This is Ranma/Inuyaha/Highlander crossover, well hell there is a lot of
different things in here but mainly Inuyasha with some of the powers of the
other shows.
I don't own any of the characters that you recognize nor the ones that you don't. I don't get money for this, I do it for stress relief and for expansion of the "what if" principle. If you like my ideas let me know, if you don't like them let me know. If you have a suggestion let me know. I don't get many reviews so I read and work with the ones I get.
"" speech ~~ thoughts
Hidden Secret
Chapter 1: Training Guinea Pigs and the Other Side
Kagome Higurashi, the first student of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling that her step-uncle, Genma Saotome, favors and test subject extraordinaire for the perfection of the style. Genma couldn't train his heir in an imperfect style, the soon to be Mrs. Saotome would kill him. From the age of three, Kagome left her mother's care for eight out of twelve months to travel and train with her uncle, as he refined his school. It was her father's dieing wish that she be able to take care of herself and this was the best way that her mother could think to comply with her husband's request. The training would certainly make her a formidable miko for the temple. She spent many years learning and mastering different forms of martial arts, no matter how harsh the training. Her uncle despised weapons, however, and she never learned to wield them.
During the summers, her mother home schooled her cramming as much into her over the summer as she could. When Kagome would leave again she was always required to send back assignments and reports to her mother. Kagome turned out to be a quick study in both school and the arts.
During her fourteenth and fifteenth year, the uncle and mother switched and Kagome spent summers on training journeys with her uncle and Fall/ Winter training as a miko in Juban at the Cherry Tree Temple. During the mornings she would spar with her uncle and then roof hop from Nerima to Juban as further training. She would spend the day learning about being a miko from an old priest that insisted on being called Grampa. He had a cute little granddaughter named Rei that liked to hang on her black pants. In the evenings she would do homework for her mother to continue her home schooling. After one more sparring session, she would turn in for the night.
Kagome also had a little half-brother named Sota. He was about seven years younger than her. He was an imp and her everything. When he was born during one of the summers that she was home, she was entranced and vowed that he was hers to protect. It was one of the reasons that she worked so hard at the art and her miko studies, to protect her brother.
Through her insane training regime with Genma, Kagome developed several serious fears; to thunder, Genma told her mediating on top of a tall metal pole during harsh storms was the ideal way to build resistance to the raging elements, claustrophobia, being bound, hung and enclosed in dark recesses for escaping training, and ailurophobia after the Neko-ken training.
She is more agile, faster with greater flexibility then men who seem to rely more on strength and stability. Therefore many of her more powerful attacks are specials that depend on the momentum of her opponent or the momentum that she, herself, has built up. During her 15th summer, Kagome was dragged to the Black Forest. Genma thought that it was an ideal place to dump her for survival training without her pack and only the cloths on her back and the shoes on her feet. While she was there she met up with a ten year old named Goku and an old man named Gohan. She spent a great deal of time sparing with the old man and his grandson. Ki manipulation from a teenager named Goku. The old man would let her peruse his scroll collections during their down time and at night after she returned to her cave, she would make her readings a reality.
The summer of her 16th year, Genma hauled Kagome off to the Jsuenkyo training ground. Once they had arrived at the training ground, Genma immediately bounced to the top of one of the bamboo poles while Kagome gracefully flipped onto another. "Now girl, first to hit water or ground loses." "You know it old man."
They fought and Kagome succeeding in axe kicking Genma into the dirt.
"What the..." she mumbled as she watched a squirrel fall out of a tree and into one of the springs only to emerge as some sort of bird.
Quietly Genma shot up crescent swept the unaware Kagome and hammered her into one of the pools. "Hey you jerk, you cheated!" Kagome gasped as she sputtered at the edge of a very small pool. Hoisting herself out of it, she gave herself a one over to make sure that everything was still attached. The guide came rushing out of his house and smiled. "You girl before yes?" Kagome nodded. The guide smiled. "Is good then you only fall in puddle." ~I don't know about that~ she thought as a tingle ran over her skin.
(Note) Pool of Drowned Immortal .: An immortal drowned in the pool for its first death. Of course it later got back out, but it had stayed long enough for its specie's subtype to be instilled in the pool.
