see her son become a man.

On Inuyasha's twentieth birthday, Izayoi woke up crying for the first time in years.

Toga. She had dreamed of him smiling at her, holding her close as they slept. When she woke and realized he wasn't beside her had nearly crushed her soul.

Twenty years to the day.

It felt so much longer, and the rest of her life stretched out before her, feeling like a yawning eternity she didn't have the strength to move through.

But, as he always had, Inuyasha seemed to instinctively know when she needed him the most. He popped into her room with a smile that quickly turned to concern.

"Mother? Are you okay?"

She hurriedly wiped her eyes and turned to the no-nonsense voice at her door. Her tired, brown eyes met his warm amber eyes, and the cloud of despair felt lighter, her burden more easy to bear.

He walked over to her and wrapped her in a fierce hug.

"It'll be okay, Mother."

He looked up at her, his little face so serious, so like his father's that she couldn't help but smile. Looking into the eyes of her son, she reminded herself that Toga wasn't completely lost to her.

"Don't you worry about me on your special day. I'll be okay. I'm just missing your father. You remind me so much of him. I know you'll grow up to be a big, strong protector just like him."

His little chest puffed up and he nodded, "Yeah I will! And I'll always protect you."

He didn't understand why her eyes filled with fresh tears, but he held her close and patted her back comfortingly anyway.