InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Opposites Attract ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

This time Edana drifted slowly back to consciousness rather than being forced as she had been before. She was still on the back of the dragon youkai, but the spoon was nowhere in sight.

Ah-Un, however, was walking on the ground like a normal beast-of-burden, rather than sailing through the clouds. Jaken was walking beside it, using a literally two-headed staff as a walking stick. Edana shuddered. That stick was both ugly and creepy.

Rin was singing as she skipped ahead of the group, bunches of fresh flowers in each hand, and Sesshomaru was nowhere to be seen.

Jaken noticed that she was awake.

“You should be grateful, wench!” he croaked. “Lord Sesshomaru saved your life! I would have let you fall to your death!”

Edana scowled at the miniscule toad.

“What do you mean, ‘saved my life’?” she questioned.

“You fainted and fell off, you stupid human!” he explained. “You are lucky that Lord Sesshomaru deemed you worthy enough to save or-”

Jaken was cut off mid-rant as a stone struck him squarely on the head from behind.

He lay dazed on the ground as Ah-Un kept walking. Rin didn’t even turn around.

Amused, Edana watched as Sesshomaru stepped out of the forest and fell into step next to the dragon youkai.

“You did that?” she asked.

“If you are concerned, he will be fine.” Sesshomaru said without answering her question.

Edana smirked. “Oh, I’m not concerned.” Definitely not.

She could almost swear that she saw a pleased smile quirk his lips.

Leaning back in Ah-Un’s saddle, Edana considered her situation.

“Alright, so Jaken is an imp demon...”

Sesshomaru nodded.

“And Ah-Un is a dragon demon.”

A nod.

“But the girl, Rin, is just human?”

Golden eyes looked over at her, considering. Probably how much he wanted to actually tell her about his friends.

“Yes, she is human,” he said after a moment.

“Great, so what are you?” Edana asked bluntly. It was a brave new world. No time for pleasantries. She needed to know what she was dealing with here.

Again, he paused for a moment, looking ahead as he replied. “I am an inu youkai.”

A dog demon.

Edana tilted her head.

“You don’t look like a dog.”

“I do... in my true form.”

“Oh.” True form? “So you can... transform? At will or at, like, the full moon, or something?”

This was just getting weirder and weirder.

Sesshomaru smirked. “At will. Only hanyou are limited in their transformations.”

Half-bloods? Oh god, that totally meant what she thought it meant, didn’t it?

She could never in a million years imagine any human wanting to sleep with the little green toad. Although – she looked over at Sesshomaru – she could definitely imagine some humans who would desire this particular demon. Hell, she knew she definitely wouldn’t mind.

Well, as long as they were still the same... down there. But that was a subject which she didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.

Edana cleared her throat. “So... What do you do?”

Then she thought of something before he could answer. “You don’t... kill people, do you?”

They’re demons. Of course, they kill people. she thought nervously. Crap.

Sesshomaru replied before she could whip herself into a panic.

“Only when necessary. Inu youkai relish the fight, not the kill; though they often go hand in hand.” He had a wicked smile on his face as he spoke, as though he was remembering some particularly good ones.

Edana was only mildly comforted.

“Then what do you eat?”

He looked at her funny when she asked her question but answered nonetheless.

“Food. Meat mostly, but anything a human eats would do. Even a larger variety than humans, in fact, as some items which are toxic to humans are not so for us.”

Somehow, she was mildly disappointed. Other than his different appearance (which wasn’t even as drastic as it could have been – take Jaken or Ah-Un for example), this true form he had mentioned, and a love of fighting, she really didn’t see that much difference between him and any human man.

And a true form as a dog? Well, now that was just cute. She’d always wanted a dog...

But wait... she could sort of remember him standing on a cloud as they flew before she had fainted again.

“Can you fly?” she asked.

“Yes, I can fly.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Show me.”

Despite her fainting earlier, Edana was not afraid of heights. She had simply been shocked at waking up in the air with no plane surrounding her. Now that she was fully awake and alert, she wanted that experience that only open-air flying could give.

