Chapter Four: Inuyasha to the Rescue!
Shippou slunk quietly into the dark room, slowly closing the door behind him, and wincing at the small click the door made as it closed. He scanned the quiet room, no recognizably human shapes. Slumping against the wall, he heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief. Safe. But for how long? The room was dark, that meant no windows, no way to escape. He was trapped.
Back in Feudal Japan,
"Kagome's what?" Inuyasha exclaimed, narrowing his yellow, slit-pupiled eyes in rage.
"An interesting, if barbaric, human custom Lord Inuyasha." Myouga, the flea demon explained. He was thoroughly enjoying his role as messenger, he'd even embellished the story a bit to make it more fun. The way Lord Inuyasha's eyes had bugged out when he'd described Kagome's fiancé ardently clutching her to his chest as he passionately declared his undying love- hoo, it had been priceless! Happily, the flea demon continued his epilogue, "It can be observed quite often in the local village, generally a boy and a girl when they reach a certain age will choose a mate, making certain promises"
"I KNOW WHAT MARRIAGE IS YOU DOLT!!", Inuyasha interrupted, angrily mooshing the flea demon between his thumb and forefinger. "You must go rescue her Lord", Myouga squeaked after recovering from Inuyasha's mooshing.
"Why would she need my rescuing?" Inuyasha asked, crossing his arms and raising his white eyebrows disinterestedly. "Sounds like she and her lover are doing just fine.", he said as he started walking across the clearing (in the direction of the well.)
"But," Myouga protested, "her fiancé is a demon." Inuyasha stopped dead in his tracks, then in a lightning fast move, he grabbed the old flea, holding him trapped between two claws. "Explain.", he said shortly, raising the flea to eye level and glaring at him.
"Well", the old flea gulped nervously, "he was disguised as a human, but it was only a surface illusion, to someone who's observed demons as long as I, the difference is easy to tell.", Myouga explained loftily. "And he's courting Kagome you say?", Inuyasha queried in a too calm voice, his eyes growing hard.
The old flea nodded cautiously, sorry now that he'd embellished his story. Inuyasha would probably be very angry if he found out. Myouga quivered, foreseeing another mooshing in the immediate future. Meanwhile, Inuyasha's mind was racing. Kagome had a priestess's power, if she was affianced to this guy then she must know what he was. Kagome had betrayed him. No wonder she had reacted so strangely when he showed up last night, and again this morning. Inuyasha had a funny feeling in the bottom of his stomach, like it wasn't there. And his breath was catching at the back of his throat, expelled in ragged sobs. Sobs? Of course not!! Why should he mourn if Kagome had betrayed him? The deceitful wench. He snorted angrily. Let her take a lover! It didn't matter to him. The only thing that concerned him was the jewel shards. If Kagome and her lover wanted to live happily ever after, he didn't care. But first Kagome would surrender her shards and lead him to rest, if she and her demon lover thought they could cuckold him and gain the shards for themselves, he thought, smiling grimly and cracking his knuckles, then he had a surprise for them. Still clutching Myouga in his right hand, Inuyasha sprinted for the well.
Back at Kagome's House,
The room wasn't completely dark Shippou realized, in fact now that his eyes adjusted he could make out vague objects. Light was coming from somewhere and it wasn't under the door. Shippou combed the room with his eyes, where was the light coming from? Was it another one of those strange human devices, or, hope leapt in his breast, was it a window? Across the room. There were two patches of gray that were lighter than the rest. Shippou walked carefully across the length of the room, careful not to knock over anything, quiet as a whisper. He reached the other side, he'd made it safely. His heart was pounding madly, he slumped in relief, putting one hand against the wall to steady himself. "Please", he prayed "let it be a window". His breath fluttered, like the rapid wing strokes of a humming bird as he raised his trembling hand to that lighter patch of gray. It was material, heavy like sackcloth only not so rough. He grabbed a fistful of the stuff and pushed it aside. The room became noticeably brighter. There was still something covering the window though. He poked it, it clattered noisily. Shippou immediately dropped his hand and swung around to face the door. It didn't open. Maybe she hadn't heard. No, he shook his head slightly, he couldn't take that chance. He had to get out of here now, she might have heard him, he couldn't let himself be recaptured. He raised his hand protectively over his poor battered ears and clutched his battered tail at the thought. Shippou laid his small paw on the odd window covering. It was made out of smooth, flimsy grayish strips strung together by thin twine. He grabbed a handful of the strips firmly with both hands and, planting his feet to the floor, pulled as hard as he could. The covering broke free and fell to the floor with an immense crash. Sunlight streamed through the window. She had to have heard that. But it didn't matter, by the time she got here he'd be gone. The fox demon grinned in triumph and leapt for the window.
