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New Year, New Beginning	By : inumom Category: InuYasha > General Views: 1037 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-New Year, New Beginning
- 1
Disclaimer: No, I don’t own any of the Inu gang, although they were at the top of my Christmas list this year. I own nothing except this pointless little piece of fluff.

AN: I know I should be updating “At the End of Days,“ but I was watching the Weather Channel last week and realized that New Years Eve was a new moon. I couldn’t get this thing out of my head until I got it into my keyboard. Happy New Year to all!

New Year, New Beginning

Higurashi Kagome groaned in a combination of irritation and weariness as she dropped the envelope on the table. “Eri’s having a New Years Eve party, and she invited me.” She sighed before continuing, “She’s probably planning to push me at Houjou again.”
The woman bustling around the kitchen picked up the invitation and scanned it briefly. “You have a little time before you have to make a decision, dear. I’m sure you’ll think of something. Of course,” she said, “If you showed up at the party with a date, she wouldn’t dare to make an issue of Houjou.”
The girl slumped into a chair. “And who would I take? Souta? I spend so much time away from home that I hardly recognize half the people in my class when I am here.”
The woman said nothing as her daughter’s eyes took on a distant look, her lips curving into a soft half-smile, as she pushed the food around her plate. She looked up with a guilty start as the woman finished speaking. “I’m sorry, Mama--I wasn’t listening. What was that?”
The older woman laughed softly. “I just asked how long you would be here this time, and what your plans were for this afternoon.”
“I was thinking that I might pick up a few last Christmas gifts for my friends--I only have a week left.” She paused briefly before continuing, “Do you think you could come along? I could probably use some help.”
Always glad to spend a bit of time with her daughter, the woman simply smiled. “Of course, dear.”
All things considered, it was an interesting shopping trip. Although she had never met the people for whom the gifts were being chosen, a few simple questions made the decisions much easier. Given the kind of lives these people lived, most of the items available for sale were impractical at best. Since they spent only brief times staying in the home of the old miko in the village that had become their base of operations, they had little use for household items. Because they carried all of their possessions with them when they traveled, there was no point in giving any large or bulky gifts.
In the end, the girl chose a variety of small, lightweight items that would be unavailable in the world in which her friends lived. She found a small backpack in a pretty shade of coral pink that almost exactly matched the trim on Sango’s fighting clothes that would make it unnecessary for her friend to wear her fighting gear underneath her kimono--and to carry her “civilian” clothes when necessary. Although the taijiya was a skilled fighter, she wanted to give something that would help to express her feminine side, so she also chose a beautiful carved pendant depicting a lily in full bloom.

For the traveling monk who had joined them shortly before the woman she now thought of as an older sister, she chose a wristwatch that recharged itself every time the wearer moved and a slim paperback book of tastefully done nude photography. Just maybe, she thought, that would give the lecherous monk an incentive to finally speak to the taijiya about what had become painfully obvious to the rest of their little “family.”
For the elderly miko in whose home they usually stayed when they weren’t traveling, she chose a pair of reading glasses and two new books on herbal medicine. Although she had lost an eye to a youkai attack in her youth, she had recently mentioned in passing that her vision was beginning to fail her--these gifts would help her to continue to feel useful to her community. Of course, the girl also chose some lavender-scented lotion to soothe work-roughened skin: even an old woman liked to feel like a woman now and again.
With the human members of her group taken care of, she turned her attention to her youkai companions. Shippou, the orphaned fox youkai kit she had unofficially adopted, was easy to shop for: a half-dozen coloring books, the biggest box of crayons she could find, and several boxes of pocky would keep him happy for hours. Sango’s firecat youkai companion would be certain to enjoy the small ceramic bowl with her name painted on the side as well as the shrimp, tuna, and salmon that was now available in lightweight foil pouches, eliminating the weight of the metal cans such treats had always come in before. As an afterthought, she added a catnip-filled fabric mouse.
That left her with the single most difficult gift of all: something for the rude, violent, often surly hanyou to whom she had long since lost her heart. She was at a loss for something that would be useful and would also indicate the depth of her feelings for him without pushing him so far that he became defensive. There had been so many times that a kindly gesture had been misinterpreted and caused a big fight. At this point, she really didn’t feel like going through that all again.

