Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One for the Ages ❯ Chapter Thirty: 11th Year of tha Boomerang ( Chapter 30 )

One for the Ages

By Gan Xingba

Chapter Thirty: 11th Year of tha Boomerang

 

After Sango had completed her training, there had been a general consensus that the group would wait until the following day to move to the next stage of the rescue operation. While Masaruten required no expenditure of spiritual energy, just repeating the process of using it constantly was a physically and mentally exhausting exercise. In fact, Sango had been the first to fall asleep, not even staying awake long enough to answer questions about the sword or begin planning her foray through time. It wouldn't be until midmorning the next day that Sango would wake, the sunlight finally too intense for her eyelids to deny. Stretching herself out while simultaneously blinking the sun out of her eyes, Sango looked about her to see everyone else waiting for her.

 

“Geeze…sorry for sleeping so late,” she apologized. “I guess I worked harder than I had thought.”

 

“It's no problem,” dismissed Kagome, grabbing a pair of rice balls and handing them to the demon slayer. “We're basically out of food, I'm afraid, so these will have to do.”

 

“Don't worry, we're a days travel away from Kaede's village at the most,” Miroku said, calming Sango's worry before it even occurred. “We'll be able to eat a nice meal there before you set off.”

 

“Yeah, figured it'd be easier for if you started out in Tokyo,” Yusuke added. “I'm not sure…but I think they had trains where you're goin'…or I guess when you're goin'…you know what I mean.”

 

“Well, we shouldn't waste time, then,” suggested Sango, rising to her feet. “We should just say farewell to Nobu first, though.”

 

The group nodded in agreement and began to head towards the cave entrance. As they approached, however, Nobu himself floated out to greet them. Smiling in his usual manner, the ghost threw them a friendly wave.

 

“Ah, I had good timing. You're ready to leave, right?” spoke Nobu. “Well, before you go, I'd just like to go over the essentials one more time, Miss Sango. First rule…”

 

“Always try to blend in,” responded Sango on cue.

 

“Second rule…”

 

“Change as little as I possibly can.”

 

“Third rule…”

 

“Never, under any circumstances, go to a time where I already exist.”

 

Nobu smiled and clapped his hands excitedly. He had made Sango memorize the three rules the previous afternoon. Being a man who had always been very fond of his own handiwork, he had even given the rules a name: The Oshima Keys to Successful Time Travel. No one was aware of it, but he had actually just made those rules up while training Sango on how to use Masaruten.

 

“Oho? Memorized them have you? Very good,” approved Nobu. “Just one last thing that I neglected to mention before, however: since my soul is not bound to Masaruten, and you are incapable of binding it to your own soul, anyone can now wield it if they know how. Even demons can at least hold it, even if actually trying to use it will get them tortured to death.”

 

Sango nodded in understanding while Inuyasha's eyebrow twitched slightly behind her. For the second time, Nobu had spoken of the painful death any demon trying to use Masaruten would receive as though he were talking about how lovely the weather was. There was something quite disturbing about that.

 

“Well, we should be going. Farewell to you, Nobu, and thank you for all of your help,” Sango said, bowing politely to the ghost, a gesture that was mirrored by her companions, though Inuyasha and Yusuke opted for small nods instead.

 

“Farewell to all of you, then, may you find fortune in all of your travels,” returned Nobu, bowing in turn before turning to Yusuke. “Give your fellow detectives my regards.”

 

Yusuke nodded in affirmation, and then turned to join the rest of the group, who had begun to make their way towards a nearby forest. Sensing an oddly familiar spirit energy from behind him, Yusuke suddenly did an about face. Were he drinking anything, it would surely have been spit out, for descending from the sky above towards Nobu was a blue haired girl riding an oar. The others had failed to notice Yusuke's absence, so he hid behind a rock and watched the situation unfold.

 

“Hello there, miss ferry girl. Terribly sorry to disappoint, but I have an appointment in five days. You can give me that much longer, right?” called Nobu up to a presumably much younger version of Botan as she approached.

