InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Vengeance ❯ Chapter Thirty-Eight: Distracted ( Chapter 39 )

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any of Rumiko Takahashi's characters or stories. This story is for private entertainment purposes only.

A/N: Sorry about the long wait for an update. Busy, busy. I made up for it with two new chapters. :D Thank you for all the reviews/ideas/inspirations. There may be another delay (dodges bullets) as I have family and weddings heading in next week, but I promise to be more timely after that! Take care and thanks again!

Chapter Thirty-Eight (Distracted)

*It was as I feared, then.*

Kaede regarded the greenery in the basket with a troubled eye, her hands busy separating Kagome's gathered herbs into distinct piles of prospective use. Kagome was inside the little hut, her stormy arrival dismissing any questions that the old miko might have addressed her with.

The girl needed to be alone for a time, and Kaede had stepped outside into the waning sun to sort her herbs and give the poor child some peace.

She had not known what to expect with the hanyou's return, and now, it seemed, her quiet fears had been awakened, although the unease did not show in the placid lines of her weathered face. There was no sign of InuYasha, and she was distracted from her dark thoughts by the new worries that claimed her.

The small group of friends had finally been reunited, but now there were unforeseen complications that could split them all asunder and separate them forever...

*~*~*~*~*

He sat in a tree, alone and by himself, his mind crowded with dark thoughts. The sky seemed to darken above him, as if his own thoughts were being manifested in the roiling clouds above.

He ignored the turmoil above, his own, inner turmoil distracting him...

And almost fell out of the tree as lightening struck the ground near it. Blinking back the sudden white flash that had burned across his eyes, his hand automatically reached for the hilt of the Tetsusaiga, before the sudden realization that the blade was now useless had him freeze in mid-motion as the black clouds faded and the deepening blue of sunset approaching peeped out once more.

"Muerrr."

InuYasha blinked, thinking the bright light had played tricks with his vision.

The bull youkai mooed once more, its three eyes watching him placidly as the stringy end of its tail swapped lazily at an annoying fly.

"Lord InuYasha!"

*Huh?*

With an incredible leap, the hanyou jumped from off the tree branch to land in a crouch beside the placid bull. Amber eyes narrowed as the gruffly glad cry came again from somewhere on the bull youkai's nose, somewhere between the large nostrils and the blinking eyes.

"Lord InuYasha!"

He felt a sudden sting on the end of his nose, and reflexively slapped the annoyance away. Scowling, he glared at the flattened form of his some-time advisor, Myouga.

Myouga let out a beleaguered sigh, before his bewhiskered cheeks puffed out a bit, followed by the rest of him as the flea youkai recovered from compression.

"Where the hell have you been?" InuYasha demanded in a growl.

"Master! I was but awaiting you at Totosai's caverns!" Myouga jumped up and down with the urgency of his plea for understanding.

"Awaiting me?" InuYasha blinked.

"Yes, my lord! You must hurry! I have borrowed MoMo the bull from Totosai! Only he can fix the Tetsusaiga!" Myouga jumped up and down with the urgency of his plea.

"How did you---"

"That doesn't matter right now, my lord! What matters is that you must go and have the sword repaired, and only Totosai can do it!"

A spurt of elation shot through the darkened clouds of his mind. Tetsusaiga could be fixed! Tetsusaiga could be made whole!

"What---"

"Enough questions, Master! You must hurry!"

Amber eyes narrowed on the incorrigible flea. "Just why are you so damn pushy about me going!"

A small palm slapped the balding forehead, and Myouga achieved a good volume with his rather meager size in emitting the long-suffering sigh that accompanied it. The hanyou let out a warning growl, his patience---never strong---at an end.

"Myouga..."

The flea youkai dropped the dramatics, and took up emphatics. "My lord! The Tetsusaiga MUST be repaired! You MUST go! Just trust me, Master!"

*Just trust me...*

Trust was such a hard thing, and InuYasha had little of it when it came to his cowardly companion. Still...

Rolling amber eyes, he tilted his hand, so that the flea fell down with a squeaky protest to disappear among the tall grass at his feet. InuYasha ignored the muffled complaint, and stalked over to the brown bull, who had some of that long grass poking out of the side of its mouth.

"C'mon, MoMo." InuYasha said with a heavy sigh, hopping to the youkai's broad back. He sat cross-legged, his hands pulling the Tetsusaiga free to cradle in his lap as he settled down into stiff-back resignation.

"Muerrr."

With that long agreement, the bull youkai turned and shuffled off, a disgruntled flea left behind them sulking to himself.

"Nobody ever gives me the respect I'm due..."

*~*~*~*~*

Her form glowed with a fiercely white light, and her senses burned as her body became the channel for the raging gusts that raced along her blood and sought freedom, the tornado in her soul twisting into the unrestrained void of her mind as it blanked out protectively under the onslaught of the roaring fury of the winds. Her hands spread further, and she released them, her body a mere vessel for the unfocused raw force that she had called down from the upper reaches of the sky.

