lostmoonchild: thanks for the reviews! I don't own Inuyasha or YYH or anything else unless I say otherwise.

Chapter Fifteen

It was shortly before dawn did Inuyasha pick up a scent he immediately recognized. Looking around the small hut quietly, he got up and quietly left completely unaware that a pair of gray eyes was staring in his direction and following the soft sounds that he made. If he had been paying attention, he would have heard small groans.

As it would be, Inuyasha wasn't.

Hana groaned quietly as she struggled to get up. From the sounds of everybody's breathing, they were all asleep. For the time being at least. From the way the air that was coming into the hut smelled, it was nearing dawn.

Careful not to wake anybody up, Hana crawled out the door and followed Inuyasha's scent, sticks and rocks scraping and cutting her hands and knees. She could still feel her demon blood running through her veins and was grateful for a moment that the dawn hadn't come yet. It was just a little ways off, maybe half an hour at most.

The small ten year old stopped when she smelt the scent of death combined with the scent of a freshly dug grave. Did somebody kill Inuyasha! Oh Gods, if somebody did then Kagome would be so upset!

Scared, Hana began crawling as fast as she could, nearly screaming in frustration when her legs started to freeze up on her. "Yaha!" Hana screamed not knowing where she was. "YAHA!"

Suddenly, she felt herself being picked up by clawed hands and started shaking when the scent of death got closer. "Inuyasha, who is this?" A voice questioned.

Hana covered her face in Inuyasha's haori, recognizing his scent before the voice spoke. "This is Kagome's foster daughter, Hana." Inuyasha said running his clawed hand through Hana's hair in an attempt to calm her down.

"Another half demon?" Kikyo questioned, her voice showing deep loathing.

Inuyasha winced slightly at the loathing in Kikyo's voice and said, "Yes. But Hana's a little over half, according to what Kagome says."

"She's a half demon! You're willing to believe her! She's nothing more than a look alike, Inuyasha. She has my face."

"And she knows that." Inuyasha said looking irritated. "She also knows that she has her cousin's face."

Hana clung to Inuyasha when she felt an aura gain an irritated beyond reasonable belief and recognized the aura to belong to a miko. Remembering what happened to her eyes, Hana covered her face and whimpered in fear. She knew that when Kagome's miko energy started going haywire while she was irritated, Kagome always found some creative way to keep from accidentally purifying the nearest person with demonic blood.

But this person's aura screamed that she wasn't about to find a creative way to deal with her miko energy. That she was always down to business when it came to getting rid of demons of all types. "Yaha…" Hana whimpered.

"Kikyo, knock it off!" Inuyasha shouted.

Kikyo stopped and glared at Inuyasha before turning and leaving. Even after Kikyo had left, Hana kept whimpering in fear. "Yaha…" Hana kept whimpering.

"You're okay." Inuyasha said gently as he brushed a clawed hand through Hana's hair.

Hana slowly stopped whimpering and looked at Inuyasha with blank eyes. Inuyasha carefully took one of Hana's hands in his own clawed hand, shocked to see how much smaller the child's hand was in his own. If he didn't be careful at all times, he knew that his claws could easily cut through the child's hand and make it impossible for her to even use the hand that had been cut. He could cut through tendons and muscles, veins, anything if he wasn't the least bit careful.

It didn't hit him at first but slowly, he began to realize that he was beginning to think of Hana as a daughter and Shippo as a son. Kagome was his mate, the two pups' mother. Granted both children weren't really Kagome and his children, only adopted by them over time, but it did very little to make the two raise them as if they were their own. That was what was important, right? To make the two feel as if they were once again part of a loving family with parents that loved them and didn't care if they were full or half demons or even humans for that matter.

Slightly shaking when the facts revealed themselves, Inuyasha carried Hana up to the God Tree and lifted her up. Confused, Hana touched the tree's trunk and nearly sqealed with excitement when she could feel the changes in the bark's roughness. "Yaha! Yaha!" Hana squealed excitedly.

When Inuyasha set Hana down, the small ten year old felt around and grabbed Inuyasha's pant leg almost as if she were afraid of being abandoned. Sighing, Inuyasha picked Hana up and headed back to Kaede's hut before anybody noticed the small girl was missing.

The next morning everybody woke up to find a surprising sight. Inuyasha was asleep with the small girl wrapped protectively in his arms. Unable to resist, Kagome quietly grabbed her backpack and grabbed what they immediately recognized as a camera. Smiling, Kagome took a picture and hid the camera when Inuyasha began to wake up. "I'll make copies." Kagome mouthed with a small grin.

They smiled and resisted the temptation to laugh when Inuyasha fully woke up and looked at them slightly confused. "What's so funny?" Inuyasha asked.

"Nothing. Just never thought of you to be the fatherly type." Miroku answered.

Inuyasha looked down at Hana and said gruffly, "She snuck off last night and ran into Kikyo. I was simply making sure the pup couldn't sneak out again."

Kagome smiled a little and said, "Thank you, Inuyasha. She has a tendency to get into trouble when she sneaks out."

Inuyasha knew that wasn't all Kagome was thanking him for and gruffly nudged the small girl so she'd wake up. "Hey, pup, wake up." Inuyasha said.

Shippo grinned and jumped on Inuyasha, causing the inu-hanyou to shout in surprise. Laughing, Kagome grabbed the camera and began taking pictures. "Run, Kagome, run!" Sango said laughing.

Kagome sat on the camera, careful not to break it, and made the most innocent look she could. "Hand over that thing." Inuyasha growled.

"What thing?" Kagome questioned sneaking the camera into Hana's backpack and pretending to put the camera in her own bag.

Inuyasha pushed the kids off of him and tackled Kagome, managing to rip the backpack away from the laughing miko. "Where is it!" Inuyasha demanded.

"What?"

"That cam-ah-rah thing." Inuyasha growled dangerously.

"Nowhere." Kagome answered with an innocent look.

Damn her!

Inuyasha looked annoyed as he sat back down in the corner, watching the young miko look satisfied as she helped Kaede and Sango get breakfast ready. He'd get the mischievous little miko if it was the last thing he would ever do.

And thankfully, he wouldn't let it be the last thing he would ever do.

lostmoonchild: I honestly couldn't resist making Inuyasha act like a father especially since I kinda saw the images in my mind. Read and review, flames are accepted.