Things To Do In Tokyo When You're Dead

by Sharlene

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's something about that well.

I hid there for two days, watching and biding my time. The girl went in and did not come out, and Inuyasha went after her. Just when I had decided to follow them, they came out of the well, arguing. The girl was wearing different clothes and her pack was bigger than it had been when she went in. I felt something float to the surface of my consciousness that I hadn't felt for a long time. It took me a moment to identify it as curiosity.

I waited until they were out of sight, not wanting to confront them before I found out the secret behind their disappearance. From the top, it looked as it always had. It persistently and defiantly went on looking like a deep, dry hole in the ground as I stared into it and thought. Finally I decided to go in and see if I could see anything from the bottom.

I knew it was a mistake as soon as my feet touched where the bottom should have been. I found myself floating in a hazy sea of color and movement. My snake demon servants fell away and I was alone, screaming as each soul that I held was torn from me. The pain was unbearable, but continued as I fell for an eternity.

Just before I felt I would die, mad from fright and pain, it stopped and I looked up into a pair of dark eyes. "I- Inuyasha?" I had always pictured this was how his human face would look. Could I have taken him with me to heaven instead of hell? My mind shut down and the last thing I heard was his voice, saying "Higurashi-san?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I opened my eyes to the feeling of a cool, damp cloth being drawn over my forehead. A pair of eyes that were as rich a brown as freshly turned earth twinkled at me as I tried to make sense of the situation. "So you're awake! I was hoping you would be okay." I sat up without speaking, trying to remember where I was and what had happened.

An unholy noise came from the boy's wrist, and I felt myself flinch. He flushed and pushed at a black band around his wrist. Mercifully, the noise stopped. "Sorry about that, I've got my alarm set so that I'm not late for school and I forgot."

I looked around and saw that we were not at the small building that had enclosed the well I came out of. This was obviously a room within a home, but the furnishings were alien to me. I was sitting on a bed that rested on a wooden framework and was softer than any I had ever known. There were strange portraits of women dressed in outrageous clothes on the walls, and there were clothes scattered on nearly every surface. The only clear spot in the room besides the bed I rested on was a table which had paper, ink and pens arranged on its surface. Even from here, I could see a lovingly rendered sketch of my copy awaiting the final touches.

I turned back to the boy. "This is where you live?"

He nodded, seeming like a puppy in his enthusiasm. "No one was home at the Higurashi shrine, and the hospital's emergency room was full, so I brought you here." I pushed off the sheet that covered me, cursing the jerkiness of my movements. I would have to gather more souls soon. I hated it, hated feeling like the kind of demon I had once reviled, but I hated not being able to move with ease more. I had a purpose, and nothing could be allowed to get in my way. If I once backed down, I would have less than nothing. I would be nothing.

I swayed as I stood and felt the boy's arms come around me as he tried to ease me back onto the bed. "Please, rest a little longer, Miss. The doctor should be here soon, and he will know what to do to help you."

I could feel the corners of my mouth turn up in a bitter smile. "Not even the greatest of healers can help someone with no pulse. I must go." I stood quickly.

Too quickly. The boy caught me before I fell to the ground, and then froze, our faces only inches apart. He smelled like a forest, a mixture of musk and pine that reminded me of Inuyasha while being nothing like him. The only time I had ever been this close to a male was when I had stumbled and fallen into Inuyasha's arms, and that had felt completely different. I had yearned for him that day, wishing more than anything that he would kiss me. He hadn't, and I had cried myself to sleep that night because I hadn't been courageous enough to kiss him.

After a frozen moment, the boy flushed and helped me gently but firmly back to the bed. "You must not over exert yourself. Girls as delicate and pretty as you must take care of themselves." He turned away to fuss with something on the drawing table, and I saw the tips of his ears turn bright red as he arranged the pens in very precise rows. I wondered what cruelty of fate had dictated that my first genuine compliment should come from this boy who looked so much like my vision of a human Inuyasha. That it was so close to my dreams and yet so far removed was like a dagger in my heart.

"Boy." I did not attempt to stand again, but called his attention away from his task. "Boy, I must return to the well. I do not wish to wait for this doctor of yours."

A frown drew his features together and my mouth fell open. His resemblance to my vision of Inuyasha was truly uncanny. "My name is Hojo, and I do not believe you should go that far. You were so deeply unconscious that I could not wake you." He picked up the cloth he had been using earlier and dipped it into a bowl of water. "If you insist on going, I will go with you, but I think it's best for you to rest."

"I am a healer, and I know I will not be helped by your doctor." This time when I stood, I kept my balance, although it cost a tremendous effort of will. "You need not accompany me, but I will return now."

He did not look happy, but he nodded and held his arm out. "Please allow me to assist your walking, Miss." I nodded and rested a hand on his arm, allowing him to lead me out of his strange room into an even stranger outdoors.

The first assault to my senses was the smell. There was an acrid burning smell hanging in the air that made me think walking behind oxen in a cabbage field would almost be pleasant in comparison. There were roars and shouts and I stopped, wondering what calamity was befalling the world that there should be so much noise.

I must have said something aloud. The boy, Hojo, looked at me quizzically, then smiled. "You must be from the countryside, where everything is quieter and there aren't that many cars around. I wish that I could live out there, as well, but my mother wants me to go to the high school here so I can be a doctor." He grimaced before pausing to allow a tremendous metal box to pass by in front of us. "I'm sure it's a fine profession, but I'm afraid my talents don't run in that direction. I tried reading up on Higurashi-san's illnesses, but none of it made sense to me."

I wondered if he ever stopped talking, once he started. I wasn't sure if I disliked it or not. It was certainly different from Inuyasha, who was capable of spending hours sitting beside me but saying nothing. I let him continue talking, concentrating on walking without the assistance of my snake demon pets. I tried not to look around at this foreign world I found myself in. After I had returned to my world, I would consider what I had learned.

Only when we returned to the well, it did not let me through. I would have welcomed the pain if it had meant returning to the familiar, but nothing happened. I felt tears leaking from my eyes as I drew myself together. A miko should not show weakness. A miko must be an example to others, a living goddess who must not show any signs of lesser human emotions. My mother had taught me this, long ago, and I knew it to be true. My mother had died from the sickness which consumes the flesh from within and not once had she shown a sign of illness or pain or fear. I could not do less. I must be strong.

"Miss? Is everything all right?" The boy's face appeared over the edge of the well, looking at me quizzically. "Did you lose something down there?"

I could not speak. Had I lost something? What have I not lost? I have lost my mother, my sister, my love, my home, my soul and my life. All I have left is my vengeance. I shut my eyes against a wave of despair that even that was being denied to me by the accursed magic that brought me to this strange place and time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



And, that's the setup. I've got a couple of ideas for what should happen with Kikyo and Hojo adventuring in modern Tokyo, or at least a gaijin's clueless idea of Tokyo, but I could use some suggestions, and some reassurance that someone besides me wants to read it.

And special thanks and a gold star to Martina for the new title! I like it a lot better. As a note for Kota-Magic and Penguin-chan, Kikyo never got to see the human Inuyasha, so she only imagined what he would look like without his silver hair and adorable doggie ears. What she imagined looked a lot like Hojo for some reason which I'm not revealing yet. Yet.