Hi peoples! Sorry this chap took so long. It's four in the morning right
now... Can't get to sleep.
IMPORTANT-ish NOTE: Okay, I kinda changed the purpose/uses/characteristics of the Shikon no Tama in this fic, K? Please don't be confused nor flame me for using it the wrong way. If anyone TRULY, ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to know what the Shikon Jewel does in this fic before I actually announce it in later chapters, ask me in your review or e-mail me. If not, please just wait. I'll tell you later.
Review responses: (Sorry if they stink)
Shippogrl: Thanks! No, he wasn't hypnotized. That'll come out in this chapter.
Duragan: Thank you!
Defafaeth Mechqua: Thanks for the review!
Lost Darkness: *Yawns* Thankies.
Tsu-chan: Oh! Oh that was YOU! Now it all makes sense! In that case, I forgot to give you your well-deserved Inu plushie! *Gives Inu plushie and cookie* See ya next time!
remix-96er: Sorry! I'm too busy to be updating every week!
Ayame4-ever: Thank you for the review!
Happy Youkai: Thanks for the review!
Animemistress419: Thankies!
Dragon's kitty: Ooh! A knife! *Takes knife* Thanks for the knife!
Gilbertfan: I'm glad your finger's getting better!
Taran-Wanderer: Yeah. I know what you mean... I'll try to update as often as possible, though, so you don't have to wait!
Tippi: Don't worry! That will be revealed in this chapter! Hope you enjoy!
Rekouri Sentusu: You're welcome for the Inu plushie! Too bad it isn't real, though... Oh, well. And what Naraku did to Inuyasha will be revealed in this chapter! Enjoy!
Kitala: ^-^ Thank you so much! I love your review! Whenever I'm feeling discouraged about my fic, I'll just go back and look at your review. Honestly! I very much hope you continue reading and reviewing!
Shadowed Faith: Yeah. With the dog-ears and everything, I'm surprised this idea hasn't come up millions of times. *shrugs* Bad grammar really bothers me. I do my best. Anyway, thanks a bunch for the wonderful review!
dark-wolf-soulX: YAY! ^_^ You're one of my fave reviewers, you know that? An angst fan, just like me! I'll update My Little Inuyasha as soon as I can get around to it, K? By the way, if you like angst a lot, my fic, Dancing with Demons, is one of my most angsty works yet. Just in case you wanna check it out. You don't have to, though. Anyway, I look forward to your next review!
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and Co. do not belong to me.
~
Chapter 4: Thief!
~
A timid knock sounded on Naraku's trailer door and it slowly opened. "N-Naraku, sir?
"Yes? What is it?"
"Well, um..."
"Yes...?" Naraku asked impatiently.
"It's Ikari. He's... gone."
"What?!"
~
Okay, so maybe walking through the forest wasn't as bad as Kagome thought it would be. It was shady and a cool breeze rustled the leaves. A few tiny rays of sunlight managed to find their way through the canopy of leaves, bright points of white lights against the soft green glow of the forest. Inuyasha was "walking" along in front of her with his nose to the ground, sniffing every little thing they came across and looking every bit like a dog.
'It's hard to believe he was like a human once,' she thought. 'Shippo said he looked like he does even back then. I wonder how he got that way in the first place. It's not every day you see someone with dog-ears.' She took another look at him. 'He still needs some decent clothes. Maybe I'll stop and get him something in the next town. I mean, the police aren't looking for me, right? I'll just tell Inuyasha to wait in the forest.'
"If I can even find the next town. We should have stayed on the road," she said aloud to herself.
Inuyasha's ears twitched towards the sound of her voice. He stopped and sniffed the air for a moment, then turned to his right and ran off in that direction.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" Kagome called.
She chased after him and desperately tried to keep him in her sight, but he soon disappeared into the trees. Eventually, she found him just sitting there in the middle of the trees.
"What's the big idea?!" she raged. "You can't just run off and leave me- Oh."
