I do not own Inuyasha or any of that gang.
Summary: An American Girl is close friends with Kagome from being pen-pals. She is intrigued by the letters she recieves and decides to go visit.
A/N: Alright I am currently going through and editing the chapters so know that it is complete and nothing but grammatical mistakes will be changed if you want to read this.
For the better part of a year I have been a pen-pal of a girl in Japan. And today I am going to meet her face to face for the first time. Her name is Kagome Higurashi and she lives in a Shrine in Tokyo so that's where I am headed.
My name is Dawn Garnet, I am 18 years old and I live in eastern America. I have dark blond hair, a few shades darker than wheat, and green eyes. I am five foot two inches and slender with a nice healthy honey tan. So walking down the streets of Tokyo, where most people have dark hair and eyes and lighter skin, I am getting more than my share of attention. Tokyo is not by any means, all Japanese but it seems that foreigners alone are a bit out of place. Or maybe it's the staff I am carrying that is giving me attention…hmmm. Oh well, I think as I begin to climb the shrine steps. At least my bow isn't out. Think of the attention that would get! I chuckled softly beneath my breath and knocked on the door to the house at the top of the hill.
A woman with short hair answered and smiled at me. "May I help you?"
"Hello, my name is Dawn, I am Kagome's pen-pal. She told you I was coming didn't she?" I said politely.
Mrs. Higurashi looked startled and for some reason her eyes seemed to glance towards one of the older buildings. "Yes she did. She isn't here at the moment but should be getting back soon. Would you like to come in and wait?" She moved back from the door and gestured me inside.
"Thank you very much." I said bowing slightly. I put my backpack, bow case, staff and shoes along one of the walls in the foyer and followed Mrs. Higurashi into the kitchen. She left me briefly to take my suitcase some where else in the house.
"Would you care for some tea?" She asked kneeling at the table.
"Thank you but no." I said kneeling across from her. I smiled ruefully. "I just had lunch at the airport and if you'll forgive me, it was rather sickening."
Mrs. Higurashi laughed and clapped her hands delightedly. "Yes airport food is rather nasty. I think I hear Kagome coming." She said her head tilting to listen.
Sure enough there were sounds coming from outside. "..told you! Someone is coming that I have to greet!" Came a young woman's voice.
"Who cares whose coming! We have to find the Jewel Shards!" Said a angry male voice as the door opened.
"SIT!" The woman yelled and stepped into the room. A loud thud came from behind her and she winced slightly. She had shoulder length raven wing hair, and chocolate eyes. She wore her school uniform though she had had no school that day. She saw me and smiled. "You must be Dawn. I am Kagome, its great to meet you in person at last." She came forward and gave me a hug as I stood. She wasn't much taller than I was though she was a few years my junior.
"It is great to meet you as well. I take it something is wrong?" I asked, I spoke a bit slower than she did, trying to get used to speaking only Japanese but I was fluent thanks to my schooling.
She sighed and sat at the table. "No it's just…my…Inu…" She put her head in her hand and sighed again. "This is hard. The reason that I asked you to come to Japan instead of me visiting you is I can't go away anywhere. Not for a while at least."
"Oh and why is that?" I asked. She had just opened her mouth to answer when the screen slid open and a very angry boy in red stood in the door way. For a moment no one said anything and then I quietly got to my feet. Kagome and her mother watched me nervously as I approached the boy staring at him intently. He was also staring at me but his expression was more apprehensive and curious. Apparently, just as I had never seen anyone like him, he had never seen anyone like me. His hair was long, to his waist, and silver! He had golden eyes and the kicker? Since his hair could have been dyed and his eyes contacts, the thing that got my interest most was his ears. He didn't have normal ears. He had dog ears on the top of his head. Triangular dog ears like the ears on my dog at home. He had on a red haori and hakama and underneath the red haori there seemed to be a white shirt. Once I had circled him once I stood a foot in front of him and just stared. Rude yes but he wasn't being much better! I turned away to sit next to Kagome and suddenly my nose was filled with a sweet scent. It was the smell of a forest in the dark of night. I paused and inhaled, closing my eyes to focus on the scent. It was so soothing and gave strength. I was smiling when I sat back at the table and met Kagome's gaze. "If the kid who smells like the night forest is part of your 'adventure'…I want in."
