Chapter One: Stepping Sideways

A/N: Absolutely random idea that made me giggle. Review if you want to see it continued…

EDIT: The poll is clear! Cleaning up my stories comes first!

Kagome looked at the Well and the shards that glittered wickedly in her little glass bottle. InuYasha was expecting her, but she earnestly wished once more that her friend would for once use the gray matter between his cute, fuzzy ears.

Or that perhaps sanity would sneak up behind him and bite down on his red clad ass. Either, or both, would be a miracle from the Gods she would weep in gratitude to receive. Alas, Naraku was more likely to show up and spontaneously ravish InuYasha where he stood.

Gathering her dismal spirits, since Sesshomaru would not be around for a reprieve from the Sengoku era's insanity, she hopped into the Well. Of course it did not give off the usual azure and purple lights, it glowed green and left her with only the moment to think Why me?

When Kagome emerged from the Well's time vortex she knew something had gone wrong again. She let off a sound reminiscent of a tea kettle whistling due to her sheer annoyance at the predictable insanity of her life. The ladder InuYasha had installed for her was gone, and a thick mat of vines grew down to the Well's dry bottom. But she wasn't in the lurch yet, she could get out with a little effort.

Grateful that archery had made her upper body strength increase phenomenally, she used the sturdy vines to clamber up with her yellow backpack like a nimble spider monkey. The clearing of the Well looked different as well. Fresher she would say, and the trees seemed younger and smaller than the ones she knew. Obviously today was a good day to have some worn, nondescript clothing suitable for outdoor adventures. Wearing her uniform, which resided in her pack, or the summer yukata she had in case she needed to be Feudally decent, would not be a good idea for going boldly into new time periods.

For there was only one feasible explanation for this case of deja vu, of coming out of her Well to somewhere she certainly did not expect to be. She was even farther back in time, instead of her usual destination of the Sengoku period.

"Great. Just great."

Not too far off from the tempestuous, time wandering miko, a Daiyoukai with three great swords roamed.

Sounga had been disturbingly cheerful this morning, with an almost cheery greeting of Today is going to be a memorable day' Inu no Taisho, also known as Touga, was completely perturbed by this remark. He knew quite well that Sounga was never cheerful unless the demon thought there was death, destruction, and or chaos involved. So he had snatched up Tessaiga and Tensaiga, both giving the impression of anticipation and excitement (another thing to fret over), along with Sounga to go patrol his lands.

The fact Sounga had given him an excuse to avoid his paperwork was only a added bonus. But so far he had neither seen, heard, smelled, or felt anything unusual. There was only the nearby humans, local youkai, and the forest creatures. This, understandably, made him uneasy.

Then his nose detected a scent, floating along a playful breeze, unlike anything else he had ever had the chance to experience. The scent belonged to a person, he could tell that much. But how could they possess such a scent? They smelled of the sharp ozone of lightning, the harshly burning metallic deserts, foreign blooming blossoms, with a tint of many different acids! Surely only a youkai, a powerful one at that, could have such a scent.

Racing across the lands, he dashed after the origin of the fascinating scent. Like the dog he was, Touga followed his nose and ignored his laughing swords. He passed the maturing Goshinboku and stepped into the clearing that an old, dry well stood in. Touga found a human female in the clearing. Oddly enough she was the owner of the scent, and she was definitely dressed strange enough to possess it.

As she gasped in surprise at seeing him, he asked the human female "Who are you?" She glared at the well, oddly enough, then replied, "Someone who should not be here Taisho-sama." There was no fear from her, something strange from someone who knew who and what he was. Touga could not remember the last time even his old friend, Totosai, had looked at him without that tiny little spec of fear in his scent.

"You know who I am?" She smiled mysteriously. "Where I come from, the Inu no Taisho who wields the Three Swords is a revered legend. That, and I'm very familiar with your swords."

Sounga laughed a bone rattling laugh, shaking on Touga's back. The demon rasped a retort in Touga's mind. Familiar? How could you not be familiar with me, unborn miko, after I nearly succeed in bringing Hell onto Earth?

Touga stiffened in shock at Sounga's words, and nearly dropped his jaw when the miko replied to a sword only he was supposed to be able to hear.

"Sounga? Oh, that's right! You haven't lost yet have you?" Sounga did not reply to her verbal jab, making Tetsusaiga and Tensaiga laugh and rattle their sheaths in their amusement. And that was it Touga decided.

"I think I would like an explanation. Now." Touga asked in his tone that said, You will tell me now before I eat you. Slowly. So Kagome sat down, motioning for him to sit down as well.

"Well let's see… It's a long story, but this all started on the day of my fifteenth birthday."

Hours later after she finished her grand retelling, complete with imitated voices and mimed actions, Kagome chatted amicably as she and Touga watched the sunset. "It's so nice to talk to someone sane again."

Touga let out a laugh at her words, one loud enough to rattle his own bones. "It's too bad you can't come with me. It's going to be tough going back to insanity after such civilized conversation." She winked at him, and Touga howled with laughter as he could not ever remember doing.

If one was to ask any who even remotely knew him, they would respond "The words Touga and civilized do not belong in the same sentence." How odd that this human, so different than anyone he had ever encountered, regardless of race, would think of him so. She almost seemed to almost make him so as well.

The youkai laughed so hard he felt his sides burn, and he could hear under the roaring sound of his own laughter the chiming bells that made up Kagome's laughter. Never had he connected to anyone so thoroughly or quickly in his existence; not even his own mate! Touga clamped down a hand onto a small shoulder and smiled down (even sitting he towered over her), at the radiant miko.

"Give the Well a try when you want to see me again then." She looked amused at being able to command the Well to do anything, but she indulged him. "Of course! But if I do manage to come back here, how will I find you?" He smirked at his, dare he call her it, new friend and said a bit cryptically "Light a flare."

She smiled as she understood, and pulled out a strange black device as she asked "Mind if I take a picture?" Touga blinked in confusion, but nodded.

With a shutter and a schnick sound, a bright flash emitted from the device and blinded the previously smiling Touga. He growled at the giggling miko, who showed him it had captured a moment in time of him grinning next to the smiling miko. He generously decided to forgive her transgression. This time.

Kagome swiftly hugged Touga, stunning him badly, before vaulting over the wooden rim of the Well. She left behind only the trailing words, "Take care of yourself Touga! Steer clear of dragons!"

With a flare of beauteous blue light, Kagome, a friend he never imagined having, was gone. Touga frowned sadly. He could still feel the lingering warmth of her hug. Without anything else keeping him here, Touga created a youki cloud in order to return to the Western Lands. A pang of selfish regret pounded in his heart briefly.

Touga wished the Well had not worked for her.

When Kagome saw the familiar ladder in the vine free Well, she knew she was back in the Sengoku era. Quickly she climbed up, only to be greeted by a calloused and clawed hand. She grabbed ahold of it gratefully and let him help her out.

The calloused hand belonged to InuYasha, the grumpiest hanyo with the cutest ears she had ever seen. Gruffly InuYasha asked her,"What took ya so long Kagome?"

She gave him a cryptic smile, one that made his hackles rise and his hair stand on end. "I lost track of time InuYasha. Have you seen Sesshomaru yet? He said he would rejoin us soon."

Adequately distracted and thrown off topic, InuYasha began to rant about how late Sesshomaru was in rejoining their company. Kagome smiled at the oblivious hanyo, and plotted silently for the future.