A/N: Thank you to innocentanimefan and CityOfFallenAshes for their reviews on chapter 12, your support is really encouraging. :)

I know that the flow of the story may be slow at the moment but please have some patience, the pace will pick up soon. ;)

RxExR!

Timeless

Chapter 13 - Time travel

"Get off of me you moron." An annoyed voice penetrated into Inuyasha's conscience and he felt himself stir.

"I could say the same to you. Idiot." Another voice, sounding just as annoyed replied. So that last statement hadn't been directed at him.

"Somehow we're getting way too used to situations like this." A familiar voice replied. In fact, they all sounded pretty familiar.

"Shut it Kohaku." The two previous voices said in unision.

"It's true though, you two always seem to end up in situations like this." Inuyasha began to slowly open up his eyes. He felt like he'd just been crushed by a tonne of bricks.

"Please do not remind us of the unwelcome predicament that we currently find ourselves in." Ah, that voice was that woman's voice, Yukari was her name if he remembered it correctly. He heard sounds of shuffling and turned his head to the side.

The first thing he saw was Yukari and Sesshomaru detangling one another as they got up from their rather uncomfortable positions on the ground. And the way that Kohaku was acting made him believe that this happened quite a lot. It was still pretty hard to imagine his brother frequently being in such a position though. Maybe it had something to do with the way that he had been acting the last time they had seen him in the village.

"Hn." Sesshomaru simply answered to Yukari's statement from before. He didn't really want to be reminded of it that much either, despite the fact that he couldn't change it.

"Ah..." Something above him stirred and Inuyasha noticed that there were others on top of him. Really, what had happened to them all?

Sango had somehow, quite miraculously, ended up at the top of the pile. Kagome was underneath her, also beginning to stir. Miroku was wedged between him and Kagome and he had to say that all in all it wasn't a very comfortable thing, being at the bottom of a pile of people. It actually was quite uncomfortable.

"Where are we?" Shippo's voice came from his right and he turned his slightly throbbing head towards the kitsune's voice. He and Kirara had somehow managed to end up slightly further away from them and were beginning to come to their senses themselves.

"Not sure." He said briefly, his breathing still being constricted by the weight on top of him.

"Sango dear, while I love you with all my heart, could you please get off the pile?" Miroku asked shortly, he was also short of breath. Kagome muttered something in agreement.

"Oh. Sorry." Sango got down from the top and they all breathed in deeply as there was one person less lying on top of them now. Kagome and Miroku quickly followed suit, and soon all of them were catching their breaths as they sat on the ground.

"So... where the hell are we?" Yukari asked as she and Sesshomaru stretched. Kohaku smirked internally, knowing exactly why the two of them were so used to situations like this. It really was a little amusing seeing his sister's and her group's questioning faces at their quick recovery.

"Not sure." Inuyasha still kept his answers short. He was finally able to breathe in properly.

"All I remember is Shippo falling into a well and Kirara falling in right after him." Miroku rubbed his head as he tried to remember what had happened.

"We were falling. I am sure that we were falling." Sango mentioned.

"And there was a light. A very bright light." Kagome added.

"So we've established that there was a light and that we were falling. Great." Inuyasha muttered sarcastically, earning himself a smack on the back of the head from Kagome. Miroku winced slightly at the action, remembering his own, still slightly hurting, head.

"I can see temporal ribbon particles floating around. The good thing's already gone though, so we probably have to go down that hole to the time that we came from." Yukari pointed her hand back towards the forest.

"We have to find a hole?" That was Kohaku's voice.

"In a forest?" Sesshomaru did not sound amused.

"Sorry. Can't be of any more help. I don't know how long we were out of it but I can definitely say that we travelled through time. Not much more though." Yukari shrugged her shoulders.

"So we're either in the past or the future?" Miroku asked to specify. Yukari nodded. "And how do you know that we have to find a hole?" The others turned to her, interested to know about that little fact too.

"It's like the bone eater's well that the others told me about. The one that you, Inuyasha, and you, Kagome, could travel through. You went through a well both ways. So if we came through a hole to this time, we have to go back through a hole to that time."

"That appears logical at least." Miroku agreed while trying to gather his straying thoughts. He had never travelled through time before, and quite frankly it felt like a part of his brain had been fried. Well, fried temporarily only he hoped.

"So we need to find a hole in a forest." Sango stated, her head feeling similar to Miroku's.

"That isn't going to be easy." Kagome looked around herself as she spotted a forest a bit further back. "Why aren't we in that hole or near it though if we travelled through it?" She turned back to face the rest of the group.