The Guide then directed them to an Amazon village that was near by. "They have interesting techniques" was all Genma said regarding the new training destination. When the training journey finally finished, Kagome was pissed at Genma. It was only pure luck that she had made it out of the village alive. After eight months of hard work with the tribe, Uncle to ruined everything by stealing the elder's forbidden training manuals. After beating him into a lumpy pulp, relieving him of the manuals, and returning them to the Elder Cologne after using a technique to secretly speed copy them, (some of Genma has rubbed off on her,) she took hasty leave of the tribe with her uncle.
With the completion of the training trip to China, Genma announced that since she was not the heir of HIS school that she would not get or be taught the sealed techniques. His new son of four, Ranma, was his heir and those techniques would be his as Genma's heir. Genma had also told her that their training together was complete, that his duty to his deceased brother in law was complete besides he had to take Ranma on his training journey. He couldn't be a man among men if he brought a girl along. Kagome was a little pissed off, beat up her uncle and left his form with his honourable but somewhat morally fixated wife, Nodoka and returned to her family temple for good to mediate
Summer was over and Kagome's mom was happy to have her daughter back for good. ~Now she can finish her last two years at high school like a normal little girl.~ Kagome's mother thought wistfully. Sota enjoyed having his sister back full time. He was now ten and wanted to learn martial arts just like his big sister. She began to give him basics in temple courtyard and front grounds.
A month into school, Sota's fat tabby cat, Buyo, decided to venture into the well house. Kagome didn't believe all the weird stories that her slightly senile grampa loves to tell but Sota did and was too scared to go into the well house after his cat. With the meditations she had done for Gohan's scrolls and Cologne's manual she succeeded in reigning in some of her paranoia. As long as she doesn't touch it or have it scratch her, she could handle the fear for Sota.
Breathing heavily, she picks up the broom from outside the door and is planning on using it to sweep Buyo up to Sota, so she won't have to touch it. Or get to close to it. Sota giggled as she chased the cat around the covered well several times. "You do know the only reason that I'm down here is because you love the fur ball and I happen to love you, right Brat. I hate CCCcc..cccaa....fur balls!" Finally she stood in a victory pose with the broom settled heroically on her shoulder in front of the well, the tabby secure in Sota's arms.
Kagome was about to start up the rickety steps when a small thumping was heard from the well. She wandered back over to it as Sota was staring worriedly at her. All of Grampa's stories were coming back to him and he shuddered at the door of the well house. His sister poked around the well cover, wondering what the rattling had been. She looked over the wards that were placed on the well; they were really old and prevented anything from entering the well. Not seeing a problem with them, she turned her back on the well and the wards to be on her way to school. "Sota, we're going to be late. Let's go."
He put down Buyo and took his sister's extended hand as she started up the steps again. Suddenly a brilliant light shot up out of the well. Kagome spun to face it and Sota grasped the back of her uniform like a lifeline. A deformed person surged out of the well, grabbed Kagome, and pulled her and by extension, her brother into the well.
"AHHH, I feel my power returning to me, my body is whole again. Shikon no Tama... Give me the Tama.... You have it.... I want it!.... GIVE IT TO ME!" The strange woman extends her tongue licking Kagome's Face
~What the hell!?~ "I don't have a tama."
"You have it.... I wants it! MINE Mine ...... It's mine!!" The creature reached out and grabbed her throat and face with her our arms and started to kiss her. The demon woman's tongue trying to enter Kagome's stubbornly closed mouth. "That's disgusting! Get away from me!" She cried out. Kagome felt oddly drained in the strange blue vortex, like she was swimming to China through a sea of oatmeal, slow and sluggish.
~Sota is clinging to my skirt. I feel so drained it is embarrassing and this thing chocking me is not helping.~ Desperate to get the creature's dangerously large canines (As in teeth) and tongue away from her face, she swung her one free arm for a palm strike to it's face. A pink ball of energy burst from her palm. ~Oro?~ The thing shrieked, let go of her, and disappeared. The blue vortex stopped and Kagome fell face first into the dirt. Another solid weight landed on her back.
