All characters, named weapons, and attacks borrowed from Inuyasha are not my own, but belong to Takahashi-dono.
"Pressing On"
"Urrrggh…" The silver-haired half-demon Inuyasha slumped to the ground, utterly defeated.
The young priestess Kaede giggled at the hanyou. "Oh, come on, Inuyasha… you can't be that tired!"
Inuyasha's eyes blinked open, and the golden orbs glared up at her. "Next time, you can carry the packs," he growled irritably. Groaning, he slipped two large, heavy bags off his shoulders and sat up.
The raven-haired priestess Tsubaki sat down beside him. "I'm sorry we had to ask you to carry the baggage, Inuyasha, but Kilala's leg hasn't healed yet." She gently stroked the pale yellow fur of the twin-tailed cat demon nestled in her folded arms. "The oni that came crashing into camp last night really did a number on us."
"Yeah, yeah…" Inuyasha had dozed off just a bit during his watch, and had fallen into one of his increasingly frequent nightmares: nightmares involving himself, the sacred Shikon Jewel… and a sacred arrow loosed by the priestess he had loved. Every time the nightmare repeated itself, the arrow got just a bit closer to piercing his chest.
"Come on, everyone dozes off during watch once in a while… even you." The monk Miatsu, who was bringing up the rear of their group, was not about to admit that he had done the same thing earlier in the night. He thrust his jangling staff into the dirt and, with knees popping, slowly lowered himself onto the ground.
"Feh." Inuyasha was not about to admit that it was his cry of fear that woke Kilala just in time for her to grab Tsubaki out from under the stomping foot of the oni. If she'd died…
He tried to rub the soreness in his shoulders away, but Tsubaki noticed the slight tremble in his arms. Miatsu and Kaede eyed each other knowingly as the priestess knelt behind the half-demon.
"Let me." Inuyasha flinched when she laid her hands gently on his shoulders – whether from reflexive aversion to contact with others or from sheer weariness, Tsubaki couldn't tell. Nevertheless, the twitching of his ears and a barely audible groan revealed that his aching muscles and frazzled nerves, if nothing else, appreciated her efforts.
"Mew?" Kilala asked Miatsu.
"Shh… we need to let things run their course in the proper time."
"Mrowf…"
Kaede had settled her own confused feelings for Inuyasha during their time at the Slayers' village, but seeing the person she viewed as a gruff big brother practically purring (to her perspective) under the ministrations of a beautiful woman still made her a bit… well, not really jealous, but she felt something just a bit unpleasant, anyway. She cleared her throat. "Who's hungry?"
XXXXX
That night around the cheerily-crackling campfire, the group clustered around the map Shako had lent them – except for Kilala, who was taking another catnap. Normally, Inuyasha did not join them for such strategy sessions, but Tsubaki's massage had left him in a positively chipper mood (by Inuyasha standards), so he made an exception: he tried to be, if not cheerful, at least not dour, for Tsubaki's sake. And he couldn't help being at least a little delighted at the opportunity to sit near her without anyone suspecting his true intent.
The purification ritual the priestess had undergone in preparation for officiating Shako and Risa's wedding ceremony had purged her body of the last remnants of the lingering scent of foul demons. Though time and baths had diminished it, that scent had repelled him ever since they met, and now that her own scent was uninhibited and untainted… well, let's just say that he couldn't get enough. However, as the deliberations persisted, his demeanor increasingly reflected his mounting inward annoyance…
"See, we've been heading due north, and we're almost to the Tone River. Once we get there, we can take a boat upriver." Miatsu traced the course of the Tone northwest with his finger.
"But we need to go to Mount Akagi to find this 'Totosai' and get Inuyasha's Tetsusaiga fixed, and to get there, we need to go due north!" Kaede drew this alternate route with her own digit.
Miatsu shook his head. "Since the river curves around Mount Akagi and other mountain hear it, we can disembark whenever we like and head straight for! Not to mention that this valley approach from the west seems to make for the shallowest – and therefore easiest – approach."
"But that makes for a longer overall trip… why not take this valley from the southwest?" Tsubaki butted in.
"Umm… my route might be longer overall, but it's less walking. It should take the same time – or less – and won't be quite so strenuous." And the area I want to go through is famous for its hot springs! Miatsu flashed his most disarming grin.
"Hmm…" Tsubaki tapped her pursed lips with a finger which she mulled this over. Why is he so insistent on taking that particular route? He's up to something…
"Of course, this all assumes that we can even get a boat," Kaede interrupted. "Shako did give us some traveling funds, but I'd rather not use them so soon!"
This patently obvious statement was the impetus for the three of them to begin bickering over the best way to get a boat: beg, borrow, build, pilfer, and so on, until the fire was burning low and the fourth member of the council had had quite enough of the whole business.
"You know, I could just go to Mount Akagi by myself," Inuyasha grumbled, tired of the whole thing (and just plain tired). "It'd be a lot faster."
"Maybe," Kaede conceded, "but since when can you sense Jewel shards? You might run right by a dozen of them and never even know it."
