InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Someone To Watch Over Me ❯ Shiro ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3

~*~*~Shiro~*~*~

 

 

Mamma Higurashi looked up from the bags of groceries she'd been putting away to see Inuyasha enter the kitchen, Kagome's backpack hanging from his left hand. Dropping the bag to the floor with a heavy thud, he growled and pointed at it.

 

“This is making her sick,” he said without any kind of greeting.

 

“Kagome's sick?” the woman asked as she pulled out two cups of Ramen from one of the bags and set water on the stove to boil.

 

“Ain't that what I just said?” he fairly growled.

 

“What is in the bag?” she asked, though she already had a fairly good idea.

 

“Her school books,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table with the woman.

 

“What would you have me do, Inuyasha?” she asked reasonably.

 

“Keh! I don't know!” he snapped, and then sighed, his puppy ears folding back against his head as he looked down into the cup of juice she's set before him. “I don't know,” he said sadly, his voice soft.

 

“Why don't you tell me why it is you think the school books are making Kagome sick?” she asked, standing up to silence the whistling tea pot.

 

Pouring the hot water into the cups of Ramen, she set both before the hanyou along with a pair of chopsticks. Poking at the slowly softening noodles with a claw, he began to tell her about the late nights of watching over Kagome as she studied by the slowing dying fires. He told her about the weight of the bag, the strain it put on her to divide herself between sleepless nights of studying and the energy it took her to fire her arrows in battle. Both knew Kagome would never complain about either; it just wasn't her way.

 

“…add on to that all the food she keeps giving to Shippou. Stupid girl ain't eating right, and it made her so sick that now just the thought of food makes her sick.”

 

Mamma Higurashi looked at the hanyou before her quietly for a moment before speaking. “Inuyasha, have you slept with Kagome?” she asked slowly, calmly.

 

Embarrassed and taken aback by her question, his answer came out in a growl. “Ain't you been listening? She ain't strong enough for that. And she's not pregnant either,” he said defensively.

 

“I didn't mean to upset you,” she offered as she stood and refilled his juice cup, watching as he consumed the instant noodles. “If the choice were up to you, Inuyasha,” she said, setting the cup before him, “what would you have done about her school?”

 

“I don't…I don't know,” he said slowly as he thought it over. “I want her taken out so that she stops worrying so much about these damn tests of hers and getting sick all the time, but she'd `sit' me into my own grave if I did that…I don't want her to be making herself sick all the time, trying to study.”

 

“What about the youkai you all hunt?” she asked reasonably.

 

“You know that can't be helped. And even if we both wanted her to stop fighting them you know she wouldn't,” he pointed out. “Tell me something,” he said looking at the woman, studying her. “In the past two months Kagome's refused to stay on this side of the well unless I'm with her, and never at night. Mind telling me why she seems so afraid of her own house?”

 

The woman looked down into her mug of now cold sencha tea for a moment before meeting Inuyasha's gaze.

 

“My brother, Shiro, and her have never quite gotten along,” she began slowly. “Four months ago he moved in with us after he and his wife separated. Kagome won't tell me why, but she's always been afraid of him. I guess she never got over that fear.”

 

His brows furrowed. “Then why let him stay here if he's a threat to your pack?” he fairly growled at her.

 

“He has nowhere else to go,” she said, studying the irritation on Inuyasha's face. “Besides that, Kagome is the only one who's ever had a problem with him…Well, that's not entirely true,” she confessed as an after thought. “Benjiro never liked him either, but that doesn't really matter anymore.”

 

“Who the hell is Benjiro?” the hanyou asked, still irritated about this Shiro person.

 

“Benjiro was Kagome and Souta's father,” she said softly.

 

“What happened to him? Kagome never talks about him.” His curiosity peaked, Inuyasha stared at her intensely, his puppy ears standing tall and bent slightly forward to catch every word.

 

“He died of a heart attack when Kagome was six. Strange thing was Kagome always blamed Shiro. He moved away from us shortly after Benjiro's funeral. I thought she'd gotten over it until ten weeks ago when she came home and saw him. I've never seen her so angry before, and then when he touched her -”

 

“He touched her?!” the hanyou snarled, one hand on Tetsuaiga.

 

“He put his hand on her shoulder,” she said, her expression telling him to calm down. “When he touched her it was as though she'd been burned. Kagome turned and ran to the well house. I didn't see her again until two weeks later, when she came with you.”

 

Inuyasha's brow furrowed as he grew silent, his constant quiet growling stopping.

 

“I remember that day,” he said slowly, his voice soft, a far away look in his eyes. “She hadn't been gone five minutes when she came back through the well. Kagome was shaking so badly that she couldn't climb out of the well on her own; I had to get her. She wouldn't let go of me at all. I've never seen her so afraid or upset, not even during battle.”

 

His eyes refocused on the woman sitting before him, a low dangerous growl spilling forth. His lip curled up in a snarl revealing a sharp white fang as he rose slowly from the table. It was the first time Mamma Higurashi had ever seen Inuyasha as anything other than the loveable dog-eared boy that followed her daughter and had become part of her family. It occurred to her then as she watched him sniff the air, his growling constant and dark, that the hanyou was trying to distinguish Shiro's scent. Inuyasha intended to hunt down her brother!

