I do not own the InuYasha franchise. I do, however, own any original characters.

1. KAGOME'S ARROW

"Kikyou? How... h-how is this possible? How are you here? You..."

"Died? Indeed. I speak to you through means of a dream, Kagome."

So many questions ran through her head, but one seemed more urgent than the rest.

"Why?"

Kikyou's eyes were grave.

"Kagome, something terrible is about to occur..."

oOo

"Sango! Are you alright?" Miroku yelled while flying on his feet to the taijiya's side, his robes of blue and purple trailing behind him. Reaching her, he wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her shaken form.

"I... Mi... Miroku? Th-there's... n-nothing we can do, is there?"

Miroku sighed, a solemn look in his usually twinkling violet eyes. He held Sango tighter, and rested his chin in her brown head gently. He inhaled.

Kirara was enveloped in brilliant red fire for a few moments before it vanished, revealing her smaller, kitten like self. She mewed softly, and Miroku could sense the sadness in the nekomata's aura. Kirara knew what was happening, she could sense it in the air. Much like they all could.

"Miroku...? Sango...?" Came Shippou's frightened call.

Both Sango and Miroku turned slightly in eachothers arms to look at the young Kitsune. He came galloping up to them from the forest that concealed the ancient well that once connected Kagome's era with their own. Shippou haulted infront on them, small beads of salty tears at the corner of his bright green eyes. He clutched Miroku's leg, gazing up at them both.

"Na... Naraku has the jewel, doesn't he? He's... made his wish, hasn't he?"

The solemn look the slayer and monk gave him was answer enough. He hiccuped, lips trembling. Kirara came forward, quietly purring as she wrapped her two tails around Shippou's small form, doing her best to comfort him. Shippou sunk to his knees, collapsing onto Kirara and clutching her yellow fur tightly with his fists, burying his face into her stomach. Kirara licked his hair soothingly.

Then, all there was left to do was wait.

Miroku reached into his robe while keeping one arm wrapped around his fiancee, and pulled an arrow out from within it. Both he and Sango stared at it in an almost hopeful glance, and Shippou removed his face from Kirara's fur as both he and the cat youkai stared up at the arrow too, much in the same hopeful way.

They could all feel it. A deep magic permeated this arrow, and a familiar spiritual aura flared around its length. Around the fine wood of the spiritual arrow a coil of leaves and a strip of bark had been attached hastily to it.

Sango mumbled from Miroku's chest.

"Do you think... do you think Kagome's arrow will really work?" She asked. Everything was so surreal right now. Not she, or any of them could quite comprehend what was about to happen.

Miroku's eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at the arrow, but chose not to answer Sango.

"Kagome gave us this arrow and told us all to keep hold of it when the... the time came."

Shippou spoke up. "But where is she now? And where's InuYasha...?"

Sango's eyes become even more anxious at Shippou's questions. She'd spoken with Kagome, only a mere half hour before...

"Kagome... Kagome said she had to go and..." Sango gulped, not liking the feeling of dread building in the back of her mind, "She said... that she had to go and stop InuYasha... before it was too late..."

oOo

'One...'

'Two...'

"Hu-?!"

Time suddenly moved excrutiatingly slow for our favourite hanyou.

There was a sharp rush of air, and whistling sound caught InuYasha's ears. Like something long and thin flying towards him...

He caught her scent just as the arrow hit.

"Arghh!"

Everything was a blur. He barely noticed the insignificant pain that enminated from his body as a result of the arrow, because what he saw infront of him hurt a thousand times worse than any physical wound could.

"No... pl-please no..."

His heart broke in two.

"Ka-gome... Why...?"

She stood there, poised with her long-bow, her hand still in the position in which she'd released the arrow. The one that now pinned InuYasha to Goshinboku once more. His miko... Kagome.

The miko's normally kind and gentle face was hard, her petal-soft lips in a thin, stern line. Her eyes held no light, they were a deep blue void of nothingness.

The only thing that suggested any emotion from her at all were the silent tears that streamed down Kagome's cheeks. She didn't sob nor hiccup, but the tears came racing down.

As much as being shot by Kagome's arrow hurt, worse than it had when Kikyou had pinned him to the tree for the first time... InuYasha still couldn't stand the sight of her tears. When she hurt, he hurt.

Kagome suddenly dropped her bow, but continued to gaze at him. InuYasha could feel the magic of the arrow beginning to take effect, but he fought against it.

He couldn't understand why this was happening. Kagome had shot him with an arrow, just like Kikyou had done. Why was Kagome... didn't she trust him? Did she hate him now? What had happened to make her...?

In the air, InuYasha suddenly caught whiff of it. The foul stench of Naraku. His miasma.

And there was an awful lot of it. On cue, birds dropped from the sky as a poisonous cloud of purple vapour filled the atmosphere. Screams came from Kaede's village...

What was going on?! Naraku had the jewel, InuYasha knew, but had he wished on it already? And was Kagome...?

Kagome!

He turned his attention back on the young woman infront of him. She still had the same stern look on her face. And the tears were still pouring down. His heart lurched.

He reached out a clawed hand as he felt the arrow's magic intensify.

"Ka-gome... r-run... g-get aw-away from the mias-ma..." He only cared for her safety now.

