InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Black as Night, White as Snow ❯ Seven Odd Friends ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers! Seven (hint, hint) more characters will be introduced this chapter. Bet you can’t figure out who they are! Except for the fact that the name of the chapter basically gives it away.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the story of Snow White. Although I once owned a guinea pig named Snow White, but she’s six feet under now...

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Black as Night, White as Snow

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--- Last Chapter ---

A smirk appeared on Kanna’s face and she quickly quoted before disappearing.
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"---Kikyou, Kikyou, you are plain as a board!

You’ll never get that jerk of a lord!---"
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Kikyou was left fuming in the middle of her bed room, new plots of killing her sibling forming in her irritated mind.

--- End of Last Chapter ---

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Chapter Three: Seven Odd Friends

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“Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s off to work we go! Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum! Hi ho! Hi ho! HI – OW!”

---SMACK---

“MIROKU! Could we go to the Shikon no Tama mines at least once in our gods be damned lives WITHOUT that song!”

“But my dear Sango! It’s so heart lifting, I couldn’t work without it!” Miroku cheerfully called back to the fuming brunette.

“By the way you’re talking, I don’t think anything about you is working!” Sango screeched before stomping off to catch up with their five friends.

The violet eyed man pouted for a split second before rushing after his favorite fellow coworker.

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Shippou giggled as he skipped around his group members. “Its --AHH-- almost --AHH-- over --CHOO--!!!” he sang, while sneezing (obviously).

“Yes --YAWN-- my child. Thy curse is soon to be over.” An ancient woman, donning miko robes, drawled slowly to the redheaded kitsune. “Finally,” she mumbled under her breath.

Another demon, half demon to be exact, with an evil, dark aura surrounding him cackled darkly. “Yes! And then I’ll be able to set forth another one of my brilliant plans!”

---TWACK---

“You idiot!” Sango roared, her hairokotsu clutched firmly in her hand. The giant bone boomerang seemed to be sporting a new dent where it had collided with something extremely solid.

Naraku narrowed his crimson eyes as he rubbed at his aching head. “That was uncalled for,” he grumbled.

A demoness, firmly holding a fan, laughed lightly. “Anything you get, you deserve Naraku,” she spat at the crimson eyed man. “It is your fault after all...” she let her sentence trail off.

“Come now! People, as Shippou delightedly pointed out,” Miroku smiled at the young child, “The curse, our punishment, is almost over!” He laughed merrily, marching on ahead.

“Dur?” A sandy haired boy asked. His human face was split into an idiotic, foolish grin.

“Ah! Since you asked, Hojo, the curse shall finally be lifted in exactly...” Miroku’s purple gaze drifted toward the eldest of the group.

The gray-haired miko raised an eyebrow, the only visible one since the second was hidden under an eye patch, at the violet-eyed monk. “Three weeks,” Kaede supplied.

“Thank you, Lady Kaede.” Miroku smiled kindly at her.

“Bout damn time too...” Sango muttered darkly, her eyebrows knitted in frustration and anger.

Hojo nodded enthusiastically.

Suddenly Kagura paused in her elegant gate. “Something is off...” she muttered, bringing her fan out to her side and swinging it slowly across her front. Her power over the element of wind acted quickly and an odd aura quickly flowed back towards them on a draft. Shippou stopped to sniff the air and smiled slightly at the soft scent. Naraku scoffed thinking highly of himself, and that the owner of the 'odd aura' could not be a threat to him. Kagura’s scarlet eyes narrowed in instant distrust. Sango’s sharp senses from growing up as a taijiya, a demon slayer, made her tense in concentration.

And Miroku smirked. His ‘natural’ women instincts told him that whoever owned this new power was, it was female.

Fun.

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“Kirara?” Sango whispered softly, poking her head into the cottage and peering around in the pitch-blackness.

“Mew,” was the soft answer. Said cat walked out of the shadows of the kitchen and began to rub up against her master’s legs. Miroku sneaked in behind his magenta-eyed friend, his hand accidentally bushing something that earned him a new bump on his head.

“Lady Sango, I do believe you are getting stronger.” He muttered casually.

“Be quiet ye two, thy power ye sense comes from inside thou home.” Kaede told them sleepily.

“Truly,” Kagura added as she let herself in.

“Only one way to find out who it is,” Sango called bravely as she unsheathed her katana. The sharp sword glittered in the dying light of their lantern. Miroku merely shrugged as he held tightly onto his golden staff and Shippou gently took out his spinning top. Hopefully, the fox thought, this person was extremely idiotic and would fall for the trick. They began to lead the way for the rest and the odd group crept up the stairs. Opening the door a crack, the flickering light fell onto the face of the intruder of their home.

“Oh,” Sango squeaked.

