A/N: RiverGriffinX here with a sequel to Shippo's Christmas! It's a short chapter, but we hope you enjoy it anyway. Enjoy! :)
The Kitsune Chronicles part 2: Spirit of the Fox
1.
"I don't know, Eri," Yuka sighed one afternoon, as they left school after a long and difficult test, "It seems odd how often Kagome's away. Don't you think there could be something she's not telling us?"
"Her mom wouldn't let anything happen, you know that!" Ayumi butted in, always the optimist. Kagome had been at school today, after all, even if she had dashed off straight after the test.
"But she can't be sick this often, it just doesn't make sense!" Yuka argued, frowning.
"Hojo's going to bring something to her later. Maybe we can go with him and check it out…" Eri suggested, shrugging.
"Yeah, we should check on her," Ayumi agreed "Inuyasha seemed nice, but Kagome complains so much about him."
"Yeah" Eri scowled, folding her arms, "And we know she wouldn't do that for no reason."
"Hojo!" Eri called down the sidewalk, later on that day, "Can we come with you to check on Kagome?"
She, Ayumi and Yuka had hurried to catch up to Hojo when they saw him striding towards the Higurashi shrine. He stopped in his tracks to look behind him, surprised, as he heard his name called.
"Uh, okay," Hojo replied, carrying a bag of pressure point bracelets that must have been yet another gift to Kagome. He continued to try and go out with Kagome, completely oblivious that she already had a boyfriend. In fact, as far as he was concerned, he was Kagome's boyfriend.
Kagome's friends had decided not to tell him about Inuyasha until they deemed him 'worthier' than Hojo. If they ever deemed him worthier than Hojo, that is.
They walked together down to the shrine, and clambered up the steep stairs, only to see Kagome rushing past the sacred tree and towards the well. Unfortunately she did not see her modern day friends approaching. Instead she was mumbling to herself, throwing her overstuffed yellow backpack over her shoulder and scowling with annoyance. Though Hojo didn't hear what she was mumbling, the girls caught a few muttered words.
"-yasha's gonna kill me! I'm late again! Stupid test… If only he would stop chasing that statue for more then five mi-!" was all they heard before she was out of sight.
Yuka raised an eyebrow at the others and, seeing Hojo was out of earshot, muttered "well?"
"I still don't think Kagome would drop school like that just to see him," Eri muttered, although some part of her was beginning to agree with Yuka.
"Strange," said Hojo, who hadn't been listening to the girls, "What could she need to do in the well house?"
Yuka's eyes had narrowed, her gaze fixed on the closed well house door, "only one way to find out."
Glancing around to make sure none of Kagome's family members were watching, the three girls crept quietly over to the well house. Hojo followed curiously behind, as clueless as ever. Turning around, Yuka placed a finger to her mouth and hissed 'shh!' before sliding the well house door open a small crack. She peered inside and the other girls peered around her to get a look. But all they could see was darkness.
Warily, Yuka and Eri slid the door open completely and stepped inside. Hojo and Ayumi followed them in, the latter absentmindedly sliding the door shut behind her. One never leaves a well house door open, after all. But as they gazed around in the dim light, they soon realised that Kagome was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is she?" Eri asked, bewildered.
"I don't know," Yuka replied, equally as stunned.
"She has to be in here somewhere," Hojo added, still clutching the bracelets that had been his present to Kagome.
"We saw her come in here!" Ayumi agreed.
Instantly a search began. They called out Kagome's name several times and searched every nook and cranny in the dark little well house. But nowhere was she to be found. It was as though she had vanished into thin air, though the girls were loath to believe that. It was dark and more than a little spooky in the well house, and they jumped at strange shadows.
"Come on, Kagome," Eri called, trying hard not to tremble, "This isn't funny! We know you're hiding in here!"
They half expected and hoped to hear Kagome's shrill giggle and see her tumble out of her hiding place, smirking at having been able to scare her friends. But that didn't happen, and they stood facing a dark, empty well house with Kagome nowhere in sight.
"This is weird," Yuka moaned, rubbing the Goosebumps on her arms, "How can she have just disappeared like that?"
"Strange indeed," Hojo murmured, still standing in front of the door.
Ayumi, on the other hand, had become curious about the one interesting object in this well house – the well. Usually, from what Ayumi had seen of the well a while ago, it was covered by a wooden lid. But now the well was completely open and that intrigued her. Had Kagome accidently fallen in and hurt herself? But when Ayumi strode down the steps and peered into the well, she saw only darkness.
"Kagome," she called down into the well, "Are you there?"
"Why would she be in the well?" Eri asked sceptically, appearing at Ayumi's side.
"Yeah, you can't even see the bottom of it," Yuka agreed, wrinkling her nose as she appeared at Ayumi's other side. Hojo remained at the top of the steps.
