InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Possessing ❯ Chapter 5

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

 

Chapter 5

 

 

 

 

Stuck at home, and trying to keep an agitated akita mix calm although it was a hard task to accomplish when the dog could sense his own agitated state, Inuyasha watched as Kagome’s angelic face and voice streamed through the flat screen television mounted above the fireplace, two sets of erect white doggie ears aimed straight ahead to catch every word. After a moment, the humanoid man possessing such ears turned his head and glanced down to address his fully canine companion sitting beside him on the sofa.

 

“She’s fucking amazing, isn’t she?” Inuyasha said, in awe of what he had just witnessed.

 

After seeing for himself just what kind of beast she’d been up against, not only would he have not held it against her if she’d just purified the fucker outright, he’d actually been yelling “Just kill it!” at the TV.

 

He would’ve been worried the neighbors might’ve heard him if he didn’t know both nearest houses on either side were empty, their owners currently at work while the kids were in school.

 

Woofing his agreement, Shiro licked the hanyou’s face and jumped down off the couch. Chuckling, Inuyasha turned off the TV, since Kagome’s brief interview was already over, and headed upstairs to browse the Internet.

 

He still felt a little guilty about her spending so much money on him. Buying him a computer and giving him a budget and account to buy his own things online and all that. But inspiration had struck. Even though he knew she was financially secure now, that she wasn’t in danger of going over her original annual budget thanks to her extra income from the Spiritual Forces, he would still feel so much better if he could earn his own money for his frivolous expenditures, and thanks to his laptop and the wonders of the Internet he just might be able to pull it off.

 

Since they couldn’t purify him human, and some kind of disguise to merely make him look human was out of the question because any random reiki user he happened upon would be able to sense what he was, his only chance for getting a ‘job’ and becoming a functioning member of society was over the Internet. He still couldn’t really get a job over the Internet, but he could be unofficially self-employed, and he had his sights set on trying to make and sell some kind of craft.

 

What, specifically, he wasn’t quite sure yet. He was waiting for inspiration to strike a second time.

 

Cracking his computer open and firing it up, it didn’t take long to boot and then he was opening his web browser. For the last few days he’d spent some time checking out the various popular sites where other people sold their crafts, trying to get ideas. He didn’t want to copy anyone, but he had to start somewhere, right? There were so many types of crafts to choose from, though. He was almost spoiled for choice.

 

He spent the next twenty minutes or so clicking through listings of handmade jewelry, stuffed animals, needlepoint pillows, and people advertising their services for custom t-shirts and bumper stickers, making mental note of the things he thought he might be able to do himself with a little practice, until his stomach growling reminded him that he’d forgotten to eat any lunch while he’d been transfixed watching Kagome deal with that kuma on the news.

 

Kagome...

 

Shaking his head, he just closed his laptop, leaving everything open for now as he headed back downstairs to zap himself some ramen.

 

“Heh, maybe I should figure out how to invent a cup noodle that prepares itself. I’d make a killing,” he joked to himself as he grabbed one of the cardboard wrapped Styrofoam cups from the cupboard.

 

Disregarding the official directions, he filled the cup with water before sticking it in the microwave for a minute and a half. Then with nothing to do for the next ninety seconds but watch them count down, he found his thoughts drifting back to a certain miko yet again.

 

There was no point in denying it. He had it bad. He was relieved she’d had the whole kuma-youkai situation under control from the moment she’d gotten there because if he’d seen the bear take a swing at her and she’d been injured he wasn’t 100% sure he’d have been able to keep his promise not to run to her rescue, consequences be damned.

 

Oh, he wouldn’t have charged straight in shouting Kagome’s name. Watching the news on pins and needles while waiting for her to get there, having turned on the TV as soon as she’d left, he’d had enough time to work out a hypothetical plan of action, and if he had rushed in he would’ve pretended he was just randomly in the area and had decided to help out the humans, killing the bear and then hopefully taking back off again before any of the taijiya could get to him while also hopefully keeping the fact that he and Kagome knew each other a secret.

 

He was tremendously glad, though, that it hadn’t come to that.

 

Just like he was tremendously glad that, as of yet, Kagome had no romantic interests, and indeed outside of her originally telling him her plan upon buying the house had been to live her whole life and raise a family there – as opposed to reselling the place – she’d never made mention of even trying to meet anybody with whom she could accomplish such a goal.