 

“You must be out of your mind!” snapped Botan angrily. “You disappear completely off of the spiritual radar for thirty years and then expect you're going to be treated nice when your spirit is finally tracked down? Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused me?”

 

“Oho? I've caused trouble, have I? Sorry to hear that,” Nobu replied, not sounding apologetic in the least. “Well, I'm afraid that I'll just have to cause you some more trouble, then. See you in five days.”

 

With that, Nobu promptly left the ground and started soaring off in the opposite direction that Yusuke's comrades had departed in, passing seamlessly through several rocks on the way. Botan's expression jumped from “pissed off” to “about to turn homicidal” on Yusuke's anger scale in response.

 

“Get back here, you twit!” screamed Botan as she began to give chase. “I am not going through all that paperwork again, do you hear me?”

 

Yusuke thought it took great self control to suppress his laughter enough so that he avoided detection. Rarely had he seen Botan in such a fury. Filing the incident away for future comedic reference, Yusuke, hastened to catch up with the rest of the group.

 

“What was the hold up, Yusuke?” asked Inuyasha when he had caught up. “Did you sense a demon or somethin'?”

 

“Well…I guess you could call it that, yeah.”

 

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To everyone's relief, they had arrived at Kaede's village by nightfall, and were not forced to scavenge for dinner. However, seeing the exhausted state that everyone was in after hiking for countless hours, they decided it would be wise to wait until morning before sending Sango off to the “11th year of the Meiji”. At first, when they realized they had no idea how many years were between the current era and the year the photograph of Kuwabara was taken, there had been a slight panic. Fortunately, Sango recalled Nobu saying something about how the actual system one used to calculate years and days was irrelevant, since humans invented the very concept of naming blocks of time anyway. So long as a target was established using any kind of existent measuring system at all, he had said, Masaruten would do the rest of the work.

 

It even went so far to transport you to the same month, day, hour, minute and second that it was in the time of your departure if the only unit you gave was a year. In other words, if at exactly five in the morning on January 6th, 1990, you decided to transport yourself to the 52nd year of the Qin dynasty of China, you would arrive on January 6th, 52nd year of the Qin dynasty at exactly five in the morning. It was, according to Nobu, a safety measure to prevent accidental violation of his “third rule”. The one hitch in this was that if you used a measurement of time that never existed, such as saying you wanted to go to the 15th year of the One-Legged Duck, then you would end up being hurled through space-time for several minutes until it was determined that such a point in time never existed, and you were flung rather roughly back into the time from which you came. Nobu, having experienced this first hand upon misreading the wetern term “A.D.” as “A.B.”, had cheerily described it as “nauseating to the point of near insanity”.

 

Since there was no doubt that the “11th year of the Meiji” actually existed, however, everyone was able to rest soundly throughout the night. After breakfast the following morning, they gathered around the great tree that Inuyasha had once been pinned to.

 

“The shrine should be there by now, since I'm pretty sure Tokyo existed in the Meiji era,” Kagome ventured. “It will be a good place to start from, and this way you wont end up transporting yourself into a wall or something.”

 

“Yeah, I don't think anyone would take kindly to a time portal ripping a hole in their house,” agreed Sango, who was wearing her traveling clothes since her armor would probably stand out too much.

 

“Um…you sure you want to take Hiraikotsu, Sango?” asked Inuyasha, pointing out that a giant boomerang was probably far more suspicious than some light armor.

 

“I'm not going into some unknown part of time without my weapon. Besides, it's covered,” Sango replied, referring to the huge piece of brown cloth wrapped around the weapon so that it looked like a giant triangle instead of a giant boomerang, which while ridiculous looking, would at least keep her from getting arrested for carrying a weapon. “You never know what kind of trouble those guys might have gotten themselves into.”

 

“Okay, remember, Kuwabara was at a place called the Kamiya Dojo, so ask around for that place to start out,” Yusuke reminded her. “He might know where the others are, which would make everything pretty easy.”

