He sat with his back leaning against a pole on the wooden floor of the monk's room, his legs splayed out in front of him in a most relaxed position. Breathing in deeply the smoke of the incense burning in various places around the room to relax himself even further, his eyes flickered over to where the old monk was kneeling down making some sort of paste in a bowl and he gingerly removed the top portion of his black outfit, leaving him bare chested and slightly self-conscious.
'This is a temple. Not a whore house,' he firmly reminded himself, not that he had ever been in a whore house.
Ignoring the faint line of red he felt painting his face, he neatly folded the strong material and set it down on the floor next to his weapons. He kept them within reaching distance, just in case he would have need of them. Even if this place mirrored peace, one could never be too certain.
The shuffling of the old monk caused him to raise his eyes and watch as the man settled down at his side, a flick of the wrinkled wrist indicating for him to raise his arm straight up, fingertips pointing to the ceiling. He complied and the old man made a soft distressed sound at what he saw.
"Have your work cut out for you, I'd say," the young man said, amused at the elder's reaction.
"Ach, I will need more cream for this mess you call a body. Have you been letting cats use you as a scratching post since I last saw you, Tandokuno Kishu?" replied the monk as his rheumy eyes traced up and down the scarred body before him.
"Have I gained more?" the boy asked curiously, twisting his body so he could see around his upraised arm and to the marred flesh of his torso.
The old monk shook his head at him and pushed him back to his former position. "Lie still for a bit, horseman, lest you move and make me paint your clothes white."
The young man did as he said with a small smirk of enjoyment at the monk's expense, sitting so still he resembled a statue.
The old monk got to work right away, using his dry hands and a brush to apply the cream to the scars running jaggedly over the skin of the youth before him.
To the elderly monk, it didn't seem right for one so young to have so many scars and not mind them. Tandokuno Kishu rarely noticed them and always acted surprised when the old monk mentioned it, as if he had no idea where the mark had come from, as if they had just magically appeared there. And some of them may have.
"Where do you plan to go after this, Tandokuno Kishu? It is very rare for you to stop by here and stay for so long," he asked the silent man he was tending to, not wishing to sit here without some sort of noise.
The young man glanced at the elder out of the corner of his eye before returning to stare at the far wall, his lips pressing into a thin line which made the monk wonder if he had pried too much into the horseman's business with that question.
"To the village with the miko's," he answered monotonously.
"The miko's village? You are referring to Kaede-sama's village?"
"The very same one."
"You are planning on fulfilling the wishes from that letter then?"
The young man nodded, his bangs bouncing with the movement. "I made a promise, Saishi. I plan to keep it, even if it's the last thing I wish to do."
The monk made a low humming sound in his throat, a sound that meant he understood.
While the horseman had not told him too much about his past, he understood the look in the man's eye. It was empty, devoid, as if he had already consigned himself to spend an eternity in hell before and after death. It was likely some horrible sin the man had committed and now the compunction was getting to him, causing him to lose his own self in the process. He was intent on inflicting as much emotional pain on himself as he could to ease the torturous agony existing in the caverns of his soul and heart.
Justice rightfully served most people would say but Saishi's instincts told him differently. His innate clairvoyance to see into what made people who they were was forewarning him that this horseman was a lost brittle soul, one that was already halfway broken if not totally broken yet. It could take years of counseling and prayer to return the man back to who he truly was, the man he would have grown up to be had not the calamity befallen him, causing a deep streak of self-hatred to be buried in his heart.
Saishi could remember a few months back when he had first met Tandokuno Kishu.
The horseman dressed in the extinct taijiya uniform had confronted the weasel youkai alone, facing it with no help or aide from the villagers or anyone. The horseman had managed to kill the demon but the wound on his side would not permit him to ride without causing an unbearable amount of pain. The villagers had been too frightened to take him in so Saishi had unhesitatingly offered his services to the young man. He had refused so Saishi insisted instead.
Saishi wasn't about to let the young man ride off to his death, the monk's compassion preventing such a horrible act. His duty as a priest was to provide and care for any creature that required it and the young man needed a great deal of it.
