InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Out of Time ❯ Miko’s Hanyou ( Chapter 10 )

~~Chapter 10~~

~Miko's Hanyou~

 

Kagome sank down in the booth next to Sango with Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi. While the girls exchanged gossip gathered between classes of the day, Kagome sighed and dug out her math textbook.

 

“Kagome? You're studying? Put that away!” Eri demanded with a giggle.

 

Kagome didn't glance up. “I have to! I'm behind, and tomorrow's that test.” She sighed. It seemed as though everything was a thousand times tougher since returning home. It shouldn't be. But between helping InuYasha figure out what he wanted to study, helping Sango catch up in all the subjects, worrying about Miroku's hand pains, Shippou's overzealous desire to `fit in', and Kirara bringing home everything she could catch in her hunting excursions, Kagome was falling further and further behind instead of, as she had hoped, catching up, once and for all.

 

`Too bad there are no more dry wells to fall into,' she thought wryly. InuYasha had tried many times that first day. For some reason, the well had seemingly sealed closed behind them. She hadn't been able to figure out why, especially with InuYasha growling and muttering about how much of a pain it was, to be stuck here, in her time. As much as she was loath to admit it, she missed the tranquility of the Sengoku Jidai.

 

“You're further behind now than you were when you were missing all that school before,” Yuka remarked. Kagome shot her friend a sidelong glance. “I'll bet it's that obnoxious boyfriend of yours . . . but at least he's being nice to you.”

 

Kagome snorted. She wasn't sure which of her friend's words had bothered her most: obnoxious, boyfriend, or nice. Maybe it was a mixture of the three. InuYasha had been anything but `nice' lately. Edgy, grouchy, the least little thing seemed to set him off into another of his tirades of nastiness. Worst of all, though, was that Kagome really didn't have any idea what was bothering the volatile hanyou. He never would say.

 

Ayumi caught the sound and frowned in consolation. “What's that? Have you two been having problems?”

 

“Ask Dr. Ayumi,” Eri giggled.

 

“He has been a little out of sorts, hasn't he?” Sango commented as she thoughtfully chewed a French fry.

 

“I don't want to talk about him,” Kagome remarked as she snapped the book closed. She might as well give up. Her friends weren't going to let her study, anyway. She snatched one of Sango's fries and forced a smile. “I think this year's festival should be great.”

 

The girls took the bait, just as Kagome had wanted. She sat back with a relieved sigh and contented herself to listening as the conversation moved off into that direction.

 

`If he would just tell me, it'd be so much easier to help him,' she thought with a scowl. `He always says that I don't tell him things, but he's just as bad.'

 

“Should we be getting back to the shrine soon?” Sango asked, touching Kagome's arm to draw her attention.

 

Kagome started and blinked in surprise. “Probably,” she remarked with a sigh. She got up and swiped up her tray. Turning to toss the trash away, Kagome squeaked as she bumped into someone's very tall body. Her gaze moved up slowly, and she smothered a gasp. “Yukio,” she said brightly, hoping to cover the embarrassment she felt at having nearly dumped her tray onto the hanyou.

 

“Kagome, how fortuitous, running into you here.”

 

She flinched at Yukio's choice of words. “Well, don't let me keep you! It was nice to see you again.”

 

Yukio took her tray and set it aside with a smooth laugh. “Actually, we came to see you and your beautiful friend.” Glancing behind her, Kagome realized that Yukio was talking about her and Sango. She snatched up her bag and hitched it over her shoulder before speaking to either Yukio or the hanyou beside him.

 

“We've got to be going,” she said in a falsely happy tone to her friends. “See you tomorrow!”

 

The three girls clamored out the booth, straightening skirts and hair as they presented themselves to Yukio and his friend. Kagome rolled her eyes. “Kagome, you must introduce us to your friends,” Eri remarked, shooting shy glances at the two strange men.

 

Seeing no way out of it, Kagome sighed and gestured to the guys. “Yuka, Eri, Ayumi, this is Yukio, and . . . err . . . .” Raising her eyebrows at Yukio, Kagome stared at the second hanyou in surprise. Looking very much the same as Yukio in appearance, she could only surmise that this man, too, was another of Sesshoumaru's sons, only this one had his mother's startling violet eyes.

 

“This is my younger brother, Kisho,” Yukio supplied.

 

Kagome leaned toward Yukio. “Are there any more of you I should know about?”

 

Yukio chuckled. “We have a younger sister, Myoko. Is that what you're asking?”

 

Kisho was staring past Kagome and completely ignoring the three school friends in favor of Sango. Kagome glanced over her shoulder and was struck by how Sango was staring straight back at the hanyou with a slight smile and a very real flush. Kagome's mouth dropped open in shock.

 

She grabbed Sango's arm and dragged the youkai exterminator forward. “Well, we've got to run. It was nice seeing you again, Yukio!” Kagome said, whisking Sango out of the restaurant. “Earth to Sango! Hello!”

 

Sango still looked somewhat bemused. She blinked and shot Kagome an almost guilty look. “What?”

