So I'm supposed to keep going north until I hits the Black Forest past the meadow. After that, go west up into the mountains where the targeted spot the Jewel fragment should be, InuYasha thinks. Simple enough, even for him.

The long grass sways in the wind with the calming silence of the meadow. What can be heard is the cicada calls in the night, wild foxes roaming the grounds and the cooing of birds as they glide through the black of the sky. The only truly new thing to InuYasha is traveling alone. He'd been around everyone for so long without them he feels something is missing, just out of reach but so faraway. Kagome should be here with him, getting a ride on his back, her thighs gripping his waist and her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Most of all, her calming scent surrounding him to make any sort of journey more bearable. But she isn't here this time, and he feels like he might go nuts from the sense of loss.

He wonders what Kagome's doing right at that very second, imagining himself turning around to go and check on her.

She's fine, dammit, he argues with himself.

For once, InuYasha wishes his instincts wouldn't get in his way. He shouldn't be worrying about her at a time like this. He knows she's fine. Sango and Miroku are with her. Although if Sango is out from a battle, then Miroku's perverted hands get in the way . . . and with Shippo not being able to do anything, Kagome will be in serious danger . . . .

Ah, dammit, no, he doesn't need to think about that crap. He knows he really doesn't need any of his human companions around for this. He was fine surviving on his own before he met them, and he can continue to do so if need be. The feeling of the ground beneath his bare feet is natural. The scents in the air are familiar to him. And the moon wavering in and out of the white clouds guides him along.

XxXxXxX

The sound of the fire crackling in front of her and the squeak of Sango polishing her Hiraikotsu drills into Kagome's ears. It's become apparent that the weight of having their best warrior out of commission has truly settled on everyone. Not only the warrior, but the loud-mouth, too. Without InuYasha here to voice a complaint or get a conversation going, the prolonged silence is strange, not awkward, but strange among these long time friends.

"You guys still okay with me going home?" Kagome asks to confirm.

Sango pauses. "We were actually all talking with InuYasha before he left, and . . . well, we really do think it's best you go home."

Her eyebrows pucker. "Sounds like for more than one reason."

Miroku clears his throat. "Since InuYasha isn't here with us, it might put you in more danger than before. We think it's best if you sit this one out, at least for a while."

"It's not that we think of you as a burden," Sango says quickly. "We just want you to be safe."

It doesn't sound like that, Kagome can't help but think.

She suddenly feels Shippo's familiar weight in her lap. His bright green eyes shimmer with water, a slight frown to his mouth like that of a pout. "Yeah, I don't want anything to happen to you, too! I don't want you to go, but, I know that I have to be strong, so . . . so . . . ."

"Oh, Shippo," Kagome coos, patting his head. "What about the shards? How will you find them?" she asks confused.

Miroku says nonchalantly. "Same as InuYasha said before. If he can look for a shard on his own, so can we. I was searching for them before I joined the group. I can surely try again. And with Sango and Kilala, we'll have each other's help. It might be a little more difficult but we can still do it."

"What about me?!" Shippo demands.

"You'll be staying here."

"Like I would do that! At least while Kagome's away she can go home and defeat that 'study' thing of her's! I'm going along with you and that's final. Someone has to keep that lecherous hand of yours under control, Miroku."

"He's got a point," Sango says dull.

Miroku sighs. "So little faith in me."

Kaede advises to Kagome. "They can search on clues from other villages and the whereabouts of active demons. I think that ye should concentrate on those studies ye are always so stressed over. Most all, take care of ye mother. It sounds like a good opportunity."

"I can't deny that," Kagome sighs. "But it doesn't feel right. I only asked for another week at home, I can't stay away for a whole month. I'm the one that broke the Jewel shard, I should be the one to fix it."

"We've told you before, Kagome, there was nothing else you could have done," Sango soothes. "How were you supposed to know the Jewel would break once you attached that crows foot to your arrow?"

"At least you don't see it all as my fault," she grumbles.

"I'm guessing InuYasha opened his fat mouth?" Miroku asks.

"On more than one occasion."

"Whatever he's said, forget it," Sango insists.

Kagome tries once again hesitantly, not feeling sure about the implications. "But you guys-"

Sango shakes her head. "It's nothing. We can take care of ourselves, and with you being back in your home, we'll know that you're fine. You can take the shards we have now so they'll be safe with your care. Besides, even InuYasha told us to tell you that he wants you to go home."

"He did," she mumbles.

"He just wants you to be safe," Sango reassures.

