Don't own InuYasha or Shaman King.

Beta: Romantic Princess, BloodCherry

Thank you ladies!

AN: Kay, I'm going to have a poll up for the next week or three. Kagome is going to have a few spirits, so I'm going to let you guys decide on some of them! I also would like to ask you guys about Kagome pairing for this story, I'm not really sure who I want her with so please vote yeah? (This will all be on my profile)

Chapter 1

The sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon when a young woman was waking from a long night's sleep at a nearby shrine. The Higurashi family had finally returned to Tokyo to live at the shrine of their forefathers. The last few years both of the Higurashi children, Souta and Kagome, had been training with their father and grandfather to understand the shamanic arts. After the elder Higurashi passed away due to age, the family returned home.

Now both youngsters were getting used to living in the city once again. "Otou-chan, Obaa-chan, I'm going to see Oka-chan and Oji-chan! Ja'ne!" Kagome rushed from her home, down the steps, and toward the graveyard just a few blocks away.

She could only smile as she came to the Karasu Cemetery; quite a few Higurashi's were buried there. Bending down, she dropped a Camellia flower upon the grave markers before her. "Ne, Oka-chan, Jii-chan, the family has finally unpacked at the shrine. I don't know how things are going to be at school, but I hope I can make some friends who believe in the same things as me! But I don't know how to act around them."

It was hard coming to places like this, especially when she couldn't chat! There were so many spirits here, more than she'd seen when she'd been training. Sighing, she ran onward waving at the stone were part of her grandfather's ashes laid.

Hua Higurashi sighed; her daughter hadn't even waited for her to speak… that was shameful. But she could honestly say that she was indeed worried about her little girl. She'd been such a cheerful little one, but she'd become so reserved in the last few years.

O

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Looking about, Kagome sighed as she neared her knew school, Shinra Private Academy. Walking forward, Kagome only mourned the loss of her home schooling as it was much more preferable than coming to a normal, human school. It wasn't that she had anything against it. It was just hard making friends with people who didn't believe in spirits or those who had called her a monster as a child for her abilities with spiritual energy.

Looking up she smiled at the classroom sign before waiting a bit, worried about the comments coming from the inside of the room.

"I really saw it! There were ghosts in the cemetery; they were watching the stars!"

"No, I doubt your head Manta," a boy responded.

"What? This is me we're talking about, do you doubt what I saw!"

Opening the door, she looked at them while they returned the look. "What cemetery are you talking about?" Kagome blushed while four of her new classmates seemed to stare her down for even asking.

"Ah, you believe me?" The smallest boy asked his eyes wide with surprise.

"Hmm, it would be hard for me not to believe." She easily answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've been in training to be a miko for as long as I can remember. So it would be illogical of me not to believe in the spirits of the dead." Several sets of eyes turned to her small form, Kagome simply blinked in surprise "What did I do?"

"You're a miko?"

"No way, get out!"

"Can you make charms and stuff?" A female voice asked.

Kagome found herself blushing several shades of red; why were they so excited about her being a miko?

Just as the questions really started pouring in, the teacher yanked open the door. "Shut up and get in your seats. Homeroom is starting, and you," he pointed at Kagome, "get up here!"

Kagome 'epped' before complying and standing were the teacher was pointing (which was right next to his desk) slightly embarrassed. Was she supposed to wait outside?

"As you can see we have a new student, but there's another one in the hallway."

A boy a few inches taller than herself stepped in. He had shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, and orange headphones. He settled beside her in the front of the class.

"This is Asakura Yoh, he's from Izumo and came by himself. The girl is Higurashi Kagome, she's originally from Tokyo, but has been in Hokkaido for the last several years. I want you to treat them well considering that they are new to this school."

Suddenly the voice of the small blond boy from before rang out. "That's him, the kid with the ghosts!" He'd startled most of the class.

"There's no such thing as ghosts… who are you anyway?"

Kagome blinked in surprise at the comment before looking to the boy standing next to her; why would he say that? And why had the class gotten into such an uproar over the statement? And so, for the next several hours, Yoh slept through the noise and confusion of the class while Manta simply added to it trying to get the others in his class to believe him.

At the end of the class Kagome could only raise an eyebrow at Manta as he began his stalking of Yoh. "Oyamada-san…" She began.

"Ah, yeah?"

"Do you really think this will give you the answers you want?"

Manta blinked in surprise before nodding.

"Do you mind if I come along? It's been a long time since I've been in Tokyo, and the two of you seem interesting." Kagome asked amused.

"Yeah, sure, but you have to call me Manta."

"Alright, then you have to call me Kagome."

And so the stalking began; Kagome mostly stayed quit, only giggling at Manta's antics, but eventually they were caught. Yoh wasn't completely deaf, but she'd been wondering considering how loud the small blond was being.

