Romancing the Enemy

Scroll Four: Requests

By: MeldaVeanarSuure

Disclaimer: By all means, be my guest to try and persuade Takahashi-senpai to let me have rights to InuYasha, but I doubt you'll get very far.

Kagome woke up, lying on her stomach, to a cool, wet cloth dabbing at her back. She jumped slightly in shock when she realized she was lying on the ground, shirtless and braless, and someone was patting hr back with a wet cloth. "Calm down, Kagome, it's just me." Sango's voice said from somewhere above and behind.

The younger girl sighed, dropping her forehead onto the ground. "Sango, what are you doing?"

"Your back was a bloody mess. I had to wash your shirt and breastband, and I'm cleaning up the blood-streaks." Sango explained, then continued. "Your lucky that wound healed up so fast, else you could have bled to death, judging by how you fainted from blood loss as it was. Speaking of which, how did it heal that quickly?"

Kagome blushed furiously as she remembered the events passed. Even her ears and neck turned red, which gave Sango an idea of what had gone on, but she waited for Kagome to tell her anyway. "Hbletmnk…" Kagome mumbled.

"Pardon?"

"He… mlphblk…"

"I still can't hear you."

"He…" Kagome took a breath, as Sango waited, bordering on the line of patiently and impatiently. "He licked my cuts… and they're better now…"

The exterminator gave an 'ah' of realization. "If course, his body's ability to heal itself is passed to his saliva… I've heard of such things, but this is the first time I've ever encountered it."

Kagome, if at all possible, blushed even more. "I don't… know why he did it."

"Perhaps he doesn't want to loose his shard-detector." At Kagome's low growl, which Sango thought was humorously close to InuYasha's own, she changed her answer. "Or, if you don't like that, maybe he cares about you and doesn't want you to bleed to death before he tells you he cares about you."

"Hell might freeze over." Kagome retorted, lifting herself a little off of the ground, and looking for her bra.

Sango handed it to her, and turned to shake out her shirt. She decided not to say anything in return. 'For someone who wants this to work, she's being very negative. Maybe some of InuYasha's personality leaked in with the healing…' She thought darkly, handing the short to Kagome. 'Well, better go along with it…'

"I have another idea for our little plan." Sango said, changing the subject. "It has to do with the little misfortune of Sesshou-maru's attack on you."

"Oh?" The other girl asked, pulling her shirt on.

"I was thinking, you don't know how to fight very well, do you? Your arrows work only with things in front of you, and you run out sometimes."

"Sango, where are you going with this?"

"Ask InuYasha to teach you how to fight. Hand-to-hand combat, since I don't think you'd do well with a sword either."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence." Kagome replied dryly. "Hand-to-hand? Why?"

"If you screw up on something, it'd give him an excuse to touch you." Sango said sensibly.

"What?!"

Sango laughed. "You heard me. He'll like it, you'll like it."

"Sango, I really don't think-"

"Nonsense, just give it a try, please?"

Kagome sighed. Sango could be like a dog with a rope toy sometimes.

*~*~*InuYasha, Miroku, and Shippo*~*~*

"It's not funny!!" InuYasha yelled.

Miroku wiped tears from his eyes with his cursed hand, and covered his mouth with the other, shoulder shaking rapidly from suppressed laughter. He really hadn't laughed so hard in a very long time. Shippo, sitting unnoticed on a tree limb above, wondered what was so funny. InuYasha snarled, whipping a stone at the monk's head. "SHUT UP!! IT'S NOT FUNNY!!!"

"M-M-My ap-apologies, InuYasha." Miroku said, recovering from his laughter. "But… she…" He couldn't control it any longer; he started laughing again.

InuYasha snarled, reaching for another stone, but suddenly the snarl turned into a wicked grin. "You and Sango looked pretty close a while back, Miroku."

