Don't have anything special to say, but I want to use this space to thank my sister, who always helps me with reading through what I write and saying if there's anything I ought to change. She's great! So now you know that! (As if you were interested.)
…Only she keeps bugging me a bit to kill off Kagome. She's veeery fond of Inu-yasha, and so she's insanely jealous of Kagome.
Could anyone who's good at headings give me an idea of what to call this? I don't know if the heading fits the story.
Enough of me rambling.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-yasha or his mates.
Chapter ThreeConsidering all that had happened, Kagome thought she took it rather well when they two days later ran into Sesshoumaru. At least she didn't scream, or become hysterical, or anything equally embarrassing. She merely fainted.
Inu-yasha, who had just turned his head to warn them of low branches, saw Kagome fall and turned back quickly, just in time to avoid a sweep of Sesshoumaru's claws. He jumped to the side and straightened up, fixing his brother with a stare that could easily have turned Hell into a nice new ice-skating ramp. Sesshoumaru yawned.
"You've got some nerve," Inu-yasha spat, cracking his knuckles one by one. Sesshoumaru sneered slightly.
"Yes, I do. Quite a lot of nerve, in fact. You don't become Lord of the Western Lands by being a coward. Please Inu-yasha, you are so melodramatic. What are you planning to do – kill me? Why? Because I scared your bitch?"
"DON'T CALL HER BITCH!!!!" With a flash Inu-yasha drew his sword and brought it round to slice Sesshoumaru in half – had Sesshoumaru remained in the same place. However, he had with a quick leap transferred himself right next to Kagome. With a yell Inu-yasha ran towards him, as Sango and Miroku started to do the same. Sesshoumaru moved out of the way again, and looking around Inu-yasha found him to be sitting in a tree with his legs crossed, surveying the scene with a smile playing around his lips.
"My dear, dear brother…." he said with a chuckle, "I'm disappointed with you. You were doing so well, even managing to find the Scar of the Wind. But now you are back to your old standards again. Barely able to come in spitting distance of me. How come? Have you not gotten enough practise lately? Or have your mind been occupied with other things? For example…that human girl?" He jumped down from the tree just before Inu-yasha felled it with one swing of the Tetsusaiga. Landing a few feet away from his enraged half-brother, he held up a small piece of cloth for the others to see.
"I will hold on to this."
"Sesshoumaru, don't you dare run away!" screamed Inu-yasha as the other demon gathered strength for a jump, but Sesshoumaru dared. He bounded away quickly, way too fast for any of them to pursue him.
"Feh." Inu-yasha snorted as he sheathed Tetsusaiga again, but Sango could see that it was not the usual "Oh well"-snort. Inu-yasha was furious this time, more angry than she had ever seen him. She could tell that this time he wouldn't be satisfied with hurting Sesshoumaru badly – this time, Inu-yasha wanted to see him dead. She shivered, afraid of the look in her companion's eyes.
Miroku, meanwhile, was trying to get Kagome to regain consciousness. He did not seem to be very successful, but when Inu-yasha came to aid him, Kagome slowly woke up. When she realized where she was she sat up immediately.
"He's gone again?"
"Yes," said Inu-yasha soothingly, seeing terror in her eyes. "I don't know what he wanted, but he left pretty quickly."
"That's good then." She looked down into the ground, trying to hide her fear and to speak in a normal voice, without tremor. "How embarrassing. I can't seem to get anything done…. I just can't help you at all. Sheez, I'm pathetic." Inu-yasha opened his mouth to disagree but before he could get anything said she frowned, looking at her school uniform. The piece of cloth usually tucked into the front of her shirt was missing.
"Hey, where is my rosette?"
There was a long, horrified pause.
"I think Sesshoumaru took it," Sango finally said in a small voice. Kagome's eyes widened.
"He was that close to me?! He was actually touching me?!!! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god – " She started shivering violently. Inu-yasha reached out to her but she shrugged his hand of, clenching her fists and biting into her knuckles. Gradually she regained control over herself.
"I hate him," she whispered, tears starting to form in her eyes.
"Don't we all," sighed Inu-yasha.
*************
Sesshoumaru dangled the rosette in front of his eyes, imagining with pleasure Kagome's fear when she learned that he had taken it. He was lying in a tree, resting for a while. He had not been entirely truthful when he laughed at Inu-yasha for being slow – the half-demon was skilled, far more skilled than Sesshoumaru had expected him to be. He had thought that Inu-yasha would be so vengeful that he became reckless, his skills diminished. But Inu-yasha was still very good, and it had taken a lot of Sesshoumaru's energy to outrun him.