"I knew it was you," he said looking at Manta. "But I didn't expect you," Yoh looked at Kagome curiously.

"So you're not mad?

"Nah, you came because I pretended not to know you, right?"

Manta simply nodded in surprise.

"But I didn't want anyone to know my secret."

"Secret?"

"Yeah, I came here to train. See I'm a shaman."

Kagome had been sitting there silently for a while enjoying the patch of grass and the conversation behind her, but that bombshell caught her attention more than anything else could. When Kagome spun around she found herself on all fours almost nose to nose with the headphone-wearing boy. "Really?" She asked.

Yoh's eyes widened before he nodded surprised at the sudden move.

"Yeah! I'm not the only one then!" Kagome was excited before sitting back on her calves extremely happy; it had been a long time since someone with powers like hers was anywhere near her age!

Yoh blinked before an eyebrow rose. "You're a shaman?"

"No; I have the capacity to be a shaman, but I have no real training on that front. I'm a miko!"

Manta sighed; why were they telling their secrets?

"Really?"

"Yup!"

"Okay, what exactly is a shaman and how does being a miko give you the ability to be either?" Manta questioned.

The two spiritualists looked to each other before Yoh replied, "A shaman is a person who binds this world with the next. A miko on the other hand does something a bit different."

"Yeah, our calling is a bit different from shamans. We serve the gods — we are the mediators between humans and the gods, a bit like messengers. My family has served many gods, local and otherwise. But we specialize in healing and barriers as well. And really, if you have any spiritual ability you can do just about anything such as being a miko, or a regular shaman like Asakura-kun, and so on and so forth."

"If you ever need any help you can come to me, Manta." Yoh stated simply before he began to leave before glancing at the dark haired girl. "You too." And he was rewarded with one of the biggest smiles he'd ever seen before waving and heading home.

Kagome just watched, amused. "Manta, are you going to be okay with all of this?"

"Yeah… I'll see you tomorrow, Kagome," he said before moving onward toward his cram school.

Kagome could only smile to herself; this was going to be exciting. She'd never really had a chance to make friends before, though she wasn't certain if they were friends. The only people who'd ever given her the time of day besides her parents and family were the spirits that they'd come into contact with.

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It would be a good, long walk before she'd get home, and now she was going to figure out how to convince her father to allow her to follow a different path.

Once she returned home she was questioned extensively by her father, Haru, and her grandmother, Kaede. When she spoke of meeting a shaman, she could only narrow her eyes at the unspoken words between the two. What weren't they telling her?

"Kagome, I don't think it's a good idea to hang out with this boy… he could be headed for trouble."

"Otou-chan… I want to be a shaman."

"Absolutely not!" Kaede barked out.

"Why?"

"Being a shaman is dangerous, Kagome," her father continued.

"So is being a miko; kami-dono's likes to make us do dangerous things!"

"No, Kagome it's simply not a good idea."

Kagome simply huffed, before leaving… they wouldn't even let her explain or explain their reasons why she shouldn't go near Asakura! She'd felt something, something much more intimate in the cemetery this morning with all those wandering spirits than she had in the four years she'd been in constant contact with the gods.

Was it wrong to want that kind of touch or comfort? She didn't even know what to think. "I'm going for a walk I'll be back later."

The two adult Higurashi's simply sighed watching the back of their little girl as she left. She was growing up and neither was sure what to do about it.

O

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It was a good many hours later before Kagome found herself back at Karasu Cemetery for the second time that day in front of her family member's headstones all the while wondering exactly what she wanted to say.

"Okaa-chan, will you come out?" Kagome looked up at the spirit of her mother; she'd been a lovely woman in her lifetime. With her large, expressive violet-blue eyes twinkling with amusement, blue-black hair that fell softly around her ears. The only thing that had never been answered when asked about was the strange yin-yang tattoo that seemed to hug the curve of her mother's neck.

"What is it Kagome-chan?"

"Obaa-chan and Otou-chan are trying to stop me from doing something I really want."

"And what do you want to do, Nyanko?"

"I want to train to be a shaman."

Hua promptly squealed with laughter.

"Moh! Okaa-chan, why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm sorry, Kagome; it seems you inherited something from both your grandfather and I."

When Kagome simply stared, Hua Higurashi smiled. "Your Jiji and I were both shamans, Kagome. Admittedly, I was of a different sect than the Japanese branch that is here, but we both had similar talent…"

"Then why are they trying to stop me?"

"Do they ever try to consult me?"

"I don't know, Okaa-chan. I assumed they did. So do you talk to them like you do me?"

Hua simply shook her head before grumbling out, "Tell them you have my consent and Jiji's, too."

"Okay, I will." Kagome smiled brightly. Those darn hypocrites, now there was no way they were going to stop her. Hmmph! Keeping something like that from… her how could they?

Kagome sighed before her head shot up. Who was screaming? And why? Rushing upward, she gasped as she realized it was Manta!