The laughter stopped. "We weren't doing anything." Miroku said, somewhat defensively. "I was examining her to see if she had been injured while fighting Dokuga." He crossed his fingers behind his back to pardon his lie. 'As if I am going to tell him what we were truly talking about.'

"Liar." InuYasha spat. "I can smell it."

"Truly, I am not lying. Ask Shippo." The monk replied, indicating the young kitsune above.

"I don't smell anything bad. He's telling the truth, InuYasha." Shippo chirped.

The hanyou snorted, shoving his hands into his haori. "Bastards… all against me…" He muttered.

"InuYasha, if you would listen to me in your state of childish behavior, I have another idea."

"Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I've decided to give up on your stupid ideas, and work with my own. She seemed to like my own idea more, anyway." InuYasha retorted.

Miroku chose to ignore his comment. "As I was saying… You always have to save Kagome from whatever peril befalls her, am I not correct? Well, perhaps she'd like to give up on the 'damsel-in-distress' role once in a while."

InuYasha shifted slightly, not sure about where this was going. He liked saving Kagome, no matter how much of an act he put up. "Sure…"

"Well, why not offer to teach her some form of combat? I'm sure she'd appreciate it, and it would also give you the excuse to get close to her, to touch her when she makes mistakes."

"You expect me to hit her?!"

"No, you bumbling idiot. You would fix her positions and stances. And do try to be calm about it, would you?"

InuYasha growled deeply in his throat, and jumped up to a high tree branch, planning to ignore everyone and everything, and think about it.

*~*~*Later That Night*~*~*

Kagome pulled her knees up to her chest, staring into the heart of their campfire. Sango was seated as far apart from Miroku as she could, while staying in close range to the warm fire; the monk's face had a slowly fading red, handprint-shaped mark on his cheek, the effect of an earlier groping. Shippo and Kirara were curled up together, fast asleep on Kagome's pillow. InuYasha was still up in his tree, still musing over Miroku's new plan.

Kagome looked up, seeing InuYasha's silhouette in the star-covered sky. "Sango, can you boost me up into the tree, please?"

The older girl arched an eyebrow, but nodded, and helped Kagome onto the lowest branch. "You can climb well?" Sango asked softly.

"I'm fairly decent. Haven't climbed a tree since I was ten, but…" Kagome gave a shaky smile. "I'll be fine."

She continued on up, swallowing hard as she got higher up. "Umm… InuYasha?" Kagome asked weakly, looking up. She was surprised that she was only about two or three meters from him already.

"Keh… what'd'ya want?" He asked, glancing down.

"I wanted to talk." She replied, continuing up. "Gimme a hand?"

Sighing, his mind clearly elsewhere, InuYasha thrust down a hand, and was met with her own firm grip. He pulled her up, ears twitching at her surprised shriek, and held her firmly, so she wouldn't fall. "Talk."

Kagome blushed when she felt him wrap his arms around her tightly. "I was wondering something, InuYasha…"

"Yeah?"

"I've… been getting into a lot of trouble lately, with fighting and things…"

"I've noticed." InuYasha replied dryly. "And you were wondering if I'd teach you how to fight?"

He smiled slightly at her sharp intake of breath. "Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking! Oh, InuYasha, would you? Onegai?" She pleaded, looking up at him pleadingly.

InuYasha had planned what to say, but he still readied himself for the 'sit' waiting to happen. "Hell, Kagome, if it means I don't have to waste five to ten minutes of every fight to save you, I'll teach you to be a world-class fighter."

He flinched, waiting for the cursed word. Instead, Kagome squealed happily, throwing her arms around his neck, and, after a moment's thought, kissed his cheek. "Thank you!!"

If lava could decide to take a human-like shape, InuYasha was it's first pick. His face, neck, even his shoulders, felt like fire; not to mention his ears were probably turning a dark pink. "W-W-W-What… WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!" He yelped, as Kagome giggled.

"I just kissed your cheek."

"I KNOW WHAT IT WAS, WHAT WAS IT FOR?!?!"

