Broken Mold

159

Inuyasha rifled through the contents of Kagome's shrinking backpack. Ramen, he thought. He couldn't get it out of his head. There had to be one more packet.

"You ate the last of it yesterday," Kagome had told him. "We'll go back and restock later."

But he didn't want to walk back to the village. He wanted his Ramen, now. His hands shook as she threw aside hairbrushes, shampoos, deodorants, but no Ramen. The wench had been telling the truth.

Their last stop before heading back for the Bone Eater well had been to a small, isolated temple off the beaten path. They had found it only after Inuyasha had heard the screams of help from the priest who tended it. His corpse had been found near the ornamented front gate. They had disposed of the body properly.

The shrine itself was mysterious enough to permit exploration. It stood in the middle of the forest, packed in tightly between thickly congested trees. The impact of the seeing the shrine, then, gave the impression that the very forest had grown up around it, undisturbed. Even, Inuyasha had thought, like it was supposed to be here.

It looked naturally beautiful, like it hadn't been intended to strike a feeling of majesty in its viewers, yet always managed to do so on accident. It was beautiful. Kagome's double chin had shook while she had said something to that effect. Inuyasha couldn't remember her exact words.

He stood now in front of where Kagome lay sleeping. The temple had been found to house several large beds in separate rooms, surprisingly lavish in comparison to any other temple he had come across, even those within city grounds. A half-eaten pack of chewy candy lay beside Kagome's bed, its contents now scattered about the floor. Inuyasha sucked in his dignity and picked it up.

Part of him wanted to suspect Kagome of hording the rest of the noodles to herself, as if they were hidden somewhere in the room. It was hard, but he had to be reasonable. He had to try and focus on not ransacking the place. He placed one of the candies in his mouth and chewed. At that moment, he understood why Kagome couldn't stop eating.

Shippo had looked at Inuyasha accusingly from where he had been sleeping on Kagome's cushiony stomach. The hanyou had growled. Shippo's eared drooped in defeat and he placed his head back onto his makeshift pillow, while Inuyasha popped another sweet into his mouth as he walked out of her room. He carried several other food items in hand.

There is something to be noted about the fur of the legendary Fire Rat. For one, the armor that it weaves is incredibly powerful, which suggests the delicacy of the fabric. When compared to chain mail, it's the iron rings of the armor that fail before the rodent's pelt. Secondly, it is lighter than wool. It will never hinder a warrior's movement. To wear a garb composed entirely of its fur means two things: the wearer is incredibly safe, and the wearer is incredibly itchy.

To counteract the rough spines of the fur, Inuyasha usually wore under it a white silk replica of the leggings and haori. However lately, someone had outgrown all of her clothes and forced Inuyasha to let her borrow the silken undergarments. He knew he was going to develop a rash.

His hand reached into a small cardboard box again and extracted another piece of candy. He had started to look out a nearby window at the sky, only to find the massive trunk of a tree blocking the view. He already knew it was late, anyway. Not that it mattered – he wasn't so weak as to need regular sleep.

Inuyasha yawned loudly and scratched at his irritated side. Maybe he should just make the cow walk around naked. That'd make her want to lose a few.

He walked on down the hallway, counting the minutes until it was Miroku's turn to keep watch.

Kagome Higurashi was not a morning person. Waking up in the middle of nowhere, in someone else's bed, in someone else's clothes, to the sounds of a dead forest a good morning did not make. Not to mention she hadn't bathed in weeks. She just wanted to sleep. She didn't want to think of the pain of running a comb through her tangled mess of hair.

Not to mention Inuyasha wanted Ramen. She knew what he was like when he didn't get what he wanted.

Kagome's mouth stretched in a yawn and she heaved herself out of bed. Maybe the shrine had a bath somewhere in it; they had stopped the hunt for the priest's killer too late to do anything but sleep.

Melted chocolate had crusted itself to Kagome's fingertips. She wiped it off absentmindedly on the haori. Inuyasha was going to love that.

As if on cue, Inuyasha strode in, not even glancing at the miko, and crouched down in front of her backpack. "There's a bath up the hall," he said absently, digging through the contents. "Sango just got out."

"You're not going to find any Ramen."

Inuyasha pulled from it several chocolate bars and walked out of the room. He hadn't glanced up at the miko.

Sango sat atop the pink satin of one of the temple's many beds. Her hair was still dripping wet. Miroku was near her, happily relaxing on the floor, his face hidden behind one of Kagome's comics. They rested easily in the company of one another, neither paying enough attention to the anomaly nor their guest to make it otherwise.

At least, Sango didn't. Miroku hadn't made any questionable advances on her in weeks, providing the lucky bastard with a temporarily trusting relationship. First one of his life, she had mused, casually looking him over. His face held the same stoic seriousness it had always held lately, even while reading a manga. His eyes were dutifully screening the pages.

His hand twitched. Sango saw it. When it twitched again, he almost lost his grip on the papers. When he noticed her watching him, he smiled disarmingly. "It's a good book, Miss Sango."

"I'll bet." She didn't believe the excuse for a second.

