Inuyasha was rather understandably cross with Kaede. He also seemed highly confused by Nyanko's scent, since he was in a cat body, yet he smelled a lot like Inuyasha did.

"Natsume!"

Rakan practically bowled him over. Takashi managed to stay upright, barely.

"Easy, Rakan. The centipede is gone."

Rakan noticed Inuyasha, and hugged Takashi closer.

"Who's that?"

"That would be Inuyasha. Give him some time, he just woke up and is incredibly cranky."

"How long was he sleeping?" asked Rakan.

"Fifty years."

"Wow! You must have been really sleepy!" said Rakan impressed. Nyanko managed to hide his laughter behind a fake coughing fit.

Inuyasha looked ready to smack the little fox, but a look from Takashi stopped him.

Unlike Kikyo, this exorcist wouldn't hesitate to give as good as he got from the hanyou.

Takashi was on one of the branches in a nearby tree when Inuyasha found him. He was borrowing one of the clothes Kaede had for male priests...which wasn't all that different from the ones she had, just with blue instead of red. He also borrowed some of her archery equipment, since he was a decent shot. He wasn't someone who used a bow regularly, but he could at least hit what he was aiming at seven times out of ten.

He was getting tired of being up close and personal with ayakashi trying to cave his head in just to get rid of them.

In his hand was the book he found in Reiko's things, and all around him were shikigami and how to use them to fend off youkai.

"Tch. Shitty priest."

"Not a priest. I'm just someone unlucky enough to be targeted by youkai at a young age. I'm just borrowing these," said Takashi without looking up.

Inuyasha jumped and managed to settle on an opposing branch. He glared at Takashi.

"Hmph. No matter how I look at it, you're more competent than Kagome," he said.

"No arguments from me. I warned her this wasn't her home, and she still ran off to the tree because it looked familiar. She doesn't know the rules of being in an ayakashi realm...or the past apparently," said Takashi, still not looking up.

"Tch. She looks like Kikyo, but she's more careless."

"To be fair, the warring states era ended centuries ago, and she hasn't had to fight for her life before. Think of her as a simple minded villager from a rural province that's protected by a barrier from ayakashi and is too out of the way to be bothered by bandits," said Takashi helpfully.

"HEY! Who are you calling simple minded!" shouted Kagome.

"Of course she heard that part. Here to get away from your adoring fans?" asked Takashi, finally closing his book. He had noticed the vegetables over the lip.

Kagome growled, but tossed a fruit at him.

He caught it, and made his way down. He was so used to running from ayakashi that the drop didn't even faze him.

"Definitely more competent," snorted Inuyasha.

"What's with the outfit?"

"Drawing attention to yourself can get you killed, but considering you're a girl, just walking out of the village proper without a boy with you is even worse. Not to mention I heard there were bandits in the area," said Takashi.

"What were you reading?"

"A book I found in my grandmother's things. From what I can tell it's about shikigami and how to make them."

"Shikigami?"

"Shikigami are disposable servants for spiritualists, exorcists and the odd priest. Generally they're made of paper."

"Really?"

Takashi reached into his bag and pulled out some cheap origami paper. His deft hands soon had a paper crane made of light blue paper.

"Hey, you're not going to make one now are you?" said Inuyasha.

"No, but having one ready never hurts. Besides, this particular one needs blood to activate," said Takashi.

That and the moment it was released, it had a bad habit of attacking indiscriminately unless aimed.

"What sort of paper demon requires origami to work?"

"The kind tied to a specific set of spirits. I still have no idea why the this set only summons wagtails," said Takashi. Or why each one required a different colored paper and a specific name to summon.

Takashi couldn't keep pace with Inuyasha, so instead he rode Nyanko.

Nyanko was not in a good mood, likely because of the trouble Kagome caused with her recklessness. At least Takashi had some sense, but then again he knew better than to wander off alone!

"Where's the fox brat?"

"He's with Inuyasha. I guess the hanyou warmed up to him over something while I was asleep," said Takashi.

Rakan and Inuyasha had come to some sort of strange truce he wasn't going to ask about. All he knew was that the half demon liked the little fox a lot more than he did Kagome, and wouldn't hurt him.

