Inuyasha: Girl Lost In Time

Chapter 8: The Brothers

Chapter 8: The Brothers

I don't know this girl—she stares back at me with the same level of surprise that I have for her—even with the water so murky and brown she is as clear as day to me. Her skin is dented with healing welts, and dried scabs, old and new, bruises tatter her skin in yellow, purple, blue, and green patches. But no damage can hide the radiating tan skin that thrives underneath, with its youthful life glow I've never seen before today. Just yesterday her long black hair was lifeless and dull, but now it's full of girth and spring and cascades down to her tailbone like it was never burdened with split ends or frizz. However, the oddest and most unfamiliar of all her features has to be her eyes: the once empty and soul-less appearance of her eyes, stare back at me with liquid chocolate pools that sparkle with curiosity.

Born and raised in present-day Japan, she looks naturally at home within the shrine maiden's garb of the average Shinto priestess of Japan's feudal past. Her toes just barely poke free from underneath the red hakoma (pants) when she walks and the sleeves of her white haori (kimono jacket) stretch an inch or two past her fingertips.

Of all the years I've known her, it strikes me completely odd that the girl who's staring back at me is me.

So how did I make a drastic change?

I fell into feudal Japan through a torii gate, but I wasn't alone. A girl a year younger than I came through as well the same day. Though we both came from the same time period, took the same class, and were both assigned to the same project, there aren't many connections between the two of us. I recently moved to the part of Tokyo she lives in; she is popular, and I am invisible. Yet, out of the two of us, Kagome has been the only one to find her way back to the present.

For her to return, a piece of the shard of jewel is required – the same jewel that she shattered, and the very essence of my soul. The shattering of the Jewel released a sliver of my soul, placing a piece of a puzzle in the empty slot that is my body. I am no longer hollow inside.

There has yet to be a way to return to the present for myself. Even as I wandered back and forth through the village's only torii gate a dozen times, with the jewel and without, but nothing happened. Just the estranged stares of the village people as they watched me, whispering about me under their breath. It's obvious which of us the villagers prefer more.

With Kagome's abilities and jewel history, she has been confirmed as Kikyo's reincarnation, and now is cherished as the new priestess and practical leader.

But it is just that—our spiritual abilities are all that make us similar.

After my failed attempt to go back to the present time, we've all come to the assumption that the myth about the torii gate must be true and that the real reason I can't return is that I have yet to finish my spiritual journey. The safest bet on what that could be had to do with the jewel. And so it has come down to this conclusion; Kagome and I must protect the jewel with everything we got until we find all the pieces.

And as of right now, our only shard is with the girl who broke it, to begin with—in the present.

A single green leaf dances within my view from my right; it glides gracefully from left to right until it lands on the surface of the water, distorting the reflection I had gotten caught up in. I tear away from the depth of my mind and return to being alert, reminding me of what I was originally doing.

I look to my right; there standing in a circle of dry sandy dirt stands a tall dead tree, its sharp almost leafless limbs reach up to the sky with skeleton-like fingers. The color is a brown that screams it needs water but; it is far from dead. Surrounding it, with at least a fifteen feet radius, are lively green trees that filter the forest with an emerald aura.