Hello lovelies, we're back and ready for the next chapter! And with just a few minutes to spare! Noice.

We're finally getting towards actually regularly following the InuYasha plot in this story. I'm sure you've noticed that while I have been following the anime, with nods to the manga and the novel in places, there has been a lot of original content going on, too. This story was never designed to be a regurgitation of the anime. I have no intentions of just paperclipping Cami into the scenes and being done with it. There's gonna be a lot of original content, and sometimes that means that single episodes will be broken up into two or three chapters, to make room for plot that I have planned. And, conversely, it means that some chapters may use two, three or more episodes to fill out the chapter. It's just how we're doing things here.

Okay, my usual plug needs to happen, then we can move onwards to reading! I'm currently writing three other InuYasha fics, if you're interested in reading more from me; Perfidious, a Bankotsu fic, Into The Jaws Of The Wolf, a Koga fic, and Miasma, a Naraku fic. At the moment I'm aiming to update just one of these a week, on a Friday, so watch out for a Friday update to see which story will get more content. I'm trying to be pretty even with it, but I do have favourites, so updates are more likely to be this story or Miasma at the moment.

Anyhow, off we go to chapter Five


Catch The Rain

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet
- Roger Miller


My morning was as calm and peaceful as any morning ever was in this village. That is to say: not at fucking all.

Despite my injuries, I was still dragged from my sleep at what-the-fuck o'clock to start my day alongside the far too chipper at sunrise Kaede. Her first point of call, while I was still rubbing the grit from my eyes and Kagome was still slumbering, was to peel back my kosode and take stock of the wound on my shoulder. It was still heavily scabbed, I deduced with blurry eyes in the low light, but it wasn't quite so raw looking as it was yesterday. I still wasn't happy to see it like that, though.

"It is healing well, but it may yet scar, and quite terribly so, it appears," Kaede informed me gravely.

I twisted my neck to get a better look at the gnarled red and brown scabs covering my shoulder. The skin beneath was a sickly purple and green. Bruised to fuck. They weren't clean cuts. It looked sickly disgusting, but it didn't churn my stomach. I had that basic coursey from my body to be thankful for, at least.

"Guess I won't be able to charge as much when I do get home," I tutted. That was going to be a real kick in the balls. I barely got by on the prices I already charged for my company. Not a lot of people were going to be paying good money for so heavily damaged goods. Some people were into scars, but there was no way I could sustain myself on catering to such a niche market. I wasn't going to be able to find just those people for customers in Yokohama.

I was pretty screwed, honestly.

Fuck.

"Ye should be more worried for your recovery," Kaede's judgemental tone preached.

She knew what I was talking about, then, even if she didn't know details, or the full story. It seemed true innocence wasn't something this maiden could boast.

I shrugged instead of answering her, focussing on straightening out my clothing again. I had a feeling anything I said would just earn more judgment and preaching I didn't want to hear right now. I wasn't sorry for where my priorities laid, and I wasn't about to change any time soon.

"What are we doing today?" I questioned, further distracting her from a potential lecture about how prostitution was wrong and bad and that I should live a life of honour, blah blah fucking blah.

Getting myself stuck into whatever was happening today wasn't a terrible idea, either. I had way too much that could sit heavy on my mind if I let it. If I was busy, there was less of a chance to focus on those bullshit thoughts. Fuck knows my mind wanted to run places I definitely didn't want it to. All the way back to Yokohama, if I let it. I wasn't about to do that, though. Not now or any time in the forseeable future. It had done way too much damage last night after Kagome's little whisper, feeding my mind with thoughts of home and family way into the early hours of the morning, where the only things awake to keep my spiraling thoughts company were Katsu and InuYasha, who I heard shuffling around outside the hut periodically.

He, I think, had been more active than even my mind had been.

I guessed fifty-six years was long enough to sleep.

"Today I will lend my healing to the village. You will follow and learn what you can."

There was something about the way she said that that made me squint at her. It was like there was a deeper meaning behind her words, like I wasn't just going to be learning basic herbal remedies from watching her. I had an inkling what she was on about, though, and sucked my teeth noisily at her.

"Aren't people that learn shrine maiden bullshit magic supposed to be by nature, y'know, maidens?" Wasn't there a rule against teaching shrine maiden-y things to non-maidens? I sure as fuck wasn't a maiden anymore. Couldn't even remember when I had ceased to be one.

Kaede busied herself with cleaning off her hands. "I have not witnessed you give up your maidenhood with my own eye, and it is not within me to deny a woman that wants to learn of her abilities on mere speculation of her past," she replied shrewdly.

If I didn't see it, it didn't happen, so sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and get fucking learning, bitch.

I could respect the fuck out of that loophole. Bless Granny Kaede.

"I'll try not to blow anyone in front of you, then," I replied with dry humour as I inched towards the steps down into the doma.

"Blow...?" she questioned with all the wariness of a virgin that definitely didn't know what I was on about and didn't particularly want to be sullied with too much sexual knowledge. Kaede was not the first woman of this type that I had met. She was the oldest, though.