Kagome hadn't stopped staring at me. Her mother had led the boy away and talked to him about what type of Ramen he wanted her to buy since she was running to the store. Finally I reached forward and put my fingers under her chin. I forcefully closed her mouth. It seemed to wake her up.
"You mean it Dawn? Seeing Inuyasha, that's his name by the way, doesn't freak you out or anything?" Kagome said in a rush.
I raised my eyebrow at her. "Kagome, I'll admit that it was the most unusual thing I have seen but it wasn't scary or anything." Not compared to my mom when she's angry...
She clapped her hands and shimmied side to side laughing. "Oh wonderful! That means you can join me!"
"Will you calm down!" Came a voice from behind us. It was Inuyasha again. He sat across from me and looked closely at me. "You said I smelled like the night forest before. What were you talking about woman?" He snarled.
I leaned forward as if to whisper something and he leaned in too. Instead of saying anything though I flicked his nose. "Be respectful to your elders kiddo."
He jumped when I hit him and then scowled at me. Kagome had finally calmed down and when I turned to her she began to speak. "550 years ago a bandit named Onigumo desired a priestess named Kikyo and the Sacred Jewel she kept…" She began.
A while later she sat back and smiled sadly at me. "So now, Inuyasha and I, and our other friends, are hunting the demon Naraku to kill him and collect the rest of the Jewel Shards."
I gazed down at my hands thinking. "You want my help?" I looked up at Kagome. Her face was sad as she nodded. She knew she was going to take me into danger if I went but…she said she wanted me there, to help her and to be with her. She never said anything aloud but it seemed that she wanted someone who understood the world she came from to join her in the world she had fallen into, literally. "Alright. I'll join you." I said.
Kagome smiled and opened her mouth but Inuyasha interrupted her. "What can you do to help anyway? Kagome didn't say."
"Inuyasha! That's rude!" Kagome glared at him. "Si-" she started but I cut her off.
"Kagome its fine." Inuyasha looked at me gratefully. And I answered his question. "I can fight with a staff, I brought mine, I can do archery but probably not as good as Kagome, and I can knife fight. So I can a three distance fighting range. Far, close, and face to face."
Inuyasha looked surprised and doubtful. "The only human I have met that can fight that well is Sango and she was raised to it."
I shrugged. "We'll see won't we?" Inuyasha seemed to like picking fights but I didn't get mad easily...well most of the time I didn't. I stood from the table and stretched. "You seem impatient to leave Inuyasha. If you want to go all that badly than let us go."
Kagome grinned at me. Inuyasha left the kitchen ahead of us and Kagome linked arms with me leading me up to her bedroom. "You know Dawn, I don't think anyone has ever managed to have a long conversation with Inuyasha without yelling at him. I think bringing you along with be a wonderful experience." She giggled and I laughed along with her. When we got to her room she began to pull out clothing and I opened my own suitcase and pulled out a few changes of clothing to bring too. "Can I get arrows there? If I am to shoot demons I'd rather not lose the expensive metal ones I have."
"Yeah, we can get you arrows at Kaede's village." Kagome said picking her own backpack from the ground. I carried my clothing and shoved it haphazardly into my backpack before slipping my arms through the straps and taking my bow from it's case. I grabbed my staff and slung it into it's sheath over my back as well as the bow and followed both of them out of the house. Surprisingly, we didn't go very far, I knew she'd said the well on her land but I had expected...not right outside her front door. We went to one of the small houses at the edge of the shrine beside a large tree. Inuyasha grabbed me by my bicep and Kagome grabbed my other hand. Then we jumped into the well that lay at the bottom of the house.
When the starry lights and swirling colors cleared we were at the bottom of the well but there was no roof above us. I could see the sky, red with sunset. Inuyasha grabbed Kagome and me around our waists and jumped from the well, landing softly on the grass around it. I stepped a bit away from them and closed my eyes inhaling deeply. The smell of woods, soil, and evening winds filled my lungs. A part of my heart cried out in joy. Home…
Kagome wrapped her arm around my shoulder and returned my grin with one of her own. "Welcome…to Feudal Japan!"
A welcoming cry echoed in the clearing and a small bundle flung itself into Kagome. She automatically caught it and hugged it. "Hello Shippo. This is Dawn." A small child peeked out from her arms. The boy, terrifyingly small, had pointed ears and light brown hair. It too had...interesting features, namely: fox feet and a fox tail. He smiled uncertainly at me and I smiled back.
