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Sango: (fighting for mic with Inuyasha) No...I'm gonna... do it ...this time!(yanks it away)
Hi there people out there that I can neither see nor hear. Kumita says she doesn't own us! And I took care of the monk probelm for you guys in the previous chapter. You won't have to worry about him bothering you for some time. Have fun reading!(walks off dragging an unconscious Miroku behind her, who has a large lump on his head.)
(A/N: I'm sorry it took me so long to post this chapter, but it should prove worth the wait. The reason it took me so long to post is because as I type these chapters, I'm revising them, a lot. Chapter 8 in particular needed a heck of a lot of revision because I'm changing quite a few things from the original concept I had. All for the better I assure you. ;) Hopefully it will come out as good as I hope.)
Chapter 8: Returns and Awakenings
A loud and pronounced river of curses flowed around the dark confines of the cave, not for the first time that evening. There went one plan, and even though he had plently more continously growing in his evil calculating mind, it just proved how much trouble one stupid hanyou could be! He was seriously thinking of getting help from some other evil mastermind, but who was more evil than him and who could stand up against he dizzying intellect?
Naraku had planned for Inuyasha's stupid little connection with the name Kikyou to cause him marry her; Thus liberating him from any contact with the stupid miko girl, and anyone else who might get in the way.
Kikyou always seemed to get between them anyway, but the one time he wanted it to work in his favor, it failed, and Inuyasha was running directly to none other than that lowly Kagome girl.
He'd made it practically impossible for the two to meet, considering their differences in the seemingly unbreakable social ladder.
He'd forgotten to think of the fairy tale factor: Prince has to get married. Prince doesn't like his betroved. Prince meets some loser girl. Prince likes loser girl. Prince and loser girl-turned princess live happily ever after.
It didn't matter in the long run. Naraku, the almighty, still had the upper had in this. And right now he had a plan to mess up the two tricky characters lives, and this one should at least make things more entertaining to watch. He would have to wait to put it motion, otherwise it may cause some unwanted curiousity.
He so hated waiting.
Shippou bolted up right in his bed. A strange smell was drifting through the house, his tail twitched as he focused in on it. Most definately not Kagome, it was masculine.
Shippou knew exactly who it was right away and he bounded silently across the hall to Kagome's room, where she slept soundly, unaware of any of the smells wifting past her. Humans were so helpless sometimes. Shippou gently shook the sleeping girl's shoulder to rouse her. Kagome rubbed at her eyes.
"He's here." Shippou said looking straight ahead, his little tail still twitching.
"uh?...who? Wha' 'er you talkin' 'bout?" Kagome mummured, still in a sleepy haze. Shippou only urged her to follow him to the front of the house. Kagome looked around the room dimly light by the moonlight, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. There wasn't anything, or one there.
"Shippou, I don't see anyone, so let's just go back to sl-"
"He's here. He must be hiding." Shippou said quickly, while sniffing the air. As soon as those words were out of his mouth, a clawed hand reached down and picked him up by the tail. Kagome gasped in surprise, her reaction time still slowed by sleep.
"Hey, put me down!" Shippou squealed.
"Sure." Kagome realized that she knew that voice, as the kit was dropped hastily to the ground.
"Inuyasha..?"
"Didn't mean to scare you. The castle's a little boring right now, so I thought I'd stay at your regal inn here. Just put it on my tab." The prince emerged from the shadows, his white hair giving off a lite glow in lue of the soft moonlight, amber eyes amplified in the darkness, as he strolled towards Kagome. His princely robes of multi-colors flicked soft hues around the room, as they flipped and curled with each stride. Kagome than realized with horror, that Inuyasha was amazingly handsome, and she felt extremely stupid in not having figured that out earlier.
Handsome was somewhat a qualification for being a prince.
What surprised her more than the fact that he was insanely handsome, was that he had come back, to her crumby place, throwing aside her earlier thoughts that he had run away from her filthly life. This track of thoughts caused her face to heat up by a couple of degrees. She snapped out of her thoughts to hear Shippou scrabbling towards her.
"Oh no! No way, you can't stay here! Right Kagome!...Kagome?" Shippou looked up at his big sister for back up, but she was giving him the motherly look. He hated it when she did that.
"Be nice, Shippou."
"...kay." Shippou said pouting,"but you better not try anything this time." Shippou turned to Inuyasha, who was innocently picking imaginary things from under his claws. Then, upon hearing the continued silence he looked at Shippou,"You say somethan'?"
"Shippou, go back to bed. Inuyasha and I have to talk." Kagome was taking the loser's side, and once again he was being sent off to bed.'I'm not even sleepy..' The little kitsune thought to himself as he yawned, and staggered toward his room in the back. Once he was out of sight, Kagome turned to face her royal friend.
"So, what's going on?" Kagome said cheerily, as if she and Inuyasha had known each other since they were in school or something. She automatially assumed it had to be something bad to make a prince run from a splendid palace.
"My father's trying to make me marry Kikyou." Inuyasha said lowily, as if it was a secret. Against her better judgement, considering what she'd heard about Kikyou, she wanted to wish Inuyasha the best. She figured he just had cold feet. Something in her went a little cold in hearing that Inuyasha was marrying Kikyou. Never the less, Kagome gave the prince a forced bright smile, as she spoke.
"Congratul--" "NO!" Inuyasha cut her off quickly.
"No! No! and No! I don't want to marry Kikyou! I never did and nobody's gonna make me!" The prince had gone fairly rigid in his attempt to get his point across. Kagome was stunned at the reaction, and was secretly relieved that he wasn't marrying. If Kikyou could get this kind of negative reponse out of a hanyou, than the rumors had to be true.
