A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers, especially people like PyslightlySycoh and Dana Daidouji who review almost all the time for all my stories. Thanks guys! And sorry if I delayed in updating, school and work was fucking my posting schedule up.

Chapter 3: The Half-baked Recruits

Inuyasha strode up and down the line of men, eyeing each one. Miroku followed behind him, humming a little tune to himself.

The new recruits weren't a very uplifting sight. If they weren't disfigured, they were ugly, if they weren't ugly, they were fat, if they weren't fat, they were downright scrawny.

He paused in front of two such men, both masked behind ninja masks.

"Names?" barked Inuyasha.

"Tanaka Kohaku and Higurashi Kei," replied Kagome, remembering the hanyou. Unfortunately he seemed to be a lot tougher than Lord Hojo. Even his companion, the priest looked like he could fight a little. Kagome wasn't looking forward to training under them.

"Oh!" exclaimed Miroku, like he just understood. "The ones Jaken said were weak! I'm a Higurashi, too," he told Kagome. Higurashi men were certainly not weak. Jaken would pay for that.

Sango wasn't paying attention to his last sentence at all; in fact, she was glaring hard. "What do you mean, that toad Jaken said we were weak? How dare he!"

"You're not weak, eh?" drawled Inuyasha. "Well, I'm not sure about that. But I do know one thing – Tanaka, you're a loudmouth, and Higurashi – you do look pretty wimpy."

"Who's wimpy?" hissed Kagome. "Are you trying to pick a fight?"

"Why not?" smirked Inuyasha. "Pick a weapon of your choice. I'll only use a sword."

Kagome's eyes flew to his sword sheath. It looked familiar, like one of the ones she'd studied with her old tutor Myouga when they learned about legendary blades and the stories behind them.

"Tetsusaiga?" taunted Kagome. "The legendary, hundred-youkai-in-one-swing sword? You need that to beat me?"

She disappeared into a tent while the guys tried not to gawk.

"How does she know Tetsusaiga?" Inuyasha whispered to Miroku. "Only nobles are taught about that. Oi!" he called after her. "The armoury tent is to the left, you idiot!"

Kagome came out of one of the sleeping tents, holding two slim, gleaming blades. Not standard armoury issue, and obviously a personal weapon.

"Inuyasha," whispered Miroku urgently. "Don't meddle with those swords. Those -"

But Inuyasha had already taken a swing. Kagome crossed her swords as a form of a shield, making his attack fizzle away to nothing.

"That was the wound of the wind!" yelled Inuyasha. "How'd you block that?"

Kagome wasn't listening. "You cheater!" she shrieked back. "You used magic!"

"Hey, calm down!" roared Miroku. Kagome glared at Inuyasha, then started to storm off. Miroku, however, grabbed her arm.

"We'll have a little chat," he said softly.

He moved her a few paces off where they could talk alone. Miroku was very, very interested in knowing how this person had gotten hold of those blades, especially when they happened to be similar to a legendary Higurashi family heirloom that had gotten stolen years ago. They had been forged by a master swordsmith, and infused with holy powers from the Higurashi line. Whether or not the blades were the Higurashi swords Miroku could not tell, but the swords were rare enough that anyone who had them had to have a story behind them.

"They're my swords," snapped Kagome defiantly before Miroku could say a word. "Is there a problem?"

Miroku frowned thoughtfully at her. "Who are you? How did you recognize Inuyasha's Tetsusaiga?"

Kagome, or Kei, shrugged nonchalantly. "Anyone would recognize such a famous sword. I take it you recognized my swords." She held them out to him, as though daring him to take them. "Elemental swords. Others call them ying and yang swords; though opposites of each other, they work together in harmony. Some call them heaven-and-earth blades, fire-and-water swords... I just call them sharp knives."

At least this Higurashi guy knew what he was talking about, mused Miroku. If there was anything worse than amateurs holding good swords, it was amateurs holding good swords they didn't know anything about. Then again, Higurashi didn't look like an amateur.

