Ever wonder what the story of Inuyasha would have been like had their roles been reversed? What would it be like if Inuyasha had grown up normally in the modern era, as a human, with a family, and Kagome had been born five hundred years earlier as a priestess? What if, one day, modern Inuyasha fell down a well, and found himself in feudal Japan, with a destiny he had never guessed existed. Well I have, and so I decided to make it up.

 

If you don’t know enough about Inuyasha to know which characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi, and which ones I pulled out of my ass, then you really aren’t a fan and therefore have no business reading fan fiction, you non-fan weirdo. So there.

 

p.s. Don’t you just love how that can be a legitimate end to a conversation, when in reality it makes no sense?

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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past

Chapter 1

The Well

 

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A teenaged boy with long dark hair and bright amber eyes sat at the kitchen table, listlessly chasing stray cheerios with a spoon, his head resting on his hand, elbow on the table. His mother hated when he put his elbows on the table, but he wasn’t much bothered by that. A beautiful black haired woman stood at the counter, pouring what looked like dark brown pencil shavings into the coffee maker. The woman hummed happily as she did so, gazing longingly out the kitchen window at the perfect autumn day.

 

“Honey,” she said, turning to her son, who glanced up indifferently from his half eaten breakfast. “You really ought to get dressed for school, or you’re going to be late.”

 

Her son sighed audibly, taking a quick look at his outfit. He was wearing slightly baggy jeans that hung low on his hips, though not low enough to fall off like some boys wore, and a plain red tee shirt with nothing on it except black writing across the chest, which read ‘Don’t piss me off, I’m running out of places to hide the bodies’ in jagged black lettering.

 

“I am dressed, Mom,” He answered. His mother looked him up and down again, noting the denim and black sneakers on his feet.

 

“Of course you are. Eat your cereal before it gets cold.” In mom talk, the boy took this to mean that his mother was not pleased with his choice of dress. He didn’t really care. He loved his mom and all, but the day when he let her give him a fashion tip would be the day he went to school for fun, and not because it was required by law. Just then, his father walked in to the room. The first thing he did was walk over to the boy’s mother, who still had her back turned, patting his young son on the shoulder as he did.

 

“Morning, runt,” he said affectionately to the boy, who grunted in reply and used his spoon to trap an o of cereal between the utensil and the edge of the bowl, but the thing jumped out of the bowl onto the table. His mother would have been displeased had she not been too distracted by his fathers brand of good morning.

 

The man in his early forties, with eye length silver hair and a handsome face, swept over to his wife, and before she could so much as turn, had dipped her so low the she screamed, planted a kiss on her mouth, and returned her to a standing position, arms wrapped around her waist..

 

“Good morning, oh light of my life,” he said fondly into her hair as she pulled a plate of toast towards herself.

 

“Shut it, you,” she snapped playfully, stuffing the first, slightly burnt piece into his mouth. He snickered happily into the buttered bread.

 

“Ugh, gross,” said their son loudly, in order to make his presence known to them, as they seemed to have forgotten. He was glad his parents still loved each other, of course, as many kids’ parents had long since split up, but he really preferred not to see displays of parental affection, especially not when he was trying to eat.

 

“Son,” said his father, patting him on the shoulder. “I think its time you started being interested in girls,” he joked. “They don’t have cooties, you know.”

 

“Duh,” said the boy.

 

“Well son, at 17 you really ought to know a few things by now. Honey,” he added turning to his wife in mock seriousness. “I think its time we tell him.”

 

“Oh no, Daiyo dear,” said the woman, going along with the joke, “Anything but that.’

 

“We have to, dear Izayoi,” he said. Then, turning to his son, he said in a resigned voice.
“Inuyasha, Santa clause isn’t real.”

 

“Gosh,” said Inuyasha blandly.

 

“Your mother is the tooth fairy.”

 

“Oh no, woe is me.” Inuyasha, despite feigning apathy, loved his father’s stupid jokes.

 

“And the Easter bunny…”

 

“Oh no, you aren’t going to tell me the Easter bunny’s a fake too!”

 

“Oh, no he was real, but last year I accidentally ran him over in the drive way, and buried him with the begonias.”

 

Inuyasha couldn’t help himself. He cracked a small smile. He tried not to, but the running joke was just a little too much for his poker face.

 

“OH MY GOD!” screamed his father, jumping up as though burned. “Izayoi, he smiled! Quick, get the camera! I knew you could do it, son. It’s a miracle!”

 

His mother pretended to fumble around for an imaginary camera and snap a photo, just as Inuyasha’s older brother walked in. His hair was even longer than Inuyasha’s waist length mop, and just as dark. He sat himself at the table across from his younger sibling, who was looking slightly disgruntled as he chased another cheerio out of the bowl.

 

“God, Inuyasha,” he said in place of a morning greeting. “You have the table manners of a dog. We ought to just put down a bowl on the floor and let you eat from that.”

 

“Bite me, Sesshomaru,” Inuyasha retorted.

 

“Wouldn’t that be your job, mutt boy?”

 

Inuyasha smirked cruelly at that, as his mother scolded her eldest son. “Sesshomaru, leave your little brother alone.”

 

“Aw, don’t worry about it, mom,” said Inuyasha with mock sympathy. “He’s just moody. I’d be moody too if I were in my twenties and still living at home.”

 

That was Sesshomaru’s sore point. He hated the fact that his parents insisted that, since his college was only a few miles away, he live at home, as it was cheaper and easier that way, and it was the one thing that was sure to get him pissed. Naturally he wasn’t about to let that go.

 

Sesshomaru stood abruptly, although keeping his face completely impassive. “At least, little brother, I am able to attend college, unlike a certain Taisho boy, who shall remain nameless, who is failing almost everything he takes.”

 

Now it was Inuyasha’s turn to jump to his feet. “I am NOT failing everything!” he protested angrily, although it was mostly untrue. It wasn’t that Inuyasha was unintelligent. Quite the contrary. He was quite smart, and as such found the work rather boring. So he didn’t try. He never did homework, rarely studied for anything, and spent class time doodling and passing rude notes about the teacher, when he bothered to show up at all. He didn’t usually fail tests, but even those high scores weren’t enough to save him. In fact, the only class he managed to stay at the top of, as it had no homework or tests, was…

 

“Gym doesn’t really count as a class, mutt boy,” Sesshomaru countered, hiding his triumph behind the holier-than-thou expression in his amber eyes that matched his fathers and brothers. Though the boys looked fairly similar, clearly related, they had extremely grating personalities which led to fighting, bitter fighting, all the time.

 

Sesshomaru, much to Inuyasha’s chagrin, was not wrong. Inuyasha had always excelled at gym. He was unusually strong for his age, or any age frankly. His muscles were lean and defined, but he was not exactly a body builder, bulging with oddly shaped muscular lumps, and had no desire to be. He didn’t seem to need to. In fact, Inuyasha’s strength was so unnaturally disproportionate to his size that it was almost supernatural, though he knew that was ridiculous. He was also very fast, exactly how fast he didn’t know, as he had learned young that showing of the true potential of his abilities tended to freak people out a little. He was rarely injured, never incurring worse that a broken arm, despite his participation in every sport under the sun, including motocross (without his parents’ knowledge, of course). Still, no matter how may times he was thrown to the ground or slammed into walls, clocked with sticks, or kicked with cleats, he never seemed to break as easily as other people. When he did get hurt, like the one time with his arm, he had healed abnormally fast, and ended up having the cast taken off three weeks early, after a week and a half of him insisting to his parents that it was fine and his arm didn’t hurt anymore. Still, he had to jump into the pool with it to get them to so much as check. Inuyasha had loved gym ever since he learned to control himself enough to use only a portion of his abilities, just the right amount to win at any sport, any time. So, he liked it and did well. And, usually, showed up.

 

“Boys, enough already. Sesshomaru, apologize to Inuyasha. Inuyasha, you do the same to your brother,” their father demanded.

 

“No way!” Inuyasha shouted.

 

“Well, I will father. I’m sorry, Inuyasha. I’m sorry that you are such a worthless waste of air. I’m sorry that you are too stupid to find your way out of a paper bag. I’m sorry you’re going to end up living in a basement, fat and bald by thirty, and I’m sorry that you will never be any good to anybody, no matter what you do, and that this family would be better off without you! I’m so sorry for that Inuyasha.”

 

“Sesshomaru!” gasped Izayoi, shocked by her son’s cruelty.

 

Inuyasha, however, was not about to sit around for any more of that. “I’m out of here,” he said, pulling his school bag up onto his shoulders, and taking off out the front door. He could hear his father arguing with Sesshomaru, and his mother calling to him to come back, that they would drive him to school, to please talk to them for a minute. He ignored it all. He walked over to the sidewalk, looking across the street to the shrine that had been there as long as he could remember. It was old and out of use, but the land was regarded as historically valuable, and forbidden for trespass or development. As such, the old shrine, complete with well house, simply sat there, crumbling. No one bothered with it much anymore, though it was covered from top to bottom with graffiti that had piled up in the late eighties.

 

Inuyasha made it to school in half the time it normally took him, as he had forgotten in his anger to walk at a normal pace, and had instead moved at a speed he knew no other student could match. There was a half an hour left before the building would open to students, and an hour before his first class would begin. He gazed up at the clean, rectangular building, and felt a sudden loathing for the place. He didn’t want to go in there. He hated school. He didn’t have any friends, not really. Most of the kids had known him since kindergarten, and therefore had been there for the incidents his strength had caused before he knew to control himself. Many were scared of him. They assumed that his tough demeanor made him a thug, and so avoided him. Other so-called bullies hung out with Inuyasha all the time. People like that thought he was cool and mysterious. They would follow him out onto the grounds and smoke and cuss, thinking it would earn them his favor. Needless to say, it didn’t work. He didn’t like any of those kids, nor did he care enough to set them straight. Instead, he let the morons chase after his approval, then went home and brooded over it.

 

He didn’t want to do that today. The pessimistic part of him had teemed up with the much larger, self loathing part, and they were telling him things like ‘if I’m such a waste of air like Sesshomaru said then what’s the point of going to school?’ and ‘its not like I’m going to need any of this crap anyway for my life in the basement’ and ‘an idiot like me doesn’t need to waste the teachers’ time.’ Those parts convinced him to turn around. He ran at top speed back to his house, making the 45 minute walk into five minutes, unaware of how he accomplished such a feat. He caught his breath for a moment, looking at his house. Both his parents’ cars were gone by then, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Sesshomaru had left, and Inuyasha wasn’t willing to risk it. He wasn’t going into that house. Instead he turned directly around to find himself looking right at the shrine.

 

Something about the ancient, decrepit building was calling to him. He didn’t know why, but he really wanted to go in onto the grounds and look around. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t allowed there, or perhaps it was something else, but whatever it was he was compelled inexplicably to obey. Walking slowly, he stepped off the boundary of the road and up onto the curb of the property. Immediately, it felt as though some gigantic invisible weight had been lifted off of him, and on overwhelming sense of purpose overcame him. He knew, without knowing how he knew it, that this was the right place, that this is where he needed to be, and it was only he who needed to be there. It was a good feeling, almost like the very air was pining for him. Shaking his head to clear it, he began to explore.

 

Before continuing, Inuyasha slid his bag off of his shoulder, looking around for a place to put it. He could always carry it around, but he didn’t feel like lugging the thing around school, much less dragging it on his little hooky-adventure. He spotted a rather thick bramble beside the road, overgrown as though it hadn’t been pruned in several dozen years. Perfect. Slipping his pack into the bush, he turned to face the hill-set shrine.

 

There was a large, steep staircase leading the way up to the shrine itself. There it stood, old and dusty, yet solid. Beside it was a small shed, which Inuyasha recognized as a well house.  Across the way, at the very edge of the hill, stood an old and humongous tree, which Inuyasha recognized as the famed sacred tree, and the chief reason why the site was land marked. He started toward the door of the shrine, but was distracted by a noise. He couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but it sounded like something scratching on wood with nails or claws. He stood very still listening intently for the faintest hint of the sound. For a moment, nothing, and then…

 Scratch, scratch 

Inuyasha stared around for the source of the noise, his eyes coming to rest on the well house. Cautiously, he walked toward the door, and slid it open, stepping into the cool, dark, damp room. He wasn’t afraid, but his heart was pounding anyway, beating a rough tattoo against his Adam’s apple. Descending the stairs, he strained his ears for the sound again. A moment later, he was rewarded.

 Scratch, scratch 

The sound seemed to be coming from the other side of the well. Inuyasha moved around the wooden covered well slowly, stooping and picking up a piece of wood that seemed to have fallen from a beam in the ceiling. He rounded the bend slowly, slowly…

 

And there, one the ground, sitting next to the sealed well, sat a rather fat calico cat, licking the back of its paw without a care in the world. Feeling idiotic, Inuyasha dropped the wooden plank loudly to the ground, releasing a breath he hadn’t noticed taking or holding. The thud of the wood hitting dirt scared the cat, which arched its back in a hiss. Guiltily, Inuyasha knelt by the cat to calm it, lifting it into his arms. For a moment, the cat stayed, still and complacent, purring in the boys arms as he rubbed the bases of its pointy little ears.

 

“You scared me, stupid cat,” scolded Inuyasha, to no affect. The animal simply gazed innocently up at him as though it had no idea what he was talking about. Inuyasha continued to pet the cat until he heard it. The same noise again.

 Scratch, scratch 

It couldn’t be. The cat had been making that sound, he had been sure of it. But if it wasn’t the cat, then what else could it be?

 Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch, scratch 

 Inuyasha turned slowly, swallowing hard, looking first at the ground for a second cat. There was none. Reluctantly, he raised his eye to the sealed well. There was a small light coming through the spaces in between the wooden slats. The light began to brighten slowly, and the calico hissed again and scratched Inuyasha in a bid for freedom. He dropped the cat unceremoniously, getting a yowl of distaste, but he didn’t care. He was standing transfixed, staring at the well as the light got brighter and brighter until it was like daylight within the small structure.

 

The scratching sound grew louder, until suddenly it stopped completely. For a moment all was silent, then a high pitched, keening laugh filled the air. It made Inuyasha’s skin erupt in goose bumps and grated at his mind like a knife on glass. Clapping his hands over his ears, he tried to block out the sound to no avail. The laughter became a piercing shriek, and the well’s cover exploded outward, showering the boy with bits of wood. He turned his face away from the wreckage of splinters, throwing an arm over his head to protect his eyes and face.

 

He didn’t see what happened next, but he felt it. Something very strong wrapped around his waist tightly, squeezing as though trying to crush the life out of him. He was lifted off the ground and pulled down something narrow, and damp that reeked of mold and rotten wood. The well.

 

Inuyasha braced himself for an impact with the well floor, but none came. Instead, his entire body was engulfed in tingles, like being gently electrocuted, but without pain. Heat rose around him, and though he could feel it, he did not burn. The laughing thing was still wrapped around his waist, despite his struggles against it. Twisting around, he lashed desperately out at it with his hand, not knowing what he was doing or why he was doing it. Something happened. He was too far away to have connected to the creature’s body, but yet he had somehow felt his hand make contact with the thing, which squealed, and loosened its grip.

 

The next thing he knew, Inuyasha was thrown hard onto the dirt floor of the well, where he lay panting, chest heaving as he drew the breaths he couldn’t while that…whatever it was had hold of him. He froze. The thing that had been squeezing him was still there. He could feel it, wrapped loosely around his chest. Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, he looked down at his midsection, expecting to see a rope or binding of some sort.

 

He saw an arm. A pale, feminine arm was wrapped around him, with unnaturally elongated fingers that clutched his tee shirt. There was no body attached to the end of it, and no blood where it had been severed. Instead of a bone or sinew, the arm seemed to be composed of black gunk.

 

Inuyasha sat frozen for a minute, unable to register what he was seeing. It was the grossest thing he had ever seen in his life, and he really didn’t want it touching him anymore. As though switched on suddenly, Inuyasha cried out, jumping to his feet and flinging the arm as far as he could without gripping it. It smacked into the opposite wall of the well and fell to the ground where it lay motionless. The well, however, was only about five feet wide, and Inuyasha wanted to be a lot farther away from the thing then that.

 

There was a network of vines that he hadn’t noticed before lining the walls inside the well. He was just wondering if they would be able to support his weight were he to try and climb them when he heard a rustling behind him. Gulping, he turned to see that the arm and rolled onto its hand and was crawling toward him like some grotesque spider. Inuyasha jumped in shock…

 

And when he landed, it was on the grass outside the well. He was halfway through mentally inquiring the possibility of that, when he saw something was wrong. The well house was gone. There was not even a trace of its remains. No splintered wood or broken beams, no stairs, not even any difference in the ground height. That wasn’t the only thing missing. The shrine was absent from the scene as well. In fact, Inuyasha seemed to be standing in a field he had never seen before, more a clearing really, surrounded by a forest. The trees were fairly tall, but he could see the mountains beyond. What he could not see where buildings, sky scrapers, billboards, or planes. Not a car or even a road in sight. There was no sign of Tokyo at all. This was clearly not good. Inuyasha had no idea what happened to him. He backed up a few steps unconsciously, only to bump into the side of the well. Perhaps if he jumped back down the well, he would end up back at home. It was worth a shot. He turned and put one foot up on the edge, then froze. He had forgotten the arm. The spider-like limb was pacing the bottom of the well like a sentry, and the last thing he wanted to do was jump down and start fighting with the disembodied limb again.

 

With a sigh, he turned towards the forest and started walking in a random direction. After twenty minutes, Inuyasha’s already strained patience was wearing dangerously thin. He changed direction and headed back to the well, determined to get back home if he had to jump on the spider-hand thing and stomp the little bastard to death. He never got that far. On his retreat, he noticed something he had missed before. There, a bit past the well, was the sacred tree, the same one he had been seeing every time he looked out his bedroom window since he was five. It seemed to be the only thing that was unchanged in the area. He walked trancelike up to the base, running his hand over the trunk in familiarity.

  

“You there, what do you think you are doing?” cried a voice behind him. He jumped and spun around, his back pressed firmly to the tree trunk.

 

“Wha…what?” stammered Inuyasha in response.