"What are you doing? Stop it!"

Ryu and his gang looked up; before them was a relatively small but pretty young girl looking at them as if they had lost their minds.

"Shoo little girl, this isn't your place."

"You shoo! This is as much my place as anyone else's'! And what are you doing? Destroying headstones and such… that's insulting to those who rest there." There was a large frown marring her face.

"Look kid, this is our best place, so leave. I need to teach this brat some manners."

"Leave Manta alone. He was meeting me here, so if you want to hit someone hit me."

Every single one of them paused to stare at her, Manta included. "Why would you meet at a graveyard? That's a strange place for a date!" Ryu looked at the girl, with confusion.

"It's not a date, my family is here."

"Really, what's your name?"

Kagome paused watching as Manta scrambled away, "Kagome."

"Your whole name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just answer me!" Ryu shouted, hitting the girl in the face with his sword.

Kagome gave a cry of shock; there was a lot of pain in her cheek and it was hot and sticky from blood. "H…Higurashi…"

Ryu nodded when some of his men moved. Kagome did as well; grabbing Manta's hand she took off to the sound of them shouting and the crash of headstones as they were knocked over. The one glance that she'd allowed back had been heart breaking — both her mother's and grandfather's headstones were on the ground at this point.

"Are you okay, Manta?"

"Why did… why did you do that, Kagome?"

"I had to do something. I mean they hurt you really badly! Now come on, we're going to see my Obaa-chan."

"Thank you. But you could have gotten hurt badly, worse than now!"

"Manta, people help out their friends, right?"

The blonde only nodded as they continued their walk.

"You're the first friend that I've ever had, so of course I want to help you!"

A small smile flickered across his face. "Thanks Kagome."

"You're welcome"

Manta sighed all the while following. What surprised him was that not too many blocks away was a large wooded area in which a huge set of steps could be seen. He thought he was going to die getting to the top!

"Obaaaaa!"

Kaede huffed, moving from her chair in the living room she found her granddaughter and an extremely small boy that could possibly be a Koro Pokkuru. Shaking the thought aside she looked at her grandchild. The gash across her face was rather large, just inside her ear to the bridge of her nose. It was bleeding rather heavily from what she could tell.

"Child, what happened?"

"Well, after I got into the argument with you and Tou, I went to see Oka and Oji. These older bullies were hurting Manta, and I got in the way…" Kagome shifted uncomfortably as her grandmother gathered material to clean the wound before proceeding to heal it. Healing it completely would hurt Kagome's, or anyone's for that matter, own immune and healing system. Instead there was a relatively thin but long scab running across her face.

"Kagome, don't lie. If it hadn't been for you things would have been much worse! You saved me!"

Kaede simply sighed as she moved on to the small boy, removing dirt and things from his hands and face and repeated the healing process. "Manta, your wrist is going to hurt for a day or so, alright?" The older woman continued wrapping.

"Hey Kagome, I thought you guys can heal?"

"Well, because of the way we heal, it would be more harmful than helpful if we didn't let the body heal some of the damage on its own. When someone is healed repeatedly by holy energy one of two things can happen. It can help someone's immunity and natural healing capacity by speeding things up, or it can hurt them really badly by slowing it down to a crawl. So for most small things like this, we let it heal naturally. That and it lets your body get off the natural high of extra energy, which is why even I don't get to lose this lovely reminder."

"Ah. Why is that?"

They two youngsters simply watched and waited as Manta's hand was wrapped.

"Because our healing abilities were meant to be used on Kami-sama's when they reincarnated on earth."

Manta paused to stare at the two of them, were they serious?

The two mikos shared an amused smile, "So Manta why were you at Karasu?"

"I was trying to catch Yoh with spirits on camera."

Suddenly two voices young and old roared into laughter. "I'm sorry child but the spirits don't appear on a camera unless they wish to."

"Oh, alright then… well I should go. I should have been home awhile ago."

"Bye Manta!" The Higurashi women stated escorting the small boy out before waving as he left the shrine.

Later that evening it took Kagome less than ten minutes to convince her father and grandmother to at least allow her to try her own path. She also chided them for not visiting Hua more often. They were the living ones, besides they need to get out of the house more!

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Kagome groaned, it was official… she hated school 6 days a week! Come on, who came up with that idea? Not only that, but for several hours a day, just wasn't worth it.

Sighing, she watched as Manta's "friends" continued to make fun of him. That wasn't right, was it?

"Hey, why don't you leave him alone? You shouldn't make fun of him like that." Kagome stated. Her face had lost all it's usually jolliness to be replaced by an expression of someone that seemed far older and far wiser than the students before her.

"Ghosts do exist." Yoh stated coming up behind her. Looking at the small girl in front of him he wanted to wince at the long slash across her face. He'd heard all about what had happened the day before.

