Painful Beginning by Kaori

Just Another Day

Painful Beginning

Chapter 1

Just Another Day

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It was early morning, crisp, clean, and calm. The sun slowly made its golden rays to the small camp of the Inu-Tachi. Kagome, first as always, woke to the sunlight beaming on her beautiful face. The young, but strong, priestess stretched her sore muscles out slowly. She sighed; their last battle with a demon had taken a lot out of her body. She slowly slipped out of the sleeping bag and began to go about her morning ritual of cooking breakfast for everybody. As breakfast was cooking, she started to pack up what few items were laying around as her friends began to stir. /hr>

"Good morning, Kagome,"

Kagome smiled as she turned from the pot of rice to see the small fox rise from the sleeping bag. She hid a smile behind her hand as she watched him try to escape the bag, which was currently wrapped around his tiny foot.

"Good morning, Shippo. Would you like some breakfast?"

Frustrated and still too tired to properly try, Shippo flopped back onto the sleeping bag and pouted.

"Breakfast sounds good."

"Mmm, Kagome breakfast smells wonderful."

Kagome nodded to Sango, who was now up and quickly moving away from the 'sleeping' monk next to her. Sango screeched as the monk made his grand awakening by grabbing the Sango's backside.Giving up on controlling her anger, she slapped the monk, who again was pretending to be asleep.

"Wake up, monk! We're not playing this game today!"

A small giggle escaped Kagome's mouth as she divided the rice.

"Does anyone know where Inuyasha is?" Kagome asked as she began to hand out the bowls to each of her friends.

Shippo shrugged and continued shoveling his food to his face.

"It's not like our friend to miss a meal." Miroku said as he began to eat his meal, slowly making his way inch by inch to Sango.

Sango nodded in agreement, not yet aware that she was about to be assaulted again.

"Maybe he's just doing a short patrol. After all, we're only a day away from Kaede's village."

Kagome nodded, not really believing Sango's theory but unable to think of a better one.

"Well, then," she said, smiling. "Sango, may I borrow Kirara? Sota's birthday is coming up, and I promised him I'd be home for the party."

"Of course!"

Shippo, who had finally managed to free himself and roll up his sleeping bag, jumped up excitedly.

"Will you bring me more chocolate?"

His eyes were sparkling with hope and anticipation. Kagome always brought him back goodies, but she never got tired of seeing his entire face light up at the thought of sweets.

"Of course I will!" She said as she tweaked his nose lovingly.

Kagome ruffled his red hair and grabbed her new blue backpack. Her poor yellow bag had finally met its end during their last encounter with Koga. To keep a long story short, Kagome learned what happens when you stand between two jealous, pissed off, overly possessive, testosterone driven demons who are fighting over you.

Kirara transformed while Kagome was situating her backpack. Kagome tried hoisting herself onto the fire cat's back three time, failing miserably each time. Kirara snorted, sounding suspiciously amused, and lowered herself for Kagome.

Shippo was laughing. He couldn't help it. You can only keep a straight face for so long while watching the most powerful, though untrained, priestess in Japan continuously fall on her ass. It didn't help matters that said priestess's backside was covered with dirt and grass and her face could match the color of a ripe tomato.

Kagome glared at Shippo, Sango, and Miroku, the latter two pretending not to notice the eighteens-year-old's problem.

"Thanks, Kirara. With friends like them who needs enemies."

She threw a small rock at each of her companions playfully before mounting.

Kirara waited until Kagome's grip was firm and secure in her fur before lifting into the air.

"Bye, everyone! Please keep Inuyasha busy for a few days, okay?"

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About twenty minutes later, Kagome was standing at the well. Kirara nudged her neck, warranting a giggle from Kagome and a scratched behind the ear.

"Bye, Kirara. Watch over Shippo for me, okay? Inuyasha tends to take out his frustration on him when I'm gone."

Kirara mewed in agreement, licked Kagome under the chin, and, once again, took to the air to return to her mistress.

Once Kirara was out of sight, Kagome leapt through the well. On the other side, Kagome climbed the ladder her brother had made for her. A small smile played on her lips at the thought of seeing her not-so-little-anymore younger brother.

"Mom! I'm home!"

Kagome took her shoes off at the door and started down the hallway of the still very silent house.

"Mom! Sota! Grandpa! Anyone h-"

Kagome stopped breathing mid-sentence as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. There, on the counter, was a puddle of deep red liquid dripping onto the floor. There was a trail of the liquid leading from the kitchen to the living.

"Please tell me that's not..."

