#flora's posts

The Truth of Love Shown Through Time – WIP Title

Chapter 1 – A Celestial Mix-up (WIP Title)

Header Note – Thanks Alannada for giving me the idea that inspired the chapter title!

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A god spoke and said, “So, I think I may have messed up.”

Their companion god asked, “In what way?”

They said, “So, what do you know about the group of people traveling with the reincarnated priestess entrusted with the Sacred Jewel? I was tasked with taking the soul of the half-demon Inuyasha and swapping it with the soul of his future self for seven days. This was to ensure that the Jewel was destroyed and that foul abomination Naraku ceased living.”

The other god said, “Yes?”

They continued, “I grabbed the soul of the priestess in his place.”

The other god then said, “Oh.”

They asked, “So, how badly did I mess up?”

The other god said, “The timeline still went to plan. You did just fine.”

They said, “Can you show me?”

Both gods went over to an enchanted pool that allowed the user to view any event, no matter the time or place.

The other god then said, “Look and see for yourself.”

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As Kagome came to, she felt someone gently rubbing her ears as she was lying with her head in their lap. A wonderful smell drifted into her consciousness through her nose. She drowsily wondered what it could be and shifted slightly as she slowly drifted upward out of sleep.

The hands on her ears paused for a moment before resuming their petting of her ears. Wait. Hands. Rubbing her… ears? What?

Kagome snapped her eyes open to find herself staring into the face of her own human twin. One that was gently massaging her ears, making her feel relaxed. She immediately leapt to her feet in alarm.

Her double slowly got up and approached her like one would a frightened animal. Kagome freaked out and leapt out through the roof of the hut she had been in. She looked back at the hole in the hut that she had just created by jumping before realizing that she was heading for a head-on collision with a tree trunk. She closed her eyes just in time to hit the tree with her face. Wham!

She groaned as she slid to the ground, face throbbing from the impact. She slowly opened her eyes to try to assess what had happened to her. Had she seriously just jumped through a roof and into a tree twenty feet away!? Also, where was Inuyasha? Wasn’t he always somewhere nearby, keeping an eye out for danger?

Kagome reached up to touch her face to check how injured it was and blinked, confused at the sight of Inuyasha’s Fire Rat sleeve falling around her arm. She looked down and saw that she was wearing the rest of Inuyasha’s clothes as well. Where was Inuyasha and what he was doing without his clothes? Even when he gave her his Fire Rat for protection, he always kept his pants and undershirt.

A twig snapped and Kagome quickly glanced over to see her double approaching from the direction of the hut before bolting deeper into the woods, looking to get away from the imposter and to find Inuyasha. She hoped that this wasn’t one of Naraku’s schemes.

Kagome only made it a short distance before she heard her double call out “SIT BOY” and she felt something around her neck yank her face first into the ground.

Urg! Somehow, her mouth had gotten full of dirt and she couldn’t move her head enough to spit it all out.

Kagome heard her double walk up to her and, as the force holding her face to the ground released her, she looked up to see her double squatting in front of her. Her double asked her, “Inuyasha, what happened? Is everything ok?”

Kagome blinked and looked down. Her hands didn’t look like the ones that she’d had her whole life. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and grabbed a lock of her hair from behind her head. It was white, like Inuyasha’s! With shaky hands, she slowly reached up to check the top of her head for the dog ears she knew Inuyasha had. She found them right where they should be, if she were Inuyasha. Well, at least now she knew why she was wearing his clothes!

With wide eyes, she looked up at her doppelganger who was looking down at her with a confused squint. The doppelganger asked her, “Are you... Kagome?”

Confused, Kagome answered, “Y-Yes? Who’re you?” Kagome knew her voice sounded strange, but really, what had she been expecting?

Her double said, “I’m you, from three years in the future. I remember being you, right now.”

Kagome gave her double freaked out look. She said, “Y-You mean to say, I’m in the f-future?! W-Why do I l-look like Inuyasha?!”

Her double said, “Yes! You’re in the future! And you’re in Inuyasha’s body at the moment. I’m pretty sure he’s in yours right now.”

Kagome gestured down at herself and said, “W-Wha? R-Really?! I-I… d-do you have any idea how or why this happened?”

Her double said, “No real clue, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Naraku’s doing. He woulda tried to use it to his advantage somehow. Maybe some god was playing matchmaker or something.”

Somehow, that didn’t really reassure Kagome, but she held her tongue. If her future self didn’t know for sure the cause, and nothing bad had come of it, then she shouldn’t bother worrying about it. Kagome stood up and asked her double, “K-Kagome, d-do you have a m-mirror? I n-need to see myself.”

