I thank you all for your suggestions and those of you who were wondering, my prologue will be explained when the past chases after Kagome (not too long, don't worry. Maybe this chapter of the next). You'll know what it means when it happens. I really hope you like this, but if you don't, that's alright too. I love to write and writing fanfiction is really the only way I can get feedback. Most of what I write is original and I refuse to post that on the internet because I want to get published eventually and I have this horrible fear of plagiarism.

Once Upon a Time

Chapter 2

By: Allore NightShadow

The dreams chased her. They were never ending. They were a blur of faces and words, places and events.

Kagome tossed as she slept.

"No! Kagome, you cant!" A silly looking girl carrying a boomerang bigger than she was said.

"You don't understand." Said a girl that looked oddly like Kagome. "I have to. This is the only way to stop this. The only way."

"Let her go." Said a gruff voice to the side. Kagome couldn't see who it was, but she did sense the tension in the Kagome look alike's face as she ignored the gruff speaker

"Yes, let her go." Said another Kagome look alike, but this one was different, colder somehow.

The first Kagome look alike walked away and nobody followed.

(o)

"Where are you going, ningen?" Asked a cold voice that came from another man or person that she could not see.

Kagome thought that she should have been scared, but the Kagome look alike was not.

"Sesshoumaru-sama." She acknowledged to the person Kagome could not see, and walked past him.

"Do not ignore me, ningen." Said the man as he began to walk next to the Kagome look alike. Kagome saw a flash hair the color of the moon, but that was all.

"I'm going for Naraku."

The Kagome look alike never questioned that the man with the cold voice and the moon colored hair followed her all the way to the place she must be going.

(o)

When Kagome woke, it was dark. She wasn't worried. At least five out of the seven days a week she woke like this, at some time before the sun rose, due to her dreams. The other two days of the week, Kagome didn't sleep at all.

Her dream faded from her memory. Kagome had learned not to try and grasp at the memories, that they never stayed.

She looked around and found herself in her living room, though she didn't remember how she had gotten there.

"Oh, Kagome, you're awake." Her mother said from beside her. There was her brother home from college for the winter holiday, as well as her grandfather looking down at her. It mustn't be very later if her entire family was still awake. Grandpa was always the first to go to sleep.

"This nice man came and dropped you off. He said you just fainted. Carried you in like price charming, too" He mother explained and then gave her a suggestive look.

"It was your powers." Her grandfather said knowingly. "They shouldn't be bound like they are."

"Why did you bind them in the first place?" Kagome asked, sitting up from the couch.

Her grandfather suddenly got abnormally quiet and mother looked the other way. They didn't speak about that time because Kagome had been so miserable then. She didn't speak about it, almost seemed to forget, and they didn't bring it up.

Souta was the one to effectively change the topic. "Why don't you just unbind them? You could do all those cool tricks you used to do."

"Can I do that?" Kagome asked her grandfather.

He was silent for a moment, something that didn't usually happen to him. He wasn't sure that this would be such a good idea. They bound her powers for fear that she would hurt someone, primarily herself, and to unbind them might take her back to that place she was three years ago.

He snuck a look at Kagome's mother who nodded solemnly before he nodded to Kagome.

"I'll take you to Reokan-sama tomorrow." He said.

Kagome nodded before shaking her head. "I can't tomorrow." She said. "It is my first day at my new job."

Her grandfather gave her that look that said, 'What's more important, me or your job?'

"Come on, jii-chan." And she gave him that look that said, 'What kind of grandfather would make me choose?'

"It's tomorrow or not at all, Kagome." He said. He didn't mention that he also needed to stock up on the little trinkets that he sold in his tourist shop. He wasn't going to tell Kagome that he had an alternate reason, though.

Kagome glared at her grandfather before picking up the phone and dialing the number to her soon to be work.

"Hello." She said to the attendant on the other end of the phone. "This is Kagome Higarashi." She paused a moment. "I'm supposed to be starting tomorrow on floor sixty-eight." She paused another moment. "That's right. I'm the expert. I have a family emergency and I'm going to be late." She paused again. "Of course." And then she hung up the phone.

One more glare at her grandfather and she stood up and stalked out of the room.

"Do you really think that was such a good idea?" Kagome's grandfather asked her mother.

"I think," She said, "that it had been long enough and the reason she had then to react the way she did, may not be applicable anymore."

(o)

"Reokan-sama!" Kagome's grandfather called into a large tradition cabin, much like their own home.

"Here already, Higarashi-san?" A tall, elegant man walked into the room. "Oh, you've brought a guest."

