Chapter 1

Kagome was walking thorough the woods, ranting as per usual. This time not even her best friend Sango could calm her down. Inuyasha had just told her to her face that he would rather die with Kikyo than stay with her. She was thinking this when among other things when she spied a young girl who couldn’t be more than 14 years old and she seemed hurt pretty badly.

            Forgetting her own problems, Kagome went straight to the younger girl. She was getting worried. In her 17 years she had rarely seen wounds this bad.

            “Is there anything I can do to help? You seem to be in pretty bad shape.” Kagome said this all very anxiously. The girl looked at her and Kagome gasped. She couldn’t help herself. She felt immense power when she looked into the girls piercing green eyes, which seemed to be the same exact color as the leaves of a maple tree in the summertime.

The girl smiled.

            “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been in worse conditions than this. If you just hand me my bag I’d be grateful. Thanks.” she had a pretty voice, like a bird song, and a beautiful smile, much like Kagome's.

            “Now if I could just find that damn potion, I’ll be fine.” She rummaged a little longer and triumphantly pulled out a small bottle full of a purple liquid. She drank and Kagome saw her grimace in disgust.

            Her body began to glow and her wounds healed themselves before Kagome's eyes.

            “My name is Yukia, by the way.” Kagome raised one of her eyebrows.

Yukia saw that and rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. Yeesh. My full title is,” she took a deep breath like this was very painful. ”It’s   Lady Ina-Karu-Sata Yukia, the last  earth element witch and apparently the only one stupid enough to challenge Lord Sesshomaru, taiyouki of the Western Lands, to a battle. Or so he says.” She gave a “gag me” look at that last bit Kagome decided she was going to like this girl. She smiled.

            “My name is Lady Higurashi Kagome, miko in training, and yes you are incredibly stupid to challenge Lord Sesshomaru to a battle. I bet that is how you got all the wounds you had. “She looked at Yukia and laughed long and loud she had such a sarcastic look on her face.

            “Thanks a lot. That’s a real good thing to know how highly you think of me. Aww, man! My robe is covered in blood and dirt. How wonderful. Is there a hot spring I could use for a quick bath?” Yukia said this while holding a corner of her forest green, knee-length robe that had a lighter green lining and a bright orange lily on each side of the robe.

            “Sure, but let me introduce you to my friends back at my camp.” Kagome was sure she would get along well with everyone. She was just so likable. ”So, who won that battle? You or Sesshomaru?” Kagome asked trying to make conversation. Yukia smiled. She knew what Kagome was doing and raised her eyebrows.

            “Neither of us ‘won’ we were both about to attack head on-“

            “With what!?! You don’t have any weapons!” Kagome couldn’t help pointing this out. She was beginning to doubt Yukia’s story. This must have shown on her face because she realized that Yukia knew and was studying her.

            ‘I’ll show her’, Yukia decided. ‘I trust her.’

            “One second.” Yukia reached into a pocket that seemed to appear out of nowhere on her robe. ”these are my weapons.” She had a leather belt with six daggers on it and she had a sword the same size as Inuyasha’s though it was shaped less like a fang. The most mesmerizing part was on each dark brown hilt there was a leaf in a circle and on the handle there was a star of silver. They all seemed to have been grown instead of carved into the wood.

            “Maybe not the most ideal weapons, but when ever I throw the knives they will come back to me when I give the command, and they make excellent tracking devices. So tell me, what were you doing in the forest at my hour of need?” Kagome suddenly remembered why she had been in the forest in the first place. It was funny though, she didn’t feel angry anymore.

            “A friend of mine made me mad and upset; we had just had a big fight.” Yukia looked thoughtful.

            “You really like him, don’t you?” Kagome jumped. How could Yukia have known that?

            “I can tell by your eyes. They looked really sad, but also like you had done this before. Oh, is this you’re camp over here?”  They had reached the camp and only Sango and Shippou were there.

            “Yukia, this is my best friend Sango. Sango this is my new friend Yukia. Where is everyone?” Kagome was wondering if they had gotten into trouble.

“They went scout the area and Miroku took Kirara.” she smiled at Yukia. She seemed like a nice enough girl.

