O.k. Chapter Two! This chapter is going to be a bit on the long side, sorry ^-^; This is basically the chapter where everyone gets on the same page. Ebetsu and Kagome meet and they find out she's pregnant. Next chapter Inuyasha comes in to play, hurrah!

Another thing (spoiler alert!), this story follows the events post manga except for one itsy bitsy detail. Rin stays with Sesshomaru, I came up with a few ideas to explain why she was by his side again, but felt it ran too long so pretend he didn't leave her with the humans O.O please?

CHAPTER 2

"Kagome-chan, look!" Shippo beamed with pride as he held a bowl full of mud and mashed crayons up to Kagome's face, "This concoction will give you super strength!"

The miko smiled a motherly smile at the boy, she was happy that the months spent at the Kitsune Training Academy hadn't altered his child-like demeanor. "Sugoi Shippo-chan, you're getting better at it." she then turned to the old woman to her left, "O.k. Kaede, what now?"

The old woman's next instructions were lost as Sango came through the door, a weird look on her face.

"You guys are back already?" Kagome asked, surprised and happy that the two seemed to have made up after the morning's hot spring incident.

Sango blinked her wide eyes, "Huh? Oh, no he's still in trouble," She spat at the entering Miroku. The monk's face fell, he hoped she'd forgotten.

"No, we got a little...side tracked," Miroku moved to reveal what seemed to be a girl in a really dirty and torn hospital gown, the girl looked as shocked as Kagome did at that moment.

Kagome looked her up and down, as if she were to disappear at any moment, "Where did you find her?" she asked Sango.

"She says she came from the well. We were assuming she was from your time."

"Your 'time'?" Ebetsu spoke for the first time since arriving at the hut.

Kagome stood and walked over to Ebetsu, circling her. The girl definitely wasn't from the Sengoku Jidai.

Ebetsu followed Kagome's form as she inspected her, "You wanna tell me where the hell I am now?" she asked. Kagome seemed to catch herself, she stopped in front of Ebetsu and scratched the back of her head, "Sorry about that. Erm, I think before we delve into what's probably going to be a very interesting discussion, you should probably have a bath."

It took a little more coaxing, but Kagome and Sango got the tense Ebetsu to calm down and venture with them to the hot springs for a bath.

The hot waters were a God-send to the woman from Kagome's time. One foot in the water and she slowly melted into its warm embrace. She was still on very high alert, but she came to believe that wherever she was, she was far away from those bastards.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, Kagome stood behind her with a sponge in her hand, "You looked like you had some wounds. I figured it would be better to sit down and let me check you over," her soft smile showed Ebetsu she wasn't going to try anything tricky, the girl nodded and lowered herself onto a flat rock in the spring. Ebetsu watched Kagome as she busied herself with the task of soaping up water, who was Kagome? Why was she here? Though Kagome wore the same garb as the people around her, something about the way she spoke and moved said to Ebetsu she didn't 100% fit in to this place. If that's the case, was she somehow capable of traveling from this world to the one Ebetsu knew? As she studied the miko, her eye caught something strange. On her lower chest, just below her left breast a crescent-shaped scar. It was nothing remarkable, but the way it healed said to Ebetsu something came out of her body. Kagome turned back to Ebetsu, causing the girl to look away.

There were many questions circulating around Ebetsu, how did she get through the well, why hadn't the passage aged her? Did she have some kind of special power like Kagome? 'No, that's not it, that much I know,' the miko said. Kagome had quite a job on her hands and cleaning Ebetsu's body didn't keep more questions from being tacked on to the list.

As the waters rushed down her skin and cleared away the dirt and grime, more to the mystery emerged. For one thing the streaks of blood on various parts of Ebetsu's body seemed to have no origin. Kagome wiped at them expecting to see gashes and nicks, but nothing but tan unmarred skin was waiting beneath the surface. If that wasn't weird enough, a sponge across her cheeks revealed a small magenta streak on either side starting at her ear and coming to a point at the apple of her cheek.

