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Some Learning
Every evening I tickle his neck with my sharp knife; he is so frightened at it!
Kagome smiled satisfactorily at the short line Inuyasha made on the tree bark with his claw. She was finally as tall as he.
"It can't be," the little boy grumbled, crossing his arms in a show of irritation. He looked from his mark to hers, furrowing his eyebrows. "You stood on your tiptoes!"
She whirled on him, pointing her finger at his nose. "Don't you dare, Inuyasha!" She scowled. Then, something occurred to the little girl, making her give him a devious smile. "If anyone's cheating, that's you!"
"Me?" He narrowed his golden eyes. "How so?"
Kagome quickly grabbed one of his ears between her fingers. "These make you taller," she stated. "They're pointy!"
"D-Don't be stupid!" He stuttered, covering his ears with his hands. "They don't make any difference!"
"Alright… so I'll go get a shawl to tie around your head—then we'll see it!" Before he could retort, Kagome started running toward her home, holding her kimono above her knees. She could hear Inuyasha yelling right behind her, and she knew he'd be on her any moment now, but still she ran.
Kagome laughed, feeling the wind play with her short black hair and listening to the silence around her. For some reason she didn't understand, nature always seemed to hold its breath when Inuyasha chased her; even the birds stopped chirping.
He wasn't coming, though. Little Kagome stopped, looking around the clearing for any sign of her friend.
"INUYASHA!" She called—over and over and over, until she couldn't anymore.
Kagome woke up with a start, feeling someone lying beside her in the dark. Her hands were sweating and her breathing was hard, as if she'd been really running instead of just dreaming of the past.
Not quite, she thought dejectedly. In the past, he always caught me.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to turn around and see where she was, but the cold touch of a blade under her chin stopped her mid-move.
"Go back to sleep," a voice roughened by sleep commanded, and Kagome suddenly remembered everything. She'd been taken hostage by the Robber Girl and her mother, who inhabited a secluded hut in the middle of the woods—here.
Kagome had no idea why the Robber Girl thought kidnapping her would be profitable, but the thief was wrong. She'd tried to tell them she was just a peasant girl searching for her lost friend, but knives on her throat had a way of making her shut it.
Thinking of her dream, Kagome closed her eyes and wished she was still a carefree girl, running in the clearing with Inuyasha—as wild as he. The simple pleasures of childhood, like racing him to the river and catching fireflies at night, made her heart ache with nostalgia. Kagome took a shuddering breath, refusing to cry. If her quest had taught her anything, it was that her tears were good for nothing.
Inuyasha always told me that. I wish I'd listened.
Maybe I'd be tougher by now.
She couldn't contain the sob that escaped her constricted throat, but she kept her eyes closed tightly against the treacherous tears.
Inuyasha wouldn't cry, Kagome told herself fiercely.
But he also would've found me by now. He wouldn't have been delayed at every damn step he took!
"You won't gain anything by keeping me here," she murmured to the Robber Girl as the cold touch of the knife disappeared. "You took everything of value I had. There's nothing left."
"I'm sure someone would pay to have you back," Kikyo replied. Kagome felt the reverberation of her voice passing from the girl's back to hers, and it made her recoil. The wound on her shoulder throbbed; it had been roughly treated by her captors.
Kagome sighed. "You won't be getting anything out of this."
"We shall see." Kikyo murmured. "Sleep—you're starting to vex me."
If I were brave, I would strangle her in her sleep. Inuyasha would.
But she wasn't Inuyasha, was she? Kagome wasn't strong; she was just a human girl, miles and miles away from her home, searching for someone whom everyone thought was dead. For the first time since she left, the weight of her quest—the utter craziness of what she'd done—seemed to register. A young woman of fifteen, unchaperoned, traveling the land with nothing but hope in her heart, and counting on the goodwill of strangers to help her?
You're not an optimistic like you thought. You're just downright stupid.
But, she amended, you did find good people who helped you. You wouldn't have made it this far without them.