*OOF *
The little fox hit an invisible barrier and rebounded off of it, landing on the floor with a thump. "Ohh", he groaned as he staggered to his feet and hobbled to the window. Squinting, he glared at it, he couldn't see anything, what had stopped him? He tried to stick his hand through the window, and met something cold and hard. Glass?? They covered their windows with glass?!? What next? Diamonds in the rock garden? Shippou shook his head at the extravagance, to have so much glass that they covered their windows with it. . . He was snapped out of his awe by the sound of footsteps. She was coming. Grabbing a decorative bowl from the wooden table that he'd almost fallen on when he bounced off the window, he threw it as hard as he could through the center of the window hoping that humans didn't cover their windows with anything else. The glass spider webbed, then shattered into hundreds of tiny fragments. The door burst open. Shippou leapt through the window, praying that there were no other coverings. Ignoring the shards that drove themselves into his pelt, the fox ran from the house sprinting for the well.
At the well,
Angrily, Inuyasha dragged himself out of the well. Myouga had wriggled free somewhere between the clearing and the well. Was Kagome's demon so fearful that the flea was unwilling to even be in the same time with it? Inuyasha growled in frustration at the flea's cowardice. Was everyone deserting him? Something broke through the shrubbery near the well. Inuyasha tensed, drawing Tetsusaiga, he hadn't expected to encounter Kagome and her lover so soon. Kagome, his eyes blurred, tears trying to escape. He swallowed them back, letting his anger take over instead, he may not have expected them so soon, but he was ready for the fight. Kagome would help him, and if her demon fiancé tried to prevent that, well. . , Inuyasha smiled cruelly he'd enjoy convincing him otherwise.
"INUYASHA!!", Shippou cried happily jumping towards the welcome sight of the dog demon. Inuyasha jumped, and looked in surprise at Shippou. Who had he been expecting?
"Feh, what are you doing here?", Inuyasha asked grumpily, catching Shippou by the collar before he could crash into him. "It was so horrible," Shippou declared, his eyes becoming haunted at the memory, "I was trapped in her house and she, she" he stuttered, his eyes misting as he rubbed his now bedraggled ears and looked woefully at his once beautiful tail.
Inuyasha gasped in silent horror, Kagome had tortured Shippou. He couldn't believe it, Shippou was like a brother to Kagome, had she changed so much? "Kagome did this to you?" he asked, in a strangled voice, his hand clenched about the kitsune's collar.
"Kagome?", Shippou looked at Inuyasha quizzically, "why would you say that? What does Kagome have to do with this? I thought you were rescuing her from that demon that was forcing his attentions on her. It was Mrs. Higurashi, her mother who, who", the Kitsune became incoherent again at the thought of those horrible hours. The kitsune was literally shaken out of his reverie as Inuyasha ungently jerked him around by the collar, stating "Kagome is *not* engaged then?" in a curiously soft voice, quite at odds with the rough way he was handling Shippou.
"No, she isn't- that is I don't think she is, unless he's already forced - oh no Kagome!!!", the little fox wailed, sinking even deeper into despair. "What happened?" Inuyasha ground out, clutching the fox demon by his shoulders so tightly that the circulation to Shippou's arms started to cut off.
"W-we followed Kagome's scent to what I think was her school, and when we l- looked in the window, she was eating lunch with a boy!"