Sango caught was she was looking at and shared a look with Kagome. "Here," she said, handing a cup full of water to Ebetsu, "Clear out the dirt in your eye."

"Arigato," Ebestu murmured. She leaned back and let the water cleanse her eye. As she did her hair was soothed back by the water, revealing pointed ears.

Kagome could hardly believe what she was seeing; this girl was from her time, wasn't she? She was a normal girl…wasn't she?

Running the soapy sponge down her back, Kagome decided to ask, "Ebetsu-chan...are you human?"

Ebetsu turned, flashing a brown right eye, amber left eye, and a fanged smile, "I used to be..."

When the girl entered, no one in the hut was prepared for what they saw. Was this really the person who hobbled in only hours ago? Ebetsu was...Ebetsu was kind of pretty. With the mud and tatters of clothing removed from her person, the lost and lonely girl stood with a lean, olive body, short raven hair with sharp, wily curls swept across her amber and brown eyes that as a human would have been cute, but as a demon gave her a wild and dangerous look.

As soon as Ebetsu made eye contact with the waiting congregation, she blinked at them for a moment, "S...something wrong?" she asked.

Miroku of course was the first to move, walking towards her with both arms extended, "My dear lady, of course not. We were just admiring your..." his eyes scanned down her long neck to the ample breasts poking through her green tank top, "many attributes,"

The last thing anyone saw of Miroku was the body-shaped hole he left in the hut wall. Sango was now next to Ebetsu, a vein throbbing in her fist, "DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS MONK!" she screamed. She then turned to Ebetsu, "Sleep with a knife under your pillow o.k.?" she said.

"I see," a voice called their attention from Miroku and back into the hut to Kaede, "You're a hanyou."

"A hanyou? You mean like a half-ningen, half-youkai?" Ebetsu asked. Kagome was shocked that someone from her time knew what those words meant. Ebetsu thought about it for a moment, then nodded, "Somewhat." She answered.

"So...where did you come from?" Kagome asked.

"I will tell you, but first I need to know where I am." Ebetsu said. Kagome smiled scratching the back of her head, "Well...I guess you could say you're in 1500's Japan, during the Feudal Era," she started.

Naturally, Ebetsu would have doubted what Kagome was saying, but thus far everything that has happened has thrown all scientific truths out the window, she nodded for Kagome to go on, "The well you went through is a portal that links the time you and I lived in to this world. Not everyone can go through it, you were probably able to because of the youkai blood in your veins."

'Not just anyone can go through there, that's a relief,' Ebetsu thought, "So how did you get here?"

"It's a pretty long story...but to simplify I'm the reincarnation of a priestess that died 50 years ago, err...in this time. The priestess was entrusted a powerful jewel that would grant its possessor any wish it wanted. Through a complicated series of events the priestess' and her lover were turned against each other by an evil force who coveted the jewel and the priestess. The priestess sealed her lover away in a deep sleep, but was mortally wounded in her last battle, when she was reincarnated, the jewel was as well. Into me,"

Ebetsu's eyes widened, "Ohh..that's the scar," she said. Kagome nodded, "In my time I was looking for my cat when a demon who sensed the jewel pulled me into the well and into this time. In a fray with the demon, I accidentally broke the jewel."

"Broke is a kind way of saying it. Kagome-sama shattered the thing." Kaede piped up, "Shards were scattered all throughout Japan."

Kagome rubbed the back of her head and have a sheepish grin, "Eh-heh, well it was an accident. We spent months going around and getting the shards together, but we had an obstacle. The evil force returned and wanted the jewel too, he tricked so many people-"

"He killed my family..." Sango said, rubbing her arm.

"He cursed mine..." Miroku said with his left hand in a fist.

Ebetsu dropped her head, "I see...I'm sorry for making you bring up so many memories,"

"You didn't know," Sango said with a smile.

"It took a long time and tragically people were lost on the way, but everyone banded together and dispersed the demon. Afterwards we erased the jewel from existence. I returned to the time you and I lived in, but my heart belonged to the Feudal Era and so I returned to stay."

