InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Twist of Fate ❯ A Romp in the Woods ( Chapter 9 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Chapter Nine: A Romp in the Woods

Story: Twist Of Fate

By: Sky

Kagome moved forward, happy that she was outside of the palace. InuYasha paced a bit glumly behind her. He couldn't believe that he had actually taken the girl up on her offer. But it was nice to be outside in a fresh new area. He was just wondering what Guthrow would do when he found out the boy was gone.

"Oh, wench," he called before him, watching the girls ears swivel back to catch his voice.

"Yes, oh grumpy one?"

"Feh." Her tone was far too light and jovial to fit his mood. "You said that Guthrow was out hunting. He's sure not going to take a long time at it, so what are we going to do when he finds that I'm gone?" The girl slowed her pace a bit, and turned to him.

"Why, we run of course."

"I don't know about you, but I've never outpaced him."

"Silly. You wouldn't have to outpace him. I would just have to."

"Leave me behind?" he asked sarcastically

"Nope. Carry you."

From one moment to the next, InuYasha couldn't recall what happened. He had been about to reply to her comment one moment, and he was being lifted up by his clothing in the next, and placed onto the large back of a dog the size of a house.

"See. I can carry you just fine. You're hardly more then a feather." InuYasha couldn't reply. He felt his lower jaw dropping, but he couldn't stop it. How on earth had she done that? He felt a rumble between his knees, and knew that the girl/dog he was ridding was sniggering.

"Oh shut up. It's not ever day someone turns into a dog before your eyes. You are a dog right?"

"Of course? What else would I be?"

"Just making sure." InuYasha then remembered the few times he had called her a bitch, and placed a hand over his mouth to stop a laugh from escaping. It wasn't manly to laugh anyway, but it was funny how he had been correct without really knowing it. Kagome, though, felt the trembling of his body through her coat, and turned her attention to the boy on her back.

"What's so funny?" InuYasha shook his head, and she felt the trembling increase. He was obviously enjoying something. "Come on. Tell me."

"You really are a bitch, aren't you?"

"Yes I am. Didn't you know that? I mean, you called me it a few times." That just caused the tremors to increase again. In fact, he was practically shaking where he sat, and her sensitive ears occasionally caught a noise coming from his mouth. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

Kagome stopped, turned around, and faced the boy who was shaking helplessly on her back.

"What is so funny?" InuYasha couldn't help it. He could somehow tell she looked indignant, and he couldn't hold back any longer. Holding his sides with both hands, he let out a side-splitting laugh.

Kagome flicked her ears forward. She was a bit mad that he wouldn't share the joke, but he had a beautiful laugh. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, she had never seen him laugh; much less smile. She decided she liked what he was doing now, even if she couldn't share in the joke, and resolved herself to try to get him to do it more often. So she let him sit there, helplessly laughing, and enjoying the sound.

Finally, InuYasha was able to pull himself together, and brought a hand up to wipe the tears from his eyes. As he was doing that though, he looked down at his mount. He had been wrong about his earlier assumption of her being a dog. Well, she was, but she had the distinct look of a half-grown puppy really. Her paws were still a little bit big, and she just had puppyish features. A silky ebony fur covered her entire body, with a slight curtaining for fur on her tail. She really was quite pretty.

"Now can you tell me what was so funny?"

"Where I come from, bitch isn't a state of fact. It's an insult."

"Oh. So the whole time you were trying to insult me…"

"You thought I was just stating that you were female."

"Oh." He snorted in mirth at her answer, and looked around.

"So, where were you planning on going anyway?" The creature below him shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't have a clue actually."

"What? You persuaded me to leave with you, and you don't even know where you're headed?"

"My main plan was getting out of my confinement. I thought you would like to leave yours as well. But if you would rather be back in the cave…"

"Feh. Stupid bitch. I'm in for the duration now."

"Hmph," replied Kagome. "Fine then. What direction do you want to go in?"

"That way." He pointed his finger in a random direction before her, and she took it anyway.

They traveled for about half an hour, when there was a mewling sound that erupted from the side of them.

"What's that?" asked InuYasha, jerking his head to the right to see if he could locate the creature that made the sound.

"Oh, that's just a Velkir. They're harmless really. They're small creatures that are usually very shy. In fact, that's the closest I think I've ever heard one." Her ears perked the direction of the noise, and InuYasha felt very uneasy about the last thing she said.

"I think we should find cover."

"They won't harm us, really."

"I still think we should find cover. Now." Kagome gave the boy a curious look, and was confused by his adamancy to find cover. As she examined him though, she found his posture tense and alert, his eyes constantly fixed on the place where the sounds were coming from. She felt uneasy from his sudden shift of mood from relaxed to this, and she agreed silently to find something.

Two steps later though, the mewling sound turned into a sharp shriek, and Kagome had to flatten her ears to her head cause the pitch hurt (like nails on a chalkboard).

"Run!" cried InuYasha, leaning close to her back. The sharp fearful spike in his scent caused her to howl out in fear, and start bounding through the forest. A moment later, a pride of velkir were streaming out of the trees around them; their wings beating frantically, and their amber eyes glowing fiercely. Kagome howled again as she tried to pick up her speed. She should be able to outrun the things. But they were keeping pace with her, which frightened her more.