"Yeah, yeah…" Listening to this discussion was so not worth it… next time, I'll just keep watch from a distance.
Miatsu rubbed his eyes. "Why don't we wait until we get to the river and see how boat situation is? And once we're on the boat, then we'll decide when we should get off again?"
Kaede and Tsubaki nodded their assent; Inuyasha simply grunted and rolled his eyes. In other words, the whole last hour of discussion has been absolutely pointless. Gotta love a democracy…
"Alright, then. Let's grab some shuteye. Since I seem to be the most awake, I'll take first watch?"
No one could argue that point… and no one wanted to.
Still, Inuyasha kept himself half-awake, just in case. I won't let Tsubaki be put in danger again…
XXXXX
They reached the Tone River near lunchtime the next day. The argument from the previous night was about to break out again in full force when Kaede spotted a barge creeping slowly towards them from downstream.
"Why don't we just ask if we can ride with them?" Kaede asked the others.
"Something tells me that they wouldn't be too thrilled with having demons on board…" Tsubaki jerked her head to indicate Inuaysha and Kilala, who was nestled in his mane of hair – much to his displeasure.
"Well, we can hide his ears…" Kaede dug a cloth out of one of the packs Inuyasha was carrying, removed his feline bane, and wrapped the cloth around his head. "Now, tuck your hands in your sleeves so your claws don't show."
"Why?"
"Would you rather carry the baggage again tomorrow?"
Inuyasha grudgingly complied.
"He still looks a little… off," Tsubaki wrinkled her brow, trying to puzzle it out.
"He's too young for silver hair," Miatsu pointed out. "No time to find berries or something to dye it, the boat's almost here."
Inuyasha's glare instantly made them decide to scrap that idea. "My hair. Color. Stays." To me, having black hair means the new moon, and I'm fully human… granted, that's the idea right now, but NO!
Kaede sighed. "We'll just have to chance it. Who should hail them?"
Miatsu chortled. "Sailors might not take too kindly to a man of the cloth being on board, but a lovely young lady might convince them…" he winked at Tsubaki.
"Maybe too much…" she muttered. "All right, I'll give it a go." She strode to the water's edge, struck a slightly sultry pose, and called out to the vessel in a lilting voice. "Yoooo-hooooo! Can you take on passengers!"
XXXXX
"Eh heh heh… you remind me so much of my lil' granddaughter back home, missy," the wiry old man grinned. His nearly-toothless grin was so comical that even Tsubaki had to smile back. "I hope it don't take longer with yer extra weight aboard – I still want ta get home as soon as possible."
"Feh," Inuyasha called from the stern, where he was rapidly poling the barge upstream. "Even with her extra weight, I'll get us all there faster than you would by yourself, old-timer." Unsatisfied with the old man's slow and steady pace, he had volunteered (insisted, really) to be the boat's propulsion.
Tsubaki shot him an angry glare. "Chuuko-san was talking about all of us, including you and your dense skull!"
"Come here and say that!"
"Nyah!" She grinned and winked at Kaede as her tongue retreated between her lips.
Kaede blinked quizzically.
"I'm not really mad," Tsubaki explained. "I know he was just talking without taking a woman's feelings into consideration."
"Yeah, he needs to work on that…" Kaede rested her chin on her knees.
"Anyway…" Time to change the subject… "Chuuko-san, your village had such an abundant harvest this year that you actually had extra rice to sell to other domains?" Miatsu asked the old man.
"Yup. Just don' tell our feudal lord about it – he's only getting the usual amount from us. We're plannin' on using the proceeds to rebuild the village wall a raiding party from our lord's rival battered down last year." He patted the string of coins around his neck, which had increased by a few. He hadn't asked for any compensation, but Miatsu had insisted; it was still far less than it would have cost them to purchase any sort of boat.
"Isn't it your lord's responsibility to provide for your defense?" Kaede inquired.
"Yup. But since he hasn't been, we've had to do it ourselves. Which is why we don't feel bad at all skimping on him, heh heh!"
Kaede shook her head sorrowfully. "It's a shame so few rulers are truly concerned with the welfare of the people they govern. It seems like they're always looking out for themselves – how to stay in power, defeat their rivals – why do you suppose that is?"
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
"Eh?"
Miatsu drew her aside, out of earshot of the old man. "I mean, look at the sacred jewel – an incredible source of power! Yet Shako said there's never been a single case of it being used for something good or selfless."
"I dunno," Kaede responded. "I kind of like having depth perception again." She tapped the brow next to her right eye, which had been healed when a pure jewel shard had been embedded within it. "And now I can see the shards inside the bodies of demons, when before I couldn't."
"True," Miatsu acknowledged. "But from what you have said, you would not have lost the eye – nor would you even need to seek shards of the jewel – if the jewel did not exist!"
"You're right, Miatsu. But, the jewel aside, what could corrupt so many humans?"
"It's not a matter of corruption from without, but from within." Like my vice for beautiful women… "Human beings are innately capable of both good and evil… as are demons like our friend here." He patted Kilala, who was curled up asleep on a nearby empty crate. Her leg was almost fully healed, but the herbs Tsubaki and Kaede had been applying to her wound made her very drowsy.