 

“Bah, I gotta stop thinking about this,” he said abruptly, before scarfing down his noodles. Shiro looked at him with a curious tilt of his head then resumed eating his own lunch of dry kibble.

 

Tossing his empty ramen cup in the trash and his plastic chopsticks in the sink – he’d wash them later, he didn’t make Kagome clean up after him – Inuyasha headed back upstairs and sat back down at his desk before opening and waking up his laptop. Resuming his perusal of other people’s crafts, his eyes widened a bit at someone’s listing selling hand carved wooden Buddhas.

 

Now there was an idea. Not Buddhas per se, but wood carvings in general were a fabulous idea. It would be a craft that didn’t require he invest in any sorts of supplies first, which was definitely a plus. With the forest practically in his own backyard he had a virtually endless supply of wood, and there were always the occasional trees felled by larger, clumsier youkai. If he cleared away the dead and broken trees instead of cutting down something himself it’d actually be beneficial to the forest, so long as nothing called the dead tree its home.

 

He didn’t know what to carve, yet, but feeling energized from at least having a game plan now, and seeing as it wasn’t a craft that required he first buy any sort of supplies, he wanted to immediately get to work on practicing. Plus he needed something to do to burn up all his adrenaline from when he’d been watching Kagome on the news. Going for a run in the forest would probably do him some good. He could stretch his legs, get some fresh air, and while he was out he’d look for a decent sized chunk of wood to bring back home to start tinkering with.

 

Nodding to himself, he shut off his computer, double checked that all the windows were closed and locked, and then grabbed his cellphone and house key...two more things Kagome had insisted on getting for him, but these he hadn’t argued with her about because they made sense. The key he needed because they’d repaired his ‘escape hatch’ in the roof, so he no longer had that means of entry, but fortunately he could just walk right out the back door because the way the other houses were set up meant that nobody could see him.

 

As for the phone, which was a simple flip phone because he didn’t need anything fancy when he had his laptop for the Internet, she’d asked him to make sure he always had it on him whenever he went out into the forest, which he still did on occasion, like now, when he needed to burn off some energy. He was free to do whatever he wanted, but she’d asked only that he stay in touch with her, let her know of his plans. He hadn’t argued about it because he’d liked the idea that she missed him when he was gone and would worry about him if he was gone too long, and so he’d readily accepted her gift of a cellphone and had let her show him how to use it even though he already knew what a telephone was. He wouldn’t call her now, of course, since she was busy, but this way, if he wasn’t back by the time she got home she’d know to call him. He also wrote a note and left it on the dining room table where it’d be easy to spot. It just said ‘Went for a run, have my phone and key. Saw the news. Good job!’

 

He didn’t want her thinking he’d skipped out without watching her moment of glory, after all. He’d tell her about the wood carving idea in person, though.

 

“Be a good boy while I’m gone,” he said to Shiro, along with a woof that was basically a command to behave, which earned a woof in reply that was basically the equivalent of a little kid’s promise to be good, meaning the dog would probably be getting into mischief while he was alone. Inuyasha just snorted a chuckle and headed out the door.

 

Glad he’d gotten into the habit of always wearing a comfortable pair of jogging shorts underneath his hakama – he’d changed into his fire-rat robes in preparation for possibly needing to run to Kagome’s aid – he now didn’t need to waste time changing because he always wore his demonic robes in the forest, as well, and seeing as they were archaic, traditional robes, they had no pockets. The shorts he had on underneath his hakama, did, and thanks to the nature of the hakama’s side slits he had easy access to his pockets, where he stashed his phone, putting the key around his wrist after locking the backdoor as it was on a plastic stretch cord.

 

Back in the middle of town and what had become quite the center of activity, things were just starting to get back to normal, tow trucks hauling off the cars that had been damaged by the kuma before the taijiya had managed to corner it.

 

With her services not required to move the kuma now that it was both unconscious and still quite sealed, another dose of the taijiya’s sleeping powder successfully working on it since its aura had gone back to normal, Kagome went back with the majority of the taijiya to the local office for the boring but legally required part of the job that was filling out and filing an incident report, while Sango, Miroku and one other handled the relocation of the poor creature.

