A Wrinkle in Time

"That is not your mother." It is Hiei who speaks up, surprisingly, his tone flat. InuYasha and Kagome both turn to stare at him, though the hanyō looks a bit resentful.

"You stated that your mother was dead, InuYasha, and that woman up there, while she may look like your mother, reeks of yōki." Kurama is still watching the carriage, a frown on his face.

Lightning lights up the sky, revealing that it is threatening to storm and that something is descending from the clouds. Kagome and InuYasha both return their gazes to the carriage just in time to see it get crushed by the large clawed appendage of an oni. The wood of the carriage falls away and reveals that the woman, whoever she is, is in the grasp of the oni and is little better than a rag doll.

"I don't care if that's not my mother! She's in trouble!" InuYasha growls out before he darts towards the large oni in the distance.

Kagome blinks and looks from the retreating hanyō's back to the yōkai woman held by the oni. "What should we do?" InuYasha isn't very friendly, which is quite off-putting, but they can't very well let him rush off on his own and get killed.

"That is your call, Kagome. We are here to help you, and to help InuYasha if that is what you want." Kurama gives her a friendly smile while Hiei merely snorts in the background. Still, what he said is very much true and even if they don't like InuYasha they will help him out at her request.

"Let's go save him from himself." Kagome tightens her grip on her bow and runs after the hanyō, who has reached the oni by now and is leaping towards it.

"Another has entered the fight, Fox. Try to not give yourself away when you recognize who it is." Hiei casually follows after Kagome, his pace sedate even as a stream of fire shoots towards InuYasha from up on the oni's arm.

Kurama blinks and lets his gaze go to the figures that stand on the oni's upper arm, holding the ends to the chains that are binding and holding InuYasha's not-mother. Shock is the first thing he feels, but before that has a chance to fully register, he bolts after the others. Meeting Sesshōmaru this early doesn't bode well for them. He was known to have quite a hatred for humans in his younger years, and being that they aren't certain when the turning point in how he regards humans has been made, he isn't going to take chances with Kagome.

"Jaken. We'll talk first, kill later." Sesshōmaru's voice is chilly as he addresses the kappa yōkai at his side.

The kappa in question relents his assault on InuYasha and hefts the Nintōjō up. The old man's head on the staff stops spewing its flames while Jaken looks up at Sesshōmaru. "Yes, my lord."

"You bastard, Sesshōmaru!" InuYasha growls as he crouches where he lands, his puppy dog ears flattening against the top of his head.

"Oh? Well done, it seems you've remembered the face of your elder brother." Sesshōmaru gives a malicious smirk as he speaks, his tone chilly.

Kagome blinks as she observes this moment between InuYasha and the person claiming to be his older brother. It should have come as a surprise to her, but there is a lot that she doesn't know, and the inu hanyō isn't very willing to give up any of his personal information to anyone. Looking at the rather aristocratic male up on the oni's arm, she frowns slightly. His yōki doesn't feel anything like InuYasha's. It is more like Hiei and Kurama's, but as they had explained to her before they had started teaching her, it is slightly different. Sesshoumaru is a full-blooded yōkai, obviously of the inu variety. From his state of dress, however, and how the strange little demon beside him addresses him, he is someone of importance. She has to wonder at the coloring on his face and what it all means, however. Surely yōkai don't need makeup, and Sesshōmaru's aura screams of pure, dominating masculinity.

"Hm?" Sesshōmaru's gaze travels over the rest of them, though it seems to linger on Kagome longer than the others. "Well, if it isn't a human girl. A miko at that."

Kagome stiffens slightly at how he says the word human as if it is something disgusting. She starts to open her mouth to say something, but a slight touch to her shoulder from Kurama has her staying silent.

"My apologies for interrupting you, Sesshōmaru-sama, but this miko is under my and my associate's protection." Kurama gives a partial bow, to show the inu daiyōkai some modicum of respect, but he keeps his tone firm and even to show that he is not one to be trifled with. He lets his yōki flare just enough for the daiyōkai to take him seriously.

Sesshōmaru gives Kurama a pensive stare, his expression schooled into a mask of indifference before he finally settles his gaze back onto InuYasha. "Regardless of whom you choose to keep company with that does not change the fact that you are a hanyō whose mother is a vile creature like a human. You have brought shame upon our family." He tightens his grasp on the chains and tugs on them, bringing the not-mother's head up.

InuYasha growls low in his throat while Kagome watches on in silence, shock trickling into her emotions. She has figured right in thinking that InuYasha's mother was a human, but having it confirmed like this… She frowned and stares up at Sesshōmaru, trying to figure out why he hates InuYasha and humans so much. That part is easy to understand, with how he speaks in such a condescending tone towards the inu hanyō, and the way he talks of humans… Surely it can't be something as simple as InuYasha's mother being human. She doesn't know how yōkai society works, which will be another thing she will have to ask Kurama about.