'Her heart?' Ebetsu wondered.

"So you? How did you get here?" Kagome asked. Ebetsu's face went from one of total comfort to one of total hatred and disgust, "It is because of a demon that I too am here."

"Have you ever heard of The Byoukai Genetic Engineering and Research Facility?" she asked, Kagome furrowed her eyebrows and thought for a moment, "Nnnno, I don't believe I have," she answered.

"We are a medical company that has been researching cures for any and all kinds of incurable diseases. I at one time was a researcher there. BGERF had recently began delving into the super-human genetic codes of what you would call demons, their properties, why demons lived so much longer than humans and why they seemed impervious to most diseases. Our goal was to isolate these properties and hopefully manufacture treatments for even the rarest diseases. It had been a happy day the day we discovered a perfectly preserved youkai, I and my team had initially been chosen to lead the research of this frozen man."

"Initially?" Kagome asked.

"Well...my team stayed on the project. I couldn't."

'Why?"

"A rare and severe form of ovarian cancer had made its way into my body. It ravaged me so suddenly that I had no choice but to step down."

Kagome jumped up in a full panic, "Oh my God, are you alright?" she asked.

Ebetsu smiled and nodded, "Thanks and curses to the preserved demon. I am alive…"

She remembered that day so perfectly; replaying it in her head was like watching it on the screen, no fuzz, no breaks in the film. Every detail as preserved as the demon in the vile next to her.

He took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaling the noxious smoke into the already coagulating room. Ebetsu sat across the table, somewhat lifeless in her wheelchair, back then both of her eyes were brown, there were no markings on her face, no super-human strength, just a meek girl on the verge of death.

"The cancer has spread, you have a month...if you're lucky," his eyes were shielded by the glaring light reflecting on his glasses. Not that Ebetsu needed to see him, this man was a stranger to her. Ever since he discovered her cancer, he closed the door that used to be their relationship, leaving her to deal with the loss of strength, the chemotherapy, the loss of her long hair all alone.

"Is that all you wanted to tell me? You honestly think I haven't figured that out. Fuck off," she said, and began to wheel herself out of the room.

"Don't act all brave, you wanted to hear that I had a cure. Why else did you bother coming all the way down here?" he asked. Ebetsu winced, but wouldn't loose her cool, "You have no cure. So don't waste what little time I have left,"

"I said you're dying, I never said I didn't have the cure,"

Ebetsu stopped dead in her tracks, she wheeled around to face the man she would have called her husband, "What are you saying?"

"Demon X may have given us a cure. That's all," he stood, puffing lightly on the half finished cigarette, "We need someone to test it on-,"

He didn't finish his sentence as Ebetsu threw her bag at him, "YOU WANT ME TO BE YOUR FUCKING GINUEA PIG!" she screamed, infuriated by the insult this man was laying upon her, as if he hadn't done enough!

The man looked down at the cigarette that had been lost in her assault, "So you wish to die?" he asked, "You wish to rob this company of a fantastic scientist, to leave a serum untested consequently killing millions. Was it not your oath to make a world free of disease and death? Here is the opportunity and you with to take it to the grave?"

Ebetsu was silent for a long time, that oath...how could she have forgotten that oath? And damn him for using it against her. When she was better, she would make him pay...

"Very well...very well..."

"I would have never guessed that I was signing my life away," Ebetsu said. Kagome leaned forward, "So what happened next?"

Ebetsu fidgeted, she never expected the words to roll out of her so easily. 'No, someone needs to know, about that hell, about the torture…someone needs to know my story.' Taking a deep breath, she laid out the gory truth in all its entirety, "I needed a partial liver transplant and three blood transfusions over the course of 2 months to properly mix my blood with the youkai. It felt like an eternity..."

Again she found herself in a perfectly preserved flashback. The walls of the hut gave way to a large, dimly lit medical room, monitors lined the walls, spewing out information on Ebetu's health status, her heart rate, blood levels. Ebetsu was in the center of this room, her small body strapped tightly to the cold metal table beneath her.

