InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ And Times In-Between ❯ Chapter One - Abstractions and the Well ( Chapter 4 )

The body of the small girl stepped forward and her eyes opened fully. "I've come to kill you, Sesshoumaru-sama."

There was no room for doubt. It was definitely not Rin. Although the appearances were the same and the scent was similar - they were only that. Similar. It was not the exact scent that his little Rin had. And because it was not the same scent, it was not Rin. It was an imposter. One that would have to be destroyed immediately. What sort of a fool would presume to attempt to deceive him and get away with it? He would allow the stupid creature a slow and painful death so that it would be able to reflect on its foolishness.

The creature's assumed form moved forward, a wide grin on its pretty little face. Its eyes were dark and lacked the luster of life, but a glint of maliciousness appeared as it slowly advanced on the seemingly uncomfortable youkai lord. "Die…" came out Rin's voice - though it sounded a bit pinched and hollow.

That clinched it. Venom spouting from his fingertips, Sesshoumaru sped toward the imposter and ripped through it with the claws of his right hand. The body fell apart like ash and fell to the ground. He straightened, his eyes darting around.

There was an ethereal sounding chuckle, and something akin to a shadow sprung from the remains of its fake form, its red eyes glittering with malice. There was an unbearable smell - like rotting corpses, spoiled food, stagnant water and blood - filling the air with its putrid stench. Sesshoumaru was about to move toward it when he heard the faint murmurs of a voice fill the air around him and echo in his mind. It laughed venomously, tauntingly.

You are foolish, Sesshoumaru. Did you think to destroy me?

The wind whispered around him and the shadow being disappeared, its words resting on his ears before he turned back to his castle.

As if one as weak as you could…

*-*~*-*

And Times In-Between

Chapter One

Abstractions and the Well

*-*~*-*

Kagome looked around her room. Her mother always left it tidy and clean for when she returned home. Somehow, the lack of disorder in the room always threw her off. She wasn't a messy person, per say, but she couldn't help but feel estranged from it. It looked as though nobody lived in it anymore. She remembered one time she went to visit Yuka after her older brother had been abroad for his studies for about a month. His room had been left tidy and empty for so long that it looked as though it were an exhibit in a museum. That was the feeling that her room held now. Empty, unfamiliar. Locked in time.

She sighed, hefting her bag onto her shoulder. She had been thinking about things far too much lately, and it was beginning to bother her. She opened the door to her room and stepped out, walking slowly down the hall and stairs to the kitchen. "Mama," she called, and her mother turned around from her place by the oven, where she was stirring soup inside a large metallic pot. "I'm leaving now."

"Take care of yourself, sweetheart," her mother replied and walked over to give her daughter a hug. "Do you know when I can expect you back?"

Something in Kagome's mind itched. It was battling with itself, trying to decide whether to say 'I'm not going', or 'I won't be back'. She plastered a smile on her face and looked up as if in thought. "In a week or so, I guess. It depends, but around then."

"Do your best," her mother called, and Kagome left the house.

She sat on the stairs leading down to the well and looked down at it. On the surface, it was just a well. Just a wooden, dried-out well that was connected to a somewhat obscure legend by virtue of time-period alone. But what was it really…? How had it come to be that this well could take one between the present time and the time-period it boasted a relationship to?

She wondered if it was all just some big, stupid coincidence. That she was the reincarnation of a priestess that lived in that time, and that she happened to live on a shrine built where that priestess' village had been. That she had been born with the jewel inside her body. That her well just happened to be the one that connected to the past. That she had been the one dragged through it and back in time.

A small thought flitted through her mind. Maybe there were other shrines with connections to the past as well. The disregarded it, but the idea came back again a few minutes later. Maybe, if she were to jump into the well of another shrine, she'd appear in the corresponding location in the past! It was a novel idea, sure, but if it were to hold true, it would come quite in handy. It could save a lot of time and they would be able to cover larger areas in their search, since they wouldn't always have to travel back to Kaede's village to return Kagome home. A small smile spread over her face.

'Oh, the possibilities.'

She resolved that she would tell Inuyasha and her grandfather about it when she got back. With that decided, she leapt into the well.

*-*~*-*

Rin was surprised. Sesshoumaru had been out - still not returned from his overview of the Western territories and she had been picking flowers in the field just outside of the castle, with Ah-Un watching over her. She had been singing about wanting for Sesshoumaru to return, when all of a sudden, there was a strong wind and she found herself wrapped in his embrace.