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed as he watched Miroku and the new recruit deep in discussion. He muttered a curse. For a moment, he wondered if that Higurashi was related to Miroku as well. After all, both had the same last name, and both loved to deliver long documentaries on trivial topics. Maybe Miroku had a long-lost brother too.

Either way, those 'recruits' were in no way as half-baked as Jaken made them out to be. Especially those two 'weak' ones, Tanaka and Higurashi - they were small, but they were certainly not the type to get bullied. Inuyasha knew something was off, but he still couldn't put a finger on it...

Miroku interrupted his musings. "I still don't see how Higurashi could have gotten those swords... My father gave them to my sister ages ago, but according to my step mother they were stolen in a fire..." He was still positive they were exactly like the ones in his family. Maybe Higurashi had gotten the swords from whomever that stole those swords from his sister. In which case, the man might have news of her. That would be worth investigating.

Inuyasha shivered. "I don't want to have to train those recruits. That Tanaka Kohaku looks capable of murdering strong demons." Miroku probably hadn't noticed anything about the two swords he was obsessing over, but Inuyasha had seen with his own eyes the massive bone boomerang Kohaku was getting ready to trounce them with.

"Nobody told you to train anyone," said Miroku absently. He had his own work cut out for him to find his sister.

Nevertheless there was nothing that could be done for now. Miroku had nowhere to go and since Inuyasha was determined to hang around Jaken's camp, they ended up with the bunch of recruits the next morning, wilting on the training grounds. Jaken had kindly divided the lot into groups according to size.

Inuyasha yawned and assumed a very bored tone. "Listen up, the scrawny group follows Miroku. The regular group follows Hojo. The sumo wrestlers will kindly follow me."

"Ok, my group, chop chop, follow me," chirped Miroku in a brilliantly false display of energy. There was definitely no enthusiasm coming from this lot. He led a grumbling group, Sango and Kagome included, out of the camp area.

They started by fighting their way through unruly shrubs. When Kagome yanked the last twig from her hair, she was rewarded with a large pool of swampy mud.

"What next?" grumbled Kagome to Sango near the end of the swamp, with mud splattered all over her legs.

"Um, river," said Sango, pointing to a wide creek. "Maybe this army thing wasn't such a good idea after all."

"At least the water gets the mud off," sighed Kagome, taking a tentative step into the water. Icy coldness swirled around her legs, numbing her effectively.

"It's only autumn. Why is it so damned cold?" hissed Sango, teeth chattering.

Ten minutes later, they were singing a different tune.

"God it's sweltering!" groaned Kagome as they started hiked up a steep hill. Miroku had thought it was a good idea for them to haul sacks of wet cotton up the hill, too. Sweat poured down her back – Kagome was sure it looked like a waterfall back there.

"Honestly, I see no point in these exercises," said Sango through gritted teeth. Perhaps she wasn't suffering as much as Kagome was, but still; beads of perspiration were forming quickly on her forehead. There was no sun; instead, the sky was a very demoralizing dull grey. The air was thick with moisture, simply adding to the heat of the place.

Miroku, with no cotton sack to lug, had hopped far ahead.

"Bastard," muttered Sango. "I'd like to see him try and even pick up one of these."

"Give me a shove," murmured Kagome. "I'll gladly fall off this hill and die."

"Kaede will have my hide, then," Sango said grimly.

Kagome glared at the ground, an idea racing through her head. "We'll dump out the cotton and wait for it to dry." Saying so, Kagome slammed her bag onto the earth and started shaking blobs of cotton out. Sango quickly followed suit.

They could literally see the water vapour rising from the drying cotton.

"What the hell are you doing?" inquired Miroku, who'd already stared his descent down the hill. Now he backtracked to stare at them.

"Drying the cotton," said Kagome saucily. "You gave us bags too heavy to lift – we're lightening the load."

"Who gave you permission for that?" asked Miroku, his voice becoming dangerously soft.

"It wasn't you, sir," Kagome retorted cheekily, without thinking.

Recruits were recruits, and in the end Miroku had to report them to Jaken, who had the last word. There was nothing like making recruits skip a few meals to keep them in their place, that was standard samurai training procedure. Or so Jaken thought...

