InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Different Always Means The Same Thing ❯ Explanations and a Few Near Death Experiences ( Chapter 3 )

MM.org note: Here's the next chapter for my crossover fic. If anyone has any questions or comments feel free to leave a review with your e-mail. I'll be sure to give a personal response. Enjoy.

 

Now, a brief Japanese Lesson: Somebody on ff.net hassled me A LOT with reviews claiming I misspelled “Kouga's” name and that it should be spelled “Koga.” Actually, both spellings are correct. His name has a double vowel so it's pronounced “Kooga” but, in hiragana, instead of using the character for the “o” sound, as a rule, the character for the “u” sound is written to express the double vowel. This is only done when “o” is the double vowel. So if I wanted to be 100% accurate, his name should be spelled Kooga, but I don't like how that looks in my writing so I spell it Kouga. Sometimes people, like the English translators (we all know how reliable they are *note sarcasm*) just shorten the double vowel and because Japan doesn't seem to care too much how we Romanize their language both the Viz translator's and my method remain in use. Plus, I watch fansubs (not CN) and read scanlations so Viz can kiss my ass (I'm not about to show respect to a distributor who censors their subtitles anyway.) The same logic goes for Houjou, Kikyou, Shippou, and Souta.

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, X-Men, or anything that could buy me a mansion in Beverly Hills.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

 

Chapter 3: Explanations and a Few Near-Death Experiences

 

By Kenkaya

 

 

Kikyou?

 

Kagome blinked. She was pinned, a clawed hand grasping each shoulder. The boy continued to stare her down with fierce amber. Accusing amber. She cautiously bent her arm at the elbow and lifted a finger to point at her face.

 

“You mean me?”

 

“Who else,” he snarled, revealing ivory fangs. Kagome didn't shy away from the aggressive display.

 

“If you were talking to me, then why did you call me Kikyou?” she said matter-of-factly.

 

“What else would I call you, wench?!”

 

“My name!”

 

“Stop your fooling---“

 

At that moment the boy took the time to sniff the air gingerly. His eyes widened

and his grip loosened considerably.

 

“You're--- you're not her!”

 

“Sorry to burst your bubble, buddy. My name's Kagome,” she replied with a playful shake of her head and a small smile. The boy released her, stepping back with a semi-thoughtful look.

 

“You smell kinda like her, but I was stupid. Kikyou was pretty,” he murmured almost to himself. “And intelligent looking,” he added as an after thought.

 

Kagome fumed at his words, smile erased immediately from her face. The temper that Houjou backed away from earlier surfaced in full swing.

 

“Well--- well, excuse me for being myself! And are you even going to enlighten me on who this Kikyou-person is?! Considering you attacked ME thinking I was her and then suddenly change your mind to comment on how much more of a prima-donna she is!”

 

“A prima--- what?”

 

“Why should I tell you when you won't tell me a thing?!”

 

“Feh, stupid girl. I don't have `ta tell you nothing!”

 

“Same here! And that's not even grammatically correct!”

 

“Who cares, wench!”

 

“Idiot!”

 

“Bitch!”

 

“Wha--- How DARE YOU!”

 

“Feh!”

 

“Fine! Be that way!”

 

“Fine!”

 

“Fine!”

 

Both parties turned away from each other and huffed, wondering what had just happened. The boy glanced around in the silence while Kagome took deep breaths to calm herself.

 

“Oi.”

 

“What?” Kagome peeked back at the youkai boy, mildly annoyed. He now shifted on the balls of his bare feet, nervous but trying to hide the emotion with his overbearing front.

 

“Where am I?”

 

Kagome's stubbornness melted at the simple, yet desperate, question. She suddenly became aware of his dilemma; he was from hundreds of years in the past, this was practically another world to him. Despite his brash temper, the youkai needed her.

 

“Kagome!”

 

She mentally cursed. Of all times for Jiichan to rouse out of bed to check on her---

 

“KAGOME!”

 

The boy cracked his knuckles as the voice came closer. Kagome only had to glance at his claw, tipped fingers and gleaming eyes to know the youkai's intent.

 

“No!” she hissed urgently. “I'll take care of him! Just stay in here and wait until I come back to get you. Please!”

 

“Feh! Why should I?”

 

“I'll--- I'll tell you what a prima donna is!”

 

The boy arched a dark eyebrow. Kagome gave an unsettling smile and marched resolutely to the broken door.

 

“Be easier if I just killed the geezer.”

