InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Thicker Than Water ❯ Complications ( Chapter 5 )

Thicker Than Water

Chapter Five: Complications

The door to Miroku's room flew open, and Kagome marched in, looking distinctly peeved. It was Sango who made the necessary inquiry this time.

"That was short. How did it go, Kagome-chan?"

"He's being stubborn. He says it's his problem, and we're all supposed to butt out."

"Inuyasha is always stubborn," said Shippou, adding hopefully, "You should just sit him until he listens."

Kagome's eyes turned downwards and her posture shifted from pique to guilty embarrassment.

"I can't. Apparently the floorboards here rather fragile."

Miroku's eyebrows rose. "I take it you just put them to the test?"

"Yes." Kagome scuffed a foot nervously. "Sitting him inside isn't an option."

The full impact of the conversation had finally sunk in, and Shippou gaped in stricken horror as Kagome ruffled his hair in commiseration. No sits? Now what would happen to him?

Sango frowned. "Did you get anything out of him besides 'it's my problem?'"

"No. That's it. He said he didn't need help and to stay out of it, and then he pushed me out the door."

"That's no good. He can't do this by himself."

"Yeah. He'll put his foot in his mouth. Again," said Shippou sulkily, resentful of Inuyasha's present impunity.

"There is always that to be considered," said Miroku, "but more importantly, I doubt Inuyasha has any idea of how to run a state."

"And if he's unwilling to accept help from us, he'll be doubly unwilling to listen to any advice anyone else may offer him," chimed in Sango.

Kagome's face acquired a grimly determined look, and she stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Well, he's going to have to accept it. We'll talk to him and explain it as often as we have to, but he's going to have to let us help in the end, because this is too important for his pride to get in the way. Come on, let's go find him. Maybe if we all go together, we can at least get him to stay put long enough to hear us out."

They all trooped over to his room, and upon finding it empty, wandered the keep halls for an hour or so, until they were finally forced to conclude that Inuyasha had managed to effectively abscond from his duties for the moment. He did not appear at the evening meal either, his absence occasioning a brief clamor among the servants. In his place, Lady Usei presided over the feasting lords, skillfully explaining away the empty place at the table in vague, polite terms that made it perfectly clear that any closer inquiry would be an incivility.

A brief resumption of their search after the meal met with no greater success, and finally, disgruntled and irritable, they were forced to call it quits and head off to bed. As Miroku remarked, Inuyasha's absence could occasionally be just as infuriating as his presence.

On the next day, determined to make good on their resolution, they met early and wasted no time on morning pleasantries, heading directly to Inuyasha's quarters without so much as breaking their fast. Sure of at last finding him and delivering the required chastisement, they made their way to Inuyasha's door, only to be met by an apologetic servant who informed them that he had left the keep early that morning.

*****

After having sequestered himself away in Shiroyama's tiny garden to escape any unwanted disturbance, Inuyasha had reluctantly realized that if he were going to go through with his plan of inspecting the land, he would need a guide. After all, he wasn't even sure how big Shiroyama was or where its borders lay. The only person in the keep outside of his group with whom he was even mildly acquainted was Shunsoku, so accordingly, in the morning he set off to the stables after making an impatient inquiry of yet another of the seemingly ubiquitous servants.

When Inuyasha found him, Shunsoku was groggily filling a trough, a trickle of water running down the curved clay belly of the urn he held to spatter on the floor. A half-wild cat sat by his feet, batting at the falling drops. Shunsoku made a sleepy effort to shoo the animal off, which turned into a start when he noticed Inuyasha. The cat yowled in the sudden downpour as he fumbled the urn, and there was a brief moment of near-catastrophe when, in his attempt to catch it, he nearly tumbled himself into the trough. Inuyasha snorted and raised his eyebrows at the sight, leaving Shunsoku mortified. The embarrassed expression written over his features soon turned to a dubious one on hearing Inuyasha's request, but he nonetheless saddled a horse for himself and they were soon out the gates.

After exiting the keep, they traveled in silence for a while, broken only when Shunsoku tentatively pointed to a shallow outcropping a little ways up the mountain's slope to suggest that they first make their way there, where they would have a bird's-eye view of about half of Shiroyama. Inuyasha simply grunted and they resumed their quiet course, now off the road and enfolded in the forest.

