"You inherited Kikyo's powers." And her courage. Just not her - 

(grace, agility, steadfastness, combat expertise, any training whatsoever...)

"Oh, but I - I got lucky this time. Not that I wouldn't try, but unless I can figure out how to do the glowy thing on command..."

She sighs. "Is there anyone else? Who, you know, stands a better chance of... succeeding?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Well, I can try my best."

After another pause, "I can teach you what my sister taught me." Maybe you'll have better luck with it.

"That sounds important. If I'm going to be doing this for any length of time."

She sighs.

"I should sleep. Except then I won't be ready if Inuyasha comes back."

"I should sleep," says Kaede.

And she rises, with some difficulty.

"... getting too old for this..." is what she quietly says, as she leaves.

Oh. Of course. 

Well, if no one else is around to keep watch and wake her up if he comes back, then she'll have to stay awake until they are. 

That's... probably fine. She's exhausted, but she's not actually sure that it's night yet, in the future (not that that's a concept that makes any sense), so she can probably stay alert until dawn, and then flag someone else down to help her keep watch. Probably.

She holds the Shikon jewel close and watches the village.

It is not, actually, that long until he appears, dropping out of the night. He's a shadow until he isn't.

"Girl."

"Kagome," she corrects.

"Whatever."

He hops closer, then squats on the ground, still a distance off but not so far they'd need to shout.

"You can stop me from taking the jewel. Doesn't mean you can stop anyone else."

"Yeah. I know."

"You're not Kikyo, whatever the old hag says. You've got no training. No skill. No plan. The first demon who comes through - hell, the first gang who come through - are just going to beat you up and take it off you."

"Probably."

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Well, after everyone's slept, I'm going to ask whether Kaede can help me control my powers, and either it'll work, or it won't. And until then, I'm going to do my best."

" - dumbass. You should just let me have it. At least that way you'll live."

"Well, you're welcome to stick around and try that pitch again the next time I'm in mortal danger."

"Hpmh!"

And he leaps off and disappears.

Sigh.

He's not wrong. This is going to kill her, and, even worse, it won't even matter; whatever kills her will take the shikon jewel off her corpse.

Right now, she can only think of two possibilities. The first is training. She doesn't know how much training it takes to control abilities like... whatever she has... but they're clearly already pretty powerful. If she can just get the attack she used on the centipede to trigger reliably, then she might stand a chance for a while.

The second, which is vanishingly unlikely to work, is the well. Being in the future is obviously not a foolproof means of protection, but it worked for the first fifteen years of her life, so maybe it'll at least be easier, if she can, in fact, return. It seems very unlikely that she can just go back, but it also seems a little silly not to check.

In the morning (and after she's flagged someone down to watch while she takes what's really more of a nap than a good night's sleep), she tells Kaede that she thinks she should investigate the well again. She probably won't be able to go back the other way, but if she can, she thinks the future will be a much safer place to hide the jewel. Also it's, you know, where everyone she knows lives. If it doesn't work, then she'll just try to get stronger as fast as possible.

Kaede thinks she should take one of the villagers with her (someone good at running), to bring word back if she does succeed (or if she gets attacked), but otherwise isn't going to object to that.

Seems pretty reasonable! On with her probably doomed plan, then.

Then they can head off back to the well!

Halfway through someone hiding in the bushes grabs Kagome. A couple different someones shoots arrows out of the bushes at her escort, which -

- Hit.

Well this is just the most fantastic twenty-four hours of her life! How does everyone even know about this stupid jewel already?

She tries to break away, and obviously can't, since she's an injured and still kind of exhausted teenage girl with no combat training.

The grabber appears to be some kind of soldier or bandit! He's wearing homemade leather armor, and not a lot of it, has a sword that is shoddily-made and rather dented but not too badly cared for, and not a lot of teeth, hair, or deodorant. He's at least as badly malnutritioned as the villagers, but he's also armed, and knows how to wrestle better than an average teenager.

Oh, and he has a bunch of friends dressed similarly, some of whom have swords, some bows, some spears.

Their program: Tie her up, cut her companion's throat, strip his corpse, haul her off to wherever they're going. Does she have any plans to avert this program?