I don’t own Inuyasha. I am borrowing him for the sake of this story, which I am writing without profit so you have no reason to sue me. Really! You don’t! I have nothing to give you, anyway…unless you really want this jar of pennies? *shakes jar to listen to the coins rattle*
Which makes me think, actually, that if the potential suer is so desperate
for money that they’d take a jar of pennies, then they’re worse off than
I am to begin with! They can just have the blasted things!
^^;
Sorry, sorry, sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I didn’t mean to take so long, but…well…I started work again after two weeks of vacation so that cut back on my writing time. Then, of course, ff.net decides to not work for a week so I can’t even get onto the site, and THEN my entire account got deleted for no reason at all thanks to ff.net not working! O.o Needless to say, me was NOT happy about that. All my lovely reviews…gone down the proverbial toilet. *sobs* Luckily, a letter to the mods asking after the problem, and my account came back the next day, all 228 reviews intact. Whew! I’m so relieved. ^^;
And lastly, of course, was the trouble I had writing the chapter itself. I’ll admit right now, I don’t like writing fight scenes cause I don’t think I’m very good at them, and I’d much rather write about Inuyasha and Kagome having a few special moments than about them fighting off giant snakes whilst flinging insults at each other. Well…maybe not the flinging insults at each other part but…anyway.
So, after taking a short break to write a sequel to my Yugioh fanfic that’s been on my mind (note: which you will NOT find on ff.net as it is too highly rated *BLUSH*), I finally got through this chapter relatively unscathed (and I’d love some opinions on that, like did I bore anyone to death? ^^), and I can finally get it posted. Eh…I might’ve made it longer, but I figured I’d kept you guys waiting long enough so I’ll just keep it for the next chapter, which hopefully will NOT take me near so long to complete. ^^;
So, read, enjoy, and as always, leave a nice little surprise in my review
box? ^_~ Wow! So many there already! *sobs*
You guys are the bestest! ^_______^
Everything happened at once, so swiftly that the eye could barely follow, and yet so slowly it seemed as though minutes were passing rather than mere seconds. Kagome’s mouth opened as if to scream, and yet no sound escaped as her horrified gaze fixed on Inuyasha’s body soaring with fluid grace into the mouth of death, only to abruptly switch directions at the last possible second—in midair, no less—as the viper’s jaws snapped closed only millimeters behind him. Seizing the chance, Inuyasha twisted around and brought Tetsusaiga down on the youkai’s head with all his might, trying to sever it, but it did no good; the snake was just too fast as it dodged to the side in a blur of movement and sparks flew where Tetsusaiga’s blade grazed the glittering scales. How could something that huge, Kagome wondered dazedly, be that confounded fast?
Inuyasha struck again, but again the viper dodged the transformed sword, almost lazily, it seemed; Kagome was getting the distinct impression that the huge monster was merely toying with the hanyou. One of these days, its amusement would vanish, and then things would turn really dangerous. Determinedly, without taking her eyes off the youkai, she patted blindly around her until she came upon her bow and arrows, which had been thrown from the bike along with her pack when she’d taken her tumble. Miraculously, the bow had survived its rough treatment and hadn’t snapped, although the same couldn’t be said for most of the delicate arrows. She muttered a curse under her breath as she touched the splintered end of an arrow. Only four of them had survived being broken. She would have to make every shot count.
Grimly, Kagome notched an arrow and aimed in the general direction of the battle. Her marksmanship was still pathetic at best—when she actually managed to hit something vital it was due more to dumb luck than actual skill—but she had to help Inuyasha. She couldn’t leave him to fight this battle alone.
The viper's head moved into her line of sight; its attention was focused entirely on the hanyou and it seemed to have forgotten the girl’s existence entirely. So, muttering a quick prayer for luck, Kagome loosed the glowing arrow and let it fly…just as a blur of red appeared directly in its path. She released a short scream of alarm, which was enough to alert Inuyasha of the impending danger, and he turned just in time for the arrow whisper past his nose. He yelped in surprise, momentarily distracted. “Idiot! Where are you aiming?!” he snarled, glaring down at the girl furiously.
“Well, you got in my way!” Kagome yelled back, clearly angry that he’d assume she would hurt him on purpose. “I almost had it before you…Look out!”
Her scream of warning came too late as a thick, coiled tail came crashing down across the hanyou’s back, bringing him to the forest floor with a resounding crash of broken branches and flattened shrubbery. “Inuyasha!” Kagome shrieked, her anger abruptly replaced by terror for her companion. She loosed another arrow at the youkai, and the glowing projectile struck the viper in the head, only to bounce harmlessly off of its scaled hide in a shower of sparks.
