InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ When We Awaken ❯ Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past ( Chapter 8 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Ai Kisugi 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.02.2013 | Pages: 7 | Words: 9.8K | Visits: 490 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.02.2013 | Pages: 7 | Words: 9.8K | Visits: 490 | Status: Work In Progress
Chapter Eight: Echoes of the Past
Kagome stammered in disbelief. “Sesshomaru-sama…”
His father dropped his arm and stood between the miko and Inuyasha. For the first time in Inuyasha’s life, he noticed that his dad was wearing a look of befuddled surprise. No one else would have noticed the subtle change in his features, but it was his raised brows and the slight widening of his eyes that gave his father’s restrained emotions away.
His father’s eyes narrowed. “Miko, how is it that you are still alive…?”
Inuyasha felt the telltale stirring of a spiritual barrier flashing into existence. It shimmered around their joined hands and bodies, like a large, translucent, soap bubble.
“What are you…?” muttered Inuyasha as he looked down at her in concern. Wasn’t she afraid of his bloodied hands and claws? Why was she holding his hand if she was frightened?
He sniffed. She still bore the unmistakable air of fear. He was quite certain that his father would pick it up as well. But if it wasn’t him that Kagome was scared of then whom?
His father turned regally and faced the couple, his impeccable white and silver kimono swishing with the movement. Sesshomaru’s visage bore an emotionless mask, but Inuyasha could tell there was more brewing under the surface. His father’s eyes were narrowed and the tips of his lips were curved into a subtle frown.
“I asked you a question, Miko. I suggest you respond,” intoned his father dryly.
Kagome only looked ahead at the resplendent dog demon; steadfast determination on her face. Her entire body seemed tense and her hand gripped Inuyasha’s tightly.
The miko only took in a deep breath, never taking her eyes off of Sesshomaru. “I can only guess why I was sleeping for 500 years, Sesshomaru-sama. But I think the jewel and Inuyasha have everything to do with it.”
Inuyasha tried to make a shushing noise. He really needed Kagome to be quiet. If his father and Miroku heard her insane story, they’d never let him near her again.
But then the hanyou looked at his father. If anyone could read his father’s impassive emotions, it was Inuyasha. His father was taking Kagome and her strange story seriously. ‘He couldn’t possibly believe her…!’
“Indeed. So the Shikon-no-tama caused this?” asked his father. Apparently, her story of sleeping for 500 years did not faze him.
Inuyasha looked back and forth between his father and Kagome. “How in the hell do you know him?” asked Inuyasha point blank, however Kagome wasn’t acknowledging him, only continuing to stare steadily at Sesshomaru.
There was a gasp from Miroku. “The Shikon-no-tama?” he exclaimed incredulously. Inuyasha’s eyes batted back and forth between his father, Kagome and Miroku. The word ‘Shikon-no-tama’ seemed to have meaning for him, but he couldn’t put his finger on why it was familiar.
Koga only continued to moan on the floor, oblivious to what was happening around him. Eri was just looking at all of the participants, her face alight with bewilderment. Miroku was starting to mutter something about the Shikon and a legend.
Kagome looked down at her feet guiltily before she returned Sesshomaru’s even gaze. Her eyes seemed reddened as she replied, “Yes, Sesshomaru-sama.”
“Explain, Miko.”
Kagome only squeezed Inuyasha’s hand more tightly in hers. “I don’t know how much you knew about your brother.”
Sesshomaru’s face tightened. “I should have kept closer tabs on him. I was remiss in my duties.”
Kagome’s eyes flared with anger. “Remiss? You call trying to kill us…remiss?”
“What the fuck?” Inuyasha looked at the woman holding his hand before he glared at his father. “You tried to kill Kagome, Dad? What’s going on…?”
“Silence, Inuyasha!” commanded Sesshomaru as he took his attention away from Kagome for a mere moment before centering on his son. “We will talk when this is done.” He paused and then narrowed his eyes at their conjoined hands.
“Miko, I have many regrets about things I have done in the past. But you must understand that 500 years have passed. I have changed.” He waited for a few brief seconds. “Though, you have not... Explain!”
Kagome looked pained. She looked up at Inuyasha briefly, as if begging him to understand.
Inuyasha could only shake his head. “How in the hell does he know you, Kagome? Why is he talking about 500 years ago?”
The miko only looked up at him with sad eyes. “I met Sesshomaru-sama long ago. Over 500 years ago… I have never lied to you, Inuyasha. I have always told you the truth.”
Inuyasha only looked at her dumbly as she turned to face his father.
“The day before I was to move into Inuyasha’s hut, the young kannushi, who was in my charge…” Kagome swallowed visibly and then continued. “Something horrible happened to him. Somehow he was eaten alive by a swarm of demons…”
“Continue, Miko,” said his father impassively.
“After I realized what had happened, I ran to let Inuyasha know. But I found a strange sight…there at Inuyasha’s hut I saw someone who looked just like me and she was…”
Iciness washed over Inuyasha as he realized she was describing his nightmare from two nights ago. He felt frozen as he dropped his hand away from Kagome. He looked at his own blood stained hands before he finished her words. “The girl…” Inuyasha swallowed. “There was something wrong about her. She put her arms around my neck and then…” Inuyasha could only shake his head in disbelief. ‘It was only a dream! But it had seemed so real.’ “Then I saw another Kagome call out to me. I saw two of them…then I looked down at the girl who had her arms around my neck. She only sneered at me before her arms turned into sharp claws that sliced at my neck…I…”
Inuyasha stepped away from Kagome. He felt the barrier around them almost ‘pop’ when he stepped outside of it. He could still imagine that girl’s face—Kagome’s face—leering at him in utter satisfaction as she quickly sliced off his head.
He rubbed his neck in agitation.
Kagome tried to walk toward him, but he only motioned to her to stay where she was. “Inuyasha, I am so sorry…I…”
“Don’t!” was all he was able to say as he stood immobile.
Now his father moved faster than the wind to stand between them once again. This time his father was looking at Inuyasha with narrowed eyes as well. Something was causing him disquiet.
“You haven’t finished, Miko. Why are you here?” demanded Sesshomaru.
“I…I,” Kagome stuttered and then drew a chain that hung around her throat. At the base of the chain was something that looked like a large pearl. She only stared at it, turning the pearl over in her hands. “I didn’t mean to, but I had seen Inuyasha’s head cut off in front of me. That demon that looked like me, the shape-shifter, somehow disappeared and I…I just crumbled at Inuyasha’s feet… I remember wishing with all my heart, that all I ever wanted was to be with him. I think the jewel answered my wish…”
Sesshomaru continued. “And it somehow brought you here to the present time? How?”
“I slept.” Kagome looked desperately at Inuyasha. “Please tell him, Inuyasha. Tell him how you found me?”
Inuyasha had been looking at the ground, but he managed to look up briefly to meet his father’s face. “It was at the park where we were camping out. I found Kagome and she wasn’t breathing.”
“She was the one you gave CPR too?”
Miroku laughed. “Is that what they’re calling it these days? You sly dog, Inuyasha!”
Inuyasha only glared at Miroku. “I wasn’t like that…I…” He took a long hard look at Kagome and then turned away as he continued. “There was no life in her; I thought that she might need CPR.”
“And then she woke up?” continued Sesshomaru dryly.
“Yes,” sighed Inuyasha in indignation.
Sesshomaru motioned for Inuyasha to stand behind him. “Son, it is time that you went home. I think there is a lot of things that you need to think about.”
Kagome seemed overcome with shock. “Wait? Son…?! He can’t be your…”
Sesshomaru’s eyes glittered with rage. “Don’t ever tell me who he is, Miko! You have been asleep for 500 years. Don’t mistake my son for my brother who died long ago.”
Kagome stammered. “But I…” she looked again at her feet. “It took me a while, but I knew he wasn’t my Inuyasha…”
The miko’s words reverberated in his head and for the first time, Inuyasha finally understood them. ‘He looked like you, he talked like you, he had your name…but he died.’
A sharp pain seemed to cut him from the inside. He had tried to keep his distance from the crazy miko since the very beginning, but there was something about her that drew him to her like a magnet. And now he knew that when she had first kissed him so desperately, that she had been thinking of another man from another era. When she called out his name while sleeping, that she hadn’t been thinking about the person who was beside her.
All she had been thinking about was different man, from another time. Someone who shared his same face, his same name…
“What the hell am I to you, Kagome?” Inuyasha was as hurt as he was infuriated. “Just a fucking substitute for a dead guy? Is that why you gave me his stuff? So I’d look like him?”
“No, it’s not like that Inuyasha…I…” her voice seemed close to breaking.
“Fucking stop it!” he yelled.
It was then that he noticed tears flowing from Kagome’s eyes, falling like tiny rivulets down her cheeks. The simple sight shocked him. He had been so caught up in his own misery that he never noticed that he had managed to hurt her. The sharp pain near his heart seemed to worsen when he looked at her tears.
“Kagome…I,” Inuyasha took a step forward and attempted to brush her tears away from her cheeks. But after looking at his bloodied claws, he pulled his hand away.
She stared at him steadily; then wiped her cheeks with her own billowing sleeves.
Inuyasha’s father spoke to them both. “I think you both have a lot to think about. And Miko…”
Kagome had already turned away and was making her way to the door. She paused for a brief moment while Sesshomaru was talking.
“My son is not your Inuyasha. He died over 500 years ago… If you ever confuse the two, it is me you’ll answer to.”
She only nodded as the door shut behind her.
All Inuyasha could do was shake his head in confusion. Raw pain emanated from his heart, but he still had an inexplicable pull to go after Kagome and to protect her. Without any conscious thought or volition, he turned to follow her out of the door. But his father immediately grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.
“Not now, Son…”
Panic at what might happen to Kagome without him around to protect her overrode any logical thought in his brain. “But, Dad she needs to be protected! A demon is trying to kill her…”
“And you…” his father relied tonelessly before turning to look at Eri. “Slayer! Follow the miko and report back to Sureiyâ-san. She is to be watched at all times. Understood?”
Eri only nodded in acknowledgment before hastily scurrying to the door. She only glanced at Koga warily, before stepping over his groaning form on the floor to follow her new charge.
Sesshomaru then turned to his son. “Come home with me, Son. There is a lot we need to talk about and we need to continue with your training.”
His father’s words felt hollow. He still stared blindly at the door Kagome had used to exit the gym, his heart already heavy with emptiness and regret. A firm grip by his father on his left arm kept him from making another mad dash after Kagome.
He was lying on his back, trying to make sense of all his parents had told him today about his own past and about his Uncle Inuyasha. He flicked the blade Kagome had given him in and out of the sheath. Hearing the sword ‘click’ again and again as he played with it seemed to soothe him.