Struggling through her memory, she tried to recall what Karamina had said about velkir, for she knew something was wrong. 'Velkir: a small, cat-like creature that has the body and head of a cat, the wings of a bird, and a deer-like tail and horns on the head. Shy creatures that are rarely seen. Except for now apparently,' Kagome thought, while ducking frantically under a tree to make sure she didn't take InuYasha off her back.

"They're gaining," he passenger cried, and Kagomes heart sank. She was running at her fastest. At this rate, she would be faced with a fight. 'Wait a minute. Velkir are supposed to be small! These are about the size of those human beasts! Oh, what are they called? Yes, Horses!' Suddenly, a velkir dived before her, and she felt a searing pain in her front leg, causing her to stumble and fall to her knees. InuYasha, not prepared for the sudden stop, went flying over her back, to land on the ground ahead.

"What happened?" he asked a few moments later, scrambling back to her side. He then noticed the bloody gash on her front leg. "Shit. Transform back down to your human size."

"Why?" she asked, her mind numbed by the pain.

"Don't argue with me! Just do it!" She complied, and as soon as she was her human size, he pulled her onto his back, and started running through the forest. He kept dashing into thicker thickets and under low-hanging branches; trying to disrupt the flying of the velkir above and to slow them down. It worked, and the beasts gave an angry cry as again and again, they couldn't dive or snatch at the prey below because they couldn't fly into the places they had disappeared to. However, the velkir would not be dissuaded, and they kept pace with the fleeing couple by flying right above the trees.

Finally, when he had stopped for a moment in a particularly dense thicket, he caught a glance of an indention, in the rock pile he had been heading for. Good. That meant he would have something against his back and make it easier to defend himself and the girl. Maybe, the indention would even be big enough for him to stuff her into, and maybe himself, but he doubted both would fit. He could feel his shoulder was wet, and knew it was her blood, and he didn't like it. But there was nothing he could do at the moment. Taking a deep breath, he raced toward the rock outcropping with all the speed he could manage, hoping to get there before their hunters realized he had broken cover.

A few heartbeats later, he heard the triumphant cry of the velkir, but he had reached the outcropping. Quickly, he dropped her so that she landed with an 'oof!' with her back against the stone, and in the indent. Then he quickly grabbed his blade from its sheath, holding the sheath in his other hand to also use should he need to. He growled deep in his through, as he usually did when he was getting ready to kick someone's butt at home.

"InuYasha. What are you doing?" asked Kagome in a voice soft with fear. She could still smell his fear, but now there was a growing sharp scent of anger on him as well.

"Shut up bitch. You're hurt, and we can't get any farther then we are now. So we gotta stand."

"But I can.."

"You can't do a damn thing with one arm. So just stay put, and let me handle this." She felt a growing sense of admiration for the boy, and a sense of calm as well. She knew he would protect her, without knowing how she knew. She moved forward a bit, gazing into the sliver of his eye that she could see. They were an intense amethyst now, and fairly glowed from the inside; the flame she had seen when she had first met him glowed 100 times brighter now.

One of the velkir swooped close, and InuYasha bared his teeth at the creature. His old street-fighting antics were apparently coming back to him. In a far side of his mind, he mused that it was probably because he had been hanging around with Guthrow for the past week, but he quickly squashed the thought and returned all his attention back to Kagome's attackers. He felt the adrenalin surge through his body; sharpening his senses and empowering him. His snarl turned briefly into a feral grin that would have had most of the punks in Tokyo running. Yes. This was more like it. This is what he knew; fighting for survival. This is what he thrived in.

Another velkir swooped downwards, and he lashed out with the blade, judging with his mind that the creature was going to come within range. The creature screeched in pain as it veered away, a paw less then it was before. Yes. This is what made his blood sing. Two more swooped down, and he lashed out again, taking a back paw off the one that veered off, and both antlers off the one that had veered away more slowly. Several drops of blood from the first one though landed on his shirt, spreading on the fabric. Good. He spilled first blood.

They must have played that game of cat and mouse for twenty minutes; the velkir swooping in either to attack or to test, and InuYasha would judge which ones to lash out at. He had gotten a few lucky blows, from the six corpses laying before him. They though, had also gotten a few lucky blows in; visible by the grooves in InuYasha's flesh. His shoulder was bloody and hurt the worst, and there were several nice gashes on his chest, but he still stood his ground; Kagome pressed against the rock behind him. He was breathing hard by this point from exhaustion and pain, but he would not let them win. He couldn't. Kagome was depending on him. Another velkir dove at him, and he deftly swung his blade, delivering another deadly blow to yet another creature, and making the pride on else to attack him. He had to come up with a better plan. He couldn't do this all day, and Kagome was hurt. He gritted his teeth, and tried to come up with a way to get their backs off the wall. However, he stopped when he heard a loud and angry braying sound coming from behind the pride. The velkir looked behind them just as a furious Guthrow, a large silver dog with a crescent moon on his forehead, a kitsune the same size as he, and an even larger dog with a furious light to his eyes came crashing in to the clearing.