Ok, time for me to write a short fic for the heck. As usual I will chose a rather common idea as the basis of my story, being a story about what is in Kagome's back. Just about every writer has at least contemplated it, but like usual I'm going to be the nonconformist you all know and love and go on a tangent....
I dedicate this to all my loyal readers who still check to see if I updated!
Inuyasha rested his arms on the edge of the well picking at one of his canine canines with a claw as he
played his favorite game of all time, having a staring contest with the well. So far it was Well 8, Inuyasha
0, but Inuyasha could have sworn that in the last game he had won, however it was somewhat hard to have an
arguement with an overgrown four by four. The sky above was a mixture of blue and white. At the moment a
particulary plump cloud had settled in front of the sun, causing a shadowy light to fall over his forest.
Shippo was nowhere to be seen, having lost interest in watching wood rot, and had gone off to help Miroku in
what he claimed to be an exorcism of a "Beautiful, kind, intelligent, clever, compassionate, Sango is there
something wrong with your eye? Would you like me to check it? Where was I?, fair, lonely, and single woman"
Needless to say Sango had also thought it prudent to assist.
Which left Inuyasha in his present situation. According to Kagome, she should arrive approximately at the time which the sun was directly above. According to Inuyasha, she should have arrived approximately an hour ago, if that late. True to her version of the story, the well began to shimmer moments later, spitting out the miko from the future with her enormously oversized bag. However, this time there was a difference. Slung to her other shoulder was a matching, though empty, yellow bag. Inuyasha might have noticed, but how many food bags she brought on the journey was a woman's worry. He just had to carry them. Kagome brushed a strand of hair back into place and blinked a few times to adjust to the new light before she looked up to see the boy looking down at her. She gave him a smile and was met with the usual apathetic scowl. "You're L-" the hanyou was cut short of saying what often seemed to make up most of his conversational vocabulary when a large, flying, yellow projectile caught him in the face.
By the time Inuyasha had managed to disentangle the yellow straps from his silver mane, Kagome had succeeded in lugging herself and her large bag out of the well. Inuyasha looked down at the bag in his clawed hands and then back at the smiling girl before looking one again at the bag. "What's this?" he asked. Kagome walked over, setting her bag on the ground next to well. Incapable of resisting the opportunity, Kagome responded "A bag silly.", giving him a gentle flick on the ear. The half demon scowled and stood up so that his ears were out of reach. "I know that stupid! Why did you throw it at me?" he demanded irritably, holding up the bag to her face for emphasis. Kagome sighed and sat down against the side of the well. "For you to put stuff in, of course. Now you don't have to dig through mine and tear up my stuff. Just put what you want in it." The light seemed to go off in Inuyasha's head, partially at least. He plopped down in front of her and opened the main flap. He began digging through the flimsy insides. Kagome watched him in confusion as he gave up after a few seconds and turned the bag upside down, shaking it roughly. "What are you doing?" she asked.
Inuyasha gave a snort of disgust in response and tossed the bag onto the girls lap. "You forgot to put ramen in
it." he grumbled. Kagome gave a cry of exasperation at the hanyou's thick headedness and grabbed the open bag.
With one quick moment she stuffed it over his head, ears and all, before storming off towards the village and
Kaede's hut, grabbing her bag on her way. Inuyasha was very still for a long while, pondering what had just
happened. Unfortunately, his thoughts were halted when a large bird decided he would make a good perch.
Kagome and the others didn't see Inuyasha for the rest of the day, nor when they awoke the next morning and
prepared for another journey. "I wonder if he's all right." Kagome said softly, gazing towards the forest and
starting to think she might have been a little rash. "Do not worry yourself lady Kagome, I have full confidence
that Inuyasha will catch up with us before we are too far from the village." assured Miroku, giving the girl
a pat on her shoulder, a pat that would have gone south if he hadn't been given a not so gentle nudge away.
Apparently, she was still sore from Miroku's gentlemanly behavior the day before. "We'd better go now if we
want to make any progress today Kagome." said Sango. Kagome nodded, and with one last glance towards the forest,
she hoisted the bag to her shoulders, something she had taken for granted recently, and began to trail slightly
behind the two humans and two youkai.
The group hadn't gone more than half a mile out of town before they spotted Inuyasha leaning casually against a tree near the path. Beside him was a large yellow bag. As they approached, the group stared at the bag, which proved to be even larger in size than Kagome's at present, beside him. "What took you so long?" he asked when they had finally reached his position. No one replied to him. Unphased, the hanyou lifted his stuffed bag onto his shoulder. He walked towards Kagome, who was also staring at his bag, and took her bag and slung it onto his other shoulder. "You coming? We've got shards to hunt." he said gruffly to the group before beginning his trek down the trail. Moments later, the group fell in step behind him as they all gazed in wonder at the mysterious bag.
