Following Kagome's short apology speech, the clearing was relatively quiet. No-one was willing to break the silence to start talking about the bleak future ahead of them. But there was no way the peace would last for long; and so, it was the houshi who breached the topic first.
"I think it would be best for us to leave soon," Miroku stated as the fire consumed the last of the boar's bones. When no-one ventured forth to argue with the houshi's statement, he continued. "The morning is late enough already without us sitting around doing nothing. If we are to find a cure for Kagome-sama's lost memory, we'd best start looking for Naraku again."
Sango nodded. "Hai. Naraku will have all the answers."
InuYasha snorted. "Like that guy would give any answers to us. He'd probably laugh in our faces if we tried to ask him. If we even find him."
"He did seem like the kind of person who would resort to...alternative methods," Kagome murmured, her eyes averted from everyone's faces. She didn't want to see the looks on their faces when they realized that she knew who they were talking about.
As predicted, everyone but InuYasha turned toward her, their eyes incredulous.
"Are you saying...you remember him, Kagome-sama?" Miroku asked, eyebrows raised.
"N-not really," Kagome stammered, slinking back now. "I...he was there when I first woke up. He...he...was...he was..."
"He was the one who told you we were out to kill you," Miroku finished for her, his eyes becoming grave.
Kagome nodded. Miroku gave her another nod in return, his eyes sad now. "I thought that was what you meant when you said 'I won't trust what 'he' says any more."
Sango gasped, although no words left her lips. Shippou gave a small cry as Kirara growled low in her throat. Kagome, meanwhile, was looking very submissive as she continued her slow retreat, but stopped when InuYasha gave a soft, but stern,growl.
"Gomen," she muttered. "I-I...I was so confused after I first woke up. That man you call Naraku...he gave me the only logic and reason I could follow in this new life of mine. I didn't know whether or not I could trust him, but..." Kagome tailed off, her cheeks turning red as she retreated some more.
'Like they would believe that weak statement,' she told herself. 'That was about as convincing as a fish with wings.'
Then, very vividly, InuYasha's words from the night before came back to her, ringing with the emotion that she had labeled betrayal.
"You trusted him, but you don't trust me."
Would these people see her as an accomplice of Naraku, someone who they would consider an enemy? And if so, what would they do? Kill her?
'No-that's not fair,' Kagome chided herself. 'I told myself I would give them a chance; and that's what I'm going to do.'
Miroku gave Kagome his warmest smile, accompanied by the perverted glint in his eyes. "Fear not, Kagome-sama," he said, reaching out to clasp her hand in both of his. "We have not lost faith in you. We know you were afraid and confused, and that's why you listened to Naraku while you were in his...care." Kagome gave Miroku a weak smile, but secretly wondered why his hands were slowly rubbing hers.
"Hands off, bouzou," InuYasha growled, knocking Miroku's hands aside with a swipe of his hand. "You wanna get on her good side, right?"
Miroku gave InuYasha his best wide-eyed-playing-innocent look, his eyebrows raising as he said with an almost amused air, "Why, InuYasha, do you have a reason to doubt my honorable intentions?" He did, however, release Kagome's hand. The girl in question was looking from InuYasha to Miroku with a deepening expression of confusion on her face.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Don't ask," InuYasha replied, giving a quelling glare to the houshi, who took it in his stride, although it made Kagome shiver slightly.
Sango decided that it was time to direct the conversation back to its original topic, so she asked, "If finding Naraku doesn't work, then what will?"
The men turned to look at her. Miroku lifted his cursed hand and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his amethyst eyes gazing unseeingly into the morning sky.
"Hmm...what would one normally do for someone with Kagome-sama's condition?" he mumbled, almost to himself.
"My papa always said that if someone lost themselves, they would find their true selves if they waited long enough," Shippou proffered, his poofy tail twitching slightly as he bounced restlessly up and down on the log he was perched upon.
"We don't have time, baka!" InuYasha growled, his fist flying down and delivering a blow to the kitsune's head. "If Kagome stays like this for too long, it could cause serious problems-for her and us."
