Suzu: the drabble bug that won't go away, but won't expand itself into a proper story at this time, either. So I'm plunking the drabbles here for general amusement. Call it the unfinished epic, or the finished cracktastic parody.

This is the bastardized premise of InuYasha. I might be the only one who gets a kick out of this but hey, that's okay haha.

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A Feudal Fairytale

of epic proportions,

but the author hasn't written that yet,

so please don't take this

too seriously, kthanx

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[This ain't a scene, it's a damned arms race]

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Again, she thinks she's hallucinating, all bad dreams from fumigating mushrooms off the floor of the pungent, decaying forest.

He's all pretty blue eyes and soft blonde hair, but the young man isn't normal. The fingers on his hands are sharp points, and she imagines them clawing into the tree where the wooden scars are, shredding the bark like butter.

She contemplates running, but she's already got a centipede monster chasing her, and the single arrow that pins the young man to the tree looks to be holding fast, immobilizing him.

"Who are you?" she breathes.

"That's my question," he says, and his voice is gravelly with disuse. He gives her a weak lop-sided grin, truly more of a resolved grimace than a proper smile, and Kushina sees fangs.

The centipede monster makes her presence known. The forest around them shrieks, swaying boughs unleashing a shower of old leaves and detritus on them. Kushina stifles the urge to shout an obscenity. There are more pressing things, at the moment, and all she can think of is how sharp the boy's teeth are, and what a fanatic he must be since he's wearing animal ears on top of his head when Halloween is tomorrow.

"Oh god," she moans as she contemplates her options. "I am an idiot. I knew I shouldn't have watched scary movies with Karin. I knew The Village was a terrible idea, and now I'm stuck with this nightmare, 'ttebane."

The boy side-eyes her. "Is something wrong with the village? You could pull out this arrow for me, and I'll help you."

She huffs. "You're a creepy stranger. And I am a modern, independent woman."

Then she sees the centipede demon. Its eyes bulge from her head, engorged with blood, as the monster leans its serpentine body down through the branches.

"Who has a brain and can think for herself," Kushina adds. "Go boy, do your thing. Woof."

"… I'm not a dog, I'm a fox," he sighs, perky ears twitching in anticipation as her hands finally take hold of the arrow and pull.

[Japanese horror]

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Power comes in all shapes and sizes. Somehow, the boy's strength is unsurprising, after she tugged out the old, splintered arrow. Kushina knows that, like the small pebble that starts an avalanche, you should not underestimate the potential bursting forth once you removed a dam. Her gramps, the clan history buff, had repeated it often—the natural disaster that had wiped out a period of history of the Uzumaki Shrine had started like that: the simple incident of overcooked rice that hundreds of years ago had burned down all the shrine buildings and surrounding trees save for the Goshinboku.

Her empty stomach growls. She doesn't dwell on how misplaced it is to think about burnt rice when a trail of bloodied entrails splashes across her cheek.

The swell of centipede monster's abdomen is veiny and riddled with mottled splotches. She thinks vaguely of the medical diagrams in her first year biology course—illness, rosacea, leprosy. The monster is dying—has been dying—long before squaring off with the fox boy.

"Stop," she says. Her heartbeat is racing, blood pumping, but strangely, she's not scared of him.

He pauses. His clawed fingers are dripping, the only sign of violence to him as the blonde's determined but calm gaze lands on hers.

"Listen… you. This is too dangerous. Maybe we should run."

Her brain tells her that she, singular, should run, and leave him behind, but she's always been stubbornly loyal, even to strangers. Even to powerful, physically mutant strangers.

"Small fry," he says matter-of-factly. "Give me five minutes."

The monster's head resembles a well-kempt human female's, but its stretched lips gape alarmingly close, and a gasp of rancid meat smell puffs out at the blonde boy. His makes a startled sound, and his hands clap over his nose.

That's all the distraction the centipede monster needs to swerve its serpentine body. Its distended jaws close with a snap, tearing at Kushina's midsection.

Pain rattles violently through her ribcage, which feels far too flimsy, breakable, in the explosive bloom of searing heat that follows.

See? It was stupid of me to stay, she thinks numbly. A part of her white blouse flaps like a flag of surrender, carried in the bloodied jaws of her assailant. Her knees buckle, jellied by the dull recognition that it is her flesh, her blood, painting the mouth of this un-nameable predator.

The forest echoes with shrieks of delight, as a long, dusky tongue protrudes from the female face to lap at a glowing pink orb newly fallen on the ground. The centipede monster is growing in size. It's body and limbs swell, and an even, almost glossy sheen replaces the splotchy pattern of skin.

