S-S: I always laugh and find it funny when people ask me questions in reviews. As I always say, you will have to wait and read to find out. And from the questions that I'm getting, I am proud to say that I think I have successfully fooled you all. MWAHAHAHA! *dodges rotten tomato*

Really? This is called 'fanfiction' for a reason! I don't own InuYasha!


Blood.

Kagome was stepping in blood.

She knew what would happen, this had happened before, but she couldn't move, couldn't blink, couldn't try and do anything. She was stuck, having to do what she had done before.

Block out the screams. Don't think about them. Dont think about how they tug on her heart so hard that it's like pain and how they make her want to cry because she knows who's screaming and she wants to stop it but she can't. Ignore the cloud of darkness closing in on her trying to swallow her and ohmygodshewasgoingtodiecouldn'tbreathecouldn'tbreathe. Where was silver?

She had to have silver, there needed to be silver, where was silver? If silver had showed up, then those people wouldn't scream! If silver showed up then Kagome wouldn't be stepping in blood!

There, at the end of the darkness, she saw the someone that she hated. She drew what she now knew was her bow and pulled back the string before she let it go in a burst of bright light. Bright purple light. Like the jewel around her neck.

No.

It wasn't around her neck, she could see that now, her jewel was at the end of the tunnel of darkness, the someone had it! She had to get it back! It wasn't in her hand so horrible things were going to happen! It needed to be in her hand, that was where it was safe! That was the only place it was safe! That was the only place she was safe! The someone wasn't allowed to have it, the someone couldn't have it!

There was the something again, coming towards her, shooting towards her. She couldn't dodge it, she knew that. The someone was hit, but the something must not know that because it kept coming, coming towards her, and she knew that it would hit.

Blood. Silver. And, for the first time, a glimpse of red.

Kagome screamed.

Kagome bolted out her bed in cold sweat, falling on the floor in a tumble of blankets. It was the dream again. She lay on the floor, trying to catch her breath that was currently coming out in airy gasps. Without really realizing it, she reached a hand to her neck, just to make sure that her necklace was still there. The dreams were getting worse. And she was one hundred percent sure that it had everything to do with that mysterious silver-haired familiar stranger, InuYasha. And she knew that the dreams would get worse the more contact she had with him. And she knew that she was never going to let him go.

Damn it all. She was never going to get rid of the dark circles under her eyes, was she? Note to self: get better make-up. Second note to self: make InuYasha pay for every single bottle.

She shrugged the pile of blankets off her as she stood up and reluctantly stretched. She was losing sleep over this, and that simply wasn't good for a girl. Running a hand through her ruffled hair, she stumbled towards the general direction of the bathroom.

Ugh. She felt like breaking the mirror and watching her reflection come to pieces. These dreams were now having a visible effect on her. Last night, she had been so angry at Souta that she had skipped dinner. Her stomach growled in protest. Her hair was messy from tossing and turning and her eyes looked sunken.

This was getting ridiculous, she thought for what must be the thousandth time. She repeated her now-daily process of brushing out the tangles, covering her under eyes with make-up, and trying to not look like the Creature from Beyond the Bed. Her efforts only semi-failed. Dragging on a pair of worn jeans and a dark green shirt with a high neck that hid her necklace from sight, she flopped back onto her bed, staring at the stars on her ceiling.

Perhaps she would give her math homework another try. But she had this horrible feeling that she was forgetting something. Not something that had anything to do with InuYasha, mind you. Something more…

She glanced over at her clock, 10: 12. Huh, maybe she could get another hour of sleep before making lunch…

"CRAP!" Kagome yelled, jumping out of bed. She grabbed her purse and shoved some random stuff in before flinging her door open and running downstairs. She dodged her mother on the way to the door.

"Kagome, I was wondering if-" her mother started.

Kagome interrupted her as she kicked on her shoes, "Sorry I'll talk later!"

Her mother looked completely perplexed, "What on earth are you rushing for?"

"SHOCK THERAPY!" Kagome yelled as she bolted out of the house. Grabbing her bike, she jumped down the steps in front of the shrine, temporarily forgetting her crippling fear of the well house – which had been crushed by the fear of an angry Suki.

She hopped on her bike the moment she was on flat ground and pedaled towards the school as fast as she could. It was as if her life depended on it – which it partly did, in fact. "Crapcrapcrapohcrap! I'm gonna die!" she yelled into the wind as she rushed.

Dangerously dodging cars and winding around the nearby pedestrians, she found herself soon skidding to a frantic stop in front of the school. She snapped the bike lock into place, hurrying in her desperate rush to not be later than she already was.

