Previously…

Alice yelled in triumph as she saw the demon disappear.

"Yeah! Try eating me now!" she gloated at the demon, which was slowly disappearing.

Alice was just about to make a snappy comment about her being so wimpy that the demon had nothing to worry about, when she caught sight of another demon from behind her approaching swiftly. Before she could even turn around, the girl felt a sharp pain on her left shoulder as she felt herself hit the ground hard. Crap.

Chapter 3: Inuyasha

Alice closed her eyes tightly, waiting for the demon to kill her. But the impact never came. Instead she heard a strong voice yell, "Stay down!" and when she looked behind from where she knelt on the ground she saw the demon, that wasn't even a foot away from her, torn in half.

"What?!" was all the girl could manage to say as the demon fell to the ground dead.

When she looked to the other side of the clearing, Alice saw a lone figure silhouetted in the sunlight. It took a while for her eyes to adjust, and when they did she saw a boy, around her age, maybe older, wearing a red kimono.

Great, I suppose he's another one of those freaks… But then why did he save me? Alice thought as she continued to look at the boy in curiosity. White hair? Well I can't say it doesn't look bad on him but it's still a weird choice of color to dye your hair… And what are those things on the top of his head? Ears? Wait… Ears?! That means he could be another demon!

Alice gasped in surprise and immediately grabbed her sword and pointed it at the boy. "Who are you? Why did you save me?" she called out to him.

"Tch… This is definitely not the reaction I was expecting after saving your butt just now," the boy replied irritably.

"Well you didn't have to save me you know! I could've handled things fine without you," Alice snapped back. Okay maybe I couldn't exactly fight back in the position I was just in, but still!

"Keh! Didn't look that way to me!" the boy yelled back at her.

The girl glared at the boy strengthening her grip on her sword. The boy saw this and glared right back, growling, "Don't even think about it. I could take you down before you even have the chance to swing that sword."

"As if! I could easily defeat you first!" Alice yelled in reply, not lowering her sword. "But before I do that, tell me, where are we? Why is everyone dressed so weird? And why are those freaks chasing me and calling me a demon?"

"What are you talking…Wait," the boy said with a look of understanding appearing on his face, "You're from the present aren't you?"

"The present? What do you mean the present?" she replied lowering her sword in confusion. What is he talking about?

"You know, the present!" the boy replied irritably, as if he didn't know how to explain what he just said. Alice was still confused and she guessed that the boy saw this because he continued, "What a hassle. Come with me, Kagome can explain things to you."

Alice quickly backed up a few steps yelling, "Whoa! Who ever said I was going to come with you? For all I know you could be leading me into a trap or something! No way am I going to fall for that one!"

She then lifted her sword preparing herself if the boy decided to attack.

"Keh, baka! What do you think you're doing? I'm only trying to help you," he yelled in frustration. "Besides I'm the only one who can help you!" he finished as he jumped closer to Alice, knocking the sword from her hand.

"Ow! What did you do that for?" Alice yelled at him, angrily clutching her hand.

"Keh. You're going to hurt yourself if you start swinging that sword around, and I'm not at threat to you!" the boy yelled back loosing his temper a bit.

"Hmph. I guess I have no choice but to join you then huh? But know this, if you make any sudden move against me and I'll…" Alice was cut off as she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.

"What?!" she gasped as she grabbed her shoulder and fell to a knee. She felt her hand touch something wet and flinched as she saw it was covered in sticky red blood.

"Hey are you okay?" the boy said with a hint of worry in his voice as he came up to Alice.

He stiffened a little as he saw her wound. "That looks like a pretty nasty wound you got there. You need to see Kaede to get that looked at," he said, and before Alice could object he grabbed her and swung her on his back.

"What are you doing?!" she yelled at him as he began running at a gentle but brisk pace.

"What does it look like baka?! I'm trying to help you! Now shut up and relax a little."

Alice reluctantly obeyed the boy's order seeing that it would do her no good to argue anymore with him. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, I mean he saved me and he's helping me now. He even gave me my sword back the girl thought as she glanced down at her sword which was put back in the loop of her kimono's obi. I guess I'll let him off easy now but no way am I going to trust him until I get some answers.

What did he mean by the present anyway? Who's this Kagome? How can she help me? Where am I? Alice sighed I thought by meeting some of the people around here I could finally get home without any problems but now it seems like I'll never get home in time for the festival.

Seeing as she could do no more, the injured girl lowered her head so it could rest on the boy's back as he continued to run through the forest. Not even a minute seemed to pass by before she heard the boy growl and come to a sudden stop. The stop made Alice wince and hold her wounded shoulder.

"Hey! What's the deal?" she snapped at the boy, frustrated that right when her shoulder had stopped hurting he stopped so suddenly that she hit it and the pain felt ten times worse than it did before.

"Keh!" the boy scoffed as he lowered Alice off his back and onto the ground next to him. "It looks like that demon's buddies are around," he said, sniffing the air, "I think they've found out that their buddy isn't going to be around anymore and want revenge."

The boy looked at Alice as she replied irritably, "Oh great! Just what I need, more people who hate me!" she then looked towards the boy "I guess we have no choice but to fight huh?"

"Exactly," the boy responded, "Luckily for you, you have those weird powers that defeated that demon before so-"

"What?! You saw that?!" Alice cut in as she looked at the boy in shock and a little anger.

"What do you mean? Of course I saw it! What was that anyway? Where did you learn to do that?" he asked her.

"Hold on! Before I tell you anything you must swear never to tell anyone or else my parents might find out and they'll murder me. And if they do you can be dead certain that I won't be going down alone," Alice said as she glared at the boy.

"What? Why would you care if-" the boy started before she cut him off again.

"Promise!" she demanded.

"Okay! Okay! I promise not to tell anyone. Now tell me, where did you get those powers?" the boy replied.

Alice sighed. "I didn't think I'd be telling this to anyone, even more a complete stranger, anytime soon. But I didn't get these powers from anywhere, they just popped up out of nowhere and I've had them ever since."

The boy didn't seem too satisfied in her explanation but nodded his head in acceptance to her explanation.

"Well now that you know my secret, I guess I should tell you my name since I might come and talk to you about it later. I'm Alice Kururugi."

"Well I don't know what I could possibly do to help you, but my name's Inuyasha," the boy said in reply.

"Inuyasha? Hmm nice name," Alice replied as the two began walking down the path, alert for any signs of a demon.

"Kaede's village shouldn't be much farther than this. Do you think you can manage?" Inuyasha asked her, glancing at her shoulder wound.

His companion noticed this and replied, "Yeah, I think I can manage."

"Good, because we have company," he growled as three demons stepped out behind the trees in front of them.

Alice immediately targeted the demon on the left who was closer to her and let out another fire ball which hit the demon directly. "Yes!" she yelled in triumph.

When she looked to her left, she saw that Inuyasha had already defeated the other two demons and was looking at her with an impressed smirk on his face.

"Wow, you fight better than I thought you would," he said as Alice walked up to him.

"Yeah I guess so," she answered proudly, "Think you can beat me so easily still?"

"Ha! Don't get too confident. I could still defeat you, though it might take longer than I'd originally expected," Inuyasha replied.

Alice laughed and the two resumed their journey to Kaede's village. They didn't face many demons after that, though any demons that did pop out were easily defeated by the them.

Wow, with all this demon slaying we're doing I think I'm getting better at using my powers Alice thought cheerfully Maybe this little detour isn't as bad as I thought it would be.


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