Author's Notes: blah... ultra super mega GIANGANTO! ((hee heeeee)) sorry! this chapter took so freakin' looooong!... and it wasn't really worth the wait, my friends... ((Sniffle)) it honestly just sucks... it's very uninspired... but NaokoMageofDarkness, one of me best friends has decided that she's going to warn me that she's just posted some ficcies... MUST STAY AHEAD! ((writes random things)) and i'm going to be posting ((gulp)) a ... a-a-a-a((stammers))
Kitsune: ((sigh)) ((slaps me)) JUST SPIT IT OUT, DAMN YOU!
me: FINE! ... i'm writing a ... ROMANCE FIC! ((ducks for cover from things flying from audience)) anyhoo, please don't kill me for completely butchering all story lines in any future fics... kinda distracted considering i'm talking on the phone with our loveable little friend NaokoMageofDarkness as i'm typing this. so u'll also hafta forgive any major typos... ((sigh...)) oh well, i guess this is the new chapter... in all its horrible glory... ((double sigh)) ohhhhhh welllllllllll... reviews may boost my self-esteem... and creativity levels... ((hintttt hinntttt)) hmm... onward then, MY LOYAL SUBJECTS! ((looks at VERY pissed-off audience)) umm... ((sweatdrop)) not that... umm... u need to... like, bow or anything... umm... eh heh heh... ((runs away)) AHHHHHHHHH!
Kitsune: (( . . )) hmmmm... it appears my creator has been run out of town by crazed groupies... hmm... ((sigh)) it was bound to happen sooner or later... oh well, looks like I'M DOING THE DISCLAIMER!
Disclaimer:
Kitsune: ((cackles maniacally)) MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! ((pulls out chainsaw)) INU-YASHA BELONGS TO MEEE! BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!
lawyers: ((bursts in)) DON'T MOVE! INU-YASHA BELONGS TO MADAME RUMIKO TAKAHASHI OF NIIGATA, JAPAN!
kitsune: ((jumps out window)) CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!
me: ((sigh)) now i hafta bust him out of prison... again... oh well... serves me right for choosing a fox as a muse...((sighs again))
Chapter 4: The Story, Renewed
"So, that's the whole story, is it?" Sango asked.
"Yes... Every troublesome, painful detail..." Tomoe said solemnly.
"It's enough to convince me to help kick that stupid bastard, Naraku's ass!" Kitsune said defiantly. Tomoe smiled slightly at her former guardian's arrogance.
"So, you were betrayed by Tomoe due to Naraku, just like the incident between Kikyo and I?" Inu-Yasha inquired darkly.
"Yes..." Kitsune replied, his tone the same as his brother's.
"Am I the only one stuck on the fact that Sesshomaru seems to be the only brother who's lead a life worth living!" Ayame growled.
"Fortunately... or unfortunately, depending on how you see the matter, you're not," Kitsune returned, "Which is why it's fun to remind him that he's not as strong as he thinks he is."
"Well, am I the only one who's stuck on the fact that a fox-hanyou and an inu-hanyou are related as brothers somehow?" Miroku asked exasperatedly. ( (( readers lean forward)) admit it... you've been wondering the same thing...)
"Well, we have the same father..." Kitsune said.
"Your father is definately sounding like my kind of demon!" Miroku stated on an undertone. Sango thwacked him.
"And, technically, I'm not really a hanyou..." (the truth comes out! ((gasp)) Kitsune: oh, DO shut up...) Kitsune looked thoughtful, "My mother was the Shadowfox hanyou, Akane, and my father was the full demon Inutaisho."
"Wow... so you're a three-quarter demon?" Kagome asked.
"I s'pose..." Kitsune said.
"D'you still turn human?" Shippo pried.
"Why should you care!" Kitsune snapped.
"That sounds like a yes..." Shippo smirked evilly.
"I hope not..." Miroku put in bluntly, "Another potential fighter put out of commision due to no moon... we'd have to have a back-up plan at all times..."
"No... I don't turn human... quite the opposite effect, actually." Kitsune still looked thoughtful, but he was being stared at in a way that can only be described as this: O.O
"What!" He snapped, "The moon's cycle reflects on me just the same as it reflects on you!"
"Umm.. No." Inu-Yasha said flatly, "I turn human on nights of no moon. Do you mean to tell me you get to turn into a full demon?" The dog hanyou sounded royally pissed and he had every reason to. He had just been severely dissed by a quarter-blood's worth of technicality. Ouch.
"Being human's not much worse than being demon..." Kitsune said, skirting away from that subject by the dropping of his voice.
"So.. it seems you foxes are not always as you appear," Miroku stated wisely.
"So, Shippo, if you ever turn out to be a bishounen... I'm callin' first dibs..." Kagome said.
