Edited 5/26/2020

Beautiful Moon

Unavoidable

Patience was not her strongest trait, according to her friends. Mizuki would argue otherwise, but she never had a difficult time comprehending where the misunderstanding was rooted.

Her hands tapped her thighs nervously as she knelt behind the tree, feeling both anxious and absolutely pathetic knowing that Sesshomaru was watching her cower away. She'd already done everything she could while she waited, from checking her arm (bleeding, of course), and trying the makeshift sling again (then taking it off, because two free arms were better than one), to sorting through her bag for anything useful (nothing), and glaring at that stupid career survey she really should have thrown away in the first place (it glared back, just in a different way).

It wasn't that she was impatient; she just simply didn't do 'doing nothing' well.

Whether that was a biproduct of her life experiences or just pent up energy she had never quite figured out what to do with, she didn't know and never bothered to determine. She used it to her advantage in school and at home, anyway, so it wasn't like she had room to complain most days. Most days didn't involve being stuck half a millennium before the era she was born in and waiting for an unpredictable half-demon to come to either help or attack her, though, so she figured being upset about being unable to wait calmly was forgivable under the circumstances.

Usually in situations where she found herself with nothing to do, she'd turn to thinking. Whether it was running through imaginary business scenarios or making mental lists of the pros and cons of the various lunch options, she usually found something to occupy herself with until she could wander off or work her way through assignments. This time, though, whenever she tried to come up with something to think about beyond her worries about the upcoming reunion and various apologies she'd be making, Mizuki found her thoughts inevitably looping back around to why she was waiting for Inuyasha, at which point she would slam on the brakes and reverse course. It took several rounds of the same thing occurring before she realized the road her thoughts were stuck on was a damn circle.

Wishing Sesshomaru was next to her and not hiding in the trees instead made her groan into her knees. She was still upset with him for finding her worries funny, though he had seemed to apologize (or at least acknowledge that he should have thought better about letting her in on the joke; it was difficult to imagine him apologizing with a standard bow), but he hadn't been wrong about how she felt about meeting his brother again. The guy hadn't exactly been as eager to dismiss what had happened with the necklace as Kagome, and she was beyond certain now that the thing Inuyasha had been reflexively reaching for would have been a sword. The thought that he probably had it on him now was part of that whole circle of thought process she was trapped in, along with the fact that the demon was waiting around despite his assertion that Inuyasha wasn't prone to attacking humans. Didn't seem much like a guarantee if he felt the need to offer.

Why he had offered to essentially guard her from a distance didn't sit right with her, either, because she couldn't figure out what motivated him. Up until he had pulled her back out of the well, his reasons for doing anything regarding her had boiled down to 'because Rin', and she couldn't bring herself to believe the demon had suddenly discovered the virtues of altruism.

The thought that he was trying to get rid of her in the nicest way possible had already been knocked out by his agreement to meet up with her later to discuss what she had found, though it limped back periodically despite the measures she had taken to rid herself of it. He had no reason to want to help her, or at least none that she could see clearly at this point, and while that assistance was useful right now, it was going to bug her until she got an answer as to why.

Unclear motives aside, he was apparently interested enough to assist her himself, and help was help whether the demon providing it was an ass to her or not.

"Who's there?"

Shit!

Mizuki had accomplished her goal of finding something to do, though noticing nothing hadn't been what she had in mind for a result, and she scrambled to pick herself up off the ground. The fear she had felt before this point paled in comparison to the way her heart was pounding now that the person she was looking for was very suddenly behind her.

There was a click of metal. Sword, her mind unhelpfully offered.

"You'll come out if you know what's good for you!" he followed up impatiently when she didn't answer.

Mizuki shot a look at the forest, as if staring could convey to Sesshomaru that she was very skeptical of how the hell he was supposed to protect her if he was all the way over there while Inuyasha was literal feet from her. Both hearing and seeing nothing was not reassuring, and the growl she heard rising up behind her made her suck in a breath and call over her shoulder, "Just promise you won't hurt me, alright?"

