A/N: Alright, I know there are some questions I haven't answered in the story yet. I've done that on purpose. Also, for those of you who were reading Intolerable Curse, look who's back in the story with a better explanation!

Enjoy the Story!

Fatal Flaw

Entendre Euphenist

Chapter Six:: Smiles

..~..

Aisa is the first to notice the travelers.

She is picking flowers on the outskirts of town. She figures that at the very least it is something to take her mind off of things and at most, it will be something to decorate the graves of the dead (who have just recently acquired this status).

At first, they are a speck on the horizon, and after she rubs her eyes tiredly, they have become a large blob. Alarmed (and just a bit curious), her immediate decision is to inform the villagers of possible trouble ahead.

"Demon! Demon afoot!" and she pauses mid-run, watching as one of the workers from the fields runs past her into town. Beating her to the chase. You just had to steal my thunder, didn't you?

She slinks into the quickly growing crowd as the man quickly tell everyone that people are approaching, from the sky no less, and fast. This all just seems to be happening too soon. It seems as if the gods have decided to barrage them with one obstacle after another. Though that doesn't faze the villagers. After all, she is the one who is supposed to save them. They really don't care how the means justifies the ends. As long as they are alive and kicking.

That's why when spiteful elbows jab painfully into her sides as they move past, she merely smiles mirthlessly. A job bestowed upon an unwilling employee does not often yeild good profit. This shows so horribly true right now. However, she did the best she could with what they gave her ( absolutely nothing), and for a while, it was good.

Now it's not.

She, and she alone has now been tasked with the grueling task of digging graves for the dead. Finds it amusing that they would trust her in spite with things they found her inadequate to protect when it counted. Much to her own chagrin, they have gone and proved to her that yes, man is stupid, and no, they weren't going to change any time sooner.

"Healer!" the village head spits out at her, pausing her mid-stride. " Go greet the guests!" He turns away before she can say anything, and disappears inside one of the faceless huts. What sounds like a no-whats-about-it-man is really just another person who begrudgingly once again, depends on a person who does not want to be depended on. Stop leaning on me, god-damnit!

A man whom she presumes to be a monk, leaps from atop the furred beast, and runs her way. "Miss, have you perchance seen any travelers pass through here recently?" An innocent enough question, but the harried look in his eye belittles that notion. He's looking specifically for someone, and she doesn't know if she should tell him.

"We get alot of people, passing through these parts," she states rather ambiguously. This is a lie and they both know it. This village was so out of the way from any major routes that they receive very little traffic indeed. However, she felt an intense need to protect whoever was their query. (That beast they rode up on didn't look particularly friendly, and she wasn't that fond of demons to begin with)

"What about a girl with very...........distinct garb?"

She is shocked by just how bluntly he's put it. The surprise shows on her face, and he has an answer even though she never gave it to him. He smiles, (almost smugly if someone asked her). "Has she already passed through here?"

She smiles regretfully. "I'm afraid I do not have the answer. There was a raid, just barely a day ago and the bandit's slew everyone who was in the tavern. There was a woman who was seen fleeing from the village, but there was nothing...........distinct about her yukata."

Her altruism is not welcome news, though appreciated all the same. His thanks sounds like disapproval (why should she have to know who this mysterious person is anyway?) and she inclines her head ever so slightly in response to the man. She watches his every move and, like a hawk does their prey, waits for a chance to spring. Her claws are reaching out............................. "I really do hope you find her, Miroku."

He stops, and she freezes. Moments like this are rare, rare indeed, and so she is slightly amused at how he forcefully continues moving onto he is safely astride the giant cat. ( This gives her times to ask herself , "What the hell?", and come up with no definite answers.) She hasn't done anything like that in a while, and within good reason too. You can't do the work if the gods if you are no longer worthy. ( She's worthy in her heart, but she has often figured out it's never the heart that counts)

Their eyes meet again, and from the corner of her eye she can see the curious gazes of his companions linger. He smiles, and perhaps she is over-taken by the fact that his eyes are just like a midnight sky, but his smile is so charming it couldn't but be real. Years of the hard life have made sure she really isn't that stupid, and so she smiles jovially and watches him once again take off (even though his hands fly faster than that beast does- oh God....). Thoughts seize her despite how she may not enjoy the course they take, and she goes back to her previous task of picking flowers for the dead.

He should really learn to smile.

..~..

The first thing he noticed was that Kagome wasn't here. God damnit......

Spurred on by guilt, and aided by his blood hound tendencies, he quickly caught the teen's scent and was hot on her trail. As he flew through the wild underbrush, he found himself slightly amazed at just how much ground this girl covered. ( Why couldn't she move like that when they were Shikon Shard Hunting?) But this train of though only serves to slap him across the face.

Threats do have a way of making one jump do attention. They are very effective in that way. Especially when the come from an enraged Inuyokai with an ego the size of the Nile and growing.

He wants her to come back. He wants to see her face, and he wants to feel warm inside as if he means something. He wants to have purpose. ( Why is my life one big mistake?) A seemingly endless line of failures. Faces that he can't remember, and voices to distant now for him to recognize. One voice he wish he didn't. He's failed her twice, and now it seems that he will undoubtedly fail him again.

No.

Kagome isn't Kikyou. Though the power differentiate between the two has simply fallen down to who is there, and who is not. They are both gone, and to him, that's all in the same. Hands are gripped more tightly together because, man, to think of people in such stark tones is just fucked up. It's only to be expected that he can not comprehend something he cannot understand.