Finding some small measure of comfort in this last thought, Kagome closed her eyes and tried to sleep, doing her best to ignore that a heartless girl with a knife had her back to hers.
Kagome woke up to find Kikyo sitting across the room, slicing an apple with her knife. At her slight movement, the Robber Girl lifted her eyes and sniggered.
"Rise and shine," Kikyo said, sounding almost cheerful in her mocking.
Kagome took in her torn clothes, which were red and white like a shrine maiden's. "Are you dressed as a priestess?" She mumbled, sitting up and blinking the sleep from her eyes.
Kikyo ate one slice of her apple before answering. "We steal from anyone." She shrugged. "I wear whatever I get." The Robber Girl tossed one half of the fruit in Kagome's direction, which she miraculously caught. "Besides, this is a good way to trick travelers."
"Why do you do this?" Kagome asked pensively, feeling the moisture from the apple smearing her fingers. "Steal, I mean—and kidnap," she grumbled the last part as an afterthought.
Kikyo's eyes were piercing. "We all do what we must to survive. Not everyone has a good home and a good family, like you obviously do."
Kagome felt momentarily ashamed of herself, but she shook the feeling off. She wasn't the one who should be ashamed in that situation—not by a very long shot.
"Where's Kirara?"
"Mother put some ofuda we stole from a monk on her," Kikyo said nonchalantly. "She's outside."
Kagome ate her half of the apple quickly and in silence. Her heart ached at the thought of the faithful nekomata sleeping out in the cold. She should've suspected something like this had happened; an old human woman would never have been able to subdue the cat demon without some spiritual trick.
"Tell me where you come from," Kikyo ordered calmly. "We'll see if you have any value then."
"I told you I'm just a village girl!" Kagome crossed her arms, wincing right afterward at the sharp pain on her shoulder. Not a good idea. She folded her hands in her lap. "Even if I had someone to pay my way out of here, which I don't, do you expect me to believe you would just let me go? After seeing where you live?" She huffed.
"We never stay at the same place for long. What you see or don't doesn't matter."
Looking at Kikyo's face, Kagome felt a wave of pity for the Robber Girl. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, but she behaved much older. It couldn't have been a good life, moving from place to place with your criminal mother.
"How did you start stealing?" Kagome blurted.
Kikyo paused the knife, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. Then, she put the fruit down on her lap and looked up again.
"Well, I see no harm in telling you," she mused with a small smile—and it seemed almost genuine this time. "Maybe it will encourage you to speak faster. If it doesn't, I have other methods."
Kagome gulped, but she kept her jaw clenched.
"I don't know how we started stealing," Kikyo said with a slight shrug. "Mother has been doing it for as long as I can remember, and she taught me well. I have wanted for nothing in my life." Kikyo snorted. "Do you think working in the fields until I died would have been better, perhaps?"
She sounds so bitter… maybe even angry.
"Perhaps." Kagome shrugged.
Kikyo's eyes grew distant. "What about you?" She asked. "What's a pretty little thing like you doing so far from home?"
"How do you know I'm far from home?"
"It's easy to tell." Kikyo snuffled. "You were carrying enough for a long journey."
"I'm just looking for a friend who's been missing," Kagome said. "The things you found were given to me by good people who decided to help." She paused, glaring at the other girl. "I would've told you this already, but you put that knife to my throat, and well… I got the hint."
"Well, you do seem like the kind to talk a lot." Kikyo snorted. "So, I must believe you were given food, clothes, weapons, and a cat demon out of the goodness of someone's heart? A peasant girl with no name?"
Well, when she puts it like that, it sounds kind of farfetched. Kagome thought grumpily, opening and closing her mouth. But so does being invited to stay in a castle after breaking in, and I was!
"Don't you believe people can help others just 'cause they want to?" Kagome asked exasperatedly.
Kikyo lifted an eyebrow, finishing eating her apple. "I don't."
