InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ To Catch a Falling Star ❯ the earth exists to grow toadstools ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six

He had pretended to doze, the crisp scent of the tree light on the cool autumn air, when Kagome had leaped onto the branch to land beside Inuyasha, sending the bough of the pine shaking under her weight. "I found you!" she said, delight strong in her scent and her voice.

Inuyasha opened one eye at her. "Took you long enough," he said. The smile didn't leave her lips; damn. She could guess that he was as pleased as she: the trail he'd laid for her hadn't been easy at all; in fact, it had been the most challenging yet of the tricks and traps with which he'd tested her tracking ability.

He sighed gustily and sat up, claws digging, like hers had, into the uneven bark of the pine tree to maintain his hold as the branch shook again, the green needles twisted by the cool breeze. His claws would be all sap-covered and sticky later, but he'd picked the pine for the bit of coverage it provided; all the other trees but the evergreens had already lost their leaves to plucking fall winds.

"But I did find you," Kagome repeated, eyes sparkling in triumph.

"Yeah, yeah," Inuyasha grumbled. Averting his glance from her, he said, "All you've done is prove you've got as good a nose and more brains than a dog, and can use them." One of the things he liked best about her was how transparently her emotions were displayed on her face; so unlike Kikyou's eternal coolness. She hadn't looked more than blandly tolerant even when she dragged that bastard Naraku to hell with her. He shook his thoughts away from her and slid a look at Kagome from the corner of his eye. Fuck. Her smile had started to fade; was he that obvious about whom he was thinking? Hurriedly, he reached out and touched the tips of her damply curling hair, trying to school his voice to its usual harshness as he said, "Did you try to drown yourself following me?"

Kagome's rich brown eyes were a little too steady on his face before she smiled again, the pleasure in her success surfacing once more. "No. I just slipped a bit when I was on the log over the stream, that's all. I was bending over to make sure you'd climbed out of the river onto it, rather than doing something sneaky like tossing your haori at it instead."

He sighed with exaggerated exasperation. "Hands and knees, bitch. I know you don't like how it makes you look, but your balance is off when you try to check scents on the ground by bending over."

"Hai, hai," Kagome said quickly, a flush rising and subsiding quickly as she tried to placate him, damnit. Then she bounced a little, sending the tree branch trembling beneath them. "So I did well?"

"Fuck! You'll knock us to the ground if you aren't careful," Inuyasha said angrily.

"But I did well? Tell me I did well!" Kagome demanded, smile curving mischievously. She wasn't going to let him get away without a compliment. Fuck.

"Fine. Yeah, you did well. You'll be able to track the kit the next time he tries to hide from a chore, unless he pulls one of his floaty bubble tricks." She was pretty competent; she had a good nose, but also some cleverness in figuring out extra details from what she could smell, and that was what set them apart from dogs. And since her miko powers hadn't seemed to have been effective in months, her efforts were entirely based on what he'd taught her.

He had thought, for a while, that maybe she wasn't even a miko anymore; but Kaede kept her in the miko's hut for hours every morning, and Kagome said she was trying to learn to break the rosary, so he figured there had to be something there still. He almost, but not quite, regretted the lack of any Shikon shards with which to test her; but unless someone made another and then shattered it, he supposed that was not going to happen. Fucking stupid jewel--deciding that her wish was the last bit of purification it needed to sway its internal struggle and then disappear in a bunch of fucking stupid sparkly lights like when it had first shattered.

To distract her from his words as much as himself from his thoughts, Inuyasha pushed down abruptly with his feet, making the bough bend alarmingly beneath them. Kagome, being further from the trunk, clutched it tightly. "What--" Inuyasha moved towards her, taking care to step in time with the swaying of the branch so that his weight exaggerated its movement still further. Kagome eyed him nervously as he crowded her, backing up one step towards the end of the branch. Pressing his advantage, Inuyasha forced her back another step. "Inuyasha. . . ." As he advanced again, the branch began to bow alarmingly under her weight when she inched backwards. Her eyes rounded with dismay; after another shake she dropped, falling feet-first onto the ground below with a crackling of dead leaves as she landed.

