Chapter 3: Goodbye Forever

Kagome could almost hear the four jaws dropping in unison among the bales of hay behind her. As that image sprang into her mind, despite the unwelcome pressure against her lips she found an almost irresistible urge to laugh bubbling up inside of her.
Instead she pushed Koga away and very quickly got out of arms' reach. "Koga, I said-"

"Kogaaaa!" Ayame wailed, huge, angry tears welling up in her eyes. "D-don't you get it? She doesn't l-love you! Not like I do!" She glared at him as he copied Kagome's prior movement. "I saved my first kiss! Just for you! It was g-going to be magical… But you go and waste it on some girl wh-who doesn't even like you!"

She gave a shuddering sob, then slowly walked up to stand in front of Koga. "So… I just want to…"

SLAP!

Koga rubbed his red cheek and stared at the tearful red-head as she swung up on her horse. "Good-bye, Koga… Forever!" She snapped her whip and the horse went charging off.

"A-Ayame, I…!" Koga called out helplessly.

"Maybe you'd better go after her, Koga," Kagome said quietly. He turned to look at her. "You know what she said? About my feelings? She's right."

He looked at her for a long while before finally running off down the street. Then he was gone.

Kagome sighed and walked over to her parents. "Well, I'm glad that's all over…" She paused at their expressions. "What's the matter?"

"Kagome," her mother said slowly, "do you realize what you've done?"

"Yes… I got rid of Koga's unwanted attentions, and hopefully sent him to reconcile with his fiancé. She does seem like a very nice… " She trailed off as she remembered that this was exactly the opposite of what they'd wanted.

"No!" Her mother shouted suddenly, making Kagome jump. "No, no, no! You stupid, foolish girl, you've ruined your future! Our future! Who'll want to marry you after what's happened now? You must be mad, to reject a man like Koga! We're ruined! We…" She took her daughter's arms in a surprisingly strong grip and began shaking her hard.

Kagome was shocked at this abruptly harsh treatment. Her parents had never so much as laid a finger on her in her whole life… and now this?

She broke free and slapped her mother, all at once. Her mother held her cheek and stared at Kagome as if she'd never seen her before. "Now I see," Kagome said accusingly, quivering in anger. "Now I know the real reason for all your pampering of me, those parties, those expensive things that served absolutely no purpose. It wasn't about me or my future after all, was it? It was all about you and getting the deal of a lifetime… Koga must have seemed like the diamond in the pig trough. Well, your plans for your future aren't about to happen… Now, or any other time!"

With that she turned and stalked down the street back to her house.

"Kagome!" Her mother shouted after her. "Kagome, get back here! Ka-"

"No," she heard her father say. "Let her go for now. She'll come to her senses soon enough, don't worry."


When Kagome got up to her room and bolted the door, she felt like collapsing on the bed and bawling her eyes out. She felt bitter, tired, angry and hurt. She never thought her parents were that selfish. She thought they really did love her, that they'd doted on her because they couldn't resist. She'd put up with it because she loved them. But after what had happened just now she was done.
She got down on her hands and knees and retrieved a large, embroidered traveling bag (courtesy of her parents) from under her bed. She stripped off the ruined red gown and instead put on her plainer and much more comfortable everyday outfit; a long, simple forest green skirt and a white cotton shirt. She took two other changes of clothes, her cloak and her nightdress from their hooks on the wall, folded them carefully and stowed them in the bag, tossing in her small money pouch as an afterthought. Then she put on her work boots and laced them up before going downstairs.

Her parents still weren't home. She went into the kitchen and took a loaf of bread, several rolls, some carrots and potatoes and tied them all up in a bundle before placing it carefully in her bag. The larder wouldn't suffer terribly for her actions, and she suspected that now, without money being wasted on her, it would be more full then ever in the weeks to come.

Kagome was about to turn and go out the door when she remembered the party… maybe there were still some things out there?

She went out into the backyard. The tree was standing there, still in all its festivity, but the musicians and all the guests had gone. Just the tables were left, littered with food and her gifts. She walked alongside the tables, occasionally picking up an un-eaten pastry or biscuit and stowing them in her bag, until she got to the very end where all her gifts still lay.

She stood looking down at them for a while. Then she picked out the sewing kit, the ribbons, the flute, and the scented soap. She hesitated, however, before sighing and also taking along with her the silk pillowcases. Her parents wouldn't need them when she was gone, and she could probably sell them somewhere else for a good price.

Now came the hard part. Kagome's house was just near the pig sty and the hay bales where she and her friends had hid, so she could probably stay there until nightfall. It was evening already, and night would not be far behind. However, she definitely couldn't go out in plain view on the street in case someone saw her, which meant she had to try stealth.

