Note: For some strange reason, I forgot to mention that Souta got dressed. So don't go thinking that crazy ole' me said that Souta's walking around Tokyo in his pajamas!

Chapter 6: A Walk in the Park

Inu-yasha, Shippo, and Souta were standing in front of the entrance to the park. Shippo jumped off of Souta's back and landed on the ground. It was late in the afternoon and they were all starving. Inu-yasha was still giving Shippo the evil look he had began giving him for a couple of minutes now. He thought that if it wasn't for Shippo just sitting in someone's order at the resturaunt, he would have been chowing down ramen right about now. Yes, the waiter said they didn't have any, but Inu-yasha was positive that they had a secret stash of it somewhere.

Shippo glanced at Inu-yasha and took a few steps closer to Souta. Souta looked down at Shippo and sighed.

"Inu-yasha, are you still mad at him?"he asked.

"No, when did you get that idea?"said Inu-yasha, crossing his arms.

"Well, you'd better start being more nice to Shippo, or else I won't buy any pretzels for us, okay?"

Inu-yasha closed his eyes and turned his head away from Souta. He suddenly felt Souta grab his arm and was dragged into the park. Shippo was happily skipping ahead of them, as they walked on the dirt path through the park. All around them were trees and people talking. Couples were sitting on benches, holding each others hands and kissing. When Inu-yasha saw this, he blushed. In his mind, he replaced the couple that he saw with him and Kagome. They were slowly leaning in, their faces inches away from each other--

"Hey, what's that great smell?"asked Shippo, bringing Inu-yasha out of his fantasy.

He looked ahead of them and saw a metal stand with a red umbrella. Pretzels were cooking in a cylinder container, a light below the pretzels. A boy, looking like he was in his late teens, was standing behind the stand wearing a white apron. He was wearing a white hat with the words "Park Preztels" printed on it in red. He had black hair and had some pimples on his face. Shippo and Souta ran up to him, Souta still dragging Inu-yasha.

"Three pretzels, please," asked Souta.

"Alright,"said the boy, eyeing Inuyasha and Shippo carefully.

He opened the cylinder container and took out three preztels. He bent down and got three napkins from a draw and put the preztels in them. He put the pretzels on the stand.

"That'll be fifteen bucks,"said the boy, holding out his hand.

"Fifteen bucks! For three pretzels!"shouted Souta, looking surprised. "That's crazy! You can't charge people like that!"

"Listen, dude, I'm not the one who makes the prices for these things, my boss does. Now, if you want the pretzels, you're gonna give me fifteen bucks."

Inu-yasha slammed his fist into the stand. When he lifted it, he saw that he had made a big dent. The boy was looking extremely scared when he saw what Inu-yasha could do. Just think about it if he had punched his face. It would make his popularity in school even lower then it was.

"If the kid said that the price is crazy, then you're going to give us the food for free,"said Inu-yasha, smirking. "Unless, of course, you want me to slice up your face." He showed the boy his hand, just in case he didn't see the claws.

"Holy crap!"yelled the boy. "You know, just-just take the pretzels and go!"

"That sounds much better,"said Inu-yasha.

Souta took the pretzels and handed two of them to Inuyasha and Shippo. They walked away, eating the pretzels. Before they were far away, Shippo turned around.

"Thanks for the pretzels!"he shouted, waving his hand.

The boy waved back ackwardly. Once he was sure that they were far away, he sat down on the ground and began going through the drawers. Finally, he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a black walkie-talkie and pressed a red button. At first, all he could hear was static. But then, he heard a voice come from the walkie-talkie.

"Park security, what is it?"

"Hi, it's Jack, you know, the guy who's selling the pretzels near the park entrance,"said the boy. "I just met three guys who wanted pretzels and one of them threatened me. He damaged my stand, too. Catch them, please, man, that guy scared me!"

"Alright. Give me a description of all of them."

"Well, one looked like he was about eight years old, he had black hair, and he was wearing a black shirt and blue pants. There was another one, who looked like he was about five, and he had orange hair and he had a fox tail---"

"Whoa, whoa! A fox tail?"

"Yeah. Now, like I was saying, he had a fox tail and had fox feet. He had his hair tied up and was wearing a light blue shirt with, like, white leaves on it or something. And he was wearing poofy, blue pants. And the guy who threatened me, my God, he had long, silver hair and had dog ears---"

"Dog ears? Jack, you sure you didn't have anything to drink before your shift?"

"I swear on my life! The guy had dog ears and had claws! He was wearing this red shirt and red poofy pants. It looked like he was wearing a kimono or something. And he was wearing this beaded necklace. And this is the part that really scares me---he had a sword! Dude, you gotta catch these guys!"

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

---

Inu-yasha, Souta, and Shippo were still walking through the park. Inuyasha had only took one bite of the disgusting piece of dough that was in his hand. He didn't like this pretzel thing at all. It was too salty and he didn't even think that salt should be on dough. He looked down at Shippo, who had stuffed a big piece of pretzel in his mouth. How could he like that stuff? First he was a good demon who didn't like to fight a lot. He barely fought at all. And now he liked this pretzel thing. What a strange demon he was.

