NOTE: This was an attempt at a serious fic, but it got slightly out of hand, to say the least. I'm thinking of making another (shorter) one with a much more endearing Kagome and a pairing of your choosing, if anyone wants one. You can tell I struggled to avoid Japanese terms but failed halfway through. This took a lot of work, I hope you enjoy.

Pairing: Leaning towards some twisted form of Itachi/Kagome, but as of right now, undecided.

Sometimes, Kagome felt like the world was a broken record, like she was forced to rise from the dead with an arrow in her heart, to say her lines and do her part. But that was a cumbersome feeling. The Uchiha rarely used arrows, though they were the most well-equipped to use it with their fast reflexes and Sharingan, but the fact was that ninja didn't have the patience to deal with arrows.

So why did she always feel like she needed a bow wrapped around her shoulder to feel complete? She was a ninja, not the best the clan had certainly, but a good ninja none the less. A part of her feared the day they'd decide her duty lie with bearing new children instead of the battlefield, especially with her Father. It was best not to think about it, she did not want to turn out like her mother. Her mother was wonderful and kind and an amazing mother (perhaps not for her, perhaps not for Itachi) but sometimes, Kagome doubted she came into the marriage of her own free will.

Fugaku was lovely like that.

Kagome waved the thoughts away, they served no real purpose but worry and irritation, and she did not need that right now. She headed for the forest, nodding towards fellow clansmen when she came across them on the way, until the trees provided comfort and shade from the all seeing clan. That sounded more like the Hyuuga, but damn if the Uchiha didn't pry and gossip.

She walked to a special clearing she had built, targets set up and all. She made sure no one was around before plucking a bow and a quiver of arrows from a hollow tree. She'd have put up genjutsu, but there was really no point here. It was best to hide in plain sight and hope the Sharingan user that came across it was daft.

Her arrow hit the center cleanly. She appraised it critically before leveling the target further. She hit it every single time. After her arrows had all been used she sighed, and moved to retrieve them from the target, face forlorn. Being a ninja was all she had remembered since she was born, yet, here she was.

Her life felt like regret, as if she weren't meant to be born again. (And there was that word, again). She didn't know why she thought of it. She wasn't very religious, didn't care much for reincarnation, what came after, but perhaps- Perhaps, it explained a lot of things.

Abruptly she spun around, fingers already launching another arrow at something rustling a ways away. A log appeared, smoke distilling. She narrowed her eyes before sighing.

"Itachi, you shouldn't sneak up on me like that," Kagome said, and ignored that resentful feeling that he could have caught her unawares. A boy, couldn't be older than six, appeared and she ignored the way her heart felt that he already had lines built from stress on his face. It was genetics, she convinced herself, not because his hands were already bloody, and his eyes had already seen a war it shouldn't have seen, or because being the heir wasn't as fun as it seemed. (She was lucky/unlucky she was a girl. Still first-born, but not the right one).

He didn't smile or laugh at her like children should, just stared, appraising her silently. It was pathetic she felt uneasy around her own little brother, around someone twelve years younger than her, but here she was. She swallowed the feeling, and beckoned him closer.

He conceded, drifting over to her, face slightly scrunched. Cute. She smiled at him, and it wasn't forced at all. She pinched his cheeks lightly, and he scowled at her, moving to pull away but she didn't let him.

"Were you spying on me, little brother? You weren't worried, were you? I'm flattered."

Instead of answering, Itachi took the hand pinching his cheek and studied it, running his small, slightly chubby fingers over the scars, the slight crease of where she had held an arrow too tight too much times.

"Why are you using it?" he asked, curious and he didn't have to elaborate on what he was referring to.

Kagome wanted to tell the truth, about how sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night with a dead man's name on her lips, and her fingers ghosted over the memory of arrows. How a part of her still remembered (created?) the feeling of an arrow in her palm, and sometimes she felt like the air was too condensed for her lungs, too tight.

Like this was another world she wasn't supposed to be in. But that would be stupid (right?). It was no time to whisper about imaginary things.

Instead she said, "Because I feel like it suits me." That was the simple explanation, without all the complications.

Itachi stared at her, taking in her answer before wrapping his fingers around her hand, and she realized he was still a child.

