So I went back and revised this a bit and finally updated it somewhat. Yes I know, I just split up the first chapter, but I like it better that way. Oh and please don't expect me to update this on any real schedule. I just add to this story when I get the urge to write. Which isn't often anymore. Enjoy it or hate it. I don't care. Voilà.
In Time
I
Dappled sunlight littered the lush grass of a small clearing in a great forest. From the towering trees above, little songbirds could be heard, their musical tweets suffusing the early morning air. One bird flitted from its perch in a gnarled oak to alight upon an old wooden well in the center of the clearing. It pecked at a row of marching ants on the lip of the chasm, savoring its breakfast.
Suddenly a bright blue flash of light burst forth from the depths of the well, pink sparks crackling along the wood. The bird squawked madly and leapt from its perch, propelling itself into the sky. Its companions in the trees followed suit and took flight as well, all squawking angrily at the blue light that had disturbed their peaceful morning.
Amidst the shower of glittering pink dust left in the blue lights wake, a head of ebony hair emerged near the lip of the well. Pulling herself up using the sturdy vines that snaked down into the old shaft, a young woman lugging a disgustingly yellow pack grunted slightly in her effort to extricate herself from the magic well.
Huffing as she planted her feet firmly on the ground, she shifted her pack to a more comfortable position on her back. 'I really need to put a ladder in there. Those vines don't make for an easy climb.' She glared over her shoulder at the yellow monstrosity. 'Especially with this thing in tow.'
Sighing, she brushed her thoughts aside and headed east down a small well-worn foot path. Smiling as the small buildings of Edo came into view, she made her way towards a moderately sized house on the outskirts of the village.
Sliding the shoji screen open she slipped off her shoes, facing them outward and looked around. Plopping her pack onto the smooth wooden floor, she called, "Guys! I'm back! Who wants pocky?!"
"MEEE!"
Seconds later, a young boy with elf-like ears came bursting into the room, his green eyes brimming with anticipation. "Me! I want some Kagome, please!?" His eyes grew wide, and he clasped his hands together in front of his chest.
Laughing at the boy for his shameless begging, Kagome ruffled his fiery red hair and bent over her pack, rummaging until she found the box of sweets. Handing it to him, she replied, "Here ya go Shippo. Enjoy." He took the box happily and ripped open the packaging, shoveling the sweet sticks into his mouth. She glanced around. "Where is everyone else?" Her eyes averted back to the boy just as he began to lick his stubby fingers clean.
Shippo swallowed and wiped the excess chocolate from his mouth with his sleeve, causing it to smear on his pudgy left cheek. "Oh they're around here somewhere. I think Miroku is still at the spring with Sango filling our water skins. And Inuyasha is..." He paused to sniff the air delicately. "On his way here now."
Not a minute later, the shoji screen opened again and a barefooted young man in brilliant red clothes stepped in. The two white doggy ears atop his head were pricked up in attention. His golden eyes locked onto Kagome, slit pupils dilating in the dimmer light. "Finally you're back. I was about to come get you and drag your ass out of the future. To hell with your stupid showers, we got shit to do!"
Kagome's face fell into her palm and she sighed. "Inuyasha, after three years of this, I had hoped you might learn some patience."
"We'll someone's gotta keep ya on your toes woman! You're so damn slow, what else am I supposed to say?"
"Oh, how about, "Hey Kagome! Glad you're back. Let's go hunt some jewel shards!" I have half a mind to make you eat dirt right now just for calling my showers stupid. I know you didn't think they were stupid after Souta spilled fish sauce all over you a few weeks ago."
"Yeah, well, that shit stank! I was just getting it all off."
Kagome rolled her eyes at his extenuation. "Whatever, I'm sure it took an hour to scrub off some fish sauce."