She could see the red of his clothing just beyond the edge of the tree trunk she kept herself pressed to, and peering out further gave her a glimpse of one of the ears she had seen before as it shifted attentively. He hadn't fully drawn his sword, apparently, because his arm was still crossed over his waist from the look of it. When he started to tilt his head to get a better look at her, she pulled back out of sight.

Pathetic, a voice that sounded suspiciously like a certain demon's judged from one corner of her mind.

"Depends on who you are and what you want," he finally replied sharply.

"…foul as he may come across…"

She took a deep breath and left everything to those words, stepping out from behind the tree. She didn't leave it behind, its potential for a shield too useful to abandon if her trust proved misplaced, and looked up into the familiar gold of the eyes of the half-demon across from her.

"You?!" he recognized her with a shout. "You're the girl from that time! I was right; you did come through the well!"

He knew? Not important right now; something to figure out later.

She managed not to shake her head to dismiss the thought, but she couldn't quite achieve a smile, so she raised a hand in acknowledgement. "Yeah…" she replied. "You're Inuyasha, right?"

By the look of things, this wasn't going to be as easy as simple introductions.

"How did you get here?" he demanded immediately, before his nose twitched and his suspicious expression morphed into something angrier. "You stink of that bastard Sesshomaru! Are you working for him? If he thinks I'll let my guard down just because you're a girl, he's got another thing coming!"

Sesshomaru hadn't told her that Inuyasha would make a target of her just because she smelled like him, and she suddenly had a much better understanding of why the demon had chosen both to stay behind and nearby. So much for the defense of being human.

But the demon hadn't made an appearance yet, and Inuyasha hadn't drawn his sword fully, so maybe she still had a chance at this.

"It's not like that," she insisted, raising her other hand as well in the universal sign of don't hurt me. "He sent me here because he thought you could help." Kagome, technically, but Inuyasha would be helpful if he could let her get to his friend.

"Me? Help him?" he scoffed, the idea apparently absurd. He stood a little straighter, though, and the look he held her with was less angry and more…

You're projecting, a part of her warned.

"Not him. Me."

Still projecting, that same voice told her when she thought he looked somewhat relieved.

He was, at least, less hostile than he had been, now scrutinizing her with narrowed eyes and a frown rather than openly baring his teeth.

"Only Kagome and I can travel through the well," he noted suspiciously. "How'd someone like you get through? And what does Sesshomaru have to do with all of this?"

Ignoring how rude 'someone like you' sounded, she took a steadying breath before pulling the turquoise stone out from beneath the collar of her shirt. Inuyasha's eyes widened with recognition.

"That's that necklace from the storehouse!"

"It is," she confirmed, hiding it away again. "After I left, it kept…calling to me, I guess is the best way to put it. Eventually, I couldn't ignore it anymore and came back, and I know it was wrong of me, and I'm really, really sorry, but I just…took it. Before I left the grounds, it led me to the well. It's probably what allowed me to travel through, because now…

"I made a wrong turn when I got here, which is how Sesshomaru got involved in this," she continued, shoving that thought away. "Rin, the little girl that travels with him, she helped me out, and he eventually agreed to lead me back to the well, but when I tried to go back home… Well, long story short, the stone won't let me. I need help. He suggested I try talking with Kagome, and pointed me in this direction."

The cyclical path of her thoughts really wasn't going to let her escape from that fact, apparently. She closed her eyes briefly, fighting back tears again, and waited for Inuyasha to make a decision. For a long moment, he scrutinized the tree line where Sesshomaru was meant to be, but either he was as out of sight to him as he was to her or he had simply left, because the half-demon eventually stopped trying and looked at her again.

"She's at old Kaede's," he revealed, and his sword gently clicked back into its sheath. "Follow me."

The relief that this stage had been cleared escaped her in a deep exhale as he turned away.

"But there's going to be a lot of questions, you got it?"