 

Getting it into a transport vehicle with Kirara’s assistance, Miroku followed the taijiya in his own car as they headed towards the western forest via the Higurashi Shrine, the three of them having chosen that location primarily because that was the closest forest access and everyone agreed they should get the kuma returned to the wild as quickly as possible. Once they got the van to the parking area behind the shrine, which was intentionally beyond the border of the spiritual barrier surrounding most of the property so that it was safe to transport youkai into the woods via this location, it was a group effort to get the kuma draped across Kirara’s back and out of the van. It was deemed worth the difficulty because while under normal circumstances they’d just walk a heavily drugged youkai without any ofuda, and the kuma should theoretically be much less hostile now that the tainted dagger had been removed, they just didn’t want to take any chances.

 

They walked for about an hour, the kuma regaining consciousness during that time, and Sango, who’d gotten very good at deciphering the facial expressions of animal youkai over the years, smiled as she took note of the bear’s peaceful expression. The beast was aware they were helping it, and it was probably such a huge relief to be rid of the unwanted negative energy brought on by the unpurified dagger that the kuma wasn’t even angry about the sealing ofuda any longer. It had realized they meant it no harm, probably fully recalling its previous behavior, and knew that they could have killed it, and so the fact that they were instead going to set it free brought the demonic bear a sense of relief. Originally, Sango was going to give it another dose of sleeping herbs before having Miroku remove the ofuda, but now, she didn’t think that would be necessary.

 

“This feels like as good a spot as any,” Miroku said after a while. “I can feel other youkai all around but nothing hostile like an oni, just peaceful woodland youkai.”

 

Kirara crouched down and allowed the kuma to be pulled slowly from her back. The humans were careful not to injure the beast, or let it land in an uncomfortable heap seeing as it couldn’t move on its own, and soon enough the bear was lying comfortably on its belly on the forest floor, fully alert from the previous dose of sleeping herbs having worn off although its expression was still peaceful. Miroku sensed no negativity in its aura.

 

“All right, are you ready?” he asked the kuma-youkai then, meeting its eyes. “I’m going to remove the ofuda one by one, and you’re going to remain still until I’m finished, and then you’re going to go off into the woods and steer clear of humans, got it?”

 

Looking the bear in the eyes, Miroku could see intelligence there, and with its aura still feeling peaceful – a sensation not caused by the sealing ofuda because they did not hamper a youkai’s youki in any way – he began removing said ofuda from the bear’s body one at a time.

 

The kuma-youkai obediently remained perfectly still, even as it must have gradually felt the spiritual pressure holding it in place lessen bit by bit as Miroku removed more of the seals from its body. Finally, there was only one left, and from the strength of the kuma’s natural youki Miroku would bet it could already move a little, but it obeyed him nonetheless and waited until he removed that final ofuda. Then the kuma slowly rose to its feet, looked briefly at the houshi before glancing at Sango and the other taijiya, plus the nekomata that was now sitting in kitten form on Sango’s shoulder, a sign the feline knew it could be trusted, and showing that trust was not misplaced the kuma released a soft gurgle-like roar that in no way sounded threatening before turning and ambling off deeper into the forest, away from town.

 

There was a collective sigh of relief from our trio of warriors, and as Miroku watched the bear disappear through the trees he asked his wife to stay with him a moment, telling the other taijiya to head back without them. “I’ll take you to HQ in a little while so you can get your paperwork done, but I wanted to discuss something with you first,” he told his wife cryptically.

 

Thinking the houshi probably just wanted some alone time with his wife, not that he could blame him, the other taijiya nodded his understanding and headed back to the van alone. He offered to take Kirara back with him but the nekomata mewed once and stayed put on Sango’s shoulder.

 

Miroku rolled his eyes at the man’s retreating back. Honestly, as much as he loved getting his wife alone he didn’t want to ‘do’ anything in a forest full of youkai. He’d have to have a talk with that man. Fortunately Sango seemed to miss the look he’d given Miroku, so waiting just a moment for the guy to get out of hearing range she asked her husband seriously, “What is it?”

 

She’d been able to tell tell from his tone that he hadn’t just wanted to have some peaceful alone time with her to leisurely stroll back to his car.

 

He told her, then, about the demonic aura he’d sensed coming from the row of houses earlier, when he’d been racing back to his car after her phone call, and how all the woodland youkai had fled from him deeper into the woods except for whatever that youkai was, which had felt awfully close to the homes that bordered the treeline.