There was a moment of silence in which they glared at each other.
"Start your story from the beginning," Kikyo required, narrowing her eyes again. "And make it believable." She got up and sat again beside Kagome, bringing her face close to the girl's shoulder. As Kikyo undid the bloodied cloth to see her wound, Kagome felt her hands sweating.
Just tell her the truth.
Even if she ends up blackmailing Princess Sango, you have no other explanation to give.
"Why do I have to wear this again?" Inuyasha asked in a bored tone, staring at the armor they had left on a wooden holder in the middle of his room.
"Because it will be an improvement to your current attire," Setsumi stated, eyeing him skeptically.
"You didn't give a shit before."
"Well, I do now."
Inuyasha turned his head to study her, and he thought he saw some strange emotion passing through her cold golden eyes. He blinked, and it was gone.
"Because of this?" He asked, lifting his hand to trace the mark on his left cheek with a claw. It was strangely more sensitive than the rest of his skin.
"Among other things, yes," Setsumi conceded, holding his gaze.
Inuyasha approached the Snow Queen very slowly, stopping right in front of her. For less than a second, he thought he could smell apprehension wafting from her—but that too was gone too quickly, even for his enhanced senses.
"You still say you had nothing to do with this?" He rasped.
"I may be many things, boy, but I'm not a liar." Her delicate jaw was clenched tight, but she showed no emotion other than that.
For some unfathomable reason, he believed her—but that didn't mean she wasn't taking advantage of his situation, or keeping secrets from him. The strange thing was, Inuyasha didn't particularly care anymore. What reason did he have to? She offered him a castle, a place in his father's home, power…
An empty castle! Something demanded to be heard inside his blurred mind. A house with no father, and power you never wanted.
Is this why you left Kagome?
It's not worth it.
Turn around and leave.
… Like this?
Inuyasha looked away from Setsumi, walking to the holder. He touched the cold—cold—armor with his fingertips. The breastplate was a lustrous black, shining ominously in the dim light that came through the door. Spiked pauldrons for his shoulders were attached to it, and they made Inuyasha think of a lizard he found under Kagome's futon when they were younger.
Keh. Everything reminds you of her, doesn't it? Even now, when you can't come back. Not like this.
That loud something—what remained of his conscience, perhaps?—insisted that she wouldn't mind, but he ignored it.
"I'll wear it, alright." Inuyasha shrugged. "If you tell me what you plan to do with me now."
Setsumi lifted an eyebrow. "Prepare you to rule."
"Are you dying, then?" He snorted. She didn't answer, so he sighed and resumed: "how?"
"First of all, you must learn how to fight," Setsumi said, coming to stand beside him in front of the armor.
In other circumstances, Inuyasha would've been offended, but he wasn't nearly as short-tempered as he used to be. He knew she meant fighting with techniche, which he didn't have. For him, fighting had always been the means to an end; protecting his house from a suspicious demon that came too close to it, protecting Kagome from the boys who surrounded her when she was thirteen, coming home alone after sunset…
He made it in time, but the thought of what could've happened to her had kept him awake many nights.
"And just who'll teach me?" He asked with a semblance of his old petulance. "Your weak underlings?"
"No," she said, and Inuyasha heard the smile in her voice. Every hair on his body stood on end. "I will."
Kagome wasn't sure of how long had passed since she started her story, but the sunlight coming through the door had moved to the middle of the room when she was finished. Golden dust floated in the air, and Kikyo's eyes seemed even darker from where Kagome sat.
"Princess Sango is your friend, then?"
Kagome closed her eyes and banged her head against the wooden wall. She'll ask her to pay for my rescue. Damn it! "Yes." The girl sighed. She couldn't turn back now; Kagome had never been a good liar.
Look on the bright side, she told herself ironically. At least she cleaned your wound before using you for blackmail, and Creepy Mama has been away all day!
"Well, you may have some value, after all," Kikyo mumbled, but her mind seemed far away from their conversation.
