Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
A Dig to the Past
Chapter 3
The next morning when the group walked towards Kaede's hut there were whispers coming from everyone and stares from every direction. "Everyone is staring." Rin said.
"Well we are wearing strange clothing." Kagome said. "I wouldn't really expect any different."
"But Kaede-sama look at the way they're dressed, they've got to be youkai planning to terrorize the village!" A villager was shouting.
"They are not all youkai and even so they have yet to do anything troublesome." Kaede reassured a few villagers. "I will not turn them away."
"Is something wrong Kaede-sama?" Kagome asked. "We're not causing trouble for you are we?"
"No, the villagers are afraid of trouble. When the jewel was in Kikyo's care the village was often attacked by youkai and a few humans." Kaede shook her head. "It seems they think any youkai or traveler for that matter is a bad omen."
"Well we aren't going to do anything." Miroku said. "I assure you our coming here was an accident and we won't be any hindrance to you."
"Have you come for something?" She asked.
"Well we don't know how long we're going to be here so we were wondering if there was something we could do." Kagome said. "We can't walk around here with these clothing, we look too suspicious."
"I have a few yukatas of Kikyo's for the women but I have nothing for you men." Kaede said. Before she could go and get them the ground rumbled and the villagers screamed.
"Kaede-sama a youkai!" One of the villagers shouted.
She nodded and ran inside her hut grabbing a bow and some arrows. "Get the women and children to safety!" She shouted. "You should get to safety as well, there's no telling what this youkai could do."
"We can stay and help." Kouga said. "Miroku get the girls to safety and get your ass back here to help!"
"I'm not going to run and hide while you guys fight!" Kagome shouted.
"There's nothing we can do." Rin grabbed Kagome's arm. "We need to get back."
Miroku grabbed Sango's hand and led them into Kaede's hut. "Don't move from here." He said sternly.
"Just because I'm a woman it doesn't make me useless!" Sango shouted at him.
"Let's face it against a youkai we can't do anything." Rin said. "At this point we're just getting in the way."
Kagome stepped outside of the hut along with Sango. Rin joined to make sure nothing would happen to them and they all watched as the villagers stood in front and waited for the youkai to appear. The rumbling had stopped and Sesshomaru stepped forward. "It's coming." He whispered.
Suddenly from the ground a large centipede youkai and the girls gasped. It was nothing like the youkai they had seen before. It hissed angrily and began assaulting the village knocking the closest hut out of its way. "We must not let it inside the village!" Kaede shouted. She notched an arrow and aimed for its head but its reflexes were too quick and dodged the arrow. It hissed and began moving towards her. She dropped the bows and arrows to jump out of the way before it slammed into the ground below her.
"Kaede-sama!" Kagome ran towards her to help the elderly woman up and get to safety.
Sesshomaru and Inuyasha looked towards each other and nodded before running towards the youkai. They both managed to kick it hard enough to make it fall backwards and crash to the ground. "You mustn't let it touch you with its tail!" Kaede shouted. "It injects poison!"
The youkai reared up once more and made its way into the village towards Kaede once more. It stopped upon seeing Kagome and stopped inches from her face, sniffing her. "Miko." A voice rumbled from the youkai before it turned to attack her with the poison Kaede had warned about.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted and ran towards her, taking the blow instead. He immediately slumped already feeling the poison invade his body.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted in horror as he fell in front of her. The youkai turned and made a move to strike again. The only thing she could think of was to grab an arrow that was nearby and hope that she could do enough damage to cause it to stagger. But to everyone's surprise the arrow glowed in her hand when she struck the youkai it let out an ear wrenching screech. It was then that Sesshomaru and Kouga took that moment of opportunity to use the distraction to finish it off.
Not caring what had happened Kagome immediately turned to Inuyasha. "Inuyasha are you alright?" She shouted with tears in her eyes.
"The poison won't kill him if something is done immediately." Kaede explained. "Quickly someone carry him inside so we can give him something!"
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Inuyasha felt an immense pain when he came to. Everything was a bit fuzzy and he sat up only to regret his actions. He looked around at where he was and saw he was back in the hut. His only thought was to make sure Kagome was alright. Before he could stand up to look for her she entered the room. When she noticed he was awake she dropped the bowl of water she was holding in her hands and ran towards him. "Inuyasha you're awake!" She shouted in relief.
"Are you alright?" He asked. "What happened?"
"Kagome is everything alright?" Her friends had walked in hearing the bowl drop. Sango walked over to the group looking relieved. "Inuyasha you're awake."
"I'm fine, what the hell happened?" He asked.
"You took poison for Kagome." Sesshomaru said bluntly. "It's been four days since the attack. The centipede's body has been removed from the village and burned."
"Four days?" Inuyasha asked. "What fucking poison is that?"
"It matters not." Kaede walked into the hut. "It's been almost a year now since we've been threatened by youkai presence. The village has thanked you for your help. You must be careful, there are many youkai that are just as dangerous and many that are worse than what you've just seen."