"Sesshōmaru, you bastard, did you come all this fucking way just to say that?" InuYasha cracks his knuckles threateningly as he glares up at his brother.

Sesshōmaru almost looks affronted at the insinuation. Almost. "Moron. I do not have that much spare time." Instead, he remains rather composed. "I've come to ask you for the location of father's tomb."

"The old man's tomb?" As if his tone isn't obvious enough, InuYasha's face crinkles up slightly in confusion. "I dunno. I have no clue."

"Is that so?" Sesshōmaru looks unimpressed by InuYasha's lack of knowledge on the whereabouts of the tomb. "Well then, it can't be helped." Without a single motion or word, the oni begins tightening its hold on the woman that supposedly looks like InuYasha's mother. "Your mother will just have to suffer."

Kagome clenches her fists, a worried look on her face. They know that the woman, a yōkai, isn't InuYasha's mother, but she doesn't deserve what she is going through. "Can't we do anything?" she asks in a whisper.

Kurama, who has been studying the woman with a frown on his face, looks to Kagome's troubled face. "There is something off about her," he murmurs, unable to place what kind of yōkai the woman is.

InuYasha glances at them then growls as he steps toward the oni and Sesshōmaru. "Think I'm stupid, you bastard!? Mom's been dead for years! You phony…"

"What a moron you are," Sesshōmaru interrupts with a small, toneless chuckle. "When, especially for your sake, your mother's soul was brought back from the land of the dead. I even gave her a body."

Everyone freezes at that, Kagome and InuYasha are both stunned by the news while Kurama frowns even further. Hiei eyes the yōkai woman this time, preparing to activate his Jagan to get to the bottom of this once and for all. He is stopped by the woman speaking, her voice strained and breathy, thanks to the chains around her neck.

"Inu… InuYasha…" She raises a hand and reaches down toward the hanyō, her gaze a perfectly crafted sadness.

Then she's…not a fake?

"Don't concern yourself with me," the woman states in a pained voice. "As my body has died once already." She manages a weak smile before the oni's hand tightens even further and she cries out, but it isn't enough to drown out the sound of bones crunching and breaking.

"Shit!" InuYasha leaps up and readied his claws. "Sankon Tessō!" He attacks the oni's forearm, slicing through it with his yōki imbued claws and causing it to drop the woman. She falls to the ground, near where Kagome and the others are.

"Are you okay?" The young miko asked as she kneels beside the woman, reaching out to help her up.

"Kagome! Take mom and get out of here!" InuYasha shouts as he lands near the oni's feet. He tries to go to them, but the oni attacks at Sesshōmaru's behest, catching him under its hand.

"You won't get away," Sesshōmaru snarls as InuYasha is knocked towards Kagome and the woman.

"InuYasha!" The woman cries out and sits up. She reaches her hands out towards InuYasha and a glow begins to emit from between them. A lotus flower appears in the center of the light which brightens considerably.

Uncertain of what is going on, Kurama comes up behind Kagome and pulls her to him with a protective arm around her waist. The glow envelops them, as well as InuYasha, and the four of them disappear.

Hiei is left behind, staring at Sesshōmaru, Jaken, and the oni with a dispassionate stare. He grips the hilt of his katana, his yōki flaring in warning to the daiyōkai.

"Uh…" InuYasha opens his eyes and slowly shifts on the soft grass of a riverbank. He sits up on his haunches and looks around, a frown on his face. Kagome and Kurama are laying beside him, both seemingly unconscious. "This is…"

"The border between the world of the living and the world of the dead." The woman, his mother, speaks as she approaches him. "I shall return to the world of the dead from here." She looks serene, and her tone is soft. "InuYasha. It seems you've grown up."

InuYasha stands and then walks with her towards the river's edge. "Well, yeah. I was just a brat when you died."

She bows her head, her eyes closing as she gives a soft sigh. "I'm sorry. It must have been very painful for you."

A pair of sharp golden eyes watch the two converse from under short lashes. He has been awake the entire time, feigning unconsciousness so he can ascertain what the yōkai woman's intentions are. There is no way that she is his mother, and the fact that a sleep and binding spell has been attempted on him and Kagome means that she is there for something else. "Kagome," he whispers, giving the girl a slight squeeze around her waist.

She groans softly and struggles to open her eyes, the spell having affected her. Kagome stiffens slightly when she realizes she can't move, though she could feel Kurama's arm. She can't even speak.

"Don't panic. Look at InuYasha and the woman and tell me what you see." Kurama shifts slightly and sits up so he can look at the binding spell on her. A slight scowl forms and he starts drawing on his power to undo the yōkai woman's spell.

She calms down and lets her gaze go to the two by the water's edge. They seem fine, and nothing seems out of place, but Kurama wants her to look for something. A glance at their reflections in the water reveals what it is. She… She has no face! That startling realization has her panicking again because they both seem so far away and she can't warn InuYasha. That isn't your mother! InuYasha…