Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Yes, that's right. I shan't repeat it any more.

Warning: this chapter contains spoilers. For the anime episode 128, to be specific, which is one of the funniest filler episodes ever created. However, if you don't like spoilers, then skip over any parts where Kagome talks about her time and you'll probably be okay.

Ah, actually, the whole fic may have spoilers... I'll just say this now, so that I don't have to say it in later chapters.

:00:00:

"Baka," groused Sango, glaring at Miroku as she and Kagome sat opposite him near a large tree—both of the women now fully dressed, to Miroku's dismay. "Why did you have to sneak up on us? You ought to have known what would happen."

Miroku put a hand up to his bruised head, wincing slightly. "Ah, well, pain is no match for my boundless affection, Sango."

She stared at him with a very odd look on her face. Kagome watched them both, wondering if, possibly…

Sango reared back and slapped Miroku hard across the cheek, and his hand flew back to his side with a faint rattling of beads. Kagome sighed and shook her head.

:00:00:

"I didn't know it would take this bloody long to get ready," said Inuyasha with no small amount of annoyance, folding his arms across his chest as he watched Shippou fiddling with something.

"Well, it's not my fault!" said the kitsune, turning to glare at the hanyou. "You're the one who wouldn't go and get me more mushrooms like I asked!"

"Keh!" Inuyasha growled, but didn't move. "In case you can't remember, runt, I'm also the one who can't walk at the moment!"

"It's your own fault for letting yourself get hurt!" Shippou retorted, and went back to his fiddling. He was charming the items that had been in his pockets, and the last thing he needed was a distraction.

Inuyasha growled again but didn't get up. Stupid centipede. Stupid kitsune. When I can get up again…! He grinned to himself, knowing that time was not far off. If he tried, he could probably make it up anyway, but… he didn't feel like trying. Besides, the kitsune was helping him. Maybe after the prank was through…

"Ha!" exclaimed Shippou, holding up one of the screaming mushrooms he used to notify the others when there was trouble. "Finished!"

Inuyasha grinned again. "About damn time, runt."

In the corner, Kirara twitched and rolled over.

:00:00:

"Wow, I'm glad that we did leave the hut," said Kagome, leaning against the tree just outside the village. It was getting to be truly late by now, and everything was so calm and peaceful… Nothing had attacked, she hadn't felt anything out of the ordinary… and now she was sitting under a tree with two of her best friends, in the Sengoku Jidai, breathing clean, fresh air and looking up at the wonderfully visible stars. "It's really nice out here…"

"It is a beautiful night," said Sango, also leaning against the tree. Miroku was there too, mercifully having left off his groping for the time being. He had somehow acquired a large bottle of sake, which he held lightly between his knees, occasionally lifting it to pour himself a glass. He had offered the two girls drinks at various intervals of time, but both had refused, and kept refusing, and so he had stopped asking.

"I'll never get over how bright the stars are here," said Kagome softly. "Even when there's a full moon out, there's nothing to overshadow them."

"I'll never understand what that world of yours is like," sighed Sango. "So full of strange things and miraculous medicines…"

Kagome smiled wryly. Trust Sango to remember that… "Well, it's not just medicine that's been advanced," she said. "We have machines that can transport people anywhere, even up into the sky, and there have been big changes in the way the world… and people… work."

"Like what sort of changes?" asked Miroku, who was also listening intently. While he had consumed a fair quantity of the sake, he was not drunk yet, just… pleasantly incapacitated.

"Well, for one thing, there are no more youkai," said Kagome. "Well, there might be some, but they'd have to be all in hiding. And different things are important. Like here, you need to be strong, and fight. But in my time, it's… different. You have to have an education, you need to know how to read and write, and how to get a job, and that's how you survive."

"So there are no youkai in the future?" said Sango, turning towards Kagome in interest. "Not even any of the ones from our time?"

"No," said Kagome, shaking her head.

Sango watched her. "What about… well, Shippou-chan? And Sesshoumaru? And even… Inuyasha?"

Kagome's smile faded slightly. She had, in all honesty and truth, never thought of that. "No, I've… never seen any of them in my time, except for Inuyasha, when he comes with me," she said, and she could hear the hollowness in her voice. If she'd never seen him, didn't that mean that… well, that by the time she was born, he was already long dead? It felt like her chest was tightening, drawing into itself, like her heart was trying to claw its way through her back. Unless... she took a deep breath, a new thought coming to her. Unless I was to… what if he came with me? What if, in the end, I don't leave him here, but...

Sango watched the smile grow on her friend's face, and took a wild guess as to her thoughts. "What do you usually do with Inuyasha while he's… in your time, Kagome-chan?"

"What do we do?" Kagome shrugged. "Well, he usually waits around at my house while I go to school. Once or twice he's even come to my school, but he never stays for long." She laughed slightly, as a memory came to her. "Although, once while my school was having a festival… do you remember the youkai himono that we got from a village, a while ago? Well, he came to my school to look for it, and hung around for the whole festival. In the end, though, he got impatient and just hauled me away to kill the demons." Her face heated up as she remembered just how he had hauled her away: bursting in through the ceiling of the school stage, while she played the lead role in the play, he had used the kaze no kizu on one of the himono youkai and then jumped back out of the hole he'd made, this time with Kagome on his back. The expression on Houjou's face (he had been playing her love interest in the play) would remain with her forever.

