A/N: I have discovered that I detest hurricanes, particularly hurricanes named Katrina who interfere with my ability to watch television and go online. Fortunately, I was able to get some writing and drawing done, so I wasn't totally bored out of my mind. I give you a double dose of Dead this week; I'm going to try to post every Sunday. We'll see how that goes. Oh...by the way...I'm expecting hate mail from some very unhappy people for the way this chapter turns out. Sorry in advance.


Disclaimer: I wish...
Words To Know:

youki--demonic energy

Edo--more of a note than anything; this was Tokyo's "name" before it was called Tokyo. I'm not sure when Tokyo was first called "Edo," but it suits my purposes for it to be called thus at this point in the IY timeline.

Kaede-baa-chan/obaa-chan--Grandma Kaede/Grandma; affectionately respectful way of addressing the elderly, this case, Kaede

haori--jacket

hakama--pants that could be worn with the hems loose (ie, Kikyou) or tied (ie, Inuyasha)

-sama--one of the Japanese honorifics, the most reverent/respectful (in descending order: -sama, -san, -kun, -chan); no true English equivalent.

asagohan--breakfast; literally means "morning rice"

kitsune--fox

(That's all, I think; do let me know if I was remiss)


Chapter Two: Back To The Past

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The hopes and prays, the better days,

The far aways—forget it.

It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to,

It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to, did it?

"The Wretched"/ Nine Inch Nails

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Here we are.

'Where is here?'

Open your eyes and see.

Kagome slowly opened an eye and peered around her. She was sitting—rather uncomfortably—in the bottom of the Bone-Eater's Well, chin resting on her chest, knees stuffed into her face; if she'd been cursed with particularly angular appendages, she would have been effectively blinded by them. She opened the other eye and blinked, immediately sensing—was that—youki?

Kagome scrambled to her feet and looked up, stunned when she saw blue sky instead of the roof of the well-house. She stared in dumb shock for several minutes, her mind in chaos, and then hurriedly climbed out of the well. Her deepest hopes came true, and she nearly fell back into the time slip when she saw Goshinboku's ancient branches...and Inuyasha Forest. She stared all around her, staggered, and then she smiled and jumped up and down in the air, screaming like a lunatic and laughing—she was back! The well had let her come back! After all this time, Fate had finally taken pity on her and let her come back to see her friends—

She stopped jumping up and down and stood, hands raised in the air above her head, and her heart beat screeched to a halt and then started up once more, pumping like mad.

Inuyasha.

Kagome turned and ran towards Edo, yelling,

"Inuyasha! Inuyasha it's Kagome! I'm back, I'm here! Inuyasha!"

Kagome abruptly drew up, however, upon reaching Edo—the village was no longer a village, but a small town, and it showed signs of soon moving beyond that. It was difficult to take in—only ten years earlier, Edo hadn't been much more than a place to stop and water one's animals. Now…Kagome didn't know what to say.

"Oh whoa," she murmured, watching as people began to leave their houses to attend to their various duties. After a while of stunned stupor, she began noticing that a lot of these people were looking in her direction and whispering amongst themselves, but attempting to be discreet; others were less polite, staring openly at her.

Kagome frowned and looked down, then blushed; geez, she was still in pajamas. And they were dorky as all hell, too, covered with the face of a character from a particular anime she'd been especially devoted to. She only wore the button-down style shirt and elastic band bottom because they were comfortable and kept her cool. Sighing, a painful blush staining her cheeks, Kagome thought to herself that nothing had changed:

"Still cart wheeling out of the fat and into the fire," she muttered.

Still, she was twenty-seven now, a grown woman, so she straightened her shoulders and marched through the village with all the bruised dignity she could muster—and then some—looking for Kaede-baa-chan.

At long last, she had to ask someone where Edo's miko was, and after being given several looks from several people who seemed to seriously question her sanity, a village woman had directed her to the proper place. Kagome was surprised that Obaa-chan's little out-of-the-way home had been incorporated into Edo so quickly, and mentioned it to the village woman. The woman sent her another odd look, then left her, shaking her head as she continued on her way. Kagome sighed, then walked to the hut, only to find…well …it wasn't Kaede's.

Here, her first feelings of misgiving rose, but she quickly tucked them in an out of the way corner of her mind and went to the hut. She knocked on the door jamb, and a woman who was definitely NOT Obaa-chan invited her in.

Kagome lifted back the bamboo flap and stuck her head in and saw a strange woman sitting before a small, cheerful fire, a bowl of rice in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. She was deftly fishing rice out of the shallow bowl and eating the grains with relish. When she saw Kagome, she set her bowl aside and rose with a smile.

"Come in, come—" she fell silent when Kagome took a step into the hut and her clothing, no longer indiscernible, came into focus.

