Well, Chapter 4 is here. Kaze's made it back to her time. Some silly/pathetic battling. Fairly unexciting in this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inu Yasha
Kaze landed on her butt at the bottom of the well and groaned, laying back. She lay there motionless for a minute, expecting her attacker to jump in after her. When she didn't hear anything she sat up, looking to the top of the well. Slinging her bow over her shoulder, she took hold of roots in the side of the well and climbed to the top and looked around suspiciously.
No demons jumped out to attack her, so she climbed out of the well, looking around. She spotted Inu Yasha's tree and sighed, trudging towards it in defeat, holding up the clothes Rin had let her borrow and swinging the package of her own clothes.
As she walked, Kaze looked around tying to memorize the path she was walking so she could walk back if she needed. Without noticing it was there, Kaze ran right into a wooden fence.
"Wait…" she muttered, walking around the fence. "This wasn't here before, I know it!" she gasped, running to the gate and bursting through to find her house. "I'm here!" She hollered happily, rushing through the back door and setting her bow in the corner and throwing her clothes into the laundry room.
Kiara rushed into the living room. "Katy!" she yelled, tackling Kaze. "I was so worried! Where were you? Why do you have a cut? What are you wearing?" she babbled in English.
"Calm down, Kiara!" Kaze laughed, switching to English. "I'm fine and I'm back and I know I'm not dreaming because that hurt…" she answered, rubbing her head that hit the wall when Kiara tackled her.
"I'm so glad your back!" Kiara cried, shaking Kaze. Kaze laughed hesitantly, trying to pull Kiara's hands off. "I was freaking out and I forgot all the Japanese I knew!"
"How'd you manage three days alone?" Kaze asked, finally succeeding in pulling Kiara's hands off her and leading her to the couch.
"Thankfully, Suki can speak English." Kiara explained, still yelling. Kaze winced, her head throbbing with each yell. "I would have freaked out if she couldn't!"
Kaze laughed hesitantly again. "Would have freaked out?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. Kiara frowned and smacked Kaze on the arm. "Ow! Sorry, Sorry!" Kaze said, holding her palms out in a calming motion.
"Where were you?" Kiara asked, finally lowering her voice to a normal speaking tone.
Kaze sighed but explained everything that had happened before stating, "I need a bath!" she waved off Kiara's protests and locked herself in the bathroom.
Kiara settled herself on the floor outside the bathroom, and, once the water stopped running for the bath, began to call through the door to Kaze.
"It sounds a bit like those stories we used to write," she said skeptically. "Are you sure you didn't just hit your head at the bottom of the well and pass out?"
"If I had you would have found me!" Kaze called back through the door. "Hey, I haven't had a proper meal in a couple of days, would you mind?" she called hesitantly. Kiara laughed and made her way for the kitchen to cook some dinner.
When Kaze finally dragged herself out of the bath and dressed, she heard shouting form the kitchen. "Will you get off me, you crazy human!" a man's voice shouted in Japanese. Kaze heard a crash and sighed heavily, making her way to the kitchen while combing her hair.
That sight that met her caused Kaze to sigh again and she leaned against the doorframe, still combing her hair. "Kiara," she started in English. "What are you doing?"
Inu Yasha lay on the kitchen floor, his silver hair in a tangled mess around his face. He was shouting obscenities at Kiara, who was sitting on him, holding him down, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding one of his arms at a painful angle. Kiara shifted on his back so she could look up at Kaze with out fear of Inu Yasha escaping.
"This cosplay freak was trying to sneak into our house!" She shouted in English, pulling on Inu Yasha's arm and causing him to yelp in surprised pain. "Look at these fake ears and canines!" she replaced the hand holding down his shoulder with her knee and tugged on one of Inu Yasha's dog ears. Inu Yasha yelped again in pain and yelled at her in Japanese but, since she herself wasn't speaking Japanese, she didn't register that he was yelling, "Thos are real, you stupid human!"
Kaze watched the scene for a moment as Kiara kept trying to pull off Inu Yasha's ears and hair. Kaze sighed again before speaking up. "Kiara, cut it out!" She ordered. Kiara's hand paused on one of Inu Yasha's ears as he shouted, "Thank God!"
"That's Inu Yasha you just man-handled, Kiara," Kaze explained, moving closer while still combing her hair. "Please get off." Kiara gasped and jumped off Inu Yasha, who began shouting at her in Japanese again. "Inu Yasha, SHUT UP!" Kaze shouted in Japanese. Inu Yasha grumbled, but quit yelling.
