Hey! I'm back! Ummmm….sorry? At least Inuyasha is finally introduced to the story in this chapter, the f-bomb will most definitely be dropped from here on out….*smiles nervously* Once again, sorry? Ack! *Grabs rabid squirrel from Kitty Katana* Bad Shadow Wraith! *whack* Bad! *whack* Bad! *whack* Bad! *whack* Shadow Wraith must punish herself for being lazy! *whackwhackwhackwhackwhack* *delirious laughter* eheheheheheheheheheheheheh…and the lil' birdies go tweet tweet….
Disclaimer: The lawyers hate me, they're hired by you, I don't own Inuyasha, so you can't sue! ^.^;; (yeah, I know that sucks)
Oh! Kitty Katana gets a cookie for getting the question right! The definitions I found were former city, former home, and former nest.
I'M SORRY, PLEASE FORGIVE MEEEEEE!!!!!
*WHACK*
*thump*
Twisting Paths of Fate
Plots and Safe Havens
The room was dark, and the whispers seemed to echo in the tense silence as rain pounded on the roof, leaking upon those gathered below.
"Alright, so all you morons know what to do?" he asked as quietly as possible in his normal indifferently gruff voice; though no matter how hard he tried, they could all easily hear the shaking nervousness in his mask of confident arrogance.
The brat spoke up, "Yeah, first I'll create an illusionary monster, then you'll grab the keys, after that Shiori," he glanced at the silver haired girl, "will create an invisible barrier while we unlock ourselves. And then Tanuki will transform, and we'll all fly away…Never to return! Hahaha!" his voice had grown in volume.
A hand instantly clamped over the child's mouth; there were near-silent rounds of, "Be quiet!" and, "You're going to get us in trouble!" and of course the expected, "Shut the fuck up, brat!" from the black haired 'teenager' who practically held the fox-boy in a death grip.
After a few minutes, a small, gentle hand was placed on his shoulder, "Um, Inuyasha?" Shiori asked in her timid voice.
He paid full attention to the little girl, forgetting about throttling the annoying kitsune, whose face was starting to turn a lovely shade of blue, "Yes?"
He didn't know why he respected the young girl so much, maybe it was because she was the only other person who knew what it was like to not be accepted anywhere you go, to never fit in, to be taunted and teased without mercy, to hear the whispers of the villagers whenever you came within twenty feet of their children. Things like, "Oh no! Get the children away from there, he'll attack them, kill them!" even when you're barely seven years old. To be kicked, have things thrown at you by total strangers, just because of what you are. She knew all of that, to be accused of things you didn't even know of, to be called so many names and to be scorned time and time again. To be a hanyou.
He brought himself out of his ponderings and memories to look at the small girl again.
"Inuyasha, what am I going to do once we're free?"
Confusion was evident in his violet eyes, "What do you mean, 'What am I going to do'? You're going to go back to your village and your mother, that's what you're going to do."
"But I can't-"
"Well why the hell not?"
"Because she's dead," her eyes remained near emotionless, except for their almost imperceptible change in color, darkening a few shades.
He merely nodded in understanding, easily hiding his shock; no one was to ever speak of either their past or capture, a simple unspoken rule, to do so would reveal one's weakness.
"Alright then, Tanuki?"
The racoon-dog was brought out of his stunned stupor, "Yes?"
"You will take care of Shiori, right?" it really wasn't much of a question.
"Yes, of course! It would be a pleasure!" he smiled kindly at the little girl, she gave him a small smile of gratitude back.
"Oi, Inuyasha?" Shippou asked, he was sitting a good distance away from the hanyou, rubbing his neck.
"Yeah, brat?"
"What are you going to do about the Tetsusaiga?"
"Get it back, of course,"
"How?"
Inuyasha stared at the twerp for a moment before saying, "You ask too many questions."
'That means 'I don't know',' Shippou thought to himself, a small sweat drop formed the side of his head.
~o~O~o~
So bright. Too bright. Her eyes couldn't even open against the intensity of the glaring light that streamed through the open window.
She rolled onto her stomach, aching slightly, and curled her arms around her head to block out the cursed sun. She didn't want to wake up, not yet.
