Summary: Their feudal fairy tale had reached it's happily ever after, but what happens after The End? Kagome's fiery and passionate personality vanishes after a great loss, Inuyasha is left to bury the remains, and their only child faces the same prejudice his father endured. Japan is on the brink of war, and the birth of a new jewel is fated to be.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first fan fiction! I'm pretty excited, although I have a problem with keeping true to my weekly update policy, which is why I inevitably end up removing all stories just to avoid feeling guilty for not updating, but this story I really thought about, so go easy on me. Also, it's terrible, but if I'm ever being lazy about updates, reviews really get me going in a weird writers way. So review plenty, because I'm vain and I love it. I will warn you, for those of you who actually read the author's notes (which I am not one of. Yes, I admit it. I don't read the author's notes.) there is character death. A lot of death, actually, if we're going for a body count. Anyways, enjoy! And I'm not really sure if it's required to add this, I mean, come on, we all know some little nobody from Chicago certainly does not own Inuyasha. None the less, I will say it, but only once! I do not own Inuyasha.

Please don't skip this story because I haven't shifted at the beginning of my paragraphs. I have no idea how. keeps deleting them from my stories. If anyone could tell me how to fix this, I would be eternally grateful.

Alright, that's the end of my A/N! Don't forget to follow and review!

XOXO

Archersploosh

TOWARD TOMORROW

"As I live in this world, I know that things will continue to change, but I'm not worried about the future. I'm going to spend every day with Inuyasha. No matter what, now I know the two of us will be together, as we head toward tomorrow."

Five Years Later

How naïve she had been. Cradling the cold babe to her chest, she did not weep, but silently shed tears. Her once lively and passionate blue eyes bore into nothingness. She felt dead. How many had this been? She shivered at the thought of burying yet another child. The forest of Inuyasha was quickly becoming a graveyard for their progeny. Not one child since they first produced a fetus within her had survived past five months. And this one was no different. A little boy this time, still so small, so underdeveloped. She didn't dare peek down at the bundle in her arms. It would only renew her grief. Instead she remembered fondly the idea of being a mother to a healthy baby, a little silver headed girl she had dreamt about once upon a time. That, of course, had been the first child to die.

Kagome had become pregnant quickly, the consummation of their marriage procuring the first. At the time she hadn't known, but Inuyasha, being the half-demon he was, could smell the change in her scent, and hear the extra heartbeat. He'd been coming home from a demon extermination with Miroku one day when he froze a few hundred feet from his hut that resided on the outskirts of Edo, closest to his forest and the dry well. Miroku immediately was on guard, expecting an attack upon the village, only to be surprised when in the blink of an eye Inuyasha had raced to his wife and knelt down and pressed his face into her abdomen.

Back then, they had been excited. Kagome had cried that day in her husband's arms, a smile so wide across her face, it hurt. And now, everything hurt. Everything since their first child's death had hurt a great deal. When she had just been recovering from the first death, she found it in herself to explain to Inuyasha what she'd learned from her sex ed classes. The girl she bore was a miscarriage, because she hadn't fully developed and never reached the third trimester. Inuyasha had found the terms confusing, the era difference and new vocabulary being one part, and the other because he was male. He didn't quite understand at first, but as more babies kept dying, he found himself fully aware of the female anatomy and the progression of a fetus until, at least, five months into it.

Kagome was brought out of her mourning by the sound of Inuyasha's footsteps. He approached slowly, already scenting the death a mile away. She avoided his teary gaze and instead chose to focus on the blood that pooled around her. Her night robe, once white, was now caked and dried with blood. She cringed at the thought of becoming ill again from such a large amount of blood loss. Not that it mattered, she reminded herself, because she wasn't going to try anymore. This was it, she decided. The Gods did not want them to be parents.