Worry for the next stage quickly took over as he warned her of the impending interrogation. She nodded half-heartedly before she realized he couldn't see her, and then flinched when he repeated his question roughly.

"Loud and clear," she finally answered. Satisfied now, he harrumphed and started toward the village. Mizuki glanced back over her shoulder once more at the trees, before turning to them fully and offering a small bow. If Inuyasha had noticed the gesture, he didn't say anything once she caught up to him, and they continued on in silence.

Several minutes of whispers, stares, and other generally unwanted attention later, they arrived at a house situated at the bottom of a number of stairs framed by torii. Her anxiety left her worrying the tape of her jacket's zipper, the stiff fabric a distraction along her fingertips as she tried to avoid thinking too hard about how meeting with the daughter of the Higurashi family was going to go. The sound of the beads shifting and tapping together around Inuyasha's neck was an unhelpful reminder that the girl had powers of her own, and a ridiculous notion that those could potentially be used against her was trying really hard to find a place to nest among the rest of her concerns about this whole thing.

"I'm being stupid," she told herself, folding her jacket over her arm for a third time and still somehow finding the edge of the tape under her nails. She bunched the raincoat between her hands and wished she had stuffed it into her bag earlier. "I'm not going to get hurt."

"Hey, Kagome!" Inuyasha called into the home as he entered. Mizuki waited on the opposite side of the thatched screen with her pounding heart for company, wishing for a second time that Sesshomaru had come with her despite his relationship with his brother.

"What's wrong now, Inuyasha?" was the exasperated reply he received.

"We've got a situation."

He had intended for her to follow him in, apparently, because as soon as he realized she wasn't there, his hand shot out and grabbed her arm before proceeding to drag her inside. Unfortunately for Mizuki, he happened to grab her left, just below the sleeve of her shirt.

She really needed to stop insisting that things weren't going to happen to her.

"Somehow this girl got-" he started before apparently realizing that the cry that escaped her wasn't one of surprise.

"It hurts!" she told him quickly, fighting the pain so that she could speak, though her words still came out stilted. "My arm; let go!"

He did immediately, eyes wide with a concern she wasn't expecting, and she crumbled to the ground as she wrapped her own hand around the wound. Her palm quickly became damp with blood as it soaked through the makeshift bandage, and she had to swallow the panic that tore through her mind at the feeling.

If there had been any initial shock regarding her appearance, she hadn't noticed around focusing on her arm. The other girl from the future was by her side before she had even laid eyes on her, trying to coax her into letting her take a closer look. When Mizuki finally moved her hand, Kagome shot a look over her shoulder.

"You should have been more careful, Inuyasha!" she reprimanded.

"I didn't mean to!" he hollered defensively. "How was I supposed to know she was hurt?"

She didn't respond to him, instead turning back to her and continuing, "Let's worry about seeing how bad this is before we get into any serious discussion, okay?"

Mizuki just nodded, far from ready for explanations and apologies anyway.

Kagome led her across the room to another girl she hadn't noticed was there, a slightly taller woman with hair just a bit longer than her own. She was dressed in a modest kimono and wore a long apron around her waist, but Mizuki saw both a touch of makeup across her eyelids and what amounted to fingerless gloves disappearing under her sleeves, making her backtrack on the thought of the woman having a motherly appearance. Kagome introduced her as Sango and gave her instructions to remove the old bandages while she gathered supplies from a large yellow backpack in the corner.

"Not to worry," she eventually said with a smile after giving her a bewildered onceover. "Kagome has good medicines for wounds."

Sango directed her to sit and proceeded to gently undo Rin's work, and Mizuki tried not to wince as dried blood tugged at patches of raw nerves. Inuyasha observed the whole thing from across the hearth, crouched down with both his hands on the floor and his ears back slightly, and she couldn't help but liken his appearance to that of a dog. It would have been funny if she were more comfortable, probably.

