InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ In Pursuit of the Green Dragon ❯ Stranded ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The reality of Kagome's situation begins to sink in--she's stranded in 1925 Tokyo, with no way to get back home, or to rejoin her friends in the Sengoku-jidai.

Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.21.2008 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 565 | Status: Work In Progress

Tokyo, May 1925

When Great-uncle Souta's excited questions finally subsided, Kagome stepped outside to look at the shrine, her head pounding from the stress of the afternoon's long interrogations.

First there had been Ikeda, with his malevolent attempts to trap her into saying something he could arrest her for, and then Great-uncle Souta, who had been so excited, and who had had so many questions that she had tried to avoid answering.

I don't want to risk changing the past, she had told him time and again, in the face of his eager queries. Instead, she had restricted her answers to generalities about Mama, Jii-chan, and her brother Souta, and the fact that the Sunset Shrine was still in existence and thriving in 1997.

Had the well really brought her to the 13th year of the Taishou era? To 1925?

She heard the sound of rustling, and saw that the youngest boy, Ryuichi, had escaped his chores to perch on an ornamental boulder in one corner of the garden, a brightly-printed book spread open on his knees.

Ryuichi, Ryuichi, she thought, staring hard at him while trying to remember what Mama had told her about Jii-chan's date of birth and boyhood. Was that little kid really her Jii-chan!

Ryuichi looked up, gave her a conspiratorial grin, and put his finger to his lips.

She smiled back automatically and nodded, feeling a wave of sick dizziness pass through her.

Stop it! Kagome told herself. You're used to traveling 400 years back in time, so why should seventy-something years bother you so much?

But this all felt wrong, in a way that time-traveling to the Sengoku-jidai never had. Not only because she wasn't sure what she was meant to do here, but also because she was separated from Inuyasha.

She thought of his cocky grin, and his fierce protectiveness, and she felt like crying.

That wouldn't do. She had to keep a calm head right now, and figure out how to get back to her friends.

Trying to distract herself, she walked over to the wrought-iron gate that separated the house from the shrine, and gazed longingly over at the well-house, but the stern-faced policeman standing in front of the sliding door was staring in her direction. So close, and yet so far!

With a sigh, she looked around at the grounds. The shrine buildings all looked familiar, yet different. The biggest difference was the two-story house behind her. It looked brand-new, but it was definitely not the same house as the one she had grown up in.

With a shiver of dread, she remembered Jii-chan telling her how this house had burned...would burn... during the fire-bombing of Tokyo in World War Two.

Another wave of that sick feeling passed through her as she realized she knew what would happen to most of the lively crowd of boys currently cooking dinner inside the house.

There was a horrible reason that Jii-chan, the youngest, had eventually become head priest of this shrine.

She had to warn them!

But could she? What if she changed events in her own time in some bad way?

She had already been responsible for one disaster--the shattering of the Shikon no Tama--in the Sengoku-jidai. What if she ruined things in her own time, as well?

If she told her great-uncles about their future, then would Jii-chan still become the head priest at this shrine? And if he didn't, how would Mama ever meet Papa? Would Kagome and her little brother Souta even be born?

She might disappear! She might never be pulled into the well, never meet Inuyasha!

She might never...shatter the jewel.

Oh.

Is that why I'm here now? Am I supposed to change history again, and undo the terrible thing I did the first time I traveled to the Sengoku-jidai?

Kagome's fingers tightened around the bars of the wrought-iron gate as she swayed. Is that it? Is warning Great-uncle Souta and the others really the thing I'm meant to do here?

Her mind went blank for a few moments as she wrestled with the possibility of erasing her own future to fix the past.

Then she remembered what Great-uncle Souta had just told her about Great-aunt Akiko's death in the earthquake last year.

If she was meant to go back and change history, she hadn't been sent back far enough. Her family history had already changed: in Kagome's present, Great-aunt Akiko hadn't died until she was eighty-six.

Kagome remembered the old woman well. Kagome always liked visiting the apartment that Akiko had shared with Great-uncle Souta after he retired from the university. Despite her diabetes, Great-aunt Akiko had always had a box of sweets tucked away for her great-niece and great-nephew… The apartment's many bookshelves had been crammed to bursting with mysterious scientific books written in English, German, and Russian, and there were fascinating souvenirs from their extensive travels scattered everywhere.

So, perhaps Akiko's premature death in this past was part of the problem.

Kagome frowned.

And what did the tall foreign boy have to do with it? And what was the strange design he and his brother had drawn on the bottom of the well? Alphonse-kun was definitely part of this mystery, especially with his older brother vanishing through the time-slip.

