by Ironraven
editorial assistance by Lachesis-chan
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company aren't mine. They are the property of Rumiko Takahashi-sama.
Rated a little higher because of sexual innuendo, lies, heart break, and some desires of violence.
Miroku isn't just jealous, he may be homicidal at this point.
---
"What do you mean, 'Hentai-sama'?" Miroku's jaw clenched so hard his teeth hurt, as he felt the anger inside him welling up. She called you 'Hentai-sama'? You lying, honorless toad! Take it back if you wish to live!
Blinking in surprise, Kiyoshi leaned close to the monk, his elbows resting on his knees. "You mean you've not made her feel like a woman? I'm shocked. She is quite uninhibited, and very vocal at the right times. She would shout out that name when I..."
Miroku could see the man's lips moving, knew he was saying something, but he couldn't hear it. He could hear nothing but the screaming of his soul, the pain painting the world red. He started to reach for the beads on his hand, to rip them away and suck the bastard into whatever realm the kazaana emptied into. He hoped that whatever was spat out lived long enough to die shrieking in agony.
--- (several minutes earlier)
Kirara dosed in her large form, curled up against the door to the village bathhouse, blocking it from being opened, while she basked in the last rays of the sun. Cleansing steam rose and swirled in the small building, stirred by the cooler air filtering in through panels of thick cloth set in the wall.
"So?"
"'So', what, Kagome-chan?"
"So why didn't you tell me about Kiyoshi earlier?"
"He was something from my past. And you never asked."
"I'm asking now. What happened? He's pretty good looking." Smiling oddly, Kagome reflected on this, one of the few times she'd ever been able to gossip and talk "girl talk" with Sango.
Sango sank into the wooden tub, the water settling just below her nose as she glared at Kagome.
"Oh, please, what happened. He said he had to make up with your out-san. What happened, you get caught doing something you shouldn't have? Oh, kami, you didn't!" Sango's flush was more than enough answer, the embarrassed girl slinking lower, up to her eyes. "It isn't worth trying to drown yourself over."
Neither girl blinked, staring at each other, the warm water lapping at Sango's cheekbone for long seconds, before Kagome spoke again. "Alright, you can hold your breath for a long time. You have to come up at some point."
Finally relenting, Sango raised her head, the blush still blazing bright. "There is more than that, Kagome."
"You mean... You got..." Looking pointedly down at her friend's belly, Kagome could only blink while her mouth tried to close. "No..."
"No! Kagome! You are almost as bad as Houshi-sama is, you know that?" Splashing her friend with a handful of water, the hunter brought the conversation to something a little less embarrassing. "He got an idea, not a very good one. There are other clans like the Taijya, others who spy or kill for money."
A scowl spread across the hunter's face as she scrubbed her sore feet. "He thought we could unite with those clans, and use our combined magic and combat prowess to bring peace to the land."
"What's so bad about that."
"He would have us enslave those who were not part of our clique, and slay those who opposed us." Sighing, she continued, half talking to herself, "He wasn't always like that. It was one of our first hunts that brought him to that twisted idea. A noble man had been using youkai to terrify his vassals into submission, and used the threat as an excuse to increase his demands for rice and iron and everything else. One of the villagers came to us with the tale, and Taijya-kun and I went to help. He was ready to kill the daimyo."
"After that, he just got crazier. Towards the end, he proposed his idea to the older hunters. It wasn't a new one, it had been suggested at least once a generation for as long as we knew, usually over a jar of sake. And it would be mostly forgotten the next morning. But he was obsessed with it. We finally found him meeting with someone from another clan. He had promised her to trade the secrets of our alchemy for her people's support with the other clans. He had dreams of seizing the Court in Kyoto, hundreds of men and women in black attacking in the night, slaughtering all those who fought, of a moat of blood to great the dawn." Sango shuddered at the thought. "He challenged my out. He should have died, but I begged my father to spare him. Taijya-kun was banished."
"Is that why you didn't want him to know about the well?"
"Hai. You never talk about it, but if men are still men, then there are still wars. The medicines, the food, the cold torches, your time has so many wonders. Would you also have not thought of better ways to kill?"
Images from television and history books flashed through Kagome's mind, turning her stomach. Hiroshima. The Holocaust. Nerve gas. Machine guns. Land mines. Fire bombs. Germ warfare. Assignation and terror. Massacres of thousands. "Not better. Just more efficient. We use machines to kill each other in my time, makes it less personal, easier to kill by the thousands. Some of our weapons are smart enough to kill on their own, and they don't always fight other machines."