He sat up and ran his clawed hand through his silvered hair. “Fuck!” Inuyasha didn’t know who he was angrier at, himself or Kagome.
He laid back down on his futon and looked at the exposed wooden beams of his ceiling.
His father had been the first to grill him about his ‘Uncle Inuyasha.’ He had never known much about his uncle, other than knowing that he bore his name and had an uncanny resemblance to him. He recalled his mother telling him long ago that was why she had decided to name him ‘Inuyasha,’ in honor of his long-dead uncle.
His mother apparently had a soft spot in her heart for the dog-eared hanyou from the Feudal era, much more so than his father. His father typically snorted at the mere mention of his uncle. Apparently, there had been some bad blood between them. He just never knew how much until tonight.
While his mother waxed poetically about how brave and honorable his uncle had been, Sesshomaru was considerably more disparaging.
Apparently, his uncle had chopped off Sesshomaru’s arm with the very Tessaiga that he now held in his hand. Luckily for his father, it grew back after a few hundred years. It was during that same incident that Sesshomaru said that he did some regrettable things. He had attempted to kill both his uncle and Kagome, all because his father wanted the Tessaiga.
Inuyasha was happy to hear that the Tessaiga no longer seemed to hold much sway over his father. Sesshomaru had decided it would be best in his son’s hands, while he wielded the Tenseiga, a sword that brought the dead back to life.
His father also admitted to being ‘judgmental’ of his brother, often threatening to kill him simply for being a half-breed. Young Inuyasha gasped in shock at the revelation. His father had sired seven hanyou children, how could he possibly be racist against hanyou?
His mother smiled at the comment and only ruffled her husband’s hair. “Sesshomaru needed time to come to grips with what his brother represented. You see his father left Sesshoumaru’s mother for a human woman, Izayoi. And Sesshoumaru blamed the infidelity and the resulting child for his mother’s unhappiness. It also didn’t help that she had installed a desire for pure bloodlines since his birth.”
It was strange to see his father leaning into his mother’s touch as she scratched the back of his neck, just as you would do to a puppy dog. His father sighed.
Their son only snorted, his parents were getting sappy in front of him and that was something he wanted to avoid.
Their knowledge of Kagome and the Shikon-no-tama were less detailed. Apparently, the Shikon-no-tama (the jewel of four souls) was a sacred object that Kagome had been protecting. However, the gem itself had a great pull that constantly lured demons and even some humans into its corrupting embrace.
Inuyasha felt a chill when his father described the jewel. Some whisper of a memory called to him, telling him it would make him powerful, make him a full demon, make him whole… Somehow he felt that he had once been pulled by its sway, he had once been after the gem.
Dreams of chasing Kagome and being pinned against a tree by her sacred arrows pulled at the edge of his mind, only to be replaced by other memories. Memories of him saving the miko’s life…fighting demons who dared to attack her…holding her close…
Both his father and his mother verified that Kagome had actually lived over 500 years ago in a tiny village that wasn’t too far away from the park where he had awoken her. He learned that she had teamed up with his uncle to defend the Shikon-no-tama. Apparently, together they made a formidable team.
“They loved each other…” his mother had added sympathetically.
“I know,” Inuyasha had sighed. Somehow the mere thought of anyone other than himself embracing Kagome made him clench his teeth in anger. He knew it was only his uncle, he knew it had happened over 500 years ago. But he also knew that for Kagome, it had felt like mere days since ‘her Inuyasha’ had died.
That made the ache in his heart cut even deeper. He didn’t want to be compared to ‘Kagome’s Inuyasha.’ Some secret part of him wanted to be ‘her Inuyasha’ instead. He didn’t want to have to compete with a ghost.
‘But how do you compete with someone’s first love?’
He contemplated the words as the sun slid into deep red and then faded into navy and then to black. He woke from his reverie when he realized that it was dark.
Despite what his father had said about spending time apart from Kagome, he couldn’t ignore the drive that was panicked at the idea of not being next to the miko’s side. She was probably expecting him at night and there was no way that a midget, like Shippo, could properly protect her.
He slid on the bracelet that made him blend in with his surrounding like a chameleon and caused his scent to dilute almost to the point of nothingness. With his robes of the fire rat and his Tessaiga at his side, Inuyasha strode confidentially out of his room.
And was quickly grabbed by the scruff of his collar again before being gently dropped back inside of his room.
Sesshomaru’s image flickered into being as the taiyouki tugged off his concealment bracelet. He simply raised an eyebrow at his son and stood there impassively.
“When I mentioned that you needed time to think about what has happened, I meant it. Make no more attempts to leave until I allow it.”
Inuyasha had fallen backward onto his tatami mats and managed to prop himself up on his elbows. He still couldn’t understand how his father could see him, though he guessed that it was probably his father’s keen sense of smell that identified him.
“They leave Kagome with only a kitsune kid to protect her at night! I need to be there!” Inuyasha protested in anger.
“Detective Sureiyâ told me about a volunteer, a hanyou who will take over the night watch.”
“Another hanyou? Who in the hell?”
“Your friend, Akitoki Hojo, will be there to watch her at night. Sleep and do not leave this room! Tomorrow we will continue with your training.” With that pronouncement, Inuyasha’s rice paper door was pushed closed. Then the shadow of his father which had fallen on the thin white doorframe, dissipated into the ether.
It felt like icy water had washed over his body when Inuyasha’s friend was mentioned. He had his misgivings about his buddy recently, especially in relation to Kagome. Inuyasha knew that Hojo would do everything he could to protect the miko, but he had seen the way the boy had looked at Kagome. He felt like he had not only abandoned Kagome, but that a rival he had never intended to have, had just taken his place.
Inuyasha’s jaw trembled in frustration and anger as he imagined his friend sleeping on the bedroll next to Kagome at night. “Fuck!”
As the days wore on, his hope flickered. His repeated matches with his father became plodding and lifeless. He found that he lost the will to fight. Even as his father repeated the mantra of imagining someone behind him that he needed to protect, all he could think about was that Hojo was the one who was currently protecting Kagome.
He felt useless and cast aside. Kagome knew that he wasn’t the man she had known and loved. Perhaps she would just move on now that there was another hanyou to take his place, another man who could protect her, a man who wasn’t being sequestered by his parents like an errant child.
Inuyasha had just finished showering, his wounds finally reknitting after the green poison had been washed away. A white towel was slung low on his hips, while he towel dried his unruly, silver hair.
His father’s shadow emerged on the other side of his rice paper door. “May I come in, Son?”
“Give me a minute,” Inuyasha huffed as he rifled with his clothes, throwing on a pair of sweats. Then he called over his shoulder. “Enter.”
Sesshomaru moved the rice paper door to the side, walking in regally. He stopped to look at the Tessaiga that was laying on Inuyasha’s futon. The dog demon bent down to pick up the sword. With a soft click, the sword was released from its sheath, its battered form dully reflecting against the lamplight of the room. “Such a powerful sword. But it only works when the wielder is protecting a mortal.
Inuyasha took a deep breath as he tried to quell the desire to rip the sword from his father’s hands. His fists clenched at his thighs and then he felt a deep sigh of relief when his father sheathed the sword and handed it back to his son.
His father continued. “Within the sword lays great power, which you can tap into, my son. But you have not been able to do so recently. Why?”
Inuyasha’s brow was furrowed in concentration. For the past three days, he was unable to get the Tessaiga to transform into its true form. The hanyou shrugged. “I don’t feel like I have anyone to protect…”
His father’s brows narrowed. “And who would you protect…?”
Anger surged in Inuyasha, and he all but yelled at his own father. “Kagome! But you fucking won’t let me protect her! And now Hojo, who has wanted her since the moment he saw her, is the one who gets to protect her. I’ve been replaced. I’m fucking useless now…”
His father didn’t react to the sudden fury. “So your mother has been telling me over the past few days... It seems that you and Tessaiga only have a spark when you have a mortal close by to protect.”
“Yes, and her name is Kagome! You don’t know what it’s like to worry about someone constantly. To wonder if the next time you’ll see her, that she’ll be dead…only because you weren’t around to protect her!”
His father breathed sharply through his nostrils. His golden eyes gleamed dangerously. When he spoke, it was a harsh whisper. “The first time I used the Tenseiga, it was on your mother…” Inuyasha whirled around, his surprise diluting his rage. “I felt the heartbeat of my sword for the first time that day, as I held Rin’s broken and bloodied body.” Sesshomaru turned away from his son, facing the walls of the room and bowing his head down low. “She was only a small child at the time. Only on a whim…” He heard his father choke on the words. “On a whim…I brought up the Tenseiga to see the denizens of the underworld attempting to pull her down with their ghastly chains. I sliced them to shreds and then saw Rin revive in front of me. Her mortal wounds reknitted. Then for the first time in my life I saw a genuine smile of tender affection.
His father turned around and Inuyasha noticed for the first time that red rimmed his otherwise golden eyes. “I kept her with me. I told everyone she was my ‘pet.’ And I knew that I could keep her, because the Tenseiga could always bring her back to me. Then I found out the secret of the Tenseiga …” Sesshomaru took a deep breath. “It can only bring back a being from the underworld once. It is not a limitless tool.
“Once I learned that I could never bring her back again from the dead, that she was indeed mortal, I finally knew that she was more than a mere pet. My pigheaded pride and foolishness had kept me from understanding that I had loved her since the moment I saw her. For five hundred years I have lived with the fear of my Rin dying and knowing that I could never bring her back if she did.
“So don’t tell me that I don’t know what it is like to worry about someone constantly and to wonder if the next time I see her, that she’ll be dead.” He paused and looked back down at the sword at his side, the Tenseiga. “I might know more than you realize…”
Inuyasha swallowed, wanting to take back the very words he had just spewed in rage. “Dad…I’m sorry…”
His father’s lips were a thin line as he responded. “You can thank your mother for convincing me to let you go and protect Kagome…”
Inuyasha could only gape in astonishment at the pronouncement and was about to thank his father, when Sesshomaru held out his hand as if saying ‘stop.’
“I have given you time to think about Kagome and who she truly is. If you get too entangled with her too soon, it will be detrimental to both of you. She needs time to grieve and to realize who you really are…
Sesshomaru paused, pointing his finger at his son. “And you…need to understand that you are getting involved with a girl who sees your long-dead uncle every time she looks at you.”
Inuyasha swallowed and bitterness welled in his stomach. He knew that his father was speaking the truth and was only trying to protect him, but he would be damned if he spent another day away from Kagome. Even if she never fully separated his uncle and himself in her mind, he knew that he’d still protect her until his dying day. There was no other option.