"Keh." Inuyasha leaped down more lightly after her, brushing bits of bark off his hakama. "That--"

A shove from behind sent him sprawling face-down onto the ground; before he could spit out anything besides a disgusted, "Hell!" a weight settled onto his back, smaller hands reaching out to grab his own. He hid a smirk, easily rising to hands and knees. A twist dumped Kagome to the earth with a choked laugh from her, and the next second he was leaning over and pinning her wrists to the ground. "The legs. Shit, how many times will I have to tell you? Unless you weigh down the legs, you're as easy to dislodge as Shippou." He glared down at her, hoping his inner amusement wasn't betrayed by his expression. He wouldn't have liked to admit it to her, but some of the stuff he'd been trying to teach her had been more enjoyable than he would ever have suspected.

Kagome stared up at him, pupils narrow against the sun almost swallowed by the darkness of her brown irises. He dropped his gaze lower. Her mouth quirked at its corners, a grin teasing about its edges. "Legs, huh?" Looking slyly self-satisfied, Kagome drew hers up, feet aiming towards his gut as she kicked like a hare.

That got Inuyasha off her with a huff of sharply expelled breath as he fell to the ground and slid a short distance; the next moment she was atop his legs. Her own twisted behind her as she tried to use her weight to pin him and snare his feet with hers to keep him from kicking. Leaves crackled beneath them, the scent of autumn earth and leaf-mold clinging to both of them. His snarl, given with ears tilted to the sides, neither aggressively pricked forward nor pinned back in annoyance, was met with a snarl from her, too, as he caught her hands with his and laced their fingers so that she couldn't scratch. Enjoyable, hell. Enjoyable was too mild to cover it. It was fun, pretending to fight with her and knowing she was learning from it.

Kagome's snarl stuttered into a laugh as he pushed against her hands, ignoring his legs and using the strength of his torso to lever his shoulders off the ground. As he kept pushing, she laughed harder, the force of her resistance lessening with each breath. "Inuyasha--Inuyasha, be--careful--I saw--" A final shove sent her toppling over, legs tangled with his as she landed on her back. Of course, he had gotten his wish. He only hoped she didn't hate him entirely after what he was going to have to do to make sure she didn't go into heat at winter's end.

She smiled at him, her dark hair spilling over the ground and her eyes shining; he arched an eyebrow in response, trying to keep his thoughts from his face. "I think I fell on some mushrooms. That was what I was trying to tell you," Kagome said, voice still breathless with amusement. She shifted, arching her back long enough to slip a hand underneath and pull out something, a bit of limp white and broken brown. Even without a breeze, the musty odor of the fungi hung strongly in the air. Kagome tipped her hand and let the broken bits spill to the ground. "It's good Sango doesn't know these are here. She'd have us spending all day finding more to satisfy her strange-food cravings," she said.

Inuyasha huffed at the suggestion; he was looking forward to the time the taijiya pupped and wouldn't be wheedling them to go find all sorts of weird shit for her to eat. He wanted to cringe just thinking about it: not only had she managed to get him to find some early daikon for her, but then she'd wanted it pickled in sake lees, with which the houshi had "declined to have congress," and Kagome said the smell of made her nose water. So it had been left to him and Kohaku to do something about it, with the result that the house still stank of spoiled sake. He was glad the weather was still clear enough that they could still sleep outside, because now the smell made his nose water.

Then Kagome grinned at him. "So, tell me again. I did well?"

* * *

It wasn't too long after Inuyasha had satisfied himself with Kagome's progress in tracking that Sesshomaru arrived. A few days later had been the winter's first snowfall; the day after that was when Sesshomaru had put in his appearance as promised-or, rather, as Kagome had wrangled the acquiescence out of him--to let Rin visit for the season.

Kagome hadn't wanted to spend as much time training once Rin had arrived, but Inuyasha had come up with what he felt was a very clever way of getting her to continue: he just made noises about how much he missed sleeping in trees, and suddenly she was amenable to spend more time on the training.

They had moved inside to sleep when the onset of the snowfall made sleeping on the ground impractical. Inuyasha had tried to interest Kagome in sleeping in trees--for safety, nothing beat a tree: few people, youkai or human, looked up as often as they looked straight forward--but Kagome had said she moved around so much that she was afraid she'd squirm right out of it. Inuyasha had to admit it was true; however they started out, side to side, back to back, by morning he was on his back and she had invariably adopted his stomach as her pillow.