 

“Be careful, though, Sango,” interjected Miroku, failing to hide the concern in his voice. “You always have the option of coming back to this time if you get lost or are in a tight spot. We'll be waiting for you.”

 

“Don't worry, Miroku,” Sango assured the monk. “I'll be fine, and so will Hiei, Kuwabara, and Kurama. I promise.”

 

With that, Sango once again began the process of opening a time portal to the future. With the kanji for “11th year of the Meiji” glowing strongly on Masaruten's blade, she cut through the air, a portal appearing in the wake of the sword's path. As the portal opened, she gave a final wave of goodbye, and among the well wishes of her comrades in the background, she stepped through the portal. As the portal disappeared from existence, however, Kagome let out a startled gasp.

 

“Oh my god! We never actually showed her the picture, did we? She won't recognize the other people in it at all!” she sputtered, eyes wide as she turned to Yusuke, who hastily pulled out the picture from his pocket. “What are we going to do?”

 

“It won't matter as long as she finds the dojo, right?” Shippou said, hopping up onto Yusuke's head so that he could talk eye to eye with Kagome. “And if they're staying with Kuwabara, we know they can't be bad guys.”

 

“The runt's right, Kagome. I'm sure she'll be fine,” added Inuyasha, putting a hand on her shoulder. “She can take care of herself.”

 

“Yeah, you're probably right…” relented Kagome, sighing as she and the others walked back towards the village.

 

The only one who lingered was Miroku. For a moment, he stared at where Sango had just been, but was able to tear his eyes away from the spot and follow the others, though his brow remained furrowed. There were a number of outcomes possible from this scenario, and none of them seemed very appealing to him. However, the monk knew that whatever happened form here on out would happen regardless of what he felt about it. The only thing that he could do now was wait for the final result.

 

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Sanosuke Sagara was having a bad day. It was barely noon, and already he had been dogged about some kind of debt at least half a dozen times. Not that he was concerned about the money, far from it. He had been a freeloader ever since the end of the Revolution, and not once had he actually paid for something when he didn't want to. No, the actual debt wasn't a problem, it was simply annoying to be pestered about it all the time. It almost made him consider donning his old nickname, Zanza, and getting a few mercenary jobs just to put an end to the noise.

 

That was never actually going to happen, though, and he knew it. Being a fighter for hire had been a thrilling occupation, but his conscience wouldn't allow him to do it any more. He looked up at the clouds and sighed. Normally, one wouldn't do this walking through the streets of Tokyo, which usually bustled with people, but this particular district was usually devoid of activity, which was why Sano generally chose to walk here.

 

`Damn it, Kenshin, you've made me into a softy. One of these days I'm gonna' kick your ass for it.'

 

Lowering his eyes back to street level, he noticed a young woman walking towards him from the other end of the street, causing him to raise an eyebrow. It certainly was not her clothes that caught his eye, they were plain enough, and while she was certainly good looking, that was not his focus, either. Rather, it was the giant…something that she had strapped to her back. She wasn't bending from the weight at all, either. He could not be sure if what she was carrying was actually heavy or not, but it looked impressive at least.

 

Suddenly, he realized that she was looking at him. He wasn't flustered, exactly, but it was a little awkward, especially if they were walking towards each other like this. He was about to make some wise ass comment about this as they approached, but she spoke first.

 

“Excuse me,” she said, causing both parties to stop in front of each other. “I'm looking for the Kamiya Dojo, could you tell me where that is?”

 

Now, Sano by nature could be a suspicious person, having suffered a most horrible betrayal in the past that he could never completely let go of. So naturally, had anyone asked about the Kamiya Dojo he would be cautious at the very least. However, this was not anyone. This was a young woman carrying a very large unidentified object on her back, and now that he was up close to her he could confirm that she was indeed strong, showing absolutely no effort in carrying said object. Additionally, he saw the end of a sword hilt sticking out from underneath the huge object. A lot of people knew that Kenshin Himura, formerly the Battousai was staying at the Kamiya Dojo, and a lot of people also wanted him dead. All signs were telling him that this girl, as pretty and innocent looking as she was, was not to be trusted.