"Arrows aren't suited for ninja," he said, and stared at their linked hands as if it were a puzzle, as if he didn't understand why he did that. She almost laughed.

"Maybe," she started softly, and he glanced up at her from thick lashes (almost longer than hers, what a laugh, he matured too fast), "that is the point, little brother."

She didn't give him time to contemplate her answer too much, gathering him up her arms.

"I'm not a child," he announced, almost petulantly. She faltered for a brief moment, because he was supposed to be.

"No," she agreed, "no, you're not." She still didn't let him down, and he didn't comment further as she brought them back home.

No, she thought, you are just the wrong brother.

Mother had another child. Itachi adored him, much more than Kagome had doted on Itachi. She wondered where he had learned to be so caring in a family full of people like her, like Fugaku (she took after him too much for it to be a comfort). There was Mother, but Itachi didn't spend as much time with her.

Sometimes Kagome felt like Mother was disappointed in her other two children as the woman smiled at Sasuke with a heart full of honey, and talked to him like a real child. Her first child was distant and off-putting, not as caring as she (Kagome could remember when she was), and her second child was the best prodigy anyone could have.

Mikoto, her mother, spent far much time doting on Sasuke, tending to his needs than she did with Itachi and Kagome and Sasuke adapted her persona. He wasn't sullen like Kagome, wasn't a hard-ass like his father, and definitely wasn't like Itachi, at all, no matter how he tried to emanate his older brother. She felt awful that she wished he never was.

One day, she realized as a two year old Sasuke pulled on her hair and struggled to form her name on his tongue that Mikoto was trying to make up for her failures as a mother. That explained the apologetic looks she would send every now and then, directed towards both her elder children (not that Kagome spent much time home), before she would return her attention to Sasuke.

Kagome understood Mikoto couldn't say much against Fugaku. She understood that the clan needed prestige, needed to keep up their reputation, and so they didn't have much need for cheerful innocent children. She resented Fugaku and her own clan for that. She resented Fugaku more for allowing it now.

Call her selfish, call her cruel, call her an awful sister but she couldn't understand why Sasuke got the special treatment. She didn't want to. Why should she suffer and Sasuke not? What of Itachi?

After that, she was just a little colder to Mikoto, and as for Sasuke. He couldn't understand why his older sister avoided his face like the plague.

She talked to Itachi when she could, and somehow, she felt like she needed to make up all her own mistakes with Itachi herself, and found she must get it from her mother. Hypocritical, but she wouldn't forgive Mikoto for that.

Kagome had made Itachi some rice balls and brought that and water to him when he was resting from his practice against the trunk of a tree. For some reason, the missions and her team had been lax, and she decided maybe it was time for some sibling bonding (just not with the other one).

"Itachi," she said, and he started at the sound of her voice, eyes focusing on her in an instant. He relaxed slightly when he saw her.

"Kagome," he said quietly, and she jumped down to him from where she perched on a tree.

"Are you hungry?" She asked, presenting the bento and a canteen of water.

"No, thank you. I'm sure Sasuke is hungry," Itachi said, and took the offered bento from her hands.

"Sasuke's here?" She couldn't stop the frown from her voice.

"Yes," Itachi answered, almost defensively, like he was scolding her. Kagome blinked at the tone before nodding reluctantly. Itachi had set the bento down next to him, and leaned against the trunk of the tree, tilting his head to listen attentively. She garnered her little brothers were playing hide-and-seek.

Kagome looked away, but sat down beside him. She remembered when she was the only one that held all his attention, and Itachi followed her like an adorable little brother only could: with all his heart. But things had changed, and now Itachi was in Kagome's position and Sasuke was the new Itachi (except not really, not at all). She could hear Sasuke getting closer, yelling Itachi's name childishly. She sighed.

"I'm sorry," she started, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Itachi tilt his head slightly. Usually Itachi would be the one to initiate any sort of physical contact, like hand holding, but now he lay still, breathing slowly beside her. She reached for his hand instead. His hand was cold in hers.

"I'm sorry for this family, Itachi," and she could tell she had his full attention now. "I'm sorry for what this clan has done to you. I'm sorry that you had to see war and become a ninja. I'm sorry for being a horrible sister."

She blinked, surprised, when he squeezed her hand back.