Her future self nodded and motioned for Kagome to follow her before they walked into the hut. Pointing over at the wall near the futon, Kagome’s doppelganger said, “There’s the mirror.” She walked over and sat down on the futon. Kagome gulped before standing in front of the portable hand mirror hanging on the wall and looking into it.

While Kagome had been expecting the sight, she had still been surprised to see a very disgruntled and surprised Inuyasha staring back at her from the other side of the mirror. Kagome blinked, looked down at herself and back at the mirror, and made very silly faces that mirror Inuyasha mimicked perfectly. She felt very light headed and abruptly sat down. She couldn’t help but feel that this was officially the strangest, most crazy thing that had ever happened to her. She was somehow in the body of the man she loved sitting next to his wife who was her own future self. What insane god could have possibly cooked this up?

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Inuyasha drowsily wondered what the warm slightly boney fuzzy thing that he was hugging could be. He opened his eyes to see that the one in his arms was Shippō. What was the fox doing in bed with him and Kagome? Shippō usually slept at Kaede’s place or in a different corner of the hut.

Inuyasha looked up to see that he was laying in Kagome’s old sleeping bag, outside in the middle of the woods. Silently beginning to panic, he sat up to get a better look at his surroundings. Looking around he spotted Miroku and Sango laying a short distance away on opposite sides of a burnt-out campfire. He didn’t see Kagome anywhere.

Shippō piped up, saying, “Kagome, is everything ok?” Inuyasha’s sudden movements had woken the little kit.

Startled, Inuyasha looked down at the little fox in his arms and reflexively asked, “Kagome?” Inuyasha was confused by Shippō’s question. He wasn’t his wife.

Shippō gave him an odd look and said, “I’m gonna get Inuyasha, you’re acting funny.” He jumped out of Inuyasha’s arms and took off in the direction of a tree across the camp.

“What the hell?!”, muttered Inuyasha to himself. He was sure that he wasn’t Kagome, but he was now starting to suspect that there was something fishy going on. On a whim, he took a closer look at his body.

He was wearing Kagome’s school uniform?! What on earth would he be wearing that for? For that matter, how was he even wearing it? Inuyasha knew that the skimpy thing was far too small for him to even fit into without it tearing.

With shaking hands, Inuyasha reached up and touched his chest, hoping that he wouldn’t find what he dreaded was there. His hands touched his chest and he felt breasts beneath his hands. He squeezed them for good measure. Yep, those were a part of him, as surely as his stupid ears usually were.

Across the camp, Shippō shouted, “Inuyasha! Kagome’s acting funny! I think she’s sick!”

Inuyasha then reached for his dog ears, hoping that they were still there and that he was wrong about what he thought had happened to him. All his hands felt on top of his head was hair. No fuzzy ears. He touched the sides of his head and found human ears right where they should be on a human.

Suddenly, a red blur jumped in front of him. It was someone who looked identical to him, Fire Rat, dog ears, and all.

Inuyasha gulped. If he was right about whose body he was in, this may well be Kagome wearing his face.

His double said, “Kagome, you better not be sick, we need to get back to Kaede’s Village by tomorrow evening. You wanted to see your family and we need to restock our food.”

Or not. Maybe that wasn’t Kagome. Screw it, he wasn’t about to pretend that he was Kagome and maybe in the process he would get some answers.

Inuyasha said, “I’m not Kagome.”

Confused, his double said, “Well, who else?”

Inuyasha replied, “Inuyasha, same as you say you are.”

His double said, “Kagome, I’m Inuyasha. You’re Kagome. You ain’t making sense.”

Inuyasha then said, “But I am Inuyasha! I’ve always been me!”

Shippō looked at Inuyasha then over to his double and said, “Inuyasha, she’s acting funny. See!”

Inuyasha’s double said, “Yeah, she is acting funny Shippō. How about you go wake the letch and Sango up. I’ll sort this out.” 

Shippō scampered over to Sango, who was sleeping on one side of the dead campfire.

Inuyasha’s double then asked Inuyasha, “Kagome, did you bump your head or something?” His double looked worried. It seemed that Inuyasha wasn’t going to be believed. Instead, his double was now convinced he’d gotten himself hurt.

Maybe it would be better if he gave up on trying to convince his double of who he was before his double started thinking he was demon possessed.

Inuyasha answered, “No, I… I just need some space. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” No kidding, he couldn’t stop worrying about his predicament.

