InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Guardian Cu' ❯ Chapter 9 ( Chapter 9 )

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

The Characters and World of InuYasha belong entirely to the admirable and talented Rumiko Takahashi. I in no way lay claim to them or make any money off of them.
Cu' the Guardian, aka GinCu' is mine, so is his meadow and the plot of this story.

Chapter Nine



A flock of startled birds took flight in response to the sudden violent commotion taking place beneath the oak tree serving as their roost. In an eerie mimicry of the fleeing birds, a scattering of misplaced leaves swirled wildly skyward buoyed upon a rising cloud of yellow dust. Within the dust cloud a jarring cacophony composed of the mingled sounds of several loud, sharp cracks indicative of splintering limbs, the staccato popping of smaller snapping branches, an assortment of curses and yells and the subtle underscoring of a low pitched sibilant hiss made the saner denizens of the forest pause to silently evaluate the rapidly escalating event. Predictably the noise level quickly reached a pitch that had every living creature with even half a brain fleeing the area in a mad dash to ensure their own continued self preservation. Like some powerful soloist overshadowing the entire mad symphony an angry voice bellowed out triumphantly “Kaze no Kizu!” only to to have it turned into a truncated yell of victory as it was successfully interrupted by an even louder 'KerSwack', followed by a “Damn it all.. You get back here!” then the biggest splintering crack of all.

For a split second silence reigned then a renewed crashing, popping and snapping heralded the hasty retreat of a huge lizard youkai who's tiny pea-sized brain had just wisely decided that retreat was a more viable option than hanging around and waiting to be blasted into smoldering bits by an irate hanyou wielding an oversized sword. While this suddenly enlightened lizard crashed off through the forest, leaving behind a wide swath of crushed and mangled vegetation littering it's wake, the friends of the still stunned hanyou were rushing to his aide to ascertain that he was not mortally injured.

At the moment the only mortal injury afflicting this particular half demon was the one making lacy little doilies out of his pride. It was bad enough having some overgrown, buggy-eyed gecko manage to abort his attack by literally turning tail to run just when he was at the top of his swing but having that same tail whip back around to slap him ass first into an oak tree....well that just bit the big hairy ones. Getting a swing blocked now and then happened, he could deal with that but...Yeah, this time he'd been showing off too. For her, for the girl. For Kagome. Showing off because, after selflessly protecting her from another marauding demon, he had simply wanted her to smile up at him with that purely Kagome look of adoration shining in the light of her big brown eyes. That was the look that made him feel good, made him feel like he was actually worthy of being around her after all. Sure he'd just say it was nothing, bark about getting on with the hunt, act like the surly idiot everyone enjoyed calling him...yeah he'd pretend. Pretend that if she loved him as more than just a friend that's the way she would always look up at him...after all a guy could dream, right?

He wouldn't be getting that special look today though. No...no. It was going to be the one of forehead pinching worry and big eyed concern instead. If things seemed really bad unshed tears would be brightening her eyes and spilling over onto her lashes, driving him absofuckinlutely nuts because he couldn't stand to see her cry. To make matters worse the worriedly-concerned look was nearly always accompanied by that little white box full of stinky ointments and sticky skin plasters she insisted on covering his injuries with... liberally, in spite of any colorfully crude protests he cared to make.

' Yep...Definitely not 'a Kagome looks like she loves me' ending for this little fiasco.'

Opening his eyes slowly, InuYasha tried to focus on the sight of his four friends running toward him then scowled to see that 'damned concerned ' expression plainly showing on all of their faces. With an irritated snort he braced for what was about to descend on him, once again they were going to insist on worrying about a few trivial scratches he had picked up in a fight.

His vision was momentarily obscured by a lazily drifting leaf catching on the thick tangle of bangs hanging down over his eyes. In trying to see exactly where it was, so that he could displace it with a puff of precisely aimed breath, he turned his face up to the approaching group wearing a look that prompted an anguished cry of “Oh, no!...InuYasha are you alright?” from an already tearing up Kagome.

Her quite obvious distress was at the same time counterpointed by a subtly amused, “ Wow, InuYasha hit that tree so hard he got knocked cross-eyed !” in a dry little voice that could only belong to the Kitsune, Shippou.

“ I'm not knocked cross-eyed, Runt,” InuYasha growled, “ I'm trying to get rid of..” finally reaching up he swatted the leaf out of his field of vision, “..that damned thing.”

