InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ This Can't Be Good ❯ Just a Suggestion ( Chapter 7 )

KURAMA: Thank the Fates; my taxi is here. Do you remember what I told you?

I should only sell your likeness on the internet if I want to meet a lawyer demon.

KURAMA: As Botan would put it: Bingo!

Are lawyer demons cute too?

KURAMA: I'm leaving now.

Does foxy-bish.net count as the internet?

KURAMA: Yes!

See you later.

KURAMA: That is not likely. It's been nice meeting- ...it's been an experience. (Hops into taxi.)

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Sango had thought the tour would be short. Kaede's village was one like so many others that she had visited during her time as a taijiya and the quest for the shards, but Hojo's eyes had grown too large for the world to fill. He never seemed to run out of questions - how did the farming equipment work? Were the rice fields just for this place or did they send or sell to others? How many people lived here? He asked the village women about the dialect that they spoke, the clothes they wore, and the way they tied their hair - and all so politely as to make these married ladies blush as if the strange young man had made them young again.

What sort of creature had Kagome brought back through the well?

"It's amazing!" he exclaimed at last, "I'd always wondered what a place like this would really look like!"

"A village?" Sango asked gently.

Hojo nodded as he walked toward another unwitting villager. "A real village, not reconstructed... And the air is so clean!"

Sango gave him an odd look at that. Kagome covered a smile. The air had smelled clean enough out in the woods, but this was a place where humans lived. ...or more specifically, where humans and their animals lived. The overall scent of the village wasn't unpleasant - in fact, Sango found something reassuring in the sense of a human place - but "clean" wasn't one of the words she'd have picked to describe it.

"No chemicals," Kagome explained to Sango. "You know the medicines in my first-aid kit?"

Yes... Those things did tend to smell awful, for all the wonders they worked.

"Oh."

Kagome frowned, "You seem terribly quiet today, Sango. Is something wrong?"

"No!" she said immediately, looking back to where Hojo was talking with some children.

"No?" Kagome raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you don't want to-"
"Isn't the old bat back yet?" came a familiar sneer.

"Not yet, Inuyasha," Sango clipped out an answer without turning around.

"How's the runt doing?"
Sango shook her head. Since when did Inuyasha care enough to ask, anyway? I haven't even seen Shippo since Kagome arrived. "I suppose he's doing as he usually does."

The dog demon made a surprised sound, and Kagome's frown deepened for a moment.

"It was just a question, bitch. Since when do you act like such a-"
"Inuyasha!"

"Ow!"

Sango turned away from watching Hojo to see that Kagome had stalked up to Inuyasha and was tugging hard on one of his forelocks..

Her voice dropped, but Sango barely made out, "I thought we had an agreement."

Her mind stilled. What sort of arrangement would Kagome make with Inuyasha? There was little that she could not compel from him with Kaede's rosary.

"What? Our deal means I can't call him names any more?"

Kagome released Inuyasha's hair, "I guess it doesn't," she admitted.

"See? Don't get worked up over nothing; I'll keep my end of it."

Sango blinked. A deal involving Shippo?
"Alright, you can say whatever you want to him if he pesters you, but no hitting him. None whatsoever."
"Ease off; I remember!" the dog demon folded his arms into his sleeves and looked away. Sango's thoughts flew. Kagome had promised something that Inuyasha wanted badly enough to leave off hitting Shippo? But, aside from taunting Kagome and killing demons, that had to be his favorite thing to do!

There was no question but that Kagome felt responsible for the kitsune cub, perhaps even blamed herself for scattering the shards which the Thunder Brothers had used to kill Shippo's father. She looked after the boy and now she wanted Inuyasha to stop dealing with him so violently. It made sense, but it would have taken more than an appeal to the dog demon's benevolent nature.

There was no way that Kagome had promised him the Shikon no kakera, or the jewel itself once it was complete. She knew what Inuyasha could become if he absorbed their corrupt power, and Sango was sure that even Kagome would rather see him dead. What else could she...

The dog demon sniffed, swiping Kagome's hand away, "Don't get your skirt in a knot."

"Why you..."

No.

Sango looked Kagome up and down.

Certainly not.

Kagome might dress strangely, and from her books and stories, her people had a different idea of womanly virtue, but...

But everyone knew that she loved Inuyasha - everyone but Inuyasha, perhaps - and then there was the half-demon's often violent jealousy where Kagome's attention was concerned…

Is this some act of desperation? Perhaps Shippo is just an excuse, and she thinks that this may win him from Kikyo.

Sango worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Every village had some unfortunate girl who'd gone to foolish lengths to win a boy's love. Their fates were rarely kind, and their neighbors even less so. Surely Kagome was wiser than that.

"I think we both know that I'm not the one who has the faulty memory," Inuyasha shot back, " So quit harping, already; you sound like a sick rooster."

"Oooooh! SIT!"

The dog demon let out a startled, "Gowf!" as he hit the packed dirt of the village square.

Sango allowed herself a sigh.

Perhaps I worry too much.