 

“Now, why would you want to go there?” asked Sano, figuring he might try to squeeze some information out of her.

 

“I'm looking for someone. He's supposed to be staying there,” replied the young woman.

 

“Oh you are, huh?” Sango replied, having confirmed his suspicions to himself. “Well, too bad you ran into me then, `cause no one gets to enter that dojo unless I say so.”

 

“What do you mean?” asked the other, her eyes narrowing.

 

“I mean you're not going anywhere, little lady,” Sano answered, flashing a confident smirk. “Now we can do this the easy way, or the-”

 

Sano didn't get a chance to say what the other way was, because at that moment, a rather large chunk of rock that had once been part of a nearby wall slammed into his forehead. The only thing that was damaged, however, was the rock, which fell to the ground in several pieces, leaving but a small scratch on Sano's forehead. Sano couldn't prevent his smirk from growing wider as he saw the girl's jaw drop in shock. After all, he had taken an iron prison weight the size of his head in the same spot without flinching. A rock that small was nothing to him.

 

“Now that,” he said, pausing for a moment as he kicked the rocks remains to the side. “Wasn't very nice.”

 

“Get out of my way,” warned the rock thrower. “I don't want to have to hurt you.”

 

“No dice, little lady,” Sano responded. “If you want me out of your way, then you're gonna' have to move me.”

 

“Fine, you leave me no choice.”

 

With that, the young woman pulled the brown cloth off of the thing on her back revealing…well…Sano had absolutely no idea what it was she revealed. It was like a triangle, but with one side removed. It was ridiculously large, almost as big as his old partner, the zanbatou, but it looked odd. So odd, in fact, that it was actually kind of funny being threatened with it. Correction, it was extremely funny being threatened with it. As such Sano burst out laughing.

 

“Are you serious?” he asked mockingly, trying to control his laughter. “I was expecting a sword, or a spear, or something, but what the hell is that? That's the stupidest looking weapon I've ever seen!”

 

“Oh yeah? Why don't we see just how stupid it is!” yelled the young woman, now practically red with fury.

 

“Tch,” snorted Sano, now having finally controlled his laughter. “I'm too old to play with kids toys.”

 

That did it, the young woman was now absolutely incensed. Doing a quick back-flip to put distance between herself and Sano, she detached the unidentified object from her back and flung it towards Sano. Were he not so preoccupied by the now unidentified flying object, Sano would probably have realized that the weapon would have been flung at him with maybe half the force had he not made the young woman angry enough to disregard his safety.

 

Bracing himself just in time, Sano put a hand on both sides of the object as the tip of the would-be triangle rammed into him with incredible force. Grunting from the extraordinary effort, Sano pushed back with all his might as the object propelled him backwards, his feet creating shallow trenches in the dirt road beneath him. Finally, after skidding backwards for what felt like an eternity, he came to a halt. His stomach felt like it was now housing a sizable bruise, but the white wraps that he always wore there covered it from sight. So, when he tossed the strange weapon casually to the side, he knew it would look like he had come out of the ordeal completely unscathed, even if he had been pushed back a very sizable distance.

 

“You can't beat me,” he called out as he worked his way back down the now very damaged roadway. “Just give up, I don't wanna' have to hit a lady.”

 

The young woman grimaced as she stared Sano down, shifting into a fighting stance. Sano figured that her lack of a retort was a good sign, she had to be at least a little intimidated by that display. Suddenly, she leapt towards Sano, her long black hair flying behind her as she flew through the air. Surprised, Sano just barely managed to sidestep her initial punch, but a quick spin kick caught him off-guard, connecting with his chin. The blow sent his staggering, and he could feel the blood on his lip.