He laughed gleefully as he remembered how he had managed to get close to Kagome, and how nervous and desolate Inu-yasha had looked. He was afraid that he wouldn't be able to protect his wench properly. Well, that was all part of the plan, wasn't it?
Sesshoumaru frowned a little. Why was Inu-yasha so set on protecting Kagome? He had never truly intended to kill Sesshoumaru before, but today there had been death in his eyes. Why was that?
He shrugged as he felt himself slipping into old patterns of thought, consisting mainly of Why and How come. Instead he focused on Kagome's frightened face, and chuckled to himself. What wouldn't he do to see her as terrified as that again.
'Just watch, Inu-yasha, and see if I don't break your girl in the end.'
Laughing out loud, Lord Sesshoumaru bounded off through the trees.
*************
The next day Inu-yasha and the others first realized the one good thing Sesshoumaru's mark had brought. They were battling a shape-shifter, that had attacked out of nowhere. It did not possess any Shikon shards, but was remarkably hard to kill anyway, as it kept changing its form – thereof the name. One second it'd be a bear, then a giant snake, then a dragon. Every time Inu-yasha thought he had it, it would change it's shape and make him slice thin air instead of its neck. What was worse was that its energy field changed with its shape, rendering the Scar of the Wind as useless as his claws.
Kagome had stayed in the background, firing her arrows at the shape-shifter – mostly missing because of its rapidly changing forms – and letting the other three take care of the more hand to hand combat. (Shippou was somewhere else though, having bravely volunteered to guard their luggage for the duration of the battle.)
Suddenly however, as she caught the shifter – at that moment an eagle – in the wing with one of her arrows, it became aware of her and charged towards her. It avoided Sango's boomerang by shrinking to a small rat, and then changed into a snow tiger, leaping towards Kagome with great strides. She reached a hand back to draw an arrow from her quiver – and in doing so, accidentally brushed her hair away from her neck.
The shape-shifter came to an abrupt halt. Changing into a sparrow it flew close to her, then it shifted form to become a beautiful young boy who somersaulted backwards away from her.
"Sorry!" it called cheerfully. "I see you're already marked down." It turned into the tiger again and turned on Sango, who had tripped over a tree root and fallen, but before it could get close to her there was a singing noise and the shifter fell dead with Kagome's arrow in its heart.
"Thank you," said Sango, standing up with the help of Miroku and dusting herself off. "That was a weird encounter, but hey, you learn new things every day. I've never even heard of one of those before. Have you, Inu-yasha?"
"It saw your mark, didn't it?" asked Inu-yasha, ignoring Sango completely.
"I can only suppose it did," answered Kagome, shrugging. "Well, that's one good thing about it. Unless we meet some really stupid demon who doesn't know what the mark means, I guess I'm safe from them. Oh, although I think it won't be of much help if we meet Naraku. He wouldn't really give a damn, would he?"
"Kagome, please don't force yourself," said Inu-yasha, looking very sincere.
"Force myself? What are you talking about? Am I forcing myself? And what do you mean forcing myself? Forcing myself to do what? What is it that you – "
'She is babbling….' thought Sango, sighing to herself. Inu-yasha, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines, grabbed a hold of Kagome's shoulders, shaking her roughly.
"Kagome, wake up! Sesshoumaru wants to kill you and you don't have to pretend that nothing is the matter! We don't think you're worse for it! It's only normal to be frightened, I'm frightened! We all are!"
"You don't understand," said Kagome tightly, trying to wrench herself out of his grasp. "If I don't look at it like this, I will go insane! Things like this don't happen in my time! People don't get death threats from demons! I've always been able to see the good side of everything, and I'll be damned if I can't see it now."
"But of course!" Miroku exclaimed, making them both turn to look at him in surprise. "It just hit me: the simplest solution would of course be for you to go home, Lady Kagome! Never mind the Jewel chase, your safety is much more important!" Sango brightened visibly at his words, but Inu-yasha and Kagome didn't react.
"I can't go home," sighed Kagome, just as Inu-yasha said,
"She can't go home." Then they looked at each other and simultaneously asked,
"How do you know?"
"I went to check the well out after you woke up," Inu-yasha explained. "It was demolished. It'll take a long while to get it cleared out again and until it is you know you can't go home. It's like the time I blocked the well. But how did you know?"
