InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ I'm safe at home... aren't I? ❯ The truth comes out ( Chapter 3 )

Thanks for reviewing! Here's the next chapter, as I promised… And Moonshadow14, oh insane friend of mine, thanks for the four reviews! Although you already told me you would review this much at school…

Disclaimer: I still don't have that evil plan, so I still don't own Inuyasha… Waaah…

Previously…

*Kagome's dream*

He grinned evilly at her as he advanced, his arms outstretched towards her throat.

"No…" she gasped, backing up. "INUYASHA!" she screamed as his hands met her throat.

Chapter Three:

The truth comes out

"INUYASHA!" Kagome screamed, sitting up and putting her hands protectively around her throat, where she could still feel the chilling, snake-like hands of the thug. Breathing heavily, she looked around and saw Sango and Kaede, looking bewildered.

Inuyasha burst into the hut, crying, "Kagome!" and raced towards her. Kneeling next to her, he asked, "Kagome, what is it? Why'd you scream?"

She flung herself into his arms and sobbed, "Inuyasha, it was so awful! I thought those men might come after you, I was so scared, they hurt me so badly…" She trailed off as she burst into fresh sobs.

Inuyasha laid his hand against her ebony hair, and pulled her close to him, trying to soothe her tears. Finally she drew away, drying her tears. The girl suddenly cried out, "Ow!" as one of the many bandages put earlier on her left arm pulled. Kagome stared at her left arm. "How did… oh." She looked at the floor, fighting back tears as she remembered what happened, then looked at her friends. "I suppose you're all wondering how this happened…" she murmured shamefully. They all nodded.

She sighed. "I'll start at the beginning. I was sitting in my living room, watching my favorite movie-"

"What's a living room?" Sango interrupted.

"What is a movie?" asked Miroku.

"A living room is a common room where the family meets to read or talk, and a movie is a moving picture," Kagome patiently explained.

"A moving picture?" Miroku's eyes were wide with shock.

"Yes, a moving picture. Can I continue?" she grinned, then winced as one of the cuts on her cheek pulled open. A little blood trickled out.

""Here, let me cover that," offered Kaede. She dabbed on a little water and placed a bandage on it, pressing it a little so it would stick.

That done, Kagome continued with her story. "I fell asleep during the movie, but I woke up when I heard a crash. When I snuck over to the door to see what it was, I saw three enormous robbers!" Sango gasped. "I tried to sneak upstairs to call the police, but the step creaked and they saw me. I ran out the back door, and they followed me. I ran towards the well-" she blushed; she had been too dependent on that her friends would save her, and in the middle of the night too! "-because I thought that if they followed me, you guys would protect me." The blush deepened, and she lowered her head in shame.

Sango protested, "Kagome, why are you blushing? You know we would do whatever we had to, to protect you from them!"

Kagome smiled at her friend. "Thanks, Sango. Anyway… they caught up with me, and one of them tackled me. As he held me down, he and the other two- they kept punching me." She gingerly touched her bruised face. "I fell unconscious right as they pulled out knives. I suppose that's why my arm and face are all cut up. When I woke up, they were arguing over what to do with me. One of them wandered over to the well house, and suggested they dump me in the well. They did, and when I hit the ground the pain in my arm flared up and I fainted. Then I woke up here, surrounded by my friends." Kagome smiled at everyone, gulping back the memory of her horrid dream. It wouldn't happen again, so why bother her friends with it?

Inuyasha made a fist, a storm cloud of anger covering his face. "I'll kill them!" he roared.

"Inuyasha…" Kagome whispered.

He turned to look at her. "I mean it!" he said. I would go to the ends of the earth for you… his heart begged him to tell her, but his mind held strong.

"Inuyasha, be reasonable!" Miroku snapped. "There is hardly even a slim chance that you would even find them! Why do you not think for once?!"

The youkai deflated. "I didn't think of that," he mumbled to his feet.

"Well, that was obvious," Sango said, still holding onto Kagome's hand to comfort her. Inuyasha just growled.

"Inuyasha… please don't leave me…" Kagome whispered weakly.
Looking at her worriedly, he crouched next to her.

"Kagome, ye should rest," Kaede said kindly. The others nodded, and Inuyasha smoothed her raven-black hair and whispered, "I won't leave you, Kagome… not ever," too quietly for the others to hear. She smiled and slipped into contented sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Inuyasha, we have to do something!" Sango whispered fiercely after they left Kaede and the sleeping Kagome in the hut.

"Don't you think I realize that, bitch?!" he yelled. "Now be quiet, I'm trying to think of what to do."

"For now, we can do nothing," Miroku said, staff in hand. "We do not even know what the men look like, and it is not like we can go to Kagome's time and ask every man we see if they robbed a house earlier!"

"That's true," Sango sighed. "Still, we have to do something!"

"I know," Miroku said. "I did not say we were not going to do something!"

"Then what are we going to do?" asked Inuyasha.

"I… don't know yet," the monk replied, almost shamefully.

"Great," Inuyasha said sarcastically. He jumped up into a high branch on a nearby tree, watching Kaede's hut.

Sango, who had picked up Kirara and Shippo when they left the hut so they wouldn't disturb Kagome, flopped down under the tree in the same position she had been before Kagome was found, putting Kirara down on the ground next to her. (a/n- sorry for the long sentence! Back to the story…) She cuddled Shippo, asking her companions quietly, "I wonder how Shippo will take the news about his foster-mom…"

The spoken-of kitsune stirred and opened his eyes sleepily. "Sango…?" he mumbled, looking up at her. "Is Kagome back yet?"

Sango traded glances with Miroku, who nodded curtly. "Yes, she is, Shippo," she murmured.

