Naraku's mind games

WE FORGOT THE JEWEL SHARDS?!

kouga woke up with the sun filtering through his eyes. Groaning and rubbing his aching head, he tried to get up.a sharp pain hit his entire body, and it took more then a few minutes for him to lose the grimace on his face. He shoulder HURT. It felt like someone had just driven a tentacle through it...he looked at it with an expression of disbeleif. Talk of the devil.

Noticing his surroundings, he gasped ad let out a loud yelp. Inuyasha's face was about three inches from his. He rolled off the bed(he had noticed he was on a bed) as fast as he could.
"what the hell do you think your doing mutt?!" he asked angrily, still feeling himself from all over trying to recruperate from the sudden shock.

"oh...so your alive, are you wolf?" he asked cooly.

"mutt, I'm asking you this one time. What are you doing in the same room as me, when im sleeping and your face this" he sqeezed his fingers together to show the amount, "close to mine?!" he completed angrily.

"wolf, you are a bigger idiot then I thought. You had scratches all over your face so I used my healing saliva on you." inuyasha waved his concerns off with a flick of his hand.

"you...put...your...saliva...ON ME?!"Kouga jumped off the floor and ran into the bathroom despite the pain from his shoulder almost making him faint. Once there, he dipped his hand into the water and concentrated on washing his face coutless times, all the time shouting very rated M swearing words at inuyasha along with the accustion of being utterly disgusting.

Inuyasha on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs with a plaesed expression on his face. Kouga stared at him in disbelief. Inuyahsa giggled. Kouga was now starting to be very very afraid. He got up painstakingly and tried to run out the door. He cast a gloance back at inuyahsa who was now staring into the distance. Too busy looking back to notice he had strayed from the doorway, his shoulder (the injured one) rammed into the doorway wall as he tried to scramble out. Kouga let out a moan of pain clutched his shoulder with one hand. He couldn't take much more pain before he fainted. Everything he did caused his shoulder muscle to stretch and pained him immensely.

Inuyahsa 'tsk'ed. " kouga,now I'll have to lick that too!"

kouga watched inuyasha with horror stricken eyes. "no! Saty away from me mutt!" he backed out the door, right into a person whom he jumped behind and whimpered.

The person stared at him. "whattya doing mangy wolf?" kouga let out a shreik of surprise and shock. "what? You were just there-...AHHH! SAVE ME!" he broke out into a limped sprint, tripped...and fainted.

The real Inuyasha scracthed his head. "i think that shoulder injury damaged his head or something..." he peered into the now empty room. There was a smell of someone being here...

"are you sure this was a good idea?"

a sweet childish voice answered. "uhuh. Sesshomaru-sama's nurses say that if a person believes he's been treated, he gets better by himself!"

" but do you really think inuyasha had hearing saliva? I don't think so!"

"sesshoamru-sama does...so inuyasha should too!"

"somehow I have a bad feeling about this..."

inuyahsa gronaed. "SHIPPO! RIN! Get outta here!" all he saw was two blurs dart out the door. Damn kids...that was aproabably the scariest moment of this wolf's life... he grinned, then frowned when he thought of something else. "waaaait a second...that means kaouga thinks I'VE been licking him?! Eeeww! SHIPPO! GET BACK HERE!"

shippo and rin rounded the corner, holding hands and panting like crazy. "is inuyasha always this scary?" rin asked shippo, bending over to catch her breath.

"maybe I should have impersonated sesshomaru with healing saliva..." shippo addmitted thoughtfully.

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"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" a loud sqeal was heard from the direction of sango's room. Then a slap. And then a groan of pain. And then a unconscious miroku was found out the door. Sorai sighed. This, she knew was a regular rutine. Perhaps it was the humans way of showing affections...?

well, at least sango was well enough to defend herself. That atleast, was worth celebreating.

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"how...did I get here?" kagome asked herself as she opened her eyes to her room in sesshomaru's castle. Last thing I remember...was that we fell asleep in the mud...in the battlefield...

she gasped and sat up. "oh god..."

forcing her legs to move, she slolwy limped out of bed. She had never felt more tired. It was a surprise sesshomaru had managed to fly them all here...

clearing her mind of all other sleepy thoughts, she sent a message to sesshomaru.

Sesshomaru? Can you hear me?

Unfortunatly, yes.

Is everyone alright?

Injured, tired and smelly, but noone's dead...yet.

Good. Any thing else we forgot? Ermmmm...who has the jewel shards?with how tainited they are, they shouldn't be in anyone's possestion except for mine...

sesshomaru froze. Then grinned. Then frowned. Then held his head in agony. Then wanted to pull out his hair. Then wanted to poisin fry everything in sight. You can only guess what happened tp the jewel shards.