The horseman had remained in the temple for a month and Saishi had grown to think of the rider as a sort of son to him. He had no children of his own, having spent his entire life in the service of Buddha, and the horseman was a daunting figure that sent most people skittering away but to the monk he was a lonely man who had nobody to mitigate the lacerations habituating his soul.
Saishi had used quiet comfort and words to assure the horseman, having him ease the tightness of his body and mind so that he could allow the convalescence to start. The monk did not know the cause behind the scars, much like the physical scars he was tending to at this instant, and had not pressed Tandokuno Kishu to reveal them to him. It was better to let the traveler emerge to the subject himself, rather than have Saishi pester him to let it out.
Finishing the treatment of the rider's body and his thoughts, Saishi patted the boy on the shoulder and stood creakingly to his aged feet, feeling the stiffness of his joints tug painfully at him.
"Leave that on for the rest of the night," he began to instruct then paused. "How long do you stay here for?"
Tandokuno Kishu was raising his arms one at a time to peer at them, sniffing at the delicate lovely scent of the herbal remedy. "Overnight."
"Ah then tomorrow morning I shall apply another coating. You will have to leave your shirt off, otherwise you will disturb the medicine."
The horseman frowned in distaste at the pale cream coating his stomach and chest, not liking the idea of walking around shirtless with paste all over him.
"Ah, Tandokuno Kishu, do not make such a face. It is no less attractive than your scars," Saishi chuckled upon viewing the man's reaction.
"Forgive me, Saishi, but I do not recall scars giving off an odor as though I have just bathed in a lady's bath chamber," was the undignified response and Saishi gave a good hearty laugh that caused his ribs to ache.
The rider was in a light mood Saishi was glad to see and he bent down to remove the items and paste. Tandokuno Kishu moved as well, rising to his feet and gathering his possessions into his arms to carry them over to the pillows set up on the floor.
As the old monk straightened his spine, his eyes flickered over the horseman's back and he was surprised to see a scar close to the base of the young man's neck.
"Ah, hold still, Tandokuno Kishu. I have missed one," he said and reached out a pasted hand to slide it over the blemished surface.
The rider had stopped, his profile facing the monk as he looked over his shoulder to see what Saishi was referring to. When the elder's hand brushed against his skin, his eyes widened and he whirled in a full circle, stepping back as he did so, his weapons dropping from his arms to clatter loudly on the wooden floor.
Saishi stood blinking at the man, confusion clouding his face.
Tandokuno Kishu was breathing hard, his face suddenly gone pale. His hand stretched anxiously backwards to rub at the scarred area, sweeping away the small amount of paste that had been placed there.
Letting out a sigh of relief that only furthered the confusion of the monk, he said in a haggard voice, "My apologizes, Saishi, but I must ask that you leave that scar."
Saishi raised a bushy eyebrow, then his lips pursed in understanding. "Ohh, I see. I will wash the area for you then, Tandokuno Kishu. If I do not, the medicine will be absorbed into your pores and the scar will fade."
The horseman said nothing and Saishi walked to the water basin on the other side of the room, dipped a small washcloth in the liquid, and brandished it dripping over to the horseman. Stepping behind the silent figure, he raised the washcloth and scrubbed at the scar. He couldn't help but inspect the area as he cleaned it, trying to decipher just what it was and what from.
The scar appeared as if an arrow head had been pierced deep into the flesh, then violently ripped out. The shape of it resembled an exploding star or sun, the center of it a bright white and the outward streaks of it darkening until they were as tan as his skin tone, melding with the color and disappearing.
Wiping the rag over the interesting scar, he asked in a quiet whisper, "May I ask what this mark is?"
A moment passed.
"A reminder," came the dark reply.
"Of what?"
"Just another person I managed to cause suffering to unintentionally."
"Ahhh..."
He would get no further explanation and he stepped away from him to return to cleaning up the items and leftovers from the remedy.
The rider passed a hand over his back when the monk moved out from behind him, feeling the wetness there. Relieved that the scar would remain, he recovered his dropped items, and placed them softly down among the pillows.
