Chapter Four:

When Miko Meets Pervert

"So let me get this straight;" Sasuke growled at his aunt. "You let my cousin to jump down a well, to go five-hundred years in the past to fight with demons, when she didn't know how to even defend herself?" Even though Kagome was clearly older than him, he already was feeling protective of her, as well as the rest of his newly found family.

"It was her destiny, karma as it were. She was chosen for this, and all I can really do is help, and support her." His Tsukiko sighed tiredly.

"But she's running around in the past, after a stupid jewel!" He barked. If only Kiba had been there, he might have been impressed.

"There is more to it than that. She has never really given me all the details of what goes on. And I think it's to protect me. Besides, she's been getting training on how to fight. Though I did think she was mainly cover fire with her arrows, until today." There was a lengthy pause. "However your Uncle knew she would need help from this point on, so that's why he arranged for you all to be sent before he died." Sasuke just growled in response and stalked off to Kagome's room to check on her.

"Well, I think I'm going to get cleaned up now;" Kakashi muttered when Sakura re-entered the living room. He paused on his way. "Iruka, make sure the kids are ready to train by the time I get out. I think we're all going to need it." He then continued to get cleaned up.

"We have a huge forest surrounding, and behind the shrine, which should give you plenty of training space." Souta mentioned as he carefully took a sheet and slowly dragged the naginata into a nearby closet.

"Uh, Souta-san?" Iruka looked at him oddly. "Why don't you just pick it up normally?"

"It will only allow Kagome to touch it;" Souta paused as he slid the closet shut. "Anyone else who tries will get hurt, by the naginata itself." He then went and got cleaning supplies. He figured it wouldn't be a good idea to have blood laying about when people visited the shrine.

"Hey wait up, I'll help you." Naruto offered, running after Souta in an unusual display of helpfulness.

"What a drag;" Shikamaru lazily commented, while grabbing his pack of cigarettes and sauntered out to the back yard.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable at everyone splitting up, Sakura decided to help Souta and Naruto clean. This left only Tsukiko and Iruka in the living room. She decided to clean the kitchen, so Iruka went to check in on Sasuke. He found Sasuke sitting on the floor next to Kagome's bed, and looking like he was in the middle of a rather intense brooding session.

"Kakashi plans on all of us training once he gets out of the shower." He spoke quietly.

"Good." Sasuke growled. He was still a rather grumpy teen.

"She'll be alright; we were here in time to help."

"I know, but, what if we hadn't been? I would never have the chance to get to know her." He mumbled.

"But we were, and you will." Iruka looked like he was about to say something more when Kakashi walked by, and noticed them in the room.

"Let's get the others and start training;" Kakashi ordered. They followed him outside where they saw Souta, Naruto, and Sakura scrubbing the blood off the stone ground. Kakashi was about to order them to go to training, but decided Souta needed help before anyone got curious. He shared a look with Sasuke and Iruka, and they set about helping, which got things cleaned up fairly quickly.

"Thanks for the help, guys." Souta smiled at the group. "Just go past the well house, and you can train in the middle of the woods. Just try not to do too much, if any damage." Kakashi nodded in response, found Shikamaru, and drug the others out to practice.

Usually Kakashi read his perverted books during training sessions. But this time he was just too agitated to do so. The girl, no woman, as she was clearly in her early to mid-twenties, that they were to help; arrived severely injured. He had seen people bloodied before, but she looked as if she had been in a bloodbath. He actually was worried over what they would be dealing with. And then to top it all off, Iruka had obviously not been training as much as he should have been. The guy was clearly rusty in his skills, so he planned to beat said rust out. And people thought Iruka had a temper.

The next morning, Tsukiko decided they all needed to get what she deemed as regular clothing. It was obvious that they wouldn't be hopping through time until Kagome was healed, and she wanted them to be able to blend in more if they left the shrine grounds. Her only problem was Souta had school, and Grandpa had appointments to attend too. She really didn't want to leave Kagome alone. And then Kakashi had volunteered to stay.

"Are you certain you're alright with this?" Tsukiko asked, as she took his measurements down. She would buy him a couple of outfits herself. Anything else could wait till he ventured out.