He leapt over the table he was sitting at and ran full speed into a corriodor, where he found sorai. "m'lord?" she said inquiringly.

He didn't have time for this. He grabbed her shoulders and demanded in a more urgent fashion then ever before. "sorai, did you get the jewel shards?" She gasped. Sesshomaru felt like crying in exasperation.

Reasing her, sesshomaru felt like he was being rendered mentally instable. Just the THOUGHT of what inuyasha would do when he found out was giving him a headache. What he would actually do would probably make him contemplate suicide.

He carefully analysed the situation. Inuyasha was able to walk and talk freely, the only thing slightly restricting him was weakness that he should be able to overthrow in a day or twos time. Damn. That gave him very little time to figure out weather someone had taken the jewel shards, and or to get them back.

From far away, he heard a distant shout. "NNNOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHHADDDDDYAAAAA MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE THEM?! NOOOOOOOO! HOW COULD YOU KAGOME??"

sesshomaru groaned. That girl had just blown the time they DID have. Damn.

Shouldn't I have asked? An innocent voice came to the back of his head.

I hate you. He replied as vehemently as possible.

He could now hear the pounding of footsteps. Inuyasha approached him. "sesshomaru, do you remember if someone took the jewel shards, or not?"

he shook his head, upsetting the hair falling on his armor.

Inuyahsa fell to his knees, facing kagome who had just been dragged all this way.

Putting his hands up to is face, he let out in a chocked voice, "k-kagome...how could this happen to us? How could it?!"

kagome gave him a cold stare. "suddenly, in despair, we're a 'us' now, are we?"

sesshomaru smirked. Inuyasha moaned. Kagome intensened her stare.

"kagome! How could this happen! NOOOOOO! Noone remebers to get the jewel shards?! How? It's not fair!"

"life's not fair." (a/n: now I feel like crying for making naraku die...WAAHHH!)

"When you tell me that it will be okay
Ya, I try to believe you
But I don't"

"um...inuyasha?" kagome intervened. "I'M NOT TELLING YOU ITS ALL GONNA BE OK! WE FORGOT THE JEWEL SHARD FOR GODNESSES SAKE!" and she collapsed by inuyasha. Sesshomaru looked down on them both. I guess her 'be storng' attitude just failed...

"When you say that it's gonna be
It always turns out to be a different way
I try to believe you
Not today, today, today, today, today" this was kagome.

"mortals, I am not comforting you. It is your fault for forgetting the jewel shards. Now, I have buisness to attend to-"

(sad violin music from BLEACH starts playing)They both had their heads bowed, yet it was kagome who spoke. In a teary voice, "s-so...your just going to leave...levae us like this?" she said the last in a low whisper.

"yes. Now, as I was saying before, I have buisnes-"

now it was inuyasha. "how could you? I always knew you were an emtoionless bastard...b-but..."

they both raised their heads to look at him. He froze in shock. He had no idea where they'd learn how to do THAT. It was...disturbing.

They both huge puppy eyes and were looking at him intently. Sesshomaru tugged on his collar. This was getting uncomfortable, he thought as kagome and inuyash ajust sat there on the ground giving him HUMONGOES puppy eyes. Waaaait a second! Im a INUtaiyoukai! Shoulden't I be immune to puppy eyes? Wait! I am immune to them! They are doing NOTHING to me! NOTHING! Now I will walka way and display how emotionless I can be...no wait, how emotionless I AM.

Kagome let out a cough with sounded suspiciously like a snigger-covered-up-at-the-last-moment-by-a-slightly-shady-cough.

Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes. Inuyasha lowered his head and let outa grim laugh. "kagome, I told you he was an emotionless bastard." kagome shot sesshomaru a glare. Now look what you've done!

And...do I care?

You don't?

Fraknly, no.

you sadistic bastard! Now look! He's crying!

He is?

er...no. But he's ready to!

Liar.

Cold idiots aren't allowed to criticize. Maybe if we gave you puppy eyes again though...

sesshomaru made a full 360 degree turn out the door. Kagome was left dumbstruck. Wow...that was fast. Maybe the puppy eyes really worked on him after all...?

inuyasha lifted his head. "he's gone?" Getting up, "we have to find those jewel shards, kagome."

when she didn't answer, he looked down to find her in a deep state of thought. "what could you possibly thinking that is more important then the jewel shards right now?"

she answered slowly, as if it were taking a long time for her thoughts to get in order. "sesshomaru...is...susceptible...to puppy eyes."

