With Kagome now back from her cold, the group of travelers began their search for Narraku yet again. They walked along side a mountain, Sheumaru whistled contentedly as she analyzed every detail on the rocks around her. She didn't know why but focusing on something such as rocks or the grooves in trees always seemed to center her, it made her feel at peace.

"Finally! We can search for Narraku and not be burdened with something as trivial as sickness!" InuYasha celebrated.

"Oh, forgive me, I didn't realize my sickness was a burden. I didn't try to get sick you know, InuYasha." Kagome responded coldly. Sheumaru winced at how even her tone and anger was, that was the worst kind of fiery.

"Look! A village, maybe we can ask them if they saw any strange happenings around, it could help us get to Narraku." Miroku said, trying to distract Kagome before the human girl managed to rein down her wrath from the heavens and unleash it on InuYasha.

The girl glanced up distractedly, and looked passed Miroku's pointed finger, at the end of it was indeed a village.

"I suppose..." that was all the others in the group needed to get a move on. Just as they were out of earshot of InuYasha, Sheumaru leaned over to whisper something to the monk.

"Good job. That would've ended badly if you had not interfered. My brother is an idiot, there's no question about it."

Miroku chuckled, "I just didn't want to have to deal with it for the rest of the trip. We all know that out of that one argument it could have birthed over a hundred."

"You got that right." Sango sighed in agreement.

"What are you guys talking about over here?" Came Kagome's voice from behind them, Miroku's eyes widened in fear before he came up with a lie.

"I'm just deciding on which roos I should use on the village headman if he deems it necessary for us to stay an extra night."

"Oh."

"Has anyone seen that annoying fox kid or Kirara anywhere?" InuYasha asked, further behind the group. Sheumaru looked around for a moment, not seeing Shippo or Kirara she sniffed the air. She calmed down considerably when she smelted their distictive scents.

"No, but they are nearby, it's likely they went to go play a game of Hunt or Be Hunted. They always do that when we come to a new village." Sheumaru explained, and then turned to face her brother.

"Why? Are you actually worried about Shippo?" She raised a white eyebrow.

Her brother stiffened at the accusation. "No! I was hoping he had gotten eaten by something finally!"

Everyone else rolled their eyes in response, they knew InuYasha cared about the small fox demon, almost like a little brother.

It was then they heard a yell and everyone knew that voice well.

"Shippo!" They shouted together.

The ran to the trees and towards the boy, he was by a riverbed, clutching Kirara to his chest, a girl from the village stood next to him. They were being attacked by a hoard of village men.

Sheumaru shouted and spit profanities at the men, they slowly turned around, cautious at how furious she sounded.

"The fox demon's mother has come for him! We're doomed!" Said one village man, pointing at Sheumaru.

"I'm not his mother you imbeciles! I'm a dog! But that's besides the point, get off the boy if you want to keep your heads." She snarled.

The men put their hands up to show compliance to her threat, and backed away from Shippo and the girl. Shippo quickly ran up to them and hid behind the dog demon siblings. The girl followed shortly after him.

"What are you still doing here? Get lost!" InuYasha yelled down to the villagers. Seeing that the men were outmatched, they fled away from the scene in terror.

"Shippo are you alright? Did they do anything to you?" Kagome turned her attention to the fox demon.

"Not really... they just scared me a little is all. They kept trying to get me to let Kirara go.. something about her being evil?" Shippo said.

"It's because we used to have a cat like that. Her name was Kiroro, but this traveling sage came into town claiming she was evil and needed to be banished from the village." The human girl next to him explained.

"Can you take us to your village headman? We'd like to talk to him about this." Sango said, and the girl nodded running back into the trees.

"That sounded a bit suspicious didn't it?" Sheumaru whispered to her brother.

"Yeah it did." InuYasha nodded.

Their guide soon left to go look for her cat Kiroro when she dropped the group off at the village headman's place. It was starting to get dark, and Sheumaru wondered if it was smart to leave that girl all alone, with everything that went bump in the night.

The headman soon explained just about what the girl had said before while they ate a plentiful meal. Because it was so late, the man allowed the group to stay the night even though they didn't have anything to slay.

Sheumaru noticed Shippo was gone again as she was about to lay down and get some rest, but she felt too shaken up by the idea that the young fox demon could be in trouble again, so she crepted back outside into the night.

She sniffed the air, searching for the boy's scent when she reached the trees. A rustle in the fields startled her and her head swiveled to the side, her ochre eyes, amber in the light of the moon, were narrowed as she watched the thousands of rats that came pooling out of the forest and into the fields, destroying them as they went.

Sheumaru stood stock still in fear. Which was she to choose? Save Shippo or the villagers? A cry from the forest was all she needed to sway herself in deeper into the forest. She was running now, trying her best to catch Shippo's scent as she ran but came up empty.

She growled in frustration, where was he?! Her thoughts screamed.

Just as she was about to pass over a hill, she heard his small clawed hands gripping and scratching at stone, she doubled back feeling triumphant. There standing in front of a closed off cave stood a rat the size of a mountain.

"You must be the demon that's causing all the commotion down at the village." Sheumaru smirked evily, she was going to be done with this demon quickly.

"Get out of my way half demon!" The rat clicked his tongue in irritation.

"No I don't think I will!"

"Move out of the way of my lunch! I need to get to that human child!"

"Eating a child just to increase your demonic power?! How pathetic!" Sheumaru clutched her sword, she was getting ready to strike. Just as she jumped into the air to bring her sword down on the rat's throat she heard Miroku come through the trees.

"Don't!" The monk warned, and before Sheumaru could argue he threw a sutra at the demon.

The demon faded in a bright light that made her wince, a small rat fell to the ground the replace the giant hallucination. She stepped hard on the rat's tail and the rodent squeaked in displeasure, she held her foot there for a moment longer, then released the disgusting creature. It scampered off into the woods the moment it was free of her grasp.

They safely got Shippo out of the cave, and after a stern talking to by Kagome, the group was ready to set off the next morning.

A: Hey another chapter! Anyway this will probably be my last chapter for a week because I'm going on a vacation out of the country and so it's very expensive to be on data there, but I should be able to upload one chapter while I'm there because there's WiFi in the hotels.

As always please leave a review I love reading them!