-

-

-

Kagome was up before the sun on her last day at the shrine. Although she didn’t plan on setting out for a few hours, she wanted to walk around her life long home for what she knew might be the last time, and take in every detail of it.

Kagome had to travel light, which was fine since she didn’t own all that much anyway. She packed a few changes of clothes, a couple of towels, provisions, some money that Kaede had given her, medical supplies, and a few other odds and ends she thought she might need.

No chores were done that morning. Midoriko and Kaede were both too nervous, and Kagome too busy to concentrate on something so mundane. Finally, three and a half hours after sunrise, it was time to go.

It was time to say goodbye.

When Kaede hugged her, Kagome seriously considered rethinking her trip. “Ye be careful, child, and send word every so often so I know that all is well with ye.”

“I will,” the girl agreed.

Midoriko patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you wont be alone for long. You’re first companion should be around soon.”

“Ok,” said Kagome nodding, and turning toward the road before her resolve left her.

“I’ll see you all soon enough,” she said over her shoulder, and with that she headed down the road.

“So,” said Midoriko awkwardly as she watched Kagome’s retreating back, “Can I ask you something?”

“I suppose ye can,” answered Kaede.

“Why is it that you are the only person around here who talks like that?”

“I don’t know what ye are talking about.”

“Sure.”

-

-

“Perfect. Just freaking perfect,” grumbled the hanyou as he brushed the dirt off of his haori, having mussed it up being thrown to the ground by yet another demon. Despite the shortness of a battle, or how easy it was for him to destroy the demon, he still always seemed to end up on the ground, getting all dirty and bruised.

The remains of a small centipede demon (well, small for a centipede demon at least) were on the ground a few feet away. Inuyasha tried his best not to look at it. He had never been a squeamish person, but it was still not a very pleasant sight.

Sighing, he wandered far enough away that he could no long smell the blood of the thing he had killed, and sat heavily on a log, pulling back the sleeves of his haori and kimono and glaring at the long cut that the creature had left across his fore arm. He supposed he should wash it, even though it would be healed in a day or so anyway, and pulled himself up to look for water. Luckily there was a little stream running at the other end of the clearing that he had sat down in, so he didn’t have to go more that a few paces. First thing he did was take a long drink from the stream, as he hadn’t noticed before seeing it just how terribly thirsty the fight had made him.

After that it was time to clean himself up. Shrugging off the haori, he tossed it aside where it landed with the bloodied sleeve in the stream. “Perfect,” he said again sarcastically. “Just bloody perfect. Every damn time I do anything something has to go wrong. Stupid things all wet now.” Sighing for the thousandth time that week, he pulled the dampened garment from the water and threw it blindly on the ground behind him…

“Ummmph,” said the ground, in a small and familiar voice. Inuyasha knew that voice all to well.

“What do you want now, Myoga?” the half-demon asked his flea demon vassal without turning around.

“Lord Inuyasha,” the flea said, bowing low after he had extracted himself from the mounds of red cloth. Then, without further ado, he jumped on the boys injured arm and stuck his sharp little snout into the wound, drinking furiously at the blood that was still dripping from it.

“Ow, you little…” Inuyasha fumed, swatting at the flea. “Get the hell off of me!”

The flattened bug drifted weightlessly to the ground as his lord leaned forward and splashed some of the chilly stream water onto his wound, hissing slightly as it stung.

“What do you want now, flea?” growled Inuyasha, the pain in his arm putting him on edge.

“I came to see if you were all right, my Lord. As your humble servant I feared for your safety.”

Inuyasha laughed bitterly at that. “Yeah right, you were real worried about me. And I’m sure you seeking me out has nothing to do with that damned sword my father left me.”

“Well, I must admit I was concerned about your inability to retrieve it.”

“Of course you were. Well don’t you worry your annoying little head, 'cause I’ll get that sword no matter what it takes.”

“Perhaps you ought ask…um…Lord Sesshomaru for…”

“I’m not asking anything of that demon. Not now, not ever.”