"WHAT!" Shouted Inu-Yasha and Shippo in unision.
"So, what would that make you, Ayame! A hag!" Miroku was currently disturbed very deeply by the images of Kagome and an adult bishounen Shippo. (I think it's best that we don't know how Miroku is able to come up with a bishie... ((gets glared at by miroku fans)) )
The look Ayame gave him was absolutely hateful.
"That depends... Are. You. Willing. To. Pay. The. Price. To. Find. Out...?" The vixen's tone was ice.
"Miroku, I'm going to go out on a limb and take that as a 'no,'" Sango stated bluntly to the terrified monk.
"Duh..." Inu-Yasha said flatly.
"Well, then, aren't you all a merry bunch?" Everyone turned to see the new voice's owner. Kagura was standing in the doorway of the shrine, her fan open, held in its familiar sideways grip.
"Kagura!" Miroku shouted. Everyone gave him a dry look, and he shrugged, "Seemed like the right thing to say..."
"If you're finished bickering amongst yourselves..." Kagura flipped the fan towards them, sending the Dance of Blades hurtling full-tilt toward the group. Inu-Yasha raised Tetsusaiga to deflect the blows and the wind-daggers veered off, smashing into the wall and destroying random pillars.
"No, you IDIOT!" Kagome's voice turned his head. The other-world girl was running from the Dance of Blades as well, "Those are support beams! They fall, and the whole shrine goes down, stupid!"
"Well, SORRY! IT'S THE FREAKIN' BEAMS OR ME, AND GUESS WHAT? BIG SURPRISE, I CHOOSE ME!" The dog-hanyou shouted back.
"No, she means protect the beams! Not choose them over yourself, Inu-Yasha!" Kitsune shouted, drawing the long double katana they had glimpsed earlier.
"Enough!" Four sacred arrows lashed through the air, slicing through the battle and putting it on hold.
"Hmph... I've no time to dawdle in your pathetic affairs, anyway." Kagura pulled the feather from her hair and vanished into the sky.
"Thank you, Lady Tomoe," Miroku said, turning to the priestess, who was lowering her longbow, "Without you here, that, undoubtedly, would've gone much worse."
"Yeah.. thanks..." Sango lay down Hiraikotsu and Kirara shrank into her cat-sized form.
"Sooo... now what?" Everyone turned to look at Kagome for her cheery-sounding question,"I don't sense any Sacred Jewel shards, but something might be up... After all, Kagura did come to find us, instead of vice versa." Everyone turned to look expectantly at Inu-Yasha.
"WHAT!" The aforementioned hanyou snapped.
"We're waiting for the word of the fearless leader." Kitsune had sheathed his swords and bowed sarcastically. Ayame hit him. Very hard. (Kitsune: very, very hard... me: SHUT UP!)
"Smartass..." She muttered.
"OWWW!" Kitsune exclaimed, rubbing his new injury.
"BABY!" Ayame shot back.
"I'M NOT A BABY!"
"WELL, YOU'RE CERTAINLY ACTING LIKE ONE!"
"Would the both of you just shut the hell up!" Tomoe's voice sliced through the argument like her arrows had cut through the battle. Everyone stared at her outburst.
"But... priestesses aren't allowed to cuss..." Now everyone glared at Miroku for this outburst of stupidity. Poor Miroku... as if things weren't bad enough for him.
"No duh..." Inu-Yasha snapped.
"Well, sorry..." Miroku stated, shrugging.
At the end of this conversation, Tomoe strode across the room, sitting down and beckoning them to do so as well.
"Priestesses will curse when it's necessary. Such as to stop two demons from bickering the night away..." She said in an eerily calm tone. That didn't last due to Kitsune's next statement:
"They don't when their moms are in the room..."
"WHAT!" Tomoe whirled around to find her mother glaring at her with the ferocity of... well... I no longer know because not only is this authoress out of puns, but also sarcasm, so just imagine a really bad glare...(Kitsune: ohhh...now that's imaginative...)
"Tomoe, you have five seconds to busy yourself with something that doesn't involve this room." The older woman's tone was ice.
Tomoe hurried away, most definately the wiser decision in this matter, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'stupid, worthless foxes and their stupid, worthless arguments!' followed by some random unprintable obscenity.
"Sooo... umm... how old is Tomoe, anyway?" Kagome asked, "I mean, she must be older than she looks, but she doesn't look a day over sixteen..."
"Both Tomoe and I are of a dying race called the 'Immortals,'" The elder priestess said, bowing her head solemnly, "A breed of humans that age like demons...Tomoe is actually sixty-five...We show youth even as we age."
"Except in your case... 'cuz as long as I can remember, you looked old enough to be King Tut's grandmother..." Kitsune spoke up, sounding incredibly bored... and looking it. Soon, though, his mouth met its match, as in a matter of seconds he was crouching on the ground holding his head, bleeding.