She had been having such a funny, if not odd, dream, too…
*~*~*~*~*~*
She had been laughing her head off for the past five minutes at a child with the legs and tail of a fox who was being chased around by a rather irate blur of red and white. The fox-child had been frantically yelling, "'Sit' him, Kagome! 'Sit' him! 'SIT' HIM!!!!!! AAAAAHHH HELP MEEEE!!!!!!" he had evidently done something to the blur's face, but it was moving too fast for her to tell what. The fox-boy could certainly run quite fast for such a little guy…
Once she had finally gotten a hold of herself, she told the child, "Sorry, you got yourself into this one! You have to find a way out!" she started to smirk, trying to keep it in, but failed miserably as she burst out laughing, but her laughter didn't continue for long.
"Oi, wench!" a gruff voice interrupted her mirth.
The red and white figure was standing quite a distance away, arms crossed over his chest, she saw the child disappear into the surrounding forest, "You sick or something? You just gave up a perfect chance to, once again, 'sit' me into oblivion!" he began to walk towards her.
She was about to respond, when there was a sudden resounding cry of, "Hentai!"
Of course, she turned to the source of the angry cry; the sight she saw would stick in her mind for years! There was that lecherous houshi, pinned to the ground by a huge flaming cat, and there was a girl with long ebony hair standing over him and beating him senseless with a…a…gigantic boomerang? She was very angry, saying something like, "You're right, Inoyushi, he really is a bouzu! Stupid hentai!"
Sighing, she turned back to her thoroughly confused friend, slightly startled to see that he was standing right in front of her.
She caught the full sight of his face, which was covered in a dark, greenish black paint, another small smile formed on her lips.
"What were you going to say, wench?" he was trying his best to cover up his suspicious curiosity with his insult
"Well, you see, I kind of think that he deserves a bit of punishment, because," she stopped to stifle a giggle.
"Because what?"
"Because it'll take two weeks for that to come off, at least,"
"WHAT?!?!?!?!"
*~*~*~*~*~*
Inoyushi's reaction was hilar-
Hold on, that wasn't the name it was…Inayesho? Iniyushu? Inoyoishe? That wasn't it either, it was something else….
Oh well, at least it wasn't as bad as that one dream where she turned into a piece of tofu and a giant mouth chased her through the house, then she got to her room and the futon came alive and defended her, and then it got drunk on sake…that was just weird…
'Ah, whatever, it was just a dream… No more eating mass amounts of oden before bed,' she told herself, the dream slipping out of her mind and memory.
She finally forced herself up off the futon, still groggy. Her arms and legs were stiff and sore, they felt as though they hadn't been used in days. She was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness when she tried to stand up, her head pounding. She lowered herself back onto the futon and lay there until the room stopped spinning.
Once again, she made herself get up, only slower. Although her head still hurt when she was finally standing, there was only a minimal amount of dizziness.
'I must be sick, I'll have to ask Urasue for one of her healing brews,' she unconsciously shuddered at the thought. The cook of the house not only acted strange and gave her a bad feeling, but she looked like one of the fabled mountain hags, an oni.
Letting out a small cough and squinting against the unwelcome brightness, she walked towards the wall where her door was and put out a hand to slide it back. Only it wasn't there.
Confused by this, she turned back around to look at the small room. Her futon shouldn't be there, it should be by the wall on the left, and a dressing screen should be in the corner, but there wasn't one in the small room at all. The shouji was plain, instead of having scenes of flowers painted onto the small squares of paper. Wait a minute, that wasn't her futon…and why was her kimono folded next to it?
'This isn't my room, what happened? Why am I here? Where is here anyways?' looking down, she saw that she was in a plain sleeping robe, her right arm was heavily bandaged, 'And more importantly, who undressed me?'
Just then, the shouji slid open and she saw a tray full of medical supplies slowly come around the corner, it was rather low to the ground. Then she saw that a rather hairy hand was holding it up, although it didn't look quite human. Followed by the hand was a wrist that was so covered by hair that she could've sworn it was fur, then a forearm, elbow, upper arm, and then she finally saw the face it was-
'A monkey?!' she could only stare at the animal, thinking that she was delirious, and it stared back. This continued for several seconds, until she went into a rather sudden and loud coughing fit, scaring the creature out of its wits. It dropped the tray with a clatter, sending its items rolling across the floor, and went screeching and screaming down the hall, which only added to Kagome's pounding headache as she continued her fit.
