Pretty sure my ex tried to kill me today, but he says it wasn't him. Anyway, it sparked me to write. Nothing about today's events relates to this story, though.

Enjoy!

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Auburn Strands and Red Threads #27

"Inuyasha . . . I need you to get it together."

Miroku paced in front of the half-demon, his expression unusually serious. Inuyasha was seated in front of the well where Miroku had intercepted him. Any other time Inuyasha would have been indignant and treated patience like a nuisance, but Miroku had looked . . . intimidating for the briefest of moments. Inuyasha eyed Miroku's hands, thinking of the best way to dodge being hit with a staff or having the full force of the Wind Tunnel aimed at him.

Miroku glanced at Inuyasha before frowning harder. "No, I really need you to get it together. It's been over seven days. Seven days, and . . ." Miroku sighed and sat on the well. "You told Kagome, didn't you?"

Inuyasha hesitated. "About. . .? Yeah . . ."

Miroku sighed loudly, dropping his face in his hands. "I knew it," he mumbled. "I knew it."

"Now it's a problem? You told me—"

"I know," Miroku groaned. "I know, it's just that . . ." He looked up, exhausted. "She came back, but you didn't. Something was bothering her, so she said she needed time to be home. She's been gone. You've been gone. Since then, demon activity has been bad."

"How bad?"

"Your—Well . . . Let me just say that Shippo, Sango, Kirara, and I did a pretty good job fighting against demons and collecting jewel shards while you and Kagome have been gone."

"Okay."

"I mean, if we had any proof to show you, even you'd be impressed."

"Yeah . . . Wouldn't the shards be the proof?"

"They would! They really would . . . It's just . . . we don't have them."

Inuyasha stared for a long moment. "What do you mean you don't have them?"

"We gave them away."

"You gave them away?" Inuyasha tried to wrap his mind around the idiocy. "You gave away the shards you found?!"

"We gave away all the shards we had." Miroku took a cautionary step back. "To Sesshomaru."

Inuyasha jumped to his feet. "WHAT?!"

Miroku raised his hands passively. "Look, I understand you're mad, Inuyasha, but you are going to have to deal with it. Like I said, demon activity has been bad, and we did manage to reclaim about seven shards—"

"SEVEN?!"

"—but we were near the southern mountains again. Seven shards around where all the demon activity is? We were just asking to be killed." Miroku raised the sleeve of his right arm, showing it was heavily bandaged with spots of blood that had soaked through. "Thanks for asking how we did, by the way. We gained a lot of cool battle scars.

"So where the hell does Sesshomaru come in all this?"

"He saved us. Not out of the goodness of his heart, mind you, but he fought off the demons and managed to get us out of there . . . and he took the shards with him."

"That bastard!"

"It gets worse."

"How?"

"Sesshomaru managed to get us all out of there, but even he was having trouble with the sheer volume of demons. They are still out there, and finding the shards are their sole objective. We have to get serious about this again, meaning all of us. We need both you and Kagome here and we all need to go."

Inuyasha wanted to protest. He hated to admit it, but he did not have the drive to go jewel hunting anymore. The likelihood of another group of misfits setting out to find the jewels for good reasons was slim to none, but why did it have to be them? Why did it have to be him, right now?

"I suppose I have to get Kagome?" Inuyasha asked.

Miroku looked at him worriedly. "Do you two hate each other now?"

"No . . . I just . . . haven't seen her in a while either."

"But you were in her era this whole time?"

"Not the whole time."

Miroku shook his head. "Then it is a good thing the journey to the southern mountains is a long one. But for now," Miroku sighed resignedly, "I shall go with you to retrieve Kagome."

"What? What do I need you for?"

"Probably nothing, but I refuse to go back to Sango empty handed."

"So, let me get this straight. You got all these injuries . . . from being mugged?"

"Yeah."