Hovering in front of him, her thoughts haunted by some of the medical dramas she had seen on T.V., Kagome began frantically waving two fingers in front of his eyes, still unconvinced that he wasn't suffering from some horrible head injury. “InuYasha, how many fingers do you see?”

InuYasha jerked his head back, away from her moving hand. “ I wont be seeing anything if you put out my damned eyes Wench. Quit that!”

“ She's only trying to help you,” Sango said quietly, giving him a reproving shake of her head.

“ Well trying to blind me ain't much help, is it?” He just wished they would all step back out of the way, they were starting to crowd around him too closely. Feeling closed in, especially by a crowd of bodies, made him distinctly uncomfortable, made him get defensive, made him want to snap.

“ Are you alright InuYasha?” Miroku bobbed his head around, as he calmly appraised the hanyou's unfortunate position in relation to the tree.

“ Of course I'm alright,” InuYasha glared up at him from under jet black brows. “Don't I look alright to you?” That's when it occurred to him that he was actually having to look up to see the Monk's face. In fact he was having to look up to see all of them. ' Fuck, when did they get taller than me?'

“ Well..Not, exactly..” Miroku said thoughtfully as he walked slowly around the tree, the rings of his staff jingling merrily in time with his measured paces.

Kagome followed the Monk, her brown eyes filled with worry, “ How are we going to get him out of there?”

“Out of where?” InuYasha demanded irritably. Speculation had already edged out concern on their faces and he found that their suddenly nervous glances irked him even more.

“ This Tree,” His friends all replied in unison.

“ You appear to be stuck,” added the Monk, a small twinkle lit his eyes, “or have you forgotten?”

“ Of course I haven't forgotten,” Looking over his shoulder, InuYasha took stock of as much of his current situation as he could see, which was mostly rough bark about nine inches away from the tip of his nose. 'Shit, I'm stuck in a tree..How the fuck did that happen? Oh..right that damned lizard.'

Like some unwelcomed miniscule mind reader the Kitsune chose that moment to pipe up,“ Told you guys he hit hard. He didn't even realize his butt's buried in the trunk of that oak tree.” A deeply menacing, throaty growl coming from the oak's unwitting captive inspired the little fellow to move swiftly out of reach as he decided it would be more enjoyable to watch the proceedings from a safer distance perched on the back of the fire cat, Kiara.

The fact that Shippou stopped to retrieve his drawing pad and crayons out of Kagome's yellow back pack before taking a seat wasn't at all lost on InuYasha. Visions of just what the sly tyke was planning to sketch made the hanyou growl again, only this time louder. A sharp rap on the top of his head, accompanied by the jingle of brass rings caused the half demon to turn his attention back to his friends still clustered immediately in front of him.

“ Concentrate on the task at hand, InuYasha,” Miroku said with a smile. “ You can threaten Shippou later, first we really must get you out of..err off of this lovely oak.”

“ You're sure you're alright ?” Kagome asked crouching down so that her face was even with the disgruntled half demon's. “ You don't feel like anythings..uh ..broken do you?”

“The only thing that's gonna be broken around here is the Runt's head when I get my hands on him...” his voice got noticeably louder, “..if he's sittin' over there drawin' what the fuck I think he is..”
“ InuYasha...” Kagome's voice took on a decidedly menacing tone of it's own. In fact it was the same tone she generally used exclusively for him right before she said his least favorite word in the whole wide world.

“ Say IT and I'm gonna die laughing when this damn tree comes right down on top of your head,” he smirked. Since the whole situation was beginning to eat a gaping hole through his last rational nerve, causing Mr. Mouth to forget all about his frequently ignored friend Mr. Brain in favor of Mr. Foot, InuYasha continued on to thoroughly spite himself, “Then you can just bury me and all my fuckin' problems will be solved...Bitch.”

Daggers shot out of her eyes, but for once she held her tongue and didn't even whisper that awful, terrible, degrading word. No...he wasn't going to be getting that loving Kagome look at all today.... and from the expression on her pretty little face, she probably wasn't going to forget about what he had just said either.

Standing upright, Kagome brushed her hands briskly together to knock the dust off, at just about the level of InuYasha's face, as she primly announced, “ Right! Well then....we'll just have to pull you out.” She mirrored the hanyou's earlier smirk with one of her own as she heard him snorting to clear his nose. Nodding at Miroku and Sango she latched onto InuYasha's right arm and gave it a surprisingly strong tug.

