Matsuri

Chapter One: The Trials of Being a Religious Figure

‘Twas a calm day, the air warm and thick like a down comforter and every bit as heavy. The sun beat down just hard enough to bring a slight sweat to the skin, though not enough to burn. Gravity seemed to pull particularly hard at the two figures in the clearing: a young girl stretched out on the ground, clad in a plain green and white cotton school uniform and looking like she regretted it; and a boy slouched against a tree trunk, ten feet in the air, shade dulling the eye-blinding red of his loose kimono. At first, it seemed like a normal scene. Neither teen was exceptionally tall, nor were they short; the garments they wore were nothing unusual.

Until you came to the realization that, while some preferred to wear kimonos to festivals and such, it was too hot to wear one for fun–and while the school uniform belonged in a thoroughly modern Tokyo time, the boy’s attire was from the Muromachi period, approximately five hundred years previous.

And then there were the ears. Yeah, the ears: those two white ears, thrust upward from a long, white mat of hair. Should anyone other than Kagome touch those ears, they would regret it.

Inu-Yasha, the boy in the tree, seemed to be asleep, or at least dozing. The rustle of the leaves in the tiniest waft of a breeze, paired with the drowsy warmth of the summer afternoon, was far more potent than any sleep-spell he’d heard of. Yet, despite that (or perhaps because of it) he was awake, one golden-amber slit-pupiled eye on Kagome, who was, not for the first time and most certainly not the last, completely off her guard. Bah, he thought tiredly. That’s like waving a sign in the air that says ‘Come eat me, I’m free and I taste good in teriyaki sauce.’ Still, he’d keep guard while she had her rest; she’d earned the little sleep she got ever-so-often in this world. While most of the people were worked to the bone and tormented by the stuff of nightmares, she and the rest of the merry little band were the only ones who went out and fought the roots of the suffering. And this wasn’t even her world! She’d been forced into a place totally foreign from her own, told she wasn’t even her own person and that she was really some dead priestess back from the grave, paired with him of all people who had despised her from the start, and sent out to go open whoop-ass on the kind of creations that were beyond human imagination. Any other mortal would have run screaming back to their own world, but she’d stayed with him. True, she had her weaknesses, and her stubbornness could be downright annoying, but it was like seeing another, oddly fascinating side of Kikyô.

It was oddly peaceful, just the two of them like this. There were times when he wished she’d go back to her own world just to be safe, but something in the back of his mind all but wailed at the thought. No, he decided, this was just fine.

"Inu-Yasha?" Kagome asked sleepily, her eyes half-open.

"Yeah?" His gruff voice conveyed no hint of the almost human thoughts he’d been having.

"Are–"

Inu-Yasha never heard the rest of her question, for it was overpowered by an enormous racket coming from the stream nearby.

"You filthy, disgusting, perverted, nasty–nasty–thing!" Sango stormed into the clearing, Miroku and Shippô on her heels. The hand-shaped imprint on Miroku’s cheek was oddly the exact same shade of red as Sango’s eyes and, coincidentally, her anger-flushed face. Her expression was one of intense fury; her hands shook as if longing to beat the crap out of him some more. "I’m starting to think that the only reason you agreed to religious celibacy was that you couldn’t get any in the first place!"

Kagome, who’d stood up the minute Sango and company had entered the clearing, now snatched Shippô up and covered his ears, indignant. "You guys, he’s only–only–"

"Fifty years old?" Inu-Yasha suggested dryly.

"He’s young!" she protested, shooting him a look that could have killed a relatively small animal. "This isn’t appropriate for him to hear!"

The little fox-demon squirmed, trying to dislodge her hands from where they were clamped firmly over his ears in a surprisingly tight death-grip. "What’s cel–celib–celibacy?"

There was panicked silence as the other members of the motley crew stared at each other, the same thought going through each of their heads: Oh god/ancestors/gods/bloody hell, now what?!

Miroku recovered first and picked up Shippô, whispering something in his ear until Kagome realized that they probably shouldn’t have left the duty of explaining something like celibacy to someone like him. "No! No! Um–we’ll tell you when you’re older!"

It was too late; they could only presume the damage was done. Shippô drew back, then asked, "Like Inu-Yasha and Kagome?"

In the stunned pause that followed, there were a variety of reactions. Miroku had to stuff his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing (luckily for him, it was his left, so he didn’t accidentally undo the seal and suck his own head into the hell-hole); Sango first paled, then even she had to fight to keep a straight face; Kagome froze, a strange-but-unique expression cemented into her features; and Inu-Yasha dropped like a stone to the ground, unconscious, two thin lines of scarlet trickling from his nose.