 

“You. Will. NOT. Harm my Jiichan!” Kagome hissed as she whirled around to face him.

 

“Feh!”

 

Kagome sighed and took that response as a yes. She peered through the doorway to spot her grandfather only a few feet away. She jumped back a good foot.

 

“Ack! Jiichan! Don't scare me like that!”

 

“Kagome--- what happened?!” the old man exclaimed as he examined the cracked wood of the doorframe.

 

“Uh--- I'm not sure.”

 

“Are you hurt?!”

 

“No--- it was like this when I came here!”

 

“I thought I heard shouting---“

 

“Jiichan, you're not imagining things are you? It was probable just a nightmare or--- something. Yeah, some punks must have broken in earlier tonight and left the place like this. That's all!”

 

“Let me check inside, they might have vandalized something important! Young one's these days have no respect for the sacred!”

 

Kagome rushed forward and placed a firm hand on her grandfather's shoulder. She didn't want to risk him seeing the youkai boy she awakened or the corpse of the mutant who assaulted her. He'd probably have a stroke or a heart attack.

 

“I--- I already checked! Looks like the door was the only damage! Come on, Jiichan, you just got back from the hospital. You shouldn't be outside like this.”

 

“Oh, Kagome,” the old man called as the energetic young girl steered him away from Goshinboku and the mini-shrine.

 

“Yes, Jiichan?”

 

“Please be more careful with this,” he said, holding up the peach colored shawl she had dropped during the chase. “It was your grandmother's.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” Kagome mumbled as she took back the shawl. “You just settle yourself back into bed. I'll go back and try to shut the place up a bit.”

 

“Its okay, Kagome,” he sighed. “It's late. We'll do that tomorrow, together. I need something to do that will get me outdoors! Its just too cramped being inside all the time!”

 

“O--- Okay,” Kagome replied shakily. Great, now she had to get the youkai out of there and take care of a dead body by morning. Joy.

 

They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they reached the main house, Kagome bid a hasty goodnight to her grandfather and bound up the stairs. Shutting the door carefully behind her, she leaned against the sturdy wood until the sounds from Jiichan's room ceased.

 

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered as she walked across the beige carpet to the window. Sliding the metal-framed, glass panel aside, Kagome jumped up to sit on the small sill. A warm breeze ruffled her hair as she closed her eyes, recalling a memory.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

“PERVERT!”

 

Sango slapped Miroku, who was currently enjoying a feel of her backside. The young boy raised a placating hand to the furious girl, his right hand gloved in a gauntlet that sealed the vacuum on his hand.

 

“Come on, Sango-chan! I was just joking!”

 

Do you see me LAUGHING?!” the maroon-eyed girl screamed.

 

Kagome sighed at the antics of her two friends. A few students had already scooted away from them in the school courtyard. Not that there were too many near them in the first place, most kids avoided the two mutants and their weird human friend.

 

“Calm down, Sango. I'm sorry, oka--- Ow! I'm sorry!”

 

Kagome leaned against a tree and flipped open her math book as Sango beat her boyfriend to a bloody pulp. Eventually the two settled things with a make-out session, leaving Kagome to shake her head in wonder. The young mutant turned her attention back to her math book; she wasn't doing too well in the subject. Whipping out a blank paper, she began deciphering the enigmatic problems.

 

“Oh!” a sudden gust of wind picked up the sheet of half-finished homework. Sango broke the lip lock to hold down her army, camouflage skirt. Miroku pouted over the lack of “scenery.” Sango, guessing the cause, slapped him again. Kagome threw her book on the grass and ran after the paper.

 

The lead-marked, white sheet fluttered from breeze to breeze. Kagome dodged, reaching vainly for the work she sweated over. It drifted in place for a moment. Almost---

 

A couple stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Desperate, Kagome furrowed her eyebrows and ran through them. The prickling feel reverberated through her body and back lashed over the unfortunate couple.

 

“Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

 

Kagome ignored their screams and leaned forward--- snatch! Triumph! She glanced down to notice she had run over the edge of a ditch after phasing through the couple, and she wasn't falling. Wasn't. As she touched the paper, gravity rushed in on her body. With a cry, she plummeted to the ground.

 

“That's gonna leave grass stains.”

 

Kagome looked up at Sango with confused brown eyes, mindless of her torn jeans.

 

“Did--- did I just--- stand on air?”

 

“Looked that way to me,” Miroku commented with a shrug and a fleeting fantasy of Kagome replaying that scene with a skirt on. Sango noticed the lecherous grin and elbowed him.