“ Hey! What the hell ya...” InuYasha's squawk of a protest was interrupted as the duo on his left quickly got into position and began to pull on him as well.

“ Might I remind you that this is for your benefit, InuYasha,” Miroku said quite calmly as he grabbed the hanyou under the armpits in an attempt to drag him forward off the tree. “ We can't go after that shard with you lazing the day away in the shade like this.”

“ We're only trying to help you,” Sango added, tugging away on his left arm, nails bearing down with enough force to be noticeable, even through the armor of his firerat. Apparently she was pissed at what he had said to Kagome as well.

“Stop ! Damn it, Stop! Leave me alone!” A wild flurry of long red sleeves whipped through the air as InuYasha swatted his well meaning friends away to reclaimed a pair of somewhat abused arms. “ I can get my own ass off of this tree all by myself.” He glowered at them, eyebrows almost pinching together over the bridge of his nose with the intensity of his scowl, both hands raised to hold them at bay with a poised set of claws. In a coordinated move that appeared as well rehearsed as any dance step the trio stepped back to silently watch him.

“ Since our help isn't needed, you go right ahead,” a lingering residual of bruised feelings was still clearly evident behind the forced cheerfulness of Kagome's voice.

Not wanting to show any sign of the guilty little gremlins hammering away at his own conscience for making her feel that way, InuYasha stared straight ahead, resolutely set his jaw, took a deep breath and with a quick reversal in the arch of his spine, snapped into an erect posture while throwing his shoulders back at the same time. Making a sound reminiscent of a cork popping out of a bottle InuYasha leapt forward, moving in less than an eyeblink from a decidedly uncomfortable hunched over position, courtesy of being partially embedded in the bole of a tree, to fully upright and completely free of his ligneous prison. With a loud crackling snap, prolonged moaning creak and echoing crash, the ill-fated oak slowly toppled to the ground behind him as the hanyou, arms now folded neatly into his wide red sleeves, regarded his companions with a smug “I told you so,” expression on his face.

“ I guess you didn't need our help after all, InuYasha,” muttered the young Monk thoughtfully as he watched the newest cloud of dust and leaves slowly settle to the ground.

Paying him no mind, the half demon's yellow eyes were focused intently on the debris laden track marking the fleeing lizard youkai's hasty escape into the woods. Oh yeah, he remembered it all now, the whole damn humiliating fight.

“I'm gonna cut that bastard a new one,” InuYasha muttered under his breath, took a step forward and stopped. “OW..”

Three sets of eyebrows shot up above three pairs of eyes widened in surprise as that remarkable sound issued from the mouth of a person who under normal circumstances would belligerently argue, sometimes until blue in the face, that because he was part youkai he didn't feel pain with the same intensity as they did. For the half demon to actually utter such an exclamation must mean that he was injured more severely than their initial assessment had led them to believe. Kagome of course was on him faster than a hungry flea on a juicy dog.

“What's wrong? Where are you hurt?” Her face radiating that worriedly-concerned expression, the girl positioned herself in front of InuYasha as she did a quick search for any previously unnoticed wounds.

“ Would you quit that?” he snarled, a little more harshly than he meant to. “ I'm fine..”He gently grabbed her wrists to get her attention, “ Kagome, I'm OK...we need to go get that shard? Remember? Big lizard? Jewel shard?”

“You're sure you're alright?” Her soft brown eyes looked up into his expectantly, trusting him to answer truthfully.

Determined not to repeat what happened the last time she had asked him that question and have her get angry with him all over again, InuYasha smiled back at her. “ Really, I'm not hurt. Now, let's go get that shard.”

There was a tight strangled sound from somewhere behind him that he chose to ignore, preferring for the moment to concentrate on the worried girl with the lovely brown eyes. Satisfied by his reassurance, Kagome stepped to the side, a happy smile lighting her face. InuYasha took a step forward and Stopped.

“OW!” Yellow eyes round in shock, the half demon did a quick physical reevaluation. ' Crap, what's going on? ' Taking another tentative step caused the same highly unpleasant sensation to shoot right back up from his butt to a spot between his shoulder blades again. “OW !..What the fuck is going on?”

Trying to hide the growing grin of amusement that was threatening to overcome his serious expression, Miroku surveyed the hanyou's backside as Sango peeked wide-eyed over his right shoulder.

“It would seem that you have picked up quite a few uh, splinters, InuYasha,” he said quietly, trying to make his voice match the innocent look on his boyish face.

“I'd say more than a few,” Sango added in a strained whisper.

