A Parallel Dimensional Fairytale Chapter 1: Black, an inuyasha fanfic

Inuyasha - A parallel dimensional fairytale

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Prologue 1

Black

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Disclaimer: I don't own the series Inuyasha, neither the manga nor the anime.

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Blackness.

As her mind slowly escaped unconsciousness it was the first thing she saw, or rather did not see.

By the time she was fully awake she realized she was surrounded by darkness. A darkness that was neither the twilighty kind you encounter at night, lying in your bed trying to sleep although you are sure the darkness lodges weird beings intending to cut off the tip of your nose as soon as you fall asleep, or the cinematic kind where, while it is supposed to be dark, you still can make out every important detail.

No.

Not at all.

This was something she did not remember ever having experienced. It was the mother of all darknesses, the absolute, pure absence of light.

'Oh well', she thought dizzily 'Might just as well close my eyes.', and drifted back into unconsciousness again.

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Some time later she awoke again, what time though, she had no idea.

But this time the process of awaking had not passed as slowly as before.

She had jolted awake as an unknown feeling had tickled something inside of her like electricity but it seemingly had passed now.

Her surroundings had not changed a bit, or maybe they had, she couldn't be too sure as there was still not even the slightest ray of light cutting through the darkness. Concentrating on the next best of her senses, she soon found that not only she could not see anything but also could not hear any noise, not even - and that, to say the least, irritated her a lot - the ever present noise of her own breathing. Concentrating on her body she realized that in fact she could not feel her ribcage contracting and expanding in a way that would have indicated any lung activity.

'So... I guess that means I'm not breathing,' she thought perplexedly. 'But what does THAT mean? I mean why would I not be breathing? Gods, this must be some sick dream I'm having. Yeah, that's probably it. A dream. Alright... but why would I dream about being unconscious and then waking to find myself in... nothing?'

She sighed... or rather tried to and failed for she currently seemed lacking the required equipment to produce that kind of noise.

Thinking about it harder, she found she was not sure she felt her own body the way she was used to. Like when you know you have arms because you can feel gravity pulling them down and you know you have legs because you can feel them touch your trousers or skirt.

' This is some stupid kind of dream. I mean if I sum that up I'm probably floating through a room full of nothing either naked or bodiless though I tend to believe the latter... This seriously sucks! That's really just boring! I mean aren't dreams supposed to be a way of the unconscious to cope with and sort out the things that happen to you throughout the day or something like that? Really I don't remember ever having... FUCK!'

She stopped dead in her inner ramblings, shocked, when in the moment she thought the word she realized that in fact she did not remember anything at all. She desperately scanned her own mind as best she could but found nothing.

No memory of any events before her first awakening in this dream, a dream that she began to doubt really was a dream.

Not the slightest hint on what her name was, where she lived, or even how old she was.

The only thing she seemed to remember was some general knowledge on physics for she knew of the phenomenon called gravity and obviously some on psychology as she had some kind of an idea what dreams were normally supposed to be like, but that information just seemed to pop up in her head as soon as she needed it. She had no idea where it came from.

So all she possessed at the moment was that knowledge, hinting she'd experienced some sort of education, as well as a distant idea what her body normally felt like.

But most importantly she felt something that was best described as a deeply rooted sense of femininity.

'So I'm a woman. That's not much but something at least. So I probably have a woman's name like - '

"Kagome?"

"H-I-..Higurashi Kagome?"

Her eyes, she wasn't so convinced she had had a second before, snapped open at the voice suddenly invading the silence to search for its source only to be greeted by a blazingly bright light, blinding her completely with its intensity.

She groaned in agony and shut her eyes again.

While they got used to this sudden change, the light still painful even through her eyelids, she could hear an impatient sigh and the sound of someone shifting position. Opening her eyes again she could finally make out the source of the light: A door-shaped opening leading to a brightly lit room of some kind. In that opening stood the probable source of the voice, a tall figure she could only see the shape of because the light came from the room behind that person.

Then said figure spoke again in a rough and unmistakably male voice, slowly and with feigned patience as if she were some retarded child that needed its extra time to understand such a simple question:

"Are - you - Ka - go - me - Hi - gu - ra - shi?"

Opening her mouth to snap at this rude... boy... she guessed by his voice, she realized that she really could make good use of that extra time. She had no idea. 'Am I Kagome Higurashi? Well maybe... that name sure sounds familiar so..' "...Yes...?"

Another sigh, then, "Keh! What's that supposed to mean? You stupid or something? I mean either you know who you are or you don't... or do you? ...wait lemme see..."

The boy looked at something in his right hand that appeared to be a piece of paper.

"Alright, here it says you have fallen on your head and therefore might need to hear some more facts about yourself to remember so ... listen, bitch, does that sound familiar to you?"

Getting more enraged by the boy with every insult he threw in her face so nonchalantly, she tried to concentrate on what he read to her, her need to find any solution to the mess she found herself in momentarily outweighing the need to strangle him for calling her 'bitch'.

"Kagome Higurashi." He read, "15 years, seven hours, forty minutes, thirty-two seconds, five... nah that won't help you any.''

He paused to check her reaction but when she showed no signs of recognition he continued.

"Living in an ancient Buddhist shrine in Tokyo, Japan, with her mother, grandfather, and little brother? Attending junior high school? Does that ring a bell?"

'Somehow... '

"Hey wait! If you are fifteen years and a few hours old that means you had your birthday today. Now do you remember that perhaps? Look I'd really like to cut this short and get the hell out of here to-"

"Damn it! Yes!" she screamed.

