"#1: Rurouni Kenshin/Inuyasha: Kagome/Kenshin OR Kagome/Sanosuke, the rest of pairing doesn't matter
as long as there is no Yuri or Yaoi. I don't care if it's AU or not but please, NO Inuyasha's betrayal.
It can be a one shot or continuous story.
Set after Final Battle, Kagome is a wonderer. The rest is up to you"
This is a fanfic challenge by Shin Wal-New Moon. I was not planning on this until I read about the challenge in their profile, so please be gentle in your reviews. Constructive criticism is appreciated, as are ideas. However, flames are not.
Bows Arigato for reading!
Kagome stumbled away from the battlefield, away from the bodies of her friends. The final battle was over, with her as the only surviving victor.
'No,' she thought bitterly, 'The Shikon Jewel won this.'
Sango, Miroku, Shippo, and Inuyasha had all been killed, as had Naraku. But their souls had not been permitted to go on to the afterlife. Instead, they had been taken in by the jewel that had once again become a part of Kagome's body when it had become whole.
Before, his death, Inuyasha had taken all but one of the shards from Naraku and Koga had soon given his to her as well. Holding, the jewel in her cupped hands, Kagome had willed it together again. In a flash of pink, it was nearly whole.
Then Sango and Miroku had been killed by a well-aimed thrash of Naraku's tentacles.
"NO!!" Kagome had screamed. Distracted by her shout, Inuyasha had turned and had his own life taken as well.
"Koga…. Get Kagome… the shard…" he had said with his dying breath. And Koga had obeyed, lunging and tearing and entire chunk of flesh from Naraku before tossing it to Kagome.
Her trembling fingers had dug through as Koga held Naraku off. She had completed the jewel and there was a flash of pink light.
When she looked up, all she could see were blue and purple orbs floating around. Two blue where Sango and Miroku had been with a purple nearby, where Shippo's too-young body had lain. And three purple where Inuyasha, Koga, and Naraku had just fallen. One by one, the jewel sucked them in, pausing for a moment after each. The last had a hint of black that was purified the closer it got to Kagome.
When the jewel was finished it floated from Kagome's hands, glowed pink a moment and shot at her. Then she was consumed by a searing, burning pain.
The pain seemed endless and she floated in a sea of red. Minutes, hours, days, years could have passed; she wouldn't have known. The pain consumed her and defined who she was. Higurashi Kagome, seventeen-year-old miko. But then the lines began to blur.
Was she Kagome? Or was she Sango, twenty-year-old orphan demon slayer? Or Miroku, twenty-two-year-old perverted monk in love with Sango? Or Shippo, orphaned fox demon, or Onigumo, thief, or Koga, wolf-prince, or Inuyasha, hanyo?
Did it matter? Maybe she was all, maybe she was one.
Or was she Midoriko, or the demons she had fought?
Maybe she was the Shikon no Tama, all of these combined.
Or maybe she was Kagome and now she had everything these people had once had. Their memories, their feelings, their skills and instincts and knowledge.
But she was still Kagome. She was still pure and good and clumsy Kagome, who had loved Inuyasha and never quite gotten over it. Who had seen Shippo as her son and always wished he could call her "mommy." Who had loved Sango as her best friend and sister and seen Miroku as a great friend and confident and wanted his happiness to be with Sango. Kagome who had hoped that Sango and Miroku's children would one day call her "Aunt Kagome."
And then she awoke. In reality, only seconds had passed. And in the span of those short and endless seconds, Kagome gained lifetimes of knowledge.
She knew how to fight, she knew how to steal. She knew how to pray and draw ofuda and stand up for herself and love and wield Tetsusaiga and sell her soul and carve a Hiraikotsu and so many things she had never known. All at the cost of her loved ones' lives.
So Kagome began to run, but she was too weak. So she stumbled, fell, crawled- anything to get away. She made her way to the well, where Naraku had surprised her and her friends.
And then Kagome stopped and stared and wept. The well was in ruins. There was no way for her to get through. She was stuck in the past. With this realization, Kagome collapsed.
She sat there through the night, unable to force herself to move. To her surprise, no demons came for her. Nothing ate her.
The next morning, she took Tetsusaiga, Hiraikotsu, Miroku's staff, and Koga's sword and left.
For weeks she wandered, not eating, not drinking. She realized that she wasn't going to die from her fast, only suffer. And so she ate. Then she went to the mountains near Edo and found a cave and fell asleep.
For three-hundred years. She slept until she was only a half-forgotten legend and the demons that had once ruled the fears and nightmares of humans went into hiding and also became legends.
Kagome knew she slept. She knew because as she slept, she trained with the souls housed in the Shikon no Tama. None of her friends blamed her for their deaths, though she herself did.
What Kagome did not know was that as she slept, she froze time in the cave around her. She did not age and neither did the weapons or the stone.
