Disclaimer: Possession is nine tenths of the law; the other tenth is protected by copyright.
Author Notes: A million thanks to Cold Demon Lord, sami and wufeicustom (::big hug:: Wah! I've missed hearing from you!) for their reviews and my apologies that it has taken so long to post the second chapter. Hope you all enjoy!
Last Time:
Grabbing the front of his uniform, Kagome narrowed her eyes angrily as she demanded. "Damn it, Souta, answer me. What happened? How did I get here? Where's Inuyasha? Where's the Shikon no Tama?"
That weird look appeared again and this time, Kagome recognized it. It was fear. His hands pushing at her shoulders, she reluctantly released her brother's jacket. Raking his fingers through his shaggy brown hair, he sighed heavily before he said. "Kagome, none of that ever happened."
Paradox
Chapter 2: Altering Fate
Stumbling backwards, her back slamming painfully into the stair railing, Kagome shook her head slowly, not believing what she was hearing. Doubt colored her words as she uneasily said. "That's impossible, Souta. Of course, it all happened. I was there. And you met Inuyasha, too. Don't you remember?"
Reaching out to prevent her from falling down the stairs, Souta tried to reassure her. "It's all right, sis, don't worry about that now. You might have a slight concussion though, so let's get you into the house and let Mom have a look at your head. "
Slapping his hand away, Kagome glared at him accusingly. "Don't patronize me. I know the truth. You were here when I fell down the well. For Kami's sake Souta, that was barely a year ago, on my fifteenth birthday. How come you don't remember?"
His face blanching at her remarks, Souta could only stare incredulously at his sister as he said. "Kagome, you're going to be eighteen next month. Your fifteenth birthday was nearly three years ago."
Losing her balance as the implications of what her brother said struck her head on, Kagome's foot slipped on the stairs and she would have tumbled down them if Souta hadn't reflexively grabbed her arm. The color completely drained from her face, she gazed wide-eyed at him as she stuttered. "Three years? Nearly three years?"
She never heard his answer though as the world spun crazily around her and Kagome once again fell into a yawning dark void as she lost consciousness.
She woke up some time later, her head aching fiercely and a thick, unpleasant taste coating the inside of her mouth. Her eyes felt swollen, the lids extremely heavy, while the left side of her face seemed partially numb. Carefully opening her eyes, she was greeted by the sight of two fluorescent bulbs hanging above her bed. As her other senses began working, she could smell the strong odor of disinfectant and bleach and surmised that she must be in the hospital. A quick glance to her right reaffirmed that assessment as she noted the white curtains screening her off from the rest of the world.
A stray hair was tickling the corner of her mouth and when Kagome reached up to brush it aside, she was met with another startling discovery. Her arm would rise only so far before a soft cuff around her wrist prevented any further movement. Testing each of her limbs in succession, she found that her arms and legs were strapped to the bed, allowing for only a minimal amount of movement. From her current position on her back, she couldn't roll any further than a couple of inches to each side. Groaning with frustration at being tied down as if she were some mental patient, she irritably flopped on the bed like a beached fish until a nurse came to check and see what all the commotion was about.
Drawing back the curtain with a reproving click of her tongue, the young woman scolded. "Miss Higurashi, you must try to remain calm. That's a pretty nasty bump on your head and you don't want to tear your stitches fidgeting around like that."
Since all that flopping was only making her head hurt worse anyway, Kagome exhaled noisily in defeat as she stilled and allowed the nurse to fussily adjust the rumpled covers around her again. When she finished, the woman smiled brightly and turned to leave when Kagome stopped her with a couple of anxious questions. "Where am I? How did I get here?"
As if delighted to be of further assistance, the nurse chirped brightly. "This is Tokyo General Hospital. Your mother and brother brought you in last night after you fell down some stairs and hit your head. You were obviously suffering from a concussion which had also made you slightly delusional."
"Delusional?" Worry creasing her brow, Kagome hesitantly asked. "Ano, what do you mean?"
Adopting a professional stance, the overly enthusiastic woman sobered, her voice sounding like she was repeating the exact words she had heard from a doctor. "It's not common, but sometimes patients experiencing trauma to the head can become irrational and may exhibit symptoms of schizophrenic behavior brought on by swelling to the brain. I believe they gave you a mild sedative which may be why you're having trouble remembering."