"This is my granddaughter, Kagome."

Reokan bowed slightly in the traditional way. "I am honored."

"She needs help." Kagome's grandfather said and in response, Reokan cocked his head to the side as an animal might when faced with a perplexing problem.

"The kind of help you need to go to the back room to do."

Reokan nodded solemnly.

"If you have my package, I'll take it and leave you with Kagome." The eldest Higarashi said, and when Reokan gestured to a box that was situated by the door, he picked it up and left.

"If you'll follow me, Kagome-sama."

The room Kagome was led into was empty of everything but a mat in the center of the room and an inscents burner.

"Please have a seat, Kagome-sama, and tell me what you have come here to do."

Kagome moved to kneel on the mat, but as she got closer to Roekan, she felt something that was almost familiar. Almost, but not quite. Kagome didn't know how she knew.

"You're a demon?" She asked, as if stating, and not asking, a well known fact.

Reokan look surprised and then laughed to himself. "I should have known." Said to her. "You grandfather had bragged that you were, or had been, a very accomplished miko, but alas, your grandfather does not see accomplished in quite the same way that I do, and I discounted this."

Whatever spell Reokan had been using to appear as a human was then dropped. Pointed ears and slitted, cat-like eyes replaced the human features that had been in their place. Kagome felt that she should have been surprised, but instead she felt as if this were perfectly normal, she just could remember why it felt normal.

"My powers were bound and I need the binding undone." She said in response to his question.

"Bound?" He asked, surprised again. "But you felt that I was a…never mind."

He walked over to her and placed his fingertips on her temple and allowed his abnormally sharp finger nails, claws, Kagome supposed, sink into her skin. Kagome flinched, but didn't otherwise move or say anything.

Reokan started to mumble words under his breath for what Kagome figure was only minutes, though it felt like hours.

"There it is!" He exclaimed, and Kagome felt something pulling at her insides.

It was like something was squeezing her insides, squeezing and pushing until there was no more to push. Nothing was physically touching her, but Kagome still felt the power that Reokan exerted into her.

All of a sudden the pressure released itself and Reokan jumped back as if scalded. In fact he was scalded, currently nursing blistering hands.

"That is the last time I work with mikos." He muttered to himself.

"I'm so sorry." Kagome said as she moved towards him to see the damage. Roekan moved away as she moved close.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Your brimming with purification energy. No demon in his right mind would go anywhere near you at this moment. You are glowing, Kagome-sama."

She looked down at her hand and had to squint her eyes against the nearly blinding light. She consciously forced the purification energy that was so familiar and yet so foreign back into her body to lay dormant. She didn't remember the last time she had had these powers.

Within moments of Kagome concentrating on herself, she had seized glowing with the light of purification and Roekan again felt comfortable around her.

"Do I owe you anything?" She asked him.

Roekan shook his head in response. "There is no need, Kagome-sama. I am at the service of the people. But please, come back again, if only just to talk.

Kagome nodded and with a quick assent and thank you, she left.

(o)

Kagome looked up at the skyscraper. The words 'West International' were embossed with gold over the door way. Nobody really knew what exactly the company did, only that it had it's hand, most often as a silent partner, in nearly every large business in Japan.

She walked in, and told a secretary her name and receive a key card. She took that key card and slid it through a key pad that opened a set of doors. She walked down a hallway that ended in an elevator with another keypad. Kagome slid the card through and waited a moment for it to register.

ALL FLOORS ACCESSIBLE flashed across the screen and the doors to the elevator opened. She pressed the button for floor sixty-eight and waited the forty seconds until the elevator opened on that floor with a soft 'ping.'

"I had thought you were supposed to be here three hours ago."

And standing before her was Mr. Taisho. He didn't look happy.

(o)

Allore NightShadow

This isn't as long as I would have liked, but at least it's longer than the last chapter, ne? Please tell me what you think of this so far, okay?

Thank you to all my reviewers.

Pegasus Rider- You know, I had just been reading your fic when I first started writing this.

Gothic-ember- you'll just have to read to find out.

Toxiclollipop- I thank you for your interest.

Candy- My explanation of the prologue will likely be in the next chapter or the one after that. I'm glad you gave me some real suggestions, though. Not many reviewer do that.

Spirit-Wolf25- thank you so much for the review. I love hearing from the people who read my work.

Rubi- In a way, I am trying to make it seem like a fairy tale, but in a way, I'm not. I'm doing this because the cannon Inuyasha was translated as 'a feudal fairy tale.'

Please read and review. Don't forget the comments or critiques!