Now that was going too far. Inuyasha desperately wanted the Tetsuseiga, the sword honed from the fang of the great dog demon and Lord of the western lands. After all, it was Inuyasha’s only inheritance from his father, whom he had never even met, but he was NOT about to go crawling to his demon half brother for help. Not that it would do any good. Sesshomaru thought half demons were abominations, and felt it was a personal insult that one shared blood with him. He would no doubt slaughter Inuyasha on sight.

No one was quite sure why, but Inuyasha’s father wanted something to happen to his son before he could get hold of the weapon. That was why he had sealed it in a stone shortly before his death. The particular rock, just outside Renji city, was nothing special by itself. It was the spell that the great dog demon had put it under that was important. Inuyasha was willing to do just about anything to get his hands on the legendary blade. The only problem was that his father hadn’t told anyone, not even Myoga, what Inuyasha had to do or learn before he could have it.

Inuyasha had tried everything he could think of, but so far all he had managed to do to the sword was cut his hands on it half a dozen times trying to pry it free. When he was younger he had stayed by the stone and tried almost every day to pull it free. As he grew, however, he realized that whatever he needed to happen wasn’t going to if he just stayed put all of the time. When he was about ten he had started only visiting every so often, maybe once a month, the older he got, the less he attempted to retrieve the blade. By the time he was fourteen he had limited to once a year. Now, seventeen years old, he hadn’t even bothered to go on his yearly excursion to the sword in the stone, and he was sure it was that which had brought Myoga all the way there to irritate him.

Not that he should be complaining, as Myoga was really the only living thing that ever gave him the time of day without either trying to kill him or running away screaming. He got the occasional ‘grab your torches and pitchforks’ treatment too, but that was it. He knew it was all he could expect, being a half breed as he was, but it still managed to annoy him to no end. And then to have the only person in the world who ever came to talk to you be there just to nag…

And sure enough…

“Lord Inuyasha, there are things we must discuss.”

“Of course there are,” grumbled the hanyou, rolling his kimono sleeve carefully back down over the now clean cut on his arm.

“I am aware that you have not yet attempted to draw your sword this year Inuyasha...”

“You heard right, you little runt.”

“…and that concerns me. It is your rightful inheritance, but if you do not loose it from that stone soon, I fear that some other demon might discover the secret before you do.”

“I’m not a demon, remember, I’m only half, and there’d be no point in me trying to get the thing now.”

“Oh, but why not, my Lord?”

“Because nothing has happened this year,” answered the boy, as though that explained everything. To Myoga, unfortunately, it was much too cryptic.

“I don’t think I know what you mean. Plenty has happened this year. There was a flood down the river, and a village of demon slayer’s managed to subdue a large dragon demon, and the thunder brothers have been wreaking havoc as usual, and…”

“That isn’t what I meant, Myoga.”

“Then what did you mean, Lord Inuyasha?”

Inuyasha sighed heavily. He hated having to explain himself. It wasn’t like he had a lot of practice at it. Normally he simply did what he wanted. You never had to explain yourself when you were always alone. For some reason, though, Inuyasha never found that comforting.

“I meant, flea, that nothing has changed with me. Whatever’s gonna happen to make me able to get the sword is going to be big, definitely too big to miss, and nothing worth noticing has happened to me lately. Nothing has happened, so there’s no point in expecting things to be different all of a sudden.”

The flea demon nodded slowly. “I understand your logic, my Lord, but you can not give up hope. That sword was meant for you. Your lord father wished you to have it. He must have intended you to find a way to retrieve it.”

Inuyasha didn’t reply. He could have argued with the flea, shouted at him, called him an idiot, but in all honesty, he didn’t feel like it. He was sore, he was bleeding, and he was in no mood to sit there and have the same argument he’d had with the same flea for what felt like the hundredth time.

