thousand nights

A Tenshi ni Narumon / Inu-Yasha Crosover

Pairing: Sesshoumaru (IY) X Sara (Tennimon). All other canon pairings for both series apply (Yeah! I love Miroku/Sango just as much as I love Gabriel / Miruru.)

Author's note: There are now MAJOR spoilers for Tenshi ni Narumon. Major major major, as in, last few episodes. It's a great series, one that meshes almost perfectly with Inuyasha, and I recommend you at least give it a try. The first DVD is out here in the US. This fic is now basically setting the stage for what I want to happen in War Games.

Kagome was running late. If she didn't hurry and get back to the feudal age, Inu-Yasha would become impatient and come back for her, and every time he "visited" something miserable ended up happening to her. It wan't always his fault, of course; chaos simply seemed to follow him into this time; but it did happen, and so there was no help for it. Inu-yasha could not come to this time again.

She was packing now, and in her haste, she didn't realize that her pocket knife was open, and she ended up neatly slicing her hand.

"Yeeeowch!" she cried, and quickly grabbed for a bandage. Oh no. If her hand was cut . . . she couldn't climb down the well! Since her adventure had started with Inu-Yasha all those months ago, she'd gotten used to scrambling up and down the vertical walls of the well, but she needed both hands to do so. This was not good . . .

And Inu-Yasha would come here any minute . . . oh, this was not good at all . . .

Still clutching her bleeding hand, she ran over her inventory of supplies, and remembered an item that she'd been hoping to never use at all.

The cherry blossoms are out now, Sara reflected, wandering down the streets of Tokyo. So beautiful . . . so brief.

The red-haired demon sighed. She'd been doing that an awful lot lately, ever since she'd met Mikael.

"It could never work," she reminded herself for the thousandth time. She was a demon. He was an angel. And he was already taken. But the heart never listened to reason, and Sara's young heart yearned for the love that her younger sister and brother had found with their respective mates.

Up ahead was a shinto shrine. Sara always liked exploring shrines; something about the depth of faith and purity of them attracted her. All demons liked purity for some reason. Feeling slightly blasphemous, the demon climbed up the long steps, and began exploring the grounds, hoping to find a place to buy a wish or fortune for Mikael.

"Ano . . .?" she called, staring around the compound, the slight wind blowing cherry blossoms into her long curly hair. "Is anyone here?" She spied a well-shed, and began to walk towards it, hoping to find a priest or miko to help her out.

"Jii-chan, remember. As soon as I leave, you have to pull this rope up," Kagome said to her grandfather. With her injured hand, a rope was the only way she'd be able to scramble into the well long enough for the time-magic to catch. Normally she'd just jump, but lately her backpack was so bulky that it might get wedged if she wasn't careful.

"I have the perfect excuse for you!" Jii-chan was saying, his eyes running with free tears. "Kagome-chan cannot go to school today, she has injured her hand. So perfect!"

"Jii-chan! Remember the rope!" Kagome said again, and ducked over the lip of the well, scurrying down the rope, favoring her injured hand and whimpering in pain all the while. If Jii-chan didn't remove it, the link between the ages might very well remain, and kami knew what sort of horrible things might cross over into her time.

As the familiar disorientation began with the time-magic, Kagome whispered to the air, "Inu-yasha . . . I'm coming home . . ."

And with a flash, she was gone.

Sara climbed the steps to the well-house, and was relieved to find a priest there.

"Ano . . . Jii-san," she said, shrinking into the doorframe. The old priest started, and turned around. As soon as he saw her, an odd light flashed in his eyes, and he was immediately at her elbow.

"Yes, Miss, how may I help you?" the priest said to the pretty young demon.

"I was wondering if you might show me around?" Sara said, her face calm and faintly smiling as usual, as though there were a secret that she was keeping from the world. She dared not smile fully, though; her teeth might show. Nothing scared humans more than having a full demon around, especially one that looked so disconcertingly human herself.

"Of course!" the old priest said, and all but leered as Sara shifted her weight, throwing out one hip, causing her short red shorts to adjust over her flat stomach ever so slightly. It was a calculated move that worked every time, and the priest was immediately all but smitten.

The unlikely pair left the well-house, the rope and Mikael both forgotten.

