To Love an Enemy
Chapter 12 - Attack
Author's note: Don't own IY, and thank you to all who reviewed.
Sango woke up the next morning without any prompting from Kagome. Quickly she got dressed, and then the two girls went down for breakfast at the inn. "Sango," Kagome asked quietly while they ate. "What happened last night? You seem upset and I talked to Inuyasha after you went to bed and he says that Miroku ran off last night and came back with his sword all covered in blood. He tried to talk to Miroku, but he was abnormally quiet."
Sango blushed, hating herself for the way she had acted last night. Miroku had saved her from a fate worse then death and she had completely broken down which now that she thought back on was understandable, but there was a feeling of self-loathing there as well. Miroku had just been being nice and she had hurt him by pushing him away. She had thought he was lying when he said she was beautiful, but now thinking with a clear mind, she wasn't sure if he had been. "Oh what a fool I am!" she thought bitterly. "He's only ever been nice to me. Why? WHY did I act like that!"
"Sango," Kagome said gently shaking her out of her reverie. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Sango said gently. "I'm good. So what are we doing today?"
Kagome sighed, a little annoyed that Sango wouldn't confide in her. "Well I thought we could take the children out; that would earn the gratitude of every mother in this village," she said with a laugh. "How are you with children?"
Sango blushed, "I've never really been around them before."
"Oh, well" Kagome said. "It's alright you'll soon learn. I just love children. I can't wait to have my own." Just then Inuyasha entered the inn and came and sat down with them. "Good morning," Kagome said cheerfully.
"Feh!" Inuyasha said digging into his breakfast. Kagome looked at Sango and they both giggled.
"Inuyasha's not much of a morning person," Kagome whispered to Sango.
"I heard that," Inuyasha grumbled. "And you'd be tired too if you had midnight shift last night."
"Well, it's true," Kagome insisted poking him playfully in the arm. Inuyasha sat up from his bowl. And raised an eyebrow at Kagome's poking, "is that supposed to hurt?"
Kagome just laughed. "So Inuyasha what are you doing today?"
"Well as thanks for the town's hospitality, Miroku's having us all fix their water tower, apparently it has a leak," he said mocking the work 'leak'.
Kagome giggled once more, "well we were thinking to give all the women a break we would take the children for a picnic in the woods. What do you think?"
"Sounds good, that way all the little brats would get in our way," Inuyasha grumbled.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome scolded. "That is no way to refer to children! How could you!"
"Geese! Don't freak out Kagome," Inuyasha said hastily. "I only meant I didn't want any of them to get injured."
"You know what Kagome," Sango said standing up and collecting her bowl and glass. "I think, you're right he really is sweet deep down."
Kagome giggled then she stood up too giving Inuyasha cheek a tiny peck as she collected her stuff as well. "I know. He is sweet, isn't he."
Inuyasha exploded as the two girls walked off yelling, "what do you mean sweet, I'm a man not a little puppy dog!" The two girls only giggled as they walked out the door. Inuyasha sighed. "Feh! Women!"
Later that afternoon Sango, Kagome were sitting on a picnic blanket finishing off their lunch while the children played games.
"YOU'RE IT!" a little girl called Rin, teasingly as she tagged another little girl as then quickly darted out of reach.
"They're so cute," Sango said smiling as she watched them being so carefree.
"Yeah, I know," Kagome said. "It brings back so many memories of my childhood, I guess it must have been different for you being a noble and all though."
"What do you mean?" Sango asked.
"Well, what I mean to say is that you probably never got to play tag when you were little; did you?" Kagome asked.
"No," Sango sighed. "My father was too strict; he always wanted me to act proper. I never got to play games like tag, what I played were things like crib, checkers, and chess."
"Oh," Kagome said excitedly. "You should play Miroku some time, he's really good at chess too."
"Oh," Sango said blushing. "I guess you're right I should ask him some time."
Kagome sensing a touchy subject quickly said, "could you teach me some time, you're probably really good."
"Uh, sure."
They sat in silence for a moment before Kagome exclaimed. "Sango have wonder what it would be like to play a game of tag?"
"A little, why?" Sango asked raising an eyebrow.
"Well, why do we go play tag. It's so much fun and I haven't played it since I was a child." Seeing Sango hesitate she quickly went on wheedling, "the only rules are if you get touched by the person who's it you're it then. Come on there's no one watching us."
Sango smiled relenting and let Kagome pull her to her feet. "Hey Rin! Can we play?" Kagome called out.
