Hey folks! Here's my normal Friday post! Thank you for your continuing support of my story!
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"Kagome!" A familiar voice yelled as a blur shot out from nowhere and sliced through the demon's head, dealing the final blow.
The demon fell into the quarry, and Kagome looked out from behind her daughter, who opened an eye to see who was, now, standing in front of her.
"Koga! What are you doing here?" Kagome asked in a relieved tone.
"I could smell a demon and then I caught your scent as well and knew that the mutt-face had put you in danger again.." Koga said as he rushed to Kagome and held her hand like he always had.
"Get the hell off of her!" InuYasha said as he separated Koga from his love.
"Something's off about Kagome's scent, mutt! Are you so thick that you put her in danger even when she was sick?!" Koga demanded to know.
"That's none of your business!" InuYasha scoffed at the wolf demon.
Koga turned to Kaede and said, "I also picked up the scent of again... I didn't know if that meant that Kagome was in more danger or what to think at all!"
InuYasha and Kagome had shocked looks on their face as they also looked to Kaede who was obviously about to put on an act.
"Uh -uh... W-Who are you?...exactly?... Have we met?!" Kaede stammered trying to think her way out of this.
"How the hell do you know her?!" InuYasha demanded.
"What? She didn't tell you? We've met once before, probably about a week ago, if that long. Except she looked a little different back then. What's changed? I don't think her eyes were that color before," Koga explained.
"No, she didn't mention that at all," Kagome replied looking to Kaede who was beginning to sweat a little.
Sango leaned over to Miroku and said, "She must have run into him while she was gone for those three days!"
Miroku nodded in reply and kept his eyes on what was going on in front of him.
"Is what he says true, Kaede?" InuYasha asked her in a low growl.
"Well...uh... I might have-uh... seen him in the village once!" Kaede said, trying to cover her tracks.
"Village? Are you out of your mind? I saw her up in the mountains, far from any village," Koga replied.
"You mean she was alone?" Kagome asked.
"Yeah, why?" Koga was confused.
Kagome and InuYasha turned to the girl, both with fire in their eyes.
"You were alone in the mountains... while we were gone... weren't you?!" InuYasha asked as he stepped forward and grabbed the girl by the front of her kimono.
"Well.. I mean... there's such a wide variety of what you could describe as a "mountain" I mean, any little hill could be described that way right?" Kaede tried to reason her way out of it.
InuYasha turned to Miroku, Sango, and Shippo and said, "And you were all in on it too! Weren't you?!"
Miroku and Sango put their hands up in defense with nervous smiles on their faces.
"Why would you ask something silly like that?!" Sango started.
"Yes, I mean, why would we conspire something so insidious? We know how you would hate it if we had left her alone!" Miroku finished.
"They didn't know what I was up to, I just left them and didn't say where I was going..." Kaede explained.
InuYasha and Kagome were about to scold the living daylights out of the girl when Shippo asked, "Hey, where did that young monk go?"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around.
"You mean him?" Koga asked, pointing to the bottom of the quarry where on the banks, was the young monk, looking over his Master.
"Master..." he said as he looked over his wounds.
"Just remember... everything... that I've... taught you... and live..." The old man struggled to get out just as he died.
"Master, no!" the young man yelled as he watched the life drain from his master's eyes.
The group watched above as the old man died before them.
It was later in the evening and the sun was about to set. The skies seemed to be ten different shades of orange and red as the sun laid on the horizon. After helping the young monk bury his teacher and master monk, they had waved him goodbye as he insisted on continuing his trek as his master would have wished him to. They then built themselves a spot to settle in for the evening, and had explained everything to Koga to make him and his two friends understand the situation better. As soon as they had finished this, Koga decided that it was time for him, Ginta and Hakaku to continue their own quest.
"So where are you going now Koga?" Kagome asked.
"Where else? To find Naraku! But don't worry!" Koga said as he grabbed Kagome's hands again.
"You may, now, be carrying InuYasha's child, but I will still love you forever! I'll see you soon my love!" Koga explained as he ran off, Ginta and Hakaku following behind him.
"We've got another shard of a jewel and we've made the day's earnings, we should fix ourselves something good to eat!" Miroku pronounced cheerfully.
"Yeah! I'm starved!" Shippo said with a growling stomach.
"Well, I'm sorry to say that I've run out of food from my time already, but there's a river nearby so we should catch some fish and throw them over a fire," Kagome said looking through her bag of goodies.
"Come on Kirara! Let's go catch some fish!" Shippo said as he and the little cat demon skipped off towards the nearby river.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Kaede said as her mouth watered with the anticipation of fresh fish!