"I've never seen youkai like that before." Rin still couldn't believe it.
"We're in the past." Shippo said with folded arms. "This is where youkai were at its purest, without the blood of humans to delude their power. The youkai here have shed any reason, any human form, and any weakness to gain more power. Many youkai have a second form but it's only used as a self defense and only the most powerful have it."
"Was anyone hurt?" Inuyasha asked. He knew Kagome was fine when he couldn't smell any blood.
"No, Kagome weakened the youkai and Sesshomaru and Kouga managed to finish it off." Kaede said. "As you heard from the youkai itself Kagome is a miko."
"I was so worried about Inuyasha I never got to ask about it." Kagome looked down at her hands. She remembered the whitish blue glow and the power she felt surge through her body at that time.
"There aren't very many like you. After Kikyo's death someone did a terrible act and made sure to kill any miko he crossed paths with." Kaede said with sadness in her voice. "No one has yet to see who this monster is. All we know is that he still hunts them and is in search of the temple."
"Who could do something like that?" Sango asked.
"I can only imagine he is trying to prevent his demise for something he has planned. Rumor has it that this man is also gathering powerful allies." Kaede shook her head. "We know nothing more than this. Enough talk Inuyasha still needs rest. Although the poison has passed through your body it will be another day or so to gather strength. I shall be among the villagers if you need me."
"We'll leave you two alone." Rin began pushing everyone out of the room. "Inuyasha is going to need his bandages changed."
"Why aren't you doing it?" Miroku asked. "You're the registered nurse."
"Yes, but he isn't in a danger zone." Rin smiled. "We should get some supplies for tonight. I'm sure Inuyasha is starving."
"That girl is out of her fucking mind." Inuyasha pulled Kagome close.
"She's right though, I need to make sure you're alright." She moved behind him to remove the bandages. When she'd first seen his wounds she almost fainted. There was a gaping hole in his back that was oozing green puss and he was sweating and panting. With the bandages removed the wound was almost fully healed. Youkai or not she wanted to be safe and dressed him in new bandages. When she was done she leaned her head against his back and wrapped her around his waist. "You're such an idiot."
"Because I saved your life?" Inuyasha pulled her into his lap and placed a hand under her chin.
"You risked your life for mine." Kagome pulled away from him tears in her eyes. "You shouldn't do something that reckless."
"I wasn't going to let that damn youkai hurt you." Inuyasha kissed her.
"Inuyasha..."
"Where in the hell did you get those clothes?" He asked. It took him a while to notice but she was wearing a light blue yukata with her hair in a ponytail.
"Kaede-sama gave us the clothing that belonged to Kikyo." Kagome smiled. "The villagers even gave us some clothing for you guys since we helped in defeating the youkai. They gave us a lot of supplies for our stay while we're here too."
"The villagers made us dinner!" Rin came in with a bowl of rice in her hands. The rest came in with various foods as well. "They heard you were awake and made a meal for you!"
"We need to discuss a plan of action." Sesshomaru announced.
"Why a plan of action?" Shippo asked as he ate.
"Sesshomaru is right." Kagome sighed. "Like it or not we're stuck here right now and nothing will happen unless we do something."
"Where would we even start?" Kouga asked.
"This started in the temple we should find it." Inuyasha suggested. "It could have the answers we need."
"No one knows where it is!" Rin reminded them.
"True, but we're a team of archeologists. We know what we need to look for and Shippo's got a lot of expertise on the temple itself." Kagome smiled. "If we can find some rumors of its whereabouts I'm sure we can narrow our search areas based on the landscape we found it and where it is now."
"That seems to be our only option." Miroku said. "But we can't take this lightly. We're not worrying about a few grave robbers on our search. We must prepare for this journey as well as protect ourselves on the way. We have no supplies or means to protect ourselves."
"Speak for yourself." Inuyasha folded his arms. "Us youkai will be fine, you humans need to worry."
"Either way we need something to protect ourselves." Miroku said. "You guys can't always be on guard to protect us."
"We can't leave for a while. Inuyasha still needs another day or two of recovery at least." Rin said. "Even if you feel fine, the poison hasn't completely left your system. I suggest we find a hot spring or something for you to sweat out any of the toxin that's still in your blood."
"Hopefully that will give us enough time to get supplies ready. Kouga, Shippo, and Sango should get together and find out where our greater chances of finding the temple are. We should have a pretty good idea." Kagome stood up. "Miroku you should start talking to the villagers and get some information out of them, anything about the temples whereabouts or even any rumors. We're going to need lots of supplies so Rin and I will speak with Kaede-sama and start gathering a few things. Inuyasha you need to stay here and res-"
"Like hell I will!" He growled in protest.
"I'm going to scout ahead and take a look at the outer surroundings." Sesshomaru stood up as he ignored Inuyasha.
"I was just going to suggest that. Thanks Sesshomaru." Kagome smiled and then turned a glare to Inuyasha. "You are NOT to move from this spot and if I found out you have, I'll leave you here in the past."