Glancing over his shoulder to make sure the monk was occupied, he pushed open the paper doors that led to the deck and closed them hastily behind him, wishing to be alone for a bit. The monk would easily be able to see his shape through the paper but would know the rider's intent and not disturb him.
It was getting close to late afternoon and the sun was an orange and yellow disk sinking inevitably downwards to meet the ominous dark tree line. It was warm and he was glad to feel the sun on his skin from having been inside for so long.
He had not meant to react that way when Saishi had touched that scar, but the franticness that had purged his mind had caused him to act fast and without reason. He was just glad he had not hurt the man. If he had, that would be yet another sin he would have to pay for.
Shaking his head to clear the dismal thoughts, he raised his gaze back to the sun, and leaned his forearms on the railing.
This was the place he had received the letter a few months back, the letter that had caused him to make his promise.
A messenger had been sent from the miko's village, a young man who wanted to head off on adventures of his own. They had given him the perfect adventure by making him a carrier-boy, having him track down the black taijiya and deliver the letter to him.
The boy had found him by a stroke of luck, for the lone rider did not reside in any place for very long. The youth had tracked him down to here after meeting with the village the black rider had saved, the residents there informing him of the wounded horseman that had been taken in by a monk. The boy located the temple easily enough and had shakily handed the letter to the tall bandaged man known as Tandokuno Kishu, though the youth did know his true name, the one bestowed on the taijiya from birth.
The horseman had read the letter then taken some time to think on his decision before handing the letter back to the boy, instructing him to return to the village posthaste and deliver it back to the original sender.
Now, months later, he would have to fulfill his promise.
He had to be honest with himself and admit that the letter had brought both joy and bitterness to his heart.
Joy because he knew it made her happy, knew it was something she had always secretly wanted. He was glad to know she was living out her dream, and that she was safe, loved, and protected.
But bitterness corrupted the joy, bitterness at the fact that their way of life was forever destroyed and the entire reason for him returning to her was never going to know or appreciate the life they had once lead. It would never know about the taijiya, never know about the pitiless end they had faced at the hands of Naraku, the tragic end they had faced due to the black rider's own hands as well.
He was as much at fault as Naraku was and it would grow to hate and loathe him along with the hanyou once it found out the truth.
Even the next generation of false taijiya would shun him as did everyone else.
Sighing with grief from his heavy heart, he covered the scar on his back with his hand, feeling it under his finger tips and remembering the quiet cruelty of fate as it had ripped away his decision: the decision to remain alive or sink blissfully into the numbing darkness of death.
He remembered a face from that time, a face so innocent and compassionate, a face that could do no evil. It was that face that had brought him back to this world and turned him into the shattered and disconsolate man he was, dumping him into this life of never ending pain and misery.
That face, like his scar, would never fade.
Rin stepped into the doorway of the classroom near the back of the temple, the part of the structure where they had been adding onto it. The rooms here were bigger and more spacious, allowing enough room for several dozen people.
The room she had just entered was completely open to the outside, appearing as if some big monster had come and removed the opposite wall and left half of the remaining room. Kaede had decided to design the classroom like this so the children would have light to work with. Using candles and firewood would have been too much trouble and during the hot humid days of summer it allowed a breeze to blow in. There was another room already set up for the winter, an inclosed room where they would have to use other methods of light besides the sun but it was worth it.
Shouldering her small pack, Rin stepped further in, her chocolate eyes searching for the young miko. Rin knew the woman was done with her classes for the day and she should be here but there was no telling, especially considering who she was married to. The guy tended to be a little too pushy for Rin's taste and that was saying a lot considering she lived with Sesshoumaru for Kami's sake!
A twitter of a bird caught Rin's attention and she looked at the trees and bushes outside the wooden interior of the open room. A smile spread over Rin's face as she saw a young woman standing out there, the woman's back facing her.
The young woman was of medium height and thin, with long black hair that fell to the middle of her back. She was dressed in strange clothes, a green kimono that had been cut to an inch above her knees and the drooping sleeves cut so it hugged her wrists. An evergreen obi belt circled her waist and she wore a pair of golden sandals on her dainty feet.
