InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ When We Awaken ❯ Chapter 2: Urashima Taro ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter Two: Urashima Tarô

Inuyasha’s next recollection was of searing pain in his gut. He tried to roll over to cough, only to see blood spittle onto the hard ground in front of him as he wheezed. Groaning, he managed to roll onto his back again. His forearm covered his eyes and it was difficult to concentrate.

“Inuyasha…?” A gentle voice called out to him. It was somehow familiar and he turned toward the sound.

A wet cloth was pressed against his forehead and gentle arms were trying to get him to lie down.

“Shuushhh…” the female’s voice intoned. “You need to heal…”

His arm that had been covering his eyes fell back to his side. There was dappled light streaming in from above. They were under some sort of large tree. The strange miko, who he had awoken, was kneeling at his side, her face a look of worried concern.

He looked down to see that his entire midsection was wrapped in white cloth, with green herbs jutting between layers. He felt woozy, like he had been out drinking too much last night and had just awoken with a hangover. But this time the pain was not in his head--it was in his stomach.

Inuyasha scanned down his body with an almost drunken stare. He was sure that he remembered wearing jeans before. But now he was wearing some sort of red hakama pants.

He gazed at the miko with a look of befuddlement. “What happened to my jeans?”

“Your pants?” A small blush suffused the girl’s features. “They were too bloody, I had to take them off.”

Apparently his t-shirt had also been removed. Normally he would be utterly embarrassed to have found out that he had been practically nude in front of a girl he barely knew, but he wasn’t coherent enough to think such thoughts.

“Oh,” he muttered with little comprehension.

Inuyasha looked again at the miko beside him. His vision was a little blurry, but for the first time he noticed her bare arms reaching out to him. The billowing sleeves of her miko’s robe had been torn off. Only ragged hems remained. It looked like she was wearing a white tank top.

He batted at her top. He had been trying to point, but his body was weak and wasn’t responding properly. “What happened…?” he queried as he gestured to the rips in her top.

“Oh, I had to bind your wounds and it was all I had.” The girl stopped for a moment to brush an errant lock of silver hair from his face. Her face was full of concern and longing. He found it strange to be the center of such attention, especially when he was bloody and looked like a hanyou. Something warm seemed to pool deep inside of him and made the pain that raked his body diffuse into only a dull roar. He didn’t focus on the weird feelings though, he was too weak to truly understand what was happening.

His eyes closed and he felt the cool cloth on his forehead. However, there was something in the back of his mind that was trying to warn him. Something foreboding was looming, but he couldn’t remember what it was. The gentle scent of the miko surrounded him and somehow it brought him peace.

He sniffed the air and then took in a deep breath. Taking in air backfired on him though, because he quickly fell into another coughing fit, his body heaving as more blood splattered onto the ground beside him.

“Inuyasha!” He looked up to see the girl near him almost in tears. She seemed to steady herself and managed to help him lie down again. This time she managed to prop his head up onto her lap. He sighed with contentment; he had wanted a soft place to put his head. The fact that it was also near her lovely scent and that she managed to gently stroke his hair and ears made it even more soothing. If it wasn’t for the pain that wracked his mid-section, he would have been perfectly happy. He had almost drifted off into unconsciousness again when he heard her voice again.

“Inuyasha…?” she asked. He could only murmur a vague sound in reply. “What is the phase of the Moon?”

For a few moments he just let her words drift through his head and the fogginess that resided there. But then that spike of worry resumed. ‘Why was the moon so important?’

The miko continued. “I can’t see the moon out right now. I haven’t seen it all day today. I have no idea what phase it is in or when you will be…” The last words were barely whispered, “human again…”

In his mind he saw the dark moon moving across starry skies and he remembered what happened on those nights. With a shudder, the apprehension at the edges of his mind seized him with full force. Tonight was his human night. He hadn’t considered it a concern when Hojo had first setup their camping trip, but now that he was injured, his raw insides churned in sudden apprehension. If he didn’t heal enough while he was a hanyou, he could die. His entire insides had been ripped out. A human could not survive such an injury.

The look on his face must have told her all she needed to know. “It is tonight, isn’t it? The new moon…” She muttered silently, but then resumed stroking his hair and ears. “Rest for now, we’ll handle it when the time comes.”