"Dunno….. I guess I could just feel it, somehow. Sesshoumaru must have blocked it right after he left me." At the last words Kagome suddenly shivered for a fraction of a second. Then she sighed deeply, looking very tired and much older than her fifteen years.
"Can't we just find a place to camp?"
*************
"SCAR OF THE WIND!!!!"
Inu-yasha brought his sword round in a powerful swing, sundering the snake demon into several small pieces. It had been an easy kill, but worth the effort – in each of his eyes glimmered one Shikon shard.
"For a demon possessing two shards, it did not give much of a battle," said Miroku, inspecting the demon's elongated fangs, which were dripping green poison onto the ground.
"Well, Wolf Boy has two shards, too, and I could take him with one arm behind my back," snorted Inu-yasha, putting the Tetsusaiga back in its scabbard.
"Depending on what arm it was, of course," smiled Kagome, picking up the two shards. "He kicked your ass at one time when you couldn't use your right arm. Wow, I reckon we've got more than half the Jewel now! If only we could get a couple more easy shards like that…"
Inu-yasha watched her carefully as she, humming to herself, put the new shards in the small bag with the rest. Hadn't she noticed that the reason this demon – just as the others they had encountered in the past days – had been so easy to kill was that it used up its energy trying to stay out of her way and not hurt her? Either she hadn't noticed, or she didn't attach much importance to it. Or maybe she did, but hid it. Damn, she was sure hiding a lot, these days.
"Yeah, let's hope for a few more shards," he said out loud, trying hard to act as if nothing was wrong. "If we keep going as good as these few days, then maybe…"
"If it's shards you're looking for, I've got one right here," said a voice behind him. He turned to see Sesshoumaru casually propped up against a tree, smiling. In his hand was a sliver of the Shikon Jewel.
Inu-yasha cast a quick glance in Kagome's direction to see how she was doing. Fortunately, she seemed to be taking it well – she was pale, but she was standing up and looking determined. He looked back at his brother.
"I have a proposition to make," said Sesshoumaru, inspecting a talon and frowning slightly, as if he was not entirely satisfied with what he saw. "Let's battle. If you win, I'll give you the Shikon shard. If you lose, I get her." He pointed at Kagome, who gave an involuntary shudder.
"I'm not interested in bargaining," said Inu-yasha furiously. "All I want right now is to see you die. And if I get an extra shard whilst doing that, I won't complain." The Tetsusaiga flew out of its scabbard and swung around to meet Sesshoumaru's own sword, Tenseiga. Inu-yasha almost laughed out loud.
"What now, brother," he spat. "Going to try and kill me with a blade that can't cut?!"
"Why, no, not at all," said Sesshoumaru, raising his eyebrows. "This I use as a defence against the Tetsusaiga. I have no intention to kill you. I'm merely interested in the sport of seeing how long you can defend yourself against me. For instance, what do you have against this?!" He brought his sword up in a long arch, forcing the Tetsusaiga away, then with the speed of a striking snake scratched the cheek of Inu-yasha with his talons. Before Inu-yasha could get his sword back down to killing level, Sesshoumaru retreated to a safe distance. Once again his eyebrows paid a visit to his hairline.
"If I had intended to kill you, dear brother, what defence would you have had against that?"
Inu-yasha didn't bother to answer, but made strike upon strike, forcing Sesshoumaru back until he was standing with his back against a tree. He swung his sword back and –
"Ho," said Sesshoumaru, "I do believe you won this time." Quick as a flash he leapt up and past Inu-yasha, landing next to Kagome.
"My compliments," he said, mouth curling in a sarcastic smile, as he laid the Shikon shard in the hand she had just reached up to pluck down an arrow with. And then he was gone, disappearing as quickly and silently as he came.
Kagome sat down heavily on the ground, unconsciously curling her hand around the Shikon shard. She was not looking as terrified as the last time, but mainly looked furious. Inu-yasha walked over to her, wiping his face on his sleeve and wincing as Sesshoumaru's poison stung in his skin.
Up close, he could see the fear in her eyes, and the despair.
"He is really starting to get on my nerves," she said weakly, looking up at him and trying to muster up a smile. Then she burst into tears.
'What does he want with Kagome?!' Inu-yasha asked himself as he for the umpteenth time in as many days sat down to comfort her.
Hidden in the shrubbery a few metres off, Sesshoumaru watched and smiled.
*************
Random PS: My sister hates me for killing off the shape-shifter. She thinks it's sweet.