Well, what did I tell you guys? Another five full pages of writing! --- Who knew I could write so much? Just watch! The next one, lemme guess, five pages! XD Anyways...on with the story!

Ridom-nami: Thanks! - I'm sure that this one is definitely five pages. XD

Aishiteru

Chapter Four: The Slaves' "Flea" for Freedom

"Kagome," he had said suddenly.

"Hmm?" She smiled worriedly, sweat starting to bead down the back of her neck.

"I need you to do me a favor..."

Kagome didn't like the sounds of this. What would a griffin want her to do in the midst of a dictating hanyou lord and a Gryphonwings' stable? She had a bad feeling in her gut about this...Something was going to go wrong, whatever the inu hanyou's idea is...

"I need you...to retrieve a hair from my father's pelt."

Kagome blinked, dumbfounded. "What do I look like, a dog?" she retorted, getting to her feet.

"And is there something wrong with that?" he growled, snapping at her ankles.

Tired of his snapping and biting, the girl backed to the wall, where the chains restraining him kept him from out of range of her. "I don't suppose, but why would you want a hair from his dead body, anyway? And in Naraku's dining vicinity?"

"In order to escape this place, we will need one strand of fur from my father's hide."

"But..." she mumbled...

"You will do it!" InuYasha snapped, also leaping to his feet. "Do it tonight, in the light of the moon! Grab one hair, and bring it back to me. And then, we'll make our escape." He sat on his haunches and glared at the miko.

Kagome sighed. It seemed there was no swaying this beast. "Fine, fine. You win, InuYasha. But how do you plan to pull this little stunt off? In the middle Naraku's fortress, in an outlying mountain range area?"

"Well, for one, the outside is just outside of this hallway. Second, I've got wings, remember? If a griffin brought you here, a griffin can carry you out. Though..." he added slyly, narrowing his eyes. "I'm very tempted to just leave you here..."

"Be that as it may, Inu-kun, but you can't get out of here without me anyway."

InuYasha pinned his ears back, just realizing the truth to these words. "Okay, chit, so I can't leave you behind. But, you will get that hair for me, or the next time you get within my biting range, I'll tear off your arm." He flicked his bush of a tail and merely watched as Kagome slid from his stall, the poor girl terrified.

She let her weight fall on the door as she shut it behind her, panting, hand over her chest as she tried to get over her stressful moment. That was close... she thought as she walked down the hallway, sighing and waving as she saw Ayame and Shiori hopping up and down at the end of the stable.

"What's wrong, Kaggie?" Ayame asked swiftly, walking up to her side, looking worriedly at the girl.

"The silver didn't hurt you, did he?" Shiori piped, also running to her friend's side as the three walked from the stable, to the garden, to the females' dormitory.

"No, no..." she replied, grinning slightly. "I'm going to wash up, okay? I'll see you two tonight when we all get back to the room. I'm sure we have plenty of things to do here." Kagome knew she had to get that fur, but she also had to tend to InuYasha, giving him food, grooming him...huh, as if she wanted to. That creature was a complete and total jerk! But, deep inside, she felt that she should care for this creature. Yes, she did want to take care of him, but she couldn't decipher this strange emotion she felt. She merely shrugged it off as she went into the washroom to clean off her hands and face.

Having finished feeding a mash mixed with raw meats and sedatives, which he couldn't refuse due to his ravenous hunger, Kagome had attempted to groom the savage griffin. The first brush was snapped clear in two, the second was filled with deep scratches from InuYasha's deathly sharp claws.

Having this done, the girl had met up with her friends in the bed area, having a chat about each other's day. She didn't mention anything about her conversation with InuYasha, nor his request, or rather...demand. After everyone in the dorm is asleep, she'll take her chance to escape to the dining hall.

In the Sakura garden, a dark, slim figure silently stole across the grassy yard, through the cherry blossom petals and over the stone bridge over the fish pond. Kagome held her breath as she reached the door to the inside of the castle hallways. She had only to hope that she not get lost and face the wrath of that half-demon overlord.

Barefoot, she padded through the fine wooden floors, passed closed doors and turnoffs to other hallways. She tried to remember the way she took to get to the Sakura area from her and Kanna's trip there.

Taking a right her, a left here, and another right, she followed the corridors (which all pretty much looked the same) and tried to keep herself from sighing in dismay. Would she ever find her way out of this place? She highly doubted it.

Soon, however, she came upon the main room, the Great Hall, the first time she had ever placed foot in this ominous fortress. She snuck across, remembering that the dining hall would be around the corner...

Wait a minute...If...If Naraku wasn't in the Great Hall, then...was he...? She had to find out...

Kagome tiptoed to the shut doors of the dining hall, standing around the corner, eavesdropping upon the voices that fluttered lightly from the room.

"That girl, the new slave," came Naraku's voice. Kagome flushed. What need would he still have of her except as a slave to take care of his precious silver griffin? "You say that she lived through the day?"

"Yes, Lord Naraku," came another voice, a woman's. She, however, didn't recognize it.

"So, Kagura," he continued. "Do you think it's her? Could she be the one?"

"Perhaps. She seems to have the under trained powers of a priestess. Maybe, just maybe, she is the reincarnation of Kikyo. Her soul, if that is what you want to get your hands on, could probably fill in Lady Orasuae's clay body of the former priestess."

