15I realized I forgot the POV markers for chapter 7 hours after I posted. I was going to edit but decided to leave it and ask if it was confusing.
Sorry that this chapter is late. I'll try and post another chapter later this month since this is technically for July. Preparing for a new job and starting university this fall. Frosh week is in 3 weeks and I'm actually kind of excited! My fall term schedule is actually pretty light and I'll have time to work on a lot of fics during my 4 hours of daily commuting time.
*Can't Access on my laptop to publish this chapter so I'll try on my phone in the app*
Word Count: 3331 (New Record)
8 Mama's Girl
It was evening time and I had packed a bag of my things for the trip home. As I walked to the well the events of the past few days played over in my head. Looking back towards the village where my friends were was a habit from the early days of adventures.
Of course there was no silver hair in sight.
Once I focused on the well, I was prepared to climb in right away but a chill went up my spine. I looked around the clearing, trying my best to look through the thick darkness blanketing the forest around me. Something was…something was triggering me some how but I couldn't see anything. Nor could I sense anything. At least nothing that should be making me feel like I was being watched.
There was nothing there but the feeling of eyes on me persisted. I wanted to dismiss the last few moments completely but something was urging me not to. After all it wouldn't be the first time an enemy had found me at the well.
I decided to just leave. If something was watching me it hadn't attacked so it couldn't mean to harm me…yet.
The next few moments were a blur as I jumped down the well and traveled forward in time. The flashing colours and brightness vanished as swiftly as they appeared and I was left in the dark at the bottom of the well. I sighed before climbing up the ladder and walking to my house. Once inside I dropped my bag and took of my shoes. The house felt familiar and different all at once. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scents of the 20th century.
"Kagome?"
I opened my eyes and my mother was in front of me. My mouth opened and closed a few times but I didn't know what to say. Mum seemed to understand and she wrapped her arms around me for a hug. We stayed liked that for several moments before she pulled back to look at me again.
"Welcome home. How was your…trip? It hasn't been that long since you last visited."
"We're taking a break to recover. Our last mission was… rough. I'll tell you all about it later," I whispered.
I could have stayed in her arms forever but the tail-end of the hypervigilance was fading quickly leaving the full force off my exhaustion in it's wake.
"Oh… well go wash up. I'll put your things out of the way and you can deal with them tomorrow. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes alright? I'll set another place for you."
"Alright thanks mum."
I watched her drag my bag away to hide in case we had unexpected guests before I could deal with it tomorrow. She glanced back at me one more time before she was out of sight.
"Gods I love her so much," I sighed. "A nice bath sounds perfect."
In the end I decided to take a quick shower and have a bath tomorrow. It felt like to much work to set up the candles and essential oils for the relaxing bath I was envisioning and I was likely to fall a sleep and miss dinner all together! But tomorrow it would be perfect after a good night's rest and some family time.
I yawned while shuffling into the kitchen for dinner. The food smelled delicious and I almost missed the others in the room.
"Kagome!"
Sota exclaimed as I leaped up to hug me. Less than a second later I felt grandpa's arms wrap around me as well. I sighed into their arms.
"Good evening. I missed you all."
"Alright, alright, let her breath. She'll be here for the next few days!" mom teased.
"I'm sure you hugged her just as tight as well did!" Sota pouted as he retreated to his seat.
Grandpa also pipped up, "And probably for longer!"
Mom just laughed, "Guilty as charged."
We all laughed as we settled into the table and I could feel something uncurl in me. I'd barely been back an hour and I already felt more relaxed than ever. With that in mind I settled in for dinner and enjoyed the presence of my family. As we ate, they told me all about what had been happening since my last visit. Once we were done, I could hardly keep my eyes open.
"Oh dear, someone's tired. Go rest up and we'll see you the morning Kagome," mom said as she helped Sota clean up.
"Alright, goodnight."
"Goodnight Kagome."
The room was blank. Kikyo was to my right and InuYasha was in front of us. I tried to open my mouth but I couldn't speak. I tried to turn around but my body was moving slow and it felt too heavy. Only my head moved how I wanted it to.
A disembodied voice echoed out, "Choose."
What?
"You must choose!"
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Whatever was happening it seemed I had woken in the middle of it.
"If you do not choose the choice will be made for you."
Neither InuYasha or Kikyou reacted to the words. Or to my presence. I blinked and the world changed. We were in a forest at the edge of a cliff. I looked over the edge and saw rapids race by hundreds of feet below.
"So be it."
I looked back to InuYasha and the earth under my feet crumbled. I was falling again.
"Choose."
My body twisted in the air and I saw Kikyou falling beside me. InuYasha appeared of the edge of the cliff, face drawn with horror before he snarled and leaped down after us. He was getting closer reaching out toward us—the scene changed. I was still falling but InuYasha was holding Kikyo and they were suspended in mid air. They watched with blank faces, like they were staring through me, as I continued to fall.
"A choice has been made. Will you live with the consequences?"
