Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha and am not making money off my silly fanfic.
Cover art by: Grapefruitwannabe
Edited by: Yellow Mustard Sunshine
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By the time Inuyasha felt her hands on his back, it was already too late to do anything but tumble down the way she had pushed him. He inhaled automatically and a familiar scent came to him over the smell of his own blood.
'Kagome?!' he wondered in half a second's horror.
There was a cry of pain and a flash of light that was unmistakably a powerful flare of the girl's reiki. He fell with a crash, stirring the dust up around him. Someone else landed hard just behind him.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted, jerking his head toward her. She was laying a few feet away, slowly pulling herself up to her elbows and looking around in confusion. Otherwise, she looked okay. He sighed with relief and whipped his head back in the direction of the enemy.
He stopped and stared, then blinked. And then looked back at the girl behind him. She was now getting to her knees and looking back at him in worry.
No... He couldn't be seeing things. Could he?
There was the sound of an arrow being fired and the demon's scream of rage. He looked back toward the fight with his jaw hanging open.
She was still there. Kagome was standing with her back to him in the same spot they, er... he? had been pushed from holding a bow in front of her as if she had never been moved. She started drawing another arrow. She didn't have a tail... Neither of them smelled like anyone but Kagome...
He stared transfixed for a moment, too confused to say or do anything, and then he felt gentle hands on his shoulders. He almost jerked himself away in his confusion, but her frightened voice froze him in place.
"Inuyasha! Are you alright?"
He stared at her mesmerized.
"I... There's two..?"
"But you're okay?!" she insisted fretfully.
"I have no idea," he answered, reaching up to touch his head in a daze. 'Did I hit my head on the way down? Am I dreaming right now?'
The Kagome next to him made a sound of anxiety and tugged his shoulders down a bit so she could see better.
"Let me have a look," she murmured, brushing his hair away and gently exploring under with her fingertips.
He glanced back at the Kagome who had never left battle just in time to see her easily dodge a spell and shoot her next arrow. The attack landed perfectly, Kagome's purifying arrow hitting the jewel shard in its forehead with a flash of light. The humanoid demon howled in agony clutching at her haglike face as she fell over. But the moment she hit the ground there was nothing left but ashes.
The girl snorted as if unimpressed and gave him a backward glance. Immediately her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the sight of himself and her twin, her expression thick with confusion. He stared back sympathetically, not really sure what to say in the situation.
After a long awkward moment, she took a step back.
"I... Er... I guess I'll go get that shard..." she said simply before turning away from the bizarre scene and heading toward the demon's remains.
The Kagome at his side stopped digging through his hair for head injuries and drew back to look at him again. "You're not bleeding and I didn't notice any bumps," she told him softly. "Does it hurt anywhere?"
"My... my arm got clipped right before you er... jumped in," he told her hesitantly.
She nodded and carefully pulled up his sleeve to look at his injury. She made a tsk of worry and gently wiped the blood away with her sleeve.
"It's not too bad for you I guess, but that has to sting." She stood up. "I'll be right back with the first aid kit. Please don't move okay?"
He nodded dumbly and she took off at a run toward where she had dropped her bag before the fight.
"What on earth happened?!" Miroku suddenly exclaimed from the other side of the battleground. He sounded just as baffled as Inuyasha felt. No doubt he had seen the entire debacle.
"Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?!" Inuyasha called out.
"I have no idea what you guys see, but I see two Kagome's!" called Shippo's voice from somewhere above them.
Inuyasha glanced up to make sure. Sango and Shippo were indeed descending from the sky atop Kirara.
He'd almost thought Shippo had decided to prank them, even if he hadn't seen any fox tail.
"Well... I got the jewel," came Kagome's voice as she walked back towards him.
Just as she stopped, Miroku made it up the hill and paused a couple of yards away to stare in wonder from one Kagome to the other. "I don't believe it," he uttered in denial.
