You guys must really hate this fic. Still no reviews at all.
Too bad! I'm going to keep posting it anyway! Nyah!
Oh and all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. It's still good to be delusional.

Non-Friction

Limping on a bad ankle and still moving forward in an efficient manner was an art, an art that Aki was fast learning she had never been required to perfect, And she was slowly growing to hate herself for it.

She found that she had to rest often or else her poor maltreated ankle shook with strain. It was quite obvious her body was not enjoying her sudden masochistic streak, even if it did keep her from a situation likely to cause violent dry heaves of disgust. If her choices were to walk in pain wearing somebody's smelly jacket or be carried up close and personal by someone who doesn't bathe much, she'd rather walk and to hell with the pain. Even if all the resting she was required to do made a fifteen-minute stroll three times as long.

Strange as it may seem, the others (who weren't handicapped) never caught up with her until just before she got to her destination. By then Kaede had come upon them wondering where they could've gotten to. She had met up with Inuyasha and Kagome, who were still arguing, just after Fred had parted their company to catch up with the determined English tutor.

"Where is the girl?" asked a somewhat confused miko. "And what is everybody doing way out here? The village is that way."

"Aki wanted to walk," Kagome informed her politely, "and then she went off this way for some reason."

"You let her walk on that ankle? What made you decide to do that?" the old woman questioned the pair. Inuyasha shifted uneasily under her scrutiny.

"She asked," he said uneasily. Since she put it that way, he couldn't fathom what made him decide to grant Aki's request. And once granted, why hadn't he picked her back up at the first sign of pain on her features? If it had been Kagome, he would have just to make her mad, why not with Aki?

Inuyasha didn't like being confused. When he was confused it meant he didn't understand something. People that don't understand things are stupid. He didn't like thinking he might be stupid, so when he was confused he tried to hide it. Usually he hid it with anger, yelling and the like, or action, violence and fighting. In this situation, neither of those concealing devices would work, so he had to do something different. Since his confusion centered on a single individual that shouldn't be walking, it was time to make them stop. Of course knowing Inuyasha, he couldn't just walk up to her, give her a bit of a warning before he promptly swept her off her feet.

Inuyasha probably would've dashed after Kagome's friend to startle the poor girl as he lifted her off the ground without warning or some other rash action of the type… If they hadn't caught up with her just then.

"What are you doing?" Kaede asked the strange girl currently resting against a tree. She was amazed Aki had such incredible stamina and will power.

Aki blinked up at the huffing older woman in surprise and smiled softly. "I'm going to retrieve something is all," she replied quietly. "We weren't all idle when the call for help sounded," she continued, pushing off the tree to finish the first part off her errand and bringing back the herbs she had picked.

Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kaede stood dumbfounded after Aki. "You look like a bunch of caught fish," a voice teased, causing all three of them to jump. "Geez, you sure are a jumpy lot," Fred remarked before following after his friend.

"What!" Inuyasha bellowed before tearing after the ghost as if he could actually do anything to it. Kagome and Kaede were close on his heals as it was going the same way as Aki.

Aki reached the clearing where she'd been gathering the herbs before her little underwater altercation with the water demon.

Nothing ever stays exactly the way you leave it, no matter what your mother says. Something or someone always manages to disturb anything that was left out or behind. And that's exactly what Aki found when she reached the clearing where she had been harvesting herbs before.

There stood over the careful pile of plants she had gathered a little long-eared bunny-rabbit person munching away on her harvest. It was so like finding a child stealing cookies from a cookie jar that she had to chuckle.

Unfortunately, little wild demon chibis of the rabbit variety don't take kindly to people they don't know stumbling across them in the middle of lunch. This particular demon bunny was more wary than some. Funny thing about demon rabbits, they have this unusual ability that most people outside their particular species never encounter, as Inuyasha noisily found out.

"What the hell!" the dogboy exclaimed as his bare foot slipped over the ground unexpectedly. Normally a rather spectacular fall would result such a clumsy occurrence, but Inuyasha remained upright on no feet! Even after Kagome collided with him none to gently, neither fell to the ground.

Aki, the ever observant, noticing this sudden interruption in the laws of how things should be, took a test step herself. She likewise did not go anywhere. No forward motion, no downward fall, just an interesting stasis of events. She reached out a hand to grab the tree that stood slightly to her side and missed. No wait… She didn't miss, her hand slid right off. It reminded her of something from her physics class in college. What was required for walking and grasping things? … Friction! You had to have some form of friction to move or to grab onto anything.

