Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Inuyasha characters. Rumiko Takashi sadly owns them all.

Authors note: This is a story that I wrote ages ago, and I am in the process of re-writing it. It follows the same pattern, but I am proof reading, editing, and ripping it up to make it follow a cleaner arc. Anyone who has loved this story as is, I hope that you can come to accept my revisions, and hopefully, by the end of January it will finally be a completed work. Thank you for taking the time to read this! Feel free to leave any kind of feedback you like. I love critics as much as fans, and I welcome you all! Enjoy~

-Miztaken4Beautiful

"Talking"

'thoughts'

Chapter One

Kagome kicked another offending tree root. Why were there so many of them anyway? It was almost as if someone wanted to watch her fall.

"Did I offend some powerful deity in my past life? Did I do something to deserve… Oh yeah…Kikyo…. Well, hell." She glared at another annoying root, poking ever-so-slightly out of the ground. It wanted to trip her. She just knew it.

Kikyo had been the bane of her existence lately. Somehow she was back from the dead…again… can't the damnable woman take a hint? Maybe after the first couple of times that you die, you should stay dead. Yes… A re-dead Kikyo twice or so removed sounded ever so appealing to Kagome at the moment.

Under normal circumstances Kagome wouldn't be one to complain about the rest she'd been getting lately. The typically shard obsessed hanyou had been acting very out of character recently. He had deviated from showing her affection. He wouldn't look her in the eyes as of late, and when she did catch his gaze it was empty- almost like he was looking through her, or afraid to actually see her. And like clockwork, every day before the sun had even had the chance to set; he would stop and tell everyone to make camp.

Normally, Kagome had to twist his arm or use her favorite vocabulary word to convince him to so much as stop for a five minute break.

It wasn't until a month or so after the behavior had started that the reason for her favorite hanyou's bizarre behavior presented itself; in the form of a ghostly soul-stealer no less. Everything clicked into place and Kagome was VERY displeased. Once they returned to Kaede's village, she informed Inuyasha that she needed to go home for some tests, and he quickly indulged her. Too quickly.

She was currently on her way home about a fifteen minute walk and she'd be at the well. Leading a double life was tiring- returning to endure school which she had fallen out of sync with (her grades could attest to that…) and the pity filled glances of her friends who were convinced once more that she was suffering from some chronic illness. Did love sickness count? Or maybe it was stupidity, because Kagome had to be an idiot to put up with this much B.S.

A demonic presence tickled the edges of her senses, and she instinctively reached for her bow and arrows. Which were noticeably not there. "Oh…" she muttered, "hell." Why in the name of Kami did she trek across feudal Japan (this time period is known as the warring states era for a reason!), without the one weapon she could wield with a hint of merit!? Gah… It was all Inuyasha's fault!

"Such language," an icy voice chastised.

If possible, Kagome's saucer-sized brown eyes grew even wider. 'No… not even my luck can possibly be that terrible.' Turning in slow motion to face the origin of the voice, she felt an odd connection with the girls in the horror movies, the ones who always spin around just to be impaled by some strange and unappealing object. This was definitely some horrible cosmic joke and someone either had it out for her, or they had a terrible sense of humor.

The Taiyoukai of the West stood in all his splendor; glossy silver hair dancing in the wind, pristine clothes clinging to a well-muscled body, icy demeanor… yup. In some past life she must have murdered helpless kittens.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why is my brother's pet so far away from his protection?"

Kagome bristled and counted to ten in her head. Pet? Even Sesshomaru had down-graded her? At least before she was Inuyasha's wench or woman or something. Now she was his pet? She was sick of being considered that bastard's –or anyone's for that matter- anything. She was her own person, damn it! She sent the stoic lord a pointed look, before brushing by him without dignifying him with an answer. 'Asshole!' She. Was. Fuming.

Sesshomaru, our lovely high and mighty lord, wasn't a fan of being ignored.

"Wench," he commanded, his tone leaving no room for debate.

Said wench never paused as she proceeded to the well. It was only about fifteen feet away, and she had no intention of sticking around to be taunted or insulted any farther than she already had by those bastard brothers. Oh, yes, this entire charade was almost over. She reached the lip of the well before she was accosted.

Sesshomaru caught her wrist in his hand and held fast. He wasn't exactly hurting her. No acid seeped into her skin and her bones were intact, but he was definitely being a major pain in her ass. "Do not annoy me woman." Sesshomaru growled out. "I have questions that only you can answer presently."

Kagome snapped. First she was jilted by one brother, now she was being hounded by another. Why couldn't they just leave her in peace for a bit? She wrenched at her wrist, twisting and jerking to gain her freedom, only to have the hand snap around her neck. Effectively ceasing her struggles and forcing her to make eye contact with him.

She met the eyes that reminded her far too much of Inuyasha, but they weren't. They were colder; like frozen honey. He forced her backwards and her legs struck the lip of the well, his youki pressed against her, causing little pin-prick sensations to crawl over her skin.

