InuYasha felt one last pang of guilt as he passed the last landmark that marked his separation from all he had known for the last half year. The bone eater's well stood silent and calm… nowhere near as impressive as one would expect a portal to the future to be. Slowly, feeling that it would mean something, he walked to the well and knelt down.
"Kagome…" He whispered, looking down into the darkness at the bottom of the well. "I'm just an arrogant bastard…" His fists clenched around the rim of the well. "I could never tell you while you were here… but now that you're gone… I'm sorry."
"Then you should go back and tell her that!" A childlike voice rang out right next to his sensitive dog-ears. The hanyou's head whipped up, and ended up starring into the large, blue eyes of Shippo. "If you really feel that way then go tell her you're sorry." He said.
InuYasha
starred at him for a moment, then rose to his feet. "Forget it." He said. "She
probably hates me now… I let her down." He said. "She wouldn't listen even if I
did go!"
There was a hollow thwack as a
large bone boomerang hit him on the back of the head. He whirled around to face
Sango. The youkai hunter was giving him an unbelieving expression. "Honestly,
InuYasha, you should stop being so selfish!" She said, her temper rising. "You
never once considered that we care about Kagome too, did you? You are just
afraid to go see her because you'll hurt you poor little pride and you think
she'll still be mad at you."
InuYasha glared at her, then turned to stalk away, only to run headlong into Miroku. The monk gave him a disappointed look. "Honestly, InuYasha, I suspected you were a fool before, but this is the first time I've ever actually been convinced of it."
InuYasha snarled at him, and tried to brush around him, but the monk's staff blocked his way.
"InuYasha," Miroku continued. "We all know that you didn't actually mean those things you said to Kagome… and trust me, she understands too."
InuYasha grabbed the staff, and wrenched it from his grasp. "Then why did she leave?" He demanded.
Miroku stared at him, "Well… Kagome was looking for a way to get home for starters. She would have gone only slightly after the shard had gotten here anyway. The only reason she yelled at you was because she was probably extremely stressed about the events of the week. You did insult her, but what normally would have earned you a sit had sparked her anger and she blew up at you." He smiled at the pouting hanyou. "You must realize that it is partially your fault, but also partially hers, as well as the circumstances.
InuYasha growled softly, and shook his head. He didn't want to listen to this! He was trying to be on a revenge quest! Why did that damn monk have to make so much sense now, of all times.
Behind the frustrated hanyou, Shippo giggled. "Watch out Miroku. He's pouting, and he hates being force to stop."
Sango
walked up to InuYasha and put her hand on the hanyou's shoulder. "And besides…
you're being too impulsive." She said. "You can't take out Atma alone."
InuYasha glanced at her. "How
did you?"
Sango almost laughed at him. "Lucky guess." She said. "And besides, everyone knows that you can't fight without Kagome here to protect."
InuYasha starred at his friends, and shook his head. "There's just no escaping you guys, is there?"
Shippo jumped on his head, and grinned down at him. "Nope!" He said happily, "and we won't leave you alone until you go get Kagome!"
InuYasha sighed, then threw Shippo of his head, hard. "Okay…" He said, giving up. "I'll stay here for a little while longer, but I'm not gonna go get Kagome yet." He said, his trademark cocky grin spreading on to his face for the first time since Kagome left. "I wanna make that girl really sorry for what she did."
Miroku, Sango, and Shippo exchanged glances, and nodded.
~~
"Are you sure you want to go to school, Kagome?" Souta asked his sister. "You still look pretty darn weak."
Kagome looked down at her little brother from around her crutches. "Of course." She said. "Just keep on carrying my backpack for me."
Souta looked at her, then shouldered her massive backpack with a grunt. "I still don't see why you got to see a dragon, and get to have you bags carried for you."
Kagome saw right past her brothers comments to the meaning behind them, and returned in kind. "Remind me next time I see it, and I'll feed you to it, Brat." She said. "Brat" definitely deserved a capital letter in that sentence. Kagome used it like a name for her brother.
As the
approached Kagome's school, there was a bright gasp, then three feminine voices
called out the schoolgirl's name.
Kagome's three best friends in
this time, Ayame, Suzume, and Koaru, dashed up to her with worried expressions
on their faces. "Kagome!" The shouted in unison, and quickly bombarded her with
all sorts of questions. "Kagome, did it hurt?" one asked.