Confusion reigned. He didn’t let anyone know about his human night. Since he normally wore a necklace that made him look human, even when he was a hanyou, no one could tell the difference. Except for his immediate family and a select few, no one else knew of his damned weakness.

She said that she knew him. Perplexity crossed his features when he realized that she knew things that no causal friend of his would ever know. How and why could she know of his greatest weakness?

The miko kissed his forehead softly. He looked up at her with widened eyes. He should have told her to stop. He didn’t know her, but there was something edging at the back of his mind that told him that she was familiar and that everything was as it should be.

Inuyasha looked up at her in befuddlement. He was trying to ascertain the conflicting emotions that were coursing through him, but the pain was overwhelming.

“Sleep, Inuyasha” she whispered as her nimble fingers stroked his ears and long silver hair. It was soothing, he felt like he was falling.

He tried to fight the blackness that was overcoming his mind, but her scent lulled him. Once again he fell into the nothingness of sleep.

Inuyasha woke with a start, his hands clutching his gut. He looked up to see the glimmering of the sun fading away behind the canopy of the trees.

Deep inside he felt the magic fade. The energy that made him a hanyou was swiftly leaving his body.

He looked up to see frightened eyes looking at his, but in a moment, the miko schooled her features. Her face was now placid and still.

“You are already through the worst of it,” she replied with calmness that he wasn’t sure that she really felt.

He felt like such a weakling in her arms. For some reason, he didn’t want her seeing him this way. Why it bothered him, he did not know. She was nothing to him, just a girl who he had just met.

He looked up at her again, the pain intensifying in his gut as his silver hair faded away into the dark. The tips of his hair turned dark grey before becoming obsidian black.

“Fuck!” He grabbed his gut again.

He wasn’t going to cry. He would never cry, no matter how painful it was. He would never show weakness, especially not in front of a human girl.

“Inuyasha!” The girl held his face in her hands and peered into his violet eyes. “You will get through this. You will not leave me!”

Inuyasha saw her stormy grey-blue eyes water at the edges. Glistening tears started to accumulate and made her lashes sparkle in the dim fading light. Tears ran down her cheeks and then he felt the warm droplets as they fell like warm rain onto his face.

For the briefest of moments, his pain subsided. He could only stare in perplexity at the girl above him. For the first time, he truly realized how lovely she was. With a moment of clarity, he brought up a hand with blunt fingernails to her face. He stroked her cheek, wiping off the residue of her tears.

There was a half-smile on his lips as he looked up at the miko who held him in his arms. He never wanted to die, but if he could be in the arms of such a lovely girl while he passed away, he could be content.

He felt weak. He was human and for the very first time in his life, he felt like he might be dying.

The pain in his gut was total. Fierce fire ringed his gut. It felt like he had been eaten alive from the inside. He coughed again, blood dripped from his mouth and he noticed the bandages that ringed his abdomen were now laced with splotches of blackened blood.

Inuyasha looked up at the girl who had cupped his cheek with her hand. She looked so worried, so he tried to smile at her. But his smile quickly faltered as pain ripped through his chest.

He couldn’t help it; a ragged scream erupted from him. Sweat dotted his forehead, he felt feverish and worn. Black spots emerged in front of his vision. He tried to focus, but it was a losing battle. He felt his eyes start to roll back.

The girl, who had let him sleep in her lap, shook his face. Teardrops fell onto his cheek. He felt the hot liquid falling into a small rivulet down his face, before dropping off his chin.

“You will not leave me Inuyasha! You swore to protect me!” she yelled.

His head lolled to the side and just when he was going to let unconsciousness invade his mind, he saw white light erupt from the girl holding him.

“I couldn’t use my purification magic while you were a hanyou, but I can while you are human. Hang on, Inuyasha. Just until morning. Dear Kami! Please, hang on!” The miko sobbed, while he felt a white-hot energy coursing through his body. When it reached his gut, he screamed again in pain. There was something lingering in his system, some sort of poison that this energy was doing battle with. He gritted his teeth as he felt the purifying energy surging through his system, electrifying every nerve ending in his body. It washed over him, until he simply had to let go. His eyes drifted close once more.