Kagome returned with modern bandages and pain relievers, a sight that both comforted her and made her want to cry, and she thanked her as she offered the bottle of pills, shrugging off her backpack and pulling her water bottle out quickly. She was eager for the chance to dull the sharp edge of pain that had persisted despite Rin's assistance, and made a note to herself to ask for some to save if possible. Depending on how things went, anyway. She wasn't exactly in the position to be asking too many favors.

The first question eventually came from someone she initially mistook as simply a young boy. He had entered the home slowly, poking his head in around the thatched screen and observing her with caution before apparently deciding that things were safe, and then she was given full view the small demon's bushy tail and foxlike feet. He sniffed the air between them for a moment before his large green eyes lit up with surprise.

"Are you from Kagome's homeland?" he asked, tone bordering on excitement as he looked over her clothes and backpack. When she nodded tentatively, he returned the gesture with confidence and continued, "I thought you smelled weird."

She supposed the future did have weird smells, but that didn't keep her from feeling slightly offended.

"You're not saying that I smell weird, too, are you, Shippo?" Kagome chastised him with a playful smile that the boy took less jokingly.

"No!" he backpedaled immediately. "I mean, I just don't know where they come from! Some of the smells are good smells! Some of them are…"

The boy didn't get to finish explaining his choice of words, cut off by the arrival of yet more people, and Mizuki resolved to let Sesshomaru know just how she felt about the lack of information he'd sent her off with. Between this and how the simple proximity between them had set Inuyasha off, she wasn't sure which she felt worse about.

The first to enter was a man dressed in monk's attire, and while he seemed to have forgone the traditional bald look for dark hair long enough to gather into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck, he was carrying a customary staff with metal rings that jingled with every movement. He held back the screen for an elderly woman that Mizuki gathered might be the Kaede Inuyasha had mentioned, and the traditional garb of a priestess she wore told her that she was likely afforded a better title than old lady. Bringing up the rear was a small cat whose twin tails and red eyes gave away its true nature.

Quite the mix, part of her noted. Sesshomaru having Rin around couldn't be all that weird, looking at the variety of people who had gathered in the room.

"Ay, it seems what the villagers said is true," the older woman mused, her manner of speech a mixture of archaic pronunciations and elderly warmth. "Inuyasha indeed brought a girl with strange clothing back, instead of the material to fix the bell tower."

The half-demon harrumphed something about being treated like a pack mule in response.

"Who might this be?" the monk asked, and walked up to her to apparently get a closer look, because he crouched down in front of her and looked her over with a critical eye. She frowned, feeling like he was appraising her appearance. She would have preferred that he just asked her outright for her name, but she kept that to herself, not sure she should voice the grievance.

"We would have gotten to that," Sango started in a pointed tone, which Kagome seemed to pick up on very quickly.

"Except that Inuyasha ended up hurting her because he wasn't paying attention," she finished, and both girls cast a sharp look at the half-demon who jumped up in offense.

"I didn't mean to!" he retorted. "And you're making it look like I'm the one who hurt her in the first place!"

"How did you get that wound, anyway, Miss?" Shippo asked before Kagome could reply to Inuyasha. "It wasn't actually Inuyasha, was it?"

Reminded suddenly of Rin, Mizuki smiled slightly. "No, it wasn't from him," she assured, hoping to calm him a bit. "It's kind of a long story otherwise."

"Well, I'm just about finished here," Kagome said, a suggestion in her tone. "If it's alright with you, why don't we do some introductions?"

She nodded because it wasn't as though she could avoid it.

Kagome started with everyone else, beginning with Inuyasha and working her way around the room. Mizuki learned that Sango was a demon slayer by trade, and Kirara the cat was her companion. Shippo was a young fox demon, Miroku a traveling monk, and the older woman was Lady Kaede, the village priestess. They all met at various times after Kagome began traveling through the well, and this village was something like a place to rest while she conducted business back at home.

