Disclaimer: D-I-S-C-L-A-I-M-E-R!!!!
(A/N: sorry about the delay, been rather busy recently... got into major trouble with my parents (who are currently on the other side of the country) and will probably tan my hide the minute they get back. Plus I've had to scrounge around for money down the backs of the sofas because I am STARVING and there is NO food in this house whatsoever... So far I have about 79p which is just about enough to buy a carton of milk... T_T SO hungry...)
Two Faced
Divided
It was probably the cold draft that woke Kagome up the next morning. She shifted and winced in her sleeping bag, trying to snuggle down to get more warmth. "Inuyasha... close the window would you?" she called out.
"I'm not your maid." Came the gruff reply.
"Hey..." Kagome frowned beneath her covers. "What are you doing in my room...?"
"Oh for... I'll go close that window..." she heard the sound of retreating footsteps and vaguely wondered if her suspicions were right about him being a peeping tom pervert.
After a few moments the draft seemed to disappear and Kagome sighed happily as she drifted off back into a light sleep. Only a minute or so later she vaguely heard heavier footsteps coming back into her 'bedroom' and stirred ever so slightly. She was, however, completely unprepared to have a bucket of ice cold water slosh over her head.
Kagome's following scream was loud enough to rouse the rest of the camp - who then all came stumbling out of their tents seconds later, still only half asleep.
"Who screamed?" Miroku managed to slur out. This was followed by the sound of Sango falling out of her own tent, then followed by a couple of sailor like cusses.
Inuyasha stepped out of Kagome's tent with a pleased looking expression. "I think I've found an effective alarm clock - you guys were taking ages to get up."
Kagome came stumbling out of her tent, glaring murderously at Inuyasha's back and dripping wet with icy Cold River water. "You are the epitome of anything EVIL!"
"And you are the epitome of anything wet - you might want to get changed before you catch cold." Or before Miroku woke up enough to notice that her blouse was practically transparent now.
Kagome sighed patiently and counted to ten as everyone made their way back to their tents to either catch up on their sleep, or to get dressed. In fact, Kagome didn't blame those who snuck back into their sleeping bags - it was only just coming up to the crack of dawn. But since she was up, wet AND cold, she decided she might as well go get washed in the nearby stream properly.
She shivered as she limped across to the survival packs that had been dumped between the tents. She rummaged around (difficult when you could only rummage with one arm) until she found a small emergency toothbrush, paste and a polystyrene cup. She glanced over her shoulder to check on what everyone else was doing and noticed that in fact everyone had gone back to bed except for Miroku, Sango and Inuyasha. Miroku and Sango seemed to be conversing like two tigers squaring each other up for battle... but in a more discreet way, while Inuyasha seemed to be tending to his kendo sword...
Kagome sighed and headed across the clearing that made their campsite towards the nearby stream of fresh running spring water from the mountains in the dark forest. She winced as she carefully sat down and stuck her twisted ankle into the biting cold water and set about brushing her teeth and washing her face, hands and feet.
She sighed again as she heard the sound of Sango's bickering with Miroku steadily rise in volume before it was cut short by a sharp slap... then all was quiet again. Kagome dipped her cup in the water with the her left hand and gently took a small sip to quench her thirst.
That's when a very small... very slight tremor shivered through the ground beneath her. For a moment she thought she had imagined it, or it had been her own body that had shivered... before noticing that Inuyasha was suddenly sitting up straighter than he had before and his activities had frozen.
Kagome set the cup down beside her and watched with surprise as the water inside the cup gently shivered intermittently. "Earthquake...?"
"Probably..." Sango commented, having also noticed the slight tremors.
They stopped and everyone seemed to shrug and continue with what they had been doing before, all except Inuyasha who was slowly standing up and gripping his sword in its sheath very tightly. Kagome noticed how on edge he seemed to be and frowned. "Inuyasha - what-"
Her voice was suddenly drowned out by a booming crash in the trees off to the east of the campsite. At once everyone spun in that direction or stumbled out of the tents again. The crashing continued, like something very large was bulldozing its way through the trees, and the tremors in the ground increased like pounding footsteps, getting so violent that Kagome's spilt.
