The Brother

“....Release....”

The sweet voice seemed to be carried on the wind, perking Inuyasha’s ears with it’s familiar
vibrations... but then it was gone in the next instant- the clack of a dozen or so beads bouncing and
rolling down his chest and the rock he was seated on stole his attention. Golden eyes watched as the
beads disappeared, landing in the stream he’d been washing in with firm plinks and plonks and
rolling off with the current. That was unexpected.

“Inuyasha!”

He’d tried for years to remove that damned ugly necklace, one he couldn’t recall ever putting on in
the first place, and it just chose to break all on its own. Right out of the blue. What the hell was its
deal?

“Inuyasha!”

Farther down the stream, Miroku was crouched by the edge of the water. Nude as the day he was
born, the lanky monk twisted and squeezed the rough fabric that made up his purple robe, rusty-colored water pouring from its folds. It would take hours to wash out the blood of their latest
attackers, but he intended to settle for at least soaking the stench out. He frowned and shook out a
few beads that stopped to get caught in his laundry. “Inuyasha, I think we should make camp for the
night-“

“Are you stupid?” Lip raised in a sneer, Inuyasha turned where he sat and gave the monk a glimpse
of a large fang. He hadn’t wanted to stop at the stream in the first place, but with the monk’s
whining, and his own amplified sense of smell, there was no getting around it. Short of beating
Miroku silent and pissing on him that is, and Inuyasha didn’t actually intend to go through with that
particular threat. The monk would just complain even more once he came back to his senses and it
had, technically, been Inuyasha’s fault that they got sprayed by a skunk demon.

Who the hell cared about technicalities. Fact was; Miroku stunk, needed a scrubbing, and this was
the closest stream.

“You wanna stick around for those demons’ mamma t’ show up? Those damn skunks get huge this
time of year and you can bet your ass those ones were just babes.” Inuyasha growled, rubbing a
clawed finger under his nose in remembrance of the battle they’d just finished not half an hour
before. It’d been short but unpleasant, and Inuyasha’s sinuses still reeled.

Miroku sighed heavily and wrung out his robe a final time, bringing it up to his face for a test sniff.
His nose wrinkled and his eyebrows lowered in a cringe, but he stood with the dripping garment and
slung it around his body just the same. “Very well. On we trudge then.”

“Just be glad I can’t smell right yet- you probably reek.” Inuyasha slid of his rock perch and waded
through the shallow water, enjoying the coolness rushing over his well-worn feet. “Might’ve had t’
piss on ya if I did.”

“You keep saying the sweetest things.” Miroku said dryly, pulling on his damp boots. One hand felt
around for his hair tie in the short, choppy grass, forgetting that it had been ripped out and lost
during the fight. Untrimmed dark strands fell over Miroku’s shoulders and he groaned, already
anticipating having to unwind them from branches during their travels.

There was good reason he always wore his hair up- it was an unmanageable mess that tangled at a
moment’s notice.

Miroku cast an envious glance at Inuyasha’s figure. All that silvery white hair and rarely was a
single piece out of place. “I don’t suppose you have anything on you that I can rip?”

Inuyasha, done squeezing the water out of his now-miraculously-dry Hitoe*, draped the fire rat robe
over his shoulders and looked to Miroku with a raised eyebrow. “What?”

“I need a strip of cloth- Oh never mind.” Miroku pushed himself to his feet with a disgruntled
grumble, robe still dripping around him despite constant squeezing, and looked around.

The sun was setting, lowering beyond the trees that seemed to go on forever all around, and only a
haze of light was left to shine up into the sky. It would be dark soon. “.... We should get moving,
Inuyasha. I won’t be able to see-“

“Yea, yea.” Inuyasha strode past Miroku with an un-called for shoulder bump and headed straight
into the trees without waiting. Really, Inuyasha didn’t know why he kept the monk around- both of
their memories on how they came to be traveling companions were fuzzy- except that somehow, in
some obscure way, the monk felt safe and friendly. Inuyasha knew Miroku had, at some point, been
a great help. Inuyasha could remember the monk’s wind tunnel and why it was gone, but it was all
part of one big, choppy mess of memories that didn’t make sense.

A mess that had something to do with a woman named Kagome, whoever that bitch was. Inuyasha
was going to hunt her down, wherever she was hiding now, and get to the bottom of it- nobody
messed around in his head and got away with it.

Inuyasha looked back over his shoulder, smirking slightly at the crunching steps not far behind that
signaled Miroku’s hurried trot to catch up. The monk was more a pain than anything without his
staff or wind tunnel, but he was part of a half-remembered pack that Inuyasha had lost... and wanted
back.