 

“I asked what you think you are doing,” repeated the voice. It belonged, he saw, to a young woman, dressed in what he vaguely recognized as feudal style clothing of a priest or priestess. She was probably no older than him, and had long black hair, though shorter than his own, and dark, brown eyes that were alight with suspicion. Inuyasha would have found her quite pretty if not for two things. Firstly, she had a group of at least ten men behind her, many carrying short swords, knives, ropes, or projectile weapons. Secondly, the girl had a bow pointed at him, with an arrow cocked and trained directly at his heart.

 

“I’m not doing anything. I was just…” But what he was just doing didn’t seem to interest the girl. At any rate, she never found out, as he had, without realizing, taken a step towards her in that moment, and before he knew what had hit him, she had shifted her aim, and let loose an arrow.

 

There was a loud thud of wood on wood, and a searing pain in his left shoulder. The girls arrow had struck his shoulder high up, mostly getting shirt, but cutting also through the flesh of his collar bone a little to close to his throat for comfort.

 

“Hey!” he shouted angrily, the searing pain in his shoulder adding to his already mounting aggravation with wherever he had ended up. “What the hell is wrong with you?! You could have killed me!” he reached to pull out the arrow, only to have it zap his hand as he tried with what may have been electricity. The wound started to ache worse and worse by the second.

 

“And if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I still might,” the girl replied, pulling another arrow out and readying it too. “Tell me why you have come here. What are you looking for?”

 

“Look,” said Inuyasha hotly. “I don’t know what you want from me, or who the hell you are, or who you think you are going around shooting people with arrows like that, and I really honestly don’t give a crap. All I want is to get home and forget this ever happened.”

 

“Where is this home you speak of?” asked the girl, bow still pointing at his chest, the string creaking audibly as though hungry for his blood.

 

“Stop pointing that thing at me and maybe I’ll tell ya.”

 

“Tell me and maybe I’ll stop pointing this thing at you,” she snapped back, tightening the string and preparing to fire.

 

“I’m from Tokyo, ok, you crazy wench?”

 

The girl looked puzzled. “Tokyo? Where is this Tokyo? I’ve never heard of such a place.”

 

“Its in Japan,” Inuyasha answered. “Actually I think it’s supposed to be right here, but it seems to have disappeared. I don’t know how this happened. How can an entire city just disappear? And where is the shrine? And where is my house? And what the hell is going on here?”

 

“Lady Priestess,” said one of the men, speaking for the first time. He was a short, balding man wielding a short blade and was staring at Inuyasha as though he’d prefer to see him sautéed and served with butter then standing pinned to a tree.  “Clearly the boy is mad. He may be a danger. I believe we should simply kill him and dispose of the body.’

 

“What?!” shouted Inuyasha, stricken.

“We aren’t killing anyone, Matomi, so please relax.”

 

“But, my Lady Priestess…” the man, Matomi, argued.

 

“I have already given my answer to you,” Said the girl, kindly but firmly. “Kanichi, Suri, please come and help me with him,” she added, apparently speaking to the man with rope and another, younger man who appeared to be unarmed.

 

The three, the priestess, Kanichi, and Suri, approached Inuyasha with extreme caution, looking more like they were trying to corner a wounded animal then going to peel a pissed off teenager from a tree.

 

Inuyasha tensed as the came up to him, not trusting a single one of them in the slightest.

 

“Kanichi, bind his hands, please,” the priestess girl ordered, and the man with the rope came forward. Without being asked, the man called Suri came to help, pulling Inuyasha’s hands roughly in front of him and holding them in place, Inuyasha hissing through his teeth as they did so from the strain on his injured shoulder, which was worsening still it seemed.

 

“What is your name,” the girl asked him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He felt like rolling his own. As if he was a danger injured, tied, and stuck to a tree.

 

“I’m Inuyasha,” he answered defiantly.

 

“Interesting name. Tell me, Inuyasha, are you by any chance…a demon?”

 

Inuyasha stared at her completely nonplussed. Either this was some big, tasteless joke, or he had just fallen into a nest of serious crazies.

 

“I don’t think so,” he answered sarcastically. “Tell me, priestess, are you by any chance a nut job?”

 

The man, Kanichi, slapped him hard across the face. “How dare you talk to Lady Kagome like that, you worthless gutter scum. I oughta gut you for your tongue. Or perhaps I should just cut it out,” he considered, pulling a long blade that had been hidden inside his kimono into the open and holding very close to Inuyasha’s face. Inuyasha didn’t so much as flinch, meeting the man's glare with equal vehemence.

 

“Kanichi, that is enough!” Kagome said moving forward, placing a hand on the man’s arm.

 

“But Lady, during this dangerous time...”

 

“Just because the states are warring, Kanichi, doesn’t mean it is acceptable for us all to fight each other. He has done nothing wrong that we know of, and we won’t punish an innocent man.”

 

Kanichi looked displeased by these terms, but lowered his weapon nonetheless. Inuyasha did not miss the relief that flooded Kagome’s eyes for a moment. It was not reassuring.

 

“You two go wait with the others at the base of the roots,” she addressed both Kanichi and Suri. “I need to remove the spell from this arrow if we want to get him off this tree. Then we will take him to Lady Kaede. She will know if he is a threat or not, and how to deal with him.”

 

Kanichi didn’t look happy about this, whereas Suri scurried away immediately looking relieved to be out of the line of fire. Kanichi followed him, shooting resentful looks back at Kagome, who ignored him, turning her attention to the arrow that now felt like it was searing the flesh from Inuyasha’s shoulder. He had his teeth bared like fangs, but his mouth closed over them so as to avoid the people in the weird place noticing that they just happened to be abnormally long. The pain was intense. It was all he could do to keep from making any noise or crying out.

 

The girl, Kagome, was muttering a strange sounding mantra under her breath, holding the shaft of her arrow, careful not to shift or turn it. After a moment, the whole thing glowed pink, and the glow spread the Inuyasha’s shoulder. The severe burning stopped, as though he had been given a magical anesthetic, fading to a dull pain that was uncomfortable but bearable, and Inuyasha loosened his bite before his teeth cracked under its force.

 

Kagome tightened her grip on the shaft of the arrow, and braced her other hand against the tree. Before Inuyasha had time to dread what was coming next, she said “This is going to hurt,” as if commenting on the weather, and tugged the arrow as hard as she could.

 

Inuyasha could feel every movement as the barbed tip of the arrow was pulled back through the wound, ripping any unharmed flesh it came in contact with. Inuyasha bit down hard on his lip to keep himself quiet, tasting blood as it spilled over his lips from the cut he had made with his sharp teeth, but no sound escaped him.

 

He could feel as his knees begged to buckle, but he refused to allow it. Swaying slightly, he allowed Kagome to lead him, by the ropes, back over to the many armed men, and the group and their disgruntled prisoner set off for the village.

 

Inuyasha had no idea what was going on. He didn’t know where he was, or even when he was. Crazy as that thought sounded, even to him, he had difficulty dismissing it. Either way, he could tell that something was definitely off.

 

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This story kinda hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m still ironing out some details… ok a lot of details, but I just thought that a little role reversal, walk a mile in another’s shoes could be fun. I now the characters are a little bit different, but this is an AU, one that assumes the characters have led totally different lives than those of the anime/manga characters. It stands to reason that they’d be somewhat different.

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Please review. I love to know what you have to say. So, here’s the story, chapter 2. I think I’m going to enjoy writing this. Role reversal is fun. *Malicious laughter*

 

Disclaimer: Rumiko and I had a fight about who got Inuyasha. I won, but then she transformed Tessaiga and hit me over the head with it, grabbed Inuyasha, and ran away. So, she has Inuyasha, and I have a headache.

 

On with the story.

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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past

Chapter 2

Diagnosis: Time Travel

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Inuyasha’s knees hit the ground hard, and he suppressed an annoyed grunt, hastily reminding himself that he was surrounded by a large group of angry, armed people who didn’t appear to think to fondly of him. He swayed dangerously, having a difficult time keeping his balance, as his arms had been bound in front of him during the trek from the gigantic tree, and he couldn’t use them to keep himself up. One of the men, seeing this, grabbed the back of his shirt collar to keep him upright, pulling the fabric uncomfortably close and tight around Inuyasha’s neck.

 

“Priestess,” called a man in the front, who Inuyasha knew by then was called Kanichi. “We have a little something for you to see.”

 

For a moment, no one answered, and Inuyasha wondered who they were talking to. But then, the crowd parted slowly, turning to look at someone approaching. Form his position on the ground, the first thing Inuyasha saw was a brilliantly red hakama. Then came a white kosode, with the hands protruding from the sleeves resting on a set of hips. Finally came a face, with white hair surrounding it. The woman was heavy set, and older, with a black patch covering one eye.

 

“And what is going on here?” asked the old priestess calmly, as though tied up boys were dropped on her doorstep everyday.

 

“Kaede,” came Kagome’s voice from behind Inuyasha, as the young priestess forced her way to the front with little difficulty, although he couldn’t actually see her. “We found this man over by the sacred tree. I don’t think he’s a demon, but I wasn’t sure, so I thought it would be best to ask you.”

 

“Kagome,” the woman tutted, “Ye know well that ye have more than enough training to tell a human from a demon by now. What ye lack is the confidence in your own abilities, and not the knowledge.”

 

“I’m sorry, Kaede,” said Kagome, sounding more than a little ashamed.

 

“Now, now, there is no need for embarrassment Kagome. Let me have a look at this man, and I will tell ye what I think.”

 

No one moved for a moment, and Inuyasha wondered if the woman was going to kneel to see his face, but then a few hands grabbed his shoulders, not failing to clamp tightly over the injured one, and pulled him roughly into a standing position. He didn’t struggle, and took the chance to gain his footing securely, before looking up and meeting the old woman’s eyes, or eye.

 

As it turned out, this Kaede person was actually quite a bit shorter than him, though he hadn’t been able to tell that from the ground, as were most of the men who had been pulling him around.

 

‘I could take these guys,’ he thought bitterly, as he looked around at the people surrounding him, although his hands being tied up in front of him might make that difficult.

 

Suddenly, he felt the old woman’s hand grab his face and pull it down so that his eyes were on level with hers. Inuyasha met her gaze defiantly.

 

“Are ye a demon?” she asked him, in a tone that could have been used to inquire about the time of day.

 

“No,” he answered sarcastically. “Are you one?”

 

“No, I am not,” she told him, then she turned to the gathered crowd. “This man is not a demon,” she told them. “Nor is he much a man, if ye ask me. Still, I beseech ye wait to untie him, as I would like to speak to him and Lady Kagome in private.”

 

Without the slightest hesitation, Matomi grabbed one of Inuyasha’s arms, Kanichi the other, and they began to try to drag him towards a hut. Inyuasha, however in danger he might be, refused to be victimized and tossed around like that. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and refused to budge. Despite the efforts of the two men at his sides, the boy was immovable.

 

“I’m not going anywhere with any of you freaks until someone tells me what the hell is going on here!” he proclaimed. Every head snapped in his direction.

 

“I don’t think you be in any position to be making demands, boy,” said Matomi nastily, readying his blade.

 

Inuyasha was done being intimidated by a short bald guy whose ass he could kick in a second, hands tied nor not. “The hell I’m not,” he retorted.

 

Sneering viciously, as though he had hoped Inuyasha would say just that, Matomi started towards the boy with his blade in hand.

 

“That is more than enough!” shouted the old priestess Kaede, freezing them both in their tracks.

 

“Matomi, I suggest very strongly that ye retire for the evening,” she said to the man with the blade. He looked absolutely infuriated, but clearly recognized that the woman was his superior, and he didn’t protest.

 

“Yes, my lady,” he said, the respect in his strained voice still evident through his gritted teeth. He turned on his heel, sheathing his blade recklessly, and headed off up the main road without a second glance.

 

“And ye,” she said to Inuyasha, turning this time to face him. “If ye will come with me, boy…”

 

“It’s Inuyasha,” Kagome corrected her politely.

 

“If ye will come with me, Inuyasha, than perhaps together we can figure out how ye came to be here. I will not force ye, but ye seem lost, and I don’t see any other hope of ye getting home. Please consider that before leaving.” She then turned to address a man who was standing meekly behind the Kagome, looking positively terrified of the proceedings. “Suri, would ye please untie…Inuyasha was it?” Said bound person nodded his assent. “Please untie Inuyasha.”

 

With that, the woman turned on her heel and headed into the hut, ducking slightly to go underneath the beaded curtain in her way.

  

Suri approached Inuyasha cautiously, watching him like he half expected the boy to jump atop him and rip out his throat. Inuyasha raised an eyebrow quizzically at him.

 

“You got a problem?” he asked Suri sharply.

 

“Na….na…no, Inu…Inu… sir. N…no problem at all.”

 

Inuyasha continued to stare at the man, until Kagome, taking pity on the poor, terrified soul, approached him and tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump a full foot in the air.

 

“It’s alright, Suri. You go on home, and I’ll untie him.”

 

“Oh n…no, Lady Kagome. I couldn’t do that. He might not be sa…safe.”

 

“You don’t have to worry, Suri. I’ll be fine. He wont hurt me, will you Inuyasha?” she asked, turning her attention on the boy at last. He only snorted in response and looked away, but the young priestess took that as agreement. “See, Suri? It’s fine. Go ahead.”

 

Without further argument, Suri clasped her hands gratefully and practically ran in the opposite direction.

 

Kagome then turned on Inuyasha, reaching out and taking hold of the thick rope that bound his hands tightly enough to bruise his wrists.

 

“Sorry about this,” she said, indicating the raw looking marks on Inuyasha’s arms, some of which had started to bleed by then. “We can’t be too careful you know.”

 

“Feh,” said Inuyasha.

 

“You can’t really blame us for being suspicious.”

 

“I can too. Watch,” said Inuyasha angrily, his temper not being improved by the way the ropes kept cutting into his flesh as the girl struggled to undo the multiple knots.

 

“No, you can’t. Or, at least, you shouldn’t,” she told him, twisting the ropes yet again to try to get to another knotted section. “What were they trying to do with these ropes? They must be knotted a dozen times.”

 

“Trying to tie up a demon, I guess. Thanks a lot for giving them the idea, by the way”

 

“Hey, I said I was sorry. I was just being careful.”

 

“I’ve never met any one so careful that they would shoot me.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Kagome remembered guiltily, pausing in her ministrations with his bindings. “I’ll take a look at that shoulder as soon we get inside. I’m sorry I did it. But I was very careful. I’m a good shot, and I aimed it so it wouldn’t hurt you.”

 

“Well, if that wasn’t supposed to hurt, than you screwed it up badly.”

 

“Well, no, I knew it was going to be painful, but it was meant not to cause too much damage.”

 

“Yeah, well, it felt pretty damaging at the time. Stupid thing even zapped me when I tried to pull it out. Are you gonna be done with that anytime soon?” he finished, nodding to his hands.

 

“Yeah, any minute now. Just a couple more knots. What do you mean, it zapped you?”

 

“I dunno,” he answered, shifting his arms a bit so that the girl could reach the other ties, only to find that the new position put strain on his injured shoulder, and move back to his original position. “It shocked me or something.”

 

Kagome paused in loosening his bindings to look curiously at him. “But that doesn’t make sense. The arrows power should only be felt by demons, and you said you weren’t a demon, so…”

 

“God, would you just untie me already?!”

 

“Oh right, sorry,” she said, hurriedly removing the last of the knots, and pulling the ropes from his wrists. “Ouch,” she added, looking at the damage she had inflicted on him. “I can fix that up for you. That is, if you decide to stay and talk to us.”

 

“And if I don’t, am I going to find an arrow sticking out of my back the second I turn around?”

 

“Of course not. You can go if that’s what you want, but if you stay, then maybe we can help you get to…wherever it is that you come from.”

 

Inuyasha considered for a minute. There was a chance that simply jumping down the well would take him home, but then there was the chance that it wouldn’t, and in that case he would be stuck. And by then, these people might not be so willing to help him anymore. Then again, if he did stay, they might decide that he was dangerous, and he doubted that they would hesitate to stab him in the back…literally.

 

“As if I have a choice,” he snorted, walking towards the hut he had seen the old woman go into.

 

“So you’re staying then.”

 

“Feh,” he said.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

 

The inside of the hut was slightly darker and several degrees cooler than the outside air. The elderly priestess barely glanced up as he entered, absorbed as she was with something that she was stirring in a large pot. Without being asked, Inuyasha sat heavily on the opposite side of the structure, close enough to speak quietly, but far enough away that he could keep his back pressed firmly against the wall. Just in case.

 

The young priestess, Kagome, followed him in and sat a small ways to his left, closer to the other priestess than to Inuyasha. She didn’t look at him regularly either, and when she does it was in short glances that radiated wariness, though not complete distrust.

 

After more than a minute of silence, Inuyasha decided to speak. “So, where exactly am I, and how the hell can I get out of here?” he asked, his voice sounding gruffer than he had intended it to.

 

“I don’t think ye are asking the right question,” answered the priestess Kaede cryptically, earning puzzled looks from both Inuyasha and Kagome. “I cannot be sure yet. Please tell me how it was ye came to be here, and then I might know how to send ye back.”

 

Inuyasha shrugged carelessly, regretting the motion immediately as his injured shoulder throbbed in protest.

 

“There really isn’t much to tell. I was supposed to be in school, but I didn’t feel like it, so I cut and wandered around an old shrine instead. I heard a noise in the well house, went to check it out, found some fat ass cat, and all of a sudden something jumps out of the well, grabs me, and pulls me down the damn thing. I hit it, I guess, ‘cause the next thing I know I’m sitting at the bottom of the well with an arm wrapped around my chest and no body attached to it. Then the thing started moving on its own and I had had enough of that shit, so I jumped out of the well, don’t ask me how that one happened, ‘cause I don’t know, and found myself here. The arm thing is probably still pacing the bottom of the well. And none of this makes any sense to me ‘cause where I come from wells are just supposed to hold water, and arms that are severed usually just rot. So, old woman, you got a clue yet?”

