Author's Note: Over the last few months I have been striving to be accepted into a private high school. I spent hours suffering over my appilcation, went to their school play and other school functions, talked to teachers about courses while visiting the school, and did anything else I could think of to make a good impression. Unfortunatly it seems like my efforts weren't good enough because I was put on the waiting list.
This story is my hope. Just as there's hope for Kagome, there's still hope that I will get into my high school. Therefore that is why this story is called A Story of Hope.
Wish me luck because from here on all I can do is pray and hope that I get accepted into the school.
I GOT INTO MY HIGH SCHOOL! I'm so happy! And if anyone's wondering, no this won't mean that I will stop writing this story.

Now because this story has to do with me getting into my highschool some people have been emailing me and asking what classes I'm in. Let's see. Regular math. I used to be inhigh math but then my teachers decidedthat I had to take algebraover again. >. I took geometry this year and passed with A's! But I've got to take that over again too. -.-;;;; Life's not fair. Normal science. Never been my strong subject. Ever. And High English! Yay!

Lots of people complainedabout my cliffhanger. I'm sorry guys but cliffhangers are a part of fan fiction life! I bet you wouldn't be half as interested in getting an update of this story if I hadn'thave given you that evil cliffy. And here's the end to the cliffhanger!

Kagome regained consciousness just as she was thrown to a hard, stone floor. "Another cell mate for you unfortunate people." a man laughed.
Someone touched her gently on the shoulder. "You alright?" a woman asked.
"I guess." Kagome replied, "Where am I?"
"One of the slave cells." the woman told her sadly, "You just got caught, didn't you?"
"I-I guess... I still don't get where I am or what's going on. Could you explain?"
"As I said this is a slave cell." the woman said, "You've been captured for the Demon Slave Market. I think they'll be selling us tomorrow."
Kagome was terrified. "Selling?"
"I'm afraid so honey." Just then the woman noticed that Kagome was looking straight ahead blankly and not at her. "…Is there something wrong with your eyes!"
"I'm blind." she answered simply. It had been long enough that she was used to the fact.
"Oh dear!" the woman exclaimed. The priestess found herself in a strong embrace from the woman, "They kill people that have handicaps like that here! You must not let them find out you're blind!"
Kagome nodded, becoming even more scared by the moment.
"I'll help you get food and such as long as I can." the woman said, "You must be hungry."
That was when Kagome noted that she hadn't eaten anything since Inuyasha had given her the raspberries. They didn't help hunger much. She was hungry. "Yes." she said nodding, "Thanks for your help."
"Don't worry about it. Us slaves have to help each other, right?"
"Yeah." Kagome replied. She heard the woman walk away. How in the world had she gotten herself into this one! She reviewed the events that had happened before her kidnapping. Sango and she had gone to the hot springs. Sango had said that Miroku was spying on them. She had left to find the pervert. Kagome had been kidnapped. If only Kagome had insisted it didn't matter that Miroku had been peeping on them! She mentally laughed at herself. Miroku probably hadn't been spying on them to begin with! It had probably been the demons that had kidnapped her!
The sound of her footsteps announced the woman's return. A bit of bread was put into Kagome's hand. "Eat it." The woman said, "It's not much, but it'll help your hunger."
Kagome took a bite out of the bread. It was hard and dry, but the woman was right, it helped her hunger. Then something occurred to Kagome. She didn't know the woman's name. "What's your name?"
"It's Aya." The woman replied, "What's yours?"
"Kagome."
"That's a pretty name." Aya commented.
"Thank you."