"What was he saying?" Kiara asked, hiding behind Kaze as Inu Yasha stood up and popped his shoulder and elbow back into place.
"Kaze raised an eyebrow at her. "You just pushed him to the floor and now you're hiding from him?" She asked incredulously in Japanese.
"Actually, she flipped me over her shoulder before sitting on me," Inu Yasha mumbled, crouching on the floor and glaring at both girls. Kaze laughed loudly, doubling over and holding her stomach. "Don't laugh!" Inu Yasha yelled.
"Kaze-san, I don't understand what he's saying," Kiara said in English, worried about Kaze's random laugh attack.
Kaze calmed down, sitting down on one of the stools they kept in the kitchen. "Whoo, I'm sorry, Kiara!" She amended, reverting back to English. "He was mostly cursing her and grumbling about being manhandled by someone about a foot shorter than he is, that's all." Kaze switched back to Japanese to address Inu Yasha: "So, Inu-san, how did you get here and what do you want?" She asked, frowning at him.
Kiara finally switched her mind to Japanese, so she could understand what Kaze said. "That's right," Kiara said, stumbling slightly over her Japanese. "I not think you could get at this time also."
Inu Yasha looked at Kiara strangely before asking Kaze, "What's wrong with her?"
"Sit," Kaze answered, which threw him to the ground. "English is her first language and she started studying about a year after I did, so she's still perfecting it. Don't be rude." Inu Yasha growled at her, rubbing his face gingerly. "Now what do you want? And how did you get here?"
"Through that well that had our scent all over it," Inu Yasha answered. "And I'm here because you stole the shard and set a tiger demon on the village."
"Ah," Kaze said, snapping her fingers. "Right, Sho."
"Sho?" Kiara asked raising an eyebrow.
Kaze nodded as Inu Yasha jumped up angrily. "Why did you set him on the village?" He yelled, grabbing the front of her gray, frilly shirt that said "At least we have each other". Inu Yasha grabbed the excess frills down the front in confusion, forgetting for a moment that he was angry at her and that she was a girl and his hands were dangerously close to being inappropriate.
"Sit," Kaze said calmly, not paying attention to how he was standing. Inu Yasha was indeed thrown to the ground, but because he'd been leaning over her in the stool, he also broke the stool and trapped her under him. "Ow! Get off!" Kaze yelled angrily. Kiara laughed at the scene, noticing that Inu Yasha's face had been forced into Kaze's stomach and her legs were bent on either side of his waist. The wooden stool lay in pieces on the ground, sticking into Kaze's back.
Inu Yasha jumped up when the spell let him go. "Why did you do that?" He yelled at her as she pulled up gingerly, pulling wood out of the back of her now-bleeding arms.
"I wanted your hands off my chest," Kaze replied, purposefully looking away from the blood dripping from her arms and onto the ground. "And I didn't set Sho on the village. When I was trying to find the well, he was already in your forest." Inu Yasha frowned at her. "He attacked me; I fell in the well and came back here."
"Well, whatever. Rin said I need to bring her back," Inu Yasha said, grabbing her wrist and beginning to pull her outside. Kaze pulled her wrist out of his hand and began braiding her damp hair, looking around for her shoes.
"Is dinner done, Kiara?" She asked her friend, who immediately piled some of her fried rice with chicken onto three plates. "Eat, Inu-san, and when I'm finished I'll go with you, but not until then." Inu Yasha frowned, but accepted a plate from Kiara.
"So you are going to be back?" Kiara asked in Japanese. Kaze paused in her search for her shoes to accept her plate from Kiara.
"I'm going, but I will come back," Kaze answered, unsure which question Kiara asked. She quickly ate her food, thanked Kiara, found her shoes, bow, and quiver, and she and Inu Yasha trudged back to the well.
"You are going to be useless, I can already tell," Inu Yasha snorted as Kaze waved back to Kiara. "Why did that old hag make me get you just so you could get in my way?" Kaze glared at him coldly, looking very menacing in the setting sun before turning and heading toward the well.
"Let's hurry up and get this over with, I don't want Kiara freaking out before I get back," Kaze snapped.
Inu Yasha snorted, keeping pace with her. "So you do have the shard," he said, glaring at Kaze. She nodded. "Give it to me."
"Kiss my ass," Kaze replied calmly. Inu Yasha spluttered angrily. "I was told by Priestess Rin to not give the shard to anyone, especially you," she looked pointedly at Inu Yasha.