"I've been coming back and forth for a while now," she explained as she gently applied a paste to her wound, "though only my family knows about my trips. Since you're here, I can tell you the story Grandpa told your class about the Shikon Jewel is close to the truth, though he leaves out details like the fact that the priestess is me, and that I'm the one who broke it in the first place. Long story short, we're traveling together for various reasons to collect the shards of it."

Though she hadn't been around for the story the way her grandfather told it, she nodded all the same, gathering that the issue was a lot more complicated than anyone outside could explain. Privately, she found herself admiring the girl. Judging by her uniform style, it was likely that she was in middle school, and still attending classes. She couldn't imagine juggling the responsibilities of school and this secret second life she was apparently leading.

"I remember you from the class tour, but we never exchanged names, so…"

"Right," she replied, and she found herself looking down at her shirt where the artifact rested against her chest. "My name is Kurahashi Mizuki, second year high schooler, originally from the Aichi prefecture…" Stalling, something chastised her as she avoided the point. "You remember what happened when I caught that package, I'm sure, and the way the pendant inside reacted."

"Of course," she replied, and Mizuki watched as the other girl's gaze moved from the gauze she was wrapping around her arm to her neck, eventually pausing in her work. "Is that the necklace?"

Unable to bring herself to speak, she simply nodded.

"I guess Grampa's seals didn't work," she hypothesized with a somewhat exasperated sigh. "He said the original ones were pretty old, but I suspect they were more effective than what he tried to replace them with. Guess I should have worried a little more about it. Sorry it's gotten you mixed up in something weird."

She…didn't know where to go from that. Kagome wasn't the one who was supposed to be apologizing in all of this. None of this was remotely her fault, and yet she just…

"So, what happened?" she continued, completely unaware of the way she had thrown her. "Did it follow you?"

"She stole it," Inuyasha chimed in, shooting her a glare from across the room.

"Inuyasha, sit," Kagome commanded. Just like at the shrine when she tried to cover it up, the beads around his neck took on a glow while Inuyasha's expression morphed into alarm, and then he was violently dragged to the ground where his face smashed through the floorboards. Everything around them shook for a moment, and Mizuki flinched at the thought of the pain that caused. "You're not helping anything," the girl finished.

"No, he's right."

Suddenly every eye was on her, and she looked down at her knees, unable to meet their gazes. A demand for an apology echoed from beneath the flooring and was ignored as everyone waited for her. Her blood pounded in her ears, and a gentle hum became a backdrop to her anxiety. Eventually, she fished the turquoise stone out from under her collar.

"I'm sorry," she started, and squeezed her eyes shut without meaning to. "I'm really, really sorry for taking it."

"Represent the Kurahashi family well," her father's voice demanded.

The hand that came to rest on her shoulder was gentle, but she flinched nonetheless, expecting the reprimand despite it. Instead, it gave her an encouraging squeeze that caused her to look up.

"Hey, it's alright," Sango said with a smile that matched her words. "We're sure you had your reasons, and no one is angry with you."

Kagome finished tying off the bandage as she nodded, before giving her a similarly comforting look. "Why don't you tell us what happened?"

Looking around, Mizuki realized that no one's body language was expressing anger or disapproval. Even Inuyasha, despite the way he had revealed her actions, merely waited now that he had picked himself up. She rubbed the humming stone between her fingers and took a deep breath.

She disclosed everything that had happened, from the weird reaction she had while holding it to the way she had quickly gone from feeling wrong about leaving it to feeling like she couldn't go on without it. She told them how she had come back to ask questions, ditched the idea because of how late it had gotten, and how the feeling of needing it overrode how she felt about laws and even her own friend's feelings. When she told them about the pendant seeming to want to direct her to the well and how the well itself responded, they all looked thoughtful.

Lady Kaede was the first to speak.

"It would seem the stone resonates with ye," she observed. "Very closely, I think."

"That's what I was thinking," Kagome replied with a nod. "It wouldn't be the first time something that belonged to another family made it to our shrine, either. Between donations and things that have been found in the well over the years, the odds aren't all that small."

