*Hello! It's me again with another Chapter. I believe this is the chapter that has many links to it...the next four or five chapters connect to this, and if you were to look at it as a whole, it would be one rather large chapter. Probably a total of twenty pages in full if it's really that much. Anyways...here's chapter 22! Enjoy!*

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha and co. but if I dug around in my back yard...I could possibly find a hidden well I could try to go to Feudal Japan in!

Chapter 22

"Nothing happened!" Shouted Inuyasha for the fifth time. He was beginning to get frustrated.

For the last hour and a half, the entire group had pinned him and Kojika in a corner of no escape, and had kept them there with questions about how and why the dragons Yakume and Reiko had attacked. This little topic seemed to interest them most.

The one that didn't seem to be getting completely aggravated by his and Kojika's silence was Kagome, for she sat in a corner of the camp area and stared to the sky forlornly, sharpening an arrowhead in her hand from one of her arrows.

"Seriously Inuyasha, why did they attack you?" Shippo shouted, standing up in front of the crowd as if he were the leader there. "You're not getting anything out of me squirt!" Inuyasha replied.

"Kojika! Why would you're kind attack you?" Sango asked, looking to the dragon. "Is there something you're keeping hidden?"

"Please, please!" Kojika replied, waving her hands to try to back everyone away. "Curiosity killed the cat you know!"

"We're not cats." Miroku replied, leaning forward. Inuyasha doubted the monk was in this conversation for information. He just merely was trying to get his hands on something he liked. Perhaps Sango considering Kojika would cut off his hand if he even so much as brushed her in the wrong area.

Kojika was very protective of herself.

"Guys...why don't you leave them alone?" Kagome told them, once she had thrust her wandering mind back into reality. Now she was standing up, looking for her back pack.

"Why should we?" asked Miroku, watching Kagome quietly.

"What happened between them and the dragons is there business, not ours. We have no right to request anything from them." She said simply, finally finding her pack of mysteries.

Inuyasha always checked on the things that she brought back when she wasn't looking, always to find anything he happened to like. One time, he had done a quiet search of her pack when he felt like snacking and found some weird little package in one of the side pouches, dressed in a thin pink wrapping. He was curious to what it was, and when he asked Kagome the next morning, she snipped it from his hands with a red face and told him it was none of his business. He still, even now, wondered what it was that got Kagome so mad at him for. It was only a little thing right? What did she use it for? Amazingly, she always seemed to have them when she was in heat, but at the moment, she had caught onto his little late night search parties in her back pack, and had learned to sleep next to it so he would have to wake her up if he wanted anything.

"Kagome, what are you looking for?" Shippo asked, watching the miko curiously.

"Prayer beads." She responded.

The three gulped. They had already seen the type of job she had placed on Kouga's neck, and the fact that it did the same thing as when she told Inuyasha to sit, made them think that their necks were next to be snagged.

"Why-why are you doing that-that Kagome?" asked Miroku, scooting away from Inuyasha and Kouga.

"I got an idea." Kagome replied. She knew she was scaring them by the mention of prayer beads. But they had nothing to worry about. It was only an idea she was working at.

"What idea?" asked Sango, standing up to walk away from the two demon bloods, Shippo not far behind her.

"I was thinking of making for prayer bead necklaces." Kagome replied, pulling out her little packet of Japanese beads.

"Kagome?" mumbled Shippo holding his neck. "You're not-not gonna...do-do it- it are you-you?"

"Do what Shippo?" asked Kagome, measuring some elastic string from her bag.

"Put prayer beads on our necks?" Shippo answered, watching as she measured out the strand of string.

"No. You guys don't have to worry. You might if you keep bothering them, but I was only thinking about making a prayer bead necklace for Naraku and each of his minions.

Everyone sighed happily, relieving the tense air they had gathered in their attempt to get away from Inuyasha and Kojika. Not a single one of them wanted to have a necklace like Inuyasha and Kouga had on.

"Thank you Kagome." Kojika replied, standing up from her seat on a tree root. Inuyasha nodded the same thing, and instead of standing up, scrunched up there, his sword close to him, watching the group.

"So how long was Kouga going to be gone?" asked Kojika, sitting down next to Kagome.

"Not too long he said. He was only going to check on his pack." Kagome replied, stringing the first bead onto the prepared necklace.

"Why is that wolf-crap following us around anyways?" asked Inuyasha, watching as Kagome tied the bead at the end of the string.

"He wants to get Naraku, just as bad as you do Inuyasha, and considering that we always manage to find Naraku when we're looking for a fight, means Kouga might actually get revenge for his allies."

"What ever! When the hell are we gonna get going anyways?" Inuyasha requested hastily.

"After this fog has lifted." Replied Sango, finally speaking from that moment of her silence.

At the moment, they were surrounded by a heavy fog, thick enough to cut through with a knife, and not even Inuyasha could lead them out with his intelligent nose.

"Hmph! Whatever!" Inuyasha replied, and jumped up into the tree he sat under, to sulk angrily about being stuck in one area.

"Kagome, would you like another Shikon Lesson now?" asked Kojika, secretly bored with the situation of the moment.

"Sure!" Kagome replied, happily, tying together her finished prayer necklace. "I've got nothing else to do anyways!" and she placed the item in one of the side pockets.