"UH! Sota, you have a bony butt! Get off me." Sota slowly moved himself off his prone sister who then sat up. "Are you okay Sota?"
"I'm okay. What happened? What was that thing? Did it do anything to you?"
"I don't know but I don't think we're in the well house anymore and it kissed me. Euhh."
"What?"
"There's no roof." Standing up gingerly, regained her balance finding that she was feeling a lot better than she had a couple of minutes ago, though not top form from the strange pink blast. She planned to bring it up with Grampa and Rei's Grampa after she figured out which well they were in. She rummaged through her squished book bag and found once of her many juice boxes. Sipping from one she swished it around her mouth and spat it back out.
"What are you doing?" Sota asked curiously as Kagome was furiously brushing her teeth with more toothpaste than she needed.
"I just had some devil woman kiss me with tongue and I am trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. That was my first kiss. Dammit." She raged.
"Don't worry, it was a girl so it didn't count, besides she was ugly." He said with a smirk.
"Thanks Sota, you always brighten the day when I rage and mope." Indicating that she was ready, Sota hopped onto her back and she jumped out of the well. "How long before I can do that and go roof hopping with you?" He asked as Kagome was taking in her surroundings. At the rate you are at, three years, less if you double your training time." She extended her senses and her ki to try and get a better feel for their situation. She didn't recognize were they were. The well looked like the well from their family shrine but there was no shrine. Sighing, she moved down a path that led from the clearing, Sota following behind her.
They came upon another clearing shortly, with a giant tree as it's main feature. It was the God Tree from her shrine, but ... younger? She extended her Ki to the tree and nodded to herself.
"Sota, this is going to sound strange but that is the God Tree. It just feels younger."
"Huh?"
"I'm not sure what is going on but I think that we should be careful."
"Kagome, there is a boy attached to our tree." She focused on the base of the tree and there against the tree was guy about her age in a tradition red haori. Roots, or something like them, seemed to have ground around him. Sota had jumped the four feet to the top of the roots to get a better look at the teen.
"Hey Kagome, check this out, he has ears."
"What!" she hopped onto the roots and approached the boy. There was an arrow protruding from his chest. She felt for a pulse there was one, very very faint. It looked like he was sleeping. Her eyes traveled to his ears. They weren't human ears by any stretch of the imagination. And they were so cute! Tentively she reached forward and started to rub the sleeping boys ears. Sota slapped his forehead. ~What a dork. It never fails, she sees something cute and cuddly and bam... good bye Martial Arts Master, hello cuddle girl.~
Just then Kagome's arm shot out and pulled Sota behind her. Eight Arrows quivered in the tree outlining the sleeping boy's and Kagome's form. "Eh?"
"Sota," She whispered, "pretend that you are weaker than you are. Let them catch us."
"What? Why?"
"We don't know were we are, have them underestimate us to be safe. Look at them, how they dress, I have a bad feeling about this."
Thirty minutes later***
Kagome was grumbling under her breath as Sota was giggling at her.
"Shut up."
"It was your idea sis." Sota reminded her. He had been allowed to walk, his hands tied behind his back and his legs hobbled while Kagome was bound hands and feet and lumped across one of the younger farmer men's shoulders.
The village people now surrounded them as they sat on a reed mat. Kagome listened to the gossip that abounded and took in the people and the settings, trying to figure out where they were. The men had their hair in topknots and their mode of dress, archaic. Someone named Kaede was announced to approach, and the crowd parted. An aged woman appeared. She was bent with years, in a traditional miko garb, white top, red hakema, shock white hair and an eye patch over her left eye. She handed to bow off to one of the men and proceeded to through dirt at Sota, then at her. She coughed a bit.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
"What? You were both found in Inuyasha's Forest and we thought you were angry spirits or demons."
The man holding the bow spoke up. "Maybe their Spies, Kaede-sama."
She snorted at the thought. "We aren't important enough to merit a spy. We just get buy and aren't really worth the notice. And why would they send a boy and a lady?" She then got a funny look on her face and came right into Kagome's space. The old lady grasped her face and started to rotate it around.