Looking up, she noticed that he had brought them to the edge of a highway. Inuyasha acted as if she wasn't there and once again turned so he was parallel with the highway and began walking as if nothing had ever happened. Kagome followed. There was just a short stretch of grass between the trees and the road, but it was enough distance to keep them hidden from the people on the road as long as they remained concealed in the trees. They followed the highway until it came to a small town.
'Bingo! Now I can get food and some clothes for Inuyasha.'
"Hey, Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha stopped terrorizing the squirrel he was after and looked at her quizzically. She walked over to him and told him what she was going to do.
"I'm going to go into town and get some food and clothes. You have to stay here because the cops are looking for you. Will you wait here for me?"
Inuyasha glared at her.
'Well at least I know he has SOME human in him. I never knew any sort of animal who could give you such a cold stare.'
"Well?! Will you or not?!"
He kept glaring at her, but sat down on the ground to wait.
"Good! I'll be back soon!"
With that, she walked into town.
~
Naraku paced angrily back and forth shouting at anyone who came within a fifty-foot radius and trying to get his half-witted men to form a search party. Amongst all the commotion, Naraku caught a glimpse of Kanna, watching the hustle and bustle completely unfazed, before she disappeared.
~
Naraku burst angrily into the trailer Kanna shared with her sister Kagura. Kanna looked at him with a calm, blank expression.
"You knew!"
"..."
"You knew the entire time that this was going to happen! Why didn't you stop it?!"
"I cannot change the course of destiny..."
Naraku contemplated strangling his employee on the spot before angrily storming out of the trailer.
~
"But I need this food! You've gotta let me have it! I promise I'll pay you back as soon as I can! I swear!"
"I'm sorry, miss. You don't have enough money. I wish I could let you have the food, but I can't."
Kagome slouched down in defeat. 'Great. Now I can just starve to death. Why couldn't I have brought a credit card?"
"Stop, you thief! Come back here!"
Kagome looked out the window to see a woman running along and shouting her head off.
"Someone stop him! He stole my purse!"
She shrugged it off. It wasn't the first time someone had something stolen from him or her. Though it was a little odd that it happened in broad daylight... Oh, well.
Sighing, she left the store without the food. She quickly returned to the place she had left Inuyasha. Inuyasha himself was nowhere to be seen.
'Just great. I can't even turn my back on him for two seconds!'
"Inuyasha?!" she called. "Inuyasha, you are so dead when I find you!"
The bushes a few feet away from her rustled and out came...
A squirrel. The squirrel, however, was very quickly followed by a certain dog-eared boy. Inuyasha crashed into Kagome, knocking her over, while the squirrel ran up a nearby tree.
"Would you get off me please?"
Inuyasha pulled himself off of Kagome and shook the twigs and dry leaves out of his hair. Kagome sat up and rubbed the growing bump on her head. Inuyasha gave her a brief (very brief) apologetic look.
"Well," Kagome said, "It just so happens that I didn't have enough money to buy anything, so I hope you're good at catching fish."
Without warning, Inuyasha dashed off into the woods again. A few seconds later, he returned, dragging a woman's purse behind him. He deposited the purse in front of Kagome. It took Kagome a few seconds to make the connection.
"It was you!! You stole that lady's purse!"
Inuyasha flattened his ears against his head.
"What did you think you were doing?! I told you to wait for me here!"
Inuyasha stared guiltily at the ground. Kagome sighed and sat down next to him.
"Look, I just don't want you to get caught again, okay? The police are probably looking all over for you by now and I didn't free you just for you to get captured again."
The two sat in silence for a moment.
"Well," Kagome said after a while, "may as well return this purse to its owner."
Kagome fished around in the purse for some sort of ID card. Her hand closed around a healthy wad of money instead. She pulled it out and stared at it.
'Hmmm. Starve to death or return the purse?'
~
"I already told you, miss. I can't give this food to ya."
"Oh, that's quite alright. I have enough to buy it now."
~
Kagome returned once again to where she had left Inuyasha. This time, he had stayed put.