There was a crowd surrounding Chad's desk consisting of Keigo, Mizuru, and other concerned classmates. They were surprised to see Chad come into class wearing a cast on his right arm a day after being absent, but upon further inspection they saw that he had scratch wounds on his face and arms as well.

"A mugging?" Keigo asked again.

"That's right," Chad said.

The group went completely silent, dumbfounded faces unable to look away from the severely injured teen with scratch wounds that appeared as though they were fiery red and in danger of bleeding at any moment.

"Chad," Keigo said slowly. "That is so . . . terrible! What kinda mugger goes around breaking arms?!"

"And to scratch you up like that is just inhumane! Even by mugger standards!" another student exclaimed.

"They usually try to take the valuables and go!"

"They probably thought you were some lonely foreigner!"

"What?! You mean some kind of hate crime?!"

"In my country?!"

"No way!"

"Police! We need to call the police!"

The crowd around Chads desk was in an uproar. Orihime, Uryuu, and Tatsuki watched from a distance. They had not had the chance to ask Chad about what happened, but Orihime knew very well what must have happened. After hearing the accounts of Uryuu and Tatsuki, she was sure they had encountered a demon last night and Chad fought it. She felt guilty. She was sure this all stemmed back to her not telling them about Inuyasha in the first place, so maybe they would have all been on guard for the new enemies if she had. Even worse, she could not heal Chad's injuries now that everyone has seen them.

And that was not the only problem . . .

"Ichigooooooooo!"

Keigo launched himself across the room at the carrot-top who had just walked in, but he crumpled unceremoniously to the ground after catching a knee to the stomach. Both Ichigo and Rukia entered the classroom grim faced.

"Hey," Mizuru said. "How'd it go at the principal's office?"

Ichigo shrugged a shoulder. "Missed a lot of days this semester. Wants to talk to my dad about it."

"That sucks. So your dad is going to come down here, huh?"

"Hell no." Ichigo walked over to Chad and looked at him for a moment. "Looks pretty bad."

"Yeah. But that's all."

"Hm. Meet me on the roof at lunch. I wanna make sure you're alright." Ichigo then looked in the direction of Orihime, Uryuu, and Tatsuki.

Orihime felt heat rush to her body, but they were entirely because of dread and panic. Seeing him walking towards them confirmed a nagging fear she had since hearing both he and Rukia were meeting with Captain Yamamoto over a week ago.

"You two," Ichigo addressed Orihime and Uryuu, "meet me on the roof, too."

Uryuu squinted suspiciously. He, too, had sensed a change in Ichigo since his return. "What's this about?"

Ichigo looked at him, face stoic yet eyes enraged. "I missed you guys."

o0o0o

At lunch, Ichigo blocked the door to the roof.

Orihime, Chad, and Uryuu arrived to find Rukia waiting for them, and in true horror movie fashion, Ichigo shut the door behind them and stood in front of it. Orihime nearly screamed.

"What's with the intimidation, Ichigo?" Uryuu asked. "You've been thuggish ever since you got back."

"Yeah, well, I've learned a lot since I left. I take it you two have already met . . ."

"Inuyasha," Rukia said.

"Right," Ichigo said. "Him. You met him, right?"

"Orihime's interestingly dressed friend?" Uryuu said. "We met him yesterday, in fact, but how did you know that?"

"Captain Yamamoto showed us before we came back," Rukia said. "He showed us a lot of things."

"What kind of things?" Uryuu asked.

"Orihime," Ichigo said, looking straight at her, "you were told to stay away from Kisuke, weren't you?"

Orihime went wide eyed. "Pardon?"

"He told you to stay away from Kisuke," Ichigo said again. "That day I fought Inuyasha in the Soul Society. You met with him, and he told you that, didn't he?"

"That day . . ." She definitely remembered the two fighting, and she did talk to the Captain General. But . . . he talked about Inuyasha. He never said anything about Kisuke. "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun, but he never told me stay away from Kisuke. Why would he?"

