Separation Anxiety

Six

Kagome gasped in realisation of her aching limbs, as Miroku dragged her up, pushing the rubble off her. She looked around her; fallen stone and crumbled rock lay everywhere, the entrance blocked by the avalanche. She was rather relieved when the monk stood her up, as she found that her legs worked perfectly well. She stood there still for a moment, whilst ridding herself of the temporary concussion, before walking steadily forward about the dimness, running her fingers over the barely visible wall. Her fingers caught the engravings of the ancient runes, and she frowned as a torch found its way into her hand's path, though it was extinguished, and she turned to Miroku, who was pulling rocks aside once more, trying to find the others. Kagome realised just what had happened then, and fear and panic rose up in her as she did. Miroku nearly jumped sky high as the girl leapt down nearby, frantically dragging and pushing, digging for her friends.

She clawed and buried her delicate fingers in the shattered rock, scratching and cutting her fingers to pieces. Nearby, Miroku threw rocks off the top of the heap, until his fingers found something other than rock; soft, delicate fur, Shippo or Kilala? He thought. He pulled at it, and he could just make out the outline of the little white cat, half-conscious. He shook the demon slightly and she stirred from the dazed state.

'Kagome, go fetch that torch on that wall,' he called to her, and she nodded, leaping to her feet with unbelievable energy. She held the torch before Kilala, and the tiny cat mewed in understanding, her big, red eyes gazing at Kagome as if she were slightly dizzy. With a fiery transformation Kilala changed, and used her flaming breath to set light to the torch. Kagome petted the demon in thanks, running and setting the torch back on the wall, as Kilala transformed back, obviously too tired to hold her larger form for very long. Kilala jumped onto her shoulder as the girl began to dig again, blooding oozing from her wounded fingertips.

It seemed an eternity before her sore, bruised fingers found anything but rock; but when she did, she pulled Shippo up sharply and he gasped as he sprang back to life.

'Ka…Kagome?' his voice asked, husky from the dirt he'd swallowed.

'You okay?' she asked, her voice rasping much like his, due to the same reason. Shippo looked around in the firelight, his green eyes adjusting to the dimness.

'No Sango or Inuyasha?' asked the Kitsune. Kagome shook her head sorrowfully, and hid her cut fingers carefully from his view. Shippo joined the search for the two remaining members of their party; they all knew that if they didn't find Sango, Rin and Inuyasha soon, the two would suffocate under the rocky masses, and their search sped up significantly as the moments passed.

Inuyasha opened his eyes, scrambling to his feet shakily, all his bones aching and his muscles throbbing, trying to fight his movements at every try. He looked around to see Sango getting to her feet, being greeted by Kilala, and Kagome digging with Shippo through the rubble, a beaten, shaky Rin kneeling at their side. He was glad to see everyone okay, still he frowned as he saw the caved in entrance. Kagome looked up when she heard the rubble beneath Inuyasha's bare feet scatter as he stumbled down the rocks to her side. She threw her arms tight round him, nearly squeezing the breath from his lungs. When Sango had recovered herself enough to give Miroku a slap for trying to grab her butt the moment she fell back into consciousness, she turned to face her two other friends, and as she met Inuyasha's eyes, he blushed. He slid free of Kagome's grip, only to meet the dazzling tears in her eyes.

'You're crying again,' he muttered, looking away as he blushed furiously. Kagome shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes.

'I'm not crying,' she insisted in a hysterical voice. 'I'm just glad you're okay.' Inuyasha tried to smile, but he couldn't manage it; while they were all alive, they definitely weren't okay. They were trapped, with no food, hardly any light, and only two skins of water. Inuyasha looked back at the entrance once more, knowing that even as a hanyou he couldn't get through that. He walked over to Miroku who now held the torch, and picked up another extinguished one from the ground, holding it to the flames, and setting it alight.

Shippo hopped onto Inuyasha's shoulder, nuzzling himself up against his black hair.

'Get out of it!' snapped Inuyasha, but Shippo just smiled, also happy to have him back. He walked on a bit, before realising the others weren't following. 'What's wrong?'

'Well, do we have to get moving right away?' asked Sango, brushing her hair out of her face, a nasty gash across her forehead.

'Yes, we do! Kazuya, or god knows what else could be here, plus that bloody lizard outside; we have to keep moving.'

'And…the entrance?' asked Miroku, turning to look at it optimistically. 'Is there no way that…?' Inuyasha turned fully to face them and shook his head sorrowfully. 'Not even as a hanyou?' Inuyasha shook his head once more, as Kagome stood at his side. 'What about my Kazaana? That could shift all this rock,' suggested the monk. Sango looked at him, her eyes wide arguing silently with him.

