InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Day Gone By ❯ Chapter 1

 

 

 

The day dawned bright and clear, just like any other day in the Sengoku Jidai, only things felt…different. It wasn't anything Higurashi Kagome could put her finger on, but there definitely was a feel to the air that seemed not quite right. She stretched, and immediately noticed one thing missing: the weight and warmth of Shippo at her side. Blearily, she looked to see if he was already up helping get the fire burning for breakfast. Her eyes widened, and she was awake in a flash. She was all alone—no Shippo, no Sango fending off Miroku's wandering hands, no Kirara watching the interchange, and most importantly, NO INUYASHA! In fact, there was no sign of anyone having been in the area besides her; only her overstuffed yellow backpack sat in the small clearing.

 

Dressing quickly, she gathered her belongings and prepared to head in the most likely direction to find them. Then she remembered: she had no idea where she was or where they were going, other than seeking Naraku or at least news of his whereabouts. She knew she had at minimum two days' walk back to Kaede's village, if she could even figure out which way to go to get there. Directions were never her strong suit. In modern Tokyo, she could make her way on any train or subway with no difficulty; in the Sengoku Jidai, there were no schedules to tell her which train hit what station. Her main guides were Inuyasha and the Goshinboku. Unfortunately, neither one was in sight.

 

`Calm down, Kagome, don't start panicking. Just look at the direction of the sun and figure out which way we were headed yesterday. Was it in front or behind us when we called it quits for the day?' she thought to herself. Realizing that she had equal chances at getting even more lost than she already was, she grabbed a stick with a single leaf left attached, and gave it a spin, deciding to let it point her in the right direction. “Okay, south it is then,” she said to no one in particular, put out the remains of the campfire, hefted her backpack, and headed on her way.

 

After about thirty minutes of lugging her backpack, her stomach reminded her none too gently that in the craziness following her waking up alone, she hadn't eaten anything for breakfast. Wearily, she dropped the backpack to the ground and started rummaging through it in search of something quick to eat. She found a couple granola bars and proceeded to crunch on them. Very soon, she remembered a very important tidbit about eating granola: her mouth was extremely dry. Digging through her backpack once again, she discovered her water bottle. Her problem was, it only had a few swallows of water left in it. She smacked herself in the forehead, remembering she was going to refill it before they broke camp at the small spring nearby. Sighing, she stuffed everything back in her pack once again, shouldered the monstrosity, and headed back in the direction she knew she could find fresh water.

 

Upon reaching her point of origin, she dropped her backpack (who knew that thing was so heavy?) at the campsite, dug out her water bottles, and walked off toward the nearby spring. Reaching the spring, she dipped the bottles into the water, not noticing the strange sparkle to the water itself. Once the bottles were filled, she cupped some water into her hands and drank deeply. Doing all that walking carrying that heavy pack was more tiring than she realized. Her thirst sated, she strolled back to the campsite, in no particular hurry to pick up the rapidly-growing backpack.

 

When she reached the campsite, she decided that since she had no true destination in mind, it wouldn't hurt to take a little breather from hauling Packzilla. “Keh! Weak human!” Inuyasha's voice taunted her mind.

 

“Shut up! You aren't even here to see what I'm doing!” Kagome said to the trees around her. She settled herself against what she thought looked to be the most comfortable tree root, then decided that since she had some quiet time to herself, she might as well break out one of her books to do some much-needed studying. She once again began pulling items out of her backpack, found the necessary books, and re-settled against the tree's base to catch up on her studies.

 

Several hours later, Kagome's head snapped up. She looked around her, disoriented. Then she remembered where she was and why. “Wow, I must have fallen asleep. Carrying `Packzilla' really can wear a person out. Maybe from now on I'll only bring the subjects I'm having the most trouble with. That should lighten things up a bit.”

 

Deciding it should be lunchtime, she rummaged around to see what she had for a small meal. She found some more granola bars along with a bag of chips and a box of pocky she had hidden from Shippo. She munched thoughtfully on her makeshift lunch, debating her options. One: she could stay right where she was and continue studying; Two: she could reload her pack and start searching for her comrades, as originally planned; Three: she could see if there might be a hot spring nearby and enjoy its pleasures.

 

Option number two was quickly discarded—she had no inclination to lug that heavy thing around any more than she had to. Option number one held more promise, except for the studying part. That only left her with option number three. Mind made up, she put her books back and gathered up her bathing supplies in the hope of finding a hot spring near the water source she located earlier.

 

Reaching the small brook quickly, she began following it upstream in hope of finding a nice steaming pool of heaven. About fifteen minutes later, her searching paid off. Finding a nice flat rock to lay her things, she undressed and sank into the warm water. `Ah, this feels wonderful,' she thought lazily. `Too bad Sango isn't here to enjoy it. I can't understand where they could have gone. They wouldn't leave without me, would they?'

 

Before her thoughts could take a darker turn, she dunked her head under the water to shampoo her hair. Scrubbing the lightly-scented gel into a thick lather, she let herself relish the feel of her nails scraping her scalp. `Nothing like a good scrub to get all the dust and grunge off,' she thought contentedly. After rinsing, she decided that now was as good a time as any to give her hair a deep-conditioning treatment. `Inuyasha would never let me take the time to pamper myself like this if he were here,' her thoughts betrayed her. Determined not to let her friends' strange disappearance disrupt her beauty treatment, she rubbed the conditioner into her hair, then sank back into the spring to let the steam do its part.

 

A few minutes later, she rinsed her hair one final time, then stepped out of the hot spring. “Ooh, it got cold out here!” she exclaimed to herself, drying hastily and redressing quickly. She made her way back to the campsite and decided she should go ahead and get some wood for the fire. Finding what she needed, she set about arranging her fire and sleeping gear where it needed to be. Trying to find some food was another issue altogether—she never realized how much she depended on Inuyasha for fresh food before. Resigning herself to yet another meal of granola with a cup of ramen thrown in for variety, she looked longingly around the empty campsite.

