Chicken Soup for the Time-Traveler's Soul
Pixie
Summary: A broken ankle, strange creatures trying to kill him, and pursued by strange men in makeup? Hojo just wants to go home!
Notes: Holy – I thought I was done with fandom, especially IY fandom. No, actually, I'm not. ::kicks muses:: So, anyway, THIS IS NOT – I repeat, NOT – a Hojo-bashing fic. This looks to be, in fact, a Hojo-centric epic, since I seem to be incapable of something short, sweet, and to the point. ::kicks muses once more:: Set in the Shichinintai arc, around ep. 108-109, because Jakotsu is my sekrit gay lover. (Um, no, not really. I'm a girl. And Bankotsu would kill me.) Expect sporadic updates full of apologies and excuses, and lots and lots of filler drabbles. Will follow plot up to a certain point (not sure how far yet…)
Hojo Akitoki was worried about Higurashi Kagome. Since their family names were so close in the Western alphabet, they shared a homeroom class, and Higurashi had been missing for several weeks. The strangest thing was, no one seemed to notice, passively accepting the Higurashi family's excuses of illness. Hojo himself had believed these before, but surely after a length of sickness like this, Higurashi would be in the hospital? And yet there was no sign of such, no friends flocking to the medical institution after school, no flowers bought in bulk to cheer the invalid, no gifts meticulously handmade. No one had even stopped by her house to see how she was doing, shooed away by her grandfather's claims of high contagion.
Then why wasn't the old man as sick as Higurashi herself, Hojo wondered in a rare flash of insight. If even the constitution of an elderly man could keep the germs at bay, then surely so could that of a healthy junior high student who took supplements each day!
Having made up his mind, he was thus rather shocked to find himself convinced and halfway down the shrine steps before he realized quite what had happened. Well, not shocked, particularly, he thought ruefully. Contrary to popular belief, Hojo was quite aware of his own naivety – just unable to do anything about it.
Determinedly, he turned round, positive that this time, if he kept the thought in his head strongly enough. That notion, however, was firmly put out of his head by the strange way the wellhouse was glowing.
He was sure he would have noticed this change before, Hojo thought. Instead of the soothing blue it normally shone, the aura was instead threaded through with strands of sickly black-purple. So this must be a fairly recent development. Otherwise, Higurashi's grandfather would have surely taken care of it, shrinekeeper that he was.
Well, the man was getting on in years. Hojo supposed he could do him an anonymous favor and get rid of whatever was causing the impurity. He just hoped it didn't burn his hands up like the last time he had done something like this…
Sighing, Hojo paced towards the wellhouse. The closer he got, the more his stomach lurched, and he thought that maybe this was why the elder Higurashi hadn't done anything about it yet. Still, he had resolved to help out, and help out he would. Perhaps this was what had made Higurashi sick for so long.
Hojo peered down the well, because that was where that sickly-looking taint was coming from, hoping to find a means of getting down there – because it was surprisingly deep – without having to injure himself. And it would be nice if he could get out, too.
Ah, there it was! A rope ladder. Hojo carefully swing himself over the lip, but as soon as he had a firm hold on it, his stomach lurched once more, rather violently, and he fell. The well was not made wide enough for the height of a teenage boy, and in trying to scrabble for the ladder, his ankle crunched sickeningly. That put an end to his efforts to slow his fall, and his head bashed none too gently on the bottom of the hole.
Moments later, a blue light shone, and when it was gone, a dark-haired girl touched down gently on the floor, heading straight for the ladder with the ease of familiarity. There was no sign of the bleeding boy with the auburn hair.
Chapter Notes: There you go! It's short for three reasons: a) I'm impatient, b) I have the attention span of a toddler with a full bladder and c) I HATE EXPOSITION. There, we have our most basic foundation for the plot of a story, and if my brain decides to dream up strange twists that warp what I have planned, I still have this, the unchangeable facts. I may go back and flesh it out later, slip in more little hints of…whatever the hell this will end up being. ::kicks muses who CANNOT SHUT UP::