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Miroku made it to the village center in time to see Inuyasha hit the ground and Kagome stalked off with Sango in tow. He staggered the last few paces, dropping down to catch his breath, next to the twitching dog demon.

"I know Kagome's trick with the rosary isn't one of your favorite experiences, Inuyasha," he managed, "but sometimes it's the only way a poor monk like me can catch up with you."

Inuyasha muttered into the dust.

Miroku blinked, "Now that was hardly called for."

Inuyasha pried himself off the ground and shook his head from side to side, flicking his ears to rid them of the last of the dust. "What do you want, priest?" he growled.

"Aside from seeing to it that Kagome's-" he eyed Hojo in the distance, "-guest is not overly comfortable? You ran off before you could tell me what you meant." His gaze grew intent. "As you left, I remembered something about Hojo having a talisman."

Inuyasha glared at the oblivious Hojo with a growl. The brown-haired boy had said something to make Kagome laugh. "If I stand still for much longer," the words came low between his teeth, "I think I might break an arrangement that I don't want to break."

Miroku blinked. An arrangement..? He shook his head and decided to wonder about it later.

"The talisman, Inuyasha," he pressed.

"Yeah," Inuyasha pulled himself to a sitting position. "Kagome said something about that chunk of glass around his neck. Said it felt funny," he imitated her high-voiced pout, "and then she shoved my face into the ground and jumped through the well." His face soured, "I dug myself out of the floor and went after her, and the next thing I knew, the ugly runt was standing there, holding one of Kagome's spellbooks."

Miroku paused, making what he hoped looked like the thoughtful gesture of rubbing his chin with one hand. Actually, he'd stopped listening about halfway through Inuyasha's speech, as he fixed his eyes on Sango, as she quietly leaned Hiraikotsu against a post and watched Hojo pester some hapless villager about his mule. Merciful Buddha, she looked good enough to dip in honey and eat a lick at a time. ...the girl, not the mule. Without the bulky weapon slung on her back, Miroku had a clear view Sango's profile.

"-stupid fuck said he tripped."

"Hm..." Miroku rubbed his chin again.

Sango's plain yukata wasn't nearly as kind to Miroku's less monkly impulses as that form-fitting armor of hers but-

Did you drop something on the ground, Sango? Better pick that up. ... Thank you.

"What I don't get is why he was able to get through the portal at all," Inuyasha's griping finally dragged him back to the matter at hand. "Shippo wasn't able to do it, even when he had Kagome's jewel shards."

Miroku pondered, for real this time, and finally answered, "It seems Kagome was perceptive as usual - the talisman around young Hojo's neck may be the key."

"So in other words," Inuyasha's eyes went bright, "if I rip the damn thing off his puny hide, he won't be able to come bother us anymore."

"It's a definite thought," he agreed.

"Alright, then!" something about the dog demon's voice was too emphatic.

"Inuyasha, what are you-"

But he had already become a red blur, streaking toward the Hojo and the others.

Something in Miroku went tight and cold.

"Oh no."

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Kaede returned her horse to its keeper at the edge of the fields, and began to walk toward her own house in the village proper, grateful for the warmth of the day in her old bones.

As she came closer, however, the sound of voices, bright with trouble, met her ears.

"Inuyasha!" she recognized the young monk, "Wait! We don't know for sure yet!"

"What-?! Inuyashaaaa!!" Kagome and no other.

"I think there must be some mistake -urk!" Kaede frowned and quickened her steps. This last voice was unfamiliar, but the choking sound was not.

"Inuyasha, what trouble have you brought to me this time?" the priestess murmured to herself.

"Grrr... This thing's tougher than it looks."

"Inuyasha, put Hojo-kun down right now or I'll-"

Kaede stepped into view just in time to see Inuyasha with his claws only inches from a young man's throat, tugging insistently at what looked like a length cut from a frayed bowstring. Kagome's face was dark with anger, as Sango drew hiraikotsu up above her head for a blow. Behind it all there was Miroku, sealed hand outstretched as he ran toward them.

And then there was a light.

"What the-?!"

"Careful there!"

Kaede shielded her eyes as the glowpoint swelled like a tempest, suddenly thinking that her bones wouldn't need quite so much heat as this until she was ready to be burned and set to earth beside her sister's grave. In the flash before her arm went up, she barely registered Kagome reaching out with both hands to Inuyasha.

And then it passed.

Kaede opened her eyes to a black scorch mark, perfectly round, and bigger across than a grown man was tall. Miroku had just managed to sit up, numbly brushing ash from his robes, at one edge, and Sango was blinking dazedly from another. Further in, Kagome leaned up from where she'd shielded Inuyasha, who looked more than a little singed. The dog demon's arm twitched, and Kaede nearly winced in sympathy.

And at the center, unharmed, not even touched with soot, was a boy with strange clothes and cropped hair.

The stranger's voice was barely above a whisper as he regarded the scene before him.

"...oops."

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Look who's back.

KURAMA: (Jumps out of returning taxi) You know why I'm here.

Yes, but say it anyway.

KURAMA: You have two minutes to return my boxers!