As she listened to the crisp, clinical explanation, Kagome could only stare at the nurse in numbed shock; the words irrational, schizophrenic, and sedative echoing loudly through her hazy consciousness. The throbbing in her head increasing exponentially, Kagome desperately wanted to massage her temples to ease the tight band of tension, expect her hands were again brought up short by the soft, resilient straps circling her wrists. With growing horror, she realized that the doctors must have thought she was crazy.
Caught up in her worried thoughts she had tuned out the nurse's incessant chattering, but was sharply reminded of her presence when the woman said. "…and you kept ranting and raving that you needed to find something or someone right away."
Her attention instantly snapping back to the nurse, Kagome tersely asked. "Find who or what? What exactly did I say?"
Looking a bit startled by such direct, nearly growled questions, the annoyingly cheery woman stopped mid-ramble, her face darkening in concentration before suddenly brightening again. "Ah, they probably wrote it on your chart. The doctor who treated you, Dr. Honda, is usually very thorough in his notes. Let me check."
Pulling a clipboard from a hook on the wall beside her, the nurse flipped through several pages before finding the information she was looking for. "Ah, here we are. You were looking for someone called Inuyasha'."
A sly grin completely altered her features, casting an almost sinister air to her demeanor as she chuckled. "Inuyasha, huh? Is that your boyfriend's nickname?"
The strange look the nurse was giving her frightened Kagome and she sank fearfully back into her bed to try and put some distance between them. It vaguely reminded her of the evil grin Naraku would wear; the startling resemblance sending a cold shiver chasing down her spine. Seeing that the nurse was waiting expectantly for her to answer, Kagome said the first thing that came to mind. "Um, yeah, something like that."
The sinister grin fading to be replaced by her cheery smile, the woman cheekily told her. "Better hang on to him, honey. Guy with a cool nickname like that has got to be worth keeping." The accompanying, conspiratorial wink that went along with that advice set Kagome's nerves on edge; leaving her anxiously wondering if she was trapped in some surreal nightmare. Unfortunately, the lingering headache coupled with an occasional wave of nausea was far too realistic and far from reassuring.
With wary eyes, Kagome watched the nurse bustle about for a few more minutes; replying in the negative when asked if she needed anything and nearly sighing in relief when the unusual woman finally left, tugging the curtains back into place with a parting grin. Snuggling deeper beneath the crisply starched sheets, she felt oddly safer now that she was alone again in her white shrouded cubicle.
Once Dr. Honda had given Kagome the all clear, her mother and brother came to pick her up later that afternoon. Seeing her mother for the first time since this fiasco had started, Kagome was shocked by how much older she looked. Her dark brown hair was now liberally peppered with gray and wrinkles had formed at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. She must have gained around fifteen pounds as well, her formerly svelte figure having passed into a middle aged softness. Dressed conservatively in a dark brown skirt suit, she had a briefcase in one hand and a telephone in the other into which she was speaking with a clipped, brisk tone as she rapidly strode down the hallway, leaving a bewildered Kagome and a subdued Souta to stumble along in her wake.
A short time later, they entered the train station across from the hospital and her mother closed her phone with a tiny snap before gracing Kagome with an annoyed expression as she huffed. "Kagome, I want you to stay out of the well house from now on. The fact that I have to tell my daughter who is nearly eighteen to stop playing in a dirty, old building is something that I have trouble comprehending. Your grandfather has been beside himself with worry ever since Souta brought you back to the house unconscious, covered in dirt and blood dripping from that gash on your head."
Pausing momentarily in her tirade to tiredly massage the sharply creased skin between her eyebrows, she brusquely continued, her mouth drawn into a tight line. "I swear, young lady, I will not have you upsetting him any more. His heart cannot take this much stress, so, you will stay out of the well house from now on. Is that clear?"
Of course, the question was rhetorical, as there was really only one answer her mother was expecting, but Kagome nodded her head anyway to show that she was listening. Seeing a side of her mother she had never seen before, Kagome was in awe at how authoritative she was. She remembered her mother as being very mellow and easy going, rarely raising her voice for any reason; but just now, she had snapped like a drill sergeant, her sentences rapid firing from her mouth as her voice steadily increased in both volume and pitch. By the time she had finished, she was close to screeching and several people had turned their heads to see what was going on.
