Broken Mold

132

There was a loud slap that could be heard from outside the hut. Inuyasha smiled at what he thought to be a familiar sound.

"Miroku!" Sango squealed, eyes wide with shock. It sounded like she would make the effort to get up, but she didn't. Instead, Sango sat salivating on the floor before the table of foods and treats, quickly forgetting about the resounding slap her rear had received moments before. Miroku sat down beside her, all too cognizant of the fact the girl's massive behind as still rippling.

Kagome stared, shook her head, and just watched the two eat. "Is that it?" She finally blurted out. The two looked up at her, confused.

"Is what it?" Sango asked.

"You're just going to let him do that to you," Kagome gasped. Miroku didn't look up from his plate to protest.

Instead, Sango said lightly, dismissively, "Oh, yeah, I'll get him back later," and stuffed another rice cake into her mouth.

Not too long ago, Kagome would never have imagined being the thinnest among the group. Now, seeing the table groan under the weight of food, both past and future, she couldn't imagine it any other way.

Miroku sat, as always, straight up; the epitome of etiquette. His massive Buddha belly added to the regal air he had always tried to put on. Even under his robes, his soft chest could be seen, with already a few drops of soy sauce atop it. None of them really cared.

Kagome took pride in the fact that finally her shapeless ass had started to firm up enough that she could bring herself to squeeze back into her school uniform. Granted she wasn't back to "normal" yet, the schoolgirl still felt unnaturally confident behind her new curves.

Sango wiped her mouth with a napkin just long enough to turn her head to Kagome and ask, "You sure you don't want any?"

Kagome shook her head. She had seen her friend's double chin flex under the pressure of turning her neck. She saw her friend's arms, once strong and toned from wielding the Hiraikotsu, struggle to lift in a motion to invite her over. They strained under their own weight. Kagome said: "I'm trying to get my fat butt back into track, remember? Not eat my way out of it."

She wondered quietly to herself just how much Sango was up to. It worried her that the exterminator had managed to pack on at least an extra hundred pounds to her frame in such a short amount of time, but what worried her more was the apparent disregard her friend had for the problem.

Lately, it had become a chore for Sango to remain full. Whenever she finished a meal, like Miroku, she'd find herself with another craving for something else in Kagome's backpack.

Sango had laughed. "Oh come on, Kagome! We have a hard enough time keeping up with a stick like you already!"

Kagome eyed the banquet longingly. None of them questioned why they had started referring to Kagome as a stick. She was, after all, nowhere near what anyone in the future, or the village, would have considered thin. But after their last trip for jewel shards, when her jiggly legs didn't seem to burn from overuse as theirs did, they had quickly come to the conclusion.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt if I just had a little," the girl submitted, and sat herself down by the huntress. A plate of udon was instantly slid before her, and she dug in cautiously. It didn't take long, however, for her to abdicate her dietary concerns.

Sango smiled. "I knew you were hungry."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it. I can't afford to let myself go like you."

She looked at the younger girl like she was crazy. "I haven't let myself go," she laughed, though it was substantially more sober. She had even stopped eating.

Kagome, at this point, could easily call Sango obese. There was no longer an athletic bone in her body. The last time Sango ran, it was when Kagome announced she'd made fondue. The closest Sango ever came to a sit-up was when she couldn't reach a bowl of oden. And yet, despite her tree-trunk thighs that couldn't cross and her basketball breasts that drew taut her shirt, the spare tire around her waist was surprisingly small. At least, when considered in comparison.

"What would you call it?" Miroku piped in, interested.

"We're just…" Sango thought for a moment then announced as if to trivialize the subject, "taking a break. When we get back to really fighting Naraku, I'm sure I'll tone back up."

Kagome raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, because that's all you'll have to do."

Miroku nodded and positioned a meaty arm around the larger girl's shoulder. "She looks perfectly fine to me."

After the meal, Kagome extended a hand and helped pull Sango to her feet. Something was wrong, she thought, when the strongest surviving demon hunter was unable to right herself from a sitting position without aid. Something was even more wrong when the huntress had been reduced to such a state in a matter of months.

When reached for her weapon, the wielder of the powerful Hiraikotsu struggled to lift her arms under the abrupt burden. She waddled out of the hut, her wide hips threatening to skid against the doorframe. Miroku, pushing himself up by his staff, followed.

And though the affects of empty calories had been bad on the humans, it was somehow disastrous on the hanyou. Kagome found him outside, spread out against the trunk of a tree. A distinct potbelly bulged forward and out of his haori, the red fabric clinging tightly to the ovular gut. Just as Kagome began to blush, embarrassed for him, he noticed the group and quickly forced the robe closed.

"About time you finished stuffing your face," he spat, looking up at Kagome. Though he would never admit it, Kagome was sure that his excess spite was somehow the product of her diet, and quite possibly his lack thereof.

