InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ An Encounter With Fate ❯ Free At Last ( Chapter 4 )

A/N: Chapter 4!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!

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An Encounter With Fate

Chapter 4 - Free At Last

Last Time:

And with that she placed a heavy rock she found at the side of the road onto the acceleration pedal. The car quickly gained speed, and crashed down into the side of the road. The road was on the top of an incline, so the car began to roll down the hill, and met the forest. It crashed into a large tree and landed on the driver's side. Kagome didn't want to see her beautiful car get trashed, so she closed her eyes and waited on the side of the road. When she surveyed the damage after she heard a sickening crash of metal against wood, it was not a pretty sight. There were a few scraps of metal were the car met the rocky hillside, the rear tire on the side where the car landed was missing and there was a small fire burning near the car. Right now, she was really glad that she wasn't in the car.

=*=

Kagome looked back at the car one last time before walking off into the woods. Towards Sengoku Jidai, of course. She went into the woods well away from the site of her wrecked car. Once she passed the sign, and felt that she was far enough into the woods, she decided to change.

Currently she was wearing a pair of denim short shorts and a white T-shirt that had short red sleeves on it. opening one of the bags she had, she removed the clothes she brought along to change into. They were some ratty peasant clothes; a simple pair of tough pants, a loose shirt, a vest, a cloak and a cap. She also had a strong but cheap pair of boots. She didn't have the heart to buy Sengoku Jidai undergarments, so she just wore her regular ones, except she used a chest wrap, which would hopefully hide her breasts since she was going to be dressing up as a man. `Damn puberty' she thought as she strapped some of her weapons on.

The last, and most expensive, thing she removed was a bottle of something that would hide her scent. She knew that there were going to be demons all over the place, and a lot of them had enhanced senses and could tell a man from a woman by their scent. So she bought the special perfume and learned how to make it in case she needed to. Hopefully it would work.

Before putting her cap and cloak on, she took her hair into her hand. It was long, longer than Kikyo's. unbound, as it was now, it reached all the way down her back, already creeping down and reaching her thighs. She took it in left hand, and with her right, poised her dagger so that it would cut her hair. But she couldn't. `Damn the nostalgia and sentimentality.' She sighed. She supposed it would just have to be another reminder of who she was and where she came from. So instead of cutting all of it off, she cut it just enough so that it only reached her lower back and braided back fiercely.

Finally, she put her cloak on along with her quiver of arrows and pack. Checking all her weapons, her short swords and daggers under her cloak, her arrows and her bow, and making sure that she had everything she brought, she departed.

Night was quickly falling now. It had been several hours since she had totaled her car and left Japan behind. The sky was a palette of colors. The sun was now low in the west, bringing colors of gold, crimson, rose and orange out. In the trail of those colors, came the subtler darker tones. First came purple, then violet, then blue, then finally a black. A reminder of the impending night, already with a few sparkling stars in it.

Thankfully, Kagome came across a river. It wasn't very wide, but it was a place to stay nonetheless. The space where the river met the forest wasn't very wide, but it would be enough for Kagome. She gratefully started to set up camp on the shores of the river. She had started to gather firewood when she was walking, so she had some wood to start with, and hopefully wouldn't have to go too far too find some good firewood.

Setting her stuff down, including the firewood she had already gathered, she went to find some more. When she returned with armfuls of firewood, twilight had come and would soon be gone. Dumping the load onto the ground, she began to start her fire. There were a few remnants of light left, like the hand of day was struggling to keep hold to the earth. Kagome took this opportunity to look at herself in the river.

`I look like a stick,' was all she could think of. In truth, she really did look like a stick. She wasn't as curvaceous as Kikyo when she was a girl, but she looked like a stick now. Actually, she looked like herself at ten or twelve. Except now she was a lot taller, had much longer hair, and was missing the glasses, braces and acne. She could probably pass off for a skinny, pale runaway boy who was too lazy to cut his hair. She shrugged a bit and pulled her cap on tighter before going to start her dinner.