He barely heard the miko yelling at him as he let the blissful sleep take over his beat up body and wearied mind.

“Don’t leave me, Inuyasha!” she cried.

Then there was only peaceful darkness.

Someone slapped Inuyasha in the face. “Fucking hell! Get up!” yelled a man. His voice sounded strangely familiar.

Strong arms were shaking him. Inuyasha tried to bat at them; he needed them to stop. He wanted to continue sleeping.

“You are not going to sleep. You are not going to give up now!” The voice was insistent and it was progressively starting to piss him off.

Inuyasha let one indolent violet eye peer up at the man shaking him. His eyes met angry golden orbs.

“About damned time that you woke up!” the man yelled.

Inuyasha tried to make out who was shaking him. It was the same figure that he had dreamed about last night.

Inuyasha squinted his eyes to look at the man. He took in the familiar image. Silver hair, dog-like ears twitching on the man’s head in annoyance, amber eyes and fanged teeth peeking out over the man’s lip. Just like his dream the previous night, this man was wearing a red kimono, with a sword at his side.

However, for the first time Inuyasha recognized what the man was wearing. The very outfit the miko had tried to give him, as well as the dull blade that was worn on his side.

“Why are you…why do you…” was all Inuyasha could mutter before he felt the cold grip of eternal sleep tugging at his consciousness. His eyes refused to stay open, and his eyes were heavy. “Just need to rest…”

His protests were met with more violent shaking.

“No fucking way, hanyou! Not this time. You are not giving up!” The man was yelling in his ears. Even his dull human ears were startled by the sound. His eyes refocused and looked at the man above him, shaking him awake.

“You. Will. Not. Sleep,” said the hanyou. Each word punctuated by another shake. “I waited too long for you to finally wake up. And now she’s here….

The man hovering above him was adamant and seemed on the verge of losing it. The ancient samurai warrior continued to yell.

“She’s fucking here, dammit! You will not die on me! I can’t lose her again!”

Inuyasha looked up at the man, bewildered. He gave up on the need to sleep. Obviously this jackass, who looked like him, would not let him rest. But what plagued him the most was whom the man was talking about.

“Who…who are you talking about…?” was all Inuyasha could say.

A sad smile crept onto the man’s lips. A fang peeked out from above the man’s lip. “The one I waited 500 years for…”

Inuyasha drew his eyebrows together in confusion. He looked again at his doppelganger, but the man’s golden eyes morphed into something softer. Something that was stormy grey... Something with a gentle scent…

Soon ebony locks surrounded him and a beautiful girl was peering down at him. Tears wetted her eyes and the peach rays of the sunrise had settled on her face.

His hand, which bore blunt nails, reached up to her face and stroked a few tears away from her cheeks, “Why are you crying?”

The girl gasped and latched onto his hand with her own, locking his hand in place, cradled against her cheek. “Inuyasha!” Slowly her frown turned into a sad smile. The tips of her lips curved upward, while tears still stained her face.

She whispered, “I was so worried.” She swallowed and then turned her eyes to face the rising sun. “I don’t know what I would do if I had lost you…”

Sharp pains still wrenched his abdomen. But he could feel his powers returning. His palm, which was pressed against her cheek, grew nails with sharp claws. He saw the ends of his hair whiten and then the pain in his gut slowly started to quell.

His hands left her face and clasped around his gut. He tried to swallow as the healing energy of his hanyou blood coursed through his body, mending the tears, fixing broken sinew.

The poison that had been in his system was gone, and now his healing blazed forward with incredible speed. He would still need some time to recover, but at least his body was finally recovering from his near disembowelment. In a few more hours, he might be fully healed or at least well enough to walk.

He tried to move his hands behind him to sit up; he had been in the miko’s lap all night. Just the effort to move forward made him cry out in pain. His stomach was not completely healed; his tissues were still reknitting. It felt like a hot skillet had been shoved into his gut.

The ebony haired girl tried to help him up, but he growled so that she would leave him alone. He hated being helped by anyone, especially a girl who seemed to be better at combat than he was.

It was very painful, but he managed to roll himself out of her lap and he collapsed on the ground beside her.