"That's it? She was eating lunch with him?" Inuyasha's voice held a slightly hysterical edge to it. "Not making passionate declarations of love?
Not declaring their undying devotion?"
"Err, no" Shippou gasped, trying to wriggle out of Inuyasha's iron grip. "I mean some girls by the window were saying something abut how they were destined for each other, but Mrs. Higurashi said that didn't mean anythin. . . but I wasn't sure, and you think that something's going on between them and I haven't seen Kagome come home yet and its late and. . . " the kitsune wailed, long heart-rending sobs, his body shuddering, tears streaming down his red face.
Inuyasha had no idea what was going on. He looked awkwardly down at the sobbing little fox demon and realized he still had a death grip on Shippou's shoulders. He gently set Shippou down, and stared at him, completely at a loss. "Ah, errk", he made what he hoped were soothing noises and patted the little fox gingerly on the back. What was going on? Was Kagome engaged, was somebody chasing after Kagome, was this guy a demon, was he a boy, where was Kagome? What about this Mrs. Higurashi, Higurashi? That was Kagome's mom wasn't it? He vaguely remembered meeting her once, why did he associate her with ears? He searched for a connection, but couldn't find one. Oh well, he gave it up with a mental shrug. What was important was that she should know what was going on with Kagome. "Look, we'll go see Mrs. Higurashi and find out what's happening, where Kagome is", he said to the still sobbing Shippou, hoping to calm him down, he was totally unprepared for the Kitsune's reaction.
"NO!!!", Shippou shrieked, and jumped at Inuyasha, hiding behind him and clutching at Inuyasha's legs as he shivered spasmodically. Peering up at Inuyasha from his perch on the back of Inuyasha's legs, face still wet with tears, and eyes wide with fear, he shuddered, "do NOT go near that woman!" "But we need to know whats happened to Kagome.", Inuyasha said flatly, rapidly becoming impatient with Shippou, shooting him an impatient/questioning look and trying unsuccessfully to walk with the fox demon locked around his legs.
"NO!", Shippou repeated desperately, running in the opposite direction, "come on, she's probably still at school, lets go there!", he frantically proposed, not waiting to see if Inuyasha followed him, just running in the direction of the school. "*Someone* had better know what's happening," the very confused Inuyasha growled as he took off in pursuit of Shippou.
A few leaps and he caught up easily to the little Kitsune. He kept stride with him for a bit, but soon became impatient with the little fox's considerably shorter pace. Grabbing Shippou by the back of his neck, he curtly ordered Shippou to ride on his shoulders. It was easy to follow the trail, Kagome's scent, both old and new was all over the place. She must've been up and down this route hundreds of times. There! Something caught his nose, Kagome's blood!! Alarmed, he jumped towards it, it was slightly off Kagome's normal trail. On a street corner, there were a couple of dark splotches, Kagome's blood. Her path diverged from there. The blood was dry, but the scent was fresh, today's. Blood, that indicated that wherever she was going, it probably wasn't willingly. Frowning fiercely, Inuyasha rushed along the road in a rapid, ground eating lope. He paused momentarily at a fruit stand where Kagome had paused, the owner was making some sort of weird motions with his hands, he stank of fear, Inuyasha ignored him. The trail from there was straight, it led to an enclosed forest. Why would they have a forest in the middle of a city? Humans were so odd. The scent stopped in the middle of a clearing, there was blood all over the ground where Kagome had stood, and the faint scents of fear, another demon, and something else, something that Inuyasha couldn't quite identify lingered in the air. "Where is she?", Shippou asked in a scared, quivery voice as he hopped off of Inuyasha's shoulder. "Her scent, it just, it just *ends.*" Magic, at least he was fairly sure that's what it was, he hadn't come into contact with real magic that often, and its scent was difficult to recognize since it generally mimicked the scent of other things. But there was no way that this dead forest was going to smell of vanilla and honeysuckle, and various other flowers. Not that it mattered, Kagome was gone. Next Chapter: Persuasion
Shippou slunk quietly into the dark room, slowly closing the door behind him, and wincing at the small click the door made as it closed. He scanned the quiet room, no recognizably human shapes. Slumping against the wall, he heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief. Safe. But for how long? The room was dark, that meant no windows, no way to escape. He was trapped.