Inuyasha flattened his ears against his skull at her biting sarcasm and huffed. "Keh, let's just get the others and go. I'm tired of this stupid conversation anyway." He exited the home and Kagome smiled at the familiar 'thud' of him landing on the roof to sulk. As aggravating as Inuyasha was, she could never really stay angry with him.
As she turned to give Shippo another box of pocky, three more guests entered the home. A young man and a young woman slipped off their sandals while a small fire cat, that was perched atop the woman's shoulder, mewled softly at Kagome. The handsome man dressed in dark monk robes advanced on her, his arms wide and eyes twinkling.
"Ah, Lady Kagome! So wonderful to see you again!" The mischievous man tried to snake his arms around her in a mock hug, but Kagome swatted his arm.
"Oh no you don't, Miroku. I know that look. Plus, Sango's handprint is a dead giveaway."
The monk smiled sheepishly, rubbing the red feminine handprint on his cheek. He had forgotten about the incriminating evidence on his face.
"Well you know he deserved it." The woman who walked in with the monk glared in his direction before hugging Kagome. "And this early too. We're gonna have to start a night watch to keep him from fondling us in our sleep." Sango winked at Kagome and the two women giggled.
"Whath tho fundy?" Shippo asked around a mouthful of strawberry pocky. He looked curiously at the women as they giggled again.
"Nothing you'd think is funny. You ready to go, Shippo?" Kagome closed her pack before slinging it over her shoulders and turned to the kit. At his enthusiastic nod, she motioned for him to hop on her pack. He jumped up and sat comfortably on the yellow bag happily munching on his treats.
They all slipped their shoes back on and walked outside. Inuyasha jumped off of the roof and landed lightly next to the group. As they were making last minute checks to ensure they had all they needed for the journey, an old woman with an eye-patch came hobbling up to them.
"Off to find more shards eh?" Her good eye momentarily scrutinized Inuyasha before turning to Kagome. "Have ye been practicing as I instructed?"
Kagome hugged the older woman warmly and replied, "Yes Kaede, and I'm getting so much better. Look." She then brought her hand up in front of her, and shaped it as though she were holding a ball. She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly as she concentrated. Kagome's eyes snapped open as her palm began to glow blue. The glow receded to the center of her hand to form a perfect sphere floating a few inches above her palm. Pink sparks popped around it erratically. Suddenly it shot forward at a blinding speed and exploded against a nearby tree. Through a shower of soft pink sparkles, a charred hole could be seen on the trunk.
"Ah wonderful! Ye are learning quickly child. Keep at it and ye will surpass even my late sister!" Kaede eyed the miko proudly, as her thoughts turned to that of her dead sibling.
Many of the villagers of Edo thought that Kagome was the reincarnation of their previous miko, the late Lady Kikyo. She had once protected the village and the sacred jewel, the Shikon no Tama, until she fell in love with the half demon Inuyasha, who had been trying unsuccessfully to take the jewel from her to become a full blooded demon.
Fifty years ago, Kikyo had thought to end her solitary life as a miko, and was going to give Inuyasha the sacred jewel, so that he might make a wish upon it to become human and live his life with her. Unfortunately, she had been caring for a wounded renegade, who went by the name of Onigumo. He had been injured quite severely and thus could not move. Only able to talk, he soon fell in love with his beautiful caretaker. But he was an evil and greedy man at heart, and tried to persuade Kikyo to give him the jewel so that he might harness its power for himself and keep her as his prize. Naturally the good priestess denied his wishes sending Onigumo into a rage. One day, when Kikyo had gone to give Inuyasha the jewel, a swarm of weaker demons approached him and told the bandit all his desires would come to fruition if he would grant them his body. In his desperation, Onigumo acquiesced and allowed them to take possession of him. Thus the demon Naraku was born. Naraku's thirst for the Jewel of Four Souls was boundless and he knew that in order to steal it, he must turn the priestess and her dog against each other.
