Categories > Anime/Manga > Inuyasha > Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past
Diagnosis: Time Travel
0 reviewsInuyasha finds himself in a place he never would have imagined via...magic well?
1Ambiance
Please review. I love to know what you have to say. So, here’s the story, chapter 2. I think I’m going to enjoy writing this. Role reversal is fun. Malicious laughter
Disclaimer: Rumiko and I had a fight about who got Inuyasha. I won, but then she transformed Tessaiga and hit me over the head with it, grabbed Inuyasha, and ran away. So, she has Inuyasha, and I have a headache.
On with the story.
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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past
Chapter 2
Diagnosis: Time Travel
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Inuyasha’s knees hit the ground hard, and he suppressed an annoyed grunt, hastily reminding himself that he was surrounded by a large group of angry, armed people who didn’t appear to think to fondly of him. He swayed dangerously, having a difficult time keeping his balance, as his arms had been bound in front of him during the trek from the gigantic tree, and he couldn’t use them to keep himself up. One of the men, seeing this, grabbed the back of his shirt collar to keep him upright, pulling the fabric uncomfortably close and tight around Inuyasha’s neck.
“Priestess,” called a man in the front, who Inuyasha knew by then was called Kanichi. “We have a little something for you to see.”
For a moment, no one answered, and Inuyasha wondered who they were talking to. But then, the crowd parted slowly, turning to look at someone approaching. Form his position on the ground, the first thing Inuyasha saw was a brilliantly red hakama. Then came a white kosode, with the hands protruding from the sleeves resting on a set of hips. Finally came a face, with white hair surrounding it. The woman was heavy set, and older, with a black patch covering one eye.
“And what is going on here?” asked the old priestess calmly, as though tied up boys were dropped on her doorstep everyday.
“Kaede,” came Kagome’s voice from behind Inuyasha, as the young priestess forced her way to the front with little difficulty, although he couldn’t actually see her. “We found this man over by the sacred tree. I don’t think he’s a demon, but I wasn’t sure, so I thought it would be best to ask you.”
“Kagome,” the woman tutted, “Ye know well that ye have more than enough training to tell a human from a demon by now. What ye lack is the confidence in your own abilities, and not the knowledge.”
“I’m sorry, Kaede,” said Kagome, sounding more than a little ashamed.
“Now, now, there is no need for embarrassment Kagome. Let me have a look at this man, and I will tell ye what I think.”
No one moved for a moment, and Inuyasha wondered if the woman was going to kneel to see his face, but then a few hands grabbed his shoulders, not failing to clamp tightly over the injured one, and pulled him roughly into a standing position. He didn’t struggle, and took the chance to gain his footing securely, before looking up and meeting the old woman’s eyes, or eye.
As it turned out, this Kaede person was actually quite a bit shorter than him, though he hadn’t been able to tell that from the ground, as were most of the men who had been pulling him around.
‘I could take these guys,’ he thought bitterly, as he looked around at the people surrounding him, although his hands being tied up in front of him might make that difficult.
Suddenly, he felt the old woman’s hand grab his face and pull it down so that his eyes were on level with hers. Inuyasha met her gaze defiantly.
“Are ye a demon?” she asked him, in a tone that could have been used to inquire about the time of day.
“No,” he answered sarcastically. “Are you one?”
“No, I am not,” she told him, then she turned to the gathered crowd. “This man is not a demon,” she told them. “Nor is he much a man, if ye ask me. Still, I beseech ye wait to untie him, as I would like to speak to him and Lady Kagome in private.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Matomi grabbed one of Inuyasha’s arms, Kanichi the other, and they began to try to drag him towards a hut. Inyuasha, however in danger he might be, refused to be victimized and tossed around like that. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and refused to budge. Despite the efforts of the two men at his sides, the boy was immovable.
“I’m not going anywhere with any of you freaks until someone tells me what the hell is going on here!” he proclaimed. Every head snapped in his direction.
“I don’t think you be in any position to be making demands, boy,” said Matomi nastily, readying his blade.
Inuyasha was done being intimidated by a short bald guy whose ass he could kick in a second, hands tied nor not. “The hell I’m not,” he retorted.
Sneering viciously, as though he had hoped Inuyasha would say just that, Matomi started towards the boy with his blade in hand.
