Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Never have. Never will. It's just something that me, and the rest of the world will have to come to terms with. Psychiatric help is available for all of you who don't except that fact.

Note:

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Part II: Training Begins; Kaede's Village in Danger

Kagome fell down onto her back.

"Dammit!" she said quietly to herself. "What am I doing wrong Sango? Huh? Tell me!"

Sango said nothing and kept after her with her training sword. She made a pass right to Kagome's body. Kagome turned away and didn't even put up her sword. Sango finally spoke.

"You need to at least put your sword up to block if you're going to do that. I know this is hard, but this is exactly the way I learned how to fight. It's not easy, but you can do it. Plus, It'll make you better in the long run."

Kagome let out a sigh and gripped her bokken with all the strength she could muster. Sango sat down.

"I think I'm ready for a break" Sango said.

Kagome was not about to take that.

"No!" Kagome yelped to her in a quiet sort of scream being careful not to wake anyone up. "I'm ready. Let's go."

Sango stood up slowly. "Alright, if that's the way you want to play. We'll do it your way."

They fought long and hard into the night. When they could start to see the sun coming up they both agreed to call it a night. While Sango was lying in her comfortable sleeping bag that Kagome had brought for her from her own time she thought to herself. She was thinking how well Kagome did for a first time. Unfortunately, she still had a long way to go.

------------ Morning Time --------------

Kagome was tired. She was glad that today was supposed to be an easy walking day. Inuyasha had let her sleep in because they were just going to go back to Kaede's village. It wasn't that far; only a couple of miles away. Still, she and Sango were working on 2 – 3 hours of sleep.

"Oh well" she thought to herself. "I guess I had better get used to these late nights. Sango and I will be working together for quite a while."

Several hours passed and they had finally made it to Kaede's village. Unfortunately there was nobody there to greet them when they got there.

Inuyasha was pissed. "What the hell is going on here? Where is everyone! Usually that old hag is here to say her hellos."

Miroku also noticed the lack of activity in the village.

"I don't know what's happened here" he said. "But I don't sense that anything is off. There is no demonic aura, nothing to suggest any kind of disas-"

There was an ear piercing scream coming from one of the huts. The entire group ran towards where the scream came from. They barged through the door to find about half the villagers lying down on the floor of this one building. There were a few people standing over a few of the villagers. Inuyasha went over to one of the ones who were standing.

"What's going on here? I want to know what happened right now!" He said in an obstinate tone. Kaede then called over to him. She was lying down on the floor with the rest of the villagers. They were apparently all ill.

"Inu..yasha…" she said. "Inuyasha…this is terrible…" she began coughing for a minute. "I don't know what happened…but we need help…please…go to the next village over…they have better medicines there then we have here. They.." she began to clench her stomach. "Oooh….sorry…" she caught her breath for a moment and continued. "They have access to more herbs…please. Bring us some help. We need it as soon as possible…I don't know how the epidemic even started…"

Miroku was tending to the sick along with the villagers. He walked over to Inuyasha and whispered to him.

"Inuyasha. I don't think that this is a simple illness. I know I said that I couldn't sense a demonic aura, but I may have been wrong. Something is defiantly wrong with these people, and I know it's something demonic, but I've never seen it before."

Inuyasha responded to Miroku in the same quiet tone as Miroku addressed him in. "If you've never seen it before, what makes the old hag here so sure that the doctors from the next village over will be able to help?"

Miroku shook his head. "I don't think she realizes that there are yokai at work here. I can cleanse these people…but it's defiantly going to take me some time. Quite a bit of it."

"Alright" Inuyasha responded. "But we need to find whoever did this. You know Kagome. If we don't she'll get all angry and make it all personal. Like it's her mission to save the world from every little thing that goes wrong."

Kagome was listening in the whole time. "You bet I would!" She grunted at Inuyasha. "Well. I think that you should stay here with Shippo and watch the village while Sango, Miroku and I go to see what's going on with this mysterious illness. So take that."

Inuyasha looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. "What are you talking about woman! It's too dangerous for you to go out there without me."

Kagome quickly corrected him. "No. It's too dangerous for these villagers to be here unprotected! Without any protection there is no way they would last if even one single yokai decided to see how much he could plunder from this village. So you're needed here."

Miroku interjected. "I think it's best if I stay as well. These villagers need me to cleanse them, and it'll take me a while. I won't be able to do it all in one sitting."

Sango then put in her two cents. "Well then Kagome and I can go and search out this mysterious yokai that did this to all of them while Inuyasha protects the village, and Miroku can nurse them all back to health or whatever he's doing. And Inuyasha, before you say anything, you know damn well that when push comes to shove I don't let anything come in my way. So don't even bother trying to give that whole "you're not a man" BS that you love to spout on about all the time."

Kagome was laughing. "You go Sango! You tell him whose boss!" She laughed even more.

Inuyasha wasn't at all happy. "Grr…you just wait. One day Sango. One day!"

Kagome interrupted him. "Maybe we should have a seat to cool our heads?"
Inuyasha knew what he was in for if he kept it up. "Fine. You ladies go. See if I care. You'll come running back anyway. Just like always."

Sango and Kagome were already walking away when Kagome turned around and shouted "Oh yeah! We'll see! Sit Boy!" she exclaimed.

With a loud thud Inuyasha came crashing to the ground.

"Ow" was all he had to say.

------------- A little while later ----------------

"Sango?" Kagome asked. "Do you really think that we'll be ok? I mean, we don't even know what we're looking for out here."

Sango looked at her and laughed. "I don't know what we're looking for either. But I think of it this way: Now we don't need to practice fighting at night!"

Kagome just realized that. "Wow. You're right. Heh. Alright then! Onward and forward! To Somewhere!"

Sango laughed again. "I think Kaede's suggestion of going to the nearest village was a good idea. Maybe whatever is going on with Kaede's village will be known about there…hopefully we can gather some information."

"Alright." Kagome nodded. "We'll head to the nearest village. I believe it's due north of here. And if we run into any yokai….You can handle them!"

Notes:

Bokken – A wooden training sword. Sometimes used for Kendo