Inuyasha stomped back into the camp, with Sango hurrying after him. "Miroku!" the hanyou yelled, "Get your butt out here!"
Miroku came running out of Kaede's house, still looking a little dizzy from being knocked out. Shippo followed him out. "What is it?" the monk asked.
"Kagome's not at the damn hot springs where Sango left her!"
Miroku's eyes widened. He lost all trace of dizziness. "Kagome!" the Kitsune cried, looking quite distressed.
"What do you think happened?" Miroku asked, "Do you think she just wandered off?"
"I don't think so." Sango said quietly, "She wouldn't do something like that. She just wouldn't. Something happened to her!"
"I think she was kidnapped." Inuyasha growled, "There were other people's scents around the spring." He glared at the two humans around him. "I don't know who to blame. Sango for checking to make sure Miroku wasn't watching them and leaving Kagome alone or Miroku for being perverted and making Sango suspect him!"
Neither Sango nor Miroku had something to say to this. Shippo gave a small whimper.

Kagome woke up to someone shaking her she could vaguely hear the sounds of shouts, yells, and people running in the background. "Wake up quickly!"
"Inuyasha?" Kagome mumbled.
"No, it's Aya!" the voice replied, "Hurry! Get up!"
Kagome opened her eyes, sitting up. "What is it?" she asked. She didn't like her new friend's tone of voice. Something was scaring her.
The priestess found herself being pulled up onto her feet. "They're here!" Aya whispered urgently, "They're coming to take us away to the market!"
This was all Kagome needed to wake her up. "What? What's going to happen? Are we going to be sold!"
"I'm afraid so." Aya replied.
"I-I can't be sold!" Kagome exclaimed, "I've got things to do! I need to get back to Inuyasha and the others and find the rest of the shards!"
She found herself yanked from where she was standing. "Well ain't that too bad." A man said, "You're a pretty little thing. You'll bring a good price at the market today." The man lifted her up and over his shoulder. "Now come along."

"Do you smell Kagome's scent anywhere?" Sango asked.
Inuyasha sniffed the air. "Yeah." He replied, " Just a little bit." Without warning the hanyou took off. Kilala transformed, allowing Sango, Shippo, and Miroku to get onto her before flying after Inuyasha.
When they caught up Inuyasha had stopped running and was staring into space ahead of him. "Do you still have the scent Inuyasha?" Miroku asked.
"Damnit!" Inuyasha exclaimed, snapping out of the trance like state he had been in, "No! I can't catch a damn whiff of her scent!"
Sango and Miroku exchanged worried glances.
"So what are we going to do now?" Shippo asked uneasily.
"We're gonna keep on looking for her!" Inuyasha growled, "That's what we're gonna do!"

Kagome found herself shoved into a group of people. "Watch it." A voice growled, as she was shoved back, just to run into another person who grumbled a curse at her.
She stood like that for what seemed like hours. For the first few minutes wherever she was had become more and more crowded, but from then on it seemed as if people had been leaving one at a time in intervals of every few minutes. A cold realization came over her. The people leaving were going to be sold! Kagome tried pushing through the crowd behind her, attempting to get as far back as possible. Maybe if she just gave herself a little more time Inuyasha would find and save her from this cruel fate.
"What the hell are you trying to do bitch!" a voice demanded. Kagome guessed it was the same person who had yelled at her to watch it before. She found herself pushed forward again. Unfortunately there were people in front of her too. Kagome was pushed back towards the grumpy man who liked to yell at her and then pushed away again. Before she knew it, the other slaves around her were also yelling and pushing. Kagome was pushed every which way.
"Alright, break it up!" a voice yelled, "BREAK IT UP! What the hell's going on here! We can hear you people yelling all the way from up front! Who's the troublemaker here? Or is just all of you making a racket?"
There was silence. Kagome wondered what was going on. Were all the others standing around like her?
"So it was her, eh?" the guard asked. More silence. Then someone grabbed Kagome around the wrist. "What'd you do girl?" he demanded, "What'd you do to get them all riled up?"
Her mind spun quickly for a story. "I uh, tripped." She replied, "And I knocked into the man behind me and he pushed me into the person in front of me. Before I knew it I was being pushed all over the place." Remembering Aya's warning about trying to act unblinded, Kagome closed her eyes and looked down as if in shame.
"We can't have you tripping all around here and making the others yell, can we?" the guard asked. Kagome shook her head, still looking down. "Come on. You're up next."
The priestess immediately went pale. She found herself being shoved from the back. Surprisingly this time she didn't run into anyone. Kagome guessed that the others had gotten out of the guard and her way. They didn't want to be next in line to be sold.
After being shoved forward for a while Kagome was pulled up a set of stairs. That's where her frightening journey ended. She didn't even want to know where she was now.
"And now!" an unfamiliar voice yelled. It didn't sound like it was to her. "Last sale of the day everyone! So if you want a new slave tonight you might want to try for this one! Look at this lovely young human girl! What a beauty she is! The girl's spirited, not your normal subservient human, and her ankle seems to be sprained so we're going to start her at 200 gold pieces!" There was a pause. "250 gold pieces! 300!"
Kagome almost felt like she was going to throw up. They were bidding on her!
"400 gold pieces!" the seller called "450! Anyone willing to go higher? 500! Sold to the demon in the back!"

