Huzzah! for the no reviews! Obviously my awesome writing skills have once again defied any attempts to correct and/or criticize my fanfiction. Obviously this is the case since i have yet to incense anyone to the point where they comment o any of the unlikelihood of these events and even rarer bursts of incandescent prise because my stuff is just soo good. Everyone is most desirous that I should continue and so I shall! At least until the end of this part...
A brief pause to offer up all your sympathies to the character that have unfortunately found themselves at my mercy. I'm not kind to my players, especially the ones that I like as all the bad things that happen to my main character shall continue to evince. Poor brave and enslaved souls that have inspired my fancy, be glad that few of you will die more than once!
And on that note, all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. The poor suckers!
Oh and a quick question: Who here is absolutely floored by Hanako's enthusiasm?
I've Shrunk!
Inuyasha, the poor pup demon, had stumbled upon some rather trying times. Hanako simply would not let him be. Every time he turned around, there she was converting every little move into some act of perversion on his part. And always it had to do with Aki. And he could never seem to successfully argue his innocence.
Kagome found the whole situation vaguely amusing. At least she might have if the little Rabbit demon wasn't continually describing in detail all the wonderful things that Girls in love with other girls could do to each other. Now Kagome wasn't closed minded about alternate pairings, her kind little heart held no prejudice for persons that pursued a creed different from her. But that didn't mean she wanted to hear about it. Hell she didn't even want to know all the possible things Girls and guys could do together in that light. It was just something that should be private between the individuals conducting the activities.
And what of Aki, who had been claimed as the love of Hanako? Aki just pretty much ignored the whole thing. After all, she wasn't interested in forming a relationship with anyone right now. There was kind of this little curse thing ever present in her mind. She just passively disregarded every advance the long eared youkai attempted and watched the suffering of Inuyasha under the false accusations.
Besides, Hanako was always so busy keeping an eye on the dog boy; she didn't really have a lot of time to pursue her love interest. Much to Inuyasha's growing exasperation. She was seldom far from wherever the poor Hanyou had tried to escape to.
Which is why they were both effected that day Inuyasha found the Shikon shard in the giant puddle near the river. They'd had several days of heavy rain, and upon the first signs of a halt in the precipitation, Inuyasha had bolted into the trees to evade the continued onslaught of Hanako's absurd accusations.
The deluge of dihydrogen monoxide had speckled the forest floor with shiny splashes of cold reflective puddles. They were everywhere. There was no walking around with out stepping into one. Unless of course you were Inuyasha attempting to escape the imagined wrath of an insane Rabbit demon, he never touched the ground. Tree branches were much better for his special brand of annoyance-induced speed.
He probably would've got away with it too, if it weren't for that god-awful smell emanating from that particular puddle. Inuyasha is generally familiar with all the smells linked to his forest. His having spent more time there than anyone else made him quite the expert and that smell did not belong here. And one who claimed to own the forest simply did not allow the unknown to invade his territory uninvestigated.
So he landed carefully so as not to touch the water. Inuyasha leaned over the surface to glance down into his reflection and was promptly knocked into it by a surprise attack from behind. Hanako, his attacker, also went careening into the puddle when the momentum of her attack was coupled with the slick footing around the edge of the water.
There followed a great splash, the like of which has never been seen since or before. It had a very unique spray pattern, one which any forensic scientist would have a field day trying to figure out and never quite manage. But I digress, there certainly weren't any forensic scientists back in the day. Besides, how often do two bodies make a splash while, and at the same time, one body gets smaller while the other stays the same? Answer: Definitely not often.
So which body got smaller? Which indeed.
"For the last time, you Devil Bunny, I'm not thinking anything Hentai about Aki!" a rather young sounding voice yelled out.
Hanako, otherwise known as "devil Bunny", whirled around in surprise, trying to take in all the surrounding area at once. Now just where did that voice come from? The only other person around that she could sense was Inuyasha, and he most certainly didn't sound like that. Speaking of Inuyasha, she was still sitting on him.