There was a pregnant pause.
"You must love him very much."
It had come out as soft as a prayer, and Kagome thought she had imagined it for all of three seconds. She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes to see Kikyo through the light.
"I-Inuyasha?" She stuttered.
"Who else?"
Kagome squirmed a little under the feel of her gaze. "I always knew I did," she murmured. "But it's different now. It's more… more raw." She didn't know what she meant by that, or why she was telling something so personal to her kidnapper, but it seemed so natural… as if Kikyo and her weren't so different, as if they were just two friends sitting together and chatting after a long day working in the fields—something she'll never do.
"If I vanished, I'd be on my own," Kikyo contemplated. "Not even Mother would do what you're doing." She gave a quiet laugh.
For a selfish, cruel moment, Kagome wished she would disappear. People like Kikyo, embittered by what life had done to them, were sometimes too glad to make others suffer for it. The Robber Girl was delaying her reunion with Inuyasha, holding her hostage, and Kagome had a hard time sympathizing.
Inuyasha.
He was bitter, too, in a way. Would he have ended up like Kikyo if he didn't have Kaede? Would he steal, deceive, and possibly kill?
Not everyone has a good home and a good family, like you obviously do, Kikyo had said.
"When I was six, I stabbed a monk in the arm to get his purse," Kikyo confessed suddenly. "Before I did it, he already knew I would. He told me of a priestess who could train me if I wanted."
Kagome waited, not knowing what to say.
"Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I'd said yes," Kikyo mused. "I don't think it's the life for me, but maybe… maybe it would have been better than this."
Why's she telling me all this?
What do I say?
"I don't think you'd be a very good priestess." Kagome said, unable to stop herself. Smooth.
Kikyo laughed, sounding true for the first time. "I think you're right. As bad as things are right now, at least I have the thrill." Her eyes sparkled.
Kagome smiled in spite of the situation. "You'd be a good demon slayer, if you ask me."
Before Kikyo could reply, her mother—Urasue, if Kagome wasn't mistaken—entered the hut. She tossed two leather purses at her daughter, sniggering.
"It's your turn now, child," Urasue said, stretching. "I've been away since morning."
Kikyo turned and crept to the corner of the room, getting her torn brown kimono out from a sack of clothes.
"Keep the priestess's garb on, stupid girl." Urasue rolled her eyes, sitting down with a huff. "It's easier to work this way!"
"You brainless hag," Kikyo said derisively. "People around here have seen me wearing this already."
"We're in the middle of a forest!"
"Do you want trouble?"
"No, you're trouble enough."
Kagome winced, keeping silent and trying to become one with the wall behind her. The dynamics between Kikyo and her mother reminded her of Inuyasha and Kaede's, but without the warmth she always heard behind the words of her adored family.
Noticing how Kikyo's back stiffened, she was certain of her impression.
"I carry you on my back most of the time," Kikyo said, discarding her priestess's clothes. "I can't wait for you to die."
There's no love lost between these two.
"Won't take long," Urasue grumbled, rolling her shoulders. "Unless you really can't wait... " The old woman smirked at her daughter's back.
Did she just suggest Kikyo kill her?
Kikyo didn't answer. Kagome watched her getting ready to leave with growing desperation, unable to bear the thought of being alone with Urasue in the tiny hut.
"What about this little mouse we have?" Urasue asked as if on cue, eyeing the girl greedily. Her brown eyes seemed to glow magenta under the light of the setting sun. "Is anything else coming from where all those goods she had with her came?"
Kikyo grabbed her bow and arrows before turning to face her mother. "She's just a peasant girl who stole some goods along the way. There's nothing more to it."
Kikyo lied so flippantly, Kagome was aghast. The Robber Girl knew of her connection to Princess Sango; she even implied that she would, in fact, blackmail her friend.
Is she protecting me?
"Then you should dispose of her before you leave." Urasue suggested, bringing some firewood to the fire pit.