"Banning us from dinner tonight?" huffed Sango. "Did he honestly think we would eat that shit in the first place?"

"Men!" fumed Kagome besides her. "They only think of their stomachs and... well, that other thing."

Sango grimaced playfully. "I don't want to know," she said.

They sat glumly on the grass, the night sky sparkling overhead. The afternoon's activities had been far from relaxing, and had left them coated in a layer of grime. Once everyone fell asleep they would sneak out to bathe, though waiting up was painfully exhausting.

"Jaken says lights out now," said Inuyasha, stepping before them.

"I say screw Jaken," Sango said.

"Nobody would want to," Kagome pointed out.

Inuyasha made no move to go, and simply flopped down next to them.

"Uh..." Kagome attempted small talk. "Is this like, a commander-recruit hangout time?"

"Not really," said Inuyasha shortly. "I need to think."

"About what?"

He started, not expecting such a question from a mere trainee samurai.

"Well, you know the emperor died, right?" asked Inuyasha.

Sango choked on her own spit. This was what their superior officer wanted to think about? Either he was an excessively thoughtful person, which Inuyasha did not seem like, or he was connected to an extremely important political figure.

"Yeah," said Kagome. She could see how Inuyasha would be affected. "What's your brother going to do about it?" His surprised expression made her realize that he probably wasn't expecting a common recruit to know about Inuyasha's relation to the Lord of the Western Lands, and Kagome vainly tried to backpedal. "I mean, everyone knows you're Lord Sesshoumaru's brother, it's like general knowledge..."

Her general knowledge scared him. Inuyasha sighed. "Ok, really, I shouldn't be discussing this with you. Jaken will have my head... Well, I'm not sure what my brother will do. He doesn't seem at all interested in claiming the throne, yet Miroku thinks the opposite. If Sesshoumaru – my brother – becomes emperor... Japan will change drastically."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "You know, you're stating the obvious. I've seen your brother. Can you imagine him sitting in Kyoto, sipping tea and praying to the heavens? Do you think he would sit quiet and become a religious leader?"

"No," said Inuyasha. He had to admit that, and this had nothing to do with the fact that he was not the best of friends with Sesshoumaru, even an uneducated peasant would take a look at Sesshoumaru and realize the man was not a religious figurehead. But Miroku's calculations and guesses had yet to prove themselves wrong in the long time they'd been best friends.

"What's the deal with the priest, anyway?" Kagome asked, wary of the intelligent eyes that had recognized her swords from before.

"He's looking for his sister." Inuyasha blurted the words out before he realized that maybe Miroku didn't want anyone else to know.

"What is she like?" asked Kagome.

"Very beautiful. We think we met her in Kyoto but she didn't know who we were. Now we've lost her and –" He cut himself off abruptly. Miroku would kill him. "I should be going. You can speak to Miroku about it if you'd like." Inuyasha hastily excused himself. The sooner he left the better; there was no saying what other information would come from his lips.

The next morning proved even less productive.

"Jaken has doubts of your intelligence," announced Miroku. "He insists that you all do a test on general knowledge."

The general group of men grumbled and groaned, Kagome and Sango among them. The girls weren't complaining about any tests, but after their chat with Inuyasha last night they'd been too tired to bathe, and had went to sleep. Both were convinced they smelt like... latrine pits, or something equally bad.

Inuyasha handed out worn brushes, crumpled paper and ink wells. Kagome rolled her eyes – she doubted even half the men knew how to write. And really, the brushes they were being given looked like a few strands of horse's hair attached to a twig of wood.

"First, write your name," instructed Miroku.

"Like, this is such a difficult task," whispered Sango to Kagome.

As Kagome predicted, half the men hovered over their papers, uncertain of how to proceed. The other half grinned sluggishly and bent diligently over their papers – half of those didn't bother writing their last names, while the other half doodled illegible hiragana scripts.

This went on for a painful two hours. At last, when Kagome's paper was filled with senseless information like when she was born and where, Inuyasha collected the sheets. Some men, not surprisingly, still had blank bits of paper.