"Let me get a good look at your face dearie, hey try to look more serious."
~What! Really... Geeze!~
Sota was trying to chock back his laughs at his poor sister's expressions. ~Yup there you have it, my big time martial artist sister being cheek pinched by an grandma. What a dork~
"It's remarkable, absolutely remarkable, you look just like my older sister Kikyo did." With that said the old woman ordered their bonds cut and bade them follow her to her house. As the old woman prepared them food, Kagome was giving Sota a once over to make sure everything was all right. After she served the stew in wooden bowls and they had said grace, she spoke, "Sorry about that by the way, we just had to make sure that you weren't a danger to the village. There are so many wars going on, we just have to be careful, especially because our village is so small and vulnerable.
"This isn't Tokyo is it, Kaede-sama?"
"Tokyo? Is that were you hail from."
"We just wanted to know if you had heard of it?"
"No can't say that I have."
~ How am I going to get us back home then?~ sigh
"My name is Kagome Higurashi and this is my brother Sota Higurashi." He nodded his head to her.
"My name is Kaede and I am the village miko."
~It's been 50 years since Kikyo's death and this girl looks just like her. I sense miko power from her, just barely. Actually she's quite weak. Sister Kikyo had a great deal more power than her reincarnation. ~
"A miko is a shrine maiden right?"
"Well actually, Sota, a shrine maiden is a female that maintains the shrines and sees that it runs smoothly, miko has some sort of spiritual power base that she uses to take care of the spiritual side of a temple with rai ki.(spirit power)" Sota glances covertly at his sister and she slightly shifts her head to indicate no, and so he holds his peace.
Suddenly, suddenly chaos and screams are heard outside the house and the occupants exit the building. The demon woman is back. Kagome frowns as the demon, wrecks havoc on the town screaming for the Shikon no Tama. Their small group is dive-bombed several times and Kagome keeps purposefully tripping Sota and herself out of the way. ~The perverted demon it looking for a piece of me, well I'll give it to her as soon as I get out of the village.~
"We have to get it to the dry well." The old woman gasped out as she caught her breath. Her old bones weren't meant to be tossed about at her advanced age.
"Where is that?" "Inuyasha's forest." "Is that were the lights are coming from?" ~She can see the hidden paths and parts of the forest? ~ "Yes," "All right, Sota stay with Kaede. I'm going to get ride of this perverted, energy-sucking demon." "Be careful." "Always." Kagome sprinted at a normal pace out into the rice paddies. "Hey Pervert!, You want me? Come get me!" She waited until she had her undivided attention and dashed off towards the forest. She didn't do too fast, she didn't want to loss it. Looking around she realized that she had no idea were this well was, she assumed that it was the well that she and Sota emerged from because, well, it was dry. But she had been lumped around upside down and she had been more concerned with keeping her skirt from flipping up than were they were going. ~ Uh oh, Damn ~ "I need help!" she wailed to herself as she checked over her shoulder for the demon woman.
A pulse reached the dormant prisoner of a dead miko's arrow. 50 years he had hung there, a testament of the love, betrayal and power of a woman that was once the protector of the Shikon no Tama. Slowly, his laxed hand twitched, his drooped ears perked and his molten gold eyes open. He slowly reached to the arrow lodged in his shoulder and shied back as it flared with discoloured pink energy. Taking the first deep breath in a long while, he smirked in a cracked voice "I smell her, the bitch that killed me. She's coming closer..."
The warriors of the Village brought forth the horses that they had rounded up to Lady Kaede. Sota was pulled up be hind one of the men on his insistence that he had to get to his sister. The small band headed into the woods as the rest of the villagers concentrated on containing the fires
She dodged and rolled from the speeding bullet that was the centipede woman and upped her pace to wards the woods. Extending her ki, she located the ever familiar and comforting God Tree and sped towards it. ~ A hill, always a hill.~ she grumbled then jumped. The demon caused explosion propelled her haphazardly through the air, she landed with nary a sound but rolled one of her ankles. ~Ahhh, I forgot which shoes I was wearing.~ Flexing it, she ignored the slight pain. She tested it as she stretched her senses out. No sign of the centipede. She was by the god- tree. The boy though... was staring at her.
