Decisions, Decisions
Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha. If I did, I would be the happiest girl in the world.
OtakuGirlEmi: Hello everyone! This is my first InuYasha fanfic, so please forgive me if it's not perfect. I will try to update every 10 or 14 days. (Unless I get writer's block) I would greatly appreciate any reviews or ideas for the story. So read on, and I hope you like it:-)
Chapter 1: Just Another Normal Day
It's over. It's truly and finally over, thought the half-demon to himself. Naraku is finally destroyed, along with all his creations. Life is just as close to peaceful as it can get.
Memories of the last battle floated through the white-haired youth's head. Naraku, finally found and confronted in his own castle, had quickly realized that Inuyasha and his group had gotten much stronger and had drawn all his living incarnations into his body for more power. The battle that followed had been long and painful. Everyone had been hurt. Kagome had been given a deep gash on her arm, which extended from her elbow to her wrist and would probably leave a scar, but otherwise she had only had a sprained ankle and minor scratches. Shippou had come out of the battle with some large bruises and a bad case of exhaustion. Sango, Miroku, and Inuyasha had not been as lucky. Sango received a broken arm and two broken ribs, along with a minor concussion. Miroku had a head wound, a sprained wrist, and a broken arm. Inuyasha, who had lasted the longest and battled the hardest, left the castle with a broken leg, a broken arm, three broken ribs, and several deep chest wounds.
When the battle ended, Naraku had been dead and most of the Shikon jewel lay in InuYasha hand. Inuyasha, Kagome, Miroku, Sango, Shippou, and Kirara had managed to survive, and that was great. But one person had not.
Poor Sango, he thought, remembering the only person that had died in the battle. When Inuyasha had ended Naraku's life, Kohaku had died in his sister, Sango's, arms. Because Naraku had been controlling Kohaku, the young boy had died when his master did. At the time, Sango had cried a little, but had quickly seemed to brush off Kohaku's death and assured her friends that she was alright. The hanyou wasn't so sure about that, but he had let it pass, and he still did.
Though the battle had taken place ten days ago, the small group had not managed to get very far away from the castle. Since, at first, they had all been wounded, sore, and tired, traveling came at a slow pace and they had to rest often. So they had made a camp in a cave a couple of miles away from the castle. Kagome and Shippou had healed the quickest and had put themselves in charge of medicine and food. With their care and help, the rest of the group was healing fairly quickly.
Being half demon, Inuyasha was almost completely healed and was content just to sit in a tree outside the cave. The weather was pleasant and it looked like it was going to be a relaxing, now-normal day. But not everything was exactly "normal" for Inuyasha yet. He had started to realize that he had some big decisions to make, and some he had to make soon.
When do I tell her? He asked silently.
As if on cue, "her" voice called to him from the cave, "Inuyasha! It's lunchtime. Come eat or it'll get cold!"
"I'm not hungry! Just leave me alone to think!" he snapped at her.
He heard her footsteps and looked down. Yep, there she was. Kagome, the raven-haired beauty that had one day magically fallen into his world and was always yelling at him. Her presence made his insides melt and his head felt strange. She glared up at him from her spot on the ground. "Fine, I'll just let Shippou eat your Ramen. I don't care." Kagome turned around and stomped back into the cave.
Inuyasha chuckled softly to himself. Sometimes he just loved annoying Kagome. "Okay, okay, I'm comin'," he yelled as he jumped down from the tree (wincing slightly at his still healing leg) and followed her into the cave.
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Kagome looked up as Inuyasha entered the cave. She had known that her threat would work, but was still happy to see the somewhat sour expression that often graced Inuyasha's face when he had given into her. She handed him his dinner of simple Ramen noodles and waited for him to respond.
Kagome's temper flared as Inuyasha took the noodles without saying a word. She had been expecting some form of thanks. "Don't you have something to say to somebody?" She asked stiffly, holding back her frustration and hurt.
Inuyasha thought for a moment, then his eyebrows shot up, as if he had realized something. "Oh yeah, I've decided that we should leave today. The weather will make traveling easy and I spotted a road not too far from here." he said, looking at the others. Sango rolled her eyes (one of the liveliest actions Inuyasha had seen her do in the past 10 days) and continued eating. Shippou didn't seem to care about what was going on. Miroku had a pained expression on his face angled towards the either amazingly oblivious or purposely infuriating half-demon.
Kagome stood up, glaring at Inuyasha. "AREN"T YOU GOING TO SAY THANK YOU?" she asked loudly, gritting her teeth.