Sesshomaru hesitated. He was having a hard time not giving in to her innocent demand. Even when she had been questioning him, he found that he didn’t mind answering. In fact, he wanted to satisfy her curiosity about himself. He wanted this strange human to get to know him. She seemed to be complete unafraid of him and he found that... refreshing.

But he shouldn’t. He had already determined that he would drop her off at Edo and that would be that. He couldn’t risk anything more. He had responsibilities to uphold.

The woman was staring at him with those brilliantly violet eyes that swam with excitement. She wanted him to fly, to fly with her. He didn’t even know her name.

“Not right now,” he finally forced out.

Her face fell. She was disappointed.

“You know who I am,” he continued. “You should return the favour.”

Her eyes met his once more and he would see the wariness in them.

“My name is Edana Calder. I’m human. What else do you want to know?”

“You mentioned that you are from a place called Tokyo. Where is it?”

She sighed. “I suppose I can’t just lie and tell you I’m from somewhere else now,” she muttered.

“I would have known if you had lied,” he said. He would have scented her nervousness as she told it.

She gave him a puzzled look but brushed his comment aside.

“Tokyo is Edo. At least, Edo will become Tokyo in the future.” She wiped a hand across her face. “This is difficult to explain.”

“I was in Tokyo just a few hours ago and then I was surrounded by this light and woke up here. Apparently here is 500 years into the past. So-”

“You’re from the future.”

Edana blinked. “Yeah, from the year 2013. You seem oddly okay with this.”

“My half-brother’s human companion is also from the future. From around your time, I believe.”

“Holy crap! Really? Could she get me back home? Where is she?”

Sesshomaru could see the hope lighting those amethyst eyes.

“I don’t know where she is at the moment but I can track down my half-brother and she will be with him. As for how she gets back, I have never seen the need to learn her secret. All I am aware of is that she goes back and forth frequently.”

“Great! So you can take me to them?”

Another request from this mesmerizing woman that he had to deny.

“No, I cannot take you to them.”

For the second time, disappoint shone on her features. This time, however, the sadness was deeper.

“I cannot take you to them,” he continued, “because it would be faster for me to track him down alone and bring him to you. Taking you and Rin would only slow me down.”

Her returning smile gave him more pleasure than it should have. She caused his emotions to surface too easily. Her connection to the woman in his dreams... whatever that may be, made his emotions too vulnerable. He would have to be very careful around this woman.

She could get home!

Before she had been consumed, first, by fear of the wolves and then by curiosity at the beings currently surrounding her. As she had spoken of her home, however, she had realized that she had no idea if she could ever get back. She had no idea how she had gotten here so it wasn’t like she could just repeat whatever she had done before. If it had even been her. For all she knew, it could have been that black-haired man that had followed her and then magically teleported her to the Toyko forest. It was quite possible that he had teleported her here as well.

But now she had a way out of the past. This companion of Sesshomaru’s brother – er, half-brother – had done it before and had apparently come back again numerous times. Maybe, if she played her cards right, she could come back to visit too...

She glanced over at the demon walking beside her and turned back quickly when she caught him watching her.

Yeah, she definitely would like to come back for a visit. She wanted to learn more about these demons, their whole culture, and she wanted to learn more about this land, this strange, yet familiar land.

“What did you do in this future Japan?” His bartone voice interrupted her thoughts.

“I was a student,” she said.

He seemed surprised. “You are still a student at your age?”

“My age?” she asked, confused. “I’m only eighteen.”

Understanding seemed to come to him before it came to her.

“Most children have completed their studies in whichever profession they chose by the time they reach puberty,” he explained.

“Oh. I’d forgotten that adulthood began early back then – now, because the average life span was so short. In my time, I only just reached adulthood today, and even then, many kids don’t move out of their parent’s house until well into their 20s.”

She sighed. “Not that I have much of a choice myself,” she mumbled to herself.