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Kagome’s dreams were interrupted as she was slowly dragged back from unconsciousness. After taking her time getting her bearings, she allowed her cobalt blue eyes to flutter open. And seven pairs of eyes met hers: green (Shippou), magenta (Sango), violet (Miroku), chocolate (Kaede), dull blue (Hojo), crimson (Naraku), and scarlet (Kagura).

“Heh, heh. Hello...?”

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“Who are you?” the young woman, owner of the magenta set of eyes, demanded. “And why in seven hells didn’t Kirara stop you?” Kirara, sensing hostility toward her new friend whom she led to their home, leapt up onto the bed. The furry feline crept over and curled up at Kagome’s breast in hopes to convince Sango to calm down and trust the strange young blue-eyed woman.

“Mew.” She meowed pitifully.

A look of hurt flashed by Sango’s face at her friend’s instant trust. “Kirara!”

Kagome smiled down at the ball of fluff. “She’s sweet,” her melodious voice commented. “She brought me here. I wouldn’t have stayed if I’d known I was trespassing.”

“Don’t worry about that, my Lady! Please forgive our rude awakening,” the violet eyed man stepped forward.

Kagome raised an eyebrow at his purple and black robes. ‘A monk,’ she recognized. There had been quite a few of those back at the palace.

“‘Forgive us’?” Naraku growled, outraged. “She is laying in my bed!”

Kagura chuckled, “And she’ll probably be the only one to ever do so, Naraku.”

Kagome frowned. She really didn’t want to think about that comment. “I’m sorry...Naraku, wasn’t it?” She unsteadily stood up and reluctantly moved away from the bed she'd been sleeping in. And that’s when she noticed something. She was looking down at the six adults (and the one child) in the room, not up.

And then she fainted.

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Something felt oddly...cold.

Very cold and...

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...Wet.

Yes, wet. That’s the felling, Kagome realized. Something moved down her neck and she giggled involuntarily at the ticklish feeling. She reached up and pulled the cool rag from her forehead, more droplets of water following the first one.

“I see ye are awake,” Kaede paused to yawn, “My child.”

“Hn?” Kagome asked as she sat up for the second time that night to look into the old miko’s brown eye.

“Ye fainted.” Kaede explained.

“Really? I didn’t notice,” Kag said faintly.

Miroku chuckled from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Sarcastic, now are we? Just what we need, another one of those.”

“Yes,” Sango huffed. “We don’t get enough of it from Miroku and Kagura already.”

“I am not sarcastic,” Kagura glowered from her position at the desk in the bedroom. “I am simply witty.”

Naraku laughed harshly. “You just keep telling yourself that,” he told her coldly as he looked down at his hand of cards. “Got any threes?”

Kagura smirked. “Go fish.”

“...” Naraku discreetly stuck his tongue out at her as he bent over to grab a new card.

---THUNK---

“Oof!”

“I saw that, Naraku!” Kagura snapped, bringing her foot back down.

“I noticed!” he bit out at her.

“Will you two SHUT UP?!” Sango roared, turning back to the now conscious young woman, her pink kimono swishing in the movement.

Miroku smiled kindly at his friend. “Calm down Sango.”

“Five years, Miroku!” Sango roared. “I’ve had to listen to that for FIVE YEARS!”

Miroku shrugged. “I certainly didn’t mind listening to you for five years, my Lady.”

Sango flushed and turned away.

“So,” Kagome dragged the word out, trying to figure out why these seven completely different...people...would be together for five years. “Um...”

“Yes, child?” Kaede asked dully, but kindly, from Kagome’s side.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but...what are you?” Kagome blurted. The seven other occupants stopped whatever they were doing to face her.

Miroku stood up to face her. “A monk, a demon slayer, a kitsune cub, a miko, a human, a half demon, and a wind sorceress.”

Kagome looked down at her hands, just now noticing she’d been moved back to the bed she’d fallen asleep in. “I kind of figured that. I mean,” she desperately searched for some words that wouldn’t be taken the wrong way.

“Why do we look so normal, except for barely being three feet tall?” Sango asked gently.

“Yeah,” Kagome said.

“Dwarves,” Sango said. “We’re dwarves. Not born dwarves, for then we couldn’t be the other things we are, but dwarves none the less.”

Kagome eyed the seven ‘dwarves’ critically. Sango was right, she figured. If they were dwarves, natural ones, they’d be stockier. But all of them, except for the child, just looked to have shrunk. They had the same proportions as they would if they were right sized. “So, then, what are you?” she echoed, perplexed.

Miroku took a deep breath, “A monk, a demon slayer, a-!”

“I got that already,” Kagome interrupted while rubbing her temples. “I mean, if you aren’t ‘natural’ dwarves, what kind are you?”

Miroku pouted, “Well you could have just asked that!”

Kagome ignored the hurt look on the monk’s face to turn to the redhead tugging at her sleeve.