He met his father’s eyes and responded, “I understand.”
“Indeed…” was the measured reply.
He grimaced as he looked at himself in a mirror. There was nothing modern about his clothing and his hanyou ears stuck out of his silver hair. He had two options, wear his necklace that was enchanted with a glamour spell and made him look human or wear his bracelet of concealment, which made him virtually invisible.
He tugged on his concealment bracelet. He was tired of pretending to be human. If he had learned one thing from spending his time with Kagome, it was that he could actually be who he really was, a hanyou, and she would still accept him. He really didn’t want to be anything else…at least not when she was around.
Almost immediately, he blended into his surroundings. Only a thin deviation, like the bevel in a glass window, marked the outline of his body. He left through the window of his room that overlooked the garden, bounding high and heading for the Higurashi ‘Sunset Shrine.’
Thirty minutes later, he had made it to the shrine. It was still mid-day, so Kagome should have been on the grounds. But a quick perusal of her scent found that she had left the shrine a few hours ago. Even more disconcerting was that her scent mingled with Hojo’s; she had apparently left with the boy.
Inuyasha couldn’t help but let a low growl rumble from his chest. He knew that Hojo had been assigned to protect Kagome in his absence, but finally confronting the truth made him shake with fury. There was no logic in his mind, only a deep sense of betrayal and numbing hurt.
Only the hint of rushing wind disclosed that Inuyasha had leapt from the shrine and was hot on the footsteps of Hojo and Kagome.
Inuyasha’s search across Tokyo was maddening; he would occasionally lose their scents among the many odors of the city. The smell of trash, urine, human sweat, tires on the asphalt and the salty air of Tokyo Bay assaulted his senses. Trying to distinguish the gentle scent of Kagome’s within the cacophony of smells nearly made him retch.
He groaned when he picked up on a fresh and strong scent of Kagome and Hojo coming from the Tokyo Metro. Of course, the trail was leading to Shinjuku, the single largest underground subway station in the world. Over one million people passed on through its doors every day.
Taking advantage of his nearly invisible state, Inuyasha jumped past the turnstiles. Then he moved within the large concrete corridors leading down into the subway stations. Within moments he lost every trace of Kagome among the sea of humans that were ebbing and flowing through the passages.
Inuyasha looked up and leapt onto the billboards that were electronically displaying the arrivals and departures of the busy subway system. He crouched on the large monitors as they flashed periodic updates in Japanese and English.
He ran his hand down his face as he tried to establish her scent again, but it was lost among the fetid smells of humans, oiled trains and cool concrete. He let his head hang back and attempted to listen, letting his dog-like ears twitch back and forth with the myriad of sounds.
There was no sound of Kagome and her scent was lost. Over the harsh discord of voices and the screeching of a subway car, he heard a young boy wailing.
His ears swiveled to the sound.
“Pikachu! Ma…ma! Pika! Gone!” wailed a young toddler with short black hair and a shirt jacket.
A young boy had managed to disentangle himself from his mother and was crying and pointing at his yellow stuffed animal that had managed to find itself on the train tracks. Inuyasha was about to turn away when he heard a voice that was very familiar.
“Little-one, please don’t cry. We can get your doll back,” murmured a familiar feminine voice.
Inuyasha’s head turned quickly to take in the image of the girl he had gone without for almost a week. His heart had felt like lead, but just watching her made it somehow lighten as he watched Kagome kneel in front of the toddler.
Kagome smiled winsomely at the small toddler and then pointed at the yellow plushie on the tracks. “Is that the doll you need?”
“Want Pika,” sniffed the little boy.
Kagome just smiled and looked to see that there were no trains arriving before she started to climb down onto the train tracks.
“What the fuck?” Inuyasha didn’t think, he simply moved. All of the subway trains ran on electric tracks, Kagome would be electrocuted if she touched the electric rails.
His feet landed on the concrete embankment of the tracks, and then with a quick leap he had managed to grab Kagome as she started to climb down, her smaller form nestled against his chest.
For a brief second all was right in Inuyasha’s world, Kagome was in his arms and this time he was rescuing her. He felt her warm, lithe form. As she took a sharp breath, he felt her breasts move against his solid chest.
“What? Who?” exclaimed Kagome as she became airborne within Inuyasha’s arms. She only took a moment to realize what was happening, despite the fact that both Inuyasha and herself were now invisible. “Inuyasha?” she asked with a note of wonder.
Inuyasha could feel her pressed up against him, but it was disconcerting that he could not see her eyes when she was so close. Of course that also meant that she could not see him. He took a moment more to feel her body against his before he gradually released her in a shadowed corridor near the tracks. As she stepped away her form came back into view.
Inuyasha cursed, she couldn’t see him when he wore the concealment bracelet. He activated the necklace that made him look human and then tugged off the bracelet.
She looked up at him with wide eyes. He stood before her with his long black hair, violet eyes, human ears and the red robes of the firerat. His face bore a scowl.
He should have asked for her to forgive him for not protecting her this past week, but his emotions were broiling. He was angry that she had left with Hojo, even if the boy was protecting her. And he was even angrier that she had risked her own life.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Kagome? Risking your life for a stupid stuffed animal? If you went on the train tracks you would have died!”
She only looked up at him in confusion. “What? How could I…?”
Inuyasha’s human face twitched in annoyance. He pulled a few Yen from his pocket. “Watch this…”
And then threw them at the track near where the Pikachu plushie lay.
Electricity arched and crackled when the coins hit the tracks. Kagome’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked down at the tracks and then looked up again at Inuyasha.
She seemed to be about to say something when the little boy started crying again. “Want my Pika!”
Kagome was back at boy’s side in an instant. Inuyasha could only run his hand down his face. ‘Why in the fuck does she want to help everyone she sees?’ he quickly padded after the girl, so that he was standing behind her, his arms crossed and his face a firm grimace of annoyance.
She turned to look up at Inuyasha. “Is there any way that we can get his doll without getting hurt?”
Inuyasha’s forehead developed a tick as he contemplated the request. He frowned, but knew that Kagome would keep on pestering him and the boy would keep on crying if he didn’t help.
He took out his Tessaiga and handed the dull blade to Kagome. She looked at him questioningly as he took the sword’s sheath and walked toward the train platform.
The samurai blade Kagome was wielding momentarily distracted the kid, while Inuyasha tried to fish the stuffed animal off the electrified train tracks with the wooden sheath. Within a few seconds, he had the plushie in his hands.
Inuyasha wasn’t prepared for a small tyke to run towards him and grab him by his knees. “Tanks!” the toddler murmured to his legs before looking up with a toothy grin and reaching for the Pikachu plushie.
The black haired teen managed to crack a smile. “Sure, kid.”
“Seiki!” yelled a frantic mom who had just managed to push through the crowd around the station. She stopped right in front of the red kimono clad teen and managed to bow profusely.
“Thank you, for finding Seiki,” she repeated while bowing.
Inuyasha could only scratch his hidden ear as the mother and boy smiled up at him.
He felt a gentle nudge from his side and then noticed that Kagome was also smiling at him. An odd floating sensation seemed to center in the middle of his chest. She motioned for him to follow her.
Unbeknownst to both of them, once they had exited the area, Hojo arrived with a worried smile on his face. He was holding up two ice cream bars, one in each hand. “Kagome? I got you the ice cream you wanted. Kagome…? Kagome…?”
He noted that yet again she was wearing her white and red miko’s robes. Even if his feudal attire made her think of his uncle, he couldn’t help but to think that they looked natural walking with each other.
Once they made it past the subway entrance, Kagome stopped and looked at him blankly.
“Thank you, Ash. I thought that we could start over…” Kagome bowed to him formally. “I am Kagome.”
Inuyasha felt like the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. He felt unsteady as he faced the girl who had kissed him passionately just over a week ago.
“Oh, no you don’t!” barked Inuyasha as he moved close and nearly yelled in her face. “No fucking way. We’re…” he ran a finger pointing to both of them “…too damn familiar to be going back to introductions.”
“But…I thought…” said Kagome demurely as she looked away from Inuyasha.
“Dammit! Just stop thinking, Kagome…just…” He was centimeters away from her again and it hurt to be so close to her. His eyes were pained as his hand reached for her cheek. When he touched her face he couldn’t help but to revel in it. Why did one woman make him feel so torn and yet so whole? “Kagome,” he said her name in reverence.
She only looked up at him in confusion.
Inuyasha swallowed. He saw her open her pink lips to say something and he just reacted.
Without any thought to the consequences, he moved his lips against hers. The first time they kissed, she had initiated the act; it was her lips that had desperately seized onto his. This time he was the one who had no control, this time he was the one who needed her.
She seemed to freeze for a moment, her mouth opening in protest. But Inuyasha stumbled in blindly, his tongue licking the inside of her mouth. He held her hands down at her side, worried that she might bolt. But then he felt her relax, her form acquiescing to his.
Now he journeyed languidly, his tongue tasting the inner corners of her mouth and her tentative tongue meeting his. At the first indication that she was returning his kiss, his stifled a groan, his hands moving to her back, as he pressed his body up against hers.
Kagome’s hands moved up to touch his chest. He liked the way her soft hands felt, until they pushed against him, breaking the kiss.
Neither one of them spoke for a moment as they tried to catch their breath.
The miko looked up at him guiltily, her swollen lips quivering with words that never made it past her lips.
“Kagome?” he asked in frustration and confusion.
Her eyes started to water and a few tears escaped.
“I…I can’t…” she cried.
“What in the fuck do you mean…‘You can’t’?” he demanded.
“You!” she sobbed while pointing an accusing finger at him and looked at him miserably. “You abandoned me and you…you’re not…”
Inuyasha snarled. “Yes, I’m not fucking HIM! Yes, I know!” he yelled. His words had the effect of slapping Kagome as she looked away from him, her cheeks red.
She took a deep breath and then looked at him resolutely. “You don’t understand. For me he just died. I told you that I needed time to mourn. Whenever I look at you, I see…”
“Him,” Inuyasha finished with a note of disgust.
Kagome only nodded, while she looked away and fidgeted with her robes. “I talked to Hojo about this. He thinks that we should both…” Kagome swallowed and looked up at Inuyasha sadly. “…spend some time apart.”
Inuyasha’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Thoughts of gutting someone who had once been his good friend invaded his mind. He asked in accusation. “Is that what you want, Kagome?”
She looked up, searching his face. Again her lips moved, but nothing was said. She paused. “Yes…No.” Kagome shook her head and gazed at him dejectedly. Her lips trembled again as she threw her small form against his chest and sobbed.
