Hindsight

A/N: I know. I am monstrously late. Blame it on that kraken they call term papers and end-of-year examinations. Bastards. All of them. Anyways, I'm finally posting this chapter. It's...alright, I suppose.


Disclaimer: Aargh. I can't loot the rights to Inuyasha. I don't own him. The venerable Takahashi does. Am I her? Noooooooooooooo. Therefore...I don't own anything. Philosophically speaking, I don't even own myself. I do, however, own a very nice collection of snowglobes. But that is neither here nor there.


Day Three; Act Three: Kagome
Chapter Seventeen: The Miko Pissed

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Kagome was completely aware that it was certainly not the poor mortar’s fault. She understood fully the values of Shintô, and that she was currently smashing the hell out of some hapless stone spirit was slightly disrespectful to the precepts of said religion.
She realized that, as a miko, and a vessel for reiki, she should espouse these beliefs, and stop her actions immediately.
But, as she raised the pestle high, and then sent it crashing down into the abused mortar, she smiled viciously at the sharp crack that echoed through Kaede’s busy hut, and decided that religion could just wait awhile.

She could feel her companions’ eyes on her in concern, but she stared industriously at the green paste coating the base of the pestle and the inside of the mortar, and applied herself a bit more vigorously to her task.
Because, as important as stopping Naraku was; as imperative as it was to fulfill her duty and reform the Shikon post-haste; as vital as it was to rid the world of evil and think joy-joy thoughts; right now, her driving goal in life was to ensure that Kaede’s fish stew was the best damned seasoned fish stew in the fricking universe, dammit!

She could feel Sesshomaru staring at her, but she did not particularly give a glorious damn. Seeing Inuyasha with Kikyo had sent overwhelming waves of rage all throughout her entire being, negating any previous tender sentiment directed towards anyone.
Oh, the kissing and cuddling part, while vaguely disturbing and disgusting (because, really, it could not be all that pleasant to make out with a clay pot), was actually acceptable to Kagome, (she could not control where Inuyasha attached his mouth, after all), what really riled her to distraction was that the bastard had given Kikyo a piece of her frigging Shikon.

And she even recognized the damned piece. It had been a hard bloody battle, and Kagome herself had dealt the killing blow, extracting the piece from a particularly cantankerous oni with a beautifully shot arrow.
Inuyasha, after a now-suspiciously short search, had claimed that it had gone missing, that it was her fault once more, because her arrow had disintegrated it further.

That Kikyo would not have done something quite that stupid.

And, unmitigated moron that she was, she had believed him.

But the sonofabitch had hoarded it, concealing it gods-knew-how and gods-alone-wanted-to-know-where, to give it to his only partially dead squeeze.

She would bloody castrate him when next she saw him.

Shippo came creeping up to her, keeping a wary eye on her methodically thumping arm.

“Mama? Is everything alright?” he asked softly.

Kagome turned her gaze to him, and smiled toothily.

“Oh, everything is just peachy. I saw the most interesting thing in the forest. A stray mongrel was sniffing an empty, ugly, unfinished clay pot, slobbering all over it. I hope it realizes soon that that too much moisture may cause the pot to melt.” She said cheerily, whipping her head around when Sesshomaru coughed suddenly.

“Problems, Sesshomaru?” she asked sharply.

“Not a thing, Kagome. Not a thing.” He said coolly.

Kagome gave him one more evil eye, before returning to her liquefied herbs.

Stupid dogs.

Stupid half-dogs.

Stupid, stupid men.

She was bloody angry, dammit. She wanted to stay angry.

She would not look at Sesshomaru anymore, because that brief glimpse had her heart skipping like a preteen on speed.

Godsdammit.

Why…why did Sesshomaru have to have silky silver hair, and satiny skin, and gorgeous golden eyes?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Kagome bared her teeth at the mortar, slamming the pestle so hard into it that fine cracks appeared.
There was just one logical answer: the gods were conspiring against her.

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Kagome glared at the red and silver figure sashaying out of the forests, an idiotic smile on his moronic face.
She eyed the katana at her side longingly, before abandoning the highly tempting idea.

Inasmuch as it would be wonderfully cathartic, as well as obvious justice, her impressionable adopted son was nearby.

But… he had spent the past few years in a constant state of warfare.

Certainly the scene of his mother disemboweling an idiot would not be too damaging to his psyche…
Shippo’s green eyes flashing through her mind’s eye had her firmly, but regretfully, abandoning the idea.

She knew that Sesshomaru was loafing somewhere nearby, his ridiculously pretty hair probably floating in the breeze, curling around his flat stomach and defined muscles, looking ridiculously pretty. She could most definitely be trying to surreptitiously slide her fingers through that eminently touchable silk, while praying he did not snap her hand off, but noooooo, she had to deal with her duplicitous idiot of a group-mate.

Stupid Inuyasha and his stupid stupidity.

He stopped right in front of her, his saintly smile morphing into his perennial scowl, his hand shooting out to flick her on the nose.

“Oi, you! What the hell are you doing, standing around here? We have shards to get!” he snarled.

Kagome, having had practiced it in her mirror feverishly for two days and nights, simply arched an eyebrow. Of course, when she started practicing, it was intended for use against Sesshomaru, but the current occasion seemed to call for it.