"I think…your grandpa said he had found it himself," Mizuki revealed. "In the well."

"Did he say anything else? I wasn't able to follow up with it, between school and a few other things. He just assured me that everything was fine."

"Umm…" she thought, and then with a sudden realization, she fished the notes that were still in her back pocket out. "It was passed down through a clan known as the Yanagawa, and given to people within the clan that had blue eyes. Supposedly, they were granted powers through it, but I haven't experienced anything more than an emotional white noise." It continued to hum now, though it lacked a feeling she could discern.

"I do sense some sort of power from it," Miroku added, leaning in for a closer look before the direction of his gaze shifted to her face. Mizuki was just starting to feel uncomfortable from the man's apparent lack of understanding where came to personal space when the monk took her right hand in his own without warning. "Miss Mizuki," he continued, his tone shifting to something she couldn't identify. "Might I ask you to do the honor of bearing my child?"

She had been hit on before, but no one had ever been so blatant as to ask her for children, and so her response became little more than an embarrassing squeak. Before she could sort out either her voice or how exactly this conversation had veered so dramatically into left field, Sango's fist smashed down on his head, leaving him nursing a welt with a concerned expression, the demon slayer smoldering, and Mizuki flush with mortification.

"You pervert!" Sango reprimanded him. "This is hardly the time or place for that!"

"Oh, my dear Sango, I couldn't help myself. It just came over me all of a sudden," he explained worriedly. No one seemed to share his concern.

"I'm surprised it took him this long," Shippo said with a roll of his eyes.

"You mean this is normal?" Mizuki questioned, bewildered.

"He did it to me, too, shortly after we met. It's about the extent of his lecherous habits, though," Kagome sighed. "Unless you're Sango," she added as the demon slayer harrumphed and sat back down.

"For once, I really didn't mean to," Miroku tried once more. "Honest."

By the glares he received in return, she was pretty sure no one trusted those words, but the look in his eyes made her feel inclined to believe his actions had surprised him as much as he said they did.

"It's okay," Mizuki eventually said, trying to ease the tension. The monk gave her a grateful look that diminished under Sango's glare.

Lady Kaede was the first to break the silence after that, asking, "Have ye any thought as to why it led ye through the well?"

"I…didn't really think as hard as I should have about it," she admitted. "It just seemed so insistent, and I thought maybe I'd find some answers about why I felt so strongly about it if I did, but…" Unable to figure out how to finish that sentence, she settled for gesturing to herself.

"You found trouble instead," Kagome concluded, and she nodded.

"Did you say you came back for the necklace the same day?" Sango asked suddenly.

"Yeah."

She wasn't sure why that answer made the girl's eyebrows shoot up until she continued, "The work that Kagome's grandfather needed help with was two days ago."

"Amazing," Miroku commented, having recovered from his earlier escapades. "The fact that you were here on your own and only have one major wound is impressive."

Inuyasha snorted. "Oh, she wasn't alone," he commented sourly. "She was with him for at least the past day, considering how much she reeks of the bastard."

"'Him?'" everyone questioned in unison, glancing between the two of them.

"…I can see why he elected to avoid you," she said quietly.

"Keh," Inuyasha scoffed. "That's the first I've ever heard of him trying to avoid a fight. You sure it wasn't for him that he sent you to get help? 'Cause it sounds to me like something's wrong in his head."

"Wait," Shippo interrupted as he sniffed the air more carefully. Apparently his nose wasn't nearly as good as Inuyasha's, but after a moment, his eyes widened in recognition. "You were with Sesshomaru!"

Various sounds of disbelief echoed around her, and Mizuki found herself somewhat confused by the reaction. While she understood that he and Inuyasha didn't get along, and probably had poor relations with the rest of the group as a result, she didn't really think her being with him warranted that kind of response. Sure, he wasn't particularly nice, but did they really think his attitude toward them extended to other people as well?