Kagome had the intelligence to appear properly abashed by the lecture and her blush of embarrassment was definitely not faked; she had spied a couple of young men in their early twenties snickering at her public dressing down. Directing a hard glare at their smirking faces, she would have also liked to have given them a piece of her mind, telling them to mind their own business, but their train had arrived and her mother was shuttling Souta and her swiftly onto it as if not trusting to let them out of her sight for a second. Sandwiched uncomfortably between her parent and younger sibling like a naughty child, Kagome barely had enough time to grab the handrail above her as the commuter train departed the station a few moments later. They had a long ride before they reached their stop and Kagome used the time to reflect on everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours.
Yesterday morning, she had awoken from a pleasant sleep in a beautiful, green forest surrounded by her dearest friends. Their lives had been blissfully uneventful since they had defeated Naraku and everyone was quietly relishing the sense of freedom they had been afforded. While they traveled at a more leisurely pace; for once not in any real hurry or plagued by any unwelcome distractions, the odd group was nevertheless quickly reaching their destination. For Kagome this newfound peace had been like a double edged sword, she was glad she no longer had the responsibility of reassembling the Shikon no Tama, but at the same time, she had gained the unpleasant burden of eventually having to leave her friends and return home.
So, as they broke camp that morning, it was with a heavy heart and mixed emotions that Kagome had one last private chat with Sango as they sat together on her sleeping bag while repacking her enormous yellow backpack. After several moments of uncomfortable fidgeting and stammered half-finished sentences, the taijiya had shyly blurted out that she was foolishly in love with a certain perverted monk though she was terrified to admit her true feelings to him. Thrilled that her assumptions had been right and in an effort to reassure her friend, Kagome had explained that she was pretty sure Miroku felt the same way; bringing a delightful blush to the young woman's cheeks. For a few blissful minutes, they had indulged in fits of girlish giggles, laughingly recounting the various instances where the wayward monk had incurred the taijiya's jealous wrath.
Thankfully, neither had broached the subject of Kagome's relationship with a certain dog-eared hanyou and as their animated chatter eventually wound down, the lighthearted mood had turned somewhat solemn. With a wealth of emotions rarely seen on the youkai exterminator's features, Sango had quietly told her long-time companion how she had come to think of Kagome as a her sister and that no matter where either of them ended up that would never change. Touched by the older woman's heartfelt pledge as she shared similar sentiments, Kagome had tearfully vowed that she too would always remember Sango as her sister and promised to never forget the bond they shared. A bond that was stronger than blood. The pact between soul sisters complete, the two had hugged and cried a bit before laughing at their sappy behavior while resolutely wiping away their tears.
Kagome's mood had been somewhat brightened by her talk with the taijiya and later that day; it had been further buoyed when Miroku had approached her as they stopped for a brief rest and to drink some water from a nearby stream. His boyishly handsome face split by a wide grin, he had determinedly dropped to one knee, teasingly petitioning her to bear his child. Her lips curving into a wistful smile at his antics, Kagome had calmly thwacked him on the head. The familiar reaction was symbolic rather than meant to hurt; drawing a light-hearted chuckle from the grinning houshi. Gesturing for her to take a seat next to him on the small outcropping of rocks, they had reminisced about their various adventures; marveling how a profound trust had blossomed between them despite their relationship getting off to a slightly shaky start.
Eventually, they had reached a point where words were no longer needed and a comfortable silence had settled between them. With some hesitancy, Miroku had raised his concerns about Sango, promising that he would do everything in his power to help her and would ensure that she was taken care of for as long as the taijiya needed. Kagome had not missed the hopeful note in his voice and knew that if Sango would consent to his proposal, Miroku would marry her in an instant. Putting on her most stern face, she bluntly told her friend that if he didn't get Sango to marry him, she would come back just to whack him for his stupidity since Sango was already hopelessly in love with him. That news had cheered him to no end and he had spent the rest of the day with a wide, silly grin plastered across his face.
Arriving within the boundaries of Kaede's village, Kagome had experienced a unique sense of completion. Shippo had latched onto her the moment Inuyasha had set her back on her feet and had insisted on sitting in her lap throughout lunch. His clinging behavior would undoubtedly make their eventual separation more difficult, but Kagome hadn't been able to find it in her heart to deny him this last bit of time together. Aside from Inuyasha and Kaede, she had known him the longest out of all her companions and he would have the hardest time adjusting to her leaving. She knew the fox demon sometimes saw her as a replacement for his own mother, but as much as Kagome wished she could take the little kitsune with her and continue to care for him, it was impossible.