"Oi, you can get off now," grumbled that strange voice again. Hanako slowly backed off of Inuyasha and took a good look at the hanyou she'd been sitting on. There was the body that shrunk.
Or rather the hanyou that got younger. He was still a perverted male to Hanako, but he was just so cute!
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Inuyasha asked, a little nervous with the look the rabbit demon was giving him. "And when did you get taller?" He asked again before finally noticing that his voice sounded different. Then he noticed other things too. He noticed that the ground seemed much too close when he was standing up. He noticed that his hands seemed much smaller than they did a minute ago. The trees seemed so much more intimidating from where he was standing than they had when he was running through them. Just what was going on?
Hanako began to giggle hysterically in disbelief. "You've shrunk!" her eyes growing shiny as the possibilities the situation presented her with began to sink in. "You're like a little kid. And totally smaller than me. Now lets see you try and think perverted things about my Aki now." The rabbit demon's giggle began to transform into a very self-satisfied evil cackle.
"Why does everything go back to Aki with you?" Inuyasha grumbled under his breath and sighed. He was growing tired of this whole situation and he still couldn't figure out what precisely had just happened. Seriously, who in their right mind would be thinking perverted thoughts about anyone just after somehow being shrunk to half their normal size?
Oh well, there was only one thing for it. Inuyasha growled with displeasure as he realized he would have to go back to the old hag's hut to get this situation all sorted out. The hag might be able to shed some light on just what the hell was going on. But damn if he didn't really want to go back. He'd just managed to escape that prison. Though if he really thought about it, he hadn't quite managed to escape. Hanako was still right here chewing his ears off about some supposed slight on Aki's honor from his behavior.
Reluctantly, the now super Kawaii dog boy trudged back to the village unfailingly hounded by Hanako the whole way.
When Inuyasha and Hanako finally made it back to Kaede's hut, a trip made longer by the bunny youkai's maniacal laughter, the hanyou's temper was beginning to run frightfully high for such a small body.
"Back so soon Hanako?" Kagome greeted them cheerfully. "I didn't think you'd come back without Inuyasha in some sort of physical restraints and dragged along after you."
Chibi-Inuyasha fumed. As if that demented rabbit could successfully manage to do anything of the sort to him. He was too strong to ever be taken down. He'd just have to show Kagome that. The mini-dogboy prepared to attack the girl that so insulted his strength.
"Ah, Hanako, who's your friend?" the poor clueless girl inquired. As yet Kagome had been unable to get a good look at the child standing somewhat behind the demon.
Inuyasha fumbled the approach on his attack with surprise. "What d'you mean who am I? Don't you know who I am?" he growled in disbelief. "How could you not know who I am?"
Hanako giggled, "Well you don't exactly look like yourself now do you?" The youkai rabbit leaned over him to make it extremely obvious that at the very least he wasn't as tall as he normally was. "And Kagome can't exactly see through me. What's the matter? Afraid of Kagome's reaction to your new – and I must say – cuter self?" Hanako teased him as he still refused to come out from behind her. "C'mon Kagome won't mind babysitting you until you grow up," the rabbit laughed. "After all, she didn't mind before!"
"You take that back!" Inuyasha shouted from his full height, "you over grown garden sprout nibbler!" The insult probably would've been more effective coming from a deeper more grown up voice, as it was Hanako only laughed and stepped completely away from the chibi dogboy's side.
"Eh?" Kagome was flabbergasted. What was Hanako doing with a little boy? An adorable little boy with cute little dog-ears on the top of his silver – Wait a minute, dog-ears? The kid was also wearing a rather large fire rat costume and a particularly wary expression. He had just been arguing with the taller rabbit youkai much like a certain someone else she knew. It couldn't be, could it?
Kagome immediately checked for the spelled necklace Inuyasha always wore and couldn't miss it. The beads now hung down almost to the boy's waist. No way! "Inuyasha?" Kagome asked still in her own form of denial.
The boy ducked his head nervously, childish golden eyes looking away with a fear he would never admit. "Quit starin' wench!" the chibi hanyou barked sharply.