They sat again in silence. While the monk didn't notice a change, Sango had become uncomfortable. She didn't know why, but his presence suddenly made her feel insecure. When he raised his head to look at her, he wasn't looking at her body. He was looking at her face. For the moments when his gaze did fall downward, he didn't look in sexual admiration as he used to. But, he didn't look in dissatisfaction, either. He just looked at her with a docile kind of respect. She didn't know why, but an unexpected image of Miroku came to mind: he was the farmer at market, ogling the county's prize pig.

His hand twitched again, and when he looked at her again it finally clicked. He looked at her like he had looked at Kagome; in a pitiful sense of reverence for something he had once found attractive. He wasn't respecting her as a woman; he just didn't have the urge to disrespect her.

She never thought that respect could make her feel this ugly.

Miroku turned the page, looking at the man in the next column. Vaguely, he wondered if this man was the main character. He wondered why, because he had stopped reading after the second page. His mind had deviated to more important issues. Maybe Naraku put some sick kind of spell on us, he thought, his eyes drifting upward to Sango's form. A small roll of a soft tummy bulged over the green cloth of her kimono, and against the white fabric of the blouse.

Maybe she's doing it out of spite. Her clothes looked strained against her hips and, Miroku felt a pang of sorrow, burgeoning ass. At least she's getting huge, he thought suddenly, looking at her rapidly blossoming chest. And it was true: Sango had developed a bloated hourglass figure. It was also getting more and more bloated as the days went on.

He stared in defeat at the manga; jealous of the attention the poorly drawn man was getting from several women in the comic. Miroku hadn't seen another girl in weeks, and his traveling companions were quickly getting stale in regards to his tastes.

The demonslayer adjusted her place on the bed. An unfamiliar feeling of snugness had crept into her dress and she struggled to get rid of it. It had been hard enough squeezing back into her clothes after the bath.

Sango kept looking back at Miroku, hoping to find the habitual wanton lust present in his eyes. She found none of it.

So what if he didn't want to grope her? That's a good thing! Indignantly, she returned to staring at the ceiling. Then, the snugness returned, and for the first time the realization dawned on her. Had she gained weight?

For reasons beyond her control, something had built up inside Sango. Her emotions, usually sensible and relaxed, had evolved while she lay atop her bed. The need, she realized, was neither sensible nor relaxed. It was craving. She could feel the taut strain of the skirt around her legs. And, even while laying down, the secure tightness of the fabric around her chest. She felt, she decided, incredibly bloated.

And she needed Miroku to tell her otherwise. His gaze, through no fault of his own, had slipped from indifferent to repugnance. She wanted it to return to adoration. She wanted, with no better way to describe it, his hands. She wanted their loathsome grip to take her, and tell her what Miroku refused to: that she was still attractive.

She realized it was a little depraved that she had been conditioned to require such an affirmation, but she had dealt with that demon. She just wanted him to tell her that she wasn't fat.

She slid to the side of the bed and her legs dangled over it. Her body might have sunk deeper into the plush pink of the silk than usual, but it wasn't something she paid attention to. Miroku had looked up at her again, and she raised her arms in a stretch. She moaned in feigned pleasure, asserting her enlarged bosom forward while she did so. Her woolen garments had been struggling to contain her engorged assets as of late, creating an increasingly obscene V-neck. Miroku's attention had piqued. His hand twitched more suggestively.

Miroku had forgotten about the book in his hands, until Sango strode over to pick it up. Her steps were sultry and she walked with what could almost be deduced as a forced sway to her hips. He didn't really think on the matter. His eyes had drifted from the thick curve of her stomach to above it, below it, and anywhere else Sango suddenly decided she wanted his view to say "You're still perfect" to. And it did; he did.

"This any good," she asked, flipping absently through the pages. Miroku nodded dumbly, staring at the side of a clothed thigh inches from his face. "You were really caught up in it." His dumb nod continued.

Looking into the book, she had turned away from him, giving him full view of two succulent globes. They were much larger than he remembered. Drool gradually began to cascade from the side of his mouth onto his robe.

"Oops!" she squeaked, dropping the comic on the ground. She was sure she didn't need to. But regardless, she found herself bending down to get it.

It was at this point that things started to go astray.

Wool has never been the most pliable of fabrics. Back in Sango's time, the quality was incredibly unreliable, yet these inferior products were expected to last far longer in such an economy. So it wasn't terribly surprising when, as she bent down in the skintight skirt, a loud RIP down the side accompanied the action, providing Miroku full view of a creamy thigh.

His hands, both suddenly overflowing with all the wonderful sensations of an overfilled water balloon, were too preoccupied in their mission to defend him from the monumental asswhooping that ensued.

Inuyasha scoffed, looking away from Kagome. "I don't see anything wrong with using the shrine," he stated. They sat in what had been deemed Kagome's room; Inuyasha was sitting in the corner by choice.

"It just doesn't seem right," Kagome sighed, "The priest gets killed by something we still haven't been able to find, and here we are sleeping in his beds and eating his food."

"It's not like he'll be using it."

"You know what I mean, Inuyasha."

"That doesn't mean I give a damn," he growled, standing up to leave. "Besides, why would a priest have so many beds if he didn't want company?"

"I'd still like to get back home." She thought for a minute, then added: "Don't you want Ramen?"

The hanyou looked confused for a moment, then said, dumbstruck, "Not really." He headed for the door, saying, "Get your stuff packed. We'll leave before nightfall."

Later that night, Kagura wandered around the instant-shrine stupidly. "Where… where are they?"