Drawing him aside as the others were finishing their meal, Kagome had tugged a small packet from the confines of her pack and handed it to the young kitsune. Inside was a picture of all of them: Sango, Miroku, Inuyasha, Shippo and her standing outside Kaede's hut. It had been taken a few days before they set out to finish off Naraku and everyone had been smiling and laughing as Kaede grumbled over how complicated the camera was to work. They had snapped many pictures that day, but this was the best of the bunch and Kagome had lovingly framed it in a wooden frame wreathed with little foxes. Shippo had gasped in delight at the gift and nearly strangled her as he hugged her tightly.
Jostled from her musings by the sudden lurch of the train, Kagome hugged herself lightly in consolation, the memories warming her against the chill of loneliness. She missed them already and despite the debacle of professing her love to him, she missed Inuyasha most of all. Smiling to herself, she replayed her memories of him one by one, delighting in those precious moments where they had ceased to be hanyou and miko and had become simply a man and a woman sharing their experiences with each other. Wrapping herself tightly in their comforting embrace, she felt that as long as she had these, her heart could find some peace.
Her grandfather greeted them at the door and Kagome couldn't help wincing at his emaciated appearance. The hale, hearty old man she remembered was nothing more than a shadow of his former sprightly image. His eyes were sunken and hollow looking, his skin almost paper thin and stretched painfully tight over brittle bones. Hobbling up to the door, he smiled a gap toothed grin as he ushered her into the house ahead of him.
"Ah, Kagome, are you better now?" His voice was strained and wheezy sounding as if he had trouble getting enough oxygen to speak. Pushing her towards the sofa in the living room, he sank heavily into his favorite arm chair, his joints cracking so loudly in the process that Kagome worried he might have hurt himself.
Souta and her mother were conspicuously absent and Kagome had to wonder if they hadn't abandoned her in retribution for foolishly injuring herself. Her grandfather continued to grin widely, nodding his head repeatedly so that he began to resemble one of those toy birds you could clip onto the rim of a glass and when you tip them forward they continuously bob their heads. It was unnerving to watch and Kagome had to fix her gaze elsewhere before she could gather enough of her wits to speak. "Uh, yes, grandpa, I'm okay. I have to get the stitches out next week, but the doctor said I would be fine."
Sparing him a glance, she noticed that his head was still bobbing with frightening regularity and she briefly considered reaching out a hand to stop him when he suddenly sat bolt upright, nearly drawing a scream of fright from Kagome in the process. His eyes darkening and his gaze turning intense, he solemnly asked. "Kagome, did you find Inuyasha?"
Completely surprised by the question, Kagome thought she might have been hearing things until her grandfather furrowed his brow thoughtfully and said. "You need to find the Shikon no Tama as well. There isn't much time to right this wrong."
Flabbergasted, Kagome gaped at her grandfather in shock, not knowing how to respond. Her head started throbbing again and when she rubbed her forehead to ease the tension knotting along her brow, her grandfather coughed once before his expression returned to normal. At least as normal as Kagome could guess, judging from how he looked a few minutes earlier. The gap toothed grin returned as well and he managed to slowly tug himself up out of his chair as he called to Kagome's mother. "Atsuko, have you finished making the tea yet? I need something warm to loosen up these aching joints of mine."
Watching him leave with wide eyes, she could only stare mutely as she tried to make sense of his outburst. For her grandfather to suddenly ask about not only Inuyasha and the Shikon no Tama when Souta had clearly informed her that she had never fallen down the well made absolutely no sense. Sure, her grandfather was rather eccentric at times, but she had never known him to act so strangely. Could he have somehow grown delusional in his old age, she wondered.
And what in the world he had meant by righting some wrong?
After supper, Kagome ensconced herself in her room at her mother's direction to complete the homework she had missed at school. Sitting at her old desk, her pencil flew across the page and she was amazed at how easily she managed to work her way through various advanced calculus and physics problems. She had excelled at neither before and was unable to explain her sudden affinity for these difficult subjects. Even more puzzling was that her textbooks were for a third year high school student at Eitoku Academy, which meant that not only had she somehow managed to pass her high school entrance exams, but her scores had been high enough to land her a place in the most elite school in the prefecture. Only the top ninety-eighth percentile were considered for admission into Eitoku and for her to have been accepted, she must have had near perfect score results to counterbalance her frequent absences during her last year of middle school.
