Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters. (I wonder how necessary this disclaimer is? I mean, do lawyers patrol the fanfiction highways looking for people who don't put on up? Seems kind of silly to me. And yet I still do it…)
Inuyasha looked over his shoulder with a look of intense concentration which Kagome did not wish to interrupt. This time she was afraid. The other two parts of the hanyou that Kagome had already met, ego and super ego, were obviously the nicer parts of him. Yet she knew him to have a much more aggressive and wild side. And from what she remembered from her psychology class, the last division of a person, the id, was concerned only with survival.
As she climbed back to her feet, Kagome searched their surroundings with her eyes and ears, but she could not detect anything. She turned back to Inuyasha to ask how sure he was but just as she did there was a soft noise from behind her and the next second an arm was around her neck.
"Glelp," was all she could manage to squeak out with the crushing pressure around her windpipe. Kagome raised her arms in an attempt to pry the arm away. She turned her head as much as she could to see without much surprise the last piece of Inuyasha.
Red eyes, violet streaks down his cheeks, and a wicked grin immediately made Kagome think of the few frightening times when Inuyasha had been overtaken by his demon blood. Kagome felt her own blood run cold.
Panicked, Kagome looked desperately to the other Inuyasha for help. He turned and regarded them for a second and she could both hear and feel the deep rumble of a growl from the Inuyasha behind her. Just as the world around her seemed to dim, the black haired hanyou reached over calmly and touched the arm trapping preventing Kagome from breathing.
Kagome flinched and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the arm and body behind her evaporate, and she collapsed to her knees. Now on all fours, she took a shuttering breath, coughed, and panted as her surroundings quickly came back into focus.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her easily to her feet. "You ok?"
The girl looked at him slightly dazed for a moment. He appeared to be the Inuyasha she knew, confused golden eyes looking back at her. Then in a second Kagome brought herself fully back to the present moment. "Baka!" she yelled at him as slapped him in the head with a resounding smack that echoed around them.
Laying his ears back, Inuyasha yelled, "Ow! What was that for, you crazy bitch?" But Kagome had already begun stalking away from him. He stood rubbing his cheek for confused moment before rushing after her. "Hey! Answer me!"
He immediately saw this was not the right thing to have said as Kagome rounded on him, her eyes narrowed furiously. "Do you think we have time for this?" she practically screamed at him. "Do you think we have time to waltz around in your warped head putting you back together until, until…" she sputtered, her mind drawing a blank. "Ugh! If we don't find Naraku soon, we'll both be stuck here forever! Is that what you want?!"
Inuyasha huffed. He was not really sure why they were yelling at each other but that had never stopped him in the past. "Like I want to be stuck for eternity with you," he growled back. Again he saw too late that this was not the thing to say as her eyes immediately began to shine with tears.
"Oh that's just fine, Inuyasha!" she yelled angrily as tears slid down her cheeks. "Absolutely peachy, isn't it? I spend forever dragging your useless lump through the forest and risk my life to wake you up and you can't even admit that I might be a nice person to spend all of eternity with!" she yelled at the now cowed hanyou. "Well, you know what? Next time you can just get an alarm clock!" She turned on her heel and began stalking down the trail again.
"Kagome!" he called as he followed her. "Kagome, wait! Would you for just a second?" She ignored him. "Please stop. You know I said I'd protect you, which means I have to get you out of my head," he said in what he felt was his most reasonable tone.
She stopped and turned back to him, tear stain streaking down her cheeks. Inuyasha frowned. He hated it when she cried because of him. She of all people should know by now that he was an idiot and had no wish to hurt her; he just could not understand her, was all.
She considered him for a moment, then said, "Alright." Quickly wiping the tear streaks from her cheeks, she hesitated before asking, "Where do we look for him?"
