A/n Back! Thank you so much all of you who have "Favorited" Solace, and pressed "follow"! :D :D It made my heart race in happiness! :D Thanks to all of you awesome guys out there, my inner muse hit me like a sledgehammer! So without further delay, here's another chapter for you to enjoy!

Solace

Chapter 1

Kagome had no perspective on how long she stood there in the pouring rain, her mind literally drowning in memories.

The miko's body had become pleasantly numbed by the coldness of the autumn winds and rain, making the internal pain seem far away.

Maybe she was hiding. Maybe she was not.

But one thing she did know...

She was not ready to head back to the village just yet.

Kagome had subconsciously known from the start that wishing upon the jewel might make the well close. It had been a consequence she had been forced to accept if it happened, since it had been her duty as the miko of the Shikon no tama to assemble it again, and make an unselfish wish so it would never again claim any more innocent lives.

But Kagome never wanted that duty thrust upon her. She was a modern 20th century girl, who had only arrived here more or less by accident. What did she know of magic, curses and demons?

Apart from what she had learned after arriving in the sengoku jidai, that was.

She had always been diligent and loyal in helping her friends out, and therefore loyal in retrieving the shards and assembling the jewel. But it had not been a sense of duty, or acceptance of herself as the miko of the Shikon no tama that had driven her to never give up on the jewel's cause.

No, it had been guilt which had driven Kagome to always keep going.

After all, it had been she who made the jewel shatter, and thus it would be she who would have countless of innocent lives on her shoulders if she failed. That if anything, was enough to keep anyone going.

It felt like it was ages long ago she had first arrived in the sengoku jidai.

It was not by surprise Kagome strongly felt like if she could have turned back time, she would. Then she'd tell that naive fifteen year old girl to make different choices.

Granted, she was not regretting everything she had said or done... only the events that had led her to shattering the jewel, and falling in love with Inuyasha.

Kagome had never been a selfish person, and thus she had never even thought about forcing her love upon him. She had walked in on Inuyasha kissing Kikyo, and that had been something she had never stopped agonizing over. So perhaps she had nagged him about it every now and then, but she had never put him in a spot where he had been forced to choose between the two mikos. What her heart desired, and what she actually did, had many times been the complete opposite.

Yet that was just who she was.

And as everything else about the Shikon no tama, and her fighting with the Inuyasha gang, Kagome had been forced to accept everything as it was, knowing that every time the hanyou had left the "Inuyasha gang" to seek Kikyo out, she would feel as if her heart was splitting in two.

Kagome did not have the option to give up, and neither did she want to, so she had quietly bore the heart ache.

Despite her eternal wish for him to have chosen her instead of the dead priestess, Kagome knew at the same time that no one could help their feelings. That included the hanyou.

Besides she also knew that long ago, Inuyasha had promised Kikyo to protect her, and remain by her side. If there was anything she deeply loved about the hanyou, then it was the fact that he always tried to live up to his promises.

He was in that way, honorable and Kagome had been brought up to be honorable herself. As much as the modern 20th century upheld that honor, that is.

However... it is said that the last thing that leaves the human heart... is hope.

Somewhere at the back of her mind she had never stopped hoping that Inuyasha would choose her in the end, no matter what happened in the past or present. He had kissed her twice after all, hadn't he...?

But the day Kikyo died, her heart shattered once again, this time for good.

Inuyasha was never the same again and his small affections towards her slowly disappeared until all there was left was a some sort of awkward-like friendship between the two.