Chapter 2:

Inuyasha's Cousin

"I'm sensing an evil presence nearby. Inuyasha, can you smell anything unusual?" Miroku, the lecher Buddhist monk with the Air Rip in his right hand, said.

"I'm smelling wolf youkai, but it smells diluted." Inuyasha said, sniffing the air.

"What'd you mean 'diluted'?" Kagome asked.

"Hanyou." He answered.

Kagome stopped dead with surprise. "But wolf youkai eat humans, don't they? I mean, Kouga had to threaten them to protect me."

"It must be Ashinito." Myouga, the flea youkai, said as he appeared in Inuyasha's kimono collar. He bounced to Kagome's open hand and stood to the group. "Ashinito is a hanyou wolf, born to Kouga's younger sister, Lito, who fell in love with a simple farmer in a village by the mountains. She then bared him a daughter. Villagers, hanyou, and youkai tortured Ashinito, including the wolf youkai that her mother later married and moved into a den with, leaving her daughter behind."

"How could any mother leave a daughter behind for a husband?" Kagome asked.

Inuyasha cracked his knuckles like he did before a fight.

"Inuyasha?" Miroku asked.

"Is something wrong?" Kagome finished. She slowly, nervously approached him.

"Nothing!" He said with anger in his eyes as he jumped up to a treetop. He did that usually when he thought about Kikyo. "Sango, Shippou and Kirara are back."

Sure enough, Sango and Shippou, riding on Kirara, flew over the treetops and landed in the clearing. "There's been a massacre. An entire village was annihilated."

"It looked like the wolves, again." Shippou stated.

"How could Kouga do such a thing after we helped him in his time of need?" Miroku asked.

"It wasn't Kouga." Inuyasha said. "Ashinito's scent is everywhere."

"If she's a hanyou, why would she slaughter her own kind?" Kagome asked.

"Ashinito's father left her and her mother after learning the truth about her." Myouga said. "It only fueled a hatred for humans. Because of her tortured childhood-."

"She hates humans, youkai, and even hanyou." Inuyasha finished for Myouga.

"She hates herself?" Kagome asked. "How could she hate her own self?" She thought to herself.

"She never really fit in with hanyou because she looks like the youkai form, but she hated the taste of human flesh that's why she didn't fit in with the youkai. Finally, she had youkai's blood, so humans didn't accept her." He looked down to Kagome. "You thought Jenegi had it bad, she got the raw end of the deal. They were horrible to her." Inuyasha shuddred.

"Do you know her, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked.

"She's my cousin." He said, bluntly. "Her father was my mother's older brother."

"It's been a long time, Cousin Inuyasha." A girl's voice said as she flew over the treetops, landing in the clearing near Miroku.

She was wearing a large blue and pink kimono that had bloodstains all over it. She had long, waist length, flowing golden that that swished in the slightest breeze. She casually walked over to the tree where Inuyasha was perched, exposed a hand with long, blood dripping claws, placed it against the trunk, and said, coolly, "Poison claws." The trunk melted and Inuyasha jumped off and fell into the pool of melted wood.

"Ashinito-sama!" Myouga cried as he hopped away from Kagome's hand and to a tree branch.

"Myouga-sama. I see you haven't changed in years." She said. "Still serving Nishi-sama?" She finished.

"He died years ago. Sesshoumaru is now The Great Youkai of the Western Lands. " Myouga said.

"Now you're serving Inuyasha, huh?" She smiled. "No surprise. Last I heard, Inuyasha was released by the reincarnated miko, Kikyo-sama. Inuyasha always fell for the weak humans."

"What'd you want this time, Ashi?" Inuyasha called as he climbed out of the liquid wood.

"Still calling me by my childish name, Inuyasha?" Ashinito said as she stared at him.

"What'd you want?" He repeated. "You wreak of human blood. Did you kill all thoes villagers?"

"They crossed me, Cousin." She snickered.

"Kagome! Does Ashinito have any slivers?"

"I see six. One on each hand, arm, and leg." Kagome repiled.

"Using Jewel Slivers now, Ashi?" Inuyasha said.

Kagome pulled out her bow and an arrow. She aimed at Ashinito and shot, but Ahsinito grabbed it and melted it. She can melt my arrows? Kagome thought.

