Last Time: "Are you ready to meet the new home room teacher?" "You have a crush…" "Is it that obvious?" "Watanabe-sensei, you're our new neighbor?"

Please Sango

Chapter Two

Sango looked surprised for a moment, but then she laughed and bowed in greeting. "Yes I am. It's good to see you again, Ms. Higarashi."

Kagome felt a push from behind as Mrs. Higarashi moved past her into the room. "Kagome, don't be rude."

She put the tray, a full bento, on the table in front of the younger woman.

Sango was practically drooling. "Wow, this looks great Mrs. Higarashi. Thank you very much!" She tore into the food at a frightening rate.

"You're welcome, Ms. Watanabe. I'm surprised you've gone so long without a decent meal."

Mrs. Higarashi turned to her daughter. "Why don't you entertain our guest while I fix something for you to eat, Kagome?"

"Okay, mom." Her new teacher, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, was sitting in her home eating lunch.

'No, this isn't strange at all.' Kagome smiled and sat down.

"Your mom is a really kind person. I just mentioned that I hadn't eaten anything but ramen in a while and she invited me right over."

"You mean kidnapped?" Kagome smiled knowingly, noticing the emphasis Sango had placed on the word 'invited'.

Sango laughed. "You can put it that way. But honestly, I'm grateful. I'm not much of a cook." She said all of this between bites. "Do you cook, too?"

"I can manage." Images of slightly brown omelets came to mind. "Maybe I can cook for you sometime, Watanabe-sensei." Did she just flirt with her teacher? Sango didn't seem to notice.

"I would love to try your cooking."

Kagome's heart skipped a beat.

Mrs. Higarashi came in with a light dish of seasoned noodles and pickled radish and Kagome dug in.

"Thanks, mom."

"Watanabe-san is haing dinner with us tonight."

Sango nodded. "That reminds me, I have some boxes to unpack before then."

"Kagome, see our guest to the door." Mrs. Higarashi cleared Sango's dish from the table and was headed for the kitchen before Kagome could even answer.

"It was nice to really meet you, Ms. Higarashi. I'm looking for dinner tonight."

"So am I." Kagome blushed suddenly, and with a quick bow, opened the door.

"Oh Kagome, I forgot to tell Ms. Watanabe what time dinner is, could you go over for me?"

"Okay mom…I love you, too, Sota. Bye now." Kagome hung up the phone and sighed. Sota was fifteen now and sounded a lot more mature than she felt.

They had decided that things would be less complicated if it was just Kagome and their mother. Besides, he had settled nicely into a private school for boys and helping Grandpa out at the temple.

The door opened a few inches when Kagome knocked, but no one answered.

"Hello? Watanabe-sensei?"

"I'm here." The voice sounded faint. Kagome walked into the living room full of covered furniture and cardboard boxes.

"Watanabe-sensei?"

"I've got a lot done. But there's so much more to do."

"O…kay?" The bedroom door was open, and after a moment's hesitation, Kagome peeked inside.

For a moment, everything seemed to stop. Two faces stared at Kagome in shock while she looked back with a matching expression. It seemed like they could have stayed that way forever- but flames appeared out of nowhere and Kagome found herself pinned to the ground.

She let out a cry of surprise that had Sango on her feet and grabbing the fur of the demon cat's neck. "Kilala, no!"

Kilala stopped with it's fangs only centimeters from Kagome's neck and obediently padded away to keep a watchful eye from the corner of the room.

"Th-That's a real animal form demon…"

"And who is this?" the specter of an old man projecting from a sword sheath asked.

"Did that thing just talk?" Kagome scooted back from this even more startling sight.

"Kagome?" Sango started when she recognized her, and somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered that her teacher had used her first name.

"I'll thank you not to refer to me as a 'thing' young lady." The specter's face grew larger and loomed over her.

"Eh?"

"Be nice." Sango moved to grab the sheath and the image was pulled back towards it.

