The Telling by omizumaru

Alone?

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" She yelled. It was the only word that she could think of to describe everything about her current situation.

Kagome stomped through the forest, her mind overflowing with memories from the past few hours. She had saved Kikyo. Why? Why had she saved a woman that she knew, deep down in the most honest sections of her soul, was her rival in absolutely everything? The woman who was the better miko, the more competent archer, and most importantly, the woman she knew held Inuyasha's heart. But she knew why. There had been no real hesitation once she had been informed that she was the only person who would be able to help Kikyo. As much as she had hated the situation, Kagome didn't even think twice about saving her. She wouldn't allow the woman to continue suffering and die..... again. Not if she could stop it. And stop it she had. But Kikyo hadn't even thanked her! Not that she needed to be thanked for doing the things that came naturally to her, but still, there were such things as your basic good manners.

And then there was the aftermath. Inuyasha had come to find Kikyo, but instead had found Kagome. But looking back on it, he hadn't seemed all that disappointed about it. Yet Kagome had screamed at him anyway. The memories of that powerful conversation were more than a little blurry, but apparently she had yelled out that she hated him. Kagome couldn't recall that bit in particular, but the hanyou had been very upset about it. But dammit! She had been trying to apologize, and then HE had started shouting at HER! After all the crap that she'd put up with from him! All the sneaking off to meet the undead miko in secret.... and OK, so he had said something to her about not needing or wanting to go off to check on Kikyo this time, but by that point, Kagome had been so angry that she had "sat" him to hell and back and stormed of into the woods.

"Stupid!" She yelled again to herself. Yet as her thoughts drifted more towards the expression on the hanyou's face when he had told her that she had hurt his feeling by yelling that she hated him, she felt her anger weaken a bit. And although she continued to walk the forest floor, small animals and birds were no longer beating a hasty retreat from her surging miko powers and yells of rage. In fact, her aura was quickly settling down and she was no longer yelling at all, but instead disgruntledly mumbling to herself. Although some of this could be attributed to thoughts of Inuyasha, the majority of it had to do with the fact that Kagome had just spotted the exact thing that she needed to relieve some of the day's stress. In the not so distant clearing ahead of her, she could see steam rising from a spring.

Feeling that finally something was going her way today, she quickly closed the distance to the hot spring, gave a sigh of relief, and began to remove her shoes.

Had her mind not been completely preoccupied with thoughts of the day's events, and had her powers not been nearly exhausted from her recent tirade, she would have sensed that she was no longer alone.