"Looks like this is it," Shippou announced as they emerged from the forest. "Can you take it from here?"

"Yes, thanks for your help," Kagome replied. "You return to the temple."

"Good luck," Shippou bid. He placed a leaf on his head, and in a poof of smoke transformed into a very strange-looking bird. He flapped his wings and meandered away. The remaining two continued forward along the road.

"We won't reach the village until tomorrow night, now that we're no longer travelling by carriage," Inuyasha pointed out. "What happened to the carriage, anyway?"

"Well, do you remember when the giant flaming moth fell into the forest?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if I calculated correctly, the moth landed somewhere along the road we were taking..."

Inuyasha snorted. "Burnt to a crisp."

"I gather, yeah..."

There was a lull before anyone spoke again.

"You know," Inuyasha mused, his voice slightly muffled from beneath the cloak, "I wouldn't have to stop overnight if I were going alone. I'd be in Ogonkai by morning."

"Is that supposed to convince me that making this journey was a mistake? Look, I know you think that you're on this journey for your own mission, but that's not the way things are. You're my companion, and you're not going anywhere without me."

Inuyasha cast her a sidelong glance. She could almost feel his gaze burning into the side of her head. "The purpose of the Order of Uzume is spreading respect for all living things, is it not? So why are you treating me like I'm your disobedient dog?"

"I am not!" Kagome protested. "I respect all living things, and I'll respect you more when you stop acting like a child."

"But wait," Inuyasha piped, feigning innocence. "Aren't children living things?" He dropped the facade and scoffed. "That's got to be the biggest load I've ever heard."

"Think what you want," Kagome said tersely. She no longer felt like arguing with Inuyasha. "By the way, when we find Kikyo, you're not going to kill her."

In two strides, Inuyasha stepped in front of Kagome and blocked her path. "You misunderstand one thing. All I need you for is getting across the ocean. Once we reach the southern continent, I'm no longer your dog. Whoever reaches Kikyo first will fulfill their mission."

"That has to be the most childish thing you've said yet!" Kagome raged. She shoved Inuyasha aside and continued along the road. Her head snapped up suddenly, and she gasped. It was now her turn to block Inuyasha's path and get in his face. "You planned this from the start, didn't you? Lady Kaede told me that you'd said you were willing to help. I'll bet you just said that to set this whole thing up! You lied to Lady Kaede and said you'd help, intended to use me to cross the ocean, then abandon me once I'd ceased to be useful, and finally go off and kill Kikyo!"

"You natter like a squirrel," Inuyasha muttered. Kagome was shocked, and portrayed the emotion with a shriek, as Inuyasha lifted her off the ground by her waist and placed her next to him on the road.

As he turned and walked away, Kagome huffed and stared after him in disbelief.

"By the way, your synopsis was only partly right," Inuyasha said, back still turned. "Once you'd led me across the ocean to the southern continent, I was going to kill you."

Kagome felt a thrill creep up her spine. Her training, as well as her new sit command, would come in handier than she thought in keeping this demon in line. He seemed awfully moody. One minute, it almost seemed like he was trying to defend her in front of Kouga, though not very tactfully, and now, he was threatening to kill her.

"Well, you did use the past tense."

Inuyasha raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"You said you were going to kill me. Hehe, yeah... We're on better terms now, right? ...Aren't we?"

"I'm your companion, remember?" he sneered. "Whatever you say goes, fearless leader."

Somehow, Kagome was not convinced.

"Yes, you're Lady Kagome from the Uzume Temple up the hill, right?" the old innkeeper said, regarding the acolyte curiously. "Lady Kaede sent word from the temple that you would be coming with your grandmother."

"What?" Inuyasha growled.

The innkeeper gave Inuyasha a puzzled look. Kagome prayed to any god that was listening that Inuyasha would play along and not give away the fact that he was a demon.

Inuyasha cleared his throat, and much to Kagome's relief, began speaking in a high-
pitched voice. "Yes, that would be me." He gave a pathetic cough for good measure.

"Right this way, ladies," the innkeeper beckoned. He led Kagome and Inuyasha through the corridors of the inn.

"Good job," Kagome whispered.

Inuyasha only muttered, "Feh..."

