Chapter 1: An Unbelievable Return

Kagome Higurashi awoke with a start to the blaring disturbance that was her alarm clock. A cold sweat drenched her entire body and she chuckled at this. It seemed that her mind had adjusted to the sadness and horror this dream brought unto her nightly, but her body, it seemed, still had not.

She looked at her alarm clock and smiled slightly as tears began to spring to her eyes once again. It was so odd how all this time after his death, the smallest; most seemingly, insignificant things seemed to remind her of him. Take her alarm clock, for instance. She still remembered vividly that time almost three years ago, about the time they first ran into Kouga. They had been fighting over another trivial matter and she had run home to be away from him for a while.

She remembered how he had come in during the night to observe her and her alarm clock had gone off, completely startled him and caused him to spaz out. So much so, in fact, that he ended up smashing her alarm clock into an unrecognizable tangle of wires and plastic. She recalled laughing inwardly at how, days later, when she had returned, he had presented her with the tangled mass and an apology, which, he had refused to admit was for the things he had said to her.

Still, she hauled herself into her bathroom cleanse herself of the sweat which encompassed every pore on her body. She hated that dream. She had had it every night for the past two years since he had...died. Frankly, it was beginning to grow quite annoying.

She was done with school for good now, so she took her time showering and dressing. She was glad, because this meant she no longer had to fake illnesses just to visit her friends through the time-portal in the old Bone-Eater's Well on her family's shrine grounds. She now relished jumping into the well which transported her back in time to the Warring States Era of Japan.

Today, she would dress in her best kimono and go to her family shrine. She now longer lived with her mother and jii-san. She now had her own apartment, into which she had brought her own little cat (her brother had refused to give up Buyo) and had decorated the small apartment to her tastes.

Weekly, she would go to visit with her friends in times now long past in the Sengoku era.

Daily, she would go to visit him. She had buried him beneath the Goshinboku where they had met for the first time, about 3½ years ago. She had erected a mini-shrine atop his grave, which contained a memorial tablet and an incense holder.

She had not, however, left at the grave his treasured Tetsusaiga nor did she leave his haori, which was sewn from the fur of the fire rat. The Tetsusaiga sat on a stand in her bedroom while she wore the haori constantly everywhere she went.

She pulled on the beloved haori, tucked her wallet and cell phone into her small, drawstring bag, and made her way out the door to her car. She would visit him again today and she would once again cry over his grave as she asked him over and over the one question she never seemed to get an answer to: Why and When? Why did he have to die in the first place? And when would he be back, like he promised? When would he return for her?

She drove and drove until she reached the familiar stairway that signified that she had reached the place of her birth, the Sunset Shrine. She hauled her body from the vehicle and began to make her way up the long staircase, staring at her feet the whole way. She was beginning to wonder if today would be any different when she collided heavily with another body, making its way down the same staircase which she herself now traversed.

"Gomen nasai; I'm so sorry! Please, forgive me! I wasn't watching where I was going!"

She bent to retrieve the cap which had fallen from his head during the collision.

"Well, jeez. You should at least watch where you're going. Stupid wench. Hey! That's my cap!"

He swiped the cap away from her and she looked up suddenly as the familiar voice escaped from the lips of the young man in front of her. It couldn't be! Not here! It was almost impossible! But yet, there he was. His long, shimmering, silver hair tied up into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck as his all too familiar silver dog ears sparkled in the breeze which had blown off the baseball cap he had previously donned in an attempt to hide the sparkling silver ears atop his cranium. His attitude towards her confirmed immediately her suspicions as to his identity.

"I-Inu...Inuyasha!"

He stared at her in utter confusion. Was she correct? Was this him? Had he finally been returned to her?

"Listen, lady, I don't know who you are or why you are calling me 'Inuyasha,' but my name is Ian. I'm from America. Now, if you'll excuse me I must be going."

He turned and began to walk down the stairs and away from her. But she wasn't about to let him go that easily. She needed him! She had waited so long, and now… he was leaving her…again. She couldn't bear it. She knew without a doubt that if he walked out of her life now, she would never forgive herself and that her heart would truly shatter into a thousand pieces, never to be repaired.

"Hey, you; Ian, wait!"

He continued walking, completely ignoring her words.

"Hey! I said hey! Wait up!"

She reached out and took hold of his shoulder, spinning him around to face her. What she saw when his eyes met hers, was a sight she had hoped never to see again. His eyes, his previously bright golden eyes had darkened to an all too familiar shade of deep crimson.

His iridescent silver hair which had sparkled in the sunlight had faded to a darker shade of black. He reached his hand up and took hold of her wrist quite sharply, effectively startling her and removed it from his shoulder as she stared into the face of her ever hated nemesis: Naraku.

"Don't you ever touch me again, do you hear me? I don't want no filthy human touching me."

"I-Ian? Ian…Ian, please… you're…you're hurting me. Ian? Ian is that you?"

"No, Kagome. It is I, Naraku," he chuckled and smiled treacherously into her trembling face. "Have you missed me?"