Falling Away

(Sango’s POV)



The twig snapping behind me caused my heart to race, spinning around I shouted to the unknown shadow. “Show yourself!”

“Relax, slayer if I’d wanted to hurt you, you’d be bloody by now.”

“Kouga!? What on earth are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing, and by the way who, in which one of the seven hells, are you shouting at?”

“No one I guess,” I replied as I plopped on my butt to the forest floor.

“Well surely you haven’t lost your mind, so you might as well tell me,” he continued, walking over and sitting down beside me.



I went over all that had transpired since Kouga had left our group up to the point of Inu-san taking off into the woods.



“What’s Kagome’s problem? She always acted as if she was head-over-heals in love with mutt face.”

“That’s what we all thought; apparently it was only fine for him to be a Hanyou when that was saving her butt on a daily basis.”

“I should have known it was too good to be true, that anyone could be that accepting.”

I look at the wolf-demon as he sat, obviously contemplating everything that has gone on and I am surprised to see that he is not as disturbed by all of this as I thought he would be, for he too had pursued the Miko. Something about his lack of response to all of this peaks my curiosity, and despite my better judgment I ask…



“What has changed your mind about Kagome-chan?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you stop chasing her?”

“I just realized that me and Kagome won’t work, for many reason’s and just let it go.”

It was a vague answer but I chose to probe no further, I feel if he had wanted me to know more he would have said more.



“Well,” I said finally, getting to my feet and dusting the leaves off of my clothes, “I’m going to continue looking for him before it gets dark.”

“No, you go on back to the others, I have a feeling he won’t be easy to find. You are weaponless out here and an easy target for lesser demons; I’ll use my senses to track the mutt down.”



Before he can think to react I have swept his feet out from under him and have a dagger to his temple. He is looking up at me with large, startled blue eyes as I offered him a smirk. “I am an exterminator, and a true slayer is never weaponless, as a demon I would bid you to make note of this.”



I right myself, concealing my dagger and extend my hand as a gesture that shows I meant no real harm. Reluctantly he takes the hand offered to him and as swift a fluid as liquid I find our positions reversed.

“As I would bid you to do the same when dealing with demons,” he says, hauling me to my feet with one hand, a cocky grin splayed across his face.



“Touché, my friend,” I replied smiling at him, “All I ask is that you do what you can to ease his mind about all that has gone on.” With that, I started to walk away from him, back toward Kaede’s. “And Kouga…”

“What?”

“Try not to argue with him, if what you said earlier is true then, the two of you have nothing preventing you from being friends.”



(Kouga’s POV)



I watch as the slayer walked away, out of my line of vision, and I couldn’t help but think, that’s one feisty female, Miroku‘s got his hands full with that one, no doubt about that. My mind soon drifted to the mutt as I took to the trees to try and track him down. It didn’t take long for me to find his scent, but boy did it ever jump around, this was going to take a while. I couldn’t believe he was taking this so hard, sure he had loved the girl but he was behaving as if there was nothing else in his life to live for. Even though I would never openly admit it, my heart goes out to the dog-demon. Truly, what are the chances of getting slighted twice by the same soul? Slim to none…



His scent seemed to leading up the mountain, out into the middle of nowhere, I have been all around this area and not once can I ever recall having a reason for coming up here. I have been trying to think of something to say to mutt face when I find him but have yet to come up with anything, I guess I’ll just have to wing it, because if my nose is correct I’ll be face-to-face with him soon. When I get to where his trail stops I am somewhat speechless.



Here, on the side of a deserted mountain, out in the middle of nowhere is nothing short of a small oasis. There is a large pond that is being fed by a small waterfall coming down the side of a mountain, little bonsai trees and flowers are dotted all around, and there sitting on a boulder at the pond’s edge was our missing Hanyou.



“What are you doing here wolf?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well I didn’t really want to be found.”

“I kinda gathered that from your trail.”

“Then why did you come? Did Sango send you?”

“No, believe it or not I volunteered.”

“Not…”



I began sending back my own snide remark, when the Slayer’s words ran back across my mind, so I decided to change the subject instead.



