"Oh, are we talking about me?" a girl's voice asked. Rilly stepped out of the shadows. "Hey, how come Goku gets to meet her?"
"Hello Rilly." InuYasha greeted her. "Where are Koro and Utau?" To Kagome he explained, "Jinenji's daughter, and Kanna and Kohaku's son."
"I sent them home." Rilly replied. "After Niall told me you wanted Goku to meet her."
"And where's your father?" InuYasha inquired.
"Off playing strip poker with Uncle Ginta and Uncle Hakkaku."
"I am not." Koga said, walking up behind her.
"I know, Dad. That's why I said it." she said cheerfully, turning to hug him.
"Kami, you're just like your mo-KAGOME?!?" he yelped, seeing her. "But-but, Tenseiga didn't work! How-" InuYasha coughed loudly. Koga fell silent immediately.
But the damage had already been done.
Kagome looked at them with narrowed eyes. "I think you're about to tell me why, exactly, you haven't seen me in five hundred years."
Goku and Rilly exchanged glances. "When they don't tell her, five bucks says she cries." Goku commented. "Dad said she did that a lot."
"No way." Rilly shot back. "From what I heard, she's gonna kick your dad's ass." Goku glared at her.
"You see…ummm…ahhh…well…" Koga hemmed and hawed.
Kagome raised a single eyebrow.
"You died, Kagome." InuYasha said quietly.
"Wow." Rilly said, wide-eyed. "She's good." Goku agreed.
Even five hundred years later, with them married, and her apparently dead, Kagome still has those two wrapped around her fingers.
Kagome raised the other eyebrow. "And…?"
Koga and InuYasha fell over themselves to explain. "It was the final battle with Naraku. We were all there: Sesshomaru, Kikyo, Miroku, Sango, Kirara, me, what was left of my pack, you, and mutt-face. Shippo and Rin were at the old lady's village, with Ah-Un, and Jaken." Koga began.
"Naraku had no more doppelgangers. Kanna and Kagura betrayed him, defected to us, with Kohaku. You purified the shard in his back, so Naraku couldn't control him any more." InuYasha continued.
"It was total chaos. None of us got away uninjured. But, in the middle of the fighting, we were all separated. We…we didn't realize, that, in all the confusion…" Koga's voice faltered.
"Naraku knew he was done. But before he died, he managed one, last, spiteful act…" InuYasha looked at the ground.
Kagome connected the dots. "He killed me."
InuYasha nodded. "He used miasma. By the time we got to you, your body…the Tenseiga couldn't…I…" InuYasha couldn't finish.
"When does this happen?" Kagome asked.
"Right after the new moon." Koga said softly. Kagome looked up at the sky.
The moon was half gone.
Kagome turned to walk away. InuYasha's voice stopped her.
"Kagome…what are you going to do?" he asked.
She didn't turn around.
"I'm going to make sure history repeats itself." she said in a whisper, knowing those youkai ears could hear every word she said.