InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Way Back When ❯ Chapter 2

AN: Hi! I got reviews! I feel loved! Anyways, if you haven't noticed yet, this is an AU, and its rated R for the citrus that will come in later chapters. I would like to apologize to anyone I might offend during the course of this story, seeing as later on I will be dealing with descriptions of Inuyasha's tribe. I'm gonna be going on the internet to look for accurate cultural references, but if I get some wrong or something I wrote offends anyone, please tell me and I will try to fix it! ^~^

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any related characters. I own a bag of chips, a pencil, and a notebook. Does that sound worth having? No, I thought not. So don't sue me.

ON WITH THE FIC! ^~^

*~Chapter 2~*

Now, there are several situations in life where one is able to get away with a look of pure confusion, and hesitant stuttering. This situation, having never occurred to anyone of note, was not put on the list; but could you blame her? She had just fallen through a very deep well, only to come to a soft landing at the bottom. Then she looks up to see a person asking her if she was a witch! Like it was a perfectly reasonable question!

"I said are you some kind of witch?" said the man, because that's what the voice sounded like.

"Uh...." was Kagome's eloquent reply. Kagome heard something akin to a snort and a rope was tossed down. She gathered enough wits to determine that the rope was for getting her out of the well. So, she grabbed on and was hauled up quickly, only to be jumped on the minute her shoulders cleared the lip of the well.

"Ok! Now we *know* that you're a witch! Only a witch would dress as shamelessly as you and in such outlandish fabrics!" the same man said.

Kagome looked around, rather stunned. She was in a small town. There were small, old looking houses lining the 'street', which was nothing more than a dirt path. The well was in a large cleared area which was probably the center of the town. Needless to say, this was not here before. People in brown home-spun cloths were surrounding Kagome and the well. All of the women had on some kind of bonnet, and everyone wore an expression of hatred and fear.

'Oh, God. They can't be serious when they say I'm a witch!' Kagome thought, 'but they're all dressed like... peasants... or, the early settlers!' Every history lesson on the early settlers flashed through her mind, and one thought emerged and kept repeating itself in her jumbled thoughts. DO NOT LET THEM THINK THAT I AM A WITCH!

"Uh, w-why would you think that?" she asked, oh-so-innocently.

"Don't deny it witch we all saw the magic light coming out of the well!"

"What light? That light wasn't me!"

"Yes it was!"

"How do you know that? Hn? M-maybe it was a different witch that put me there and made the light appear just so you would think that I'm the witch?" Kagome frantically asked, hoping that if they were stupid enough to believe in witches on such circumstantial evidence, then they would buy that excuse.

"You lie!" well toss that idea. "Mr.Johanson's cow has been sick for a week, and then you appear here! It can't be coincidence!" Kagome gave the man a flat look, the one that says 'I can't believe that load of crap just came out of your mouth."

"I saw the same pink light around the cow just last night!" screamed some equally filled with crap woman in the background.

"Cage her! Tomorrow we burn her with the other witch!" shouted the man.

"YEAH!" screamed the mob of angry villagers. Kagome's hands were tied behind her back, and she was pushed forward, making her stumble. She did NOT appreciate this. After a very shocking and dramatic ten minutes, she was not in the best of moods. Two men grabbed her arms, dragging her through the violent, screaming crowd. Kagome struggled to get free; shouts of "Kill the witch!" and "Burn the evil one!" scared her to death. Pun not intended.

'Oh. My. God. They're going to actually kill me!' suddenly Kagome started to shriek and struggle. She didn't want to die! Not this way! Not somewhere that wasn't home, with stupid superstitious people that were going to burn her! She struggled and kicked, and bit, and swore, but the two men holding her were too strong.

They led her over to a very dismal looking building that didn't even deserve to be called a building. There were gaping, rotting holes in the high thatched roof, there were no windows and the door was just barely hanging on its hinges. The door frame was rotted and flaking away. Basically, the building looked ready to fall down. Kagome didn't know what they were thinking. If *she* could see the dismal state of the little but, then they surely could. How did they expect to keep her there?

'Oh, that's how,' Kagome mentally sighed, still kicking and screaming for all she was worth, as they tied her ankles to her hands in back of her. Then one of her captors threw her into the hut and slammed the door.

~*~

A pair of golden eyes watched the scene from high up in the trees. The wind shifted, blowing his long, white hair in his face. The girl was different. She would do.

~*~

Sango shifted in the dark, too tired to cry anymore. Too tired to scream, too tired to struggle, too tired to sleep. Her brown eyes dully stared at the sky, not really seeing anything. Grief shadowed her thoughts. She was alone. Her family was dead. She would be dead soon. She didn't want to die, just escape this God-awful pain.

Flashes of her brother and father ran through her mind. Her brother, hanging out of the window, shrieking in terror as the flames consumed the first floor, shooting out the windows to lick the window frames of the floors above. Her father, holding her back, yelling at her to stay as he scaled the side of the house in an effort to save her brother. The bottom walls, as they collapsed; bringing down the house in inferno of flames and sparks, the heat radiating from the mass of flames so intensely that for twenty feet, it was too painful to bear.

The sound of screaming and shouting of angry villagers brought Sango back from her painful musings.

'Oh no! This is it; they're coming to kill me. I don't want to die!' she thought in anguish. She tried shuffling into a corner, but, tied up as she was, she didn't get far.

