Superjump awayyyyy!

It's a bit of a trek back to the castle, of course. Inuyasha's fast enough that they can make it there tonight, if not quite before nightfall, but that's still a good four or five hours of clinging to his back and not saying anything.

It's kind of soothing. Maybe anything would be soothing, after school today, but it's simple and contentless and means that all she really needs to think about is keeping her face out of the worst of the windchill. There's something dreamlike about traveling this way, probably because it's not the sort of thing that happens, in the normal and solid and rule-bound modern world she's just come back from. It works very well as an escape. It doesn't matter, here, whether she's incompetent.

Except it does, doesn't it? He wouldn't put up with this if she were completely useless. And eventually she will remind herself of everything she's done here, that she did save his life and help defeat Yura and pull the Tetsusaiga out, and that all of that is the reason that school was so bad today.

When they do make it to the castle, she's recovered enough confidence that she can at least do the things that she needs to do there. She needs to check on Nobunaga, first off, and make sure his injury isn't turning any weird colors (to her surprise and relief, it doesn't seem to be). After that she needs to talk to the castle staff, and ask whether they can stock up on food here before moving on in the morning, since she doesn't have any money but was recently very helpful, and can't go on being helpful to anyone else on an empty stomach. And then, once she's figured out how to get them to say yes, she can get a good night's sleep and be ready to move on to lands unknown in the morning.

Inuyasha is mildly annoyed about hauling Kagome all the way to the castle, of course. (He does not dwell on the reasons.) He'll let Kagome run around and talk to people with a quick "Well, you should be" once she's told him she's grateful, and then he'll go lurk in the woods and get himself food, and go bother some of the minor local demons to ask them if they know where jewel shards are (they don't), and try drawing Tetsusaiga to see if it takes its true form (it doesn't - so far his leading guess is that it only works in crises), and generally grump a lot, while he waits for Kagome to be ready to go hunting.

He kind of wishes Kikyo was around, so he could explain Kagome to her, and then maybe she'd be jealous? She wouldn't need to be...

Yep, she'll be ready to head out bright and early in the morning.

September 27th, 1996 / Autumn, 1548

Castle staff confirms 17th year of Tenbun. I'm trying to be friendly with the people here, though it's hard to say whether it's working. It seems like it would be really useful to have some other places that are willing to regularly host us, and I figure saving the lord and a couple dozen girls from the toad spirit is about as good a starting position as you're reasonably going to get with anyone. He seems to like us all right. We should see if we can hit this place before dinnertime, the next time we hit it; I bet I'll be way more popular if I have time to tell people some cool demon-hunting stories. I've only got, like, two, but they don't have to know that. I guess I really only have one that both makes me look cool and and isn't private information. Maybe I should be grateful there hasn't been time to cash in on Yura yet.

Should probably head out before Inuyasha gets upset. Visiting the well the way we did sort of gave us an extra day, compared to our previous plan, but we still have to actually make good use of that day. I think I'll leave Nobunaga some painkillers and hope he doesn't decide I'm a witch. I know it doesn't really make sense to feel bad about it, given that there have gotta be a thousand samurai in the same position as him right now, and I can't help them, but I dunno. I feel bad anyway.

September 28th, 1996 / Autumn, 1548

Heading further west. No demons yet, apart from the 1.5 who are supposed to be here. Convinced Myoga to read my history and science textbooks to me while I'm biking, but it doesn't work very well, because of course there have been a ton of changes in how people write stuff, to say nothing about words that don't exist yet. I think I'll try to teach him to read the new stuff anyway; he's so excited about it, and it might still save time in the long run. Hopefully it doesn't wreck the timeline. I feel like if that were going to happen it would have happened by now, though. I'm guessing that whatever I do is already set in stone, and that the timeline I was born into already reflects all the changes that my present self is making to the past.

Archery is going a little better. I think I might actually be able to hit the broad side of a barn. If the barn wasn't too far away, anyway. Still, progress.

Math is stupid. If I meet any mathematicians I'm going to advise them to give up and not bother inventing anything this time around.

