--Collide and Collaspe--

Crash!

"Ow. Oh, hello, Lady Kaede! Long time, no see, huh? Betcha don't even remember me!"

"Reyu Takaya, isn't it?" said Kaede, without any real hesistation.

"Uh. Yeah," Reyu blinked, surprised that the elderly woman remembered her name after only seeing her once, three years ago. "Oh, wait! My eyes gave it away, didn't they?"

"That, and when you fell over just right now, coming inside my hut. Child, you are the only person I have ever met that can manage to trip over nothing but thin air."

"Yeah, well, not everyone can be as talented as me," she joked as she dusted herself off. Excitement had got the better of her; she needed to slow down. There wasn't any big hurry, but she was eager to set her plan into action. The sooner the better, in her mind.

"You two know each other?" asked Sango as she entered.

"Yes, we've met before, a long while back," Kaede began, but was interupted when, from outside the hut, Miroku's voice rang out:

"Lady Sango! I need some assistance please! If it's not too much trouble, perhaps you could carry me inside?"

"Arrg, will you stop that already?" she shouted in annoyance. "Your arm's broke, not your legs! Carry yourself, lech!"

A moment later, Miroku appeared, cradling his arm in his makeshift sling and pretending to pout. "Ah, Sango, your cruel words hurt me so. Here I am, wounded and helpless, and yet you yell at me for asking a simple favor. Whatever happend to helping a friend in need?"

"The only thing you're in need of," she grumbled, "Is a functioning brain."

"Got in a bit of a scruffle, eh?" Kaede shuffled over and examined Miroku's arm. "Hmm. Can you move it?"

"No," he said quickly, but the old woman had already grabbed him by the wrist and jerked his arm up. "AAHHHHH!"

"Hmm, it's broken, all right. A closed fracture, heavily damaged, but nothing time won't heal." Kaede let his arm drop. "Well, go ahead and have a seat; I'll get to you in a mintue. I'm assumsing there is something else you need right now," she said, eyes flickering to Reyu. "And it seems that we are missing some people?"

"Oh, uh, yes. Well, Shippo is outside with that, um, with Kirara," said Sango, having trouble trying to word her reply, "And Inuyasha is waiting back in the forest." She left it at that. It was true enough; Shippo was outside, with Kirara and an uncomfortable Hiromi. After hearing that Kagome was apparently dead, he refused to talk to anyone and cried, not needing any convincing on the matter. Hiromi was keeping his distance from everyone, as Inuyasha's friends didn't trust him. He had helped Kagura attack them, after all, and there was that suspicous bit that Inuyasha had mentioned right before he went after him. And Inuyasha himself had been told to wait in the forest by Reyu, who felt it was better that he wasn't around Hiromi too much, because the last thing she needed was to have the two at each other's throats. Surprisingly enough, Inuyasha did what he was told without any arguement. (Which worried her a little; he must be really depressed if he wasn't even agruing anymore.)

"Ah, I see," said Kaede. She wondered about Kagome, naturally, but didn't ask. "So, I take it the exorcism went badly?"

"We never even made it there," Sango sighed, leaning against the wall. She wasn't terribly hurt, but the battle left her tired. "Kagura ambushed us on the way. If Inuyasha hadn't shown up when he did, we might have been finished."

Kaede tsk-tsk-ed and shook her head. "Always causing trouble, that Naraku and his minions." She looked up at Reyu and asked, not unkindly, "But how do you come into this?"

"Well, you know how it is," Reyu said with a shrug, "Everyone's business is a seer's business."

"Are you still upset about that?" Kaede wanted to know. "When we met, you seemed to be very displeased with your gift, as I recall."

"Yes, but I got over it. Instead of complaining about it, I decided to just go around and try to use it to help people. Things didn't turn out so bad, really. And I met another seer too, can you believe it?"

"Another seer?"

"Yup! In fact, I brought him with me. Hold on," Reyu leaned outside the doorway. Shippo was sitting right outside it, curled up next to Kirara, having cried himself to sleep. Hiromi was nowhere in sight.

"Hiro?" she whispered, not wanting to disturb Shippo.

"What?" Hiromi's head was suddenly right in front of her's, hanging upside-down from the roof. Startled, Reyu jumped back and banged her head on the door frame. As she rubbed her head, Hiromi did a perfect flip off the roof and landed on his feet in front of her, wings spread slightly outwards to balance him.

"What the heck were you doing up there, Hiro?"

"Huh?" he blinked. "Oh, the roof? Well, the villagers kept staring at me and whispering, and the kitsune wouldn't stop crying, so I just flew up there. A lot quieter. So, what did you want?"

"Come with me," she said, but Hiromi made no move to follow her back inside. "Hiromi, don't just stand there!"

"Why? What's wrong with standing here?"

"Hiro!"

"Look, I'd rather just stay out here. I mean, it might just be my imagination," he said sarcastically, "But I don't think your new friends like me very much."