By the thousands? Sango gulped as she climbed from the tub, reaching for her towel. I take it back, I don't want to see your world Kagome. "And if Kiyoshi was to get his hands on those weapons?"
As they dressed, Kagome's mind tried to imagine it. One man with a machine gun could hold off any army of this era, so long as he had ammunition. The thought of hundreds of men, trained such as Sango and Kiyoshi, armed with her time's weapons made her shudder. Change the subject, Kagome.
"Sango?"
"Hmm?"
"Why do you call him 'Taijya-kun'?"
---
Miroku's cursed hand clenched close, keeping him from freeing the void within as his oath checked him. Not his one to Buddha, but his one to Sango. If he killed the son of a bitch, it would hurt her.
He spun to his feet, snatching his staff from its resting place, as he stormed towards the front door. He nearly knocked down Sango and Kagome, their hair still wet from the bath house as he passed through the common room, and slammed the door behind him hard enough to shake the building.
Across the street, Shippou and Kirara turned to look at him, then shrank back when they saw the rage on his face. Inuyasha leapt from the tree branch he had perched in, shouting something at him. But his mind was still howling. All he knew was he had to leave.
Now. Right now, before he regretted it. He had to go. Far away.
Standing in the doorway, the panel hanging crazily, Sango stared as the night swallowed him in darkness. Shippou was sitting in the dirt, stunned, unsure of what he had just seen, while Inuyasha called out to the monk. Behind her, Kagome was questioning Kiyoshi, her voice shaky. But the exterminator couldn't hear any of it.
I've never seen anyone so angry. Oh, Houshi-sama, what happened to you. She sank to her knees as the innkeeper's voice was added to the din, demanding to know what was happening in his establishment. Distantly she saw the red and white mass of Inuyasha moving to follow the monk.
---
Inuyasha had known how fast Miroku could run, but this was faster than he'd ever seen the bozou move before. His lungs were laboring, long hair streaming as he caught up with his friend. "Miroku, what the hell is wrong with you!"
The monk's face was streaked with tears, a look of blind hopelessness on his face as he continued to run, automatically avoiding every rock and stump in his way. He didn't look at Inuyasha, nor did he speak; he moved like a man possessed, seeing but not seeing. The exterminator's words mocked him, 'Hentai-sama'.
"Damnit, bouzo, I'm talking to you." Still they ran into the night, startling a doe and her fawn as they crossed a stream, their feet barely even touching the bottom. "I've owed you this for a long time, monk!"
Distantly, as if it were happening to someone else, Miroku felt something brush his head. Hard. Something white. It had hit hard enough to make his head swim, and his eyes to unfocused for a moment. Just long enough to trip over his own feet. He sprawled on the forest floor, crushing old leaves and new ferns under his body, sobbing. Inuyasha crouched next to him, panting as he tried to catch his breath, not looking at the other man until the sounds of pain ebbed.
---
Sensing movement close behind her, the hunter turned, finding herself face to face to her once lover. "What did you do to Houshi-sama?"
"Nothing, we were just talking."
"About what, Taijya-kun?"
"Traveling, demon hunting, our travels, comparing things." As he spoke, Kiyoshi's eyes dropped, running over Sango's damp hair, watching it cling to her breasts, starting to smile. "All kinds of things."
"HENTAI!" A simple blow sent those eyes to the ground. A simple blow landed with a knee, something that Sango had never done to Miroku. Never even thought of doing. Sango stepped over the male at her feet, stiffly walking to the room she was sharing with Kagome, ignoring the land lord.
When they reached the sanctuary of their room, Sango sat in the corner, glaring at the door. "They're all dogs."
"Sango?"
"Men, they are all dogs. Slavering at us like we were raw meat. What were they doing, comparing conquests?!"
"If they were doing that, why was Miroku so angry? And not all men are dogs." The time traveler flushed furiously. He's only ever peeped once or twice, and he's never groped me. Ok, so he could stand to learn so manners, but he isn't that bad. Other than having a thing for dead girls.
---
"You, you hit me, Inuyasha."
"Feh! That was for groping Kagome." So it was a couple years coming, so what. "It was the only way to get to you, monk."
"I'm sorry."
"Save it; tell me what's wrong. It isn't your hand, is it?" Miroku shook his head, nodded, then shook it again. "Oh, that's real helpful."
