InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Broken* ❯ Change of Power ( Chapter 2 )

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

"NO!"

The shriek echoed throughout the forest, loud enough to startle small forest creatures—and a large herd of deer—into panicked flight and send them crashing away through the trees.

Heedless of the panic she'd just caused, Kagome stared in horror at the clawed hand that had somehow immediately ceased its swift decent—almost like magic, really—leaving the very tips of those claws embedded into the wood with five long cracks running down the well's side. "Don't," she whimpered. "Inuyasha, please don't."

He looked down at her, noting the genuine fear in her eyes, and his grin widened even more. "Keh. Why shouldn't I?" he demanded. "All that time wasted doin' who-knows-what in your time, when you should be collectin' the shards in this one! If you can't go home anymore, there ain't any reason why you can't focus all your attention on finding the shards, instead."

"B-but I'll be stuck here for the rest of my life!"

"Ain't my problem," he snorted, flexing his claws. The cracks widened ever-so-slightly.

"Stop it!" Kagome yelled, readying herself to sit him before remembering why she was in this mess in the first place. Instead, she grabbed his wrist to force his hand away from the edge of the well. He snorted again; as if she could make him do anything he didn't want to!

Still, seeing the horrible distress on her face was wreaking havoc on his conscience (curse his human side, anyway), and he found himself taking a small amount of pity on her. A very small amount, almost buried under the great heaping dose of satisfaction. He finally had her right where he wanted her. "A'right, wench, here's the deal," he growled, making his voice as gruff and commanding as possible; he needed to show her beyond doubt that he was the one in charge now. "I won't destroy your precious well, but only as long as you swear not to go near it until we find every last shard of the jewel."

"But that could take months. Maybe even years!" Kagome protested. "If I don't go home my family will think I died or something!"

"Keh! They know you're with me!”

"Forgive me if I don't feel reassured!" she snapped, fixing him with a withering glare.

He glared right back. "It still stands," he growled. "You come within a hundred feet of this well an' I turn it into kindling, an' you can say hello to your new life in the past. Don't go tryin' ta be sneaky, either. I'll be watchin', an' you know you won't stand a chance of gettin' here before I do without that spell holdin' me down!"

Kagome glared at him with a tearful, furious gaze, but she knew there was nothing to do but agree. She was no match for the hanyou and they both knew it … but that didn't mean she had to like it. "You … you … you big jerk!" she finally yelled, stomping her foot petulantly.

He merely laughed. "I wouldn't go around makin' me mad, either. You wouldn't want me to 'accidentally' forget my end of the bargain, would you?"

"If you do, I'll never go shard hunting with you again! The stupid jewel can rot for all I care!"

"Oh, sure. Ain't no problem," he purred. "You can just stay here in the village and let the youkai come find you, instead. Well, long as you don't mind all those innocent people gettin' caught in the middle of the battles, o' course."

"Gaaaahhh!" she shrieked in utter frustration, resisting the temptation to yank on her hair. Once again, he was right, and she hated it. When had the stupid hanyou gotten so damned smart? She stomped her foot again for good measure and stormed back toward the village. Probably heading straight for Kaede's hut to beg off another rosary, Inuyasha thought. With a positively evil grin and a slightly maniacal chuckle, he took to the trees to follow.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Kagome, whatever be the matter?" Kaede asked, slightly bewildered as the girl stomped into the hut, looking furious enough to kill … something.

"Everything!" Kagome sniffled, holding out the rosary still fisted in her hand. Well, it looked more like a string at the moment; the remaining beads had been lost long ago.

Shippou had been napping, but now he woke at the sound of his surrogate mother's distressed voice. With a nimble leap, he was perched on her shoulder and patting her cheek soothingly with one little paw. She smiled a bit and stroked his hair gratefully. "What's that?" he asked curiously, eyeing the broken string in her hand.

Kagome sniffled again and shuffled nervously. "It was Inuyasha's rosary," she replied gloomily. "It kinda … broke."

"No way!" Shippou yelped. "You mean Dog-breath's free?”

He squealed as he suddenly found himself being hoisted into the air by his tail and brought around face-to-face with a grinning Inuyasha.

"Boo."

The hanyou smirked when the little kitsune squealed again. "Kagomeeee! Help me!" he pleaded, trying to squirm free of the tight hold on his tail.

"What're ya lookin' at her for, brat? I'm the one you gotta beg for mercy here!" Inuyasha replied with an evil chuckle.

"Inuyasha, stop bullying Shippou. He's just a child. Please put him down," Kagome sighed.

"Ohhhh, no. This brat's been harassing me for weeks and every time I try to get even I end up eating dirt. Not anymore. Now it's my turn!"

"Inuyasha…" Kagome began warningly.

He just grinned at her. "What're ya gonna do, sit me? Oh, wait. That's right. You can't anymore, can you? Bwahahahahaha!" His loud guffaws nearly shook the roof.

"I'm gonna diiieeee!" Shippou wailed, hiding his face in his hands.

"Nobody's going to die, Shippou." Kagome sighed again, already weary of the entire ordeal.

Inuyasha just smirked and opened his mouth to contradict her, but froze before he got the first word out. He blinked, and suddenly leaped straight up and to the side, revealing a startled Kaede who had been creeping up behind him, a rosary poised to slide over Inuyasha's head. She blinked at the spot the hanyou had been standing only a moment before.

"Nice try, Baba, but yer gonna have to do better'n that," he snorted. "Sneakin' up from behind? Not playin' very fair, are we?"

"I don't think you have any right to accuse people about not playing fair!" Kagome snapped.

He smirked. "You're just sulkin' 'cause I finally got one over on you. 'Sides, you can't complain, either. Who's the one that collared me with that damned rosary the first chance she got?"

"That would be Kaede."

The elderly miko gulped and abruptly recalled that she had to go collect herbs. Now. From the other side of the village.

"Okay, okay," Inuyasha snorted. "But who's the one that activated the spell first chance she got?"

"That's 'cause you were trying to kill me!" Kagome screamed, her face slowly starting to turn a most interesting shade of red; even Shippou was starting to look nervous.

Inuyasha blinked, then puffed out his chest and stuck his nose in the air disdainfully. "That's right, wench," he snarled. "An' don't think for a second I won't try it again if you even think of slappin' another one of those things on me!" He swiped at the air with his claws for emphasis. "I ain't nobody's lapdog, got it?"

Kagome's mouth fell open at the obvious threat in his tone, her eyes widening with shock. "I—You—I can't believe you really said that," she stuttered, clearly disturbed. "I … I know we bicker a lot, but I thought that at least we … were friends."

Inuyasha almost winced at the look on her face, as if he'd just offered up some kind of ultimate betrayal, maybe drove his claws into her chest and ripped out her still-beating heart. Inwardly, he cringed at how very wrong that expression looked. Outwardly, however, his mouth was shooting off again without his permission, his next words emerging on a low snarl, "Well, guess maybe you got it all backwards, huh?"

There was a long, forboding silence. Kagome's gaze pierced him, blue-gray eyes haunted, but her expression had shuttered, smoothing into an expressionless mask. He was hard-pressed to keep from squirming beneath that stricken gaze, suddenly wishing he could crawl beneath a rock. His body automatically tensed, readying itself for the pain of a series of well-deserved sits that would never come again. He would have been disgusted with himself if he wasn't so busy cringing.

Finally, after long, tense moments, Kagome licked her lips and shook her head ever-so-slightly. "Guess maybe I did," she whispered, and without another word, turned to walk slowly away.