"Oh no you don't!" InuYasha said as he grabbed the back of her kimono.
"Hey, what's the deal?" Kaede said confused.
"You, me and Kagome have some things to discuss!" he said as he pulled her away from the campsite, Kagome following not far behind.
"What, do you suppose, they're going to want to talk to her about?" Sango asked.
"They're probably going to speak to her about running off. But we'll wait and see," Miroku replied.
InuYasha still had a hold on the back of Kaede's kimono as he and Kagome led her somewhere away from the group.
"Come on! Let go! I'm not going anywhere!" Kaede struggled against InuYasha just as she did when she was a child and he would grab her kimono and drag her along.
Finally, InuYasha let go of her and sat her down on the ground.
"When were you going to tell us about your encounter with Koga?!" the boy asked her.
"I... well.. I -" Kaede started.
"You weren't!" he finished for her.
Kaede looked away and said, "You don't know me..."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked, sitting down next to Kagome just a few feet away from the girl on the ground.
Kaede didn't answer or look at them.
"Kaede, whatever it is, you can tell us," Kagome tried to coax the girl into talking outward to them.
"You guys... you died... I didn't have you around, I didn't have Miroku, or Sango, or Shippo around to teach me otherwise. I learned to live on my own and I learned to take matters into my own hands..." Kaede explained.
"But I thought Sota raised you?" Kagome asked.
"Well he did... But what he couldn't do, is protect us from attacks, or hunt. I did it all on my own. And when I got older and stronger, I would be away for days on my own. I learned how to take care of myself, so I don't want you guys to worry about me if I ever do go off on my own..." Kaede said quietly.
"But you don't have to do anything on your own, and we are always going to worry!" Kagome said quickly.
Kaede sighed and said, "Look, you need to worry about yourselves right now, worry about the others, I'm not even supposed to be here remember? You're going to have to realize at some point that, for right now, I'm older than you. I've come from an era where I had to fight every day of my life, and at some point, when this is all over, I'll be leaving to go back to my era for good."
Hiding in the bushes not too far from where they were arguing, Miroku, Sango, and Shippo were listening.
"That was rather harsh to say wasn't it?" Sango asked quietly.
"Well see things from Kaede's point of view. She doesn't want to be protected since this is the past for her. She wants to keep it so that it's almost as if she was never here in the first place. She's also had to spend half of her life fighting to the tooth and nail to live every day. She's not used to going from fighting day to day to having us around to protect her." Miroku explained as he looked back to the other three.
"We're just asking that you let us help you, and that you stick with us. We want everything to work out for the future, and we don't want to send our own daughter back to her era dead!" Kagome tried to reason with Kaede.
Kaede looked away as if she were thinking of something that she really wanted to say, but couldn't.
"Quit hiding things from us! If you have something to say just come out and say it!" InuYasha's frustration was starting to overflow.
Kaede stood up and said, "There are some things that's best that you didn't know... For now anyway..."
"Well, I'm sure that the others are starting to wonder where we're at, so I guess we better get back..." Kagome said sadly.
Kaede stood in front of her mother and said, "Please try and understand... I'm trying to do what's best for the past... and the future..."
Kagome nodded and walked back towards the campfire while InuYasha stayed behind with Kaede for a moment.
"Maybe you're trying to do what's best for the past, but it's your future that Kagome and I are worried about, not ours..." InuYasha said as he walked away, leaving Kaede alone to stare at the sunset...
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For the Next Chapter!
"Who's there?!" Kaede backed up, worried that she didn't have her bow or her demon powers to fight with.
Just as Kaede was about to really worry, a small fox child jumped out from the bushes.
"Oh, Shippo, it's just you! You scared me!" Kaede said looking down at the young boy.
"What are you doing up so early, Kaede?" Shippo asked.
"I couldn't sleep, so I decided that I'd wash my face and get ready for everyone else to get up," Kaede replied with tired eyes.
"Can I go with you?" Shippo asked happily.
"Sure, I could use the company."
Walking to the river, Kaede looked up and saw that the skies were turning a dark gray.
"We'd better hurry and wash up, it looks like it could pour any second," Kaede advised her young friend.
She knelt down to the river and dipped her hands in, splashing water on her face when she heard the cracking of thunder which boomed loud enough to shake the ground. Kaede turned and saw several bolts of lightning which got closer and closer. One of which got so close that it struck a nearby tree, which Shippo was under on the bank of the river washing up.
"Shippo!" Kaede yelled to warn the boy, but as he looked up a tree limb had already began to fall.
