InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Bearers of the Shards ❯ Elusive Quarry ( Chapter 2 )

{#} {#} {#} THE BEARERS OF THE SHARDS {#} {#} {#}

{#} {#} Chapter 2: Elusive Quarry {#} {#}

Four travelers slowly made their way through the watery lowlands. There was no visible sign of the demon that they hunted; there was only a wide stretch of marsh grass, swaying in the cold wind.

Inuyasha led the way, as he was the only one with an inkling of where to go. His pace had slackened somewhat since their journey had begun.

"Why won't it RAIN?" he muttered. "This place REEKS."

The wetlands did stink---the abundance of still water was not doing much for the smell, either. Brackish mud squelched beneath their feet, smelling stagnant and foul.

"Don't wish for rain," Kagome admonished. "I've got an umbrella, but it's not big enough for all of us."

She was walking behind Inuyasha, sniffling on occasion and fishing tissues out of her knapsack. Shippou trotted along next to her, taking in the scenery with frank, wide-eyed curiosity. He was the most cheerful out of all of them, so Kagome had given him all the fruit leather out of her pack to keep him quiet.

"Is there any change in the scent trail, Inuyasha?" Miroku asked. He was bringing up the rear---partly for protection and partly so that he could watch Kagome's backside.

"Mm. . ." Inuyasha's eyes roved the hills ahead of them. "I still smell it. It smells cold-blooded, like a dragon, but not the same. It's pretty far ahead of us, though, which is why we can't see it."

Inuyasha estimated that by the end of the day they would reach the end of the valley, and traversing the hills with the humans would be a much slower process than passing through the flatter lands. He would never admit to himself, of course, that the reason for their slow pace through the fens resulted from his own weakness, which in turn resulted from the stench assailing his nose.

Of growing concern to him now was the emptiness inside him, centered on the region of his stomach. When he could stand it no more he finally stopped dead in his tracks and said, "Kagome, it's time to eat." He knew there was ramen in her pack---the savory scent of it had been the one thing keeping the swamp stench at bay.

Kagome, who had almost tripped over him when he stopped, looked around and said, "Here? I don't see any rocks. Or any dry ground, for that matter."

"It's not so bad," Inuyasha insisted, plopping right down in the mud with a resounding squelch. Evidently his hunger was more pressing than his distaste for his surroundings.

"Inuyasha, we really should---" Miroku began, but the half-demon had folded his arms and did not appear willing to budge. The monk gave up with a sigh and squatted down, carefully hoisting the bottom of his robes onto his knees to avoid the brackish mess at his feet.

Shippou made himself useful and gathered an armful of grass for Kagome to kneel on while she ate, and she fished dinner out of her backpack with an air of resignation.

Miroku then produced some reed stalks that he had found nearby and some stones, and fashioned them into a hearth of sorts. Then Kagome held a lighter from her pack to the pile and set it aflame. It took a moment because the reeds were damp, and the others gathered round to watch with interest. Inuyasha, of course, only had eyes for the ramen in the cup on Kagome's lap.

"Ah, Lady Kagome, what would we do without you?" Miroku exclaimed when she had finally succeeded in starting the fire.

"Work for your food?" she suggested.

Within moments the skies had begun to let loose.

In a flash, Kagome had her umbrella in an upright locked position, and Shippou had clambered onto her lap. Miroku looked as if he wanted to follow Shippou but was distracted by a sudden outburst from Inuyasha.

"What're you DOING?" Inuyasha cried. "Fucking putting it away! The rain doesn't make ME any less hungry."

"We can't cook it without a fire," Kagome explained patiently as she prepared to slip the ramen back into her bag. "Unless YOU want to eat it as is."

Expectantly, Inuyasha extended a hand toward the ramen package.

"I'm NOT wasting this," Kagome insisted, zipping up her pack and standing up. "We'll eat it when we can cook it. And that's NOT until we get to some shelter."

Inuyasha leaped to his feet.

"If we hurry, we can reach those trees up there by nightfall," he exclaimed, with renewed zeal.

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"Inuyasha," Miroku said, much later, "we shouldn't keep stopping like that during the day. There may be villages on the other side of those hills, and we can't let the demon get too far ahead of us."