"It's a demon!" she screamed just as the trees to their right suddenly were flung out the way to reveal an extremely large humanoid looking demon. It was big, ugly and they could smell it already... that was all they needed to know before running to fetch their weapons.
It's beady little eyes scanned the scene of running humans before it before it fixed them on Kagome and it seemed to literally freeze as it processed the sight of her. Kagome was also frozen, more in shock than in anything else. She'd never seen a demon in it's true form... of course she'd seen pictures and sketches and heard tales about the real demons in the forests... but she'd never been this close to one before.
After a moment the huge demon with arms that seemed that allowed its knuckles to scrape along the floor started to make its way towards Kagome whose fear skyrocketed.
Inuyasha's sharp gaze darted between the weakened human girl and the large dumb demon and quickly shot towards Kagome. He got to her just as the demon began to raise its tree trunk like arms to bring them down on a cowering Kagome. He managed to bundle her over his shoulder, ignoring her protesting cries of pain, and swiftly carried her out of the way before she was crushed.
"Ow! Let me down!" Kagome yelled.
"You can't run, so what's the point?!" he yelled back and turned to see that the demon had begun to follow them. "Shit..."
"What's happening?!" Kagome demanded, thumping his back. Inuyasha turned and started to leg it out of the clearing, giving Kagome a clear view of what was behind them. "Oh my god!"
The demon probably would have continued to follow them if Miroku and his men hadn't jumped in to block the beast's path and started to attack it. Kagome watched in open-mouthed shock. "Where are we going?! We have to help them!"
"You can't do anything to help - that beast is following you!" Inuyasha snapped as he dodged through the low hanging branches and over rotting logs and vegetation. "I'll dump you in a cave and then I'll go back to help them."
"You are not dumping me anywhere!" Kagome struggled, intending to make him either slow down or risk dropping her.
Unfortunately for Kagome he just dropped her and scowled down at her. "Now look what you made me do?"
Kagome lay on the forest floor, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out in pain and to keep from yelling at Inuyasha. He was such a useless bodyguard come to think of it...
"Ok, just stay here and keep quiet and try not to emit any smells that might attract demons..." Inuyasha ordered her and turned to leave.
"Like what smells?!" Kagome snapped indignantly.
"Like pheromones, I don't know! Just don't do anything to attract attention to yourself - I'll come back for you in a few minutes so don't go too far!" he called over his shoulder as he raced back towards the campsite.
Within a few seconds he was gone from sight and Kagome sat up slowly and looked around. It was very quiet in this part of the jungle... no bird song... no insects... no demons... not much sound of any sort other than the constant drip of water running off leaves. For a moment she just sat on the damp ground before deciding she couldn't just sit there while Sango and everyone else went up against a huge demon...
So just like that, everything Inuyasha had just said flew in one ear and out the other, as did a lot of things people told her. She stood up precariously and began to limp unsteadily back in the direction Inuyasha had just taken her. It would have been a lot easier if she'd had two arms to steady herself with, but unfortunately her right arm was still in its sling and was bruised so badly the entire of her upper arm was now black and blue, including her shoulder.
After about three minutes of hobbling she realised that Inuyasha could cover ground a lot faster than her and had probably covered a mile in the space of a minute. Kagome, with her duff ankle, was going to take a lot longer than that. and since her ankle was beginning to ache pretty badly, she decided to give up and slump against one of the ancient trees in defeat, panting.
She only prayed that the others were all right...
^_^
Inuyasha arrived at the campsite with a flurry of movement and skidded to a halt to look around wildly for any sign of danger.
There was no sign of the demon... but there was no sign of any of the humans that had been here either. All that remained were trashed tents and supply packs. There was however, one human remaining.
