Ooops, sorry I uploaded the seventh item in my doc manager. NOT chapter seven at first. It has been fixed. Apologies!

The Bride Chapter 7

"So it's not for Kagura?"

"Haven't I told you…" Inuyasha reached out to touch Kagome. When his hand got close to her face, her breath hitched.

He quickly dropped his hand and turned his back to her. She still caught the red returning to his cheeks.

"Idiot." His was mean, but there was no harshness to it.
"I'll come back."

Before he could walk away Kagome grabbed his hand.
He pulled her into his arms.

There have been five great hugs since 1642 B.C. The precise rating of hug is a terribly difficult and although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration no one was ever been completely satisfied with how much each weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserve full marks. This hug left them all behind. *

The morning after Inuyasha's departure, Kagome was depressed. She spent the day in bed, she didn't consider it mopping more so recovering. After all, she did just have her heart broken twice in one day only to then find out that Inuyasha did, in fact, have feelings for her. She was emotionally drained. It was a lot to take in.

It was the following day that she managed to pull herself out of her bed and get back to work. If he was going to improve, then she would too. She started the morning helping her brother with the farm work. Even with her help, they couldn't accomplish the same amount of work as the half-demon. Their woodpile had taken them half the morning and it was a fraction of the size it normally was. After chopping wood, she fed the animals, fetched the water, and then brushed the horses.

By noon she was in town on her way to the shrine to study with Kaede. Her training was getting harder, the tasks more intense. But Kagome was determined. She knew that the better she got the more prepared she would be to take over the shrine when Inuyasha returned.

Everyday continued like this. In the morning she would help on the farm and in the afternoon she would train. With this newfound determination, Kagome's potential began to be realized. In the first two weeks, Kagome's powers and control grew faster than anyone Kaede had ever seen. This took her from the spot of twentieth most powerful miko to fifteenth, an unheard-of change in such a short time. And in a mere three weeks after that, she was ninth and still moving up the list.

At this time Kagome had received her first letter from Inuyasha, he had stopped in Yamanashi and he was alive and well. Just reading the letter lifted Kagome's spirits, knowing he was safe made her only try harder. In that one day, Kagome went from ninth place to eighth. It was her belief in Inuyasha that made her powers grow more than anything. The fact that she was regularly exercising when working on the farm and putting in more hours training did help, but her powers were directly linked to her emotions.

As her control and skill level grew, people took notice of the change in Kagome. She had always been polite, but now she had confidence in her aura, it drew people in instead of scaring them off. Her happiness was contagious and she attributed all of this to her feelings of love.

That's why Inuyasha's death hit her the way it did.

He had written to her before he left Yamanashi for Kyoto. His letters were never particularly sweet, but the fact that he wrote at all made her happy. She knew Inuyasha wasn't a man of words, he preferred actions. Kagome knew that Inuyasha writing the letter meant he cared. Had the letters only contained the word "keh" she would have been just as delighted to receive them.

She had not received any letters recently, but that made sense, he was traveling through the mountains. Inuyasha was strong, she had nothing to be afraid of. She wasn't worried.

Kagome was returning from the shrine after a particularly tough day of training to find her parents were waiting for her at the gate. She could tell by looking at them something was wrong.

"In the mountains," her father whispered.

Her mother spoke next, "Without a warning. At night."

"What?" Kagome was trying to hold back her tears.

"Demon raiders," her father informed her.

Kagome's knees gave out. Her parents carried her to her bed. Buyo was there curled up on her pillow. She lifted the cat to her lap.

"So he's been taken prisoner?" She offered, not wanting to even give the alternative a thought for fear of thinking it into existence.

"It was Koga." Her father said. "The Leader of the Demon Wolf Tribe Koga."

"Oh," Kagome's lips quivered, "His wolves have devoured entire villages."

"Yes." Her father said.

Silence filled the room.

Kagome started thinking out loud, much too quickly: "Was he eaten?… Did they torture him?… Was his throat slit in his sleep? Did they wake him you suppose? Perhaps they let him commit seppuku…" She shook her head. "As if the manner in which they murdered him mattered. I'm getting silly. Please, excuse me." With that Kagome went and laid down in her bed.

For over a week Kagome refused to leave her room. Her parents had tried to coax her out of her room, but nothing they said or did would convince her. They took to leaving food at her door, but she barely ate. The opening and closing of her door to get her food was the only sound that came from her direction. No sobbing, no wailing, mostly silence.

When Kagome finally did come out, her eyes were dry. Her family stared up at her from the breakfast table. Her mother got up to help her but Kagome waved her off. "I'm capable of getting myself food. Please." She made herself a plate and sat next to her brother. Her family watched her closely. Something wasn't quite right. It wasn't necessarily wrong, but Kagome was different.

Kagome's aura changed. The confidence was still there, but it had matured. When she had entered her room over a week ago Kagome was the eighth most powerful miko in the world, and her love had made it so. The woman that emerged from the room was completely different. She now understood what true heartbreak was, what true pain was, what it was to truly lose the most important thing in her world.

These feelings brought out a new power from within her. She was eighteen. She was now the most powerful miko in the world and she couldn't care less. None of it mattered.

Her mother was concerned. "You're all right?"

Kagome stared at the cup of tea in her hand. "I'm fine."

"You're sure?" Her mother continued to prod.

"Yes," Kagome replied. But she didn't look fine, she looked lost.
She sat there, staring at her cup losing herself in the green liquid, searching for answers. She found only one, she would never love another.

She never did.