“What?” Craning his head back over his shoulder, InuYasha tried to see exactly what his friends were staring at but the view was effectively blocked by his thick mass of hair. When he tried to twist farther around a great many more of the nasty little sensations that had caused him to yell out in the first place shot up along his spine. “OW! Dammit!”

“Don't move, InuYasha,” the Monk cautioned, “You are only making things worse for yourself.”

The Demon Slayer stepped forward to get a closer look at InuYasha's problem and in doing so said the one thing sure to attract a nosy Kitsune's attention, “You kind of look like the description Kagome gave us of that odd animal from her time, a por..porcupine.”

A pair of tiny pointed ears perked right up at her assessment. Tossing aside the sketchpad, which had until that moment claimed all of his attention, Shippou hurried over to inspect InuYasha's rear end himself. Positioning himself safely behind the Monk, the Kit gave the half demon a good once over before stating with more than a bit of admiration, “ Wow, some of those things are huge, InuYasha.”

“Shut up, Runt,” growled the half demon as he tried to take another unsuccessful step forward.

“ At least you don't look like that other animal she told us about,” the Kitsune said pointedly, a mischievous twinkle shining in the depths of his bright green eyes. “You know, the stinky one,” he glanced up at Miroku with an undisguised grin, “the skunk.”

Uttering a low steady growl, the half demon tried to inch his way around to get a better look at the tiny thorn in his side.” Shippou...”

There was just enough raw menace in his tone to make the Kitsune hop onto Miroku's shoulder and call out in a high pitched childish whine, “ Kagome, InuYasha's being mean to me.”

Kagome was already rooting through her yellow backpack on a quest to find the first-aide kit buried deep in the bottom of it. “You know we don't talk about That anymore, Shippou, “ she called back over her shoulder. “We All promised it was going to remain a dead subject from now on.” As her head disappeared once more into the backpack she muttered to herself, “...now where did those things get off too?”

“Let's just go,” InuYasha said irritably. “ If we don't hurry up, Naraku is gonna get the damn shard.”

Still rummaging through her backpack, Kagome replied in a cheerful voice, “ You can't go anywhere like that InuYasha. I soon as I find my tweezers we'll get you fixed right up.”

Dragging his foot stubbornly forward, the hanyou took another pain laced step. “Hell no, we aren't waiting around...I'm going after that shar..”

“ Sit Boy,” the young woman said quietly, almost as an afterthought as she dug even deeper into the bag. Her obstinate red clad companion plummeted face down into the dirt. “Oh, look,” she sat up with a victorious smile on her face. Holding up a bright, shiny pair of stainless tweezers in her right hand she announced, “Found them ! ”

“Ka..Go..Me...” the sound of her name filtered out through the layer of topsoil as the young lady in question flipped InuYasha's long thick hair up over the top of his head to get a better look at his back.


Ever observant and not the least bit shy in sharing his knowledge Shippou whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, “ Well, at least he's in the right position.”

Another richly ominous growl rumbled from beneath the mop of silver white hair as the half demon attempted to push himself upright. “ InuYasha...” Her tone was a loud and clear warning as she pushed him right back down on his face with a well placed hand between his shoulder blades. “ Don't make me say ' The Word ' again.. The sooner I get all of these out, the sooner we can go after that shard.”

Kagome surveyed the damage with a critical eye. Fortunately, the mass of InuYasha's hair along with his firerat had provided his mid to upper back with a great deal more protection than had been afforded below waist level by merely his hakama alone. Over a dozen long splinters proudly waved above the bright red fabric as obvious targets of opportunity and Kagome plucked them out quickly, discarding them into a little pile by her right knee.

“You done yet?” The voice emanating from beneath the tangle of silver hair sounded mad enough to chew through a steel rod and call it a toothpick.

“No,” Sitting back on her heels, Kagome chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, tweezers poised in mid air. It was quite plain to see, from the number of tiny rents decorating the seat of InuYasha's loose trousers, that the lizard had slammed him into the tree with enough strength to force a great many of the smaller slivers of wood completely through the tough cloth and into him. In freeing himself from the oak, the half demon's dramatic movement had allowed the fabric to slip back over the splinter's exposed ends, hiding them from view.

“Well?” the hanyou's right foot began to twitch impatiently, “what's the damn hold up?”

