InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Shikigami ❯ Chapter four ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Chapter four, in which the shikigami decide to take Kagome's love life-- or lack thereof-- into their incapable hands. Behold the horror of their Nefarious Plan (tm).

And here's chapter four. Very short. It covers things Kagome and the shikigami needed to talk about.
Before we enter into the carnage, allow me to offer a gracious "W00T!!!11one1!!" in appreciation for those that took the time to review. Since this is my first fanfic, I've never had the pleasure of receiving reviews, and now I realize the sheer, unadulterated coolness of such. And yes, I do appreciate constructive criticism. I did go back and correct things that bugged me, and others, about chapter three. You were right. I wish I could just say, "Deal with it," but the truth is these little mistakes do get to me. Crap.
As to if I'm gently teasing fangirldom, the answer is a firm and unequivocal maybe.


"First," Kagome flicked her index finger violently upright, "I want to know what happened to my clothes. And my bag." The shikigami looked at each other, guiltily. But not too guiltily. That worried Kagome.
"Second, I want to know what happened here." She stabbed the second finger ramrod straight, and thrust it at the girls in the circle. She had no idea what must have happened to get Inuyasha so... well, clingy. She had been with him for years and could count the times she'd been hugged like that on one hand. On one finger, practically. They'd been here five minutes and he was all over them. What did they have that she didn't? Or vice-versa?
"Third," she snapped, ring finger joining the others in a digital triumvirate, "I want to know why there's something really awful in the air."
"That's just Love," Imp jumped in, and pointed helpfully at the girl to Kagome's left. "Love stinks."
"Oh, ha ha." Love, unamused, folded her arms and shot a dark look at the other shikigami. "Like I haven't heard that one before."
Kagome stamped her foot, something that she hadn't done since high school, and raised her voice. "I am not kidding around!"
Lust grabbed her arm, looking anxiously over at the pine where a very confused Inuyasha had just joined Miroku and Sango. "What you feel is Naraku," she said, voice low. "But it's okay, so please keep your voice down. We don't want them figuring us out too soon"
"Why not? And why is Naraku-- no, scratch that." Kagome flung both palms out, halting any explanations. "Where are my clothes?"
"Well," Imp began with forced cheerfulness, rubbing the back of her head, "when we woke up in your room, we were all wearing the same thing. So she suggested that you should look like us, too, I mean, not like shikigami, but like shikigami people, then we heard something so we all hid in the closet except the stupid one and then got to looking at the clothes and stuff and then thought well, why not, what's the worst that can happen--"
"Imp," Lust said, rather gently, "shut up."
"So you see? It makes perfect sense," Imp finished weakly.
Kagome sighed. "So you hid my clothes while I was sleeping, so I'd look like you?"
Three heads bobbed.
"Why?"
"Well, we didn't want them knowing who was who."
"Why?"
The shikigami looked at each other, apprehensively. Kagome closed her eyes and snapped, "Listen, I know that look. Spill it."
Love looked at Lust, and understandings were exchanged. "Let's not talk about that quite yet, shall we?" Love suggested. "We think you need a minute to absorb exactly what's going on here." Love smiled at the miko encouragingly. "Don't you like what you're wearing?"
"What, this thing? C'mon, it only appeals to schoolgirls and perverts." Speaking of such, she shot a glance at her friends under the pine, only to see Miroku approaching, Sango a half-step behind. The serene expression of idle curiosity on his face screamed trouble. The shikigami glanced up as well, and four pair of eyes hardened warningly at the monk. Sango placed a hand on his arm, and he stopped. However, his eyes continued the journey.
He was summarily dragged away by one ear. Imp smiled after them and said, affectionately, "Have I ever told you how much I like Sango?"
Love hummed in agreement, amused. "Imp. You're us. We know."
Kagome brought their attention back to more pressing issues. "Why my old school uniform? Why not some jeans and a sweatshirt?"
