“What happened to Jakken?” Shin asked, pulling back from Kagome’s embrace. “I sent him flying,” she replied, glancing west. Shin squinted in that direction. “How far?” “Not far enough,” Kagome said dryly. Shin grinned toothily. “Listen, Kaa-san: I know a way we can leave him in our dust.” Kagome laughed, ruffling his black hair and

“Now look what you’ve done!” Kagome and Jakken blurted at one another. Kagome froze. Then, she punted Jakken as far away as she could in the opposite direction, and she went off the road into the woods, on the trail of her sulking son. As she drew closer, she saw something blue and shimmery on

“You again,” Kagome said through clenched teeth, striding forward with her fists balled at her sides. “How many times do I have to tell you to buzz off?” The imp peeped out from the cover of the trees—not at her, of course, but at Shin in his inuyoukai form. Lingering on Shin’s crescent blood mark,

In the morning Kagome and Shine woke bright and early. While he wolfed down his putrescent fish in a few stomach-churning chomps beyond the trees, she grimaced over her own bowl of breakfast. Shaking water from his hair, he returned fresh-faced from a plunge in the creek, and together they finished off the rest of

Seven Years Later Kagome walked along the country road, humming a pretty little tune she’d picked up in the last village they’d visited. It was spring. The countryside was in full bloom, a patchwork of shining green grass, glowing blue water and rose-white sakura trees, shedding petals like spring snow in the breeze. Kagome breathed

He was kneeling at Rin’s bedside when she entered, the same as when she’d left him. And the time before that, and the time before that… He was haggard and forlorn and quietly furious in a way Kagome had never seen before—had never imagined he could seem, for all his cold alien stoicism and adamant

It was as Kagome had thought. As Sango adjusted to being the mother of a newborn once more—and a single mother of one for the first time—Kagome helped out as much as she could around the house and with the kids. Inuyasha, too. While sweeping off the porch, Kagome smiled as she watched him romp

The days passed. Kagome ruminated on. For once, it wasn’t just Sesshoumaru and his absence she was dwelling on, but something deeper. Intangible to her, but no less vital, she sensed. She felt like she was probing at the edges of some great and formless question, waiting for an answer to take shape from the

Kagome returned home with Shin, to Sengoku Jidai. She’d barely stepped one foot across the threshold of the hut when Inuyasha caught her to him and hugged her tight. As he did, Kagome realized then how nervous he’d been—nervous that now that she was free to live in the Modern Era, she wouldn’t come back.

“They say love at first sight is a myth,” Mr. Higurashi said, lowering his eyes briefly before raising them to Kagome’s again. “I still love your mother, Kagome. In a way, I always will. But when I saw Reiko…I don’t know how else to say it, but I knew. I knew at least, at that