Hindsight

A/N: Happyhappy joyjoy!
Oh, I know most of you must think that I am certifiably insane, but that's alright!
I'm haaaaappy! I got me some reviews!
But hell, and they're even GOOD!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

So, anyways, without further adoooo....
Chapter 9!

Disclaimer: Seriously. I mean, seriously. It hasn't changed in the last 8 chapters. It ain't changing now...
*sigh* Fine.
I-do-not-own-Inuyasha-or-his-environs.
Satisfied?


Chapter Nine: Cancer-Causing Headaches

Day One; Act Nine: Kagome

She would wonder, the next morning, while soaking in a restorative, badly needed hot springs bath, exactly when fate and the gods had decided to play ‘Freak-Show’ with her life.
Certainly, the unceremonious tossing back a good half-millennium into the past, followed by the long, arduous acquisition of friends and allies, not to mention Houjo’s incessant attentions that rivaled Kouga’s in terms of irritating levels, as well as a host of other unfortunate incidents in her life that she really didn’t want to elaborate on would point out that the gods had started rather early, when she was fifteen.
However, she could, and would, safely say that none of it even remotely came anywhere near to the previous night.

As Kagome’s gaze flicked frantically from brother to brother, she cursed fluently under her breath, after her loud expletive. She couldn’t very well yell at Sesshomaru, because he was well within his rights to defend himself, as well as he was not breaking any rules of their arrangement.
And trying to reason with Inuyasha when he was in that particular mood? She would not even waste her breath trying. How then, was she expected to keep her cantankerous friend and her new ally from beating the ki out of each other?
Or, more likely, how was she to stop Sesshomaru from handing Inuyasha his guts, as he had done before?

As it was now, both brothers had eyes only for each other, Tetsusaiga in Inuyasha’s hands starting to glow ominously. Sesshomaru had drawn neither of his swords, but his claw was resting lightly on the evil one that gave Kagome the willies.
She knew, just knew, that it would be a long, bloody battle, most likely divesting one of them their limbs. Or spinal column. Or face.
Shit.

Sesshomaru’s claws tightened almost lovingly on the damned sword, and Kagome heaved a frustrated breath. The brothers both dashed at each other, both swords now drawn and pointed wickedly at each others’ throats, and Kagome did the first thing that popped into her head.
Granted, it wasn’t particularly smart, safe or even remotely wise, but it got the job done.

Right before they crashed at each other, she stepped smack in the middle of them.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the double smash youkai attack, and prayed to all the gods above that she would at least survive.
The angry screech of two blood-thirsty youkai as they skidded to a halt had her cracking one eye open hopefully.

She immediately shrieked and fell flat on her ass.

Both Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, now only separated by her and about five inches of air altogether, glared murderously down at her, as she moaned in agony at her probably deflated derriere.

“What the fuck was that, you stupid idiot?” Inuyasha screamed at her, looking about ready to brain her with his sword.

Kagome shot up, ignoring her throbbing hindquarters, and glared right back at him, eyes displaying her fury so very well that he even took a small step back.

“Me??? Who the hell do you think you are, calling ME an idiot? All these damned years of tracking, working and fighting, you should have grown a damned brain. Or at least half a damned brain. Because if you had, you would have seen that Sesshomaru was just SITTING there, and we weren’t minding each other. But no! You had to come barging in and ATTACK our new ally! STUPID BAKA IDIOT DUMB!!!” she screamed, punctuating her last four words with sharps thumps of her fist on his stupid baka idiot dumb-hard and defined and her thoughts were so not going down that path right now- chest.

He grabbed her thumping fists and shoved his now mottled-red face into hers.

“ALLY!? Over my goddamned dead body!” he bawled.

“That can be arranged, you jackass!” she screamed right back, wrenching her hands out of his and taking a step back. Recognizing the telltale signs, he leapt for her, but was too late.

“SIT! SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” she screamed, grinning vindictively when he went smashing into the dirt, each ‘sit’ driving him deeper. Better still, his mouth had been open, and was now probably filled with dirt and worms and other wondrous things.

Hearing the stream of muffled curses drifting out of the crater had her smile widening.
The grin faded when she felt the icy displeasure of Sesshomaru’s glare on her neck.

“What?” she asked defensively, turning around to face him.

“I dearly hope that this is not to be a regular occurrence.” He said tonelessly.