Once the voice stopped, I started falling faster. The world around me was a blur as I screamed in sync with the roar of the rapidly approaching rapids. As I flipped over again everything was suddenly a black void. The roaring from the rapids was much louder and shadowy figures reached out to me and—
I woke up gasping for air, thrashing about in the sheets, feeling trapped. Only after I fell off my bed did the panic start to leave. The sting from the impact was grounding and within a moment I was calm. The nightmare was already slipping from my memory but what I did remember was upsetting.
"I think I'll take that bath now," I muttered into the floor.
Checking the time, I was surprised to see it was 9am. I hadn't set my alarm last night so I had expected to sleep in longer. It was Friday so Sota was already at school and Grandpa was out completing chores around the shrine. Mom was probably in the kitchen preparing for lunch or in the living room watching something on the television. I could take a bath and then spend the day with her.
With that plan in mind I picked myself up off the floor and prepared for my bath.
"Good morning mum."
"Good morning, dear," mum smiled. "I thought you'd sleep in a little later until I heard you drawing a bath."
I laughed as I hugged her.
"I would have taken one last night but I could barely stay awake. After the past few days I needed one."
I wandered about the kitchen preparing a simple breakfast for myself.
"You looked like you needed one."
I paused what I was doing to glance over at my mum. She was already looking at me.
"Yeah. I did."
She continued to watch me as I finished making my sandwich and brought it over to the table. Only once I started eating did she go back to what she was doing. The silence was kind of comforting. When I got up to wash my plate mum looked up.
"I have to go shopping for a few things. Would you like to join me?" she asked.
I nodded, "Let me go grab my things."
I rushed up the stairs to brush my teeth and grab my purse before rushing back down the stairs.
"We'll go to the stores out of town. Better not risk anyone from school seeing you."
We spent the rest of the early afternoon shopping and enjoying each others company. We grabbed lunch while we were out and came home to watch a movie. Once the movie was over it felt like there was a lull. Mom had completed her to-do list and I still wasn't ready to tackle the new math work my friends had dropped for me.
"So," my mom started. "Why did you come back so soon?"
I glanced at her then down at my hands. This conversation was another thing I wasn't ready to tackle yet. But I was dreading math homework more.
"Things have taken a turn in feudal Japan," I started slowly. "Do you remember what I told you about InuYasha and the village priestess Kikyou?"
"She was InuYasha's… undead girlfriend? And the reason he was stuck to the sacred tree? "
I nodded, "Yes, well the two of them are becoming… something to each other again and it's effecting the group dynamics and me."
I explained the pairs behaviour and the group's reaction to it.
"I think I big part of why we're uncomfortable is because she's technically dead. She's been temporarily reanimated and the only way for her to stay… alive is to continue consuming souls or complete the ritual to take mine. It's very unnerving. But that's not what I really wanted to talk about."
"There's a possibility that a—a zombie might take the rest of your soul, but that's not what you wanted to talk about," mom squinted at me.
I chuckled nervously, "Sounds pretty crazy I know. You know I should start from the beginning it'll be easier to see how quickly things went south. So, I fell through the well, met InuYasha and broke the Shikon Jewel into a thousand shards. I discovered a few things that made me decide that it was my responsibility to put the Jewel back together. InuYasha—the guy with the adorable ears on his head. I… I had a crush on him up until the last time I was here. InuYasha in general is a very rude and arrogant person. The whole bad boy stereotype fits him like second skin based of first impressions but if this was an anime he would be the tsundere. At first, he wasn't that bad.
My mom hummed.
"Okay that's a lie. When he found out I had the ability to sense the shards he was as rude to me as he would be to any other humanoid with a side of caution in case I ended up being a powerful yokai. At some point he figured out I had feelings for him, and we got closer. But then the woman he was in love with before was brought back to life. A sorceress wanted Kikyou for something, and she needed Kikyou's soul to bring her back. But her soul had already been reincarnated in the future and was still in use thank you very much. If you saw her, you would know immediately, I am her reincarnation. Long story short the ritual wasn't completed and now Kikyou has a part of my—our soul but as I mentioned it's not enough to stay alive so she steals others to maintain her body of clay. InuYasha whenever he was presented with a life-or-death choice between the two of us would always hesitate and go after Kikyou. It hurt me that he had to think about his choice. At this point he realized that no matter how he acted towards me I would always come back so he could choose Kikyou and still have me to locate the jewel shards. He is rude to everyone on the team, and he knew he could get away with it. Until last week when I saw the two of them at the well. They had never been intimate where I could see them before. That's when I realized just how little he respected me as a person. So, I something had to change."
As I paused for a breath my mom reached for my hand and gave a squeeze in support. I smiled before pushing on.
"Then a few days ago he almost got us all killed. Everything was going to plan until he freaked out over Kikyou being in danger. Now I'm not saying he shouldn't care but not only can Kikyou take care of herself he didn't even blink I was attacked the same way moments before! Anyway, he freaked and we lost the element of surprise and we were immediately out numbered. Then we were in the middle of a battle for our lives and maybe to get three shards from a pack of yokai if we got lucky when again Kikyou is threatened and he freaks out again! His attack hit's the weakened ground, which was weak from the yokai living in underground and his previous attack and we all fall through."