"Yay!" Shippo crowed. "I wanna go see her, Sango. Where is she?"

"Kagome's sick…" Sango's mouth trembled; she threatened to cry any minute. Miroku put his arm around her, and for once she did not slap him away.

"What?" Shippo's look was confused. "What do you mean, she's sick?" He burst into confused tears, and Sango, trying to soothe him, started crying herself. Miroku tightened his grip on the two, not even trying to feel up Sango in the process.

Inuyasha looked down at the funny picture they made: a monk in black robes attempting to comfort a crying huntress and fox-demon. "Feh," he muttered. "Kagome will be fine, no need to cry." He looked down on them with disdain, then felt his heart soften. What is this? He thought. Why am I feeling pity for them?!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Sango was the first to stop crying, a little while later. Drying her tears, she cuddled Shippo closer as the little kitsune tried to dry his tears as well. "We have to be strong for Kagome, Shippo… who does she have in this time besides all of us and Kaede?" He nodded.

Miroku slid away, and Sango smiled at him gratefully.

The sun chose that moment to rise above the horizon, tinting the soft clouds above it a brilliant pink. They all relaxed in the beauty of the sunrise, forgetting their troubles for at least a moment.

Sango tickled Shippo. "Do you want to go see Kagome?" she asked the fox.

"Yeah, yeah!" He bounced up and down in her arms excitedly. She grinned and scooped up Kirara, who was still asleep, and she and Miroku headed back to the village, Inuyasha close behind them.

They stood before the door and Miroku warned Shippo, "You should not go bounding in and yelling for Kagome, Shippo. She needs her rest-" But Shippo wasn't listening.

"Kagome, Kagome!" he cried, crashing into the hut. Spotting her, he jumped up and down on her stomach, yelling, "Kagome, wake up!"

Kagome's first conscious thought was one of pain. Someone was jumping up and down on the bruises on her stomach, and shrieking her name in her ear. "Wh-what is it?" she mumbled, her eyes closed. "Sota… I don't have to go to school today." She opened her eyes, bewildered for a moment as to where she was. But it all came back in a rush. She was in the Sengoku Jidai, in Kaede's hut, and the pain came from Shippo, who went on jumping up and down on her, while Kaede looked on, amused.

Sango rushed in, crying, "Shippo, don't-" She saw Kagome sit up and take an excited-looking Shippo into her arms, then finished lamely, "-wake up Kagome." She laughed, and Kagome joined in as Inuyasha and Miroku walked in.

"Shippo!" Inuyasha yelled. "You woke up Kagome! Didn't we tell you-" He rushed at the little kitsune, growling, and Shippo squeaked, hiding in Kagome's arms.

"Inuyasha…" Kagome said sweetly.

He turned towards her. "Yeah, Kagome?"

"Sit!" she told him angrily, and he crashed to the floor. When the prayer-beads wore off, he growled, "What was that for, wench?" He glared at her.

"For trying to hit Shippo," she returned, glaring back.

"Feh, wench," he muttered. "I wouldn't have hurt him that badly."

Kagome sighed. "Well, now that I'm awake… let's do something!"

"Like what?" Sango queried.

"Like-" Kagome's stomach growled, and she laughed. "Like eat!"

~*~*~*~*~*~

After eating a hearty breakfast (and promising the growling Inuyasha that Kagome would get some ramen later), everyone settled down in the hut to talk and work on improving their weapons. Kagome made more arrows from branches Inuyasha had brought her, Sango polished hiraikotsu, and Miroku went over his staff, looking for cracks, while Inuyasha looked on from the corner. Kaede had been gone for a while, after a woman had come by asking for assistance with her child.

Miroku was the first to break the silence with the query, "Kagome, those men- what did they look like?"

She looked up, startled. "Well, one had shaggy blond hair and a moustache, one had short, well-kept hair, and the last was bald with a thick black beard," she told the monk.

"Mm-hmm…" he nodded, carefully storing away the information for later use.

The girl gave him an odd look. Why did he want to know that? she wondered. Oh, well. She shrugged it off to worry about later.

Inuyasha traded glances with him. As soon as Kagome and Sango weren't paying attention, they would go get revenge on the men who had hurt their friend so badly.

Sango saw the glance, and narrowed her eyes. She knew what the two planned to do, and she would help. After all, the boys would probably not even know where to look.

Just then Kaede entered the room. "Ye're needed," she told the group. "Rat-demons have been seen several times in a nearby village, and they've been terrorizing the good people for many days now. Will ye go?"

"Of course," Kagome said at the same time that Inuyasha said, "No!"

Kagome glared at him, then put on a pleading look. "Please? We can't just let them keep killing people…"

"No," he told her again. "We might not even get a shard when it's over! And you're hurt; we'd be slowed to let you keep up." Suddenly his sensitive nose smelled something… familiar…that pulled at his heartstrings. Salt water. He had made her cry?! His heart cursed him. Can't you keep her from crying for one day?! it seethed inside his head.

"Feh," Inuyasha muttered. "Worthless wench, can't keep from crying for one day?" He heard her hurt gasp, and though it tore at him, he stayed strong. He walked toward the door then looked out, asking gruffly, "When should we leave?"

Kagome jumped up happily, saying, "Thank you, Inuyasha!" She dried her tears, then turned to the rest of her friends and motioned for them to come.

Shippo immediately took his accustomed place in his Kagome's arms. She winced as his tail brushed against her bandaged left arm, but gritted her teeth and bore it.

Kaede called, "Wait," and ran back in the hut. When she came out, she carried a bow and quiver of arrows. Handing them to Kagome, she told the girl, "Since yours are in your time; this may come in handy." She waved as the group retreated into the trees.