Heart of Gold
Inuyasha was fuming. Kagome was sitting beside him, looking after a pair of women they had saved from being eaten by a tatami mat youkai (no, Kagome wasn't even a bit surprised a tatami mat had youki and had managed to support a mostly humanoid form to throw profanities at 'filthy humans stamping on his brethen and deserving to be devoured'. Kagome had had way too much encounters with weird youkai since her fiftenth birthday). For some strange reason the women had not screamed in fear while being carried away from the vile mat's nest - maybe a dog youkai seemed to them more like something closer to normality at that moment?
Kagome had stayed beside the women while Inuyasha had killed the malevolent being with a Wind Scar (he also desintegrated a path of ttrees, a couple of boulders and a chunk of a hillside, but this time they avoided casualties, so Kagome chalked it up as a success). She had been ready to explain to the women that Inuyasha had not meant them no harm and stuff, but she had found herself dumbfolded when the women had showed no sign of fear of the hanyou when he had approached them.
No, instead they went straight for his ears.
Inuyasha, this fierce, brave and valiant hanyou Kagome knew, wasted no time in putting Kagome in front of himself. It was such a youkai thing to use a living shield to save his sensitive fuzzy ears Kagome had had to waste a long moment to process the whole situation and reach her hands out to calm the women, tell them that the ears were off limits and that they were free to go home now. She also had asked the question that had caused Inuyasha's ire.
"Why aren't you scared of Inuyasha?" she had asked. The women looked at the half youkai who had been observing them warily, his arms crossed, his scowl prominent.
"We knew someone with such cute ears had to have a heart of gold," said one.
"And he came to save us from that terrible youkai, too!" the other had added with a warm smile. Then they had went away, leaving a pleasantly surprised miko and a fuming hanyou.
"Why are you so annoyed?" the miko asked her friend as she looked at him again.
"I ain't cute! And ain't having heart of gold!" he barked and stood up, looking away. "Come, we must find the others, they're taking too long to get here. I bet they found trouble."
"Awww, you're worried for them!" Kagome chuckled as she jumped to her feet and wrapped her hands around his arm. "My gold-hearted cute warrior..." she teased.