Age of the White Dawn

Chapter 20: Hot Spring Fun

Kagome gave a small sigh of contentment as she slid fully in the hot springs, reveling in the sensation of warm water lapping at the nape of her neck, soothing her aching muscles. A bare, pale arm rose above the steaming waters to ensure her hair remained messily piled a top her head, while the other rested delicately against the rocks lining the outer edge of the springs. The owner of both appendages was gazing heavenward, squinting through the warm mist at an unusual shaped cloud drifting lazily overhead.

Opposite Kagome was Sango in very much the same position as her younger friend, the only difference being that (since she was in possession of a hair tie and thus had no need to hold up her hair) she had both of her slightly tanner arms lying idle upon the hot spring's edge. She too was observing the unusual shaped cloud, the warm mist not only occasionally obscuring her view, but also painting her cheeks a flushed red.

The pair remained as such for several minutes until, finally, Sango broke the comfortable silence by noting aloud,

"It looks like a hippo smoking a cigar."

Kagome wrinkled her nose and cocked her head to the side, "That sounds so icky. I was thinking a hippo wearing ballet shoes. See that little part sticking out there? That's the unlaced part." She eagerly pointed out the said section of the cloud, but Sango just slowly shook her head,

"That's not the hippo's feet, that's its mouth."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Keh."

The two females stopped and stared at each other before dissolving into a fit of chuckles and giggles,

"Oh my gosh," Kagome groaned, putting a hand to her forehead in amused dismay, "I think Inu Yasha's rubbing off on me."

"Maybe it's karma."

"How so?"
"Maybe, because you sat him so much, it was decided that your penance would be to acquire the very habits of his that got him sat in the first place," Sango philosophized, pinning Kagome with a thoughtful look.

"Oh please," she snorted, "He deserved all those sits. Not only did he give everyone only half a day of rest after the whole Kagura thing, but I found this whole stash of ramen in his haori when I was bandaging him up. So I gave him one sit for each packet of ramen he stole from the inn," she explained loftily.

"Yeah, but he said he was only replenishing our supplies," Sango pointed out.

"Yeah, but Miroku said he was only getting that grasshopper off your back," Kagome shot back.

"That's different; I know he was lying."

"Really now…"

"Really. That was one of the first ones he used on me."

"Oh yeah! You've known him long before this whole incident, huh?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. Ever since he was ten he'd come through the camp with his dad's caravan. Heck, I think I was the first girl he groped."

"Wow, I don't think I've ever known any one that long," Kagome reflected.

"Mm, it's not all that great. Oh, but I did know him before he ever became a lech…yes, an innocent Miroku did exist at one time," she added at Kagome's incredulous expression, "I even slept with him once and—"

"What?!" Kagome shrieked, throwing up both hands, forgetting that one was required in order to prevent her hair from touching the water. Her hair tumbled wildly down in her face and upon her shoulders, her gray eyes wide with disbelief and a hint of school girlish excitement,

"You, you—" she sputtered, "did that?!"

"Wha? Oh, no, no! Miroku must be rubbing off on you too!" Sango, face a lovely shade of fire hydrant red, hastily denied.

"Oh, okay. Go on then."

Still slightly flustered, Sango crossed her arms and continued, "Uh, any way, when we were younger, much younger mind you, we both suffered from major cases of insomnia; me because I had—have—only fragmented memories of my pass outside the bendela camp, and Miroku because his Mom left him for some sailor. So we'd both sneak off to the main stables and spend the night in the hay loft, whining to each other. We often fell asleep there together," Sango finished, a sad, wistful expression on her face as she stared intently down at her hands.

"What changed?"

Sango's expression turned bitter, "He became the houshi."

"Um…"

She sighed, "He sort of disappeared for three years, and when he came back he had…changed. Yeah, he greeted me with the usual hug, but included a pinch in the ass with it. So I decked him, we got into an argument, and I haven't heard from him 'til now." She failed to mention how he had left without saying goodbye, and how she had bawled like a baby for days after his departure; such minor details would usually be found in some schoolgirl drama rather than a bendela's life.

"I'm sorry."

"It's his life," Sango shrugged, "If he wants to grope women, it's no concern of mine…well, unless it's me he's groping."

"Hm, maybe knowing someone for so long isn't such a good thing…"

"Well, I do have some great blackmail material," Sango smiled, "And what do you mean you haven't known someone for such a long time? How about your friends at that school of yours?"

"Nope. Students are constantly being rotated from school to school."

"How does that—oh wait! Inu Yasha! You guys seem pretty cozy around each other."

"Uh…er, I actually met Inu Yasha only a little earlier than you," Kagome murmured, finding the strand of hair curled about her finger quire interesting.

"Oh really? When I first met you, you guys were bickering like an old married couple."

"A married couple who would have no qualms ripping each other to shred," Kagome added dryly.

Sango opened her mouth to deliver her good-natured reply, but suddenly stiffened, glaring into the bushes.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"That rustling noise—there it foes again! In the bushes!" Not taking her eyes off the spot in the bushes, she felt around until her palm brushed against a rock. Without a sound, she tested its weight and, finding it good and heavy, she chucked it into the bushes.

Nothing.

"Hm, I guess I'm just being paranoid."

Miroku quietly released the breath he had been holding, wincing at the sight of the rock embedded deep within the tree trunk he knelt beside. Damn, when had Sango gotten so aggressive? What happened to the chubby-cheeked, pig-tailed, innocent little girl he used to try to scare with ghost stories?