Kagome suppressed her anger at the pintsized Inuyasha; after all it wouldn't do to abuse defenseless children. "What happened?" she asked hoping there might be some clue as to how to reverse it. Visions of caring for a child-like Inuyasha danced like nightmares in her head.
"We fell into this puddle, see," Hanako began gesturing to her wet apparel and hair. "It seems to have made us – "
"That's not how it happened," the chibi hanyou huffed. "If you're not going to tell it right then shut up!" the boy growled unpleasantly. "I was running through the forest, you know? Like I normally do," no way was he running to get away from Hanako. That would indicate he was afraid of her, and he wasn't afraid of anybody or anything! "When I noticed this smell that shouldn't be there. Not wanting some strange demon to move in on my territory, I went to investigate. It seemed the smell was coming from this puddle. I landed beside it and before I could check it out any further, this long-eared bundle of insanity fell into it, knocking me in at the same time."
Hanako cuffed the vertically challenged male on the back of the head. "That's for the insult you over grown Chihuahua!"
Kagome's eyebrow twitched as the two fell into a juvenile name-calling contest. It wasn't until they degenerated into violence that she actually became angry enough to snap. "Shut up!" Kagome counted slowly to ten so that her teeth only ground a little when she finally spoke again. "Can we please get back to the subject of what happened?"
Hanako looked at her blandly, "that's it. Once the water stopped flying we were as you see us."
"Yeah." Inuyasha added sulkily. "I shrank!"
"Then why is Hanako unchanged if you both fell in at the same time?" The miko in training thought aloud.
"Perhaps a more logical explanation would be that we became younger," Hanako suggested helpfully.
"But that would mean that you're older than Inuyasha," Kagome countered.
"Is that so hard to believe?" the rabbit demanded slightly insulted.
Since Kagome couldn't answer the question truthfully without insulting the youkai and the rabbit would be able to sense it if she lied, she changed the subject. "Do you remember where the puddle is? We don't want anyone else to fall in." Kagome pointed out.
"I agree," Kaede said coming up behind Kagome from inside the hut. She had over heard the whole story because Inuyasha is incapable of ever speaking at a normal volume. "It would be bad if some child stumbled across this fountain of youth and splashed themselves right out of existence."
"I doubt that would happen, it's pretty far away from the village," Inuyasha informed them, trying to make it so it didn't sound like he cared about little kids.
"Even so, it is a danger. And children are the most likely to go play in puddles," Kagome pointed out. "So we really should go check it out and see if we can't remove the very possibility. So I ask again, do you know where it is?"
"Feh! Of course I know where it is!" the hanyou began arrogantly, though the declaration was false. Not that it mattered, the puddle reeked, and he'd be able to find it in no time either way. Inuyasha moved to pick up Kagome and the girl refused to budge. "C'mon! Let's get this over with!" He moved to pick her up again and Kagome just gave him a weird look. "What?" He demanded irritably. What was with her? He wanted to get this over with. The sooner they figured out what was going on the sooner he could get back to normal.
"Inuyasha I'm twice your size, you can't carry me," Kagome explained.
"I am not weak!" the hanyou bellowed. "Stop being stupid and come on!"
"I never said you weren't strong enough!" Kagome yelled back. "I said you weren't big enough!" Hanako snickered and Kagome realized what she just yelled. Where was a hungry piece of earth when you needed it?
Inuyasha crossed his arms and capitulated to her logic. Kagome was right after all, she was twice his height, but he didn't understand why she'd suddenly turned all red. She wasn't getting sick, was she?
"Can we come back to the problem at hand?" the old miko called resettling her bow and quiver on her shoulders. "The emergency is not so great that we cannot all walk there."
"You're right, Kaede," Kagome agreed respectfully. "Lead on Inuyasha."
The child-like hanyou lead them to the edge of the forest where he promptly stuck his nose in the air and began to follow the scent.
"Hmph!" the rabbit youkai began. "I thought so. That idiot doesn't remember where it is!"