“That is more than enough!” shouted the old priestess Kaede, freezing them both in their tracks.
“Matomi, I suggest very strongly that ye retire for the evening,” she said to the man with the blade. He looked absolutely infuriated, but clearly recognized that the woman was his superior, and he didn’t protest.
“Yes, my lady,” he said, the respect in his strained voice still evident through his gritted teeth. He turned on his heel, sheathing his blade recklessly, and headed off up the main road without a second glance.
“And ye,” she said to Inuyasha, turning this time to face him. “If ye will come with me, boy…”
“It’s Inuyasha,” Kagome corrected her politely.
“If ye will come with me, Inuyasha, than perhaps together we can figure out how ye came to be here. I will not force ye, but ye seem lost, and I don’t see any other hope of ye getting home. Please consider that before leaving.” She then turned to address a man who was standing meekly behind the Kagome, looking positively terrified of the proceedings. “Suri, would ye please untie…Inuyasha was it?” Said bound person nodded his assent. “Please untie Inuyasha.”
With that, the woman turned on her heel and headed into the hut, ducking slightly to go underneath the beaded curtain in her way.
Suri approached Inuyasha cautiously, watching him like he half expected the boy to jump atop him and rip out his throat. Inuyasha raised an eyebrow quizzically at him.
“You got a problem?” he asked Suri sharply.
“Na….na…no, Inu…Inu… sir. N…no problem at all.”
Inuyasha continued to stare at the man, until Kagome, taking pity on the poor, terrified soul, approached him and tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump a full foot in the air.
“It’s alright, Suri. You go on home, and I’ll untie him.”
“Oh n…no, Lady Kagome. I couldn’t do that. He might not be sa…safe.”
“You don’t have to worry, Suri. I’ll be fine. He wont hurt me, will you Inuyasha?” she asked, turning her attention on the boy at last. He only snorted in response and looked away, but the young priestess took that as agreement. “See, Suri? It’s fine. Go ahead.”
Without further argument, Suri clasped her hands gratefully and practically ran in the opposite direction.
Kagome then turned on Inuyasha, reaching out and taking hold of the thick rope that bound his hands tightly enough to bruise his wrists.
“Sorry about this,” she said, indicating the raw looking marks on Inuyasha’s arms, some of which had started to bleed by then. “We can’t be too careful you know.”
“Feh,” said Inuyasha.
“You can’t really blame us for being suspicious.”
“I can too. Watch,” said Inuyasha angrily, his temper not being improved by the way the ropes kept cutting into his flesh as the girl struggled to undo the multiple knots.
“No, you can’t. Or, at least, you shouldn’t,” she told him, twisting the ropes yet again to try to get to another knotted section. “What were they trying to do with these ropes? They must be knotted a dozen times.”
“Trying to tie up a demon, I guess. Thanks a lot for giving them the idea, by the way”
“Hey, I said I was sorry. I was just being careful.”
“I’ve never met any one so careful that they would shoot me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kagome remembered guiltily, pausing in her ministrations with his bindings. “I’ll take a look at that shoulder as soon we get inside. I’m sorry I did it. But I was very careful. I’m a good shot, and I aimed it so it wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Well, if that wasn’t supposed to hurt, than you screwed it up badly.”
“Well, no, I knew it was going to be painful, but it was meant not to cause too much damage.”
“Yeah, well, it felt pretty damaging at the time. Stupid thing even zapped me when I tried to pull it out. Are you gonna be done with that anytime soon?” he finished, nodding to his hands.
“Yeah, any minute now. Just a couple more knots. What do you mean, it zapped you?”
“I dunno,” he answered, shifting his arms a bit so that the girl could reach the other ties, only to find that the new position put strain on his injured shoulder, and move back to his original position. “It shocked me or something.”
Kagome paused in loosening his bindings to look curiously at him. “But that doesn’t make sense. The arrows power should only be felt by demons, and you said you weren’t a demon, so…”
“God, would you just untie me already?!”
“Oh right, sorry,” she said, hurriedly removing the last of the knots, and pulling the ropes from his wrists. “Ouch,” she added, looking at the damage she had inflicted on him. “I can fix that up for you. That is, if you decide to stay and talk to us.”