After a grunt of pain, he turned to look at the miko who had tried to help him up and momentarily panicked. It took a few moments for him to realize what had happened during the night. He had been a weak, frail human. He had even had the audacity to show his vulnerabilities to the girl in front of him.

Instead of looking at the miko with gratefulness, his emotions lent themselves to internal anger. ‘What the fuck had been my problem last night?’ He had been whining like a little girl in front of her—the very miko that had managed to destroy the very demon that had attacked him.

Inuyasha turned his head away from her in fury. He found that he couldn’t even look at the girl right now.

It was then that he noticed what he was wearing, or for that matter, what he was not wearing.

“What the fuck? Where in the hell are my clothes?” Inuyasha pulled at the red kimono that covered his frame and then looked pointedly at the miko. “Why in the hell am I wearing this?”

The girl in front of him started to blush. A reddish hue grew on her cheeks, just as the peach-pink rays of the morning sun reached her face. Her long ebony hair was disheveled and tear streaks could still be seen on her cheeks. But yet again, he was struck by how lovely she was. His sudden anger dissipated into the ether. Something seemed to strike at his very gut; something that made him queasy and he turned his head away from her in confusion.

“Well,” the girl was slow to respond. “Your clothes were mostly destroyed from the attack and covered in blood, so I had to change you. Luckily, I had your robes with me…”

Cold washed over him. The girl had changed his clothes? He looked down at himself again. She had managed to take off his jeans and his t-shirt. He didn’t know if he was going to be bold enough to check and see if he was still wearing underwear.

“You undressed me?!” he stammered.

“Yes,” the miko replied while her eyes searched his for understanding.

In both surprise and mortification, Inuyasha stated, “You saw me naked?”

The young girl blushed again. Her cheeks turned even redder. She nodded quickly and then tried to add a few words. “But it’s not like I haven’t seen you without your clothes before…” Then the girl looked him directly in the eye. “And it’s not like you haven’t seen me nude…”

Inuyasha’s eyes widened to almost comical proportions. Then he realized that he was dealing with some sort of crazy chick who believed that she had known him in the past. However, this was unbelievable. He had never even seen her before yesterday.

“You have never seen me naked before! And…And, “ he stammered as he tried to get past the next words. But images of a lovely, nude miko invaded his mind. He could see her curves and bare skin, her pert breasts and rosy nipples. For some reason he imagined her wet, her pale skin glistening, her dark hair clinging to her shoulders and curving around her breasts.

He gulped. “And if I had ever seen you naked before, I am sure that I would have remembered it!”

The strange girl in front of his seemed to be on the verge of crying or…to Inuyasha’s complete confusion and dismay, the miko started to laugh. Effervescent giggles seemed to churn out of her.

She folded her bare arms over her stomach as she leaned forward to laugh. She was a peculiar sight, a miko with sleeves that were torn away and dirt on her red pants. Dried tears still stained her face, but he could see that mirth was steadily taking over the gloom that had pervaded her features.

“I’m glad that you find this so fucking funny, wench!” the hanyou managed to grit out between his teeth.

Her laughter quickly subsided and a winsome smile lit up her face. “It’s good to hear you back to normal, Inuyasha,” murmured the girl as she looked at him with honest approval.

The hanyou had no idea what to think of her. She was obviously crazy. Most girls he knew would have been insulted by now and would be telling him what an absolute bastard he was. But this girl seemed unfazed. In fact, it seemed that his unruly, moody behavior made her…happy.

She was definitely insane!

The miko smiled at him again. It was an indulgent smile that you would give to a mischievous kid. Then she schooled her features and stood up. She smoothed out her red hakama pants and brushed away some loose dirt. After sweeping a curl of raven hair behind her ear, she looked at the hanyou, who was still lying on the ground, clutching his mid-section.

“I’m going to start a fire and get something to eat,” she announced.

Inuyasha was too disgruntled to go along with her plan. “Good luck on getting take-out!”

“Take out?” the miko stated in confusion.

Inuyasha wanted to continue to badger her. But she did look thoroughly confused by his statement and she had managed to bind his wounds. For that matter, perhaps she had been responsible for saving his life, but that thought didn’t sit well with him, so he dismissed it.