            “Kagome was just about to take me to the hot springs, so I can clean this blood and dirt off of me. Also, I haven’t learned your name yet, Sir Fox Demon.” This last part had been spoken to Shippou.

            “My name is Shippou! I have a great idea! How about we all go to the hot springs? I need a bath and we would have a lot of fun!” Shippou said all of this very excitedly in a slightly high voice. Yukia laughed. She had a feeling they would all become good friends.

                                                            **()**

            “We should start heading back;” Kagome said regretfully. “ the guys are probably worrying about us.” They had a great time. After getting all cleaned up, Yukia mended her clothes with magic. Kagome and Sango saw that her clothes were pretty different than any thing they had seen in the Feudal Era. For one thing, she refused to wear skirts, dresses, or kimonos. She wore hip-hugging pants with a tie in the front. She also wore a midriff that buttoned a lot like Sango’s cat suit. All this was in varying shades of green. She explained that this was because she was constantly getting into fights with powerful demons and had to be able to move around.

            Sango had an idea.

            “Let me braid your hair! It’s so long!” that took about five minutes and during that time Shippou and Yukia had An intense discussion on magic and the different types of spells and tricks.

            “Let me teach one of my favorite spells that get me out of a tight spot. Take an acorn and say ‘ifo nina blastus’, but not too loudly.”

            “Why,” asked Shippou. “It doesn’t do any thing to the spell, does it?”

            “Yes, if you say it too loudly there will be too big an explosion and that you’re supposed to use it as a way to escape.”  Yukia explained this as if she did it every day.

            They were coming to the camp and everyone except for Kikyo was there and waiting for them. Yukia hid a little shyly behind Kagome and Sango. Shippou ran ahead and  said hi to everyone there. This is the scene through Yukia’s eyes.

            ‘A tall human  man in black hair was getting off of the back of a transformed cat demon and in front of them was a half-demon in a red kimono. He had long silvery-white hair and adorable little puppy ears. The thing that captured her attention the most though was his kimono. She could tell it had magical properties, and it was very intriguing’

            She wanted to know more about it when Shippou came and grabbed her hand.

            “Come on Yukia meet everyone else!! Inuyasha, this is Yukia,” she smiled shyly at the half-demon, “and this is Miroku.” Yukia didn’t have time to blink before Miroku was in front of her, holding both of her hands, asking her to bear his children she didn’t have time to respond, though, before Sango hit him on his head with her giant boomerang. Suddenly, Yukia was being lifted into the air by her neck and she looked down at her captor and gulped. Standing below her was Lord Sesshomaru, and Kagome did not like the way he was smiling at Yukia being partially strangled.

            “So,” he said in cold, smooth voice that made the hairs on the back of Shippou’s neck stand up, “we meet again, witch. I saw you while you were bathing with the other women here.” He paused. Yukia seemed to be trying to say some thing. He loosened the grip on her neck to give her just enough air to speak.

            “Pervert.”

            “You will die now.”

            “I just have one question for you, Sesshomaru,” Yukia gasped. He tightened his grip. Everybody seemed to be frozen in place.

            “And what would that be, witch?” He was going to enjoy killing her for her impudence.

            “What were we fighting about earlier? All I remember is saying that some humans weren’t inferior to some humans.” She honestly looked confused.

            Sesshomaru growled, “It sounded like you said that humans were superior to demons.” Yukia began having a quiet laughing fit. Inuyasha stared at her.  Either she’s the bravest person in the world or the absolute craziest!’  Considering she was a human it was probably the latter. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he had seen her before, he just didn’t know where.

            “My deepest apologies, Lord Sesshomaru, but nobody would be that stupid. Umm,” she looked down at her dangling feet, “how about I apologize and you can put me down?” Sesshomaru dropped her and turned around to talk to Inuyasha. He didn’t see it, but Yukia stuck her tongue out at him and rubbed her neck. She had 4 little burn marks on the left side of her neck and one on the right.

            Sesshomaru looked into the sky.

            “Your wench is approaching, half-breed.” This was obviously aimed at Inuyasha. Kikyo landed next to Yukia and Yukia gasped.

            “Kikyo?” Inuyasha suddenly remembered where he had seen Yukia before.