"No," he said, and his voice was soft but strong, "no." And that was all. That was all.

Sasuke burst in then, triumphant and smiling. He faltered when he saw Kagome, blinking owlishly.

Itachi let go of her hand first.

She tried for Itachi, to be the sister she should have been. Sasuke didn't understand the sudden affection he was receiving from her, but like a child, he wouldn't complain.

"I thought you hated me," Sasuke said. She slanted a contemplative look at Sasuke who was playing with his toys. She had been reading a textbook and occasionally carding her fingers through his hair as he complained.

"No," she replied, "no, I can't hate you. Besides, opinions change."

Didn't Inuyasha's?

InuyashaInuyashaInyashaDEATHpainkikkyosesshomaruIN UYASHAINUYASHA

Her mind screamed and she gasped, falling to her knees, grasping her head. That name, that name, she remembered that name!

"Nee-chan!" Sasuke called out, and moved to get help, but she snatched his arm back. Her eyes were wild as she stared at Sasuke, pleaded.

"Don't," she breathed, "don't."

"Nee-chan?" He asked, and she found fear in the boy's eyes. Of her, of what happened to her, of something. She tried for a smile.

"Don't, Sasuke. I'm fine."

He looked skeptical, but nodded hesitantly. Kagome grinned and pinched his cheeks as he protested.

"Thank you, otouto. For caring."

Sōta, she thought as Sasuke smiled at her and called her 'nee-chan'.

She wasn't supposed to remember, that was the thing. The memories slipped away again, the names, and everything she could even remember. So she grabbed an arrow and dropped in the clearing she had made to scratch his name into the dirt.

INUYASHA.

The name was a blare of noise in her mind, muting the memories that could have popped up. It was alright. His name was a comfort by itself.

"Inuyasha," she tested out loud, and liked the way it tasted on her lips. She giggled, in what had been a long time. "Inuyasha."

From afar, Itachi frowned as Kagome smiled.

The day she had feared since the beginning came. They were eating dinner and Itachi wasn't there. A normal affair.

"Kagome," Fugaku started, and she knew something was different right away (he never gave her the time of day, why now). "You're nineteen now."

She stayed silent. Fugaku continued.

"It's time to settle down."

Kagome closed her eyes for a moment before opening them. Sasuke watched with wide eyes.

"Of course, Father," she said, even as resentment curled around her heart like smoke.

"Good," he grunted. "Kenchi has suggested one of his son's hands. It would be a fitting marriage-"

"Wait!" Sasuke interjected, and Kagome found it was not so hard to love him now, even when she knew he couldn't do anything.

"You're taking nee-chan away?" Sasuke said, incredulous, and Fugaku turned his attention to him. Sasuke shrank notably but still held his ground.

"You can't," he said, and Fugaku raised an eyebrow. Sasuke turned away.

"It's not a matter of can't or can," Fugaku said softly. "It's a matter of life, Sasuke. You don't want this family to crumble, do you?"

Sasuke glanced at Kagome with a beseeching look.

"Father's right," Kagome said, and Sasuke stared at her with something like horror and betrayal. "What matters is the clan, Sasuke, remember that."

Fugaku looked approving, almost proud of her. Oddly enough this was the first time, and she found it funny it was because she abandoned her own little brother. Her mother said nothing, except shot Sasuke a stern look.

Sasuke avoided her for a while. She finally caught up to him on a summer day when her days left with him were almost over.

"Sasuke, you've been avoiding me," she said sternly and he grunted, looking away.

"Shouldn't you be gone?" he asked, and she laughed, but only slightly.

"Almost," she said and knelt down to maintain eye contact with Sasuke. She tugged his hand and wrapped hers around his. Sasuke pouted.

"Why do you have to leave?"

Kagome gave a sad smile. "It's not a matter of have to. I want to do this, Sasuke."

"No, you don't!" He said and she leaned back, surprised. "I'm not stupid! I can tell. Father's making you leave, and you're letting him because you're scared."

"Sasuke," she said after a while, and squeezed his hand. She brought their linked hands up to their eyes (hers were so much larger than his, and she was sad that she wouldn't be able to clearly watch him grow), "this is your heart."

"And you should never let it rule your head," she finished firmly, and let go of his hand, standing up. It was harder than it looked.