He always woke up first, just before dawn, and would just take in her scent and watch the flicker of expressions across her features as she rose toward wakefulness, the way her dark eyelashes would tremble against her cheek, her eyebrows arch, and her mouth open. It was about then that he'd slip out from beneath her, when she wasn't so near wakefulness that the movement would disturb her, and head outside. He didn't want to see the expression in her eyes when she awoke and remembered all that had happened to her--a pathetic way for him to act, but he preferred it to seeing her struggle not to reject herself now or him as the source of her situation.

So Rin's arrival didn't interrupt the training, though there were no trees at night, either. Inuyasha didn't particularly like sleeping indoors. All you could smell around you was house, with odd eddies of outdoor scents where the windows let in air. You also couldn't see what might be coming. But, he admitted reluctantly, he himself did sleep easier, even indoors, than when on his own in a tree. He'd get Kagome into a tree eventually, though, he was sure; in the meantime, it was probably better to wait at least until she could handle long or tall jumps smoothly.

Kagome had a freaking stupid habit of wanting to land on her toes when making a jump, so he had spent the morning trying to work her into a new habit through repetition. "Fuck it, you have to land on your heels, bitch. Your heels. Otherwise you'll break every last toe on your foot, and then where will you be?"

Kagome looked up through her bangs from where she sat on the edge of the well, cradling her foot in her lap. Her dark hair and trousers contrasted strongly with the patches of melting snow and sere grass that surrounded the well; her expression, however, was not the least bit apologetic; if he didn't tread carefully, they'd end up nose-to-nose trading insults with one another. Not that he really minded that-there was a certain attractiveness in her bared fangs, narrowed eyes, and back-tilting ears that Inuyasha suspected meant he was just as perverted as Miroku in the long run-but it wasn't very productive.

"My heel hurts because I stepped on a stone too hard. It's bruised," Kagome said, shooting him a glance through her hair that seemed to accuse him as the responsible party.

Ignoring the snow, he crouched on his heels not far in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest. "Let me see." When she stuck her foot out at him, he looked at it. Her sole was wet from snow, toes pink with the chill. There was a small dimple in her heel, presumably from the stone; it hadn't cut her flesh. "Keh!" he snorted, averting his face, "that's nothing. Only a pup would be bothered by that."

Kagome abruptly let her foot fall, her ears turning back. "I'm not a pup," she said, patently displeased.

"That's why," Inuyasha said, as if explaining the obvious, "you're going to get up and try again. From the well to the shrine and back, run."

Kagome took her own sweet time sliding off the lip of the well. He eyed her, thinking about saying something of it; her explanation so many weeks ago when Kouga had been needling him was as apt for her sometimes as it was for the wimpy wolf or any of the others. Then with a whip of cloth, she was leaping from point to point. He watched closely as she progressed across the meadow: heel--heel--toes, damnit--heel.

Inuyasha huffed in satisfaction at the success of his motivating her. It had been accidental, finding out that Kagome disliked being called a pup; he could get her to do almost anything he wanted if he dangled that in front of her. That had meant taxed him a few times to find ways around telling her that some of the things he was teaching her used techniques and games more common to pups than adults. The ones he couldn't slip by her-like hide-and-seek as preparation for tracking-he pulled Shippou in on, and told her that they were doing it like that because the kit needed to learn, too. Which was true enough, though if he had been concerned with teaching the kit alone he would have waiting for spring. But he hadn't liked the idea of leaving her so ignorant so long.

Getting up, he peered into the well. It was shadowed and dark, nothing more than a dry well for either of them ever since Kagome had made the wish on the Shikon jewel. He should have been watching her more closely then, particularly when she began to bring boxes through to their side rather than her usual monster-sized satchel, but he hadn't thought she would be so, so quick to make up her mind; and he hadn't thought she'd do it in such a way as to seal herself on this side. He hadn't thought much at all about it, really. And now it seemed like he couldn't stop. He sat down on the edge of the well, feeling disgruntled. Being pack leader was not fucking easy.