“It’s no good!” Inuyasha was miraculously on his feet again, grunting as he leapt into the trees and back toward the viper’s head. “Its scales are too hard! Everything bounces off, even Tetsusaiga!”
“Then how are we supposed to defeat it?!” Kagome cried.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?!” Inuyasha barked, blocking the lashing tail with his sword. “Aim for its eyes or somethin’!”
“I only have two arrows left! The rest broke when I fell off the bike!” she called.
He cursed fluently. “There’s gotta be some soft spot on this thing!” he snarled, slashing at the viper’s eye with Tetsusaiga. It reared back, hissing, and opened its jaws to strike. Inuyasha’s eyes widened in realization, and he tensed expectantly. “All right, ya overfed earthworm. Ya wanna take a bite out of me? Come and get me then!”
“What are you saying?! Have you lost your mind?!” Kagome shrieked.
“Shut up! I know what I’m doing!” he yelled back. He would have kept talking, but the viper chose that moment to take him up on his offer, and struck at him viciously. Inuyasha cursed and dodged; not out of the way, but directly into the creature’s gaping mouth, bringing Tetsusaiga up and jamming it into the soft flesh inside its upper jaw. There was a fierce shriek and the youkai reared back, swinging its head violently from side to side as blood and venom flew through the air. Its jaws were locked open due to the Tetsusaiga jammed vertically into its jaw, and immediately Kagome realized what Inuyasha had done.
“Okay,” she muttered grimly, notching her third arrow and aiming it for the exposed inner throat of the huge serpent…but the creature was thrashing so violently that she couldn’t get a decent shot off.
“What are you waiting for?!” Inuyasha snarled. “Tetsusaiga ain’t gonna hold forever, and if it winds up in that snake’s stomach I’m takin’ it outta your hide!”
“You jerk! It isn’t my fault!” she yelled. “It keeps moving! I can’t get a good aim on it!”
Inuyasha swore and leaped nimbly onto the viper’s back, just behind its head, and used his momentum and weight to drag the creature to the forest floor. His claws sliced through a large tree on the way down, sending the thick, heavy trunk plummeting onto the snake and effectively pinning it to the ground…for a short period, anyway. The huge head landed only feet away from Kagome’s position, and she could smell the hot, sharp scent of the poison waft over her, causing her to gag and choke on the burning fumes, her vision blurring. But she had a clear, open shot now, and she took it.
The loosed arrow arched gracefully into the wide-open mouth of the struggling youkai…and ricocheted off of Tetsusaiga with a sharp ting before imbedding itself into a nearby sapling, quivering with the force of the impact.
“You idiot!” Inuyasha screamed, but Kagome ignored him as she was already drawing her fourth and final arrow and stepping as close to the creature as she dared, determined not to miss this time. The viper tried to lunge at her, but the tree across its neck kept it from getting too far. Still, the evil gleam in its disturbingly-lucid eyes was enough to make her shudder, knowing what would happen to her if that snake did manage to free itself. Those fangs were still deadly, jammed-open or no, and if not those then no doubt being crushed to death from the powerful, corded body would be just as painful. Inuyasha was yelling at her again…this time because she was too close to the viper’s mouth for his comfort, but she didn’t seem to hear him as she drew back her final weapon and took careful aim.
This time the arrow flew true, imbedding itself deep in the throat of the youkai and flaring brilliantly upon impact. The huge, thrashing body went absolutely rigid for a moment, before the viper abruptly reared, its fury and pain lending it a burst of strength that overpowered the tree holding it down. Inuyasha threw himself at Kagome and yanked her out of the way just as the trunk came crashing down again right where she’d been standing. The youkai, in the meantime, was convulsing and from its ruined throat emerged horrible noises that sounded more like the shrieks of a woman in agony than a serpent’s hiss.
The cracks between its scales were starting to glow with deadly pink light as the holy arrow continued its work, purifying the evil body of the youkai. The light grew brighter and brighter, until suddenly the youkai exploded, chunks of steaming flesh and strips of scaled skin raining down on the area in a bloody rain. A rather dangerous rain, as the viper’s thick blood was apparently as toxic as its poison, hissing wherever it touched the ground and melting the leaves and wood of the surrounding trees. Inuyasha cursed and yanked Kagome to him, dragging her beneath a thickly-branched tree and pulling them both to the ground, where he proceeded to curl her beneath him and pull his heavy, fire-rat gi over his head and around her to protect them both from the steaming liquid.