"Probably because so many of us travelled through time. It probably distorted the location of where we would land." Yukari peered around herself as well, taking in the rest of her surroundings and also thinking of which route they should take to get back to their own time. Kagome blanched slightly as she looked at her and Sesshomaru and squeaked slightly, causing them all to look at her, wondering if she was alright.

"What's the matter Kagome?" Inuyasha was immediately worried and touched her on her shoulder, causing her to jump slightly.

"They're... transparent... ish." Kagome pointed a quivering finger at Sesshomaru and Yukari and the others paled as they realised that too, looking at the two of them. Sesshomaru and Yukari quickly looked at themselves and then one another before realising that too.

"What's the meaning of this?" Sesshomaru wasn't all too happy with the fact that he was nearly see-through.

"Probably because we are still alive in whatever this era is." Yukari stated calmly but Sesshomaru and the others in his team could see by her eyes that she was anything but calm. She was freaking out in fact about her lack of consistence.

"And what about us? Does that mean we're dead?" Sango asked, swallowing heavily.

"Either that or you're not alive yet." Yukari's brow furrowed. They were probably in the past. She found it very unlikely that everyone had died. But then again, you never really knew.

"I hope we're in the past." Inuyasha muttered, not all too happy with the possibility of all of them being dead.

"So do I." Kagome said softly. "So do I."

~.~.~.~.~

"So tell us, why are you two always so close together?" Kohaku, Ah-Un and Jaken flinched as they looked over at Shippo, willing him to stop talking with their eyes. He seemed rather intent on ignoring that though as he continued to look up at Yukari, finding Sesshomaru too scary to try and attempt something like that.

"It's a very long story." Yukari said briefly while Sesshomaru appeared to glare into the countryside rather randomly. Inuyasha swore he could hear something very close to swearing coming out of his brother's mouth. He disregarded the thought almost immediatly though, his brother was too dignified for something like that.

"Is it a good one?" Shippo looked up curiously, his eyes still displaying a large amount of childish innocence and curiousity. By now Kohaku and Jaken were shaking their heads rapidly at Shippo and making signs in an attempt to get him to stop. Miroku and Sango looked at them in confusion while Inuyasha and Kagome concentrated on Shippo, quite interested to know themselves. Kirara shook her head at the young kitsune's naivety.

"Not really." Yukari smiled thinly at him, obviously trying to avoid the topic, to no avail of course. Once Shippo got interested in something, he didn't stop badgering that person until he knew what was going on.

"Then what kind of story is it?" He tilted his head to the side slightly.

"One where my mother is involved." Sesshomaru said with a large amount of annoyance in his voice while Yukari nodded in agreement, her own expression darkening. Before Shippo could continue though, a loud shout of 'Sesshomaru!' rang out from the path they had been walking near to.

Everyone froze. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru shuddered. They would be able to recognise that voice anywhere. It was the voice of Lady Satomi.

"What have you done this time?" The former Lady of the Western Land's voice held a fair amount of annoyance within it. Everyone in the group looked at Sesshomaru who was standing looking at the path through the trees to their right absolutely rigid.

"We were building mud-huts." A young boys voice said and everyone was now looking at the path. By now it had become clear that Lady Satomi wasn't talking to the Sesshomaru that was standing right next to them, but rather the small boy with silver hair up until his shoulders in front of her.

She looked a bit younger than when they had seen her several weeks ago and she was also being accompanied by an entourage of two maids and two guards, and neither of the maids looked like the one they had seen with her the last time around.

"Yeah, we were just building mud-huts." The small girl standing next to Sesshomaru piped up and Jaken's and Kohaku's mouths fell open as they saw a miniature version of Yukari standing up to Lady Satomi. From the angle that they were watching the whole proceedings they could clearly recognize the auburn hair and emerald eyes that the older version of her also possessed.

"Mud-huts?" Lady Satomi raised an eyebrow at them while one of the maids tried to keep back a chuckle.

"Mm-hmm." Both of them nodded in unision.

"Then can you care to tell me why you are so dirty if you were simply building them?" Lady Satomi was obviously trying not to lose her temper and admittedly, the younger Sesshomaru and Yukari were quite a sight to see, covered from head to toe in mud. They was barely a spot on them that hadn't been in contact with mud and dirt at some point.

"She fell." Sesshomaru pointed a finger at Yukari.

"He tripped." She said at the same time and they both turned their heads to glare at one another. Somehow Kohaku got the feeling that they had always been like this.

"We are supposed to meet your father at the next place we are resting at and you expect me to tell him that you tripped while building mud-huts?" A vein popped on her forehead and the younger Yukari and Sesshomaru took a careful step backwards.

