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Prologue

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"Is it…is it over?" Kagome asked as she shakily got to her feet before one leg went out and she crumpled to the ground. No one answered and it was then, and only then, that the miko realized something was wrong. While true that she hadn't seen Sango for quite some time and Miroku either, that...that didn't mean anything. They might have just gotten separated. Shippo was probably with them too. That had to be it. Maybe they just couldn't hear her? The main question really was where he went. Inuyasha, of course, had always been nearby until the very end but….but he hadn't answered either.

"Inuyasha? Where are you?" she called out and a distant gurgle had her blood turning to ice in her veins. Suddenly, her injured leg meant nothing and she found herself stumbling towards the sound until her heart stopped beating. There he lay with the jewel clasped in his bloodied palm – his head lolled in her direction with a strange bittersweet smile playing on his crimson stained lips. How long Kagome had held her hand to the gaping hole in his stomach she wasn't sure, but no matter the pressure she applied the blood had still gushed between her fingers and oozed under her hand. Time itself had become irrelevant as the moments she spent pleading with him to look at her, to stay with her, feeling the very fluid of his life drain away over her cold hands, felt like nothing at all. Seconds could have been hours, or hours mere seconds. Those amber eyes had conveyed his silent apology and something else she couldn't really read in the moment before the light behind them went out. Just like that he was gone to a place she couldn't follow.

Numbly getting to her feet, she began the painful task of finding the others. One by one by one she found them. Each new body another knife in her heart. How did she miss this? What on earth had she been doing? How could she have failed them so throughly? A strangled sob escaped her as she found little Shippo and she sank to her knees willing her own heart to give out.

There had to be something she could do. Some way to atone for failing them so throughly. Sniffling miserably, she turned red tinged eyes back towards Inuyasha's limp body and looked down at the jewel still clasped in his fist.

Forcing herself onto her knees, it took all of the strength she possessed to make her feet move forward and to pry the jewel out of his stiff fingers.

Swaying as she stood up, she took a steadying breath as she met Inuyasha's unseeing gaze before sniffing once and making her wish.

'I wish that everyone who died because of Naraku would come back to life,' she prayed silently and she felt a warmth in her palm. Tensing, she waited and waited and waited before finally a strange ethereal male voice spoke.

'What will you sacrifice in return?' the voice asked calmly and Kagome let out a manic sounding laugh that was cut short when it continued, 'All magic comes with a price. What is the price that you will pay?'

'What do I need to do?' Kagome replied desperately after a moment, 'Do you need my life for theirs? I'll do anything. Just bring them back.'

'The memory of you,' the jewel answered in that same maddeningly calm tone, 'No one brought back will know your name. No one brought back will ever know you even existed. This is the price you must pay. To be forever forgotten and replaced by another.'

Kagome swallowed thickly but nodded once before the world around her vanished in a brilliant white light.