Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Time Traveler Meets Spirit Detective ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 13 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or Inuyasha.

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Chapter 13 - Guilt and Rage

Kagome idly wondered if she would ever be able to say anything. After a few minutes of letting her attempt to explain, Yusuke had been ranting for most of the morning. When he wasn't yelling at her, Shippo was bawling and giving her those sad, soulful eyes. Now, of course, Hiei had arrived, and seemed amused by the Spirit Detective shouting at her. The only time she hadn't been yelled at was breakfast. Soon after, her mother had given her a disapproving look and taken Atsuko shopping.

"Damn it, we can take care of ourselves! Hell, we can take care of ourselves and all three worlds apparently! But did you think of that? No, you just decided to 'keep us safe'! Bullshit if you ask me, you just wanted to be alone with your little group! You moron, what would have happened if you failed to kill Naraku?" Kagome also wondered if Yusuke realized he'd repeated everything about four or five times now. Though he was getting a few more bad affects her decision could have had each time he went through the list.

"Yusuke? Why are you yelling at Kagome?" Kagome glanced at the clock, realizing Kurama was at least an hour early. Which meant now Yusuke would rant for about an hour to Kurama about what she'd almost done. Kagome quietly slipped off the couch, planning to head for the kitchen to get some food. She was stopped by a glare from the forest green eyes of Shippo.

"You have to stay. Yusuke told you to stay in the room." Kagome almost let herself cry at the look in Shippo's eyes. He dropped his gaze, the little kitsune was obviously still upset about it, but he was no longer crying.

"I don't see why you wanted to leave me here. What if you never came back? I'd be all alone in the world again. Even if I got hurt in the fight for Naraku, I wouldn't care if I could be near you," Shippo spoke quietly, his voice breaking at the end. Kagome reached out a hand, her mouth opening to apologize, to comfort, to say anything, but Shippo didn't allow her too. He jumped away, running towards Yusuke who had calmly started to explain what Kagome had tried to do, but had ended up ranting some more.

"Yusuke, Shippo, why don't you both calm down. Go outside and talk to Botan. Apparently she decided to arrive early to." Kurama motioned them both out the door, closing it firmly behind them before calculating emerald green eyes fell on Kagome.

"This wasn't a sudden decision, was it Kagome?" he asked, his gaze telling her he wouldn't allow any lies to come from her. She shrugged, trying not to meet his gaze. She heard a slight demanding growl come from him and looked up, shock written across her face. Kurama was usually so good at hiding any demon attributes that passed over from Youko to his human body.

"No Kurama. It wasn't. After Kagura came and mentioned that Kikyou was being held, I knew you had to stay here. I have a feeling that the end is coming. There may be one or two jewel shards still not held by either our group or Naraku, but I doubt it. Kouga will have to join us for his own protection. But you, you guys have no reason to go and get into a battle to the death. We all have personal issues with Naraku. You don't. If Yusuke hadn't caught me he would have gone home sooner or later and forgotten about the feudal era and me. It would have just been another mission." Kagome fell silent, not noticing the slight expression of amusement that appeared on his face.

"Perhaps Kuwabara, Hiei, and yes, maybe even I would have just chalked it up to another mission. But Yusuke? I doubt that. Despite how entertaining his fights with Inuyasha are, the reasons they fight aren't really to protect Shippo or because they just disagree. They're fighting over you. That is probably bothering Yusuke the most. You see, Inuyasha would have won if you had left. Yusuke hates to lose, but besides that, he likes you, and I think he can only take so much heartbreak in a short amount of time." Kurama watched Kagome's face carefully, for the first time seeing exactly how guilty she felt about it. He watched as she began to sniffle slightly, and looked away, towards Shippo outside and raised one eyebrow at the kit. Shippo was on the outside windowsill, ear placed against the window. If he wasn't mistaken, that was Yusuke behind him, apparently asking what they were saying.

Shippo just shrugged at Kurama and the older kitsune sighed before putting one hand on the door, hesitating before looking back at the crying girl and smiling. "Besides, what better way to teach Shippo than in his natural environment? I did promise Shippo to teach him a bit more about kitsunes and fighting you know. We may be different kinds of kitsunes, but I can still partially teach him."