Back in Feudal Japan,
"Kagome's what?" Inuyasha exclaimed, narrowing his yellow, slit-pupiled eyes in rage.
"An interesting, if barbaric, human custom Lord Inuyasha." Myouga, the flea demon explained. He was thoroughly enjoying his role as messenger, he'd even embellished the story a bit to make it more fun. The way Lord Inuyasha's eyes had bugged out when he'd described Kagome's fiancé ardently clutching her to his chest as he passionately declared his undying love- hoo, it had been priceless! Happily, the flea demon continued his epilogue, "It can be observed quite often in the local village, generally a boy and a girl when they reach a certain age will choose a mate, making certain promises"
"I KNOW WHAT MARRIAGE IS YOU DOLT!!", Inuyasha interrupted, angrily mooshing the flea demon between his thumb and forefinger. "You must go rescue her Lord", Myouga squeaked after recovering from Inuyasha's mooshing.
"Why would she need my rescuing?" Inuyasha asked, crossing his arms and raising his white eyebrows disinterestedly. "Sounds like she and her lover are doing just fine.", he said as he started walking across the clearing (in the direction of the well.)
"But," Myouga protested, "her fiancé is a demon." Inuyasha stopped dead in his tracks, then in a lightning fast move, he grabbed the old flea, holding him trapped between two claws. "Explain.", he said shortly, raising the flea to eye level and glaring at him.
"Well", the old flea gulped nervously, "he was disguised as a human, but it was only a surface illusion, to someone who's observed demons as long as I, the difference is easy to tell.", Myouga explained loftily. "And he's courting Kagome you say?", Inuyasha queried in a too calm voice, his eyes growing hard.
The old flea nodded cautiously, sorry now that he'd embellished his story. Inuyasha would probably be very angry if he found out. Myouga quivered, foreseeing another mooshing in the immediate future. Meanwhile, Inuyasha's mind was racing. Kagome had a priestess's power, if she was affianced to this guy then she must know what he was. Kagome had betrayed him. No wonder she had reacted so strangely when he showed up last night, and again this morning. Inuyasha had a funny feeling in the bottom of his stomach, like it wasn't there. And his breath was catching at the back of his throat, expelled in ragged sobs. Sobs? Of course not!! Why should he mourn if Kagome had betrayed him? The deceitful wench. He snorted angrily. Let her take a lover! It didn't matter to him. The only thing that concerned him was the jewel shards. If Kagome and her lover wanted to live happily ever after, he didn't care. But first Kagome would surrender her shards and lead him to rest, if she and her demon lover thought they could cuckold him and gain the shards for themselves, he thought, smiling grimly and cracking his knuckles, then he had a surprise for them. Still clutching Myouga in his right hand, Inuyasha sprinted for the well.
Back at Kagome's House,
The room wasn't completely dark Shippou realized, in fact now that his eyes adjusted he could make out vague objects. Light was coming from somewhere and it wasn't under the door. Shippou combed the room with his eyes, where was the light coming from? Was it another one of those strange human devices, or, hope leapt in his breast, was it a window? Across the room. There were two patches of gray that were lighter than the rest. Shippou walked carefully across the length of the room, careful not to knock over anything, quiet as a whisper. He reached the other side, he'd made it safely. His heart was pounding madly, he slumped in relief, putting one hand against the wall to steady himself. "Please", he prayed "let it be a window". His breath fluttered, like the rapid wing strokes of a humming bird as he raised his trembling hand to that lighter patch of gray. It was material, heavy like sackcloth only not so rough. He grabbed a fistful of the stuff and pushed it aside. The room became noticeably brighter. There was still something covering the window though. He poked it, it clattered noisily. Shippou immediately dropped his hand and swung around to face the door. It didn't open. Maybe she hadn't heard. No, he shook his head slightly, he couldn't take that chance. He had to get out of here now, she might have heard him, he couldn't let himself be recaptured. He raised his hand protectively over his poor battered ears and clutched his battered tail at the thought. Shippou laid his small paw on the odd window covering. It was made out of smooth, flimsy grayish strips strung together by thin twine. He grabbed a handful of the strips firmly with both hands and, planting his feet to the floor, pulled as hard as he could. The covering broke free and fell to the floor with an immense crash. Sunlight streamed through the window. She had to have heard that. But it didn't matter, by the time she got here he'd be gone. The fox demon grinned in triumph and leapt for the window.