"so?"

she looked him striahgt in the eys and grinned. Complete with The Evil Glint. At times like these inuyash was confused as to weather he should love this evil side of kagome's, or be fantastically afraid.

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miroku sat on his bed, staring out the window. The gardens looked so beautiful...he thought. Just like Sango. Hhhmmmmm...i wonder if she'll symathize with my injuries...he brought his sight over his pale hand, newly recovering from the poison, cracked rib from a particuarily hard fall, and sprained ankle.

Maube she'll be so amazed at how well I'm bearing with the pain, and how I opened my wondtunnel for her, and for how patheticly hot I look in all these bandages she'll run to me and hug me and then hold me close... he sighed fangirlishly.

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Sango groaned and struggled up in bed. A nurse came running immediately. "Lady Sango! You musn't get up yet!" she shrugged them off. "n...no. I can...get up." she said, grimacing in pain despite the pills kagome had given her.

Sorai entered the room. "sango, if you insist on moving, then I will start my countdown again." sango looked at her. "its...just that I had a really REALLY bad feeling about something..."

sorai ingnored her. "ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Told you so!" she aid to sango, who had flopped back down in her covers, unable to bear the pain from trying to get up. Sorai gave a wide smile. "works every time!" and exited.

The nurses around sango shuddered. "she's been doing that as long as she's been here, and the person ALWAYS falls by the count of one!" one said.

"do you think it's a spell?" another asked.

Sango shook her head weakly and crocked, "no, just REALLY really good timing." and closed her eyes to rest again.

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kohaku sat in the corner of his bed. He didn't like this. Why were they all being so nice to hi.? He had tried to kill them countless times. He had accepted that maybe sango was his sister...but he wasn't getting any memories as proof. As he saw was a lot of blood and her picture with a sickle which looked undeniably like his in her back.

He still cried. A lot. Over a lot of things, people. He cried over how the naraku he knew dissapeared, over the deaths of everyone in the family he remembered, over how katana wasn't herself when she killed everyone and naraku killed her, over usagi, but most of all over his misfortune. He was the only one left alive in this sea of heartwenching events. The whole thing was heartbreaking for him.

There was only person who gave him a bit of comfort. A little girl dressed in a orange kimono, knew how he cried like this. She had seen him.Hwo would she knoe how this feels? Kohaku thought bitterly. Yet his heart told him something else. Her eyes held a knowing kind of pain when she looked at him. They had never talked, she just sat outside his window sometimes, silently picking flowers from the gardens. She left the flowers over there, often in a chain or bouqet. Often there were also a few fruit or sweets with the flowers. When she returned, the flowers were in his room, and there was something, like a pretty rock in their place. She would pick it up and smile brightly. Then return to picking flowers.

I should talk to her...kohaku thought.

(A/N: First real friendship...?)

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They were sitting in an uneventful dinner. Everyone who could get up came, which meant everyone except for sango, miroku and kouga. Kohaku skipped this time.

As rare as it was for everyone in this group to shut up and be quiet, they were. There was unnatural silence, mainly due to the sulking mood inuyasha had put on. Nurses had not let him entered in miroku's, sango's or kouga's rooms becauss of their condition.altough he had been very amused to see that sesshomaru had prepared male nurses for miroku, he had to find out whether they had the jewel shards or not. Hence, the sulking mood.

Sorai choked on her food when she realized how stupid she had been to let the last happy person, Rin, get up from the table and leave. Mentally kicking herself for the stupidity, she tried to start a coversation.

"Inuyasha, kagome?" they both looked up, inuyasha forgetting for an instant to keep his grouchy face on. "so...did you find where the jewel shards are?"

sesshomaru groaned silently. Wrong coversation starter, sorai!

kagome shook her head slightly and returned to her plate. Inuyasha let his face fall on the table in despair, conveniently forgetting that there was a plate infront of him.

His head rose again, now covered in rice grains with a few pieces of meat nd vegetables acompleteing the look. Kagome snorted. "inuyasha, come on. I'll help you clean up." she grabbed inuyasha by the elbow and led the inconslable hanyou off.

Once he was gone, sorai burst into silent giggles. Thankfully most of the nobes were too busy eating to notice her. "forgive me'lord." she gasped, her gigglies continuing. Sesshomaru had fought the erge to laugh out when inuyasha raised his head too, so he didn't consider this rude as he normally would have done.

Ten minutes later the two returned. Inuyasha had come back, apparetly in a worse mood then before. Kagome followed, red faced and giggling. She tried pouting as he sat down. "inuyasha, I've already apologized! Now cheer up!" he 'humph'ed.