A flash of movement caught his eyes: it was Kagome darting down the shrine steps. I could have done it more quickly than that, Inuyasha thought, watching critically. Maybe she was being slow from caution. She still moved with awkwardness, but more fluidly than when she had been wholly human--not at all like a cat as Shippou had once or twice compared her to. Cats, the animals and youkai both, were more finicky and precise in their motions. Wolves had a businesslike casualness to theirs; dogs were more relaxed and less intense, unless they got roused--at which point their fierceness surpassed that of wolves.

Kagome might be cautious, but she hadn't the least bit of the sly restraint which had brought that fucking wimpy wolf coming around to dangle his new territory under Kagome's nose like a lure. After he had said he wouldn't--Inuyasha tried recalling exactly what Kouga had said. Something about not needing to bothered, and then . . . yes. It's become apparent to me where her interest lies. That's what the wolf had said the night after they'd defeated Naraku. He hadn't actually said that he'd give up; just not to worry. Shit. Inuyasha pictured an endless stream of Kouga-visits, each bringing news of some new treat his territory had to offer, like hot springs. A growl rose in his throat, thinking of it. With her fetish for water, if she was sufficiently pissed off with him by spring--no. He wasn't even going to think of it.

When Kagome fetched up against the well next to him with a thump seconds later, using it to kill the last of her speed, he'd regained sufficient equilibrium to know that at least his scent wasn't going to alert her to his state of mind. "Oi, you'll fall in," he cautioned sharply, grabbing the back of the haori she wore.

She looked down into it for a moment. "I . . . won't go anywhere," she said, then smiled at him.

"Break some bones, most likely," he grumbled, letting go of her and shoving his hands up his sleeves.

"Hn." Kagome hitched herself up to sit next to him on the edge of the well, her breath audible as she sought to calm down. He wouldn't have been out of breath from that run. Was she not that strong? He frowned. They hadn't done anything, really, that would give him an idea about that; even their occasional wrestling was more a matter of weight and experience than out-and-out strength.

Inuyasha felt Kagome glance at him, then away, and slid a look at her himself. She really was beautiful, with the dark glossiness of her hair and ears, the rich earthen brown of her eyes, pupils narrowed against the pale wash of winter sunlight, the subtle planes of her muscles and gentle curves of her body. Inuyasha shoved himself off the well, standing in a much-trampled patch of snow which squelched up between his toes. Thinking along those lines was fucking dangerous.

"Get up," he said peremptorily. "Let's do it again."

"Mou. Again?"

He turned away from her, assessing places distant enough that he could get up to his top speed. The forest was too close, and the trees would slow them both. "To the far side of the rice paddies," he said finally.

"Right through the village?" Kagome asked; he was surprised to hear a note of dismay in her tone.

Facing her, he said slowly, "We won't bother anyone: it's too early. If that's what you're worrying about."

Kagome nodded, plucking at the hem of her haori and studying its decorative red stitching. "I understand." Dropping the dark blue cloth, the smiled up at him. "Shall I start?" Her smile wasn't right at all. It was if she were wearing some fucking Noh mask all of a sudden.

"No," Inuyasha said sharply, reaching out to grab her shoulder as she started to collect herself. "What's this about the villagers, bitch?"

"It's nothing," she said, her ears turning back at his growl. He was not going to let her brush him off with some half-assed comment like that.

"It's just a few of them, alright? I'm going to take care of it," Kagome said defensively.

Voice rough with the angry growl that wanted to turn into a snarl, Inuyasha asked, "What are they doing?" Images from his childhood presented themselves to him; he shook them away with a jerk of his head. What the hell had he been thinking when Kagome made that damn wish? "I wish she were a hanyou so she can understand how bigoted humans can be"? Fuck! That's not anything he would have wished on her.

"Nothing really," Kagome said. Shit. Now she was trying to reassure him. Some pack leader he was. Kagome smiled at him again, this one more genuine as she said in the tone of someone confiding a joke, "They just don't think a miko could become a youkai without having become somehow corrupt."

Inuyasha snorted at the ridiculousness of the suggestion.

