You wouldn't think that a girl with a name like Higurashi would be related to someone with a name like O'Neil, but then, Higurashi was her mother's name, not her father's. Living in Japan, having her mother's name was safer for a girl whose only indication of any foreign blood was her blue eyes. In America, on the other hand, it was easier to be an O'Neil. If for no other reason than it was easier for everybody to say right.

Her aunt was the only family still alive on her father's side of the family. Her dad had died not long after Souta was born. An earthquake and ripped open the street he was walking down, and some part of a building had fallen onto him. He'd died instantly, so at least he hadn't suffered. It had just been the family that had suffered, feeling the absence of him.

After she'd finally finished middle school, and her horrific quest that took up so much of her time and caused her to be held back a year, Kagome had decided she needed – not just wanted, but needed – a change. Living with her aunt in New York might not have been a totally safe choice, but the shrine had a few too many memories, and Tokyo was too safe after all her adventures in the Sengoku era. She'd managed to get through most of high school before the dullness drove her to this point, but she still had a year to go.

One thing for sure though, she wouldn't have to worry about demons or spirits hunting her down for the Shikon no Tama in New York. Places that were as industrialised, covered in concrete and metal, and as heavily populated by 'stinking humans' as New York was... weren't too popular with demons and spirits. Demons had too sensitive ears and noses to care much for big cities, and spirits – particularly American ones (Kagome had done her research) – were much more inclined towards places that had more nature.

New York might have had Central Park, and Central Park might have been fairly expansive, but the excessive amounts of city more than negated that. There might be a few of the smaller nature sprites – the kind that didn't need more than a flower or two to flourish – among the garden beds of Central Park, but they wouldn't bother Kagome any.

Heck, Tokyo was too industrial for most demons, and it had a lot more areas dedicated to temples and the like spread throughout. The only spirits hanging around were ones that were attached specifically to some specific bit of plant life or shrine, and not every shrine had a spirit hanging about either. The Higurashi Shrine, where Kagome had grown up, had plenty of power hanging around because of the Goshinboku and the Bone Eater's Well, but still no patron spirits.

"I don't get why you're moving to New York," Yuka complained with a pout as she, Eri, and Ayumi all (a little reluctantly) helped Kagome pack for her inter-continental move.

"Yeah," Eri agreed. "People get advised by their doctors to go out to the country to regain their strength when they're recovering from illness, right? Why are you going to New York? And don't say it's because they've got better doctors. You know that's not true!"

Kagome sighed. After the first time she'd come back from the Sengoku and been asked about her rheumatoid arthritis, Kagome had gone to speak to the school's secretary. She was the one her friends had gotten that bit of information from.

Kagome had explained to the woman that a) her grandfather was senile, and b) she had cancer. If her grandfather told her any other illness, then that was whatever was bothering him at the moment, while Kagome was just being a guinea-pig for experimental procedures to find a cure for cancer – and she would also always let the school know in advance before she left for treatment.

That hadn't stopped the crazy rumours about Kagome suffering from all of her grandfather's many ailments, but it had cleared up matters with the administration.

"I'm going to New York because I want to," Kagome informed them. "I've wanted to go to New York since I was little, but Mama didn't want me to go until she was satisfied that I'd be able to take care of myself. My aunt isn't necessarily always going to be reliable, since she's a journalist and has to work long hours."

"Uh, Kagome?" Ayumi asked. "What's this bag?"

Kagome looked over and smirked. "Clothes that I'm not taking," she answered happily. "You girls can all help yourselves to them if you like."

Eri and Yuka dived on the fat garbage bag.

"Kagome!" Yuka exclaimed, shocked at what she found. "You're not taking any of your skirts?"

"Or your dresses?" Eri added, eyes large in her face.

Kagome laughed. She had extensive experience of running in skirts, and she didn't doubt that moving to New York would see her doing more running. Her aunt had sent her news of the unfortunately (but mercifully slowly) climbing crime-rate of New York, and Kagome didn't feel like flashing the perverts there her panties.

She didn't mind it in the Sengoku, mostly because there was hardly anybody around to see. When there were people around, the fact that she was showing off so much leg distracted people fairly well that she most times didn't have to run in populated areas. Low risk.

"I'm taking a few," she answered with a shake of her head. "But the kind that I wear over leggings. Most of those skirts would just cling with static if I wore them with anything underneath."

"Well, then I'm claiming this one!" Eri declared happily as she lifted up her prize – a red dress that she and Yuka had forced Kagome to buy the previous year. At the time, Kagome was the only one of them that had the body to pull it off, but Eri had (much to her delight) developed somewhat since then.

~oOo~

"Kagome!"

The girl smiled as she saw the person waving for her as she left customs. "Aunt April!" she answered happily.

"Good flight?" April asked with a smile as she hugged her niece.

"Long flight," Kagome corrected. "But I didn't have any unpleasant neighbours, so I was fine."