Disguising himself as the half demon, he attacked Kikyo inflicting a mortal wound. Tragically, Kikyo truly believed that it had been Inuyasha who had attacked her, and sealed the unfortunate hanyou to a tree with a magical arrow that was intended to trap him in a deep sleep for eternity. She then requested that she be burned with the jewel when she died, so that it would pass out of the living world once and for all. Her younger sister Kaede carried out her last wishes, and the jewel faded from existence.
Five hundred years later, Kagome, who had lived a completely normal life in modern Tokyo, soon found her world turned upside down. She was pulled into an old well on her family's property by a centipede demon, something she had always thought to live only in myth. She emerged from the well five hundred years in the past, a mere fifty years after the tragic story of Kikyo and Inuyasha had concluded. She soon found out that the Shikon no Tama was inside her after Mistress Centipede ripped it from her belly. During the fight, Kagome accidentally released Inuyasha from his slumber and he easily defeated the centipede. But he hastily turned on Kagome to take the jewel, thinking her to be Kikyo. Kaede, who was now an old healer, quickly taught Kagome how to subdue Inuyasha before he could kill her. Unfortunately the jewel was again stolen, causing Inuyasha and Kagome to team up. Sadly, in her effort to retrieve it, Kagome only made the situation worse by shattering the jewel into fragments that shot in all directions across Japan. Ever since then, she and Inuyasha, along with the friends they made on the way, had been traveling to recover all the fragments and put an end to the demon that had started the whole mess, Naraku.
During these travels however, a witch named Urasue, sought to bring Kikyo back to life to do her bidding. She created a clay body and trapped Kagome's soul inside it thus awakening the dead priestess. However, Kagome recovered her soul, causing the clay Kikyo to rely on shinidamachu to retrieve the souls of young women to keep herself 'alive'. Now, only a shell of the woman who once was and filled only with hate and malice, she wished only to take Inuyasha back to hell with her.
Although Kagome was the spitting image of Kikyo, Kaede refused to believe that the young girl was her elder sister reincarnated, and that her sister was 'alive'. As far as the old healer was concerned, a hate-filled shell of a woman long dead was no sister to her. Kagome had also proven, at least to Kaede, that she was indeed her own person and not the shadow of a once great priestess.
Kaede closed her eye and bowed her head in respect for her late sister, as the thought of her fate caused a wave of sadness to wash over her. She looked at Kagome again, who had not noticed the old woman's momentary lapse in focus, and smiled at her.
Kagome's face lit up. "Thanks! Who would have guessed I just needed some practice?"
"Yeah, Kagome blew up a tree with a light ball, whoop-de-do. Can we GO now?" Inuyasha glared at the women impatiently, a scowl on his face.
Kagome shot him a glare of her own. "We can leave in just a minute, Inuyasha."
Inuyasha glared back. "Look, I'm tired of waiting around on YOU to go get the shards of a jewel YOU broke!"
"Oh we won't be waiting on me at all. We'll be waiting on the idiot with dog ears."
Inuyasha's face contorted in slight confusion before realization dawned on him. Panicking, he began to wave his hands in front of his chest. "Oh Kagome, I -"
"Sit."
The rosary beads around his neck glowed a violent blue and slammed his face into the dirt, causing a small cloud of debris to erupt from the ground where he had just been standing. Shippo chortled hysterically on Kagome's pack and almost choked on the last of his pocky.
As much as she hated hurting someone she cared about, Kagome was silently thankful for the rosary beads. 'He really needs to learn when to shut his mouth on his own, otherwise I'm going to have to keep doing it for him.' Then she frowned. 'And I'm pretty sure my way is more painful.'
After a string of curses and complaints from a now dust covered Inuyasha, the group of fighters began their trek down a small dirt road.
Now I did write this story as if I was writing it for someone who had never read or seen Inuyasha. It always bothers me that everyone on here tends to write things without giving a bit of history. Not everyone who stumbles across your story has the whole picture, you know. You reach a much wider audience if you provide a little info right off the bat. Imo anyway. Review?