Summary: She wished on the jewel to leave. Waking up in the Boiling Isles, she's soon swept up in a different strife. Living as a shadow of someone else, Kagome truly never anticipated meeting someone with a similar plight to her own. When she does, it doesn't take long for a bond to form between them.

Pairing: Kagome/Hunter

Disclaimer: I do not own either series. Each belongs to their rightful owners.

Note:
Flashback/Past are written in bulk Italics.

Prologue

Her breaths came out in harsh pants as she ran faster than she ever had before, feet thudding against the ground as she fled through the trees that made up the forest. Branches on all sides lashed out and dug into the soft skin of her cheeks, leaving shallow marks that slowly leaked crimson. Tears blurred her vision, but she didn't need her sight to navigate the terrain. She could feel the distant aura that radiated from the well. Her heart ached in her chest, constricting painfully as recent memories burned alight through her mind.

From underfoot, her foot snagged on a branch, and she abruptly was knocked forward. The wind was knocked from her as she collided with the leaves littering the forest floor, leaving her to slowly gather her bearings once more. Her will to run had gotten knocked away from her as well when she fell flat on her face. Slowly she pushed herself back up onto her knees with the help of her hands, and once up she remained seated just like that.

"Kagome!"

The voice was like poison to her, and she quickly whipped her head up in reflex. Amber eyes landed on her as he slowed to a stop upon spotting her. She narrowed bluebell eyes on his figure, her heart constricting painfully once again at the sight of him.

"Why are you following me?" she spat at him as she struggled to rise back onto her feet. Her knees were scuffed, blood slowly forming and dribbling down the front of her legs, but she neglected to use any energy to heal them. She ignored the stinging coming from the wounds as the air hit them. Just like her knees, her palms were also scratched and scuffed, but that did nothing to stop her from tightening them into tiny fists, letting her nails dig into the already wounded flesh. Scathing tears lined her eyes as she glowered at him. "You've made your point already!" she cried. "Just leave me alone!"

"I didn't mean it like that," Inuyasha eventually responded, but his eyes could no longer hold her own stare. He couldn't meet her gaze and tell her a lie. She could feel the insincerity littering his aura as he spoke, and another spike pierced her heart.

"There's no other way that you could mean it!" she snapped back at him. She understood that he missed Kikyo, but that didn't mean he could regard her as a replacement for her! She wasn't Kikyo, and she'd never be her. There was no way she'd ever measure up to her. The tried her hardest, she really did, but…-

"Tch. When Kikyo was revived, if only she could've gotten your whole soul instead of you keepin' half of it."

Tears raced down her cheeks at the memory of his prior remark, the one that'd served at the tipping point, and she retreated another step.

"How could you ever say that?" she finally asked, her voice trailing down to a fragile whisper. "I… I thought we were friends."

"I-..."

Kagome didn't try to meet his gaze anymore, not even when she felt his eyes land on her once more. She kept her focus on the ground beneath her feet. She was quiet as she picked up her bulky bag from the ground it'd collided against. He reached for her, only to collide against a transparent, pink-tinted barrier that she had surrounding her. She backed away again as a fresh wave of tears washed over her. Nothing he'd ever said before had hurt this badly.

"I'm not good enough even as a replacement, am I," she whispered. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She didn't listen to Inuyasha as he tried to say something in response. She gripped the jewel around her neck with her free hand, squeezing it tightly with a trembling grip. She shook her head and turned from him entirely, still unreachable from behind her guarding shield.

"Fine," she stated quietly after a few long seconds. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "From here on out, you'll never have to worry about me again," she whispered.

"Kagome-!"

"Shikon no Tama, I wish for you to take me far from this world."

He never got to finish what he was going to say before a bright light enveloped her entirely. When it faded, there wasn't a trace of her to be seen or heard. She was just gone.

A splitting headache greeted her when she woke up next, and Kagome sat up with a grimace of pain. She set a hand to her head as she brushed locks of raven hair from her face. She glanced around, surveying the suspiciously familiar area with scrutiny.

… There was no way she was still in Feudal Japan, was she? Sure, it didn't look like the area she'd just been in, but the woodsy terrain made her awfully suspicious of the validity of her wish at this point. With a sigh, she rose onto her feet and brushed herself off- plucking a few stray leaves from her hair while she was at it.

"Guess there's only one way to find out at this point…" she grumbled quietly under her breath. She fixed her posture so that she was standing properly, and she exhaled slowly. She closed her eyes and allowed her energy to disperse around her, dropping the barrier she'd kept up around her for the whole time. It'd blocked out anything and everything of her. With it gone, she let her senses reawaken from her jarring transportation, seeking out anything that might seem too familiar- the well, for example.

