A/N: You made me really happy with your reviews. BIG THANKS.
earthy876: You have 100 points. Your guess is right! I already intended to call the two InuYasha's different. After you had read this chappie you'll know the little one is called Inu-chan from now on. The thing with the Japanese word mother is that I looked it up in two different Japanese dictionaries and the one said 'o-ka-san' and the other 'o-kasan'. But I think your suggestion could be / is also right and from now on I will use 'oka-san'.
Rezol: You brought me with your Shippou question on something and I took it into account.
Kira: Thanks for the review.
kaye: Thanks for the review.
LOTRwolf: I'm happy you liked it.
Kawaii Youkai Miko: Everything will become better for lil' Inu. Just read and review please.
WolfbanesHybrid: Thanks for the review.
lil'killer: Please call your demons back. Here is the update…
amakara: Thanks for the review. Yes, you are right, my native language is German. Is my fanfic in that bad English grammar written that you noticed this? Or are there many meaning mistakes? I try to look words up, with which I'm not sure about if they can be used in a certain context. If I made mistakes, I apologise. Tell me what I made wrong, I want to learn from my mistakes.
Melissa: Thanks for the review.
So enough with thanks and on with the story:
Chapter 3:
Around the warming fire in the middle of a small hut six large fishes sizzled and waited to be eaten. InuYasha put some more wood into the fire, while his gaze rested on the little boy, that laid near the flames on straw, covered with a blanket. The girls had taken off his dirty clothes, cleaned his body and treated his brushes and fractions. Kagome could have done this by her own, but Sango insisted in helping her. She blamed herself for the boy's condition and didn't move from his side. For hours she sat near him and changed the cold cloth on his forehead.
Miroku saw the look on his friends face. "Maybe the villagers were right and he is your son."
It took InuYasha a second to realise that the monk talked to him and he broke his gaze away from the face he was studying. "What! Th- that can't be, you pervert! That's the only thing on your mind!"
"Nah, nah, InuYasha. Look at him. He just looks like you."
"Excactly that is the problem. He looks too much like me, to be my pup. Regardless of this, he CANNOT be my son, you pervert!"
"I really hope so, InuYasha." Said Kagome in a calm, but stressed voice, while she prepared a cup of ramen and six Cokes.
"Keh!" the older hanyou jumped to his feet and approached the straw rag that was used as a door. While he shoved it to the right and stepped out into the night he heard Sango asked where he would go. "Keh. I'll fetch some wood."
"Is he angry?" The young kitsune sat next to Kirara and was occupied with his candies. He collected in one hand all the red and white sweets that looked like little bears, whereas the plastic bag was full with green, orange and yellow ones. The fire cat meowed when he gave her some of the green soft goodies to eat.
"Maybe. He will cool down. Or he is just confused by this situation."
"Who do you think is this boy?" Shippo opened a new plastic bag and put in the sorted out sweets.
"Dunno. But I don't think he is one of Naraku's minions, clones, whatsoever."
"No, he isn't. He doesn't have a spider on the back…. We have to wait until he wakes up." Kagome gave the monk a Coke and he replied before taking a fish from the fire. "Until this happens, let's start eating."
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His ears twitched when he heard strange voices talking near him. He felt warmth coming from a near fire and a comfy blanket that covered his beaten body. Every centimetre of his torso hurt and felt weak. His brain was cloudy and it was hard to concentrate on the voices.
The last thing he remembered before he fainted by pain was a young woman's face that appeared between the grass and the words of the villagers that encouraged her to kill the demon. They had called her demon exterminator. It was her who had thrown the huge weapon on him that had hurt him badly. But why wasn't he dead already. He knew from stories from his home village that there was a powerful demon hunter tribe in the north that made weapons out of their preys.
He opened his eyes slightly and saw the blurry features of two people sitting next to him and a big hazy red and yellow thing. This thing was moving a little and radiated warmth. It must be a fire, his young mind told him. InuYasha tried to fix his gaze on the person next to him. Slowly the clouds vanished from his eyes and he could spot long brown hair and a pink kimono. He concentrated on the face of this figure, that seemed to be a woman, and recognized the exterminator's face. Fast he closed his eyes again when fear overcame him. He really was with the demon slayers. 'As long as I don't move they think I'm asleep.'
The little hanyou gathered his strength and tried to hear and comprehend what they were talking about. The voice of a male came to his ears, a voice he had heard somewhere before. 'Of course, that's the exterminator's companion!' What was it that he had just said? Something like Let's start eating! 'Eat!' Maybe they would eat him and make afterwards weapons out of his bones. Steeling was a bad idea, a really bad idea. Wouldn't he had tried to steel something to eat in that village, the exterminator wouldn't have caught him and he would still be free. (A/N: I hope the tenses are in the right order, please tell if they don't. English tenses were never my friends in English lessons.)
Now he laid here, waiting to be eaten. What should he do? After all he was half-demon and therefore faster than human beings. Maybe he could ran away from them and hide in the woods as he'd done this so often before. Or he could try to beg for his life. But no, no human before was nice to him and these people were demon killers who wouldn't make any difference towards a human eating wolf demon and a harmless hanyou child.