*WIND!*

She knew nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing as the Winds tore through the clearing, where youkai battled ningen, ookami struggled against bandit. The Wind knew nothing of friend or foe, did not care, but there was something of her that soared with it, that tempered it so that it might bruise and send companion soaring away with its push, but it would not send them forcefully against the hard ground or into the unmovable impact of rock or tree. The pitifully weak human bodies, on the other hand, were sent crumpling under the sheer might of that raging Wind.

Screams and sobs were abruptly silenced under the gusting force, and the howls of surprised wolf brothers filled the skies as they were sent up and away to fall, not too gently, for her control was slight, and the Winds could care less, into tree and brush. The Winds flared once more, seeking a renewal of focus, howling their own descant to the cries of the wolves.

Ears rung at the combined sound as a far-off ookami youkai stilled into sudden silence, his own winds, churned up by his running feet, dying around him. The howl of Wind and wolf made his mind curl with the one fear that could truly touch him...loss of his brothers, death of his clan, danger to his pack. Roaring in fury, he spun in mid-air and raced back toward the pack, his Jewel-studded legs whipping up their own roaring tornado of wind from the speed of his passage.

The smaller tornado came on to meet the larger, and the youkai winds, aspects of their aura of power, seemed to touch and meet, combining for a moment, struggling for control and dominance before swirling together. Koga could feel his own winds sliding through the stronger Winds of the witch's calling. With a roar, not knowing if it was SHE who was attacking his pack and fearing it with all of his being, he pushed through her Winds and sought to control the focus of that raw power.

Kagura felt something piercing through her winds, and she clung to it joyfully. The raging Winds had slipped out of her weak grasp of control, so that she did not know how to silence what she had called and unleashed so rashly. *Come!* She commanded, pulling on those winds, freeing her own so that they could die under the knitting force of that slighter whirlwind. The youkai aura was powerful and strong, definitely male, and she flinched at the faint familiarity of it.

*CONCENTRATE!* She roared in her mind, calling forth the last bits of her will to tame the now raging Winds that surrounded her, sapping the strength of her soul, seeking to combine them together, forever. She fought the draw of the Winds that she had longed for, fought for each breath in the burning lungs of her power-swallowed body.

"COME!" She screamed at the Other, and suddenly He was there, inside of the whirlwind, carrying it outward away from her and the clearing as His own demonic winds stretched out, shielding them all from the raging mindless Winds that had saved her, and now sought to consume her...

Both winds flared out, seeking dominance, and the inner winds, His winds that she supported and controlled, brightened as the fury raced through her, her body taking the punishment of the outer Winds' uncontrolled rage that she would dare to silence them, once called. For a moment, all was white and yellow and glowing fire along her senses, and then, abruptly, there was silence, as both winds died, their battle done.

Kagura felt her body falling to the earth, and she whimpered softly as the ground touched her burning, glowing skin. The white radiance flared along her splayed limbs once, and then died, leaving her cold and shaking on the ground in heaving fear at what she had loosed, what she had called and what nearly had swallowed her whole into its own force...

*Ginta...Ginta and the others...*

"Ginta..." She croaked, her fingers flexing on the dirt as she turned her head.

Her mind blanked as she saw that Other, the one who's winds had saved her from her own. A weakly grateful smile flashed over her stiff lips, before recognition had her eyes widen in denial and a spasm of pain ripped through her burned, naked body. "Koga..."

The blue eyes were icy points of glowering rage, the red streaks fading as he knelt beside Ginta, whose arrows had been ripped out by the Wind, his prone body somewhat protected by her own instinct for personal survival. The grey-haired wolf brother groaned softly.

"Lady..."

"He is Alive!" She whispered that hoarse cry at the furious pack leader. She would not let him deal a mercy blow to end the injured youkai's suffering.

*He will survive...* The fierce light in her rubied eyes dulled as the thought circled through her mind, and she fell into the darkness, seeking escape from the pain of her burnt body. Her lips formed the silent thought into a last, faint whisper as the healing darkness took her once more...

*~*~*~*~*

"InuYasha has what?" Kagome startled them all by parting the bamboo curtain that covered the hut's open doorway.

"M'lady!" A small speck bounced up and down on Miroku's cloth-covered knee. The houshi sat cross-legged on the grass below Lady Kaede, who was seated on the steps. The old priestess's back was toward the hut, but she turned her head slightly at Kagome's sudden appearance.

Kagome stepped out, her brown eyes wide. "Myouga? Where have you been?"

"I---"

"He was at Totosai's." Miroku gave the flea youkai a dark blue glance.

"Figures."

"Hey!"

