Disclaimer-Inuyasha is not mine, at least not outside my fantasies...

AN-Who knew a few words under the review section could make a person so happy! Thank you! Hopefully I will clear up anyconfusion in later chapters.

'Italics'thoughts

Words on the Wind

BRRT! BRRT! BRRT!

A hand darted from under the covers and hit the ringing alarm clock with a loud thump. In the silence afterwards, a small and somewhat muffled groan could be heard.

"Uhn…too early..." Sitting up slowly, Kagome yawned and rubbed her eyes as she mentally berated herself for, yet again, pulling an all-nighter to complete her homework on time. And also, she told herself, for the umpteenth time, it wouldn't happen again and that next time she would definitely start on it right away. Of course school was ending in a couple weeks, so perhaps it was a little late to start changing her study habits. "Hmm." Kagome wrinkled her nose in thought. 'Then again, what better time to start studying properly than right before finals.' With a little shrug, Kagome got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for school, figuring if she continued to linger on the subject of how to better her study skills, she would never leave her room and would miss finals altogether.

After getting dressed and grabbing breakfast, she headed to the front door, stopping to give her mother a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Bye Mom! I'll see you later!" Kagome was just about to step outside when her mother called out to her.

"Oh, Kagome dear, don't forget to come straight home, I have to go out later and I need you here to watch your brother."

Kagome looked back and huffed, "Why can't Grandpa watch him?"

Her mother smiled and shook her head. "You know your grandfather is sorting through that new shipment of ancient relics. He'll be to busy to keep Souta out of trouble. Please, Kagome?"

Sighing a bit melodramatically, Kagome relented. "Sure, okay mom."

"Oh, thank you sweetheart. Now go to school before you're late."

As Kagome walked towards school she struggled to suppress her yawns. During one particularly jaw-cracking yawn, she failed to notice a rather large pothole in the sidewalk and tripped as her foot caught on the concrete. Caught by surprise, the girl flailed her arms uselessly for a second and then pitched forward to what was sure to be a very hard landing. Kagome felt a gentle, almost imperceptible brush of wind near her right elbow and suddenly she was on her feet again, as if someone had steadied her. Turning around to thank her rescuer, Kagome was faced with an empty sidewalk with only the pigeons occupying it besides her.

"Clumsy girl…"

Feeling a slight case of déjà vu, Kagome turned around to see who had spoken.

And of course, there was no one.

"O…okay…" Feeling a little creeped out, Kagome decided that it definitely couldn't be her brother playing a trick on her this time, since he had already left for school. Trying to shake off the weird feeling that someone was following her, Kagome hurried back on her way to school. "This is too weird… and I'm not clumsy," she said to herself.

And of course it was just her imagination, or the wind, whichever was more logical, when she heard a soft "Feh…"

When the last bell rang at the end of class, Kagome couldn't keep the wide grin off her face as she packed up her books.

"Hey Kagome, what are you so happy about?" Her friend Ayumi asked.

"No school tomorrow!" Kagome stated happily glad to be able to relax for a day. The teachers had really been piling on the work lately and she was looking forward to time off from learning about famous chemists and mathematical theorems. Even if it was just for a couple days.

"So, you want to go to the mall with us Kagome?" Yuka asked as she and Eri joined Kagome at her desk. "They're having a big sale at one of the department stores, though I forget which one."

"Sorry guys, I have to watch my brother today." Kagome pulled a face and gave a little shrug. "Maybe some other time."

Eri waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. "Don't worry about it. They have sales all the time. Besides it's not like we really have much money anyways." All the girls gave a little sigh at that small truth.

Shouldering her backpack, Kagome gave her friends a little wave and headed out of the classroom. "Bye guys! I'll see you on Monday."

"Bye Kagome!" they chorused.

Kagome stepped into the hallway and let the door close behind her. As she was making her way to her locker to leave behind some of the school books she didn't need that weekend, she felt a tug on the back of her shirt. Stopping, she was about to look around when a soccer ball went whizzing by her head right in front of her. It impacted with the lockers to her left and hit them hard enough to leave a sizable dent.

