Time. She needed more time! Groaning in frustration, she lifted her head up from where she was bent over her desk but the words on the paper before her were blurred and.. Leaking off the page?! What the heck was going on? Trying to scoop the words back onto the page, the black haired girl tried to even out her breathing before she hyperventilated but it was no use, the words just leaked off the page and dripped to the floor around her desk as if she hadn't been trying to restore her work. Frantic eyes lifted up to the classroom before her though it looked as if she was at the end of a dimly lit halfway. This was not happening! Suddenly her desk disappeared and she fell on her bum, wincing at the impact before hurriedly trying to gain her feet even as the floor shifted beneath her like the hallway was part of the ocean and becoming waves. Her breath was coming faster, and she couldn't stop it as she waded through the waves of floor towards the exit sign at the far end. Fear gripped her as a shadow started coming out of the ceiling of the walls, she tried to hurry along, run even, though the quickly moving floor wasn't aiding her in the least. Long thin legs that appeared a bit hairy and closely resembled a…..-
"KA-GO-ME! Wake up wench!" Came a loud, tinged with worry though it was barely recognizable, voice from directly in front of her. So close, she could actually feel the breath from the owner blow across her sweat covered flesh. Large eyes quickly opened with a large intake of breath to fill her lungs, hands flying to her throat as she felt like she had been strangled. A series of worried eyes was looking over her with concern as she offered them a shaky smile and a shooing motion with her hands.
"I'm fine, just a nightmare." She croaked, her voice cracking slightly still rough from sleep. The group slowly inched away from her and her sleeping bag even though it was apparent that they didn't want to and wished to question her about her dream, but they refrained to wait until the morning when she had a chance to settle down and hopefully get some rest after that ordeal. A pair of golden eyes didn't drift off from her though, and she smiled softly before patting the sleeping bag beside her, trying to not let him know she could hear the worry in his voice or see it in his eyes.
"InuYasha, will you at least sit with me? I really shouldn't watch horror films when I go back home." She murmured, lowering her gaze to the spot where she had patted for him to sit. A soft 'uhg' and 'feh' were heard before the silver haired boy lowered himself beside her, crossed knees ever so slightly touching Kagome's form as she snuggled back down in her sleeping bag, hiding a smile behind her hair as she sighed softly, willing sleep to return to her. "Thank you, InuYasha." She whispered, knowing he would be able to hear her with those adorable puppy ears that twitched atop of his head. "I'm not sitting here all night, you know!" Came a feigned irritated reply as she slowly drifted back off to sleep, this time without the creepy nightmares plaguing her.
Gasping, and sitting straight up with instantly wide eyes, she frowned and her azures pooled with unshed tears. She couldn't keep doing this to herself. Every night since she had been sent back after completing the shikon no tama with her friends, and the unlikely alliances of both Sesshomaru and Kouga… Well, Kouga was more believable than Lord Sesshomaru. But both she had thought was unlikely when it came for their distaste for InuYasha's presence, she had reoccurring dreams about her friends and.. well.. pack as she'd heard Kouga and Sesshomaru call the gang from time to time. She dreamed about bits and pieces of their time together, the good and the bad. She always woke up bawling and couldn't go back to sleep. The bags under her eyes were enough to attest to that, not to mention her sluggish behavior at school. She was graduating this year… if she could pass her classes and at the rate she was going it might be harder than when she was keeping up with her assignments through the well. All her friends thought she was coming down with yet another ailment that her ji-chan was eager to toss out, but she couldn't let him do that. She had already survived all these other fake "ailments", she just wanted to survive lack of sleep this time with no pretenses.
Falling back onto her pillow, and letting the tears stream out of her eyes and down the sides of her face. She missed her friends, the closest friends she had. Sure she had a few here in the future, but she was certain they would never fill the gap that Shippou, Sango, Miroku, and even InuYasha had left in her heart. Glancing over at her alarm clock she groaned when she saw it was only two in the morning. She already knew she wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight, she never did. Heaving a gaspy sigh from her crying, she threw her legs over the side of her bed and into her slippers before wrapping her fake kimono house coat around her strapy tank and shorts pajamas as she made her way downstairs and out the back door. Maybe walking through the woods that ran behind her family shrine would calm her enough to get a nap before school in a few hours.
She wasn't watching where she was going, just walking through the trees until she was covered in shadow. She took in a shaky breath and started to feel marginally better, the smell of the forest though reminding her again what she didn't have any more but serving as a comfort in any case. As she started to feel the tension ease out of her shoulders, she turned around to head back to her home, and hopefully her bed. Tired eyes could have sworn they saw golden orbs floating in the trees just as a zing went through her, as sometimes noticing jewel shards had, and a soft gasp taken in surprise. Frowning and shaking her head, her hands running through her hair as she groaned in frustration. Now her mind was willing to torment her with apparitions from her past now here in the present. "This isn't happening, Kagome. Now you're seeing things!" she muttered to herself as she went inside the shrine, but couldn't shake the feeling that she was suddenly being watched..
The golden orbs had indeed been there, though they had closed in a blink before the female had hurried away. He had found the miko finally. It had only taken him the better part of the year to get the needed information out of his unwilling hanyou brother and the other half to get his sorceress to help him locate the woman. Now that he knew where she was, though.. He'd watched his half brother jump in and out of the well a few hundred times after securely shielding his aura and scent from the upset inu, though he was sure it wouldn't have been necessary since InuYasha had been in such turmoil.
"Kagoooomeeeee." He breathed, his new knowledge aiding in his reprieve. This was going to be fun, he was now assured. A fanged grin split his face as he closed his eyes and reopened them to a dark room fully furnished in black leather and gray silks. Though it resembled his palace from the feudal era, it had been upgraded to a modern day mansion.