 

“I don’t think I understood half of that,” said Kagome, looking confused. “What’s school and why would you cut it? And what shrine are you talking about. There isn’t a formal shrine for miles. We plan to build one soon, but as of now there has never been any shrine near the Bone Eater’s well.”

  

“Bone Eater’s Well?”

 

“Yes. That’s what it’s called, the well you came out of, unless you walked a lot farther then we had assumed.”

 

“No, I was only out of the thing for like ten minutes. Then, you shot me.”

 

“Oh yeah. I should probably see to that, if you’ll let me,” Kagome told him, the guilt in her voice readily apparent.

 

“Whatever,” Inuyasha answered apathetically. Kagome took that as a yes, and shuffled over to him to get a better look at the wound.

 

“I may have a theory as to how ye came to be here, child,” said Kaede, speaking for the first time since Inuyasha’s story. “But first I need to ask ye some things.”

 

“Like?” Inuyasha shot at her.

 

“Like where it was ye said ye came from.”

 

“Tokyo.”

 

“And that is in Japan ye say?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well, this is Japan, but I have never heard of Tokyo. And there is also the strange way ye dress. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

 

“Well, I have,” Inuyasha retorted, as though personally affronted by her confusion. “Every day. And, by the way, you shouldn’t talk, considering that I’ve only ever seen clothes like that in museums. And on Halloween. So are you going to spill this theory of yours or not.”

 

“Patience, child, is a virtue,” reminded the old woman.

 

“Feh,” said Inuyasha.

 

“Ye say that ye did not travel far at all, and yet ye found yeself somewhere completely foreign.”

 

“What are you thinking, Kaede?” asked Kagome, who had made no move to fix Inuyasha’s injury since the older priestess had begun speaking. She was gazing at her senior, her mouth slightly open. She seemed to at least have some idea of what Kaede was alluding to, and looked as though she was hoping she had misunderstood. Inuyasha, however, didn’t understand anything. He didn’t know what the crazy women were talking about, and with his shoulder hurting and the hour growing later, he wasn’t much in the mood to listen to anymore cryptic rambling.

 

“I believe ye have traveled a great distance without moving at all,” the elderly woman said, like that was going to explain everything. Needless to say, it didn’t help Inuyasha’s understanding, or, for that matter, his temper.

 

“Would you spit it out already, you old hag? I’m tired of listening to all this senseless babble. Tell me what the fuck is going on or leave me the hell alone!”

 

Kagome glared at him angrily, but the sagely Kaede merely smiled in a manner he found most irritating, and continued.

 

“Perhaps it is not space ye traveled through, but time. This is the era of warring states. Feudal lords are constantly waging battles of dominance with stupid displays of violence and animalistic behavior. Is that what is happening in your time?”

 

“Well, sort of. But we just call it football usually.”

 

“I see. So ye are from the era of football?” Kaede asked him seriously, saying the last word for much longer than necessary.

 

“I guess you could say that. Football, rap music, and gangs.”

 

“It sounds fascinating,” said Kagome, who sounded confused.

 

“Are you trying to tell me that I’m having some weird time traveling thing?”

 

“Most eloquently put,” agreed Kaede, with almost imperceptible sarcasm. “But, yes, I do believe that ye have the gist of what I was trying to say.”

 

Inuyasha looked from one, to the other, and then to the first again. “Yup, I’ve found the funny farm, alright.”

 

“This isn’t the farm, but we do have one if you want to walk later,” Kagome told him, not understanding.

 

“No, that’s not what…nevermind. Anyway, the way I see it is there are two possibilities to explain this.”

 

“And what would those be?” asked Kaede.

 

“Well, the first is that I somehow fell down that well, and that I’m now lying at the bottom of it concussed, where, most likely, no one will ever find me, as no one knew I was there.”

 

Kagome looked thoughtful for a moment. “Did it hurt when I shot you?” she asked.

 

“Hell yes, it hurt!”

 

“Ok, then lets operate under the assumption that you are, in fact conscious, and assess the other possibility.”

 

“The other choice,” Inuyasha told her, “Is that I’m strapped to a gurney in some mental institution blathering to myself about demons and priestesses and looking generally insane. Not exactly a better option.”

 

“Or,” offered Kaede, “Ye could take the third option, and admit the possibility that something amazing has happened to ye, and that ye are now in the distant past, though how distant I cannot say, and simply try to return home.”

 

Inuyasha thought for a moment. Laying his trust in people he hardly knew wasn’t something he was used to doing. Nor was accepting the idea of magical time travel. But, if he were to say flat out that this was all some hallucination, and then it wasn’t, he would have more problems than he did already. And, if it was some weird dream, and he played along, the worst that could happen is he would wake feeling fairly idiotic. And that was a chance he was willing to take.

 

“Ok, so I’ve gone back in time. How exactly did this happen?”

 

The old priestess Kaede shook her head. “I don’t know what could have caused this,” she admitted. “But I’m sure we could figure it out if we just give it time. Now first I think we need to…” she began, but was interrupted by a screeching sound form somewhere beyond the door.

 

“First I think…” she tried again. The screeching grew louder, and was joined by shouts and cries for help and weapons.

 

“What’s going on?” asked Kagome, getting to her feet.

 

“I don’t know,” Kaede answered, rising as well. Seeing this, Inuyasha followed in suit.

 

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, as a round of fresh screams and shouts rent the air.

 

“We just said we don’t know,” snapped Kagome, fear sprawled across her face. “We need to find out though.” With that, she grabbed her fallen bow and ducked out through the beaded curtain, just as another scream filled the air. Inuyasha followed after her, with Kaede on his tail.

 

What Inuyasha saw when he left that tiny hut changed his life forever. He would never forget it. How could he, especially when it turned and headed right for where he, Kagome, and Kaede were standing?

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I know that sort of looks like a cliffhanger, but if you’ve read the manga or seen the series, then it really isn’t. This chapter is not as good as I hoped it would be, but I’m putting it up anyway so that you guys have it after this long wait. I promise chapter three will be up much faster then two was, and that it will be better. Again, please don’t give up on me just yet. Review and tell me what you think. Even if it isn’t nice, I want to hear it. Oh, and hopefully chap 3 will be up by the end of the week, and maybe sooner. Thanks everyone.

 

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Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, nor do I profit in any way (besides the sheer emotional pleasure I get) from writing these stories or using her characters. I am no threat to the empire that is Rumiko Takahashi. Plus, I can’t draw to save my own life, so that throws anime out the window as a career choice, doesn’t it?

 

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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past

Chapter 3:

The Spider-Hand Thing Returns

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He had no idea what it was, and he definitely wasn’t curious to find out. Regardless, it started speeding towards him, intending to give him a closer look. It was about 15 feet high with the top half and face of a woman, almost ethereal with beauty, except for the fact that her coloring suggested she was dead, and her sides sprouted many extra arms, two extra sets below her normal one. No, wait, one and a half sets. One side had three arms, and the other just two, and a space where one used to have been. Her bottom half was several times her height in length, and looked like that of a giant bug, with limbs that looked like feelers sticking out all over for what appeared to be eternity.

 

Inuyasha gasped, finally reconciling the image with something he knew, and would rather have forgotten. “It’s the spider-hand thingy!” he gasped mostly to himself.

 

“Centipede actually,” corrected Kagome beside him. He stared at her open-mouthed with a look that said, quite clearly, ‘what the hell are you talking about?’

 

“Centipede demons are one of the many kinds we do have to watch out for. Big, strong, soulless, mostly dumb, but smart enough to cause problems when they decide to scheme,” she explained in answer, her gaze turning back from its momentary resting place on his confused face to the demon approaching fast.

 

Inuyasha followed her eyes, locking his own the beast before him, which had halted its pursuit of them long enough to thrash about and knock several roofs askew. People ran from destroyed huts in every direction, some alone, others clutching family members or belongings as they fled. One man from the woods, on he had remembered liking the idea of killing him, ran past them flailing his arms comically over his head. Inuyasha vaguely hoped he would find a wall to run into, cartoon-style, before turning his attention to the bigger problem than his entertainment.

 

Many of the men in the village had grabbed various makeshift weapons and were standing several yards in front of the demon, brandishing their arms weakly in the monsters direction. It continued to slither in Kagome, Kaede, and Inuyasha’s direction without noticing the men’s attempts to stop it at all.

 

 “What the…what does it… what the fuck are we supposed to do about that?” Inuyasha asked, unable to think of a better question.

 

“We kill it,” Kagome answered, lifting her bow in which she had cocked an arrow without his noticing.

 

“JEWEL!” the beast called as it moved swiftly towards them, all five remaining arms extended in some hideous invitation of embrace. “I MUST HAVE THE JEWEL, GIVE ME THE JEWEL!”

 

Inuyasha snorted before he could stop himself. “Figures. I’m in the Middle Ages, surrounded by priestesses who fight monsters, being attacked by a demon, and what does the thing want? Bling!”

 

Though he knew Kagome couldn’t have understood what he had just said completely, she still shook her head. She knew what Mistress Centipede wanted. What they all wanted.

 

“Not ‘bling’” she told Inuyasha. “It wants the Shikon no Tama, the Jewel of the Four Souls.” With that, she let go of her arrow reached into the neckline of her white kimono, and pulled out a small pink jewel about the size of a marble, strung on band along with many, angular, shell like beads.

 

Inuyasha gaped from the girls face, to the demon, to the jewel, then the demon, then back to the girl again. “You mean to tell me,” he reiterated, incredulous, “that that monster bug-woman over there is going to attack us and destroy this village, all because she wants your bead!?”

 

Kagome only nodded curtly.

 

“Well, than, GIVE IT TO HER!” Inuyasha shouted, completely unable to see the dilemma in that. However, it must have been big, because Kagome turned to gape at him wearing the same disbelief he had felt when the giant demon had showed up…like she had never seen anything like him before. It was very disconcerting

 

“No, child,” Kaede explained, her voice full with remarkable patience considering they were about three seconds away from being bug-chow. “This is no mere bauble, but a magical item that, if in the wrong hands, could increase the power of the evil force by enough to make destroying our world a simple task. We must keep it safe from demons, lest they will use it to destroy us. It will not leave us if we surrender it, but kill us all and continue to kill until it is unstoppable. Ye understand?”

 

Inuyasha nodded numbly. It was like being trapped into one of those annoying RPG video games that he never had the patience for as a child. He found himself wishing he had completed at least one of them, so maybe he would have a better grasp on how this whole ‘Feudal realms with magic jewels and giant monsters’ thing worked. The worst monster he had ever dealt with in his life was called Mr. Musuki, Inuyasha’s eight grade math teacher, who had been thoroughly convinced that Inuyasha had been the one to egg his car that Halloween. (He had, but that was no reason to jump to conclusions.) Giant centipedes were completely out of his depth.

 

“So…now what?” he asked.

 

“Now,” Kagome answered, a look of pure determination on her face as she released the jewel dangling at her throat to nock the arrow once more in her bow and lift it to aim, “You stay out of the way.”

 

With that, she and Kaede both loosed arrows in the direction of the monster. Both glowed pink, the elderly priestesses with a dim shine, and the younger priestess with blinding brightness and a slight whistling sound as it traveled towards the demon.

 

Unfortunately, the demon caught sight of the shots and swiftly moved out of the way, turning itself once more towards the priestesses who had attacked it. It let out a screech of fury and shot at them faster then it had moved before.

 

“We must lead it away from the village!” Kaede yelled, her voice on the edge of panic.

 

“I’ll do it,” Kagome called back, and with that she took of running in the direction that the huts ended, her back to the creature though her bow was out with another arrow nocked and ready.

 

Her eyes were turned away from the monster, so she couldn’t see as it altered its course and bolted at her even faster then before, faster than any human could run. Faster than Kagome could fight it.

 

And in that second, Inuyasha realized something. It was going to get her. And while he stood there watching, it was going to kill her and take that jewel from her, and then it was going to kill everyone else. All that death at its hands; it had to be stopped. It couldn’t be allowed. He knew, deep down, he couldn’t allow it. He had to stop it, although he hadn’t the faintest clue how to. He ignored that fact for a moment, and did the dumbest thing he could have done, had he any sense of self preservation: He bolted after Kagome, forgetting to move at a normal speed, and allowing all his strength to carry him forward like a bullet from a gun. Within three seconds of his revelation, he had gotten himself between the girl and the beast giving chase. As she stopped and turned toward the demon, eyes widening at the sudden closeness of it, he turned to and planted himself in its path.

 

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?” Kagome demanded, glancing quickly at him as she took aim and loosed another arrow, which missed like the first.

 

Inuyasha knelt slightly into an instinctual fighting stance before calling back to her “I HAVE NO FREAKIN’ IDEA!”

 

Exasperated, the priestess nocked a third arrow as the demon drew nearly level with Inuyasha. She readied to fire, and than…

 

Just as suddenly as the chase had begun, the monster caught site of Inuyasha, who felt a strange rage rip through him as their eyes met and heard a feral growl escape his own lips as a small part of his brain took over and the rest desperately tried to avoid the nervous breakdown he was bringing on himself by behaving in a way he couldn’t comprehend whatsoever. And, miraculously, impossibly, incredibly, the beast stopped, and stared at him wide eyed.

 

He felt himself growl again, a move so automatic he couldn’t stop it any more than understand it. The demon gasped, gaping at him, and hissed in response, as though he were something terrifying to her. He felt a surge of pleasure at the reaction, but shoved it away into the category with the growling because he didn’t understand it any more then he had that!

 

“Inuyasha,” he heard Kagome say behind him, uncertainty tainting every sound. “What is going on here? I thought you said you weren’t a demon.” She sounded personally hurt by this, as though he had lied maliciously to deceive her.

 

“I’m not a demon. I don’t know what the hell is going on here. But it’s working, so shut up and run away while you can!” He hissed back to her, his mind firing on all cylinders for the first time in minutes. He could see every movement the beast made, and was hyper aware that it saw him as a threat. He could feel Kagome behind him, smell her fear, hear her accelerated heart beat as she watched him. He could feel strength course through him, unfamiliar, but also totally natural and comfortable. He could shove the fear for his sanity and his thoughts about his own life away into a small compartment of his mind and lock them away with ease. He could feel every tiny shift his body made, as though it were acting on its own accord. He couldn’t explain how, but he knew that, if he had to fight that monster, he could. He could fight it, and he could win.

 

And with that, he lunged at it.

 

Kagome screamed behind him, clearly believing him to be taking some sort of suicide leap. He heard gasps and screams from behind the monster, and one ‘hmm’ that sounded annoyingly familiar and seemed to have come to some sort of vital understanding about something suspected but unproven. He heard all that, but it didn’t distract him. Before he knew what he was doing, he had raised his right hand to strike (the small, still sane part of him sarcastically asked if he planned to slap it in the face) and raked his nails…no, not nails…claws, across its body, watching as a strange light burst from the wounds as though he had just rended apart blackout shades in the middle of noon to allow the sun to stream suddenly through.

 

The demon-woman screamed and writhed in pain, several of its arms falling off and landing in twitching heaps of limbs and feelers and other muck he preferred not to think about. But then she recovered and shot, not towards Kagome, but towards Inuyasha, deciding he was the bigger threat and had to be dealt with before she could retrieve her prize.

 

Shock gripped him, and his sudden, insane understanding of battle dissipated like a mirage in the desert. He stood straight, watching the thing shoot towards him without the faintest clue of what to do. ‘Oh shit,’ he thought numbly, ‘I’m totally fuc…’

 

His musing was interrupted by the whoosh of an arrow a foot past his right ear aimed at the demon’s head. She dodged just in time, and changed her course again, once more heading directly for Kagome. Suddenly, Inuyasha understood what she meant about it being dumb and yet smart enough to be trouble. It clearly was able to tell what the most imminent threat was, and go for it, but when two threats presented themselves, it was confused and disoriented, unable to reconcile them enough to know the right choice, so it just went towards whatever caught its attention.

 

The centipede flew past Inuyasha again, in a beeline for the young priestess as she tried hastily to ready another arrow from her dwindling supply. It was only a few yards, one giant monster leap, from Kagome, and she wasn’t ready. Then she heard a dull thud, and the monster turned again. Desperate to help, Inuyasha had picked up a large stone, and chucked it towards the monster, to distract it from the priestess.

 

“That’s right, ugly! Bring you’re giant demon ass over here so I can cut a few more of those creepy-crawlies offa you!”  Inuyasha urged it.

 

It worked, for a moment. The demon turned toward Inuyasha, leaving Kagome time to aim her bow, and her arrow ignited with magic. But before she could shoot, the tell-tale crackle in the air regained the demons attention, and, to Inuyasha’s horror, it whipped its back end towards the priestess as it turned, knocking her to the ground and causing the arrow to go flying from her grasp as she landed on her bow.

 

The demon laughed riotously and stilled. It didn’t need to rush now. The priestess was down, and the boy who has been helping her was gaping uselessly as she inched towards the girl, enjoying her victory, a bit too much,

 

“I WANT THE JEWEL,” the centipede shouted in its hiss of a voice. “GIVE ME THE JEWEL! I WILL TAKE IT! I WILL BE POWERFUL! I WILL DESTROY!”

 

Inuyasha felt a flare of dislike toward the stupid little necklace with its stupid little charm. It was a marble. Just a stupid magic marble. This was why he could never get into those games. You always had to fight for some dumb little, meaningless trinket. A magical mushroom, or shield, or leaf, or something ridiculous that he would never want if it was offered, much less if he had to fight to get it.

 

But here he was in medieval times, and true to his Xbox’s suggestions, all anyone cared about was a silly bauble of a thing. If it wanted the jewel of the four whatevers so bad, maybe if that was somewhere else, it would just chase after it and leave them the hell alone. But where could it go, how could they get rid of it now?

 

An idea struck him so abruptly that he could have sworn, had he looked up, a light bulb would have flicked on above his head. Maybe they couldn’t get the jewel away from the village, but at least he could get it the hell away from Kagome.

 

“Kagome,” he shouted so suddenly that both she and the demon looked. The monster turned back to the priestess immediately, but the girls eyes stayed trained on him, clearly able to tell from his relieved expression that there was something up his sleeve.