 

“What about Miroku? I thought you and he . . . well . . . you know!”

 

“Miroku?” Sango blushed darker.

 

“That was a bit abrupt, didn't you think?”

 

Kagome gasped and whirled around. Her movement was so quick that she nearly lost her balance. Yukio reached out and caught her. She blinked in surprise. She hadn't seen his arms move, and suddenly they were around her, surrounding her. She stared up into those golden eyes, so like Sesshoumaru's . . . so like InuYasha's . . . She swallowed hard.

 

“Thanks,” she heard herself say though she couldn't recall forming the coherent thought of the words. “I'm okay now.”

 

His arms didn't release her. Kagome couldn't look away. “You should be more careful, miko. I would hate to see you fall.”

 

`InuYasha . . .'

 

She opened her mouth again to speak. The words wouldn't come. Captured in the gaze of the son, Kagome could only see the same emotion, the same fire, the same expression that she could find in the eyes of the uncle.

 

Yukio grinned slightly, a grin meant to captivate. “Cat got your tongue, miko?”

 

She shook her head vaguely, a word forming in her mind, a word she couldn't hear when he stared at her like that. There was something unsettling in the depths of those eyes, something that twisted her stomach in a weird sort of way. Not unpleasant but not nice, either. The security of InuYasha's stare beckoned her, called her back. Suddenly she realized that word she'd been trying to say. “InuYasha . . .”

 

Yukio sighed and shrugged. “Can't blame me for trying, now can you? InuYasha is my uncle, but fighting family would be worth it, if you were the prize I sought.”

 

Kagome flushed and tried to pull away. Yukio held her still. “My father wanted me to tell you something. He says you will understand.”

 

Kagome didn't speak. She blinked in reply.

 

“He bid me tell you this. He says, the miasma is gathering.”

 

Golden eyes raked over her face. The slight breeze ruffled his downy silver hair. Kagome could hear herself blink, and the words that Sesshoumaru had sent with his son made sense. She gasped, her hand flying up to cover her lips. `He's . . . he's coming back . . .'

 

Yukio's eyes narrowed. He tilted his head to stare into Kagome's face, his expression mirroring hers. “You look as though you've seen a ghost.”

 

This time when she pulled away, he let her go. Kagome shook her head, as though trying to clear her mind. She stepped back and looked for Sango. The slayer was staring into Kisho's eyes in much the same way that she had just done with Yukio. But Sango was smiling. Kagome watched as Sango reached over and pushed a lock of hair out of the hanyou's face.

 

Kagome stepped forward slowly. “Sango? Sango, we've got to go.”

 

Sango didn't seem as though she'd heard Kagome. Kisho sighed. “The miko says it is time, Sango. Till next we meet.” He bowed and kissed the back of Sango's hand before turning to his brother.

 

Kagome grabbed Sango's arm. “What was that?”

 

“That's what I'd like to know.”

 

Kagome stifled a gasp and turned her head. Miroku and InuYasha stood there, arms crossed over their chests, looking as though they'd just witnessed more than they should have. Sango didn't even seem to notice the two. Kagome, on the other hand, was feeling the full brunt of InuYasha's hostile gaze.

 

“Yukio said that he needed to tell me something, is all,” she said, feeling lame with the explanation.

 

“And he couldn't tell you without touching you?”

 

“Just listen!”

 

“I don't think I want to listen!”

 

“InuYasha . . .!”

 

“Bitch!”

 

“Osuwari!”

 

“Uuurgh!” InuYasha gasped out as he slammed into the pavement. Kagome drew a few deep breaths to calm her own irritation then knelt down by the hanyou.

 

“Will you stop it with that word?” InuYasha's scowl darkened even more as he dragged his body off the ground. “You were all over him!” he growled.

 

Her mouth dropped open as she shot to her feet. “I-I was not!”

 

“Do you think I'm blind?”

 

“Of course not! But I'm telling you, nothing happened! I slipped, and he caught me before I fell!”

 

“Feh!” InuYasha turned away with a decisive snort. “What do I care? Prefer that mama's boy, do you, Kagome?”

 

“No!” She caught InuYasha's arm. He jerked it away. She latched onto it with both hands, forcing him to stop or drag her. He stopped. “Sesshoumaru says that the miasma is gathering.”

 

InuYasha rounded on her so quickly that she gasped. This time, though, his expression was one of anger mingling with worry. “Damn! I knew it!” He turned to stab Miroku with his glower. “Let me see your hand, monk.”

 

Kagome flinched when she finally got a good look at Miroku's face. The monk's expression was hurt, pained, as though he had lost his best friend in the world. Kagome glanced over her shoulder and sighed. Sango was walking toward the shrine but that wasn't what bothered Miroku.

 

Sango had a bemused smile on her face, the definite look of a girl who'd met the man of her dreams.

 

 

 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

A/N:

 

Sengoku Jidai: Warring States Era (Japan).

Kisho: one who knows his own mind.

Myoko: beautiful generation's child.

 

Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Out of Time): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~