Inuyasha’s hands moved around her small frame and held her fast. He let out a strangled breath that he didn’t know he had been holding.
“Don’t go…” she whispered wretchedly.
“Never,” he replied.
They stood there for some time, Inuyasha holding Kagome. Eventually the young couple drew apart. Kagome wiped her eyes again. Then she took a smartphone out of her hip pocket. Her lip twitched with amusement as she showed it to Inuyasha. “Hojo bought it for me…”
Before Inuyasha could protest and perhaps throw the piece of equipment into the nearest trashcan, she managed to maneuver through some touch screens until she found Hojo’s name written in Kanji.
Inuyasha was so flabbergasted at her near expert abilities at using a cell phone, that he was momentarily shocked into submission.
She pressed her finger down on Hojo’s name and the cell phone initiated the call.
“Hojo,” Kagome murmured into the small cell phone. “Yes, I am fine. Ash found me…No, I am perfectly fine…no, I will not need your help tonight. Thank you so much for protecting me these past few days, but Ash will be with me …
Inuyasha could hear the other end of the phone and Hojo’s increased protests. “I am perfectly fine. No, do not come out now. I will see you tomorrow at work.”
She hung up the phone and sighed.
“Let me…” Inuyasha stated as he gestured for her cell phone.
She gave it to him with bewilderment clearly written across her face.
With a few quick taps to the phone’s screen, Inuyasha had his name and phone number typed in.
“Now you can get a hold of me whenever you want,” he said proudly as he handed the phone back to her.
She returned his gesture with a bemused half-smile as she pocketed the cell phone within her red miko pants.
Kagome took in a deep breath and looked at him sideways. They had started to walk together down the sidewalk in downtown Tokyo.
“I have questions for you, Ash.”
Inuyasha grimaced both at the mention of his assumed name and being asked such a hesitant question. Still, he decided to brace himself and bear it. At least she had told Hojo to get lost for the day. He smiled warily and then gestured toward the stone gates of the ‘Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.’
The garden was Tokyo’s equivalent to New York’s ‘Central Park.’ It was a veritable oasis among the skyscrapers that rimmed the vast gardens. However, unlike the wildness of Central Park, Japanese botanists had tamed this garden. It was filled with pebbled walks, sculptured trees and bushes, towering maples, rock gardens, koi ponds and wooden bridges.
Inuyasha paid for their admission and then gestured for them to walk along a meandering pebbled pathway lined with moss and cherry trees.
At first Kagome seemed at a loss as she looked over the grounds. The gardens seemed like a slice of rural Japan nestled around modern glass and steel buildings. Large skyscrapers, as well as verdant green trees were reflected on the koi pond.
Inuyasha fidgeted with his sword at his side. He was trying to not think about what she might want to ask him.
The miko gestured to a park bench where they both sat down. For a few brief moments, Kagome only closed her eyes, breathing in the clean garden air and letting dappled sunshine fall on her face. Inuyasha could only stare.
When she opened her grey-blue eyes she looked at him with contemplation. Inuyasha quickly decided that he didn’t like that look. He tried not to swallow reflexively.
“Ash…,” she turned to look at him questioningly. She continued in a whispered voice, “Inuyasha…you said at two different occasions that you remembered a girl who looked like me killing you. You said you also remembered seeing two of me. Can you please tell me what you remember? It is very important to me.”
Inuyasha paused, trying to remember the faded wisps that glimmered across his mind. “They’re all dreams, Kagome…feelings…there’s nothing concrete.”
She interrupted. “But you have already described them to me…”
Inuyasha shook his head in annoyance and did his best to describe the dream he had of the girl trying to kill him. He found that repeating the story to Kagome, in the sunshine of a garden, made the terrified memories of his nightmare seem distant. For once, he actually felt comfortable telling her what he had seen.
Kagome continued to pepper him with questions. Asking him what else he knew about her and her past.
Whispered words, vague feelings and passing images flittered through his mind. It was hard for him to tie anything down and to make a concrete storyline out of them. At best he was only able to tell her that he had dreamed of being in the Feudal era with her; that he felt that he had protected her, and that he really disliked a young boy that she took care of.
Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. Tiny droplets started to fall.
“Kagome, what?”
The girl paused to wipe her face with her sleeves again. But this time she was not despondent. This time she had a lovely smile on her tear stained face.
“Inuyasha...” Kagome paused and looked away from him. Taking in the large koi pond in front of them. She took a deep steadying breath and gazed at him again. “Somewhere deep inside of you…you remember…”
Inuyasha only looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t…”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “I told you before…you’re a reincarnation of…”
Inuyasha crossed his arms in front of him and wore a scowl. “My fucking uncle…again? I told you I am not him.”
Kagome sighed. “You are and you are not.”
“What?”
“Yes, you are different and you understand this crazy…” Kagome made a sweeping gesture to the area around them. “…modern world.” She paused at him again. “But somewhere deep inside of you, there are memories from 500 years ago. I can only guess that this…” She pulled out the small jewel that hung on a chain around her neck. “…had something to do with it.
She looked at him again, trying to gauge his reaction. “This jewel had the capability of granting one ‘right wish.’” Inuyasha only gazed at her with uncertainty on his features. “The wish had to be unselfish. I never meant to wish, but when Inuyasha died in front of me, I had wished that we could still be together. The jewel must have answered it, because all I knew was darkness until you woke me up.”
Inuyasha’s face colored as he remembered finding the girl underground. How he thought she was dead or dying and how he had tried CPR. His attempts at resuscitation ended up in one of the most heated and enjoyable kisses that he had ever participated in.
The girl in front of him sighed. “Still…I am from the past and you are from this odd new world…” She turned to him again, while he tried to make sense of their crazy conversation.
Inuyasha reached out his hand to her. “I…I just want to protect you,” was all he could add.
She stretched her hand to meet his and smiled shyly at him. “Can I stay by your side?”
The hanyou smiled as he nodded. He liked the feeling of holding her hand; it made him feel at peace. Still there was a knot of annoyance in his chest. When would she stop comparing him to his uncle? How could he get her to let go of the past?
He was about to open up his mouth when a look of utter astonishment pervaded Kagome’s features.
Kagome was looking past his shoulder, behind him and pointing. “What…?” she asked.
Inuyasha turned to barely make out the form of a young boy in the robes of a kannushi, running past the grove of cherry trees in the garden. The boy’s long ebony hair was the last thing he saw before he disappeared behind the trees.
Something about the boy seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place him. All he knew was a feeling of dread was washing over him.
Before Inuyasha could stop her, Kagome quickly got up and started to run after the boy. “Naraku?” she called out in question.
Inuyasha only ran his hand over his face before he yelled out to her. “Kagome, stop. We need to stay together…” He patted the Tessaiga at his side in assurance before he started to follow her. Just as he was about to rush into a quick sprint, something caught his leg…
And Inuyasha plowed face down into the stepping-stones of the walkway near the koi pond, while Kagome ran on ahead of him. She was still calling out to the boy, rushing on ahead without looking back.
He looked down to see a black tentacle holding onto his ankle. His eyes traveled quickly down the blackened appendage to see that it was attached to the same demon that had once attacked him at his apartment.
A man’s torso sat on the squirming mass of blackened tentacles, like a large octopus writhing in the middle of the garden. The man had long dark hair, the sculptured face of an aristocrat and black eyes that only held anger and hatred.
“I would have let you live if you had only stayed away,” stated the demon.
Another appendage wrapped around his neck from behind, Inuyasha grasped the choking tentacle with his hands so that he could keep breathing. As he looked behind to see where the other limb had come from he spied the eyes of another demon that looked exactly like the one in front of him. It was as if two doppelgangers of this demon were present to attack him.
“Surprised, Inuyasha?” queried the demon behind him with a sneering smile. “Now you will finally get out of my way!”
With that the appendage around his neck squeezed tighter and another appendage wrapped around his other leg, effectively pulling him in two directions. He was being strangled and pulled apart at once.
And Kagome was nowhere to be found…
Author's Notes:
#1: So err…wow. I was astounded and amazed by the response my last chapter garnered. Thank you for all of the reviews. It helped to spur me on and get this chapter written.
#2: My hubby is doing well. He’s recovered from surgery and is back at work. Thank you everyone for your well wishes.
#3: I have always been annoyed by stories that had black and white parents who are cardboard cutouts. Since when did any of us have parents who were like that? ;-) I wanted to make Inuyasha’s parents credible, flawed and loving individuals.
#4: Yes, that little boy at the train station had a ‘Pikachu’ plushie from Pokemon.
#5: Answers to questions I have been getting…
Who is Sesshomaru’s wife? Well, Rin of course, it wasn’t meant to be a surprise. Please do NOT consider her to be a twist.
What are the next two twists? Well, I won’t tell, but I will reveal that the next one is a plot twist and NOT a character reveal. Oh and it’s coming up very soon. It won’t be long… MuHahaha…
Am I deliberately misleading you? Well, I don’t think I am, but I will omit certain details (like Inuyasha’s parents names) until there is a point to the story where I think the reveal would be more dramatic. There will always be clues interspersed throughout the chapters that I think will make much more sense when you re-read this story when it is over. There are a lot of undercurrents to this story, most will not be revealed until the end.
Is Inuyasha really a reincarnation? Yes, he is. However, there are a couple of extenuating circumstances (i.e. the shikon-no-tama) that have caused his reincarnation to remember some of his pre-carnation’s past.
One of my betas asked about Sesshomaru’s reaction to Inuyasha’s ‘memory’ of being attacked in this chapter. She was asking what did Sesshomaru make out of it? Didn’t Sesshomaru realize that his son was a reincarnation of his brother? Sesshomaru is in denial. He really does not want to face his son as a reincarnation of his estranged brother. Rin, on the other hand, thinks this is all terribly romantic and is already planning Inuyasha's wedding. ;-) Sesshomaru is also concerned for Inuyasha's heart. He sees Kagome as someone who sees his son as his long-dead brother and who'll just break his son's heart.
~~~oo0oo~~~Warning: Some swearing and violence. ~~~oo0oo~~~A big shoutout goes to Eggry who helped with a key scene in this chapter.~~~oo0oo~~~Special thanks to my awesome and talented betas: Alpine and SplendentGoddess~~~oo0oo~~~ ‘Thinking’“Speaking”~~~oo0oo~~~ No golem Kikyos were used or abused in the writing of this story. ;-)~~~oo0oo~~~
Last Chapter:Kagome stammered in disbelief. “Sesshomaru-sama…”
His father dropped his arm and stood between the miko and Inuyasha. For the first time in Inuyasha’s life, he noticed that his dad was wearing a look of befuddled surprise. No one else would have noticed the subtle change in his features, but it was his raised brows and the slight widening of his eyes that gave his father’s restrained emotions away.
