Chapter 7.
The next morning the Inutachi woke up early and they ate some breakfast consisting of fruits and berries as soon as everyone had eaten their fill they left to continue their search but they had agreed that they would not split up this time until they find a new place where they could use as camp. Inu Yasha would continue to sniff the air to try to find Kagome's scent or the scent of grave yard soil, so far he didn't have any luck. No one in the group said anything, for hours they were all too worried about their missing friend and after several hours of walking and searching for any signs of Kagome or the Band of Seven they came to a clearing where a small river ran through the forest.
"We'll stay her and get some lunch, you guys can prepare the camp fire while I go hunt something for us to eat. I'll be back soon." Inu Yasha said and without waiting for an answer he leaped away into the forest on the opposite side of the river. The others watch him disappear through the trees and while Sango and Shippo made a hole in the ground and put rocks around it, Miroku and Kirara went to find some dry wood and leafs to start a fire with.
An hour later Inu Yasha returned with a boar over his shoulder and the fire was going, he dropped the boar beside Sango who started to skin and gut it and soon the meat was put on sharp sticks over the fire to cook. While they waited Kirara had gone a little away from the others with Shippo to play a little and to keep the little kit from worry over his adoptive mother. Once they the two was out of the range of hearing Miroku spoke up.
"I'm very worried about Kagome. As of today she has been missing for a week. You would think that the Band of Seven would've just killed her by now. What do you think they want with her, Inu Yasha? Of course there is that fact that she can sense and see the sacred jewel shards but do you think Kagome really would help them with that?" Inu Yasha looked at Miroku and his ears dropped to his head before he spoke.
"I doubt Kagome would willingly help those bastards but they aren't the kind of people that would take no for an answer either." Sango felt tears welling up in her eyes and she sniffled slightly before she looked at Miroku and then to Inu Yasha.
"They won't kill her if they want her to find more jewel shards for them but there are far worse things than death they can do to her…" She said as she wiped away her tears before they could fall. Miroku clenched his teeth thinking of what Sango said and hissed through his teeth.
"Torture or even worse... They could even hand her over to Naraku and who knows what that fiend will do to her." Sango forced down her tears before she would start crying and alert Shippo and looked at Miroku and then to Inu Yasha who's face had turned almost as white as his hair was from what Miroku had said. Inu Yasha's eyes where wide with shock and terror and he clenched his teeth forcing himself not to yell and he looked into the fire.
"If they have done that to Kagome… I'll kill them, I'll rip their bodies apart limb from limb. They won't get away with hurting her like that." He said and Sango trembled slightly she prayed that her friend was just a hostage and nothing more. Miroku looked at Inu Yasha and nodded.
"Hopefully this is just us worrying over nothing." Miroku said and they all forced themselves to relax when Shippo and Kirara came back and they all started to eat the cooked meat in silence.
(With Kagome and the Band of Seven).
Kagome had fallen asleep after she had eaten the food Jakotsu came with and Jakotsu left the room with the dishes so that he and his brothers could talk about what they would do with Kagome. Bankotsu had promised her that they would all help train her in fighting so that she could defend herself with more than just her bow and arrows the problem to that however was that the girl was after what Naraku did to her very afraid of having them close to her. 'She probably won't be able to have any male around her for some time and it will be hard to train someone we can't be close to. If we teach her hand to hand combat she will need to have one of us as an opponent while another gives instructions. Maybe Renkotsu can find a way around that until she feels more comfortable around us. But when it comes to fight with weapons we will need to correct her stand and probably how she hold whatever weapon she want to learn how to wield.' Jakotsu thought to himself and he walked in to the small kitchen and put the dirty dishes in the wooden basin that was for washing the dishes. Jakotsu walked out of the kitchen and walked into the living room and to his couch and laid down as he stared up to the ceiling.
"Bankotsu, how are we gonna train her when she obviously don't want anyone of us near her? I mean I can talk to Kagome but she is still afraid of me being a guy even though she knows in her head I'm gay. Her body and heart fears males right now." Jakotsu said and he looked at Bankotsu from the corner of his eye. Bankotsu looked at Jakotsu and thought about what he said and sighed.
"I don't know… maybe we can start with hand to hand combat. What do you think, Jakotsu?" Bankotsu looked at his best friend and hoped they could find a way to train the young miko even under these conditions. Jakotsu sat up and looked at Bankotsu before he turned his sight to Renkotsu, who in return lifted one of his brows in question while he put down the scroll he had been reading.
"I actually thought that maybe Renkotsu could find a way to train her in that aspect without having any of us as her opponent…" Jakotsu said and Bankotsu looked at his second in command to get an answer. Renkotsu thought for a moment and nodded.
"I think I can do some training dummies she can use for training kicks and punches and once she is confident in herself with that, maybe Jakotsu can be her apponent for the moves that needs to have someone to train with. He is a better choice than anyone else of us since she seem to be just the slightest bit more comfortable with him and while she trains on the dummies he can sit in and watch and give her some pointers. I also think that the one who should give her the instructions to use on the dummies would be you, Bankotsu. I am not much of a hand to hand fighter and Suikotsu might just scare her with his face and he don't have much patience either. You are also the best of us when it comes to hand to hand combat. Whenever you don't use Banryuu you still stay as our strongest fighter." Renkotsu said and Suikotsu snorted but didn't say anything since he agreed with Renkotsu, he knew firsthand how scared the girl truly was with any contact with males since he had to examine her and he had done everything to not to touch her more than her had to and whenever he did need to touch her he had to tell her beforehand otherwise she would start screaming and crying. Bankotsu listened to what Renkotsu said and nodded in agreement.