But Sesshomaru heard. “Why is that?”

She kept my head down to hide my eyes which were beginning to tear up.

“My parents – they just died this morning. I-” Grief choked her words, forcing her to stop.

“The death of a parent is... difficult,” he said solemnly.

Edana cleared her throat. “Did you lose your parents as well?”

“My father, but that was a long time ago. I am not close with my mother and see her only rarely.”

Her curiosity became a life raft as Edana attempted to rise above her grief.

“Do you remember much about your father? Losing him as a child must have been hard.”

Sesshomaru’s head turned, confusion written on his face.

“I was hardly a child when he died. Why would I have forgotten my father?”

“But you can’t be much older than myself,” Edana said, now confused as well. “How long ago did he die?”

“I am significantly older than yourself. Youkai live much longer than humans. My father died over 200 years ago.”

Her jaw dropped.

“How old are you then?”

His lips twitched in an almost-smirk. “Over 500 years.

“Wow...” Edana was amazed. “How long can youkai live?”

“A very long time,” was his cryptic reply.

“Apparently,” she remarked sarcastically.

Their conversation tapered off into a companionable silence.

“What about siblings?” Sesshomaru continued. Apparently he hadn’t been kidding when he had said that it was his turn to learn about her.

“I have two sisters. Both younger. The middle one is Rei and the youngest one is Setsuko.” As Edana spoke, she remembered her mother’s words. I am not your real mother... You are not a normal human being, Edana. You were not even born in this world. What could she have meant by that?

No matter what it meant, however, Rei and Setsuko were still her sisters and her mother and father would always be her parents to her.

“And they’re both still in the future?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. At least as far as I know. They weren’t with me when I... disappeared, I guess. And they weren’t with me when I appeared here.”

“You said you were surrounded by a light and then you woke up here. Is there anything else you can remember?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly wake up here, per se,” she admitted. “It was more like poof. One second I was there, the next I was here.” She blushed. “Then I fainted and that’s why I said that I woke up here.”

“You seem to faint a lot – even for a human.”

“Hey!” Edana protested. “It’s been a very stressful day!”

Sesshomaru met her eyes once more and all the previous humour was gone from his voice. “Yes, I suppose it has been.”

Again, silence descended.

“So...” Edana began. “How far to Edo?”

“Not much farther,” Sesshomaru replied. “About a day’s walk at a human pace. We should make it there tomorrow.”

“What about at a demon’s pace?”

“Typically a demon would not be walking,” he responded. “Running or flying maybe.”

“Well, I had suggested flight earlier and was turned down,” she groused. She still wanted to fly.

“It is not a good idea for us to fly so close to the village in which you intend to stay. The humans tend to become... anxious when there are demons around. It will be better for you if you and Rin go in alone while Jaken and Ah-Un guard you from the outskirts of the village until I can return.”

“But where are we supposed to stay? I won’t know anyone in the village and Rin is only a child.”

Sesshomaru had already considered this and answered immediately. “I will give you enough money to purchase food and rent a respectable room in the meantime. Jaken and Ah-Un will ensure that no other demons approach the village and this will help you protect yourself against other humans.”

As he spoke that last phrase, Sesshomaru removed a short dagger from within the folds of his clothing. It had a silver hilt wrapped in black leather for the grip. The pommel was a large ruby. The sheath was also black leather.

“It’s gorgeous,” Edana said admiringly. “Don’t trust me with a sword?” she teased, gesturing at his own weapons.

Glancing at the two swords at his side, Sesshomaru frowned. “You would not be able to wield my swords. And in any case, a dagger is much easier to conceal. Men might think you are a threat if you are seen carrying a sword.”

“I was just teasing,” Edana said.

She tucked the dagger into her belt. She could feel the comforting weight of it shifting on her hip as Ah-Un moved under her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You are welcome.”

At some point during their conversation, Jaken had managed to catch up with them and had continued to walk silently alongside Ah-Un. Soon Rin had also fallen back to walk with them, at which point Sesshomaru lifted her up onto Ah-Un’s back where she sat in front of Edana.