The soft rap on her door turned out to be Souta who shuffled into her room with Buyo close on his heels. Kagome was desperately trying to come to grips with the fact that her little brother wasn't so little anymore. She was irked that had he grown so tall in such a short span of time, but what really annoyed her was that at thirteen, he was already a good inch and a half taller than her. His boyish face was beginning to mature as well and there was no mistaking the strong resemblance he was developing towards their father complete with the trademark chocolate colored eyes and hair, a defining characteristic of all Higurashi men.
On the other hand, Kagome's features were more closely related to her mother's, but her hair and eyes belonged solely to her mother's mother. Her grandmother Midori had been rumored to be a wonderfully beautiful woman with jet black hair and brilliant sapphire blue eyes flecked with silver and that Kagome had inherited these particular traits had been her mother's ultimate delight. The women in Atsuko's family were rarely very tall and Atsuko had been one of the few exceptions to the rule, attaining a statuesque five feet eight inches. Kagome was an average five feet five inches which shrank to five four when she took off her shoes.
Plopping down on the bed behind her desk, Souta chuckled as Buyo took a playful swat at the cuff on Kagome's flannel pajama pants. Setting her pencil down, she swiveled the chair around to face her younger sibling and find out what it was he obviously wanted from her. She didn't mind the interruption, she had needed a break, but she had a sinking suspicion that he was checking up on her. "So, did Mom send you to spy on me and make sure I was studying or was there something else on your mind?"
Considering her question a tad longer than Kagome's patience considered necessary, she glowered at him when he didn't immediately reply. Tapping her foot to emphasize her point, she quipped. "Look, I've got a ton of homework, so if you don't want something, then how about we try this brother sister bonding another time, kay?"
She was about to whirl back around when his quiet question startled her. "Why did you ask about Inuyasha again?"
Now that he had her full attention, Kagome couldn't miss the concern painfully etched across his youthful countenance. Souta was regarding her as if he worried about her sanity and his wary gaze left her wondering what could have caused him to be so frightened for her. Affecting as soothing a tone as possible, she ventured. "I don't understand why my asking about Inuyasha bothers you so much. Could you maybe explain it to me?"
Seeing the genuine confusion in her eyes, Souta relaxed a little as he thought of the best way to broach this topic. Figuring the most reasonable approach would be to just lay everything out at once, he began speaking. "On the morning of your fifteenth birthday, you and I went into the well house looking for Buyo. I didn't want to go down to get him, so you said that you would. As you reached the bottom of the steps, you just stood there staring at the well until Buyo came up and rubbed against your leg. He scared the crap out of you and you jumped and screamed, tripping over the cat and nearly fell into the well. Fortunately, you didn't, but you cracked your head really hard on edge before you hit the ground. It knocked you out cold and you were unconscious for nearly a week. When you finally woke up, you started spouting all this nonsense about going to the Sengoku Jidai and traveling with this inu-hanyou to find the pieces of some mystical jewel."
Kagome whispered. "Inuyasha and the Shikon no Tama."
"Yeah, right. Well, Mom was worried sick that you might have brain damage and Grandpa kept saying that you had gotten a story he told you the night before all mixed up in your head and thought it was real."
He avoided meeting her eyes as Kagome asked. "Story? What story?"
Shoving his hand into his thick hair and tugging slightly in a gesture Kagome was beginning to recognize as frustration, Souta explained. "The one he was using to sell those trinket key chains with the little marbles on the end. The replicas of the famous Shikon no Tama'." He added the quotes with a brief gesture of his fingers. "Grandpa believed that you had taken his embellished legend seriously and thought you were the reincarnation of the miko in the story. Then you recklessly go into the well house to look for Buyo, even though we've been told a thousand times to never go there, and nearly kill yourself when you fall and hit your head. He cried for weeks about it, thinking that he had somehow inadvertently brought about your accident."