"About time you came back," Inu-yasha muttered as Kagome appeared in a purple envelope of time-magic. He was sitting on the edge of the well waiting for her to return, as usual. Shippou was on his shoulder.

"Kagome!" Shippou cried happily.

"Heya Shippou-chan! And hello, Inu-yasha."

"You're late."

"Yeah, well, I hurt myself, Inu-yasha. Unlike you I don't heal practically instantly. Could you do me a favor and come down here and carry me up?"

"Weak girl," the half demon muttered again, but he leapt into the well without hesitation, Shippou moving to his head to make room for her. Kagome gratefully climbed onto his back, and in a matter of moments, they were out of the well and traveling across the countryside toward Kaede's hut, where Miroku and Sango both waited for them to continue their quest.

Some Time Later

"And this is it," Sesshoumaru said to no one in particular, staring at the God Tree. "This is where that half-breed was sealed for fifty years."

"Y-yes, Sesshoumaru-sama," Jaken said, his eyes twirling nervously. Rin was dancing circles around him, and it was making him very dizzy. "He was pinned to the tree by a miko's arrow."

"So even a hanyou is subject to a miko's purity," Sesshoumaru mused, staring at the tree. He wasn't entirely sure why he had wanted to come here. It's not as if he had actually cared that Inu-Yasha had once been sealed; it was, in fact, a thing he couldn't have cared less about if he tried. But something . . . some instinct, had drawn him here today, and because of that he was in a fouler mood than usual.

Not that it was noticeable to Jaken or Rin since Sesshoumaru was almost always in a foul mood.

"Sesshmaru-sama?" Rin called, suddenly stopping her random dance around Jaken. "Why did we come here? It's boring here. It's just another tree."

The eyes of the human child were pure. Sesshoumaru placed his right hand against the tree, feeling the soft ki emanating from it, flowing from its bark to his palm. Just another tree . . . just like Rin said. Not even any residual magic from the seal leftover any more.

Yet, for some reason, he could not bear to leave that tree just yet.

The pretty red-haired gaijin proved to be very interested in the history of the shrine, especially stories told about various demon exorcisms and the like. Kagome's grandfather wasn't nearly as lecherous as his stereotype might indicated, but when you're an old man and a pretty girl listens as you speak, you're more inclined to talk, simple as that. So he told her all the stories about the shrine except Kagome's own tale (mostly because that had no ending yet), and ended up selling the gaijin three fortunes and even a Shikon no Tama keychain. She thanked him profusely, and left, her smile ever so slightly more genuine for her visit there.

Yet something kept nagging on Kagome's grandfather's mind. Wasn't there something he was supposed to remember?

Trinkets in hand, Sara started to leave the shrine compound before she realized she hadn't actually visited the well. Curious, she wandered over to the shed, and slipped inside. It was dark. Her eyes adjusted quickly thanks to her demon powers, and she walked over to the very edge, looking down into the black heart of the stone well.. It seemed to stretch on to the other side of the world.

"Helloooo," she called, and giggled slightly to herself as it echoed and bounced back. What a fun place this would have been to visit with Mikael . . . but she never would visit anyplace with him, would she? He was not hers. He never could be hers.

Perhaps it was because her thoughts were an emotional roller coaster; perhaps it was just her usual playfulness and penchant for mischief that caused her to sit on the edge of the well, and dangle her legs over the abyss. Whatever the reason, she hadn't counted on a very fat cat suddenly meowing and causing her to lose her balance, so that she tumbled into the depths of the well.

Frantic, the demon clutched at the rope as she fell, losing her precious fortunes and Shikon no Tama keychain in the process. With a single smack, she landed against the stone wall, but she was relieved with the rope held fast.

"That was a close one," she whispered, peering into the darkness. She could see the bottom now. Oh, drat; there was her keychain and her fortunes, too. Cautiously, the demon began to rappell down the stone wall.

Halfway down something strange began to happen, though. She felt a familiar wash of demon magic, and instinctively went invisible as a very powerful spell took hold of her. What the . . . ? she though in irritation. The wash of magic quickly faded, however, and she continued down the rope to the bottom of the well, still invisible, until she reached her trinkets. Then she looked up, and was quite thoroughly startled to see a square patch of daylight where there should have been darkness.

Sesshoumaru's keen nose picked up the scent of a third yokai in the area immediately. His eyes narrowing, he motioned for Rin to stay, and followed the scent of the demon until he came across a well.