The flea began speaking again, realizing his lord had no plans on answering, this time jabbering on about some female flea or something, but Inuyasha wasn’t really listening. Instead, he just allowed his mind to drift off, lost in his own thoughts. That seemed to happen a lot, probably the result of spending way too much time alone.

Of course, little did he know that wasn’t going to be a problem for very much longer. He had no idea that after that day he’d be lucky to get ten minutes to himself uninterrupted, not that he was going to miss the solitude anyway.

The half demon lord was startled out of his reverie by a distant sound. There was no doubt what that noise had been.

It was a scream. Some girl somewhere not to far away was screaming, as though utterly terrified.

Myoga had frozen mid-rant. “My lord, did you hear that?”

Inuyasha didn’t answer. Jumping to his feet, he charged towards the sound of the scream, not even stopping to pick up his haori.

“My lord, where are you going? Not after that girl, are you? Right, well, you won’t be needing me. I’ll just stay here and guard your coat then. Don’t you worry, your haori will be safe with me!”

Inuyasha never heard any of this, as he was much too far away, thinking of nothing but getting to whoever was screaming before something bad happened.

-

-

The resolve Kagome had when she had set out that morning hadn’t faded, but the energy she’d had was gone. As she trudged along the dirt road, with nothing to do but think about her upcoming to journey, she began to worry. Calm as she had been when leaving the shrine, the fact that she could no longer even see her childhood home in the distance was beginning to allow the panic to rise in her chest. She had never been any farther from the shrine than the rest of a village, a distance of maybe a mile, but now she had been walking for hours and had gone at least three or four times that.

On top of her nerves, her feet were starting to bother her. She wasn’t used to walking such a distance, and the unfamiliar exercise was putting some serious strain on her muscles. It was very uncomfortable.

Kagome was starting to wonder worriedly if she had forgotten anything. The idea that the small pack she carried on her back had everything she would need for as long as a years seemed much more ridiculous now than it had when she had been packing. She supposed everything just looked like a whole lot more spread out in a shrine then condensed into a bag.

Though she was tired of walking, she didn’t really want to stop, as she had no idea where she was and didn’t want to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere come nightfall. So, she kept walking at an ever slowing pace, and eventually, when she knew she was much to far away from any life to be heard, though she knew in her mind that had been for a very long while, she finally allowed herself to let flow the tears that had been brewing behind her eyes since the night before.

Her tears flowed freely, and quietly, and she didn’t stop walking. Not until she heard something suspicious behind her. Something that sounded very much like a chuckle.

Kagome turned slowly, her crying ceasing immediately, almost afraid of what she was about to see.

When she caught sight of what was following her, she did the last thing she expected herself to do. She screamed.

-

-

‘So far, so good,’ thought Midoriko as she waited for the moment to act, watching both the young priestess and the hanyou in her enchanted water basin. She was once again alone in the room that the older priestess had for her, and she was waiting for just the right time to spring her little plan into action. She knew that eventually, the two teenagers were destined to meet on there own, but she couldn’t wait for that. She wanted them together as soon as possible, for Kagome’s protection of course. In order to make that happen, she had to interfere, and timing was crucial.

The view in her basin was split down the middle. In one side, much as it had been for several hours, was Kagome. She hadn’t done anything of particular interest the entire time Midoriko had been watching. Mostly, she just walked, sighing occasionally, adjusting her pack, or brushing her bangs out of her eyes. Poor girl’s feet must have been killing.

The half demon, Inuyasha was his name, she thought, had been a much more interesting view. That morning, he had already fought a demon, destroying it, but getting himself wounded and thrown about in the process. Still a win was a win right? And now he seemed to be talking to himself, looking very harassed. It was a while before the guardian noticed the small flea demon bouncing around. She had to admit to herself that she was relieved. For a moment there, she had been afraid that she would have to find Kagome another companion. She couldn’t very well stick the last hope of mankind with a nutcase, now could she? Could she? No, that was definitely a no no.