Sesshoumaru had never embraced her before. And there he was, his arms wrapped around her small body, holding her to him like he was hanging on to life. Yes - Rin was surprised. After a moment, Sesshoumaru relinquished his hold on her and stood straight. "You are in danger out here. You are not to leave the castle without my permission, understand?"

"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama…" she mumbled in reply, still a little bit shaken. "Is something wrong, Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"No," he replied, turning his back to her and leading her back into his castle. He noticed that she stood in her place for a moment before starting after him. He had been worried, for sure. But now that he was sure that she was safe and had been from the start, there was nothing wrong.

He couldn't help but feel displeased, though. Ordinarily, he would have followed the scent of that despicable shadow creature until he located it, and then destroyed it. But that thing… it had left no scent. He had come to the conclusion that it must have been an illusionary being, but the uncertainty persisted. When it had first risen from the ash of its former body, there had been that appalling smell.

Rin, somewhere farther on behind him was singing a nonsensical song that dealt vaguely with happiness. A small little smile appeared on his face. He was glad that she was intact. The thought of losing her wasn't a pleasant one. She behaved in a manner that reminded him of Inuyasha, when he was young. He had enjoyed his brother for a small amount of time, until his mother started indoctrinating the stupid hanyou with the ridiculous mannerisms and ideals of humans. Instead of educating him, she had turned him into an idiot. Inuyasha's nature had become intolerable, and Sesshoumaru had parted with him on extremely negative terms.

Rin was different though. She was retaining the nature that Sesshoumaru had so enjoyed in his little brother at a young age. That aside, she was still adorable in her own right, and he had grown accustomed to her presence. The thought of parting with her was not one he wanted to come to terms with. He wanted to nurture her innocent spirit and watch her grow old and raise her children in the same manner. He wanted to look over her family for hundreds of years to come.

Most were shocked at the fact that Sesshoumaru kept a human girl at his side. It was a little difficult to explain. He was not really against humans because of their being humans. He was against everything they represented, he was against their manner of thinking, he was against their mannerisms and ideals and against their stench. Rin had been raised by humans for the first half-decade or so, but he had succeeded in reeducating her so that she would bathe thoroughly each night and so that she thought and behaved like a youkai - an innocent one, but one nonetheless. If all humans were like her and bathed frequently, then he would completely accept - even embrace - humanity.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" He turned around to look at her, and she held a bunch of flowers out to him. He took the flowers from her chubby little hands and started walking again, with Rin trotting by his side with a humongous, happy grin on her face. A part of him wanted to smile as well, but he said nothing. 'That's my little girl,' he thought, and the two continued on their way home.

*-*~*-*

Inuyasha was intolerable. Shippo had run away from the village to get away from his ridiculous mood-swings. It was getting worse lately - whenever Kagome would go home through the well, he would get downright … insufferable. Shippo dodged through the trees toward the clearing that housed Kagome's well. He liked that place - it was always warm, and her smell had permeated the ground and the plants and it filled the air.

He wanted nothing more than for Kagome to be his mother, and although she behaved motherly to him, she was not ready for the title. He would wait for the opportune moment, and call her by the name that so itched to spring from his lips at the sight of her. 'Okaa-san… Hurry up and get home!'

Shippo reached the clearing and saw that Miroku was there, sitting on the shady side of the well in a meditative position. He wondered about that, but the answer was obvious. Sango was away, and Miroku didn't want to be subject to Inuyasha's bad temper, so he too had sought sanctuary in the most natural place one could find it - near Kagome's well. "Miroku!" he called, and trotted up to him.

The monk half-opened one eye and aimed it toward the little fox demon. "Shippo," he said in greeting, and then closed it again, resuming his previous activities. He really hadn't wanted to be interrupted. He had been enjoying the calm and peace that coursed through his body while in meditation, and the runt had to go and disrupt it. Shippo waited a moment or so more, and then Miroku opened his eyes fully and turned to him. He regarded the child for a moment before speaking. "Yes?"

"What are you doing here?" He tried not to sound overly suspicious or spiteful, but the tone of his voice failed quite miserably at hiding those particular emotions.