My mom gasped and covered her mouth. I had to look away before I could continue.
"And the worst part? Were on a floating island several stories off the ground. So now we're all falling, some of us are still being attacked be yokai and now we have to avoid some of the falling debris AND worry about how not to hit the ground. A few of our members could either survive the fall or had means to fly and they were scrambling to help those who couldn't InuYasha was focused on Kikyou or course but I think she was actually unconscious. I ended up being saved by Sess—Lord Sesshomaru, InuYasha's older half brother. The whole thing made me realize I wasn't taking this as seriously as I need to and—and this is really dangerous. If it wasn't for his brother having been there by coincidence, I would have died. I ripped him a new one after the incident and then minutes after I regained consciousness and we've started to recover the island started to fall because the magic keeping it afloat dissipated which we knew was going to happen way before we go on the island, but InuYasha had been wasting time attacking his brother instead of securing the group especially those of us that were unconscious and injured! I just feel so stupid for not seeing where my little crush would lead to. I—I just feel so overwhelmed? What am I supposed to do?" I finished.
My mum scooted closer and gave me a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her as she pats my back. I cried for what felt like the first time in forever as I realized how much of my time and thoughts were devoted to InuYasha. Different instances flickered through my mind.
"Hey this is a nice fabric. It's so soft and this the most beautiful purple I've ever seen… What do you think InuYasha?" I turned to show him the clothe.
He started at it then shrugged his shoulders.
"It's nice, reminds me of the Shikon Jewel."
"Tighten your grip Kagome. I don't want you to fall," the half demon said.
I gripped him harder and borrowed into his back as his grip on my thighs tightened.
My eyes fluttered trying to stay open but wouldn't go higher than half-mast. InuYasha huffed and smirked at me from the other side of the fire.
"Sleep Kagome. I'll take first watch tonight."
I nodded before laying down. The last thing I saw before I was lost to the world was InuYasha's golden eyes staring back at me.
"But InuYasha-!"
"Listen here wench! I don't care what you think! I don't want that wolf-cub joining us and that's final!"
"InuYasha Sit Boy!"
"What's your problem!? All I did was spend the day with Rin! We didn't even leave the village!"
"My problem is that you're helping Sesshomaru! After everything he's done to us!"
"You! After everything he's done to you! None of which is reason enough for me to NOT hang out the little girl. Besides I didn't do it for him or to hurt you! I did it because I was bored! You said I couldn't leave the village, so I found something to do to distract myself!"
"Then you should have come with me so we could hunt for the Shikon shards!"
"You went after Kikyou! And why is it always about the Shikon Shards why can't we just enjoy a day—? You know what forget it. I'm sorry I upset you."
"Hey! Where are you going?"
"Sango should be back by now. We'll do some boring girl stuff."
"Tch! Stupid wench."
It took a while before my sobbing became sniffles. My mum continued to rub my back as I calmed down. After a moment she pulled back.
"Better?"
I nodded as I wiped my eyes in my shirt.
"Kagome thank you for telling me this. Firstly, please do not beat yourself up over getting your feelings caught up in this. You're a teenager it's naturel to have crushes on people especially those of the bad boy variety. InuYasha is a very nice-looking young man but he's also a half-demon. Every girl has dreams of having their own feudal fairy tale with a sexy demon who has their wicked way with them. You were lucky enough to meet one!"
"Mom!" I hissed half scandalized by what she was saying.
"What? It's true!"
I laughed at the look on my mom's face.
"Anyway, remember you started this journey because you felt it was your responsibility to collect the shards after you broke the jewel. That may have involved InuYasha at the start but I think now that you have other friends it's safe to say you could do this on with out him? Or considering his personality suggest it may be better to split up into to groups to collect the shards faster? As far as I know, you owe nothing to InuYasha. You don't have to work with him if it's not working anymore."
I nodded before giving her another hug. It was nice to hear my mom's thoughts an even better that her idea's sort of matched mine.
"As for you not taking this as seriously as you should I think we're all guilty of that. I was actually wanting to talk to you about your plans for school and after graduation but we'll get back to that. To hear that you almost—and we wouldn't have known. I think we all got caught up in how fairy tale-ish this all sounded and forgot what we know about feudal Japan. But that stops now. I think we need to have a proper conversation on what your plans are and set up a timeline. How does that sound?"
I considered what she was saying. It was true that we hadn't really set up for the long term. What if it takes a few years to find all the shards? Would it be better for me to pull out of school and repeat a year? Or should I do my best to graduate on time so my future isn't affected? What if I wanted to spend more time in the feudal era? There were to many things to consider and to many things that could go wrong if I didn't have a plan.
"I think that is a great idea."
Something tells me that we'll need to plan for this to take a year at the least.
Working on an old new fic so updates might slow down again. It's a Fairytail fic following Lucy and Levy. It's follows canon up until episode 226 Fairytail of the dead MEEEEN (that episode actually gave me nightmares lmao). It's in the works but the prologue (teaser?) is up on all of my accounts. I will (attempt to) write at least 5 chapters of it before I officially start publishing but I may get too excited.