With that Kurama went outside, glancing at Yusuke who was miraculously as far away from the window as he could be while still being on property. In fact, he was presently leaning against the well house wall, ignoring Kurama as he exitted the house. Shippo made no pretense that he hadn't been listening and immediately pounced on Kurama's shoulder. "You're all coming still, right?"

"Of course Shippo. Thanks to Yusuke we'll be able to. Though, I'm not sure how she thought to keep us away, since even she barely knows how the well works. Who is to say we still couldn't have gotten through?" Kurama frowned as Shippo flinched at his last words before he saw one paw point towards the well house.

"She warded it, Kurama. It may not have worked against humans, but you and Hiei at least would have been stuck here. She was probably hoping that without the jewel shards and with the warding, no one could get through except her." Shippo's young voice grew angry beside Kurama's ear and the emerald eyed kitsune sighed, reaching up with on hand to brush his fingers through the kit's silky fur.

"It didn't happen that way however, and in an hour we'll all be going back," Kurama said soothingly, feeling the kit relax under his ministrations. Kurama looked towards Yusuke, who was glaring at nothing. Botan was floating in the air, looking pensive. Apparently one of them had told her what Kagome had tried to do. Kurama's gaze traveled into the trees, where he could see Hiei standing on a branch in the distance.

"Is Kuwabara the only one not here?" Kurama asked, looking between Botan and Yusuke.

"Yes, but we are all rather early. I'm sure Shizuru is driving him up here right now." Botan's statement seemed mechanical as her gaze stayed on the house. Seemingly coming to a decision, she jumped off of her oar, striding towards the house.

"Tell me when Kuwabara gets here. I'm going to go in and talk to Kagome a bit." Botan didn't wait for Kurama's agreement, she was already at the door, opening it and shutting herself and the other girl in with a roll of her eyes.

"Boys overreact a bit much I think. Not that you shouldn't have done it, but your intentions were good. Those should count for something. Though, I wish Koenma wasn't always right about these things. I have to wonder how he knew what was going on. So, shall we have oden before we go?" As if Botan had said the magic word, Kagome perked up immediately at the word oden, and Botan grinned at her. The two girls walked towards the kitchen, intent on getting to the oden before anyone noticed Botan wasn't yelling at the girl.

-~-

Yusuke's head lifted slowly from the interesting piece of ground that had been listening to his grumblings for the past hour to the shrine steps, where Kuwabara was standing, his sister surveying the shrine coolly.

"I can just see the great moods you are all in. What, all your girlfriends run away?" Shizuru raised one eyebrow as the two kitsunes and Hiei both swung their heads briefly towards Yusuke before turning their collective gazes on Shizuru. Yusuke glared at them all.

"More like our mission. Apparently she decided it was too dangerous for everyone else." Yusuke's glare turned towards the house, where Botan had disappeared an hour before and where no noises had come from since.

"So, just your girl then?" Shizuru asked, amusement plain in her voice.

"What? Shizuru, Yusuke doesn't have a girl anymore, not since Keiko dumped him. And what do ya mean our mission tried to run away? Our mission is... Oh." Kuwabara winced under the combined exasperated stares and glares coming from his team members, shortly before the two girls exited the house.

"I see you're here Kuwabara. Time to go then everyone. Hello Shizuru, thanks for dropping off Kuwabara. See you again when we come back to the future!" Botan shooed the pack of teenagers, demons, and one sleepy Puu towards the well house, noticing how Yusuke put as much distance between himself and Kagome as possible. She almost scowled, and then shrugged. They could work things out on their own.

"Oh, please tell Yusuke's mother and Kagome's mother where we went, won't you? They'll probably be home soon; they went shopping to fix up the rooms a bit more. Bye!" Botan had poked her head out of the well house as it had started to glow blue, and after one last wave ducked back in. Shizuru waited a few minutes before striding over, surveying the interior of the well house and shrugging.

