"Mama...standing by the well all day isn't going to make her come," Souta said, laying his arm across his mother's shoulders. She looked up at him.

"I don't care, Souta," she replied. "Kagome will come today. I can feel it."

"You say that every day. She still hasn't come back."

Kagome and Souta Higurashi's mother returned her gaze to the old well. She stared intently into the darkness. My bones say she's coming today...I can feel it. I don't know how, but I know she will come...

"Come on, Mama," Souta murmured. "Let's go inside and get you some tea. You need a good lunch." He was in the process of pulling his mother away when a sudden commotion from the darkness attracted his attention.

"Damn! I can't see my claws in front of my face!"

"Shh! I think I hear people up there."

"Oh, well that's just great. Let's hope we're not in the wrong ancient well, for God's sake. You humans don't take well to us dog-eared demons.."

"Tsuga! Scoot over! You're breathing down my neck!"

"I would if I had room to scoot!"

"You two, cut it out. Your mother and I are trying to think." There was a pause. "Okay. I can't think of anything. Plan, Kagome?"

"Yes. You throw me up out of the well."

"Your wish is my command." There was a soft grunt from the shadows, and Kagome suddenly flew up out of the well bottom. She landed in front of her mother and brother. "Mama!" she cried, sweeping the other into a tight hug.

"Kagome! Don't forget about us!" the irritated voice from the well called.

Kagome stuck her tongue out at the well. "Oh, calm down. I'm getting to it. I'm sure a big, strong doggy like yourself can manage two children, can't you?"

"Very well." After a few seconds, InuYasha appeared outside the well, two small children riding on his back. The older of the two was very much like her father, with long silvery hair and white dog ears. She wore similar red robes, but her black obi came back in a small bow behind her, making her robes look a bit more like a kimono. The younger and smaller was his mother's child: he had the same black hair as she did. He was dressed more like a child of this age, in shorts and a t-shirt. They jumped off in unison and rushed Mrs. Higurashi.

"Grandma! Grandma!" they cried, reaching up to hug her. Mrs. Higurashi, now Grandma, knelt down to look at her grandchildren.

"Let's see...yup, you're my grandkids, all right." She looked from the female child to InuYasha. "I remember you when you were just a tiny baby." She tickled the girl's white ears. "You are definitely InuYasha's child. But, I can't recall your name."

"InuYami," the white-haired girl replied. "Remember me now?"

"Ah, yes. But I don't think I've ever seen your handsome brother." She ran her fingers through his black hair. "Your name?"

"Tsugaru!" the boy piped up. He crouched on the ground to scratch behind his ear with a foot. Grandma looked up at the parents.

"He does that," Kagome muttered. "But not as much as Yami does it."

As if this was her cue, InuYami crouched down and scratched as well. After a few seconds of itch-relieving, the pair darted off on all fours in a game of chase. They zipped around the small building that housed the well. The game ended promptly when Tsugaru ran up a wall, then back down it before InuYami could see him. She managed to run straight up the wall, and onto the ceiling, at which point she stopped and fell onto her father's shoulder. "Are you a dog demon or a squirrel demon?" InuYasha asked, giving her ear an affectionate nip.

"Yami, Tsuga, look who else is here," Kagome sang, pointing to Souta. The pair stopped running around long enough to stare at him.

"A man?" Tsugaru asked. InuYami growled and smacked his shoulder.

"He smells like Mom and Grandma, smarty!" she growled. "I think he's..."

"Grandpa!" Tsugaru cried, running to hug the man. InuYami grabbed the back of his shirt.

"No, stupid. He's Mom's brother. That makes him our second Dad or something..."

"That makes him your uncle," Kagome said. The two children shuddered, gazing wide-eyed at each other. InuYami flexed her claws. "Oh. No. He's not like your other uncle. He's different. You can trust him." They nodded and ran to hug him.

Mrs. Higurashi looked up at Kagome. "InuYami seems a bit violent," she mused.

