Whoever said nothing is impossible has obviously never tried to slam a relvoving door...

- A. Whitelaw-Jenkins

Chapter 11

On the outskirts of a small village, a very unusual group was heading out.

A monk, a demon slayer, a priestess, a half demon, and two demons.

Suddenly, the priestess froze in her tracks.

'Kagome?' Sango asked.

'What's wrong?' InuYasha said.

'I sense the presence of a Sacred Jewel Shard!'

'What?' Shippo said.

'I't very faint, I think its from over this way!' She said, running on a course slightly off from their original.

InuYasha, Sango and Miroku followed straight after, InuYasha quickly catching up.

'Come on!' Kagome shouted, jumping mid-stride onto InuYasha's back.

Kirara transformed, and Sango leapt onto her back, Shippo on Miroku's shoulder.

Almost immediately after the village and the path was out of sight, something happened.

InuYasha and the others vanished, leaving Kagome by herself.

One second they were there, and the next, all that a was left was Kagome.

InuYasha's momentum sent her sprawling, skidding to a stop.

'What the,' she said looking around, 'where is everyone?'

She got up and brushed herself off.

'InuYasha? Miroku? Sango? Where are you?' Kagome called.

She drew her bow, and walked forwards, as if the jewel shard she was sensing was pulling her in.

'Damn it!!' InuYasha said, more to himself then anyone else. 'When I get my hands on the bastard who did this...'

'InuYasha, Kagome would be out as soon as she realized that we were gone. All we can do is wait for her, as your Tessaiga has proven unsuccessful.' Miroku said.

Kagome stood, hiding behind a tree, in blatant shock.

There, she had seen no one other then Kikyou, sitting about five feet off the ground in the fork of three branches in a tree.

'Kagome.' She said calmly. 'You know as well as I that there is no point in hiding, so why do you not come out?'

The girl in question slide out from behind her tree, her bag safely hidden.

Now I get it, InuYasha and the others must have been pushed back by Kikyou's barrier! Kagome thought. But why only me?

Kikyou shut her eyes for a second, as if she was in great pain.

A soul collector flew to her bearing a soul, but she waved it away.

Something struck Kagome about Kikyou's appearance, and a single, yet horrifying change.

The ends of her hair were starting to decompose, as was the hems of her robes.

Kagome stared.

'Wh-what happened to you?'

Kikyou closed her eyes and smiled sadly, in that way that she sometimes did.

'Naraku's miasma has run deeper then I would have begun to imagine.'

'But I thought that I had healed you!'

'Not as much as I would have dreamt of imagining.' She paused, and slid back one shoulder of her robe.

Four deep gouges ran over her shoulder, each nearly as wide as Kagome's finger.

What made this wound truly horrible though, was that her they ran about the length of Kagome's hand down towards her waist, and left the flesh around it cracking horribly.

Kikyou slid her Kimono back into place.

'I am not destined for this world much longer. I fear that I will run out of time in destroying Naraku, and not get to him in time.' She said solemnly.

'What can I do to help you?' Kagome asked immediately.

'Learn. There is something I wish to teach you before I leave.'

Kagome stared as Kikyou slid herself into a sitting position.

'We share a soul, you and I.' Kikyou began.

She looked down at Kagome.

'You have more spiritual powers then you could ever realize.'

'Me?'

'But I am going to show you how to pull it together, until the time is right.'

'You are?'

'Sit. Meditate. Can you feel your powers inside you?'

There was a moment of silence.

'Yes, I think. It's like a light.' Kagome opened her eyes and looked up at her. 'Is that my spiritual powers?'

'Yes. Now I want you to imagine you are putting a blanket over it. A blackout. Anything that covers it up, without actually destroying it, and let a little seep through.'

Kagome imagined covering it in a blanket, but that didn't work. She tried a cool compress, but that didn't work either.

She tried burying it in the bone-eaters well.

'All right-Kikyou?'

The woman was having trouble balancing in the tree, her feet had almost completely decomposed.

She wobbled and fell.

Kagome leapt out to catch her but miscalculated, and ended up with Kikyou sitting on top of her.

'Are you okay?' Kagome asked.

Kikyou ignored that, and she started decomposing at a rate that Kagome didn't think possible.

'I'll get InuYasha!' Kagome said, sliding out from underneath her, and leaning her against the tree.

'No. You must hold onto your powers...' Kikyou was almost a pile of ashes now, 'until the time is right...'

A huge, blinding light erupted from the remains, and flew at Kagome.

Kagome screamed, as it pushed her down, as if all rushing to get inside.

The light that was her powers felt like it would explode, it had expanded that much, when it was once a simple lightbulb, now burned like the sun itself.

After what seemed like an impossibly long moment, the light that was fitting itself into her did so, Kagome sat up.

She tried dropping her miniature sun down her bone-eaters well, but it didn't fit as well as she would have liked, the lightbulb was a lot smaller.

She got up unsteadily.

Kagome looked around.

Kikyou's gone...

She waked, leaning heavily on her long bow, back in the direction she came in, stopping to pick up the shard that had summoned her in the first place.

InuYasha sat uncomfortably, his toe tapping at a rate that he wouldn't have thought possible.

'Come on, Kagome,' he said to himself. 'Where are you? I can't protect you if you go wondering off by yourself.'

He froze.

Kagome's scent had wafted across the little clearing.

InuYasha jerked to his feet.

He ran in Kagome's direction.

Miroku watched him, and soon followed suit.

Where's InuYasha going?' Shippo asked.

'He's probably caught Kagome's scent. Come on, we'd better follow.'

'InuYasha?' Kagome called, pausing to lean against her bow.

'Kagome!' a familiar voice rang out.

'InuYasha!'

The hanyou in question appeared a few feet in front of her, running full pelt.

In the last couple of steps, something happened.

InuYasha's hair turned black, his hanyou ears vanished to be replaced by mortal ones, his eyes turned black, and less obviously, his claws retracted into human ones.

'Kagome! What's going on?'

'Wait, InuYasha.'

Kagome tried with her last few drops of strength, to throw her sun down her well, and just as there was no more then a few rays of light left, the world went black.