Inuyasha walked over quietly and slowly used his foot to nudge the fallen man onto his back. When he could finally see whom the unfortunate sod was he cursed and looked away. One of Miroku's men... Lieutenant Kenji or whatever. He'd fallen hard by the looks of things.
He raised his head and sniffed the air slightly... scent trails led away from the clearing in a westerly direction. It meant that all the residents of the campsite had gone off in the same direction as the demon, meaning they were either being chased by the blockhead or were giving chasing to it instead. Inuyasha doubted they would have left Kenji behind to rot if they'd had a choice, and suspected that they'd most likely made a run for their lives. But as far as Inuyasha could tell, they were all still alive.
He toyed with the idea of following them and helping them out for a moment, before deciding that wasn't what was in his mission description. Plus, Kagome was still out there in the forest on her own and emitting all sorts of enticing smells that the first demon had probably been attracted to in the first place. It wouldn't be long before another one decided to check out the smell of the enchanted girl, and if Inuyasha wasn't there to protect her...?
He stood, not sure what to do for a moment. On the one hand he could do nothing and risk the lives of every other human that had crash-landed into this cursed forest. Or he could go save one group and let Kagome die... or save Kagome and let the rest of the humans die. His ethics and morals told him he should probably go save Kagome... she was helpless after all. But his mission and sense told him to either do nothing or go help out Miroku's lot...
After a moment he made his decision...
^_^
Kagome stood precariously in the midst of the trees with one arm point ahead of her and another point at a 100-degree angle to the left.
"If the camp was in that direction... and south was to the north of the camp if you stood facing the camp by the river... then that means south would be in..." she looked around, trying to pinpoint the direction she needed to be heading in. Of course, this really didn't help her any because she didn't have a compass and she had no idea what direction north or south was in.
With a sigh she just turned in the direction her instincts told her to follow and started to limp off. At this rate Inuyasha would probably never find her... that was if he hadn't forgotten about her... or wasn't dead...
She bit her lip as she remembered how big and smelly that demon had been back there. He had been much larger and stronger than any demon she'd ever seen... Inuyasha probably didn't stand a chance if he went up against it, even if he did boast about his kendo skills. Kagome doubted that a puny little stick like 'Tessaiga' was going to have much affect on tough demon hide around here.
"I'm doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed..." she muttered to herself.
"Well you will be if you continue going in that direction." Inuyasha spoke out from behind her.
Kagome started to turn in surprise, but her ankle failed her and she tumbled onto her behind, with as much gracefulness as she could manage. "Haven't you ever heard of snapping twigs to make your presence known before you scare the wits out of me?"
"Not really..." He folded his arms, shifting a survival pack on his shoulder. "I'm just surprised you're still alive... seeing as you deliberately disobeyed me and started to toddle of in the direction of a swamp that wreaks of demons."
He nodded his head in the direction she had been aiming for and Kagome sighed. "Stupid instincts... never get me anywhere..."
"You still plan to go to the Southern territory?" Inuyasha asked, starting to scan the area around them with his eyes.
"Yep. I still have to find my dad." Kagome said firmly, rubbing at a scab that was developing on her forearm.
"You don't plan on killing all those demons still?" Inuyasha asked, slightly surprised.
"Of course not!" Kagome looked at him with a frown. "Just because dad's plane was sabotaged by demons or people who support demons doesn't mean I'm out for revenge. It's not like I'm going to hold the actions of a few against a whole race."
She went back to picking at her scab.
Inuyasha just stared at her with mild surprise. One again she'd proven him wrong. He'd thought she'd be out for blood... but she was just looking to find her father. While HE on the other hand was going to extreme lengths to exact revenge just as he thought she should be doing...
Well now he just felt like a total jerk...
"Stop picking at it or you'll get a scar." Inuyasha swotted her hand away from arm as he passed her.
Kagome looked up quickly. "We going?"