“Now, what use would that be?” she asked mildly.

“You idiot! YOU broke the bloody Shikon. YOU gave Naraku so much extra powers. It’s your fault we have to trek all through blasted Japan to fix YOUR godsdamned mistake!” he pointed out ever-so-politely.
“Yes, yes, there is that. But…what is the point of our tracking down the shards, initiating an epic battle to retrieve said shards, my purifying said shards, if YOU’RE going to give the biggest fucking shards to godsdamned KIKYO, who probably hands them over to fucking NARAKU?!?!?” her voice rising throughout the sentence, ending on s shrill scream.

Inuyasha’s face shrank rather gratifyingly, as he suddenly looked ten sizes too small for his hakama and haori.

As Kagome advanced on him, she snarled majestically, allowing the raging ire she had been carefully harbouring ever since her return to rise, permitting it to manifest itself in the bright pink flames that had Inuyasha retreating further.

Suddenly, he stopped, and his shrunken face rapidly became enraged.

What the hell had he to be angry for?

“You were fucking SPYING on me? Where the fuck do you get off, meddling into my personal business?!” he screamed, flecks of spittle moisturizing an unwelcoming world. Kagome would later swear that she had heard a tree coated in his saliva gagging.
But, for the moment, Kagome stared at him, nonplussed.

Wha…was he serious?!

“A…are you serious?” she asked in amazement.

“You don’t see me butting in when that mangy wolf comes sniffing up your skirts, do you?” he bawled.

Kagome laughed.

“No! You just try to beat the hell out of him. You just threaten him to stay away from me, because I’m not his woman. You just pick a stinking fight every bloody time you see him!” Kagome said, poking him hard in the stomach with the hilt of her katana with each sentence.

“Because I don’t want that flea-ridden mongrel to have to suffer the indignity of YOU!” he screamed.

Kagome halted, mid-poke.

Dimly, at the edges of her reddening vision, she saw Miroku and Sango pause in horror, Sango’s hand in mid-slap, Miroku in mid-flinch.

The entire world screeched to a dramatic stop.

Oh, no he didn’t.

Kagome did not truly know if it was fortunate or not that Kikyo had decided to appear at that exact moment. Truly. It was fortunate, in that she managed to halt her from committing bloody homicide with a blunt object. Unfortunate, in that she managed to halt her from committing bloody homicide with a blunt object. Still, as Kagome watched, jaw still swinging in the wind, Kikyo appeared out of the thick forest, two soul-stealers floating almost playfully around her. Inuyasha’s expression, twisted into an unappealing picture of anger, suddenly morphed into a drooling admiration that would not be unfamiliar on the face of a teething puppy.

“Inuyasha, why are you lowering yourself to arguing with her?” Kikyo asked coolly, raking an insulting glance down Kagome’s body. Kagome glanced down quickly, ensuring that all the bits of fish Shippo had spilled on her were not still attached to her bright pink shirt.

“She spied on us last night.” Inuyasha volunteered helpfully, almost falling on his face in his eagerness to please the scowling ex-miko.

“Ah, but what would you expect from a pathetic little girl lusting after someone she obviously can’t have?” as Kikyo curled a possessive hand over Inuyasha’s arm, Kagome read the glimmer of savage triumph in her otherwise creepily-empty eyes.

Kagome fought back hard on the impulse to shove her words down her dusty dirt-throat, assisted by the business end of the katana still gripped tightly in her hand.

“Come, darling. Let us leave this…little girl to her sad, lonely existence.” Kikyo cooed into Inuyasha’s ear, dust mites puffing out of her mouth and into his hair.
As Kikyo led Inuyasha away, shooting one last vindictive grin over her shoulder at a mute Kagome before they both disappeared into the forest, Kagome’s fingers pressed even harder into the hilt of her hapless sword.

“Uh…Kagome…are you alright?” the hesitant voice of Sango sounded softly in Kagome’s ear, and she whipped around, pink flames licking at her blue eyes.

“That…that…that…bitch!” she growled.

“Actually, she seems to be the alpha in that relationship.”

Kagome’s jaw dropped at the casual comment that wafted through the tension-fraught air to smack hard against her auditory senses.
She turned slowly, carefully, pivoting smoothly on one sneakered heel, to calmly regard Sesshomaru, who was leaning nonchalantly against a nearby tree, watching her with no little interest.

“Sango? Miroku? Could you please give me a minute with…Sesshomaru?” she asked pleasantly, the murderous glint in her eye causing both Sango and Miroku to beat a hasty retreat, a protesting Shippo firmly in Miroku’s grasp, leaving an amused Sesshomaru and a furious Kagome together in the suddenly quiet clearing.

A clueless cricket chirped cheerfully, followed by a chorus of oblivious birds, right before Kagome exploded.

A/N: Well...I know. You all wanted Kagome to beat Inuyasha into the next ten lifetimes. As did I. Somehow, my fingers wrote this instead. But, fear not, my duckies. Inuyasha soooooooooooooooo gets his soon. Very very very soon. But first, we must check out Sesshomaru's take on this, coming up in Chapter Eighteen!