Insert Change Here
Summary: Let's mix it up a little...yes, Misa found the Death Note, and yes she was happy for the death of her family's murderer...she was even still obsessed with Light...however...she wasn't completely fixated on Light...something was different...her heart wasn't beating for anymore for this corrupt soul who had once had such guiltless ideals for the 'New World'. So...what can one change do?
Anime/Manga: InuYasha/Death Note
Pairing: Misa/L (Kagome is introduced in this story, and she does play a major role in Misa's...Change...but her romance will start in the sequel, for now, please be patient with me.)
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rated: M for Mature
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December, 24, 1990
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"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, guide and guard me through the night, and wake me bless the morning light...amen..."
Two girls close to the age of six or seven were kneeled on opposite sides of a four post bed with a mahogany wood bed frame, white and pink comforter set and a torrent of pillows. They opened their eyes and smiled to one another. One, a light blonde with brown pious eyes; those eyes that told you that if she did something, anything, she would commit to it completely, body, mind and soul. The other, a girl with raven black hair and baby blue eyes, mindful of her surrounds, attentive, and assertive, she was always the...group leader out of the two.
"Kagome," The blonde called to the raven haired girl.
Kagome smiled, "Yes Misa?"
"Do you believe in god?"
"..." Kagome frowned, "I don't know. I mean, I guess...why?"
"Well, no reason, it's just I've never seen him..."
Kagome laughed, "Have you ever seen Santa?"
"Uh...no, I guess I haven't." Misa blushed.
"Well, he's real, so just because we can't see him, doesn't mean he's not there. In fact...I think, when you see Santa, it loses it's meaning, it takes away from the magic and mystery of Christmas...I don't think I want to see god, because...then, it will seem just as solid and un heavenly as everything else on earth. I like the thought of angels watching over us, and god making sure all of his children are created equally and treated fairly and justly."
"Wah~! Kagome! Stop, you're doing it again! You go into those big words and start confusing me!"
Kagome blushed, "Sorry."
Misa climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. "Kagome, where did your mom go?"
Kagome climbed in next to her, "Mom left...she got sad when daddy died, so she left."
"Then my mom took you here?"
"No...not quite...she called asking for mom, and when I told her she'd left, well, your mom rushed over to pick me up. She said, 'your mother will come back, I'm sure, but for now, why not stay with us. It could be like...an extended sleepover.' And now...here I am."
"...I want Kagome to stay with us, forever."
Kagome smiled, moving closer to Misa, she took the smaller girl in her arms. She could here the distant chimes of the grandfather clock in the Amane residence signaling twelve o'clock. "Merry Christmas, Misa."
"Merry Christmas…Kagome..."
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January, 28, 2004
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"Alright everybody! Clean up time!"
"AHHH~"
"Ah-un! No whining, girls get the stuffed animals, boys, the blocks, you guys know where everything goes, you're all smart kids."
"Miss. K...?"
Kagome smiled down at the little girl, "Yes Yumi?"
"The parent teacher conference is this week, right?"
Kagome crouched down to eye level, "That's right,"
"Daddy can't make it..."
"Oh?" Kagome frowned, "Why not, oh...wait, that's right, your father works for the NPA. Alright, tell your dad that the next day he has off will be fine, I'm here school days till five, and Saturday till seven."
"KAY!" Yumi hugged her and ran off to help clean.
'Hmm...he doesn't really have to come...Yumi is one of my best students...even if it's only first grade, she's still the brightest student in here.' She walked to a filing cabinet and opened the top drawer, "..." flipping files till her fingers rested on the third one in, 'Aizawa, Yumi. Scores are all green, she hasn't had any red days...she's making ninety's and hundreds on her vocabulary, her ABC's are memorized, she is starting level two books next week, and...Her addition and subtraction are the same as her vocabulary grades...she's a really bright girl...she must be making her parents so proud.' Kagome smiled, looking around the class, she placed the file back in the drawer and shut it tightly before clapping her hands loudly three times. The room quieted down and everyone turned to face her. "Alright, we're going to get in a single file line and go down to the library, starting this week, we are going to have brothers and sisters!"
"EHHHHH~!"
Kagome laughed, "Sorry, let me explain. The principle has a new program, that let's the students in our sister school, care for a student in this school. See, what's going to happen, is during your homeroom class, and their homeroom class, you are going to meet in the library and get to do activities with them, like read out loud, puzzles, arts and crafts...all sorts of fun things. We will choose your 'brother or sister' for you, so no pick and choose. Also, other classes are doing the same thing in different places, like the study hall, cafeteria, and lecture hall; this is something everybody is doing. Thankfully, not everyone has homeroom at the same time."