“Never mind,” he said as he grunted his dismissal of the girl.

Inuyasha tried to let sleep retake him. He was wondering how long it would take the miko to realize that they were in the middle of a National Park, with absolutely no means to make dinner or to get a cell phone signal. But then he heard a sharp scrapping noise behind him and he reluctantly turned around.

His eyes narrowed in confusion as he saw the miko hitting something near a small pile of sticks and dried grass. She seemed to be striking a smooth rock against the metal button on his jeans.

He was surprised to see small sparks fly with each strike. The girl seemed pleased and managed to move his jeans closer to the straw. Eventually, a wayward spark fell onto the yellowed grass and then it flickered into a small flame. She blew on the tentative fire that danced before his eyes and it suddenly blazed.

The miko simply smiled as she moved the smaller sticks around the steady flame. Soon even larger pieces of wood were added and a real fire was ablaze.

“How did you do that without matches?” he had to ask.

The strange girl just shook her head at him and smiled. She squatted next to him. Her hand reached out to his ear, but then she seemed uncertain of herself. She sighed and pulled her hand back without ever having touched him. “You have forgotten so much, Inuyasha. Don’t tell me you have also forgotten how to start a fire?”

“Now, just listen here, wench! I haven’t forgotten anything…I just…”

His words quickly ended as he watched the miko start to leave the encampment. He swallowed. He was not about to admit it, but he had found her presence comforting. They had just been attacked yesterday. What if that demon came around again while she was gone?

Another nervous swallow followed, but he refused to say anything about it. He was a man, dammit! Men didn’t need women protecting them, especially a weak, human female.

The girl swung her bow across her back and there was one arrow in her quiver. She then pointed to the edges of their camp.

“I managed to find some of my arrows last night. I used three of them to set up a barrier.”

Inuyasha could only purse his black eyebrows together in confusion.

He watched as the girl briefly turned away from him and then waved her hand over something that shimmered. There was something there, something that must have managed to keep things away.

At first he told himself that was impossible. No miko would have that sort of power. Then he realized that she had shown some very bizarre abilities yesterday. He had never seen a miko fire a spiritual arrow that made things explode, but he had witnessed it with his own two eyes.

Not only was the girl insane, she was apparently…magical.

Inuyasha sighed. Crazy or not…at least the wench was on his side.

“I’ll be back soon, with some food,” she murmured before she stepped past the barrier and into the woods.

Inuyasha tried not to feel vulnerable with the girl gone. He was a hanyou. He was from a great line of dog demons! Suddenly, he felt very small and alone.

Why had he never taken up his father or the Taijiya clan on their offers to learn defensive training? If he had only learned how to fight correctly, he could have protected the miko and he wouldn’t have been mortally wounded.

He then snorted to himself in realization. His mom had told him it wasn’t necessary in this day and age. Vengeful demons were well under control by the Taijiya clan. Besides, he knew who would be teaching him if he was trained and that would also mean a steady dose of humiliation. Unfortunately, he now knew that he would have to swallow his pride and eventually ask for help. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes, either for himself or for the strange miko that had allied herself with him.

He tried to make himself comfortable on the hard ground, while his hands clenched against his stomach. Inuyasha tried to relax, but that was something he was never good at. Meditation evaded him, however his body soon succumbed to the numbness of a fitful sleep.

Inuyasha didn’t know how long he had been sleeping, but the blissful scent of fish cooking over an open flame wafted into his nostrils. Almost on cue, his stomach started to rumble and he felt the gnawing pains of hunger course through his body.

“Can you handle some food, Inuyasha?” asked the miko tending the fire.

Inuyasha slowly moved to get up. The pain in his midsection was almost gone; all that remained was hunger. He looked up in confusion to see the girl kneeling next to a fire, with four small fishes on sticks, leaning over the small campfire. The miko was slowly turning the wooden skewers, so that each side of the fish was nicely roasted.

“Don’t get up,” the miko intoned with a hint of worry.

But Inuyasha didn’t want to be placated. He was embarrassed enough as it was for acting like a wimpy human the past night. How would he ever live it down?

The miko moved closer to him and placed a bottle of water near his lips. He looked down to see a plastic bottle that had seen better days in front of his mouth. But he was thirsty and drank with abandon.

