InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Guardian Cu' ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

[ 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 Eleven



“ HEY! Come back here you asshole, that's our shard !” None of his friends would ever verbalize the accusation that InuYasha was shy or retiring when it came to recovering a Jewel shard.

“ Did you hear me you bastard?...” His right hand, already firmly gripping the hilt of Tetsusaiga, was ready to free the Fang from it's sheath as he took a bold step into the clearing. “ Get your ass back he....”

Latching on to him as tightly as a cluster of Naraku's tentacles, four pairs of hands belonging to the rationally thinking members of his party reached out and quickly grabbed the angry hanyou then yanked him backward into the shadows cast by the sheltering trees. In a flurry of dust and dry leaves, they actually managed to pull the protesting half demon to the ground, although this feat may not have been accomplished at all if the forgotten kitsune hadn't thought to grab a double handful of furry ear before leaping off his perch on InuYasha's shoulder. With a loud yelp snatched out of him by the unexpected dragging pull and sudden onset of pain to the left side of his head, InuYasha collapsed under the tugging onslaught into a cursing red heap at their feet.

“ Dammit...dammit,dammit,dammit! What the fuck do you people thi..”

A loud 'KerThwack' announced to anything within earshot that the business end of Miroku's staff had smacked the foul mouthed hanyou quite smartly over the head. There was an abrupt halt to the salty verbal tirade as it's stunned perpetrator lay back to contemplate the residual sound of cheerfully jangling metal ringing in his ears and the magnificent array of diurnal stars twinkling before his eyes.

“Patience, my friend,” As usual in such situations, the monk's tone was one of impeccable propriety. He gave InuYasha's head another brisk tap to ensure he commanded the hanyou's full attention. “We really must think about this before just rushing in..”

Growling the abused party reached up to clutch his aching head in both hands...

“...to pick a fight that very may very well..”

….and sat up with a groan. A pair of unfocused slitted yellow eyes drifted toward the general direction the monk's voice was coming from...

“...wind up with us receiving our...”

...as he fell backwards with another pitifully louder groan. “Why?”

“ Gee Miroku,” Shippou peered at the cross-eyed half demon sprawled out in front of him, “ that left a mark... you musta really hit him hard.”

“ Hmm,” the monk leaned over to get a better look at his semiconscious victim then held up a hand, “ Uh, how many fingers do you see, InuYasha?”

A rough little whisper came up from the figure stretched out on the ground, “I hate you ...”

There was a strangely harmonious mix of familiar voices distantly spinning around in InuYasha's head.... “ Is he alright? Miroku, just how hard did you hit him?....” “ You think his eyes are gonna stay like that?....” “InuYasha? Say something to me...” “Well, I only wanted him to stop and listen..” “ Boy, sure wish I had my crayons right now...” “ He'll be alright Kagome, I don't think Miroku could hit hard enough to really hurt him...” “InuYasha? Can you ear me? InuYasha? InuYasha?.......”

The warm brown eyes he found himself gazing up into were, for him, absolutely breathtaking. So was the face surrounding them. Before that conflicted persona which ruled his waking mind had a chance to completely regain possession of his tongue, the subconscious InuYasha opened his mouth.

“ You're beautiful....Kagome...I lo......” Conflicted InuYasha stilled him as yellow eyes widened in shocked realization of just what he was about to confess.

' Oh, shit, what are you saying? StopStopStopStop...You can't tell her that ...You love Kikyou..No, I don't....I love Kagome....I love them both...' InuYasha squeezed his eyes shut and slowly rolled into a sitting position..' Oh shit, what hit me?...I love...'

“ InuYasha are you Ok?” Once again it was the call of her gentle voice that brought clarity to his sense of confusion, her small soft hand caressing his cheek that grounded him firmly into reality.

“ Kagome...” Tightly clutching his throbbing forehead in his left hand, InuYasha folded his legs beneath him, weakly swatted at the hovering young woman to keep her out of his face and cast an irate glare up at the monk who stood regarding him with a mixed look of sympathy and wry amusement. “Why in the hell did you hit me like that, Miroku? Trying to kill me?”