 

“It might be nothing,” he acknowledged. “It might have just been some random forest youkai who, just like mortal wild animals might sometimes do, had wandered into somebody’s yard for a drink of water, or – as unfortunate a prospect as it might be – it could have been hunting somebody’s dog or cat.”

 

He tilted his head as he thought back on the sensation, which he admittedly hadn’t allowed himself to analyze for very long at the time because he’d been in such a hurry.

 

“It could very well be that this youkai, upon sensing me rushing through, had thought it better to remain where it was. After all, to run deeper into the woods at that point would have actually meant running towards me,” he conceded. “But even so, I thought it would be best if I double checked that it was gone now, and while I doubt whatever it is will be something serious enough for me to honestly require your assistance, since I don’t know what it is I feel more comfortable having you and Kirara by my side, just in case.”

 

One of the things Sango had always loved about her husband was that he was not threatened by her abilities as a warrior. Another thing she loved about him was his ability to always make her laugh.

 

Deciding the seriousness of the moment could use a little lightening up he added, “Plus bringing you with me ‘in case I need your help’ is a wonderful excuse for us to spend some time alone together.” Adopting a feigned pout he added, “I hardly see you anymore.”

 

“Except for every morning and every evening, and our joint days off together every week because my father permitted my schedule to match yours,” Sango pointed out with an eye roll.

 

“Exactly! We’re practically strangers!”

 

Laughing despite herself, Sango walked with her husband back towards the shrine until they reached the point where he had originally veered off to the side to walk parallel to the town’s edge during his earlier patrol of this section of forest. They hadn’t traveled too far out when they both felt a sudden unexplainable blast of youki that was very powerful and gone just as quickly as it’d appeared.

 

“What on Earth...?” Sango blurted, as Kirara meowed and jumped down.

 

“I certainly hadn’t felt that before!” Miroku exclaimed.

 

That almost felt like the energy released when a daiyoukai uses one of its youki-based attacks, but there’s not any daiyoukai anywhere near here, the taijiya thought.

 

“Looks like you were right to want to investigate,” she said to Miroku then.

 

“Unfortunately,” Miroku agreed, as they started running in the direction they’d felt the blast of energy from.

 

oooooooooooooooooooo

 

Satisfied with the large chunk of wood he’d severed from a fallen tree with a quick strike of Sankon Tessou, Inuyasha picked up the section of log that would have been much too heavy for a human to lift and slung it up and over his shoulder like it was a gardening tool as he casually made his way back to the house, holding the log against his right shoulder with his right arm draped over it while his left arm swinging freely at his side. Suddenly, though, he realized he could sense the reiki of the monk who occasionally walked the forest to guard it from threats, and it felt like he was heading his way!

 

Inuyasha knew all about the monks who occasionally walked the forest; there had been several to take up the task throughout the years. But he also knew they were looking for troublesome oni and frankly, Inuyasha was not only not worried about their presence but he was grateful for it. He didn’t want some lowly oni stomping through town any more than the next guy, and if one had ever tried it he would have risked outing himself if it meant protecting his and the neighboring houses. He could have always lied and told any humans who saw him that he’d tracked the oni from within the forest and then disappeared back into the trees himself afterwards before anyone could question him further, after all.

 

But never had it actually been an issue, and neither had any of the monks ever previously bothered him, because he had always made sure to keep his youki as calm and peaceful as possible so that any reiki users nearby, forest monks or otherwise, would believe him to be one of the little harmless things that lived in the woods. That was why Kagome had originally thought he was a kitsune, when she had been able to tell the difference between his youki and the aura of a ghost, but not that he was actually the son of a daiyoukai. Just like a daiyoukai, Inuyasha had the ability, if he worked at it, to make his aura feel much weaker than it really was. He could also flare it in a show of power, if he wanted to, like the energy equivalent of a peacock spreading its tail feathers, but doing so while one of the forest monks were nearby had never been his intention!

 

Inuyasha quickly realized with a growing feeling of dread that this particular houshi must have been close enough to sense his momentary burst of youki as he’d used his attack on the tree, and dropping the log from his shoulder with a loud crash, he cursed his inability to sense auras from great distances. He could feel them, but only after they were relatively close by. His greatest sense, by far, was his sense of smell, and his nose could pick up the sparkling sting of reiki far better than his mental sixth sense could, but the houshi must have been downwind. It was also possible he’d just been distracted, excited as he’d been at the prospect of experimenting with wood carving.

 

Crap...