"Glad to hear it. Now let's get out of here," April suggested. "We'll get some pizza on the way home. You do like pizza, right?" April checked.

Kagome shrugged. "I'm more fresh produce and healthy home cooking in general, but I can murder a burger pretty fast. My friends and I never went for pizza though," she admitted.

April laughed. "Well, we'll get you a good New York Slice, and if you're still hungry, we'll go from there. Sound good?" she offered.

Kagome nodded.

"And once we've eaten, we'll get you settled in. And, uh, could you keep it quiet on the 'aunt'?" April requested with a slightly weak smile. "Just 'cause I'm a grown-up to your teenager, I don't want to be reminded that I'm getting older."

"Just 'April', then?" Kagome guessed.

April nodded. "Yeah," she agreed gratefully. "Alright, to Roy's Pizzeria!"

Kagome laughed at her aunt's enthusiasm, but happily went along with it. She was singing the praises of Roy's Pizzeria along with her aunt soon enough. They made a great slice.

~oOo~

Kagome smiled when she saw the building. Her aunt owned the place, had inherited it actually, and lived in the apartment above the antique shop that she kept, but practically never had open, because she was always busy with her job as a reporter.

"And my sentimentality is costing me money," April admitted with a wry smirk as she let Kagome into the building through the shop.

"I could run it," Kagome offered as she looked around, fascinated by all the antiques that were sitting around and – sadly – collecting dust. "I know my way around old things," she added with a smile.

April chuckled. "I'll bet you do, growing up in a shrine with all the old junk your grandfather has hanging around," she quipped. Then shrugged. "Sure," she agreed. "But only after school hours," she cautioned. "And if your grades start to slip, then you close up the shop until you're on top of everything again, alright? You make it work, and the business is yours to do what you like with when you've got your high school diploma."

Kagome beamed. "Deal!" she affirmed happily. "I won't be opening the shop up straight away though. You've really let everything get filthy in here. I've only seen this much mess in Souta's bedroom, and even that only once. Mama really got on his case about it," she confided with a giggle.

Not to mention, she'd have to write to her mother to send over all the treasures she'd brought back form her adventures. She finally had a place to sell them for herself. Every time she'd come back through the well, she'd brought back something that her family could sell to make up the money they spent on supplies for her and her friends.

She'd failed to take into account how much some things would sell for, so just a few items had paid for a year's worth of supplies. She had plenty still left over, and had learned a thing or fifty about the antiques business as a consequence.

Not that she would tell her aunt that.

April laughed in appreciation for the comparison between her shop and her nephew's bedroom, bringing Kagome back to the present and out of her thoughts. "Well, you take as much time as you need to get the place cleaned up to your satisfaction, and then just open it whenever. Like I said, as long as your grades don't suffer, the business is all yours. I hope you're good at keeping business records," she added.

Kagome nodded. "I helped out around the shrine during festivals, and during the last tax season. I'll get everything sorted out," she promised.

April nodded, satisfied. "Well, next stop, the apartment," she declared. "And we'll complete the tour on the roof before we go and get some food. You'll like the roof. It's somewhere fairly private where you can do your thing. Your ma said you were into all that fighting stuff?"

Kagome nodded in confirmation. "I'm pretty good at archery with a traditional Japanese bow, but a bit before I finished middle-school I started learning other things too."

"Well, as long as you don't break any of the neighbour's windows, it won't be a problem if you decide to take over the roof for your training space," April promised. "Just... don't leave stuff up there that isn't bolted down. Don't want to risk any of your stuff getting stolen."

Kagome nodded in understanding. "Thanks April."

~oOo~

Kagome's first order of business, after going through the inventory and records, had been a serious clean-up. Antique shops, in her experience, were always over-stocked and bore more of a resemblance to a junk shop than a place that had valuable antiques for sale. The place that April had inherited from her father, Kagome's grandfather O'Neil, had been no exception.

The second order of business was to find some auction houses, so that there was some actual floor-space in the shop, rather than clutter everywhere.

She'd even sold the old sign that said 2nd Time Around. It just wasn't classy, and antiques should be classy.

Cymbals: sold. Ancient wind-up toys: snapped up by some people who had grown up to be collectors. Very old jewellery: extremely popular with very old women. The old clothes had been taken by a fashion museum and a few private parties, and the stuffed shark had gone for a lot more than she had expected. The lamps had stuck around for a while, but they had gone as well.

The books had hung around longest, apart from some pieces of furniture. She'd just kept a few of the nicer pieces for display purposes.

Kagome was making contacts in the business world came from selling to them, rather than buying from them. She was developing the contacts though, and that was the important thing. When she decided she would be ready to shift her focus, she'd know who to call.

Right now, Kagome was having new glass installed in the windows of the shop. Thicker glass that would be harder to break, and tinted, because antiques shouldn't be exposed to too much direct light. Okay, so very little of New York got direct light, but it was still possible for the valuable antiques to fade if she displayed them in the windows for too long.