"I wanted to use it." His head down, his voice miserable, Miroku looked small, lost. "I wanted to use it on Kiyoshi." He started talking, babbling everything to Inuyasha.
"When started talking about her like that, it made me angry. 'Hentai-sama'! How dare he talk about Sango like that. I wanted to kill him, slowly, painfully. He was bragging about... about being with her."
"Feh. Why didn't you kill him?"
"No. It would make me like... a monster."
They both sat there, the thin light of the moon just rising above the horizon, as they thought in silence.
"So what are you going to do?"
"What can I do? She loves him."
"She said that was long time ago."
"Sure, like Kikyou was." Turning his back to his friend, the monk stared into the dark forest, almost wishing for something to eat him.
"What the hell does that mean? Kikyou has nothing to do with this."
"Really? Then ask Kagome."
"You're talking in riddles, Miroku. Make some sense."
"He and I look alike. We act alike." Lowering his head, the monk's voice was small and distant. "But you said it, he's a hunter. He's from her village. He has her training, her history. I have no history, no future, just my hand. I have nothing she'd want. I can't give her a home, a family. He can."
"So what? Come on, go back there, make a show of kicking his ass."
"He almost fought you to a stand still."
"You came closer."
"Thank you."
"For what."
"That is the greatest compliment I've ever been given."
---
"What do you mean you are throwing us out? Where are we going to sleep?"
"I don't care! Join your demon friends in the trees. I knew you were trouble from the start. Youkai and ronin and... And..." Swallowing hard, the old man glanced down, before glaring into Kagome's eyes. "And women dressed so indecently. I run an honorable inn, not a brothel!"
---
"Feh! Come on, the night's getting older. I'm gonna get sat if I don't bring you back."
"No, Inuyasha. If I'm around, I'll do something horrible to him."
"So you are going to run? That's so very brave and noble, bozou. Is that what you want me to tell Sango? That you ran away?"
"You can't goad me that easily, Inuyasha."
"Fine, what do you want me to tell her?" Oh, wonderful, now I'm a message boy.
"Tell her it was my hand, please, Inuyasha, and that I'm gone."
"Are you sure?"
In a flat, hollow, toneless voice, barely audible, Miroku made up his mind. "Hai."
Standing slowly, Inuyasha fished through the fold of his robes for a small pouch of coins, and several bandages, along with a tiny box of matches from Kagome's time. "Here. Don't go far, we may need you when we face Naraku for the last time." Placing the meager supplies by the monk's side, Inuyasha turned to go. "Goodbye, Miroku. I want that stuff back when you return."
Sayonara, ani.
---
After a long walk, alone and silent, Inuyasha returned to the town. Kiyoshi sat on one side of the tree, while Sango sat on the other, sandwiched between Kagome and Kirara. Shippou was sitting awake, waiting.
In a quiet whisper, the boy asked the question of the evening. "We got thrown out. Where is he?"
"He's gone." Doing his best to make his voice flat and tired, Inuyasha sat down before Sango.
"Inuyasha, was it his hand?" The lady hunter's eyes were swollen and red, as were Kagome's.
Inuyasha lowered his head, letting his hair hide his face. I can't do it monk, I can't tell her that. But his silence spoke for him.
"No, Houshi-sama...." Wrapping herself around the smaller girl, fresh sobs tore into Sango's body. She had cried like this when Inuyasha forgave her, and welcomed her into the band. She had cried like this from realizing that her home and her family were gone. She had cried like this when she learned Kohaku's fate. And it was happening again. Everything she'd worked for, everything she had fought for, was becoming undone again. "No..."
Lifting her head from Kagome's shoulder, Sango threw her head back, eyes streaming as she howled his name to the stars. "MIROKU!!"
Watching them cry, listening to their sobs, Inuyasha could almost believe the monk was gone. Damn you, bozou.
---
Well outside of town, past the pastures and the patties, through the forest, her wail was clear. "MIROKU!!"
The shriek of agony, torn from the depth's of her soul, echoed over the land, lashing at him. He simply sat there, his hand beating a boulder. Again and again, his fist landed on the immobile, innocent granite. Even after he heard something crack in his knuckles, he attacked the stone, his hand grinding with each blow....
---
Author's note:
Oh yes, Miroku, running away is so brave. How low will he go people, to prove himself worthy?
Ani: brother