With that, both Sango and Miroku lost it and fell to their knees, laughing far too hard for Shippô’s comfort. Kagome’s knees trembled for a moment, and then she asked in a voice that sounded strangely like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, "Miroku, what exactly did you tell Shippô?"

The laughter died as soon as the two saw the look on Kagome’s face. They’d never seen that look before, and they were happy they hadn’t: it wasn’t the kind of look that would strip the paint off of a Chevy, it was the kind of look that would leave the Chevy as a twisted blob of smoking metal. Miroku came to the conclusion that he’d have to choose his next words very, very carefully, or they could well be his last.

Fortunately (more or less), he was spared from that thankless task by the still blissfully naïve Shippô. "He said it means that even if someone really likes another person, they won’t sleep with them." He tugged at his hair tie, a frown on his face. "I don’t see why not. I used to sleep with my mom all the time."

This set off another round of howls from Miroku and badly disguised laughter from Sango, who was attempting to turn it into a coughing fit. "It means not showing it you have...um...certain feelings for someone, Shippô," Kagome said carefully. "Religious people are supposed to keep celibacy so they can concentrate on their prayers. The ones that do are called celibates." A simple and slightly inaccurate explanation, she knew, but for the moment it would have to work.

"Wouldn’t that make you a celibates?" he asked, confused.

"Celibate," she corrected, not liking the way this conversation was going. "And no, I’m not really–"

"But you are a religious person!" Shippô insisted. "And you like Inu-Yasha a lot, but you don’t show it!"

"Out of the mouths of babes," Miroku quipped.

She shot him another Chevy-melting look. "Shut it, you. You started this whole mess." Inu-Yasha sat up, groaning, and Shippô bounced over to him. "Hey, Inu-Yasha, are you a celibate?" When his bright blue gaze was met by Inu-Yasha’s blank golden one, he added helpfully, "Kagome said she was."

"Gods," she muttered, covering her beet-red face.

Inu-Yasha glanced over to Kagome, eyebrows raised. "This is news."

"There goes his weekend," Miroku muttered.

"I’ll be right back," Kagome announced. "Sango, can you…er…explain?"

"Sure," she said, covering a snicker.

Trying not to roll her eyes, Kagome made her way down to the creek. What she’d wanted to ask in the first place was whether any of the festivals had been established yet, because she wanted to see what festivals were like in the Sengoku Jidai period. She’d probably never know now…

Kneeling beside the crystalline waters gurgling happily over stones worn smooth by lifetimes of erosion, Kagome stared at the rippling surface, deep in thought. So deep, in fact, that she didn’t notice the figure in red and white, oddly similar to hers, standing upstream and on the opposite bank.

Kikyô studied her reincarnation, eyes narrowed. At this time, she was so open, so vulnerable…it would be like killing a child. And while eliminating her now would get her out of the way and return her soul to its rightful place, Kikyô would derive no satisfaction from it. No, there would have to be a struggle, so she would know she’d earned the right to be the only existing version of herself.

But for now she’d follow this intruder and her companions, and wait for a more favorable time.

Kagome was still thinking when something landed beside her with a thud. Gasping, she straightened, only to find the leader of the wolves gazing imperiously down upon her.

"Kagome, I came to see if you've given up yet on that pathetic half–"

"One more word and I’ll rip your throat out, you mangy sack of–" Seeing Kagome send him a reproachful look, Inu-Yasha paused and changed what he was going to say. "–hair."
Kôga glared back at him, and within moments the two were shouting insults at each other while Miroku, Shippô, and Sango appeared at the fringe of the woods, watching with slight admiration. "I didn’t know anyone even remembered those ones," Shippô said appreciatively.

Just once, Kagome thought silently to herself. Just once would I like for them to meet up and not immediately start hurling obscenities at each other. "Um…" They didn’t glance her way, still yelling the kind of words that would make even the most vulgar drunkard flinch. "Hey!" Not a blink. "You guys!" Nada.

Now officially angry, she drew an arrow, deliberatley not attaching any of her ki to it, and fired it straight between them, where it thudded into the tree they were standing by, the shaft protruding from the trunk at eye-level for both of them. The brook was suddenly oddly quiet.

"The next one of you to say anything with the slightest hint of an offense towards the other will get one of these through his stomach or somewhere else equally pleasant," she said coolly. "And don’t look so wounded, because you’ve both took worse hits than a little arrow, although I can insure it’d be very painful." She let a little ki flow into the arrow that she had nocked now, just to let them see what she meant. "And Kôga, you know I can’t leave. I’ve got to finish collecting the Shikon shards. Is that all you came for?"