"You've really made this place your own," April commented as she watched Kagome set up the window displays in the wake of the parting glaziers. "It's hard to believe it's the same place. It looks more like a museum gallery than an antique shop now."

Kagome smiled. "I know how to deal with the junk my grandfather loved to keep," she said, amused. "Both of them," she added. After all, she'd grown up living with one grandfather who loved his antiques, however weird or not-at-all-collectable they were. It just happened to be something that had happened on both sides of the family.

"Hey now, it wasn't all junk," April protested with a fond smile.

Kagome nodded. "That's certainly true," she agreed, and lightly ran one hand over the gilded frame of a truly beautiful painting. Kagome had no idea how her O'Neil grandfather had come to possess it, but it was something that would draw a lot of attention from the art world as soon as she made it known that she had it, and for sale at that.

~oOo~

Kagome had been in New York for almost year. She'd gotten the shop in order, kept up a B-average in her classes, and had slowly but completely taken over all the cooking in the apartment, as well as about half the cleaning. The antique shop had been open all day during the week in her vacation times, and April was generous enough to not charge Kagome any kind of rent or ask for any of the money she made from the shop. As long as it wasn't losing her money any more, that was fine with her.

In that year, Kagome had also met April's boss, a man named Charles, and his son Danny, who was a year younger than Kagome herself was.

Most importantly to Kagome though was the progress she had made in her personal training on the roof. Having been forced to leave the traditional Japanese bow behind when she moved to America but not wanting to give up the discipline, she'd bought herself a modern compound bow, and she'd quickly gotten to the stage where she was hitting the bull's-eye of the target she'd set up every time again – the change in archery style had thrown her aim a bit at first.

Her other martial disciplines were harder to measure, since she didn't have a real opponent beyond the spinning wooden dummy she'd managed to cobble together. The movements flowed easier than they had though, and it took longer for her to work up a sweat than it used to. As much as she loved the bow, it just wasn't something that was practical to carry around these days, especially in New York. Carrying around a giant boomerang like Sango wasn't something Kagome really wanted to do either, and she was too young – in this era – to be walking around with a staff. It was too much like a walking stick.

As useful as she knew such items to be in a pinch, she really didn't need the extra stigma.

One thing that she had not been able to do in the near-year she'd been in New York was make any friends. The girls had sneered at her and her 'good girl' behaviour, and the boys had gone for the 'want a good time?' approach.

It hadn't taken Kagome two days before she had decided that she didn't need to – and wouldn't – put up with that, and after dealing with a couple of the worst offenders, her peers had come crawling on their bellies to her (metaphorically). As forgiving as Kagome was though, she had also grown up and learned her lesson. She didn't want, or need, friends like these kids.

Yes, Inuyasha had tried to kill her, but it hadn't been personal. The placement of the subjugation beads around his neck had given Kagome the security to have the opportunity to see that. Yes, Shippo had stolen from her and caused her to be placed in mortal peril, but he was a desperate child and he'd come back for her even when he couldn't really do anything himself. Yes, Miroku was a pervert and had (also) stolen from her and attempted harm against her. Once the situation was explained to him though, he had apologised profusely. Yes, Sango had tried to kill Inuyasha, but that was because she'd been lied to. Once that was straightened out, Sango had become like an older sister to Kagome. Even Sesshoumaru had become an ally in the end, but then, he'd only ever tried to kill her when Kagome herself had done something stupid to draw his ire.

These people didn't have any sort of mitigating circumstances though. They'd been petty and mean to her because they could be, and they'd come hoping for her favour and forgiveness because they saw that she wasn't one to let herself be pushed around.

Well, she wasn't one to be manipulated any more either.

Besides, she only had to put up with these brats who were her supposed peers for a year before she graduated.

Actually, Kagome's list of friends had been decidedly reduced by her decision to move. Eri, Yuka and Ayumi had slowly become more distant as time passed and it became clear that Kagome wouldn't be coming back to Tokyo any time soon. With her move across the ocean, Hojo was now no longer any kind of factor, and even if he had been, Kagome had no desire to keep up contact with him.

And for all that she'd been introduced to the son of her aunt's boss, and both of them came over to April's building now and then, Kagome hadn't really made friends with the slightly younger boy either. A lot of young Americans, Kagome had figured out pretty fast, didn't have any proper sense of family. For some of them that wasn't their fault, but Danny's father cared about him, and Kagome couldn't be friends with someone who didn't even respect their father.

Inuyasha may have said he didn't give a damn about his old man a few times, but Kagome knew he was lying each and every time. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, had always respected his father, respected the power of the Great and Terrible Inu no Taisho, even when he was dead and had broken Sesshoumaru's trust.

No, Kagome didn't have any friends in America. The closest she came was the sweet old lady who Kagome bought groceries from every other week.