Author's Note: The title of this chapter actually comes from a movie once featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's been a very long time since I've seen the episode in question. I don't think it was ever even released on disc. Anyway, it was actually the title of that movie that inspired this little trilogy I'm doing now.

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha or Yashahime.

Chapter 6: Terror from the Year 5000

After they had managed to get Suzumi to calm down, everyone returned to Inuyasha and Kagome's village. During the entire trip, Suzumi refused to say a word. This was partly because she was afraid of more soldiers showing up before they returned to the village. The trip back ended up being uneventful however. Once they had gotten back to the house, everyone turned their attention to Suzumi.

"Okay kid, start talking," Inuyasha ordered. "And you better make it good. You've already put my family through a lot of trouble as it is."

Suzumi nodded. "It all really began long before I was born, back in the year 4942. At the time a strange comet was hurtling towards the earth. The comet was so huge it would've wiped out all life on the planet if it hit. The governments of the world banned together and launched every single nuclear weapon they had at the comet. Thankfully much of the comet was destroyed, but a few large fragments still struck the earth in various places like Japan places and caused major damage.

"The human race had survived the comet, but it turned out we were in for a brand new nightmare. About a month or so after the comet fragments hit, the creatures that before had only existed in Japanese folklore began to emerge. Lady Kagome, as you, Towa and Kazuki know, hardly any demons existed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The scientists of my time suspected this was because conditions during those time periods had caused demons to go dormant, or at least hide their existence. But when the comet fragments fell, conditions changed and demons once again began to thrive."

Kazuki raised a hand. "Pardon the interruption, but are you saying demons are a subject of scientific study in your time period?"

"Yes. When demons first began to appear again, scientists from all over gathered together to study them," Suzumi confirmed. "At first the demons weren't really anything more than pests, but in a short time they began to grow more aggressive, and more powerful. Very soon more intelligent demons started to emerge and formed massive armies to take over the planet. All of humanity was suddenly at war…and we were losing. In the year 4948 the U.S.A. was the first nation to be conquered.

"The other countries of the world fell soon after. By the year 4953 all of humanity had been conquered except for a few small but well-guarded outposts around the world. Tokyo had been one such safe haven. By the time most of Japan had been conquered, Tokyo had raised the retractable walls installed originally to protect from massive tidal waves and never put them down again. Fortunately the arts once used in this era to repel demons had been rediscovered and used on the walls of the city to form an impenetrable barrier. Tokyo had become the last sanctuary for the human race…for a time at least.

"Eventually the demons' attacks had started to become stronger, and the barrier around Tokyo started to weaken. By 4957 the city was in real danger of being conquered. That was when she showed up. Her name was Mikuzume. Nobody knew who she was or where she came from, but she was a powerful priestess of incredible beauty. The story goes that she walked out of the city in spite of the guards insistence that she remain inside, and with a single wave of her staff every demon who had been attacking the city fled never to return. The people hailed Mikuzume as the greatest hero to ever live, and that was only the beginning of her rise to power.

"As I said, Mikuzume was a woman of dazzling beauty, and the one most enamored with her was the prime minister of what was left Japan. The prime minster divorced his wife of thirty years proposed to Mikuzume before the ink was even dry on the divorce papers. Despite Mikuzume being a vibrant young woman in her twenties and the prime minster being in his late sixties, she accepted his proposal. Soon after the marriage, the prime minister had taken ill. He became so incapacitated that he let Mikuzume run the city in his place.

"In the beginning nobody objected. As I said, Mikuzume was hailed as the greatest hero on the planet. But soon after she had started running the show, dark rumors began to spread about Mikuzume, such as her holding orgies in the prime minister's home and torturing her home's servants for entertainment. Meanwhile Mikuzume had started making certain changes to the way the city was run, transforming it into a totalitarian state. When the prime minister finally died, Mikuzume was named acting prime minster in his place, but she used her position to abolish the democratic government and declared herself empress. That was when the demons broke into the city.

