{The Road Between Souls}

{chapter 5 - fun with chopsticks and baths}

Standard disclaimers, blah blah blah.

~~~

"A perfect day for a bath!" Kagome exclaimed happily, dragging Sango along toward the hot spring. Yari was busy...performing...for Sesshoumaru, and had told them to just go ahead and take a bath anyway.

"Yay."

"Cheer up! We get a whole three hours away from our so-called masters, and in a hot spring, to boot!"

"Aren't we perky?" Kagome rolled her eyes at her friend's lack of enthusiasm, then began to untie the pretty obi around her own waist, folding it, then carefully setting it down on a dry rock away from the water. Sango messily dumped her clothes on the ground, then waded in, plopping down. Kagome dropped her yukata on the rock, then stepped in carefully.

In the bushes, Inuyasha crouched, watching Kagome.

"Ohayou, Inuyasha-sama!"

"Urk!" Inuyasha fell on the ground, his fingers separating. (Ranma-style...c'mon, you know what I mean! -Katra) "Miroku! What are you doing here!?"

"The same thing, my lord, that I imagine you are here for: to enjoy the sight of our personal slaves bathing." The cursed priest sat next to Inuyasha. "My, my, but Sango-san is beautiful," he said calmly, ignoring Inuyasha's rather...odd look.

"I'm not here to peep at Kagome."

"Yes you are, Inuyasha-sama." Miroku gave a deceptively innocent smile. "You love her, don't you?" For this Inuyasha lashed out on the poor man, causing a huge bump on the top of his head.

"I do not!" he hissed angrily.

"Eh?" Kagome stopped splashing Sango, looking over at the bushes. Shit! Inuyasha cursed mentally.

"Kagome-chan, did you hear that?"

"Aa. Wonder what it was. C'mon, let's go see!" Inuyasha took advantage of his youkai-borne speed, zipping away before the girls could investigate close enough to see him.

"Coward." Miroku muttered, anticipating far more than a slap from Sango and Kagome.

"PERVERT!!!!" the two girls screeched in unison.

Inuyasha waited up a tree, watching Miroku get the stuffing beat out of him by two very angry female slaves. He chuckled slightly. "Baka ga. Should've gotten outta there when I did."

~~~

Kagome sat on the grass next to Sango and Yari, who were content to simply sit and watch the grass grow, so to speak. Kagome was flipping through a youkai spellbook, one of the volumes that Inuyasha had grabbed for her. She rubbed her still-flat stomach with her thumb, wondering if she would ever show. The youkai midwife one of the wolf-girls had taken her to two weeks ago warned her that since she was a human woman carrying youkai children, she would have a very short, very intense pregnancy. I predict you'll start showing about three days along the way, she'd said.

Well, here it was, two weeks after that, and Kagome's stomach was still as lean and flat as ever. No signs of pregnancy thus far. None, no sickness, no hunger, no nothing.

She idly flipped a page, then gasped when she saw the title. Canceling Out Pregnancy in its Early Stages...? As she scanned the page, reading the slightly smudged script. I...I recognize these words, she realized. This...this is what Konton-ko kept whispering while he was dragging me away...they...they killed my babies...

Kagome slammed the volume angrily on the ground, tears beginning to blur her vision. "Bastards!" she swore.

"Daijoubu ka, Kagome-chan?" Yari asked, her eyes half open as she struggled to wake up. "Why are you crying?"

"I-I never told you, did I?"

"Told us what?" Sango asked, sitting up and shaking her hair out of her eyes.

"I was pregnant when Konton-ko and his gang showed up," Kagome whispered.

"But...that was two weeks ago!" Yari cried out, fully awake now. "You're a human woman; you should be showing already!"

Sango's head snapped up as she realized what her friend was getting at. "They killed your children, didn't they? That spell...I've heard of it...oh, Kagome-chan, I'm so sorry!"

"It's o-"

"No, it is NOT okay!" Yari stood up. "I wish I could do something!" So saying, she reached out and punched a nearby tree, destroying it in the process.

Kagome blinked. "It really is okay. If I want to forget the last three years and not get myself killed while I'm here, this is for the best."

Sango sighed. "Remember Kagome, we're always here for you. Always."

"Yeah, we're like sisters in this hellhole. We stick together, through thick and through thin," Yari agreed.

"Thanks, you guys."