"Is the test subject ready?"

"What?" Ebetsu asked, wondering when they decided to refer to her with such a name. The woman's face froze, as though she let out a deep secret, "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, she quickly turned to man by the I.V. pole, "Is Ms. Toshiko ready?" she asked. The man glared at the woman, but Ebetsu didn't feel like it was because of what she just said. His glare was a reprimanding one, further arousing the girl on the tables' suspicions.

"The patient is ready for the transfusion," he said and turned on a pump. Ebetsu winced as what little blood she had was sucked out and fed into a machine that would mix in the youkai's blood. The thought that someone else's blood was going to be running through her veins, someone not so human made Ebetsu cringe, but at that time the fear of death was far more over powering. The blood mixed and started at the other end back into her system. No sooner did the blood enter her body did Ebetsu begin to scream. A burning sensation ate at her arm, then her legs, finally hitting her heart. Every second was filled with the feeling of being ripped apart and put back together. The shock caused her mouth to clamp shut, but screams still emanated from her throat. The doctor's held down her thrashing arms, which to their shock threatened to snap the thick leather restraints. After a few minutes her body relaxed, Ebetsu turned her head to the side as blood spewed from her mouth.

Then, it all went black.

A dark silence followed her story. Kagome was so shocked she had to pry her hand from her mouth. Ebetsu rubbed her arm nervously, what did they think of her right now? She decided she wasn't ready for their reaction and continued.

"Still, that was the easy part. The blood itself had forever changed me…"

The weeks that followed held interesting changes. Her ears were the first things, the cartilage broke down and reformed into pointed versions of their human counterparts, her left eye lost it's pigmentation and for a few days was blind before turning amber and regaining it's sight. The skin on her fingers broke and cracked to accommodate claws and fangs grew, almost overnight. That was the physical gist of it all, Ebetsu's strength returned as did the beginning of hair. She soon cast aside her wheelchair as muscles formed faster and more prominent than before she had cancer, her 5 senses came back 10 times what they were, that took some adjusting, but she managed.

"You became a hanyou," Kagome re-iterated, not because she didn't understand, but she could see the lost look on Sango and Miroku's faces. Despite Ebetsu's harrowing story, it was somewhat comforting to be able to talk on modern terms with someone from her own time. Ebetsu nodded, "Then there was the task of ridding myself of the cancer. A serum had been concocted and was ready for testing. It was injected by a long syringe into directly into my ovaries." Kagome winced at the words 'long syringe', making Ebetsu laugh, "As nasty as that sounds, it was the only part of my procedure that wasn't painful. Anyway, the serum needed to be taken over a period of 5 months."

"Or so they told you," Kagome said, Ebetsu gave her a knowing smile, "You're on the same wavelength I am. In hindsight, I too believe the initial serum cured me completely. They just used it as an excuse to keep me. The therapy tests started out normal enough."

And they were. In the beginning it was the standard tests, physical therapy, blood tests, body scans.

"But grew stranger and crueler..."

Those images still haunted her, Ebetsu would forever remember dodging bullets to 'train her reflexes', lifting cars to 'test her strength', going for weeks on end without food to 'test her resistance.'

"My friends...my colleagues all turned against me...I was no longer a human in their eyes, no longer a living feeling being...nothing but a monster." Kagome's heart dropped from the pain so evident in the girl's eyes. Ebetsu took a deep breath in an attempt to stop the tears, but there were some things a person can't suppress. She had no affiliation with the Shikon no Tama or the disasters it brought to the people in that hut, but her scars were as deep as any of theirs, maybe even deeper.

"I wanted to die so badly, you guys. I wanted for the pain to just stop, for the tests to be done. I wanted my life back...and if I couldn't have that...then I was willing to die to be at peace..."

"However...something came along...that not only would not allow me to die...but give me a reason to escape..."

Sango leaned forwards, "A reason?" she asked.

Ebetsu leaned over and grabbed Sango's hand, then gingerly pressed it against her stomach.

"This…"