Gradually, the trail steepened, and soon they were scrambling up a shoddy path through a bank of scree, sparsely forested with scraggly dwarf trees, the glistening dome of the mountain looming high overhead. Once Inuyasha paused to sniff the air and scowl to himself, but he quickly returned to the ascent, and the incident passed without comment.

In short time they made the outcropping. Inuyasha strode immediately to the edge and leaned against one of the boulders littering the ledge, looking out over the valley and listening with one ear as Shunsoku dismounted and followed his lead. Below them lay a shallow, thickly forested basin, the keep settled in amongst the trees. In pearly light of early morning, it looked insubstantial and unreal, dwarfed and overwhelmed by solid darkness and defined shapes of the trees surrounding its walls.

"So? Just how much of this is Shiroyama?"

Shunsoku took a deep breath before replying and stretched his arm out to point out the land's features as he described them. "The northern boundary is the edge of the forest to the north of the keep. Once you go past the keep it swings to the east - there's an old road that no one uses that it's following around the mountain. After you go most of the way around the mountain, there's a small river you have to follow until you get to the ford, and that pretty much puts you back at the northern border."

Inuyasha seemed to be listening intently, and Shunsoku continued, encouraged by this promising attitude.

"Besides the river and the mountain and the keep, there are a few villages and that's about it. There's not really much here."

Inuyasha nodded, privately relieved that he wouldn't have to deal with a large domain.

"Really, we can see everything there is to see today."

"Then let's go."

They got up and headed back down the slope, silent once more, Inuyasha strangely pensive and Shunsoku watching him closely. As they descended into the forest once again, his tense mood gradually lightened until finally, after perhaps a half-hour of travel, Shunsoku made bold to begin an interrogation.

"So what do you think of Shiroyama so far?"

Inuyasha shot him a funny look, and for a moment Shunsoku was sure that he wouldn't bother answering at all, but then he shrugged his shoulders and grunted out, "It's all right."

"Are your quarters to your liking?"

"They're all right."

"Have the servants done as you asked? If any of them are bad-mannered, I can talk with the steward and he can…"

"Would you stop pestering me?!"

"Sorry! Sorry!"

Silence resumed its dominance and they continued on their way. Inuyasha was back to scowling, and Shunsoku quietly fretted over his marked lack of success in questioning him. Finding Inuyasha had been something of a last ditch effort in their battle to keep Shiroyama, and ever since he'd first met him, Shunsoku had been privately wondering whether it might have been better to just give up and scramble along as best they could. Was it really safe to trust Shiroyama and, more importantly, Lady Usei to this… this… lout?

"…Lord Inuyasha?"

"What?"

"What do you think of Lady Usei?"

Inuyasha growled and stomped ahead of him without replying.

*****

It took a few miles before Inuyasha's exasperation relented enough to allow him to walk alongside Shunsoku's horse, rather than far out in front. Shunsoku seemed to have given up on questioning him for the moment, and had fallen to brooding moodily, a fact for which Inuyasha was intensely grateful. What the hell was he supposed to reply to something like that anyway? 'What do you think of Shiroyama? What do you think of Lady Usei?' He knew a loaded question when he heard it. Anyone in his right mind should have realized that he wasn't going to answer something like that, and that asking was just going to piss him off. Especially since he was trying to concentrate.

As they went, he had been taking note of the scents in the air, trying to determine what creatures might already living in Shiroyama. Plenty of birds and deer, some boar, and a few stray dogs, but he caught wind of no youkai. That, and the strange scent he had caught for a moment from the mountain worried him. It made no sense; Shiroyama should be crawling with youkai. It had many of the advantages of his own forest around Kaede's village - rich hunting, a ready source of water, and human fields to raid, but lacking a human presence large enough to be a danger. The explanation that leapt immediately to mind did nothing to ease his worries - if the youkai avoided Shiroyama, it was because there was something there powerful enough to pose a threat to them.

And that odd whiff of scent he had caught earlier, so elusive he almost thought he had imagined it but so strange he was sure he hadn't, made him wonder if whatever it was was living on his mountain.

*****

In time they reached one of the tiny villages Shiroyama laid claim to. It was mid-morning by now, and most of the villagers were out in the fields lining the dusty road they followed. Someone looking up from his hoeing saw them and gave a shout, pointing. Soon all those in the fields had paused their work to watch their progress down the road, hands shading their eyes in the glare. Inuyasha simply lifted his nose in the air and put on a haughty expression, but Shunsoku waved and called back to them.