Mulling this information over in her head, Kagome could make some sense of what her brother was saying, but one thing it didn't explain was how she had gotten the jagged scar on her left side just below her ribcage. When she had taken her bath this evening, she was surprised to find the scar as she shouldn't have it if she never fell into the well. The wound had been caused by the centipede woman who had attacked her, looking for the Shikon no Tama Kagome unknowingly carried inside her body. Lifting the edge of her pajama top to expose her belly to her brother's gaze, she asked. "Okay, so where did I get this scar?"
Fixing his sister with an exasperated look that clearly said she should know already, he sarcastically replied. "That happened about three years ago when you crashed your bike coming back from school and nearly impaled yourself on Mrs. Kirasawa's picket fence."
Kagome's head was spinning by the time Souta finished, her confusion intensifying as he handily shot down both means of proof she had for verifying her story. If her brother's explanations were the truth, she really hadn't been in the Segoku Jidai nor had she spent almost a year searching for fragments of the Shikon no Tama along with Inuyasha and her other companions. But, no matter how believable her brother sounded, she could never accept that it had all been just a dream. Her memories and the emotions which were tied to them were too powerful to be some fantasy she had concocted in her head.
There was only one way she could think of to clear this whole mess up. She had to find Inuyasha. Fast.
A lone figure moved silently through the early morning streets, his long, black leather coat flapping around his legs as he briskly walked towards his destination. On his right hand, a light blue rosary was wound around his palm and wrist, contrasting sharply with the dark color of his fingerless arm covering anchored by two silver rings around his middle finger. Shoulder length black hair was tied back in a low tail at the base of his neck with a strip of leather, leaving only a few short strands to hang in front of his piercing violet eyes. Rounding another corner, he strode with necessary haste, anxious to verify or disprove this new lead as soon as possible.
Miroku had given the latest rumor hardly any credence when he first heard it, but there was just enough corroboration from their sources that it merited further investigation before he completely dismissed it. The girl he was going to see lived at a small shrine near the Shinjuku prefecture and it was whispered that she had some miko capabilities. In the past such rumors were grossly exaggerated, but this one appeared credible as it had attracted more than its fair share of interest from less desirable quarters. Youkai were also greatly intrigued by this supposed miko and it seemed they were going to try and get to her first. It was this which prompted him to increase his pace even further as he began to detect a large amount of youki gathering ahead of him.
"Just great," he mumbled, not exactly looking forward to an early morning workout.
He had spent the last three nights combing the streets for more clues which would help them locate Kagome, but so far he had only turned up a couple of dead ends and quite a few youkai who were intent on putting a stop to his research. Tired, hungry and more than a little pissed off, Miroku was the last person these youkai wanted to run into.
Mounting the short flight of stairs, it seemed that every shrine they went to anymore had stairs leading up to it, he entered the courtyard as three youkai materialized between him and the main building. Deciding that he wasn't even going to bother calling out a warning if they were too stupid to sense his presence, he calmly removed the rosary from his right hand and opened the kazaana. Their terrified screeches were the last sound the youkai made as they swiftly disappeared into the air void. Carefully resealing his hand, the monk scanned the surrounding area for any more youki and was relieved to sense nothing in that respect, although he did sense something else.
A young woman was watching him from the upper story of the tidy little house beside the main shrine and when he waved his hand in greeting, she offered him a shy wave in return. She was obviously the miko' everyone had been talking about, but Miroku immediately noted that she was not the one he was looking for. The sun reflected off of her short blond hair and even from this distance, he could tell that her eyes were a rich, coffee brown, not the steely blue-gray he had been hoping to find.
Waving again in farewell, he turned swiftly on his heel and headed down the steps and back towards his apartment where he was going to take a much needed shower before sleeping the rest of the day away. Pulling his phone from the pocket of his jacket, he quickly punched a number and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.
Pacing the floor of their neatly ordered kitchen, Sango waited anxiously for Miroku to get home so he could tell her about the miko he was investigating. Neither of them had suspected that it would be Kagome, but they weren't willing to risk the chance that it might be her. They had thought that finding a true miko in Tokyo shouldn't have been all that hard, but they hadn't counted on the sheer number of people they would be sifting through nor how many people would profess to having spiritual power then turn out to be either crackpots or conmen. But Kagome, well, she had been the real thing with a power that had not been seen since the days of the great miko, Midoriko.