"You moron..." Tomoe's mother stood, holding a random heavy object, in this case a metal pan, though where it came from, even I am not sure...
"Owww..." Kitsune was currently curled up in his fox form, a bloody lump of black fur, with his paws over his head. He shifted back into a human(-ish. Kitsune: shut up...) form to fight back, though.
"You STUPID HAG!" The Shadowfox boy shouted, "PEOPLE LIKE YOU SHOULD BE BANNED FROM EVEN USING STINKIN' FRYING PANS! WHERE THE HELL'D THAT STUPID THING COME FROM, ANYWAY!"
"..." The priestess glared at him, and, without ending the glare, or answering him for that matter, she leaned over and hit him again.
"WOULD YOU STOP THAT, YOU STUPID BI!" Alas, poor Kitsune did not get to finish his insult, for Ayame hit him.
"You have trouble with women, don't you?" Miroku asked, bending over the swirly-eyed fox's form.
"Apparently, Miroku, he's not like you... he's no ladies' man..." Sango rolled her eyes.
"Nope... no player here..." Kagome said, assisting in Sango's sarcastic gesture.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two were joking around with me!" The monk looked geniunely surprised.
"How ever could you tell?" Sango said, tapping Miroku on the head with his own staff, as if to make sure nothing had been knocked loose in their travels. To her surprise, nothing rattled.
"So.. should we just wait until we find another clue...?" Kagome interupted an event that, more than likely, would've ended badly between Miroku and Sango.
"You're welcome to stay here, the shrine is large enough for everyone," Tomoe's mother cut in, "and by the way, my name is Tsuru."
"Well, domo arigatou, Tsuru-sama," Miroku said politely, "We thank you for the kindness of your hospitality."
"What, doesn't she get a complimentary grope, too?" Sango asked, her arms crossed. She looked very annoyed. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, Miroku's performance of an anime-style sweatdrop was a 25.
"Ummm... I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, S-Sango! That's completely absurd! Not to mention perverted!" He bumbled on before Tsuru led them out of the shrine's umm... 'lobby' down the hall to individual rooms.
Kagome, Sango and Ayame were bunked together. Sango decided she might as well give the Shadowfox vixen a chance, especially since she had a feeling they'd be seeing a lot of each other. Across the hall, to the girls' discontent, were Miroku and (for humorous purposes, more than motherly) Shippo. Down the hall, on the same side were Inu-Yasha and Kitsune, just because... don't ask me, I have no clue, I'm just a simple authoress. Ask Madame Rumiko why they bunk the way they do. Not me.
Meanwhile, outside, an evil force watched them with hateful ferocity. Confrontation would soon rear its ugly head again.
More Author's Notes: Doesn't everyone jus' LOOOOVE a good cliffy? well, I'd say my horrid misconduct of not updating in forever didn't end very nicely. Not a very long chapter... And you'll hafta forgive the sarcasm... looooots of sarcasm.
Kitsune: Sarcasm is a way of life for us foxes. ((nods head wisely))
me: ((looks at his unusual wisdom)) erm.. indeed... well, anyhoo, as u may have heard, due to the above author's notes, that i am starting a romance fic called "The Demon's Reign"((dodges random corn-cob flying out of almost empty audience)) ... what's with the corn? um... anyhoo, please don't kill me... please... ((looks at daggers/swords held by audience)) ((gulps)) um... please? well, anyhoo REVIEWWWWWS!
Rachel: THANKIES SOOO MUCH FOR UR COOL REVIEW! and thanks for telling me u weren't a stalker... the last thing i need is another one... ((rolls eyes)) well, anyhoo thanks again for ur awesome review and srry for keeping everyone in the freakin' dark for as long as it took me to update this story... ((is glared at by remaining audience members)) ummm... sorry? again?
AND AS FOR YOU, NAOKO! I'M ASHAMED!HOW DARE YOU READ MY STORY! heh heh... j/k... i got to b the first to review BOTH of ur stories... hee hee that means i got to review the TorD one that I erm... 'helped' you write... hee bollocksy-nonsense! RAT IS SOOO HOT AND HOPELESS SAVAGES RULE ON! ...but why did the White Wolf Kiba choose CONVERSE! I mean the shoes are AWESOME!... but why converse?((ponders hopelessly))
Kitsune: ((praying)) plllllleeeease save me...
TIL NEXT TIME (you-know-who only knows when that is...)! me: HEY, WHO'S DOING THOSE CAPTIONS!
Kitsune: ((ducks under control desk))
me: KITSUNE, YOU MORON! ((goes to kill muse))
well, this isn't going to get much more interesting... so LATER! stick around to SEE BLOODSHED! WOOOHOOOOOO!