 

Standing quickly, she grabbed his arm, gasping in surprise when he looked at her. She could never remember seeing such a deadly look in his eyes before. He looked at her, his golden eyes suspiciously bright. He wanted to snarl and bark at her, didn't he? He perceived her brother to be a threat to Kagome and did what came naturally - he was trying to protect the girl. It didn't matter that Shiro wasn't home; the woman knew that if she didn't stop Inuyasha now, before he caught the man's scent, she'd never be able to stop him once he had it.

 

“Inuyasha, no!” Mamma Higurashi held fast to the fire rat fur he was dressed in as he tried to dislodge her hold on him. “You can't hurt him!”

 

The growl that spilled forth from the hanyou was a vicious primal thing. This man, this human, had scared Kagome in such a way that not even Naraku ever had, and real or imagined the threat was there. He looked at the woman in front of him, not being able to clearly understand what she was saying to him for the sound of his own blood rushing madly in his ears. His youkai was demanding that this threat to Kagome be eliminated, but he also knew that the woman was right. He couldn't hunt down a human in this world like he could in his own world across the well, but he needed to hunt something, and he had promised Sango that he'd bring meat with him when he returned.

 

“Have it your way,” he said to the woman, his irritation more than evident. “But she ain't gonna be here without me!”

 

Turning on his heel he bounded off for the well house with only one girl, who was more precious than anything else to him on his mind.

 

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

 

 

“Have a good hunt?” Sango greeted Inuyasha dryly as he returned to the camp with an animal over his shoulder, the sun disappearing below the horizon behind him.

 

The hanyou muttered a terse `keh!' and dropped the huge buck he'd been carrying to the ground. Turning the slowly stiffening carcass on to its back, he sliced it from neck to abdomen with his claw, removing its liver with deft precision.

 

“She eaten anything?” he asked as he tossed the liver onto the thin flat stone that lay just inside the fire.

 

“She hasn't woken once since you left,” Miroku said, the rings on his staff jingling as he moved it to lay on the ground before rising to assist the hanyou in butchering his kill. “Her sleep has not been peaceful,” the monk said long moments later, eyeing the hanyou thoughtfully as Sango took the cut pieces and put them over the fire to roast. “Lady Kagome has called out for you many times in her sleep…She sounded scared.”

 

Grumbling to himself about stupid wenches, the hanyou speared the cooking liver with his claw and flipped the meat over. Rising from his crouch near the fire, Inuyasha stalked over to Kagome's sleeping form and lifted her, sleeping bag and all, into his arms. Returning to his spot near the fire he sat down, his legs folded together and the sleeping miko in his lap.

 

Kagome sighed in her sleep and snuggled against him. He could feel the peace that settled over her, the way her aura curled and wrapped around his youki. It was entirely unsettling to the hanyou just how right it felt to hold this girl - this miko - in his arms. The way the warmth of her soul calmed his youkai, the way just looking into her mahogany eyes could leave him speechless, powerless - it was as it was supposed to be, wasn't it?

 

Looking down when Kagome whimpered in his arms, he watched as drowsy earth-brown eyes opened slowly. The world around them seemed to melt away, and he even lost sight of the little kitsune youkai that was making shapes in the air by mixing his blue flame fox fire with the red-orange flames of the campfire. Her eyes only saw him, her voice a bare breathy whisper as she spoke his name, called to him. It took every ounce of willpower, every bit of control on his part not to simply drop his head and kiss the soft full lips that beckoned to him silently.

 

“You hungry wench?” he asked her, letting his irritation cover up his desire.

 

Scrunching up her nose because the very thought of food was enough to unsettle her stomach, she looked into his bright amber eyes lit up by the fire. She'd try for him, wouldn't she? Just a little bit couldn't hurt, and if she ate it slowly she might be able to keep it down this time. In the end, she gave him a smile and nodded gently.

 

Sango sat next to Miroku; Shippou having fallen asleep moments before, curled up with Kirara on the ground next to the taijya. It was quiet, aside from nature's music made by the crackling flames, the gentle breeze through the trees, and the sounds made by all the creatures of the night. Taijya and monk sat watching quietly as Inuyasha fed small bites of the cooked liver to Kagome, slowly intermingled with drinks from a half full water bottle at the hanyou's side.

 

“What do you make of that, Sango?” Miroku asked as he watched Inuyasha and Kagome.

 

“Too soon to tell,” she replied easily, backhanding him when he stroked her bottom. “Watch the hands, houshi-sama,” she warned.

 

“Of course, Lady Sango,” he replied, her red handprint on his face along with a silly little grin.

 

“They're watching us,” Inuyasha said softly to Kagome.

 

The girl in his arms smiled tiredly at him. One hand unfurled from the sleeping bag she was wrapped in to lift up and play with the white puppy ear on top of his head that was twitching in irritation. Yawning deeply she curled up against his chest and closed her eyes. Within moments she was asleep.

 

Sleep well, Kagome, Inuyasha thought as he stood slowly, being sure to hold Kagome securely as he leapt up to perch in the tree high above the ground. Settling back against the trunk, high on a large branch, Inuyasha held the girl wrapped in his arms. Burying his nose in her hair, he breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, letting sleep claim him as well.

 

 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~