Author's note: Alright, so writing with a word limit doesn't seem to work for me nearly as well as it does for some of my favourite writers. So I'm just going to write until it feels like a natural place for the chapter to come to a halt, at which point I shall stop.
Thank you to the anon who reviewed – you literally made my day. I grin like a loon every time I remember I received a review.
Disclaimer: I shall write this disclaimer in prose. It'll probably suck, but here it goes! Inuyasha does not belong to me. While writing, I drank lots of tea.
As Kagome walked through the wood towards the general direction of the village, she wondered at Inuyasha's uncharacteristic absence. While leaving Kagome to make her own way back wasn't unusual for the inuhanyou, him not meeting her after a supply run to help transport the goods was nearly unheard of, especially as this meant he got first choice of the little luxuries Kagome brought back from her time.
She had a strange, fluttery feeling in her stomach, as though she had forgotten something important, but she dismissed this as one of the usual side-effects of being displaced in time. That she didn't recognize this part of the forest wasn't worrying; it was a small forest, only requiring an hour to cross from one side to the other, and one didn't survive in feudal-era Japan without being able to take care of themselves.
She walked along at a leisurely pace: if Inuyasha couldn't be bothered to pick her up, he could wait for his instant noodles!
Kagome came to an abrupt halt as she tripped over a tree root which she could have sworn wasn't there a moment ago. She caught herself on a nearby tree branch, and rubbing her stinging palms on her skirt she continued on.
She stopped in the middle of a clearing and decided to use the Goshinboku to help her find her way; as the tallest tree in the forest, it towered above the others and was usually easily visible from wherever one was stood.
Except that it wasn't.
Kagome felt a frisson of terror run down her spine. If the Goshinboku wasn't here, then where was she?
Or, as the well was still there, when was she?