"Really? I wonder what gave you that ridicuously correct idea?" she said, rolling her eyes and grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, dragging him inside. "Now get in here!" With one final yank, Reyu pulled him inside the hut. "Since proper introductions couldn't be made earlier," she said, "allow me to do so now: Everyone, this Hiromi. Hiromi, this is everyone."

There was an awkward silence, but it wasn't long-lived as Kaede hobbled forward and said hello, not knowing of the animosity between the others.

"Another seer, hm? Yes, your eyes are like Reyu's. Only red. A demon-seer, then?"

"Uh, yes ma'am." Hiromi mumbled.

"One of the Tsubasa clan?"

Hiromi stared. "Yes. How did you know that?"

"Seers aren't exactly common, never have been. Especially the humans ones," Kaede nodded to Reyu. "Naturally, you demon-seers would stick in a clan, so the gift could survive to future generations. And there's only been one clan of demon-seers that anyone would have heard of; Tsubasa. Also, I've had an encounter with a Tsubasa demon before. Did you know a Nanase?"

"Yes! That was my grandmother."

"The seer you knew was Hiro's grandmother?" exclaimed Reyu. "Wow. I guess there really isn't any coincidence in the world."

"Mm. A demon, but also a good soul, your grandmother was. Are you a good soul as well?" Kaede asked him with a slight smile.

"Um," said Hiromi. He felt uncomfortable, Lady Kaede's one good eye staring out at him, as if trying to bore a hole in him to see his soul for herself. It was unnerving, and strangely, it made him feel guilty.

"Well," said Kaede, dropping the subject much to Hiromi's relief. "Looks like you were in a scruffle too. I suppose you'll be wanting something for that black eye of yours, hm?"

"Oh no, he's fine," Reyu cutted in cheerfully. She gave Hiromi a quick 'you-got-what-you-deserved' grin before he could say anything. "Actually, we need to know if we can borrow a few things from you, Lady Kaede. If you don't mind."

"Oh, of course not. What is it you need?"

Hiromi recited his mental list of tools and supplies they required, and Kaede was able to get them each and every item they needed, all within her own home.

"Thank you so much, Lady Kaede. This will definitely help. I owe you one. Again," Reyu added.

"Tis no trouble, child, no trouble at all."

"Okay, I think we got everything...yup. All right, Hiro, let's get going!"

"W-wait!" Sango shouted as they turned to leave. Hiromi ignored her and exited the hut, but Reyu lingered in the doorway.

"I don't understand what happend, or what's going on," Sango said, "And I'm not sure what's going to happen next. But you...you know all that, don't you?"

"Um, well, sorta," she replied uncertainly. "Yes, in a way. Um..."

"You went there," Sango continued. "Through the well, I mean. You were there. So you would know...did..did Kagome really die?"

Reyu sighed. She had almost made it out of there without having to say anything about that. She had been so close. But now, what would she do? She thought about lying and just telling them that no, Kagome was fine, just fine. That way, she could get out of there quick and they would be spared the grief. And if everything went right, if her plan worked, then it wouldn't matter what she said.

That's right. It wouldn't matter, in the end. But...it mattered now. They were Kagome's friends, they wanted to know, and they deserved the truth. Even if it would only matter now.

"Yes," Reyu finally answered, her voice not wavering. "Kagome is dead."

Sango's face fell and she bowed her head, sad and quiet. Miroku blinked and stared at her, as if he had heard incorrectly. Lady Kaede was just plain shocked and confused.

"I-I can't believe it..." muttered Sango, and it sounded like she was about to cry. Reyu searched her mind for something to do, something she could say to console them. But she found nothing, her mind a complete and useless blank.

"Reyu!" Hiromi called from outside. Reyu felt relieved at the excuse to go, and guilty at feeling relieved.

"I'm sorry. But...but don't worry," she told them, before she turned and escaped the room.

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

The sun had set long ago, and it was now late night--or early morning. Inuyasha did not feel the slightest bit of weariness, not even after such a long day. It was one of those days that seemed to last forever. Kagome had passed away that very afternoon, yet it already seemed like ages ago. The fresh grief was the only thing that told Inuyasha otherwise. He knew, with the utmost certainty, that she was gone, and that caused him such an overwhelming sorrow. At first. But now, he just felt numb, and the whole idea of Kagome being dead just seemed so...surreal.

Once again, Inuyasha was sitting under the God Tree. Reyu had made him wait there. He didn't mind, for once, because it meant he would be able to avoid his questioning friends and that damned Hiromi, who he now hated as much as he did Naraku. He was relieved that he wouldn't have to look at that demon anymore, wouldn't have to be around him and constantly restrain himself from ripping him limb from to limb.

That relief was short-lived though, because when Inuyasha finally spotted Reyu coming back into the woods, he saw that Hiromi was following right behind her. Both of them had an armful of various things.

Inuyasha was up in an instant. "What the hell is he still doing here?"

