Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Petals Falling ❯ Like It or Lump It ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: You cannot lose what you never had, so go ahead, take them if you must! -sobs-

AN/ This whole thing takes place right before the group meets Miroku. So, right now it's only Inuyasha, Kagome, and little Shippo-chan.

And soon it will only be Kagome and Shippo…

The Fall of the Pale Petals

Chap. 1: Like it or Lump it

Indeed, it was a grotesque sight to behold, the troll. Its torso and arms were swollen with power, its veins and arteries nearly bursting through the scaly olive skin with their efforts to pump vital liquid to the inflamed heart. Foaming at the mouth, raving mad from the pain, the physical stress, the power, the beast roared and stopped once in battle to grasp its small head and bellow in absolute agony, its eyes reflecting inner torture. The shards were driving it insane.

“Inuyasha! The shards are in its arms and chest! In its heart, it looks like!”

The great, hulking, green oni slammed its fists down onto the ground, making the earth tremble beneath the hanyou's bare feet. A wide fissure snaked its way from where the ogre's humongous fists met the ground, splitting the land open under them. Kagome screamed girlishly and barely caught Shippo by the tail before she leapt away from the growing crevice that had wound its way between her feet.

Inuyasha spared the young, bungling girl a disparaging glance, but otherwise ignored the incident. With a mighty, rather badly aimed swing of the Tetsusaiga, the oni's shoulder spurted black blood and it screeched a pained, high-pitched protest. Flattening his ears against his head and clamping his eyes shut in a wince, Inuyasha never noticed the troll lumbering drunkenly towards Kagome and Shippo until it was too late.

“Aaaaaaiyeeeeeeeeee!”

Inuyasha looked up quickly to see the girl and the young fox held tightly in either of the oni's large, shard-enhanced fists, its one eye squinted in cruel amusement. “Shit,” he swore softly, jumping up quickly and slashing wildly at the monster's chest. Unfortunately, his aim was off and the ogre was proving quicker on its feet than originally estimated. It ducked with a roar and moved to the side with surprising speed.

“I-Inuyasha! Help! Please!” Kagome shouted desperately. The giant only squeezed harder and the bow strapped to her backpack dug into her back painfully, making it more difficult to breath. She heard Shippo yelp from a full twenty feet away to the left of her, clenched in the thing's other meaty fist.

“Just hang on, I'm coming!” But no matter how he tried, the hanyou couldn't get in a decent hit. The shikon shard in the thing's heart seemed to be dissolving into its flesh and pumping more power through the monster's evil veins. Every time he swang, the oni would only dodge with growing speed and whack him into a tree from behind. Inuyasha was nothing if not resilient, though, and he got right back up every time and charged the beast head on again.

Kagome, seeing Inuyasha trying and failing to get the troll to release them, and her vision growing darker and more tunnel-like by the minute, reached behind her and stretched her arm. Groping for a second, she let out a triumphant “Ha!” that came out sounding more like a suffering wheeze when her finger was pricked on the sharp tip of an arrow. Frantically seizing the shaft, she brought it over her head and pierced the oni's fist. The arrow sunk into its thin, leafy flesh, glowing faintly with her purifying powers.

As blood oozed slowly from the wound, the beast roared with inhuman pain and Kagome promptly realized her mistake. She was soon sailing through the air, Shippo following close behind her, the fight rapidly disappearing out of sight behind them. She screamed for all she was worth (which wasn't enough to keep even with the jewel shards hanging around her neck, apparently) as the land blurred below their flying bodies. Hazy green forestry soon turned to indistinct tan and then to a deep azure.

“Oh, my god!” she screamed, as the land behind them quickly disappeared. Now, all she could see around her was blue. She looked back at Shippo, a feat considering the hair blowing into her face, and saw that he had a rather goofy grin on his face.

“Woohoo!” he shouted, looking like a kid in a candy store… or on a particularly scary carnival ride.

“Shippo-chan, this isn't a roller coaster! Come over to me!” She yelled, reaching her arms out to him.

He frantically flailed his arms and legs and worked his way through the air the few feet separating them, and Kagome hugged him to her, tears trailing behind their swiftly descending bodies. Just as a long strip of land appeared on the horizon in front of them, she noticed the water rapidly coming up to meet them.