She was stretching her delicate hands upwards in an inviting gesture, encouraging a small bird that was twitching on a branch above her to land in her palm. The bird gave a few loud notes of twittering song then gently hopped into her hand, pecking at the crumbs that lay there.
The woman lowered her hands and brought them to chest height, turning slightly so Rin could see her face. Her large brown eyes watched the bird intently as a bright smile curved her mouth. Raising her free hand, she stroked the birds head with a nailed finger, a delightful look coming over her face at the soft feathers, marveling at the tiny life she held so trustingly in her hand.
The bird finished its meal and gave a series of chirps, as if asking for more food. When the food did not appear, the bird took off and the woman watched it go, the smile still on her face but growing more sad and forlorn as she watched the bird disappear.
It reminded her of something...Something that had flown out of her life years ago...
"Kagome-chan?"
She turned her head at the voice, a bit surprised that someone had been watching her, and the smile returned full force as she caught sight of her special pupil.
"Rin-chan," she said softly and embraced the young girl tightly. "Kaede-bachan told me you were here but I was busy with classes and Sango-chan was there so I was watching her as well. She often forgets that her energy is low and bustles around too much. Really you'd think a girl like her would be glad to get so pampered," she said, releasing Rin to smirk at her.
"Hai, Sango-chan becomes quite grouchy when we tell her to relax," Rin laughed, recalling what Sango had said back at her home.
Kagome grinned and took Rin's elbow, leading them inside the classroom.
There were several mats on the floor for the children, the biggest one at the front the one for the teacher. Kagome motioned for Rin to sit on the one across from her and she placed herself gracefully down, a composed air about her.
Rin couldn't help but stare at the young miko, her eyes trailing over the pretty features and sensuous dark hair. Kagome wasn't exactly beautiful but she had such a strange and exotic beauty to her that most found hard to resist. There was an enticing curve to her pouting lips, an innocence to her long dark curly lashes that framed her endless brown eyes, her high cheekbones accenting them further.
Her eyes were something all to themselves. They shined with a gentleness that few could match, kindness and understanding that many could not understand, an inner strength that spoke of many trials and adversities faced and conquered. Kagome was a woman who had seen many things, experienced many things, and yet she had maintained her affable and forgiving spirit throughout it all, even now.
Yet there was something about the young miko that troubled Rin. Over time, as the years passed, she had witnessed the steady fading innocent joyous sparkle in the woman's eyes, slowly transforming to become a faraway light that spoke of slight pain and wondering, a tiny sliver of unhappiness that it lodged itself inside her heart and grew increasingly bigger with the passage of time.
Rin wasn't sure why the woman should look that way for she knew of nothing in the mikos life that would cause such a sorrow. She knew the woman was strange, especially considering those funny clothes and 'textbooks' she had, but Rin wasn't aware of anything truly unhappy dwelling in Kagome's life. The woman had managed to slay Naraku and reconstruct the Shikon no Tama, then purifying it so no one else would suffer from the greed the jewel created. She had married the love of her life and lived in a peaceful village with all her friends, safe and free from all their curses and enemies. She had raised Shippo into the bright courageous young man he was today so why was that melancholy gleam haunting her iris's? She should be proud of what she had done and instead she just seemed remotely depressed.
"Well, Rin-chan, you recall what we went over last time you were here, right?" Kagome said and Rin nodded, focusing her attention on the lesson.
"The so...sola-solar system," Rin struggled to get out the foreign words.
Kagome laughed and quickly raised her hand to her mouth in embarrassment. "Forgive me, Rin. I did not mean to laugh at you," she said sincerely, unable to stop the giggles from gurgling her voice.
Rin returned the giggle, not insulted in the least. "It is alright, Kagome-chan! I am just glad that I could humor you for a bit."
"Oh you do that quite well," Kagome chuckled, lowering her hand and becoming businesslike.
She reached to a stack of books beside her and pulled out a heavy volume, one that read across the backbone Astronomy in big bold orange letters. She handled the old book carefully and Rin could easily see the sign of age cracking at the book's cover and pages. The glue that held it together was coming apart and the pristine pages had not faired well against the elements.