I don't own any of the characters that you recognize nor the ones that you don't. I don't get money for this, I do it for stress relief and for expansion of the "what if" principle. If you like my ideas let me know, if you don't like them let me know. If you have a suggestion let me know. I don't get many reviews so I read and work with the ones I get.
"" speech ~~ thoughts
Hidden Secret
Chapter 1: Training Guinea Pigs and the Other Side
Kagome Higurashi, the first student of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling that her step-uncle, Genma Saotome, favors and test subject extraordinaire for the perfection of the style. Genma couldn't train his heir in an imperfect style, the soon to be Mrs. Saotome would kill him. From the age of three, Kagome left her mother's care for eight out of twelve months to travel and train with her uncle, as he refined his school. It was her father's dieing wish that she be able to take care of herself and this was the best way that her mother could think to comply with her husband's request. The training would certainly make her a formidable miko for the temple. She spent many years learning and mastering different forms of martial arts, no matter how harsh the training. Her uncle despised weapons, however, and she never learned to wield them.
During the summers, her mother home schooled her cramming as much into her over the summer as she could. When Kagome would leave again she was always required to send back assignments and reports to her mother. Kagome turned out to be a quick study in both school and the arts.
During her fourteenth and fifteenth year, the uncle and mother switched and Kagome spent summers on training journeys with her uncle and Fall/ Winter training as a miko in Juban at the Cherry Tree Temple. During the mornings she would spar with her uncle and then roof hop from Nerima to Juban as further training. She would spend the day learning about being a miko from an old priest that insisted on being called Grampa. He had a cute little granddaughter named Rei that liked to hang on her black pants. In the evenings she would do homework for her mother to continue her home schooling. After one more sparring session, she would turn in for the night.
Kagome also had a little half-brother named Sota. He was about seven years younger than her. He was an imp and her everything. When he was born during one of the summers that she was home, she was entranced and vowed that he was hers to protect. It was one of the reasons that she worked so hard at the art and her miko studies, to protect her brother.
Through her insane training regime with Genma, Kagome developed several serious fears; to thunder, Genma told her mediating on top of a tall metal pole during harsh storms was the ideal way to build resistance to the raging elements, claustrophobia, being bound, hung and enclosed in dark recesses for escaping training, and ailurophobia after the Neko-ken training.
She is more agile, faster with greater flexibility then men who seem to rely more on strength and stability. Therefore many of her more powerful attacks are specials that depend on the momentum of her opponent or the momentum that she, herself, has built up. During her 15th summer, Kagome was dragged to the Black Forest. Genma thought that it was an ideal place to dump her for survival training without her pack and only the cloths on her back and the shoes on her feet. While she was there she met up with a ten year old named Goku and an old man named Gohan. She spent a great deal of time sparing with the old man and his grandson. Ki manipulation from a teenager named Goku. The old man would let her peruse his scroll collections during their down time and at night after she returned to her cave, she would make her readings a reality.
The summer of her 16th year, Genma hauled Kagome off to the Jsuenkyo training ground. Once they had arrived at the training ground, Genma immediately bounced to the top of one of the bamboo poles while Kagome gracefully flipped onto another. "Now girl, first to hit water or ground loses." "You know it old man."
They fought and Kagome succeeding in axe kicking Genma into the dirt.
"What the..." she mumbled as she watched a squirrel fall out of a tree and into one of the springs only to emerge as some sort of bird.
Quietly Genma shot up crescent swept the unaware Kagome and hammered her into one of the pools. "Hey you jerk, you cheated!" Kagome gasped as she sputtered at the edge of a very small pool. Hoisting herself out of it, she gave herself a one over to make sure that everything was still attached. The guide came rushing out of his house and smiled. "You girl before yes?" Kagome nodded. The guide smiled. "Is good then you only fall in puddle." ~I don't know about that~ she thought as a tingle ran over her skin.
(Note) Pool of Drowned Immortal .: An immortal drowned in the pool for its first death. Of course it later got back out, but it had stayed long enough for its specie's subtype to be instilled in the pool.