Aki looked up at the chibi.

"HA! HA! HA! HA! Thought you could sneak up on me, eh?" the little chibi catcalled obnoxiously to the stationary group. "Well, you can't beat me! I, Hanako the great, have effectively won this battle!"

"You little pipsqueak! Don't even underestimate me!" bellowed a very indignant hanyou. "SANKONTESS-o? Eh?" he looked at his claws stunned that nothing happened. His eyes widened in horror. Perhaps he really was losing his demon powers…first he couldn't catch Aki's scent and now this. He was done for.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Don't you get it puppy?" the little thing snubbed him. "You are powerless within my sphere of influence…" and there followed a rather long and drawn out speech of all the virtues that made up the essence of being the demon known as Hanako.

During this long-winded lecture Aki tried figuring out the holes in this frictionless environment. 'Think! Something is off. What else did the book say about it?' she searched her brain for the answers she needed. 'Can't walk, can't write, can't grip…KNOTS! Knots don't stay tied, clothing unravels!' She looked over at the others and the gesturing bunny demon; all their clothing was still in one piece. Then she looked at who was unable to walk. 'Inuyasha-bare feet. Kaede – bare feet (sandals fell off when she collided with dogboy.) Kagome – probably hasn't tried yet. Me – one bare foot," she murmured to herself. Which would explain why she hadn't moved before, she was on her bare foot. She then turned her attention gauging the movement of anything else that might have been effected. The leaves were moving in straight lines floating at a steady pace almost horizontally. "No air drag and no serious feelings of gravity…"

Aki decided to try something. She bunched her legs up enough for her feet to hover over the ground and shoved them down quickly, like pushing off the side of a pool. She shot up at a bit of an angle, heading straight for the upper branches of the nearest tree. Somehow she managed to turn her body mid-flight and kind of landed on the branch feet first. Wasting no time, she shoved off again aiming for the little cause of all Inuyasha's current woes.

About halfway in her flight she realized that she was going to score a direct hit on the childlike demon… without slowing even a little bit. The impact would very likely kill both herself and the chibi. Aki's eyes widened trying to quickly think of someway to spare at least the little demon standing so oblivious to her own possible end. The English tutor threw out her hand (the one that wasn't burned) and dug deep into her soul, hoping to find something that would prevent the horror likely to happen.

This time her eyes were open. This time she wasn't drowning. This time Aki consciously called it. So when a burst of light leapt from her outstretched hand she was unable to dismiss it. The blast threw her violently back into a tree and the chibi across the clearing. She felt a flash of pain as her back smashed against the firm bark of the sturdy plant and her vision swam briefly at the sound of a sickening crack that was the back of her skull meeting the wood. "That's gonna hurt tomorrow," Aki mumbled before quickly getting back up onto her wobbly legs and racing over to the felled thorn in Inuyasha's pride.

Aki scooped Hanako up as if she were a small child, her eyes wide with fear and worry. "Please don't tell me I killed it," she begged softly. She raised her hand to brush aside the hair straggling across the little demon's forehead (subconsciously checking for breath) when the rabbit demon awoke abruptly and chomped down on one of Aki's soft outstretched fingers.

Aki smiled slowly in relief, despite the stabbing knives of pain in her finger. Her eyes softened and Hanako stared at her with disbelief written all over her petite face. "You're alright," Aki breathed carefully, "I'm glad."

The strange demon's eyes widened even further, if it's even possible. Hanako simply could not believe it. This strange human woman was worried. About her, Hanako, forsaken of her clan and outcast of her own species. What's more, the woman didn't get mad when Hanako bit her. That alone served to make her jaw slacken and she released the stranger's finger. What's with this human?

Aki smiled reassuringly at the little demon a moment longer as she reclaimed her now terribly abused hand, before she promptly and rather indecorously passed out.

By now, everyone had discovered they could move normally again. And there were a few things that some of them wanted to do to a certain impertinent rabbit demon.

"Come here you little brat! I've got a fist with your name on it!" Inuyasha advanced on the little demon still partially trapped under the unconscious weight of Aki.