"Eh?" Kagome gasped.
"He's sniffing for the trail!" Hanako declared disgustedly. "Just like a male to falsely claim knowledge of things!"
"It matters not. His nose knows the way even if his brain does not," Kaede continued following the dogboy.
Kagome shrugged and trudged on. They would get where they were going eventually. Though she kind of had to agree with Hanako, it was stupid to claim knowledge you didn't have. What if someone's life had been on the line? Best not to think of it.
"How can you trust his nose when you can't trust the rest of him?" Hanako refused to let the matter drop.
"Does it matter if we can trust Inuyasha right now? None of what he's likely to do is going to hurt us and Aki's not around for you to impress," Kagome began in a placating way. "Can't you just let it go?"
"Speaking of my beloved," Hanako pounced on the topic, "Where is my Lady Love?"
Kagome discreetly rolled her eyes; at least she wasn't badgering Inuyasha.
"The young lady parted from our company not long after you chased after Inuyasha," the old miko answered. "She seemed desirous of some time to herself. Though I am not sure she will have been able to achieve it as the ghost followed her."
"You let her go out without someone to protect her!" the long-eared youkai cried in horror. "She could be in dange-"
Kaede knocked the rabbit on the back of her head with the bow she'd taken to using as a walking stick. "Leave her be," the old miko ordered without inflection.
"It may surprise you, Hanako," Kagome chuckled gently, "but Aki is a grown woman and fully capable of taking care of herself."
"What about all those injuri-" Hanako began again.
"None were life threatening and most were incurred when she saved a child from the river monster just before we met you," Kaede cut her off.
"But she's only human," Hanako tried to protest one last time.
"Strength and speed are not everything" Kaede returned. "Aki strikes me as a very intelligent young woman, if a bit quiet."
"What's that got to do with anything?" Hanako demanded.
"She means that Aki can probably think her way out of more trouble than she's likely to get into and you should stop worrying and give her the privacy she desires. Besides, we should focus on the problem before us," Kagome explained.
"Oi! Are you guys coming or are you gonna talk all day?" a distant Hanyou called.
"Sometimes I wish I could do more than make that guy do body slams into the ground," Kagome ground out as she picked up her pace.
"What is a baa-di suramu?" Hanako asked the elderly miko. Kaede simply hit her bow on the youkai's head and moved to keep pace with Kagome.
Inuyasha was getting rather irritated. He was almost to the location of the treacherous puddle and feeling pretty good since once they got there he would be returned to normal. Once he returned to normal he planned to level a large amount of the forest using Hanako for an axe. Then he intended to use the lumber for his very own ghost village that he would build using Kagome for a hammer. He was working on a use for the old hag when he realized the others weren't right behind him. Not even close.
Those slow, good for nothing wenches! Didn't they know he was impatient to get back to his former self?
So Inuyasha allowed his slightly irrational anger get the best of him and yelled at them to hurry up. It was after he'd finished speaking that he realized he'd just antagonized three women that were all a great deal bigger than him. One of whom had a very tight reign over his spelled necklace.
The dogboy gulped and ducked his head, before returning to the task at hand. Find that puddle!
Damn! He could hear the time traveler muttering under her breath. He knew what was coming. Kagome was angry and while trying to keep her anger to herself, she would inadvertently say the dreaded word sending him painfully to the forest floor.
He tried not to listen. He tried to focus only on the strange scent. He willed the fauna to make more noise. But fate is not kind where Inuyasha was concerned and he clearly heard it when she said Osuwari. Both times it was said.
Luckily, Inuyasha had been hunched close to the ground so the fall and the impact weren't that bad. Unfortunately, he fell face first in some rather soupy mud.
By the time he managed to crawl out of his impromptu mud bath the rest had caught up. Poor Inuyasha was having a terrible time digging the mud out of his soft ears. He wasn't having much better luck clearing the mud from his eyes, as quickly as he managed to wipe them out, more of the soggy mess oozed right back into the cleared area.