"That was interesting," she commented to the tree nearby. The tree said nothing, but she was sure that if it could talk, it would have agreed with her.

~-~

Inuyasha practically pounced upon Kagome when she came through, already growling his head off at her and demanding why she had taken so long. It was only then that he noticed the wards in her hand with splinters of woods still sticking to them. He suspiciously scented the air as it glowed again, and let out a snarl.

"Damn it! You were supposed to leave them behind!" As Yusuke topped the edge of the well after Kurama and Hiei, the two's gazes met and Yusuke sneered at the hanyou.

"She tried puppy. I decided that I didn't like being left behind, and I doubt anyone else wanted to be either." Inuyasha bared his teeth at Yusuke, the 'puppy' comment resounding in his mind.

Hiei studied the two boys with a neutral gaze. In his mind, this was a mission. An interesting one, but one that they should have been done with and not begun to get involved with the people helping them. "We have no time for your petty rivalries right now. Naraku."

That last word seemed to get everyone moving towards the village again, including the hovering monk and demon exterminator, both of who seemed extremely confused by what was happening. Kagome winced, she hadn't told Miroku and Sango what she planned to do, but she hoped they would understand her reasons, especially when Yusuke started yelling them to the whole feudal world.

Kagome carefully collected everyone's shards, snatching Yusuke's out of the air as he dropped it towards the ground. She lifted an infuriated gaze to his retreating back. 'By the way he acts, you'd think I'd tried to abandon our friendship. I would have come back. Unless I got killed or had my soul stolen, but barring any of that, I would have come back. And there are probably a lot more things he could have been doing right now. Other missions.'

Kagome sighed as they entered Kaede's village, walking absently toward her hut. Unfortunately, Yusuke didn't see things her way, and seemed to be seeing the bad side of things. She survived this long without their help, she was sure she could survive again. She'd never gotten really badly hurt. Kidnapped, had her soul sucked out, almost gotten killed by the almost soulless Kikyou, been knocked unconscious, but never anything life threatening. Not really anyway.

A little voice in the back of her mind pointed out other reasons Yusuke was furious at her, and the reason his gaze at Inuyasha had been more murderous than usual. Mainly she remembered what Kurama had said. She pushed it aside with a frown as she realized they were in Kaede's hut and she had been staring off into space since she entered. Sango snapped her fingers in front of her eyes and Kagome jerked her head towards her.

"Sorry. What did you say?" Kagome noticed the way Miroku and Sango both had similar thoughtful looks on their faces and went through the reasons why they could be looking like that.

"Did you really seal the well?" Oh. That reason. Kagome squirmed underneath their gazes, but guiltily nodded her head. She winced, feeling Yusuke glare from across the cramped hut. To her surprise, she was met with understanding gazes and a curious Miroku.

"Have you been teaching yourself Kagome? I didn't know you could do that yet. However, apparently they worked since Inuyasha could not go through the well all morning." Kagome's eyes widened and her gaze flew to Inuyasha, who was looking with disinterest out the entrance to the hut.

"I have, along with some helpful scrolls Botan gave to me. I wasn't sure they worked." Kagome didn't catch the accusing stare Yusuke sent at Botan or Botan's scowl headed back towards him.

"Keh. So she learned a few new tricks. Maybe she'll actually do something useful now." Kagome flinched as Inuyasha's words were accompanied by his growling and the air practically shimmered with his rage.

Her eyes narrowed an instant later and she turned furious sapphire eyes on the surprised but equally angry Inuyasha. Obviously he didn't like to think that she could keep him away now, and that her plan had failed, but he had no right to say that. "Useful Inuyasha? You want to see something I call useful?"

The quiet tone made him back up a step suspiciously as she clenched her fists and gave him a sweet smile. Realization passed through his eyes as her mouth opened and her eyes glinted with fury. Obviously he shouldn't have pushed her when she was already a bit emotionally unstable today. "What wench?"