She ran around the school and soon arrived in front of the door to the archery range. With a knock, she slowly opened the door and peered inside, hoping beyond hope that Suki had not arrived yet. When the door swung fully open, she breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that the only occupant was Tsubaki.

"Hi Tsubaki!" she said cheerfully, "I hope I'm not late…?"

Tsubaki turned and gave her a flash of a smile, "Oh, you're late all right. Be glad Suki's not coming after you with my scythe." she said pleasantly.

Kagome gulped, "Where is she anyw- YAAAAAAHHHHH!" she screamed. Upon taking a step inside the room, she suddenly tripped and fell flat on the ground, screaming on her way down. "Ouch…." she muttered, her face in the floor.

"MWAHAHAHA!" Suki laughed, standing to the side, so that Kagome couldn't see her from the doorway, "Shock therapy strikes again!"

Kagome slowly got up, looking behind her to see Ichida rolling a ball of fishing line that had been cunningly formed into a tripwire back into its spool. Suki walked up to Kagome, who looked up at the grinning – again, grinning sadistically – girl who was posing dramatically with her hands on her hips, "And thus our newest member pays the price for being late!" she said proudly.

"Sorry Kagome," Ichida squeaked, "I said she shouldn't have tripped you, but she didn't listen."

Kagome rubbed the back of her head sheepishly as she stood up, "No, no, it was my fault. I shouldn't have been late."

"Damn right you shouldn't have been late." Suki agreed with a fierce nod, "Well now that we're all finally," – pointed look towards Kagome – "here, let's get ready, shall we?"

Wait, this was the whole archery club? She had assumed that yesterday was just them practicing outside of the club, she didn't think that the archery club was actually this small. "Is it just us…?" Kagome asked, "I assumed that there would be more members…"

Tsubaki tossed her a set of the black hakama-white haori uniform, "We are the entire club. Just us four in our little happy group of S and M. And by S, I mean Suki. And by M, I mean crazies like you who joined this club voluntarily," she said, "Here, get changed. The changing rooms are on the door to the right."

Kagome clumsily caught the bundle of clothes. With a glance around, she noticed that the other three girls had already changed into the uniform. She hurried off to the changing room and shut the door behind her. There were twenty lockers lining the side of the changing room, and only three held name tags. When she had changed into the uniform, Kagome opened the locker nearest to her and shoved her clothes and shoes in, resolving to get a nametag later.

She glanced in a mirror before stepping out. To her surprise, the old fashioned clothing really suited her. When she had been younger, she had played dress up with the traditional miko outfits that her grandfather had keep in the storage. Something about the cut of the clothing and the simple design really suited the way Kagome was.

Once she stepped out, Suki gave her an approving once-over, "You don't look half bad," she gruffly admitted, "I'll go fit you for a bow." she said, before walking off to the storage cupboard.

Ichida tottered up to Kagome, holding a pair of gloves and arm guards, "Here. You'll probably need these cause sometimes it kinda hurts if you nick yourself with the bow or something." She held out the gloves to Kagome. As Kagome pulled on the weird two-finger gloves, she noticed that Ichida wasn't wearing the normal archery gloves like the other two. Hers covered her whole hand and weren't fingerless. Weird.

"Aha!" Suki said proudly, pulling an old and slightly battered looking bow out of a bucket containing many less fortunate bows. She tossed it to Kagome, "There you go, Kags. Hold it up to you and let me see how tall it is." she instructed.

Kags? Kagome thought with a twitch as she held up the bow and waited while Suki declared it 'all right'.

Suki grabbed her own bow and addressed them all, "Okay group- I mean, gang – I mean… uhh...- Okay, Poor Unfortunate Souls! Let's get started!" she gave an evil laugh before pointing a finger dramatically at Kagome, "Give a welcome to our latest victi- member!"

Tsubaki clapped politely at these strange words of welcome, while Ichida proceeded to jump on Kagome and attempt to glomp her to death while cheering.

"Enough chat!" Suki barked, "Let's get down to business like real men!"

"Suki, we're not men." Tsubaki stated blankly, giving the purple-haired girl a you-drank-alcohol-didn't-you look.

Suki laughed again, "AHAHAHAHA! Shut up!" she pointed her bow at Kagome and then pointed her to where the center target was set up with a quiver full of arrows hanging off the metal bow post, "All right Kaggy, I want you to fire a full quiver and we'll evaluate you!"

'Kaggy?' Kagome twitched again as she marched up to the post. She pulled a long thin arrow out of the quiver – a full quiver seemed to be twelve arrows – and strung it into the bow string. She pulled the string back and took aim, feeling the creak of the wood as she stretched it to its limit.

There it was again, that power, gathering at the tip of the arrow! If she could gather that energy and generate more… she could probably destroy the whole range in one shot!