 

“Do they ever play keep-away in this time?” he asked. Kagome nodded slowly, clearly not catching on at all. The monster laughed and ever so slightly began to close the distance between her and her prey.

 

“Well, then,” Inuyasha said, raising his arms in front of him in a clear catching position, “Let’s play.”

 

He flashed her a smile, and understanding lit her face. She pulled the jewel on its chain over her head swiftly. For the tiniest instant, she worried if allowing a complete stranger like the boy near the jewel was a terrible idea. But he had put himself in harms way to help her, even though he was told not to, and he had tried to distract the beast from her even when he clearly had no next move whatsoever. She had no choice. She would have to trust him. With that, she lifted the jewel up as though she was about to surrender it to the demon, which hissed in delight, and then tossed it with all her might into Inuyasha’s waiting hands.

 

Luckily, she had a good arm. He caught the jewel easily and raised it above his head. “Hey, bug, you looking for this?” he called to the demon, waving the necklace over his head tauntingly.

 

Mistress centipede spun quickly, looking from the girl on the ground, to the boy with his hands in the air. She didn’t understand it, but he had the jewel now, and that was all she needed to know. She rushed at him with all the speed she could manage, spitting angrily and howling obscenities at him. Kagome righted herself as soon as the demon’s back was turned on her and held her arms up, waiting. The monster sped towards Inuyasha, and for a minor second she questioned her judgment in tossing it to him, not that she had had another choice at the moment. Then, just as the beast was upon him, he yelled “Catch!” at the top of his voice, and threw it straight at her. Even under duress, his accuracy was remarkable, and the jewel came to rest in her waiting hands without any effort at all.

 

He held his hands up to the demon, waving them in front of him with a smirk. “Sorry, creepy, not over here,” he told it with an easy laugh that Kagome was sure he was faking.

 

The beast had no choice but to about-face and go for the girl again. Screaming mightily as she did.  As the thing got close, Kagome tossed the beads to Inuyasha again, and he barked a laugh to get the monster attention.

 

“Nice try, stupid, but it’s over here now.”

 

The demon sped at him once more, getting so close that he could touch her before he threw the beads. Kagome caught them in midair just as the demon failed to stop in time and bashed into Inuyasha, who fell heavily backwards, pain on his face as the demon turned on the priestess again.

 

Kagome shot a worried glance at Inuyasha as Mistress Centipede moved at her one last time, to see him struggle painfully to his knees and the jump to his feet from there.

“I’m fine, throw it,” he called to her, a note of desperation in his voice as the thing neared Kagome with unmatched speed, its fury having grown to the point where she uttered nothing but an unintelligible mix of curses and shrieks.

 

Kagome did as he said, and tossed the beads to him once more, the infuriated monster bellowing turning away from her without a second thought before he even had the chance to insult it. This time, though, Kagome did not stand ready to catch. This time, she nocked on last arrow, and allowed all the magic she had to flow into it as she took aim.

 

The demon was getting very close to Inuyasha, but he could see Kagome behind it readying an arrow to strike the final blow, and knew he couldn’t throw it back without sabotaging that. The monster apparently could see he had no intention of passing it off, and screamed with laughing glee as she sped ever faster toward him. Jewel in hand, he began to back away as fast as he could, all the while keeping an eye on Kagome. He saw as she smiled, having found her target, and loosed the last arrow.

 

The demon was so deadest on Inuyasha and the jewel that it didn’t even notice the rush of magic speeding towards it from behind. A moment before impact, Inuyasha threw himself to the ground, not sure why but somehow knowing that it would be best if he was not directly in its path.

 

Just as he did so, the demon exploded into a million brightly colored lights, black body-matter spewing in all direction, though flying right over his head with his low position on the ground (for which he was thankful). A final, resounding shriek rent the air, and then, just like that, the beast was gone.

 

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All was silent for several moments after the creature’s demise. Somewhere in the numbed back of his mind, Inuyasha noted that he hadn’t realized how loud the demon’s slithering had been until it was gone. He then decided that slithering was a disgusting word and he no longer liked it, not that he had ever had particular feelings toward it in the past.

 

He sat utterly nonplussed, head spinning slightly, on the ground, Kagome standing some 30 yards away, her bow still up in the position it had been as she fired. Villagers stood frozen in place, staring at the suddenly silent scene.

 

Then, as suddenly as it has ended, the noise erupted again, this time in the forms of cheers and shouts loud enough to make Inuyasha jump from his position on the ground as it pulled him from his reverie. Kagome, too, seemed to defrost at once, and jog over to where Inuyasha climbed slowly to his feet, dazed.

 

The cheering crowd surrounded them, clearly totally willing to forget that twenty minutes earlier they had mostly been for killing Inuyasha. The shouted prayers and appreciation at the pair, who stood slightly stunned in the middle of it all.

 

“Th…that’s enough, everyone, thank you but we really ought to go and um…rest now,” Kagome announced in a mild voice. “You know, just in case,” she finished lamely. The ecstatic group paid her no mind whatsoever.

 

Thankfully, at that moment, Kaede came to their rescue. “Come, everyone. Every one of ye has much to do before night falls. There are homes to be repaired and I request that all of ye offer aid to those who have lost property in this battle. Anyone who was hurt at all will please come to see me here while Lady Kagome and our visitor and guest Inuyasha go and rest from the labor.” After her speech, as the crowd began to disperse, spirits undampered, she turned pointedly to where Kagome and Inuyasha stood still slightly confused. “Ye both did well,” she told them. “And I will want to talk to ye both, especially ye, Inuyasha, before the night is out. Please feel free to go and rest.”

 

“I can help, Kaede, really, I’m fine. I should help with those who have been…” Kagome broke off as Kaede shook her head.

 

“Nay, child, allow me. I am not at all weary, as I did not battle today. Besides, it looks as though Inuyasha is in need of assistance as well, and I think ye ought to treat him privately.”

 

Inuyasha, for a moment, had no idea what she meant by that, and wondered if maybe she was referring to his shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed the pain in a while, and now he couldn’t even find it over the much more severe pain radiating from the right side of his chest. He looked down in search of damage, and could see no blood anywhere except where it had fallen from his shoulder onto his jeans. Then he noticed a large tear in the right side of his shirt, and the small spot of blood there, with the skin beneath it exposed. To his surprise, it was blotchy with hues of purple and black.

 

“Oh,” he nodded understanding, “my ribs are broken.”  And then, without warning, his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.

 

Vaguely, as he fell to darkness, feeling pretty pathetic for the whole passing out thing, he heard Kaede’s understanding tongue click, and Kagome’s scream, along with the gasps of the villagers paying enough attention to notice. He coughed lightly in the coming darkness, feeling something wet and warm on his lips. He momentarily berated himself mentally for drooling in front of a girl, when he heard her say something about blood and realized that’s what it must be on his lip. She was only mildly aware of Kagome calling several men over to carry him. They tried to lift him gently, he thought, but one jerked too hard on his left, and pain wracked him again. After that, everything went dark. A small part of his mind wondered if he would wake up at home. Another part tentatively suggested that he might not wake up at all. A third part lamented that it missed hearing Kagome’s voice down there in the darkness, and didn’t like the silence there.

 

The rest of him told those bits to shut up, and he knew no more.

 

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Hi, everyone. I’m back. So it’s a Sunday night as I write this intro, and I have one book and 2 plays to read, and then one research paper preliminary copy and research articles to hand in and or get tested on in the next two days. So, naturally, I am sitting here and writing fan fiction because I am irresponsible idiot. How I got into college in the first place, I will never know.

 

I have no ownership, nor even a deluded belief of ownership, of Inuyasha. I don’t even get to be like one of those crazy people who is thoroughly convinced she is the queen of England. Instead I have to sit here knowing that Rumiko Takahashi is awesome and just feeling dumb about it.

 

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 Boy of the Future, Girl of the PastChapter 4The Best Part of Waking Up Is Not Having Broken Bones. So Much For That. --- Last time in BFGP: 

“Nay, child, allow me. I am not at all weary, as I did not battle today. Besides, it looks as though Inuyasha is in need of assistance as well, and I think ye ought to treat him privately.”

 

Inuyasha, for a moment, had no idea what she meant by that, and wondered if maybe she was referring to his shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed the pain in a while, and now he couldn’t even find it over the much more severe pain radiating from the right side of his chest. He looked down in search of damage, and could see no blood anywhere except where it had fallen from his shoulder onto his jeans. Then he noticed a large tear in the right side of his shirt, and the small spot of blood there, with the skin beneath it exposed. To his surprise, it was blotchy with hues of purple and black.

 

“Oh,” he nodded understanding, “my ribs are broken.”  And then, without warning, his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.

 

Vaguely, as he fell to darkness, feeling pretty pathetic for the whole passing out thing, he heard Kaede’s understanding tongue click, and Kagome’s scream, along with the gasps of the villagers paying enough attention to notice. He coughed lightly in the coming darkness, feeling something wet and warm on his lips. He momentarily berated himself mentally for drooling in front of a girl, when he heard her say something about blood and realized that’s what it must be on his lip. She was only mildly aware of Kagome calling several men over to carry him. They tried to lift him gently, he thought, but one jerked too hard on his left, and pain wracked him again. After that, everything went dark. A small part of his mind wondered if he would wake up at home. Another part tentatively suggested that he might not wake up at all. A third part lamented that it missed hearing Kagome’s voice down there in the darkness, and didn’t like the silence there.

 

The rest of him told those bits to shut up, and he knew no more.

 

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Inuyasha woke slowly, in more pain then he could remember experiencing in his entire life. He became aware of the sounds around him long before he could will his eyes to open. Instead of fighting it, he lay quietly, allowing the world to wash over him unacknowledged. As he did so, he heard the conversation going on around him.

 

It was much quieter now then it had been when he had collapsed. He mentally kicked himself for passing out like that, and hoped vaguely that he had been hurt badly enough for that to be an acceptable response. He knew it was a stupid thing to hope for, but he couldn’t help himself. The idea of looking weak made him want to grind his teeth together. He might have if he had been able to move a muscle, but he was still too exhausted and heavy to try. Instead he listened to the two voices talking around him. He recognized them now, as Kagome, the young priestess, and Kaede, her older mentor. At first, he couldn’t figure out what they were on about, and didn’t try to hard to understand.

 

“…all my fault,” Kagome was saying, sounding tearful. Her voice was thick with emotion, some combination of guilt and indignation. “He’s just a human. I should never have allowed him anywhere near that thing. It’s my job to protect people here, not let some visitor get hurt just because he has no clue what’s going on. I should have…”

 

“What should ye have done?” the older priestess interrupted her. “What could ye have done? Ye didn’t ask him to come running or to help. He decided that on his own. There was nothing ye could have done to stop him. And besides, if he hadn’t acted, foolish though it was, then ye might not have been able to protect the jewel, and that would have been devastating. Worse yet, ye might have been hurt in his stead.”

 

“Better me then an innocent guy who has nothing to do with this world,” he heard Kagome counter. He slowly began to realize that he was being discussed, but still couldn’t muster the energy to make his consciousness known.

 

“Kagome, I am not sure how to tell ye this, but I do not believe the assumption that he has nothing to do with this world.”

 

When Kagome spoke again, she sounded confused. “But, you said yourself, he…”

 

“He is not from this world, yes. Clearly this child grew up somewhere or sometime far from our own. That does not mean, though, that he does not in some way belong here.”

 

“I don’t understand, Kaede.”

 

“Nor do I quite yet, child. But I will endeavor to explain more thoroughly when I do. For now, we should content ourselves to attend to the boy and make sure he is healing.”

 

“How bad is it?” Kagome asked, the guilt rushing back into her voice. Inuyasha, growing more aware by the second, suddenly felt a pang of guilt of his own for making her feel bad about him jumping in like an idiot. It not like she could have done anything about it.

 

“I am not certain. Several ribs were badly broken and bruised, and there must have been some internal bleeding, for he coughed too much blood for any other possibility. I feared at first that the bone might have pierced his lung, which there is nothing we could do for at this point. However, since he is still breathing, I do not believe that is the case. Unless…well, there is something I am considering,” the priestess trailed off vaguely. Inuyasha had a feeling she was hiding something, that he seriously doubted was related to his health. Kagome completely missed the subtle thought.

 

“What do you mean? Is he going to be all right?”

 

“It is difficult to say, Kagome. That will depend on how he is doing when he wakes.” Kaede paused for a second, and the silence felt heavier then any before it. “If he wakes at all,” she finished her voice weary. Inuyasha became more sharply aware as the guilt nipped at him like a whole other wound.

 

“…Oh,” answered Kagome, understanding, sounding unreasonably hurt for someone who didn’t seem to like him very much.

 

This was going too far, Inuyasha thought. Yes, he was in pain. And certainly, if that monster hadn’t been dead already, he would have gone and given it a few kicks for good measure, but he definitely felt alive, enough. He was even waking up fully, his limbs feeling lighter and his eye lids finally willing to raise when he so chose to make them. He wouldn’t be feeling very well for a week or so, he knew, but he certainly wasn’t on the brink of death. No where near it. With a slight edge of pleasure, he realized he was probably hurt enough to buy him a week or so off from school, though. That almost made getting tail whipped by a giant bug worth it, he laughed to himself. Not aloud though. He wouldn’t be trying that for a while. He was deciding how to make his mental presence known, when the women began to speak again.

 

“When do you think he will be waking up?” Kagome asked, her voice full of resolve as though she was determined to believe he would, in fact, wake up.

 

“Not for a while yet, even if he is to survive,” Kaede said. Inuyasha resisted the urge to snort. “His injury was quite serious. I had to give him herbs that induce sleep so he wouldn’t move around and further his injuries. Ye shouldn’t expect him to regain consciousness for several hours yet.”

 

Inuyasha detected an opening. “Guess again,” he said, his voice coming weaker then he wanted it to.  “I’m up,” he added, this time forcing more air into the words and sounding almost normal. He opened his eyes to see two shocked pairs watching him, two mouths hanging open slightly.

 

“What are you two gaping at?” he demanded irritably, trying to sit up. Kagome snapped out of it soon enough to put a hand on his shoulder to stop the movement. It was unnecessary, however, as pain flared in his right side as he attempted it and he gave up thoughts of rising momentarily, laying back down as slowly as he could manage.”

 

“Inu…Inuyasha?” Kagome asked him curiously, as though she didn’t quite believe her eyes.

 

“No, it’s the tooth fairy. This is how I dress when I’m off duty. Who the hell did you think it was?” he answered edgily. Kagome’s face cleared slightly, and she looked heartened by his irritable reply.

 

“Relax, don’t try to sit up. You’re hurt,” she told him unnecessarily, smiling at him despite his attitude.

 

“Really? Well that explains a lot,” he snapped back sarcastically. Kagome’s face fell slightly into hurt for a moment, and Inuyasha felt guilt snap at him. “It’s really not as bad as it looks,” he said, his voice kinder. “I’m pretty durable. Just give me a few days.”

 

To demonstrate his point, Inuyasha sat up again, slowly an very carefully this time, but managed to get into a sitting position without too much pain, and he slid back gently to lean on a wall so he didn’t have to support his weight, which helped a lot. Kagome looked like she wanted to stop him, but was too scared of hurting him to touch him at all. Once he was settled, he said “See? No big deal. I’m a good healer. Damn bug just caught me by surprise, is all.”

 

“Well, at least let me bind it for you, so you don’t make it any worse moving around,” Kagome implored him. He felt like saying no, but he took too deep a breath and winced against the pain, and she looked very guilty again. He didn’t have the heart to turn her down. He settled for saying “feh” knowing she would take it as assent. Heartened, she turned and reached for bandages.

 

“Ye say you heal quickly, do you?” Kaede asked him, and he felt like there was more to the question then she was saying.

 

“Yeah, always have. What of it?”

 

“Just a theory, child.”

 

“Care to share?” Inuyasha asked, annoyed by the cryptic answer. He was getting really tired of Kaede’s style of beating around the bush. She looked at him but didn’t answer. He feh’d again, irritated.

 

“Um, Inuyasha?” Kagome spoke tentatively, her face a bright pink color and her eyes avoiding his. It made him nervous, in a way that him suddenly wondering if there was something in his teeth.

 

“Yeah?” he asked just as gingerly, picking up on her tension.

 

“Well, I need you to…um….well, the thing of it is…” she tried, but didn’t seem to be able to say what she wanted to. Kaede sighed, smiling slightly.

 

“She needs ye to undress, child, so she can treat ye.”

 

“Oh,” said Inuyasha, understanding, a blush rising to his own face now.

 

“Just your strange kimono, though,” Kagome assured him. “Your hakama are low enough that it’s…um…not necessary to remove them.” She blushed again at the thought. So did Inuyasha.

 

“Right,” said Inuyasha, as he awkwardly reached for the hem of his shirt. However, his embarrassment was somewhat forgotten as the pain set in when he moved to pull it off. He sucked his breath through his teeth and Kaede reached over to help him, managing to help him remove the garment without brushing his bruised and swollen right side. Once it was discarded, he sat up as straight as pain would allow, and Kagome approached with bandages.

 

“Lift your arms up, please,” she said.

 

“I don’t think I’m going to stay up for long if I do,” Inuyasha told her honestly. Without being asked, Kaede moved behind him and placed her hands gently against his shoulders to hold him straight and still without him needing to attempt to engage any abdominal muscles which he was certain would protest. Viciously.

 

“Thank you, Kaede,” said Kagome, whose blushed embarrassment had faded to guilt again and grew more pronounced every time he winced. She began to wind bandages gently around Inuyasha’s lower chest, trying hard not to cause him any pain. She failed as often as she succeeded, and was biting her lip by the second time around, hard enough she looked about to draw blood. Inuyasha decided to be distracting.

 

“T-shirt,” he told her, knowing her confusion would make her forget her guilt. He hoped it wouldn’t make her forget to be gentle, though.

 

“Huh?” she asked, clearly not understanding.

 

“That thing,” she gestured toward the red shirt on the floor, “is not a kimono. It’s a shirt. A tee shirt.”

 

“A tee shirt?”

 

“Yeah, that’s what it’s called.”