 

Well, there was nothing for it now. From the sound of it, as his ears flicked left and right, there were two sets of human footprints rapidly approaching, along with something that sounded like a large four-legged animal and the frantic chiming of the houshi’s shakujo. Taking a deep breath he could smell them now, too. Two humans, one of which possessed reiki, and a nekomata. He quickly put two and two together and figured the other human was the female taijiya he’d seen on the news riding upon a nekomata.

 

Double crap.

 

He’d rather deal with two reiki users than a taijiya! Reiki couldn’t kill him, but a taijiya sure could. Another deep inhale revealed they also smelled strongly of kuma-youkai, which confirmed the non-reiki user was indeed who he thought it was.

 

He also belatedly realized that of course his forest was the closest one for them to have released the kuma-youkai into. Knowing they were going to be dealing with returning that kuma to the wild he really should not have gone out looking for fallen logs to carve right now, excitement over deciding what kind of craft making to do be damned.

 

I’ve done some pretty stupid things before but I think this takes the fucking cake...

 

He was close to the house. Inuyasha knew he could easily outrun them. But the houshi would be able to sense which way he’d gone and leading them back to the house was the last thing he wanted to do. So he took off at a dead run in the other direction, away from the house. When fight wasn’t an option flight was all that was left. He couldn’t attack these humans. But if they had attacked him he would need to defend himself. It was better this wa-

 

“Gah!”

 

Inuyasha barely dodged the giant boomerang that had come out of freakin’ nowhere, sailing directly in front of his path, causing him to skid to a halt so quickly he stumbled and landed face first on the forest floor.

 

Great, just fucking great! I thought that weapon was damaged! he cursed in his mind.

 

Indeed the Hiraikotsu was damaged. It’d developed a crack when the kuma had swatted it out of the way. But Sango had not been aiming at Inuyasha, but rather, in front of him, intending to miss him on purpose and instead merely force him to stop.

 

In some other universe, perhaps, if his lot in life had been different, then Inuyasha would have had keen battle skills and would have known how to properly defend himself against such an opponent, but such was not the case for the hanyou that hardly ever left the safety of his childhood home for more than a few hours at a time.

 

His momentary stumble was all the two humans needed to catch up with him, too, and as he glanced up in time to watch the woman warrior effortlessly reclaim her weapon as it went soaring near her body, her hand snatching it out of the air without ever taking her eyes off of his prone form, Inuyasha realized she had indeed ‘missed’ on purpose. If they didn’t intend to kill him outright, that was a very good thing, so he would be on his best behavior. Rising to his feet, then, he made sure to move slowly, keeping his hands out and open at his sides so that they could see he didn’t have any weapons nor was he charging up his youki in his claws. The transformed nekomata standing beside her mistress could read his intentions and sat on her haunches, and it was more Kirara’s behavior than Inuyasha’s that had Sango and Miroku both relaxing their stances ever so slightly.

 

“Um...hello. My name’s Inuyasha. Can I help you?” he greeted lamely, going out of his way to seem as nonthreatening as possible. These people weren’t construction workers in his home that he could jump out and spook, they were trained youkai killers and he knew he had to tread carefully.

 

“My name is Miroku, and this is Sango,” the houshi replied in introduction, gesturing with his shakujo towards the silent Sango who had slung Hiraikotsu on her back but was resting her right hand on the hilt of her sword, just in case.

 

Inuyasha swallowed.

 

“You can help us by explaining your presence in this part of the forest, so close to a human neighborhood,” the monk quickly added.

 

Inuyasha tried to feign innocence.

 

“Oh...did I really wander so close to town? My mistake. I’ll just be on my-”

 

“Don’t move,” Sango interrupted before Inuyasha could turn to make another run for it.

 

The sudden buzzing of a cellphone on vibrate, a sound still much too loud in the eerie stillness of the forest in that moment, had Inuyasha cringing, his ears flattening against his head, as Sango and Miroku’s eyes both widened to realize the being they correctly deduced to be the hanyou offspring of a daiyoukai had a phone.

 

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Miroku asked with a bit of a smirk after a moment, noticing the hanyou’s worried expression. The monk thought that perhaps this being was part of a group of youkai who’d somehow infiltrated the human world.

