InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Present Perfect ❯ Chapter 19 ( Chapter 19 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

 

 

Chapter 19:

 

 

No one was home when they got back. Souta had left for school, Mama was out shopping, and Grandpa was busy at the shrine as usual. Suddenly Inuyasha didn't feel so tired.

 

It was kind of nice, in Kagome's bed. This bed smelled like them, anyway. It was `theirs,' like the other one on the mountain, and with Kagome's mother gone, Inuyasha felt comfortable here. Afterwards, he did fall asleep. So did Kagome.

 

An insistent buzzing woke Inuyasha a few hours later. He could hear Kagome's mother bustling around downstairs, so he nudged Kagome awake. The buzzing had been his cell phone, set on vibrate. He reached across her and flipped it open. Shippo.

 

“C'mon,” he said. “Time to get up.” Kagome stretched and yawned, and the blankets fell down around her waist. Inuyasha inhaled her scent, so familiar, so full of promise. He wished he didn't have to go, but Shippo was waiting. He made a brief phone call, and gave Shippo the address.

 

Mama was just starting supper when they went downstairs and told her they were expecting a guest. She put out an extra place setting.

 

Shippo stood at the top of the steps and gazed into the courtyard, trying to remember the place. So much had changed. The bus had just dropped him off in what would have been Kaede's village long ago. He glanced to the far left and saw the tree. That was the same, except now it was fenced in and warded. He could still see the scar from where Inuyasha's body had worn away the bark.

 

Over the years, especially after Miroku and Sango died, Shippo had drifted away from Kaede's village and lost touch with its inhabitants. He knew one of their children had settled there, or was it one of Rin and Kohaku's? It was a long time ago, and the memories had a tendency to blend together. Truthfully, after Inuyasha was killed—at least they thought he had been killed—Shippo had no desire to remain in the vicinity of the shattered bone-eater's well. He knew it not only symbolized the end of Inuyasha, but also of any chance that Kagome could ever come back to them. The well had been her means of traveling between the dimensions. His eyes misted over. He had never thought to see either of them again.

 

“Shippo! Over here!” Kagome waved to him from the doorway of a modern-looking house. Inuyasha stood behind her.

 

“I'm sorry I couldn't remember where you lived or what year you said you came from,” Shippo blurted out.

 

“It's all right, Shippo,” said Kagome. “It all worked out.” She led him into the house, noting his lack of an obvious tail and wondering how he had disguised himself, before she remembered that he was a kitsune, and disguise was one of his abilities. Even though her mother was very open about such matters, it would make it easier to explain Shippo without the tail.

 

Shippo sniffed, then looked at Inuyasha. “You are full youkai now,” he said in awe. “I can smell the difference. Is that what happened to you after you destroyed the well?” He glanced around, wondering where the well would have been in this time.

 

“No, I was like this before I destroyed the well,” said Inuyasha, a little unnerved that he was talking as if it had already happened.

 

“I don't remember that,” said Shippo. Inwardly, Inuyasha grimaced. Another discrepancy he would have to address before he went back. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to leave the restraining beads in Connecticut.

 

Kagome's mother gave them an early supper, apart from the rest of the family who weren't home yet. She thought that their kitsune friend might appreciate spending some time alone with his old friends. “I'll eat later with Grandpa and Souta,” she told them, as she straightened up and went upstairs. “Leave the dishes in the sink.”

 

“Sesshomaru is mad at you,” remarked Shippo. “Why'd you take off like that? We were supposed to take you around to some of the other hidden places in the city.”

 

“You don't know the whole story,” said Inuyasha. “I'll talk to Sesshomaru tomorrow. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing all this time?”

 

They talked about Shippo and his exploits with other kitsune. He had taken Inuyasha at his word and made sure that he retained his youkai identity even though he associated with humans. He had a kitsune family of his own, now. Kagome could hardly picture it. In her mind, he was still her little fox cub. It was hard to think of him as having fox cubs of his own. Then again, he would be over five hundred years old by now.

 

When Grandpa and Souta came in for supper, Inuyasha and Kagome led Shippo back outside to the shrine grounds, after first introducing him to the rest of Kagome's family. Grandpa didn't make the connection between Inuyasha and Shippo, but Souta wondered if their friend might also be youkai. Mama just smiled, and handed out bowls of rice.

 

“Kagome, you smell—“

 

Inuyasha cut him off with a wave of his arm. Kagome blushed, thinking that yet another youkai could tell what she and Inuyasha had been up to. It didn't even seem to matter that she had showered. Somehow, they could always tell.

 

They paused for a moment by Goshinboku, each lost in memories, before they headed over to the well house. Shippo was confused momentarily. Back in the Sengoku Jidai, there was no structure over the well, so he wasn't sure where they were going until he actually saw the well itself at the bottom of the pit.

 

“But I saw it get destroyed!” he said. “How can it still be here?”

 

Inuyasha asked sharply, “Sesshomaru didn't tell you?”

 

“Tell me what? I never mentioned the well to Sesshomaru, honest!” Shippo protested. After a moment he added, “Sesshomaru knows about the well?”

 

“Yeah, Kagome's mother told him about it when she traced him down for us last December. She had to, or he wouldn't have believed we were still alive. Up until then, he didn't know anything about it.”

