Silence fell between the group of friends.

"But, what about Higurashi-kun?" Tomoyo asked, ever the voice of reason. "He seems to be unaware of his sister's actions, and I don't think you've sensed anything out of the ordinary from him. Isn't that right, Eriol-kun?"

Eriol frowned lightly as he considered it. "That's true," he acquiesced. "Not to mention that Kaho's father has accepted her for a part time job. He would never do that if he believed her to be a demon."

Sakura visibly relaxed as the conversation continued. Syaoran settled down at that, but not without a huff of frustration. He reluctantly sat cross legged next to her, looking antsy.

"My apologies for jumping to conclusions," Eriol said with a grimace. "She unnerves me more than I thought."

Tomoyo sent him a sympathetic look. "Don't worry about it. We're all confused here."

"I'll look into the library for more information later," Eriol said, his momentary frown dissipating. "But still… five hundred years. There's much more to her than it appears, I see."

"Um," Sakura piped up. "Do you think we should confront her about it? If she's not a demon, then she shouldn't attack us or anything, right?"

"That might be for the best," Tomoyo agreed. Everyone else murmured their consent, and that was that.

Relieved, Sakura went back to eating her lunch, only to discover half of it missing.

"Kero-chan!" she exclaimed. "My sausages!"

-X-

"You've gotten old," Kagome commented, after a comfortable silence had settled down on them.

"Whaddya mean?"

"You've got lines here," she said, gesturing to her face. "And you look weird with short hair."

Inuyasha scowled at her. "Well, that's what happens after five hundred years."

"…I've missed you," Kagome murmured softly. A moment after she said it, she almost hoped Inuyasha wouldn't hear it.

But he did, of course.

He ruffled her hair, mouth turning up in the crooked smirk she had grown to love. "I've missed you too, Kagome," he said, pulling her closer in a half hug.

She shifted until she was more comfortable, then sighed. "What are we going to do about Naraku? We've been fighting him for so long already, and the modern world has so much more restricti—ow!"

Kagome rubbed her head, where he had lightly hit her.

"Stop being so pessimistic," he scolded. "We'll pull through. We always do, don't we?"

She grinned at him, mood fully restored. "Yeah, we will."

From afar, the bell rang, and Kagome reluctantly got up.

"I'll guess I'll see you," she said. She jogged lightly back, drawing comfort from the steady eyes watching her leave.

-X-

Kagome sprinted down the stairs and nearly tumbled into the archery room. Her eyes frantically landed on the clock in the room, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Right on time.

She stepped into the room, not meeting any of the curious glances of the people gathered in the room. She made her way over to Hana.

"What's going on?" she asked under her breath.

The other girl shrugged lightly. "Nothing much. The captain was just about to go through our schedule for training."

"Thank god I didn't miss anything important," she sighed.

It wasn't until practice had started that the captain picked his way over to the two of them.

"I hope this isn't going to become a habit," he said.

"It won't, I promise!" she said hurriedly.

He fixed her with a stern glance, before leaving to check on the other members. Kagome slumped at that, while Hana smiled at her antics.

"Let's get started," the girl suggested.

Kagome nodded her agreement.

She picked up her bow and docked an arrow. Then, she sat down sideways and took a deep breath. It really was strange sitting down while shooting a bow and arrow – far different from standing and moving. It just didn't feel right. Kagome glanced over at Hana, who seemed perfectly at ease sitting down.

Turning back to her own target, Kagome took another breath, and slowly, calmly, took a shot.

She grimaced at the result. It was on the red, but wasn't dead center.

She would have to practice more, especially now that she needed the skills more than ever.

Grabbing another arrow, she took a moment to collect herself.

And then, just as she was about to shoot, she felt it. There was a spike in malicious intent. Naraku.

She moved her arrow's direction in an instant, pointing at the bushes that laid behind the target. It shimmered in her pink spiritual power, before the malicious intent disappeared.

Hana paused in her practice, sending her an odd look. Kagome sheepishly laughed, rubbing the back of her head.

"I should get more sleep," she offered. "I've been a bit jumpy recently."

Hana shot her a concerned look, and Kagome went to retrieve her wayward arrow. As she thought, there was only a puppet impaled at the end. Kagome gingerly picked it up, gnawing thoughtfully on her lip.

Now that she looked a bit more closely at it, the colour was darker than usual.

Strange.

So I just realized it's been two years since I updated and um.. oops? I wasn't kidding when I said I lost inspiration, but I've decided to continue anyways. Obviously, with such a huge gap in time, my writing has changed. As such, I'll be changing a lot of other things as well. Simply put, I didn't have a solid plot when I decided to write this two years ago, and now it's come to bite me in the butt. There are just.. so many plot holes in here, and it's deviated completely from canon.

For one thing, I'm changing the pairing to no pairing. To those who've only stayed on for the Touya/Kagome pairing, I'm sorry, but it's got to go. If you leave because of this, I'll understand of course.

That's about all I've got to say. I'll try and update, but as you can tell from this story, I'm terrible in keeping up with multi chapters. I'm also very busy now with homework and senior year coming up and whatnot.

To those who are still reading this, thank you for putting up with me! Hope to see you again in the future :)