(AUTHOR'S QUICKIE NOTE: Thanks to Dead Gentlemen Productions for the inspiration for today's short. Those of you who have seen "The Gamers" will recognize it instantly. Note that I didn't put in Kagome doing a Tusken Raider impression like Newmoon the elf...though the mental image is funnier than what does happen.)
EPISODE TRES: SAFETY BEGINS AT HOME
"Are you sure this is the only way in?" Inuyasha growled.
Kagome nodded. "Yes. There is definitely a Shikon jewel shard in that cave."
"Great." The hanyou put his hands on his hips and stared at the cave entrance. He didn't smell demon, which was good–that meant either the group had lucked out and found a shard that had merely ended up in the cave somehow, or whatever demon had it wasn't very powerful. He glanced behind him and smiled inwardly. He could probably take the demon himself if there was one, but it was nice to have some powerful backup. Miroku and his Wind Tunnel. Sango and her hiraikotsu. Even Shippo came in handy now and then with his illusions. And of course, there was Kagome and her arrows. Inuyasha wouldn't admit it under torture, but he was glad to have them around–and in Kagome's case, it wasn't just because she could sense jewel shards or that she was getting better with a bow.
Unfortunately, none of that was going to solve the immediate problem, which was the rather large boulder blocking the cave entrance.
But that's not really a problem, Inuyasha smirked. He unsheathed Tetsusaiga. It pulsed with energy and he raised it to strike.
"Wait, Inuyasha!" Sango cried.
He just managed to stop in mid-swing. "What now?"
"Look." She pointed at the crest of the cliff, at the bottom of which lay the cave. Inuyasha scanned the top for a threat, but didn't see any. Then Sango tossed a stone. When it hit on the cliff face, there was a small puff of dust and a few rocks crumbled down. "You were going to use Wind Scar, weren't you?"
"Well, yeah."
Understanding dawned on Kagome's face. "It might bring down the whole cliff, Inuyasha! It would take us forever to get through that."
"Feh." Inuyasha sheathed his sword and cracked his knuckles, causing everyone else to cringe, which happened every time he cracked his knuckles. Which was one of the reasons he did it, of course. "I guess I'll just have to use my muscles instead of my fang!" And with that, Inuyasha stepped forward and grabbed the boulder in both hands.
Something flashed in Kagome's mind and she nearly yelled at Inuyasha to stop, but it was too late. He was already lifting the boulder. Her eyes darted to the cliff, but other than a few small rocks cascading down the front, it was holding. What she wasn't sure would hold was Inuyasha's–
The boulder was over his head and he was grinning in triumph at the party when suddenly his face became a rictus of pain. "Eeergh!" he grunted out, teetered for a moment on unsteady legs, then crashed backwards. Luckily, he had the prescence of mind to fall in a direction where he would not smash back into the cliff or flatten Kagome. The boulder crumped back to earth and rolled a little before it came to a stop.
When the dust settled, Kagome rushed forward and knelt next to Inuyasha. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he lied. That became obvious when he tried to get up and collapsed back to the ground in agony.
"He threw his back out," Miroku observed. Sango looked on the hanyou with sympathy–the boomerang she carried had done that plenty of times to her–while Shippo collapsed in laughter. Shippo wasn't sadistic, but he rather enjoyed seeing Inuyasha in pain, since the latter had face-planted him into ramen the day before.
"Oh, Inuyasha..." Kagome said sadly. "You should always lift with your legs, not your back." Inuyasha grumbled something that was probably best left unrecorded.