*OOF *
The little fox hit an invisible barrier and rebounded off of it, landing on the floor with a thump. "Ohh", he groaned as he staggered to his feet and hobbled to the window. Squinting, he glared at it, he couldn't see anything, what had stopped him? He tried to stick his hand through the window, and met something cold and hard. Glass?? They covered their windows with glass?!? What next? Diamonds in the rock garden? Shippou shook his head at the extravagance, to have so much glass that they covered their windows with it. . . He was snapped out of his awe by the sound of footsteps. She was coming. Grabbing a decorative bowl from the wooden table that he'd almost fallen on when he bounced off the window, he threw it as hard as he could through the center of the window hoping that humans didn't cover their windows with anything else. The glass spider webbed, then shattered into hundreds of tiny fragments. The door burst open. Shippou leapt through the window, praying that there were no other coverings. Ignoring the shards that drove themselves into his pelt, the fox ran from the house sprinting for the well.
At the well,
Angrily, Inuyasha dragged himself out of the well. Myouga had wriggled free somewhere between the clearing and the well. Was Kagome's demon so fearful that the flea was unwilling to even be in the same time with it? Inuyasha growled in frustration at the flea's cowardice. Was everyone deserting him? Something broke through the shrubbery near the well. Inuyasha tensed, drawing Tetsusaiga, he hadn't expected to encounter Kagome and her lover so soon. Kagome, his eyes blurred, tears trying to escape. He swallowed them back, letting his anger take over instead, he may not have expected them so soon, but he was ready for the fight. Kagome would help him, and if her demon fiancé tried to prevent that, well. . , Inuyasha smiled cruelly he'd enjoy convincing him otherwise.
"INUYASHA!!", Shippou cried happily jumping towards the welcome sight of the dog demon. Inuyasha jumped, and looked in surprise at Shippou. Who had he been expecting?
"Feh, what are you doing here?", Inuyasha asked grumpily, catching Shippou by the collar before he could crash into him. "It was so horrible," Shippou declared, his eyes becoming haunted at the memory, "I was trapped in her house and she, she" he stuttered, his eyes misting as he rubbed his now bedraggled ears and looked woefully at his once beautiful tail.
Inuyasha gasped in silent horror, Kagome had tortured Shippou. He couldn't believe it, Shippou was like a brother to Kagome, had she changed so much? "Kagome did this to you?" he asked, in a strangled voice, his hand clenched about the kitsune's collar.
"Kagome?", Shippou looked at Inuyasha quizzically, "why would you say that? What does Kagome have to do with this? I thought you were rescuing her from that demon that was forcing his attentions on her. It was Mrs. Higurashi, her mother who, who", the Kitsune became incoherent again at the thought of those horrible hours. The kitsune was literally shaken out of his reverie as Inuyasha ungently jerked him around by the collar, stating "Kagome is *not* engaged then?" in a curiously soft voice, quite at odds with the rough way he was handling Shippou.
"No, she isn't- that is I don't think she is, unless he's already forced - oh no Kagome!!!", the little fox wailed, sinking even deeper into despair. "What happened?" Inuyasha ground out, clutching the fox demon by his shoulders so tightly that the circulation to Shippou's arms started to cut off.
"W-we followed Kagome's scent to what I think was her school, and when we l- looked in the window, she was eating lunch with a boy!"