They stopped briefly at the village square for Shunsoku to water his horse while Inuyasha glared sourly at a trio of scruffy children watching him from a doorway. While the horse gulped from a bucket and he rubbed its knotted withers, Shunsoku cautiously began an idle-sounding monologue, determined on another method to gauge Inuyasha's character.

"When we were children, sometimes Lady Usei and I would ride out here with one of the older servants."

Inuyasha made a softly indifferent noise, gaze still fixed on the other side of the village square, but did not protest, and Shunsoku continued on, slightly emboldened by the neutral-seeming response.

"In theory, she wasn't supposed to mix with the villagers. That was the reason I was brought long - so she'd have someone to play with besides them. In practice, of course, it didn't turn out that way. There was a lady - used to live right over there - who had two children we used to play with. Sometimes if we stayed long enough, she'd give us millet cakes to eat. That stopped when Lady Usei was about eight. I think her mother thought she was getting a bit too wild," he chuckled.

Inuyasha, though his eyes stayed glued to the house across the way, had cocked an ear towards him, and something about his posture suggested waiting. So Shunsoku kept talking and they exited the village to a steady forth-pouring of the mishaps and highlights of Usei's childhood, all their secret hiding places and childhood forts pointed out as they passed them.

As for Inuyasha, he listened intently to it all, though he tried hard to seem indifferent. Against his will, he found himself almost insatiably hungry for the details of Usei's life. He wanted to know about her. It was a new experience. The members of his group had been thrown into his acquaintance by circumstance - at first he had simply wanted them gone, out of his life. Even Kagome, who had reminded him too painfully of Kikyou, and before her,the miko herself, who had only been another enemy at first. Over time, though, he had learned the details of their lives and personalities, and grown to care for them - so slowly that he had not even realized it for a long time. He had never just met someone and wanted to know about them.

It bothered him. There was no logic to it. No reason at all that he should want to hear about the childhood adventures of a brat who'd lived in a castle all her life and had grown up to be his personal nuisance. Nevertheless, he did not stop listening.

*****

Eventually Shunsoku ran out of stories and they traveled again in silence - though this was a much easier one than the last. They were now following the old road Shunsoku had mentioned, still useable, though the forest had spilled onto its turns and bends, narrowing the path to the point of forcing them into single file, Inuyasha walking ahead and Shunsoku following on his horse. They were at the point at which the road most closely followed the rocky skirt of the mountain, the forest thin and the soil stony, when the wind shifted, and Inuyasha halted dead in his tracks.

Behind him, Shunsoku pulled his mare into a sharp halt and called out, "Lord Inuyasha? Is something wrong?" But Inuyasha remained immobile, his attention entirely focused on the scent blown down from the mountaintop.

The air had caught the faint, sharp scent of ice and frozen stone, though they were far from the snowline. But the strange odor he had smelled earlier was also there, and this time the wind did not tease it away from his nose. It was metallic and earthy. And strong, very strong. Its source was alive, and it was no animal that he had ever known, but its scent did not have the acrid, immediately identifiable bite to it that that of a youkai always possessed.

"Shunsoku. What do you know about the mountain?"

Shunsoku gave him a skeptical look, but answered nonetheless. "The mountain? There are plenty of stories about it…" He made as if to continue speaking, but the forbidding, thoughtful expression Inuyasha bore quickly stopped him.

They completed the trek in silence, turned once again guarded.

*****

Sango sat on a porch at one of the keep's side doors, Hiraikotsu slung across her lap, watching the village children run through the courtyard in a violent game of tag, boys and girls equally muddied and scrape-kneed. There would be a number of very dismayed mothers in the village tonight. The familiar scene reminded her of how only a week ago on a similar afternoon, she and Miroku had sat by the road in Kaede's village, watching life pass in its quiet, comfortable way, before this new mess had truly started.

As if to complete the resemblance, she heard footsteps from behind, and Miroku set himself down beside her. She edged cautiously away, but not too far. Miroku's lechery was, while unwelcome, at least familiar. He made smoothing motions in the air with his hands before clasping them around his staff, indicating that he wasn't in the mood for donating his attentions tonight. She did not move closer, but she did not continue her retreat, either. They sat silently, watching the dusty children run back and forth in front of them in wheeling patterns, like a quarreling flock of sparrows.

"What do you think of this?" he said softly. It was indication enough of how it weighed on both their minds that Sango did not have to ask what "this" was.

"Too much is happening too fast."

