As the sun rose high a wretched laugh filled the area and the twin tail growled protectively over the sleeping fox.
"Well, well, well, what is this? The humble group gets a pet!" The baboon came into the clearing, pelt secured over the doll.
"Get out of here Naraku." Inuyasha ignored him, poking the fire with a stick.
"I just can't pass up an opportunity to meet your newest guest." Naraku scolded. "I hope he enjoyed my welcome gift." The baboon fell over. A puff of smoke later and the wooden doll lay on the ground completely whole, but disabled.
Above them Kagura swiped her wind down at the group sending the majority of them scattering, the fire caught in the wind and jumped around hitting the edge of the rock wall, but the fox lay as calm as ever as Kilala began to panic. Sango joined her beast to protect Kurama while Kilala tried to wake him up.
"What killed that doll?" Miroku asked as he batted at bees who swarmed from the trees.
"I don't know! It looks normal," Inuyasha yelled as he stood on the defensive readying his wind scar. "Damn it Kagura come down here and fight!" He let the wind scar bite into the air as the wind demon avoided the attack.
The witch turned and fled as the dog moved to jump up towards her. As the wind demon left, the cat settled, and the bees flew off following their master's puppet.
"Great, the first time we could use him and he's sick!" Inuyasha scolded. He stabbed his sword into the ground and glared after Kagura.
"Watch your mouth Inuyasha!" Kagome put her bow back over her shoulder and checked on Shippo. "Kurama's back here just because he feels he can help us, not because he needs to be or because he did anything wrong!" Kagome scolded angrily. "He's here out of his own selflessness, dealing with the loss of his friend, and poisoned because we stayed somewhere he thought was a trap. He has every right to leave!"
"I'm not the one who wants him here!" Inuyasha yelled back pointing his sword towards Kurama.
"You were Inuyasha." Miroku pushed the sword off to the side with his staff. "You enjoyed his company." Miroku reminded the dog.
"Don't be so crass Inuyasha. You get along well with Kurama and he's a good fighter, he's just been drugged. We all have things happen to us once in a while. Miroku gets ill from sucking in poison bees, Sango gets sick if she's trying too hard, I have to go to school, and even you have things happen to you every month."
"He wasn't coming here to slow us down. He was here to speed us up." Inuyasha argued. "I say we send him back, and get him out of our hair." Inuyasha folded himself up in an angry huff on the side of the clearing.
"Make yourself useful and go kill a rabbit or something!" Kagome yelled angrily at the dog, crossing her arms over her chest. "I can't take any more of your bickering!"
Inuyasha winced but went out in the forest to look for food, Kilala watching after him.
As night fell Inuyasha came back empty handed and the fox was sitting awake, but barely. He was still foggy enough to need support, so he lay on Kilala and watched the fire, his eyes dazed out and distant. "Welcome back Inuyasha," Kurama murmured as he tried to hoist himself back up again. He managed to make it to a sitting position, but that was it.
"Tch, finally on your feet again you stupid fox? You know what happened while you were out?"
"The doll?" Kurama questioned cautiously. His head tipped to the side, and kept bowing further down until he would drudge it back upright again.
The group stopped and stared at him in shock. "What do you know about what happened while you were asleep?" Miroku questioned somewhat eagerly.
"Well, a tree came into my grove. It had a nasty energy. I replaced the energy with my own, it collapsed. When I investigated the culprit, I found a wooden doll. That's all I know."
"Naraku attacked, and in the middle of what he was saying, the doll just – fell. It landed in the clearing. Kagura led the assault after that." Sango filled in. "So you're the reason the doll fell."
"We didn't have to listen to Naraku's poison because of you." Shippo remarked, pleased. "You've been out most of the day. Kagome's been taking care of you. Sango said it was because of the breakfast you had."
"Breakfast?" Kurama frowned. "I'm not sure I remember eating breakfast. I did quite a bit today though, I covered good ground." He nodded.
"We're only an hour out of town." Inuyasha grumbled.
Kurama frowned and looked around the group, his eyes settling on each of the people individually before he sighed. "I think my real self and my future self here are colliding due to poison. I keep seeing images, demon trees, people I met a long time ago, and feeling like she just died." He grit his teeth as he tried to work through his thoughts. "It's hard to separate the two." His head began to steady as he focused on the fire.
"Maybe once we get moving you'll have a better time. You're still recovering from the tofu in breakfast."
"Tofu?" Kurama frowned. "That does make me sick, but it doesn't make me feel like this. Perhaps having something painful like that has caused a placement adjustment. I do remember getting sick suddenly this day all those years ago."
"So your real body feels what this body feels." Miroku concluded. "That should have been very confusing."