“What? Me sitting Inuyasha to the centre of the earth?” Kagome asked, confused.

“No. That can continue indefinitely. I meant your intrusion into a perfectly good spar.”

Kagome gaped at him, before her eyes narrowed until they resembled the dangerous slits of a razor.

“I so know that you didn’t just call what definitely would have resulted in blood, sweat, bone and tears a ‘perfectly good spar.” She said incredulously.

“I know your hearing is perfectly acceptable for a human. And I doubt Inuyasha would have cried. Much, anyway.”

“He wouldn’t have. I would have.” She told him.

Inuyasha slowly crawled out of the hole, looking carefully around to make sure Kagome wouldn’t send him straight back.
Kagome glared at him, keeping his outburst rather subdued.

“I am NOT going to be allied with this jackass? Do you understand me, Kagome? He is evil and cruel and will kill us all in our sleep to get Tetsusaiga. I am NOT putting you all at that risk.” Inuyasha said loudly.

Kagome’s glare increased in ferocity, and she stalked up to him, eyes blazing.

“No, you listen to me, you insufferable hypocrite. Firstly, I got his word, on his honour, as a Taiyoukai. Unless you’ve suddenly lost all sense of an inuyoukai’s honour, that means that he is literally stuck to his word. He is not going to kill any of us, or steal your sword, at least until his word is fulfilled. So stop worrying about that. Unlike some people I could name, I don’t bring people into the group who would steal the shards and give them to Naraku, hmm? Secondly, contrary to your opinion, I am not an idiot! Do you think I would have endangered any of you?”

Inuyasha looked about ready to pop, and said perhaps the stupidest thing he had ever said.

“Oh, please. You, smart? Now, Kikyo, she was smart. You can barely count. Of course you would put us in danger, because you just don’t know any better.”

The condescension of his tone was what really got to Kagome, and she actually burst into flames, she was so angry.
Of course, they were bright pink flames, which kind of detracted from the awesome fury of the sight, but Kagome later opined that one could not have everything.

“You…you…you…ASS!” The stream of words that followed for about half a minute was all the same, a three letter word that Inuyasha had learnt to hate with every fiber of his being.

She later stared down the deep hole, a speck of white and red being the only indication that Inuyasha was down there, and shook off her anger, feeling REALLY good about giving Inuyasha a piece of her mind.

Liken her to a soul-sucking pillar of clay, would he?

As she breathed deeply, huffing in righteous indignation, she knew it would take him a goodly amount of time for the spell to wear off and climb out of the crater, so she turned to Sesshomaru.

“I’m sorry that he’s being so rude. Inuyasha really has no manners to speak of.” She apologized.

“I noticed.”

Kagome smiled weakly at his dry statement, turning at the scrabbling behind her. Inuyasha’s hands, visible at the edge of the hole, were sunk deeply into the dirt, trying to pull him out.
When he finally climbed out, his front was covered in dirt, his gold eyes blinking out from behind a thick mask of brown sludge. When he shook the dirt off, Kagome rounded on both brothers, furious and afraid.

“Inuyasha, he is my ally. You are my ally. We are all frigging allies. You attack him, I will sit you so blasted hard your thrice-cursed spine will shatter. Repeatedly. Got that?” she threatened.
“As for you, Lord Sesshomaru, please, forgive Inuyasha his brainlessness. He cannot help it. But, please, refrain from the ‘perfectly good spar’s, to the best of your abilities.
“And if either of you give me a headache like the one I now have ever again, I will find a way to give you both testicular cancer.”

She huffed, then stomped off to plop down next to the fire, pulling her awestruck kit onto her lap, and looking at a grinning Miroku and Sango.

“What?” she asked, aggrieved.

“What’s testicular cancer, Ma?” Shippo finally asked.


A/N: I'm grinning. You know, the wide, shit-eating kind. The kind you hate to see on a sibling in the middle of an argument kind of grin.
I rather like this chapter.
Perhaps it's the use of the word 'testicular'.
How often do you get to use that word in normal conversation?
Well, I don't get to much.
I don't know about you guys.
Maybe one of you is a doctor or something, and you're totally bored with saying 'testicular'.
I know, it's the kind of thing a twelve-year old boy would find funny.
I told you that I'm weird.

Anyhoo...next up, Day One, Act Ten...Sesshomaru!