Chapter 1: Late for Christmas?

A/N: Yo! People of the FanFiction World! :P It's me, UltimateOtakuGirl100, with another…

Wait a second, why do I start EVERY new story like that?!

Oh, well. I'll redo that, I guess. I'm UltimateOtakuGirl100, back with another Inuyasha FanFic! '^.^

Wow, that was a fail of an intro. -_-

Anyways, I'm hoping that I can finish this story before Christmas, but if you have read other stories of mine, then you'll know it's hard for me to do stuff like that. :/ But I'm going to try my best! Who knows?

I mean, miracles DO happen… right?

Whatev. I'll stop boring you with my routine of relatively pointless A/Ns.

READ ON!

It was a freezing winter day, not even warm enough for any sane person to even open their doors, and yet there they were; the group of mismatched oddballs, trekking through snow up to their waist and having snow from the blizzard pushing them back, all the while being tormented with arguments by…

Yep, you guessed it.

"Why couldn't you just let us stay in the village for once?!" Kagome screamed over the wind; her hands, although already covered by three layers of mittens, were shoved deeply into the pockets of her outermost coat. She no longer wore her school uniform—that would've been a death wish—but instead, she traded it out for several layers of coats, the one on the outside being a tannish color, a pink scarf around her neck, long, thick, black pants, and brown boots that were so ridiculously big and thick that, if it wasn't absolutely necessary, she never would've been caught dead wearing. Kagome's teeth chattered immediately after she stopped talking.

"Keh! Just because you're such a weak wench doesn't mean we have to stop searching for Naraku!" Inuyasha snapped back; he wore absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and the only difference with him seemed to be that he would jump instead of take regular steps, as to avoid getting stuck in the snow. Shippo and Kirara merely flew over it, using Kirara's own fire for whatever pathetic form of warmth they could manage in this snowstorm. The humans of the group, however, had no such luck.

"WEAK?! I'll have you know that most HUMANS in MY era can't even walk HALF the distance that I have to RUN! And it's EVERY SINGLE DAY, INUYASHA!"

"WENCH!"

"BAKA!"

This went on for almost half the day. In fact, it probably would've gone on the entire day if Sango hadn't finally interrupted, moaning, "GUYS, GUYS! Sheesh! It's almost all the way through December, and you guys still haven't found a way to get along for long enough to accomplish anything!"

Kagome froze, and now, it had nothing to do with the temperature. "What… when… how far into the month is it?!" she whispered, just barely heard over the blizzard.

Sango hesitated at the tone of her voice. After a moment, she speculated, "Oh, I'd say… it's probably around the nineteenth or—"

"THE NINETEENTH?!" Kagome gasped, gripping the sides of her head in horror. "OH, NO!" She sagged a bit, so she fell a little deeper into the snow.

Wary and confused at her reaction, Inuyasha took a tentative step towards her. "Uh… Kagome? Are you… OK?"

"NOOO!" she wailed. "I promised Mom that I would be home two weeks before Christmas so I could help everyone decorate and pick out presents! I'll be lucky if I make it before Christmas Eve!"

Even more bewildered, they all inquired in unison, "Christmas?"

Kagome looked at them, shocked, and exclaimed, "You guys don't know about Christmas?!"

The group shook their heads.

She blinked. "Wow, I've never had to explain Christmas before." Kagome straightened. "Christmas is a holiday every twenty-fifth of December where you give presents to people you care about, and you spend time with them. This'll be the first year I spend away from my family," she described, voice thick with devastation at the end.

An awkward pause followed her explanation. After the silence became unbearable, Miroku broke it. "Inuyasha, why don't you take Kagome to her era for her holiday?"

Inuyasha twitched, uncomfortable with the sudden attention.

"Yeah!" Shippo chimed in, jumping off Kirara to land on Inuyasha's shoulder. "That way she won't have to miss celebrating with her family!"

"But—" Inuyasha tried to object weakly.

"That would work!" Sango approved, nodding her head. "And we could continue searching for Naraku while we wait for her to come back!"

"Uh—"

"Really?!" Kagome whispered hopefully, approaching Inuyasha through the snow. "You would do that for me?"

"Er—"

"Oh, thank you, Inuyasha!" she cheered, jumping at him in an embrace that Inuyasha hadn't been prepared for, and just barely managed not to fall into the snow. His cheeks seemed to grow a little red, but that was probably just the snow hindering their vision. Kagome beamed. "You won't regret it!"

The group paused, watching the two. Then Inuyasha sighed in defeat. "Yeah, yeah… Let's just go already…"

By the time the two of them finally arrived at the well, it was well past nightfall, and they were both exhausted. "Okay," panted Inuyasha, letting her slide off his back, "You can go to your time now, and I'll just wait in the village with the others until you're done with this… uh… 'Chriss-nas' thing."

Kagome laughed. "Christmas."

"Yeah, that."

Kagome smiled, yawned, and put one leg in the well. "Well," she said, waving, "see ya!" She slid the other leg inside and jumped.

Inuyasha was silent for a moment as he stood next to the well, looking down at the bottom. Then he crossed his arms and sighed.

He was about to turn around and head to the village when an unexpected THUMP hit him on the back of his head. He cried out, losing his balance, and toppling over the edge of the well face-first. "AAAAAAAAUUUGH—!" he hollered, before he disappeared.

Shippo landed with a quiet tap on the side of the well, smirking. Not only had he accomplished his goal of sneaking up behind Inuyasha and not getting caught, he had also secured the certainty that the two of them would be gone for several days, so the remaining group could do whatever they wanted.

He laughed, turned around, and transformed into his balloon form and floated away to meet the others at the village. Now, the only thing that would make this moment better would be some of Kagome's snacks… he thought, heading to the village to meet up with the others, who by now were probably relaxing by a fire at the village.

A/N: Haha. The group is so lazy. XD They didn't even bother to try to look for Naraku.

And Shippo… so evil.

Well, I hope this chapter was OK; I haven't had much sleep lately, but I REALLY wanted to try to finish this story before Christmas. So, yeah, I don't know how good it was.

Anyways! R&R peoplez! :P