"Good. You didn't run off again. I had enough money to get us enough food to last us until we get to the next town. Oh, and because I didn't know what size clothes to get you, I just bought some cloth. I can make something for you." She pulled a bundle of bright red cloth and a bundle of cream-colored cloth from her backpack. "I won a carry-around sewing kit from one of the games at the carnival that I can use."
She reached into her backpack again and pulled out a small bag with the circus emblem printed on the front. On the back was printed a picture of a small, pink-ish tinted sphere. Inuyasha stared at it. It seemed familiar to him...
~*Flashback*~
"Hey. You with the dog-ears."
"Yes?"
"Come here for a moment, will you?"
He nodded and followed the man into a trailer with a sign that said "Naraku." The man walked over to a large chair and sat down.
"I hope you are aware that this carnival isn't doing as well as it used to?"
"Yes, sir."
"We are losing money. People are no longer interested in all these... run-of-the-mill attractions. We need something new... Something that will last. What do you suggest?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Oh, I think you do."
The man in the chair stood and walked over to face Inuyasha. He opened his hand to reveal a small, pink, crystalline sphere. Grasping it between his thumb and forefinger, he held it up in front of Inuyasha's face.
"Hold still, now. This will only take a second..."
The tiny marble began to glow with a soft pink light. Pain engulfed Inuyasha. He cried out as the pain coursed through his entire body. It felt as if his soul was being torn from his body. All of a sudden, his legs couldn't support him any more and he fell to his knees. His pained cries became more like howls. He put his hands on the ground to support himself as the pain slowly ebbed away. Before he knew it, he had a rope around his neck and two of Naraku's henchmen were holding the other end of it to keep him in place. Inuyasha could feel the anger welling up inside him and it was directed at one person only. He lunged at Naraku and swiped at him with his claws, but the rope held him back. Naraku chuckled and put the pink sphere back in his pocket.
"Welcome to the carnival, Ikari."
~*End flashback*~
"Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha snapped back into reality and started growling at Kagome.
"Calm down, it's just me."
Inuyasha stopped growling, blinked a few times, and then turned his head away and stared at the ground in shame.
"Inuyasha, what's wrong?"
She started to reach a hand out towards him, but stopped when he flinched away. Kagome pulled her hand back and an awkward silence settled over the two. Finally, Kagome spoke.
"Well, I hope you like kimonos because that's the only thing I know how to make. But first, let's make something to eat. I'm starving!"
Kagome pulled from her pack a can of soup. She quickly gathered some firewood and started a fire with a box of matches that she had thought to buy while in town. She also got out a small camping set she had won at the carnival with two complete dinner sets; each had a bowl, spoon, cup, plate, etc. (A/N: Convenient, ne?) Once the soup was hot, Kagome filled each of the two bowls and gave one to Inuyasha. She also gave him a spoon; not that he used it, though. He tentatively sniffed the soup and once he thought it was safe, tasted it. He looked like he was in heaven. He devoured his soup in a very dog-like fashion. Kagome stared at him for a moment. It had taken him a grand total of five seconds to lick the bowl clean. She eventually realized that this must have been the best meal he had had in ages. She had been hoping to have seconds, but poured the rest of the soup into his bowl. She watched him devour his second bowl just as quickly and then began to eat her own bowl of soup. Inuyasha then walked off into the forest a few feet, turned in a circle a couple of times, and lay down. Kagome didn't miss the thankful look he gave her first, though.
When she had finished her soup, she picked up the dishes they had used and followed the soft sound of water to a small stream. There, she rinsed off the dishes as well as she could and then returned to the "campsite." Since it was still too early for SOME people to go to bed, Kagome decided to work on Inuyasha's kimono for a while. Much to Inuyasha's displeasure, she had to wake him up to measure him once, but then she left him alone. She finished the cream-colored undershirt and the red pants before she felt her eyelids begin to droop. She pulled out a blanket that she had also very conveniently won from the carnival. She wrapped herself up in the blanket, using her backpack as a pillow, and promptly fell asleep.
~
So. How did you like this chap? I hope I didn't confuse anybody too much. Review, please! And I promise Sango and Miroku will make their appearance soon!
