InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Present Perfect ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

PRESENT PERFECT (2)

 

 

First Inuyasha visited his forest.

 

Kagome took the beads from around his neck and stuffed them into the pocket of her big down jacket. It was still quite cold, but there was no way she was letting Inuyasha go without her. They started out at dawn. Kagome had Inuyasha's red outer jacket wrapped around her too to cut down on the wind. Once they passed the school buildings and outlying houses, Inuyasha slowed down and asked her, a glint in his eyes, “Are you ready?”

 

Kagome nodded, and hung on to Inuyasha as tight as she could. When he started to fade to sparkling mist, she felt like she was going to fall. “Inuyasha!” she cried out. Immediately the transformation ceased and she felt Inuyasha become more substantial beneath her. “It's not going to work,” she said, a little disappointed.

 

“Try again,” Inuyasha instructed. This should work. “Try holding onto my hair,” he instructed.

 

Kagome wasn't too sure about it, so she asked him to stay still while he transformed and grabbed two handfuls of his hair. “Ok, go!” she called. She felt the tingly transformation for a few seconds then she was sitting on the ground. “Nope. It still doesn't work!” she called.

 

Inuyasha materialized right next to her. “Damn,” he muttered. What were they doing wrong? Obviously his clothes and Tetsusaiga transformed with him—why didn't Kagome? Maybe they had to be moving. “All right, we're going to try this one more time,” he told her. He explained about the moving thing.

 

This time Kagome fell to the ground almost immediately. “Dammit, Kagome!” Inuyasha complained, “Can't you use your miko powers to hang on or something?”

 

Kagome gritted her teeth and glared up at him. “My miko powers don't include transforming!” she spat out. “Why is this my fault? Why can't you hold onto me?”

 

Inuyasha realized she was right. Ok, once more, then. “Get on, I think I've got it,” he told her. Doubtful, Kagome stood up and brushed snow and dirt off her rear. In the far distance cars occasionally zipped by on the ribbon of road that led into the hills. She wondered if they could see the two of them in the middle of this field, and if so, what they thought. She gingerly climbed back up on Inuyasha's back and wound her hands tightly into his hair.

 

Inuyasha let the transformation begin but he didn't fade completely this time. A furry section of his streaming hair remained, which Kagome clung to like a lifeline. Her body streamed out behind him, and he could feel her stiffen slightly above him. He tried to project reassurance, and it must have worked, because she relaxed a little bit. This was it—they were doing it! If the cars in the distance were able to see them, which he doubted, they would have seen a girl in red floating through the air. Of course, now that he knew they could travel this way, there was no reason to go slow. He streaked across the field, gaining altitude.

 

Kagome shrieked, surprised when they accelerated, and she held on even tighter to the fistfuls of hair that remained visible. All around her she felt the warm tingling that signified Inuyasha's spirit form, and she began to calm down and even enjoy the sensations. She was no longer cold. Inuyasha's essence surrounded her and kept her warmer than when she rode on his back in the usual way.

 

He set her down at the top of the mountain and assumed physical shape just as they touched down. He ended up alighting softly with Kagome on his back in the same position as when they had started. He couldn't help grinning.

 

“That was incredible!” Kagome said. She clambered off him and looked around. They had landed at the edge of the cliff where he had once built her a shelter to greet the dawn, but it was no longer there. There were tire tracks leading up through the woods, and a swath of trees had been cut down. And there was no youkai aura at all.

 

Inuyasha sniffed. He smelled residual odors from humans and machines and—Sesshomaru. What had happened here? Where were his youkai? “Kagome, you stay here,” he told her before darting off into the cover of the trees.

 

Kagome perched on the edge of a rock and drew her knees up so that her down coat as well as Inuyasha's haori covered her completely. She stared off over the edge of the cliff, wondering if the owners of this property had finally shown up. She felt bad for Inuyasha. This piece of land was his anchor in an unfamiliar world. She hoped the little youkai creatures hadn't been driven off. She knew Inuyasha felt responsible for them.

 

Inuyasha tore down the hillside and back up the other way searching for any signs of his youkai, but he couldn't detect any. He would have known if they had been destroyed, so he figured they must have left the area. Damn them. He'd told them to keep an eye on the place for him while he was away. They should have been able to scare off a few measly humans. He bet Sesshomaru had something to do with it. Did he make them leave? Why? What possible reason could Sesshomaru have for driving out the small youkai that inhabited this forest? Unless he was trying to establish his supremacy over the area. Was that what the meetings with Mr. Rinks and the others had been about? Had he and the local youkai factions conspired to take over this area after all? Did they no longer think Inuyasha was suitable to be Lord?

 

Inuyasha growled in anger. “Sesshomaru!” he roared. The woods trembled and on the top of the hill Kagome looked up, startled.

 

“Don't jump to conclusions,” she cautioned him later. “You don't know that's what happened. Go talk to Fenn and the others. Talk to your brother.”

 

They made their way home the normal way, with Kagome traveling on Inuyasha's back so they could talk.

 

“These youkai aren't like the ones we knew back then,” Inuyasha said. “They're not much more than forces of nature. They won't survive up there if a bunch of humans start coming around. I told them I was their Lord,” he said quietly. “Then I left them.”

 

“Maybe Sesshomaru found out about the humans and moved them,” said Kagome. “Maybe he was trying to help.”

 

“Keh,” muttered Inuyasha. “I shouldn't have left them.”

 

“What would you have done?” Kagome wanted to know. “Would you have stood down the humans, who have every right to build on their land?”

 

“Maybe,” answered Inuyasha. “And they don't have a right! It's my land.”

 

“In youkai terms,” agreed Kagome. “We always knew this might happen,” she added. It didn't make it any easier to accept, though.