Finally, after hours of watching Kagome just walk, the girl had reached the closest point the hanyou that she could without leaving the road. Now, to draw the two together.

But how?

After a moment of wracking her brain for any semblance of a plan, something finally came to her. It wasn’t actually a very good plan, but it was the best she could do.

A smile cracked her normally serious face. This would take illusion. Illusion was her specialty. Closing her eyes, Midoriko made a mental picture of what she wanted. Four or five of them would be plenty to scare Kagome into a scream, and as illusions they couldn’t really hurt her.

It was a long shot. There was an awful lot to count on for the plan to work. For one thing, Kagome had to scream. For another, she had to make sure that the distance between the girl and the boy was small enough that he would be able to hear her and come to help. Of course, there was the possibility that his time alone had changed him, and he would ignore even the most desperate of screams of a human.

Pulling out five leaves from her self dubbed ‘bag of tricks,’ Midoriko cast her spell, the leaves disappearing, and looked into her bowl to see if it had worked as she had hoped.

On Inuyasha’s side of the basin, the picture hadn’t changed much. The kid had finished washing off his wound and was sitting there on a rock on the bank of a stream looking very irritable. On Kagome’s, the girl was crying softly, wandering alone down a deserted road. She focused her attention on that side, waiting for any sign that her illusion had worked. She didn’t have to wait long.

Suddenly the road behind Kagome wasn’t so deserted anymore.

-
-

Kagome screamed. Behind her, the road was blocked by a small group of bandits, the leader of which was on horseback. He chuckled again, and it was not a nice sound, nothing like a laugh at all.

Unconsciously, she began to back away slowly, although she knew well enough that if a man on horseback chased her on foot, she didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of out running him.

“Well, well, well,” said the man with a smile as cold and ominous as his voice was. “What have we here?”

“It’s a girl, boss,” one of the other bandits, clearly not the brainiac of the bunch, said helpfully.

“Yes, it is. Now what would a girl be doing out here all alone?”

“Oh, I was just heading to…” Kagome began, but apparently it was a rhetorical question, because he cut her off with the drawing of his sword and a glare. The shing of metal on metal as the weapon left its sheath sent a chill down her spine.

“So, boys, what do you think we should do with this girl, seeing as how she is in our territory without permission,” the boss asked his men, his disgusting toothy smile becoming even more pronounced so that Kagome could clearly see just how many teeth were missing from his repulsive mouth.

“We could play with her, boss.”

“Sell her!”

“Eh, let’s just kill her and be done with it.”

“We’re going to do something?” asked the idiot-bandit, after all the others had spoken. The leader sighed at him, and the man who had suggested killing her cuffed him around the head.

“We must teach her a lesson,” proclaimed the head bandit to the cheers and laughter of his comrades. “Perhaps we ought to just grab her now and decide later what to do with her.”

With that, they all turned to her like one many headed monster, and without a second thought, Kagome did the only thing she could.

She turned, and ran like hell.

She didn’t get far.

She had gone only a few paces when she felt herself run straight into something rather solid, but also a bit soft in places. She fell down, bruising her backside, and gazed up at whatever had blocked her way.

To her surprise, the what turned out to be a who.

Standing before her, looking pissed with his hands crossed over the chest she had just crashed into, was not quite a man, not quite a demon. ‘He must be a half demon,” she thought to herself, staring vaguely up at him. Though he was facing the bandits, who had frozen in their tracks at his sudden appearance, he was looking, no glaring, at her. There was something very familiar about him, though she couldn’t imagine why.

The man, no boy, definitely still in the boy category, had long silver hair that reached past his waist, easily brushing his hips. Somehow, the color still seemed youthful, despite the fact that it usually belonged only to the exceptionally old. His eyes, which were shrouded by black brows and narrowed slightly in a frown, were unlike any eyes she had ever seen before, amber, or maybe gold in color. He was clad in a white kimono and red hakama, very similar to her own shrine clothing, except that his were bunched at the ankles she was sitting next to. He wasn’t wearing ay shoes, for whatever reason. The last thing she noticed, probably because they were so high up compared to her position on her butt, were his ears. Rather than being at the sides of his head, they were perched at the top, one pointing straight up and the other tilted to the side slightly, giving an impression of annoyance that matched his stance and expression frighteningly well, which made sense really. They were his ears.