I couldn't help the belly laughter that escaped me as I passed through the doorway, out into the cool early morning.

When I was outside, I was greeted with a rough "What're you laughin' at?" from behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder found InuYasa perched in a high tree just behind Kaede's hut.

Cheery mood still in place, and chuckle still on my lips, I raised my hand in greeting to the cantankerous demon. "I love virgins," I admitted. "They're just so sweet and clueless."

Kaede slapped my shoulder in good-natured reprimand as she joined me outside. "Stay your tongue, young lass."

I ducked away from her, laughing again. "Sure, granny."

InuYasha shuffled down his branch, coming closer and peering down at us. His eyes were set in a straight stare. It was creepy.

"Take a picture," I called out to him, following behind Kaede as she headed further into the village. "It'll last longer."

He grumbled to himself, loud enough for me to hear him complaining, though not loud enough for the words to carry with his voice. I raised my hand over my shoulder, giving him the finger as I strode away. There was no outrage from him, though. It made me miss the time where people knew to be insulted when the finger was given. It made the art of simple insults so much easier.

"So what exactly am I learning?"

I fell in line with Kaede as she hobbled along the path to the pain cluster of huts. "In my youth, I learned from my sister to sense a disturbance of health through one's spirit. Today I shall teach you the same."

Sounded... hard. Great.

"I'm gonna blow the first guy I see," I declared, just as Rikichi emerged from the closest hut.

Fuck. Nevermind.

Guess I was learning this sensing things bullshit today.

Kaede gave me a smug side-eye as I grumbled along beside her. She was mercifully silent, though, and for that I thanked any deity that would listen. I wasn't about to listen to a virgin joke about me not blowing a dude to get out of work. Not in this lifetime, at least.

It wasn't long before we actually approached a hut. Kaede pushed aside the woven door-covering and called out a vaguely familiar name in greeting. Hina. Where had I heard that one before? Probably in some gossip or whisper in the village. Someone had to have said something about her at some point in my stay here.

"Lady Kaede," a slight woman greeted from her spot up on the raised platform of the hut. She was sat by the hearth, with a familiar little sprog still sleeping in a futon at her side. Kokichi looked just as cute and innocent as when he was awake, beside the snot running out of his nose.

Gag me with a spoon; kids were disgusting.

"Oh, this is Kami?" the woman continued, lowering her head in a bow of greeting that I reflexively returned with a small bob of my own head. "I'm glad the kosode fit you."

Kosode...? Oh! This must have been the woman that gave it to me. Had she been the one to embroider it, too? It was a little long, but at four foot nine, there wasn't a lot to be done for that. It was easy enough to tie the waist. It didn't look pretty with such a small sash, but it worked well enough to keep me covered. Shame it was a little worse for wear now, with its torn shoulder. It was still wearable, but I wasn't winning any beauty competitions in something so torn up.

"Uh, yeah." I shrugged, eyes turning to Kaede to help me out as my hand lifted to cover the torn section. "Fits great."

Hina welcomed us up onto the raised platform, moving to sit closer to the hearth.

"Shit, girl," I cursed, getting a good look at her when she moved. "You swallowed a whole damn planet or something."

It wasn't so noticeable when she was folded up like she had been, but the moment she moved, it was plain to see that this woman was packing a real big bun in the oven. She had to be a few months along already. Six? Seven? I saw pregnant woman far more often than anyone would imagine in my mine of work. Whores caught pregnant a lot. Condoms broken, drunk people got stupid, and a surprising amount of us chose to keep any child we caught with. I was not among those ranks.

How could she do it? The thought of having a baby made me sick to my much-flatter-than-her's stomach.

She just smiled, placing a hand on the top of the bump, cradling it gently. "Yes, I am getting larger now. It won't be too long now. By the end of the summer, Lady Kaede?"

"Aye," the old crone replied, settling on her old creaky knees by the hearth. "Should the child be healthy, they will come by summer's end."

Summer's end... That seemed like forever away, yet no time at all.

"Aren't you scared?" I'd be shitting a brick every other minute if I was in her shoes. A whole-ass baby was growing inside her.

Hina just shook her head. "This is my fourth."

Fourth... She looked younger than me, and she'd had four children already? But... where were they? Kokichi was the only child in the room beside the planet in her stomach, and while she was clearly knocking boots with a partner - since Kaede had no displeasure or judgement in her tone as she began to ask questions - there was no way she was old enough to have a child that worked with the dad.

So where...? Oh. Oh! Oh...

This was a time of famine and war and subpar medical practice. It was a time where not everyone was guaranteed to reach Kaede's age, my age, or even Kokichi's tiny little age.

I crossed my arms roughly over my chest and leaned against the wall of the doma, not quite feeling comfortable enough to join the three of them up around the warm hearth.

I watched Hina from the corner of my eye as she and Kaede talked.

"Kami, come here and I shall begin teaching you."

