Chapter 3

Qualification Round

          InuYasha and Kikyo stood over the Bone-Eater’s Well, looking down into it. Neither of them wanted to take a step, however; Kikyo feared stepping in and not being able to get out, while InuYasha thought that if he went in first, Kikyo may just abandon him.

          “Let’s go in,” InuYasha said to Kikyo.

          “Why do you think I will be able to go through that well?” Kikyo asked.

          “Kagome is your reincarnation,” InuYasha replied. “If she can go through, I would think you could, too.”

          Kikyo did not budge, so InuYasha thought of something else.

          “Do you have a shard of the Shikon Jewel?” he asked her.

          “I have several,” Kikyo responded.

          “Maybe if you use the jewel shard, it can give you the power to go through the well, just like Kagome,” InuYasha suggested.

          “I’m not wasting the jewel shards over this,” Kikyo replied sternly.

          “No, just as long as you have one, you may be able to go through the well,” InuYasha said.

          He then held out his hand, which Kikyo took, while holding her bow with her other hand. The two then stepped into the well together. And as they did, they both traveled through time, ending up in modern-day Tokyo, in the morning of August 9th. They climbed out of the well, finding themselves at the Higurashi shrine.

          “See, I told you it would work,” a surprised and relieved InuYasha said. “This is Kagome’s world here.”

          Kikyo was not interested in sightseeing. “Where are Kagome and this competition you speak of?” she asked.

          “I’m not sure, but I’ll find it, don’t worry,” InuYasha answered Kikyo, who was growing angrier by the minute.

          He led Kikyo into Kagome’s house. Remembering that Kagome always forced him to wear a hat when he was in her time, he took a Hanshin Tigers baseball cap off a desk and put it on, covering his ears. He then sat down and thought of a plan. Everyone thought Kagome looked like Kikyo, so perhaps people would think Kikyo looked like Kagome. And considering Kikyo was still holding her bow…

          “We have to go out to where there are more people,” InuYasha told Kikyo.

          Kikyo continued to feel strange about this situation, but she followed InuYasha anyway as he led her out into the streets. As they walked along, several people saw Kikyo holding her bow and mistook her for Kagome. One man who thought she was Kagome became concerned, as he had watched the archery trials as a spectator, and he figured that Kagome should be in China by now.

          “Excuse me, but are you Kagome?” the man asked Kikyo.

          Seeing InuYasha give her a slight nod, Kikyo answered yes.

          “Why aren’t you at the Olympics?” the man questioned. “I thought the archery competition started today!”

          Kikyo took the improvisation from here. “I am not able to get there,” she responded. “I do not have the money.”

          “I can’t believe this!” the man shouted. “Our government wouldn’t even offer to help a young girl follow her Olympic dream! This is an outrage!”

          Things began to snowball from there, as InuYasha hoped they would. The man took InuYasha and Kikyo to a government building, where the local officials got on the phone with the Japanese Olympic Committee. When the Japanese Olympic Committee heard about this, they were skeptical, but they also realized that their archery team had lost two members to illness. Because of this, they offered to pay any expenses and sent out a committee member to help escort the archer on her way to China.

          In the matter of a couple hours, InuYasha and Kikyo were led by an anxious committee member to the airport, where he had them board a plane. Both of them were extremely nervous about getting on the jet, not knowing what this giant machine possibly was, but they did so anyway. The plane took them to Beijing.

          Once they arrived in Beijing, the committee member hastily led them to the Olympic Village, where they met up with the archery officials. The officials looked confused when they heard the story and then saw Kikyo; they remembered seeing Kagome the night before at the Opening Ceremony. However, since they had two free spots open on their team, they were willing to accept any archer at this point.

          “You resemble Kagome, our star archer,” one of the archery officials told Kikyo. “However, we know that Kagome is already here, so please tell us, what is your name?”

          “I am Kikyo,” Kikyo responded.

          “Kikyo,” a second official said. “Are you related to Kagome?”

          Kikyo wrinkled her nose at that comment. “In a way, yes,” she answered.

          “Okay,” the first official said. “We are going to fill out the paperwork to get you officially part of our team, and then you will be able to compete in a few hours.”

          As the officials went to work, InuYasha smiled at Kikyo, who kept her stern expression. “What have you gotten me into?” she muttered to him.

          All of this occurred unbeknownst to Kagome. She had awakened that morning feeling very nervous about the day’s upcoming qualification round, but her family tried everything they could in order to keep her calm. After eating lunch, they visited the sites at the Olympic Green for a while, trying to keep Kagome’s mind off the competition. But eventually, the hour for the qualification round came around, and Kagome was off to the Olympic Green Archery Field to compete, while her family took seats in the stands – on the opposite side of the stadium as InuYasha.