They continued on like that as the sun dipped lower in the sky. When it finally dropped behind the tree tops, casting long shadows on the group, Sesshomaru called a halt.

Rin was yawning as she was placed back on the ground. Despite her obvious tiredness, the little girl began collecting twigs and small branches. Sesshomaru disappeared for a few minutes only to return with a stack of wood. By that time Rin had a sizable pile of kindling ready to go.

All of a sudden, fire blasted from Jaken’s staff, surprising Edana. She started back from the sudden inferno and could swear she heard Jaken chuckling over the crackling of burning wood.

When the intense flames died down after only a moment, the kindling was left burning brightly. Sesshomaru set the wood on the flames and a roaring fire was quickly giving off plenty of heat in the cool evening air.

Edana was left with nothing to do in front of the efficient team. Evidently they had been doing this for a long time and she felt almost left out.

Once camp had been set up, Sesshomaru watched as both Rin and Jaken fell asleep quickly. Edana remained awake, sitting by the fire. The blanket she had been provided with was wrapped around her shoulders.

He approached her and sat close enough for casual conversation, though not so close as to allow for physical contact.

“You should sleep,” he said.

She looked up at him with those violet eyes that seemed haunted at the moment, likely with the memories of her parents’ deaths.

“So should you,” she said in reply.

“Demons do not need as much sleep as humans,” he answered. And even if he had needed the rest, we wouldn’t have risked sleep for two reasons. First, his charges need to be protected and he only trusted himself to do that job unless, for whatever reason, he was unable to do so. Second, he was wary of dreaming again, especially with the object of said dreams so near.

“Is it sleeping in the open that is preventing you from resting?” he questioned. He could whisk her the rest of the way to Edo in only a few hours using his teleportation ability but did not want to risk being seen by the superstitious villagers.

“It’s not that. My family and I went camping often when I was younger, so I’m fairly  used to the outdoors.” She sighed. “I was just thinking that I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get back to my own time. I’m about to graduate, so I suppose I’m going to have to find a job, especially since I’ll have to support my sisters. And I guess we’ll be able to keep the house, but then again, I don’t know what state my parents left their finances in and if we’ll even be able to afford it. If I’m even their legal guardian, that is. Gah! It’s all so complicated!” She looked over at him. “It must be a lot simpler in this time.”

“I do not know how the humans work out their monetary issues, but for the daiyoukai, inheritance through bloodlines is how fortunes, lands and titles are passed down. So I suppose that our process would be simpler than what you seem to be describing.”

Edana leaned back from the fire to gaze at the sky.

“Part of me wishes that I could just stay here and avoid all that drama. Just get away from it all. Not have to have to be reminded everyday of what my sisters and I have lost.”

In spite of the part of him that also wanted her stay in this time, Sesshomaru said instead, “Then you would be running away from your problems. That kind of plan usually does not work well in the end.”

“I know,” she said on a sigh. “I know.”

Only the sounds of insects and nocturnal animals could be heard for a short while until Edana’s soft voice broke through the night noises once more.

“I guess I should try to get some sleep. Goodnight, Sesshomaru-san,” she said and curled up in front of the fire after spreading the blanket over herself.

The demon lord watched her as she lay awake for a long time before sleep finally came. It was already late into the night by the time her breathing evened out and her face took on the relaxed look of someone who was sleeping deeply.

Sesshomaru shifted away from the heat of the fire to lean against the trunk of a tree. From this position, he kept watch over their makeshift campsite through the night, always alert for any sign of danger to his charges.

At one point he thought he sensed something that he didn’t recognize on the outskirts of their camp but it came and went so quickly that he didn’t have an opportunity to pursue it. He brushed it off as a weak demon that must have realized that attacking a daiyoukai was not the smartest plan.

Otherwise, the night was quiet and he simply sat quietly and watched the skies for the lightening that would herald the new dawn.