His father’s eyes narrowed. “Miko, how is it that you are still alive…?”
~~~oo0oo~~~
The miko moved quickly and wordlessly between Inuyasha and his father. She never took her eyes off of Sesshomaru, staring at him steadily, as if in challenge. Silently and deliberately, she reached for Inuyasha’s hand and then held it in hers.Inuyasha felt the telltale stirring of a spiritual barrier flashing into existence. It shimmered around their joined hands and bodies, like a large, translucent, soap bubble.
“What are you…?” muttered Inuyasha as he looked down at her in concern. Wasn’t she afraid of his bloodied hands and claws? Why was she holding his hand if she was frightened?
He sniffed. She still bore the unmistakable air of fear. He was quite certain that his father would pick it up as well. But if it wasn’t him that Kagome was scared of then whom?
His father turned regally and faced the couple, his impeccable white and silver kimono swishing with the movement. Sesshomaru’s visage bore an emotionless mask, but Inuyasha could tell there was more brewing under the surface. His father’s eyes were narrowed and the tips of his lips were curved into a subtle frown.
“I asked you a question, Miko. I suggest you respond,” intoned his father dryly.
Kagome only looked ahead at the resplendent dog demon; steadfast determination on her face. Her entire body seemed tense and her hand gripped Inuyasha’s tightly.
The miko only took in a deep breath, never taking her eyes off of Sesshomaru. “I can only guess why I was sleeping for 500 years, Sesshomaru-sama. But I think the jewel and Inuyasha have everything to do with it.”
Inuyasha tried to make a shushing noise. He really needed Kagome to be quiet. If his father and Miroku heard her insane story, they’d never let him near her again.
But then the hanyou looked at his father. If anyone could read his father’s impassive emotions, it was Inuyasha. His father was taking Kagome and her strange story seriously. ‘He couldn’t possibly believe her…!’
“Indeed. So the Shikon-no-tama caused this?” asked his father. Apparently, her story of sleeping for 500 years did not faze him.
Inuyasha looked back and forth between his father and Kagome. “How in the hell do you know him?” asked Inuyasha point blank, however Kagome wasn’t acknowledging him, only continuing to stare steadily at Sesshomaru.
There was a gasp from Miroku. “The Shikon-no-tama?” he exclaimed incredulously. Inuyasha’s eyes batted back and forth between his father, Kagome and Miroku. The word ‘Shikon-no-tama’ seemed to have meaning for him, but he couldn’t put his finger on why it was familiar.
Koga only continued to moan on the floor, oblivious to what was happening around him. Eri was just looking at all of the participants, her face alight with bewilderment. Miroku was starting to mutter something about the Shikon and a legend.
Kagome looked down at her feet guiltily before she returned Sesshomaru’s even gaze. Her eyes seemed reddened as she replied, “Yes, Sesshomaru-sama.”
“Explain, Miko.”
Kagome only squeezed Inuyasha’s hand more tightly in hers. “I don’t know how much you knew about your brother.”
Sesshomaru’s face tightened. “I should have kept closer tabs on him. I was remiss in my duties.”
Kagome’s eyes flared with anger. “Remiss? You call trying to kill us…remiss?”
“What the fuck?” Inuyasha looked at the woman holding his hand before he glared at his father. “You tried to kill Kagome, Dad? What’s going on…?”
“Silence, Inuyasha!” commanded Sesshomaru as he took his attention away from Kagome for a mere moment before centering on his son. “We will talk when this is done.” He paused and then narrowed his eyes at their conjoined hands.
“Miko, I have many regrets about things I have done in the past. But you must understand that 500 years have passed. I have changed.” He waited for a few brief seconds. “Though, you have not... Explain!”
Kagome looked pained. She looked up at Inuyasha briefly, as if begging him to understand.
Inuyasha could only shake his head. “How in the hell does he know you, Kagome? Why is he talking about 500 years ago?”
The miko only looked up at him with sad eyes. “I met Sesshomaru-sama long ago. Over 500 years ago… I have never lied to you, Inuyasha. I have always told you the truth.”
Inuyasha only looked at her dumbly as she turned to face his father.
“The day before I was to move into Inuyasha’s hut, the young kannushi, who was in my charge…” Kagome swallowed visibly and then continued. “Something horrible happened to him. Somehow he was eaten alive by a swarm of demons…”
“Continue, Miko,” said his father impassively.
“After I realized what had happened, I ran to let Inuyasha know. But I found a strange sight…there at Inuyasha’s hut I saw someone who looked just like me and she was…”
Iciness washed over Inuyasha as he realized she was describing his nightmare from two nights ago. He felt frozen as he dropped his hand away from Kagome. He looked at his own blood stained hands before he finished her words. “The girl…” Inuyasha swallowed. “There was something wrong about her. She put her arms around my neck and then…” Inuyasha could only shake his head in disbelief. ‘It was only a dream! But it had seemed so real.’ “Then I saw another Kagome call out to me. I saw two of them…then I looked down at the girl who had her arms around my neck. She only sneered at me before her arms turned into sharp claws that sliced at my neck…I…”
Inuyasha stepped away from Kagome. He felt the barrier around them almost ‘pop’ when he stepped outside of it. He could still imagine that girl’s face—Kagome’s face—leering at him in utter satisfaction as she quickly sliced off his head.
He rubbed his neck in agitation.
Kagome tried to walk toward him, but he only motioned to her to stay where she was. “Inuyasha, I am so sorry…I…”
“Don’t!” was all he was able to say as he stood immobile.
Now his father moved faster than the wind to stand between them once again. This time his father was looking at Inuyasha with narrowed eyes as well. Something was causing him disquiet.
“You haven’t finished, Miko. Why are you here?” demanded Sesshomaru.
“I…I,” Kagome stuttered and then drew a chain that hung around her throat. At the base of the chain was something that looked like a large pearl. She only stared at it, turning the pearl over in her hands. “I didn’t mean to, but I had seen Inuyasha’s head cut off in front of me. That demon that looked like me, the shape-shifter, somehow disappeared and I…I just crumbled at Inuyasha’s feet… I remember wishing with all my heart, that all I ever wanted was to be with him. I think the jewel answered my wish…”
Sesshomaru continued. “And it somehow brought you here to the present time? How?”
“I slept.” Kagome looked desperately at Inuyasha. “Please tell him, Inuyasha. Tell him how you found me?”
Inuyasha had been looking at the ground, but he managed to look up briefly to meet his father’s face. “It was at the park where we were camping out. I found Kagome and she wasn’t breathing.”
“She was the one you gave CPR too?”
Miroku laughed. “Is that what they’re calling it these days? You sly dog, Inuyasha!”
Inuyasha only glared at Miroku. “I wasn’t like that…I…” He took a long hard look at Kagome and then turned away as he continued. “There was no life in her; I thought that she might need CPR.”
“And then she woke up?” continued Sesshomaru dryly.
“Yes,” sighed Inuyasha in indignation.
Sesshomaru motioned for Inuyasha to stand behind him. “Son, it is time that you went home. I think there is a lot of things that you need to think about.”
Kagome seemed overcome with shock. “Wait? Son…?! He can’t be your…”
Sesshomaru’s eyes glittered with rage. “Don’t ever tell me who he is, Miko! You have been asleep for 500 years. Don’t mistake my son for my brother who died long ago.”
Kagome stammered. “But I…” she looked again at her feet. “It took me a while, but I knew he wasn’t my Inuyasha…”
The miko’s words reverberated in his head and for the first time, Inuyasha finally understood them. ‘He looked like you, he talked like you, he had your name…but he died.’
A sharp pain seemed to cut him from the inside. He had tried to keep his distance from the crazy miko since the very beginning, but there was something about her that drew him to her like a magnet. And now he knew that when she had first kissed him so desperately, that she had been thinking of another man from another era. When she called out his name while sleeping, that she hadn’t been thinking about the person who was beside her.
All she had been thinking about was different man, from another time. Someone who shared his same face, his same name…
“What the hell am I to you, Kagome?” Inuyasha was as hurt as he was infuriated. “Just a fucking substitute for a dead guy? Is that why you gave me his stuff? So I’d look like him?”
“No, it’s not like that Inuyasha…I…” her voice seemed close to breaking.
“Fucking stop it!” he yelled.
It was then that he noticed tears flowing from Kagome’s eyes, falling like tiny rivulets down her cheeks. The simple sight shocked him. He had been so caught up in his own misery that he never noticed that he had managed to hurt her. The sharp pain near his heart seemed to worsen when he looked at her tears.
“Kagome…I,” Inuyasha took a step forward and attempted to brush her tears away from her cheeks. But after looking at his bloodied claws, he pulled his hand away.
She stared at him steadily; then wiped her cheeks with her own billowing sleeves.
Inuyasha’s father spoke to them both. “I think you both have a lot to think about. And Miko…”
Kagome had already turned away and was making her way to the door. She paused for a brief moment while Sesshomaru was talking.
“My son is not your Inuyasha. He died over 500 years ago… If you ever confuse the two, it is me you’ll answer to.”
She only nodded as the door shut behind her.
All Inuyasha could do was shake his head in confusion. Raw pain emanated from his heart, but he still had an inexplicable pull to go after Kagome and to protect her. Without any conscious thought or volition, he turned to follow her out of the door. But his father immediately grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.
“Not now, Son…”
Panic at what might happen to Kagome without him around to protect her overrode any logical thought in his brain. “But, Dad she needs to be protected! A demon is trying to kill her…”
“And you…” his father relied tonelessly before turning to look at Eri. “Slayer! Follow the miko and report back to Sureiyâ-san. She is to be watched at all times. Understood?”
Eri only nodded in acknowledgment before hastily scurrying to the door. She only glanced at Koga warily, before stepping over his groaning form on the floor to follow her new charge.
Sesshomaru then turned to his son. “Come home with me, Son. There is a lot we need to talk about and we need to continue with your training.”
His father’s words felt hollow. He still stared blindly at the door Kagome had used to exit the gym, his heart already heavy with emptiness and regret. A firm grip by his father on his left arm kept him from making another mad dash after Kagome.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Inuyasha lay listlessly on his futon at his parent’s home. The blinds in his room cut the rays of the sun into large bands that covered his room in an alternating pattern of florescent orange and black.He was lying on his back, trying to make sense of all his parents had told him today about his own past and about his Uncle Inuyasha. He flicked the blade Kagome had given him in and out of the sheath. Hearing the sword ‘click’ again and again as he played with it seemed to soothe him.
