Hanyo of Snow

Ch1 Down the well.

(Y/N) POV

"Come on where is it?" I said while looking through my closet.

It had been a simple plan. Wake up a bit earlier then usual, get everything ready for school, and then stop by the Higurashi Shrine to hid Kagome's present in the storehouse til afterschool. So I had gotten everything done with plenty of time to spare.

Until I had forgoten where I had put Kagome's present.

So I had to spend the past 30 minutes looking for it.

I had just finished looking in my closet when I notced that a corner poking out from under the dresser. Picking it up I saw that it was the present I was looking for.

I tucked it under my arm and then proceded to lock up, as I had no one else living with me and Mrs. Higurashi had my spare key.

"Hopefully Kagome hasn't left yet." I muttered to myself as I began to walk to her family's shrine as it was only about a block away from home.

As I was walking I began to think about how my friendship with Kagome began.

My childhood minus a few major bumps and what I inherited from my mothet was fairly average, aside from my parents that is.

My father was a kind, yet eccentric man who loved to travel.

So I didn't get to see him that much, but he spent every waking moment that he could with me.

He was prehaps one of the best archaeological professors in Japan and was known for snagging the hearts of his fellow professors and students alike without even trying.

But he had to break all of their hearts as he wasn't interested in them.

The fact that he was also a lolicon also helped.

He kept this up until during a trip to Hokkaido were he met mom and fell in love soon after.

I don't really remember her that well, because she passed away when I was very young. But from what dad described was that she was somewhat aloof along with being very caring.

He often described what was his favorite thing about her was her laugh. Se rarely laughed at all, but when she did he described it as something that could even make the most cold-hearted of humanity to bust a gut at it. One of the reason's they fell in love was their matched sense of humor.

The fact that dad was a very handsome man or the fact that mom was a legal loli and was WAY older then him also helped.

In fact after he found out what she truly was, they immediatly got married soon after and I was born a year later.

For most of my early life I spent traveling with them all over Japan until I was 2.

During a trip to Osaka mom died from heatstroke, but not before making the scarf I always wore.

After that dad changed his and my last name in order to honor her and also found moved permanetly to Tokyo, were it was cooler and so that he wouldn't lose me the same way.

Soon after that he took me with him on his first visit to the Higurashi shrine. There he met and quickly befriended the ahrine's caretaker and his family. I was quickly introduced to Kagome, who iis a little older then I am.

At first we disn't get along with each other, but not even 5 minutes later we were laughing and playing together and have been friends ever since.

After that however I couldn't interact that much with Kagome afterwards.

She lived quiet a bit away from the shrine and we botb were in different school districts soon after.

So the only times I really got to interact with her was when there was no school, whenever she visited the shrine, or when dad left me with the Higurashi's to go on one of his trips.

That changed however when we both turned 8.

Both Kagome's father and grandmother had died in what was tragic traffic accident that also took the lives of a few other people.

So she and Mrs. Higurashi had to move into the shrine with Grandpa and Kagome was enrolled into my school afterwards. A few months after that Kagome's little brother, S?ta was born. And followed up a few weeks later by my farther dying.

He was at an archaeological convention in Las Vegas when was done in by food poisoning.

He had left me the house and a considerable amount of money, but he had also left me alone. I had no other family besides my mom's sister, who neither me or my dad had ever seen before as the two of them stopped being on speaking terms long ago.

Either way as I was too young to manage the house on my own, I had often stayed with Kagome and her family at the shrine until I was old enough to manage the house. With them I grew closer to Kagome and to S?ta, as we consider eachother brothers in all but blood.

With them I was able to move past my father's death and I eventually moved back into my house at age 13, discovering something soon after.

I broke myself out of my musings when I realised that I had arrived at my destination, the Higurashi shrine.

I was about to head inside the house to see if Kagome was still home, when I saw S?ta snooping around the Wellhouse.

'What is he doing aroud the Wellhouse? He is even more creeped out by that place then I'm' I pondered.