Shippou rubbed the knot on his head, gnawing on his lip as tears sprang into his eyes. However, he refrained from crying out for Kagome to save him. What could she do, when she couldn't remember that she alone held the power to bring InuYasha to his knees?
"InuYasha, that's enough," Miroku chided, his eyes narrowing into a glare. "Losing your temper every time someone suggests something you don't like isn't going to help anyone."
InuYasha flushed bright red, but didn't say anything, opting to give a 'Feh!' and turn toward the treeline.
"Well...my chichi-ue always said that a strong shock could sometimes return memories," Sango suggested. "Do you think something like that would work?"
"I don't know," Miroku admitted, rising to his feet, his Shakujou in hand. "Maybe it will, but since we don't know what caused Kagome-sama to lose her memory, these ideas are all shots in the dark. Until we find out what caused her memory loss, we will have to do our best and stumble along until we find something." Miroku then turned to Kagome, a small smile on his face as he proffered his cursed hand to her. "If you trust us enough to travel with us, will you accompany us as we attempt to unravel this mystery? We promise not to hurt you."
Kagome looked at the houshi's hand, then her eyes slowly flicked from one member of the group to the next. "You really promise not to hurt me?"
Miroku nodded. "I promise."
"I promise," Sango echoed.
"I'll protect you, Kagome!" Shippou exclaimed as he started bouncing again.
Kirara mewed.
InuYasha gave a 'Feh.'
Kagome looked at him. "Do you promise, too?"
"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled.
Kagome thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. "Okay." She reached out and slowly took Miroku's hand. The houshi beamed at her as he gently lifted her from the ground.
"Since we've gotten that all sorted out, shall we proceed?" he asked of the group.
"Hai. It's already mid-morning. We don't want to waste any more time," Sango agreed.
Miroku headed over to Sango so that he could help her pack up the camp. Kagome looked around, trying to see if there was anything she could do to help, and caught sight of a large yellow bag she hadn't seen before.
"Whose bag is that?" she asked, pointing to the article in question.
Everybody in the group turned to look at what she was pointing at. Their eyes became sad. (Well, the eyes of those she could see; as soon as InuYasha had seen what Kagome was pointing at, he had turned away again.)
"That is...your bag, Kagome-sama," Miroku said gently.
"My...bag?"
Kagome's brain seemed to have short-circuited.
Her bag? As in, the bag that she owned? And here she'd been thinking that she had nothing to her name, nothing to show who and what she was!
'It could show me my past, maybe even...jog my memories a bit,' she thought.
Sango got up from where she had been crouching and headed over to the bag. Hefting it by one strap, she offered it to Kagome. "Would you like to look inside it, Kagome-chan?"
Kagome looked at the bag. Suddenly, the beaten yellow satchel seemed more daunting than it had while it had just been sitting there.
What if there were things in her past that she didn't want to remember? She hadn't forgotten how the name 'Kikyou' had hurt her so much, or the betrayed look on InuYasha's face last night. The bag would surely be a blast-in-the-face sort of therapy, and Kagome shied away from the one thing that could tell her who she was.
"No thank you," Kagome whispered, backing slowly away from the bag as if it possessed fangs and claws. "I...I think I'll wait for a while."
Sango nodded sympathetically. InuYasha, however, was in no mood for sympathy.
"Just show her what's in the fuckin' bag already!" he snapped, leaping forward and snatching the bag away from Sango. Kagome gave a tiny gasp as she backed away. That hanyou moved so fast...
"Baka!" Sango shouted back, her hand lashing out and seizing the strap opposite the one InuYasha was holding. "She said she didn't want to!"
"But she has to!" InuYasha barked back, yanking on the strap he was holding, something akin to a frantic look sparkling deep in his golden irises. "She has to remember who she fuckin' is!"
"I agree, she does have to remember," Sango replied, "but that doesn't mean we can force her to remember! For Kami's sake, that would probably cause more damage than good, InuYasha!"