"It belongs to me!" Inu Yasha shouted as they approached the well. Kaze pushed him in, catching him by surprise, and he fell down the well. Kaze jumped in after him, landing on his back.
"What kind of demon are you?" She asked, snickering. "You can't even defend yourself from a couple of humans." Inu Yasha snorted, pushing her off his back, grabbing the back of her shirt, and jumping out of the well with her in tow.
Inu Yasha dropped her to the ground and she knocked the sword attached to his hip. "Hey, what's this?" She asked, touching the sword.
"A useless sword my dad left me," Inu Yasha answered, leading the way towards the village.
"Why useless?" Kaze asked, studying the sword from afar.
"Because I have no desire to protect you or any other stupid, stinking human!" Inu Yasha snapped. Kaze frowned rather than cringe away and continued following.
"If it's useless why do you still carry it?" Kaze asked.
Inu Yasha growled, stepping out of his forest. "It holds a lot of memories," he grumbled.
Suddenly a huge tiger appeared in front of them. "Stay back," Inu Yasha ordered, holding hand up in front of Kaze and cracking the knuckles of his other hand.
"Illusion," Kaze said, ducking under his arm and walking through the tiger and into the village. Inu Yasha gaped after her for a moment before following.
"How did you know that was an illusion?" Inu Yasha asked, looking over his shoulder at the tiger still growling at the tree line.
"Its eyes never actually locked on us and the ears didn't twitch," Kaze answered, putting her hands in her jean pockets after adjusting her bow and quiver on her shoulders. "Even your ears twitch, a real animal would be swiveling their ears around constantly in order to catch every sound. By the way, how are your ears?" She stopped and turned to look at Inu Yasha. "Do they hurt?"
Inu Yasha scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion in confusion, then he remembered that Kiara had tugged on the pretty hard earlier and his eyes widened in understanding. "You're worried about that?" He asked, laughing. "Now? When we're going to fight a potentially dangerous demon?"
Kaze shrugged, frowning. "I just want to make sure you aren't hurt before we fight this 'potentially dangerous demon', that's all," she said, turning back around to continue walking.
"Well, I'm fine now," Inu Yasha said. "You should have asked earlier, I'd have had more to complain about!"
Kaze sighed, but didn't say anything as they finally reached their destination. The sun had finally completely set and the stars shown weakly on the scene in front of them.
Sho was sitting next to a fire, lounging on some injured people. He looked up and his face lit up when he saw Kaze. "Ah, hello Kitten." He purred, suddenly standing in front of her and bending close to smile at her. "I knew you couldn't keep away!"
Kaze had flinched when he appeared in front of her and Inu Yasha had immediately tried to step between them. "Stay back," he ordered, flexing his fingers as he glared at Sho, who smugly smirked back.
"Inu-san, sit," Kaze ordered, her eye twitching. Inu-san immediately became attached to the ground.
"Hah, hah, dog-boy," Sho laughed. "Looks like she's got a pretty tight leash on you!" He continued laughing, but before he'd finished Kaze's face fist connected with his jaw. He flew through the fire and landed on the other side. Glaring at Kaze, he bared his teeth menacingly and began to growl at her, but when she turned an icy glare on him he turned into a baby tiger (literally) and his growl ended up sounding like "grrr-mew!"
Kaze held her hand out to help Inu Yasha stand, but he ignored it and jumped up by himself. Kaze sighed in defeat and instead walked up to baby-tiger Sho. "Do you really want to keep up this 'all-powerful demon' act?" Kaze asked him, bending over the kitten. It shook its head in defeat. "Alright then, go on then," Kaze suggested, nudging the kitten's bottom with her foot. Sho set off, looking back once to see Kaze give him a "shoo" motion, so he left the village.
"That was anti-climactic," Inu Yasha muttered, dusting himself off and kicking dirt over the bonfire to stop it.
"Good, I'm going home," Kaze said, turning to leave.
"Wait, child!" Rin called from behind her. Kaze turned to look at her warily. "You must help Inu Yasha find the shards, it's more obvious than ever that you're the only one who can do it!"
"Not tonight," Kaze answered with finality. "I have finals tomorrow, and then that's the end of my classes for a couple weeks. So wait until tomorrow afternoon." She looked at Inu Yasha, who was looking past her with a far away look in his eyes. "Inu-san? Is that fine?"
Inu Yasha snapped out of his reverie and scowled at her. "I don't want you to come back," he answered nastily. "Useless human," he muttered, walking away.
Sighing, Kaze waved goodbye to the villagers, who were being tended to by those who weren't injured, and walked back to the well to get back to her time.