InuYasha decided to try his luck and run away. Inwardly he counted to three and took in a deep breath, when he sat up and stumbled to his feet. As soon as he did so a sharp pain shoot through his chest and his feet gave away under him. He caught himself with his hands before his face collided with the hard wooden floor. With one claw holding his hurting chest he crawled away from the exterminator, using his other one. He turned his head for a second to look at his enemies. There were three humans watching him with wide eyes; two were female and one was the male he had heard before.
He crawled further to the door, but broke down, when strength left his arm, because of the burning pain in his chest. He pushed himself up again and sat on his behind, still trying to approach the door. Fearfully he watched the young man walk towards him with an outstretched hand. The black haired girl said something like "Shh, little one." and "Calm down." from the other side of the fire, but she held a strange steaming box in her hand.
The man still came up to him and had almost reached the small hanyou when a deep growl escaped the child's throat and he crawled into the corner next to the exit. The threatening noise wasn't very terrifying, since he was only a pup, which face showed more fear than any of the humans had ever seen before. His little ears were laid back at his head and he gasped for air, while pushing himself into the corner. There he slung his arms around his legs and buried his face in his knees.
Suddenly InuYasha heard someone enter the old hut and looked up with a tear streamed face. He saw a tall man with white hair, dog ears, golden eyes and unreadable expression. He held a bunch of wood in his arms over his red haori.
'He wears my haori!?!' The child suddenly realised that the only thing he wore was a small cloth around his lower body parts and some bandages covered his chest. 'Why does he wear my haori? And why does he look so much like me? Is he a hanyou?' He watched the brown haired man back away and sat down next to the exterminator. The white haired guy put down the wood and looked up at him. "So, you are awake." Saying that he let himself fell down next to the fire, his legs crossed. He watched the little boy for a moment with a kind face. The child studied his appearance before he gathered enough courage to ask in a low voice: "Yo- you are a hanyou." He had never seen another half-demon before.
The young man answered in a calm tone, trying not to startle the child. "Yes, I am. Come out of the corner. No one's gonna hurt you. What's your name, pup?"
"Inu- InuYasha." This statement caused the humans to shoot each other strange looks. The child didn't understand why something like confusion appeared on the face of the other hanyou. "Why?"
"Why, what, kid?"
"Why I'm still alive? Are you going to eat me?"
"Nani?" escaped the older hanyou.
"Why do you think something like that? Why should we kill a child?" asked the exterminator in return.
"I'm not a child. I'm an unworthy half-breed." More tears welled up in his eyes.
The black haired girl in strange clothes stood up and walked towards him. Only some steps away she crouched down and looked into his blurry golden eyes. "You are not. You are scared little boy." Carefully she touched his face with her hand and wiped away the salty water running from his orbs. The boy was scared, indeed. He hadn't expected to be touched this gentle by a human, other than his mother. He loosed his grip around his legs and looked up at the loving brown eyes of that girl. She suddenly hugged him and pulled him closer to her chest. She began stroking his long white hair and repeated: "No one's gonna hurt you. Everything is fine now."
When InuYasha heard these words and felt her soft touches he couldn't stand the tears anymore. He cried desperately into the girl's shoulder, while she rocked him back and forth. She pulled him into her lap and held him even closer. The boy snuggled closer and sniffed her scent. 'She smells fine. Like oka-san, yet different.'
After a while his tears subsided and the girl picked him up and brought him back to the makeshift bed out of straw. She placed him gentle down and wrapped the blanket back around his body. Then she walked back to the strange box near the fire.
The fire… Around it there were several fishes grilling. Like hypnotised the boy's gaze hung at the food. He breathed in the smell of the cooking and his stomach growled. Hearing this unpleasant noise, he blushed slightly and looked embarrassed down on his lap.
"Here." InuYasha turned his questioning gaze toward the brown haired man, who held an apple towards him. "I think you need it more than the old woman."
Realising that this was the same apple he'd taken from the market, he replied: "But I stole it."
"Someone once said: 'What helps you, that is allowed'."
The apple was almost shoved into his tiny hands. He didn't understand that. "But my oka-san always told me that stealing is bad."
"Yeah, your mama was right. And don't listen what Miroku says." The nice girl blushed when she recognized his quote as her own. She stood again and brought a cup and the small steaming box towards the boy. "Here this is for your pain." She handed him the cup with an herb-water mixture. "And here eat this. This is much better than an apple."
"Arigato." InuYasha sniffed at the box after he'd drunk the bitter herbs and decided that it was a taste worth. He took some noodles with his chopsticks and ate them suspicious. Never before had he eaten something like this. It tasted more than good and the best was, it was warm food. "What is that? It is delicious."
"Ramen."
"Nani?!" The little boy looked up to see that the older hanyou had jumped to his feet, holding the fish, he was eating, in one hand. "You gave him MY ramen!"
The girl turned around and screamed at the taller man. "Don't be so childish, InuYasha. He is almost starved. - And who says it is YOUR ramen any ways. I don't see your name on the box."