"Um…" he coughed and continued after a moment, obviously trying to think of how to tell her something without insulting Inu-Yasha. "I also thought I’d tell you…rumors are that something’s kickin’ up some dust down in Kyoto. Since normal demons can’t go there, and Kyoto’s been practically untouchable for the past few centuries, you might wanna check it out. Might be a Shikon shard, might not be." He shrugged. "As long as you stick with these guys–" He tilted his head towards Sango, Miroku, and Shippô "–you should be fine. And maybe this…um…" At the slight hint of mockery in his voice, Kagome pulled the arrow back a little, and he halted, then continued, looking like his teeth hurt. " This…this…"

"Yes?" Inu-Yasha said pleasantly, arms crossed, a smug smile on his face.

Kôga looked ready to strangle him with his bare hands, but instead said, "And maybe this nice doggy can help a little."

"Thank you, Kôga," Kagome interjected before Inu-Yasha could object to the use of the d-word. "He’s right–if there’s a Shikon shard down there, we should at least try to get to it before Naraku does."

"Yes, but it’s at least two month’s walk." Miroku stared thoughtfully into the distance. "And there are a lot of hills in the way if we go straight through, and the snow might not have melted off."
"There’s more than one way to get to Kyoto," Sango pointed out. "It would be easier going–longer, but easier and maybe faster–to go first to Edo and then follow the coastline except for cutting across the Izu Peninsula, then head inland and northwest from Toyohashi, through Toyota to Nagoya, north to Gifu, and southwest along Lake Biwa. The only mountain we should get close to is Fuji and even then we’d only be skirting it. It should take a little over two months that way, but it’s faster than running up and down the mountains." When everyone stared at her, surprised by this torrent of cartographic and geographical wisdom, she shrugged. "We traveled a lot."

"So it seems," Miroku said tonelessly. "Yes, that does seem like a good route. We can stop in some towns, investigate any rumors, do a little exorcism here and there–"

"We?" Kagome interrupted. "Don’t you mean Sango and I exterminate while you go off chasing after the nearest mildly attractive girl between the ages of sixteen and thirty?"

"Well, I’ll be going now," Kôga announced. "Kagome, thing again about your choice of travel companions." He strode away.

"Thanks for telling us about this, Kôga!" she yelled after him. He bounded out of sight, and she frowned, feeling a little guilty. After all, he was always so nice to her, though why he had chosen her as his 'woman' of all people was far beyond her imagination, and even if he and Inu-Yasha didn’t get along that well, he still didn’t try to attack Inu-Yasha when he was wounded, which alone said something.

Kagome suppressed the urge to giggle. Her friends would have a hernia if they knew the guy she was supposedly ‘seeing’ was a half-demon; not to mention the fact that it all boiled down to having a wolf-demon and a half-dog demon fighting over her. Sometimes she wondered if this wasn’t some crazy dream, but considering all that had happened, it couldn’t be.

"We’re going to need supplies," Shippô said, disrupting her thoughts. She returned her attention to the group as Miroku added, "And tonight’s the first of the month."

That wasn’t good; she needed to return to her own time to pick up the things she’d need for a two-and-a-half-month journey, but she also didn’t want to leave Inu-Yasha on his own in that state…

"Well, we’ll just spend the night at Kaede’s village, then," Sango said reasonably. "We can get a map there and see if anything’s changed since the last time I took that road."

"We’ll need quite a lot of non-perishable food," commented Miroku. "After all, most of the villages are going to have nothing but fish if we travel the coastline."

"And replacement bedrolls, and enough coinage to take care of anything we might lose…"

Kagome was watching Inu-Yasha, trying to think of what to do. She knew they had to set out as quickly as possible, but still….what if something happened while she was gone? What if she climbed out of the well, only to find the bloody corpses of her companions stretched out on the scarlet-stained grass–
Stop it, she told herself fiercely. They all have enough experience and skill to handle anything that may come.

But still… someone who may have somehow found out about Inu-Yasha’s weakness could try to take advantage of the fact, and if she could have prevented it, she’d never forgive herself. This time was so much more dangerous than her own; everyone was trying to kill each other, and it was just her luck that she was teamed with people who were not only strong but on her side. Her time was so much safer, compared to this one–no one tried to enslave you, no demons to try and rip you apart in order to feed your intestines to its spawn…

"That’s it!"

Everyone glanced at her, startled, and Sango asked, "What’s it?"

She clenched her fist in triumph, a grin on her face. "I was worrying about how I have to go get supplies for myself and how something might happen while I’m gone, but then I got this idea!"

"Which is…?" Shippô prodded when she didn’t continue, still working the details out in her head.
"I think…yeah, that might…uhm hmm…" She looked up at them again. "We’re all going to spend the night in my time!"

Oh yes, and the places I mentioned in Sango’s travel route are real–I’ve got a book about Japan, which helps me with accuracy, and so unless I put a note about some place or landmark or something, it actually will be a real location. -- Ain’t that awesome?