Ashinito laughed. "You don't get it, do you?" She said. She ran around Inuyasha so fast that he smelt her scent everywhere. "I can now-." She said, disappearing. A fist came out of nowhere and hit Inuyasha directly in the nose, breaking it. "Run around you and you can't sense me!" She stopped and was right behind Kagome.

"No!" Inuyasha cried. "Don't hurt Kagome!"

"Why? I love to hurt humans." She placed one of her clawed hands around Kagome's neck. "Give me your Slivers of the Shikon no Tama, girl."

"No." Kagome choked out. "I'll never give them to you!"

"Fine!" Ashinito responded. "Have it your way, then." She dug her claws into Kagome's neck causing her to bleed and cry. "Poison claws!"

"KAGOME!"Inuyasha cried. "You'll pay! I'll kill you, you bitch!"

"Such strong language, Puppy." Ashinito mocked him.

Miroku held onto the prayer beads around the Air Rip. He motioned for Inuyasha to grab Kagome and let him suck in Ashinito.

"Don't be stupid! You can't use the Air Rip, so drop it!" Inuyasha barked to him. Sango moved towards her hiraikotsu, but Inuyasha yelled at her, too. "Forget it, Sango! I'll fight Ashi by myself!" With the help of the Tetsusiaga, of course. He added to himself.

"I don't want to fight you, Puppy, at least not now." Ashinito said.

"Wha-?" Sango, Shippou, and Miroku asked, in unison, surprise in their voices.

"With true love's kiss, the poisons erase." Ashinito recited. "You have until the next moonrise, or she will die. I'm guessing that must be you, Puppy. Right?"

"I'm not a Puppy, so stop calling me that!" Inuyasha barked.

"That's no fair! If you can call me Ashi, then I get to call you Puppy. I gave you that nickname years ago."

"I'm not a Puppy! Stop calling me that!"

"Then you can't call me Ashi!" She walked back over to Kagome, who has passed out in the grass. Picking Kagome up by her waist, she flung Kagome over her shoulder and turned back to Inuyasha. "You have until the next moonrise to find us. To slow you down, Poison Gas!" A ring of the poisons appeared around the group. "See you soon, Puppy!" She laughed as she jumped over the poison ring and into the setting sun.

"Bitch! Damn her!" Inuyasha screamed. He fell to his knees and couldn't keep the tears in. He cried, but tried to not let the others on. "Kagome, Ashi is going to pay for hurting you."

"Inuyasha?" Miroku asked. Maybe he can't hear me. He thought. "Inuyasha?" He tried again. Looking below Inuyasha, he saw the puddle of water that Inuyasha was creating. "Inuyasha? Are you crying?" He quickly changed he last statement. "I mean, coming?" He, Sango, and Shippou with Myouga on tail were sitting on Kirara's back. Mirkou held out a hand to Inuyasha, so he could climb onto Kirara, too. "Kirara can fly us over these poisons."

Sango and Shippou had never seen Inuyasha cry so much. "She'll be fine." Sango said.

"We'll get her before it's too late." Miroku added.

Inuyasha wiped his eyes on his kimono sleeve and grabbed Miroku's hand. He climbed on and they started to take off.

Sango sat near Kirara's head, Miroku was behind her, Shippou was behind him, Myouga fell asleep on his tail, and Inuyasha sat behind Shippou, looking behind them, and thinking about Kagome. She put up with Kouga for a couple of days. She shot Naraku with the arrow; Kagome did a lot of things to help us.

Inuyasha DAYDREAM:

Kagome laid sleeping on a moldy, old cot with a ripped blanket covering her. He sat on the floor nearby and just stared at her.

"Guard Service." He said to himself.

She woke up and smiled at him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Oh, Inuyasha, I love you so much." She said.

"I love you, too, Kagome." He goes to kiss her again. In a flash, he stood in front of Kaede who was preparing a burial for Kagome.

"Ye were too late, Inuyasha." She said. "Another girl lost to ye hand, Inuyasha."

"But I didn't do it. I couldn't hurt Kagome." He cried.

End Daydream.

"Stop balling, Inuyasha." Shippou said.

Wam!

Inuyasha hit him squarely on the head. "Shut up!" He barked.

"I guess he'll be okay if he's starting to hurt Shippou." Miroku said.

"You'll be next, Miroku if you don't watch it!" Inuyasha screeched.

"Like I said before, he'll be just fine." Miroku finished.