"Oh, well, I thought she might have fallen in," Ayumi sighed, looking worried.
Yuka was about to ask how Kagome could have possibly fallen into it – she wasn't exactly clumsy – when a strange noise began to reach them from within the darkness of the well. It sounded almost like a drain, sucking water down into a long pipe. But it wasn't water it was sucking – it was air. Curiously, the three girls peered over the edge of the well as the sucking sound grew louder.
"What is-?" Eri began, but was cut off as a bright light suddenly burst from the well, and the air around them was suddenly sucked down into it.
They barely had time to scream before they were sucked down too, disappearing into the darkness of the well, unable to struggling against the pulling force of whatever it was that was dragging them down. And as quickly as it had come, the sucking sound stopped and the well returned to normal. Hojo stood stunned at what he had just seen.
He swallowed hard and called hesitantly, "E-Eri, Yuka…Ayumi?"
But no one answered. The pressure-point bracelets clattered to the ground as Hojo turned and dashed out of the well house, fearing that the well would come back to life and suck him in too. But he could barely believe what he had just seen. The well had just eaten the three girls – and it may well have eaten Kagome, too!
Yuka couldn't describe the sensation she was feeling as she was pulled down into the darkness of the well. She expected to feel hard ground at any moment and braced herself for the impact, but it never came. Instead, a feeling of weightlessness descended over her and she opened her eyes to find herself seemingly floating in an endless void. The space around her was midnight blue, like the night sky, and there were floating dots of light like fireflies all around her body. Looking to her left, she saw Eri and Ayumi were staring around in bewilderment, floating in the void just like she was.
"What's happening?" Eri asked, eyes wide and shocked. Ayumi had clasped her hands in front of her chest, as though in silent prayer.
"I don't know!" Yuka cried, looking around frantically. She was just beginning to panic when a bright light seemed to rise up from beneath her feet and engulfed the void around her.
As the light faded, she felt firm ground beneath her feet and dropped to her knees. Next to her, she heard Eri and Ayumi do the same. Breathing heavily, the three girls opened their eyes and stared at their surroundings. The ground beneath them was almost like sand, and Eri shuddered when she saw what looked like a fragment of bone half buried near her leg. They gazed at the four walls that surrounded them, enclosing them in a very small and dark place. Looking up, they saw a small square of bright light. Realization hit all three of them at the same time.
"We're at the bottom of the well!"
"But wait," Eri said, after a moment of stunned silence, "Weren't we in the well house? So why is there light up there?"
"And what was with that void thing?" Yuka added, raising an eyebrow.
"Perhaps we hit our heads and dreamed it up," Ayumi suggested, staring up at the light above them.
"All three of us dreamed the same dream?" Yuka couldn't help being sceptical about that. She stood up, brushing the sand from her knees and school skirt.
"We should climb out of this well," Eri suggested, also standing up and brushing herself off, "And figure out what happened."
As Ayumi stood up and they paused to figure out how to climb out of the well, they heard strange sounds coming from somewhere outside. It sounded like someone yelling, a faint scream, and then what sounded like laughter – great snorting laughter, as though a pig was cackling madly. The three girls exchanged glances.
"Tell me I'm not hearing things," Eri sighed, "I've had enough craziness for one day."
"I can hear it, too!" Ayumi assured her, tapping her finger against her chin thoughtfully, "It sounds like a laughing pig!"
"That's ridiculous," Yuka replied, "Unless Hojo suddenly turned into a pig."
Giggling at the image, Eri grabbed at the vines that fell all the way down to the bottom of the well and began to hoist herself up. The other girls followed, exerting all the strength they had in their upper arms to pull themselves up. Ayumi almost didn't make it, but the others pulled her up once they had reached the top. Breathing heavily, the three girls clambered out of the well and stared at their surroundings.
"Where…are we?" Eri wondered in amazement. All around them they saw lush green leaves and swaying green grass beneath their feet. The well was not enclosed; instead it stood out in the open grass, slightly overgrown with vines and ivy.
'Wasn't the well house…just here?" Yuka muttered, turning this way and that as though expecting the well house to appear out of nowhere, "I don't get it."
"Wait," Ayumi suddenly interrupted her friends' musings, cupping a hand to her ear, "Listen."
And so they listened. Sure enough, in the distance, the girls could hear the same strange sounds they had heard when they had been in the well. Someone was yelling, a male voice that sounded oddly familiar, and there was that strange laughter again, like that of a pig. Suddenly they heard another voice, one that was indeed familiar.
"Inuyasha!"
The girls stared at each other and cried, "That's Kagome!"
Eager to see a familiar face, the three girls in their modern day school uniforms dashed blindly through the forest towards the sound of Kagome's voice. As they burst out of the bushes, they found themselves gazing upon a most impossible sight. It was a wonder they didn't faint at once.