Kagome dismissed the comment. "Don't you think it's time we head out again? There have been some pretty viable rumors about a shard in the valley south of here."

But before Inuyasha could respond, a familiar voice cut in. "It can wait," Kaede said. "I believe I have found someone who may be of help in your, ah, predicament," she continued. Inuyasha muttered something under his breath, and although the elderly woman pointedly ignored the demon, she had to suppress an indulgent grin after Kagome dutifully slapped the boy upside the head. "Several of the new villagers – the ones that fled here when your wolf demon laid waste to their homes – speak of a mystical healer in that area. They believe he can be of help, either to 'fix' your new weight problems," the old woman went on frankly, sending a cold stare Inuyasha's way, "or to at the very least abolish these cravings you seem to have. I think it would be in everyone's best interests that you put off your shard hunting long enough to investigate this, no matter how untrustworthy it sounds."

Miroku nodded sagely, his eyes falling upon Sango, hers upon a powdered donut. He said, with little hesitation, "I wouldn't want to needlessly risk the lives of our amply… incapacitated… companions for what could very easily turn out to be a trap, Naraku's or otherwise."

Inuyasha agreed. Sporting a wide grin, he mused, "You are looking pretty fat. I wouldn't trust you guarding my back." He looked around at the others for a moment, and swiftly added, "Hell, from the looks of things I'm going to be doing all the fighting."

Miroku shook his head. "Yeah, that's right…" he sighed, too thoroughly beleaguered to risk breaking off into a tangent that would only waste more time, and possibly break several limbs as well. "Listen, do you realize how much walking we'd have to do to get back there? I'm not one to devalue Buddha's green earth, but I don't have all the time in the world."

Now standing beside him, Sango had wiped what was left of a donut from her lips onto a greasy kimono sleeve and added, "How would we carry all the food? We should just keep waiting near the village, or go check up on those new shard rumors."

"But-" Kagome burst in, appalled, "but what if this person is the answer to everything? We're just going to skip over him because we're afraid? Or are you two just trying to avoid a little exercise," she gasped, watching Sango intently. "You're not going to let food stop you from avenging your family, are you?"

The huntress hesitated, and then sighed in surrender. "I guess I let myself get a little distracted," she admitted. "Besides, I've got to watch my figure-" Inuyasha snickered, "-A little exercise won't hurt."

"Then it's settled. We'll head out tomorrow," Kagome announced, heading back to Kaede's hut to pack her things.

Miroku blinked. "Hey… don't I get a say in this?"

There was something distinctly different about Kagome, Inuyasha had decided. He couldn't, however, put his finger on it. Perhaps, and he was just throwing things out there, she had more of a bounce to her step. Was she smiling more? Did she seem more optimistic? Inuyasha wiped the sweat from his brow and continued his slow trudge forward. No, she was always this bubbly. That couldn't be it.

His gaze dipped lower and, for what seemed like the first time in ages, he found himself again appreciative for being born a man. Kagome looked, for lack of a better word, full. Womanly. She wasn't the obtuse cow he had become used to, but she wasn't the emaciated representation of Kikyou he had thought he wanted either. She was simply she; not as what Kagome was, but as what Kagome, he thought suddenly, should be.

Far be it for Inuyasha to reflect too deeply into a subject, but at that moment he realized that what he had always imagined the future to be like was not some bleak reality packed with metal beasts and towering skyscrapers, but what he now saw in Kagome: happiness, optimism, and fulfillment. Because if the now was when people fought for their needs, doesn't it stand to reason that the later is when people achieve them? If in this era, people had to fight and die just to live in little straw huts behind tiny tracts of farmland and just get by on what they needed, shouldn't the future be a place where people didn't fight for what they needed, but what they wanted?

If Kagome wanted chocolate, she had gotten it. Kagome had then wanted him to find her attractive, and had she gotten that as well? Were the sensuous curves of her hips, the fluid shudder of her thick thighs, the opulent bounce of her ample chest the equilibrium of the two, or the sum?

Then again, there are always other explanations.

To his left, Miroku walked, panting, teetering on the edge of consciousness. His blubbery chest heaved in and out as he gulped breath after breath of revitalizing oxygen.

Before him, Kagome casually strolled ahead, looking back every-so-often and sometimes offering a word of encouragement. Her bare thighs jiggled vivaciously with her pace. Her thin skirt fluttered against her inflated backside.

To his right, Sango clawed at the neck of her yukata. Her double chin convulsed against the restrictive wear and her pendulous breasts thundered with each forward step. Her green skirt clung to fat, sweaty thighs and chaffed against the wide rear of the demon hunter.

Kagome called back, "Come on! We're almost there!" as they passed a familiar looking crater. Leaves again adorned surrounding trees and, if Miroku's wheezing was to stop for just a moment, the ambient sounds of wildlife could again be heard within the diminutive forest.

The truth was, the only person not sweating profusely was the would-be miko.