Hello new (and old) readers! This is a re-write of my old Inuyasha fic "Bittersweet". As nostalgic as it was re-reading that old geezer, it made me cringe so much that I finally decided the hell with it, and started the re-write. It is much more in line with my current writing style, and Kohana has shifted from an atrocious Mary-Sue into someone I can read without barfing.

I hope you all enjoy, and please review if you want more!

Lots of love,

~Sapphire-Raindrop

WILD HEART

an "Inuyasha" fanfic
by Sapphire-Raindrop

Prologue: Fate's Wheel

Her name meant 'little flower'. Nobu – her uncle and foster-parent – liked to call Kohana that when he was aiming to get under her skin, which was annoyingly often despite the fact that Nobu was in his late twenties. Even so, she loved the cheeky idiot, because he was the only family she had ever known. She couldn't remember any of her childhood; everything beyond ten years ago was blank.

Kohana Torashiko was almost seventeen years old. She would be lying if she said that losing the first seven years of her life didn't bother her.

Long term memory loss, the doctors said. It seemed logical, since according to Nobu she and her parents had been involved in a nasty car crash. The trauma of her head wound as well as losing both her parents in one fell swoop resulted in her mind simply erasing their existence. Most of the time, she was inclined to believe what the doctors and Nobu told her, because why shouldn't she believe them? They had scans of her brain, they had facts, proof of what had occurred.

Kohana didn't like to think herself as superstitious or witchcrafty, but there were definitely times she questioned the supposed reasons she lost her memory. She couldn't quite explain why the moments of doubt arose, but they did, and she had to beat her suspicions down with a figurative wooden stick before she could attempt normalcy again.

Maybe the doubt was just a byproduct of her bitterness concerning her appearance; Kohana was often mistaken for a girl at least three years younger than her actual age. It didn't help that her body refused to get into gear with the whole 'womany curves' thing. When she looked in the mirror, she saw the skinny form of a budding fourteen or fifteen year old. Boys didn't give her a second glance, and girls sent her pitying looks when they thought she wasn't looking. Little did they know that thanks to Nobu's rigorous training, Kohana was always aware of her surroundings, even when she didn't want to be.

Her best friend – fifteen year old Kagome Higurashi – assured Kohana that she was perfectly normal, but that was more likely than not said to make her feel better. They were practically sisters after all, a relationship that complimented the fact that they lived less than two hundred feet away from each other.

Nobu and Kohana lived in Nobu's dojo, which happened to be on the Higurashi estate, right next to the tourist-aimed Higurashi Shrine. Kohana didn't know all the details, but to the best of her knowledge Nobu had approached Mrs. Higurashi once he gained custody of Kohana ten years ago, and had asked if he could start a traditional dojo to compliment the historical nature of the location. The recently widowed woman readily agreed, and that was where the two of them had lived ever since.

The dojo was a modest size, with an apartment above for the two of them and a basement below to store spare equipment. It had been rough starting out, but now Nobu had a strong group of regular students and near constant offers to expand.

Kohana never asked, but she knew that Nobu didn't consider those offers because of her. He knew how much the Higurashi's meant to her, as well as her stability in their current place, and despite his teasing Nobu always put her needs before his own. She was always grateful for that.

But we're getting off track. This prologue isn't meant to convey the depth of love found between this particular guardian and his charge, nor is it meant to expand upon a graduated high school girl's issues and desires. Both, and more, will be revealed in time.

This is the tale of a girl with a fragmented past, a girl who up until the day of her seventeenth birthday had plans to go to a local university and continue her training with Nobu. She wanted to go into security; perhaps get a job in the government as a private guard of some sort.

We both know that those plans never bore fruit, because if they had, this story would have been about that instead. We would have been privy to an alternate Kohana's excitement about joining a fighting club on her university's campus. We could have gotten better acquainted with the struggles that came with being a seventeen-year-old high school graduate. This would have been a story with no death, no magic, and certainly no half-demons.

All the "would have beens" and "could have beens" became hazy when Kagome asked if Kohana would take over her afternoon chore of sweeping the old well house so she and her boyfriend Hojo could go to a movie.

They disappeared completely when Kohana said yes, and with that, the wheels of a softly spoken prophecy began to turn.