They shrugged. "You made us." Love looked at her, considering. "Maybe you're living in the past." Kagome groaned as her mother's words echoed.
Lust smirked, an unusual expression for Kagome's face. "Maybe you like the way you look."
"Hey!" three girls protested simultaneously.
Kagome looked at the shikigami in the circle with growing curiosity, tinged with horror. Did she really look like that? It was like hearing your voice on tape for the first time. That's not me. That can't be how I look. How in the world had she dared run around Japan looking like that? Miroku obviously had more restraint than she gave him credit for. She thought a moment. "Why aren't you cute little girls in kimonos, like Kikyo's shikigami?"
"Count your blessings. Tsubaki's shikigami was a snake, remember?" Imp stuck her tongue out and hissed.
Love explained, smiling gently, "Kikyo could distance herself. You can't. You feel with your whole heart."
Something occurred to Kagome. "So-- you were in my closet the whole time?"
"Most of us," Imp blurted. Lust elbowed her.
Normal people had serial killers or bug-eyed monsters in their closets. Kagome had herself. She so did not want to read into that. "I am officially creeped out. And what did Imp mean by 'most of us'?"
Lust snapped at Imp. "Nice going."
Love continued, "You originally made five of us--"
"Four," Lust corrected, emphatically.
"No, five. I did make five." Kagome was silent a moment. "I think."
"Um, yeah, the fifth one didn't make it. Sort of." Imp looked rather abashed.
"What do you mean? Did you have something to do with that?" Kagome pressed.
"We kind of interfered."
“You destroyed the fifth shikigami?”
“What? No!”
“Then where is she? Did you hide her from me?”
“We didn’t hide her--”
“You lost her?”
“No!"
"Then?"
"What?”
"Never mind." Kagome took a deep breath. "So there are four of you now."
"Three."
Kagome leveled a very steady look at the shikigami. The look said, quite emphatically, 'I am a firm believer in recycling.'
Lust offered, "You just missed the fourth one."
"But Naraku's demon didn't," Imp added. She got another elbow in the ribs.
Inuyasha's harried voice cut across the field. "Did you do this?" He flapped a scrap of something at them. The four girls shrugged him off.
Kagome pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt a headache coming on. "So a fourth shikigami was just killed by something Naraku coughed up, and the others saw it. That's why Inuyasha was holding me-- he thought I died." She filed that away to think about at a later time. Like never. Never would be good. "And that's why Shippo was screaming."
"He looks like he recovered pretty quickly, though." Lust pointed to the field where Shippo was clinging to Miroku's shoulder, sniffing at what had once been Kagome's homework.
"I'm sort of insulted," Imp said. "He recovered really quickly."
Love rolled her eyes. "Of course he did. He's a kitsune. He's used to the whole--uh," she waved her hand around the circle, "duplicate thing."
"Well, I'm not," Kagome snapped. "Now how do I turn you back into my algebra notes?"
She received three glares. She was not impressed. Then, simultaneously, a calculating look came into their eyes. Kagome felt the first stirrings of unease somewhere in her gut. It settled down right where her common sense had hastily packed and run off.
Imp took a deep breath, and, blatantly ignoring the warning look from Lust, began, "We know we have some confidence issues when it comes to how we think he-- others feel about us. We thought that we could help you see what they see, but only if he-- they didn't know you were the original Kagome. That way, you could see how-- they would react to different aspects of your personality-- meaning us-- that they don't often get to see."
"You could be a fly on the wall, so to speak," Love chimed in.
"A fly that could very well be swatted when everybody finds out," the miko said. "No, will be swatted."
"Don't be so pessimistic," Imp grinned. "It'd be like dying and hearing your own eulogy."
Rubbing her forehead, Kagome mumbled, "That might not be far off."
Love shrugged. "It's worth the risk."
Kagome glared at the shikigami. "Hey, if I die, so do you, remember?"