"I was too angry to notice." Kurama shook his head. "There was very little I was aware of, but I had fleeting moments of rationality."
Kagome held out something for him to eat and he accepted it with a smile. "Thank you Kagome."
"Kurama, who was she to you?" Kagome asked softly.
"I told you." Kurama replied bluntly looking away from the group.
Kilala let out a heavy sigh and got up letting Kurama support himself walking away from him. Kurama eyed the cat cautiously while Sango frowned and followed after her to the edge of camp where she curled up with her back to the fox changing back to her smaller form.
"You told me that you were friends. I don't think that's everything. How did you meet her?"
Kurama leaned forward staring at the dirt in front of his legs. "I met Midoriko when she was little." Kurama's face contorted a little, his ears falling down and his tail wrapping tightly around his waist.
"Wait, why did you meet her?" Miroku asked curiously.
"She crossed my path."
"So you two didn't interact with each other at all?" Inuyasha questioned.
Kurama shook his head. He closed his eyes and curled around his plate taking a few bites before he tried to explain. "She was being attacked by a group of demons. At the time I protected children and women."
"So, you saved her?"
"I did." Kurama nodded. He went back to eating. They mulled over what to ask.
"Was that the last relationship you had to her?"
"No." Kurama didn't explain further. He took a few deep breaths and calmed the tension from his face before looking up at the group. "I apologize for causing the group such trouble. I'll be more careful to avoid future problems. Please excuse me." He set down his half-eaten meal and escaped into the forest.
None of them went after the old fox, leaving him to himself.
"Do you think he's telling us the truth? Demons don't often protect humans, especially not in this time period."
"He said he did though, and I have heard many stories about fox demons protecting or aiding humans. They typically have something to gain from it, but it does happen." Sango provided. "The strange thing is that he said that was not last."
"If it was, he wouldn't know Kilala." Kagome offered.
"Kilala would have protected her if she was young and she wouldn't need saving."
The twin tail mewed and snuggled up to Sango.
"Inuyasha, don't be mad at him anymore!" Shippo whined. "He needs a friend."
"He doesn't need anything. He's not even from here." Inuyasha barked back. "He's better off just sticking to himself."
"Come on Inuyasha! Just because he has his weaknesses you're going to push him away? You really need to grow up. We all have our own weaknesses and his just happened to be something we could have prevented." Shippo scolded.
"We are the ones who need his help. He is here for us." Kagome reiterated again.
"Only so he can be around those shards and he won't even tell us why he wants to be near them!" Inuyasha exclaimed angrily. "Maybe he's a Naraku spy back here."
"I don't think so." Miroku's eyes thinned as he thought about it. "If what he says is true, and he's here to be near Midoriko they must have been very close. We can use all the help we can get. I think we should let him do his thing and keep an eye on him. Hopefully he hasn't lied to us about something major. He goes through too much pain to come back here and to go home in order for this to be fake."
"See? He checks out."
"I still don't like it. We don't know why he wants to help us!" Inuyasha complained again.
"Midoriko was like my daughter." A silver form gradually sank into the light. He sat down against the same tree Inuyasha was near, but pointed away from the group. He took a few deep breaths. "When I first saved her, I just abandoned her. The next time I saw her, she saved me. I was…" Kurama couldn't continue. His jaw snapped shut and his eyes closed tight.
Kagome sighed and shuffled her feet. "It's alright Kurama. We know what demons are like here, you can tell us." She felt bad saying it, since she knew everyone would think differently about him. She had to support him. She had to give him some indication that it was alright.
"I was killing. She yelled at me." Kurama swallowed and curled up on his leg, wrapping his arms around his stomach. "It stopped me dead in my tracks and gave the priest the upper hand. When the priest was going to finish me off, she yelled at him, and he stopped. At an impasse, I left. Over the years I developed my thieving skills so I could stop fighting for things I wanted."
"Why did you stop?" Sango asked bluntly.
Kurama winced, his shoulder hunching over his head as he turned it away. "I kept seeing her when I would go to kill."
Kurama relaxed a little and carefully took a deep breath to compose himself. The group sat in pure silence, waiting for him to continue. "When she grew older, I stalked her. I saved her again. This time I was reluctant to leave her, so I offered to train her. She accepted. I had grown restless afterwards, so I left. The next time I saw her, I was captured and she helped me escape. She tended my wounds. Our relationship continued. One of us would become injured, or we would need assistance somehow, and we would help each other. When things became bad enough that Kilala joined her in the fight, I stayed by her side for as long as I could and fought beside her. It was hard on all three of us. Kilala and I didn't get along, and Midoriko was always stressed."