"You see?" Kagome said encouragingly. "As soon as I get my miko abilities under control, I'll do something miko-ish and it'll all be settled."

"Miko-ish?" he said, incredulous at the absurdity of the word. Only Kagome would treat the idea so casually. He supposed they could--fuck it--follow the wimpy wolf's example and find a new place to live, but Kagome wouldn't like it. Every so often, they'd pass by a spot where she'd stop and tell him, "And this is where, when I was four--" and relate some incident of her childhood. And he didn't think that Sango would enjoy moving, either. She'd really taken to the whole house thing, and not just because she was pregnant.

"Ne, Inuyasha, you know what I mean. I'm just following your example."

He blinked. "What?"

Kagome reached up to touch his hand on her shoulder. With a start, he released her, only to have her catch his hand and clasp it loosely between her own. "Whenever someone has said something negative about being a hanyou to you, you don't try to force them to change their mind. You're just yourself, and your actions show them how mistaken they were."

"Oh," he said, at a loss. He hadn't known she thought of him that way. It made him sound sort of . . . responsible. He didn't try to restrain the cocky grin that surfaced in response. He'd see what was going on with the villagers and make up his own mind, but for now-- "So you admit I know better, then."

"Baka," Kagome said, letting his hand go and mock-scowling at him, her ears turned to the sides. "Not about everything. Otherwise you wouldn't have forgotten about this run. To the far side of the paddies, you said?"

"Keh," Inuyasha groused. "It's not a run. It's a race. I want to see if you can keep up with me."

Kagome was dubious. "Oh." He gave her his hands, both of them this time, to help her slide off the well. As she stood, he moved away and crossed his arms.

"You'll start, I'll catch up," he instructed her. She nodded, starting off toward the village at a forward-leaning run; he'd taught her that. It shifted your weight to your toes, which was good for speed, and being off-balance just that much as you leaned added to your forward momentum.

It only took Inuyasha a moment to catch up with her. He had never mentioned to anyone how much he liked running: the swiftness of it, the rush of air past his ears and whipping his clothes and hair. As Inuyasha passed Kagome, however, he heard the beat of her stride shift as she quickened her pace to match his own. Speeding up, they pounded through the slushy streets of the village--and Kagome paced him. Her breathing was harsh, but she was actually doing it. He was going as fast as he could, but he wasn't alone: Kagome had kept up with him.

Kept up, that was, until she gave a great gasp and stumbled to a halt. Inuyasha slowed, straightening and thudding his heels into the ground, then turned back to her just short of the paddies gleaming a brown bristle-studded gray under the flat skies.

Kagome had doubled over, hands pressed to one side. There was a spike of pain in her scent, but no blood. Inuyasha's hot delight cooled into anxiety. "Kagome!" He bent, putting his face on a level with hers. "Are you alright?"

Between gasping breaths, Kagome angled her face towards him. Her eyes were bright with victorious delight, only a twinge of discomfort evident in her features. He relaxed minutely. Still pressing her hands to her side, she said, "Inuyasha. Did you--see that? You couldn't--shake me that easily."

"Are you alright?" he demanded again.

"Y-yes," Kagome said, her breathing becoming less labored. She straightened slowly. "It's . . . just a stitch. A muscle cramp. I'm alright."

He straightened too, relieved. Then scowled. She shouldn't be making him worry like that. "Keh," he scoffed. "If it's because you're weak, you know what that means."

Kagome dropped her hands from her side in rapid dismay. "Inuyasha, I'd like to see Rin while she's here to visit, not just listen to her sleeping!"

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at her. Kagome had been helping Miroku with classes he'd started for some of the village children after the rice harvest was in, and she was spending time working on the rosary, and helping Kaede, and Sango as the taijiya's pregnancy had progressed. But her training had priority in his mind. "I know what to do," he said with enough mildness that he surprised a startled glance from Kagome. He began head towards the house; before them, the village was starting to come awake in the cold morning as white plumes drifting up from the houses' smoke-holes began to thicken, fires being stirred to life.

"What?" Kagome asked, wary suspicion evident in her voice as she began to follow him. He led her through the village on purpose; if anyone was out to see them, he'd watch their reaction to her.

