Hello! This is feathergriffin, and Tsubasa is not available at the moment. She is currently having difficulties with the internet, so she asked me to go ahead and post this. Anyways, for any explanations as to why and how we wrote this, check out our profile! I promise, it's not boring, and even has the added benefit of being somewhat informative! We hope you enjoy the story, and are looking forward to the response to our combined efforts. Enjoy!

By Tsubasa Kya and feathergriffin

Lost Enroute to Fate

Chapter 1

Kagome woke with a groan, her body sore in places she'd rather not mention and her stomach growling at her. It had been three whole days since she, Inuyasha, and the others had completed the jewel and while the well did let her go through it still, she found absolutely no urge to torment herself.

After all, Inuyasha, Sango, and Miroku had all promised that when she returned, she would be picking up her training again... something she didn't fancy all that much. She knew she'd much rather sit around and be lazy after suffering more than enough excitement for one teenage girl's life. Besides, she had to catch up on her school work if she was going to graduate.

Besides, what was the point? It wasn't like there were any demons around in this time, were there? The Soul Piper was harmless--unless you decided do go and try and rescue one of the angry souls from hell--and the Noh mask was destroyed. There couldn't be that many more demons, right?

She barely stopped to consider the fact that humans could be equally vicious and some of them desired the jewel's power as well. She could run away from humans easier, so pretending there weren't evil humans was an easier task.

Inuyasha sat on the well on the other side. "She's skipping practice, I know it!" he muttered angrily under his breath. He was still upset that Miroku and Sango had talked him into letting Kagome go back in the first place as soon as the jewel was complete. Her place was training; she could get hurt! He'd smelled demons on the other side of the well, though never told her for fear of her panicking.

"I'm sure she's just doing school work," Miroku said. Miroku thought a perverted image of Kagome skipping around with zero-to-no clothes on—and in the rain—and decided the image was much better than her sitting around studying for this or that 'egg-zam'. Not wanting to get slapped by Sango, however, he kept the image secret and relished in it.

"She did skip a lot of this school to be here, from what she's said, and it seems to be something important in her era," Sango added. She looked at Miroku with suspicion. The look in his eyes was the same one he got just before rubbing some poor, unsuspecting village girl's bottom and asking them to bear his children. Even though the curse on his hand was gone, his 'wandering hands curse' was intact, and being suspicious was far safer than trusting the lecherous monk.

"School is more important then being able to keep your skin attached?" Inuyasha asked sarcastically. He couldn't believe he was hearing what they were saying. How… distinctively like them to support Kagome and not him.

"Yes." Sango said with a nod. "Kagome explained to me that her 'egg-zam' things are the only demons her world has, and that she needed to slay them all with perfect marks. So, if you think about it, she is training after all."

Inuyasha still looked skeptical as he looked down into the murky depths of the well.

Kagome was lazily falling back to sleep, her eyelids fluttering closed. She remembered sleepily, "It's my birthday," but ignored that fact. Kagome drowsily peeked at the clock, which told her it was 11:23 AM. "Way too early to wake up..." It only took one day to chuck away Inuyasha's wake-up-at-six-in-the-morning regime.

A soft knock on her door made her aware of someone's desire to come inside. She closed her eyes, prepared to pretend she was unconscious until at least 5:00 PM.

"Kagome?" her mother called softly and the door creaked open. "Oh, she's still sleeping..." There was a happy sigh; her mother was glad she was back and that for the most part her life would remain steady here in the modern era.

Sure, Kagome did say that she would probably go visit the past on Sundays, so she could be with her friends on the other side, but Monday through Saturday she belonged to what her mother preferred to term "the real world". And even those visitations wouldn't last forever; Ai was sure of it.

Her mother crossed the room to Kagome's desk and there was a quiet thunk sound. "I'll just set Cousin Shuichi's birthday present for her right here and she can find it when she wakes up."

"You know, mama," Kagome muttered, unable to keep silent any longer since her dream world had escaped her. "Talking to yourself is seen as a sign of madness..."

Mama chuckled. "Well, I think I must be mad, letting your brother take those kendo classes. Good to see you wake up."

A couple of minutes later in the feudal era, Miroku and Sango had left Inuyasha to sulk by the well. He was actually doing pretty well, considering that he hadn't leap through the well yet. It might have not been Sunday, but Kagome had neglected to tell Inuyasha that she was only coming on Sundays now.

"That's it! She only gets ten more minutes!" Inuyasha said, and held the wrist watch she had given him in hopes that he wouldn't be so impatient. It had been a nice thought. Sadly, it hadn't worked that well yet. Now he knew exactly how many minutes late she was in any particular instance, something that was a common occurrence.