"Look, you were so damn funny covered in food like that, its not fault! I said sorry too!" she reasoned. Inuyasha just ordered another plate of food from a servant. Kagome sat down.

To sorai's inquiring look, "he's mad because I was laughing at how he looked." sorai looked down, and it wasn't hard for kagome to guess that she had been laughing too.

She patted inuyasha on the back, his face turned away from her presently. "come on! Get over it, Inuyasha!"

the servant had brought the food. With a quick nod of thanks, inuyasha blew on the meal until it was reasonalbly cool, then took it in his hand and stood up.

Kagome and sorai looked up. "oh? Your going somewhere?" sorai asked. The look he gave her was one of pure evil. She cringed but hadn't even time to process it properly when he dumped the entire plate of food on a certain raven haired miko. It seemed as time froze, inuyasha's leering face, sorai's surprised look, kagome's look of astonishment, and sesshomaru indifference. Then...very very slowly, kagome turned her head to look up at inuyasha's not-so-confident-anymore face.

He gulped. This is going to be good...sorai thought. Sesshomaru showed a slight spark of interest in the ongoing events.

Kagome, in a fluid movement that left inuyahsa in a state of trauma, laifted her plate and smashed it in inuyasha's face. She grinned, pushing back a few grains of rice from her face. He looked at a loss first, then grinned too. "food fight!" kagome shreiked, and dove to the opposite side if the table with sorai.

Sorai raised one eyebrow when kagome smashed the food plate into inuyasha's face. The other eyebrow met the other at the top when they both grinned and yelled 'food fight!'. Kagome, crouching behind the table whispered to sorai, "sorai, you'd better run and hide or join me. Shall we just run, or will we FIGHT?!" she gave a heroic speech. Sorai shook her head. "i think I'll watch." kagome shrugged. "your loss."

kagome stealthily peeked over the table. Her hand darted out and grabbed a basket of fruits. Taking a nice large apple, she chucked it at inuyasha, who dodged cleanly and responded with a plate of vegetables. Kagome ducked in time, but neverless the vegeables landed on the top of her head. She brushed them off angrily and drew her hand back with another apple.

At once her body felt light...she glanced up to realize that sesshomaru had picked her up by the collar, like one would with a misbehaving cub. "hey! Sesshomaru! Put me down!" she thrashed around wildly.

He ddint' budge. Kagome cast a hopeful look to inuyasha, who she registered with horror, was currently being taken away by sorai's barrier. The winds surrounded him like a bubble and he was calmly floating away.

Miko. Do you want me to tie you up again?

Shuddup and put me down.

I think not. He carried her lightly to her room, threw her in and locked the door from the outside. You are too weak to be rampaging my castle as of yet.

I would know how weak I am! LET ME OUT! I have to fight inuyasha!

Noble intentions, but not now. Be a good miko and go to sleep.

You do know that mikos are never good, right?

She never got an answer as sesshomaru turned and floated away. (a/n:- sesshomaru walks way to gracefully for it to be walking...in my opinion)

kagome flopped down on the bed. Of all the stupid things they could have done, they forgot the jewel shards. Damn it. Now they were probably in the hands of a demon who trying to make himself as powerful as naraku. And just as annoying. It felt a little weird to think that they wouldn't be changing bodies anymore. Good, defienently, but she had liked acting like sesshomaru, and sucking at it all along. In a strange unexplaiable way, she had liked it. But that may have been because of his hair and fluff...

she turned over, and propped her head on her hands. It was weird. Sesshomaru looked more like a girl then they did, and they were actual ones. Usagi, Kohaku's best frines had looked like that, possibly even more. Her train of thoughts turned to kohaku. She really couldn't imagine what it must be like for him. She had thought sango was bad, but now sango had her friends, her (somewhat) lover Miroku, and a life to look ahead to. She knew she could nevre properly forget her family, but now kohaku was with her for the time being. They would have to take his jewel shard soon.

She sighed, wondering why fate had to be so cruel. Because lifes not fair. The answer came up immediately. The phrase...that piece of advice was so...biased towards everyhting, and yet true in an unnerving way. She didn't like it.

Perhaps sesshomaru could use tensuiga on kohaku once they took the jewel shards out? If the demons of hells were being kept at bay by the power of the jewel shard, then sesshomaru should be able to cut throught them and bring kohaku back to life...right? She would have to ask him. It would mean so much to everyone, Sango most of all.

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kohaku sat outside his window today, watiting for the girl. She came, happily skipping but stopped in her tracks when she saw kohaku where she usually was. Bursting into a sunny smile, Rin bounced over to him and plopped down. Kohaku shook his head. Where did he think this girl could know it was to lose something? She was so cheerful, it was like she was born and raised in a world where misaps and casualties were thankfully absent. Rin turned to him and put an chair of flowers of his head.