"Good. Okay, I need to borrow another shard if I may Kagome?"

Kagome nodded and complied, giving her another slender shard of the jewel.

"Thank you." Kojika nodded. "Today I'll teach you how to use the healing effect of this shard. Later on, I'll teach you how to use it purify a demon's soul, the same way Midoriko did, and then how to control the power of it completely to your will, controlling the little bit of positive energy with in it. First of all, you have to learn to collect the energy in the shard together. You'll know when the tip of this shard begins to glow white. Watch." And Kojika closed her eyes, concentrating on the jewel's magic. A moment later, a pearly white shine appeared at the end farthest from Kojika's fingers, and grew almost to the size of her thumb. Then she opened her eyes and smiled. By now, everyone had witnessed the bright glow of the light, and had gather around it, except Inuyasha, who watched it simply from at tree, marveling at the power of the shard and how his old mentor was able to control it. "This is what you are looking for. This light is what Midoriko's strength is composed of. It's also the purifying power you have yet to master. Here." And with a blink of her eyes, the light flickered away. "You try."

Kagome took the shard handed to her, and set it between her thumb and index finger, the same way Kojika did, and concentrated, holding it up before her face. She even closed her eyes in the same manner, and concentrated on the energy of the jewel. At the moment, all she could find was the bright flow of pink behind her eyelids, and she considered that this was a deep look within the jewel she was holding. Pink had never been under her eyelids before! She swam along in this pink abyss, almost like a fish in the water, and began to search around for the soft blue coloration that Kojika had talked about being the jewels positive energy. At the moment, the only energy she could locate was the evil. But after a good moment of searching, she finally found a slight trace, almost like a strand of hair, of the blue positive energy. This she reached out and grabbed, taking a good hold of it, and swam up through the pink, pulling the strand of blue along. There was a light above her, and it was that she followed, looking for wherever it lead.

It lead to the opening of her eyes, and when she had taken a slow look at the jewel, she found a small shimmer of the blue light at the top. She concentrated on that light, feeding it energy in order for it to grow (she didn't know how she knew to do it) and soon, the light was almost as big as Kojika's, only she had not all the experience Kojika had, so it remained the way it was.

"Good." Kojika commented. "Now... See here." Kojika pulled up her sleeve to reveal a small cut she had received a while back while traveling through the forest. "I want you to tap this small wound, and send the energy in that shard, into my blood."

Kagome nodded with a gulp, and did as she was told. One tap on the cut though, only sealed up about half of it with the energy. The rest of the energy sped back into the crystal, as if afraid of what it was being forced to do.

"I see you don't have the complete control. Try again." Kojika smiled, re- covering her arm with her sleeve.

For the whole of that morning, Kagome practiced with the shard. Even when Inuyasha became fed up with waiting for Kouga to return, and forced everyone to pack up so they could go searching for the other shards.

Then Inuyasha had also become a little agitated over the fact that Kagome was carrying one of the shards in plain view of demons, and after a huge argument in which Inuyasha was "sat", Kojika promised to teach Kagome how to hide the scent and energy readings of the shards from the other demons.

This Kagome got immediately, and by the time they came to another one of the old villages of Feudal Japan, she had mastered the trick. She was so extremely proud with herself, that she hid the shards in various different places of the Inn room Miroku had secured for them with his way (cheating the Inn Keeper with repeated lies of there being a dark cloud over his inn) and roped Kirara and Shippo into finding them any way they could. Neither of them could, and soon, they had Inuyasha defiantly searching too.

Then, when all three of them gave up, Kagome slyly pulled the missing shards from her sock and told them she had never hid them in the first place. Of course, this made Inuyasha furious, so he left out of the room to sulk.

Strangely enough though, even as Kagome continued the game to the point of ending it, she found that Kojika wasn't in her usually calm mood. The Draymon continually looked out the window of their Inn, just as the sun was coming down, merely for the sight of the full moon.

She was also a little jumpy, and of course, very preoccupied with the forest that surrounded this village and the strange cool breeze that brushed past the happy little Inn. Kagome knew there was something wrong...she had sensed a strange energy in the wind, and had even received a strange sort of...warning twang from the jewel shard she was practicing with. As if there was something out there she was to fear if she wanted to survive.

By this time of course, Inuyasha had returned to take Kirara out to fight with, still practicing with the Tetsusiaga, and had left them alone. Miroku, as soon as he came into the village, had immediately been drawn to a group of beautiful ladies...all young maidens of the village, heading off to the stream to wash off their sweat from a hard day's labor. Of course, because of the lechers antics, Sango went along after him to ensure he didn't get into what she called "trouble".

This only left Kagome, Shippo, and Kojika. Even then, Kagome happened to notice that all of her water bottles for the journey were empty, and so with a happy-to-follow kitsune, she and he left (armed with her bow and arrows of course) to the closest stream to collect some water for tomorrow's journey.

Once gone, Kojika was left alone, in which, even she did not remain in the room for long. She stood up, her long black braid trailing gracefully down her back, and with one look at the room, and a click from her tongue to call her dragon, she left in search of their stalker.

*How was the chapter? Please people I need e-mails. Oh yeah...and for those that didn't know what the sly little pink package that Inuyasha found in Kagome's back pack was, it was a pad. Women's thing if there is a guy reading this!*