Kagome had tried hard to preserve the textbooks, some of the last few remaining things that allowed her to remember her past and the original time she was from. But sadly the books were deteriorating with time, use, and conditions. Fuedel Japan wasn't the best place to try and conserve books. It was like trying to keep a book in perfect condition while leaving it outside all the time...
Bringing the book to lay in her lap, she flipped it open, spreading the cover so each side rested on one knee. Across from her, Rin was digging in her bag and pulled out the brush, paper, and ink bottle, setting them in a neat little row in front of her.
One of the papers she took out held a sketch of the solar system, out lining the nine planets Kagome had taught her last time she was there. They had had a most lively debate afterwards, arguing whether the earth was flat or not and if the sun were the center of the universe or the earth. Both women had been quite frustrated at the end, though they looked back on it now with humor.
"You remember what the nine planets are called?" Kagome asked her young pupil sitting docilely in front of her.
"Oh yes! Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto," Rin answered.
"You cheated. You looked on the paper."
"I did not!"
Kagome raised a suspicious eyebrow in the direction of the young woman and Rin glared right back at her.
"Ok which one is the smallest then?" the miko challenged.
"Pluto of course," Rin scoffed.
"The largest?"
"Neptune."
"Nope. It's Jupiter."
"Hmph."
Kagome grinned at her. "How many moons does Jupiter have?"
"Too many."
"Sixteen, same as your age."
"That was my second choice."
"Now Rin, don't you start acting like Shippo."
Rin blushed at the kitsune's name, unable to block the thought of intense emerald eyes gazing into her own, and Kagome gave her a strange questioning look upon noticing the blush.
"Sorry, Kagome-chan! I will be silent," the blushing girl said hurriedly and stuck her hands over her mouth to show she wouldn't mutter a word. It was also a good way to hide the reddening of her cheeks from her teacher, who just happened to be the adopted mother of the fox youkai.
'I swear I have the worst luck,' Rin thought distractedly to herself.
Kagome obviously thought there was something amiss about her pupil's aberrant behavior, but luckily let it slide without question, simply saying, "Hrmm, o...k."
Rin made no move to react at the words and didn't remove her hands from covering her mouth, only sat there staring at Kagome with eyes wide in her face. Kagome blinked at her a moment then hesitantly returned to the lesson, reading out of the textbook while glancing once in a while at the ward of the Western Lands.
Rin listened attentively at first but as Kagome droned on, and her embarrassment faded, she found her mind wandering and stared at the much more interesting outside.
Really she found the textbooks duller to listen to then Miroku when he couldn't find things. She didn't understand why Kagome kept such a tight hold on them and thought so highly of them. They were too damn boring.
Minutes ticked crawling by, when a question suddenly popped into Rin's head when her eyes happened across the sky. Turning back to the young miko, who had not stopped in her narrative and for some odd reason was now talking about a guy called Supernova (a very stupid name Rin thought), Rin interrupted to ask the dire question that just had to be answered.
"Kagome-chan, where do stars come from?"
Kagome stopped mid-sentence to look at her, caught off guard by the abrupt question. It took her a moment to regain her off tracked mind, and she drummed her fingers on the book's hard casing as she thought, trying to remember back to her old astronomy class when they had discussed this.
"Well...I think how it goes is the space between stars is filled with dusty gas. Those clouds can be compressed through collisions or by blast waves from exploding high-mass stars. Lumps of matter form within the clouds and sometimes they can condense into one or more stars..." She trailed off as she remembered the last part and knew the girl sitting across from her wouldn't understand a word of it. Thinking hard, she devised a simpler way which might make it easier to understand.
"And like when a gun goes off and the nozzle becomes hot, those clouds of matter do much the same thing. They become hot and ignite, much like a wood does when held by fire," she finished.
"Why do they twinkle then?"
Well the girl was certainly exercising Kagome's knowledge of the night sky. She turned her head to look up at the heavenly mass of baby blue and white, her body twisting to match the same posture as Rin's, and tried to imagine the stars to better help her remember the knowledge she had gained about seven years ago.