Kagome eased herself beside Kaede on the steps, and shook her black head at the protesting youkai.

Kaede patted the girl's knee in some concern, her single eye dark with sympathy and comfort in the last red-golden rays of the setting sun. Kagome tensed for a moment, closing her eyes, before she deliberately made herself relax.

Miroku eyed her with some concern. "Are you all right, Kagome?" His voice was soft and warm with concern as only his could be.

"No."

*Shards! I said that out loud!*

Plastering a bright smile on her face and crinkling her eyes in a bad attempt at careless cheerfulness, Kagome said buoyantly, "Why, yes! Yes I am!"

"Uh..." Miroku was taken aback at the almost-forceful quality to Kagome's happy denial.

"Enough questions, Miroku. Kagome is in a delicate condition." Kaede admonished softly, patting Kagome's knee again.

"Delicate?" Dark brows shot up, and the monk's dusky blue eyes arrowed on the girl. Kagome sat there stunned, a vacant, half-forgotten smile still stiffly curving her soft mouth.

*Does she have to be so BLUNT?*

"Ahh." Myouga let out a tell-tale sigh of complete understanding.

*Does EVERYBODY know?*

The flea youkai offered a deep bow, almost unseen against Miroku's shadowed robes. "May I be the first to offer my congratula---"

"Ahem." Kaede politely coughed as Kagome turned really pale, the stupid smile finally disappearing.

Miroku raised a dark brow, before his free hand casually came up to kick the flea youkai off of his knee with a well-directed flick of his index finger. Myouga sailed through the air in a wide arc, a startled yelp of protest abruptly cut off as he landed snoot-first in the dusty pathway that led up to the hut.

"Kagome!" A little orange fireball spun through the air, distracting them all. Kagome opened her arms just in time, as Shippo landed in her lap and snuggled against her. "I'm back, Kagome! I've missed you, oh so much! But I had fun, showing Koharu where the best leaves are...the ones you should me that time. Remember, Kagome? That time when you and InuYasha were fighting, and..."

A little paw came up to his mouth, and green eyes blinked at Kagome's sudden stillness. "Oops." Instantly contrite, the kitsune hugged her tightly, begging for forgiveness. "I'm sorry, Kagome! I didn't mean to---"

Putting her own raw feelings aside, Kagome cuddled the little fox cub to her, fingers softly stroking the rusty hair. "It's okay, Shippo. Don't worry about it."

"Where is InuYasha, Kagome?" Shippo asked, green eyes slitted with pleasure as her fingers continued to pet him.

There was a dusty cough below them, where Myouga was brushing the dirt off of his clothes. "The Lord InuYasha has gone to see Totosai, to get the Tetsusaiga repaired."

*So he has gone.*

Part of her was sad by that fact, another could only feel relief. She was so angry at him, and she didn't want to see him right now. She was still too raw over his betrayal.

*How could he think of HER?* She was barely aware of her hands tightening on Shippo, his uncomfortable stir in her arms made her relax her hold subconsciously.

"Houshi-sama! Kaede-sama!" Koharu's infinitely bubbly voice broke through Kagome's distracted thoughts. The girl had a large basket slung over her arm, full of the collected bits of leaf and herb that Kaede had requested. The old miko was constantly in need of medicinal plants, and now was a good time to harvest many of them, while they were green and potent.

There was a strange flush to Miroku's cheek, and Kagome blinked as the blue eyes went from her flat belly to Koharu's in a side-ways glance that she did not miss.

*Maybe it's the clothes. We all look like priestesses in this get-up.* She passed a sour look over her own red-and-white attire, a well-known face flashing before her mind's eye. A face she had seen in the crystal-clear mirror of her bathroom back home in the modern era every day of her life. A face, though, with cold eyes and a light sneer on the soft lips.

*I hate mikos!*

That wasn't true, Kagome chided herself, instantly contrite. She had learned to love Kaede like an older aunt or grandmother, had met other priestesses in her travels through the Sengoku Jidai that she respected and even liked a little, in the brief time she spent with them. Not all mikos were dark.

*And neither is Kikyo, really. She is just so wrapped up in pain and heartbreak. She just needs time...and InuYasha.*

Maybe it was all for the best, she thought sadly.

Koharu distracted her again by setting down her over-flowing basket by Kaede's feet, and bowing in respect to the older miko. Kaede nodded her approval, pulling the basket to her and sifting thoughtfully through the contents. Koharu went directly for Miroku, and almost stepped on Myouga in her haste.

The addled flea made a break for it, and settled on the porch beside Kagome, mumbling incoherent protests about his treatment at the hands of ningen.

Kagome's lips curved in silent, sudden amusement. *He sounds like Jaken!* Shippo cuddled closer in her lap, letting out a breathy sigh of contentment, and her smile extended to the little kitsune.

