My Soul to Steal by Ai Roku

Missing You

Disclaimer: I own no rights to the Inuyasha franchise!

This is my attempt at Kneazles Halloween 2013 Challenge. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Prompt: Apple Bobbing

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“I swear Kagome, you’ll have a blast! They’re doing a completely western style party with apple bobbing and everything!”

 The blue eyed girl was unable to give a reply as Yuka’s pleading was inevitably joined by Eri’s attempt at coercion; or in other words a guilt trip of epic proportions.

“Yeah Kagome you just have to come, it’s been so long since you’ve hung out with us! You never want to do anything fun anymore; all you ever do is go to classes, study, work, and help out at the shrine. Haven’t you ever heard that saying about all work and no play?”

Before Kagome could decide whether or not to take offence at her friend’s insinuation that she had become a dull girl, true though it was; a third voice joined the fray.

“Come on guys, leave Kagome alone, it’s not like she’s avoiding us or anything she’s just been busy, that’s all.”

Somehow Ayumi’s sincere defense of her had done what all Yuka and Eri’s whining and complaints could never have managed. Kagome felt guilty, so guilty in fact that she did something she knew she was going regret.

“Sure I’ll go; a Halloween party sounds like fun!”

Synchronized squeals split the air and the shell shocked girl was pounced upon and engulfed by her three excited friends.

After being forced to promise that she would meet up with them for lunch the next day to go over the details of the party, or more specifically their costumes and whether or not they should coordinate them; Kagome finally managed to extract herself from the well meaning girls.

Eri, Yuka, and Ayumi were the best friends that she could possibly ask for, but being around them always made her feel lonely.

She hadn’t quite fit in with them since her travels through time first began and she had become painfully aware of that fact. But she wanted so desperately to bridge the gap between them. The four of them had been friends far too long for Kagome to just let them drift away without a fight.

But even so she dreaded going to this party. From experience she knew that she would only feel awkward and out of touch if she went. But she didn’t want to keep on disappointing the girls, so even if it killed her she knew she’d suffer through it and put on the performance of a lifetime to make them believe she was enjoying herself!

With a sigh she reflected morosely that it had been years since she had genuinely enjoyed herself. In fact not since her adventures in the sengoku jidai had she felt truly exhilarated.

It had been a little over three years now since the final battle with Naraku; three years since she had been forced to leave the feudal era behind. Yet even after all that time she could still recall it all with startling clarity

Upon awakening and finding herself at the bottom of the Bone Eater’s well, she had known immediately that it was sealed. The vague feeling of power she had come to recognize was completely gone, leaving only a sense of growing desolation in her heart.

At first she had been convinced that there had to be some way to reopen the well. To that end she had thrown herself into research, scouring the shrine’s storehouses for scrolls on ancient rituals and sacred objects, and listening for hours on end as her grandpa droned on and on about the history and mythos of the shrine.

But after the first year had passed with no breakthroughs in her search, and the glaring lack of the eagerly anticipated visits from Inuyasha, Shippo, Koga or any of her other youkai companions, she began to lose hope.

Despairing of ever seeing any of them again, but desperately wanting to assure herself that they had gone on to lead happy lives; Kagome then began trying to find out the fates of her friends.

She read every book, scroll, and record she could find; frequenting libraries, museums, and even other temples and shrines. She searched anywhere and everywhere that she could think of for facts, myths and legends involving a heroic inu hanyou, a female demon slayer with a nekomatta partner, a cursed monk, an orphaned fox kit, a brash ookami prince, or the beautiful but deadly Lord of the West, all in vain.

However her obsession while fruitless did eventually lead to her current job as a tour guide at the Edo-Tokyo museum.

She had been afraid at first that a job would interfere with her college studies, and frankly she’d worked way too hard to get into college to risk messing it up.  But when Kagome had shown reluctance to accept the job offer the curator had jokingly told her that since she was there every day anyway she might as well get paid for it.  

Accepting the job offer had turned out to be one of the best decisions she had ever made.  Far from what she had feared, the job had actually proven useful in augmenting her studies instead of hindering them.

But more than that, more even than the welcome distraction a job provides; the museum had become her sanctuary.

Since her return to the modern era she had felt lost, as if there was something missing, and as much as she loved Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi, there was no way that she could ever explain to them that there was a reason that all she ever did was go to school, work, and to her family’s shrine.

They would never be able to understand that it was only in these places that she felt almost as though she were whole again.

Because whether it was reliving a moment from her sojourn into the past as her Japanese history professor gave a lecture on an epic battle between two feudal Lords; simply seeing and being in the presence of the well and the Goshinboku, or just walking into the museum where she worked; the sad fact was that Kagome Higurashi, The Shikon miko, and former time traveler extraordinaire only felt happy and at home surrounded by the relics of the past, by the things that reminded her most of the friends who were forever lost to her.

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Thanks for reading!