IMPORTANT-ish NOTE: Okay, I kinda changed the purpose/uses/characteristics of the Shikon no Tama in this fic, K? Please don't be confused nor flame me for using it the wrong way. If anyone TRULY, ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to know what the Shikon Jewel does in this fic before I actually announce it in later chapters, ask me in your review or e-mail me. If not, please just wait. I'll tell you later.
Review responses: (Sorry if they stink)
Shippogrl: Thanks! No, he wasn't hypnotized. That'll come out in this chapter.
Duragan: Thank you!
Defafaeth Mechqua: Thanks for the review!
Lost Darkness: *Yawns* Thankies.
Tsu-chan: Oh! Oh that was YOU! Now it all makes sense! In that case, I forgot to give you your well-deserved Inu plushie! *Gives Inu plushie and cookie* See ya next time!
remix-96er: Sorry! I'm too busy to be updating every week!
Ayame4-ever: Thank you for the review!
Happy Youkai: Thanks for the review!
Animemistress419: Thankies!
Dragon's kitty: Ooh! A knife! *Takes knife* Thanks for the knife!
Gilbertfan: I'm glad your finger's getting better!
Taran-Wanderer: Yeah. I know what you mean... I'll try to update as often as possible, though, so you don't have to wait!
Tippi: Don't worry! That will be revealed in this chapter! Hope you enjoy!
Rekouri Sentusu: You're welcome for the Inu plushie! Too bad it isn't real, though... Oh, well. And what Naraku did to Inuyasha will be revealed in this chapter! Enjoy!
Kitala: ^-^ Thank you so much! I love your review! Whenever I'm feeling discouraged about my fic, I'll just go back and look at your review. Honestly! I very much hope you continue reading and reviewing!
Shadowed Faith: Yeah. With the dog-ears and everything, I'm surprised this idea hasn't come up millions of times. *shrugs* Bad grammar really bothers me. I do my best. Anyway, thanks a bunch for the wonderful review!
dark-wolf-soulX: YAY! ^_^ You're one of my fave reviewers, you know that? An angst fan, just like me! I'll update My Little Inuyasha as soon as I can get around to it, K? By the way, if you like angst a lot, my fic, Dancing with Demons, is one of my most angsty works yet. Just in case you wanna check it out. You don't have to, though. Anyway, I look forward to your next review!
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and Co. do not belong to me.
~
Chapter 4: Thief!
~
A timid knock sounded on Naraku's trailer door and it slowly opened. "N-Naraku, sir?
"Yes? What is it?"
"Well, um..."
"Yes...?" Naraku asked impatiently.
"It's Ikari. He's... gone."
"What?!"
~
Okay, so maybe walking through the forest wasn't as bad as Kagome thought it would be. It was shady and a cool breeze rustled the leaves. A few tiny rays of sunlight managed to find their way through the canopy of leaves, bright points of white lights against the soft green glow of the forest. Inuyasha was "walking" along in front of her with his nose to the ground, sniffing every little thing they came across and looking every bit like a dog.
'It's hard to believe he was like a human once,' she thought. 'Shippo said he looked like he does even back then. I wonder how he got that way in the first place. It's not every day you see someone with dog-ears.' She took another look at him. 'He still needs some decent clothes. Maybe I'll stop and get him something in the next town. I mean, the police aren't looking for me, right? I'll just tell Inuyasha to wait in the forest.'
"If I can even find the next town. We should have stayed on the road," she said aloud to herself.
Inuyasha's ears twitched towards the sound of her voice. He stopped and sniffed the air for a moment, then turned to his right and ran off in that direction.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" Kagome called.
She chased after him and desperately tried to keep him in her sight, but he soon disappeared into the trees. Eventually, she found him just sitting there in the middle of the trees.
"What's the big idea?!" she raged. "You can't just run off and leave me- Oh."