"Hello Shippo." I held my hand out and he put his hand into it uncertainly. I gave it a gentle squeeze. "Very nice to meet you." I said. "Kagome, could we go to this Kaede lady's house. I would like to put my stuff down and stretch my muscles better. It's starting to hit me that I got of the plane a bit over an hour ago."
"Of course follow me." Kagome said and turned to pick up her bag. But Inuyasha had already grabbed it and headed off towards the village. "Hurry up Kagome." He called over his shoulder. Kagome and I looked at each other, laughed, than ran to catch up with him.
Soon we were in front of a wooden hut and three people came out to greet us along with a two tailed cat. The first was an old hunched woman with one eye, who I guessed, was Kaede. She wore the red and white outfit of a priestess and her one eye gleamed with mischief and strength.
Behind her stood a girl, close to my age, with hair as long as Inuyasha's and almost as dark as Kagomes. Her eyes were a softer brown than Kagome's and her face was sweet and kind. The third of the group was a man who wore his dark hair in a short ponytail at the top of his neck and he had midnight blue eyes. He wore the black and purple robes of a Buddhist monk. Those two were Sango and Miroku. Kagome smiled at them and introduced us. "Guys this is Dawn. Dawn this is Miroku, Sango, Kaede and the cat is Kirara."
I grinned at them and bowed slightly. Sango and Kaede bowed in response and Kirara meowed. I looked down when I felt something grip my hands and I saw Miroku kneeling in front of me.
"Would you agree to be-" I never got to hear what the rest of that sentence was because in a flash he was sporting a large bump and the fist Sango had hit him with was pulsing. "Pervert." She muttered.
I laughed and pulled my hand from his grip. As I passed him by to set my stuff inside the room I patted his head. I set down the backpack and bow but kept my staff. I was headed out the door when I looked back at my backpack, thinking. "Hey Kagome? Keep everyone outside a minute." I called. Opening the backpack I took out a different set of clothes and quickly changed. I exchanged my jeans for loose fitting sweats that gave me more freedom of movement and I put my t-shirt away and pulled out a smaller tank top. I twisted my hair up and pony-tailed it out of my face. I picked my staff back up and headed out of the hut. Seven pairs of eyes stared at me. I raised one of my eyebrows at them. "Forgive my appearance but I will not work out in constricting clothing." I headed off away from the hut but Kagome's voice stopped me.
"Don't go to far, there are bad things in the woods." She said.
I turned and ducked my head gazing up at her through the few strands that had slipped the ponytail. "Then one more is going to be in there." Kagome joined me in laughing and we started to laugh even harder because none of the others seem to understand what I had said. Finally I agreed to stay in the clearing in front of the hut on the condition that Miroku spar me. This…was Sango's idea. I got the feeling she wanted me to hurt him. I stretched my muscles studying Miroku as he came closer. Once I had finished my stretches I stood and braced my feet apart, my staff held across my body. The wood of my staff was polished to a high shine, but inside the cherry wood was a hidden steel core. Though the wood was unlikely to break, having the steel on the inside gave it just this amount of extra force. Miroku came at me in a blur of black but I brought my staff up to block the blow aimed for my shoulder. I angled my staff so his slid down and brought it back around in one fluid motion towards his shoulder. He blocked me and returned the movement. The spar went on for a while, Kaede eventually went inside to cook our meal but the others watched in undisguised interest. Kaede had just come outside to tell us dinner was ready when I dropped to one knee and swept Miroku's feet out from under him.
Kagome, Sango, and Shippo cheered and even Inuyasha seemed impressed. I stood and offered my hand to help Miroku up. "Its been awhile since I faced someone as good as you." I said to him pulling him to his feet.
"Same, how did you learn?" He asked.
"I taught myself mostly. Same with my archery. My cousin taught me my other skills though." I said. I felt something caressing my butt and noticed Miroku was the cause. I just shook my head and walked towards Kaede. "Hey Sango…Miroku touched my butt."
Miroku raised his hands in protest but Sango just glared angrily at him before hitting him upside his head and following the rest of us inside. Miroku lay twitching on the ground outside.
We all know we wanted to tell on Miroku at one point or another heehee!