“And if I don’t, am I going to find an arrow sticking out of my back the second I turn around?”
“Of course not. You can go if that’s what you want, but if you stay, then maybe we can help you get to…wherever it is that you come from.”
Inuyasha considered for a minute. There was a chance that simply jumping down the well would take him home, but then there was the chance that it wouldn’t, and in that case he would be stuck. And by then, these people might not be so willing to help him anymore. Then again, if he did stay, they might decide that he was dangerous, and he doubted that they would hesitate to stab him in the back…literally.
“As if I have a choice,” he snorted, walking towards the hut he had seen the old woman go into.
“So you’re staying then.”
“Feh,” he said.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
The inside of the hut was slightly darker and several degrees cooler than the outside air. The elderly priestess barely glanced up as he entered, absorbed as she was with something that she was stirring in a large pot. Without being asked, Inuyasha sat heavily on the opposite side of the structure, close enough to speak quietly, but far enough away that he could keep his back pressed firmly against the wall. Just in case.
The young priestess, Kagome, followed him in and sat a small ways to his left, closer to the other priestess than to Inuyasha. She didn’t look at him regularly either, and when she does it was in short glances that radiated wariness, though not complete distrust.
After more than a minute of silence, Inuyasha decided to speak. “So, where exactly am I, and how the hell can I get out of here?” he asked, his voice sounding gruffer than he had intended it to.
“I don’t think ye are asking the right question,” answered the priestess Kaede cryptically, earning puzzled looks from both Inuyasha and Kagome. “I cannot be sure yet. Please tell me how it was ye came to be here, and then I might know how to send ye back.”
Inuyasha shrugged carelessly, regretting the motion immediately as his injured shoulder throbbed in protest.
“There really isn’t much to tell. I was supposed to be in school, but I didn’t feel like it, so I cut and wandered around an old shrine instead. I heard a noise in the well house, went to check it out, found some fat ass cat, and all of a sudden something jumps out of the well, grabs me, and pulls me down the damn thing. I hit it, I guess, ‘cause the next thing I know I’m sitting at the bottom of the well with an arm wrapped around my chest and no body attached to it. Then the thing started moving on its own and I had had enough of that shit, so I jumped out of the well, don’t ask me how that one happened, ‘cause I don’t know, and found myself here. The arm thing is probably still pacing the bottom of the well. And none of this makes any sense to me ‘cause where I come from wells are just supposed to hold water, and arms that are severed usually just rot. So, old woman, you got a clue yet?”
“I don’t think I understood half of that,” said Kagome, looking confused. “What’s school and why would you cut it? And what shrine are you talking about. There isn’t a formal shrine for miles. We plan to build one soon, but as of now there has never been any shrine near the Bone Eater’s well.”
“Bone Eater’s Well?”
“Yes. That’s what it’s called, the well you came out of, unless you walked a lot farther then we had assumed.”
“No, I was only out of the thing for like ten minutes. Then, you shot me.”
“Oh yeah. I should probably see to that, if you’ll let me,” Kagome told him, the guilt in her voice readily apparent.
“Whatever,” Inuyasha answered apathetically. Kagome took that as a yes, and shuffled over to him to get a better look at the wound.
“I may have a theory as to how ye came to be here, child,” said Kaede, speaking for the first time since Inuyasha’s story. “But first I need to ask ye some things.”
“Like?” Inuyasha shot at her.
“Like where it was ye said ye came from.”
“Tokyo.”
“And that is in Japan ye say?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is Japan, but I have never heard of Tokyo. And there is also the strange way ye dress. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“Well, I have,” Inuyasha retorted, as though personally affronted by her confusion. “Every day. And, by the way, you shouldn’t talk, considering that I’ve only ever seen clothes like that in museums. And on Halloween. So are you going to spill this theory of yours or not.”
“Patience, child, is a virtue,” reminded the old woman.
“Feh,” said Inuyasha.
“Ye say that ye did not travel far at all, and yet ye found yeself somewhere completely foreign.”