"Yeah, hurry up and keep up." He said curtly.
"Inuyasha?"
He turned and looked back. "What?"
"Carry me." She held her arms out, looking distinctly like a teddybear pose.
"What?"
"Please?"
"I'm not your carriage!" he snapped.
"Never said you were! I can't walk on my ankle thanks to you and you're scary creeping up on me methods!" Kagome said hotly and held out her arms again. "Please?"
"I better get a rise when we get back you know." He said, though it hit him that she wouldn't ever make it back north alive. He stomped over to her and draped his jacket around her shoulders before kneeling down to allow her to climb onto his back. He also made her carry the survival pack on her own good shoulder.
"What's the jacket for?" Kagome asked as she clung to his shoulder with one arm.
"So you won't get cold. And so it's easier for me to carry you. And so you won't injure your arm anymore than necessary." He said shortly.
"You really care?" Kagome smiled.
"Not really..."
Kagome rolled her eyes and relaxed to enjoy the sensation of being carried by someone as strong as Inuyasha. She wasn't at all worried that he could drop her at any moment..., which had always been her problem in the past. She just hadn't been able to put faith in someone's ability to hold her up... with Inuyasha it was different.
"What about the others?" she suddenly remembered.
"They're gone..." Inuyasha said darkly.
Kagome froze up. "You mean... they're dead...? All of them...?"
Inuyasha was quiet. Maybe it was better if she thought that was what had happened?
But then of course she started to sniff and cry and he felt her bury her head in the crook of his neck and begin to soak his shirt with damp tears. "Hey! I never said they were dead! They were just somewhere else... I didn't have time to check."
"Oh ok..." her tears quickly cleared up.
"But Kenji was dead."
So the tears began to return. "Oh..."
"But I'm pretty sure the others are ok."
"Ok..." Kagome sniffed anyway.
"It's just you and me from now on, eh?"
"Joy."
Yep. It was going to be pure bliss...
(A/N: Next chapter should be up soon - 'Testing the Trust'.)
(A/N: sorry about the delay, been rather busy recently... got into major trouble with my parents (who are currently on the other side of the country) and will probably tan my hide the minute they get back. Plus I've had to scrounge around for money down the backs of the sofas because I am STARVING and there is NO food in this house whatsoever... So far I have about 79p which is just about enough to buy a carton of milk... T_T SO hungry...)
Two Faced
Divided
It was probably the cold draft that woke Kagome up the next morning. She shifted and winced in her sleeping bag, trying to snuggle down to get more warmth. "Inuyasha... close the window would you?" she called out.
"I'm not your maid." Came the gruff reply.
"Hey..." Kagome frowned beneath her covers. "What are you doing in my room...?"
"Oh for... I'll go close that window..." she heard the sound of retreating footsteps and vaguely wondered if her suspicions were right about him being a peeping tom pervert.
After a few moments the draft seemed to disappear and Kagome sighed happily as she drifted off back into a light sleep. Only a minute or so later she vaguely heard heavier footsteps coming back into her 'bedroom' and stirred ever so slightly. She was, however, completely unprepared to have a bucket of ice cold water slosh over her head.
Kagome's following scream was loud enough to rouse the rest of the camp - who then all came stumbling out of their tents seconds later, still only half asleep.
"Who screamed?" Miroku managed to slur out. This was followed by the sound of Sango falling out of her own tent, then followed by a couple of sailor like cusses.
Inuyasha stepped out of Kagome's tent with a pleased looking expression. "I think I've found an effective alarm clock - you guys were taking ages to get up."
Kagome came stumbling out of her tent, glaring murderously at Inuyasha's back and dripping wet with icy Cold River water. "You are the epitome of anything EVIL!"
"And you are the epitome of anything wet - you might want to get changed before you catch cold." Or before Miroku woke up enough to notice that her blouse was practically transparent now.