"What'd you stop for, Inuyasha?" Hanako asked ignoring the obvious. "Can't find the scent of it now that your nose is full of dirt?" she teased.
Inuyasha growled as threateningly as he could while being two feet tall and covered in mud. "There's your damn puddle!" The chibi hanyou yelled, pointing about ten steps away.
Kagome and Kaede both approached the puddle warily. The closer they got the more noticeable the smell became.
"Hey look at that!" Kagome gasped pointing at the trunk of the tree in whose roots the puddle nestled. Midway up the trunk of the tree, about eye level, was a patch of freshly damaged bark.
"What do you see, Kagome?" the old miko asked gently as the girl carefully stepped around the water.
Kagome reached up to tug on some of the loose bark, careful not to touch the sap that leaked from the wound under it. The bark came loose with a firm tug and revealed "Shikon no kakera," Kagome breathed. The Shikon shard was embedded in the naked flesh of the tree. The wound wept sap at an incredibly fast rate. The girl studied it for a moment, trying to gauge how deeply lodged the piece of glass was. "I think I can pull it free," the ninth grader thought aloud.
"Be careful, girl," Kaede warned. "I recognize this tree. It is rumored to bare fruit that can preserve the youth of whomever eats of its fruit. No wonder the sap caused Inuyasha to become younger. Do not touch it at any cost. If the diluted sap could affect the half demon so much, then it does not bode well for you if you should come in contact with the undiluted tree's blood."
Kagome nodded, absently noting the warning. But she had to get the shard, no matter what the danger was. She reached up, precariously balanced on her toes and reached for the shard.
It was at this inopportune moment that a voice popped up to surprise them all. "What the hell happened to you?" Fred asked in confusion. The suddenness of his appearance caused Hanako to jump back in startlement, accidentally knocking the elderly miko into the tepid water she had been examining. The resulting splash went in all directions, but the main of it went towards Kagome who had no hope of escape.
Though Inuyasha was small, he was still fast and strong. It was this very fact that quite possibly saved Kagome's life as she found herself yanked up into the branches of the very tree she had been standing next to.
"Ah, sorry," the ghost said shamefaced. He kept forgetting to warn them of his approach. "Even so, my question still stands, what happened?"
"The same thing happened to Inuyasha as happened to Kaede just now, you twit," grumped Hanako fairly upset.
"I'm fine," a considerably younger Kaede coughed as she picked herself up. "I guess being so old finally paid off."
"Heh! Now you look like the little runt I remember," Inuyasha called down from the tree he and Kagome perched in.
"Yeah, well I bet I'm still taller than you!" little girl Kaede called back.
"I doubt it!"
"Hanako," Kagome called to the demon bunny, "could you help me down?"
"Oi! Why are you asking her? I'm right here," Inuyasha growled petulantly.
Kagome gave him a flat look before continuing to ask Hanako for aid.
The chibi hanyou growled before grabbing Kagome and leaping out of the tree to the ground. As they landed he heard a sound he was certain wasn't good.
"Inu-ya-sha!" the ninth grader ground out through tears of pain. The dogboy cringed, his ears flattened to his hair. "That was why I wanted Hanako to help!"
"Let me see," Kaede was by the girl's side in an instant, her bow dropped beside her in the flotsam of the forest floor.
"Feh! Humans are such weak things!" Inuyasha said, gruffly burying the guilt he felt.
"Well, so-rry for being human and trying to help you! Next time I won't be so careful of your huge ego!" Kagome yelled.
"I don't need help! Especially from some stupid weak girl!" he yelled back.
"You may have forgotten Inuyasha but you're not exactly like your normal self. I'd say you should accept the help being offered and be grateful!" The girl hurled back. "You –you pip squeak!"
"Maybe it's difficult for you to believe, but I have been this height before and I survived just fine without you and your so-called help!" the hanyou exploded.
"Oh yeah? Then why don't you go do it again!" Kagome screamed.
"Fine, I will!" and with that, the hanyou turned and ran into the forest without looking back and ignoring the smell of salt in his nose.
