Author's Note:  Footnotes are at the end of the chapter.

****** There and Back Again

Chapter Eleven:  Bandits Plus Inuyasha vs. Inuyasha

            They apparently thought that they were being stealthy.  They had failed rather miserably.  The youkai didn't even need to smell them coming.  One carried twin kamas [1], the other a sword.  Inuyasha had been awake for several minutes listening to them, and could tell that even Ruri was awake and listening as well now.  He felt her shift slightly so that his cloak was free of her.

            From their whispering back and forth it was quite evident that they were rather ordinary highway robbers who simply thought too highly of their skills.  Sword told Kamas to hide to create the appearance of only one of them. Sword "quietly" opened his blade while Kamas "stealthily" climbed a nearby tree.

            Sword had apparently decided that his friend was a backup and that robbing them would be easier if the adult were dead.  He raised his weapon and brought it down where he thought his victim's neck was.  Ruri expected her friend to flick a blade out to parry the blow, or at least dodge it.  Inuyasha didn't move a muscle.  She heard the blade collide with enough force that she heard the metal snap into two, but Inuyasha never twitched or stopped breathing.  She opened her eyes and looked up to see the would-be assassin staring dumbfoundedly at a sword whose blade was suddenly reduced to a length of six inches.

            "Wha, what the hell are you?" Sword stammered.

            Finally, her traveling companion spoke.  "Baka."

            "You're al--"

            The youkai sprung from his laying position at the human, grabbing the mortal by his neck as he rose.  He took his momentum and used it to hurl the man into the base of the tree where Kamas was hiding.  The impact rendered Sword unconscious and sent a massive shudder from the tree.  Kamas wasn't holding very tightly to his perch and was thrown towards the ground below.  Before he could actually hit the ground, Inuyasha swung his still-sheathed katana at the man's stomach, yielding a satisfactory "oomph" from the robber.   The felon crumpled when he hit the ground, gasping to get air back into his lungs.

            Kamas looked up at his would-be victim as the youkai pulled the hood from his head revealing his eyes which matched those of his uncle.

            "You're not human!"  The man shrieked.

            "Nope," Inuyasha replied, menacingly removing the katana from its home.  "And yet you two weaklings thought you could take me on."  He held the blade inches from the man's terrified face.  "I should kill you now for your stupidity, but I'm not going to.  You two are both obviously proud of your petty, little selves and your futile skills as robbers.  Therefore, I'm going to make you live with the shame of having been beaten by an opponent who feels so much disdain for you that he didn't even feel it necessary to unsheathe his weapon during the battle.  Now, drag that worthless lump of garbage with you and get out of my face before I decide I've been too lenient on you and make both of you into living scarecrows."

            With the last words of Inuyasha still dripping with menace that made even Ruri shudder, she watched as Kamas dropped his weapons and half-dragged, half-carried his companion as fast as he could.  Once the two left the clearing and began plowing through the woods, Inuyasha retrieved some apples from the pack he carried, tossing one to Hoshino.

            "Inu-kun, would you really have done that?" she asked, catching the fruit.

            "Nope.  'Theatrical effect' only.  After what I did all those years ago I'd rather avoid killing if at all possible."

            "But he almost killed you with that blow."

            "What, that? That's what this is for," he said, indicating the cloak.  "You didn't know?  This is basically chain mail for our time."  Ruri looked at the outer layer of the cloth on the cloak he had given her to see that it looked like metal and carbon fiber woven together.

            She finished the apple and tossed the core at his head.  "Baka."

            "Baka yourself.  I'd have thought you'd have recognized the fabric since a variant goes into making the new military-grade comp-cases."

            Ruri rose and stood like a scarecrow, flapping her arms slightly.  "Okay, so what's with this kimono?"

            "It's fire-rat fur.  one hundred percent flame-proof and strong enough to withstand many of the human weapons from this era."  Inuyasha picked up the fallen kamas, hurling one into a nearby tree and with the other tried to slice his robe.  The blade broke off near the hilt without so much as snagging the fabric.   Satisfied, Ruri began her part of packing out.

******

            They had all been walking since fairly early that morning.  Inuyasha was still in a rather foul mood from yesterday's fight with Kagome and had decided to make everyone else as miserable as he was.  Kagome didn't seem upset about this fact in the least, leaving the other part of the group to be the ones who suffered from the early yet for some reason agonizingly slow moving pace.  Topping all of that, it had begun raining a short while ago.

            Sango sighed.  "They do seem to enjoy tormenting each other, don't they?"

            Houshi-sama agreed.  "They do indeed act much like an old married couple."

            Inuyasha and Kagome both stopped dead and spun to face the rest of their party.  "WHAT WAS THAT?"

            A chorus of "nothing" echoed in response to their leaders' question.  Kagome ended the conversation with a sudden gasp.  "Jewel Shards!"

            "Well, looks like the hike back may not have been a waste after all."  Inuyasha cracked a few joints in anticipation and unsheathed Tetsusaiga.  "Where're they at?"

            "They're coming right at us!  And there's several!"  They looked down the road before them to see two darkly-cloaked travelers.  The hoods of the cloaks and the rain obscured their faces, but one looked to be about the height of Inuyasha's brother, the other a little shorter than

            "Which one of them has the shards?"

            "The tall one Inuyasha, the tall one."

            "Figures, I smell youkai coming from that one.  Keh, no problem."  Inuyasha raised Tetsusaiga and took off towards the strangers, paying no heed to Kagome's shouts that he be careful.  The stranger apparently wanted a fight, as he began running towards the hanyou.  Inuyasha leaped into the air at his opponent and his opponent followed suit, still not having drawn his weapon.  'Too bad for him,' Inuyasha thought and sent all of the force of his flight into Tetsusaiga's arc.  It was at that moment his opponent vanished from Inuyasha's single-minded line of sight.

            Kagome and the others watched in horror as the cloaked youkai simply rolled out of the way of Tetsusaiga in mid-air.  The opponent waited until he was beside Inuyasha to unsheathe his weapon.  As he passed Inuyasha he spun again in the air and backhanded the hanyou with his weapon, sending Inuyasha crashing into the ground as he landed and slid in the opposite direction.

            Fearful of a coming death blow, Miroku grabbed the prayer beads around his arm, but found Sango a few steps ahead of him.

            "Hiraikotsu!"

            The cloak swirled to face Sango, the only things showing from the cloak were the hands grasping the sword.  Kagome had to stifle a sudden giggle in spite of the danger, as it reminded her of that strange American sci-fi character Darth Vader.  Hiraikotsu sailed towards its intended victim, and the victim parried the blow easily.  The boomerang of doom carved a path of destruction through several nearby trees.  Sango was shocked to see it returning to her, and almost didn't catch it.

            "Sango-chan!  Are you okay?"  Kagome came running to her friend's side.

            "Hai."  Kagome was puzzled by the look of shock which turned to anger on Sango's face.  "It's nearly impossible to deflect Hiraikotsu in such a way that it comes straight back to me as if it had never been deflected."

            "That means..."

            "We're being played with."

******

Footnotes:

1.  Kama – Scythe, but not the giant kind Death carries.  Kohaku's weapon of choice is a kama with a chain attached.