Then the sweet smell of freshly cooked fish drifted right under his sensitive nose. He immediately salivated as the girl brought a skewered fish up to him and tentatively broke off a small piece of fish and offered it to him.

He grabbed the food gruffly. “I’m not an invalid. I can feed myself!”

Reluctantly, the girl gave him the entire fish, which he munched down with relish. It wasn’t until he was done and his stomach was still rumbling that he looked up at her again.

There was a tentative smile on her face. He also noticed for the first time that she had somehow managed to freshen up in the middle of the forest. Her face no longer held dried tracks of tears and the smudges of mud on her face and arms were now cleaned. She looked fresh and beautiful.

He only gaped for a moment before he tossed the leftovers of the first fish into the fire and motioned for another one.

She handed a grilled fish to him and started to eat one herself. All the while her grey-blue eyes flitted to him, watching his movements.

He burped and wiped his mouth with his billowing red sleeve before he looked at her again. “How in the hell did you get some fish in the middle of the forest?” He was curiously intrigued.

She only shrugged and lifted her bow to her lap then arched her eyebrows. “I learned how to fish with a bow and arrow when I was a child. It’s not hard. Surely you remember how to catch fish as well, you were always better than me…”

His eyebrow twitched in confusion. He had never caught a fish—ever. He knew how to order takeout and how to make ramen. But living off the land? No, he had never done that. He chose not to answer the maddening girl. So he only huffed in reply, crossing his arms over his chest.

The girl only wore a secret smile while she finished off her fish and offered Inuyasha a third one, which he ate as if he was famished. Once they were done, she kicked dirt onto the fire and got ready to leave. He noticed at this time that his jeans and ripped t-shirt were hung against a stick frame to dry. He had entirely forgotten about his clothes.

He grabbed his t-shirt first and gave it up for lost. It had been ripped so badly, that there was no way that he could wear it now. Inuyasha threw it on the ground in disgust.

His jeans were another story. Kagome had managed to scrub most of the bloodstains out of them. But what he really needed was his wallet. He momentarily panicked when he worried that it was lost. But he was happy to find it was still in his back pocket. Some of his paper Yen was waterlogged, but otherwise it was in working order.

He did not have his cell phone or his keys. Those items were back at the campsite he shared with Hojo and Miroku.

“Dammit!” Inuyasha exclaimed. How long had he been gone? His friends must be worried about him by now. Maybe they had even thought he was missing.

“What?” murmured the miko as she glanced at him with concern. “I’m sorry about your clothes…”

“It’s not my clothes,” replied Inuyasha tersely. “My friends…they’ve got to be worried about me. How long has it been?”

The miko blinked. “Since I woke up and you healed? A day and a half…?”

Inuyasha cursed. “I have to get back to camp.” The miko looked on at him in confusion. Something told him that he couldn’t leave her behind. Whatever had attacked him might be dead, but who knew if there were other things out there--other demons that wanted them both dead. “Get on my back!” he ordered as he crouched down.

He was a little surprised to see the miko only smile, before grabbing the arrows that formed the perimeter of their camp and then scrambled up onto his back as if she had been doing this all of her life.

Inuyasha only swore to himself before he took to the trees again. His life had become surreal once she had stepped into it. He was still wondering if he was in a dazed dream.

It only took him a few minutes to get back to the campsite that he had stayed at with his friends. He landed and the miko quickly crept off his back without a word from him. She seemed to be able to sense what he needed.

Nothing was left at the campsite. He could see the bent grass where the tent had been and the small ring of stones that had once held a campfire. He scented the air. They hadn’t been here for well over a day. They must have already left.

“Fuck, they’re gone,” he exclaimed.  It made sense for them to leave. They were supposed to leave yesterday. Perhaps they thought he had run off and without his cell phone, they could not contact him. He only hoped that they had packed up all of his stuff for him. Once he got back to civilization he was going to give his friends a call.

The girl only looked at him with wide, unblinking eyes. “Now can you take me to the Musashi-Mitake Shrine?” she pleaded.

Inuyasha only nodded, but this time he tugged at his beaded necklace and murmured the words that made the concealment enchantment come to life.