“How did you find this place?”

“I didn’t find it, I made it.”

“Huh?”

“Dug the hole for pond, planted all the trees and flowers… I even moved all the rocks here myself.”

“Really? I’m impressed,” I say as I started to move closer to where he was sitting.

“Don’t be, it was more out of necessity than out of some sort of eye for beauty. I wouldn’t come much closer if I were you.”

“Why not?” I said while still moving.

“Izz is kind of territorial.”

“Izz? Who’s…?”



Before I can even finish my question I sense a lesser demon approaching and its aura was on high alert. I turn around to see a rather large lizard demon watching my every move.



“Uh, I guess this is Izz?”

“How perceptive of you…”

“Well since you two seem to know each other why don’t you tell him to back off.”

“Come on back to the pond Izz, he’s not a threat.”

The lizard demon hesitates for a moment before it scurries back over to where Inuyasha is sitting.

“Is it safe to move now?”

“Yeah, he’s fine now; we’re just not use to company here.”

“I can see why, it’s a helluva climb to get up here.”

“Kinda the whole point.”



I took a seat on the boulder across from him and just took in the scenery for a few moments; despite why this place exists it really is quite beautiful.



“Why did you say this place was made out of necessity?”

“I know all of you know this already, but you really don’t completely get it, do you?”

“I know both your parents are dead, but so are mine, not that it makes it pleasant but it happens to a lot of people.”

“I’m sure it does, but how many days did you go hungry because of it?”

“Uh…none.”

“How many villages were you chased out of for being not quite human?”

“Uh…”

“Forests, for being not quite demon enough either?”

“None.”

“You ever been beaten, stoned, whipped, or hunted down just for existing?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Then you are luckier than you know…”

“I see.”



For the first time since I arrived, he turns to look at me and I see sorrow veiling those usually cocky amber eyes, lips parting to speak. “Do you really see?”



“I think I do.”



He was silently thoughtful for a while, not speaking again until that Lizard demon climbed up on the rock next to him.



“Izz and I became friends under some pretty weird circumstances.”



Apparently he wants to talk, I’ll indulge him.



“How so?”

“I was up on this mountain looking for something to eat, or shall I say something weak enough for me to kill.”

“‘Weak enough’?”

“I was nine at the time; I wasn’t exactly a great warrior early on…”

“Oh.”

“Anyway my nose was leading me to something wounded and he would have surely become lunch if I could have brought myself to kill him at the time.”

“What stopped you?”

“To this day, I don’t really know, maybe it was a foggy mind from not having eaten anything for days, maybe I just felt sorry for him…who knows… When I found him he was trying to drag his wounded body over to a mountain stream. I decided to fix him up instead of eating him, we dined on a few unfortunate frogs instead, and after he healed he hung around so we kinda became friends in a way.”



“You mean to tell me that big lizard let you take care of him.”

“Well, seventy some odd years ago he was nowhere near this size ya’ crazy wolf!”

“Alright, alright, my bad, so he even remembered you after your fifty year absence?”

“Yeah it surprised me too, I was scared to come up here after I found out I had been sealed to that damned tree for half a century, but I’m glad I did…”

“Well, are you coming back to Kaede’s or what?” I asked at last.

“Not until I catch Izz a deer. Him being blind in one eye makes deer difficult game.”

“Hell, if you’re up for company now I’ll help you, maybe we can even snag a couple to drag back to the village, I like ramen and stew as much as the next person but it gets old after a while.”



I watched as he seemed to quietly tell that huge lizard something, it flicked its long tri-forked tongue up the side of the mutts’ face and strode back into the pond.



“You ready to hunt, Ookami?”

“Always, just lead the way.”

“Try to keep up,” he said in his usual sarcastic tone.

“Shards or no shards, I can still outrun you, Inuyasha.”

“And here I thought you calling me by my name the other day was just a fluke, now I’m impressed,” he replied with a little smirk, as he leapt in a tree.



It was at that point I tried to recall the last time before this week I have called him by his given name, shaking the thought from my head I took off after the Hanyou – we had deer to hunt.