Kagome looked up at the fence that surrounded the backyard. It couldn't be very high… she had often seen Kohaku's cat leap up on top of it and walk along its length before jumping down again… Unfortunately for her, however, she was not a cat.

Then she turned to face the tree. The branches looked sturdy enough, and several of them reached over the other side of the fence. Sure they might be a bit frail now that the tree was dead, but she'd just have to take that risk.

Kagome shimmied up the rough trunk with her sack hand partially gripping and the other doing most of the job. She managed to get up to one thick, reliable-looking branch and began to cautiously crawl out on it until she was at a point where she didn't deem it safe to crawl on anymore. She looked down and immediately her stomach flipped like a beached fish. It looked a lot higher then she'd thought…. For a moment she wished that she had claws like the cat and could sink them into the wood, but then…

CR-ACK!

Kagome could feel the branch begin to bow under her weight. Before she could do anything, though, she was dumped none too gently onto the ground.

"Owww…" She got up gingerly, wincing. How does it feel when you break your seat bone? Kagome sure knew.

Well, at least that part was over. She crept down the alleyway separating her house from the pig sty and made the last dash to freedom… or so she hoped. She nearly leapt out of her skin as she hurtled over the hay bales and heard, "Kagome!"

"Eep! Who… I, er, nothing doing…" Kagome babbled nervously. "Don't worry, just an errand, I… oh! You guys?" She sat down, willing her heartbeat to revert to back to normal, as she looked across at her four friends. "Why are you still here?"

"We saw you run off, after… well, you know, and thought that you might come back here sooner or later," Botan said. She pointed at the bag Kagome was still gripping in one hand. "What's that for?"

"Oh, this? Well, I'm…" She took a deep breath. "I'm leaving… For good."

The two sisters' eyes grew bigger. "Really? Where?"

"When?" Kohaku asked.

"Why?" Rin demanded.

"Oh Rin, you saw what happened! Her lousy mother…" Momichi stopped and glanced quickly at Kagome. "I mean…"

She nodded. "Yes, that's why."

"But why?" Rin persisted, clearly confused.

"I don't think I can stay here after what happened this afternoon, Rin," Kagome said gently. "I don't really belong… I want to find someplace where I can be myself, where nobody knows about me or that stupid Seeing."

"But I think you belong," Rin protested, now upset. Kagome hugged her. "Thank you, Rin."

There was a long pause. Then Kohaku said, looking up over the bales of hay, "The sun's setting… I'd get going if I were you. No one's going to be out at this hour except to care for their animals and stuff, so you should be safe."

"We'll cover for you," Botan said earnestly.

"Thanks," Kagome said. Suddenly relieved, she hugged them and said, "I'll come back and visit someday… Or you can come and visit me." Trying to lighten the abruptly dismal mood, she added, "I'll give you discounts if you do."

"For what?" Momichi asked quizzically.

"Herbs," Kagome replied, smiling.

"But… you don't know a thing about herbs," Kohaku said. Herblore was one of the things that her mother had pronounced "unfit for a lady to know," and so Kagome was now one of the few in the village who was ignorant about it.

"That's the point. I'll learn, you'll see." She got up and was about to climb over the bales again when Momichi burst out, "Wait a second!" and ran off.

"What's she doing?" Kohaku wondered. Botan shrugged. "I don't know."

After a few minutes Momichi came hurrying back, carrying a lantern. "Here. You'll need this."

"Thanks." Kagome took the lantern, shouldered her bag and smiled. "Well… goodbye for now!"

Then she slipped through the bales and was gone.


Hours later, Kagome was drenched, miserable, weary, and without a single clue where she was.
She hadn't been long on the road and had barely had time to savor her new-found freedom before large, nasty-looking storm clouds rolled in across the sky above her. Seconds later, rain had come pouring down in thick sheets, successfully cutting down her view of the path before her to nothing more than a few feet; her lantern had a metal shield to ward off the elements, but it might as well have been doused for all the good it did her.

She knew she'd wandered off the path some time during the tempest, since she'd recently begun to stumble over rocks and uneven ground. Her sense of direction was now so distorted, however, that any attempts to find the path again were futile. More then a few times she nearly fell, but managed to regain her balance and forge on.

And to cap it all off, now she was constantly running into big, hard dark objects- probably trees- that were guaranteed to leave her arms and shoulders pleasant hues of blue and purple in the morning. Or was it the afternoon? Well, whenever the rain stopped, which she prayed would be very, very soon.

She needed something to distract her from these dismal thoughts. Like maybe a nice daydream of a steaming hot bath with all that nice scented soap she'd gotten, and a nice hot meal afterwards… maybe a big fat juicy pork drizzled in juices and garnished with tangy spices and…

Kagome groaned longingly and immediately smacked her nose on something that loomed up right in front of her.