“What are you thinking, Kaede?” asked Kagome, who had made no move to fix Inuyasha’s injury since the older priestess had begun speaking. She was gazing at her senior, her mouth slightly open. She seemed to at least have some idea of what Kaede was alluding to, and looked as though she was hoping she had misunderstood. Inuyasha, however, didn’t understand anything. He didn’t know what the crazy women were talking about, and with his shoulder hurting and the hour growing later, he wasn’t much in the mood to listen to anymore cryptic rambling.
“I believe ye have traveled a great distance without moving at all,” the elderly woman said, like that was going to explain everything. Needless to say, it didn’t help Inuyasha’s understanding, or, for that matter, his temper.
“Would you spit it out already, you old hag? I’m tired of listening to all this senseless babble. Tell me what the fuck is going on or leave me the hell alone!”
Kagome glared at him angrily, but the sagely Kaede merely smiled in a manner he found most irritating, and continued.
“Perhaps it is not space ye traveled through, but time. This is the era of warring states. Feudal lords are constantly waging battles of dominance with stupid displays of violence and animalistic behavior. Is that what is happening in your time?”
“Well, sort of. But we just call it football usually.”
“I see. So ye are from the era of football?” Kaede asked him seriously, saying the last word for much longer than necessary.
“I guess you could say that. Football, rap music, and gangs.”
“It sounds fascinating,” said Kagome, who sounded confused.
“Are you trying to tell me that I’m having some weird time traveling thing?”
“Most eloquently put,” agreed Kaede, with almost imperceptible sarcasm. “But, yes, I do believe that ye have the gist of what I was trying to say.”
Inuyasha looked from one, to the other, and then to the first again. “Yup, I’ve found the funny farm, alright.”
“This isn’t the farm, but we do have one if you want to walk later,” Kagome told him, not understanding.
“No, that’s not what…nevermind. Anyway, the way I see it is there are two possibilities to explain this.”
“And what would those be?” asked Kaede.
“Well, the first is that I somehow fell down that well, and that I’m now lying at the bottom of it concussed, where, most likely, no one will ever find me, as no one knew I was there.”
Kagome looked thoughtful for a moment. “Did it hurt when I shot you?” she asked.
“Hell yes, it hurt!”
“Ok, then lets operate under the assumption that you are, in fact conscious, and assess the other possibility.”
“The other choice,” Inuyasha told her, “Is that I’m strapped to a gurney in some mental institution blathering to myself about demons and priestesses and looking generally insane. Not exactly a better option.”
“Or,” offered Kaede, “Ye could take the third option, and admit the possibility that something amazing has happened to ye, and that ye are now in the distant past, though how distant I cannot say, and simply try to return home.”
Inuyasha thought for a moment. Laying his trust in people he hardly knew wasn’t something he was used to doing. Nor was accepting the idea of magical time travel. But, if he were to say flat out that this was all some hallucination, and then it wasn’t, he would have more problems than he did already. And, if it was some weird dream, and he played along, the worst that could happen is he would wake feeling fairly idiotic. And that was a chance he was willing to take.
“Ok, so I’ve gone back in time. How exactly did this happen?”
The old priestess Kaede shook her head. “I don’t know what could have caused this,” she admitted. “But I’m sure we could figure it out if we just give it time. Now first I think we need to…” she began, but was interrupted by a screeching sound form somewhere beyond the door.
“First I think…” she tried again. The screeching grew louder, and was joined by shouts and cries for help and weapons.
“What’s going on?” asked Kagome, getting to her feet.
“I don’t know,” Kaede answered, rising as well. Seeing this, Inuyasha followed in suit.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, as a round of fresh screams and shouts rent the air.
“We just said we don’t know,” snapped Kagome, fear sprawled across her face. “We need to find out though.” With that, she grabbed her fallen bow and ducked out through the beaded curtain, just as another scream filled the air. Inuyasha followed after her, with Kaede on his tail.
What Inuyasha saw when he left that tiny hut changed his life forever. He would never forget it. How could he, especially when it turned and headed right for where he, Kagome, and Kaede were standing?
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I know that sort of looks like a cliffhanger, but if you’ve read the manga or seen the series, then it really isn’t. This chapter is not as good as I hoped it would be, but I’m putting it up anyway so that you guys have it after this long wait. I promise chapter three will be up much faster then two was, and that it will be better. Again, please don’t give up on me just yet. Review and tell me what you think. Even if it isn’t nice, I want to hear it. Oh, and hopefully chap 3 will be up by the end of the week, and maybe sooner. Thanks everyone.