'Jeez, that could have been my head!'

Turning to the owner of the ball she yelled angrily, "Hey watch where you're kicking that thing!"

A boy a couple years younger than her smiled sheepishly and said apologetically, "Sorry, I didn't see you there. I'm glad you stopped so suddenly, I would have felt horrible if it had hit you!" With another quick "Sorry!" the boy scooped up the Ball of Minor Destruction then ran off down another corridor with his friends before a teacher could catch them and yell about the dent in the locker and playing sports in the halls. Forgetting what had made her stop in the first place, Kagome continued her way to her locker, mumbling under her breath about unruly youths and disrespect for certain school rules.

"Little hooligans…" she mumbled while spinning the combination to open her locker door. Speaking of little hooligans, she needed to hurry and get home before Souta found some random destruction of his own. Quickly putting away her books, Kagome closed the small metal door and headed home.

"Souta, I'm home!" Kagome shouted as she ran up the stairs to put away her school stuff.

A yell from the living room alerted her to her brother's whereabouts. "In here sis!"

Heading into the living room to join her brother, Kagome briefly wondered why her mother was so worried about Souta getting into trouble. Ever since she had bought him that new video game console, he's been glued to the TV every chance he could get. Sure enough, when Kagome walked into the living room, there was her brother, sitting on the floor with a controller in his hand and an incredibly focused look on his face.

"Don't you have homework to do?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Not looking up from his game, he replied "There's no school tomorrow. I'll do it later."

"Procrastinating won't help; go do your homework now and then you can play."

"Lectures on putting things off from you? So exactly how late did you stay up last night sis?" Souta said in a teasing voice.

"Er… not that late, um, that's not the point though! Oh… never mind." Defeated by her sibling's obvious logic (ouch it hurt to admit he was right!), Kagome left him to his game and headed back upstairs to her room. "I'll be in my room, okay? Mom should be back in a little bit, so be good 'til then." The only reply she received was a noncommittal "Mmm" as he was once more engrossed in his video game. "Those things will rot your brain you know," Kagome stated with a small sigh before walking back out of the living room and up to her own room once more.

Determined to set a good example, Kagome picked up her backpack and pulled out her weekend assignments. "Okay girl, from now on homework comes first. Right!" With that she grabbed a pencil and went after her work with a fury.

Fifteen minutes later, Kagome was staring out the window at her yard and making little doodles on the boarder of her paper. Straightening up, Kagome looked to see how much she had written so far. Well, at least she got the title down… 'Oh well, it's not like I have to do this right now. I have all weekend.'

Kagome leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs out and raising her arms above her head. Trying to work out a kink in her back, she leaned back even further and instead overbalanced and almost tipped the chair over. Almost. Just as before when she tripped on the way to school, Kagome felt a soft, barely discernible breeze and got the feeling someone or something had just kept her from spilling onto the floor.

"Not clumsy huh?"

Kagome froze at the sound of an unfamiliar voice in her room. As if in some cheesy horror film, she turned slowly in her chair to look behind her.

And was suddenly angry when once again, there was no one there.

"Alright! That's it! Who is that? Souta, are you trying to trick me again?" Of course it wasn't her brother though, because she would have heard him come in and as she listened closely, she could still here him playing his game downstairs, yelling softly at it occasionally. Realizing this, she was suddenly afraid again, if only for her own sanity. "Okay…is, um, is someone there?" A blush rose in her cheeks as she recognized that she was probably talking to an empty room or at the most, some very attentive dust bunnies. 'Good thing no one is here to witness this embarrassing display of paranoia'. "I guess it was just the wind…" she mumbled, not even convincing herself.

She was just about to check the window for faulty sealing when…

"You…can hear me?"

Kagome stopped with her hand inches from the window frame and did one more quick survey of her room. Nope, still just the dust bunnies. Letting her hand drop and resigning herself to the fact that she was either hearing voices in her head, or that there was an invisible person in her room, Kagome softly replied, "Yes, I can hear you."

AN-I'll try and make chapters a decent size if I can, but keep in mind shorter chapters do make for quicker updates. ;-)

Bye for now and thanks for reading.