“ I do apologize InuYasha. Perhaps that second blow was a bit..excessive...Still, it did prevent you from charging out and possibly making a very big mistake.” Miroku crouched down to look the scowling half demon in the eye, “Until we know more about the person we just saw it is better to operate on the near side of caution rather than,” he glanced over at the girl kneeling next to him, “ Lady Kagome, what was that saying again?”

“ Have your ass handed back to you on a silver platter,” she replied, directing a pointed look at the recalcitrant hanyou who only gave throat to an unmistakably disgruntled growl in reply.

Sitting back on her heels, Kagome silently nursed a bruise to her pride. In typical InuYasha fashion, the half demon's unpredictable reactions had disconcerted the girl again, taking her from the rush of a heart fluttering compliment to feeling like she was some inconvenient obstacle blocking his way. Looking directly into her eyes he had told her she was beautiful then sat up and rudely pushed her aside. ' He didn't really mean to say that....it was only the knock on the head talking...who am I fooling? He's nothing but an insensitive...infuriating....jerk..' Like an extinguished gas jet popping back into fiery life at the touch of a lit match, Kagome's anger at him reignited as the farewell image of her recently abandoned belongings crossed her mind.

In the true spirit of rubbing a generous handful of salt into a still bleeding wound, Shippou peeped over at InuYasha from the comfortably remote safety of Sango's arms before tossing out his opinion on the current topic of conversation, “What's so unusual about something like that? The Idiot gets it handed back to him all the time.”

“ Just wait,Shippou. I'll show you ass on a platter....” Straightening up the half demon fixed his tiny tormenter with a baleful glare, “Just what was the big idea trying to tear my ear off, Runt?” Flexing his claws, he began to rise to his feet, eyes focused on the face of the rapidly paling kit, but was stopped half way by the unsubtle hint of an painful promise in the tone of Kagome's voice.

“ InuYasha...”

'Oh,yeah..almost forgot, she's still mad at me.'

A chill wind aimed directly and only at him blew in from the south. There was no mistaking that the proverbial ice was dangerously thin and like a fool he was fixing to go skating. Easing back into a sitting position, InuYasha placed his splay-fingered hands down in the dirt in front of him, thankful to be, for once, close to the ground. Staring straight ahead the half demon attempted to compose his mouth into an agreeable smile, in hopes that it would somehow mitigate Kagome's formidable wrath, but only managed to achieve a fairly pained looking grimace instead. Of course his expression had quite a different effect than intended and he glanced around to see his friends looking back at him a bit uneasily.

Taking the initiative the monk spoke up,“ It is good that you have finally decided to listen to reason, InuYasha...”

“ Like I have much of a choice.” Leaning away from Miroku and propping his dirt besmudged chin atop an equally grimy left fist, the hanyou switched from an expression reminiscent of someone trying to ignore an intimately placed hot poker to one of bitterly frustrated boredom. He might not be that great at smiling, but this was a look he could manage to pull off quite well.

Politely ignoring the grumbled interruption, Miroku continued, “ Who ever this being is, he possesses the ability to mask a very powerful aura. That he was doing so with both you and Kagome..”

The girl gave a quick nod of agreement.

“....is fairly obvious since the rest of us plainly felt it on our way here.”

“ Which doesn't change the fact that the bastard just left with our shard...”

“ Another reason to exercise caution, my impatient friend. He did not have to fight, nor did he have to kill the lizard to obtain that shard, he was allowed to take it. InuYasha, when is the last time you walked up a youkai, asked it to hand over a jewel shard and had it given to you willingly?”

Simply because he was too stubborn to let any of them know they were probably justified in stopping him from rushing headlong into a fight, InuYasha merely grunted a surly acknowledgment to Miroku's argument.

Satisfied that the half demon was at last in agreement with the rest of the group, Miroku stood up. “I think we can safely guess that at least this is not one of Naraku's offspring since he just didn't kill the lizard and take what he wanted.”