"Inuyasha, I told you before; I need Hiro's help with this," Reyu said patiently. Hiromi himself was hanging back from the two and said nothing.

"I thought you already got his help," Inuyasha grumbled, gesturing to the things they were carrying: herbs, parchment, ink, brushes, candles, flint, and a couple of blank scrolls, along with a few other items he couldn't recognize under everything else.

"These are the things we need. I can't do the spell itself on my own," she said. "So you're just going to have to behave yourself and put up with it for the time being."

"Or I could just snap him into two."

"Inuyasha. We need Hiro's help with this."

"I don't trust him," Inuyasha growled.

"I'm not asking you to trust him," Reyu said, her voice rising as her patience began to ebb away, "I'm asking you to trust me!"

"I do," Inuyasha quickly assured her, feeling a pang of guilt when he saw that his bad attitude was chipping away at her normally cheerful disposition. Even after knowing Reyu for only four days, a happy smile and a hopeful expression was something Inuyasha had to come always expect from her. Even on a day like this, she had managed to somehow stay determinedly cheerful and optimistic. Up until right now, that is, because he was finally wearing her patience thin. "I do trust you, okay?"

"Then will you please do what I say and not argue about it? And not kill Hiro?"

"Yeah," he said, sighing inwardly. But it worked. Reyu was already perking up.

"Great! Now let's get this started. Hiro?" she turned her head around, looking at him expectantly. "Come on, it's all right. Inuyasha won't bite now."

Hiromi gave her a tired look. "Reyu, this isn't going to work."

"What isn't going to work? Don't keep leaving me hanging like this, Reyu! Tell me what you're up to," Inuyasha demanded. "After all, if I'm gonna trust you, then you gotta trust me."

"Okay, okay!" Yeesh. He turned her words against her. "Here's the plan: me and Hiro, we're going to alter the Bone Eater's Well. We're going to go back to Kagome's time and from there, we're going to change the course of the time portal so that it takes us back to a few days before today. Before Hiromi met Naraku and before Kagome was killed. That way, we can prevent what happend, and everything will be all right."

Inuyasha was quiet as he disgested this. Basically, Reyu wanted to change the Past. It seemed like a good idea, and it sounded so simple, but could they really do that? Was it possible to tamper with Time?

"You said we couldn't bring Kagome back," he said slowly, "So you want to stop her from dying in the first place?"

"That's pretty much it. We save Kagome and fix the future. Set things right."

"And you can do that?"

"Weeell..."

"Not likely," Hiromi answered. "It's very risky. It's never been done. It very well may be impossible."

Inuyasha regarded Hiro coldly. "Reyu?" he prompted.

"Ahh, well, um," she bobbed her head side to side, as if she were literally looking for the rights words. "Um, yeah, Hiro might be right. That's why I didn't want to tell you about this earlier, in case it was turned out to be a false lead. But Hiro also knows about the spell, and if there's a spell, then maybe it does work. We don't really know for sure."

"A spell?" Inuyasha echoed hopefully.

"A story," corrected Hiro, "It's mentioned in a made-up story my grandmother once told me. I made the mistake of telling it to Reyu a long while ago. That's where she got this whole crazy idea."

"Hiro, you don't know, it could be based on a true story! It's worth a try," Reyu said, defending her plan.

"Is it? You have no clue what could happen! It might just make things worse, for all you know."

"Can things get any worse, after what you did?" Reyu retorted. She knew it was cheap shot, but she didn't want Hiromi backing out of it now. And she didn't want him to leave. Watching him frown, she knew she had him.

"Yes," he murmmed under his breath, so softly that Reyu didn't hear it. But Inuyasha did, thanks to his sensitive cannine ears. He glanced at Hiromi, seeing the momentary sadness that accompanied the single word, but when Hiro caught Inuyasha looking at him, he shot him back an angry glare. An accusing glare, as if Inuyasha was somehow at fault for something. He looked away, and as the three of them walked to the well, Reyu oblivious and Hiromi silent, Inuyasha wondered what he could have done to have made Hiromi so mad at him. There was, of course, the whole he-nearly-choked-him-to-death thing, but that wasn't it. Somehow, Inuyasha knew. That glare wasn't for the attempt on his life. But then, that left a puzzling question:

What could Inuyasha have possibly done to make the demon hate him so much?

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

Hiromi was able to go through the well just like Reyu could, much to Inuyasha's disappointment. Apparently, the 'seers allowed' rule was still in effect. Hiromi seemed thoroughly surprised when he arrived in the future, confirming Reyu's claims that the well was a time portal after all. And Reyu, naturally, couldn't resist a "Ha-ha, I told ya so."

Hiromi was standing just outside the enclosed shrine that housed the Bone Eater's Well, standing in the same place he stood moments before, but only now about five or so centuries later. Out of all the strange things that have happend to him (and for someone like Hiromi, that was a lot of strange things), this one really took the cake. He was in the future! Or technically, the future from his position. For others, it was the present, or even the past. It depended on when you were. To be more accurate, he was in a different time period. Either way you looked at it though, it was a paradox, something that was apparently possible even when you knew it shouldn't be.