"That girl is too reckless. If this continues I'm not going to bother helping you save her sorry ass unless you do some serious bribing!"

"She needs to realize this isn't a dream, and that she'll get killed if she doesn't shape up. I'm not going to shield her next time," said Takashi annoyed. If Kagome got too dependent on Takashi to protect her, then she'd never learn anything.

Besides, he didn't like the fact he had to keep rescuing his cousin from the mess she made with the ayakashi. No one had protected him, and he managed on his own just fine.

Nyanko's nose turned upward.

"The scent has changed. The smell of death is stronger. Too strong. Unless something got it's hands on that stupid rock."

They nearly ran into the corpse crow.

"Follow it! It ate the jewel!" shouted Inuyasha carrying Rakan and Kagome both. It barely slowed him down, he was so mad.

Takashi and Nyanko changed course, but Nyanko quickly grew bored after Inuyasha slowed the demon down enough for him to land a hit.

Even with the jewel, it was too weak to be of any real interest to him.

He did wait for Takashi to launch himself off his back before he switched back to his maneki neko form though. The punch connected rather solidly, and Takashi ignored the disgusting sensation of the bird under his fist.

"Nice one, Natsume!" said Inuyasha. He was quick to follow through.

Kagome looked somewhat miffed.

"Why does he call you by name and not me?" she asked him.

"It has to do with the level of respect," said Takashi. Kagome bristled. He could tell she would be difficult to be around for days once he explained things to her. Seeing her snatch his bow and arrows and try to kill the demon to earn some respect from Inuyasha and Takashi, he winced at the bright light.

Something hit him in the eyes...again...and he noticed something hitting Nyanko and Rakan.

"Ow."

He rubbed his eyes absently, but otherwise the annoyance went away.

Half an hour of searching later...

"Where is it woman?!" said Inuyasha irate. Takashi had long since covered Rakan's ears after the first expletive left the hanyou's mouth.

Rakan was going to pick it up eventually, but he'd be damned if the fox picked it up today.

Seeing the remnant of the now dead crow attack, Takashi absentmindedly smashed it into the ground. It wasn't until Kagome picked up a pink shard of something that he had a horrible premonition of things to come.

"Uh... I think this is it."

"What is?"

"Please for the love of all kami in existence tell me you didn't..." started Takashi.

"I think this is a shard...of the Shikon no Tama," said Kagome sheepishly.

Takashi groaned audibly and Inuyasha started swearing loudly.

"Dammit girl, what part of 'stay out of it until you've had some training' do you not get?!" shouted Inuyasha loudly.

Kagome's skills at archery sucked. Badly. Takashi was barely acceptable, but he was still better than her.

Takashi looked very much like he wanted to start hitting his head against one of the nearby trees. Repeatedly.

"Are you aware your spiritual energy spiked during that light show brat?" asked Nyanko.

"Likely because I was hit with some of the shards," deadpanned Takashi. "You and Rakan were hit with a few as well."

Nyanko waited for Takashi to cover Rakan's ears before he started swearing the air blue. Inuyasha poked his head around the tree he was sitting on. Like Takashi, he had a habit of sitting in high places. His eyes were wide, but there was clearly some respect in them.

"I didn't know half of that was anatomically possible, or that there were that many words to describe it," he informed the fake cat.

"Anything's possible if you're willing to get creative," was Nyanko's immediate retort.

"So you're not spying on Kagome?" said Takashi.

"I ain't suicidal. That girl's a total shrew, I can just tell," scoffed Inuyasha. Besides, Rakan was playing nearby. He'd make a racket if anything came too close.

Inuyasha had quickly grown close to the little fox for one simple reason.

Both of them had lost their mothers at an early age, but unlike Inuyasha, Rakan had gotten lucky. Takashi had found him relatively quickly and had taken him in. Inuyasha knew he was jealous of Rakan, but he was too embarrassed to admit the real reason why.

The hanyou blinked when he felt someone's hand gently rubbed his head.

"What's that for, idiot?"

"You looked like you needed a friend," said Takashi.

Nyanko had mentioned Inuyasha's life had been rough because his mother died, and no one took him in. There was no pity in Natsume's eyes, which was the only reason Inuyasha didn't deck him for it.