 

“Shippo, you remember all the times Inuyasha and I traveled through the well in the old days? Well, never once did the time ever get messed up. I mean, it moved forward in a straight line in the Sengoku Jidai, and it also moved forward in a straight line in my time. I had to go back every so often to take my tests, remember?” Shippo nodded. “If the well were destroyed back then, how could I fall down it on my 15th birthday? I couldn't have. I think that the time streams parallel each other. That's why I never got confused about which day it was in which place. Do you understand?”

 

Inuyasha did, vaguely. Of course the well still worked. He hadn't destroyed it yet. Simple as that.

 

“Are you saying that you haven't gone back yet? That it hasn't happened—then—yet?” Shippo's eyes widened in horror.

 

“That's what I'm saying,” said Inuyasha. “I'm not even exactly sure when I'm supposed to go back. I just know, from what Kouga and Sesshomaru told me, that it happened some time in the summer. This summer.”

 

“Then Kouga knows too?” asked Shippo.

 

From up above they heard a muffled voice. “Kouga knows what?”

 

Inuyasha cursed. He grabbed Kagome around her waist and jumped to the top level of the well house. Shippo followed. “Kouga, how did you find us?”

 

Kouga grinned. “It wasn't so difficult. I followed Shippo.” He looked around curiously. “What is this place? It's not one of ours, is it?” He directed the last question to Shippo, who shook his head.

 

“I live here,” explained Kagome. Over by the house Mama, Grandpa and Souta watched anxiously. They had seen the newcomer follow Inuyasha and the others to the well house and they were worried. Kagome waved to them to let them know everything was fine.

 

“This place seems familiar,” Kouga commented. “Why do I get the feeling I've been here before?”

 

“Because you have, you idiot,” muttered Inuyasha. He had had enough of keeping secrets. “The well, the sacred tree? Kagome? Ring any bells?”

 

Kouga blinked. He still wasn't getting it. “Was this your home village, Kagome? I always thought it was far away. This place seems pretty close to. . .” Kouga's voice dropped off as he put the pieces together. “Hey, isn't this your old stomping grounds, Inuyasha? That village, the well. . .” Kouga took another look at the well house. “Are you saying that's the well?”

 

They all nodded. Kouga sat down suddenly where he was. It was a little too much to take. “Who are those people over there?” he asked, indicating the three figures by the house.

 

“That's my mother, and my grandfather and my younger brother,” said Kagome.

 

“Your mother? But she's human!” said Kouga. “I understand how you might still be alive, but all of them, even the old man?”

 

Exasperated, Inuyasha snarled, “Kagome's from this time, you idiot. She didn't live five hundred years—neither did I. We both came through the well.” Inuyasha hadn't missed Kouga's comment, and he wondered how Kagome might have still been alive if they hadn't traveled across time. He pushed it to the back of his mind to ask Kouga later.

 

Kouga was stunned, but he got over it quickly. He sprang to his feet and grasped both of Kagome's hands in his own, ignoring Inuyasha's warning growls. “No wonder you didn't have kids until—“

 

Inuyasha pushed Kouga away and stepped in front of Kagome. “Save it,” he growled. “We got more important things to worry about.” He saw Sesshomaru alight at the top of the stairs. Modern Sesshomaru rarely showed his powers. Maybe the driver had the night off.

 

Sesshomaru wanted to see the well, too. He sprang to the bottom and even jumped inside, touching lightly down on the dirt floor of the dried-up old well. “This is how you traveled back to the past?” he asked skeptically.

 

“Keh, only Kagome and I can use the well,” said Inuyasha. “I can show you.” He jumped down the hole and perched on the wooden edge of the well itself. He intended to go through, then come right back.

 

Kagome screamed, “No!” Without thinking of the consequences she threw herself over the top railing. If Inuyasha was going, then she was going with him. He caught her, shocked that she would take such a chance. What if he had already jumped? She might have smashed into the floor next to the old well and been injured. He let her sob against his chest for a moment, while the other youkai looked on uncomfortably.

 

“Fine,” he soothed her, stroking her hair away from her face. “I won't go yet.”

 

They sat in Kagome's living room later, and talked for most of the night. Kagome's family had long since gone to bed. Inuyasha was glad they had finally got everything out into the open. Kouga's face blanched as he realized that Inuyasha had really not saved the children in the past yet, and that he could still choose not to do it.

 

“Don't be stupid,” Inuyasha argued. “Of course I'm going back. I need to know when, that's all.”

 

Kouga wasn't sure he believed Inuyasha. “Even now?” he asked. “Even knowing—“

 

Inuyasha interrupted him once again. “I know what I'm doing.”

 

“And I'll be with him this time,” added Kagome.

 

Inuyasha turned to face her. “No, you won't,” he said quietly.

 

“Inuyasha, I won't leave you,” she argued.

 

“Kagome, I promise I won't leave you, either. I'll come back, even if I have to wait the entire five hundred years to get back to you. Don't make this harder. I'm asking you to stay.”

 

Tears welled up in Kagome's eyes, but she blinked them back. She knew he was just trying to protect her. She couldn't think anymore tonight. “I'm going to bed,” she said.

 

The others stayed until nearly morning. Inuyasha slid into bed beside Kagome just as the sun was coming up. She sighed, and snuggled against him in her tiny bed. He kissed the top of her head and draped one arm across her stomach to hold her close before he drifted off to sleep for a few hours. Sesshomaru was sending the car around to pick them up at ten.