"Good work, Kagura." Naraku's dead voice seemed to hold deadly venom as he complemented the unknown woman. "Well then, we'll just have to see tomorrow. Dismissed."

There was a shuffling of feet, and then two figures exited the room, going the opposite direction of Kagome. She could sense that jewel, the Shikon no Tama, hidden somewhere in the room. She'll have to get that, too.

She snuck in after the demons had gone well away from her spot, stealthily walking up to the white fur pelt of Inu Taisho. She gently plucked one snow-white hair, and pocketed it. Now, she went out to search for the jewel. Where the aura had led her was a wall. She tried to push on it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Allow me!" came a voice in her ear. Kagome suppressed a scream as a tiny creature leaped from her shoulder and onto her nose. "Hi there, Lady Kagome!" the small creature piped. "I am known as Myoga the flea, vizier to Lord InuYasha of the Western domain!"

"Hey, I know you!" she whispered, eyes widening. "But, what do you want me to do?"

"I do know that you're looking for the Shikon no Tama, and that it's behind this very wall, but pushing on it will do no good. It will have to take a powerful aura to open, whether it be dark or light. That is how Naraku can access this wall cavity. Merely place your hand on the wall, and focus. You must focus all of you power into your hand!"

Kagome glanced at the flea before doing as told. He was an old fellow, bald except for a few fluffs of pepper and salt hair above each pointed ear. He had four arms, two legs, and a proboscis with bug eyes, all over which put together would fit in Kagome's smallest fingernail. The flea, Myoga, was simply dressed, wearing a tan hued haori.

Kagome then turned her attention to the wall and her hand. Focusing, she found a power in herself, as she has been trained to do since living with Kaede. She picked a strand of purplish aura from that little pool, and attached it to her hand, which had glowed with the same lilac color, and the wall had vanished.

Her eyes widened as large as saucers as the Shikon Jewel was revealed, setting on a stand, glowing in its pink aura. She quickly picked it up off of the pile of stones as Myoga hopped back onto her shoulder. As the girl noiselessly left the dining hall, the wall reappeared, and she had quietly made it back to the dormitory area.

She snuck into the stables, creeping past every stall until she reached InuYasha's. Myoga hopped up and down frantically, urging the girl to open the stall door. Kagome slipped in as smooth as a shadow. She gasped as InuYasha had immediately hopped to his feet, startled by that all too familiar aura that followed the miko into the room.

"The jewel!"

"I'm sorry...what?" Kagome looked confused, for she had forgotten the pink jewel hanging around her neck.

"The Shik-"

"Oh!" She lifted the jewel into her palm. "This! Well, it was mine, and I thought I'd take it back before we escaped..."

"Yours?" he snorted. "Yours! This jewel, it belonged to that old dead bitch, Kikyo! It was what caused my transformation!"

Kagome was taken aback. "So...then I was right? You were not always a griffin?"

InuYasha glowered at her and flushed.

"No, I used to be an inu hanyou, but that wench-of-a-priestess turned me into a griffin! She supposedly loved me, as much as I did her, but apparently, she felt the jewel more important, and she gave me this form! It was because of this that I killed her!"

"What a minute..." she muttered. "So...you killed Kikyo? Kikyo, she was Kaede's sister!" Kagome was starting to get the gist of things. "So...you were the griffin that killed Kikyo! And then, the Gryphonwings, they came after Kaede and me, to get the jewel! So now I'm here and..." She paused, sliding down against the wall. "Ohhhh...my head hurts..."

InuYasha merely snorted, glowering at her.

"So you know the truth. But enough of this talk. Do you have the hair?" He sniffed the air, trying to figure out if she had succeeded in her mission or not.

Kagome nodded, pulling the hair from one of her pockets in her working kimono. "Right here. But, I need to know one thing, InuYasha..." -she placed the fine white specimen in his outstretched claws- "Why do you need this to help us escape this place?"

InuYasha chuckled dryly, closing his paw over the hair with a glow of blue aura. "Because we are kin, the owner of this fur and I, and he will give me strength from his place in the Netherworld, and allow me to do so. Tonight's the night of the full moon, too."

Kagome blinked. "The full moon? What does that have to do with anything?" She got back to her sandaled feet, tucking ebony hair behind her ear. "Is it a special day for you?"

"Heh," he snarled. "You can say that." He got to his feet, as the moon was now in place for its light to shine upon him.

There was a moan as he collapsed. Kagome rushed forwards to help, but was pushed back by a sudden gust of wind that occupied the room. Kagome fell over, Myoga hopping up and down on her nose. "He's transforming!" the flea demon exclaimed excitedly.

"He...what!" Kagome raised her hand over her head as she felt the gust strengthen.

InuYasha's talons curled into hands, his paws into human feet. Fur and feather had both disappeared, leaving beneath soft, silky skin. A human like face appeared under the dissolving beak, revealing those same blazing gold eyes, and fangs and human jaws. Dog ears peered from a curtain of silver hair. A new InuYasha stood before her, and Kagome screamed.

Not only did that silver griffin transform into a man, but he had transformed into a naked man!

A/N: Another chappie! And what did I tell ya? Another five pages! XD I don't plan this out, either. I just type, and stop at a cliffy. So, yeah. Weird, ne? Anyways, R&R, please!