Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or anything associated with it. Including argumentative hanyous.
The Warmth of Ice
Chapter Four
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Shifting her backpack to a more comfortable position on her shoulder, she sighed and looked up to the moonlit opening far above her. Of all the things I do here, one of the most annoying is climbing up this stupid well day after day. I should really get a ladder to this side. I put one up in the modern era, but climbing up slippery vines on this side got old a long time ago. Grabbing the closest vine to her and giving it a yank to make sure that it wouldn't break with her halfway up, she began climbing up to the top of the well. Once she was up high enough so that she could see over the rim, she reached out and hooked her hand over the wood and pulled herself and her pack over the top onto wet grass.
"Kagome? Kagome! Is that you?" somebody yelled from inside the forest. Kagome sat up and scanned the forest for the voice. Was that Sango calling her name? She heard the bushes rustle to her left and out from the shrubbery burst a panting Sango. Kagome stood up and walked over to her friend.
"Are you alright, Sango? You're breathing pretty hard there." she commented.
"Uh, yeah. I was just running to find you after I saw the well flare up. I've been gathering Kaede's medicinal plants for her and dinner for the rest of us." She held up a basket stuffed full of leaves and roots that Kagome hadn't noticed before. "But where on earth have you been the past month? You said you'd only be a week this time; we've been worried sick! And since you put that enchantment on the well with Kikyou's help, Inuyasha hasn't been able to cross over to check up on you." Sango complained.
"Sorry, Sango. I didn't realize you all missed me so much," she laughed. "But you know the only reason I sealed the well against Inuyasha is that I've gotten sick and tired of having him try to bring me back here when I'm in the middle of school. And you wouldn't believe how much trouble he's caused me at one point or another when he jumps around buildings! And when he doesn't wear the baseball cap to cover his ears! And when he breaks things! Like Jii-san's precious pots! And my bicycle! Seriously! Who wouldn't get tired? It's like having a dog who follows you everywhere, never stops barking, and dropped out of obedience school! Ugh! And Kikyou only helped me do it because she decided that the less time Inuyasha spent in the modern era, the more time he could spend with her! Gah! I've had enough with those two!" she fumed.
"Uh…Kagome?" her friend asked confusedly. "What's a baseball cap?"
Kagome turned and glared at her. "It. Is. A. Hat." Ragging on about Inuyasha had gotten her all worked up, and now she was taking it out on Sango over an innocent question. She sighed. "Sorry, Sango. I'm a little mad at him right now. But I am happy you came out to meet me. Thanks. Now shall we take that basket of yummy…roots…and go back to the hut to have dinner?" she said, slightly more cheerily this time.
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When Kagome had woken up just after sunrise to Inuyasha's normal yelling about how they needed to leave immediately to follow the trail of the shards, the sun had been shining with all its might, as if attempting to force them into hot, sweaty submission just an hour after setting out on their mission. But by noon, the weather had degraded into horrible conditions, even for the hanyou leader of their little group. The rain was coming down like bullets, impairing their vision with water and mist and the road they had been traveling on was now hopelessly muddy. Miroku had already lost one of his shoes and Shippou and Kirara had taken to riding on their friends' shoulders. Inuyasha was in such a bad mood from having been slowed down on the hunt that he was stomping away about ten feet ahead of them – and fortunately, the sound of the rain was so loud that they couldn't hear the cursing they knew was emanating from his lips. He'd already split from the group twice to attempt to find suitable shelter from the storms, but both times it had been a useless side-trip that just made him more soaked and unhappy. Kagome had already remarked that he resembled a rabid wet dog, and Sango, Miroku, and Shippou had readily agreed. Even Kirara had given a waterlogged nod of assent.
Kagome paused and tried to listen through the rain pounding down around her. "Hey, Miroku, do you sense that?" she asked.
The monk paused and extended his senses, but he couldn't sense anything through the storm. "Why? Did you feel a demon nearby? Or a shard?"
In front of them, Inuyasha's ears perked up. "Kagome sensed a shard? Where? Tell me!" God, he could be so infuriating sometimes. Did he think of nothing but the Shikon? Sometimes she wondered why she loved him the way she did.
"No, I don't think it was a shard. Something else. But I can't sense it anymore, so it's probably gone now. Storm just messed my senses up with all this rai-" she was cut off as something snaked around her ankle. "Shippou, if that's your tail, please tell me now." she told the young fox, frozen in worry.
Shippou replied, "But Kagome, I'm right here. On Miroku's shoulder. I'm nowhere near you."
Kagome's eyes widened and she bent down quickly and slapped her ankle in panic, encountering something slimy. "Eeew! Yuck! What is this?!?"