"That's how girls in my time like to say 'thank you' sometimes." Kagome explained. "I didn't think you'd mind so much."

'Gods no, I don't mind, so why the hell am I making a big deal about it?! Kiss her back, numbskull!!!!' His mind was telling him, but his traitor mouth decided not to listen. "Well… just… don't…" 'Ack, bad!! No, idiot you want her to kiss you again, don't say it-' "Don't do it again, okay?" 'BAKA!!!!! YOU SAID IT!!!!'

Kagome frowned slightly. 'I knew it… he doesn't like me that way… Well, I got myself into the fighting thing, I won't quit just because he doesn't like me…'

They sat in quiet for a while, InuYasha's red face slowly dying down. Very slowly. 'Damn I'm lucky she can't see well in the dark…' He thought, grateful for the cover of night.

He'd also been lucky that it was a slim crescent moon tonight, two nights before the new moon. 'This will go swell, once I'm human…' He thought sarcastically. 'I can only imagine what Miroku might come up with for me…'

*~*~*Down Below*~*~*

"I wonder what that yelling was about earlier…" Sango remarked quietly, so InuYasha wouldn't hear them.

"Something not worth yelling about, I suppose. InuYasha was the one yelling." Miroku replied, just as quiet.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Sango asked, "You think the combat plan will work?"

Miroku shrugged. "I see no reason why it should not." He ran a finger along one of the beads on his arm. "We agreed they seemed to have a certain liking towards the idea, did we not?"

"Yes…" Sango replied slowly. "Another thing I'm wondering is, what if they catch on? That we've joined forces?"

Late the night before, Sango had not been able to sleep. Walking around a clearing near their campsite, she had been muttering ideas to herself, when Miroku had snuck up on her and demanded to know what she was talking about. After explaining things, Miroku had started to laugh, telling Sango that he'd been doing the exact same thing with InuYasha. So, they'd agreed to work things out together, maybe drawing the two even closer somehow.

"I doubt InuYasha would. He can be very dense. Kagome on the other hand… I would worry about her, she might catch on quickly if we don't set things out in a way that neither of them would guess." He said.

Sango nodded. She knew that, she just needed someone else's reassurance. "But it will work?"

"Undoubtedly. Personal contact can be… quite stimulating to people in love." The monk replied comfortably.

The exterminator's eyes narrowed. "And you'd be the expert on that…" She replied dryly, while Miroku just chuckled.

*~*~*Two in the Tree*~*~*

Kagome was getting very uncomfortable. It wasn't that she'd always wanted to be held by InuYasha like this, just sitting there, not running or chasing; it was the fact that it was too damned quiet! She decided to try something; if InuYasha decided to be rude in return, she could always take a firm hold onto the tree branch, hope to Kami that she wouldn't let go, and 'sit' him into the dirt. "What're you thinking about?"

"Nothing." 'Liar. You're thinking about her, but you haven't got the balls to tell her, do you?' How he hated the annoying little voice in his head with a passion.

"You're awfully quiet. Even I know that when you're quiet, you're thinking about something."

"I don't want to talk about it, all right?"

"Well, I do."

'Damn wench…' "Would it kill you to not be all, 'let's-get-in-touch-with-our-feelings' once in a while?" InuYasha snapped, then flinched, waiting for the 'sit' from hell to come.

"Probably." For some reason, Kagome wasn't phased by his snapping-turtle mode. "So, since you know I'm not going to give up, will you tell me what you're thinking about?"

She twisted in his grasp to get a better look. "You really want to know?" InuYasha asked, as Kagome nodded vigorously. "Well, what I'm thinking about is this: Why doesn't she shut up and let me sit here in peace?"

That got her. She gripped the tree branch firmly, glaring at him. She took a deep breath and-

"SIT!!!!"

Down the two went, only Kagome's trip down lasted much shorter than InuYasha's. As he went face-first into the ground, she clung to the branch like a monkey, smiling her triumph.