"I agree. I don't like it. The situation is too delicate for us to make mistakes."

Sango nodded in agreement, her expression moody. Discreet inquiries that morning had revealed the identity of the lord who had voiced his opposition in the audience the day before. Lord Uetake, who controlled the land surrounding a ford in the river that formed part of Shiroyama's border. A bad position to have an enemy occupy.

"And I think," she stated slowly, "that there is something they aren't telling us."

Miroku turned his head to watch her. "Do you?"

"They've been too accommodating. Aside from that one man, there was barely any protest when Inuyasha was announced as lord."

"In fact, one might almost think they wanted him to take the title," Miroku carefully completed her train of thought. "You think he's being set up?"

Sango shook her head and looked away. "I don't know."

Another brief silence fell over them. The scruffy children harried a ball back and forth amongst themselves, worrying at it with bony brown hands and feet. Sango rested her elbows on Hiraikotsu, propping up her chin as she absently tracked the ball's progress across the courtyard, the cries of its pursuers mingling with the faint chime of Miroku's shakujou as he shifted in thought.

"I wish Inuyasha were not so stubborn about this," he said at last, in an attempt to move the discussion in a less ominous, more productive direction. "It would be a lot easier to deal with if he would just let us help him."

"Inuyasha," Sango replied, her voice tight, "is stubborn about a lot of things."

Miroku caught the sudden change in her tone and threw her a curious glance. Was something about Inuyasha's recent behavior bothering her? Though she did not scowl, there was something very black about her expression as she watched the children race through the road, and her right hand traced the smoothed whorls of Hiraikotsu by memory - something she only seemed to do when deep in thought.

"He should not have growled at Lady Usei like that." The words were sharp and explosive, her expression still overcast.

Is that what it is? The way he acted toward Lady Usei…?

He watched Sango's face, now tense and dark in the midday shadows, puzzled at her frustration for a moment before it clicked. Sango's family. They were all dead, all but for Kohaku - and at this point Sango might even wish that he had died with the others. Miroku's family was dead as well - his father eaten up by Naraku's curse, and his mother long since dead by disease. Even Shippou was orphaned. In fact, up until recently, Kagome was the only one of their group who could claim a family.

Now Inuyasha had a chance to have one again and he wasn't doing anything about it. In fact, his reluctance to come to Shiroyama and his reaction to Lady Usei combined to give the impression that he intended to keep his newfound relation at arm's length.

Miroku found himself beginning to share Sango's anger. Inuyasha had a chance to have what they had all lost and he was throwing it away.

Finally, he forced himself to look away from Sango's dark expression and back the lanky urchins running around blithely in front of them. "No," he answered her, "he shouldn't have." Miroku's hands shifted around his staff with a faint slide of sweaty skin across metal, tightening in thought.

*****

Kagome sat at one of Shiroyama's battlements. Shippou rested beside her, bored and a little annoyed that he wasn't getting all of her attention. No, Kagome had been stewing over Inuyasha all day. They were, in fact, sitting at the battlements because from there they had a good view of the forest and the gates, and would be the first to know when he finally came back.

"This is really stupid. He's been gone for hours."

"I know, Shippou-chan."

"So let's go do something else. This is boring, and he's probably not going to show up anytime soon."

Kagome muttered something under her breath that sounded an awful lot like "He'd better show up soon" before answering Shippou. "I want to talk to him before he has a chance to disappear again on us."

"Good luck," said Shippou, a little miffed. Inuyasha could be sneaky when he wanted to be. He had gotten enough lumps by ambush to know that.

Kagome sighed, annoyed and a little worried at Inuyasha's latest stunt. She couldn't honestly say she hadn't seen it coming. Inuyasha was ridiculously stubborn and possessed of a considerable amount of pride. It was entirely like him to maintain that he didn't need help, despite knowing next to nothing about the situation and being obviously uncomfortable with it. If she had been thinking more clearly, she might have tried broaching the matter with a bit more subtlety, but her frustration over his behavior had been building for the entire week, and in the wake of the disaster with the floor… any delicacy she might have applied to the subject had gone sailing out the window.

Of course, the blame for the situation still rested ultimately on his shoulders.

Pig-headed idiot.

Well, the fact was he did need help, and he was going to get it whether he liked it or not. He wasn't going to get away from them…get away from her just by gallivanting off to parts unknown for a day. As soon as he got in that gate, she was going to corner him and give him a good talking to.

…That is, if she could get him to listen without being able to sit him.