With a tremendous splash and a chilling scream, they landed in the water. Kagome clutched the partial jewel at her neck to make sure it was still there and blew a steady stream of bubbles out of her nose, looking frantically around her searching for her little kit. She spotted him, floating peacefully, deathly still in the underwater world. Backpack weighing heavily behind her, she swam to him, grabbed his tiny hand in her own small one, and swam with her life to the surface.

As soon as she breached, she breathed deeply and slapped Shippo's cheeks lightly. When he didn't respond, she worriedly laid him over her shoulder and patted his back as one might do to burp a baby. Her `pats' grew in hysterics to `thumps' and then `smacks.'

“Please, Shippo-chan, please wake up,” she prayed, hitting his back harder.

There was a gurgle and then salty water spewed from the little kit's mouth in a fit of coughs.

“Shippo-chan!” Kagome squealed hugging him to her chest with all the ferocity of a relieved, slightly insane mother.

The kit hungrily gulped in air like a starved dog set before a feast, flailing his arms and legs. When he had calmed considerably, she hugged him again and cradled his little body in her arms.

“Are you alright, Shippo-chan?” she asked kindly, still kicking her legs under her to keep them and her pack afloat.

He nodded scarcely, and patted her cheek with a wet hand. “Are you?”

“Hai, I'm fine. I think we landed in the ocean,” she hypothesized smartly, tasting the salt water in her mouth with a grimace, “but I see land that way.” She pointed behind them, south, to the sliver of land on the horizon. The sun was high at noon, baring down on them with tenacity. “Stay on my pack and I'll swim us there, okay, Shippo-chan?”

So, nodding, Shippo climbed up onto her back to sit on top of the enormous bag and settle down for a long ride.

“Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit,” Inuyasha cursed loudly, clutching the corrupt jewel shard he recovered from the oni's body in a tense fist. There was no telling where they could be now. What was he going to tell her mother? He certainly couldn't tell her that her baby girl had been thrown half way across Japan by a giant oni hyped up on a fragment of an ancient jewel with unlimited potential.

“Oh, god, there's no way they could have survived that fall,” he realized with horror.

But, he had to look. He had to know. He had to have faith. If Kagome could survive putting up with him, then just maybe she was still alive.

He had to hope. Kagome was his only friend, the only who had ever accepted him without question. And the fox, though thoroughly annoying, was swiftly becoming a fond acquaintance.

Somehow, he could feel it in his aching heart, they were still alive.

With that hope firmly stationed in his consciousness, he set off south and slightly east, in the direction his companions had been thrown only twenty minutes earlier.

On a random beach in Sengoku Jidai, Japan, there lay a rather unusual sight.

Crawling out from the ever-moving water, an oddly dressed woman-child dragging an oversized, overstuffed, overly sodden, yellow pack inched her way up the shore, panting heavily from exertion. She crept, on hands and knees, just out of reach of the chasing waves, and promptly collapsed face-first into the soft, white sand. A young fox kit whose exuberance didn't quite fit the picture of tiredness, hopped around, excitedly taking in their new surroundings.

He stopped suddenly, however, as he remembered his companion. Turning to her, his red ponytail bobbing with the movement, he scurried swiftly over to her unmoving body.

He poked her, testing. “Kagome?” he asked worriedly.

A muffled grunt was his only reply.

“Kagome, I think we should try and find Inuyasha.” While he didn't want to hurt the poor girl's feelings (lest he invoke her merciless wrath), she wasn't exactly dependable in the “Protection and Safety from Evil, Bloodthirsty Monsters” department.

He climbed onto her shoulders and began jumping, trying to get her up and inadvertently offending her sore muscles. Kagome groaned, lifting her face from the sand and lightly dusting the tiny grains from all over her.

Easier said than done. She was sure she'd have sand mysteriously appearing in her bathwater from who knows where for at least the next week.

She giggled at her own thoughts, feeling the least bit better about their predicaments. At least she had her entertaining little musings to keep her company through what was sure to extend into a rather long, strenuous, probably life-altering ordeal.

Or life-ending.

Nope! She wasn't going to think like that! Sure, she was lost on a strange island with only her bow and untrained powers as protection and Inuyasha nowhere to be found, but at least she had Shippo-chan! And her pack!