The Guide then directed them to an Amazon village that was near by. "They have interesting techniques" was all Genma said regarding the new training destination. When the training journey finally finished, Kagome was pissed at Genma. It was only pure luck that she had made it out of the village alive. After eight months of hard work with the tribe, Uncle to ruined everything by stealing the elder's forbidden training manuals. After beating him into a lumpy pulp, relieving him of the manuals, and returning them to the Elder Cologne after using a technique to secretly speed copy them, (some of Genma has rubbed off on her,) she took hasty leave of the tribe with her uncle.
With the completion of the training trip to China, Genma announced that since she was not the heir of HIS school that she would not get or be taught the sealed techniques. His new son of four, Ranma, was his heir and those techniques would be his as Genma's heir. Genma had also told her that their training together was complete, that his duty to his deceased brother in law was complete besides he had to take Ranma on his training journey. He couldn't be a man among men if he brought a girl along. Kagome was a little pissed off, beat up her uncle and left his form with his honourable but somewhat morally fixated wife, Nodoka and returned to her family temple for good to mediate
Summer was over and Kagome's mom was happy to have her daughter back for good. ~Now she can finish her last two years at high school like a normal little girl.~ Kagome's mother thought wistfully. Sota enjoyed having his sister back full time. He was now ten and wanted to learn martial arts just like his big sister. She began to give him basics in temple courtyard and front grounds.
A month into school, Sota's fat tabby cat, Buyo, decided to venture into the well house. Kagome didn't believe all the weird stories that her slightly senile grampa loves to tell but Sota did and was too scared to go into the well house after his cat. With the meditations she had done for Gohan's scrolls and Cologne's manual she succeeded in reigning in some of her paranoia. As long as she doesn't touch it or have it scratch her, she could handle the fear for Sota.
Breathing heavily, she picks up the broom from outside the door and is planning on using it to sweep Buyo up to Sota, so she won't have to touch it. Or get to close to it. Sota giggled as she chased the cat around the covered well several times. "You do know the only reason that I'm down here is because you love the fur ball and I happen to love you, right Brat. I hate CCCcc..cccaa....fur balls!" Finally she stood in a victory pose with the broom settled heroically on her shoulder in front of the well, the tabby secure in Sota's arms.
Kagome was about to start up the rickety steps when a small thumping was heard from the well. She wandered back over to it as Sota was staring worriedly at her. All of Grampa's stories were coming back to him and he shuddered at the door of the well house. His sister poked around the well cover, wondering what the rattling had been. She looked over the wards that were placed on the well; they were really old and prevented anything from entering the well. Not seeing a problem with them, she turned her back on the well and the wards to be on her way to school. "Sota, we're going to be late. Let's go."
He put down Buyo and took his sister's extended hand as she started up the steps again. Suddenly a brilliant light shot up out of the well. Kagome spun to face it and Sota grasped the back of her uniform like a lifeline. A deformed person surged out of the well, grabbed Kagome, and pulled her and by extension, her brother into the well.
"AHHH, I feel my power returning to me, my body is whole again. Shikon no Tama... Give me the Tama.... You have it.... I want it!.... GIVE IT TO ME!" The strange woman extends her tongue licking Kagome's Face
~What the hell!?~ "I don't have a tama."
"You have it.... I wants it! MINE Mine ...... It's mine!!" The creature reached out and grabbed her throat and face with her our arms and started to kiss her. The demon woman's tongue trying to enter Kagome's stubbornly closed mouth. "That's disgusting! Get away from me!" She cried out. Kagome felt oddly drained in the strange blue vortex, like she was swimming to China through a sea of oatmeal, slow and sluggish.
~Sota is clinging to my skirt. I feel so drained it is embarrassing and this thing chocking me is not helping.~ Desperate to get the creature's dangerously large canines (As in teeth) and tongue away from her face, she swung her one free arm for a palm strike to it's face. A pink ball of energy burst from her palm. ~Oro?~ The thing shrieked, let go of her, and disappeared. The blue vortex stopped and Kagome fell face first into the dirt. Another solid weight landed on her back.
