A great combination of InuYasha and Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
the two demonic shows we thought couldn't mix. (Tim Seltzer, seltzer@seltzerbooks.com) Disclaimer: Don't own the shows, don't plan on trying to,
none use this fic without permission.
Author's Notes: This is an edited and
corrected version of the story originally posted to
Fanfiction.net January - March, 2004. The content is still
essentially the same as the first version, but I fixed some
consistency glitches, typos, and Japanese usage errors.
This story takes place after the second
Inuyasha film, "Castle Beyond the Looking Glass," (after Episode
74 in the series), and after the Buffy series finale. Contains
spoilers for events that happen in all seasons of Buffy, through
the beginning of the final season of Angel, Inuyasha episodes
1-74, and the second Inuyasha film.
Tokyo, the present day
As she followed Koji and the others to the
house, Buffy noticed that both Kagome and Inuyasha were looking
awfully glum. She remembered the looks they traded after the
last thing old Mr. Higurashi said, and as she plodded after them
now, she really wished she spoke Japanese. It was getting really
old having to ask everyone to translate for her.
Once inside the front door, she found herself
in a little antechamber. There, she followed the others' lead
and took off her shoes. While she was unzipping her boots, the
kid she'd seen earlier--Kagome's little brother?--came dashing
up with a handful of paper towels.
He offered them to Inuyasha first, who took
them with a grunt and started to methodically wipe down the
rusted, battered blade of his sword. Little bro handed Buffy the
remaining towels, and she used them to clean up the naginata as
best she could.
It was a really nice weapon, she thought,
examining it closely--well-balanced, wickedly sharp blade, and
it extended her reach farther than a sword would have.
When she had finished, she propped the
naginata in one corner of the antechamber, next to Kagome's bow
and quiver.
Kagome took the stained paper towels from her,
and picked up a pair of slippers from a neatly-aligned row of
shoes, handing them to Buffy with a shy smile. Buffy remembered
what she'd read about etiquette in her Lonely Planet guide, and
attempted a bow in return.
Buffy figured that she looked like a total
dork doing it, but Kagome was too polite to laugh at her
Inuyasha, who had been barefoot to begin with,
had already vanished inside the house. He had taken his sword
with him.
What? He really thinks someone's gonna
steal that piece of junk? Or maybe he was afraid that the
seals wouldn't hold... Buffy eyed the naginata she had just put
down, then decided not to take it into dinner with her. If
anything else came out of the well, she could grab her weapon on
her way out of the house.
"Please, this way," Kagome said, taking a
half-step up onto a polished wooden floor.
Buffy caught the savory whiff of frying pork
chops, and her stomach growled. Her airline breakfast felt like
it had been consumed ages ago. Koji's driver hadn't stopped
anywhere on the long drive from Narita Airport, so she'd missed
lunch. Given the dire straits Kagome had been in by the time she
arrived, that had probably been a smart decision, but she was
starving.
She looked around curiously as she followed
Kagome into the house. The Higurashi residence was a large one
by Japanese standards, but very sparsely furnished. As Buffy
passed the living room, she noticed a coffee table, a futon
couch and a TV with a gaming console. Other than that, most of
the furniture seemed to consist of floor cushions and low
tables.
The smell of food grew stronger as they
entered a large combination kitchen/dining room area. Everyone
else was already seated around a large, Western-style dining
table, which was set with gently-steaming bowls of rice, a
platter of deep-fried boneless pork chops neatly sliced into
segments, and several kinds of salads, some of them
brightly-colored. It all looked delicious.
"Oh, tonkatsu!" Kagome said, happily,
motioning Buffy to take the empty seat between Inuyasha and
Koji. "You'll like it, Buffy-san."
"It looks wonderful," Buffy agreed, pulling
out her chair.
As soon as she sat down, Inuyasha grabbed for
the platter of tonkatsu, only to be thwarted when Kagome slapped
his hand away. He gave her a dirty look but subsided while
Kagome introduced the rest of her family to Buffy.
The boy sitting on Inuyasha's other side was
named Souta, and he was indeed Kagome's kid brother. The
nice-looking lady sitting across from them turned out to be
Kagome's mom, Atsuko Higurashi.
"I thank you for your help, Miss Summers," she
said, in a gentle voice. She cast a worried glance at Kagome. "I
was really frightened this afternoon."
"Keh," Inuyasha said, reaching for the food
again. This time, no one stopped him. As he pushed a large
potion onto his plate, he added something else in what Buffy
thought sounded like a really show-offy tone.
Mrs. Higurashi gave him a fond smile, then
jumped up, as if she'd suddenly remembered something. She
hurried over to the fridge, pulled out a container, and set
another plate down in front of Inuyasha.
Buffy saw that the dish was piled high with
coin-like slices of bright yellow pickle. Inuyasha's face
brightened and he immediately began shoving them into his mouth
using his fingers. He chewed noisily.
At least he had washed his hands! Though
his hair still had leaf-fragments from taking a header into
the ground and his kimono-thingy was just...gross, Buffy
thought, spying bits of bug stuck to the woolly red fabric of
his wide sleeves.
Having served themselves, everyone chorused
"Itadakimasu!" before digging in.
Everyone except Inuyasha, that is, who had
started eating the moment the food hit his plate.