"The story goes Mikuzume welcomed the demon hoards into the city, declaring it the beginning of a new era of peaceful coexistence between demons and humans. A single soldier who had been a member of Mikuzume's personal guard stepped forward and fired a single shot right at her head. The bullet from the pistol burned to ash before getting anywhere near her. Afterwards Mikuzume revealed her true form. She was a kitsune, a powerful nine-tailed fox.

"She killed the soldier who had attempted to assassinate her and told the people of Tokyo that from now on she was to be addressed by another name she had used long ago during Japan's Heian Period. She was to be called Tamamo no Mae."

"Wait! I've heard of her!" Kagome interjected. "I once read about her in high school. The story goes she became the emperor's mistress, caused him to fall ill and then tried to take over the country. But that all happened a long time ago."

"I've read about this demon too," Towa recalled. "I'm not sure how she could be causing trouble in the future though."

"It could be after failing to take over Japan all those years ago, she went into hiding for a few centuries until the time was right for her again to try and take power," Kazuki suggested.

"Impossible!" A voice protested.

Everyone began to look around the room for who had spoken when Inuyasha suddenly felt a strange little creature sucking on his nose. He slapped the entity, causing it to become as flat as a piece of paper and waft onto his palm. A second later though the creature popped back to normal and was on his feet. The creature was a little old bald man with four arms and a little red cone in place of a nose and mouth.

"Oh. Grandpa Myoga's here," Moroha observed.

"Friend of yours?" Towa asked.

"I am Myoga the Flea," the tiny old creature responded. "You must be one of Lord Sesshomaru's daughters. It is an honor to meet you. I served as vassal to your grandfather, the Great Dog Demon."

"Old man, you seem to know something about the demon we've been talking about," Inuyasha observed.

"Indeed I do, and I can say with certainty Lord Inuyasha that Tamamo no Mae cannot possibly be behind whatever problem you're dealing with now."

Kagome nodded. "The story I heard was Tamamo no Mae was killed by a pair of warriors."

"Well those human warriors may have delivered the killing blow to her, but it was my master who delivered most of Tamamo no Mae's fatal wounds," Myoga revealed as he crossed his arms. "I was there for the whole thing."

"So my old man fought this fox, huh?" Inuyasha responded. "I guess he was doing it to protect humanity or something."

"Partly. The fight between the Great Dog Demon and Tamamo no Mae was actually a matter of vengeance. Years before, Tamamo no Mae had turned one of my master's allies against him, Kirinmaru of the East. Using her cunning and sorcery, Tamamo no Mae killed Kirinmaru's daughter and sister, and framed my master for the crime. Her goal was to get them to kill each other and thus lessen any potential enemies. My master was left with no choice but to kill Kirinmaru. Long after when he found out Tamamo no Mae had been the cause of what had happened, he swore vengeance upon her."

"Okay, so Tamamo no Mae's dead," Moroha interjected. "Then who's the demon causing all this trouble in Suzumi's time?"

"Maybe it's just some other nine-tailed fox using Tamamo no Mae's name to inspire fear," Kazuki suggested.

"No!" Suzumi interrupted. "It is the real Tamamo no Mae. We don't know how exactly, but the comet fragments that caused all the destruction in my time also caused Tamamo no Mae to be resurrected. They contained some sort of strange power."

"How can you be sure of all this?" Towa asked.

"I'm just telling you what the leader of the resistance knows as truth. She is a powerful priestess, and a true savior of humanity."

"There's a little more to your story, isn't there kid?" Inuyasha deduced.

Suzumi nodded. "On the day Tamamo no Mae revealed herself. A large group of soldiers and other people escaped Tokyo and hid out in the wastelands. This was the beginning of the resistance. For the time the group was aimless, until she came. She was a true priestess of great power. Everyone doubted her at first because of what happened with Tamamo no Mae, but she soon proved herself to be a true hero."

