- Text Size +

Curiosity - Chapter 15 - "Prove It"

Silence befell the hut once again. How did Kikyo find out about the well? The only person in the village that really knows about the wells magic is Kaede and I know she wouldn't tell her. She couldn't have learned it from any of the other villagers because they only know that she lives in another land far away. Who could she have possibly gotten this knowledge from?

"Wait a minute, she was gone all night and most of the morning. That would have given her enough time to make it to Inuyasha and back. No, no what am I thinking? He would never do that to me. Right?" Kagome questioned silently.

Even poor Kaede was struck silent by her elder sister. Clutching the envelope in her knurled hands, in a weak attempt to hold down her rising anger, Kaede stepped forward to confront Kikyo.

"Where did ye learn such a thing Kikyo? Surely none of the villagers told you. Ye have no right to use young Kagome's secret against her!"

Hard brown eyes turned to look down to the elderly woman. "You should hold your tongue dear sister; else I will be forced to reveal something about you as well to keep you out of this." She said eyeing the crumpled paper in Kaede's wrinkled hands.

Widening her eye, she quickly stuffed the envelope into her kimono sleeve and walked over to the fire and sat down, in fear of her most beloved secret being revealed. "How could she know about that? We made sure to never let anyone know. Besides that she was dead."

"How?" A quiet voice asked.

Kikyo turned her head back to the woman kneeling before her, who was now looking at her, anger filling her chocolate eyes.

"How do you know about the well? Who told you?" Kagome angrily asked while standing back up to face Kikyo in the eye.

A smirk crossed Kikyo's face, but just as she was going to answer, Izayoi and Touga returned from their walk.

"Is something wrong? Touga could smell your anxiety and anger so we hurried back to see if there was anything we could do." Izayoi questioned while gently holding Touga's arm. She was attempting to calm him, for he was lightly growling at the dead priestess. On the way back to Kaede's hut, Touga had told her that he felt that Kagome was in danger and that he needed to protect her since she was part of Inuyasha's pack.

Frowning at being so rudely interrupted, Kikyo began to answer Kagome again. "No one told me you idiotic excuse of a priestess! Did you ever stop to think that since the part of my soul that I have came from your body that I would not have some of your memories? Memories that possibly include a time portal located in an old well perhaps."

Shocked, Kagome took a step back from her predecessor, worry etching its way across her face. Why hadn't that thought ever crossed her mind? Was it possible for Kikyo to have some of her memories? A horrible thought struck her then, one which made fear clearly show itself on her face.

"What if... what if she told Naraku of the well? My whole family may be in danger!"

Smelling the fear coming from the alpha-female of his son's pack, Touga began to get defensive.

"Woman, you will stop this interrogation now, unless you wish to face my wrath." He growled out through his clenched fangs. He had heard the whole confrontation on his way here, and no one threatens any member of a dog demon's pack, unless they want a death wish.

Said miko completely ignored the raging dog demon, keeping her eyes trained on the now hyperventilating Kagome standing before her.

"I know what you must be thinking. Did I tell Naraku of the well's magic? Know this, if he had this knowledge, don't you think he would have used it against you by now? You may not be one of my favorite people, but one thing I would never do is endanger the threads of time."

Kagome looked into Kikyo's eyes to see if she was telling the truth, but her eyes were still hard and her emotions hidden. "I suppose that I'll have to take the chance and trust her."

"If what you say is true, then you'll have to prove it to me. Prove to me Kikyo that you have my memories." Kagome deftly insisted.

Stepping closer to Kagome, almost too where they were nose to nose, Kikyo began to spout out memories of a past that wasn't her own.

"When you were three you got your first pet, a duck named Waddles. At age four your father died and your family moved in with your grandfather at the Sunset Shrine. Seven, you almost died because you got hit in the head by a horse causing you to get a metal plate in your head. At ten you and your three best friends decided to run away and live in someplace called Disney Land. And on your fifteenth birthday, you fell into the Bone Eater's well and was brought back to this time."

All eyes turned to Kagome as they waited to see if what Kikyo had said was true. Everyone let out their breaths when she finally answered in a stunned voice. "It's true. It's all true. But that doesn't make any sense to me. If you have some of my memories, shouldn't I have some of yours as well? After all, I am your reincarnation."

"No one has memories of their past lives foolish girl. When each soul is born anew, their prior memories are washed away. Which explains why you knew nothing of this era, the jewel, and your lack of combat skills as well as the ability to use your purification ability to its fullest potential?" Kikyo answered spitefully. She knew that her copy would become upset if she realized the hidden meaning behind her response.

Kagome's anger rose at the last thing Kikyo said. "How dare you call me a weakling Kikyo? It's not my fault that I was born in an era without so much bloodshed OR that I wasn't trained as a miko from childhood. That doesn't mean that I don't know how to fight when the time arises. So don't belittle me Kikyo!"

Kikyo was quickly loosing her temper with the girl before her. "That is no excuse for you not being properly trained. Someone in your world should have sensed your power. Or perhaps someone in your family, after all, you do live at a shrine."

She didn't expect Kagome to laugh at what she said. What part of it, if any, would have been considered funny?

When she finally settled down, Kagome looked at Kikyo with amusement in her eyes. "My dear Kikyo, if it's true that you have some of my memories then surely you have a couple containing Gramps. Therefore you seem to have found the answer to why nobody was aware of any power that existed inside of me."

Kaede had to hold back her laugh at the look upon her sister's face, for she had heard of the many mishaps of Kagome's grandfather and his many attempts to sutra Inuyasha. She could tell that Kikyo had been rendered speechless by Kagome as well, but after a minute, Kaede saw a familiar gleam in her elder sister's eyes, one that she knew of far too well.