"Inuyasha, stop," Kagome yelled. She didn't think the situation actually required further violence as Aki appeared to have effectively diffused the problem. She was more worried for the unconscious girl than about the fight that almost was. "Kaede, do you think Aki's okay?"

"I am not sure," the elderly woman replied. "I will have to examine her to find out, and I can't do that properly out here."

Hanako blinked, they weren't going to hurt her? They weren't mad? They seemed to only be worried about their friend. Aki? Is that this woman's name? Hanako looked up into the face of the human leaning over her. She looked beautiful in the rabbit demon's opinion. She also looked exhausted, and even asleep; her face was lined with pain. The chibi immediately felt a stab of guilt that she was the cause of this pain.

"Inuyasha, do you think you could take Aki back to the village before you beat up Hanako?" Kagome asked breaking into the chibi's thoughts. Hanako frowned, so much for not hurting her. She suddenly didn't want Aki moved from her place over her.

"I agree. Inuyasha, you can always bother the little demon later, Aki needs to be taken care of now," the miko added. "Though I think Aki might object to you actually hurting the little thing."

"Feh, whatever," Inuyasha grumbled, but bent to pick up Aki anyway. Hanako reached up and latched onto the woman's shirt. "Hey! Let go of Aki, you little snot!" the hanyou growled. "Let her go, you little moron!"

Hanako gave her own little growl, ignoring every instinct that screamed for her to step down and flee. Rabbits as a rule were not aggressive. Their powers were more of the flight variety than the fight kind. They were not usually dominant. That does not mean they are necessarily weak. "I will not. How do I know I can trust her with you? You might hurt her, you're so stupid!" she yelled at him.

Inuyasha blinked. She couldn't trust him. The HELL! She was the untrustworthy one not he. "Oi, you're the one who attacked us! Not the other way around, we're the ones who can't trust you!" he growled back.

"You're a male, so naturally you can't be trusted with anything female! You might try something vulgar!" she shouted back. "Don't worry, my pretty, I'll not let the evil boy hurt you!" Hanako patted Aki's soft cheek gently. Inuyasha blushed a rather interesting shade of fire engine red and spluttered.

"Oh brother!" Fred spoke up from out of nowhere. "Look if you're really worried about it why don't you follow him to the village so Kaede can take a look at Aki before she wakes up out here and insists on walking back on her own."

"The ghost's right, Aki needs to be taken care of and it can't be done out here. None of us can carry her, so Inuyasha is gonna do it for us," Kagome assured the Rabbit. "I'm pretty sure Aki will want to make sure you're all right when she wakes up."

Hanako thought for a moment. Technically she was strong enough to carry the lovely Aki. However her shorter stature would render such an undertaking rather difficult to both protect and carry. She nodded her head; Inuyasha could carry the desirable human. She would guard. "Alright. But if you make one move to do anything other than simply carry her, I'll find a way to hurt you." she warned the dogboy. "And By the way, I did not attack you, you snuck up on me."

"We did not!" Inuyasha growled back trying to settle Aki in a stable position to be carried back to the village. "We were following Aki."

"A likely story, you were spying on her more like, you hentai!" Hanako growled in return.

"As if! Kagome was with me."

"So? Girls can be hentai's too, it's just not a required characteristic of her sex."

"Now wait just a minute, leave me out of this," Kagome cried.

"Not all guys are like that," Fred challenged at the same time.

"Grr! I meant Aki knew we were there, she's known we were following her the whole time. And you're the hentai that keeps suggesting all these perverted things!" Inuyasha amended.

"I'm not perverted, I'm just world wise. Besides the love between two women is the purest love of all!" the rabbit demon returned with stars in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you're one of those," Fred grumbled. "Look, could we please just get what Aki came for and get her back to the village?"

"One of what?" Kagome asked innocently.

Fred just looked at her, "You can't be that innocent. You're a teenager of the future. They have every kind of partnership in the open. Girl-girl, boy-girl, boy-boy, etc. Think about it."

"oh, OH!" Kagome's eyes widened. "That's what you mean!" Then she looked at Hanako. "You don't mean to say that she's…" Fred only nodded. "No way!" her eyes widened, "She's too young."

Hanako didn't quite get where their conversation was going, hell she didn't even know where it started. She did however understand that last bit. "I'll have you know I happen to be older than your insignificant little life is likely to be," she huffed indignantly.