Kagome just sat dazed for a moment. "Okay, what's going on here?"

Sango looked to the other two occupants of the room as if they might come up with an answer.

"I think our cover is pretty much blown." The old specter suggested, scratching his head, and the demon cat mewed in agreement.

Sango sighed, and put her hands together in a pleading gesture. "Fine, I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone."

Kagome thought about it for a moment as she looked around the trio; a talking sheath, a supposedly extinct animal form demon and her now mysterious teacher, but only for a moment. 'I didn't think there was anyone out there stranger than me.'

"I promise."

"Kagome? You were gone for quite a while." Mrs. Higarashi wore a concerned look as she came out of the dining room.

"Sorry about that Mrs. Higarashi, she was helping me with some things." She managed to give Kagome a significant look without her mother noticing.

"Alright. Well, Rin was here to help me set the table, so why don't we all sit down?"

"Rin poked her head out of the kitchen archway. "Hi Kagome!"

Then she smiled up at Sango. "Wow, you're really pretty! Will you sit beside me?"

Kagome blushed and snuck a look at the older- much older- woman as they walked into the dining room. She couldn't help but be a little frightened that she would suddenly wrinkle up like a prune and crumble into dust.

'Then again, I'm one to talk.' Still, five hundred years was significantly longer than just three.

*earlier*

"What do you know of the 'Warring States' era?"

Kagome was a bit thrown by the change of subject. "Uh…Five hundred years ago. Human and demon landowners battled for territory. There was no cease to the bloodshed."

It was a very significant time for the Higarashi family, who were a long line of holy men and women and a keeper of many of it's artifacts, so she was more familiar with it than most.

"Right. And aside from priests and priestesses who would only use their powers in defense of their people, the field wasn't very level for humans. For that reason, a village of demon slayers arose, a people who trained specifically to face off with the most powerful demons. That was one family among them that was especially powerful."

Kagome hadn't heard of such a thing, but felt that they were now, perhaps, reaching the point of this impromptu history lesson. She was right.

"One night a powerful lord sent for these elite warriors to defeat a very powerful spider ogre demon who had possessed his son. But it was a trap, the demon possessed one of the warriors and forced him to slaughter his compatriots."

A pause here, and Sango seemed to be in great pain. But she pulled herself together and continued. "One of the warriors was gravely injured, but with the last of her strength, she defeated the warrior and the demon. To honor her, the lord decided to bury this warrior in a sacred well that housed the remains of defeated demons, where her spirit could continue to guard humanity."

'A sacred well?' Kagome's eyes widened with the possibility.

Standing, Sango went over to a pile of cardboard boxes and pulled out a roll of black and pink fabric, revealed to be a uniform when she unfolded it, and some sort of ancient mask- though it didn't look more than a few years old.

Kagome looked from the schoolteacher to the mask and back again. "Watanabe-sensei, you?"

"Yep." The specter chimed in. "Just about scared me to death when she come to. I'd been thrown into the well, too. But unlike Sango, I was awake the whole time and able to watch the world change and grow."

"With his help, I've been able to adjust to this new world and make a life for myself over the past five years. I was seventeen when I awoke." This last bit of information was added for the benefit of the questioning look on Kagome's face.

'Twenty-three, that would make her five years older than me.'

Kagome shook hear head violently. "More like five hundred and five- she's from the past for goodness sake!"

"Five hundred and five what?"

Kagome slapped her hands over her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. Sango gave her a perplexed look.

"I believe you." She meant it. "And I won't tell anyone, but-" she added in a joking tone, "you should really learn to close your door if you're going to keep those kinds of secrets."

Sango didn't seem to know what to say to that, so she only offered a grateful smile.

"By the way, my mom says that dinner's ready. We should hurry up, she's probably freaking out as it is.

A/N Wow, five pages. Before the author's note, that is. By the way, I'm thinking of making a spin-off of Sota's own story featuring monsters and magical powers in a school setting, maybe very slightly shounen-ai. Your opinion matters!