“ I think you're right Miroku,” Sango sat the kit upon Kirara's back then reshouldered her huge boomerang, “I've never known any of Naraku's minions to be terribly diplomatic when dealing with lower level youkai.”

“ Or tell them jokes,” Kagome added as she got to her feet and walked over to stand next to Sango. “ I mean, that's what it looked like he was doing. Didn't that lizard look like it was laughing to you guys too?”

Miroku scratched the side of his head speculatively, “ I guess you could interpret the youkai's response that way..”

“I think Kagome's right,” Shippou was bouncing between the firecat's broad head and back to attract attention to himself, “ I think it was laughing too.” Launching himself into the air the kit sprung lightly into the girl's arms, gazed up at her with wide innocent green eyes and asked, “Wonder what that guy was saying that was so funny?”

“I don't know,” she replied, “ but the lizard really did seem happy to get rid of the shard.”

“Feh, you people are so full of....it..” InuYasha sprang to his feet, settled his sword next to his left hip and began to stalk back in the direction they had come from.

“Where are you going, InuYasha?” Kagome, took a tentative step toward him a puzzled expression on her face.

“ I'm going to get your stuff,” he didn't bother to turn around and look at her, “While all of you stand around trying to decide how funny this all is, I'm gonna do something useful with my time..” His figured blurred into a smear of red as the half demon left the ground for the trees.

“You don't have to do that right now.” Her anger forgotten at the sight of the hanyou's retreating back, Kagome took a few more hesitant steps after him. “InuYasha, we can get that stuff later..”

InuYasha briefly turned his head back to give her a brusque reply, “ Plan on throwin' your arrows Wench?” Before she had time to give voice to a fitting response he had leapt silently into the trees and was gone.

“ What's he so mad about?” the Kitsune asked, already well aware of the answer to his patently obvious question. That Kagome's knapsack would be on the way back shortly, made him very happy because that meant his precious crayons would soon be firmly back in his talented little hands. Oh, but he had big plans to recreate some of the latest scenes in the unfortunate hanyou's piss poor day as colorful additions to the growing catalog already in his possession.

In reality he didn't dislike the hanyou at all, far from it. InuYasha's presence truly made him feel safe and protected, but it was just so much fun teasing his hot tempered friend that Shippou really couldn't control himself at times. After all he was a Kitsune whose integral fox nature was that of an unabashed trickster. He could no more leave the Inu-hanyou in peace than the half demon could ignore his inborn drive to aggressively protect the ones he cared about. Both of them frequently behaved in ways solely dictated by their very genes, much to the mystification of their human friends who couldn't quite seem to grasp the exact reasons why the two insisted on acting in the same ways over and over again.

“Shippou, when InuYasha comes back, try not to do anything to upset him,” Kagome said quietly. “I'm afraid he hasn't had a very good day and none of us have helped make it any easier for him.”

“If he wouldn't act like such a big idiot..” An astute listener would have picked up on the jealous nuance tinting the kit's childlike voice. Nestling into the arms of the girl he adored the fox-boy knew Kagome could never feel for him the same way she felt for the naive hanyou. Sometimes though he thought that she was almost as clueless as InuYasha....

' Naa, forget that, InuYasha owns that title like Naraku owns Exceptionally Evil Bastard '

...since it was apparent to even one as young as himself that the pair loved each other quite deeply. Yes, Shippou could see it. Sango, Miroku and Kirara could easily see it too and Granny Kaede...

' Does anybody not see it? Well, yeah...Koga, but for a Wolf Youkai he sure isn't the brightest crayon in the box...all his brains are below his knees '

They definitely loved each other and while one was probably too stubborn to recognize exactly what was going on, the other was too stupid to ever admit to anything. Of course in light of his affections it was not surprising that Shippou never saw Kagome as the stupid member in that particular relationship.

