Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha
Miroku awoke to the quiet chill of dawn. His gaze quickly moved over the two slayer siblings, hesitating on the serene expression Sango wore in sleep and the way she had one arm draped protectively across her brother's shoulders. Kilala slept on next to Kohaku's head, purring softly.
Midoriko and Totosai slept on the other side of the fire on their sides, Kaede not far behind them while Shippo was curled up in Kagome's sleeping bag, minus the Kagome. Miroku spotted Inuyasha sleeping over head in a nearby tree but did not find Sesshomaru, though his dragon slept near the trees with Rin and Jaken against him.
This was a more than a little interesting piece of information. Kagome and Sesshomaru, off alone somewhere...whatever could become of that? A lecherous grin spread across his face at the thought. His smile only fell at the more ominous thought of how Inuyasha would take to this information. Even though he and Kagome had not been considered an 'item' in quite some time even after the whole Kikyo debacle had finally ended, he knew the hard-headed hanyou well enough to know that he could be quite possessive at times as well as overly protective.
He would have to be sure he was available to witness the ensuing aftermath of Inuyasha's rather brash and insulting way of dealing with conflict when it was both Kagome AND Sesshomaru's temper he was up against. That was going to be quite the show.
After relieving himself, he collected kindling and firewood to restart the glowing embers of the fire from the night before. As it came to life, he fetched water from the river for tea and coffee. Just as the kettle began to boil, so did the rest of the tachi slowly begin rolling out from their sleeping places to relieve themselves and change.
It was only as everyone was finally awake and moving around that Miroku realized just how much larger their tachi had become. They had their usual six, plus Sesshomaru, Rin, Jaken and Ah-Un, along with now Midoriko, Totosai and the Ox, and finally Kohaku and Kaede. Raising his eyebrows as he calculated how much more food they were going to need a daily basis, he sighed. Perhaps Sesshomaru could be persuaded to assist in the hunting... Between him and Inuyasha, he could probably keep them all fed pretty easily.
Miroku passed around the smoked deer meat they had remaining for breakfast and prepared a kettle for tea and coffee. He even took the liberty of grabbing the explosive milk powder from Kagome's bag while he was fetching the filters and coffee, and he set it out for the others to find should they want it.
Sango woke, stretched and then gently shook her brother awake. He awoke much calmer than before, though his gaze was wide and full of pain as he focused on his sister's face.
"Ane-we..." he began, his eyes filled with tears and she shushed him. "Why don't we go somewhere and talk?" she suggested quietly, leading him by the hand from camp towards the trees at his nod of agreement.
"Wait, wait," Miroku halted them. "Tea or coffee?"
Sango blinked. "Umm, tea for Kohaku, I think. Coffee for me. Thank you, Miroku."
Miroku smiled as he prepared the cups and passed them carefully to each recipient before bowing low. "Anything for my most favored lady," he teased with a light-hearted wink and Sango felt the weight of their situation lesson on her shoulders. She smiled warmly in thanks and he merely nodded his understanding as the two passed him by to disappear into the tree line.
As silence began to fill the clearing in their wake, Inuyasha was the first to point out the obvious. "Where in the hell are Kagome and Sesshomaru?"
There was a slightly pregnant pause in which anyone who knew anything about the situation tried to look as if they didn't know anything while those who really had no idea scanned the others for the face of someone who did.
It was Midoriko who answered the awkward and somewhat confused silence that followed the question. "I believe that some time late last night or early this morning, rather, Kagome began her transformation."
There was a collective gasp from around the fire. Rin and Shippo shared an adorably significant look before returning their attention to Kagome's grandmother.
Miroku fumbled for a coherent response. "L-lady Midoriko, are you saying that the lady Kagome is now a demon?" Her answering laugh was full of warmth and amusement.
"The change will be a some what gradual process at first. All the senses are heightened explicitly, hearing, vision, sensation. The only psychical changes are relatively small. The hair might grow longer, or the eye lashes, the lips become fuller, cheek bones more pronounced, little things. Her ears, for instance, will probably grow out to a point like your brother's within the next day or so.