With a small "hmph-ing" noise, she turned her attention back to Shippou, who was sulking slightly at her absorption, and began to tell him one of the many stories of Souta's exploits with his friends, intent on guiding her thoughts off the brooding path they threatened to tread. So they passed the time until finally a flash of white caught her attention, deep in the forest, moving rapidly toward the road. She stood up from her post and scooped Shippou up onto her shoulder when he called up at her from the ground.

"He's coming, Shippou-chan! Let's go."

"Finally!"

*****

As Inuyasha and Shunsoku stepped through Shiroyama's gates, a small troop of servants poured out of nowhere to surround them. Inuyasha irritably disentangled himself from them, leaving Shunsoku to see to his horse and the lingering servants both, and strode toward the keep, his expression pensive.

The more he thought about the thing on his mountain, the more uneasy he became. Stories about the mountain. Just what kind of stories? He hadn't wanted to ask Shunsoku - hadn't wanted to encourage him to keep asking nosy questions and, more importantly, hadn't wanted to let him know that he was uneasy about it.

Just as he reached one of the keep's side doors, he caught sight of Kagome, Shippou perched on her shoulder, bearing down on him at full speed.

"Inuyasha!"

He merely leveled her an annoyed glare before continuing on his way. If he knew Kagome, she still hadn't given up on the whole stupid "help" thing.

*****

Kagome slid to a momentary halt to grind out a brief epithet, and set Shippou on the ground again. If she were going to try and pry anything out of Inuyasha, it would be best not to give the two a chance to exchange taunts. Fortunately, she was quick enough to be able to catch a glimpse of his red clothing as she entered the door, moving rapidly but not quite yet out of sight. She followed him as discreetly as she could, hoping to corner him when he finally stopped.

At last, she reached a door at the end of the hallway he had gone down, and opened it to find a small garden. So this was where he'd disappeared to the night before. A twinge of exasperated amusement tugged at the edges of her mind. Trust Inuyasha to go to the trouble of finding a place with trees to brood in even in the midst of a castle.

Sure enough, she soon found him perched in the boughs of one of the garden's ornamental trees. The sight completely lacked the dignity and aloofness she had come to associate with Inuyasha's penchant for the arboreal, as the garden's trees had been pruned into painfully delicate asymmetry and purposely stunted to suit the small size of their environment. When Inuyasha took to the trees, he usually seemed so completely in his element that the scene's oddity was erased. Now however, he just looked ridiculous, perching grumpily on a low, thin branch, scowl firmly in place.

"Inuyasha!"

"What do you want?"

Kagome opened her mouth to tell him that she wanted him to stop being a stubborn idiot, but then thought better of it. Given how he had reacted the last time she had tried to get him to accept help, he would probably just close up immediately if she tried to go the same route. Of course, now that they were outside, she could always just sit him and make him listen… but then he'd probably just get even more stubborn and refuse to change his mind no matter how much sense her arguments made. So, fishing for some way to lead into the argument with some of the subtlety she had been so blatantly lacking in previously, she said the other thing that had been on her mind that day.

"Just where were you?"

Inuyasha sent her a suspicious sidelong look. He was pretty sure Kagome hadn't followed him all the way out here just ask him what he'd done that day. He'd hoped to lose her when he'd gone into the keep, but she'd been just a little quicker in disentangling Shippou than he'd expected, and once inside he'd belatedly realized that he'd wind up looking really stupid in front of a lot of people if he raced through Shiroyama with Kagome in hot pursuit.

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Around."

"That isn't helpful, Inuyasha."

"What gave you the idea that I was trying to be helpful?"

Actually, what he was trying to do was get her to go away. His tour of Shiroyama had given him a lot to think about.

"Inuyasha!"

"Fine! We went around the mountain, ok? Happy?"

"Oh." Kagome sighed and did her best to forge ahead with the conversation. "So why'd you go around the mountain?" In other circumstances, she would have guessed that he was just trying to get away for a while, but he wouldn't have taken Shunsoku with him to do that.

"Had to make sure there weren't any youkai around to worry about," he replied sullenly.

"I take it there weren't." If there were, she was sure Shunsoku would have looked more traumatized on their return.

A short pause on Inuyasha's part as he turned his head away, suddenly completely serious.