She clapped her hands three times again as the kids started getting loud with excitement, "Single file line, quietly walk to the library, I'll get the lights." She waited till everyone was in line, "Alright, start marching!" She smiled as they all started down the hall, neatly and orderly. She flipped the light switch and followed quietly behind her class. They stopped at the doors, like they always did when they went to the library, "Now, quietly, go inside, and find the seat with your name on it." She opened the door for them and they entered silently, teenagers were sitting down, watching the kids file in, waiting for the screaming, but it never came. Kagome prided herself on her class; it was the most well behaved class in the school. Her class always was.
"Now...students have been chosen, when I call your name, and correct me please, if I say it wrong, when I call your name, please raise your hand." Kagome took the list gently from the male instructors name and thanked him, bowing respectfully. "Aizawa, Yumi..." She smiled as Yumi raised her hand, "And, Yagami, Sayu..." Another girl raised her hand, with black hair and deep brown eyes, a sweet disposition left Kagome relaxed with the pair up. "You two can find a seat wherever you like and start getting to know each other."
Sayu smiled and held her hand out to Yumi who took it and walked shyly next to the outgoing teenager.
"Kita─"
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Kagome sighed, finally everyone had been picked up from school, she'd of course wished them a good day, and reminded them of the parent and teacher conference that was coming up in four days. She sat down in her chair and decided to rest her eyes for the time, she had nothing else to do today except for grading papers, and that wasn't necessarily difficult as a first grade teacher.
Her eyes fell, and she soon found herself plummeting into a nightmare...one she had tried hard to forget.
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May, 19, 2003
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Dreamscape
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"─nd he was all, 'is your daddy a thief?' And I was shocked, like...what? No, of course not! Then he goes, 'then who stole the sparkle of the stars and put them in your eyes?' I was stunned silent, hahaha~"
Kagome smiled at her friend and little sister like figure. "So...you two are dating now?"
Misa grinned, "YEP!"
The two made their way back home, chatting away without much care for anyone who was watching or staring at them. They came to the front steps of the house and climbed up to the front door before Misa pulled out the house key. Kagome heard the sound of a window opening and walked to the corner of the house, Misa followed and both watched as a man climbed out from the window and stared straight at them. Both froze when he grinned before jumping the fence and taking off. Kagome grabbed the key from Misa and unlocked the door before throwing it open. "...Kou-Kun!" Kagome ran forward to a young boy who lay motionless in a pool of his own blood, her hands pulled him into her lap as her eyes became wide and wild with fear. "Misa! Call the police!"
Misa could only nod, her eyes hollow, no longer able to process what had happened. Her brother...Kouichi Amane...he was dead.
"...Kouichi..." Kagome cried, she had taken a liking to the young boy, she'd even adopted a brother complex and had become compelled to doting the child as if her were her own brother. She laid the child down carefully, she pulled her school jacket off and lay it over his head and chest before standing to find Mr. and Mrs. Amane. Her white socks now crimson with blood, her skirt was stained around the edges and her abdomen was soaked with the blood that had been caked on Kouichi.
This had been the start of the worst day of their lives. Misa had found her mother and father first, both lying on the staircase up to her room, the two figured that they had told Kouichi to run and he'd almost made it out of the house when he was killed, hence why he was so close to the door.
Hours had passed since they had discovered the Amane family dead, all except for Misa, and the two now sat outside with the police questioning their alibis and whereabouts during the time of the murders. When everything had settled down...the two nineteen year olds were left alone.
"Kagome..."
Kagome turned her head to the left a little, her eyes rimmed red and puffy from crying, the same as Misa's who was staring at her hands that were carefully folded in her lap. "Yes?"
"Kagome, I'm going to leave...I think I'll go somewhere far away, maybe America..."
"America...Misa, that's so far, why!"
"I..." Misa placed her hands to her eyes before finally crying, "I can't stay here! Their dead! MY FAMILY IS DEAD!"
Kagome got down before Misa and on her knees and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. She held her tightly close to her chest and rubbed soothing circles on her back, this was how things were. "Alright...I understand. Misa, go to America...but promise me...promise you'll come back. I'll stay here."
"..." Misa nodded.