There was little conversation among the group that day, though it still passed rather quickly as each pondered
what could possibly be in the bag. When night fall was all but on them, they agreed to make camp near a small
river in a field that was surrounded with high rocky terrain on three sides, providing an excellent defensible
position. "Well, it's Inuyasha's turn to get wood for the fire. Sango and I are going to take a bath in the
river." Kagome said, digging through her bag for her bathing supplies. Inuyasha, who still had his bag
protectively on his shoulder, set it down and unzipped the main compartment. Everyone paused their activities,
even Kirara, to watch out of curiosity. From it, he began to pull large amounts of firewood and kindling and
putting it in a pile. They all watched in silence as he repeated the motion again and again until he hide a
sizable pile. Satisfied, the hanyou zipped the bag up and folded his arms, a smirk on his face.
"Wow Inuyasha! What did you do, cut down a forest?" asked Shippo, hopping down from a nearby stump. Inuyasha's
smirk grew wider until his fangs were visible. "What else do you have in there?" said the kitsune, asking the
question that all the others had on the tips of their tongues. The boy reached out to open the bag and Inuyasha
reacted with an almost instantaneous movement, grabbing the bag protectively and taking it out of the boy's
reach and simultaneously giving him a hard whack. "Don't ever touch the bag." he growled, clearly serious. The
small boy gave a wail and grabbed his head, running around in a circle as he cried. "Inuyasha! SIT!" Kagome
shouted, sending the hanyou and his bag to the ground. Inuyasha began to shout muffled curses from his crater
in the ground, still holding his bag tightly, as Kagome shook her head and sighed. "I think we'll go hunting"
Miroku said wisely, holding his staff in both hands and placing it on the back of the hanyou's head, giving
it a sharp push to silence him. "Just see that you stay with Inuyasha." Sango said warily, helping Kagome with
the bathing supplies.
"So what do you think he has in it?" Sango asked as she came up out of the water after scrubbing her hair with Kagome's shampoo. The question had been asked several times already, but conversation continued to revert back to speculation no matter what subject they seemed to take. "I don't know, but whatever it is it's important to him. He has the Tetsusaiga where it usually is and I've never seen him act like that over anything else (herself excluded of course :D), except maybe the shikon no tama and I doubt he has a bag full of those." Kagome replied, scrubbing herself dry with a towel as she sat on a nearby rock by the river. Sango gave a short laugh and dunked her head again into the water, giving it a shake back and forth once she came up for air again.
"I'm going to head back to camp. It's cold out here." Kagome said, reaching for her clothing and begining to
dress. Sango nodded. "I'll stay a little longer, I haven't had any privacy from Miroku since last time you
left." Kagome slid on her shirt and straightened her blouse before picking up her supplies. "See you back at
camp." Kagome said with a wave. Sango waved back before diving into the river. It was less than a minutes
walk back to camp and Kagome soon found herself sitting next to the still going fire, alone. Kagome tossed a
lone twig into the fire. 'I guess Inuyasha and the others haven't come back from hunting yet'. she thought.
Kagome stretched out her arms, enjoying the sensation it caused, and leaned back on the ground. Her head caught
on the edge of something and she turned to see what it was. At first she thought it was her own bag, but it was
too new looking. It was Inuyasha's bag. All by itself, it seemed to call to her. 'Open me!' it commanded to her
silently. Kagome hesitated for a moment, glancing around to see if anyone was around as she contemplated the
bag.
'I guess it wouldn't hurt just to take a peak. He opens my bag all the time." Kagome finally decided, her face flushing slightly in memory of some of the thing Inuyasha had pulled out and questioned her about. Her mind made up, Kagome turned onto her stomach and reached for the bag. It was surprisingly light and much smaller than when it had all of the wood inside of it, but there was still clearly more things inside. Opening the largest compartment, Kagome peered inside. Unfortunately, firelight wasn't the best for seeing details and, not wanting to risk setting the thing on fire, all could she see was a gaping black maw with a few twigs and leaves clinging for life lest they be sucked in. More curious than ever, Kagome cautiously reached in to the bag and let her hand slide around the inside. Nothing but debris and the occasional stick from what she could feel. 'Well I guess not even Inuyasha would stuff something important in with sticks and leaves.' Kagome thought, zipping up the bag and opening one of the side compartments that bulged slightly.