Disclaimer: Rumiko and I had a fight about who got Inuyasha. I won, but then she transformed Tessaiga and hit me over the head with it, grabbed Inuyasha, and ran away. So, she has Inuyasha, and I have a headache.
On with the story.
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Boy of the Future, Girl of the Past
Chapter 2
Diagnosis: Time Travel
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Inuyasha’s knees hit the ground hard, and he suppressed an annoyed grunt, hastily reminding himself that he was surrounded by a large group of angry, armed people who didn’t appear to think to fondly of him. He swayed dangerously, having a difficult time keeping his balance, as his arms had been bound in front of him during the trek from the gigantic tree, and he couldn’t use them to keep himself up. One of the men, seeing this, grabbed the back of his shirt collar to keep him upright, pulling the fabric uncomfortably close and tight around Inuyasha’s neck.
“Priestess,” called a man in the front, who Inuyasha knew by then was called Kanichi. “We have a little something for you to see.”
For a moment, no one answered, and Inuyasha wondered who they were talking to. But then, the crowd parted slowly, turning to look at someone approaching. Form his position on the ground, the first thing Inuyasha saw was a brilliantly red hakama. Then came a white kosode, with the hands protruding from the sleeves resting on a set of hips. Finally came a face, with white hair surrounding it. The woman was heavy set, and older, with a black patch covering one eye.
“And what is going on here?” asked the old priestess calmly, as though tied up boys were dropped on her doorstep everyday.
“Kaede,” came Kagome’s voice from behind Inuyasha, as the young priestess forced her way to the front with little difficulty, although he couldn’t actually see her. “We found this man over by the sacred tree. I don’t think he’s a demon, but I wasn’t sure, so I thought it would be best to ask you.”
“Kagome,” the woman tutted, “Ye know well that ye have more than enough training to tell a human from a demon by now. What ye lack is the confidence in your own abilities, and not the knowledge.”
“I’m sorry, Kaede,” said Kagome, sounding more than a little ashamed.
“Now, now, there is no need for embarrassment Kagome. Let me have a look at this man, and I will tell ye what I think.”
No one moved for a moment, and Inuyasha wondered if the woman was going to kneel to see his face, but then a few hands grabbed his shoulders, not failing to clamp tightly over the injured one, and pulled him roughly into a standing position. He didn’t struggle, and took the chance to gain his footing securely, before looking up and meeting the old woman’s eyes, or eye.
As it turned out, this Kaede person was actually quite a bit shorter than him, though he hadn’t been able to tell that from the ground, as were most of the men who had been pulling him around.
‘I could take these guys,’ he thought bitterly, as he looked around at the people surrounding him, although his hands being tied up in front of him might make that difficult.
Suddenly, he felt the old woman’s hand grab his face and pull it down so that his eyes were on level with hers. Inuyasha met her gaze defiantly.
“Are ye a demon?” she asked him, in a tone that could have been used to inquire about the time of day.
“No,” he answered sarcastically. “Are you one?”
“No, I am not,” she told him, then she turned to the gathered crowd. “This man is not a demon,” she told them. “Nor is he much a man, if ye ask me. Still, I beseech ye wait to untie him, as I would like to speak to him and Lady Kagome in private.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Matomi grabbed one of Inuyasha’s arms, Kanichi the other, and they began to try to drag him towards a hut. Inyuasha, however in danger he might be, refused to be victimized and tossed around like that. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and refused to budge. Despite the efforts of the two men at his sides, the boy was immovable.
“I’m not going anywhere with any of you freaks until someone tells me what the hell is going on here!” he proclaimed. Every head snapped in his direction.
“I don’t think you be in any position to be making demands, boy,” said Matomi nastily, readying his blade.
Inuyasha was done being intimidated by a short bald guy whose ass he could kick in a second, hands tied nor not. “The hell I’m not,” he retorted.
Sneering viciously, as though he had hoped Inuyasha would say just that, Matomi started towards the boy with his blade in hand.
“That is more than enough!” shouted the old priestess Kaede, freezing them both in their tracks.
