Hello everyone!  This is my fist Ranma/Inuyasha fanfiction crossover.  I 
would really love to have reviews on this, but even more than that I would 
love COLLABORATION!  Yes, I'm looking for a co-author!  If you're interested 
in this story, and would like to co-write this with me, please email me.  I 
would like to receive any critiques publicly, though, so that more people 
will be tempted to give input.

Potential Collaborators: I have a vague outline of what I want to happen, 
that I would like the story to stick to.  However if this chapter just 
flooded your brain with ideas and you want to write them, please email me, 
and I would be happy to talk with you about that possiblity.

Through the Well (And What Nabiki Found There)
By Fluffy Nabs

The letter came for her during the last week of her high school career.  
Kasumi had gone to fetch the mail as usual, and from her position on the 
engawa, overlooking the pond, Nabiki could hear Kasumi bidding a cheerful 
good day to the postman.  She continued to spoon the shaved and flavored ice 
into her mouth, savoring the cold treat on this hot April day.  Upstairs she 
could hear Ranma and Akane fighting over something, again.  In the distance 
a lawnmower roared.

She felt lazy, and watched idly as the cherry blossom petals were torn from 
their fragile hold by a warm breeze.  They fluttered to the pink-strewn 
lawn, some landing on the surface of the pond.  A koi investigated.

Kasumi�s soft step approached her, and Nabiki eyed her as she stopped next 
to her.  The eldest sister smiled and handed her a letter.  �You got some 
mail, little sister.  I hope it�s good news!�

Nabiki quickly scanned the return address.  Junketsu Industries, a post 
office address in Tokyo.  She straightened and quickly slurped the rest of 
her shaved ice.  She checked her hands for sticky residue, found none, but 
wiped them on her cut-offs just in case.  Then she carefully opened the 
letter.

	Dear Ms. Tendo,
Your application for a scholarship to Tokyo University has been carefully 
reviewed.  We were impressed with your academic record and your list of 
extracurricular activities.  In order to make the best possible decision, we 
request an interview with you personally.
Please meet with our representative at the following address on April the 
28th of this year, at six o�clock in the evening.  Dress formally.
Sincerely,

		Shimobe Jaken
	Junketsu Industries, CEO

She jumped to her feet and ran into the kitchen, where Kasumi was reading 
from a cookbook at the table.  She skidded in her socks on the linoleum and 
slapped the letter onto the book in front of Kasumi.  �Kasumi!  This is one 
of the most important interviews of my life!  You have to help me dress up 
for this!�

Kasumi�s eyes moved up and down rapidly, reading the letter.  She then 
looked quickly up at Nabiki�s glowing face and replied as expected.  �Of 
course I�ll help you, little sister!  The interview is set for three days 
from now, isn�t it?  We had better get started.�

*

The cab pulled up to the address, and Nabiki looked out.  The lowering sun, 
while at least a couple of hours from setting, cast a warm glow on the steps 
up the place, and the sacred gate seemed to glow.  It was a temple, and as 
odd as it seemed, Nabiki was sure that there must be a tea garden or 
something attached to the grounds.

She paid the cabby, and walked carefully up the steps.  She wore a 
traditional visiting kimono of royal blue.  Large, long stemmed camellias in 
white, red, yellow and gray had been hand-painted on the bottom right and 
upper left parts of the kimono, each group of flowers being perhaps 40 to 50 
centimeters tall.  It was lined with a white and red bokadeshi-style 
nagajuban.  She had selected a red, gold, silver and black fukuro obi with 
this kimono in a pattern called kikko-mon, which consisted of large 
hexagons.  Rather like looking at a honeycomb, each hexagon had four 
concentrically smaller hexagons inside of it.  She wore geta as well, and 
had to manage the climb carefully.  In her hair she wore fine jade combs.  
The obi and combs had belonged to her mother, but the kimono had been bought 
new, for just such an occasion as this.  She had a little silk bag hanging 
from her left wrist, which included some money, personal calling cards, a 
plastic baggie of tissues, and a handkerchief.