"It's true though!" The small Yukari piped up. Sesshomaru nodded in agreement.

"Uri... go and get them washed... now." Lady Satomi grinded out and the maid called Uri stepped forward.

"Of course my lady, it shall be done right away. Come along now you two." Uri smiled calmly at serenly at the two small children and they immediately bounded forward to follow her and to escape from Lady Satomi.

"Come on Sesshomaru!" The small Yukari called and took his hand in hers as they ran across the field to where the river was. Uri followed sedately behind them, holding their fresh clothes in her hands.

"They are going to be the death of me..." Lady Satomi groaned as she sank to the ground while the other maid quickly ran forward to catch her.

"Now, now my lady. They are just children. I am sure that they will calm down as they get older." Lady Satomi did not seem reassured by these words at all.

Inuyasha turned from their viewing position to ask Yukari and Sesshomaru something but all he saw were their fast retreating backs into a different direction. It was clear to Kohaku, Jaken and Ah-Un that they were walking with the maximum amount of distance between them while beginning to converse about the weather.

It was clear to all of them though by that point that they were in the past and not the future.

~.~.~.~.~

"Now that we have kind of determined that we are in the past, what do we do now?" Miroku asked, trying to dispell the heavy atmosphere that had settled over the group. Well, more over Yukari and Sesshomaru but that was beside the point.

"Well, it's kind of obvious that we have to find the hole so that we can get back to our own time." Kagome said and Inuyasha nodded in agreement.

Before he could say anything though, Yukari's voice interrupted them. "What I've been wondering about though is why we were sent to this time and not some other time. Usually with these kinds of things, it is quite clear why one is sent back that definite number of years like with the bone eater's well."

Sango looked thoughtful as she considered what the other woman had said. "The last time we were here, there was the petrified statue of Midoriko, the priestess who created the Shikon no Tama, in the cave in roughly that spot."

"Maybe we were sent back to the time that she was alive then?" Shippo asked and the others thought about it, it didn't seem that implausible. In fact, it was probably the most likely answer as to why they gone back five hundred years in time.

"Did you guys ever meet Midoriko?" Inuyasha turned to Sesshomaru and Yukari as they were obviously the only ones that had been alive at the time.

"I have never met her as far as I know." Sesshomaru shook his head.

"I don't think I have either but then again, I can't be sure." Yukari shrugged her shoulders, she wasn't exactly sure whether she had or not. One part of her said she had, the other said that she hadn't.

"So we might even have the chance to meet her in this era?" Sango looked excited at the prospect of possibly meeting the woman who had been an icon to her village.

"It's highly probable. I mean, if what you say is true about her statue standing there before then it probably is. A portal always has some sort of connection between the two places." Yukari shrugged, not really caring either way.

"Then maybe if we find Midoriko we would be able to get some answers into what is happening in our time." Miroku said after a couple of minutes of thinking it all through. He liked the idea of being able to meet such a well-known person, maybe she would even be able to give him some more ideas for fighting demons, considering that his wind tunnel was now gone.

"You want to go and find Midoriko?" Kohaku looked suprised at the prospect.

"I don't see why not. We're stuck here in this time anyway so we might as well make use of it. I doubt that we're ever going to be able to meet her again anyway." Miroku was pretty sure now that he wanted to meet her, it was a once in a life time opportunity.

"You want to go and find a priestess that exorcises demons for a living when half of our group is made up of demons?" Yukari looked doubtful at the whole idea.

"People were even more hostile towards demons in this era." Sesshomaru stated calmly, not looking as if it bothered him one bit.

"Well they don't need to know that we have demons in our midsts, do they?" Kagome stated, completely sure that her plan would work.

"You want to fool a miko that makes her living out of tracking down demons?" Yukari looked extremely doubtful by now. Kohaku and Jaken also looked like they weren't sure what to think of the plan. Sesshomaru was as impassive as ever.

"But she'll never even guess that humans would get along with demons, let alone befriend them. She won't doubt us at all." Kagome smiled brightly.

"She's right." Inuyasha nodded. "And we won't know until we try anyway."

"We have no choice in the matter, do we?" Yukari turned to Sesshomaru and the two had a rare moment of agreement.

"Hn." Was all he stated.

"If Lord Sesshomaru says so then we will also go along with you. But we will continue looked for the portal." Jaken said importantly.

"How did he know what Sesshomaru said?" Kagome looked in confusion at Jaken as they continued on through the forest, now having another purpose along with their original one.

"A life-long study of his language." Sango said wisely, a hint of amusement in her eyes.