September 29th, 1996 / Autumn, 1548

Forgot that you need math for space travel. I guess we should probably invent it even if it is a pain. I wonder whether I know any math that nobody else knows yet? I don't think so. I think Newton invents calculus, and Newton is in the 1700s (right? is it the 1600s?), so nobody can know calculus yet? This doesn't make me any cooler, though, because I'm not even very sure what calculus is. I think you need it for space travel. I'm gonna hazard a guess that the Pythagorean Theorem was invented by some guy named Pythagorus, which sounds distinctly classical, so I'm guessing my current homework doesn't really put me ahead of the curve, here. I guess just because Pythagorus knows something doesn't mean that people in Japan know it, but how hard can something be to come up with if people figured it out thousands of years ago? Don't answer that until I stop messing these questions up, actually. 

Got some local farmers to tell us their woes, and man, do these people have woes. Bandits, local warlords going at it - not that they seem to think there's much difference between those groups - and demons, too, ones with a taste for pretty girls (of course) and a penchant for random destruction. Hopefully that means we're going in the right direction. We must be five days out from the well, by now. I guess we ought to circle back soon, but we didn't have any major tests next week, and if we have a lead - however thin - we probably ought to follow it. Our food supplies should last, if Inuyasha keeps supplementing them with hunting, given that we were able to restock at the castle. We're mostly out of ready-to-eat packaged stuff, but I've still got some of the stuff you're supposed to boil. I wonder whether Inuyasha likes cup ramen. I guess he wouldn't know, so there's only one way to find out.

"It's delicious!"

(His enjoyment is not particularly impeded by the fact that today's stopping point is practically on top of a battlefield strewn with skeletal corpses being pecked over by ravens. It's Japan, y'know?)

"Glad you like it. Everyone eats this stuff in the future, it's not expensive."

She's going to, uh, skip this meal. It might not go down correctly, given... environmental factors.

"You don't want any?"

Several meters away, a bird is disassembling some poor dead guy's face, pulling what's left of the muscle and skin apart like string cheese.

"I'm good."

"I must say, Kagome, your country has some very convenient things. I was shocked at the bicycle and the clock, but even your foods are impressive. You must do quite a lot of trade with foreigners."

"That's right! In the future we trade with people from all over the world, which makes it way easier to have things like bicycles and clocks. Cup ramen is from Japan, though. It's actually one of the cheapest things you can eat, so just about everyone gets to have something at least this good. I hear they even have a kind that you can eat in outer space, now."

"In where?"

"You know, where the stars are! If you go up far enough into the sky, you can go visit them! - well, not the stars exactly, the stars themselves are too far away, so nobody's been to any of them yet. But we went to the moon! People walked around on it and everything!"

"Yeah, I know. Already happened."

He'll have some more cup noodles. "These are new, though! And tasty!"

- well what good is math, then!

"What do you mean, it already happened? It was, like, thirty years ago. In the future." 

"Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. My mom told it to me."

NOM NOM NOM. "There's moon people!"

Oh, right. It's probably even a true story, isn't it. "That's different. Anybody can go back to the moon if the moon people come for them. Humans went up on their own, in the future, and it was really hard and complicated because the moon is so far away and doesn't have any air on it. I don't think we saw any moon people, though."

"Huh. Wonder why not."

"...I dunno. I guess it's kind of the same question as what happened to all of the demons, right? Only I don't see how we could have gotten rid of the moon people, we've only been up a few times so far. Maybe they were hiding."

And at this moment, the sky suddenly darkens, like nighttime in the middle of the day. A moment later, a swirling mass of blue flame lights up the newly darkened sky.

"Foxfire!" He draws his sword and steps between Kagome and the flames.

Oh. So not moon people, that was gonna be her first guess.

"You possess the sacred jewel!" says the mass of blue flames.

...and the swirling mass of flame resolves into a giant, floating pink ball. Its giant eyes stare blankly in completely different directions. It's big, but it's also incredibly silly-looking.

"Your jewel," growls the pink balloon, "or your life."

Its toothless mouth closes harmlessly around the top of Inuyasha's head.

Inuyasha will sigh, sheath his sword, and slap it.

The giant pink balloon squeals and falls, transforming into a small child about the size of a newborn baby.

"Ow! Ow ow ow!"