 

 

Fenn didn't know anything about Inuyasha's forest or the lesser youkai who inhabited it. He did, however, know about Sesshomaru.

 

They sat in Kagome's living room, pizza boxes on the table behind them. “He had been around a few times before you came,” Fenn explained. “Most of us didn't want to have anything to do with Sesshomaru back then. We were quite happy doing our own thing and didn't need or want to become more organized. Your brother is very persistent, however. He wouldn't let it alone. We were almost glad when you showed up,” he told Inuyasha. “Less pressure, same result.”

 

“Great. You're saying I don't threaten you.” Inuyasha frowned at Fenn.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“So what's the story? You all get together and decide you don't need the stupid hanyou after all, and you realize you want Sesshomaru to be your Lord instead?” Inuyasha couldn't help how bitter he sounded.

 

Fenn sat back, surprised. “Not at all. You made us see what we were missing. You opened our eyes to a lot of things. I, for one, don't want to be in charge. You can do it with my blessing,” he said. “Most of the others feel the same way.”

 

“Then why did Sesshomaru come to meet with all of you while I was gone?” Inuyasha demanded.

 

“I think he wanted to see how you were managing things,” replied Fenn. Kagome gave Inuyasha a significant look, which he ignored. “He heard about that incident at the library and came to check it out for himself. As I said, he's very persistent. I don't think he realized the youkai here would respond to your presence so quickly.”

 

Inuyasha thought of something. “You didn't mention that I transformed, did you?” he asked.

 

Fenn glanced at him in puzzlement. “No, why would I?”

 

That's right. These youkai didn't think it was unusual that Inuyasha, a hanyou, had the ability to transform like a full youkai. In fact, they seemed to expect it. Sesshomaru didn't have to know that, though. It still bothered him that his brother felt obligated to check up on him. Sesshomaru was next on his list.

 

“I still want to meet with the others,” he told Fenn. “See if you can arrange it. Call me.”

 

 

He had homework. He couldn't believe it. One of his required classes was world history, and he was supposed to read chapters one through five for homework. The teacher, realizing his English reading skills might not be up to the task, gave him permission to have someone else, in his case, Kagome, read out loud to him. Kagome loved it. Inuyasha plopped his head down in her lap and stretched out on the couch, allowing her to scratch his ears while she read. His eyes drifted closed, and he only half-heard her as his thoughts began to drift too.

 

The world was a lot bigger than the Japan he had known back in the Sengoku Jidai. He wondered if some of the other places she was telling him about had youkai too. He wondered what happened to those youkai. He wondered what had happened to his youkai.

 

After a few minutes he realized Kagome's voice had trailed off, and the soothing sensation of her hand on his ears stopped as well. Inuyasha opened his eyes to find her gazing down at him, a mixture of exasperation and dismay on her face. “Weren't you paying attention?” she asked. She closed the book and slipped out from underneath him. Inuyasha immediately felt the cool draft of her absence. He scrambled up, ready to apologize, when he noticed she was no longer looking at him but instead was staring out the window at something across the street.

 

He followed her gaze. There, under the street light staring up at their window, was the little fox-girl youkai from his mountain. He had been so engrossed in his own thoughts—and Kagome's reading—that her scent hadn't even registered. He smelled her now, and felt her aura, more clearly than he ever had before. He squinted. She looked more human now, too. With a muttered curse, he flung open the front door and vaulted over the railing to the ground below, without a care as to who might be watching. He reached the fox-girl in one leap and towered over her.

 

Kagome couldn't hear what they said from up on the third floor landing, but it didn't matter because Inyasha turned around and jumped right back up, with the fox-girl following right behind him. She made room for them both to come inside, before she glanced furtively up and down the street to make sure no one had seen, then closed the door behind them.

 

The fox-girl shivered on the edge of the couch. Kagome put a sweater over her shoulders. The youkai girl did appear more human this time. It was really amazing. Was this all because of Inuyasha's influence?

 

“What happened?” Inuyasha spoke gently, and was surprised when the girl answered him in English.

 

“Valynne,” she said. “My name is Valynne.”

 

She had a name? Inuyasha motioned for her to continue.

 

“You were gone, and then the Other came,” she began. “We hid, but he contained part of your aspect so some of us approached him, hoping he would tell us of you. But he didn't. It was as if we were still invisible. He didn't see us.” She hung her head and repeated, sadly, “He didn't see us.”

 

Sesshomaru, thought Inuyasha. It was just like him to ignore those he thought were beneath him. After all these years, and he hadn't really changed at all. He growled low in his chest, until Kagome put a steadying hand on his back. For her sake and the sake of the fox-girl, he controlled himself. “What happened to the others?”

 

“Some went away,” the girl said. Kagome realized she meant they lost their hold on the physical world. “Men came, and the Other met with them as if he were one of them. After the Other left, there was too much noise and too many humans. The rest of us, those who still could, came here, to watch for you.”

 

They were here? Inuyasha hadn't sensed them at all, neither had Kagome. “Where?” he asked.

 

“All over the places you have been,” she told him. “I came here. Valynne.” She said her name proudly. Maybe it was a novelty for her to have a name. “Some of the others went to the forest where your two dogs and two humans live.”

 

“Peter's woods?” asked Kagome, as Inuyasha slowly nodded his head. If there weren't youkai there before, there were now. Peter would probably be pleased.

 

“And some tried to follow your other human into a different forest, but there were Others there, not you, and so they came back. They found your sanctuary by the bridge,” she said.

 

Sanctuary by the bridge? Oh, the area near the school where he used to hunt when he couldn't be near Kagome. No wonder he never sensed them. He hadn't been to any of those spots since they had come back from Japan. At least now he knew his youkai weren't dead. Damn Sesshomaru. It was his fault the youkai were driven off his mountain. Sesshomaru was definitely next on his list!