He almost had trouble believeing it himself. Sure, he knew about time portals. He knew everything there was to know about Time. He could see into the future. That's what seers did. But even if he could see the future, and did know about time portals, that didn't mean he ever expected that he could actually go to the future. And just by jumping in a well? It was too easy! Still, the was undeniable truth all around him. They had traveled to a future time.

Inuyasha seemed used to it (which he was), as if Time travel was the most normal thing in the world. Reyu, on the other hand, had only done this once and so was still surprised by it. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't believe it. In fact, she had no trouble believing it. Reyu possessed a certain, unique confidence when it came to strange sitautions that allowed her to easily accept and adapt to anything unusal without any trouble, worries, or doubt. If it was real and/or reasonable enough, she'd believe it and leave it at that.

Whereas Hiromi was the kind of person who would want to think things over and figure out all the how's and the why's before he would even suggest that it was possibly true. Reyu didn't need to know how the well worked to accept that it did, but if Hiromi had his way, he'd have studied it and the current time period for hours, experimenting and exploring, so that he could fully understand it and add to his extensive knowledge of Time and scrying.

Inuyasha wasn't going to let him get his way, though. The idea of Hiromi even being there irked him, and he definitely didn't want the demon loose in Kagome's time. He stepped outside the shrine and glared at the back of Hiromi's head until he finally turned around and noted his presence.

"Don't get any ideas," Inuyasha growled to him. "Go back inside. Now."

The vehemence he put into that 'now' was what made Hiromi obey the command, but not without shooting Inuyasha a hateful glare back first. Before Inuyasha himself returned into the shrine, he looked to where Kagome's house stood. There was only silence and no lights were on, making it seem desolate and abandoned. They were sleeping, or perhaps they were not even there. Either way, Inuyasha was glad. Kagome's family were the last people he wanted to see right now. Not because he had something against them, but because they probably had something against him. He, after all, hadn't protected Kagome. It was partly his fault, what happend.

He went back inside, closing the door tightly. Reyu had lit sereval of the candles, so it was dim but not completely dark. There was a earthy aroma in the air, from the herbs she had burned. Now she had out the small scrolls and was writing something on one of them.

Hiromi was writing something too, but not on parchment nor in any language Inuyasha had ever seen. Dipping his brush in the ink, he painted strange symbols in a simple but neat fashion onto the side of the well. There were hundreds of the symbols on one side already, lined up in orderly rows all the way down to the bottom. Apparently, he was going to write these symbols on all four sides of the well. Inuyasha couldn't make head or tails of it; they didn't seem to go in any particular pattern and didn't look like anything but weird markings.

"Hey Inuyasha, do you know how to write your name?" He looked away from the well and turned to Reyu, who was holding out a blank scroll to him. "If you don't, it's all right," she said. "I can write it for you."

"Of course I can write my own name! I can actually write a lot of things," he said, with a hint of pride, as he snapped the scroll out of her hand and scribbled down his name. "There." He handed it back to her. It was barely legible, but it would do.

"Great," she said, sticking it with her's and pulling out another blank scroll.

"So, how come you know how to write?" Inuyasha wanted to know. He had noticed the scroll with her own name on it, and it was printed much neater than his.

"I came from a wealthy family."

He duly noted the past tense and it made him realize how little he knew about Reyu. "So you were educated?" he asked conversationally.

"No, but my older brother was," she replied flatly. Then, in a lighter tone, she added, "But I had vision that showed me who really lost our father's favorite sword, and I used that to blackmail him into teaching me what he learned."

"Oh, and Hiro, should I write your name for you?"

"Yes please," he said, not looking up from his work.

"Can't read or write, huh?" Inuyasha said, taunting him. (Inuyasha decided the strange symbols didn't count as reading or writing.)

"I can, actually," Hiro said evenly, still covering the well with symbols. "Reyu taught me, so I'm just as literate as her. Which is to say, I'm more literate than you."

"Feh."

"That's what I thought." Hiro finally put the brush down and stood up. All four sides of the well were now covered entirely. "Reyu, you ready?"

"Hold on." She had everyone's name-scrolls and was using a candle to burn them. Inuyasha watched curiously as she burned each one to a little pile of ash, then mixed the piles into one, bigger pile. Then she walked over and dumped the ashes into the well.

"Okay, now what?"

Hiromi pulled a small, sharp dagger out from within his cloak. He held out his right index finger and pricked it with the tip of his dagger. Blood welled up on the top of his finger. Then, pressing it in against the wooden ledge of the well, he painted another symbol, with his blood. When he was finished, he held out his dagger to Reyu, who looked at it uneasily.

"Um, you do for it me," she squeaked, holding out her finger and shutting her eyes. Blood and pointy, sharp things always made her queasy.

