Potential
By: Lady Camigwen
-Chapter 3-
"Dawn! Please refrain from burning down the house!"
Buffy Summers shoved her younger sister aside and pulled the oven door open, waving her hands frantically in front of her face to clear the smoke. With an oven mitt, she reached in and grabbed the burnt chicken and dropped it, pan and all, into the sink. When the sink was full of water and the smoke gone, Buffy turned to lecture her sister, only to discover Dawn had fled the room.
She groaned and rubbed her temples. "I can't take much more of this..."
"Buffy!"
At the sound of Willow 's voice summoning her from the other room, Buffy groaned again. If this had something to do with patrolling, let the Potentials do it. She had earned herself a good full night's sleep and needed it, for she hadn't slept more than eight hours this week alone.
Willow gave her blond friend a half-smile as she strolled into the room.
Good news and bad news, Buffy thought, judging from the look on Willow's face. "Alright," she said as she leaned casually against the wall, "what's up?"
"I just spoke with Giles," the red headed witch said, "they've found the Japanese Potential. Her name's Kagome Higurashi. The only problem is... they've sorta lost her."
"Lost her? How?"
"Giles didn't give me many details--'long distance call, cell phone bill, blah, blah, blah'--but, she jumped down a well with some half-demon."
Buffy blinked. "She jumped down a well with a half demon? Since when did a half demon come into play? What kind of demon--I mean, what kind of demon is his demon side?"
Willow shrugged. "Spike couldn't tell. He could only smell that he was half-n-half." She reached over and grabbed a book off the coffee table, flipping through it. "Kagome said some very interesting things to Giles. Apparently, she somehow knows about Kikyo, Naraku, and the Shikon no Tama."
The blond arched a brow. "Shikon no Tama? Translation."
"Jewel of Four Souls. Kikyo was a priestess who lived during Japan's feudal age who was the guardian of the jewel. Unfortunately, Kikyo was died from a wound inflicted on her by some demon named Inuyasha who was trying to steal the jewel and use it for his own evil purposes." Willow flipped a couple of more pages, almost at the end of the battered old book, and pointed to a paragraph at the bottom. "Naraku was a very powerful demon in his day. He appeared briefly about fifty years after the Priestess Kikyo's death. It doesn't say what became of him."
Buffy pushed herself off the wall and strode over to the couch, plopping down on the other side of the disheveled pile of books. "How did Kagome know of this?"
The witch shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps from legends passed down through her family. But, the only records of the jewel, Kikyo, and Naraku that the Council had are in this book." She held it up for Buffy to see. It was written in Japanese with pieces of paper protruded from it--Willow's translations and notes. "Giles said that she sounded so sure of herself...as if she knew Kikyo and Naraku and had seen the jewel and held it. It's impossible..."
"Okay, I get the whole jewel-priestess thing. Can we back up to the well? If she jumped in it, can't Giles and Spike just toss a rope down and retrieve her?"
Willow bit her lip. "Oops, I left that little detail out, didn't I? Well, you see...she's no longer in the well. After she and the half demon jumped, Spike followed. He kinda, hit the bottom, but Kagome and the half demon vanished."
Buffy nodded, understanding. "Portal."
"Yes, portal. A portal to where?--That's what Giles has asked to me to figure out. He's tried re-opening using spells that he knew, but nothing worked, and Spike's keeping an eye out for her return. Giles is hoping I can find out where this portal leads and possibly do a spell to open it."
"Can you?"
"Perhaps. It just depends on what kind of portal we're dealing with."
So, there was another reluctant Potential on the run, eh? How she longed for the good old days, when everything was simpler. Just her, her watcher, and her friends. She even admitted to missing Cordelia. She had once been a normal, average fifteen-year-old girl, and now she was twenty-two-year old Slayer preparing an army of wannabe's for a battle to decide the fate of the world. When did things get so complicated?
"Hey, Will, can I speak to you for a moment?"
Willow set the book amongst the pile and stood, smiling brightly at the raven-haired Potential. "Sure thing, Kennedy. Buff, do you--"
Buffy waved a hand in Kennedy's direction. "Go." Willow nodded and rushed to Kennedy, leaving Buffy along with her thoughts and the pile of books.
+§¤§+
Giles rummaged through the contents of Jordan Luthan's folder. "Ah-ha!" He exclaimed in triumph as he pulled out a picture of Kagome. She was leaning against a tree with a view of her family's shrine in the background, smiling as fingered a small pink gem worn around her neck.
He placed it face down on the scanner, scanned it, and quickly uploaded and attached it to an e-mail message to Willow. Something in the back of his mind told him that an image of the Potential would aid Willow somehow.
Send.
+§¤§+
Kagome walked ahead of him on their way to Kaeda's village. Inuyasha didn't try and catch up with her. He knew she wanted to be left alone with her thoughts, as he needed to be alone with his.
'...I'm fifteen years old...I don't wanna die...' He didn't know how to respond to that.
Occasionally she'd glance back at him to make sure he was still there, and when he met her gaze, she'd force a half-smile and return her eyes to the road ahead of her.
Kagome, the reincarnation of Kikyo... Kagome, the Slayer... Kagome, just Kagome... They were waging war against each other, fighting for dominance. She began reciting times tables aloud, anything to take her mind off that war. The tree did that for her.
A yelp leapt out of her throat as she slammed into the tree and stumbled backward into Inuyasha's waiting arms. He gazed down at her with worry and confusion eminent in his golden eyes. Demonic eyes.
She jumped away from him and looked anywhere but at him. His eyes... she couldn't bring herself to look at them. Not now. Not yet, anyway. Willing her feet to move, she walked on, leaving behind a baffled Inuyasha.
He quickly caught up to her and matched her pace, sending a sly glance her way. "Some Slayer you are, you're klutzness is spilling through. Or perhaps you're just being klutzy to hide your Slayerness?"
She glared at him and could barely see his amused smirk through the light of the approaching darkness. She sped up her pace, furious that he thought her situation funny. A few minutes ago, he was being sympathetic... What was his problem!?
Kagome whirled around on her heels to ask him just that, only to discover he hadn't turned the corner in the path as she had. Or maybe he had, and she just couldn't see him since there was no light on this new moon night. Wait a second...
New Moon!?
"Great! Just Great! He's fled!" She growled in frustration and stomped off towards Kaeda's village. Come morning, he was going to get an earful of sits.
+§¤§+
"Hey Buffy, I just got an e-mail from Giles!"
Leaping up from the couch with the battered Japanese book in hand, Buffy ran into the kitchen where Willow and Kennedy were seated in front of the former's laptop.
Kennedy grinned at the screen; "She's kinda cute, if you ask me."
Willow eyed her. "Looking to replace me?"
The raven-haired Potential gave Willow a wink. "Not soon, anyway."
"O-kay," Buffy said deliberately to interrupt the flirting.
The redhead cleared her throat, "Oh, yeah," and turned the laptop around for Buffy to see. "Buff, meet--"
"Kikyo?" Buffy exclaimed.
The witch blinked. "Kikyo? No... this is Kagome Higurashi, the Japanese Potential."
Buffy gave a small shrug and opened the book up to a marked page, holding it up for Kennedy and Willow to see. "And I say she's Kikyo."
**TBC**
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Inuyasha.
AN: Special thanks to those who keep encouraging me to write. Oh, and don't miss the series finally of Buffy on Tuesday, May 27th! =D
THE MORE REVIEWS, THE MORE I WRITE! SO, PLEASE REVIEW!
5/13/2003