Toyohisa moved, trusting in Kagome's instruction even though his foe was invisible, and swung his blade over the mouth of the well. There was a very soft, nearly silent noise as something hit the ground at his feet and he squinted down at it. He was just barely able to make out the shape of it, though it was as if he were looking at it through an incredibly hazy piece of glass. "What is that?"

Kagome came up by his side and crouched down to observe the thing, her face scrunching up with confusion. "Hair?"

"So Kaede-baa-baa was right, you can see it," InuYasha exclaimed from behind them. The Hanyou thankfully hung back, a check from his peripheral revealing that InuYasha was eying him warily. "That stuff can slice through humans easily," he warned.

Toyohisa prodded at the hazy mass with his nodachi and scowled. "Do you see anymore of it, Kagome-san?" He asked with a sideward glance at the Miko. She was looking right at him with a thoughtful frown.

"You can see it too?" There was a faint uncertainty in her voice, and surprise.

"Just barely," Toyohisa half-muttered and sheathed his blade. He offered his hand to help Kagome up, which she took with a grateful smile.

"Well, I don't see anymore, and it seemed to be coming from inside the well." She stepped closer to the well and he followed beside her, apprehensive of her getting caught in an attack. She thankfully exercised caution as she peered down into the well, mouth drawn into a frown. "It's empty, but there could be more on the other side."

"Then I should go through first and-what are you doing?" Toyohisa watched with incredulity as Kagome threw a leg over the lip of the well then grabbed her around the waist to prevent her from continuing with her obvious attempt to jump down into the well.

Instead of fighting him, Kagome leaned her head back, so that it touched against his karuta sashinuki style kote and looked up at him from that awkward angle. "Going through the well." She gave a languid blink of her eyes then tilted her head just slightly, a brow arching. "With you?"

From behind him InuYasha snickered his amusement while Toyohisa could only sigh. Now wasn't the time to start an argument, so he picked Kagome up and shifted her so that he held her with one arm hooked under her legs and the other supporting her back. "Wait a few minutes and then follow," he called back to the Inu Hanyou then leapt into the well.

The familiar soft glow greeted them, and this time it seemed like it went by quicker. He looked up as his feet touched the ground and a darkening sky was above them. He frowned and searched for any sign of the hair, but saw nothing to indicate its presence.

"It's clear," Kagome confirmed for him and shifted slightly in his grasp to put an arm around his neck.

"We should get moving then." Toyohisa propelled them out of the well and landed just outside of it, pausing as something prickled at his senses.

"There's hair everywhere," Kagome gasped out as she got a good look at the area surrounding the well.

"It makes no difference if you can see it or not," came a voice from the direction of the forest. Perfectly balanced on a razor thin strand of hair was what looked like a human girl. She wore a traditional kunoichi's tunic without the back and sleeves, and it stopped at her mid thigh. Tied around her waist was a bright yellow sash and tucked into it was a wakizashi. "Now give me the Shikon no Tama!"

"Hold on tight, Kagome," Toyohisa whispered and turned to push off without any further warning, having to rely on his sixth sense to avoid the strands of hair. While he still couldn't see them, they disrupted the flow of the air just slightly enough that he could tell when they were in the way, and where they were located.

"Aren't we going to fight her?" There was a moderate amount of confusion in Kagome's voice and he could feel the slight shift she made to look up at him.

"It goes against my code to fight a woman, even if they happen to be a youkai, and you do not belong on the battlefield." He could tell by the way that she tensed up that she was displeased with his opinion, and displeased she would have to be. He would do his damnedest to make sure she did not have to set foot onto a battlefield.

"I can live with your code, Toyohisa, but you will not stop me from fighting! Especially when our opponent is a woman like me! She will not stop coming after us until she gets what she wants, and I cannot let her get her hands on the jewel shard!" Kagome used her arm around his neck as leverage to pull herself up in his grasp and looked over his shoulder. "She's not chasing after us?" The Miko settled back into his arms and looked ahead of them with a frown. Her expression quickly twisted into one of far when she saw what was ahead of them where the field met the forest. "Stop! There's too many of them!"

Hundreds of hairs criss-crossed to form a net that would cut them into tiny pieces was suspended above the ground, blocking their way into the forest. He stopped just a few feet short of the net and frowned as he scrutinized the area. The strands were much harder to make out, but he could see where they were by finding the slight distortions they appeared as to him. From what he could tell, the net continued on both ways.

"The hell are you two doing all the way over there?"

Toyohisa twisted around to see InuYasha jump clear of the well, and that the youkai girl was nowhere to be seen. For good reason too. The wire-like razor sharp hairs encircled InuYasha's limbs and dragged him in the direction the youkai girl had been.

"Gah! Fuckin' hell, not again!" The Inu Hanyou tried to tear at the hairs only for more to bind up his hands.