"Join the club," the Kagome standing between the two men replied, crossing her arms.
"Why're you surprised?" Inuyasha asked, narrowing his eyes at the girl in confusion.
"Well, who wouldn't be?" she asked with an incredulous look. "There I was, minding my own business as one person and suddenly everything about me was ripped in half and now there's a second me running around. It's weird okay?"
The other Kagome seemed to have found what she was looking for because she stood up holding the first aid kit and started back toward Inuyasha, single-minded in her task. But at about the third step, she seemed to finally notice her copy and stopped to stare at 'herself' in alarm.
"...Oh my," she squeaked.
"That's it?" the other Kagome asked indignantly. "We're split in HALF and all you can say is oh my?"
The girl blushed in embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know what else TO say..."
The Kagome with a bow groaned in irritation and flopped down on the ground in front of the men.
Sango, Shippo, and Kirara approached to stand behind Miroku, completing the group.
The Kagome with the first aid kit blushed a little deeper and sat down quietly beside Inuyasha and started pulling out some of its contents.
Sango stepped in closer. "How on earth did this happen?" she asked, looking from one to the other.
Two matching Kagome's looked at her. One still looking embarrassed and the other looking annoyed.
"I have no idea," they both answered in perfect sync.
"All I know is Kagome tried to shove me out of the way in the fight," Inuyasha said, looking back and forth at the two matching girls. "There was a big flash of light and the feeling of Kagome's reiki, then I fell backward and this one-" he nodded toward the Kagome with the softer expression. "Fell with me. When I looked up there was another one."
Miroku nodded. "Just what I saw," he agreed. "It seemed like the other one never even noticed the separation in the midst of the fight."
The bow-wielding Kagome shrugged.
"...I've heard all sorts of strange rumors about ogre witches before. They are notorious for their rather nasty curses and spell-casting abilities," the monk said thoughtfully.
The Kagome with the bow nodded. "It was an ogre witch that brought back Kikyo."
"Urusai," Inuyasha recalled aloud. "Wonder if this one was a relative? They looked pretty damn similar."
"Well, it's too late to go asking questions like that now." Sango pointed out wearily.
The half-demon snorted at the slayer's tone and Miroku frowned, coming closer to look at the copy sitting before himself and Inuyasha.
"I'm not certain which spell she may have meant to use in this case," he told the others. "But it looks like Kagome's powers activated when she was struck with the spell and instead of harming her she was simply..."
"Split into two people?" Sango finished giving him a skeptical look."There's nothing simple about this."
"It's certainly better than if the spell had physically cut her in half," Miroku answered.
The doe-eyed Kagome flashed Inuyasha a look of worry and buried herself against his side with a small frightened cry. He blinked in surprise and raised his hand uncertainly.
"Oh for goodness sakes, he's fine!" the other Kagome huffed, putting her hands on her hips and giving her doppelgänger an annoyed look.
"But if I- 'we' had been a moment later, Inuyasha might have been..." She let out a sound of absolute misery and buried herself deeper into his shoulder. Inuyasha wrapped his arm around her shoulders consolingly.
"I'm still really confused," he confessed, looked from one girl to the other. "Why would Kagome's powers make her... split?"
Miroku shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I can't imagine this was done purposely and we all felt Kagome's reiki react as the spell hit. My best guess is that the spell wasn't something she could completely deflect, so instead of negating the effects entirely her powers fused with the spell and warped it into something less harmful."
"You think it's temporary?" Shippo asked with a look of worry at the girl curled against Inuyasha's chest.
"I'm... pretty sure it... should be?" Miroku asked more than stated.
"You're not exactly inspiring any confidence Miroku," replied Sango wearily. The Kagome hiding against Inuyasha's chest lifted her head to look out at the others.
"Well, lady Kagome's situation could be called uncommon in the least, and I am no expert," Miroku explained apologetically.
The two Kagome's eyes met with matching looks of uncertainty.