"That's it? She was eating lunch with him?" Inuyasha's voice held a slightly hysterical edge to it. "Not making passionate declarations of love?
Not declaring their undying devotion?"
"Err, no" Shippou gasped, trying to wriggle out of Inuyasha's iron grip. "I mean some girls by the window were saying something abut how they were destined for each other, but Mrs. Higurashi said that didn't mean anythin. . . but I wasn't sure, and you think that something's going on between them and I haven't seen Kagome come home yet and its late and. . . " the kitsune wailed, long heart-rending sobs, his body shuddering, tears streaming down his red face.
Inuyasha had no idea what was going on. He looked awkwardly down at the sobbing little fox demon and realized he still had a death grip on Shippou's shoulders. He gently set Shippou down, and stared at him, completely at a loss. "Ah, errk", he made what he hoped were soothing noises and patted the little fox gingerly on the back. What was going on? Was Kagome engaged, was somebody chasing after Kagome, was this guy a demon, was he a boy, where was Kagome? What about this Mrs. Higurashi, Higurashi? That was Kagome's mom wasn't it? He vaguely remembered meeting her once, why did he associate her with ears? He searched for a connection, but couldn't find one. Oh well, he gave it up with a mental shrug. What was important was that she should know what was going on with Kagome. "Look, we'll go see Mrs. Higurashi and find out what's happening, where Kagome is", he said to the still sobbing Shippou, hoping to calm him down, he was totally unprepared for the Kitsune's reaction.
"NO!!!", Shippou shrieked, and jumped at Inuyasha, hiding behind him and clutching at Inuyasha's legs as he shivered spasmodically. Peering up at Inuyasha from his perch on the back of Inuyasha's legs, face still wet with tears, and eyes wide with fear, he shuddered, "do NOT go near that woman!" "But we need to know whats happened to Kagome.", Inuyasha said flatly, rapidly becoming impatient with Shippou, shooting him an impatient/questioning look and trying unsuccessfully to walk with the fox demon locked around his legs.
"NO!", Shippou repeated desperately, running in the opposite direction, "come on, she's probably still at school, lets go there!", he frantically proposed, not waiting to see if Inuyasha followed him, just running in the direction of the school. "*Someone* had better know what's happening," the very confused Inuyasha growled as he took off in pursuit of Shippou.
A few leaps and he caught up easily to the little Kitsune. He kept stride with him for a bit, but soon became impatient with the little fox's considerably shorter pace. Grabbing Shippou by the back of his neck, he curtly ordered Shippou to ride on his shoulders. It was easy to follow the trail, Kagome's scent, both old and new was all over the place. She must've been up and down this route hundreds of times. There! Something caught his nose, Kagome's blood!! Alarmed, he jumped towards it, it was slightly off Kagome's normal trail. On a street corner, there were a couple of dark splotches, Kagome's blood. Her path diverged from there. The blood was dry, but the scent was fresh, today's. Blood, that indicated that wherever she was going, it probably wasn't willingly. Frowning fiercely, Inuyasha rushed along the road in a rapid, ground eating lope. He paused momentarily at a fruit stand where Kagome had paused, the owner was making some sort of weird motions with his hands, he stank of fear, Inuyasha ignored him. The trail from there was straight, it led to an enclosed forest. Why would they have a forest in the middle of a city? Humans were so odd. The scent stopped in the middle of a clearing, there was blood all over the ground where Kagome had stood, and the faint scents of fear, another demon, and something else, something that Inuyasha couldn't quite identify lingered in the air. "Where is she?", Shippou asked in a scared, quivery voice as he hopped off of Inuyasha's shoulder. "Her scent, it just, it just *ends.*" Magic, at least he was fairly sure that's what it was, he hadn't come into contact with real magic that often, and its scent was difficult to recognize since it generally mimicked the scent of other things. But there was no way that this dead forest was going to smell of vanilla and honeysuckle, and various other flowers. Not that it mattered, Kagome was gone. Next Chapter: Persuasion