No, she had to stop herself. She couldn't destroy the whole range, what would her new friends think? She took a deep breath and focused hard. Slowly, instead of gathering the power, she cut it off, stopping it from forming around the arrow. It was much harder than gathering it. It felt more like trying to cut off a natural reaction, like holding her breath. Possible, but tricky.

She let go of the string and with a pleasant thwack the arrow imbedded itself in the red area of the straw target.

One by one, she slowly fired every single arrow in the quiver, making sure that each was powerless. Every single one was in the red. And the last one, hit dead center.

Done, Kagome cheered, "Whoho! I rock!" she yelled, jumping up and down happily as Ichida cheered as well, "I knew you were a good one, I knew it I knew it!" Ichida yelled.

Tsubaki grinned evilly and walked up to the stand, stringing her bow as she went, "And now, I will prove that I can beat the new prodigy as payback for yesterday." she declared, pulling her bow back and aiming at the same target.

Like in a movie, she let go slowly, holding her hand in place as the arrow sailed towards the center of the target. It hit the center arrow that Kagome had shot, and – with much epicness – her arrow split Kagome's arrow right down the center before only stopping when the metal tip had hit the back of the target.

Kagome's jaw dropped to the floor, "Woah. I thought things like that didn't happen in real life!" she said, dumbfounded.

Ichida flailed her arms, "You cheated Tsubaki, you cheated, cheated, cheated!" she said childishly. Suki crossed her arms in a huff, "Yeah Tsubaki, you're not supposed cheat." she agreed.

"Wait," Kagome asked Suki – ignoring Ichida and Tsubaki who were currently in a 'is not' 'is too' contest –, "How can she cheat at archery?"

Suki paused, "..."

"You don't know, do you?" Kagome confirmed, with a dubious look.

"SHE JUST CAN!" Suki denied angrily, "However she does it, I know that it's cheating! It's got to be!"

Kagome nodded sarcastically, "Riiiiight...," but she quickly shut up when Suki mentioned something along the lines of 'sythe… blood… no body…' under her breath.

Suki clapped her hands to get the attention of the other two who immediately shut up and snapped to attention, "Well since out latest vitci- member passed the test, lets congratulate Kago on a job well done, shall we?" she said.

"Stop calling me that!" Kagome yelled, her hands on her hips, facing off Suki in what was probably the stupidest thing she ever did, "My name's Kagome! KA! GO! ME!" she yelled. She had had enough of the name confusion yesterday with that weirdo InuYasha.

Suki's face split into a grin, "AHAHAHAHA! So you finally grew a pair, huh?" she confirmed, apparently pleased that Kagome had stood up to her.

Tsubaki looked like she was about to facepalm any second now, "She can't grow a pair Suki, don't you know anything about basic anatomy?"

"AHAHAHA! Shut up!"

Much later, after many incidents of shock therapy, glomping, sadistic grins, and evil laughter, Kagome finally staggered out of the archery club room, feeling a good deal bruised and mentally shocked. Her new friends were… crazy, for lack of a word that portrayed them in a positive light. Quite honestly, were she not of the belief that their craziness was relatively harmless, she might send in the men in the white coats. On the bright side, she thought as she stumbled towards the front of the school, at least she was good at archery.

Something about shooting arrows was so appealing to her. Especially when that mysterious power appeared. Kagome had gotten pretty good over the last hour and a half at controlling her power and making sure it didn't show, but she was itching to fire an arrow without the restraint, if only to see what would happen. If only to be able to lose the arrow and watch as it wreaked havoc.

As she walked towards the front of the school, she frowned, feeling something like the 'demonicness' that she had felt with InuYasha. Except while his aura was less so… this power felt stronger. Was this that person that InuYasha had talked about? Naraku?

She slowed her steps, wishing for a bow in her hand, but her fist closed on empty air. Her heat beat faster as she looked to all sides, looking for anyone suspicious.

Standing in front of the school, a tall woman dressed in dark grey business pants and a cobalt blouse, was leaning against the side of a black car, her arms crossed impatiently. Red eyes looked around underneath sleek black bangs, her short hair pinned up into a bun that was held in place by a few white feathers.

The demonic aura was coming from her.

Kagome walked up to the woman nervously, trying to figure out her flight-or-fight impulse. The woman smiled when she saw Kagome, but it was more of an impatient smile. She held out her hand, "Hello Kagome. You don't remember me apparently, but I'm Kagura."


S-S: HA! Bet you didn't see that coming! … Okay, so you probably did… I wasn't very discrete. Ahem, if anyone is into the Naruto fandom, I'm sort of testing the new fic waters, so to speak, and I would appreciate it if you guys would read and review my new story, FreeFall. Okay, that's it for now! Adieu!