"The fact is, Rin-chan, that stars actually shine constantly," Kagome explained, digging into the cobwebbed caverns of her memory to retrieve this shred of information. "The movement of the air high, high, high above us causes the starlight to get slightly bent as it travels from the star to us. This means that some of the light reaches us directly and some gets slightly bent away. To our eye, this makes the star seem to twinkle."
Rin watched her intently as she gave her explanation then returned her eyes to the sky when she received her answer, searching in vain for the bent light of the stars.
They sat in silence for a few moments, both continuing to gaze upwards at the blissful picture of cloud, sun, and air shifting through the atmosphere.
The silence was sharply shattered when Kagome breathed a deep sigh out of no where, causing Rin to turn to her in solicitude, contemplating as to where that sigh had come from and the reasons behind it.
Her question was answered soon enough when Kagome softly said, "You know, back where I come from, it was close to impossible to see the stars. The city lights were too bright and they flooded out the light of the stars. There was so much light they blocked out the stars, made it so you couldn't see them. All the artificial powerful light I've told you about, the light that could turn night into day?...When I first came here I was so intrigued by the stars. It was the first time I had seen so many of them and they were so bright..."
Her voice became even quieter, making Rin uneasy. The miko's eyes were clouded with sadness and memory as she peered up at the sky, remembering something from long ago.
"Not even at the shrine could we see the stars so good," she murmured quietly, barely above a whisper, as if she were talking to herself. "Grandfather would sometimes have us turn out all the lights and sit on the step so we could see them a bit better but it was no use. All the lights from the city and downtown would drown them. He always tried though, every year or so. He wanted us to see them like he had been able to when he was young...And I suppose I fulfilled his wish. Now every night I can look up and see every star, even the faintest ones...I guess that's to you, Grandpa. He too has become a star."
She fell deathly silent and Rin stared at her, dumbfounded and confused. The young miko didn't move a muscle and remained watching the sky, still lost in whatever memory she had just mentioned.
It was a fact that Rin didn't know much about the young woman's past, only that she came from a different time era, a future one. She had no clue about the woman's family or what she had been back then in society, if she had been a miko or servant or what. She just knew she was Kagome the miko who had destroyed Naraku and the Shikon jewel, became the adopted mother of Shippo and the mate of the hanyou. She was a healer of both body, mind, and soul; a priestess who cared more for others than herself. She was a sister to Sango, a friend to Miroku, an apprentice to Kaede, and a teacher to Rin.
Was that all just a facade put on to hide the aching and damaged girl within? The true person that existed behind the mask?
It was truly a disturbing idea for Rin and she opened her mouth to say something when heavy footfalls in the hall caused the question to die on her lips. She arched a raven eyebrow in inquiry and Kagome tore her gaze away from the sky, bringing it to the door.
A figure dressed in red stepped into the doorway, his golden eyes narrowed in speculation and his mouth twisted into a tight frown. A large unsheathed sword leaned on his shoulder, resembling a fang.
"Oi! Why does it smell like my bastard brother around here?" he demanded sharply. He caught sight of Rin an instant later, the frown falling from his face to be replaced by a look of discontent and distaste. "Oh it's you. What are you doing here?"
"She's here to see me, Inuyasha," Kagome answered, a tone of exasperation in her voice as she rolled her eyes. "And try to be a more polite, would you."
"Keh!" was the usual response and the hanyou stepped further into the room to see just what exactly they had been doing.
Rin acknowledged him with a small smile, not daring to say anything to the man. He was generally grouchy and Rin had learned from past encounters that he was not fond of his demon brother much at all. He tolerated Rin and didn't give much thought to her, largely ignoring her. The best thing to do in his presence was to shut up and sit quietly, otherwise he may just go off on a rant about some nonsense.
Rin was amazed still to this day that a sweet person like Kagome had fallen for and married such a cantankerous male. It was hard to believe the woman could stomach his verbal insults and snobby criticism.
But over the years the hanyou had begun to lose some of his acrimony, becoming more accepting and warmer towards people, losing some of his harshness. Slowly but surely, the hanyou was changing.