'Feh, you wanna suck all that into your palm go ahead, but your fingers look bad enough without all that crap being sucked through your hand.' Miroku bowed his head slightly, knowing Inuyasha was right, and Kagome hid her fingers from Inuyasha, just as he turned to look at her. 'You okay?' he asked his tone softening more so than when he had spoken to Miroku. She looked at him through wide, hazel orbs.

'Why wouldn't I be?' she asked in her usual dulcet voice. Inuyasha lifted his free hand, running his deft fingertips along her temple, brushing the black silk from it, revealing a nasty cut. Kagome blushed at his actions and the affection in his brown, human eyes, and pulled away slightly. 'I'm fine, just a scratch,' she replied, brushing the tendrils of black silk back over the cut.

After a little more argument against Inuyasha's decision, they all agreed that his choice was the wisest, and grudgingly followed one by one in his path. The floor and ceiling of the many tunnels were paved in stone, and the walls the same, except the many extinguished torches on them, and the engraved runes upon the ancient stone. Kagome stuck close by Inuyasha's side, not liking the look of the shadows that loomed about them wherever the light from the torch could not reach, hating the incoherent whispers of creatures within the same shadow, and the coldness that loomed about them, lurking beside the hidden creatures…following in their wake. Each step echoed in the darkness, even Shippo and Kilala, (who now walked between Inuyasha, Kagome and Rin who were at the front, and Sango and Miroku who held up the rear), had footsteps that beat against the wall, and sounded louder than they actually were. Kagome hitched her bow higher over her shoulder, though she had no arrows, and her quiver she guessed must still be somewhere in that dragon's mouth, she had nothing to use in it. Tetsusaiga sat in its sheath, pretty much the best weapon in their group at the moment, even though with Inuyasha as a human, still under the influence of the moonless night, it wouldn't be of much use against Kazuya himself.

It happened every month, and yet Inuyasha still found it hard to relieve the anxiety before and during that time. Under the moonless sky each month, the hanyou, feared all throughout feudal Japan lost his demon half, all his powers and demonic abilities, to live in the form of a full-blooded human for that short night. It was not the human form itself that frightened Inuyasha, it was that whenever it happened a demon seemed to appear out of nowhere, and when it did he was helpless, not able to protect those he had come to care for. Maybe it was because of this mostly that he had sought the Shikon no Tama, the jewel of four souls to start with; seeking the secret and most painful desire of his heart, to become a full demon, and never be weak again. But even that had it's faults some times, as a full demon he had in the past not been able to recognize his friends, and had nearly killed them all as he wreaked havoc under the control of his new form. This had happened countless times, and was probably the reason he had doubts now about the wish he would eventually make. Though whatever his wish, the shards of the jewel had to be found. The shards alone could raise the power of anyone who wielded even a tiny piece, and that power was dangerous in the wrong person's hands.

Kagome slipped her arm under Inuyasha's, looking warily about as the shadows played tricks on her eyes. Images of watching eyes and eerie creatures flickered in the shadows, but whenever she looked back they were gone, she shivered, hating every minute of being here; something didn't feel right.

'Kagome?' The girl looked up to Inuyasha as he spoke her name. 'You're uh…digging your nails in.' Kagome looked at his arm, and saw that she was squeezing his arm so tight that her nails had dug into his skin as the kimono drew back off his arm slightly.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said apologetically, Rin looking up at her from her side still clutching Kagome's other hand tightly. 'I was just…' she shivered as another shadow showed her another image that wasn't truly there, or was it?'

'You okay?' he asked.

'Yeah, I just umm…I don't like it here. It's really small, and I feel like, the air is so thick, I'm being suffocated slowly, and I feel as if,' her voice dropped, 'I keep feeling like someone is watching us.' She expected him to laugh at her, and say she was being a stupid little girl as he usually did, but he didn't. He looked at her with soft, brown eyes, smiling slightly.

'I know that something is watching,' he muttered, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear. 'But if we start running it's gonna catch us, it may go away if we don't show it we're afraid.'

'But we are afraid,' she argued quietly.

'Yeah, but maybe if we can draw the hunt out long enough, the sun will rise and I will have the strength to kill it, before it wakes up…the others.'

'Others?' she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

'Can't you smell it? I'm no hanyou right now but you can taste it in the foulness of the air… there's worse things than your average fear demon in this temple, the evil in the air is just…overpowering.' Kagome didn't like the serious tone to his voice, it meant he was sure of what he said, and what he had said was bad.

