Story: Wayward Path

Summary: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A selfless wish leaves Kagome in a foreign world and what closer thing to hell than a necromancer? Crossover Jade x Kagome.

Author Notes: I'm not sure why I enjoy writing Kagome so much with other people but she's such a easy character to pair off into other things. I hate her with Inuyasha to be honest so maybe I just like looking at all the other nifty possibilities out there.

Disclaimer: I own neither Inuyasha or Tales of the Abyss, but hell, I'd love to take Jade.

Chapter One: Faceted Dimensions

There is an obsessive ache that escorts betrayal…those constant nagging reminders of an innocence eternally lost. They say that time mends all wounds but they forget to add that all wounds leave scars. Just because the gash wasn't visible it didn't mean that she wasn't bleeding just beneath the surface.

She could still see it…when he leaned down his soft lips to touch those of his former lover. Still remember the many times she wished that it would be her on the other side of that passionate embrace. His hands curled black ringlets into his fingers even as the woman slipped hers into his kimono to trace his muscular chest.

The crimson drops from her heart blended with the tears her soul wept as the demons of the jewel forced her to watch her former love forget her. Become one with the woman that she had been so much a part of…the woman she silently desired she could be before she was shunted cruelly out of the feudal era, absent even was the mercy of returning to her own home.

Just because it had been a different world, another time, she'd never lost hope that one day she would end up with Inuyasha after Naraku had been defeated, that all the evils he had committed wouldn't be completely made up for but that at least they would end and she would be able to pursue a life with the boy who had stolen her daydreams for so many years.

Then she had been forced to make a wish on a malicious pink crystal…

ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo

The static electricity and the slightest hint of ozone that accompanied the use of magical artes was thick in the air. After the world had been saved by them successfully felling Van Grants the issues hadn't ended for most of the party that had been the saviors of the world. People became paranoid when rumors of the replica's started...aggressive and fearful of that which they didn't understand. The replica's however were willing to fight for their own right to survive.

War hadn't been far behind and the fact that the world had been rescued from the breech of destruction was a distant thought in the midst of battle. Jade was doing what he could to help protect the replica's as the only land that they were afforded without being persecuted outright by most of the populace was littered with monsters - it was the only reason they were vaguely safe (at least from society) there. He had been deployed with Anise to try to help qwell some of the monster population and aid in the efforts of building a city.

Natalia was doing her part to try to reason with the unreasonable masses by taking up the rights of the replica's in the democracy. Tear and Luke had left for the city beneath the surface of the planet and likely either were unaware or doing what they could. Guy was working things (and taking care of rappigs) in the Malkuth empire.

"How many more of these could there be?!" Anise sounded frustrated as her Tokunaga slammed into another of the liger's that were attacking the replica settlement. It wasn't that the pair wasn't capable by themselves, but the sheer numbers of the monsters that seemed to attack each day somehow seemed impossible to her.

"Bring all to ash and ruin. Explosion!" Jade's spell weaving was as impressive as usual lowering the number of enemies with the encircling, rather devastating, flame spell.

"Not bad Colonel." Anise commented before hopping onto another of the ligers, whatever else she was going to add was cut short when a scream echoed from the forest. "Dammit...one of them is out there?"

"I'll handle it." Jade managed to drop another spell as he hurried off toward the direction of the sound, leaving Anise to frown at the number of creatures he'd still left her.

"Dammit Colonel...between us aren't you the one better against larger groups of numbers?" Anise half whined as she dodged a couple of the creatures before continuing her own assault.

He didn't hear her mutters as he ran toward where he'd heard the scream, pausing at the edge of a small clearing with a tiny spring and small pool delta before the water ran off again in two directions. Two ligers and a larger female were circling the edge of the water where a terrified seeming girl was wearing some strange uniform now soaked through to the stomach. Lucky for her ligers didn't generally like to go into the water.

He didn't have time to waste though, if they were hungry enough it would only be a temporary distraction. "Suffer within this oppressive force! Gravity Well!"

The spell kept them from leaping away and both of the male ligers didn't move after it ended, though the female turned back toward him with a roar and seemed prepared to charge. Jade began his next spell without batting an eye but before the creature could reach him or he could finish a blue shot of energy cut through the liger queen from behind.

Even as the monster fell he noted the girl had a bow still in hand that she had made the finishing blow with. The arrow had vanished off into the forest but she still seemed on edge as she picked herself up, the skirt of her uniform dripping wet as she pushed herself out of the water. Brown eyes considering Jade carefully as she didn't move from her place in the pool.

"It's not safe here. We need to get you back to the settlement." He said, crimson eyes scanning the woods and unsure as to if she had enough of a mind of her own to react to his words.

At least she was approaching him at that. "What settlement? Where are we?"

"The northen most forests of the Malkuth empire." He answered her while he gestured her back where he'd come from, his spear was still in hand which was making her a bit nervous.

Kagome for her own right was just very confused as to where she'd ended up after making the final wish on the jewel of four souls. His eyes weren't helping her nerves though. "Are you a demon? Or half-demon?"

"Some might say that." He thought wryly. "No. We can have someone explain things later. There are still many of the monsters here. The settlement is safe."

He noted her reaching back to pull an arrow and followed her gaze to the line of monsters running toward them. It seemed that the monsters were giving up, possibly a result of them slaying the queen...many didn't seem to be bothered with them so much as running away but a few seemed to coming for them.

He raised his hands to prepare a spell but felt the fonon's shift violently around the girl as blue energy enveloped her arrow's tip a moment before she made a shot. It cut clean through the one of the liger's approaching and she was already knocking another one. Jade didn't have time to react to the odd nature of her artes though.

