InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lost in the Past ❯ Chapter 22 ( Chapter 22 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Lost in the Past, Chapter 22

 

 

The children were tucked in their beds, asleep at last. Kagome walked outside and peered up at the dark roof. She could barely make out a shape crouched, gargoyle-like, on the peak.

 

“Come down from there,” she called softly. “Please?”

 

Inuyasha jumped down without a sound and stood in front of her. Kagome took both his hands in her own. “Talk to me,” she whispered.

 

“Not here.” Inuyasha grabbed Kagome around the waist and jumped back up to his perch on the roof. He felt comfortable up here, keeping watch, even though he really didn't need to do it. It was what he understood. He settled Kagome into the circle of his arms so that she was leaning against his chest, facing away from him. “What do you want me to say?” he murmured into her ear, tickling it with his breath.

 

Kagome twisted around so that she could see him better, but his arms were steel bands around her waist, holding her still. With a sigh, she leaned back. “You don't have to stay up here all by yourself, you know,” she said.

 

Inuyasha smiled into her hair, where she couldn't see. “I'm not alone; you're here,” he objected,

 

“You know what I mean. What is it? Was it something Fenn said? We can get through this, it's not that bad.”

 

Kagome felt Inuyasha's chest shake. “Keh,” he said predictably. Then he didn't say anything at all but his hands continually stroked her thighs, her arms. It was as if he were trying to comfort her, but it was him that needed comforting, even though he wouldn't see it that way.

 

Finally he spoke. “I don't want to be anything special,” he sighed, stilling his hands and tightening them around her once more. “I just want—us—this. You, me, the kids, this place, our life.”

 

“Inuyasha, we have that. Whatever may happen, in the past or in the future, we still have that.” Kagome twisted around again, and this time Inuyasha let her. She sat sideways in his lap so that she could reach up and stroke his face. “Even if Fenn was right, and we still have a destiny to fulfill, we got what we both wished for—a beautiful family, friends on both sides whom we love dearly, and two places to call home. I'd say we're pretty lucky.”

 

“You forgot `each other,'” Inuyasha reminded her gently, brushing her hair away from her face, his hands a mirror image of hers. “Kagome, promise me you'll stay with me.”

 

“Where's this coming from?” asked Kagome, genuinely surprised. “I promised that a long time ago. I'm not going anywhere.”

 

Inuyasha's eyes searched hers. “I don't want you to die,” he said. “Don't leave me and the kids, not ever, promise?” Kagome was human. She was also a powerful miko. She could choose to live out her allotted human span and pass the burden of being a miko to another generation. He wouldn't survive that, he wouldn't want to. The others had told him that sometimes miko could choose to live longer, if they had a particular task to perform that took longer than a single lifetime to complete. But neither he nor Kagome knew how to make that happen. Would her promise be enough? “Promise!” he insisted urgently.

 

Kagome smiled up at him with tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She would give him anything, and for now she would give him the words he needed to hear. Later she would figure out how to really do it. “I promise,” she said solemnly. Was it her imagination, or did the frisson of cool wind which suddenly lifted the hair off her neck mean something else? Inuyasha had noticed it, too. His muscles tensed, and he went on full alert. But the wind died down and the moment passed.

 

 

 

Sesshomaru returned a week later, with Daichi of the wolf tribe. The wolf youkai headed immediately for Mayumi and sniffed her carefully. Then he sank back on his haunches with a mournful expression on his face. “It is her,” he whispered.

 

Inuyasha bristled and started a low growling the minute he saw Daichi approach his daughter. He stalked over to her, pushing past Daichi and lifting her away from the wolf youkai. “Leave Mayumi alone,” he snarled.

 

“Mayumi.” Daichi's eyes rolled back and he stared up at the ceiling dreamily. “I can't believe it. How can this be?”

 

“It isn't,” stated Inuyasha flatly. He didn't believe what Sesshomaru had told him, that Mayumi was Daichi's wife back in the feudal era. It was just a coincidence, the name was the same, that's all. Mayumi belonged here, with them. She was just a baby! Daichi's wife had had children, and grandchildren, and---“I thought Daichi married one of Sango's kids,” he suddenly remembered. Maybe Sango would have another baby and name it Mayumi after his Mayumi. That was more believable. Maybe he'd even suggest it to her.