Inuyasha was at her side in a flash like the devoted dog she wished he was all the time. He narrowed his eyes at her ankle, trying to make out what was wrapped around it in the mist. "Don't worry, Kagome. It's probably just a plant or something."
Kagome didn't move. "I don't think so, Inuyasha." she said, her voice quavering. She looked up at him in fear, unable to remove whatever it was. He was reassuring her once again when he disappeared from her vision. Suddenly, everything turned gray. Gray like the rain-soaked sky. Sky? Wait…Sky! "Kyaaaaaah!" the group heard her yell. She'd been harshly yanked from her position on the ground to dangle by a tentacle in the sky. All around them, the rain ceased to fall and the mist dissipated.
Inuyasha cursed. "A gods-be-damned demon! It must've been making the rain!"
The group stared up at Kagome in surprise, finally able to see a good distance now that the mist had been cleared away. She was being held up by the appendage of a huge nine-headed snake youkai. The girl stared at the creature holding her and made a feeble comment. "You know, I think people call your kind hydras. You know, the nine heads and all? Not like the Yamata-no-Orochi." she gave a weak laugh. Oh, no. Did I just insult it or did I compliment it? Her confused thought processes were interrupted when she felt her stomach drop and was flung high into the air. All thought deserting her except that she knew she was going to die if she fell, she yelled the name of her protector.
"HIDEKI!"
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Back at the hut and freshly bathed after her ordeal, she was being submitted to a series of questions from an irate hanyou.
"Well? Who is this 'Hideki', Kagome? Somebody you've been cheating on me with, no doubt?" Inuyasha said nastily, greatly discomfited by the fact that it hadn't been his name she'd yelled.
"Ah! No way! Stop getting so mad! It's just Sesshoumaru!" she replied hurriedly. But as soon as the statement had left her mouth, she knew she'd said the wrong thing to her half-demon friend. At the mention of his half-brother, both hated and envied by him, Inuyasha blew up.
"Sesshoumaru? You're seeing Sesshoumaru?!? Are you kidding me?" he burst out yelling.
"No! I'm not seeing him! Stop overreacting! He's my dad!" she raged at Inuyasha. Instantly the room was so silent that you could hear a pin drop. All her friends were staring at her, each with a different look on their face, but all amounting to the same question: What?
"Your…dad. Kagome, are you feeling all right?" asked Inuyasha, now calmer but very worried for his friend.
Kagome covered her face with her hands and sighed. "Guys, let me just explain this to you properly with out anyone interrupting, okay? I'm not crazy…I think." The friends exchanged dubious glances between them.
She began again. "You all know my real dad's dead, right?" Simultaneous nods all around. "Okay. Well, my mom isn't the happiest person around." Immediately Inuyasha began to protest. "Hey," Kagome stopped him. "You promised not to interrupt." He nodded and beckoned her to continue impatiently. "She may look happy, but inside she's still torn up from the death of my dad. So we're always trying to cheer her up. But this time when I cam home a month ago, she greeted me with a smile I hadn't even thought was possible on her face. I asked what had happened, and she told me she had a boyfriend. A fiancé, in fact. She went on and on about him, making him out to be the best guy on earth." Kagome paused in her story, taking a breath. "It turned out this amazing fiancé of hers was actually the future Sesshoumaru." Glancing at the confused faces around her, she went on with her explanation. "Apparently he's lived all the way to my time – looks the same, too, but without his markings, claws and fangs – and he's a lot nicer, too. He's been living with us the past month, and he's really great. But you can't tell the Sesshoumaru in this time, okay? He'd probably kill you." she laughed tiredly.
Kaede, who'd been sitting in the corner sorting the leaves Sango had brought her the entire time, stood up and brushed the plant bits off her legs. "I believe they've heard enough, Kagome. You all look tired from both today and this unexpected news; how about you go to sleep now and think it over next morning? Who knows, maybe you'll have nightmares about a kind Sesshoumaru-sama."
"Don't you mean dreams?" Shippou asked, looking up at her.
"No," the old miko laughed. "Nightmares, for sure."
Kagome shook her head at their antics and spread out her sleeping bag. Laying down on it, she smiled at the memory of Sesshoumaru seeing her off into the well. He's really changed, hasn't he… He's really my dad now. Letting her body relax, she slipped happily into a deep sleep.
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A/N: Please review!
I'm spacing out my paragraphs and dialogue some more in response to a complaint on mediaminer that it was too hard to read *coughkokoronagomucough*, so hopefully it's easier now. And please feel happy; I gave you an extra…uh….six hundred words more than usual. So yes. Be happy. And review! :)