 

“It makes sense, Kagome,” Sango began. “Your power is intangibility, so, it's quite possible you could make yourself intangible to not only solid objects but air itself.”

 

Kagome merely nodded at the science whiz.

 

“If you wanted to test it further, we could go up to the roof---“

 

“Um--- I think I'll pass on that,” Kagome sweat-dropped.

 

“Geez, Sango-chan--- I'd never thought you'd go that far for science. Alas! I fear my own life is in peril!” the drama student exclaimed.

 

“Miroku!” Sango scolded before he created an air-seal on their lips. Kagome groaned and pulled herself out of the ditch.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Kagome sighed into the night, legs dangling over the edge of her window. Pastel pajamas glowed in the dim moonlight. Taking one last breath, she shut her eyes tight in concentration and pushed off the window sill.

 

She didn't fall.

 

Kagome cracked her eyes open and, without distracting herself by feeling relief, stepped down. She continued to walk down the air, like stairs, never breaking her focus.

 

Until red and silver caught her eye. Kagome peered down, finding the youkai boy standing below her with a slack expression. Her eyes widened as they met with his amber. Why wasn't he in the shrine? She had no more time to ponder as the wind whistled through her raven hair. The cement ground rushed her. She had no time to scream.

 

Warm arms surrounded her. She felt herself being pulled up as she pressed into a slender, muscular chest. She barely noticed how well their bodies fit together before they landed in her window and she was dumped unceremoniously on the carpet. The boy jumped off of her sill and plopped, cross-legged on the floor.

 

“Alright, wench. I think it's about time you started talking.”

 

“What?” Kagome questioned, still stunned from her fall.

 

“Your scent. I can tell you're human, but there's something different. I smelled the same thing on those two goons. You were just walking on air, you're not a youkai, and you don't look like any witch to me.”

 

Kagome sighed and settled into a more comfortable position.

 

“You're right. I'm not a youkai and I'm not--- completely human. I'm a mutant.”

 

“A what?!”

 

“Mutant. It's caused by a genetic mutation in the human DNA strand that creates people like me. It's a pretty recent phenomenon.”

 

The youkai merely blinked. Kagome laughed.

 

“Look, I think we should start at the source of things. I told you my name. Will you tell me yours?”

 

“Uh---” the boy seemed to think for a moment before grumbling, “Inuyasha.”

 

Kagome laughed again at this. Inuyasha's Shrine--- she should have guessed!

 

“Al--- alright, Inuyasha,” she said after she recovered from her fit. “You asked me where you were back in the shrine. Tell me, what's the last thing you remember?”

 

Inuyasha eyed her warily and stated, “I stole the Shikon no Tama and Kikyou shot me.”

 

“Is that all?”

 

He shifted then added, “She shot me, I dropped the jewel and,” his voice became barely audible, “I kinda passed out. But it wasn't my fault! She put some sort of miko spell on the arrow!”

 

“It's alright,” Kagome waved. “Let me tell you the story my Jiichan told me about the youkai of Inuyasha's Shrine. Once, there was a great youkai who sought long ago to gain more power. He found his desires in the Shikon no Tama, a horrible creation which offered infinite power to youkai and men of cruel nature. Fortunately, the Shikon was put in the safekeeping of a powerful priestess, who protected the jewel from those who came with ill intent. One day, the youkai came for the jewel. He destroyed the shrine built for it's protection and fought the priestess who guarded it. After a long hard battle, she managed to pin him to Goshinboku with a sacred arrow. She died soon after from the wounds she sported and with her dying words asked that the jewel be burned with her remains. Hence, the Shikon no Tama followed it's guardian to the afterlife and a new shrine was built to shelter the youkai who caused her death. I think her grave is still somewhere on the grounds.”

 

Inuyasha gapped. Kagome cocked her head at his lost expression.

 

“You--- you mean--- I killed Kikyou? That's impossible!”

 

“According to the legend, she died of wounds from your battle.”

 

“I would hardly call that a battle,” the boy snorted. “Yeah, I attacked the village and messed up the shrine pretty good, but I didn't even see Kikyou `til she shot me with that damned arrow.”

 

Kagome shrugged, “either way, she died afterwards and the jewel you were after was burned in her pyre. It happened over five hundred years ago so I suggest you get over it.”

 

“Five HUNDRED years?!”

 

“Yep, the legend says that too. You're stuck in the future, pal, so you better suck it up.”