He took a deep breath, and wasn't surprised to find the scent of his younger half-brother and the hanyou's human mate also fresh. Figures that Inu-Yasha would hang out around the place he was sealed. Stronger than those two scents, however, was the rich, deep scent of a full yokai. And a strange one, at that. Mildly curious (the most emotion he could summon at any point was mild), he peered down into the heart of the well, letting his demon's sight illuminate the darkness. But he saw nothing.

A head suddenly blocked Sara's view of the daylight, and she squinted for a moment until the head resolved into a handsome face. She drew in a breath when she realized it was another demon, and for once she called upon her demon's powers to take a good whiff of the other demon as well.

The demon's scent was . . . the scent of the Old World. Intrigued, and quite unafraid, Sara let herself turn visible again.

"Hellooo," she called in English, as she had a tendency to do when she forgot herself. Nervously, she played with the bandages on her forearm. What strange demon was above her?

Sesshoumaru almost blinked when a girl demon suddenly appeared on the bottom of the well. She called a strange word up to him that had plaintive tone to it. The demon was suddenly even more mildly intrigued.

"What have we here?" he whispered. Jaken and Rin came up behind him, but both were too short to peer over the lip of the well.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, what is it?" Jaken asked, desperately craning his neck to see. Rin followed suit, but for them the effort was futile.

"Who are you?" Sesshoumaru called bluntly.

"I'm Sara," the reply came in a sharp feminine voice, this time in gently accented Japanese. "And I might ask the same of you."

The female demon gathered her coltish legs underneath her, and stood up, shaking her wild mane of salmon curls for a moment before looking up at his face again. She wore the strangest clothing -- she was barely even covered at all, but what she did wear was so exquistely tailored that Sesshoumaru knew they were her outer clothes. The girl gave another hauty shake of her head, releasing another wave of her pure yokai smell.

"I am Sesshoumaru," he answered formally. The girl would know exactly who he was by his name; he was, after all, the heir to the greatest taiyokai to ever roam the western lands.

"Sesshoumaru-san . . . that's a funny name."

Sesshoumaru was surprised when his surge of anger was almost non-existant. Something about the other demon fascinated him, and he wasn't even insulted when she said his name was funny. But why didn't she know who he was?

"I might say the same thing for 'Sara,'" he answered drily. "What manner of yokai are you? I've heard of invisibility spells, but I felt no magic from you."

"It wasn't a spell, that's why. Look, can we have this conversation in open air? It smells like death down here. I don't like it."

Sesshoumaru said nothing, but the girl began to unwrap one of the bandages around her fore arm. After she'd uncoiled far more than she should have had wrapped around her arm (and it was still covered), she took a pendant off from around her neck, and tied it to the end.

"Catch!" she said in the odd language again, and she tossed the heavy gold pendant high in the air, so that it trailed the bandage behind it. Sesshoumaru understood her plan, and caught the heavy pendant neatly in his hand. She quickly began scaling the wall, wrapping the bandage back around her arm as she went. By the time she broke the lip of the well, she was all but back to normal, the bandage neatly in place.

Sesshoumaru handed her the pendant back, still very intrigued by the other demon. In the light of day, her hair shone the most unsual pink-red color, and her blood red outfit stood out in stark contrast. She also wore heavy black shoes, with ridicously large bottoms, and a pair of ruby, heart shaped earrings that had to have been worth a fortune.

"Thank you very much," she said again, in her soft accent, and smiled a faint half smile.

Rin and Jaken both stared, all but saucer-eyed, at the strange demon woman before them. Sara caught Rin's eye, and smiled more genuinely. Rin smiled back. The little girl reminded Sara of Noelle, her little sister, when she was young.

"May I ask what you were doing in the well?" Sesshoumaru said, keeping his word choice stiff and formal instead of lapsing into his usual derogatory speech. Words he used for Jaken and the half-breed were not for the likes of the beautiful demon before him.

"I . . . don't know," Sara admitted, and sat on the lip, peering into the dark depths. "I fell into another well, and I felt a time-magic spell catch hold of me. I didn't even know that sort of magic still existed in Tokyo," she said with a shrug.

"Tokyo?"

"My city. Well, my adopted city," the girl answered with another small shrug.