=*=

Lunch was going pleasantly enough. The Lord and Lady spoke of their trip, nothing really unusual. Same old, same old. Everything passed normally until Lord Inutaisho spoke up.

He set down his glass at a point where everyone was almost finished eating and had nothing left to say. "I have some more news for you. Especially for you, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha's head snapped up at the mention of his name. "What is it father?"

"How old are you now?" he asked.

"I turned," he paused to think, and he counted a bit on his fingers. "594, last year. I think. Around that area. Why?"

"Hmm… almost 600, eh?" he paused. "I think its time."

Inuyasha cocked his head to the side in a questioning sort of way. "Time? What time?"

His father laced his fingers and placed his elbows on the table and leaned in. it was almost like he was telling them a secret. "It is a tradition in our family to send out our sons to see what the real world is like. Your grandfather went through with it, I went through with it, and Sesshomaru went through with it."

"And how exactly am I to see the real world, father?" he didn't know what to feel about what he was being told.

"I'm going to send you out. You're going to travel around the lands, get a feel for them, so to speak."

"By myself?" he was starting to like how this was sounding.

"Well, not entirely. I was planning to send out Miroku and Sango with you."

"What?" Miroku said. So far, everyone had just sat complacently at the table, listening to the small exchange between father and son.

"It's part of your job, Miroku. Someone is chosen to do this. I had Toutousai, Sesshomaru had Jaken." Inutaisho replied.

"But why Sango?" Inuyasha asked.

"Because someone needs to keep you in line." His mother said in a matter-of-factly voice. Miroku and Inuyasha `ohed' in affirmation that they understood what she had said.

"In any case," Inutaisho continued a slight smile on his face at the bluntness of his wife to his son and his friend. "You're probably leaving tomorrow."

"Does Sango know about this?" Inuyasha said.

"Of course! We're demons, not barbarians." Inutaisho replied.

"Besides, it would be cruel to Sango to make her go with you without letting her know first." Rumiko said. This time, Inutaisho smiled openly at his wife.

"So!" Inutaisho said, rising and clapping his hands together. "You should get ready for tomorrow. "

=*=

Inuyasha, Sango and Miroku stood at the castle gates. They were dressed in travel wear. Miroku in his traditional monk's robes; Sango wearing a pink and green kimono over her demon-exterminating outfit with Hiraikotsu strapped to her back; Inuyasha in his ratty old traveling fire rat haori. All were rubbing their eyes and yawning, the Lord made them wake up at the crack of dawn.

A big yawn covered Miroku's face. "Why so early?!" he said with another yawn appearing on his face when he said early.

"How should I know?" Sango said while rubbing sleep from her eyes. "He's Inuyasha's father, not mine."

"Keh!" Inuyasha said as another yawn crossed his face. "Don't ask me, he didn't even tell me about this huge, big, important trip that will supposedly change my life until yesterday."

Before the three could go on complaining, a cloud of dust came rushing at them. It was Toutousai on his three-eyed cow. "Well!" he said in a dry shaky, voice. "Let's get going!"

"Wha-? I thought only Sango and Miroku were coming with me?" Inuyasha questioned.

"I'm not taking the whole trip with you. Just bringing you to the closest village. I wouldn't want to get stuck with you anyway." Toutousai replied. He was bonked on the head with Inuyasha's fist for that one. He decided using the Tetsuiaga, which was a gift from his father, on something he wasn't even gonna kill.

The three started walking down the path, leaving Toutousai to regain consciousness at the gates.

*^*

A/N: yay! Chapter 4!!! Oh yes, I have something to tell all of you.

On behalf of Kelly/Superiorpaperclip, I would like to apologize for yesterday's/third chapter of A New Adventure's umm…WINKY ^_~ umm…spasm. Don't worry. Kelly/ SP is staying in the nice white room with the padded walls and blue bunnies while they fix her medication. She is currently writing chapter four when she's not playing with the blue bunnies. Anyway…..

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