There was a slight, husky giggle from Koharu, and Kagome's attention turned toward them, surprise winning through as she saw Miroku flush slightly. Their dark heads, the black hair touched brown with the red rays of the setting sun, were close together. The younger girl was plastered to his side, and the houshi didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, one hand was already smoothing over the red fabric of Koharu's hakama with intimate familiarity.

Kagome eyed that bead-wrapped palm askance. *She sure is nice about it. Poor Sango.*

As if her thoughts had summoned her, the taijiya was suddenly there, a small Kirara cuddled in her arms. Kagome blinked, letting her muddled thoughts go as she gave her friend a tentative smile.

Sango nodded stiffly, her brown eyes flicking over Miroku and Koharu, and sliding past with no hint of a reaction. She addressed herself to Kaede, and bowed slightly. A disturbed Kirara made a mewling protest at the sudden shift in position, and then yawned, her red eyes closing with limp exhaustion.

"Lady Kaede." Sango's voice was soft and cold all at the same time. Kagome's brow wrinkled in worry over her friend. What had happened to make Sango so...distant? Cold? Walled off? She couldn't put her finger on it, but it felt as if the demon slayer's emotions were locked up tight. She was almost mechanical, like some machine going through the motions and feeling nothing. Kagome could recall other times when the taijiya had closed herself off, putting a barrier between herself and her friends, but never like this. Sango had retreated into herself, and Kagome frowned over what could have possibly caused it.

"I will be leaving in the morning, to return to my own village. I must bury my brother." Kagome hated that stiff, distant voice...wait...what?

*Bury her brother? What?*

"Sango?" A look of horrified realization flashed through Kagome's troubled brown eyes, and she stirred, wanting to go and comfort her friend.

Sango stiffened, and she shook her head slightly at Kagome. Kagome sank back onto the hard steps, feeling hurt, before her own feelings were buried under her concern for the taijiya.

*Oh, Sango! You have such trouble dealing with pain. How can I feel hurt by you not wanting my comfort? You're so hard on yourself, and you hate showing what you always thought were weak emotions. Poor Kohaku. Oh, Sango! What are you going to do?*

What were they all going to do?

*~*~*~*~*

"K-Koga..." He fought for awareness, his body throbbing in two sharp points of echoing pain. But he forced the pain to recede, his mind demanding that he at least make his proud, overly zealous leader aware...aware...

"Brother, I am here." The vitality of that deep voice made him want to fall back into exhaustion, even as an overwhelming sense of adoring pride and love for this, his alpha leader, the wolf lord of the eastern tribes, the fierce protector and strongest ookami of them all...

A calloused palm rested briefly on his forehead, and he could smell the dampened fury of his leader as the youkai struggled for calm.

"They...they attacked...surprised...so tired..." He managed to mumble in between hoarse breaths.

"Ginta, you will survive." Koga growled over him, his fierce will to live bleeding into the swelling heart of his follower.

"Yes." He nearly choked as the pain surged once more. "She...she said so..."

Koga growled, the ice in his blue eyes hardening as he looked past Ginta's outstretched, prone body toward another, that lay beyond his.

"K-Koga." Ginta struggled. He could hear a faint call in the background, a questioning yip and then a startled yelp and thrashing of furry bodies. They were all alive then, or most of them. Thanks to HER.

"S-She saved us." He choked in exhaustion, as more calls from surviving wolf-brothers tingled in his overly-sensitive ears. He struggled to turn his head, as Koga's growl heated and then died, his mouth frowning as he scowled, his eyes narrowed and fierce.

He blinked back the slight film that blinded him in pain, struggling to see her. He groaned again, thought this time it was for her pain, and not his own. She lay fallen and naked, her delicate white skin laced with the burns that had stained it once before...

*She suffers so much...* His simple mind burned on that thought, and he must have said it aloud, because Koga's scowl disappeared into a cold, assessing glance that turned from the wind youkai to focus once more on him.

Ginta tried to pass the urgent desire that swirled through him to his wolf brother and pack leader. "H..." He fought back the darkness that wanted to claim him once more, refusing to let the pain subside until he pressed into Koga's fierce mind that she was important, that she was theirs.

"H..." Koga leaned closer, concern flashing through the cold blue eyes, and Ginta was touched once again by just how much Koga loved them all, a fierce, protective, brotherly love...

Blinking back the distraction, he growled low in frustration, and then said in a hoarse rush, "Help her...help our sister...she needs us...and knows it not..."

"Sister." Koga's growls could be fierce, and his light blue eyes darted toward the wilted female and back to Ginta in annoyance.

"Yes..." Ginta tried to glare and failed miserably, wincing as the pain surged through

him once more. This time, he could not keep the banking darkness at bay, and his last hoarse whisper had the wolf lord growling low in his throat once more in protest and disbelief.

"She...is our lady..."