The call broke me from my reveries, and with a frown, I skulked up to join them, kneeling on the other side of Hina as I was directed to. She laid her gnarled old hands atop Hina's stomach, and guided me to do the same.

"Do you feel it?" she questioned after a moment.

"Feel what? Is it supposed to be kicking or something?" I just felt the heat of Hina's skin through her thin kosode. Was I supposed to be feeling something else?

"Nay, not the physical touch. Do you feel her spirit? Look, and feel for it."

Look and feel for it. As if it was easy. My lips curled down into a scowl, but I closed my eyes and tried to feel for it. Whatever it felt like.

"Keep your eyes open," Kaede spoke. "Look at what it is ye want to find, and search for its spiritual energy."

I rolled my eyes as I opened them. Couldn't I get one comprehensive order first, instead of being told what I'm doing wrong without actual decent instruction? Would make things far easier, wouldn't it?

Squinting down at the young woman's stomach, I strained to feel anything beyond the heat of her skin, and just as a headache was beginning to set in, I felt something. It was still a heat, but it felt different than skin. It was a warmth, like a fire within her belly, rather than the warmth of her body temperature. "I feel it."

My eyes flickered to Kaede, then back to Hina's stomach quickly, in case I lost the sensation.

"Good. Now feel for disturbances. Does it feel unbalanced? Too hot or too cold? Does it fluctuate?"

I shook my head at the questions. "No, it just feels steady."

The old woman's hand rested atop mine and when my eyes flickered back up to her face, she smiled. "Well done, my girl. What you feel is a healthy, contented baby." Her attention turned to Hina, and mine followed. "Your child will do well, Hina, should you continue on your path."

Hina looked delighted at the news and her hands clapped together excitedly. Loud enough to wake the snotty child-demon beside me, who was very quick to latch onto me and crawl into my lap.

Why are you obsessed with me, child? Why?

I stared hard at Kaede, holding my arms out so I wasn't touching the child curled in my lap more than I actually had to.

My discomfort was clearly amusing to both women. Kaede had a smirk on her wrinkled lips, and Hina resorted to trying to hide her giggle behind her hand.

"We have other places to be, right, granny?" I prompted, staring holes into the old bitch.

She looked like she was enjoying my suffering too much to agree with me, but after a moment of gleefully watching me suffer Kokichi's snotty cuddle, she nodded. "Aye, we must away to another in need."

Thank. Fuck.


"Do you feel the difference in this energy?" Kaede asked as we both knelt in the dirt, examining a farmer who had been struggling with his knee recently.

I squinted at the offending knee as I tried to make sense of what I was feeling. "It's... hot. Hotter than it should be. But it isn't steady. It's... pulsing?" I didn't know if that was the right descriptor, but it was the only thing I could really describe it as. The energy was fluctuating. It was hot and made me feel uncomfortable. It throbbed.

"Yes, as it often feels that way," Kaede explained. "He suffers greatly with swelling and pain, and that disturbance makes his energy disturbed."

She gestured for me to stand, and stood herself, with some difficulty as I brushed the dirt off my kosode. "I have a remedy prepared already for such ailments. Will ye go fetch it from my hut? It is in a green pot, small, besides my arrows?"

I let out a huff, but let it go, walking away from the gathering and grumbling to myself. When did I become an errand girl? I wasn't here to play fetch for this remedy or that.

Kaede's hut was empty of inhabitants besides Katsu, who I spared a quick greeting to as I searched for the pot I'd been sent to grab. There must have been some real method in the old bitch's madness, because it was right where she said it would be, sat waiting for me. I snapped it up, said my goodbyes to Katsu, and ambled back towards the gathering of villagers.

As I handed the jar off, Kaede seemed surprised. "You returned quickly. I expected you to dawdle and converse with young Kagome."

Well, she knew me, at least. "Would have done if she was there."

No Kagome, no dawdling.

That didn't comfort Kaede, though. "She is not there? Why, where could she be? I have not seen her this morn."

No, as a matter of fact, I hadn't, either. She wasn't exactly difficult to spot, either. She wasn't in the hut, and she wasn't bumbling around the village like a teenage idiot. There weren't many good options for where she was going to be. Kaede's expression told me that she had the same opinion, and was more worried about that than I was myself.

"Begin a search for her," she ordered the men around us, who were quick to jump into action and follow their maiden's orders.

I was not so quick to follow. In fact, as they dispersed, I moved to take a seat under the nearest tree and settled in. It wasn't my business what the girl did with herself. If she wanted to go wandering off in a hostile land, then that was on her idiot ass and she could deal with the consequences of it. I'd told her straight that this place wasn't a gentle one, and if she wanted to ignore that, then fuck her too, quite frankly.

It wasn't long before Kaede came back around, calling the girl's name.

A gathering of village men joined her a moment later. "We looked everywhere, but she's not here."

"Could it be she's gone off on her own?" Kaede questioned.

Well, that was the most obvious answer in the history of answers, wasn't it? Of course the girl had just wandered off. Teenage girls never listened.