          Kagome tried to mentally prepare herself for the competition, as the archers all gathered together. She walked over to a board which showed her position in the shooting order. After finding out that she would be shooting near the end, she sat down on a bench and waited for the competition to begin.

          In the meantime, the Japanese archery officials had brought Kikyo to the archery venue. After discussing whether or not to tell Kagome about her new teammate, they decided it would be better to not tell her so shortly before the competition, in order not to distract her.

          The qualification round began, which was in the exact same format as the Olympic Trials- 72 arrows per archer, split up into 6 ends of 12 arrows each. (As 10 is the maximum score per arrow, a 120 is the best score for an end.) However, not a single archer would be eliminated from medal contention today. Instead, the competition merely served as a form of seeding the archers for the single-elimination tournament that would begin the following day. There were to be 64 archers in the tournament originally, but the number had dropped to 62 with the dropout of the other two Japanese archers. That number now increased to 63 with Kikyo’s entry, meaning that the top archer in the qualification round would earn a bye through the first round of the tournament.

          Kagome did not pay much attention to the other archers, feeling that watching them could possibly throw her off and make her more nervous. She looked to find her family in the stands, and she did so. She waved to them, and they waved back. She did not happen to look over to the other side of the stands, where InuYasha watched with great interest. Nor did she even look at the other archers, merely choosing to either look to her family or stare at the ground and focus.

          After 59 archers shot their arrows, it was time for Kagome to shoot her first end. She felt the butterflies in her stomach, but tried to ignore them. It was finally time for her first arrow in Olympic competition. She aimed her bow, stared down the target, then fired.

          Bullseye.

          And so it went for Kagome in her first end, who shot a new Japanese women’s record of 113 in her first end, immediately propelling her to the lead. She could hardly believe it as she looked up to see her score on the scoreboard, while hearing the crowd roar. She waved to the cheering fans, including her family. Since the fans were such good sports, all of them cheered for her brilliant round, no matter what nation or archer they were rooting for. All, that is, except for one- a jealous InuYasha.

          Kagome was so caught up in the excitement of her first end that she failed to notice when, four archers later, a competitor’s name was mispronounced “Kick-yo,” drawing a groan from InuYasha but no response from anyone else. That archer shot a score of 112 - good enough for second place, but not good enough to draw the roar that Kagome had, and thus not enough to cause Kagome to look up.

          The second end immediately followed, and several archers put up good scores, but still none close to Kagome’s or Kikyo’s score. A couple of South Korean archers were doing pretty well, as well as a Chinese archer. But once Kagome came up again, feeling much less nervous than before, she blew everyone away again with a score of 113, padding her lead and tying her Japanese record. And just like before, she paid no attention when Kikyo stepped up and shot a 112.

          So on came the third end, which proved to be an exciting one. An American archer completely missed the target, not even coming anywhere near it, and she wound up shooting a terrible end. A French archer shot 3 arrows in a row into the “1” ring, causing her to fall back in the standings immensely. Other archers also seemed to have ends that were uncharacteristically poor for them. But Kagome ignored all them. And when she stepped up to aim her first arrow, she brimmed with confidence. She ended up putting up an even better score – 114. With that, she broke her own Japanese record for the second time in the same round. As the crowd cheered even louder, InuYasha sulked in his seat. When Kikyo then shot a 113 to fall 3 points behind Kagome, he was beside himself. He brought Kikyo here to show Kagome up, and Kagome was showing him up!

          The fourth end saw quite a few archers put up some good scores to move them up in the standings. No one, however, was touching either of the Japanese archers in the points race. The Japanese archery officials watched with glee as they saw the two Japanese flags next to the names on the top of the scoreboard. Those names would become even more firmly planted up there, as Kagome shot another 114, tying her new Japanese record, and Kikyo tied it as well with a 114. At this point, the crowd did not cheer as loudly for a tied record, as it was something they had seen before, so there was no loud cheer for Kikyo that would draw Kagome’s attention.

          The fifth end rolled around, with archers putting more pressure on themselves to improve their position. It seemed to backfire for some, however, as a German archer desperate to move up in the standings ended up missing the target badly, while a Russian archer sent four straight arrows outside of the “5” ring. They were in no condition to catch Kagome or Kikyo, but for that matter, neither was anyone else. The South Korean archers, some of the best in the world, found themselves frustrated as their best efforts could not move them close to either Japanese archer in the standings. They felt even more helpless as Kagome and Kikyo both posted scores of 114, each tying the Japanese record yet again as they did.

          Entering the sixth end, Kagome held the lead at 568, with Kikyo three points back at 565. The closest competitor to either was a South Korean archer at 538, and no other archer was even in the 530s. Many fans were just interested to see which Japanese archer would finish on top of the points standings, knowing no one else stood a chance.