 

“I see.” She didn’t look like she saw anything. But she was distracted, and still moving her hands with the bandages very carefully as she reached around him.

 

“And those,” he gestured vaguely to his pants, “aren’t hakama. They’re jeans.”

 

“Jeans,” Kagome repeated, nodding as she tried to memorize the unfamiliar word.

 

“Yup.”

 

“And does everyone in your time wear these tee shirts and jeans?” Kaede asked him.

 

“Pretty much, yeah.”

 

“Men and women?”

 

“Yup. Not the same ones though. I mean, we each have our own sizes and styles and stuff. But basically the same, yeah.”

 

“I see. And how can you tell people apart that way?” Kagome asked, as she wrapped the last few times, still gently, but sounding genuinely distracted by now.

 

“What do you mean, tell them apart?” Inuyasha asked, confused.

 

“How can you tell a warrior from a priestess, or a monk from a villager?”

 

“Oh. Well, we don’t actually have a lot of those around. Everyone is basically a regular person. No priestesses or monks or demons around. I mean, there are still monks and priestesses in places, but not really places like Tokyo. We are the people of the jeans and tee shirts.”

 

Kagome nodded, trying to understand, as she ended the bandage and gently stuck the edge into an earlier layer, and sealed the binding. It was tight enough to restrict his movement considerably by then. “Is that what your people are called, then? People of the jeans and tee shirts?” she asked him. He snorted.

 

“Not quite.”

 

Kagome nodded, but he seemed to have lost her again. He made up his mind to give up.

 

“All finished,” Kagome told him, apparently having decided not to pursue the subject.  Kaede reached over for Inuyasha’s shirt and handed it back to him. He put it on carefully, and found that he didn’t have to be nearly as cautious now that he couldn’t move as freely and hurt himself of brush the wounds. It helped a lot.

 

“Thanks,” he told Kagome, and she looked sad again.

 

“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I should never have let you anywhere near that centipede demon.”

 

Inuyasha snorted again. “Oh yeah, and how were you gonna stop me, cornered by the giant bug like that? Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault I did something stupid. It’s sort of my m.o. of late. First I cut school, then decided to explore the shrine, get pulled into that well, and now I’m stuck in a retarded version of Back To The Future. None of those were the exactly the brightest ideas.”

 

“Back to the future?” Kagome asked, confused again. Inuyasha suppressed a sigh.

 

“Nevermind.”

 

Inuyasha made himself as comfortable as possible sitting with his back against the wall of the hut, and the three passed the afternoon discussing how Inuyasha had arrived and ways in which he could get home. By nightfall, they had agreed that the best course of action was probably for him to jump back down the well, and hope that he was transported through it like he had been the first time around. However, both Kagome and Kaede argued with Inuyasha that he shouldn’t even attempt the journey until he was at least somewhat healed from his ordeal. If it didn’t work, they said, the force of the jump could further his injuries, which the assured him were rather nasty. He argued that, if it did work, then the people in his time would be totally qualified to deal with something as simple as a few broken ribs, or anything worse that the trip caused. Medicine was much better in his time. This distracted Kaede completely, and she began asking about medical treatments in his time in great detail. Inuyasha didn’t know much, and got rather annoyed with the constant questions. Shortly after dark, he had had enough, and insisted on going for a walk, storming out the door. He was flustered enough that it took him several minutes to notice that Kagome was following him.

 

“Hey, wait up!” she called from behind him. He sped up in response, but it caused his side to protest, so he surrendered and slowed to a stop, waiting for Kagome to catch up.

 

“What do you want?”

 

“I don’t want anything. I just don’t think you should go wandering around right now. Its dark and you don’t know the way. Besides, there are demons in the woods, and if you get attacked, hurt as you are, and your alone…well, I don’t….It would be wrong to let something happen to you,” she said, changing her mind at the last moment. She had almost said ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you’ but had caught herself just in time. She didn’t want him to go reading too much into things.

 

He laughed at her coldly. “Well, the last time I was wondering in those woods, the only thing that attacked me was you. And since you are here, I think I would be pretty safe.”

 

“I’m sorry about that, but that doesn’t mean you need to go and be stupid about it! There are more things out there, Inuyasha, things like what you saw today. Things that could kill you.”

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

“You could get lost.”

 

“I have a good sense of direction. I wasn’t paying attention earlier, but I will find my way back just fine.” He started walking away from her, intent on reaching the woods.

 

“Inuyasha, please!” Kagome called behind him, so desperately that he had to stop and turn to her, that he didn’t have a choice in the matter at all. “Please, Inuyasha. You’re already hurt. If you got attacked now, you could get killed. And even if you can fight, like you did earlier, you won’t be able to do it hurt like that. And you are just hurt because of me and-then-if-you-died-it-would-be-like-I-killed-you-and-I-don’t-want-to-kill you-Inuyasha-so-please-stay-here!” She said the last part so fast that Inuyasha had a hard time making out the words as she spoke them.

 

“Jeez,” said Inuyasha, taken aback by her emotional display of panic. “Fine, I’ll stay here, ok? Calm down before you give yourself a hemorrhage or something.” Inuyasha turned and walked back to her feeling extremely uncomfortable. The pair stood together for a minute, trying to avoid each others eyes.

 

“Sorry,” said Kagome after a minute. “I just…I didn’t like the idea of…I just didn’t want you to go, okay?”

 

“Okay, whatever. But I’m not going back in that hut right now. I swear if that old hag says one more cryptic ‘beware the ides of march’ thing, someone is gonna lose a limb and it ain’t gonna be me.” Kagome stared at him, clearly not getting it.

 

Rather than ask, she said “How about we go down to the bridge a little further in the village and sit there for a bit?”

 

Inuyasha shrugged noncommittally, and let Kagome lead the way. The bridge was short, made of rope and wooden slats, the likes of which he had never seen outside shows set in the middle ages. It was short, and crossed over the small valley were a river ran gently, barely seeming to move at all on the calm night. For several minutes, neither of them spoke.

 

Eventually, Kagome cleared her throat softly and turned toward Inuyasha. “Tomorrow, if you like, we could go and look around a bit. It’s safer during the day. I could show you around the village and close by. You know, just if you want.”

 

“We could do that,” Inuyasha said slowly. “I mean, I guess we could.”

 

They resumed sitting in silence. After a few moments, Inuyasha noticed Kagome’s hand as it traveled to her neckline and fumbled beneath her kimono for a second, pulling out the jewel that had started the trouble earlier in the morning. It was hard to believe that, all in one day, Inuyasha had time traveled, helped kill a giant monster (demon, he mentally corrected, coming to terms with the lingo), gotten hurt, and ended up wandering around a medieval village among medieval people. It was like the twilight zone episode that wouldn’t end. Suddenly, a thought occurred to Inuyasha and he groaned loudly, dropping his head to his hands.

 

“What’s the matter, are you in pain?” Kagome asked worriedly, turning toward Inuyasha, her expression full of concern.

 

“No, I’m fine. I’m dead, but I’m fine.”

 

“I’m lost,” Kagome admitted.

 

Inuyasha sighed heavily. “I have parents, you know. I have a mother, and a father, and they are probably having panic attacks right about now. And when I don’t come home tonight, or tomorrow, they are going to have the cops out looking for me. It’s going to be a disaster! By the time I get home, they are going to ground me till… the rest of my life probably.”

 

“So, it’s you and your parents in your time? And you all live together?”

 

Inuyasha sighed again, knowing it was useless to worry about something he couldn’t change at all. “Yeah, us and my brother.”

 

“Will he be worrying about you, too?’

 

Inuyasha laughed at that. “Yeah, right. He’s probably checking with the morgue to make sure I’m dead. And then, the second he confirms it, he’s gonna knock out the wall between our rooms, and use the extra space to throw a ‘he’s gone away’ party.”

 

Kagome gave him a strange look. “We don’t get along. At all. Ever. In our lives,” he explained. She just nodded.

“I’m sorry, you are probably right. I bet they are really worried about you. I forget sometimes what that’s like for other people.” She sighed sadly. Inuyasha looked curiously at her.

 

“What do you mean, You forget what what’s like?”

 

She shrugged. “Having parents. Having people worried about you if you aren’t around. I forget.”

 

“What do you mean? You don’t have parents?”

 

“I did, of course, when I was small. But I left them when they found out I had spiritual powers to begin my training as a priestess. I came from another village near here. But they brought me to Kaede because our village had no shrine or priestess to teach me. My home village was attacked a little bit after, and they both got killed. Everyone got killed. So I guess this is my home village now.” She sighed heavily, seeming wearied by the idea.

 

“What attacked your village,” Inuyasha asked, deliberately trying to keep his voice softer then normal.

 

“A demon did. It’s usually a demon. One sort or another. That’s why I was so quick to attack you in the woods. I’m sorry about it, now. But when I see a stranger who is so very…well, strange as you are, I get nervous. I remember what happened, and I just can’t let it happen again.”

 

They were quiet for a minute.

 

“You don’t have to feel bad about that anymore,” Inuyasha said at last, breaking the silence. Kagome turned to look at him slowly. “About attacking me I mean. At first, I totally thought you were a whack-job, to be honest, but after that thing that came here today, I sort of get why you guys would be a little overly defensive. So, you are officially forgiven. Don’t worry about it anymore.”

 

He met Kagome’s eyes, and she smiled at him slowly. He smiled back, and then looked away.

“See?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood. “I am capable of not acting like a total asshole when nothing is attempting to kill me or drag me through magic portals. In case you were wondering about it.”

 

She laughed, and silence fell between them again.

 

“I’m really sorry about your parents,” Inuyasha told her sincerely, and she looked sad again.

 

“I had a brother too. Younger. I never met him, but my parents sent word when he was born. He would have been almost nine now. But he died too, there, so…” She trailed off.

 

“Wow,” said Inuyasha, feeling older then he ever had before. “This world really sucks, huh?”

 

Kagome laughed again, and turned a sweet smile toward him. “It’s really not all bad. Terrible things happen everywhere. But there are good things here too. There are the villagers, many of whom are very nice. You met a few of the worse ones earlier, but a lot of them are very sweet. And there’s Kaede, too. She’s as good as a mother any day. I don’t know what I would do without her. And there’s my duty. It’s not always easy, but protecting people feels really good. It feels like I have a real purpose in the world. I’m glad to have that.” Her hand move to hold the jewel at her neck once more, and she clutched it tightly. Inuyasha noticed.

 

“What is the deal with that thing, anyway?” He asked her, gesturing toward the jewel. She clutched it closer instinctively, but he tried to ignore that. “If it’s so terribly dangerous, why don’t you just destroy it?”

 

Kagome laughed lightly, although there was an edge of sadness to the sound. “It’s not that simple. It’s not like I can just smash it with a big rock. It’s more complicated then that. It’s magic!”

 

“I had figured as much. So how exactly did you end up with this thing? What are you supposed to do with it?”

 

“It was brought here by a village of slayers a long time ago, and given to the priestess who was here before me, Lady Kaede’s older sister Lady Kikyo. She died a long time ago, and Kaede looked after it as best she could but she couldn’t purify it. Then I came here, and I can, so it’s been in my care ever since.”

 

“And about getting rid of it?”

 

“That’s just the thing, though. It has to be purified out of existence. I have to make it pure enough that the battle within ends on the side of good, and it can pass from this world. I have to purify it as completely as I can, and then make a wish on it that is truly selfless to force it out of existence.”

 

Inuyasha looked blankly at her. “The battle within? Like, within the jewel? What, are dust mites having a go at each other?”

 

Kagome quirked an eyebrow at him. “Well, it’s kinda small,” he defended.

 

“Maybe, if you hang out here long enough, I can explain it. But not tonight. It’s late, and I think I should sleep. And I know you should. You need to heal, and you aren’t going to wandering around with me. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

 

“I’m fine,” he scoffed, ignoring the way the pain in his damaged right side flared at being brought abruptly to his attention. He clutched gently at it as he shifted and sent a stronger wave of agony through him.

 

“But sleeping couldn’t hurt,” he added, trying to keep his voice cool. Kagome wasn’t fooled, and she got to her feet, and offered him a hand to help him up, which he ignored. With an exasperated sigh, she gently grabbed his arm and helped anyway as he got carefully to his feet.

 

She led him to a smaller hut beside the one he had woken up in. “You can stay here. I will come in the morning with medicinal herbs for you. Sleep well, Inuyasha.”

 

“Goodnight, Kagome,” he responded, saying the name for the first time and analyzing the taste of it. It felt strangely familiar, but he wrote it off assuming he had heard it somewhere before.

 

Inside the hut, with no other clothes and not a toothbrush in sight, he sighed and gave up. Lowering himself gingerly onto the bedroll already spread out in the center of the small room almost painlessly, he lay on his back thinking about the day that had passed. With a twinge of guilt, he imagined his mother calling everyone she knew looking for him, crying into his father’s shoulder wondering where he was when he didn’t come back from school. Had they called to tell her he had never showed up? Probably. She would be even more worried then. She probably thought he’d been kidnapped en route and was ‘lying dead in a ditch somewhere’ as she always insisted she did when he was late. Sighing, knowing there wasn’t a single thing he could do about that, he let himself drift off, half expecting to wake up in his own bed. His side throbbed, eating away at his conviction in the idea. He wondered idly what would happen if he died there, hundreds of years before he was born. Would he pop back before he had left and have it be like it never happened, live the same life he would have had anyway had he not gotten overly curious? Or would he just be dead? With that last, unsettling train of thought, he fell asleep. He dreamed of demons he had seen in various books and paintings in history class, running around and attacking each other, and himself, and the other people he recognized from the past, all the while yelling incoherently about funny hats and pie, and bling.

 

It was a confusing night.

 

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So, here is chapter 4, finally. I know, it’s been a while. Unless you are reading this on Inuyasha-fanfiction.com where I just started posting. Then it’s been a few days. I wanted to get a lot more done in this chapter. But when I got to ten pages without making it to the action, I decided that would have to be reserved for chapter 5, which I will try very hard to get up very soon, so don’t hate me. A little preview for you, next chapter returns to the base line of the anime a little bit, and includes the famous breaking of the Shikon Jewel. Yup, I’m going to break it. I’m not sure how, but it’s probably going to be either really similar to the anime, or completely different. Isn’t that wonderfully vague? I will also be getting Inuyasha home, and he is gonna get some surprising news. If you guess it right, I will give you a virtual cookie! Sorry this chapter is so heavy on the exposition. But its was designed for a bit of bonding, which I think I managed. I deviated a bit here, but I’m heading back to the main plot asap. Let me know what you think!

 

Here we go, with a considerably shorter delay than normal. Chapter 5 of BFGP. This chapter is going to be fun to write, and I'm looking forward to it. It's one of the most action packed chapters so far, and it leads the story back over to the story time line from the anime. But don't worry, the wires run parallel, but do not cross. Things may be similar, even familiar events may occur. But these characters are different, and so things turn out differently. Pretty much always. Hope you like it. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I have, as of now, No intention whatsoever of resurrecting Kikyo. I don't like her very much, and I don't think she is all that important to the development of Inuyasha and Kagome's relationship. I don't think ill of her, but I'm not too interested in including her. So, don't keep an eye out for the equivalent of episodes 14 and 15 cause its not in my plan.

 

 

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha, not me. Not that I necessarily need to bring it up since I think pretty much everyone here has figured it out by now. Even if I did own him, he would have been gone by now. Removed from my care due to neglect. After nearly a year without updates, I'm starting to think it might be best if I avoid children and pets and stick to houseplants. Them, it's not illegal to kill by accident. It's just pathetic.

 

P.S. In case any of you are wondering, I have decided to do all the chapter titles in this story as something Inuyasha might say. It entertains me. That's all there is to that story.

 

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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past

Chapter 5

Anger Issues and Bird Demons

 

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Inuyasha woke with pie on the brain for reasons he didn't think he wanted to remember. At first he wasn't sure what had roused him, but then he saw Kagome standing in the doorway, her hand poised to knock lightly on the frame. She was smiling expectantly at him, but it felt far too early to be awake.

 

"C'mon. We have breakfast, than I promised to show you around the village. It's a big day!"

 

Inuyasha groaned at the excitement in her voice. "What time is it?" he asked groggily, reaching up to rub his eyes.

 

"I don't know what scale you use in your time, but it's about 2 hours after sunrise."

 

Inuyasha did a quick mental calculation. "That's like 8:30 in the morning. Come get in my a couple hours." He made to roll over to avoid the light streaming through the door, but his side screamed in agony as he moved and he hissed through his teeth. He had forgotten about his ribs. Rolling was a bad, bad plan. Kagome was at his side in an instant.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, looking worried and apologetic. "Does it hurt?"

 

‘No, it feels fucking fabulous getting your guts bashed in' he wanted to say, but he caught sight of her face with apology written all over it and he couldn't be that mean. Perhaps it was too early for biting sarcasm. "It's okay, I just forgot and moved wrong. I'm fine." He got up slowly, carefully. It was easier today, with the binding in place. "See? Just a bad move." He pushed himself slowly to his feet, and stretched slightly, seeing what hurt and where. The wound in his shoulder where Kagome had shot him had faded considerably, and only twinged like an old cut when he directly pulled that skin. His side was less painful than the day before, but definitely not healed yet. It still ached dully when he breathed or moved, and screamed painfully if he pulled at all. He sighed. He still needed to be careful with that one.

 

"So, what was that I heard about breakfast?" he asked, sounding perhaps slightly more excited then the occasion called for. Kagome laughed.

 

"It's next door. Let's go." She grabbed his hand and pulled him gently at out the door and up to the hut immediately next to his, where Lady Kaede was sitting on the middle of the floor over a pot of rice. "Good morning, Kaede. Inuyasha is awake."

 

Kaede's single visible eye crinkled in a smile. "Aye, I can see that." Her eye drifted down to Inuyasha and Kagome's interlocked hands. Both of the teenagers followed her gaze and abruptly released each other. Kaede watched closely, but made no comment.

 

The two sat on either side of Kaede, and she served each of them a bowl full of rice. For a few minutes, everyone ate in silence. There was a tension in the room that was not quite comfortable, and it emanated from Kaede, who glanced at Inuyasha much too often. As the meal drew to a close, and Inuyasha moved to rise, Kaede held up a hand to still him.