"Is this really necessary?" Inuyasha asked. He couldn't care less if the demon wanted to poke himself with knives, but he didn't like that Hiromi expected Reyu to do the same, especially when she was cringing like that.

"I believe it is important, yes," Hiro mumurmed. He very gently pushed the tip of the blade into Reyu's finger, who was biting her lip and trying not wince. Then, she cracked an eye open, looked at the bubble of blood on her finger and said, "Oh. That didn't hurt at all."

"I don't know why that surprises you. It was just a little prick. Here," Hiro put his hand over Reyu's and guided her finger on the ledge, since she didn't know the symbols. When that was done, she wiped finger off and the small prick had all ready stopped bleeding.

As soon as she had removed her finger from the ledge, the well started glowing. Not the inside of the well, but the outside, the symbols. Each and every one, including the two in seer's blood, emitted a greenish-blue glow that seemed to flicker and move. Suddenly, the shrine was very bright in the wash of the glowing symbols.

"Ooh, it looks so pretty!" Reyu exclaimed, memerized by the lights.

"What's with those markings?" asked Inuyasha, "And what kind of language is it?"

"The symbols are something my grandmother taught me," Hiro answered. "Only seers can really learn them and use them. They're supposed to help with a number of things; clearer visions, charms, spellcasting. Each one has its own meaning, but there are no real translations for them in any mortal language."

"Mortal language? What's that suppose to mean, that it's a god's language?"

"No, not a god's," he replied bitingly, as if Inuyasha had just said the dumbest thing he had ever heard. "It's more like...Time's language."

"Time has a language?" Inuyasha said skeptically, but it seemed that Hiromi no longer had anything to say to Inuyasha at the moment. Or rather, he didn't feel that Inuyasha was worth the time and effort of speaking to. Instead, he turned his attention to Reyu.

"Everything done?" he asked.

"Yep. We ready to go then?"

"More or less. Although I'm still not sure if this will work, Reyu."

"It will work," she said confidently.

"It might not."

"There's only one way to find to out."

"I'd rather not find out."

"It will work," she repeated.

"How exactly will it work?" Inuyasha asked, cutting off Hiro's next retort. "What did you guys do to the well?"

"We altered it, but there's no point in wasting my breath by explaining that to someone like you," Hiro said evenly.

"Someone like me? And what's that just supposed to mean, huh?" growled Inuyasha, who was getting dangerously close to strangling him again. Luckily, Reyu came to the rescue.

"I think what Hiro meant was someone who's not a seer. Right, Hiro?"

"Of course. That's exactly what I meant," he said with mocking sincerity that meant he really didn't. Reyu shot him a warning glance.

"We changed the path of the portal," she explained hurriedly, to distract the two from killing each other, which is what looked like might happen any minute now. "When we jump in the well, we'll end up back in our own time period, but a few days before we actually left. The spell changes how far back in the past the portal goes, see? And thankfully, this is a stable portal. That means it's always here, in the same spot, and it's always balanced. So when the path is altered to go back a few days farther in the past, this time period will do the same thing and go back the same number of days, so it matches the past. See, the Time Stream is one whole thing, no matter when you are in it, so if we change one part of it, the rest has to change too to stay steady. Basically, we're rewinding everything in Time backwards, but just a little bit."

Reyu inhaled deeply to regain her breath, and both Inuyasha and Hiromi were staring at her, open-mouthed. How could anyone talk that fast? She had said all that in probably less than twenty seconds.

"So, do you understand?" she said, talking back in her normal speed.

"Um, no." Inuyasha shrugged. Even if she hadn't been talking that quickly, he still wouldn't have gotten everything. There was a lot of confusing Time-things to sort through. "But you sound like you know what you're talking about," he went on, "So I'll just go with it."

"Great," said Hiro, although you could tell he didn't think it was great at all. "Let's go. You first, dog-boy."

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

Normally, when Inuyasha jumps in the Bone Eater's Well to travel back and forth from his time to the future, it only takes a second. You jump in, there's a flash of light, and then you're there. As quick as a snap of the fingers. You're in the past. Snap. Now you're in the future. That's all there is to it.

Normally.

This time, it wasn't that fast. Maybe that's because it wasn't a normal circumstance. They were, after all, trying to go further back in time, if only by a few days. Maybe that's why it was taking longer. Maybe.

To Inuyasha, it felt strange and off. It was like you were at the very bottom of a swimming pool that was full of thick pudding instead of water, and you were trying to swim to the surface before you ran out of air. (Only Inuyasha wouldn't have described exactly like that, since he didn't know what a swimming pool or pudding was.)

Finally, it seemed that he was through. The slow, blurry multitude of lights that swirled by suddenly erupted, spinning faster and faster until a clear image formed around him. Only it wasn't the inside of the well. In fact, the well was no where in sight.

"What in all the seven Hells...?" Inuyasha muttered under his breath.