"If you need someone to just talk to, I'm all ears."

"You're meddling again, brat," complained Nyanko.

"Yeah, but just being there to listen isn't going to get me cursed...again."

"True."

"EEK!"

"That was Kagome!" said Inuyasha.

"That wasn't a terrified yelp," said Takashi.

"How can you tell?"

"Trust me, I'd recognize a terrified yelp," said Takashi.

"THIS WATER IS FREEZING!"

Takashi couldn't help it.

"Quit bitching! Be glad it's not winter yet!" he shot back. Screaming that loud because of a little cold water.

"Shut up! And get that fox to quit staring at me!"

"He's about four or five mentally. Not like he gets the attraction of a girl swimming starkers!"

"Worst. Cousin. EVER. You had better not be watching me!"

Inuyasha and Nyanko were both laughing.

Inuyasha didn't like the way Kagome looked even more like Kikyo in a miko's outfit. Fortunately Takashi was there to nip that comparison in the bud.

"I'm betting Kikyo wouldn't complain nearly as much as Kagome has in the past...three days? Four?"

"Kikyo was way more refined and less whiny," admitted Inuyasha. Kagome bristled.

"I'm going home!" she said angrily.

"Just be careful when you drop into the well again. There's a trick to landing without breaking anything, and I doubt you've had the right time to learn it," Takashi shot back. So long as he visited long enough to do his homework, talk to Touko and Shigeru, and visit his friends, Takashi had no real pressing need to return right now.

Then again Kagome was a city girl, not someone who preferred the rural countryside like Takashi.

Takashi didn't look up from his book until he heard the surprised yelp from Kaede. Kagome had gone off to who knew where, likely the well, and Inuyasha was off taking a nap.

Until Kagome learned some responsibility and common sense, Takashi wasn't going to do more than the bare minimum to protect her.

One could say he had grown cynical, but to be fair all of this happened after he was once again forced to move in with a new family, and having it happen to him repeatedly because of the youkai who bothered him had made him rather jaded.

The fact he had trouble believing that Touko and Shigeru wouldn't cut him away like every other family that took him in as a kid didn't help either.

So yeah, he'd rather stay in the past for the moment until things settled down.

It wasn't until he heard the surprised yelp that he got up and started moving.

He knew a scared yelp from a regular yelp.

Rakan was with Kaede at the moment, and he was the source of the yelp.

What he found was chaos. The village girls were being held upright by what appeared to be strings, but upon closer inspection were revealed to be hair. Rakan had managed to push Kaede out of the way of the knife in the girl's hand, and was too small for her to effectively attack.

Nyanko was off investigating the area for good sake spots, and Inuyasha was trying to find where Kagome wandered off to. So Takashi was all alone. Fortunately, he wasn't some rookie with a gift.

He reached for his now ever-present bag and started pulling out pre-prepared papers with sigils to ward off youki. (Thank you Natori for sharing your books...)

Flaring his power, Takashi was able to break the hairs controlling the girls. They retreated rather quickly under the brunt of his assault.

"Thank you, Natsume-kun," said Kaede relieved. "These old bones can't weather attacks like they used to."

"I have an exorcist friend who knows a thing or two about barriers. I could always ask him for advice."

Though odds were he'd have to explain to Natori why he needed it...and why he was 'vacationing' in the past.

"What the hell is happening here?" demanded an annoyed Inuyasha.

"We're being attacked by a youkai with powers over hair. Likely after the jewel, and not afraid to act in public," Takashi summed up. He looked in his bag and found some basic wards. "I can put a few of these around the village, maybe create a safe zone from the youkai, but these only allow human visitors."

"I take it ye have never used them before?" said Kaede.

"I'm used to ayakashi intruding. Some of my friends are youkai, and I don't mind them intruding occasionally. Wards like these would keep them and possibly Rakan and Nyanko out."

Takashi went around the village, checked his work, before moving on. He left a single, solitary space for youkai to go through. Kaede could shoot her arrows from there with ease, even at her age.

"Let's go, Takashi," said Inuyasha.

"One of us needs to go get Kagome. I specialize in seals and binding, not purifying. Besides, she created this mess when she broke that stupid rock," said Takashi. Inuyasha's grin was vicious.