Kurama wiped the tears from his eyes. He took a few more deep breaths as he tried to bury the pain away. It was stronger than ever here, and the only thing helping was Kagome's jewel shards giving him some comfort.
"When the end came I went on a rampage. I fell through a portal to Demon World. It felt like someone had ripped away my consciousness and left me for dead. When I came to, I was still upset, but I was cognizant. There were people following me as a leader for thieving. Every once in a while I'd escape them. One of the times when I did escape, Sesshomaru caught me."
"So that's how he fit in," Inuyasha reconfirmed.
"It wasn't until I was with Sesshomaru that I began to honestly find my interests and my spirit again. He didn't say anything about recognizing me so I will have to hide if we do run into him." Kurama carefully pushed himself up and turned his back on the group looking out towards the darkness.
"That's fine. We can help you there," Kagome offered.
"So why do you become restless?"
Kurama turned to give Kagome a considering stare before finally relenting with a sigh. "I'm not comfortable divulging that information."
"Do you know if Naraku lives?" Sango asked suddenly.
Kurama turned and looked at her squarely, "No. I never heard of Naraku. I left Human World long before Naraku reared his head."
"Did you know my dad?"
Kurama smiled gently towards Inuyasha and shrugged, "I saw him in passing before I met Midoriko."
"Did you steal from his dad?" Kagome asked cautiously.
Kurama laughed and smiled. "I did not. The Lord did not keep anything of enough value to risk my hide like that. It would have taken a Koorime Birthing Gem to risk that," he challenged.
"Are those some of the highest priced goods?"
"They typically are, yes."
"What's a Koorime?" Shippo asked curiously.
"It is an ice apparition who lives on a mountain over Demon World. They are most special because they cry gems instead of tears. The Koorime are often kidnapped if they venture off their land."
"If it's such an isolated place, how do they avoid marrying their siblings?" Miroku questioned curiously.
"Koorime are one of the rare demons that reproduce asexually."
"Asexually?" They all questioned. Kagome shrieked it, but still said it.
Kurama winced and his ears fell down. He nodded slowly and came out of his shell again. "They conceive alone on their hundredth birthday."
"Come sit down Kurama," Kagome coaxed.
Kurama sighed and sat down feeling a little better with the change in conversation. He taught the group about demons for the rest of the night, different types, their alliances in Demon World, and the species types. Sango posed most of the questions about weaknesses and strengths, so eventually the others drifted out leaving the two to speak. It was around midnight when Kurama finally couldn't hold himself up any longer and held out his arm to the side as he supported himself. Sango let him go to sleep, which he promptly accepted nearly passing out.
"He's smart," Inuyasha offered Sango.
Sango nodded. "He's in a lot of pain too." Sango debated with herself over her next comment. "I want to believe him."
"Then believe him. No one is stopping you," Miroku suggested.
"Guys, there's nothing he's done that says he's not telling us the truth." Kagome pulled out her sleeping bag and lay down to go to sleep.
That ended the conversation.
The next morning Inuyasha woke up first feeling something off. He looked around and noticed the fox was missing. He gave a heavy sigh and pushed himself up following his scent out of the clearing. He wasn't through the next layer of trees before he heard his name called.
Looking up behind him he saw the fox sitting in a tree watching him. "We are safe for now, but there is a group not ten miles from us to the west which might cause trouble. It's a group of five low level demons." Kurama jumped down.
"Do they have shards?"
"I didn't sense Midoriko, but jewels might be allied against her, and I wouldn't be able to tell."
"Do you sense Midoriko anywhere back here?"
"Aside from Kagome?" Kurama frowned and fell silent. He shut his eyes and his power fled through the kingdom like a shockwave making Inuyasha shiver. He eventually came around to answering the question. "Yes. There is one in the far north, but it is very faint and I can barely feel it."
"We'll go that way then, but first, shouldn't we go back and figure out what's going on in that town?" Inuyasha asked pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
"I don't think it's that necessary. When we slept there, they tried to steal the jewel from Kagome, and I think they realized I was too much for them to handle. Who knows, maybe they thought poisoning me would keep us in town and they would be able to take us by surprise. Personally, I'm not willing to risk it." Kurama let out a long breath and ran his hand through his hair. He picked up his tail and ran his fingers through his fur.
Inuyasha nodded and leaned against a tree.
"Inuyasha," Kurama landed by his side. "I am sorry for disturbing you. It was never my intention."
"Why did you do it then?"
"Honesty, I have learned to put a high value on truth, even if the truth is hard to hear."
Inuyasha watched him for a minute, before nodding and heading back into camp. He picked up the green stick they had, and poked at the fire for a while, letting it fight off the morning air.