' Boy, they sure do fight a lot though. I'm surprised dog-boy has only eaten dirt twice so far today'

Their fights were like sudden summer thunderstorms, building up quickly, crackling with energy and overshadowing everything else in the immediate vicinity. That they frequently ended with a rapid succession of lightning strikes....'Sit Sit Sit'....followed by the crashing thunder of a certain person's body plummeting repeatedly into the ground was...

' after all I'm only a little kid. I have to find some kind of entertainment in all of this adult stuff '

....absolutely hilarious.

Reaching up, Shippou patted Kagome's cheek with his tiny hand and was rewarded with one of the girl's beautiful smiles. “I love you Kagome,” the kit said sweetly, his green eyes sparkling in pleasure at the thought that, unlike InuYasha, he could always make her smile so easily.

“I love you too Shippou.” She gave him a little squeeze of a hug which made him sigh in contentment.

'Take that moron..'

He wasn't of course referring to Kagome.

“ So, it's settled then. While InuYasha is gone, we'll scout ahead and see if we can find out anything about this new Youkai,” the monk's even voice brought Shippou back up out of his musings and the kit's ears pricked up to see what he had missed.

“ Yes, I think it would be better if we took a look around without having to worry about InuYasha deciding to rush right in,” Sango glanced over at Kagome, “Has the shard moved any farther away?”

Shaking her head the girl gave the Kitsune another small hug. “ It's very close to here, I don't think he went too far into the woods on the other side of this clearing at all.” She shifted nervously from foot to foot, “I just really don't feel right about going off before InuYasha comes back..”

“Ah, Lady Kagome, I understand your trepidation but with luck, we will have a much clearer idea of how to proceed by the time he returns,” Miroku reassured her, his dark eyes twinkling goodnaturedly. “None of us want him to rush off and suffer any more needless injury today if it can at all be helped.”

“ I'm going to take a look from the air,” Sango said as she swung herself onto Kirara's broad back. The pair soared aloft, flying well above the tree tops as Sango scouted the area ahead of them for any sign of the gray clad man. After a few minutes they returned, the demonslayer shaking her head as she slid lightly to the ground.

“What did you see?” Kagome asked, a little dismayed by the unhappy expression on the other girl's face.

“Not a whole lot. The canopy on the other side is too thick, although I could see a fairly wide stream cutting through the trees just to the northwest of here.”

“That's in the same direction that I'm detecting the shard.” Kagome announced, pointing to a noticeable gap in the treeline on the opposite side of the small meadow.

“ After you Ladies,” Miroku beamed innocently at his lovely companions, his face a picture of virtuous respectability.

“Not on your life, Miroku,” Sango could at times growl almost as effectively as InuYasha. “We'll both follow you.”

With a sigh at having his simple pleasures subverted once again, the genial monk started across the clearing, staff jangling softly with every step. “ As you wish my beautiful Sango, although I really do believe I should be the one bringing up the rear..”

“ That's exactly what we're trying to avoid, Monk,” She gave him a knowing, narrow eyed glance, the words Miroku and rear always had the potential of being an embarrassing combination.

The gap in the tree line proved to be a heavily shaded path snaking away through the dense woods on a convergent course with the stream Sango had seen from the air. Too broad for a mere game trail, it appeared to be a well used track free of any of the undergrowth that crowded thickly along it's sides.

“I don't recall noticing this earlier,” muttered Miroku, as he examined what was visible of the path before it disappeared around a gentle curve to the right about twenty feet into the trees.

“ Me either,” replied Sango, “and I sure didn't see it from above.”

“ Still, with the amount of brush in here, this is apparently the only easy way to pass through this particular part of the forest.” Resolutely the monk took a step forward, then glanced around at the two young women following him, “Are you absolutely sure? After all I'm positive Kirara would suffice as our advance guard.”

“Hey Miroku, if you don't start moving soon, Sango is probably going to lay you out with Hiraikotsu,” the kit advised the stalling monk in an amused tone of voice.

“ Ah Shippou, you are as yet too young to fully understand the feelings that a beautiful woman can inspire in the heart of a man...”

“ Mi..Ro..Ku...” the threat of grievous bodily injury oozed out of every syllable of his name.

