Prolog: In Death Do We Part

A large hunter's moon hung low in the sky. Its soft light turning everything that it touched shadowy silver. One lone strand of said moonlight found itself falling upon the cloaked figure of a young woman. Darkness creped slowly across woman's vision as she fought to stay awake. As she leaned against one of the few, still standing, trees on the battlefield, shattered bow and broken arrows surrounding her form, her breaths coming out in short, ragged gasps. Being clutched, weakly, in her left hand rested a glowing pink marble. Said marble was the Shikon no Tama and the main source of all of her and her friend's misfortune. Looking out at the smoldering warzone around her, one of her friend's allies had turned out to be a bit of a pyromaniac, tears sprang up into her eyes. Blue eyes that, now a dimmed midnight, due to pain and grief. Bodies, both friend and foe, lay scattered all across the ground. Turning slightly to the left she saw, not ten feet from her resting place, two bodies. Two very familiar bodies. One of them male, the other female. Her mind, hazy with pain, took a while to remember their names. A soft voice echoed in her head. Shika and Neko. The woman's eyes brightened slightly in resignation.

She remembered them now. Both had been her best of friends thou, when they all first met, they had been anything but friends. When they had first met, on that gloomy day, many months before, they had fought against each other. At one time, the fights between them had gotten so bad that Neko would have almost killed Shika if it wasn't for her healing abilities. After that incident, the three of them had seen that their fighting would get them all nowhere and they abet reluctantly, called a truce. Later on they had fully put aside their differences and started to bond over training and fellow hardship. It had gotten to the point where she, Shika and Neko considered each other to be family. They were an odd sort of family, but a family none the less.

Sadly, in the end, those precious bonds had been brutally shattered, like a stone through glass, when in the final battle Shika, upon seeing the despicable spider demon trying to perform a sneak attack on her unguarded back, took the hit in an attempt to protect her. She had quickly died of blood loss. Seeing one of his family being struck down, Neko, who had caught Shika after Naraku had carelessly flung Shika's hurt form out of the way, had gone into a fit of rage. Many minutes later, he too was struck down. But not without dragging down a good chunk of Naraku's forces with him. He was even able to severely wound Shika's killer after Naraku taunted him too far. Thanks to that, what little of Naraku's forces that were left was finished by the allied forces. Directly after, they striked the killing blow to demonic spider... not that it made a difference for her now.

"Kagome!"

"Lady Kagome!"

"Kaa-san! Where are you?!"

The woman smiled bitterly as she heard her remaining friends and adopted son, whose name was Shippo, calling for her. She did not answer back, even if she wanted to, as she knew that they could not help her and she did not want them to see her form as she was now. Her battered and bleeding form. Naraku, in a last ditch attempt at winning, had used his remaining energy for one last attack. Using one of his tails (tentacles?), like a makeshift spear, he had fatally wound her, even as the arrow, that would ultimately kill him thanks to the miko energy that ran through it, left her bow. The dyeing woman grimaced when she thought of it. The attack had gone straight thru into the front of her chest and out thru her back, clipping a small part of her heart and lung as it did so. She wheezed a bit, finding that it was getting a bit harder to breath as her injured lung filled. She knew that there wasn't much time for her in this world. She still had one final objective to take care of. She shifting slightly, which sent streaks pain thru her body, the woman lifted her left hand, the one that held the Shikon, up to her lips. Using the last of the remaining strength that she had, she made the wish. The selfless wish that would permanently get rid of that cursed, pink, jewel. The wish for the miko's, whose name was Midoriko, soul to be freed from her eternal battle within the jewel.

As the jewel flashed, blindingly purple in color, before disappearing, her hand, now empty, fell limply so as to rest in her lap. The woman slumped. Her chin rested against her chest and her eyes were now closed. A small smile on her lips, as she exhaled for the last time.

Kagome Higurashi, Guardian Miko to the Shikon no Tama, died two minutes before being found.

Shadow Wolf here!

Thank you for looking at and reading the first chapter of my story. As this is my very first fan fiction, I would ask you, the reviewers, to please go easy on me when either reviewing or criticizing it.

Also, so that you all know this now, updates will be spontaneous. Since I have other things that I need to during the week, it all depends on when I can get enough time to both write a new chapter and type it up.

Other than that I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you. Thank you.