 

"If ye would wait just a moment, I have been considering a theory I would like to discuss with ye." Neither one moved, staring at Kaede with confused expressions. "Firstly, Inuyasha, I would like to ask that ye show us the wound ye received from Kagome yesterday morning. The injury in the shoulder, if ye please. Remove ye kimono."

 

"Tee shirt," Kagome corrected her, giving Inuyasha a confused look, as though he were somehow in on this. He returned a similar one. As if he knew anything going on in her time that she didn't. He barely understood breakfast there.

 

"Uh, okay I guess," he answered, confusion evident in his tone. He pulled his shirt carefully over his head again, noting that it was much easier to do himself today than it had been yesterday. Once it was over his head, he pulled his hands out of the sleeves and sat feeling suddenly self conscious as the two women stared at his bare skin. Kagome was gaping slightly, her look calculating. Kaede looked mollified, as though her proof was written on his exposed flesh. After a minute, he could take no more of their silent scrutiny.

 

"Okay, what? What are you staring at?" Kagome just shook her head, but Kaede smiled and spoke to him directly.

 

"We are examining ye shoulder child, the one Kagome shot yesterday morning. Alas, it seems we had forgotten to wrap the wound in our haste to aid the greater injuries. But, apparently, it is of no matter." She said the last part approvingly, as though, in his gaping confusion, Inuyasha had somehow pleased her.

 

Inuyasha glanced at the shoulder in question. There was a dark scar winding over the area that his skin had been torn by the arrow, fading slightly on the outsides. He knew that, before the week was out, it would be gone completely. He glanced at the other shoulder for comparison. Nothing interesting there. He turned back to his left.

 

"I'm still confused here. What's so interesting about my shoulder?"

 

"The wound," answered Kagome, dumb struck.

 

"Well, yeah, you shot me with your arrow. You were there, remember? What did you think happened to get blood everywhere? Are you sure you people aren't crazies?"

 

Kaede laughed, but then grew serious so instantly that Inuyasha almost thought he had imagined it entirely. It wasn't reassuring behavior.

 

"She refers, child, to the fact that a wound only a day old has healed over completely, leaving but a mark."

 

"Oh, that? I'm a fast healer, is all. I always have been. My dad says I get it from his side of the family. I don't care all that much, to be honest."

 

"Have ye ever noticed that you recover from injuries so much quicker from ye peers?"

 

"Well, yeah, but its not that big a deal. I mean, I don't get hurt too much, and whenever they do they milk it for weeks. It's totally pathetic. I'm just not into the whole sympathy gig." The two woman continued to stare, one confused, one smug. By now, Inuyasha was pretty sure his face was annoyed. "Seriously, what?!"

 

"Inuyasha, to heal so quickly as you do... It's not normal," Kagome told him slowly, as though considering it was she went. "It's not human." She bit down on her lower lip as though she had let too much slip.

 

Inuyasha was finally getting it. "Woah, woah, tap the breaks here, people. Are we on this demon thing, again? I thought we had cleared this up. I'm not a demon. I don't know any demons. I couldn't find you one if you asked, and I definitely am not one! How did we even get on this again?" He grabbed up his shirt and pulled it back on over his head, carefully, but not too much so. He caused himself no pain.

 

"Inuyasha," Kaede explained calmly, "I believe that ye might be what we call a hanyou, a half-demon, someone with one human parent and one demon parent. It is very uncommon, but not unheard of. Most demons and humans do not like to get close enough to each other to conceive a child. But, in cases when such unions do occur, the children often show specific characteristics; Advanced healing abilities, unusually strong senses, demon instincts, uncommon strength often greater than that of lower demon, for only high demon can mate with humans, and great speed. Ye possess, from simply what I have observed in ye since your arrival, the speed, the strength, the instincts, and the healing ability. Some look mostly human, others mostly demon. I have never seen one who looks as human as ye do, or one whose demon energy is so greatly suppressed, but this close to ye, I believe I can detect it. I believe, Inuyasha, that ye are half-demon."

 

Silence filled the hut for a moment. Keade's face was understanding, but also a bit smug. Kagome's expression suggested she had been betrayed. Inuyasha's face was utterly nonplussed. After a moment's pause, he finally found enough of his voice to speak.

 

"You think...that I'm ...only part human...and part...demon," he repeated, taking the words in as he spoke them, mulling them over. Kaede bowed her head once in a dignified nod. Inuyasha nodded back automatically. "Right."

 

Inuyasha stood so suddenly, that both women started and his injured side protested angrily. He ignored all three of them. "You guys are nuts after all, and I'm going home if I have to dig myself there through that stupid well." With that, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the hut. He heard the two priestesses scramble to catch up.

 

"Inuyasha, child, wait!" Kaede called behind him. He ignored it.

 

"Inuyasha...stop," Kagome said from closer behind him then he expected, her voice low and menacing all of a sudden. Gripped by morbid curiosity, he turned to find her six feet away, her bow leveled with an arrow cocked, this time at his heart. A fatal shot. "Don't move, or you'll never move again," she told him coldly. He turned completely to her and gaped at her.

 

"Kagome, what are you doing?" he asked, utterly flabbergastered. An hour ago, she had been all worried about his broken ribs, and now after one stupid conversation, she was ready to kill him.

 

"You lied to me. You said you were human, and you lied. I don't take kindly to demons who lie to me."

 

Inuyasha was starting to get angry now. Kaede was coming up behind Kagome as quickly as she could, worry written on her face. Inuyasha spoke loudly, partly from emotion and partly because he wanted the old woman to hear it too,

 

"You know what? This is bullshit. Back the fuck up here, okay? Firstly, I don't care how much you don't like something, it doesn't mean you get to shoot someone every time they bother you. Trigger happy, much?  You'd be locked up in my world. Secondly, I never lied to you. I am human. I don't know what the old hag is talking about, or what you are so pissed off about, but I do know that I'm not a demon. For god's sake, I live with my biological parents. My dad works in computers. He designs software for virus blocking. My mother is an artist now, but she used to have a C.P.A. license...I guess you don't know what any of those things are, but let me assure you, they are very normal, very human  jobs in my world. I think if my parents had a whole bunch of extra limbs lying around and tried to eat me every morning, I would have noticed by now. Thirdly, I guess your right about demons existing here, but they just don't in my world. And I live with two nice, normal parents in a nice, normal house, with a jerk, normal brother, and be some weird demon half- breed. SO STOP AIMING THAT DAMN ARROW AT ME!" He finished in a shout, and started breathing heavily trying to catch his breath from his rant.

 

Kagome still had her bow trained on Inuyasha's heart, but her face looked less sure. Finally, Kaede reached the pair of teenagers, winded but firm.

 

"Kagome, lower ye weapon. Even if he is a demon, he is clearly no threat to us. He risked his life for ye and ye owe him better." Kagome lowered her bow reluctantly, but instead glared angrily at Inuyasha as though he had run over her puppy and gotten away with it. "Inuyasha, I did not mean to offend ye, but I do believe that there is something other than human in ye. I also believe that, regardless, ye did not lie to us, and ye genuinely do not know of this heritage... if ye possess it," she added at the end, seeing that Inuyasha was going to argue again. "Now, please, let us return to privacy and discuss matters further."

 

"Yeah, no thanks. I don't want to go anywhere with little miss It's-fine-if-you-save-my-life-and-all-but-the-second-I-get-mad-at-you-I'm-going-to-try-and-kill-you. I think I would rather take my chances with the magic well. Nice knowing you, maybe I will read about you in a history book sometimes, but I am out!"

 

Inuyasha turned on his heel and stomped away into the woods, holding his head up high, though still half expecting to find an arrow lodged in his back at any moment. He didn't relax until he made it to the trees, and left the line of sight of the two crazy priestesses he hoped he wouldn't meet again,

 

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"We can not just let him go like that, Kaede. "

 

"I agree."

 

"You do?" Kagome asked, surprised. "I thought you liked him."

 

"Aye, he has great potential good in him."

 

"Wait, we aren't on the same page here. I want to go and capture him at least, or kill him. I mean, if he's a demon..."

 

Kagome was cut off abruptly by Kaede. Her normal, frail voice was gone, replaced by a hard tone filled with authority. Kagome recognized that as the High Priestess tone. Kaede was pulling rank, giving an order. Automatically, Kagome stood up straighter.

 

"Kagome, this irrational prejudice against demons mush stop. I have indulged ye long enough. Never have a seen such bloodlust in you for a single life. Not only have ye no proof that he is half-demon, but he himself is unaware of this heritage. He proved trustworthy and brave when ye needed aid, and you plan to repay him by shooting him in the back? He is only a boy, Kagome, and ye are meant to be a force of good and justice in this world. I am very disappointed in you, Kagome. You just displayed totally willingness to take an innocent life out of unfounded fear, and it must end!"

 

Kagome hung her head as she listened to the older priestesses words, shame washing over and through her. It was true. Hearing that Inuyasha was half-demon, and seeing all the signs at last, angered her more then it should because she had believed him to be human, liked him even. She had felt betrayed. But, in all truth, it had not been a betrayal on Inuyasha's part, but a misunderstanding. And if he really had no idea what he was...she swallowed hard at how close she had come to hurting an innocent person. She had let her demon bias cloud her judgment, and there was no excuse.

 

"I am so sorry, Lady Kaede. What must I do to redeem myself?"

 

"Go and follow Inuyasha. Apologize to him. Explain yeself! And then, try to convince him to return. There must be a reason he was able to come in the first place. If he refuses, and no longer wishes to stay here, or to return again, then let him go safely, and make sure he is not set upon on his way."

 

Kagome did not argue. She turned, and jogged after where Inuyasha had disappeared. Luckily, she was pretty sure she knew where he was headed.

 

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Inuyasha grumbled unhappily to himself as he walked. He was fairly certain he was headed in the vague direction of the well, but he couldn't be sure. All the trees looked alike to him.

 

He had liked Kagome. They had bonded a little. She had confided in him, and he, in return, had trusted her. And then she tried to kill him. Girls sucked.

 

He grumbled quietly to himself. Well, if she wanted to go around being crazy and guarding a marble, and shooting strangers for no reason it was none of his business. His only business was to keep his ass far away from her.

 

He wandered for what must have been an hour or so, figuring that he was definitely lost by then, when he came to a familiar looking clearing in front of a very large and gnarled tree. There was something he recognized about it. After a moment he realized what. At about shoulder height, there was a small scar in the tree. It looked like it had been cut and burned slightly, and exactly the shape and size of an arrow head. He swallowed convulsively. This is the tree that Kagome (he thought the name with a bitter mental edge to it) had pinned him to with her stinging arrow.

 

‘Great' he though idly, feeling annoyed again. ‘Back to the scene of the crime.'

 

"I figured I would see you here," said a voice behind Inuyasha, making him freeze, even his heart seeming to stop. He knew the voice. He turned slowly to see Kagome sitting on the root of a tree across the clearing from the big, sacred tree now at his back.  She had her bow and arrow with her, but not at the ready, which was almost reassuring. The bow was sitting on its side on the ground beside her, her fingers absentmindedly tracing a pattern that didn't exist onto the wood. Her arrows were in a leather quiver struck to her back. She was not in any sort of ready position, so Inuyasha relaxed slightly and willed his heart to start again.

 

"I thought you had gotten lost in the woods. Then I never would have found you. I figured you would try to come here, that you wouldn't know how to go straight to  the well.  It makes sense for you to follow the path you took last time. I had nearly given up though. I was just about to go and wait by the well instead." She looked up at him at last, smiling tentatively. It looked painful.

 

"So, what, shooting me and getting half my side caved in isn't enough? Did Kaede send you here to make sure I was dead?"

 

Kagome sighed. "Of course not. She sent me to...," Kagome took a deep breath, "to apologize to you. Like I explained, I have my reasons not to trust demons, but that I was willing to shoot you...even though you don't even know what you are, or even if you are...that was inexcusable. Half demon or not, you were still totally innocent. I'm really sorry."

 

Inuyasha watched her, confused again.

 

"If it's any consolation, though, I probably wouldn't even have done it. I maybe would have tried to scare you or shot you in the leg, but I wouldn't have killed you.

 

"Oh, I see," said Inuyasha, bitterly. "You weren't going to kill me, just shoot me in the leg. Well, that's fine then, let's do that. C'mon, Ill bring snacks, it will be fun." He stopped to glare at her. Kagome sighed.

 

"Okay, so I guess I deserve that one. But I really am sorry about it, Inuyasha. And you can still stay here, at least until you're healed up."

 

"No, thanks, I think I will just go home now."

 

"Well," said Kagome, "you can always come back then, you know. And hang out here for a bit. Kaede would like you to, and I... well, I wouldn't really mind it."

 

Inuyasha put on a thoughtful expression and pretended to think about it. "You know what, I don't think so. I think I'm just gonna go one home, change my clothes finally, take a nap and deal with the broken ribs things. Then I'm going to find myself a therapist and let him tell me I made this up in my mind as a reaction to stress and I will believe him and return to normality. Thanks anyway, though."

 

Exasperated, he turned away and started walking back in the direction he was certain the well was. Sure enough, only about two minutes passed between him leaving and seeing it across the field. Inuyasha headed towards it, finally allowing some hope to seep into his bound chest.

 

Kagome came running up behind him then, calling to him to wait up. Inuyasha, furious, stopped and turned back so fast she nearly crashed into him.

 

"What," he snarled at her, but she was unfazed.

 

"Well, I just figured," she began, reaching to her neck, pulling out the jewel and twisting it around on its chain as she spoke. "I mean, I figured you could always..."

 

She was interrupted by a piercing, animalistic cry from above. Freezing, Kagome tucked the jewel back under her kimono and pulled up her weapon, reaching into her quiver for an arrow. She regarded the sky coldly before knocking it.

 

"What's going on?" Inuyasha demanded, feeling the electricity that had hurt his shoulder so badly the morning before gathering on the arrow tip, although it didn't hurt him now as she readied to fire.

 

"Demon carrion crows," she answered with disgust. "They live by eating the flesh of dead and decaying animals. Sometimes, if one is weak enough, the will eat it alive. It's disgusting. Especially the demons. If one gets enough power, it will not only go after the dying and dead, but the living too. They have been known to snatch children from villages and eat them in the sky, ripping them apart in front of their parents, dropping pieces like bloody rain. It's awful."

 

"Ah," said Inuyasha, disgusted too by the thought. "See, I think demon's like that it's ok to be prejudiced against and shoot."

 

Kagome smiled fiercely at him. "Agreed." She took aim and pulled back on the string, only to freeze. "Uh oh," she said, lowering her bow and staring in terror at the sky.

 

"What, uh-oh?" Inuyasha demanded. "What's wrong?"

 

"Look up," said Kagome in answer. Inuyasha followed her gaze and sucked in a sharp breath.

 

"Uh-oh," he agreed.

 

Instead of one or two crows like there had been before, there were dozens now, circling over head, eyeing Inuyasha and Kagome as if they were lunch.

 

Suddenly, all as one, the dove towards the pair.

 

"Run!" shouted Inuyasha, grabbing Kagome by the wrist and pulling her into the field. They managed to get halfway across, right up to the well, before the birds were upon them. Moving as one unit, the crows lowered their beaks like a giant sword headed towards the two teenagers.

 

Kagome fumbled with her bow, trying in a moment to ready it.

 

"Uh, Kagome, I don't think that's gonna work."

 

"What else can I do?" she demanded angrily. She twisted the bow around and reached back for an arrow from her quiver. She got a hold on one, and pulled it forwards.

 

As she did so, however, she accidentally snagged the string of beads that hung around her neck, ripping it and sending the beads flying everywhere.

 

"Oh god, No!" Kagome screamed, as Inuyasha grabbed her and pulled them both to the ground, his side burning with the motion so badly that he sucked his breath through his teeth.

 

"Get down," he growled in her ear, partly out of irritation and mostly out of pain.

 

The birds swooped an inch from their heads and then pulled up in formation, preparing for another dive. Kagome and Inuyasha rose to their feet looking for somewhere to go.

 

"Where is the jewel? Where is the Shikon Jewel? If those crows get it, it will be terrible!"

 

"You know what else would really suck? If the crows got us!"

 

"But the jewel," insisted Kagome, as the birds turned to make another dive, faster and more brutal this time. They wouldn't miss the mark.

 

"We can't Kagome, we have to go!" he shouted, looking for refuge. He spotted the well a foot behind them and, without a second though, pulled Kagome with him into its depths.

 

They heard the thud of many beaks driving themselves hard as nails into the wood.

 

Inuyasha felt a wave of pain in his side, and something inside cracked loudly.

 

"Oh no, Inuyasha!" Kagome called to him, sounding like she was underwater.

 

The last thing Inuyasha thought before passing out was ‘worst week ever'. Then he was gone.

 

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 Ok, so that is chapter 5. I actually intended to cover a lot more in this chapter, but when it reached ten pages with at least that much to go, I surrendered and decided to bump the rest of the action and the breaking of the jewel to chapter 6, coming as soon as I can get it out. I hope everyone enjoys. But I really need to go to bed now because its 6:04 am, I was up at 9 today, and I will be up at 9 again tomorrow. College sucks.

 

I seem to have gotten myself in a pattern. Have you noticed? Every chapter begins with Inuyasha waking up, and the one before it ends with him blacking it. I think it's a psychological thing about starting the day fresh. That's three now (although the middle one was actually just going to sleep, which is a normal thing to do so I don't hold myself responsible) so I'm thinking this has got to stop. I assure you, Inuyasha will be fully conscious at the end of this chapter.

 

Disclaimer: (For those of you who read this anywhere but ff.net, you might be wondering why this is here. It's necessary on ff.net which doesn't offer a section for chapter or story notes, and also good for mm.org because I don't like writing it in the chapter summary. I also post new chapters on every site all at once, so I don't do any editing further than grammatical and spelling corrections. So that's why its here all the time.) I don't own Inuyasha, but luckily Rumiko Takahashi does. I don't feel like trying to be clever after that little explanatory paragraph, so that's it. No own. End of disclamation.