"What the hell for!" Inuyasha asked as he, too, stood up angrily.
"Ohhh!" exclaimed Kagome as she balled her hand into a fist. "Don't you care about anyone other than yourself! I've been waiting on you every night for over a week and you can't even thank me for dinner, JUST ONCE?"
Now Inuyasha was yelling back, "I'm the one who killed Naraku! You went and got yourself injured right at the beginning of the battle, so it's not my fault you've been cooking every night so I don't have any reason to thank you!" Sango, Miroku, and Shippou winced and waited for the inevitable.
"INUYASHA, SIT!"
Inuyasha smacked facedown into the floor of the cave, creating a large crater.
Kagome turned away from Inuyasha's twitching body and walked over to Shippou, smiling. "Here Shippou, you can have the Ungrateful Jerk's Ramen since he doesn't seem to want it." Shippou looked over at the still-stuck Inuyasha and decided to take the food. Besides, he thought, I don't want to make Kagome angry. She can be really scary! He took the container from her and watched her walk over to Sango and sit down.
Inuyasha managed to free himself from the subduction spell and sat up. He was about to yell at Kagome when he noticed that her eyes were shiny, as if she was holding back tears. She's really is upset, he thought. I guess I should have just thanked her. She must think I'm a jerk. But if I went around thanking everybody all the time, I'd seem like a weakling. But as he gazed at Kagome's lovely, now-calm face from across the room, he felt guilty and sad that he had upset her again. He also felt like he'd rather be the weakest person in the world, rather than make Kagome cry again.
She could never love a jerk like me…
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Kagome sat eating with Sango and watched as Inuyasha pulled himself out of the hole. He sat down next to Miroku and started to talk with him. Kagome was mildly surprised, usually he would have yelled at her more once he was released from the spell, but he hadn't said another word to her. She tried to tell herself that she didn't care that he had- once again- acted like a complete and total jerk. But Kagome knew that she really did care. In fact, whenever he acted that way she felt terrible. Sure, sometimes bickering with Inuyasha was almost fun and had become a habit, but sometimes she felt like he hated her. And she couldn't bear to think about that.
Kagome had realized a while ago that she wanted to be more than friends with Inuyasha. Whenever she was around him, she got butterflies and blushed easily and she always was worrying about how she looked when she was near him. But she knew that to Inuyasha, she was probably nothing more than a "Sacred Jewel Detector." And as soon as she combined their shards with the almost complete jewel and she figured out how to purify it, he would forget about her and send her back to her own time. And, Kagome thought miserably to herself, to top it all off, he still loves Kikyo. The thought of losing Inuyasha soon made Kagome want to cry, and without even realizing it, she felt tears fill up her eyes. She tried to hold them in and focus on what Sango was saying.
"Kagome? Kagome, are you okay?" Sango was asking. "You look like you're about to cry." Kagome nodded her head, but kept her mouth closed. "Okay, but you know you can tell me anything. I'm here for you." Sango replied, still looking worried. Oh Sango, Kagome thought, looking at the beautiful demon slayer, you're the one who should talk to me.
Ever since the Last Battle with Naraku, Sango had changed. Not that Kagome blamed her. Sango had lost her little brother, her only living family member. Not only that, but for months, Sango had watched in hidden agony as her brother was used as Naraku's puppet, and then died in her arms. Sango had told Kagome that Kohaku's last words before he died were, "I love you Sango, and I'm so sorry…please…forgive…me…" It almost broke Kagome's heart to hear that, so she knew that Sango must be heartbroken. Sango had tried to act normal, but Kagome and the others knew that she was far from okay. Kagome hated to see one of her best friends so sad and alone. Sango had lost her spark. She had changed.
But, Kagome thought, looking around the cave, everyone has changed. Miroku was now free from his cursed wind tunnel and could live his life the way he wanted to, without worrying about his future. Somehow, Miroku seemed even happier now than before and had started groping Sango more and groping Kagome again. (Which irritated Inuyasha) Kagome felt happy for the monk and was glad that his change was good.
She tuned her eyes to Kirara and Shippou. Both of them hadn't appeared to have changed on the outside. But Kagome thought that Shippou seemed a little more mature than he used to be. He asked fewer questions now and seemed more content to go off with Kirara and play, rather than follow Kagome, Miroku, or Sango. Kirara was pretty much unaffected by the battle. But, being a close companion with the demon slayer, Kagome got the feeling that Kirara was just as worried about Sango as she was.
