It was a bit cold, and Hikari's head pounded like a drum. Ah, man, she felt like her brain was going to explode. Hissing out, she came to. She drew her hand to her forehead and tenderly rubbed her skull to relieve the brain-smacking she endured.

"Hikari!" Kagome was next to her. "You're okay? Tell me you're okay!" 

Groaning, the blonde blinks at the light glaring down the well. Kagome helps her to sit up, tenderly brushing the dirt from her uniform.

"Ugh...what happened---eeek! What IS that?!" Hikari pondered and then saw the motionless arm just inches away from her. "Please tell me that's just an incredible likeness of an arm and actually just a prop or something."

"I'm not sure, but it is real, " Kagome said grimly and helped her friend up. "It pulled us in the well, though. A woman with a centipede body."

"Centipede body?" Hikari repeated in disbelief. "That arm doesn't look very buggy to me."

"I'm not lying, but it's seriously far-fetched! It kept telling me to give the Sacred jewel to it." Kagome says, looking up. 

"The sacred jewel? Isn't that jewel Grandpa was telling us about?"

"Uh-huh." Kagome hummed absent-mindedly.

After a moment of recollecting themselves, the girls try to climb out of the climb by surprising strong vines.

"We're...outside?" Kagome is breathless when she climbs out of the well.

"Outside?" Hikari grunts, ungracefully pulling herself over the well's edge. "How?!"

Everything just sweeps onto her suddenly, like a quick gust of warm wind. What...where were they? Sure, the scenery is beautiful, none like any she'd seen before, but where was the family shrine?

"Well, Toto, " Hikari threw her legs over the edge and stood up. "Looks like we're not in Tokyo anymore."

"The tree!" Kagome bursts hopefully.

There it was. The sacred tree, she could see it towering over the other trees. Maybe they were just hallucinating, or perhaps they hit their heads falling down that well. Or maybe this was just a cruel joke on them.

"Home!" The girls sigh in relief and run toward the location of the tree.

The tree in question has many larger roots growing from the ground. Thick, and wide enough for someone to walk on them. If the tree was there, then surely their home would be...right?

But...

"A boy?" Kagome blinks.

"What?" Hikari says. A boy?

The girls stare in awe at a crimson-clad boy pinned to the tree's trunk, by many vines hardened and black. Hikari hadn't yet realized the arrow piercing the boy's heart because she was too stunned about his bright, silver hair...and his cute dog ears atop his head.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" Kagome asked though she gained no response. She climbed on the roots and edged closer to the boy.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Kagome--" Hikari says, but her friend ignores her.

"Are these real?" Kagome touched the boy's dog ears, feeling them. "Wow, they're really soft!"

"Wait, seriously?" Hikari hurried to climb the roots, the curiosity burrowing in her stomach. "I wanna feel!" 

The girls fidget with the dog-like ears for another moment before men appeared from somewhere in the trees, wielding weapons, even shooting their bows.

"Hey, what're you doing over there?!"

"Watch it!" Hikari throws herself before Kagome as arrows thunk into the tree.

Warily, the girls look back at the men.

.

.

And that's how they were taken.

Hikari and Kagome are taken to this village. An oddly familiar village, but nonetheless, a village. Each man or woman wore this kimono, the men adorning these topknots in their hair.

"Maybe we shouldn't have touched that boy, huh?" Hikari leaned to Kagome, adjusting to her restraints. They were tied up the second they were caught. At the wrists and ankles. 

These people weren't very trusting, were they?

Kagome didn't answer.  She appeared to be in deep thought. 

What Hikari didn't understand, was some of those people were muttering to each other and looking at them like they were a threat. 

"Look at that girl's hair!"

Eh? Hikari blinks as a few villagers gawk at her blondeness. Was it so strange for a stranger to have lighter hair?

"Where have I seen hair like that before?"

"Could they be demons?"

Demons? Now, that was very insulting! Well, if they wanted a demon, they're about to see one. Gossiping like a couple of spiteful prepubescents. 

"Could they be kitsunes?" A woman asks her friend, who is bemused by the thought.

"No, those shape-shifting tricksters are a lot more crafty than that!" 

Kitsunes? Hikari perked up. Foxes? Why would they suspect she and Kagome were foxes? Were these people perhaps making a metaphor for them suddenly appearing, or appearing suspicious? 

She thought it strange, their dialect, their clothes, their dirt-covered selves, what were they in? The Japanese medieval times?

"Make way for High Priestess Kaede!" A man booms, marching through the crowd, practically dispersing the people. 