Sighing, telling herself that things weren't as bad as they immediately appeared, she turned to Shippo with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Okay, Shippo-chan, we'll travel down this coast and find a village and hopefully they'll let us borrow a boat. Or maybe we can hitch a ride on a ship or something, ne?”

“Sure, better than what I could come up with,” he grinned, hopping up onto her shoulder.

Kagome smiled fondly. “I'm sure. But first, let me go change because these clothes are soaked and they smell like sea water.”

The kit giggled and crinkled his nose in a show, scurrying back down into the sand to wait for her and the girl quickly disappeared into the tree line with her bag.

The continent had proved a lost cause. From Jiulong to Xin-Xiang and nothing but a few baubles and trinkets and a rather nasty wound in his shoulder from a particularly keen archer of an even more territorial war lord. It had healed within the hour, of course, but his ego had come out a little worse for wear.

Regardless, he had come out with at least one plausible fortune. Youko grinned proudly, fingering the pristine, white silk of his newly acquired and much loved tunic. His ears twitched slightly, though, when he heard poorly veiled footsteps coming closer to the tree he was currently resting in. He spread out his senses, feeling an extremely powerful aura moving towards him at a slow pace.

`Hm… a female aura,' the fox grinned inwardly.

His long, silver hair swished quietly as he silently crept through the branches towards the not-so-unwelcome disturbance, but not before completely masking his presence. Wouldn't do to have an enraged female barking up his tree all huffy and puffy and flustered and flushed and panting in fury with her kimono falling off over one pale shoulder, chest heaving, breasts rising and falling with the rhythm of her rage and…

Mm… maybe she would do… er- it would do.

The distracted fox shook his head lightly, clearing his mind of the lusty thoughts. As he approached from downwind, he caught an intoxicating whiff of her heavenly scent that left his senses reeling. He stilled on his branch for a moment, eyes lowering to half-mast in something closely akin to pleasure.

He could smell her young, tender flesh, her limber bones, her sun-drenched hair, all tied together in a beautiful bow of sweet aroma, sprinkled with the calm scent of the rolling waves of the ocean. He wanted to roam his paws all over her pliant, little body.

`Oh, delicious.' He simply could not wait another moment as he sped up with renewed vigor towards his newest pray. Youko moved with inhuman grace through the canopy, finally coming to what he had been chasing.

He'd never seen an aura so lovely, or a soul so pure and radiant. The air around the petite human seemed to glow with light. Youko had seen a lot of women. Wealthy princesses, beautiful ladies, the most skilled of geishas, and none could even compare to this one, simple woman-child.

Youko thought abstractedly to compare her to a star. Shining with soft, kind light, guiding the lost through the night back to their homes, she seemed to steal the beauty from the nature around her. Her bright blue aura, though, was marred only slightly by a tiny haze of gray grief hovering over her heart. It seemed, he thought, the world had thought to try to filch some of her light for its own greedy desires and left her soul scarred with sadness. The little star, it appeared, was faded from its full glory.

Shaking himself from his rather poetic turn of thought, he watched as the girl pulled on a garment that looked more like a colorful, second skin than anything else. The article was odd, like nothing he'd ever seen before, but definitely not unwelcome. Next she pulled a rough-looking, dark blue item of clothing over her curvaceous hips with a delicious little shake.

He nearly laughed out loud when she spoke softly to herself.

But it wasn't the girl's odd clothing that caught his attention. Nor was it the fact that she had the scent of fox all over her or even the brilliant shine of her sapphire colored eyes. It was the precious jewel hanging on a silver chain around the tall, sweeping column of her neck.

`Beautiful…' He couldn't seem to tear his eyes from its glowing depths. As a thief, he had a dedicated appreciation to beauty and value, but… but this jewel was different. It seemed to entrance him with some kind of weaving, seductive magic.

He imagined it was even more gorgeous when whole.

A sudden image flashed through his mind's eye. Ripping the girl's throat out… devouring her energy… taking the jewel… growing, growing, rising, towards what, he didn't know, but it felt delicious and it felt wonderful and he had to hold himself back from jumping down there right then and forcibly ripping the jewel from the unsuspecting female's fragile neck.

He growled softly to himself and shook his head. He would not fall victim to a simple trifle. He was Youko Kurama, the greatest thief in all of Japan and China combined, damnit! He controlled his treasures, and not the other way around!

