Ah! Late! I know! But, you see, Summer heat + my own inherent laziness = super abso-freakin-total lazy Wulfie. In other words, much Zzz-age.

That was confusing.

Onward!

Disclaimer: Sir Inu-Yasha belongeth to the great Lady Rumiko Takahashi, as doth his kin and countrymen. The events of history belong to the process of evolution, and England and France belong to.themselves, I guess.

*---*

The twig was only half-crushed beneath her foot before the demon heard it and whirled around to face her.

"What the Hell are you following me for?!" Inu-yasha vented, waving his claws in a manner stupid creatures might have considered intimidating but Vera found only silly. "What part of 'stay put' is too evolved for your pathetic noblewoman mind to comprehend? Do you not see how st-"

"*Will* you shut up?" Vera interrupted, her voice so low and full of disgust that it gave even Inu-yasha pause. "Did you think for even a *heartbeat* that I have *any* desire *what-so-ever* to accompany you on this little quest? I would sooner set myself on fire and allow myself to be eaten alive by rats!"

"Then what are you doing here?" the man muttered, pointing out the obvious. "And besides, rats wouldn't touch a filthy corpse like yours. The stench of your stupidity scares even the hungriest of buzzards away."

By the end of his response, the girl's eyes were barely open and her jaw was set in complete resentment. "How *dare* you," she said simply, shoving past him down the forest in a determined stride that ill-fit her easily- bruised noblewoman's skin and fine silk dress, now mostly in tatters. Wearing an expression of equal hatred and just a tinge of amusement, Inu- yasha watched her only a moment before setting off behind.

She must have noticed him immediately, but instead deigned to ignore him, forging ahead with such exaggerated vehemence that she tired in almost half the time she would have under normal duress. After an hour or so, Vera's steps visibly slowed, and she turned, careful to look past Inu-yasha as if he weren't there.

"Kaede said to go to the southeast," he informed her casually, "though I wouldn't recommend going south yet. There's a kobold camp detachment I haven't gotten around to decimating yet, and I doubt a little bitch like you could handle even one of them."

Vera growled, and Inu-yasha smiled. "Now, if only you would start treating me like your rightful ruler, and less like a creature from your supposed Hell; then we might be able to arrange something."

Vera hissed under her breath, so quiet that even she could not hear it, but of course Inu-yasha made out the word with hardly any effort at all.

"Never?" the man repeated, coming forward half a step and chuckling when Vera hastily backed away. "Well, what a shame. Seems I should leave you to your death then. Oh," he added, putting fist to hand in a native demon gesture of remembering something. "On second thought, do please head south. Kaede said that plague works on everything, so you might as well get rid of some pests for me before you expire. Be a dear and give them my regards?"

Vera shrunk from the loud bark of his laugh, and watched him trot away with maleficent eyes. "Irrefragable though your logic must be," she susurrated, lips pinched and nose raised high in the air, "I must digress. I will not be a test animal to your failures as a leader!"

That, for some reason, brought his steps to a halt. Vera heard a peculiar sound, and realized after a second that the man was snarling. Literally snarling! Well, he was supposed to be related to dogs, after all. It made sense that he would have the mannerisms of one.

Vera gasped as she blinked and found Inu-yasha's furious face so close she could feel his breath on her nose. "Don't you *ever* lecture *me* on how to rule, you impetuous bitch!!"

"Temper, temper," Vera murmured, inside reeling at her own daring. Where had all this bravado come from? She had always been such a gentle girl, well.sort of, she mused, simultaneous with her voice as she coaxed the demon's anger with a few choice words. "Seems I've touched a soft spot, hmm? I knew there was bound to be one somewhere in that mess of fangs and fury."

"You want fangs?" Inu-yasha gesticulated, his tone somewhere between joy and pure hatred. "I'll give you-"

"Hey now. You need me."

Shocked out of his wits, Inu-yasha paused mid-swipe. "Huh?"

"Kaede told me I'm the only one who can see the charm. There's no way you can find it. And even if you don't go looking for it, you've already been infected, I'm sure. The only way you could save everyone would be to kill me, Kaede, and you, and even then you couldn't be certain, I mean what if a strain of it gets into the forest life-"

"When, where, and under what flavor of insanity did Kaede say such a thing?" Inu-yasha's eyes seemed to glaze over as he spoke, and afterward his expression hardened. You're making it up. I commend you on the effort at preserving your life, but it's fruitless. You've already sealed your fate with your careless insults."

"I am not! Ask Kaede right now! Do you really want to risk being wrong?" Vera breathed, almost swallowing her tongue when Inu-yasha again approached her and bore down on her with his intense glare.

Inu-yasha hesitated for only a moment, and it was only a moment Vera needed. Not even stopping long enough to get her bearings, Vera ducked from beneath the demon and took off in a dead run through the forest, jumping off the path and forcing her way through the foliage with newfound strength. Branch after branch slapped her in the face, stinging her cheeks and almost blinding her with their nettles, but still she ran, jumping to her feet when she fell, recovering when she smacked into tree trunks.