"The fangs are the beginning of the real changes, though. As they emerge, so does her jaki and aura begin to weaken their spiritual barrier. Eventually, the barrier will break altogether, bringing with it her markings, claws, and poisons but this slow process is essential to her safety. You have to walk before you run, you know?"
Inuyasha nodded, his arms still across his chest defensively. "In other words, if the barrier broke before weakening and getting her used to the changes gradually, it could kill her."
"Precisely that," Midoriko beamed sweetly. "She awoke while the rest of you slept hindered by all the sounds she could hear, all the auras she could sense and smell and all the things she could see. Sesshomaru's scent was enough to calm her, however. It was someone she recognized and trusted."
'Trusted.' The word rang through his being like a tolling bell of guilt. Swallowing back the bitter tang of jealousy, Inuyasha forced his face into a relieved expression. "So, she's being taken care of," he tried to surmise indifferently, striving to appear consoled by the information. The revelation that she was safer with Sesshomaru was a little too much for his pride to take.
Midoriko's expression was sympathetic. "I believe he took her somewhere isolated to better teach her control. It's what I would have done were it my task to teach her," she conceded with a light shrug of her shoulders.
'Isolated, keh, even better,' Inuyasha grumbled to himself, trying to halt the mental images the comment provoked. At his look of hurt, he suddenly found himself knocked off the log next to Midoriko and sprawled out in the grass, his chest throbbing.
A furious set of lavender eyes infused with specks of amber glared at him through strands of lilac silver hair. Hands placed decidedly on her hips, displaying her pearlescent claws in a very good impression of Kagome when she was angry, Kaede stomped over until she towered over the hanyou and then bent down until they were face to face. Her usually dark purple markings darkened even further in caution. Her words, though barely a whisper, seemed to scream in his mind. "Don't. You. Dare feel sorry for yourself," she hissed, her lips curling back to reveal a set of deadly-sharp fangs.
Inuyasha gulped. "Feel sorry for myself? Why would I do that?"
Midoriko cleared her throat. "Kaede, know your place. Inuyasha, sit here with me, why don't you-"
"Why would you?" Kaede interrupted, ignoring her grandmother. "It's all you EVER do, sit up in some tree, sulking and feeling sorry for yourself-"
"KAEDE HIGURASHI, remember your manners!" Midoriko scolded, shocked at the sudden outburst from her normally well contained grand-daughter.
At her worried proclamation, Totosai went to intervene for his mate. "You two stop squabbling and do as she says. Inuyasha, sit! Kaede, heel!"
A feral grin broke out on Kaede's face. "Don't make this about you, is that asking too much? She is finally over you after years of heartache watching you flip between her and Kikyo. Now that she's finally found someone to make her happy, I will not tolerate your pitiful 'feel sorry' for me attitude dragging everyone down. Kagome deserves this happiness. Need and I remind you that she and Kikyo are both my sisters? Do you know what it's like, to watch the same guy court first your older sister and then your youngest? To not even be able to say anything about it when you break her heart over and over again?" The last was pronounced in a shrill volume that displayed her rage as she pointed at him, translucent claws glinting in the sun.
As she spun on her heel, turning her back on him, one of her many braids whipped him hard across the face. Her movements belied the anger she had demonstrated as she reclaimed her previous seat by the fire and sipped her tea mildly as if nothing at all had occurred.
Fortunately, Rin and Shippo had taken to their coloring books and only really noticed the adults arguing when Midoriko interjected. By the time Kaede had delivered her final reply it was over and the kids went back to their coloring as everyone else also carried on as if nothing had happened.
The rings on Miroku's staff jingled merrily as he shook with amusement, trying to contain himself at the look of consternation and fear on Inuyasha's face. Totosai gave him a stern look of reprimand and the monk fought to contain himself, he truly did, but he could not fight the grin that stretched the corners of his mouth. He kept his head down in a valiant attempt at masking his jubilation but it was not enough to fool Inuyasha as he passed, his ears flattened to the sides of his head.
As he noticed Miroku's dilemma, the ears shot up straight while his fist simultaneously connected with his head. Miroku was still grinning even as he hit the ground, nursing a fat lip.
Inuyasha could be heard muttering something about stupid hentai monks as he leapt into a nearby tree, climbing to the very top of its branches before settling against the trunk irritably.
AN: Reviews are my fuel :)