And that was when it finally struck Sesshoumaru. The girl was not a native nihon demon. He knew he'd never seen hair quite like that before. And of course demon-kind extended worldwide, although Sesshoumaru had never been in a mood to see the rest of it

"I see," he finally answered. "A time-magic spell is a very powerful one, it's true. But I don't sense any magic coming from this well at all."

"I didn't sense any from the other well, either, but the magic flared up when I was halfway down. And there was a rope on the other side. I wonder if I can go back?" she asked, turning her head again to look down into the well. The motion caused another whiff of her scent to float in Sesshoumaru's direction, and he was startled when he realized that some of the notes were the same as Inu-yasha's mate.

Could it be that . . . this was the portal to another world? This was where the half-breed's woman came from?

He needed a deeper sniff. Forgetting his politeness of a moment ago, he reached for a tendril of her hair, and brought it up to his nose. Sara's breath caught for an instant in surprise, before her eyes narrowed in anger.

"What are you doing?" she said, her accent going back to its snippyness again. Her hair was all but sacred.

"It's the same, all right," Sesshoumaru said to no one but himself. "The same as the half-breed's woman's scent . . . "

"It's probably Bath and Body Works' Plumeria you're smelling," she replied crossly. "I have it imported specially."

Sesshoumaru dropped the strand of glorious pink hair, and stepped back. Rin and Jaken had watched the exchange, utterly fascinated by the pretty female demon from the well.

"Try going back," he commanded softly. Sara blinked, but then shrugged again, and dangled her legs over the lip of the well once more.

"Sayonara," she said, and jumped.

"Kagome would be very upset if I forgot about this," Kagome's grandfather said, glad he'd finally remembered about the rope. The pretty gaijin had distracted him, but oh, what a nice distraction she had been. With a simple heave, the connection between the ages was broken. Now no one but Kagome or Inu-Yasha would be able to travel through.

Sara landed on the bottom of the well with a thump.

"So much for that plan," she grumbled in English.

Sesshoumaru peered over the edge of the well again, midly disappointed that his theory had been wrong. But the notes were still definitely the same, and that meant that this girl -- this demon -- was from the same place as Inu-Yasha's mate.

She stood up, and started to tie her bandage around the pendant again, but Sesshoumaru was impaitient, and he simply leapt into the well, grabbed the startled girl around the waist, and leapt back out, all in the course of a few seconds.

"Oh," she squeaked as he set her down onto the grass. "That was handy." She put her pendant back on around her neck.

Rin finally worked up the courage to approach the pretty demon. Sesshoumaru forced himself to stay expressionless as the human girl stepped forward. Not every demon would understand his wishes to keep the small child with him (he didn't even understand it himself), but if the pretty demon dared to touch one hair of Rin's head in aggression, their brief meeting would be over. Very quickly.

But instead, the girl demon squatted down so that she was at eye level with Rin. "Hello," she said with a genuine smile. "Who are you?"

"I'm Rin," the little girl answered promptly, and then, copying her guardian, she grabbed a handful of Sara's hair and sniffed it. "You smell like flowers," she said. Sara grinned back, and patted the girl's head.

Sesshoumaru watched the exchange, his curiosity expanding to full blown interest. So, the gaijin demon wasn't afraid of humans. Interesting. Interesting indeed. Sesshoumaru looked at her thoughtfully through slitted eyes.

"Since you can't go back, you're coming with me," he declared out of nowhere. Sara looked startled.

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken yelled in protest.

"Yay!" cried Rin.

"And why should I?" Sara said haughtily, and stuck her nose in the air, throwing out one hip. "I don't know you beyond your name. And I have a family I need to get back to."

"Then go back." Sesshoumaru turned to leave. "I was only offering shelter for the night. The woods here are dangerous." He glanced back, over his boa, and Sara looked around nervously. She could always go invisible, but . . .

"Okay," she finally agreed. "I'll go with you, Sesshuoumaru-san."

"That's Sesshoumaru-sama to you," Jaken argued, and kicked her shin.

"Ouch!" Sara cried angrily, and slipped invisible by instinct.

"Oy . . . oy, where'd she go?"

Sara giggled and followed the demon lord to his chariot, becoming visible again just as she stepped inside, surprising Jaken and delighting Rin, who insisted on riding on her lap all the way back to Sesshoumaru's lair.

End part one