Inuyasha nodded, sobered for once by the monk's warning. The trail was growing fainter already, and they had almost reached the trees at the end of the valley. This meant that the demon had already started back into the hills. It seemed to him that he could always be certain of its direction; it seemed to be traveling unerringly to the south. In fact, its course appeared to be a straight shot to the south, without the slightest sign of deviation for shelter or sleep. This demon, whatever it was, was driven.

Once they had reached the trees he noticed more footprints like the one in Kaede's village, preserved there because the trees gave the ground shelter. The group was forced to stop there for the night, because humans were slow like that. But to Inuyasha, time to stop for the night meant time for ramen.

He cast a watchful eye toward Kagome and was rewarded with the sight of her cooking over a fire the long-awaited chicken-flavored noodles. Then, satisfied that she was finally getting down to what was important, he moved off to squat down by the tracks and get a better look at them.

They were wider apart than the stride lengths of a man, but not immensely so. Inuyasha nodded to himself, figuring that he could take this demon down easily. Then his nose happened to catch the scent of demon that wafted up from the prints. Frowning, he bent closer to sniff again.

"Don't fall in," Shippou warned, appearing beside him.

"Shut up, I'm trying to smell," Inuyasha said, and drew in a deep whiff of the scent.

"You do smell," Shippou agreed, but Inuyasha ignored him. Bored, the fox trotted back to join Kagome and to hover over the cooking pot.

`Weird,' he thought, placing his hand into the footprint. `It smells like several things combined. There's the smell of the reptile-thing, and the smell of a pure demon. . .and also. . ."

"What is it, Inuyasha?" Miroku had come to stand behind him. The monk had removed his outer robes and hung them from a tree branch to dry.

"I was just thinking. . ." Inuyasha began, but stopped, puzzled.

"What is it?" Miroku repeated, squatting down beside him and frowning at the claw furrows in the earth.

"There are three parts to this scent," Inuyasha said, scratching his head with his own claws. "There's the one from the village---the one that smells like it SHOULD make a print like this. . . And there's also the strong smell of powerful, pure-blooded demon. And the third. . .I never noticed it until I found these, but it almost smells human."

"A hanyou?" Miroku suggested delicately.

"No, because it smells like pure demon," Inuyasha snapped. He always became grumpy at the mention of the word "hanyou." "It's more like there are three separate scents in one place. Which doesn't make much sense. . ."

"Naraku," Miroku said quietly.

"No, not him," Inuyasha shook his head. "He can change his form, but never his scent, and it's not him. . ."

"Dinner!" Kagome called, and in a flash both monk and hanyou were up and running.

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"Inuyasha says there's something odd about the scent we're chasing," Miroku told Kagome across the fire, around which all four of them were huddled. Inuyasha and Shippou were shoveling ramen into their faces as fast as their chopsticks would allow.

"Well, of course there is," Kagome said, sipping at her bowl of soup and sniffling. "It's a demon and it kills people. There's nothing normal about THAT."

"Well, he says it smells like a reptile, a pure demon, and a human all at once," Miroku told her, unfazed by the sarcasm.

Kagome frowned. "Yeah, you're right, that IS----" She broke off into a sneezing fit.

Inuyasha's chopsticks ceased their shoveling and he paused, noodles trailing down his chin. "Hey, you didn't sneeze in the SOUP, did you?" he asked suspiciously.

"Of course not!" Kagome protested. Her nose had turned pink from all the sneezing.

Inuyasha went back to his feeding frenzy while she took out a tissue and blew her nose. Apparently this was too much for Shippou, who edged away from her to finish his dinner at a safe distance.

"Thad IS weird," she told Miroku. "The smell, I mead."

"Inuyasha, have you considered the possibility that there might be more than one demon?" Miroku asked.

Inuyasha just looked at him, never once ceasing his ramen shoveling.

"Iduyasha, this is IMBORDAND," Kagome

"NOW what's wrong with you?" Inuyasha asked, slurping up the last of his meal. "You sound funny."

"I HAB A CODE!" she snapped. "How many times do I hab to TELL you? By dose is stubbed ub."

"Feh," Inuyasha muttered. He settled into a cross-legged position, making ready to watch over them for the night. He kept sending Kagome sidelong glances full of suspicion, as if he thought she might sneeze in his direction.

