"So," Seika mused, "What's the plan then?"

"Well," Kagome hummed, "InuYasha will probably complain the entire time, but we'll probably stay here for another day so everyone can rest from their trip. After that we'll head off to try and find more jewel shards." A thought occurred to the priestess, "Are you sure you want to come with us, Seika? It's going to be really dangerous sometimes."

Seika shuddered, remembering her encounter with the crow demon. She shook her head and pushed the fear out of her mind, "I'll be fine. You're the only familiar face around here, I'm not about to stay here while you go off having adventures." Kagome smiled at her jeer, glad to see some of the girl she knew in school coming back. "I'll need some help learning how to fight though."

"I'd be more than happy to help," Sango offered, but Miroku was quick to step in.

"I don't think that's a good idea. Chikyuu Majo who haven't had proper training to control their abilities are extremely dangerous," the monk explained. "It's nothing against you, Seika, but you simply don't know your limits or strengths yet."

She nodded and sighed. "I have to try and hone my skills somehow though."

"Very true," he agreed, bringing his fist to his chin in thought. "Your latent abilities may be too great for us, but it would be more difficult to injure a demon. Perhaps we may be able to convince InuYasha to help you."

Seika scoffed and pouted with her cheek in her hand, "No way. He's been tolerable enough so far, but he doesn't like having to look after me. There's no way he'll go for it."

Kagome grinned darkly and crossed her arms as if she had just been issued a challenge, "You'd be surprised at what he might agree to."

"Hell no!" InuYasha yelled, "That's all I've been doing since she got here is babysit her! Why the hell should I have to let her attack me just because she doesn't know how to fight?"

Kagome was fuming, "She needs to be able to protect herself and you're the strongest in the group. Would you rather try and protect her every time a fight breaks out?"

"That's why she should just stay here. She'll just slow us down."

"InuYasha! You're telling me to just abandon her here?"

"What's the big deal?"

"I'm the only friend she has here! I am not going to just leave her alone!" InuYasha only crossed his arms and turned away from the furious priestess. Kagome, on the other hand, was not about to let him go that easily, "Osuwari!" She yelled, and the hanyou was immediately pulled face first into the ground by the necklace he wore. In a huff she stormed off to let Seika know InuYasha would be happy to help her, regardless of how much of a lie it was.

InuYasha growled in a slow burning fury as he stood in the middle of an empty field with Seika. Kagome wouldn't let him out of babysitting, yet again. Every time he had refused to help, Kagome had used her command on him. Seika, at least, seemed remorseful that he had to waste his time with her, because Kagome was anything but. "Let's get this over with," he grumbled at her after putting some distance between them.

To his intense aggravation, the 'training session' was lengthy and uneventful; spent mostly with InuYasha yelling at her and Seika getting frustrated to the point of throwing rocks at the hanyou. This continued for several days and it was clear to everyone in the group that the training was not going well by the pair's irritated silence on the subject. Kagome and Miroku had tried to help with stories of their own experiences as priestess and monk trying to unlock their own abilities. However, being told that the key was focus was not enough to allow her to suddenly start commanding trees to come to her aid. InuYasha had even tried the 'desperation' approach and chased her through the forest throwing well placed attacks at her in hopes her instinct of self-preservation would jar her abilities into command. Kagome had been furious when she found out, despite his insistence that he made sure he never hurt her.

The day the group made to leave the village (well behind schedule as InuYasha was want to point out), Seika lagged behind, sulking. "Hurry up, Seika!" Kagome called back to her, "We'll get separated if you get too far behind."

"Sorry," she muttered back but only just picked up her pace enough to keep up with the others. After a while, Sango slowed down to walk beside the downhearted girl. "Nothing I try works," she almost whined, and she hated herself for feeling so childish.

"You have to give it time," the demon-slayer hummed, "Remember that you just found out you can do these things. It'll take a while before you can will it to work." Sango sighed when the girl made no response. "If it makes you feel any better, from what Kagome told us, it took InuYasha quite a while before he could figure out how to use the Tetsusaiga."

"The what?"

Sango pointed at the half-demon's waist, "The sword he carries. It's called the Tetsusaiga and only a demon or half-demon who has the desire to protect someone can use it. Anyone else that tries to use it will only wield a tattered blade or be burned by its seal. It took InuYasha a long time before he learned that protecting someone was how he was able to use it to its full extent."

"Really?" Seika lowered her head in thought, "Do you think that might work for me, too? I mean having to protect someone?"

"I don't think that's the only key to it, but it may work," she smiled, glad to see the girl look a bit more hopeful.

"I don't think it's working!"

"I'm trying!" Seika yelled, frantically smacking the tree in front of her. "Come on, you stupid thing, move!"

"Maybe you aren't in enough danger yet," InuYasha mused as he chased after Shippo, swiping at him with his deadly claws.

"Seika!" The tike cried as he ran. It had been InuYasha's favorite training technique yet, and the best part was that it was Seika's idea, so Kagome couldn't even get mad at him for it. He was almost laughing he was having so much fun.

"Agh!" The witch cried and kicked the tree in frustration. She yelped in pain and dropped to the ground, holding her leg as tears sprang to her eyes.

Shippo was forgotten in the moment and InuYasha was at her side a second later. "What happened?" He asked, hopeful it was some sort of injury caused by her abilities. At least then there would've been some sort of progress.

"I kicked the tree," she choked, trying her hardest to keep the pain from her voice. Even the thought of trying to move her toes caused her pain.

"What'd you do that for, stupid?" He growled at her, swatting her hands away from her leg. Taking the appendage, he gently turned her foot this way and that, examining the damage. He carefully bent each of her toes, receiving a hiss in return each time. He sighed, "Nothings broken, at least. Stupid girl."