"She isn't really. It's just sibling rivalry. I hit Souta plenty of times when I was a little kid, didn't I?" Kagome grinned. "Don't worry, Mama. They're inseparable. Yami always looks out for Tsuga."

InuYasha nodded, folding his arms into the long sleeves of his robe. He grinned. The tips of his sharp, white fangs glinted in the low light. "Put Tsugaru in a place where InuYami thinks he's in danger, and you'll see what we mean," he said.

Mrs. Higurashi did not feel like asking her hanyou son-in-law to elaborate. Even though Kagome loved him and Souta idolized him, she still felt a little nervous around the big half-demon. "Why don't you come in and sit for a while?" she asked. "I have tea ready. I'm sure there are plenty of stories you want to tell."

Kagome grinned. "Thanks, Mama. Yami, Tsuga! We're going in!" She waved her arm to summon the two children.

Once they were inside, however, InuYami felt the need to run free and Tsugaru was right behind her. "I wanna play Doggy Tag!" he whined. InuYami flattened her ears angrily.

"We will, but you gotta stop whimpering like that," the youkai growled. Tsugaru nodded eagerly and clamped his mouth shut. Kagome opened the door to let them out to play like the puppies they were.

"Stay inside the fence!" she warned, and re-closed the door.

"Now, what was the occasion for the visit?" asked Mrs. Higurashi curiously. "The last time I saw you, that white-haired pup of yours was barely a month old. Is everything all right?"

"We..." Kagome hesitated. "We need your help. Something is wrong...and we have no idea just what it is. But we do know that feudal Japan is no place for those two at the moment. I was...we were...wondering if you..."

"You wanted to know if I would babysit for you two for a while?"

"Shouldn't be more than a week," InuYasha assured her. "Shippou says he's got a lock on it already. I knew he had his uses."

"I would be happy to sit for you," Kaogme's mother replied, smiling happily. "After all, I doubt I'll see my grandkids too many more times. It's a long way to go just to say hi to old Grandma."

Kagome flashed her mother a thankful grin. "Thanks. There's just a few things you should know about them first. InuYami is a full-blooded demon. It's...a long story. That means she's more prone to demonic behavior than Tsugaru."

"All right."

"Oh!" InuYasha looked as if he had just remembered something. "And another thing. Be careful: InuYami's a jumper. She will clear a ten-foot wall solely on the grounds that she can. In fact, she might even try jumping on top of the—" He broke off as the ceiling yielded a sudden, loud thump. "I'll get her," he muttered, pushing himself up. The hanyou padded to the back door, opened it, craned his neck upwards and shouted, "Yami! Off the roof!"

"But Da-ad!" InuYami's protest came, sounding soft, almost as if she was far away or at some great height.

"No buts. Off. Now! You're not in the right time period to be pulling those kinds of stunts! There are no demons in this place!" He stepped back inside just as InuYami landed on the lawn a few feet from the patio. She looked incredibly miffed. Mrs. Higurashi blinked hard.

"Was she just on the...?"

"She was." InuYasha sat back down. "And I don't think she'll try it again. At least, not until I'm gone. Souta, you should be able to get her off. She needs someone to shout, otherwise she'll ignore them."

"Oh, and if there's a full moon, she might try to howl at it..."

"She sounds like a troublemaker."

"She's a demon," InuYasha and Kagome chorused.

The old woman gave a soft sigh. She was going to have her hands full with these two, she could tell. At least Souta was there to help. "Anything else I should keep in mind?" she asked. "Aside from the obvious 'keep the dog ears covered'?"

"No...I think that's about it," InuYasha murmured, looking over at Kagome. The black-haired woman shook her head. "Well, don't be afraid to let them wander. They can find their way back from an amazing distance." He got up, and Kagome followed his lead. Souta helped his mother to her feet.

;-:-;-:-;

"I'm gettin' tired of playing tag, Yami," Tsugaru said. "What else is there to do here while Mommy and Daddy are talkin'?"