Kagome blushed at finding herself suddenly wrapped so intimately in Inuyasha’s embrace, curled protectively against his chest with his arms surrounding her and his thick, soft hair caressing her face softly in a fall of pale silver. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest, relishing in the contact, wanting it to last. She forgot that she was angry with him. She forgot that he, most likely, hated her. The universe narrowed until it reached the inner confines of his gi, covering them in a crimson cocoon, and she forgot everything but the feel of him surrounding her, his heated breath wafting across her ear and his heart beating strongly against her cheek. She wished for nothing more than to remain like that for always.
But all good things, of course, must come to an end, and all too soon, Inuyasha lifted his head cautiously to scent the air around them, making sure that the deadly rain had stopped falling. “That was weird,” he muttered, standing slowly to work out stiff muscles. “They never exploded before.” He glanced down at the girl he still cradled protectively in his arms and saw that she was watching him silently, her expression unreadable although a faint flush had spread across her nose. Suddenly realized that he was still wrapped around her rather intimately, he abruptly released her—so abruptly, in fact, that she stumbled back and nearly fell over—and turned away to hide his own rising blush. “Well, where the hell did the shards go? Don’t just stand there like a ninny. Make yourself useful and look for ‘em!” he commanded arrogantly.
There was a moment of silence from behind, and he wondered if she’d even heard him. He was just getting ready to turn around and yell some more, when something hard abruptly smacked him in the back of the head and bounced off. He yelped in surprise and whirled around furiously. “What the hell was that for?!” he snarled, meeting Kagome’s glare with one of his own.
“Y-you jerk!” she yelled back, picking up another pinecone in preparation to throw that one at him, too. “You’re so heartless! Find them yourself!” she snapped, and with that turned on her heel and marched over to her bike. Well…more like limped over; he noticed too late that she’d been injured—probably when she’d been thrown from her bike—and that a dark, ugly bruise had formed on her left leg behind the knee. He growled; stupid girl had probably twisted it or something, which meant that she was useless to ride that damned contraption of hers.
Not that it mattered; the bike was pretty much ruined, anyway, as Kagome discovered when she attempted to pick it up. The front tire rim was all bent out of shape, the tired completely flat with an obvious tear in the tough rubber. Not only that, but parts of the bike were melted away; it had been left exposed to the youkai’s blood, after all, and even metal wasn’t immune to the dissolving effects of the poison. She wondered if her pack had fared any better but it was doubtful. The horrible day was fast growing more horrible, and Kagome had to fight the urge to break down for a good cry then and there. Inuyasha hated it when she cried, and he already despised her enough as it was. So, biting back tears, she limped her way around the clearing and trained her eyes on the youkai…remains…to try and detect the shards.
The first two were easily found, having remained in the eyes when the body had exploded, and Kagome had dealt with enough youkai remains that extracting them from the cold, unblinking orbs wasn’t as stomach-churning as it used to be. Inuyasha, of course, didn’t bother to help, having gone in search of his sword, instead, which had been flung into the forest. But since he’d done such a great job of protecting her, and since he’d risked his precious sword so they could defeat the monster in the first place, she decided that she could forgive him for it.
No matter how hard she searched, the third shard remained well and truly hidden. Apparently, it had been blown well out of the area when the youkai had been destroyed; she could only pray and hope that it hadn’t been blown to bits along with the viper, or Inuyasha would never forgive her. In the meantime, it was growing darker and darker, and even colder than it already was, and her knee was starting to throb painfully. Her pack, thankfully, had escaped relatively unscathed, and she eventually sat stiffly down on a log—the fallen tree that had held the viper prisoner, in fact—and dug through the ratty old bag in search of her first aide kit and a bottle of painkillers.
Her medicinal supplies were distressingly low, she noted with a frown. She’d have to go back home soon to…Oh. Wait. Her shoulders slumped as memory returned. Go home? Yeah, right. Not if Inuyasha had anything to say about it. And quite recently, he had quite a bit to say about it. If she ever saw her family again, at least before the jewel was completed (which it never would be if she couldn’t find that damned shard!), she’d be blessed with a miracle. The thought sent a wave of depression over her and she slumped forward, resting her elbows on her knees until a jolt of pain shot through the left one, reminding her abruptly of what had started all these depressing thoughts in the first place. She sniffled, feeling the burning in her nose and the sharp stinging in her eyes that always heralded a long bout of crying. And, since Inuyasha wasn’t there, she slid down the log, buried her face in her knees (ignoring the pain, which she couldn’t do anything about anyway), and gave into it.
