Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters. And I do not intent to gain any kind of retribution for this work of fanfiction.
Chapter. 1
The wind played with the grass around her feet. The plants swayed softly and the smell of her beloved forest was all around her.
A small, secret smile appeared on her face as she looked at her beloved trees. This was her home. It had been for little time now. A peaceful place where she could live surrounded by life and away from destruction. A place where no human would search for her. And place where no youkai could feel her presence.
As she saw a small fox youkai walked to her, she corrected, where no undesired youkai could feel her.
"Kagome! What are you doing around here?"
She only smiled under the preoccupied eyes of the boy. "Hello, Shippou."
He stopped his walk towards her enough to give her a small bow. Something his late mother had been very strict about.
"This is too close to the edge of your barrier! What if someone senses you?" he asked as he jumped on her shoulder.
"Don't worry, I'm still safe here." she explained as she stroked his fluffy red hair.
Leaning on her touch, the boy nodded.
"I just feel a little restless... and needed a little walk."
Something trickled her hand. Looking down she found a small deer rubbing its head against it.
"Something bad is going to happen?" asked the kid on her shoulder with a careful voice.
She let her fingers travel across the soft auburn fur as she tried to explain what she was feeling. Her few friends knew she had strange abilities, and one of them was to feel when something was about to happen.
Usually, she was sure whether it was something good or something to be afraid of, sometimes she even knew if it meant she needed to run away. Unfortunately the last one, she had learned to identify too late.
Kagome shook her head trying to cast away the memories that always threatened to break her and focused on the matter at hand. Stroking the beautiful deer in front of her and calming the child on her shoulder.
"Don't worry too much, Shippou. I feel something is coming but it's not entirely bad..."
"Are you sure it's not a bad monster coming?"
Shippou's voice was calm but she could feel his tail flickering nervously.
"I'm sure. That is why I'm taking a stroll and not running away"
Her joke was not well received and Shippou only grumbled something close to an agreement but not quite there.
The deer walked away after receiving the attention he wanted, and Kagome started to walk again, moving the kid to her arms.
"We are going to be fine, Shippou..." she looked down to find Shippou's big green eyes looking at her expectantly. "This feeling is a lot like the one I had before meeting you."
The worry in his eyes disappeared, giving way to one of his time stopping glowing smiles, "you felt you were going to meet me?"
She nodded answering his smile. "I know there was a mischievous and adorable ball of fur coming my way".
She did not mention how she had also felt she needed to protect the boy because he was about to be hurt. There was something the little boy didn't need to know.
They kept walking together as she checked her barrier, the only thing that kept everyone with bad intentions and rotten hearts away from this safe place she tried to create.
The place where she could live as normally as she could, a place where nobody asked her to create powerful things to hurt others. A place where creatures like Shippou, that had lost their families could live without fearing for their lives. A place where everything in it was respected and loved, where every tree, every animal, every creature, even the very energy of the water that run through the river was respected and protected. It was the only place she felt safe.
The only place she could call home.
In a place not so far away but very different, a silver haired man stomped his way out of the fourth sword smith's home he had visited during the last moon.
It was also the fourth time that someone had told him that repairing his sword was impossible. That there were no smiths that dared to work with an object with that kind of power imbued in it. They also told them he needed a youkai to work with it. The problem was that youkai refused to work for him.
The only one that had ever repaired his sword had been Totosai, his father's loyal friend. Unfortunately, the old fart had died recently without leaving a disciple that could continue his job.
With his mixed heritage there was no way that a 'respectable' youkai would agree to help him. According to them, hanyou were only fit to starve and die, not to hold the kind of weapon he was trying to repair.
That meant that humans were all he had, but humans were dumb and weak, with no power of their own to shape and work with metal filled with youki.
He knew they could die, the first smith he had gone to had laughed and declared he was the best smith in the land and no sword would ever rebel against him. It only took one hit of the hammer, for the remaining pieces of his Tessaiga to protect itself sending a wave of youki, and for the man to drop dead in an instant.
Since then, he had been looking for a smith that admitted having powers of their own, so far none of the ones that had been regarded powerful or skillful smiths had showed reiki.
Even if they didn't have any powers, they had all declined working on his sword before he could explain the situation. With a hint of amusement, he admitted that humans had pretty good survival instincts and deep down he was glad, there was no need to bury a new body uselessly.
He was outside of the town and finally no one was watching him with eyes full of hate or fear when he felt a familiar bite on the tip of his nose. After slapping it off, Inuyasha waited for the usual explanation, that was almost Instantaneous.
"Master Inuyasha, I found you at last." the small flea youkai said from the palm of its master's hand.
Inuyasha scoffed, "Oh, I know I was difficult to find after you ran from me when Tessaiga broke".
The tiny man fidgeted under Inuyasha's eyes. "It wasn't like that, I swear... I just—wasn't like I was running away... I just went to find someone that could help your situation!" the proud smile on his face didn't manage to change the narrowed eyes or the arched brows on Inuyasha's face.
"It's that so, Myouga?"
The flea nodded energetically. "I found the smith Totosai used to talk about!"
Another scoff came from the hanyou "he used to talk about lots of them, all dead now."
"But, not this one, Lord Inuyasha. This one is very alive. They say this blacksmith lives in the forest, where no one can find him."
"You sure he ain't dead?" his head tilted and continued in a distracted voice, "most of Totosai's friends are as dead as him."