"You'll see. Hurry up. Let's go see if Sango's ready to pop yet."

* * *

Inuyasha took advantage of a dry day a couple of weeks after Sango had given birth to put his idea into play. The most recent snowfall had finally melted away, leaving the ground frozen, but no longer a morass of slush and mud; Sango, with the baby well-wrapped and Kirara warming her feet, had a neighbor's company on the porch where both could watch the proceedings ranged between the house and the forest's verge. Twilight was setting in: the shadows on the ground were as dark as the sky would shortly become; a few lanterns stood ready should they desire the illumination once it became difficult to see.

"So Miroku, you and Kohaku try to attack her--singly at first, but you can team up if she manages to evade you," Inuyasha said, laying out the instructions. "Shippou's going to work on obstacles for you and for her, just illusions; but treat 'em as if they were real. Got it?"

Kohaku nodded. "Hai, Inuyasha-sama."

"Can we take out Shippou?" Miroku asked, staff jangling as he leaned on it. He was facing the porch. He had, if it were possible, become even more attentive to Sango since Tenichi's birth; Inuyasha wondered how long it would last--probably not long into spring, when travel once again became easy and people, including the village girls, started spending time outdoors once again.

Shippou stuck his tongue out at Miroku. "Just try it!" He grinned, exposing his fangs. "Ojiisan."

Miroku fingered the pocket where he kept his ofuda, looking at Shippou pointedly. "If you don't want to be sealed in your room. . . . "

"Shippou's going to be trying to slow her down as well as you two," Inuyasha said to Miroku. "So he's off-limits."

"Miroku-san wouldn't really do that, Shippou-kun," Rin called out helpfully to the kitsune from where she stood next to Kagome.

With a nod to show he understood Inuyasha, Miroku said dryly, "Thank you, Rin-chan."

"Shippou-chan," Kagome said, arching her eyebrows and giving him a small smile. Kagome seemed to have worked out some sort of arrangement with Shippou over the past month or so, Inuyasha thought; the kitsune had even laid off the "dog boy" insults, and without a huge fuss, too. He had noticed that Kagome tended to refer to the kitsune with "chan" whenever he was acting in a way of which she disapproved.

Shippou's flippant grin faded, abashed. "Sorry," he muttered to Miroku.

"You see, Rin-chan, older brother won't have to do that," Kohaku said to Rin, who giggled.

When Inuyasha neared Rin, she grinned up at him. She looked remarkably like he imagined Kagome would have as a child. Sesshomaru wanted a human of his own because he's jealous of mine. Inuyasha tried that thought out; it made him want to snicker--Sesshomaru, jealous?

"Kagome-neesan is going to be watching out for me," Rin said, expression expectant.

"Yeah," Inuyasha replied. "She should be protecting you; but if either Miroku or Kohaku catch you, you need to be noisy to let her know what's happening with you."

Rin straightened, nodding. "Hai, Inuyasha-sama," she said crisply. She was bundled in several layers of kimono and the sturdy shoes Sesshomaru had left behind for her use.

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Kagome murmured, voice pitched too softly for anyone's ears but Inuyasha's. He checked her scent--for what had to be the dozenth time that day--more carefully as he moved closer to her; no hint yet that her heat was near. He just hoped that he could catch it in time.

Equally quiet, he replied, self-satisfaction evident in his voice, "You wanted to spend time with her, and you need to train."

"I wanted to be able to do things she'd like, though."

"She likes this. She's been jumping up and down for days." He gave her a narrow glance, and couldn't resist adding, "You know how kids like to play with puppies."

Her eyes flew wide as if she'd been stung. "What did you say?" she hissed in a strangled whisper. Inuyasha could see her hands clenching into fists, and prudently stepped out of her arms' reach, unable to hide his grin.

"Oi," Miroku's voice interrupted them, "if you'd rather play games with each other instead, let us know so we can get back to our own business."

"Keh!" Inuyasha turned away from Kagome abruptly, trying not to show how flustered he felt at the comment; he missed a similarly red-faced movement from Kagome has he took a glaring step towards Miroku, the ground cold beneath his feet. The winter was only a few weeks from drawing to a close. Her scent was likely to change sometime soon.