"We've prepared a meal for you," the innkeeper informed them jovially. He slid open the door to their room to reveal a veritable feast laid out for them.

"Thank you so much!" Kagome exclaimed, bowing. "Your hospitality greatly entreats us."

After the innkeeper departed, Inuyasha scoffed.

"'Your hospitality greatly entreats us!'" he mimicked in falsetto.

"Well it does!" Kagome protested.

"Whatever," Inuyasha sighed. He threw the cloak onto the floor and pounced on the food. "I'm starving!"

"I can see why," Kagome sympathized, seating herself on the red cushion at the other side of the table. "We only had a meagre lunch, since we no longer had the carriage. And before that, you hadn't eaten in 50 years..."

The meal went relatively peacefully, save for Inuyasha's ravenous munching. They were very nearly finished when they heard the commotion outside.

Inuyasha's ears tweaked at the noise, and he pulled his bowl of rice down from in front of his face.

Kagome snickered.

"What?" Inuyasha demanded, mouth still full.

Kagome tried to answer, but the image of Inuyasha with his cheeks full of rice, much like a chipmunk, sent her into peals of laughter.

Inuyasha swallowed and placed his bowl and chopsticks on the table. "Humans..." he muttered as he made a dash for the door to the road outside.

"Wait!" Kagome called after him desperately. "Put your cloak on first!"

With Inuyasha concealed beneath his cloak, Kagome pushed the door open and gazed outside, Inuyasha at her shoulder. A man with his hair in a tight ponytail, and apparently charred, was staggering down the road. Several cloaked individuals were running to meet him.

"That hot pink is blinding..." Inuyasha commented reproachfully on the man's coat.

"Certainly is strange..." Kagome whispered. "What do you suppose happened to him? I don't remember seeing any smoke in the sky from a fire..."

The cloaked figures that rushed to the man's aid were a trio; one appeared to be average height, one was small in stature, and the other, hunched over. Their faces were concealed as they searched their surroundings rather warily. They hastily threw a cloak over the man and helped him to his feet.

"We should go help..." Kagome suggested.

She began to take a step forward, but Inuyasha grabbed her arm and pulled her back in.

The tallest of the trio glanced over at the door, but they were hidden well enough in the shadows to avoid detection.

"What's the big idea? Let go!" she insisted.

"Don't even think about going out there," Inuyasha hissed tersely. "I smell demons..."

"You...smell demons?"

Kagome hadn't thought of it before, but dogs did have a good sense of smell... Of course Inuyasha could smell if there were demons around.

"Does that mean that...those people in the cloaks are demons?"

"Yup... What's strange about it is that they all smell exactly the same... There's nothing distinctive about any one of them."

"Maybe they're just family, then?"

"Even members of a family have different scents," Inuyasha snorted disdainfully, as if she should have known that already.

"It would probably be best just to stay put," Kagome decided. "Let's not get into any unnecessary fights."

"Whatever you say," Inuyasha agreed doubtfully. "I'm going to keep watch, though. I get the feeling those demons are up to something..."

"We'll take turns keeping watch," Kagome suggested.

"Naw, just leave it to me," Inuyasha insisted. "I don't need as much sleep. You might need your strength for tomorrow."

There was an awkward silence when Inuyasha finished. Kagome regarded him for a moment. His voice had seemed so...gentle just now. Why was he so concerned about her getting sleep?

Inuyasha's face turned a mild shade of pink as he turned to glare at her. "What are you lookin' at?! I said go to bed!!!"

"Alright, I'm going!" Kagome shot back. "Sheesh..."

Inuyasha was a light sleeper and he knew it, so he decided to rest his eyelids for a bit. If he had confided in Kagome the fact that he was only going to keep watch periodically, she probably would have insisted on staying awake with him. Stupid human girl... How did she expect to repel jerks like Kouga without any decent sleep, should they run into one again?

The demon cast a glance at the acolyte sleeping in the bedroll on the other side of the room. He tried to look away, but found his gaze lingering a little longer than he would have liked it to. She was lying on her side, and a strand of her hair had fallen over her face. It was driving him crazy. He had an irresistible urge to straighten it. It was just sitting there! Couldn't she feel it? Wasn't it uncomfortable? Did he have to do EVERYTHING for her?!