"Shi-kon." Its voice is like nails on chalkboard, a grit that is not unfamiliar but jars her even as she sees it lick at her fresh blood around its glistening lips.

"Are you okay?" Blonde boy lands beside her, his voice concerned by his attention diverted by the scene in front of them. "Are you from the village? Why do you have the Shikon Jewel?"

She wheezes her confusion. "Not sure what you mean about the Shikon," Kushina puffs, feeling quite un-enamored with his effort to check on her wellbeing. "It's just a legendary bauble that we sell replicas of, at our shrine. I'm… pretty sure I'm hallucinating at this point. Or dying. Or both 'ttebane."

What kind of shitty dream is this, to fall down a well while tending her chores, only to be assailed by a giant humanoid centipede that has a taste for flesh? Then meet a Halloween-dressed fox boy? And now, of all things, her addled brain has included tourist paraphernalia into the mix?

She must have said all of his out loud, gibbering in her injured state. The blonde boy spares her an almost pitying look.

Then a grim sort of look sets in on his face, and he jumps (scratch that, leaps) a good ten feet into the air and brings glinting claws down on the centipede's head.

It's revolting, but she can't look away.

The boy's claws render at the monster's body like a vegetable peeler smoothly slicing a daikon into ribbons. Only this is much messier. In the glint of moon and starlight, Kushina sees the spray of fluids splatter on nearby leaves and branches, where it gives an ethereal sticky gloss to this particular patch of forest.

Quivering lumps of centipede monster land on the forest floor around her.

The boy's bony, elongated fingers finish their dance, and he swipes them through the air, raking empty space as he dries them as casually as if he were flicking water after washing his hands.

"I think I just peed myself," she hisses.

"You're a modern, independent woman," he says. "Though I cannot be sure what that means, I suppose it means you can at least remove the Shikon Jewel from the demon's body. You should be able to, if you're an Uzumaki."

Legs wobbling, she gets up, a hand attached to her throbbing side, as adrenaline kicks in.

"How do you know my name?" she demands in a shaking voice.

Kushina realizes belatedly that this is no mere boy, even though all of the signs previously should have confirmed such. His blue eyes aren't human. They glow like small headlights in the dark forest.

"Lucky guess," he whispers, turning his head away and prodding at a quivering lump of centipede monster with his bare foot. "Your hair is red, so I made a conjecture."

"You say the name like you hate me," Kushina hedges. "What have I ever done to you?" Besides force you to rescue me from a giant centipede monster, she doesn't add.

He shrugs, but doesn't answer the question. "I think," the boy sidesteps carefully. "That you should remove the jewel posthaste."

"It's dark, and I can't see well," she retorts. It's the truth. She doesn't know if his headlights-like eyes give him an advantage in the dark, but hers certainly don't, no matter how long she's had to adjust to the eerie gloom around them.

"Well, it will reform until you retrieve the jewel."

Her mouth is a perfect 'o'.

"It? The monster? You mean it'll come back to life? Holy shit, 'ttebane."

"It is a demon, not a monster," he says matter-of-factly, before fixing his blue eyes on her again. "Are you sure you are an Uzumaki? You are a truly ill-informed individual."

"And you," she spits out, jutting her jaw out at him. "Talk like you're from the Feudal States Era or something."

He gives her another mystified glance, before kicking over a very large lump of flesh. Kushina yelps and ducks. Her high school girl sensibilities be damned, she still cares about her hygiene and basic health. Who knows if she can contract rabies from so-called centipede demons?

"The body is forming around that piece. I think the jewel is in there."

"You can't expect me to dissect that." She eyes the quivering hunk of centipede torso with about as much trepidation as her middle-school calf heart dissection. "Again, it's pitch black out."

"Try," he commands.

"That's stu—ah."

Curse dreams and their wonky logic. If this is a dream. Kushina isn't sure anymore, but she does know that a part of the mass of flesh glows, and she reaches out to dig into the yielding mass and scoop out a perfect, glowing orb.

"The Shikon," she breathes, entranced. It's far, far more beautiful than the plastic charms she's hung in Uzumaki Shrine guest shop.

There's not a second of space in between her fingering the jewel and the sudden, forceful pressure against her neck. Kushina hears rather than sees the crick of clawed fingers.

"You're not an Uzumaki. You're a demon, aren't you?"

