The Sight Of The Future: A Legacy (a Koga x Reader fanfiction)

Chapter Two

The sky is dark and full of stars. The moon is a sliver of white in the distance. You haul yourself out of the well and step out onto grass, soft and overgrown under your boots. There's a forest in full growth around you, and you step forward in a daze. The breeze around you is gentle and smells like smoke.

There's bound to be someone near smoke, right? Firefighters, at least.

You decide that heading towards the smoke is the best choice of action. But - just where is it coming from?

You note that getting to higher ground would answer that question, and set off toward the edge of the trees.

Halfway up the nearest tree, you realize that you haven't climbed a tree in literal years. Sure, you hike, but that isn't quite the same, is it? It's kind of nostalgic - until your foot slips on the branch you're settling it on and suddenly you're on your back in the dirt, your breath knocked out of you in one forceful huff of air. You think one of your ribs is broken.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," you groan, feeling particularly battered as you try to inhale. It's just your luck, you think, to break a rib from a five foot fall. It's probably karma for all of those door hinges you keep busting in an attempt to look cool. You lay there for another few moments, just breathing, until someone calls out to you.

"Are you alright?" You crane your neck to look in the direction of the voice, curious.

"Sure," you say politely, but your tone is sarcastic. "Just peachy."

"Your rib is fractured," the voice says, and a young girl comes into view. She has shoulder-length, wild blonde hair and wears a white jinbei, tied at the waist. "Here." A small hand presses against your aching chest, and you cry out - "Ouch, shit!" - before settling when you register that the pain is waning.

"There. All better," she pats your shoulder before offering you a hand up. You frown at it. "What are you?" You ask, then realize that that sounded rude. You open your mouth to apologize, but the kid silences you by saying, "It's quite alright. My name is Chihiro, and I'm a tree demon. A druid, if you will."

"A tree demon," you echo, disbelieving. "Right."

"You do not believe me?"

"Uh, no," you sputter incredulously, "A tree demon? Those don't exist! If I believed that schtick, then I'd have to believe in the abstract concept of the afterlife." You shake your head, laughing sardonically. "I must have hit my head so hard that I'm hallucinating. That's it, right? I'm hallucinating, and you're just a fever-dream that my head came up with to cope with trying not to die. I'm really just laying at the bottom of the Bone Eater's Well, in a coma or something."

"No you aren't. You're perfectly fine. Unless you're... Mentally unstable. You aren't mentally unstable, are you?"

You stare at Chihiro for a moment before you snap, "What - no, I'm not insane. Where the heck are we?"

"So you believe that I'm a demon?"

"No. Where are we?" Chihiro looks mightily disgruntled at that. You don't feel very bad about it.

"I won't tell you unless you believe me," she says, crossing her arms. You scoff.

"Fine then, I'll just go somewhere else to figure out where the fuck I am," you roll your eyes at the kid, and something wraps around your ankle. You sit forward and lean back on your elbows, griping, "Oh, really mature - SHIT!" You're yanked upwards, into the canopy of trees above as you watch the ground shrink away from you.

"Do you believe me now?" She demands, and you thrash about in mid-air wildly.

"Why the hell do you want me to believe you so badly?!" Your ankle pops and you wince, stilling.

"BECAUSE-" She falters, and you find yourself growing irritated the longer her silence stretches. "I don't know."

You're completely still now, and you can feel the raging incredulity rising in you like a wave. "So you healed my broken rib and hung me from a tree to get me to believe that you're... A demon, and you don't know why." You stare at her as best as you can upside down. She says that no, she does not in fact know why she went so far to try to gain your favor. You politely (read: slightly less aggressively than normal) ask her to let you down, and she does. Thank fuck.

She heals your now sprained ankle and informs you that there's a small village nearby. You let her lead you away from the Bone Eater's Well and into the unfamiliar wood.

The sun rises. You're surprised that there had been so little hours of night left. You're so lost on that train of thought, in fact, that you don't even notice when Chihiro points out that you've arrived.

"We're here," she says again, a little more insistently. You look around.

Huts. Wooden huts with grass roofs and bamboo curtains for doors. There are no houses or power lines in sight. You can feel your blood draining into your shoes. When you finally gather the strength to speak, you ask, "Just where the fuck am I?"

Chihiro glances around, oblivious to your crumbling mental state. "This is the town of the late Priestess Kikyo, if I'm not mistaken. Inuyasha and his company are also known to roam these parts."

Inuyasha, Chihiro had said.

It sounds familiar. Inuyasha, Inuyasha...

"I'm going, I'm going. Geez, you're not usually this rushed when it comes to this. What's your deal?"

"Inuyasha, just hurry up and go."

You can feel your face heating.

"That's that fucker that went down the well with Kagome!" You storm into the conglomerate of huts, thunderous as you snap at Chihiro, "Which one?"

"Huh?"

"Which one is he in?" She points at one on a hill a little ways away meekly. You briefly wonder what your expression looks like.

When you throw open the curtain, an older woman wearing traditional Japanese clothing and an eye patch sits alone at a pot in the middle of the room. She takes in your presence at the door somewhat amusedly.

"Why, hello," she greets, and you can feel your anger dimming a bit. "I take it ye are new here?"

You take a deep breath. There's no need to lash out on this innocent woman. "Yes, ma'am. Do you happen to know anyone by the-"

"Inuyasha?" She looks at you knowingly, and you nod. "They just left to go search for jewel shards. They should be back in a few days."

"Days?" You don't have days. You have negative four hours, at best. Your brother is so going to fucking murder you.

"Yes, dear. Three, at the most." She stirs her substance in the pot. You can feel your soul wilting.

"Which way did they go?" Chihiro asks from behind you; apparently she'd been there the whole time. Sneaky little bugger.

"They left on the east road, I think they said," her old eye is concerned as she looks at you again. "Ye don't intend to follow them, surely."

"We do," you say, and bid her goodbye before exiting with Chihiro.

"So," you say once the two of you are outside, and Chihiro looks at you expectantly. "Which way is east, again?"