"Just who is this priestess of yours?" Kagome asked.

"She's actually a descendant of yours and Lord Inuyasha's, Lady Kikyo."

Inuyasha gasped. "K-Kikyo?"

"Oh you've gotta be kidding me!" Kagome blurted out.

Suzumi blinked in surprise. "Did I say something wrong."

"What the heck's going on?" Kazuki asked.

"Oh! Kikyo was the name of this other priestess my dad used to date before he met my mom," Moroha recalled. "But then some stuff happened. It's apparently really complicated, and neither of them like to talk about it."

Kagome shook her head. "Wait, wait. You said this Kikyo is a descendant of me and Inuyasha? So she isn't the same Kikyo he and I knew."

"I…don't see how she could be," Suzumi responded, confused. "Anyway, Lady Kikyo and her husband are currently humanity's best hope."

"Husband?" Inuyasha exclaimed, stunned.

"Yes. Major Jim Nelson," Suzumi confirmed. "He's a former American soldier who eventually took refuge in Tokyo. He's a great leader."

Kagome sighed in relief. "Okay. There are still a few things I don't understand, Suzumi-chan. First, how did you even know about Inuyasha? Second, how is it you and those soldiers who're after you are able to travel through time?"

"I knew about Lord Inuyasha from Lady Kikyo of course. She's well versed in her family history, and she would often tell me and the other children in the resistance stories about him and his exploits. As for how I've been able to travel through time, Lady Kikyo came up with a method of traveling through time using the power of the Tree of Ages."

"Tree of Ages?" Inuyasha repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"It's the same tree that the original Kikyo had bound you to with her arrow all those years ago," Suzumi explained.

"Hey Moroha, sounds like your dad and this Kikyo had a really bad breakup," Kazuki whispered.

Moroha nodded. "I always thought Dad must've done something really stupid."

"The Tree of Ages transcends time," Suzumi continued. "Its branches were used to make the Bone Eater's Well, which is why it can act as a time portal."

"Okay, so why did your Kikyo create this method of time travel?" Kazuki asked. "Is she trying to do a Terminator thing to change history and somehow prevent the demons of the future from taking over Earth?"

Suzumi shook her head. "It wasn't to change history. Lady Kikyo realized that trying to alter the course of history could only cause more chaos."

"True. Trying to alter such a major event would create some serious paradoxes," Kazuki remarked as he put a hand to his chin."

"So what was the reason then?" Towa asked.

"It was…to protect me," Suzumi answered. "Lady Kikyo thought sending me to the past was the best way to protect me from the empress. She sent me to the past once before when I was very little. Unfortunately Tamamo no Mae had developed her own method of time travel and had sent her soldiers after me. Somehow I made it back to the resistance, though I don't really remember how."

"So what Saionji said was true. You really were with me and Setsuna when our family was attacked."

"So he says, but I don't remember. It was such a long time ago. I'm not even certain he was really telling the truth."

Towa's hands clenched as they rested on her knees. "So…you don't know what happened to Setsuna."

Suzumi shook her head. "I'm sorry. I have no idea."

"There's one thing I don't get kid," Inuyasha interjected. "What's so important about you that your people would send you into the past to protect you?"

"I don't know! I've never known! All anyone has ever told me is that I'm very important to the future of the resistance. They say I'm going to lead humanity out of its dark age and into a bright new future."

"What about your parents? " Kagome asked. "Are they important people of some sort? Like heads of state maybe?"

"I never knew my parents," Suzumi answered. "All anyone in the resistance ever told me was that they were scientists working to create something that would free humanity from the rule of the demons."

"The hard drive I managed to take from one of the soldiers Moroha and Towa killed yesterday mentioned something about a Project Angel," Kazuki interjected. "I assumed it had something to do with you. Were you somehow connected with your parents' work?"