Kikyo stopped short, smiling slowly at her mother, who wasn't even looking.
Maybe not. Oh, God.
"Sure," she said. Kikyo turned to Kagome. She walked over to her and grabbed the peasant girl by the arm, hauling her up. Kagome looked up at her pleadingly, but Kikyo's jaw was set and her eyes were guarded.
If she thinks I won't fight for my life, she's got another thing coming, Kagome thought, squaring her shoulders to better match Kikyo's height. She could feel her stomach rumbling (they'd only eaten an apple all day) and her knees shaking, but she wouldn't go down without a fight.
Inuyasha would have sliced their faces off.
"I'll eat something and take a nap while you're at it." Urasue's voice snapped Kagome out of her thoughts. Kikyo had been staring at her face, but she quickly turned to leave at her mother's words, dragging Kagome behind her.
Inuyasha faced Setsumi, who was standing a few meters away in the middle of the courtyard. The sunset made the white-stoned ground shine golden. He could see a few servants watching them from the shadows of the covered pathway, apparently trying hard not to make any sound.
"What do you know about fighting?" Setsumi asked, inspecting her fingernails. She had stripped off her pelted mantle for their training session, which made her look smaller—more fragile. She wasn't short, but she sure was thin; maybe the thinnest woman Inuyasha had ever seen.
"I know how to use my claws." Inuyasha shrugged. "I found out I could make cutting blades with my blood when I was little."
Setsumi eyed him curiously. "How did you find that out?"
"A bear was after me. It cut my arm."
"And how old were you?"
"Seven."
"Hn." She nodded as if this were natural. "So, you never learned how to use a sword?" She lifted one of her pale eyebrows, pursing her lips.
"Why would a village kid need a sword?" Inuyasha snorted. "I killed the weak demons who got close easily enough, and angry humans are nothing to fear."
"I disagree," Setsumi said, surprising him. "A mob of angry humans could dispose of a half-demon child with little trouble."
"Only if you get caught." Inuyasha paused, his mind going back to his family of misfits. "'Sides, I wasn't totally alone."
Setsumi sighed, but there was no pity in her face. Good. "Before I introduce you to the art of brandishing a sword, I must see how strong and fast you are."
Inuyasha didn't really want to fight her, or any other woman for that matter.
He had less than a heartbeat to prepare for Setsumi's attack.
She came at him in a white and indigo blurr, claws extended toward his throat, a small smile on her lips. He dodged at the last second, feeling her hand passing through the ends of his hair.
Inuyasha whirled on her.
"Think of where you're aiming at," she said, easily avoiding his claws. "You attacked me before deciding where." She made a try for his stomach, managing to scratch his armor before he moved away.
"This shit's heavy," Inuyasha complained, sidestepping when she striked again.
"A demon lord must be presentable." Setsumi huffed. "And don't be so vulgar."
Inuyasha saw an opening on her left side. He went for it, but she banged her elbow against his temple, making him see stars. He shook the pain off, keeping his cool. He knew that this should've been be the part where he started cursing her, but Inuyasha didn't feel the least bit inclined to do so.
She grabbed him by the neck and tossed him against one of the pillars of the covered pathway. The servants ran away in desperation, afraid to be caught in his way.
Inuyasha spat dust on the floor, deciding that enough was enough. As he lifted himself up from his crater, Setsumi was right there again. Inuyasha grabbed her wrists when she made to strangle him, snapping his jaw at her. It seemed to startle her enough for him to kneel her stomach.
The air rushed out of her lungs and she stumbled backwards, but she didn't go very far. It made him feel slightly better about doing that to a woman.
I may he heartless, but I'm not that heartless. He gave himself a proverbial pat on the back for still being a gentleman.
"That was fairly decent," Setsumi said as she straightened, tossing her twin ponytails back over her shoulders. "But don't snap your jaw at me, boy—unless you want to lose it."