"Kagome. That's my name. Now I got it ... Mama, Souta, Jii-chan, my birthday and the dried Kappa hand -ugh that was gross- , Buyo ahhh that's - whoa! Wait a second! How's it you know all this stuff about me? What's that paper you got there? What's going on here? Where the fuck is my body-"

"How about right where you left it, bitch? Right beneath that loud mouth of yours."

"Eh? What are you talking about?"

"Your body. You asked where it was. But if I'm not delusional, which I'm not, though you are apparently, I'd say it's right in front of me where it should be."

"What the..."

She tilted her head down, which was odd enough as she was sure without a body that should have been impossible, and was greeted by the pleasant sight of a girl's body, presumably hers, clad in her sailor suit-like school uniform, the old one, worn out and still a little too small, but the one she now remembered having put on that morning. Hesitantly, she raised her head again, lifting a hand to touch her face and her fingertips met the familiar curves and edges that formed her face. It was then she realized that the feeling of floating was gone, replaced by the much less disturbing feeling of her feet touching the ground and gravity doing its job properly and keeping them there.

She released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and smiled, happy to at least have her body back.

She was so glad she even found herself willing, in a moment of generosity, to forgive the boy for calling her delusional when he groaned impatiently and spoke again, "Look, bitch, I'm really happy for you that you found each other again, you and that runaway body of yours, but just as I said I really wanna get the hell out of here so let's just get this through -" He waved with the sheet in his hand. "- and then you two can have a big party, OK?"

'That's it. Forget generosity, forget forgiving that asshole.'

"You bastard! Who do you think you are? You think this is funny? Well I don't cause I don't have some paper telling me what's going on or why I am here. I am just scared as hell and am NOT going to take any shit from you asshole . And now fucking step back so I can see your stupid face while you are answering my questions!" She screamed, still being very much stressed out by the whole situation and her already weakened tolerance for the boy's attitude finally being destroyed by his patronizing tone.

He did not step back though. Instead he took a step forward so fast Kagome didn't realize what was going on until he towered over her and in a low voice snarled, "Bitch! Who do I think I am? Keh! Just who do you think you are? Ordering me around like that. Just as you said, I got the answers to your questions in my hands so you better behave or I'm just gonna leave you here despite what those stupid papers tell me to do. You got that? And don't you fucking dare call me bastard again, wench!"

He took a breath and in a little calmer but once again patronizing voice said, "Now if you ask me nicely enough I might feel like answering to you."

His teeth flashed whitely even in the meager light as he stepped back again, obviously grinning.

Kagome bit her tongue forcefully as she tried to subdue her temper because really, as much as she hated to admit it, that jerk probably was the only orientation she had to find a way out of the mess she found herself in right now. At the same time she tried to hide the fact that her knees were still shaking slightly, he had scared her a lot after all, suddenly appearing in front of her, staring at her, his eerily gleaming eyes narrowed to slits.

Finally, when she considered it safe to open her mouth and not verbally abuse him, she managed to articulate a somewhat polite demand, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of it, "Now if you'd 'please' be so kind as to take a few steps back so I am able to leave this room and finally see who I'm talking to, as well, then have the generosity to answer some rather urgent questions I have, my thankfulness really would know no ending."

Well, she had tried.

But the boy seemed satisfied enough, smugly saying, "You see? Wasn't too hard, was it?"

And his grin grew even wider from what she could see.

"No." 'No. Just makes me wanna scratch your eyes out.'

"Right, now I am gonna go into that room behind me BUT -"

He stopped her when she tried to step forward eager to leave the creepy nothing behind her.

"BUT you have to promise me not to freak out and scream or anything."

'Scream? Freak out? What the..?'

"No, I mean yes I won't scream I promise."

'I'll try at least... what's up with that boy?'

Then, finally, he turned around and took a few steps into the white room behind him, closely followed by Kagome, who cast a last look back into the darkness she came out of. She turned her head and found him standing in front of her tensely, looking at her rather insecurely now, contradicting what he had shown of his personality so far, as if he was expecting her to scream despite her promise not to.

So she stood and watched him closely searching for the reason he'd made her promise that.

But she found nothing offending or scaring in his appearance, quite the opposite in fact.

The very, very opposite really.

He was, she decided, one of the, if not the, most handsome boy or man she'd seen in her life.

He was tall, she didn't even reach to his shoulder she estimated. Well built, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Muscular all over but in the slim kind of way from what she could see through his red t-shirt an jeans. His face was contradicting the adult build of his body with its rather boyish, but breathtaking nonetheless, features. Cheekbones at the perfect height, a natural, very slight tan and a mouth that could only be described as perfect, just like his nose.

Most striking, though, were his eyes. Now Kagome understood why they had gleamed the way they had even in the twilight of the room behind them. They were just as large as they were golden, not yellow or light brown but warm, molten gold.

And staring into her own at that very moment with all sorts of unreadable emotions flickering through them.

His eyes and the unique tone of his hair, a silvery, very light blond she guessed, although it rather appeared to be silvery-white, gave him an exotic touch, and combined with that Adonis body and his wild and somehow animal aura... she felt herself nearly sway a little when her whole gut clenched and all kinds of fluttering insects seemed to choose that moment to come to life in her stomach as those incredible eyes continued to stare into her own.

'WOW! Such a shame he's such an arrogant jerk. This is just ...wait! what's that on top of his head?'

When she opened her mouth to ask just that, hesitating at the boldness of the question he flinched, probably expecting her to scream now, and the movement on top of his head confirmed what she had guessed. So she just went ahead and asked,

"Are those dog-ears?"

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.A.N. Edited 5/19/05. I guess it's a lot more pleasant to read now.