"UH! Sota, you have a bony butt! Get off me." Sota slowly moved himself off his prone sister who then sat up. "Are you okay Sota?"
"I'm okay. What happened? What was that thing? Did it do anything to you?"
"I don't know but I don't think we're in the well house anymore and it kissed me. Euhh."
"What?"
"There's no roof." Standing up gingerly, regained her balance finding that she was feeling a lot better than she had a couple of minutes ago, though not top form from the strange pink blast. She planned to bring it up with Grampa and Rei's Grampa after she figured out which well they were in. She rummaged through her squished book bag and found once of her many juice boxes. Sipping from one she swished it around her mouth and spat it back out.
"What are you doing?" Sota asked curiously as Kagome was furiously brushing her teeth with more toothpaste than she needed.
"I just had some devil woman kiss me with tongue and I am trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. That was my first kiss. Dammit." She raged.
"Don't worry, it was a girl so it didn't count, besides she was ugly." He said with a smirk.
"Thanks Sota, you always brighten the day when I rage and mope." Indicating that she was ready, Sota hopped onto her back and she jumped out of the well. "How long before I can do that and go roof hopping with you?" He asked as Kagome was taking in her surroundings. At the rate you are at, three years, less if you double your training time." She extended her senses and her ki to try and get a better feel for their situation. She didn't recognize were they were. The well looked like the well from their family shrine but there was no shrine. Sighing, she moved down a path that led from the clearing, Sota following behind her.
They came upon another clearing shortly, with a giant tree as it's main feature. It was the God Tree from her shrine, but ... younger? She extended her Ki to the tree and nodded to herself.
"Sota, this is going to sound strange but that is the God Tree. It just feels younger."
"Huh?"
"I'm not sure what is going on but I think that we should be careful."
"Kagome, there is a boy attached to our tree." She focused on the base of the tree and there against the tree was guy about her age in a tradition red haori. Roots, or something like them, seemed to have ground around him. Sota had jumped the four feet to the top of the roots to get a better look at the teen.
"Hey Kagome, check this out, he has ears."
"What!" she hopped onto the roots and approached the boy. There was an arrow protruding from his chest. She felt for a pulse there was one, very very faint. It looked like he was sleeping. Her eyes traveled to his ears. They weren't human ears by any stretch of the imagination. And they were so cute! Tentively she reached forward and started to rub the sleeping boys ears. Sota slapped his forehead. ~What a dork. It never fails, she sees something cute and cuddly and bam... good bye Martial Arts Master, hello cuddle girl.~
Just then Kagome's arm shot out and pulled Sota behind her. Eight Arrows quivered in the tree outlining the sleeping boy's and Kagome's form. "Eh?"
"Sota," She whispered, "pretend that you are weaker than you are. Let them catch us."
"What? Why?"
"We don't know were we are, have them underestimate us to be safe. Look at them, how they dress, I have a bad feeling about this."
Thirty minutes later***
Kagome was grumbling under her breath as Sota was giggling at her.
"Shut up."
"It was your idea sis." Sota reminded her. He had been allowed to walk, his hands tied behind his back and his legs hobbled while Kagome was bound hands and feet and lumped across one of the younger farmer men's shoulders.
The village people now surrounded them as they sat on a reed mat. Kagome listened to the gossip that abounded and took in the people and the settings, trying to figure out where they were. The men had their hair in topknots and their mode of dress, archaic. Someone named Kaede was announced to approach, and the crowd parted. An aged woman appeared. She was bent with years, in a traditional miko garb, white top, red hakema, shock white hair and an eye patch over her left eye. She handed to bow off to one of the men and proceeded to through dirt at Sota, then at her. She coughed a bit.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
"What? You were both found in Inuyasha's Forest and we thought you were angry spirits or demons."
The man holding the bow spoke up. "Maybe their Spies, Kaede-sama."
She snorted at the thought. "We aren't important enough to merit a spy. We just get buy and aren't really worth the notice. And why would they send a boy and a lady?" She then got a funny look on her face and came right into Kagome's space. The old lady grasped her face and started to rotate it around.
"Let me get a good look at your face dearie, hey try to look more serious."