I would have given my opinion if the tree I was leaning against hadn't shook. I tipped my head back to spy InuYasha perched on the lowest branch, watching the gathering fret.

"What's got their feathers ruffled?" he asked in the same disinterested I-want-to-know-but-I'm-going-to-pretend-I-dont tone that I often found myself using when I was itching to find out what drama was going down.

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Kagome's wandered off."

He immediately looked concerned. What?

"What's that look for?" I questioned. The boy had no interest in anyone when he was shredding their skin or tearing them to pieces. Why show interest in the girl now? I didn't get it.

He glared down at me like I was stupid. I may have earned that, though. I wasn't connecting whatever dots InuYasha had in the situation. "She's holdin' the jewel."

"Fuck." How the hell had I forgotten that? Kaede had given her that magical jewel to look after for that stupid reincarnation bullshit reason, and if she had wandered off, I could almost guarantee that she hadn't thought to leave the jewel back in Kaede's hut in a safe place. Which meant that if she had gotten herself lost or kidnapped, she had gotten the jewel lost or kidnapped.

My head hit the tree with a solid thunk, and I heaved a heavy sigh, covering my eyes. "We should probably go find the bitch, then, huh?"

Just what I wanted to be doing with my day.

"We?" InuYasha bit out. "What's this we business? I'll be going to find her and the jewel."

In any other situation, I would have let him go. I wasn't equipped to be fighting whatever bullshit we came across out there while we were searching for the jewel. I definitely didn't want to be injured any more than I already was. I'd dealt with enough bullshit in the past few weeks to last a lifetime and I certainly wasn't planning on signing up for any more.

But...

Something made me hesitate. A pit in my stomach, and a memory of that moment of desperation I felt when I found out that jewel was powerful enough to grant a wish. Any wish. My wish.

And InuYasha's wish, too.

I didn't want to give him the chance at that wish before I got the chance to get it. Sending him out there alone to find Kagome, where there was a chance that she was defenseless, injured, dead, meant that he could very well just grab the jewel for himself. I wanted to be there, to get it myself, make that wish before he could. I wasn't handing it to him that easily.

"Stop barking and let's go," I snorted, pushing myself up and striding towards the paddies, and the forest that I was becoming increasingly familiar with. She'd talked about a well the other night in the forest. That was as good a place to start looking as any, right?

InuYasha let out a sharp bark of a scoff, but dropped down to walk beside me, hands stuffed into the sleeves of his suikan.

We walked in silence, though it was easy to tell that InuYasha was getting frustrated at my pace. He could shove it. I was not built to be able to walk fast. InuYasha had well over half a foot on me. He had longer legs. He could deal with going at my pace.

In theory, he could deal with it, at least. By the time we got to the edge of the forest, he had had enough. He stomped forwards a few long strides and crouched down.

I came to a stop before I trod on him, looking down at his back in confusion. "What... are you doing?"

His sharp golden eyes glared at me over his shoulder. "Get on before we lose her completely!"

He wanted me to climb onto his back. He wanted to give me a piggyback through the woods. I'd fucking heard everything now. What was I, a fucking child? No way!

I stepped around him, striding further into the forest, snorting and raising my chin. "You're fucking insane if you think I'm gonna get on your back."

The only warning I got from his next action was a low growl behind me, that I would absolutely never admit out loud to anyone ever that it chased down my spine in the most ridiculously pleasurably way a noise ever had, before I felt an arm around my waist. I shrieked as I was flung up over InuYasha's shoulder and pounded his back as he set off at a much faster pace than I was capable of.

My fist hit his back in hard thumps. "Let me down, asshole! Hey!"

"Shut up!" he cried back, exasperation and frustration melding together. "If we keep going at your pace, we'll never find her, so shut up!"

I was not happy about it, and shoved my knee into his chest as he ran, but did quiet down, and stop pounding on his chest.

When I was free, I was absolutely going to pummel him for this, though. I only let people carry me around like a sack of shit when I was being paid for it. InuYasha wasn't paying me shit.

"I have her scent. She isn't far," he said after a few moments of fuming silence. He let out an angry little grunt. "Stupid girl."

Better be talking about fucking Kagome.

Since he didn't lash out any further than that muttered insult, I assumed quite safely that he wasn't stupid enough to insult the bitch that could probably quite easily kick him in the nuts if I got half an inclination to. He wasn't someone that struck me as genius, but InuYasha had at least some smarts in his head at the very least.

A statement that I retracted very quickly when I got little warning but the deafening sound of splintering wood before I was showered with those splinters and scratched up to high hell.

"What the fu-uck!" I screeched, curling into InuYasha's back when the sound of metal rang through the air.

What the fuck was happening?!

InuYasha dropped to the ground and unceremoniously shrugged me off his shoulder.

I hit the deck with a loud thud and an even louder curse. "Motherfucker! Do that again and see if you survive it!"

I was not okay with being thrown around like a sack of potatoes without warning.

"InuYasha! Cami!"