She softy smiles. "I know. He likes to look out for my best interests in the weirdest ways." She asks one more time. "Are you sure, everyone?"

"Ay, we are child. Ye don't need to worry about anything," Kaede says with a small smile, forming creases around the corners of her mouth.

She suppresses the urge to sigh out loud. Even Kaede has a role in all of this. She's here to give them wisdom and provide shelter for them when they're critically hurt. Even InuYasha takes her guidance when he really needs to.

Kagome says quietly. " . . . I'll go home. But how long do you want to me to stay home?"

"It's probably best if ye stay home the whole time InuYasha is gone," Kaede says.

"A whole month or more!" she says taken aback.

"Just to be sure that you're safe," Sango implies.

"I mean, there are things going on in my home that I need help with, but we'll just be wasting time if I do that. I can't do that—I have to—"

"Kagome, please, just listen to us," Sango demands gently. "All we want is for you to be safe. InuYasha does, too. We realize that he's right to send you away, for now. Please, just do this for him."

Her mouth hangs open as she tries to find another excuse to not leave, but nothing convincing can be thought of. She sighs stubbornly. "All right, fine. I'll stay. But I still want to visit all of you and do what I can."

"Of course," Sango smiles.

Kagome should look on the bright side of this. She can catch up with her studies. She can go to school for a whole month. She can hang out with some old friends, try and reconnect with them. She can spend time with Sota and Grandpa. She could help Mama. She can still come back and visit her friends whenever she wants to. So it's not all that bad.

A lingering doubt weaves it's way into her mind.

Sango says that they don't think of Kagome as a burden, but that's what it sounds like to her. Is she really nothing without InuYasha by her side to fight? Then again, he does have to save her a lot. But she's not useless! She can help, she knows that she can. She helps them when they get hurt and has to tend to their injuries . . . but they can do that by themselves if she's not here. She can protect them with her sacred arrows . . . although they can protect themselves better than she ever could. Is the only thing that she's really good at is just finding that Sacred Jewel shards? But even they don't think she's needed for that this time around.

She tries to push away her heartache. Her friends don't think she's useless. They just don't.

XxXxXxX

It takes five more days until another much larger, stranger incident happens in Kagome's household.

School goes by like normal with Kagome not having a clue of what's going on, more gossiping with her old friends and Hojo giving her advice on her health.

Kagome tries to reconnect with her old friends, but it's harder then she thought it would of been. Disappointingly, she can't talk with her friends about things she finds interesting, because they find them boring or disgusting. All these young girls talk about is boys and seemingly useless things. Despite their conversations being strained, the young girls don't seem to see anything wrong with their relationships. Now that Kagome's back, they take that as an invitation to never leave her alone. It's getting kind of hard to find some time for herself. Kagome can only think she's lucky that Hojo is in a different class than her, otherwise she doesn't even want to think of how often he would bug her.

Kagome works around the house, both to keep her mind off of things and to keep herself from being bored when not bombarded with her friends. Doing laundry, help makeing dinner, washing the dishes and picking up twigs in the yard are all useful distractions. Doing all of this can't help make up for all the lost time she implemented, she knows that, but she tries to make her presence as little of a burden as possible. She willingly takes over what little work Grandpa has, especially since he's developed this strange cough. They made an appointment with the doctor, but it seems it's going to take a while to get him in.

Kagome has nothing to worry about. She's doing fine on her own.

It's still Mama that she's concerned about.

For once, Kagome actually got to sleep in late on a Saturday. InuYasha would always get them up so early to travel . . . . She concentrates on the skillet in her hands, trying not to burn the eggs that she's making. It might be around noon but that doesn't mean that she can't make breakfast food.

Over the sizzling of the eggs, she can hear hushed voices from the family room behind the closed sliding door. She listens closer. She's not eavesdropping; she's only making sure that everything is alright.

"I don't understand," Mama's voice filters through the screen door.

"What is there not to understand?" Grandpa argues soft, her voice gravely and deep with his cold. "It's her right—no, her destiny to go there."

"What if isn't destiny but some twist of fate?"

"There is nothing more you can do. I say that this is her choice, just as much as it is yours. You're her mother, show that you care about her opinions—" He cuts himself off at the end to start coughing. He takes a deep breath to calm his lungs.

"I do. But I also know that I want to keep her safe. She can't always rely on that dog-demon." Kagome realize then that they're talking about her. Mama sighs. "I can't take this. I'm so worried about her all the time now. I know that it's her fate, but it's . . . getting harder and harder to accept that."