Kagome blinked. "What?"
"Falling down that hill of course!" Ayame prompted. "Did it give you amnesia?" She gasped. "Who am I? What is your name? How many fingers am I holding up?"
Kagome blinked at her friend. She was no match for Souta. "Ayame, Kagome, and three."
The three giddy schoolgirls let out a major sigh of relief, and relaxed. "Good, that means you can go on your date with Hojo tomorrow."
Kagome starred at her friend in disbelief. "You didn't." She said.
Koaru grinned at her. "Yep!" She said. "Congratulations, on Friday you have a date with one of the cutest guys in school.
Kagome grinned slightly. "Great…" She said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Wonderful."
Suzume ginned at her. "We knew you'd be glad!" She said, completely missing the sarcasm. Then she glanced at InuYasha suspiciously. "Or do you still like this mystery man you've been telling us about?"
Even her three friends, who probably had the combined IQ of a radish, could tell instantly that this was a touchy subject. Kagome instantly stiffened up, and went the rest of the way to school in silence.
~~
Kagome groaned as she entered her classroom. There were already math equations and theorems up on the board, a sure sign that math was the first subject they'd be studying today. Kagome really disliked math. It used to be her favorite and best subject, but all that had fallen by the way-side when she had stumbled into the warring states area and lost all free time. She couldn't understand the material without studying, and studying was kind of hard to do while running away from monsters.
As the class came in and settled down, the teacher, Mrs. Nose (Pronounced with a voiced "e") walked in. "Alright class, settle down." She said. The class reluctantly obliged. She briefly took attendance, but stopped and looked up at Kagome as she got to her name. "Well, Kagome, looks like you finally decided to join us for class again." She remarked dryly. "I trust you have been able to study?"
Kagome looked at her teacher with an aghast expression. "Um… maybe?" She responded helplessly.
Mrs. Nose looked at her with a merciless smile. "Good… we have a test today, so I'm sure that you'll have no problems with it.
Kagome's aghast expression turned to one of horror. "Um… okay." She said meekly, knowing better to argue with her teacher. After all, it wasn't her fault that Kagome had to go to the past to save the world.
The test was handed out, and Kagome's horror increased a hundred fold. What little she had managed to study had been in the wrong chapter! As Kagome began to struggle through her test, a slight headache began to catch on. By the second problem, it was just a slight pain. At the third, an annoyance, no more. BY the fifth, Kagome was getting distracted by it, and the numbers were swimming around the page in odd patterns. It wasn't till almost the tenth problem that she dimly heard a thud with the only part of her brain that wasn't consumed with trigonometry or pain. There was a communal gasp, and the sound of people suddenly rising from chairs, but all Kagome could see was the floor. The floor? That's was funny. Why was she facing the floor. Suddenly, Kagome felt herself hauled to her feet, and ended up starring into he worried eyes of Mrs. Nose. "Are you okay?" She asked.
"What?" Kagome asked, only semi-coherent.
Her teacher
glanced at her with a worried expression. "You suddenly fell out of your desk."
She said. Kagome's head cleared suddenly, and she looked around to see herself sitting
on the floor with the entire class starring at her. With a sudden blush, Kagome
struggled to her feet. "Sorry!" She stammered, and took her seat. "It must have
been the heat." She said. She was burning up as it was.
Kagome's teacher gave her an
even stranger look. "Kagome, it's fairly cool out." She said, feeling the air
with her hand for emphasis.
Kagome blushed even harder. "I'm fine!" She said, and continued to work on her test with renewed fervor.
Mrs. Nose gave her a concerned look, and returned to her desk.
~~
At lunch, Kagome could barely eat a thing. Her headache had gotten much worse, and her vision kept blurring on and off. She felt as if she was burning up, and she sat at her table miserably, so much in pain that tears almost ran down her face. The fact that Hojo wouldn't leave her alone didn't help. He was a nice boy and all, but he didn't know when to be quite!
He kept on going on about how beautiful she looked, and how happy he was that she was going out with him, and how sorry he was that all these things kept happening to her. Why couldn't her just shut up and let her sleep. Her headache was increasing by the second, and now it was followed by a very queasy feeling.
"Kagome?" A voice asked her, although she couldn't identify the speaker. "You're walking awfully crooked."
What was the voice talking about, she was sitting down… or maybe not. Her head hit the floor, and everything went black.