"So...she's that bad?" Kagome started slowly. Inuyasha shook his head affirmatively, regaining his composure.
"You can stay here for as long as you like." Kagome said happily.
"Yeah, right!" Shippou yelled sarcastically from the back.
"Bed." Kagome called after him.
"Okay, okay."
Kagome rubbed her temples with her fingers. Sometimes Shippou got to be a hand full, he was only a kid, but he was amazingly smart for his age and very protective. Who was she kidding, he was just a fluffy little ball of concentrated cute, and there was no way she could ever give him up. She wondered if he played on that fact, as clever as he was.
Kagome ceased the ministrations on her temples, and refocused her attention on Inuyasha. He was the smallest bit serious looking.
"Kagome...where are your parents?" Inuyasha had no idea why he wanted to know this information. Obiviously it was a touchy subject for Kagome, whose head bent towards the ground. After an extended silence, she replied as if the words hurt when spoken.
"They're dead." She stared at her hands clamped, around each other on her lap through a growing mist.
Inuyasha was on the verge of panic. He didn't know what to do. He had only been curious, but now he didn't want to question her further on the subject. Kagome was shaking slightly and then came that smell that meant only one thing, salty and light. She was crying and he had no idea what to do.
"..um...?" The helpless hanyou looked desperately around the room, for once wishing the kitsune was hanging around somewhere, but it seemed he'd done what he was told and was asleep, leaving clueless Inuyasha to fend for himself.
He silently made his way to the girl's side hesitating next to her, before simply wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders. It really felt odd to him, it felt even odder when she just cried harder at his jesture. Inuyasha looked heavenward for help, but it seemed he wasn't going to get any as the girl sobbed silently next to him.
"Kagome, stop crying. I'm no good at this kind of thing..." That didn't help, she was still crying.
"It 's not like you're alone, you've got Shippou. Good old Shippou." He cursed the kit in his head for following the rules the one time he needed him to break them. He stammered with the next statement, it was a gamble but it might work.
"Y-You've got me..." at that Kagome stopped sobbing and sniffed. He hadn't really said that, had he?Kagome absently wiped the tears from her eyes, highly aware of the arm around her shoulders.
"Please, don't do that to me again." Inuyasha said pleadingly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to break down on you, I just never really got over it, that's all."
"Is that why you're an untouchable? No parents, so they just labeled you scum?" Inuyasha questioned, as he slowly removed his arm.
"Well, that and me and Shippou don't really have the same biological parents."
"But, youkai and humans are supposed to be at a truse, it's the law."
"Do you honestly think people down here care about the law? Most of the humans who live outside of royalty fear for their lives and the youkai still hold grudges against humans who killed their families. There are good youkai and good humans, but most everyone's to prejudice to get that through the heads. When you walk down the streets in town, you can almost feel the tension. I guess you could say I'm luckily to be an untouchable, since no one wants to be caught looking at me too long, human or youkai." Kagome finished, sounding dettached from the whole thing.
'Well, that just proves how sheltered from the real world I am, for being a prince' Inuyasha thought as he digested what Kagome had just said. How come he was always the last one to know everything? Maybe he should ask more questions? Just than Kagome stood bringing him back to reality.
"To avoid further miscommunication, I am going to my room, where I will most likely retire." Kagome said smiling. A small voice in the back of her mind said she'd been smiling a lot lately, but she completely blotted it out as she strolled toward her room.
Inuyasha watched her go. He had to think, it was dangerous for him to stay with Kagome. She could get into big trouble for sheltering him because of how he'd left the castle. Not to mention she was an untouchable and they wouldn't think twice about killing her. He'd have to make sure that didn't happen. As much of a spoiled prince as he was, he didn't really want someone else killed because of him.
Especially not a nice, innocent, pretty girl like Kagome-now where had that come from! Sure she was nice and she seemed innocent enough, but since when had she been promoted to pretty status? 'she's not ugly you moron.' Some smart mouthed part of him said. That was it, he was going to bed right now before he became delerious.
A pleasant aroma woke him up. He inhaled deeply quite a few times, before opening his eyes. It was the smell of cooking food, and it could not be mistaken for anything else. Inuyasha quickly got up, dressed and all but, rolled out of his room.
When he got to the front of the house, the scene was comical. Kagome was cooking away not paying attention to anything but the food in front of her, and if Inuyasha had been a snake, she would most definitely have been bitten. Shippou's mouth was watering so badly, that it was a surprise he wasn't soaking wet.
The kitsune turned to see Inuyasha, and made a face at the prince, sticking out his tongue and pulling up his nose, so his nostrils looked huge. Inuyasha just walked by him and restorted to violence aimed at the kit's cranial area. Shippou stared angrily at the hanyou with tears in his eyes, but all was forgotten as Kagome walked up to the table with food.
Once everything was served up, a tornado of food whipped around the two males at the table until finally, there was only one dumpling left for the taking. Both the demons growled at each other threateningly before making a mad dash with their chopsticks for the prize, only to land them on an empty plate. Both of the guys looked blankly at each other, and then towards Kagome, who was chewing away on the last dumpling, looking highly content. Upon seeing all eyes on her, she swallowed and said cluelessly,"What?"
phew! That was quite a bit of work! I'll try to have Chapter 9 up in a few days. I'm not sure how long this story is going to be but, you're probably somewhere in the middle. And if you're bored with, Kagome stick around ;)