"It'd be better than this," Lust snapped. "Aren't you ever going to do anything about our love life? I mean, really. Did you plan on living in our shrine on the hill with forty fat cats until the mailman notices an odd smell?" She held up her hands, palms out, framing an imaginary headline. "'Aged, Lonely Miko Found Dead in Shrine. Cats Still Fat.'"
"Ewwww," Imp covered her mouth. "That's disgusting."
"And sad," Love offered. "You see? We can't let that happen."
"So," Imp clapped her hands together enthusiastically, "we're here to help!" They all grinned, and beamed at each other. "Prepare for--" the three shikigami pumped their fists in the air and chanted, "Operation Hanyou Love!"
Kagome swore she saw sparkles in their eyes. Instantly, she held her hands up, palms out. "No, no no no. No. You really don't have to do that for me. I couldn't impose." She took a step backward.
Three pair of cheerfully determined eyes pinned her. She recognized that look. Despair moved in next to unease, and set up shop.
"There's no way. This is crazy."
"As crazy as shooting at Sesshomaru in his father's grave?" asked Imp.
"As crazy as hugging a half-demon in a blood rage?" asked Love.
"As crazy as wearing a school uniform into Feudal Japan?" asked Lust.
Kagome looked at them. Her love life had just become a game of three-card monty. They looked back, eyes deceptively mild.
"I," Kagome said, enunciating each word carefully, "don't like you."
Love looked slightly hurt, but Imp clapped her hands, exclaiming, "that means she's giving in!" Love instantly brightened.
Inuyasha's voice snapped across the meadow again. This time he was cursing at Miroku. Kagome heard her name taken in vain, and jerked upright to give the hanyou a good glaring. And perhaps cry for help. However, the shikigami pulled her back into their huddle.
As they released her, she clung to Love's hand. "Don't you see?" Kagome appealed to the most emotional of the shikigami. "I just can't!"
Love patted her on the arm. "Oh, you're just nervous. Everything will work out."
"But what if it doesn't? I can't take that risk."
"Too bad," said Lust, unsympathetic. She looked at Kagome with implacable eyes. "If you don't agree," Lust continued, very slowly, "I'll tell Inuyasha exactly what our time says about the size of a man's ears. And that you believe it."
"We don't say anything about the size of a man's ears!"
"Inuyasha doesn't know that."
Love took a deep breath. "And I'll tell him that you love him-- for his mind."
"You wouldn't dare!" She shot a worried look at the hanyou. He had once tried to pry open a package of ramen with his teeth. He had lost.
"And I'll just tell him whatever!" Imp smiled, shrugging.
Lust shook her head, eyes closed. "That's not much of a threat."
"Oh yeah? Watch!" She turned to the group under the pines and, cupping her hands around her mouth, said softly, "Hey, Inuyasha! You know what? Kagome once dreamt of a baby with white hair and do--" Kagome grabbed the shikigami's shoulder, whirling her back into the circle. "And they were twins!" she trilled.
Kagome lunged at the girl, clapping both hands over the shikigami's mouth. "Alright!" she hissed. "I get the point." Nothing motivates like fear. She felt Imp grin under her hands, and stepped back.
Kagome sighed. The drumming in her temples had hired a bassist and lead guitar, and was now cranking out a dull throbbing throughout her skull. If the group turns on you, and you have to make a run for it, try to look like you're leading the charge. "Alright. I agree. But on one condition."
The others looked at her expectantly.
"No one but me hugs Inuyasha, ever again." She shot a look at Lust. "Ever."
"Oi! Wench--es!" The hanyou in question stood, red and white against the late afternoon sky. The others were ranged behind him, dark spots in the bronzed grass. "Which one of you is my Kagome?"
"I am!" Love called instantly, beaming.
"Are not!" Lust rebutted, fists clenched. She glared at her cohort.
"Are not!" Imp joined in, enthusiastically. She smiled at Kagome. "Your turn."
Kagome gripped her head. It was a bad headache.