Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Welcome to the newly-renovated edition of my story, What If? I hope you enjoy!

What if Kagome wasn't from the future?
What if Kagome was really from the past: long before Inuyasha was conceived, before Sango and Miroku's grandparents were born?
What if Kagome lied?
Kagome has always been a happy-go-lucky girl, content to follow Inuyasha and their friends on a quest to defeat Naraku, though she has no real grudge toward him, and destroy the Jewel of the Four Souls, though her life has not personally been touched by its power.
What is she doing here?
She's incredibly powerful under her seemingly naive exterior, but she seldom draws that power to the surface.
That's all anyone knows about her.
Except one man—one daiyoukai.

This is their story.

Prologue

The priests all knew what was to come.

For years, they had harbored among them knowledge of a prophecy, one which foretold of a child born to Ryūjin-sama and one of his mortal lovers. Which lover that would be was of some question, until she inadvertently revealed herself to those awaiting the signs. The woman had shown some glimpse of power, power that should have only belonged to a kami—power that did not belong to any kami in existence, and there were many hundreds in total. Only then did it become certain: this woman, this pathetic mortal scrap of a human, was to bear a child that would one day destroy the Jewel of Four Souls that had so recently come into being.

The children of kami, if raised in the ways of their immortal kin, could be at their height of power and maturity within seconds of their physical birth. Likewise, it could take centuries for a particularly powerful kami to fully mature.

It was a chance the priests, ever mindful of the prophecy, could not take. The Jewel could not be destroyed, not yet. There were lives to be changed, souls to be forged in its wake. If this child were born and fully manifested before those lives had been altered, who knew what havoc that could wreak on the mortal realm?

No, far lesser was the risk of killing the babe before it could become the destroyer of the Jewel, and waiting for another to fulfill the prophecy. Rather that than have the power source banished before its time had come.

And so, after a tortuous labor, the mortal lover of the kami and her newborn child were cast into the sea, and left for dead. Ryūjin-sama need never know of this act of fate. Instead, the priests gave the servants some story of her death in childbed, and quietly celebrated their victory.

On the shore of a remote village many leagues from Ryūgū-jō, a lone inu-daiyōkai stood. Despite his long years filled with many gruesome sights, the one before him still shook him to his core.

For at his feet lay two figures: the grey, exhausted face of a woman and, partly hidden beneath her chest, a mewling infant. The daiyōkai's golden eyes skipped over the woman with pity, for she was clearly dead. Instead, he focused on the babe. It was a strange child, he thought. While it had likely been lying there for hours before he had stumbled upon it if the smell coming from the mother were any indication of time, it still did not cry outright. It made a pitiful, keening whine instead, much like a newborn pup seeking its mother's teat.

Holding his breath, the daiyōkai bent at the waist and gently pushed the dead woman off of her child. The weight would probably crush the babe before long. As soon as the dead woman had been removed, the babe's scrunched up, mewling features went lax. Then, it opened large, grey-blue eyes and looked at the great dog demon.

The yōkai started. This was not the passing glance of an infant taking in its surroundings. This was the piercing stare of a sentient creature, something that understood exactly what it seeing and sought to analyze it. It was unsettling, to say the least—and yet, there in the infant's grey-blue gaze bleary with exhaustion, the inu-yōkai saw someone else. Someone else who had judged him in exactly this way on the day of his own birth: the dog lord's own young son, Sesshōmaru.

After a moment, it became apparent that whatever the bizarre infant saw in the daiyōkai, it liked. It let out a happy giggle that soon dissolved into a gurgle—the poor thing was clearly starving—and it lifted its pudgy arms, demanding to be picked up.

The yōkai did not want to touch the babe, for fear of leaving his scent on it. He had many powerful enemies, enemies that would gleefully ignore this child's human and immortal heritage and assume, out of spite, that it belonged to him and slay it. But neither could he just leave it out here to die. Clearly, this child was something special. He wasn't quite certain where it came from, but he had his suspicions. If they were correct, this child was meant for far greater things than a death of starvation on a dry, sandy beach. He wanted to watch this babe as it grew and developed into its fate.

Decision made, he drew one of the three swords resting in wooden sheaths at various points on his person and, raising it above his head, created an enormous explosion, one that rocked the foundations of the earth and created a beam of light that could be seen from many miles around.

Focusing his keen ears, the daiyōkai listened as the shrine back in the trees not far from the beach began buzzing with activity, and knew that some of their priests or priestesses would soon be out here to investigate and inspect the damage.

Satisfied that the babe would be well looked-after by the holy tenders of the shrine and raised in a place where he could easily check up on it, the yōkai fled the area and returned home to his wife and young son, his thoughts still consumed with the image of a startlingly intelligent, grey-eyed infant.