Author's Note: this is the first mention of Inuyasha in this story and (unfortunately) it is the last mention of him for a while. This is in part due to the time interval of "The Agency", but is also due to how much else there is to write about other events taking place at the same time.

CHAPTER 3: Inuyasha
===============================

Feudal World: Near the well
Inuyasha . . .

Inuyasha was alone. The sun had gone down a couple hours ago, and the night was clear, if not chilly, the slight breeze making it even colder. Inuyasha was examining Tetsusaiga in the moonlight, its blade reflecting brightly, making the sword seem to have its own internal glow. He didn't mind the cold; he had his firerat coat keeping him warm. The battles he fought, using Tetsusaiga had gotten him couple new shards of Shikon no Tama. And Kagome still has that other shard. Dammit. Why did that hag, Kaede, have to give me the rosary!? Why!? He looked up, at the stars, wondering (and doubting) whether his thoughts had been heard. His father had left the sword for him. If only he could have left a note, or instructions where to go from here. And I can't use Tetsusaiga against Kagome. So much for that idea.

He continued to look up. A loud bang suddenly shattered the calmness of the night! It was followed by a roaring sound, gradually, but quickly, getting louder (like when a jet plane flies over your house, except much louder in this case) filled his ears. His being half-dog didn't help much either; he was bombarded with sounds across the spectrum as the shockwave passed. Some trees nearby crumbled and/or shattered, while others bent over, miraculously remaining intact. His tree vibrated as the shock passed, violently throwing him off of his perch.

A large, bright disk flew straight over his head. Too low to be a shooting star, Inuyasha stared in awe and quickly re-climbed the tree to see where it went. He watched as the thing dipped below the tree line in the distance, a crashing sound following its violent, if not spectacular descent.

Ever since Kikyo's resurrection (Kagome) came along, life has suddenly involved falling out of a lot more trees. WWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYY???????????????? (If the word here is too stretched to read: the word is "Why?")

As he watched, he saw the thing stop and it reared up – backwards! And then it stopped! The thing stopped!

What the hell is that? His memory flashed back to all of his encounters with demons armed with Shikon shards and demons before that that hadn't been armed with Shikon shards, but none of them had been like this. They had never been this big, nor had they remained motionless after their arrival.

He began running thru the forest at top speed towards the thing . . .

Same time Feudal World: Kaede's village
Kaede . . .

-------------------------------------------

The huge lizard demon slithered into the village. Kaede was wrapped tightly in its long tail, helpless. She could neither breathe nor move in the lizard's grip. And if she tried to wiggle to gain elbow space, the grip became tighter. Kaede was surprised that she even had that much strength at her age. The villagers were panicking and running all over the place. Some were holding their ground, armed with bows and arrows, pointlessly looking for a weak spot, but finding none. The lizard kept advancing, destroying everything in its way or just off to the side. Houses collapsed as it lowered its head to eat everyone it could see.

Suddenly, Inuyasha came out of nowhere, Kagome riding on his back, and armed with her own bow and arrows. Inuyasha leapt at the lizard, landing on its head and slashing at anything and everything that looked like part of the lizard demon. Kagome stood on a rooftop, knocking and firing arrows, then reaching for another arrow in her quiver; her speed was almost mechanical! When did she learn to do that? Kaede wanted so badly, to some how help. Then Inuyasha slashed the lizard's tail off, finally releasing Kaede from the claws of asphyxiation, agony, and death (just a metaphor, since it is the lizard's tail).

Now she stood, transfixed as if in a trance, watching the battle, hoping for the best outcome.

The lizard began writhing in agony from Inuyasha and Kagome's combined attacks. It knew it wouldn't be alive much longer. In its death convulsions it opened its mouth for one last, desperate attack: a reddish, glowing circle thing appeared, growing by the sec–– a loud BANG! exploded in her ears; Kaede woke up.

-------------------------------------------

It was all a dream–– except for the BANG! Her hut shook violently, as if it were about to collapse around [and/or on] her! There was a commotion coming outside. She went outside to see what the villagers were fretting about. She had a bad feeling that her dream was prophetic.

Outside, she saw villagers running to the middle of the street; she saw some collapsed houses and people trying to look thru the rubble, probably because someone was still inside. A lot of the villagers were looking and pointing at the sky, or having conversations: "What was that?" or "Are you okay?" conversations. Kaede looked around some villagers had donned armor and were preparing for battle. She heard a loud crash behind her, only then realizing her cottage had also been taking damage from the whatever… except that it wasn't a cottage anymore. There was a slight breeze, but that couldn't have been the cause of this. Some nearby trees seemed to have ripped themselves apart. What demon could have done this?

She looked to the sky, as if the answers would be written in flashing, neon letters: "He did it!" or something that would provide some kind of answer. A brilliantly lit, large disk flew overhead, at least fifteen times wider than the full moon at its perigee , and growing quickly in its rapid descent. It looked like it had several bright eyes around its perimeter, mostly white, and unevenly distributed.

It flew across the sky and dipped below the tree line. The shaking had stopped now, but half of the village was ruined. A loud crashing sound was heard from behind the distant trees. The whatever-it-was had had a hard landing… and/or perhaps some other nearby village had also been destroyed when it (disk thing) crashed.

Whatever it was, this village definitely needed some cleaning-up.