InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lost in the Past ❯ Chapter 21 ( Chapter 21 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Lost in the Past, Chapter 21

 

 

“Inuyasha!” Kagome yelled, panic in her voice.

 

Inuyasha slid in on bare feet, holding Mayumi, still wet from her bath, in his arms. “What's wrong?” He sniffed. “Where's Kazuki?”

 

Kagome's face was pale and her voice shook. “He did it again.”

 

“What! Where is he?”

 

“Inuyasha, he disappeared. I said something about wishing I had my blouse that I'd left back at Sango's, and the next minute he told me he would get it, and then he just disappeared!”

 

Inuyasha pushed Mayumi into Kagome's arms. “Stay here,” he ordered, as he drew out Tetsusaiga. “I'll go get him.”

 

“Inuyasha, wait! How did he go back without Tetsusaiga? I thought you said he couldn't use Tetsusaiga's powers with his new sword yet.”

 

Inuyasha hesitated, then sniffed again. “Hold on.” He stomped out of the room and came back moments later with Kazuki's new sword in his other hand. “He didn't use his sword,” he said, surprise in his voice.

 

The air shimmered in front of them and Kazuki reappeared, holding Kagome's missing blouse. “Here, Mom,” he said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Auntie Sango said she washed it for you.” He also had his old shorts and shirt, as well as Mayumi's little t-shirt.

 

Kagome grabbed her son, clothes and all, and hugged him fiercely. “Don't you ever do that again!” she said. “How did you do that?”

 

Kazuki looked around the room, and realized that Daddy was there, too. Uh oh. He swallowed. “I---uh—I watched this time when we came back, so I remembered the way,” he answered weakly. “Am I in trouble?”

 

Inuyasha wasn't happy. He didn't like it that Kazuki could come and go as he pleased between their two times. He didn't even see how it was possible, without Tetsusaiga. Where was Fenn when you needed him? Somewhere above the Pacific right about now. He'd have to puzzle this out on his own. “How did you get from the well to the slayer's village so fast?” he asked.

 

“Easy. I didn't go to the well. I went right to the village,” replied Kazuki. Why would he go to the well? He followed the path back to the place where they'd left. Luckily, the hut was still empty.

 

Inuyasha opened and closed his mouth. Fine. His son had done one better than Tetsusaiga, which was still tied to the original place of the time slip, the site of the old well. That was certainly convenient. “Ok, but just don't do it again without permission,” he said, dismissing Kazuki, who was relieved to get off without being punished. Kazuki bolted. “Stay in the yard!” Inuyasha yelled after him, as the door slammed when Kazuki went outside.

 

“Inuyasha!” protested Kagome.

 

“What was I supposed to say?” asked Inuyasha, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “He already did it. At least now he'll think twice about doing it again without asking us first.”

 

“I thought you said we would only go together from now on,” Kagome murmured. “No more splitting up.”

 

“Kagome. How can we stop him?” Inuyasha could see that Kagome wasn't ready to hear that. “Besides, if he goes there without permission, I'll just use Tetsusaiga and haul his ass back here so fast he won't know what hit him,” Inuyasha said, trying to make Kagome feel better. She didn't look any happier. He sighed. “Let's wait until Fenn and the others are back. Maybe they'll have some ideas.”

 

 

 

“Up for a run, Kazuki?” asked Inuyasha, hanging off the back deck with one arm and one leg. Kazuki sat, knees to chest, under the deck on the loose rocks below the hot tub. “Go get your sword.”

 

Kazuki blinked upwards, then nodded. Daddy didn't sound like he was still mad. He scrambled up to go get his sword, then met his father on the cliffside. Together they bounded down the mountain, neither one speaking, and ran until they ran out of woods. They stopped in a grassy meadow not far from an old farmhouse. Cows eyed them suspiciously, but otherwise ignored the two youkai who flopped down in their midst.

 

“You scared your mother, you know,” said Inuyasha. He pillowed his head on his arms and gazed up at the billowy clouds above him. “She's worried you won't come back home.”

 

“I'm sorry, Dad. I won't do it anymore.”

 

“Don't make promises you can't keep,” answered Inuyasha frankly. “Of course you'll go back there again. We all will. Just do me a favor, ok? Ask us first, all right? It's no different from not being allowed to go out in the woods by yourself without permission. You have to ask.”

 

“Oh, sure,” agreed Kazuki. “Dad? Were you worried I wouldn't come back too?”

 

Inuyasha reached over and tousled Kazuki's still-black hair. “Yeah, I was worried too,” he replied. They sat in silence for a while, before Inuyasha asked, “How did you go back there without using the blue power of Tetsusaiga?”