For five centuries, they had been searching for their friend. Five hundred years had passed with agonizing slowness as they waited for the time they could begin their search in earnest. That time was now the present and for almost three years; they had been to one shrine after another looking for clues about either the Shikon no Tama or Kagome. About the same time they started looking, a fad had developed at several of the shrines and many of them began stocking imitations of the mystical jewel as good luck charms. With the sudden renewed interest in the Shikon legend, Sango had believed that this might aid their search, but not a single solid lead had been generated to help them locate Kagome.
Turning to cross the kitchen again, Sango abruptly stopped when she heard a key scrape in the lock. Sprinting towards the front door, she slammed into Miroku as he let himself in, nearly knocking them both to the floor in the process. Planting a swift, sweet kiss on his lips, she then proceeded to grill him for information. "So, did you find her? Did any youkai attack? Was it Kagome?"
Thrown off balance by his wife's delightful welcome before she instantly switched gears and left him dazed by her questions, Miroku unzipped his floor length coat and hung it up by the door before favoring Sango's queries with his replies. "Yes, I found her. Yes, there were three youkai, all easily dispatched."
His gut tightened as he prepared himself to let Sango down as gently as possible. "And no, it wasn't Kagome."
"Oh," was all Sango said in response, her hands unconsciously coming up to fist in the front of his t-shirt. Laying her head against his chest, she whispered. "We'll find her next time, won't we?"
His arms wrapping around her in a comforting embrace, Miroku made the same promise he had broken only half an hour earlier. "Yeah, sweetheart. Next time, we definitely will."
Cupping his hand beneath her chin, he lifted her head so that he could stare into her beautiful brown eyes as he pressed a soft kiss to her lips to seal his promise. Sango allowed her hands to slide up his chest to his shoulders and she leaned into the kiss, her body molding to his as she delicately licked at his bottom lip with her tongue. Their lips parted on a sigh and he took the opportunity to tangle his tongue with hers as his hands slid from her back downwards to cup the soft curves of her buttocks. As if he couldn't help himself, he gave one cheek a teasing pinch which had Sango drawing back from him to fix him with a mock glare as she quipped. "Hentai."
A slow, wicked grin spread across Miroku's face as he laughingly scooped her up in his arms, playfully warning. "You have no idea how much, but I'll be happy to show you."
Switching off the speaker phone on his desk, Sesshoumaru leaned back in his chair as Miroku's latest report offered no immediate solution to their current dilemma.
For reasons as yet undetermined, each of their intended fates had been gravely altered following the miko's wish on the Shikon no Tama. Whether it was the wish itself or the fact that she had broken the rules of time by traveling five hundred years into the past, he couldn't say for certain, but there was no denying that all of their lives had been changed that sunny afternoon. Awash in the soothing glow of the jewel's pure power, he had felt the fabric of time shift around him and was stunned when the light receded to reveal that the miko had disappeared.
At that point, Inuyasha had leapt crazily into the well claiming that he would check with her family to see if she was all right. Sesshoumaru had barely contained his laughter when his idiot brother landed with a resounding thud and a string of curses on the hard packed earth below although the wolf demon had no qualms about chuckling heartily at the hanyou's expense. Surprisingly the kitsune had come to Inuyasha's defense, proclaiming that the well was magical and that Kagome had used it to travel back and forth between the Sengoku Jidai and the future some five hundred years distant. Both the monk and the taijiya had looked horrified at the young fox demon's accounting for Inuyasha's bizarre behavior which convinced Sesshoumaru that there was apparently some truth to the wild tale.
His convictions grew as from that moment onwards he had witnessed indescribable changes in the world around him while he remained relatively untouched by the passage of time. He later learned that Inuyasha, the monk, the taijiya, and the wolf demon were similarly affected, years flowing by them like minutes in a day and none of them aging more than five years in the end. Only the kitsune had significantly changed, growing from a kit to an adult, but he too stopped maturing when he appeared around twenty human years in age.
This brought him back to their ongoing concern that Kagome's life must also have been altered and if it had, they might very well be looking for a tiny needle in an enormous haystack. However, he refused to think such pessimistic thoughts when more rumors were surfacing daily. When it was known that someone was looking for something or someone, rumors had a habit of making themselves appear with frightening regularity. Pandering to that simple formula, they had cast their net far and wide, eliciting responses from as far away as Okinawa. Of course, most of them had been nothing more than smoke and mirrors, but one or two proved credible enough to warrant further inquiry, such as the one he had just received.