She should be scared shitless. The look in his eyes is enough to make her wet herself a second time, but some sort of indignant, stubborn courage bubbles in her throat and makes her voice defiant.

"You're the demon. Have you even seen your hands in the mirror? Look at your ears! Tell me, are those real or not? I thought you were a friend, but now I see that you're just a freak."

Wounded. Guarded. Instantly distant.

There's no other way to describe the sequence of emotions that flit across the blonde boy's face as he quickly steps back.

"I'm not a demon," he says softly. "I'm only half."

[Three's a crowd]

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"So tell me again," she demands slowly, sneaking a glance at Minato, who is reading scrolls again outside the hut. "Who shot Minato, fifty years ago?"

"Your ancestor. Mito."

She balks. "Oh, so I'm like her reincarnation or something?"

Jiraiya looks longsufferingly at Kushina's wild eyes and unkempt nest of hair.

"You wish."

[That obligatory bathing scene]

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Kushina adjusts to feudal living with lots of complaints, but she's pretty excited to try on new clothes.

"Aren't you going to peep on me bathing?" she asks, extra set of miko robes bundled in her arms.

Minato hums. "No, it's nice to have my freedom. I'm reading to catch up." He motions to the large pile of scrolls at his feet, which he'll read while lounging against a shady spot against a tree.

She sniffs. "What a loser. Weren't you supposed to be all formal when speaking to me? Got tired of it? I'm not good enough for you?"

Minato takes all barbs in stride. Guess he won't warn her about the old Priest Jiraiya's hobby…

[Menage a what?]

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"I think you had a thing for Mito," she accuses him.

Minato is silent, carrying her on his back as he travels at uncanny speeds across the dense forests of feudal Japan.

"No," he replies slowly.

Kushina scowls. "Admit it, I'm just her replacement! You see her every time you look at me!"

Instead of just rolling his eyes and asking (with growing impatience) why the heck this matters, Minato takes out a small scroll he's tucked into his haori and gives it to her.

"Wooow," Kushina says. "She's an old lady!"

"Yes," Minato intones, hoping for his sanity that Kushina understands now.

"So you have the hots for a sixty-year old, huh? Never thought you had it in you."

[Hair today, gone tomorrow]

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Haku of the Hair ends up having a lot more hair than they bargained for, and it's only by engaging in a match of whose locks are the silkiest that Kushina eventually just descends into name-calling and taunts.

Haku removes his mask, looking affronted. He turns to Minato.

"Is she always like this?"

"She's a modern independent woman," Minato repeats mechanically. This is the fourth demon he's had to tell that to, now.

Haku looks grim. "I'm Haku of the Hair, and I don't think my hair should be less nice just because I'm not a girl."

Kushina goggles. "Oh," she sniffs, and ends up accepting that her hair is still the nicest of all the girls in this era, thank you very much.

"How about an exchange for the Shit-on-Jewel, then?"

"Shikon," Minato says with a pinched look.

"Whatever. I'll give you my pocket mirror. Can we go now?"

Haku is enthralled. He decides he's going to be Haku of the Mirrors, now. Much better to check his full appearance with.

Minato and Kushina go on their (fairly merry) way.

[The way to a Minato's heart is through his stomach]

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"What's this?" Minato asks, cracking the cake of brittle, curly strings of noodle with his hand.

Kushina is engrossed with pouring the boiled water into her own Cup-o-Noodle. Fish flavored, it read.

"Ramen," she says, and hands Minato chopsticks. "Want some water?"

Minato decides she's not all bad, after that. Ramen turns out to be manna from the heavens, a food fit for the gods.

She grins at his blissful expression.

"Glad you like it. Want my naruto?"

[Awkwardly noble]

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"Cripes," says Kushina religiously. "You're half dog?"

"Fox. Demon fox," he sighs. "We've been through this."

"Okay, but you're half?"

Minato nods, shame creeping up his spine. "Um, it's rare. I'm not invited into the powerful demon clans, since my blood has nothing special about it. Mixing is considered taboo."

Kushina snarls disgustedly. "Anti-miscegenation laws," she spits. "I've learned about those in school! Don't worry, Minato, we'll defend your rights against these barbarians! Your human rights are at stake!"

Minato has no clue what a human right is, but he hopes that they'll let him join, since he's not exactly human, either.

Whatever the case, he's grateful for Kushina's indignation, for his sake.

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Suzu: sigh. So, yeah. This happened. If you liked it, tho, of course we can commiserate together.

And if anyone wants to adopt this story premise, please let me know so I can stalk it.