For the third time that morning, Sesshoumaru dropped the flaming sword with a scowl.
“Oh no,” the miko whispered anxiously to the horse beside her, “it happened again…”
“Mi-milord…?” Jakken ventured nervously from her other side.
Checking them both with a glance, he bent to retrieve Tessaiga, a tendril of smoke rising from his scorched palm. Sesshoumaru’s frown deepened as the blade glinted stubbornly back.
Drumming his claws atop a rock on the opposite side of the clearing, with his female standing guard as if the miko might pounce on him at any moment, Kouga stretched and smirked. “Attacking yourself doesn’t seem to be doing much good, Sesshoumaru.” His knuckles cracked. “Maybe that sword of yours is looking for a real fight.”
“I doubt killing you would make any difference to Tessaiga,” the daiyoukai replied in cool disdain.
The wolf’s expression darkened, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Don’t make it sound so easy…”
“But it would be,” Sesshoumaru returned loftily, baiting him out of spite. “I need not even dirty the blade.”
Kouga’s lip curled. “You…”
“…Hey, who wants some lunch?” the miko interjected over-brightly.
“Suits me,” Kouga grumbled, directing one last baleful look at Sesshoumaru as he slid off the rock. “Not much to see here, anyway.”
As the wolves traipsed back to the campsite, the girl lingered, blue eyes glittering up at him in concern. “Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”
Sesshoumaru’s gaze sharpened. The last thing he needed was to be coddled by her.
“Go back to camp,” he said, his eyes cutting to the imp who was likewise hovering at his heels. “You, as well.”
Wounded, the pair of them trudged off, a bit of Sesshoumaru’s tension lifting in their absence. While he was not averse to displaying his power, being successively thwarted by this damnable sword was not a sight he wished for others to witness—particularly the girl. Her incessant worrying grated on what little remained of his patience.
Facing the mountain once more, he closed his eyes, placing himself into a meditative state. He felt the flow of the wind around him, heard the rustle of the branches, scented the crisp chill of the air. He acknowledged and dismissed these sensations in turn. And in his mind’s eye, the barrier drew into focus—red and shimmering, a curved seamless wall of youki.
As Tessaiga transformed in his hand, he flooded it with his power, seeking to overwhelm it and bend it to the task. The forms the sword could take were many. He could see this now, and he narrowed in on the one he sought—
“Kouga-kun! Did you use all the soy sauce?!”
“Yeah…? You gave it to me, Kagome-chan.”
“So that you could use some. Some!”
Gritting his fangs, Sesshoumaru cracked open his eyes, the sword returning to its resting state as he glared down at the campsite below. Arms crossed, the girl was staring accusingly at the wolf, who held a strange, empty jar in one hand and a strange, darkly brimming cup in the other.
“Your ramen is drowning in soy sauce—does that seem right to you?” she bit out.
Kouga scratched his head. “How should I know? Anyway, it smells good…”
She cringed as the wolf drained the contents of the cup in one gulp. Licking his lips, he grinned broadly.
“Kagome-chan—that was great!” His eyes slanted to the wolf Elder’s granddaughter. “You could teach Ayame a thing or two. Her stew tastes like boiled leather.”
“Hmph!” Flinging her own cup aside, the offended demoness stalked away.
“Kouga-kun, you shouldn’t insult a woman’s cooking,” the miko chided, looking after Ayame in sympathy. “And anyway, considering what you just ate, it should be Kikkoman doing the teaching…”
The wolf blinked. “Who’s ‘Kikkoman’?”
As the girl launched into what would no doubt be a largely nonsensical diatribe, Sesshoumaru strode off in frustration. Reluctant as he was to leave her with that idiot wolf, he needed to put some distance between himself and her…distractions.
A few miles into the wilderness, he paused, unsheathing Tessaiga yet again. For the next few hours, he attempted to force the sword into its second form, without success. As his hand began to sear beneath Tessaiga’s latest refusal, he snapped the fang back into its scabbard with a seething growl and returned to camp.
The moment he set foot there, he realized she was gone.
The wolves were napping in a mangy pile. Snatching Kouga up by the chest plate, he snarled into his startled face.
“Where is she?”
“What—what the hell are you talking about?” the wolf shot back angrily.
“Kagome.” Glowing green claws melted through the metal. “She is gone.”
Kouga was alert in an instant. “Gone?!” Jumping to his feet, he kicked at his drowsy pack mates. “Get up, you lazy bums! Who saw where Kagome-chan went?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Sesshoumaru watched Jakken edge apprehensively behind Ah-Un, but it was the Elder’s granddaughter who spoke up at last.
“…She flew east on that horse of hers.”
Ayame shrank back as Sesshoumaru appeared just before her.
“When?” he demanded.
The demoness swallowed, her voice faint and wavering. “It was a while ago…”
Sesshoumaru’s muscles tensed. Without another word, he took to the sky.
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi
Uhohhhhh Kagome, the dog on a hunt is a dangerous beast! *awaits updates with baited breath*
lol yup!! thanks, girl! 🙂
Maybe there is a spanking in the near future for her disobedience ;). Hehehehe!
lolol 😉 you crack me up! <3 hope you like the next updates...!