 

P.S. I just wanted to mention that this chapter presented a great challenge, because I really didn't know where I wanted to take it in many ways and I am still really unsure. Any comments and suggestions you have are welcome!

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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past

Chapter 6

Better Bird Demons Than Liars

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Inuyasha came to abruptly, finding that the cause was two hands with a death-grip on his shoulders, shaking him roughly.

 

"Wake up! Where are we? Oh, c'mon, get up."

 

"Stop that!" Inuyasha demanded, completely conscious immediately. The motion was causing his right side, which he was pretty sure he had only made worse with the fall, to protest very loudly. "That hurts, Kagome."

 

She let go of him quickly, pulling away in the small, dark space they were sharing. "Sorry," she told him. "I'm panicking. I woke up here next to you in this pit, and I can't even see the sky anymore and I don't know what's going on."

 

"We fell in the well, last I remember. What do you mean, ‘can't see the sky'? Where did it..." He froze as he looked up and saw no sky above him. What he saw was a slightly angled roof made of damp wooden slats. The inside of the well house. He sat up quickly, ignoring the way his side burned at the movement.

 

"I think we might have gone back through the well," Inuyasha said, awed. "So that's really all there is to it? Jump in a well, time travel? No Delorean? Just glorified falling over? Huh."

 

Inuyasha stood carefully, Kagome rising with him to help. He didn't protest the assistance, eyes trained on the roof a dozen feet away.

 

"We've gone to your time?" Kagome asked, the panic in her voice replaced by confusion. "I've gone to your time?"

 

"Apparently. Let's get out of here and I can see for sure."

 

"What? No! We have to go back and find the jewel before the crows do!"

 

Inuyasha shook his head. "Hey, look, your world, your problem. This is where I belong, and this is where I'm staying."

 

"But..."

 

"But nothing!" Inuyasha interrupted. "I was only there for like a day! You all did fine in your world without me for hundreds of years. I am supposed to be here. This is my time. You can go back to yours any time you want, as soon as you figure out how exactly you do that. I'll help, but I'm not going. It has nothing to do with me!" Inuyasha fumed at her. Before she could even answer, he grabbed hold of the vines growing inside the well, and, without stopping to worry about them holding his weight, he pulled himself up as fast as he could, ignoring the pain it caused.

 

He reached the top and hoisted himself out, seeing that Kagome had followed him, having a great deal more difficulty climbing the natural ropes then he did. Rolling his eyes, Inuyasha reached down, grabbed her wrists tightly and pulled her up, careful to use only his arms in the effort to avoid hurting himself. Kagome watched wide eyed as he lifted her easily, and set her on the ground beside him.

 

"How did you..." Kagome started to ask, but Inuyasha turned away before she finished and stalked up the few stairs hurriedly, pulling the door back as soon as he reached it.

 

Inuyasha stood in the doorway for a minute, relief washing over him. It was daytime here, as it had been when they had fallen. It didn't look like much time had passed while they were unconscious, provided he didn't count the several hundred years. Everything was just as he had left it the morning before when he had skipped school. The tree stood exactly as he had remembered it a hundred yards away. It looked so much closer now with the forest cleared away than it had in the past. The abandoned shrine sat, graffiti covered as always, looking a little desolate in the early light from emptiness.

 

After taking in his surroundings, Inuyasha headed down the few steps, walking straight past all the structures without stopping, and going down the long staircase to the street level. He could hear Kagome's faint footfalls as she followed him, but he didn't turn.

 

At the bottom of the staircase, he stopped at a familiar looking shrub long enough to grab his backpack that he had nearly forgotten hiding there right before he had been pulled into a parallel universe. He tried to put it on properly, but it was painful, so he settled for carrying it in his hand as he dashed across the street, Kagome padding along behind him. Within seconds, he was standing at the door that led into his kitchen, taking a deep breath and preparing for an onslaught of parental worry and anger. Kagome jogged up behind him, and put a hand on his shoulder.

 

"Um, Inuyasha, where are we? What is this place? Is it ok to go inside?"

 

"Don't worry, its fine. This is my house."

 

"You live here?" Kagome asked, incredulous and admiring at the same time.

 

"Yeah, so what?"

 

"Its so, so big and tall!"

 

Inuyasha laughed a little at her reaction. "It's really not that big. Its four bedrooms, two floors, and an attic. It's actually pretty standard."

 

"Wow, it's incredible," Kagome gasped, staring upwards towards the second floor. Inuyasha had to smile a bit at her reaction, all raw nerves or not.

 

"If you're here long, remind me to take you on a mansion tour."

 

"A what?" Kagome asked, but Inuyasha had turned his attention back to the house. With another deep breath, he grabbed the handle on the sliding door, noting that it was unlocked, and pulled it slowly open.

 

The inside was cool and dark. Inuyasha flicked the switch on the wall and light flooded the room. He dropped the bag on the floor beside the door and took a step in, Kagome following slowly.  It was eerily empty, not remnants of breakfast or evidence anyone had been inside it recently. Everything was totally clean. Inuyasha could guess the reason behind that; his mom cleaned when she was worried. He bet it would've been safe to drink out of the toilet after he had been missing for a few hours.

 

"Sesshomaru, is that you?" Izayoi, Inuyasha's mother, called from the stairs. "I've got a few more number's I want you to call, just in case he..."

 

His mother had entered the room with a large rolodex in hand, and was sifting through the pages as she came through the doorway. Almost at the table, she looked up, and spotted Inuyasha standing in the doorway, flanked by an intimidated looking girl dressed in a medieval priestess costume, wearing the same clothes as the day before, only now they were torn and blood stained in several places.

 

Izayoi dropped the rolodex on the floor, not even noticing how it cracked and shot sheets of paper everywhere. Inuyasha knew he must really have worried her; she was such a neat freak, and to not notice...she must have been going out of her mind. She took in his appearance for a minute, staring open mouthed at him.

 

"Hi mom," said Inuyasha sheepishly.

 

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse her, and before he could stop her she was upon him, pulling him tightly into a hug without a word. His right side was not pleased.

 

"Ah, mom. Let go. Ow." His mother jumped back immediately at his ‘ow', her eyes scanning him worriedly.

 

"Inuyasha, oh my god, Inuyasha, we have been so worried about you! Are you alright? You look awful. Who is that?" She gestured to Kagome, but left no time for an answer. "Where have you been? Where does it hurt? What can I do? Oh god, where's your father, he has been going mad. How did you get back? Does she have something to..."

 

"Mom! Mom, relax okay?" Inuyasha interrupted, his hands out to placate her. "I will explain everything! Just calm down for a minute. Breathe!"

 

"Daiyo!" Izayoi called up the stairs. "Inuyasha is here!" With that, she slumped numbly into a chair, looking as though she hadn't slept the entire time he had been gone. Which, he realized, was likely.

 

Inuyasha's father thundered down the stairs an instant later, barely pausing to take in the sight in front of him before grabbing Inuyasha shoulders in a firm but caring grip, as though making sure he was really there.

 

"Inuyasha," he said seriously, his face close, "are you ok? Have you been hurt? What happened?"

 

"Everyone, relax, ok! I'm back, I'm fine...more or less, and I can explain. I think."

 

Daiyo released Inuyasha and took a step back, taking in his clothes, exactly the same as the ones he had left in the day before, in bloodstained tatters now, just as his mother had.

 

"Where are you injured?" his father asked calmly, but seriously.

 

"It's no big, really. I broke a few ribs," Inuyasha said with a shrug, lifting his shirt a little to show them the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. His mother whimpered from the chair. "It's really ok," he said to them, but mostly to her. "It will be gone in no time."

 

Daiyo nodded, looking unhappy, and then turned to look at Kagome. She standing unobtrusively by the door, looking embarrassed and out of place. Her bow and arrows were strapped to her back, and his eyes narrowed. Something about the look worried Inuyasha, because his father looked like he knew exactly who she was and what was going on.

 

"That's Kagome," Inuyasha gestured toward her. "She's a...um...friend."

 

"I see," said Daiyo. He dropped his glare and put his head in his hands. After a moment he raised it, and then regarded Inuyasha again.

 

"Are you sure you are all right? Aside from your chest, of course." Daiyo glared accusingly at Kagome.

 

‘Something is not right about this' Inuyasha thought, watching the look, but he said only "Yeah."

 

Daiyo nodded. He went over to the phone on the wall and pulled it from the base, before turning to Inuyasha. "Okay. Go with your mom and...Kagome upstairs, and let her have a look at you. I'm going to call Sesshomaru, he's out looking for you, and tell him to come home. Then, we all need to sit down and talk." He gave Izayoi a meaningful look. Inuyasha turned and watched his mother, who met his father's gaze intensely. At first she had looked on the verge of tears, but now she looked incredulous and displeased. She nodded once to him, almost imperceptibly, and turned back to Inuyasha. She rose and placed her hand on his shoulder.

 

"Come on upstairs. Let's check you over." With that she turned and headed for the stairs. Inuyasha shot Kagome a confused look, which she returned, and followed slowly after his mother, Kagome rushing over to his side and staying close.

 

"This is your family?" she whispered.

 

"Yeah, this is them," he said back in a hushed voice. "But usually they don't act like this. I think something is wrong."

 

Izayoi led the teenagers into the bathroom, and asked Inuyasha to sit down on the rim of the large, claw-foot tub in the corner because it was the proper height to keep him in reach. Kagome stared around the room, amazed, trying to figure out the functions of everything. Inuyasha mouthed ‘I'll tell you later' and she nodded and moved into a corner out of the way. Izayoi had Inuyasha take of his shirt, yet again, and unwound the bandages in a way so gentle that only a mother could manage it. Despite what he suspected was a new break, or perhaps a healing bone re-broken, Inuyasha felt nearly nothing under her ministrations. When she saw the angry bruising and tears in the skin, she gasped and patted Inuyasha's head sympathetically, and then proceeded to douse him with antiseptic, and roll gauze around the area before bandaging it with a stronger ace bandage, the longest one Inuyasha had ever seen in his life.

 

As his mother worked, Inuyasha tried to listen to his father's voice downstairs. He caught only snippets of the conversation, gathering that Sesshomaru had been sent around looking for him, and how they were stupid not to think of the shrine. Inuyasha couldn't understand how they knew anything about the shrine, but he guessed it had something to do with Kagome's outfit. Sesshomaru was told to come straight home, and Inuyasha thought he heard that he would be there any minute. Then the call ended.

 

Officially rewrapped a few minutes later, Inuyasha followed his mother down the stairs and back to the kitchen, Kagome trailing behind them. When they arrived, Sesshomaru was already there. He and Izayoi shared a look, and suddenly something clicked in with Inuyasha.

 

They were all in on this. He had no idea what, but the whole family new something that they had been keeping from him. He flashed back to something Kaede had said, about him being unaware of his heritage, and swallowed. He had a sneaking suspicion that he might have heard what they were about to tell him before.

 

He hoped fiercely he was wrong.

 

"Izayoi, we have to tell him now," his father said to his mother, as she pushed Inuyasha gently down into a seat, and Kagome into the one beside him.

 

"Daiyo, no, he's not ready. He's so young."

 

"Honey, it's time. He has to know. If he's been...Well, he has to be able to take care of himself. Now that he's seen."

 

Inuyasha listened uneasily to the exchange. It was just like the game they played so often with him, the one they had played that morning before he had ended up in the feudal era. But this was wrong, like a mockery of the light-hearted banter. His mother looked ready to cry, and his father looked resigned, like he was heading off to the firing squad. It looked frighteningly similar to a vague memory he had of a funeral years ago when he had been young. Sesshomaru stood by the door, leaning against the frame, regarding his younger brother with a mixture of sadness and understanding. There was none of the usual teasing in his expression, and when their eyes met, he smiled at Inuyasha reassuringly. It was one of the few times Sesshomaru had ever really been brotherly towards him. Again, he was reminded of the funeral, when Sesshomaru had sat beside him, a hand on his shoulder, as the pair watched the body being carried away down the aisle. It was an expression of support.

 

It was much scarier that any sneer would have been. It meant that something very big and very bad was happening.

 

As though on cue, the rest of the family took seats around the large table, all looking at Inuyasha. No one spoke for a long moment, and then his father said "I want you to tell us, honestly, where you've been and what has happened to you since you left here. Don't spare any details, Inuyasha. Tell us everything. We won't be mad about it, I promise."

 

Inuyasha looked from his mother, to his father, to Sesshomaru. All regarded him expectantly. He felt like he had fallen into someone else's bad trip.

 

"One question, first. Has everyone besides me totally lost it in the last 24 hours? Has the whole world gone insane? If I went down the street now, would I see people wearing underwear on their head and singing ‘Oh, Canada' in Japanese? ‘Cause, let me tell you, it's been feeling like that lately."

 

"No one is insane here, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru answered, smirking slightly in an attempt at teasing but not quite managing it. "I think you, what with the ‘Oh, Canada' thing are the closest though. Just tell us, ok?"

 

"Alright," said Inuyasha. "But, remember, you asked." He launched into the story, starting where they knew, with the nasty comments Sesshomaru had made at breakfast (Izayoi glared at the older boy for that, who averted his gaze) and moved on to the running to school and getting there early. He told about how he had come back instead of going, and walked over to the shrine for no real reason except he felt he should. He described the scratching, the falling, the arm, and everything that happened from Kagome's capture of him, all the way to the attack by the crows and falling back into the well. He tried to tone down the pain involved, for his mother's sake, but otherwise left no detail out, including the assertions made by Kaede before he stormed away.

 

"When I woke up, Kagome was freaking out and shaking me, and I realized we were here. That pretty much all there is."

 

For several long moments, no one said anything. But they seemed to believe him, well enough. His mother was looking daggers at Kagome, as she had every time he mentioned anything involving her shooting or aiming her bow at him. Those parts had been difficult to smooth over.

 

"The well?" said his father after a moment, a look of deep thought on his face. "The well next door, in the shrine, is a portal." He thought for a moment more, and then laughed. "After all that work keeping this from you, protecting you from this, you find your own way into it next door! Unbelievable. I guess sometimes fate... is just fate."

 

Nobody at the table looked too pleased. The three pairs of eyes of Inuyasha's family were all averted to various points on the wood grain table and walls.

 

"Ok, seriously," said Inuyasha after a minute. "What is going on here? This is ridiculous. Do you think I'm too stupid to tell that you all know something you aren't telling me? Well, I'm not, and I can see something huge is going on here. So why don't you all just fucking share already?!"

 

No body spoke, not even to comment on his language. Inuyasha slumped back in his chair, crossed his arms high over his chest, and waited, glaring at each one in turn. Finally, it was Sesshomaru of all people to raise his head and meet Inuyasha's eyes. A fierce look was burning in his own, something almost like pride. Inuyasha couldn't be sure, he didn't recognize anything not involving a sneer.

 

"Well, to start," Sesshomaru began, all eyes suddenly snapping to his face. He ignored all but Inuyasha. "I'm not really your brother."

 

"Oh, joy, my Christmas wish came true," murmured Inuyasha, but he was ignored.

 

"What I mean is, I'm not your full brother. Although your father is my father, your mother, Izayoi," he turned apologetically to her as she spoke, and she smiled softly at him, "is not my biological mother. Although she has raised me, like you, for most of my life, my biological mother was not...well, she was not human, Inuyasha."

 

Inuyasha stared for a moment. He didn't speak.

 

"You see, son," Daiyo said, taking over, "before I met your mother, I was involved with a woman who was a...demon. She and I were not close, and were together mostly because of pressure from our packs. She bore Sesshomaru, and then she died."

 

"Packs?" Inuyasha asked, picking up on the unfamiliar term.

 

Daiyo smiled slightly, almost sadly. "Yes, Inuyasha. Packs. You see, that woman, Sesshomaru, and I...we are all demons. Dog Demons to be specific. You have heard of them, I know. We are a high form of demons, and have ruled parts of Japan for thousands of years." Daiyo paused, waiting on Inuyasha's reaction. When none came, he sighed and continued.

 

"Shortly after her death, I left the rural part of Japan I had lived in with my pack. I no longer felt any need to be there, any connection with the place. I suppose that my time there had served its purpose. I left my domain in capable hands, and came to Tokyo with Sesshomaru, who was small then. Shortly after arriving, I was exploring the city a bit, trying to figure out how to assert myself into life there. You see, though I have lived a long time, longer than you imagine, I had spent most of my life with my pack. We don't, when we live together, carry on like humans do, although we have changed greatly with the times. It's not necessary for us. Being a part of the ruling class, I never had a day job, as you might call it. I needed to take one now, in order to maintain the life I had chosen with your brother."

 

Daiyo looked suddenly at Izayoi, and Inuyasha figured her place in the story was getting close.  Normally, Inuyasha wouldn't have allowed the story to go on for as long as it had without interrupting. Of course, normally in this sort of situation, Inuyasha would be believing some of what he as hearing, absorbing it, considering the possibility. Instead, his mind felt kind of numb. They were telling him here that he wasn't human, that his father, his brother, weren't human. They were telling him that his entire life had been a lie, that a huge secret of his identity had been kept from him for years. Kept from him by how own family. He simply couldn't absorb that. Instead, he had to settle for listening and remembering, and trying to sort it out later.

 

"I was walking down a street, not paying attention," Daiyo continued, his gaze sliding from Izayoi to Inuyasha again, more warmth in it then before, more confidence in his words, "When I bumped right into your mother. I must have been very absorbed in my thoughts. Under normal circumstances, demons do not simply bump into people. Anyway, skipping over extraneous details. We started seeing each other, often. Both Sesshomaru and I had to be cloaked at all times in public by magic, as certain details of our appearances are slightly...off putting to humans, one might say. But, of course, as I got relaxed, and saw how Izayoi was with Sesshomaru, I became happy, and so I became careless. One day, a normal day, she came over, and I didn't have myself cloaked. She came in, saw my face, and screamed. She recognized a demon from pictures she had seen, of course, as I'm sure you would, Inuyasha. Now, I expected her to scream and then run, but she did not run. Instead she grabbed a kitchen knife and demanded to know what I had done to myself, or rather, what I had done to Daiyo, the human man she knew lived there." He smirked at Izayoi, and she smiled back, slightly embarrassed. "It took an hour or so to explain the truth to her, or at least the rough details. After, I asked what she felt, and she simply told me that nothing had changed. She felt about me exactly as she had before. She loved me. And then she kissed me. And then, we married and you showed up a bit later."