Inuyasha got up and walked until he found a small clearing not far from camp. It was far enough away for it to be mostly private but close enough that he could scream and be heard. It would be a good place to be alone with his thoughts.

He sat down on a large rock to one end of the clearing and began thinking.

How had this happened to him? Inuyasha knew he’d gone to bed as himself with his wife beside him last night, like usual. He didn’t have any memories between then and when he’d woken up. He also didn’t remember any particularly strange incidents recently. No strange demon encounters or foreboding omens.

It suddenly struck him just how familiar everything that had been happening was. It was almost as if he was reliving something.

Then he remembered it. That week, the week during which he could have sworn that Kagome had gone crazy.

Oh gods.

Inuyasha now felt like he finally understood what had happened that week before Kagome and him got together. Just before she’d officially confessed her feelings for him. All of her downright bizarre actions and words now made so much more sense. It wasn’t even Kagome doing and saying all those things, it was him in Kagome’s body. He had been the one who had claimed to be himself that first morning and it had been him who had tried to fight Sesshomaru with an untransformed Tetsusaiga. It had been him who had called himself a coward too afraid to face his feelings for and fears of rejection by the one woman who would never reject him.

Oh gods, his head was spinning from the sheer shock of a morning he’d been having.

Wait. What had happened to the Kagome whose body he was currently trapped in? Was she currently under the tender loving care of his wife, her own future self? Oh gods, what if his wife tried to do fun things with her younger self, mistakenly thinking that she was him!? This whatever it was would only last a week, right!? It had better!

At that moment he heard some twigs snap, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Inuyasha turned his head and spotted his past self sauntering into the clearing where he was sitting. He knew what he had to do. He just had to pretend to be Kagome. Ka-Go-Me. How hard could that possibly be? Oh, wait, he already knew he was going to do a terrible job of it. He groaned into his hands. This was going to be such a long stressful week.

Chapter 2 – (WIP Title)

Kagome had been sitting on the floor, mind spinning, when her future self broke her out of her thoughts by saying, “Hey, are you OK? You look a bit pale.”

Kagome started slightly before looking her future self in the face and saying, “Uh, I… I think so! Just a bit freaked out!” She was ok, she just needed to push through her disbelief at the bizarre situation she was in. It wasn’t every day that someone swapped bodies with their future self’s husband after all.

Kagome tried to focus on taking deep, slow breaths in order to try and calm herself down a bit. Breathe in. And out. In. And out. She did her best to ignore the concerned look her future self was giving her.

Ok, she was feeling a bit better now. What to do now? She looked up at her future self and blinked. Wait. Her friends, how were they doing? Was Miroku still alive?

Kagome then asked, “How is everyone doing? Is Miroku still in the land of the living?” While Miroku usually tried to brush it off when asked, Kagome knew that he feared that he would be swallowed by his wind tunnel, just like his father and grandfather before him.

Her future self said, “Sango’s fine, actually, she’s better than fine and Miroku’s the same! They have three kids together, twin girls and a boy. And don’t worry, Shippō’s just fine. He just slept at Kaede’s last night.”

Kagome was so happy! What a relief, her friends made it! They didn’t die to Naraku or any of his evil minions! They even got married and started a peaceful family life, just as they’d dreamed of!

Kagome’s future self startled her from her thoughts by asking, “Hey, wanna go meet them? We’ll need to tell them about this anyways.” Her future self gestured at Kagome, indicating they needed to tell their friends about the body swap. 

Honestly, it didn’t sound like a bad idea and Kagome did want to see her friends, so she answered, “Yeah! Let’s go see Sango and Miroku. I can’t wait to see how they’re doing!”

Nodding and standing up, her future self motioned for Kagome to follow her as she left the hut. Kagome followed her.

Future Kagome then spoke, saying, “It’s not far, just beyond this patch of trees. Inuyasha had our home built a bit further out than Miroku’s. He feels safer where there are fewer people.”

No real surprises there. Inuyasha wasn’t exactly a people person. In fact, he was more than a little skittish around people he didn’t know all that well.

As they walked down the path, Kagome couldn’t help but wonder how Sango and Miroku would react to her swapping bodies with Inuyasha. Would they believe her or would they think that it was all a prank and if they did believe her, would they laugh at her situation?

No, they probably wouldn’t. Well, Sango probably wouldn’t, Miroku could be quite the jokester sometimes. It was how he coped with life. Even then, she knew that Miroku’s laughter didn’t mean that he couldn’t take a ridiculous situation seriously if need be.

It wasn’t long before their destination came into sight and her double looked over her shoulder to say, “This it, Miroku and Sango’s home!”