Kagome remembered how tendrils of blue light had reached up out of the void, dragging her away from Inuyasha. Before she had even had time to scream, she had found herself sitting on the floor of the well, with a lot of strangers in old-fashioned police uniforms staring down at her.

Had Alphonse-kun's brother ended up with Inuyasha in the Sengoku-jidai? If he had, Inuyasha would be so grumpy!

Despite her worry, Kagome smothered a giggle.

He would be grumpy, and complain a lot, but she was certain that Inuyasha and the others would do their best to help Alphonse-kun's brother, especially if he was as polite and nice as Alphonse-kun.

That would be her next step, Kagome decided. If she couldn't look at the well herself, she would talk to Alphonse-kun about what he had been doing there. She not dared to ask for explanations earlier, not with Ikeda already so suspicious of her sudden appearance in this time and place.

She took one last look over the familiar-strange grounds of the shrine, and went back inside the house.

She found Alphonse-kun where she had left him, hunched over the low table in the living room, intently scribbling on a sheet of paper. From what she could see, he was sketching a design that looked like the one traced on the floor of the well.

Kagome approached him hesitantly, wondering what language to address him in. From his name and his hair color, he was probably German. She had studied English in school, but she didn't know any German.

But he had spoken in Japanese to her earlier, hadn't he? He had been very quiet during Ikeda's visit, but he seemed to understand everything that Great-uncle Souta said to him.

Well, there was no other way. Kagome would try English, and see if she could find out what he had been doing in the well.

"Er, excuse me, Mr. Heiderich?" she asked, in English, stumbling over the complicated syllables of the German name.

The foreign boy's head flew up. He stared at her for a second, his fair skin reddening in a blush.

He was quite good-looking in a European way, with golden hair, large hazel eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

"Please, call me Alphonse, or just Al," he replied in oddly-accented Japanese. "I was just trying to figure out how to get Brother back--Oh!" He looked up at her, his gaze almost immediately dropping down to her knees.

He stopped speaking for a long moment, seemingly enraptured by her legs.

She tugged self-consciously at the hem of her mini-skirt, and his gaze flew back up again to her face. His blush deepened and he looked distinctly flustered.

"Please, sit down!" He hastily scooted around the table on his knees, sweeping together the pile of papers as he went.

His first name would definitely be easier to pronounce than his last name. And he looked like he was about her age. "Al-kun, please call me Kagome."

He nodded, and smiled. It was a very nice smile. "I--it's very nice to meet you, Kagome-san. I know we've been together all afternoon, but with everything that happened--" he made a vague gesture in the direction of the well-house, "We haven't been introduced. Professor Higurashi invited us--that is, Brother and me--to visit. We're from England, but we were living in Germany before that. It was a really long journey. I had no idea America was so large..." he ground to a halt, and his cheeks reddened again. "Sorry. I talk too much."

Kagome dropped her eyes under the weight of his disconcertingly direct gaze. "I hope you don't mind me asking, Al-kun," she began. "But what, exactly, were you doing in the well? And what does that horrible Ikeda-san want from you?"

Al sighed. "It's a long story, Kagome-san. But first, since you came to us through the well, do you think Brother might have gone to the future, to your time? "

Kagome settled herself more comfortably on the cushion, and propped her elbows on the table. "I don't know."

At Al-kun's look of dismay, she added hastily: "What I told Great-uncle Souta is true: I really am from 70 years in the future. But what I didn't tell him, because I didn't think he'd believe me, is that this isn't the first time I've traveled through time using the well."

"Really?" Al looked torn between curiosity and skepticism.

Kagome saw curiosity win out.

She nodded. "I spend nearly every weekend in the Sengoku-jidai…um, that corresponds to sometime in the late 16th century in the European calendar…with Inuyasha, and some other friends. That's where I was going when we, um, bumped into each other, and I ended up here."

"But why do you travel there? From everything I've read, it was really dangerous back then. Lots of wars and bandits."

Not to mention all kinds of demons, and most of them after the jewel, thought Kagome, but she didn't say it aloud. "There's something very important that we're doing there, and I have to find a way back."

"But Ikeda forbade us to go near the well-house." Al chewed on the end of the pencil he was holding. "Not that there aren't ways around that…And you think Brother's gone to the Sengoku-jidai, and he's with your friends right now?"

"It's possible," Kagome said.

"That's more worrying than Brother going to your time, but he can take care of himself." Al's shoulders relaxed. "I was afraid that Brother might just be…gone."

"Al-kun, exactly what were you doing in the well? And what are those designs?" Kagome reached out a tentative finger, and touched the drawing on the top of the stack. It was a set of graceful arcs and intersecting lines set in a circle, with various symbols drawn in.

He gave her another shy smile. "I think we have a lot to talk about. Do you know anything about dragons?"