“Matomi, I suggest very strongly that ye retire for the evening,” she said to the man with the blade. He looked absolutely infuriated, but clearly recognized that the woman was his superior, and he didn’t protest.
“Yes, my lady,” he said, the respect in his strained voice still evident through his gritted teeth. He turned on his heel, sheathing his blade recklessly, and headed off up the main road without a second glance.
“And ye,” she said to Inuyasha, turning this time to face him. “If ye will come with me, boy…”
“It’s Inuyasha,” Kagome corrected her politely.
“If ye will come with me, Inuyasha, than perhaps together we can figure out how ye came to be here. I will not force ye, but ye seem lost, and I don’t see any other hope of ye getting home. Please consider that before leaving.” She then turned to address a man who was standing meekly behind the Kagome, looking positively terrified of the proceedings. “Suri, would ye please untie…Inuyasha was it?” Said bound person nodded his assent. “Please untie Inuyasha.”
With that, the woman turned on her heel and headed into the hut, ducking slightly to go underneath the beaded curtain in her way.
Suri approached Inuyasha cautiously, watching him like he half expected the boy to jump atop him and rip out his throat. Inuyasha raised an eyebrow quizzically at him.
“You got a problem?” he asked Suri sharply.
“Na….na…no, Inu…Inu… sir. N…no problem at all.”
Inuyasha continued to stare at the man, until Kagome, taking pity on the poor, terrified soul, approached him and tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump a full foot in the air.
“It’s alright, Suri. You go on home, and I’ll untie him.”
“Oh n…no, Lady Kagome. I couldn’t do that. He might not be sa…safe.”
“You don’t have to worry, Suri. I’ll be fine. He wont hurt me, will you Inuyasha?” she asked, turning her attention on the boy at last. He only snorted in response and looked away, but the young priestess took that as agreement. “See, Suri? It’s fine. Go ahead.”
Without further argument, Suri clasped her hands gratefully and practically ran in the opposite direction.
Kagome then turned on Inuyasha, reaching out and taking hold of the thick rope that bound his hands tightly enough to bruise his wrists.
“Sorry about this,” she said, indicating the raw looking marks on Inuyasha’s arms, some of which had started to bleed by then. “We can’t be too careful you know.”
“Feh,” said Inuyasha.
“You can’t really blame us for being suspicious.”
“I can too. Watch,” said Inuyasha angrily, his temper not being improved by the way the ropes kept cutting into his flesh as the girl struggled to undo the multiple knots.
“No, you can’t. Or, at least, you shouldn’t,” she told him, twisting the ropes yet again to try to get to another knotted section. “What were they trying to do with these ropes? They must be knotted a dozen times.”
“Trying to tie up a demon, I guess. Thanks a lot for giving them the idea, by the way”
“Hey, I said I was sorry. I was just being careful.”
“I’ve never met any one so careful that they would shoot me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kagome remembered guiltily, pausing in her ministrations with his bindings. “I’ll take a look at that shoulder as soon we get inside. I’m sorry I did it. But I was very careful. I’m a good shot, and I aimed it so it wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Well, if that wasn’t supposed to hurt, than you screwed it up badly.”
“Well, no, I knew it was going to be painful, but it was meant not to cause too much damage.”
“Yeah, well, it felt pretty damaging at the time. Stupid thing even zapped me when I tried to pull it out. Are you gonna be done with that anytime soon?” he finished, nodding to his hands.
“Yeah, any minute now. Just a couple more knots. What do you mean, it zapped you?”
“I dunno,” he answered, shifting his arms a bit so that the girl could reach the other ties, only to find that the new position put strain on his injured shoulder, and move back to his original position. “It shocked me or something.”
Kagome paused in loosening his bindings to look curiously at him. “But that doesn’t make sense. The arrows power should only be felt by demons, and you said you weren’t a demon, so…”
“God, would you just untie me already?!”
“Oh right, sorry,” she said, hurriedly removing the last of the knots, and pulling the ropes from his wrists. “Ouch,” she added, looking at the damage she had inflicted on him. “I can fix that up for you. That is, if you decide to stay and talk to us.”
“And if I don’t, am I going to find an arrow sticking out of my back the second I turn around?”