 

“It's easy, once I figured it out. I just did the same thing Fenn's youkai taught me at Youkai School when we played Tag.”

 

Inuyasha's temple pulsed. “Fenn's youkai taught you?” he asked, his voice grown dangerously low.

 

Kazuki blinked, worried that he had said something wrong. “Y-yeah,” he replied.

 

Inuyasha rubbed Kazuki's ears. “Don't worry, I'm not mad at you,” he told his son. That damn Fenn. And he had asked him specifically what he knew about traveling through time, too. He was going to have a few choice things to say once the new world youkai got back!

 

 

 

Fenn and Shippo kept up the pretense of being Kagome and Inuyasha all the way up to the house. Shippo paid the taxi driver and waited until he drove away before he dropped his illusion. Fenn's faded away at the same time, having been kept in place by one of Shippo's magical leaves. Kagome still hadn't re-established her barrier, or it would have been a much more interesting taxi ride up there if he and Fenn started to sizzle when the car drove through the barrier. He wondered how that would work, anyway. Would they be instantly purified? Just in terrible pain? He'd have to ask Kagome when he got a chance.

 

“Where's Sesshomaru?” Inuyasha asked curtly. He had seen their little transformation, and he was not amused.

 

“He didn't come back with us,” said Shippo.

 

“We think he had a hot date,” Fenn added with a grin.

 

“Yeah, right,” muttered Inuyasha, not buying it for an instant. He took the suitcases and documents from Shippo and brought them inside. This complicated things. He had planned on sitting down with both Fenn and Sesshomaru to discuss the matter of Kazuki's new ability, but now Sesshomaru wasn't here. “Is he coming back?” he asked, as he walked back outside. “Never mind, I'll call him,” Inuyasha decided. “Shippo, I have a favor to ask. Will you take Kazuki and Valynne with you for a few hours? Kagome and I need to talk to Fenn.” He glared at Fenn as he spoke.

 

Shippo was glad to oblige, as long as Fenn was on the hook, not him. Valynne would be happy to see Yusuke, and Kazuki could tell him more about how he had tricked Shippo back in the Sengoku Jidai using Shippo's own tricks.

 

Inuyasha waited until Shippo and the others were out of earshot, then he slammed Fenn up against the side of the house, rattling the windows. “You taught Kazuki how to walk through time,” he growled, his face inches away from Fenn's.

 

“Not me,” Fenn replied, as Inuyasha's eyes narrowed dangerously.

 

“Your youkai,” Inuyasha ground out. He didn't loosen his grip, but if the lack of oxygen bothered Fenn in any way, he didn't show it.

 

Kagome rushed out of the front door. “Inuyasha, what do you think you're doing? Let Fenn go this instant!” She backed up her words by tugging on Inuyasha's arms. “Fenn, I'm so sorry!”

 

“Inuyasha loosened his grip and slowly lowered Fenn back to the ground. Maybe he did let his temper get the better of him. “Start talking,” he said gruffly, taking a step back. Kagome immediately filled the void and helped Fenn into the house, brushing past Inuyasha as she led Fenn into the round room.

 

Fenn sank gratefully onto a sofa and smiled up at Kagome. “Thanks,” he murmured. “Can I trouble you for a glass of water?”

 

“Don't push it, Fenn,” grumbled Inuyasha. He sat down on the floor in front of Fenn, arms crossed. Mayumi wandered in and climbed into his lap, which did a lot to calm Inuyasha. “You knew he could do it, didn't you?” he asked.

 

Fenn shrugged. “I had an idea.”

 

“If you knew about it, why didn't you tell me? You knew Kagome and I were searching for a way to get back there.”

 

Fenn shrugged again. “It's not the same,” he tried to explain.

 

Kagome slipped onto the floor next to Inuyasha and casually linked her arm through his. “I think Inuyasha wants to know how Kazuki ended up with this power. Neither he nor I can move through time on our own. We always had to use the time slip, first at the well, then later through Tetsusaiga when it absorbed the well's power.”

 

Fenn sighed, and dropped the smile. He spread his hands and began speaking quietly. “So many things have changed. My youkai,” he looked up, “as you know, my youkai are manifestations of my excess energy, so in a way you could say they are like my offspring. What can I say? I never pretended to be human, well, except for recently, thanks to you, Inuyasha.” He forestalled any questions the inuyoukai was about to ask. “My youkai contained the pure essence of what I am, and for the first time in all these centuries they began to take on substance. That's your influence, I believe.”

