Disclaimer: Kikyo and Kagome are the creations of Rumiko Takahashi.

Absent

Kagome watched with disinterest as Kikyo shot the oni with an arrow glowing pink with purification energy. She wondered how an undead miko could even use powers of purification, then decided it didn't matter.

Did anything matter? They were all gone, all gone and left her behind and she let them. She wasn't brave enough to follow them into the afterlife, and had had to make a bargain with a former incarnation to do it for her. Who insisted on making her remember all the happiness she had felt with her former companions. She didn't want to remember being happy.

Kikyo's actions confused her. She understood that Kikyo wanted to be the one to kill her, she said it often enough, but she wanted Kagome's help in defeating Naraku. Which she didn't seem to be in a rush to do, and Kagome didn't think it was because her training was incomplete. Just because you weren't a master didn't mean you couldn't fight and win. And if a trained Kikyo and untrained Kagome scared Naraku enough to go into hiding, why wouldn't Kikyo search out where Naraku was with Kagome partially trained?

It was as if the undead miko was waiting for something.

"Copy, do plan on putting down roots in that spot?"

She could at least stop calling her copy.

"Iie. I was just thinking."

"You seem to do that a lot. Give me your bow."

Kagome handed it over, wondering why, but said nothing.

As if sensing the unspoken question, Kikyo said, "You are already a master of the bow. It is your staff skills that need help."

Kagome had refused to use the monk's staff. Kikyo had switched staffs with her, but to Kagome, it wasn't enough. Each step Kikyo took with it, the rings chimed and memories would flow unbidden of the staff's previous owner.

'I'm sorry.'

But she refused to complain to Kikyo that the staff's presence disturbed her and was left alone with her thoughts.

"Did you hear a single word I said, copy?"

Kikyo had been speaking? Her spacing out was getting worse if she couldn't even hear the woman speaking anymore.

She shook her head.

"I said we will spar. I want to see if you can combine magic with something besides the bow."

Kagome held back a sigh. Sparring was more dangerous than any of the oni who had attacked them for the shards Kagome still carried.

Kikyo swung for her elbow and Kagome blocked the swing with the staff she held. The spar began in earnest. Shoulder. A feint. Pain in her knee where the real attack had been aimed.

She grimaced and threw herself further into the fight. She would not be weak.

What seemed like hours later, Kagome knelt on the ground, panting heavily. Bruises were beginning to form all over her body from the blows Kikyo's- Miroku's- staff had dealt her. Kikyo refused to pull her punches, saying Kagome needed to learn to handle the pain. She refused to allow Kagome to continue practicing her miko powers to heal the wounds.

Kagome thought Kikyo just wanted to draw out the torture. Even an idiot could tell the undead woman hated her.

Kagome didn't even care about killing Naraku anymore. She just wanted it all to end. For her friends to stop being dead, for Kikyo to stop her endless lessons and torture, for the jewel to stop existing, for her to stop existing...

They had abandoned her. All of them. Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Inu-Yasha. Did they ever care about her? They left without ever considering how she'd feel about them leaving.

Was this feeling why Inu-Yasha always tried to keep her on this side of the well? This feeling of utter abandonment? She always promised to return. There were too many things here in Sengoku Jidai that called to her. She could never leave it entirely.

But he had left her. For good. Forever.

She started brushing dirt off herself. Kikyo looked like she hadn't even broken a sweat.

Could the undead sweat?

Everyone said Kagome was Kikyo's reincarnation. The only similarity Kagome saw was their miko abilities. Ninety percent of Japan was populated by people with black hair. And Kikyo's looked brown when the light hit it, not blue. And Kikyo had brown eyes, not gray-blue.

And Kikyo had Inu-Yasha's love. Even dying in her arms, the hanyou had not said he loved her.

She wanted to hate Kikyo for having had Inu-Yasha's love, but couldn't. The woman, were she not so cruel, was pitiable. Sacrificing herself for a jewel that had caused all her troubles, only to be returned to a horrible state of existence balanced between death and life, cursed to have neither. And only the small sliver of Kagome's soul that resided in the woman allowed her the peace she knew.

Maybe Kagome's friends had abandoned her, she thought as she looked at the passive woman, but at least she had had friends to begin with. Who had Kikyo had beyond Inu-Yasha? Perhaps Kaede, but no one else.

She had only the jewel, and it destroyed her.

Kagome had had the jewel, but instead of destroying her, it had destroyed her friends.

Was she any better off than the emotionless clay doll before her? At least Kikyo hadn't dragged anyone else into this mess.

Kagome deserved to be abandoned by her friends. She was the one who had caused all their troubles to begin with.

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

Kikyo frowned at the flicker of emotions crossing Kagome's partially opened face. The healing was not going as fast as she would have liked, nor did the younger miko seem to understand that she was responsible for no one's choices but her own.

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself and go wash up properly, copy. I can smell you from here."

Kagome looked up from the hakama she had been dusting off to stare wearily at Kikyo. Kikyo half-expected the girl to blow up at her like she had done in the past, but recalled the muteness of spirit the girl had gained with each passing of her companions.

Rather than suffer the pains of betrayal and loss, Kikyo had spurned all emotional contact with people to devote herself solely to her station. Looking at the still mostly-broken girl in front of her, she decided the loneliness she sometimes felt was worth missing the few happy moments others could bring you. You could not miss what you did not know.