"No. There weren't." They all got frightened off by something stronger. Inuyasha's fingers rapped absently against the branch he sat on as he frowned in thought. The worst of it was that he didn't even know what it was. When he went to investigate it, as he would eventually have to, he would be going in blind.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome looked up at him, clearly annoyed, her brows starting to draw together as they always did when she was worried.

Inuyasha drew in a sharp breath. Kagome…Kagome can sense the shards of the Shikon no Tama…

"Do you sense anything odd about the mountain?"

"Eh?" she said, blinking at the sudden shift in topic. "Do you mean Shikon shards?" she asked, probing. It wouldn't do to go off on a shard-hunt now. Inuyasha merely made an annoyed hand gesture.

"No. Just see if you can find anything."

Kagome raised a skeptical eyebrow before closing her eyes to better concentrate. This conversation had taken a decidedly strange turn, but Inuyasha suddenly seemed almost…grim. Staring at the liquid darkness inside her eyelids, she extended that indescribable sense she used to find the Shikon shards, feeling first a powerful, turbulent surge of awareness as her inspection slid over Inuyasha, and then smaller flickerings of energy as she encountered lesser youkai nearby. Shippou registered as a bright, pulsing spark, and Kirara as a banked hearth - smoldering, but needing little incitement to blaze up. As her awareness extended beyond the keep's walls, she felt the sudden preponderance of the heavy, polished solidity of 'mountain.' She pushed her senses further, traveling up its pale-stoned slopes, and finally, perhaps midway up, discovered something anomalous.

Whatever it was, it was powerful and carried the forceful sense of sentience that most strong demons did. It was not, however, youkai. In some indescribable way, it did not taste like a youkai to her sixth sense. Her umbrella of awareness over the region collapsed abruptly, and she slowly blinked and sat up from the slouch she had automatically adopted. Her mouth felt dry and her eyelids tight, so she scrunched her face a little to try and get it back to normal.

"Well?"

Inuyasha had at some time during her scan dropped out of his tree and moved to sit across from her, and now voiced his query in a mixture of impatience and worry. She made a face at him before leaning forward to reply.

"You're right. There's definitely something there."

"Can you tell what it is?"

"No," she replied, shaking her head. "Exactly what brought this on?"

Inuyasha shifted uncomfortably, but continued to look straight at her, an ear flicking briefly in what could have been nervousness or uncertainty. "There are no youkai in Shiroyama," he stated flatly.

"What? None at all?" That didn't make any sense. Every place they went seemed to have its youkai.

"None."

"And you think this has something to do with whatever it is that's living on the mountain?" she asked carefully.

Inuyasha averted his gaze. "Keh. Well, something's sure scaring them away."

Silence held for a minute as they both pondered that disturbing piece of information. Finally Kagome mentally shook herself out of her reverie and remembered the original purpose of the conversation. Maybe this was what she needed to get him to let them help. He had actually requested her aid in investigating the entity on the mountain. Of course, she doubted that he had had any intention of doing so or that he had even thought about it, and he would probably just deny it if she pointed it out to him… but this was a situation in which she could do what Inuyasha clearly couldn't.

She could ask the people in Shiroyama about it, maybe even ask Lady Usei. People skills not being Inuyasha's strong suit, she doubted it would even occur to him to question them. And if it did, those he interrogated would most likely be less than forthcoming. If she did that and managed to find some clue to what it was up there on the mountain… Inuyasha must be very much disturbed by it to ask her to look for it, and so would have no choice but to accept the information. It might prove to him that there were things involved in this task that he couldn't handle himself - but that they could. It might persuade him that he needed their help.

A few minutes of watching Inuyasha look sullen and thoughtful convinced her that the conversation was at its end, and she got up to go, seeing his head suddenly lift as he tracked the movement.

"All right. I'll leave you to it, then."

Inuyasha watched her go, puzzled and not a little wary of that unexpectedly non-confrontational farewell.

*****

As she exited the garden, she was met with the sight of Sango leaning nonchalantly against the opposite wall, well out of line of sight from the door. Kagome's eyebrows raised, and Sango hastily put her a finger to her mouth, indicating quiet while flicking her gaze to the door. She caught the hint and moved quickly on her way, Sango falling into step at her side with the noiseless grace of a shadow. Once they were well away from Inuyasha's chamber, they drifted to the hall's side and Kagome began the interrogation.

"Sango? You were eavesdropping?"

"No." A brief, rather wry smile crossed the older girl's face as she shook her head in answer. "Inuyasha is very difficult to eavesdrop on. I heard he'd got back and was looking for you so we could go talk to him, but I take it you beat us to it."