"What should we do?" Shippo asked from the witches side, all concern and worry.

InuYasha grumbled to himself a moment. "Go tell the others we'll be a bit longer." Without waiting for the fox tike's reply or asking Seika permission, he scooped her up like a child and carried her to the stream a short distance from the clearing.

"What are you doing?" She asked as he sat her at the edge of the stream. Despite his words, he was being uncommonly gentle with her, and for the life of her she couldn't think why.

"Shut up and put your foot in the water," he huffed then threw himself down next to her like a pouting child. "This stream runs from the mountain over there," he jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the closest mountain, "so it'll be cold enough to help keep the swelling in your foot down."

Seika gave the hanyou a skeptical look before dropping her foot in the water. She shivered, "It's freezing."

"Quit complaining," he snapped. His entire demeanor told her he'd rather be doing anything else, from the slouch he sat with to the bobbing of his leg as he waited impatiently and for the first time, it aggravated her.

Angry, Seika steeled herself for an argument, but instead decided to brood quietly, refusing to let him get the better of her. Instead, they sat in silence for a while before InuYasha huffed and threw his haori at her.

"What are you d-doing?" She stuttered, pulling the haphazardly thrown cloth from her head.

"You're shivering. Just put it on." He didn't even look at her as he said it. "It's going to get colder the closer we get to the mountain," he pointed out as she tugged her arms through the gaping sleeves of his haori and wrapped it close around her.

"I'll see if I can find anything warmer in the next village we pass through," she replied and buried her face in the collar. It smelled like him, earthy and lived in, but not dirty.

"Take your foot out." He examined her toes again, this time receiving only cringes.

"What are you doing?" She half yelled, startled when he began to massage her foot, none too gently at that.

"Shut up," he spat back again, ignoring her groans as he popped the bones in her foot.

"Would you quit telling me to shut up? And quit calling me stupid all the time!" She snapped. "I'm doing all I can to try and get these stupid powers to work and you know why? It's just to get you to stop yelling at me all the time. I know I'm weak and pathetic and I'm slowing you down, but I don't need you telling me that every damn day. Okay? Tch," Seika angrily rubbed at the frustrated tears that fell down her cheeks. "Dammit."

InuYasha's eye widening considerably, "Are...are you crying?" She turned her eyes away from him in a miserable attempt to hide the tears he already saw. He sighed to himself as he was immediately overcome with guilt. He admittedly had been a bit harsh with the trash talking but he had no idea how much it had gotten to her in the few weeks they had been training together. In hind sight, given the ordeals she had to deal with since arriving in the feudal era, he had somewhat rubbed salt into her wounds.

"I'm sorry."

Seika turned back to him but he was refusing to look at her. If he hadn't been acting so suspicious she would have thought she imagined his apology, but it was obvious by his behavior that she heard right. She sniffled and averted her eyes, "Just try not to be so mean all the time." For some reason (his tendencies to refuse to apologize for things, she imagined) it embarrassed her to hear him say sorry for once.

He couldn't understand her; she was so unlike Kagome in so many ways that it was hard to believe they were such good friends. "You aren't like Kagome at all," InuYasha muttered, giving her a look like she made his head hurt.

"Did you expect me to be exactly like her?" She scoffed. "You aren't like Miroku, or Sango, or Shippo. Why would you think I would be like Kagome? She's told me you've been to our time, so I know you can't think we're all the same there."

"Her other friends act just like she does," He defended.

"Hm," Seika took a moment to think, "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Sorry if I didn't meet your expectations."

"That's not-" He stopped when he saw the girl grin. She was joking with him.

"Does it disappoint you that I'm not like her?"

"What? No," he sputtered. The question completely caught him off guard. "Its...kind of nice, actually. Not getting yelled at all the time for what I say or do."

That surprised her, "Why would I yell at you for that? You're just being yourself. Granted some times you are a jerk, but you have a good heart in most things, I imagine." She couldn't help but smile when he tried to hide pink cheeks. "You could have very well given up on me days ago, but you keep helping me even though I still haven't gotten any better. You didn't have to do any more than help me back to camp when I hurt my foot, but you went through the trouble of doing all of this. And you certainly didn't have to lend me your haori, but you did. You may have a bad attitude most times, but that doesn't mean you aren't a good person. You're just a little rough around the edges is all."

They were quiet for a long time. Seika was content in the silence, but InuYasha was at a loss for words. He didn't care to trust her, as he was want to do with any new person he met, but the ease at which he had spoken to her bothered him, though he couldn't say why. After a while, he mumbled, "We should get back."

Seika nodded in agreement and handed back his haori, "Yeah. They might start worrying what happened." She refused to let him carry her back to camp, but did hold his arm for support as she limped. Though he never really gave her permission to do it, he didn't say anything against it either.

Kagome leapt to her feet as they broke through the trees to evaluate the damage. "You didn't have to hurt her, InuYasha!" She cried.

"Me?!" He yelled.

"I did it to myself, Kagome," Seika informed and hopped her way over to the fire and eagerly accepted the cooked fish she was offered. "I'm just losing patience with the training is all."

Sango laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled sympathetically, "You'll get there eventually. Working yourself into frustration wont help anything."

"I know," She sighed.

"We're takin' a break anyway," InuYasha spouted, "You're even more useless than normal now." Kagome looked ready to gripe some more, but Seika only gave him a small knowing smile and nodded. It dawned on him, in that moment, that she could see through him almost completely. How would he guard himself now?


A/N: Would you look at that: an update in less than 30 days! Let me know what you guys think of the story so far. Getting feedback helps me stay inspired to work on it.

~Nox