He was somewhere outside, but outside where? It looked like a forest...and also a modern city. Parts of it looked like someplace from Inuyasha's time, but it also looked like parts of Kagome's time got mixed in.

There were tall trees and tall towers. There was a decrepit, wooden shack next to a brick, two-story house. And under Inuyasha's feet was a dirt path that went on to be a paved street. There were no people around, nor any animals. Not even bugs. Just the plants, the rocks, the buildings, the trees, the path/street, and him.

Then, shortly after Inuyasha arrived, the two seers appeared next. There wasn't any bright lights, or poofing sounds, or anything like that at all. No one was there, Inuyasha blinked, and then they were suddenly in front of him. And they both looked just as surprised as he did.

"Does this always happen when you go back through?" Hiromi asked doubtfully.

"No."

"Didn't think so. Well, Reyu. I was right." There wasn't any smugness in his voice. He said it has a true statement.

Their plan didn't work.

Reyu was pacing around in wide circles, her eyes zooming across the surroundings in despair, trying to figure it all out. She looked frantic.

"How could this happen?" she was asking herself. "We did everything right. How could we've messed this up?"

"Where--what happend here?" Inuyasha asked, gesturing his arms out at their surroundings. "What's going on?"

Reyu jerked her pacing to a stop and turned to him. "We've created a knot in the Time Stream, I'm afraid," she answered. She seemed to calm down now that there was something she could explain. "Parts of the two time periods that the well connects collided together when we jumped."

"Okay," Inuyasha nodded, "So what does that mean?"

"It means," Reyu began, "It means that we're in trouble. Everyone's in trouble. We messed up the flow of the Time Stream. Like I said before, the Time Stream is one whole thing, and it always flows in one direction: forward. This place, this knot-hole we've made, it's not supposed to exsist and now it's in the way. It's going to start obstructing the flow of Time and cause a build up."

Inuyasha stared at her. "I'm not sure I understand," he said.

She seemed uncertain for a moment, then got an idea. "It's like this," she said. "Imagine the Time Stream is an actual stream and Time is the water flowing in it. The water is always moving in one direction down the stream. Do you follow me?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." She held out her right arm in front of her. "Pretend this the stream," she said. She balled her left hand into a fist and placed it on the middle of her arm. "Annnd this is a huge boulder that accidently fell into the stream. It's so big that the water behind it gets blocked. Now what's going happen to the stream if the boulder stays there?"

"The water behind it will build up and over flow?" Inuyasha guessed.

"Right! And that's exactly what's happening here. This is a big boulder blocking the Time Stream."

"So, Time's going to build up and over flow? But that's what I don't get. What happends then?"

"Time will fix itself," Hiromi answered. "It will remove the "boulder", so to speak, and continue to flow properly. After all, Time cannot be destoryed."

"So then what's the problem?" Inuyasha asked impatiently. If Time can fix itself, what was the big deal?

"All of history, along with everyone has ever been, in any part of Time, will have never exsisted. The Time Stream will have to start over. To put it simply, we're doomed."

"Hiro, please stop acting like that!" Reyu groaned.

"Like what?"

"Negative! Pessimistic! You can't be certain that will happen, that we're all doomed to not exsist!"

"Reyu, you're too hopeful. There nothing wrong with that, but you sometimes you have to be realistic," he said flatly. "Do you really think there's a way out of this?"

She went silent, and stared at the ground, looking defeated. Hiromi felt a little bad, for diminishing her hope like that. But what he could do? He had warned her from the start that something like this could happen. Just because you were a seer didn't mean you were allowed to mess with Fate, with Time. But Reyu could never realize that. And now looked what happend.

"Hiro, let me see your dagger." He blinked at Reyu, who was holding out her hand. There was renewed hope shining clearly in her face, and she looked determined as well.

"Why?"

"I've got an idea," she said excitedly, and Hiro frowned. "This will work, I know it will! Please, just give me your dagger. I know what I'm doing."

Hiromi was shaking his head. "Reyu, you never know what you're doing..."

"Just give her the dagger," Inuyasha said. "If she has an idea, let her try it. What's it gonna hurt, if we're all doomed anyway?"

"Yeah, Hiro, just let me try! Pleaaaase?"

He grumbled but pulled his dagger out and handed it over. "Fine. Go ahead and try. I won't stop you."

"Do you promise?" she asked.

"Promise what?"

"That you won't stop me."

"Sure, I promise," he said. Then, "Wait a minute, what are you going to do?"

She looked at the dagger in her hands with a shaky smile. "Just wait; you'll know soon enough." She tried to sound sure of herself. "I figured out what went wrong. But I'm sure, if we all have enough hope and confidence for this, things will work out in the end. Can you do that for me, Hiro? Can you have some hope?"

Looking at her, he said, "I do have hope."

She grinned happily. "And Inuyasha, you have hope too, right?"

