A/N: This is something that plagued me until I wrote it, and it's still kind of rough. I'm new to this fandom, so please excuse any inconsistencies, or at least be nice about pointing them out to me.

Disclaimer: Everything Inuyasha belongs to the proper creators and media studios. This story is written for fun, and not profit.

Nevermore

Prologue

Higurashi Kagome lived in one of the myriad apartment buildings in Tokyo, one which was mostly full of other white-collar businessmen and women and their families. She was twenty-seven years old. She was also returning home from work, despite the fact that it was three a.m. Kagome worked third-shift in the Emergency Room of a hospital in one of the poorest parts of the city, despite the fact that many more affluent establishments would have given much for her services. Kagome didn't mind that she was, as far as doctors go, remarkably underpaid. She didn't heal for the money–she enjoyed helping people.

At twenty-seven years old, Kagome was remarkably in touch with who she was, at her very basic–especially for three in the morning. Kagome Higurashi was smart, intelligent, and had the sort of soul that made her always think of others before she thought of herself. She was a doctor. She was a shrine-maiden. She was Kagome, and that was worth more than any amount of wealth or happiness. She was herself, and for a long time, that was more than she ever thought she would be. It was enough.

Except it wasn't.

Lately there had been a sort of unease troubling her–it lingered around corners, in the shadows, and in her dreams. For a while, she had been happy with her life. But now, now something was different. She wouldn't label what it was, exactly–she couldn't–but whatever it was, it was rapidly changing from unease to restlessness, and Kagome's happy little bubble of contentment was rapidly waning.

Somewhere, in the back of her head, a little voice piped up about the lack of adventure in her life. Kagome told herself firmly that she didn't need any more adventure. She'd already had enough to last a lifetime. For a while, that was enough to keep her satisfied. But now, as she wrangled the locks on her apartment door at three-thirty in the morning, the little nagging doubts in the back of her head began to surface once more. Kagome ignored it the same way she ignored Mister Watanabe who lived in the apartment at the end of the hall. If she refused to listen, eventually he went away.

Unfortunately for Kagome, the conscience has a bad habit of being stubborn and not easily forgotten, and as she stared at her darkened apartment with its shadowy block furniture and lack of life, it had the perfect opportunity to plant the biggest doubt of all. Was she happy?

Of course she was happy. She had a normal life, where she spent almost every day helping people. Helping people was the best thing she could do, and it made her happy. Except when she came home to her empty, dull apartment. A very lonely apartment, where there were few distractions to keep her from evaluating her life and the direction it had taken.

Kagome shook her head, and hunted for the light switch. Really. It was three in the morning, and she had better things to do than contemplate the meaning of the universe. There was a shower in her immediate future, and a very comfortable bed calling her name. She had no need for anything more. She was most definitely not going to make herself a pot of coffee so she could sit and ruminate about her younger years, and the choices she had made. Especially not those few years when, as she hovered in that delicate stage between child and adult, she had become caught up in an ancient land of magic and beliefs. There, in simpler times, she had learned what it meant to believe so fiercely the impossible became possible, and the strength of magic, truth, and the soul.

In the wee hours of the morning, it was very easy to remember those times, and more than a small part of her yearned for them again. To journey beneath the sun and the moon without a modern amenity in sight–where Right and Wrong were easily defined, and friendship was as pure as the newborn babe and as deep as the ocean. In the early hours of the morning, Kagome allowed herself to miss the friends she would never see again. She missed Miroku with his easy smile and free advice, Sango–who was the closest thing to a sister she'd ever have–and little Shippou who could tug on her heart like no other. She also missed a certain hanyou with his fierce temper and silvery hair, but it hurt to think about Inuyasha. Almost as much as it hurt to think of the jewel.

Kagome dragged herself back to the present before her tired mind could wander any farther, and scowled. Somehow, she'd managed to make herself yet another cup of coffee, and if she had any more caffiene she wasn't going to be able to sleep.

Kagome wasn't going to be getting much sleep at all that night, although at the present she remained blissfully ignorant. She had her empty apartment, and she had her memories.

Perhaps, she decided as she perched on one of the hard plastic chairs around her dining table, it was time for a change of scenery. She'd been in Japan all of her life, and her brother Souta was going to school in America–a city called Los Angeles. Kagome imagined she could look at Los Angeles without seeing the shadows of what it had been like centuries before, and that was appealing.

Very appealing.

Kagome Higurashi sat and sipped at her coffee, and began to look towards the future, instead of living in the past and existing in the present. Existing, as she knew, was a wholly unsatisfying process. It was good that she'd finally admitted it to herself, and now she could move on. Her mother would be pleased.

Unfortunately for Kagome, her latest attempt at a normal life was about to come to a screeching halt with all the grace of a train wreck. In fact, it was about to rapidly turn into something just as messy and painful.

It started at exactly three twenty-six in the morning when Kagome's doorbell rang, and she opened it to find a very ragged little girl who couldn't be any older than five. In her arms, she clutched a small, very familiar cat. It was tawny-colored. It also had red eyes, and more than one tail.

Kagome stared at the cat-youkai, stunned into silence.

The little girl fastened impossibly large eyes upon her face. One was very, very blue. The other was brilliant gold, but Kagome was too busy looking at the cat to notice.

Then the little girl opened her mouth, and Kagome's world teetered on the brink of oblivion.

"Shikkon Miko?"

Then it promptly exploded.

TBC...