Dream Song by IamTheWitch

Smoke Walker

Disclaimer: I don’t own Inuyasha of any of the characters in the original series created by Rumiko Takahashi. I also make no money from writing these, however, they do set my soul at ease.

Have hit a block with my other work but I am trying to unblock using this one as an outlet. No beta so please forgive the little things.

Chapter 1: Smoke Walker

She woke with a gasp, the air had been knocked from her lungs as she'd fallen.

The dark haired woman sat straight up blinking hard, trying to orient herself as she scanned the scene in front of her, rubbing her eyes furiously.

“I….where….?” she pawed the dirt beneath her blinking hard and breathing heavily in a panicked state before standing up and realizing this place was a familiar sight.

“OH NO, OH NO!!!” the color drained from her face as she'd looked up at the vine covered walls in the space around her and recalled the pink light , memories flooding in from before she'd be knocked out, realising what had just happened.

Kagome had called in a priest from Hokkaido to seal the well eight years earlier, what she was trying to figure out was how she managed to get through, perhaps it had not worked.  

She looked up and recognized the wrong side of the well immediately, there were stars above her, moonlight was showing her the well. She began to climb out, still clinging to the hope that perhaps whatever had knocked her out had destroyed the well house and she was still in modern day Tokyo.

As her head reached the brim of the well her eyes shut and slowly opened to reveal…..nothing, not a building in sight, only trees and the sounds of cicadas and frogs humming their songs. She was in the edo period and she had to get back to her time before anyone noticed.

“This can't be right, I can ….I have to ” She tried every magical trick and spell in her lexicon to get through, jumping in and out at least forty times.

“OK I can just” The knot in her stomach turned as she realized that the seal the monk had placed on the well eight years earlier had been sealed with her blood and from her knowledge bloodbound spells could never be reversed not even by the owner of the blood.

“What have I done?” she whispered as memories of the events before she blacked out began flooding her mind.

`Stupid cat!` she buried her face in her hands remembering the catalyst of this mess.

She'd been chasing Buyou II who`d taken down all of the streamers at the wellhouse door and then proceeded to jump into the well she of course, knowing it was sealed, thought it would be fine to jump in after the feline.

“But we tested it, I jumped in and didn't go through before, I`ve been in there a hundred times in the last eight years” She wracked her brain for explanations and suddenly became aware of her attire, she was dressed in her priestess robes, the ones that originally belonged to Kiyou.

She had come back to her mother`s house for a shrine festival and couldn't find any clean robes thanks to Souta`s lack of cleaning skills and the mold problem in the shed. Therefore she was left no choice but to dawn the robes of her former incarnation.

Her mind wandered to the last eight years of her life as she sighed, trying to figure out her next move.

She had finished her priestess training under three different teachers and had even expanded her training with some other modalities like zazen buddhist meditation techniques, Aboriginal sigil magic and shamanism from South America.

She had even finished her double Master's degree in anthropology and theology at University of Tokyo,  and a Phd with a specialisation in ancient indigenous religions from the University of Melbourne.

She scoffed `A lot of good a PhD will do me trapped in this time` startled out of her musings by a bat flying overhead she was snapped back.

“Ok I can figure this out” she sighed before hearing a strange sound behind her

She turned and gasped as she saw something she wasn't prepared for.

“BUYOU! BAD BOY!” she ran toward her insufferable pet “How did you…?”

“SIlence human” her eyes widened as her fat pet raised a claw to silence her and began to speak

“You can…”  she began

“SIIIIILENCE” the voice was deep and dark though the feline still looked as fat and cute as ever

The cat kept speaking “I am your guardian, I and those in my line have been sent to guard your family for generations. I was charged with bringing you here to complete a new task, just as my father before me was charged with bringing you here to help defeat Naraku” She cocked her head and opened her mouth in shock, reaching out to touch him as if not believing he was really there.

He continued to speak.

“ Now then, you cannot return to the other time, you must complete a task here and remain here until your timelines converge. It is your destiny, a destiny decided by you before you were born and now the gods have tasked me with helping you fufill it” He jumped into her arms, gave her a bump on the cheek with his cold, wet nose and jumped into the well before she could utter a word.