He seemed to mull over this. "Well, I guess so. I mean, if I didn't have hope, I wouldn't be here in the first place, would I? Hope's all I've been running on these last few days. So yeah," he said more certainly, "I have hope."

"Great. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Now that's that settled," she looked behind her shoulder, at the mish-mash of the two Times, and turned around to face it. She took a deep breath. "You two stay put," she instructed, without looking at them. "Stay right where you are. I'll see you soon."

As Hiromi watched her walk away, he felt full of a growing dread. Something wasn't right. The way she told them "I'll see you soon" sounded more like a wishful thought than a true statement. And she still hadn't really explained what she was going to do. Where was she going, and why did she need his dagger, of all things?

And then Hiromi remembered something. He wasn't sure how it even slipped his mind in the first place, considering it was the real reason all of this had happend. Maybe it was because he had been with Reyu, and so unconsciously decided that she would then be safe. Now that she was out of his sight, he realized that she wasn't. And he realized what her new plan was.

All the blood drained out of his face and he immediately started after her.

"Hey!" Inuyasha yelled. "We're supposed to wait here!" (This, of course, did not stop him from running to catch up with Hiro.)

"Not wait, stay!" Hiro yelled back as they ran. "She isn't coming back for us!"

"What?"

Hiromi had stopped, so Inuyasha did too, and he followed Hiro's gaze to see Reyu, standing on a patch of street surrounded by a circle of trees, clutching the dagger tightly. She looked upset when she noticed that they had followed her.

"You can't stop me Hiro," she said solemnly. "You promised."

"Reyu, don't!" he cried, heading towards her as fast as he could. But she was faster.

By the time Inuyasha had understood what was going on, it was too late. He could only watch in horror as a flash of silver streaked across Reyu's neck, followed by a gush of bright red blood. The dagger clattered onto the pavement and Reyu crumpled over after it, to lie in a growing puddle of her own blood.

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

"No, no, no, no, no..."

Hiromi was on the ground, holding a dead Reyu in his arms, crying for the first time in he-didn't-know how long. He held her close and cried into her hair, muttering to himself, "No, no, no, please no..."

Something was happening. The ground was starting to shake. It rumbled gently, but it did so more and more by the minute. In his grief, Hiromi didn't notice anything until Reyu's body began to fade away.

By the time Inuyasha had made to him, Hiromi was holding nothing but thin air in his arms.

Inuyasha was momentarily silent. It wasn't that he was at a loss for words-- there were a lot of things he wanted to say. He just didn't know which ones to say first, or how he should say them. Hiro helped by saying something first.

Head down and empty arms hanging limp at his side, he mumurmed hatefully, "This is all your fault."

This easily brought the words out of Inuyasha. "My fault? How the hell is this my fault!" he yelled. He felt a mixture of feelings then; sadness, anger, and most of all, confusion. Like with Kagome, Reyu's death seemed too surreal. And how could a girl who was so worried over a simple prick in the finger even manage to silt her own throat? Nothing made sense, and Hiro wasn't helping his mood any.

"This whole thing started because of you and your stupid destiny! She wanted to help fix your future so much she died for it!"

All around them, things were begining to fade away as they argued. The dagger, a tree, part of the road, all vanished as Reyu did. Bit by bit, the place was fading away into nothing. The earth rumbled louder and several cracks split through the ground.

"What?" Inuyasha scoffed, outraged. "You're the one who messed up my future in the first place! You're the one who started this when you gave information to Naraku!"

"I had to! That was the price and besides, I was hoping he would kill you!" Hiro admitted in his anger.

"What? Why?" Inuyasha asked, staring at him in shock. "I didn't even know you then. Why would you want me dead?"

"Because then Reyu wouldn't have to die!" Hiro shouted, finally looking up at him with angry, tear-brimmed eyes. "I knew this would happen. With the shards, I was able to have a vision of it. But I only Saw Reyu on the ground, bleeding to death. When Naraku helped me see who would cause it, of course I told him about you! If he could kill you, Reyu would be safe. She was mad at me then and she wouldn't talk to me and didn't want to be around me. So I had to hope Naraku would kill you. That's all I could do to protect her!"

His confession was followed by silence, but only because Inuyasha was thinking. Finally he said, "When did you have that vision?"

"What?"

"When did you have that vision of Reyu's death?" Inuyasha repeated. "Before or after you met Naraku?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Hiromi spat. But then he realized what Inuyasha was getting at.

He had the vision right after he met Naraku. But he didn't know everything about it, so he readily agreed to use his power to help Naraku get Inuyasha. Kagome was killed instead. Thus the future leaned in Naraku's favor. Reyu, who knew how it was supposed to go, decided to help Inuyasha. This eventually lead to them, and Hiro himself, trying to alter the well so that Kagome and the future could be saved. It went wrong, and they ended up here.