"Lady Kagome, are you sure you're up to this?" Miroku asked soliticiously, edging closer to her side of the fire.

"Of course she is," Inuyasha said, watching the monk's progress warily. "I need her with me."

This earned him a smile from both of them, so he hastily added, "The demon's got a shard, remember?" In the silence that followed his face reddened and he looked away.

"Where's Shippou?" Kagome asked suddenly. "When did he slip off?"

At that moment the fox in question came hurtling through the trees.

"I saw it!" he cried. "I went off to pee, and I SAW it!"

"Where?" Inuyasha asked, up in a flash. "Where did you see it?"

"I was up in a tree and I saw it standing on top of the hill over there." Shippou pointed a finger in the general southward direction.

"He likes to relieve himself in trees?" Miroku whispered to Kagome, who looked somewhat grossed out.

"It was TALL," Shippou went on, eyes huge as saucers. "It was standing on the hill, wearing man-shape. It looked right AT me; I KNOW it SAW me! Its eyes were red."

Inuyasha was on his feet in an instant.

"Kagome, pack up your stuff again," he told her over his shoulder. "We're moving out. I could bring this thing down TONIGHT!"

{#} {#} {#}

It had begun raining again in earnest, but Kagome was forced to put her umbrella away because she needed both hands to ascend the hill Shippou led them to. Thus the middle of the night found three of them slogging up the steep slope in sopping wet clothing and the lowest of spirits. Inuyasha had made the top in five bounds, of course, and took off down the other side, leaving Shippou and the two humans in his dust.

By the time they reached the top it was raining so hard that they couldn't see what lay down the other side.

"Where's Inuyasha?" Shippou asked, shielding his eyes from the rain with his tiny paws.

"Oh DO!" Kagome exclaimed. "I'b oud of tissues ALREADY. Miroku, gib me your sleeb."

Before the monk could utter a word of protest she had grabbed hold of his arm and sneezed into the folds of his robes.

"Oh, GROSS!" Shippou crowed in delight.

"Stand back," Miroku said abruptly, forgetting the sleeve for moment. "Someone's coming."

Obediently Kagome and Shippou moved behind him as he poised a wary hand over the prayer beads that restrained his wind tunnel. Someone tall, with very long white hair was making his way up the opposite side of the hill toward them.

As he drew nearer, however, Miroku relaxed and lowered his right arm.

"Oh, it's you Inuyasha," he said, sounding relieved. "I feared for a moment that it might be Sesshoumaru."

Inuyasha glared at the monk, looking rather sodden and miserable himself.

"Feh," he said. "Don't compare ME to that moon-headed buttmunch." Then his glare melted away, to be replaced with a look of puzzlement. "I've lost the scent," he said, almost wonderingly. "It's completely gone, like it disappeared off the face of the earth or something."

"Iduyasha, id's okay," Kagome told him, moving out from behind Miroku. "We'll just go south. Thad's where the debon is goig, isn't id? And id hasn't disappeared, because I cad still sense the Sacred Jewel."

Looking a little more cheerful, Inuyasha grabbed Kagome by the hand and started pulling her down the hill after him.

"Come on," he urged. "There are more trees down there. We'll make camp again."

Then Inuyasha paused, glancing back over his shoulder.

"What's with HIM?" he asked, referring to Miroku.

The monk was kneeling in the wet grass, rubbing his sleeve against it with frenzied determination.

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"Hey, Kagome, you sound better now," Shippou observed when they had reached the trees at the bottom of the hill.

"Yeah, but I feel worse," she replied. By this time she was leaning on Inuyasha to keep herself upright (which he didn't seem to mind), and her eyelids were lowered to half-mast.

"Inuyasha, I think you've pushed her too hard in her condition," Miroku put in blandly. "She's sick, and it IS very cold and wet after all." He seemed to have gotten past the sneezing incident.

"But you're warm, aren't you, Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, helping her onto a nearby rock. "You don't SEEM cold."

"I FEEL cold," she insisted. "Just get my sleeping bag unrolled while I take some medicine. Shippou, get my backpack, will you?"

