Time Enough (Chapter 4)
by Iron Raven
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company aren't mine. They are the property of Rumiko Takahashi-sama. I've got no idea what Mama does, or did, nor what Kagome's Otou-san did. Or even if he is dead. Hopefully we find out some day.
---
Breathing easily, slowly, Kaede slumbered on. Kagome's blankets were pulled up under her chin, and the old woman looked at ease for the first time in several days. Beside the bed, two teens slumbered.
Having finally drifted off to sleep, Kagome leaned against Inuyasha, their long, dark hair mixing as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her dreams were tangled, involving the past. A happier, simpler time, before her father died, before beginning her quest. A happy, blissfully ignorant life, without demons and madmen, and where a jewel was just a piece of decoration.
The new moon had left Inuyasha' hair as dark as the moonless night sky. Within, he dreamed, after a fashion, but he was talking with other versions of himself in those dreams. Debating, arguing, about how he was remembered by the demons of Kagome's time. A legacy that he did not enjoy, and caused him to hug his blade closer to himself than normal. The dog of his youkai blood, the human of his mother's family, they shouted and screamed at each other, battering at the tender ears of his true self in his dream plane.
On the bed, Kaede's brow wrinkled slightly. I'm awake. Where am I? Listening to the bustle of traffic and suburban life, she could only identify a tiny number of the sounds that reached her ears.This is not my hut. This is not my village! Focusing on her breathing, forcing herself to remain calm, Kaede slowly took personal inventory.
Breathing a little rough, but I don't need to cough as bad. A hack of air escaped her lungs. I lied. A little dizzy, maybe feverish. I'm dressed. Covered by blankets, on something soft- some kind of bed? I'm not tied up. My arm is a little sore, and it feels like something is in it. In it! Hearing her pulse start to quicken, Kaede corrected herself. Control yourself. Yea are a miko, a shrine priestess, not some peasant girl who will loose her senses in the face of a simple demon. There are two others breathing here with me, sound like they are asleep.
Opening her eye, Kaede looked up at a ceiling of painted... something. Plaster? The walls were like it, and strange tapestries and painting hung on them. Turning her head, she could see a strange looking bag of the 'plastic' stuff that Kagome used, hanging from the bed's extended leg. A luxurious bed, of a noble, not a simple futon. As she slowly moved the sore arm, she saw that the clear tube from the bag ran under the covers, and along her arm. She could fell where it entered her arm, held in place by the 'tape' stuff that Kagome used. The realization that something was stuck in her arm filled her with fear, her heart starting to pound. That is not natural. What were they doing? Leave it in, yea foolish old woman, don't try to pull it out. Yea know not how it will bleed.
At the edge of the bed, two heads slumped together, black hair twisting and joining. That one. Using her elbow, she nudged the taller of the two heads, the one with a hint of a red collar around the neck. "Inuyasha?"
Jostled from his own fears, Inuyasha's head snapped up as he jumped. His sudden movement's woke Kagome, and they both turned at the same time. "Hey, old woman. You aren't dead."
Ignoring her companions failed attempt at compassion, Kagome smiled for the first time in half a day. "Kaede!"
"Nay, Inuyasha, yea shalt not be burying me quite yet. Am I in your time, Kagome?"
"Yes." Kagome tried not to flinch as she remembered one of the first rules of healing. Only with their permission. "I'm sorry, we should have asked, but you wouldn't wake up. It was all we could think of."
"It is alright, child, even if it does smell funny." Kaede closed her eye, leaning back into the pillow.
Leaning closer, Inuyasha smirked at Kagome as he whispered, "Told you it stank."
As Kaede slide her arm free, she reopened her eye. "Kagome, please tell me, what did yea put in my arm?"
"An IV. We needed to keep you hydrated."
"Eye-vee?"
Kagome tucked the old woman's arm back under the blankets as Inuyasha spoke. "Kagome explained it to me. She say's it's a hollow needle, like a mosquito's, but it's putting fluids back into you."
While fundamentally correct, the temporarily human's words were not reassuring. Keade's eye grew wide as she stared at her arm. "In. To my blood? Are yea sure it is safe?"
Resting one soothing hand on her mentor's arm, the other on her forehead, Kagome smiled reassuringly. "So long as it is done right, perfectly safe. My mother used to do these every day, before I was born, and the first was put in by the doctor who took care of me since I was born." I just wish I'd known he was demon before now.
"She is a healer?" Yawning, Kaede leaned back into the pillow. "I thought yea knew the some of the art already."
"Not for a long time, but my Outo was a healer until he died." Opening the window shade just a little, Kagome wanted to show Kaede see the Go-Shimboku still standing. When she turned around, the old healer had drifted back to sleep.
---
Kaede awoke, this time to the feel of a hand on her forehead, stroking a lock of hair that had escaped from the bun.