Inuyasha lowered his sword from his shoulder to his side as he moved across the floor, holding the hilt loosely in his grip. Kagome caught sight of the weapon and glared severely up at him.
"Inuyasha! How many times have I told you not to draw Tetsusaiga in here! You could break something," she reprimanded, her glare turning fiery.
"Relax, woman," he retorted. "It's perfectly safe in here. I'll show you."
He began to demonstrate by waving his sword around. Kagome opened her mouth to loudly protest when the point of the large blade caught under a small table nearby, sending it crashing onto the floor. There followed a splintering of breaking glass and a puddle of black bled out onto the wooden floorboards.
Kagome shot to her feet, anger dancing in her brown orbs as Inuyasha hastily sheathed the sword. His dog ears flattened to his skull as he gave her a sheepish look, trying to chuckle it off.
"Inuyasha!" she shrieked and he clamped his hands over his ears at the ear splitting noise. "Just look what you did! Now all my ink is destroyed and my floor is stained! What did I tell you about waving that sword around in here! The damn thing isn't a toy!" she ranted angrily.
"Keh!" he snapped, lowering his hands and meeting her glare with one of his own. "It's your fault for putting the table there."
"What"
Rin grimaced as their argument began, wondering if she should leave or wait it out. Their arguments commonly ended quickly, after Kagome said the 's' word, but Rin hated sitting through it.
Her plight was luckily solved by a lithe figure landing from the roof of the temple to the ground below, landing in a crouch to absorb the impact then rising to his full height. He grinned roguishly and strode over to her, offering her a clawed hand.
"No reason staying here listening to them argue," he murmured quietly.
She grinned as well and slipped her hand into his, allowing him to pull her up. He kneeled down and she clambered onto his back, his arms slipping through her legs so she was piggy back riding.
The young woman became pleasantly aware of the muscular muscles of his back against her chest and the urge to feel them without the hindrance of the shirt made that vexatious blush rise to her cheeks. She swallowed and distracted her mind with the arguing couple, trying desperately to rid herself of the color before the kitsune took notice of it.
"I'm stealing your pupil, Mother," Shippo called tauntingly to the miko, causing her to turn her head and see them. "I'll return her in a few hours!"
"Shippo! Don't you go jumping around with her on your back! It's dangerous!" Kagome asserted wildly.
"He's fine, woman. Besides, I'm your opponent," was the frolicsome intruding comment of Inuyasha and he swept her into an embrace, turning his back to Shippo so she couldn't see them. He winked at the young youkai over his shoulder, holding Kagome firmly against his chest despite her protesting and snapping.
Shippo laughed and winked back before leaping to the roof, pausing there to make sure his precious cargo was securely situated. Certain that she was fine, he bounded away, mimicking the style of the hanyou that had been taught to him when he had become big enough and strong enough to learn.
Rin made a small mewl of fear as the wind rushed by them and he felt her arms tighten around his neck, fortunately not choking him. Unable to suppress a grin, he squeezed her leg with a hand to reassure her.
"Don't be so afraid, Rin! This is fun!" he shouted back to her as he leapt from one tree branch to the next.
"I do not find free falling fun, Shippo!" she responded and he let out a guffaw.
He landed smoothly on the ground near the village and she slid off of him, leaning against his frame as she wavered. The adrenaline singing through her body had made her a little light headed and she blinked to clear her vision.
She looked into the visage of the kitsune, finding him smirking at her. He snatched her hand without warning and began dragging her towards the vegetable gardens .
"Come on, Rin. You can help me with the last of the harvest since you got nothing else to do and you got a while here. Plus, you promised you'd see me before you left," he said, beaming at her with that contagious grin plastered on his face.
Rin allowed herself to be dragged along, reminding herself to get a cure for this insane obnoxious blushing.
Kami, but this was going to be hard.
Welp I finally managed to make a chapter about six pages shorter then my last two. For some odd reason I find Inuyasha and Kagome the hardest to write, which is partly why it took me an extra day to get out this chapter, even if it is shorter.