Slightly caught off guard by her quick change, Inuyasha shrugged. "How much time do we have left, anyway?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," Kagome said shaking her head. "Kaede said time probably runs differently in dreams than in reality. It feels like I've been here a few hours by now, but that could mean anything from a few seconds to we're already out of time."
"Feh," Inuyasha snorted in annoyance. "It'd be nice if we knew what the rules are here."
"You seemed like you were doing just fine, before," Kagome stated with equal annoyance, mainly because she was still angry with the hanyou.
Inuyasha looked up and scratched his head. "Did I? Did I tell you how I was doing it?"
Kagome felt her face fall. "You mean you don't know?" She sighed in frustration. "I suppose we'll have eternity to figure it out, then."
"Like hell," Inuyasha growled. "I am not going to let Naraku wander around my head like it's a fucking walk in the park. Come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. There was the now familiar jolt of suddenly and seamlessly being in a completely different environment. Kagome looked around and recognized Kaede's village.
"Was this where you meant to go?" Kagome asked incredulously. Somehow it seemed unlikely that Naraku would be lurking in one of the neatly thatched huts.
"Huh," Inuyasha muttered noncommittally as he dropped her hand. "Not…exactly, but I suppose it's a good start. From here, we can go to the Goshinboku."
"Why there?"
"That's where I was sealed before," Inuyasha said with a shrug. "You have a better idea?"
When she shook her head, Inuyasha crouched down. "Climb on so we can get there sometime this century."
With a roll of her eyes, Kagome climbed on his back and gripped his shoulders. She felt his muscles below her tense in preparation for the run and suddenly they loosed, taking one giant stride before they hit something that felt like a brick wall.
With a strangled and undignified yelp, Inuyasha awkwardly fell backwards on Kagome. He rolled off her as Kagome saw stars. "What was that?" he groaned, flopping back on the ground.
Kagome rubbed her head and muttered, "Felt like a freight train." She looked up and was only mildly surprised to see that they were no longer in the village but sprawled on the ground before the Goshinboku. And that was in fact what they had run head first into.
"Inuyasha?"
"Mpf?" he groaned still laying on his back.
"We're here," she said excitedly. "And I think I understand how you can move from one place to another." She stood and leaned over him. He opened his eyes skeptically.
"Oh yeah, Kagome?" he asked grumpily. "How's that?"
"Well," she said offering him her hand. He took it and was pulled onto his feet. He frowned as he looked around. "I think all you have to do is concentrate on where you want to go and take a step forward. Probably with much less momentum would be safer, as well."
"That'll make things easy," he thought aloud. "We'll be able to search a lot of places in only a couple seconds."
"Ok, but he doesn't seem to be here," Kagome said disappointed. "I think I'll be able to sense him when we get close and I don't feel anything here."
Inuyasha grabbed her hand again. "How about Sango's village?"
Within about thirty seconds they had visited the wrecked exterminator village, the Bone-eater's well, the cave were the Shikon no Tama originated, as well as several forest glens where they had previously met and fought Naraku. Also within thirty seconds, Kagome felt thoroughly disheartened.
"I'm running out of ideas," Inuyasha admitted quietly as they stared around the dark and empty courtyard of Naraku's castle. Kagome sighed and sank wearily to her knees. It may have felt like she had only been here a few hours but she was exhausted. And grudgingly she had to admit that this seemed like an indication that time was moving faster in reality than here.
Then suddenly it hit her. "Inuyasha, we are such idiots!" she said happily as she got to her feet. "We haven't looked in the one place where we should have started!"
"Where's that?" he asked eyeing her skeptically.
"Onigumo's cave."
A/N: Hurray! Aren't' you happy that wasn't another month in the coming? Maybe all I needed was a break because it seems to be coming much easier now. Really, two days is not a bad turn over time at all. I'm so happy I can finally write Inuyasha! He's so fun. Let me know how I did and thanks for all the reviews I've gotten so far.
Also, I'm not sure about the God Tree's spelling, but I think that's close. If you know please tell me how to spell it correctly.