And Reyu killed herself. She must have thought that sacraficing herself would be enough to jolt the spell into working, undo the collaspe, and take him and Inuyasha back to their own time. She sacraficed herself as a last resort to save everyone else, and she didn't even know if it would work.

Hiromi knew then, with a sinking heart, that none of this would have happend if he hadn't agreed to see Naraku. Hiro never had a vision of Reyu dying before until after he helped Naraku. He was start of the chain events that lead to this.

It wasn't Inuyasha fault at all. It was Hiromi's.

After seeing Reyu die and not being able to do anything about it, Hiro didn't think he could ever feel any worse than that. But knowing what he did now, he found that wasn't true. He felt a thousand times worse, as if he had personally silt Reyu's throat himself.

"Inuyasha," he said, calling the half-demon by name for the first time, "Would you do me a favor?"

Inuyasha was caught off guard by the question. "What?" he asked, and not 'What do you want me to do?', but 'What the heck are you talking about?'

"Kill me," said Hiro.

"Whaaat?" Inuyasha said again, this time meaning 'What, are you crazy?'

"You hate me, don't you? Your friend died because of me. Reyu died because of me. Time is messed up because of me," Hiro was ticking off the reasons why Inuyasha should kill him, actually trying to persuade him into doing it. "I wanted you dead. Your sword hasn't vanished yet, so go ahead and kill me. I know you want to. You said before that the only reason you were going to let me live was because Reyu wanted it. But she's not alive anymore, so what does it matter?" That question sounded more directed to himself than Inuyasha.

"Well, come on, you stupid half-breed!" He shouted, resorting to insults since Inuyasha still seemed indecisive. "You dirty mutt! Can you understand what I'm saying or should I dumb it down for you? Take. Your. Sword," he said with deliberate slowness, "And. Kill. Me. Did you get all that, doggy?"

Apparently he did, because Inuyasha finally whipped out his sword. This was the person responsible for all the bad things that had happend over the last few days, so why shouldn't he kill him? He deserved it, and he even wanted it! And Reyu was dead now too, so who would stop him this time?

A part of Inuyasha wanted nothing more than to bring his blade down on Hiromi, just like he asked.

But as he raised his sword, a part of him looked hard at the demon. He saw someone who was defeated and broken. He saw someone who sat on the ground and cried his eyes out over a lost loved one. He saw someone who had wanted to more power so he could protect that loved one but failed. He saw someone who blamed and hated himself more than anyone else in the world.

For a moment, Inuyasha saw himself.

With one arm, he raised his sword high into the air and brought it down fast...

...into the dirt ground.

When Hiromi blinked in surprise at the fact that the sword was not impaled through him, Inuyasha said, "I don't owe you any favors."

"I don't think I can forgive you for what you did," he went on, "But I can understand why you did it. Besides, you're not the only one who ever got caught up in Naraku's schemes. And look there," he pointed to something on the ground, near Hiro's knee.

Hiromi gaped as he saw it and scooped it up. It was Reyu's star-charm necklace, the one he made for her. "But how?" he muttered to himself, "I thought she--"

"She jumped into that river and got it back, apparently. And she's been wearing it ever since."

Hiro almost smiled. "Why hasn't it faded away?" he asked aloud.

"I dunno. You're the seer; aren't you supposed know these things?" said Inuyasha. "In my opinion, though, I think it's Reyu's way of telling us 'Have hope, you stubborn bastards.'"

Hope.

"Hiromi, look at all the stars! ...They're beautiful! All sparkley and bright and full of hope..."

Full of hope? When Hiromi had told Reyu earlier that he did have hope, he hadn't lied. But she was his hope. When Reyu died, his hope died. He didn't know what to do now.

"So, what do you think?" he half-heartedly asked Inuyasha. "Did Reyu die in vain or are we going to make it?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "I just wish she hadn't done that," he said and Hiro nodded. Everything but the ground and themselves had dissapeared. The cracks split the ground into huge chunks that were drifting apart. The dark sky above them should have had a sun rising, but instead it was filled with thunderous, black clouds that swirled madly in a rain-less but windy storm, as if threatening to suck them up.

"But, whatever happens next," Inuyasha said, "Either way, I'll get to be with Kagome again."

"Well, I hope you get to be with her again in life," Hiromi offered, feeling he needed to say something.

"Yeah. I hope so too."

--TBC--

A/N: Oooh,what lovely chapter.;) Sorry Reyu, but you were next on my hit-list. I felt so mean when I wrote this chapter. I don't normally write death-fics. Reyu wasn't sucidal, by the way. I mean she killed herself, yeah, but she did that because she felt had to. Sorry if that was a little unclear; it'll be explained more later on. And Hiro...well, Hiro's just a little emo freak, heh heh.

Woo, one more chapter left! -does happy dance- Okay folks, you know the drill: read, review, and stayed tuned for the thrilling conclusion of Every Now and Then! (Well, I'm not sure if it's thrilling, exactly, but it's certainly...um, interesting? Yeah, that'll work. Interesting!)