Apparently he didn't learn from his mistakes, only made bigger ones. "Sit. Sit. Sit! Sit! Sit, and just for a change of pace, Sit! "

Everyone watched as Inuyasha was pounded into the bottom of the hut. If Yusuke had been in a better mood he would have laughed his head off. Shippo might have pounced on his head. Miroku might have a made a comment about a woman's wrath while trying to grope Sango. For once, no one said or did anything as Kagome picked up her bag and exited the hut.

"We should all get moving if we want to get anywhere today," Kagome said as everyone filed out.

"Oh, and Kaede, sorry about the hole in your hut. I was a bit angry at Inuyasha." Miroku gave a strange cough that sounded oddly like a laugh at her understatement and Botan grinned. Kagome found herself smiling back and suddenly both Sango and Botan were walking next to her as they headed north. Kagome eyed the two girls, met by a reassuring grin from Botan and a supporting smile from Sango. Her steps became slightly lighter and the three girls matched paces perfectly. Kagome didn't even notice how Yusuke and Inuyasha both hung back, an equal distance from her, one in the trees and the other on the path with Puu fluttering around his head.

"Don't worry Kagome, I'm sure Yusuke will forgive you eventually," Botan said confidently.

"Inuyasha too, he was just worried about you. It'll all be fine." Sango smiled, turning around to see Kuwabara holding Kirara in her smaller form. Sango chuckled and turned back around as Botan began speaking again.

"Yusuke was worried too. And hurt. But they will forgive." Kagome grimaced, looking back and noticing Yusuke's glaring at the ground as he walked and Inuyasha's gaze pointed forward in obvious anger.

Kagome sighed and looked at the other two girls. "What you say may be true, but will it even be this century?"

Sango looked thoughtful, and her tone became more than the concerned and supporting friend and more the weary and sad warrior. "Hopefully you three will make up before we reach Naraku. We can't fight Naraku when we're fighting each other, as we've found out before."

"No, we can't, and it will be hard to rescue Kikyou if we can't trust each other either," Kagome murmured, wincing at her own words. She had broken trust, something most of her group had done at one time or another, but never here. It seemed it was a right of passage. 'That'd be great. To be a "proper" shard hunter, you have to have either been betrayed or have been betrayed by someone. Looks like Yusuke can be a proper shard hunter now.'

Kagome turned away from her bitter thoughts as a soft blue form fluttered in front of her and she instinctively caught it. She caught Botan chuckling and was at a loss for why, even when she saw she had caught Puu in her arms and he was snuggling into her, looking upset and needing comfort. She petted him soothingly and without thought. "What's so funny Botan?"

"Apparently even though Puu shares Yusuke's emotions he doesn't always get who they're aimed at. Poor thing, Yusuke's turmoil is his own. Ironic that he turns to you." Botan's gaze slid to Yusuke who was apparently ignoring where Puu had taken up residence, though Yusuke himself seemed to be calming down slightly, even if Botan knew it would take a lot of work before he forgave Kagome. "Then again, maybe it's not so ironic."

Kagome looked questioningly towards Botan who just shrugged innocently. Sango looked baffled and confused at the sight of the animal. Kagome shrugged, then interpreted Sango's expression and began explaining the little she knew of Puu.

Everyone noticed the guilty and sorrowful looks Kagome kept sending to Yusuke, as well as the bitter and hurt ones he sent back at her. No one commented on them as they walked. The group continued walking north, all of the boys silent except for Kuwabara who seemed unaware of anything except Kirara. The two tailed cat seemed intent on keeping it that way. The girls chatted quietly, Sango and Botan ignoring the gaping silence behind them as they coaxed Kagome out of her guilt.

No one even noticed when a tiny flea demon came to rest on Inuyasha as he jumped through the trees, whispering in his dog ears something that caused Inuyasha to briefly stumble on a branch before smoothly catching himself and moving on as if nothing had happened.

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Thanks to allin656, Sapphire Gems, Annaku, and Hieis Mate for reviewing.

Natsumi Tsuchi-Ookami: I wrote this whole story over a year ago, so yeah, I expect there are a lot of grammatical errors, though I do try and read through and catch them. Err, can you point out in which chapters I forget quotations?