Miroku sighed and leaned back against the tree. This was certainly pleasant, just sitting here… his head was still throbbing from Sango's previous blows, and he realized lazily that from where he was sitting he had a nearly perfect side view of Sango's face… She did have a very pretty face.

"What is this school like?" asked Sango. "You seem to be complaining every time it's mentioned… something to do with those 'tests,' isn't it?"

"Yeah…" Kagome looked up at the stars. "They ask you questions about what they teach you during classes, and then they grade you on your answers. Getting a good grade will get you a good job, and that's what matters in my time…"

"I can see why Inuyasha doesn't like your school, then," said Sango, laughing gently. "If it represents education…"

"Hey!" Kagome bristled. "He's not stupid!"

"Well, education isn't as important here," said Miroku, giving his input to the conversation. "I think he might be unnerved by the fact that in your world, he wouldn't be able to be as independent as he is here without making some sacrifices. Like going to school."

Kagome blinked. She'd never really thought of that either. Trying to imagine Inuyasha sitting through a class was like trying to imagine Sango with her hand on Miroku's butt. It just didn't quite fit.

She allowed a smile to cross her face at last. Now wasn't the time for worrying, but… if she held the thought of Inuyasha sitting in a class wearing one of the male school uniforms, she got a rather amusing picture in her mind. Inuyasha with a hat… Inuyasha with a somehow rather Houjou-like expression on his face… Inuyasha wearing any colour other than bright red… Inuyasha in Houjou's shirt… Inuyasha without a shirt…

She quickly abandoned that line of thought, her face flaming. She realized that Sango was watching her curiously, probably wondering why her face was bright red.

"Ahh… you're probably right," she said. "He certainly hates my textbooks enough. Do you know, every time I try to study, it's always him who interrupts me!"

Attention-seeker, Miroku thought blearily. Sango's face was turned away from him still, but he could see the line that marked the bridge of her nose, the curve of her chin, the gentle fall of her chin and the halt as it met her collarbone… oddly, his eyes didn't want to go any lower. After meeting the collar of her yukata, they danced back upwards, back to her eyes, which were trained on Kagome. He poured himself another glass of sake.

Sango was laughing. "Well, that's only to be expected," she said. "That hanyou thinks of nothing but battles, and there are enough of those to give him a good excuse."

"Yeah," said Kagome, "but he does it often enough that I want to hit him… or at least osuwari him into the ground."

The colour tried to leave her face as she remember her last osuwari… he'd been asleep, then, and hurt too… she'd never done that before. It gave her an uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of her stomach, that she might have hurt him more than he was already. Well, I wasn't trying to do it in the first place, she thought defensively, as if he were already awake and angry at her. It was an accident!

"I wish that I had an osuwari spell for him too," said Sango, "for all those times when you're back in the well. He never stops bothering us then."

"I'm sorry," said Kagome, looking down at her hands.

Sango looked at her in surprise. "You don't have to be sorry, Kagome-chan. We all know you have to go back to your world in order to go to school… everyone except Inuyasha, anyway."

Miroku made a strange gesture with his left hand. "And we all know the dignity with which his word on the subject must be treated."

Sango turned to Kagome before the other girl could bristle in anger again. "Well, the point is, you know that you are truly in the right, Kagome. You really have been very understanding of the whole situation—especially when it comes to Inuyasha."

Miroku watched her speaking. The light of the stars and the nearly-full moon shone off her skin, turning it silver with hints of midnight darkness where the light did not reach. His hand rose of its own accord, and Sango, seeing the movement, started to turn—and froze, as the palm of his left hand caressed her cheek. For long seconds, all she could feel was the sensation of his warm palm against her cheek, soft, barely brushing the skin.

Kagome turned to look and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. After watching for a few seconds, during which time Sango didn't move her face except to turn wide eyes on Miroku, Kagome finally found her voice.

"Miroku," she said, "are you… feeling up Sango's face?"

"Of course I am," he slurred. "Why should I not be able to feel up…"

Without waiting for him to say another word, Sango hauled off and slapped him.

He blinked, touching his reddened cheek, and looked offended. "I must protest that one," he said.

"Reflex," said Sango, who looked more than a little bit spooked. "I don't trust you, houshi-sama." She stood up quickly.

Kagome started to laugh. Reflex! No matter which part of her was in question, Sango was completely off-limits for Miroku now. She hit him out of reflex!

Miroku stared at his hand mournfully. "Why can't I touch her?" he asked his rosary.

The rosary remained silent. Kagome, however, began to laugh harder. She supposed she really shouldn't, but the expression on his face was so funny… She had always thought that the two cared for each other more than they admitted, but she'd never counted on the taijiya's training coming between them. Perhaps the fact that Miroku did care for her was what scared Sango, and not just his strange methods of conveying it. And all, most likely, without either of them knowing it!

Suddenly a shrill noise broke in on her laughter. Sango jumped and looked around, and Miroku scrambled awkwardly to his feet, using his shakujou to help.

"What's that?" asked Kagome, standing as well.

"It sounds like… it sounds like one of…" Sango's hand groped through the air towards where hiraikotsu ought to have been as she started to run into the woods. "It's one of Shippou's screaming mushrooms!"

"Oh no!" Kagome started to run after her. "That means something's happened back at the hut!"

Miroku followed her, his face pale, as the three of them disappeared into the woods. The bottle of sake lay forgotten beneath the tree.

:00:00:

Kirara rolled over again and opened one eye, to find herself bound in small scraps of kitsune-transformed ofuda within an empty hut.