She sat on the rock watching dully as the Kitsune scurried off to do her bidding. Meanwhile, Inuyasha had encountered the knot she'd tied in the rope holding her sleeping bag in a roll, and it seemed his claws just weren't nimble enough to untie it. He tried pulling on the rope, and of course this only made things worse, so he curved his claws and prepared to slice the thing off. Fortunately, Miroku managed to catch hold of Inuyasha's wrist before he could completely dismember his Arch-Nemesis the Knot. The monk managed to get it undone and unrolled the sleeping bag, and laid it out in what he judged to be the flattest, driest spot in the area---coincidentally nearest his own elected sleeping spot.

Kagome fished the medicine Houjo had given her out of her pack, poured some into the cap, and took a swig.

"Wow, Kagome, what an awful face," Shippou remarked, watching the contortions that followed. "Must be some nasty stuff."

Kagome didn't reply but recapped the bottle and staggered over to the sleeping bag. It didn't take her long to fall asleep once snugly inside it. She had finally been done in by the combination of illness and lack of sleep, but mostly from the Sleep-Tite â"¢ Herbal Cold Remedy.

Inuyasha and Miroku stood at her feet, looking down at her.

"She's feverish," Miroku observed. "Someone should keep her warm."

Inuyasha glanced over at him.

"WILL YOU PUT YOUR FUCKING SHIRT ON?" he snapped.

The monk was naked to the waist, having doffed his outer robes and shirt.

"It's wet," he explained mildly. "I'm waiting until it dries."

"Hmm. . ." Inuyasha rubbed his chin. "Well, maybe you CAN make yourself useful."

"Really?" Miroku asked, looking interested.

Inuyasha looked down at Kagome. "You can go find us some dry firewood. To keep her warm with."

With a faint sigh of disappointment Miroku wandered off to collect some kindling. Meanwhile, Inuyasha squatted down at Kagome's side.

"She really SHOULD be kept warm," Shippou remarked from behind him. "And Miroku's not the one to do it."

Inuyasha, who had been watching Kagome's sleeping face intently, suddenly became flustered.

"Well, YOU do it then!" he barked at Shippou, but he didn't budge from his spot, either.

The Kitsune sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

"Inuyasha, I'm not big enough. And besides," he added in a world-wise tone, "there's no harm in sleeping with someone, is there? I LIKE sleeping with Kagome."

Inuyasha's face apparently sprouted danger signs, because Shippou didn't say anything more but suddenly became engrossed in making himself a bed of leaves nearby. Inuyasha squatted there a moment longer, considering, and then he reached out a hand and rested it upon the sleeping bag next to Kagome. He tensed, looking at her as if he expected her to attack, but she just went on sleeping, so he put his full weight on the arm and eased down next to her.

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Half an hour later, Shippou was slumbering on his bed of leaves, Miroku still wasn't back and Kagome half-awoke to see Inuyasha's face lying next to hers.

On an impulse, she reached out to touch his hair, but instead her fingers found the prayer beads around his neck. She became a little more awake, and her hand lingered there thoughtfully. `I put these here to keep him from betraying me,' she thought vaguely, frowning. `But he's changed so much. . . I trust him now. After all we've been through. . .' She recalled the way he had embraced her by the well after his last battle with Sesshoumaru. Of course, he had then proceeded to take her jewel shards and fling her down the well, but that had been for her own good, hadn't it?

Her fingers strengthened their grasp on the beads, and when she pulled they parted like water around Inuyasha's neck. She lay there a moment, holding up the necklace and staring at it in the semidarkness.

`He doesn't need these,' she thought, and stuffed them into the pocket of her jacket, which was lying nearby. `Not any more. . .'

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At the same time Miroku was making his way back to camp after the long search for firewood in the rain, the slight figure of a human boy slipped through the trees. He had seen the half-demon in the forest, and moved quietly to avoid attracting attention, for he feared and hated demons. In the shadow of a great oak, less than fifty yards away, a man stood watching, silently, wearing a slight smile. In his hand he held a shard of the Shikon Jewel.

When the boy had passed from view, his silent watcher cast one thoughtful glance back toward the camp where the half-demon slept, then turned and began to walk. Through the darkness he followed the boy, with all the grace and leisure of a predator stalking its kill.

{END OF CHAPTER 2}