A sure-footed woodland deer could not have trotted up the path any more easily than the very wise monk who called back lightly over his shoulder, “ Yes, but at least in here she doesn't have enough room to swing it.”

As the path made it's first curve to the right silence over took the little group and they continued farther into the woods without talking. Overhead an aching vault of densely leaved branches provided a living roof for the wide green tunnel they found themselves venturing into. Kagome was reminded of the pictures she had seen of an English hedge-maze as the bushes along the sides of the path began to look less like wild undergrowth and more like neatly pruned shrubbery.

“ This really might not be such a good idea, guys,” she said in a small anxious voice. “Maybe we should really wait for InuYasha.”

“ Uh...Kagome?” Shippou sounded even more nervous than she did as he peered over her shoulder at the trail behind them. “Where did the path go?”

Turning around, the rest of the group was dismayed to find that an impenetrable wall of green now completely covered what had previously been an open tunnel.

“ I don't like this at all,” Sango muttered. “The only way we can get out of here is to keep going forward.”

Miroku considered the leafy wall blocking their path of escape.“ It would appear that our presence has already been detected...”

“ You people weren't exactly subtle back there with all the yelling earlier.”

Shippou squeaked, Kagome squealed, nearly tossing the startled kit into the air in surprise. Dropping her now useless boomerang, Sango whirled back around unsheathing the sword she carried at her side. Miroku spun to face the unexpected speaker as well, the swirling black and blue of his robes partially concealing the fact that he was also reaching to loosen the prayer beads sealing the curse in his right hand.

The sight of the gray clad man casually scratching a docilely purring Kirara between the ears stopped them all. He gave them a broad, warm smile, “ Before any of you act on the compulsion of your more violent tendencies..”

“Uh, he's not here..” Quite predictably came out of Shippou like some sort of strange oral knee-jerk response.
Doing a quick headcount, the young man stood up a little straighter, grinned and said, “ We seem to be missing one. No wonder it had gotten so quiet. Well, he'll be along soon enough. Now, as I was saying..Why don't we go have a nice chat over dinner?”

“ Not to be rude, but who..” Miroku began, the fingers of his left hand still entwined in the blue beads surrounding his right wrist.

“ I'm so lacking in manners,” with a gentle laugh the stranger executed a smart bow, sweeping aside the knotted gray silk scarf from his head with the aplomb of doffing a wide brimmed hat. To everyone's surprise a familiar looking pair of ears unfurled proudly, released from their silky prison. “ I am Cu'...and I mean no harm to any of you.”

Turning to stroll back down the open end of the path, Cu' cheerily called out over his shoulder, “ I'm set up down by the water, have some rather nice fish grilling and a pot of steamed rice on as well.” Kirara, padded along placidly at his side, tails waving contentedly in tandem behind her. A low purr rumbled in her throat as he turned to her and added,“ I also have an excellent trout waiting for you my dear, the very biggest one I could find..” The chummy pair disappeared around a bend in the path, leaving the others standing in a somewhat stunned silence.

“ I suppose we should go after them,” Miroku took a step forward, “Shall we ladies?”

“Is he a half demon too, Kagome?” Bright green eyes still round with surprise, Shippou asked his question shyly as he snuggled into the cradle of the girl's arms. “He looks an awful lot like InuYasha, but I think he has better manners.”

“ I don't know, guess we'll just have to go find out.” Falling in behind behind their friends Kagome and Shippou continued to follow the path down to the river to see what awaited them in Cu's camp.



While InuYasha hadn't exactly dawdled in the retrieval of Kagome's belongings, he hadn't really hurried either. He had spent a little while sulking in the top of an old magnolia tree well out of earshot of her voice, in case she decided to shout out a certain word just for grins and giggles. She could be really sneaky that way. If Kagome got it into her head that he was somewhere nearby instead of out doing what he had told them he was going to do, she might try it out to see if any crashing sounds betrayed the loitering hanyou's location.