When she reached the top of the steps she saw a note taped to the gate and 
addressed to her.  She read it.

Please proceed to the back of the grounds and enter the small shrine to pay 
your respects.  Mr. Shimobe will await you there.

She was not too worried by this unusual turn of events.  She had heard that 
the CEO of Junketsu Industries was an extremely traditional man - thus her 
choice of kimono over power suit.  If he wanted her to bow to his ancestors, 
so be it, as long as at the end of the night he presented her with a fat 
check for her college education.

Nabiki made her way across the courtyard, taking in the large, empty-looking 
house on the grounds, the tall tree surrounded with good-luck ribbons, and 
the several out buildings that most likely served as storage sheds.  The 
shrine was not hard to find, and Nabiki approached it confidently.  She 
mounted the steps and opened the door, wondering if she should remove her 
geta or not.

The interior of the small shrine was dim at best.  It seemed to be a 
walled-in platform surrounding a box.  She peered closer, no, not a box, but 
a covered well.  One end of the cover was standing open.  She peered around 
and nearly jumped out of her skin when a man appeared to materialize out of 
the shadows.  She laughed nervously and stepped further inside.  They took 
each other in for a few seconds, and then Nabiki bowed deeply.  �I am Tendo 
Nabiki.�

The man bowed back.  �Lady Tendo,� he murmured.  �I am honored by your 
presence.  I am Shimobe Jaken.  Please call me Jaken-san.�  Shimobe Jaken 
was a short man, with no hair and very large eyes.  His old-man lips seemed 
like the beak of a bird, and made her think at once of Cologne and Happosai. 
  He carried himself stiffly, though, without the fluid grace that those two 
ancient bodies seemed to possess.

Startled at this - she had expected to have to call him Shimobe-san due to 
his antique values - Nabiki bowed again.  �Thank you, Jaken-san.�  She 
straightened again and looked somewhat critically at the well.  �Ah, 
Jaken-san, why is this well holy?�

He smiled, a feat that made the hairs on Nabiki�s neck stand up.  �Why do we 
not step over to the well, and I will show you?�  He led her to the edge and 
peered in.  She also gazed down, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows 
gathered below.  �Can you see the bottom?� he asked.

She nodded.  �Yes.  Has it been dry for a long ti-�  She broke off as 
something hit her sharply between the shoulder blades, forcing her forward.  
For an instant it seemed that she would regain her balance, but then her 
ankles were kicked out from underneath her and she plunged head over feet 
into the dim recesses below.

*

She did not exactly hit the bottom.  She screwed her eyes shut and raised 
her arms before her face to brace herself for the impact.  A light flared 
before her eyelids, and there was a floating sensation.  Before she could 
grow sick from the feeling there was hard earth beneath her knees, and a 
sharp rock was digging into her big toe.

Carefully, Nabiki opened one eye, and saw that she was kneeling on the floor 
of the well.  She lowered her arms and looked up.

The roof was gone.

Nabiki leapt to her feet and looked wildly upwards, turning in a circle to 
see the entire rim of the will above her head.  The shrine roof no longer 
sheltered the well.  Vines crept along the sides, thick and coarse, sporting 
small white flowers.  A butterfly danced over a bunch of the flowers before 
soaring up with the breeze and out of her sight.

She closed her eyes for a second, and looked down at the earth she was 
standing on.

Timidly, she jumped.

The sun continued to shine at an angle in the well.  Another butterfly - or 
perhaps the same one - drifted into the well and settled onto a blossom, its 
wings pulsating slowly.

With nothing else to do, Nabiki carefully rolled up the sleeves of her 
kimono, parted the front of the skirt as wide as she could, spit on her 
palms, and proceeded to climb from the well.

Nabiki exercised regularly, and was quite vain of her lithe-yet-still-sexy 
form.  Climbing the vines that had anchored themselves to the side of the 
well was a piece of cake.  Doing it while keeping her kimono clean was 
something else entirely.