Truthfully I'm not really bothered by the building itself, but by the Bone Eater's Well itself.

It was built to dump in the remains of yokai and demons that were either very dangerious or proved to be near impossible to be killed.

Just the thought of one of thise things was still alive at the bottom of the well was scary enough, but the sense of raw ambient magic surronding it is just increased the unsettling factor.

I've shared my opinions aboutt this in the past with Kagome, but has always told me that I was a scardy cat for being scared of such things.

Sadly I would have agreed with her if I didn't know that such things actually existed in real life.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I decided on the simplest method to get S?ta's atention.

"Hey S?ta what's wrong!"

As soon as S?ta heard me, he came running towards me. When he got closer to me I noticed the bowl in his handfilled with catfood and figured out what had him so upset.

"Buyo is inside the Wellhouse, isn't he?" I sighed out, getting a nod in response.

"I think that he is stuck inside the well. Can you please help me get him, Big Bro?" S?ta asked.

"Sure I'll help, but let me stash Kagome's gift somewhere in the warehouse first." I replied immediatly afterwards.

Well I might be a bit nervous about approaching the well, but I'm willing to get over it to help out me little bro. But at this time Kagome's gift comes first.

I spent the past month just to make this for her. The only one who has seen it before was S?ta and he thought that it was the perfect gift for her.

"Alright, but please hurry up Big Bro." He said as I began to walk away.

"Don't worry I will." I called out to S?ta as I got further away.

(A few minutes later)

I had finally found a place to hide my gift when something fell down from the shelf with a resulting clang. I looked down to see that it was a sword that was stuck within it's sheath.

'When did Grampa get this? I don't remember this being here yesterday and I helped him with invintory." I thought as I took a good look at it. Mabye it had arrived here this mourning, as that was always a possibility.

At first it looked like an ordenary sword to me, until I hrabbed the hilt. The entire thing released a soft glow before it's weight seemed to double.

After a few seconds I of getting adjusted to it's new weight, I removed the sword from it's sheath.

After admiring the beauty of the blade for a few moments, I took a few practice swings at the open air and noticed no other effects what so ever before putting it back in it's sheath.

'Okay besides having some sort of seal on it, there seems to be no other enchantment on this sword or at least none that curses the wielder' I thought before checking the time on my phone.

Noticing I had sometime to kill before school started I decided to check how Sota was doing before seeing if Grandpa knew anything about the sword.

As I exited the store house, a feeling of dread emerged once I felt a surge of energy coming from the Wellhouse.

With no time to lose I broke into a full sprint with my hand resting on the sword, reafy to draw at a moment's notice.

When I got to the Wellhouse all I heard was Dota yelling out one word that caused me to quicken my speed.

"Sis!"

Something had happened to Kagome inside the Wellhouse and I had to find out what was going on.

I had found the entrence wide open and a glow coming from the Bone Eater's Well. And it was quickly starting to fade.

So without a second thought I rushed passed Sota and probably scared a life or two out of Buyo before jumping into the well after Kagome and right before the light vanished completly.

The moment after that I found myself in a voetex that was the perfect mixture of darkness and violet energy. From where I looked there was no exit back to the well, so I decided to look in the direction graviety was taking me and found Kagome.

However she was not alone.

'This isn't good.' I thought as I saw what dragged her into the well.

Judging by the apperance of what had grabbed Kagome was a multiple armed woman with the lower half of a centipede, I figured out that I was dealing with an ?mukade.

I had heard about them from stories dad used to tell me as a kid along with tales about other yokai. He described ?mukade as an often vicious type of yokai who sometimes grew hundreds of feet in length and had a preference for choking the life out of their victims with their long bodies.

Now considering that I don't exactly have enough power to take her on directly, all I could hope for was to stay out of the ?mukade's reach, take her by suprise, and then get Kagome as far away as possible. From there I'll have to make it up as I go.

After I had figured out my best course of action, I unsheathed the sword and gently descened along the centipede half, silently hoping that I would go undetected.