Kagome blinked, "But…but you're so tiny!"

The rabbit rolled her eyes, "Well excuse me if my species is naturally on the small size! And I'll have you know that I'm tall for my kind!"

Kagome blinked again, Hanako was nearly a head shorter than herself. Weird. To think, Hanako would never be taller than most human eleven year olds. If that was Kagome, she would really have some kind of a complex.

Aki groaned in her sleep causing Inuyasha to tense. "Uh, Kagome?"

"What?" She responded absently, still pondering the many shapes and sizes that demons took.

"Could we please start heading to the village now? She's moving," he said softly. Kagome's eyes widened, was Inuyasha worried? Over Aki? There were a lot of weird things going on today. The god of all that is rational must be taking the day off.

"Sure, sure," she replied absently again deep in thought.

"Don't forget the herbs Aki harvested!" Fred reminded them.

"Eh?" Kagome blinked and looked around the clearing. "There they are. Looks like somebody was eating them," she stated absently.

Hanako blushed, so that's what brought them to the clearing, the leafy plants that she'd found so tasty. Oh dear, perhaps she really had been responsible for the whole thing just moments ago. She glanced over at the dogboy that was slowly growing very impatient. No way was she ever going to admit that out loud to him though.

"Oi, why's your face so red?" Inuyasha asked Hanako.

She in turn blushed more deeply, before growling at him in frustration at her own embarrassment. "Shut up!" she demanded. And he smirked, oh how he smirked the insufferable bastard, that evil, no good cur, that horrible MALE.

"All right, c'mon you two," Kagome called to them like the children they certainly acted like. Sometimes she felt like she was Inuyasha's mother.

"You should probably wake Aki up as soon as you're back to Kaede's hut," the ghost suggested. "She did manage to hit her head pretty hard back there. She might have a concussion."

"Yeah, I nearly forgot about that," Kagome agreed. "She's only been here a few hours and she's already received a lot of damage."

"Gomen," Hanako said sadly.

"Hmm? What for?" Kagome asked slightly confused.

"It's my fault, I hurt Aki."

"Nonsense. Besides that's only part of it, Aki was hurt before you ever saw us."

"What do you mean?"

"Aki just fought the water demon in the river."

"She did what!"

"Will you two be quiet? You're bugging Aki," Inuyasha yelled at them annoyed. He was just beginning to realize the human woman in his arms impressed him. And he still couldn't catch her scent even though he held her this close. What was she, some kind of miko? Naw, that wasn't it, the look on her face when she called that power was pure and utter shock, definitely not the look of a powerful miko. Aki was an enigma, one he intended to figure out so long as the opportunity provided itself.

"Ah! I saw that! You were looking at Aki funny!" the defender of the female honor reeled its ugly head.

"I was NOT!" he growled in his defense.

"Yes you were!"

"Was not!"

"Were too!"

"Was not!"

Hanako smirked, "Oh yeah? Then what were you doing?" Inuyasha blushed, he'd been planning to discover all of Aki's secrets…but he couldn't tell them that. "Aha! You're blushing! All the more evidence that I'm right! You were looking at her weird and you were thinking something perverted you Hentai!"

"Hanako, will you please lower your voice? We're almost to the village and you're causing a scene!" Kagome pleaded.

"I will not, until Aki is safely away from the perverted thoughts of that MALE!"

"Hanako, you're incorrigible," Aki's quiet voice silenced the demon bunny, her voice full of tired amusement. "You do realize that your shouting is only likely to embarrass yourself, right?"

"Aki, you're awake," Kagome said relieved.

"Of course I am, you didn't actually think I could sleep through all that did you?" the woman sighed. "Could you put me down? I can walk."

"Sorry woman, not this time. Kaede yelled at me for the last time. Besides, it's not good for you to walk on that ankle," Inuyasha firmly denied her request. Aki sighed, nausea it is.

"Put her down! She obviously doesn't want you to carry her!" Hanako yelled. Then she lowered her eyes, "ah, I see your game, you intend to carry her around against her will because it gives you an excuse to touch her!"

Inuyasha blushed scarlet, "That's not it!"

"Well no matter, you can't have her because SHE'S MINE!" Hanako declared with finality before walking matter-of-factly into the little hut they had finally stopped in front of. Leaving the dogboy and two females from the future with their jaws in the dirt.