"Inuyasha." Miroku said sighing, "We've been looking for Lady Kagome for five hours now without any sort of lead. There's not a very high chance we'll find her. Maybe we should stop…"
"Are you saying that we should give up!" Inuyasha demanded glaring daggers at the human behind him.
"No!" Miroku replied quickly, "I'm just saying that maybe it would be in our best interests to stop for the night. The sun's already past noon and we're all getting tired."
"Feh. Don't think that's going to stop us."

This was by far the most comfortable bit of traveling Kagome had done since she had been kidnapped. And she had done a lot. From the feeling of the movement along the road, she could tell that she was riding in some sort of carriage or wagon. Even when the wheels had hit a rock and the wagon/carriage had bounced all over the road it was still comfortable. Kagome was sitting on a pile of pillows. And to top it all off, someone had thrown a blanket at her when it had started to cool down. Maybe being a slave wasn't going to be as bad as she thought.
"You're a lucky slave, you know that." A voice said from in front of her, "For what Milord wants you for you're going to be treated better than the rest of us. With good clothes, and food, a warm bed and everything like that. Of course only if you do what he wants. Milord has been having strange whims lately. And if you don't do just what he tells you to he'll hurt you. Even his most faithful servant gets beaten at least every other day."
Kagome swallowed nervously. Maybe being a slave was going to be even worse than what she had thought.

"Inuyasha." Sango said sighing, "It's pretty late now. And you said yourself that you haven't caught any of Kagome's scent in hours. Can we just stop for the night? You might not have to, but Miroku, Shippo and I need some sleep!"
The hanyou in question stopped the frenzied run he had been doing for the past hour, and thought about what the demon slayer had just said, breathing a little heavier than usual. She was right. It was getting late. Soon Miroku and Sango would be no help in the search for Kagome. Shippo might. But he was just a kid. He wasn't any help to begin with. "Fine." Inuyasha grumbled, "But we're start looking again as soon as the sun comes up!"

Kagome had managed to slip into a light, uneasy, sleep when the wagon/carriage stopped. "We're here." The voice that had talked to her before announced. She heard the sound of the carriage/wagon driver had had spoken to her jump off his seat on the wagon/carriage and walk over to where she was sitting. She heard a door open. So she had been riding in a carriage. A hand grasped Kagome's.
"Come on." The driver said, "Milord wants to see you." Carefully, Kagome jumped out of the carriage and let the speaker drag her to where ever he was taking her. They went up a small flight of stairs, which was a bit of a problem, then through a door, down a hallway, up another flight of stairs, and down a second hallway. That's where they stopped.
The carriage driver knocked on a door. "Milord?" he called, "I brought the new slave. A young human woman. Just like you asked."
"Send her in." A voice from inside said, "Then go back to your duties." Kagome frowned. The voice was so familiar! Where had she heard it before!
"Yes Milord." Kagome heard the door slide open and she was gently shoved into the room. Since losing her sight, the priestess had never wanted it back so badly as of now. Who could this demon be!
There was a bit of silence and then Kagome heard a small chuckle. It was not a warm laugh, nor did it sound threatening. It was just… cold.
"So my bastard brother finally managed to lose you."