Lastly Kagome's eyes strayed over to Inuyasha. The stubborn, half-demon would try to never let anyone see that he had changed, but Kagome knew something about him had. Inuyahsa had spent most of the past two days sitting in the tree outside the cave. Kagome knew that he liked to be alone sometimes, but something was definitely bothering him. He was quieter and bickered with her less. And as silly as it sounded, that bothered Kagome. I wonder if he's mad at me, she wondered. But what did I do? I've been so busy nursing everyone, and cooking that I haven't even seen him much lately. A scary thought struck Kagome. What if he's trying to figure out how to get rid of me, or how fast he can? Kagome knew that if that's what he was thinking about, she would have to change his mind. She realized that she had to make some big decisions and perform even bigger actions. Even if it didn't work, she knew she had to tell him the words that she had kept locked up for so long.
Kagome whispered the words silently, tears hid behind her eyes.
Inuyasha, I love you…
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After lunch, the small group set out from their cave. Everyone was quiet, except Shippou. After ten minutes of his nonstop talking Inuyasha yelled, "will you shut the hell up! I'm trying to find the road and I can't focus when you, Fuzzball, won't shut up!" Needless to say, Kagome immediately "sat "him. Then Inuyasha and Kagome proceeded to get into an argument about the direction of the road. They were yelling so loudly that Sango and Miroku were afraid that any demon for miles would hear them. Finally, when they stumbled onto the road, they were so tired that they had to rest.
The group started down the road a little while later, glad to finally get out of the shadow of Naraku's ominous -now empty- castle. As the castle fell out of his eyesight, Inuyasha thought to himself, good riddance. It felt like he was finally free from the threat of the powerful demon and enemy. Inuyasha turned his head and looked down the road, toward new adventures.
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SLAP!
"Hmph! What a pervert! I've never been so insulted!" muttered the young woman to herself as she mounted her horse and started down the road.
Miroku walked back to the group cradling his newly christened red cheek and asked, "I don't understand why that beautiful woman seemed so upset when I was offering her the great honor of bearing my children." Sango raised her hand and gave his other cheek the same matching shade of red.
Inuyasha rolled his eyes at Miroku. When will that stupid monk learn, he thought to himself. If he keeps this up, his cheeks will be black and blue by the end of the day. "Come on, hurry up and keep moving," he ordered the group. They had been walking for a couple of hours now and the fleeing, angry girl was the 5th so far. Inuyasha was starting to think that their first adventure was to make it to the next town and survive the angry women who wanted to kill perverted Miroku and his friends.
As they started walking again Kagome looked over at the rejected monk and asked, "Miroku, if your wind tunnel is gone, why do you keep asking girls to bear your children? It's not like you have to worry about it now."
Miroku smiled sheepishly and replied. "Yeah, I know. But it's kind of become a habit of mine." His eyes suddenly became serious. "Besides, why pass up an opportunity to talk to beautiful women? I'm sure innocent Inuyasha agrees with me, though he's probably too shy to admit it."
Inuyasha glared over at Miroku and interrupted angrily, "hey, don't drag me into this, monk! You're digging your own grave!"
Miroku, oblivious to the disgrunted half-demon, went on. "Anyway, what's wrong with being a normal, healthy, lad?"
"You mean a gross, perverted, man? At least, that's what you sound like, a dirty, old, lecher." Sango remarked dryly from Kirara's back.
Shippou's eyes widened. "Wow Miroku, you got Sango to talk!"
A mischievous glint in Miroku's eye appeared as he said "Oh, I can do more than that Shippou." Sango glared daggers at him, dismounted Kirara, and started toward Miroku, her face flushed in anger.
Innocent Shippou's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What does that mean?"
"Well, you see Shippou, I-" Miroku's answer was cut short as a furious Sango, followed by an equally angry Kagome pulled him over to the side of the road. "I see you ladies have come to your senses and are now finding it impossible to hide your feelings for me. But that's okay; I can relieve you both of that burden-"
Kagome and Sango raised their hands in unison and ended Miroku's sentence with a large, echoing slap.
Yep, thought Inuyasha as he tried to suppress his laughter, it's just another normal day.
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OtakuGirlEmi: Well, how did you like the first chapter? Was it good? Be sure to tell me all of your opinions (bad or good) or ideas in a review. It would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to include a fight scene soon. (yay, violence!)I don't want it to get boring. I'll try to post the next chapter in a couple of days, but I can't promise anything because I'll be out of town for 2 weeks and I'm not sure if I'll be able to post while on vacation. (But I'll try) Anyway, thanks for reading, and remember to review!