"You may have the rest of the afternoon off while I mark these," said Miroku helplessly at the end. Logically, with all the men who turned in empty sheets, he only had very little to do. That said, the few men that did write something scrawled messy words, which would take Miroku ages to figure out.

As they walked back to the camp, Sango rolled her eyes. "How old are you?" she said sarcastically.

"Very young, thank you," replied Kagome indulgently. She crawled into the tent she shared with Sango.

"They are such total idiots!"

"Agreed," sighed Kagome.

"What were the questions again? Right, how much did I weigh. Who were my parents. What I was doing before joining the army. What gender was I..." Sango trailed off, her mouth opening in horror.

Kagome gulped, understanding. She'd made the same mistake, too.

"Did you say... 'female' for gender?" asked Sango after a prolonged silence.

"Yeah..." mumbled Kagome.

They were interrupted by one of the recruits opening their tent flap.

"Miroku-sama wants to see you both," he said. "Jaken's livid about something and Inuyasha-sama won't stop laughing."

"We'll be there soon..." said Sango, swallowing hard.

They were in so much trouble.

Back in Kyoto, the geisha Kikyo was not having her best day either.

"How could she slip off from right under your nose!?" yelled the geisha house mother. "Kikyo, I put you in charge of Kagome. Have you any idea how much it cost me to buy her! Not the average seventy-five yen a fishing village girl would cost!"

"What would you have had me do?" Kikyo screamed. "The men were asking her for another dance. She agreed. Was I to spoil the mood and tell them 'no'?"

"Well, what in heaven's name possessed you to not follow her to the costume change room?"

The mother was met with a silence. She understood immediately, and delivered a stinging slap to the geisha in front of her.

"You were busy flirting with one of the lords, weren't you?" hissed the mother, letting blow after blow land on Kikyo indiscriminately. "Which one? Kouga? Hojo? Oh, don't tell me it was the shogun. It was? The shogun!?" shrieked the mother. "The shogun? Have you any idea how evil that man is? He'll tear down my okiya, you stupid girl! Oh, heavens!"

"Will you stop shouting?" yelled Kikyo. "There's worse news, okay! Lords Kouga, Hojo and the shogun have asked for her. Lord Hojo went to command troops, but Lord Kouga won't stop making inquiries. And the shogun's so furious, he -"

"Shut up! Save your ramblings for another day! I'm going to the temple to pray to the gods; you'd better come along, you stupid witch!"

"Like hell I will," snapped Kikyo. She was going to put on her makeup. When the shogun came around to ask for Kagome, Kikyo would be the one to comfort him when she told Naraku Kagome was nowhere to be found.

Uneasily, Kagome and Sango sought out Miroku and Inuyasha, who were with Jaken.

"You know why I asked you here?" asked Miroku.

"To tell us how rude we've been?" Sango answered.

"That too," Miroku said thoughtfully. "However..."

"Why do I not like the sound of that?" muttered Kagome to Sango.

Jaken, who had been pacing impatiently, snapped, "Miroku means, why the hell did you say you two were women when you're obviously not?"

"My mistake," Sango said. "I must have mixed up the characters for man and woman."

Kagome gave her excuse. "I was annoyed by the silly easy questions," she said. "I decided to fool around a bit, see if you could catch the joke. Obviously not," she said throwing a scowl to Jaken.

Inuyasha was still busy guffawing. Miroku bit his lip and pretended not to laugh. Hojo, who they hadn't noticed, sat quietly, trembling with suppressed mirth. Jaken seemed outraged and waved his Staff of Heads around haplessly.

"Ok, you two," Miroku said sternly. "I want no more nonsense. Next time, you don't tell lies, understood?"

"Yes, teacher. By the way, when does class end?" asked Sango sarcastically.

Miroku smirked. "I like you two. Let's say... for a treat, we go to the local teahouse?"

Japanese Vocab:

Okiya – The geisha house where geisha lived. For anyone interested, ochaya is the teahouse where geisha worked.