“Of course not. You can go if that’s what you want, but if you stay, then maybe we can help you get to…wherever it is that you come from.”
Inuyasha considered for a minute. There was a chance that simply jumping down the well would take him home, but then there was the chance that it wouldn’t, and in that case he would be stuck. And by then, these people might not be so willing to help him anymore. Then again, if he did stay, they might decide that he was dangerous, and he doubted that they would hesitate to stab him in the back…literally.
“As if I have a choice,” he snorted, walking towards the hut he had seen the old woman go into.
“So you’re staying then.”
“Feh,” he said.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
The inside of the hut was slightly darker and several degrees cooler than the outside air. The elderly priestess barely glanced up as he entered, absorbed as she was with something that she was stirring in a large pot. Without being asked, Inuyasha sat heavily on the opposite side of the structure, close enough to speak quietly, but far enough away that he could keep his back pressed firmly against the wall. Just in case.
The young priestess, Kagome, followed him in and sat a small ways to his left, closer to the other priestess than to Inuyasha. She didn’t look at him regularly either, and when she does it was in short glances that radiated wariness, though not complete distrust.
After more than a minute of silence, Inuyasha decided to speak. “So, where exactly am I, and how the hell can I get out of here?” he asked, his voice sounding gruffer than he had intended it to.
“I don’t think ye are asking the right question,” answered the priestess Kaede cryptically, earning puzzled looks from both Inuyasha and Kagome. “I cannot be sure yet. Please tell me how it was ye came to be here, and then I might know how to send ye back.”
Inuyasha shrugged carelessly, regretting the motion immediately as his injured shoulder throbbed in protest.
“There really isn’t much to tell. I was supposed to be in school, but I didn’t feel like it, so I cut and wandered around an old shrine instead. I heard a noise in the well house, went to check it out, found some fat ass cat, and all of a sudden something jumps out of the well, grabs me, and pulls me down the damn thing. I hit it, I guess, ‘cause the next thing I know I’m sitting at the bottom of the well with an arm wrapped around my chest and no body attached to it. Then the thing started moving on its own and I had had enough of that shit, so I jumped out of the well, don’t ask me how that one happened, ‘cause I don’t know, and found myself here. The arm thing is probably still pacing the bottom of the well. And none of this makes any sense to me ‘cause where I come from wells are just supposed to hold water, and arms that are severed usually just rot. So, old woman, you got a clue yet?”
“I don’t think I understood half of that,” said Kagome, looking confused. “What’s school and why would you cut it? And what shrine are you talking about. There isn’t a formal shrine for miles. We plan to build one soon, but as of now there has never been any shrine near the Bone Eater’s well.”
“Bone Eater’s Well?”
“Yes. That’s what it’s called, the well you came out of, unless you walked a lot farther then we had assumed.”
“No, I was only out of the thing for like ten minutes. Then, you shot me.”
“Oh yeah. I should probably see to that, if you’ll let me,” Kagome told him, the guilt in her voice readily apparent.
“Whatever,” Inuyasha answered apathetically. Kagome took that as a yes, and shuffled over to him to get a better look at the wound.
“I may have a theory as to how ye came to be here, child,” said Kaede, speaking for the first time since Inuyasha’s story. “But first I need to ask ye some things.”
“Like?” Inuyasha shot at her.
“Like where it was ye said ye came from.”
“Tokyo.”
“And that is in Japan ye say?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is Japan, but I have never heard of Tokyo. And there is also the strange way ye dress. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“Well, I have,” Inuyasha retorted, as though personally affronted by her confusion. “Every day. And, by the way, you shouldn’t talk, considering that I’ve only ever seen clothes like that in museums. And on Halloween. So are you going to spill this theory of yours or not.”
“Patience, child, is a virtue,” reminded the old woman.
“Feh,” said Inuyasha.
“Ye say that ye did not travel far at all, and yet ye found yeself somewhere completely foreign.”
“What are you thinking, Kaede?” asked Kagome, who had made no move to fix Inuyasha’s injury since the older priestess had begun speaking. She was gazing at her senior, her mouth slightly open. She seemed to at least have some idea of what Kaede was alluding to, and looked as though she was hoping she had misunderstood. Inuyasha, however, didn’t understand anything. He didn’t know what the crazy women were talking about, and with his shoulder hurting and the hour growing later, he wasn’t much in the mood to listen to anymore cryptic rambling.
