A/N: Sorry I'm so not active lately, I had a bad week and my house is more or less under construction right now, so I don't have much time to write. And, even if I'm not depressed I felt a little down and unwilling to write ~shrugs~ Hopefully I'll be able to post more in the coming days
6.
He opened his eyes and was greeted by a blank white ceiling. He felt like there was no whole bone in his body and his muscles were aching like he'd been hit by a car. There was no coldness gripping his spirit but to his horror there was no familiar warmth either, and the weight of the beds was missing, He gasped and sat up, only to tumble to the side and off the bed he had been lying in.
He groaned in pain and looked around. He was in a small room which had obviously seen better times. A kitsune boy was sitting on a chair and gazing curiously down at him.
"Hi," he croaked, his ears swiveling around as he tried to remember what had happened. The last thing he could remember was Kikyou giving him an order. Was it over? Was the Shrine - the family - destroyed or harmed? Was Kagome and their friends safe? What did Kikyou made him to do?
"Hi." The boy tilted his head. "You okay? For a while I wasn't sure you were going to wake up."
"I need to go home. I need to go to Higurashi Shrine," he replied and pushed himself off the ground, even if every movement was like a battle against himself. He realized his clothes were gone, he was dressed in a supermarket employee shirt and sweatpants - both neon red.
"Yeah, I heard that," the kid shrugged, drawing Inuyasha's attention to himself. "You were talking after I dragged you in from the street. About going home and stuff like that."
Inuyasha froze. There were no beads to stop him from saying anything important - what had he said to the kid while he was unconscious, let slip in his wild state of mind? The kitsune waved his tail and pointed to the bed behind him.
"Rest. I'll help you get home when you feel better," he assured the hanyou and jumped to the floor to walk out of the room. Before he passed through the door, he looked once over his shoulder with a significant look and added kindly, "I'm not Mama's enemy."
Inuyasha stared after the boy, who couldn't have been much older than twelve. Shaking his head slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked more closely at the room.
It was dusty, and everything in it looked old. He could smell only the kitsune's scent, mixed with some older, far fainter ones. His ears twitched when he heard the fox speak to someone and he carefully slid off the bed, crossing the floor and pausing surreptitiously at the door, cracking it open and leaning closer.
"...I found a lost puppy. It has no collar, but I think it can belong to one of your pupils, Mama," the kid's voice was serious and sounded much older. "Yeah... He has white, long fur and cute ears. I think he was attacked by some wild animal, 'cause he was pretty beat up, but I took care of everything... Nah... You know what I want, mama. Yeah, yen'll work just perfect... No, no, you don't have to send anyone, I'll bring him as soon as possible. I won't let him get lost again."
There was a long silence before the little fox spoke up again.
"Tsu-tsu? Long time no seen! How are ya?" he inquired cheerfully. "About the dog... I'm still tracking it down... How much you were to pay me for finding it...?"
Inuyasha didn't stay to listen more to the fox any further than that; he was already sneaking out the window. He wasn't going to sit on his ass and wait; he needed to find Kagome and the rest of his friends! And he wasn't about to let that brat hand him over to Bellflowers, either! The memory of cold twisting around his spirit, the broken voice of his mistress and sounds of fighting were painfully fresh in his memory. He couldn't trust the fox - he probably had removed his beads and Inuyasha wanted them back. They were the sign of his bond with Kagome, with the family. There was no way the kitsune could stop him. He hoped Kikyou hadn't made him hurt his friends. Worry flooded his stomach when he couldn't remember her orders.. Maybe it was because he had lost his beads to Kikyo? He frowned and discarded the idea. He could remember all his time with Kagome and her orders, so there was no reason why he shouldn't be able to remember that damn Kikyo's… Right?
Instead of jumping to the ground he climbed up the half-ruined building to its roof. It took him a while to get there - not because it was tall, but because his muscles were screaming in disagreement each time he moved and strained his muscles and body to climb up. He stood on the top after a few moments and started scenting the air, his back pressed against a chimney.
Luckily, he recognized the area of the city he was in - it was pretty close to the park and the Shrine, deep within Higurashi domain. Upon determining which way home was, Inuyasha leapt to the roof of the next building and started to make his way back. His ears plastered to his skull when he heard the old building groan quietly from under his feet. He picked up his pace, just to assure that the roof wouldn't crumble from under him.