"Quite; I can't keep my eye uncovered for too long anyhow, and I'll enjoy the silence I wouldn't be getting otherwise."

"Alright then, if you're hungry feel free to help yourself." And she then promptly dragged the rest to the bus stop.

Kakashi had a gut instinct to actually watch over Kagome in her room. She was rather lovely, now that he could see her when she wasn't drenched in blood. However unlike all of the kunoichi he was used to dealing with, she looked too fragile to go through what her mother had mentioned. But it was too strange not to have happened. That and the blood did point to her coming out of the well. But still, looking at her made him want to hurt whoever had allowed someone so delicate looking to get beaten so badly.

He settled down on the floor next to her bed, and pulled out his favorite, orange colored book. He hadn't had the chance, or the inclination to read it since they arrived, after all. He had the inkling feeling that Tsukiko-san might be a bit miffed if she saw the books. What he didn't count on was his snickering and chuckling to have awoken a certain time traveling miko.

To say she was in pain would be an understatement. The person she had previously considered to be one of her best friends tried to kill her; and directly after a rather vicious battle, at that. While the majority of the time she was out, as far as she could tell it was dreamless, the closer she came to awakening, the more she relived what happened. And that's not even including the physical pain and discomfort she was having. But what finally woke her up was the distinct sound of a chuckle.

When she finally opened her eyes, she slowly turned her head, and almost jumped when she saw a head of silver hair. The only thing that kept her from doing or saying anything was the fact that while it stuck up in a rather odd manner, it was too short, he had something tied around the forehead area to the back, and a darker shade than Sesshoumaru, or the traitor has. No, this was someone she didn't know. Though, she did vaguely remember people being in the house when she returned; so perhaps Mama knew him. Looking at the hair, her hand twitched a little and she briefly contemplated running her hands through it. One of these days her obsession with silver hair was going to get her in trouble, but she was able to resist the urge. And he was still snickering and chuckling. He was leaning up against her bed, so she couldn't see his face. But what she could see was the book. Focusing in on it, she decided to read a few of its lines to see what the fuss was all about, and her eyes widened.

"You pervert;" she all but shouted. "What the hell are you doing in my room reading porn?" She was not a happy miko, but she did get the amusement of seeing him jump from being startled. He obviously hadn't expected her to wake up. When he turned around, she noted that he was rather good looking, however being friends with rather beautiful youkai helped make her rather immune to pretty faces. It was a good sort of immunity, in her opinion. Though, she did raise an eyebrow at the strange headband covering one eye.

"Oh! Eh heh, I see that you're awake;" He sheepishly chuckled while quickly stuffing the book in a pocket.

"Who are you?"

"Hatake, Kakashi; at your service;" he grinned at her; he hadn't bothered with the face mask, seeing as everyone else had finally seen his face. That and while he could take of the headband and hide it quickly, the mask would still be around his neck.

"Right, well I'm Kagome." She paused for a bit and started to attempt to get into a sitting position. Kakashi decided to try to make a better second impression by carefully lifting her into one, and adjusting the pillows. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, I'm glad to see you're awake. You gave us all quite a scare yesterday."

"Uh yeah, sorry about that;" she scratched the back of her head. "I'm actually pretty surprised to be here. I thought for sure I'd wake up to find myself in a hospital." At the thought of a hospital, she shuddered.

"Well luckily we were able to help you out here. What happened to you?" He looked at her in a rather lazy manner.

"I, uh…. fell down a lot of steps;" she replied rather nervously. She was a horrid liar. And yet people were still gullible enough to believe she had been sick all those times in school. But still Kakashi's lazy look turned into a rather hard stare.

"Injuries like that do not come from falling down steps."

"Look, I really can't, and don't want to talk about it." She looked away, while picking imaginary fuzzes off her blanket.

"Hmm, well I suppose you wouldn't want people to think you're crazy, so let me start off with a bit of information;" he grinned at her again. "I and my team are shinobi that was scheduled to be sent by your father twenty-six years ago to help you with your task five-hundred years in the past."

Kagome openly stared at him in shock.