"GROUP HUG!" Yari yelled, smashing Sango and Kagome's heads together gently. Their laughter echoed throughout the garden, as they were unknowingly watched by a pair of small, interested eyes...

~~~

Inuyasha lay facedown on his futon, in the same manner as when Kagome last came in. Miroku's words from that morning were haunting him in the worst way. All my life I've spent trying to be a youkai...trying to surpass Sesshoumaru, pushing most emotions away...why is it that Kagome can break through to me? Through my heart of stone?

"Konnichi wa, Inuyasha!" Kagome said cheerfully as she stepped in, putting the tray down on the table. "Oi. Is your back hurting you again? I can give you another massage, you know."

"Do it."

"Say please or I won't."

"Do it....please." he spat out the last word like it was a dirty swearword, simultaneously wondering why he'd bothered.

"Okay then!" Kagome clapped her hands together, and sat down gently on his back like before, then began to knead his shoulders, then down. Inuyasha felt his whole body relaxing under her gentle touch.

"Harder," he mumbled. Kagome raised her eyebrows, then shrugged and leaned more of her weight into her arms, concentrating on Inuyasha's back.

She heard rain begin, and paused. "It's raining." she announced.

"Yeah, and I don't give a crap. Don't stop." Kagome rolled her eyes, then returned to her job.

Kagome didn't really know how long she sat there, listening to his little pleasure noises as her hands moved up and down and all over his back.

"Okay," she said, hopping off his back. "you'd better eat now, before your food gets cold." Inuyasha grunted in response.

Kagome did something she hadn't done since that first time she'd crept in: she curled into a ball and sat in the far corner of Inuyasha's room.

"Oi. What're you doing over there?"

The silence was broken by his confused voice. "I'm sitting here trying to forget." Kagome whispered, forgetting that Inuyasha did not have the average human's hearing.

"What're you trying to forget?" he asked, his chopsticks pausing on their way to his mouth, a piece of tempura clenched between them.

Kagome swiveled her head around, trying to stop the moistness building in her eyes. "I was pregnant. They took that away from me. Does that answer your question?"

"Who?" he shoveled the tempura into his mouth.

"Who else? Konton-ko and his gang of bastards," she responded bitterly. "you wouldn't know what it's like, being a hanyou. But all I have now is Sango-chan and Yari-chan. And your damn brother keeps Yari-chan occupied fairly often." Inuyasha's eyes seemed to bore into her.

"But it's in the past now, ne?" she smiled brightly, a false smile for his benefit.

He wasn't fooled. You're putting on a show for me, aren't you Kagome? You don't want to lose anybody else.

"Those are very pretty chopsticks," she commented after moving to her usual place, sitting across from him.

"So you've mentioned." Inuyasha continued to eat in silence, watching Kagome. On a sudden impulse, he shoved the chopsticks over toward her. "See if you can still use them." Kagome opened her mouth to protest, but Inuyasha continued. "What do they feed you, anyhow? You're way too scrawny."

Kagome scowled. "We get one small meal a day, and work our asses off. Of course we're scrawny." she reached and grabbed the ivory-white sticks. Carefully, she picked up a piece of shrimp tempura, beaming at him.

The first real smile since she'd found that spell.

Inuyasha gave her a smug grin for no apparent reason. "So. That wolf moron didn't totally ruin you."

She shrugged, then reached across the table and popped the tempura into his mouth. Inuyasha blinked, half of the breaded shrimp sticking out of his mouth.

"Wha wash dat for?" he spoke around a mouthful, then swallowed it down.

She grinned. "You're still hungry."

"No I'm not." Growl, growl.

"Your stomach claims different." Kagome was giggling now at his expense. Inuyasha scowled, but allowed himself a chuckle.

~~~

Meanwhile, the mangled body of a beautiful youkai girl was shoved out in the rain.

"Disgusting bitch," Sesshoumaru muttered, supervising Jaken's work.

"Yume-ne-chan!" a small child came running up. She wore a simple farm girl's kimono, and her face was filthy with dirt. Sesshoumaru watched, interested. But Yari was a youkai...and this child is...human. Not a hanyou like Inuyasha...

"Who are you?" he asked coldly.

"..."

"I know you can talk, brat, so spit it out."

The child promptly began to bawl her eyes out. Sesshoumaru winced inwardly.

~~~

The small fox kit jumped from tree to tree, trying to find a decent cave to stay in - which was near impossible, with all this rain. Rain, rain, rain. It had been like that when okaa and otou had died.

Water washing away the blood and the tears and the scent of them.

Water falling like tears from the sky.

Water...water was the gods crying sad tears, okaa had once told him. When the gods cry, so does the sky. When it's crying outside, Shippou, run away. Bad things come with tears.

That was what she'd told him.

And ever since then, the little kitsune had hated the rain.

The rain that killed.

~~~

Rather...melancholy...a-hem.

Now, as for Yari...yes, she's dead. Boo hoo. Wanna know why? How?

TOO BAD. Wait till I get the next chapter out. It goes faster if I get more positive reviews...hint, hint.

Also, somebody mentioned that the cast is slightly OOC. Wanna know why? I'm essentially subtracting 50 years of events. That's why. All the OOC-NESS is based upon what is a possibility. See, if all that shit hadn't happened (Sango thinks her village is fine) the characters would've been FAR different.

This is simply my idea. XP

See you in the next chapter...REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!