Kagome sighed patiently and counted to ten as everyone made their way back to their tents to either catch up on their sleep, or to get dressed. In fact, Kagome didn't blame those who snuck back into their sleeping bags - it was only just coming up to the crack of dawn. But since she was up, wet AND cold, she decided she might as well go get washed in the nearby stream properly.
She shivered as she limped across to the survival packs that had been dumped between the tents. She rummaged around (difficult when you could only rummage with one arm) until she found a small emergency toothbrush, paste and a polystyrene cup. She glanced over her shoulder to check on what everyone else was doing and noticed that in fact everyone had gone back to bed except for Miroku, Sango and Inuyasha. Miroku and Sango seemed to be conversing like two tigers squaring each other up for battle... but in a more discreet way, while Inuyasha seemed to be tending to his kendo sword...
Kagome sighed and headed across the clearing that made their campsite towards the nearby stream of fresh running spring water from the mountains in the dark forest. She winced as she carefully sat down and stuck her twisted ankle into the biting cold water and set about brushing her teeth and washing her face, hands and feet.
She sighed again as she heard the sound of Sango's bickering with Miroku steadily rise in volume before it was cut short by a sharp slap... then all was quiet again. Kagome dipped her cup in the water with the her left hand and gently took a small sip to quench her thirst.
That's when a very small... very slight tremor shivered through the ground beneath her. For a moment she thought she had imagined it, or it had been her own body that had shivered... before noticing that Inuyasha was suddenly sitting up straighter than he had before and his activities had frozen.
Kagome set the cup down beside her and watched with surprise as the water inside the cup gently shivered intermittently. "Earthquake...?"
"Probably..." Sango commented, having also noticed the slight tremors.
They stopped and everyone seemed to shrug and continue with what they had been doing before, all except Inuyasha who was slowly standing up and gripping his sword in its sheath very tightly. Kagome noticed how on edge he seemed to be and frowned. "Inuyasha - what-"
Her voice was suddenly drowned out by a booming crash in the trees off to the east of the campsite. At once everyone spun in that direction or stumbled out of the tents again. The crashing continued, like something very large was bulldozing its way through the trees, and the tremors in the ground increased like pounding footsteps, getting so violent that Kagome's spilt.
"It's a demon!" she screamed just as the trees to their right suddenly were flung out the way to reveal an extremely large humanoid looking demon. It was big, ugly and they could smell it already... that was all they needed to know before running to fetch their weapons.
It's beady little eyes scanned the scene of running humans before it before it fixed them on Kagome and it seemed to literally freeze as it processed the sight of her. Kagome was also frozen, more in shock than in anything else. She'd never seen a demon in it's true form... of course she'd seen pictures and sketches and heard tales about the real demons in the forests... but she'd never been this close to one before.
After a moment the huge demon with arms that seemed that allowed its knuckles to scrape along the floor started to make its way towards Kagome whose fear skyrocketed.
Inuyasha's sharp gaze darted between the weakened human girl and the large dumb demon and quickly shot towards Kagome. He got to her just as the demon began to raise its tree trunk like arms to bring them down on a cowering Kagome. He managed to bundle her over his shoulder, ignoring her protesting cries of pain, and swiftly carried her out of the way before she was crushed.
"Ow! Let me down!" Kagome yelled.
"You can't run, so what's the point?!" he yelled back and turned to see that the demon had begun to follow them. "Shit..."
"What's happening?!" Kagome demanded, thumping his back. Inuyasha turned and started to leg it out of the clearing, giving Kagome a clear view of what was behind them. "Oh my god!"
The demon probably would have continued to follow them if Miroku and his men hadn't jumped in to block the beast's path and started to attack it. Kagome watched in open-mouthed shock. "Where are we going?! We have to help them!"
"You can't do anything to help - that beast is following you!" Inuyasha snapped as he dodged through the low hanging branches and over rotting logs and vegetation. "I'll dump you in a cave and then I'll go back to help them."