“I believe ye have traveled a great distance without moving at all,” the elderly woman said, like that was going to explain everything. Needless to say, it didn’t help Inuyasha’s understanding, or, for that matter, his temper.
“Would you spit it out already, you old hag? I’m tired of listening to all this senseless babble. Tell me what the fuck is going on or leave me the hell alone!”
Kagome glared at him angrily, but the sagely Kaede merely smiled in a manner he found most irritating, and continued.
“Perhaps it is not space ye traveled through, but time. This is the era of warring states. Feudal lords are constantly waging battles of dominance with stupid displays of violence and animalistic behavior. Is that what is happening in your time?”
“Well, sort of. But we just call it football usually.”
“I see. So ye are from the era of football?” Kaede asked him seriously, saying the last word for much longer than necessary.
“I guess you could say that. Football, rap music, and gangs.”
“It sounds fascinating,” said Kagome, who sounded confused.
“Are you trying to tell me that I’m having some weird time traveling thing?”
“Most eloquently put,” agreed Kaede, with almost imperceptible sarcasm. “But, yes, I do believe that ye have the gist of what I was trying to say.”
Inuyasha looked from one, to the other, and then to the first again. “Yup, I’ve found the funny farm, alright.”
“This isn’t the farm, but we do have one if you want to walk later,” Kagome told him, not understanding.
“No, that’s not what…nevermind. Anyway, the way I see it is there are two possibilities to explain this.”
“And what would those be?” asked Kaede.
“Well, the first is that I somehow fell down that well, and that I’m now lying at the bottom of it concussed, where, most likely, no one will ever find me, as no one knew I was there.”
Kagome looked thoughtful for a moment. “Did it hurt when I shot you?” she asked.
“Hell yes, it hurt!”
“Ok, then lets operate under the assumption that you are, in fact conscious, and assess the other possibility.”
“The other choice,” Inuyasha told her, “Is that I’m strapped to a gurney in some mental institution blathering to myself about demons and priestesses and looking generally insane. Not exactly a better option.”
“Or,” offered Kaede, “Ye could take the third option, and admit the possibility that something amazing has happened to ye, and that ye are now in the distant past, though how distant I cannot say, and simply try to return home.”
Inuyasha thought for a moment. Laying his trust in people he hardly knew wasn’t something he was used to doing. Nor was accepting the idea of magical time travel. But, if he were to say flat out that this was all some hallucination, and then it wasn’t, he would have more problems than he did already. And, if it was some weird dream, and he played along, the worst that could happen is he would wake feeling fairly idiotic. And that was a chance he was willing to take.
“Ok, so I’ve gone back in time. How exactly did this happen?”
The old priestess Kaede shook her head. “I don’t know what could have caused this,” she admitted. “But I’m sure we could figure it out if we just give it time. Now first I think we need to…” she began, but was interrupted by a screeching sound form somewhere beyond the door.
“First I think…” she tried again. The screeching grew louder, and was joined by shouts and cries for help and weapons.
“What’s going on?” asked Kagome, getting to her feet.
“I don’t know,” Kaede answered, rising as well. Seeing this, Inuyasha followed in suit.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, as a round of fresh screams and shouts rent the air.
“We just said we don’t know,” snapped Kagome, fear sprawled across her face. “We need to find out though.” With that, she grabbed her fallen bow and ducked out through the beaded curtain, just as another scream filled the air. Inuyasha followed after her, with Kaede on his tail.
What Inuyasha saw when he left that tiny hut changed his life forever. He would never forget it. How could he, especially when it turned and headed right for where he, Kagome, and Kaede were standing?
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I know that sort of looks like a cliffhanger, but if you’ve read the manga or seen the series, then it really isn’t. This chapter is not as good as I hoped it would be, but I’m putting it up anyway so that you guys have it after this long wait. I promise chapter three will be up much faster then two was, and that it will be better. Again, please don’t give up on me just yet. Review and tell me what you think. Even if it isn’t nice, I want to hear it. Oh, and hopefully chap 3 will be up by the end of the week, and maybe sooner. Thanks everyone.
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