She reeled back, clutching at her nose. It felt like it had just been pounded with a cudgel and was very tender; she found herself wondering for a moment why it wasn't flattened. Kagome glared up through her pain-derived tears and saw, with a mixture of surprise and intense relief, the fuzzy outline of a small building. She squinted. Was it a... temple? Out in the middle of nowhere?

Well whatever it was, it didn't really matter that much to her at the moment, because here in front of her was a building, and buildings meant shelter. She put out her hands and blindly groped around until she found what felt like a handle and pulled.

The door creaked open for what seemed like a very long time until there was an opening wide enough for her to fit through. She practically hurled herself into the temple's dry interior…

And at that moment, her lantern chose to go out, leaving her in pitch blackness. Other then for the occasional flashes of lightning from outside, she barely see a thing.

But "barely" was enough for what she found.

She was not standing in the humble interior of a little country temple dedicated to whatever ancient god. Instead, over her head was a soaring stone ceiling held up by graceful stone arches that grew up out of the walls. The walls themselves were also made of stone, and were lined with tall windows that would take ten men standing on top of each other to reach the tops of. Beneath her feet was a carpet of old, red velvet.

Kagome looked around, extremely confused. This couldn't be that little temple she'd stumbled into only a moment before… in fact, if she didn't know better she would've thought that she was in a castle, like in the stories her mother had told her when she was a child.

"H-hello?" She called nervously, then instantly regretted it. Though her voice sounded weak, it echoed off the walls much more loudly than her actual call. What if this place was home to hordes of bats, or…

She shook her head. That was ridiculous. If there were bats, then they'd surely be roosting up on the arches, wouldn't they? Those seemed like prime bat roosting places… And besides, this place had to be totally deserted, so her call was useless anyway. If the holes in the rug were any indication, at least. And the dusty, unlit-for-who-knows-how-long torch brackets on the wall…

Suddenly there was a movement at the far end of the hall she was standing in. Kagome looked at it and gasped as it moved again… someone was walking towards her!

She started backing up and babbling to conceal her nervousness; instead she just seemed to vent it. "I-I… um, excuse me, I thought this place was deserted, I'm very sorry for intruding, I was just looking for some shelter until the rain stopped, I was going to leave right after, um, I'm just on my way to visit my, uh, aunt, yes that's it, but the rain…"

Kagome broke off and screamed as whoever was coming towards her suddenly burst into a run, roaring in a most un-human fashion… in fact, it sounded very much like a ferocious wild animal. It was charging right at her, hands outstretched in a grasping, claw-like manner.

"No! Stay away!" She cried out in fear. Then, when the thing didn't obey, she turned and threw herself at the doors. Between catching her death of a cold- if she hadn't begun to already- and getting eaten alive by some man-monster, she'd take the cold. She shoved with all her might.

The doors refused to open.

"No! No, no!" She shouted in panic. Throwing a glance over her shoulder as she started straining against the doors, she saw that the thing was now only a few feet away.

Then it had her by the throat, bellowing, "You! Witch! I'll kill you!"

Kagome tried to scream again, but didn't have enough air. She couldn't even move. Is this how my life is going to end?

Then she heard a dull thunk, like a block of wood being struck with a hammer. The man-thing abruptly released her, and she fell into the depths of blackness.


Voices jarred Kagome from her sleep. She struggled to focus on them. Were those her parents?

"I don't believe it… a commoner, after all these years?"

"Miroku, you've said that seven times already."

Not her parents. They were commoners themselves, and her father's name was not Miroku.

"I can't help it!" The man's voice exclaimed. "A commoner, just like the witch said! And a girl, no less… How could he attack her like that?"

"You can't blame him," the female voice replied. "Look at how much she resembles her! I think it's a miracle he isn't breaking down the door right now."

"…Yes, I see your point. But still, you did hit him rather hard."

"What, you'd rather I'd just stood by and let him rip her to shreds?"

"NO!" The man sounded utterly horrified. "She's a commoner!"

Though Kagome was now fully awake, she kept her eyes shut. Commoner? A female commoner? Were they talking about her?… And what were they saying about how she resembled a witch?

And… was that silk beneath her cheek? It couldn't a little temple like this- just ashrine wasmore like it-couldn't afford to use silk…

"You don't have to sound so excited," the female voice said dryly.

"What do you mean, Sango? It's just like what she said: a female commoner will come here of her own free will, and-"

"We don't know that she came of her own free will."

The man, Miroku, sighed. "Must you always be such a pessimist, Sango?"