As I pushed myself up, the surprised girl crouched to help me. When I was back to my feet again, she brushed the splinters off my back. I brushed them off my arms as I got a look at where we had ended up. It was a ramshackle old building if I ever saw one, and that was even before InuYasha had put a brand new window into it, free of charge. What the fuck sort of place was this?

My eyes caught the tails of some very cowardly looking scrawny men high-tailing it out the doorway, giving probably the largest and dumbest man I had ever seen a wide berth as they did so, and things started to fall into place.

She had been kidnapped and taken to whatever abandoned shithole they were calling homebase. Definitely with the intention of taking the jewel and probably with the intention of taking anything else they could, too, before InuYasha and I had burst in.

"I can't believe you actually came!" She sounded shocked.

Maybe if my intentions were a little more pure than what they actually were, I would have been insulted by that shock. As it was, both InuYasha and I were here for totalyl selfish reasons, and any reason Kagome came up with in all of her sweet innocence probably would be so far off the mark that it would be laughable.

InuYasha proved that I was right about his motivation when he span on the girl. "Is it safe?" he demanded, looking the girl over, probably specifically looking for the jewel. I had done the same subtly as soon as I'd clocked where we were, but I hadn't been able to see the jewel on her person. "Where's the jewel?"

Subtle.

Kagome blinked slowly. "The jewel?"

That wasn't what I wanted to hear.

It was clearly not what InuYasha wanted to hear either. "Oh no. Tell me you did not just say that!"

I was just as frustrated as Inuyasha, but I knew how defensive a teenage girl could get when she was being yelled at, and two assholes yelling at you after you'd just been kidnapped was only going to stress her out. She'd be even less likely to speak about the jewel. My self-control had limited resources, and I definitely tasted blood from how hard I was biting my tongue, but bite it I did.

The situation definitely looked like it was gearing up into an all-out screaming match between the two of them, before the clanging of armour sounded in our ears, and InuYasha let out a noise of disgust. His hand flew up to his face to cover his nose with the billowing sleeve of his suikan as he turned to find the source of the smell. His sights set on the giant of a man in the room with us. "What is that smell? It's like rotting meat, or-"

What smell? I couldn't really smell anything out of the ordinary, except maybe the ripe smell of the hadajuban I was wearing. It needed a good clean.

The man InuYasha was glaring down lurched precariously. The jerky movement had the poorly tied mass of strings at the shoulders of his armour coming loose. The hinged panel swung open.

I recoiled in horror when the man's chest was revealed.

"What the actual fuck?!"

There was a hole in his chest. Though hole may have been too nice a word for what it was. It was a mess of raw flesh and thick, oozing blood. His chest was painted in dark blood, smeared over his skin and drying in deep brown flakes at the edges. It looked like some beast had chewed through his skin, brutal and rough.

His chest moved in an ugly way that made my stomach churn, and from the bloody viscera, a small head appeared. A crow, with sharp teeth and a third eye, lunged forwards from its hiding spot, screeching at us.

I shrieked back, stumbling back a few steps.

What the fuck. What the fuck.

I had seen a lot in my life. A lot of damaged bodies; split knuckles and cheeks, stab wounds, burns, broken bones. I wasn't a woman with a weak stomach. You couldn't be in the areas that I frequented. But there was no way any of the shit that I had seen in the past could have prepared me for this. There was something truly terrifying about an animal emerging from a person's body, feathers slick and tinged red with blood. Blood that dripped from its teethed beak.

Birds with teeth was nightmare fuel that I had a feeling was going to haunt me.

This was not something I would ever be prepared to see.

But the birds didn't do anything after that. I stayed still, perched in its gruesome nest, watching us with malicious gleaming eyes.

Why was it just sitting there?

InuYasha turned a darkly amused look over his shoulder at me that I just caught with a glare of my own.

"How much you wanna bet that bird ripped his living heart out and made itself a bloody nest?" the half-demon questioned, voice pitched low.

My eyes turned from InuYasha, to the crown, then back again. He wanted to make bets now?

"I'd make that bet," I replied, trying to keep the tremble from my voice. It seemed like a pretty safe bet to make, looking at the way the man's body was torn apart. Though I couldn't really put anything on that bet. The money I had folded up in my handbag back in Granny's hut was fucking useless here. The only money I had that was even close to local currency was that measly hundred mom that I had taken from InuYasha back when he'd been best friends with that ancient gnarled tree. I was pretty certain that he would take offense to me betting with his money.

Kagome, who'd stumbled back herself when the bird had lunged at us threateningly, grabbed for my kosode. "I knew there was something wrong. The bird made him a puppet!"

"I don't think it's just a bird, sweet. Bird's dont fucking do that."

I couldn't claim to be a bird expert, but I did use to feed birds that came to visit the rooftop of my shitty apartment building when I had a few extra yen to spare on birdseed. I had a particularly friendly sparrow that would always come to eat directly from my palm that I'd named Karaage. I couldn't imagine that sweet little ball of feathers doing what this fucker had done. Karaage wouldn't burrow inside me like a fucking horror movie demon.

This wasn't normal bird behaviour.

