Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Author's Note: I am re-revising all of this, so that I can finally finish this thing. :) Thank you for all the support so far- Ashteldar's Jewel, thank you so much- I dedicate this revised chapter to you, I am sorry I haven't finished this thing for so long :(.

Gmasangel, I will, I promise, and I really might not have if you had not reviewed. So, thank you.

Homara, they will definitely get together, in fact the whole point of this story is that that was what was always MEANT to happen. ;) It is really dark, though, I know, and I've realized that I can't really change that at this point. It gonna continue to be dark- though not necessarily depressing- until the end.

Taixi, Thank you! I wish you were a signed member so that I could reply to you really, and know that you would see my reply- but, as for your question: yes, that's the twist. Will he remember her? I think secretly, we all know the answer though. Haha.

Flames Chaos and Wolf, as you command, I kept that ending despite having written an alternate one. Thanks!

merlyn1382, it's… gonna be dark, but not depressing. There is a very predictable happy ending, but the whole thing is supposed to be dinged with a bitter-sweetness, because… well, you'll see. :D

Love you guys!

Those of you who have written fanfiction before know just how much a word of approval or constructive criticism means to the author. So please, please review.3

***There is a reference here to an episode very early on in the series when Kikyou's body was remade by a witch and Kagome placed under a soul-transfer spell, when Inuyasha's cry of "Kikyou" activated the process and ended up with momentarily de-souling Kagome.

"...it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unresolvable problems- the ones that make you truely who you are- that [you're] ready..."

-andrew boyd

Forgotten

Kagome stepped through the well, with a spider in her heart.

The battle was ended, and the time had flown and it had passed. In what seemed like a dream, she had stumbled through rock, through meadow, through plush, cold, whitened earth and had fallen through a well.

It was dirty, she thought, noticing for the first time the state of the well's floor. It was littered with not only bones and dust, but pieces of garbage strewn around- the meaningless bits of hurried good-byes, and empty memories.

In the dim light of the enclosed well, the corner of a yellow something gleamed at her. Unconsciously, she reached out a trembling hand to pull it out-

"You said you brought me enough Ramen for a month! Stupid wench!"

Kagome gasped, a mere thread of an exhalation.

"I did! I'm sorry, I must have dropped some of it on the way!"

"Careless wench! How could you drop a whole box without noticing?"

"-Well maybe if someone hadn`t rushed m-"

"-Oh, but wait! If you weren't so careless, the jewel would still be intact!"

"That wasn't my fault! Would you stop blaming everything on me? Be grateful I even get you your stupid ramen-"

"- and DROPPED IT!"

"I said I`m sorry, you stupid dog! Does that mean nothing to you?"

"No!"

"Fine, how about this, then- SIT BOY!"

She stared at the half sunken plastic as if it had stung her. Shuffling back until the cold stone wall grazed her hunched back, she huddled her knees to herself, holding herself close, chest still stinging from where she had clawed at it while hurtling through the portal. A tiny trickle, of blood or sweat, she did not know which, traveled haltingly between her breasts. Inside, something writhed and stretched, exalting in the numb nothingness there. Folding into herself, Kagome tried in vain to vanquish the vacant space, to squeeze it out of herself, but like a hole through rock it remained yawning.

She was impure, a murderer. Naraku had finally succeeded in his key mission: to taint the one creature, of all his enemies, who had the purity to cleanse the Jewel. To cleanse the world.

But now, it no longer meant anything.

Naraku had lost the war, the jewel was gone, the wish had been made, and Kagome's pain was her own.

A meaningless stiffling reality, overshadowed by the greatness of all that had been saved. In the greater good, it was Kagome who was meant to carry the burden of sacrifice.

Inuyasha was human again and Kikyou revived; All the wrongs that were done on the land of the rising Sun had been vanquished and washed away with powder pink rain. Just like that, everything in the world had tipped over, and Kagome had found herself invisible and alone.

Brows trembling into a feeble frown, she thought, no, the world had tipped over, and it had been she, not everyone else, who had been thrown overboard. Just stand on that plank, Kagome, hold that jewel, make a wish- and jump.

A sharp sting spasmed in the arch of her nose, and into her sinuses. Nostrils flaring slightly, Kagome was distantly surprised at the sudden appearance of water in her eyes. The tears gathered, blurring her vision, and maintained their cohesion at the lip of her lids, wavering. Turning her face abruptly from the littered ground, Kagome refused to blink.

Behind the tears, behind the wavering darkness, a stream of the same scenes swam through her thoughts, relentless. Like the rumoured clarity of the moment before death, she saw the events of the final battle, muted and hushed lest she catch their treacherous whispers, replaying on an incoherent film...

At first, there had been nothing but chaos everywhere, the toxic miasma scratching at her skin, her eyes, her throat, as she had blundered through, past Inuyasha, past Kouga, squinting through watering eyes at where she could see the purple outline of the Jewel shining in the blackness.

The flailing pieces of writhing flesh, the unending stream of dead, dying and struggling youkai around her were all merged into a blur. But somehow she had slipped through: a glowing torch of purity, with a single minded purpose, whom nothing else had touched. Maybe it had been Inuyasha who had cleared her path, or maybe it had been a flying Hiraikotsu whirling in the air around her like a sacrament of protection, before she had slipped through the last barrier.