He sat up and ran his clawed hand through his silvered hair. “Fuck!” Inuyasha didn’t know who he was angrier at, himself or Kagome.
He laid back down on his futon and looked at the exposed wooden beams of his ceiling.
His father had been the first to grill him about his ‘Uncle Inuyasha.’ He had never known much about his uncle, other than knowing that he bore his name and had an uncanny resemblance to him. He recalled his mother telling him long ago that was why she had decided to name him ‘Inuyasha,’ in honor of his long-dead uncle.
His mother apparently had a soft spot in her heart for the dog-eared hanyou from the Feudal era, much more so than his father. His father typically snorted at the mere mention of his uncle. Apparently, there had been some bad blood between them. He just never knew how much until tonight.
While his mother waxed poetically about how brave and honorable his uncle had been, Sesshomaru was considerably more disparaging.
Apparently, his uncle had chopped off Sesshomaru’s arm with the very Tessaiga that he now held in his hand. Luckily for his father, it grew back after a few hundred years. It was during that same incident that Sesshomaru said that he did some regrettable things. He had attempted to kill both his uncle and Kagome, all because his father wanted the Tessaiga.
Inuyasha was happy to hear that the Tessaiga no longer seemed to hold much sway over his father. Sesshomaru had decided it would be best in his son’s hands, while he wielded the Tenseiga, a sword that brought the dead back to life.
His father also admitted to being ‘judgmental’ of his brother, often threatening to kill him simply for being a half-breed. Young Inuyasha gasped in shock at the revelation. His father had sired seven hanyou children, how could he possibly be racist against hanyou?
His mother smiled at the comment and only ruffled her husband’s hair. “Sesshomaru needed time to come to grips with what his brother represented. You see his father left Sesshoumaru’s mother for a human woman, Izayoi. And Sesshoumaru blamed the infidelity and the resulting child for his mother’s unhappiness. It also didn’t help that she had installed a desire for pure bloodlines since his birth.”
It was strange to see his father leaning into his mother’s touch as she scratched the back of his neck, just as you would do to a puppy dog. His father sighed.
Their son only snorted, his parents were getting sappy in front of him and that was something he wanted to avoid.
Their knowledge of Kagome and the Shikon-no-tama were less detailed. Apparently, the Shikon-no-tama (the jewel of four souls) was a sacred object that Kagome had been protecting. However, the gem itself had a great pull that constantly lured demons and even some humans into its corrupting embrace.
Inuyasha felt a chill when his father described the jewel. Some whisper of a memory called to him, telling him it would make him powerful, make him a full demon, make him whole… Somehow he felt that he had once been pulled by its sway, he had once been after the gem.
Dreams of chasing Kagome and being pinned against a tree by her sacred arrows pulled at the edge of his mind, only to be replaced by other memories. Memories of him saving the miko’s life…fighting demons who dared to attack her…holding her close…
Both his father and his mother verified that Kagome had actually lived over 500 years ago in a tiny village that wasn’t too far away from the park where he had awoken her. He learned that she had teamed up with his uncle to defend the Shikon-no-tama. Apparently, together they made a formidable team.
“They loved each other…” his mother had added sympathetically.
“I know,” Inuyasha had sighed. Somehow the mere thought of anyone other than himself embracing Kagome made him clench his teeth in anger. He knew it was only his uncle, he knew it had happened over 500 years ago. But he also knew that for Kagome, it had felt like mere days since ‘her Inuyasha’ had died.
That made the ache in his heart cut even deeper. He didn’t want to be compared to ‘Kagome’s Inuyasha.’ Some secret part of him wanted to be ‘her Inuyasha’ instead. He didn’t want to have to compete with a ghost.
‘But how do you compete with someone’s first love?’
He contemplated the words as the sun slid into deep red and then faded into navy and then to black. He woke from his reverie when he realized that it was dark.
Despite what his father had said about spending time apart from Kagome, he couldn’t ignore the drive that was panicked at the idea of not being next to the miko’s side. She was probably expecting him at night and there was no way that a midget, like Shippo, could properly protect her.
He slid on the bracelet that made him blend in with his surrounding like a chameleon and caused his scent to dilute almost to the point of nothingness. With his robes of the fire rat and his Tessaiga at his side, Inuyasha strode confidentially out of his room.
And was quickly grabbed by the scruff of his collar again before being gently dropped back inside of his room.
Sesshomaru’s image flickered into being as the taiyouki tugged off his concealment bracelet. He simply raised an eyebrow at his son and stood there impassively.
“When I mentioned that you needed time to think about what has happened, I meant it. Make no more attempts to leave until I allow it.”
Inuyasha had fallen backward onto his tatami mats and managed to prop himself up on his elbows. He still couldn’t understand how his father could see him, though he guessed that it was probably his father’s keen sense of smell that identified him.
“They leave Kagome with only a kitsune kid to protect her at night! I need to be there!” Inuyasha protested in anger.
“Detective Sureiyâ told me about a volunteer, a hanyou who will take over the night watch.”
“Another hanyou? Who in the hell?”
“Your friend, Akitoki Hojo, will be there to watch her at night. Sleep and do not leave this room! Tomorrow we will continue with your training.” With that pronouncement, Inuyasha’s rice paper door was pushed closed. Then the shadow of his father which had fallen on the thin white doorframe, dissipated into the ether.
It felt like icy water had washed over his body when Inuyasha’s friend was mentioned. He had his misgivings about his buddy recently, especially in relation to Kagome. Inuyasha knew that Hojo would do everything he could to protect the miko, but he had seen the way the boy had looked at Kagome. He felt like he had not only abandoned Kagome, but that a rival he had never intended to have, had just taken his place.
Inuyasha’s jaw trembled in frustration and anger as he imagined his friend sleeping on the bedroll next to Kagome at night. “Fuck!”
~~~oo0oo~~~
For the next week the days ran into each other. Inuyasha would spend his days training with his father and his nights quarantined to his room. He had tried to get away from his home more than once, but the concealment bracelet was no match for Sesshomaru’s keen nose.As the days wore on, his hope flickered. His repeated matches with his father became plodding and lifeless. He found that he lost the will to fight. Even as his father repeated the mantra of imagining someone behind him that he needed to protect, all he could think about was that Hojo was the one who was currently protecting Kagome.
He felt useless and cast aside. Kagome knew that he wasn’t the man she had known and loved. Perhaps she would just move on now that there was another hanyou to take his place, another man who could protect her, a man who wasn’t being sequestered by his parents like an errant child.
Inuyasha had just finished showering, his wounds finally reknitting after the green poison had been washed away. A white towel was slung low on his hips, while he towel dried his unruly, silver hair.
His father’s shadow emerged on the other side of his rice paper door. “May I come in, Son?”
“Give me a minute,” Inuyasha huffed as he rifled with his clothes, throwing on a pair of sweats. Then he called over his shoulder. “Enter.”
Sesshomaru moved the rice paper door to the side, walking in regally. He stopped to look at the Tessaiga that was laying on Inuyasha’s futon. The dog demon bent down to pick up the sword. With a soft click, the sword was released from its sheath, its battered form dully reflecting against the lamplight of the room. “Such a powerful sword. But it only works when the wielder is protecting a mortal.
Inuyasha took a deep breath as he tried to quell the desire to rip the sword from his father’s hands. His fists clenched at his thighs and then he felt a deep sigh of relief when his father sheathed the sword and handed it back to his son.
His father continued. “Within the sword lays great power, which you can tap into, my son. But you have not been able to do so recently. Why?”
Inuyasha’s brow was furrowed in concentration. For the past three days, he was unable to get the Tessaiga to transform into its true form. The hanyou shrugged. “I don’t feel like I have anyone to protect…”
His father’s brows narrowed. “And who would you protect…?”
Anger surged in Inuyasha, and he all but yelled at his own father. “Kagome! But you fucking won’t let me protect her! And now Hojo, who has wanted her since the moment he saw her, is the one who gets to protect her. I’ve been replaced. I’m fucking useless now…”
His father didn’t react to the sudden fury. “So your mother has been telling me over the past few days... It seems that you and Tessaiga only have a spark when you have a mortal close by to protect.”
“Yes, and her name is Kagome! You don’t know what it’s like to worry about someone constantly. To wonder if the next time you’ll see her, that she’ll be dead…only because you weren’t around to protect her!”
His father breathed sharply through his nostrils. His golden eyes gleamed dangerously. When he spoke, it was a harsh whisper. “The first time I used the Tenseiga, it was on your mother…” Inuyasha whirled around, his surprise diluting his rage. “I felt the heartbeat of my sword for the first time that day, as I held Rin’s broken and bloodied body.” Sesshomaru turned away from his son, facing the walls of the room and bowing his head down low. “She was only a small child at the time. Only on a whim…” He heard his father choke on the words. “On a whim…I brought up the Tenseiga to see the denizens of the underworld attempting to pull her down with their ghastly chains. I sliced them to shreds and then saw Rin revive in front of me. Her mortal wounds reknitted. Then for the first time in my life I saw a genuine smile of tender affection.
His father turned around and Inuyasha noticed for the first time that red rimmed his otherwise golden eyes. “I kept her with me. I told everyone she was my ‘pet.’ And I knew that I could keep her, because the Tenseiga could always bring her back to me. Then I found out the secret of the Tenseiga …” Sesshomaru took a deep breath. “It can only bring back a being from the underworld once. It is not a limitless tool.
“Once I learned that I could never bring her back again from the dead, that she was indeed mortal, I finally knew that she was more than a mere pet. My pigheaded pride and foolishness had kept me from understanding that I had loved her since the moment I saw her. For five hundred years I have lived with the fear of my Rin dying and knowing that I could never bring her back if she did.
“So don’t tell me that I don’t know what it is like to worry about someone constantly and to wonder if the next time I see her, that she’ll be dead.” He paused and looked back down at the sword at his side, the Tenseiga. “I might know more than you realize…”
Inuyasha swallowed, wanting to take back the very words he had just spewed in rage. “Dad…I’m sorry…”
His father’s lips were a thin line as he responded. “You can thank your mother for convincing me to let you go and protect Kagome…”
Inuyasha could only gape in astonishment at the pronouncement and was about to thank his father, when Sesshomaru held out his hand as if saying ‘stop.’
“I have given you time to think about Kagome and who she truly is. If you get too entangled with her too soon, it will be detrimental to both of you. She needs time to grieve and to realize who you really are…
Sesshomaru paused, pointing his finger at his son. “And you…need to understand that you are getting involved with a girl who sees your long-dead uncle every time she looks at you.”
