Much love to those who have reviewed the story so far. Your little notes mean more to me than you'd ever know. Disclaimers still apply: on with the story!

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"Baa-chan," Kimiko said breathlessly as she came to a stop outside of the room of the man she considered her great-grandfather. His daughter, Souta's mother, turned kindly eyes on her and gave a little tight-lipped smile.

"It's only a cold," she said soothingly, and patted Kimiko's hair in her motherly way, stroking it back from her face. In truth, Baa-chan had been the only mother she'd ever known. Hearing a wracking cough from Jii-chan's room, Kimiko turned towards it, and slipped through the door.

Jii-chan looked smaller and frailer than he usually did, laying in his bed. He turned away his wrinkled face to cough into his hand as Kimiko came close, casting a worried glance at the untouched tray of food on the bedside table. She waited patiently, golden eyes fixed on his face, lips pressed together in worry until he was ready to turn to her. When he finally did, she could see the fever in his eyes.

"Kimiko," he murmured, and smiled, then coughed again. She felt Souta and Baa-chan's presence in the doorway behind her, hovering. "Your sixteenth birthday is tomorrow, ne?" She nodded, frowning and hooking her hair behind one ear, though it fell back again. What could he mean by it? Jii-chan waved Souta and Baa-chan over with a flick of his old, arthritis-suffered fingers. As she drew close, Baa-chan let out a deep sigh, then reached out and touched Jii-chan's shoulder.

"You're sure?"

Jii-chan nodded. "Yes. We've put off telling her long enough. She has the right to know."

Kimiko's eyes widened as they flickered between the two. She knew something was happening that concerned her, and felt her heartbeat quicken. Jii-chan reached under his nightshirt and removed a key on a tattered old string from around his neck, handing it to Baa-chan. Her senses flared as she parted her lips to ask what was happening, when Baa-chan nodded and stood, quickly crossing the room and put the key into the lock of Jii-chan's old armoire. She jumped to her feet with a gasp.

"Baa-chan?" Jii-chan's armoire had never been opened as far as her memory could tell. From the time she was small and toddling around the house, the thing had been expressly forbidden. There was a faded old Ofuda on the door scrawled in ancient characters she didn't understand, but that wasn't strange; Jii-chan had scrolls on many things in storage, often keepsakes and other relics from the old days of the shrine. What was strange was the severe scolding she'd gotten the one time she'd asked what was in the armoire.

Kimiko remembered how Jii-chan had cuffed her when he found her struggling with the doors as a little girl. She'd fallen on her rear end with a cry, more from shock than pain. It was the only time Jii-chan had ever struck her. When she'd asked about it, he told her strictly never to come near it. Usually she disregarded the old man and his ranting about things of old, but this one time, the look in his eyes told her that this was something very serious. The only other thing he'd been like that about was the old well. He'd thought she might fall down it.

He had looked afraid.

She'd never gone near it again.

Baa-chan paused as she lay a hand over the Ofuda, then removed it. Kimiko's eyes widened as she felt a strange prickling sensation over her skin. Without a word, Baa-chan dropped the Ofuda to the floor, then hooked her fingers in the metal rings of the armoire. With a whoosh of dust, the doors came open.

Across the room, Kimiko was at an angle where she couldn't see what was beyond the doors of the armoire. Jii-chan touched her wrist, and she looked quizzically at him, a little apprehensive.

Fixing his eyes on her, he nodded. "Go on." Her eyes slid to her uncle, then Baa-chan, and they both nodded. She stood and walked over to Baa-chan. She was ready to find out what all the fuss was.

Kimiko didn't know what she was expecting to find in the armoire, but when she lay eyes on its contents, she frowned in confusion. At first glance it didn't seem to be something that garnered all this secrecy.

Her eyes traveled over the cloth hung in the back of the large chasm. It was haphazardly wrapped around something long and thin, as though someone had quickly tied it for the means of carrying. Frowning slightly, she reached out and removed the bundle from where it hung.

The cloth was red and much softer than it looked. Kimiko knelt and undid the knot it was tied in, unwrapping what it held. Something clacked, and she recognized the sound of steel against bamboo. A sword.

The black polished saya, the sheath, came into view as she slid the cloth from it. She ran her fingers over the glossy finish and to the hilt. The place where the hilt met the scabbard was encased in some sort of rusted golden metal. The hilt itself looked to have been haphazardly wrapped, and it had come loose with heavy use and little repair.