Or perhaps, even then, they had all been forgetting, even then her role in the play had been drawing to a close. Perhaps she had slipped off the plank, before she could jump.

Kagome wondered if she had looked like a ghost, walking through the throngs of fighting men and women, humans and demons with her Holy light wrestling towards Naraku's deathly aura.

-But then, suddenly, the jewel had been in her hand, and time stilled. The vial around her neck burst in a vacuum, the glass separating smoothly as the glittering jewel shards had flown to their core. The blackness had swirled, and the illusion broke. Something distant and looming screamed—a movement and a flurry of colors in her periphery- and the little marble in her hand was indigo and blue and green, yellow- she had closed her eyes and wished- and everything shone a blinding white-.

Restore the balance.

There was a crack!- like a fissure formed on something unbreakable, and she had felt as if a bomb had went off in her hand, blasting through her, though she had stood very still- insubstantial, timeless, a ghost of what is not yet, among those long dead.

"Wrong, wrong, all wrong," Kagome imagined the last breath of the vanishing marble whispering to her. It was not her place to wish, her time to wish, and it was not her wish, would never be her wish, because she was all wrong...

And then, she had felt herself, hurtling from somewhere far off- disconnected, and rapidly gaining speed towards a glowing something- black hair, a flaring, short green skirt, and still hands, holding a ball of bursting light-.

Kagome's soul had quailed in her uncontrolled fall, recognizing something familiar, something it remembered-

Don't say it, don't say it-!

"Kikyou!" the cry had cut through her, plunging like an icy blade inside her confused mind, and pulled something vital out. It felt like her breath being knocked out, except she had been breathing, huge gasps wracking through her entire body. She had kept thinking that there was a sense of deja-vu to the whole occurrence, some heavy lump of trepidation screaming I told you so!

And as she had looked around her, eyes wide open, unable to speak but needing the arms of someone, anyone, around her, to feel safe, to get back what had left- whatever it had been- and all their faces had been turned away.

And Kagome had known, she knew without a shred of doubt that none of them recognized her, anymore. That they had loved her, and they had protected her, once, but they had done all that they could have for this one moment alone, and now with the deed done, the sum of all those weighty nuances were gathering together, and shrinking… like a sea of gulls that flew away at a falling rock, and clustered into a speck until they were nothing in the sky- a fleeting, forgetful thing.

And it had hurt. Worse than having her soul ripped apart again. Worse than the world ending.

Worse than not belonging.

"Restore it," Kagome had wished. But- wrong, wrong, wrong... it had not been for her to wish, she should not have wished- "wrong," the Shikon had whispered. Wrong girl, wrong miko, wrong time-.

So Kagome had stopped, too late, and stood still for an eternity. And when that time had passed too, she had turned slowly, aware of the thorny remains of a battered utopia she had just carved out, and she had walked straight.

…The world around her was rewinding, but she dared not look too closely. For the sake of her aching heart, she had looked away, and away again, wherever her sight had rested.

Not on Sango, restored- who was now sister to someone else; not Miroku, whose healed white palms- restored- shone whole on dead bones.

Not on little- little, happy, lopsided- Rin who lay as if in sleep at the feet of a crying wolf, the shadow of a red eyed taiyoukai covering her bare, white feet. She had looked away again- even the sight of his deranged expression not able to disconnect her from her own vacancy- and saw the sword he held: a blur of Tenseiga, hurling over the little human corpse, over and over again, to no effect.

Something cold and sharp had slipped from her fingers and hit the ground soundlessly- the chain Naraku had used to hold the jewel. Blood seeped through the cracks of the earth and pooled around the rusted chain.

A gentle tremor rippled through the earth- the aura of the last of its evil, still alive, catching at the flow of time, as it prepared for the last lunge, at the brink, like the last crystalline grain rolling off the curve of an hourglass.

And then, Kagome had swiveled the direction of her gaze again, from one sword to another, a more dear sword, and she had seen crusted, red hakamas, a torn familiar haori, and black, pitch black hair, moving faintly in the remorseless wind-

And she wished once more- prayed, begged, pleaded- futily, the wrong wish, finally, her heart breaking into a million irreparable pieces.

Whipping, long strands, trapped in firm white hands, Inuyasha's head lay, unmoving, peacefully on the blood soaked lap of Kikyou. Human, alive, soul-full Kikyou, who had forgiven, and could now love with a fiery passion once more, and Kagome's fingers had twitched. Little balls of white light escaped from her clutches, as a gaping vacancy had stretched inside her.

The spider's desperate and quailing spirit had still spun in the wind, but Kagome had no longer been perceptive. She had felt, saw, and knew nothing else anymore, as her soul had seeped slowly from her, fleeing to its true owner, done with Kagome, like all the rest of them, now with the ending of the Shikon-no-Tama. And her purity had faltered, helplessly grasping at the void left behind by her traitorous soul.

And it was at the edge, the very end of this world, the lip of a too-full, gaping well, that finally the wish flickered and restored its last-.

Tripping, insubstantial and caught in the whims of a Fate much more apparent now, Kagome had stumbled into a black hole, the enveloping timelessness swallowed her-

Restored to how it was meant to be.

And the spider lunged.

e/n: Please Review!