She finally made it to the top and rolled herself over the edge.  At this 
point she was unsurprised to see that the house and grounds of the temple 
were gone, as well as the shrine that used to house the well.  She pursed 
her lips for a second.  She sighed.

�Two options, Tendo.� she told herself.  �Option A is that this is some 
colossal practical joke.  Option B is that you�ve gone down some kind of 
rabbit hole, and are now in Wonderland.�  Which meant magic.  While Nabiki 
had been a regular observer of the supernatural goings-on of her sister and 
future brother-in-law, magic seldom affected her in such a direct - and 
possibly dangerous - way.

She took in her surroundings, suddenly noting that her throat was quite dry. 
  There had to be a river nearby, right?  Going on instinct, she picked a 
direction and began walking, looking back occasionally to try to mark where 
she�d been.  Miraculously, she had been walking mostly downhill, and after 
over two hours of balancing precariously on her geta, and carefully 
navigating her expensive kimono through the snagging branches of the forest, 
Nabiki had reached a small stream of clear, cold water.

She gathered a handful of dry leaves and spread them on the mud to shield 
her kimono, and then knelt at the stream.  Using her cupped hands, Nabiki 
quenched her thirst, all the time hoping that the sweet-tasting water didn�t 
contain any harmful bacteria.

Something rustled.

Nabiki�s head snapped up and she watched in wide-eyed fear as something 
exploded from a bush and galloped toward her.  It was a wild brown rabbit, 
its tail flashing alarm.  She placed a hand to her breast and sighed in 
relief.

A second later something else burst through the same bush, and Nabiki just 
managed to keep her self from falling into the mud.  A small girl of perhaps 
seven years hurtled toward her.  She was dressed in a bright orange and blue 
yukata, had bare feet and wild brown hair.  She carried a small bow and 
arrow.  Upon seeing Nabiki she stopped.  �Quick!� she shrieked at Nabiki.  
�Run away or he�ll get you!�

Nabiki stood and opened her mouth to ask the girl what she meant when yet 
another form burst through the bushes at the edge of the stream.

It was small, green, and definitely not human.  It carried a staff that was 
easily three times its own height, and on the staff were what appeared to be 
two shrunken human heads.  He spied the girl and roared out.  �You�d better 
come back here, Rin!�

The girl and Nabiki both turned and fled, but Nabiki had hiked the kimono as 
high as she could with one arm, and with the free arm scooped up the small 
girl and ran faster than she ever had in her life.

Thanks to good genes and vitamins, Nabiki had very long legs.  She was best 
at sprinting, but had been known to make the occasional marathon run between 
school and home.  Something about that little green toad-like creature had 
deeply frightened Nabiki, and this spurred her on to the most impressive 
feat of running she�d ever done.  The girl weighed nothing in her arms, the 
geta had long since flown off her feet, and small obstacles like roots and 
uneven footing were nothing compared to the terror chasing behind.  She ran 
for what felt like forever, the little girl bouncing beneath her arm.

They reached a clearing, and Nabiki tripped on something.  She flew forward 
like a baseball player sliding for home, and the little girl was thrown from 
her grip.  The child tumbled end-over-end like a doll, but after coming to a 
stop she popped up and started pulling grass from her wild mane of hair, 
seeming none the worse for the wear.  Nabiki staggered to her feet and 
grabbed the girl�s hand, tugging her along.

�Don�t worry, little girl!  I�ll protect you from that-�

She was forced to stop because she bounced off of something; or rather, 
someone.

She was certain that he hadn�t been there a moment before.  He was tall, 
with white hair down to his knees.  His face bore a navy blue crescent moon 
on his forehead, red stripes on his cheeks, and a regal expression in his 
amber eyes.  He wore strange clothes, a mixture of armor and some kind of 
balloon-like pants with an excellent-quality haori.  A large, fluffy 
something was wrapped around his right shoulder.