 

`She's no joke,' he observed as he blocked a side kick and stepped back to gain some breathing room. `I was serious when I said I don't want to hit a girl, though. Just great, what the hell am I gonna' do?'

 

Without a real way to counter-attack, Sano was being forced backwards doing his best to avoid and block whatever blows he could. Ducking another spin-kick and rolling away from a follow up knee, he finally came up with a plan. He stood up as she came at him again, waiting for the right moment. First came a low sweeping kick that he quickly leapt over, followed by a rising upper cut that he leaned backwards to avoid. Finally, it came: a right hook aimed straight for his jaw. Moving with all the speed he could muster, he grabbed onto the wrist of her incoming hand with his right hand, twisted it around her back and shoved her to the ground.

 

Still holding onto her wrist, he dug his left knee into the small of her back and quickly grabbed her other wrist in his left hand. Once he had that twisted behind her back, it was over.

 

“You're strong, but you can't get out of this hold,” he announced truthfully as the young woman squirmed on the ground, trying to free herself. “It doesn't matter how strong you are if you have no leverage, so just give up.”

 

“Like hell! There's no way you can keep me like this forever!” spat back his now defeated opponent.

 

Sano had to admit that she had a bit of a point. He hadn't really thought far enough ahead to know what he would do now, although that was really nothing new. So, as the young woman struggled in vain to free herself, he began weighing his options.

 

`Head-butt? No, that could seriously hurt her if I did that to the back of her head. Maybe I could try to grab her pressure points…wait…I don't know where those are. Aw hell, if my right hand weren't hurt, I could have used my Futai no Kiwami on that weapon and turned it into dust. She would have given up for sure. Damn that Shishio, how did his face become stronger than freaking steel?'

 

As Sano's thoughts on what to do next deviated to an inward rant that started first on Makoto Shishio, then somehow moved to Hajime Saitou, then to the government, and then back to Saitou, he failed to notice a newcomer swiftly come up behind him. Of course, he quickly noticed the newcomer once this person had whacked him on the head with a wooden sword.

 

“Sanosuke Sagara! Just what are you doing to that poor woman?” bellowed Kaoru in a very angry tone of voice that Sano had come to associate with her.

 

“Hey, easy, little missy, it's not what it looks like!” shot back Sano, turning his head slightly to glare at Kaoru.

 

This was a mistake. For, in turning ever so slightly, his grip on the young woman's left arm slackened. Quickly freeing it from his grasp, the first action she took was to give Sano a hard elbow to the chin.

 

“Damn it!” Sano growled, quickly regaining control of the rogue arm. “You see what I mean? This is not some poor innocent woman!”

 

“I was defending myself!” interjected the captive, though any further protests were silenced when Sano dug his knee further into her back.

 

“You threw a rock at me!”

 

“Only because you were trying to detain me!”

 

“Well that was a good call, wasn't it? You were carrying a giant…thing…and this sword!”

 

Surely, if allowed to continue, this argument would have endured until one of the parties participating died of thirst or starvation. Fortunately, at that moment when the argument was about to reach the point where very little intervention short of a tornado could interrupt it, one more person arrived on the scene.

 

“Hey Kaoru, we've been…” began Kuwabara before he trailed off as he took in the scene before him. “Sango? Is that you?”

 

“You know this crazy chick, Kuwabara?” Sano asked, somewhat shocked.

 

“Thank heaven,” sighed Sango with relief. “Kuwabara, get this idiot off of me.”

 

“Who's an idiot?”

 

“You!”

 

“Now you've done it. I'm not moving until you apologize.”

 

“What? Oh give me a break!”

 

As the argument evolved…or rather, devolved, Kaoru let out an exasperated sigh. She scanned the street, and quickly noticed to damage done by Sano's battle with Sango's immense weapon, still lying in the street. Again, she sighed. Really, it was impossible for her not to.

 

“From now on,” she muttered quietly. “I'm not letting anyone stay in my house without a background check.”