Chapter Five: "Was it MY Fault?"
"Shippo, I'll race you to the bridge! Last one there is a rotten demon!"
"Yumi that's not fair! You know that you're faster than me. Come back!"
A Shippo at five years old ran after his twin sister, Yumi, who was both faster and reckless of the two.
"I beat you Shippo," Yumi crooned, she was jumping up and down on the bridge.
"Yumi stop jumping; you might fall. Then mommy and daddy will be mad at me."
"Oh Shippo! Stop being such a spoilsport; come on and jump with me."
"Yumi, come back over here. That bridge is rotting and isn't safe. I'm going to tell mom and dad." He turned around and then he heard the ripping of a rope.
"YUMI!"
"Shippo! Help MEEEEEE!" Yumi was hanging on by her tail (she couldn't use her fox magic because she lived with her mother and her mom thought she was too young.)
"Yumi! Hang on!" He turned towards his house. "Mommy, daddy! Yumi is stuck on the bridge. I can't help her."
Their parents ran out and saw Yumi on the bridge. "Yumi!" Shippo's mom just started going crazy. "Yumi, hold on. Don't let go of the rope!" She turned to Shippo. "How could you let this happen? You're her older brother."
"I didn't mean to mom. She just ran out there. I told her to come back, but she didn't listen." Shippo ran to his dad, at least he'll believe him.
"Shippo, how did this happen?" His father looked down at him. "You were supposed to be watching her."
"I WAS watching her. But you know she's faster than me; she ran on the bridge before I could tell her not to."
CRASH!
They both turned around, not wanting to look, but knowing they had to.
"YUMI!" Shippo ran to the now destroyed bridge. "Mama! Yumi! Come back!" Shippo sat down and started crying. He couldn't believe his mother and sister were dead. It just wasn't possible. He looked at his father. "What are we going to do now?"
"And that's it. Daddy and I were traveling when he was taken away from me by the Thunder Brothers. And now I'm with you guys."
They were both on the ground now, watching the ants go by.
"So, your sister died and you think it's your fault right?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I was supposed to be watching her."
"Stupid! Don't you know that you couldn't have done anything anyway? You probably didn't know any magic then, you couldn't have helped her at all." Inuyasha looked at Shippo. "It wasn't your fault, okay," he said gentler, "it was never your fault."
Then without any warning at all, Shippo jumped into Inuyasha's arms and hugged him and to my surprise as well as yours, Inuyasha hugged him back.
"Now don't tell anyone I'm a softy, okay? Don't want them coming to take you and Kagome away."
"You got it!"