"He saved me in the process of protecting one of his companions," she revealed, but even divulging that his assistance was merely coincidental in nature didn't reduce the air of confusion around her, and she found herself frowning. "Is that…really that difficult to believe?"

"Yes," was the immediate response from just about everyone in the house. When her eyes passed over them in search of a reason, Inuyasha chose to elaborate.

"Sesshomaru isn't the kind of guy who just helps people," he spat. "Especially humans. He thinks of 'em like insects." There were a few nods among the others at that, but Inuyasha apparently thought her expression meant that she didn't believe him, so he added, "I'd need more hands to count all the times he's tried to kill me just because there's human blood in my veins."

She frowned in contemplation, turning Inuyasha's point of view over in her mind. It wasn't that she thought he was lying, or even entirely wrong at that; Sesshomaru's understanding and view of humans in general certainly left much to be desired, and he made it pretty clear that he found himself above her. Between his attitude and words, the demon wasn't exactly a champion of kindness.

His actions, however, told a different story, and Mizuki was having a difficult time seeing Sesshomaru as purely bad in the way Inuyasha seemed to suggest he could only be. He treated her poorly, but not like an insect, and then there was the way he acted toward Rin to consider.

"Things are that bad between you guys, huh?" was the only response that she could come up with in a timely manner.

Beside her, Kagome gave her a considering hum. "Well, it's true he's tried to kill Inuyasha. He almost killed me a couple of times, too, and then there's the issue of Inuyasha's sword, Tessaiga; he apparently thinks he should have it even though demons can't hold it. There isn't any love lost between them, but…I don't know. We share a common enemy now. I can't call him an ally-"

"Damn right, he isn't," Inuyasha inserted quickly.

"-but he's been less of an outright enemy lately, and maybe he's a different person when Inuyasha isn't involved. He does seem to treat Rin pretty decently."

"Who knows why Sesshomaru keeps that kid around," Inuyasha said dismissively, apparently taking issue with the way the thought seemed to present him in a more positive light. "That we're enemies hasn't changed."

"He did save us once," she pointed out. "And there have been a few other times where he's done things that seemed to be more helpful than anything else."

Whatever those other times might have referenced, the half-demon didn't seem happy to have remembered them. He bristled, growling out, "Don't defend him, Kagome!"

"But you have to admit that he isn't like he was the first few times we met!"

"That asshole hasn't changed one bit!"

"Doesn't Rin being around him say otherwise?!" she countered heatedly. "And she and Mizuki aren't you, so you can at least entertain the idea that he can be less of a jerk to people he doesn't have a history with! What's with you getting all defensive about hating him all of a sudden, anyway? You've tried to help him before yourself!"

"Not on purpose!" he immediately corrected.

"Anyway," Miroku interrupted quickly, calling over them before the argument could escalate further, "I think we're getting off track. Why don't we let Miss Mizuki here share her experience?"

If he was attempting to make up for his apparently accidental proposal, the monk was doing a pretty good job of it. She thanked him with a nod, appreciating the spell of quiet that descended over them, allowing her pounding heart to settle as a result.

Mizuki decided to explain from the moment she found herself in the middle of a forest in feudal Japan, telling them how she had wandered stupidly, encountered and managed to escape a demon, and then couldn't find her way back in the morning.

"So, you got lost?" Inuyasha interrupted with a snicker.

"I'm sorry, was I supposed to keep track of where I was going while running for my life?"

The bite in her tone was apparently enough to curb his humor, because he didn't interrupt her again as she continued on, recounting her encounter with Rin and subsequently Sesshomaru, the first aid she had received courtesy of the child, and that, yes, the demon wasn't exactly the most gracious host. That still didn't stop him from eventually agreeing to lead her back to the well.

When her story reached the point of her failed attempt to return home, she found herself unable to continue, and both Kagome and Sango laid reassuring hands on her shoulders.

"So, this pendant was what allowed you through in the first place," Miroku concluded in thought.