Miroku frowned. "I was meditating…"

Shippo nodded. He mumbled a curt good-bye and dashed off again through the trees. It wasn't that he didn't like the monk, he simply distrusted him. There was something suspicious about a man that would grope one woman during the day and then sneak off in the night to have greatly personal conversations with one's mother.

He sighed when the village smells started reaching his nose. It wouldn't be long before he was back in the village, and back to being vulnerable to abuse from that ridiculous hanyou. It seemed he would have to go back to town and hide behind Kaede until Kagome returned and Inuyasha's mood improved.

*-*~*-*

Kagome's body was embraced by the blue mist of space. The initial feeling of falling into the well was one something akin to when you first hit the water - there was a split second of shock and then you were immersed in it entirely. Kagome had grown used to the feeling, and barely took note of it anymore. It usually took a minute or so of floating through the blue abyss of time-space before she would turn up on the inside of the well again, 500 years in the past.

She had never really thought about it before - whether her well was the only one that worked as a time travel machine or not - until that afternoon. As she floated within the azure expanse though, another thought flitted through her mind. She had wondered before, if there were other wells that could go to other places in the past. Well… what if her well could also go to other places?

You think too within the box, girl.

"Excuse me?" Her body felt a jolt. It was as though she had been in a river, swimming against the current, and then all of a sudden said current stopped. She was no longer moving, she was just… suspended, somewhere in the currents of time.

Time and place are equal and tied together, except that place is limited in both size and degree of change, and time is endless, looping, splitting, growing and changing eternally.

"Who are you?" she asked, still speaking, even though it felt odd. She had not heard those words - they had invaded her mind. Telepathy?

'I' have no form, no substance. There is no 'me' - you simply are thinking within the box again. I am an abstraction, not an entity.

"I…"

You don't understand? It's to be expected. If you weren't so inept in mathematics, it would be explained to you mathematically, but one will have to settle for mediocre.

Kagome frowned. She wasn't stupid! So maybe she was having a hard time in geometry… but when she got it, she really got it - however rare that was. "I resent that."

You would. 'I' am a voice with neither body nor mind - an idea, a concept. One which you will no doubt find elusive. That is the best explanation you will receive at this point.

She wrapped her arms around her, realizing quite suddenly that she was unbearably cold. If it was an idea, which one was it? "So… what can I call you?"

You may call 'me'… Destiny.

*-*~*-*

Title: And Times In-Between

Rating: R, eventually.

Coupling: Hints of M/K so far, though nothing solid yet. Coupling in later chapters undecided.

Summary: Kagome has an epiphany when conflicts start to reach their worst. The results of her sudden enlightenment are far more than anyone could have expected, and the well stops being merely a door… it becomes her destiny. *Updated Weekly*

Disclaimer: In author Profile.

AN: Ta-da!! The *official* first chapter! Well. Okay, I know some ppl are going to be upset since there has been little Inuyasha in this chapter, but trust me, I'm saving him up. Something very big is going to happen next chapter, look forward to it. Oh! And LOOK! There's a plot emerging! Yayyyyyy! Oh, and if there are a few inconsistencies, I apologize… I churned this baby out without much forethought… just the basic outline of the chapter in mind.

Thanks to:

Pyroe - I love you XD . That review made my… er… week. I mulled over what you said, and you know, I think you're right. Most people prefer to read fics that have the couples already published. Thing is, I'm still undecided as to what I want the couplings to be. So yeah, I stuck that in there. Interestingly enough, I mentioned the lack of plot in the AN's of chapter three - but I *do* want to apologize again. The first three chapters were like a little prelude. Setting of the stage, and all that. To demonstrate that they are in fact, prelude chapters, I renamed them. But yes, things start to actually HAPPEN this chapter, thank heavens. And I am so flattered that you enjoy my writing! It makes me feel special. So yeah, once again, I LOVE you!!! XD

8Artemis8 - Thank you! I'm happy you're enjoying this little fic. Hehehe, ^_^;; actually, I'm still not quite sure of the couplings. Thanks for taking the time to actually review - you have no idea how I appreciate it!! Much much love!

small fry - You like it? *Does a happy little dance*. I'm also a fan of M/K fics… there's something sweet in the coupling of those two characters. I mean really. If you have a list of some of the good ones, send it to me!! I'm ALWAYS on the look-out for a good fic, M/K or not.