After standing like that for several long minutes, she finally let her search come to an end.

"Hmph," she set a hand on her hip and gazed down at the ground before her. Nothing felt familiar, quite the contrary, actually. An unfamiliar beckoning of magic burned at her senses. She could still feel some sort of demonic energies from all sides, but they were inherently different from the sort she was familiar with.

She was glad that her wish seemed to have worked in the way she wanted it to, but now she was here grasping straws at just where it was that she'd woken up. Even with the strange sort of auras she could feel brushing against her senses, she wasn't worried about potential confrontation. She knew how to use her spiritual energy well enough to adequately protect herself from malicious sources, but…

She let out a sigh and gave a quick shake of her head. Her headache was fading quicker and quicker as the seconds slowly ticked by. She looked around and quickly spotted her bag. Well, at least that'd come with her, she mused silently to herself.

Just as she reached for the shoulder strap, leaves from behind her rustled, and she promptly stiffened up. She was suddenly keenly aware of her surroundings all over again, but this time an aura unlike the rest of this location reached her senses. It wasn't offputting, but it was undeniably human. As far as she could tell, there was a significant lack of human or human-like auras to be discovered here, so it was hard to brush off.

She didn't have to wait long before a figure appeared- a girl not much younger than herself, by the looks of it. She had fallen through the trees and foliage, colliding with the ground with a loud yelp. Once she'd scrambled to pick herself up, she brushed herself off and they caught each other's stare for several, long, silent seconds.

"Wait…" the girl abruptly took a step closer, and Kagome regarded her with a curious smile in response. She definitely didn't see a reason to be wary of her- even after she got a good feel at her aura. "You're a human!" she declared in rapt interest, pointing to her. Kagome tilted her head to the side, and the girl across from her perked up in excitement. "No way!" she paused her excitement for a second when confusion seemed to overpower it. "Wait… how'd you even get here?"

Unable to help it, Kagome looked at her with a gentle smile. "Oh, um that…" she trailed off before giving a shake of her head. "It's a pretty long story," she said eventually before brushing it off. "But yes," she continued, "I'm a human. As are you," she said, stating the obvious.

Upon hearing her voice, the girl standing opposite of her took it as an invitation to come closer. "How long have you been here?"

Kagome rubbed the back of her neck and laughed dryly. "O-Oh, not too long," she remarked. "I just woke up here."

"Woke up?"

"Mm," Kagome nodded and tightened her grip on her bag. "I made a wish to leave where I was on a jewel, and this is where it took me," she clarified. She shook her head a second later and offered a free hand for the girl across from her. "I'm Kagome, by the way."

"Oh! My name's Luz!" the girl responded, supplying her own name naturally as she took hold of her hand. "Why did you wish to leave?" she asked, and Kagome was surprised that was the part she fixated on.

"Oh…" Kagome trailed off and her smile grew strained. A second later, she shook her head, hoping her forced smile wasn't noticeable. "Sometimes you just need a change, right?" she managed to say after a small delay.

She attempted to ignore the painful sting in her eyes as she made her response. Her throat was tight, and she did all she could to push away her tears. She'd left so she wouldn't have to think about it anymore, so she wouldn't have to worry about it ever again, and that was just what she would do. However, saying was so much simpler than actually doing. She'd learned that long ago the hard way.

"... I understand," Luz eventually said. Whether she did or didn't was lost on Kagome, but she could tell that she'd picked up on her disparaged mood. There wasn't another remark about it, at least, and Kagome was grateful for that. "Say!" Luz exclaimed, and Kagome was taken aback, a bit started by the sudden change. "You should come with me! There aren't a lot of humans here, and we should stick together, don't you think?" She paused, seeming to think for a minute, before laughing. "I'm sure Eda wouldn't mind!"

"Eda?" The unfamiliar name made her tilt her head to the side in curiosity. She brushed it off instantly, and she offered Luz a more genuine smile. "Sure, I don't see why not."

With those few words of agreement, she was led off by Luz. Admittedly, looking back, her decision had been rash, but she didn't exactly feel any regret about it.

Auroua-chan: Currently, Kagome's still 15. She's also got a bag full of human-world goodies too. Much like Luz, she'll (soon enough) become a student at Hexside.

Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully I caught all the errors before posting, but if not sorry.

Please remember to Review&Favorite&Follow, thank you!

Bye for now~