“ Uh, you, uh..” Coloring a deep shade of red, Kagome glance up at Miroku and Sango a silent plea for help in her eyes. Nodding the Monk casually walked over to stand on the opposite side of the grumbling hanyou. Picking her courage back up the girl took a deep breath, “ It's just that I can't see a lot of them..”

“So??”

“You're going to have to..uh,” she snatched another deep breath, “ drop your pants?”

Miroku made it almost to a count of three before the verbal explosion broke across the silence of the little forest glade.

“Oh, Like Hell I Am Wench!...” It was not an entirely unexpected reaction.

“ But some of them are under the tears in the cloth...” She really was trying to sound reasonable.

“ I ain't dropping my pants for nobody!” Of course no one really expected him to listen to reason.

“ ...and the only way I'm going to be able to see them....” A hint of irritation at his complete lack of regard for his own well being curled around the edges of her still reasonable voice.

“ Let me the hell up from here...” InuYasha pushed himself to his hands and knees with a poorly disguised groan.

“...is if you grow a brain cell and cooperate..” taking advantage of his position, Kagome snatched loose the tie at his waist, “....Sit Boy!”

Dust once again began to settle around the prostrate half demon.

“ So, what's it going to be? We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, InuYasha,” her reasonable tone of voice had left the proverbial building, “ But your pants are coming down now, Mister and I'm not taking No for an answer!”

The expression on Miroku's face was priceless.

Plopping down in the dirt across from Kagome he managed to say with an admirably straight face, “Now, Sango. I didn't say a word.” His cheek still blossomed red in conjunction with a loud smack as the Demon Slayer walked past him.

“ But I know what you were thinking,” she snorted. “Come on Shippou, let's go gather up some fire wood and get lunch started..”

“ Yeah,” the Kitsune replied as he tagged along at her heels, “ I'm just a little kid..I don't need to see this kind of stuff.”

It took a more than a few thinly veiled and blatantly unveiled threats, persistent tugs and the solemn promise of a six month supply of Ramen to finally convince InuYasha to slide his pants down far enough to provide Kagome with a clear view of his backside. The reality was much worse than she thought it was going to be. Extending from just below the waist to the backs of his upper thighs, the half demon was liberally peppered with an array of splinters ranging in size from one inch up to three.

The Monk shook his head ruefully at the sight. “It is fortunate you landed cheeks first, my friend. Your head, hard though it may be, may not have survived this,” he said amiably,trying to lighten the mood. A deep growling sound alerted him to the fact that there were after all more congenial places to be and he quickly excused himself to go over and sit by the fire with Sango, Shippou and Kiara.

After readying her first aide kit, Kagome settled back for what was going to probably be a long afternoon. InuYasha lay silent, his face completely hidden behind a curtain of thick hair. Even his twitchy foot was now still and it seemed to Kagome that he had just somehow given up in subdued resignation after finding himself basically helpless under the combined bullying of both her and Miroku.

“I'm sorry InuYasha,” she said softly.

“For what?” For once this afternoon his voice was quiet.

“ I know this is embarrassing for you. If there were any other way...”she sighed heavily, “but this really is the only way I can see them all. There's just so ..many.”

“It's OK,” he replied before repositioning his head on folded arms, privately thankful that because of his hair no one could see the red stain of total discomfiture burning across his cheeks. “Just get on with it.” As much as he secretly enjoyed her fussing over him when he was injured, this time held no pleasure for him at all.

Nodding, Kagome began extracting the first of many slivers of wood.

“ Uh, Kagome?” he used the same quiet voice but this time it was almost timid as well.

She leaned forward, bending down close to where she thought his face might be behind the silver colored tangles, “ Yes, InuYasha?”

“ I don't mind the cream stuff, but,” after having another shitty day in his monumentally shitty life he really didn't want to piss her off or offend her yet again,so he asked with uncharacteristic politeness “ could you please not use those sticky little bandages?”

“The band-aides?”

“ They'll make my butt itch..”

“ Oh,” Kagome chuckled, picked up the box of band-aides and tossed it back into her first-aide kit.
“ I promise not to use them, InuYasha.” Turning back to the almost daunting task in front of her, she began pulling out splinters in earnest. “Two.....three.....four.....five.....”

InuYasha cleared his throat. “ Do you have to count each and every one?”

With a slight start, she giggled a little nervously, “ Oh. No, sorry, InuYasha.”

Returning to her task she began adding to the growing pile beside her right knee. The half demon only sighed and flattened his ears next to his head as they picked up the sound of her nearly silent whispering,” six..seven....eight....nine...”