There was an audible snap as he hit the ground and Xander whimpered. He wasn't harmed... well, scraped a little from the sudden unexpected meeting with the concrete walkway, but that wasn't what he was worried about.

No, it was the prop that he'd fallen on that concerned him. He carefully stood up, not daring yet to look, and when he did he wished he hadn't. The flimsy sheath of the plastic katana was bent, and as he picked it up there was a rattling from inside... the toy itself had broken.

Xander winced and tossed it in a nearby trash can with a sigh. Bad enough that he'd been conned into letting little Dawn-patrol pick his costume for this year, and that she'd chosen from her older sister's collection of comics... Bad enough that Snyder had 'volunteered' him to lead a troop of kids trick-or-treating rather than letting him crash, and subsequently be thrown out of, whatever Halloween parties he could find... Not enough that he'd actually managed to lose that funky beaded necklace, the only other prop for the costume aside from the wig and fake ears thingy that was itching at his scalp right now, but now the damn sword was broken too.

He groaned mentally at the hit to his 'eventual road trip' funds as he turned back to that costume shop, only to discover when he arrived that Ethan's had closed early. A quick rush to Partytown, whose prices were steeper but was still open, found that they did have fake swords... just none of the kind that he needed. And none were close enough to the simple, albeit ancient looking, katana to pass muster.

He winced once again as he realized there were three options available to him. First, he could go without the sword and hope that Dawn didn't notice or he would face... The Pout! He shuddered silently. Second, he could go beg Giles to borrow a real sword for the night... which, aside from being humiliating, wasn't going to be happening. Giles' weaponry left the library without his knowledge, in 'properly trained' hands, in the direst of emergencies, or not at all. Then there was the third option, and the one it looked like he was going to have to go with... hitting the local pawn shops and praying to get lucky.

In fact, he was lucky, he reflected later. A little late, which Snyder was going to jump down his throat about, but lucky. He'd managed to find an actual katana in the third shop he'd visited... and not just that, but it was almost exactly what he needed. The threaded grip was old and loose, the scabbard was cracked and filthy, and the blade itself was extremely tarnished and chipped in dozens of places. In short, pretty much exactly like the blade that his costume had had.

The best thing was, it was such an obviously bad sword that nobody even looked at it twice, just one more tacky prop in a night of tacky props and weird costumes! And no matter how bad a sword it was, Xander had been forced to leave his stake behind, and so was glad of any available weapon, no matter that tonight was 'supposed' to be dead for the undead.

xxx

"... Chaos! I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate servant..... Urk!"

Ethan collapsed to his knees, sweating heavily and fighting off the urge to pass out as the spell drew approximately two dozen times the amount of energy it should have. Rather than weakening him slightly, for no more than the moment it would take to replenish his reserves, he felt like he was about to die!

It was a good thing that he made a habit of preparing for unexpected eventualities, he reflected as he crawled quickly for a cupboard in the back room. The bottles inside held a tincture that was foul smelling, tasted even worse, and was extremely difficult and expensive to concoct, but kept for something around the time-span of 'forever' after it was actually brewed, and would rapidly restore one's magical reserves once imbibed. The drawback was that it was heavily addictive, and highly toxic if taken in too great a dose.

A few swallows was all Ethan needed, though, just enough to get him out of the danger zone so that he could fill the rest with the wild magic floating aimlessly about the Hellmouth. And idly wonder, as he waited, just what had changed at the last minute to cause the spell to go so wrong.

Not that long before this happened...

"What are you?" One of the gaggle of brats asked aloud. Xander spared a moment to glare at Snyder's retreating back before opening his mouth to answer, and being rudely interrupted.

"He's Inu-Yasha!" Dawn piped up, answering her classmates question without answering it at all. She waved happily. "Hi Xander... look, look at my costume, I'm Shippou!"

Xander nodded and opened his mouth again, to no real effect.

"I wanted to go as Kagome, but mom wouldn't go for it. But you make a good Inu-Yasha, Xander!"

"Yeah, uh, thanks Dawn..."

Xander coughed into his fist and brought the attention of the kids back to him.

"Now, the important thing to remember when scamming candy is-"

"Harris! Why are you still here?" Snyder barked, prompting a snort of disgust. Xander didn't even bother answering, just scowled and stalked to the door, followed rapidly by the brats he was escorting.

They didn't make it so much as halfway to the first street on the list before something like an invisible tidal wave slammed into them. Xander staggered-

-And Inu-Yasha caught himself before he fell, wondering what the hell had just happened. After a quick rundown of where he was, which was somewhere he was sure he'd never been, but looked like Kagome's era, he made a quick check of his possessions. Tetsusaiga... the sword hummed with power as he set a hand to its familiar, cracked saya. Check. His clothes... yeah, they were the real deal woven fire-rat hair and hadn't been replaced with simple cloth. Check. All extremities... his ears were still there... yup, he was good to go... wait. Wasn't there something...?

His eyes widened as his hands snapped to where that accursed necklace should have been draped about his neck. It... it was gone!

Tears of happiness gathered in the corners of his eyes.

That evil witch of a woman's cursed sealing necklace was finally gone! No longer would he have to bend to the schoolgirl's whims and fancies! No longer would he have to guard his tongue, lest some innocent comment that could be taken the wrong way slip, leading to his humiliation! No longer-

"Ah... AH.... AAAAH!" Shippou screamed from behind him, in slightly higher pitch than the brat's usual volume. "It, it, it's gone! Inuyasha, I've been robbed!"

Inu-yasha let loose a deep sigh of regret. Of course things couldn't go smoothly. He turned to adress Shippou... who was screaming his head off with his pants dropped around his ankles. Waaaait... Inuyasha frowned and squinted.

"Shippou... shut up and clothe yourself. You haven't lost anything, you're just female now."

Shippou took the revelation fairly well, blinking slowly before going white and passing out.

Inu-Yasha debated dragging the young Kitsune along with him for a few moments before he came to his senses and just stuffed the brat in a nearby trash can. There. Reasonably safe, and now Shippou wouldn't get in the way as he investigated the surroundings.

xxx

Okay, Inuyasha decided, he'd just mentally review what he'd learned in between sending inexplicably large swarms of baby demons wailing home to their mothers.

He was in a town named Sunnydale. That had been obvious by the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign at the edge of town. That really didn't explain anything, though, and most of the demons hadn't been talkative, so he'd swallowed his pride and hunted down a map. In the end, it had taken several maps and a 'World Atlas'.

Sunnydale was a township in 'California', which was a small portion of a 'United States of America', which was on the opposite side of a freaking big ocean from Japan.

Also, he'd realized at some point that he was fluently reading a language he was completely unfamiliar with. Which was odd, because he'd only bothered to teach himself to read japanese out of neccessity, so he doubted he'd just 'picked up' this other language anywhere.

No, this whole situation reeked of magic. And where there was magic, there was invariably a sorceror of some sort behind it.

Inuyasha drew Tetsusaiga, and it flashed as it shifted to its true form. It was time to pay a visit to the sorceror, and end whatever spell he'd cast, along with his life.

"Inuyaaashaaa!" Came a piercing wail from nearby, followed rapidly by a familiar looking trash can rolling and bouncing past on its side, followed rapidly by a small horde of child-demons, baying for blood. Inuyasha twitched, then quickly dashed after them.

Alright, new plan. First, rescue Shippou. Second, soundly berate him for needing to be rescued in the first place, ignoring his current gender status. Then go hunt down and kill the sorceror.

xxx

A.N. YAHF oneshot, Buffy/Inuyasha cross. I'm just amused by this for some reason. No real plan or plot for anything beyond this at the moment, however.