 

“Five hundred years,” Inuyasha repeated in a dejected whisper.

 

Kagome sighed and rubbed her temples. It was the middle of the night and she had to get up for school. She was too tired to deal with this.

 

“Look, I'm sure this is a big shock to you, but my grandfather is going out to the mini-shrine tomorrow and I don't really want him finding a dead body after all the trouble I went to hiding it from him. Just--- try to hide yourself if Mama or Jiichan come in the room.”

 

“Why? I smell some more of you weird humans over there,” Inuyasha stated, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Goshinboku.

 

“Oh, no!”

 

Kagome jumped up, ran as quietly as possible down the stairs, and burst outside. Inuyasha saw a petite, female figure streak across the shrine courtyard from the window and, grumbling, leapt gracefully to the ground below.

 

When Kagome reached Inuyasha's Shrine, the building looked desolate. She stepped up to the creeping shadows along the doorway. The inside seemed strangely devoid without the familiar form of Inuyasha pinned to the trunk, but what caught her attention was the hulking mutant corpse, or lack thereof. The sanded wooden deck had been washed of tell-tale blood. Relief that her job had been taken care of, especially since she didn't really know how to get rid of a body, was soon replaced by worry. Who did this? Had her attack been planned? Kouga's last words replayed in her mind.

 

“Screw this! Naraku can do his own damn dirty work!”

 

Who was Naraku?

 

“Oi! Woman, they're gone,” Inuyasha strolled past her and surveyed the battleground. “Heh, pretty quick clean-up job.”

 

“Y--- Yeah,” Kagome muttered. “I need to get up early. I'm going to bed.”

 

“Feh! Humans,” the youkai spat.

 

Kagome ignored the insult and headed back to the house.

 

“What're those?”

 

Kagome turned; ready to snap at the demanding boy. He was standing with an almost innocent expression, pointing at the city lights. She couldn't find it in her heart to sass him at that moment.

 

“Those are electric lights. They're pretty common place. We have some in the house but I didn't want to wake anyone by turning them on.”

 

Inuyasha lowered his finger. The warm night breeze blew his silvery locks.

 

“This future is filled with too much weird stuff,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

 

“Come back up to my room,” Kagome smiled. “I can, you know, show you the ropes. Teach you things. But I really need some z's about now.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Um--- sleep. I need to remember you don't know expressions from this time.”

 

This little episode strengthened Inuyasha's resolve.

 

“Fine, wench, just until I get to know things. Then I'm outta here!”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Kagome yawned.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

The room was sterile. A plush red carpet covered the floor, off-white plaster walls reached up to the high-beam wooden ceiling. The eastern wall was composed completely of glass, encased in rose-stained oak squares and opening onto a minuet patio. The western wall was blank, aside from a door of the same rose-stained oak and a sanded pinewood desk. A small Metallica poster was tacked haphazardly above the desk, the only character in an otherwise barren room.

 

A young boy of sixteen or so, lay eagle spread on a bed in the center of the room. The bed was as elegantly simple as the room, adorned in white sheets and a forest green comforter. The boy sighed, American rock music blaring through his headphones.

 

Bang!

 

The door flung open to reveal a very angry young man. He was tall, greasy black hair pulled back in a braid that hung past his waist. He wore traditional Chinese clothing and stomped over to the young boy.

 

“You ran away?! You fucking ran AWAY?!”

 

The boy sat up and removed one of the buds from his ear. He didn't appear imitated in the slightest.

 

“What else was I suppose to do, idiot?!”

 

“Kill the bastard! Or die with honor! You just ran away and LEFT HIM TO DIE!”

 

“Hiten, you moron! He was dead by the time I made a break for it! I tried to duke it out, but the guy was too strong!”

 

“Then kill him!”

 

“He wasn't a human! He was one of us, Hiten! I'm not going to kill one of our own kind!”

 

“Why not?! He didn't have a problem killing my brother! Humans are not the only enemy. I will have my revenge, and mark my words, Kouga, you will not go unscathed.”

 

Hiten stormed out of the room. Kouga flopped back on the bed, the tips of his high, black ponytail tickling the back of his neck. A red headband stretched across his forehead and accented pure blue eyes.

 

He looked around the room. Comfortable and luxurious came to mind. But there were no family pictures, no smiling faces of friends hanging on the wall. His only mark on the plaster walls was a little Metallica poster. Nothing else.

 

Deep down inside, he thought, was this the acceptance he longed for?