With that she turned on her heel not leaving room for argument and left the hut with Rin chasing after her. "What the hell?" Inuyasha said a little dumbfounded.
"You did worry her." Sango shook her head. "She stayed with you the entire time and barely ate or slept while you were out."
Sesshomaru left without another word and Kouga, Sango, and Shippo began deliberating where the temple was based on the location. "The problem isn't the temple's location. It's where we are." Shippo crossed his arms. "With what happened we could be halfway across Japan and not even know it."
"That does pose a problem." Kouga placed a hand on his chin. "We'll just have to go at this blindly. Everything has changed too much to base it on the land structure."
Kagome entered the hut with Miroku and sat down next to Inuyasha. "Kaede-sama talked to the villagers and they've agreed to help supply us with things we'll need." Kagome explained. "They probably think we're a bad omen and don't want us staying in the village."
"Either way any help regardless of the motive is enough for now. The likeliness of coming back here is little to none anyway." Miroku sat down in a cross legged position. "We need to stick together. There are too many unanswered questions to risk separating ourselves."
Sango nodded in agreement. "There's no telling when we could end up back in the present or if separating ourselves hurts our chances of going back. It would be terrible for some of us to get back and not the others." She slumped back against the wall frustrated.
They knew it wasn't going to be an easy journey but even if they mentally prepared themselves for anything they were still likely to be overwhelmed. There were too many things that they didn't know and things were different in this time. They were going to have to be on guard all the time and find a comfortable traveling routine, which would be difficult. Youkai could travel longer and faster than humans, not to mention they needed less rest so they would have to somehow manage to balance their pace. Anxiety washed over the group as they prepared for the stressful journey.
Sesshomaru entered the hut and sat down near the entrance. "We will need to work a routine on watch when we are asleep at night. There are far more hostile youkai and it will be necessary to protect ourselves." He crossed his arms as a stern look appeared on his face. "I will watch tonight. We should leave as early as we can. The humans are still wary about our presence and we can cover more ground during this time. Have we decided on a general direction?"
"But Inuyasha still needs to recover first." Rin said. "The poi-"
"I feel fine, I'm not going to sit in this hut while you guys run around and figure shit out. We can leave without any problems." Inuyasha stood up and walked outside of the hut. "I'm getting some air."
"So far I've heard a few rumors, I don't think they have any truth but it's all we have. A few villagers have heard it's to the east hidden in the mountains. We didn't find it anyway near mountains in the present but heading that way might get us some new information." Miroku explained.
"Seems reasonable enough to do, it's better than sitting around doing nothing." Shippo said.
"What about Inuyasha though? Will he be okay enough to travel?" Rin asked.
"He'll be fine. When we reach a source of water he can relax then." Sesshomaru said. "Our first few days of travel will be slow so we can get a good pace, too much at once will just exhaust us."
"I'm going to go find Inuyasha." Kagome stood up and began walking out of the hut.
"Take these too him." Shippo threw her some clothes and barely even looked up. "He'll need them."
Kagome didn't question him. She wasn't sure he'd even hear her if she had. "Get some rest then, we'll leave early in the morning." Leaving the hut she got a nice cool breeze of air and began searching for Inuyasha. She called out his name knowing he would hear her if she were close enough to him. Oddly enough he was farther than she'd thought. When she reached the thicker part of the forest she heard a splash and headed towards the sound. She found an open clearing with hot springs and walked closer to it. It was beautifully lit with the moonlight and she smiled. For that moment she was able to relax.
That peaceful moment was ruined when someone surfaced and she screamed. Quickly she turned around and sputtered an apology for barging in. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Kagome turned around to see Inuyasha waist deep in the water. She turned around giving him his privacy. "I was looking for you. We're all about to go to bed since we have to get up early tomorrow. I brought you some clothes, shippo told me to take them to you." She could hear him getting out of the water and she took a step back towards the hut. "I'll see you back at the hut so you can get dressed."
Inuyasha tugged on her arm and embraced her. She shouted in protest since she thought he was naked. "I have pants on, and it's not like you haven't seen me naked before." He smiled.
"That's completely different. We were together then." She finally laid her hands on his chest since he wouldn't budge.
"I still want to talk about that." He frowned and took a step back so he could look at her.
"Inuyasha, it's...there's too much going on right now to talk about it." She turned her head avoiding his eyes. "I'm confused and there are more important things to worry about right now."
"I think this is important. You never gave me a chance and I want to talk about it." He grew frustrated with her. She kept avoiding the topic the last time he brought it up and she'd continue to do it until he pestered her enough. "You're trying to say I'm not important enough?"
"You know that's not what I mean." She frowned and covered herself with her arms when a breeze blew past.
"Let's go back." Inuyasha picked up the clothes and put them on. They walked to the hut in silence and when they split to the rooms he hugged her. "Don't think I'm letting you avoid this."
I know took forever right? Been stressed lately and when I want to write I don't have the time and blah blah sob story blah. Thanks for reading!