As always, a few words from her mother and she had an idea that she hoped would be appropriate. Naturally, the gift would include a variety of flavors of the instant ramen to which she had introduced him and which had almost instantly become his very favorite food. To this she added a plain silver chain that she would infuse with some of her barely-controlled miko power. If her research proved accurate, it would help to protect him from being purified by miko energy when he wore it. In a purely sentimental gesture, she included a small pocket photo album that she would fill with pictures she had taken of their little group during their travels.
Back in the Higurashi kitchen, the two women sat over cups of hot chocolate, warming up from the long walk in the chill air. “You know, dear,” the older woman said, “You don’t have to go to Eri’s party if you’d rather not. There are a few options.”
“Like what?” Although she had been happy after the shopping trip, the reminder of her schoolmates’ matchmaking schemes didn’t sit well with her.
“You could always beg off, saying that it’s going to be busy here at the shrine. Maybe you could invite a few of your closest friends over after Eri’s party so that you can all watch the sun rise together. Of course, you could always try to find a date for Eri’s party so that they won’t be able to force you and Houjou to spend time together.” Rising from her seat to put her own packages away, she added, almost as an afterthought, “Why don’t you check on the extended weather forecast, dear? If it’s going to be raining, you won’t want to be spending a lot of time out there anyway.”
Settling in front of the television in the living room, Kagome turned to the twenty-four-hour weather station. She watched the broadcast with only about half of her attention until she jerked fully upright on the sofa--the almanac screen had come up, showing the phases of the moon for the upcoming month. A slow, almost predatory smile crossed the girl’s features as she picked up her bags and headed up the stairs to her bedroom, humming softly to herself.

*

Kagome popped her head up over the edge of the old well in the middle of the meadow, not at all surprised to find that she was alone. Since she hadn’t specified exactly when she would be returning, she could hardly have expected any of the others to be waiting there for her. Well, she thought to herself, that wasn’t entirely true--she knew that it was only a matter of a minute or two before the acute nose of her hanyou protector caught her scent as she hauled her massive bag out of the well behind her.
“About time you got back, wench!”
She turned a brilliant smile on the striking figure before her. “Merry Christmas, Inuyasha!”
He blinked in confusion, ears twitching. “Ka-riss-u-mas? What the hell is that?”
She grinned, realizing that the tradition of Christmas probably hadn’t reached this region by this point in history. “It’s a holiday we have in my time. It started out as a religious holiday--and still is in a lot of places--although most Japanese have adopted it as a day for friends and family to just be together. That’s why I’m here today--I brought Christmas gifts for all my friends.”
He silently hoisted the overstuffed bag to his shoulder. “Damn, wench! What the hell’s in this thing--rocks?”
Taking his clawed hand in her much smaller one, she tugged him in the direction of the village. “You’ll see when we get there. Come on!”
It didn’t take very long for the group to gather in the old miko’s hut--both the firecat and kitsune could smell the pair’s approach long before they reached the village proper. The girl briefly explained the customs associated with celebrating Christmas in her home while happily distributing the things she had brought.
She was thrilled that her gifts were all well received by their recipients, although there was a bit of confusion regarding the enchanted chain she had given the hanyou. Once she explained what she had hoped to accomplish with the gift, he slipped it over his head, eager to see if it really worked. Although the elderly miko declined to participate in the test, her examination of the chain confirmed that the miko from the future was indeed far more powerful than even her sister had been during her lifetime.
Realizing that the brash young hanyou would never let the matter alone until his curiosity had been satisfied, Kagome followed him out of the hut into the center of the village where he waited for her to shoot at him with one of her purifying arrows. Although she wasn’t exactly happy about attempting to injure the man she had finally realized that she loved, she also knew him well enough to understand that it wouldn’t be a fair test unless she made it a real attack.
Still, she wasn’t about to take any more risks than necessary. Taking one of the arrows from the quiver she kept in the old miko’s hut when she went back home, she snapped off the head. If the spell on the chain didn’t work, she didn’t want to puncture him by accident. She gathered her thoughts, focusing all of her energy into the arrow, then fitted it to the bowstring and released it at her target.
Nobody knew exactly what to expect, but nobody could have expected that the arrow would simply stop about a foot from the hanyou’s chest. As the arrow hung suspended in the air, glowing with the lavender-pink fire of the miko energy, she walked up, plucked it from the air, and dropped it to the ground. “I’d call that a success,” she smiled. “Of course, I don’t know how it will work to protect you from other kinds of miko powers, but I think it’s safe to say that you won’t have to worry about anybody trying to purify you any time in the near future.”
“Keh! I don’t have to worry about that anyway, remember? All it does is turn me human for a while.”
Her smirk easily matched his own. “And that doesn’t bother you at all, does it?” When he refused to answer, turning halfway away from her with his arms crossed over his chest, she decided that the time had come to raise the stakes. “How about you come to my world for our New Years celebration--we can watch the parties on the television, and eat lots of great food, and sit up to watch the sun rise. What do you say?”
The hanyou was torn by a sensation he didn’t often experience--guilt. While he could usually pass off things that happened to those around him as the inevitable results of their own actions, the fact remained that he hadn’t known about this holiday and thus hadn’t even thought about finding a gift for the human girl. If she wanted him to spend a few hours in her world, that was actually a small price to pay. He gave her a curt nod.
It was all she could do to keep from shouting in victory. “Good enough. I have to go back home now--I’ll be back in eight days to bring you back home with me.”
“The old man isn’t gonna try to banish me again, is he?”
She laughed out loud at her grandfather’s constant--and perpetually ineffective--attempts at getting rid of the hanyou and wondered--not for the first time--if it was actually her attachment to him that had rendered her grandfather’s scrolls so useless. “Probably,” she said, “Unless he’s away from the shrine for the evening. Don’t worry,” she continued, “We’ll just have to stay out of his way if he’s there.”