"If you want to be a shinobi, then you have to understand your duties. To the clan. This happens all the time. You have to learn to deal with it."

Sasuke grabbed her hand, staring down at his shoes. "I will, nee-chan. But I don't want to, not now."

I never wanted to, she thought, but squeezed his hand and smiled. "Alright."

(She remembered when she had told Itachi about his heart and his head and to never let them coincide, except she was holding Sasuke that time, and the Kyuubi was roaring in the village). Funny how things change.

Itachi was always gone now, which wasn't surprising considering his new position. Still, she had to wonder if things were seriously going wrong when he even brushed off Sasuke. Vaguely, she wondered if Itachi heard about her marriage. It was only a few weeks away now. It was going to be a quiet affair, but still.

He appeared outside her door one night. She wasn't asleep to begin with.

"Itachi," she greeted, and he nodded. She beckoned him inside. He obliged.

"So you heard about the marriage," she said, and he nodded again. The shadows made him look younger she thought, because it covered all the parts that she didn't want to see, like the Sharingan (she didn't like using hers, it felt wrong, like someone was scraping her eyes), or the blood from the mission he must have just returned from.

She stood up to walk over to him. His face was pale, as it always was, but he looked a lot older, almost as old as her, and she smiled at him, to try to win over that spark he used to have as a child.

She pinched his cheeks. They still vaguely held that chubbiness, but only barely. He blinked, and stared at her.

"I'm going to miss you," she smiled, not like she didn't already, since he was never home anyhow.

She let go of his cheeks after one careful pat. His face was so cold.

"You'll take care of Sasuke and yourself," she said and he nodded.

"That's all I can ask for," and she hesitated, before leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek. He didn't say anything.

It felt like a good-bye.

She found out about the rebellion a little too late. She wasn't actively participating in it so it was alright. Still, her to-be-husband, Shion was reluctant about it. And she felt bad that she hoped he would die.

Kagome supposed she should have cared about the village's outcome (she didn't interact much with the outside village, especially with her team. They were never really a team), but the Uchiha weren't complete monsters. It was better this way, they weren't killing random civilians, just the ones that mattered.

The children didn't know. Sasuke didn't know.

She had been moved to a different part of the compound, so she couldn't see her past family.

Maybe it was better that way. (Inuyasha became a distant memory).

In the end, a man with a mask ended her.

There were screams and she knew something was happening, maybe the rebellion came too early, or people had found out, or something else but she was just churning her Sharingan into place when the masked man appeared on the window ledge, swirling into existence almost lazily.

His one eyes met hers, and she froze. She couldn't move, because this man was something else, nothumannothumandemon! She remembered demons, she remembered half-demons, and she remembered the fear.

He stared at her silently.

"So you're Itachi's sister? What a disappointment," he commented, and she started, broke out of her paralysis, but it was already too late.

And this is the real good-bye: a blade against her throat, quick and silent.

In death, she remembered everything.

She remembered Inuyasha, she remembered Naraku, she remembered her real mother because the one back there couldn't have been, she remembered Sota, she remembered everyone and everything.

But she saw only Kikyo. She saw only pain.

"Kikyo," she said, and the older woman turned to her, all deathly beauty and silent threats. The world was all white and all black, and something Kagome couldn't remember.

"What are you doing here?"

"No," Kikyo said, and her voice was so loud and quiet at the same time. Smooth. "What are we doing here, is the question."

Kagome felt like a child, inferior, as she always did but Kikyo just beckoned her closer. She obeyed.

"Reincarnation," Kikyo said, when Kagome felt both closer and farther, "is a fickle thing. You were never meant to come through the well."

Kagome frowned, ready to defend herself but Kikyo merely raised a hand. "But you did, and so the story changed. The point is, I was never meant to come back from the dead, into a body not my own and with a world like and unlike my own. Do you want to know how that feels, Kagome?"

Her name from Kikyo's lips sounded like a curse and a blessing, like something.

"It is like dying. Again and again. But the world calls on you and you must listen, Kagome. Even with a charred heart and a stolen soul, except not really, it was mine first."

Kagome swallowed.

"But, the soul is not entirely mine, it is ours, that is the point. There have been many before me as well, but we do not see them, because we are not supposed to." Kikyo gestured to the empty wasteland/paradise before them.