InuYami scratched behind her ear thoughtfully. She couldn't keep in a huge yawn, and soon Tsugaru was yawning as well. The youkai padded over to a welcoming clump of bushes and slipped under the low branches. She curled up. "Well I'm gonna take a nap," she declared.

"Can I come in?" her brother asked, poking his head through the branches. InuYami shrugged.

"Sure. Why not?"

The two of them, brother and sister, curled their bodies together into a tight, tired ball. Within minutes, the pair was asleep.

;-:-;-:-;

Kagome stepped outside. She flinched at the noises of Tokyo, so unfamiliar after spending so long in another time period. It seemed unnaturally loud to her. She looked around the yard. "Yami! Tsuga!" she called.

;-:-;-:-;

Under the bush, InuYami's white ears twitched, but she didn't wake up.

;-:-;-:-;

InuYasha added his voice to Kagome's. "InuYami! Tsugaru! Come out! We're leaving soon!" he shouted.

;-:-;-:-;

Tsugaru rolled over in his sleep, brushed a branch with his foot, then curled back up against his sister's warm body. He slipped back into his deep sleep.

;-:-;-:-;

InuYasha's quick eyesight caught the tiny shake of the branch Tsugaru had kicked. He smiled, pointing. Kagome nodded and crept over to the bush. She knelt down in front of it, InuYasha behind her. Together, they parted the branches to reveal the sleeping pair. Kagome smiled back at her mother. "See, Mama? I told you they get along perfectly."

"Are you going to wake them up?" asked Souta. Kagome looked indecisive.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I mean, they should sleep, but they'll be so upset if they found out we left while they were asleep."

InuYasha, however, was not was for indecision. He scooped the pair up and tickled InuYami's nose. The youkai sneezed, the sound of which woke first her, then her brother. She blinked up at him with confused golden eyes. "Wha'ss wrong, Dad?" she mumbled.

"We're leaving, Yami," he replied gently. Tsugaru made a small yelping noise and struggled to reach out for Kagome while holding onto InuYasha. The woman moved closer and ran her fingers through his hair.

"We'll be back in a week," she said soothingly. "In the mean time, you have fun with Grandma and Uncle Souta."

InuYami wrapped her arms around her father's neck, burying her face in his mane of white hair. "I don' wan'chu t' go," she muttered softly. "You or Mom. Stay wi' us."

"We can't. We have to go home and make sure everything is safe for you." InuYasha untangled her fingers from his hair. "We're coming back." He set her down on the ground. InuYami looked up at him, then ran over to her mother. Kagome swept the girl up and held her close.

"Don't leave us! I don't like it here!" Tsugaru pleaded. "It's all noisy and stinky. Why does the air smell so bad? What are all those honking sounds? Is it a demon? A big, smelly, goose demon?"

Kagome looked at InuYasha, pure confusion in her expression. The hanyou shrugged. What was he supposed to say? That the earth was screwed up in the future? He knew both of them would want to do something about it, but what would happen if he told them the truth: there was nothing they could do about it? "No...It's...called a car," he ventured. "They...make those noises and smells."

Tsugaru sighed. "'Snot very nice," he mumbled.

The parents were stuck. They had to leave now. Their children did not want them to leave for the next hour or so, if ever. Mrs. Higurashi came to the rescue. "They're going on a mission to make sure this doesn't happen to the world," she said. "Do you really want to hold them back from that?"

InuYami and Tsugaru exchanged a terrified glance before giving each parent a quick squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. Kagome gave her mother one last hug, and InuYasha pushed his fist against Souta's. "Go get 'em, Bro," Souta said. InuYasha nodded, and he and Kagome departed down the well.

InuYami turned to Tsugaru. It was official now. They were away from their parents for a whole week, and were staying at their grandmother's house. They were stuck in another time period, one where youkai and hanyou were unheard of out of storybooks. And they were together, a dynamic duo of unhuman powers.

What to do first?