*

It was an almost smugly satisfied Kagome who returned to her home in Tokyo that evening. Noticing the undeniable bounce in her step, her mother asked what had happened to cheer her up so much. With a bright smile, she explained that her invitation to the New Years festivities had been accepted.

“I’ll be bringing him home early for dinner, okay? But there’s something you should know about.” She briefly explained that hanyous have cycles much like human women, when their youkai strength waxes and wanes. Although all of them had different cycles, they were linked to the phases of the moon. In Inuyasha’s case, she explained, his youkai power was at its peak during the full moon, disappearing completely at the new moon.
Glancing at the calendar on the wall that her daughter had chosen specifically because it noted the moon’s phases, the woman said, “But that means that….”
She nodded slowly. “He’ll be human that night, until sunrise.” She shook her head, hoping that she could make her mother understand the seriousness of the situation. “This is important, Mama. He depends so much on his youkai power that he doesn’t realize that he’s almost impossibly strong, even as a human. He knows that he’s vulnerable on this night, and it’s only by accident that I even found out about it. Now, I don’t know if he’ll be affected by the phases of the moon in this time, or whether his youki is linked to his own world, although I kind of think that he’ll turn human at sunset. It’s a pretty safe bet that he’ll be mad, so don’t take anything that he might say seriously, okay?”
The older woman nodded slowly, understanding the seriousness of the information her daughter had entrusted to her. If, as she had always said, humans and youkai alike had hunted him all his life simply because he existed, then the times when he became most vulnerable would naturally be a closely guarded secret. “Maybe we should plan on some extra ramen for the night, ne?”
Kagome nodded absently, fretting about the hanyou’s reaction to her plan. Although she had long hoped for something more from their relationship--such as it was--she considered him her very best friend in either world, and hoped that he wouldn’t think of her plan as a betrayal of his secret.