The door swung open and Sango cringed at the sudden brightness. Expecting rough hands on her at any moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and tensed. There was a thud and a scream from somewhere near the door. Sango opened her eyes and met another brown pair, surrounded by a dirty, scratched, and bleeding face. Her black hair fanned out, sticking to her neck and forehead. Her strange cloths were dirty and torn in some places. Her hands and feet were bound together behind her back, much like Sango.

Kagome lay panting in the dim interior of the hut. The floor was cold dirt and strewn with pieces of the thatched roof. The only other thing in the hut was the girl lying in the corner. She looked scared and beaten. Looking around, Kagome found the nearest wall and started to shimmy over to it. This proved to be no easy task. The rocks on the floor cut into her skin, snagged her shirt, and pulled her hair, but Kagome was determined to regain some of the control that she had lost. She reached the wall and, using the wall as a balance, she pushed herself against it to rest on her knees, panting heavily, she crawled over to the girl, nearly loosing the precarious balance several times.

The girl, still staring in silent wonder at Kagome was startled when Kagome positioned herself so that her hands were able to reach Sango's hands. Slowly, with fumbling and shaking hands, Kagome was able to undo the ties that held the girl. When she was free, Kagome collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily from the stress of the day and her recent exertions.

Sango continued to lay there, stretching out only when Kagome had taken off the ropes; confusion evident on her face by her creased forehead. The silence was broken by Kagome.

"Hey," she said. Sango sat up and looked at Kagome.

"How about me now?" Kagome asked, still breathing hard. Sango nodded and began to work at Kingdome's ties. They were tied tightly and were hard to get off. Kingdome's hands were changing from an angry red to an abused purple. With renewed fervor, Sango managed to undo some knots and loosen the ropes.

Kagome sighed in relief. The topes had been quite painful and it nearly killed her to make her way ever to the girl that was diligently removing the constraints from her hands and feet. When they were removed, Kagome sat up and rubbed her wrists that were already starting to bruise.

An awkward silence descended o the pair. Both didn't want to initiate conversation, but for different reasons. Sango was nervous of the girl because of her strange cloths. Kagome was in pain and was afraid that if she shattered the silence then the other girl would come to her senses and call her a witch and attack her. Sure, she had just freed the girl, but if you had been having the day that she'd been having, then you would have been paranoid too.

Sango observed the other girl rubbing her wrists. She had a tight, form fitting top on, and it appeared to be the only top she had. She wore some kind of pair of breeches, like a man, that didn't even go all the way down! You could see her ankles! She had strange shoes that showed off her ankles and looked like they could be slipped on and off quite easily. The girl was strange, and obviously not from here. But what to do now? Should she talk to her? What would she say? Was she a witch? What were those cloths? Sango's musings were interrupted again, this time by Kagome.

"*E-herm* Um, my name's Kagome. Uh... do, do you know where we are?" Kagome asked.

"We're in a holding cell. We've been accused of being witches and tomorrow they will burn us," Sango replied with a flat voice. "I'm Sango, by the way."

"I see," Kagome sighed. "Well, I don't know about you, but I really don't want to die. So, I'll just get us out of here." Kagome smiled and shakily got to her feet. Her feet were still recovering from having the circulation cut off, so she was a little wobbly. Kagome teetered over to the door and opened it. Loud barks greeted her and two frighteningly large dogs stood in front of the doorway, blocking any and all escape. Kagome quickly shut the door and retreated to the back of the hut, as far away from the door as she could. She gave a half hearted laugh and said, "Well, I'm out of ideas. Sorry."

"That's fine," replied Sango. "I've been here for a week, and haven't even managed to move very far." She sighed. Kagome yawned and started to push a pile of thatch into something resembling a nest. Then she moved over a bit and started to make another pile. She was tired and wanted to sleep, but it was cold out. Even though she was sure that something was living in that pile of thatch, and it smelt worse than her chemistry class, she preferred it to the cold, hard ground. There wasn't enough thatch to make the second pile, which was for Sango, so Kagome found some rocks and threw them at the roof. She managed to knock some down and brought it to pile number two.

"Here, sleep on this. It's better than the ground," Kagome said, offering the larger of the two piles, since the rocks really didn't bring down all that much more thatch.

"Thank you," said Sango. The tow settled down as the sun started to sink lower into the horizon. Both were wondering if tonight would be their last night alive. Kagome was tremendously frightened. Never before had she been in any position that her life was threatened. Her world had been turned upside down in a matter of hours, and no one was here to answer her questions. She was confused, tired, hungry, hurt, and cold. She wanted nothing more to curl up in her own bed and listen to her mother hum as she went around the house; cleaning up a bit before she went to bed. That brought on another thought. Mom should be home in a couple of hours. She'll be worried. Oh, I hope she'll be okay. Try as she might, Kagome couldn't keep her mind awake. The steady breathing coming from Sango indicated that she was asleep, and Kagome's poor abused body screamed for rest. So, with a sigh, Kagome shifted to get comfortable and quickly fell asleep.

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AN: Ok, that's chapter two. I hope you liked it! Pleas review! I want you all to know, that I have figured out a plot! Yay! But I need ideas for fluff (that's what I call filler. It's not necessarily touching moments) in between the major events, so please read and review! ^~^