"Not as far as I know, and nobody in the resistance has ever gotten into the specifics of what my parents did. I spent the majority of my life being moved from base to base in the wastelands as members of the resistance raised and educated me. I never felt like I made any real contribution to the resistance. Then a few days ago the forces of Tamamo no Mae discovered my location again, and the leaders decided to send me into the past again, this time to what you call the modern era. I decided then I was tired of just hiding and suggested a bold plan to the leadership. I asked to be sent back to this time so I could find the legendary Inuyasha and get him to help us.

"The leadership told me it was a foolish plan and said all I should worry about was staying safe. Just before I was about to be sent away though, Lady Kikyo herself came to me in secret. She gave me a wand she made to reactivate the dormant Bone Eater's Well."

"That must've been the thing you used on the well when those soldiers cornered us," Towa recalled.

Suzumi nodded. "To first use the wand though, I needed to get to the well in the Higurashi Shrine. I'm sorry I used you, Towa."

"Hey! Don't be. Because of what happened, I finally know what I am and where I came from. I just wish I knew more about what happened to my sister and the rest of my family."

Suzumi smiled a little and turned her attention back to Inuyasha. "That's my story. Now you know why I've come to you, Lord Inuyasha. So will you please help me and my world?"

Inuyasha said nothing and simply got to his feet with Myoga still on his shoulder. He ignored Suzumi's gaze as he headed for the door.

"Uncle!" Towa called as she got to her feet.

Inuyasha stopped at the door and looked down at Suzumi. "Sorry kid, but you've come to the wrong person. I don't know what the Kikyo of your time told you, but I'm not some do-gooder who goes around helping people. Sounds like you got a raw deal, but it's not my problem."

With those words, Inuyasha left the hut.

"I don't believe this!" Towa protested. "How can he just dismiss Suzumi like this? That jerk!"

"It's not that simple, Towa," Kagome told her. "Inuyasha's really a kind man. It's just we spent a very long time fighting against Naraku for the Shikon Jewel. We risked our lives I don't know how many times. Now that it's all over we just want to live our lives in peace. Inuyasha will help fight against demons when asked partly because he loves a good fight and partly because it provides us with a little money, but he doesn't want to get involved in any war. To be honest, I'm pretty reluctant to help too. Your problem Suzumi-chan…it just seems too big for us."

"Won't you at least consider it?" Suzumi asked.

Kagome sighed. "I'll think about it. In the meantime Towa, maybe you and your friends should go back to the modern era for now."

Towa nodded. "Right. I'm sure Grandma and Great-Grandpa are eager for me to return."

The sun was starting to set as Towa, Suzumi and Kazuki emerged from the shed housing the Bone Eater's Well in the modern era. All of them had dejected expressions on their faces.

Kazuki turned to the others with his hands in his pockets. "Well, I think I'll head home. I still haven't gotten around to taking apart that blaster to examine its components. Figure I might as well now since today's events reaffirmed I'm a terrible shot. I'll see you two later."

Towa and Suzumi said their goodbyes as Kazuki headed off. The two of them remained where they were for a few moments. Suzumi began to look up towards the sky.

"Sorry my uncle turned didn't want to help you," Towa spoke. "You okay?"

Suzumi wiped a tear from her face with her sleeve. "I think so. Guess it's true what they say, huh? Never meet your heroes."

Towa took Suzumi's hand. "Maybe my aunt and uncle aren't willing to help you, but I am."

"You?"

"Well, I am the daughter of Inuyasha's brother after all. Besides, helping you might give me some answers to what happened to Setsuna and my real parents."

"You know I was surprised when Saionji said we were together when he tried to capture me years ago as a child."

"You really don't remember anything from that time?" Towa asked, looking straight into Suzumi's eyes.

Suzumi closed her eyes and thought. "There is this one vague memory I've always had. A little girl with silver hair offering me an apple. I always thought it wasn't truly real, like a fragment from an old dream I once had. But maybe…that girl was you."

Towa smiled a little. "I don't remember anything like that at all, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It was a pretty long time ago."