The child smiled widely. “I’m Shippou! You kn-fftttf?”

Kagome arched her eyebrow questioningly. “What was that?”

Shippou twitched his nose in concentration. “I said ‘you know what’?” and then he did a little cheer and dance when the sentence came out without being interrupted by a sneeze.

Kagome smiled down at the fox. “No, what?”

Shippou smirked, “I used to be the same size as they are now, but,” he paused to sneeze. “Now I’m only this tall,” he tilted his head toward his tiny body. It was only about a foot and a half; Kagome could easily hold him in her arms.

“You know what?” she asked, leaning forward with her sky blue eyes twinkling.

“What?” Shippou chirped his own green eyes sparkling.

“You are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” Kag announced and welcomed the hug Shippou launched at her.

“Thank you!”

“AWWW,” Miroku cooed at the cute couple. Sango’s frown twitched a little, but stayed.

“Ugh,” Naraku turned away just in time to spot Kagura using the metal on her fan to catch sight of his cards. “HEY!”

“Oops?”

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“So, my Lady, you have yet to explain why you are in the middle of the forest all alone,” Miroku pointed out as Kagome scooped the soup she’d cooked into everyone’s bowls.

Kagome shifted a little, uncomfortable. “And you have yet to explain why you are dwarves...but not really dwarves.” ‘That sentence sounded odd,’ Kagome sighed.

Now Miroku looked a little uncomfortable. “Well, you see...anyway!” he clapped his hands together. Turning to Hojo, he gasped. “YOU HAVE MY CUP!”

Kagome eyed the monk strangely. “How can you tell?”

Sango switched her gaze to the newest member of their odd assembly. “Kagome, when we first got here to live together, there was exactly eight of everything. Shippou,” here she stared stonily at the fox cub, “went around and wrote nick names on everything.”

“Including the backs of chairs, plates, brooms, beds, lanterns, forks, spoons, and even onto every tag of our garments.” Kagura listed coldly.

“Nick names?” Kagome echoed, her eyebrows arched in slight confusion.

Naraku snickered. “When we arrived, seven of the cups already held the markings of seven names, the eighth one was blank.”

Kaede sighed. “Thy child felt the need to assign us each one.”

Shippou’s nose twitched as he thought carefully on how to word his words so the others wouldn’t get mad at him if he spilled too much information about their situation. “Each of the names fit most of us, so it wasn’t that hard. When we were sent here, it was almost as if that woman knew our characteristics and-“

Sango shuddered. “SHIPPOU!”

Kagome looked intrigued. “What woman?”

Miroku muttered quickly, “No woman.”

“Sure,” Kag told them all faintly. Deciding she could weasel some info later, she changed the subject. “What names do you all have.”

Shippou looked proud. “I," Ahh ahh choo, "Sneeze a lot with my sensitive fox nose. So I got ‘sneezy’! Kaede-bachan is always so tired so I named her ‘sleepy’.” The little boy broke off to sneeze.

Sango cut in. “And I got ‘happy’.” She muttered darkly as her pink tinted eyes glinted with malice.

Miroku chuckled. “I talked Shippou into that one.” Sango eyed him coldly but Miroku simply shrugged. “You are positively sweet, Lady Sango, when you aren’t worked up.”

Sango blushed and Naraku sneered, looking at the color marking her face. “And I was the one that got ‘bashful’!”

Sango glared at him, but Shippou piped up, his fit of sneezes having passed. “There wasn’t a ‘quiet’ or ‘disdainfully silent’ one, so I thought bashful would do!” Shippou huffily defended himself.

“Right.” Kagura said. “And I got ‘grumpy’ and I simply don’t know why!” her smooth voice complained. “Sango should have gotten it! But at least I don’t have Doc!” she cast a sneer at Miroku.

Miroku looked perplexed. “Shippou told me my name when I was eating a carrot. He said that since there was no choice of ‘Bugs’ or ‘Wabbit’ I’d have to do with ‘Doc’,” the monk grumbled faintly.

Kagome ticked off on her fingers. “So that leaves...Hojo?”

Kagura and Naraku sniggered. Kagura choose to comment sweetly, “Shippou said that by the time everyone else was assigned a name, only ‘Dopey’ was left. Hojo had no choice...”

Hojo was too busy blowing bubbles in his stew with a straw to notice the obvious insult to him.

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“That bastard! Damn Sesshoumaru! Just because he is the ‘Lord’ or king or whatever, he thinks he can control me!” Inuyasha shouted, outraged as he stomped through the forest.

Inu had gone back home and had talked to his brother to try and clear up the ‘misunderstanding’ of him being the fiancée of Kikyou. But Sesshoumaru insisted it wasn’t a ‘misunderstanding’, that this union was needed to unite the Western and Northern lands. And Sess was certainly not going to marry a human. So Inuyasha had to be the one to.