"Hear me out for a second," Grandpa says as if he's talking to a child. "I don't think that it's Kagome that has the problem, but . . . maybe you should get some help—maybe—"

"What do you mean by that?"

Kagome cringes with Mama's ice hard tone. She was hoping that over time Mama's mood had lifted.

Grandpa doesn't falter against his daughter-in-laws sudden change in demeanor. "I just think that you're under so much stress, and you seem to be more persnickety than usual. I'm just worried about you, so you don't need to take it so harsh."

Grandpa might be old and getting a little thick in the head but at least he has enough common sense to worry about his family. Usually he's only worried about teaching us things like the Sacred Jewel legends, Kagome thinks.

"I'm fine. There is nothing wrong. I'm not under stress," Mama said coolly. Kagome can imagine her having that ready to coil posture and the hard look to her eyes.

Kagome worries, too, about her fate with the Feudal Era. Not for her own safety but for everyone else's safety. Whether she's fighting off demons or worrying over her Feudal Era friends, the shadows of her family always follows her, making her wonder if they're alright. It might be dangerous over in the Feudal Era, but it's dangerous in this world, also. Gang fights, drugs, robbers, rapes, and murders.

Her mind continues to reel from their conversation when a strange scent hits her nose.

She cries out, realizing that while she was listening her eggs started to burn. She quickly turns the stove off and shoves the burnt eggs onto the two plates she had prepared on the counter. The eggs are a light brown but edible.

"Sota, come and get your lunch!" Kagome calls out to him, knowing that he's in his room on the computer.

"All right!" he yells back, muffled through the walls.

She immediately leaves, not sure how much longer she will be able to hold it together. Walking up the stairs with her plate of eggs, passing Sota and going into her room, is like a blur.

Kagome sets her eggs on her desk and plops down on her bed, belly first.

She can't concentrate clearly on what she's supposed to feel. Worry for Mama or maybe anger at her for yelling and acting so cold towards her own family. Sympathy for her maybe? Something might be going on in Mama's life that she doesn't know. Is she the one that's doing something wrong?

Her eyes roam back and forth wildly, like she's trying to look at something else besides what might be the truth inside her own head.

Since she's told her family about officially staying home for a whole month, Mama's been persistent that she stay home on their property and nowhere else. Her friends often stay over now, and its getting hard pressed to go out with them until their begging becomes too much for Mama. Maybe Mama's so stressed out from Kagome constantly going to the Feudal Era that her emotions have become unstable. Kagome knows she herself can get like that sometime, 'sitting' InuYasha for childish reasons. Through the conversation Mama had with Grandpa, Kagome can see how worried she really is about her when she leaves. She knew that Mama always worried for her, but she would have thought that Mama would have had faith in her not to go off the edge of sanity being there. She thinks about how only a few days ago she willingly ran back to the Feudal Era, ready to leave on another long trip. She's thankful Grandpa understands, and Mama used to encourage her to fulfill this fate, but not anymore, it sounds like. Now she wants to keep Kagome locked up in the house.

She sighs dejected. "Mama . . . ."

XxXxXxX

The fire glows with it's dancing flames in front of InuYasha, moving back and forth as they lick the cold night air. Although he doesn't really need the fire to see and to keep warm, it's become a habit from being around everyone for so long. The fire casts shadows that move along the trees while the starlit darkness surrounding InuYasha has become a blanket.

InuYasha's been traveling alone for ten days. He can sense he's getting closer to the Black Forest that contains the Jewel shard. There's a demonic power coming off of the forest up ahead, strong enough that even miles away the thickness of it's presences not only makes him sick from the stench but from the weight it presses downon his shoulders. Kagome once explained that forests can give of a "magnetic field", whatever that is, that can make people feel weird. It sounds like a curse to him. Other than that, the journey has been easy, useless demons coming in and out in the day and night.

He turns his head to his left, sniffing the air for any said stinking demons. Smells like a crow to him, which means that it has to be one of those hella-nasty carrion crows. He hisses when he finds the vulture. It's sitting on a bare tree branch a ways out from him, trying to blend in with the other crows that sit in the full trees. That stupid thing stands out too much for it to hide from him. It's bigger than the rest of the crows, and he can see and feel the demonic aura coming off of it.

InuYasha snaps off a chunk of bark from the tree he's leaning back against and chucks it at the demon with a flick of his wrist. The birds squawk and flying away scared. The carrion crow gets the idea and flies away, too.

"Keh! That idiot came wanting my hunt," InuYasha mutters.