 

`Just last night we were all having a normal evening…Sango knocking Miroku's hands away from her every few minutes, Shippo and Inuyasha bickering over who would get the last piece of fish, Inuyasha making his final check of the area to make sure everyone would be safe…'

 

Suddenly it dawned on her that she encountered no one all day. No travelers heading from one village to another, no demons for someone to dispatch, not even any wildlife. Now she was really beginning to freak out. She decided the best thing she could do was to drink a cup of chamomile tea and try to get some sleep, then set off in the morning to find her friends like she had intended to do all along.

~ ~ ~

The day dawned bright and clear, just like any other day in the Sengoku Jidai. Kagome began to stretch, determined to make an early start in order to locate her missing friends. Her stretch was impeded by a slight weight, however. She looked down to see just what was holding her down, when she saw the distinctive bright red hair that was unmistakably Shippo. She let out a squeal that startled the sleeping kit. Inuyasha immediately jumped over to the pair. “What's wrong? Is there something in there with you?”

 

“No!” Kagome cried in relief. “It's just that you guys weren't here when I woke up yesterday, and I didn't know where you went.”

 

By this time Sango and Miroku had awakened, and looked at Kagome, concern etched on their faces. “Are you certain, Kagome-sama? We haven't left camp since nightfall,” Miroku queried.

 

“I'm positive! When I woke up yesterday, the entire camp was abandoned. I was going to search for you all, but I had no idea which way to go. I started heading south, but forgot water, so I came back here to refill my water bottles. Then I decided to do a little studying, but I fell asleep.” She ignored the muttered “Typical” that a certain hanyou muttered, and continued, “Then I found a hot spring—“

 

“A hot spring! There's a hot spring nearby?” Sango nearly shouted. “Inuyasha, why didn't you say something about it last night?”

 

“Keh! By the time we set up camp it was too late for you two to find your way there and back without me having to go hunting for you when you got lost,” Inuyasha responded.

 

“ANYWAY,” Kagome continued, “then I came back here and decided the best thing to do was sleep on it, and get a fresh start in the morning. But now since you're all here, I don't have to!” she finished happily. “The really strange part about the whole thing was that I encountered no one all day.”

 

“What on earth do you mean, `encountered no one,' Kagome-sama?” asked Miroku. This tidbit of information really intrigued him.

 

“Just what I said: I encountered no one. Not one person, not one demon, there weren't even any birds flying,” Kagome replied. She was really beginning to get irritated with Miroku's questioning everything she said.

 

“How can that be, Houshi-sama? Do you detect any evil aura around here that may have put a spell on Kagome to give her the illusion that she was all alone?” Sango asked, concerned for her friend.

 

“No, I sense nothing out of the ordinary,” Miroku stated after closing his eyes and casting about for any signs of Kagome's claims.

 

“Keh! Let's get a move on. We ain't got all day to stand around trying to figure out where we went when we didn't go nowhere,” Inuyasha grumbled.

 

“Alright, Inuyasha, you're right,” Kagome said, slightly dismayed that no one seemed to believe her.

 

Later, as the group walked toward the next village, Sango asked Kagome, “Did you really wake up to find yourself all alone?”

 

“Yes I did, Sango, and it really scared me to think that you guys would actually abandon me in the middle of the night like that. I'm just glad that you're all back here with me so we can get back to Kaede's soon and I can go take my tests…” Kagome's voice trailed off, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

 

Suddenly the girl stopped, nearly causing Miroku to fall on top of her. Luckily for him, Inuyasha caught the two of them before Miroku had a chance to “catch” himself from landing on top of Kagome and risk losing a hand. “What's your problem now, wench?” Inuyasha asked.

 

“Inuyasha, give me my backpack for a minute, please?” Kagome asked excitedly.

 

“Huh? We need to keep moving. What do you want with that thing now?” he asked as he removed it from his shoulder.

 

“I need to check my calendar. What stage of the moon are we in?” Kagome asked, knowing her calendar showed the moon cycles as well as ordinary dates.

 

“Why, I believe it is waning, Kagome-sama. What is the significance of the moon's stage?” Miroku asked. Her line of questioning puzzled him as well as the others.

 

Flipping through the pages, Kagome yelled “Aha!” when she reached the page she sought. “Look at this! Yesterday was `Leap Day!'” she said triumphantly.

 

“Leap Day? What is this `Leap Day' of which you speak, Kagome-sama?” Miroku asked, now thoroughly intrigued.

 

“In my time, in order to correct the days of the year, once every four years we have what is known as `Leap Day.' Due to the time being different here, you guys must have leapt right over yesterday and came straight to today,” Kagome explained.

 

“Keh! Well, how about if you just put that stuff back in your bag so we can `leap' right over to the next village?” Inuyasha said smartly, obviously not buying her explanation.

 

Kagome held her tongue; she was just happy to know she wasn't completely crazy and handed her bag back to Inuyasha.

 

When it came time for lunch, Shippo started digging through Kagome's bag. “Oi, runt, what are you doing? You know you ain't supposed to go snooping through Kagome's stuff.” Inuyasha ignored the fact that he was leaning over Shippo's shoulder, trying to see if there was any ramen in the huge bag.

 

“I'm looking for that box of pocky Kagome hid from me,” Shippo whispered.

 

Just then, Kagome and Sango came back from the river with some water to boil. “Shippo, if you're looking for the box of pocky I had hidden in there, I ate it yesterday along with the last of the ramen.” Kagome tried to look nonchalant when Shippo and Inuyasha both stopped what they were doing and looked at her, horror-struck. “Do you believe me now?”