"Carrion crows don't fight on their own when there's dead bodies handy," InuYasha explained to use clueless parties. He backed up as he spoke, and scratched his feet on the ground, assumably gauging the traction he'd need for whatever his next move was. I'd tested the ground with similar methods in the past when I needed to make sure I can pull off dance routines without breaking my neck in skyscraper stripper heels. I didn't look quite so animal when I did it, though. At least, I hoped not. "Ain't very good at fighting their own battles, and they're too weak to manipulate the living. They ain't so tough."

Carrion crows... Pretty fucking apt name. Freaky as fuck, too. I hoped this was the last time seeing one of these bastards. I never wanted to meet one in a dark alley. If I even saw one in the daylight out in the open again, I wouldn't be happy.

His next move decided, InuYasha crouched and in a swift flex of his thighs, launched himself at the controlled corpse, clawed hand outstretched to catch the bird demon. "But they're hella nasty!"

The corpse collapsed to the ground as the bird broke free of it to make its escape, flinging clots of blood and half-chewed chunks of flesh around the room.

I ducked out of the way of a particularly juicy chunk of flesh, just barely avoiding it.

The crow screeched again and circled the room before beating its hasty retreat, out the hole InuYasha had made in our unconventional entrance to the party.

So long fuckhead.

With the immediate threat gone, my tense shoulders began to relax a little. They were tense so fucking often lately that I was surprised I hadn't totally seized up. They were beginning to ache. I needed a good self-care date. All this supernatural demon bullshit wasn't good for my health.

"It's getting away," Kagome pointed out needlessly.

"Good riddance," I muttered, stretching out my stiff shoulders. Shit was I holding onto some stress. My poor, poor muscles.

"Aren't you going after it?" she asked.

InuYasha, who was mirroring me with his own stretching, snorted. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but the world is full of monsters. You want I should go after them all?"

He was absolutely right in his crude way. There was zero point in going after a demon that didn't really need killing. It was a waste of energy, and the crow clearly wasn't attacking us now. It'd be stupid to go after it.

Kagome was safe. The jewel was safe, and that was all we needed to care about. No creepy crow demon that had gotten the right idea and fucked off back into whatever hellhole it had crawled out of needed our attention.

"Yeah, but-" Kagome started to argue.

She was shot down immediately by the cantankerous dog. "No but. You wanna start doing the fighting, be my guest. In the meantime, where's the-"

I caught sight of a horrifying sight at just the same moment as InuYasha did. We both let out loud cries of frustrated horror as the fucking crow picked up a very familiar purple jewel. I pitched forward at the same time as InuYasha, climbing over rubble to try and go after it.

I managed to clear the rubble as InuYasha began screeching at Kagome, sprinting after the crow as it flew low through the air, reaching out desperately to try and grab hold of it before it got out of my reach.

I had no chance, and that was laughably clear when the bird swooped upwards and disappeared from my range in mere seconds.

A loud curse escaped me, and another when a hand closed around my wrist and I was dragged along at another sprint, faster than I felt I could manage. InuYasha didn't so much as glance back at me as he started leading me. Kagome was thrown over his shoulder just the way I had been on the way to that dilapidated shack. At least someone else got a turn being treated like a potato sack now. I was free.

I yelped when InuYasha stopped dead, crashing into his side. He didn't so much as flinch, grip still tight on my wrist as he dropped Kagome from his shoulder. "Go get the bow," he ordered the girl, pointing to a horse tied to a tree. On its saddle was an old bow and quiver of arrows. "Now."

Kagome muttered to herself as she brushed herself off, but did as she was told.

When she returned, holding the weapon unsurely, he crouched, dragging me down to the floor as well. "Get on."

She muttered again about being ordered around, but again did as told. He was upright and dragging me up into his arms the very second she was situated. I flinched when we took off. InuYasha took to the trees, jumping through branches in his attempts to chase the bird. I couldn't decide whether this was better or worse than being slung over his shoulder.

I could see just how high up we were as he gave chase.

"Oh no you dont!" InuYasha called after the bird, then turned his ire on Kagome. "What're you waiting for?! Hurry up and shoot it!"

"Shoot? You're kidding right?" Kagome cried back, appalled at the suggestion.

"What the fuck makes you think she can shoot a fucking bow?" It wasn't something people back where we came from just did. It was a club thing. A niche interest. Kagome just didn't seem like the type. I had done a little bit of archery when I was a kid. A school club. But that was almost twenty years ago now. I wouldn't know my arsehole from my elbow if it came to shooting now.

"She's right! I've never used a bow in my life!"

Called it.

"The crow lives by eating human flesh," InuYasha explained darkly. Though we'd clearly already seen the evidence of that particular habit. My stomach was still rolling. "If you think that's bad, let it swallow the jewel."

He... He had a point there. I still distinctly remembered the sickly red colour that centipede bitch went after she'd swallowed the jewel. It mutated demons as it made them stronger. What would happen if this sick abomination of a bird swallowed it?