He managed to catch a stray doe, small but would be enough to sustain him for a while. Too bad he doesn't have any ramen. He can so go for that stuff.

He did feel sort of sorry for not knowing if the doe was a mother or not, but it's hunt or be hunted in this time, unlike Kagome's where someone could go anywhere and there's food right there. The whole skin and gutting thing he's gotten so used to, it doesn't bother him. Besides, collect enough fur and you can make a pelt, or you can eat the organs for nutrients. Nothing can go to waste when you're out here.

To him, hunting is more than food and necessities, that's only a small part. Hunting is about being in control, the one thing in his life that is so hard to come by but easy to obtain when a weak rabbit is in sight. He controls what he hunts and how he hunts it. How he kills it or how fast he does it in. Things of that sort are from his old way of thinking that have stuck around as a force of bad habit, but he knows it's more than power that can be controlled by him. For a long time now, it's been about taking care of his friends and Kagome. Besides, if he doesn't hunt for Kagome, she'll starve to death.

His ears dampen and a frown comes to his face when he thinks about her. He's been doing that often enough lately that he's confused as to why it hasn't driven him insane.

Dammit, this is like whenever he's waiting at the well for Kagome to come back—the endless waiting, worrying over her. Being away from her isn't usually a good thing for him, he will admit that. His thoughts get jumbled up as he waits for her. He will also admit that he can get really mean . . . and maybe a bit sulky. He misses her, it's so plainly obvious to him that he can't deny this thoughts. He misses her being able to hunt the Jewel shards with him. Her reassuring smile that she truly does care for him, the way her eyes shine in the light and the way she would unconsciously lay the tips of her fingers against him in a calming matter . . . Okay, dammit, enough.

InuYasha finally notices that his right leg is bouncing. He grunts and punches his knee, making it stop. "Stupid leg," he mumbles.

He leans forward and grabs a chunk of deer meat on the stick that roasts over the fire. He starts to chow down before his brain comes up with any more embarrassing thoughts about Kagome.

XxXxXxX

Kagome places her head down on her desk as she waits for her math teacher to come in, trying not to attract her friend's attentions. She feels a pinch in her chest and a churn of guilt in her stomach from being grateful that they haven't talked to her for most of the day, and she wants to sadly keep it that way. There's only so much of those chatty, bubbly girls she can take.

"Higurashi."

She's surprised to hear Tamashi's voice so close behind her. She was expecting to hear Yuka's voice firstly.

Turning around, Tamashi has a sort of condescending smile plastered to her lips. "Tell me something, Higurashi. How come you're here so often suddenly? No more business?" she chuckles.

Kagome's eyebrows scrunch together. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it's nothing, but your grades can definitely explain why you don't get it."

That gets her on the defensive. "I'm not stupid, just absent a lot."

Tamashi wages a finger. "Now, now, lying isn't good for the soul, you know."

Kagome sighs exasperated. "Look, I have no clue what you're talking about. Why don't you go and take your seat."

"Like you can tell me what to do," she hisses.

"Just go and sit down, please. I don't have time to talk."

Over in the corner of her vision, she sees Yuka and her friends standing by the door. They stay there gathered around one anothet. Are they going to help or just stand there?

Tamashi snorts. "There you go again, telling me what to do. You know, it's not like you have authority of me, you stupid girl, especially considering you're even lower than dirt."

She is about to tell her to be quiet when the bell rings, signaling for everyone to sit down.

Tamashi sneers at her one last time and goes to sit in the corner of the room by the window, leaving Kagome stunned.

Does Tamashi have a problem with her or something? Tamashi has been picking on her for the last few days, either pulling her hair or giving her contempt looks. What was she talking about with some kind of business? Was she talking about her family's shrine business? That's the only thing Kagome can think of.

Tamashi has never been her friend, but she was never her enemy either. What is making Tamashi attack her so suddenly? Kagome's never talked to her before. She wouldn't have the chance anyway with how often she's in the Feudal Era. Did Yuka, Eri or Ayumi talk to Tamashi and get her mad? Maybe Tamashi was saying all those things because of Kagome's illnesses making her think that she's fragile. If only she could show how fragile she is. Maybe if she finds her after school she can possibly have a rational conversation about why she's doing these things, if it's possible for Kagome to keep her temper in check.

"Alright class, today we will be talking about transparent properties . . . ."

After her teacher says that, Kagome's mind goes blank of everything except panic.

What in the world is the teacher talking about?! What's a transparent property!?

InuYasha (C) Rumiko Takahashi