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Itty Bitty Pretty Twelve

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If there was one thing he hated it was knowing a failure on his part had led to others being injured. As he ran through the forest tracking the rapidly fading scent of the serpent, his stomach heaved uneasily. Why wouldn't that bitch just die and stay dead? Most adversaries they faced died and stayed dead so why was she the exception? It was fucking bullshit!

Pushing himself to run a little faster, InuYasha huffed and drastically changed course to follow the damn thing's scent further into the mountains. Another thing he hated was that here was a half-demon - a powerful one at that - who actually had people who cared for her and while she'd made some poor life decisions, ultimately it came from a place of love. She was one of the luckiest hanyou InuYasha has ever encountered - even with some of her family being completely batshit insane and evil.

He understood all too well how a half-demon's family could make life a living hell. When his mother had died, her family hadn't driven him out - that would've been a welcome alternative to what they actually had done. Instead, they'd placed him in iron shackles and thrown him into what equated to a small pantry. They'd taken turns doing all manner of horrible things - beating, branding and eating in front of him. Out of all the things, eating in front of him was definitively up there in terms of the worst form of torture. Feeding the half-breed was seen as wasteful and when he did get fed it was usually half-rotten scraps. Starvation was the closest he'd ever gotten to being truly broken. When Sesshonaru finally arrived, he'd been so outraged at the child's condition that he'd massacred more than a few of the caretakers before taking the boy with humans inflicting a much more...sophisticated brand of torture that almost had him wishing that he'd just starved to death. Oh, how he'd cried and begged for mercy from all of them until one day he stopped crying and never cried again.

Yetanotherthing that was clawing at him was the fact that the same witch who'd brought back Kikyo from the dead was the same bitch who had cursed that poor girl's family. What was it with people making half-demon's lives miserable? There was that fire island they'd encountered with all those half-demon children who were being sacrificed and had been trapped on that island for centuries. There was Jeneji who was shunned and abused to such a degree his entire body was covered in scars. And of course, himself. Honestly though, out of the list he'd formulated in his mind he considered himself to have gotten off relatively easy. He had friends and a life now and...and potentially a mate if he ever found the courage to actually tell Kagome how he felt instead of using anger as a defense mechanism. He'd never heard of a half-demon having a mate and children of their own. If he managed to pull it off - to actually convince her to be his and his alone - then he'd be the luckiest hanyou that ever lived.

But none of that would matter unless he'd saved her. The scent was growing stronger as he ran through the trees - over rocks and streams that flew by in a blur of greens, grey and browns. He was close - so close to getting to that bitch.

It was just...

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"He did what?!" Sango gasped angrily as Totosai explained how it was that he brought a comatose Kagome and two others to the village, "How could you have let him go on his own!!?"

"Eh, he seemed like he could handle himself," Totosai answered casually as he dug his finger into his ear and began mining for gold, "Besides how were these three going to get here without me?"

"Do you know which direction he went?" Miroku asked solemnly, "We should join him. Tsubaki is a powerful adversary. He shouldn't face her alone."

"That firecat of yours could track him," Totosai pointed out - sounding a little miffed, "And you're probably right that he'll need help. Strong InuYasha may be but he's an idiot. I don't know how he hasn't gotten himself killed yet. Only a matter of time I say."

"Thank you for that bout of confidence," Sango muttered sarcastically under her breath as she turned to head into the hut to change, "Most helpful."