InuYasha growled back, not even bothering with words as he yanked insistently on the strap again.
"That's enough, you two!" Miroku snapped, his usually cool eyes brimming with brilliant purple fire as he strode between the taijiya and the hanyou, using his hands to shove them apart, though with Sango he was more gentle. "Need I remind you of the image you are presenting to our lady friend over there?"
Instantly, the pair looked ashamed and embarrassed; Sango's teeth started worrying her lip as InuYasha's ears drooped. Cheeks flushed, they both slanted a glance toward Kagome, and were almost glad to see Shippou chattering animatedly to her, bouncing up and down as he obviously reenacted one of his favorite stories for her. Kagome was smiling as she watched the kit perform flips and cartwheels in his excitement.
"Let's just continue getting our things ready for the road ahead of us. We can work on getting Kagome-sama's memory back later, okay?" With that, Miroku put his hand on Sango's shoulder and gently steered her toward the unfinished packing job they had left. From the twitching in the houshi's fingers, InuYasha guessed that the hentai wanted his hand to be much lower. 'Baka hentai houshi,' InuYasha snorted internally.
Then, slowly, hesitantly, he headed over to Kagome, making sure to keep his movements slow, so as not to startle her.
Kagome looked up, brown eyes squinted against the glare of the sun as InuYasha made his slow and slightly noisy way toward her. Upon seeing the hanyou approaching her, Kagome's entire body stiffened slightly, her eyes becoming wary.
InuYasha stopped moving toward her. His hand clenched into a fist at his side.
"So you still don't trust me?" he hissed, telling himself that the burning sensation in his chest was anger, and not anything else.
"I...I'm trying to," she murmured, her body relaxing slightly as her eyes met his. "But...you can't imagine how hard this is; trusting someone when you don't know what they are to you, what their position in your life is. Especially when I spent a few weeks thinking you were the one who wanted me dead above all others."
Now it was InuYasha who stiffened, his fangs flashing in a reflexively defensive move. Kagome tried hard not to wince at the sight of him looking so savage, but it was a very near thing. 'Scary,' she thought, feeling sweat pricking the back of her neck.
"I would NEVER want to kill you!" he hissed, ears flattening to his head. Slowly, the hanyou lifted his hand, flexing his claws so they glinted in the morning light. Kagome swallowed as she looked at the five instruments of death tipping each of his fingers.
"These claws," he continued, eyes glinting with a strange light, "can never kill you."
Kagome felt a light blush dust her cheeks at InuYasha's serious tone and shining eyes. She turned away, hiding her face from those brilliant golden eyes. 'What...is he after?' she wondered.
Then, Shippou bounded up and landed on her shoulder, shouting, "Kagome! Sango wants to know if you want to ride with her and Kirara!"
Kagome shrieked as though a youkai had bounded out of the forest and snarled at her. She leaped backward, flinging her hands over her face. Both InuYasha and Shippou leaped back reflexively at the sound of her scream, identical expressions of shock on their faces.
"Y-y-you s-s-scared me," she stuttered, her entire body trembling as she attempted to blend into the ground.
"We scared you?" InuYasha asked incredulously, ears flattened to his head again, though this time from shock.
About that time, Sango rushed over to see what had happened.
"Kagome-chan, are you all right?" she asked concernedly.
"Y-yeah," she stammered, rising slowly from the ground and cringing to the taijiya's side. "I-I was just s-startled, that's all."
"Okay, then," Sango said, eying InuYasha with a suspicious glare. "Did Shippou deliver my message?"
Kagome nodded.
"So, what do you think? Would you like to ride on Kirara with me? I promise we won't go too fast, Kagome-chan." Sango ignored the growl that came from InuYasha as he listened to her offer.
"Um...I...I think so. Yeah, I'll ride with you," Kagome replied, her voice becoming more confident as the seconds passed.
Sango nodded. "Okay, Kagome-chan."
The taijiya seized her friend's elbow and steered her toward her nekomata, aware that the hanyou was glaring jealously at her back all the way.