Ichigo and Rukia shared a look.

"Orihime," Rukia said, "we did learn about Inuyasha. It didn't register with me when you first said it, but he's a . . . half demon?"

"What?" Uryuu looked between her and Orihime. "Demon? Like in the myths?"

"They aren't myths, apparently," Ichigo said. "Apparently they used to exist. Or . . . do exist. Thanks to some opening in the World of the Living, there's a type of gateway between now and the Feudal Era, which is where that Inuyasha guy is from."

"What . . . are you even saying?" Uryuu shook his head. "Demons? Portals to the past?"

"I see," Chad said. "That explains how that demon got here that night."

Uryuu gaped at him. "You're telling me you believed that thing was a demon? Chad, clearly that was some type of Hollow."

"It was no Hollow," Chad said. "Hollows react to spiritual pressure, but that thing did not. My abuelo used to tell me about demons, but I never thought I'd actually see one."

Uryuu continued to gape, unable to believe anything anyone was saying.

"There's more," Rukia said. "Apparently the demons in the Feudal Era are acting strangely, and this is all comes back to Kisuke."

"Wait a minute!" Orihime said. "Kisuke would never do anything bad like mess around with demons."

"He's not directly messing with demons, but it's because of what he's been doing on his own time that has caused the problems. Captain Yamamoto believes the reason you met Inuyasha at all is because Kisuke has been messing with the barriers between time."

"But . . . No, because Inuyasha was visiting the World of the Living before he met me. He has a friend who lives in Tokyo who was born here like the rest of us."

Rukia folded her arms, her brows creasing intensely. "Then . . . either Kisuke is the reason Inuyasha can get here at all or you meeting Inuyasha is what is causing the problem. Unfortunately, it's unclear what the root problem is, but you hanging around Kisuke seems to be the biggest one."

"But . . . I-I don't understand. Kisuke hasn't done anything wrong. He's been helping me, so how is it me being around him that's wrong? How can any of this be the cause for the demons?"

"It's a lot to explain," Rukia said patiently. "In truth, I don't really understand it myself, but I'm not one to question Captain Yamamoto. All I know is we Soul Reapers are here to protect the World of the Living and keep the balance between here and the Soul Society, but it's going to get a lot more complicated if demons come into the mix." She paused, looking at everyone worriedly. "I mean, you guys understand, right? Can any of you feel the presence of these . . . demons?"

The group was silent. Uryuu's mind was in a whirlwind as he stared at everyone. Were they serious? Why were they serious? Hollows and the Soul Society were one thing—he grew up knowing those were real—but demons? Time travel, essentially? No way. His father would surely know something about that and would have warned them, so why now?

"Can someone please explain all of this to me?" Uryuu finally said, frighteningly defeated.

"We don't really have the time," Rukia said. "Lunch will be over soon, but our main goal for this meeting was to discuss what to do next."

"In regards to what?"

"Kisuke. He still—"

"He can train us!" Orihime blurted. All eyes turned to her, prompting her to gush, "J-Just like when we went to save Rukia, Kisuke can train us to fight demons—Inuyasha, too! We were talking about him training me how to detect them."

Ichigo and Chad cringed.

"Orihime," Rukia said carefully, "I know you mean well, but Captain Yamamoto is certain that Kisuke cannot make this situation any better by becoming more involved."

"Well . . . W-well, why doesn't he come down here and say it then?"

Rukia jolted, eyes darting around the area. "Orihime, please."

Orihime flushed, her heart pounding. "He said he talked to me about Kisuke, now he's talking to you two about Kisuke. If . . . If he thinks Kisuke is so bad and wants him to stop whatever it is he thinks Kisuke is doing, then he should come down here himself and say that."

Rukia and Uryuu stared at her, alarmed.

Chad remained silent, contemplating her words.

Ichigo, surprising himself, fought very hard not to smile.