The miko—and that's what she was, because she was wearing the white haori and red hakama of the miko—was an older woman, though her exact age was difficult to pin down; she had aged remarkably well, considering the hardship of the times in which she lived, and was even a little pretty in her own way. The hair was white and pulled back from her face in a low knot, and the eyes regarded Kagome with more than a little misgiving. At that moment, Kagome didn't blame her: she was feeling more than a little misgiving herself.

"Hello," Kagome said awkwardly. "I'm…I'm looking for Kaede-baa-chan? She's the miko of Edo."

The miko looked startled. "Oh no!" she said. "No no no, girl—Kaede-sama hasn't been the miko of Edo for a long long time."

"She…what?" Kagome asked.

The miko sighed. "Girl, Kaede-sama…she's been dead for over forty years."

"Forty—but that's—" Kagome felt the faint little hairs on her body rise as her skin goose pimpled. Forty years? she asked herself. Obaa-chan's been dead for forty years? But that's impossible! I've only been gone ten years!

"Who are you?" the miko asked, and Kagome had enough presence of mind to notice the woman's eyes flicker briefly to the bow and arrows by the fire. That certainly didn't bode well.

"Higurashi Kagome," Kagome answered automatically, while her mind still struggled through the shock of learning that Kaede-baa-chan had died.

The miko flinched, and the odd reaction startled Kagome into taking a good look at the other woman, who was staring at her in something like horrified wonder.

"Kagome-sama!" the miko breathed.

It was Kagome's turn to flinch, which she did in response to the honorific that had been attached to her name.

What in the seven hells? she thought, puzzled.

"Oh forgive me, Kagome-sama, if I had known it was you—please come in! Join me for asagohan," the woman said, gesturing to the meal she'd abandoned at Kagome's appearance.

"Oh well—" Kagome reached up and rubbed the back of her head, wondering idly what was going on and whether or not she'd given herself a really bad wonk on the head and simply dreamed this all up. And if that was the case, it was the worst dream she'd ever had, ever, in her twenty-seven years. "I'd like to—I didn't catch your name?"

"Mine," the woman immediately said, bowing low. At this, Kagome blushed. She stepped forward and took the miko by the arms and gently tugged her upright.

"No no, please don't do that," she said, smiling nervously though she wasn't sure why.

Though obviously startled by the younger woman's reaction and request, Mine immediately straightened, and fixed a pleased smile on her face.

"Kagome-sama…it is an honor to formally make your acquaintance."

"'Formally'?" Kagome parroted.

Mine nodded. "Kaede-sama often told us of you and your friends: the houshi, the kitsune, the taijiya, and the hanyou—of your quest to collect the shards of the Shikon no Tama and purify it."

Kagome bristled at the term "hanyou" instinctively, and nearly launched into a scathing lecture when she realized that the woman was talking about Inuyasha, which meant that she probably knew where he was. She smiled and Mine stopped talking, bemused by the sudden look of joy.

"Mine-sama," Kagome said, making the older woman blush, "where is Inuyasha?"

The expression of pleasure at being given such deference by a local legend froze on Mine's face at the question.

"What?" she breathed, the color leeching from her face slightly.

The sense of foreboding Kagome had felt earlier returned with vicious vengeance:

"Inuyasha…where is he?" Kagome asked again, her voice a little higher, laced with growing panic.

What's wrong with her? she thought frantically. Why is she looking like that? Why is she looking at me like that?

"Kagome-sama, perhaps you should sit—" Mine said.

"Where is Inuyasha?" Kagome interrupted, not caring that her voice was harsh and less than polite.

Mine stared at her sadly, and Kagome knew what she was going to say before the older woman sighed quietly:

"Kagome-sama…Inuyasha…died. Many years ago. He was buried near the tree where the miko Kikyou sealed him over a century ago."

Her legs shot out from under her and she landed on the floor of the hut painfully, but Kagome didn't feel it, and she didn't hear Mine's cry of alarm—her world had narrowed and tilted, and she had been knocked out of it, knocked out of her body, and was now forced to see it from somewhere else. She felt as though she were watching herself, standing off in a corner and observing a woman who looked a lot like her, sitting on the floor of a miko's hut, wearing ridiculous pajamas, face white and pupils dilated, while the miko hovered over her, begging her to get up, to move—to breathe.

Suddenly, Kagome felt that detached portion of herself get sucked back into her body, and then she was shooting up onto her feet and then she was running out of the hut and Mine was running after her, yelling for her to stop and come back. But Kagome didn't. She just ran and ran, streaking through the village as fast as she could go, hoping to outrun the overwhelming pain that was threatening to overtake her.

Just keep running, her mind said. It can't touch you if you keep running. It can't hurt you if you keep running.

So she ran through Edo and then out of it, ran to the field where the Bone-Eater's Well sat and she vaulted over the lip and fell into the well, waiting for the magic to catch hold of her and take her back home. Instead, she fell at the bottom of the well, landing hard on her right side, and she felt an excruciating pain shoot up that side of her body, from her foot to her head, and then she was laying in the bottom of the well, panting, curled into a ball, waiting for the pain to come and eat her alive.