The Third Mirror

Chapter 1

“Ok bye!” Kagome jumps down the well, saying good bye to her mother, grandfather and little brother Sota, as she always did before crossing through time to the Feudal Age of Japan. It was a staggering jump, but with experience and the use of much personal discipline had accustomed her and remained unfazed as she softly drifted to the bottom of the well, safely landing 500 years in the past.

Looking up the top of the well now filled with sunlight and creeping ivy and vines was twenty feet above her. Again with her experience as her aid she climbed out with little trouble, Inuyasha will greet me, I bet he’ll complain why I took so long to return first thing, he always does that. She thought, as she took a firm hold of the vines and climbed her way to the surface.

It took more than half a day for her to convince him to let her return home for her exams. As usual he complained and resisted until giving in once she got mad. She was gone only four days, not a month or a year, but patience was not one of Inuyasha’s stronger virtues. He was a half-demon with a heart, this she knew despite the fact that he rarely showed it, she always had a way of attributing his not-so-caring side to his demon half. Judging by the observed nature of his half brother the full-blood demon Sesshomaru, she had found her theory hard to put to rest, which made her all the more grateful for the human heart he apparently possessed.

More than half expecting to see the familiar red and white form of Inuyasha standing at the edge, perhaps lending out a hand to assist her in the final pull, helping her out of the well and to the world he knew as home.

When there was none a wave a disappointment struck her, oh great then he is mad. She assumed as she reached the top, just knowing he’ll start complaining just as soon as she peeks her head out from the wooden surface and enters first sight. Anticipating this with aggravation already beginning to grow in her equilibrium threatening to sunder her good mood at the first instance of a complaint—I had a math test, I had to stay and study! Do you want me to fail! I don’t have a life you know!

With her words planned out, she emerged ready to spit them out when she encountered silence. A view of trees and greenery fell before her, no red, no white, no amber colored eyes greeting or scolding and there was certainly no voice, but just silence. There was nothing.

He wasn’t there.

Oh did he forget?

Or no he could be with Kikyo. Rising out of the well she shook herself of the thought not to let a mere suspicion cause her even a moment of discomfort. She pulled up her over sized yellow backpack, full of books and packed lunches and hurried off to the village.

The trail was as she remembered it, a long indirect path leading staight to the village where the Priestess Kaede resides, the village where the late Miko Kikyo, elder sister of Lady Kaede had one resided as well. It was it always crept over hear skin every time she thought about it that she was the reincarnation of that very same Miko, a woman she knew and greatly disliked.

It hadn’t fazed her at the time when she was revived, for when she first saw her, to her Kikyo was just another woman, not her from a former life. it was too surreal, but with time and again with that great self inflicted discipline and through her experience had grown accustomed to the oddity, to the bizarre realization that they were in fact the same. The same soul the same flesh, the same heart, the same woman, and yet they were so different.

Why how could that be, these things she can only ask herself, but hope for no answer, for how could there be one?

Quickly she ran with vigor down through the rice paddies waving at the workers as she passed by. Oblivious that they didn’t wave back or greet her I the way to which she was also accustomed. A worker paused instantly in his work as his eye caught upon the strange girl that ran vigorously by, clad in queer drag and running towards the village. Others saw her two and began to wonder, who was that? Could it be…

What it a demon?

“If it is, Lady Kikyo will surely know it and she’ll deal with it whatever it is.” The workers concluded before departing from their huddle and returning to work.

Lady Kikyo will handle all our problems, Heavens bless her.

When Kagome entered the village no one recognized her, and it took Kagome a good ten minutes while she rushed in and made her way to Kaede’s hut before she realized, not only was she not greeted but that everyone in the village stood stunned and staring at her and there wasn’t a sound to be heard. She had just entered the hut when a woman, a woman with a familiar voice, a very familiar voice called out to her, “who are you?”

What? Who would ask that? But when she turned and looked, the first thing that escaped her was, “Kikyo?”