"You are not dumping me anywhere!" Kagome struggled, intending to make him either slow down or risk dropping her.
Unfortunately for Kagome he just dropped her and scowled down at her. "Now look what you made me do?"
Kagome lay on the forest floor, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out in pain and to keep from yelling at Inuyasha. He was such a useless bodyguard come to think of it...
"Ok, just stay here and keep quiet and try not to emit any smells that might attract demons..." Inuyasha ordered her and turned to leave.
"Like what smells?!" Kagome snapped indignantly.
"Like pheromones, I don't know! Just don't do anything to attract attention to yourself - I'll come back for you in a few minutes so don't go too far!" he called over his shoulder as he raced back towards the campsite.
Within a few seconds he was gone from sight and Kagome sat up slowly and looked around. It was very quiet in this part of the jungle... no bird song... no insects... no demons... not much sound of any sort other than the constant drip of water running off leaves. For a moment she just sat on the damp ground before deciding she couldn't just sit there while Sango and everyone else went up against a huge demon...
So just like that, everything Inuyasha had just said flew in one ear and out the other, as did a lot of things people told her. She stood up precariously and began to limp unsteadily back in the direction Inuyasha had just taken her. It would have been a lot easier if she'd had two arms to steady herself with, but unfortunately her right arm was still in its sling and was bruised so badly the entire of her upper arm was now black and blue, including her shoulder.
After about three minutes of hobbling she realised that Inuyasha could cover ground a lot faster than her and had probably covered a mile in the space of a minute. Kagome, with her duff ankle, was going to take a lot longer than that. and since her ankle was beginning to ache pretty badly, she decided to give up and slump against one of the ancient trees in defeat, panting.
She only prayed that the others were all right...
^_^
Inuyasha arrived at the campsite with a flurry of movement and skidded to a halt to look around wildly for any sign of danger.
There was no sign of the demon... but there was no sign of any of the humans that had been here either. All that remained were trashed tents and supply packs. There was however, one human remaining.
Inuyasha walked over quietly and slowly used his foot to nudge the fallen man onto his back. When he could finally see whom the unfortunate sod was he cursed and looked away. One of Miroku's men... Lieutenant Kenji or whatever. He'd fallen hard by the looks of things.
He raised his head and sniffed the air slightly... scent trails led away from the clearing in a westerly direction. It meant that all the residents of the campsite had gone off in the same direction as the demon, meaning they were either being chased by the blockhead or were giving chasing to it instead. Inuyasha doubted they would have left Kenji behind to rot if they'd had a choice, and suspected that they'd most likely made a run for their lives. But as far as Inuyasha could tell, they were all still alive.
He toyed with the idea of following them and helping them out for a moment, before deciding that wasn't what was in his mission description. Plus, Kagome was still out there in the forest on her own and emitting all sorts of enticing smells that the first demon had probably been attracted to in the first place. It wouldn't be long before another one decided to check out the smell of the enchanted girl, and if Inuyasha wasn't there to protect her...?
He stood, not sure what to do for a moment. On the one hand he could do nothing and risk the lives of every other human that had crash-landed into this cursed forest. Or he could go save one group and let Kagome die... or save Kagome and let the rest of the humans die. His ethics and morals told him he should probably go save Kagome... she was helpless after all. But his mission and sense told him to either do nothing or go help out Miroku's lot...
After a moment he made his decision...
^_^
Kagome stood precariously in the midst of the trees with one arm point ahead of her and another point at a 100-degree angle to the left.
"If the camp was in that direction... and south was to the north of the camp if you stood facing the camp by the river... then that means south would be in..." she looked around, trying to pinpoint the direction she needed to be heading in. Of course, this really didn't help her any because she didn't have a compass and she had no idea what direction north or south was in.
With a sigh she just turned in the direction her instincts told her to follow and started to limp off. At this rate Inuyasha would probably never find her... that was if he hadn't forgotten about her... or wasn't dead...