Looking up, she noticed that he had brought them to the edge of a highway. Inuyasha acted as if she wasn't there and once again turned so he was parallel with the highway and began walking as if nothing had ever happened. Kagome followed. There was just a short stretch of grass between the trees and the road, but it was enough distance to keep them hidden from the people on the road as long as they remained concealed in the trees. They followed the highway until it came to a small town.
'Bingo! Now I can get food and some clothes for Inuyasha.'
"Hey, Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha stopped terrorizing the squirrel he was after and looked at her quizzically. She walked over to him and told him what she was going to do.
"I'm going to go into town and get some food and clothes. You have to stay here because the cops are looking for you. Will you wait here for me?"
Inuyasha glared at her.
'Well at least I know he has SOME human in him. I never knew any sort of animal who could give you such a cold stare.'
"Well?! Will you or not?!"
He kept glaring at her, but sat down on the ground to wait.
"Good! I'll be back soon!"
With that, she walked into town.
~
Naraku paced angrily back and forth shouting at anyone who came within a fifty-foot radius and trying to get his half-witted men to form a search party. Amongst all the commotion, Naraku caught a glimpse of Kanna, watching the hustle and bustle completely unfazed, before she disappeared.
~
Naraku burst angrily into the trailer Kanna shared with her sister Kagura. Kanna looked at him with a calm, blank expression.
"You knew!"
"..."
"You knew the entire time that this was going to happen! Why didn't you stop it?!"
"I cannot change the course of destiny..."
Naraku contemplated strangling his employee on the spot before angrily storming out of the trailer.
~
"But I need this food! You've gotta let me have it! I promise I'll pay you back as soon as I can! I swear!"
"I'm sorry, miss. You don't have enough money. I wish I could let you have the food, but I can't."
Kagome slouched down in defeat. 'Great. Now I can just starve to death. Why couldn't I have brought a credit card?"
"Stop, you thief! Come back here!"
Kagome looked out the window to see a woman running along and shouting her head off.
"Someone stop him! He stole my purse!"
She shrugged it off. It wasn't the first time someone had something stolen from him or her. Though it was a little odd that it happened in broad daylight... Oh, well.
Sighing, she left the store without the food. She quickly returned to the place she had left Inuyasha. Inuyasha himself was nowhere to be seen.
'Just great. I can't even turn my back on him for two seconds!'
"Inuyasha?!" she called. "Inuyasha, you are so dead when I find you!"
The bushes a few feet away from her rustled and out came...
A squirrel. The squirrel, however, was very quickly followed by a certain dog-eared boy. Inuyasha crashed into Kagome, knocking her over, while the squirrel ran up a nearby tree.
"Would you get off me please?"
Inuyasha pulled himself off of Kagome and shook the twigs and dry leaves out of his hair. Kagome sat up and rubbed the growing bump on her head. Inuyasha gave her a brief (very brief) apologetic look.
"Well," Kagome said, "It just so happens that I didn't have enough money to buy anything, so I hope you're good at catching fish."
Without warning, Inuyasha dashed off into the woods again. A few seconds later, he returned, dragging a woman's purse behind him. He deposited the purse in front of Kagome. It took Kagome a few seconds to make the connection.
"It was you!! You stole that lady's purse!"
Inuyasha flattened his ears against his head.
"What did you think you were doing?! I told you to wait for me here!"
Inuyasha stared guiltily at the ground. Kagome sighed and sat down next to him.
"Look, I just don't want you to get caught again, okay? The police are probably looking all over for you by now and I didn't free you just for you to get captured again."
The two sat in silence for a moment.
"Well," Kagome said after a while, "may as well return this purse to its owner."
Kagome fished around in the purse for some sort of ID card. Her hand closed around a healthy wad of money instead. She pulled it out and stared at it.
'Hmmm. Starve to death or return the purse?'
~
"I already told you, miss. I can't give this food to ya."
"Oh, that's quite alright. I have enough to buy it now."
~
Kagome returned once again to where she had left Inuyasha. This time, he had stayed put.