He began to move out of his sitting position when he heard a muffled footstep coming from somewhere in the complex. He listened attentively for where it was coming from. A whiff of the air was all he needed to confirm his suspicions; there was a demon in the house.

With quick, light steps he ran down the corridors of the inn, looking for the culprit of the disturbance. He stepped into the foyer and discovered a cloaked figure, exactly like the one they had seen earlier, walking towards another corridor. The demon spotted Inuyasha, turned on its heel and ran out the door. Inuyasha pursued it out onto the porch, but decided to heed Kagome's advice and not start any fights.

Besides, the demon had dropped a nice little souvenir. He swooped down and seized the sheet of paper that had fallen out of the demon's cloak. The light was dim, and he squinted to see what was written there. Someone had painted the portrait of a man, quite well, Inuyasha thought, at the top of the sheet. Reading the text beneath, he soon realized that this was not so much of a portrait as a mug-shot.

Name: Miroku-san

aka Azami-sama

aka Kuroshita-no-Seiji

Age: approx. 18-22

Height: approx. 1.8 m

Weight: approx. 72 kg

Eye colour: Violet

Hair colour: Brown

Owner of the world's only fully functional airship. Last seen at the Kaigan Inn, Ogonkai. Suspected of illegal gambling, theft, embezzling funds, extortion, impersonating nobility, impersonating a monk, and indecent exposure. If you know the whereabouts of this man, or possess evidence proving any of the aforementioned crimes (or any others) were committed by this criminal, contact Sango-san, Ogonkai Police.

"Sounds like quite the character," Inuyasha muttered. He folded up the parchment and tucked it away in his cloak. As he shut the inn's front door, a thought struck him; he had left Kagome back in their room, completely unprotected!

He raced silently back to their room, and to his horror, he found yet another cloaked demon, hunched over Kagome's prone figure. It was tentatively reaching out for her.

"No you don't!" Inuyasha shouted, lunging at the demon. It hissed and fled out the door before he could sink his claws into it. He chased it as far as the door, and slammed the frame shut. With the room closed off, he returned to Kagome's side.

"Kagome, are you alright?" he asked. "Did that demon do anything to you?"

This elicited no response. She continued sleeping soundly in her bedroll.

"Sleepin' like a baby..." he muttered bitterly. He sat himself down comfortably next to Kagome, crossing his arms indignantly. "Maybe I should have made her stay up and keep watch with me... That'd teach her..."

The room slowly grew dim. He yawned, and succumbed to the embrace of sleep as well.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKK!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Wha— What? What?! What's going on?! Is there a demon attacking?!?!"

"GET OFF OF ME, YOU PERVERT!"

"GAH!"

"SIT, BOY!"

THUD!

Kagome pressed herself up against the wall, getting as far away from the demon as possible. She gasped for the air she had lost while shrieking at the top of her lungs.

"What was that for?" Inuyasha whined.

"Oh, like you don't know?!" Kagome shrilled. "Just what was the big idea, pal?!"

He pulled himself out of the Inuyasha-shaped crater in the floor. "What big idea?! I'm not apologizing for anything if I don't know what it is! In fact, I'm not apologizing at all! Yeah, that's right! You don't have the right to be apologized to, after that!"

"The big idea was you— Urgh! You were...lying on my...ACK!"

"On your... Oh..." Inuyasha murmured, realization dawning in his eyes. He sneered, "Feh. Not like there was anything there anyway!"

"SIT!"

THUD!

"Hmph..." Kagome snorted. "I thought you were keeping watch, anyway!"

"I just dozed off a bit, that's all!" Inuyasha protested. "I was trying to protect you from the demons that got in here last night! You really think I'd want to feel up the likes of you? Don't flatter yourself!"

"Wait, what demons?" Kagome demanded.

"Oh sure, change the subject whenever it's most convenient for you!" Inuyasha continued obnoxiously. "You slept through the whole thing last night, like a rock!"

"Just answer the question...!" Kagome sighed exasperatedly.