She was uncomfortable. She could see him so clearly. She couldn't help comparing and contrasting his features with Inuyasha. She wondered if that was what Inuyasha did, too. Did he often catch himself looking at her and seeing only another with similar features? Almost immediately Kagome felt guilt strike her, as well as the familiar sorrow that had colored her life off and on during her stint in the feudal era. She was done. She wasn't sticking around for this interrogation. Or the aftermath. She was already free; he just hadn't realized it yet.

She grabbed his yellow sash and jerked, trying to distract him while her other hand wrapped around a plastic bottle in the side pocket of her pack. He released her throat to snatch her hand still clenched around the fabric. He only had one hand and Kagome planned to use that to her advantage.

She glanced up at him and froze. His eyes were changing crimson. Fear prickled her senses, but she forced it away, only allowing a hint of arrogance to color her face. A smirk curled the edge of her lips. It almost satisfied her to see him a little less than perfect. His normally stoic face was perturbed, but only a mild pink tint remained to attest to his short temper.

Sesshomaru did not like to feel played with; especially not by his brother's comrade. "Why are you smiling, Inuyasha's whore?" His gruff tone sent chills up her spine; the frosty demeanor didn't surprise her though. Sesshomaru's voice could freeze hell itself over all on its own. But she wouldn't let him know that she was afraid. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Kagome's smile grew even wider. "Because I'm leaving." Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes at the human miko, his already barely existent patience fading fast with this woman's perpetual impertinent behavior. She wasn't leaving. Not when he had so many questions he needed answered. Like why he was starting to have recollections of her. Initially he thought it was just a human who bore a resemblance to her; perhaps Kikyo or some previous incarnation. But the clearer these memories became, the more and more he was sure it was the exact same girl.

"Leaving? But the fun has yet to begin."

In an instant, Kagome sprayed her body spray in Sesshomaru's face and shoved herself backwards into the well. The strong scent surprised Sesshomaru enough that he didn't get the chance to capture her again. With the familiar blue flash of ancient magic, Kagome was home, Sesshomaru's yellow sash still gripped firmly in her hand. She looked down in horror at the traitorous appendage.

She just effectively maced the Taiyoukai of the west with Victoria's Secret body spray. Love Spell, to be exact. 'This is definitely not good.' She thought letting her head rest against the ground and tossing the offending material away.

Two weeks later and Inuyasha had not come to get her. Kagome realized that he probably wasn't going to, either. He had his precious Kikyo now, right? Why would he want the inferior copy? She stomped home from school on Thursday, avoiding Hojo and her friends. Passerbies removed themselves from her way; the infuriated look on her face was more than a little intimidating.

She was going back to the past today, and that was final! She shattered the stupid jewel and she would be damned if she was excluded from the hunt in favor of a clay-doll! Oh, no, no, no! She was so not being replaced! He could have Kikyo, but not her friends. Not the other precious people she had left behind in that old, dusty well. She stepped inside, waving cheerfully to her mother and running up stairs to grab the necessities. She needed her game face on. Soon the war would begin!

She hurriedly packed her obnoxious yellow backpack before she ran out of the door, a casual, "Goodbye!" tossed over her shoulder. She scrambled out of the back door and skidded to a halt in front of the well house. Payback was going to be such a bitch.

Looking at the well, she got the eeriest feeling that something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. She looked to the yellow material in the well; even in the dark it seemed to accuse her. She had a sudden premonition that something was amiss. But curiosity, her greatest quality and most fatal fault, won supreme and she jumped down the rabbit hole once more to play the heroine in fates divine comedy.

She jumped into the bone eaters well, expecting to end up in the Sengoku Jidai. But fate, the fickle mistress of all mortal creatures had a sinister plan for her latest heroine.

Smiling up at the sky and the clean smelling air, Kagome began the heinous climb from the pit of the well into the surface world. When her head peeked over the edge of the well, she immediately sensed something was awry. She headed to the Goshinboku to find the hanyou that had been plaguing her thoughts for the last couple of weeks. He owed her an explanation.

Sesshomaru stopped. The air had changed, bringing forth the taste of magic and the scent of a human woman. The magic was like none he had ever felt before. Curious to the appearance, he turned to find the source of this small- and in all probability pointless- mystery.

Kagome froze when she felt a rather familiar and annoying aura pressing onto hers. 'You cannot possibly be serious. No… I refuse to believe that the Lord of the West has nothing better to do than stalk a hapless human girl in his down time. Doesn't he have a hobby or something?' After her last sass and dash she thought he would've gone back to whatever the hell he normally did- harassing Inuyasha for the Tetsusaiga or something. Well. At least she remembered her make-shift mace.

She bit her lip. 'This was definitely no good.' That thought seemed to be her mantra as of late.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, she turned on her heel and decided to give her would-be stalker a piece of her mind. And it was going to be a damn large piece for the headache he was causing her. "Show yourself Sesshomaru!" She moved her eyes across the clearing, nearly stumbling when the subject of her previous internal rant materialized before her very eyes. "You have got to stop doing that!" Hands on her hips, she was most definitely done.