"pretty princess." she remarked. Kohaku put his hand up to feel the flowers, then looked at her when she talked.

"you look pretty, princess!" she repeated, and mock bowed. Kohaku laughed slightly. So, she wanted to play castle, did she? Kohaku had never played it himself, he hand only watched the other children. Sometimes, the brothers- Ataru's and Hatu's- cousins came over for a day or so...or so they used to. Rin took kohaku's hand and pulled him up. When he was standing, she kneeled and smiling in joy, offered her hand. "may I know your name?" she asked.

Kohaku laughed more heartily this time. His little girl, was cheery and funny. He knew she was trying to cheer him up, and it worked. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up. "no. my name is Kohaku, and your the princess." rin looked around abashadly. "princess' are girls." he explained.

She nodded. "rin."

kohaku;s mouth tugged at a smile at this simple introdution. He deceided he liked Rin a bit. "do you live here, princess Rin?"

she beamed at his qeustion. "princesses always live in castle, warrior Kohaku."

kohaku shook his head. He didn't want to be warrior, to spill blood, tt fight. He was sick of it.

"I am not a warrior." he told her. Rin looked solemn for a moment as she struggled to come up with a new rank for her new friend. "prince!"

kohaku smiled again. This girl, Rin, was the exact opposite of Usagi. Although they were they about the same in human years, usagi didn/t have a shred of innocence on him. He was tough, hard in combat, although he disliked blood, headstrong, and never naïve. Usagi looked beautiful, he admitted that, but it was not the same. Rin was innocent and childlike and he was shiny steel. But there was no point comparing them now. Usagi was gone, dead like the rest of old life.

Kohkau blinked to clear his eyes of the tears that had suddenly welled up out of his thoughts of usagi. Strangly, he had known usagi the least amount of time, yet it was for usagi he shed tears for, his adopted mother coming on a close second.

Rin stared at him, fascinated in a queer way bu the vacant expression on kohaku's face. She sat down slowly and continued to observe him. It was a good minute or so before kohaku realizde she was staring at him. She made no pretense to cover up her staring, instead buckled her knees up, wrapped her hands around them, and started whispering slowly. Her expression was downcast, there was no pain, just comapssion there. She whispered about her old family, and how they all had been mudered by theives, how she used to be beaten by the village men, how she had found sesshomaru injured that one time, nursed him slowly. Kohkau's eyes widened. She had been throigh this much. How could she still smile like that? But he hadn't even heard half of it.

She told him of how the wolves had attacked, and how she remebered them knocking her to ground and biting her until she closed her eyes. Then, she explained, the next thing she remebered was opening her eyes to be in sesshomaru-sama's lap. Kohaku took a sharp intake of breath. He knew what must have happened. The taiyouaki had revived her with his healing sword. She knew too. She told him.

Byt the end of her story-which only took ten mintues although it seemed like forever- kohaku was sitting beside her with a rapt expression on his face. This girl had clearly sufferd much more then him, he never even remebered his first family, nor had he died (or so he thought), yet she was the one cheering HIM up. The world was a twisted place.

She continued, now turning to her kitsune demon friend and her current life. She talked a lot. Kohaku reflected the obvious. But he liked it.

He liked hearing about the castle, and sympathised with Shippo when she told him how his parents were killed, and how kagome had taken him it. Then, in a spilt second of immense discovery, he realized that everyone in this group had suffered. They all knew how he felt, apart form that ice berg that is. Inuyasha, because kohaku knew how hard society is for half breeds, Sango, because he heard about her family being killed, (although he had no idea he and naraku had killed them), miroku because of his father and imepending doom.

He could...try and live with Sango. His sister.

Feeling a ticklish feeling, kohaku absentmidedly slapped his cheek. It persisted, then some giggling. He turned around to see Rin with a long blade of grass in hand and a goofy grin. He smiled, uprooted some nearby flowers and threw them on her. She pretented to pout for a bit, and then smiled widely and pushed him to the side. Flailing his hands wildly as he lost his balance, he fell on his side. Now it was Rin's turn to get revenge. Yanking out an entire flower patch in a speed that clearly showed she was a professional, she dumped them all on his unbalanced form. "Ha! Catch me if you can!" smiling widely, Rin ran off, leaving Kohaku to pick dirt and flowers off himself and marvel at what a peculiar child she was.

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Awww! Wan't the last part cute? Wasn't it​? Wasn't it? TELL ME!

Please tell me your favorite parts! I can't improve if you don't tell me how!