          The added pressure of the final end seemed to affect several of the top archers, while others rose to the occasion and posted personal bests in order to move up. Kagome, meanwhile, stared at the ground, feeling more butterflies than before. She was worried that she would suffer a breakdown in this final end and hurt her position in the standings. All the time, Kagome did not check the scoreboard, but she figured herself to be in first place, due to the fact that she had received the loudest cheers of the day.

          It finally came time for Kagome to shoot her last end of the qualification round. She stepped up and shot every arrow brilliantly. The fans were becoming more and more excited with every arrow she fired. And when her end was finished, the crowd exploded with cheers. Kagome knew she had shot well, but she did not realize how well until the scoreboard showed her score – 116, with the letters “OR” next to them.

          It was an Olympic record end. Moreover, it gave her the new Olympic record for a qualification round at 684. Through the crowd’s cheers, the public address announcer’s voice boomed with this statement: “Kagome Higurashi has just set a new Olympic record for a qualification round!”

          When Kagome heard this announcement, she was filled with ecstasy. What she had just done was better than what any other archer had done in the history of the Olympic Games. Maybe in the feudal era, she was the worst fighter, the weakest, the most helpless. But now, she could truly call herself special – perhaps even great. But the pure-hearted Kagome was not one to let it go to her head. She simply felt her self-esteem built up, allowing herself to soak in all the joy while not getting too arrogant.

          In fact, she was still basking in all the excitement when Kikyo came up as the final archer of the sixth end. She was busy waving to her family as the crowd began getting more and more exciting, as if something great was slowly happening – and it was.

          After Kikyo’s eighth arrow, a Chinese archer who sat in sixth place walked over to Kagome and tapped her on the shoulder. She then said something, which Kagome did not understand.

          “I’m sorry,” Kagome said, “I don’t know Chinese.”

          The Chinese girl realized Kagome did not understand her, and then pointed at Kikyo, who shot her ninth arrow. This arrow – like all the others in this end – hit the bullseye, and this brilliant performance was the reason why the Chinese archer was trying to get Kagome’s attention. But all Kagome saw was the archer, not the score, or the location of the arrow.

          That girl looks an awful lot like Kikyo, Kagome thought at first, feeling disgusted to even think about that name. But as Kikyo shot her tenth arrow right at the bullseye, Kagome noticed the way she shot it, and realized this girl was a dead ringer for Kikyo.

          I’m imagining things, that’s not Kikyo, Kagome thought. This archer just must really resemble her, maybe that’s just a great shooting technique that archers use, that makes her look so much like Kikyo. But as Kikyo hit the bullseye for an eleventh straight time, Kagome couldn’t help looking up to the scoreboard to find out the archer’s name.

          To her horror, the name clearly read “Kikyo.” With that, Kagome shot her eyes right back at the archer. It was Kikyo. This competition, these Olympics, this must all be a dream, Kagome thought. I must be dreaming about trying to beat Kikyo at something.

          Pinching herself did not change reality, however. This was happening. Kikyo was there, in 2008, in Beijing, China, for the Olympic Games. She was competing against Kagome in an archery competition, which Kagome had thought would be finally her chance to shine. And of all places for her archrival to show up, Kikyo was here.

          Kikyo fired her twelfth arrow, and it, like every arrow before it in this end, landed right in the center of the target. The crowd erupted like it never had before. Kikyo had just wiped Kagome out of the Olympic record books, shooting a perfect 120 end, as well as a 685 for her qualification round score. Kagome’s family clapped for Kikyo, disappointed that Kagome’s records had been broken, but showing good sportsmanship while realizing that Kagome’s gold-medal chances were still totally alive. InuYasha did not cheer. He merely smirked, while seeing Kagome staring in a state of shock. He reveled in the sweet taste of revenge, getting back at Kagome for her recent dismissal of him.

          But the ultimate reaction came from Kikyo. In her usual fashion, she did not smile. She merely turned around from her shooting position and began to walk back in the direction of where she had stayed while the other archers were shooting. But as she did, Kagome caught her eye, and she turned her head to stare Kagome right in the eyes. It was the coldest stare imaginable, a death glare, as if to say, “I’m still better than you.”

          The public announcer’s voice blasted across the stadium, saying, “Please congratulate the new Olympic record holder for a qualification round, with a score of 685, from Japan, Kikyo!” And this time, he pronounced her name correctly.

          Kagome just stood there, staring at Kikyo, as she began to walk away. She felt all sorts of feelings: shock, disbelief, anger, disappointment, heartbreak, worry, confusion. But most of all, she felt sadness, as all her previous joy was wiped away. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to cry hysterically.

          Her Olympic dream had turned into a nightmare.