That was something I found out in seconds. Its body began to mutate the second it swallowed the jewel. Its body got bigger, jerked around in the air and twisted. Its tail lengthened into something long and skeletal, and its wings morphed. They didn't look like a bird's anymore.

Strangely, the more twisted its body became, the less I feared it. There was something horrifying about a bird doing all that I had seen this creature do. Seeing that it was more demon than bird now made what it had done easier to swallow, if only slightly.

"Fine," Kagome grit out. "I'll try!"

"Thank you," InuYasha shot back, sounding anything but thankful with the forceful, frustrated tone of his voice. "Kikyo was a master archer. Take it in one shot!"

What did it matter if Kikyo was a master archer? Kagome had never held a bow in her life. It didn't matter if she was supposedly Kikyo's reincarnation. There was no way this was going to end up anything but shittily.

Proved very quickly when the arrow dropped miles from its moving target. As the arrow fell, I caught sight of what was just ahead of us. The river that flowed beside the village. We were close enough that I could see the people gathered at the riverbank.

The shock of the miss had InuYasha stumbling. He cursed under his breath, hitting the ground hard, tossing me to the side so I didn't end up crushed under his and Kagome's combined weight.

"Fuck," I hissed, pushing myself to my feet as Kagome and InuYasha fought over Kikyo again.

"I don't care what the old lady says! You are not Kikyo! You got that?!" InuYasha screamed at the girl. He sneered and turned away from both of us, leaping away with a grunted: "I am so out of here."

Kagome and I both called his name, but our cries went unheard of.

Fucking idiot.

Letting out a sharp hiss, I jogged in the direction of the river. If nothing else, at least from there, I could see what was going on.

"Fucking come on," I hissed when I breeched the trees, just in time to see the crow demon thing swoop to grab a child from the riverbank. Could this shit get any worse?

"Help!" the boy cried out.

I knew that high-pitched voice. It had grated on me like nails on a fucking chalkboard more times since I had been here than I dared even try to count. The demon had Kokichi.

And InuYasha was going straight for him, claws bared.

The bird went down, and Kikichi with it, both dropping into the water.

I was vaguely aware of Kagome kicking off her shoes beside me, but I was already sprinting towards the river's edge before I could process it. The water was cold, but it barely mattered as I swam, eyes set on the place the bird and dropped.

Kokichi was in my arms, clinging to my soaked kosode before I knew it. I was panting hard under the pressure of swimming against the current, but that didn't stop me from quipping the kid. "Hold on tight, kid, or the river's gonna do what the bird didn't manage to."

"Save the jewel, stupid!" InuYasha's rough voice broke through the roar of the river and the din of other voices screaming at me. "The jewel!"

The jewel.

Right. The jewel was down there too. That's what I should have gone after.

The kid was tossed up onto the riverbank first, then many arms reached out to drag me up from the water before I could twist around to go searching for the jewel. I caught the chill of an icy spring breeze and shuddered violently as the crowd gathered, blocking out the breeze and crowding me with heat I was more than thankful to receive.

"Lady Kami, thank you," Hina muttered, holding her soaked son close. "Thank you. Thank you."

Kokichi beamed up at me, like he hadn't been on the most traumatic rollercoaster ever. "I knew you would save me!"

You don't know shit, kid.

I rubbed at my cold arms, debating the merits of just stripping to the bone. Wet clothes and cold breezes were shitty as fuck. I'd rather sit nude than slowly freeze to death like this. I doubted my current company would agree. Was the bitching I'd get from Kaede for injuring the villager's delicate sensibilities worth the lack of freezing to death?

No, probably not.

I shuddered and sniffled, pushing my soaked bleached hair from my face.

"Is someone going to get me some warm fucking clothes or what?" I bitched, wrapping my arms tighter around myself.

Absolutely no one jumped to strip for me. Bastards.

Too many people were distracted.

Something was lighting up the sky with streaks of light, white and pink and purple. A truly beautiful light show.

It made warning bells go off in my mind. What was that light? What the Hell was it? I couldn't be... That wasn't the jewel, was it? No, it couldn't be. It couldn't be, but something was telling me that it was. Something awful had happened to the jewel. Had it been damaged, destroyed?

Who had done it?

InuYasha? No, he was too desperate for the jewel to do anything that would risk damaging it.

Kagome? She already seemed very accident-prone.

If she had destroyed the jewel, I was going to go fucking apeshit at her.

Destroyed the jewel...

What the Hell did that mean for my wish?


Info Time

Height - I'm going with the heights that I know for these characters, with the main characters thus far being: InuYasha 5'6, Kagome 5'1, and our tiny ball of anger Cami being 4'9. She is a tiny angry gremlin and we love her a lot. I'll probably be updating heights of other major characters periodically too. Because there'll be some situations where the poor girl gets a neck ache interacting with much taller people. Can anyone say Koga? I'm just excited to get to Koga. I have plans. Got a long way to go though!