He didn’t bother looking at his hair, which was turning black. He didn’t look at his fingertips, which were turning into blunt human nails, rather than the claws of a demon. He only looked at the strange miko, trying to gauge her reaction.

“What?” she exclaimed in confusion before she moved forward. She took his hand in hers without asking, testing the ends of his nails and then had the audacity to touch his fake human ears, only to find that what she touched was not really there. “Wow,” she exclaimed. “That is very useful magic.”

Inuyasha only snorted. His voice was unchanged, even if his appearance had been altered. “It’s the only way to keep people from screaming when they see me.”

“Why would…?”

Kagome tried to finish her thought, but Inuyasha was now in a foul mood and did not want to entertain her questions. He swung her against his back and found that it felt perfectly normal to have her there. It was as if there was an empty a space for her on his back, he just didn’t know until now that she was supposed to be there.

Wind quickly whipped around the duo as he took to the trees again. He slowed down once they got close enough to the shrine grounds for a human to notice them. He dropped to the ground and let Kagome climb off of his back.

She adjusted her bow and arrow before smiling at him.

Inwardly, he wanted to smile back. But he fought that instinct. There was no reason to smile at the girl; she had only made his life progressively complicated since she had been in it. Besides, he was quite sure that he would have never been attacked if it weren’t for the girl he had awoken.

He quickly crossed his arms and turned his back to her, walking forward onto a dirt path. She didn’t seem to take offense to his rude behavior and only trailed behind. Sometimes she would whistle or mimic the calls of the birds in the area. But she seemed to know that he wanted time to himself. He needed to think and process this crazy experience of his.

He hoped that once they had gotten to the shrine that she would give up on this crazy idea that he was under a spell. Something was obviously going on, but it had nothing to do with spells or witches. At least he thought that was the case.

He wavered in his beliefs as the paths they took became wider and more traveled. Inuyasha approached the outskirts of the Shinto shrine. Vendors had set up shop along the path. Some were selling rice balls or skewered fish, their wares on display near the small fires they had burning in the crisp mountain air.

Inuyasha peered over his shoulder to look at the miko. Her brows were furrowed in thought. She quickly hurried so that she was walking next to him.

“The shrine it is this way I think,” she noted as she gestured along another path and guided them down it.

Inuyasha could only frown and shrug as he followed the wayward miko. She gaped in disbelief once they came to the foot of the shrine steps.

The Musashi-Mitake Shrine had stood at the same location for two millennia, virtually unchanged. The large, red Torii gates that lead up to the shrine were near a dense mountain forest, conifers shrouding both sides of the path. The stone steps leading up to the gate were time worn from centuries of use. You could see indentations in the stone where footsteps had worn down the hard mass over time.

However, it wasn’t the structure that had her confused, it was the tourists that were milling around. She stared in confusion, taking in the bright multi-colored clothing, the backpacks, the strange hats and even the small metal objects that many of them were holding.

The miko turned and took a tentative step up the stairway, her hands resting for the first time on the metal guardrail. Her hands caressed the aluminum metal, stroking it like you would a cat.

A look of panic overcame her features as she started to sprint up the steps, running past the torii gates. “Kaede-sama!” she yelled. “Kaede-sama!”

Inuyasha only shook his head and followed the errant miko. Part of him was feeling pretty satisfied for knowing that she must have been wrong about finding this ‘Kaede’ at this shrine. Logically, it also followed that the miko had been wrong about the ‘spell’ that she thought he had been under.

He huffed in satisfaction before he noticed the girl’s cries were becoming more plaintive--more desperate. He quickly ran to the top of the steps, winded tourists heaving for breath next to him as they trudged up the steep steps.

The miko was not winded, but she seemed to be panicking. “Kaede! Kaede-sama!” she cried as she spun around at the shrine’s main entrance. No one by that name came forward, however a Shinto priest did manage to approach the miko.

He was an elderly man with long flowing white garments, purple hakama pants and a black cap was on top of his graying hair. His eyes were gentle and had the wrinkles of wisdom at the corners.

Kagome gasped as she looked at the man. The Shinto priest started to bow and she quickly followed suit.

“Miko-san,” he stated with a gentle smile.

