A/N: Welcome to my latest new fic: a new fic that is actually over a year old. I've been fascinated by Inu no Taisho/Kagome as a pairing, and started working on this fic quite a long time ago. I'm still trying to figure out how to work out bits and pieces of it, but I figured I might get help from YOU guys in working out what to do once you get the general gist of things. I have up until Kagome gets rid of the Shikon written; but anything past that is still up in the air. So, if anybody has any ideas for how I can work out the rest of the plot details, I would be very grateful for it and they will get a personal mention and thanks for their aid. Unlike my other fics, this will be posted on Sundays. I was going to wait to begin posting it, but something is nagging at me to post it now now now and when I get nagging feelings I listen to them. Without further ado: Fate Unbound! Whether anybody likes this very much or not, I won't be sure of, but hopefully at least some people find it entertaining and interesting!
Toga, former Lord of the West, Inu no Taishō, most powerful daiyōkai in existence, was completely infuriated.
This would absolutely not do.
He looked down at his whelp and the young woman who deserved so much better than what she was receiving from the boy. He was brash, abrasive, rude, and downright abusive at points. And here she was, settling down with him and having a life that, in all actuality, would be making her miserable in a few years. Kagome was destined for far more than to be a simple village miko and wife to a hanyō who still, even now, saw his previous beloved when he looked at her – despite the fact that as she had grown up, Kagome looked nothing like the other wench.
And Toga knew exactly why she was doing this to herself. Despite the numerous suitors she had had during her years, his youngest son had made her feel worthless and unlovable by anyone but himself; not to mention that damn, blasted, foolish promise of hers practically guaranteed that no matter how unhappy the boy ended up making her, she wouldn't leave him.
No, this situation needed to be rectified in whatever manner possible.
He stared up from the scrying bowl – which had, for the past four days, been showing him a select few portions of the events that had befallen the amazing, resilient, and beautiful young woman who had had the misfortune to fall into a magical time-travelling well on the first day of her fifteenth year – and stared around the group of Kami that were all looking at him solemnly.
It had been quite a shock to wake up from being dead and in limbo, awaiting his next reincarnation (which would take longer, due to how long he had lived during his life on this earth) but now, Toga suspected that he was brought back to do a job – one which, if he was theorising correctly, he would thoroughly enjoy. Especially because upon his appearance into the midst of them, everybody in the room had been completely shocked, excepting Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami-sama and Omoikane-sama.
Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami-sama spoke into the quiet room, "Higurashi Kagome is not tied to your youngest by anything but a bond of friendly affection that borders on mothering affection, and a promise which was foolishly made and completely one sided – he never promised to stay beside or with her in return for her promise to him. When he finds his true soul-mate she will be left behind – and her heart, broken. Higurashi Kagome will live to be thirty years of age, and then pass away in her sleep of a broken heart. Our original intentions had been to have her tied to Sesshōmaru – but that was not to be; he found another who could be a soul mate of his and despite his interest in the future miko, his devotion is, and will always be, first to the only person to ever love him unconditionally with no prior knowledge of him."
"Tell me what to do. She is wonderful, strong, resilient, intelligent, caring – she deserves far better than this life she has resigned herself to."
Omoikane-sama stepped forth, light shining through His ageless eyes, and He gave Toga a wry smile, "Would you be willing to live as a ghost in the future until her trip through the well? To stay incorporeal until they reach your bones? Would you be willing to teach her how to shoot and teach her kata, teach her yōkai culture and behaviours? How to perform a proper tea ceremony, how to play the flute and the shamisen, how to wear various types of court kimono? How to address royalty and servants, what is a proper gift in any situation, how to mother someone who desperately needs mothering, but will very likely initially rebuff any attempt of affection given?"
Toga stopped short at that, realising exactly what They were asking of him. He nearly choked at Their suggestion – sure, he was inordinately fond of and attached to (practically in love with, if he was honest with himself) the girl from what he had seen of her these past four days, but part of that which he liked about her was her indomitable spirit… He despised shallow court-blooms, cold and proper and stripped away of any personality.
He was about to say as much, but Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami-sama spoke up again, bell-like laughter filling Her words, "Oh, that will never change about her, dear Toga – she will just learn the kind of refinement necessary for someone who has been, ultimately, and most strongly, tied to you, Toga, Inu no Taishō. Your son rules the West now – but the South is labouring under a harsh and unworthy Lord. Maybe with a kind and open-minded Lord with a born-ningen Lady, wife, and mate, yōkai will openly last into the future, instead of having to hide in the shadows and blend in with ningen for fear of discovery and experimentation."
This was… Well, it was a lot to take in; mentally—logically—anyhow. Instinct was screaming "YES" at him, demanding that he take her and make her happy, loved, his. His inner beast, his true self, quite obviously recognised her and had claimed her – he had never reacted this way to Satori or Izayoi, that was for certain.
It wasn't as if he would be doing anything improper to her, after all; if she fell in love with him as she grew older it would happen naturally, with no pushing. Well… maybe a little pushing; Toga wasn't sure how inu affection would change the girl – in any case, until and unless she decided she wished to be his alone, without external pressure and of her own volition, he would be giving her the affection from an adult to a child or teenager that was not family but was still pack. However, once she came of marriageable age – in this era, ideally, because Kagome was obviously, if you considered her being raised yōkai instead of ningen, far more suited to this era than her own – he would up the ante a bit. He would not mate her before she was fifteen, physically, regardless of her mental age – Toga did have standards, after all, and was not into children – but he would treat her as his chosen as early as thirteen, if she was mentally and emotionally mature enough. If she wanted him.
Still, it was such an immense decision to make. Regardless of Toga's own feelings on the subject, which had become clearer faster than he'd thought they would – he blamed that on the fact that he was so old—almost two millennia—that age didn't really matter to him in the large scheme of things – but this had the possibility to change the entire world as Kagome knew it.
And there was the crux of the problem – a paradox. Before he could ask about it, Ame-no-Uzume-sama spoke up, and the moment that The Great Persuader opened Her mouth, Toga knew he was fucked. There would be absolutely no going against his instincts in this matter. Especially when the words that She spoke immediately eased his fears. "The only thing that will happen is that the moment you enter her life, realities will begin to slowly, steadily split – once she enters the past, the well will become a dimension-travelling well, rather than a time-travelling well. Anyone with whom you and she, if it is willed, have contact in that world will retain their memories of it even as it is changed; so promises made will be kept, despite the change in actual worlds. Those people you affect will simply disappear into the changed world, along with those important to them, and it will be mere copies who reside in the destroyed current future. Those copies will have no memories of either you or her in their lives outside of what happened in the past in that world.
"And have no fears – as you are soul-bound to her, you will be able to come back with her; there will be no waiting in fear, knowing that the "future" is just as dangerous as the Sengoku Jidai is; just less obviously so – although, somehow, this Uzume believes that such a thing will not be a problem for Kagome with you somewhat-raising her."
His worries eased, his beast howling in triumph, the Inu no Taishō did the only thing he could do – smirk and shrug his shoulders, leaning against a pillar, "Well then, let's go change the past – and the future."