Circumstance

Book 2: Land of Grass

Chapter 19:

Run

The woman noticed them first.

She moved to walk beside him instead of picking her way through the grasslands avoiding snakepits and rabbit holes with an ease that InuYasha envied. "There are nine shinobi drawing towards our position, two to our south and east, with the remaining five at our North. You must continue West, InuYasha-sama."

InuYasha turned to her sharply, honeyed eyes taking in the thinned lips and tightened skin around the eyes. How the hell did she know that? InuYasha's sense of smell was ass but he could pick up little things. He'd know if someone was waiting a hundred meters off of them and he sensed nothing chakra wise. That meant she had a means of tracking people from a distance.

"How far out?" InuYasha asks instead of addressing her insulting idea that he would continue on. She was no warrior, no matter her oddly potent not youki or her mysterious senses. If she thought he was going to leave her behind-

"Two kilometers and slowly closing." She answered promptly, head shifting towards where InuYasha assumed the largest group stood.

They were three from the boarder to Suna. Their trackers must have been gradually closing in on their position, hoping to cut them off before they reached the boarder. InuYasha considered fighting before dismissing it with a furious growl. The woman- Hotaru, a firm not-Kagome voice insisted- wouldn't be able to help in a fight. InuYasha would be stuck protecting her with 9 to 1 odds. Their best bet was to get her somewhere safe so InuYasha could pick them off on his own terms. "Shit. Run for the boarder, I'll-"

"They may have a sensor and would notice if I began running." The woman, Hotaru, interrupted, voice calm. "My chakra is larger than yours, InuYasha-sama, and more than likely a beacon they have been able to follow since we left the outpost. You would do better leaving on your own."

"And set you up as bait?" InuYasha demanded, disgusted with the very idea. InuYasha had never been a coward, and he would never forgive himself to abandoning this woman to handle a common thug let alone competent warriors. "Fuck that lady, you're gonna take your happy ass to the boarder as fast as your skinny legs can get you there. I'll stall for time." He turned towards the larger group and pulled Kiba free, bouncing on his toes a little and just the slightest bit eager for a confrontation. He could handle this.

(And if he couldn't, well, he wouldn't have to worry about quite a few things anymore-)

"No!"

And InuYasha stalls at that because he had never heard her use that tone of voice except to deny the Grass shinobi as being anything close to friends. There was fire in her not youki now. It thrashed, alive and unyielding, and InuYasha could almost see it just beneath her skin, defiant and powerful.

"My duty," she said in a far more controlled tone of voice, "Is to insure your safety. I am the sacrificial piece here, InuYasha-sama. Not you."

InuYasha turned to her with a snarl on his face, a denial on his tongue, but flinched at the understanding look in her eyes. He has more guts than sense sometimes and rarely thinks past the initial consequences of his decisions but he had never let on that he didn't value his life. There was no way she could see his desire to just rest.

InuYasha reigned back his first and second retorts with difficulty. He didn't like feeling exposed, never tolerated anything close to sympathy, so he grit his teeth and stalked back to the woman who's hip he barely reached.

"We're running then. If they catch up, you keep going-" She opened her mouth and InuYasha drowned her out with a voice like granite. "You keep going and you don't look back. We're getting out of this together or you're getting out of this alone. Those are the only options, Hotaru."

She jerked as if he struck her, shocked probably by the fact that he knew her name just as much that he used it. InuYasha took her stunned silence as acceptance, grabbed her hand with his free one and hauled ass for the border.

Next chapter: Hunted

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

~Yasha's Sis