"No, Kagome, your stance is all wrong," Sango said. "Try to throw the Hiraikotsu like that and see what happens."
Kagome tried and fell on her face, to the amusement of all around her. Naraku's red eyes shined with mirth as he watched and laughed. Inuyasha glared at him, but it was nothing unusual. Kagome and Naraku had forgiven one another, but Inuyasha still hated him.
"Ok, ok, I get it," Kagome muttered. "No need to laugh at the stupid mortal-ish person…"
Hiraikotsu was the only weapon she had not yet mastered. She just couldn't seem to get used to the bulk and weight. However, she was learning. Over the years, she had mastered hand-to-hand combat, swordsmanship, the use of her miko powers, slight-of-hand, the Tetsusaiga, and everything else her teachers had thrown at her.
"Sango," a woman's voice said. They all turned toward it, knowing already that it was Midoriko. "Perhaps the Hiraikotsu is not meant to be used as a weapon by Kagome. I believe the time has come for her to awaken and test her new knowledge."
"Pfft, new." Kagome looked up at the elder miko in curiosity. "When am I going to wake up though? I mean, what year?"
"It is the Bakumatsu era, the Meiji Revolution. When you awake, do as you wish, but I urge you to take a part in our country's history," Midoriko answered.
"I'm supposed to fight in the Meiji Revolution!" Kagome squeaked.
"What're you worried about, you had the best teachers around." Inuyasha said confidently.
"Or not around, as the case may be," Miroku chimed in.
"Don't worry, Kagome-chan, you can do it. You've been training for three-hundred years," Sango reassured her.
"Alright," Kagome said as she took a deep breath, "I'll do it." And she awoke.
Everything around her was the same, and yet she herself was profoundly different. She looked at Miroku's staff and the Hiraikotsu before hiding them carefully. She slipped Koga's sword and the Tetsusaiga through her sash and stepped from the cave into a completely different Japan.
Eventually, Kagome found her way to a road and began to travel. She received stares from many of the other travelers, but in these turbulent times it was not unusual to see anyone with a weapon.
"Miss," someone called.
Kagome turned around to see a young man jogging towards her, while his two companions, one slightly older and one about the same age, watched.
"Yes?"
"Miss, it's not really safe to travel alone, even armed as you are. Would you like to join my group? We're headed to Edo…"
Kagome gave him a brilliant smile. "That sounds great. I would very much like to join your group. Um… how far is Edo? I'm afraid I don't really know where I am…"
"We're about a week's worth of walking away still."
"Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to join you," she said, bowing. "I am Hi-" Kagome stopped herself as she remembered that normal people didn't have last names back then, "Kagome."
"Kagome?" She nodded. "Ok, I am Kanaye. That," Kanaye said, pointing to the elder man "is Masa, and he," Kanaye told her, "is Yukio. We're on our way to sign up for the war."
Kagome smiled again. "So am I."
This statement startled Kanaye, but he recovered quickly and smiled at her again. "Really? You can fight?"
"Quite well."
"Huh. I don't know if they'll let a woman fight though."
"I'll figure something out."
For the next week the small group travelled. Kanaye and Kagome became good friends and she also became fond of Yukio and Masa, though they were not as close.
The night before their arrival in Edo, Kanaye and Kagome stayed up talking.
"Kagome-san, I never asked, which side will you fight on?"
"I will fight for the emperor. There can be no progress without change and I believe that he will change things for the better." Kagome turned onto her side to face Kanaye. "What about you?"
"I think the way you do. Let the foreigners in, to an extent. They can bring new ideas and technology to us. Yukio and Masa were harder to convince," Kanaye told her, gesturing towards the sleeping pair. "At first they believed that the emperor was wrong, that he had lost his right to rule and that the Tokugawa shogunate was right. But I said what you just did, in many more words and convinced them. I just hope we're on the right side in the end."
"We will be," Kagome said with conviction. "The emperor will rule and he will bring change and progress."
Kanaye was silent for a while. "Kagome,-san, I really don't think that they'll let you into the army, since you're a woman. Whether you're a good fighter or not won't matter."
It was Kagome's turn to be silent. "I can't change my gender."
Suddenly, Kanaye's eyes gleamed. "Or can you? Kagome-san, they only have to think that you're a man. I have extra clothes that you can use and we can bind… you know… down. If we tie your hair up like a man's is, and you keep your voice low, it might work!"
"Perfect Kanaye! We can try it in the morning, first thing."
And so the two friends fell asleep, scheming.
The next day, a group of four men made it to Edo and immediately signed up to fight for the emperor. Their names were Yukio, Kanaye, Masa, and Yasha. Only Masa and Yukio understood the wink that passed from Yasha to Kanaye after they had been accepted.
Woot! This is my first RK IY crossover EVER!! I've never even thought about writing one! And yet, here it is! A chapter already finished!