*

Though it was only a little after noon when she climbed out of the well in the Sengoku Jidai, she was eager to collect her charge and return home. With the short days of winter, she didn’t want him to change before having time to get settled into her home for the night. If, that is, he was going to change at all.
Not too surprisingly, she never made it to the little village--he was, as was so often the case, waiting for her near the Goshinboku, the sacred tree that still stood in the shrine in her time. As one of the two things that connected her world with this one (the other being the well that allowed the two of them to travel through time), she had always felt a sort of connection with the ancient tree. It was, after all, where they had first met.
“Ready?” she asked, pleased to see that he probably wasn’t going to fight her about spending time on her side of the well. She knew how difficult it was for him to be there for any amount of time--the incessant noise of a modern city, the mechanical stink of the traffic, and the unrelenting press of the masses of humanity all around were pure hell for his inhumanly acute senses.
Wrapping an arm carefully around his middle, he leaped into the gateway well behind her.
The gesture had not gone unnoticed. Once they emerged from the well in the Higurashi family shrine, she blocked the exit from the well house. “I saw that. What happened? Are you hurt?”
He sniffed disdainfully. “Hell no, wench. It’s all part of that Ka-riss-u-mas thing you were talking about--the others all sent gifts for you, since they knew I’d be coming here today.” He removed five oddly-shaped objects wrapped in brightly-colored silk from inside his haori.
“Should I open them now, or wait until we go inside?”
He shrugged. “Go ahead.” As she picked up a tubular object about as long as her forearm wrapped in a piece of rosy silk with a pattern of sakura blossoms, he continued, “The old babaa sent this. She said it would be a help to you.”
She untied the silk to reveal a long, tightly-wrapped scroll. Glancing at the contents, she was pleased to see that it was a hand-written list of herbal remedies for most uses that she could think of. “It must have taken her months to do this!”
He nodded slowly. “I think she’s hoping that you’ll take over for her some day. I know she thinks of you as the granddaughter she never had.”
“I think I’d like that,” she whispered, “But we don’t know what will happen after we get rid of Naraku and complete the Shikon no Tama. Will the well even work any more? If it doesn’t, will either of us get to choose which side we have to stay on? We don’t even know what will happen when you make your wish on the jewel.”
In a moment of pure insight, he realized that these were very serious concerns for the young miko. “I don’t have any answers for you,” he said. “I’m just a hanyou, and not educated or anything. Hell, I don’t even really know what to do with the damn thing when it’s finally all together again. Besides,” he said, watching as the lowering afternoon sun outlined her raven hair with gold, “They told me that this holiday of yours is a time for happiness, not worry, so take another one of these things.”
This time, the purple silk with a pattern of golden cranes in flight concealed an amulet in a style she had come to recognize as representing good fortune, prosperity, and fertility. She reddened briefly as she raised an eyebrow. “Miroku?” At the hanyou’s nod, she smiled. “I thought as much--he never really gives up, does he?” When he simply stared at her in confusion, she continued, “This charm is supposed to promote luck, wealth, and fertility.”
She looked up in surprise at the deep growl coming from her companion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he snapped, handing her a package wrapped in white silk patterned with deep coral pink lilies.
She smiled broadly as the long narrow parcel fell open to reveal several new arrows made with the skills of the youkai taijiya. She was willing to bet that the combination of the youkai remains used in their construction and her own purifying energy would be absolutely deadly to an enemy. “Sango, right?”
Her hanyou friend nodded slowly--she knew her friends extremely well. “She thought about giving you something a little more feminine, but decided that that wasn’t really her style. She thought that these would be helpful when it comes time to face Naraku.”
She nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Between the youkai parts used in their construction and the miko energy I put into them when I fight, they should be especially effective.”
Opening the tubular package wrapped in green silk with a pattern of a bamboo forest, she was surprised to see some very skillfully rendered portraits of all of her friends on the other side of the well. She shook her head, smiling softly. “Shippou’s really a wonderful artist, isn’t he?”
Looking over the sheets of paper, he nodded. “Who would have thought the runt had anything like that in him?”
As she looked at the oddly-shaped object wrapped in plain red silk, she asked, “Yours?”
He nodded silently, handing her the surprisingly heavy parcel. He avoided her eyes as she opened it, not wanting to see the rejection at his implied offer. A softly exhaled “Oh….” captured his attention, and he looked up to see the tears in her eyes.
She ran her fingers over the intricately carved and polished cherry wood. The likeness of the two figures was startling--the male figure with the long hair and canine ears at the top of his head holding the hands of the female figure wearing a decidedly modern high school uniform and staring into one another’s eyes were unmistakable. “I don’t understand.”
He tried to shrug it off. “Remember when we were talking about art a couple of weeks ago? When I found those pictures in one of your school books, and didn’t understand what they were supposed to be? You told me that art didn’t always have to show things as they were--that it could also show things that you imagine, or wish.” He blushed faintly as he turned halfway away from her in the dim lighting of the well house. “That’s why I did it.”
Always guided by her emotions, Kagome reached out, throwing her arms around the young hanyou’s neck. “It’s so beautiful!”