Looking back down at the girl, he found her to be looking straight at him.

Kagome sighed gratefully as she pulled dry clothes out of her giant bag. Luckily, she had had the foresight to pack all her essentials in smaller plastic bags. Clothes, medical supplies, foodstuffs, her school books, all conveniently found in their own little protective cover.

It had been raining heavily and the weather had taken a chilly bout two weeks ago when she had last visited home, so she had put everything in plastic bags in case they got caught in it… or in case Inuyasha threw another temper tantrum and decided chucking her pack into the nearest creek was ample punishment for whatever offense she had committed against his royal pompous person.

Either way, she decided, they had proved quite useful.

But, also as a result of the recent turn of the weather, she had only packed long skirts and sweaters. Well, there was one pair of denim shorts and a sundress. But they wouldn't go together. She'd just look ridiculous. And she really didn't want to wear the dress. It was pretty windy out on the shore and she really didn't feel like trying to keep a handle on her hem the entire trip to keep from flashing her underwear to the whole of Japan, so…

She sighed. `I guess it's the shorts and bathing suit.'

That decided, she quickly glanced around to make sure no one was coming and stripped. Pulling on the bathing suit in a flurry, she then slowed after she'd somewhat clothed herself. She didn't know why, but she had a creepy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“But,” she reasoned softly to herself, “I don't sense any youkai, so I'm safe.”

Nodding to herself, she quickly shimmied into the shorts and began to replace the clothes into her damp backpack.

The creepy feeling intensified acutely.

She… she was being watched. She could feel the familiar feeling of eyes roving over her body, undressing her in a so much more sinister way than if it had been physical.

She shivered.

Her head jerked up to the tree above her when a low growl was emitted. She stared intently at the spot where she thought it had originated. Nothing. No movement. Her view of anything was blocked entirely by the thick growth of ripe, green leaves. The feeling was slowly withering away now.

But then, there was movement!

Youko sighed silently in relief as an oblivious squirrel scurried down the trunk of the tree. The mysterious girl jumped back with a squeal, tripping over a tree root and falling onto her back with a thump.

“Ouch,” she whimpered to no one, sitting up slowly and rubbing her already sore shoulders. Great, now her back hurt too!

“Damn evil squirrels.” Muttering to herself, she stood and grabbed her odd bag and stomped back through the tree line in a fluster.

The fox mentally chuckled.

The sun was slowly setting and Kagome gladly announced to her companion that it was time to settle down for the night. The prospect sounded great to Shippo.

So, the sun setting low behind the trees, they walked up the beach into the forest line and hiked a few minutes until they found a decent camp site, gathering logs and sticks on the way. Under a large oak tree, one that Kagome had chosen because its aura and size vaguely reminded her of the Goshinboku, she set about building a small fire. She was infinitely thankful to Inuyasha teaching her how to do so. After she had a decent fire going, Kagome rolled out her dry sleeping bag and sat Indian style down onto the downy cushioning. She sighed tiredly, but then turned to her bag beside her.

Ugh… she'd have to lay everything out to dry. So, setting about the task, handing Shippo a sucker she'd found in the pocket of her shorts (purposely left there by Mama), she pulled everything that hadn't been safely wrapped up in plastic out on the ground.

Kagome shook her head sadly as she pulled out her now useless walkman. She popped open the lid and watched as water gushed out of the inside. Now what was she supposed to do for entertainment on the slow days? Well, she very much doubted there'd be any such days until they got back to Inuyasha.

`Inuyasha,' she thought somberly. She really missed his weird little quirks, his callous ways, his silly little tantrums. Okay, so maybe she didn't really miss the tantrums so much as how cute he looked during the tantrum.

Her reverie was broken by Shippo as she set down the walkman to the right and slightly behind her.

Crawling up into her lap, the little fox sucked thoughtfully on his cherry flavored lollipop. “Kagome?” he asked around the sucker.

“Hm?” she answered, distracted. She was carefully taking out each waterlogged magazine, hair accessory, and afterthought item and laying them out in a semi-circle within arms reach.

“How long do you think it'll be till we get home?” He may as well have asked, “How long do you think we'll live without the dog?”