Sesshoumaru grudgingly acknowledged that he owed most of the credit for sourcing this lead to Shippo who had spent the last week researching night and day a fresh tip they had about a young woman admitted to Tokyo General Hospital suffering from a concussion. Finally, this morning, over a cup of coffee a cute redhead had sweetly offered to buy while he waited for his friend to be treated, an emergency room nurse had eagerly spilled a story she had heard from her friend on the day shift about a cool nickname.
The nickname had been 'Inuyasha'.
The sound of a ringing telephone shrilled painfully loud in Inuyasha's sensitive ears prompting him to bury his head further under his pillow. He was exhausted and there was no way in hell he was going to get out of bed before the sun had barely risen over the horizon. As the phone continued to ring unabated, he finally tossed the covers aside and snatched up the receiver, barking into the mouthpiece. "Whoever the fuck this is, you better have a damned good reason for waking me up or I'm going to kill you."
"Good morning to you, too, Inuyasha." His brother's dry voice sounded on the other end of the line, a note of humor discernable in his otherwise flat tone.
Wiping ineffectively at his sleep filled eyes, Inuyasha yawned loudly before he said. "Shit, Sesshoumaru, what do you want and couldn't it have waited until later, say five this afternoon?"
He could almost hear his brother rolling his eyes in disgust at that suggestion. Whenever 'Sesshoumaru-sama' wanted to tell you something, he wanted to tell you right now. After five hundred years of putting up with this odd quirk in his brother's behavior, Inuyasha had learned to accept that nothing he said or did was going to alter Sesshoumaru's unpleasant habit of annoying you at any given hour of the day to tell you exactly what was on his mind. And of course, today had proven to be no exception; however, for once, Inuyasha actually wanted to hear what he had to say. "We may have found a positive lead about Kagome."
At the mention of her name, Inuyasha's mouth grew incredibly dry and he had trouble asking. "Are you sure this time it could be her?"
"Shippo gained the information from a very reliable source and there are three other witnesses who will substantiate it if necessary."
Hardly daring to believe what his brother was saying, the hanyou croaked. "When are you going to confirm?"
The response was crisp and professional, as if his brother was discussing something as mundane as the weather rather than the possibility that their five hundred year wait was coming to an end. "Miroku and Sango will scope out the shrine this afternoon and get a visual ID. After that, it's up to you."
"Right, give me the address where I'm supposed to meet them." Quickly memorizing the details, Inuyasha quietly replaced the phone on the receiver. Lying back on his bed, his mind was a hazy flood of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
After all this time, was he finally going to see her again? He didn't want to risk believing that it might be true. How many times had he gotten his hopes up only for them to be dashed when they soon realized that the young woman they had found wasn't Kagome. Naturally, all of this could have been easily resolved if he could remember the location of the shrine, her school or any of the shops or restaurants she had visited with him, but the wish had erased every single one of his memories of modern Tokyo.
In fact, the only description any of them were able to provide about the girl they were searching for was that she had black, slightly wavy hair, blue-gray eyes and her name was Kagome. Even if she had cut her hair or dyed it, the name was distinctive enough to narrow their search; however, most of their leads didn't include the name so they would have to physically check each one. Some more information certainly would have been helpful, particularly her surname, but none of them could recall what it had been and they were left with only the information at hand. Actually, Inuyasha could have added to that her unique, delicate scent, but humans didn't have the enhanced senses of a youkai to be able to discern something so intimately Kagome's.
Wide awake now, he shoved the sheets and blankets out of his way as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Padding across the thick, plush carpet lining the floor, he headed into the bathroom deciding that since he was up, he might as well take a shower and get ready. Turning on the knobs and adjusting the temperature, he considered an alternative plan to the one Sesshoumaru had discussed.
He'd call Sango and Miroku's place when he was finished to see if they wanted to go out for breakfast and then the three of them could meander over to the shrine and check things out. Since it was Sunday, it really didn't matter what time they got there as the shrines were usually open most of the day and they could drop by anytime, so long as there was sufficient light to see by. Satisfied with this new course of action, he shucked off the silk boxers he had slept in and stepped into the welcoming warm spray.
Coming Soon: Chapter 3: A New Future Unfolds