His protesting muscles were getting used to stretching, and with every step he felt a little better. It was quite a while since his last run across the rooftops, high above the streets. He let himself forget his worries just for a moment and focus on the feel of the wind against his face and sunlight warming his back. He thought he should take Kagome for a run sometime. The vague idea reminded him, painfully, exactly why he was currently making his way East. He looked up ahead to the hill where the Shrine was located. Kagome...
Suddenly a small weight landed on his shoulder.
"Who would know, you're pretty smart for a run away - they usually try to run on the ground," the kitsune said, offering the hanyou a piece of chocolate and ignoring the withering expression on his face.. "You're going back to the Higurashi Shrine, correct?"
"There's no fuckin' way I'm going to Bellflowers," he growled and saw that the kitsune was unfazed. In fact, he seemed to be rather relieved, and somewhat pleased. He ate his own offering as Inuyasha was just glaring at him.
"That's great. But you won't get there without that rosary you were wearing," the kit opened his other hand to show him a bead - one Inuyasha knew very well. The hanyou glared at him and started growling, he snatched the bead from his little hand. "Or without me, since this one is the only one I found around you when I tripped over your body on my way home."
"Who are you? What happened?" Inuyasha asked, trying not to grab the fox and shake him until he told him. The kid pointed in the direction of the Shrine.
"You can run and listen when I fill you in. Yesterday a gas pipe under the local park exploded," the fox snorted and grinned at Inuyasha's shocked expression. "What? That's the official version. I found you soon after the incident, bloodied in torn clothes, pretty beaten up and unconscious, so I took pity on a fellow stray and took you in so you could heal up in peace while Kaede and Tsubaki sent out their rewards for catching you. So I decided to wait for a while and see how much they were willing to pay to get your hide before I did anything else." Inuyasha snorted derisively, tearing his eyes away from the kit, who continued.
" Anyway, I was going to take you to the Higurashi Shrine anyway, so I don't understand why you just snuck away like that. You didn't even thank me. Your manners are seriously lacking. But at least you're not trying to run away in the wrong direction. After what you did, many wouldn't be so eager to get back to a bunch of mikos."
"Wh-what happened to people in the park?" Inuyasha asked, his pace as fast as he could muster.
"From what I heard there are fallen trees, wrecked public property. But there were quite a few bodies carried away in bags that I saw," the kitsune gave him a smirk. Inuyasha stumbled over an edge of a roof and almost fell to the ground. He stared at the grinning kitsune perched on his shoulder. "You know, for such a feral beast, it's kinda funny to see that expression on your face. Ya look like a kicked shiba.."
"I'm an akita!" Inuyasha growled at the kitsune, but his words lacked fire, he was thinking about the fox's words. He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. He still couldn't remember a thing. Was it part of Kikyou's trick to make him come home and learn what he had done? He started to run again, leaping from a rooftop to a rooftop with easy grace despite the dull ache in his muscles. He feared what was ahead, but needed to know. He needed to see Kagome again.
"I was worried you'd try to run away when you realized your beads are gone," the kitsune was still talking, just like any child focused on something and not realizing the other person wasn't paying much attention. "Some of those who lose the family beads try to run and hide. A few even managed to do just that because the families didn't hire me. Why aren't you trying to do that too? I wouldn't mind a little chase."
"Fuck off, you know nothin'," Inuyasha replied, distracted by a unsteady footing. "What are you doing here anyway? I don't need a baby keeping me company, brat."
"I need those yen Mama's going to give me for taking such good care of you," the fox replied with a grin. "A kid's got bills to pay if he want to keep his independence. My name's Shippou, by the way. As we established earlier, you're lacking manners and didn't even ask for the name of your savior. Or thank me."
"Whatever."
He jumped down to an empty sidewalk just in front of steep stairs leading to the Shrine. He hesitated when he looked upwards, for the first time thinking what the family would do if he had harmed or killed the heir and the most powerful young miko. He shook his head - it didn't matter, he shouldn't worry about stuff he didn't know was true. Still… He couldn't stop thinking about the black hole in his memory and Kikyou's wide smile. His inner beast was oddly quiet, especially after being so eager to shred her to pieces. Shippou waved his hand before his face.
"Oi, you can move now. The barrier won't hold you out," he said. Inuyasha kept to himself his surprise there was a barrier - when he had been wearing his beads all Higurashi barriers had been transparent to him. Now as he blinked he could see a see-through wall of pink light shielding the entryway. He spared a glance at the fox on his shoulder and started to climb up the hill.