"Kagome," Inuyasha reached for her, stopping short of her shoulders and pulling away. He was familiar with this. She felt disgusted with herself whenever this happened, like it was her fault. Any reassurance would fall on deaf ears. "I'm sorry I was away." He begged her for forgiveness. Only a few times had he been away when she'd miscarried. Instead of weeping and rehashing her own sorrows, he took the lifeless child from her arms and proceeded towards the forest. "I'll be back."

When he did return, Kagome was still in the corner of the hut, hugging her knees to her chest. Before they could address one another, he began to clean up. First, Kagome. He brought her to the stream and bathed her, clothed her, and tucked her into clean bedding, facing her away from the sight of her body's failures. After the hut had been rid of the sight of her blood, he cleansed his own hands before bringing his wife up to a sitting position.

"It's okay, Kagome," He said, positioning himself behind her against the wall, giving her a warm body to lean against. He wrapped his arms around her middle, now much flatter without the bump of an infant. He allowed himself a moment before continuing, "We can try again. It's not your fault."

"No," She spoke without wavering, her voice steady. "Not again."

"No?" Inuyasha's ears turned down at the thought. He'd been so happy the first time. Of course, the Gods could only grant him so much happiness. He was, after all, an abomination; a half-breed. The Gods had granted him a loving wife, a partner to ease the pain for a few decades. He should be grateful for that much. Another pang of loss hit him. Inuyasha so often forgot that his mark never took in claiming her as his mate. He didn't have the ability to claim a mate, being half-human. He was destined to die alone, but they'd accepted those terms. He'd have his few decades with her, watching her age and die, and when her time came, he would wish her happiness in her afterlife with hopes that she'd wait for him. Not that he ever planned on living much longer after she passed. This he kept to himself. Kagome didn't need to know.

"I don't want to try anymore." Kagome hardened her heart, braving the outburst she expected from her husband, only it didn't come.

"Okay," He agreed.

Five Years Later

"Woah!" Inuyasha caught Kagome before she face planted into the dirt road. "Careful, ya drunk!" He laughed, also a bit drunk from sake. Whenever another couple announced a pregnancy within the village, the two would often find themselves getting drunk to forget their past pains. Eventually they had moved on from their determination to procreate. Instead, Kagome focused on medicine and often traversed Japan with Inuyasha, much like they had when they were teenagers. They found purpose in their lives once again, protecting villages that required the help of a priestess and behaved half-demon.

"I'm fine," Kagome hiccuped, "I'm fine," She giggled, quickly interrupted by another hiccup.

"Yeah, yeah," He lifted her over his shoulder, patting her butt to make her squirm. "Come on, we at least gotta make it back home."

"Hey, wait, Inuyasha," Kagome's voice sobered somewhat, but the hiccup that followed betrayed her, "The moon is so full tonight." Her breath created a clowd of warmth across his neck as she bent herself awkwardly to peer up into the sky. She often tracked the moon phases to be prepared for Inuyasha's human nights. "Huh, it's a blue moon." She noted, "And after a hunter's moon of all timing..." Kagome trailed off, and hiccuped once more.

"Whatever, wench," Inuyasha flipped her over again, hauling her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "You talk too much sometimes."

"Hey!"

Once inside, he deposited her onto their shared futon and began to undress her fervently, kissing every inch of flesh he exposed. She didn't deny him, instead assisting him with his own clothing. She'd barely shimmied out of her priestess garb before he flipped her over and felt for her entrance. He felt so heated, so needy, his blood rushing far faster than it usually did. Gripping Kagome's hips, he pushed himself inside her, filling her completely. She arched her back in response, bending down onto her elbows for a deeper penetration.

With every thrust, she met him halfway. With every cry, an echo was returned. They loved each other as one, completely relishing in their love-making. As Kagome's climax approached, so did Inuyasha's. She panted, gripping their sheets in her fists as she twitched into orgasm. The sight she provided him drove him over. His claws lengthened, his eyes bled red, and he came into her hard, thrusting deeply. He groaned, leaning over her and placing hot, open mouthed kisses along her neck and back. They slowly changed position, Kagome lying flat on her stomach with Inuyasha still inside her, the last of his cum filling her as he pulled out, his seed spilling from her, leaving a hot, sticky trail across her sex.

