InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Random Plunnies ❯ Try Again ( Chapter 2 )

 

At least, I think it has been improved.

 

^**^

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha

 

TRY AGAIN

 

The early morning meadow was quiet, filled with the sleepy chirps of small songbirds that were just beginning to stir from their nests. Faint shadows cast by the surrounding trees striped the grass, growing sharper and more distinct as the sun heaved itself slowly into the sky. It was a beautiful, peaceful scene. Still, you know what they say about the quiet before the storm.

 

It usually leads to the mother of all disasters.

 

But that would be skipping ahead to the cruel end of a doomed tale.

 

At this point, there was still hope. A young woman, dressed in the traditional red and white outfit of a miko, stepped into the open. Eyes, which knew all too well the impersonal cruelty and hidden dangers of her world, glanced around warily at the simple clearing ringed by trees and filled with the hypnotic buzzing of bees. A quiver of arrows hung from her shoulder and she held a longbow in one hand, the slight whitening of her knuckles as she gripped the smooth wood betraying her nervousness.

 

She studied the clearing, appearing to search for a particular danger… or a particular person. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, her brown eyes glazing with disappointment when no welcoming figure scuttled out to meet her. After a moment, her eyes brightened. It could be too early. Dawn was the specified time, but perhaps someone who lived by no timekeeper except his own would forget how important punctuality was to someone like her.

 

All she could do was wait.

 

The sleepy songbirds, as well schooled in avoiding danger as the miko, had instantly stilled upon her arrival. They soon sensed that this clumsy earth-bound creature would not pursue them and since she did not reach for the deadly arrows in her quiver, quickly decided to ignore her.

 

The miko sighed again, staring out over the rippling grass. A slight smile creased her face, as if she was remembering something happy. Then it faded. She tightened her fist around a large round jewel held in the palm of her hand. Crystal shards, strung on a rough cord, tinkled faintly as she raised that hand to her breast.

 

Abruptly, the chatter of wildlife ceased. The air thrummed with sudden tension. A single derisive caw of a raven pierced the silence, promising prophesies of doom. Instantly alert, she turned, raising her bow.

 

But it was already too late.

 

*^^*

 

Sister frowned as she watched the scene play out in the Scrying Pool. With a wave of her hand, she froze the tiny figures just before the miko's angry arrow pinned the idiotic hanyou to the tree. Another gesture rewound the telling to the point where the current troubles began—the rescue of the dark soul of Onigumo.

 

“What are you doing, Sister?” Brother put down the tiny model of Apollo 11 and ambled over to the Scrying Pool. He peered over Sister's shoulder, watching as the miko “killed” the hanyou over and over again.

 

“Working,” Sister muttered, looking up to frown disapprovingly at Brother. “Which is more than you're doing. Leave off playing with your future toys and help me solve this problem. Otherwise, there won't be a future and you'll never get to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.”

 

Brother glowered at Sister. Truly, she was such a bossy know-it-all. As if she knew everything. They both still had a long way to go before they could claim that. She was only the elder by almost 200 years, and she never let him forget it.

 

“You are such a boring old stick-in-the-pudding, Sister,” he grumbled. “Why can't you loosen up and have a little fun?”

 

“Mud, Brother. Really, you're old enough to get the idioms right.”

 

“Whatever.” Brother snorted. “Why don't we just destroy the Shikon no Tama and end this cycle once and for all?”

 

“You know better than that.” Sister leaned back from the Pool, stretching to relieve the kinks in her back caused from hours of being hunched over. “Time Guardians aren't allowed to destroy anything. If you'd been paying attention when Midoriko created the Shikon no Tama we wouldn't have this mess.”

 

Sister scowled at Brother, who seemed unaffected by her disapproval. As usual. When would he ever grow up and start taking his duties seriously? Like, what was he thinking when he forgot to pay attention and their charges discovered the black powder that went boom when it was set on fire? They might have had a few more centuries reprieve from guns and cannons if he'd been paying attention.

 

Brother claimed that he found the loud explosions neat. Boys. They were all alike.

 

“Why is everything always my fault?” the subject of her ire complained. He flopped onto the rocky floor beside Sister and crossed his legs. “Besides, I don't know why you keep watching this particular segment. It already played out 20 years ago. There's nothing we can do to change anything.”

 

Sister clenched her teeth and glared at Brother. “Because I am trying to fix things. There are many possible futures radiating from the instant when Kikyou and Inuyasha lost faith in one another. And almost all of them are bad.”

 

“I told you this was a bad plan. A miko and a youkai are not meant to get along. And now things are even worse than they were before. Now we have that fiend Naraku thrown into the stew. The dark desires of Onigumo mixed with the greed of a horde of youkai do not make a fluffy porcupine.”

 

“Bunny,” Sister corrected crossly.

 

“Whatever.” Brother ignored Sister's thinly veiled disapproval like he always did. Spoken language was so cumbersome. He didn't understand why she insisted on using it every time they were on duty. It made getting his point across extremely difficult.

 

Sister took herself and their duties too seriously. She refused to admit when she had made a mistake and plowed on until things were hopelessly tangled. Luckily, he didn't have any problems pointing out her mistakes.

 

He leaned forward and jabbed a finger at the Scrying Pool. “That was still a bad plan.”

 

Sister pouted. “It was a good plan. It just… didn't work out the way it was supposed to. Let's see you come up with something better.”

 

“All right. I will.” Brother frowned, staring vaguely at the rocky wall of the cave before his gaze shifted to the not-so-ordinary pool of water in front of him.