Kagome took her hands and pulled her up, "I'll be right back." She disappeared into the house and went to the savings and credit cards of the Amane family. Running to Misa, she handed her all of the credit cards and cash she'd found, "Here, stay until tomorrow...okay."
"Mm, not here."
Kagome understood, she and Misa left to a hotel and rented a room for the night. She knew she'd have to get a job starting tomorrow.
Once she got Misa to sleep, she too let her nightmares return...but when she woke, three of the six credit cards were sitting on the table with the account numbers and passwords written on a piece of paper. Next to the numbers was a neatly written note in traditional kanji,
I'm sorry Kagome; I couldn't bear the thought of saying goodbye to the only family I have left. I'll come back...someday. The three cards on the table have ¥162550.004, ¥352489.6837 and ¥65020.0016. You have the account numbers and passwords, so you can figure out which one is which, but I forgot. I'll return...when I'm sure I've found God again...
Good luck...Misa!
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End Dreamscape
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Kagome's eyes snapped open and she sighed, "Misa..." She stood up and grabbed her papers that needed grading and her purse and keys. It hadn't been long...only a year...she had just turned twenty. She had chosen at the time to finish school in a live in college, staying in one of the dorm rooms with her roommate. Even now, she was still going to school, she just worked at the neighboring elementary school after her morning classes.
Her morning classes started at seven and they ended at eleven. From there, she went to first grade homeroom, her first class, which started at eleven thirty. Then, she had two more classes, vocabulary and reading were one class split evenly in an hour, and that was after lunch, and then math was the ending class. Lunch was after homeroom, so reading and vocabulary started at twelve thirty, school ended at two thirty, and at three, everyone was either on the busses home or waiting for their parents. She usually stayed a while after to make sure she had everything ready for the next day, but tomorrow was a vocabulary test and study time in math, so there wasn't much need to stay behind and plan.
Her next classes started at six, so she always left the school on weekdays at five, that way she had time to get to her next class. She got back to her dorm at ten thirty, and by that point...she was exhausted...
Kagome sat down at the table in the small kitchen and sighed, pulling out all the papers, she started grading each of them, one by one.
"Hey, how were classes?"
Kagome looked behind her as her roommate walked in; his name was Stephen Loud, he had black hair that would occasionally fall messily into his face, and his eyes were a shade of gray and blue that mixed and mingled. The door shut softly behind him as he walked past her and placed a magazine on the table before opening the fridge. The cover caught her eye and she snatched up the magazine before he knew what had happened. "Good...classes were good," She flipped through the pages till she came to what she was looking for, her eyes brightened and she smiled a goofy smile. "First off, I won't even ask why you have an issue of Eighteen magazine, but this is cool, Misa's made a break in modeling!" She would have squealed, but her ability to do so was cut off when a lemon wedge was shoved between her lips causing her face to contort and her eyes to constrict in that way they did when you ate something sour. She pulled the lemon wedge out of her mouth, "That...was disgusting. Stephen!" She threw the lemon wedge at him and laughed as he turned only to get popped in the head by the sour fruit wedge.
He frowned before picking the piece of fruit up and tossing it into the trash before washing his face clean and drying it of the water. "Misa...Misa's that girl you said was like a younger sister to your, right?"
"Yes, I told you about her a couple weeks ago." She placed all of the finished papers together and stood up before stretching her limbs. She placed the magazine down and moved to the couch where Stephen had fallen lazily back on. She moved next to him and sat down, "She disappeared the morning after her family was killed, haven't seen her since."
He pulled her up into his lap and she relaxed in his hold. They weren't dating, they held no romantic feelings for one another, but he loved her dearly. She had burrowed a home deep within his heart, one that couldn't be filled or replaced; she was like a little sister to him. "How were your classes?"
"You should know, you had the same ones."
"But you also have Intermediate Bodyguard Training...why you would take that class is beyond me." She laid her head down on his chest right above his heart and listened to the steady rhythm.
"I plan to do something useful in the future," He laughed, "You mentioned going into law enforcement, right? Have you looked at the qualification exams you'd need to take?"
She scoffed, "Geez Stephen," She looked him in the eyes with a frown, "Let me at least get through my first year at To-Oh and then ask me that question. You have...what...two more years?"
"Yeah, I'll ask again next year then," He grinned when he poked him in the ribs.
Kagome was easy to get along with; as well, it was easy to get her hot and bothered, not to be mistaken for the sexual expression, too.