"Who? Who are yea?"
"Good morning, Kaede-sama, it is good to see that you are awake. I am Kagome's mother." The calming smile, the chin. They were the same. "Your IV is nearly empty, and I don't have another one, so I'll need to take out the needle."
Trying to remain calm, Kaede successfully kept the hint of fear out of her voice. "What does that involve?"
"Oh, not much. Just sliding it out, and pressing a bit of gauze there to stop the bleeding. It might sting a bit, but nothing too bad. And Kagome will be right up with breakfast."
"Where is Inuyasha?" Seeing the future in full light for the first time, Kaede was surprised at the size. There were large torches like the little one Kagome used, set into the ceiling, while many of Kagome's oddly designed folding scrolls sat on a large bench with many drawers on it. Amazing.
"He went back to your time, to tell everyone you were alright. He said something about 'one damn fox is enough'." Seeing the miko's bewildered expression, Higasuri-san smiled. "You'll see in a bit." Lifting Keade's arm, she studied the site of the puncture for a second. "Hold you arm steady, and take a deep breath. Let it out, slowly.... And there, it's out. Bend you arm and hold this, please."
Looking down, Kaede saw a tiny drop of blood seeping though a wad of the bandaging Kagome used, and a long, slender, metal spike. Pressing her fingers to the gauze, she stared at the metal stinger, her breath caught in her chest. Kaede felt a little queasy. That was... "...in me?"
"It's alright, it is a common thing to be scared of needles. So is Kagome, that's why I did this while she was out of the room." Placing a tiny cap of something on the end of the fiendish contraption, Kagome's mother wrapped the flexible tubing around the nearly empty bag, and put the bundle in a red box. "Want to see if you can get up?"
---
As she sat in Kagome's bed, Kaede marveled at what would become of her home. The self emptying chamber pot and piping in water from hot and cold springs were clear signs that the future was as advanced as Kagome had said. A single sleeping room for one person, it was nearly as large as her hut, and had more furniture. On a two story building. Kagome was of the nobility, no matter what was said; or maybe the guardians of a shrine were supported more. The tea was a little different than what she would have drank. Kagome said it was a blend with some from a place further west; in all honesty, Kaede didn't think it was as good. At least rice hasn't changed.
Moving so she could more clearly see it out the window at the bedside, she looked over the great tree. Even ye have changed. Taller, and ye were the tallest in my time.
A knock and a set of familiar sensations brought Kaede back to her future. "Kaede, Hoono-san is here. He is the healer who looked at you last night."
"Come in, Kagome." Turning, Keade's eye was met by those of a stranger. He feels like.... "Ye are..."
"Hello, Kaede-sama. I am Kitsumori Hoono, and I am a hanyou. Kagome told me you were a miko. I assure you, I spend more time with my human patients than my youkai ones." Pulling the chair over, he sat, assessing the patient with better than human eyes and nose. He could smell her doubt. "Inuyasha mentioned that you knew a kitsune when you were younger. That is why I may feel familiar."
He did? Thank you, Inuyasha. Kagome smiled warmly as she looked between the healers. "I told you, Hoono-san, no need for a hospital. She'll be fine right here."
"So you did, Kagome. How do you feel, Kaede-sama?"
"A little dizzy, but I've not eaten. Coughing isn't as bad as it was when this started, but Kagome gave me some kind of syrup for that." Nose wrinkling unconsciously at the memory of the vile stuff, she nervously ran a palm over the site of the puncture. "They tell me that what ye put in my arm is normal? What of demons and infection?"
"Kaede-sama, you are one of the most powerful miko left at this time- I know most of those here in Tokyo, and few come close to you. You could probably drop any of the demons in town as soon as you saw them, but we got rid of many of our criminals years ago. The purges did something good, anyway." Lowering his head momentarily, Hoono-san grimaced at painful memories. "As for infection, it was sterile when it went in you, and you are the only person it will every be used with. All sharps are incinerated. Anything else, before I examine you?"
Purges? They hunted youkai? Was it humans or youkai? And there are few miko left? What kind of time is this? Does the world go mad after I die? "Breathing is a little rough. And I seem short of breath."
"All normal. This might seem a little odd." The hanyou pulled a box with a point on it from his bag, and slid it into her ear. "These are a little more reliable than the old oral thermometers, and much faster." Looking at the device, he paused to wipe it with a dampened cloth from within his bag. "A little warm, but not too bad. Now, I want to listen to your breathing."
---
A strange man, such a strange man. He must Shippou's son or grandson. That is the only way their ki could feel that similar. "He was a friend of thy father's, ye said."
"Yes. My father was an EMT." Kagome paused for a moment, trying to think of how to describe the concept. "He was a healer who carried people to better trained healers, and took care of them until they could get there. Like how I do when someone gets hurt- I take care of them until we return to your hut. That way there, the doctors, healers like Hoono-san, can stay in one place so people who are really hurt can find them easily. It also lets them work together, and share their tools and supplies."