 

There was always the possibility of youkai living amongst humans, after all, especially when it came to shape-shifters like kitsune and tanuki, but the official unofficial position by the Spiritual Forces was that if the youkai didn’t cause any harm and were just trying to live their lives it was a don’t ask, don’t tell situation. They tried their best to prevent the infiltration of youkai into town at the forest borders, but they weren’t about to start going around routinely subjecting everyone to reiki tests to ensure they were fully human. It wasn’t about maintaining human/youkai segregation, it was about maintaining peace.

 

At the same time, youkai had no human rights, seeing as they were not human. If a kitsune living as a human were discovered it would be captured and returned to the forest more or less no differently than they’d just done with that bear. But in their experience, no kitsune actually wanted to just live a normal human life, anyway. Rather, the whole thing was just a giant game to them, to see how long they could get away with ‘fooling’ the humans. It was no skin off their nose to get found out, their illusions destroyed. A being such as the creature before them, on the other hand, was a mystery to Miroku and Sango. He could possibly be in league with some shape-shifting youkai, but there was no way he himself could pass as human, even if human blood did flow through his veins.

 

“Answer it,” Sango snapped then, when the phone, which had gone quiet, started ringing a second time.

 

Reluctantly, resigned to his fate, Inuyasha reached into the side slit of his hakama and into the pocket of the shorts he had on underneath, retrieving his phone.

 

“Put it on speaker phone,” Miroku said when Inuyasha opened it and was about to push the talk button.

 

The hanyou nodded, then engaged the call.

 

“Hey,” he said, not wanting to say Kagome’s name since he knew these people knew her. The last thing he wanted to do was get Kagome into any trouble for harboring him. “I’ve got a situ-”

 

“Inuyasha, thank the kami!” Kagome interrupted before Inuyasha could finish. “When I got home and saw your note I was nervous, and then when you didn’t answer I was worried sick! I don’t know why you went out but you need to be careful. Don’t go too far out into the forest right now because they took the kuma-youkai-”

 

“I know,” he interrupted this time, before she could say anything else, although Sango and Miroku’s eyes were already both the size of saucers. “I uh...I’ve bumped into a couple of them,” Inuyasha elaborated.

 

Kagome’s voice instantly went from relieved to nervous. “What...what do you mean?”

 

“He means Sango and I have come across him while out in the forest, Kagome,” Miroku spoke up as he approached Inuyasha’s position in order to be close enough to speak into the phone Inuyasha was holding out in his hand, still in speaker phone mode.

 

Realizing upon Miroku’s confirmation that she was right, that was Kagome’s voice on the other end of the line, Sango allowed herself to relax fully, removing her hand from her sword as she rolled her neck and shoulders to get out some of the tension from being ready for battle. Upon seeing her mistress fully relax, Kirara transformed back into her kitten form and hopped back up into Sango’s arms, the taijiya catching her with practiced ease.

 

“Miroku?!” Kagome squeaked.

 

Miroku didn’t know what was going on, but one thing he did know was that both Kagome and this ‘Inuyasha’ fellow were presently terrified, and he hated knowing he was the cause.

 

“You can relax, Kagome. Sango and I mean your friend here no harm.”

 

Inuyasha relaxed himself at those words, and at seeing the taijiya holding the small nekomata in her arms, meaning neither one of them were immediately ready for battle.

 

“I think...it would be best if you and Sango came over. We all...need to talk.”

 

Inuyasha nodded as if Kagome could see him before rolling his eyes at himself and telling her, “We’re on our way now,” before hanging up.

 

He then met Miroku and Sango’s eyes before saying, “Well, come on, I’ll lead you there. If you stab me in the back while I’m not looking you’ll have a pissed off Kagome to deal with.” He was only half joking, because he only half trusted them, but what he’d said was true. They would have a pissed off Kagome to deal with if they attacked him now, and he was sure they realized it, as well.

 

Besides, unless Sango aimed for his head, his fire-rat robes would protect him from the majority of a blow from either her sword or that giant bone boomerang of hers. How the hell could she even lift that thing, anyway?!

 

Inuyasha led them back to the house via his original path of escape. He’d figured he might as well stop to pick up the log super quick, and when he did he explained that that was the blast of youki they’d sensed from him. He had cut a fallen tree into pieces to take this part of the log back home with him because he wanted to try his hand at woodworking. He decided to be completely honest with them because why lie? And no lie he could come up with would be better than the truth in this situation, anyway. With any luck, they would take pity on him and his situation, and not punish Kagome for having shown him the same.