"Yeah I agree with that. Once you are done making those dummies I want you to tell me and Jakotsu and once you have done that I want you, Jakotsu to talk to the girl about starting to train her." Bankotsu looked at them both and once they both nodded he smirked. 'once we are done with Kagome's training she will not be helpless ever again' he thought and he stood up and walked to the kitchen to grab something to eat while the rest of them watched him leave. Renkotsu also started to think of how to make the basement into a training hall and how to make the training dummies. He had to make sure everything was done as soon as possible, the more time that went by the bigger the risk that Naraku would find out that the girl's dead body hadn't been found by her friends yet. The sooner the girl could start her training the better.
(With Inutachi)
Inu Yasha and his friends had continued their search all day long and Sango and Miroku were the ones that came back to the clearing first with Kirara and while they had a new fire going their thoughts went to Kagome and all three of them were startled when Inu Yasha came back with a very disturbed look on his face and with a pale Shippo on his shoulder. Miroku stood up immediately and looked at them both with fear in his eyes.
"We didn't find Kagome, but we did find a dead body… a very, decomposed body of what I could see was an elderly human male. He had claw marks that looks similar to that of the metallic claws that split personality doctor Suikotsu uses. I think they killed him and maybe they took his home as their new hideout. Unfortunately the body has been out in the open for too long for me to pick up any trace to where they came from. I did however bury the remains." Inu Yasha spoke and Shippo jumped into Sango's embrace and hugged her. Miroku relaxed slightly and nodded thankful that Inu Yasha had given the poor soul a burial at least.
They all made camp and as soon as they had eaten the deer that Inu Yasha had caught them they all went to sleep or at least they all thought so.
Shippo waited long into the night before he slowly sat up and carefully wiggled himself loose from Sango's arms that was embracing him in her sleep and he looked at Inu Yasha who was leaning against a tree in his normal position with his eyes closed and his body relaxed, though Shippo did notice how the man's white dog ears twitch and moved which proved that he was still aware of his surroundings. He looked at the direction where he and Inu Yasha had come from after they had found the body and he felt deep inside his heart that his adoptive mother needed him, he felt that something was wrong. He may be just a little kid but even he knew that Kagome being captive for this long by the Band of Seven was odd. 'They can't have given her to Naraku… if they had that monster would have already come here to see us suffer that he had control over her and if he had killed her he would have dumped her lifeless body by our feet. I want my mommy but if I leave the others will be worried for me too.' Shippo thought as he looked at his odd little family that he had gained when Kagome took him in and he shook his head and walked towards the trees. 'I'm just gonna go back to where we found the body and look around a little more, maybe we are closer to their hideout than we think…' while Shippo thought that he disappeared into the forest and started to run, he wanted to find his mommy now, he wanted to feel her caring nature and warm hugs again.
When Shippo arrived to where they had found the body he scrunched his nose a little, the scent of death and decomposing flesh was still thick in the air and he looked at the grave Inu Yasha had digged under a big oak tree ten feet away and he said a small prayer he had heard his mommy say whenever they went to pay their respect to Sango's village and it's lost people. He then turned and looked at the discovery spot again and he then looked if he could see anything that he or Inu Yasha could have missed earlier. Anything a small animal trail some dried blood drops. Something that could give him some clues as to where the mercenaries had come from to dump the body. Dried blood was not something that could be tracked by smell once blood dried up the scent faded away, he remembered his father telling him that. After a few hours of finding nothing he sighed and looked up at the sky. The sun would soon rise and with it Inu Yasha would to. He needed to get back he didn't want to worry them. He looked once last time and as he was about to run back to the clearing where his family was he paused and he turned around on his heels and stared at what had caught his attention. There just six feet from him by a fallen tree was a small black smudge. He hurried to the fallen tree trunk and looked closer. 'It's dried blood!' Shippo's thoughts became happy, the dark bark had hidden the blood stain which had made both he and Inu Yasha to miss it earlier.
He jumped up and landed on the trunk and looked over to the ground on the other side, he couldn't see anything that would help him much but now he was certain that the Band of Seven had come from this direction. He was gonna hurry back to Inu Yasha and tell them what he found and with a confident nod he started to run back towards the clearing hoping he would be back before Inu Yasha panicked over him being gone aswell and as Shippo disappeared behind the trees he never noticed the pair of grey eyes that had watched him from behind a big boulder. Once the little kit was gone the man stepped out from his hiding place and started to walk back with a deer over his shoulder as he at the same time use a herbal mixture to hide his and his kills scent. Suikotsu sighed as he picked up his pace so that he would be long gone in case the kit came back with the rest of the mikos group. 'This is just great. Now that they are in the area we will have to be even more careful.' Suikotsu mused.
After almost three hours of walking Suikotsu reached the hidden mansion and walked through the barrier and into the house and he dropped his kill on the kitchen floor and started to gut and skin it. Once that was done he started to cook it and while the meat roasted he walked into the living room and saw that his brothers where still asleep since only Ginkotsu was there and he had just woken up.
"Ginkotsu, I'm going to go up and wake the others up. I won't be gone long but don't go outside. Inu Yasha and his group are in the area." With that said he walked up the stairs to the third floor to wake his brothers up and tell Bankotsu about this new problem.