She went for his face next, and Inuyasha quickly jumped on the rooftop of the covered pathway. Setsumi had managed to scratch his cheek, though, and he felt it acutely on his sensitive stripe, almost wishing she'd used her freezing touch to alleviate the throbbing.
When Setsumi came after him, he kicked her right side, getting up from his hunched position and running for it.
Inuyasha soon discovered that while he could jump long distances, Setsumi could literally fly. It was an unfair advantage, and he told her so.
"Why don't you try it?" She replied between strikes. "You might be able to do it now."
Feeling his blood boil with the thrill of the fight, Inuyasha leapt from the rooftop.
"Stop struggling, you fool!' Kikyo hissed in the darkness.
"The least I can do is give you a hard time," Kagome grunted, not even realizing she had spoken out loud. She still tugged and kicked, falling gracelessly to the ground when Kikyo released her.
"If Mother listens, I'll have to kill you."
That made Kagome stop, looking up at Kikyo's silhouette against the moonlight. The Robber Girl put a finger to her lips, helping Kagome stand.
"The nekomata is unconscious behind the hut," Kikyo whispered. "Release her from the seals while I kill chicken for you to take."
Kagome did as she was told, stumbling in the dark. The wound in her arm didn't hurt as much as she remembered the others hurting; maybe she was getting used to the pain. She felt just an uncomfortable throbbing, nothing worth stopping her journey for.
And certainly not my escape, she added to herself.
Kirara was a little disoriented when Kagome finished taking the ofuda off of her, but the girl shushed her by holding her head tenderly. The nekomata inhaled Kagome's scent and stopped shaking.
"We don't have much time, Kirara," she murmured. "The Robber Girl is helping us escape."
The cat demon blinked her red eyes at the girl, signaling that she understood the situation. Kagome mounted on her and they silently flew back to where she had last seen Kikyo.
The Robber Girl gestured for them to follow, getting farther from the hut and further into the woods. After a few minutes had passed, Kikyo stopped and turned, handing Kagome a large sack and the map Kohaku had given her.
"The map was all I could get from your things," Kikyo said. "There are two chickens in that sack. I hope it's enough until you make another stop."
You mean until I'm stopped again, Kagome thought. "Um—thank you, Kikyo."
The Robber Girl lifted her hand to silence her. "Don't thank me. I'm one of the bad guys, remember?" She offered Kagome a wry smile, which the girl could only see because of Kirara's glowing eyes.
"True enough." Kagome shrugged. "But you still helped me. I won't say I like you, though."
"You don't have to like me," Kikyo said. "You just have to respect me, I think."
Kagome slowly nodded. She put Kohaku's map on her obi and held the sack tightly. "I-I hope I never see you again, Robber Girl."
"You better not." Kikyo laughed quietly. "It's never a good sign."
Before Kagome left, she paused to study the teenager one last time. There was a question nagging her. "Why did you decide to help me?"
"I am a very self-indulgent person." Kikyo lifted her nose a little, as if making her point. "It would please me to think you found your friend, even if you don't."
"Why?"
"I want to remember at least one story gone right." The Robber Girl looked away. "Don't ask me to explain it—I just do."
"So you're not turning good?" Kagome smirked.
"Get away from here—now." Kikyo slapped Kirara's behind as if she were a horse, and the nekomata meowed indignantly before taking off. Kikyo ran right beside them for a few meters, her loose hair flying behind her like black silk, before she made a sharp turn left. Since that wasn't the way to the hut, Kagome realized she was carrying on with the night's robbery.
I pity whoever stands in her way, she mused.
In Kagome's innocent world of black and white, the Robber Girl had been the first of many grays to come.
A/N: We're getting to the end of this fairytale, guys. I can see Inuyasha and Kagome's reunion on the horizon lol.
This wasn't the last you've seen of the Robber Girl, but the circumstances will be different when they meet again.
Please, take a few seconds to review if you can. It really helps to know you're actually reading it! Thanks again :)