 

At last, with his story over, Daiyo gazed at Inuyasha. "I suppose I should get to the point," he said, when the boy did not react. "I am a demon, a full demon, as I was when you were conceived and born. Izayoi, your mother, was, as she has always been, human. The blood of humans and demons can combine in that way to create half demons. And so it did in you. In some cases, the children are terribly deformed by the combination of demon energy with a human life. We were, understandably, very worried when we learned of her pregnancy, although we knew you would spend your life cloaked anyway. However, when you were born, our fears turned out to be in vain. You were beautiful and very nearly completely human looking." At that, Inuyasha finally found his voice.

 

"What do you mean, I'm nearly completely human looking? I do so look completely human. I don't understand. If this is the truth, why is this the first I'm hearing it? This all sounds really impossible."

 

Daiyo sighed.  "We are cloaked Inuyasha, cloaked well. By magic. Demon's have a type of magic of their own. Demon priests have long since created cloaking spells to keep our existence a secret from humans. As a full demon, what was done with you would not have worked on your brother or myself. But, because you are half, we were able to device a way to cloak you so completely that you yourself could hardly tell the difference. The fact that it was detected at all means you must have met a very intelligent priestess on your adventure."

 

"I still don't understand," Inuyasha told them.

 

"Perhaps, showing you what we, your brother and I, are truly like would help. Sesshomaru?" Daiyo asked, standing. Sesshomaru got up as well, and both men pulled the collars of their shirts down a little, revealing similar, nearly identical tattoos. Inuyasha recognized them, as he had seen them on his father and brother many times before, as long as he remembered. He had never thought much of them, except to wonder why Sesshomaru had a tattoo so young.

 

"Now, remain calm, Inuyasha. Remember, nothing but our appearances has changed." With that, both his father and brother touched their hands to their tattoos. For a second, nothing happened, and then both were engulfed in blinding light. When the light subsided, they were gone.

 

In their placed stood two fierce and beautiful demons. Both had long, white hair. Daiyo's seemed to have grown several feet, where as Sesshomaru's had simply bleached entirely of its normal blackness. Their ears were pointed slightly at the tips, and their faces...along the lines of their cheek bones, each man had sharp, pointed lines of purple. Daiyo had one thick line, and his eldest son had two on each side. Their teeth had transformed and elongated into fangs, their fingernails into claws. His father had seemed to age slightly in reverse, looking younger than he had before. On Sesshomaru's forehead was the shape of a small, purple crescent moon.

 

Inuyasha stared at the demons who had been his family seconds before, trying to reconcile the two images in his head; His happy, smiling father and uptight, teasing brother with the...It took a moment, but then the images clicked.

"Oh," said Inuyasha. Daiyo nodded quietly.

 

"You believe," he said. It was not a question.

 

"Kinda hard not to, now," Inuyasha answered anyway.

 

Without changing back, the demons sat down at the table. Inuyasha glanced at his mother. She was watching him, not even sparing a look to the two non-humans at her dinner table.

She really had seen it before, then.

 

Inuyasha exhaled slowly, trying to keep himself composed until he had learned what he wanted to know. Then, he had a few choice words he wanted to share.

 

"And me? I'm cloaked too? I don't have a tattoo, though, so how..." he let the words trail off.

 

"Yours is different, Inuyasha. It had to be. You are not a full demon, so your abilities work differently. We weren't sure how much demon power would present in you, but we decided, for your own good, that you shouldn't know until you were grown and could deal with it. We were going to wait until you had gone to college. You see, since your brother and I have abdicated our throne, you would have the option to take it. I didn't want to foist that choice onto you just yet. So, we had a spell made especially for you. Not only does it conceal your true appearance, but it also covers your aura almost completely, and limits your abilities greatly."

 

"My abilities," Inuyasha repeated blankly, tonelessly. Daiyo nodded.

 

"Your senses too. I think it is time to remove that spell." Beside her husband, Izayoi groaned quietly. "I know," he muttered to her.

 

Getting up, Daiyo opened the first aid kit Izayoi had brought from upstairs, and rummaged through it. He was thwarted, apparently, because he closed it looking annoyed a moment later, seemed to consider, and then went to the cutlery drawer instead. Izayoi took a moment to realize what he was up to.

 

"Oh, absolutely not! Not a chance. I am not about to let you...with a...NO!" she said angrily. Inuyasha was taken aback. His mother was rarely angry. Daiyo looked shamefaced at the chastising, but picked up a short, sharp blade anyway.

 

"Honey, we have to. It will only hurt a minute. He has to see." Izayoi relented, looking extremely displeased, and Daiyo approached Inuyasha slowly. Inuyasha, on his part, started to feel a bit nervous.

 

That feeling intensified greatly when his father held out a hand and said "Give me your right arm," in a firm but gentle voice.

 

Inuyasha looked at the blade in his fathers hand, and then into the face of the demon who had raised him. He quirked and eyebrow.

 

"Will I be getting it back?" he asked sarcastically, lightly, as he stood and did as he was asked. His father smiled, and then turned to his arm. Inuyasha could feel the tip of the blade as his father pressed gently on a spot and inch below the crook of his elbow. He paused

 

"Are you ready? This will hurt for a minute, and then you will feel very strange. But this is important. I wouldn't do it if it weren't."

 

"Just get on with it," Inuyasha said with a nod, sounding impressively blasé.

 

Daiyo nodded, and pressed slowly the blade down. It cut through Inuyasha's skin slowly, and he gritted his teeth to avoid making any noise. Compared to what he had been through in the last day, it was hardly anything. But it still wasn't pleasant having a knife slice through your skin, and he wished his dad would hurry up. He was distracted from the pain by as gasp behind him. Inuyasha turned to see Kagome standing too, looking very much as if she was about to either run or jump in. He was surprised. He had completely forgotten she was there.

 

"Would you calm yourself?" Inuyasha growled at her, his annoyance intensified by pain. He turned back to his arm without waiting for his answer. A moment later, Daiyo withdrew the blade, pulling something sharp with it.

 

Sitting on the blood-stained steel, right at the tip, was a fang. It was loner than any human tooth, and it looked as though it would fit flawlessly into Daiyo's mouth. Except Daiyo had his fangs in place.

 

"You might want to sit down," the demon told his son, who did no such thing.

 

For a moment nothing happened at all.

 

And then it seemed the entire world came crashing down on him. The noise got to him first. Everything seemed incredibly loud all of a sudden, as if the radio had been turned on at top volume. He could hear every heart beat in the room, Kagome's gasp at whatever was happening, the cars on the street, an argument that seemed to be coming from the house next door. He clapped his hands over his ears only to find that they had vanished. Panicked, he wrenched open the eyes he hadn't noticed closing. He caught sight of his hands as he did so. The nails on his fingers had extended into claws. His eyes shot around the room, and he could suddenly see everything in much greater detail. He could make out the tiny warning label on the toaster ten feet across the room, could see every line in sharp definition.  His nose, too, felt like it was under attack by sensations. He could smell the distinct scents of each person in the room, and tell them apart. He could feel, in some other sense, where the humans and where the demons were.

 

Groaning, Inuyasha slumped into the chair, though he didn't feel weak in the least. On the contrary, every muscle in his body felt supercharged. His arms and legs tingled with unfamiliar power. He felt as though he could pick up and juggle the table if he wanted.

 

The sudden assault on his senses slowly subsided. His hearing, vision, smell, and strength didn't seem to fade, but he slowly began to feel like he could deal with them. They faded back into the automatic part of his mind where they belonged, and he looked up.

 

His mother was gazing at him worriedly, her eyes not leaving his face even when he covered it. His father was smiling, looking pleased about something Inuyasha didn't care to consider. His brother looked appraising, and he smirked a little when Inuyasha caught his eye. Kagome, he saw last, looked utterly shocked. She had pressed herself against the far wall, and she was staring at Inuyasha as though he had grown another head, which, he realized with a jolt, might not be so far off judging by what he had been told.

 

Abruptly, Inuyasha jumped up and went into the hallway between the kitchen and the stairs, making a mental note of how quickly his body responded to his desire to move. When he got to the mirror, he kept his gaze averted for a minute, mentally preparing himself. Then he looked up.

 

His hair was the first thing he saw. It had gone as silver as his father's and brother's, practically luminous. At the very top of his head sat two pointed, dog ears. He swallowed and reached up to touch one, half suspecting fakes. As his hand brushed one, it flicked away. He felt both the touch on his hand, and the movement in the new and unfamiliar muscle atop his head. He concentrated on them for a moment and deliberately tried to turn them straight ahead. He watched and felt as they obeyed instantly. Roughly, Inuyasha pushed the hair away at the sides of his head where his ears should have been. There was nothing there, no break in the mane of silver. Gasping, Inuyasha's glanced at his own reflection, his mouth hanging slightly open.  Inside it, he could see that his canines had decided to take themselves seriously, elongating into fangs the likes of which could have been pulled from his own arm a moment before. With the memory, his gaze shot to his arm where his father had cut him. What had been a small but bleeding wound was now a thin pink line, hardly more than a scratch from a cat. It had healed in minutes.

 

For a long moment, Inuyasha met his own, still golden eyes in the mirror.

 

It was true, he realized. His parents had told him the truth. Indignant, he realized it was the first time in his life he could actually say that, at least about this. He was part of a family of interbreeding humans and mythical creatures. He wasn't normal. He really was a monster, a freak, just like Kagome had thought. He was a demon.

 

Well, half anyway.

 

A long moment passed. Finally, Inuyasha turned toward the kitchen to find two human women and two demon men blocking the doorway to stare cautiously at him. As he caught them, the all averted their gaze and dispersed back into the kitchen as he entered the room behind them.

 

No one spoke for a minute.

 

"I'm a half-demon," Inuyasha finally said. Silence. He looked over at Kagome. "You guys were right about me."

 

Kagome nodded slightly. The shock seemed to have passed. Her face was composed once more. "Yeah, apparently," she agreed.

 

Inuyasha nodded his head slightly. "Yeah. So, does this mean you are going to try and shoot me again?" A growl sounded behind him, but he ignored it. Kagome did too. She merely smiled at Inuyasha nervously.

 

"Of course not. I told you. We don't care anymore. I'm not going to try and hurt you. Especially seeing as how you really had no idea."

 

Inuyasha nodded again. He then turned on his family.

"So, what? I have to walk around like this now? I have to go to school like this? What now?" Inuyasha demanded, his bitter anger seeping strongly into his voice.

 

"No, of course not." Daiyo told him, a note of placation in his voice. "How about you go upstairs and change out of those clothes, and then come back here. I need to get something for you." With that, Daiyo disappeared off into the hall and towards the living room.

 

Not knowing what else to do, Inuyasha headed upstairs to change. He could hear Kagome following him, but he didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he let her tag along as he went into his bedroom, and gathered new boxers, jeans, and another tee shirt, not really looking at what he grabbed. He turned to tell Kagome to get out so he could change, to find her examining every corner of his room with interest. At the moment, she was gazing in awe at an electrical ball that seemed to shoot lightening bolts from inside at the surface when it was touched. He snorted to himself. He had gotten it from Spencer's for 8 bucks, but she seemed to think it was magic. Instead of banishing her, he simply growled "don't touch anything" and went into the bathroom.

 

He dressed hastily, not looking in the mirror, knowing it would distract him. He forgot entirely to be careful of his injured side, but it didn't bother him anyway. Once he was done, he caught his reflection and laughed once, harshly. He had, unintentionally, chosen one of his favorite tee shirts. It was white, with red writing on it that said "And I thought yesterday sucked."  It was such an appropriate sentiment, that he figured his subconscious had picked it on purpose. Then he was again distracted by the dramatic change in his appearance. With an angry huff, he slammed his way out of the bathroom (nearly giving Kagome, who had come to wait by the door for him, a heart attack) and bounded down the stairs and back into the kitchen. They were all there again, waiting for him.

 

"Please sit down, Inuyasha," his father asked. Inuyasha crossed his arms over his chest and didn't move.

 

"I'd rather stand," he growled back. He couldn't believe like they were acting like something major had not just happened. It not as though they had finally revealed that the goldfish they had told him had run away when he was six had actually been flushed by mistake. He had just learned that his entire life they had not only lied about his identity, but about the entire world he lived in. He felt incredibly betrayed. His own family had lied about who he was, about who they were. His human mother had known, but he, a demon, hadn't been told. He couldn't bring himself to trust them. He definitely wasn't letting them off this easy.

 

Daiyo sighed, understanding. Without another word, he picked up a box from the table that hadn't been there minutes before.

 

"I knew this day would come eventually, when you would need to know the truth and I would need to remove the cloaking spell. Now that you have traveled through a portal, the like of which exist all over the world, and seen where your destiny lies, you can not be kept in the dark anymore. You must always be alert now that your demonic aura is uncovered. You must be able to sense and fight anything that might approach you." Daiyo opened the box and pulled out a small, beaded rosary. After a second, Inuyasha realized it was a necklace. It was made of purple beads, punctuated every few inches by fangs not unlike the one that had been pulled from Inuyasha's own arm that morning.

"This rosary holds a different spell then the fang did. Although it will change your appearance, and hide your aura somewhat, it will have no effect on your own perceptions. Your hearing, sight, sense of smell, and strength...all the abilities you now possess, will not be altered. You will be able to move about as a human." Daiyo handed Inuyasha the necklace, and, after a moment of speculation, he slipped it over his head.

 

Kagome gasped. He turned to her, his look questioning.

 

"It works," she told him before he asked. "You look as you did before. And your aura is subtler. I can still feel it, but plain old perceptive humans won't. Priestesses won't be fooled though."

 

Experimentally, Inuyasha tried to turn his ears forward again. He felt them respond as they had before, the same unfamiliar muscles working. It was a cloak, no more.

 

"We should begin your training immediately," Daiyo said suddenly. Inuyasha looked at him, not understanding. "There is much you must learn. It begins with..."

 

"No," Inuyasha interrupted.

 

Daiyo looked confused. "What?" he asked. It was a genuine question, the voice speaking it utterly nonplussed.

 

"I said no. I don't want to be trained. You lied to me! You all lied to me for my whole life. Or did you just forget to mention that demons from medieval stories actually exist? You kept from me who you are! You kept from me who I am! How could you just lie to me like that, right to my face every day for 17 fucking years?! How am I supposed to trust anything you say?"

 

The family gazed at its youngest member in shock. Apparently, they had never considered the possibility that he would be angry about being kept in the dark all that time. It was Izayoi who seemed to recover the ability to speak first.

 

"Honey, we were trying to protect you! Once you knew, once the spell was removed, you were in danger. There is no way we could have shown you this without taking it off of you. You would need to see for yourself, we knew that. We were doing what was best for you."

 

Inuyasha turned his glare on her. In the wake of his mother's gaze, the anger in his own eyes dimmed. Instead, the hurt and betrayal showed brilliantly in the amber-gold orbs.

"You lied to me," he said again, quietly.

 

"Inuyasha..." Daiyo started, but he ceased as soon as he caught sight of his son's expression.

 

No one spoke for a minute. They all just looked at Inuyasha, gauging his reaction. He carefully made his face as blank as he could manage, as anger boiled under the surface. Still, no one said a word as the anger became so fierce that Inuyasha thought he might explode, spewing hot lava on everyone.

Without a word, without a glance, Inuyasha turned and walked out the kitchen door. His family and Kagome came after him a moment later as he made a beeline for the shrine stairs.

 

"Where are you going?" Sesshomaru demanded, sounding more freaked out then angry.

 

"I'm going back."

 

"Back?"

 

"In time," Inuyasha said, stopping in the middle of the road and turning.

 

"Back in time?"

 

"Yeah. Back in time. At least there the people trying to kill you are honest about it."

 

He turned again, and kept going.

 

"Inuyasha, we weren't trying to..."

 

"DON'T FOLLOW ME!" he barked at the footsteps behind him. Three sets ceased, and one continued after him as he all but ran up the steps.

 

At the door to the well house, he spun to yell at the person following him, his mouth open to shout.

 

"What?" Kagome demanded before he could say anything. "I live there!"

 

Inuyasha ignored her, and turned back towards the well.

He was dimly aware of the sound of tears he should not have been able to hear falling back at the road beside his house where he had left his family. In his anger, he couldn't think enough about them to care.

 

Without a backward glance, Inuyasha threw himself down the well, not caring for the moment where or when he ended up. He just wanted to be away.

 

The sense of betrayal flared as he fell, and was engulfed in brilliant, unnatural white-blue light, and the painless burning sensation set in. He could feel Kagome's presence with him in the unnatural space of magic and nothingness, as he was transported back in time, to a world not his own.

 

For a moment, he didn't care about where he was going or where he as leaving. Fury burned in his throat, and all he wanted was to be away from the feeling that his family had turned on him.

And if he had to fight a pack of demon carrion crows to get away, he would. He smiled bleakly at the thought. Maybe he would even have fun with it.

 

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I'm sooooo sorry this took as long as it did to put up. I know I had promised it several days ago. To make up for it, this chappie is extra extra extra long. 17 pages on word. I had to cut myself off or it would have ranted on for a while. The next one should be ready much quicker. This one gave me a hard time. I had to make a lot of decisions. I still have many more decisions to go about how and where to take this story. But, this portion is done, so that's good at least. AND, added bonus, this was verrrrrrryyyyy exposition heavy, and we leaned a huge amount. So, exposition wise, the next several chapters should be light and full of fun, action-y, goodness.

 

Oh, what did you guys think of the shirt? I have never seen one that said that, but I definitely think I need one sometimes. It was so perfect I had to do it. Now, if I ever see someone wearing anything bearing that slogan, I will be completely and thoroughly convinced that it was my idea first. Then again, when I was five, I was convinced that I had invented Oil of Olay, the moisturizer, because I used that name when I played potions. So I might just be blocking it out.