That was where Inuyasha found her nearly half an hour later, when he finally came crashing through the brush looking disgruntled, disheveled, and generally pissed off at having been made to go tramping through the trees looking for his precious sword. He muttered curses under his breath as he pulled stray twigs out of his hair and several burrs from his hakama and gi, wanting nothing more than to have a good yell at someone. Namely, a specific someone, who (he had thoroughly convinced himself) had it coming to her for making that bloody youkai pop in the first place! The best thing of all…he could yell and scream and insult her all he wanted, and she couldn’t do anything about it! A fact that he was dying to (yet again!) rub into her face.
All thoughts of yelling, however, fled his mind when he scanned the area and found her small, crumpled form lying still as death among the rubble of youkai and shattered trees. His breath left his body in a rush, and all he could do was stare in disbelief as his mind fought to catch up to what his eyes were telling him. When he finally reached the conclusion that, yes, it was Kagome and yes, she was apparently unconscious, he uttered a curse vile enough to peel paint and leapt to her side in a single bound.
The salty scent of her tears hit his nose before he’d even reached her, causing his heart to lurch in his chest as it always did when he found out she was crying. He viciously forced the organ to resume its normal beating as he knelt carefully beside the prone girl, who had huddled back into the log as far as she could, as though seeking warmth from the damp wood and even damper earth beneath. She was a mess. Her clothes were torn and dirty, as was her skin. Her hair was in a tangled knot, and her face was white, with dark bruises beneath her eyes. Tear-tracks streaked through the dirt on her face, still a little damp, and her nose was slightly swollen and red.
One hand had clenched tight into a fist, obviously holding onto something precious, and he gently picked the soft little hand up and pried her fingers open carefully to reveal two glistening shards nestled into the palm of her hand. He gazed at them for a moment in relief before abruptly frowning in realization. Wait…only two? Where was the third? What did the girl think she was doing, sleeping on the job when there was still a shard to be found?! Who knew what might happen to it if some other stray youkai came along and found it before they did, and it could be anywhere!
Still, even as these annoyed thoughts ran through his mind, Inuyasha gazed down at the clearly-exhausted (but seemingly unhurt) girl and found that he couldn’t be angry with her. She had, after all, obviously worked hard enough to find the two that she held, and the fact that she hadn’t found the third was clearly distressing for her. Probably the reason for her tears, in fact, he mused to himself. She probably thought he was going to be angry with her for not finding it, and he had to admit that he hadn’t done much recently to make her think otherwise. He was a little annoyed, but he supposed the shard would be safe enough wherever it was until they could find it.
For the moment, it was getting colder, and the light was failing. He, of course, had no problems with seeing in the dark, or ignoring the chill in the air. But Kagome, being the frail, weak human that she was, no doubt would catch some illness and wind up dying on him because of it if he didn’t get her warmed up. He muttered to himself and stood abruptly, kicking rubble out of his way as he cleared a small circle for them to set up camp in. Weeks on the road had taught him how to set up a campfire, having watched Kagome build one time after time, and he lined stones in a ring and filled it with wood and underbrush to burn. He for once wished heartily that Shippo was along with them, since the cub always started it going with his foxfire and helped to gather the wood. With the fox gone and Kagome out of commission, he was forced to set up the camp by himself, which irritated him to no end.
Kagome kept a watertight plastic bag in her pack for non-waterproof things, such as her very useful matchsticks and something she called a lighter. He now dug these out and stared at them for a moment, trying to remember how she’d used them. Examining the lighter, he set his thumb against what appeared to be a lever and pushed, and nearly dropped the thing when a tiny flame flickered to life, nearly burning him. Trying again, he lowered the wavering flame down to the pile of rubbish and held it there until it started smoking and another tiny flame began to burn in the dried grass.
It wasn’t easy keeping it going; everything was damp and did not burn easily, but Inuyasha was nothing if not determined, and soon a bright and merry blaze was going that could warm the life back into a corpse. Feeling justifiably proud of himself, Inuyasha pulled out Kagome’s sleeping bag and unrolled it close to the fire, then dug around the “bottomless bag”, as Shippo liked to call it, in search of her cooking utensils and hopefully some of that great ramen stuff she always seemed to have on hand. Unfortunately, though the cooking supplies were found, the ramen was not, and he pouted a little in disappointment as the thought occurred to him that—since he wasn’t letting Kagome go home anymore—it would probably be a very long time before he got to taste any of it again.