Inuyasha and Miroku had arrived to the Modern Era shortly after high noon. It was a feat to keep Inuyasha focused on handling the Kagome situation instead of rushing off to find Sesshomaru. Even after logical words and painful struggling, Miroku was not convinced he could keep Inuyasha with him for long.

However, when they climbed out of the well, Inuyasha's mood changed.

"This is something," Miroku said as he looked around the small room and the well. "So this is the well after all these years? All the grass and vines are gone. And why did they build a hut around it?" He looked at Inuyasha, whose ears were laying lower than usual. "Are you alright?"

Inuyasha hesitated. "What am I supposed to say to her?"

"Well, you could start with a hello."

Inuyasha looked back at him, frowning.

Miroku shrugged. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha, but I can't think of anything flowery that would be appropriate to say. The situation at hand calls for quick action because we can't be delayed any more than we are. If you two are going to reconcile, it can be as we travel to the southern mountains, but we all need to be in our time first."

Inuyasha huffed, clenching his teeth. He didn't like when Miroku sounded like this.

"Yes, sir," Inuyasha said as he walked out of the shrine.

The two walked to Kagome's house. Miroku loudly marveled at everything he saw—things that changed, things that stayed the same, things he couldn't wrap his mind around—and when they arrived at Kagome's front door, Miroku marveled when Inuyasha pressed the doorbell.

Luckily Miroku didn't know Inuyasha's habits or he would have surely wonder why he did not go to Kagome's window like he usually did.

"Ah, Inuyasha." Mrs. Higurashi answered the door, smiling pleasantly. "I was wondering when you'd stop by. And you brought a friend with you."

"His name's Miroku," Inuyasha said.

"Hello!" Miroku grabbed Mrs. Higurashi's hand and shook it gleefully. "So you are Kagome's mother. I have to say I never gave much thought into Kagome's family, but I now see where she gets her stunning looks from."

Mrs. Higurashi laughed, her other hand cradling her pink face. "My, who knew such smooth talkers existed back then."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "Is Kagome home?"

"Oh, I'm afraid she isn't. She won't be home from school for another few hours. Do you boys want to wait here until she arrives?"

Miroku smiled widely. "Absolute—"

Inuyasha grabbed the monk's collar. "We gotta go." He dragged Miroku behind him and threw over his shoulder, "We'll come back later!"

"Bye, boys! You take care now!"

Miroku protested until Inuyasha released him. "I don't see why we could not have just waited."

"We'll wait, but I don't think it's good to wait there."

Miroku sighed. "Sango's gonna hate to see we returned without Kagome."

"We'll return with Kagome."

Miroku looked at him quizzically. It was then he noticed that they were not headed back to the well. "Uh . . . Where are we going?"

Inuyasha was quiet for a moment before he stopped. He bent down in front of Miroku, his back to him. "Get on."

After school, Orihime and her friends made their way towards Kisuke's house.

Orihime had convinced them to at least see Kisuke and talk to him for themselves before they do anything rash and jump to outlandish assumptions. While Uryuu was still expressing his confusion, Rukia was still grappling with everything Orihime had said. She wondered if the Captain had heard what Orihime had said, but at the same time, Rukia started to see the logic in Orihime's words. Captain Yamamoto certainly knew where Kisuke was. Banished or not, Kisuke would still answer if called upon, so why was the Captain talking to everyone but him?

"You're making this harder than it needs to be," Ichigo said irritably. "Hollows are corrupted souls, and the Soul Society governs souls. What's so hard to accept about demons and the Feudal Era?"

"Because," Uryuu fired back, "where does the logic come in?! If there is a link to the past, how can this not be affecting our present? More than half the people alive don't believe demons actually exist, yet you're saying a portal exists where they come and go as they please?"

"It doesn't have to make sense. Just know that it's real."

"That doesn't—"

"Shut up, both of you," Rukia barked.