Manta snorted. "What cemetery, guys?"

"You're Manta and Kagome, right?"

Kagome was going to nod, she swore she was, but when Yoh grabbed both her and Manta's wrists and proceeded to drag the two of them away toward Karasu, she knew this day was just going to get more interesting.

"Ah, ah, Asakura-kun, please stop. What are you doing?"

"I'm going to confront those guys who hurt you!"

"You can't, Yoh! Those guys are crazy. And strong! Why would you even bother?" Manta yelled as the high speed drag continued.

"Because I'm helping my friends."

"Asakura-kun, do you mean that?"

Yoh stopped briefly before looking in to shocked blue eyes. "Yeah, my grandfather told me that people who can see spirits aren't bad. I now you can both see them, so you're my friends now." When his pausing was over he was once more dragging the two of them to Karasu Cemetery.

"Asakura-kun, should you really be fighting them? I mean they seem really dangerous! What if you get hurt?" Kagome questioned.

"Yeah, not to mention you shouldn't be dragging us toward our doom!"

"Kagome," Yoh said and Kagome's head tilted to the side at the soft smile on his face. "I have someone who's going to back me up. Besides, if I get hurt you'll fix me up, right?" Yoh teased lightly, wanting to tease her even more when a soft blush ran across her cheeks. She really was cute… "Besides I have someone who's willing to help!"

The two abductees glanced at each other; what was he talking about?

Ryu scowled at the display before him, what the heck were those two doing back? "I thought I told you two not to come back!"

"You know my friends from the other world aren't very happy with you," Yoh started

"What? Ghosts? Are you serious?" One of the boys asked as he openly laughed at the three of them.

"In fact some of them really want to fight you!"

Both Kagome and Manta promptly moved away from battle, and both were surprised by who was helping Yoh. It was a stunning, 600-year-old Samurai! Kagome thought it was extremely exciting whereas Manta seemed to be terrified. Kagome wasn't sure why the samurai fellow "felt" like a perfectly nice guy to her.

"Oh, wow it's Amidamaru! That's so awesome!"

"Kagome! How can you say that? He's supposed to be a crazy murderer!"

"Manta not everything is as written in the history books, besides the winner is the one who gets to write the story. Don't you think Amidamaru would have lost? I mean he's pretty young looking to be dead."

"Are you defending him because he's cute?"

"Manta! No!" An aggravated sigh was released from her throat. She wasn't that shallow darn it!

During the fight, Kagome couldn't help herself and she had to cheer on both Yoh and Amidamaru! It was really impressive. She didn't know many people who could turn a wooden grave marker into something that dangerous.

"Kagome don't cheer him on, he's going to kill him!"

"Nah, he's just going to teach him a lesson! Wow this is like all those Shonen cartoons Souta likes to watch on Sunday, with all the trash talking and stuff."

Manta sweat-dropped. Were all mikos like this?

She watched as he took out the first two weirdoes before smacking the wooden sword user in the face. That was going to really hurt in the morning.

After the ringleader of the monkeys was defeated, she found herself in shock but content at the same time. She needed to learn to be a shaman if only to protect herself. She'd been attacked more than once by something from the spiritual plane. Some spirits weren't as nice as Amidamaru and wouldn't care if she was a priestess or not.

Kagome smiled. "Yoh… that was amazing!"

Manta was just stunned. He'd never seen anything like it!

"Thanks Kagome."

"I know this is weird, but can you help me become a shaman, too?"

"Why would you want to do that?" Yoh blinked, he liked his priestess friend just as she was.

"Yeah, Kagome, I mean you have awesome abilities right now, don't you?"

"Well, I think it's awesome. And apparently my mother and grandfather were shamans, too! There are a lot of reasons why, you know?" Kagome was beginning to fidget under their stares. Why did they have to do that?

"I suppose I can help you…" Yoh thought over it. There were some things he could teach her… like how to pull a soul into yourself like he'd done with Amidamaru, but he was really only in the beginning stages as well.

"That's great! Thank you, Yoh!" Kagome gave the boy a quick hug, extremely excited.

"No problem." Yoh smiled lazily, a bit surprised by the hug. When they'd been in class together she seemed really standoffish, maybe she was shy?

"I've got to go; I still have barrier training for tonight."

"You can do them?" Manta asked.

"Yeah, but they're my weak point. Once I complete this assignment, I'll have a comprehensive knowledge of how to train my children should they have the abilities of a miko. Bye guys, I'll see you tomorrow." The raven haired girl waved before rushing off leaving the boys on their own.

"Does she seem happier to you?" Manta asked curiously; she was getting livelier the longer they were around each other.

"Well it's nice to have friends," Yoh replied. "See ya, Manta."

Manta sighed as he looked to either side of him. His adventures into the spiritual weren't going to be a one-time thing. He honestly couldn't wait to see tomorrow.