"It was those cloaked demons from the road," Inuyasha finally explained, sitting up and crossing his legs and arms. "Just two of them. One of them was after you, but I managed to scare it off. I didn't engage in any fights, like you said. Happy now?"

"Partly," Kagome admitted doubtfully. "What do you suppose they were after?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say they were after that weapon of yours," Inuyasha replied, motioning toward the staff still tucked away in her bedroll. "The Shikon Staff, you call it? Yeah, I remember about the Shikon Jewel... It's supposed to be really powerful. Yeah, that's got to be it. Those demons are after the Shikon Jewel."

"Well that's certainly not good," Kagome lamented. "We need to leave town as quickly as possible."

"I'm on it," Inuyasha complied. He ran for his cloak. "Pack up your gear. We're movin' out."

Kagome gathered up her belongings and led the way to the innkeeper to pay him. When she reached the door, she let out a horrified scream before clamping her hands over her mouth.

"What?!" Inuyasha demanded. He peered over her shoulder and immediately recognized the source of her distress. Blood seeped slowly along the floorboards from a heap in the corner. The old innkeeper was dead.

"Dammit..." Inuyasha muttered. He walked past Kagome into the room and inspected the body. He ripped a piece of paper off of his chest, attached by threateningly large pin. "There's a note."

"What's it say?" Kagome asked shakily.

Inuyasha quickly read it, and threw it down into the pool of blood. "Dammit, dammit...!"

"What? Tell me!"

"It's those cloaked demons again," he muttered bitterly. "They murdered the old innkeeper as a warning to us. They said if we want to live, we'd better leave town, and that we might have better luck in Ogonkai."

"That's where we're going anyway," Kagome pointed out.

"It's exactly where they want us to go," Inuyasha realized. "It's a trap. I almost forgot about this..." He reached into his cloak and produced the wanted parchment. "The other demon I chased away dropped this."

Kagome took the poster and studied it. "I think I see..." she said after a moment. "They want us to find this man, and have him lend us the use of his airship."

"Okay, quick question," Inuyasha interjected. "How is it that he's the owner of the world's only airship? I know it's ancient technology, and they are pretty scarce..."

"That was fifty years ago," Kagome explained. "Every airship in the sky was shot down fifty years ago...except for one. It must have belonged to someone in this man's family."

"That was Naraku's doing," Inuyasha muttered bitterly. "I remember now... The rampage..."

Kagome could see that the demon was reliving difficult memories. His brows were drawn together in deep thought. She realized that probably the last thing he wanted to be reminded of was the time he was Naraku's peon. She returned her focus to the wanted poster. "An airship would be one of the best ways to get to the southern continent. But...why would they want to allow us to go to the southern continent?"

"Maybe the trap is there, and not in Ogonkai," Inuyasha suggested. "What I want to know is how the hell they got wind of where we were going... So...what do we do?"

Kagome stared a moment at the ink-black eyes of the man in the poster. "We're going to do what we set out to do: find Lady Kikyo. And the quickest way to do that is in this man's airship."

"So we're going to Ogonkai," Inuyasha confirmed with a nod. "We're gonna find this Miroku... or Azami... or Seiji... or whatever the hell he wants to be called, and get him to take us across the ocean."

"It may be tough," Kagome pointed out. "According to this, the guy's a wanted criminal. I imagine he'll be pretty elusive."

"Well, according to the poster, he was last seen at the Kaigan Inn. It's a good place to start. Even back fifty years ago, that place was known for some shady dealings. Generally a decent place to stay, just some wealthy high-rollers behind the scenes."

"Then we're going to the Kaigan Inn," Kagome decided. "Let's just see those demons try and set a trap for us!"

Inuyasha cracked his knuckles. "That's the best thing I've heard come outta yer mouth yet."

A/N: Just for anyone who doesn't work in metric (don't worry, neither do I--and I'm Canadian!), the stats I gave to Miroku were something along the lines of 6' and 160 lbs. I think they use metric in Japan, so that's why I used it... I suppose they didn't use metric back then or something... I have no idea. I'm just not going to talk about it! ::sniff:: I don't know if he has any actual stats I can reference from, but...it was supposed to be approximate, anyway! ::shifty eyes:: I'm just going to stop talking now... ::runs::