InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Kagome Smells ❯ Kagome Smells - Scentiments ( Chapter 2 )

Kagome Smells - Scentiments

By Majicman55

 

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of InuYasha. I just like to play with the characters.

 

Kagome was wide awake.

 

She levered herself up on one elbow and looked around. By the fading light of the campfire, she could just see Sango and Miroku. She noted that the monk had moved closer to the taijiya during the night. At the rate he was going, he'd be holding her by morning. Kagome smiled at the thought, and then frowned. It was a shame that those two couldn't admit their feelings in the light of day.

 

On the other side of the taijiya and snuggled up against her was Kirara in her cat form. That left Shippo and InuYasha unaccounted for, although Kagome could smell(?) the kitsune nearby. Wait. Something was tickling her feet.

 

Kagome raised the top of the sleeping bag up and the flickerings of the campfire provided just enough light to catch a glimpse of Shippo, curled up by her feet. Kagome smiled. She had wondered how her feet were so warm on such a cold night. Shippo as footwarmer. She'd have to remember that trick.

 

As she held the sleeping bag open, she noticed a soothing smell coming from the kitsune. It washed over her, leaving behind an “all's right with the world” feeling.

 

Not that she wasn't glad Shippo was content, but she still wondered what was going on. “Have I become so attuned to Shippo that I can actually smell the difference if he's happy or sad?” But then there had been the episode with the fish and, besides, the fish were dead; and did fish have emotions, anyway? It was all so confusing.

 

A soft rustling in the trees made her look up. Experimentally, she took a deep sniff. All the odors and aromas of the woods assaulted her! A jumble of scents assaulted her and Kagome drew back in shock. Since when had everything gotten so intense?

 

The problem was that she had trouble separating all the smells and determining what each scent was telling her. She took a few more (this time, shallower) sniffs and found the experience easier to take. She still couldn't identify each smell and what it represented, but at least she wasn't being overwhelmed anymore.

 

Kagome shivered. All this time she had still been holding the sleeping bag open…and it really was cold. She would have to examine this puzzle again in the morning. For now, she was going to get warm.

 

“Goodnight, InuYasha,” she mumbled before dozing off.

 

High up in the tree above her, InuYasha's eyes got bigger. “How did she know? How did she know I was here?” He “feh'ed” and shook his head. “Lucky guess.”

 

 

******************

 

 

Kagome awoke with the dawn and looked up to see InuYasha building up the fire so they could cook breakfast. “We'll need to boil some water, InuYasha.”

 

The hanyou's ears perked up. “I'll get it.” This day was starting out well: Kagome was making ramen for breakfast.

 

Kagome watched the hanyou grab the pot and head towards a nearby stream. She took the opportunity to grab a change of clothes from her backpack and slip back into her sleeping bag to wriggle out of her old stuff and into the new.

 

Couldn't be too careful with Miroku around.

 

She had just started to take off her old clothes when she paused, reached down into the bottom of the sleeping bag and pulled out a complaining Shippo.

 

“Aww, Kagome. I was warm.”

 

“Go play with Kirara. Maybe you two can find some berries or something.”

 

“Oh, alright.” Shippo trudged off.

 

“Don't want to raise another little Miroku,” thought Kagome as she resumed changing into a fresh outfit. “Gotta remember to take this sleeping bag home for a good washing,” she thought. “It's really starting to smell.”

 

By the time Kagome was done changing, Sango and Miroku were getting up. Kagome looked over in amusement when she heard her friend's cry of “Hentai!” followed by the inevitable slap. She was right: Miroku had managed to, once again, inch over until the two awoke with Sango cradled in Miroku's arms.

 

Where his hands had been before the slap, Kagome didn't want to know.

 

Now fully dressed, Kagome got out of the sleeping bag, stood up and walked over to the taijiya. “Morning.”

 

“The mornings would be better if he'd stop doing that!” Sango and Kagome looked over to where the somewhat dazed monk was sitting, rubbing the new handprint on his cheek.

 

Both the girls sighed.

 

Kagome took a deep breath of the fresh morning air. Unfortunately for the miko, she breathed in through her nose.

 

To Sango, her friend had frozen, a look of shock on her face.