 

“I did.” Daichi took a step closer to Inuyasha who was still holding Mayumi. “But it's her—the scent is her.” Daichi breathed deeply and sighed.

 

Inuyasha spun around, placing himself between Daichi and his young daughter. “Keep back,” he growled.

 

“It is her,” Daichi insisted. “Or it will be, when she grows up. I always knew she wasn't really Sango and Miroku's daughter, although that's what everyone called her. I could smell the hanyou in her. We met in the slayer village. I used to go there a lot when I was young. Hiroshi called her his little sister, and I never contradicted him.

 

“She lived with me for a hundred and fifty years, then she disappeared. I told everybody she had died, because that's what it felt like. But I never really knew what happened. I woke up one day and she was gone. I couldn't find her, not even her scent.”

 

Inuyasha and Kagome exchanged glances. Their time traveling seemed to go in straight lines, past to present and vice versa. If it really was their Mayumi who had married Daichi in the past, in their future still to come, why had she disappeared from the past a hundred and fifty years after she had gone back? Would they have to wait a hundred and fifty years on this side to find out what happened? Every time they thought they were going to finally get some answers, they found even more questions.

 

“I can't believe I found her again,” Daichi said in wonder.

 

“Then don't,” said Inuyasha.

 

“Daichi!”

 

The wolf youkai turned at the sound of the young voice. A dark-haired slayer boy stood across the room, waving at him. “Remember me?”

 

Warily, Daichi approached the young boy, mindful of Inuyasha's menacing presence at his back. He took in the slayer clothes, and the sword, especially the sword. “Now I do,” he said with a shake of his head and a wry smile. “Kazuki. I never put it together before. You are that Kazuki, Hiroshi's friend. You smell different now.”

 

Kazuki laughed. “Yeah, this is my own scent. I finally washed off the other stuff. I couldn't get it out of my hair, though.” Kazuki sniffed in Daichi's direction. “Now I can tell who you are, too. I didn't know you were the same one either.”

 

They both laughed, child and grown-up, who had been children together once. Inuyasha scratched his head. This was getting complicated. Now he had to worry about his daughter getting lost in the future as well as the past. Just great. And apparently he had wolf youkai grandchildren. Great. He'd probably met some of them. All of them were older than Mayumi right now. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't even think the right words anymore. Now, then, past, future. They all were starting to blend together.

 

“Don't think you can hang around here all the time waiting for her to grow up,” he growled, looking straight at Daichi. “She's not your wife—yet.”

 

 

Later, they sat outside with Sesshomaru to find out what he remembered. Daichi was sent out with Kazuki to find a place in the woods to stay. Inuyasha was damned if he was going to let him stay in the same house as Mayumi.

 

For the most part, Sesshomaru corroborated Daichi's story. He had seen Mayumi occasionally over the years when he visited the wolves, but always at a distance. He now realized she must have deliberately been avoiding him. He had had blood relatives even back then, only he hadn't known it.

 

“Would it have made a difference?” he muttered under his breath, causing both Inuyasha and Kagome to look at him curiously. He shook his head. He had always thought Rin's descendants, his adopted family, was enough. At the time, he'd really thought Inuyasha dead, and he had never managed to have offspring of his own. Pure youkai had a hard time reproducing. Kouga and Ayame were the exceptions.

 

“Would what have made a difference?” asked Kagome quietly.

 

Because it was Kagome who asked, and not Inuyasha, Sesshomaru answered. “If I had known Inuyasha's blood had survived. I never had children of my own blood, you know.”

 

“You mean you tried?” That was Inuyasha, incredulous.

 

Sesshomaru raised one eyebrow. “Did you think I was a monk?”

 

Kagome smothered a laugh.

 

“We all want to leave our mark on this earth,” Sesshomaru said. “You seem to have left yours all over the place.”

 

“What's that supposed to mean?” asked Inuyasha.