Kimiko glanced up at the others in the room for a moment, then looked back to the sword. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean. Why would they keep an old sword locked up like this for so long? Why was it suddenly so important that she see it?

Frowning, she looked back to the old thing, and drew it from its saya, watching the metal as it appeared. It was rusty, chipped, and dull. Confusion was now spiced with annoyance. She pushed it back into its saya, and picked up the cloth to drape it around the sword again. For a moment she hesitated with it in her fingers, and then she stood, taking the top of the cloth in both hands, holding it away from her.

The red cloth was a haori.

Sparks flew through her. This was the most extreme feeling of déjà vu she'd ever had. She had seen this haori before, she was sure of it. The red, this unique color, it was so familiar... but what...? What did it mean? She blinked, and realized there was something else on the floor. A folded piece of paper had fluttered from the folds of red haori and now lay at her feet.

Kimiko knelt and quickly snatched up the paper, unfolding it. It looked to be a note from a notebook, scrawled by the frantic strokes of a neat hand in a hurry. Droplets of moisture blurred the ink in some places, making it hard to read.

Mama, Jii-chan and Souta

I don't have much time. I won't come home. Theyﾁfre all dead. Soon I will be too, but I won't let him have it, I won't let him win. He won't be able to come through after her so youﾁfll all be safe.

This is very important. Don't let her come back through until she's ready or he'll kill her too, and then all this would be for nothing. Inuyasha made me promise to take his Hinezumi no Koromo, the Tessaiga and the Shikon no Tama

Kimiko scanned the paper. The writer seemed to have been cut off in mid sentence for some reason. When the writing came back, it was more blurred with moisture than before. She had to strain to read.

I'm so sorry everyone. I knew a long time ago that there was a possibility my path would come to this. I accept it and I regret nothing. Please know that.

Putting her fingers over her lips, she felt her heart turn over with a lurch as she read the last few lines.

Although it's not under the best of circumstances, introductions are due. This is my daughter. Yes, Souta, this means you are an uncle... you were right. She has his eyes.

Kagome

PS: Her name is Kimiko.

All of the breath left her body as the threat of hot tears stung her eyes. Slowly, she swallowed. She would not cry. She was better than that. Stronger than that. She looked up, gathering the things from the armoire to her chest as Baa-chan made to put an arm around her shoulders. She sat there woodenly for a few moments, until she could make her mouth work.

"...her name was Kagome." She didn't say it as a question. Before anyone could break the silence, she shrugged herself out of Baa-chan's arms and fled from the room.

Kimiko could hear them calling after her, but it was nothing but a buzzing in her ears. Even clutching the haori and sword to her chest, she could outrun them. Running became her world. She lost herself. Life was nothing but the next step. She ran, twisting and turning, taking a memorized path. She couldn't face them. They would come after her. She had nowhere to go.

The drew-dropped grass slipped under her, but in her sturdy running shoes, she kept her balance. Thoughts flying numbly, she gripped the sword and haori as hard as she could to her chest. The steel rattled against the sheath as she took heaving breaths. The sun was going down. It cast long shadows across the shrine, and the huge trees that stood around it. She looked up, into the sky.

The Goshinboku.

With her gaze, she followed its shadow, looking to where it fell, across the old well house.

The well house.

Jii-chan's words flashed through her mind, his stern, worried expression. That memory had kept her away from it for so long, just as it had the armoire. What else were they hiding from her?

If anything, they'd never expect to find her there.

Resolved, she ran up and yanked open the well shrine's doors, then closed them behind her. Shafts of light fell through the slats of the little shrine, alighting the old wooden well that stood in the center of the small square room. For a few moments she leaned back against the doors, catching her breath, then made her way down the wooden stairs to the well's edge.

Jii-chan called it the Honeguiido.

Gripping the edge, she leaned over and stared down into the blackness. Nothing. It was dry. She scowled a little, and adjusted the haori and sword in her arms. A gasp escaped her as she inadvertently dislodged the folded note from the crook of her arm, and she snatched but missed as it fluttered down into the darkness.

Damn.

Scowling at her own clumsiness, Kimiko grabbed a small pebble from the dirt floor, and dropped it into the well. About a second later, she heard the dry sound of it hitting dirt. Ten... fifteen feet? She smirked. No problem. Placing one hand on the side of the well, she vaulted neatly over the side.

Then she fell forever.

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You should know the drill by NOW, right…?