"Now what could my elder sister be up to?" Kaede thought, intrigued by Kikyo's look of satisfaction.

With a smirk on her face, Kikyo serenely walked over to the doorframe and ripped off the sutra that held Kagome prisoner inside Kaede's hut. She then strolled over to the corner to her right and picked up a bow and full quiver of arrows.

Wide eyes were on her the entire time and growling could be heard throughout the hut, coming from none other than Touga himself, who stood protectively in front of his mate. He didn't trust this priestess; there was just something off about her, other than her being of the walking dead of course. She just acted as if she didn't have a soul at all, that she was merely a hollow shell. But that couldn't be true because from what he heard, part of Kagome's soul was inside the clay body of the woman once called Kikyo. It was just all to confusing for him at this point. Even though he was the strongest dog demon in the lands, his newly revived brain could only take so much, and this was just one of those things that he couldn't wrap his head around at this point.

Walking back towards where she left Kagome, Kikyo thrust the bow and quiver into her hands and grabbed her upper arm harshly.

"If you claim to be able to protect yourself then you must prove it to me." With that she proceeded to pull Kagome out of the hut harshly by the arm. As soon as both crossed the threshold of Kaede's hut, screams of "demon" could be heard throughout the entire village.

"Well wasn't that convenient, stepping out only to have a demon appear in our mitts? Pretty fishy..." Kagome stated sarcastically, but was cut off when Kikyo thrust her onto the dirt path the led out into Inuyasha's Forest.

"Demonstrate this talent you use for protecting yourself." Kikyo spoke coldly.

Feeling that Kagome shouldn't have to fight this demon alone, Kaede was about to step up to the young miko's side when she suddenly ran into a barrier, one that she realized had encompassed the entire village.

"Your help will not be needed in this battle. Kagome will have to show that she poses the power to defend herself." Kikyo said answering the unspoken question.

Looking back out towards the demon now approaching the girl, who had become like a granddaughter to her, she sent a silent prayer up to the heavens for her to get through this all in one piece.

Nervous is not exactly how Kagome would describe what she felt. She believed the proper word would be terrified. This was definitely the last thing that Kagome thought Kikyo would do to her. Why would a miko throw another one basically at a demons feet? This was yet another thing to add onto the "Talk To Inuyasha About" list.

Her thoughts were stopped abruptly though when she heard heavy breathing above her. Twisting her neck ever so slightly, she caught her first glance of the demon she would be facing.

Kagome didn't even have time to think up a skeleton strategy against the massive bear demon looming above her before it decided to strike. Flinging its paw down in an attempt to smash Kagome, the bear's mouth watered at the thought of tasting human flesh. Unfortunately defeating this puny human would be harder than it thought, for when he lifted his paw; there was no human, only dirt.

Thankfully, Kagome had rolled out of the way, just in time to keep from becoming a human pancake. Standing back on her own two feet, barely out of the sight of the demon, Kagome drew and notched an arrow aimed directly towards its head.

"Hey ugly!" She shouted. As the bear began to turn towards her, she let her arrow fly, only to have it miss due to the bear jumping out of the way. But when it landed her hopes were restored when she gazed upon the wound she had inflicted. That lucky shout had taken out one of the bears arms.

She notched another arrow, unfortunately she never got the chance to shoot it seeing as the demon began charging towards her with incredible speed. Fear overcame her as the bear edged closer, thankfully though, she was able to get out of it line of fire before she became bear chow, only to then have the bears head ram into her back sending her sprawling into the dirt.

Hearing the bears approach, she quickly pushed herself up only to almost loose her footing. The fall caused her to rip her jeans, which provided her legs with terrible scrapes and scratches, and her left ankle had been twisted severely, but she could tell that it wasn't broken.

Gritting through the pain, she stumbled over to a pile of firewood that the village had prepared for winter and stood her ground against the demon, not wanting to make a fool of herself in front Kikyo, Inuyasha's parents, or any of the villagers.

"What am I going to do? I only know how to send my power into my arrows and to purify the jewel. If only I could make my power come out of my hands like when Lady Centipede was after me, but those two times were only flukes. I guess I'll just have to rely on my arrows, besides; this demon doesn't look too smart anyway. How hard could it be to kill it?"

Even though this bear demon appeared to be one of the mindless kind, in actuality it wasn't, for it could tell that the arrows in the humans possession were dangerous and needed to be taken away immediately.

Finally coming back to its senses, the bear noticed that the human girl had taken out a large hunk of its stomach and fur. Not even registering the pain, the bear bent down on all three legs facing Kagome and blew towards her a breath of air, at which Kagome practically choked on due to its horrible stench.

Having Kagome distracted for the moment, the bear used its claws to cut away her quiver and snap her bowstring. It even went as far as crushing the quiver so that there would be no usable arrows left.

"Well this is a great way to show Kikyo that I could defend myself. Having my only weapon taken away not even ten minutes into the battle." Kagome thought while she was still choking.

When she eventually caught her breath minutes later, it was too late. She didn't hear the warnings of the villagers, and neither did she see the mammoth bear claw coming closer and closer from her left. Kagome didn't know what was going on until she felt terrible pain erupt from the left side of her body, to only then feel herself flying through the air until she felt insurmountable agony come from the right side of her body as well.

She heard the villagers calling her name, urging her to get up, that the demon was making its way closer. But she couldn't move, her left side had dulled to a slow throbbing, but the right side, oh that was in much worse condition. After all, wouldn't slamming against a tree, arm first, would break it and put it out of commission right?

In one last feeble effort to protect herself she did what any other human would do, Kagome raised her only working arm above her head.

You must login (register) to review.