After a minute or so, Inuyasha became annoyed with the girl ogling him like he had more heads than usual. Sure, he was used to this type of reaction from humans, but that didn’t make it bother him any less.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and spoke. “Well, stupid girl, are you going to ask me to help you, or are you just gonna sit there and gape at me all day, cause if you are I’m outta here and you can deal with the moron band on your own.”

For a moment, indignation flashed across her face at the insult, but then she glanced at the bandits, who all had unsheathed their weapons and were gazing hungrily at her, and it was gone.

“Yes, please, I would like your help, thanks.”

The boy huffed as though this request was a totally unexpected irritation as opposed to it being his idea in the first place, but then he turned his head towards the five men before him.

“Prepare to die, morons,” he said, cracking the knuckles in one hand loudly and extending claws which Kagome hadn’t noticed before.

To both her and the demon boys great surprise, the group of bandits turned tail and ran in the other direction without looking back, screaming things like ‘demon’, ‘monster’, and ‘why are we running’ as they went. Kagome could guess which one had said the last thing.

The demon boy stood looming over her looking rather self satisfied, and then abruptly turned and walked away without a second glance.

“Wait!” called Kagome, scrambling to her feet. The boy didn’t turn, but he did stop walking and she was able to catch up to him.

“What?” he snarled over his shoulder, clearly trying to be scary. To his great disappointment, it didn’t work.

“I just wanted to thank you for saving me. I mean, you heard me scream and came to help and if you hadn’t…”

The boy cut her off with a snort. “And what makes you think I came here because of you? How do you know I didn’t just happen to wander by and also happen not to like bandits around here. I mean, it's not like I really had to do anything anyway. The cowards ran at the mere sight of me.” For some reason, his voice as he said this sounded surprisingly bitter.

“Well, thanks anyway, because even if that was the case, you still didn’t have to save me, and it’s nice to thank people when they do nice things for you.”

“Feh,” he said, but he still didn’t keep walking. “So what is a girl like you doing out here anyway?”

“What do you mean a girl like me?”

“A shrine maiden, I guess.” He replied with a shrug.

“For your information, I happen to be a priestess,” she snapped back, standing up straighter with pride.

The hanyou boy didn’t seem to think it was great. In fact, he turned around and stared at her wide eyed, taking a step back.

“A priestess, huh?” he said conversationally, though she could see he had replaced his fallen guard. It was only then that she noticed him eyeing the bow strung across her back.

“Oh, are you worried about this?” she asked him, gesturing vaguely behind her, though she stopped when she saw the muscles in his neck tighten, and dropped her hand.

“No!” he snapped back, not relaxing at all.

“Well, good, ‘cause I only ever use that on bad demons, and you clearly aren’t a bad demon. A jumpy one, maybe, but not a bad one.” She giggled slightly at the confused scowl on his face, although he relaxed his stance visibly.

“I knew that.”

“Sure, you did.”

The boy opened his mouth to argue again, but caught sight of the bow and seemed to think better of it. Instead, he turned huffily, and started walking the in his original direction.

At the thought of being left alone on the road again, Kagome felt her panic begin to come up again like bile, and she ran to catch up with the half demon boy.

“Wait up!”

“Yeah, what?” he growled as she reached him, although there was no real venom behind it.

“Well, I was just thinking, in case something like this should happen again, maybe I should stay with you for a bit.”

At that, he snapped around so fast that she walked into him again, and just barely managed to stay upright.

“Oh, no you don’t! I am not about to play bodyguard to some helpless little priestess!”

“I am not helpless. I can do fine with demons, but if I shoot a human, they could die, and than I’d be a killer!”