A short while later they arrived at Kisuke's house. They could hear loud voices and laughing as they approached the front door.

"Oh, great, more people," Jinta said after answering the door. He looked at Orihime pointedly. "Your boyfriend and his friend are already here."

Orihime flushed, her heart bursting with the mention of Inuyasha being here—and the embarrassment that she knew who Jinta meant immediately without question—but she tried her hardest to ignore the confusion radiating off her friends at Jinta's statement.

When they entered the room, Orihime was surprised to see Kisuke and Miroku sitting and laughing at the low table on the floor. Inuyasha was lying in a corner of the room, his head propped in one hand, and appeared to be sleeping.

"Hey!" Kisuke said, surprised. "Orihime and friends! I didn't expect to see all of you."

"Yes, well, we came to see you. Hi, Miroku."

"Hello, again."

After some introductions—and a discomforted Inuyasha waking to a room of people—Orihime explained their visit.

"So he thinks it's my fault?" Kisuke contemplated this thoughtfully. He shrugged. "Who knows? I'll admit I have my fair share of experiments that got away from me."

"B-but nothing that could be affecting the past right now," Orihime pleaded.

"I can't say one way or the other, but I'm almost certain it could be something from my past catching up with my present." He laughed. "Though I am curious as to what old man Yama means by saying I'm messing with time." He looked to Rukia and Ichigo, his eyes particularly potent under his hat. "He didn't happen to say, did he?"

"He wasn't specific," Ichigo said, "but he thinks it involves Orihime."

Orihime shifted uncomfortably.

Kisuke stared for a tense moment.

"How vague," he laughed. "It's not like him to be this cryptic, but that's neither here nor there. Miroku here was telling me that the demon activity has gotten pretty serious in the Feudal Era."

Uryuu slammed his hands on the table. "Hold on! You guys, er . . . Miroku and Inuyasha, right? You can't honestly expect us to believe demons actually exist, do you?"

"Why not?" Kisuke and Miroku said at the same time Inuyasha said, "Yeah."

"Come on," Uryuu insisted. "Can't you provide us with some proof?"

Inuyasha bit his nails idly. "Yo."

"I mean, some concrete proof."

"What do you want them to do?" Ichigo countered. "Take you to the Feudal Era themselves?"

"As if they actually coul—"

Inuyasha snatched Uryuu by the collar and dragged him out the door. Confused and stunned, everyone watched as a protesting Uryuu was dragged away. It was only after the front door opened that they all rushed to follow them.

"Where'd they go?!" Ichigo said when they were all outside. They looked up and down the street and searched all around the yard, but Inuyasha and Uryuu were gone. Not even a trace of Uryuu's spiritual pressure could be detected.

"Oh!" Kisuke said, his eyes alight with realization. "I forgot all about that."

"About what?" Orihime asked, afraid that her attempt to prove Kisuke's innocence was actually incriminating him.

Suddenly, Inuyasha and Uryuu's presences were thrust back into awareness, and everyone turned back to the house to see them standing by the door. Inuyasha tucked something into his shirt; Uryuu's face was pale, his eyes unreadable through the glare of his glasses.

"They're real," Uryuu said flatly.

"What?" Ichigo questioned.

"Demons are real. Time travel is real." He turned back into the house. "We gotta do something about this."

o0o0o

"So, what exactly is the situation?" Ichigo asked once they were all settled around the table.

Miroku and Kisuke sat at the head of the table.

"Well, on our side," Miroku said, "we have to go to the southern mountains and find out exactly what's going on. All we know is that demons continue to gather there. Assuming Inuyasha's brother is still alive and still has at least seven of the jewel shards, something must be of more value to the demons in the south because they continue to gather there."

"And on our side," Kisuke said, "it appears you lot need help sensing demons. Until Miroku and his gang—"

Inuyasha snorted.

"—sort out what's going on, it seems as though we'll need to be on the lookout."