In all honesty, while Inuyasha wasn't looking back, he wasn't exactly paying attention to where he was going either. In fact, he might well have continued on running not caring where he went if the land hadn't run out underneath him. He noted absently that he was falling right where Kagome had sat him a few days prior for spying on her bathing. The fall was a bit longer than he remembered. Instead of stopping instantly when he hit the ground, the youth proceeded to tumble head over heals until he finally came to a stop with a big splash in the cold water.
Inuyasha righted himself in the shallow water and started cursing out his frustration, the day, the universe and everything. The youth was intermittently slamming his fist against the water to punctuate his speech. He quite possibly could've gone on happily cussing up a storm standing waist deep in the slowly darkening water as the mud from earlier streamed off him if it weren't for that voice.
"You know, you're mucking up the water with all that bad language," an amused voice observed from the water to his left. Inuyasha's ears sprung up as he turned to look at whoever had spoken and immediately wished he hadn't as the muddied triangles flattened to his skull. There, standing not more than four feet away was a very naked Aki with water reaching up to mid thigh. Inuyasha's face turned the color of his un-muddied fire rat fur. "You sound like you've had a really bad day. You want to tell me about it while I help you get rid of that mud?" She smiled gently at him.
"You're not going to scream?" Inuyasha asked sulkily.
"No, why would I scream?" Aki asked in return.
"'Cause I'm a boy and you're a girl not wearing clothes and Kagome always screams," Inuyasha explained.
"Wait, you're Inuyasha?"
"Who'd you think I was? Hanako?"
"Well you gotta admit you don't look like yourself," Aki pointed out.
"Don't you start in about my height too," Inuyasha grumbled.
"I wasn't talking about your height, though that is different. I meant that you're covered in mud and currently look brown," Aki explained.
"So you were just going to help some random demon?"
"Wrong, Inuyasha. I was going to help some random little boy. Children are just kids, no matter who or what or where," she clarified.
"Do I look like a little kid to you!" Inuyasha yelled indignantly then stopped to think at the look she gave him. Oops! "Don't answer that." Aki just smiled her victory and crouched down in the water. "You're really not going to scream?"
"Again, Inuyasha, why would I? You're not exactly a threat to my virtue as you are currently, I'm not embarrassed by my physical appearance, and I don't care what other people might speculate about me behind my back. There's only one person currently in the world whose opinion I care about in the least and he's dead and wholly in capable of thinking ill of me for something so asinine," Aki countered.
"Kagome always screams," The hanyou commented.
"Kagome," Aki began, "is still getting used to her changing body and she's confused about the relationships she's developing here. She worries what her family and friends will think of her."
"And you don't have family and friends to worry about?" Inuyasha pursued the topic relentlessly. He barely even noticed that she was gently rubbing the mud from his hair.
"Not anymore," Aki whispered gently massaging mud from his ear, "and I very much doubt that I ever will again."
"Why?" the curious Hanyou asked.
"I don't intend to pursue any such relationships," Aki answered as she stole his haori to rinse out the filth. "Remember the other day when Fred was trying to convince me that there's no such thing as curses? I've pretty much figured out that I must be cursed. There's no other explanation for the death of my family followed by the slow death of all my friends."
"Epidemic? Plague? Famine?" Inuyasha listed some of the more common culprits.
"Would all make sense if all the members of my rather large family lived in the same area, came into close contact with each other often, and hadn't all died within an hour of each other," Aki replied. "And if it hadn't taken all my friends, who again didn't all live in the same area or come into close contact with one another."
Inuyasha blinked, "Just how many people are we talking about?"
"About three times the number in Kaede's village, well over half being family, spread around the world, ranging in age from babies to grandparents," Aki answered mechanically with a smile. It was then that Inuyasha understood that all of her smiles were fake and empty of emotion.
She used her smile like armor, a shining shield to draw attention from the hurt and pain. Aki was a lot like him in her attempts to hide what she felt. Inuyasha watched her ring out the fire rat cloth and set it out to dry. Yes, she hid her feelings but he realized, she was better at it than he was. Nobody questioned or pressed a smile for a truth contrary to what the smile indicated. If someone smiled at you, you believed it, and if you noticed it was forced you made your own assumptions as to why.