And then, without warning, she broke into a clearing.

And there were kobolds, holding spears and crossbows to her neck. Big ones.

"Oh, God, preserve me," Vera whispered, almost fainting from the stench as the breeze faded and the kobolds' natural odor invaded her senses. *I've really done it now.*

--

Ah, the wiles of fools. Kaede sighed, the deep, longing sigh of an older person, and hobbled with uncharacteristic slowness to the broken pieces of clay and wood. The house was a mess, and all because of that nasty demon and the girl from the future. And what was worse, now Kaede was sick, already aware with her preternatural senses of the infected cells as they swam steadily, stealthily throughout her veins and arteries. She was old, and, like it or not, mortal. The plague was harder on the weak, and hardest of all on a woman long past her prime. Kaede was already reviewing all the possible remedies in her mind, and finding only ways to slow the sickness, not stop it. That damned demon and his girl better not get sidetracked, or she was doomed.

Oh, blessed be. They were probably already off on a tangent, squabbling or perhaps ripping each other's hair out. No way they would find the jewel in time.

Well, she would just have to give them a little push forward.

The bits of broken pottery already forgotten, the aged sorceress turned to her cabinets and pulled out all manner of herbs and creature parts. At one time in her youth, such a spell would only require the shortest of incantations, but now she needed components. Well, no getting around it. Mashing and mixing the materials with practiced hands, Kaede soon had a fine dust that she took to a candle and sprinkled over the flame gingerly. Her lips cracked in a long list of indefinable syllables, and then the fire flared up, almost catching her fingers. A red shine took over Kaede's eyes for a moment then faded, and she blew out the candle before leaning back and resting her weight on the pallet. If she had done everything right, which an experienced witch like her surely would, Inu-yasha and his companion would soon be finding themselves bonding very fast. They had better, or their lives were as good as over.

--

"Get here." The kobold thrust his hand forward, jarring Vera in the shoulder blade until she tripped into a reluctant march forward. Grunting incoherently, the disgusting creature pointed a bluish gnarled finger at a tree stump, then swung his arm around to indicate Vera. "Get here," it repeated, again gesturing towards the stump. Vera sat quickly, her visage a clear statement that she was none too happy.

"Stay." Much as she resented being commanded like a mutt, Vera knew she didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of fighting these monsters. She would just have to wait until they lost interest in her, or she found an opportunity to escape.

Or maybe if that dog demon came to-

Woa, wait. Where was her mind? She'd left *that* monster in the dust, no way he'd manage to catch up with-

"Kill." Vera jumped and her eyes flew to her captors, but they were merely talking amongst themselves, acting as if she wasn't even there. Done already? Kobolds must be exceptionally stupid, to have such a short attention span. They began walking away, and again Vera thanked God for being so kind to her in letting her escape early. She began to rise from her perch and slink back towards the forest.

Wind streaming about the arrow caused the air to sound like it was screaming, a scream cut short when the point imbedded itself thickly in the bark of a sapling. Vera sucked in a breath and turned her head hesitantly, staring at the kobold with its crossbow as if it were Satan incarnate. "Get here," the kobold demanded from somewhere inside a leg of ham, busily gobbling down its supper. The creature wasn't even looking at her! Incensed beyond belief and frightened twice as much, Vera hastily obeyed.

Vera heard another thunk and turned her head to the side, expecting to see another imbedded arrow, but instead watched the disembodied head of a kobold roll about on the dirt after bouncing off an exposed root. Bile rose in her throat and Vera prepared to scream, but then the rest of the kobold hit the tree and her scream turned into a mind-splitting shriek.

"You sure as Hell better not be lying," the dog demon growled as his hand disappeared into the throat of another kobold, "or you'll soon be joining them."

Vera only blinked faintly in response.

His cover blown, Inu-yasha found his situation suddenly much harder as all the kobolds of the entire camp jumped on him at once. There were more than he had expected, at least thirty, and all of them screaming and gnashing their canines in savage readiness for a fight. His hand whipped about and decapitated two easily, but as soon as one was down, three or four were in its place, clamping down on his limbs with their teeth or taking chunks of his flesh out with their arrows and pointed sticks. Pain saturated his every vein, but Inu-yasha was forced to ignore it, pouring every available avenue of his attention into the battle at hand. From somewhere behind him, he heard a yell, and knew the stupid chit was bursting into hysterics again. Useless, ungrateful whelp.

He was just about to tear the arm off a kobold while losing a shank of skin off his own, when he felt an electric shock go through him, and the kobolds all jumped away simultaneously, startled by the current. Inu-yasha's mouth opened in preparation for a cry of pain, but instead he felt only numbness, and a slight aching in his backside. Confused, he lifted his arms and looked down at the bits of flesh missing, everything else covered in teeth marks and blood, then experimentally touched a wound and grinned when he felt nothing at all. What was going on? Was this adrenaline? Oh, hell. Whatever it was, he felt invincible. Turning to bear down on the nearest kobold with a gloating expression, he grabbed at their flesh and proceeded to wreak more carnage than ever before in his life.