He dug through her bag, searching at the very bottom (just in case he’d missed something), and abruptly frowned when his hand touched something smooth and round and disturbingly familiar. His claws closed over the object and he yanked from the bag, and was immediately astounded to see that he held a beaded rosary in his hand, just like the one that had been broken. His jaw gaped and he stared at it, certain that he had to be seeing things. Hadn’t he warned her what would happen if she thought about slipping one around his neck again?! Didn’t she believe him? His brows knitted together and a low growl rumbled in his chest as his fingers tightened convulsively around the offending object, turning a burning, golden gaze to the culprit still lying in deep slumber not five feet away from him.
He felt unaccountably betrayed. After all that, knowing how much he’d hated being collared, she had still snuck another rosary along? When had she planned on using it? Didn’t she know it was fruitless; he’d smell the magic of the necklace long before she ever got it over his head! Was she so desperate to get him back under her control that she’d risk her very freedom to do it?
As though sensing the dark storm brooding on the horizon, Kagome began to shift a little, her face pulling into a grimace as she turned over onto her back and slowly opened her eyes. She sat up stiffly and groaned with the effort, her entire body screaming at her to go back to sleep. But she was cold, and hungry…and she really had to go to the bathroom. Besides, the pain in her knee was even more disturbing than the pain in her full bladder, driving sleep from her unwilling body. She rubbed at her eyes with a dirty hand, looking around blearily until her gaze came to rest upon Inuyasha, who was crouched over her bag and staring back at her in a manner fixed to scald a cat.
She froze, her instincts suddenly screaming at her that to move now would be a very, very bad idea. “I-Inu…ya…sha?” she asked hesitantly, wondering what on earth had happened to put such an expression on the hanyou’s face. Whatever it was, she wasn’t guilty! She’d been fast asleep, for pity’s sake! Then her gaze fell upon his fisted hand, and the beaded necklace which dangled from it, and her brow furrowed as she sought to remember why it looked so familiar. The memory returned to her in a rush, and her lips parted in a startled O as her eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s right, wench. Figure it out yet?” the hanyou snarled, his every word dripping with cold fury. “Did you think it’d be so easy? To slip it around my neck when I’m asleep? What? How’d you plan on getting it on me, huh? You’re more stupid than I thought! What did I tell you would happen if you even thought of collaring me with one of these things again, huh? Huh?!” He was shouting by the time he finished, shaking the fist clutching the rosary at her and glaring for all he was worth.
She could only sit there, watching the shaking rosary with an expression of absolute confusion on her face. “I…I don’t understand,” she finally stammered, her voice faint with anxiety. “H-how did it get in there? I didn’t…”
“Don’t play stupid with me!” he yelled, his eyes snapping with fury. “Don’t lie to me! I know better than that!”
“I didn’t put it in there, Inuyasha,” Kagome replied, her voice now firm with conviction. “Do you think I’d really be that dumb, knowing how…how cruel you really are? Do you honestly think I’d risk my entire future just to stick a collar on a dumb mutt like you? Don’t you know me by now?!” Now she was yelling, furious that he would accuse her of such a treacherous act. Didn’t he trust her at all?
Oh wait. A stupid question to an obvious answer, she thought bitterly, abruptly turning her back on him and fighting back still more tears.
Inuyasha glared at her back, so mad that he could have breathed fire.
At the same time, Kagome’s words echoed back at him and gave him pause.
Don’t
you know me by now? It was true…he did know her, and he knew
that she didn’t have a treacherous bone in her body. At least…he’d
thought so, anyway. But…if that were so…then what was he holding
in his hand?
As if sensing his thoughts, Kagome sighed heavily and brought her hands to her temples to rub them carefully. “I don’t know where that thing came from,” she muttered, sounding like she might start to cry again. “Possibly Shippo or Kaede slipped it into my pack when I wasn’t watching, thinking I’d need protection (which I’m quite frankly not inclined to disbelieve at the moment). Hell, it might’ve fallen in on its own, I don’t know! But I do know that I’m telling you the truth, just like I’ve always done, and whether or not you believe it, is entirely up to you. I can’t change your mind or your obviously low opinion of me. I don’t even care enough to want to anymore.”
With those words, she stood (rather stiffly), and turned to limp a little
further into the forest (muttering something about needing privacy), leaving
a rather shame-faced hanyou to sit staring after her.
End of chapter! You know what to do! ^_~
Quickening
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