"All in one village?"
"Kaede, this is one of the villages around Tokyo. The Tokyo area has several million people in it, and reaches from here to the ocean."
"But that is two days walk from here, three if ye are burdened!"
"Yes, it is." Kagome blinked, not really realizing before now just how large Tokyo was. Of course, she knew, but she didn't really understand. Three days walk was from Keade's to Mushin's, or past Sango's village. There might have been a million people in all of old Japan. "It is big. Really big." And here I always considered it just a little part of the world. Or maybe the world has gotten smaller in five hundred years.
When she looked over, Kagome saw that her mentor had drifted back of to sleep. Smiling, she pulled the covers a little higher, and turned to her desk, to catch up on homework. About twenty pages of barely comprehensible math later, a familiar tap came at the window. Kagome opened the window, holding her finger to her lips.
"Feh, the runt's stink is still in my nose."
"What?"
"Even on this side of the well, everything smells like Shippou. He must be related to that Hoono guy." Then he would know. Shippou would know how Kagome died. Looking over at Kaede, Inuyasha's expression softened a bit. "She wake up again?"
"Aye, Inuyasha, I've been awake. And I've been trying to sleep." Not bothering to even open her eye, she turned her head away from the half demon.
"Sorry Kaede." Grabbing dog boy's haroi, Kagome pulled him out into the hall, closing the door behind them. "I thought you were going to be gone for the rest of the day."
"I was, but Kaede isn't the only sick one. Just the oldest. The woodcutter's daughter has the winter sickness."
"Oh no. I can't bring the entire village through, someone would notice. You have the medicines in my pack."
"Feh, of course. Miroku got them out last night. There are 25 hours in a day, right?" The directions had said every four to six hours. The monk and the huntress had figured a quarter of a day.
Kagome looked at him like he was an idiot for a moment, then remembered there was no clocks in the past other than her wrist watch. "24- close enough. Just her?"
"For now. People want to see Kaede, the village depends on her. If they can't have her, they know you are her student."
"But I can't leave Kaede." The village. They need their priestess. And if she can't go, they will still need someone. Sango is still too much of an outsider, and Miroku has angered every father and husband in the village at least once. And I know that they still tell their kids to behave, or they will be given to Inuyasha. Shoulders slumping, Kagome lowered her head, sighing deeply. "Let me talk to Kaede and Jii-chan. Mama is at work."
Slipping back into her room, Kagome shook Keade's shoulder gently. "Kaede? I have to go back to the village for a bit. Hotaku's daughter is sick. It looks like winter sickness. I'll need to show them that there is nothing really dangerous in my medicines, they are just different than your's. Will you be alright?"
"Of course, child. You will be their miko one day, it is good that they should hear these things from you now. I will be fine."
"OK. I'm going to tell Jii-chan. He's a little odd, but he's harmless. The worst that will happen is that he will try to stick an ofuda on the door." Smiling at the inside joke, Kagome went downstairs.
Crossing the living room, she gently wrapped on her grandfather's bedroom door. "Jii-chan? Are you in there?"
The door entered slowly, the old man sticking his face out. "Of course!" Seeing Kagome's face, and Inuyasha's restless pacing, he knew something was wrong. "What is it?"
"I need to go back to the Sengoku Jidai. The winter sickness has spread." Catching her words for a moment, Kagome ran back over them. "The flu, it is spreading. I need to go back to check on things, but I need you to look after Kaede. Please? Just check on her every so often until I get back?"
"Hai, I can do that." It is good to see you acting as a shrine maiden, Kagome.
"Thank you, Jii-chan. I'll be back as soon as I can."
---
Less than hour later, Jii-chan made his way upstairs. Pausing, he knocked on the door. "Kaede-sama?"
"Come in." The sight that greeted her was not quite the one she expected. Everyone she had met was tall, even Hoono who she felt was probably short for this time. But this man, he was her height. Old and rounded, he was her age, with a long beard the colour of a freshly tempered sword blade. "Hello, yea must Kagome's Jii-chan."
"Hai. Is there anything you need?"
"No." Coughing briefly, Kaede had to pause. "Kagome tells me that you watch after the shrine now. It looks different."
"It has changed over the years. There was a bad quake, about three hundred years ago, that damaged a number of the old shrine's structures. Then part of it burned in the war, about fifty years ago." Sitting on the chair at the bedside, Jii-chan leaned forward slightly. "Now, few people come."
Shrines are not used? Attacked in war? Oh, Kami, the world has gone mad.
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Author's notes:
I hate needles. One of my best friends is a phlebotomist (professional vampire), and she would have to pull a gun on me to get me to not whine with a needle in the room.
And yes, Kaede, the world does go mad after you died.