Chapter Eleven

Mirror Image

It was about three hours before dawn when it happened.

Inuyasha had moved to sit right outside of the cave opening, and was watching the waves glitter in the starlight, trying to occupy his mind to stay awake.  His eyes closed for a moment, and he shook himself.  You can sleep later, stupid! He scolded himself, standing and stretching his arms.  Then, he froze in mid-stretch.

There was an unmistakable presence behind him, and it was extremely close to him.  How long it had been there, he had no idea, for without his youkai senses he was practically blind to his surroundings.

Knowing it would do him no good to just stand there and be afraid, he turned towards the presence, and immediately had to look up.  Kuso, he thought, cursing himself under his breath.  There was a monstrous youkai of an unidentifiable type standing directly behind him, glaring down at his pathetically weak human body with glowing red eyes.  It was low-life, but that didn't matter, because at that moment pretty much anything with any power could defeat the temporarily human Inuyasha.

Has it been in here the whole time? He thought, pulling Tetsusaiga from its scabbard.  The sword wouldn't transform, this he knew, but it was at least a weapon.  There's no way I can jump back to the mainland in this form.  I either have to fight it, or risk swimming back to shore.  In this choppy sea, that's not even an option.

"Brat," the creature bellowed.  "You dare trespass in my territory?"

"Heh, took you long enough to realize I was here!" Inuyasha yelled, sounding far more confident than he felt.

"You kid, you're just a human brat.  Prepare yourself for your doom!"

The creature lunged, and Inuyasha barely leapt to the side fast enough.  Crap! He cursed silently.  There's no way I'll…

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a giant clawed foot swiped at him, sending him flying into a cave wall.  He cried out when his back hit the stone, feeling far more pain than usual, and then crumpled to the ground.  Immediately, he pushed himself back to his feet, wincing at the pain in his spine.

"Human brat!" The youkai bellowed, bringing his mouth down on the currently human hanyou.  Inuyasha cried out again as he felt teeth dig into his body, and he was lifted off of the ground, his arms and head hanging from the creature's mouth.

Well, it worked with Sesshoumaru… he thought, before plunging the untransformed Tetsusaiga into the creature's closest eye.  The reaction was instantaneous.

The youkai bellowed, and then leapt from the cave out towards the ocean.  Inuyasha barely had time to take a breath before they plunged into the water, and immediately there was total darkness.

The hanyou turned human barely stopped himself from screaming as the salt water entered the wounds he had received from the creature's teeth, stinging like nothing he'd ever felt before.  A moment later he was suddenly out of the water, still being clutched in the youkai's mouth as it landed heavily on the mainland.  He yanked his sword from the creature's eye, but it still didn't let him go.

The youkai roared, and then leapt high in the air.  When it was above the trees, it suddenly swung its head and opened its mouth, sending Inuyasha flying.

"Crap!" he yelled, looking down to see nothing but trees beneath him.  I'm gonna die!  I'm gonna hit something and break every bone in this weak body!

A moment later Inuyasha returned to the earth, breaking several tree branches and landing hard on the ground.  He was unconscious before he could even feel the pain.

*          *          *

It was the tingling sensation of his youkai powers returning to him that finally roused Inuyasha back into consciousness.  He felt like he'd been broken in half; his returned power was quickly healing the gashes he'd received from the giant teeth, but there was something wrong with his back.  It tingled and almost itched, his youkai blood dulling the intense pain he would have felt had he still been in his human form.

"What the…" he muttered, opening his once again golden eyes and squinting in confusion.  He wasn't in the forest; rather, he was in a village hut, and was lying on a bed of straw.  His haori was off, and his off-white shirt was hanging around his waist, still tucked in.  There were wrappings around his waist and chest, covering wounds that were no longer there.  Someone had treated him.

"Where…where the heck am I?" he growled, mostly to himself.  This was definitely not where he'd landed after being thrown by that monster.  His returned senses immediately answered his question.  He was in a human village, not a large one, and nowhere near the ocean where he had been the night before.

Inuyasha attempted to sit up, but was rewarded with a sharp pain that started at his tailbone and went straight to his toes and fingers.  The fall had hurt him badly, though it wouldn't take but a day for his body to completely heal itself.

Cautiously, he propped himself up on his elbows and looked around.  Just as he did so, he heard a faint rustle at the doorway, and a sudden gasp.

"Youkai!" A female voice cried in surprise.  He turned towards the voice, and was suddenly struck with a major sense of déjà vu.  She is…Kagome?!

The young woman was the mirror image of his wife from fifty years ago.  She wore the garb of a miko, and her hair was tied back with a white ribbon.  She looked, to him, to be a perfect mixture of Kikyou and Kagome.  It was as if Kagome had dressed in miko clothes and grown her hair to hip length.

"K…Kagome…?" he whispered, his mind thrown in sudden turmoil.  Her smell is the same.  No, not exactly.  But very, very close.

The miko's eyes were wide from the sudden sight of him, but within moments she had figured it out.  "You must be hanyou," she said, though her look of surprise didn't fade.  "Last night when we found you, we thought you were just a human who had run into a youkai…"

"L…last night…" he repeated, barely registering what she was saying.  His mind was stuck on screaming, "It's Kagome!" and refused to let him think of anything else.  "You…found me?"

She nodded.  "We heard something crash through the forest, and we found you crumpled on the forest floor with broken tree branches all around you.  It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened.  Some of our men carried you back here, and I treated your wounds."

"Oh…"

Inuyasha struggled to come up with something intelligent to say, but his mind was stubbornly one-tracked.  The young miko hadn't moved from the door; and stood holding the curtain to the side looking somewhat cautiously down at him.

"Um…" he started.  What do I call her?!  He thought frantically.  I can't just call her "woman", Kagome always got mad at me when I called her that!  Fortunately, the years spent with his older brother had given him slightly better vocabulary, and he decided to try it out.

"Um…miko-sama," he finally said, figuring that was safest.  "What…what is your name?"

She finally let the curtain fall behind her, though she didn't walk any closer to him.

"I am Kimiko, the village miko as you guessed correctly," she responded.  "And you are a hanyou who turns human on the first night of the month."

Her words hit him hard, and he suddenly realized just what had happened.  "How many people saw me last night?!" he demanded.  "How many of your villagers know?!"

She smiled, a soft smile that would have made him melt had he not been so anxious to hear her answer.

"Only I and a few of the village men," she responded.  "After all, I needed them to carry you here.  No one has been in this room except me.  Don't worry, hanyou, your secret is still safe."

Again, Inuyasha tried to sit up, and winced as the pain in his back prevented him from doing so.  Propped up on one elbow, he gingerly rubbed his spine with his other hand.

"You are hurt badly, hanyou," Kimiko said.  "I am willing to help you, as long as you give me your word that you will not use your claws on me.  Be warned, I am a powerful miko, and I can subdue you very easily with force if I have to.  Now, will you let me treat you?"

Inuyasha looked into her eyes, the eyes that were unmistakably those of his late wife and of Kikyou before her, and immediately knew that he could never hurt her.  Not when she looked exactly like the two women he had loved.

"I won't hurt you, Kimiko," he said, looking away from her.  A moment later, he felt her touch his shoulders, and his body tingled from the touch.

"Lay back down, hanyou," she instructed.  "I will see to your bandages."

He obediently laid back.  "My name is Inuyasha.  I'd prefer you call me that instead of 'hanyou'."

"Very well, Inuyasha," Kimiko replied, and began working on his bandages.