“Good luck, those who have been charged with helping you will find you soon” he bellowed from the bottom of the well as he disappeared in a pink glow.

“YOU LITTLE FURRY SHI……....” She ran to the ledge of the well and huffed as she saw that the portal had closed.

“Great, thanks Buyo II, what am I going to do?.....Sango…..I have to find Sango” She began to take the road toward the village.

Her mind began to wander away from her friend ´Maybe he moved away´ she mused as her mind wandered to Inuyasha

+++++++++++++++ FLASHBACK TO 10 YEARS EARLIER +++++++++++++++

Inuyasha and she had been fighting up until the day he left to do some work in a neighboring village.

She was 21 now, it had been four years since they had begun living together.  She knew something was off but she tried to put it out of her mind.

She would make things right when he got back, she would be better. She would trust him and not worry so much.

Even though Kikyou was long gone it was hard for Kagome to trust him again, every time he spoke to women or went to the villages to work she could only think he was reveling in the attention of other women.

It was a byproduct of their past and his previous infidelity.

She couldn't stand the thought of him being away, that he'd find something better, she'd latched onto him and lived her life devoted to him….too devoted to him.

She would later learn that many things had lead to her codependency and she would eventually be grateful for what he did that night, the night he came home.

“We're not working out” Those were the words he'd used to tell her that she needed to pack up all of her things and go back across the well forever because he was done, done with her.

She'd begged and pleaded and cried and packed her things. Thankfully he'd helped her move them across the well, gently leaving her parcels inside the wellhouse as she laid in their futon crying for two days before she mustered enough strength to say goodbye to sango and Miroku and leave.

He`d walked her to the well, he even kissed her and listened to her promise that she would come back and they would be together again but the words he'd left her with before she jumped in haunted her for years after

“Kagome, this has to be permanent, I`m sorry” He said so matter of factly and then turned like he was simply stating a fact, so plainly and bluntly that he could give his cold-hearted older brother a run for his money.

And then the pink light took her away one last time.

She was a mess when she'd returned, a mess…..Crying all night and day for weeks. He'd barely given her any explanation. In those weeks it was her own frailty is what kept her from going back through the well to beg and plead. She had already begged…...

“You don`t trust me, there are too many little things wrong with us, I don't think it's meant to be” His words , the ones he'd spoken to her when she'd begged him to tell her why, swirled in her mind as she dissected them over and over again to find meaning but she didn`t.

The vagueness only added to the pain and anguish, it was almost as if he did it to make it harder for her, like poisoning the blade before driving it into your lover's back.

She'd lingered around the shrine for three years finishing her training as a priestess to see if he'd return to her, come back and beg her to “Come home” but he never did.

It had taken her three years to get herself together and begin working on herself. It was Yuri, her childhood friend who had gone through an ugly divorce who told her what she needed to know.

Yuri`s words stayed with her “Fuck him! He didn't see your worth and didn`t appreciate you then he doesn't deserve you and he never will not now, not ever. NO ONE has the right to treat you that way, NO ONE! and you need to make yourself responsible for that. You will NEVER let another person treat you that way! It is up to you to find out what you need to fix inside of you, fix it and live life for you! When the right person comes along they can join you for the ride but for now, focus all that love and attention you gave to him on yourself! SO he didn`t give you answers? Give them to yourself, he left you the way he did because he was a non-communicative, cruel, coward who didn't respect you. Now cut him off because even if he did come back, now YOU are the one who is done. I mean would you ever want to go back to that miserable codependent prison you were in?”

Yuri had certainly taken her own advice, she'd gone from being in a damaging codependent relationship with a cheating, lying scumbag to being married to one of the most handsome men Kagome had ever lain eyes on, he was also loyal loving and an excellent father to their three children.

That day Kagome summoned a powerful priest from Hokkaido to seal the well. For her own sanity because now she was taking control and she was done now too.

Then Kagome began to focus on herself, loving herself finishing her education, traveling and loving her life.

+++++++++++++++++ BACK TO PRESENT TIME++++++++++++++++++

Kagome was startled out of her musings by a voice “Ka….Kagome?” she cringed as she recognized the pitch

´Great, just great, thanks Buyo II , you little furry shi….´her musings were interrupted

“Wha...what are you doing here. I mean. I think I was pretty clear right? We're not in a relationship anymore” Inuyasha stammered as if he were talking to a mentally challenged person

She pulled her head up to look at him. Twisting her face and reeling her head back in disbelief at his words.