Kagome sat up, her nightgown managing to rise up farther than she would have liked if she were to take notice of it.

Her mother said, "Happy birthday, Kagome. Cousin Shuichi mailed this for you..." she smiled. "It's so nice to have you back..." Tears were welling in the older woman's eyes. "Oh, dear, now I'm tearing up. I'd best get to making your cake, hm?" She hastily left the room, brushing her tears away.

Too curious for her own good, Kagome crossed the room, her nightgown falling back to the proper place by her knees. She picked up the bulky package sent by her cousin. "I wonder what it is..." she whispered and tore away the standard shipping package wrap. It was a package of healing potions and ingredients. She felt a suddenly angry vein throbbing in her temple; "Oh... how thoughtful..."

She reached for the letter that lay on top.

Dear Kagome,

Grandfather has told me about all the troubles you've been having with various illnesses, and since I know most of them are more common to the elderly, I've sent some general health supplements for you, and some more specialized ones for grandfather as he must be getting a bit senile. All the bottles are clearly labeled, and I have a list of instructions for everything. I also included some scented oil to use in a bath, which include rose, lavender, and sakura for a few different choices. I hope you recover soon, and look forward to seeing you.

Your cousin,

Shuichi

PS I really do hope to see you. It has been too many years since we have gotten a chance to see each other.

"Geez, O-jii-san!" Kagome sighed. "You can't even tell our own family the truth? Sure, Shuichi's related through papa... but..." She trailed off and then laughed at the personal statement. "Too adorable!" A grin crossed her face. "I'll just tell O-jii-san these are vitamin supplements so he'll take them." She looked at the bottles, and smiled. The general vitamin type things were all well and good, but bath oils! That was totally awesome.

She'd heard a lot about Shuichi lately that he was going to school for medicines and herbs and such. She knew a little about those things, but not much and she trusted her cousin enough that he wouldn't kill their grandfather.

'How long has it been since I've seen Shuichi?' She thought as she set the letter down and peeled off her nightgown, changing into the clothes she would wear that day. As usual it was a skirt; always a skirt when she was in her era, that way Inuyasha couldn't make her train if he happened to come without blushing furiously.

She wore a peach tank top and a pink skirt; she normally wasn't fond of the pink color but decided since it was her birthday she would make an exception. 'I think I'll see if Souta wants to go shopping with me. I bet he will, if I talk about the antique swords shop he likes to frequent...' An evil little smile crossed her face. 'Then I can have him carry my bags...'

Meanwhile, Inuyasha self-righteously looked at the wrist watch he held in his hand. "Ten minutes!" he said, and jumped in. In the bushes, Miroku, Sango, and Shippou shook their heads.

"Doomed," they muttered in unison.

"Souta!" Kagome called through the house, her voice echoing like a ringing tone. She thought she heard a yelled response when she felt a familiar presence in the well. She rushed down the stairs to the door, threw on a pair of sandals, and raced for the shrine stairs. 'He'll go away if I'm not here... He'll go away; he'll just go away...' She somehow doubted that, but it was worth a try. She was sore at the lost opportunity to have Souta come along, but didn't really care as she pulled her hair into a messy ponytail using the tie band usually kept on her wrist.

As long as she could get away from Inuyasha and training, she was happy.

"What sis?" Souta yelled back.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled from the well house.

But too late, Kagome was already to the exit at the bottom of the shrine steps, well on her way away. If she could lose herself in a crowd, her scent MIGHT be lost, although Inuyasha had an uncanny ability to find her. Did she wear some sort of homing beacon?

"Inuyasha?" Souta asked as he came out of the house, "Did you see where Kagome went?"

Inuyasha ignored Souta, holding his nose up in the air and sniffing. He leapt out of the shrine, continuing to follow Kagome's scent. Soon, it was lost in crowds. Inuyasha stopped on top of a building, and got out a special object. A long time ago, he had tricked Kaede into giving him an enchanted object that would allow him to find Kagome where ever she was. Luckily, she had believed his story that he was worried about all the times that Kagome was kidnapped or managed to get herself lost. She bought it.

Meanwhile, Souta looked at the empty courtyard. "What is it with people not answering me today?" he asked. Then he shook his head and went back into the house to play video games. He blamed his laziness on Kagome. She was a bad example.

End Chapter One

Are we stopping it there? So soon? Yup. Don't worry, we are a bit ahead, so we will be able to update whenever we feel like it. We'll see what happens. Anyways, we'd love to hear from you, so drop up as line (or two, or three, or maybe even more!)

PS I think I'll let Tsubasa write the next introduction and ending, just to be fair. Bye!