When the last members of the wolf youkai tribe finally caught up to their fellows, they found a place not far from the main trail where everyone could gather together for an impromptu meeting. It was a little unnerving, what with all the wolves milling about, but it was a great deal more diplomatic than Miroku had expected from either Kouga or Inuyasha. At least, it was until they started talking.

"All right," Inuyasha began. "Let's get this over with. Tell us what the hell you want."

Kouga was straightforward. "I want you to tell me where Naraku's castle is."

"Tell you where his castle is?" Inuyasha barked a laugh. "You stupid bastard, if we knew that do you think we'd be wandering around this place?"

"So you don't know."

Miroku realized far too late where this was going. With everyone settled, he had rather hoped that things could end peacefully or at least without a physical confrontation.

He was wrong.

"Naraku keeps a barrier up around his castle, and has the power to move it around. It's not exactly easy to find," Inuyasha pointed out. He sounded perfectly reasonable at first, but the more he went on the more riled up he became. "So you just go on your way. We'll get your vengeance for you and your friends… and since you won't need them anymore, you can give us your damn jewel shards before you go slinking back to your lair!"

Saying this, he drew the Tessaiga and lunged for Kouga. It would have been a much more impressive move, Miroku thought, if he were not so weighed down by the Tessaiga. As it was, Kouga avoided the attack with no visible effort.

He landed a safe distance away, sneering. "Oh, how scary. What's the matter, dog turd? It's like your sword swing slowed to a crawl."

Inuyasha was so furious he was visibly shaking. Surely this would go well for him.

"The sword's still too heavy, isn't it?" Shippou asked from his perch beside Miroku.

"You didn't think it would become lighter quickly, did you?" Whether Inuyasha liked it or not, it was going to take hard work and effort on his part to learn to wield the new, heavier Tessaiga. And that was going to take time. The longer he took to accept that—or find a way around it—the more danger he would be putting the rest of them in.

Unfortunately, Inuyasha seemed beyond caring what his companions thought. Still firmly focused on Kouga, he insisted, "Don't even think about running away!"

"Sorry, dog breath. I don't have time to fight with you today," Kouga told him, sounding not at all apologetic as he turned to go. He looked back over one shoulder to add, "I'll leave Kagome with you until I'm done dealing with Naraku… but if you touch her, you'll be sorry!"

Miroku sighed and supposed it really was too much to hope that Kouga might not try to instigate another fight just as he meant to walk away from the first one. And the worst part was, Miroku and the others were the ones that had to deal with the resulting bad mood, while Kouga and his wolves got to run off after Naraku. It seemed nothing in life was ever fair. Still, Miroku knew there was nothing to do but make the most of it and look for victories where they could be found. After all, they had lost neither jewel shards nor Kagome to the wolves this time and Naraku had not shown up to try to murder everyone.

Things could have been a lot worse and Miroku, for one, chose to be glad that they were not.