"Mm-hmm."

Kagome recounted the whole of her conversation with Inuyasha and Sango listened intently, nodding occasionally. When she got to Inuyasha's newest worry, Sango interjected with a series of questions.

"Something living on the mountain? A youkai?"

"Not a youkai. I sensed it when I looked for it, but I don't know what it was."

Sango considered a moment, head tilted in thought, before replying.

"Maybe it was a kami."

Kagome considered the suggestion. Though she had met a kami before, the impression it had left on her sixth sense had been nothing like that of the mountain's inhabitant. The lake kami had felt bright and active, her psychic print marked by complex layers, nothing at all like the solid, nearly opaque presence she felt on the mountain. Then again, not all youkai felt the same to her, so there was no ruling out the possibility.

"Maybe… But why would the youkai avoid it?"

Sango nodded her head in acknowledgement of the point, and Kagome cleared her throat a little nervously.

"I was thinking that maybe we should ask around about it. If it is a kami, the people here ought to know something about it, right?

Sango gave her a considering look, perhaps guessing at the cause of her sudden motivation, but said nothing.

"Yes, someone should know something about it." Another short pause came before she continued. "If you like, the houshi and I will talk to the people in the village and you can have the keep."

A brief smile lit Kagome's face. "You'll help? Thanks Sango."

"Don't mention it." A brief frown touched Sango's face before she resumed her speech, a crisp deliberateness notable in her voice that had not been there before. "Perhaps you should first try to talk to Lady Usei? She probably knows a lot about Shiroyama's history."

"Oh! That's a good idea. But do you think they'll let me talk to her?"

"Probably." Sango smiled in amusement. "I doubt they can refuse Lord Inuyasha's friends."

Kagome just barely had time to snort, "Lord Inuyasha indeed!" before she collapsed into a fit of giggles.

*****

AN: First and foremost, many thanks to Chri for beta-reading. This chapter has benefited greatly from his advice.

Well. Long time, no update. I'll try not to let that happen again, but while school's still in session, I can't guarantee anything. No matter what happens, though, this thing isn't dead. In any case, thanks for sticking around and reading it. I hope it was worth the wait in the end.

AmunRa - Hm. See what you mean about the past. I guess it is a bit deceptive. Glad you're enjoying the way the story's progressing, though. Hopefully I'll be able to sustain your interest for the entire thing.

Calendar - Absolutely. You should feel very special. Now you're the first reviewer to growl at me. ;) Seriously, though, thanks.

Kristen Sharpe - Glad you're still excited about this - I am too, so this ought to prove a mutually beneficial relationship.

Kris-chan - I know I sometimes go overboard on the detail (which makes the story rather unreadable), so it's comforting to know that you're getting the effect I intended. As for the politics, I'm going to keep my mouth firmly shut on the matter of who is up to what, but suffice to say that the situation is complicated enough that I have it plotted down in scratchy handwriting and taped to the wall next to my computer.

Karris - Well, I need to live up to my major, after all. I'm glad that it feels authentic, though - I am doing a bit of research for this story (partially, admittedly, because I'm a masochist like that and I like research), and I'm happy that it's paying off.

Melodylink - Vale…? Hablas espanol? Vaya, chica… Anyway, don't worry about it - I didn't think you were heckling me about updates. And even if you had, given the significant time lapse between the last chapter and this, I could hardly blame you. In any case, thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy it.

empressinuyasha - Wow, I'm flattered. Thanks! Glad I managed to fill a mostly-empty niche in IY fanfiction.

keebler-elmo - Story is by no means ditched. Will definitely be finished.

Tory.Annon - Trust me, you're by no means the world's worst reviewer. Thanks for reading (and reviewing)!

Thiemo Günther - Thanks for your honest review. Funny about the similarity you noted in the opening chapter to Ranma ½ - I've never read the manga. Pure luck, I guess, that it came out that way. In any case, as you can now see, abuse of the "sit" command won't be an issue here - it annoys me to no end when Kagome starts using it right and left in a story. I won't comment in any depth on the rest of your review, as I don't want to spoil my own story, but many thanks for your opinion, and I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Selenity Jade - I already told you most of what I wanted to say, so I won't repeat myself here, but I've got to thank you once again, at least - you completely bowled me over (in a good way!) with all those reviews in quick succession. :)

And that's it for now. Once again, many thanks to all of you for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed it.