“I don’t want to marry! I want to stay single! I don’t even know Queeny! How can Fluffy just expect me to marry her?!”

And so Inuyasha did the smart thing...he left his home and ran away into the forest-- without food or water or directions.

Oh, yeah. It was the ‘smart’ thing to do.

“YOU ARE SO DEAD SESSHOUMARU!”

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Kikyou’s nose twitched as she starred deeply into the foggy reflection. Suddenly the fog began to swirl and a lone figure walked forward, up to the front of the mirror to face the queen. “Kanna, you’re late.” Kikyou said, her cold voice hardened. Her steel gray eyes flickered over the keeper of the mirror, the young youkai child. It was the morning after Kagome had disappeared.

“Sorry, my Queen, but I was...busy...” the white haired female whispered.

“Hn. Tell me, where my ‘lovely’ sister is,” the words seemed to burn in Kikyou’s mouth and she spat them out as though they were poisoned.

Kanna slowly lowered her own round mirror from where she had it clutched to her chest. Whispering a few words, her magic took place and images were shown to her of part of Kagome’s evening the night before. Doing some quick thinking, the young girl responded:
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"---Five years ago, seven different people came together,


After a mistake, a curse was laid, one with out a cure.


In three short weeks, the curse shall lift, but until then,


Help to the maiden Kagome, they shall lend.---"
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“So now my sister has help?” Kikyou snapped. “How? She’s in the middle of a forest between two kingdoms! There is nothing there but the Shikon no Tama mines, and those have been shutdown for decades!” Kanna remained silent as she watched the queen’s perfect, porcelain skin turn red with frustration. “Show me them,” Kikyou commanded after regaining her mask of calmness. Kanna sighed and lifted her own small mirror up so that the queen could spy on her sibling. In the mirror, Kikyou watched her sister sitting down in the morning light handing out strips of bacon and some eggs.

“My Lady, Kagome, what are your plans? Where are you staying in this forest?” A man in purple asked.

Kagome hesitated. “I guess...I don’t have any place to go.” She admitted reluctantly.

“So sorry to hear that,” a man with long, wavy, ebony tresses cooed. His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Kikyou watched as her sister merely shrugged at the insulting tone.

“Then, you can stay here, with us, but on one condition,” a pretty brunette announced as her magenta eyes flashed with seriousness.

“Anything,” Kagome allowed. “Hopefully I’ll be able to go back home in a short time.”

Kikyou snorted as her stepsibling’s optimism. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she hissed to the image, yet the scene went on as if they hadn’t heard...how odd.

“Well, you see...” the brunette trailed off as her eyes flipped over the many layers of dust and piles of dirty dishes.

“...We need you to do us a favor,” Miroku smoothly cut in. “If you keep this home clean, you are welcomed to stay as long as possible.”

Kagome eyed him warily. “Why is it so dirty here?”

Kagura blushed in obvious embarrassment; “We aren’t tall enough to wield the brooms.”

Kagome giggled before sticking out her hand to seal the deal.

Oh how Kikyou hated that giggle. It was almost as if it magnified the beauty of the young woman. But soon, yes very soon, she wouldn’t have to worry about the increased loveliness. And then Kikyou began to slowly lower herself down the spiral steps of her tower to make her way to the dungeon.

“Time to step in and do this myself.”

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Kagome smiled as she dug into the steaming breakfast she’d made in honor for her new friends after they allowed her to stay the night. But these seven odd friends unnerved her somewhat. Not because of their appearance, or even the slight evil waves coming off one or two of them, but because of the secret they seemed to hold. But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure it out.

She’d gotten so far that somehow a monk, a demon slayer, a fox cub, a human, a miko, a half demon, and a wind sorceress had been turned into dwarves. Kagome had also overheard Miroku and Sango talking in the gardens when she had woken up from her lump of blankets on the floor. Something about a curse being lifted in three weeks. What was odd enough was that she was told that they had lived together for five years in this cottage and for that time they had to mine a type of jewel. Sango told her that their ‘debt’ would be paid off soon.

Kagome sighed as she peppered her eggs more to her taste.

Who had cursed these seven people, and why?

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A/N: Well? Please review to tell me how it was. I read at least three authors that identify characters by eye color in their stories. So I kind of picked that up from them. It shouldn’t be all that confusing here because everyone has a different description of his or her eye colors as you can see by reading. The only two with similar colors (Kagome and Hojo) are of different genders so it should be easy to figure out.

You see, in the original story of Snow White, the wicked queen tried to kill Snow three times: the strings on a bodice tightening on their own accord (suffocation), a poisoned comb (poison), and the poisoned apple (suffocation and poison).

Of course I won’t have the same items...I’ll have more ‘interesting’ ones.

And Inuyasha and Kagome meeting? That would have to be...next chapter or the one after that.

Ja ne!