"Fuck," He swore, lying on top of her. His eyes returned to gold, and his claws retracted. Had she seen his face, she would have noticed the change in his demonic blood. The scent of her blood alerted him that he'd nicked the skin on her hips again, "Sorry."

"Shh," Kagome giggled, "Do it again." So he did.

Five Years Later

"Mama," A small boy with gold eyes and short cropped black hair called out, wearing identical robes to his father, "This one?" He held up an herb for his mother to see, his dog ears twitching in the summer breeze.

"Very good, Eiji," She smiled and nodded approvingly before bending over her own patch of herbs to harvest, but she stilled for a moment and searched the horizon. Shaking it off, Kagome went back to picking herbs.

The boy beamed, happy to please his mother. She didn't smile easily, this he'd learned quickly. For his age Eiji was an old soul. While only four years old, he understood more than his parents thought. For instance, he was aware of what the stones circling the Goshinboku meant. What he didn't understand was why none of them had names.

Returning to his task, he plucked herbs carefully, making sure to pull from the root and not the stems. His mother's light humming followed an easy tune, one he knew was from her past; the future. Her time travels were his bed time stories, and yet, he could never fully wrap his mind around the fact that his human mother had seen the world five hundred years from now. In time, Eiji would. His demonic blood granted him that, or so his parents assumed. At birth they easily titled him quarter-demon.

It wasn't until his third birthday did they realize he was just as strong as a half-demon. They'd gone to visit Kouga and Ayame along the way to the demon slayer village, where Sango and Miroku had rebuilt the village and trained a new group of slayers. While his parents talked with other grown-ups, Eiji had run off with wolf cubs to play. His parents had only been alerted seconds before his head smacked the earth below that something was amiss. Of course, they panicked and babied him, but the fall from the curve of a mountain side to the ground, a good sixty feet below hadn't hurt more than if he'd fallen from the top of a hut. Kagome and Inuyasha were proud. More than that, they were grateful. His strength meant he was more than half of them. He was strong enough to survive.

"Eiji," A townsman nodded in hello as he passed, seeming rushed.

"Hi," Eiji smiled in return, knowing something must have been urgent. No one came this far out of Edo to find his mother unless it was an emergency. Knowing all too well that this meant their foraging was over, he quickly loaded his herbs into his basket and stood to follow his mother.

"Milady, Lady Kaede has sent me to inform you she is in need of assistance. The birthing has become complicated." The man, a short field worker, was not the usual messenger, meaning there was more to it.

"And?" Kagome remained calm. Most births in this era were complicated, seeing as most women bore a child before they were fifteen. She held back a sigh, remembering the first time she came through the well. Back then she would have been expected to wed, bed, and birth within the year had she not been a priestess. How foolish of these people, she thought. When she came through the well the last time, she'd romanticized the idea of jumping through time and living out her days with Inuyasha, all during the feudal era. This time period was infuriating. No one washed, a woman was a possession, and there was so much death. And yet, she didn't regret it.

"There's demon approaching," He wiped the sweat from his brow, "Lady Kaede says they'll arrive within the hour."

"Shit," Kagome swore, cursing herself for ignoring the feeling of evil in the air. Having shared herself with Inuyasha and bearing a child, she no longer possessed the abilities to sense and purify demonic auras. Despite this, sometimes she still got this feeling in her stomach that there was evil swirling around her. Focusing on the task at hand, she formed a plan. "Rally the strongest along the border. I want all hands available in levels, growing smaller around Rin's home. Ten men to guide women and children to the caves. Inuyasha should be back soon." Turning to her son, she knelt before him. "Eiji, go with the women and children. Stay in the caves until either myself or your father come to retrieve you and the others. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama," Eiji nodded, receiving a kiss on his brow before being ushered off with the townsman.