It was just another shitty day. Hadn't started out that way, hell he'd had such high hopes earlier, daring to think that it might even turn out to be one of those rare days when he could somehow manage to earn a hug from the girl. Everything had started to careen downhill as soon as that damned shard carrying lizard crossed their path and the way things were shaping up only pointed to a continued deterioration in the day's events that would probably end with him getting his ass partially entombed before nightfall. Well, maybe if he brought her stuff back intact and kept his mouth shut and didn't pound the kit into a lumpy pulp, the inevitable would be successfully circumvented.

Oh,wait..happy thought. Kagome might even be grateful enough to reward him with a hug for bringing her stuff back. Yeah, that could happen. Eager to be on the receiving end of something good for a change, the half demon abandoned his sulking spot and bounded over the treetops as he continued his self appointed errand.

Nothing had disturbed their earlier campsite. Backpack, bike and bow still lay close by the stone cold remains of the fire they had used during lunch. It would take him a bit longer to get back to the others since he would be carrying the cumbersome bike so InuYasha paused a moment to figure out the best way to distribute the load. Crouching down next to the bulky yellow knapsack, he toyed with the buckles thoughtfully as he turned over the logistics of the problem at hand in his mind. Unbidden the evil little imp of an earlier plan popped into his mind and took over his hands.

White-clawed fingers played idly with one of the the buckles, finally managing to tease it loose.

'Oh, look..the other one...yep, it's unfastened too. You'd think the Wench would learn to close this thing up properly '

Round yellow eyes glanced casually around the clearing, pausing to stare down the only possible witness to the impending crime, a bushy tailed squirrel who at last ran, with a chattering bark of alarm, back into the sagging boughs of it's recently demolished home.

' Yeah , you deserve to live in that tree you nosy little bastard '

' Should make sure everything is in there '

Flipping up the flap the half demon peered into the huge bag, taking his time as he sorted through everything that he knew full well he had no business bothering in the first place.

' ...just to check..you know..make sure. Wouldn't want anything to get...uh '

His hand finally closed upon exactly what it had been seeking all along.

' Little bastard would have to stuff it all the way down in the bottom '

There was a warning voice that whispered, “ You know, you really shouldn't be doing this, InuYasha” but that tiny voice died with a horribly strangled cry as the hanyou's little imp throttled it into oblivion and tossed the body over his shoulder. Yeah, so far his day had been incredibly shitty, it was just time to spread around a bit of the wealth.

Looking everywhere but at the sketch pad that was suddenly sitting in his lap, the half demon listened for a moment just in case the warning voice had somehow managed to survive...It still wasn't too late to turn back. Straining his inner ears he waited...one...two...three...

' hell not even a wheeze '

Taking a deep breath the hanyou opened the pad to the most recently used sheets, looked down and saw his earlier embarrassment spread out across the page in vivid, glowing color, drawn in an unmistakable style that was truly Shippou's own. There before him was a shyly smiling Kagome, huge pair of tweezers in hand, pausing thoughtfully as she stared down at his bare ass cheeks which were peppered with so much wood that it looked like a small forest was busy sprouting out of his backside.

InuYasha didn't fully realize that he had completely shredded the entire sketch pad until a flurry of brightly colored bits of paper began to settle down out of the air around him. All that was left of Shippou's hapless pad was the wire spring which had once held all of the pages together and even it wasn't looking very much like a spring anymore. Like many people who commit a rash act on the spur of the moment with little thought of the consequences, InuYasha said the first thing that his crash back into reality brought to mind.

“ Aw shit...I'm in trouble now.”

The imp on his shoulder of course strenuously disagreed, pointing out that once the evidence was properly disposed of, no one would be the wiser. With that piece of advice out of the way, the little bastard then jumped ship to leave the hanyou to his own sorry devices. Slightly panicked and willing to believe any flimsy excuse he could think up given the circumstances, InuYasha snatched up the box of crayons,which had also found it's way out of the pack, as much of the tortured paper as he could find and did what any good dog would do... he buried them..

..in a really deep hole.

And covered the overturned earth with a small mountain of dry leaves.