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February, 2, 2004
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Kagome was watching the news, sitting alone in the dorm room, Stephen was out at the library studying for an upcoming exam, and she had just finished hers. She stared at the screen, glaring at the screen that seemed to show nothing but L and Kira debates as of lately. Right now, they were talking about the most recent streams of heart attacks.
"As it stands, the death toll in Japan, has increasingly been dropping, obviously thanks to Kira!"
"The most recent deaths were a couple small time thieves, burglars and...the Murderer...of Misa-Misa's family! I have heard that Misa plans to come to Japan, now that the murder is no longer alive."
"That's great; Kira may very well be the leader of a new and more peaceful future, our god, KIR─"
Kagome stared silently at the screen, now blank in front of her; she removed her finger from the power button before placing the remote down on the couch next to her. Letting her head fall against the arm of the couch, she pulled her feet up onto the couch and sighed, "She was supposed to tell me if she was coming back...mm," She stared at the vacant screen of the TV, "Kazuo Sounamata...Misa...are you coming back because he's dead...or are you coming back...to find god..."
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February, 2, 2004
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(Elsewhere)
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"Misa! Why are we going to Japan!"
"Because, Misa wants to see Kagome!"
"...who?"
Misa stopped packing her clothes and turned to her manager, a woman with illegal tendencies. "Misa's sister!"
"Oh, well, that's great! More publicity, a living relative that wasn't murdered, becoming a model with you, the Amane Sisters!" The woman had stars in her eyes, "I can see it now, a year of separation, due to the loss of their beloved parents and baby brother, only to be reunited and brought together by none other than Kira~"
Misa smiled, "Kira is my savior, yes...but he wasn't what possessed Misa to return to Japan. Far be it for anyone to believe, I had already bought the tickets four months before Misa's parents killer was killed." Misa stopped packing and turned to her Manager, "Kagome told Misa once that, she likes the thought of angels watching over us, and the idea of God making sure that all of his children were created equally and treated fairly and justly...Misa likes that idea too." She faced her manager and grinned, "That's why Misa decided to return back to her home, now that I'm becoming so popular, I can easily return the Faith that Kagome has given me, and I'll do so by helping her with anything and everything that I can!"
"I see...BUT WHY ARE YOU PACKING! THE TICKETS SAY APRIL!"
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March, 12, 2004
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Misa ran down the streets, she had been taking a walk around the area she lived in, a night stroll, when someone had tapped her on the shoulder. She looked behind her to see one of the studio guys that usually cleaned up after her modeling shots. Being the type of person she was, she started talking with him, but her suddenly got weird, saying strange things like, 'that's why you want it to end' and, 'Kira is your savior, this is what he wants'. She got freaked out and ran, but now she was only getting further and further away from civilization, now at the docks which no one was at right now.
"Leave me alone~!"
"Misa, you can't deny it, you can't lie to me...this is how it's meant to be..."
She clutched her bag, tightly gripping the black leather handle; she glared coldly at the man who had chased her. "WHO EVER SAID THAT! I want to live, I have someone who's waiting for me! I need to return home, to Japan!"
The man paused, "What about your brother, he wants to see you Misa, and your parents miss you too."
"I love my family, more than you could ever fathom...and that's exactly why I need to return...my sister is there, let me go!" At this point, tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I WANT TO SEE KAGOME!"
"I see, but then, I could always send her your way once I've taken care of you, right?"
"..." She stopped crying, something inside seemed to snap. This man before her...bald, yellow stained teeth, a slight trudge-a-long in his walk, a hideous scar that went straight across his eyebrow, leaving that one bald spot on his eyebrow, and his clothes were tasteless. This man...this nasty badger that smelt of drugs and stale perfume, most likely from a sixty cent street wretch...was actually threatening, to send her sister, to heaven with her... "Big mistake," She whispered, "I swear, to whatever god that there is or might be, on my mother's grave...if you so lay one finger on my sister...I'll kill you." It was venom; she could taste it on her lips, those words she'd spoken.
The man took a step back, this wasn't what he'd planned for, and it wasn't what he had anticipated! This girl, she had cried out for help, she had been scared moments ago, she was afraid!
'Kagome...Kagome, no matter what I have to do...' She gripped her bag tightly in her hands as the man began to get closer, "I'M GOING HOME!"
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Me: So...I want to like Misa for once, so I decided to do this! It's an experiment, but...it's a story like all of my others. With that said, I promised someone that I would update another story, Miss. Bloodcherry, look forward to the next chapter of The Path of Least Resistance!