Glancing back over his shoulder at the sinking sun, she released him, grabbing his hand to drag him toward the house. “Come on. It’ll be time for dinner soon, and I want to take a shower before then.”
She was in and out of the shower in record time, trusting that her mother could keep her guest sufficiently entertained so that she would be able to return downstairs before full sunset, just in case. She was trying to decide between her two favorite sweaters when her bedroom door banged open and a decidedly irritated voice yelled, “Oi, wench! What the fu--”
Stifling the shriek caused by the intrusion on her near-nudity, she screamed, “Inuyasha! Sit!”
When the young human male failed to drop to the floor at the command, she dropped the sweaters in shock, completely forgetting that she was standing there in front of a very attractive and physically mature male wearing nothing but her underwear. They simply stared at each other for a few seconds, then both asked, “What happened?” in perfect unison.
Blushing furiously as she retrieved her sweaters, holding them in front of her chest, she nodded and said, “You go first.”
“Did you know this was going to happen?” he snarled.
“No. Not really. I mean, I didn’t know for sure. I know that the moon phases aren’t exactly the same in your time as mine. I thought that your youki might have been tied to the moon phases in your time, but I wasn’t sure what would happen.”
Satisfied that the girl wasn’t lying, he relaxed fractionally. As he considered the matter, he realized that he was probably safer here than he would be at home--if there were any youkai around in this time, they were keeping themselves concealed and well away from here. As the events following his precipitous entry into the room finally caught up with him, he looked at her in surprise. “I’m not on the floor.”
She smiled, slipping the deep blue sweater over her head. “That chain works better than I thought it would. I designed the spell on it to protect you from miko energy--it never occurred to me that it would keep you from being affected by Kaede-baachan’s beads as well.” She thought about it for a few minutes. “I’m glad--I’ve been feeling awfully guilty about those for a long time now, but didn’t know what would happen if I tried to take them off.”
He looked down at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes. “They weren’t the old hag’s beads. I mean, she put them on me, but Kikyou made them. What I think--” he began, more than a little surprised that he was able to say these things, but then again, he was always a little more emotional on his human nights. “What I think is that that damn monk is right--that you’re the strongest miko in a thousand years or more. Even without the years of formal training mikos usually go through, your charm easily overpowered the subduing spell Kikyou put on the beads.” Deciding not to push matters, he grabbed her hand. “Let’s go downstairs. Your mother said dinner would be ready soon.”
It was a wonderful evening. The differences between the human Inuyasha and his normal hanyou self allowed him to be more polite and less rude and impatient with the “weak humans” around him. After dinner they all retired to the living room to watch the New Years celebrations on the television. Having been shown a globe on one of his earlier visits to modern Tokyo, he understood about time zones and why the new year doesn’t arrive at the same moment everywhere.
As they watched the countdown from Sydney, Australia, the young man observed that there was a great deal of kissing going on at the stroke of midnight. Turning to the older of the two women, he asked, “Are all of those people mates?”
Although entirely ignorant of the nuances of youkai mating customs, she understood the question well enough. She smiled brightly, explaining that some of those people were probably in relationships, but most of them weren’t. “There are a couple of different customs in play here. The people who are in relationships kiss because there’s a tradition that says that whatever you’re doing at the stroke of midnight is what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year. Those who aren’t involved with each other believe that a kiss at midnight will bring them good luck in the new year.”
He nodded slowly, thinking that human customs were really very complicated, then stole a quick glance at the clock he could barely see on the kitchen wall. Between the fascinating images on the television, the pleasant conversation with the family, the strange feelings brought on by his temporary humanity, and the huge variety of snacks, the evening passed quickly.
Soon, the television coverage shifted to downtown Tokyo. He looked down at the young girl who had been lightly dozing next to him as he sat on the floor in front of the sofa and shook her lightly awake. “It’s almost time,” he said softly.
The countdown seemed to move more slowly as the time progressed. Finally, though, there were only seconds to go until the beginning of the new year. As the countdown reached ten seconds, he reached a sudden decision. As it reached five seconds, he turned to look at the girl sitting beside him, an odd expression on his slightly softer, human features. As it reached one second, he pulled her close to him. As the fireworks erupted on the television screen, he leaned over to place a soft, chaste kiss on her perfect lips.
Without his hanyou senses he never heard the faint, “Oh, my….” from the woman seated on the sofa.
Several hours later, the pair sat on the roof outside the girl’s bedroom window to watch the sun rise. Looking at the silver-haired hanyou sitting next to her, she asked, “Did you make a wish?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why on earth not?”
Placing an arm carefully around her shoulders, he said, “Because if what your mother said about whatever you’re doing at midnight setting the pattern for the whole new year is true, then I already have everything I could wish for.” Bending toward her once again, he repeated his action of the previous night, pleased when she returned the kiss, her scent showing no hint of fear or disgust at his touch.
It looked like it was going to be an interesting year.
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New Year, New Beginning