Once again she felt around. Her hand ran over something almost at once. Kagome felt it over, trying to decide what it was before pulling it out. It had a stringy feel to it and seemed to be made of numerous ridges. 'Please tell me Inuyasha doesn't have petrified Ramen in her.' Kagome thought with a small smile as she pulled the object out of the bag. It turned out to be a large amount of extremely fine, extremely durable red thread wrapped around the middle with what appeared to be some kind of rope, possibly made of deer skin (not something Kagome really wished to consider closely). Kagome fingered the thread, both wondering where Inuyasha had gotten in it and realizing the trick behind the mystery of Inuyasha's regenerating kimono. Kagome glanced down back into the bag and patted around for a few seconds inside with her free hand but was unable to find a needle of any sort. 'Well.' the miko mused, gently putting the thread back in its place and zipping up the flap. 'I guess with claws like his he wouldn't need a needle.'
Kagome took another look around, but still saw no signs of life. She considered stopping while she was ahead, but curiosity led drove her forward. Noticing another small pouch with a slight bulge, Kagome chose this as her next thing to open. As soon as she opened the pouch fully a small object rolled out and onto the ground. Kagome scrambled to pick it up lest it disappear from her sight. Her hands closed around something spherical yet rough in many areas. She brought it closer to the fire light to get a better look at what she held. It turned out to be a ball of some kind. Kagome turned it over in her hands, tracing the various nicks and abrasions. She couldn't be sure in the dim light, but it appeared to be covered in claw marks with a few teeth marks as well. 'A toy of his as a child?' Kagome wondered. She couldn't see Inuyasha chewing on a ball, no matter how doglike he sometimes appeared. Though there was that one time with the stick...
After another few seconds of looking at the ball, she placed it back in its compartment and sealed it. With a quick inspection, Kagome noted that the rest of the smaller compartments appeared to be empty. That left just the smaller of the two large compartments to finish her exploration. She reached for the zipper and gave it a tug, but to no avail. Suddenly, a cracking twig sounded from behind her. The frightened girl nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around. She was met face to face with a small squirrel. The furry creature gave her a quick look as she breathed a sigh of relief before hopping off into the woods again. Alone again, and once her heart had finished its run once around the field, Kagome gripped the zipper hard with one hand and the bag itself with the other and gave it a tug. It opened with a loud zipping sound all at once. With a triumphant smile, Kagome opened the bag all of the way.
This compartment was nearly filled to the brim with what appeared to be bits and pieces of cloth. After shifting through it for a moment and finding a particularly large scrap, Kagome realized they were scraps of her many lost school uniforms. Intrigued, Kagome removed the pieces by the handful and set them on her lap. At the bottom she found the largest piece and held it up before her. It was a nearly complete version of a school uniform, expertly sewn back together. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the thread was red and there was a large gash in the side where cloth still needed to be added, she wouldn't have been able to tell it had ever been damaged. The answer to why Inuyasha was making her a school uniform eluded her, perhaps as a gift of some sort? Or maybe Inuyasha had a fetish for the school girl look. An image of Inuyasha posing in her uniform briefly came to mind and caused her to burst out laughing so hard that she would have missed the small, flat object that had fallen out of the bag while she was removing the shredded clothing if her hand hadn't accidentally brushed against it. "Eh? What's this?" Kagome said to no one in particular as she gently picked up the piece of paper.
It was a photo, something she had given Inuyasha a long time ago. In fact, she had never seen him with it and had all but forgotten she had ever given it to him. The photo itself showed a lot of wear and tear, sporting numerous folding marks and a tear in the right corner. In the picture was of the two of them, one of the few Kagome had taken. She had a bright smile on her face and her left hand in a peace sign. On her right, Inuyasha stood next to her with a apathetic scowl on his face. Kagome smiled at the picture and traced the outline of the two of them with a finger. In the far distance, Kagome heard a soft indication of the party's return as the sound echoed off of the nearby cliffs. She jerked her head towards the noise, nearly crushing the picture in her hand. Inuyasha's violence paid off for once, for it turned out to be the sound of a wailing as they drew closer. Kagome began stuffing the cloth and the picture back into compartment in a panic. Once she had managed to get everything into bag, she grabbed the zipper and pulled.
Just her luck, it was snagged on a piece of cloth. The voices were nearly on her now and she could her the tell
tale sound of footsteps coming from the forest. The nearly caught miko yanked the zipper with all her might and
managed to free it. Quickly, she zipped the bag more carefully and set it back to where it had been originally
before she grabbed her supplies and darted to the other side of the fire. Thirty seconds later, Miroku, Kirara,
a bruised Shippo, and Inuyasha carrying a large deer draped around his shoulders emerged from the shrubs and
trees. In her panic, it was very understandable why Kagome forgot to say the magic word to revenge Shippo, much
to the kitsune's disappointment. Inuyasha was immediately suspicious of the sweating girl. "Did you just get back
from bathing?" he asked warily, tossing the dead deer unto the ground next to the fire (and conveniently onto a
certain little boy, whose protests were muffled from then on). "Er.. Yes, yes I did." Kagome replied moving to
put her things away only to catch herself reaching for Inuyasha's bag. She quickly corrected her error but it
didn't go unnoticed.