“Kannushi-san,” she replied as she looked at him beseechingly.

“Are you looking for someone, miko-san?” he asked politely.

Kagome looked like she was at the verge of tears. Inuyasha finally noticed that her eyes were welling up. She tried to wipe her eyes with the sleeves of her top, but only noticed at the last minute that her sleeves had been torn off. For a brief moment, Inuyasha felt badly. It was because of his injuries that she was walking around with ripped clothing.

“If I may, miko-san,” added the priest as he reached into his pocket and with a flourish he brought out a paper tissue.

He handed the tissue to Kagome and she wiped her eyes before asking again.

She bowed once more as she asked, her arms folded in front of her as if in prayer. “Kannushi-san, I am looking for Kaede-sama. Have you seen her here?”

The elderly man paused in front of her trying to ascertain her question. “Who is Kaede-sama, miko-san?”

Kagome looked at him miserably. “My sensei. She’s a very wise miko. She was…she was in charge of this shrine…I…”

The man only looked at her curiously. “I have been working here for over twenty years, miko-san and I have never met a woman by the name of ‘Kaede’ working here.”

Kagome brought her hands up to her mouth in astonishment. “No…no,” she turned her head left and right. Not quite believing the words that the man had just pronounced.

‘Fuck!’ Inuyasha wasn’t the type of guy who ever tried to calm down a crying woman, but there was something about the girl, she seemed so lost, that called to him. He ran forward, his red hakama and sleeves billowing in the wind as he ran. He was quickly at her side, but he had no idea what else to do. He stood by her awkwardly.

The older man looked from the young girl to the dark haired Inuyasha. “Does this young man know where Kaede-sama is?” he questioned.

Kagome turned to fist her hands in Inuyasha’s red top. “How long have I been sleeping, Inuyasha?”

Inuyasha only looked down at her in confusion. “You woke up a day and a half ago. I don’t…”

She fisted his jacket again. “Who is the emperor of Japan now, Inuyasha? When I fell asleep ‘Go-Nara’ was the Emperor of Japan!”

Inuyasha could only look down at her quixotically. “Emperor Akihito currently sits on the throne,” he replied. “Who is Go-Nara?” He could only turn and look at the priest standing next to them, begging him for guidance. Inuyasha rarely paid attention in history class; the ‘Go-Nara’ name was foreign to him.

The priest drew his brows together in confusion. “Emperor Go-Nara? Wasn’t he emperor during the ‘Warring States Period’ in Medieval Japan?” The man shook his head as if to laugh. “Young miko, you cannot have slept for so long. ‘Urashima Tarô’ had three days turn into three hundred years. When he awoke the world had changed greatly and no one knew who he was.” He paused and looked at the startled miko with a look of mirth in his eyes. “If you indeed fell asleep while Go-Nara was emperor, you look far too fresh and young to have been sleeping for over five hundred years.”

Kagome’s eyes only widened, then her eyes rolled back revealing white. Inuyasha only had a brief second to grab her petite frame before she collapsed in front of him.

“Was it something I said?” asked the priest.


The Next Chapter: ‘Tokyo’ will be posted next weekend.
Author's Notes:
#1: Go-Nara was Emperor of Japan from 1527 to 1557. The current Emperor is Akihito (1989-). In Japan, time is usually measured by the emperor’s reign, not by the Gregorian calendar.
#2: The Japanese version of ‘Rip Van Wrinkle’ is known as the legend of ‘Urashima Tarô.’ In the legend a fisherman saves a sea turtle and he finds out that the turtle was actually a princess from the sea. He is asked to visit the sea kingdom of the turtles as a reward for saving her and he stays there for three days. When he returns home, he finds that no one knows who he is and that three hundred years have passed while he was away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D
#3: ‘Kannushi’ is a male Shinto priest. I am sure that I don’t need to tell anyone that a ‘miko’ is a female Shinto priestess.
#4: I have not been to the Musashi-Mitake Shrine. However, I have been to several shrines in Japan and have styled this shrine after the ‘Nikko Shrine’ I visited.
#5: What I am currently reading: If the Roles Were Reversed by Glon Morski. This lady writes the most fantastic fight scenes and her characterization is spot on. Highly recommended.