Running into him had felt like hitting a brick wall.  She knew immediately 
that this man wasn�t human, was as alien as that little green toad thing.  
She screamed and clutched the little girl into her arms, shielding the 
squirming mass of arms and legs and wild brown hair with as much of her own 
body as possible.

The man stepped forward and stared down at them impassively.  �How do you 
expect to protect her from anything?� he asked her softly.  His voice was 
smooth and even, and he spoke with an old-fashioned enunciation.

Nabiki tried to curl herself around the struggling child more securely.  
�Just take me!  She�s just a little girl!  Let her go, you don�t need her, 
leave her alone!�  Somehow through the babble she realized that the little 
girl was trying her very hardest to wriggle away from Nabiki.

The man stepped forward again, bent down, and effortlessly pried to two of 
them apart.  He pulled the girl slightly behind him.  �Rin,� he addressed 
the child.  �Why does this woman think you will be harmed?�

The girl scuffed her toe in the grass and ducked her head.  �I wanted a 
rabbit for dinner so I took my bow and arrows and went hunting, but 
Jaken-sama told me I wasn�t supposed to go running off all alone and I told 
him that I�m a big girl now and can get my own rabbits and then I kicked him 
and ran away to get a rabbit and Jaken-sama followed me, and I saw this lady 
by the stream and I guess I was just so excited that I yelled, and she saw 
Jaken-sama who looked really mad, and she got scared and picked me up and we 
ran here.�  She paused and took a deep breath.  �She runs real fast.�

�Say �She runs very fast�, Rin.�  The man corrected her softly.

�She runs very fast.�  Rin repeated dutifully.

Nabiki observed this all in nothing short of astonishment.  She wasn�t going 
to die.  The child wasn�t in danger.  This strange man - and the green 
creature from before - was in fact well known to the girl.  Nabiki stood on 
shaky knees.  She threw a shocked glance at the little girl before turning 
her full attention to the man in white.

�My name is Tendo Nabiki.�  Her voice was calm, not scared sounding at all.  
It helped her legs stop quivering so much.

The man was looking somewhere over her left shoulder.  She waited for him to 
reply.  He turned around and walked away from her.

Nabiki gaped in frank amazement.  He had completely ignored her!  After 
risking life and limb to save his little girl he had the nerve to ignore 
her!  No introduction, not a �thank you�, nothing!  She narrowed her eyes at 
his back, before turning around in exasperation.

She realized then that she was completely lost.  She whirled back to the man 
and the little girl, to find that the short green thing had rejoined the 
little girl and was busy scolding her in a mother-hen-like fashion.  She 
hurried across the clearing toward them, and soon they were all following 
the man in white through the quickly thickening forest.

�Hey,� she addressed the toad.  �My name is Tendo Nabiki.  I came out of a 
well, and now I�m lost, in no small part because of you two.  I was willing 
to sacrifice my life to save this brat, here, and I want some recompense.  
You owe me!�

The toad looked at her scornfully.  �You!� he spat.  �Go away, filthy human! 
  It was your own stupid fault for getting lost.  The great Sesshomaru-sama 
does not have time to pander to a low human such as you.  Be gone!�

They all stopped because Sesshomaru had stopped.  He turned his head over 
his should just enough to look at Jaken through the corner of his eye.  
�Jaken.�

Instantly the arrogant pride Jaken had possessed while addressing Nabiki was 
replaced by a sniveling, fawning adulation.  �Yes, Sesshomaru-sama?�

�Go find her sandals and bring them to her.  Tonight we will camp in the 
monastery.  I expect a fire and enough food for the four of us to be 
waiting.�

The small green creature reeled back in shock, but recovered quickly.  
�Y-Yes, Sesshomaru-sama!�  He cast a venomous glare at Nabiki before 
sprinting backwards the way they came.

Sesshomaru continued to walk, and Nabiki hesitantly followed suit.  A small 
warm hand slipped into her own and she looked down at the child, Rin.

�What�s your name?� the girl asked.




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