As much as he hated InuYasha, Toyohisa couldn't bear to see him meet his end like this. "Wait here," he gently instructed Kagome as he set her down.

Displaced in Time

Now that he didn't have her weight slowing him down, Kagome watched in near disbelief as Toyohisa dashed across the field and reached InuYasha in a matter of seconds with his nodachi drawn. He cut through the hairs keeping the Inu Hanyou captive with a precision and speed that she could barely keep track of. With her attention diverted, she failed to notice the presence of the youkai girl appear behind her.

"What lovely hair you have, though it isn't as pretty as that Hanyou's over there," the youkai girl exclaimed as she grabbed Kagome by her hair, her fingers twisting through it. "Scream if you like, girl. You'll be dead before they can get to you!"

Kagome bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out as the youkai pulled on her hair, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes from the pain. Instead of reacting how the youkai wanted her to, she shot the creature a venomous glare. "If it's the jewel you're after, you won't find it on me," she hissed out as the youkai patted her down for the pouch that held the shard. Well, she wouldn't find it on Kagome. Not anymore.

"What did you do with it?!" The grasp on her hair tightened even more, and her vision blurred, but she could still make out Toyohisa as he turned around to check on her.

The look of shock and terror on his face was heartbreaking, yet Kagome had no intention of dying today. Instead, she smiled and turned, grabbing onto the youkai girl to force her reiki into her. Only this time it was being used with the intent to purify instead of healing. "You know I'm a Miko, right?"

The youkai girl was engulfed by a lilac hued light, but not only that, the purifying reiki travelled along a few particular strands of the creature's hair all the way back to its source. Back at the youkai's nest, which would eventually dissolve and remain undiscovered, a red comb hidden inside of a skull disintegrated, and with it so too did the youkai's body.

"Kagome!" She turned to find Toyohisa racing up to her, his sword abandoned over by InuYasha in his haste to reach her as quickly as possible. In the blink of an eye he swept her up into his arms before he even managed to stop his mad dash, and nearly crushed her to his chest.

"Gah! I'm fine, Toyohisa!" She tried to push away from him, but it was to no avail, his grip like a vice.

"I failed to protect you and it nearly cost you your life," he gritted out and burrowed his face into the crook of her neck.

"Toyohisa…" She spoke his name barely above that of a whisper and let her hands rest flat against his chest. After a moment she slid them up, prying his face away from her neck, and cupped it with a gentle touch. "I'm okay, see?"

"But it's not okay. You shouldn't have-" He was silenced by the delicate press of her thumb against his lips, but his frustration was clear in his eyes.

"I am the only person that can locate and purify the Shikon no Kakera, Toyohisa, so there is no way for me to avoid the danger involved in searching for them. I don't like it, but I also can't sit back and watch everyone else get hurt when it's my fault the Shikon no Tama was shattered." Kagome gave a bitter smile and pulled her thumb away from Toyohisa's lips. "It certainly wouldn't hurt if I had a bow and some arrows."

"Lot of good that'd do you when you can't even hit anything!" InuYasha called out from where he stood watching them, arms folded over his chest and his ears twitching with his irritation. "If you two are done having your moment, we need to go back to the village."

"Tch, damn dog," Toyohisa growled out and pulled his face out of Kagome's hands to glare at the Hanyou over his shoulder. "You should be fine to go on ahead of us."

"Yeah, whatever. Don't take too long," InuYasha retorted with a touch of sarcasm then turned and headed for the edge of the forest on the opposite side of the field.

"Even though he's beyond rude and an overbearing jerk he is right, I can't hit anything yet," Kagome admitted with a faint blush and brought her hands down to rest against his chest once more. "But it should keep me out of immediate danger, and more importantly not in the middle of the fight. Unless we're attacked by women."

Toyohisa sighed as he returned his gaze to hers, his frustration still very clear in it, but there was also reluctance. "I can see that it is useless to argue the matter further. Just promise me that if a fight becomes too dangerous then you'll run."

Kagome gave a small shake of her head and frowned. "I can't make a promise like that, Toyohisa, not if it means that you would get hurt or killed." Her fingers curled against the supple leather of his armor, palms resting just over the crests stitched into it, and she looked away from him. "I…"

"I understand. I don't like it at all, but I understand where you're coming from." Toyohisa loosened his grasp on her and brought a hand up to turn her face back towards his. He kept his fingers loosely curled under her chin and his thumb traced over her lips delicately before coming to rest against her jaw. With barely any pressure at all he tilted her head up and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. It lasted for the span of a couple heartbeats, and then he pulled back just enough so that their face were only a few inches apart. "We should head to the village now."

Kagome felt her cheeks heat up with a blush and she could only nod since it seemed she had forgotten how to speak. She took a step back as soon as Toyohisa let go of her and pressed a hand to her mouth while the warmth of her blush took over her entire face.