~What! Really... Geeze!~
Sota was trying to chock back his laughs at his poor sister's expressions. ~Yup there you have it, my big time martial artist sister being cheek pinched by an grandma. What a dork~
"It's remarkable, absolutely remarkable, you look just like my older sister Kikyo did." With that said the old woman ordered their bonds cut and bade them follow her to her house. As the old woman prepared them food, Kagome was giving Sota a once over to make sure everything was all right. After she served the stew in wooden bowls and they had said grace, she spoke, "Sorry about that by the way, we just had to make sure that you weren't a danger to the village. There are so many wars going on, we just have to be careful, especially because our village is so small and vulnerable.
"This isn't Tokyo is it, Kaede-sama?"
"Tokyo? Is that were you hail from."
"We just wanted to know if you had heard of it?"
"No can't say that I have."
~ How am I going to get us back home then?~ sigh
"My name is Kagome Higurashi and this is my brother Sota Higurashi." He nodded his head to her.
"My name is Kaede and I am the village miko."
~It's been 50 years since Kikyo's death and this girl looks just like her. I sense miko power from her, just barely. Actually she's quite weak. Sister Kikyo had a great deal more power than her reincarnation. ~
"A miko is a shrine maiden right?"
"Well actually, Sota, a shrine maiden is a female that maintains the shrines and sees that it runs smoothly, miko has some sort of spiritual power base that she uses to take care of the spiritual side of a temple with rai ki.(spirit power)" Sota glances covertly at his sister and she slightly shifts her head to indicate no, and so he holds his peace.
Suddenly, suddenly chaos and screams are heard outside the house and the occupants exit the building. The demon woman is back. Kagome frowns as the demon, wrecks havoc on the town screaming for the Shikon no Tama. Their small group is dive-bombed several times and Kagome keeps purposefully tripping Sota and herself out of the way. ~The perverted demon it looking for a piece of me, well I'll give it to her as soon as I get out of the village.~
"We have to get it to the dry well." The old woman gasped out as she caught her breath. Her old bones weren't meant to be tossed about at her advanced age.
"Where is that?" "Inuyasha's forest." "Is that were the lights are coming from?" ~She can see the hidden paths and parts of the forest? ~ "Yes," "All right, Sota stay with Kaede. I'm going to get ride of this perverted, energy-sucking demon." "Be careful." "Always." Kagome sprinted at a normal pace out into the rice paddies. "Hey Pervert!, You want me? Come get me!" She waited until she had her undivided attention and dashed off towards the forest. She didn't do too fast, she didn't want to loss it. Looking around she realized that she had no idea were this well was, she assumed that it was the well that she and Sota emerged from because, well, it was dry. But she had been lumped around upside down and she had been more concerned with keeping her skirt from flipping up than were they were going. ~ Uh oh, Damn ~ "I need help!" she wailed to herself as she checked over her shoulder for the demon woman.
A pulse reached the dormant prisoner of a dead miko's arrow. 50 years he had hung there, a testament of the love, betrayal and power of a woman that was once the protector of the Shikon no Tama. Slowly, his laxed hand twitched, his drooped ears perked and his molten gold eyes open. He slowly reached to the arrow lodged in his shoulder and shied back as it flared with discoloured pink energy. Taking the first deep breath in a long while, he smirked in a cracked voice "I smell her, the bitch that killed me. She's coming closer..."
The warriors of the Village brought forth the horses that they had rounded up to Lady Kaede. Sota was pulled up be hind one of the men on his insistence that he had to get to his sister. The small band headed into the woods as the rest of the villagers concentrated on containing the fires
She dodged and rolled from the speeding bullet that was the centipede woman and upped her pace to wards the woods. Extending her ki, she located the ever familiar and comforting God Tree and sped towards it. ~ A hill, always a hill.~ she grumbled then jumped. The demon caused explosion propelled her haphazardly through the air, she landed with nary a sound but rolled one of her ankles. ~Ahhh, I forgot which shoes I was wearing.~ Flexing it, she ignored the slight pain. She tested it as she stretched her senses out. No sign of the centipede. She was by the god- tree. The boy though... was staring at her.