"Good. You didn't run off again. I had enough money to get us enough food to last us until we get to the next town. Oh, and because I didn't know what size clothes to get you, I just bought some cloth. I can make something for you." She pulled a bundle of bright red cloth and a bundle of cream-colored cloth from her backpack. "I won a carry-around sewing kit from one of the games at the carnival that I can use."
She reached into her backpack again and pulled out a small bag with the circus emblem printed on the front. On the back was printed a picture of a small, pink-ish tinted sphere. Inuyasha stared at it. It seemed familiar to him...
~*Flashback*~
"Hey. You with the dog-ears."
"Yes?"
"Come here for a moment, will you?"
He nodded and followed the man into a trailer with a sign that said "Naraku." The man walked over to a large chair and sat down.
"I hope you are aware that this carnival isn't doing as well as it used to?"
"Yes, sir."
"We are losing money. People are no longer interested in all these... run-of-the-mill attractions. We need something new... Something that will last. What do you suggest?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Oh, I think you do."
The man in the chair stood and walked over to face Inuyasha. He opened his hand to reveal a small, pink, crystalline sphere. Grasping it between his thumb and forefinger, he held it up in front of Inuyasha's face.
"Hold still, now. This will only take a second..."
The tiny marble began to glow with a soft pink light. Pain engulfed Inuyasha. He cried out as the pain coursed through his entire body. It felt as if his soul was being torn from his body. All of a sudden, his legs couldn't support him any more and he fell to his knees. His pained cries became more like howls. He put his hands on the ground to support himself as the pain slowly ebbed away. Before he knew it, he had a rope around his neck and two of Naraku's henchmen were holding the other end of it to keep him in place. Inuyasha could feel the anger welling up inside him and it was directed at one person only. He lunged at Naraku and swiped at him with his claws, but the rope held him back. Naraku chuckled and put the pink sphere back in his pocket.
"Welcome to the carnival, Ikari."
~*End flashback*~
"Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha snapped back into reality and started growling at Kagome.
"Calm down, it's just me."
Inuyasha stopped growling, blinked a few times, and then turned his head away and stared at the ground in shame.
"Inuyasha, what's wrong?"
She started to reach a hand out towards him, but stopped when he flinched away. Kagome pulled her hand back and an awkward silence settled over the two. Finally, Kagome spoke.
"Well, I hope you like kimonos because that's the only thing I know how to make. But first, let's make something to eat. I'm starving!"
Kagome pulled from her pack a can of soup. She quickly gathered some firewood and started a fire with a box of matches that she had thought to buy while in town. She also got out a small camping set she had won at the carnival with two complete dinner sets; each had a bowl, spoon, cup, plate, etc. (A/N: Convenient, ne?) Once the soup was hot, Kagome filled each of the two bowls and gave one to Inuyasha. She also gave him a spoon; not that he used it, though. He tentatively sniffed the soup and once he thought it was safe, tasted it. He looked like he was in heaven. He devoured his soup in a very dog-like fashion. Kagome stared at him for a moment. It had taken him a grand total of five seconds to lick the bowl clean. She eventually realized that this must have been the best meal he had had in ages. She had been hoping to have seconds, but poured the rest of the soup into his bowl. She watched him devour his second bowl just as quickly and then began to eat her own bowl of soup. Inuyasha then walked off into the forest a few feet, turned in a circle a couple of times, and lay down. Kagome didn't miss the thankful look he gave her first, though.
When she had finished her soup, she picked up the dishes they had used and followed the soft sound of water to a small stream. There, she rinsed off the dishes as well as she could and then returned to the "campsite." Since it was still too early for SOME people to go to bed, Kagome decided to work on Inuyasha's kimono for a while. Much to Inuyasha's displeasure, she had to wake him up to measure him once, but then she left him alone. She finished the cream-colored undershirt and the red pants before she felt her eyelids begin to droop. She pulled out a blanket that she had also very conveniently won from the carnival. She wrapped herself up in the blanket, using her backpack as a pillow, and promptly fell asleep.
~
So. How did you like this chap? I hope I didn't confuse anybody too much. Review, please! And I promise Sango and Miroku will make their appearance soon!