Behind him, there is an old woman dressed in Miko attire. She is worn but totally focused. Her right eye is covered by an eyepatch and her left eye focuses on the girls, narrowing.

She slips the bow from her shoulder and hands to the man and then approaches the teens. She holds a small sack in her hands. The strings are loosened and Hikari wondered what she was going to do.

"Begone demons! Begone!" The old woman thrust some kind of dirt or salt at the girls, showering them while chanting.

"What! Hey!" Hikari shook her head to avoid getting whatever was in her eyes. "We're not demons!"

"Do you think they're spies from another village?" The man beside Kaede asked.

"Then they would be fools, " The old woman glanced at him. "Who would invade a village as poor as ours? What were ye doing in the forest of Inuyasha?"

Forest of Inuyasha? Was Inuyasha the boy pinned to the sacred tree? Hikari shifted again. There was a familiarity with this woman like she's seen her before. Somewhere. She couldn't put her finger on it. And that name Inuyasha, she felt like she's heard somewhere before.

Kaede promptly seizes Kagome's face, gripping her jaw, forcing her head to turn left and right, as if she were looking for something. "Let me see ye face, girl."

Snort. Hikari sniggered seeing Kagome's glare. Her brown eyes concentrating on her now, which made Hikari avert her eyes.

"It is there!" Kaede marvels, her attention traveling to Hikari, her one eye widening. "Though I know not why."

.

"Bare us no ill will, children, " Kaede stirring a boiling cauldron of stew. "For I now see ye mean us no harm. No stranger is welcome among us without deep mistrust, ye see."

The old woman offered the girls bowls of steaming stew. 

It'd been a little while since they were being interrogated, but the girls were let from their binds and allowed to free roam, under the watchful eye of Kaede, of course. She hadn't really explained much, but instead offered shelter and dinner.

"Wow! Thank you!" Hikari accepted the dish, blowing the steaming before chowing down. "This is delicious!" 

"I'm guessing we're not in Tokyo, huh?" Kagome directed that at Hikari, but Kaede perked up curiously.

"To-ky-o...I've never of it..is that where your people are from?" Kaede made herself a bowl.

"Um..." The girls share a glance. "Y-yeah! We should really get going! It's late and our family is probably worried!"

Though, getting back would be considerably difficult. They didn't know how to get back. Hikari certainly didn't have the slightest idea, she was out of it most of the trip. 

The blonde sips the remainder of her stew and sets the bowl on the floor next to her.

"It's been fifty years, " Kaede began, sounding almost somber. "I was but a girl when they died, my sister Kikyo and Lady Aila were the priestesses whom protected this village."

It was like a hiccup. Hikari had this warm sensation blossom within her chest.  Surely, she heard that name before, too. 

"Kaede, may I--"

A whirring buzz vibrated through Hikari just before there was absolute chaos of screams and battle cries. All the women leapt to their feet and to the entrance of the hut.

"What is all that?!" Kagome peered out of the bamboo curtain.

"Watch it!" Hikari grabbed both Kagome and Kaede, forcing them away from the porch as a mutilated horse falls from the night sky.

Its heavy body plops dead half on the porch and half on the dirt path. It bleeds from a enormous tear in its side. 

Hikari hurried to look away as bile rose up her throat.

"It's Mistress Centipede!" a villager cried out in terror.

Hikari had to squint at the monstrosity before her. A woman with the lower body of a centipede. Kagome was telling the truth! One of its arms were missing, and Hikari thought back to the arm in the well. 

Suddenly, the centipede woman stops, looking at them, or more specifically Kagome. Blood all over the front of her... very human front.

"You...GIVE ME THE SHIKON JEWEL!!" She lashes out, scuttling straight for them.

"The Shikon Jewel?!" Kaede let out, surprised. "Are ye carrying it?"

"I..I don't know!" Kagome stammered, sounding horrified. "But...I have to lead her away from the village before she kills everyone!"

"Are you insane!?" Hikari burst.

"Maybe but..."

Some bloodied villagers rush out from the side of the hut, "Neither spears or arrows are working!"

"We must drive it back the dry well!" 

"The well?" The well they came out of?

"It's in Inuyasha's forest", Kaede responded quickly.

"Which way is the forest?" Hikari hurries.

"To the east..."

"Where the light is, right?" Hikari said, "Got it! C'mon, Kagome!" 

"Right!"

With that, the two girls take off toward the light no one else could see...and leading Mistress Centipede away from the half-destroyed village.