"But how are we going to be effective here if we can't even sense them?" Rukia asked. "The best options we have for training us have to go back to their own time period."

"Don't think me so incompetent," Kisuke said lightly. "True, I can't teach you how to sense demons, but you don't have to." Kisuke pulled from his cloak four sleek, rectangular flip phones—one bright orange, one sky blue, one deep purple, and one ash grey. "I have here four specialized cellphones with built-in accessories and programs that can aid you in just this scenario here."

"You're giving us cellphones?" Ichigo asked suspiciously.

"Well, it's more like I'm giving you tools for battle that double as a cellphone. With these, you'll be able to track each other so long as the others have their phones on them, and it may be able to help you detect demons. I say 'may' because all it can really do is tell you when one of you are in danger. If demon activity is going to pick up in the World of the Living, I suspect they'll be coming after you all more often." His eyes lingered on Orihime, who averted her eyes guiltily. "There are other cool functions, but I always enjoyed figuring out new gadgets on my own."

Kisuke laid out the cellphones on the table. Rukia immediately snatched up the purple one.

"Uh, Ichigo, I don't think that one's yours," Uryuu said, eyeing the light blue phone Ichigo was flipping through.

"Kisuke, does it matter which phone we have?" Ichigo asked without looking up from his phone.

"No."

"Pretty sure I don't have the wrong one then," Ichigo said to Uryuu.

Uryuu eyed the bright orange phone left on the table before turning his sights to the blue one again. "You can't honestly believe you didn't expect this one was yours."

"I didn't."

Uryuu fumed, but he sucked up his pride and reached for the orange one.

"Here." Chad handed Uryuu the grey phone and picked up the orange one instead. "I'm a little color blind. I thought this was orange."

Ichigo scrunched his face, looking at Chad. "Since when are you—"

"Right now," Chad said, scrolling through his newest phone.

After a few more hour of being in each other's company and asking questions, the group decided it was getting late and they should all head home.

Inuyasha walked at the back of the group as they exited Kisuke's house. He was a little surprised and unsettled about how social Miroku was with everyone. The little one known as Rukia talked to him the most, but the big one named Chad was pretty attentive to him as well. The monk remembered Uryuu was the one who could make stuff appear with his hand and pestered him until he finally summoned an electric blue bow made of energy and shot a large arrow of the same color and makeup into the sky. After Miroku showed off his wind tunnel, he became a lot more interesting to the group, maybe excluding Ichigo. Inuyasha couldn't get a read on the guy. He honestly didn't care to.

"So . . ."

Inuyasha turned to see Orihime finally exit the house. "Took you long enough."

Orihime smiled. "I got caught up talking with Kisuke. Didn't really have the chance before." She hesitated. "How come you were here?"

"Waiting for you."

"At Kisuke's?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "Not so bad here."

She fought back a big grin. He must have come because he thought Tessai was here, which he and the children were not, but she's glad he stayed despite it. Maybe Inuyasha had warmed up to Kisuke after all.

"So I guess . . . you're going to be gone for a while."

Inuyasha huffed dejectedly. "Yeah."

"How come you came to tell me that?"

Inuyasha folded his arms in his sleeves, intending to say, Maybe I wanted to see you before I go, but instead said, "It's not like I came to see your friends." His emotions floundered. "Er— Well, you know what I mean." He looked at Orihime, but he was floored when he saw her knuckles had come up to her mouth and her face was unmistakably, unbelievably red. His brows raised slowly until he could feel them at the top of his head.

"Um!" She looked away, whipping her head to the side. "Right!" She whipped it to the other side. "I-I-I— Um, sorry— I don't know why that made me so . . . That is! I . . . Uh . . ." Her head was pounding. When she met Inuyasha's gaze, he was still looking at her bewildered, but he seemed on the verge of a realization.

And that terrified her.

"Hey, Orihime!" Ichigo called from the road. "We need your number before we go!"