´He`s treating me like a crazy ex-girlfriend, the nerve of this jerk. After I stayed away for ten freaking years. It's not like I was coming back or stalking him. Ugh narcissistic jerk!´she narrowed her eyes to prepare to speak, noting his expression.

He was shocked looking at her like she was a ghost, his face twisting in confusion and then worry.

She opened her mouth to speak but he continued.

“Kagome, I…..I`m married now. Um Ha..My wife and I we have two kids and we...we`re happy”  he said to her as he changed directions and walked with her back to the village, scratching his head.

The shock was still washing over her and she opened her mouth to speak again though…..

“I mean….I told you we...we...weren't working out and I meant it” He gave her a look that made her stomach turn a look laced with guilt and dismissal.

She'd finally had enough “I didn`t come back for you” She kept her tone even and cold “You can go now, I have something important to do” She waved her hand dismissing him from her presence

He stopped walking as she continued, he gasped in surprise and she smirked as she kept walking.

She was not the same Kagome who had jumped through that well ten years ago. Yes she looked the same, smelled the same,  though admittedly more like Kikyou than he remembered or cared to remember.

She was wearing the usual priestess garb with a hooded black cloak over it, she looked very thin and her face hadn't aged a day. She smelled just as good as always, well better because her scent told him that she  meant everything she'd just told him. She wasn't there for him, there was no longing in her voice she was completely indifferent to him and somehow , this intrigued him.

Kagome smirked and used a technique she`d picked up from the Aboriginal Shamans in Australia. It was called smoke walking. she pulled a handful of ash from her bag and blew it out of her hand behind her,  with that she swirled into the sky in a cloud of ash toward the village, leaving Inuyasha with his eyes wide and mouth open in shock.

She had not aged much due to the magic in her blood. A trait passed to her from her father`s side of the family, a bloodline that had lifespans that were not normal for humans. Though at her age this trait did little more than ensure that her 31 year old human body still managed to look 21.

She made her way to Sango`s hut but someone else was living there, a plump woman with two children with……..yellow eyes.

She smiled down at the children who skurried out into the yard when the woman came to the door.

Kagome spoke “Excuse me, do Sango and Miroku still live in the village?” She smiled at the woman noting she was not hideous though not beautiful by a long shot. She was short and plump. Her feet were bare and dirty, her thin hair was up out of her round face. She was also a bit smelly, and her teeth were typical edo period teeth. Though she had to hand it to the taiyoukai their teeth had always been impeccable.

“You got a weird accent. Hi, I´m Hanako, my husband is out but he was friends with the couple who`d lived here. they left when I got here. They were friends with his ex girlfriend, a priestess from the mainland but she left. He`s mine now” She smirked and pointed to the children

“He'll never leave me, I`ve got his kids. They come every once in awhile, his whores, the ones he goes to when he leaves here to work but he'll never leave me” Kagome blinked hard and thanked every god she'd come across in her studies that this had not ended up being her life.

The woman offered her a sweet bean bun while she shoved one whole into her mouth, not bothering to wipe her face.

“You know he left her for me, that priestess, he left her for me. We met in a village and he told me he had a girlfriend but I went after him anyway, he`s always looking for something better, it`s his nature. Anyway, he told her to leave their hut and then he moved me in the same day. I threw away all of her stuff and we lived happily ever after” She was so proud and she twirled her finger in a stray piece of her thin hair.

Kagome struggled to speak and was interrupted “Are you a priestess too? You can`t be her, she'd be old by now, much older than you and me” the woman said as she noted Kagome`s robes

“No” kagome spoke in a sweet tone and excused herself

“Thank you for the information” She walked out of the door and continued to the treeline. She noted Inuyasha running full speed toward his hut.

“Too slow” she muttered as she pulled some ashes from her bag and decided she would visit the slayer village.

Smoke walking had always reminded her of how the Death Eaters in the Harry Potter movies traveled, someone on the set had seen real magic.

And with that she was in the air, soaring and breathing the fresh air deep into her lungs.

Thanks for reading!