"Hiyoshimaru! What's wrong with you?" she barely heard a feminine voice shout down the hall, Kagome was now doubled over trying to gasp for air in between coughs.
"Oh my, you're awake! What are you doing out of bed?!" Kagome felt an arm go around her back and a hand grasp onto her elbow, then she was gently being led back to the futon.
"You are in absolutely no condition to be walking around yet," she heard the voice say sternly, "Now sit back down. There you go," she was deposited back onto the futon.
Out of her peripheral vision, Kagome could barely see a figure hurry back over to the shouji and scramble to grab a few items before heading back towards her. She could here the sound of liquid being poured; her coughs were not as bad as before.
"Drink this, it will help," a cup was forced into her right hand as her left covered her mouth. Quickly, she moved her hand away to pour the substance into her mouth. It took all of her will power to swallow the foul tasting brew. (AN: imagine combining Nyquil, Dayquil, Robitussin, and Aunt Bertha's liquidated spinach surprise, with a hint of lemon and that's what you get!)
Apparently, the face that she made was enough to get a light hearted laugh out of her caretaker, "It may taste bad, but it's better than not breathing, ne?"
Kagome could only nod and gasp for air, after she had finally regained breath, she looked up to the person beside her, to see that she had long, staight, jet black hair, pulled back at her neck, the length nearly rivaled her own, which was well past her waist; she was wearing a nice kimono.
"Who're you?" she managed to croak out.
The young woman smiled, "I'm Takeda Tsuyu. You had us quite worried for a while, your fever was pretty high," she pushed Kagome back on the futon, "And you need as much rest as possible." (AN: they never say what Tsuyu's last name is, so I just took the land that she's originally from: Takeda)
"What happened? Where am I?" she couldn't remember a thing.
"You're at my house, and you've been here for a little more than three days-"
"Three days!" Kagome screeched out hoarsely, "How did I get here?!"
"Well if you'll just be patient I'll tell you. So are you ready to listen now?"
The ill girl simply nodded and pulled the covers up around herself.
"Good. This is as much as my husband and I know: he was out a few days ago after a heavy rainstorm, Hiyoshimaru, the monkey you saw earlier, was with him. They were headed towards the creek to catch toads," Kagome gave a her an odd look, and Tsuyu chuckled, "That will be explained later. Anyways, as I was saying, while they were at the river, Hiyoshimaru suddenly started screeching and ran though the forest towards the road. And, of course, my husband followed after him. Well, when they got to the road, they found you lying there. You were soaked to the bone, nearly covered in a mud puddle, and you had several strange looking burn marks up and down your right arm. So he brought you here and I've been taking care of you since then."
"Burns…." Kagome quietly muttered to herself, there was something nagging at the corners of her mind, but what? And that didn't help her understand what she was doing out in the middle of nowhere in the first place either.
"What did you just say?" Tsuyu inquired.
"Oh, just thinking out loud, that's all," She barely managed to force out; her voice was growing more and more hoarse.
"Oh, um…I'm sorry, but you haven't told me your name yet, what is it?"
"Higurashi Kagome," she suddenly shivered and pulled the blankets around her tighter.
Tsuyu leaned over to feel her forehead, "Your fever still hasn't broken, you need your sleep. I'll come back later with some food for you. Now rest," she instructed sternly.
"Yes, Tsuyu-sa-" she was interrupted by another cough.
Tsuyu smiled kindly, sighed and got up to gather what remained on the floor.
Kagome closed her eyes and was instantly engulfed by the blissful oblivion of sleep.
*********
Yay! I'm sorry if this really stinks but there has just been so much going on that I just wanted to get this posted, I'll go over it later.
If you read this, then I expect you to review it, it's only polite, and thank you to the people that did!
Remember, I'll take anything, even flames, correct me on anything! And I'll even take completely random quotes, poems, short jokes, favorite vegetables, anything! I'm an odd, random person…
Quote O' The Day:
'Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant just like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?'
~D.E. Couch
Ja ne minna-san