Souta was looking around for a place to sit and relax. They had barely walked, but he wanted to say something to Inu-yasha and Shippo. For what he had said before, at his house. About calling them crazy. Shippo was just a little kid. Little kids were supposed to act like that. But Inu-yasha, no, that wasn't exactly normal for a guy like him to be so violent.

Finally, Souta had found a bench by an oak tree, a garbage can next to it.

"Let's sit down for a minute, guys,"he said.

Souta walked over to the bench, Inu-yasha and Shippo following him. He sat down and crumbled up his napkin. He tossed it into the garbage can. Inu-yasha and Shippo did the same and tossed their napkins into the garbage can. Inu-yasha smirked. Nobody saw that he had put his pretzel in the napkin and threw it out. Shippo hopped onto Souta's lap and closed his eyes, looking like he was going to take a nap.

"Inu-yasha, sit down next to me,"said Souta, slapping the bench. "I want to talk to you."

Inu-yasha raised his eyebrow suspiciously and sat down next to Souta. What was going on?

"Inu-yasha, why are you so violent sometimes?"asked Souta.

"Kid, when you grew up the way I have, you would be violent too,"replied Inu-yasha, looking up at the tree branches.

"Why is that? What happened?"

"Well, my father died when I was a baby. Then my mother died right after that. So I had to take care and defend myself after that. It's a dangerous place where I come from, kid. You can't be weak, like Shippo."

Inu-yasha glanced at Shippo and was surprised that he didn't jump up and started crying to Souta that he was picking on him. He was in a deep sleep.

"Then you've got my brother, Sesshomaru,"continued Inu-yasha. "He always insulted me, calling me a half breed. And when ever he saw me, he would always try to kill me. There were a couple of times when I almost died, but I always got lucky."

Souta felt sorry and shocked at the same time when he heard what Inu-yasha had said. Okay, so his parents died. He guessed that would be one reason that Inu-yasha was so violent. But where did he come from that he had to defend himself most of the time? And his brother. He had heard of sibling rivalry, for he and Kagome had that. But he had never heard of two brothers trying to kill each other.

Suddenly, he saw something in the corner of his eye. Two security guards were walking around nearby, looking like they were searching for something. Inu-yasha saw them too. He stood up and stared at them.

"Hey, who are the weird looking guys?"he asked.

"They're security guards,"replied Souta. Suddenly, his eyes widened in fear. "Oh no, they must be looking for us! It's because of the way you acted torwards that pretzel guy!"

It seems that the two security guards saw them as well, for one of them pointed at Inu-yasha and they started running at them. Inu-yasha began reaching for his sword, but Souta grabbed his arm with one hand and began running away. In Souta's other arm was Shippo, snoozing away as his two friends ran from trouble.

"Souta, let me just slash them!"yelled Inu-yasha.

"And risk getting into even more trouble!"Souta yelled back. "Don't think so!"

"Well, do you have any other ideas, smart guy!"shouted Inu-yasha, glancing from over his shoulder.

"No, I don't!"replied Souta. "I never threatened a pretzel guy and got in trouble from park security!"

From all of the noise coming from Inu-yasha and Souta and from the guards behind them yelling for them to stop, Shippo's eyes flickered open. He stretched his arms up high and yawned. He looked behind Souta and rubbed his eye.

"Hey, wha-what's happening?"he muttered.

"Oh, finally, you wake up!"yelled Inu-yasha.

"We're being chased by guards!"shouted Souta. "You might not get in trouble because you didn't say anything to the pretzel guy, but me and Inu-yasha will!"

"Oh, well, if we're being chased, then I have an idea,"said Shippo.

He put his hand into his pocket and rummaged in it. Inu-yasha looked behind them again. The security guards were catching up to them. Any moment now, he was going to have grab Souta and Shippo and do one of his fancy escapes. Finally, Shippo pulled out an acorn.

"Okay, guys, stop running!"he said.

"What, are you crazy!"shouted Inu-yasha.

"Just do it!"

Inu-yasha sighed and he and Souta stopped running. Shippo raised the hand with the acorn clunched in it and threw it to the ground. In a puff of smoke, Inu-yasha, Souta, and Shippo were no longer there. Instead, there was a tree (Inu-yasha), a bush (Shippo), and a bench (Souta).

The guards stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. They slowly walked up to the tree, bush, and bench and scratched their heads. What happened to the boy and the other weird guys? They just dissapeared. They both shrugged and walked away.

"That was a close one,"sighed Inu-yasha.

"Man, this is cool!"said Souta. "I can't believe you transformed us!"

"Yeah, well, I think I may deserve another pretzel for that,"said Shippo.

"No."

A black dog with no collar walked up to the trunk of the tree and sniffed it. He lifted up his leg, and. . . .

"DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!"yelled Inu-yasha.

The dog whimpered and ran away fast. Shippo burst out laughing. Souta was trying to hold his laughter in.

"That was a close call,"said Inu-yasha. "Now, Shippo, when do we change back?"

"Umm. . . . .I'm not sure."

"What do you mean?"asked Souta.

"Well, I only used the acorns to transform only myself. But I never used it to transform other people and myself. It might take a while until we change back."

"DAMN YOU, SHIPPO!"