And looked around to see that blasted bushy tailed squirrel watching him.

“ You might not have much meat on you, but you'd make a hell of a tasty snack,” he snarled at his unwanted audience. The audience took the hint and disappeared back into it's tree.



By the time he got back to the edge of the meadow, InuYasha had concocted a half a dozen possible stories to tell that would account for the missing sketch pad and crayons. He planned to just act as if nothing had happened and let how the subject was brought up dictate exactly which excuse to use. None of his excuses however involved the truth..they wouldn't be real excuses if they did...right? In any case, this time the truth would definitely not set him free but get him Sat instead. Getting Sat did not mean getting any hugs from Kagome either.

Speaking of which...where in the hell was everybody?

It wasn't difficult for him to determine exactly which direction his friends had taken. He set out after them, bow and pack on one shoulder, the pink devil contraption over the other, cursing softly under his breath but at the same time entertaining the idea that this might be something that could be turned to his advantage. A little misdirection might actually put them all in the wrong for running off into possible danger without his protection. That might work...it could get his ass off the hook...right?

He stalked into the woods on the opposite side of the clearing, growing more confident with every step. In less than five minutes he had successfully tracked them to their new campsite. The smell of roasting fish and the sound of giddy laughter greeted him before he even stepped into the camp. What he found wasn't exactly what he expected.

There were all of his friends, sitting around a campfire, eating. There was his Kagome sitting next to a gray haired...

' wait a minute, that bastard is the guy who took the shard...what the hell? He's a hanyou...he's sitting next to..'

“Hey! Get away from her!” The bag, the bow and the bike all hit the ground at just about the same time. ' Fuck, is this going to turn out to be another damn Koga? '

Kagome hopped up and ran over to him, her beautiful brown eyes dancing happily. “Oh, InuYasha, I'm so glad your back. Thank you for getting my things.”

And then she did it. She hugged him, right in front of everybody..including that bastard shard thief.

InuYasha forgot about the shard momentarily and gave himself over to pretending that if Kagome loved him more than just as a friend, she'd hug him like this all the time. It was a sadly short moment.

Taking advantage of the dropped and temporarily forgotten backpack, the kit was rummaging around inside of it in a flash, chirruping in that high little voice of his, “ I want to show my drawings to Cu'.”

“Who the fuck is Cu'?” InuYasha asked about one beat before the 'I want to show my drawings to..'
part made him realize how grave things had suddenly decided to become.

“Uh, Kagome? Where is my pad and crayons? I know I put them away..” backing out of the yellow bag Shippou stared up at the girl with tears shimmering in his eyes.

There was a definite sense of impending doom descending rapidly over the half demon and he felt like someone who had just enjoyed a last meal before being taken out to face the executioner. This was going to truly suck.

“ What happened to Shippou's sketch pad, InuYasha?” her big brown eyes were no longer happily alight, instead a growing little flame of suspicion flickered in their depths.

“ Uhahahahuh..” his mouth went dry as every story that he had so carefully made up to cover his tracks waved goodbye in a mad dash to follow the imp off the rapidly sinking ship.

Reaching up, Kagome brushed her fingers through his hair. They came out holding a telltale piece of brightly colored paper, the last deathbed confession of Shippou's brutally murdered artwork.

This was a shitty day.

“ InuYasha?” Her tone said it all, he could see that awful vengeance rushing to meet him, in much the same way as his face would soon rush to meet the ground. It was a really shitty day, but at least he did get a hug. He could die happy..

Two little words splintered the air and the hanyou hurtled down into the inevitable. They were followed by their identical siblings in rapid, spitfire succession. He stopped counting at six, the dirt was well past his ears by that time anyway.

A quiet calm finally reclaimed the campsite and the dust began to settle out of the air, as InuYasha regained consciousness lying at the bottom of a sizable curiously shaped crater. Trying to assess whether anything was broken the half demon managed to flick enough dirt out of his right ear to hear a strangely familiar voice say, “ She's a feisty little thing, isn't she?”