"And Inuyasha?"
"Even more so."
"Hey, Miatsu!" Tsubaki shouted from the bow.
"What is it?" He jogged up to join her, Kaede close behind.
"Do you sense something odd?"
He stood still half a moment, stretching out his honed senses. "Yeah. I can't quite place it, though…"
"UGH! What is that STENCH!" Inuyasha was poling the barge one-handed, using his other to hold his sleeve over his nose. His claws, which had been clearly visible for hours but went completely unnoticed – or at least un-commented-on – by their host, glistened in the light of the setting sun.
Kaede sniffed cautiously. "Pepper?"
Even as the word left her lips, all hell broke loose.
Author's Note: Yes, I am back! Now that the school year is wrapping up, I will try to make time in between job interviews to work on this story. I am both pleased and peeved to say that I estimate I have already put more than 20 hours into this story (aside from Chapter 1, which I wrote about a year ago), and this is as far as I have gotten. That is because the vast majority of that 20 hours has been research (see Author's Note 2 before, if you wish to share my suffering on that front) and planning out where the story will go. Doing another story arc so soon was not really my intention – I wanted to do a lot of unconnected stories first – but I kind of left off the first part of the story ("A Twist in Time") with a direct lead-in to a story arc, so here goes!
Again, I urge readers: If you have not yet, read "A Twist in Time" before you continue with this story. If you are familiar with Takahashi-dono's original Inuyasha storyline, you're kind of coming in to the story at roughly the equivalent of the middle of the second season… if you don't know what's happened already, you will be at least a little bit confused by the events that will shortly follow – though I am making every attempt to provide new readers with enough details to understand most of the major plot devices in motion.
Author's Note 2: I am having no luck with finding any detailed maps of Japan during this time period. All of the decent-sized cities in the northwestern Kanto region (the area Inuyasha & co. are trekking through) on modern maps were founded well after the Tokugawa era, so I can't give any man-made reference points. I can't even be certain of where exactly the Tone River was back then! According to Wikipedia: "The Tone River was once known for its uncontrollable nature, and its route changed whenever floods occurred. It is hard to trace the ancient route of the river." All I know is that it was there, and probably roughly in the center of its vast floodplain upriver of Edo (the medieval castle town now known as Tokyo).
Ah, the challenges of writing (a form of) historical fiction! Nobuhiro Watsuki did such an excellent job working in period events (and alternative, conspiracy-theory-esque explanations for those events) in Rurouni Kenshin. I can only hope to aspire to his mastery. Though perhaps I simply needn't bother with trying to maintain geographic accuracy; Takahashi-dono certainly didn't, and nobody criticized her for it. I do, however, think I'd like to maintain historical accuracy… which creates a big problem.
Assuming that Kagome travels back exactly 500 years into the past from the year 1997 (the year it was stated to be in Volume 1, Scroll 1 of the manga), she would end up in 1497. Exactly 50 years prior (when Inuyasha was sealed away) would be 1447, before the Sengoku period began, when the Muromachi shogunate was apparently still relatively in control of Japan. However, there is no reference to "500 years" that I have found in the manga thus far – at least the English version; I'm thinking the "500 years" Kagome comes up with in the anime must be either a mistake on the part of the translators for the anime, or an estimation.
I am hesitant to specify an exact year. Takahashi-dono apparently felt no need to do so, possibly due to a reluctance to deal with historical events at all. Aside from a bit part in Volume 3, Scroll 1 – and in episode 8 of the anime – in the form of clumsy samurai Amari Nobunaga, who takes insult when Kagome mistook him for Oda Nobunaga, who was apparently known at the time as a "supreme idiot", I have found no other references to actual historic places or events; and this one reference, a case of mistaken identity, was very early in the series. Some of you may be thinking of Akitoki Hojo (the Hojo clan was apparently one of the few to successfully resist domination by the Oda clan), but Akitoki is an anime- and movie-only character, not created by Takahashi-dono herself.
Anyhow, as best as I can figure out, Amari Nobunaga knows of Oda Nobunaga as a "supreme idiot". So, Oda Nobunaga is older than 13 (the traditional age for a samurai's manhood ceremony, when he receives his adult name) but younger than 19 (when he started to become a famous general). Since Nobunaga was born in 1534, the year Kagome traveled back to must be between 1547 and 1553; this averages out to 1550, and is only about 450 years into Kagome's past… nowhere near 500!
Kaede says in the first volume of the manga that it has been "over 50 years" since Kikyou died. Assuming that it is closer to 50 than 60 (or Kaede would have said "nearly 60 years"), it's safe to say that somewhere between 50 and 54 years have passed between Inuyasha's sealing and his subsequent release. This places the time frame for Inuyasha's sealing at between 1493 and 1503. We'll average this out to 1498 and use that as the critical year when everything began. Where that will lead me, only time will tell… pun definitely intended.
I'd like to try to make this story as realistic as possible; but does it lose something in the process? I'd love to hear from my readers about it… of course, I love to hear from my readers no matter what! So, again, please read and review!