He reached out to touch her face and fell short. "Don't do that," Inuyasha rumbled. "You don't have to smile if you don't mean it, not around me."
Aki blinked and her smile became strained but stayed in place. "Sorry," she apologized, "habit."
"Just so's you know, you don't have to pretend around me," Inuyasha informed her gruffly. "It must be exhausting to be like that all the time."
Aki blinked again. "Oh no, Inuyasha," she teased, "I sure hope you don't have a crush on me!" The chibi hanyou blushed scarlet and was suddenly glad his body wasn't older; otherwise blood might be rushing to places other than his face. "You're too nice a guy to suffer through the heart break of me refusing to like you."
Inuyasha stiffened slightly, "What, Is the lousy hanyou not good enough for you?"
"The fact that you're a hanyou has nothing to do with it!" Aki exclaimed. "The fact that you're alive and I'm cursed is the deciding reason!"
Inuyasha blinked in relief and then chagrin. He should've known that. She'd already said she wasn't going to pursue a new family or friends because of her curse. He really should learn to think about things before he spoke.
"Besides," Aki continued confidingly, "I think Kagome's more your type!" Inuyasha flushed again, this time at the thought of the crazy time traveling miko in training. Rather than actually answering the English tutor, he attacked her with a splash of water. She laughed and splashed back half-heartedly. Aki sighed and glanced at the sky. "Hey, Inuyasha, you should probably put your clothes back on."
"Why?" the semi-nude chibi dog boy asked, confused at the sudden change of subject.
"Because I expect we'll be getting some company soon if we don't head back," Aki answered. "Fred threatened to come back soon and it's highly unlikely that the thought of you meeting up with me would not have crossed Hanako's mind by now."
Inuyasha nodded in agreement and moved to slide into his now clean clothes. "You don't actually like that crazy Hanako do you?" he asked Aki from the depths of red fabric he tried to wrap around himself.
"Inuyasha, I don't like anybody, but if I ever did, I can assure you I was never into girls the way Hanako is," Aki replied slipping on her pants.
"Actually, it might be a good thing Hanako's not into guys," Inuyasha muttered, "lessens the likelihood that she'll breed." The poor hanyou was struggling with the ties on his clothing, not quite used to his attire having so much excess material. He cursed under his breath, when suddenly something happened to eliminate the problem. Inuyasha grew a couple feet in height. Yay! He was back to normal and could now quite easily finish dressing. Inuyasha's favorite expression slid home on his face. His custom smirk/scowl had been conspicuously lacking since the puddle incident this morning. Perhaps he just needed to be this tall to pull it off.
The dogboy turned to show off his newly reacquired height to the sole person around him and paused. Aki wasn't quite finished dressing. Currently she was slowly fastening the buttons on her shirt. The action in itself wasn't that interesting though Inuyasha wasn't particularly familiar with buttons, rather it was the view of what was being hidden underneath the shirt that caused him pause.
Aki was thin. She was so thin Inuyasha was surprised she cast a shadow, and he was certain it couldn't be healthy. At the moment, he was trying to remember when the last time he'd seen her eat. The boy's eyes widened as he realized there wasn't a single memory of her having eaten and she had fallen through the well days ago.
"Oi! When was the last time you ate?"
Aki blinked before glancing at the hanyou, "I ate the last time I was hungry."
"And when was that?"
Aki just shrugged and finished dressing. Did it really matter?
Inuyasha's eyes hardened. She needed someone to take care of her, look after her, and he liked her well enough to be the one to do it.
She wasn't going to try for a new family – fine then. He was going to see to it a family formed itself for her. It would be nice to have family that wasn't trying to kill him on purpose or already dead.
Inuyasha smiled toothily at Aki's back as he followed her to the village. A light misting rain began to fall oblivious to the plotting going on underneath it.
Typed: June 13,2005