"Even if it would be on it, Inu-chan could eat it." A little fox-demon piped from his place next to a yellow cat. He hadn't noticed these two before.
With one swift swing the big hanyou had the kitsune grasped at his tail and held him to his face. "Shippo, you runt."
"InuYasha!" the nice girl looked really angry on the white haired man.
'Why does she call him InuYasha? That's my name.' The little boy looked around and saw that the exterminator and the other male watched a bit excited. After a while InuYasha decided to ask what was on his mind. "Your name is InuYasha, too?"
Startled the entire group turned to him and eyed the child. The kitsune used this chance and jumped down and ran to the brown haired man. Some moments past by before the older hanyou sat cross-legged down next to the fireplace and answered again in a clam voice. "Yeah, I'm called InuYasha."
"Why do you wear my haori?"
"Your haori?! What do you mean, pup?"
Little InuYasha didn't want to make this big InuYasha angry; he wasn't very nice to the fox boy. At least he seems to hear at what the nice girl says. So he tried to explain in his naïve innocence. "You wear the same fire-rat haori, I got from my oka-san. And I wear only a cloth. So yours must be mine."
"Oh, you are so cute, Inu-chan." Said the nice girl and sat next to him. He was never called cute by a human older than eight, except again his mother. "I washed your haori and it's outside drying."
"Why do you look like me?"
The older InuYasha didn't answer, but asked a question in return. "What were your mother's and father's names?"
"Why?! InuTaisho and Izayoi."
„And your older half-brother is called Sesshoumaru?"
"Whence do you know that?" The boy's eyes widened.
The older hanyou looked deep into the child's confused eyes, before he answered. "My father's name was InuTaisho and my mother's Izayoi." More puzzlement appeared on the little face.
"What InuYasha tries to say is that he is you, just older, and you are him." Answered the brow haired man.
"Nani!? How?!"
"We don't know. You have to tell us this."
The nice girl turned to the child and had a very serious expression. "Did something weird happen? Like you fell into a dried well or so?"
"Well? No nothing." The boy shook his head and thought again. "Except that it was raining and when I woke up there was the sun and summer."
"Woke up?!" His older self asked curious.
"There was that light during the storm that hit me."
"Light?!"
"Yeah, from the sky. The kind of light that is always there during a storm."
"Oh, you mean lightning. You were hit by a lightning!" pure shock covered the nice girl's face and she threw her arms around his body.
"Kagome-sama, you think that lightning could have brought him into his future, our present?" The monk picked up a fish and walked towards the boy.
"Yes, what other explanation do we have?" answered the nice girl. 'So Kagome is her name. I will remind that. She is really nice.'
The male stretched his hand out and hold the fish to him. "Here is your fish."
"Arigato." He looked at the food for a moment than his eyes met the man's face again. "What are your names?"
"Oh right, we haven't told you yet. I'm Miroku, this is Kagome-sama, Sango-sama, Shippou and Kirara." He pointed to each of his friends while saying their names.
'Sango, that's the exterminator's name. She doesn't look like a killer, but I know it was her who hurt me.' The little hanyou looked away from the girl and thought it weird that she travelled with a hanyou and two full-demons. He watched the kitsune bite into his food and wondered why this group kept the boy. All he knew about kitsune was that they play mean tricks on humans. Maybe the little fox had felt his eyes on him, when he asked curious. "So, they are both InuYasha. But why do they smell a bit different? It's only a bit."
"Huh?!" Miroku and Sango looked puzzled and glared at Kagome for an answer, while the big InuYasha sniffed on himself.
'How do I explain this to him without the bees…Oh, yes, that might work.' Kagome turned to Shippou and spoke in a motherly tone. "I think it's because InuYasha is an adult and these adult hormones make smell him different than Inu-chan."
"Hormones?"
"That is in your body and it's what makes Miroku grab girls' behind."
"Oh, I understand."
The small InuYasha murmured under his breath. "Inu-chan?!"
"What is it?" Kagome turned back to him.
"Why did you call me Inu-chan?"
"It suits you and by the way it's confusing to call both of you InuYasha."
"But 'Inu-chan'!" complained the older hanyou loudly.
Kagome moved her upper body and confronted the young man with a resolved expression. "What, doesn't you like it? Or would you want to be called Inu-chan?"
"God, no!" Big InuYasha crossed his arms in front of his chest.
She looked back at the small hanyou. "Inu-chan?"
"I'm fine with it."
"Huh?! There was a time I liked being called that?!"
It didn't bother him what these people called him. They seemed to be nice; that was all that mattered for the little boy.
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PLEASE REVIEW
A/N: As promised this chapter is much longer. I hope you liked it.
The next update will be on Wednesday.
Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment and afterwards I go to the cinema,
watching (T)Raumschiff Surprise (= Spaceship Surprise). I think this is the
first German movie I ever watched in the cinema, since I don't like German
movies. But this one is really funny and is a parody of StarTrek Enterprise
(the one with Kirk) and Star Wars and some other movies.
...so I won't have time tomorrow for writing.