"I think so," she said, shrugging slightly. "I could hear the well when I tried to jump without it, but…it was like it couldn't respond as strongly. Either way, the stone is preventing me from going back, and Sesshomaru thinks finding out more about it might lead to some answer as to why."

"And he turned you over to us," Kagome said with a nod.

"Since your family had the artifact in the first place, we figured that was where we should start," Mizuki explained, wiping at her eyes as they threatened to tear up again, particularly tired of the amount of crying she had been doing lately. "I'm not sure what we'll do after, yet. Something to decide after we see what information you can provide."

Kagome and Sango exchanged a look over her head, and she wasn't sure what it was about until the younger turned back to her and asked, "You think he's interested in finding out, too?"

"…You think he isn't?" she asked, shoving away that persistent thought about Sesshomaru's hidden motives.

"Well, my guess had been that he figured we'd be better people to help you out, or that he wasn't interested in helping more than he already appears to have," she said with an apologetic look. "He seems to keep to himself and hasn't been interested in helping others in the past. Did he give you a reason to think otherwise?"

Mizuki thought for a moment about how honest she wanted to be about that with them, mostly because she felt like admitting aloud her own reservations about his intentions would jinx her efforts to make sure those purposes benefited her, and eventually settled on trusting herself and the arrangement they had made.

"We agreed to meet back up once I finished talking with you so that I could share what I found," she told them. "I mean, I'm sure he has his reasons and that they don't exactly revolve around helping me, and I can't begin to guess what he's thinking, but he didn't strike me as the type of person to blatantly lie. If he didn't want to meet with me, he wouldn't have said otherwise."

For a few long moments, everyone seemed to be attempting to either come up with a way to tell her she was wrong, or sort out how she saw the man compared to their past interactions with him, and she felt herself fighting a losing battle with the urge to jump to his defense.

"I get where you all are coming from," she eventually continued. "Honestly, Rin is probably the only reason he helped me out at all, and getting him to agree to lead me to the well took a lot more than just asking. He's no saint, and his opinion of humans isn't well-informed. He could stand to be a bit more considerate of people's feelings, too.

"He wasn't downright mean to me, though," she explained, and proceeded to lay out her opinion. "He tested me while we talked, but who wouldn't when someone you don't know suddenly walks into your group and you don't want to say no to a little girl who only wants to help? I'd ask a lot of questions, too. I'm sorry if talking about him like this is rude in light of how he's hurt you, and I'm not going to sit here and say your experiences are invalid and shouldn't be considered carefully. I just think it's worth acknowledging that you might not know him that well, and that Kagome may be right about our differing experiences boiling down to who he associates us with."

Inuyasha seemed to struggle with that, but she could tell he was thinking as his eyes darted to anywhere but her gaze. Kagome had given her a nod when she finished to reassure her, and the rest were all giving her thoughtful looks.

"Well, our opinions on Sesshomaru aside, what we really need to do is get that information together," Kagome redirected. "What all do we need to find out?"

Mizuki looked at the notes in her hand again, organizing her thoughts around what she did and didn't know, and then looked back up at the other girl from the future.

"First and foremost, I need to find out more about the Yanagawa clan."

Working with more personalities is a challenge, no matter how familiar with the series I am, but I enjoyed bringing in the main cast, nonetheless. As far as edits to this chapter, I tried to clean up the flow of conversation here and adjust the amount of control Mizuki regains as the chapter progresses. One of her main traits is being manipulative, and whether you have positive associations with that or not, it's incredibly important to her character.

The number of characters and the dialogue that comes with that makes this the longest chapter so far, totaling nearly 15 pages. I generally work with an average of 10 per chapter, which contributes to the overall time it takes me to update (along with teaching full-time, so 9 months out of the year leave me with significantly less time to dedicate to writing). I suspect this is going to be longer than I originally anticipated, so look for somewhere between 25 and 35 chapters by the time this work is complete.

…I have a lot of writing to do.

Thanks for reading! As always, critiques are appreciated.