She bit her lip as she remembered how big and smelly that demon had been back there. He had been much larger and stronger than any demon she'd ever seen... Inuyasha probably didn't stand a chance if he went up against it, even if he did boast about his kendo skills. Kagome doubted that a puny little stick like 'Tessaiga' was going to have much affect on tough demon hide around here.
"I'm doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed..." she muttered to herself.
"Well you will be if you continue going in that direction." Inuyasha spoke out from behind her.
Kagome started to turn in surprise, but her ankle failed her and she tumbled onto her behind, with as much gracefulness as she could manage. "Haven't you ever heard of snapping twigs to make your presence known before you scare the wits out of me?"
"Not really..." He folded his arms, shifting a survival pack on his shoulder. "I'm just surprised you're still alive... seeing as you deliberately disobeyed me and started to toddle of in the direction of a swamp that wreaks of demons."
He nodded his head in the direction she had been aiming for and Kagome sighed. "Stupid instincts... never get me anywhere..."
"You still plan to go to the Southern territory?" Inuyasha asked, starting to scan the area around them with his eyes.
"Yep. I still have to find my dad." Kagome said firmly, rubbing at a scab that was developing on her forearm.
"You don't plan on killing all those demons still?" Inuyasha asked, slightly surprised.
"Of course not!" Kagome looked at him with a frown. "Just because dad's plane was sabotaged by demons or people who support demons doesn't mean I'm out for revenge. It's not like I'm going to hold the actions of a few against a whole race."
She went back to picking at her scab.
Inuyasha just stared at her with mild surprise. One again she'd proven him wrong. He'd thought she'd be out for blood... but she was just looking to find her father. While HE on the other hand was going to extreme lengths to exact revenge just as he thought she should be doing...
Well now he just felt like a total jerk...
"Stop picking at it or you'll get a scar." Inuyasha swotted her hand away from arm as he passed her.
Kagome looked up quickly. "We going?"
"Yeah, hurry up and keep up." He said curtly.
"Inuyasha?"
He turned and looked back. "What?"
"Carry me." She held her arms out, looking distinctly like a teddybear pose.
"What?"
"Please?"
"I'm not your carriage!" he snapped.
"Never said you were! I can't walk on my ankle thanks to you and you're scary creeping up on me methods!" Kagome said hotly and held out her arms again. "Please?"
"I better get a rise when we get back you know." He said, though it hit him that she wouldn't ever make it back north alive. He stomped over to her and draped his jacket around her shoulders before kneeling down to allow her to climb onto his back. He also made her carry the survival pack on her own good shoulder.
"What's the jacket for?" Kagome asked as she clung to his shoulder with one arm.
"So you won't get cold. And so it's easier for me to carry you. And so you won't injure your arm anymore than necessary." He said shortly.
"You really care?" Kagome smiled.
"Not really..."
Kagome rolled her eyes and relaxed to enjoy the sensation of being carried by someone as strong as Inuyasha. She wasn't at all worried that he could drop her at any moment..., which had always been her problem in the past. She just hadn't been able to put faith in someone's ability to hold her up... with Inuyasha it was different.
"What about the others?" she suddenly remembered.
"They're gone..." Inuyasha said darkly.
Kagome froze up. "You mean... they're dead...? All of them...?"
Inuyasha was quiet. Maybe it was better if she thought that was what had happened?
But then of course she started to sniff and cry and he felt her bury her head in the crook of his neck and begin to soak his shirt with damp tears. "Hey! I never said they were dead! They were just somewhere else... I didn't have time to check."
"Oh ok..." her tears quickly cleared up.
"But Kenji was dead."
So the tears began to return. "Oh..."
"But I'm pretty sure the others are ok."
"Ok..." Kagome sniffed anyway.
"It's just you and me from now on, eh?"
"Joy."
Yep. It was going to be pure bliss...
(A/N: Next chapter should be up soon - 'Testing the Trust'.)