"I swear on my life; the smith is very alive."
Inuyasha let out a satisfied laugh that somehow it felt dark to Myouga. "If he's alive, I'm gonna find him and he WILL fix Tessaiga..."
Two of Myouga's hands were shyly raised his two right hands, waiting for his master to pay attention to him. When Inuyasha finally finished his self-satisfied laugh, and looked down.
"What?" he huffed.
"There's a little issue..."
"Ain't there always?"
The old man cleared his throat nervously at the same time he scratched the side of his head "well, you see, Lord Inuyasha, the smith is..." as he continued, his voice started to get lower, smaller "umm, well, just kind of a little impossible to find..."
A growl started to sound inside Inuyasha's chest. "You said you found him..."
"I know the forest where he is supposed to live. However, no one has seen the smith in a long time. They said youkai are protecting the smith."
"I'll kill whoever tries to keep him from me."
His tone was softer than usual and by the look in his eyes Myouga knew his master's mind was already battling against the monsters and killing them.
Reaching the forest, the smith supposedly lived in, was fast and uncomplicated, even a little too easy. His steps started to become slower and more careful when he felt eyes on him...
His hands began to curl as his body fell into a defensive stance. Something was studying him.
His eyes ran searched for any indication of a presence around them and his ear flicked around trying to find any sound that could help him locate a presence.
Even if he felt watched there was no raise of youki that indicated ill intention. "I know you're there! Show yourself!"
No sound was made... then he noticed what was making the small hairs in the back of his neck stand... there was no sound. No animal moving, no bird singing, no leaves moving. Everything around them was immobile. Suddenly he became aware of the fast pace of his own heart.
"You are not welcome here. Leave!" A strange, cavernous, voice reverberated around the clearing.
Inuyasha answered with a menacing growl "I ain't leavin!"
With the same calm and emotionless voice, the voice spoke again "There is nothing for you here, hanyou... leave!"
Before Inuyasha could answer, Myoga jumped to his ear "Master, I think it would be wiser to explain the reason why we're here... maybe they know where he is."
After a pause the hanyou gave a short huffed and shouted, "I am not leaving! I'm looking for the swordsmith!"
Something in the air changed, the animosity was instantaneous. "You will never find the swordsmith" said a new voice, an angry one.
Inuyasha readied his claws, ready for an attack that never came.
"I will not let you hurt anyone!" the voice shouted.
Inuyasha's body started to relax "Who said I wanted to hurt someone?"
Something that looked like a cat youkai, but with a suspiciously fluffy tail appeared in front of him.
"There is no one that need the swordsmith that doesn't want to create something to hurt others!"
"You are fucking wrong!"
Inuyasha took a step towards the youkai. Immediately a few snake youkai slithered their way between him and the cat-youkai, ready to attack.
Inuyasha took another step, this time baring his fangs "I'll find the swordsmith! Even if I have to end you!"
The snakes hissed, and this time Inuyasha felt the raise of youki.
"Why do you need the swordsmith help?" a feminine voice asked so softly that for a moment Inuyasha wondered if he was hearing right.
But when everything around him stopped moving at the sound of the soft voice, he needed, for some strange reason, to answer the question.
"I-I need the swordsmith to fix my father's sword..."
"And what will you do with the sword if the smith helps you?" said the soft voice again.
Many answers came to Inuyasha's head. Should he answer something that a youkai would like to hear about fight and destruction of humankind? Should he talk about revenge? Without reaching a conscious decision, his words started to spill out of him. "I'll use it to defend myself..."
He felt the presence before he saw it. The feeling of delicate calm power filled the clearing. The youkai in front of him turned their heads to the side, his eyes followed the direction and he saw her.
A petite woman, in priestess clothing, walking towards him, her black long flowy hair making a trail behind her.
His eyes were fixed on her, on her serious eyes, not losing contact even when the youkai moved to her side and said something to her. She only shook her head for an answer and kept walking.
When she reached him, her hands came forward. "let me see your sword". She asked with the same soulful and calm tone.
He found himself handing his sword to her even when a voice inside his head roared in protest.
She received the sword with utmost care and closed her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, and a tired shivering sigh escaped her lips.
She opened her eyes and looked at him with so much sorrow that he almost took a step back, but when tears started to fall from those eyes and her stare became a glare, he did take a step back.
"I can't help you. I won't let you hurt this sword as you've been doing." she took one step closer, gave him the sword back and turn away. "you should leave this forest... there's nothing here for you."
Inuyasha blinked a couple of times as he tried to process what had happened. She had been rejected by whoever this people was.
"I won't leave until I see the swordsmith!" he growled.
The cat youkai that had been following the woman turned to him and with a 'puff' he became a small red-haired boy with the same fluffy tail. He had a mischievous smile on his face as he declared "She was the swordsmith, moron."
To be continued...
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A/N:
Hello and thank you so much for reading.
This is the prologue/first chapter of a series that has been waiting for me to start it for more than a year. I'm finally starting it because this is a gift for a great friend of mine, Robin. That became its fan no. 1 since I told her about the idea.
For you that are a little lost on what's actually happening. This is my AU about Inuyasha finding Kagome, in the same way that he found Kikyou in canon. The universe has many things different, yes, but for me this is the answer of "what would had happened if Kikyou had thought of Inuyasha as equals?"
I hope you like it, I would love to know what you think about this little story.
Love,
Nanna.