 

“Your family is an enigma.” Sesshomaru looked at Kagome. “Your descendants may also be your ancestors. Your children carry our blood through time.” He looked at Inuyasha then. “Inuyoukai blood. Our future.”

 

“You could still try having one of your own,” Inuyasha suggested, with a gleam in his eye.

 

“Oh, I will, I assure you. As I will try to find a way to move through time myself, too. What will be, will be, after all. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it won't happen.”

 

“Not you too!” Inuyasha was appalled. It was enough that Fenn spoke in riddles like that. “Come on, Kagome. I feel the need to get some fresh air.” He pulled her after him, diving off the deck because it was faster than going around. No matter that they were already sitting outside in the fresh air.

 

Sesshomaru gave a rare chuckle as they disappeared over the edge. It was good to let the hanyou—former hanyou—sweat a little. Let him think he and his time-traveling family might have a little competition one of these days. Really. Did they truly think he had remained celibate all these years?

 

 

Surprisingly, Inuyasha felt better after talking with Sesshomaru. He still didn't like the idea that his future might be pre-ordained, although Fenn seemed to believe that the future wasn't written in stone, exactly. Past and future were both more fluid than he would have thought. Destiny. He didn't like it one bit. He didn't like that his kids were caught up in it too now. There were too many unknowns.

 

He squeezed Kagome in a bear hug. They stood just outside their front door, on the other side of the house. He hadn't intended to go far, just to make a statement. Of course, the up side of this whole time fiasco was that Kagome was going to have to hang around for quite a long time to help them all get through it. Mayumi alone would need their help in another hundred and fifty years, if Daichi was right. Inuyasha's blood ran cold just thinking about it. Kagome noticed, and ran her hand in soothing circles on his back. See? He needed her. A lot.

 

“Dad!” Kazuki screeched to a halt on the driveway. Daichi was nowhere in sight. “Eew!”

 

Inuyasha grinned, and gave Kagome a big smooch on the lips, eliciting another squeal of disgust from Kazuki. He relented, and loosened his grip on Kagome, holding her hand loosely instead.

 

“Do you have to wear that slayer outfit every day?” he queried his son. It was beginning to smell extremely ripe.

 

“I like it,” Kazuki replied. “Anyway, Dad, I was talking to Daichi and he remembered some fun stuff we did back then, but I didn't remember it, so, can I go back? Can I?”

 

“You mean now? This summer?” Kagome asked. She had thought their `adventure' was over at least for this vacation.

 

“Yeah. My hair's still black, anyway,” Kazuki said. “I'll be careful.”

 

Kagome was about to say no, when Inuyasha said, “All right. But you need to ask Auntie Sango and Uncle Miroku if it's all right first. And just for two weeks.”

 

“Two weeks?” Both Kagome and Kazuki protested, but for different reasons. Kazuki thought it wasn't long enough, while Kagome thought two weeks was far too long.

 

“Yay! Slayer School!” Kazuki yelled, just before he disappeared. Inuyasha and Kagome blinked, and Sesshomaru dropped down from the roof above to see what had happened. He'd felt it when Kazuki disappeared. Kazuki reappeared, causing Sesshomaru to blink too. “They said yes!” he shouted.

 

“Take a bath first!” said his mother.

 

“Let the kid go,” said Inuyasha, smiling as Kazuki popped back out. It wasn't easy, not even for him. But Miroku and Sango would take good care of their son.

 

Life was never going to be the same again. But Kagome was right. He had the best of both worlds. And he had Kagome.

 

“Sesshomaru?” he asked suddenly. “Can you babysit Mayumi? Don't let that wolf come around. Kagome & I have something to do.” He picked up his wife, and started down the mountain.

 

 

 

T H E E N D

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it. This one sort of wrote itself. The basic premise was the kids accidentally use Tetsusaiga and get stuck back in the past and Inuyasha and Kagome have to figure out a way to go after them. All the rest of it, ALL of it, just came out. It surprised me when stuff happened. I wonder what happens to Mayumi in 150 years. I wonder how Inuyasha's father fits in to all this, and if Totosai will ever appear in the future. Who knows? It's been great, having so many people reading and leaving reviews. Thank you to everyone!