She paused as she was laying out her favorite manga, which was now completely illegible. “Well, I'm not sure, Shippo-chan. However long it takes for us to find a boat, I guess. But don't you worry, Shippo-chan, I promise I'll get you back home safe and sound, okay, sweetheart?”

He nodded pensively, missing her lack of mention of getting herself back home.

`I won't let Shippo-chan get hurt because of me. I'll keep him safe, even if it costs me my life!' she thought determinedly.

She was brought back to reality by the weird feeling in her stomach stirring to life once again. However, thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time. `Maybe I'm coming down with something,' she thought worriedly as her tummy felt like it was hosting a butterfly convention.

Kagome's head snapped to the right as she felt the air whoosh beside her.

Nothing.

She looked to the ground, suddenly noticing the absence of her broken walkman. Her head swiveled all around her, eyes searching for the missing device. It was nowhere to be found. “Damn thieving squirrels,” the girl muttered irately.

Sigh. Another perished in the line of duty.

When the young fox kit looked up at her with a weird look, she smiled brightly and held up two small packages.

“So, what do you say to some Ramen, Shippo-chan?”

The perplexed fox turned the curious object over in his hands, perusing the strange item with a professional scrutiny. Lethal claws scraped lightly over the hard surface of the thing. The soft pads of his fingers wandered every slope, incline, and crevice.

For the first time in a very long while, Youko had no idea what exactly it was he had his paws on. He'd never seen the like. There were little buttons around the side and when he pressed one of them experimentally, the top jerked open, causing him to almost drop his little treasure. Determining through complex reasoning (no inanimate object could harm this Youko!) that this little development was not dangerous to his immediate health, he followed the thin cord attached to the side to a set of… well, he didn't know what.

There was a flexible, curved strip connecting two soft pads. Some kind of stint for a broken shoulder, perhaps? He curiously hooked it over his shoulder. It was a little too wide. What then? He laid the strange instrument over his head, carefully scooting it in front of his large ears, and it fit snuggly over the curve of his skull.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

What was the point of this gadget?

Cocking his head to the side in a very canine gesture of contemplation, he pondered over the odd girl and her foreign belongings. She had, he had noticed earlier when she and the young red fox were chatting, an odd accent, a certain pronunciation, a defining parlance to her speech that was simply unidentifiable to the Youko. Her voice was soft and pleasant, with a hidden lilt of seriousness that lie just beneath her tongue.

Youko's golden eyes focused once again on the girl when he smelled a delicious odor wafting up from the camp. Bored with the perplexing implement, he laid it back down silently where he had “found” it and turned his interest to the couple below.

He smiled softly when the girl, Kagome, as the kit had called her, playfully slapped the child's hands away from the bubbling pot of noodles. `I wonder, does she have children of her own?' he thought. For some reason, the idea fit her, a small, unnoticed piece falling into the puzzle, the corners of which were the only pieces he had yet to fit together. She looked like a mother. But, if she was indeed a mother, where were her precious little bundles of joy?

`Maybe that is what sucked the light from her aura…' Youko shifted on his branch, content to just watch the girl and her kit chatter and eat their dinner. He made a mental note to somehow get some of those scrumptious-smelling noodles sometime they weren't being particularly alert.

Kagome sighed contentedly and snuggled deeper into the downy softness of her sleeping bag. Shippo shifted slightly beside her. Gazing up at the springtime night sky, her thoughts drifted off course.

What was Inuyasha doing right now? Did he even care that she was gone? She snorted. Not likely. Her brow creased in a hurt frown. What if he wasn't looking for her? What if he really wasn't bothered by her disappearance? Well, he did have Kikyo now to find the jewel for him, so why would he need her?

A lone tear slipped slowly down her cheek to plop onto her pillow, the fluff soaking up her sadness just as it had done so many other sleepless nights. Sometimes, she imagined her sorrow was so large that one day her pillow would just burst into a flurry of crystalline droplets of grief.

Something shiny caught her eye off to the side. She looked to her right, where her pack contents were strewn all over the forest ground. Her walkman was lying innocently on the thick roots of the oak tree. Her sleepy mind was too tired to process these implications.

`Not lost in the line of duty… just missing in action, then…'

AN/ OK, tell me what you think in a review. Maybe a comment, helpful criticism? Anything you wanna say, really, would be valuable. So, review if you feel like it, and if you don't… well, do it anyway.