A/N: ...Title says all no?

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A little one-shot on how Bankotsu and Jakotsu met.

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Bankotsu was fighting with this army, just because he could and he'd get some food. His usually lean muscled form had thinned some from lack of food. But he was still fighting. He was still alive.

It was that day he saw him. He was tall, he looked like a lean framed person but he looked unnaturally thin at that moment. He was fighting one of the more attractive men from Bankotsu's own side. After a few more hours of fighting there was no one left on the field, except he and the tall man with the snaking blade sword.

Their eyes met briefly but they said nothing and walked in different directions. That was in the morning.

That afternoon Bankotsu was using what money he had left to buy himself enough food to get through the week when he saw a man chasing someone from his shop.

"That outta teach ya not to try and steal ya stupid freak of a boy!" The shopkeeper yelled at him. "But you can keep the food you grabbed, seeing as I don't know what diseases you might have on your hands." He grumbled tossing out a bag of food. The man stood up, dusted himself off and started walking again.

"Hey!" Bankotsu called. The giant halberd on his shoulder swinging a little as he turned in the direction the lone figure had started. "You! Tall guy!" He called.

The man turned to look at Bankotsu. "Nani?"

"Um, are you all alone?" He asked as they made their way to the outskirts of the village.

"Hai." He muttered.

"Do you have a name?" He asked.

"Iie." He said shaking his head.

"Well...they call me Bankotsu." He told him shaking his hand and smiling.

"They call me freak-boy or something like that usually." He told him. "You look starved, Bankotsu."

"Yeah, I just used the last of my money to get some food." He muttered showing him the sack of food he was carrying.

"Well, maybe if we put our food together we'd have enough to eat for a while." The guy told him. "In the meantime, I need a name don't I?"

"I guess...."

"Bankotsu...well, I guess you can call me Jakotsu." He said. "I have the snaking sword, I guess its Jakotsutou." He added.

"Jakotsu, I like that." Bankotsu agreed nodding. "This is my Banryuu," he said gesturing to the huge sword on his shoulder.

"Ah, that's nice." Jakotsu agreed.

They lived two weeks on what they had, sake, bread and vegetables mostly, but got more food from kind elderly people in smaller villages.

And one day in a forest they came across something interesting. On one of the largest, oldest looking trees in the forest hung a young man, he didn't look that much younger than Bankotsu. His hair was almost waist length, silver, he had two fuzzy white dog-ears perched on his head, an arrow through his chest and an expression that suggested he was asleep. The vines that grew around him were proof enough he had been there many years.

"Magnificent isn't it?" An aged voice from behind them asked.

"Nani?" They both turned to see a middle-aged woman with a patch over one eye staring up at the tree.

"His name was Inuyasha...he was pinned to that tree by my sister Kikyou after he attacked her for the Shikon no Tama...and she died, that was forty years ago...when I was a mere girl. Though I found it strange they loved each other and he attacked her." She explained to them.

"I see."

"You two look starving," she observed. It was true; they hadn't eaten in a few days.

"You don't look much older than my sister when she died." She added. "Come I'll give you some food."

"Arigatou Lady...."

"Kaede."

"Lady Kaede." Bankotsu finished nodding.

She gave them enough food to last them a while. As they continued traveling, the story of the hanyou and miko and the old miko that had fed them slipped from their minds and Bankotsu came up with something.

"I'm not gonna take orders, we should hire ourselves as mercenaries, then we can do it our way." He told Jakotsu.

Jakotsu looked unsure for a second then, as they walked through the forest. "Besides, if they were cute I'd probably end up cutting them up anyway." He mused.

Then they met the doctor with an evil side, and other outcasts of that nature and became the mercenary group the Shichinin-tai, but there was always something more between Jakotsu and Bankotsu.

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