Inuyasha swallowed and bitterness welled in his stomach. He knew that his father was speaking the truth and was only trying to protect him, but he would be damned if he spent another day away from Kagome. Even if she never fully separated his uncle and himself in her mind, he knew that he’d still protect her until his dying day. There was no other option.
He met his father’s eyes and responded, “I understand.”
“Indeed…” was the measured reply.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Inuyasha had changed into his robes of the fire rat and had tucked the Tessaiga firmly to his side. He knew that perhaps he should be upset that this outfit made him look just like his namesake, and certainly wouldn’t help with getting Kagome to separate himself and his uncle in her mind, but he truly loved the robe and the sword. What had once been mere trinkets, he now felt undressed without.He grimaced as he looked at himself in a mirror. There was nothing modern about his clothing and his hanyou ears stuck out of his silver hair. He had two options, wear his necklace that was enchanted with a glamour spell and made him look human or wear his bracelet of concealment, which made him virtually invisible.
He tugged on his concealment bracelet. He was tired of pretending to be human. If he had learned one thing from spending his time with Kagome, it was that he could actually be who he really was, a hanyou, and she would still accept him. He really didn’t want to be anything else…at least not when she was around.
Almost immediately, he blended into his surroundings. Only a thin deviation, like the bevel in a glass window, marked the outline of his body. He left through the window of his room that overlooked the garden, bounding high and heading for the Higurashi ‘Sunset Shrine.’
Thirty minutes later, he had made it to the shrine. It was still mid-day, so Kagome should have been on the grounds. But a quick perusal of her scent found that she had left the shrine a few hours ago. Even more disconcerting was that her scent mingled with Hojo’s; she had apparently left with the boy.
Inuyasha couldn’t help but let a low growl rumble from his chest. He knew that Hojo had been assigned to protect Kagome in his absence, but finally confronting the truth made him shake with fury. There was no logic in his mind, only a deep sense of betrayal and numbing hurt.
Only the hint of rushing wind disclosed that Inuyasha had leapt from the shrine and was hot on the footsteps of Hojo and Kagome.
Inuyasha’s search across Tokyo was maddening; he would occasionally lose their scents among the many odors of the city. The smell of trash, urine, human sweat, tires on the asphalt and the salty air of Tokyo Bay assaulted his senses. Trying to distinguish the gentle scent of Kagome’s within the cacophony of smells nearly made him retch.
He groaned when he picked up on a fresh and strong scent of Kagome and Hojo coming from the Tokyo Metro. Of course, the trail was leading to Shinjuku, the single largest underground subway station in the world. Over one million people passed on through its doors every day.
Taking advantage of his nearly invisible state, Inuyasha jumped past the turnstiles. Then he moved within the large concrete corridors leading down into the subway stations. Within moments he lost every trace of Kagome among the sea of humans that were ebbing and flowing through the passages.
Inuyasha looked up and leapt onto the billboards that were electronically displaying the arrivals and departures of the busy subway system. He crouched on the large monitors as they flashed periodic updates in Japanese and English.
He ran his hand down his face as he tried to establish her scent again, but it was lost among the fetid smells of humans, oiled trains and cool concrete. He let his head hang back and attempted to listen, letting his dog-like ears twitch back and forth with the myriad of sounds.
There was no sound of Kagome and her scent was lost. Over the harsh discord of voices and the screeching of a subway car, he heard a young boy wailing.
His ears swiveled to the sound.
“Pikachu! Ma…ma! Pika! Gone!” wailed a young toddler with short black hair and a shirt jacket.
A young boy had managed to disentangle himself from his mother and was crying and pointing at his yellow stuffed animal that had managed to find itself on the train tracks. Inuyasha was about to turn away when he heard a voice that was very familiar.
“Little-one, please don’t cry. We can get your doll back,” murmured a familiar feminine voice.
Inuyasha’s head turned quickly to take in the image of the girl he had gone without for almost a week. His heart had felt like lead, but just watching her made it somehow lighten as he watched Kagome kneel in front of the toddler.
Kagome smiled winsomely at the small toddler and then pointed at the yellow plushie on the tracks. “Is that the doll you need?”
“Want Pika,” sniffed the little boy.
Kagome just smiled and looked to see that there were no trains arriving before she started to climb down onto the train tracks.
“What the fuck?” Inuyasha didn’t think, he simply moved. All of the subway trains ran on electric tracks, Kagome would be electrocuted if she touched the electric rails.
His feet landed on the concrete embankment of the tracks, and then with a quick leap he had managed to grab Kagome as she started to climb down, her smaller form nestled against his chest.
For a brief second all was right in Inuyasha’s world, Kagome was in his arms and this time he was rescuing her. He felt her warm, lithe form. As she took a sharp breath, he felt her breasts move against his solid chest.
“What? Who?” exclaimed Kagome as she became airborne within Inuyasha’s arms. She only took a moment to realize what was happening, despite the fact that both Inuyasha and herself were now invisible. “Inuyasha?” she asked with a note of wonder.
Inuyasha could feel her pressed up against him, but it was disconcerting that he could not see her eyes when she was so close. Of course that also meant that she could not see him. He took a moment more to feel her body against his before he gradually released her in a shadowed corridor near the tracks. As she stepped away her form came back into view.
Inuyasha cursed, she couldn’t see him when he wore the concealment bracelet. He activated the necklace that made him look human and then tugged off the bracelet.
She looked up at him with wide eyes. He stood before her with his long black hair, violet eyes, human ears and the red robes of the firerat. His face bore a scowl.
He should have asked for her to forgive him for not protecting her this past week, but his emotions were broiling. He was angry that she had left with Hojo, even if the boy was protecting her. And he was even angrier that she had risked her own life.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Kagome? Risking your life for a stupid stuffed animal? If you went on the train tracks you would have died!”
She only looked up at him in confusion. “What? How could I…?”
Inuyasha’s human face twitched in annoyance. He pulled a few Yen from his pocket. “Watch this…”
And then threw them at the track near where the Pikachu plushie lay.
Electricity arched and crackled when the coins hit the tracks. Kagome’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked down at the tracks and then looked up again at Inuyasha.
She seemed to be about to say something when the little boy started crying again. “Want my Pika!”
Kagome was back at boy’s side in an instant. Inuyasha could only run his hand down his face. ‘Why in the fuck does she want to help everyone she sees?’ he quickly padded after the girl, so that he was standing behind her, his arms crossed and his face a firm grimace of annoyance.
She turned to look up at Inuyasha. “Is there any way that we can get his doll without getting hurt?”
Inuyasha’s forehead developed a tick as he contemplated the request. He frowned, but knew that Kagome would keep on pestering him and the boy would keep on crying if he didn’t help.
He took out his Tessaiga and handed the dull blade to Kagome. She looked at him questioningly as he took the sword’s sheath and walked toward the train platform.
The samurai blade Kagome was wielding momentarily distracted the kid, while Inuyasha tried to fish the stuffed animal off the electrified train tracks with the wooden sheath. Within a few seconds, he had the plushie in his hands.
Inuyasha wasn’t prepared for a small tyke to run towards him and grab him by his knees. “Tanks!” the toddler murmured to his legs before looking up with a toothy grin and reaching for the Pikachu plushie.
The black haired teen managed to crack a smile. “Sure, kid.”
“Seiki!” yelled a frantic mom who had just managed to push through the crowd around the station. She stopped right in front of the red kimono clad teen and managed to bow profusely.
“Thank you, for finding Seiki,” she repeated while bowing.
Inuyasha could only scratch his hidden ear as the mother and boy smiled up at him.
He felt a gentle nudge from his side and then noticed that Kagome was also smiling at him. An odd floating sensation seemed to center in the middle of his chest. She motioned for him to follow her.
Unbeknownst to both of them, once they had exited the area, Hojo arrived with a worried smile on his face. He was holding up two ice cream bars, one in each hand. “Kagome? I got you the ice cream you wanted. Kagome…? Kagome…?”
~~~oo0oo~~~
Inuyasha walked beside Kagome awkwardly. He wanted to reach down and hold her hand, but opted to simply fold his arms across his chest while looking down at her in bewilderment.He noted that yet again she was wearing her white and red miko’s robes. Even if his feudal attire made her think of his uncle, he couldn’t help but to think that they looked natural walking with each other.
Once they made it past the subway entrance, Kagome stopped and looked at him blankly.
“Thank you, Ash. I thought that we could start over…” Kagome bowed to him formally. “I am Kagome.”
Inuyasha felt like the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. He felt unsteady as he faced the girl who had kissed him passionately just over a week ago.
“Oh, no you don’t!” barked Inuyasha as he moved close and nearly yelled in her face. “No fucking way. We’re…” he ran a finger pointing to both of them “…too damn familiar to be going back to introductions.”
“But…I thought…” said Kagome demurely as she looked away from Inuyasha.
“Dammit! Just stop thinking, Kagome…just…” He was centimeters away from her again and it hurt to be so close to her. His eyes were pained as his hand reached for her cheek. When he touched her face he couldn’t help but to revel in it. Why did one woman make him feel so torn and yet so whole? “Kagome,” he said her name in reverence.
She only looked up at him in confusion.
Inuyasha swallowed. He saw her open her pink lips to say something and he just reacted.
Without any thought to the consequences, he moved his lips against hers. The first time they kissed, she had initiated the act; it was her lips that had desperately seized onto his. This time he was the one who had no control, this time he was the one who needed her.
She seemed to freeze for a moment, her mouth opening in protest. But Inuyasha stumbled in blindly, his tongue licking the inside of her mouth. He held her hands down at her side, worried that she might bolt. But then he felt her relax, her form acquiescing to his.
Now he journeyed languidly, his tongue tasting the inner corners of her mouth and her tentative tongue meeting his. At the first indication that she was returning his kiss, his stifled a groan, his hands moving to her back, as he pressed his body up against hers.
Kagome’s hands moved up to touch his chest. He liked the way her soft hands felt, until they pushed against him, breaking the kiss.
Neither one of them spoke for a moment as they tried to catch their breath.
The miko looked up at him guiltily, her swollen lips quivering with words that never made it past her lips.
“Kagome?” he asked in frustration and confusion.
Her eyes started to water and a few tears escaped.
“I…I can’t…” she cried.
“What in the fuck do you mean…‘You can’t’?” he demanded.
“You!” she sobbed while pointing an accusing finger at him and looked at him miserably. “You abandoned me and you…you’re not…”
Inuyasha snarled. “Yes, I’m not fucking HIM! Yes, I know!” he yelled. His words had the effect of slapping Kagome as she looked away from him, her cheeks red.
She took a deep breath and then looked at him resolutely. “You don’t understand. For me he just died. I told you that I needed time to mourn. Whenever I look at you, I see…”
“Him,” Inuyasha finished with a note of disgust.