 

Inuyasha frowned, but withheld comment. Fenn, for once, was actually being forthright for a change. Maybe he would learn something.

 

“What I'm trying to say is that I didn't know they had shown Kazuki how to time-walk, although I should have known. But they were separate from me at the time, and the novelty of their creation into physical beings made me give them a little more freedom than I should have.” He smiled crookedly and locked eyes with Kagome. “That turned out badly.”

 

Kagome remembered. Fenn had ended up destroying most of his own youkai offshoots when they proved to be too voracious to remain in the physical plane. He had sucked the energy right out of them before they could do the same to an unsuspecting human world. A few had remained, those whose curiosity overcame their hunger.

 

“What do you mean, you should have known?” asked Inuyasha.

 

“Kazuki is closer to his elemental nature than most full youkai,” Fenn replied, smiling as Inuyasha's eyebrows disappeared underneath his bangs. “So are you. You both tend to react purely on instinct, thereby being much truer to your elemental natures than even pure youkai. Kazuki could understand my youkai, who were still mostly spirit, because he is like them.”

 

Inuyasha keh'd. “He's nothing like those youkai,” he said angrily. If he'd had his way, none of Fenn's youkai creatures would have survived. Fenn had Kagome to thank for the ones that had. As far as he was concerned, Fenn's youkai were one step away from being fodder for Tetsusaiga.

 

Fenn laughed softly. “So you say.”

 

Kagome wrinkled her brow. “But why did Inuyasha need to use the time slip in the well in that case? Why could I use it? Even now, we have to use the time portal in Tetsusaiga. Why doesn't Kazuki need it?”

 

“I don't think it matters how you did it. Tell me, Kagome, why were you and Inuyasha able to go through the time slip in the first place?”

 

Why, indeed? “Ah, fate? You know, Naraku. . . Kikyou. . .” Kagome's voice trailed off and Inuyasha pulled her tighter against him. Mayumi had fallen asleep on his lap and he was careful not to disturb her as he wrapped his free arm around Kagome.

 

“She came to save me,” he stated belligerently. Kagome stared at Inuyasha in surprise.

 

Fenn had heard the whole story about Naraku and the jewel, and while that may have triggered the time slip, he didn't think that was all there was to it. “So are you saved now, Inuyasha?” he asked.

 

Inuyasha grimaced. “Only when Kagome is with me.”

 

Kagome thought she had been fated to go back in time to right Naraku's most grievous crime against Inuyasha and Kikyou, giving them a second chance at happiness. The bitter irony was that she was not Kikyou, not really, and when the true Kikyou was resurrected from the dead, she knew in her heart that Inuyasha still loved her. But by that time it was too late for her, because she had fallen in love with Inuyasha, too. It was a mockery of fate that cast the three of them together. It wasn't until much later, after Kikyou had died a second time and Naraku was finally vanquished, that she had come to terms with herself, as Kagome and as Kikyou's reincarnation. The moment had come when she got back the final piece of her soul, with Kikyou's blessing. By then she knew Inuyasha loved her, for herself, and so she could accept that a part of her was also Kikyou. In many ways, it bound them closer together.

 

“Hey,” Inuyasha nudged her in the ribs. “What are you thinking about?”

 

Kagome came back to herself, blushing a little at having become lost in thought. “Nothing much, really. Do you really think that's why we met?” she asked him, momentarily forgetting that Fenn was sitting across from them.

 

“Keh,” Inuyasha mumbled, blushing himself. “Why else?”

 

“Why do you think you can still travel through time?” Fenn prompted, trying to get them to think it through.

 

“Why are you asking about us? We're talking about Kazuki.” Inuyasha growled, growing impatient with the turn in the conversation.

 

“Fine, then. Why do you think your children can travel through time?”

 

“That's what I'm asking you!”

 

“Inuyasha, did it ever occur to you that you, your family, has more to do yet? The fact that you can still move between the ages, and that your children can, too, must mean something.”

 

“I know that!” If Mayumi weren't on his lap, Inuyasha would have leapt up and throttled Fenn. The youkai was exasperating! “I'm asking you!”

 

“But, Inuyasha, how would I know?”

 

“Grrr!” Before Inuyasha had a chance to act on his frustrations, the phone rang. It was Sesshomaru. Inuyasha put him on speaker.

 

“Hey, why did you stay in Japan? I need to talk to you about something,” Inuyasha said. “Can you get back here soon?”

 

“I need to talk to you about something, too,” replied Sesshomaru. “I think I may have met Mayumi before—in the past.”