Like Father
Chapter Two:
Once and Again
So many different scents… it's overwhelming. What happened?
Slowly her eyes opened and were greeted by a strange sight. A boy stood over her, one with long white hair, large amber eyes, with doglike ears atop his head, and then wore a red fire-rat haori. He stood scowling down at her, but then his eyes slowly widened in surprise.
"Your eyes…" he breathed.
Her eyes moved to the sword at his belt and immediately she sat bolt upright, and was greeted by a wave of terrible pain, but she ignored it as she stumbled to her feet and pointed a clawed fingernail at the sword in its scabbard at the boy's belt.
"Thief," she breathed, struggling to stay on her feet despite the intense pain it caused. "What are you doing with my sword?"
"What? This is my sword. Yours in your hand." He growled, his hand clutching the hilt of the sword at his belt, as though readying to draw it. "None of us could pry it from your hand. You shouldn't go accusing people of being thieves when they're trying to help you."
Her eyes moved to her sword still in its scabbard, which indeed she did grasp the hilt of. A sigh of relief passed her lips and she collapsed back to the floor, but managed to stay in a sitting position with her back leaning against the wooden wall behind her. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing, which had become gruff with the strain of holding the dire pain at bay.
A clatter in front of her told her the mysterious boy was now seated where he had been standing previously. She opened a cautious eye to glimpse this, and then closed it once more unconcernedly.
"So who are you?" She didn't answer and this seemed to anger the boy. "Listen. We just rescued you! You can't just suddenly wake up, accuse me of being a thief, and then collapse and ignore me just like that. I want a name, dammit!"
"My name is Kiara," she breathed. "Now can you give me a second?"
Her well-trained pointed ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming closer, and again she opened a cautious eye, this time to watch as the flap over the door fluttered open and a human girl came in. Her eyes opened once more in great surprise, but she bit back the word pressing her lips, and quickly closed her eyes and pointed her head at the ground.
What's she doing here? She should be dead… I saw her die.
"Oh good, you're awake. You had us worried there for a while. Those injuries looked pretty bad, and I'm pretty sure most of them were infected. I think that medicine I made actually did the trick, though. How are you feeling?" A hand gingerly touched her forehead but she flinched and leaned back out of the range of contact. "Well, you still have a fever, but I think it's gone down a bit."
"Where am I?"
"Er… Well, it's sort of hard to explain. You see; I found you at the bottom of the well back at my family's shrine. I'm not really sure where you came from, but now we're five hundred years back in the feudal era of Japan. You collapsed back at the well, so I had Inuyasha bring you here. This is Kaede's hut, she's the village priestess here, a good friend of my and Inuyasha's." When she didn't make an effort to answer, the voice of the human girl went on. "What's your name? And if you don't mind my asking, how did you get in the bottom of the well back at my family's shrine, anyway?"
"Yeah, and when you're done explaining that, why don't you explain how you got into such bad shape? You owe us that much after saving your life."
She opened her eyes enough to send the boy an annoyed glare, but then sighed out dejectedly and closed her eyes once more. "My name is Kiara. I fell down the well on accident, I was running from… from something evil."
"How do you miss something like a well? Especially one with a shrine built around it?"
She sent the boy another irritated glare but continued with her story. "It wasn't exactly a well… it was just a hole in the ground, and there wasn't a shrine built around it, just some rubble. And like I said, I was running, so I was distracted."
"You said you were running from something evil. What was that? I didn't sense anything evil from my time." Jumped in the human girl at the dangerous tone of Kiara's voice.
Her eyes closed dispassionately yet again. "It's hard to explain… I don't think I'm from your time. If we were really able to travel five hundred years in the past from then, I must have traveled to your time from what would be your future and my present. That something evil I mentioned… I don't actually know what to call it. It doesn't have a gender, it's just a cloud of poison with a mind of its own that likes following me around and killing anyone I get close to." She explained slowly and sadly as she considered her words.
"Well, that would explain the weird clothes…" Came the murmur of the human girl.
"A cloud of poison? Like miasma?"
"I guess you could call it that. But it can possess people… demons and humans alike. It possessed my uncle; a full-bred demon that raised me after the darkness cloud killed my mother. I barely escaped when he attacked me… I've got to go back and save him, or at least try. He's all I've got left, and if I fail, at least I'll have tried."
"Your uncle is a demon? But you smell almost full-human."
She sends yet another aggravated glare at the boy. "I'm a quarter-breed demon. My father was a half-breed; half human, half dog demon. My mother was fully human. Got a problem with it?" She growls at him.
His expression changes to one of surprise, and then suspicion. "What were their names?"
"Why's it matter to you?" She shoots back, the suspicion in her voice matching his.
His amber eyes wander over her short hair that's cut only just past her pointed ears in a jagged style; her hair is mostly black, but has white streaks running randomly through it. Her bangs hang in her large amber eyes.
"Fine, then what's your uncle's name? If he really is a full demon, he should exist in this time. Maybe he can tell us if you're telling the truth or not."
"Don't be stupid, I'm not that old. I wouldn't have been born in the feudal era. Sure he exists, but he won't know me."
"Feh."
"She's right, Inuyasha." Kiara's gaze shifts to the human girl and slowly her eyes widen in surprise once more. "She doesn't look any older than me, and besides, she's still injured badly. Whether she's lying or not, her story fits how and where we found her."
"Then where'd she get that sword? It's almost identical to Tetsusaiga, except it's more powerful; I can sense as much."
Her gaze shifts back to the boy and she squints in accusation at him. "My uncle gave it to me, he said my father gave it to him to protect my mother and myself with. But then the darkness cloud came back and killed my mother and injured my uncle and broke the blade. He gave it to me so I could go and get it fixed. When I came back, he had been possessed, and I was forced to flee with the sword."
"What happened to your father?"
"He was fatally injured in battle, and died before I was born. And what do you mean 'almost identical to Tetsusaiga'? This is Tetsusaiga… it's just been remade with one of my fangs."