"Then why do I see you?" Kagome asked.

"You are not supposed to," Kikyo answered, "but we are linked more than we should be. I died with a little bit of my soul in the stars, and you still kept yours when you died."

"Inuyasha?" Kagome asked tentatively, because it was always going to be like this.

Kikyo gave a bitter smile. "Reincarnation is a fickle thing, as I've said. Sometimes it doesn't always apply to everyone. Your friends are happy."

"Where are they?"

"Not here," Kikyo said, and gestured somewhere out in the vast nothingness. "We are still stuck in the process of a proper death, Kagome."

Kagome frowned.

"The new world, does it suit you?" Kikyo said, and Kagome started.

"Kikyo, I'm confused. This place, that place, I died-"

"Does it suit you?"

"No," Kagome answered finally. "No, it feels like- it feels like rising from the grave to play a part in some story I never wanted to be a part of, something I wasn't meant to."

"So you understand."

"I understand," Kagome said quietly, subdued.

"We can fix this."

"We?"

"Yes, if you're willing."

And Kagome understood. This was an ending.

"Kikyo," she said, "if you see Inuyasha, tell him it's okay, he doesn't have to wait for me, you can-"

But Kikyo had already stopped her. "I will not serve as some substitute for a petty love triangle. I've moved on."

Kagome was silent, before she understood. "Thank you, Kikyo."

Kikyo leaned close enough to touch, and a faint smile was on her lips. "Let us die proper deaths now, yes?"

And then Kikyo shattered. A blue light slipped out of instead of blood or organs or anything, and entered Kagome's body, and her soul sang now, complete and full, and happy.

Thank you, she thought as the wasteland shattered.

She woke up gasping for breath and bloody fingers scratching against the wood above her. She remembered everything, of how she died but not really, and everything. Her chakra (it felt mutated now) was churning, as if it had just been born.

She grasped her chakra, closed her eyes, felt it in her veins, her blood, her everything, and shoved it outwards. The wood, the dirt, responded in kind.

She choked on the debris for a moment, before coughing it out, and forcing herself to stand even when her bones creaked and her body groaned. She breathed.

She took several moments to revel in life when she noticed her eyes was actually eye. The loss of an eye felt like a loss of a part of her soul again. Maybe it was the Uchiha blood. An eye patch covered the empty socket, and she couldn't even fathom who had stolen it in her parting. The Sharingan. Of course someone would steal it.

Kagome finally realized where she was. A graveyard. Cemetery. Death was everywhere. Her clan was dead at her feet.

No, she thought, it wasn't the whole clan. But it felt like it. Didn't Kikyo say it was time for a proper death? What had happened to hers? Was this her last one? Itachi. Sasuke. Mother. Father.

She waved the questions away for now, swallowed down the knot in her throat, and walked towards the inner compound. The graveyard had been placed on the outer, because it was too big to fit inside probably, since the world seemed so empty and quiet. She froze suddenly.

Konoha. The clan was punished, executed for a reason. Konoha knew, and they would not be so kind to someone who was supposed to die and stay dead. Were they monitoring the compound? It seemed empty. And she couldn't detect anything. Still, she edged away to the growing forest, let her feet take her to the clearing.

It was as she left it, arrows strewn just so, bow abandoned. Except for Inuyasha's name. It was scratched out, like someone had found the name offensive. Kagome blinked, and walked over to the arrow still stuck in the target. Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the arrow, and remembered the first time she had ever touched one. Kagome pulled it out and examined it thoroughly.

Slowly, she collected all of the arrows (a kunai, a simple blade would feel wrong now), and placed it in a quiver on her back. The bow felt strong in her hold, an old friend. It wasn't the right bow, but it'd do for now.

Kagome was still a little sluggish so she didn't notice her new guests until one spoke up.

"Was there a funeral here I didn't know about?" A deep voice asked, amused, and surprised, she glanced up in the trees. There were red clouds painted on a cloak, a sharklike smile, blue skin. But the man beside him drew most of Kagome's attention.

"Itachi," she said quietly, and the scar on her throat burned.

NOTE: That was a lot longer than it was supposed to be. I hope you enjoyed, review?