"Right! Yes! Coming!"

She rushed over to her friends, leaving Inuyasha to stare after her.

o0o0o

"I see why Kagome wants to come home so much," Miroku said as he, Inuyasha, and Orihime walked back to her place. "I mean, really! I don't know what I ever thought Kagome's time was like, but there are a lot of interesting things here. And Kisuke!" He laughed appreciatively. "Now he is a person to know. He showed me these images bound together of women . . ."

As Miroku raved on and on about the Modern Era, he was oblivious to the atmosphere surrounding him. He was walking between Orihime, who had not lost her color and was staring to the left of her as she walked, and Inuyasha, who still had his arms crossed in his sleeves and was lost in thought. Occasionally Inuyasha would tune into what Miroku was saying and look over at Orihime, who never looked his way or straight forward.

When they reached Orihime's apartment complex, she assured them that they didn't have to see her in and thanked them for walking her home. She told them one last time to be safe on their travels before she hurried up to her floor.

"There she goes," Miroku sighed as they watched her leave. "You gonna be okay? I feel like you've gotten used to being around her."

"Yeah," Inuyasha said absently. "Wait here."

Inuyasha hopped up the length of the building until he got to Orihime's floor. He walked over to the edge to see Miroku staring up at him, confused. Then he heard feet padding up the steps. He waited and then watched as Orihime came up the stairs, her head bowed, and he was hit with a feeling less like deja vû and more like he was given a second chance.

She was halfway down the hall when she finally looked up and noticed him. Her flushed face because even more so.

"Inuyasha," she breathed. "I . . . D-did you forget something?"

"That night I was human . . ."

Orihime noticeably jumped.

"Yeah," he said, soaking up her reactions. "It had to be then. You were strange after that." He rubbed the back of his head. "Look, I didn't mean it."

Her stomach fell. "What?"

"It's about what I said, right? You've been uncomfortable ever since then." He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry."

"No, Inuyasha—"

"No, no, I shouldn't have been so resistant to meet your friends."

"No, it's— My friends?"

"I mean, ever since then, I've been running in ta them, so I get why you would be uncomfortable. Sorry, okay? They aren't . . . terrible."

Orihime stared at him, her mouth slightly parted. Before she knew it, she was laughing until it hurt. Inuyasha stared at her, incredulous, but she was being confusing to the point he found it funny.

"Are you okay now?" he asked.

"Yes." She wiped the tears from her eyes as she walked over to him. With no hesitation, she hugged him. "Don't make this the last time I see you."

He hugged her back. "Same goes ta you."

o0o0o

It was dark by the time Inuyasha and Miroku reached Kagome's side of town.

"You thought about what to say?" Miroku asked as they walked up to Kagome's house.

"Not exactly," Inuyasha muttered. "I have to see her first."

"See who first?"

They both yelled, nearly falling into each other. They had just past the shrine when a voice had spoken behind them. They turned to see Kagome leaned against the shrine. She was dressed in long pants and a short sleeved shirt with her hair pulled into a high ponytail. A packed bag was sitting at her feet.

"Kagome," Miroku said, walking towards her. "We were just coming to get you."

"Mom told me you guys stopped by earlier. Odd that you tagged along, Miroku, but I suppose you had your reasons." She picked up her bag and threw it around her shoulders. "You guys are ready, right?" She opened the doors to the shrine.

"Uh, Kagome?" Inuyasha said carefully. "You know we're going back to the southern mountains, right?"

"Doesn't make a difference to me." She walked inside without looking back.

Miroku and Inuyasha followed her inside.

"You sure you're okay to go?" he asked.

"I was okay hours ago." She prepared to hop down the well but stopped. She turned a spiteful eye towards the half demon. "If you guys hadn't gone back to the Feudal Era then where were you all this time?"

They remained silent, fidgeting and frowning guiltily.

"I see." She jumped into the well.