"In any case, I'm grateful for any help you can give me, Towa. And I am still holding out some hope Inuyasha will help me and the resistance."

Towa crossed her arms. "Well…it could turn out my aunt and uncle may not have any choice but to help you. My guess is now that this Tamamo no Mae's soldiers have seen you in the feudal era, they're only going to send more soldiers there to get you. It's probably just a matter of time."

His name was Toshinori Hagino, and in the year 5000 he was a high-ranking general of the Empress's military forces. Though human, he enjoyed a great deal of respect among the ranks from both human and demon alike. This was because his grandfather had been one of the chief advisors to the Empress, and thus his family enjoyed an uncommonly high status among humans. General Hagino was one of the few permitted to meet with the Empress personally. Hagino was in fact on his way to Tamamo no Mae's throne room at that very moment, though he was very reluctant to disturb her because he did not have good news to deliver.

Hagino reached the massive doors to the throne room and took a big gulp before he pushed them open. A draft of cold air from the vast room beyond hit him like a wave and froze the little droplets of cold sweat already on his brow. Hagino steadied himself and walked down the steps into the room. The sound of his boots against the tile echoed through the great chamber. The room was completely dark except for several floating balls of blue-green fire that cast everything in a dim and strangely colored light, and the floor was covered by a thick white mist.

"This had better be important, Hagino," a sweet voice spoke.

Hagino looked up, and lounging on a large red velvet couch atop another set of steps was a stunningly beautiful woman with skin as white as new-fallen snow and long shimmering black hair. She had golden eyes and a red inverted star in the center of her forehead, and a pair of slightly pointed ears. The only thing the woman had on was a skimpy black and gold robe that showed off her gorgeous legs and her magnificent cleavage. This woman was of course the empress of Tokyo and half of Japan, Tamamo no Mae.

"Well Hagino?" Tamamo no Mae asked as she stood up from her couch.

General Hagino always found it terrifying to be in Tamamo no Mae's presence, yet at the same time she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He lusted for her, as did many both human and demon, man and woman. Tamamo no Mae was truly a goddess.

Hagino kneeled before the empress. "Forgive my intrusion, but I felt it best to report the situation regarding Suzumi Yoshina."

"Have you finally caught the annoying little runaway?" Tamamo no Mae asked.

"Unfortunately no. In fact…she now has protection. Somehow she was able to go back further in time to Japan's warring states era and enlist the services of two half-demons and a quarter-demon with spiritual power."

"Oh? How interesting." Tamamo no Mae sighed and sat back down on the couch.

"There's more, milady. We're not certain, but we believe one of the half-demons was the fabled Inuyasha. He managed to kill Lord Saionji of the Nine Tails."

"Are you certain of this?"

"So indicates the last information sent back through the time stream by Lord Saionji's data recorder. The technicians are certain the killing blow was delivered by one of Inuyasha's signature attacks, the fabled Wind Scar."

Tamamo no Mae chuckled. "Well, Saionji was always a weak fool more concerned with his vanity. I always thought it was a fluke how he managed to pass the trials to become a member of the Nine Tails. It serves him right to be slain by a mere halfbreed."

"What shall we do, Empress?"

"Send another of the Nine Tales back to that era and retrieve the girl of course. It'll be a major headache for me if we don't capture her."

"It will be done, milady," Hagino declared as he rose to his feet. "I will dispatch Lord Godo. I'm sure he can complete the task with little difficulty."

"Yes, he'll do," Tamamo no Mae agreed as she began to lie back on her couch. She then suddenly sat up again. "No, wait! Let's send our own little half-demon among the Nine Tails to get the girl."

Hagino became stunned. "Forgive me, Empress. I know it is not my place to question your will, but is assigning the member of the Nine Tails you're talking about this task wise?"

Tamamo no Mae smiled. "It may not be wise, but it would be amusing. I'd like to see how this overrated half-demon, Inuyasha reacts to having to fight one of his own kin."

Please review and let me know what you think.