Armour - The sort of armour the bandit leader was wearing looks to me like karuta tatami armour, a type of foldable armour worn in the period, made of leather or metal, usually iron, and sewn onto chainmail or fabric, and made with hinges for it to open and close and fold easily. I could be wrong, but that's what I'm going with.

Karaage - If you havne't had karaage, you need to because ohmygodyes. It's so tasty. It's like Japanese fried chicken nuggets. So so good. And yes, it may be a little morbid to call a bird friend chicken, but I love it. I have dark humour. And I love food names for animals. Im sure you noticed her spider friend is named after another fried dish, katsu. This will probably be a running theme.

Flying speed - I know you really don't need to know this, but I thought Cami was seriously outmatched here so Im sharing. So, the average speed for a human woman to run is about 5 miles an hour. Cami's small but she's fast, so I'd probably happily push that up to seven, maybe eight right now. An average crow can fly between 30 and 60 miles an hour. That's up to seven times faster than Cami, and this thing is a demon, so I'd even maybe double that. Sweet Cami didn't stand a chance against this thing. Dogs can run about 45 miles an hour, well specifically the Akita Inu because Rumiko Takahashi has confirmed that InuYasha's family like are Akita Inu demons, so InuYasha may be able to catch up to this demon crow in a fair race.


Episode Two: Seekers of the Sacred Jewel


Review Corner

EMIYASatosiKetchum3457 - Yeah, I haven't enjoyed it much myself, but I do plan to try sticking it out and watching it now that it's slightly longer. It has more time to build up to a good plot now, and I hear our boy InuYasha is back in the story, so I have to at least try to get to that point, right? Oh absolutely. I always feel that for something that's so integral to the plot, it's not often explored how the jewel affects the characters, at least not until the very end, really. I can't even pinpoint the moment InuYasha decides he's giving up on using the jewel in the series. That's wild to me, considering 90% of his personality up until he starts losing himself to his demon blood is that he wants the jewel to become full demon, and we just don't really get that emotional realisation that he doesn't need the jewel and its powers.


It's no secret that I'm kind of obsessed with collecting InuYasha. Particularly with the English manga. I own volumes from all four English runs of the series; the American Comic style prints, the A5 prints, the regular tankobon prints and the Vizbig prints. So, you can imagine that I've read the manga more times than is probably healthy. And in both reading the manga and watching the anime, I've come to decide that sometimes I think the manga handles scenes better than the anime. I debated with myself whether I should stay faithful to the medium I chose for this fanfic, the anime, and just give subtle nods to the other media (the manga, the novel, the games) or whether I could give myself creative license to do something different, change up scenes, play around with what's happening. I used to be very much a purist paperclip OC fanfic writer. But that kinda gets boring. When you've read one persons version of those kinds of fanfics, you've read them all. So I'm letting myself have fun and create my ideal InuYasha storyline here. The majority of it is going to go off the anime, because I can visualise what I'm doing better with the anime as a guide, but sometimes, if I like the way the manga works a scene better, I'm just going to add dialogue or actions from there in instead. So, if you're a big fan of the anime, and notice that something isn't quite the same as that scene is in the anime, it's likely going to be something I take from the manga instead, because I wanna have a lot of fun with this. Do you have an opinion on this, though? Do you prefer when writers stick strict to script and events, or do you like a bit of freestyle in your fics? Let me know!

I know I've been playing Secrets of the Cursed Mask for like a year and a half at this point, but I'm a really slow gamer. I'm getting close to the end of my first run, though, and I'm already dreading the end, haha. I'm really loving the plot, though. I've just passed the little romance bit in Minamo village, and man my heart sunk when I realised that it was a stupid demon and not Inuyasha that my character was confessing to. I'm a romantic mess and I'm not sorry. This story is just so interesting to play through. I can't wait to start my second run-through. I'm having an internal debate, though. Do I go for Miroku or Sesshomaru in my next run? Or Sango? I have choices and I don't know which one to make. Help me.

I have some spiritual world-building going on here, and it wont be the first time this sort of thing springs up. Magical/Spiritual potential wasn't often really touched on at all in InuYasha. People had to be able to do more than put spiritual energy into ofuda and arrows. So I'm going to do what any good fanfic writer is want to do. I'm gonna make up my own shit for it!

Writing a really selfish character is a lot of fun. I did not like Cami through most of this chapter. She was crude, selfish, and pretty nasty through most of it. I love that I can go from writing a character thats sweet, and I enjoy writing in every interaction like Dan from ITJOTW, to a character that I just don't like in the situation I'm writing her in. It's fun to have that diversity in my characters.

Y'know, when I started this fic, I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to scrape the 8,000 words I wanted to reach for each chapter. If you're a repeat offender here at the milkshake bar, you'll know that I tend to write around three thousand words per chapter, and sometimes that's a struggle for me. But I realised about halfway through this chapter that Ive stretched episode two out over three chapters without realising. I just seem to get into a zone when I'm writing this story and I haven't found myself struggling to get words down on the page yet. I'm sure that day will come. Especially if I'm writing episodes I don't have any interest in. But we'll persevere