“Sure, ‘cause killing demon’s isn’t really killing right?”

“Hey! I only ever kill demons when they attack me or someone else. I only hurt the bad ones. I would never hurt a good demon. Its not like I would hurt someone like you!”

His glare intensified. “And what, pray tell, makes you so sure that I’m a good demon, anyway? Maybe I just wanted to kill and eat you myself, ever think of that?”

“Actually,” Kagome admitted, “No, that never occurred to me. But I still don’t believe it. You wouldn’t just have walked away after saving me of you wanted to eat me.”

“Feh,” he said again, though he didn’t dispute it. He turned away and began walking again, though not as quickly as before.

“So what do you say?”

“I say go to hell.”

“Aw, c’mon, how bad could it be?” she asked, elbowing him in the side gently.

“In my experience, that is the worst possible question anyone can ever ask you.”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t you care what happens to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Then why did you save me?”

“Momentary lapse of judgment?”

“Oh, ha ha, you’re so funny.”

He didn’t halt his retreat. She had to try something else.

“I take it you don’t spend too much time with people?”

“What tells you that?”

“You have zero people skills.”

“So, what’s it to you?”

“Well, don’t you think a traveling companion could be fun?”

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon, you know you want to.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“No you don’t want to travel or no you don’t want to know?”

“No travel.”

“So you’re not saying no to the know then?”

“Um…I don’t know,” he said. The girl was really beginning to confuse him.

“You don’t know if its no to the know?”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Inuyasha sighed loudly and turned to face her. The winning smile she was wearing made him wish he’d kept on walking.

“Look, even if I wanted to help you, which I really, really don’t, I couldn’t. I have to, um…I have to go do something for my father in Renji city.”

To his utter dismay, the girl brightened even more. “That’s perfect!” she said happily. “That’s exactly where I have to go. We can go there together.”

“But…but…” he stuttered.

“Oh relax. I’ll tell you what, you let me go as far as Renji city, and then when we get there, I’ll never ask you to come anywhere with me ever again. Unless, of course, you want to.”

“And why would I want to?”

“I don’t know. Just covering all my bases. You never know, maybe you’ll actually like spending time with me.”

He snorted loudly. “I doubt that.”

“Okay, fine, maybe you won’t, and in that case ill never bother you again. Deal?”

He was trapped and there was no way out. Sighing, he nodded. “Fine, deal. But once we get there, its goodbye forever, got that!”

“If you say so, but you may like me by then.”

“I don’t like you now.”

“Well, it’s a two week journey to Renji city on foot, and we don’t have horses, so we have a long time for things to change.”

“They won’t.”

“They might,” she countered.

“And they might not.”

“This is true,” she said brightly. “I’ve walked enough for today, I’m exhausted, so unless you want to carry me on your back or something, we’ll have to start tomorrow.”

“Feh, like I’d ever want to lug you around on my back.”

“I didn’t think so, so I guess we can camp somewhere for tonight.”

“I guess. Follow me. I know a place.”

With that, the hanyou boy turned away and headed deeper into the woods, but Kagome followed without apprehension, trusting him not to steer her wrong.

After a few minutes of silence, she finally thought of the question she should have asked quiet a while ago.

“Oh, by the way, I never caught your name.”

“I never threw it.”

“Oh, ha ha, there’s that with again. Well unless you want to be known as ‘hey you’ or ‘guy with the funny ears’ (the ears in question twitched in irritation. He seemed to be irritated a lot) for the next two weeks, I suggest you tell me something else I can call.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Kagome began to think he wasn’t going to, until finally she heard a grunt.

“Inuyasha.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said my name is Inuyasha,” he said.

“Inuyasha,” Kagome repeated slowly, tasting the word. “That sounds kinda familiar. I like it.”

“What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Well, I don’t think you want to go through the next two weeks as hey you either.”

“Oh, yeah right. I’m Kagome.”

“Hi Kagome.”

“Hi Inuyasha.”

-

-

-