"Sure!" the little girl called out.
Soon both Kagome and Sango were caught up in the game. Dashing after Rin, Sango thought, "I can't believe I've never done this before! It's so much fun."
"I'm gonna get you Rin!" Sango called out and reached out as far as she could and gently tagged the small girl. "Haha! I got you!"
Running away Sango suddenly heard children screaming. Whirling around Sango saw Rin frozen to the spot with a gigantic spider the size of a small house standing in front of her grinning evilly. "RIN!" Sango screamed. "RUN!" But the little girl was frozen to the spot with fear. Suddenly two more of the huge spiders erupted from the woods. The children screamed even louder.
The last of the spiders suddenly picked up a little boy near Rin and turned to run away, when an arrow struck it in the belly. Sango looked around and there was Kagome standing with the arrows she had been fletching and a bow whose string was quivering. The spider roared in rage and dropped the boy, running at Kagome. Who keeping her calm composure shot three more arrows which all embedded themselves in the spider's head. The spider fell to the ground with a huge thud, but before either Sango or Kagome could attack the other two spiders, they picked up two of the screaming children and darted into the bush.
Grabbing three of Kagome's arrows, Sango dashed after one of the spiders. Soon she caught up to it, Sango could see the child who had fainted as soon as the spider had touched him. Sango couldn't remember his name wasn't it something like Takahashi?
Sango now running as fast as she could to keep alongside the spider realized she would have only one chance if she failed the first time there would be no second chance. So the second the opportune moment came, she flung herself with all her might onto the spiders back. Grabbing the spiders coarse hair to stay on she began to stab the spider's neck repeatedly with her arrows. Over and over she stabbed, struggling to stay on as the spider fought to throw her.
Sango was just beginning to wonder if the monster would ever die when the spider started to slow and eventually collapsed. Sango making sure that the spider was indeed dead, jumped off and retrieved the small boy who with the shock of the impact had woken up. The child began to sob as he saw the spider's huge hairy body, Sango quickly hugged him. Takahashi clung to her like the small child he was, crying pitifully. Sango awkwardly hushed him saying, "It's alright now, everything's going to be alright. Please don't cry!" Finally realizing that seeing the dead spider was doing no good, Sango picked the small boy up with ease and rushed back to the clearing. As she entered the clearing, Kagome rushed to her.
"Sango! Are you alright! Oh my gosh! You saved him, you're a hero. I'm so sorry I tried to follow the other one but it escaped." Kagome cried throwing herself at Sango. Sango awkwardly tried to comfort Kagome, it was harder than she thought. Now she had two crying people to look after. "I have no clue how Miroku does it!" Sango thought. Awkwardly Sango wrapped her spare arm around Kagome's sobbing form and said, "Kagome, please you can't go to pieces on me! We need to get back to the village and tell them what happened. If we hurry Miroku and the soldiers can find the child. Who was it! We need to know which child it was," Sango said.
"The thing took Rin, Sango! RIN! The thing took Rin! We were only playing with her a few minutes ago-" Kagome started but Sango cut her off. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing but it had to be true. And the sooner they got back to the town the better.
"Kagome!" Sango exclaimed shaking her like. "I need you to help me round up the children. "CHILDREN!" she called out and instantly all the children were next to her. "Listen to me this is VERY important! I want you to all hold hands we're going to run back to the village. It is very important that we get to the village now, but we don't want anyone left behind so…..we're going to run quickly but not so quickly that people start tripping. I want five of you with Kagome all holding hands. And I want the other five with me holding hands as well." Not one of the children moved and Sango realized they were still dealing with the shock of seeing huge spiders carry off their friends. "DO IT!" she shouted startling them and instantly the children did as they were told.
"Now just stay calm, nothing's going to happen if we stick together!" Sango clutching two pairs o small hands began to run making sure that everyone could keep up. Kagome ran in front of her group stumbling occasionally due to the fact that many of the children were sobbing. Sango wished she could too but everyone else needed someone to look up to and that was her. She needed to stay in charge the children were looking at her to follow, she was their example. If she went to pieces chaos would ensue. She could NOT go to pieces.
"Everything's going to be okay," Sango kept repeating to herself. "Everything's going to be alright, once we find Miroku he'll know what to do. We just have to get to Miroku! If we find Miroku he'll make everything alright."
Author's Note: well what did YOU think! Good? Bad? Lame? Tell me please!