"Oh, and this goes back to you, right?" Toyohisa asked, seemingly oblivious to her state, as he pulled the pouch containing the jewel shard from where she had tucked it under his shitagi. He held it out to her with a smile.

Displaced in Time

"I can't believe you buried Kaede-san, InuYasha!" The petite Miko shouted at an unaffected InuYasha while he watched on with the elderly Miko at his side.

"So who might you be, young man?" Kaede asked without taking her gaze away from the unfolding drama. "And who are you to Kagome?"

"Shimazu Toyohisa, and I am to be her husband." Toyohisa watched Kaede from his periphery and took note that the old Miko seemed surprised at this news.

"Really now? You are aware of her circumstances, I hope?" Kaede turned to look at him and she frowned as she took in his appearance. "You have the look of a samurai, but I've not seen armor like that before."

"My circumstances are more like hers, Kaede-sama, in that I am not from this time. I am from one hundred and three years ahead of this time, which is why you do not recognize my armor." He grinned as Kagome forced InuYasha to face plant then turned to properly address Kaede.

"One hundred and three years? That is a considerable amount of time, and your accent…. You must be quite far from what would be your home." Kaede's frown deepened and she looked in the direction he knew the well to be in. "Did you come through the well?"

"I've been through it, but it only connects to her time. The way I got here…" Seemed like it had been the product of a nightmare. "I don't think it's something that could happen again. Anyways, I am indeed very far from what I used to call home. I'm from Satsuma, and as much as I'll miss it I couldn't go there now."

"Even if there is a jewel shard in Satsuma, Toyohisa-san?" Kagome asked as she finally came over to them. Her cheeks went a bright pink as she met his gaze and she immediately looked away from him. She'd been doing that since they had left the field where the well was.

"That's different, Kagome-san. Of course I'd go to Satsuma if we needed to, but as it stands I have no reason to go. My place is with you." He blinked as Kagome's face went from pink to red at his words then tilted his head slightly. "You're awfully red, Kagome-san, are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine! Everything is fine!" She looked anywhere else but at him, her voice oddly sharp and higher than before.

"That's funny, because you smell awfully embarrassed," InuYasha taunted from where Kagome had left him on the ground. He had propped himself up and was looking at her, a shit-eating grin on his face. "It also smells like you-"

"Osuwari!" Kagome whirled on the Hanyou as his face was slammed into the ground with the subjugation command, her hands balled at her sides. "I am fine! There is nothing wrong with how I smell!"

"Hey now," Toyohisa crooned out as he came up behind Kagome and slid his arms around her waist. She went rigid immediately, and he had no doubt her face was still quite red. "Are you sure that you're okay? You seem quite flustered."

"Come along, InuYasha. We should go see to the village," Kaede instructed as she shuffled past them.

"I don't see what the fuss is all about," the Hanyou grumbled as he got up from the ground and brushed himself off. "All I was going to say was… Oh." InuYasha looked their way with a knowing smirk, amber eyes glittering with amusement. "Have fun you two," he remarked salaciously.

Toyohisa shot the Hanyou's retreating back an icy glare for possibly making the matter worse. He waited for InuYasha and Kaede to leave, mindful of the young Miko stock still in his arms the entire time, then dipped his head down and pressed his cheek against her hair once they were alone. "Tell me what's wrong, Kagome."

"It'll sound ridiculous," she finally responded after a long moment, and at the same time all of the tension seemed to leave her body. Her shoulders sagged almost unnoticeably and she twisted around in his arms. Her face was still a dark red and the color wasn't fading any as she looked up at him.

"Just tell me anyways," he insisted with a gentle smile. Surely it wasn't anything bad.

Kagome's expression froze over for an instant and then she forced herself to smile. "I-it's nothing, really, but I just remembered that I forgot my history book! So I should head back and grab it!" Her voice pitched upwards just slightly as she spoke and she managed to slip out from his grasp, all while waving her arms in front of herself. "I'll be right back!" And then she was gone.

Toyohisa blinked at the weirdness of Kagome's response and the sudden change in her demeanor, then frowned as he followed after her at a jog. By the time he reached the clearing he could see the light of the well's telltale glow fading, signifying that she had already gone through and meaning that she had run the entire way. While he could wait on this side of the well he wasn't comfortable with Kagome being out of his sight. If youkai were around now, who was to say that they weren't around in the future.

His impatience made it feel like the trip to Kagome's time took even longer than usual, and he had to look up to make sure there wasn't a star strewn sky above him. The relief he felt at the sight of the wooden beams making up the well-house's roof was incomparable to any other feeling at that moment, and it was very quickly ruined as he found himself getting dragged out of the well.

"Man, you are fucking obtuse…and I can't let that stand since it's an insult to myself."