A few moments later I had found a a good spot and gently placed my free hand on one of her legs and frost began to appear and spead out from my hand.

As I was doing this I focused on what was happening with the ?mukade and Kagome.

"You have it, don't you?" The ?mukade questioned Kagome. "Don't you?"

With that she began to bring Kagome closer to her face and began to lick her, as if to taste her.

Before I could do anything to help however, Kagome acted first.

"Let go of me! Your're disgusting!" She shouted as she batted away the ?mukade's tounge. "Let go of me! I said!" She continued. Kagome managed to get a grip on the yokai's face and tried to push her away.

It fact, she seemed almost amuzed that her prey was trying to fight back.

Until Kagome's hand started to glow purple.

Both me and the ?mukade were taken for suprise, even more so when she the yokai seemed to be fallimg faster and one of her arms was torn off. However the yokai quickly regained her bearings and tried to attack Kagome.

She never got her chance.

I sliced off the now frozen leg, causing the ?mukade to roar out in pain and to fall faster into tje void now.

"Y/N!" Kagome called out to me, finally noticing that I was here.

Befire I good reply back to here, the ?mukade yelled from far below us.

"The two of you will not escape me! I will have the Shikon no Tama!" The yokai said as her face disappeared into the endless abyss beneath us, followed by her centipede half soon after.

Soon after the void was suddenly replaced with tbe bottom of the well. With thag also came an increase in gravity and I landed on my face. As I didn't fall far, I quickly got up to see Kagome standing over me.

"Are you alright Y/N?" She asked.

"I'm fine Kagome." I replied back. "But what about you, we just went through some kind of void while you were dragged down by an ?mukade. So are you fine?"

Kagome paused for a few moments before answering.

"Honesty Y/N, I'm not. I was dragged into the well by, what did you call that centpede woman?" She said.

"An ?mukade."

"I was dragged into the well by the ?mukade.

I wish that what just happend was a dream, but with you being here and that there is a dismembered arm and frozen leg over there just proves that I'm not dreaming.

" Kagome said somberly, before fixing me an iquisitive glare and said something that I've been dreading.

"So if I'm not dreaming, then were did you get that sword and how did you freeze that leg?"

I wanted to tell her, but not like this.

Still I will oblige to her request, but not right now.

"I will tell you Kagome." I sighed out. "But first we need to get out of the well before that ?mukade comes back. Besides we also need to see if Sota is alright. Since I can't hear anything at the top, so he must've ran away to get Grandpa. So we better get out of here to show them we are alright."

After I said that the both of us began to look for a way out the well. A few moments later Kagome a vine large enough and strong enough for us to climb.

She was about to climb up first, but she stopped and gestured for me to take her place.

Seeing how short her skirt was, I could understand why.

As I was climbing, I began to reflect on something the ?mukade said before she disappeared into the abyss.

The Shikon Jewel or the Jewel of Four Souls.

If I remember correctly it was an item of great power that Grandpa based his tacky keychains off of. A quick repainting quickly fixed that pathetic excuse of a souviner anyway.

Anyway from what little I know about the Shikon Jewel, was that it was cremated along with a miko named Kikyo a little over 600 years ago. Considering how old the well was it wouldn't be strange for the ?mukade to know about it.

But this raised a very concerning question.

If it was destroyed over 500 years ago, then how did Kagome have it?

While that is troubling, I can worry about it later. For now we have to tell Sota, Granpa, abd Mrs. Higurashi that we were all right.

As me and Kagome continued to climb, we noticed a few white butterflies fluttering around us. Which should be an impossibility unless they had flown in from the wellhouse door.

About a minute later I finally climbed out and was immediatly took in tje surrondings.

Instead of the dark and quiet wellhouse, the well was instread located in a clearing in the middle of a forest.

I made another quick look around as Kagome was climbing out of the well and saw that we weren't at the Higurashi shrine anymore.

'If we aren't at the shrine anymore, then where are we?'

(Chapter 1 end)