 

To Kagome, it was like being hit by a freight train full of smells ranging from wonderful to sickening. She knew for a fact where Shippo had gone to relieve himself after she kicked him out of the sleeping bag. She knew exactly where InuYasha had thrown the fish bones from last night's meal. She even had a vague impression of where the hanyou was at that moment…and that he was rapidly coming closer.

 

But what was this…spicy…scent coming from…Sango?

 

Sango watched as Kagome turned her way. She noticed as a look of wonder, then realization, appeared in her expression. “Oh, my kami, she knows.”

 

“S-Sango?” stuttered Kagome.

 

“Come with me!” Sango grabbed her friend by the arm and dragged her away from Miroku. “We have to talk.”

 

“S-Sure.” Kagome looked at Sango and scrunched up her nose. “Is that you, Sango?”

 

The taijiya was blushing beet red.

 

“Ladies, ladies, ladies. If there is a problem, surely you can let me in on it. Maybe I can help.”

 

Sango looked back at the monk. “You've been enough help already.” The taijiya continued dragging Kagome off to where they could talk privately.

 

 

******************

 

 

“What is going on, Sango? Yesterday, I thought my deodorant was bad, but now everything smells so strong.” Kagome looked closely at her friend. “Even you. I don't think I could smell it so much last night because you were on the other side of the campfire, but now you smell like…like…” It was Kagome's turn to blush. “I can't say it.”

 

Sango put her hand on Kagome's shoulder. “It's okay. You can tell me. We're practically sisters.”

 

“Umm…I had a…dream…about InuYasha…and I woke up smelling a little like you do now.”

 

“A dream?”

 

Kagome looked at Sango intensely. “Yeah. A dream.”

 

“Oh-h-hhh.” Sango turned away and blushed again, and then back to Kagome. “I…I think I may know what's going on.”

 

“You do?” Kagome looked relieved, but only so relieved till she got the whole story.

 

“You remember rubbing InuYasha's blood on your nose?”

 

“Yeah. Of course.”

 

“I think I was wrong about the only effect being to heal all those cuts.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I think you smell like InuYasha.”

 

Kagome looked perplexed for a moment. “Of course I smell like InuYasha. He carries me around all the time. He…”

 

“I don't mean you smell like him. I mean you can smell like InuYasha…as in picking up scents.”

 

“From rubbing his blood on my nose…”

 

“…and getting it in your cuts. Yes.”

 

“So that means Miroku's touching you really does make you horny.”

 

“Yes, and…Kagome!”

 

 

******************

 

 

“Oi. Where are the girls?” asked InuYasha.

 

“Sango said that she and Kagome had to talk privately.”

 

“And you let them go off by themselves?”

 

“Calm down, InuYasha. I didn't have much choice.”

 

“You were trying to grab Sango's ass again, weren't you?”

 

“I am so misunderstood.”

 

Shippo returned to camp with Kirara. “Where's Kagome?”

 

“Off with Sango, according to Miroku,” said InuYasha. “He was probably trying to feel her up in the middle of the night again.”

 

“It's the hand, I tell you. The hand.”

 

“Yeah, he was all over her when Kagome threw me out of her sleeping bag this morning.”

 

Miroku just glared at Shippo, saying nothing.

 

“Nevermind. They're coming back,” said InuYasha as he placed the pot of water on the fire to heat.

 

Presently, the girls could be seen returning over a small hill. They seemed to be having a small argument, but quit when they looked towards camp and realized InuYasha was back and could probably hear them.

 

The only thing InuYasha caught was Sango's remark that they'd “talk more about it later.”

 

 

******************

 

 

InuYasha wasn't too happy. It turned out they weren't having ramen for breakfast. Upon the girls' return, Kagome had rummaged through her backpack till she pulled out five bowls and packets of something she called “oatmeal.”

 

“How are we supposed to eat this crap?”

 

“Well, you don't eat it that way,” said Kagome as she reached for a packet InuYasha had ripped open and was about to dump down his throat. “It's like the ramen. It has to be cooked in hot water.”

 

“Ya coulda told me that!”

 

“Patience is a virtue,” chimed in Miroku.

 

“Then why don'tcha wait till you're married to grab Sango's butt?”

 

Miroku took on another of his “I'm so misunderstood” looks while Kagome turned away to let Sango blush in peace.

 

But then there was that scent again. Kagome looked back at her friend until she caught the taijiya's eye.