Kagome and her double walked up to the entrance to their friends’ hut before then Kagome’s double knocked on the doorframe of the hut.

A groggy looking Miroku poked his head out from inside the hut, squinting at them in the bright morning sunlight. He said, “Kagome? Inuyasha? What brings you here this early in the morning?”

Being called by Inuyasha’s name felt really uncomfortable and weird, so Kagome shifted on her feet in an attempt to relieve the feeling. It didn’t really work.

Kagome’s double looked over at her before sighing and looking back at Miroku, saying, “We have something important to tell the both of you. Can we come in to talk?”

Miroku looked back and forth between them before saying, “Sure, but can we get presentable first? Also, could you please try to not wake the baby, he only just went to sleep and we don’t really want to have to go through that struggle again.”

Kagome nodded in agreement and her double said, “Sounds great! We’ll wait out here!”

They waited a few short minutes until Sango poked her head out the door, saying, “We’re all dressed, you can come in now.”

As Kagome and her future self walked into the hut, she looked around its interior. She saw two sleeping girls and the previously mentioned baby lying in one corner, while Sango and Miroku were sitting near the firepit on the other side of the hut. Sango motioned with her hand for Kagome and Future Kagome to come over and sit next to them on the floor.

Once they were both sitting down, Sango, with a confused and curious expression on her face, asked, “So, what is it?”

Kagome felt an anxious jittery feeling coil around her heart, making her shift in place and fidget with her sleeves and claws. She really didn’t want to talk about this, but she had to try. She owed it to herself to try to be brave.

She gulped and took a deep breath, before stuttering out, “I… Um… I’m… I’m not… I’m not … Inuyasha.” It felt like each word was going to kill her as she said them. She knew that they wouldn’t, but still…

As soon as she’d gotten that last word out of her mouth, she started hyperventilating as Sango gave her a look of ‘What are you talking about?’ and Miroku did a double take.

Future Kagome, who’d been looking reassuringly at her, patted her on the back before turning to Sango and Miroku, saying, “This is going to sound crazy, but… That’s past me, from when we were still hunting jewel shards, not my Inuyasha.”

Sango and Miroku just stared blankly at them for a few moments before Miroku said, “You’re right, it does sound crazy.”

Sounding annoyed, Sango muttered, “You better not be Shippō pranking us. Or Inuyasha pranking us, for that matter.”

Miroku looked over at his wife for a moment before he hesitatingly asked, “If she’s here and you’re here, Kagome, where’s Inuyasha?”

Kagome had no clue. She didn’t even know how she got here to begin with, or if she would return to the same time and place she’d left or not.

Her future self seemed to know, however, as she said, gesturing towards Kagome, “In her body, in the past. Probably arguing with his past self.”

Sango, who was understandably skeptical of what they were saying, said, “How do we know that this isn’t some elaborate prank or a demon that’s trying to mess with us?”

Uh… Kagome didn’t know how she was to prove that. Maybe…?

Kagome took a deep breath and said, “You’ve told me about how Kohaku once gave you white day lilies when they were in bloom.” She really hoped that would convince Sango.

Sango’s eyes widened for a split second, before she said, “I’ve only ever told Kagome that. How’d you…?” She looked stunned. After a moment, she continued, looking contemplatively at Kagome, “Did Kohaku tell you? No… He wouldn’t. Not for this.” She paused and then asked, “Kagome?”

Kagome numbly nodded her head yes.

Sango just sat back and stared at the ceiling. Kagome couldn’t really blame her, as she felt the same.

Miroku, who’d been watching the byplay between his wife and Kagome in Inuyasha’s body, then said, “Well… how did this happen?”

WIP - No more text. I'm still writing this section.

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Future Kagome then said, “Oh yeah, that reminds me, you did put a hole in the roof of the hut. Could you go get the carpenter to help fix it? He lives in the house to the left of the Headman’s.”

Right, that did need fixing, didn’t it. Why did she have to get the carpenter though? Eh, why did it matter, she’d been the one to jump through the roof anyway. She should at least do this to help fix it.

Kagome said, “Ok, I’ll go get the carpenter. It’s the least I can do after putting a hole in your roof.”

She walked to the door

Future Kagome said, “Ok! I’ll heading back home now. I need to get ready for the day.”, before she turned to Sango and said, “See you later!”

Kagome and her future self walked out of Sango’s hut before parting ways. Kagome set off towards the village center to get the carpenter.

WIP - No more text. I'm still writing this section. Also, I need to edit the sentence structure.