"I'm just stating the facts, that's all. Hardly pessimistic."

"Well, it certainly is an effective dampener," he replied sulkily.

Kagome opened her eyes and peered sideways. Yes, it was silk… a silk pillowcase. A red silk pillowcase. As were the sheets covering her.

Red silk… red silk!

She shot up, suddenly remembering the events of the past day, and found herself in a large, rich-looking bedroom. A tapestry depicting an emerald fire-breathing dragon was hung on the wall opposite her, and several candelabras set around on the bureau, night side table and windowsills gave off a warm, golden glow, contrasting the dark of night outside. Kagome herself was sitting in a humongous canopy bed that had its own little set of steps.

Two people standing in the corner of the spacious bedroom turned. One was an older girl whose long dark hair fell to the waist of her rich green dressing robe. The other was a young man who was clad in dark blue robes. He smiled as he saw Kagome.

"Ah, so you're finally awake," he said happily. "How do you feel?"

"Umm… confused…" she said in a tone that backed her statement up in full.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm a bit confused myself," he continued on blithely. "Like as to why the cur- OW!"

The girl had just surreptitiously stepped on his foot, snapping, "Never-mind that, Miroku. I'm sorry," she said in a kinder voice, turning to Kagome. "You must have had quite a scare… I'm Sango, and this is Miroku. We, er, heard you being 'greeted' by our friend Inuyasha and came to investigate…"

"Th-that thing's your friend?" Kagome squeaked, drawing the covers tighter around her.

"Yes, unfortunately," Miroku broke in, "but he's not such a bad fellow once you get to know him… and once you get over the fact that he's- OW!" Sango had stepped on Miroku's foot again, this time shooting a positively lethal glare in his direction. "The fact that he's, uh, got some personality issues," he amended hastily.

"Yes…" Kagome replied slowly. She had the distinct feeling that she was being left out of something, but was too mystified at the moment to pursue it. "Would you mind telling me where I am?"

Miroku drew himself up proudly. "You are in one of the guest bedchambers in the once-great castle of Ki- OW… Lord Inuyasha," he finished in aggrieved tones, shooting an offended look at Sango, who pointedly looked away. "Dear, if you keep doing that I won't be able to walk."

"Is that a bad thing and I told you not to call me that," she said in rush, her face turning pink. Kagome suddenly grinned.

Miroku beamed back. "Is there any lovelier sight than that of a smile lighting up the face of a beautiful maiden?"

It was Kagome's turn to blush; no one, other then her parents and Koga, had ever called her beautiful before (and she really didn't think they counted that much).

Don't think about them, she chided herself firmly. Aloud she said, "Um, well thank you very much for rescuing me, but I'm afraid I have to go now."

"Oh, no, no," Miroku said in surprised tones. "That won't do at all. You see, you can't leave."

She stared at him. "Excuse me, but I think I'm at perfect liberty to leave whenever I like. You see, I'm visiting my, er, aunt, and she's expecting me soon, so…"

"He means," Sango broke in firmly (there was another pained yelp from Miroku. This time his left ear was the victim, clamped tightly between her fingers), "That it's currently the middle of the night. It's pitch black outside and extremely chilly, and besides you need your rest; you were soaking wet when we found you. It keeps raining on and off anyways, so I doubt that you could make it far without catching hypothermia first."

Kagome looked down at herself. Her old clothes were gone, and instead she was wearing a white nightdress that felt like it had been hung near the fire and was now quite comfortably warm. Her hair was dry and smelled slightly like lavender, almost as if she'd recently had a bath. She looked out the windows and even though she couldn't see or hear any rain, Sango had said "on and off," meaning it could just be a calm spell. And she was a bit tired…

"A-all right," she said, trying to suppress a yawn, "but just for one night."

"Well then, now that that's settled," Miroku said, seeming quite cheery again despite the fact that his ear was turning white from lack of blood, "Shall we all go to bed? I, of course, will remain here in… er, what's your name?" he suddenly asked Kagome.

"Oh, me? I'm Kagome," she replied, a bit surprised.

"Yes. I will remain in Lady Kagome's room in order to protect her from Inuyasha should he decide to go on one of his nightly roams again and finds where she is slee… OW!"

"No… you… won't," Sango practically gritted out. "You will go to your room and stay in your room and not come anywhere near this room, and if you even think about doing so I will know."

Miroku cowered under her fearsome glare. "Y-yes, Sango darling."

"I told you not to call me that!"

And with that, Sango stalked from the room, dragging the unfortunate Miroku behind her.

Kagome lay back in the luxurious bed, extremely bemused. A few seconds later the candles snuffed out as one, but she didn't notice because by that time she had fallen fast asleep.

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