 

Sango immediately started signing to her to keep quiet.

 

To Sango's relief, all that came out of Kagome's mouth was, “If you boys don't knock it off, we'll never have breakfast.” One by one, the miko mixed the bowls of instant oatmeal. Her only problem was that each time she added the hot water to a bowl, it released the smell of that variety. Kagome wobbled a little as she passed out the bowls. “Who wants peach? Who wants strawberry? Who wants apples and cinnamon?”

 

But then Kagome noticed something odd. Each time she added hot water to a bowl of instant oatmeal, it added to the chaos of smells that surrounded her. But then, since she knew what these smells were, it seemed her brain was able to sift each one out from the background, identify and categorize it.

 

While the scent was still strong, because she had successfully categorized it, it wasn't overpowering her. It was like having an automatic filter.

 

Kagome decided to experiment. She finished her oatmeal, excused herself and walked over to lean against a tree of a type she recognized. While the others were still eating, she pulled down a low branch and sniffed at it.

 

After a few seconds, whe had a firm association between the smell and the tree. She carefully took a sniff of the world around her.

 

As with the oatmeal, the scent of the tree was still strong, but since she was able to identify it, the scent didn't overwhelm her. She had the sudden feeling that she could identify the location of each of that type of tree within several kilometers.

 

And the world was slightly less overpowering.

 

 

******************

 

 

The sun had reached midway to its zenith as the gang proceeded in the direction of the next rumor regarding Naraku. InuYasha had been surprised, but had acquiesced, when Kagome suggested they walk for a change.

 

“Keh! But it's so much slower.”

 

“I just need to stretch my legs, InuYasha,” answered Kagome. “Besides, it's so beautiful around here, I want to look at the flowers.”

 

“The flowers? Feh! We don't have time for flowers.”

 

She had given him her “Kagome eyes” and he had stuttered a bit and finally relented. “Feh. Okay, but you're ridin' after lunch…and I ain't takin' no for an answer!”

 

So Kagome had hugged him briefly and promised to walk quickly, but she was going to look at some of the flowers.

 

And so it was that InuYasha led, Kagome followed and Miroku and Sango followed with Kirara (with Shippo on Kirara's back). Each time Kagome saw a plant or flower she recognized, she would stop and take a sniff. She would take on a momentary look of deep concentration, and then move on.

 

Gradually, the background “noise” of the forest was becoming less of a clutter as she categorized smells and mentally removed them from the chaos.

 

It was still overwhelming, but not impossibly so.

 

Quite naturally, she began to mentally categorize her friends. This was more difficult, she found, because their scents kept changing. She wasn't sure yet, but she suspected that each of them had a sort of “baseline” scent which changed according to their emotions.

 

Shippo was the easiest to pick out: she supposed because he was practically a son to her. Anyway, he was a child and didn't have all the complex emotions of an adult. Sango was the next easiest to determine…which was probably because her…scent…was the first she had consciously picked out. She was still trying to pick out Miroku's scent. Oh well, she'd get it eventually.

 

InuYasha's scent was the strongest, however. Pine forest mixed with fresh mountain stream…with just a hint of dog (fortunately not “wet dog,” she thought with a mental grin). She had already picked up on one of his scent variations: frustration. Every time she stopped to “admire” a particular flower or tree, the hanyou would growl and exclaim that they “didn't have time for this shit.”

 

Kagome smiled as she picked out another flower she recognized and made a beeline for it.

 

“Not again, wench!” InuYasha exclaimed behind her. This time, the hanyou actually followed her to the bright red flower. “Well, are ya gonna sniff it or not?”

 

Kagome hmphed a little, turned away from the hanyou and bent over to sniff the flower. It was a pretty tall plant, however, so this time she bent at the waist instead of the knees.

 

This had the effect of showing the hanyou a little more of her upper thighs than she intended. And when a stiff breeze came along, she showed InuYasha a lot more than she intended.

 

Kagome stood, still facing away from InuYasha, holding her skirt down at her sides, and blushing as she wondered how much InuYasha had seen.

 

“What is that smell?” she thought.

 

 

 

A/N: I figured that, if you picked up a new sense, or at least, a much stronger version of one of your senses, it would take a while to learn how to use it. Kagome has a lot to learn. <grin>

 

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