He peered through the bush and his jaw nearly dropped in a most undignified matter.
She became a woman. A beautiful, strong, fierce woman. A woman who was currently stepping out of the hot springs, nude, to retrieve her equally nude friend  hair tie. A woman with long, muscled legs, with p—

"You're drooling houshi," a semi-amused voice growled lowly from behind him, and just like that, he was suddenly hauled away from  his hiding place to the lake the girls had exiled them to earlier.

"That just wasn't right, you know that? It was just sick and wrong," Miroku snapped from where Inu Yasha had dumped him on the ground, spitting out an orange flower that had gotten caught in his mouth.

"No, you're sick and wrong."

"I was merely appreciating the art of a woman's body."

"Yeah, well, go appreciate some other piece of art," he growled, walking over to the lake's edge and kicking a rock in, "she's not some cheap show you can gape at any time you want."

"I was talking about both of our lovely lady companions, you know," Miroku chuckled, picking up a rock and skipping it across the water.

"That's not the point," he huffed, crossing his arms and scowling at something in the distance.

"Ah yes, of course not. The point is that I was looking at Kagome when she wasn't fully clothed, correct?" Not waiting for an answer he continued, "Well, you were more than welcome to join me, you know. Personally, I preferred my Lady Sango's muscles over Kgome's curves, but they are both equally appealing in…uh, Inu Yasha?"

When inu hanyou didn't answer, Miroku turned in the direction Inu Yasha's eyes—narrowed into two suspicious slits—were trained upon, his grip on his staff tightening at the sight of the silhouette shrouded in mist, floating above the lake towards them.

"Should I warn the girls?" Miroku quietly asked.

"No. Let them have their fun," Inu Yasha smirked, cracking his knuckles, "And we'll have ours."

Miroku rolled his eyes. Why did he have a bad feeling about this?

Meanwhile, back in the hot springs, Miroku's "works of art" were starting to get suspicious. They were in the middle of trading embarrassing stories when a loud, Miroku-like shout had rung out followed by a heavy, unnerving silence.

The two girls exchanged uneasy looks,

"Inu Yasha probably lost his temper and pushed him into the lake, or something," Kagome suggested, sinking back into the water.

"Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me," Sango agreed, about to follow suit when a loud rustle and a soft hiss from the bushes grabbed her attention. Both girls simultaneously reached for rocks, arms crossed over their chests.

A tense minute of silence followed, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves.

There was a hellish hiss, and from the bushes, hissing and spitting, leapt…

"Mr. Toodles?"

"Oh kami, that's the second time that cat has almost given me a heart attack," Sango exclaimed, lowering the large rock she had armed herself with.

Kagome sent her an apologetic look, too busy making unintelligible, comforting noises in an attempt to coax Mr. Toodles over. For all her encouragement, though, the cat remained where it was, posture rigid, eyes darting about nervously. 

With an exasperated sigh, Kagome climbed out of the hot spring and slowly (to keep from startling it) pulled on her under things and clothes. Sango joined her moments later, and together they both tried to calm the utterly spooked cat; a task that proved to be near impossible.

With every step taken towards him, no matter how slow, Mr. Toodles would hiss and leap back until finally something snapped, and with a yowl, he bound away, Sango and Kagome hot on his tail.

After a minute of running blindly through this mist, the pair stumbled upon the lake they had "banished" their men folk to earlier that day, and Kagome was only vaguely surprised to see that Mr. Toodles was no where in sight. Stupid cat. Only Kami knew why she loved it so much.

"Dumb cat, I was only trying to help you," she muttered, picking out an orange flower that got caught in her hair and tossed it over her shoulder. Sango caught it before it hit the ground and studied it for a moment before tossing it over her shoulder as well; there was something strange about that flower…

"Hey Kagome, have you ever seen those orange flowers before? …Kagome?"

Curious, Sango joined her friend in looking down at the lake's edge and gasped. Instead of a small, shallow area that most lakes had, the lakes plummeted sharply downwards like some man-made swimming pool and at the very bottom, pale and wraith-like, were Miroku and Inu Yasha. They looked to be in some deep slumber, their arms and legs bound together by thick green vines flowering the exotic orange blossoms that bordered the whole lake and hot springs.

"What happened?" Kagome whispered, the first to snap out of the dazed stupor that had befallen them.

"I don't know."

"They're not…you know," she looked up at Sango, "They're not d—"

"Of course not, you silly head

They're just asleep, not dead."

Both girls tensed, Sango reaching for her swords while Kagome groped about for her bows and arrows, only to discover that she had left them back at the hot springs.

'Great. While I'm chilling in the hot springs I have my weapons, but when there's some mysterious Dr. Seuss wanna-be behind me, I'm not armed. Yup, that's just perfect…'

Once again exchanging glances, the girls whirled about to face their newest foe and not one of them bothered to mask the looks of shock that flew onto their faces,

"Oh my God."

A/N: …UGH. UGH! That chapter, it's just so, so…ugh! It's more dialogue than any thing else, but it just sounds so awkward, so flat, so, so…blech. I'm afraid going one or two weeks without writing has somewhat affected my style. Ugh. When I'm done with this story, I think I'll re-write this chapter…

But any way, really, really, really sorry for not having updated in so long. I've had all these tests to study for, and then there's always the obligatory holiday drama, and then I totally re-vamped this chapter twice and it STILL doesn't please me, and yeah. Typical author excuses ^_^* All of those who reviewed, thank you soooo much! Keep'em coming! Happy holidays everyone, I'll try to post the next chapter for this really soon. Hopefully before winter break ends, but my parents have been bugging me to start studying for SAT's so meh. We'll see how it goes.

Oh and one more note: Shippo will be showing up in this story eventually. ^_^