 

The Scrying Pool rested in a shallow depression on the cave floor, looking like an ordinary puddle of rain water. For a minute, he thought longingly of his private room, filled with model cars and lasers and things that wouldn't be invented for hundreds of years—if they managed to reverse the damage caused by the Shikon no Tama's existence. But the Scrying Pool had its own set of incomprehensible rules, and one of those was that it could only exist in a dank smelly cave filled with icky, crawling things and surrounded by uncomfortable rock.

 

“I'm waiting,” Sister interrupted when she felt the silence had gone on so long it was entirely possible that Brother had fallen asleep.

 

“It was a good plan,” Brother conceded reluctantly. He held up a hand to forestall Sister's triumphant smirk. “I didn't say it was a great plan. But it can be. It just needs… tweaking.”

 

“You have a better idea? Let's hear it.”

 

Brother jumped to his feet and started pacing, ticking off points as he did so. “First, only the pure soul of a miko is capable of purifying the Shikon no Tama of evil taint.”

 

“We know that,” Sister said, with a peevish scowl on her face. “Why do you think I made sure the jewel found its way into Kikyou's hands?”

 

“Second, the problem isn't with the soul. It's with the vessel.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Brother almost chuckled at the look of confusion on Sister's face. It wasn't often that he was able to confound her. “Kikyou is too much a product of her time. She deals with youkai all the time. She knows what they are capable of, and there is a small part of her that will never completely trust Inuyasha because of that.”

 

Sister felt her face heat up. Why did Brother always mock her ideas? At least she tried. All he said was “Oops” when Atlantis disappeared beneath the waves. And he muttered a barely heard “Sorry” when Pompeii got buried under boiling lava. He made her so mad sometimes.

 

“Including the hanyou was a good idea,” Sister muttered sulkily. The love of two creatures whose fundamental natures, in some ways, were responsible for the creation of the Shikon no Tama should have been enough to nullify its power.

 

“I didn't say it wasn't.” Brother stopped pacing and stared thoughtfully at the Scrying Pool, chewing on his lower lip. This was a very knotty problem, not that he would ever admit that to Sister.

 

The perfect solution came in a flash of brilliance. He amazed even himself at times.

 

“The hanyou wasn't the problem,” he announced suddenly. “And Kikyou wasn't either, really.”

 

“Thank you for your wonderful insight, Mr. Beat-me-over-the-head-with-the-obvious-stick,” Sister said. “Now are you going to tell me that clouds turning dark when they are full of rain aren't a problem with clouds?”

 

“Patience.” Brother shot a peeved glance at Sister. “What I'm saying is that Kikyou was a miko. She was born to be a miko and spent her whole life training and honing her miko powers. She didn't know how to be an ordinary woman in love. And Inuyasha didn't know how to love a woman who could destroy him with one touch, and knew it.”

 

Sister's face lit up. “I see. The soul of the miko can handle the Shikon no Tama, but the vessel needs more innocence to handle the hanyou.” Her forehead creased in a slight frown “But how can we find an innocent vessel for Kikyou's soul? What if she's already been reincarnated?”

 

She bit her lip. Their older cousin was in charge of reincarnation. And she didn't take kindly to “children” telling her how to do her job. It might work, though, if they could get the details hammered out and convince her that this plan had the best chance of working.

 

But, oh my god, the paperwork! Sister did not look forward to writing up their report on this problem. Not to mention the essays explaining themselves if the plan failed. Especially since Brother would probably con her into doing his work for him.

 

“I've been doing research for another project and look what I found!” Brother leaned over the Scrying Pool. With one fingertip, he carefully touched the surface of the water. The water rippled and, after it cleared, showed a young woman dressed in a 20th century Japanese school uniform. “This is Kagome. She will live at a shrine and have the potential to be as powerful a miko as Kikyou. The best part is that she won't know it, so will be a completely ordinary innocent.”

 

“She's perfect!” exclaimed Sister. Amazingly, he seemed to have put some thought into the plan. And this Kagome girl was pretty. That was probably what had snagged his attention in the first place.

 

“The bad news is that she won't be born for hundreds of years. In that time, who knows what damage Naraku will cause?”

 

Sister waved her hand in the air, dismissing Brother's concerns. “That's not a problem for a couple of Time Guardians. We'll just find something that she has access to everyday--that is private, possibly on her family's property—and attach a Time Tunnel to it.” She restrained herself from bouncing like a little kid. Maturity, always maturity, she reminded herself. That was the only way she could get anybody to take her seriously.

 

“Now we'll just have to make sure Kikyou's soul is reborn in Kagome's body and get her and Inuyasha together at the right time.” Brother tapped one finger thoughtfully against his chin. “Youkai can smell the scent of the soul, which will still smell of Kikyou a little bit. How do we keep him from killing her before she can explain and win his trust?”

 

“That won't be a problem.” Sister smiled and waved her hand over the Pool, changing the scene to Kikyou's devastated little sister. Kaede. Such a sweet child. Too bad she had to be born in a time of demons and magic. She was not nearly as powerful as Kikyou, but she would do. “We'll just have to introduce a Wise One and a handful of companions to keep the hanyou and the miko grounded and soften the barriers around the hanyou's heart.”

 

Brother grinned at Sister in satisfaction. “Well? What do you think? Is it a good plan?”

 

Sister laughed. “It's a great plan, Brother! I'm sure that this one will work and no one will have to worry about the Shikon no Tama ever again!”

 

“Too right, Sister! Like they say: If at first you don't succeed… well, there's always plan B.”

 

*^^*

 

Food for Thought: Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out”?