After All

Chapter 2

Kagome gasped as her eyes shot open, the nightmare she had just experienced leeching itself from her memory. She glanced around, expecting the dull light to be from a crackling fire surrounded by her feudal family, only to be disappointed when she was met with the drawn curtains that dulled the light from her window.

She had prayed that her return to the modern era was just a dream, but it was obvious that the gods just couldn't give her a break. The anger that she had felt the night before was gone, now replaced with a deep pit of sadness.

Negative thoughts swirled in her mind as she curled up under her blankets. Thoughts of her family, now long gone, spending the rest of their lives wondering where she could have gone. She wondered if they ever forgot about her.

Her thoughts then travel to her demonic friends. She knew theoretically they could still be alive, but they never visited her whenever she would come back to the modern era, so she couldn't help but think either they had died or forgotten about her existence. 500 years was a very long time to keep a person in your memory.

She then thought of her modern friends, the ones who she had unintentionally pushed away during her second year in highschool. She was gone so often that she never saw them, and eventually they had all moved on. She knew they were likely at university now, with a whole new group of friends.

She would never be able to attend university, as she had practically dropped out, only getting just good enough grades to graduate but not nearly good enough to apply for a university in Japan. Not to mention even if she was able to go to college, she doubted she would be able to make any friends, as her interests and life experiences were so out of touch with what went on in this era.

She knew she had missed many major events in the last 5 years, and even more in just the last year as she hadn't even come home to visit her family, as she was too busy tracking down the last few shards, and then Naraku.

Kagome simply couldn't wrap her head around what she would do in this era. She would never be happy working at a convenience store or in a blue collar job. At one point she had thought of becoming a doctor, or a history teacher if she stayed in this era, but that was now out of the question.

The world began to spin as Kagome tried to think of her future, but all she could imagine were jobs that would feel like she had failed herself and the lineage of Monks and Priestesses that came before her.

To think, Lady Kagome, the Shikon Miko, resigned to bagging groceries and stocking shelves.

It was some sort of sick joke.

Kagome had never thought much of herself as a Miko, what with Kikyo’s shadow hanging over her and all, but she had enough respect for herself and her profession that she would feel gutted if she had to do anything that didn't use her Miko training in some way.

Tears soaked into her pillow as she cried quietly, her sorrow making it difficult to see what path she could take.  Eventually she fell back asleep, plagued with nightmares of her friends dying, them calling out for her to help them, but her being unable to help as she no longer existed.

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Rumiko, Kagome's mother, sighed sadly as she looked down at her daughter's tear stained face. The young woman whimpered slightly in her sleep, curling into her pillow as she dreamt a terrible dream. Rumiko brushed Kagome's bangs from her face, watching as her eldest child calmed slightly at the contact. 

It had been nearly a day since they found her in the well, the image of her bloody daughter sobbing and trying to break through the bottom of the well seared into her mind. She could still see her daughter's broken eyes as she looked up, her face covered in blood and grime. It reminded her of the images she had seen of men who had seen the horrors of war. Rumiko was saddened that her sweet baby girl was forced into such turmoil, especially at such a young age.