Rin hadn't liked what she had heard either, and she held onto Kagome's hand tighter, relying on the girl for protection seeing Kagome as the next best after Sesshomaru to protect her. Her heart froze as she thought it. Sesshomaru, she thought, where are you? You can't be dead, can you? Her heart felt heavy, she wouldn't believe it, he was not dead; he couldn't have left her behind, couldn't have left her when she was in trouble. She knew he would find her, and be back for her, he was not dead. The thought, even though it calmed her to think it, seemed to her precious heart unlikely and silent tears poured down her face. Kagome leant against Inuyasha's shoulder slightly, making the human smile. This smile was brief, yet Rin saw it, and caught there, a glimpse of the affection he held for the girl beside him, and Rin suddenly felt at ease around him, for some unknown reason.

At the rear of the group, Miroku and Sango fought to suppress giggles at their companions.

'Don't those two look cosy?' asked Miroku with a giggle.

'Oh, come on Miroku,' muttered Sango finally, thanking that Inuyasha did not have the demon ability of hearing, and did not hear their teasing. 'They never act like this, how are they ever supposed to get it together if you tease them all the time?'

'Me? You're the one who started it; you sang the little song about-'

'Sssssh!' she hushed him as his voice started to rise.

'They do look like such a cute couple though don't they?' Sango nodded, suppressing a grin.

'Too bad this doesn't happen to Inuyasha every month, grumpy anxiety aside he seems to be nicer when he's like this'

'It's all those demon hormones, their all raging about in his tiny brain and he's so busy trying not to embarrass himself with his stinking attitude that he forgets to think before he talks.' Miroku realised his voice was rising again, as Inuyasha turned, catching only brief words from the sentence, and he gazed suspiciously back at them through the corner of his eye before turning his head back.

'Oh, and you think before you talk?' she asked.

'I do, sometimes…just not, very often.'

'Not at all,' she muttered.

'I do think before I speak! I just don't think before I act.'

'Well, that's the first true thing you've ever said,' she agreed, rolling her eyes.

'Hey now Sango I-' he broke off, and they all stopped dead in their tracks. The ceiling quaked threateningly, small pieces crumbling from it. They all stared in fear at the ceiling, praying it would not fall, ready to run, ready for the unexpected.

Suddenly, a sharp, thundering smash sounded as something crashed through the hard, stone-slab ceiling. Inuyasha pulled Kagome and Rin backwards, crashing to the floor; Kilala skidded under the downfall and onto Kagome's lap, Shippo leaping backwards into Sango and Miroku, skidding away from it. They all leapt warily to their feet, and their eyes widened in horror, they were separated, on opposite sides. They saw that it was in fact a thin, transparent wall, looking almost like liquid as it divided them from each other. Miroku approached it warily, and against the cries of protest from his friends, leant forward to touch it.

He screamed as the electric jolt shocked him, and Sango leapt forward, wrenching his arm from the mysterious water's grasp. The great shimmering wall shook as Miroku was pulled free, and where his arm was moments before, sat temporarily a small hole, which sealed up again quickly. Inuyasha grinned, he had an idea. He pulled Tetsusaiga sharply from its sheath, and leaping forward with a yell, before slicing through the watery substance with the demonic blade. A great gash was in its place when it was withdrawn, but it was closing fast. Kagome pulled Rin up into her arms, and threw her through the gap, Sango catching her with ease. Next Kilala was thrown through, the gap nearly catching one of her tails. Miroku snatched her from the water before it had time to shock the cat demon, and the gap was sealed. Inuyasha held Kagome close to him as he raised Tetsusaiga once more, but as he sliced through the water, it seemed to roar with anger, and sprang violently against them, knocking them crashing to the floor or through it…

The floor, just where they were flung smashed easily in its age, the ancient stone having cracks all through it, and they plummeted downwards, out of their friends' sight, the only remains of them their terrified screams, until they too faded from hearing.

'INUYASHA! KAGOME!' they screamed in horror, as Sango raised Hirakoitsu, going to slash her way through the watery barrier. The water let out the same, shrill roar, before lunging at them.

'This way!' yelled Miroku, dragging Sango through the side tunnel they had decided not to pass through earlier, the others following swiftly, only just avoiding being crushed by the raging typhoon.

TBC

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A/N: Is it getting better? Bear in mind I wrote this a long time ago, so my stories get better as they go on. R&R please.

x chuu x