Meanwhile, Vera felt as if her skin had turned to ash and her back was broken in ninety places. She had run out of breath for screaming long ago, instead resorting to gasping moans and shivers as she clutched at the loose soil and blood below. The pain was unbearable, more than she had experienced ever before in her life, and she was not at all prepared to deal with even half of it. Her body seemed to collapse on itself again and again, until she was so absorbed in the pain that she was utterly unaware of everything going around her. Yet still, she could not faint. Her body only felt injured, while actually suffering nothing more than a trickle of blood from the cut on her shoulder blade and a nick or two on her knee. What was going on?

After pausing just a moment for a futile attempt at thinking, Vera recovered her breath and again erupted in a long, loud wail of anguish. Her own head would have split, if there were anything left to rupture.

"Will.shut up." What was that? Someone shouting.oh, Inu-yasha! Inu-yasha was telling her to.?

"For Goddess' sake, I can't fight effectively with your incessant screeching! Do you *want* to die? No? Then shut the hell up!" He swung his arm around and launched two or three unconscious kobolds to the tree just behind the girl, emphasizing his point. "Honestly," .there went another two or three. "You'd think," .so much for the last crossbowman. "A girl would be thankful," .and the last kobold with a blade. "For having her life saved by someone who hates her," .but still plenty left with spears. Another heave, and Inu-yasha used his newfound battle prowess to separate four more kobolds from that precious little gem called life. This was great! He felt like the king of the world, he felt like he could do anything, he felt-

He felt almost nothing. Wasn't that weird? And meantime, Vera was curling up in a ball on the floor, almost digging her own grave with her constant insane scratchings. What was her problem?

What had once been thirty-odd kobolds was now less than a dozen. No, make that half a dozen. Times like this made him.well, he was always glad he was a demon, but times like this made him really appreciate his full potential. As he sent the last of the kobolds packing, it was only then that he remembered to go to Vera and check her out. Belatedly he realized he was bleeding all over her. Taking a hasty step backward, he knelt beside her and, after some deliberation, offered her a hand.

Vera didn't notice. "God Almighty! Why do you torture me so?! What have I, your faithful servant, ever done to deserve this?! Why?" Her voice faded to a crack. "Why?"

"What the." Now that the relative quiet of the forest gave him time to think, Inu-yasha became fully aware of just how strange the situation really was. He felt nothing, while Vera was screaming in pain? He was attacking ten monsters at a time, and yet she was the one feeling hurt. What.?

"What the hell happened?" he finally said, giving voice to their shared question that begged asking. Looking down, he saw Vera's face wet with tears, and something in his gut seemed to pull at him in a strange, numb way that he was utterly unfamiliar with. "Vera?" He asked quietly.

"Dog.demon." She choked as a violent shiver overtook her, then finished her sentence, ".bastard."

Well, at least she was conscious enough to insult him. Inu-yasha grunted and reached forward, forcing Vera's arms to unclench and pushing her flat on her back. No sign of any serious injury, so why was she.?

"You're feeling my pain!" Vera's eyes opened slowly, and she stared at Inu- yasha, the hatred fading into perplexity and exhaustion. "I have no idea how, but you're feeling my pain! Every time this happens," Inu-yasha touched a large puncture in the flesh of his left arm and watched Vera cringe in response, "you feel it. And every time this happens-" much as he loathed to hurt her even more (oh, ha ha), he stretched out a single claw and stroked down her arm hard enough that it broke the skin and blood started to ooze out. Inu-yasha felt the faintest of tinges in his own arm, but it was enough; it verified his suspicion. Somehow, sometime, their senses had switched and now she felt his pain, and visa versa.

Well, there were obvious benefits to the arrangement. And obvious drawbacks. He couldn't very well get hurt without caring, for though he did not feel his pain, his body still sustained injury. He didn't feel particularly heroic about letting Vera suffer everything for him, either. Not that he had any concern at all for the worthless brat.it just.it wasn't *right*. And anyway, he never knew when the "power" would go away. It would really complicate things if his senses suddenly returned in the middle of an epic battle, especially considering how he was already getting used to feeling almost painless.

Well, there were other things that needed his attention right now. He had to tend to his wounds, and if Vera's pain became his, that meant he had to keep her safe, as well. Sighing as though all the burden of the world lay on his shoulders alone, Inu-yasha rose, lifting the girl carefully before entering one of the kobold's tents and seeing about caring for both their wounds.

*---*

Aiyee, long. And pointless! I know. I sorry.

And the pain-switching thing is overdone, too. I know. I sorry.

Oh well. It'll get better, you'll see! And my friend said the battles seem out of place. Does it still seem that way? I'm trying to make it not seem that way.

Oi. Splinter in my thumb. Going to go remove it now. Bye-bye!

Until next chapter.