"You're hair is dry." said Inuyasha as he bent down to skin the deer. "I used a towel." Kagome said defensively,
stuffing her things roughly into her bag. Miroku watched on in silence, an amused smile on his face. 'What will
they think of next to argue about?' he wondered. 'Well, they won't be needed me any time soon so...' Miroku
began tiptoeing around the two in the direction of Sango, only to be knocked unconscious by a well placed rock.
Kagome lay awake later that night, her arms behind her head in thought and a sleeping kitsune on her stomach. There had been little more to their argument. Sango had thankfully not returned for another twenty or so minutes, making it impossible for Inuyasha to discover just when she had left, despite his most irritating questioning, which earned him a good sit for not being trusting. Kagome would make up the irony to him some time tomorrow.
She was having a bit of trouble sleeping as her mind continued to wander back to the contents of the bag. The
ball, the dress, the picture.. Kagome's heart fluttered ever so slightly every time she thought of the things
relating to her in the bag. 'I suppose it could mean anything.' Kagome thought, trying not to get her hopes up.
'He could simply be keeping the picture because it is such a marvel in his time and the dress...' Kagome thought
for a moment on this. 'I guess he really could be a cross dresser.' she thought, unable to resist a small giggle
from escaping her mouth. "Oi, shut up, I'm trying to sleep." grumbled Inuyasha, in his nearby (but not too
nearby) tree. The smile was quickly turned into a frown as Kagome turned her head in the direction directly away
from Inuyasha. "Sit." she mumbled.
The comforting sound of a crash and the faint rumble of the ground soon followed and Kagome felt sleep finally beginning to overtake her. Except that the rumbling and crashing sound continued far to long to simple be the result of a magical necklace. Kagome opened her eyes and sat up, spilling Shippo off of her. The others were also doing likewise and were in varying states of alertness. "What in the world?" asked Sango as the sound and shaking rose to an extreme level. Inuyasha's ears twitched once, then twice. "Stampede he murmured. All the others looked at him in confusion. "You heard me!" Shouted the hanyou, pulling himself up from the ground in one sharp movement. "Get into the trees! NOW!" The others complied not a moment to soon, Kagome having just enough time to grab her own bag before being whisked away into the trees.
A huge number of animals, large and small, common and mythical, burst through the trees into the clearing
making all the noise one would expect from a stampede of frightened animals. It soon became apparent just what
they were running from. A large youkai burst into to the clearing after them, grabbing several animals in its
jaws and swallowing them whole. It had but one eye and two pointed ears coming out of the back of its head that
appeared to be quite solid and could make very useful stabbing implements. Its maw was huge and filled with rows
of deadly teeth. Strangely, it had no arms but simply two long legs and a muscular tail. Its whole body was
covered in reddish orange spikes. It didn't take the monster long to notice the group of travelers in the trees,
even less time to see the fragmented Shikon no Tama around Kagome's neck. "Oh no you don't!" shouted Inuyasha
leaping from the tree that he and Kagome occupied, bearing his claws at the beast when it began to approach.
With one swing of its tail, Inuyasha flew to the ground a good ten feet away, leaving a sizable skid mark.
Inuyasha reached about him for something to throw, his hand landing on his much treasured bag. "Hey ugly!"
the hanyou called as he gripped the bag with a bit of remorse. The youkai turned its head curiously. "Catch"
With no more ado Inuyasha flung the bag at the youkai. Reflexively, the beast snapped its mouth around as
much of the bag as it could and shook furiously. Yellow fabric and other pieces flew everywhere before the
youkai spit it out onto the ground, finding it too full of fiber for its likely. That moment was all Inuyasha
needed to leap into the air, Tetsusaiga in hand. With one slice he brought the sword through the monsters
skull straight down to its chest. It fell dead with a thud. Complete silence followed as the forest began to
recuperate and as the sounds of fleeing animals vanished.
Kagome and the others began to let themselves down from the trees and attend to their things on the ground
that had been trampled. Fortunately, nothing had been damaged to severely. Except for one casualty... Inuyasha
bent over his bag for a moment before standing up with it in hand and turning to Kagome. It was empty and
Kagome had no idea where all the items had gone so quickly. Then again, Inuyasha could probably fit an elephant
underneath his kimono and no one would notice. The said hanyou looked rather sad, his ears drooped low. "Kagome,
I think your bag is broken. I'm sorry." he said. Kagome smiled at him as she walked closer and pinched one of
his ears affectionately, remember just what he had kept in his deceased bag. "That's all right Inuyasha, you
can use mine anytime you want."
The End!