Kagome's face lost its hard gaze, and instead it became sad and pained. She left her bow behind as she sprinted up to the sacred tree, climbing up upon its roots, reaching InuYasha's level and wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he stood pinned to the tree. She buried her face into his chest as the tears came and came. InuYasha felt himself going as he dropped his chin onto Kagome's head, taking in her scent one last time. She sobbed once.

"Forgive me, InuYasha..."

But, InuYasha was happy. He was here, falling into another deep and possibly permenant sleep yes, but... in spite of all that, Kagome was with him, by his side. She wasn't leaving him.

"It's o-ok-kay K'gome... if this is how it's meant t-ta be then... it's o-kay..."

The sob that tore from Kagome's throat was the last thing InuYasha heard as the arrow took full effect. He lost consciousness and everything went black...

oOo

500 years later...

"So... this hanyou travelled around with a teenaged miko, a monk, a slayer, her nekomata, and a Kitsune? And together they fought and strived against Naraku back in the fuedal era?"

"Yes, Kinu, or so the legend says. The hanyou and his friends -we know them now as the Inu-Taichi- travelled the land during the warring stares era collecting shards of the Shikon-no-tama, which the miko, Kagome, had accidently broken a few years prior..."

Kinu listened to her mother, absolutely fascinated. She loved to hear the tales of InuYasha and Kagome, their friends, the shards they collected, the youkai they fought... it was an adventure she'd loved to have been a part of. She knew the legend off by heart, but always got her mother to retell it for her. Kinu was fifteen and a half, but she'd loved these stories since she was a little kid.

And her mother loved reciting the legend to her.

"So Kagome broke the jewel with a an arrow. You can imagine InuYasha wasn't too pleased, as he himself longed to use the jewel and become a full youkai..."

Kinu smiled then interrupted her mother.

"Yeah, he wasn't pleased at all, but that changed didn't it? He saw Kagome as nothing but a pesky burden at first, but as they spent more time with eachother, InuYasha learnt how to trust again. And he and Kagome even fell in love..."

Kinu's mother, Kyoko, laughed. "You always interupt at that point. Is there really much point in me telling you the rest? You know it so well already..."

Kinu put a finger to her chin. "Hmmm probably not - but I still want you to keep going!"

Kyoko grinned. "Kinu, your brother's going to be more than a little agrivated if you don't show up to walk him home from practice..." Her mother said, gazing up at the clock on the wall thoughtfully.

Kinu sighed. Her brother always knew how to ruin a good time...

"Fine. I'll go walk the sqirt home if it'll make ya happy..."

"You do that, dear. Be careful, and make sure you watch out for him."

"Gotcha."

Kinu shrugged on her jacket and trainers, tied her short black hair up into a small ponytail then slid open the front door, walking out into the grounds of the shrine she called home. She smiled as she gazed at the small wooden shed to the west of the grounds, hearing a distinctive yelp of pain and the clatter of a dropping nail...

'DIY really isn't ji-chan's fortee...'

Figuring she'd better go and help him, Kinu made her way over to the garden shed, walking past Goshinboku as she did so.

Goshinboku was one the centre points of InuYasha and Kagome's story, of their whole legend. Infact, the books decreed that this very tree was what connected the the two of them in the first place. Though there was supposed to have some sort of magic Well involved aswell. The Goshinboku tree was where InuYasha had been sealed by his ex-lover... and then awakened 50 years later when Kagome pulled out the arrow that kept him there, awakening him from the deep sleep of the spell.

Kinu, seeing her grandfather come out of the shed unharmed took a moment to run her hand down the trunk of the tree. There was a deep grove in the trunk, and legend said that this was wear the arrow had pinned InuYasha all those years ago.

The teenager sighed, brushing her fringe away from her eyes and stepping back from the tree. She loved the legends and tales of InuYasha and his friends, but that was all they were, tales. Nothing real about him. The hanyou, his friends, Naraku, their quest, the sacred jewel... it was nothing but a myth. A fabrication.

Kinu turned round, remembering that her little brother was probably waiting at his school right now for her to show up. She'd started to sprint over to the shrine steps, when something strange happened.

A bright, pink light shone from behind her. Startled, and downright frightened, Kinu whirled around as the sudden light erupted into a bright glow that grew so wide it enveloped almost the entire shrine. Kinu blocked her eyes from the sheer intensity of it.

As quick as it had appeared however, the pink light vanished.

Looking back up at the tree, Kinu's blue eyes nearly popped out of her head at the sight before her. She gasped, and her breath caught in her throat.

There, pinned vertically up against Goshinboku by an arrow that stuck out of his chest, was a boy cladded in a red haori and hakama. He had bushy black eyebrows and tanned skin that came in an odd contrast with his long, waist length snowy white mane of hair. And, to add to his perculiar apperance, two positively adorable velvety soft looking white ears came patroding from either side of his head.

'Dog ears...? I... Oh... Oh my GOSH! This... this boy is - He's got to be...!!"

It took a moment for Kinu to recollect herself.

"Inu... "

A soft and obviously feminine voice suddenly filled the air.

"Wake up...."

'Huh? Wh-who said that...?'

But no sooner had Kinu started to ponder this, that the strange boy's eyes opened...

"Ka-Kagome!"

oOo

So, what do you all think? Please let me know! Along with Youkai Flesh, this story will most likely be something for you all to enjoy after Starlight is done and dusted with. Though I may post the odd chapter here and there...

Any thoughts on what's going to happen next? I'm curious. lol.