"O frigid blades, pour forth! Icicle Rain!" His spell didn't quite go off as he wanted though and the concentration of fonons from his magic seemed to absorb into the girl's arrow as she let it fly. The entire forest seemed to drop several degrees and a line of frost was left in the arrows path, completely freezing over both of the monsters and leaving a glacial scar in the landscape.

The girl looked as confused as he did and was looking at her bow as if something had changed. Jade frowned at the unexpected, albeit useful, adsorbtion of power.

"What did you do?" She looked at him and he doubted she was faking the amazement, he'd seen it enough in the past.

"We need to speak...come on." Jade wasn't too happy about the event. Worried it could be some new effect of the replica's that hadn't been documented previously. "Anise...I'm returning to the Tartarus 2."

"Huh what?" Anise rushed over with her toy fighter back to it's backpack size, looking over Kagome curiously before back to Jade. "What's wrong Colonel?"

"Anise, I need you to stay here in case the liger's regroup." Jade ignored her question and knew she'd pick up on the fact he wasn't going to speak of anything just yet.

"Sure thing but I'm so making you fight for me to get overtime for this." Anise replied cheerfully, heading back off to talk to the settlement's leaders.

"Who's that?" Kagome asked after Jade kept walking and she fell into step more out of not knowing where else to go. She was shivering a little as she was still soaked and the strange thing he'd done had left her chilled and wet.

"Anise, she also works with the Malkuth empire." Jade answered, not frowning so much as not smiling when he noticed that she was shivering. He took off the overcoat of his uniform and gave it too her. He would remain a comfortable temperature regardless. "Here."

"Thank you." She accepted the coat and shoved it on, her nerves just starting to come down from the adrenaline rush that she'd been given upon her arrival to this strange place. "Malkuth? I don't recognize that at all. Where did I end up? I thought after the jewel was gone I'd be returned to my own time." I'd be on the other side of the well.

"She paused as they walked past a line of trees to a larger clearing and she saw the Tartarus 2, staring at it in a mix of horror and marvel. The large warship was designed in a rather pretty way and while she couldn't know what it was for the technology involved was a sign that she definitely wasn't in the feudal era any longer.

"Girl." Jade had paused a few steps ahead when he noted she wasn't still following. "Come on."

"What is that?" She managed to ask, trying to push down the feelings of dread that she wasn't going to be able to get home again.

"The Tartarus 2? She is the second in a series of land dread naughts heading a fleet of the Malkuth's army." Jade explained. He hated the name but Peony had insisted it be named the 2nd so he could keep track of how many Jade destroyed during his time in service. "Come on, we'll need to get you some clothes before you become ill."

She nodded a little...blinking when a pathway shifted out of the side of the ship like structure...it was as if she had walked into a science fiction novel. "This isn't good at all...it wasn't enough for the wicked crystal to steal Inuyasha from me?" Now it left me in some unknown place..."

At least someone had saved her from being monster dinner...though he looked a little like a demon with his strange eyes. It was nice to be given clothes, though the food she was given in the small room where they had let her change was just being pushed around the plate idly. It was all a bit too much to take in.

A knock came shortly before the man they kept calling the Colonel stepped inside. Standing across from her and seeming to be considering her. He had a vague smile on his face but whatever was actually on his mind was hard to pick out.

"I am Colonel Jade Curtiss of the Malkuth empire." He introduced himself fully. "Assigned to aid the replica settlement gathered within our northern territory. What is your name?"

"Why do I feel I'm speaking Japanese in Russia all of a sudden?" Kagome thought vaguely as she didn't know where she was or what the hell a replica settlement would be. "I'm Kagome. Kagome Higurashi."

"Do you know how old you are?"

"What sort of question is that?" Kagome offered him a confused look. "I'm seventeen."

"You aren't a replica then?" He wasn't smiling but still a difficult read. He seemed a bit young for a Colonel, weren't they all middle aged with graying hair? He looked closer to his late twenties than his forties.

"What is a replica?" She couldn't avoid asking the question. It wasn't likely she was one but if she didn't know then she wasn't exactly able to honestly answer.

"A person crafted to look exactly like someone else with all the same physical and mental abilities but without any of the personal memories." Jade explained it in as simple a way as he could. The last question seeming as much that he may have been speaking to himself. "Why would you be here if you don't know what replica's are?"

"I don't even know where here is. Or what the hell Malkuth is, or most of what you are talking about." Kagome replied with a frown. "I was...somewhere else...then I woke up next to that pond and got attacked by those creatures."

Jade eyed her as if he wasn't sure what to make of her story...though given the way she'd absorbed the fonons around her in her attacks he couldn't just let her wander about freely. "Where are you from?"

"This won't go well." Kagome had a flashback of when Inuyasha and other demons attacked her when she first entered the fuedal era...

"Japan." She bit her tongue after she said it, thinking about Inuyasha hadn't been the way to go, it wasn't really the time to break down into tears.

"Maybe I should have had Anise speak with her." Jade thought idly as she seemed about ready to cry. "I'm getting to old to deal with young people and their outbursts all the time."

"I don't recognize the name but there a lot of smaller villages in Chesadonia I wouldn't know the names of. You are welcome to stay here until we're able to figure something out. I'd like to speak to you more of the arte you used in the forest before." Jade explained. "I'll give you some time to rest however, the days events have likely been stressful for you."

"Understatement of the century." Kagome thought bitterly, she managed to hold onto her tears until he left and then she buried her head in her hands, tears flowing freely. "What am I going to do now?"

End Chapter

Eh, I'm not sure where I'll go with this. If anywhere...it's exceptionally difficult to write for Jade and I have this feeling I had him ooc there. Meh. I might scrap this later unless folks like it or something.

-Aura