Kagome dropped her bag on the floor and ran towards the living room as if Naraku himself was after her. She could hear her blood rushing through her veins, her heart pounding in her ears. Each second it took her to reach the distant room seemed like an eternity as every possible scenario played though her mind.

Had Naraku somehow found out she was from the future? Had he found a way through the well?

But all Kagome's thoughts stopped once she reached the living room. Her heart caught in her throat, and her legs turned to jelly, no longer able to hold her up. There was blood splattered everywhere; even the ceiling was painted with red dots. And face down, in the middle of the room, in puddle much larger than Kagome had ever thought possible to come from one human being, was her mother

"Mom?"

Her voice cracked and tears blurred her vision.

"No, Mom. No!"

She crawled forward and grabbed her mother's shoulder, not seeing or caring about the blood that covered her hands.

"Wake up. Wake up, Mom! Come on!"

Kagome glanced down the woman's body, blood covering almost every square inch. There was a knife stuck in her shoulder, which Kagome yanked out.

"Wake up, Mom! WAKE UP!"

Kagome called upon her powers the best she could and placed her glowing hands on her mother's back. Wound after deep, nasty wound healed beneath her hands, but there were just too many. On some level, it registered in Kagome's brain that she couldn't heal her mother and she resumed shaking her unconscious body.

"Please, Mom!"

Tears were streaming down her face, and Kagome rolled her mother over, taking her head into her lap.

"No, no, no!"

Kagome rocked back and forth, cradling her mother in her lap. Her tears rolled down and off her face and mixed with her mother's blood.

"Wake up, Mom! Please! PLEASE! WAKE UP!"

A loud wail echoed through the house, and Kagome only vaguely recognized that the sound came from her.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I wasn't here to protect you."

Slowly, she laid her mother down on the floor and leaned over the older woman.

"I'm so very sorry."

Kagome wiped at the blood on her mother's face, doing little more than smearing it even more. She kissed the woman's forward, the blood mixing with the tears on her lips.

"Please forgive me..."

Kagome slowly turned away, the image of the tainted room and her mother's lifeless body burning in her brain as she made her way to the stairs. Kagome knew that, if her mother was lying there, that she would only find more death as she made her way through the house, but she couldn't leave not knowing exactly what had happened to her brother and her grandpa.

Blinded by tears and blood, Kagome began up the stairs, not watching where she was going anymore.

Near the top step, she tripped and fell forward, her hand landing on and clinging to fabric.

"Oh, god..."

Slowly, she raised here eyes from the liquid on the wooden stairs which had caused her to slip to see who she had stumbled across. In front of her, leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs, was her grandpa.

"No..."

His face was gone, his blood splattered on the wall behind him, and a few steps down from where Kagome had landed, she saw an empty shotgun shell. Kagome crawled up the rest of the steps, slipping a few times and grabbing at her grandfather's priestly clothes. In his hand, he held a sutra meant to bring luck and ward off evil. The white rice paper was just as red as the surrounding carpet, but the blurry black markings could still barely be made out.

Kagome sat on the last step, simply staring at the man who had helped raise her, the man who was now beyond recognition except for his clothes. She choked back a sob as she slid past his body.

The clear upstairs hallway was where all the bedrooms were. Kagome slowly made her way down the hall, opening each door to find a once beautiful and overlooked room now completely destroyed. Door after door, she opened, and still she had not found her dear younger brother, the only one she had any hope of seeing again at the moment.

Finally, she came to the last door, her bedroom. She opened the door to find it no better off than any of the rooms before it. Her desk was flipped on its side, things spilled from her closet, her dresser contents now thrown across the room. Kagome slid down the door frame as realization hit her.

Sota was not here. The tears seemed to burn her as they flowed more freely, no longer restrained by the need to find her loved one.

"Sota... Oh, God! Where are you! What- why!"

Kagome fell forward, her face in her hands as she cried.

"Mom! Grandpa! Oh, Sota!"

She heard rustling from below her bed and grabbed the nearest solid thing she could reach, which happened to be a baseball bat that had once been tucked far back in her closet.

"Kagome, is that you?" came a small voice from below the bed.

"Sota?"

Kagome jumped to he feet and pulled at her heavy bed trying to move it, flip it, anything to prove that her brother was really under there and not just a figment of her imagination playing tricks on her.

Sota slowly poked his head out form beneath his hiding place, making sure it was really Kagome before he dared to leave the safety of the steel framed bed.

"Kagome!" He yelled, desperation and relief mixed in his voice.