He doesn't understand what it means to be human.

Or to be demon. He only understand himself, and even then, only at half best. For if he truly knew, then he'd know why the hell running after this girl that he loved hurt so damn much in the first place. Why did everything hurt? Everything I touch ends up in pain.................................................

The forest is quiet in only the way they can be when all you want is something to distract you from yourself before you realize something you don't want to be aware of. He is trying to run away from, in essence, himself, and it's funny how as soon as he realizes this, he's pumping his legs harder. Strange, that.

Shouldn't he be moving in the opposite direction, away from the object of his thoughts? ( No, because that would make me a coward, something I refuse to be (ever again) ) An emotion worms it's way into the pit of his stomach, and it feels incredibly uncomfortable. As if something is prickling his sense on purpose, and he doesn't understand what for.

He remembers that he doesn't understand alot of things, but he always tries to do right in the end. A sad melancholy woman comes to mind, and that strange feeling tightens, until he thinks he's going to explode. Fall to pieces, and either by swept away on the wind. Or picked over (by dumb-ass ugly birds).

Nothing happens, and he's drawn back to the present sharply, and quite literally. An arrow has found residence in her shoulder, and he stares down at it dumbfoundedly for a moment as he sorts out past from present. This event has become quite symbolic, and so it blade doesn't piece is body, so much as his mind. Another mental scar is added to the man, and the blonde who shot him seems almost guilty at just how easily he cripples under it's weight.

" Stand back, or I will take you down." she states regretfully, something that doesn't bode well with the hanyou at all.

"Who the hell are you?" he retorts angrily, straightening up in defense. He won't give her another reason to underestimate him, and he refused to look at her until she stopped sending those damned pitiable expression his way. they stood in silence for a while longer, while she studies him intently until he is completely fed up. Don't pussy- foot me.

"What's the deal wench? You gonna shoot me or what?" his fingers itch toward the hilt of his sword, but he stops in confusion as her expression softens further,

"Come with me, Inuyasha."

Eyebrows arch high and far away into silver fringe. this day has become already just one big headache without a cause. (Is any of this shit worth it?) He doesn't know, but grumbling and cursing the whole way, he follows the woman wherever it is she is taking him. He figures that knowing his name earns her sometime. some, but not much.

"Oye, you seen a wench named Kagome run through here?" He demands, stopping suddenly once he sees he's being led back to some ramshackle village. He can smell the blood from here, and the scent of rotting flesh, and he won't go any further without some answers. He'd be crazy if he did, and that would really tell him that he's learned nothing from all of this. ( How is this a learning experience?)

She stops, and he can smell the hesitation (not literally, no one's nose is thatgood ) even if he can't hear it. "That girl you seek sure seems to be in high demand," she says noncommittally.

Nonchalantly (except for everything about him that screams rage) he slams the woman into the nearest tree, glaring daggers into her amused blue eyes. he doesn't find anything about the situation funny at all, and it pisses him off more. A tiny misconception snaps his last straw, and there's no taping it together. Not today. A man who has run ramped cross country hoping to arrive in the nick of time ( for what, he doesn't want to know) is not one to be tested.

"Don't mess with me!"

She understands that she shouldn't but she does anyway. It is too much for her to resist taunting him on. The evil in her heart that she keeps trying to quell betrays her. " I know not where else she may be, but she is not here."

Her life always has and will be, meaningless, so it is only with disattached interest that she is flung callously away. There is a silence in which he tries to calm himself down enough to not want to punch the next thing that looked at him, and she wondered if she should thank him for his jaded snese of mercy. Life saved or not, her back hurt horribly.

"Aisa, what are you doing? Kill him before he attacks us!" and then she remembers just why life is so piteous in the first place. men as ignorant as the village head should just keel over and save everyone else from their stupidity. People like him are the reason she is forced into a life of grudging servitude in the first place. I hate you.

The demon has tensed up, ears swiveling and prepares to fight but there is no need. " I will not draw a weapon against this man," she asserts firmly, looking the sallow faced man in the eye. there was a brief showdown, before he looked away, embarrassed and upset. She will pay for undermining him (once again), but there is a reason that she is the one people run to in times of need, and he's not. Having the power to back up your big talk actually means something. Ha, go figure!

She has decided standing get them nowhere, but the hanyou has wisely chosen this moment to realize not budging yields you answers, which he wants ( right now).

"Look bitch, if you don''t know where she is, say so now." The idle threat, she realizes turning to him with her face caught in the comical expression of being amused and being annoyed. Much to her own chagrin, she finds herself being stared down in such a way that there is no doubt that this youth will take her down ( or die trying. She is not a vain woman; merely has confidence in her abilities).

"Are you hungry?" she calls over her shoulder instead, walking serenely foreward as if there isn't a smouldering demon standing behind her shocked at her disregard of his presence. She wonders if she should tell him no one with a lick of sense will ever take him seriously with those warm and inviting eyes. People with eyes like that don't attack people like her ( or so she asserts quietly with him following behind like a scolded child).

Of course, it is only once dinner has already been served ( which Inuyasha had to go catch), and she has lain down for the night does he realized that somehow she has avoided his question all so he sits well into the night stewing, simmering. Nursing a flame inside that invokes the fires of mankind to erupt down onto them tonight,

Sneaky little wench.

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