Dinner was eaten in silence, which gave Buffy
a chance to appreciate Mrs. Higurashi's excellent cooking. The
tonkatsu was crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the
inside, and the tangy sauce served on the side finished it off
perfectly. The green salad had a creamy sesame dressing, and the
other salads turned out to be made from various kinds of pickled
veggies. They were cold, crunchy, and had a pleasant
sweet-and-sour flavor.
Really, the only downside was having to sit
next to Demon Boy. She tried to ignore Inuyasha's table
manners--or, more precisely, his lack of them--because no one
else at the table seemed to be paying attention, but it was
hard. He had by-passed the chopsticks that were giving Buffy a
hard time, and was simply picking up handfuls of food and
shoving them into his mouth.
Buffy gave him a sidelong glance as a
particularly slippery piece of pickled cabbage slipped out of
her hold for the third time, and wondered if she might be better
off using her fingers, too.
No way, she thought, as soon as the
thought crossed her mind. And have everyone think I was
raised in a barn, like him? She realigned the skinny,
lacquered chopsticks between her fingers and stabbed at the
cabbage with renewed determination.
The yellow pickles disappeared in record time.
As soon as she noticed, Mrs. Higurashi rose and fetched more
from the fridge, smiling the whole time. She really likes him!
Buffy thought, in amazement. And not even a thank-you from that
jerk!
Once she'd finished eating, she looked over at
Koji. He was staring at Inuyasha, too, but at her glance, he
smiled and looked down at his plate.
Hey, he's got a dimple! she observed. This
Watcher was definitely growing on her. And he had good taste in
weapons.
"Did you know that the traditional guardian of
this shrine is an inu-youkai, a dog-spirit?" he said, in a low
voice. "Take a look at the guardian statues out front when you
have a moment. You may see a resemblance to the fellow sitting
next to you."
Across the table, Grandpa Hirugashi perked up
at the mention of "inu-youkai." He put down his chopsticks, and
using Koji as a translator, he began telling Buffy all about the
history of the shrine, including the guardian dog statues, the
Jewel of Four Souls, and the Bone-eater's Well.
Buffy nodded politely at each factoid. So, the
shrine was eight hundred years old, very cool. Demon bones
disappeared magically when thrown into the Bone-eater's
Well...now that was interesting. More proof that that well was
actually a trans-dimensional portal of some kind.
Her mind began to wander a little when Grandpa
launched into a blow-by-blow of each building's history. As he
rambled on about sacred trees and purification fountains, Kagome
threw her a sympathetic look. But no came to Buffy's rescue--or
poor Koji's-- until dinner was over and Mrs. Higurashi had
cleared the plates from the table.
Kagome helped Mama clear the table, and spent
the next few minutes slicing oranges for dessert. Returning to
the table with a platter of the fragrant fruit, she heard
Minamide-sensei tell Buffy-san, "...and as soon as we get hold
of a Portal Key of our own, I think you ought to try and locate
the one the demons are using to come here. Mr. Higurashi tells
me that his granddaughter regularly travels between the present
day and the feudal era using the old well."
"So, why do we need a Portal Key?" Buffy-san
asked, giving Kagome a quick smile as she took some of the
proffered orange slices.
"Because it appears that only she and Inuyasha
can travel through the Bone-eater's Well without a key."
Minamide-sensei sighed. "We have to stop the youkai from coming
through again. It was only the sheerest luck that Inuyasha was
visiting here when the invasion started. Otherwise..." He gave
an expressive shrug and began to repeat what he'd just said in
Japanese for the benefit of everyone else at the table.
"Eh, it's probably that bastard Naraku. He's
always sending others to do his dirty work," Inuyasha said,
carelessly.
Mama was still slicing up fruit in the
kitchen, but Kagome saw how her knife abruptly stopped moving.
She turned around, and Kagome cringed inside as she saw the
horrified look on her mother's face.
Dead silence reigned at the table. Inuyasha,
you moron! Hadn't she warned him never to say anything
about their more dangerous adventures in the Feudal Era to her
family? But now the cat was out of the bag.
"Kagome-chan," said her mother, in an odd,
strained tone. "Have you met this...Naraku before?"
"Yes, Mama." Kagome forced out the words.
Unable to meet her mother's gaze, she intently studied the
platter of oranges that she still held.
"Has he tried to harm you? Sent demons to
attack you?"
"Yes, Mama." She thought furiously. "But not
all demons in the Warring States Era are evil," she said,
desperately. "For instance, there is Inuyasha. " Who tried
to kill me, the first time we met. "And Shippou-chan..." Well,
the little kitsune didn't try to kill me, but thanks to him,
the Thunder Brothers nearly turned me into a hair potion.
"And, um, Kouga-kun."Who kidnapped me and considers me his
woman now.
She devoutly hoped that her mother would never
find out about that.
Inuyasha's scowl deepened at the mention of
the wolf-prince, but mercifully, he kept his big mouth shut.
"It's really not too dangerous," Kagome
continued, in the face of Mama's continued silence. What could
she say to convince her? "And--and Inuyasha is always with me."
Mama gave a tiny nod, but Kagome's heart
shriveled at the unspoken weight of her mother's anxiety. What
if she forbade Kagome to travel through the well again? All the
Shikon shards would find their way into the hands of evildoers.
And she might never see any of her friends in the feudal era
again!