Kagome only nodded, while she looked away and fidgeted with her robes. “I talked to Hojo about this. He thinks that we should both…” Kagome swallowed and looked up at Inuyasha sadly. “…spend some time apart.”
Inuyasha’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Thoughts of gutting someone who had once been his good friend invaded his mind. He asked in accusation. “Is that what you want, Kagome?”
She looked up, searching his face. Again her lips moved, but nothing was said. She paused. “Yes…No.” Kagome shook her head and gazed at him dejectedly. Her lips trembled again as she threw her small form against his chest and sobbed.
Inuyasha’s hands moved around her small frame and held her fast. He let out a strangled breath that he didn’t know he had been holding.
“Don’t go…” she whispered wretchedly.
“Never,” he replied.
They stood there for some time, Inuyasha holding Kagome. Eventually the young couple drew apart. Kagome wiped her eyes again. Then she took a smartphone out of her hip pocket. Her lip twitched with amusement as she showed it to Inuyasha. “Hojo bought it for me…”
Before Inuyasha could protest and perhaps throw the piece of equipment into the nearest trashcan, she managed to maneuver through some touch screens until she found Hojo’s name written in Kanji.
Inuyasha was so flabbergasted at her near expert abilities at using a cell phone, that he was momentarily shocked into submission.
She pressed her finger down on Hojo’s name and the cell phone initiated the call.
“Hojo,” Kagome murmured into the small cell phone. “Yes, I am fine. Ash found me…No, I am perfectly fine…no, I will not need your help tonight. Thank you so much for protecting me these past few days, but Ash will be with me …
Inuyasha could hear the other end of the phone and Hojo’s increased protests. “I am perfectly fine. No, do not come out now. I will see you tomorrow at work.”
She hung up the phone and sighed.
“Let me…” Inuyasha stated as he gestured for her cell phone.
She gave it to him with bewilderment clearly written across her face.
With a few quick taps to the phone’s screen, Inuyasha had his name and phone number typed in.
“Now you can get a hold of me whenever you want,” he said proudly as he handed the phone back to her.
She returned his gesture with a bemused half-smile as she pocketed the cell phone within her red miko pants.
Kagome took in a deep breath and looked at him sideways. They had started to walk together down the sidewalk in downtown Tokyo.
“I have questions for you, Ash.”
Inuyasha grimaced both at the mention of his assumed name and being asked such a hesitant question. Still, he decided to brace himself and bear it. At least she had told Hojo to get lost for the day. He smiled warily and then gestured toward the stone gates of the ‘Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.’
The garden was Tokyo’s equivalent to New York’s ‘Central Park.’ It was a veritable oasis among the skyscrapers that rimmed the vast gardens. However, unlike the wildness of Central Park, Japanese botanists had tamed this garden. It was filled with pebbled walks, sculptured trees and bushes, towering maples, rock gardens, koi ponds and wooden bridges.
Inuyasha paid for their admission and then gestured for them to walk along a meandering pebbled pathway lined with moss and cherry trees.
At first Kagome seemed at a loss as she looked over the grounds. The gardens seemed like a slice of rural Japan nestled around modern glass and steel buildings. Large skyscrapers, as well as verdant green trees were reflected on the koi pond.
Inuyasha fidgeted with his sword at his side. He was trying to not think about what she might want to ask him.
The miko gestured to a park bench where they both sat down. For a few brief moments, Kagome only closed her eyes, breathing in the clean garden air and letting dappled sunshine fall on her face. Inuyasha could only stare.
When she opened her grey-blue eyes she looked at him with contemplation. Inuyasha quickly decided that he didn’t like that look. He tried not to swallow reflexively.
“Ash…,” she turned to look at him questioningly. She continued in a whispered voice, “Inuyasha…you said at two different occasions that you remembered a girl who looked like me killing you. You said you also remembered seeing two of me. Can you please tell me what you remember? It is very important to me.”
Inuyasha paused, trying to remember the faded wisps that glimmered across his mind. “They’re all dreams, Kagome…feelings…there’s nothing concrete.”
She interrupted. “But you have already described them to me…”
Inuyasha shook his head in annoyance and did his best to describe the dream he had of the girl trying to kill him. He found that repeating the story to Kagome, in the sunshine of a garden, made the terrified memories of his nightmare seem distant. For once, he actually felt comfortable telling her what he had seen.
Kagome continued to pepper him with questions. Asking him what else he knew about her and her past.
Whispered words, vague feelings and passing images flittered through his mind. It was hard for him to tie anything down and to make a concrete storyline out of them. At best he was only able to tell her that he had dreamed of being in the Feudal era with her; that he felt that he had protected her, and that he really disliked a young boy that she took care of.
Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. Tiny droplets started to fall.
“Kagome, what?”
The girl paused to wipe her face with her sleeves again. But this time she was not despondent. This time she had a lovely smile on her tear stained face.
“Inuyasha...” Kagome paused and looked away from him. Taking in the large koi pond in front of them. She took a deep steadying breath and gazed at him again. “Somewhere deep inside of you…you remember…”
Inuyasha only looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t…”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “I told you before…you’re a reincarnation of…”
Inuyasha crossed his arms in front of him and wore a scowl. “My fucking uncle…again? I told you I am not him.”
Kagome sighed. “You are and you are not.”
“What?”
“Yes, you are different and you understand this crazy…” Kagome made a sweeping gesture to the area around them. “…modern world.” She paused at him again. “But somewhere deep inside of you, there are memories from 500 years ago. I can only guess that this…” She pulled out the small jewel that hung on a chain around her neck. “…had something to do with it.
She looked at him again, trying to gauge his reaction. “This jewel had the capability of granting one ‘right wish.’” Inuyasha only gazed at her with uncertainty on his features. “The wish had to be unselfish. I never meant to wish, but when Inuyasha died in front of me, I had wished that we could still be together. The jewel must have answered it, because all I knew was darkness until you woke me up.”
Inuyasha’s face colored as he remembered finding the girl underground. How he thought she was dead or dying and how he had tried CPR. His attempts at resuscitation ended up in one of the most heated and enjoyable kisses that he had ever participated in.
The girl in front of him sighed. “Still…I am from the past and you are from this odd new world…” She turned to him again, while he tried to make sense of their crazy conversation.
Inuyasha reached out his hand to her. “I…I just want to protect you,” was all he could add.
She stretched her hand to meet his and smiled shyly at him. “Can I stay by your side?”
The hanyou smiled as he nodded. He liked the feeling of holding her hand; it made him feel at peace. Still there was a knot of annoyance in his chest. When would she stop comparing him to his uncle? How could he get her to let go of the past?
He was about to open up his mouth when a look of utter astonishment pervaded Kagome’s features.
Kagome was looking past his shoulder, behind him and pointing. “What…?” she asked.
Inuyasha turned to barely make out the form of a young boy in the robes of a kannushi, running past the grove of cherry trees in the garden. The boy’s long ebony hair was the last thing he saw before he disappeared behind the trees.
Something about the boy seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place him. All he knew was a feeling of dread was washing over him.
Before Inuyasha could stop her, Kagome quickly got up and started to run after the boy. “Naraku?” she called out in question.
Inuyasha only ran his hand over his face before he yelled out to her. “Kagome, stop. We need to stay together…” He patted the Tessaiga at his side in assurance before he started to follow her. Just as he was about to rush into a quick sprint, something caught his leg…
And Inuyasha plowed face down into the stepping-stones of the walkway near the koi pond, while Kagome ran on ahead of him. She was still calling out to the boy, rushing on ahead without looking back.
He looked down to see a black tentacle holding onto his ankle. His eyes traveled quickly down the blackened appendage to see that it was attached to the same demon that had once attacked him at his apartment.
A man’s torso sat on the squirming mass of blackened tentacles, like a large octopus writhing in the middle of the garden. The man had long dark hair, the sculptured face of an aristocrat and black eyes that only held anger and hatred.
“I would have let you live if you had only stayed away,” stated the demon.
Another appendage wrapped around his neck from behind, Inuyasha grasped the choking tentacle with his hands so that he could keep breathing. As he looked behind to see where the other limb had come from he spied the eyes of another demon that looked exactly like the one in front of him. It was as if two doppelgangers of this demon were present to attack him.
“Surprised, Inuyasha?” queried the demon behind him with a sneering smile. “Now you will finally get out of my way!”
With that the appendage around his neck squeezed tighter and another appendage wrapped around his other leg, effectively pulling him in two directions. He was being strangled and pulled apart at once.
And Kagome was nowhere to be found…
~~~oo0oo~~~
The Next Chapter: Naraku makes his presence known… (See you in a month.)Author's Notes:
#1: So err…wow. I was astounded and amazed by the response my last chapter garnered. Thank you for all of the reviews. It helped to spur me on and get this chapter written.
#2: My hubby is doing well. He’s recovered from surgery and is back at work. Thank you everyone for your well wishes.
#3: I have always been annoyed by stories that had black and white parents who are cardboard cutouts. Since when did any of us have parents who were like that? ;-) I wanted to make Inuyasha’s parents credible, flawed and loving individuals.
#4: Yes, that little boy at the train station had a ‘Pikachu’ plushie from Pokemon.
#5: Answers to questions I have been getting…
Who is Sesshomaru’s wife? Well, Rin of course, it wasn’t meant to be a surprise. Please do NOT consider her to be a twist.
What are the next two twists? Well, I won’t tell, but I will reveal that the next one is a plot twist and NOT a character reveal. Oh and it’s coming up very soon. It won’t be long… MuHahaha…
Am I deliberately misleading you? Well, I don’t think I am, but I will omit certain details (like Inuyasha’s parents names) until there is a point to the story where I think the reveal would be more dramatic. There will always be clues interspersed throughout the chapters that I think will make much more sense when you re-read this story when it is over. There are a lot of undercurrents to this story, most will not be revealed until the end.
Is Inuyasha really a reincarnation? Yes, he is. However, there are a couple of extenuating circumstances (i.e. the shikon-no-tama) that have caused his reincarnation to remember some of his pre-carnation’s past.
One of my betas asked about Sesshomaru’s reaction to Inuyasha’s ‘memory’ of being attacked in this chapter. She was asking what did Sesshomaru make out of it? Didn’t Sesshomaru realize that his son was a reincarnation of his brother? Sesshomaru is in denial. He really does not want to face his son as a reincarnation of his estranged brother. Rin, on the other hand, thinks this is all terribly romantic and is already planning Inuyasha's wedding. ;-) Sesshomaru is also concerned for Inuyasha's heart. He sees Kagome as someone who sees his son as his long-dead brother and who'll just break his son's heart.